Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	day_n	good_a	life_n	10,536	5	4.7272	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47454	The counterfeit Christian, or, The danger of hypocrisy opened in two sermons : containing an exposition of that parabolical speech of our Blessed Saviour, Matth. XII, 43, 44, 45 ... / by Benjamin Keach ...	Keach, Benjamin, 1640-1704.	1691 (1691)	Wing K55; ESTC R18720	49,835	62

Notions of Religion though may be false and corrupt Notions but if they can but bring a Person to receive their Principles and external Ordinances then they glory tho hereby he is made twofold perhaps sevenfold more the Child of Hell than before the poor deceived Wretch thinking this change of Religion is a true Conversion and so never looks out for any other but speaking Peace to his own Soul judging all is well within They doubt not but they have Religion enough when it doth commend them to Me● and are taken for Saints by Saints their greatest Labor is to keep up their Name and Credit in Religion so that if they may pass unsuspected amongst their Fellow-Creatures or have the Approbation of Men and that if none can charge them justly with any immoral Actions they rest satisfied whereas the greatest Care of a true Child of God is so to walk and labour that he may be accepted of God and have his Approbation 7. Self is commonly in the bottom In all they do they aim not at the Glory of God but have a carnal Design Self-Advantage or Self-Applause c. This moves and quickens them and animates them in all they perform in religious Services and if they miss of their end be it what it will they soon are weary and grow cold and flat in their Spirits and become quarrelsome and seek Offences and disturb the Peace of the Church to whom they belong 8. Moreover they are not the same at Home which they are Abroad not in Private what they seem to be in Publick may be seldom pray either in their Family or Closet or if they do 't is with little Zeal Enlargedness or Affection to God There are divers other Marks and Characters of Hypocrites and of these false Professors which I must pass by because I would speak a word or two of Application In the last place The latter State of these Men is worse than the first 1. Because God oftentimes leaves them to judicial Blindness and to the hardness of their own Hearts According as it is written God hath given them the Spirit of Slumber Eyes that they should not see and Ears that they should not hear unto this day Even thus as God dealt with the Unbelieving Jews or the People of that Generation so I say he oftentimes deals with other formal Hypocrites c. and for the very same Cause Doubtless it was for those Spiritual Sins Unbelief and Hypocrisy the Pharisees and other People of Israel were rejected and cast off And O what Wrath were they laid under the Wrath of God is said to come upon them to the uttermost Moreover some of these false and counterfeit Professors also fall into the very same Sins and horrid Abominations they were guilty of before they made any profession of Religion nay and they prove more vile and notorious in Wickedness than ever It hath often been seen that this sort of Men who forsake the Ways of God which they seemed to own and profess have at last appeared more impudent in Sin than the vilest Men being ring-leaders to all lewd and cursed Practices and Deeds of Darkness so that the same unclean Spirit returneth into some of them in the same shape also though I cannot see any ground to believe it happens so to them all for doubtless many of them retain their seeming Zeal and external Profession of Religion and outward Holiness until they die Evident it is our Saviour applies this direful Doom on the People of that Generation viz. the Jews particularly to the Scribes and Pharisees see the 38th verse Yet certain it is many of them never turned to open Prophaneness but died in their Unbelief whilst they abode proud and zealous Pharisees Yet I see no reason to question but this returning Devil and those seven other Spirits more wicked is applied to them as well as to others who fell away from their seeming Piety and Profession But of some of them especially it hath happened according to what St. Peter speaks For if after they have escaped the Pollutions of the World through the Knowledg of Jesus Christ and are again overcome the latter end of that Man is worse than the first that is such a knowledg of Christ as brings with it or doth produce an outward reformation of Life For as the Elect cannot be deceived so they cannot fall finally having the seed remaining in them cannot sin unto Death they are said to have eternal Life abiding in them Because saith Christ I live ye shall live also He that hath begun that good work in them will perform it to the Day of Christ They are passed from Death unto Life and shall not come into condemnation But as to these false-hearted or hypocritical Persons it happeneth to them that is to some of them according to the true Proverb The Dog is turned to his own Vomit and the Sow that was washed to her wallowing in the Mire The Apostle comparing them to Dogs and Swine shews what fort they were viz. such who never passed under an effectual change of Heart but were whilst they made a great or high profession like unclean Beasts A restraint may be put on an evil Beast or on a filthy and unclean Nature where there is not a change of nature 't is one thing to have the Life washed or cleansed and another to have the Heart cleansed Furthermore Some of this sort who have received those high though common Illuminations of the Spirit even to such a degree as they are said to be inlightned and to have tasted of the Heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost c. that is in the common Gifts and Graces thereof and yet after all they fall away nay and so fall that they can never be renewed again by Repentance Therefore some of these Persons are they who sin the Sin against the Holy Ghost that shall never be forgiven Prophane Persons doubtless do not sin this Sin nor can true Christians commit it they cannot sin unto Death No no these are those miserable Souls those cursed Apostates who are liable and in danger to sin the unpardonable Sin Nay and observable it is that the Lord Jesus in the verses before he spake this Parable intimates that those very Pharisees c. were guilty of or in danger of being charged with this Sin see vers 30. they shewed so much Malice against our blessed Saviour as to charge him with a Devil and that he cast out Devils by Beelzebub But when the Pharisees heard it they said This Fellow doth not cast out Devils but by Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils And from hence he said All manner of Sin and Blasphemy shall be forgiven to Men but the Sin against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto Men. And therefore he bids them to make the Tree good intimating whilst the Heart was evil and under diabolical Influences

That by the drawing here is not meant of any coaction or force upon the Will is out of Question the Will acts freely according to the Nature of that Faculty but as it is acted and influenced by the Spirit according to that Text in the Psalms My People shall be willing in the Day of my Power But that it is to be understood only of a rational drawing by Arguments used in the Ministry of the Word we do deny though in this sense some do take it and conclude it is of the same import with that compelling mentioned Luk. 14. 23. for the Ministers of the Gospel as one observes have no other Power to compel But the Act of drawing here is not ascribed to the Servants but to the Master not the Preacher but the Father therefore doubtless it signifies a Divine Power put forth upon the Soul of Man by which the Lord opens the Heart as he did the Heart of Lydia so that he is made obedient to the call of God and willing to close with the Offer of Christ And that this must be the meaning of the Text it is rational to conclude considering the nature of the motion in coming unto Christ which is the motion of the Soul to a sublime spiritual Object to do which as no Soul hath any power of it self such is the darkness of the Mind the obstinacy of the Will and pravity of the Affections unless influenced and wrought upon by the Spirit So in like manner nothing is proud Man naturally more averse to cannot indure to think he is such a poor Miscreant a mere beggarly Wretch that he has not so much as a bit of Bread to eat nor a Garment in a spiritual sense to cover him but must be beholden to his Neighbour for all For as no Soul is able without supernatural Grace to apprehend spiritual Things cannot discern them so there is in his mind enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be From all which I have said it appears Faith as before hinted is not the Condition of Justification tho the Way or Means appointed to receive that Righteousness that doth justify the Sinner so likewise Faith is God's Gift Yet 't is foolish to say Man doth not believe but rather the Spirit for him because he cannot believe by any natural Power inherent in him till he is divinely influenced by the Holy Ghost For such may as well say Lazarus did not live or it was not his Life which he had after quickned because it was infused into him by the Power and Spirit of Christ Therefore this and the former Objection are both gone and the supposed Condition of the New Covenant vanquished since Faith it self being the Fruit of it cannot be the Condition thereof But saith the Objector If Faith and Repentance be not Conditions of the Covenant of Grace then those whom God hath appointed to Salvation shall be saved whether they believe or repent or no. To which we answer That Faith and Repentance c. are Promises of the New Covenant as well as Justification and Eternal Life and he that hath ordained the End hath also ordained the Means I will put my Law into their inward Parts and write it in their Hearts and will be their God and they shall be my People And I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from doing them good but I will put my Fear into their Hearts that they shall not depart from me That God who hath promised to make us Happy hath also promised to make us Holy he hath promised Grace to us here and to change our Hearts of Stone and to give us Hearts of Flesh as well as he hath promised to give us Glory hereafter Our being called in Time is but the effect of God's eternal Love before Time because he hath loved us with an everlasting love therefore with loving kindness hath he drawn us We are called by the free Grace of God according to his purpose as well as justified and eternally saved We are predestinated that we may be conformable to the Image of his Son in Holiness here on Earth as well as in Heaven hereafter If Men are left under the power of their Sins or only to the bare improvements of their own natural Abilities in a meer reformed Life and never brought by the free Grace of God to believe in Jesus Christ and so to have real Union with him 't is an evident sign they shall never be saved they being none of them that the Father hath given to Christ for saith he all that the Father giveth to me shall come unto me and in these only are infused the Divine Habits of Saving-Grace The Apostle positively affirms that God hath chosen us in Christ before the Foundation of the World that we should be Holy and without blame before him in love not only chosen to Salvation which is the End but to Holiness as the Means Not because we are Holy are we chosen but that we may be Holy but this ought not to take any Soul from the use of the Means And as a clear demonstration and illustration of this I might mention that passage concerning Paul's Voyage to Rome in respect of that assurance God gave him of the Lives of all that were with him in the Ship the Angel of God appeared to him and said And lo God hath given thee all them that sail with thee Wherefore Sirs be of good chear for I believe God that it shall be as it was told me This Promise was absolute yet see what Paul said to them Except ye abide in the Ship ye cannot be saved That God that hath promised us Salvation doth not save us without the use of Means although the efficaciousness and truth of the Promise does no ways depend upon the virtue of the Means but the Means are made effectual by virtue of the Promise yet whoever neglects the Means under any pretence of a free Promise he does but tempt God but doth not as some observe rightly believe in him Seventhly Amongst the wicked Spirits that are entred into this Man namely into this Counterfeit Christian that horrid and wicked Spirit of Unbelief must not be left out for tho this Sin of Sins is in all unconverted Persons yet it reigns and triumphs more in this sort of People than in others Prophane Persons are kept up by a false Faith depending as they will tell you on the Death and Merits of Christ tho 't is only cursed presumption in them for that cannot be a true Faith which changes not the Heart and Life of the Creature But they believe not by reason of love to their Sins which they are not as yet willing to forgo But these believe not on Christ because of that love which they have to their own seeming Righteousness which in point of Trust