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	natural_a	sin_n	6,535	5	5.4934	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38614	Shibboleth, or, Observations of severall errors in the last translations of the English & French Bibles together with many other received opinions in the Protestant churches, which being weighed in the ballance are found too light / written by John Despagne ... ; and translated into English by Robert Codrington ...; Shibboleth. English	Espagne, Jean d', 1591-1659.; Codrington, Robert, 1601-1665.	1656 (1656)	Wing E3271; ESTC R20162	51,713	172

was the Prince of the Devils or that such was the Name of the chief of evill Spirits We ought to know that the Scripture gives no proper or peculiar name to any of the evill Angels Some of the good Angels and onely one or two of them have a particular name as Gabriel and Michael But the evill Spirits have but one common name as Satan The Adversary The Devill The Slanderer And although there is a chief of the evill Angels yet he hath not a particular name See Mat. 25. 41. We ought not then to imagin with the vulgar that Beelzebub is the proper name of the Prince of the Devil● It were the Pharises and not Christ that said so Of Easter Day improperly so called or ill assigned I Dispute not the antient custom to solemnize one Day every year in the memory of the Resurrection of our Saviour although that every Sunday is observed for that end But as for that Day which every year is celebrated there is no reason to call it the Day of the Passeover But rather clean contrary we ought to give that name to that Day in which Christ our Paschall Lamb vvas Sacrificed to that Day in vvhich he dyed and not unto that Day in which he did rise from the Dead For the word of the Passeover being applyed to Christ hath reference to his Death and not at all to his Resurrection so the Day which is called the Passeover is not the true Day of it but rather the contrary It will be alledged that every one doth so understand it and that the words are indifferent if they give an agreeable sense unto them But where●ore do we give unto words a sense which they have not nay a sense which is contrary to that which they have or wherefore do we speak otherwise than we do understand Of the word the CROSSE which is ordinarily abused when mention is made of afflictions THere is nothing more common in the mouths of afflicted Persons or of those who would comfort them then to say that they do bear their Cross and that their ●ross is heavy and man is subject ●o many crosses But according to the language of GOD there are no afflictions which can be called crosses those afflictions being excepted which men make us to suffer for the cause of our crucified Saviour and for the cause of his Gospel To such sufferings GOD hath reserved and appropriated this honourable title of the Cross In the like manner the persecutions which are raised against us for the cause of Christ the punishments the proscriptions the losses the reproaches and whatsoever a Christian endureth for that quarrell are honoured with this Name of the Cross by reason of the Communion which they have with the sufferings of Christ and more particularly of his Death The afflictions which do proceed from other causes have no part in so glorious an Epithete Nevertheless a man who is chastised or even punished for his sins or by his Improvidence or Intemperance hath plucked an affliction on himself will say that it is a Cross which GOD hath sent him This is to abuse the word Such afflictions and those which proceed from hidden causes as that of the man who vvas born blind John 9. 2 3. cannot be called Crosses And yet this Impropriety is not onely in the language of the common people but also of many Divines nay and in their Books also For they do vvrite in their Books that a wicked man hath his Cross also A great mistake For the afflictions of a wicked man are not worthy of that Name If he himself be an enemy to the Cross and is punished shall vve say that his punishment is a Cross can that be spoken of a Malefactor vvho suffereth for his crimes All the afflictions even of a good Christian are not to be called Crosses Of crying sins which men do not discern from others THere are some sins to which the Divines have given the name of crying sins And this Epithet is taken from the Scripture By this name the effusion of Innocent bloud is called because the bloud of Abel did cry unto GOD So also is the abhominable sin of Sodom Gen. 18. 20 21. and 19. 13. So also is the detaining of the hire of the labourer James 4. 5. So also a House builded by rapine is called a crying sin because it is said that the stones of the wall do cry out against it Habakuk 2. 11. And so generally all violence and oppression is called a crying sin Exod. 3. 17. and 22. 23 27. Now there are reasons wherefore these sins more than others are called crying But without entring into the search thereof we are not to think that this name ought to be given to all those sins which are more enormous and exorbitant than others for neither Idolatry nor Blasphemy no nor the worshipping of Devil are called crying sins And in generall I do observe that of all the sins which do violate the first table of the Law there is not one which is called a crying sin All those sins also which are committed against the second table have not that name in the Scripture but those onely which I have specifyed This distinction although it oftentimes be too much neglected even by men of knowledge themselves yet we ought nevertheless to observe it if we will follow the language of the Spirit and not that of the common people for there is nothing more triviall than these words you may here see what it is that cryeth for vengeance It is a crying sin And nevertheless the common speak thus of such a sin which the Scripture doth not put in the number of crying sins By this confusion there will be no sin which we may not call a crying sin if we will be governed by passion by zeal without knowledge Of faults committed in citing the Histories of the Antients I Will produce but two examples A very famous Scholar in his Book of the truth of Christian Religion doth alledge an Author who doth recite a very strange story concerning Jesus Christ which is that the Jews did choose him to be one of those who offered sacrifice and that they received him into their order qualifying thus the Son of GOD and of the Virgin Mary This story if there were no other thing to object against it doth directly oppose that which the Apostle speaks in the Hebrews that our Saviour came from the tribe of Juda a tribe none whereof did assist at the Altar a tribe of which Moses spake nothing at all concerning the Leviticall Priesthood that if Christ again were upon the earth he would not be a Priest c. These fabulous stories which are used to maintain Christianism doe onely serve but to render it suspected nay ridiculous to the Jews and other Miscreants The other example is not of so great importance nevertheless it will serve to shew how the most learned do mistake themselves men in matters purely Historicall

which contain nothing but first that requires no exercise of judgement but onely of attention A modern Writer whom I highly do esteem doth recite and follow in this passage which I have produced one of the greatest personages of Antiquity Epiphanius by name This Author affirms that untill the twentieth age after the Creation of the world there cannot any example be produced of any Son who dyed before his Father that is to say of a naturall Death This was put in because Abel might not be objected against it The order of nature was kept that he who was born first in a line descendant should also dye first this continued untill that Therah the Father of Abraham did invent Idolatry And then the first that is marked out for an example his Son Haran dyed before his Father Therah Gen. 11. 28. By a Judgement untill then unheard of GOD did punish Therah causing that his Son should dye before his Father But all this observation is null and proceeds from a great mistake For long before the days of Therah nay before the time of the Deluge we have the example of a Son who dyed before his Father and of a naturall Death It is Lamech the Son of Methuselah The proof is most evident Compare the 5. Chapter of Genesis ver. 25. with the 31. From the birth of Lamech unto the death of Methuselah were 782. years but Lamech lived but 777. He dyed therefore five years before his Father And by this account Methuselah and not Therah was the first Father by whom we find that his Son dyed before him of a naturall Death And by this the truth of this Commentary which attributes the first example of this accident to the Idolatry of Therah doth vanish into nothing many other defects may be noted in those who do recite Histories for oftentimes it seeems they slumber when they recite them The first words of the ten Commandements which the ignorance of some hath razed out and taken away from the walls of their Churches THose men who are not far from us have made it no difficulty to blot out all the first words to shew unto the eys of the people a Decalogue without a head as if they had beheaded it All these words they leave suppressed I am the Eternall thy God who have taken thee out of the land of Egypt out of the House of Bondage I know not who hath moved them to beat down the Frontispiece of the Law of GOD For first since we make a profession to retain all the words which GOD then pronounced when he published the Law as it is written that GOD spake all these words I am the Lord thy GOD c. why do not we write them all why do we raze out those which are the first Secondly These very first words are the foundation of all the Decalogue for they do mention who is this Lawgiver and do shew the right which he hath to command We cannot then omit them without taking away the fundamentall principle on which the whole Decalogue is builded Thirdly The sense of the first Commandement is not entire or compleat without these words which go before it and on which it immediatly doth depend I am the Lord thy GOD from whence it directly followeth Thou shalt have no other Gods but me These first words are the soul of this Commandement and they ought not to be disjoyned from it Fourthly It is unfit and without Judgement to begin the Decalogue without this Preface and to speak abruptly Thou shalt have no ●ther Gods For this word other doth ●resuppose that the Decalogue hath ●lready spoken of one GOD who ex●ludes all other And therefore this ought first to be expressed without that it is to speak as men who have not so much as common sense Fiftly Besides all these defects there yet remains one more enormous which is a great soloecism in Divinity and by it an injury is done to all Christians For when GOD saith I am thy everlasting GOD he doth imply I am thy Saviour GOD never speaks in these words but unto those to whom he doth present salvation These words are Evangelicall GOD hath fastned the Gospell unto the entrance of the Law Wherefore if the Gospel did not here speak first the Law would beat us back and bear us down as persons under the malediction Those then who present us the Decalogue without these first words which do give us access and a confidence in the mercies of the Law-give● knew not what they do Of certain pictures which are in some Bibles AT the entrance into the English Bible Jesus Christ with his twelve Disciples celebrating the Passeover are represented sitting at a table as we are accustomed to do when we take our Repast But we know that Jesus Christ and his Apostles sate not then in that posture and that their Table did not resemble those in which we set our viands They did not sit but did almost lye along either upon some Cushions or on the ground leaning upon their Elbows ●s it is custom in these times in the Eastern Countries The Originall ●ext saith not that they sate but doth make use of a terme which cannot properly be expressed in our vulgar ●anguages The French Bible in a more generall expression saith he ●id set himself at the table The English hath it He sate down and this word for the want of a better and one more answerable to the Greek text is tolerable in a translation But a picture which speaketh in all languages ought not to corrupt the Histories in representing them otherwise than they are The same picture doth very ill describe Saint John in the Bosom of Jesus Christ The particulars are by so much the more considerable because they concern some circumstances of the Supper of our Lord and it is of great importance that we should understand them because they do furnish us with Arguments against Altars against the elevation of the Host and the worshipping of it I will not here speak of the ignorance of Painters who representing Lazarus in the breast of Abraham do paint him as a little Infant on the Knees of that great Patriark Moreover in some Bibles of the old Impression we may see GOD represented in the form of a man producing Eve from the side of Adam We may truly paint Adam or Eve but it is impossible to paint God Those who have such pictures in their Bibles ought rather to take them out then take delight to behold them If it be unlawfull to have Images to represent God much less it is permitted to have them in the Bible which doth prohibite such portraictures Of the Name of the SON of GOD which some of our Bibles do give unto Adam Luke 3. verse the last THe English Bible saith of Adam that he was the Son of GOD the Latine translation of Beza doth no● give him that Name in the text but the note in the Margent doth interpret that Adam