Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	day_n	life_n	world_n	8,295	5	4.5590	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75017	The lively oracles given to us. Or the Christians birth-right and duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture. By the author of the Whole duty of man, &c.	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.; Pakington, Dorothy Coventry, Lady, d. 1679, attributed name.; Sterne, Richard, 1596?-1683, attributed name.; Fell, John, 1625-1686, attributed name.; Henchman, Humphrey, 1592-1675, attributed name.; Burghers, M., engraver.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1151B; ESTC R3556	108,574	250

but in a greater and more incurable one whilst that bloud which alone could cleanse it serves but to embrue and pollute it and as it were flush and excite it to all immanities and vilenesses and he that is thus filthy 't is the doom pronounc'd against him that he shall be filthy still Rev. 22.11 68. AND then in the second place what calm can there be to such a mind what remains to such a person but that fearful expectation of wrath and fiery indignation which the Apostle mentions Heb. 10.27 Indeed were there none but temporal mischiefs to fear yet it were very unplesant to think ones self like Cain out-law'd from the presence and protection of God to be afraid that every man that meets us should slay us Gen. 4.14 Nay those confus'd indistinct fears of indefinite evils which attend guilt are very unquiet uneasy inmates in the mind This is excellently describ'd by Moses The Lord shall give thee a trembling heart and failing of eies and sorrow of mind and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee and thou shalt fear day and night in the morning thou shalt say would God it were evening and in the evening would God it were morning Deut. 28.65 66 67. 69. AND what can be more wretched then to have a mind thus agitated and tost rackt and tortur'd especially when thro all these clouds it sees a glimpse of the eternal Tophet and knows that from the billows of this uneasy state it must be tost into that Lake of fire And this is indeed the dregs of the cup of Gods wrath the dread fullest and most astonishing of all Scripture denunciations This comprehends all that the nature of man is capable of suffering Divines distinguish it into the pain of sense and of loss that of sense is represented to us in Scripture by fire and that accended and render'd noysom as well as painful by brimstone that afflicts the smell as well as the touch somtimes by outer darkness wailing and gnashing of teeth to grate the ears and consume the eies by intolerable thirst to torment the palate Not that we are to think the sensitive pains of Hell do not infinitly exceed all these but because these are the highest mesures our present capacities can make and are adequate to those senses for whose carnal satisfactions we incur them 70. THE pain of loss is yet more dismal as being seated in the soul whose spiritual nature will then serve it only to render its torments more refin'd and acute With what anguish will it then see it self banish'd from the presence of God and consequently from all that may give satisfaction and bliss to the creature But yet with how much deeper anguish will it reflect on it self as the Author of that deprivation How will it recollect the many despis'd tenders of grace the easy terms on which salvation might have bin had And how sadly will conscience then revenge all it s stifled admonitions by an unsilenceable clamor that worm which never dies Mar. 9.48 How wounding will it then be to see Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all the Saints in the kingdom of God Luk. 13.28 nay that poor Lazarus whom here men turn'd over to the charity of their dogs and it self in the company of the devil and his angels who will then upbraid what they once inticed to 71. NATURE abhors nothing more then to have our misery insulted over by those who drew us into it yet that no circumstance may be lacking to their torment this must be the perpetual entertainment of damn'd souls And to all this Eternity is the dismal adjunct which is of all other circumstances the most disconsolate as leaving not so much as a glimpse of hopes which here uses still to be the reserve and last resort of the miserable 72. THIS Eternity is that which gives an edg infuses a new acrimony into the torments and is the highest strain the vertical point of misery These are those terrors of the Lord with which the Scripture acquaints us and sure we cannot say that these are flat contemtible menaces but such as suit the dreadful Majesty of that God who is a consuming fire Heb. 12.29 So that these are as aptly accommodated for the exciting our dread as the promises were of our love both jointly concur to awake our industry 73. FOR God has bin so good to mankind as to make the threats conditional as well as the promises so that we as well know the way to avoid the one as we do to attain the other Nor has he any other intendment or end in proposing them but that we may do so See to this purpose with what solemnity he protests it by Moses I call heaven and earth to record against you this day that I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing therefore chuse life that both thou and thy seed may live Deut. 30.19 74. I have now run thro the several parts of Scripture I proposed to speak of And tho I have in each given rather short instances and essaies then an exact description yet even in these contracted lineaments the exquisit proportions may be discern'd And if the Reader shall hence be incourag'd to extend his contemplations and as he reads holy Scripture observe it in all its graces and full dimensions I doubt not he will pronounce from his experience that the matter of the divine Book is very correspondent to the Author which is the highest Eulogy imaginable 75. IN the next place we are to consider the holy Scripture in relation to its end and design in proportion to which every thing is more or less valuable The most exquisit frame and curious contrivance that has no determinat end or use is but a piece of industrious folly a Spiders web as the Prophet speaks Isa 59.5 Now those designs have alwaies been esteem'd the most excellent that have had the most worthy subjects and bin of the greatest extent Accordingly those who have projected the obliging and benefiting of other men tho but within a privat Sphere have alwaies bin lookt on as men of generous and noble designs Those who have taken their level higher and directed their aim to a more public good tho but of a City or Nation have proportionably acquir'd a greater esteem But those who have aspir'd to be universal benefactors to do somthing for the common benefit of the world their fame has commonly reach'd as far as their influence men have reverenc'd nay somtimes according to the common excesses of mans nature ador'd them Many of the heathen deities especially their demi-gods having bin only those persons who by introducing som useful Art or other part of knowledg had oblig'd mankind So we see what a natural gratitude men are apt to pay to worthy and generous designs And if we will be content but to stand to this common award of our nature the Scripture will have the fairest claim imaginable to our reverence and

have bin witness'd to by persons of all Nations and those not single but collective Bodies and Societies even as many as there have bin Christian Churches throout the world And the same that are its Attestors have bin its Guardians also and by their multitudes made it a very difficult if not an impossible thing to falsify it in any considerable degree it being not imaginable as I shew'd before from St. Austin all Churches should combine to do it and if they did not the fraud could not pass undetected and if no eminent change could happen much less could any new any counterfeit Gospel be obtruded after innumerable Copies of the first had bin translated into almost all Languages and disperst throughout the world 52. THE Imperial Law compil'd by Justinian was soon after his death by reason of the inroads of the Goths and other barbarous Nations utterly lost in the Western world and scarce once heard of for the space of five hundred years and then came casually to be retriv'd upon the taking of Amalsis by the Pisans one single Copy being found there at the plundering of the City And the whole credit of those Pandects which have ever since govern'd the Western world depends in a manner on that single Book formerly call'd the Pisan and now after that Pisa was taken by the Florentines the Florentine Copy But notwithstanding this the body of the Civil Law obtains and no man thinks it reasonable to question its being really what it pretends to be notwithstanding its single and so long interrupted derivation I might draw this parallel thro many other instances but these may suffice to shew that if the Scriptures might find but so much equity as to be tried by the common mesures of other things it it would very well pass the test 53. BUT men seem in this case like our late Legislators to set up new extraregular Courts of Justice to try those whom no ordinary rules will cast yet their designs re-require should be condemn'd And we may conclude 't is not the force of reason but of prejudice that makes them so unequal to themselves as to reject the Scriptures when they receive every thing else upon far weaker grounds The bottom of it is they are resolv'd not to obey its precepts and therefore think it the shortest cut to disavow its autority for should they once own that they would find themselves intangled in the most inextricable dilemma that of the Pharisees about John Baptist If we say from heaven he will say why then did you not believe him Mat. 21.25 If they confess the Scriptures divine they must be self-condemn'd in not obeying them And truely men that have such preingagements to their lusts that they must admit nothing that will disturb them do but prevaricate when they call for greater evidences and demonstrations for those bosom Sophisters will elude the most manifest convictions and like Juglers make men disbelieve even their own senses So that any other waies of evidence will be as disputable with them as those already offer'd which is the third thing I proposed to consider 54. IT has bin somtimes seen in popular mutinies that when blanks have bin sent them they could not agree what to ask and were it imaginable that God should so far court the infidelity of men as to allow them to make their own demands to set down what waies of proof would perswade them I doubt not there are many have obstinacy enough to defeat their own methods as well as they now do Gods 'T is sure there is no ordinary way of conviction left for them to ask God having already as hath also bin shew'd afforded that They must therefore resort to immediat revelation expect instant assurances from heaven that this book we call the Bible is the word of God 55. MY first question then is in what manner this revelation must be made to appear credible to them The best account we have of the several waies of revelation is from the Jews to whom God was pleas'd upon new emergencies signally to revele himself These were first dreams secondly visions by both which the Prophets received their inspirations Thirdly Vrim and Thummim Fourthly the Bath-col as they term it Thunder and voice from Heaven Let us consider them distinctly and see whether our Sceptical men may not probably find somwhat to dispute in every one of these And first for dreams it is among us so hard to distinguish between those that arise from constitution prepossession of phancy diabolical or divine infusion that those that have the most critically consider'd them do rather difference them by their matter then any certain discriminating circumstances and unless we had som infallible way of discerning our dependence on them may more probably betray then direct us 'T is unquestionable that usually phancy has the greatest stroke in them And if he that should commit himself to the guidance of his waking phancy is not like to be over-wisely govern'd what can we expect from his sleeping All this and more may doubtless be soberly enough objected against the validity of our common dreams 56. BUT admit there were now such divine dreams as brought their evidence along with them yet sure 't is possible for prejudic'd men to resist even the clearest convictions For do we not see som that have made a shift to extinguish that natural light those notions which are interwoven into the very frame and constitution of their minds that so they may sin more at ease and without reluctancy and sure 't is as possible for them to close their eies against all raies from without too to resist revelation as well as instinct and more likely by how much a transient cause is naturally less operative then a permanent An instance of this we have in Balaam who being in these nightly visitations prohibited by God to go to Balack and tho he knew then what he afterwards saies Num. 23.19 that God was not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent yet he would not take God at his first word but upon a fresh bait to his covetousness tries again for an answer more indulgent to his interest Besides if God should thus revele himself to som particular persons yet 't is beyond all president or imagination that he should do it to every man and then how shall those who have these dreams be able to convince others that they are divine 57. 'T IS easy to guess what reception a man that produces no other autority would have in this ludicrous Age he would certainly be thought rather to want sleep then to have had revelations in it And if Jacob and the Patriarchs who were themselves acquainted with divine dreams yet did not believe Josephs any man that should now pretend in that kind would be sure to fall under the same irony that he did to be entertain'd with a behold this dreamer cometh Gen. 37.19 58. THE second

may put off corruption and he clothed with immortality 28. THESE and the like are the doctrins the holy Scripture offers to us and we may certainly say they are faithful sayings and worthy of all acceptation 1 Tim. 4.15 The notions it gives us of God are so sublime and great that they cannot but affect us with reverence and admiration and yet withal so amiable and endearing that they cannot but raise love and gratitude affiance and delight 29. AND which is yet more these milder Attributes are apt to inspirit us with a generous ambition of assimilation excite us to transcribe all his imitable excellencies in which the very Heathens could discern consisted the accomplishment of human felicity 30. AND then the knowledg it gives us of our selves do's us the kindest office imaginable keeps us from those swelling thoughts we are too apt to entertain and shews us the necessity of bottoming our hopes upon a firmer foundation and then again keeps us from being lazy or secure by shewing us the necessity of our own endevors In a word it teaches us to be humble and industrious and whoever is so ballasted can hardly be shipwrackt 31. THESE are the excellencies of the doctrinal part of Scripture which also renders them most aptly preparative for the preceptive And indeed so they were design'd the Credenda and the Agenda being such inseparable relations that whoever parts them forfeits the advantage of both The most solemn profession of Christ the most importunate invocations Lord Lord will signify nothing to them which do not the things which he saies Mat. 7. And how excellent how rational those precepts are which the Scripture proposes to us from him is our next point of consideration 32. THE first Law which God gave to mankind was that of nature And tho the impressions of it upon the mind be by Adams fall exceedingly dimm'd and defac'd yet that derogates nothing from the dignity and worth of that Law which God has bin so far from cancelling that he seems to have made it the rule and square of his subsequent Laws so that nothing is injoin'd in those but what is consonant and agreeable to that The Moral Law given in the Decalogue to the Jews the Evangelical Law given in the Gospel to Christians have this natural Law for their basis and foundation They licence nothing which that prohibits and very rarely prohibit any thing which it licences 33. 'T IS true Christ in his Sermon on the Mount raises Christians to a greater strictness then the Jews thought themselves oblig'd to but that was not by contradicting either the natural or moral Law but by rescuing the later from those corruptions which the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees had mixt with it and reducing it to its primitive integrity and extent In a word as the Decalogue was given to repair the defacings and renew the impressions of the natural Law so the precepts of the Gospel were design'd to revive and illustrate both And accordingly we find Christ in the matter of divorce calls them back to this natural Law In the begining it was not so Mat. 19.8 I say not but that even these natural notions are in som instances refin'd and elevated by Christ the second Adam being to repair the fall of the first with advantage but yet he still builds upon that ground-work introduces nothing that is inconsistent with it 34. AND this accordance between these several Laws is a circumstance that highly recommends Scripture precepts to us We cannot imagin but that God who made man for no other end but to be an instrument of his glory and a recipient of all communicable parts of his happiness would assign him such rules and mesures as were most conducive to those ends And therefore since the Scripture injunctions are of the same mould we must conclude them to be such as tend to the perfection of our being the making us what God originally intended us and he that would not be that will certainly chuse much worse for himself 35. I know there have bin prejudices taken up against the precepts of Christ as if they impos'd unreasonable unsupportable stricknesses upon men and som have assum'd liberty to argue mutinously against them nay against God too for putting such natural appetites into men and then forbidding them to satisfy them 36. BUT the ground of this cavil is the not rightly distinguishing of natural appetites which are to be differenc'd according to the two states of rectitude and depravation those of the first rank are the appetites God put into man and those were all regular and innocent such as tended to the preservation of his being nature in its first integrity mesuring its desires by its needs Now Christs prohibitions are not directed against these he forbids no one kind of these desires And tho the precept of self-denial may somtimes restrain us in som particular acts yet that is but proportionable to that restraint Adam was under in relation to the forbidden tree a particular instance of his obedience and fence of his safety So that if men would consider nature under this its first and best notion they cannot accuse Christ of being severe to it 37. BUT 't is manifest they take it in another acception and mean that corruption of nature which inordinatly inclines to sensitive things and on this account they call their riots their luxuries appetites put into them by God whereas 't is manifest this was super-induced from another coast The wise man gives us its true pedigree in what he saies of death which is its twin-sister By the envy of the devil came death into the world Wis 2.24 And can they expect that Christ who came to destroy the works of the devil 1 Joh. 3.8 should frame Laws in their favor make Acts of toleration and indulgence for them This were to annul the whole design of his coming into the world which was to restore us from our lapst estate and elevate us to those higher degrees of purity which he came not only to prescribe but to exemplify to us 38. BUT in this affair men often take nature in a yet wider and worse notion and under natural desires comprehend whatever upon any sort of motive they have a mind to do The awe of a superior the importunity of a companion custom and example make men do many ill things to which their nature would never promt them nay many times such as their nature relucts to and abhors 'T is certainly thus in all debauchery and excess 'T is evident it gratifies no mans nature to be drunk or to lie under undigested loads of meats these are out-rages and violences upon nature take it only in the most sensitive notion such as she struggles to avert and yet men make her bear not only the oppression but the blame too 39. BUT besides 't is to be consider'd that the nature of a man includes reason as well as sense and to this all