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A13556 Regula vitæ the rule of the law vnder the Gospel. Containing a discovery of the pestiferous sect of libertines, antinomians, and sonnes of Belial, lately sprung up both to destroy the law, and disturbe the faith of the Gospell: wherein is manifestly proved, that God seeth sinne in iustified persons. By Thomas Taylor Dr. of Divinity, and pastour of S. Mary Aldermanbury, London. Taylor, Thomas, 1576-1632. 1631 (1631) STC 23851; ESTC S118279 80,247 284

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they could the light and devise to speake as in the riddles and oracles of old in ambiguous and new-minted phrases of their owne as if the phrase and expressions of the Scriptures were onely to be rejected in opening of the mysteries of Scriptures But leaving these bolde impostours to set the holy Ghost to schoole to teach him to speake wee acknowledge wee have not onely a rule of doctrine prescribed us in the Scriptures but also a rule of speaking unto which we must frame our selves and utter wholesome doctrine in wholesome words and words of understanding and all other lofty arrogant and subtle manner of speaking so as that which is uttered cannot be well understood the Apostle rejects it as an idle beating of the ayre 4. Nourish the grace of humility for God teacheth the humble beware of curiosity and affectation of novelties be wise to sobriety and thinke it an high wisedome to be established in ancient and received truthes The ficklenesse of hearers and unsetlednesse in the grounds of holy truth together with the wantonnesse of opinions have opened a wide doore to impostours and while for want of judgement men are ready with Salomons foole to beleeve every thing all the labour and diligence of able and godly Ministers is too weake to keepe multitudes from running after the Ministers of Satan furnished with all arts to deceive and to cheate them of the truth which is according to godlinesse Against whom while I endeavour to establish others I may seeme to forget my selfe and that I must incurre many censures and contempts from this lawlesse generation of men but my labour is with the Lord and my reward is my conscience of well-doing I shall contemne their contempt love their persons hate their errours and studie while I am to be as serviceable to the Church and the faith once given to the Saints as I can CHAP. 1. Containing the ground of the following discourse and dispute out of Rom. 6. 14. For ye are not under the Law IN the words of the Apostle are to be enquired 1. What is meant by the Law namely The Morall Law in the ten Commandements containing our whole duty to God and to our neighbour 2. What it is to be under the Law namely not under the rule and obedience of the Law for our Apostle looseth no Christian from that but Christians are not under the raigne of the Law by the raigne of which sinne raigneth unto death This being the Apostles reason that the raigne of the Law puts them under the reign of sin 3. Who are these that are not under the Law Yee that is beleevers justified and sanctified persons that are dead to sinne and alive unto God in Iesus Christ our Lord verse 11. and onely these seeing the naturall man is yet in his sinnes and under the whole power of the Law in the rigour and extremity of it Rom 7. 6. We are delivered from the Law being dead unto it wherein we were holden But who are these those that serve in newnesse of spirit not in oldnesse of letter that is which now serve God in a new spirituall manner excited and wrought by the spirit and not according to the olde corruption of our nature before grace nor according to the externall letter of the law which onely breedeth externall actions And that it is the priviledge of beleevers appeareth by these reasons 1. Because Christ was made under the Law to redeeme those that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of sonnes Galat. 4. 4. The reason is good Christ was under the Law therefore Christians beleeving are not under it and Christians are redeemed from being under the Law and therfore are no longer under it 2. As many as are under the Law are under the curse But it is the priviledge of beleevers not to be under the curse for they that are of the faith of Abraham are blessed with faithfull Abraham Therefore they are not under the Law 3. It is the priviledge of beleevers to receive the spirit of Christ. Rom. 8. 14. As many as are Christs are led by the spirit of Christ and therfore they are not under the Law Gal. 5. 18. If yee be led by the spirit yee are not under the law 4. It is the priviledge of beleevers to have eternall life and the inheritance by promise and not by the tenour of the Law and therefore all they and only they are free from being under the Law Gal. 3. 18. If the inheritance be by the Law it is no more by promise But God gave it to Abraham by the promise Were beleevers under the Law they should have the inheritance by the Law but they have it not by the Law but by promise and therefore are not under the Law For the Law and the promise in the cause of righteousnesse and life will not be agreed no more than light and darknesse fire and water whose natures are most abhorring Quest. But what or wherein is this priviledge of not being under the Law Answ. This priviledge will appeare the clearer if we consider the danger of being under the Law in foure things First in that the Law wrappeth every sinner in the curse of God both in this life as also in the life to come so as hee is no where secure but lyeth naked to the curse meeting him at every corner The Law is a thunderbolt to blast him in his person in his estate in his name in his goods in his calling in his comforts in all his enterprises and occasions the sentence is passed upon him and where ever he is hee is in the way to execution It would daunt and astonish the hardiest and stoniest heart to heare the sentence of death pronounced upon it for violating the law of his Prince and Country It would marre all his merriments to conceive hee were presently to suffer but a temporall death for offending the law of man And it would much more spoyle the pleasure of sin if the sinner could with an hearing eare heare the sentence of eternall death denounced by the Law against soule and body for violating the righteous Law of the eternall God If an house were ready to fall upon a mans head how would hee bestirre himselfe and winde every way to hye himselfe out of the danger But the burden of the Law is more intollerable than the weight of all the sands and mountaines in the world and this oppressing weight is ready to fall on the head of every sinner which how should it amaze and affright them and make them restlesse till they bee gotten without the reach of the danger 2. The Law in the raigne of it shuts up heaven which receives no trangressour and setteth the gate of hell wide open upon the sinner and not onely casteth him into hell hereafter but bringeth an hell into his conscience before hell that if his heart be not dead within him as Nabals
mee No the more is your sin and shame Doe you preach amongst a tumult of artizans and illiterate men so as our Ministers cannot understand you what is the reason you doe so hide your selfe seeing light feareth nothing but darknesse and truth nothing but to be hid I must say to you as Ierome of the crabbed Poet Persius If you will not be understood you ought not to be read so if you will not be understood you ought not to preach unlesse perhaps it may be more beneficiall to the Church that if you doe preach you be not understood Alas that men professing the doctrine of godlinesse and pretending the practise of wisedome and sobriety should by the pride of their hearts become thus disguised and transported into raptures and fits next to frenzie and madnesse But against this windy conceit of perfection I will now say the lesse because I have dealt more fully against this pernicious errour before in the third chapter Yet here 1. let it be considered wherein the Scripture placeth the perfection of Saints here below and that is not in the want of sinne but in the fight against sinne and not in the absence but in groaning in the presence of sinne For 1. would Christ teach men without sin to pray daily for forgivenesse of sinne 2. Would hee command those to pray daily not to be led into temptation that cannot sinne if they would 3. Did hee ordaine the Sacrament of the Supper for men perfect that want nothing to whom nothing can be added or to the sicke who neede the physitian and to such as hunger and thirst after righteousnesse which is a sen●e of defect not of perfection 4. Are they in holinesse and perfections of grace beyond the Apostle Paul who many yeares after regeneration complaineth that he found evill present with him and a law in his members rebelling against the law of his minde and professeth that he had not attained and that all is here in part and imperfect till that perfect come 5. Are they perfect without sinne why doe they then as other sinfull men doe hath death any commission where is no sinne or if their sinnes be gone and their persons justified and yet they die why deny they that any correction abideth any whose sinne is pardoned unlesse they will say they die onely for triall Secondly Sanctification hath three degrees in this life the highest of which is imperfect 1 Is the death of the body of sin Which is not all at once but resembleth the death of Christs body on the crosse which was diminished by degrees till his spirit by his last breath was surrendred to his Father Thus is it in the christian whose last breath of sinne and of the body goe out together The Second degree is the buriall of the body of sinne which is a further proceeding in mortification as buriall is a proceeding of death and a consumption of the dead body not all at once but by little and little So mortification is not an act of a day but of the life The Third degree of sanctification is a raising from the grave of sinne to a new life by vertue of Christ his Resurrection that looke as a graft set in to a new stock draweth juice and life from that stock not all at once and then no more but still draweth and by drawing groweth by degrees unto the full height and age of it evē so is it here christian life is continued as naturall by dayly supply and addition of that which is daily wanting God indeed if he had pleased might in a moment have freed his servants from all sinne as well in life as in death but he wold not because his wisdome procures himselfe more glory in his protection and assistance of the Saints and in the victory of his servants against sin than if they were free from sinne The fiercer the enemies were that rose up against Moses in the wildernes and against Iosua in the Land of Canaan the more it turned to the glory of Gods mighty power in giving them possession in despight of them all And so greater honour returneth to the Lord because greater is his grace in making the sinnes of the Saints remedies of sinne to humble them for sinnes past to shame them for sinne present and to worke in them feare watchfulnesse against sinne for time to come then if he should at once abolish sinne in them All which these men shake off their hands as easily as Sampson did the greene cords when the Philistins came upon him Thirdly As he that exalteth himselfe must be brought low so the Scriptures shew those to be in highest estimation with God that have beene and are least in their owne eyes Abraham seeth himselfe but dust and ashes Iacob seeth himselfe lesse than the least mercie Gideon saith of himselfe Who am I or what is my Fathers house but the least in all Israel Iudg 6. 13. Iohn Baptist than whom a greater was not borne among women said I am not worthy to loose the latchet of his shooe The Centurion I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under the roofe of my house Peter Goe from mee Lord for I am a sinfull man Paul I am the least of all the Apostles but the chiefe of all sinners But we never read nor heard those vaine voyces from any truely regenerate man I am perfect I am pure so as nothing can be added unto me I cannot sin if I would Gods eternall power can see no sinne in me I am beheld no otherwise then Christ himselfe for I am Christed with Christ and Godded with God I will neither greive for my sin nor pray for pardon of sinne and the like No no true grace which St. August calleth the first second and third grace of Christians would keep the heart from these high staires and straines of pride it would fetch them off such mounted thoughts and change them into mournefull complaints that they must needs will they nill they admit the Cananit and Iebusits within their borders that they must finde sinne in them as a law forcing them to the evill they would not Rom. 7. 24. And godly experience concludeth that humility is a signe of worth but hautines is never without emptinesse and vanity Emptiest vessels sound lowdest and the husbandman liketh better those heavie eares of corne that hang downe their heads than the light and empty ones that stand so upright Fewer words would serve wiser men I will onely say to this proud perfectist as Constantine the great did to Acesius one of the proud Bishops of the Catharists Set up a ladder Acesius by which thou alone maist climbe to heaven CHAP. 8. Discovering the third proper ground of this opposition which is affectation of licentiousnesse and love of a lawles liberty ioyned with hatred of holinesse and the power of godlinesse AS pride attends ignorance so an inseperable fruit