Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	dead_a	sin_n	world_n	5,645	5	5.0645	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23770	A sermon preach'd before the King, Decemb. 31, 1665, at Christ-Church in Oxford by R. Allestree ...	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.	1666 (1666)	Wing A1166; ESTC R17323	16,852	42

indeed this Child riding as in Triumph in the midst of his Hosannas when he saw one City whose fall he was set for on this very accompt He was so far from being pleas'd with it that He wept over it in pity But alas that onely more declares the most deplor'd and desperate condition of such sinners Blessed Saviour Hadst thou no blood to shed for them nothing but tears or didst thou weep to think thy very bloodshed does but make their guilt more crimson who refuse the mercy of that bloodshed all the time that is offer'd Sad is their state that can find no pity in the tears of God and remediless their condition for whom all that the Son of God could do was to weep over them all that he did do for them was to be their fall Too sad a part indeed for Festival Solemnity very improper for a Benedictus and Magnificat To celebrate the greatest act of kindness the Almighty could design onely by the miseries it did occasion to magnifie the vast descent of God from Heaven down to Earth onely by reason of the fall of man into the lowest Hell of which that was the cause My Text hath better things in view the greatness of that fall does but add height to that Resurrection which He also is the cause of For Behold this Child is set for the rising again of many my remaining part Rising again does not particularly and only refer to the foregoing fall here in the Text which this Child did occasion as I shew'd you but to the state wherein all mankind both in its nature and its customs lay ingulf'd the state of ignorance and sin a state from which recovery is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resurrection and a reviving in this life and so call'd in Scripture often as Ephes. 5. 14. Wherefore he saith A wake thou that sleepest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and arise from the dead And Rom. 6. 13. Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead Now to raise us from the death of sin into the life of Righteousness by the amendment of our own lives to recover us into a state of virtue is the thing this Child is said here to be set for This was that which God thought worth an Incarnation neither was there any greater thing in the prospect of his everlasting Counsel when He did decree his Son into the world then that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is set for this The Word was made flesh to teach practise and perswade to Vertue To make men reform their lives was valued at the price of a person of the Trinity Piety and his exinanttion yea his blood and life were set at the same rates All of Him giv'n for our recovery The time would faile me if I should attempt only to name the various methods He makes use of to effect this How this Child that was the brightness of his Fathers glory came to lighten us shining in his Doctrine and Example how he sent more light The fiery Tongues Illuminations of the Holy Ghost to guide us in the ways of piety how he suffer'd Agonies and Death for sin to appale and fright us from it How He rose again to confirm Judgement to us to demonstrate the rewards of immortality to them that will repent and leave their sins and everlasting torments to those that refuse this Grace Grace purchased with the blood of God to enable them to repent and leave Besides all these The Arts and Mesnage of his Providence in preventing and following us by Mercies and by Judgments importuning us and timeing all his blessed Methods of Salvation to our most advantage Arts God knows too many if they serve us onely to resist and turn to wantonness and aggravation if we make no other use of Grace but this to sin against and overcome all Grace and make it bolster Vice by teaching it to be an incouragement to go on in it from some hopes we entertain by reason of this Child instead of doing that which he was set decreed to make us do And really I would be glad to see this everlasting Counsel of the Lord had had some good effects some though never so little happy execution of this great decree and that which God ordein'd from all Eternity upon such glorious and magnificent terms were come to pass in any kind Now certainly there are no evident signs of any great recovery this Child hath wrought among us in the world that 's now call'd Christian. After those omnipotent inforcives to a vertuous life which he did work out if we take a prospect of both worlds it would be hard to know which were the Heathen and there would appear scarce any other notice of a Christ among us but that we blaspheme Him or deride Him Sure I am there are no footsteps of Him in the lives of the community of men and I am certaine that you cannot shew me any Heathen age outgoing ours either in loosenesses and foul effeminacies or in sordidness and base injustice or in frauds and falseness or malignity hypocrisie or treachery or to name no more even in the lowest most ignoble disingenious sorts of Vice In fine men are now as Earthy Sensual yea and Devilish as when Sins and Devils were their Gods Yea I must needs say that those times of dark and Heathen ignorance were in many times of shining vertue and the little spark of light within them brake out through all obstructions into a glory of goodness to the wonder and confusion of most Christians 'T is true we are prity well reveng'd on them for setting us Examples so reproachful to us calling their Heroick actions splendida peccata only beauteous sins and well fac'd wickednesses and we have a reason for it because they never heard of Christ whose Name and Merit 't is most certain is the onely thing that can give value and acceptance to mens best performances while on the other side we Christians comfort and secure our selves in our transgressions from this Child and from his Name But if this Child were set to raise us up from sin and to establish stronger arguments for a good life then the Heathen ever heard of more especial Divine engagements to vertue then if their vertues were because they never heard of these engagements to them sins what censure will be past upon their actions that know all those engagements and despise them unless to defy knowledge and provoke against all Divine obligations all that God could lay shall prove more tollerable then to labour to obey without them without knowing why 'T is true they had not heard it may be of that Name then which there is no other Name under Heaven given unto men whereby they may be saved Yet they endeavour'd in some measure to do that which He that owns that Name and wrought the Covenant of those

coming The Jew indeed will find no excuse for his infidelity from this condition for what ever that were yet those Miracles that made the Devils to confess him brought conviction enough to make Jews inexcusable And it was obvious to observe that He who fed five thousand with five loaves and two fishes till they left more then was set before them needed not to be in a condition of want or meanness if it were not otherwise more needful he should not abound God that when He brought this first begotten Son into the world said Let all the Angels of God worship him might have put him into an estate which all mankind most readily would have done Homage too as easily have drest his Person with a blaze of Pompe and Splendor as his Birth-day with a Starre If there had not been necessity it should be otherwise And such there was For when the fulness both of time and iniquity was come when Vice could grow no further but did even cry for Reformation and when the Doctrine that must come to give the rules of this Reformation was not only to wage War with flesh and blood with those desires which constitution gives but which perpetual universal custome had confirm'd and which their Gods also as well as inclinations did contribute to which their Original sin and their Religion equally fomented for Vice was then the Worship of the world Sins had their Temples Theft its Deity and Drunkenness its God Adultery had many and to prostitute their bodies was most sacred and their very Altar-fires did kindle these foul heats whence Uncleanness is so often call'd Idolatry in Scripture And besides all this all the Philosophy and all the power of the world ingag'd in the belief and practise of this and resolv'd with all their wit and force to keep it so When it was thus the Doctrine that must come to oppose controul reform all this must come either arm'd with fire and sword design to settle it selfe by conquest or come in a way of meekness and of suffering The first of these Religion cannot possibly design because it cannot aime to settle that by violence which cannot be forc'd and where 't is force is not Religion One may as well invade and hope to get a conquest over thoughts and put a mind in chains and force a man to will against his will All such motives are incompetent to demonstrate Doctrines for how ever successful their force proves yet it cannot prove the Doctrines true for by that Argument it proves that Religion that it settles true it proves that it destroyes was true before while it prevail'd and had the power Had this Child come so he had only given such a testimony to to the truth of Christianity as Heathenisme had before and Turcisme hath since He might indeed have drown'd the wicked world again in another deluge of their own blood but sure never had reform'd it thus Therefore That Religion that must oppose the Customs and the Powers of the world upon Principles of Reason and Religion must do it by Innocence and Patience by doing good and which was necessary then by consequence as the world stood by suffering evil parting with all not only the advantages but necessaries of this life and life its self too where they stood in competition and were inconsistent with mens duties and their expectations and by this means they must shew the world that their Religion did bring in a better hope then that which all the profits pleasures glories of this world can entertain and flatter Thus they did and thus they did prevaile for the first ages of the Church were but so many centuries of men that entertain'd Christianity with the contempt of the world and life it self They knew to put themselves into Christs Service and Religion was the same thing as to set themselves aside for spoyle and rapine dedicate themselves to poverty and scorn to racks and tortures and to Butchery it self Yet they enter'd into it did not onely renounce the pomps and vanities of the world in their Baptism when they were new born to God quench their affections to them in those waters but renounc'd them even to the death drown'd their affections to them in their own heart blood ran from the world into flames and fled faster from the satisfactions and delights of earth then those flames mounted to their Element and Sphere In fine they became Christians so as if they had been Candidates of Death and only made themselves Apprentises of Martyrdome Now if it were not possible it should be otherwise then thus as the world stood then it was necessary that the Captaine of Salvation should lead on goe before this noble Army of Martyrs if it were necessary that they must leave all who followed Him then it was not possible that He should be here in a state of Plenty Splendor and Magnificence but of Poverty and Meanness giving an example to his followers whose condition could not but be such To give which example was it seems of more necessity then by being born in Royal Purple to prevent the fall of many in Israel who for his condition despis'd him I am not so vain as to hope to perswade any from this great Example here to be in love with Poverty and with a low condition by telling them this Birth hath consecrated meanness that we must not scorn those things in which our God did choose to be install'd that humility is it seems the proper dress for Divinity to shew it self in But when we consider if this Child had been born in a condition of Wealth and Greatness the whole Nation of the Jews would have receiv'd him whereas that he chose prov'd an occasion of falling to them Yet that God should think it much more necessary to give us an example of Humility and Poverty below expression then it was necessary that that whole Nation should believe on him When of all the Virgins of that People which God had to choose one out to overshadow and impregnate with the Son of God He chose one of the meanest for he hath regarded the low estate of his Handmaiden said she and one of the poorest too for she had not a Lamb to offer but was purifyed in formâ pauperis When he would reveal this Birth also that was to be the joy of the whole Earth he did it to none of that Nation but a few poor shepheards who were labouring with midnight-watches over their Flocks none of all the great ones that were then at ease and lay in softs was thought worthy to have notice of it Lastly when the Angels make that poverty a signe to know the Saviour by This shall be a signe unto you You shall find the Babe wrapt in swadling cloaths and lay'd in a Manger as if the Manger were sufficient testimony to the Christ and this great meanness were an evidence 't was the Messiah From all