Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	call_v	eternal_a	sin_n	4,776	5	4.7030	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30466	Some passages of the life and death of the right honourable John, Earl of Rochester who died the 26th of July, 1680 / written by his own direction on his death-bed by Gilbert Burnet ...	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1680 (1680)	Wing B5922; ESTC R15099	49,660	204

And the business of the Clergy and their Maintenance with the belief of some Authority and Power conveyed in their Orders lookt as he thought like a piece of Contrivance And why said he must a man tell me I cannot be saved unless I believe things against my Reason and then that I must pay him for telling me of them These were all the Exceptions which at any time I heard from him to Christianity To which I made these Answers For Mysteries it is plain there is in every thing somewhat that is unaccountable How Animals or Men are formed in their Mothers bellies how Seeds grow in the Earth how the Soul dwells in the Body and acts and moves it How we retain the Figures of so many words or things in our Memories and how we draw them out so easily and orderly in our Thoughts or Discourses How Sight and Hearing were so quick and distinct how we move and how Bodies were compounded and united These things if we follow them into all the Difficulties that we may raise about them will appear every whit as unaccountable as any Mystery of Religion And a blind or deaf man would judge Sight or Hearing as incredible as any Mystery may be judged by us For our Reason is not equal to them In the same rank different degrees of Age or Capacity raise some far above others So that Children cannot fathome the Learning nor weak persons the Councels of more illuminated Minds Therefore it was no wonder if we could not understand the Divine Essence We cannot imagine how two such different Natures as a Soul and a Body should so unite together and be mutually affected with one anothers Concerns and how the Soul has one Principle of Reason by which it acts Intellectually and another of life by which it joyns to the Body and acts Vitally two Principles so widely differing both in their Nature and Operation and yet united in one and the same Person There might be as many hard Arguments brought against the possibility of these things which yet every one knows to be true from Speculative Notions as against the Mysteries mentioned in the Scriptures As that of the Trinity That in one Essence there are three different Principles of Operation which for want of terms fit to express them by We call Persons and are called in Scripture The Father Son and Holy Ghost and that the Second of these did unite Himself in a most intimate manner with the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ And that the Sufferings he underwent were accepted of God as a Sacrifice for our Sins Who thereupon conferred on Him a Power of granting Eternal Life to all that submit to the Terms on which He offers it And that the matter of which our Bodies once consisted which may be as justy called the Bodies we laid down at our Deaths as these can be said to be the Bodies which we formerly lived in being refined and made more spiritual shall be reunited to our Souls and become a fit Instrument for them in a more perfect Estate And that God inwardly bends and moves our Wills by such Impressions as he can make on our Bodies and Minds These which are the chief Mysteries of our Religion are neither so unreasonable that any other Objection lies against them but this that they agree not with our Common Notions nor so unaccountable that somewhat like them cannot be assigned in other things which are believed really to be though the manner of them cannot be apprehended So this ought not to be any just Objection to the submission of our Reason to what we cannot so well conceive provided our belief of it be well grounded There have been too many Niceties brought in indeed rather to darken then explain these They have been defended by weak Arguments and illustrated by Similies not always so very apt and pertinent And new subtilties have been added which have rather perplexed than cleared them All this cannot be denied the Opposition of Hereticks anciently occasioned too much Curiosity among the Fathers Which the School-men have wonderfully advanced of late times But if Mysteries were received rather in the simplicity in which they are delivered in the Scriptures than according to the descantings of fanciful men upon them they would not appear much more incredible than some of the common Objects of sense and perception And it is a needless fear that if some Mysteries are acknowledged which are plainly mentioned in the New Testament it will then be in the power of the Priests to add more at their pleasure For it is an absurd Inference from our being bound to assent to some Truths about the Divine Essence of which the manner is not understood to argue that therefore in an Object presented duly to our Senses such as Bread and Wine We should be bound to believe against their Testimony that it is not what our Senses perceived it to be but the whole Flesh and Blood of Christ an entire Body being in every Crumb and drop of it It is not indeed in a mans power to believe thus against his Sense and Reason where the Object is proportioned to them and fitly applied and the Organs are under no indisposition or disorder It is certain that no Mystery is to be admitted but very clear and express Authorities from Scripture which could not reasonably be understood in any other sense And though a man cannot form an explicite Notion of a Mystery for then it would be no longer a Mystery Yet in general he may believe a thing to be though he cannot give himself a particular account of the way of it or rather though he cannot Answer some Objections which lie against it We know We believe many such in Humane matters which are more within our reach and it is very unreasonable to say We may not do it in Divine things which are much more above our Apprehensions For the severe Restraint of the use of Women it is hard to deny that Priviledge to Jesus Christ as a Law-Giver to lay such Restraints as all inferiour Legislators do who when they find the Liberties their Subjects take prove hurtful to them set such Limits and make such Regulations as they judge necessary and expedient It cannot be said but the Restraint of Appetite is necessary in some Instances and if it is necessary in these perhaps other Restraints are no less necessary to fortifie and secure these For if it be acknowledged that Men have a property in their Wives and Daughters so that to defile the one or corrupt the other is an injust and injurious thing It is certain that except a man carefully governs his Appetites he will break through these Restraints and therefore our Saviour knowing that nothing could so effectually deliver the World from the mischief of unrestrained Appetite as such a Confinement might very reasonably enjoyn it And in all such Cases We are to ballance the Inconveniences on both hands and where we find they

with true Devotion as they perceived the strength of their Bodies increased or abated according as they had or wanted good nourishment After many Discourses upon this Subject he still continued to think all was the effect of Fancy He said That he understood nothing of it but acknowledged that he thought they were very happy whose Fancies were under the power of such Impressions since they had somewhat on which their thoughts rested and centred But when I saw him in his last Sickness he then told me He had another sense of what we had talked concerning prayer and inward assistances This Subject led us to discourse of God and of the Notion of Religion in general He believed there was a Supream Being He could not think the World was made by chance and the regular Course of Nature seemed to demonstrate the Eternal Power of its Author This he said he could never shake off but when he came to explain his Notion of the Deity he said He looked on it as a vast Power that wrought every thing by the necessity of its Nature and thought that God had none of those Affections of Love or Hatred which breed perturbation in us and by consequence he could not see that there was to be either reward or punishment He thought our Conceptions of God were so low that we had better not think much of him And to love God seemed to him a presumptuous thing and the heat of fanciful men Therefore he believed there should be no other Religious Worship but a general Celebration of that Being in some short Hymn All the other parts of Worship he esteemed the Inventions of Priests to make the World believe they had a Secret of Incensing and Appeasing God as they pleased In a word he was neither perswaded that there was a special Providence about humane Affairs Nor that Prayers were of much use since that was to look on God as a weak Being that would be overcome with Importunities And for the state after death though he thought the Soul did not dissolve at death Yet he doubted much of Rewards or Punishments the one he thought too high for us to attain by our slight Services and the other was too extream to be inflicted for Sin This was the substance of his Speculations about God and Religion I told him his Notion of God was so low that the Supream Being seemed to be nothing but Nature For if that being had no freedom nor choice of its own Actions nor operated by Wisdom or Goodness all those Reasons which lead him to acknowledge a God were contrary to this Conceit for if the Order of the Universe perswaded him to think there was a God He must at the same time conceive him to be both Wise and Good as well as powerful since these all appear'd equally in the Creation though his Wisdom and Goodness had ways of exerting themselves that were far beyond our Notions or Measures If God was Wise and Good he would naturally love and be pleased with those that resembled him in these Perfections and dislike those that were opposite to him Every Rational Being naturally loves it self and is delighted in others like it self and is averse from what is not so Truth is a Rational Natures acting in conformity to it self in all things and Goodness is an Inclination to promote the happiness of other Beings So Truth and Goodness were the essential perfections of every reasonable Being and certainly most eminently in the Deity nor does his Mercy or Love raise Passion or Perturbation in Him for we feel that to be a weakness in our selves which indeed only flows from our want of power or skill to do what we wish or desire It is also reasonable to believe God would assist the Endeavours of the Good with some helps suitable to their Nature And that it could not be imagined that those who imitated him should not be specially favoured by him and therefore since this did not appear in this State it was most reasonable to think it should be in another where the Rewards shall be an admission to a more perfect State of Conformity to God with the felicity that follows it and the Punishments should be a total exclusion from him with all the horrour and darkness that must follow that These seemed to be the natural Results of such several Courses of life as well as the Effects of Divine Justice Rewarding or punishing For since he believed the Soul had a distinct subsistance separated from the Body Upon its dissolution there was no reason to think it passed into a State of utter Oblivion of what it had been in formerly but that as the reflections on the good or evil it had done must raise joy or horrour in it So those good or ill Dispositions accompanying the departed Souls they must either rise up to a higher Perfection or sink to a more depraved and miserable State In this life variety of Affairs and objects do much cool and divert our Minds and are on the one hand often great temptations to the good and give the bad some ease in their trouble but in a State wherein the Soul shall be separated from sensible things and employed in a more quick and sublime way of Operation this must very much exalt the Joys and Improvements of the good and as much heighten the horrour and rage of the Wicked So that it seemed a vain thing to pretend to believe a Supream Being that is Wise and Good as well as great and not to think a discrimination will be made between the Good and Bad which it is manifest is not fully done in this life As for the Government of the World if We believe the Supream Power made it there is no reason to think he does not govern it For all that we can fancy against it is the distraction which that Infinite Variety of Second Causes and the care of their Concernments must give to the first if it inspects them all But as among men those of weaker Capacities are wholly taken up with some one thing whereas those of more enlarged powers can without distraction have many things within their care as the Eye can at one view receive a great Variety of Objects in that narrow Compass without confusion So if we conceive the Divine Understanding to be as far above ours as his Power of creating and framing the whole Universe is above our limited activity We will no more think the Government of the World a distraction to him and if we have once overcome this prejudice We shall be ready to acknowledge a Providence directing all Affairs a care well becoming the Great Creator As for Worshipping Him if we imagine Our Worship is a thing that adds to his happiness or gives him such a fond Pleasure as weak people have to hear themselves commended or that our repeated Addresses do overcome Him through our meer Importunity We have certainly very unworthy thoughts of him The