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	life_n	resurrection_n	10,682	5	8.7967	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30298	An essay to revive the necessity of the ancient charity and piety wherein God's right in our estates and our obligations to maintain his service, religion, and charity is demonstrated and defended against the pretences of covetousness and appropriation : in two discourses written to a person of honour and vertue / by George Burghope.	G. B. (George Burghope)	1695 (1695)	Wing B5732; ESTC R26568	69,015	226

prov'd from the Obligations we have to Truth Gratitude and Indempnity 'T is absolutely necessary that every Man shou'd worship his Maker with the inward and if he be not incapacitated with outward Homage And this will appear from the Obligations we have to first Truth secondly Gratitude thirdly Indempnity or Pardon of Sin 1. We are bound to acknowledge every Truth But that God is an infinite Being in himself and infinitely Good to us is a great and eternal Truth and therefore ought to be recogniz'd and acknowledged else we are injurious to Truth it self 2. We are bound to Gratitude and that obliges us to acknowledge God's Bounty And as Tenants swear Fealty and do their Homage as an acknowledgment of the Lord 's original Right upon these Terms deriv'd to them so Gratitude obliges us to a declaration of God's Right over all things and his gracious Dispensations of what is useful to us But then we have a Third Obligation which is the want we have of Indempnity For we must be sensible of the depravation of our Nature and our neglect of Duty and consequently that we are obnoxious to the Divine Justice if it be not aton'd and reconcil'd to us And the way to obtain that is by humble Confessions and Acknowledgments to which God in his Holy Word hath annext a full Remission 1 Joh. 1. 9. and hath pawn'd his Faithfulness and Justice for the same And this is a Third Obligation to Divine Worship Behold Sir the triple Foundation of all Religion and especially of Divine Worship And here I cannot but tremble to make the Application to those many to almost all in these luke-warm Times To those I mean that are become so indifferent as to God's Service that they preferr the meanest of their Pleasures as well as the greatest of their Profits to it That serve God when they have nothing else to do and go to their Prayers when they have neither Friends nor occasions to interrupt them That lay aside their Duty to God to go to a Feast or Meeting and leave the Chappel for a Hunting-match These and who are not such in this degenerate Age do in effect and for that turn at least deny God and sin against Truth Gratitude and the Pardon they stand in need of They use that daily Bread which they are not at leisure to ask at God's Hand and take his Liberality and cannot stay to thank him but put him off till some other time They disown their Creator and Benefactor for that time and will make him stay till they can a while to make their Acknowledgments And how great a Crime this is do but judge Sir by the like in any of your Servants whom for less than this you wou'd discard for ever I cannot stay to prosecute this seasonable Reflection you may improve it by running up the Parallel as far as it will go and making Application to your own Conscience because I must pass on to the next Proposition which is this §. IV. Prop. 2. That God is daily to be worshipped Of publick and private Worship Prop. 2. This Divine Service must be perform'd publickly or privately solemnly or occasionally every Day The publick and solemn way of serving God is as far beyond that which is private as the Light of the Sun is beyond that of a Candle and must be so much the more acceptable as your Servants ready performance of your publick Command wou'd be beyond his denying of it before all the Company and then performing of it in secret Not to confess God when we are enjoyn'd is to deny him And our Saviour has declar'd That he that denies him before Men shall be denied by him before his Father and the Holy Angels For this and other Reasons I say 't is our Duty to worship God publickly and solemnly But because Mens Circumstances may vary publick Prayers cannot be always had and there may be emergencies which may prevent them and sometimes the necessaries to Self-preservation hinders them especially in the meaner sort who literally undergo the consequent of Adam's Sin In the sweat of thy brows shalt thou eat thy bread I add therefore in defect of the publick Worship that which is private or occasional For where the publick is intermitted the private must supply that neglect and where the settled Hour of Prayer cannot be attended the occasional must atone for the omission The first and in defect of that the second must be our daily Exercise And he that cannot wait upon God in his Temple must yet meet him in his Closet and if even that cannot be which is seldom known he must yet send some short Ejaculation up wards as Envoys to excuse his necessary Neglect But however this is done for That one of these is to be offered up daily God is ready to allow us what we can reasonably demand it ought to be done daily Life is call'd our Day and each Day is a new Life Night is a true Image of the Days of Darkness which are many and Sleep of Death We cease to be our own and have no signs of Life but Respiration which is only a Pledge that we shall wake again we know no Body and are dead to the World and all its Concerns The Morning of the Day following is our daily Resurrection when we receive a new Life and rise up from our Grave-Clothes and dress us again for the Businesses of the Day Seeing then we receive every Day a new Life and begin a new Work can it be thought unreasonable that we should be bound to desire a Blessing on the same Or that being a wakned from the Regions of Darkness and Shadow of Death we shou'd make our Acknowledgments for that new Mercy We salute our Friends every Morning as restor'd to the de novo but shall we pass by God unsaluted Besides 't is the dictate of Nature to begin the Day with God a procuration of his Assistance and a Blessing upon our Undertakings The Persians us'd to adore the rising Sun the Image and Representation as they thought of the Supreme Deity And the Jews had their Morning and Evening times of Sacrifice and solemn Prayers And the Apostles thought it their duty to frequent them Act. 2. 46. c. 3. 1. The religious and devout Christians of the Primitive Times had several settled Hours of Prayer every day It wou'd be thought too much Superstition to imitate or strictness to enjoyn the like to this Licentious Age Yet our blessed Lord below whose Commands we cannot go hath ordered us all to ask day by day our daily Bread And suppose God shou'd say Amen to our silence I mean shou'd not give us what we are not at leisure to ask suppose he shou'd put us out of his Protection for but one day what would follow Why no less than a seizure of the evil Angels upon Body and Soul while ungarded Or if he shou'd withdraw his assisting Hand what wou'd be the

Effect Why nothing less than death and the desolution of the Man Besides 't is an omission that can proceed from nothing but a disingenious and base Ingratitude unworthy of a rational Being or of the Nature of Man And I beseech God to lay it home to all our Hearts for an universal Reformation §. V. Prop. 3. That there is a necessity for a settled Ministry in order to perform the same Prop. 3. To assist us in our religious Addresses as well as to invite us to them there is a necessity that there should be a sort of Men selected from others and ordained for that purpose These we call usually the Ministry the more proper Instruments of Divine Worship And the necessity of these appears from hence Man is generally immers'd in Cares and the Affairs of this World and the Business of this Life is apt to take up all his Thoughts and bank his Resolutions of Duty Besides he is blinded by Self-love and apt to flatter himself so that he cannot make a true judgment of his Spiritual Estate and wants upon both Accounts a daily Monitor as to the things of God Add to this he is carried headlong with the fury of his Passions beyond all moderation and loves and hates without measure His Appetites cheat and delude him and the Devil is ready to improve them to evil Acts and the Admonitions of his Conscience cannot be harkned to And all these unite to make him not capable at all times to exhibit a due and seasonable worship to his Maker And therefore God by the Law of Nature as well as by his revealed Will hath taught Men to have standing Ministers of Religion who at once should be Monitors and Assistants in our religious Applications who shou'd at the same time call upon us to pray and pray with us and for us who shou'd exhort and rebuke with all Authority and keep us as far as those means can prevail with us in our way to Heaven Hence it is that in all Nations where there was any Notion of a God and Religion and that was every where there was also a separate sort of Men call'd Priests to assist them as to the things of God and their well-in tended tho' mistaken Devotions Thus it has been from the beginning and so it continues to this day even amongst the Heathens Pagans and Indians who have no other Law but that of Nature to guide them So it was amongst the Patriarchs before the giving of the Jewish Law where the chief of each Family did this Office as having in all probability the most Wisdom as well as the most Authority During the Jewish Oeconomy in that Nation this Office was annext to one Tribe but this was but a National and Temporal Constitution and under that of the Christian these are usually called the Clergy A sort of Men begun by Christ himself the chief Corner-Stone continued from him to the Apostles and from them to others down to us These receive a derivative Power to intercede for their several Flocks instruct and build them up in the most Holy Faith and administer to them the Pledges of Grace and Salvation These things cannot be denied as to matters of Fact or the reason of the Thing and he that shall have the forehead to do it will at the same time impeach the Wisdom of God in the Holy Scriptures as well as in the Law of Nature and is no better than a proud conceited Atheist or Enthusiast And so I leave him to proceed to the Fourth Proposition which follows §. VI. Prop 4. That the Ministry ought to have a competent and sufficient Maintenance Prop. 4. This sort of Men thus set apart for the Purposes of Religion and the Service of God are to be maintain'd with a Competency sufficient for that Purpose And here I desire not to be mistaken for I dream not of Greatness and worldly Pomp. And what an envious sort of People amongst us have to object shall be taken into Consideration in its due place I shall only plead for a Competency that may enable them to attend upon their Office without distraction or worldly Avocations And if that were allowed it were sufficient and under such a Sufficiency it cannot he performed The only Question will be what ought to be accounted such a Sufficiency And here let me not be thought impertinent if I enquire into two Things First What the Supreme Wisdom did heretofore think so and shew how plentifully they were then provided for both under Judaism and Christianity how the Church came to be impoverished and what were the Consequences of the same Secondly What by Parity of Reason may be thought such a Sufficiency now 1. If we enquire of former Times What God himself heretofore assign'd for a Competency What amongst the Patriarchs and the Days that are now long past we shall easily perceive what the Wisdom of God thought necessary for the Support of so holy and abstracted an Office From the beginning of the World till the giving of the Jewish Law from Mount Sinai which was above 2400 Years the Priesthood was executed by the Head of each Family and the Princes were also Priests the Sacred and Secular Powers being united But after God had entail'd the Priesthood on the Family of Aaron instead of the First-born Exod. 13. which were always accounted his he chose the Tribe of Levi of which Aaron was a Branch to Numb 3. attend the Priests and the Service of the Tabernacle So that the Ministry of that Nation was divided into Priests and Levites Those the Principals these the Assistants Those to perform the most solemn Acts of Worship these to attend them and to perform the inferior and they were answerable to our Priests and Deacons And amongst the Priests there were then as there be now several Degrees as the High-Priests the Chief of the several What amongst the Jews and God's large Provision for them Courses and ordinary Priests each dignified and distinguished and endow'd with Estates equal to their several Stations The lowest of that Ministry were the Levites And as to them if we consider their Number they were not the fortieth part of the whole Congregation and yet it is observed by learned Men that have computed it that their Portion what by Cities and the Glebe round about to One thousand Cubits every way according to the Cubit of the Sanctuary which was as big again as the ordinary Cubit and what by the Tythes of all Israel was four times as much as that of any other the greater Tribes So liberal was God in those Days to the Inferior Clergy that tho' their Number was far smaller yet their Portion was far greater than the rest of the Peoples and they lost nothing but got much by having God to be their Pay-Master who allowed them Estates seven or eight times as much as he did to those of other Tribes Then for the Priests of the particular