Selected quad for the lemma: mind_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A59969
|
The Christians triumph over death a sermon at the funeral of Richard Legh of Lime in the county Palatine of Chester, Esq., at Winwick in the county Palatine of Lancaster Sept. 6. 1687 / W. Shippen ...
|
Shippen, W. (William), 1637?-1693.
|
1688
(1688)
|
Wing S3441A; ESTC R4015
|
35,882
|
69
|
condition she will pull off the vails and hypocrisies of sin and bring her forth in her own horrid shape and native deformity she will tear away the dress and wash off the Paint wherewith Satan hath set off this Jezebel she will present the Sinner with the right end of the Perspective which will give him the true image the full size and the dire prospect of Divine Wrath and Everlasting Burnings which will then prove so far from being a Painted or Poetick Fire that the meer speculation of them i.e. the very intelligible species past through a clear understanding will like beams through a Burning Glass immediately kindle a resembling raging flame in his Breast One way or other Sin will manifest it self to be a Sting indeed either in the sharpness of remorse to the Penitent according to the hainousness of his guilt or in the prickings and lancings of despair to the Obdurate Sinner What pangs and throws what anguish and torment it breeds even in good Men may be learned from David's mourning all the day long Psal 38.6 3. and having no rest in his bones by reason of his sin from St. Pauls vehement exclamation O wretched man that I am and from St. Peters bitter tears Rom. 7.14 And if it be so with the green tree what will it be with the dry If the true Penitent suffer such whips what wonder if the Despairing Sinner be lashed with Scorpions Nam mens sibi conscia facti Lucret. Praemetuens adhibet stimulos terretque flagellis The most exquisite torments will be his perpetual entertainment stings and poisons fires and furies feed daily on his Marrow and drink up his Spirits who is both the Malefactor and his own Executioner first forging and sharpening the Knives and Goads and all instruments of pain and cruelty in the dark and sinful recess of his mind and afterward in a cool and sober reflection desperately sticking them into his own Soul. It is in vain for such a person to expect relief from outward applications who hath the Wolf within his Breast the Gangrene in his Conscience Bloody Nero may remove from one appartment to another may change his Bed every night and his Companions every day but the Fiend still haunts him his murder'd Mothers Ghost follows him through all the crouds of Men and labyrinths of Business through Solitudes and Entertainments through the Court and the Camp the Closet and the Theater making his Face as ghastly as the Spectre that occasioned it and filling his mind with the distractions and black horrours of that place from whence it came and though he consulted his chiefest Magicians in the case yet he could find no Charm able to lay the Phantasm or free him from its importunity Cain may wander from one Climat to another seeking rest but findeth none for so long as he carries Blood-guiltiness in his soul he has not so much a Cerberus dogging him at his heels as a Fury lodg'd within his bowels and whilst that fatal sting his guilt remains he must needs bleed within languish and sink under Insupportable horrour and fearful looking for of Judgment Nay let a Judas or a Spira not only change Countries but Worlds when their souls through extremity of despair choose strangling in Jobs phrase seeking to Death for a Lenitive and running to Hell for sanctuary as if the Rolling in Infernal Flames would be a refreshment to them in comparison of that more intolerable Top het within and the Devils themselves prove less cruel than their own Consciences yet in the issue they will find themselves most dreadfully mistaken for the Conscience is not to be put off with the Body but the immortal worm will for ever stick to the immortal part and will not cease to gnaw within when the Fiend lays on without Those external sulphurous heats and scorchings will be so far from calling out or allaying the internal that they will reverberate and enrage them more and heat the Furnace seven times hotter Besides our blessed Lord who only lay under the Imputation of sin felt greater sharps and acuter pains in it than in those Nails and Thorns and Spear which pierced not only his Hands and Head but his Heart for this Sting went deeper than the Body and made its way through that into his very Soul throwing him into such vast Extremities such strange and horrible Convulsions as exceeded all things but the infinit demerit of our Sins which occasioned them What oppressions of Spirit What heaviness of soul unto death What dreadful Agonies What bloody sweat did it cast him into What vehement and reiterated Prayers Mat. 26.39 42 44. What doleful Cries under the Paroxysms of the Conflict did it extort from him And if Imputative guilt was thus terrible and tormenting to the holy Jesus what will Inherent be to the wicked Reprobates when they come to labour and struggle under it 2. Sin is of that virulent nature that like an Invenom'd Indian dart it not only Wounds but Poisons which appears from two particulars its quick spreading Contagion and its fatal Influence 1. It is of that subtle and quick Efficacy that it immediately diffuses its contagion through the whole Man through all the members of the Body the faculties of the soul and the spirit of the mind It mounts up into the Brain and fills that with unsound notions it corrupts all the senses making them the Panders of Vice and Vanity inflaming the Eyes with Lust and Anger and stopping the Ears like the Deaf Adder against the most charming and wholesom Instructions Ps 140.3 It sharpens the tongue like a Serpent and lays the poison of Asps under the lips so that nothing but Corrupt Communication proceeds thence Eph. 4.29 It breaks out in the hands in all gross acts of Violence and Injustice Yea from the sole of the foot even unto the head it leaves no soundness nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores Isa 1.6 It sinks into the inward man also darting its venom through all the secret channels and paths of life seizing the noblest appartments of the soul and the chief offices of reason It transforms all its faculties into the powers of Satan darkening the understanding that it cannot discern or determine aright of truth disabling the will for embracing and holding fast what is good and infeebling the memory that it can neither retain nor return the notions that are stampt upon it It converts the affections and inclinations of the Mind into Carnal Lusts and Appetites and infects the fountain of them the Heart so as to make it swell and rankle with all manner of malice and wickedness In short it turns the whole Body into a body of Sin changes that Incarnate Angel the Soul into a Fiend and taints our very Spirit that Divine Breath of Life making it stink in the nostrils of the Almighty Nay Sin is such an exalted Elixir of Poison that the least grain of it is
Graves But she bestowed her Praises and Encomiums upon those only who bore themselves bravely above it Among the Jews a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo Vit. Mosis l. 3◠though mourning was not accounted a Sin yet such a Defect and Defilement as Excluded them for a certain time from the use of holy things And though Christianity it self hath not Entertain'd so much of Stoicism as to cancel all natural affections and to recommend a perfect Apathy to her Disciples yet she undertakes to Limit and Direct their Motions to assign them their proper Objects and their due Measures She knows that Love is such a Powerful Cement as works not only a close and firm Adherence but such a strange Coalition nay such a perfect unity of the Lovers hearts that death cannot snatch away the one without Tearing a piece from the other also and so leave the survivor under a kind of necessity of smarting and bleeding for it She therefore expects not that men should be insensible of their loss but only temperate in their sorrow She desires they would not show themselves so much Friends to the Dead as to become enemies to the Living to God and to themselves Hence S. Paul's admonition to the Thessalonians 1 Thes 4.13 concerning them which are asleep is not that they sorrow not at all but that they sorrow not as others who have no hope What a great disparagement and a Reproach would it be to our Religion if we could not shew an equal courage at least with the Heathens under the loss of Friends which many of them sustained not only with moderation but unconcernedness Could we in truth urge that Argument for our Lamentation which Rachel alledg'd for her refusing comfort upon the Death of her Children because they are not or did we not really believe a Resurrection and eternal Life we might have more pretence for an exorbitance in this kind but now seeing it appears from what has been said and all Christians acknowledge that death can have no other force upon a man than was ascribed of Old to Gyges his Ring not to unmake but only to make him Invisible for a season why should we so grosly and meanly deny that in our practice which we so openly and constantly avow in our Creed and in despite of all the evidence of Scripture and Specious profession of our Faith by our unreasonable despondency tell the world that in truth we are destitute of all hope that we not only question but quite despair of the being or the well being of the dead For can we believe that they shall rise again and yet thus bitterly bemoan them what should we have done if God had left them under the power of Death without any Resurrection nay what should we have done if we had reason to believe that he had doomed them to the second and Everlasting death we hereby give too just occasion to the Enemies of our Religion to deride and expose our Hypocrisy and the Contradiction of our Lives to our Principles and to wound it through our sides nay in effect we doe it our selves for every impatient exclamation is a kind of Blasphemy against our holy Faith and every deep sigh and groan a palpable Mockery and Ridiculing the Article of Eternal life Upon which considerations a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys in Heb. c. 2. Hom. 4. St. Chrysostom judges the indulgence of immoderate mourning at Funerals so scandalous as to deserve Excommunication and indeed whatever may be the pretence there 's nothing at the bottom but a deep tincture of Infidelity which gives birth and nourishment to this unruly passion For who can believe that the Son of God himself died and yet so impatiently lament that any of the Children of men should die also who can beleive that he conquer'd Death and the Grave rose again and ascended triumphantly into Heaven and is there sate down at the right hand of the Father and yet lye under such distractions of mind when any of our Relations are call'd out of the body to follow him into his Kingdom We doe hereby raise an evil report of that good Land the Heavenly Canaan we discover a mean esteem of that blessed seat Abrahams bosom whither good men are carryed at death by the Angels nay we offer an affront to our Saviour himself in deploring their condition as miserable whom Faith assures us to be with him in Paradise partaking of his Glories and made like unto him And hence St. Paul who had been rapt up into the third Heavens reckon'd it a Gain to him to dye and to be with Christ And doubtless one assur'd thought of the Christians Heaven one single glance of the Glories wherewith our Friend is Crown'd would effectually quash and becalm all those stormy passions and impetuous commotions of Soul which we suffer for him So that in final resolution Immoderate mourning is so unchristian a passion that it evidently betrays our want of those Gospel-Graces either Faith in the Doctrine of the Resurrection and future happiness or hope and Charity if we bewail our Friend as if he had no share in them Whereas both his Life and Death were the greatest indications to the contrary for as he liv'd not the common Life so he dyed not the common Death of all men but the peculiar and distinguishing one of Gods Children amidst the Ministeries and in the embraces of those who would willingly have sacrificed their own lives to have redeemed his amidst the prayers of his dearest Relations returning them his last Counsels and Blessings under the greatest calmness of Spirit and clearness of understanding to the Fatal moment his happy Soul being constantly exercis'd and inflam'd with the purest and most ardent devotion overflowing with Spiritual Comforts and glorious Expectations till at last it went off as it were in a holy Extasy on the wings of Divine Love and Heavenly Meditations into the boundless Regions of Light and Glory and Immortality 2ly and Lastly let us not only shut up natures Flood-gates and quit our selves like men but let us open the Channels of grace and rise up to the Dignity of Christians and to the Example which the great Apostle gives us in the Text by taking up a song of Joy and Thanksgiving to God for the happy deliverance and exaltation of our Departed friend There is nothing more usual nor perhaps more natural for human Minds than in their affections and inclinations especially to fly from one extreme to another Mans whole life is but a Constant Vibration betwixt the opposite Passions of hope and fear of Grief and Joy which are the Systole and Diastole of the Mind Alternatly and almost necessarily succeeding one another And Tears are as natural Expressions of Extraordinary Joy as of common Sorrow Let us try then the Experiment in the present Case and see how happily we can Change the Irrational and dull Passion of sadness into that Angelick and Spritely one of