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	great_a	time_n	7,743	5	3.4082	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48887	Reason and religion in some useful reflections on the most eminent hypotheses concerning the first principles, and nature of things : with advice suitable to the subject, and seasonable for these times.	Locke, John, 1632-1704.	1694 (1694)	Wing L2750; ESTC R19663	52,442	148

zealous and active for God tho' they do not always give the best Reason and Demonstration for it But however by these Diversities of Operation and Temper in the Creature in carrying in the Cause of God the one supplies the Defectiveness of the other 'T is therefore no sufficient Occasion of insulting in any Irreligious Person if they find the Zeal of some plain and honest-hearted Christians to go beyond their Knowledge Every one is not cut out for a Disputer especially in such Matters which they could hardly ever have dream'd there should have been any Dispute about And tho' God gives them inward Convictions of the Truth of those Heavenly Doctrines they are zealous for yet they may not be prepared to encounter the Cavils and Objections which an Artist in Profaneness may raise up God provides other Means and Instruments for that purpose and they must not measure their Conquest by the Insufficiency of less Contemplative Christians but by the Advantage they can gain over those which will be but small who have made it their Business to dive into the bottom of their unreasonable Objections 'T is customary with some Men to furnish themselves with a few profane Cavils And if they can but puzzle the Parson or some honest-hearted Christian Illos exaequat victoria coele they think the Day is their own and that Religion will never be able to lift up its Head more Nay sometimes when a Minister discourses very affectionately concerning the Fear of God and our Duty to him concerning the Providence of God and our Acknowledgment of it in many eminent Occurrences of Humane Life concerning the Promises of Heaven and the Terrors of Hell such Men who take themselves to be Men of no ordinary Parts and Judgment are ready to indulge Themselves and their Neighbour with a scornful Smile As if a Minister of the Gospel must be always laying the Grounds of Divinity without making any further Progress in opening to the People the whole Counsel of God As though none of his Auditory were deserving of his Regards but a Company of Desperadoes who like that horrible Monster in the Poet are by vertue of no Exhortations or Arguments to be reduced from Vice As though he must be shy or stirring up to Duty of setting Life and Death Blessings and Cursings before his Charge because a great many who care neither for him nor his Discourses are not pleased with them Rather than Religion shall be thus reason'd out of Countenance let them laugh on still 'T is better they should despise and wander than the Life of Piety in humbly disposed Christians should be check'd and perish Let private Christians go on in their way without being perplex'd at their Cavils let godly Preachers remind their Flock of the Judgments of God without respecting their Faces or fearing their Disdain and let all know That as Religion in general so its particular Doctrines are capable of very rational Proof though on this or that Opportunity they have but little of it It would be well if any thing which is spoken on this Subject may as effectually over-awe the Rudeness as it doth discover the Ignorance of Irreligious Men and make them more modest and suspicious of their own Judgment 'T is better for them to live under a Sense of God and his Judgments here than feel the Effects of their wicked Folly and Confidence hereafter and they have reason to be thankful for the Kindness of those who will tell them plainly and affectionately of the Nature and Purposes of God of his Promises and Threatnings since there are such Grounds for this Religious Zeal as they with all their Knowledge are not able to oppose IV. The Reasonableness of Religion justifies the Provision in all wise and well-order'd States for the suppressing of Profaneness and supporting Piety The Honour of Government can never be consistent with the Dishonour of God And how tolerable soever Differences in Religion may be the Defiance of all Religion is not to be endured The most rigorous Inquisition or Enforcements to Uniformity are preferable to that Indulgence which permits the most impudent Infidelity to thrive and spread under its Shelter The Sword of Authority is put into the Hands of Magistrates for the Restraint of Ungodliness and was employed by a Prince after God's own Heart for rooting out all wicked Doers from the City of the Lord. Severity against Blasphemous Wretches is no Breach of Moderation but a piece of Justice to the Government of Charity to the Governed and the Sufferers themselves can complain of no hard Usage thereby 1. If very severe Laws were made and executed against the Profaners of Religion What Obligation either of Interest Conscience Generosity or Good Manners are any under to bring themselves in danger of the Penalty If they like the Fool in the Psalmist say in their Heart That there is no God it is their Interest to conceal their Folly and to wish none may be of that Opinion besides themselves For by this means they have a Tye over all others which others have not over them and whether they are Masters or Servants Parents or Children Husbands or Wives or in whatsoever worldly Commerce Relations or Business they are concern'd the Belief of a superintending Deity will awe their Relatives to be faithful and affectionate and discharge a good Conscience to them A Privilege which it is very much for their Advantage to preserve Nor can Conscience engage them to make Proselites by openly professing their Infidelity Both the Laws of God and the Laws of Man the proper Rules of Conscience dispose them to be silent And if Conscience especially as they say be no other than the Biass of Education we may hope none have so naughty an Education as to think it their Duty to disturb the Religious Impressions of Education or Conscience in other People The most plausible Pretext is that of Generosity Regard to Truth and the Welfare of Mankind It grieves them to see the World so basely enslaved to Religion and Man's Life oppressed with Superstitious Fears or Fancies drawing them off from the Comforts they might enjoy or embittering their Enjoyment But alas Unless we are perswaded of a Supream Governour and a Future State the Life of Man hardly deserves our Notice We are here to Day and gone to Morrow and it signifies little what different Perswasions Men are acted by what different Scenes they have passed through when Death in a very little time will bring them to be all alike If Men are now and then melancholick 't is no great matter Some critical Turn of Humours in the Body some favourable Frown of Nature will give them their Quietus and they will sooner find a Cure by the loss of Life than Religion Besides most of the Melancholly which Religious Men are infested with is originally owing to the Contagion of wicked Company From thence terrifying Doubts and Occasions of Disorder are suggested from

only Eightscore or Eight can escape the saving of these few cannot be referred to the regular Operations of Nature but either to Chance or Miracle Miracle you will not chuse and if only by Chance they escape once in the Eternal Rollings and Revolutions of second Causes 't is more than probable that one time or other they may chance to be all destroyed Secondly And because the Predominancy of Fire and Water according to your way of reckoning seem to be successive and that another universal Deluge cannot naturally be expected till after a Conflagration that may come in for a share in our present Meditations If any such opake and heavy Bodies as the Earth is may be burnt up we will not consider the means of their Renovation but only the Possibility of such a Judgment 's Coming to our Turn And the Eternity of the Earth being supposed there may have been as many Conflagrations as Deluges and Fire being a much more Tyrannous Element than Water if ever the Earth was burnt up by the Prevalency of Fire which if we can believe it Eternal we may as well believe has happen'd Millions of Times we cannot imagine any possible Way or Means except miraculously for one living Creature to escape The short of what we may infer from these two Particulars is That either Mankind have had only one Beginning which we Christians do believe or that they had an undeterminable Number of Beginnings which you Heathens must believe And then the Question between us will be only this From whence by what Forming Power they had their Beginning And sure you will be ashamed to go back to Epicurus and to the old ridiculous Fables of Mankind's creeping out of the Mudd and Slime of the Earth enliven'd with the Suns Heat having nothing to form and organize them but blind Matter and Motion This is an Absurdity so great that the Opinion of Infinite Successions was invented on purpose to prevent it your Patrons wisely resolving that of two Evils or Absurdities the least was to be chosen Thus you are driven out of your Mudd and Matter to your Infinite Successions and from Infinite Successions into the Mudd again not knowing where to fix unless the next Consideration will relieve you Thirdly If there be such Mutations in the Heavenly Bodies as the appearof Comets the fresh appearing or disappearing of Fix'd Stars are astonishing Indications and Signs of why should not you think that the like Mutations have happen'd in our Sphere In an Eternal Course of Ages every thing that is possible may be expected Suppose according to your Laws of Nature the Dissolution of one Sphere having a fix'd Star for the Centre may happen in a Thousand Years which is a very moderate Supposal in the infinite Circle of Eternity the same Fate might have taken its Round innumerable Times All the Hosts of Heaven in their several Turns might be broken and disbanded and recall'd to their former Posts and Stations And not to say how often it might happen to our Vortex we will take only once for granted And the Sun the Moon and all the Stars about us having been in one confused Heap without Life or Order you may as well believe the Beginning which Moses speaks of as any other And tho' honest Maimonides was very zealous against the World's Eternity and thought he could never muster up too many Arguments against it as an Opinion which must inevitably over-turn the Religion of Moses and expose his Miracles as Impostures yet there seems not to be one Sentence or Word in the first Chapter of Genesis except the Critical Interpretation of the Word Bara for Production out of Nothing which a necessary Explication of this Hypothesis may not accord with And all those eminent Doctors in the Church who have interpreted the six Days of Moses not strictly according to the Letter or believed the Existence of Ages Persons or Places long before the precise Account of Time given us by Moses as they leave the absolute Beginning of Things precarious and uncertain so they render this Hypothesis how contrary to Reason soever it may be and is yet not so positively damnable from Scripture And now O vain Men What Refuge will you flee unto There are no other possible Conceits for justifying your Infidelity And since these will stand you in no stead at present think within your selves How much less serviceable they will be unto you at the Revelation of a more lightsome Day Even in this mortal and obscure State the Approaches of Death give the Irreligious other Eyes to see with Danger dispels their Prejudices and coming on the Brink of Eternity they begin to think of God of separate Spirits and other Regions when they cannot think of them with Comfort Now they are apt to say as the Cardinals to the Religious Hermit What if there be no God no Future State But Diseases giving them notice of their Dissolution the Answer of the good Father will be running in their Minds What if there be And is it not much the wisest and best Method to live by those sacred Perswasions which probably you will dye in especially when the great Patrons of Infidelity can say nothing against them Nay we have not so much as a Maybe left on our side against the Verity of Religion For it cannot be that the World should either be Eternal or made by Chance Or if one of those May-be's be granted it cannot be that either Hypothesis should be exclusive of a Divine Nature or Providence And if you are by these Considerations rendred as you cannot but be uneasie in Irreligion and know not which way to turn read over the former Part again with a pious Care and Attention and it may prepare you for the following Advice which as the precedent Discourse is intended not for the reproaching but reforming of your Judgment not for the condemning of your Persons but the Safety of your Souls not to abridge you of any present Felicity but to excite you to the Attainment of that which is Eternal III. So excellent a Subject ought not to be closed without some suitable Advice And tho' the Knowledge of God as it is the Foundation of all Religion may have a general Reference to every Religious Duty yet it will be fit to chuse out such particular Instances of Address as the prevailing Vices and Inadvertency of this Age seem most in need of 1. The evident Connexion of Reason and Religion may direct us to a right Judgment of those Men who despise and undervalue Sacred Things for hereby it appears they despise and undervalue that which they do not understand The Psalmist hath given us an excellent Character of such Men The fool hath said in his heart there is no God They are corrupt and have done abominable works there is none that doeth good The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the children of Men to see if there were any that