Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	bear_v	die_v	live_v	5,060	5	5.3319	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93343	Symptomes of growth & decay to godlinesse in LX. signs of a living and dying Christian. With the causes of decay, and remedies for recovery. / By Francis Smith.	Smith, Francis, fl. 1657-1689.	1660 (1660)	Wing S4030; Thomason E2114_2; ESTC R212664	107,653	255

upon him by pouring out their wants before him Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Mat. 6. What hath been said may teach two things First the lamentable condition of such as neither can nor will pray that are as unaccustomed to it as the Heifer to the yoak living absolute Athiests in the World saying in their heart if not in their actions too there is no God Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen and families that call not upon thy name Secondly This teacheth to strengthen the hearts and hands of such as fear God to this service of prayer it being part of their defence or Armor Ephes 6. Praying alwayes with all prayer and suppliaction in the spirit watching thereunto with all perseverance c. When thou saidest seek my face my heart said thy face Lord will I seek thou wilt hide me in thy Pavillion Psal 27. 4 5 6 7 8 9. Read and consider so pass to the next Sign CHAP. XXII Containing in it an Assertion of the Causes of Affliction and that without great provocation God is not wont to afflict his people and though provoked very unwilling to extremity With four Objections that seem to complain against this Doctrine Answered SIGN XXII VVHen you are mighty careless to Inquire after the spiritual cause of Affliction and mighty careful to Inquire after the natural cure The more or less spiritual any man is may be easily discovered under this Tryal Affliction being of that piercing kind that other tryals are not because of the great influence it hath upon the sensitive part of man where ever it comes while sense remains it makes the person restless either to find out cause or cure or both We may therefore first inquire after the word Affliction what that meaneth to afflict is to lay some burthen upon a person that is not ordinary Gen. 15. 13. There they shall afflict you four hundred years this is opened in Exod. 1. Israel is made to serve with rigor Lam. 1. 4. 5. The wayes of Zion do mourn because none come to the solemn feasts all her gates are desolate her Priests sigh her virgins are afflicted and she is in bitterness I have seen I have seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt by reason of his task-master Acts 3. 34. By these Texts it appears that affliction meaneth any grief or trouble that cometh upon soul or body name or estate for the punishment of sin or the tryal of faith so that sickness and diseases as feavor and ague consumption inflamation the like are all comprised under this word affliction it will therefore be necessary to open the word Spiritual cause it being in the Sign oposed to natural cure by spiritual cause is to be understood some provoking God in the subject afflicted to the procuring this affliction nothing some cause or other why the Spirit suffers it to come upon us Now every body will be ready to grant that these things before promised may be truly called affliction but not grant that there can be such a spiritual cause in themselves and so make the Sign of no force Now to clear up this doubt let us make this inquiry whether any affliction or death it self come upon any man but for some cause or other from the man active or imputive that is he either so acted in his particular person or some body else in his general relation and on him it is righteously come For the resolution of this question let us inquire what causes in Scripture the righteous God assigns afflictions or death unto Gen. 3. 9 10 11 12 13. Who told thee thou wert naked hast thou eaten of the Tree I commanded thee not to eat the things in this Chapter considerable are these vers 14. the Serpent must go upon his belly eat dust and be curst above every beast of the field vers 16. to the woman he saith I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and to Adam he saith Cursed is the Ground for thy sake Thornes and Thisles it shall bring forth to thee dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return you see in these verses misery both upon the woman and the man is brought the reason by God assigned vers 17. Because thou hast done this in hearkning to thy wife cursed is the ground for thy sake so also Josh 7. 7. Israel Gods prevailing people that by day had a pillar of a cloude and by night a pillar of fire ministring unto them now cannot stand before their enemies Joshua that at another time commands the Sun and Moon and they obey him now by prayer cannot prevail for Israel Gods people against the cursed Nation But what is the matter vers 11 12. Israel hath sinned and cannot stand neither will I be with them any more except they put the accursed thing from among them Lam. 3. 1 13. I am the man that have seen affliction vers 39. Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sin 1 Cor. 11. 3. For this Cause many are sick and weak and many sleep 1 Thes 2. 11. For this Cause God shall send them strong delusion that they all might be damned that believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness and let all the House of Israel know that without a Cause I have not done all that I have done saith the Lord Ezek. 14. 23. Much more might be said as to afflictions that attend both the body and mind together with the Causes and this left to consideration whether if Hell condemnation the highest of affliction be the fruit or reward of sin and unbelief much rather sickness and diseases with death it self which are the least afflictions must come from Creature Causes now if any man can assign any other Cause than God doth here assign let him do it if not by all this comparing of it with the eighth Sign of dying to Christ in which I have been more large upon affliction inward and outward with their Causes I shall therefore proceed to some Objections that seem to complain against this Doctrine Object 1. The first Objection is grounded upon 2 Sam. 12. 14. The Child that is born to thee shall surely die David is threatned with death in the child that hath not offended contrary to this Doctrine Answ This act of God to take away Davids Child if considered will be found mercy mixt with justice David by the Law was to die for the matter of Vriah now God in respect he bare to David for what good he had done and further were like to do being a man so after Gods own heart goes out of the ordinary way spares the person of David and imputes it upon the relation of David viz. his Child so in Davids seed he punished Davids person this is Gods usual way in Scripture and sets his Majesty out to be full of mercy in the middest of Justice

he will take away the first born in Egypt that had not sinned and therein plagued Pharaoh and their Fathers that had sinned That this is mercy consider if David the sinner be cut off for his sin there was then no room left to manifest repentance either in David or the Egyptians yet death must come that God may be just and though nothing but Justice must take place yet in that he will be as merciful as possible to stand with Justice Therefore there is truly a Cause for God to impute death to Davids Child for Davids sin Object 2. The second Objection is grounded upon Job 2. 3. which seems also to complain against this Doctrine in these words Thou hast moved me against Job without a Cause he is a perfect and upright man one that feareth God and hateth evil Answ God goeth in this out of his ordinary way as in the case of St. Pauls conversion Acts 9. It will not be safe to imagin that others are unconverted because God meets not others so sometime God doth things to shew his Power and Majesty and greatness over all and his using instruments in an extraordinary case as his raising Lazarus from the grave and from death the widdows Son and others is no warrant for us to allude to cases ordinary Secondly here was a cause if not in Job and indeed necessity that this should come upon him if we consider Chap. 1. 9. There is none like Job saith God doth he serve thee for naught saith Satan put but forth thy hand he will curse thee to thy face Now that Job did not serve God just because God had dealt so well with him but would do it if God dealt other wayes with him shall now appear and the accuser of the brethren be put to the worst who complains against Job as envying his prosperity Thirdly in the strictest sense this carriage of God to Job can hardly be tearmed affliction but rather some gratious condition by God made with Job to this purpose Job thou art an upright man thou fearest me and hatest evil and Satan is still complaining on thee because he envies thy prosperity and tels me thou wouldst prove another man then I take thee to be if I should try thee by adversity and take from thee thy prosperity Now le ts stop the mouth of this great adversary and lend me thy Oxen and thy Asses thy servants and thy Cammels thy Children and all thy substance and thy body for my service I will pay thee with great advantage as appears by this following So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning for he had fourteen thousand sheep six thousand Cammels and a thousand yoak of Oxen and a thousand shee Asses and had also seven sons and three daughters so that the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before Job 42. 10 11 12. Object 3. The third Objection is grounded upon Isa 57. 1. The Righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart Good men here are taken away by death and no cause shewed they have the testimony of good men and yet taken away It will be granted they might have lived much longer for age the text implies it and the Objection is the stronger by it for it would be no matter of complaint had they lived till very age had took them away for then we know all must die Answ The time these good men lived in was a very evil time and God takes them away First in judgment to the People Secondly in mercy to themselves First in judgment Isa 5. 6 7 10. 11 12. He hath called upon them by the Righteous and warned them but it would do them no good now he will take away the Righteous from them to see if they will lay it to heart Secondly in mercy to themselves they are taken away First Because by long living with such they must needs be a weary even of their lives and their souls vexed from day to day Psal 120. 5. Wo is me that I dwell in the Tenis of Kedar So Jer. 4. 14. My bowels my bowels I am pained at my very heart my heart maketh a noise within me because thou hast heard in Jerusalem the sound of the Trumpet the Alarm of war Secondly in mercy to them because the continuance of this temptation upon them may at last so weary them out as they may give up all as Solomon did 1 Kings 11. 4. When he was old his Wives turned away his heart after other gods So Mat. 24. 21 22. Then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world nor ever shall be except those dayes shall be shortned there could no flesh be saved but for the elects sake it shall be shortned Even as our Proverb is A continual dropping will wear a hole in the stone so a continual oppression may turn the wise man out of all see for this Jer. 20. 14 c. He curseth the day of his birth and the man that brought tidings to his Father wisheth his Mother had been alwayes great with him saying Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow and that my dayes should be consumed with shame Clearly noting that any zealous heart is sorely touched when all he can do will not keep God from dishonour O blot me saith Moses out of thy book By this it may appear that Gods afflicting men is for some cause or other in them Object 4. Fourthly another Scripture that seems to complain by way of Objection is John 9. 1 2 3. in these words Who did sin this man or his Father that he is born blind For answer to which Christ saith Neither this man nor his Father but that the power of God might appear yet it is clear the Disciples understood this affliction in common must come for sin and Jesus Christ in his reply notes the case more than common saying He was born for this purpose that the work of God should be manifested in him It was mercy he was born and he was born that a wonder of heaven might be shewed upon him therefore we must distinguish between a case that is extraordinary and one that is common Again from the unwillingness that is in God to afflict as a confirming Answer to all the Objections it appears that high provocations in us procure Afflictions to us for till Justice cals so loud that God cannot be just except he doth afflict though in compassion he mixeth all with abundance of mercy 2 Chron. 36. 15 16. The Lord God of their Fathers sent to them by his Prophets rising up betimes and sending them because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place That is he was very pittiful loath to grieve or afflict them till there was no remedy Justice called so long and loud for vengeance upon them as Psal 106. 54. They did not destroy the Nations but were mingled among them