Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	pass_v	sin_n	sin_v	8,257	5	9.3818	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23713	A discourse concerning the period of humane life, whether mutable or immutable by the author of The duty of man laid down in express words of Scripture.	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.; R. E.	1677 (1677)	Wing A1110; ESTC R7660	41,105	158

after things of a mysterious alloy and God knows how miserably some men have mistaken in their enquiries after a solution of the present doubt and if I could promise to my self to rectify those huge mistakes some men have fallen into this would be a sufficient justification of my present undertaking But in order to the unfolding of this doubt I shall premise four things which will contribute to the better understanding of it First There is no doubt that every mans life hath a Period It is appointed for all men once to dye this is a warfare from which there is no discharge what man is he that liveth and shall not see death as to this the Prince and Peasant stand upon even terms and as the wise-man tells us the rich poor meet together there is no justling in the Grave for precedency I confess it were not worth the pains to consider the trivial instances taken from the translation of Euoch and Elias to infringe this position For first we are not to debate what God may do he has a Soveraignty over his Creatures and must not be called to give a reason of his actions all whose ways are tracts of wisdom and goodness Secondly We know nothing of the manner of their translation he who will positively say that they did not undergo that which is equivalent to death will say more than he can prove I am apt to believe that no sober man will say that they entred their Heavenly habitation with their unrefined bodies no more than those who rise at the sound of the last Trumpet in the twinkling of an eye are carried into Heaven without any change Secondly It is also unquestionable that Sin introduced this Period to every mans life the primitive threatning runs thus in the day thou eats thou shalt dye And the Apostle hath as plainly exprest it as it can be wherefore as by one man sin entred into the World and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Rom. 5. 12. where it is plain that Death is a punishment inflicted for Sin so that if man had never sinned we have no reason to think he should have died I confess without Revelation we could never have guessed this to be the cause of Death The Heathen Philosophers were exceedingly confused in their notions concerning the origine of Sin and the cause of Death many of them thought that Death was a natural accident originally appurtenant to Humane Nature And indeed if Revelation had not declared the contrary I had been fully satisfied that Death had been no other thing but such a natural accident but it is strange that any man that has conversed with sacred writ should be of this opinion And yet we find the Pelagians of old were great sticklers for it hence is it that the ancient Fathers and Councils have condemned it with a Curse In the Milevitan Council Can. 2. we read thus Placuit ut quicunque dicit Adam primum hominem mortalem sactum ita ut sive peccaret sive non peccaret moreretur in corpore hoc est de corpore exiret non peccati meri●o sed necessitate naturae anathema sit In after-ages the Scotists the most subtil of all Scholastick writers inclined much to this opinion against whom the Thomists their irreconcilable Enemies took up the cudgels amongst modern writers the seemingly rational Socinians have owned this groundless conceit But I cannot stay to debate this at length only in brief if Death had been natural to man in the state of Innocency it behoved to have been because of these following reasons 1. Because Adams natural constitution implied mortality the Materials of his constitution were not so amicable as to entertain a lasting amity and friendship 2. It was the primitive precept be fruitfull and multiply now it is plain that procreation includes mortality in its notion and farther it seems to be unconceivable how this little Map of Earth should have contained a numerous multiplying and never-dying off-spring 3. Humane Nature in the state of Innocency did stand in need of Meat and Drink as is plain from Gen. 1. 19. now the end of eating and drinking is not only to hold up but to repair the decays of our Bodies which would sudenly return to dust if they were not this renewed strengthened 4. If Death were only the effect of Sin and the Devil were called a Murderer from the beginning because of his tempting our first parents to eat of the forbidden Fruit it will follow that since Christ came to take away the sins of the World and to destroy the works of the Devil that he also took away the wages of sin which is Death than which nothing is more contrary to daily experience 5. Immortality seems to be entailed only to the state of future Glory where Corruption shall put on Incorruption and Mortality shall be swallowed up in life and then there shall be no more death Rev. 21. 4. These are the most material reasons I can find for the proof of this opinion in answer to which I shall desire the Five following considerations may be weighed Consid. 1. It is not to be doubted that the Eternal wisdom furnished our first parents with all these accomplishments their specifick nature could suffer the signatures of Wisdom and Goodness were legible in the lowest least regarded piece of the creation but in Man in a more eminent manner conspicuous It is almost impossible for us in this fallen state to conceive what those endowments is taken Conditionally and so under various considerations it may be attributed either First To perfected Saints who are stated in Glory where the primitive Image lost by mans fall is renewed and perfected and of those our Saviour in the Gospel of Luke tells us that they can dye no more Luke 20. 36. or Secondly to our first parents in the State of Innocency For so long as they remained obedient to the Laws of Heaven Immortality was entailed upon their nature for the tenor of the primitive threatning is in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye where temporal Death seems to be threatned which had been idle and vain if men had died altho they had never eaten the forbidden Fruit. I know some men think that Sin only laid a necessary obligation upon men to dye and provoked God to remove that Supernatural and Superadded quality and gift which preserved them from Death With such sort of men I have no great quarrel altho I think that God could as easily have made mans constitution so lasting and the constituent parts of his fabrick so harmonious that he should have never dyed if he had not sinned as to create a superadded being to preserve him safe For reason would plead that that superadded gift required another and so in infinitum But farther 't is very unreasonable to infer mans corruption from that precept be fruitful and multiply for altho in some sense

months and days thou alone knowest all those circumstances and to know the particular portion of days allowed to every man does certainly require an infinite and exact knowledg I will not curiously enquire what truth there is in the pretended diabolical predictions of future Events and whether Star-gazers from the Conjunctions and contrary Aspects of Celestial Bodies can foretell the future number of the days and months of terrestial and inferiour Sublunary beings a passing view of this I will have occasion to take afterwards at present we rest satisfied with this that an exact and comprehensive knowledg of our days and months is only the prerogative of him who holds our lives in being the pretended knowledg any Creature boasteth of is conjectural and uncertain if not as frequently it is fictitious unless when the Divine wisdom for some secret and to us unknown ends reveals to his creatures such future Events But Secondly the Phrase holds out the Divine Rule and Dominion The number of his months are with thee that is they are in thy power thou may'st either prolong or shorten the days of Men and I think the meaning of this whole verse is comprehended under these two heads which I shall afterwards discourse of at more length Thou hast appointed his bounds c. It is not Fate or Fortune but the wise God who appoints to every Man his time now the bounds set to Men may be considered under a two fold notion First As it signifies that common and ordinary Period which the God of Nature has setled which Men by the common course of Nature may fulfill if no accidental circumstance hinder and it seems the Psalmist only understands this common term of Humane Life Psal. 90. 10. The days of our years are Threescore years and Ten and if by reason of Strength they be fourescore c. or Secondly It may be understood in a more strict sense as it is taken for the last moment of every individual and particular person and of both these I shall more fully discourse afterwards and show that the words seem to refer to the common term of Humane Life or if they mean this particular term in what sense they are to be understood determined appointed c. These and such like condescending Phrases have been most unhappily used and sadly misunderstood in the Schools Some men no sooner read in Scripture of Gods determining or appointing but they instantly conclude a physical previous necessitating act which inevitably and irresistibly determines Men and this kind of determination they plead for in all cases so that Men even in their vitious actions are irresistibly determined to do so I know no opinion which has rendered the reformed Church more odious than this would to God I could say the Censure is causeless and that I were forced to apologize for saying our Divines have erred in this case But alas the opinion is grown strong and not long since it was not much less than Heresie to condemn it and even to this day it is the study of some Teachers to instill it into the hearts of their Hearers For the correcting of this sowre opinion I shall have occasion to add some things in this following discourse now I shall desire it to be considered that while we speak of the Divine determinations appointment c. we speak of things our knowledg cannot reach the best conceptions we can frame to our selves of the Divine volitions are dangerous and imperfect our capacities in this lapsed state are more narrow than we are aware of and altho they were raised to a higher pitch yet we can never comprehend his way of working who in all his ways is unsearchable 'T is truly sad to see the contending World so serious and restless in digging those deeps that are unfathomable it were to be wished that Men did not found their pretended knowledg of the Divine volitions on the basis of their own silly volitions and did not argue from what we find in our selves to be the same in God 'T is true the holy Spirit hath condescended to express things suitable to our Understanding mean capacities therefore we read in Scripture of the Divine determinations appointments c. but yet to abuse such condescending expressions and to imagine that there were really such purposes and volitions in God as these we perceive in our selves this were a hainous crime pray let us satisfy our selves with this that God in an eminent and transcending manner doth these things which we cannot do without willing decreeing c. That he cannot pass or as others render it and he shall not pass which Phrase is not to be understood as if the particular Period of every Mans life were so fatally fixed that he can neither shorten nor prolong it for this is contrary to many clear Texts of Scripture as shall afterwards fully appear but by this Phrase we are to understand the common term of Humane Life which is not mutable as the particular term is and yet is not so fixed that it cannot be altered for God has still reserved in his own power the shortening and prolonging of it And further we must not apprehend that the particular term of Humane Beings is so mutable that God knows them not and cannot foretel the precise Period of every mans life or that the Divine Counsel concerning things Future is mutable no sure God has declared the contrary I am God and there is none like mee saith the Almighty declaring the End from the Beginning and from ancient time the things that are not yet done saying my Cousenl must stand and I will do all my pleasure Isa. 46. 9. Two things there be which occasion men to change their purposes and resolutions 1. Their want of Power to execute them 2. their finite and shallow Knowledg which cannot foresee those future circumstances which render their Designs ineffectual But now there is no difficulty that can pose the Almighty with him all things are possible it is the Prophets argument the Lord of Hosts hath purposed who shall disanull it his hand is stretched out and who shall turn it back Isa. 24. 17. And further there is no circumstance or condition that lyes in the dark and unseen to him whose knowledg is infinite and who equally comprehends things past present and to come Therefore is it that men cannot pass these bounds prefixed by the Divine foreknowledg But of this afterwards Turn from him c. it is queryed whether Job here petitioneth a withdrawing of Gods supporting presence and a cessation by death or a cessation from the affliction and trouble he lay under There be three things that plead for the former Interpretation 1. Because the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 placed absolutely signifieth to cease by death 1. Sam. 2. 5. and they that were hungry ceased i. e. died 2. Because the supporting hand of Providence being removed men return to the Dust. Thou hidest thy face they are