Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	great_a	life_n	love_n	7,775	5	5.2746	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60407	A sermon preached July 17, 1681, at the assizes in Huntingdon before the Right Honourable the Lord Chief Baron Mountague and Mr. Justice Windham, judges of the assize / by Benjamin Smith, Rector of Boxworth, in Cambridge-shire.	Smith, Benjamin, fl. 1681.	1682 (1682)	Wing S4021B; ESTC R37563	22,452	38

For this our Saviour Threatens the Jew Matth. 21. v. 43. Therefore I say unto you the Kingdom of God s●all be taken from you and given to a Nation bringing forth the fruits thereof Our Provocations are too like theirs God grant our Punishment be not the same too 3. A Christi●n love and Union among our selves This is an excellent Means of defence of the Faith and a pertinent and prevalent Method of Contending for it By this we secure our selves from all Assaults without and while Love compacts and cements the Body it makes it impregnable to all the fruitless Attempts of the Enemy Our Unity would be our Strength as well as as our Beauty and if our Adversaries could not Create a Party and form Divisions among us they would sit down in Dispair of ever prevailing and would be less frequent and brisk in their Attacks But while we Bite and Devour one another while we Rage and Raile at and mutually Subvert and Undermine each other whilst fierce Debates and Unchristian Censures and Spight and Malice and Wrath do swell the Spleen and Exasperate the Minds of men one against another we reproach our Religion by an unsuitable Deportment and expose our selves an easy Prey to the Cunning and Malice of our Enemies For the Gospel we Contend for is a Gospel of Peace and the God we serve is the God of Peace and the Badge of Christ's Disciples is to love one another If then to Contradict the Design of the Gospel be the nearest way to hasten its departure in vain do men pretend a zeal of Religion in Bitterness and Animosity or give out they Contend for the Faith while they violate the Laws of Christian Charity and Cast away the bands of Concord Love and Union It is much to be feared lest God in his just Indignation at these things should let in the Common Enemy among us and Cure the Rancor take off the edge of our spirits and teach us more Kindness a more tender regard one for another by involving us all in the same common Calamity and judgment I Am sure nothing more weakens our strength nor more roundly or successfully advanceth the Projects of the Enemy than our fierce and unmerciful Contests one with Another We pull down our Defence with our own hands and our selves sap and undermine those Walls and Foundations which they so much desire to see Levelled with the ground Hence it is that Rome hath always been industrious and vigilant to Create and foment Divisions among us for these present them with those advantages against us which all their own Prowesse or Policy could never have procured for them But a Christian Love and firm Union among our selves would be no less their Terror then their Confusion 4. To suffer resolutely the worst that man can inslict rather than forgo our Profession or deny the Faith This is that manner of Contention which I conceive the Apostle Chiefly aimes at in the Text by the use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I have already intimated and this is that Way in which every particular person may for himself and in his own Sphere victoriously Contend This will render all the Attempts of men in vain and whether they Fawn or Rage a mind resolved to endure the utmost rather than forgo the Faith will weather the storm and stand the shock and come off Triumphant in the end For the Rage and violence of men may bind the Hands or force the Body but the mind is free and no Compulsions can debauch the Conscience They Can reach this Temporal life tear the heart out of the Body but the Soul is beyond their reach and can never tear the Love of Christ and his Truth out of the Heart that is not willing to part with it When therefore all other means of Contending for the Faith either fail or are useless through the Anger of GOD or the Perverseness of Men the good Christian in his particular Sphere may Contend for it and be sure to preserve and keep it entire and inviolate by Patience and Constancy and a mind prepared to suffer whatever the Rage or Malice of Men can inflict For he that Can expose his Fortune to the Rapaciousness of Men his Body to the Tormentor and his Life to the death need not fear what man can do but may be sure to preserve his Conscience pure and his Faith sound unto the end And though Flesh and Blood may Recoile and fancy this Method least of any yet the Christian is supported with the greatest reason that Can be to encourage him to it This is the Path that our Saviour trod before us and through Tribulation and Sufferings the Captain of our Salvation was made Perfect He endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand Heb. 12. 2. of the Throne of God This way those great and famous Worthies in the Gospel those Primi Pilares Fidei nostrae the Ringleaders of our Faith stood up for the Faith and Sealed it with their dearest Blood and they loved not their lives unto the death And to the same Engagements Rev. 12. 11. our Saviour encourageth us and bids his Disciples fear not them which kill the Body but are not able to kill the Mat. 10. 28. Soul And the Apostle proposeth the example of our Masters Sufferings as the support of our Faith and Courage in the greatest Tryals For consider him says Saint Paul that endured such Contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds This the Heb. 12 3 thing we Contend for deserveth at our hands for the Faith is Precious and the Testimony of a good Conscience out-weighs the Terrors of death and the Love of God is better than life it self And this by our Covenant with God we engage our selves to and we Cannot be Christ's Disciples upon Termes short of these He that loves his Life more then Christ is unworthy to be a a Disciple of Christ and he that for Fear denyes the Faith denyes Christ the Lord and Founder of it And though our Master does not always Call his servants to Heaven in a Fiery Charriot and in Tribulation and sufferings yet he expects that they should all of them be always ready and resolved to go that way if he calls them and he will receive none that decline that way when he calls them by it For he hath said if any man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children Luk. 14. 26. 27 and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my Disciple and whosoever doth not bear his Cross and come after me cannot be my Disciple Let us then rather dread losing the Faith than our Lives and rather fear being discarded by our great Master turned out of his Service or disowned by him then to be vexed and worried and killed by men If God calls us to suffer let us not think strange at the Fiery Tryal as Saint Peter calls 1 Pet. 4. 12. it but with Patience and Courage obey the Call and with a firm Mind and undaunted Resolution hazzard our lives to save our Souls quit the World to preserve the Faith The Enemy is at hand lodged under our very Walls what God may permit we know not what they would do is now sufficiently discovered and demonstrated to every one that is not of the Party or willing to be imposed upon T is time to think seriously of our Condition and to fortify our minds with Courage and Constancy against the impending Evil. 'T is time that our Breaches were Healed and our Contentions among our selves were Banished that we might all unite in the Common Defence and all Combine as one man to Contend earnestly for the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints FINIS

guilty of disturbing the State by Sedition and Rebellion Nor was all this a Patience per force their Numbers were neither so small nor their Courage so low but they might have created Disturbance enough had they thought it Lawful so to proceed Tertullian tells the Emperor Severus in that excellent Apology he presented to him in the behalf of the Christians that their Numbers and Courage were sufficient to have stood upon their Defence and to make their Party good against their Enemies if they thought it Lawful so to do S●… enim hostes apertos non tantum vindices occultos agere vellemus deesset nobis vis Numerorum Copiarum c. For if we had a mind to proceed by open Hostility could we want either Numbers or Forces sufficient we are but of yesterday and yet we fill all Places your Cities Islands Castles Corporations Councils your very Camps and Tribes and Companies your Palace Senate and Courts of Justice Sola vobis Templa relinquimus onely your Temples are free from us Qui Bello non Idonei c For what War should we be unfit or unprepared though our Forces were inserior who so willingly lay down our lives if in our Religion it were not more Lawful to be killed than to kill Nay he says that without a Rebellion they could Ruin their Persecutors only by with-drawing from them and if so great a number of men should retire into some remote Corner of the World their very Recess would be a punishment to them Proculàubi●●…●xpavissetis ad Solitudinem vestram ad silentium re●●●● et Stuporem quendam quasi mortuae Urbis Doubtless says he you would be astonished at the Solitude we should leave you in at the silence and stillness of your City as if it had expired at our departure But Christian Fortitude in those days ran in a stream quite contrary to Violence and Resistance and the Honour and Advantages of suffering for Jesus Christ and the Testimony of a good Conscience were then thought to be so great that no dread of Death nor probability of Prevailing could tempt them to such a Course And of this we have an eminent Instance in the Thebean Vid. Grot. de jure Bell. lib. 1. cap. 4. Legion which consisted of six thousand six hundred and sixty six men all Christians who in the Reign of Maximian laid down their Arms and were every man cut off and Martyred rather then they would sacrifice to Idols at the Emperours Command And when the Empire was now turned Christian and their Numbers mightily encreased when all Offices and Employments and all places of Trust were happily lodged in Christians hands Julian comes to the Throne a professed Apostate one that renounces the Faith he had early imbibed and openly declares for Paganisme and sets up their horrid Rites and Superstition again and yet no man opposeth him by Violence and Armes no Sedition nor Mutiny is raised against him though the strength of the Empire was then in Christian hands Prayers and Tears to GOD and earnest Entreaties and humble Apologies to the Emperours were the Ways and Methods of the Defence of the Faith in Ancient times and till the Popes had debauched the Minds of men and for their own Interest taught them to despise the secular Power we never heard of a Rebellion raised in the world upon the account of Religion nor of the Defence of the Faith by Force and Arms. This is a way which the Religion of the Holy Jesus abhors and this is not the way that Saint Jude here Exhorts us to Contend for the Faith in For though he useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which does undoubtedly refer to those Exercises which were so famous and so much in use among the Grecians and are called by them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consisting of those manly Exercises of running wrestling and Combating yet it is as evident that in the use of the word he does not refer to the Force and external Violence used in those Cames but to the Diligence Industry Patience and Sufferance of the Combatants Thus it 's plain Saint Paul useth the word to signify the Patience and Phil. 1. 30. ● Tim. 4. 7. Constancy of the Saints in their spiritual Race and Combat in their sufferings and endurance of Labour and Persecution and thus our Saviour applyes it Luk. 13. 24. And I believe it will no where be found in the New Testament to signify the Resistance or Contention of external Force and Violence Not but that I think it Lawful for the Magistrate to draw the Sword in defence of the True Religion For he is the Minister of God and beareth not Rom. 13. 4. the Sword in vain If the Pope as he hath formerly done should give away this Kingdom to him that can catch it or set any Prince a work as he loves to do to force us into a Subjection to him no doubt the King may Lawfully oppose Force with Force and defend his Kingdom from every Invasion God hath put the Sword into his hand to manage for the Defence of Religion as well as of the People But then this is the Case of the Magistrate whose the Sword is and makes nothing to those who have none of that Power committed to them To these the Practice of our Saviour who refused to be rescued by Saint Peter's Sword and the Command he gave with the Reason of it Mat. 26. 52. Put up again thy Sword into its place for all they that take the Sword shall perish by the Sword is a sufficient direction and Rule what they have to do and shews them how dangerous and unlawful it is to be meddling How then must we Contend for the Faith Surely in the head of all our Endeavours our Prayers and Tears ought first to be placed as the Ancient Arms of the Primitive Church and those most successefull Weapons with which they Encountred the Rage of the Enemy and by which their Patience and Constancy triumphed in the end Our Faith is from God and to whom therefore should we go for its Defence but to him who can with ease defeat the Designes of the Enemy and infatuate the Counsels of their best Contrivance who as the Prophet saith Frustrateth the tokens Isa 44. v. 25. of the Lyars and maketh Diviners mad that turneth wise men backwards and maketh their knowledge foolish If he be among us we need not fear all the Efforts of Rome or Hell but if he forsake us our Defence is gone and our Glory departed and Ichabod may be written upon all our pleasant places But other Means are to be added to these also And every one in his several Sphere must employ the Talent that God hath given him for God loves not the Lazy Suppliant nor will hear the Desires of those that will always lye still and Cry God help The Magistrate must Contend in his Sphere for the Defence of the Church as well as the