Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	dead_a	sin_n	15,745	5	5.5153	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52861	The nature & causes of hardness of heart, together with the remedies against it discovered in a sermon, preached first before the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn, and afterwards before the University in Great St. Maries Church in Cambridge / by Robert Neville ...	Neville, Robert, 1640 or 1-1694.	1683 (1683)	Wing N522; ESTC R7881	10,589	26

much for the First Property of a hard heart that it does not yield to any means of Grace Secondly A SECOND Property of a hard heart is this that it hath no Feeling in it it is insensate It is observed in the Body that the rest of the senses may be distempered and lost without much impairing the health of it but only the Touch cannot which therefore is called the SENSE of life because that Part or Body which is deprived of Feeling is also at deaths door and hath no more life in it than it hath reliques of this Sense So is it also in Spiritual matters of all other Symptoms this of a hardned Senlesness is most dangerous and as the Greek Physicians are wont to say of a desperate disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very very mortal A Man may not feel an aile and yet not be in health and it is a good degree of health to know our disease For if a Sinner grow once so hard and senseless as that no Physick no means will work upon that Body of death that does encompass him Conclamatum est We may ring his Funeral knell for though he be alive and in this world he is dead to all Grace and goodness If there be no remorse no grief no dislike of sin then woe be to us this is descensus Averni the lowest stair that leads to the Chambers of death I have read that near the City of Capena lay a stone of great note which upon great droughts the People would bring into the City and large showers of rain would presently fall but if we would be tenderly sensible of and weep large showers of penetential tears for our sins we must on the contrary beg of God to remove the stone out of our hearts and give us a soft and tender heart a heart of flesh And thus having described to you the Properties of a Hard Heart it is high time I should make use of those words of Hipocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Furnish your selves with all the Softning Plaisters you can which may either prevent or remove this Obduration And this brings me to the Fourth thing I was to shew you And that is Fourthly By What means we may avoid this Hardness And First If you would avoid it avoid gross Sins for they wast the Conscience make havock of grace and render the heart hard and callous When David cut off the lap of Saul's garment 't is said his heart smote him but when he fell into those foul sins of Adultery and Murder it is not then said his Heart smote him it grew hard upon the commission of those gross sins till God dispatcht the Prophet Nathan to him to rouse and awake him As for Sins of Infirmity which are sins of a less and imperfect Choice some Passions blinding or corrupting the Judgment they are entailed upon All and as the Schoolmen say Possibility of Sinning is included in the notion of a Creature But though all men are prone to Sins of Infirmty and yet all mens Hearts are not so Hardned as Habitually to commit gross and scandalous Sins they have not such vitiated Palats as to be able to drink down the worst dregs and lees of Vice When Conscience saith to any person this is a Great Sin Commit it not and yet in despite of Conscience and the Checks it gives him he will run on It is just with Conscience when its Counsel is rejected like Achitophel to strangle and stiffle it self And as we must abstain from gross Sins so if we would avoid Hardness of Heart Secondly We must be careful not to harbour any the smallest Sin with satisfaction and delight By giving way to little Sins one after another we are prepared and disposed for greater and our strongest Resolutions against them are broken for though they be not snapt in sunder at once yet by this means they are untwisted by degrees and then it is easie to break them one Thread after another 't is scarce imaginable of what Strength and Vigour one Sinful Action be it never such a Dwarf in our Eyes is to Procreat and beget more for Sin is Prolifical and Fruitful and though there be no Blessing annext to it yet it does strangly ENCREASE MVLTIPLY There are certain Rudiments and First Elements of Vices in which men are first enter'd they advance gradually to more gross and heinous Crimes Our Saviour reproves the Pharisees in the Gospel because they would strain at Gnats and swallow Camels but yet it is true that men learn at length to swallow Camels by swallowing Gnats at first * Juvenal Nemo repente fuit turpissimus No Sinner is so adventurous as to attempt the greatest Sins at first the way by which men train up themselves to the committing gross and heinous Sins is by not making Conscience of committing less Sins and yet I know not (a) Nescio an possimus leve aliquod peccatum dicere quod in der contemptum admittitur saith Paulinus in St. Jerom WHETHER WE CAN CALL ANY SIN LITTLE THAT IS COMMITTED AGAINST GOD Small Contempts against Great Princes are accounted great Crimes for what is wanting in the thing is made up in the Worth of the Person How great a Sin then is the smallest Contempt of the Majesty of God To which I may also add that when a small Sin comes by Design and is Acted with Knowledge and Deliberation the Malice of the Agent heightens the smallness of the Act and makes up the Iniquity It is incredible how insensibly many small Sins heighten and inflame our Reckonings and encrease our Spiritual Hardness Oh then that we would * Cant. 2.15 TAKE THESE LITTLE FOXES * Psal 1 37.9 that WE WOULD DASH THESE BABYLON's BRATS AGAINST THE WALLS And this brings me to the Third Remedy against Obduration and that is Thirdly To nip the forbidden Fruit of Sin in the Bud before it grows into a Habit Ibi maxime oportet observare Peccatum ubi nasci solet saith St. Jerom Observe and Kill Sin in its infancy Crush this Cockatrice in the Egg The Tree which was in the beginning but a small Plant may at length bear its Head and Branches so high as to cast a most dangerous Shadow Even the smallest Pullulations of Sin must not be neglected the first Blossoms of Iniquity must be blown away For Sin is of a growing multiplying nature there is usually a Concatenation of Vices one Devil brings seven other Devils One Sin makes a Bridge for more to come over like the Waves of the Sea the End of the one is the Beginning of the other If we go with Sin one Mile it will compel us to go with it twain It will swell like the Cloud Elijah saw from the Bigness of a Man's Hand to such a vast Expansion as will cover the Skie No man descends to the worst at first but gradually Step by Step as Marriners setting sail first lose the sight of the Shore then of the Houses then of the Steeples then Mountains and Land Few or none are so hardned and desperate at first as to leap into Hell Alipius in St. Austin who went only at first for Company to those bloody Spectacles of the Gladiators came at last to applaud them We know where we begin and set out in Sin but we know not where we shall End or take up as no man can say He will let in just so many Palefuls of the Sea and no more Stulta res est Nequitiae Modus saith Seneca 't is a foolish ridiculous thing for a man to think to set bounds to himself in any thing that is bad or to hope to sin by Rules of Art and in Number Weight and Measure Fourthly and Lastly If you would avoid this Hardness use fervent and constant Prayer Let us importune God to cut the Thread of our Wickedness that we may not spin it out to such a length Let us sue out a Divorce between us and our Beloved Sins that Harden us The Fire of Prayer must never go out if we expect that such Mettal as a Hard Heart consists of should ever be melted by it Those who endeavour Chymically to extract the Philosopher's Stone must never let their Fire go out and so those who would extract and draw the Stone out of their Hearts must never let the Fire of their Devotion go out this Fire like that of the Vestal Virgins at Rome must be alway kept Burning Now that we may make an Experiment of this last Recipe of Prayer against Obduration let us Begg of God to take away these Hearts of Stone from within us and give us Hearts of Flesh for his dear Son Jesus Christ his sake to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour Glory and Praise both now and for ever FINIS

12th verse and with a small retinue flying from his Son Absalom his Guards about him being then so small and inconsiderable that Shimei thought he might safely vomit out his rancour and fury against him In all which and the like actions God derogates nothing from his Justice these Occasions which God Presents being in themselves harmless though wicked men abuse them And this may suffice for the Second thing I was to shew you namely How and When God without any impeachment to his Justice may be said to Harden the Heart I Proceed now to shew you THIRDLY What are the Properties of a Hard Heart and the FIRST Property of a Hard Heart is this that it doth not yield to any means of grace For First It cannot be prevailed upon by the word of God which is a Powerful Agent the Preacher that speaks to obdurate Sinners speaks to Rocks rather than Men the Earth will sooner tremble than they Illis Robur Aes triplex circa pectus Their Hearts are so guarded with the Armour of Obduration that the Word of God though it be a two-edged Sword cannot enter into them Though God hath ordained a Function of men by whom he does beseech them though he arms their Messages and Doctrines with such Terrors as makes the very Devils tremble and joyns his holy Spirit too sends him in tongues of Fire that he also may preach to them and fright them with more flame yet Hardned Sinners break these Strengths and vanquish all the Arts and Strivings of the Almighty and though Gods Ambassadours flash Hell fire against their Vices in torrents of Scripture threatnings and Comminations they concern themselves no more than they would at the story of a new eruption of Aetna or Vesuvius their Hearts are turned into Stone into pure Mine and Quarry and thereupon such as Preach to them may be said to be damnati ad Metalla that old Roman Punishment condemned like slaves to dig in these Mines and Quarries So that as Cato Censorius paved the Courts of Judicature with sharp stones that men might not delight in Law-suits So the Courts of the Lords House are often paved with Hard Hearts that the Preacher might be discouraged from Preaching There is so much Ice in mens hearts there hath been so long a winter in their affections which are chill and dull to all goodness that the word of God which is said to be * Jerem. 23.29 A FIRE cannot thaw or melt them And as a hard heart cannot be prevailed upon by the word of God So neither Secondly Will it be wrought upon by Gods good Spirit for though it cannot hinder the grace of God from shining upon it yet it may and often does hinder the workings and Operations of that grace and receives the grace of God in vain and * Heb. 10.29 DOES DESPIGHT TO THE SPIRIT OF GRACE and abuses and * Jude 4. TURNS THE GRACE OF GOD INTO WANTONNESS It was strange that Christ when he was upon Earth Converted so few the Evangelist wonder'd at it John 12.37 THOUGH HE HAD DONE SO MANY MIRACLES AMONG THEM YET THEY BELIEVED NOT IN HIM BUT he satisfies the wonder and gives the reason of it out of the Prophet Isaiah THEREFORE THEY COULD NOT BELIEVE BECAUSE THEIR HEARTS WERE HARDNED Their Hardness was the cause of their small progress in believing Engravers upon stone cannot rid much work they that Point and Polish Diamonds use much grinding to wear away a little unevenness And then Thirdly The hard heart will not be wrought upon by the mercy of God God's Mercy to Pharaoh hardned his Heart * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 HE HARDNED HIM BY HIS MERCY AND FORBEARANCE BY RESPITING HIS PUNISHMENT saith St. Basil The Hardned Sinner shrowds his Sins under the wings of Gods mercy He makes Gods mercy his Protection in Sin Accustomed dangers escaped harden the Sinner oftentimes to a Stupidity The ruder Marriners that have weathered out several storms will steal blaspheme and be drunk in the next tempest And Dion Cassius tells us that Catiline being accused for the murders and rapines committed on those whom Sylla had proscribed and escaping the condemnation under which others fell for the same Crimes * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 DID FROM THIS GROW MUCH WORSE The Hardned Sinner COMMITS the Attributes of God and as it were raises a Contest and Dispute between them and to all declarations of his future Justice he opposes that God is mercifull that satisfied with his own rectitude he descends not to mark mens follies and thus he baffles Gods Veracity with his Clemency and makes his long-suffering wear out the sense of his Justice How far such foolish Collections as these will prevail to harden mens hearts the Wise man tell us Eccles. 8.11 BECAUSE SENTENCE AGAINST AN EVIL WORK IS NOT SPEEDILY EXECUTED THEREFORE THE HEARTS OF THE SONS OF MEN ARE FULLY SET IN THEM TO DO EVIL Such is the hard-hearted Sinners misery that God cannot look friendly upon him but by his too much presuming upon it he ruines and undoes himself Heavens shining and smileing hurts him more than its lowring the longer the Hardned Sinner looks upon the Sun of Gods mercy he gathers the more spots and impairs the beavty of his Soul God is forced to be a tyrant to obdurate Sinners He must be always whipping and scourging them and till they are mollified and bettered by stripes He cannot in mercy remove his rod His taking away his plagues from them would be a greater Plague to them And then Fourthly A Hard Heart cannot sometimes be wrought upon by Gods Judgments As Gods mercy cannot draw it so his Judgments cannot drive it from Sin It is an insensate unrelenting Anvil to the heaviest Strokes of the Divine Vengeance It does like the Roman Emperour Caligula 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thunder back against God and shoot up a sin a provocation against Heaven for every arrow of Judgment shot down from Heaven It undervalues Gods Power Hector's and Braves his Omnipotence it continues to affront God to his face after all his Judgments as if he had wasted all his thunderbolts emptied his Quiver and broke his Sword in the last encounter and were like those poor Animals who lose their sting in the first wound they give He that should have seen the Tragical iniquity we read of in the City of Lyons which was so visited with the Pestilence that the Dead without a Figure buried their Dead falling down one upon another each being at once both a Carkass and a Grave He I say that should have seen this and observ'd withal that the Souldiers daily issued out of the Cittadel and deflowred Virgins even whilst they were giving up the ghost defiled Matrons even already dead COMMITTING with the dust warming the grave with sinful heats and coupling with the Plague and Death would certainly have been amazed to see men so hardned in sin as to Suffer and Sin together And thus