Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	affliction_n	sit_v	zion_n	16	3	10.0544	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86270	Repentance and conversion, the fabrick of salvation: or The saints joy in heaven, for the sinners sorrow upon Earth. Being the last sermons preached by that reverend and learned John Hewyt, D.D. Late minister of St. Gregories by St. Pauls. With other of his sermons preached there. Dedicated to all his pious auditors, especially those of the said parish. Also an advertisement concerning some sermons lately printed, and presented to be the doctors, but are disavowed by Geo. Wild. Jo. Barwick.	Hewit, John, 1614-1658.; Wilde, George, 1610-1665.; Barwick, John, 1612-1664.	1658 (1658)	Wing H1637; Thomason E1776_1; ESTC R209722	86,537	249

which their souls did breath but a miserable necessity under which they were bound and that divine will to which they must subscribe had determined on them their seventy years captivity till the time of their return Jerem. 25.12 and till then though they might with tears have prevented that captivity yet though they should now as Esau for his blessing beg deliverance carefully with tears they shall nevertheless till then weep for that misery which till they felt they would not believe That penitent sorrow which would prevent the decree of vengeance before it brings forth is oft too late to reverse it when it is put in execution Those daily tears which had they been shed at home might have expiated their offences and been in mercy accepted for their Countries ruine are now condemned to wash a prophane land where hopeless Exiles they are faster bound by the decree of Heaven then by all the power of their enemies Their lusts had led them willing captives under the Law of sin and their enemies led them into an unwilling captivity under the power of sinners and as they had a long time sinned without repentance so shall they be a long time punished without remission The gliding streams with happy freedom wash the several banks they passe by and at length repose themselves in the desired common bosom of waters but perpetuity gives perfection to these captives misery from day to day from morning to evening they sit down in sorrow and tyre their weary souls in a longing expectation of long delayed felicity The dayes of our age are but threescore years and ten and though some be so strong as to live fourscore years yet then is their strength naturally but labour and sorrow saith Moses so soon passeth it away and we are gone Psalm 90.10 yet lo seventy years threescore years and ten is the time for their captivity Sin hastens on and lengthens to us the miseries of our life When God sets our misdeeds before him and our secret sins in the sight of his countenance our dayes we pass in his anger and our years in troubles we consume away in displeasure and tremble at his wrathful indignation we are killed from day to day every dayes fear ushers in a new trouble and every dayes trouble brings forth a further fear wave after wave and billow after billow come tumbling to our shores whilest we by these waters of Babylon sit down and weep Again secondly if we refer their posture to their affection we sate down and wept those postures of the body are to be used most which suit best with the occasion and move or at least express the inward affection Isaac walked and meditated old Jacob leaned upon his staffe and worshipped Abraham bowed his face to the ground and did reverence Solomon stood and prayed Daniel kneeled upon his knees to deprecate the captivity of his people which here the people did bewail but sitting Standing suits not with a dejected condition kneeling not with a simple bewailing of our condition to our selves but to God Job indeed in his affliction arose and fell down but because he worshipped Nehemiah when he heard of the afflictions of Jerusalem sate down and wept Hagar when in the bitterness of her soul she bewailed the death of her son sate down Gen. 21.16 and the Jewes when in the like sorrow of heart for the Temple their own captivity and the distresses of Zion as if they would dwell and feed upon sorrow sate down we sate down and wept Long afflictions require alike length of sorrow to repentance They are grievous sins that have provoked the God of mercy to lengthen the smart of his judgments gravia peccata gravia desiderant lamenta saith Isidore grievous sins require the greatness of our sorrow both for intention and duration But to be plagued for sin and yet to be senceless of the judgement is the worst of judgments No greater Symptome of death then when the sick man grows senceless and knows not that he is sick at all And I would to God such a Crisis could not be made of us else why such weariness and neglect of our humiliation whilest the judgment is continued Nay as if our sores were the more festered for their lancing why such exemplary prophaness as former ages have been piously ignorant of and future I hope will detest to imitate Why such notorious sins such noon-day evils to which each mans eye and ear bears witness perhaps some with tingling others with tears Why such debauchedness of life which when it hath unsouled the man buries the beast in excess and riot Why such execrable oaths and blasphemies which pass so frequently through those common shores the fatal ports of our mouths which are seldom open but to transport such carrion and filth Why those unworthy actions of luxury that mark of reprobation as one which engulphs the soul in such base pleasures and makes it like the worst of Devils that are more gross as the Caldean and Egyptian that which hath gluttony for the fuel pride for the flame unclean words for the sparkles infamy for smoak ordure for ashes a hell for Centre O deceive not your selves all our longing expectation of the removal of these judgments will be unsatisfied till we heartily sorrow and earnestly repent of those our misdoings whereby we have provoked Gods wrath and indignation against us there is no hope of our returning to the fair hill of Zion the beauty of holiness and the beauty of order till in sorrow for our transgressions that have made a separation betwixt God and us by these waters of Babylon we sit down and weep And so I have done with the third thing and come to The fourth thing their affection in that posture We sate down and wept As all rivers so those of Babylon run into the sea and as others so they receive addition of waters as they run The heads of the drooping captives were as waters and their eies as fountains of tears that streamed into the rivers current as they sate down by them and wept their whole composition was but like engendred clouds exhaled vapours drawn up by the heat of Gods anger and now distil and melt themselves into continual showers of tears So as if Babylons rivers as once Hagars bottle should chance to fail as she set her dying child so have they their expiring mother before their eyes which will force a new supply to fill them up again And should I say the waters tides were caused by the ebbes and flouds of the captives tears it would be but an Hyperbole that would expresse the victors cruelty and the captives griefs Nay their grief knows no ebb their Moon and so their sorrow calls for a Change at last is at her Full of sorrow each pensive enslaved Jew payes to the waters of Babylon their tears for tribute to the memory of Zion And as if what they shed for her sake they would commit to

seek them in this perverse age where there are many that are more ready to sell their Country their Brethren and Parents for a little silver then to forsake them for the glory of God Where this rage of getting goods this infernal fury of avarice so possesses the greatest part of men that are so far from quitting their riches to follow Christ that contrarily they do not stick to truck with Jesus Christ for riches and do willingly leave the certain hope of the glory of heaven for the uncertain promise of some honour or some command in the world though but for three dayes and where at last in stead of the joy which the children of God resent in their tribulations and the actions of thanks which they render to God in the midst of his corrections we see painted upon the faces of the most modest a consternation and a sadness which witnesses that we regard his fatherly rods with a wicked eye and that these light afflictions do send us to deaths door notwithstanding the Weight of Justice which they carry nor the glory that followes them can any waies awaken nor cheer up our hearts And what is this but that faith goes by little and little failing and falling to the ground that we have no more but an appearance of piety and a shew of godliness but have renounced the force of it we believe not in the promises of God and Atheisme is but too far insinuated into the greatest part of souls that are slaves to the perishable Mammon that love your pleasures more then God unworthy to have an immortal spirit that set your affections upon things that have not so much honour as to be mortal Of all that which you sow to the flesh what do you reap but corruption What can you hope for after the contempt of the heavenly gift whereof you have tasted Of this power of the world to come which you have known of this spirit of grace which you have grieved of this blood of the Covenant which you tread under foot but an horrible expectation of the judgement of God a fervour of fire consuming his adversaries and a vengeance as much redoubled as the knowledge which you have had renders you more wicked and inexcusable You then faithful souls to whom God hath given better inspirations at this noyse and report of the faith of your fore-fathers awaken earnestly this drowziness of your own turn away your hearts from the vanity of this flower of the world that passeth see that your life is but a wind and that death shall shortly pull to ground and reduce to nothing this terrestrial and miserable masse And therefore seek while you are here below the spiritual goods of your souls that may follow you toward the Heavens And forasmuch as the light of the Gospel discovers move clearly to you then the Fathers could see under the shadows of the Law Love them therefore more ardently pursue them more constantly And since we are regenerate into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead to obtain the incorruptible inheritance which cannot be contaminate nor withered but is reserved in the Hea●en for us Let us make lighter of the World and of her goods of these bodies and of these delights and esteem it a great gain to have lost them that we may gain Jesus Christ And that being found in him having not our own justice which is of the Law but his which is by faith we may also in him and by him obtain this good which eye hath not seen nor ear hath heard nor hath entred into the heart of man and which God hath prepared for those that love him 1 Cor. 2.9 To which God the Father the Son and Holy Ghost be honour and glory from henceforth and for evermore Amen ZION in Sack-cloath AND HER SAINTS in Tears In the 137 Psalm the first verse it is thus written By the waters of Babylon we sate down and wept when we remembred thee O Zion A Sad Text in a sadder time SERM. VII in which the rivers of Babylon swelled not so high with inundation of water in the letter as the waters in the Metaphor out-swelling and breaking down their banks have overflown both our Church and State The waies of Zion mourn and her children are set to a task of weeping whilest they behold the ruine of their Mother by the Caledonean Boars on th' one side and the mixt but wilder Herd then those of Africa the Foxes busily undermining the vineyard whilest the fowls of the air th' Atheists as did the fowls on Abrahams divided sacrifice seize on the divided Church she in the mean while doubtful to which as most powerful though alike pernicious she should yield up her life Religion for a prey And who is there now if not a stranger in Israel whose fears have not taught his eyes acquaintance with his heart to pour out water before the Lord with them at Mizpeth 1 Sam. 7.6 or whose heart hath not borrowed from his eye compassion with Jeremy Mine eye affecteth my heart because of the slain of the daughter of my people Lam. 3.5 and if so how shall not our better devotion hallow so pious an expence by sending them both up in an humble importunity of prayer to work an atonement with Heaven that we may recover the departed glory of Israel and the Ark of the Lord now captiv'd by the Philistins may be brought back to us though but upon the necks of the scarce yoked beasts Happy are those tears that are made the rich tribute of the Churches ransom happy those passionate groans that hasten to prevent a Jeremies reiterated lamentation a Jerusalems once total final expiring happy those childrens prevailing prayers that make their mother a debtor for that life she gave their offerers who as they live at her breasts so how shall they not expire in her blood if either tainted by corruption or let out by cruelty It is 't is true our unfortunate and deplorable condition to see these sad times of distraction and persecution which as they are for the tryal of our patience who are called to suffering and for the exercise of their wisdom to be honoured with publick counsel so they are for the actuating of all our devotions whose hearts would faint did not our eyes wait and our hands knock for a speedy composure and expected deliverance from the gates of Heaven And those that feel not great strivings of heart for the division of Ruben those whose bowels are restrained whose souls bleed not within themselves by compassion do with the actor of a mischief contract a guilt and by their own neutrality appropriate to themselves a curse Curse ye Merosh yea curse yea bitterly because they came not forth to help the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty Judges 5.13 a Text however sacrilegiously inverted by irreligious religious interpreters yet God does expect our help and we help