Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	word_n	work_n	zeal_n	42	3	7.2353	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66556	The Scriptures genuine interpreter asserted, or, A discourse concerning the right interpretation of Scripture wherein a late exercitation, intituled, Philosophia S. scripturæ interpres, is examin'd, and the Protestant doctrine in that point vindicated : with some reflections on another discourse of L.W. written in answer to the said exercitation : to which is added, An appendix concerning internal illumination, and other operations of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of man, justifying the doctrine of Protestants, and the practice of serious Christians, against the charge of ethusiasm, and other unjust criminations / by John Wilson ...	Wilson, John, 17th cent.	1678 (1678)	Wing W2903; ESTC R6465	125,777	376

in earnest and pathetical Expressions whether in bewailing of Sin o● petitioning for Mercy or Thanksgiving for Blessings received or dispensing the Word of Reconciliation to the People This is sharply censured by the aforesaid Author Lud. Wolzogen as savouring of Enthusiasm or bordering upon Frenzy and cunningly designed for the driving on of some ambitious ends To this I Reply We are commanded to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord and that whatsoever our hand findeth to do we should do it with our might The Psalmist says I cried with my whole heart And even that Heathen Prince to whose Royal City the Prophet Jonah was sent with a threatning message requires his Subjects to cry mightily unto God The Apostle says It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing And is there any thing so good as that it can better challenge the heighth and heat of our affections and endeavours than Religion in the services whereof we have so immediately to do with God who calls for the heart and hath declared his abhorring of a dull luke-warm temper I grant that it is too possible for Zeal to have its excesses and irregularities And among the rest there is an indiscreet Zeal sometimes appearing in some well-meaning Persons that wants the conduct of a well-order'd Judgment which as I take to be much more pardonable than a careless or prophane indifferency so I conceive it may have ministred some occasion to those vile reproaches that are cast upon all that are seriously and heartily Religious But that fervor of spirit that I undertake for and assert to be not only justifiable but commendable in the Duties of Religion is that which is raised by a right apprehension of the Object about which it is conversant guided by a composed understanding and attended with an humble awful Reverence becoming sinful dust in its appearance before the Great and Holy God Should not Sinners in their addresses to the Most High have their hearts deeply touch'd with sorrow for the sins that they apprehend themselves or others for whom they are concern'd to be guilty of or liable to Doth it become an Offender that is to beg his Pardon to do it in a stupid manner as if he had no more sense of his fault than a Stone or a Brute And what incongruity is it for us in our Petitions for Mercy to have our desires raised to the highest pitch that we can reach Is the pardoning and purifying Grace of Christ of so little worth or use to us as they need be but coldly or carelesly askt as if our words freezed between our lips or as if we did not greatly pass whether we were heard or no Or can we expect that God should hear those Petitions which we our selves scarce feel when they go from us Did ever any Malefactor plead at the Bar for his Life or an hunger-starv'd Begger crave an Alms at the door after this dull and sleepy rate And when we are blessing God for his Benefits should we not with the Psalmist call upon all our powers to praise him And should not those whose work it is to dispense the Word of Life deliver their Message in such a manner as that their Hearers may discern they are in good earnest and that the Word spoken to them is that whereon their Eternal Life or Death depends Is it not requisite that the Servants of Christ should in this work be as is recorded for the honour of Apollos fervent in spirit especially considering the quality of most Hearers who are so hardly raised to a due point of zeal and fervency that as Mr. George Herbert speaks they need a Mountain of Fire to kindle them The said worthy Author adviseth Preachers to make choice of moving and ravishing Texts and to dip and season all their Words and Sentences in their Hearts before they come into their Mouths truly affecting and cordially expressing all that they say so that the Auditors may plainly perceive that every word is heart-deep with other passages of like import In short what cause of blame is it for any in the exercises of Devotion whether publick or private to endeavour what they can to have their own and others hearts affected in some measure suitable to the work in hand and to have their expressions in some due proportion answerable to the affections of their hearts This is all I plead for and the utmost as far as I know that can be charged upon the Generality of the Persons accus'd What some particular here and there may be guilty of I am not concern'd to vindicate That there are many follies and extravagancies in some of all Perswasions he must be a great Stranger in the World that knows not and miserably enslaved to the Interest of a Party that confesseth not But the Lord knows we have all more cause to blame our selves for our coldness and remissness than others can have to blame us for too much fervor I heartily wish that both they and we were all more thorowly Baptized with this Fire But let us a little examine the pretensions of our Accusers As for the charge of Enthusiasm which some make use of to asperse what they dislike in Religion The Word saith a late Learned Author is of it self good but fallen into discredit by the vice of Men for there is an holy Enthusiasm when the Soul is wholly irradiated or enlightened of God But taking it in the worst sense as it is by these Objectors I may say of it as Mr. ●iales of Eaton once said of the words Schism and Heresie that it is made a Theological Scare-Crow For it being inconsistent with some Mens Principles to acknowledge any efficacious supernatural Operations of the Spirit of Grace upon the heart of Man and as contrary to their disposition and practice to be seriously fervent in Religion it becomes their Interest to brand whatsoever lies out of their road with the opprobrious name of Enthusiasm that is as they sometimes explain it a pretence of being acted by the Holy Spirit or a false conceit of Inspiration What the Sect of Enthusiasts was appears sufficiently by the testimony of those Learned Men who have written against them both in former and later times From whom we have this account That those who were censured and condemned by the Church of Christ under that Notion were such as slighted if not rejected the Scriptures as a dead Letter a lame and imperfect Guide insufficient to be the Rule of Faith or Practice in room whereof they profess'd to be acted by Immediate Revelations which they call'd the Internal and Spiritual Word teaching them higher Wisdom than any contain'd in the Scriptures And whatsoever was strongly suggested to them or made any vehement impression upon their minds as that which they thought they should believe or do they embraced it as a Divine Inspiration and Magisterially imposed it upon others were it

distinction and tedrously dilates upon it to amuse his Reader But the sum of all comes to this That the words of Scripture are of no further use than as they are signs of conceptions and things and under that consideration they cannot be understood unless the things signified by them be first known at least in some gross and confused manner Whereof he gives us this instance that where we sind in Scripture that God is Omniscient we cannot understand this unless we first know what God is and what Omniscience is Therefore says he all the benefit that any can get by any Book that is written is but this that it stirs up the Mind of the Reader to reflect upon the clear and distinct Idea's of those things in his Mind which the Book treats of not that the Book can of it self bring him to the true knowledge of things much less that it can beget any clear or distinct Ideas in his Mind which were not there before And thus he tells us it is with the Scripture all the use of it is to stir up the Reader or Hearer to think of the things that it propounds and inquire into them and examine them whether they be so as they are there propounded and that they may do this they must make use of Philosophy to try what is there written Therefore adds he the Scripture is to be used not that it should of it self inform us in the truth or render the truth more clear and distinct or make it more firm to us but that it may give us occasion and matter of meditating on those things which perhaps otherwise we should never have minded Therefore says he still the utility and excellency of the Scriptures above other Books consists onely in this That the things it speaks of are of so great concernment to our everlasting blessedness not for any use they are of to instruct us in the Truth This is all the use that he allows the Scripture from whence I think will inevitably follow that he owns the necessity of no knowledge of God or Religion but what is natural And so all supernatural Revelation or at least all necessity of it is denied And if there be no other use of the Written Word but what this Author assigns it it s put into the same rank with a Crucifix or a Deaths Head Indeed the whole design of his Book and of that other Tract that is prefixed to its latter Edition written as is supposed by the same Author is utterly to undermine and overthrow the credit of the Scriptures We need not wonder that he so often derides and calumniates the Protestant Doctrine of the Spirits internal illumination of the Mind which consists in curing the indisposition of the Subject and fitting it for the right understanding of Heavenly Things of which more hereafter in an Appendix to my present Discourse when he will not allow the necessity of so much as an Enternal Light for the Revelation of Supernatural Objects as acknowledging no such things And he that is thus principled must needs be very ignorant of himself and of the ruines that Sin hath made among the whole Race of Adam and the woful depravation of Mans Nature by his first Apostasie But for the Readers full satisfaction about the necessity of Supernatural Revelation I dare commend to his perusal besides many other useful Discourses that might be named that excellent Piece of the Eminently-accomplish'd Sir Charles Wolsly concerning the Reasonableness of Scripture Belief CHAP. VII 1. A fifth Argument That this would open a gap to the most pernicious Errors in Matters of Faith 2. And Practice AGain fifthly This Assertion le ts loose the Bridle to proud and wanton Wits to overthrow the Foundations of Christian Religion for though there be not the least real repugnancy between the Doctrines of Christianity and the Principles of Right Reason and Sound Philosophy which undoubtedly there is not as I have already premised and asserted yet there being no certain and infallible Record of these Principles by which as by the Rule of Judgement particular Mens Reasonings may be tried If Scripture Revelation must be interpreted by Mens Reasonings I know not the any Error that hath ever crept into the Church of Christ either in matter of Faith or Practice since the first publication of the Gospel but may be introduced anew by this Engine The heretical Blasphemies of Servetus and Socinus which sprang up of late years and those of the Marcionites and Manichees that infested the Church in former times together with the loathsome impurities of the Gnosticks who esteemed themselves the only knowing Men or to speak in the new mode the onely Rational Divines have fair way made them by this Trim Device First Let us instance in Matters of Faith whatsoever is said in Scripture about the Creation of the World the Conception of our Saviour in a Virgins Womb the Personal Union of the two Natures the Resurrection of the Body at the last Day these with many more that might be named let them be brought to the Bar of Reason and tried by its Principles as they are to be found in the Minds of Men and what will it come to We have seen already what use some Men have made of this way to subvert the weightiest Truths of the Gospel But here it will be excepted perhaps by some That the Fundamentals of Christian Religion being clear and plain in Scripture there is no fear of this inconvenience To this I answer First If Divine Revelations must be no otherwise received or understood than as Men see ground for them in their own Reason the plainest and clearest Doctrines of Scripture will be rejected I shall here give two Instances as I find them quoted by a late learned Author The one is of Socinus who says That he would not believe Christ to have satisfied for our Sins though he should read it once and again in Scripture the infallibility of the Revealer not being sufficient to establish it unless he had declared it by its causes and effects and so satisfied Mens Reason concerning the possibility of it Smalcius is the other who says That he would not believe the Incarnation of the Son of God though he should meet with it in express terms in the Bible The same Author says elsewhere that by Reason alone we determine the possibility and impossibility of the Articles of Faith To which I might add the bold assertion of a late English Remonstrant in a Volume publish'd some years ago where he says I verily believe that in case any such unchangeableness of Gods love viz. as should assure the Saints infallible perseverance were to be found in or could regularly be deduced from the Scriptures it were a just ground to any considering Man to question their Authority or whether they were from God or no. And a late Belgick Tractator having affirmed that the