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faith_n covenant_n righteousness_n seal_n 7,900 5 9.9242 5 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A50683 A sermon preached before the King at White-hall July 30, 1676 by John Meriton ... Meriton, John, b. ca. 1630. 1677 (1677) Wing M1821; ESTC R744 12,431 32

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our Wills will so far commute for the deed that is for the perfection of obedience to that Law of Moral Righteousness in a State of Grace as whatever pollutions or defilements we may have contracted through the fraud of the Devil the frailty of the Flesh or temptations of the World So long as our Converse with bodily Objects have not altogether sunk down our souls into a vicious love of them which is the dregs and feculency of sin and folly God will accept us upon a sincere repentance through the Merit and Righteousness of the Holy Jesus the redundancy of whose righteousness is to supply the defects of a sincere repentance 2. As being that righteousnes in the pursuance of which in truth though we cannot in perfection we can only have confidence of acceptance with God through Jesus Christ though we cannot be golden Scepters we must be broken Reeds though not burning and shining Lights we must be smoaking Flaxes in his sight who will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoaking flax until judgment be brought forth unto victory And this is that righteousness of Faith wherein consists the power and substance of true Religion and Godliness upon which as the condition the Covenant of our reconciliation and happiness was confirmed of God in Christ to Abraham for all Generations who received the sign of Circumcision but as the Seal of the righteousness of Faith which is the condition of the Covenant which he had yet being uncircumcised that he might be the Father of all that believe that righteousness might be imputed to them also though they were not circumcised Rom. 4. 11. So that God was in no need of Abraham's Children according to the flesh but could without breach of Promise to him upon their Apostacy and Degeneracy from his faith and righteousness destroy them all and out of the obdurate Gentile world or the very stones raise up a People to himself followers of the faith of Abraham to whom as such the Promise in Christ did as truly belong as to the proudest Pharisee or Sadducee of them all Circumcision was but the sign of the Covenant not obedience to it but the profession of Religion not the practice of it and for them only to profess and expect the reward was as preposterous as if a Servant should demand wages of his Master for wearing of his Livery and neglecting of his Work The faith and righteousness of Abraham was example for their vertue not expiation of their sin and they might as reasonably have expected to have lived naturally by vertue of what Abraham had eat and drank without eating and drinking for themselves as to live eternally by vertue of that particular act of believing whereby Abraham wrought the works of God which was counted to him for righteousness unless by the same Spirit of Faith they should work the works of Abraham and of God and thereby work out their own Salvation with fear and trembling for Abraham's righteousness determined in himself he could thereby but deliver his own soul for God respects no man for the goodness of another but every man in the circumstance of his own integrity If the Stones the obdurate Gentiles the Wild Olives grafted in will believe and repent and do the works of Abraham upon the hearing of the Gospel they shall be the Children of Abraham and Heirs according to the Promise and if the Jews the Natural Branches continue in their Hardness and Unbelief it shall be no privilege to them that they are the Off-spring of Abraham according to the flesh Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance And think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham The Words thus opened principally imply two Particulars by way of Motive to Repentance 1. The Universality of the purpose of the Grace of God in the Redemption of the world by Jesus Christ the most proper Motive to Repentance against Despair 2. The Impartiality of God's Justice in distributing Rewards and Punishments without respect of persons And think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father the most proper Motive to Repentance against carnal security and presumption God is impartially good that none may despair and impartially just that none may presume 1. God is impartially good Though the Jews were Israelites to whom appertained the Adoption and the Glory and the Covenant and the giving of the Law and the Promises whose were the Fathers and of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ came who is God blessed for ever Rom. 9. 4. And to whom were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. God had not therefore cast off all care or concern for other Nations though he had left them for some time to walk in their own ways without the direction of instituted Righteousness or positive Laws yet he did not leave himself without Witness in that he did them good and gave them rain from heaven and fruitful Seasons filling their hearts with food and gladness Acts 14. 17. And though the coming of Christ in the flesh that he might reconcile both Jew and Gentile unto God in one Body by the Cross Ephes 2. 16. And that the Gentiles should be Fellow-Heirs with the Jews of the same Body and partakers together of the Promises of Christ by the Gospel was a Notion that had been for some time buried in the dark vault of Nature's Ruines and long obscured under the thick veil of Moses's Law and by the dark sayings of the Prophets concerning Christ so as St. Paul in his Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians Ephes 3. 4 5. Coloss 1. 26. calls it a Mystery which hath been hid from Ages and Generations And St. Peter the Minister of the Circumcision and great Apostle of the Jews was first warranted by a Vision from Heaven Acts 10. 28. before he would acknowledge any Grace of God to the Gentiles yet what was formerly drawn by a dark Coal or Pencil is now written with a Sun-beam and there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek Rom. 10. 12. God can be merciful without being partial just without being cruel and truly great without designing irrespectively the far greatest part of Mankind for the Trophies of his Power in an eternal misery For as it follows in the same Text the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him God is equally related unto Mankind as the same Lord he is the God of the spirits of all flesh Heb. 12. 9. And hath made of one Blood all Nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitations Acts 17. 26. His Hands fashioned Esau as well as Jacob and consequently obliges his love and care in truth though not in degree for both so that those words Rom. 9. 13. Jacob have I loved