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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	body_n	dead_a	resurrection_n	2,720	5	9.2201	5	false

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

confess the wounds and acknowledge the conquests of these powerful enemies And the sad spectacle before us being already the Triumph of the one and suddenly to become the Captive of the other seems at once to answer the Question and defeat the Insultation of the Text. So that might it not have been better said O Death where is not thy Sting O Grave where is not thy Victory But notwithstanding all this he that looks upon the words with senses duely exercised may discerne a great propriety in them for the present Solemnity and by Faith as through a Telescope discover a Rich and pleasant Country beyond the Gloomy region of the Grave and a fresh Blooming Life springing out of the Dust of Death Which though it bears the name of an Enemy yet to a good Christian performs the Office of a Friend in letting him out of this vain and wretched State of Mortality into a life of unmixt and unchangeable Glory This contemplation hath force enough not only to Justify the suitableness of the Text but to reform our common Sentiments and practices upon such occasions by making us exchange our Cypress for Laurel and our tears of Sorrow for those of Joy which will farther appear upon a due examination of these words This Text I have taken at the second hand it being not Originally the Apostles as himself confesses in the verse preceding but a Quotation of his out of the Prophet Hosea c. 13. v. 14. which place though our Translation reading thus O Death I will be thy Plagues O Grave I will be thy Destruction gives but a faint resemblance to it Yet the Septuagint comes nearer to it especially if we allow the Words Sting and Victory to have been transposed through the transcribers negligence which is favoured by considerable a Beza ●●iorum Copies and b Vulgar Aethiopic Versions retaining the Prophets order of the words in this passage of the Apostle For then they would be found to differ only in one word and not at all in sense it being to the same effect whether we say O Grave where is thy Victory or where is thy Cause wherein thou hast so long prevailed Or where is thy Plea which thou used to put in at the Bar of Divine Justice as for the word which we here render I will c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be it also signifies the same with that which is commonly translated d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where in the Judgment of several Eminent Christian e Jun. and Tremel c. Interpreters and of some learned Jews as well as of the Septuagint which here and generally where not corrupted is our best Guide to the true sense of the Original and for that reason alone doubtless was so often followed by the Inspired Pen-men of the New Testament even when it seemingly departs from the present reading of the Hebrew Code so that f Capell Critic Sacr. their conjecture is as needless as 't is groundless who conceive the latter Hebrew word was read by the LXX in this place instead of the former But the Hebrew it self hath the greatest affinity of all with the Text according to some and those most g Dr. Pocock on this place eminently learned in the Oriental Tongues by whose assistance they have undertaken to reconcile and adjust all the rest of the words both as to their Signification and Order of place and so completed the agreement betwixt the Prophet and the Apostle But however that be 't is sufficient for our purpose that the sense of the two clauses in this sentence is not much different and the scope of the whole even in our version is exactly the same O Death where are thy fatal Plagues or poisonons Sting O Grave where is thy destruction of or Victory gained over them Which Words though in the Prophet they might literally denote Gods deliverance of his people from the greatest temporal Dangers and Enemies even Death and the Grave and which by some h Grotius in loc are applyed to Gods destruction of Sennacheribs Army yet by the Apostle they are raised to an higher sense and adapted to the general Resurrection when Death and the Grave shall be swallowed up in Victory i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. for ever when they shall be quite Abolished and Vanish not only so as to be no more but so as no Footsteps shall remain of their having ever been when there shall not be seen so much as the least Marks or Scars upon those who have layn under their utmost Force and Cruelty not a Blemish on their Bodies nor a Hair of their heads Singed And as this Scripture will then have its Consummation so it certainly had its Beginning at Christs Resurrection when the groundwork was laid of this our Rejoycing Whereupon these words are conceived by some to have been a proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Captain of our Salvation when having foiled his Enemies wrested their Weapons out of their hands given them their Deaths-wound and seeing them ly grovelling upon the ground he might draw near and Insult them saying where 's now thy Sting O! Death wherewith thou hast so often wounded and poisoned mankind Where 's now thy Victory O Grave which thou hast so long carried and boasted of over the Children of men And the Apostle here under the certain hope and sweet contemplation of that glorious day of Universal Triumph cannot for bear to anticipate that joy of the Resurrection but looking upon these baffled enemies a stingless Death and a powerless Grave as hurtless and despicable things breaks out into this Triumphant song this holy Exaltation and Insultation of the Text. O Death c. These words imply a Complete Victory and express a Joyful Triumph The better to represent the reasonableness of which Triumph and to lay bare the Foundations of this Rejoycing we must enquire what Victory this is and by whom obtained but before we can learn its just value and greatness we must be acquainted with the nature and quality of the Adversary so that we have three parts or steps cut out for the progress of our Discourse 1. The Nature and Dreadfulness of the Enemies 2. The Author and Absoluteness of the Victory over them 3. The Reasonableness of Triumphing and Rejoycing for the same In speaking to the first part we shall shew 1. Who and what kind of Enemies these are 2. With what Weapon they assail us 3. What Success they have formerly had 1. The Enemies are Death and the Grave That by the former is here meant the death of the Body is manifest from the whole bent and scope of this Chapter which is to demonstrate the Resurrection of the dead both of Christ the first fruits and of all Christians as the entire harvest through him at his coming And it is thence also no less evident that by Grave though the Original Word both in the Prophet and the

Apostle by its various and doubtful senses hath afforded a large field to the Criticks to shew their Reading and Judgement in is here to be understood neither the Prison of the damned nor the state of the dead but the Mansion of our Carkasses till the Resurrection And though Death and the Grave are here distinguished by the Apostle yet in effect being the same to us we shall in the sequele of this discourse for the most part speak of them as but One. This is the enemy then we have to deal with and how Dreadful it is to the Children of Corruption needs no other proof than a bare appeal to the Universal sense and suffrage of mankind Job 18.14 which Job hath roundly summ'd up in his description of Death by the King of terrours and after him Aristotle much to the same purpose in styling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There 's nothing in the World can beget a greater dread or create a more exquisite horrour in the minds of men than the black and Melancholly apprehension of descending into the dismal state of everlasting darkness and solitude oblivion and senslesness There 's nothing we are not willing to do to suffer or to part with rather than be brought under its power We are ready to undergo all labours and pains fasting and Physick shame and tortures nay I had almost said death it self to avoid it So much of truth is there in That of the Father of lies Skin for Skin and all that a man hath Job 2.4 will be give for his Life And this is so well grounded a passion that it seizes and shakes the mind and shrivels up the Spirits of the stoutest the wisest and most virtuous men Our natures are agast and recoil at the very thoughts of death and our countenances wax wan at the sight of the Grave We are so unfit to enter the lists with these Combatants that we are scarce able to support our selves under the bare prospect or mention of them These Basilisks dis-spirit us at their approach and kill us with their very looks The sound of their names like that of Hunniades to the Turks strikes a dread into our Soul and shoots a chilness through our Veins which Lewis the 11th was so apprehensive of that he would not endure the mention of them either in health or sickness but charged his Servants when ever they should see him weak and languishing to exhort him to confess his Sins but in no wise to name death to him least that alone should kill him before the time The reason of all which must be sought for in our Inbred Antipathy to Annihilation The fear of Death lies as close to our essence as the Love of Life and to offer to reconcile a man to the thoughts of his dissolution is as contradictory an attempt as to perswade him to fall out with his nature and renounce his being And if it be a Natural it must also be a Necessary and unavoidable passion and consequently 't is as impossible to throw off the Fear as the Fate of dying This Enemy is not only Formidable and operative meerly upon the fancy but it s really Hurtful and Mischievous Death smites us in all our Capacities in our Relations and our Persons It turns us out of our Stateliest Houses and Palaces and Sequesters us from our greatest possessions and Empires It blasts our fairest Hopes and dashes in pieces our finest Models Breaking our purposes and the thoughts of our heart It snatches our tender Children out of our Arms and tears away the dearest Guest of our bosom from us It plunders us of our beauty and our strength of our honours and our pleasures It not only deprives us of our liberty and the light by shutting us up in a close dark prison but it layeth us in a bed of dishonour and loathsomness among worms and serpents It throws us into a Pit of stench and rottenness where it preys upon our bodies putrefies our flesh and consumes our bones It not only lops off some of our choicest comforts but lays the Ax to the root of all our Enjoyments in making a divorce betwixt the dearest Couple in nature our Body and Soul and drawing after it if not timely prevented an utter destruction of both eternally Add hereunto that this is an inveterate and implacable Enemy with whom there can no league be struck no amity purchased no reconciliation had It gives quarter to none but shews the like mercy of the Sword to all Indeed beaten captivated destroy'd it may be so it hath been by Christ but appeased reconciled never The Devil who is General and Parent of this Enemy being the Father of Sin who is the Mother of Death hath like an infernal Hannibal sworn all his Offspring to have no peace with the Posterity of Adam Nevertheless Death could do us no great mischief if he came not armed with his Sting which is The second particular the weapon with which this Enemy assaults us The meaning and reason of which Title is next to be examined The Apostle declares the former briefly and plainly in the next words The sting of death is sin A dangerous and deadly weapon The congruity of their names might be deduced from their common relation to a Serpent whose natural weapon is a sting as Sin is the proper hurtful Instrument of that old Serpent the Devil But the dreadfulness of this Weapon and its analogy to a Sting will more fully appear from a distinct consideration of the Pungent and Poisonous nature of Sin. 1. Sin is of a Pungent and Painful nature It usually approaches us indeed with a courtly address and a fawning salutation like Solomons strange Woman her lips drop as an hony comb and her mouth is smoother than oil but the end is bitter as wormwood sharp as a two edged sword A prosperous and harden'd Sinner who resolves to go on in the way of his heart and in the sight of his eyes knowing what smart and anguish the reflection upon his guilt and the very thoughts of the Divine Vengeance will necessarily give him industriously beats out of his mind all notices and remembrances of these things and bears down the first essays of Conscience either to inform or restrain him The Voluptuary indeavours to drown its voice with the louder noise of his Tabret and Harp. The Mammonist tries to hide if not smother this Vice-God as Rachel did her false ones among his Worldly Stuff and Furniture The Atheist and Hypocrite strive to over-rule its Plea with Erroneous Principles and Specious Pretences But at last when the Conscience hath thrown off her chains and servitude and asserted her rightful authority and dominion over the Sinner be it in old age or sickness when he is smitten of God or Man she will change the whole scene of affairs she will set up a true light in his soul and give him a juster apprehension of things and another sense of his own