Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	accusation_n	accuse_v	accuser_n	43	3	10.4977	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95515	Vnum necessarium. Or, The doctrine and practice of repentance. Describing the necessities and measures of a strict, a holy, and a Christian life. And rescued from popular errors. / By Jer. Taylor D.D.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Lombart, Pierre, 1612-1682, engraver.	1655 (1655)	Wing T415; Thomason E1554_1; ESTC R203751	477,444	750

invited by arts and ministred to by external instruments and arguments of invitation and just so are the penances they are then to be chosen so as may make the person a sorrowful mourner to make him take no delight in sin but to conceive and to feel a just displeasure For if men feel no smart no real sorrow or pain for their sins they will be too much in love with it impunity is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the occasion and opportunity of sin as the Apostle intimates and they use to proceed in finishing the methods of sin and death who Non unquam reputant quantum sibi gandia constant reckon their pleasures but never put any smart or danger or fears or sorrows into the ballance But the injunction or susception of penances is a good instrument of repentance because a little evil takes off the pleasure of the biggest sin in many instances and we are too apprehensive of the present that this also becomes a great advantage to this ministery we refuse great and infinite pleasures hereafter so we may enjoy little and few and inconsiderable ones at present and we fear not the horrible pains of hell so we may avoid a little trouble in our persons or our interest Therefore it is to be supposed that this way of undertaking a present punishment and smart for our sins unless every thing when it becomes religious is despoyl'd of all its powers which it had in nature and what is reason here is not reason there will be of great effect and power against sin and be an excellent instrument of repentance But it must be so much and it must be no more for penances are like fire and water good so long as they are made to serve our needs but when they go beyond that they are not to be endured For since God in the severest of his anger does not punish one sin with another let not us do worse to our selves then the greatest wrath of God in this world will inflict upon us A sin cannot be a punishment from God For then it would be that God should be the Author of sin for he is of punishment If then any punishment be a sin that sin was unavoidable deriv'd from God and indeed it would be a contradiction to the nature of things to say that the same thing can in the same formality be a punishment and a sin that is an action and a passion voluntary as every sin is and involuntary as every punishment is that it should be done by us and yet against us by us and by another and by both intirely and since punishment is the compensation or the expiation of sin not the aggravation of the Divine anger it were very strange if God by punishing us should more provoke himself Vide Chapt. 6. ● 42 and in stead of satisfying his justice or curing the man make his own anger infinite and the patient much the worse Indeed it may happen that one sin may cause or procure another not by the efficiency of God or any direct action of his but 1. withdrawing those assistances which would have restrain'd a sinful progression 2. By suffering him to fall into evil temptation which is too hard for him consisting in his present voluntary indisposition 3. By the nature of sin it self which may either 1 effect a sin by accident as a great anger may by the withdrawing Gods restraining grace be permitted to pass to an act of murder or 2 it may dispose to others of like nature as one degree of lust brings in another or 3 it may minister matter of fuel to another sin as intemperance to uncleanness or 4 on sin may be the end of another as covetousness may be the servant of luxury In all these ways one sin may be effected by another but in all these God is onely conniving or at most takes off some of those helps which the man hath forfeited and God was not obliged to continue Thus God hardned Pharaohs heart even by way of object and occasion God hardned him by shewing him a mercy by taking off his fears when he remov'd the judgement and God ministred to him some hope that it be so still But God does not inflict the sin The mans own impious hands do that not because he cannot help it but because he chooses and delights in it * Now if God in justice to us will not punish one sin directly by another let not us in our penitential inflictions commit a sin in indignation against our sin for that is just as if a man out of impatience of pain in his side should dash his head against a wall 3. But if God pleases to inflict a punishment let us be careful to exchange it into a penance by kissing the rod and entertaining the issues of the Divine justice by approbation of Gods proceeding and confession of our demerit and justification of God It was a pretty accident and mixture of providence and penance that hapned to the three accusers of Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem They accused him falsly of some horrid crimes but in verification of their indictment bound themselves by a curse The first that if his accusation were false he might be burn'd to death The second Euseb li. 6. c. 7. that he might die of the Kings evil The third that he might be blinde God in his anger found out the two first and their curse hapned to them that delighted in cursing and lies The first was burnt alive in his own house and the second perished by the loathsome disease Which when the third espied and found Gods anger so hasty and so heavy so pressing and so certain he ran out to meet the rod of God and repented of his sin so deeply and wept so bitterly so continually that he became blinde with weeping and the anger of God became an instance of repentance the judgement was sanctified and so passed into mercy and a pardon he did indeed meet with his curse but by the arts of repentance the curse became a blessing And so it may be to us Praeveniamus faciem ejus in confessione let us prevent his anger by sentencing our selves or if we do not let us follow the sad accents of the angry voice of God and imitate his justice by condemning that which God condemnes and suffering willingly what he imposes and turning his judgements into voluntary executions by applying the suffering to our sins and praying it may be sanctified For since God smites us that we may repent if we repent then we serve the end of the Divine judgement and when we perceive God smites our sin if we submit to it and are pleased that our sin is smitten we are enemies to it after the example of God and that is a good act of repentance 4. For the quality or kinde of penances this is the best measure Those are the best which serve most ends not those which most vex us but such which will