Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	woe_n	word_n	wretched_a	24	3	7.9202	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92744	The Christian life wheren is shew'd, I. The worth and excellency of the soul. II. The divinity and incarnation of our Saviour III. The authority of the Holy Scripture. IV. A dissuasive from apostacy. Vol. V. and last. By John Scott, D.D. late rector of St. Giles's in the Fields.; Christian life. Vol. 5	Scott, John, 1639-1695.; White, Robert, 1645-1703, engraver.; Zouch, Humphrey.	1700 (1700)	Wing S2060; ESTC R230772	251,294	440

think of that never-ending Duration of Torment to come that after we have consumed Millions of Millions of Ages on the Rack we have still an eternal Hell behind and are as far distant from the End of our Misery as we were when it first began O! now if we could die and be insensible for ever what welcome Tidings would it be how gladly should we receive that fatal Blow that could put an End to a woful Eternity But now it will be in vain for us to cry O Death Death have mercy upon us and dispatch us quickly into an eternal Grave For Death is deaf and cannot hear every Moment it stabs and wounds but woe is me it cannot kill it strikes and strikes but cannot strike home and so is forced to continue as strugling under the Pangs of an immortal Death If there were any Prospect of an End of our Misery though it were after a Million of Ages this would give some Ease to the languishing Sufferer But never never O how that fatal Word stabs the wretched Soul and rankles its Anguish into eternal Desparation For to be in extream Misery and see no End of it is the Perfection of Hell and the utmost Possibility of Damnation And thus have I endeavoured to represent unto you the fearful Mulcts our Souls are liable to in the other World which are such as one would think were sufficient to awaken the most stupid and insensible Creature II. I now pass on to the second thing proposed which was to shew you upon what Accounts it is that our Souls are liable to these dreadful Things or what it is that exposes us to the Danger of them In general it is our own Sin and Wickedness which doth not only incense the holy God against us who is of purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity and provoke and urge him to inflict these endless Miseries upon us as the just Retributions of our desperate Folly and Obstinacy but doth also by its own natural Causality prepare us for and sink us into that miserable State So that if God should not damn us yet our own Wickedness would the Misery of Damnation being little else but the Perfection and Consummation of Sin For the Sting of eternal as well as temporal Death is Sin and it is Goodness and Wickedness that makes Heaven and Hell those two opposite Hemispheres of the Invisible World and as if Goodness were plucked out of Heaven it would cease to be Heaven and be overcast immediately with the dismal Shades of Hell so if Wickedness were banished out of Hell it would be Hell no longer but presently clear up into Light and Serenity and shine forth into a glorious Heaven But wheresoever Sin and Wickedness reigns there is Hell and Damnation in its necessary Causes Since therefore in necessary Causes that which is the Cause of the Cause is also the Cause of the Effect our best way to be resolved what it is that renders us liable to these future Miseries will be to enquire what it is that renders us liable to fall into a sinful Condition at the present for whatsoever renders us liable to Sin must necessarily expose us to the Danger of Misery Now the Danger of our falling into and continuing in a State of Sin proceeds from these following Causes 1. From the natural Liberty of our Wills to Good and Evil. 2ly From the many Temptations to Evil among which we are placed 3ly From the more close and intimate Access which these Temptations have to us than the contrary Motives to Goodness 4ly From the great Correspondence of these Temptations with the corrupt Inclinations of our Nature 5ly From the unwearied Diligence and great Subtilty of the Devil to make Use of and apply these Temptations to us 6ly From the plausible Pretences we are furnished with to excuse and justify our Compliance with them 7ly From the extream Difficulty which this our Compliance brings us under to reject and vanquish them for the future 1. We are liable to fall into a sinful State and from thence into eternal Misery from the natural Liberty of our Wills to Good and Evil. If indeed we were necessarily determined to Good our Happiness would be intailed upon our Natures and it would be as impossible for us to be miserable as it is for the Fire to freeze or for the Ice to burn but to be so determined I am apt to think is not consistent with the condition of a Creature For to be good by a natural Necessity requires an infallible Understanding or a Mind that is infinitely removed from all Possibility of being deceived and mistaken and this no finite Mind can be But how should the Will be in all particulars necessarily determined to what is Right so long as it is under the Conduct of a fallible Mind that hath a natural Possibility of misleading it So that to be naturally necessarily and essentially good seems to be an incommunicable Prerogative of the Divine Nature according to that of our Saviour There is none good save one and that is God Luke 18.19 For since no Will can be essentially good but that which is guided by an infallible Mind and no Mind can be essentially infallible but that which is infinite in Knowledge it hence necessarily follows that to be free to Good and Evil is as natural to reasonable Creatures as it is to be finite in Knowledge and Understanding 'T is true the greater Light of Knowledge there is in the Mind the less Freedom to Evil there must be in the Will unless it hath some antecedent Biass and Inclination to Evil and consequently the Angels being of far more intelligent Natures than we Men must needs be naturally less free to Evil but yet that even they are naturally free to it is evident for that some of them have actually lapsed into Devils and if they are so by their Natures then much more are we by ours who are so much their Inferiours in the rational World For as we are finite Intelligences we must necessarily have some Degree of Freedom to Evil in us but as we are of the lowermost Rank of Intelligences we must naturally have greater Degrees of this Freedom in us than any other Order of intelligent Natures And if this were all yet this very Condition of our Natures renders us more liable to degenerate into an evil and sinful State than any other kind of reasonable Creatures If we were now in a State of perfect Innocence yet of all intelligent Creatures we should have the greatest Reason to apprehend the Danger of our Fall because being the least intelligent we have the greatest Freedom to Evil and consequently are on that Account in the greatest danger of falling into it By the very Condition of our Natures we are of all rational Creatures placed nearest to the Brinks of the fatal Precipice and therefore have most Reason to apprehend the Danger of falling headlong into it For doubtless among innocent

Kindness When we see a Child slight his careful and indulgent Parents we are ready to account him an unnatural Monster when we see a Man neglect his Friend or disregard his Benefactor we presently call him base and ungrateful nay when we see one abuse a poor brute Creature that fawns upon him and expresses its Kindness to him we look upon it as an undoubted Sign of a very hard Heart and an ill Nature What Term then can we find in all the World of Words that is odious enough to express our Disaffection to our Blessed Redeemer to whom we are so infinitely obliged Base Disingenuous Ill-natured and Vngrateful are all too soft 't is something beyond Barbarous and Devilish For one would think that neither the most inhumane Canibal on Earth nor the blackest Devil in Hell could ever be guilty of so foul a Crime which hath something in it too monstrous for any Words to express Well therefore may the Heavens be astonished and the Earth tremble and all the Creation of God stand amazed at us to see how insentible we are of this most ravishing and endearing Love Well may we be amazed at our selves and wonder at our own Stupidity to think that the Son of God should be so kind as to come down from Heaven to visit us to leave the Habitation of his Glory and shroud his Divinity in mortal Flesh and make himself a miserable Wight meerly that he might make us happy and advance us to that Glory and Bliss which for our sakes he willingly abandoned and yet that we are no more touched and affected with it than with the most indifferent Thing in the World Blessed God what are we made of What kind of Souls do we carry about with us that no Kindness will oblige us no not the most endearing that ever was known or heard of Doubtless should any Man have shewn us but half this Kindness should a Friend but offer to die for us or a Prince to descend from his Throne and put himself into the State of a Beggar to inrich and advance us in the World we should have thought our selves bound to him as long as we lived and should we have thought any Services too much any Requitals too dear for him we should have been lookt upon as Monsters of Ingratitude as the Peproaches and Scandals of humane Nature and been hiss'd out of all Society for a Company of infamous Villains unworthy of the least Repsect or Favour from Mankind But for a Friend to die or a Prince to become a Beggar for our sakes alas what poor inconsiderable Things are they compared with the Condescentions of the Son of God who humbled himself much lower in becoming a Man than the most glorious Angel in Heaven could have done in assuming the Nature of a Worm And can we be so inhumane as not to be moved by such a Miracle of condescending Love Is it the less because it is the Lore of God or doth it less deserve our Requital What Excuse then can we make for our wretched Insensibility O ungrateful that we are with that Confidence can we shew our Heads among reasonable Beings after we have so barbarously slighted our best Friend and behaved our selves so disingenuously towards our greatest Benefactor How can we pretend to any thing that is modest or ingenuous tender or apprehensive in humant Nature when nothing will oblige us no not that astonishing Love that made the Son of God leave all his Glory and become a poor miserable Mortal for our sakes O blessed Jesus what do thy holy Angels think of us how do thy blessed Saints resent our Unkindness towards thee yea how justly will the Devils themselves reproach and upbraid our Baseness who had as they are were never so much Devils yet as to spurn the Love of a Redeemer coming down from Heaven to die and suffer for their sakes Wherefore as we would not be hiss'd at by all the reasonable World and become Spectacles of Horror to God and Angels and Devils let us endeavoun to affect our selves with the Love of our Redeemer and to inflame our own Souls with the Sense of his Kindness who hath done such mighty things to endear and oblige us 4. From hence I infer what monstrous Disingenuity it would be in us to think much of parting with any thing or doing any thing for the sake of Christ who for our sakes parted with his Father's Bosom and all those infinite Delights which he there enjoyed and united himself to our miserable Nature that he might make us good and happy for ever And now after all this with what Conscience or Modesty can we grudge to do any thing which he shall require at our hands Should he command me to descend into the lowest Form of Beings and to become the most wretched and contemptible of all Animals could I be such a Caitif as to deny him who descended much lower for the sake of me Should he remand me back into Non-entity and bid me cease to be for ever alas the Distance is nothing so great between me and nothing as 't was betwixt him and that humane Nature which he assumed for my sake Should he require me to die for him under all those lingering and exquisite Tortures which the blessed Martyrs suffered for his Name what Proportion were there between what he requires of me and what he hath done for me He only requires that I should pass through Death to Heaven for him but he came from Heaven to pass through Death for me so that for his sake I should only put off a wretched Garment of Flesh that I may be inrobed with Glory and Immortality but for my sake he put off his Robes of Glory and Majesty that he might wear my frail and mortal Flesh and therein reconcile me to God and make me everlastingly happy And when I may advance my self into an Equality with Angels by suffering the Agonies of a miserable Death for him shall I refuse or thing much of it when he who was equal with God in Glory and Happiness was so ready to be born a wretched miserable Man for me Should he require me to give my Substance to the Poor and leave my self destitute of all Supplies and Comforts could I deny so poor a Request to him who forsook a Heaven of Infinite Pleasures for my sake and exposed himself naked to the Mercy of a wretched wicked and ill-natured World from whom he could expect nothing but the most barbarous Contempt and Cruelty Sure one would thing 't were impossible for any reasonable Being to deny such poor such inconsider able Boons to such a great and deserving Benefactor and yet these are much more then what he ordinarily requires at our hands For that which he ordinarily requires of us is that we would forsake those Vices which are as injurious to us as they are hateful to him and which are therefore hateful to him because they are our Enemies and