Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	condemn_v	law_n	sin_n	8,581	5	6.0382	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63684	Christ's yoke an easy yoke, and yet the gate to heaven a strait gate in two excellent sermons, well worthy the serious perusal of the strictest professors / by a learned and reverend divine.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Hove, Frederick Hendrick van, 1628?-1698.	1675 (1675)	Wing T295; ESTC R38275	26,780	106

wills therefore it is they call it hard and impossible whereas it is not the impossibility of the thing but their own disaffections that have heightned the difficulty to a seeming impossibility And thus I have done with the first Part of the Text the Duty it self with its manner of performance We must strive to enter into the narrow Gate of Life and Blisful Immortality II. And that leads to the second Part or the first Argument to engage our endeavours and earnest strivings because the passage is hard and difficult and not to be acquir●d by men that love their ease but by those that with Christian fortitude encounter all difficulties and oppositions Porta est angusta the Gate is narrow therefore strive And 1. I consider that Virtues and Vices many of them are so very like that it is very often extreamly difficult to distinguish them exactly and pursue the Virtue curiously Virtue lies between two Vices not as a mediocrity but as a thing assaulted by two enemies for one Vertue two Vices and each of the extreams hath something of the Virtue in it A Prodigal hath the open-handedness of a liberal person and a covetous person is as wary as he that spends nothing in vain and both these would think themselves uncivilly dealt withal if the freeness of the one or the restraint of the other should be called vicious And there are some Precepts which some will think they have Reason to say they have strictly observed when they have been most notorious Prevaricators of it For may not a vain-glorious person that gives Alms out of the promptness of his Spirit think he hath done his Alms well although he hath done them publickly it being a Divine Precept That our Light so shine before Men that other Men seeing our good Works might glorifie our heavenly Father And if this be a Precept possibly also some who transgress this Precept may think themselves safe on the surer side of Humility And truly that we may see how dangerous our condition is and yet how safe our imaginations are I think no Man will doubt but all God's Commandments have been broken and this of Luceat lux vestra Let your Light shine amongst the rest and yet I never read or heard any man in the greatest and largest of his Confessions ever acknowledge that Crime that he had not done his good deeds publickly But between the Duty of publication of good Deeds and the Duty of Humility the way is so narrow that it is hard to hit it right and when and how and in what manner and in what circumstances to do either is the work of great understanding and much observation I consider yet further many times a Virtue and a Vice differ but in one degree For there is a Rule of Justice to which if any Man adds but one degree of severity more it degenerates into cruelty and a little more than mercy is remisness and want of Discipline introduces licentiousness and becomes unmerciful as to the publick and unjust as to the particular Now this Consideration is heightned if we observe that Vertue and Vice consist not in indivisibili but there is a latitude for either which is not to be judg'd of by any certain Rules drawn from the nature of the thing but to be estimated in proportion to the persons and other accidental circumstances Vertue and Vice dwell too near together unless they were better friends All the Learning of the Sanhedrim could not distinguish between the Humiliation of Ahab and Manasses nor between the Zeal of Jehu and Josiah nor between Joshuah's and David's numbring the people and yet A●ab was but an imperfect penitent Jehu was a furious Zealot and David sinned grievously whereas Manasses was truly contrite and Josiah was a zealous Reformer and Joshuah in the same action was a wise and provident Captain Abraham was called the friend of God for offering Isaac at God's command Now God commanded men to perform their Vows and yet Jepthah for offering up his Daughter hath left to Posterity the reputation of a temerarious and inconsiderate person There is a right hand and a left in the paths of our life and if we decline to either we are undone And therefore pious and holy persons are called upright men and the Precept in Scripture is frequently ingeminated to walk in all God's Commandments with an upright heart For on the right hand of Man is ruine and on the left is destruction and in all the infinite variety of sins there is no other variety of conditions but either to perish or to be undone For every one Vice kills the Soul but every Vertue does not make alive Adultery condemns a Man to the lowest misery but Chastity alone does not keep our Souls from death Because we are forbidden to commit any sin Every crime lies under a prohibition and the same Laws of God command us to pursue all Vertues and enjoyn the integrity of a holy life Now as he that commits one sin or entertains a single Vice breaks the Commandment which enjoyns him to forsake all sin so he observes not the Precept of God concerning Vertues that does not acquire and entertain all universally all A Man is spotted although he have but one stain but he is not clean unless he be all clean A Cup is broken if only the top be broken but is not entire unless every part of it be inviolate One Disease can make a whole man sick but the taking away one Disease will not make all men well and there are a hundred wayes to wander in but one only way to Life and Immortality So that I shall not need to urge the variety of Temptations the subtilty of Sin the watchfulness and malice of the Devil the infirmities of our Spirits the Ignorance of our Understandings the obliquity of our Will the mutiny and disorder of our Affections the inconstancy of our good Purposes the unstableness of our Resolutions the pleasingness of sensual Objects the variety of evil Occasions the perpetual readiness of Opportunities for evil our unwillingness to Good so great that we are loth to beg Blessings and Benefits of God Almighty These and thousands more are but the particular Instances of this first Argument to engage our striving For the Gate that is strait enough in its own abstract consideration is made ten thousand times straiter by the supervening enmities of the Devil the allurements of the World the solicitations and impudent temptations of the Flesh and the imperfections and great weaknesses of Mortality III. I now come to the last Notandum of the Text or the second Argument to enforce our striving the Caution and Example of such persons who have fallen short of entring for want of due striving For many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able Many shall seek The five foolish Virgins sought and they who shall tell Christ that they did Miracles in his Name they sought and