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	sin_n	temporal_a	8,837	5	8.6794	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60145	The present correction and reproof of sin or A discourse on 2 Jer. 19. vers. Thine own iniquities shall correct thee, & thy backslideings shall reprove thee.	Shower, John, 1657-1715.	1685 (1685)	Wing S3681; ESTC R221463	30,198	59

return Eternal wrath is my due Hell is my deserved portion even there may I justly carry thes stings of conscience even there must I acknowledg I was justly condemned punnisht own the righteousness of my doom to unquenchable fire with my flameing tongue breath Wretch that I am who shall deliver save me only the mercy of God in Christ whose bloud cleanseth from all sin can possibly relieve the exigence of my case And wilt thou pitty and pardon and graciously receive such a rebel For Jesus Christ his sake spare me give me repentance blot out my transgression for it is great and hide thy face from my sin from my sin which is ever before me I cannot avoid the sight of it I cannot but remember it and abhorr my self in dust ashes goe mourning all the day long Thes are the thoughts this is the language of an humble Penitent under the sens of former backslidings To this purpose David tells us in one of his penitentiall Psalms 51 Ps 3. that his sin was ever before him And in another that his sorrow was continually before him The one as the cause 38 Ps 17. the other as the effect His sin as the reason of his sorrow his sorrow as the fruit of his sin was continually before him This made him cry so earnestly for pardon O Lord blot out my transgressions and remember not my sinns i. e. I remember them I acknowledg I humbly confess them they are ever in my view before my face O do not thou remember them but cast them behind thy back On this account he complains of broken bones a wounded spirit That the arrows of God stuck fast in his soul and his hand pressed him sore that he roared all the day long watered his couch with his tears Thes conflicts and terrors this darkness despondency are the fruit of backsliding and t' is well if it do not issue in the sin unto death in final incurable Apostacy T' is true some who are fallen from so great an height are raised againe and God upon sincere Repentance will pardon and save returning Backsliders yet so as by fire with great difficulty And they may never recover their former tranquillity and peace but walk heavily and softly under doubts and fears and dejection of spirit to their dyeing day And likewise suffer smart Afflictions to scour off the filth they have contracted by their revolt and to humble them more deeply under the apphrehension of their agravated guilt In thes and other such instances as might be mentioned sin doth correct and reprove the sinner in this world What remains is to consider what Inferences of truth duty may be collected from the preceding discourse for our instruction and practise or what improvement we should make of it Which I shall dispatch in thes following Propositions § 1. That we ought thankfully to admire the wisdom goodness of God who hath in so great measure connected our present duty happiness That we cannot disobey God without injuring our selv's feeling the smart of it even in this Life Let us thank him for hedging up our way to Eternal death by the thorns briars of temporal calamities By makeing sin so unreasonable painfull shameful troublesome against our Intrest even on this side the Grave In so much that in many instances we can not be undone forever without being miserable now nor loos the happiness of the other world without exposeing our selv's to many sorrows calamities in this By our sin folly we make the Rod which corrects us our own finger twists the cords wherby we are rebukt chastened the web which insnares intangles us is spun out of our own bowells And God in wisdom kindness so orders it to prevent our perishing in both worlds § 2. We ought hearthly to bless God for restraining us by his grace providence from Presumtuous Crimes That he was pleas'd to stop us in our way to ruine mercifully prevent us from running into those excesses which would have been attended with such miserable effects here at last have exposed us to his condemning sentence Had he not sometimes withheld us by his grace when we were tempted prevented us at other times by his providence from divers Temptations by which others have fallen we had ere this been deplorable spectacles of divine Justice and severely corrected by our own folly And this is the favor which God is pleased to vouchsafe to his Children to succor them when they are tempted to keep them from such Temptations as they would not be able to resist Not that he is a good man who would live wickedly if he were but tempted to do so by those ordinary trials that humane nature may expect but he who prefers God and the blessedness of the other world before all things els lives agreable to such a choice if he so continue shall be saved tho there might have been supposed a Temptation so strong as would have conquered his resolutions with that measure of Grace he then had if it had not been fortified with new supplies Therfore thank God for the care of his providence which secures us from many dangerous Temptations for the assistance of his Grace in inabling us to come off wit victory when we have been tryed § 3. How much better then is a Life of holy Obedience to God then the practice of sin if there were no reward to be expected after Death If in this Life only we had hope the case of cruel persecution excepted such as St. Paul speaks of 1 Cor. 15. And extreme Poverty bodily Pains c. because under thes the hopes of a future blessedness are the chief supports otherwise We should be so far from being of all men the most miserable in this world by obeying the Gospell of Christ that t' is apparently for our present Intrest to observe the precepts of natural Christian Religion the Yoke of Christ is easier his burden lighter the service of God less difficult then the drudgery of Sin with such consequences as have been mentioned Let me seriously appeal to your Experience wither it be not evill bitter to depart from God cast off his fear have you not found it so to your cost have not you your selv's many others whom you know been severely chastened reproved by sin what fruit have you or they or what fruit have you ever had of the sins you are now ashamed of but such as hath been described what profit hath he saith the Wiseman 5 Ecl. 16. who hath labor'd for the wind Bring in your acounts of what you have ever got by a wicked Live compare it with the present reward of holy liveing Set down your income proceed to a reckoning see what the total summe amounts to So much Shame Fear so much Care

so And no better are they in the practice of Impiety for as Slaves are at the command of their Masters and blindly obey their wills and are no gainers by what they do and oftentimes feel the lash and the whip notwithstanding their drudgery such is the case of sinners under the power of a domineering vice Yea their service is more dirty and dishonourable their chains stronger and their recovery more difficult as being less apprehensive sensible of their thraldom And who can honour or esteem such voluntary slaves under the worst of Tyrants they render themselv's infamous despicable can not expect better then to be scorned or pittied No man will esteem or trust one that is a known drunkard and whoremaster a frugal honest man that hath but half the estate is better lov'd will be farther trusted then such a one tho he have twice as much Who can think or speak well of a drunkard any otherwise then of a cask or vessell to be often filled and emptied As of one that is a confident boaster of himself his own actions undertakings a slanderer backbiter of others one that is vaine and scandalous in company foolishly babling all he knows unfaithfully revealing the secrets of his friends rash and hasty in his resolutions extravagant in his projects irregular in his actions c. And what reputation can such a man expect the like I might say of the Glutton who spends his Life in carrying meat from the Table to the Dunghill and so of others The name of such men shall rot saith the wise man It shall putrifie assoon as their bodies and sometimes long before Yea some mens wickedness makes them infamous after they are dead kills them to immortality and poysons their memory to future ages they stand upon record as great Villains and warnings to posterity § 6. Sin corrects and reproves the sinner in this world by destroying his health How doth gluttony and drunkenness correct men by evening vomits and morning qualms crudities of the stomach pains of the head and inflammations of the liver rheums gouts dropsies cholick consumptions apoplexies palsies decay of sight want of appetite losse of memory and judgment stupifyeing the braine weakning all the members of the body and hastening old age and death How many an healthy constitution hath been destroyed by intemperance besides that it inflames passion and excites quarrells makes men more apt to give affronts more unwilling to take them On which acount saith Solomon Who hath wo who hath sorrow 23 Pr 29. who hath wounds without cause they that tarry long at the wine c. who can recount all the mischiefs to the body by an excess of eating and drinking wheras abstinence and a temperate life hath been proved by many to be the certaine cure of catarrhs and gouts and other diseases wherwith formerly they have been tormented How many miserable instances have we known of men tortur'd by acute distempers swoln with gouts burn't with feavers rackt by the stone torn with cholicks c. and forc't to pine away a great part of their days in paine misery by the effects of Intemperance and lust By this means Princes and great men have been forc't to own that it is an evil thing and a bitter to forsake God suffering such torments as the fruit of their Impieties that have made them envy the condition of Peasants Slaves and Beggars How many sacrifice their health and strength to a beastly opportunity and are punisht by pains of the head oppressions of the heart conturbations of the stomach gripeing of the bowells continual thirst unseasonable and unquiet watchfullness when nature and digestion require rest Besides that horrible disease imparted by this vice the most cruel the most filthy the most shamefull of all maladies from which no lustfull person can be secure Because 't is the nature of vice and of this in perticular to precipitate from one degree of excess to another A diseas which anticipates the corruption and uncleanness of the grave wherby sinners meet with their Limbo their Tophet here as a sad preface without repentance to an everlasting Hell § 7. By an untimely Death 'T is true a natural Death is the fruit of sin we may consider epidemical diseases and our common mortality the trouble of sickness and the pains of dyeing as some correction and reproof of sinners Their tears and groans and ghastly looks in a dyeing hour their broken sighs their distorted members their trembling languishing pulse their putrid breath and last agonies do all bespeak us to consider what sin hath done But a natural death being the punnishment of the first transgression and common to all mankind 't is an untimely death I am now to speak of Without disputeing wither the period of Life he mutable or not This is certaine that God from the infinity of his nature must needs be present in all duration at once and so cannot but foresee and know how long we shall live And t' is likewise evident from Scripture reason and experience 55 Ps 23. that some do not live out half their days to which they might have arriv'd according to the cours of nature The meek such as are blessed of God shall live long to inherit the earth but the Transgressors shall be cutt off 37 Ps 22. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days but the years of the wicked shall be shortned Some think that Balaam when he desired to dye the death of the Righteous and that his last end might be like his 23 Numb 10. meant only the prevention of an untimely death that he might goe to his grave in a good old age And God hath promised among other temporal blessings that the good man shall be gathered in peace to his Fathers like a shok of corn fully ripe and crown'd with length of days as well as with riches and honour T' is true a short Life and an hasty death are not allways a curse or the fruit of God's displeasure To a prepared soul t' is a blessing and as such more desireable then to abide in the flesh in order to our being with Christ which is best of all But how many are there whose impieties shorten their days and * Hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus It nova nec tristis per cunctas fabula coenas Ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis hasten their dissolution How many dye martyrs by the fire of lust By the strange woman many fall down wounded and many strong men are slaine by her Her house is the way to the grave leads to the chambers of death How many have extinguisht their vital flame by intemperate drinking and brought those diseases or furnisht the matter of them by excess wherof in a short time they dyed Besides the many thousand Murders which drunkenness hath caused in a drunken fit men have murdered themselv's their best friends and