Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A59969
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The Christians triumph over death a sermon at the funeral of Richard Legh of Lime in the county Palatine of Chester, Esq., at Winwick in the county Palatine of Lancaster Sept. 6. 1687 / W. Shippen ...
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Shippen, W. (William), 1637?-1693.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing S3441A; ESTC R4015
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35,882
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69
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able to transmute a whole World in a moment into its Malignant nature Which unhappy Projection hath been actually made already by our first Parents who no sooner toucht it but its Rancorous Ferment impregnated the whole Mass of Humane Nature stream'd through all the Blood of their Posterity and so turn'd the happy Golden Age into this wretched one of Brass and Iron 3. Sin is of a deadly Influence it may make its entry as Ehud did to Eglon with a Present in its hand but will at last leave a secret Dagger in our Bowels In a day or less it brings forth death Judg. 3.17 21. In the day thou eats thereof thou shalt surely die Gen. 2.17 For though Man did not then presently die yet in the same instant he became Mortal that deadly infusion was then let into his Veins and mixt with his Spirits which was sure to be his Bane in the conclusion Whereas without this nothing in the World could have been destructive to us neither Weapon nor Distemper Bliting nor Thunder 't is Sin alone that gives an edge to the Sword an infection to the Air and points to the flames of Fire 't is this that gives malignity to Feavers virulence to Poisons and arms every Creature with instruments of death against us so that had we not been so wretched as to be Sinners we had been so happy as to be Immortal Our naked Innocence would have been greater security to us and more impenetrable than a Coat of Mail. Had it not been for this Sting Death it self could never have reach'd us no nor so much as had any being in the World. For Sin brings forth Death James 1.15 And though our Saviour who knew no Sin tasted of it yet that was not of necessity but a voluntary undertaking that as the first Adam by Sin brought Death into the World so he the second by Death might cast Sin out of it This is the bitter Root from whence springs all the Misery both for degree and kind which ever befell Humane Nature All the steps and advances towards our greatest sorrow from the first indisposition and slightest pain to final Death and utter Damnation derive from hence We were once so hardy and firm in our uprightness that nothing could pierce or annoy us but that unhappy fall that Sin gave us so bruised and loosened our Constitution and made us ever since so feeble and tender that we are now brought under the power of the weakest and most Contemptible Creature The least Fly wants not a weapon to wound us and the smallest Kernel hath been the fatal Instrument of Death The Lamp of our Life is now easily blown out we being ready to expire with any extraordinary Passions even those soft and gayer ones of Mirth and Joy. 'T is this that often makes the ordinary means of our health the occasion of our sickness and not only fasting but food mortal To this the several kinds of Death whether Temporal Spiritual or Eternal owe their Original The wounds which this Weapon gives are so fatal as to destroy not only Nature but Grace also and Glory working such a Miracle of Mischief as to extinguish that Life which is everlasting It is so dreadful and ruinous that it kills the Soul as well as the Body and sends not only to the Grave but to Hell. It destroy'd the old World of Men by a Flood laying waste the Primitive Paradisial Earth and turning it into a great ruine It swept away at once a great part of the Inhabitants of Heaven arresting the faln Angels before the Throne of the Almighty and hurrying them headlong into the bottomless Pit and it will at last people the woful Kingdom of Darkness wich an unknown number of miserable deluded Wretches There is no sort of it whether Original if its poison be not washed out in the Laver of Regeneration or Actual how small soever if the Viper be not crushed by Contrition and Repentance but will prove mortal One single act of it if it were possible to stop there nay the least omission entitles to eternal Death That is the wages that will be sure to be paid us even for not doing our work A petty neglect of Charity will deprive us of the inexhaustible Treasures of the Divine Mercy and we may purchase to our selves a portion in the lake which burns with fire by denying a Cup of cold Water Not only an idle word but sometimes silence it self consigns to Damnation Thus deadly is this Sting in all its kinds and degrees which is the Weapon wherewith this Enemy assaults us 3. The success which this Enemy usually meets with in his Conflict with Mankind is Victory If this were not sufficiently implyed in the Question Where 's thy Victory As if he should say thy Victory hitherto hath been notoriously both known and felt but where is it now yet all Countries and Ages Histories and Observation shew how he hath gone on Conquering and to Conquer what spoils and devastations he hath made throughout the World what slaughters and massacres he hath committed upon the sons of Men. There was never any universal Monarch upon Earth besides this King of Terrors to whom all living Creatures sooner or later must bow and obey The mightiest Princes as well as the meanest Subjects are his Tributaries he neither favours the Scepter nor forgets the Spade but calls for them all in and piles them up in one confused heap to raise a triumphal Pyramid to his name Cyrus and Alexander Caesar and Tamberlane after all their glorious Conquests and Trophies their Temples and Statues have at last let fall their Victorious Arms at the feet of this great Conqueror and laid down their Heads on the cold Clod in homage and obeisance to his unbounded Empire Those Heroick flaming Spirits who were so fierce and keen for Victory and Honour and so unsatiable with All this World could give them that they were impatient even to the Effeminacy of tears that there was no more then this to Conquer and Triumph over have yet in fine had all their heat and vigour quenched and tamed by the cold hand of Death their Glory covered with Darkness and themselves led in triumph by this great Triumpher who might insult them too in the Prophetick Stile saying Is this the Man that made the Earth to tremble Isa 14. and shaked Kingdoms That made the World a Wilderness and destroyed the Cities thereof How art thou faln from Heaven O Lucifer Son of the morning O thou who didst weaken the Nations Art thou also become weak like other Men Ezek. 32. Dost thou lie among those that are slain with the Sword And bear the shame of them that go down to the Pit How come thy once glittering weapons of War to lie so quiet and rusty by thee while those Despicable Enemies the Worms assault and prevail over thee intrench within thy bosom and prey upon thy Vitals He was as great a Warriour as
Apostle by its various and doubtful senses hath afforded a large field to the Criticks to shew their Reading and Judgement in is here to be understood neither the Prison of the damned nor the state of the dead but the Mansion of our Carkasses till the Resurrection And though Death and the Grave are here distinguished by the Apostle yet in effect being the same to us we shall in the sequele of this discourse for the most part speak of them as but One. This is the enemy then we have to deal with and how Dreadful it is to the Children of Corruption needs no other proof than a bare appeal to the Universal sense and suffrage of mankind Job 18.14 which Job hath roundly summ'd up in his description of Death by the King of terrours and after him Aristotle much to the same purpose in styling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There 's nothing in the World can beget a greater dread or create a more exquisite horrour in the minds of men than the black and Melancholly apprehension of descending into the dismal state of everlasting darkness and solitude oblivion and senslesness There 's nothing we are not willing to do to suffer or to part with rather than be brought under its power We are ready to undergo all labours and pains fasting and Physick shame and tortures nay I had almost said death it self to avoid it So much of truth is there in That of the Father of lies Skin for Skin and all that a man hath Job 2.4 will be give for his Life And this is so well grounded a passion that it seizes and shakes the mind and shrivels up the Spirits of the stoutest the wisest and most virtuous men Our natures are agast and recoil at the very thoughts of death and our countenances wax wan at the sight of the Grave We are so unfit to enter the lists with these Combatants that we are scarce able to support our selves under the bare prospect or mention of them These Basilisks dis-spirit us at their approach and kill us with their very looks The sound of their names like that of Hunniades to the Turks strikes a dread into our Soul and shoots a chilness through our Veins which Lewis the 11th was so apprehensive of that he would not endure the mention of them either in health or sickness but charged his Servants when ever they should see him weak and languishing to exhort him to confess his Sins but in no wise to name death to him least that alone should kill him before the time The reason of all which must be sought for in our Inbred Antipathy to Annihilation The fear of Death lies as close to our essence as the Love of Life and to offer to reconcile a man to the thoughts of his dissolution is as contradictory an attempt as to perswade him to fall out with his nature and renounce his being And if it be a Natural it must also be a Necessary and unavoidable passion and consequently 't is as impossible to throw off the Fear as the Fate of dying This Enemy is not only Formidable and operative meerly upon the fancy but it s really Hurtful and Mischievous Death smites us in all our Capacities in our Relations and our Persons It turns us out of our Stateliest Houses and Palaces and Sequesters us from our greatest possessions and Empires It blasts our fairest Hopes and dashes in pieces our finest Models Breaking our purposes and the thoughts of our heart It snatches our tender Children out of our Arms and tears away the dearest Guest of our bosom from us It plunders us of our beauty and our strength of our honours and our pleasures It not only deprives us of our liberty and the light by shutting us up in a close dark prison but it layeth us in a bed of dishonour and loathsomness among worms and serpents It throws us into a Pit of stench and rottenness where it preys upon our bodies putrefies our flesh and consumes our bones It not only lops off some of our choicest comforts but lays the Ax to the root of all our Enjoyments in making a divorce betwixt the dearest Couple in nature our Body and Soul and drawing after it if not timely prevented an utter destruction of both eternally Add hereunto that this is an inveterate and implacable Enemy with whom there can no league be struck no amity purchased no reconciliation had It gives quarter to none but shews the like mercy of the Sword to all Indeed beaten captivated destroy'd it may be so it hath been by Christ but appeased reconciled never The Devil who is General and Parent of this Enemy being the Father of Sin who is the Mother of Death hath like an infernal Hannibal sworn all his Offspring to have no peace with the Posterity of Adam Nevertheless Death could do us no great mischief if he came not armed with his Sting which is The second particular the weapon with which this Enemy assaults us The meaning and reason of which Title is next to be examined The Apostle declares the former briefly and plainly in the next words The sting of death is sin A dangerous and deadly weapon The congruity of their names might be deduced from their common relation to a Serpent whose natural weapon is a sting as Sin is the proper hurtful Instrument of that old Serpent the Devil But the dreadfulness of this Weapon and its analogy to a Sting will more fully appear from a distinct consideration of the Pungent and Poisonous nature of Sin. 1. Sin is of a Pungent and Painful nature It usually approaches us indeed with a courtly address and a fawning salutation like Solomons strange Woman her lips drop as an hony comb and her mouth is smoother than oil but the end is bitter as wormwood sharp as a two edged sword A prosperous and harden'd Sinner who resolves to go on in the way of his heart and in the sight of his eyes knowing what smart and anguish the reflection upon his guilt and the very thoughts of the Divine Vengeance will necessarily give him industriously beats out of his mind all notices and remembrances of these things and bears down the first essays of Conscience either to inform or restrain him The Voluptuary indeavours to drown its voice with the louder noise of his Tabret and Harp. The Mammonist tries to hide if not smother this Vice-God as Rachel did her false ones among his Worldly Stuff and Furniture The Atheist and Hypocrite strive to over-rule its Plea with Erroneous Principles and Specious Pretences But at last when the Conscience hath thrown off her chains and servitude and asserted her rightful authority and dominion over the Sinner be it in old age or sickness when he is smitten of God or Man she will change the whole scene of affairs she will set up a true light in his soul and give him a juster apprehension of things and another sense of his own