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	sin_n	wage_n	4,685	5	10.8916	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56801	A beam of divine glory, or, The unchangeableness of God opened, vindicated, and improved : whereunto is added, The soul's rest in God / by Edward Pearse ; to which is prefixed the author's last letter, written in the time of his sickness to some peculiar friends.	Pearse, Edward, 1633?-1674?	1674 (1674)	Wing P970; ESTC R32172	116,330	239

Yea more why are we not consumed with an eternal consumption Why are the best of us all not in Hell Why are we not stated in an eternity of woe and misery Why are we not now roaring and sweltering under the Wrath of God Why are we not Companions with Devils and damned Spirits in everlasting burnings Is it because our sins are few and small and have not deserved it No surely Why then is it Because our God is unchangeable unchangeable in Being Counsel Covenant and Love Oh! my Beloved if we seriously consider what we are and how we have carryed it what our sins and provocations have been and how high they rise against the blessed God and the like we may well wonder we are out of Hell that we have a being any where on this side the Pit of Perdition nor can we resolve it into any other cause but God's Unchangeableness Let me therefore entreat you to consider things a little that you may give glory where 't is due 1. Consider what you are I mean as to your nature and the depravedness of it You are a meer lump and mass of sin Enemyes yea enmity it self against God and Christ Rom. 8.7 your heart is a meer Sink a Fountain an Abysse of sin and wickedness against God The heart is deceiful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it None but God can look to the bottom of that sin wickedness and deceit that is in your heart Jer. 17.9 O the aboundings of sin that are found in the best of us Oh the pride the passion the earthliness the sensuality the uncleanness the unbelief the hypocrisie the atheisme the disregard of God the aversion from all good that dwells works wars and oftentimes prevails and predominates in the hearts of the best Saints while here O the risings of sin and oh the aboundings of iniquity that are found among us 2. Consider what you have done and how you have carried it God-ward If you seriously consider things you will find I fear that you have done and to this day do little else but sin against the Lord You have despised his Goodness abused his Love violated his Laws trampled upon his Authority grieved his Spirit wounded his Son darkned his Glory and oftentimes struck even at his very Crown and Being yea and this has been your manner from your youth as God charged them of old Jer. 22.21 there is not that day nor scarcely that hour wherein you have not and do not sin against God often have you made him serve with your sins and wearied him with your iniquities as those Isa 43.24 Your lives have been lives of sin for the most part against God 3. Consider what black and horrid aggravations your fins are cloathed with Are not your sins my Beloved of a scarlet dye and crimson tincture Are they not heightened with many black and crying aggravations have they not at least many of them been committed against much love much light much mercy many motions of the Spirit many checks of Conscience many bonds and obligations to Duty many signal and eminent appearances of God to you and for you many tastes many sealings of his Love and the like what shall I say such every way are our sins yea the sins of the best of us all that we cannot possibly look to the further end of them Who can understand his Errors sayes holy David Psal 19.12 David was an holy Man a Man after God's own Heart and yet he cryes out Who can understand his Errors His sins were beyond search or understanding and if his were so what are ours Truly my Beloved our sins in the number nature and aggravations of them are beyond our reach and well may we all with him cry out Who can understand his Errors 4. Consider what an infinite evil and demerit there is in every sin even the least sin As you are guilty of so much sin and your sins clothed many of them with so many and such crying aggravations so you must know that there is evil enough in the least sin to damn you eternally should God render the desert thereof to you The wages of sm is death sayes the Apostle Rom. 6.23 Mark he speaks of sin indefinitely every sin the least sin and sayes he the wages that which is due to it is death Every sin is an offence against God 't is infinitely contrary to his Purity and Holiness his Will and Glory his Life and Being 't is universally contrary to him and so must needs have an inconceiveable evil and demerit in it Every offence sayes a learned Man against the chief good Omnis offencio summi boni meruit summam poenam eternam creaturae destructionem Ursin even the eternal destruction of the Creature O Sirs we little think the evil there is in a vain thought an idle word an unholy irregular action we little think the evil the least sin carries in it 5. Consider how much God hates sin sin is even infinitely odious and abominable to him God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity to wit without loathing and detestation Hab. 1.13 and he is once and again in Scripture represented as a God hating sin sin indeed is infinitely odious in his sight Now let us weigh these things and lay them together and then we shall see that it can be nothing else that keeps us from destruction but God's Unchangeableness to which therefore we should give the glory 'T is the Grace and Love of God that first brings us into a condition of Life and Salvation and 't is the Unchangeableness of God that keeps us there Truly when some of us reflect a little upon our selves and consider what we are and have been in our Spirits and carriages God-ward how much we have provoked him what frequent forfeitures we have made and do make of our Lives Souls and all we see infinite cause to wonder that we are alive that the flames of divine Wrath had not long since kindled upon us and the revenges of divine Justice broken out against us and blessed be God that we are out of Hell O that such a proud such a stubborn such a stiff-necked people as we are should yet live that persons of so many and high provocations against God as thou Reader and I are guilty of should yet have a being out of Hell This is solely from the unchangeableness of God And my Beloved we do not rightly consider the matter if we do not see and acknowledge it to be so O blessed be God for his unchangeableness had not God been unchangeable where had I now been I had now been shut up in the infernal Pit I had now been a companion with Devils and damned Spirits I had now been separated from God for ever and how miserable then had I been O my Soul adore the Unchangeable One and bless him for his unchangeable Counsel his unchangeable Covenant his unchangeable Love CHAP. VII Several grounds

with stripes Nevertheless O gracious nevertheless my loveing-kindness will I not take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail my Covenant will I not braek c. We sin and break and break and sin and God chastises us it may be for our sin but yet still his Covenant remaines firm and unchangeable So 2 Tim. 2.13 If we believe not yet he abideth faithful he cannot deny himself Oh I have an unbelieving heart and I shall I fear forfeit all although thou hast an unbelieving heart yet God remains faithful Thus God is unchangeable in his Covenant Alas his Covenant is built upon unchangeable Love and seal'd with unchangeable Blood and cannot therefore but be unchangeable and as the Covenant so all the Promises of the Covenant are sure and unchangeable they are all yea and Amen in Christ 2 Cor. 1.20 that is they are all sure firm unchangeable Promises Promises that will certainly be made good Men promise many times and change but God promises and changes not and this some conceive to be held forth in that Name of his I am Exod. 3.14 I am that I am or I am what I was or I will be what I was that is as one expounds it Eroquteram i. e. ero factis qut eram in promissis Alting I will be in my Performances what I was in my Promises God makes good all his promises to a tittle he that is Truth it self and Faithfulness it self cannot lie cannot faile Promissa tua sunt Domine quis falli timeat cum promittit veritas Aug. 'T is a sweet saying I have read in Austin They are thy Promises O Lord and who need fear being deceived when Truth it self promises Oh we need not fear we need not question for God is true God is faithful Oh how sweet are the thoughts of an unchangeable Covenant God has laid himself under bonds to his People when he was infinitely free in himself and under bonds to do great things for them to pardon their iniquities transgressions and sins to give them a new heart and a new Spirit to pour out his Spirit upon them to cause them to walk in his Statutes and Judgements to do them to write his Laws in their Hearts and put them into their inward parts to cleanse them from all their filthiness and idols to put his fear into their hearts that they shall never depart from him and which is all in one to be a God unto them and that they shall be his People that is he has laid himself under bonds to be to them and to do for them what a God can be to and do for them and he is firm and unchangeable in all and all shall assuredly have its accomplishment in its season Oh how sweet is this this was Davids death-bed Cordial 2 Sam. 23.5 Although my House be not so with God yet he hath made with me an Everlasting Covenant and this is all my Salvation and all my Desire and indeed well it might for what could David or any desire more than is contained in God's Covenant which has Heaven and Earth God and the Creature Time and Eternity all in it Oh study this Covenant of God and the unchangeableness of it and you will find it an unchangeable Spring of Comfort to you God himself found fault with the first Covenant 't is said and why Why because it made no provision for his People against sin but you will be able to find no fault with this Covenant this being well-ordered in all things and sure as in the place last quoted you have it 6. God is unchangeable in his Grace and Love to his People God loves his People and that with a choice and peculiar Love a Love like that wherewith he loves Christ himself Joh. 17.23 They are indeed the dearly beloved of his soul as you have it Jer. 12.7 and in this Love of his towards them he is unchangeable alwayes the same which I shall at once a little open and evince unto you in three Propositions 1. God is unchangeable in his Love it self to his People that being alwayes the same towards them I have loved thee sayes God to his People with an Everlasting Love Jer. 31.3 with a Love that is from everlasting to everlasting without change or period God's Love to his People is so firm and stable that nothing whatever can possibly null or alter it nothing can possibly cast them out of his heart if any thing could do it it would be their sinnings against him and their breakings with him but these do not cannot do it so he has told us Psal 89.30 31 32 33. If they sin I 'le correct them for their sin but my loveing-kindness I will not take from them or as some render it I will not so much as interrupt my Love towards them as if he should say though they sin yet I 'le love them still God does not love the sins of his People no he hates them but he loves their persons notwithstanding their sins But what if afflictions and temptations be added to their sins and both the one and the other rise high will not this break off his Love from them No see that triumph of the Apostle upon this account Rom. 8. ult Who shall separate us from the Love of God shall Tribulation or Distress or Persecution and the like Nay in all these things we are more than Conquerers through him that loved us for I am perswaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalityes nor Powers nor Things present nor Things to come nor Height nor Depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Here you see are afflictions and temptations added to sins yea here are heights and depths of these things but all cannot separate God's People from his Love nor cast them out of his Heart One I remember gives the sum of the whole in this short word Ab aeterno dilexit in aeternum diliget Scult in loc God hath loved from eternity and he will love to eternity The truth is could either sins or sufferings cast us out of God's Heart and separate us from his Love who then among the Saints could hope to continue in his Love and upon his Heart Besides in the place lately quoted Isa 54.9.10 God sayes expresly that though the Mountains should be removed yet his kindness to his People should not be removed no that remains firm and stedfast for ever True God may possibly afflict his People and that many wayes and very sorely he may speak against them as against Ephraim Jer. 31.20 write against them and that bitter things as against Job Job 13.26 He may fight against them as against those Isa 63.10 He may frown upon them and let in his terrors into them as he did upon and into Heman Psal 88. ult but yet still he loves them still they are dear to him 2.