Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	die_v	flesh_n	live_v	4,655	5	5.5646	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B36604	Preparation for sufferings. Or The best work in the worst times Wherein the necessity, excellency, and means of our readiness for sufferings are evinced and prescribed; our call to suffering cleared, and the great unreadiness of many profesours bewailed. By John Flavel minister of Christ in Devon.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1681 (1681)		85,227	160

the Body and Mortification is to sin what Physick is to a Disease Hence those that are but a little mortified are in a comparative sense called Carnal 1 Cor. 3.3 and Babes vers 2. in respect of weakness Now suffering Work being some of the Christians hardest Labour and Exercise he cannot be fitted for it until his Soul be in an healthful state A sickly man cannot carry heavy Burdens or endure hard Labours and Exercises The sick Souldier is left behind in his Quarters or put into the Hospital whilest his Fellows are dividing the spoils and obtaining glorious Victories in the Field To this sense some expound Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit mortifie the Deeds of the Body ye shall live Where as Death is put to note a languishing state of Soul whilest Mortification is neglected So Life is put to express an healthful and comfortable state vivere pro valere so that upon this account also the necessity of it appears 3. Your Corruptions must be mortified else they will be raging and violent in the time of Temptation and like a Torrent sweep away all your Convictions and Resolutions It 's sin unmortified within that makes the Heart like Gun-powder so that when the Sparkles of Temptation fly about it and they fall thick in a suffering hour they do but touch and take Hence the Corruptions of the World are said to be through Lust 2 Pet. 1.4 With these internal unmortified Lusts the Tempter holds correspondence and these be the Traitors that deliver up our Souls into his hands 4. Unless you be diligent and successful in this Work though you should suffer yet not like Christians you will but disgrace Religion and the Cause for which you suffer For it 's not simple suffering but suffering as a Christian that reflects Credit on Religion and finds acceptation with God If you be envious fretful discontented and revengeful under your sufferings what Honour will this bring to Christ Is not this altogether unlike the Example of your Lord Isa 53.7 and the behaviour of suffering Saints 1 Cor. 4.13 Yet thus it will be if your Pride Passion and Revenge be not first subdued For what are the breakings forth of such distempers of Spirit but as the flushes of Heat in the Face from an ill-affected Liver Most certain it is that all these Evils are in your Natures and as certain it is they will rise like Mud and filth from the bottome of a Lake when some eminent Trial shall rake you to the bottome Natura vexata prodit seipsam 5. Lastly Mortification must be studied and ply'd with diligence else you will find many Longings and Hankerings after Earthly Enjoyments and Comforts which will prove a snare to you What is sin but the corrupt and vitiated appetite of the Creature to things that are Earthly and sensual relishing more sweetness and delight in them than in the blessed God And what is Sanctification but the rectifying of these inordinate affections and placing them on their proper Object A regenerate and mortified Christian tastes not half that sweetness in forbidden fruits that another doth Set but Money before Judas and see how eagerly he catches at it What will you give me and I will betray him Set but Life Liberty or any such Bait before an unmortified Heart and how impotent is he to withstand them as offered in a Temptation Oh those unmortified Lusts how do they make men hanker long and their Lips water as we use to say after these things This makes them break Prison decline sufferings though upon the basest tearms Whereas a mortified Christian can see all these things set before him yea offered to him and refuse them Heb. 10.35 It is with them much as it was with old Barzillai 2 Sam. 19.35 when Nature is decayed they find but little pleasure in natural actions Eccles 12.1 And look as the Body of sin decays and languishes so do these Longings also It weans the Soul from them all and enables it to live very comfortably without them Psal 131.1 Phil 4.12 There needs no more to be said to evince the necessity of Mortification and discover what influence it hath into a Christians readiness for sufferings It remains therefore that I open to you some of the principal Corruptions about which it mostly concerns you to bestow pains e're sufferings come Now look as there are four principal Enjoyments in which you are like to be tried viz. Estate Name Liberty Life so the Christians Work in suffering times lies in mortifying these four special Corruptions viz. First The Love of the World Secondly Ambition Thirdly Inordinate affectation of freedom and pleasure Fourthly Excessive love of life 1. For the love of this World away with it crucifie it crucifie it Down with this Idol and let it be dethroned in all that intend to abide with Christ in the hour of Temptation How else will you take the spoiling of your goods How will you be able to part with all for Christ as these blessed Souls did It grieves my heart to see how many Professors of Religion are carried captive at the Chariot Wheels of a bewitching world Oh! good had it been for many Professors if they had never tasted so much of the sweetness of it Sirs I beg you for the Lords sake down with it in your Estimations down with it in your Affections else Temptations will down with you e're long I shall offer five or six Helps for the crucifying of it First Consider your Espousals to Christ and how you have chosen and professed him for your Lord and Husband Therefore your doting upon the World is no less than Adultery against Christ James 4.4 If Christ be your Husband he must be a Covering to your Eyes an unchaste Glance upon the World wounds him Secondly The more you prize it the more you will be tormented by it Did you prize and love it less it would disquiet and vex you less It'ts our doating on it that makes it draw blood at parting Thirdly Get true Scripture-notions of the world and rectifie your Judgments and Affections by them If you will have the true Picture and Representation of it drawn by the Hand of God himself see 1 John 2.16 It 's nothing else but Lust that puts that Lustre upon it It hath but a Phantastick Glory and that also passeth away What is become of them that ruffled it out in the World but one hundred years ago What could the World do for them Are they not all gone down to the sides of the Pit But ke that doth the will of God abideth for ever Fourthly Study and contemplate Christ and the things above more This would vail all its Glory and kill it at the Root Phil. 3.18 19. Just as a man that hath been gazing upon the Sun when he takes off his Eye from that bright and glorious Creature and looks to the Earth there is a Vail of

yet the Lord Jesus is kind and tender-hearted to his Prisoners he puts the kindnesses that any shew them upon his own account Mat. 25.36 He looks down from Heaven to hear the sighings and groanings of his Prisoners Psal 102.20 He will tenderly sympathize with you in all your Prison-Straights and Troubles 5. A Prison hath been hanfel'd and perfumed by the best and holiest of men in all Ages 1 Kings 22.27 Jer. 32 2. Mat. 4.12 Acts 5.18 Acts 26.10 God hath made it a setled School of Discipline to them 6. Should you to avoid a Prison commit a sin instead of being Man's Prisoner you shall be clapt up by God for he hath a Prison for your Souls even in this World Psal 142.7 and this is ten thousand times more dreadful than any Dungeon in the World Oh it 's a dark Prison not a Cranny to let in one Beam of Gods Countenance upon your poor Souls What a sad exchange have you made then 7. Consider what a ground of Comfort GOD hath laid in that Word Rev. 2.10 to obviate the Fears and Terrours incident to us in such a condition God hath limited Satan and his Instruments both for time number and all circumstances of the trial 8. Lastly You do not know what a Mercy may be in it It may be a time of retirement from the World and the Clamours and Distractions that are abroad These days of Imprisonment may be your Holy-days as a Prisoner of Christ once called them 4. Get an Heart mortified to the excessive and inordinate love of life This I confess is the highest and hardest point of Self-denial because it wraps up all other Self Interests in it But yet consider First Though life be very dear yet Jesus Christ is ten thousand times dearer than thy Life If thou be a Saint he is the Life of thy Life and the length of thy days and in comparison of him and his glory Saints should and have despised and slighted their Lives Luke 14.26 Rev. 12.11 Secondly Die you must and if by shrinking from Christ you should protract a miserable Life for a few days longer in the mean time losing that which is better that life Psal 63.3 Mat. 10.39 Oh when you lie upon your Death-bed you will wish that you had obeyed Gods Call and so have departed in peace Thirdly If you have cordially covenanted with Christ as all sincere Believers have done then have you yielded up your lives to him to be disposed for his glory Rom 14.7 So that look as Christ both lived and died for you so ought you to live as Christ And all the excellency you see in life consists in that reference and subserviency it hath to his glory I say then if you have understandingly and cordially transacted in a Covenant-way with him your care will not be so much how to shun Death as by what Death you may most glorifie God John 21.19 And certainly you can never lay them down upon a more honourable or comfortable account than in his cause and for his sake It was a great trouble to Luther that he carried his bloud to his Grave Fourthly To die for Christ is one of the highest Testifications of your Love to Christ that you are capable of Joh. 13.37 Yea 't is such a Testification of your Love to the Lord Jesus as Angels are not capable of making Fifthly Why should you decline even a violent death for Christ when as the bitterness of death is past and there is no Hell following the pale Horse It cannot separate you from Christ Rom. 8.38 Sixthly Think what a death Christ suffered for you in which the fulness of the Wrath both of God and Man met together so that he was fore amazed yet with desire did he desire it for your sakes 7. Lastly Think what a life you shall have with Christ as soon as this is deliver'd up to and for him 2 Tim. 2.12 It is but wink and you shall see God Oh that these things might provoke you to follow on and ply the Work of Mortification CHAP. XI Wherein is opened the singular advantage that suffering Saints have by their skill and in-sight into the Methods and Mysteries of Sathans Temptations some of those Wiles of Sathan opened and Rules for the avoiding of the danger briefly prescribed THE hazards and dangers of Christians in times of Perfecution arise not so much from their Sufferings as from the Temptations that always attend and are by Satan planted upon their Sufferings for the most part Sufferings and Temptations go together Heb. 11.37 And therefore it behoves such as are or expect to be called to Sufferings to dive into the Mysteries of Temptations and be well acquainted with the Enemies Designs upon them So was Paul and so he supposes all others to be that ingage in the same Cause We are not ignorant of his Devices 2 Cor. 2.11 There is a manifold advantage redounding to suffering Saints thereby 1. He that is well acquainted with the Methods of Temptation will be the better able to descry the first approaches and beginnings of it and a Temptation discovered is more then half conquered It is a special Artifice of Satan to shuffle in his Temptations as undiscernibly as may be into the Soul for he knows that in vain is the Net spread in the sight of any Bird Prov. 1.17 And therefore he ordinarily makes a suffering season to be a tempting season because sufferings like Fire to Iron make it impressive and operable they do ordinarily put the Soul into an hurry and distraction and so gives him an advantage to tempt the Soul with less suspition and greater success But now a skilful Christian that is acquainted with his Wiles will discern when he begins to enter into temptation as Christs expression is Luke 22.46 and so check the Temptation in its first Rife when it 's weakest and most easily broken Doubtless one Reason why so many fall by Temptation is because it 's got within them and hath prevailed far before it be discovered to be a Temptation 2. He that is well acquainted with Satans Methods of tempting will not only discern it sooner than another but also knows his Work and Duty and how to manage the Conflict with it which is a great matter There are many poor Souls that labour under strong Temptations and know not what to do They go up and down complaining from Christian to Christian whilest the Judicious Christian plies the Throne of Grace with strong Gries See 2 Cor. 12.8 keeps up his Watch Luke 22.46 countermines the Temptation by assaulting that Corruption by endeavours of Mortification which Satan assaults by Temptation 1 Cor. 9.27 3. Lastly To name no more he that is best acquainted with the Mystery of Temptation and can maintain his ground against it he shall be the persevering Christian under Persecutions and the victorious Christian over them Here lies the main Design of Satan in raising Persecution against the Saints It is not