Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	law_n	sin_n	sin_v	8,157	5	9.6294	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42831	Some discourses, sermons, and remains of the Reverend Mr. Jos. Glanvil ... collected into one volume, and published by Ant. Horneck ... ; together with a sermon preached at his funeral, by Joseph Pleydell ...	Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680.; Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.; Pleydell, Josiah, d. 1707.	1681 (1681)	Wing G831; ESTC R23396	193,219	458

love to have others to handle it severely All this bad men may do upon the score of natural fear and self-love and the apprehension of a future judgement And now such convictions will naturally beget some endeavours A convinced understanding will have some influence upon the will and affections The mind in the unregenerate may lust against the Flesh as that doth against it So that 2. such a meer animal man may promise and purpose and endeavour in some considerable measure but then he goes not on with full Resolution but wavers and stops and turns about again and lets the law of the members that of death and sin to prevail over him His endeavour is remiss and consequently ineffectual it makes no conquests and will not signifie He sins on though with some regret and his very unwillingness to sin while he commits it is so far from lessening that it aggravates his fault It argues that he sins against conscience and conviction and that sin is strong and reigns 'T is true indeed St. Paul Rom. 7. makes such a description seemingly of himself as one might think concluded him under this state he saith vers 8. That sin wrought in him all manner of concupiscence vers 9. That sin revived and he died vers 14. That he was carnal and again sold under sin vers 20. That sin dwelt in him and wrought that which he would not vers 23. That the Law of his members led him into captivity to the law of Sin and vers 25. That he obeyed the law of sin If this be so and St. Paul a regenerate man was in this state it will follow that seeking and feeble endeavour that overcometh no difficulty may yet procure an entrance and he that is come hitherto viz. to endeavour is safe enough though he do not conquer This objection presseth not only against this head but against my whole Discourse and the Text it self Therefore to answer it I say That the St. Paul here is not to be understood of himself He describes the state of a convinced but unregenerate man though he speaks in the first person a Figure that was ordinary with this Apostle and frequent enough in common speech Thus we say I am thus and thus and did so and so when we are describing a state or actions in which perhaps we in person are not concerned In this sense the best Expositors understand these expressions and those excellent Divines of our own Bishop Taylor and Dr. Hammond and others have noted to us That this description is directly contrary to all the Characters of a regenerate man given elsewhere by this and the other Apostles As he is said to be dead to sin Rom. 6. 11. Free from sin and the servant of Righteousness Rom. 6. 18. That he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. That the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made him free from the Law of sin and death Rom. 8. 2. That he overcometh the world Joh. 5. 4. He sinneth not 1 Joh. 3. 6. He hath crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. Which Characters of a truly regenerate person if they be compared with those above-cited out of Rom. 7. it will appear that they are as contrary as 't is possible to speak and by this 't is evident that they describe the two contrary states For can the regenerate be full of all manner of concupiscence and at the same time be crucified to the Flesh and its affections and lusts one in whom sin revives while he dies and yet one that is dead to sin carnal and yet not walking after the flesh but after the Spirit sold under sin and yet free from sin Having sin dwelling in him and a captive to sin and obeying the Law of sin and yet free from the law of sin and death how can these things consist To tell us 'T is so and 't is not so and to twist such contradictions into Orthodox Paradoxes are pretty things to please Fools and Children but wise men care not for riddles that are not sense For my part I think it clear that the Apostle in that mistaken Chapter relates the feeble impotent condition of one that was convinced and strove a little but not to purpose And if we find our selves comprised under that description though we may be never so sensible of the evil and danger of a sinful course and may endeavour some small matter but without success we are yet under that evil and obnoxious to that danger For he that strives in earnest conquers at last and advanceth still though all the work be not done at once So that if we endeavour and gain nothing our endeavour is peccant and wants Faith or Prayer for Divine aids or constancy or vigour and so Though we may seek we shall not be able to enter But 3. an imperfect Striver may overcome sin in some Instances and yet in that do no great matter neither if he lies down and goes no further There are some sins we outgrow by age or are indisposed to them by bodily infirmity or diverted by occasions and it may be by other sins and some are contrary to worldly Interests to our credit or health or profit and when we have in any great degree been hurt by them in these we fall out with those sins and cease from them and so by resolution and disuse we master them at last fully which if we went on and attempted upon all the rest were something But when we stop short in these petty victories our general state is not altered He that conquers some evil appetites is yet a slave to others and though he hath prevailed over some difficulties yet the main ones are yet behind Thus the imperfect Striver masters it may be his beastly appetite to intemperate drinking but is yet under the power of Love and Riches and vain Pleasure He ceaseth from open debauchery but entertains spiritual wickedness in his heart He will not Swear but will backbite and rail He will not be Drunk but will damn a man for not being of his opinion He will not prophane the Sabbath but will defraud his Neighbour Now these half conquests when we rest in them are as good as none at all Then shall I not be ashamed when I have regard to all thy Commandments saith the Kingly Prophet Psal 119. 6. 'T is shameful to give off when our work is but half done what we do cast the greater reproach upon us for what we omit To cease to be prophane is something as a passage but nothing for an end We are not Saints as soon as we are civil 'T is not only gross sins that are to be overcome The wages of sin is death not only of the great and capital but of the smallest if they are indulged The Pharisee applauded himself that he was not like the Extortioners Adulterers and Unjust nor like the Publican that came to

our Natures almost universally rise against as many Bestialities and some horrid Cruelties and all men except Monsters in Humane form are disposed to some Vertues such as Love to Children and Kindness to Friends and Benefactors All this I must confess and say because Experience constrains me and I do not know why Systematick Notions should sway more than that But notwithstanding these last concessions 't is evident enough that our Natures are much vitiated and depraved and this makes our business in the way of Religion difficult For our work is to cleanse our Natures and to destroy those Evil Inclinations to crucifie the Old Man Rom. 6. 6. and to purge out the old Leven 1 Cor. 5. 7. This is Religion and the Way of Happiness which must needs be very difficult and uneasie For the vices of Inclination are very dear and grateful to us They are our Right Hands and our Right Eyes and esteemed as our Selves So that to cut off and pluck out these and to bid defiance to and wage War against our selves to destroy the first-born of our Natures and to lop off our own Limbs This cannot but be very Irksome and Displeasant Imployment and this is one chief business and a considerable thing that makes Religion difficult II. Another Difficulty ariseth from the Influence of the Senses We are Creatures of sense and sensible things do most powerfully move us we are born Children and live at first the life of Beasts That Age receives deep Impressions and those are made by the senses whose Interest grows strong and establisht in us before we come to the use of Reason and after we have arrived to the exercise of that sensible objects still possess our Affections and sway our Wills and fill our Imaginations and influence our Understandings so that we love and hate we desire and choose we fancy and we discourse according to those Impressions and hence it is that we are enamour'd of Trifles and fly from our Happiness and pursue Vexation and embrace Misery and imagine Perversely and reason Childishly for the influence of the Body and its Senses are the chief Fountains of Sin and Folly and Temptation Upon which accounts it was that the Platonical Philosophers declaim'd so earnestly against the Body and ascrib'd all Evils and Mischief to it calling vice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corporeae Pestes material Evils and bodily Plagues And the Apostle that understood it better calls Sin by the name of Flesh Gal. 5. 17. Works of the Flesh Gal. 5. 19. Law of the Members Rom. 7. 23. and cries out upon the Body of this Death Rom. 7. 24. And now this is our natural Condition a state subject to the prevalent influences of Sense and by this means to Sin and Temptation and 't is our Work in Religion to mortifie the Body Rom. 8. 13. and to cease from making provision for the flesh Rom. 13. 14. and from fulfilling the Lusts thereof Gal. 5. 14. To render our selves dead to the prevalent life of Sense and Sin Rom. 6. 8. and 11. 5. and to arise to a new Life Rom. 6. 4. The Life of Righteousness and Faith Hab. 2. 4. A Life that hath other Principles and other Pleasures other Objects and other Ends and such as neither Eye hath seen nor Ear heard nor any of the Senses perceived Yea this is a Life that is exercised in contradiction to the Judgements of sense It s Joy is Tribulation Jam. 1. 2. It s Glory Reproaches 2 Pet. 4. 14. It s Height is Lowness Luke 14. 11. It s Greatness in being Meanest Matth. 20. 27. And its Riches in having Nothing 2 Cor. 6. 10. To such a Life as this Religion is to raise us and it must needs be difficult to make us who are so much Brutes to be so much Angels us who seem to live by nothing else but sense to live by nothing less This with a witness is an hard and uneasie Work and another difficulty in Religion III. A Third proceeds from the natural Disorder and Rage of our Passions Our Corrupt Natures are like the troubled Sea Isa 57. 20. And our Passions are the Waves of that Ocean that tumble and swell and keep a mighty noise they dash against the Rocks and break one against another and our Peace and Happiness is shipwrackt by them Our Passions make us miserable We are sometime stifled by their Numbers and confounded by their Disorders and torn to pieces by their Violence mounted to the Clouds by Ambition and thrown down to the deep by Despair scorcht by the flames of Lust and overwhelmed by the Waters of unstable Desire Passions fight one against another and all against reason they prevail over the Mind and have usurpt the Government of our Actions and involve us in continual Guilt and Misery This is the natural State of Man and our work in the way of Religion is to restrain this Violence and to rectifie these Disorders and to reduce those Rebellious Powers under the Empire and Government of the Mind their Sovereign And so to regain the Divine Image which consists much in the order of our Faculties and the Subjection of the Brutish to the reasonable Powers This I say Religion aims at to raise us to the perfection of our Natures by mortifying those Members Col. 3. 5. our unruly Passions and Desires and crucifying the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts Gal. 5. 24. And thereby to make us humble in Prosperity quiet in Adversity meek under Provocations steady amidst Temptations modest in our Desires temperate in our Injoyments constant to our Resolutions and contented in all Conditions Here is our great Business and our Work is this And certainly 't is no easie thing to bring order out of a Chaos and to speak a Tempest into a Calm to resist a Torrent and to stop and turn the Tyde to subdue a Rebellious Rabble and to change them from Tyrannical Masters to Modest and Obedient Servants These no doubt are works of difficulty enough and these must be our Imployment in the way of Religion and on this score also the Gate is strait IV. Our Work in Religion is yet more difficult upon the account of Custom to which we are subject and by which we are swayed much This is vulgarly said to be another Nature and the Apostle calls it by that name 1 Cor. 11. 14. Doth not Nature it self teach you that if a Man have long Hair it is a shame unto him By the word Nature the best Interpreters say only Custom is meant since long Hair is not declared shameful by the Law and Light of Nature taken in its chief and properest sense For then it had never been permitted to the Nazarites But the contrary custom in the Nations that used it not made it seem shameful and indecent There are other places in Scripture and ancient Authors wherein Nature is put for Custom But I must not insist on this the thing I am about is that Custom is very

thinks 't is witty to Scoff at it But in process of time and practice his understanding through the withcraft of this vice and the secret judgement of God grows into the very nature and temper of the sin And he comes insensibly at last to believe that in earnest which he entred on at first in jest and so Satan and his Lusts have decoy'd him into a down right serious Infidelity If the horrid Articles of impiety and unbelief had been offer'd him at the beginning in a way of serious argument he would have entertain'd them with some intellectual detestation and abhorrence But having a long time droll'd upon Religion and represented it as ridiculous rather than so much wit and sport should be lost he is willing to believe it is so and such a will quickly draws such an understanding to it But especially the consideration of full liberty in his Lusts indears and recommends the opinion to him and the intellect so prepar'd is quickly convinc'd having so great an interest to incline it so that now the foolish mind is darkened Rom. 1. 21. and the Conscience made a party with the lusts It is become reprobate Rom. 1. 28. and given up to strong delusions 2 Thes 2. 11. The Scoffer now believes his Jests as if they were arguments of Reason and pleads for his lusts as if they were actions of vertue And thus his Conscience is debauch'd Or if he have not proceeded so far as this Yet 2. He stupifieth it at least There are two main acts of Conscience to inform us what is our Duty and to judge how far we do it or do it not And this sort of wicked men deal so with Conscience as to stupifie both For Duty they think of none who is Lord over them and for reflection on their actions they are strangers to it They follow on with their eyes and thoughts upon their Lusts but never consider whither the way leads They pursue sense and appetite but reflect and think no more than Beasts Whither am I going and what have I done are no questions with them All the soul and mind they have is employ'd in seeking means to gratifie and please their Lusts and while those are satisfied the men are content and quiet be their actions what they will They feel no inward trouble or disturbance from the greatest villanies They can blaspheme the name of God by horrid Oaths every moment and debauch themselves by drunkenness and vile sensuality every day without the least remorse or sense that any thing is a-miss yea they make sport of their Sin Prov. 14. 9. and glory in their shame Phil. 3. 19. They live undisturbedly in a course of hellish wickedness and die in the same without any thought or apprehension of Sin Death or Judgement They laugh and debauch themselves into a state past feeling Ephes 4. 19. and sear their Consciences as with an hot iron 1 Tim. 4. 2. They are twice dead plucked up by the roots Jude 12. dead by nature to the spiritual Life and now by these vile usages dead to the moral also And when they are come thus far they are freed too 3. From the Restraints of the Ministers of Gods Providence the Holy Angels They are Instruments in the distribution of mercies and judgements by which God restrains sinners from their Lusts Ministring spirits for our good Heb. 1. 14. and are perhaps concern'd about us in more things than we imagine throwing bars a-thwart the way where danger or temptation lies inwardly and secretly exciting good thoughts and desires as Satan doth evil ones and defending us in many instances from the power and subtilty of that enemy But the derider of Religion who is forsaken of God and Conscience is also left by These And that there is such a dereliction of incurable sinners we may see Jer. 51. 9. We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her and let her go Spoken as some of the learned Ancients suppose by the Presidential Angels like the voice in the Temple a little before the last destruction of it Let us go hence Thus Psal 71. 9. the Septuagint reads They that keep my soul take counsel together saying God hath forsaken him let us persecute and take him for there is none to deliver him The good Spirits depart from the incorrigible sinner and leave him to the evil ones Thus of the first dreadful consequence of Scoffing at Religion the Scoffers are given up to follow their Lusts without restraint Another is 2. That they follow without power to leave or disobey them They follow as Vassals and Slaves yea they follow as a Beast that is led Their wills are but the motions of their Lust their Reasons but the impure Phantasms and Imaginations that are raised by their Lusts and their affections but the various inclinations of their Lusts So that what ever may be said of the liberty of less degenerate men these have none Our power consists in the aids of the Spirit of God in the informations convictions and reproofs of Conscience and in the offices of kindness we receive from the Ministring Spirits When these are gone all our power is gone So that those reprobate men are dead in sin Eph. 2. 1. and Sold unto it Rom. 7. 14. They are led into Captivity by the Law of sin and death Rom. 7. 23. They are slaves and slaves to the worst of Tyrants and the worst of slaves even to him that is held in the chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day Being left of God and good Angels the evil ones take possession of them on which account they are truly Demoniacks and those of the worst sort they are mov'd and acted by the Devil as if they had no other Soul And so 3. They follow their Lusts with none or very little hope of Remedy The condition of the Scoffers of some of them at least is quite or very near desperate This follows from what hath been said already and we may consider further 1. That there is a day of Grace a time in which there is ground for hope when that is done hope is at an end Now this day is the time and possibility of repentance When ever a sinner repents and turns he shall be accepted and live But men may out-live and sin away the power and capacity of repentance And then their Sun is set their day is done Now Repentance begins in Sense and conviction of sin but when a man is arriv'd at a state past feeling he is incapable of that the most powerful word most terrible judgements and most alluring mercies have no effect on such the best Physick in the world will not work on a dead carkass the loudest voice will not rouze a Marble Statue nor the most soveraign Salve close up a cut in the stump of a Tree The summ is When one is past the inward sense of Duty and danger Sin and Misery he is past Repentance

shall be becomingly employ'd and gloriously improv'd II. Our Passions in the present temper of them afford us evidence of another Life and Being As to which we may consider them 1 in their natural disorders and 2. in the regulation of them by reason and vertue 1. Let us reflect a little upon their present disorders In our first and growing years we are unavoidably led by Sense and bodily affections and before Reason comes to any considerable degree of exercise our passions are commonly too strong to be govern'd by it Yea they maintain war against the Laws of the mind and lead us into captivity to the Law of sin and death Rom. 7. They fight against reason and one another and make a tempestuous troubled Sea within us Isa 27. 20. so that we are driven by them upon Rocks and quicksands and our peace and happiness is made a prey to the waves Isa 48. 22. All the evils of the world bear testimony to this Reign of passion and the History of all ages is full of the sad issues of violent affections Which things do plainly prove that this is not the only or the proper Life of man For certainly Reason was intended to be the ruling principle in reasonable creatures and this Reign of passion is an usurpation in our natures that must not last always Passion is well defin'd by Zeno to be an unnatural over-boiling motion and 't is not credible that reasonable creatures should during their whole being continue under violent hurries and brutish force 'T is not to be suppos'd that our light shall always be darkned in an Eclipse and muffled up in clouds the Moon and Stars may rule the night but if there be a Sun there must be a day in which it shall govern Reason will have its time of Rule as Sense and Passion have had theirs and that must be in another world for there is but little of it in this I say little of it but some there is and the Empire of Conscience is begun in the vertuous This is the other thing in the temper of our Passions to be consider'd viz. 2. The Regulation of them by vertue and Reason This is the beginning of a new Life a Life proper for men which in the best is weak and defective here and arrives not to any very considerable height of perfection hence also we may conclude that there is another Life in which those divine inchoations shall be compleated For as from the obscure discoveries of Sense in an Infant in the Womb we may argue there is another state wherein the sensitive faculties that have begun to shew themselves shall act with more advantage and perfection In like manner those Essayes of the soul towards a better Life in the vertuous is an Argument that indeed there is one and that this present state is but the Womb of the future These are the first draughts of the divine nature and Image and God will not suffer it to die in imperfect rudiments The blushes of the morning are an earnest of an ensuing day The Chaldee Oracles call these the Tokens and Symbols that God hath inserted in the Soul they are the first-fruits and no doubt the harvest will follow The tendencies of lower nature do not use to be altogether in vain much less shall the beginnings of the divine Life and the resemblances of the immortal Deity All life is immortal saith Plato and certainly the seed of this noble and spiritual one shall not perish God will not leave his Image in the grave nor suffer this spark of him to see corruption The summ is The Regulation and Government of Passion is a new Life begun the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the true proper rational Life as Plotinus calls it but in this world 't is very incompleat and defective and therefore there is another in which it shall grow up to the fulness of its stature and perfection I come in order to argue the same III. From our Desires and Appetites in two instances viz. 1. Their dissatisfactions with the things of the present World and 2 some Tendencies of them towards another 1. I begin with the unsatisfiedness of them Our desires are too wide for our enjoyments and there is a thirst in the soul that is unsatiable When we have one thing we want another and our appetites are always craving There is not bread for the hungry soul nor any fitting entertainment on this side the Sun We flatter our selves with fancied satisfactions at distance but when we come near we find not the happiness and content we expected And as Children think that at such a Hill they should touch the Skies so we phancy that in compassing such or such designs we should be happy but when that is done we see as much beyond us and learn that in appetities there is no Term or Horizon Now these dissatisfactions with the things of the present world which are no sullen or Cynick humours but the complaint of all mankind afford an Argument of much probability that we were not made for this state only nor chiefly for it For all Faculties are satisfied with the due measures of their proper objects and every thing rests in its own Element And therefore the restlesness and inquietudes of men in the present Life are an Argument that we are not yet where we should be but that we were design'd to live again in another Which reason we may improve by this further observation namely that the better any man is the less he is pleased with these perishing enjoyments The noise of Fame the pleasures of Sense and the pageantry of worldly greatness are to Him like the Rattles and Cherrystones of his Child-hood He hath lost his taste and relish of such entertainments And now if all the delights and comforts we are to expect were of this sort the best men are in the worst condition in losing all their share of their proper pleasure and felicity and living without taste among so many relishing enjoyments 2. The Bent of the desires of Good men towards another world is a probable inducement to believe There is another Indeed the greatest part of mankind is so miserably sunk into earth and sense that they feel no such tendencies or propensions but rather averseness to all things that do not gratifie the body and serve its interests But yet there are those who have strong inclinations towards another Life and the more vertuous any man is the earnester will his desires be after the state of Immortality which importunities and cravings of their souls give us some ground to think that there is another world and objects in it suited to their desires Otherwise those appetites would be in vain and the best would be most miserable while they quitted other satisfactions and grasp'd after air and delusion I come now to the last head of proof IV. Our Instincts or some natural propensions of universal mankind The instances I shall name are