Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	day_n	great_a	life_n	2,674	5	4.0414	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76092	Sick-bed thoughts, upon those words of the apostle in Phil. 1, 23 ... Part. I containing an answer to that great and solemn question, what that state and condition is, which a person must be found in, before he can have good and sufficient ground, not to be affraid, or unwilling to dye? / by J.B.	Batchiler, John, ca. 1615-1674.	1667 (1667)	Wing B1075; ESTC R42879	47,054	145

Laert. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all evils death is the most formidable But what need we go to Heathen Authours for this since the Scripture it self affirms it whilst it saith of Death that 't is the King of terrours Job 18.14 But Secondly I answer That though these fears are found stirring and disturbing the mindes even of good men and women as well as others and we have often experience of it and cannot deny it yet this I affirm that the persons qualified as aforesaid with a good and a quiet Conscience have no just reason to be so fearful but have good and sufficient ground to the contrary What mens fears are de facto is one thing and the ground of them is another that good men have no just ground no reason to bee thus affrighted I still contend for why should they since God is reconciled to them as hath been said and since they have such a Mediatour and Advocate in the Heavens as Jesus Christ and since they have their Pardon in their own bosomes and clear evidences of their own regenerated and sanctified state and of their being already received into favour with that God that they are going to And therefore Thirdly It is very rare that any Childe of God dies under these fears but sooner or latter they make a conquest over them at least in some good degree buffetings they sometimes have and may have for some time and 't is seldome that the most eminent of the Saints escape them Heman's case may be many a good man 's besides Psal 88. throughout but when do we hear of any of them that dye despairing and go out of the world with these terrours unvanquished I would be tender in the case and not be positive in determining one way or other for Francis Spira's sake But am most inclined to think that who-ever are delivered from the wrath to come are also delivered from the prevailing fear of it before they breathe out their last breath Many and famous are the instances which wee have of this kinde such as Mistress Honywood Mr. Throgmorton Mr. John Holland Mris. Katherine Brett and many others which are recorded by such as have left their Funeral Discourses in Print and have written the lives of holy men and Women Those that list may finde some of them in the works of Dr. Thomas Taylor Mr. Bolton Mr. Gataker Mr. Samuel Clark and elsewhere To the other Objection I likewise answer Suppose a prophane Sensualist a Drunkard a Whoremonger a bruitish Rioter that wastes his body his estate his time his conscience in the pursuit of his beastly and silthy lusts that revels it out night and day without any the least regard to God and his ownsoul Suppose a covetous earthly muck-worme that grip's and grasp's per fas nefas right or wrong hee cares not how so he get an estate fill his coffers with silver and his heart with guilt by fraud deceit and oppression that squeezeeth the Fatherless and the Widdow the poor and needy that over-reacheth his innocent and well-meaning Neighbour Suppose the proud and superstitious person that over-looks and scorns every one below himself yea those that are every way his equals at least if not better than he the high and lofty person that can debauch himself without any scruple and renounce all former principles and practices that can swear and for-swear do any thing be it never so vile and impious so that hee may rise by it grow higher in place and esteem among men and attain unto such a grandeur and greatness that hee hath propounded unto himself Suppose a malicious envious person and therein as like the Devil as any you can meet with a bloody minded man that hates God and all goodness that persecutes a Saint with greatest rage and fury for no other reason but because he loves God owns his Waies Ordinances and Institutions Walks holily and by the shining light of his conversation condemns the Generation of the wicked Suppose an Athiest an Apostate that hath out-lived all Conscience that bids defyance to that holy profession which once he seemed to make to God and every thing that hath his Image and Superscription upon it Once more suppose an Hypocrite not only a gross but a fine-spun Hypocrite of which there are too many in these daies that make great pretensrons to Religion it self that seems as devout as zealous and as much concerned for God and his Truth for his holy Waies and Worship as those that are most sincere but all this not in pure love to those things but for some worldly or Carnal ends which otherwise he cannot accomplish I say suppose that these and many such like as guilty of other evils as great as any that I have now mentioned should after their whole life thus spent and that impenitently dye in peace without any the least remorse or check of Conscience would you say or can you think that these men have a good and truely quiet Conscience Men thus obdurated and given up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to an injudicious and reprobated minde as the Apostle's phrase is Rom. 1.28 Men of so profligated a life and so prodigiously wicked that after the hardness of their heart and that cannot repent have treasured up to themselves wrath against the day of Wrath. I say is there or can there be any ground to imagine that they have a good and a quiet Conscience What because they live and dye thus like an Hog in his stie that dyes of the Measles or the Murraine or some other such Plague that a beast is subject to with scarse a grunt or a groan is all well therefore with him Alas is there not a great deal more cause to say and that without any breach of charity that the Conscience of such as these is at best but a sleepy Conscience a Conscience lull'd into a damnable security and insensibility a seared Conscience a Conscience past feeling Than which what can be a greater Judgement or sorer Doom When God saies of any man as in Rev. 22.11 He that is filthy let him be filthy still Let the Adulterer the Blasphemer the Idolater be an Adulterer still a Blasphemer still an Idolater still When he shall say as he did to Ephraim Hos 4.17 Ephraim is an Apostate he is joyned to Idols let him alone Let him live and dye in his sin without repentance Let him perish and go down to Hell and let him go without all sense or apprehension of his danger with a blinded minde and an hardened heart Let him fall into his own destruction and that without recovery when he is least aware of it Can any thing bee more terrible than this And yet what less than this can they look for who live and dye in a state of unregeneracy let their passage out of this world seem never so peaceable and quiet For though they have no bands in their death as the Psalmist himself confesseth Psal 73.4 Yet

patientiam the minde ought to be armed with patience as well for Death as for Life The sufferings which we may meet with in both may call for it and what he farther saith Epist 95. is too true Interdum obnixè petimus quod oblatum recusaremus multa videri volumus velle sed nolumus aliud optamus verum ne Diis quidem dicimus Sometimes that which we earnestly wish for 't is of death he speaks when 't is offered us we refuse wee seem to will many things which yet we again reject and desire something else in the room of it and so speak not the truth even to God himself would not one wonder that a poor Heathen should speak thus Cyprian in his Book De Mortal utters himself almost in the same manner and with great elegancy Quam praeposterum est quamque perversum cum Dei voluntatem fieri postulemus quando evocat nos accersit de hoc mundo non statim voluntatis ejus imperio pareamus hoc nitimur reluctamur pervicacium more servorum ad conspectum Domini cum tristitia maerore perducimur non obsequio voluntatis Et volumus ab eo praemiis caelestibus honorari ad quem venimus inviti How preposterous and perverse a thing is it that we pray to God that his will may bee done and yet when he calls us hence and sends for us out of this world we do not presently obey his Soveraign will but oppose it struggle against it and like untoward Servants are afraid to appear in the presence of our Lord With sorrow and grief we are dragged to him rather than go to him in obedience to his command We go unwillingly to him and yet desire to be honoured by his Heavenly rewards And then a little after Quid rogamus petimus ut adveniat regnum caelorum si captivitas nos terrena delectat Quid precibus frequenter iteratis rogamus poscimus ut acceleret dies regni si majora desideria vota potiora sunt servire isthic Diabolo quam regnare cum Christo Why do we pray and desire that the Kingdome of Heaven may come if we be still in love with our Earthly captivity Why do we so frequently desire that that day may hasten if we have greater desires and do more strongly wish rather to abide here in the Devils Service than to Reign with Christ thus we see even many ages since not onely among Christians but among Heathens what a kinde of Hypocrisie they reckoned it to be to seem to long for Heaven and an immortal state and yet when the time comes for such a blessed change to be loath to go to it Una ista catena amor vitae quàm nos alligatos tenet Sen. Epist 26. How doth that one chain the love of life hold us here as Prisoners saies Seneca Whoever thou art then that reckonest thy self a true Christian and a Believer let these passages even of an Heathen affect thee and hereafter cause thee to blush for shame at thine own fears But Secondly That thou maist the better get over these thy fears and be the more ready with chearfulness to welcome Death when it comes do these three things 1. Be every day preparing to dye and putting thy self into a posture for it among the many excellent passages that Seneca hath about this subject even through most of his works there are two of them worthy to bee written in letters of Gold One is in his Book de brev vitae c. 7. Vivere totâ vitâ discendum est quod magis fortasse miraberis totâ vitâ discendum est mori A man all his life time had need be learning to live and which perhaps thou wilt more marvel at he must be all his life-time learning to dye too The other is in his 30th Epist Magna res est diu discenda cum adventat hora illa inevitablis aequo animo exire It is a great thing and alwaies to be learned that when that inevitable hour of death comes we may depart this life with a well-composed minde which who can do but he that hath set all things right and so having attained to a meetness to partake of the inheritance of the Saints hath left nothing farther to be done in order to the getting into the possession of it but to breathe forth his last breath 2. Meditate much upon death and that every day that so you may thereby grow familiar with it This the Holy Ghost calls the wisdome of man and that which every good man prayes that he may be enabled to do Moses himself did so Psalm 99.12 so teach us to number our dayes saith he that we may apply our hearts unto wisdome and whoever hath any of that Spirit which moved in him will do the like When I read that passage of Plato apud Plut. de placit Philosoph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They best act the true Philosophers that are most sollicitous about death I am apt to think sure hee had read this prayer of Moses yet among all that sort of antient Writers I finde Pythagoras who lived in the time of the siege of Jerusalem by the Caldean Army and so in the Prophet Jeremiah's daies at least two hundred years before Plato and so according to our learned Usher's account some six hundred and forty years before Christ's Nativity was the first that called Phylosophy the Meditation of Death after whom Socrates also and many others had the like expressions which makes me think had these and the rest of those famous men even among the Heathen that knew nothing of the true God been alive in our daies and been blessed with such a saving light of the Gospel as some few are what rare instances would they have been How would they have out-stripped us in their affections and desires Heaven-ward and in their Masteries over Death and the fear of it How would they have made it their great business to converse with Death even as much as we are wont to do with our intirest friends They which made Phylosophy chiefly to consist in the Meditation of death would have made the Christian Religion to consist in it much more 3. Store your selves with passages from the holy Scriptures replenish your minde with the great and precious Promises let Divine Truths and the Heavenly Sentences thereof dwell in you richly in all Spiritual Wisdome and Understanding that so when you lie upon your Sick or it may be your Dying-Beds you may have them so fixed in your heads and hearts that they may afford much sweet and precious matter unto your thoughts If you make this a good part not onely of your business but of your delight too in your life-time may you not well hope and expect that when Death comes the Holy Ghost will bring things to your remembrance and apply such Cordials from thence to you as shall marvellously comfort and refresh you even when the pangs of death it self shall bee upon you Many and pleasant are the stories that might here be told of the great and powerful consolations that have come in upon Dying Saints from this or that Promise or other Passage of Scripture upon the wings whereof they have gone up in Triumph to Heaven FINIS