Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A62445
|
Exercitations and meditations upon some texts of Holy Scripture and most in Scripture-phrase and expression. By Samuel Thomsonn, M.A. and Doctor of Physick; formerly student in Magdalen-Hall in Oxford.
|
Thomsonn, Samuel, b. 1643?
|
1676
(1676)
|
Wing T1035; ESTC R221734
|
178,823
|
458
|
it or as in the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quid deprecabor why shall I pray against it any longer Remember the case of Israel when they were even at their Journeys end near upon the borders of the promised land because of their murmuring and impatiency hear their terrible doom from the Lord As truly as I live saith the Lord as ye have spoken in mine ears Numb 14. 28 to 36. so will I do to you your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and all that were numbered of you from twenty years old and upward which have murmured against me doubtless ye shall not come into the land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein save Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshuah the son of Nun. But your little ones which ye said should be a prey them will I bring but as for you your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years and bear your whoredomes until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness After the number of the days in which ye searched the land even forty days each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities even forty years and ye shall know my breach of promise I the Lord have spoken it I will surely do it c. in this wilderness they shall be consumed and there they shall dye Take heed of fretting against the Lord and of impatiency of spirit lest the same or the like judgment befall thee But say with David as here My soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from Him EXERCITATION THE SIXTH Mark 1. 15. Repent ye and believe the Gospel HEre our Saviour sets down the way that lost man must take to come to God whom doth our blessed Lord invite to come unto Him those that labour and are heavy-laden Repentance Mat. 11. 28. and Faith are the way whereby we come unto God Christ is primarily the way for no man cometh to the Father but by Joh. 14. 6. Him He is the immediate way but these are the ways in and through Him which He hath prescribed 1. To speak of Repentance We must know our sins feel the weight of them be truly sensible of them and that we are no way able to help our selves else we will never come to Christ and never seek out for a Saviour for the whole have no need of a Mat. 9. 11. Physician but they that be sick while we think our selves whole and healthy we are well enough but it is the sin-sick Soul that sees his want and need of this great Physician the Lord Jesus So Desinition then Repentance is a hearty grief for my sins even because thereby I have broken God's holy Laws and offended such a gracious Father which works in me a hatred and loathing of sin and of my self for sin with a resolution to lead a new life Now there is a legal Division repentance which is a grief of mind through the sence of God's wrath threatned against sin without any true hatred of sin There is also secondly an Evangelical repentance which is a through change of a sinner in mind will and actions from evil to good The former of these was in Ahab who put on sack-cloth and went softly c. 1. Kings 21. 26. when he heard the evil threatned against him and his house and this may be in wicked men through fear of punishment and of hell not for their sins against God so upon the next temptation they run into sin again But Evangelical repentance which is because we have broken God's Laws and offended so gracious a Majesty this it makes us more watchful over our ways more desirous and careful to please God more Eph. 5. 15. Gen. 17. 1. Psal 16. 8. 2 Cor. 7. 10 11. fearful to offend Him more circumspect in our walking before Him setting Him before our eyes Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto life not to be repented of whereas legal repentance which is common to wicked men worketh death or is the fore-runner of death whose grief is from an apprehension of their miseries or some wounding of their Consciences for their sins without faith or amendment or conversion unto God whereby all their repentance is in them an entrance or a way to a death But behold the good effects of a serious Evangelical repentance The self-same thing that ye sorrowed after a Godly sort what sorrow it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear yea what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge I know that some do take the former part of this sentence meerly in a literal sence Wordly sorrow causeth death that is sorrow or grief for outward crosses and losses causeth such anguish of mind so affecting the body that brings sicknesses diseases and death at last We see then that true repentance is an inward and hearty sorrow for sin especially that we have offended so gracious a God and so loving a Father together with a setled purpose of heart and a careful endeavour to leave and Psal 119. 112. forsake all our sins and to live a Christian life according to all Gods Commandments So the parts of repentance are 1. A The parts of true repentance are â—our confession of sin 2. a Bewailing what we have confessed 3. Lifting our selves up with confidence in Gods mercies and Christs merits 4. With a firm purpose of abstaining from sin and obeying Gods Commandments Let us a little farther consider these 1. An humble Confession I acknowledged my sins unto thée and mine iniquities Psal 32. 5 have I not hidden I said I will confess mine iniquities unto the Lord. 2. A bewailing Dan. 9. 6. 8. Ezra 9. 6. of what we have confessed We are ashamed and blush to lift up our faâ—es to thee O our God for our iniquities are increased over our heads c. Psal 38. 18. I will be sorry for my sins 3. A lifting up of our selves in confidence of Gods mercies through Christs merits There Psal 130. 3. is mercy with thee that thou mayest be feared In the multitude of thy mercies I come unto thee with the Lord there Psal 5. â— Psal 130. 7. is mercy and with Him there is plenteous redemption And through Christs merits Christ dyed for the ungodly To Rom. 5 6. this end Christ both dyed and rose Rom. 14. 9. and revived that He might be Lord both of dead and living Christ dyed for our 1 Cor. 15. 3. 1 John 2 2. Heb. 7. 25. sins according to the Scriptures He is the Propitiation for our sins And He is able to save to the utmost all that come unto God by Him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them Fourth part of repentance is a stedfast resolution of forsaking sin and of obeying Gods holy Commandments I hate every false way whoso confesseth Psal 101. 3. Prov.
justice and judgment and so opened to him a way that he might run head-long to his own utter ruine and destruction So God confounds his implacable enemies two ways here 1. By hardness of heart which ariseth as we said before when God with-draweth His Grace from a man and leaveth him to himself so as he goeth on from sin to sin and never repenteth to the last gasp And we must esteem of it as a most fearful and terrible judgment of God for when the heart is possessed therewith it becomes so flinty and rebellious that a man will never relent or turn to God This was manifest in Pharaoh for though God sent most grievous plagues upon him and all the Land of Egypt yet would he not submit or humble himself save only for a fit while the hand of God was so heavy upon him for when the hand of God was removed he returned to his former obstinacy wherein he persisted until he was drowned in the red Sea And this judgment of God of hardness of heart is the more fearful because when a man is in the midst of all misery he feels no misery 2. God confounds His enemies as by hardness of heart so by final desperation I say final because all kind of desperation is not evil for a man may despair of himself and of his own power in the matter of Salvation which tends to his everlasting comfort But final desperation is when a man utterly despairs of the pardon of his sins and of everlasting life Examples we have in Saul that slew himself in Achitophel and Judas that hanged themselves c. This sin of desperation is caused thus so many sins as thou committest without repentance so many wounds thou givest to thine own soul and in life or death God will make thee to feel the smart of it and the weight of them all whereby the soul sinks down to the gulph of despair without recovery The sins which thou committest lye at the door of thy heart though thou feel them not as God said unto Cain Gen. 4. 7. sin lyeth at the door and if thou dost not prevent them by speedy and timely repentance God will make thee to feel them once before thou dyest and raise up such terrours in thy Conscience that thou shalt think thy self to be in Hell before thou art there They that were sent from the chief Priests c. to apprehend Christ though He had acknowledged I am He and they were astonished and fell to the ground and He had miraculously healed Joh. 18. 12. Malchus his ear yet for all though they had seen his wonderful power both in word and deed they proceed in malice against Him and bind Him as a Malefactor In this we note what a fearful sin hardness of heart is The danger whereof appears in this that if a man be possessed with it there is nothing that can stay or daunt him in his wicked proceedings no not the powerful words and deeds of our Saviour Himself And indeed among all God's judgments there is none more fearful than this of hardness of heart and yet how rife is it among us even in these our days For it is very evident that the more men are taught the Doctrine of Gods Law and Gospel the more hard and senseless are their hearts like unto an anvil the more it is beaten upon with the iron hammer the harder it is So that that denunciation against the Jews Acts 28. 26 27. is fulfilled in them It is such a terrible judgment of God into which when a man is fallen he feels neither pain nor grief Therefore we have cause with fear and trembling to look into it lest it take such hold of us that we be past all hopes of recovery Sin is a deceitful thing and custom in sin brings hardness of heart therefore read that Heb. 3. 13. and Rom. 2. 5. Let us bewail and be humbled for our hardness of heart whereby we are hindered from knowing and acknowledging God aright and from discerning His glory and Majesty from acknowledging God's judgments or our own sins dreaming we are safe from God's vengeance and such perils and miseries which arise from sin whereas all those out of Christ and in this estate have nothing stands between them and vengeance EXERCITATION THE TENTH Exod. 31. 13 14 15 16 17. Verily my Sabbath ye shall keep for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctifie you Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore for it is holy unto you every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death for whosoever doth any work therein that soul shall be cut off from among his people Six days may work be done but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest holiness to the Lord. Whosoever doth any work in the Sabbath-day he shall surely be put to death Wherefore the Children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations for a perpetual Covenant It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel for ever for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh He rested Exod. 20. 8. Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy HEre we have the Commandment of God for the strict observation of the Sabbath-day No one Commandment so often iterated or so much pressed This Commandment requireth at the hand of every man one day of seven in every week to be set a-part unto a holy rest and requireth all persons to separate themselves from their ordinary labour and all other exercises to God's Service alone on that day that so being severed from their worldly businesses and all the works of their Labours and Callings concerning this Nehem. 13. 15. 22. life they may wholly attend to the Worship of God alone wholly to separate themselves to the Worship and Service of God that they may with more freedom of Spirit perform the same If Adam in his perfection had need of this holy day as it was first enjoyned in the state of innocency much more Gen. 2. 2 3. have we To teach man from time to time on the Sabbath-day to withdraw himself from the cares and labours of this life to apply himself in freedom and tranquillity of mind to the meditations and actions of a spiritual life Q. But some will say this fourth Commandment is ceremonial and so it is taken away by the death of Christ A. I answer No but it is constantly and perpetually to be observed 1. For it is placed in the number of the ten Commandments which are perpetual otherwise the Moral Law should consist but of nine which is contrary to God's Word And He declared unto Deut. 4. 13. you His covenant which He commanded you to perform even ten Commandments 2. Because this fourth Commandment among the rest and in the middle of them as a Diamond in a ring was written