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	world_n	6,776	5	5.1990	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80798	Captivity improved to spiritual purposes. Or spiritual directions, given to prisoners of all sorts whether debtors or malefactors Principally designed for the use of those who are prisoners in those prisons which are under the jurisdiction of the city of London, as Newgate, Ludgate, the Counters, &c. Though also applyable to others under the like circumstances else where. To which are annexed directions to those who have their maintenance and education at the publick charge, as in Christ-Church hospital, or cure, as in St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's, or reducement to a more thrifty course of life, as in Bridewel, or have been happily restored to their former sense[ ] as in Bethleem, alias Bedlam.	Cressy, Edmund.	1675 (1675)	Wing C6889A; ESTC R230962	54,833	136

towards the support of those that are in an afflicted condition For it is not afflict on that entitles to the particular Patronage of God but either the causes o● it when it is for righteousness sake or ou● Christian deportment under it but setting aside these two considerations a man is never a whit the more a Child of God for being chastised nor does any man entitle himself to those promises that are made to mourners by having drawn trouble upon himself by his own folly and extravagance or injustice or unrighteousness for there are afflictions that are not chastisements but judgments not the effects of God's fatherly correction but of his just indignation The Midianites were distressed yet not a jot the more to be accounted God's people for it Pharaoh severely scourged by God yet not the more a Saint upon that account Those Nations that oppressed Israel had their time of being led into Captivity as well as others and yet no Title to those promises made to Captives Good men ought to humble themselves under those Fatherly corrections which the Wisdom of God thinks fit to exercise them with But evil men should be awakened by those judgments which are sent to them for their obduracy in their sins and which fall upon them as the results of their sinful follies Secondly When the Prisoner has discerned his sins in their punishment in the next place ●●t him endeavour to be troubled for them ●nd to repent of them and in his restraint mourn over the miscarriages of his Liberty and study to redress them Sadness and pensiveness of spirit is an usual attendant of this condition and happy is it when carnal grief is improved into spiritual sorrow for sin and transgression For Godly sorrow worketh repentance not to be repented of saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 7. 10. But the sorrow of the world worketh death For our grief for our losses may stir up the impatience of our spirit against God and the dispensations of his providence towards us The desperateness of our circumstances may lessen our hope and faith and dependance and Christian relyance upon him and the reflection upon the rigour and severity of our Prosecutors and Creditors may possibly Minister to the useless purposes of inward malice and secret revenge and all this is productive of sin and sin of guilt and guilt of death But when our sorrow is directed against our sin as the sourse of our trouble all this is prevented and that grief which in others is the cause of sin and death is by this means made the happy occasion of repentance and life For he that looks upon his riot as the original of his poverty and those troubles which ensue upon it will in likelyhood be for the time to come more in love with temperance He that accuses his sloth as the ground of his evils will at present commend in the secret approbation of his own conscience that diligence which God hath made both his interest and his duty and hereafter practice it when God by his enlargement shall give him the happy opportunity to do so And if the Prisoner discover that the Curse of God hath rotted his estate and blasted all his unjust designs denied him those riches which he sought as the reward of iniquity and given him that poverty for the punishment of his sin which he endeavoured to avoid by the pursuit of it he is in a fair way of returning to his duty and such a man in all probability will use his Liberty to better purposes when God in his good time shall restore him to it and commit himself and his Affairs to God in well doing following God and his Providence in the ways of justice and paths of righteousness casting all his care upon God who careth for him 1 Pet. 5. 7. I know and have often with sadness of spirit observed that quite contrary is the usual practice of Prisoners Their own folly hath perverted their way and they fret against God Their sloth and negligence their excess and riot have brought them to poverty and they repine at providence They have disappointed deceived and delayed the just expectations of their creditors and they accuse their rancour and severity their cruelty and unmercifulness and lay that blame upon them which they ought to take upon themselves These are the usual miscarriages of most Prisoners and in some others there are greater than these And that place which should be the School of repentance is made to them the Nursery of sin they knew what it was to want before they came thither and there they learn to cheat they lay under all the temptations to it before and there they learn all the Arts of it or perchance they came in Knaves and go out Theives Before they knew how to over-reach their Neighbours now learn how to Rob them be ore practiced all the unjust arts of the Shop now learn those of the Highway too were very bad men when they came to Prison and grow worse by their converse with men as bad or worse then themselves were unjust enough in their inclinations before and among men more skilful in the mysteries of iniquity than themselves learn all the art and cunning of it But several men have several inclinations and there are some that grow worser by their Imprisonments but in other instances of sin they have time enough and to spare lying upon their hands and they spend it in Diceing and Carding and all sorts of Gaming have sorrow and sadness lying upon their spirits and endeavour to drown it by Tippling and Carowsing Are of a malicious temper and shew it in fretting against their Creditors and praying for their ruine or perhaps not only of a malicious spirit but profane too and vent both the one and the other in vile Oaths and horrid urses and deep imprecations against their adversaries And those that they take to be the contrivers or promoters of their misery And thus affliction which well improved is the best spiritual Physick in the World proves often an occasion of the greatest sin but if we will not be wanting to our selves we may soon find that a Prison that deprives us of all other opportunities of thriving wants not its conveniences nay happy opportunities too For the exercise of repentance in the several parts of it and here as elsewhere may a man religiously and virtuously disposed practice those important duties of contrition for sin and confession of it and humiliation for it and reformation of life which if he cannot shew here constantly in some of those outward actions which are the demonstrations of it to men and for which he wants the opportunities in that narrow Scene of action yet he may always practise it in the inward acts of it such as Faith and Patience dependance upon God and resignation to his will in the sincere purposes and resolutions of outward which before God the searcher of hearts are always accepted and in