Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	serpent_n	sin_n	sting_n	4,692	5	12.2188	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89411	Several works of Mr. Iohn Murcot, that eminent and godly preacher of the Word, lately of a Church of Christ at Dublin in Ireland. Containing, I. Circumspect walking, on Eph. 5.15,16. II. The parable of the ten virgins, on Mat. 25. from ver. 1. to ver. 14. III. The sun of righteousness hath healing in his wings for sinners, on Mal. 4.2. IV. Christs willingness to receive humble sinners, on John 6.37. Together with his life and death. Published by Mr. Winter, Mr. Chambers, Mr. Eaton, Mr. Carryl, and Mr. Manton. With alphabetical tables, and a table of the Scriptures explained throughout the whole.	Murcot, John, 1625-1654.; Winter, Samuel, 1596?-1665.; Chambers, Robert, minister in Dublin.; Eaton, Samuel, 1506?-1665.; Manton, Thomas, 1620-1677.; Caryl, Joseph, 1602-1673.; J. G.	1657 (1657)	Wing M3083; Thomason E911_1; ESTC R202939	754,107	852

this terror and this bondage a means to their inlargement Ah blessed Prison that is only to make poor creatures willing to be at liberty well now this the Lord Jesus when he cometh and revealeth himself to a soul he brings him out of these labyrinths of fears and terrors letteth the poor creature see that himself is the way and the only way he hath undertaken the work for his people only if they will believe though they have no strength in them to do any thing nor to extricate themselves from the difficulties they find themselves in by reason they cannot fulfil the Law yet he is the mighty one upon whom help is laid and withal letteth them understand how his bowels do yern over them and how his heart is open ready to inlarge them and so perswadeth them to close with him and then they go forth when faith cometh so Christ is the end of the Law and the ●aw a School-Master to bring us to Christ But that is but the Sixth Seventhly Another part of this bondage is those after-claps of fears and terrours that after Christ hath been revealed to and in a soul may befall the creature alas you find it so they may be clapt up afterward in the pit of noise the horrible pit and be in the deeps and in darkness and like Jeremiahs dungeon sink in the mire where there is no standing they feel no bottom of their misery their fears are overwhelming or like Jonahs Whales belly they are in the belly of hell and all the waves and billows of God go over them O this is sore bondage however it be true that the Spirit of God is never any more a spirit of bondage to them to witness to them they are children of wrath afterward yet he doth not say but they may have bondage again and all fear hath torment and is bondage to the Spirit it doth fetter it and shut up and contract the spirits exceedingly Now I say the darkness of a mans own heart which doth naturally gender fear and Satan to help and the frowns of Gods displeasure for the present though he do not witness any more that a man is a child of eternal wrath and displeasure these may bring the poor creature into sad perplexities Well yet the Spirit of the Lord Jesus when he cometh brings also liberty with him from this bondage David will tel you so and Heman will tell you so do but consider what conditions they were in how came they to be delivered O lift up the light of thy countena nce upon me Son of God arise upon me shine upon my soul and then I shall be healed O restore to me the joy of thy salvation make me to hear joy and gladness c. Well the Promise doth extend even to this bondage also and to this may we refer the next I will speak of it distinctly Eightly There is another Bondage and that is the fears of death and judgement whereby many a poor creature is kept in Bondage all the days of their lives as the Apostle saith in that to the Hebrews to which I will speak a few words He came saith the Text and took part of flesh and blood that through death be might destroy him that hath the power of death that is to say the Devil and deliver them that through fear of death were all their life-time subject to Bondage Brethren death it self is a terrible thing the Simplex could say but hardly could he tell the reason of it for them that have no fear of God before their eyes but have put out the eye of reason and live like Beasts giving up themselves to commit wickedness with greediness though while they can keep off the apprehensions of death they may go on merrily but when that seizeth upon them it marrs their mirth it maketh a change in their faces and they are not now truly death is not so terrible in it self considered but that the stoutness of a mans spirit specially where there is no other consideration of it he may overcome it and live above the fears of it as the Heathens some of them did but now a man that knoweth indeed what death is not only a dissolution of the union between the soul and body taking down this mouldring Tabernacle but a Serpent with a sting it is where sin and guilt lies upon the soul it is the beginning of sorrows the arrest of the soul to judgement to come to receive its doom for all its bloody evils he hath been guilty of The wordling is not willing to give up his soul O he knoweth he can never answer for his wasting of his spirits and spending his time to lay up treasure here and in the mean time neglecting his soul and Jesus Christ and tenders of Grace he knoweth this well enough and therefore he will not yield up his Spirit they shall take it from him as it is in the Parable This night shall thy soul be taken from thee and so for any other sin and now I say this maketh death terrible and by reason of these fears of death men that have any sight or sense of their condition they are in Bondage all their lives long yea even the people of God themselves are in some measure under this bondage and according to the measure of the discovery of Christ to them and the power of faith in them is this fear and this bondage broken and the Lord Jesus came for this end to deliver them alas before his coming the Saints may be specially meant here who had indeed the knowledge of Christ to be crucified for Sinners and beheld him crucified though darkly in the sacrifices c. and in the promise from the foundation of the world but yet notwithstanding they had not that confidence usually but there was more room for doubtings and fears because they died still without the accomplishing of that promise now though such as had an extraordinary measure of faith and a prophetical spirit might see this clearly and so it might raise them much what above this bondage yet ordinarily I believe it was not so that they had such clear conviction of the freeness of grace and the abundance and riches of it in Jesus Christ and therefore it did not so f●lly quiet their Spirits in respect of fears of death and judgement they did not so clearly see the sting pluckt out therefore the Apostle saith those Sacrifices though they did hold out Christ could not make the comers thereunto perfect and therefore they were often repeated But now the Lord Jesus he hath by once offering for ever perfected compleated their salvation and therefore you shall find that the Apostle and others do so triumph over death and the grave and sin as we hardly find any before the coming of Christ and it must needs be so because now the Spirit which is the liberty of the Saints was poured out in a

many a sight of Jesus Christ sitting with his people at the round table and thou knowest not what thou losest yet if it be meer tenderness of Conscience which keepeth thee off and not perverseness thou hast sure much of the inward fellowship and communion with Christ otherwise he can if he please supply it otherwise but however though not admitted among men thou shalt enter in with Christ unto the Marriage-supper for ever and this will make amends for all Though far be it from me to strengthen any mans hands in the neglect of the Ordinances of Christ on earth and take heed that our excuses will speak loud enough for us in Gods ears whatever they do in mans But if thou canst not be admitted to the pipe Is it not a comfort that thou shalt be admitted to the fountain to the sea O methinks this should put on such above others make a vertue of necessity and so much the more long for his appearing to thee that thou mayst enter in with him to the Marriage-feast Fourthly and lastly It may serve to allay the bitterness of death It is a bitter thing not only to the wicked it is bitter it must needs having the sting of sin in it and being a trap-door as I may say to let them sink or drop into the everlasting flames this must needs be bitter But to the Saints it is in some sort bitter also nature is dissolved by it it is the fruit of sin and we find by continual experience of the Saints that there is a hanging back But methinks this consideration that it is an entrance into this Marriage-feast should much sweeten it to a child of God Our Saviours death was the bitterest that ever was endured O it was a deadly cup but this was it that sweetned it the consideration that he should drink this new wine with his people in his fathers kingdom there feast with him for ever for the joy that was set before him he endured the Cross so brethren do but set before you continually this joy this pouring out of this love of Christ upon your souls those immediate sincere full constant and eternal delights of your souls in the light and love of the Father and of the Son and see if it swallow not up the bitterness of death unto you But so much for this Doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here is the second Consideration of this coming of the Bridegroom a doleful consideration it is to all such as were not ready for the door was shut what is the sence of shutting the door in the Parable I suppose is easily understood that is to say an entrance is denied to them that were without as well as they that were within were shut in by the shutting of the door But I conceive that is the thing meant here the scope of the Verse being to shew the different end of a believer and an hypocrite the one is received into the Marriage-feast the other is shut out the door is clapt against them The Doctrine will be a sad word it is this That the Gate of heaven or the door will be clapt against all formal Professors and foolish Virgins that are not ready to enter with Christ for this is implied in the other part of the words they that were ready entred with Christ into the Marriage and the door was shut upon whom surely upon them that were not ready for that his coming whatever hopes they are big with now they prove abortive There is a door of entrance into Heaven and an outer door as I may say which I may call a door of hope which the Hypocrite hath not when it cometh to a pinch not a well-grounded hope The wicked is driven away in his wickedness but the righteous hath hope in his death There is a door of hope to him but none to the wicked but his hope which he had before many times at death is like the giving up of the Ghost without are dogs c. either filthy persons such as with the Dog returneth to the vomit again after their sorrow and vomiting up their sweet morsels such as with the Dog are sometimes sin-sick and seem to repent to vomit up the bottom of their stomacks but return to it again with delight after their repentance and tears and prayers these are shut out Dogs also who are they but such barking biting foul-mouth'd false Teachers such as the Apostle speaks of Beware of Dogs evil workers of the concision beware of such as would bring in the circumcision as necessary to Salvation beware of these they are Dogs though they may seem never so zealous and holy have a sheep-skin upon them they are Dogs and Woolves and all manner of workers of iniquity as Sorcerers Whoremongers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lye Why you will say these are not Hypocrites sure they are down-right profane persons brethren a man may live in these sins many of them and yet carry a fair shew but the gate shall be shut against them whoever they be As for Adultery or whoring though men be not guilty of the outward act is there not heart-adultery is there not contemplative wickedness against which Job resolveth I made a Govenant with mine eye why should I think upon a maid he that lusteth after her beauty in the heart commits adultery with her in his heart yea brethren by the thoughts the very spirits as I may say and oyl of sin are squeezed out or extracted as in a Limbeck and that is more deadly and dangerous a man may eat a thing and do him no great hurt but the oyl of it is deadly haply So the Murtherer it may be many a man that hath a form of Godliness never imbrued his hands in blood but his heart hath been steeped in blood full of envious and malicious thoughts he can with wishes and desires of revenge and malice murther and bury all his neighbours And so though it may be we make no pictures of Images or fall down before them to give them any absolute or relative worship yet we have Idols in our hearts we love money are covetous it may be and this is idolatry and fall down to our own parts our own gifts and live in this like it well these brethren shall have the door shut against them and such as love and make lyes though officious lyes to help others nothing more ordinary in mens Callings and Shops then to lye and speak falsly for a little advantage and yet it may be have a colour and a shew of Profession and allow themselves in these things They shall be shut out the door shall be clapt against them many shall seek to enter but shall not be able No marvel for the Gate is not only strait but shut against them it is strait when it stands open in mens lives and they will not strive and therefore fall short

when thou hast heaped up Gold as the dust and Rayment as the clay and withall hast gotten a wound in thy Soul a worm in thy Conscience the rot and canker eats into thy soul what hast thou gotten who will be the wiser man when the sins whereby thou hast gotten this beginneth to stare like so many devils in thy face though thou hast builded thee an house a fair house and chambers by wrong and he that dwels in a tent is contented with a meaner condition with a good Conscience when the stone beginneth to cry out against thee out of the wall and the timber out of thy chambers and thy ears are full and thy heart full of the cry of thy sins and guilt whereby this hath been gotten who will prove the wise man then O surely Religion maketh not men fools Secondly It may be a word of retortion and serve to fasten the folly then upon the wisdom of the World Wordlings think the people of God fools for their preciseness but the Saints know them to be fools will ye believe when the Lord speaks do not harden your hearts now and say thou speakest falsly in the name of the Lord. Read that passage of the Apostle and tell me what you think then The Wisdom of the World is foolishness with God is not God the only wise God and do you think the Lord can be mistaken though we that are poor weak creatures like your selves may be mis-judge yet sure the Lord cannot he is wisdom it self and it is foolishness with God he judgeth it so and believe it they are wise whom he maketh wise and they are fools and that is folly whom he accounteth so by the rule of contraries it followeth if to walk circumspectly be to walk as wise men then to walk loosly and at large is to walk as fools according to our Text I will give you but two or three Demonstrations of their folly it may be the Lord will convince some poor creature of the folly of his ways First It is folly for men to pitch upon a wrong end to place their happiness in any thing but the chief good indeed now this is evident enough too plain that men of the world they do place their happiness in worldly things they have their god to worship as well as the Saints The lusts of the flesh the lust of the eye and pride of life to which the Apostle reduceth all that is in the World their pleasures their riches their honours these are their ends to which they drive on all their designs and here they rest and sit down and look no farther many of them now is not this a gross mistake and grievous folly to end so low as the earth and what the would can afford which will appear if we consider 1. That none nor all these things will run parallel with the souls to eternity therefore if they could make a man happy as long as he enjoyed them yet afterward they would then encrease his misery when they leave him fuisse faelicem miserum It is perishing bread uncertain riches many times they make wings and are gone even he himself outlives them a miserable happiness that a poor mortal creature can out-live if not yet the soul out-lives them he can carry nothing away with him saith the Text the poor soul must appear in its nakedness before ●he Lord Judge at that day of appearing after death and soul and body to eternity after the Resurrection shall never be the better for them alas the remembrance then of your pleasures and honours and riches will be but a sting to your souls to eternity that such enjoyments you had and used them no better 2. As they continue not so while a man can keep them they cannot they do not satisfie the soul if any man could Solomon might have pickt out an happiness out of them when he had so much wealth to procure them so much wisdom to improve them so gave himself to find out but the sum is vanity of vanities not only vain but vanity and vanity of vanities and all is vanity the greatest vanity they are empty there is no substance in them they will not satisfie the soul there is no sutableness between such earthy things and a spiritual being nor equality between their greatest vastness and the largeness of a soul they can never fill it and therefore it can never rest but the more a man hath the more he would have still drinking doth but increase their thirst and therefore well might the Psalmist bebeast and befool himself for setting such an esteem upon them So foolish was I and ignorant and even as a beast before thee when he thought them to have more in them then they had and therefore that they were the happy men that flourished and it was in vain for him to cleanse his heart c. Secondly If they should or do propound a right end yet they miserably miscarry in the means towards this end For First There are some that are wise to do evil but to do good they have no knowledge at all and if men make God and Heaven their end is this the way to it will the way to the devil and the way to hell bring a man to Heaven and yet this is the course that most men run as if men would be saved by contraries and were Christians by antiphrases because they are most unchristian surely Brethren the Spirit of God and the Scriptures every where hath determined sin to be folly and calleth sinners fools therefore we read of working folly in Israel so much now if one part of Wisdom be to aim at the right end surely Wisdom agreeth notwith it self if this be another part of Wisdom the Wisdom to do evil which indeed is improperly called wisdom but it is a cursed skill and ingenuity which men have whereby they are more industriously wicked this is so far from Wisdom that it is the very height of folly Again Secondly It is the Wisdom of the World to get a name of Christianity and therewith satisfie themselves take the power who will so they have the name and pass for Saints gain is their godliness and when they have gotten the gain by it the Godliness they care not to walk in but in their pleasures of sin the shew of Religion is profitable but not the reality it is burthensom is not this folly with a witness can the Shadow be profitable and not the Substance the Shell and Husk and not the Kernel can that be profitable whose Praise is of men and not that whose praise is of God Again As the top and crown and quintescence of their folly they are wiser in their own conceit then several men that can render a reason as he spaaks of the sluggard and such are all those that will not be at pains for God and for Heaven if men might devote all the

greater measure and therefore we may understand this of a general state of the Saints before the coming of Christ the arising of this Sun of righteousness indeed hath shone into the very chambers of death themselves to let us see tha● there is not that real terrour in it that otherwise except himself had gone through it and broken the bars of it and pluckt out the sting and sanctified it as a passage to our Glory as well as to his own we should still have been in as great bondage as they were in this respect and therefore Simeon saith Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word now he had embraced the Lord Christ not only in his bodily arms but had a clearer discovery also of him to his soul doubtless and the sence may help faith also But then secondly According to the measure of the faith of his people is the degree of their liberty from this bondage alas it is terrible to many of us yea such as do believe but their faith is weak and the perswasions of sense are strong and hold down the soul many times but the Lord Jesus came to deliver his people also from this bondage and according to the degrees of his manifesting himselfto the soul will the soul go forth from these fears and though Aristotle died doubtful whither he should go and yet cried out Ens entium causa causarum miserere mei Yet the Apostle and those that attained that pitch to know that when our tabernacles are dissolved we have an house eternal in the heavens to know the sting of death and victory of the grave is swallowed up by Jesus Christ it left its sting in his side to know that when we are dissolved we shall be with Christ and know how much better that will be to the soul that is well studied in these things and grown strong in the faith that is in Jesus he will desire to be dissolved and to be with Jesus O here is a going forth now a liberty and freedom indeed by the arising of the Sun of Righteousness upon us Ninthly A freedom or liberty from the Govenant of works What saith the Law Do this and live continue in every thing that is written now when the soul cometh to see how spirittual the Law is and how earnal he is and sold under sin that it binds not only the thoughts but the desires of the heart that there must not be so much as a vain thought pass through his soul but if there do this Covenant knoweth no mercy alas this keepeth the poor creature under much bondage and trouble and doubting concerning his condition now we must know that this is not a bondage of Gods putting upon us though he gave us the Law but of our own making the Lord gave the Law with Evangelical purposes it was added because of transgression it was added that the Covenant of Grace that it might convince poor creatures of their condition by s●n and not to be their Saviour or a Covenant of life to them When the Commandment came sin revived and I died saith the Apostle that is the work of it indeed but now we would needs make it to be a Covenant of works and look upon it so and therefore do what we did in obedience to this Law as for life expecting to be saved by our own works and so the Hebrews the Jews to whom that Law was first given we see how they would not submit they would not stoop to have this yoke taken off from them they would not submit to the righteousness of Ged but would have a righteousness of their own they had two strings to their bow and as long as either of them would hold they would not yield to be righteous by the righteousness of God in Christ the one was their freedom by Birth They were the seed of Abraham and not the seed of the Bond-woman and therefore what need they care for this liberty the other was their own works they made account their own penny was good silver enough though the Lord knoweth it was but reprobate silver they went about to establish their own righteousness they would be justified by a Covenant of works And so there were some that came and endeavoured to turn aside the Galathians to another Gospel by teaching them they should again put their necks under this yoke not only of Ceremonies though that be one thing to the Jews if not to the Gentiles that never were under it but it is the Law the Moral Law as a Covenant of Works else to what end doth he mention the curse therein And if ye be justified by the Law Christ shall not profit you you are fallen from the Doctrine of Grace Well now the Lord Jesus when he is revealed to a soul delivereth him from this though I must tell you it is an harder matter to get clearly off it then many do imagine and even the people of God themselves shall find that too often they are turned aside to the bondwoman from the free from the Covenant of Grace to a Covenant of Works Again from the Law as provoking for that is the Bondage chiefly the Apostle speaks of Rom. 7. But the more clearly and fully the Grace which is in Christ is revealed to us with the greater power he ariseth upon us the more fully are we set free from it Here we might discuss the question how far we are delivered from the Law and how far by Jesus Christ I will rather reserve that to another place and proceed to conclude this part Tenthly There is a kind of bondage the people of God are under even that weakness and straitness and deadness of heart towards God you know that sickness doth weaken a man exceedingly in so much that he can scarce go upon his legs he is a prisoner a great while under that weakness from all action to purpose let but a poor prisoner be under hardship a while in the prison and how feeble will he be and scarce worth the ground he goeth upon a while longer he is a prisoner under that weakness so it is here therefore saith the Psalmist Then will I run the ways of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart Now the Lord Jesus when he cometh in with pardon speaking peace smiling upon the soul filling the heart with joy unspeakable this joy of the Lord is the strength of the soul he goeth forth even as a man to his labour in the morning when the Sun ariseth that drousiness heaviness deadness under which he was a prisoner before being now removed Eleventhly There is a liberty and freedom also from outward afflictions for these are also an appendix of the Law a part of the execution of it and therefore the Lord doth set his people free from the fear of these before they come which is a kind of bondage upon them Secondly From the presence of