Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	eternal_a	life_n	spirit_n	6,496	5	5.0614	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94160	A sermon preached at Nevvport in the Isle of Wight, October 1648. In the time of the treaty. / By Robert Sanderson, D.D. chaplain to the late King, and Regius-Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxon.	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.	1653 (1653)	Wing S628; Thomason E702_15; ESTC R203446	18,328	25

effects also of Gods Spirit and are therfore cal'd {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} spiritual gifts these indeed are given by dole alius sic alius verò sic knowledg to one to another tongues to another healings miracles c. All by the same spirit manifesting himself to sundry persons in sundry kinds and measures and dividing to every one severally as he will but it is nothing so in the special graces of Sanctification there is no distribution or division here either all or none He that certainly wanteth any one at least in the desire and endeavour may justly suspect that all those he seemeth to have are but so many counterfeits all this variety of graces maketh but one fruit The Last difference is that the works of the flesh are expresly said to be manifest ver. 19. but no such thing affirmed of the fruit of the Spirit The most probable reasons of which difference are to my seeming one of these two following First the commonness and frequency of those above these every where abroad in the world The works of the flesh Adultery Fornication Uncleannesse Wantonnesse Idolatry Witchcraft Hatreds Emulation Debate Wrath Strifes Seditions Herefies Envying Murthers Gluttony Drunkennesse and such like I name them because the bare recitall of them will save me the labour of further proof do so abound in all places that you can scarce look beside them turn your eyes which way you will you shall see cursed examples of some or other of these every day and in every street and corner Alas the works of the flesh are but too manifest But the fruits of the spirit are not so Love Peace Gentlenesse Faith Meeknesse Temperance and the rest These are very thin grown in the world they are rarities not every where to be met withall insomuch as David complaingly cryeth out there is not one godly man left Psal. 12. and Psal. 14. There is none that doth good no not one And the Prophet Jeremiah when he had run to and fro in the streets of Jerusalem for the purpose to find out a man that executed Judgement and sought after truth when he had employed his legs and his eyes and his tongue in the search he could not yet find the man he looked for Hippes and Haws grow in every hedge when choicer fruits are but in some few gardens And every soyle almost yeilds stones and rubbish but gold and precious stones are found in very few places Secondly the works of the flesh may be said to be manifest and the fruits of the Spirit not so with respect to our judgments of them and the easinesse of desiring the one more then the other The works of the flesh are so manifestly evill that no man of common sense can lightly be mistaken in them Murder sedition drunkennesse adultery it is not possible any man should be of such gross understanding as to imagine they should be the fruits of Gods holy Spirit they are undoubtedly and manifestly to every mans apprehension the works of the flesh but as for the fruits of the Spirit they are not so manifest but that a man who hath not his senses verie well exercised to the discerning of good and evil may be easily deceived therein Hypocrisie is spun oftentimes of a very fine thred and the heart of man abounding with so much hypocrisy as it doth and so much selflove and uncharitableness withal is the most deceitful thing yea and the most deceivable too actively and passively both of any thing in the world There are on the one side so many Mock-graces and specious counterfeits that carry a semblance of spiritual fruit but are not the things they seem to be And on the other side inordinate love of our selves partly partly want of Charitie towards our brethren have so disposed us to a capacity of being deceived that it is not a wonder if in passing our judgments especially where our selves are concerned we be very much and very often mistaken It might rather be a wonder if we should not be sometimes mistaken As most errors claime to be a little a kin to some truths so most vices challenge a kind of Affinity to some vertue Not so much from any proper intrinsecall true resemblance they have with such vertues as by reason of the common opposition they both have to one and the same contrary vice As Prodigality hath some overly likenesse with liberalitie and so may hap to be mistaken for it for no other cause but this only that they are both contrary to covetuousnesse {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} saith Aristotle truely fallacy and deception for the most part arise from the appearance of some likenesse or similitude when things that are like but not the same are taken to be the same because they are like They that have given us marks of sincerity for the trial of our graces have not been able to give us any certain rules or infalliable Characters whereby to try the sincerity of those marks so as to remove all doubting and possibilitie of erring Whence I suppose I may safely infer that the certaintie of a mans present standing in grace but much more then of his eternall future Salvation although I doubt not but by the mercy of God it may be attainable in this life and that without extraordinary Revelation in such a measure as may sustain the soul of an honest Christian with cōfort is not yet either so absolutely necessary nor so void of fears and doubtings as some perhaps have imagined Not so necessary but that a man may be saved without it Many a good soul no doubt there is in the world that out of the experience of the falsenesse of his own heart and the fear of self-deceit and the sense of his own unworthinesse could never yet attaine to be so well perswaded of the sincerity of his own repentance Faith and Obedience as to think that God would approve of it and accept it The censure were very hard and a great violation it would be of charitie I am sure and I think of truth also to pronounce such a man to be out of the state of Salvation or to call such his dis-perswasion by the name of despair and under that name to condemne it There is a common but a great mistake in this matter Despair is quite another manner of thing then many take it for When a man thinketh himself so incapable of Gods pardon that he growes thereupon regardlesse of all duties and neither careth what he doth nor what shall become of him when he is once come to this resolution over shoos over boots I know God will never forgive me and therefore I will never trouble my self to seek his favour in vain this is to run a desperate course indeed this is properly the sin of despair But when the fear that God hath not yet pardoned him prompteth him to better resolutions and exciteth him to a greater care of repentance and newnesse of life and maketh him more diligent in the performance of all holy duties that so he may be more capable of pardon It is so far from being any way prejudicial to his eternal salvation that it is in the readiest way to secure it But where the greatest certainty is that can be attained to in this life by ordinary means it is not ordinarily unless perhaps to some few persons at the very hour of death so perfect as to exclude all doubtings The fruits of the Spirit where they are true and sincere being but imperfect in this life and the truth and sincerity of them being not always so manifest but that a man may sometimes be deceived in his judgment concerning the same it can hardly be what between the one and the other the imperfection of the thing and the difficulty of judging but that the Assurance which is wholly grounded thereupon and can therefore have no more strength then they can give it must be subject to fears and jealousies and doubtings I speak not this to shake any mans comfort God forbid but to stir up every mans care to abound and increase so much the more in all godlinesse and in the fruits of the Spirit giving all diligence by walking in the Spirit and subduing the lusts of the flesh to make his calling and election sure Sure in it self that he fail not of salvation in the end and sure to him also as far as he can that his comfort may be the greater and sounder in the mean time Now the God of all grace and glory send the Spirit of his Son plentifully into our hearts that we may abound in the fruits of godly living to the praise of his grace our present comfort in this life and the eternall salvation of our souls in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ FINIS Eccles. 1. 9. Gal. 1. 6. 5. 26. 5. 15. Gal. 3. 1. 1 Kin. 10. 5. Gen. ●2 7 Jam. 2 26 Jam. 4 5. John 3. 6. Heb. 12. 9. 1 Ioh. 3. 9. 2 Cor. 3. 5. Rom. 7. 18. John 15. 17. 2 Cor. 3. 5. Ephes. 2. 8. Phil. 2. 13 Matth. 7. 16. Matth. 12. 23. Jam. 1 20. Col. 1. 10. Mat. 3. 8 10. Gen. 2 15. Prov 4. 23 Heb. 12. 15. Jam. 1. 21. Psal. 115. 1. Rom 11. 18. 1 Cor. 15. 10. Phil. 1. 22. 2 Tim. 2. 6. Psal. 128. 2. Prov. 31. 31. 1 Cor 9. 7. Hor. 2. Ep. 1. Terent. Wisd. 5. 7. Jer. 9. 5. Hab. 2. 13. Psal. 39. 6 Hab. 2. 13. 1 Pet. 1. 18 Rom. 6. 21. Solinus Isa. 55. 1. Mat. 11. 30 1 Joh. 5. 3. Prov. 11. 8. Heb. 6 10. Psal. 19. 11 Mat. 10 42 1 Cor. 15. ult. Jam. 5 7. Heb. 10. 36 Gal. 6. 9. Heb. 10. 37. Rom. 6. 22 Mar. 10. 30 Rom. 2. 22 Psal. 51. 10 Gal. 6. 15. Wisd. 1. 4 5. Rom. 13. 10. 1 Cor. 12. 1. 14. 1. 1 Cor. 12. 8 -10 Jer. 51 c Jer. ●7 9. 2 Pet. 1. 5.

benefit is as nothing and in the service of God the benefit so great that in comparison thereof the pain is as nothing Where the flesh ruleth all the work exceedeth the fruit and therefore without ever mentioning the fruit they are called the works of the flesh But where the Spirit of God ruleth the fruit exceedeth the work and therefore without ever mentioning the work it is called the fruit of the Spirit If in this passage onely this different manner of speaking had been used by the Apostle it might perhaps have been taken for a casual expression unsufficient to ground any Collection upon But look into Ephes. 5. and you cannot doubt but it was done of choice and with this very meaning speaking there of the duties of Holiness even as here without any mention of work he calleth them by the name of fruits The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth verse 9. But by and by verse 11. speaking of sinful actions he doth not onely call them works but positively and expresly calleth them fruitless Have no fellowship with the unfruitfull works of Darknesse Works but without fruit unfruitfull works of darknesse This justifieth the Collection to be evident and naturall and without enforcement The waies of sin are very toilsome yet withall unfruitfull but in all spirituall labour there is profit the fruit wil countervail the paines and recompence it abundantly We may not unfitly apply to these two his words in the Comedy In his fructus est in illis Opera luditur The paths of sin seem indeed at the first hand and in the entrance to be very pleasant and even The Divel to draw men in goeth before like a Leveller and smootheth the way for them but when they are in he driveth them along and on they must Be the way never so dark and slippery never so crooked and craggy never so intricate or perplext being once engaged they must go through it per saxa per ignes stick at nothing be it never so contrary to the Laws of God or men to all Natural Civil or Religious Obligations yea even to the Principles of common humanity and reason that Avarice Ambition Revenge or any other vitious Lust putteth them upon Ambulavimus vias difficiles they confess it at last when it is too late and befool themselves for it We have wearied our selves in the way of wickedness and destruction we have gone through dangerous waies c. Wisd. 5. They have wearied themselves to work iniquity saith the Prophet Jeremiah And the Prophet Habbacuk The people labour in the very fire The Greek word that signifieth wickedness cometh of another that signifieth labour {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} And how often in the Scriptures do we meet with such like Phrases asthese to work wickedness works of iniquity Saint Chrysostomes eloquence inlargeth it self and triumpheth in this Argument more frequently and with greater variety of invention and amplification then in almost any other and he cleareth it often and beyond all exception both by Scripture and Reason that the life of a wicked or worldly man is a very drudgery infinitely more toylsome vexatious and unpleasant then a Godly life is Now if after all this drayling the fruits would though but in a scant proportion answer the pains it were the more tolerable but there is no such matter the sinner hath but his Labour for his Pains Nay I may say it were happy for him if he had but his Labour for his Pains and that there were not a worse matter yet behind The best they can hope in the mean time is nothing but vanity and vanity is nothing Man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain saith David The work disquietness the fruit vanity The people labour in the very fire you heard but now from the Prophet his very next words are They weary themselves for very vanity Saint Peter therefore calleth the conversation of a sinner a vain conversation And S. Paul putteth the question home to their consciences after a sort challenging them to answer directly to it if they could What fruit had ye then of those things c. Rom. 6. No great reason then if we well consider it why we should envy sinners though they prosper never so much in wicked designes and seem to reap the fruit of their labours in the success of their affairs All temporal advantages of Wealth Honour Power Pleasure and the like which are the utmost fruit that a sinner can fancy to himself of all his labours have but the shew and semblance not the truth and reality of fruit both because in the mean time they give not that satisfaction in the injoyment which was desired and expected from them in the pursuit as they write of the Apples of Sodom that look very fair and full and tempt the eye but as soon as touched Fathiscunt in vagum pulverem like a Fussbal resolve all into dust and smoak as also because they have a very ill farewel with them at the last Honey in the mouth perhaps and that but perhaps neither but Gall certainly in the stomack if not rather rank Poyson Know they not it will be bitterness in the end Shame Sorrow and bitter repentance and that is the best end imaginable of such bad beginnings but without repentance eternal death and damnation not to be avoided For the end of those things abused and continued in is death Let us not therefore either envy their prosperity or yet follow their example Wherefore should we lay out our money for that which is not bread or our labour for that which satisfieth not when we drive a far easier trade with far more profit another way have less toyl and yet reap more fruit and that is by walking in the holy wayes of God and taking upon us the yoke of Christ that we are told is an easie yoke at least in comparison of the other that of Satan and a light burden And we have no reason to disbelieve it Truth it self having told us so especially considering that he putteth under the shoulder himself also and by helping to bear with us beareth off in a manner the whole weight from us leaving no more for us to carry then by the strength he giveth us he knoweth we are well able to bear if we will but put to our good wils and use that strength Nay do but compare the works themselves and you must conclude that his Commandments are more equitable and less grievous then are the imperious commands of our own raging and exorbitant lusts Will not any reasonable man upon the hearing of the names of the things onely presently yeild that Love and Joy and Peace and Gentleness for example which are fruits of the Spirit are far more lovely and desirable more easie and delightful fuller of sweetness and