Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	sin_n	zeal_n	zealous_a	39	3	9.6410	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91526	Jewish hypocrisie, a caveat to the present generation. Wherein is shewn both the false and the true way to a nations or persons compleat happiness, from the sickness and recovery of the Jewish state. Unto which is added a discourse upon Micah 6.8. belonging to the same matter. / By Symon Patrick B.D. minister of the word of God at Batersea in Surrey.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1660 (1660)	Wing P817; Thomason E1751_1; Thomason E1751_2; ESTC R203168	156,691	423

many c. Or if we render it with others Did not be who is one make it i. e. the covenant of marriage and he hath abundance of spirit still to breath into our seed And wherefore did that one make that order that a man should cleave to his wife but that he might have a godly seed and therefore take heed what you do in putting away your wives and taking others for hereby you offend him that breaths the spirit of life into us Or if we take it as others interpret it their wickedness is still argued to be the greater because they boasted that they were the children of Abraham Now Did that one i. e. the first of your family do so of whose spirit we are the residue and what did that one he sought a godly seed he put not away Sarah though she was barren which to you would seem a just cause nor matched with an Idolater that he might have issue Or if we receive that rendring of the words which the learned De Dieu prefers above all the rest it argues them of great inhumanity and that they had not common good nature in them which makes the sin still greater No one would do thus that had but any reliques of the spirit of God in him and therefore much less they that seek a godly seed as you pretend to do You see that he might well call this covering violence with his garment ver 16. because it was such a wrong to those that by the Laws of God and nature deserved better at their hands To spread ones garment or ones skirts over a woman is a phrase in holy writ for to marry her Ruth 3.9 Ezek. 16.8 By taking therefore of a strange woman into their society which was engaged before to another they did as it were marry to violence and contract a relation with injustice Or as the forenamed author thinks it should be translated Violence covered their garments i. e. when as they ought still to have cast their garments of love and protection over their wives violence and wrong did cover those garments their marriage was an act of injustice and their skirts which they spread over strangers were all over stained with cruelty hard-heartedness and oppression 5. And Zachary tells us by way of prophesie what should be in after times toward the end of this Nation and what manner of Rulers should be over the people He compares their Shepherds i. e. Governours as I have shewn before unto young Lyons who do not use to protect but to devour the sheep Zach. 11.3 And he calls the people the flock of slaughter ver 4. whom he is bid to instruct either because they were to be destroyed by the armies of their enemies or because they were a prey unto their Governours According as it follows ver 5. Their possessors slay them and they hold themselves not guilty Yea to such a confidence were they arrived in these sins that they Bless God for the riches which they had got in this sort They had some devotion you see left though no honesty nor goodness God is intituled to all wicked possessions and acquisitions that he may make them good and defend them against all the clamors of men and the suits of their own conscience And it seems the people were very bad also for ver 6. he threatens them that he would have no more pitty on them then their Rulers had but let them destroy one another by seditions and at last deliver them all into the hands of the King that oppressed them who should be so far from taking any pastoral care of them that he should only slay and devour them as you may read v. ●6 6. And some understand by that King the Roman Caesar to whom they made themselves a prey by such sins as those I have been treating of That long Captivity which indures to this day had its way prepared by their avarice and cruelty as those acquaint us upon whom the spirit of prophecy was again poured forth For our Lord coming and reproving the chief of that generation when he lived for devouring widdows houses for extortion rapine and blood for covetousness and oppression for being without natural affection and the like sins while they made long prayers and pretended a great deal of sanctity and religion He declaring also that faith judgement mercy and the love of God were more to be regarded then their strict observation of dayes and the multitude of sacrifices They out of a great zeal for their religion which they thought he did not speak honourably enough concerning most shamefully put him to death I believe they took themselves to be very religious persons and were zealous in what they did only their zeal was not equally dispensed nor conveyed alike through the whole body of duties that God commanded Their heat was like the flushing in mens faces or the burning in their hands which we do not take to be an argument of a good temper but rather a sign that there are obstructions as the ordinary language calls them in the body so that there is not a free motion of the vital blood in all the parts I mean they spent so much zeal in a few things that they left no warmth of affection for other most necessary duties In those things their heat was staid and stopt which made them of an extraordinary high colour and to have the repute in the world of very great Saints and most vertuous persons Yea they themselves gazed so much upon this flame that they took no notice how cold they were in matters of common honesty but they committed all iniquity in a comfortable belief that they were good men and most beloved of God Their great zeal for the Sabbath and such like matters made them take themselves for pious and devout persons but the partiality and particularity of it whereby it remained there confined made them really to be such as our Saviour calls Hypocrites which appellation they took in such disdain that they conspired his death who would not let such as they pass for godly men 7. And are Christians to this day more reformed who have inherited their promises I wish I could say that we are as free from covetousness rapine and unmercifulness as the Pharises were from Sabbath-breaking and Idolatry R. D. Kimchi upon Hos 2.19 20. hath confessed a great deal of that truth which I have endeavoured to illustrate but I can only wish that the latter part of his gloss were found as true as the former part hath proved He saith those words cannot have a compleat sense till the time of the Messiah and that God uses the word betroth three times because of the 3. captivities after which God doth as it were marry them to himself but in the dayes of the Messiah after a more excellent manner then in former times For when they came out of Aegypt he did not betroth them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for

like to die by their Religion They could not be more licentious and intemperate in their desires then they are if they had done all this pennance on purpose to purchase a licence to live as they list And having their hearts so leavened with Jewish superstition they had as good have gone and made a feast invited their neighbours and passed that time away merrily which they spent only upon a sad ceremony For if we consider the meer simple act either of the one or the other of these things they have no goodness in them but as they are designed by us to certain purposes which are good so they become acts of Religion 5. And then fasting from food is good and profitable when it works upon our souls as Physick doth upon our bodies purging out the foul humours making us clean and rendring us fit for action and employment And first in respect of the time past it is to be used as an act of sorrow and grief for our ingratitude and our emptiness should make us feel that all our mercies come from Gods fulness It should testifie our anger and displeasure against our selves and be an act of revenge upon our selves for the abuse of those good things which God hath given us leave to feed on to our refreshment but which we have fatted our selves withall to an excessive fulness and wantonness We should make it an expression of our repentance and disclaiming of our former courses an acknowledgement that we deserve not a mouth full of meat but rather to have our daily bread taken from our tables and not so much as the scraps and fragments of that plenteous provision left behind which God blesses our Tables withall And when it looks back with such an austere countenance upon our inordinate enjoyments when it confesses our unworthiness chides our unthankfulness afflicts and chastises us for our former follies then there is some good in it and this soure sauce may make us hereafter relish all divine blessings better But this is not all the good it must do us for if we return again to our former course it is but a mock-repentance and a gluttonous abstinence For it is nothing but fulness that makes some men fast and their fasting doth but prepare them for the greater fulness 6. And therefore secondly in regard of the time to come it is to be an act of mortification designed to the starving and pining of our lusts to the cutting off their provision and withdrawing of their nourishment to the learning of sobriety and temperate living to the practising of self-denyal in our appetites and crossing our own desires and in short to the bringing the body into subjection by taking away its provender if it be an unruly beast that will not be governed And so it is not a business of a day or whose efficacy reaches but till night but it hath a design upon the whole life wherein we are to abstain as carefully from all excess in pleasures yea from all sin as we do on that day from all our food To this that of the Father's doth most truly accord who calls fasting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a symbol of death it being that which tends to the destruction of the body and the taking away of its life It should not only signifie that we are dying to all earthly things but it ought to be an instrument of death to take away the life of our lusts And when it is so used as not to be a whet-stone to sharpen our stomacks against the next meal but to be a knife to cut and slash off all the immoderation of our appetites to wound and kill all our sins it is a thing very acceptable to God and hugely serviceable to our souls But let us here note two things First that it is to be used not only to the mortifying of some but of all our lusts and carnal affections If we would fast holily and purely we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Isa 58.3 as Cyril of Alexandria speaks relinquish and depart from our own wills to chuse that which is pleasing to God and to yield a neck most gentle tractable and easily reined by his commands We must withdraw the food of our appetites after vain glory and the praise of men as well as after pleasures and fleshly entertainments The swoln desires of honours and great heaps of worldly wealth must be diminished no less then the intemperate cravings of the stomack and the lower belly We must make it an instrument to dull and blunt the edge of all our inordinate longings and to fix such deadning considerations in us as may take us quite off from pleasing our selves So Clemens Alex. observes that a Christian knows very well the secret meaning and enigmatical sense of fasting upon the fourth and sixth dayes of the week viz. Wednesday and Friday which are called after the names of Mercury and Venus the Heathen Governors of Merchants and Lovers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 7. Strom. He thereupon learns to fast through his whole life from covetousness and voluptuousness The choice of those dayes was to give him this secret document and remembrance that he should pine and waste away his greedy desires of riches and pleasures from whence spring all manner of evils And indeed it is one excellent end of a Fast if we intend thereby to enable our selves to exercise charity to the poor and to give in Alms to them what we deny to our selves It is a sad thing if the Divine nature cannot teach us Christians so much tenderness as good nature taught some Heathens The people of Rhegium Aelian L. 5. var. hist cap. 20. when their neighbours of Tarentum were besieged by the Romans fasted every tenth day and sent those victuals to them which they should have eaten themselves in memory of which a Feast called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Fast was ever after celebrated by them when their Town was relieved A rare example of kindness scarce now to be matched which made me think good here to insert it But beside a Christian as Clemens also observes fasts not only according to the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from all evil actions but according to the perfection of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from all wicked thoughts and imaginations These dayes give him notice what he is to do every day of his life and the Gospel fast is so strict that it will not let an evil thought or affection have its daily food though they never grow so strong as to beget any evil actions But it substracts their nourishment and intends their mortification and puts the soul upon cutting off all those luxuriances and excrescencies of which a sprouting fancy is apt to be guilty which no body observes In short 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 2. de jeju it is as Saint Basil hath defined it an alienation and estrangement of the soul from all evil But