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
A44069	A cordiall against the feare of death delivered in a sermon before the Vniversity of Oxford May 28, 1654 / by Thomas Hodges.	Hodges, Thomas, d. 1688.	1659 (1659)	Wing H2318; ESTC R27407	21,172	40

3 He might feare lest his being taken away at such a time and by such a violent disease t is thought by some it was the plague might open the mouths of his enemies to triumph and say that this evill was therefore come upon him because he had broken down their Altars 4 Possibly he himselfe might upon the sudden look upon this message of death as a messenger bringing him tidings of Gods displeasure and for this cause he might weep at the newes of death And secondly as concerning other good men or women who have feared Death I answer 1 that of right they ought not to fear it Christ hath set open the prison doors and if they use the meanes they may be free from their feares t is their ignorance of their strength in Christ and deaths weaknesse which makes them fear death If the children of light be kept ever in darknesse and not see that there are more for them then can be against them they will be afraid of death and his followers or 2ly it may be they neglect to put on the whole armour of God when they grapple with principalities and powers and particularly with the power of death or they go out rashly in their own strength without seeking of auxiliary forces from heaven to help them or it may be they do not use their shield of faith in Christ who by death overcame death and therefore it is that they are overcome for a while of the fear of death Or lastly as t is said of Gad so I may say of these a troop may overcome them Gen. 49.19 but they shall overcome at the last and though their hearts faile them for fear in the beginning yet they shall be as David and as the Angel of the Lord strengthning him they shall be couragious and more than conquerors in the conclusion over death and hell and all their feares of them And now if on the other side we see any wicked men children of the Devill who seem to us undaunted at death Job 41.33 who seem to us like the great Leviathan concerning whom ye know t is said upon earth there is not his like who is made without feare I say either 1 that the Devill it may be hath blinded their eyes that so he might lead them into the bottomlesse pit before they so much as feare or fancy it He is so subtle that he will not torment them before the time that he may be more sure to torment them to all eternity Again they may oft-times perhaps have a hell in their consciences whilst they seem to us to be in a fools paradise If they feel no fear of death temporall or eternall t is surely because they are dead in their sins and trespasses and their consciences are seared with a hot iron I am perswaded the soule of the boldest wicked man on earth was never so fearlesse all the time that it was in the body but that when it sees it must go out of the body and goe into hell it feares and trembles to go forth how free and jolly would it deem it selfe might it but abide in the prison of the body for ever but to say no worse of such these dye desperately but the righteous hath hope in his death Use And now are these things so is fear so terrible a bondage and especially the fear of death and hell and are all out of Christ lyable and obnoxious to this horrid and hellish slavery and that all their life time oh that this truth might be to every one that hears it and is out of Christ like the handwriting upon the wall to Belshazzar that it might fill him with fear and that he might go home full of fear and that his feares like some ghost might haunt him and give him no rest whilst he continues in his naturall unregenerate condition I desire this Doctrine may scare them but not hurt them And you who are indeed and know it subject to this grievous bondage the feare of death and hell I desire you would go to the hart and hare and such like fearefull creatures that you would consider and learn their wayes and be wise 1 They are very cautelous and watchfull T is said of the hare that she sleeps with her eye-lids open Let us be vigilant and circumspect and keep a constant guard upon all the wayes and inlets of sin for sin fear death and hell all enter in at the same port or door 2 Fearfull creatures are very nimble to fly from danger Let us fly from sin as from the face of a serpent remembring alway that the sting of death is sin 3 Fearfull creatures get hiding places to which they run and are safe the Hart that is animal timidissimum a most fearfull creature hath a hiding place on the tops of mountains hence that expression Psalm 18.33 He maketh my feet like hindes feet and setteth me upon my high places and the stony rocks are a hiding place for the coneys Psal 104.18 Let us get a hiding place in that Rock that is higher then our selves in the Lord Christ and then we need not fear that mighty hunter the Devill when he pursues us Le ts hide our selves in the clefts of this rock now and then we shall not need one day to call for the rocks to fall on us and for the hills to cover us Be convinced that by nature we are dead in sins and trespasses come to Christ by a true and a lively faith this is the way to passe from death to life live in and to and for Christ much for the time to come and you need not fear temporall and eternall death for surely you have eternall life abiding in you Fear God with all your hearts with a filiall fear this will provoke you to diligence and obedience and watchfulnesse and then you shall not you ought not to fear with a slavish fear what death or the Devill can do unto you time at mortem qui Deum non timet Let him feare death who feareth not God What shall I say more get abundance of love to God and good evidences of Gods love to you and Love both this and that is as strong as death and then having two such strong and mighty champions with you and for you you need not fear death come when he will for you are more then his match And so I come to Apply the third and last observation Use Infor. Are Christians thus delivered from the slavish fear of death temporall and eternall then this may informe us 1 that Christians are the freest men in the world they are not in bondage no not unto death they were not borne free nor with a great summe of moneys obteined they this freedome but the Son of God hath made them free and therefore they are free indeed Againe 2ly hence we may be informed that Christians are the valiantest and most couragious champions in the world If thus they are not

need not slavishly to fear death I know nature is averse to and trembles at dissolution and the pure and holy nature of Christ did with submission to his fathers will decline suffering and feare dying and it is sufficient for the servant that he be as his Master A naturall ordinate moderate feare of death a Christian may have but yet he doth not slavishly feare death or hell he knows the one cannot hurt him and the other hath nothing in him a haire of his head shall not fall to the ground and not so much as the smell of hell fire shall ever passe on him Christians have no need to fear death it can let it do its worst but kill the body it cannot cast body or soule into hell fire and wherefore then should Christians feare it the shell the body may in death be broken or worm-eaten but the kernell the soul that is untouched the wormes cannot touch that Besides death is a hiding place or Sanctuary to Christians for a time till all the sore calamities of this miserable world are overpast and men in distresse do not fly from but to places and cities of refuge Againe they may look on death as a period of all evill as a forerunner as an in let to all blessednesse a darke entry leading them to the father of lights they find death in the Inventory of their good things 1 Cor. 3.21 22. For all things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world Revel 14.13 or life or death Even so saith the Spirit Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Alacres accedunt ad mortem tanquam ad aerumnarum terminum melioris vitae exordium Corn. Alap They approach death cheerfully as the end of their troubles and the beginning of a better life How unhappy were Christians if they could not dye they would not live alway It is enough say they with Elijah a little altered take away our lives 1 King 15.4 that we may be better with our fathers nay that we may be ever with the Lord which is best of all Vitam habent in patientia mortem in desiderio they are patient of life or content to live but desirous to dye Of old it was grown to a kind of Proverb soli Christiani mortis contemptores Christians were the men who contemned death In the Martyrologie we find Justus and Pastor the one of seven the other of nine yeares of age offering themselves to Martyrdome for Christ A godly man dies willingly though at the stake saying with the first Martyr Stephen Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Act. 7.59 but t is observed by some that the rich fool dyed unwillingly this night saith the text do they require thy soul of thee he would not dye but he must Luk. 12.20 gr Farther Christians are freed by Christ and by his dying from the slavish feare of death and hell or temporall and eternall death For 1 Christ hath destroyed him that had the power of death i. e. the Devill non quod personam aut substantiam diaboli destruxerit annihilârit sed quia ejus regnum imperium destruxit Corn. Alap He hath not destroyed or annihilated the person or substance of the Divell but he hath destroyed his Kingdome and Empire Christ hath despoyled the Devill of that right or power which he sometimes had by permission or sufferance from God to tempt and torment them by reconciling them by his death unto God Now since Christ hath made our peace with God the Devils power to tempt us in this life is much limited and restrained if we be in Christ and his power to torment us after death is totally abolished He hath delivered us from the power of Satan Act. 26.18 from the power of darknesse Col. 1.13 Ita prostratus est saith Calvin speaking of the Devill ut pro nihilo habendus sit ac si nullus foret the Devill is so vanquished as if he signified nothing now as if there was no Devill at all as to believers And Christ conquerd the Devill beat him out of his Kingdome and Empire which he sometimes had over us his Subjects with his own weapon he slew him as it were with his own sword hostem suis ipsius armis confecit Christus saith Beza Christ by death overcame him that had the power of death when he hung upon the crosse See Colos 2.15 Ephes 4.8 he spoiled principalities and powers and when he ascended up on high he led captivitie captive and made a shew of them openly triumphing over them The Devill first got his power to torment us with death temporall and eternall and with the fear and horror of both by tempting us to sin and by that meanes tyrannized over man putting him to death cruelly and malitiously but now Christ became sin for us our sins were laid upon him and he died for our sins and by his death overcame the Devill the great Leviathan did bite at the flesh of Christ or his humane nature sed captus fuit hamo Divinitatis but he was caught by his divinity as with a hook yea the divine power of Christ is such a hook in his nostrills that he can and will hinder him from tyrannizing over and tormenting as formerly he did those that are Christs And truly the Devil hath justly forfeited his power for his malice against Christ and his presumption in setting upon Christ the Captain of our salvation when he once appeared but in the Similitude of sinfull flesh 2. Because Christ hath destroyed the power and dominion of Sin he hath by his death taken away the condemning power and purchased the Spirit to destroy the commanding power of Sin in his so that sin shall no more raigne in our mortall bodyes Sin shall no more have dominion over us since Christ dying for sin hath condemned Sin in the flesh 3. That Christ hath delivered true Christians from the feare of Death appeares in that he hath freed them from the damning power of the Law the strength of sin as to its condemning power is the Law but Christ in this regard as to those that are Christs hath nayled the Law to his crosse yea the law was not made for a righteous man sayth the Scripture 1 Tim 1.9 and such are justified persons by the death of Christ Farther t is said against such there is no law Gal. 5.23 and that we might be yet delivered from all our tormenting feares hear what the Apostle Paul sayth Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ 4 In that Christ by his death hath abolished death to the godly I had all-most said Name and Thing he hath taken away the sting of death he hath beat out the teeth of this evill and venemous beast Death came with open mouth upon Christ like a roaring Lyon as he went down that way but Christ hath slaine the Lyon and now out of the eater comes meat and out of