Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	darkness_n	light_n	shadow_n	7,372	5	9.4624	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62128	XXXVI sermons viz. XVI ad aulam, VI ad clerum, VI ad magistratum, VIII ad populum : with a large preface / by the right reverend father in God, Robert Sanderson, late lord bishop of Lincoln ; whereunto is now added the life of the reverend and learned author, written by Isaac Walton.	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.; Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.	1686 (1686)	Wing S638; ESTC R31805	1,064,866	813

old Father in the excuse of his licentious Son in the Comedy Non est flagitium mihi crede adolescentulum scortari and yet he spake but as the generality of them then thought but it was the serious plea also of the grave Roman Orator in the behalf of his Client in open Court before the severity of the sage Reverend bench of Judges Quando hoc non factum est Quando reprehensum Quando non permissum And Datur omnium concessu c. Nor in the lust of concupiscence saith St. Paul as the Gentiles which know not God An error so universally spread and so deeply rooted in the minds and in the lives of the Gentiles who having their understanding darkned through the ignorance that was in them because of the blindness of their hearts wrought such uncleanness not only without remorse but even with greediness that the Apostles had much ado with those men whom by the preaching of the Gospel they had converted from Gentilism to Christianity before they could reclaim them from an Error so inveterate both in the judgment and practice St. Paul therefore as it both became and concerned him being the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles often toucheth upon this string in his Epistles written unto the Churches of the Gentiles But no where doth he set himself more fully and directly with much evidence of reason and strength of argument against this Sin and Error than in the first Epistle he wrote to the Corinthians because among them this sin was both it self most rife in the practice the Corinthians being notedly infamous for lust and wantonness and it was also as much slighte● there as any where many of them thinking that the body was made for fornication as the belly for meats and that fornication was as fit and convenient for the body as meats for the belly Out of which consideration the Apostles in that first General Council holden at Ierusalem Acts 15. thought it needful by Ecclesiastical Canon among some other indifferent things for the Churches peace to lay this restraint upon the converted Gentiles that they should abstain from Fornication Not as if Fornication were in it self an indifferent thing as those other things were nor as if those other things were in themselves and simply unlawful as Fornication was but the Apostles did therefore joyn Fornication and those other indifferent things together in the same Canon because the Gentiles accounted fornication a thing as indiffereut as what was most indifferent Some remainders of the common error there were it seemeth among some Christians in St. Augustine's days who both relateth the opinion and confu●●th it And some in the Popish Church have not come far behind herein so many of them I mean as hold that Simple fornication is not intrinsecally and in the proper nature of it a sin against the Law of Nature but only made such by divine positive Law A strange thing it is and to my seeming not less than a mystery that those men that speak so harshly of Marriage which God hath ordained should withal speak so favourably of fornication which God hath forbidden preposterously preferring the disease which springeth from our corruption before the remedy which God himself hath prescribed in his Word But howsoever if some Christians have spoken and written and thought so favourably of fornication as to their shame it appeareth they have done the less may we marvel to see Abimelech a King and an Infidel allow himself the liberty to continue in the sin of Fornication and yet notwithstanding such allowance stand so much upon his own innocency and integrity as he doth God forbid any man that heareth me this day should be so either ignorant or uncharitable as to conceive all or any of that I have yet said spoken to give the least shadow of liberty or excuse to Fornication or any uncleannes which St. Paul would not have so much as named among the Saints not named with allowance not named with any extenuation not named but with some detestation But the very thing for which I have spoken all this is to shew how inexcusable the Adulterer is when even those of the Gentiles who by reason of the darkness of their understandings and the want of scripture-Scripture-light could espy no obliquity in Fornication could yet through all that darkness see something in Adultery deservedly punishable even in their judgments with death They could not so far quench that spark of the light of nature which was in them nor hold back the truth of God in unrighteousness as not by the glympse thereof to discern a kind of reverend Majesty in God's holy Ordinance of Wedlock which they knew might not be dishonoured nor the bed defiled by Adultery without guilt They saw Adultery was a mixt crime and such as carried with it the face of Injustice as well as Uncleanness nor could be committed by the two offending parties without wrong done to a third And therefore if any thing might be said colourably to excuse Fornication as there can be nothing said justly yet if any such thing could be said for Fornication it would not reach to excuse Adultery because of the injury that cleaveth thereunto Against Fornication God hath ordained Marriage as a Remedy what a beast then is the Adulterer and what a Monster whom that remedy doth no good upon In the marriage-knot there is some expression and representation of the Love-covenant betwixt Christ and his Churoh but what good assurance can the Adulterer have that he is within that Covenant when he breaketh this Knot Every married person hath ipso facto surrendred up the right and interest he had in and over his own body and put it out of his own into the power of another what an arrant Thief then is the Adulterer that taketh upon him to dispose at his pleasure that which is none of his But I say too well by him when I compare him but to a thief Solomon maketh him worse than a Thief Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfie his soul when he is hungry c. But whoso committeth Adultery with a Woman lacketh understanding he that doth it destroyeth his own soul c. Where he maketh both the injury greater and the reconcilement harder in and for the Adulterer than for the Thief Nay God himself maketh him worse than a Thief in his Law in his Moral Law next after Murther placing Adultery before Theft as the greater sin and in his Iudicial Law punishing Theft with a mulct but Adultery with Death the greater Punishment To conclude this first point Abimelech an Heathen-man who had not the knowledge of the true God of Heaven to direct him in the right way and withal a King who had therefore none upon earth above him to control him if he should

eaten or not for neither if we eat nor if we eat not are we much either the better or the worse for that But the Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost It consisteth in the exercise of holy graces and the conscionble performance of unquestioned duties Sincere confession of sin proceeding from an humble and contrite heart constancy in professing the true faith of Christ patience in suffering adversity exemplary obedience to the holy Laws of God fruitfulness in good works these these are things wherein God expecteth to be glorified by us But as for meats and drinks and all other indifferent things inasmuch as they have no intrinsecal moral either good or evil in them but are good or evil only according as they are used well or ill the glory of God is not at all concerned in the using or not using of them otherwise than as our Faith or Temperance or Obedience or Charity or other like Christian grace or vertue is exercised or evidenced thereby 23. I have now done with the first thing and of the most important consideration proposed from the Text to wit the end it self the Glory of God The Amplifications follow the former whereof containeth a description of the party to be glorified That ye may glorifie God If it be demanded Which God For there be Gods many and Lords many It is answered in the Text God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Of which Title there may be sundry reasons given some more general why it is used at all some more special why it should be used here First this is Stilo novo never found in the Old Testament but very often in the New For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Eph. 3. The God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ knoweth that I lie not 2 Cor. 11. Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. As the Old Covenant ceased upon the bringing in of a new and better Covenant so there was cessation of the old Style upon the bringing in of this new and better Style The old ran thus The God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob proclaimed by God himself when he was about to deliver the posterity of those three godly Patriarchs from the Bondage of Aegypt But having now vouchsafed unto his people a far more glorious deliverance than that from a far more grievious Bondage than that from under Sin Satan Death Hell and the Law whereof that of Aegypt was but a shadow and type he hath quitted that Style and now expecteth to be glorified by this most sweet and blessed Name The Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Exchanging the name of God a name of greater distance and terror into the Name of Father a name of more nearness and indulgence And taking the additional title or denomination not from the parties delivered as before who were his faithful servants indeed yet but servants but from the person delivering his only begotten and only beloved Son It is first the evangelical Style 24. Secondly this Style putteth a difference between the true God of Heaven and Earth whom only we are to glorifie and all other false and imaginary titular Gods to whom we owe nothing but scorn and detestation The Pagans had scores hundreds some have reckoned thousands of Gods all of their own making Every Nation every City yea almost every House had their several Gods or Godlings Deos topicos Gods many and Lords many But to us saith our Apostle to us Christians there is but one God the Father and one Lord Iesus Christ his Son This is Deus Christianorum If either you hope as Christians to receive grace from that God that alone can give it or mean as Christians to give glory to that God that alone ought to have it this this is he and none other God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. It is a Style of distinction 25. These two Reasons are general There are two other more special for the use of it here in respect of some congruity it hath with the matter or method of the Apostles present discourse For First it might be done with reverence to that Argument which he had so lately pressed and whereof also he had given a touch immediately before in the next former verse and which he also resumed again in the next following verse drawn from the example of Christ. That since Christ in receiving us and condescending to our weaknesses did aim at his Fathers glory so we also should aim at the same end by treading in the same steps We cannot better glorifie God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ than by receiving one another into our charity care and mutual support as Iesus Christ also received us to the glory of his heavenly Father 26. Secondly since we cannot rightly glorifie God unless we so conceive him as our Father If I be a Father where is mine honour Mal. 1. That they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven Mat. 5. it may be the Apostle would have us take knowledge how we came to have a right to our Son-ship and for that end might use the title here given to intimate to us upon what ground it is that we have leave to make so bold with our great Lord and Master as to call him our Father even no other but this because he is the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only Son of God by nature and generation and through him only it is that we are made the Sons of God by grace and adoption As many as received him to them he gave power to be made the Sons of God Joh. 1. If we be the Sons of God we are made so but he is the Son of God not made nor created but begotten I go to my Father and to your Father saith he himself Ioh. 20. mine first and then and therefore yours also He is medium unionis like the corner stone wherein both sides of the building unite or like the ladder whereon Iacob saw Angels ascending and descending All intercourse 'twixt Heaven and Earth God and Man is in and through him If any grace come from God to us it is by Christ If any glory come from us to God it is by Christ too Unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Iesus Eph. 3. And this shall suffice to have spoken concerning the former Amplification briefly because it seemeth not to conduce so much nor so nearly to the Apostles main scope here as doth that other which now followeth respecting the manner with one mind and with one mouth 27. Wherein omitting for brevities sake such advantages as from the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be raised for farther enlargement observe first that whereas he nameth two