Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	dead_a	sin_n	trespass_n	4,880	5	10.3889	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30997	A sermon preached before the King at Newmarket April 24, 1670 by Miles Barne ...	Barne, Miles, d. 1709?	1670 (1670)	Wing B860; ESTC R12579	11,761	37

would have blasted the credit of his miracles they used such a ridiculous argument as onely served to prove how well they deserved that character which Christ gave of them viz. that they were of their Father the Devil or more then so since they endeavoured to exceed him in his essential property of lying and calumniating Then as for his Offices He was to be a King Infidel Jews and so he was though not as ye vainly imagined that he should prove a victorious Prince conquer all the Nations of the earth by the dint of his Sword And that all the Potentates of the world should lay down their Sceptres at his Triumphant feet From which of your Prophets could ye fetch this conceit At his coming were not swords to be beaten into Plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks And therefore surely he never intended to march in Battel aray or to engage in any bloudy Conquests Was not he to be lowly riding upon an Ass and a Colt the Foal of an Ass and therefore a despiser of the Pomp and Grandeur of this world Did he not plainly disown all Sovereignty here on Earth My kingdom is not of this World And indeed what though he had been more victorious than Alexander won more Battels than ever Cesar did Would this have given him a renown comparable to those victories which he obtained over hearts their unruly passions and appetites What though he had appeared in more magnificent splendour than Herod when he sat on his gaudy Throne would this have been a Garb half so becoming the Son of God as those Robes of Righteousness which made him shine so bright in the world His Kingly Power was conspicuous in more illustrious Instances through the whole System of the Creation The Angels were ambitious to minister unto him The Devils trembled at his word and fell like lightning before him The wind and the Sea obeyed him Hunger and Thirst those impatient desires waited his leisure Sickness and Health Death and the Grave and Hell it self were forced to acknowledge his Sovereignty As for his Priestly Office The Aaronical part of it he dispatched by offering himself a sacrifice to his incensed Father And doth he not still continue a Priest after the Order of Melchizedek in blessing us and crowning us with the Gifts and Graces of the Holy Ghost As for his Prophetical office which consisted first in making known to us the Will of God This he did through the whole course of his Life but especially in that Divine Sermon on the Mount wherein he added whatsoever was wanting explained whatsoever was obscure in the Old Law and propounded Blessedness upon such easie suitable and pleasant Terms that we cannot miss of Heaven without making our selves miserable on Earth As for the second part of it which consisted in foretelling things to come of this he gave many Instances particularly that sad one of the destruction of Jerusalem which he sighed out in the very anguish of his Soul O Jerusalem Jerusalem Behold your House is left unto you Desolate Which was accordingly accomplished by the Romans under the conduct of Titus about the 70 year of our Lord. When the miserable Jews too late found him a true Prophet to their cost For from that very time they became a most distressed and despised Nation Instead of being any longer the Darlings of Heaven the People of God and the Seed of the Faithful they became the scorn of men the refuse of the Earth and a Proverb of Infidelity An instance so dismal attended with such Tragical circumstances that it alone is enough to strike terrour into all those who will not believe that Jesus is the Son of God But if to this we add the miracles which he performed The Divinity of his sayings For never man spake like him The unblameableness of his Life For he did no sin neither was guile found in his Mouth If to these the infallible testimony of the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost the Confession of the Demoniack What have I to do with Thee Jesus Thou Son of God most high If to these the dismal Prodigies which happened at his Death As the renting of the Vail of the Temple to shew the Abrogation of the Old Law the cleaving of the Rock to upbraid the more stony hearts of his Crucifiers The total Eclipse of the Sun that it might not behold the setting of the Sun of Righteousness If to these his powerful Resurrection and after he had conversed fourty days upon Earth his no less wonderful Ascension And lastly the great esteem his very enemies had of him manifested in the motion which Tiberius made to the Senate for his Apotheosis He who seriously considers these things will be forced to confess with the Centurion truly this was the Son of God Which Confession is that Faith which overcometh the World And that it may prove effectual it must be duly Qualified The second thing to be considered What are the necessary Qualifications to render our Faith victorious 1. Then our Faith must be lively Warm and Active For if a dull languid habit of Faith would do the great work of our Salvation Then might those who are dead in trespasses and sins hope for as fair an inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven as any who by mortifying their earthly members raised themselves to newness of Life Then might those lazy cowardly souls who never had courage enough to give Battle to any one single Lust expect the same recompense of reward with those generous spirits who by the difficult and assiduous Acquists of virtue obtained a noble Victory over themselves Then might the Regions of Purity be defiled by things common and unclean And Heaven be so far from being a reward that it would be as much shunned by all good men as Hell is now dreaded by the wicked If an Historical notional Faith would serve our turn then might Lucifer and his cursed crew hope to regain their first glorious estate For the very Devils believe and tremble notwithstanding we are ascertain'd that they are reserved in everlasting chains under Darkness unto to the judgement of the great Day In sum then that I may neither enter into dispute with the Solifidian concerning Justification by Faith alone nor yet contend with the Romanist whether good works have any part in that glorious Act I am sure Saint James is positive in his determination For as the Body without the Spirit is Dead so is Faith without works also And consequently no more able to obtain that difficult Victory which is here attributed to a lively Faith then a dead Body is to perform the functions of Life And indeed as Epicurus was the greatest Atheist in the world in allowing the existence of God but then as if he had suspected either his Prudence or Justice in managing the affairs of the world complementing him out of his Sovereignty over it for fear of disturbing

conquered the world Thus the Fathers and Prophets of old obtained a good report Thus fought the noble Army of Martyrs And thus must all the Professours of Christianity behave themselves in their several combates with the world For This is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith That I may then proceed Methodically and speak distinctly to the several parts of my Text. I must shew what this Faith is which overcometh the world What are the necessary Qualifications to render it victorious That this Faith so Qualified is the surest and best way of overcoming the world What this Faith is which overcometh the world I need not go far to seek The next words to the Text resolve the doubt 'T is the Believing that Jesus is the Son of God that he is the true Messias and consequently the Believing all his Threats and Promises the obeying all his Precepts and Commands But because we live in a sceptical Age an Age which is apt to strike at the very Foundation of all Religion and with Celsus that Drolling Atheist to object against the Christians that which makes them so their very Faith as if the Doctrines of Christianity were received without due examination Though this Objection might very well be retorted upon themselves For who I pray are greater Dictatours then the Opposers of Religion And must not their followers be strangely credulous who embrace the Prescripts of fallible men in opposition to the Word of eternal Truth Yet I shall briefly endeavour to shew that Christ the second Person in the Trinity whom we adore in expectation of eternal salvation was the true Messias Taking then for granted the Divine authority of the Scriptures the Writings of the Old and New Testament Though this must not be thought a Begging the Question since there are better Arguments to prove them so then can be produced for the truth of Salust Livy or any the most Authentick Historians This granted 't is manifest that immediately upon the fall of Adam the Messias was promised The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head and consequently raise his posterity to an higher pitch of preferment than the integrity of his Creation entituled them to That Christ born in the fulness of time was the then promised Messias is manifest since in him were fulfilled all the Prophesies relating either to the Birth Life Person or offices of the Messias To begin with the First The coming of Elias foretold by the Prophet Malachi Behold I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. Was not this accomplished by his forerunner Saint John Baptist who by preaching repentance by an extraordinary severity and gravity suitable to that Doctrine prepared the ways of the Lord and made his paths strait And are not the Jews most sottishly barbarous who will needs fetch Elias from Abrahams bosom that place of Rest and so make him a second time undergo the miseries of this life for the fulfilling this prophesie since whatsoever benefit they expected from him they might have reaped from the strict pattern of the holy Baptist whose life did so exactly resemble if not outdo the Austerities of Elias that unless they were wilfully blind they must needs conclude him to be but a type of Saint John Baptist As for the Prophesie of Isaiah Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son He that denieth such to have been the miraculous Birth of Christ doth him a greater outrage then his most malicious enemies the Jews ever offered him though they had most severe Laws against Adulterers and means sufficient to prove that he was not born in marriage for which they might have had the Confession of Joseph his reputed Father and Mary his Mother The place of his Nativity was expressly appointed by the Prophet Micah to be Bethlehem in Judea And is it not manifest that Christ born there was the very person designed by the Prophet as well by the answer which Herod gave to the wise men after he had enquired of the Doctours of the Law where he should be born as by that unparallelled murther when he found himself mocked by them of about fourteen hundred infants that so he might be sure to cut him off whom the Jews at that time most earnestly expected for their Deliverer So horrid a Massacre that nothing but a cursed jealousie of loosing his usurped power could have made the bloudy Tyrant guilty of it Then as for the manner and condition of his life foretold by Isaiah that he should be despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Were not all these doleful passages verified in Christ Did he not spend about thirty years of his Life in a solitary abject condition When he made himself known unto the world was he not upbraided with the meanness of his parentage Is not this the Carpenters Son Was he not a man of sorrows when in his Agony he complained that his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto Death And was he not acquainted with grief when he uttered those Tragical words upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Those words of David they pierced my hands and my feet apparently specifie the manner of his Death And they must relate to Christ since in Davids time there was no such punishment in fashion among the Jews And were not all the other circumstances of it fulfilled to the least Punctilio For what could make those rude souldiers who pierced his Sacred Side that the scripture might be fulfilled They shall look on him whom they have pierced so civil as not to break his legs also was not this done that another might be fulfilled A bone of him shall not be broken Was not likewise his Resurrection foreshewn by the same holy Writer Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see Corruption David could not speak this of himself since he was laid unto his Fathers put to bed in the dust and suffered the corruption of the grave But it had its completion in Christ who according to his promise rose again from the Dead in spite of all the attempts of the Jews to the contrary their sealing the Stone and setting a strict Watch For it was impossible that the Conquerour of Death should be detained Prisoner by the Grave Were not all the miracles which were to be wrought by the Messias fully performed by him He gave eyes to the blind ears to the deaf speech to the dumb feet to the lame restored the dead to life These were such stupendious things as surpassed the power of Nature for their greatness exceeded the slight of Magick for their reality and were directly contrary to any Diabolical design for as much as they aimed at the good and benefit of mankind And 't is very observable that when the snarling Pharisees