Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	believe_v	love_v	perish_v	4,249	5	7.8268	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45324	Three tractates by Jos. Hall, D.D. and B.N.; Selections. 1646	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1646 (1646)	Wing H422; ESTC R14217	80,207	295

bottome of this divine love wherewith God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life None oh none can comprehend this mercy but he that wrought it Lord what a transcendent what an infinite love is this what an object was this for thee to love A world of sinners Impotent wretched creatures that had despighted thee that had no motive for thy favour but deformity misery professed enmity It had been mercy enough in thee that thou didst not damn the world but that thou shouldst love it is more then mercy It was thy great goodness to forbear the acts of just vengeance to the sinfull world of man but to give unto it tokens of thy love is a favour beyond all expression The least gift from thee had been more then the world could hope for but that thou shouldst not stick to give thine onely begotten Son the Son of thy love the Son of thine essence thy coequall coeternall Son who was more then ten thousand worlds to redeem this one forlorn world of sinners is love above all comprehension of men and Angels What diminution had it been to thee and thine essentiall glory O thou great God of heaven that the souls that sinned should have died and perished everlastingly yet so infinite was thy loving mercy that thou wouldest rather give thy onely Son out of thy bosome then that there should not be a redemption for beleevers Yet O God hadst thou sent down thy Son to this lower region of earth upon such terms as that he might have brought down heaven with him that he might have come in the port and Majesty of a God cloathed with celestiall glory to have dazeled our eyes and to have drawn all hearts unto him this might have seemed in some measure to have sorted with his divine magnificence But thou wouldst have him to appear in the wretched condition of our humanity Yet even thus hadst thou sent him into the world in the highest estate and pomp of royalty that earth could afford that all the Kings and Monarchs of the world should have been commanded to follow his train and to glitter in his Court and that the knees of all the Potentates of the earth should have bowed to his Soveraign Majesty and their lips have kissed his dust this might have carried some kind of appearance of a state next to divine greatnesse but thou wouldst have him come in the despised form of a servant And thou O blessed Jesu wast accordingly willing for our sakes to submit thy self to nakednesse hunger thirst wearinesse temptation contempt betraying agonies scorn buffeting scourgings distention crucifixion death O love above measure without example beyond admiration Greater love thou saiest hath no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends But oh what is it then that thou who wert God and man shouldst lay down thy life more precious then many worlds for thine enemies Yet had it been but the laying down of a life in a fair and gentle way there might have been some mitigatiō of the sorrow of a dissolution there is not more difference betwixt life and death then there may be betwixt some one kind of death and another Thine O dear Saviour was the painfull shameful cursed death of the crosse wherein yet all that man could doe unto thee was nothing to that inward torment which in our stead thou enduredst from thy Fathers wrath when in the bitternesse of thine anguished soul thou cryedst out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Even thus wast thou content to be forsaken that we wretched sinners might be received to mercy O love stronger then death which thou vanquishedst more high then that hell is deep from which thou hast rescued us SECT XVI THe sense of this infinite love of God cannot choose but ravish the soul and cause it to goe out of it self into that Saviour who hath wrought so mercifully for it so as it may be nothing in it self but what it hath or is may be Christs By the sweet powers therefore of Faith and Love the soul findes it self united unto Christ feelingly effectually indivisibly so as that it is not to be distinguished betwixt the acts of both To me to live is Christ saith the blessed Apostle and elsewhere I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which now I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me My beloved is mine and I am his saith the Spouse of Christ in her Bridall song O blessed union next to the hypostaticall whereby the humane nature of the Son of God is taken into the participation of the eternall Godhead SECT XVII OUt of the sense of this happy union ariseth an unspeakable complacency and delight of the soul in that God and Saviour who is thus inseparably ours and by whose union we are blessed and an high appreciation of him above all the world and a contemptuous under valuation of all earthly things in comparison of him And this is no other then an heavenly reflection of that sweet contentment which the God of mercies takes in the faithfull soul Thou hast ravisht my heart my sister my Spouse thou hast ravisht my heart with one of mine eyes Thou art beautifull O my Love as Tirzah comely as Jerusalem Turne away thine eyes from me for they have overcome me How fair is thy love my sister my Spouse How much better is thy love then wine and the smell of thine ointments better then all spices And the soul answers him again in the same language of spirituall dearnesse My beloved is white and ruddy the chiefest among ten thousand Set me as a seal upon thine heart as a seal upon thine arm for love is as strong as death And as in an ecstaticall qualm of passionate affection Stay me with flaggons and comfort me with apples for I am sick of love SECT XVIII VPon this gracious complacency will follow an absolute self-resignation or giving up our selves to the hands of that good God whose we are who is ours and an humble contentednesse with his good pleasure in all things looking upon God with the same face whether he smile upon us in his favours or chastise us with his loving corrections If he speak good unto us Behold the servant of the Lord be it unto me according to thy word If evill It is the Lord let him doe whatsoever he will Here is therefore a cheerfull acquiescence in God and an hearty reliance and casting our selves upon the mercy of so bountifull a God who having given us his Son can in and with him deny us nothing SECT XIX VPon this subacted disposition of heart wil follow a familiar yet awfull compellation of God and an emptying of our soules before him in all our necessities For that God

be of the just valuation of all these earthly things which doubtlesse is such as that the wise Christian cannot but set a low price upon them in respect first of their transitorinesse secondly of their insufficiency of satisfaction thirdly the danger of their fruition At the best they are but glassie stuffe which the finer it is is so much more brittle yea what other then those gay bubbles which children are wont to raise from the mixed sope and spittle of their Walnut-shell vvhich seem to represent pleasing colors but in their flying up instantly vanish There is no remedy either they must leave us or we must leave them Well may we say that of the Psalmist which Campian vvas reported to have often in his mouth My soul is continually in my hands and who knows vvhether it will not expire in our next breathing How many have shut their eyes in an healthfull sleep who have waked in another vvorld We give too large scope to our account vvhiles we reckon seven years for a Life a shorter time will serve vvhiles vve finde the revolution of lesse then halfe those years to have dispatched five Caesars and five Popes nay who can assure himself of the next moment It is our great weakness if we doe not look upon every day as our last why should we think our selves in a better condition then the chosen vessel who deeply protested to dye daily What a poor complaint was that of the great Conquerour of the Jews Titus Vespasian who putting his head out of his sick litter querulously accused Heaven that he must dye and had not deserved it when he might have found it guilt enough that he was a man and therefore by the very sentence of nature condemned I know not whether to live or dye Indeed what can we cast our eyes upon that doth not put us in minde of our frailty All our fellow-creatures dye for us and by us The day dyes into night the trees and all other plants of the earth suffer a kinde of Autumnall mortality the face of that common Mother of us all doth at the least in Winter resemble Death But if the Angel of Death as the Jews term him shall respite and reprieve us for the time alas how easily may we have over-lived our comforts If Death doe not snatch us away from them how many thousand means of casualties of enemies may snatch them away from us He that was the greatest man of all the Sonnes of the East within a few dayes became a spectacle and proverb of penury which still sticks by him and so shall doe to the worlds end As poor as Job The rich Plaine of Jordan which over-night was as the Garden of the Lord is in the morning covered over with brimstone and salt and burning Wilt thou cause thine eyes to flye upon that which is not saith wise Solomon For riches certainly make thēselves wings they fly away as an Eagle towards Heaven if wee have wings of desire to fly after them they are nimbler of flight to outstrip us and leave us no less miserable in their losse then wee were eager in their pursuit As for Honour what a meer shadow it is upon the least cloud interposed it is gone and leaves no mention where it was The same Sun sees Haman adored in the Persian Court like some earthly Deity and like some base vermine waving upon his Gibbet Doe we see the great and glorious Cleopatra shining in the pompous Majesty of Egypt stay but a while and ye shall see her in the dust and her two children whom shee proudly styled the Sun and the Moon driven like miserable Captives before the Chariot of their Conquerour Man being in honour abideth not saith the Psalmist he perisheth but his greatnesse as more fraile then he is oftentimes dead and buried before him and leaves him the surviving executor of his own shame It was easie for the captive Prince to observe in the Charet-wheel of his Victor that when one spoak rose up another went down and both these in so quick a motion that it was scarce distinguished by the eye Well therefore may we say of Honour as Ludovicus Vives said of Scholasticall Divinity Cui fumus est pro fundamento It is built upon smoak how can it be kept from vanishing As for Beauty what is it but a dash of Natures tincture laid upon the skinne which is soon washt off with a little sickness what but a fair blossome that drops off so soon as the fruit offers to succeed it what but a flower vvhich vvith one hot Sun gleam weltreth and fals Hee that had the choice of a thousand Faces could say Favour is deceitfull and Beauty is Vanity Lastly for Strength and vigour of Body if it could bee maintained till our old age alas how soon is that upon us ere we be aware how doth it then shrivell our flesh and loosen our sinews and cripple our joynts Milo when he lookt upon his late brawny arms and saw them now grow lanck and writhled le ts fall teares and bewraies more weaknesse of mind then he had before bodily strength but how often doth sicknesse prevent the debilitations of age pulling the strongest man upon his knees and making him confesse that youth as well as childe-hood is Vanitie As for Pleasure it dies in the birth and is not therefore worthy to come into this bill of Mortality Doe we then upon sad consideration see and feel the manifest transitorinesse of Life Riches Honour Beautie Strength Pleasure and whatever else can bee deare and precious to us in this vvorld and can vvee dote upon them so as to be too much dejected vvith our parting from them Our Saviour bids us consider the Lillies of the field And he that made both tels us that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these Surely full well are they worth our considering But if those Beauties could bee as permanent as they are glorious how vvould they carry away our hearts with them Now their fading condition justly abates of their value Would wee not smile at the weaknesse of that man that should weep and howle for the falling of this Tulip or that Rose abandoning all comfort for the losse of that vvhich he knows must flourish but his moneth It is for children to cry for the falling of their house of Cards or the miscarriage of that painted gew-gaw vvhich the next showre vvould have defaced Wise Christians know hovv to apprize good things according to their continuance and can therefore set their hearts onely upon the invisible Comforts of a better Life as knowing that the things which are not seen are Eternall SECT VI. Consideration of the unsatisfying condition of all worldly things BUt vvere these earthly things exempted from that ficklenesse vvhich the God of Nature hath condemned them unto vvere they the very memory vvhereof perisheth with their satiety as lasting