Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	death_n	life_n	wage_n	10,497	5	10.9120	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02148	Meditations and disquisitions upon the first Psalme of Dauid Blessed is the man. By Sr. Richard Baker, Knight.	Baker, Richard, Sir, 1568-1645.	1638 (1638)	STC 1229; ESTC S100559	70,342	136

place makes it a rule of infallibility Marke the upright man and behold the perfect man for the end of that man is peace And so it is verified here which is said by the Prophet Sorrow may be over night but ioy com meth in the morning And this againe is another advantage of the prosperity of the godly that their sorrow comes but over night when they may sleepe it out and passe it over but their ioy cometh in the morning when they come fresh unto it and have the whole day before them to enjoy it And now if we aske the Prophet what reason he can give of this prospering of the godly Doe not his words themselves answere for him and carry in them the very reason of it For in saying Whatsoever he doth he seemes to intend a godly mans service and in saying shall prosper hee seemes to intimate Gods wages and if this be so then is the prospering as sure as checke for as God is a Lord that lookes his servants should doe their worke so hee is a master that never failes to pay his servants their wages And then if blessednesse be Gods wages and godlinesse the mans service what is this but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very thing the Prophet takes upon him to demonstrate A godly man is blessed And here now we may stand and admire the great bounty of God and consider how good a service it is to serve him and what great wages hee gives his servants for the meanest of them all may reckon upon this that All he doth shall prosper The wages is not stinted by the Master but by the servant that if hee have not prosperity enough hee may thinke himselfe that would bee idle and doe no more for All he doth shall prosper But nothing but what he doth the Prophet promiseth no further for if he doe nothing hee must looke for no prospering But what have good thoughts then and good words no promise of prospering If they followed by doing then are they Praeviae actiones and as part of the doing shall have their reward Otherwise they are but abortives and come not to life to give them capacity for the life of words and thoughts is actuated by the acting And yet even thus the service is so small the wages so great that if it were told us by any but by a Prophet or told us of any but of God we might justly doubt it but hearing it from such a Reporter and of such a Master if we should doubt it now it might justly be said unto us what doubt yee of O yee of little faith Yet it must be observed here though we call it wages that yet it is not so much earned as given being more of favour than of Merit and cannot be exacted though it may be expected For though the wages of sinne be death yet we cannot properly say the wages of godlinesse is life the Antithesis hath not place because our godlinesse hath not weight but eternall life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord. And now if we should aske the world what it saies to all this whether it thinke not these blessings to be farre more worth than all their guilded vanities what doe we thinke would the world answer to such a question We may be sure the world would answer thus it likes the blessinge well and thinkes them all good but one circumstance in them it doth not like that they are all in the future none in the present all birds in the bush none in the hand never a bird in the hand amongst them all Blessed are they that mourne for they are not but shall be comforted The tree is planted by the waters side but beares no fruit yet but will doe A godly mans actions doe not prosper but they shall prosper This delay the world doth not like it cannot away with these future Tenses so much talking of what shall be and nothing of what is and therefore they have a question to aske too the same which the Disciples asked Christ But when shall these things be For if the blessednesse be long a comming it can then come but to this that it may be said A godly man shall be blessed but is miserable and miserable too for God knowes how long Therefore give us the present say they and as Christ also seemes to teach us let Hereafter shift for it selfe This indeed is the Hinge the world still turnes upon and it is a hard matter to take it off But may wee not answer these men as Christ answered his Disciples Non est vestrum nôsse tempora It is not for you to know the times and seasons which God hath kept in his owne hand It may suffice you to know that these things shall be when they shall be is more than the portion of your knowledge comes to It is indeed an earthly question and moved onely by such of whom it is said Earth thou art and to earth thou shalt returne For when wee move such questions we returne to earth for if wee staid with God we should know that as the darknesse and the light is all alike to him so to him the Future and the Present is all one that we may marvell what Saint Peter meant to say A thousand yeeres with God are as a day as though there were a proportion between eternity and time when Esay speakes it out plainly All Nations are to God as nothing and put in the ballance are lesse than nothing and wee may say as well All time is to him as nothing and put in the ballance with Eternity is lesse than nothing And therefore when we meete with these words Will be and Shall be in relation to God we may take them rather as words of order than of time as in order of Nature the tree must first be planted before it can bring forth fruit a deed must be done before it can be rewarded and yet even this order also is in Gods disposing either to divert it or wholly to reverse it at his owne pleasure As in the Garden of Eden there was bearing of fruit as soon as planting of trees this was a diverting of order But when God said Esau have I hated and loved Iacob before they had done either good or evill here was a prospering before a doing and we may say a bearing of fruit before a planting the tree and this was an absolute reversing of order The world therefore must take notice that Will be with God is as much as with men it is and when he saith it Shall be it is as good as if it were already We all know there is to be dies retributionis a day of account and this day to be God knowes how soone sooner perhaps than the world thinkes but certainely sooner than the world would have it and we are sure that this Will be and Shall be shall not exceed that day but how much it shall be sooner

he shall never be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come And here againe is the measure of Gods Iustice pressing downe and running over pressing downe because it presseth downe to the bottome of the bottomlesse pit and running over because it runnes for ever For then the way of the ungodly is said to perish when there is no way left to save them from perishing for such and so desperate is the state of the ungodly in the state of ungodlinesse that no way is left them either for helpe or hope For wherein should they hope for helpe Compassion will not helpe them for The Lord will laugh them to scorne in his high displeasure Mediation will not helpe them for God hath sworne though Noah Daniel and Iob should speake for them yet he will not heare them Time will not helpe them for they shal perish everlastingly Place wil not helpe them for they shall fall into a bottomelesse pit Death will not helpe them for they shall call for death and it shall flee from them that they may live to be tormented with the worme that never dies And here now for very pitties sake let me put all poore soules in minde that they bee carefull to remember that warning of Christ Agree with thine adversary while thou art in the way for whiles we are in the way there are waies left to keepe us from perishing There is a way of compassion For God delights not in the death of a sinner but that he should turne from his wickednesse and live There is a way of Mediation not of the men Daniel and Iob but of the Mediatour betweene God and Man Christ Iesus There is a way of repentance for if a sinner repent him of his sinne God will put away his sinne out of his remembrance But if it once come to this that the way of the ungodly doe perish alasse then there is nothing left but woe upon woe no way left for helpe no way left of hope nothing to be talkt of nothing to be thought of but perishing not onely whilst the world en dures but not when the world it selfe shall perish The Prophet gave a good reason before why there shall be a congregation of the righteous because God knoweth the way of the righteous but why would he give no reason here why the way of the ungodly shall perish For to draw a reason from the law of contraries as to say Because God knoweth not the way of the ungodly will not serve for Gods knowing may well be a strong reason seeing it is a strong cause a cause that is operative and that to many degrees For whom God knowes hee regards whom hee regards hee preserves whom hee preserves he blesses but what cause can Gods not knowing be for what operation can be in a Negative yet so it is Gods not knowing workes by not working for whom he knowes not he regards not whom he regards not he preserves not and whom hee preserves not they presently fall and perish of themselves And the Prophet had great reason to give a reason there because it was an Effect that needed a cause but hee had no reason to give a reason here because it is an Effect without a cause without a cause Efficient though not Deficient and why then should hee give a reason why the ungodly shall perish seeing God not knowing them there can be no reason given why they should not perish When it is said The way of the ungodly shall perish the wicked take occasion by these words to conceive a hope as wicked as foolish that if the way of the ungodly shall perish then the ungodly shall have no way to stand in and if they have no place to be in then they shall be no where and if they be no where then they shall not be at all which is as much as they desire for it never troubles them not to be at all so they may be sure not to be troubled at all But this is a conceit not onely vaine but wicked for by perishing is not meant an utter annihilating and dissolving into nothing but they are then said to perish when they are forsaken of God and delivered over into the hand of Satan For when the Iudgement is once past and the chaffe separated from the Wheate then there shall be a new heaven and a new earth but the old Hell shall continue still and there the ungodly and their way shall lie For in the new earth there shall be no way for either the ungodly to walke in or for sinners to stand in but all shall be Holy ground and no feete shall walke or stand there but such onely as have put off the shooes of corruption or rather indeede as have put on the shooes of incorruption The Prophet in the beginning of his Psalme noted in the wicked a triplicity of sinning Walking in the counsell of the ungodly standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the chaire of scorners and here in the end of his Psalme hee noteth a triplicity of their punishments They shall not rise in Iudgement they shall not stand in the congregation of the Righteous and their way shall perish and it may be thought when the scorners heard they should not rise in the Iudgement this never troubled them for they care not for rising they are well enough as they are they have a chaire to sit in and they scorne to rise And when the sinners heard they should not stand in the Congregation of the Righteous this did not much move them neither for they like better to be by themselves in the way of sinners than be bound to keep company with such precise fellowes but when the ungodly heare that their way shall perish and that they shall not have that way to walke in this strikes them dead their hearts are cleane done and now would they be begging of Abraham to send Lazarus to their fathers house to warne their friends from following their courses for feare of their curses And may it not now be truely said that the Prophet hath performed both his prizes 'to the full for as before he did not leave a godly man till he had brought him to receive his portion in heaven so now he hath not left a wicked man till he hath brought him to receive his portion in hell For the wicked have a portion too though they were better be without it a miserable portion to have misery for a portion yet so the Prophet in another place calls it this is their portion Fire and Brimstone and a stormy Tempest And now we may indeed say the Prophet hath well ended his taske and wee might say happily but that he ends it miserably for he hath delivered his Psalme as it were in a tragicall forme making it to beginne with blessednesse and to end with perishing but yet he hath so framed it that we may easily reduce it by helpe of the Law of contraries into a more Comicall forme if I may so speake making it to begin with misery and to end with blessednesse and this perhaps will be a forme more capable of a Plaudite from our hands and of an Io Paean from our toungs and may thus be framed Miserable and wretched are the men that have walked in the counsell of the ungodly and have stood in the way of sinners and have sate in the chaire of scorners but have no delight in the Law of the Lord nor in his Law will exercise themselves either day or night and they shall be like to chaffe which the wind scatters The godly are not so but they are like a tree planted by the waters side which will give its fruit in its time the leafes also shall not wither and whatsoever they doe it shall prosper Therefore the godly shall rise in the Iudgement and parted from the wicked shall make a Congregation by themselves For the Lord knoweth not the way of the wicked and the way of the godly shall be established FINIS