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	immortal_a	soul_n	7,080	5	5.8875	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26785	The divinity of the Christian religion, proved by the evidence of reason and divine revelation by William Bates ...	Bates, William, 1625-1699.	1677 (1677)	Wing B1104; ESTC R33149	60,636	228

and the Redeemer of the World This I will briefly open There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy-Ghost and these three are one And there are three that bear witness in Earth The Spirit and the Water and the Blood and these three agree in one All the Divinity gave testimony of this important Truth The Father not only by the Miracles wrought by his Power to confirm the Mission of Christ but which is here principally intended by a voice from Heaven First at his Baptism This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And at his Transfiguration before some of his Disciples a Shining Cloud the sign of the Divine Presence encompast them and a voice came forth of the Cloud This is my well beloved Son hear him Upon this glorious Voice they were struck with such an impression of fear that they fell on their faces And when our Saviour near his Passion prayed Father glorifie thy Name a voice came from Heaven I have glorified it and will glorifie it Now can there remain any doubt after such an high attestation from the most Soveraign Authority The Son also besides the perfect holiness of his life the exquisite Wisdom of his Doctrine the Wonders of his Works his Resurrection from the dead that were authentick proofs of his Celestial Person and Calling after his Ascension gloriously appear'd from Heaven in diverse Visions to the Preachers of his Gospel To Saul in his Journey to Damascus calling to him Saul Saul why persecutest thou me It is hard for thee to kick against the Pricks This is an unexceptionable testimony that he is the Son of God being risen from the dead and returned to Heaven from whence he thus discover'd himself Now that this was real and no fantastick illusion is evident by the marvelous effects of it Those who were companions in the journey were seiz'd with great terror and himself struck blind by the overpowering splendor of the Apparition But especially the effects of it upon his Soul are convincing who it was that spake to him For Saul was by Sect a Pharisee that of all others most passionately adher'd to the Jewish Religion by Temper hot and violent by Profession a persecutor of the Christians One that breathed forth Threatning and Slaughter that excited the Fury of the High-Priests sollicited their Cruelty In short a fierce spirit that envied Nero the title of the first Persecutor of the Church Yet this Man by this Vision and Voice from Heaven of a furious Persecutor in an instant became a zealous Apostle of a Wolf became a Pastor He presently exprest his entire submission Lord what wilt thou have me to do There is nothing so hard to do nothing so dreadful to suffer but I will readily undertake for thine honour and the propagating thy Truth Now from whence came this Change so strange so new in a person confirm'd in the opposite party from whence this resignation of will so entire and perfect so unexpected and sudden What gave him courage to contradict to their faces the High-Priests whose instrument he was and declare that Jesus whom they called a Deceiver was the Son of God and their Judge What animated him to appear before Kings and Emperours to testifie this dangerous Truth What made him with unparallel'd activity with the most ardent affections propagate the Gospel and after a thousand perils by Sea and Land a thousand disgraces and injuries at last to confirm the Faith of Christ with his Blood It is therefore past all contradiction that he had the greatest assurance that the Son of God spake to him Another Vision of the WORD from Heaven was to St. John when he was pleas'd to reveal to him the future state of his Church its Combats and Victories He then appear'd in a form expressive of his Majesty Power and Providence requisite for the ordering all the great Events that should befal it And said I am the first and the last I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live for ever and have the Keys of Hell and of Death wherein he appropriates to himself the incommunicable titles of the Deity and then declares those two astonishing Miracles that the Prince of Life that had an Eternal Principle of it in himself was dead and that one who had been dead was alive This Riddle the Gospel unfolds The Son of God was made Man and by that admirable union allied Eternity and Time Life and Death together As 't is a common form of speech that a Man dies when the Body is depriv'd of Life though the Soul be immortal So it was true the Son of God died when his Body was crucified though he was uncapable of the least diminution of his Divine life And after three days he rose by the Divine Power to enjoy an Immortal Life And have the Keys of Hell and Death The irresistible force of Death all Men must yield to and from the Grave there 's no redemption by finite power But Jesus Christ has Soveraign Authority and Power to open the Grave and raise the Dead to an happy Immortality This glorious Appearance made St. John to fall as dead at his Feet and could not recover himself till assured by the reviving words of his favour The Spirit also appear'd from Heaven to give Testimony concerning the divine Person and Office of Christ First by descending as a Dove on him when he was baptised This was the completion of the Prophecy The Spirit of the Lord is upon me He has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the Poor to publish Deliverance to the Captives And in the second of the Acts the Spirit descended in the form of Fiery Tongues upon the Apostles to qualifie them for preaching the Gospel to the World And 't is worthy of observation that the Apostles were before this very defective in Wisdom and Courage so that their Divine Master though Goodness it self yet tax'd them for their stupidity and in his Sufferings they all forsook him But after the effusion of the Spirit upon them they were endowed with that admirable Wisdom and Resolution that nothing could gainsay and overcome They presently spake in various Languages the things concerning Iesus Christ that the World was astonish'd and many converted by this Testimony from God for the honour of our Saviour and others confounded in their obstinacy Now since this miraculous descent of the Spirit was to ratify the Promise that he made to them If I go away I will send to you another Comforter What more clear and valuable Testimony can we have that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the World If Infidelity should reply If we had heard these Voices and seen those glorious Visions we should be convinc'd but what assurance have we there is no deceit in these Relations I answer There never was clearer Grounds of the belief of any thing done without the compass of our own senses than of what

the spectators of his Death All that see me laugh me to scorn they shoot out the lip they shake the head saying He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him His words spoken in the heighth of his distress My God my God why hast thou forsaken me The Prophet Isaiah represents the Ignominy and Torments of his Passion I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair I hid not my face from shame and spitting and by the eyes of his mind saw him crucified between two Thieves He was named with Transgressors and as present at his most affectionate dying prayer for his enemies Father forgive them they know not what they do observe that he made intercession for Transgressors Thus as several Painters that would draw divers Copies from the same excellent Original are intent to view its various Aspects some directly some on this and the other side so the Prophets as if they had been the Spectators of his cruel Sufferings copied from the life every one that part that the Holy Spirit assigned to them Now how was it possible if not instructed by Omniscience that being so distant in time and place and so long before the Accomplishment they should concur in such an exact description of what should befal the Messiah Men are not Prophets by the light of Reason as Nature is not subjected to their power to work Miracles neither is Futurity open to their view to compose an History of things to come The Death of Christ depended on several Causes Men Devils and God himself concurr'd for divers Ends in the same Event The two prime Conspirators against his Life Lucifer and Caiphas were moved both from Reasons of State to secure their own The Devil to maintain his cruel Empire which for so many Ages he had usurp'd in the World For our Saviour having with Authority cast out Legions of his ministring Spirits from those who were miserably possest by them he was in fear of losing his Power Besides he foresaw that if Christ were the Son of God the killing of him would bring such a crimson guilt upon the Jews that no less punishment than their Rejection would follow And so God should lose his peculiar People Caiaphas excited the Council to devote him as a Sacrifice to preserve their Nation from ruine for their safety depending on their homage to the Romans to prevent the jealousies that might arise by the fame of his mighty Works and by the Peoples attendance on him that were fed by his Miracles they concluded on it as a necessary expedient that Christ should dy and all suspicions be removed with him Thus Men and Devils were the instruments but God appointed that great Event The storm fell from Heaven upon Him for our Sins 'T is therefore expresly said He was delivered by the determinate Counsel and foreknowledge of God who over-ruled the train of disorders the work of their cruel malice for contrary ends than were design'd by them For the Devils were cast out of their Kingdom the Jews depriv'd of their Liberty and the Kingdom of Christ establish'd for ever Now who could read in the Mind of God his free Decrees even the Angels of Light that always see his face cannot without a revelation of them None but the Spirit that searches the deep things of God could make the discovery And who could foresee that the Messiah so often promised to the Jews so impatiently expected and ardently desir'd should be so fiercely rejected by them that his Death should be the effect as of his own love so of their hatred None but God to whom all the periods of time are equally present and who is more intimate with the Counsels and Passions of Men than their own Souls are could predict it He communicated some rays of his Prescience to holy Men who foretold that obscurest Contingency From hence it follows that the clear Testimonies of the Prophets exactly fulfill'd in Jesus Christ are an unanswerable demonstration that He was the expected Deliverer to restore the World 2. The universal and irreparable Destruction of the State of the Jews foretold as the just punishment of their rejecting the Messiah is another illustrious proof of the Divinity of his Person and Doctrine To represent all the Characters of that Vengeance as they are set down by Josephus an Eye-Witness and Historian of it would lengthen this Discourse beyond the limits intended It is sufficient to observe 1. That all the severe Scourges of God met in a direful conjunction against them The most affrighting Prodigies were his forerunners A flaming-Sword brandish'd in the Heavens and Monsters born on the Earth And War Famine Pestilence and Fire were his Attendants Those who escap't the Sword were consum'd by Famine and those who were preserved from cruel War and Famine were swept away by the Pestilence or devour'd by the merciless Flames Wherever they turn'd their eyes Death in terrible shapes appear'd 2. All these Judgments were inflicted at once upon them in the heaviest degrees The Sword never made a greater destruction of Men than in Jerusalem here were Rivers of Blood there Mountains of Carcasses In some places nothing but silence and horrour amongst the dead in others the crys and groans of the dying Innumerable were massacred by the rage of Sedition amongst themselves And when the mild Conquerour would have spared them yet by an unparallel'd fierceness they would rather perish in an obstinate resistance The Famine was so extreme as compell'd even tender Mothers to eat the flesh of their miserable Children The Fire consum'd the City from one end to the other without leaving any part entire The Temple the Sanctuary of Religion and Image of Heaven where God so long had dwelt had been serv'd and prais'd and rendred his Oracles was not exempted from the fury of the Fire 3. Their Calamity was extreme and irreparable The first Desolation by the Chaldeans so compassionately recorded by Jeremiah was not comparable in the degrees and continuance to this second by the Romans of which CHRIST himself was the Chief Mourner and made lamentation Then they were transported together and not to a very rigorous nor perpetual servitude in Babylon After seventy years they recover'd their Liberty and were restored to their Native Land But in the last the Captives were dispers'd among divers People a sad Prognostick that they should never be joyned again in one Society The Ruines of the Nation were so great that the pieces of it are scatter'd all over the World Where ever a Jew is found there is a stone of ruin'd Jerusalem never to be rebuilt In short that wretched Nation is rent into innumerable parts and expos'd to the contempt and hatred of all As the Body of a Traitor is quarter'd and the parts hung up in several places of publick view to signify the horrour of his Crimes in the severity of his