Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	grace_n	life_n	reign_v	4,565	5	9.3210	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64234	A preservative against Deism shewing the great advantage of revelation above reason, in the two great points, pardon of sin, and a future state of happiness : with an appendix in answer to a letter of A. W. against revealed religion in the oracles of reason / by Nathanael Taylor.	Taylor, Nathanael, d. 1702.; A. W.	1698 (1698)	Wing T548; ESTC R8096	94,525	312

For the proposing vast Recompences for very slight and trivial Matters betrays great Want of Judgment in not setting a true value upon things either upon Rewards or Services or both Now by the Law of our Creation we owe God all possible Duty and Obedience a great deal more than the best of us do yield to him And should God have exacted it on the Account of his Sovereign Authority over us without promising us any thing at all much less any great Matters we had been indispensably obliged to it And our best Actions stand in need of Pardon so far are they from deserving to be Crowned Nothing in us or done by us can bear the least Proportion to the Heavenly Glory And therefore that besides a Pardon God should promise us Eternal Life as the Reward of what we do for him is what can hardly enter into our Thoughts But now Revelation does relieve us in this Matter The Scriptures tell us That Christ by his perfect Obedience and Death in our room and stead hath highly Glorified God and his Government and not only redeemed us from Hell and Destruction to which we were liable but also merited Everlasting Glory for us And that the Design of this whole Affair is to magnify the Riches of God's Grace and show the vast Regard he has to the Death and Intercession of his own Son that on his Account he offers such an unspeakable Reward to us Rom. 5.12 That as Sin has reigned unto Death so might Grace reign through Righteousness to Eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. It is not for any Works of Righteousness that we have done or can do it is not because of their Intrinsick Worth that such great Things are given to us Heaven is the Purchase of Christ's Blood it is for His Sake we are accepted and rewarded And so upon our Faith and Obedience we freely receive the Blessings which he hath merited And the more we abound therein the greater is our Reward not because of our Merits but because of God's gracious Promise and Respect to the Blood of his Son for which he assigns us different Degrees of Glory in Proportion to our different Measures of Holiness and Obedience VII § VII I shall add one Consideration more which will equally reach both this and the foregoing Head viz. Natural Light and Reason cannot assure us where Grace is to be had to enable us to perform the Terms on which the Pardon of Sin and the Enjoyment of the Heavenly Glory is suspended Whosoever consults himself the Vanity of his own Mind the Corruption of his own Heart the Turbulency of his Passions the unruliness of his Appetite the Strength of Temptations the Weakness of his Resolutions and the Force of Evil Examples will quickly see an absolute Necessity of a Divine Power to turn him into and keep him in the Paths of Holiness Some Ingenious Men tell us very strange and surprizing Stories of the mighty Strength of Wheels and Pullies and Screws that 't is possible by the Multiplication of them to pull up an Oak by the Roots with a single * Bishop Wilkin's Archimedes p. 96. Hair of a Man's Head lift it up with a Straw or blow it up with ones Breath So that by these Contrivances one of Sampson's Locks when shaven off would have had far greater Strength and done greater Wonders than he himself when all of them were on As Extravagant as this may seem to be yet 't is much more easy and likely than for any Man by his own feeble Arm to pluck up those inveterate Evil Habits which Time and Custom have settled in him and made natural to him Now what well-grounded Confidence can we have from the meer Light of Nature of Divine Help for the accomplishing this great and necessary Work Whether any shall ever enjoy it seeing the same Sins that make us need it render us most unworthy of it Or in what Proportions it shall be given forth and how long it shall be continued Whether the Spirit of God shall be like those Periodical Winds which in some Parts of the World do annually blow to help the Mariner forward in the pursuit of his gainful Voyage or whether it shall only be like that bright Minute which Astrologers tell us of that comes but once in the whole Compass of a Man's Life and which if he lazily let slip he shall never have such another but is doom'd to Misery by a Fatal Necessity all the remainder of his Days But the Christian Institution is peculiarly called the Ministration of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8 c. as contra-distinguish'd from the Judaical one tho' that also had God for its Author so small a Portion of it was given forth under the one like little Drops of the Dew from Heaven which just wets the Ground in Comparison of what is bestowed under the other like a plentiful Shower of Rain from above that abundanly Waters it It was in the New Creation as in the Old The cold and dark Evening went before the warm and bright Morning and God appointed the lesser Light to Rule the Night and the greater one to govern the Day The Jewish Dispensation like the Moon had its Glory and its Influence on these lower Bodies But the Gospel is like the Sun who may with more reason than any thing which some Ancient Philosophers dreamt of be called the Soul of the World whose bright and warm Beams give a new Life and Being to all things here below awaken the sleepy and drowsy Spirit in every Creature and cause the Fruits of the Ground to Spring up and flourish and Crown the Year with an abundant Increase Therefore our Blessed Saviour stiles himself the Light of the World Joh. 8.12 a Title which he doth deserve because of the Objects that he hath informed us of having set those Old Truths which before were but darkly apprehended in a full and clear Light and acquainted us with those New ones which had it not been for him we had for ever remained Igrant of And he doth deserve it no less because of that Vital Influence with which his Heavenly Doctrine is accompanied without which all Knowledge in our Minds would be but like decayed Drugs which tho' taken into our Bodies having lost all their Virtue never operate upon them nay Men could not act worse if they verily believed or knew those Doctrines to be false than they do now they believe and know them to be true Joh. 1.4 Ephes 5.14 His Light is the Life of Men Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the Dead and Christ shall give thee Light And by the Scriptures we are certified that God hath appointed his own Son to be his High Almoner to distribute this Royal Gift of his among us his needy Creatures That being God and Man he hath the Infinite Goodness of the one and the tender Bowels of the other united in him And

worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God c. 'T is further evident from the Nature of the Sin here mentioned that the Apostle is speaking of the Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost The formal nature of that dreadful Sin I take to be this A malicious reproaching our Blessed Saviour as an Impostor and Deceiver imputing the Miracles which he wrought by the Spirit of God for the Confirmation of his Holy Doctrine and Mission to the Power of the Devil A man would wonder if there were not a thousand Instances of the like kind how so many Learned Men could make a shift so much to mistake this clear and plain notion of this Sin and give us so many Extravagant Opinions concerning it as widely distant from each other as all of them are from the Truth who doth but consider how St. Mark closes the Speech of our Saviour concerning it For he winds up all with these remarkable words Mark 3.30 Because they said he hath an Unclean Spirit which give us a clear Light whereby to discern the nature of this Sin But some rather chuse as an Evidence of their great Strength to endeavour to break through the Walls than turn the Key that is very plainly in the Door and would easily open it and let them into the House Now that 't is this Sin viz. the Reproaching Christ as a Deceiver the Apostle is here speaking of will appear from the Expressions which he useth concerning it He calls it a Crucifying the Son of God afresh Ch. 6.6 Ch. 10.29 and putting him to an open Shame A treading him under foot and counting his Blood an unholy thing and doing Despite to the Spirit of Grace All which do amount to this That they esteemed Christ to be a Vile Malefactor a wretched Impostor that his Miracles which for the Matter of Fact they could not deny were wrought by the help of the Infernal Powers and therefore he was deservedly put to death and had it been to do again they would as readily have done it as ever the Malicious Jews did Moreover the Sin here spoken of in one of the Places Ch. 6.6 is called a falling away and that from the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ which in the Verses immediately foregoing he had newly mentioned Ver. 1 2. i. e. a total Renouncing of the Christian Faith and Returning either to Judaism or Paganism which these Hebrews were in great danger of and which 't is the apparent Design of this Epistle to fortify them against And tho' in the other place it be called only in the General a Sinning Wilfully or Willingly Ch. 10.26 yet thereby the same thing is meant For just before the Apostle had been exhorting them to hold fast the Profession of their Faith without wavering Ver. 23 and cautioning them against forsaking the Assembling of themselves together as the manner of some was Ver. 25 which was the natural Means and the Ouvert-Act and Sign of their Apostacy And then these Words are brought in For if we sin wilfully c. i. e. If we cast away the Profession of our Faith forsake the Christian Assemblies and renounce the Doctrine of Christ Now it is worthy of our careful Observation that the Heathens but especially the Jews were so implacably bent against our Blessed Lord that tho' a Christian did desert the Assemblies of the Faithful and offer to join with them in their Judaical or Pagan Religion and Worship yet this alone would not suffice But besides this they required an express Abjuring and Reviling and Blaspheming Christ as an Impostor And without this their Rage was never satisfied and to speak in the modern Language they never thought they had fully performed all the necessary Duties of New Converts Acts 26.11 St. Paul tells us that when he persecuted the Christians 1 Tim. 1.13 being exceeding mad with Rage he compelled them to Blaspheme as he Himself also did And giving the Corinthians a Character whereby to distinguish between Divine and Diabolical Spirits 1 Cor. 13.3 I give you to understand Saith he that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus Accursed which doth plainly imply that it was very usual for men to do so in that Age for otherwise this Note of his would have been of no manner of Service to them Pliny in his Epistle to Trajan informs him what was the Ordeal Fire by which he tried those who were suspected and accused whether they would disown Christianity not only by proposing to them to worship the Heathen Gods and the Image of the Emperor but also by demanding of them whether praeterea Christo maledicerent they would also revile Christ And he further adds concerning those that fell in that hour of Temptation that they not only worshipp'd the Pagan Idols and Trajan's Image but also that Ii Christo maledixerunt they reviled Christ And Justin Martyr * Apol. 2d p. 72. Edit Paris tells us That Barchochebas the Ringleader of the Jewish Rebellion did order the Christians to be severely punisht unless they would not only deny Christ but blaspheme him too And Polycarp being required in order to save his Life to reproach † Euseb Hist l. 4. c. 15. Christ replied How can I Blaspheme my King and Saviour And our Learned † Harm of N. Test p. 289 290. Vol. 1. Lightfoot saith That as early as about the 10th or 11th Year after our Saviour's Ascension Rabban Gamaliel and the Sanhedrin appointed a new Prayer in which was a Petition to God to destroy the Hereticks i. e. the Christians and this he set among the Common Prayers and appointed it to be in every man's Mouth And that the Jews had their Emissaries every where abroad that to their utmost cried down the Gospel and blasphemed it and Christ that gave it Of this saith he there is Testimony abundant in the New Testament and in their own Writings So much shall suffice to prove that 't is the Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost but a more Aggravated one than that of the Pharisees that is meant in both these Places And if any of our Modern Deists have been maliciously guilty of this Sin unto death I leave them to God But provided a man hath not gone so great a Length as this is how many soever his Sins and Back-slidings from God have been yet on a renewed deep and Sincere Repentance and a lively Faith in the Blood of Christ they shall be remitted Tho' I must add in the words of Moses Exod. 8.29 Let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully with God any more For if this Grace be turned into Wantonness tho' God forgive Men Ps 99.8 yet he may and will take vengeance upon their Inventions And this naturally leads me to the Last thing which remains to be spoken unto VI. § VI Mere Natural Light and Reason cannot assure us to what Degree God will pardon those whom he does forgive It