Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A59607
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The true Christians test, or, A discovery of the love and lovers of the world by Samuel Shaw ...
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Shaw, Samuel, 1635-1696.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing S3045; ESTC R39531
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240,664
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418
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place in the Creation shall I assign to that man that loves the lowest things for by loving he makes himself lower than they and it will puzzle all Philosophy to tell where to place that man that is lower than the lowest Shake off these shameful Fetters O my Soul burst this Yoke thou art call'd to liberty renounce this Ahominable servitude and reckon that if for an Hand-Maid to be Heir to her Mistress is a matter of Pride for a Mistress to eâ—slave her self to her Hand-Maid is matter of shame and reproach The gracious Creator hath plac'd thee in a noble degree and rank of the Creatures the lines are fallen to thee in a good place do not wilfully degrade thy self by forsaking thy station and thrusting thy self down below the lowest to thy eternal disparagement and amazement Lest whilst thou stand'st in a mixture of disdain and pity beholding the mighty Nebuchadnezzar herding himself with the Oxen thou plunge thy self into a more dishonourable condition then this and suffer thy self to be ridden by thy own Beast MEDITAT XXXVIII From the Consideration of the Nature of the Love of the World Idolatrous and Adulterous HAving briefly considered what the World is and what Love is I will now put them together and a little consider what Worldly Love is And indeed I cannot think of any thing abominable but I find it to be that Methinks I hear the Pathetical words of the blessed one fouâ—â—â—â—g in my ears Oh do not that abominable thing that I hate Jer. 44. 4. It seems that all sin is abominable and hated of Gods Soul But if one thing may be said to be more abominable than another I doubt not but Predominant Worldly Love is the most abominable of all things as having in it the nature of all those things which are of all sober Judges accounted most abominable I will confine my self to five or six of the worst that I can think of And here I will begin this black Roll with Idolatry This is confest by all Christians to be an abominable thing insomuch that that very part of the Christian World which we most suspect of it are as studious to excuse it as they are bold to commit it And there is a great deal of reason why all men professing the knowledge of the true God should abominate Idolatry when they hear him in his Word so passionately charging the World against it so terribly threatning the Commission of it and read what lamentable Devastations he made amongst the Jews because of it which the Prophet excuses by a strange expression The Lord could no longer bear because of their Idolatry Jer. 44. 22. But as abominable as it is the Love of the World is in it What the Apostle says of one Branch of it by the same Argument that Covetousness is Idolatry Pride and Sensuality are no better The highest Act of Worship is Love consequently he that loves the praise of Men more than the praise of God that is a lover of Pleasures more than of God is a down right Idolater Gold and Silver need not to be made into Images to be objects of admiration He that loves and delights and trusts in them chiefly has given the Worship peculiar to God to them and made them his God already Idols may be and commonly are set up as properly in the Heart as in Houses Ezek. 14. 3. and Idolatry as well committed by the inclinations of the Will as by the bending of the Knee There cannot be more palpable Idolatry in the world than making that a God to ones self which is none Is not the Sensualist an Idolater in the most proper speech whose Belly is his God as the Apostle phraseth it By the like propriety of speech one may say of the proud Gallant that he makes his Back his God nay an Horse an Hawk or an Hound may be as truly an Idol to a Christian as a Calf is to an Egyptian A second abominable thing that I think of is Adulâ—â—ry Whatever favourable Opinion this Wicked and Wanton Age has entertain'd of this Vice I 'm sure the Holy God accounts it abominable and ordained in his Common-wealth of the Jews that the Adulterors should be stoned to Death Such is the Opinion that God has of Adultery that he most usually by his Prophets compares that incomparable sin of Idolatry to it and calls it going a Whoring after other Gods It must needs be a foul pattern by which that Monster of Idolatry is drawn And is not the love of the World Adultery Is not the heart of Man as much dedicate and due to God as any Mans Wife is peculiar to him Do Men justly complain of great wrong done to them and may not God as justly complain of the alienation of Hearts May not God reasonably be offended that such a vile thing as Mundanes should be his Rival and defile the Heart of Man which he esteems his greatest Jewel It 's plain by the judgement of the great Searcher of Hearts that she that lusts after another Man more than her own Husband is a Whore and has already committed Adultery with him in her Heart It must needs be that the Soul that lusts after and cleaves to any Object more than to God to whom Souls are most nearly related and to whom they are most firmly bound is abominably Unchast and Adulterous in her loves Souls have no way of playing the Whore but by mis-loving and by how much the meaner the Object of their love is so much the groffer and more shameful their Adultery So that the Soul Prostituting it self to the World is not only Adulterous but indeed Sodomitical in this Conjuction For t is all one with lying down before a Beast which is forbidden by the law abhorr'd of Nature and damned by the gentile Theology under the Fable of Pasiphae and her Bull and their Monstrous off spring the Minotaur Vencr is Monument a nefandae MEDITAT XXXIX Of the Blasphemy and Sacriledge of Worldly Love A Third abominable thing that I think of is Blasphemy To speak evil of God injuriously reproachfully of the Deity may justly be accounted horrible amongst the Servants of the true God when it was judged abominable even by the Heathens whose Gods themselves were abominable Paul's Companions had like to have been pull'd in pieces by the Zealous Ephesians for disparaging Diana and the onely way that the Town Clark could take to appease the multitude was to tell them whatsoever people said of her Diana was a very brave Goddess and to deny that Paul's Companions were Blasphemers of her for he knew well enough that if such a horrible thing as Blasphemy were prov'd against them the people would not have stay'd for any Judicial Sentence to be past upon them Now there is a Blasphemy of the Heart as well as of the Tangue So the Fool Blasphemes who says in his heart there is no God and so do all they that either â—scribe to God
James He is described by the Apostle Paul as one double and unsincere by the Apostle James as one impure envious contentious harsh implacable merciless unfruitful partial and hypocritical It is evident by the light of Scripture that all these things viz. Impurity Envy Contentiousness c. are works of the Flesh Earthly Devilish and certain symptoms of the spirit of the World and of a Lover of the World in whom the Love of the Father is not It is pity to let all these pass with a general Animadversion onely they are proper Subjects of a distinct Meditation But in the mean time what matter of sorrow and astonishment does this general Observation administer Good God If these Sins of the Spirit be certain Symptoms of a Worldly Mind and Companions of the Worldly Wisdom How does the whole World lie in Wickedness How far has the Serpentine Poyson diffusâ—d it self Alas Who has not some of the Spawn of it in him I see Man did not in vain eat of the Tree of Knowledge of the Tree to be desired to make one wise For he is thereby grown very wise to do evil and the Children of this World are more skill'd in their impure Wisdom than the Children of Light in the pure MEDITAT LXXXIV Of Impure Wisdom THE Wisdom which is from above is pure says the Apostle James From whence it follows by the opposition That the worldly Wisdom is impure I take Pure to be a general description of the heavenly Wisdom and all the species following do partake of it so the worldly Wisdom is in general impure All Sin indeed is Impurity the properest description of it Therefore the Devil himself is in the Gospel describ'd by this especially The Vnclean Spirit So that I will not make Impurity in the Abstract a distinct Head of Meditation but will a little insist upon impure Wisdom in the Concrete without interfering with any of the Particulars that follow in the Text. Impure Wisdom is a Symptom of a Worldly Mind Now as the pure Wisdom is as the Apostle phraseth it to be wise unto that which is good Rom. 16. 19. So the impure Wisdom is to be wise to do evil as the Prophet phraseth it Jer. 4. 22. Of this there are several kinds besides what the Apostle reckons up in the following words They are impurely wife who make use of their cunning or subtilty to undermine or over-reach others in Transactions contrary to Plainness and Simplicity That take advantage of others Ignorance or Weakness in matter of Consultation Bargain Law or the like to hurt them That also is impure Wisdom which serves Oppression and Violence Thus wise were Pharaoh and his Egyptian Counsellors They took a wise course but what was it for To oppress and murder Exod. 1. 10. Come let us deal wisely c. Was it not a cunning way of killing to make the Midwives the Lucinae to be the Instruments of ushering the Children into the shades of death to escape the guilt of drowning them by only bidding them to drown one another That also is impure Wisdom that serves the Lust of Fornication and Adultery I have read of many witty devices for the satisfaction of Lust the Poets furnish us with abundance of them even amongst their very Gods And I think the Moral of all those Transformations of himself that Jupiter made is nothing else but to describe this amarous Impurity this impure Wisdom That of the golden shower especially is acted over every day whereby many handsome Bodies are debauched and pretty People corrupted What female constitution so hard and dry as not to be softned by a shower of gold especially if it come from above But the Scripture instance is most authentick of subtile Jonadab who taught his Friend Amnon a way how he might satisfie his Lust upon his Sister Tamar 2 Sam. 13. That also is impure wisdom that serves Ambition How wonderful witty some men are to contrive their own advancement How Courtly and Complimental is Absalom He condescends to kiss the ordinary sort of people to gain them Oh how humble is the proud Absalâ—â— Would any one have thought that his kissing their faces was only in order to their kissing his hand Yea the good man is troubled to see all Israel to be as Sheep with a Shepherd he pities them that ail'd nothing he asperses the Government though it was the Government of his Father and promises fairly if he were made Judge in the Land That also is impure wisdom that makes Laws for Snares in what kind of Society soever it be it matters not God gives no Laws but what are for our good and if men make Laws which they matter not much whether they be broken or kept so they may but have an occasion to exact the Penalty it is far from the Nature of God and the Method of Him that governs the World This is to debauch Justice and make her a Bawd to Covetousness or Revenge This was the wicked wisdom of Daniel's Enemies and of the Heaâ—hens persecuting the Christians Near of Kin to this is that wisdom that lays Baits and offers Temptations to men to cause them to offend and then punishes them for offending The Egyptians first opprest the Israelites and made them mad and then punish'd th◠〈◊〉 for Complaining and Mutiny It is good to have faithful Servants but to lay Baits for them and tempt them to unfaithfulness seems to be the method of impure wisdom Whatever may be said in commendation of Jehu's zeal in destroying the Baaâ—â—tes his wisdom in inviting them to a Sacrifice and engaging them in Idolatry first looks like a Serpentine device It is the wisdom of the Devil to make men to sin and then torment their Consciences even to despair because they have sinned There are several other kinds of impure wisdom but possibly they may fall under some of the Particulars that follow in the Text I will therefore next meditate of those Particulars MEDITAT LXXXV Of Envy and Envious Wisdom THE Earthly Fleshly and Devilish Wisdom is described more particularly by the bitter Envying with which it is attended or which it does attend upon Envy springs from Poverty And although it be found in great and rich men yet it is when they fansie themselves poor and herein indeed they are inferior to them whom they envy The more pure and perfect any Being is the more free from Envy The All-sufficient God envies no good to his Creature However these words are to be understood Now lest he put forth his hand and take of the Tree of Life c. It is plain and certain that God desires that all men should be saved and come unto the knowledge of the Truth He was so far from envying the station of man that he hedg'd him in with a severe Threatning and so far from envying his Recovery that he sent his Son to make a painful Inquiry a diligent Search for him to seek and to save that