Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	glory_n	life_n	sin_n	8,915	5	4.4862	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23769	A sermon preached before the King at White-hall, October the 12th 1662 by Richard Allestrey ...	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.	1663 (1663)	Wing A1165; ESTC R15228	15,707	44

them When Midas was ready to dy for hunger his God was kinder to him in a little bread then in making all that he toucht turn into gold great things engage but little where there is but little use of them and all these Thirdly Are endeered by the Affection they are given with Good turns done with design what need soever I have of them are hire and not friendship it is the kindness onely that obligeth the gift without the love does but upbraid and scorn my want Now to measure the friend here in the Text by these were an impossible undertaking taking whose friendship did exceed all bounds and measures I shall do no more towards it but read the words before my text which were the occasion of it Greater love bath no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends and then it follows yee are my friends The token therefore of his friendship the guift he gave them was his life rather that was the least he gave He gave his glory first that so he might be qualified to give his life for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. ii 7. He lessened himself from the condition of being Lord of all into that of a servant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. ii 9. being diminished made lower meaner then his creatures for the suffering of death Now with the price of such divine essential glory to buy onely a life rather onely a possibility of death that after he might give that life for us and with his death purchase us an immortal life is such a gift as no Romance of friendship ever fancied or did aim at we may have heard of two companions that would dy for one another that never quarell'd in their lives but for this who should suffer first to save the other and strave onely for Execution But for a person of the Trinity to leave his heaven to come down to us to dwell with agonies that he might be at one with us and be tyed to the cross that he might be united to us this is a friendship fitt for Ecstasies of apprehension Of all the things that court thy kindness here below that spread snares and lay baits for thy friendship if any bid so fair so temptingly if any will give such a price in God's name let it have thy love I shall not blame him that engageth his affection there But sure Heaven cannot give a greater gift then this for what can God give greater then himself Yea I may say God could not give so much for he must be man too to give his life and this saith he he gave for his friends even in our stead who must have perish'd else eternally which intimates the second thing the need we had of this A need great as the gift necessity invincible that could break into heaven rifle the Trinity to serve its self throw death into those regions of immortality and which would not be satisfied but with the bloud of God And now is not the kindness and the condescension of friendship in his expressions too when he saith greater love then this hath no man which was the third endearement There never were such wounds of loves as those that tore this heart never such meltings of affection as dissolved this lover into sweates of bloud There was no motive to all this but his meere love for all this he designed to us before we were and therefore sure before we were deserving and O our God! thou that from all eternity didst lay contrivances to give thy life for us so to redeem and then to glorifie us what were we then that thou shouldst do his for us what were we then when we were not and yet that thou from the abyss of everlastingness shouldst think thoughts of such kindness to us and such blessedness for us who then were not and deserved nothing and who since we were have deserved nothing but damnation And as there was no other motive to all this design but love so neither was there any thing but love in the fulfilling Look on your Saviour in the garden and upon Mount Calvary and you shall find him there in as great agonies of affection as torment and hanging down his head upon the Cross with languishments of kindness more then weakness His arms stretched out and Rack't as if on purpose to the posture of receiving you to his embraces and his side opened not onely to shed Blood for you but to make you a passage to his very Heart Look on him offering up his Tears his Prayers and his Soul for Sin and in the midst of all projecting happyness to you as it were praying O my Father here I charge my self with all the guilt of those my friends I thy onely Son God one with thee am content to suffer Torments that they all may be acquitted Here I lay down my Life that they may have eternal Life let me be Crucified so they be Glorified Which was the purchase and the gift of this his Passion to all his friends even to those that do what he commands which is the first condition that entitles to his friendship and my next part Ye are my friends if ye do what I command you I shall not urge that Great men upon earth will not take any to their Friendship but upon these termes nor will I plead the reasonableness of this in Christ there being no cause why he should be a friend to any that will daily disoblige him and dishonour him nor will I press the whole Oeconomy of Scripture which says all the advantages Christ ever gave or meant us and all the Acts of friendship that he ever did for us were with this design He gave his grace that brings salvation to save us into an estate of sober virtue Tit. ii v. 11.12 he gave himself also to Ransom us from our own evil doings and to redeem us into his obedience Tit. ii v. 14. without which no dependance on him will availe Mat. vii 21. He will own no acquaintance with nor services from them who have friendship with sin though they have cast out Devils in his name if they retain their vices though they do miracles if they do wickedly he wil bid them depart profess he never knew them v. 22.23 He will not let such have a bare relation to his Name nor have the friendship of a title 2 Tim. ii 19. All his rewards also that he will give are promised to none other but them that do what he commands Apocal. xxii 14. that is do Evangelically heartily and faithfully endeavour it and do this with all diligence exprest by words that import all strife imaginable as running wrestling fighting warring And persevere also by patient continuance in well doing Rom. ii 7. and he hath nothing else but vengeance for all others 2 Thes. 1.8 and we have neither Christ nor Gospel nor Religion but with these terms But I shall wave all this and bound my self within the

treachery of love If it be necessary to the gaining of Christs friendship that thou do his commands 't is necessary that thou do them all that thou divorce thy self from thy beloved sin as well as any other because his friendship does no more require other obedience then it does that but is as inconsistent with thy own peculiar vice as with the rest Indeed it is impossible that it should bear with any they being all his murderers If thou canst find one sin that had no hand in putting Christ to death one vice that did not come into the garden nor upon mount Calvary that did not helpe to assassin thy Saviour even take thy fill of that but if each had a stab at him if no one of thy vices could have been forgiven had not thy Jesus died for it canst thou expect he should have kindness for his agony or friendship for the man that entertaines his Crucifiers in his heart if worldly cares which he calls thorns fill thy head with contrivances of Wealth and Greatness of filling Coffers and of platting Coronets for thee as the Thorns did make him a Crown too would'st thou have him receive thee and these in his bosom to gore his Heart as they did pierce his Head If thou delight in that intemperance which filled his deadly Cup which Vomited Gall into it can he delight in thee That Cup which made him fall upon his Face to deprecate will he partake in as the pledg of mutual Love He that sunk under could not bear this load of thine when it was in his Cross upon his shoulders will he bear it and thee on his armes when thou fall'st under it When thou wilt cast a shameful spewing on his glory too if he own such a friend Thou that art so familiar with his name as thou wer't more his friend then any in the world whose Oaths and imprecations Moses sayes strike through that name which they so often call upon thou mayst as well think his heart did attract the Spear that pierc'd it and the wound close upon its head with unions of Love as that he hath kindness for thee If Christ may make friendship with him that does allow himself a Sin he may have fellowship with Belial for him to dwell in any heart that cherisheth a vice were to descend to Hell again But as far as those Regions of darkness are from his habitation of Glory and the black spirits of that place from being any of his guard of holy myriads so far is He from dwelling with or being friend to him that is a friend to any wickedness to him that will not do whatever he commands And now if these conditions seem hard if any do not care to be his friend upon these terms they may betake themselves to others Let such make themselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness A friend indeed that hath not so much of the insincerities as many great ones have for this will furnish them with all that heart or lust can wish for all that necessities or wantonness proposeth to it self to dress out pomp or vice But yet when with enjoyment the affections grow and become so unquiet work them so as not to let their thoughts or actions rest make them quicken themselves and like the motions of all things that go downwards tending to the Earth increase by the continuance grow stronger and more violent towards the end then when they are most passionate it failes them and having fill'd their life with most unsatisfied tormenting cares it leaves them nothing but the guilt of all when their great wealth shall shrink into a single sheet no more of it be left but a thin shroud and all their vast inheritances but six foot of earth be gone yet the iniquity of all will stick close to them and this false friend that does it self forsake them will neither go along nor will let its pomp follow them raises a cry on them as high as God's tribunal the cry of all the bloud all the oppressed rights that bribery till then had stifled the groans of all those poor that greatness covetousness or extortion had grown'd and crush't the yellings of those souls that were starved for want of the bread of life which yet they payed for and the price of it made those heaps which will that day appear against their friends and masters and prove their adversaries to eternal death Let others joy in friends that wine does get them such as have no qualification to endear them but this that they will not refuse to sin and to be sick with their companions men that do onely drink in their affections as full of friendship as of liquor and probably they do unload themselves of both at once part with their dearness and their drink together and alike I know not whether it be heats of mutual kindness that inflame these draughts and the desires of them so as if they did drink thirst but sure I am that these hot draughts begin the lake of fire Let others please themselves in an affection that carnality cements These are warme friendships I confess but Solomon will tell us whence they have their heat Her house saith he does open into Hell and Brimstone kindles those libidinous flames There are straite bands fetters in those affections indeed for the same wise man sayes The closets of that sinner are the chambers of death that none that go unto her return again or take hold of the paths of life it seems she is a friend that takes most irreversible dead hold she is not onely as insatiate but as inexorable as the grave and the eternal chains of fate are in those her embraces But God keep us from making such strict Covenants with death from being at friendship with Hell or in a word that I say all at once with any that are good companions onely in sinning Such men having no virtue in themselves must needs hate it in others as being a reproach to them and therefore they are still besieging it using all arts and Stratagems to undermine it and having nothing else to recommend them into mens affections but their managery of vice no way to merit but by serving iniquity they not onely comply with our own evill inclinations that so they may be grateful and insinuate into us but they provoke too and inflame those tendencies that they may be more useful to us having no other means to work their ends And then such friends by the same reason must be false and trecherous and all that we declaime at and abhorre in enemies when that shall be the way to serve their ends because they have no virtue to engage them to be otherwise and to be such is to be constant to their own designs their dispositions and usances These are the pests of all Societies they speak and live infection and friendship with them is to couple with the Plague These do