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	put_v	soul_n	6,697	5	5.2164	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51702	An offer of farther help to suffering saints, or, The best work in the worst times wherein the necessity, excellency, and means of preparation for sufferings are clearly evinced, and prescribed : in which, as in a glass, the people of God may see how to dress themselves for death, or any other suffering to which the Lord shall call : added as an appendix to the Sufferers mirrour.	Mall, Thomas, b. 1629 or 30.	1665 (1665)	Wing M334A; ESTC R232064	84,072	143

glorious reward And 3 as near at hand And then say to thy soul Come on my soul come on Seest thou the joy set before thee the Crowns of glory ready to be set on thy head by the hand of a righteous God Oh what compare is there betwixt those Sufferings and that Glory Propound to your selves the best patterns and examples Rule 10 Keep your eye upon the Cloud of Witnesses these are of special use to beget holy courage Heb. 12.1 Jam. 5.10 Who would be afraid to enter the Lists and grapple with that Enemy that he hath seen so often foiled and that by poor weak Christians To this end I cannot but judge these choice Collections in thy hands singularly usefull Oh converse frequently with these Worthies who being dead yet speak to thee and have beaten the path before thee CHAP. VIII Discovering the necessity of an Heart mortified to all Earthly and Temporal Enjoyments in order to the right managing of a suffering condition with several Directions for the attaining thereof THE next thing wherein your actual readiness for Bonds or Death consisteth is in the mortification of your Affections to all Earthly Interests and Enjoyments even the best and sweetest of them Till this be done in some measure you are not fit to be used in any such service for the Lord 2 Tim. 2.21 The living World is the very Life of Temptations The travailing pains of Death are stronger and sharper upon none than those that are full of Sense and Self As you see in Nature what Conflicts and Agonies strong and lively persons suffer when they die When others in whom Nature is decay'd and spent before-hand die away without half that pain even as a Bird in the shell Corruption in the Saints is like the Sap in green Wood which resisteth the fire and will not burn well till it be dryed up Prepared Paul had an Heart mortified in a very high degree to all the Honour and Riches of the World accounting them all but Trifles Gal. 6.14 1 Cor. 4.3 4. The need of this will be evinced by these five Considerations 1. Unless the Heart be mortified to all Earthly enjoyments they will appear great and glorious things in your eye and estimation and if so judge what a Task you will have to deny and leave them all in a suffering hour It is Corruption within that puts the Luster and Glory upon things without It 's the Carnal Eye onely that gazes admiringly after them 2 Cor. 5.16 And hence the Lust is put to express the Affection 1 John 2.16 because all that inordinate affection we have to them arises from our high estimation of them and that estimation from our Lusts that represent them as great and glorious Therefore certainly it will be difficult if not impossible to deny them till they have lost their glory in your Eye and that they will never do till those Lusts within you that put that Beauty and Necessity upon them be first crucified As for instance What a Glory and Necessity doth the Pride of Men put upon the Honour and Credit of the World so that they will rather choose to die than survive it but to a mortified Soul it 's a small matter 1 Cor. 4.3 So for Riches how much are they adored till our Lusts be mortified and then they are esteemed but Dung and Dross Phil. 3.8 'T is our Corruption that paints and gilds over these things When these are crucified those will be lightly esteemed 2. Mortification of Corruptions is that which recovers an healthful state of Soul Sin is to the Soul what a Disease is to the Body and Mortification is to sin what Physick is to a Disease Hence those that are but little mortified are in a comparative sense called Carnal 1 Cor. 3.3 and Babes vers 2. in respect of weakness Now suffering Work being some of the Christians hardest Labour and Exercise he cannot be fitted for it until his Soul be in an healthful state A sickly man cannot carry heavy Burdens or endure hard Labours and Exercises The sick Souldier is left behind in his Quarters or put into the Hospital whilest his Fellows are dividing the spoils and obtaining glorious Victories in the Field To this sense some expound Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but of ye through the Spirit mortifie the Deeds of the Body ye shall live Where as Death is put to note a languishing state of Soul whilest Mortification is neglected So Life is put to express an healthful and comfortable state vivere pro valere so that upon this account also the necessity of it appears 3. Your Corruptions must be mortified else they will be raging and violent in the time of Temptation and like a Torrent sweep away all your Convictions and Resolutions It 's sin unmortified within that makes the Heart like Gun-powder so that when the Sparkles of Temptation fly about it and they fall thick in a suffering hour they do but touch and take Hence the Corruptions of the World are said to be through Lust 2 Pet. 1.4 With these internal unmortified Lusts the Tempter holds correspondence and these be the Traytors that deliver up our Souls into his hands 4. Unless you be diligent and successful in this Work though you should suffer yet not like Christians you will but disgrace Religion and the Cause for which you suffer For it 's not simple suffering but suffering as a Christian that reflects Credit on Religion and finds acceptation with God If you be envious fretful discontented and revengeful under your sufferings what Honour will this bring to Christ Is not this altogether unlike the Example of your Lord Isa 53.7 and the behaviour of suffering Saints 1 Cor. 4.13 Yet thus it will be if your Pride Passion and Revenge be not first subdued For what are the breakings forth of such distempers of Spirit but as the flushes of Heat in the Face from an ill-affected Liver Most certain it is that all these Evils are in your Natures 〈◊〉 and as certain it is they will rise like Mud and filth from the bottome of a Lake when some eminen● Trial shall rake you to the bottome Natura vexat● prodit seipsam 5. Lastly Mortification must be studied and ply'd with diligence else you will find many Longings and Hankerings after Earthly Enjoyments and Comforts which will prove a snare to you What is sin but the corrupt and vitiated appetite of the Creature to things that are Earthly and sensual relishing more sweetness and delight in them than in the blessed God And what is Sanctification but the rectifying of these inordinate affections and placing them in their proper Object A regenerate and mortified Christian tasts not half that sweetness in forbidden fruits that another doth Set but Money before Judas and see how eagerly he catches at it What will ye give me and I will betray him Set but Life Liberty or any such Bait before an unmortified Heart and

anothers right 1 Cor. 6.19 and that he must neither live nor act ultimately for himself but for Christ Rom. 14.7 Heb. 13.7 8. Phil. 1.20 He is no more as a Proprietor but a Steward of all he hath and so holds out upon these terms to lay it out or lay it down as may best serve his Masters ends and glory All that he is or hath is by Grace subordinated to Christ and if once subordinated then no more opposed to him subordinata non pugnant This is it that makes him say I care not what becomes of me or mine so Christ may be glorified Let Christ be m●gnifi●d in my body whether it be by life or by death Phil. 1.20 By Conversion Christ enters the soul 2 Cor. 10.5 as an Army doth an Enemies Garrison by Storm and when he is possest of it by Grace he presently divides the whole spoil of Self betwixt himself and his Church This is the first thing that evinces the necessity of a Work of Grace to prepare the heart for Sufferings 2. And then in the next place It is as evident that a man can never be fit to suffer hard Things for Christ until his Spirit be enlarged raised and ennobled so that he be able to despise Dangers and look Difficulties in the face That low and private Spirit must be removed and a publick Spirit must possess him If a man be of a feeble and effeminate Spirit every petty Danger will daunt and sink him Delicacy and Tenderness is as unsuitable to a Christian as to a Souldier 2 Tim. 2.3 They that mean to enter into the Kingdome of God must resolve to make their way through that brake of Troubles betwixt them and it 2 Tim. 3.12 They that will be crowned with Victory must stand to it and play the men as that word imports 1 Cor. 16.13 Look over all the Sacred and Humane Histories and see if you can find a man that ever honoured Christ by Suffering that was not of a raised and noble Spirit and in some measure able to contemn both the allurements and threats of men So those three noble Jews Dan. 3.16 17. so Moses Heb. 11.27 and so our Apostle Acts 20.24 and the same heroick and brave Spirit was found in the succeeding Ages amongst the Witnesses of Christ When Valence the Empercur endeavoured to draw Basil from the Faith by Offers of Preferment Offer these things said he to Children when he threatned him with torments Threaten these things said he to your Purple Gallauts that live delicately And the same Basil relating the Story of the fourty Martyrs saith That when great Honours and Preferments were offered them to draw them from Christ their answer was Why offer you these small things of the world to us O Emperour when you know the whole world is contemned by us So Luther Money could not tempt him nor the fear of man daunt him Let me said he in his Letter to Staupicius be accounted proud covetous a murtherer guilty of all vices rather then of wicked silence and cowardize in the Cause of Christ Thus you see to to what an height and holy greatness the Spirits of suffering Saints in all Ages have ●een raised But now it is Grace that thus raises the Spirits of men above all the smiles and honours frowns and fears of men and no other principle but Grace can do it There is indeed a natural stoutness and generosity in some which may carry them far as it 's said of Alexander that when any great danger approached him his courage would rise and he would say Jam periculum par animo Alexandri here is a danger fit for Alexander to encounter so Pompey when disswaded from a dangerous Voyage answered Necesse est ut eam non ut vivam It 's necessary that I go not that I live But this being fed onely by a natural Spring can carry a man no higher then Nature and will flag at last If applause and the observation of the world supply it not it quickly ebbs and fails But as Grace raises men much higher so it maintains it even when there is nothing to encourage without when forsaken of all Creatures and visible supports 2 Tim. 4.10 and this it doth three wayes 1 By guiding him that hath a view of far greater things which shrinks up all temporary things and makes them appear but trifles and small matters Rom. 8.18 2 Cor. 4.18 By Grace a man rises with Christ Col. 3.1 It sets him upon his high places and thence he looks down upon things below as very poor and inconsiderable The great Cities of Campania seem but little spots to them that stand on the top of the Alps. 2 By teaching him to value and measure all things by another Rule then he was wont to do He did once measure life liberty riches honours by sense and time and then they seemed great things and it was hard to deny them Or thus to slight them but now he values and measures all by Faith and Eternity and esteems nothing great and excellent but what hath a reference to the Glory of God and an influence into Eternity 3 Grace raises and ennobles the Spirit thus because it is the Divine nature 't is the Spirit of Christ infused into a poor Worm which makes a strange alteration on him transforms him into another manner of person as much difference betwixt hir Spirit now and what it was as betwixt the Spirit of a Child that is filled with small matters and taken up with toyes and of a grave States-man that is daily imployed about the grand affairs of a Kingdome 3. A man can never suffer as a Christian till his will be subjected to the Will of God He that suffers involuntarily and out of necessity not out of choice shall neither have acceptance nor reward from God Of necessity the will must be subjected a man can never say Thy will be done till he can first say Not my will But it is Grace onely that thus conquers and subjects the will of man to Gods Psal 110.3 This is it that exalts Gods Authority in the Soul and makes the heart to stoop and tremble at his Commands 'T is this which makes our will to write its fiat at the foot of every Command and its placet under every Order it receives from God No sooner was Grace entred into the soul of Paul but presently he cries out Lord what wilt thou have me to do Acts 9.6 The Will is to the Soul what the Wheels are to the Chariot and Grace to is the Will what Oyl is to those Wheels When we receive the Spirit of Grace we are said to receive an Unction from the holy One 1 John 2.20 and then the Soul is made as the Chariots of Aminadab Cant. 6.12 Non tardat uncta rota it runs freely after the Lord and chearfully addresseth it self to every Service 4. A man can never suffer as a Christian untill his heart be

ply your preparation-work close then 3. This will best answer the Grace of God in affording you such choice helps and advantages as you have enjoyed How long have you enjoyed the free liberty of the Gospel shining in its luster among you This Sun which to some other Nations hath not risen and to divers on whom it hath shined yet it is but as a Winters Sun remote and its Beams but feeble But you have lived as it were under the Line It hath been over your heads and shed its richest influences upon you Yea Gods Ministers who are not onely appointed to be Watchmen Ezek. 3.17 but Trumpeters to discover danger Numb 10.8 these have faithfully warned you of a day of trouble and given you their best assistance to make you ready for it And is not their joy yea life bound up in your stability in such a day of Tryal Doth not every one of them call upon you in the words of the Apostle Phil. 4.1 Therefore my Brethren dearly Beloved and longed for my joy and crown so stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved Will it not cut them to the very heart if after all their spending labours among you they still leave you unready Enemies still to the Cross of Christ impossible to be reconciled and perswaded to suffering-work for Christ I remember I have read of the Athenian Codrus who being informed by the Oracle that the people whose King should be slain in battail should be Conquerours He thereupon disrobed himself and in a disguise went into the Enemies Quarters that he might steal a death to make his people victorious Oh! how glad would your Ministers be if you might conquer and overcome in the day of temptation whatever become of their lives and liberties Yea and if they be offered up upon the sacrifice and service of your Faith they can rejoyce and joy with you all Such is their zeal and longing after your security and welfare But if still you remain an unready people and do become a prey to temptation Oh how inexcusable will you be 4. Remember how ready the Lord Jesus was to suffer the hardest and vilest things for you He had a bitter cup put into his hands to drink for you into which the wrath both of God and man was squeezed out Dolor Christi fuit major omnibus doloribus Aquin. Never had man such sufferings to undergo as Christs Whether you consider 1 the dignity of his persou who was in the form of God and might have stood upon his peerage and equality with him he is the sparkling Diamond of Heaven Acts 7.56 The Darling of the Fathers Soul Isa 42.1 glorious as the onely begotten of the Father John 1.14 yea glory it self James 2.1 yea the very brightness of glory Heb. 1.3 He is the deliciae Christiani orbis fairer then the Sons of men And for him to be so debased below so many thousands of his own Creatures become a worm and no man this was a wonderful humiliation It was Jeremiah's lamentation that such as were brought up in Scarlet embraced Dunghills that Princes were hanged up by the hands and the faces of Elders were not reverenced But what was that to the humiliation of the Lord of glory Or 2 that he suffered in the prime and flower of his years when full of life and sense and more capable of exquisite sense of pain then others Aquinas For he was optimae complexionatus of a singular constitution and all the while he hanged on the Tree his sense of pain not at all blunted or decayed Mark 15.37 39. Or 3 the manner of his death It was the death of the Cross which was as a Rack to Christ for in reference to the distention of his members upon the Cross is that spoken Psal 22.17 I may tell all my bones Or 4 That all this while God hid his face from him When Stephen suffered he saw the Heavens opened The Martyrs you see here were many of them ravished and transported with extasies of joy in their sufferings but Christ in the dark He suffered in 〈◊〉 Soul as well as in his Body and the sufferings of his Soul were the very Soul of his sufferings It was the Fathers wrath that lay so heavy on him as to put him into such an agony that an instance was never given of the like in nature For he sweat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great drops or clodders of blood which fell from his Body to the ground Luke 22.44 It amazed him and made him very heavy See Mark 14.33 yea sorrowful even to death Matth. 26.38 And yet as bitter as the Cup was he freely and willingly drank it up John 18.11 prepared himself to be offered up a sacrifice Psal 40.6.7 gave his back to the Smiters Isa 50.6 yea longed exceedingly for the time till it came Luke 12.50 Now if Christ so cheerfully prepared and addrest himself to such sufferings as these for you should you not prepare your selves to encounter any difficulty or hardship for him O my Brethren Doth not this seem a just and fair inference to you from the sufferings of Christ for you 1 Pet. 4.1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh arm your selves likewise with the same mind Oh trifle no longer feed not your selves with fancies and groundless presumptions of immunity and peace but foresee difficulties and fit your selves to bear them CHAP. XIV Containing the last use of the point by way of support and comfort to poor trembling souls who do take pains to make themselves ready for sufferings but yet finding such strength in Satans temptations and their own corruptions fear that all their labour is in vain and that they shall faint and utteriy Apostatize when theis Troubles and Tryals come to an height IN the last place If it be such a blessed thing to be ready for Bonds or Death for Christ this may minister much comfort to such souls who though they cannot say as Paul here did that they are ready yet are at work daily upon their own hearts to make them ready and strive in the use of all means to conquer those corruptions that hinder it and improve those Graces in which it mainly consisteth O poor soul what ever present unreadiness or indisposition thou findest and complainest of in thine own heart yet thy condition is safe Oh but I cannot be satisfied in that Ob. I fear I shall be over-borne by Temptations when they come to an height I have such experience of the Deceits and Treacherousness of my own heart that it seems impossible to me to do as these blessed souls did when I come to the like Tryals It s well thou suspectest thine own heart Sol. and tremblest in thy self this sear will keep thee waking when others are securely sleeping It was a good saying of a Reverend Minister Mr A.H. now with God He that fears to flinch shall never flinch for fear It 's true seeming grace

relieves the soul in trouble and disburthens the heart of all its sinking loads and pressures there are two things that sink a mans Spirit when under sufferings viz. The greatness of the troubles and the weakness of the soul to bear them against both which Faith relieves the soul viz. by making a weak soul strong and heavy troubles light First It makes a weak Soul strong and able to bear and this it doth divers ways 1. By purging out of the Soul those enfeebling and weakning Distempers not onely guilt in general which is to the Soul as a Wound upon the bearing shoulder Rom. 5.1 The removal when it enables the Soul to bear any other Burden Isa 33.24 But it also removes Fear the Tyrant Passion that cuts the Nerves of the Soul For as Faith comes in so Fear goes out Look in what degree the Fear of God is ascendant in the Soul proportionably the sinful fear of the Creature declines and vanisheth Esa 8.12 13. This fear extinguishes that as the Sun-shine puts out fire The Righteous i● bold as a Lion Prov. 28.1 The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a young Lion in his hot bloud that knows no such thing as fear And look how much of the Soul is empty of Faith so much it s filled with fear Why are ye fearful O ye of little Faith Mat. 8.26 Certainly it 's a rare advantage to be freed from the common distraction in times of common destruction and this advantage the Soul hath by Faith 2. It strengthens the Soul to bear afflictions and hardships not onely by purging out its weakning Distempers but by turning it self to Christ in whom all its strength lyes and that suitably to the several Exigencies of the Soul in all its Distresses Doth Darkness like the shadow of Death overspread the Earth and all the Lights of Earthly Comforts disappear then Faith supports the Heart by looking to the Lord Mic. 7.7 and this look of Faith exceedingly revives the Heart Psal 34.5 and enlightens the Soul Doth God pluck away all Earthly Props from under your Feet and leave you nothing visible to rest upon in that Exigence Faith puts forth a suitable act viz. Resting or staying upon God Esa 26.3 and by this the Soul comes to be quieted and established Psal 125.1 Do Temptations strive to put off the Soul from Christ and difcourage it from leaning upon the Promise Then it puts forth an act of Resolution Job 13.15 and so breaks its way through that discouragement Or hath the Soul been long seeking God for deliverance out of trouble and still there is silence in Heaven no answer comes but instead of an Answer comes a Temptation to throw up the Duty and seek to deliver it self Then Faith puts forth another act upon Christ suitable to this distress viz. An act of waiting Isa 49.23 which waiting is opposed to that sinful haste which the Soul is tempted to Isa 28.16 Or doth God at any time call the Soul forth to some difficult service against which the Flesh and Carnal Reason dispute and plead now Faith helps the Soul by putting forth an act of obedience and that whilst Carnal Reason stands by dis-satisfied Gal. 1.16 And hence it is that Obedience carryes the name of Faith upon it to shew its descent Rom. 16.26 Faith encourages the Soul to obey not onely by urging Gods Command but by giving it Gods Warrant for its Indempnity Heb. 11.24 25 26. Or doth a poor Believer find himself over-match'd by Troubles and Temptations and his own inherent strength begin to fail under the burden then Faith leads him to an Omnipotent God and so secures him from fainting under his Trouble Psal 61.2 in the Lord is everlasting strength El Shaddai is a name of encouragement to a feeble Soul Isa 40.29 30 31. And thus you see the first particular made good viz. What a strengthning influence it hath into a weak Soul Secondly In the next place let us see how it lightens the Christians Burden as well as strengthens his back to bear And certainly this Grace of Faith doth strangely alter the very Nature of Sufferings taking away both the heaviness and horrour of them and this it doth divers ways 1. By committing the business to Christ and leaving the matter with him and so quitting the Soul of all those anxieties and perturbations which are ●e very burden and weight of Affliction Psal 37. ●5 For certainly that which sinks us in dayes of Trouble is rather from within from our unruly seditious and clamorous Thoughts then from the Troubles themselves with which we conflict But by committing the matter to God the Soul is quickly brought to rest 2. By discovering much present good in our Troubles the more good Faith discovers in a Trouble the more supportable and easie it makes it to the Soul Now Faith brings in a comfortable Report that they are not onely evils as the Troubles of the wicked are Ezek. 7.5 but have an allay and mixture of much good Heb. 12.10 Isa 27.9 3. By fore-seeing the end and final removal of them and that near at hand 2 Cor. 4.17 That which daunts and amazes men in times of trouble is that they can see no end of them Hence the heart saints and hands hang down through discouragement But now Faith brings the joyful Tidings of the end of Troubles and saith to the Soul Why art thou cast down O my Soul and why so disquieted and discouraged within me as if thy Travails were like the Sufferings of the Damned endless and everlasting whereas they are but for a moment Yet a little a very little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry Heb. 10.37 Yet a little while and then the days of thy mourning shall be over 4. By comparing our sufferings with the sufferings of others which exceedingly diminisheth and shrinks them up Sometimes the Believer compares his sufferings with Christs and then he is ashamed that ever he should complain and droop under them Oh! saith he What is this to that which the Lord Jesus suffered for me he suffered in all his Members Head Hands Side Feet from all hands Friends and Enemies in all his Offices Yea in his Soul as well as Body And indeed the sufferings of his Soul were the very soul of his sufferings sometimes he compares them with the sufferings of others of the Saints in former Ages When he reads in Faith the History of their Persecutions he is shamed out of his Complaints and Faith Am I better then my Fathers Sometimes he compares them with the sufferings of the Damned Oh what is this to the everlasting Burnings What is a Prison to Hell How light and easie is it to suffer for Christ in comparison of those sufferings which are from Christ And thus the Soul is quieted and the terrour of sufferings abated 5. Faith intitles Christ to the Believers sufferings and puts them upon his score and so it exceedingly transforms