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	shed_v	sin_n	6,839	5	4.9120	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62600	A sermon preach'd before the Queen at White-Hall, March the 8th, 1688/9 by John Tillotson ...	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1689 (1689)	Wing T1237; ESTC R4814	16,700	44

without ever putting it to the hazard of a Battel Revenge is blind and rash and does alwayes proceed from impotency and weakness of Mind 'T is Anger that spurrs men on to it and Anger is certainly one of the foolishest Passions of Humane Nature and which commonly betrays men to the most imprudent and unreasonable things So Solomon observes He that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly and again Anger resteth in the bosom of Fools But to be able to bear provocation is an argument of great Wisdom and to forgive it of a great Mind So the same Wise-man tells us He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a City It is a greater thing in case of great Provocation to calm a mans own spirit than to storm and take a strong City Whereas the Angry Man loseth and lets fall the government of himself and lays the Reins upon the neck of the Wild Beast his own brutish Appetite and Passion which hurries him on first to Revenge and then to Repentance for the folly which he hath been guilty of in gratifying so unreasonable a Passion For it very seldom happens that any man executes an act of Revenge but the very next moment after he hath done it he is sorry for it and wisheth he had not done it Whereas Patience and Forgiveness do wisely prevent both the mischief to others and the trouble to our selves which is usually consequent upon Revenge IV. If we consider the perfection and prevalency of the Examples which the Gospel proposeth to us to allure and engage us to the practice of this Duty And they are the Examples of God himself and of the Son of God in the Nature of Man. 1. The Example of God himself The Scripture doth frequently set before us the goodness of Gods common Providence to Sinners for our Pattern And this is the Argument whereby our Blessed Saviour presseth the Duty in the Text upon us in the Verse immediately after it That ye may be the children of your heavenly Father who maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and the good and his Rain to fall on the just and the unjust The same Argument Seneca also urgeth to the same purpose How many sayes he are unworthy of the light and yet the Day visits them And speaking of the Gods They bestow sayes he their benefits upon the unthankful and are ready to help those who make a bad construction and use of their kindness And almost in the very words of our Saviour Etiam sceleratis Sol oritur c. The Sun riseth even upon the most vile and profligate persons and the Seas are open to Pirates Thus is God affected towards those who are guilty of the greatest provocations towards Him. He bestows upon them the gifts of his Common Providence and not onely so but is ready to forgive innumerable Offences to them for Christ's sake This Pattern the Apostle proposeth to our imitation Be ye kind tender-hearted forbearing one another forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you Be ye therefore imitaters of God as dear children This temper and disposition of Mind is the prime excellency and perfection of the Divine Nature and who would not be ambitious to be like the most perfect and best of Beings And so our B. Saviour concludes this Argument in the last Verse of this Chapter Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect which St. Luke renders Be ye therefore merciful as your Father which is in Heaven is merciful So that in that very thing which we think to be so hard and difficult you see that we have Perfection it self for our Pattern And this Example ought to be of so much greater force with us by how much greater reason there is why we should do thus to one another than why God should do thus to us Our Offences against God are more and greater than any man ever was or could be guilty of towards us Besides that there are many Considerations which ought to tye up our hands and may reasonably restrain us from falling furiously upon one another which can have no place at all in God. We may justly fear that the consequence of our Revenge may return upon our selves and that it may come to be our own case to stand in need of Mercy and Forgiveness from others And therefore out of necessary caution and prudence we should take heed not to set any bad example in this kind lest it should recoyle upon our selves We who stand so much in need of Forgiveness our selves ought in all reason to be very easie to forgive others But now the Divine Nature is infinitely above any real injury or suffering God can never stand in need of pity or forgiveness and yet of his own meer Goodness without any interest or design how slow is he to anger and how ready to forgive And which comes yet nearer to us there is also the Example of the Son of God our Blessed Saviour who in our Nature and in case of the greatest Injuries and Provocations imaginable did practise this Vertue to the height And all this for our sakes as well as for our Example So that he requires nothing of us but what he himself submitted to with the greatest Patience and Constancy of Mind in our stead and wholy for our advantage He render'd good for evil to all Mankind and shew'd greater Love to us whilst we were Enemies to Him than ever any man did to his Friend He pray'd for those that despitefully used him and persecuted him And this not upon cool consideration after the injury was done and the pain of his Sufferings was over but whilst the sense and smart of them was upon him and in the very Agony and bitterness of Death In the height of all his anguish he pour'd out his Soul an Offering for the Sins of Men and his Blood a Sacrifice to God for the expiation of the Guilt of that very Sin whereby they shed it pleading with God in the behalf of his Murderers the only Excuse that was possible to be made for their Malice that is their Ignorance and spending his last breath in that most charitable Prayer for them Father forgive them for they know not what they do The last Declaration which he made of his mind was Love to his Enemies and the last Legacy he bequeath'd was an earnest Request to God for the Forgiveness of his Persecutors and Murderers So that if any Example ought to be dear to us and effectually to engage us to the imitation of it this of our Blessed Saviour should since the Injuries which he suffer'd have saved us from suffering and the greatest Blessing and Happiness that ever befel Mankind is due to this excellent Example And then with what Confidence nay with what Conscience can we pretend to share in the Benefits of this