Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	bring_v	grace_n	life_n	4,032	5	4.4522	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62458	A letter concerning the present state of religion amongst us	Thorndike, Herbert, 1598-1672.	1656 (1656)	Wing T1053; ESTC R5555	12,737	27

day in the world do maintain themselves to professe the Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures it is manifest that these Laws provide not that they shall not be Hereticks which are sent you for Pastors Here I must not complain that whereas all that professe Faith in God by Jesus Christ though differing from the profession held forth are protected in the exercise of their Religion Pop●ry and Praelacy are excepted though it cannot be denied that both profess Faith in God by Jesus Christ Nor that those who hold the profession established by the Laws under which we were born are resused that protection which is tendred Socinians enemies of the Trinity and satisfaction of Christ who manifestly profess Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures and Faith in God by Jesus Christ For my business is not to say what they that made these Lawes should have done by them but what you are to do now they are made But if it be answered that those that make these Lawes repose trust in them to whom they grant these Commissions that they will not take any to be godly men that are Hereticks To this I say that will not serve your turn for several reasons For those that professe all that the Law requires them to professe that is Faith in God through Jesus Christ and the Christian Religion Contained in the Scriptures cannot be judged ungodly for whatsoever they professe besides by any Power derived from this Law but by an arbitrary power to be exercised at the will of the Commissioners And how are you assured that no Heretick shall obtain a certificate of three Neighbours and so answer their demands that they shall have cause to think him in Gods grace However you are not warranted to trust your salvation and the salvation of those that depend on you either upon the judgement of these Commissioners or of them that make the laws If it be demanded why the secular Power and the Commissioners thereof are not as well to be trusted with the salvation of the people as those that may pretend authority from the Church the answer is ready That when you acknowledge a Pastor sent by the Church you neither trust his person nor the person of him that sends him but the Laws which the Church hath received from our Lord and his Apostles in as much as by professing Christianity so limited and according to them to exercise the function which he receiveth he becomes qualified for the charge in which you acknowledge him which Laws he that destroyes by dissolving the Corporation of the Church destroyes the trust you are to have in those whom you acknowledge your Pastors that they are not Hereticks And here I must not fail to give you notice that those Presbyterians and Independents who having departed from the Church of England upon pretence of erecting Presbyteries and Congregations do now make themselves Commissioners to execute these Laws which destroy both Presbyteries and Congregations have thereby destroyed the ground of all trust which the Church might have had in them for conduct in Christianity For what profession can it be presumed that they will hold when they hold not that for which they have destroyed the Unity of the Church which is the reason why Hereticks and Schismaticks though they may be re-admitted to the Communion of the Church upon repentance yet by the Rules of the Catholick Church cannot be re-admitted to be of the Clergie These Apostacies having made them uncapable of that trust which the Church must necessarily repose in the Clergy That you may see this is not for nothing I say further that there is among us a damnable Heresy of Antinomians or Libertines formerly when Puritans were not divided from the Church of England known by the name of Grindletonians and Etonists These do beleeve so to be saved by the free grace of God by which Christ died for the Elect that true faith is nothing but the revelation hereof and by consequence that all their sins past present and to come being remitted by this grace to repent of sin or to contend against it is the renouncing of Gods free grace and saving faith Another opinion there is which I cannot say the Presbyterians hold or require to be held but in regard their confession of Faith and Catechisme disclaimes it not and therefore allows them that hold it to be of their Faction may well be said to maintain it That for a man to beleeve that he is praedestinate to life and that Christ died for him is that faith which alone justifieth a Christian Whether of these opinions is the better or the worse or what is the difference between them let the parties dispute This I say that allowing the merits and satisfaction of Christ to the Elect for remission of sins and a title to everlasting life in no consideration but of their persons it is more reasonable to say that they can never become guilty of sin then that the remission of their sins and their right to life should depend upon the knowledge of their praedestination revealed by Faith seeing nothing is true because it is beleeved but beleeved because it is true And therefore I say that both of these opinions are destructive to the foundation of faith which the Church of England teacheth when in the Office of Baptisme and the beginning of the Catechisme it requireth all that are baptized not onely to profess the Faith of Christ but to renounce the flesh the world and the devil and to fight with them till death for the keeping of Gods Commandments assuring them hereupon that they are regenerate and adopted Gods children by his Grace in Christ For he that is saved by undertaking and persevering in this canno● be saved by beleeving that he is absolutely predestinate to life without it For I must say that it is one thing to be absolutely predestinate to life another thing to be predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere till death For he that is predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere in the Covenant of Grace till death is predestinate to life in consideration of the Covenant of Grace in which he is predestinate to persevere And whether a man can be absolutely predestinate to persevere in it of his own free-will and voluntary choice or not is that which remaines in dispute among Divines which I suppose not here to be either true or false But to say that a man is absolutely predestinate to life and to say that he is predestinate to life in consideration of his undertaking and persevering in the Covenant of Grace which must be the act of his own free-will and choice is to say express contradictions and to destroy the Covenant of Grace into which by the Baptisme of the Church of England every man entreth and all hope of Salvation which is meerly imaginary if not grounded upon it Seeing then that the trial upon which these Commissioners proceed

is the marks of predestination whether true or false not distinguishing whether they suppose the Covenant of Grace the undertaking of it and persevering in it or not I say that you are no way secured by these Laws that the Triers themselves much lesse those whom they shall send you are not complices of this damnable Heresy I must not forget to advise you that Dell one so far of this Heresy that he hath written a Book against Baptisme it self is now and is acknowledged by these Commissioners master of a Colledge in the University whereof several fellows have been notorious Preachers of this Heresy who cannot be acknowledged a member of the Church by any good Christian The like I alledge in regard of the Sect of the Anabaptists In which point I must suppose two things First that the Christian Faith supposeth Original sin Secondly that without Baptisme there is no cure for it which depends upon the Premises that there is no absolute predestination without consideration of the Covenant of Grace which Baptisme executeth to cure it For whatsoever our Lord meant when he said unlesse ye be born again of water it is manifest that though no man can become a true Christian without the operation of the Holy Ghost yet the Grace of the Holy Ghost dwelling in a man is not granted but in consideration of his entring into the said covenant and that this onely is the cure of Original sin There is then no necessity of shewing an expresse precept in Scripturre that all Infants be baptized or that the Church from the Apostles time did Baptize all while they were Infants If the Christian Faith suppose Original sin if no cure for that but by the covenant of Grace if no execution of that Covenant but the Baptisme of the Church unlesse where the outward act is prevented by inevitable necessity after the inward desire thereof was sufficiently resolved and declared then is this necessity a constraining precept and hath been so reputed by the Church even since the Apostles which alwayes hath taken order not that all should be baptized Infants but that no Infant should die without being baptized For the diligent watch over all occasions that might carry Infants out of the world unbaptized observed by the Church from the beginning though neglected since demonstrateth no legal assurance of the salvation of such as should die unbaptized whatsoever might be presumed of Gods goodnesse over and above what he declareth But as for those that shall become obliged and engaged to the covenant of grace by being consecrated to God through the act of the Church thereby obliging it self to shew them the truth of Christianity which obligeth all to whom it is shown the necessity aforesaid together with the practice of the Church is a legal presumption of the cure of Original sin and the opening of Paradise which it onely shutteth If therefore our Anabaptists do not believe original sin they are Pelagian Hereticks If beleeving it they beleeve notwithstanding that it is cured by Predestination without the Covenant of Grace they fall into the damnable Heresy premised And seem to make not onely that Baptisme whereby they make void the Baptisme received in the Church of England a renouncing of the Christianity which they received and professed at their Baptisme but that also which they give those whom they will not have baptized while they are infants utterly void and ineffectual towards God as not pretending to bring them into Covenant of Gods Grace by Christ that is into the profession of the true Faith and of fighting against sin till death under the same which they that beleeve Salvation by Gods Predestination revealed by faith without undertaking and persevering in the Covenant of Grace can by no means pretend to do Seeing then that the necessity of Baptisme cannot be denied but upon such a ground as voideth the Covenant of Grace and seeing the Triers are either Anabaptists themselves or complices in the same Commission with Anabaptists whereof there are in the Commission of Triers five or six that I hear of by name and how many more God knows and in the Commission for ejecting of scandalous Ministers in one County of Hertford nine of fifteen as I am credibly informed it is evident that by these Laws you are no wayes secured of having Anabaptists for your Pastors who are expressly Schismaticks forsaking the Church for that which the Church alwayes did and by consequence of the premised reasons Hereticks As the Baptisme of those men whom they pretend to send you for Pastors is by this reason void in point of right so the Eucharist which they may pretend to celebrate will be void of the effect of a Sacrament toward you but not void of the crime of Sacriledge towards God The reasons are two The first because those who have not received the Order of Priesthood shall pretend to celebrate it For the Scripture interpreted by the un-interrupted practise of the Church allows no man under the Order of a Priest to celebrate the Eucharist Not as if those who call themselves Ministers did commit this Sacriledge in consecrating the Eucharist Though the name of Ministers signifies no more then deacons and that it is truely Sacrilege for deacons to celebrate the Eucharist But because those whom the Church lawfully gives not the power of celebrating this Sacrament to though by mis-understanding those whom it gives it to may be called Ministers and ought to be called Priests their Eucharist is no Sacrament but Sacrilege The second because they know not nor acknowledge the Consecration that is requisite to the celebration and beeing of this Sacrament by the same Scriptures understood according to the un-interrupted custome and practice of the Church For the whole Church of God allowing the elements consecrated to be the Body and Bloud of Christ mystically or in the Sacrament alloweth this change to be made by the consecration before which they were onely Bread and Wine Not as if after the Consecration they were not so but because they are then become that which they were not afore to wit the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud or the Body and Bloud of Christ spiritually and mystically that is in the Sacrament This Consecration being exactly maintained by the Church of England they that presume to celebrate the Eucharist without acknowledging the fame and pretending to destroy the Law by which it is exercised must be presumed not to acknowledge the necessity thereof to the being of this Sacrament And therefore they and their complices in the Communion thereof to be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ as not distinguishing a signe of mans institution from a Sacrament of Gods appointment and Ordinance As for the Office of Preaching and Praying which they pretend to in behalf of the Church I will mark you out two monstrous Impostures in all the Sects of this time The first is this ground of the blessed Reformation of Religion in