Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	believe_v	everlasting_a	only_a	4,227	5	6.5529	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45396	Hagieā theoū krisis Iudgment worthy of God, or, An assertion of the existence and duration of hell torments, in two occasional letters, written several years since / by ... Henry Hammond ; to which is added an accordance of St. Paul with St. James, in the great point of faith and works by the same author.	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1665 (1665)	Wing H515; ESTC R15162	47,364	178

eternal death may be truly cald everlasting punishment because though death should inferre annihilation wherein there is nothing ergò no punishment yet Death it self is something and is joyned with real paines as well as privations but of those or any other reality the state of annihilation is not capable and then to say everlasting punishment though that were supposed to signify no more then everlasting poena damni yet must it be founded in everlasting being for no man can be punished everlastingly by deprivation of bliss that hath not a being at all to be thus capable of devesting or deprivation for non entis nulla est affectio But to this it is replied that the text saith not the wicked shall be everlastingly punished but they shall go into a punishment and that punishment shall be everlasting and such is everlasting death To this I answer that there is no ground of this distinction in the Text which saith together they shall depart into everlasting punishment which is certainly the very form that would be used if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were designed to be never so positively punitive if it were into the furnace of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth Secondly 't is replyed that a man may suffer or be punished by that which he doth not actually feel and many attempts are made for the proof of this But it is sufficient in a word to say that none of the proofs come home to the state of annihilation whereof only our question is A mad man or fool may suffer though they discern it not a dead man who is not annihilated but lives in his better part may suffer in his memory children friends here much more while he lives may he without folly desire to avert such sufferings but he that is not is not capable of any of these and if I were sure that to morrow I should be nothing no real consideration of my self but either present care of others good or perhaps irrational phansy would incite me to make any provision for after that morrow So again privation of possible felicity is to any one that hath being a real punishment because he is a looser though not sensible of what he hath lost but to him that is not 't is an absolute nullity and were a man sure to be annihilate the fear of this were unreasonable for that time when he should be nothing and the only thing that renders it reasonable now is because he hath a being and hopes to continue it or whatsoever he is seduced to believe to the contrary yet still he desires it and as long as he hath life may well desire and cannot choose but wish all the accomplishments and even images of it and at once fear the loss of life and all felicities which either do or may accompany life But still this man's being subject to this fear because capable of the causes of it is no proof of his being punished who is supposed not to be he that hath a being and desires the continuance of it suffers when he looseth it but he that hath no being is not to be esteemed by these measures any more then he that hath never yet been is this day punished by not being created or conceived till to morrow Nor to this is it any way consequent as is objected that the desire of everlasting life should not be a reasonable desire For though it be reasonable to fear the privation of a reasonable desire yet this fear is only incident to him that hath a being and he that hath no being cannot have desire how reasonable soever it is for him that hath a being to have it The Sadduces had a being when they desir'd praise and though they believed no immortality of souls yet they believed durability of memory and memory was a kind of image of life and they that despaired of the body might take some content in the shadow but even that a meer shadow and phansy too which also would be at an end whensoever their being were supposed to be so So again the same Sadducee whilst he lived might fear death because he enjoyed somewhat which he was unwilling to loose and because death it self though it were thought to enter him on a state of nothingness yet was it self something both respectu sensus damni And beside the Sadducee could hardly be Sadducee enough in the point so as not to have some fear of the contrary however he still had a being and was to be unwilling to loose it But that having no being should be real punishment to him that is not is above my comprehension As to what is said in the objecter's person p. 10. at the beginning that if he believed annihilation he would yet as much fear the punishment as he desires everlasting life I shall grant it on this presumption that he now believes he shall enjoy everlasting life but then he that thus desires and fears is supposed to exist and to him 't is granted that deprivations are penal and again though he would fear that yet sure he would never fear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the notion of eternal sensible punishments and scorchings of fire I know not whether all that I have said of the nature of the privative punishments be maturely said or no as non entis non est affectio so I have alwaies found it hard to satisfy my self concerning any thing of that which is not Only I rest my self in this that my mistake if it be such is sure of so nice a making that I cannot my self discern it and therefore it is not to be imagined that the truth of Christ's speech should hang on so weak a string as it must if by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ meant no more then eternal deprivation of being For if that which is not cannot be eternally punished how can the wicked be said to depart to eternal punishment when they are annihilated For everlasting judgment I acknowledg it signifies no more then the former imported and so is to be concluded by the discourse on that 'T is the adjudging to a state which shall last to all eternity or a sentence wherein the eternity of him that is judged is concern'd Next for their worme never dying I have three things to add First that the worm in dead bodies devoureth very slowly and leasurely and so is as fit as any thing could have been to express lingring torments Secondly that the worm devoureth not the whole body the bones and firmer pars are not liable to her malice and so 't is most unfit to express utter annihilation of the whole Thirdly that the worm being peculiar to dead and putrified bodies is a most lively representation of gnawings and miseries after death and then when instead of mortal worms which are the only instruments of gnawing on dead bodies there is somewhat else threatned by Christ which is fit to be expressed by the style

Fire and Brimstone into which they are cast which must be a very strange figurative expression if it signify no more then their own voluntary acts appetitions and aversations Thirdly it is manifest that those diseases which precede many Men's deaths do change their appetitions and aversations The luxurious Man on his sick Bed hath not those vehement desires of Weomen delicate meats c. which he had in his health Why then should I think that after Death his appetites of what he desir'd in via viz. in his life and health should continue to him Nay 4. When Souls are divested of those Bodies which were the necessary Instruments and also the fomenters of those carnall sins and again when the body before its re-union is so chang'd as not to be sustein'd as in via it is by eating and drinking 't is not imaginable it should retain those natural desires which in via it had And when they no more marry in Hell then Heaven and are as equal to evill Angels as the Saints in Heaven are to good ones and the natural end of all carnal desires ceasing it is not imaginable God should continue those desires to them for ever Or if any should so conceive many strange wild consequences unfit to name would be equally probable equally unimaginable 5. By this stating the losse of Heaven will from hence only be penal that Men desir'd Heaven in via or judg'd it fit to be desired And if so it will be no punishment to them that never thought of it at all as infidels or despised it as they did all spirituall joyes and thought it not worth desiring as they that placed all their appetites on carnall and material pleasures which are the worst sort of men who in consequence hereunto must be least punisht in Hell poena damni Having said thus much against your Scheme I owe my self the pains of adding a word or too for the defence of the way that I have us'd in the Practical Catechisme viz. by considering the option given to us by God wherein you seem to me not to have observ'd that on which the chiefe weight of my account was design'd to lie That God propos'd to Men life and death blessing and cursing eternal joyes and eternall paines as the Rector of the Universe I take for granted and so do you as an Article of our Faith So that of the an sit the question is not but considering the transitory short pleasures of sin the onely question is How eternal paines are with any justice proportion'd to them and to that the answer is Not that they are proportion'd to them but that there is no need they should be because God having propos'd the joyes of Heaven and much more immunity from these paines upon termes put absolutely in our power it is meerly our own fault not imputable to the decree of God if we fall under those hardest paines The extremity of which was primarily design'd as by all prudent Lawgivers punishments are to deter men from those sins which are fenced with so thorny an hedge not that they may be inflicted on any but that all may be kept innocent and in this sence 't is ordinarily observ'd that the everlasting Fire which is threatned men was prepar'd for the Devil and his Angels Yet when such threats are entred into those lawes whereby the Universe is governed it is just and reasonable that they should be also actually perform'd on the disobedient else it were as good nay better to all political ends that they had never been made or promulgate And if still when they come to be inflicted they appear to be hard or above the proportion of the offence there are yet other wayes of superseding that exception beside the evacuating the decree viz. The several branches of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all which the Gospel hath provided in this matter First That those which wee could not either by Physical or moral possibility avoid should not be charg'd upon us to this condemnation as Original sinne sinnes of Weaknesse Ignorance sudden surprise Indeliberation c. Secondly That know deliberate voluntary sinnes if timely retracted by repentance Humiliation Confession change of mind shall not fall under it Thirdly That God gives sufficient grace to avoid all willful sin and again sufficient grace to repent when it hath been committed and inflicts it not till he sees men go on obstinately and that they will not repent Fourthly That he calls and warns and importunes them to consult their own safety to make use of his grace timely and not obstinately to harden their hearts against their own mercy and so to perish in despight of mercy Fiftly That he offers not only deliverance from these torments but over and above eternal joyes upon so easy termes of so moderate nay desireable performances that they which will neglect so great Salvation propos'd to them with so many advantages and concurrence of all rationall motives and finally make so mad a choice as to take Hell as it were by violence cannot but be thought worthy to take their portion in that lake be it never so punitive and endless Because though in respect of that one sinne the short pleasure that comes in to them by sin compar'd with intensive endlesse flames there is no proportion yet 1. In respect of their obstinacy and unexcusablenesse 2. In respect of God's tendernesse using all wise means of moderating the rigour of his Law by the Gospel though not by utter abrogating his Lawes which becomes not either a just or wise Lawgiver or Rector of the Universe all shew of Injustice is remov'd particularly by the second taken alone much more in union with the first and third the rule being owned by all rationall men volenti non fit injuria be the evill never so great 't is just they should have it that finally make it their choice so doth the persevering Impenitent and that not only an hasty passionate choice as Nero's Mother's Occidat modò imperet which yet Historians observe to have brought her death justly upon her but a deliberate stanch obstinate constant choice when their Creator and Redeemer and Sanctifyer have us'd all prudent probable meanes to gaine them to better counsels and choices but all in vain they die because they will die When yet they are oft warn'd and expostulated with of the irrationalnesse of that will or choice 'T is true when they come to suffer their own choices they are far from liking them as Xiphilin observ'd of Neroe's Mother in the foremention'd case and then 't is likely would fly from them call to the mountaines to cover them from the wrath of the Lamb But their choices being primarily terminated in the pleasant sinnes and but consequentially in the paines annexed to them by God's Law 't will be as unreasonable that they which have chosen the former should be freed from the latter as that he that hath bought a Commodity at a price