Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	apostle_n	bring_v	sin_n	4,680	5	5.1414	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90298	Immoderate mourning for the dead, prov'd unreasonable and unchristian. Or, Some considerations of general use to allay our sorrow for deceased friends and relations but more especially intended for comfort to parents upon the death of their children. By John Owen, chaplain to the right honourable Henry Lord Grey of Ruthen.	Owen, John, chaplain to Lord Grey of Ruthin.	1680 (1680)	Wing O825aA; ESTC R231417	48,707	156

the dead give hearty thanks to God that it hath pleased him to deliver our Dear Friends and Relations out of the miseries of this sinful World which may furnish us with another consideration that might possibly incur into Davids mind and help to suspend and allay his sorrowing for his dead Child and that is this That it was remov'd far above the power of sin and temptation We at present as the Apostle Paul complains carry about us a Body of sin and death We are subject to manifold sins and temptations and have brought with us into the World those corruptions which in time will ripen into and sally forth in great actual transgressions Job makes a kind of wonder at it that any man should think he can be perfectly pure and innocent in this body of flesh For what is man that he should be clean or he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous Job 15. 14. and so David tells us Psal 51. 5. That sin is the Inheritance of our Parents that we are infected with it in the Womb and that we are born with propensions to evil Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my Mother conceive me So that the seeds of disobedience are lodged in our nature and the ground-work of sin is laid deep within us and there is nothing wanting but time and opportunity to make it bring forth in abundance So that when our Children die very young and go early to their Graves we may comfort our selves with this consideration that we lose them in good time and before they have added any actual to original sin and that if they had liv'd much longer they would have contracted a new and further guilt and perhaps have advanc'd in sin as they did in Years for 't is certain that the strength of nature gives strength to our sins too and 't is only Age that qualifies and fits us for great and notorious wickedness So that that sin which was only in Embryo in our infancy comes within a few years to a perfect shape and our propensions to evil in a small process of time are reduced to real and visible acts My meaning is that although there is a natural aptness and proclivity in Mankind to sin and err from the Laws of our Maker yet sin does lie hid and brooding in the time of our infancy and is only hatcht into perfection by the addition of longer time and although we have all the principles of wickedness inherent in us at the very first moment of our Nativity yet we are too impotent to commit evil and to offend God at that rate as when we come to a full stature in Years and knowledge We may be full of bad inclinations when we are young and Children but 't is only Age that can make us capable of doing mischief and to be workers of iniquity and we cannot so highly provoke God when we are ignorant and childish and know nothing of him as when we come to the perfect use of reason and to know his will and yet run Counter to it And therefore the Death of our Children may be a happy prevention of their sining and if they live so long as to receive the benefit of Baptism and to be regenerate and born anew of Water and the Holy Ghost and so be made lively members of Christs Church we are bound to thank God for the mercy of their Regeneration and that they had their sins wash'd away in the laver of Holy Baptism so as that they go much purer out of the World than they came into it whereas if they had liv'd longer in the World they would have contracted a greater guilt and had more sins to answer for they would have been continually liable to temptations and in danger of falling into great and grievous sins and to be corrupted by the bad examples which abound in all places of the World And therefore there is no reason why Parents should so much lament their Childrens leaving them so soon if they do seriously consider that 't is a naughty World we live in and that mens love and practice of wickedness is exceeding great and that 't is impossible to escape all the pollutions that are in it and if they do further consider how much humane nature is tainted with original sin and corruption which prompts us on to evil continually and what a subtile and vigilant Adversary we have who is always seeking to beguile and destroy us and how thick set the World is with snares and temptations I say if this consideration did but enter into our minds it would be of great force and power to asswage our Passion and to allay our sorrow for the death of our Friends and Relations it being a very comfortable thing to contemplate the happiness and priviledge of those that have shook of the clogs and fetters of the flesh and let fall their Bodies the troublesome Mantles of their Souls and are now expatiating in Regions of Bliss and Happiness and live in the pure Element of Goodness and where 't is impossible that any temptation should approach or sin have any Dominion over them Lastly Another thing which might stop Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child might be this consideration that it was the will of God it should be so He considered that it was altogether foolish and in vain to enter into any controversie with God about his dealings with his Child or to stand expostulating the justice of God in taking it away For he was convinc'd that Gods will ought to be a Law unto us and that there is no need of disputing the Righteousness and Equity thereof it being always rul'd and determin'd by his wisdom and justice and goodness For though God be of an infinite and uncontroulable power and can do whatsoever he pleases both in Heaven and Earth yet there is a Maxime in Theology as well as Policy That the King of Heaven can do no wrong It must be acknowledg'd by us all that our life and being is the gift and blessing of God and so is the life of our Children too and therefore when God does in mercy give us Children so he may with justice take them away For may not he dispose of his gifts and do with his own as he pleases God lent us Children for a little time on purpose to please us shall we be troubled when he resumes them to himself or griev'd when he requires them back we are to observe that there is a great difference between Gods way of disposing his gifts and that of mens For though it be common with men to make a Deed of Gift and to transfer their own right to a thing wholly to another so as to lose all propriety in it yet God does not make the same disposition of his gifts in that absolute manner but when he gives us Riches or Honour or Children or any other gifts he does not make over to us all

attend our Children and those great infirmities which they often labour under and the more reason to be humbled when we reflect upon our selves as the Authors of them The truth is we have laid a train of mischiefs in our Bodies by our Vices which will certainly ruine and blow up our Children we have Created Diseases in our Bodies by trespassing too much upon nature and offering great violencies to our Constitution we have broken and shattered our Bodies by great excess by hard and unseasonable Drinkings and that may be one reason why we deliver down such a weak and crasie Progeny We have turn'd our Bodies into Bogs of uncleanness and putrefaction by our lust and wantonness and that may be a very proper reason why our Children carry about them such an Hospital of Diseases We have made our Bodies Sepulchres and burying places of Wine and that may be another reason why our Children become Corpses so soon and go so early to their Graves we eat and drink destruction to our Children by our Gluttony and Drunkenness we dig their Graves as well as our own with our Teeth and by swallowing down over-much we prepare them for the devoration of the Worms and 't is not any whit probable or likely that our Children should prove sound and healthful when we distemper our Bodies and treasure up Diseases And we may consider that we do propagate Diseases many times as well as our nature and there are Diseases which our Posterity find by woful experience run in a blood And therefore it is the duty of all Parents who desire the good of their Posterity and have a regard to the welfare and happiness of their Children to be very strict and punctual in observing the Rules of temperance and sobriety and in keeping their Bodies pure and undefil'd forasmuch as by a vicious and debaucht life we store up Diseases for Posterity and transmit great evils to our Generation For 't is certain that by great excesses and impure mixtures we do corrupt our bloud and consequently must convey a taint to our Off-spring and a rotten Father seldom produces any other than a Consumptive Child and besides our Vices are as communicable to our Children as our Diseases and who knows but that God might determine to take away Davids Child for this very reason lest he should Patrissare take after his Father he being the Child of an Incontinent Father and the Issue of such unhallowed Embraces And therefore when David was devoting his Enemies he makes this one of his dreadful Curses Let the iniquity of his Father be remembred with the Lord and let not the sin of his Mother be blotted out in the 119. Ps and 14. v. And truly I fear that there are too many ungodly Fathers and Mothers in the World whose wickedness and folly is such as that their Children suffer for it deeply being cover'd with Sores and Boils and having such Diseases breaking forth as are plain marks and tokens of their Parents sins God visiting the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children and not suffering the iniquity of the Father to be conceal'd nor the sin of the Mother to be blotted out And therefore those Parents that are conscious to themselves of any such great and foul sin as Davids was have very great reason to lament the Diseases and Death of their Children when they consider that they themselves were the great Instruments of bringing all those miseries upon their Children and that their sins have had the greatest hand in their destruction And 't is very well worth our observation that in the first Age of the World it was never seen that the Son died before the Father but the oldest always went first But then when the wickedness of men grew great and their Pride so great that they were too high for their Station and would needs be building Castles in the Air and climbing up to the Battlements of Heaven it hapned presently afterwards that Terahs Son died before his Father and there is a special note and mark set upon it as a kind of wonder in the 9. of Genesis and 28. v. And Haran died before his Father Terah in the Land of his Nativity From whence we may observe that the wickedness of a Father is enough to alter the course of nature and to shorten his Childrens days and to accelerate their Death and bring them to the dust before their time And thus I have been somewhat long on this Argument that I might represent to you the danger of a sinning Father and Mother and what a fatal mischief they do their Children by their wickedness in that they bring a Curse upon their Family and by their sin occasion the Death and ruin of an Innocent Child as is clear and manifest in this one instance of Davids Child being taken away for the sin of his Father And we may also remember what a greivous Curse God entailed upon old Eli's Family and Posterity that they should die in the Flower of their Age and be cut off in their very prime and that chiefly upon the account of old Eli. And therefore Parents had need take a care to please God and that they do commit no great offence and to keep from great transgressions that so their Children may not repent that ever they were born of them and suffer sadly for their miscarriages And indeed all Parents that desire it should be well with their Children and that they should live long and see good days are concern'd to live a pure and unspotted life to possess their Vessels in sanctification and honour not in the lust of Concupisence otherwise they may bring great miseries upon their Children and perhaps a sudden Death and if they are resolv'd to continue their debaucheries and lewd Amours they had even as good strangle their Children when they are newly born and it may be a mercy to tear them in pieces as Medea did her Brother Absyrtus rather than they should live to inherit their Phthisicks Consumptions and loathsome Diseases and to be plagu'd all their life long with the miserable effects of their Parents sins And truly all vitious and ungodly Parents have the same grounds that David had to lament over their Children when they shall see them sick of their Diseases consuming with their Lusts and expiring under the curse of their sins And therefore if Parents would but take care to live better and more vertuously possibly their Children would not prove so sickly and might live longer for 't is certain that Davids Child was sick and died so soon for the wickedness of the Father Secondly Davids great grief and mourning for his Child during the time of its sickness was very just and reasonable upon another account as being an expression of humanity and the result of a natural affection For our Religion has not like the Stoick seal'd up the fountain of tears and wip'd them away from our eyes whilst we are in this bitter Achor

yet there may be ways of unhallowing Marriage and turning that into a sin which was at first ordained for the greatest Blessing For if only Interest or Humour or Lust be the chief foundation and ingredient of our Choice or if some sinful pre-ingagement or lewd Amours make Marriage necessary for the hiding our shame or if any of these things do cause a Contract or make up the match we may expect that God in justice may blast and curse the fruits of our Body for the sin of our Soul and for the sins of our flesh too An instance whereof we have in Gods decreeing the death of Davids Child which though it was born in Marriage yet God utterly dislik'd the Conjunction the first occasion and grounds thereof being laid in Adulterous Embraces David making no scruple to murder the Husband that he might obtain the Wife But when David heard that heavy sentence against his Child that he should surely die for his sin might not he have confest himself altogether in the fault and desired to suffer wholly himself and have said as in another Case 1 Chron. 21. 17. It is I have sinned and done evil indeed but as for this Lamb this Innocent Babe what has it done Let thy hand be upon me or my Fathers House and not on this Child that that should be plagued I say one would think that David should have set himself to deprecate Gods displeasure against his Child upon his account and desired to have sustained the burthen of his own sin But the sentence was gone out and what was written was written and there was no reversing the Decree And therefore all they that intend to change their condition and desire that they may leave their Inheritance to their Children had best look to it and have a care that they do not make Lust or any sinful Pre-ingagement a Preamble and Introduction to Marriage for fear God disappoint them in their hopes and desires and either write them Childless or take away their Children in wrath for their folly and wickedness For though God spared David and gave him a grant of his own life that he should not die yet there is no begging the life of his Child the Prophet reading its Destiny the Child that is born shall surely die So that for people to couple together in a scandalous and sinful way and to make Lust the basis and foundation of Marriage is to murther their Children in the Womb and in a manner to predestinate them to destruction But then when David heard that his Child should not live but was under a sentence of Death and that according to the words of the Prophet it presently fell sick and was desperately ill How then did he behave himself Truly like a very kind and indulgent Father for it was no sooner struck with sickness but David besought God for the Child And David fasted and went in and lay all night upon the Earth and the Elders of the House arose and went to him to raise him up from the Earth but he would not neither did he eat bread with them in the 16 and 17. v. of this Chapter Here we see David in a sad and mournful posture expressing all the symptoms and signs of a mighty sorrow and being earnest in Prayer to God for it which if all Parents would do the like upon the same occasion when their Children are sick or any ways afflicted they would find their Prayers to be a more efficacious way than all the Drugs of the Apothecary or the numberless prescriptions of the Physicians for the recovery of their Children For the effectual fervent Prayer of the Righteous availeth much But then we may consider that David had great reason to bewail the sickness of the Child as first being the effect and punishment of his sin and secondly upon the account of natural affection First He had a great deal of reason to grieve and be troubled at the sickness of his Child it being sent as a punishment for his own personal sin and therefore when he saw it in misery and pain and great anguish and considered that it suffered all this principally for his sake that he had the greatest hand in bringing all this trouble and sorrow upon it and that he was the great Actor in the Tragedy and this his sin occasion'd this great scene of sorrows How could he do otherwise than lay the sickness of it to heart and take on bitterly to think that by the murder of Vriah he had caus'd the Death of his Child and that by committing folly with Bathsheba he had brought such an affliction upon their Issue I say such a consideration must needs wound David to the very heart and cause him to make great Lamentations over the Child And truly the same sorrows would become even the best Parents and it might not be amiss for them to make some like Reflections For the Parents are generally apt to impute the Distempers the Sickness the Death of their Children either to want of due care in their Nurses or to the badness of the Air or the unwholesomness of the Season or ill diet or the irregular course of the Physician I say though we are apt to ascribe the sickness and Death of our Children to these outward and secondary Causes yet we should do well to suspect our sins as the cause of their misery and sufferings and to believe that there is something more than ordinary in the afflictions of such harmless and innocent Creatures Surely the Parents have sin'd though these poor Lambs suffer and therefore it is good and convenient that all Parents do examine themselves and see whether they need go any further than themselves to find out the true cause and original of those many weaknesses and distempers which they see in their Children and for which they seem so much concern'd and troubled How mightily are some Parents troubled to see their Children grow crooked and deform'd and yet little consider that possibly their Children are the unhandsomer for their being so proud of themselves and glorying in their Beauty others are griev'd to see their Children prove such Punies so feeble and infirm and of such a weak Constitution and do not reflect upon the debaucheries of their life and how they have lost their strength in Dalilahs Lap. And it is a general complaint and observation that every Age declines more and more in strength and virility and that the latter Generation of men are dwindled almost into Pigmies in comparison of what they were formerly and yet men do little consider that Luxury and riotous Living may be assigned as the grand Causes and Reasons of this great Degeneracy And we also see that new and strange Diseases do creep up daily and multiply and invade humane Bodies and yet we seldom impute these decays and breakings of nature to the vices of our Progenitors Whereas we have just reason to grieve at the sight of those many Diseases which