Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	age_n	die_v	year_n	6,258	5	4.9578	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A14095	A discovery of D. Iacksons vanitie. Or A perspective glasse, wherby the admirers of D. Iacksons profound discourses, may see the vanitie and weaknesse of them, in sundry passages, and especially so farre as they tende to the undermining of the doctrine hitherto received. Written by William Twisse, Doctor of Divinitie, as they say, from whom the copie came to the presse	Twisse, William, 1578?-1646.	1631 (1631)	STC 24402; ESTC S118777	563,516	728

will yee die yee house of Israel And the whole proceedeth by way of answer to their murmuring against the providence of God in saying The fathers have eaten sower grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge and hereupon God proceedeth to justifie the course of his providence unto their face Now when God doth not take men upon the hippe as soone as they have sinned against him but spares them and not onely gives them space of repentance but useth meanes to bring them unto repentance by sending Prophets unto them to admonish them to admonish them of their sinnes and to denounce the judgements of God against them is not this a manifest evidence that God is not delighted in their death but rather in their repentance although he still reserves libertie to himselfe to bestow the gift of repentance on whom he will And therefore all this is only in respect of his church not in respect of those who are strangers from the common wealth of Israel and aliens from the covenants of promise then concerning those within the church All are not Israel that are of Israel Rom. 9. And though the meanes of grace have their course withall yet God intends to make them effectuall onely with his elect according to that As many as were ordeined to eternall life believed and whom he hath predestinated them hath he called and justified and glorified For as Austine saith Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisi Deus dederit quis aget poenitentiam And speaking of the Non pradestinatis Istorum neminem saith hee adducit Deus ad salubrem spiritatemque poenitentiam qua homo reconciliatur Deo in Christo sive illis ampliorem patientiam sive non imparem praebeat Therefore we say that as concerning the elect though they sinne yet God willeth not their death but willeth their repentance and their salvation But as touching others who are mixt amongst them as tares amongst the wheat and are partakers of the same meanes of grace and invitations unto repentance in as much as he spares them and giveth them not onely time to repent but admonisheth them of their sinnes and affords them the outward meanes of repentance it is sufficient to justifie that God doth not willingly bring judgement upon them neither for their sinnes because hee comes not hastily thereunto but upon wilfull despising of the means of grace used to reclaime them like as before I shewed in what sense God is said not to afflict the sonnes of men willingly And as for this present place your selfe elsewhere hath interpreted it thus I will not the death of an impenitent sinner but that God wills undoubtedly the death of an impenitent sinner To quash this construction in this place you say this oath of God proceeds as concerning those who all their life long have hated him Here I am perswaded wee shall finde no little inconsideratenesse To hate God all a mans life time what is it but to hate him from the first hower of comming to the use of reason unto the last even unto the moment of death now I pray consider Will not God the death of such a one as dieth in impenitencie The text I confesse runnes thus I will not the death of him that dieth But doe you thinke indeed the meaning is that as for such a man as now dieth and hath lived all his life time in the hatred of God God will not the death of such a one Like enough you are content your Reader should entertaine such a conceite But I cannot bee perswaded you take this to be the meaning The text is manifestly against it for it followeth But rather that he returne and live so that it is spoken of a man living and such as is capable of repentance And wee know the whole Chapter is to justifie Gods providence in afflicting men with his judgements so that to die in this place is to be under the afflicting hand of God and so in the way to death and to destruction Our living is reputed a continuall dying for as much as nature consumeth and wasteth as the Poet wittily expresseth it Childehood ends in youth And youth in old age dies I thought I lived in truth But now I die I die I see Each age of death is one degree Whereupon he concludes his resolution to correct his former phrase of speech saying Farewell the doating score Of worlds Arithmaticke Life I le trust thee no more But henceforth for thy sake I le go by deaths new Almanaeke For while I sing A thousand men lie sick a thousand bells doring And would you know what is the difference between me and them They are but dead and I dying So that I guesse your meaning according to the articles of your owne creed is but this That Gods love is such to them that all their life past not simply all their life but all their life past have hated him that He will not their death but rather that they returne and live And I grant that this is true of many in most proper speech namely of all the elect of God though it bee long ere God calleth and converteth some of them Of others also that live in the Church I have shewed how it may have course in the same sense that God is said not so much willingly to afflict them for their sinnes as for refusing to repent and turne unto God after they have sinned When you tell us of infinite places more of sacred texts and those most perspicuous in themselves and also that The whole ancient Church with some small exception which yet may bee counterpoised is ready to give joynt verdict for you it savoureth hotly of Smithfield eloquence Pessima quò vendas opus est mangone perito Qui Smithfieldensi polleat eloquio Yet it was an old observation Multa fidem promissa levant cum plenius aequo Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces If you had some about you to justfie you in cleanly manner by some prety qualification it had beene absolute As the Gentleman who professed that he had certaine ponds wherein Carpes were taken as big as that Somer-pole which hee then rode by and withall askt his man that rode with him whether it were not so Sir quoth his man though they were so big yet I am sure they were nothing like so long and indeed the dimension of length is more suitable to the proportion of an Eele then of a Carpe As Cicero answered him that told a strange tale concerning the length of certaine Eeles which he had seene for Tully handsomely to convince him of his vanity made shew of going beyond him in his owne element of tossing and forthwith replied saying That is nothing strange for I know a place where Eeles are taken of such a length that they use to make their Angling-rods of them And this assertion of yours may come as heere to the trueth as an Eele is to an Angling rod. CHAP. XV.

still I perceive your meaning reacheth further then you dare as yet to professe for your meaning is to prove that All that heare the Gospell and doe not believe it seeing they shall bee guilty of greater sinne and incurre greater condemnation at the day of judgement therefore they could believe it if they would This is the point that sticks in your teeth and which you dare not openly and plainely professe as indeed it is manifest Pelagianisme and which the Arminians dare not at this day openly avouch but rather professe that no man can believe or repent without grace Whereas yet like as your selfe maintaine that no man in state of nature can doe otherwise of himselfe then sinne yet is he justly condemned for sinning none compelling him in like sort no man of himselfe can believe the Gospell yet hee may be as justly condemned for not believing For as for that naturall impotency unto that which is good which is in all derived unto us from our father Adam that is of it selfe sufficient to condemne us and therefore most unsufficient to excuse us And that impotencie being in all alike the condemnation therefore shall be unto all alike but the increase of it by actuall transgressions which are freely committed is not in all alike for neither doth inclination naturall or tentations spirituall or occasions temporall hinder a mans libertie in doing or refusing to doe any act so likewise neither can it hinder the aggravation of his sinne But neither can this naturall impotency bee cured in any part but by the grace of God habituall neither any good act according to this grace habituall he performed without another grace both prevenient and subsequent actuall If your minde serves you to deale plainly in opposing ought of this you shall not want them that will bee ready to enter with you into the lists and scholastically to encounter you Yet I confesse the providence of God especially in ordering and governing the wills of men is a misterious thing and the operation and cooperation of his will with the operation and cooperation of the will of man But I am a long time inured unto this and now I feare no bugbeares least of all from your selfe with whom I have beene of old acquainted in our private and familiar discourse on these and such like arguments and to tell you plainely my opinion I doubt you have written so much that you have had time to read but litle And truly as for my selfe as I have written little so also I have not read much But in these points I have spent not a little time in searching after truth and examining arguments As for the place of the Apostle Act. 17. 30. it seemes your meaning is it pleads for universall grace now after Christs death yet your selfe immediately before profested that onely they that heare it and doe not believe are guilty of greater sinnes implying manifestly that since Christs death all doe not heare it Yet if you have any other meaning and will deale roundly in propounding it I will be ready to consider this or any other place that you shall bee able to produce to what purpose soever if orthodox in my judgement to subscribe unto it if otherwise to doe my best to confute it 3 In the next place you are so farre from maintaining universall grace that you undertake to give causes why all men in the world have not heard of this love of God in Christ. But these causes to be assigned by you are put off till hereafter and that not of certainty neither you onely say They may bee assigned T is your usuall course to feed your Readers with expectation as it were with empty spoones If you doe not gull them in putting them off to expectation t is somewhat the better The reason you give why many might have heard of Christ which yet have not heard of him and might have beene partakers of his death I thinke you meane of the benefit of his death which yet have not beene partakers of it is starke naught For that evill courses of men cannot hinder them from the participation of Christs death appeareth by the calling of the Gentiles and casting off of the Iewes For were the deeds of Babylon thinke you better then they of Sion Wee Jewes by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles saith the Apostle Gal. 2. 15. The Apostle in divers places puts no difference betweene them that are called and them that are not as touching their manners before grace 1 Cor. 6. 11. Eph. 2. 23. Tit. 3. 23. God sindes us weltring in our bloud when he saith unto us Live Ezech. 16. and Saul was taken off from his bloudy courses to be made a member of Christ. And your doctrine to the contrary tends shamefully to the obscuring and disparaging of Gods grace and to the advancing of the power of nature and liberty of will the trick of the Pelagians of old of whom Austine professed thus Inimici gratiae Dei latent in commendatione naturae The enemies of Gods grace welter themselves under the commendation of nature And Austine professeth it to be impiety and madnesse to deny that God can convert any mans will when hee will and where hee will And you blush not to professe in another discourse of yours that humility is the disposition which prepares us for grace I doubt you will finde little comfort in such humility and that at the day of judgement such humility will be found abominable pride What you meane by pledges I know not you love to walk in cloudes and in the darke if you mean the fruits of Gods temporall blessings how will you prove that these were evidences of that love which God man fested in the death of his Sonne And if it were so then this evidence should be manifested to all of ripe yeares for all are partakers of Gods temporall providence even they that have filled up the measure of their iniquity Yet then you usually professe God withdrawes his love from them but how can that bee if hee afford them the unquestionable earnests thereof as before you called these pledges whereas in the close you say that many are not acquainted with this manifestation of Gods love and that out of meere mercy it may well passe for one of your paradoxes I never doubted but that it was a mercy to know Christ and the love of God to the world in him but that it was a mercy to want Christ I never read nor heard till now Neither is it necessary that men though reprobates should be enraged to evill by the Gospell for God can make even reprobates to profit by it ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quà mitius puniantur To the outward emendation of their lives to the end their punishment may be the milder And we finde by experience that all were not enraged against it CHAP. XVIII Want of consideration or ignorance of Gods unfained love to such as perish a

willingly enter upon so flat a contradictiō to such a discourse of Kinge Iames in the dayes of Kinge Charles and that so soone after his death If you write only concerning men of ripe yeares you must have a care to limit your propositions accordingly and not to give them longer wings then is fitt In the next place you touch upon a distinction much talked of and as much advanced by some as cryed downe by others Yet both Scotus and Durandus give a tolerable and Aquinas with the Dominicans after him an orthodoxe interpretation therof though neyther suitable to the minde of Damascen commonly reputed the Father of it Yet looke what in this kind is wanting in them is supplyed by Arminiensis who gives both an orthodoxe construction thereof and that also in conformity to the opinion of Damascene of whose text he gives a very sound and orthodoxe interpretation and the more orthodoxe the more opposite to theire constructions who with greate cry of words draw it to the countenancing of theire Arminian Tenets without cause Love you say is the fruite of Gods antecedent will wrath and severity are the proper effects of his consequent will Fruite and effect you make all one as with good reason you may Now what I pray you is this effect which you call love You seeme to intimate that they are the effects of creation as when you say Every particular faculty of soule or body is a pledge undoubted of Gods love Yet faculties of soules and bodyes are found in beasts but Gods antecedent will in Damascene is referred wholly unto men Neyther doth Damascene at all referre it to the worke of creation but makes it to be that wherby God will have all to be saved Liberty of will is proper to man in distinction from beasts but who seeth not that this indifferently makes him obnoxius unto damnation as well as capable of salvation Then when you say wrath and severity is the effect of Gods consequent will what doe you meane by wrath Is it eyther a resolution to take vengeance or the execution of vengeance it selfe I think you take it for the execution of vengeance it selfe Now there is an execution of reward also properly opposite unto this which whether it be the same love you speake of it became you to expresse so much or whether you conceave it to be different yet it were fit you should take notice of it and acknowledge that this is a fruite of Gods consequent will as well as wrath that as effectually presupposing obedience as this disobedience and that love in rewarding is every way as infallibly consequent to the obeying of Gods will revealed as wrath is of our neglecting and despising it A full explication of this distinction you promise in good time how well you performe it we may in good time consider with Gods helpe Next you enter upon another forme of the same distinction as you pretend and you suffer it to fly with one winge For you talke of Gods absolute will which you seeme to confound with Gods antecedent will but as touching the member congruously opposite you leave us to seeke for that But as it is we are to consider it Gods absolute will was you say to have men capable of Heaven and Hell of joyes and miseryes immortall This cannot be understoode of Gods consequent will for this absolute will is indifferent to end in the bestowing of reward or punishment and is immediately terminated only in making man capable of eyther but his consequent will is not so indifferent For the only effect thereof you mention to be wrath and severity and this presupposeth rather then causeth capablenesse Neyther can this absolute will be the antecedent will of God according to Damascens meaning For the antecedent will in Damascene is only referred to the will of God wherby he wills mans salvation but this absolute will is you say to have men capable of Heaven and Hell To helpe this you tell us That this absolute will whose possible objects are two is in the first place set on mans eternall joy But you doe not proceede to shew on what it is set in the next place as if by such like incongrueties you desired rather to confounde your reader then to satisfie him Yet by the tenour of your discourse you leave it to us to guesse that in the second place to witt upon the dispising of Gods love it is set upon a mans damnation So that by this your doctrine both Gods antecedent will and consequent will is all one and that is Gods absolute will But no such thinge is founde in Damascene from whome such as you are doe usually take this distinction of will antecedent in God and will consequent And indeed you doe well to make one as absolute as another for like as wrath the fruite of this will of God in the second place as you imply hath not its course but upō presuppositiō of disobedience so in like manner the proper opposite to wrath on the other side the fruite of this will of God in the first place hath not its course but upon presupposition of obedience And that you may know what this fruite I speake of is I say as wrath is taken for the execution of vengeance so the proper opposite herunto must be love as it is taken for the execution of reward And let any man judge whether this doth not every way presuppose obedience as well as the other presupposeth disobedience And thus shall God as truly be sayed absolutely to wish a mans damnation as his salvation and no more conditionally will the one then the other And like as if God be absolutely sayd to will a mans salvation it shall not herhence follow he shall so will it as to contradict himselfe by frustrating the contrary possibilitie which unto man he had appointed so though God be sayd absolutely to will a mans damnation yet it will not follow that God doth so will it as to contradict himselfe by frustrating the contrary possibility which unto man he had appointed Only it is absurd to call this possibility a contrary possibility It is I confesse a possibility to the contrary but not a contrary possibility Like as liberty unto good and liberty unto evill are liberties unto things contrary in the way of manners but yet they are no contrary liberties so the possibilities of obtaining salvation or damnation which are consequent upon the use of this liberty though they are possibilities to contrary things yet are they not contrary possibilities And as Gods anger signifying the execution of vengeance doth never rise up but upon the dispising of his love alluringe unto good so Gods love signifying the execution of reward doth never rise up but upon the embracing of his love alluring unto good But if you take Gods wrath for his will to punish I say that looke by what reason Gods wrath as it signifies his will to punish doth not arise in God