Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	alive_a	dead_a	life_n	5,787	5	5.0987	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23770	A sermon preach'd before the King, Decemb. 31, 1665, at Christ-Church in Oxford by R. Allestree ...	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.	1666 (1666)	Wing A1166; ESTC R17323	16,852	42

indeed this Child riding as in Triumph in the midst of his Hosannas when he saw one City whose fall he was set for on this very accompt He was so far from being pleas'd with it that He wept over it in pity But alas that onely more declares the most deplor'd and desperate condition of such sinners Blessed Saviour Hadst thou no blood to shed for them nothing but tears or didst thou weep to think thy very bloodshed does but make their guilt more crimson who refuse the mercy of that bloodshed all the time that is offer'd Sad is their state that can find no pity in the tears of God and remediless their condition for whom all that the Son of God could do was to weep over them all that he did do for them was to be their fall Too sad a part indeed for Festival Solemnity very improper for a Benedictus and Magnificat To celebrate the greatest act of kindness the Almighty could design onely by the miseries it did occasion to magnifie the vast descent of God from Heaven down to Earth onely by reason of the fall of man into the lowest Hell of which that was the cause My Text hath better things in view the greatness of that fall does but add height to that Resurrection which He also is the cause of For Behold this Child is set for the rising again of many my remaining part Rising again does not particularly and only refer to the foregoing fall here in the Text which this Child did occasion as I shew'd you but to the state wherein all mankind both in its nature and its customs lay ingulf'd the state of ignorance and sin a state from which recovery is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resurrection and a reviving in this life and so call'd in Scripture often as Ephes. 5. 14. Wherefore he saith A wake thou that sleepest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and arise from the dead And Rom. 6. 13. Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead Now to raise us from the death of sin into the life of Righteousness by the amendment of our own lives to recover us into a state of virtue is the thing this Child is said here to be set for This was that which God thought worth an Incarnation neither was there any greater thing in the prospect of his everlasting Counsel when He did decree his Son into the world then that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is set for this The Word was made flesh to teach practise and perswade to Vertue To make men reform their lives was valued at the price of a person of the Trinity Piety and his exinanttion yea his blood and life were set at the same rates All of Him giv'n for our recovery The time would faile me if I should attempt only to name the various methods He makes use of to effect this How this Child that was the brightness of his Fathers glory came to lighten us shining in his Doctrine and Example how he sent more light The fiery Tongues Illuminations of the Holy Ghost to guide us in the ways of piety how he suffer'd Agonies and Death for sin to appale and fright us from it How He rose again to confirm Judgement to us to demonstrate the rewards of immortality to them that will repent and leave their sins and everlasting torments to those that refuse this Grace Grace purchased with the blood of God to enable them to repent and leave Besides all these The Arts and Mesnage of his Providence in preventing and following us by Mercies and by Judgments importuning us and timeing all his blessed Methods of Salvation to our most advantage Arts God knows too many if they serve us onely to resist and turn to wantonness and aggravation if we make no other use of Grace but this to sin against and overcome all Grace and make it bolster Vice by teaching it to be an incouragement to go on in it from some hopes we entertain by reason of this Child instead of doing that which he was set decreed to make us do And really I would be glad to see this everlasting Counsel of the Lord had had some good effects some though never so little happy execution of this great decree and that which God ordein'd from all Eternity upon such glorious and magnificent terms were come to pass in any kind Now certainly there are no evident signs of any great recovery this Child hath wrought among us in the world that 's now call'd Christian. After those omnipotent inforcives to a vertuous life which he did work out if we take a prospect of both worlds it would be hard to know which were the Heathen and there would appear scarce any other notice of a Christ among us but that we blaspheme Him or deride Him Sure I am there are no footsteps of Him in the lives of the community of men and I am certaine that you cannot shew me any Heathen age outgoing ours either in loosenesses and foul effeminacies or in sordidness and base injustice or in frauds and falseness or malignity hypocrisie or treachery or to name no more even in the lowest most ignoble disingenious sorts of Vice In fine men are now as Earthy Sensual yea and Devilish as when Sins and Devils were their Gods Yea I must needs say that those times of dark and Heathen ignorance were in many times of shining vertue and the little spark of light within them brake out through all obstructions into a glory of goodness to the wonder and confusion of most Christians 'T is true we are prity well reveng'd on them for setting us Examples so reproachful to us calling their Heroick actions splendida peccata only beauteous sins and well fac'd wickednesses and we have a reason for it because they never heard of Christ whose Name and Merit 't is most certain is the onely thing that can give value and acceptance to mens best performances while on the other side we Christians comfort and secure our selves in our transgressions from this Child and from his Name But if this Child were set to raise us up from sin and to establish stronger arguments for a good life then the Heathen ever heard of more especial Divine engagements to vertue then if their vertues were because they never heard of these engagements to them sins what censure will be past upon their actions that know all those engagements and despise them unless to defy knowledge and provoke against all Divine obligations all that God could lay shall prove more tollerable then to labour to obey without them without knowing why 'T is true they had not heard it may be of that Name then which there is no other Name under Heaven given unto men whereby they may be saved Yet they endeavour'd in some measure to do that which He that owns that Name and wrought the Covenant of those