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	nature_n	sin_n	7,957	5	5.0292	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37244	A work for none but angels & men that is to be able to look into and to know ourselves, or a book shewing what the soule is, subsisting and having its operations without the body ... : of the imagination or common sense, the phantasie, sensative memory, passions, motion of life, the local motion, intellectual power of the soul ... Thomas Jenner has lineas composuit.	Davies, John, Sir, 1569-1626.; Jenner, Thomas, fl. 1631-1656.	1658 (1658)	Wing D410; ESTC R27853	22,709	36

or Gaole delivery for in this third life reason will be so bright as her sparkes will be like the Sun beames and shall the reall ●●ght enjoy of God being still increast by divine influence Then let us take up this acclamation O ignorant poor man what bearest thou lockt up in the casket of thy breast what Jewels and what riches and what heavenly treasure hast thou in so weak a chest Looke into thy soule and thou shalt see such virtues honour and pleasure and whatsoever is counted excellent in this life Thinke of her worth and then know that God did mean thy worthy mind should embrace worthy things Blot not her beauties with unclean thoughts neither dishonour her with thy base passions destroy not her quickning power with surfeitings and drunkennesse let not her sensitive power be mar'd with sensualities and fleshly desires let not her serious thoughts be employed on idle things and enslave not her will to vanity and whensoever thou thinkest of her eternity have not this evill thought of her that death is against her nature no assure thy selfe it is a birth in which she is brought forth to a better being and when thou comest to dye sing and rejoyce as a swan that thou art a going to blisse if thou have faith to beleeve in Jesus Christ that thy sinns may be forgiven thee and whereas before thou did'st fear as a child which is in the darke fear not now having this light brought into thee and now O thou my soule turn thine eye inward and view the rayes and beams of thy divine forme and know that whilst thou art clouded with this flesh of thine thou canst not know any thing perfectly study the highest and best things but retayne an humble thought of thy selfe cast down thy self and strive to raise the glorious and sacred name of thy Maker and blessed Redeemer use all thy powers to praise that blessed power which gives thee power to be and also power to use those powers thou art endewed withall and thus shut up all and say O the depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his Judgments and his wayes past finding out Of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory for ever FINIS WHAT HEAVEN IS VINDICATED From the Vulgar mistakes and grosse conceivings of many some of which mistakes is mention made in this Title the rest of them manifested and enlarged in the ensuing Treatise AS I. Mistake of Heaven is that fancey the happinesse of Heaven to consist only in things without them and look upon it only as an outward place and not as an inward state and disposition of the Soule II. Grosse conceit of Heaven is as if it were nothing but a Theatre a place of sights and showes and God himselfe were nothing but a more Pompious spectacle there to be gazed upon by these bodily eyes whereas we are never at a distance from him but only in the dispersion multiplicity distraction and scattering of our bo●●●s and in the dissimilitude and disproportion of our soules unto him III. Another Vulgar and common mistake is that God doth not require any endeavours or activity of ours in the businesse of Heaven and that he deales with us in matters of Grace and Glory as meere stocks and stones and inanimall creatures and not in any way suitable to us as free and rationall for although we cannot make alive the new man in us yet we may concur to the killing and destroying of the old by refusing to satisfie the lusts and cravings of it IIII. Neither are we to entertain this conceit that God hath found out any other way to save his people from Hell and destruction without saving of them from their sins and wickednesses Infaelix cujus nulli sapientia prodest What Heaven is vindicated from the Vulgar mistakes and grosse conceivings of many False Gospellers undermine the true righteousnesse of God and make the Gospel nothing else but a slight imagination we should not entertain any such conceit as if Christ came with any new devise to bring men to heaven without the hard labour of mortifying their lusts as if the intent of his coming was to promulgate ease and liberty to the flesh and by his being crucifyed for us upon the Crosse to excuse our crucifying the old man in our hearts as if he had found out a way to save his people from hell and destruction without saving of them from their sins and wickednesses 1. The possibility of attaining that righteousnesse that is required of us in the Gospel it is by the power of Christ attainable or else none could enter into the Kingdome of Heaven He that is born of God sins not for his seed remaines in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God and must we needs say that he that is born of God can and may doe nothing else but sin is the immortall seed of Gods holy spirit of Gods eternall word in the hearts of true believers is nothing else but the seed of the Serpent and the Cockatrice Eggs it is possible that the divine nature that the Scripture speaks of should be nothing else but the nature of the Devil that Gods holy spirit in us shou●d make us habitations for it selfe to dwell in and yet suffer us at the same time to be vessells of sin and Satan is the end of the holy Gospel not at all to free us from sin by the power of Christ but only to spread a Purple vaile over us not all to destroy the works of the Devill in us but only to cover them from Gods avenging eye Is the end of the Gospel nothing else but to paliate over the diseases of our corruptions which remain in us ever sence the fall and not at all to cure them If so then surely the reason of this is either because Christ is not able to overcome sin and Satan in us as the Manikees of old dreamed or else because he is not willing and that is a greater disparagement to him then the former for the other robbs him only of the Glory of his power but this spoyles him of the Glory of his goodness as if Christ should envy that to us which of all other things is the most necessary to make us happy or as if God were not as carefull to advance his Kingdome of light here in the world as the Devill is to inlarge his Kingdome of darknesse as if God did not love his own butifull Image his own son and nature but would willingly suffer it to be choaked and smothered here in the world by those Fiends of darknesse whom he hath long since lockt and fettered up in chains of darknesse and reserved for the judgment of the great day Say's the Philosopher no man sets up a marke on purpose that men might misse it and shall God set up this marke of righteousnesse in the Gospel as a Butt

the foundations of the Earth and formeth the Spirit of man within him he makes the body of Earth and in it a beam of heavenly fire now in the wombe before the birth inspires in all men their soules and without a mother sends dayly millions into the world which neither from eternity nor at once in one time lay them up in the Sunne or Moone nor in some secret cloyster where they sleepe till they be awaked neither did he make at first a certain number infusing part in beasts and part in men and being unwilling to take further pain would make no more so that the widdow soul should be married to the next body that should be born and so by often changing mens souls should pass from beasts to men these are fond thoughts since there are far more born then dye then thousand soules should be abortive or others deaths should supply their soules but as nature Gods handmaid doth create bodies in time distinct and in due order so God gives soules the like successive date which himselfe formes in new bodies which himselfe makes of no materiall thing for unto Angels he hath given no power either to forme the shape or bring the stuffe from Air or Fire nor in this doth he use natures service for although she can bring bodyes from bodyes yet she could never traduce soules from soules as light springs from light and fire from fire as some learned fathers that were great lights of old did hold for say they how can we say that God made the soule and yet not make him the Author of her sinne for in her lies the corruption for Adams body did not sin but his soule and so brought the body to corruption So we would fain make him the Author of the wine if we knew whom to blame for her dreggs none were yet so grosse as to contend for this that soules may be traduced from bodyes between whose natures there is no proportion but many subtle wits have justified that soules may spiritually spring from soules which if the nature of the soul be tryed would even in nature prove as grosse for all things that are made are either of naught or of something that is already made of naught no Creature ever formed ought for that is proper for the Almighty if then the soule make another soule she must take it of some former stuffe or matter but there is no matter found in the soule then if her heavenly forme doe not agree with any matter in the World then must she needs be created of nothing and that is only proper to God alone again if soules doe beget soules 't is either by themselves or the bodies power if by themselves what hinders them but that they may engender soules every hour if by the body how can understanding and will joyne with the body in this act only since when they doe their other works they doe abstract them themselves from the body moreover if soules were begotten of soules they should move and change into each other but motion and changes brings at last corruption and then how should it be immortall If lastly soules did use generation then they should spread incorruptible seed and then what becomes of that which they doe loose when the acts of generation doe not speed but if the soule could cast spirituall seed yet she would not because she never dies mortall things desire to breed their like that so they might immortalize their kinde therefore the Angels who are call'd the sons of God neither marry nor are given in marriage their spirits and ours are of one substance and have one father the Lord of Heaven Who would at first that in each other thing earth and water living souls should breed but mans soul which he would make their king should immediately be produced from himselfe and doubtless when he took the Woman from the side of the man he alone inspierd the soul for t is not said he did devide mans soul but took flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone and lastly God being made man for mans sake and like him in all save only in sin tooke his body from the wombe of the Virgin but all agree God formed his soule within him then is the soule from God so say the Pagans which saw by natures light her heavenly kinde naming her kin to God and Gods bright ray a Citizen of Heaven confind to the earth This cloud may be further cleerd by heavenly light for questionlesse God made her and made her good and ingrafted her in the body there to grow which though it be corrupted flesh and blood yet can it not bring corruption to the soule yet this soule at first made good by God and not corrupted by the evill of the body yet in the womb is accurst and sinfull ere she can judge by wit or chuse by will yet God is not the Author of her sinne though of her being and if we dare judge him in this he can condemn us and yet be cleere himselfe first God from eternity decreed what hath been is or shall be done and that every man in his turne should run his race of life and did purpose to make all soules that ever have been or shall be and that they should take there being in humane bodies or not to be at all was it then fit that such a weake event weaknesse it selfe the sin and fall of man should prevent his execution and councells fixed and decreed before the world began and that one penall law broke by Adam should make God breake his own eternall law and revoke the setled order of the world and change all formes of things which he foresaw could Eves weake hand extended to the Tree rent a sunder that Adamantive chain whose golden linkes of causes and effectes remain fixt to Gods own chare O could we see how cause doth spring from cause how they are mutually linckt and foulded and that on disagreeing stringe doth rather make then marr the harmony and at once view how death is brought by sin and how a better life doth arise by death how in one his justice is seen and his mercy in the other we would praise this his decree a wise and right but we measure time by first and last and see the sight of things successively when the Lord sees all at once and at an instant he sees all things in himselfe as in a glasse for from him and by him and through him are all things His sight is not discorsive by degrees but he seeing the whole seeth every single heart He looks on Adam as a roote or spring and on all his heires as Branches and streames and sees all men as one man though they dwell in sundry Nations and Cit●es and as root and branch makes but one Tree and the spring and streame make but one River so that if one be corrupted the other is corrupted also So when the

well enough if they could but have an artifice to get their sins pardoned that they might be freed from the punishment that is due to them and might be admitted into a sensuall heaven though they live to all eternity under the power of sin and wickednesse and never have the lest tast of the true heavenly Manna nor any knowledge of the name written on the white stone which no man knowes but he that hath it and therefore it will serve these mens turnes well enough if they may be freed from the punishment of sin while they love sin with all their hearts The true hearted christian is really departed out of wicked Sodom out of this noysome state of sin he is not so much solicitus about his state as about his life that he may still continue that heavenly life that is begun in him he is not so anxious about his justification in a proposterous method as about the sanctification of his heart and affection that is the best way to be assured of his justification he feeles the divine life in him and that he knowes can never sink him to hell he drinkes of the true springs of everlasting life and knowes he shall never see death he is not so much perplext about his future salvation because he findes he is already saved because it selfe hath taken him upon its wings and carries him away swiftly far from the region of death and Hell I beseech you let us not deceive our selves without such an inward frame of spirit as this is that is really crucifyed to the world and planted into Christ sucking life and influence from him God himselfe with what he can do without us would never make us happy Besides the destroying of this corrupt naturall and fleshly life we must also have a new and spirituall life begotten in us For as Christ and the divine nature did assume the humane nature to it selfe so likewise in every christian the divine life or the life of God must as it were assume the humane and created life of man and totally act it and inforce it this is the essence of the new creature this is the life and soul of christianity the marrow and quintessence of all religion to have a life wrapped up in man that is the very life of God himselfe and whosoever doth not pertake of this life whatsoever opinion he entertains in religion whatever outward forms of discipline he contends for whatever sects he belongs to he is either carnall or devilish For nothing of mans is pleasing unto God but that that God workes in man and by man and whatsoever workes with God according to that that is in God this is in a manner one spirit with God himselfe and whatsoever it doth it doth it in Forma Dei that is God using this mans soule and life and abilities doth act it in him But whatsoever perticular created life lives otherwise then the eternall life of God lives this sets up it selfe against God and this is the life of corrupt nature and the life of the Devill this is sin and nothing else to live otherwise then the eternal life of God lives and this was that that Christ came into the world to destroy and how doth he doe this surely no otherwise then by bringing Gods own life into the humanity Again for he himselfe was nothing else but a Tabernacle of God pitched amongst men nothing but a humane nature acted and disposed and guided by the life of God so that whatsoever Christ lives God lives in him now this must not only be done by Christ without us but the same also must be done within us One grosse mistake among men that yet pretend much to Religion that is very prejudiciall to the advancement of this spirituall righteousnesse that the Gospel requires of us and that is a conseite that men have whereby they think that salvation is a meer outward work and therefore may be wholly effected by outward means whereas it is nothing else for the substance of it but the inward transforming of our selves into the likenesse of God the reall translating of us out of the life of nature into the divine life or life of God or the begetting of a new and heavenly life in the soule of man that is the very same that doth every way agree with the life of God himselfe I say it with reverence God himselfe cannot make us happy by any thing without us but only by forming his own nature and likenesse in us they are carnall and earthly minded men and no way suitable to the state of glory and happinesse that fancy the happinesse of heaven to consist only in things without them and look upon it only as an outward place and not as an inward state and disposition of the soule I say therefore that salvation it is an inward thing and consists chiefly in being saved from our sins and being delivered from our own life and being translated out of the Kingdome of darknesse into the Kingdome of light and righteousnesse and it is not a Heaven without us though never so glorious and glistering a place nay it is not God without us that can make us truly and really happy but it is God inwardly setting himselfe in our soules and so dwelling in us that our sins may be so ruled and guided by the life of God as the members of our bodies are acted by our soules and when this is once done we shall at once live both the life of God and injoy the joy peace and happinesse of God himselfe which will all at once flow in upon us I would not be mistaken I doe not here deny but that there be some other inferiour circumstances belonging to the state of happinesse as the changing of these vild bodies of ours and instead of this earthly tabernacle that weighs down the minde as Solomon speakes when as our soules were as it were now buried in a heepe of flesh they shall receive an other more divine Tabernacle that Paul calls a spirituall body a more fit companion for our soules and many other such things answerable hereunto I say these things I doe not deny but yet all these things are of an inferiour nature and all depend upon the former the inward frame and disposition of the soule in which the substance of heaven and hell consist Now this being well consider'd and understood it is very plain that to thinke we can be saved without inward righteousnesse meerly by something done without us without the inward and reall change of our soules is all one as to thinke we can be saved without salvation or we can be made happy without the possession of happinesse though we must still remember the only procuring cause of our salvation is the death sufferings and satisfaction of Christ who was made a propitiation for our sins this is therefore the reason for which this inward righteousnesse before spoken of is to be urged in the Gospel not

as if we could thereby merrit any thing at all at the hands of God for we can merrit no thing but there is nothing that God himselfe can bestow upon us in heaven better then the partisipation of his own life and nature this inward change of the soul this new creature is salvation it self and if we be not possessed of it in some measure here we have little reason how ever we may fondly flatter our selves to think it shall be done hereafter that is the first mistake that I shall take notice of that we are apt to conceive that salvation is an outward worke and may be wrought only by outward means 2. There is another mistake that is very neer a kin to that in matters of religion and that is when we seek for God we looke for God wholly abroad without our selves whereas the only way to finde God is to turn our selves inward and to looke for him in the bottome of our own soules for if we could be carried up beyond the spheares and pry into every corner of the starrs in heaven above certainly we should as little find God there as we did on earth if we could find God any where abroad without us this could not make us happy for then God would be really at a distance from us but our happinesse consists in such a reall communion with God as our Saviour discribes 17 Joh. 22. The glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one as we are one I in them and they in me that all might be made perfect in one The heaven where God dwells in and where alone he is to be found is in a regenerate soul and he that will indeed find God and be united to him must not gaze and gad abroad and turn his eyes wholly outward but he must look to find him within Intimis animis for there he may at once both see him feele him taste him and be united to him God is never distant by place from us for in him we live and move and have our being but all our distance from him is only in the dispersion multiplicity destractions and scatterings of our hearts and in the dissimilitude and disproportions of our soules unto him and when these things are once removed then God appears to us who was never absent from us but only our eyes are now unvailed to see and behold him God is every where alike to him that can feele him he is only not present to him that cannot receive him as the sun shines not in a house where the curtains are drawn and the windowes stopt up This is the reason why many have so much adoe to finde God because they look for him as a corporall thing they still imploy their fansies and imaginations to finde him without and send them a roving gadding and wandering abroad after God and have such naturall and grosse conceits of heaven as if it were nothing but a Theatre a place of sights and shows and God himselfe were nothing but a more pompeous spectacle there to be gazed upon by these bodily eyes God I say is to be sought by a Christian within his own soule and the way to find him there is not by knowledge or study or speculation but by a leaving off all things even our own wit and knowledge and especially our lives and by abstracting of our selves from the love of the world and of our selves and dying to them and then out of this death will spring the true and heavenly light in which alone God is seen and known 3. There is yet another mistake that is very vulgar and common and that is that men are generally very apt to conceive that God doth not require any endeavours any activity of ours at all in the businesse of Religion and that God deales with us in matters of grace and spirituall things as meer stockes and stones and inanimal creatures and not in a way suitable to us as we are free and rationall This I conceive to be another mistake that damps and choakes mens endeavours of subduing and mortifying their lusts for by this means we lazily ly down under the burden of our sins and think we may cast the blame of our wickedness upon God himselfe he hath not given us strength he hath not given us power and ability this is a strong castle of sin in which men are apt to garison themselves against all the hearty exhortations and instructions which the Word of God and the messengers of God bring unto them whereas the Scripture every where calls upon us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling to make our calling and election sure to gird up the loyns of our minds to fight the good fight of faith and Christ himselfe tells us That he with his spirit stands at the doore and knocks if any man open and will hear his voyce I will come into him saith he and sup with him and he with me It is true indeed it is not in our power to make our selves new creatures to be regenerate and born again when we please but as our Saviour tells us the winde blowes where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof and canst not tell whence it comes nor whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit but yet let us not deceive our selves though this change in us be a new birth and we cannot make our selves the sons of God no more then we can make our selves the Sons of men we can indeed but Pati Deum lye down and suffer while he prints his own Image on our hearts while he forms himselfe in our soules yet notwithstanding let us not deceive our selves there is something for us to doe and that the Scripture every where calls upon us for and that is not to make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof to put off the old man that is corrupt according to the deceitfull lusts to mortifie and subdue this body of death that we carry about us for though we cannot make alive the new man in us when we please yet we may concurr to the killing and destroying of the old by refusing to satisfie the lusts cravings of it then by looking up to heaven imploring Gods assistance that he would come down upon us the second time breath into us the breath of supernaturall life we have therefore many gracious promises made to us in the Gospel on purpose to incourage us to faith in God that he will be always ready to prevent us with his goodnesse to remove the wretched infidelity of our hearts whereby our confidence in God is choaked all heavenly endeavours are dampt in us the whole Gospel was written to this end purpose to destroy this infidelity and assure us that we may come to God that he is a rewarder of those that seek him FINIS That the soul is created i●mediately by God Zach. 12.1 Erroneus opinions of the Creation of soules That the soul is not traduced from their parents Reasons drawn from nature Matthew 19. Reason drawn from divinity Smelling Feeling The Immagination or common sence The Phantasie The sensative memory The passions of sence Motion of life Locall motion The Intellectuall powers of the soul The Intellectuall memory An Acclamation That the soul is immortall and cannot dye Reason 1. Drawn from the desire of knowledge Reason 2. Drawn from the Motion of the Soule The Soul compared to a River Objection