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
A76384	A bright starre, leading to, & centering in, Christ our perfection. Or a manuell, entituled by the authour thereof, the third part of the Rule of perfection Wherein such profound mysteries are revealed, such mysterious imperfections discovered, with their perfect cures prescribed, as have not been by any before published in the English tongue: faithfully translated for the common good.; Règle de perfection. English. Part 3	Benoît, de Canfield, 1562-1610.	1646 (1646)	Wing B1867AC; ESTC R223949	72,498	265

things are nothing and though a Man have the knowledge of this nothing of their Annihilation yet may he want the practise Wherefore both these points are equally necessary in this matter as wee said before that God alone may be seen alwayes who is the end of this Annihilation But now to practise this thing duely First I admonish the Reader to pluck up his spirits here that they may worke more supernaturally and I say not further from sense then before but flat contrary thereto For where before he annihilated them when they were absent here he must also annihilate them present Which to doe and that this Annihilation may bee cleare and apparent we will here distinguish it into Active and Passive Passive is when the man himselfe and all other things are cast asleep vainly und be made nothing I call it passive because 't is onely suffered The Imperfections whereof wee have blowne away in the former Chapter The Active Annihilation is when the Man himselfe and all other things are annihilated not onely sufferingly as in the Passive but doingly I meane by Light in the Understanding as well naturall as supernaturall wherein he sees and most infallibly knowes that all those things are nothing and rests upon this knowledge in despight of feeling The one of these Annihilations lives when all Image and feeling of the Creatures is gone The other continues also firme and sure even whilst they remaine after sense and yet by means of this light are seene to bee nothing The one consists in Knowledge drawne from Experience when a man sees himselfe brought to nothing as 't is said I am brought to nothing The other consists in Knowledge true indeed yet not seeming so after sense but after understanding Of these two the Active is more perfect for two reasons Strength and Duration For strength because together with it selfe it nothings all other things Not onely when it sailes with the actuall blast and breath of this Will or Divine Being but even then also when the soule feels drought and barrennesse annihilating all things felt as well as those which be gone and vanisht The which point requires carefull Attention For thus it annihilates as well all things that remain after feeling as also that same which annihilates them i. the owne Understanding and Knowledge with all manner of working thereof Not enduring that any thing whatsoever Image nor feeling remaine but only God For strength also because neither a multitude of outward affaires nor abundance of inward or intellectuall workings can hinder this Annihilation or distract the man himself For strength againe Because 't is not onely farre distant from sense but flat contrary thereto So that it annihilates things not onely when the minde in abstractions rides above them but even then when 't is conversant among them looking on them as if it looked not whence necessarily arises Duration which is the second perfection of Active Annihilation And both these perfections are not so perfectly found in the Passive Annihilation which stayes alwayes the Actuall Lure of God There be many that both know and practise the Passive but few the Active And so they no sooner fasten on any worke bodily or spirituall but they easily sinke fall downe and become divided and so live alwayes in languishing and unsatisfiednesse of spirit These two Annihilations make to a two-fold Love fruitive and practick whereon stands the whole spirituall Life The Passive tends to the Fruitive Love the Active to the Practick For in as much as these two Loves are never perfect till in the Practick love wee can enjoy God even as in the Fruitive 'T is therefore expedient that this Active Annihilation mediate to annihilate the Acts of this Practick Love which otherwise might hinder that enjoying and raise so many middle walls between God and the soule As therefore the Passive Annihilation nothings all things by deading all our feeling of them and transchanging them into enjoying Love So the Active annihilates them also still remaining though in sense wee feele them transforming them into fruitive Love So that the Love which without this Active Annihilation were meerly Practick may thus become fruitive And so by this Active Annihilation we shall continually enjoy God whether we worke and produce Acts or no. But as the same falls not under sense but is onely spirituall and supernaturall So the enjoyance to which it leads us is not perceived in our feeling but in spirit and transcends nature CHAP. XII That this Active Annihilation consists in equalling the Passive The practise of it in Light and Remembrance THE Perfection of this Active Annihilation consists in equalling the Passive in a Death of all things and in a Passive Annihilation after the spirit though not after feeling And the signe shewing it to be absolutely perfect is when it annihilates the things which we perceive by sense as verily as if wee perceiv'd them not And even in the face of all these sensibles brings as Invincible faith peace and union with God as among those things which are already lost and nothing For thus a man seeing sees not when hee holds not the same Formes in Meditation and Debatement And so he lives in a perpetuall Death and dyes in an eternall Life buried in Triumph of Conquest like that valiant Champion Eleazar intomb'd in the glory of his victory when crusht with the fall of the Beast he ended his dayes For this Beast which hee slew is the whole sinsible world which when wee kill and bring to nothing we also slay and annihilate our selves and so are buried as it were thereunder and our Life is hid with Christ in God The summe of the practise of this Annihilation consists in two things Light and Remembrance The use of the Light is generall The use of Remembrance is to raise us again when we forget and grow distracted For the first This Light is no other but a pure simple naked and habituall Faith which Reason helps Experience ratifies and confirmes Nor falls it under sense nor hath any acquaintance therewith yea it resists the same But it resides in the Crowne of the soule and beholds God without any Meane I say 't is pure excluding all help of the senses so as all in vaine should any prop or assurance bee groped for from them which are utterly to bee renounc'd First because the helpe of that Devotion which is had from the senses endures not but this Faith is lasting Secondly because when sensible Devotion is had 't is not certaine but variable But this Faith is con●ant Nor is it sufficient to renounce the senses unlesse we also annihilate them because they be erroneous and lying perswading ●s to believe that things ar● Con●●ariwise this faith is lightsome and points us to walk in the spirit Secondly I call it simple to cut of all multiplicity of Reasoning as a thing repugnant to the purity of this Faith First because it makes it humane where it

by the tempests violence Paul seems to write nothing but the Passion in Preaching to extol no other thing but the Passion in the Passion alone to seek matter of rejoycing to glory only in the Crosse and to be all-transformed into this Divine Passion yea acknowledgeth himself to know no more but Jesus Christ him crucified CHAP. XVII That God and Man is to be beheld in the Passion the God-head Manhood seen together with a single eye as one not as two ANd here the Manhood is not to be beheld alone but also the Godhead therewith wherin many faile looking either on the Manhood alone or sometimes on it and sometimes on the Godhead as on two divers objects And so it comes that some begin to falter thinking it to be in manner no other Mysterie but only in beholding the Manhood to phansie a Man tortured with cruel torments upon a Crosse and after to finde the Godhead forsaking the same object they presse up to some other whereby to behold the Godhead not beleeving they can bee rais'd to both at once the which indeed pertaines to the highest practise For to see God and Man in one simple sight is not unlike to that knowledge whereby God and Man is seene to make one and the same person This Contemplation of God Man seemes prefigured in that brazen Serpent whose alone sight cur'd the beholders of their bitings by other serpents A miracle indeed that God should give such power of healing to the looke of a Serpent Nor doubt I but he would insinuate to us thereby the admirable vertue inclosed in that coelestiall Serpent which is Jesus Christ crucified as he cals himselfe inasmuch as when wee rightly behold the Manhood crucified we instantly behold his Godhead which is God himselfe the small cure of all evill For how can we continue sensible of sorrow or crosse when we see God himselfe bearing the same Crosse Blessed are the pure in heart saith our Lord because they shall see God The which divers holy men affirm to be wholly in the next life and partly in this If therefore we see God on the Crosse we are entred on part of our Blisse in this Life and consequently cannot feel the pangs of the Crosse 'T was a thing unheard of and which with many transcended all beliefe that out of a hard rocke at the second smite of the Rod such plenty of water streamed out This Rocke is Christ Jesus But the Rocke was Christ whose Passion though it appeare so stonie that at the first sight it yeelds no more but all harsh hard and full of afflictions yet if you smite the same twice by Contemplation of the Godhead and Manhood you shall finde an overflowing Inundation of waters of Comfort a torrent of Joy a swift gushing river flowing from the face of God Ezekiel saw a Booke written without and within intimating to us thereby that Jesus Christ the Booke of Life is written within and without both sides containing the same perfections O ravishing Booke O Miracle O prodigy O new and unusuall thing transcending and passing all Reason and far surmounting the territories of Mans capacity that all the Attributes of God proper to his Divine Majesty should bee described in our mortall flesh That all the internall perfections of God should be depainted in Man and to know that person as perfect as God yea to be God himselfe O booke I say beyond admiration even to astonishment wherein the eternall omnipotency is described in externall impotency Immortality in Mortality Spirit in Body Glory in Ignominy Freedome in Bondage and God in Man A booke where without is written and displayed to the eyes of all men whatsoever the Eternall Father from everlasting either said or thought A booke shewing us the Crosse a Tribunall the Passion a Throne and Death the Triumph of Je Christ A book-wherof one saith O wondrous power of the Crosse O unspeakable glory of the Passion wherein is both the Throne of our Lord the judgment of the World and conquest of Christ crucified This is the booke wherein all contrary propositions are reconciled without distinction made all one where the outer thing is truly knowne the inner bodily spiritual weaknes strength Sorrow Joy Contempt Majesty Shame Glory Littlenesse Greatnesse Poverty Richnesse Bondage Freedome and Torments Delights But out alas for pity who beleeves all this Or who is it that with a simple heart gives credit to these things where is wisedom found or what place is left for understanding Here is Wisedome and Patience of the Saints even in seeing and practising those things which belong to the Passion And here God pr●●●d them at the waters of contrad●ction which waters of Life they ex●ract out of that Celestial flinty rocke whilst they smite it with the rod of Christian Discipline Who is wis● and he wil keepe these things It may truly bee said that 〈◊〉 booke and passion is no other but the gate of Heaven and the house of God And though in this Pas●ion he made darkenesse his Pavili●n neverthelesse as is his darke●esse so also his light Jacobs Ladder though the one ●nd toucht heaven and the other ●rth yet both made but one Lad●er even so the person of Jesus Christ which liv'd on earth by his Manhood and endured those tor●ents in his Passion was no other ●hen that selfe-same second person ●n the Trinity living ever glorious in the Heavens Moses saw God in the middest of the thorny bush signifying to us that God himselfe is found in his painefull and thorn-crowned Passion and not to be sought without the same No marvell then if Saint Paul the Doctor of the Gentiles and trumpet of truth al over the world exhausted all his wisedome from no other fount but out of the Abysse of this wisedome and knowledge as himselfe acknowledgeth saying I desire to know nothing among you but Iesus Christ crucified Which yet was so farre from vailing him from high Revelations that as himselfe witnesseth he was rapt to the third Heaven Whence it is cleerer then the Noone-day Light that in the crucified Manhood he also saw the boundlesse depth of the Godhead But the Centre of all this Difficulty consists in the right sending forth of this Simple sight whereby God and Man is seene neither omitted For in failing of either we incurre a like losse The depth of the Mysterie being founded in both one and not in each apart For first to behold God Omnipotent and then a miserable and forlorn Man which he became by his Incarnation This worketh somewhat in the soule by way of Consideration But to see both one as wee have said and to behold it with a single eye and naked aspect that strikes the soule with amazement and bereaves her of all her forces And this is that simple and perfect Contemplation which our Lord extolls with so many prayses in his Spouse in the Cantic Thy eyes ●re Doves eyes i. simple ones And againe