Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	know_v	life_n	love_v	8,582	5	6.6638	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90394	Light or darknesse, displaying or hiding it self, as it pleaseth, and from or to whom it pleaseth: arraigning, judging, condemning, both the shame and glory of the creature, in all its severall breakings forth from, and appearances in, the creature. / Held forth to publike view in a sermon, a letter, and severall other inward openings. Through Isaac Penington, (junior) Esq;	Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.	1650 (1650)	Wing P1177; Thomason E602_1; ESTC R206404	25,799	39

Adam had his Law of forbearing the forbidden fruit The Jews theirs of Circumcision keeping the Passover c. Christians theirs likewise of Faith Love Spiritual Obedience Spiritual Worship a sweet meek humble heavenly Conversation c. Now so far as each of these did answer their peculiar Law they came towards that perfection towards that righteousness which they were appointed to and which was to be measured thereby So far as they deviated they came towards and into a state of sin and wickedness both which are not absolute but only under and by the force of the Law of the present administration He destroyeth Destruction is putting an end to the state When the life and being of a person is put out he is destroyed When the plagues of God light on his outward man unto the death of the body his body is destroyed When the plagues of God light on his inner man and put out the life of his Spirit his inner man is destroyed We think in every dispensation 't is only the weak the imperfect the wicked that wrath must light upon but the righteous the perfect they shall escape they shall meet with blessedness But Job tells you that they must be consumed too Doct. God hath stored up destruction both for the perfect and the wicked and they shall both be sure to meet with it God when he pleaseth falls either upon the wicked or the perfect even to destruction This is uniform saith Job What ground soever ye speak on I am certain of this I dare lay this as a bottom to build upon He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked Our God is a consuming fire saith the Apostle It may be used as an Argument to draw men on to heighten holiness in their dispensation and yet after it is heightened the same Spirit may speak to them in the very same dialect and tell them yet further that they must be consumed by this fire for all that Reas. 1. from Gods Soveraignty He is Lord of all He has the dispose of all and his Soveraignty delights to shew it self All the Excellencies of God have their seasons of putting themselves forth to the utmost His Wisdom Mercy Power Love c. So has his Soveraignty Now nothing doth so much discover his Soveraignty as his falling upon the righteous upon the perfect Ye think to secure your selves by his Faithfulness his Word his Promises to which he must be faithful and will ye not have him faithful to his Soveraignty He is Lord of all and has the dispose of all and let him make never so many deeds of gift he cannot give away any thing from himself but still he has the Power of Life and Death in his own hands and may let it out as he pleaseth And this doth wonderfully set forth his Soveraignty his exercising it upon the perfect that when he has tied it up as fast as may be by never so many Promises yet it should still have its scope and be able to deal with whom it will as it will By this means he that is Lord indeed truly Lord originally Lord vindicates and manifests his Lordship when he can subject that unto his Will which seems most exempted from it as well as that which lies most open to him in the way of clearest and most acknowledged Justice Reas. 2. Because all Dispensations are but for a season They are not everlasting Therefore Eternity delights to swallow them up Perfect and wicked are both of the same lump only differently clothed to act their several parts which when they have done their cloathes must be taken off and they turned back into the lump again There is nothing durable but the eternal state of things Now therefore hath God treasured up destructions for all dispensations because it is sutable to all dispensations It is as fit for the King to be stripped of his gorgious apparel when the Play is done as the Begar of his rags This is but a momentany Righteousness or Perfection a momentany wickedness or imperfection according to the Law of the present dispensation and the Righteousness the wickedness the Law of the Dispensation the Dispensation it self all must pass into the dust again When they have lived out their transitory life and acted their several parts they must return to death So that though there be Righteousness and Wickedness Righteous Persons and Wicked Persons Blessings to the one Woes to the other Yet all this is but under the Dispensation for the season of the Dispensation which when it comes to an end all this passes away Object Against this it will be easily and readily objected That this will destroy all Religion towards God and Righteousness amongst men What need any man care what he thinks or does How can any man desire to be Righteous to be Perfect if his end must be the same with him who is most imperfect and wicked Answ. No It will not it cannot if rightly understood It will not destroy any true Religion in any way of administration whatsoever but only that Corrupt Enmity Corrupt Hope Corrupt Desire Corrupt Selfish-interest which every Administration inclines very much to breed and nourish but Perfect Love cannot suffer always to stand which if it were once eaten out every Administration would be sweet and pleasant If we knew our selves and one another our own parts and the parts that others are to act we should with more rest and satisfaction act ours our selves and with more peace and pleasure behold others acting theirs Besides The Righteous have a double advantage One in their present life Another in their ensuing death In their present life they both enjoy themselves and their God in such a way as the wicked cannot nor are in any wise capable of in their state and practise of wickedness And in their ensuing death they have another advantage it being a more immediate step to somewhat further then the death of the wicked can be I speak not of the shadow of death but of that which is death indeed the dying of the Spirit in and to its present state Therefore there is no ground why the Righteous should be discouraged in pursuing Righteousness nor why the wicked should please himself in abounding in wickedness though ground sufficient for both to be weary of either and to long after somewhat more perfect Vse 1. Not for any to magnifie themselves much above others nor to promise to themselves any such great blessedness beyond others or to look upon others as objects of such great Misery because of some appearing-difference between them and others Indeed there is a difference at present in this Dispensation but it is no thank to them that 't is so Nor are the wicked so much to be blamed as they think They have their parts to act and they are fitted to their parts This Dispensation will have its end and then you will find no such great difference between you and them as you thought there

was Destruction will make an end of their wickedness yea and it will make an end of your Righteousness also and then ye will become both one lump of Clay without either Good or Evil Vse 2. Not to grieve over-much when you find Destruction seizing upon you If your body or spirit moulder away If God consume your Righteousness your Holiness your Perfection by the blast of his Spirit Grieve not beyond measure at it Alas it must dye This must not last for ever You thought to have been made happy by this your happiness lies in being delivered from it This is not the true treasure or at least not in its true and lasting shape and therefore must undergo death and destruction in this its present appearance The Apostle James raises it higher bids you rejoyce in it Chap. 1. 10. and he gives a strong Reason Vers 11. For the Sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat but it withereth the grass and the flower thereof falleth and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways Therefore be glad at the death of that that must dye ye have undergone that sorrow which there was no avoyding This is great matter of Joy The pain of having the sap and moisture of your spirits dryed up by the scorching heat of the Sun if it be in any degree past 't is great matter of Joy Better is the Day of this Death then the Day of this Life There is greater matter of Joy in parting with in putting off this Excellency then in putting it on Now for a conclusion to all this I intend to lay down the brief sum of the whole matter even of the whole course of man under every Administration wherein he is either lifted up or thrown down or both lifted up and thrown down first lifted up and then thrown down and through which he passes to his lasting state Take it thus We were all made by him who is the great Potter or Former of all things what e're we are whether righteous or wicked under what Administration soever And this not so much for any ends we can conceave or drive at as for his own pleasure which will have its course upon us and will toss and tumble us up and down into several sorts of Deaths and Lifes as great and as often as it pleaseth till it hath quite confounded and brought us to a perfect loss in all our own Hopes Desires and Apprehensions yea till at last it hath quite swallowed us up in it self where when we are dead buried and cease to be know or desire any more that Life may at length spring up in us which till then we are uncapable of any distinct desiring or possessing And the passage to this though it be very dreadful to the flesh being even through the Gates of Hell Death and Destruction yet it is in no small measure joyful to the eye of that Spirit which discerns it to be but a passage and a necessary passage too And what brave Royal Heart would refuse to joyn issue with this request O let all shadowy Perfections all Perfections that come in and by Administrations dye and pass away be swallowed up by a Death by a Destruction more powerful then themselves that so way may be made for the discovery of true and compleat Perfection that it may come forth to swallow up both destruction and all that it hath destroyed for ever and to bring forth it self and every thing again in its Primitive Glory that they may return to that beauty wherein they were before they were stained by that Vanity Misery and Vexation whereunto all things are at present subjected A LETTER Impleading A CONVERSION whether real or pretended is not material And all such kind of Changes in the Creature backward or forward by principles either outward or inward Dear Anne I Have seen your recantation in a Letter of yours which doth wonderfully please me I like well to see the creature with its waxed wings mounting up towards Heaven and soaring aloft beyond the reach of the sight of its fellow creatures But I like it much better to see the wax melted by the heat of the Sun and the poor foolish forward creature tumbling down into the Sea or unto the Earth again What should the creature do in Heaven The light of God should not quit it self like it self if it did not at least dazle if not wholly extinguish the fleshly eye and turn it back into its fleshly principle again So let all thine enemies perish O Lord So let all the principles the creature either sucks in from others or beats out it self by its own purest searchings and reasonings come to nought be so throughly and effectually thrown down that the quite contrary may easily be reared up in their stead But where are you now Sweet Anne You see the rottenness of your former foundation are you sure you now build upon firm ground upon the inmost Rock You have seen a Light which clearly shakes that great Light which did so transport you while it appeared Light but are you sure this Light is so clear so deep of so inward perfect a Nature as it shall never be shaken What pretty sport doth Original Wisdom make with us He tosses tumbles us makes us be or not be own or not own what and when he pleases and well he may While he hides from us the true and original colour of things and that skill whereby he colours things he may cosen us as often as he pleases He may put what colour he will upon things and what eye he will into us And we in beholding the present colour with the present eye may be confident in what we see yea in both judging it and other things by it not knowing either the root of it or of that eye that judges it nor considering what changes both the colour and the eye may undergo Let me run over your Letter a little I who am unworthy of the esteem of a Servant Do you know your self that you call your self unworthy I cannot bear that the creature should either exalt or throw down it self for I am sure it does it not from true knowledg but from imagination Though by the light in them at present it is knowledg and true knowledg unto that eye that is in them yet to me or if you will to somewhat in me which searches judges and condemns both that eye and that light it is but imagination Yet again beholding how the creature acts I can bear with either or both both the creatures lifting it self up and throwing it self down according to the different eye state and principle which it has and wherein it is and acts So that though in one sence I am an utter enemy to all persons principles things and actions yet in another sence I am perfectly reconciled to them all I like none of them as such as they take themselves

motions and end And though they judg one another very partially and unjustly yet they shall finde when true Judgment is given that they are indeed one and justly come under the same justification or condemnation How different soever their appearances are yet their root their life their principle is one and the same And the best of these in judging the worst of these do but judg themselves and in justifying themselves they justifie the worst of these for they are the same in the main O poor Man how art thou vailed from thy self How are all others vailed from thee How art thou befooled with the eye of thy wisdom Thou canst not see any thing as it is If thy heart could take scope to it self and judg them quite contrary to what thine eye seeth them to be thou wouldst come neerer to Truth by such a mad thought of thine heart then by the soberest sight of thine eye Thou art thine own utter enemy All that thou desirest tends to undo thee All that thou judgest to be good life happiness is far otherwise All the knowledg thou hast of good and evil comes by thy fall by thy darkness and the clearer and clearer Revelations thou hast of both are still but to this dark eye to thee in this dark state to thee fallen from and uncapable of beholding true light in any kinde When wilt thou know and acknowledg thy friend This is the character of him It is he who plots thy Destruction who hunts after thy life who follows close the scent of thy feet and will not leave thee till he hath overtaken thee torn thee in pieces and quite devoured thee VII O How livelily is Death written upon all things But who can read it Who is so skilful as to understand the Characters either of Life or Death Thou art weighed O Man in the ballance and art found too light Thou art but as the dust thereof which weigheth nothing but is altogether unable to sway the scale either one way or other Why gaddest thou then to change thy way Thou shalt be worried out of all the imaginations of thine Heart Thou canst be safe no where Destruction will find thee out where thou art or whithersoever thou thinkest to remove for greater security Thy time hath long been determined and is now arriving at its period and thou mayst not enjoy Life or Pleasure any longer Give account of thy Stewardship for thou shalt be no longer Steward The Earth is sinking under thee Thy Elements melting in thee Thy whole Life and Being expiring what wilt thou do where wilt thou shelter thy self There is no escaping that Death and Judgment which is seizing on thee Thy Sun is setting and that black night which thou fearest is hastening upon thee I am stripping thee of all that is fweet and lovely to thee and driving thee out of thy present Paradise of present enjoyments and future hopes into the Land of Oblivion Into the Wilderness must thou go where thou shalt be stripped of all thine Ornaments and dye in ignominy and torment How wilt thou bear the loss of all thy beauty wisdom and excellency wherewith thou hast flourished like a God above the rest of thy fellow-creatures In one moment which thou lookedst not for shall Misery befall thee and make an utter end of thee Though thou expectest to sit on a throne for ever to live with and enjoy God in perpetual embraces yet thine own mouth shall give thee the lye And when I cause the power and pangs of death to fasten upon thee thou shalt know and feel that thou neither wast art nor shalt be but I alone was am and will be what thou by my disappearance hast foolishly imagined thy self to be for I am resolved to gather back all that belongs to me and leave thee no more then belongs to thee which is neither Life Being Sense nor Motion but meer emptiness and vanity And then live if thou canst in thine own imagination when I have gathered all the reality of life into my self VIII TRemble O Earth at the presence of the Lord and quake O Heavens for ye shall be shaken also Your Sun shall be darkened your Moon turned into blood your Stars shall lose their light The whole fabrick of Heaven shall fall into and perish in the bowels of the Earth And who or what shall live when God doth this Surely that alone which cannot dye He then shall live who gave life to all and hath prepared a death for and suitable to every life yea he shall live who can swallow up death and drown it for ever in the power of his own life O LIVE LIVE LIVE THOV ONLY FOR THOV ALONE ART WORTHY Thou art the Land of the living Thy life lives only in thine own Land and thou livest only in thine own life This is the true Inheritance the true Canaan the true Happiness the true enjoyment of God This is Life Eternal the rise and result of all This is Life indeed which can quicken death it self and make it as living as it self This is Power indeed that can cloath the greatest weakness with its own immortal and eternal strength This is Light indeed that can make darkness shine in its own brightness where the darkness and the light are both alike and where the Night shineth as the Day This is Purity indeed which is every where in every thing and can purifie every thing in it self A pure River which gathers all waters into it self purging and cleansing them till it hath made them like it self This is true Happiness that can swallow up all Misery and make it equally happy with it self This is true Spirit which can devour all flesh and by the strength of its quickening vertue turn it into Spirit This is a Philosophical Stone worth having which can turn any thing it toucheth into perfect gold But where dwells this Skill where dwells this Life this Spirit this Power is it anywhere is there any such thing There is every one harping at it Sure methinks there should be such a skill somewhere and if there be it cannot but delight to shew it self and will have its season so to do Only it may first contrive to bring forth Vanity Misery Weakness Emptiness Darkness Death c. in their perfection that it may give a true taste of its own vertue When it hath prepared all the Eternals and Everlastings that can be imagined to swallow up then will appear the efficacy and vigour of its own Eternity and Everlastingness These are the Bowels out of which all things came which are still rolling and will never be at rest till they receive them in again and nothing can truly rest till it returns thither again This was the first and this must be the last and after all the toilsom compasses and circuits that are now a fetching the circle will end where it began and then will that saying be indeed verified The first shall be last and the last first But every thing must be throughly tired out of its own motions desires ends hopes happinesses before it come to rest in this Center yet this irksom and wearisom circumference will make it more lovely both in its beginning and in its end IX BEfore this World this state and Being of things as we call it was Man will confess there was nothing but the Lord When ever this world shall cease to be there will be nothing but the Lord again It is his right to be the last who was the first And if he will be true to himself he can no more suffer any thing to be after him then it was before him And yet must nothing be lost but every thing found lost indeed in its own weak fading perishing state but found in a standing enduring eternal state Where when things arrive that Vanity Death and Mortality which is now written upon them all shall be swallowed up in perfect and immortal Life and Glory And what are things at present Are they things that are or things that are not Have they a real or an appearing existence To our eye they are real but is there not an eye to which they are but-Ciphers which swallows them up in the sight of it self which acknowledgeth him that was and him that shall be only to be at present also who is so all and so fills all that he can leave no room for any thing else to be where he is There is no object his eye can behold but himself Where ever he looks his eye dispels and scatters every thing that falls short of his own substance and perfection yet is there nothing to be seen but he must see it Nothing can escape his eye nor nothing can abide his eye It is the shutting of his eye in us that makes ours open But when his eye opens ours will be shut and there will be no eye left to see but the Lords and nothing left to be seen but the Lord himself yea it is only to us that it is otherwise at present but not to him O foolish Man when wilt thou cease boasting of thy knowledg and come indeed to know the Lord If I should tell thee never so plainly yet thou hast not an ear to hear it therefore I will forbear perplexing thee any further at this time with over-straining thee to hear see or comprehend beyond the compass of thy present ear eye or heart and leave thee to enjoy what thou hast which as yet thou mayst with some kind of quietness for a short season if thou canst be content so to do without over-exalting it otherwise know that the wind is too boisterous to suffer any thing that is high and lifted up to remain unshaken FINIS

and then lets the Creature loose and his engine of Death loose and pleases himself in beholding the several windings and turnings of the one and the other from first to last The great thing that tends to preserve the life of Man is the knowledg of God The Bestial part may feed on other things but that is not the Man But Man cannot reach the inwardness of them He is shut out from the tree of Life that he cannot come to eat of it and therefore he must dye The same Power that quickens in him the desire of life and chalks out unto him the way to life hath so shut it up and fenced it that there is no entering so much as into the Paradise where the Tree of Life groweth God hath took great pleasure in presenting himself to the view of Man in making discoveries of himself unto Man and these in several gradations that some go far beyond others some even abound with the knowledg of God in respect of others But he hath another greater pleasure which is to strip the best of these naked and make them see that theirs is not knowledg neither only comparative knowledg not true knowledg It is not an understanding what God is but a likening of God to somewhat And this is the great difference between men Some set up Idols of Wood and Stone Others of Silver and Gold Some have very carnal gross imaginations and resemblances of God Others have more refined and more spiritual ones II. THere is no true knowing of God by the understanding of the creature Yet it is the pleasure of the Lord to present himself to the eye of the creature and to quicken in that eye a desire to see and discern him Every eye was made to see God with but no eye can therefore it sickens languishes pines and dies under a curse that through death and destruction it might pass into a capacity of attaining that without which it cannot enjoy it self As God made all things to shadow out himself the excellencies of the creature in every kind to shadow out his excellencies in their several kinds So particularly he made the eye of the creature to shadow out his own eye and it is his own eye in a shadow has all the properties of his own eye in a shadow but being but a shadow it can never in its utmost exaltation attain to the sight of that which is Substance No man can live and see God He must first dye throughly and rise up again in the Substance before he can apprehend or comprehend the Substance at all in truth He may have a taste a glimpse of the substance in the shadow but yet it is but a shadowy glimpse That which is seen though by him that sees it it be accounted very substantial is but shadow just like the eye that sees it which cannot possibly reach the view of any thing beyond its sphere The created eye is fitted to see nothing but colours as colours are suited to the created eye And though fools think they see more then colours they see things in their own apprehension this thing and that thing and the other thing yet those that are wiser know they are mistaken and that they do and can see nothing but the colour We see Good and Evil which colour the whole Creation But do we see that Substance which is coloured with these Or do we know whence these colours came or what they are in their root They indeed put several glosses upon the Substance representing it variously to the eye of the Creature but do they not hereby hide it from the Creature Does not Truth lie hid under the colour and is it not vailed by the colour from that eye which can pierce no further then the colour and so must either view that or nothing judg by that or by nothing O God How art thou miscoloured Man thinks he hugely pleaseth thee by putting the finest kind of paint upon thee not understanding how it difigures thee and how loathsom it is unto thee because it makes thee lovely in his eye But know O Man O refined'st Man God loaths to be lovely in thine eye True Excellency can be justified by nothing but that which is the same with it self Gods Excellencies were not deep enough if mans eye could pierce into them or approve them if Man could acknowledg them excellent God likes nothing of Man and Man likes nothing of God Indeed Man hugely likes the God that he frames in his own imagination The God that his eye sees and acknowledges is very excellent He likes God as he paints him But God as he is God in Substance God throwing off all this paint and not acknowledging himself to be any such thing but somewhat else which the creature never thought nor could imagine nor could desire him to be This is a dreadful God and in no wise desireable The Creature may live and see such a God as it frames yea the more it lives the more it seeth him and the more it seeth him the more it lives But the true substantial sight can never enter into any till after perfect Death O how poor Creatures cosen themselves They think they love God would fain see God know God live in communion with God And this is true in their sence Such a God as they have framed to themselves they love and would fain see know and enjoy But he who is indeed God they are not able to bear in the least in what he is There is nothing that they so perfectly hate there is nothing which they so study to avoyd nay there cannot be a greater Hell to them then his true presence and how can it be otherwise for he carries in his Countenance the death of all that is their Life Joy Hope and Happiness O what an astonishing sight will it be at the opening of the Heart of Man when he shall come to plead his love to God his delight in God his love to others for his sake c. that the contrary should be mani●ested to him And he shall plainly be made see and confess that he was only the Lover of an Idol the lover of a God he had framed to himself in his own understanding which is in truth nothing it is not God but the Creatures creature a creature which the understanding of the Creature hath made whether by the help of Nature or Scriptures it comes all to one Is it not time for you O sons of Men to look about you Ye little think how quick and piercing the approaching Judgment will be Ye think your selves very able now to justifie your selves and condemn others But the Light whereby ye shall be judged will be far different from that Light whereby ye now judg your selves O what a strange thing is it and utterly incredible that Beleevers Lovers of God Performers of Righteousness in the highest and strictest strain should have so much deep intense spiritual Unbelief