Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	die_v	life_n	soul_n	23,154	5	5.3621	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43704	A sermon preached before the Queen, at White-Hall, on Sunday, Octob. 2, 1692 by Charles Hickman ...	Hickman, Charles, 1648-1713.	1692 (1692)	Wing H1901; ESTC R18595	11,711	33

brings us to an untimely end And without the Spirit of Prophecy any one might easily foretell That a wicked man shall not live out half his days If the just revenge of both God and men should spare him yet how effectually does the Sinner destroy himself by Covetousness we starve and by Luxury we over-charge our Nature Anger inflames our Blood and Envy consumes our Flesh and every inordinate Desire is a secret exhausting of our Strength No Lust but feeds upon our Vitals no Passion but preys upon our Spirits and Sin no sooner enters into our Heart but it opens the door for Death Then the Worm insensibly grows upon us the Grave gets us under its dominion and from the very day that Vice took possession of our Soul we must date the dissolution of our Body Nay this is not the worst of our condition neither for Sin corrupts the Soul of Man also and depraves all our brighter Faculties it debauches our Will and darkens our Understanding and extinguishes that Reason which is our great Property and Prerogative God breathed into our nostrils the breath of Life a beam of Divine Light a spark of Heavenly Fire to ennoble our Nature and make us a living Soul the Image of God and Heirs of his Eternity But Lust puts out all this light within us enslaves our Mind and makes us degenerate into meer earth again it weighs down our Nature checks all our aspiring Thoughts and allows us to think of nothing but our Flesh Where Vice prevails and takes possession of our Senses it shuts up all the avenues of our Soul and lets nothing that is generous or commendable enter in The Beauty of Holiness cannot be seen the Charms of Wisdom cannot be heard nothing can be admitted but what will sooth our Lusts and flatter us in our iniquity And then 't is no wonder if we grow profligate in Vice and abandon'd to all manner of Uncleanness and can we suppose that such a Soul as this is fit to appear before the presence of its Maker Is there any place in Heaven for such impure Thoughts as these Unless we come there with a better mind and in a cleaner dress Go ye cursed will certainly be our doom Go to the torments which you have prepared for your selves let your Envy gnaw you still like a worm that never dies and your Anger still burn within you like the fire that never goes out and let your greedy desires be always craving but never satisfied like the bottomless pit that is ever filling but never full Oh the bitterness and anguish of this second Death When the Soul of Man must be always dying but never dead when eternal Torments will brood afresh upon his Nature and insufferable pains will propagate themselves within him when his own guilty Conscience shall always keep him waking his own desperate Resolutions shall strike him like spears and arrows to the heart and the remembrance of all his multitude of Sins shall stare him like so many ghastly Apparitions in the face These are the necessary consequences of an ungodly unrepented Life these are the genuine fruits of Sin which naturally grow upon a vitiated Soul so very naturally that our own Reason tells us it must be so that the Soul which is corrupted even that shall die and our vile Imaginations shall haunt us to the other World where all our immoderate delights shall be sower'd into so many intolerable torments Something like this every wicked man finds within himself even before his death as often as he allows himself to think so often his own Conscience acts the part of Hell and in the dismal remorses of his Soul he sees a resemblance of his future Judgment And now having set before you life and good and death and evil as a matter of information I come in the Second place to set them before you as an object of your choice 'T is Moses his own Use and Application of my Text in the following verses I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death therefore chuse life that both thou and thy seed may live I shall not here dispute with Moses whether it be in our power to chuse or not but taking for granted that it is I shall only inferr That when things of so very different natures are set before us one would think it an easie matter to be determin'd If our notions of Good and Evil are too weak to work upon us and hold our minds for some time in suspence yet surely Life and Death admit of no dispute One is the sole delight and the other the utter abhorrence of our Nature and a powerful instinct within us always inclines us to the better part And yet so absurd are we in our Practice as to follow those courses which in our judgment we condemn and our lives are the very contradiction of our desires We engage our selves in desperate ways before we consider where they are like to end and every appearance of pleasure drills us further on and when we do see at length what our end is like to prove we find it too tedious and perhaps too late to return Could we plead ignorance in our excuse we might have some hopes of mercy But when all these things are plainly set before us when we see the penalty and notwithstanding this will venture upon the offence what remains then but a fearful looking for of judgment Could we pretend impotence or incapacity in the case it might be a proper and allowable Plea but when these things are not only plainly represented to our judgment but are fairly offer'd to our choice and yet we will chuse amiss What can we say to stop the hand of Justice or when Justice lays hold upon us what can we say to excuse our folly Why did we run so blindly on and never look before us Why we suppos'd perhaps that some lucky mischance might stop us in our full career and the breaking of a Leg might save our Neck A wild course and as extravagant a supposition We hop'd the time would come when we should be disabled from following our Vices any longer and then we should have leisure to stand still and repent and be very vertuous again A strange kind of hope that can never take place till we come to the very season of despair We expect perhaps that some violent motion of the Spirit should carry us up to Heaven like St. Paul and if we are but passive in the case if we are not disobedient to the heavenly motion we presume there is nothing more for us to do And it is a presumption indeed too groundless to be believ'd and too senseless to be answer'd We may flatter our selves if we please with such airy hopes and depend upon a Salvation of our own contriving but if we would go upon certain grounds 't is sufficient for us That God himself whose gift it

is has told us upon what terms we must live and prosper See I have set before you life and good and if after this we will venture upon Evil we our selves are answerable for the Event and 't is but just that God should take the forfeiture Death and Evil we know must go together unless we can separate them by our Repentance which it self is a death unto sin and a greater evil than we know how to bear 'T is sufficient that we see our way before us that we ly no longer under any dark uncertainties any dismal suspense but our work is laid open to our hands and our reward is ready for us Our work itself is very good and our reward is exceeding glorious but if we resist these gracious offers and still persist in a senseless provokeing course of Life we deserve the severest punishment not only for our sin but for our obstinate folly too These are the things which the Law of God daily sets before us and if the charms of goodness cannot draw us yet one would think the terrours of Evil should drive us into Vertue What would we not do to purchase Eternal Life What would we not suffer to escape Eternal Death What should we do but renounce our Sins what should we suffer but this reasonable Divorce and then the thing is done and what does God require of us but those very things which our own reason requires of us too things that are most suitable to our nature and most likely to promote our happiness in this World though we had no expectation of a World to come when it is so easy a thing to prosper who would take such pains to be undone when it is in our own choice to live Why will ye dy O house of Israel The reason is plain we are deeply engaged Body and Soul in another interest our Lusts by a long familiarity have so endeared themselves unto us that we know not how to part We are so ty'd and bound with the Chain of our Sins that when God calls us to Repentance we are not able to move a step Not able That is indeed we are not willing to advance we have such a load of iniquity upon us that we think it more easy to ly down and dy than to shake off our deadly weight and live But if we seriously consider'd what it was to dy we should quickly be of another mind When Death with his cold frozen hands lays hold upon us and is dragging us out of a soft sinful Bed into an uncomfortable Dungeon a noisome Grave then all our heats will be abated and we shall repent indeed and wish that we had repented sooner before 't was too late to be reform'd Let us consider this in time now that it is fairly set before us and 't is in our power to make our choice And if we see that wicked men find it so difficult to dis-engage themselves that the prospect of Death it self with all its terrours cannot affright them from their Sins let us beware of the dreadful Example let us beware how we admit a Guest into our Bosom who is like to stick so fast upon us and brings after him such a deadly train Let us keep him at a religious distance and superstitiously avoid his sight Let us enter into no Parly or Combination with him but maintain the integrity of our Soul as we would do our Soul it self and stand in aw of Sin as much as Death If we have unfortunately let him in and the Enemy has already got some advantage of us let us redeem our selves in time and use all diligence to dispossess him though he has ty'd and bound us never so fast yet one vigorous resolution may break the Chain it is but resolving to be free and then by the help of our Redeemer we shall be so And have we no sense of Life and Liberty and Happiness shall one vain foolish Lust weigh down all the considerations of Eternity surely there is some Witchcraft in this Sin and we are not so much perswaded by it as possess'd but in the name of God we will cast it out We will set before us Death and Evil as God himself has set them both together and then there is no danger that we should be impos'd upon for Sin cannot possibly be so much our delight but Death is much more our aversion The very thoughts of it if we can but think at all will take off the relish of our vicious enjoyments and make all our head-strong Passions give way and our empty airy pleasures will fly before it Now that Sin has conceiv'd in the World 't is our Happiness that it has brought forth so deform'd a thing as Death that though the Mother may disguise her self and delude us with false Colours and flattering words yet the foulness of her Off-spring cannot be conceal'd and in the Face of Death we may read the natural deformity of Sin Let us consider this and then let us entertain it if we dare nay let us embrace it if we can for how temptingly soever Sin may look upon us yet Death is a powerful Antidote 't is enough to damp our Spirits and chill our blood and to change not only the inclinations but the very constitution of our Flesh Knowing these terrors of the Lord surely we shall be perswaded considering the sad consequences of sin one would think there should be little or no temptation in it to a thinking Man indeed there is none at all and 't is a wonder that any Man can so far lay his thoughts aside as to hug a slavish gilded Chain to fall in love with a fulsome painted Sepulchre and doze himself in poisonous Wine only because he sees it sparkling in the glass All these are but imaginary Pleasures at the best and yet these are all the Pleasures that a Sinner has and what are all these in comparison of that real substantial eternal Joy which we part with for these trifles sake after such an exchange as this we must never pretend to Judgement or Discretion more We that are so circumspect and wise in the little inferior concerns of Life where is our wisdom in our great Affair where is our circumspection when our whole Happiness is at stake To get a poor livelihood upon earth we can labour and toil hunger and thirst and sweat and starve and applaud our selves for doing so but here we can be content to stand all the day idle and have our thoughts otherwise employ'd and are so far from labouring for life that we will not be at the trouble so much as to look before us Nay for the most part we make it our business to look the quite contrary way What indefatigable pains do we take to gratifie our foolish Lusts when with half the pains we might learn to live much happier without them What violence do we use upon our selves to lay our Souls and Consciences asleep for fear the