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	dissolution_n	soul_n	4,521	5	5.4874	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43704	A sermon preached before the Queen, at White-Hall, on Sunday, Octob. 2, 1692 by Charles Hickman ...	Hickman, Charles, 1648-1713.	1692 (1692)	Wing H1901; ESTC R18595	11,711	33

brings us to an untimely end And without the Spirit of Prophecy any one might easily foretell That a wicked man shall not live out half his days If the just revenge of both God and men should spare him yet how effectually does the Sinner destroy himself by Covetousness we starve and by Luxury we over-charge our Nature Anger inflames our Blood and Envy consumes our Flesh and every inordinate Desire is a secret exhausting of our Strength No Lust but feeds upon our Vitals no Passion but preys upon our Spirits and Sin no sooner enters into our Heart but it opens the door for Death Then the Worm insensibly grows upon us the Grave gets us under its dominion and from the very day that Vice took possession of our Soul we must date the dissolution of our Body Nay this is not the worst of our condition neither for Sin corrupts the Soul of Man also and depraves all our brighter Faculties it debauches our Will and darkens our Understanding and extinguishes that Reason which is our great Property and Prerogative God breathed into our nostrils the breath of Life a beam of Divine Light a spark of Heavenly Fire to ennoble our Nature and make us a living Soul the Image of God and Heirs of his Eternity But Lust puts out all this light within us enslaves our Mind and makes us degenerate into meer earth again it weighs down our Nature checks all our aspiring Thoughts and allows us to think of nothing but our Flesh Where Vice prevails and takes possession of our Senses it shuts up all the avenues of our Soul and lets nothing that is generous or commendable enter in The Beauty of Holiness cannot be seen the Charms of Wisdom cannot be heard nothing can be admitted but what will sooth our Lusts and flatter us in our iniquity And then 't is no wonder if we grow profligate in Vice and abandon'd to all manner of Uncleanness and can we suppose that such a Soul as this is fit to appear before the presence of its Maker Is there any place in Heaven for such impure Thoughts as these Unless we come there with a better mind and in a cleaner dress Go ye cursed will certainly be our doom Go to the torments which you have prepared for your selves let your Envy gnaw you still like a worm that never dies and your Anger still burn within you like the fire that never goes out and let your greedy desires be always craving but never satisfied like the bottomless pit that is ever filling but never full Oh the bitterness and anguish of this second Death When the Soul of Man must be always dying but never dead when eternal Torments will brood afresh upon his Nature and insufferable pains will propagate themselves within him when his own guilty Conscience shall always keep him waking his own desperate Resolutions shall strike him like spears and arrows to the heart and the remembrance of all his multitude of Sins shall stare him like so many ghastly Apparitions in the face These are the necessary consequences of an ungodly unrepented Life these are the genuine fruits of Sin which naturally grow upon a vitiated Soul so very naturally that our own Reason tells us it must be so that the Soul which is corrupted even that shall die and our vile Imaginations shall haunt us to the other World where all our immoderate delights shall be sower'd into so many intolerable torments Something like this every wicked man finds within himself even before his death as often as he allows himself to think so often his own Conscience acts the part of Hell and in the dismal remorses of his Soul he sees a resemblance of his future Judgment And now having set before you life and good and death and evil as a matter of information I come in the Second place to set them before you as an object of your choice 'T is Moses his own Use and Application of my Text in the following verses I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death therefore chuse life that both thou and thy seed may live I shall not here dispute with Moses whether it be in our power to chuse or not but taking for granted that it is I shall only inferr That when things of so very different natures are set before us one would think it an easie matter to be determin'd If our notions of Good and Evil are too weak to work upon us and hold our minds for some time in suspence yet surely Life and Death admit of no dispute One is the sole delight and the other the utter abhorrence of our Nature and a powerful instinct within us always inclines us to the better part And yet so absurd are we in our Practice as to follow those courses which in our judgment we condemn and our lives are the very contradiction of our desires We engage our selves in desperate ways before we consider where they are like to end and every appearance of pleasure drills us further on and when we do see at length what our end is like to prove we find it too tedious and perhaps too late to return Could we plead ignorance in our excuse we might have some hopes of mercy But when all these things are plainly set before us when we see the penalty and notwithstanding this will venture upon the offence what remains then but a fearful looking for of judgment Could we pretend impotence or incapacity in the case it might be a proper and allowable Plea but when these things are not only plainly represented to our judgment but are fairly offer'd to our choice and yet we will chuse amiss What can we say to stop the hand of Justice or when Justice lays hold upon us what can we say to excuse our folly Why did we run so blindly on and never look before us Why we suppos'd perhaps that some lucky mischance might stop us in our full career and the breaking of a Leg might save our Neck A wild course and as extravagant a supposition We hop'd the time would come when we should be disabled from following our Vices any longer and then we should have leisure to stand still and repent and be very vertuous again A strange kind of hope that can never take place till we come to the very season of despair We expect perhaps that some violent motion of the Spirit should carry us up to Heaven like St. Paul and if we are but passive in the case if we are not disobedient to the heavenly motion we presume there is nothing more for us to do And it is a presumption indeed too groundless to be believ'd and too senseless to be answer'd We may flatter our selves if we please with such airy hopes and depend upon a Salvation of our own contriving but if we would go upon certain grounds 't is sufficient for us That God himself whose gift it

aside the Law and refuse to give audience to the Word of God though Moses and the Prophets should be silent yet Conscience when it comes to speak for it self as it will sometimes do is as convincing as any Revelation and as obliging as any Law 't is a Witness that will not be silenc'd and a Judge that cannot be suborn'd 'T is this that makes us look upon some Actions with Abhorrence and upon others with Delight and according to the Result of our Love or Hatred according to this inward Relish or Disgust so we learn to discover the difference between Good and Evil and find that every Action of Man has an indelible Character stamp'd upon it by which its value is easie to be known 'T is true that this Evidence also may be stifled for a time and there are those who with much adoe wear out these Characters of Good and Evil which Nature has imprinted in their Souls That when they have conquer'd their Conscience and kept it under they may for a while enjoy their sins in peace and live as if there was no God in the World But how noble a Conquest this is and how long the peace is like to last we shall consider under the following Head in the mean time I shall only say That they who despise the Majesty of God can have no regard to the Rights of Men but as often as a fair occasion offers they will be for levelling all above them and trampling upon all below them and therefore are so far from deserving favour that they are not fit for humane Conversation for when once they have thrown off all concern for Vertue how easily do they break down all bounds of Law and allow themselves in such Extravagancies as are a contradiction to the reason of all Mankind there is nothing so prophane which they will not practise nothing so sacred which they will not prophane and think it a peculiar Honour of their own to be above the common Ordinances of the World and to despise a tame governable Creature With them 't is accounted no Vertue to forgive an Enemy no Vice to betray a Friend Nay Vertue it self shall be called a Weakness and their Vices honoured with the name of Wit as if they had not only a peculiar Law but a peculiar Language also of their own And yet for all the pretended Wit and Honour of this Race of Men there is not so vile so foolish a Creature in the World as they Nay 't is only the vileness of their practice that is their Protection for should other Men but follow their Example and assume the same Liberties which they allow themselves should other Men but let their Lusts and Passions loose like them they would soon grow weary of this Heathenish State and fly for Sanctuary to Religion For after all the Attempts that Vice can make upon it yet Vertue is establish'd upon such a Foundation as never can be remov'd It has stood its ground through all the Ages and Revolutions of the World and there never yet was a time when true Goodness was not held in Honour and Wickedness look'd upon with Reproach The Heathens themselves though they often changed their Gods yet they never changed their Vertue but in their several Writings have left us their Notions of Good and Evil so fairly represented and so faithfully described as may serve for the Reproach of many Christians and the Instruction of All. Nay those Heathenish Nations who have yet no Knowledge of the Law are nevertheless a Law unto themselves and keep so strict to the Rules of Justice as shews That Vertue is a thing of Universal Obligation of Eternal Truth and whosoever refuses to be govern'd by it is worse than an Infidel a Rebel to Nature and an Outlaw both to God and Man He breaks off all Commerce and Communication with Mankind will not be join'd in any League Friendship or Society with his Fellow-Creatures nor submit to any of those common terms whereby we hold a Conversation with one another In a word Without Vertue there is no Peace without Goodness there is no living in the World And this Argument alone is demonstration enough That there is a real difference between Good and Evil which difference though many of us neglect it in our Practice yet in speculation there are a few and but a few of us that have the confidence to deny it But then II. There is another and a more numerous sort of Men who though they do allow the difference yet do not think the difference is so great as that Life or Death should be the necessary consequence of Good or Evil Like ignorant Men who think there is no need of forfeiting their Bond though they do not perform the Obligation In the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die says God a very plain and very pressing Text and yet if the Devil may be allowed to make the Comment he will give us a very different account so far from dying That in the day thou eatest thou shalt be like God himself and in a way to live for evermore Thus poor cheated Man loses one Paradise for the false expectation of another and forfeits all his Happiness by taking the Devil's word for his Security Thus we also to humour our Lusts and indulge our Passions still catch at the forbidden Fruit and in the fond Pursuit of some childish Hopes we lay aside all our reasonable Fears Though we know that Good and evil have their distinct Regions their proper Roads and are parted but by a single Line yet we love to allow our selves a little latitude and think we may do it without losing of our way Though we see the Bounds of Vertue set out before us and hear God himself saying to us Thus far shalt thou go and no farther yet we take a Pleasure in making our excursions and hope that a little trespass will break no measures and so by degrees we are drawn on to trespass more and more till we utterly lose our selves and both God's measures and our own are broken So dangerous a thing is it to border upon Vice and play upon the Confines of Destruction for when our Foot is once taken in the snare 't is no hard matter for the Devil to draw in our whole Body after and all this comes by presuming too far upon God's Goodness and when he bids us obey his Commands and live we hope to live nevertheless though we let his Commands alone He sets before us death and evil as things inseparably join'd together but we presumptuously embrace the evil and yet think to escape the death And yet do we not know the necessary connexion that there is between the Punishment and the Offence Does not our own Reason as well as the Word of God assure us That Death is the natural Consequence of Sin Is not our own experience a demonstration how miserably Vice corrupts our Nature and how certainly it