Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	aaron_n	bring_v	rod_n	61	3	9.1414	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60521	The character of a weaned Christian, or, The evangelical art of promoting self-denial being an essay, alluding to the severities and advantages of infant-weaning, both pleasant and profitable / by S. S., ...	Smith, Samuel, 1620-1698.	1675 (1675)	Wing S4164; ESTC R19902	63,054	160

Old Man because it is the Festival of their Spiritual Liberty in their Conformity to Christ's Death and Resurrection therefore get a good Opinion of the Work and it will succeed accordingly For the Rod as Aarons often Blossoms and brings forth the precious Fruits of Righteousness Is not this more Eligible than for tasting only a little Hony in any unlawful delight without the allowance of your Heavenly Father as Jonathan to incur the Penalty of Death it self Therefore in the next place shut fast the Cinque-port of your Senses and clear up the Eye of your Faith to take a view of the Creatures Vanity in order to admiring God in Christ Watch your hearts if you would get them weaned Keep them with all Diligence Sobriety and Watchfulness must be conjoyned in Christs Nursery as well as in the Discipline of his Camp Labour to be well read in the Anatomy of your deceitful hearts to understand your Constitution Inclination and Disposition For Satan hath Snares of all sorts and sizes to suit and please the several humours of sensual Sinners He is a cunning Angler do not you nibble at his Temptations lest as those Fish which Frisk and Play in the fresh Waters of Jordan you unawares stream down into the dead Sea of Worldly corrupt examples 10. Take heed of the occasions of sin The Rechabites would not chew the Husk of a dry Grape lest they should be inticed to drink Wine Pray as St. Augustine that when thou hast a heart to sin thou mayest want a Temptation and when a Temptation is presented thou mayest want a heart to comply with it This is the very Dialect of the Devils Sophistry you may come within the smell of sin and yet not be infected but you cannot play on the hole of the Asp or Cockatrice and yet be safe or secure If Satan like Archimedes can but have so much scope in thy heart as to place there his Engine of temptation he will soon shake and dissolve the whole Frame of thy Integrity if it be meerly Moral Besides to venture on the occasion shews that there is a secret liking of that sin it leads to though we conceit our selves to be weaned from it Nor will the Lord ordinarily keep us from the sin if we keep not our selves from the temptation and then we are sure to fall 11. Let this weaning design be your daily work upon which you are most intent It 's dissicult and not rid off with lazy wishes Augustine while he prayed to be weaned from his youthful incontinency secretly wisht he might yet be spared in his vain excesses We say of every darling Lust let Reuben Live and not dye Indulge not therefore your flesh though it cry out in a render delicacy that you would pitty and indulge it You must not desist from the severity of this work for your hearts sullenness and frowardness That Parent who spares to correct the Child for its crying hardens and confirms it in its Rebellion Thus it proves the future grief and shame of the Parent as well as the present disquietment of the Family Be not slight and remiss in weaning-attempts If so you must begin again as the Nazarite who had transgrest against the strict Law of his scparation The work will prove more difficult uncertain and hazardous as to its happy Issue Carry thorow this weaning design begin not in the Spirit to end in the Flesh If a Man omit a stroke in swimming he is soon carried down the Stream 12. Improve the Christian Sabbath especially to promote this Design As 't is the fittest season so Satan most watches to render it unsuccesful He then uses the same stratagem which the Benjamites did Judg. 21.19 20 21. to snatch them up Wives from among the Daughters of Israel to inlarge their almost extinguished Tribe When Christians come forth in Spiritual Dances to celebrate this holy Festival to the Lord then Satan lies in Ambuscado behind the Vineyards of Worldly profits and pleasures Thence he sallies out with his Temptations to commit a Rape upon the Virgin-purity of our Souls which should be espoused only to the Lord. But do not drive on this Task of weaning only during the Sabbath-space How should Lusts which have been rooting all the Week nay possibly our Life-long be pluckt up in one hours formal attendance on the Ordinances 13. Therefore begin this weaning task betimes in Youth before you and your Lusts be grown into a strict familiarity hardly to be shaken off David complained that the Sons of Zerviah were too hard for him while he was newly entred on his regal power But do you execute your Lusts as the Jews did Christ early in the Morning You will otherwise by indulgence and connivence give them greater advantage against you It 's dissicult to pull up Weeds when the Garden is overgrown and they have spread their Roots by long neglect to clear the Ground So is it to break off a setled long confirmed habit in Vice Do not accustom your selves to lie soaking at the Breasts of Lusts and the World especially being prompted to it by a Natural Instinct Our corrupt Nature is not as green Wood which needs much help of Art to make it burn but as Touch-wood the least spark of Temptation which lights on us fires all that train of Corruption yea the Magazine of Hell which is stored up in our degenerate and wicked hearts Therefore improve the soaking Showres of Divine Mercy and Goodness to soften your hard hearts that you may more easily root up your Lusts Maintain also the Love of Christ shed abroad in your Souls This as a more intense Divine flame will overpower and extinguish the Fire-Balls of Lust and Temptations which Satan darts into your Spirits 14. Again go not out in the strength of your own Resolutions and Covenantings to Reform these without renewing Grace cannot work any estrangement from your Lusts Rather look up by Faith to a pierced crucifyed Jesus Fetch Life from his Death Be so sixt to his Cross by Meditation that if a Temptation pass by before you bow the head and Court you you may not be at leisure to observe it much less to descend and imbrace it Say as Nehemiah to Sanhallat Why should this Work of the Lord slack while I parle with Satan to neglect the Building up of my Soul in Holiness More earnestly implore the confirming Aid of Christ's Mortifying Spirit to superaded his anointing Grace to thy Baptismal Vow that thou mayest beincouraged to conflict more resolutely against the Temptations of Sin Statan and the World While the Lock of your Faith is growing and spreads in Prayer your strength to resist and Conquer your Philistin-Lusts will renew and not suffer you to be defeated of your Hopes of Triumph 15. Despise those Reproaches which sensual Sinners cast upon a weaned Frame It 's no more than you were forewarned of and fore-armed against when you first entred upon the Christian state They think

before they loved now they hate contra This is demonstrated 1. Because our sensual Hearts make great resistance to this Renovation in the Spirit It 's as Death to a Carnal heart because 't is no other than the dissolution of the Carnal-State of a Sinner Some are sooner weaned off with the very Nod and Beck of God But others must be fiercely dealt withal as Paul As the Voice of a Thunder-clap makes the Hinds to Calve and cast forth their young because they have very narrow passages in Nature So Sinners are averse from Spiritual weaning therefore usually the Spirit of Bondage Vshers it in by some Black Rod or Apparitor which makes the very shadow of Death to sit on our Eye-lids before our proud Spirits will be tamed and brought to hand by the shaking of an ordinary Rod over us Some the Lord weans by the soft gentle whispers of his Spirit convincing them of the vanity and emptiness of the whole Creation Thus the Lords Word stood for a Law with Levi who knew neither Father nor Mother so as to dispense the Divine Law with Carnalfondness and partiality of affection The powerful Charms of Divine Love and the Spiritual appearances of the Lord in the Lustre and Glory of his Alsufficiency and infinite Perfections prevail with some to fall off not only from the lank and Crude Breast of the Creature but from the fairest and plumpest of their Enjoyments Yet neither frowns nor smiles neither Blows nor Charms of Love can prevail with some soaking sensualists to quit the allurements of Lust and the World Jeshurun who carried the Title of Uprightness in their very Name could not be weaned from the Garlick and Flesh-pots of Egypt but keckt at Manna at Angels Food yea snarled at God himself because their Dog-like Appetite was not indulged with Quails They could not be made fond of their great Redeemer nor did they cleave to him though he broacht the Rock to satisfie them as with Streams of Honey rather they waxed Fat and kickt by how much the more they were pampered and indulged 2. The difficulty of Spiritual weaning farther appears from the frequent pains and strange methods which the Lord himself takes to imbitter the Creature using very sharp afflictions to draw off our fond affections from an Idolatrous doting on the World A strange dulness or rather perverseness possesses us that we must be lasht into our own Happiness and beaten into an ingenuous Liberty from the vassalage of our Lusts Lots Wife though she were fired out of Sodom yet left her heart behind for she lookt back she lookt and lookt again till she became sliff and stupid as a stone Thus Agrippina said of Nero Occidat modo Imperet Sinners care not if they be damned so they may not be damnified in their Worldly Interest They will adventure an Eternal Excision or cutting off from the priviledges of Eternal Life which is worse than a bare Circumcion in the sorest loss of their Temporalities before they will cleave to God himself rather than the Dinah of this inchanting World They will part with their Religion rather than not enjoy their Wealth and Honour without hazard or disturbance Thus we Adore the Creature and thereby force the Lord to put on the disguize of an Enemy to fright us into a weaned Frame The Candle of Prosperity must be put out yea the whole Heaven over us must mourn in Sackcloth the Lord must desert us and leave us to the amazement of a wounded Conscience before we will desist from nestling in the Bosome of that Creature which we Idolize Again Satan and the World when we seem to be weaned renew their acquaintance and insinuate their allurements afresh to reduce us to their imbraces Thus the Child hardly cleaves to the Parent when the Nurse studies and strives to regain the Childs fondness by presenting and tempting it with Toyes and Rattles But every Soul which would thorowly be weaned must resolve in the Lord's Strength not to listen to Satan's or the World's inticing Charms Reply Go Satan offer these petty Vanities to Children and Fools who know not what the worth of Christ or of an immortal Soul amount unto I am better disciplined in the severities of a Holy and Heavenly profession I am not so fondly in love with Vanity as to purchase it with the torment of a wounded Conscience by betraying of my Loyalty and the Chastity of my Soul to Christ It is just matter of wonder with what sinful Reverence sordid and absurd Zeal Popish Novices swear subjection to the perverting Rules of some superstitious Founder One devoted to the Commands of his Superintendent went barefoot three Miles thrice in the same day to fetch Water to pour out on a dry stick Yet let the Spirit of Jesus attempt to bring us out of Love with Worldly Vanities and the customs of phantastick sinners how do we cry out of this Compassionate Discipline as of an intolerable severity What pinching Fetters are Christ's Righteous Laws to the tender delicate Lusts of sensual Worldlings Let such consider how dangerous it is not to comply with the Lord's weaning Methods For as an angry Nuise throws the froward weanling out of her Aims to the Beds feet so the Lord will in tossing toss such is a Ball into a large and far Country where the severity of an Enemy shall insult over them to break their proud Spirits Isa 22.15 to 20. 7. Though weaning be a work of difficulty yet it must be carried thorow because 't is a State very necessary and not indifferent Those Children who suck long are not so witty nor so vigorous and active but more dull comparatively and effeminate because they have been made such fondlings The Apostle possibly alludes to the inconveniences of remaining too long in the State of Babeship in Christianity Heb. 5.12 13 14. As if he had said so great is your Spiritual sloth and dulness in not understanding the Mysteries of the Gospel that you have need be set to learn the very Principles of the Christian Institution But the weaned Christian can discover the Mystery of Iniquity the grand cheats of Satan and the World His faculties and affections have a Divine Gust or experimental apprehension of what is suitable to the State of a New Creature Such can cry out Poyson in the Cup when a temptation to sin though never so sweetly spiced is amicably presented to them 2. You cannot unless you have a weaned Spirit be in the least capacity of closing with Christ by Faith Till we be estranged from Creature-Dependencies we will not stoop to Glean after Christ in the Field of his Righteousness nor lie at his Feet as Ruth at Boaz's by an humble Self-denyal Such need not fear that their Love to Christ shall be despised for he will do all that they shall require when he observes that they have quitted all Corrivals and are heart-sick in affection toward himself by the solid preference of his