Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	good_a	life_n	see_v	9,943	5	3.4753	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53569	Twenty sermons preached upon several occasions by William Owtram ...; Sermons. Selections	Owtram, William, 1626-1679.; Gardiner, James, 1637-1705.	1682 (1682)	Wing O604; ESTC R2857	194,637	508

and where thieves do not break through and steal He knew that where we place our happiness styled our treasure in these words there should we also place our hearts For saith he where your treasure is there will your heart be also Upon which words I shall discourse in this method 1. I shall shew in what manner and in what degree men set their hearts upon that which they judge their chief good whether it be the wealth and honours the ease and pleasures of this World or the Bliss and Glory of the future 2. And then secondly I shall consider the several consequences of the words and draw such conclusions from them as deserve especial consideration 1. And to begin with the former general 1. The first application of mens souls to that which they judge their supreme good is a fixt and earnest desire of it 2. The next to this is a firm design and resolution to apply themselves to the gaining of it 3. And both these in the third place in such degrees that if ever any competition arise between this end and any other this is preferred and still pursued the other neglected and laid aside 1. The first application of mens Souls to that they judge their chief good is a fixt and earnest desire of it which is so rooted in humane nature that no man can ever shake it off wholly extinguish or remove it And the truth is were it not so that God had planted this desire in the very frame of mans nature the World would presently fall asleep the minds of men would drowze and slumber having nothing to quicken and to awake them the Soul itself as busie and active as it is as full of various thoughts and passions would be as unactive in the body as the very body without the Soul Desire is the principle of all action and this desire of being happy the spring of all our other desires this moves and quickens all within us this puts life into all our powers excites our thoughts forms our Counsels lays our designs stirs up and animates all endeavours This holds the eye of the mind open this keeps the Soul it self awake and puts it into continual motion for whatsoever it be we do 't is done in the view and consideration of what we believe to be good for us and some way tending to our happiness remove this out of the eye of a man and the clearest reasons that you can urge will never excite his will to choice much less engage him unto action He cannot act where he cannot hope nor can he hope where he sees nothing to be desired Say you whatsoever you can to move him he will always have this to say for himself the thing you propound no way tends to any advantage it doth not serve any end of mine and therefore why should I undertake it give me that which will do me good let me see how it tends unto my welfare let me know what account I shall find in it prove that I shall be better for it either in this or another World and then you may perswade me to it Nor doth this desire of a mans own happiness contradict or prejudice publick welfare for every wise man understands that his own particular and private good is always involved in publick welfare and every good man makes it a part of his own happiness to serve the advantage of other persons and besides he knows that he shall be rewarded hereafter for it And although we cannot all be wise yet every man may at least be good But after all both the good and evil wise and unwise always desire and chuse that which makes at least the fairest appearance of contributing to their own felicity This is the reason why God himself applies himself to this desire in the whole oeconomy of his providence in all his dealings with mankind When he prescribes his Laws to us he urges obedience to these Laws by promising happiness thereunto which promise yet could have no effect upon us had we no desire of being happy on the same account he threatens misery to the violation of his precepts which yet would be to little purpose could we be contented to be miserable or cease to desire our own felicity 'T is the same method which he uses in all his other addresses to us when he rebukes when he perswades when he expostulates and reasons with us he still accommodates all these things to that desire of being happy which he hath ingrafted in our natures as the first mover in all our actions Sometimes indeed he applies himself unto the natural desire men have of peace and safety in the world And so he did to the Jewish Nation Deut. 30.15 See saith he I have set before thee this day life and good death and evil and after that at the 9. v. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing therefore chuse life that is to say chuse obedience that both thou and thy seed may live But the great applications made unto us in the Gospel are addressed to that desire in man which moves him both to desire to be and to be happy to all eternity This is the promise saith St John that he hath promised us even eternal life 1 John 2.25 And so St Paul Rom. 2.6 7 8 9. where he tell us that God will render to every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life but unto them that are contentious and obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation tribulation and wrath and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile Thus he that made us and knows our nature and all the springs of motion in us in all his applications to us accommodates himself to that desire of being happy which he himself hath planted in us as knowing this to be the way to gain a ready complyance from us On the same account the great deceiver of mankind paints his baits covers his snares gilds his temptations with an appearance of what is good He knows it would be a vain thing to attempt to press us unto the choice of what is evil what is destructive to our selves should it appear in its own likeness and therefore he puts a disguise upon it He boldly told the woman in paradise that if they would eat what God had forbidden their eyes should be opened they should be as Gods knowing good and evil for if as Gods then surely wise and blessed and happy And thus the temptation found success which first brought sin into the World and death as the wages due unto it Nor was it a much different method whereby he applyed himself to Christ for he took him as the Gospel tells us into an exceeding high mountain and shewed him all the Kingdoms

Kingdom of Heaven to a pearl of such a price and rate as that the person who once saw it sold all he had forth purchase of it Matt. 13.46 esteeming nothing too dear or pretious to obtain a thing of infinite value namely the glory of Gods Kingdom 2. Again it ought to be considered that although the subduing of our lusts and opposing our sinful inclinations be troublesome unto flesh and blood yet God hath promised his Grace and Spirit promised a supernatural power to enable us to correct our natures Hence that profession of St Paul Phil. 4.13 I can do all things thorough Christ which strengtheneth me hence that exhortation also Phil. 2.12 13. work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure From whence it appears that God affords his assistance to us to enable us to attain the end and perform the duties we cannot attain cannot perform by the power of nature 3. Add hereunto that being quickned being assisted by the operation of Gods Spirit that self-denyal and mortification that temperance holiness and humility that resignation to Gods will that mercy and charity unto men which was before hard and difficult irksome and troublesome to our natures is now made easie and pleasant unto us that Yoke of Christ which we before judged to be pressing and uneasie is now made light and easie to us so that the man who found the duties found the graces of the Gospel contrary to his inclinations now finds his affections and inclinations greatly reconciled unto them and cannot now please himself in any evil but finds it contrary to his nature being altered by the grace of God and this is that which St John suggests 1 Ep. 3.9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin but his feed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God These things considered it is no wonder that so great a loss as that of glory and immortality should attend the wilful violation of the duties prescribed in the Gospel though they be difficult to flesh and blood For though they be so yet the reward promised to us is so great that it deserves the undertakding of the greatest difficulties to attain it and God hath promised his Spirit to us to assist and help us in those difficulties and the assistance of his Spirit makes our duties first possible and afterwards easie to us 3. The last occasion which I shall mention that some men take to judge themselves to be righteous persons to be in grace and favour with God although they be Servants to corruption is a false notion they have received of the imputation of Christs righteousness They fansie that God looks upon them as having done what Christ did and also suffered what he suffered that is to say both obeyed the Law and made satisfaction for their sins which is a very great mistake representing God as judging of things otherwise than they are in themselves as judging them to have done and suffered what they have neither done nor suffered which is to impute an errour to him The true notion of the imputation of Christs righteousness is that God is pleased in consideration of that righteousness to pardon the sins and accept the persons not of those that do not believe or not sincerely obey the Gospel but of those only who do believe and so obey it God never intended that Christs righteousness should quit and deliver from our obligation to obedience but that it should oblige us to it For he bare our sins in his own body upon the Tree that we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness 1 Pet. 2.24 3. And now to reflect upon what I have said to the last general before propounded 1. Hence we learn that the reason why the Gospel of Christ hath no greater success and efficacy in the reformation of the lives of those that make profession of it is not any defect in it but in those that make profession of it it is not any defect in the Gospel but wilful mistakes in the minds of men that renders the Gospel unsuccessful in the reformation of their lives The Gospel gives no ground at all for any to think themselves righteous or hope for the pardon of their sins who are not true and faithful penitents who do not forsake their vitious courses If men shall promise themselves pardon while they continue in their sins this is a promise of their own it is no promise of the Gospel The Gospel menaces death eternal to the impenitent and disobedient and if men shall still believe the contrary it is their errour their wilful errour so to do nor is it the Gospel that deceives them but they deceive and abuse themselves 2. Lastly seeing it is so easie for men to impose upon themselves to judge themselves in favour with God while they continue in their sins it will very much concern us all duly to examine our selves and make reflection upon our lives First let us very well consider whether we do not indulge our selves in some sin yet flatter our selves with hopes of pardon though we continue in such indulgence thereunto although we live and die in it If we find our selves guilty of this we labour under a great imposture an imposture which if not corrected will rob us of our immortal Souls It is hard for men of the truest principles to subdue their inordinate inclinations to enter in at that strait gate which leads unto eternal happiness but if the very principles of men if the mind it self be possessed with errour and with an errour of this nature which promises life eternal to them while they indulge themselves in evil there is no hope no expectation of reformation till the errour it self be quite removed Now therefore if thy life be vitious if stained with any one sin which thou indulgest in thy self awake and excite and examine thy self and see what it is that gives encouragement to that indulgence and if thou be serious with thy self and search the bottom of thine heart thou will find it is one of these two things either a presumpti-of thy repentance and reformation sometimes hereafter or a belief that thou mayest be saved although thou continuest in thy sin without repentance and amendment The former of these is the greatest folly the greatest impudence in the world the latter the most destructive errour for certainly there is no such folly no such imprudence in all the world as to defer a necessary duty to a time uncertain a time thou mayest never live to see or if thou dost mayest use as ill as that which is already past that which is now present with thee And then to believe a sin pardoned while it is indulged is such an errour as doth not only open a gate to all sin but shut the door to all repentance and reformation Consider what I say and the Lord