Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	life_n	lord_n	world_n	8,437	5	4.4039	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40371	A sermon preached in Christ's-Church, Dublin, on the 23d. of October, 1698 being the anniversary thanksgiving for putting an end to the Irish Rebellion, which broke out on that day, 1641, before the House of Lords / by Nathanael Lord Bishop of Waterford and Lismore.	Foy, Nathaniel, d. 1707.	1698 (1698)	Wing F2046; ESTC R33792	19,692	32

carry the Judgment Secondly The exact Harmony or Agreement betwixt the Religion of the Heathens and that of the Romish Church at this day Thirdly The wonderful Force of a misguided or ill-grounded Zeal which usually is fiercer and more impetuous than a true one First There is no Evidence of Sense Reason c. Of the truth of which First The whole Heathen World is an undeniable Evidence who before the coming of Our Blessed Lord were sunk and degenerated into such gross sottish Opinions and Practices relating to God and Humane Nature as were altogether inconsistent with either and did thereupon Impair and Endanger the whole Law of Nature which as to the Moral World is no other than a System of Opinions and Practices appertaining to God our selves and one another But to keep to the particular instance in the Text what can be more evident to Sense and Reason than that the Goddess the Silver-Smith made did not make the Silver-Smith Notwithstanding which and tho' the whole Corporation of Silver-Smiths got their Livelihood by doing Work about her nay tho' perhaps these very individual men had mended or adorn'd her Goddesship when Ruinous or Rusty yet Saint Paul must be exclaim'd against and brought in danger of his Life for saying They are no Gods which are made with Hands To this may be added that inhumane Practice which did of Old and doth at this time prevail amongst some Heathen Nations of Sacrificing the Wife the dearest Friends and most faithful Servants at the Funerals of their several Relations And what renders this Practice more wonderful is there is nothing of Interest in it beyond the avoiding Shame and Disgrace which by long Use and Practice is clearly of their own making The like may be said Secondly Of the Jewish Church which would not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Saviour of the World but Crucified him as a Malefactor tho' the Prophecies of the Old Testament foretelling him to come joyn'd to and explained by the History of Our Lord's Life and Death did so plainly Describe and Point out his Person that it was not possible any thing to a Nation which acknowledg'd the Divine Original of them as the Jews did should be more Evident to Reason or more Convictive of the Judgment And yet alass all these signified no more against the Education and Principles which then prevail'd by which they were taught to expect a Temporal Messias nor against the sensual Interest and worldly Grandure of that Church than Bullets shot against a Marble stone Nay when these forcible Weapons were afterwards manag'd by an Omnipotent Arm and received an Additional Strength and a New Edge by the Accession of the Miracle of the Resurrection yet made they little or no Impression on the Jewish Church but a very Fatal one upon the Publican and Fishermen with their Followers who were the Preachers of that Divine Doctrine Of all which Our Lord has given a most Wise profound Reason How can ye Believe that receive Honour of Men That is 't is Morally impossible ye should But beyond these and all other instances in the World put together Thirdly The Romish Church is the fullest proof how much it is within the Power of Interest and Education to warp the Judgment against the clearest Evidence of Sense Reason and Scripture Of a great heap of Opinions to single out but a few What can be more against the clear Evidence of Scripture than half Communion What more against Sense and Reason than that Popes and Councils who for these many years have been doing little but contradicting not only one another but themselves should set up for Infallibility Reason tells they may be deceiv'd Sense and Experience tell that they are so and they have not yet been able to urge the least plausible Argument to prove their Exemption from the common calamity of Humane Nature What more against the common Reason of Mankind and the Evidence of Scripture than that since Prayer is a lifting up of the Heart to God giving Thanks for what we have receiv'd and imploring what we need men should not be permitted to pray to God in a Tongue they understand Or what more against the Evidence of Sense Reason and Scripture than the Monstrous Doctrine of Transubstantiation Which to go about to confute would be to abuse the Auditory A Doctrine which if any thing in Sense Reason or Scripture be true is certainly false A Doctrine which as one has most ingeniously observ'd if it be true 't is the most ill natur'd truth in the World for 't will permit nothing else to be true besides it self A and Lastly a Doctrine in favour of which were a Miracle wrought it could not prove it true in as much as after such a Miracle wrought we should have the same Reason to believe the Doctrine to be false that we had to believe the Miracle was true And yet to the Eternal Disgrace of the Romish Church they have laid the greatest Wits of Europe both of our Church and their own under an absolute necessity of spending the Flower of their Years and the Strength of their Parts in Reading and Writing great Volumes for and against this portentous Doctrine tho' after all their Labours and Study they can arrive to no more knowledge in the whole matter than what every Child of Six years of Age has viz. To know that Bread is Bread Thus much Interest and Education is able to do against the strongest and most uncontested Evidence of the latter of which I think the World has not a fuller proof than the gross body of this Nation in which we live affords us who have not the least imaginable shadow of Reason why they are rather Papists than Protestants but that 't was the Religion their Fathers profest before them pleading nothing in their Defence but this as 't is notoriously known to all who converse with them And now 't were to be wisht these were all that are concerned in this imputation but Fourthly Every Sect or Sept has a share in it more or less as 't were easie to instance in the several Factions which of late years have prevail'd amongst us well nigh to the utter desolation of one of the most Flourishing Kingdoms and Apostolick Churches in the World whose Wounds are yet Green and Gaping so that the Romish Church is more Catholick than we Protestants think of extending it self not only to Rome and other Places subject to the Papal Power but to Geneva likewise and those who value themselves most for having no Communion with her I say 't were easie to instance in the Opinions and Practices but I forbear this being a day hallow'd by the Blood of many thousand Innocents to the Romish Church and upon that account 't is great pity but it should be all their own Secondly The exact Harmony or Agreement betwixt the Religion of the Heathens and that of the Church of Rome And now we are

that Massacre to Males only and those but of Two Years of Age or under and within the Confines only of a little Village and the Territories of it which could not but exceedingly lessen the Numbers and abate the Horror of the Fact whilst the Cruelty of this Day was confin'd within no bounds but ravaging over a whole Spacious Kingdom spar'd neither Age nor Sex against which neither Piety Innocence of Infants to invite Compassion nor the Infirmity of Age to beg it no nor the Strength of Valiant Men gave the least Security as being unarm'd and asleep but all were alike involv'd in the same miserable Ruine Again that which must be acknowledg'd to turn the Scale exceedingly in favour of Herod was that what he did was purely upon principles of State to secure the Crown to himself and the Succession of it to his Family And truly no wonder such a petty precarious Prince as Herod was jealous of his Crown since the great Lords of the Universe the Roman Emperors were not free from Jealousie that they who should Govern the World were to come out of Judea of which they had been admonish't by a Prophetick Oracle Ex Judea profecti rerum potirentur Recorded by Tacitus Suetonius and other Heathen Authors which became matter to them of great Apprehension Whilst we were Murder'd purely to shew us the way to Heaven and to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ tho' he himself dy'd to save the Blood of this day from being spilt i. e. to plant the Doctrine of Peace and Charity but the Romanists have Defeated his Passion of that end Amongst the Heathen Cruelties the greatest were undergone by Christians in Ten Bloody Prosecutions under the Roman Emperors and are handed down to us in the Martyrologies of the Church but even these as to many circumstances of aggravation fell short of what this miserable Nation suffer'd For what the Primitive Christians suffer'd was by force of an Establisht Law of the Empire which tho' unjust yet they had a fair Tryal and many times great and effectual Arts were us'd not only to save them upon their Tryals but to hinder them likewise from being Try'd as may appear by Trajans Rescript to Pliny in favour of them But we suffer'd not only without but against the force of all the Muncipal Laws of the Land which were in favour of us and not only against them but also against the Laws of Friendship of Mutual Obligations and Hospitality which us'd to be so Sacred in this Nation The Primitive Christians had time given them to prepare for Death had their Friends about them to minister Comfort to them were Executed in the Face of the Sun were permitted to call upon their God and allow'd a decent Burial whilst we fell Sacrifices to the insatiable rage of our profest Friends in the dead silence of Night had not time to prepare for Death nor to cry to God for mercy but were hurried before the Tribunal of another World before we well knew we were leaving this and our mangl'd Carcasses exposs'd to the Birds of the Air and the Beasts of the Field To conclude what the Primitive Christians suffer'd was from the profest Enemies of the Cross of Christ not inlighten'd by the Gospel but under strong and inveterate prejudices against it whilst our Blood was spilt by Christian Hands and Offer'd up upon Christian Altars and what carries the aggravation yet higher that very Order of men which beyond all other Christians profess themselves to be of the Society of Jesus were the contrivers of all these mischiess they Decreed us to Death nay were the Supervisors in many places to put the Sentence in Execution To add the last finishing and master stroke to all which all these Barbarities are laid upon the most Righteous the Meekest the Mildest and best of Princes a Prince who abating the inseparable Infirmities of mankind had no Crime beyond good Nature and Modest a man who by Nature was so inclin'd to Forgive and by his Enemies so us'd to it that he had quite forgotten that Resentment which is so inseparable from other Princes and so necessary in all one who was ever jealous of his own abilities tho' wonderfully great had no defect in Wisdom but that he was willing to Learn where he was able to Dictate It is of this Prince they say tho' with a far different intention from that of Pilate's Behold the Man that they might at once Murder his Reputation and his Person But it is the peculiar of the Romish Church to attempt nothing but what is Great and Monstrous in its kind horrid and affrightful against Sense against Reason against Experience and against Humanity But the highest Aggravation remains yet untouch'd the Romish Church is not yet glutted no not so much as satiated with Blood but like the Grave and Barren Womb those only Hieroglyphicks of it cry Give Give The Babylonish Furnaces do yet rage and we must never expect they will be permitted to go out whilst the Host the golden Image of the Pope is every where Erected and there be any Children of the Captivity found who refuse to bow down to it And of such we hope if ever a sad occasion shall be offer'd there will always be great numbers amongst us who for the Word of God and the Testimony of a good Conscience will not only patiently but chearsullay suffer whatever the rage and fury of our Enemies shall think fit to expose us to or lay us under And now we proceed to the Third and Last particular Thirdly The wonderful force of a misguided and ill-grounded Zeal which usually is fiercer and more impetuous than a true one Of which much need not be said were there time for it since what has been already offer'd is a full proof of it and of which we have two more very plain ones in this Chapter viz. St. Paul before his Conversion compar'd with himself afterwards and the Behaviour of Demetrius with that of the Town-Clerk's Of St. Paul before his Conversion we have this and a much larger account of the same Nature That he h●led Christian men and women to Prison breathing out threatnings and slaughter against them consenting to their Death and sometimes assisting at it None of which we hear of him after his Conversion when he had a better Cause and a well grounded Zeal and I Judge no one will say St. Paul was a less zealous Christian than he had been a Jew He with the rest of the Apostles could peaceably lay down their Lives in Defence and Proof of what they said but they knew nothing of taking away the Lives of other men because they would not believe them They told their Hearers that Christ was a Heavenly-born Person and they endeavour'd to convince them by Reason Scripture where it was proper and Miracles that they spake truth but we never find them sharpning their Arguments nor driving them in with Fire and Sword no nor