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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	death_n	sin_n	sin_v	6,726	5	9.1768	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65195	Two treatises ... both written by Sir Henry Vane, Knight in the time of his imprisonment.	Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Epistle general, to the mystical body of Christ on earth.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Face of the times.	1662 (1662)	Wing V80_PARTIAL; Wing V67_PARTIAL; ESTC R7026	96,369	132

Evangelists or Pastors and Teachers So there are of these inferiour Ranks to the Apostles which hear and receive the knowledge of the Gospel and the holy Ghost either from the mouths of the Apostles and by the laying on of their hands as did the Evangelists or by other subordinate instituted means that is to say either inwardly onely by the inspiration of Angels thereunto sent and authorized by Christ as to Philip in the case of the Eunuch's Conversion and to Abraham and the Patriarchs after him four hundred years together before the written Word was given and who before the Incarnation were made use of to give the Law which is there called the Word spoken by Angels Heb. 2. 1. Or secondly by the communication of such Gifts for interpreting and opening of the written Word as we find in the Church of Corinth and this by such Prophetical Gifts as not only the Officers did partake of to fit them for the Ministry but secondly the very Members of the Church also shared in for the common edification of the Body So that either by inward Inspiration from Angels under Christ or by the witnessing Spirit of Christ immediately which is the Spirit of Prophecy or by Gifts of Abilities in a more ordinary way for the interpreting and opening the Scriptures Christ hath alwayes had his Labourers in his Harvest And all these several Degrees in the Ministry as they are found in subordination subserviency and agreement one with another in their place and differing measures do make sweet harmony and redound to great profit in the Church But if they break their Ranks and the inferiour exalt and lift up themselves in preference above and opposition to the superiour and greater measures these then corrupt and set up for themselves or are made use of by him that knows how to transform his ministers into Ministers of Righteousness to advance his Kingdom and turn bitter and implacable Enemies and Persecutors of the Womans Seed and true Spiritual Worshippers Let it not then be said that to be against the Ministry in this last sense is to be against all Ministry especially such who acknowledge Christ the Chief Minister and great Ordainer of God's Worship and all those to be his Ministers that have Unction and Mission from him in all the Orders and Degrees of them wherein they are acknowledged by the Scriptures whom God hath pleased to make use of to bear the Witness committed to them during Antichrist's Reign in a suffering sackcloth prophesying state which will not lose its fruit but become a sweet savour of life unto life in them that are saved and a favour of death unto death in them that perish We now shall proceed to the next Enquiry which is Who they are that in Principles are opposit to these two Anointings and the Effects of them and declare their Enmity by their continued War in the posture of our Enemies or dissembled Friends both making up but the same Kingdom of Darkness which since Christs coming is called Antichrists Righteousness and Truth are the two supporters of Christ's Throne with the frist God enlightens and quickens the natural beings of Angels and men who in their mutable and uncertain state are possessors of Righteousness in purity and perfection whilst they are and may be strangers to Truth that is firmness and certainty which is as the Crown and Top-stone to the first Building And therefore the Light of Truth which is a clearness in the Judgment that had a right discerning before that doth fix it and ascertain it beyond all possible doubt and contradiction and the activity of Truth which is a stedfastness and pressing forward in the Will wherein may be found righteous operation before to run in that race and never fail nor faint is most necessary to follow and succeed where the first goes before as that which is its consummation and final perfection In the breast where these two Lights meet imbrace and kiss each other there is the true Vrim and Thummim the Divine enlightned mind which makes all those wherein it is found free Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem and beloved Children and Subjects of Christs Kingdom As it is written Joh. 3 19 20 21. Light is come into the world Light in both these respects is come to dwell with us in our own nature when the Word was made flesh and to be amongst us in our mouth and in our heart to hear it and obey it Whence it is that this is said to be the Condemnation of the World that Light is thus come in the person of our Redeemer the second Adam and men have notwithstanding loved Darkness better than Light because of the contrariety that is in the evil deeds of men unto the very nature of Light which makes manifest and reproves them and from thence contracts hatred from evil men very unjustly who love not to be discovered in their wickedness nor to be under censure and reproof for it but perfectly hate thus to be discovered and judged and that is at bottom the quarrel and rise of the enmity between the Subjects of these two Kingdoms of Darkness and of Light Hatred and enmity against the Light of Righteousness and Truth which shine forth in Jesus Christ as in the head and in his Witnesses and Children as the members in what hearts soever they are found are in general the opposit Principles we are now speaking of and the Root or Cause whence those spring is from the love that such hearts at bottom do bear unto evil that is to say to unrighteousness and falshood which they prefer and adhere unto before the Light of the Image of God which is wrought out in Christ and in his members Of these lovers of Darkness more than Light we are to consider Either first such as are born blind and are already darkned in their understandings and alienated in their wills by evil works dead in trespasses and sins Or secondly such as have their Light freely restored to them again for asking and however so much of it as may make them sensible of the need of more and to discern the means of their perfect cure Or thirdly Such as after their first Light restored are offered the gift of a better sight than ever they had at first which shall not only enlarge what they had at first in their primitive purity but preserve it in an endless life without any possible danger ever to lose it more For the first It is the condition of all Mankind in general and was the effect that followed upon the sin of our first Parents by which door Death entred and passed upon all men because in them all had sinned Nor did this befall the Children meerly or principally because of sin as if that were the end that God had in it but that the works of God's Grace should be manifested thereby For no sooner did the disease and wound appear but God had provided a Physician and healing

as in a wilderness condition for 1260 years now near expired And although from that state of servitude and hard bondage unto which you have been exposed by the Rulers no wrestlings or contendings by humane wisdom and power have availed to work your deliverance because the appointed time set by God is not come Yet this ought to be your comfort that so soon as that time comes there will then need very little other help than the Grave it self to cast you forth as the Womb doth her fruit which it cannot longer detain For of this be assured that Christ's dead body mystical can no more be held in its figurative grave after the set time is come than his natural body could in his literal grave Acts 2. 24. where it is said that after Christ by wicked hands had been slain God raised him up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible he should be held of it Nor are you to be too much grieved and discouraged in this your low depressed and dead estate under the rage and indignation of the World and Powers of it since to you is the promise of Life and Resurrection and you are sure for the present to be fed in the Wilderness and to be kept green and flourishing in your inward man by secret dew inspired and distilled from Heaven whatever perishing and decays are brought upon your outward where you are bearing the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus Hearken therefore to the Call that is given you of retiring inward into the life of your Head and Root the life that is hid with Christ in God And as the means to be so with more freedom labour to keep the door of your sensual part shut and fast closed about you as much as may be that the noise and diversions of this sinful and unquiet World may not disturb nor interrupt you For though through impatience and unbelief you may be arguing and concluding against your selves as the whole house of Israel did Ezek. 37. 11. that your bones are dried your hope is lost and you are cut off for your parts yet ye shall know that the Lord he is God when he hath opened and brought you up out of your graves v. 13. He will then own you visibly for his people by wonderfully putting his Spirit within you and causing you to live And when you see this your heart shall rejoyce and your bones shall flourish like an herb and the hand of the Lord shall be known towards you his servants and his indignation towards his enemies He hath the weapons of his vengeance in readiness full Vials of his wrath to be poured forth by his heavenly Militia and Troops upon the Beast and his Worshippers when all humane means fail This you are therefore to know that though the Saints who have adventured to oppose the Beast and the kingdom of Antichrist all along contending in a good Cause have been still crushed and subdued as is foretold Rev. 13. 7. yet the time is coming yea is even at the very door for God to take the business into his own hands and to put forth the power of his wrath by heavenly Instruments forasmuch as the earthly ones as you have seen have proved ineffectual And this ought to be a teaching to us to depend upon God for the avenging of his people even when all humane ability to perform it is vanished and not hastily to run out in the use of any indirect means though tempted and allured thereunto But to return to the things which we propound to set before you in this Epistle They are reducible unto these particulars following 1. First The sight and knowledge of Christ as he is the Invisible and Holy One from whom as from the Head all natural as well as spiritual good doth flow 2. Secondly Christ's Headship exercised by him ever since his Ascension as he is the Son of man glorified and this in the two distinct branches and administrations of it The one that wherein he is the Lord and restorer of pure incorrupt Nature upon the Principles of the first Covenant renewed and confirmed in his blood The other that in which he is the giver of the Holy Ghost or the Minister of the Spirit and new Name as Ointment poured forth which where it is received upon the Principles of the new Covenant never fails but abides with such for ever 3. Thirdly The true Annointed Ones or Witnesses of Christ according to both his before-mentioned Administrations and the Annointing which is given by the one and by the other 4. Fourthly Those that in Principles are opposite unto these two Annointings and the effects of them declaring their enmity in and by the continued war they maintain against them in the posture of open enemies or dissembled friends both making up but one and the same Kingdom of Antichrist 5. Fifthly What Word and part of his Counsels contained in the Promises and Prophesies not yet accomplished is the Lord now fulfilling in the present dispensations of our day 1. To the first 'T is the Testimony which came out of Christ's own mouth concerning Himself and his Father Luke 1. 22. That no man knows who the Son is but the Father nor who the Father is but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal Him which plainly declares that the beings both of the Father and of the Son are great and hidden Mysteries The one as well as the other is mystical and invisible and must be taught and revealed before it can be truly and fully known and understood what they are Agreeable to this is that Joh. 1. 18. No man hath seen God at any time that is immediately but by the means of the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him The Son therefore who is the only begotten is said to be the Image of the invisible God The first name and similitude whereby God is possible and capable to be known to others beside himself For by and from Him as the Head the knowledge and fruit of the whole Deity is derived and communicated in such fit Images and lively Representations as He hath fore-determined within himself to be known by unto his whole Creation from the beginning to the end thereof Hence it is that we find Christ the Mediator by the Prophet Isa 43. 10. speaking of himself after this manner Ye are my Witnesses saith the Lord and my Servant whom I have chosen The Lord the Mediator hath and owns for his Witnesses the Womans Seed in the head and in the members the promised Seed in his Servant the Branch the chief and principal one and in his Brethren the same Seed and who are made to bear his Fathers Name by Adoption as well as himself and to continue it for ever that one Seed Gal. 3. which saith the Apostle is Christ the mystical body that are Heirs according to promise Ye are my Witnesses sayes

Medicine which declared the Case as yet which Man was in not so desperate but he might be restored and not only so but have an additional sight given to him that should make him see better than ever he did before For the second It is also that state which is common to all that have sinned and upon whom Death hath passed as to the alienation of their minds from the Life of God whose teeth are set on edge by the sowr grapes that were eaten by our first Parents and therefore by way of free gift are restored by the benefit of the Ransom paid by the Redeemer on their behalf to such a degree of enlightning and renewed Righteous Life as is a Lamp or Candle lighted in the soul of every one that comes into the World in which little they are put to the proof of their faithfulness how far they care or desire to hearken to it or not that which is the work of the Law written in their hearts by Christ as a Record and Witness against them if it be slighted and abused whereby there is a Witness set up in the very natural Conscience as a light in a dark place that is ever accusing or excusing as the action done doth deserve To this Light in the Conscience which is the Law within us must every one stand or fall as to matter of information or proof how that soul hath shewed it self in this state whether a lover of Darkness more than of Light for this will either shew it self our Friend or our Enemy as we behave our selves in receiving of its instruction and following its guide and submitting to its reproof For he that is faithfull in the least is to be presumed he will be faithfull in much and he that is unjust in the least will be also unjust in much So that Christ may truly and justly say to such If they have not shewed themselves faithful in the unrighteous Mammon or uncertain Riches who will commit to their trust the true Treasure And thence it is that all those who in this state of proof and tryal under this first dispensation of Light declare themselves Enemies in a fixed Rebellion and hardning against the Teaching and Dictates thereof they plainly shew that they love the Disease better than the Remedy and had rather continue blind than have their sight and limbs restored to use them as they ought and by the Law they are obliged to do for running with delight and continuance in the race of God's Commandements and had rather perish in their sins than believe in Christ and by believing be freed and saved from the wrath that is to come The Natural Conscience in this sense corrupted heardned and become unreclaimable by refusing Reproof and perfectly hating all those that set about their recovery and restitution out of this their bondage under what ever Name or outward Profession of Religion and Divine Worship it be found in doth afford the first sort of Subjects whereof the kingdom of Darkness doth consist a Region like to that where Abraham coming in his Travels did pronounce The fear of God is not in this place nothing of Conscience was there owned or practised but the Contrary of open Prophanenesse or Idolatry The Third state is that which is not of such general extent but a more peculiar condescention and effect of God's bounty and good will to some sinners beyond others in admitting them to a farther and higher proof than the former and therefore doth vouchsafe them a greater measure and gift of the Spirit and work of Restauration out of their natural blindness and death for with a mighty hand and a stretched out Arm and with many Signs and Wonders he brings them as he did Israel of old out of the house of Bondage and by the Angel of his Presence saved them from the hands of their Enemies and offered to lead them into the state of rest and immutability which he had prepared for them and therein did propound to give them a better sight and fuller fruition of himself than in the way of meer Restauration they could attain unto For as to the Restauration and Freedom out of Egypt God's Work was perfect and a just and right God he had shewed himself to them nevertheless they that were new come to have the use of their sight and their feet again to be washed with Water and anointed with Oyl and when they were in their blood God bid them Live and made them again living Souls yet like an unwise and foolish People they very evilly requited this bounty and goodness of the Lord and of the Rock that begat them and of the God that formed them they were very unmindful and proved themselves a very froward and provoking Generation Children in whom was no stedfastness nor that cared to use the means to be made so when it was offered but they rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit that is as Steven interprets it They blasphemed and resisted the Holy Ghost and refused the Teachings of that Miristry by which the Truth is conveyed in the love of it which would for ever free them from the power and dominion of sin and for ever fix them in the Kingdom of Christ and make them Pillars in God's Temple never to be removed These are they that because they say they see or have sight enough already and neither need nor desire better therefore their sin remains and is a sin unto death for which God swears in his wrath thèy shall never enter into his rest The light of their eye upon this becomes evil and hates those that see cleerer and better than themselves and cannot endure to hear of new lights that go beyond theirs or that is upon the encreasing more and more unto the perfect day In this evil mind there is a lusting to Envy against the true heirs and a saying in the heart Come let us kill them and the Inheritance shall be ours which so far doth many times transport them that they become the bitterest Enemies to God's choicest Saints and dearest Children and when they kill them they think they do God service and when they cast them out and make them as the scum and off-scouring of the World they say Let God be glorified these are they that are neither hot nor cold but under whatever forms of Godliness and different perswasions they may be in matters of God's Worship do give their strength to the common Enemy of the true Saints and though they can no more cleave the one to the other than the Iron to the Clay yet they both can sit at one Table devising the destruction of the true Israelites and take up their places in the Feet and Toes of the great Image that figured out the universal Kingdom of Antichrist These are the Two opposite Principles unto the Two Anointings and the effects of them in and upon the truly Regenerate ones In these Principles Satan lodges and dwells as in his

an irrecoverable fall in their own persons they come to be fixed in evil and bound up with the fallen Angels in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day ● Pet. 2. 20. Jude vers 12. and vers 6. This wavering spirit of Japhet considered singly in its own sphear and activity as neither advancing towards the tents of Sem and things above nor declining to the heathenish and prophane state of Cham is that spirit which properly constitutes the Israel after the flesh in distinction from the true Israel of God or Circumcision of the Spirit on the one hand and the heathenish uncircumcised Nations on the other whilst God kept up the war in the line of Abraham or seed of Israel according to the flesh till Christ's incarnation For in Abraham's line deriving from Heber and Shem did God renew and maintain the war with the Seed of the Serpent and continued it till his signal rejection of that line and utter cutting them off from being any more a Nation and People of themselves at the last sacking and destruction of Jerusalem after the death of Christ by the hand of Titus Vespasian 3. The mind that declares it self in the third sort of Inhabitants who dwell in the Sea or in the depth of alienation from the life of God without any sense or feeling of that which is morally and naturally good according to the Law hating and despising God's image in any kind where-ever it shines forth is that which was in Cham. For this was he cursed and judicially fixed in his bondage as a servant of sin resembled by that servant under the Mosaical dispensation who for refusing his freedom when offered was bored thorow his ear in token of his perpetual servitude Exod. 21. 6. 1. The first sort of these Inhabitants are heavenly having a mind and principles fix'd in that obedience of Faith which is acceptable and by entring into God's Rest through Faith do become unmovable in the right way of working Righteousness wherein they attain the end of their hope that is the salvation of their souls 2. The second are earthly unfixed either in good or evil wavering between both having a mind sometimes serving the Law of God and sometimes the law of sin These however they may draw near to God with their words and tongue their heart is alienated and at a distance from him at least may be for ought they know notwithstanding the form of godliness they live in For they are not able to make a true and certain judgment of themselves till they partake of that Anointing from above that can teach them all things This is that only that will enable them to keep the word of Christ's patience in the day of their tryal Without this Grace extended to them and possessed by them they will become Apostates forget they have been washed from their old sins and will shew themselves at last the most hardned and bitter resisters of the holy Ghost and Power of Godliness 3. The third are like the Sea foaming out their own filth and they are constant and fixed therein having minds and consciences seard and made harder than the nether milstone in works of darkness Being past feeling they have sold themselves to work wickedness Peradventure sometime they may be made a little sensible of the sting and penalties of the Law so as to make some slender acknowledgments and feigned professions of obedience and subjection thereunto the Devils also believe and tremble but no hearty or sincere repentance from dead works or pure obedience of love springing from the spirit of Adoption and appearing in a steady amendment of life is to be found in them Yea they are by God himself judicially hardned and unchangeably fastned in their own chosen wayes of darkness They give themselves up to work all uncleanness with greediness and God gives them up to vile affections to take their course and fill up the measure of their abominations till he see time to strike them once for all The first and last of the above-named minds or principles are the two extreams in the one or other of which the middle or second sort of Inhabitants that are in the wavering changeable contending state with whom God is striving by his Spirit will come at last to be unchangeably fixed The perfect and righteous state which Man was at first created in was this middle wavering and unfixed state of perfection which was at first and upon renewal thereof is again capable to be guided by the Spirit of God through Faith into a higher and better or to be tempted and seduced by Satan into a lower and far worse The sinful state likewise into which mankind was plunged by the first transgression and fall of Man is not fixed or made immutable and desperate until a new proof and tryal be made of all men In order to this by vertue of the Blood of the Redeemer and through observation of the Rules appointed by God for recovery out of the Fall a restitution to the rectified Principles and Righteousness of our first Creation is in Christ most certainly attainable by every sinner without exception For by Christ's Blood there is remission to be had for all sins past and a new tryal is propounded and set before every one for time to come upon the terms and according to the tenor of God's conditional or absolute Covenant Hence it is the War arises and the Enmity is set or comes to be fixed between the two seeds each serving as it were for the proof and tryal of the unmovableness of one another either in good or evil Through this was occasioned the quarrel between the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent growing up out of Noah's family The usurpation of the universal Government of the World in favour and assistance of the Serpent's seed was attempted and pursued by Nimrod and his successors Afterwards it came into Nebuchadnezzar's hands and by Daniel's interpretation of that prophetical Image of worldly Monarchy that Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream the continuance thereof in his line and three other successive branches of Universal Monarchy in the lines of the Medes and Persians Grecians and then Romans was foretold All these have been the inheritors of Cham's spirit upholding a heathenish state of Idolatry Ignorance and Prophaness against the Kingdom and Obedience of Christ kept up and witnessed unto all along in and by the line and seed of Abraham from Sem downward to the last sack and utter ruine of the Temple and City of Jerusalem under the Romans The chief memorables in this space of time that concern the opposit interest to these worldly Monarchies were the eminent Call of Abraham Isaac and Jacob to the Faith the giving of the Law the building and rebuilding of the Temple the long continuing of the Prophetical Office in the Jewish Church Christ's Incarnation Ministry Death and Resurrection About forty years after the Resurrection