Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
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A27357
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David and Saul, or, His Majesty's case and his enemies preached on the occasion of the Association / by T.B.
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T. B., countrey minister of the Church of England.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing B180A; ESTC R25900
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13,227
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31
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set by Therefore if Honest and Religious Jonathan shall but open his Mouth in the behalf of innocent David presently he must bear reviling Language for it and have a javelin let fly at him to kill him As for 1 Sam. 20. 30 33. consulting any of God's own Prophets little care was taken to consult them that he might be directed by them from the Mouth of God If one come to him on a Message from God to send him on a Journey against his Enemies His voice must 1 Sam. 15. 18 19. not be obeyed But if an Informing Company set him agog against his best Subjects He blesseth them for it And thus God stands neglected his Enemies Ch. 23. 19 20. 21. spared his Servants hunted from post to pillar and feretted out of all lurking Places in order to their utter ruine No Crime is so great as theirs who get Esteem for their Fidelity to their God and Country in vexing routing and slaying the Philistines for though the Land fare the better for it and the People are secured and Property more quietly enjoyed yea God's Honour advanced in the destruction of Idolaters yea it vexeth Saul at the heart that all this should be done by the hands of honest Men and thereby a Value for the honest Patriots of their Countrey encreased Doubtless the success against the Lords Enemies by the hands of those whose Hearts were right towards God would in time beget an high value for Religion and set it above the Disadvantages that the Neglect of it and Debauchery had brought it under This enrages Hell it self and sets Satan to work to tempt Saul to suppress them least his Interest thereby do decline and he be a Loser To secure therefore his Interest he sets him on to neglect the Prophets of God and also to enquire at his Familiars and so directly to adore and consult him and he succeeds 1 Sam. 28. 14. accordingly And this added to the rest of his wicked and irreligious Life and Practice is so hainously provoking that he dyeth for it 1 Chron 10. 13. 3. The destroying of all just Property was another great and hainous sin that was committed The very Notion of Tribute implieth Property or else it could not be paid for those that pay it must have something to call their own or else they could not pay it nor be supposed capable of paying it Certainly in the first peopling of the World God gave the Earth and its Products to the Children of Men And however peaceable the first Planters were in making the Division and however contented they were with a competent portion yet even then the first possession created a Title and it was gross Injury to any to be an Incroacher upon his Neighbour But in the possession of Canaan the Divisiion was made by Divine Direction and the Lot determining the possession of each Tribe and the several Families must be supposed to come by their portions and shares the same way Therefore when God instituted Monarchy he set bounds to it that The King should not greatly multiply silver and gold to himself Deut. 17. 17. as his own peculiar part by taking it arbitrarily from the people and so every Man 's own was secured to him the King having his Due of Tribute and Custom and the People theirs But in Saul's Reign this was invaded and what the People had he would make his own at Will and Pleasure Taking the best of their fields and of their Vineyards c. 1 Sam. 8. 14 15. and this was by him so ordinarily practiced that he useth this as an Argument to perswade his Followers to stedfastness because if they should cleave to David his Reign would be so just As that he would not give them other Mens fields and vineyards and 1 Sam. 22. 7. make them Commanders as he did It seems it was not enough for him to take what he would to himself but to give away what was anothers to his Flatterers and Informers that were over obsequious to his boundless Inclinations But how much this profitted him appears by this that he whose illimited insatiate appetite gaped for all was quickly rejected and lost all 4. The enslaving of Men was another provoking sin God that challenged the Israelites to be his Servants and therefore rescued them from being Pharaoh's Slaves was not willing to have them afterward Bond-men to any So that if an Hebrew or an Hebrewess had sold themselves to any through Poverty they were to serve but to the Sabbatical Year and then to be set at liberty and to be liberally furnished also with all necessaries that they might Deut. 15. 14. set up for themselves upon a probable Fund the product of which might maintain them so as not again to be Slaves And for this reason when the Jews had made their Servants free but compelled them again to be Servants after they were manumitted God takes it so hainously that he punisheth their Masters By proclaiming liberty to them to the Jer. 34. 17. sword to the famine and to the pestilence and to be slain by all the Nations of the Earth And so tender a point was this that even Solomon when he builded the Temple would make none of the Israelites do any part of the drudgery about it as Captives but they 1 Kings 9. 22. were employed in the more generous and liberal part of that work So that liberty and a right to Life Limb and Freedom was not to be infringed by any arbitrary pretence whatsoever All this Saul was far from and he would take whom he pleased to be his Slaves and Drudges in his Business even their Young Men to ear his Ground and dress his vineyards and their Daughters to be Cooks and Confectionaries 1 Sam. 8. 11 12 13. c. and this it seems was familiar with him But what this cost him is evident he had made others slaves to him and he makes himself a slave to his own Passions and when all failed would even pay Homage to the Infernal Spirit for a little dreadful News of the Event of the Battle he was to fight and in which he was slain This was the Reward of Tyranny 5. Lastly The laying snares for the Life of the Innocent and shedding blood without remorse or pitty is another very hainous sin that will bring on Judgment No man but hath a right to life and limb unless upon the breach of some Law he forfeit them therefore to mutilate or execute with Death any man unconvicted of the breach of the Law is Cruelty and Tyranny But this was Saul's practice David must be slain in an humour when his melancholy Devil instigates him who in a lucid Interval is owned to have done nothing worthy of Death but in his Humours he must be Assassinated 1 Sam. 19. 11. by Ruffians without Trial or Conviction Nay even Jonathan as near as he was to him and as upright and innocent as