Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n
Text snippets containing the quad
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
A44680
|
A funeral sermon on the death of that pious gentlewoman Mrs. Judith Hamond Late wife of the Reverend Mr. George Hamond, minister of the Gospel in London. By John Howe, minister of the same Gospel.
|
Howe, John, 1630-1705.
|
1696
(1696)
|
Wing H3029; ESTC R215976
|
18,994
|
36
|
Abstractly considered 't is but a notion As it actually hath taken place it must be the death of this or that Person And as it is finally to be overcome and have an end it must have a limited subject and not be understood of all absolutely and universally for then there would be no such thing as Eternal Death which hath no end And how the subject here supposed is to be limited the series of discourse thorough the Chapter shews they are such as are Christs ver 23. and to whom he is peculiarly the first fruits ibid. Such as shall bear his heavenly Image ver 49. and as elsewhere whose vile bodies shall be made like his glorious One Phil. 3. 21. Such as shall have spiritual incorruptible immortal bodies like his and with him inherit the Kingdom of God and through him obtain this victory ver 50 57. 2. This limitation of death to be overcome to such a subject only connotes the extent of it to the whole of that subject as that is compos'd of an inner and an Outer man 2 Cor. 4. 16. It were frigid and comfortless to suppose if it were supposeable that this glorious Conquest of death should extend no further than the giving us a fair specious outside and that our Mind and Spirit should not partake or be nothing the better for it 'T is plain the Apostles scope thro' this Chapter is more to assert the future subsistence of the Soul than the recomposure of the Body as his Arguments shew though what was necessary to be said concerning the future state of that also is not neglected But what he is now saying in this part of the Chapter concerns not what is common to men but what is peculiar to Good and Holy Men. And therefore as it respects their nobler part must intend More than its meer subsistence in another state which is common to good and bad and signify the perfection of the Holy Divine life which shall be at last entirely victorious and Swallow up Death in its utmost extent and specially as it was opposite to that life Death I mean as it was so heavily incumbent upon the Minds and Spirits of Good Men themselves and was their most intolerable burden extorting from them such groans as that Rom. 7. 24. O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Nor indeed is this death sensible or grievous or ever felt but where the opposite life hath some place Total death knows no grievances makes no complaints They that lye buried in the Earth are in their own Element where no such thing weighs upon them a terrene carnal Mind is no burthen to such Souls as are quite dead in Trespasses and Sins I hope I need not tell you that tho' the Souls of men are Universally immortal in the natural sense they are not so in the moral Morality comprehends the means and end Vertue and Felicity or in terms more agreeable to our Christian Ethicks or that are oftener heard by them that live under the Gospel Holiness and Blessedness These are signify'd by Spiritual Life or life in the spiritually-moral sense And so are Sin and Misery by the opposite death And no man hath reason to think it strange that Life and Death are estimated by such measures or that a temper of Spirit habitually and fixedly good or evil should be signify'd by being alive or dead if we consider how perfect an equivalency there is between them in the moral sense and being naturally alive or dead For wherein do we usually state the notion of Natural Life but in a self-moving power Now let any ordinary Understanding be appeal'd to in the Case and who would not say it were as good not to be able to move at all as to move in so perpetual disorder as never to attain any end such motion should serve for The Ends of a reasonable Creatures motions must be duty to its Maker and felicity to it self If all its motions be such as import constant hostility towards God infelicity and torment to it self this is to be dead not simply and naturally 't is true but respectively and not in some by and lessconsiderable respect but in respect of the principal and most important purposes of Life So that in full equivalency such a one is as dead to all valuable intents and purposes whatsoever Therefore such are only said to be alive in a true and the most proper sense that are alive to God through Jesus Christ Rom. 6. 11. Or that do yeild themselves to God as those that are alive from the dead ver 13. it being the proper business of their life to serve God and enjoy him Others that only live in sinful pleasure are dead while they live 1 Tim. 5. 6. Nor hath such a Notion of life and death been altogether strange even among Heathens when we find it said by One of no mean note That a wicked man is dead as a soul may be said to die and to it 't is a death when 't is too deeply plung'd immerst into the body so as to be sunk down into matter and replete with it Besides much more that might be produc't from others of like import and how agreeable is this passage to that Rom. 8. 6 To be carnally minded is death Upon the whole I cannot indeed conceive that since Death is often taken and that most reasonably in so great a latitude as to admit of comprehending this sense and since in these latter verses the Apostle is speaking of a final deliverance from it as the special priviledge of such as are in union with Christ not of what is common to all men but that victory over death in this respect as it imports aversion from God or indisposition towards him must be within his meaning and that he was far from confining it to bodily death only or from intending in reference to the Soul the meer natural immortality of that alone But that Death in its utmost latitude was now in reference to this sort of men whom his present discourse intends to be entirely swallow'd up in victory Or in a perfect plenitude of victorious life as 2 Cor. 5. 4. So much which was more requisite to be insisted on being clear we shall less need to inlarge upon what follows As that 3. This Victory supposes a War Or That Life and Death were before in a continual struggle So we find the Case is Even this Lower World is full of vitality Yet Death hath spread it self thorough it and cast over it a dark and dismal shadow every where according as Sin which introduc'd it is diffus'd and spread Death is therefore mention'd as an Enemy ver 26. And so we understand it Natural Death as an Enemy to Nature Spiritual to Grace In the Body numerous maladies and round about it multitudes of adverse rancounters are striving to infer Death In and about the Mind and Spirit worse diseases and Temptations