Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	blood_n	life_n	zion_n	36	3	8.6792	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43709	The believers duty towards the Spirit, and the Spirits office towards believers, or, A discourse concerning believers not grieving the Spirit, and the Spirits sealing up believers to the day of redemption grounded on Ephes. 4. 30.	Hickman, Henry, d. 1692.	1665 (1665)	Wing H1906; ESTC R2810	113,118	243

them can it seem marvellous that they are troubled and suffered to despair everlastingly VII Many are kept from Assurance through groundless irrational scruples causing them to forbear the use of Ordinances and other sanctified means in which Assurance is usually wrought Would a sick man ever recover health that should be afraid of Physick or a weak man ever recover strength that should abstain from the good wholesom food that is appointed to beget blood and spirits Why no more will they ever meet with God or enjoy the sense of his love who come not near the place where his honour dwelleth they must needs be in the dark who will not open their eyes to behold the Sun of Righteousness needs be in a perpetual thirst who will not draw water out of the wells of salvation to quench their thirst Yet how many are afraid to come to the fire because they are cold and to put on their clothes because they are naked or to come to the Physician because they are so extreamly sick Tell them they must pray they 'l answer no because being wicked their prayers must needs be an abomination to the Lord invite them to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper they 'l tell you that finding not themselves to be in Christ they should but eat and drink judgment to themselves put them upon hearing the Word preached then they have something to object against either the call or the life of the Minister Such scruples as these are the Thieves that do wast the Candle of the Lord the Worms that eat up the hidden Manna the Veils that hide the new Name from our eyes A Conscience truly tender is the fittest subject to receive the seal of the Spirit but a scrupulous Conscience is a very hell upon earth for it either quite takes a man from the direct immediate acts of Gods Worship and Service or else it confines him onely to such keeping him from the duties of his particular calling It is hard to say which extream is more dangerous the one starving the other surfeiting the Soul Obj. But can any one give God too much time or be too Religious and careful about his Soul A. Surely no he cannot have too much of our time unto whom all our time is due nor can any one have too much of that which is his happiness or be too careful about that which if he should lose nothing can be given in exchange for but yet it is possible for us to bestow too much time on some one part of obedience and we do so as oft as we suffer it to justle out all or any of the rest The works of our Callings are the service of God when done in obedience to his Command and with an eye to his glory and for them when so done we may from the Lord expect to receive a reward and therefore when the Devil transforming himself into an Angel of light suggests What wilt thou eat or drink card or spin study any humane Author when thou knowest not but thou maist be in Hell the next moment He must be answered That obeying God sets no one nearer Hell and that though praying be in it self better then any either natural or civil action yet he that commanded it commanded them also and therefore they also are in their season to be done The Devil hath that soul at advantage enough whom he can perswade either not to pray or to do nothing but pray VIII The greatest and most common cause of the want of Assurance is some unmortified lust some secret bosome corruption unto which men give entertainment or at least which they do not so vigorously oppose and heartily renounce as they might Hinc illae lachrymae this is that which casts them on sore straights and difficulties how should it be otherwise seeing God being infinitely wise and holy either cannot or will not reveal his secrets to those who harbour his known enemies in their bosome either cannot or will not regard the whinings and complainings of those who dally with that very sin which galls their consciences and connive at the stirrings of that very lust for which he hides his face from them Doth any one come to his Minister or to his Christian friends and say Is it peace they must all answer What peace so long as thou livest in commission of any known sin or omission of any known duty All doubts and fears are begotten upon sin either real or imaginary if the sin be but imaginary a rectified judgment may scatter the doubts and fears as the Sun doth mists if the sin be real no curing the doubts thence arising but by an unfeigned repentance If I would produce all the Scriptures that prove this I must transcribe the one half of the Bible but it would be needless so to do seeing it seemeth to have been a notion engraven even on natural conscience That sin so defiles persons that till they be washed from it neither they nor their services can be accepted from whence arose the custome of setting Water-pots at their entrance into their Temples or places of Worship and those phrases Eo lavatum ut sacrificem and Num lavabis ut rem divinam facias Quest 5. What are the Motives or Arguments by which we may quicken our selves to look after this sealing work of the holy Spirit of God Answ Is there any need of Arguments to excite us to this Duty Doth not the New Creature naturally pant after Assurance as the Hart panteth after the rivers of water Yea may not the rational Soul seem to desire it Do not all wicked men catch after certainty and frame unto themselves some kind of certainty in this onely miserable that they either build on a false principle or on a true principle falsly applied To doubt of happiness is an heavy burthen but to fear extremest misery that is intolerable and yet thus must every one do till he have either Assurance or those probable hopes that are next of kin to Assurance Shall worldlings do so much to secure their Lands Goods Estates shall they require Bonds Seals Oaths Sureties and yet think all too little and shall we count any thing too much to assure unto our selves the eternal condition of our poor souls In the fear of the Lord let it be considered 1. 'T is onely the assured Christian that can either desire or so much as adventure in cool blood to die all others must needs all their life time be in continual bondage through fear of death Tell not me that some wicked ruffling Gallants who neither have Assurance nor are in any near capacity to receive it are yet very prodigal of their lives for I am speaking of men and not of brutes of those who are guided by Reason and not by Sense of those who are convinced that their Souls are immortal and that it is their greatest folly and misery to lose them not of those who have banished all thoughts of

another world and look not on Death as an inlet to Eternity the instance of these monsters therefore notwithstanding I say onely the in some degree assured Christian can chearfully look the Prince of Terrors in the face onely he can triumph over this last Enemy Not onely the sinners in Sion are afraid fearfulness doth not onely surprize the hypocrite but also the sincere Christian in so far as he doth not know himself to be such With what shiverings must they needs enter into the chambers of darknesse who do not know but that they may lead them into outer darknesse How unwillingly must the Soul needs leave its old companion the Body whilest it is uncertain whether it shall stand or fall when it comes to give an account of all it hath done in the body But now he that is come to a certainty about his estate he can not onely not be afraid of death but also desire it and sweetly please himself in the Fore-thoughts of it yea though it be not a natural but a violent death Read the Book of Martyrs and you will think that our Witnesses to the Truth did even complement with their Torments and lie down in the devouring flames as merrily as if they had been beds of Down Or read the Scriptures and you will find St. Paul 2 Tim. 4. 6 7 8. exulting in the thoughts of his approaching violent dissolution I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousnesse which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give to me and not to me onely but unto all that love his appearing At another time indeed we find him in a strait not knowing what to desire whether to abide in the flesh or to be dissolved Phil. 1.23 but whence did this dispute arise not because death would not be to him more desireable and welcome and gainfull but because his abiding in the flesh would be more profitable and serviceable to the Church When he looked no further then himself then he groaned being burdened desiring to be cloathed upon with his house from Heaven knowing that if the earthly house of his tabernacle were dissolved he had a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 II. Onely the assured Christian can despise the world and joyfully endure the losse of his goods He onely that knows himself to be cloathed with the Sun can trample the Moon under his feet He onely on whom God hath lift up the light of his countenance takes no care for corn and wine hath no anxious thoughts what he shall eat what he shall drink or wherewithal he shall be cloathed True indeed such is the vanity of all things here below such the transcendent excellencies of the glory of the other world that if a man had but a possibility of attaining these he were mad if he did not readily forsake those and doubtless the Soul when it heareth of the Jewel of great price doth adventure all to buy it before it hath any certainty that it shall ever actually have and enjoy it I but yet seeing we do naturally preferr one Bird in the hand before twenty in the bush seeing sublunary things have the advantage though not of splendor and magnitude yet of naturalness and nearness of operation we should be in great danger to take up our portion in this world did not Faith give substance to the things hoped for and evidence to the things not seen did not also the Spirit seal up unto us our interest in and title to the things hoped for and unseen Those who have Faith and know not themselves to have it do make a shift to crucifie the flesh with its lusts and to overcome the world but it is somewhat an hard shift much ado they have to keep themselves from envying the prosperity of the wicked ready they are ever and anon to cry out In vain have we washed our hands in innocence and walked mournfully all the day long ready to have questionings and disputings whether they had not done as wisely to have trucked with the World for such an happiness as it can afford But Faith in its vigour Faith seen and felt easily keeps under all such carnal arguings and so satisfies a man in the choice that he hath made as that he is jealous and suspicious lest the World should gain too much on his heart and in the abundance of all things rejoyceth as if he rejoyced not and in the loss of all things weepeth as of he wept not the assured Christian after he hath bought is as if he possessed not 1 Cor. 7 30. and when he hath nothing as if he possessed all things 2 Cor. 6.10 Heb. 10.34 Ye had compassion of me in my bonds and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods knowing in your selves that ye have in heaven a better and enduring substance He doth not say they know barely that there was in Heaven a better and enduring substance but that they themselves had in Heaven a better and more enduring substance that that eternal inheritance was reserved for them and that Christ had entred upon it as their fore-runner a word which it had been presumption for us to use if the Scripture had not used it Heb. 6.20 and if our Saviour himself had not told his Disciples that he went afore-hand to prepare a place for them Joh. 14.2 But how did the Hebrews know that they had this better and enduring substance They knew it within themselves that is to find that they had a title to the more enduring substance they needed not to look any further then themselves 1 Joh. 5.10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witnesse in himself the witness of what of eternal life which is in the Son vers 11. He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me Hath Everlasting life Joh. 5.24 and Joh. 6.54 Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life The first-fruits of the Spirit do assure him of the whole crop Hath the Spirit made known to me such things as flesh and blood cannot reveal and is the belief of these things so rooted in my heart as that I do make them my portion and my treasure as that I do heartily pursue after them even to the renouncing of carnal pleasures then sure there is in heaven an inheritance incorruptible reserved for me Every man that is Christs hath the Spirit in him and this Spirit is the earnest thrice is he so called 2 Cor. 1.22 2 Cor. 5.5 Ephes 1.13 the Greek word used in all those three places and no where else in all the New Testament is as all acknowledge of an Hebrew extraction and with the Hebrews is a word of promise and engagement in bargains but yet is well translated in the