Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	heaven_n	life_n	live_v	8,611	5	5.4859	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53750	A true and lively representation of popery shewing that popery is only new-modell'd paganism, and perfectly destructive of the great ends and purposes of God in the Gospel.	Owen, Thankfull, 1620-1681.	1679 (1679)	Wing O830; ESTC R18583	46,596	82

or shall your Wonder-working Priest give you an entrance into Heaven when the express Declarations of Christ Jesus exclude you thence No wonder that Papists have their Priests in such high esteem and Veneration no marvel they declare they cannot live without them when they are endued with such an Omnipotency as to change the setled order of things to alter the Decrees of Heaven and cancel the fixed Laws of life and death by shutting them out of the presence of God whom Christ Jesus is ready to receive and intromitting others that he has declared shall be for ever banished thence But be not deceived God is not mocked for whatever a man sows that shall he also reap He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting 6. Hitherto in general I have shewed the opposition of the Popish Doctrines to the Grand End and Purpose of God in the Gospel I shall now descend to the particulars afore-mentioned the first of which was this that in order to the replantation of the Divine Nature in the souls of men Almighty God designed the utter extirpation of Idolatry Now though the Church of Rome endeavours by many fine shows and specious pretences to free her self from the imputation of so foul and horrid a Crime yet he that impartially weighs things shall find her no less guilty than was the Pagan World before the coming of Christ And if this do not evidently appear to every candid and ingenious Reader I am well assured that 't is not from the weakness or inconclusiveness of the Arguments but from some partial and preconceived Opinion or some other prejudice his mind labours under and is prepossessed and preingaged withal for this I do confidently affirm that there is no truth of greater usefulness and concernment to Reformed Christendom nor any that can more clearly and irrefragably justifie the necessity of our separation from that Church than this That I may therefore make a clear and demonstrative proof of this Charge which I have laid against the Romish Church I must a little recur to what I have said of the Pagan Idolatry which mainly consisted in these two things 1. In that they worshipped besides one Supreme God other Inferiour Beings not as independent and self-existent but as so many created Deities and these were worshipped by them upon these two accounts either as thinking that the honour done to them redounded to the Supreme or else that they might be their Mediators and Intercessors Orators and Negotiators with him 2. In that they worshipped both the supreme God and likewise their subordinate Deities in Images and Statues This Foundation being laid it will be no difficult task to draw the parallel between the ancient Paganish Idolatry and that now practised in the Church of Rome That the Saints and Angels are worshipped both publickly and privately in the Romish Church needs no other testimony than the daily practice of Papists who express a greater fervour and zeal in their Invocation of the Saints than of God himself so that as a learned Person observes Sir Edwin Sands Europ Spec. for one prayer to God they put up ten to the Virgin Mary Nay so mad are they after this extravagant humour that Cassander ingeniously confesses that some and those no bad men have made choice of some certain Saints as their Patrons and place their trust and confidence in their Merits and Intercessions more than in the Merits of Christ Cassand Consult do Invoc Sanct. and so laying aside the Mediation of Christ they have substituted the Saints and especially the Virgin Mary in his room And hence Cardinal Hosius is not ashamed to say We ought to believe in the Saints They build Temples and Altars to the Saints and prostrate themselves with the most humble devotion before their Images They swear by the Saints not only in their common speech but in their more solemn Oaths and to them they direct their Vows likewise Now upon the same accounts that the Pagans worshipped their inferiour Deities do the Papists adore and worship the Saints and Angels 1. Because the honour done to them redounds to God himself It is for the Majesty and Grandeur of the supreme God to have a multitude of inferiour Deities under him says Plotinus It is not only suitable with the bountiful and noble disposition of God not to grant many graces and favours but by the Intercession of the Saints but likewise for his glory that the world should know this Answer to certain Questions propounded by King James says Fisher the Jesuit which he further illustrates by this similitude because says he 't is impossible to honour and praise the Boughs without honouring and praising the Root therefore when the Saints and Angels are invocated and adored it is for the honour of the supreme God the Root and Spring of all things 2. They make them Mediators and Intercessors between God and them which was the office and imployment of the Mediae Potestates or middle Deities of the Heathen and the ground or reason of this is given by S. Austin because they excel us Mortals in Merits De Civ Dei lib. 8. c. 22. And that the Papists urge the Merits of their Saints is evident from divers of their publick forms of prayer The Saints are in high grace and favour with God and for this reason we poor Mortals implore their Intercession say the Romanists as we make use of a Courtier to deliver a Petition to an Earthly Prince After this manner Celsus argues when he would perswade the Christians to the worship of Daemons that they ought to seek their favour as the Ministers of the Great God To whom Origen replies Origen contr Celsum l. 8. that the Christians allow indeed an honour and reverence to the blessed Angels as Gods Ministers in a sound sense but they are taught to give Religious Worship only to God and to his Son his Word and Image by whom they offer up their Supplications to God the Lord of all beseeching him who is the Propitiation for our sins that he would be pleased as our High-Priest to offer up our Prayers and Sacrifices and Intercessions to the great God And again God alone is to be adored and our Prayers are only to be offered to the only begotten Word of God the First-born of every Creature who as our High-Priest offers our Supplications to his God and our God to his Father and the Father of all those that live according to his Word But if the favour of many be to be sought for we learn from the Scriptures that thousand thousands minister unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before him who afford their friendly assistance to those that humbly invoke the Supreme God and earnestly contend after Salvation disdaining not to be officious to them that worship the same God with themselves For as the

Apostate because by their late rise they had not sufficient strength to repress Earthly Princes Here are two Probable Doctors and the conclusion from thence is that when ever they find themselves to have a Party strong enough they may having the Opinion of such Probable Doctors on their side attempt the Murder of their natural Prince and introduce their Religion though with the Blood of thousands of innocent Persons And this they may do although themselves should think it unlawful because Bellarmine and Aquinas Men of approved Virtue and Learning among them have determined for the lawfulness of it 2. From hence it will follow that a Man may forsake the more safe and infallible Direction of Gods Word and the clear Evidence of Reason and Conscience and take up with the Opinion of some one Man who perhaps speaks unadvisedly and carelesly or it may be out of design and set purpose to deceive and by this means all the severe Duties of Religion shall be evacuated and the Precepts of the Gospel made to comply with the Vices and corrupt Inclinations of Men and all as it pleases our Probable Doctor which certainly is the most unreasonable and unrighteous Usurpation upon the understandings of Mankind that ever was as if the generality of Men were made only to be imposed upon Nay by this means the best and wholsomest Laws in the Christian World shall be rescinded if there be but a Probable Doctor to dispute their Obligation These horrid and impious Consequences will yet appear more plain and evident by those Instances First we are commanded in the holy Scriptures to love the Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul and with all our strength and the truth and sincerity of our love is evidenced by avoiding of Sin and by keeping his Commandments But now if a Man may forsake the plain and easie direction of God in the sacred Writings and rest in the Opinion of a Probable Doctor he need not much trouble his Head about the love of God See the Mystery of Jesuitism Hurtado de Mendoza as he is cited by Father Escobar says A Man is bound but once every year to have an actual affection for God Coninck supposes we are bound to it once in three or four years Henriquez once in five years But Filiutius thinks a Man is not obliged every five years And if we do not think our selves fairly dealt withal yet Father Syrmond will make a full amends and he assures us we need not love God at all For we are not so much commanded says he to love God as not to hate him Secondly we are injoined a speedy and sincere Repentance in the holy Scriptures to turn from our Sins and Impieties unto God while 't is called to day that is to make use of the present time which is only ours But if throwing the Scripture aside we may without danger follow the Guidance of any Probable Doctor then a Man is bound to repent only three times a year at Christmas Easter and Whitsontide for so Scotus says But if you are unwilling to undergo this burdensome and afflictive Duty so often you need perform it but once a year and for this you have the Authority of Scotus and Medina And if you think this too much hear what Reginaldus says The time when a Man is bound to repent is at the Article of imminent Death for the mean while there is no Precept commanding that a Sinner should not persevere in enmity against God there is no Negative Precept forbidding such a Perseverance How directly repugnant those Doctrines are to that Grand Positive end of the Gospel the Replantation of the sacred Image and Nature of God in the Souls of Men every pious Christian who earnestly desires the Recovery of the World from the Bondage and slavery of Sin cannot but see and that those Champions which the Dark Kingdom set out to defend and maintain the Pagan Worship which quickly vanished and disappeared in all places where Christianity shone in its Native lustre and brightness were not half so successful in their Attempts nor such dangerous Enemies of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus as those Popish Agents who by speaking Lyes in Hypocrisie do really Debauch and Paganize the World again and make Men two-fold more the Children of Hell than if they had been perfect Strangers to the very name of a Christian 3. Another Doctrine which undermines the Grand Purpose of God Almighty in regenerating and renewing the World by the Gospel is that of Sacerdotal Absolution upon Confession at the hour of death For thus the Doctors of the Church of Rome teach That though a man live and die without the practice of Christian Virtues and with the habits of many damnable sins unmortified yet if he in the last moment of his life have any sorrow for his sins Vid. Chilligw Ch. 7. and joyn Confession with it he shall certainly be saved Which is a Doctrine that instead of reforming and bettering the World which certainly was intended by the manifestation of the Gospel opens a door to all imaginable licentiousness and wickedness Our blessed Saviour assures us that except a man be born again he shall not enter into Heaven Now certain it is that Divine Generations as well as Natural are not instantaneous but require time for their full maturity and perfection and as sure is it that an Act of Attrition accompanied with Sacerdotal Absolution can never work a change or Renovation of the mind and consequently it must be as horrid a Cheat as ever was put upon the poor deluded Sons of Adam to perswade them that this is enough for their Salvation though otherwise they die without the practice of Christian Virtues and with the habits of many damnable sins unmortified For to speak the plain truth this kind of Absolution looks more like a Charm or Spell used by superstitious people to fright away evil spirits than any thing of sober truth having neither Reason nor Scripture to countenance or abett it And though men may deceive and befool one another yet those unhappy people whose sad Fate it is to be sent out of the world with no better hopes of Salvation than what an Act of Attrition with Priestly Absolution is able to give them will find the Scene of Affairs quite altered there and those grim Officers of the Infernal Kingdom will infallibly challenge and seize their own notwithstanding the fairest dismission by all the arts and devices of a treacherous Ghostly Father Consider all you that have any care for your Eternal Interest and Salvation how grosly you are abused by these Holy Impostors and Factors for the Devils Kingdom Can the Absolution of your Priest work a real change in your Dispositions and Natures or can those few words effect a Mortification of your vicious habits and withal superinduce the contrary Virtues Will this Charm procure a safe passage through the Guards of the invisible Regions