Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	justify_v	sin_n	work_n	16,416	5	6.0182	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60562	A discourse concerning divine providence, in relation to national judgments	Smith, Thomas, 1638-1710.	1693 (1693)	Wing S4222; ESTC R3450	13,165	32

taken up with thoughts of themselves that they have no leisure to think of God and especially in a course of uninterrupted happiness and prosperity the Soul is as it were weakened and lost and dissolved in ease and softness and the rational faculties are depressed and deprived of their directive power and the gratification of a lust is set up in competition with the service of God and oftentimes preferred before it and the pleasures of sense prevail and when we are full we are apt to forget and deny God Deut. viii 11.14 Prov. xxx 9. It is but necessary then that men be taught the true and just knowledge of themselves which is done most effectually by judgments This shews how they depend necessarily upon God and how unable they are to stand before an Almighty power by this they are sensible that his anger can consume them in a moment and that his power can crush them into pieces Thou even thou art to be feared and who may stand in thy sight when thou art angry Psalm lxxvi 7. Let us deny now if we dare but certainly our fears and our convictions will not permit us to deny Gods power over us when we either hear on see so many thousands falling before us and when we see the whole creation at his command and doing his will An apprehension and sense of distress and danger will bring us upon our knees and will throughly convince us of our folly to forget much more to oppose and defy God and will force us with trembling and amazement to acknowledge his Almightiness and power by the judgments which he brings upon the World 2. If we look about us and observe the horrid violations of the Laws of God and Religion we shall soon justifie God in his proceeding so severely with us for by this he shews his anger against sin and how jealous he is of his honour It is most certain that this life is for the trial of our faith and obedience and that hereafter every one shall be rewarded according to his works and that tho God be provoked every day yet his patience and goodness seem to lay restraints as it were upon his Justice from breaking out upon the Sinner For if God should punish as often as men sin and should proceed according to the rigour of his justice all mankind would sink under the weight of his heavy hand If thou Lord wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss O Lord who may abide it Psalm cxxx 3. And we see what ill use is made of Gods forbearance and long-suffering how some interpret this in their own favour and how others harden themselves in wickedness and sin the more boldly Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil Eccles. viii 9. But to rectifie all misapprehensions that they may not pass into general opinions and to shew that he will not forbear always he doth often manifest and signalize his justice even in this life and loudly proclaim from heaven his anger against the unrighteousness of men and especially by national judgments in such cases as these When Religion is scorned and derided as an argument of a pusillanimous mind or as an effect of superstition or else is made use of as a cloak to cover maliciousness revenge and ambition when virtue and modesty are accounted parts of ill breeding and when wickedness appears bold and impudent in the day-light when luxury and effeminacy and a dissolution of manners have overspread a people when no regard is had to the sacred tyes and religion of repeated Oaths and Sacraments and to the most solemn obligations of natural and civil right and justice when the public worship of God is slighted and no check given to Atheism and profaneness when men live as if there were no God or which is worse cared not for him when blasphemies against God and Christ and the mysteries of our holy religion are tolerated and go unpunished when such kind of impieties all or some more or less become common and prevail in a Nation ruine cannot be afar off It is time for thee Lord to work for they have made void thy law Psalm cxix 126. We may safely and allowably pretend to foretel that vengeance hangs over the heads of such a people unless a general repentance and reformation intervene and avert the impending evil And tho no Prophets are now extraordinarily commissioned from heaven to prophecy against a nation and t● particularize the judgment which God will inflict except they amend yet we may be as sure of it that so it will be and we have as much reason to expect it as if there were because God has revealed his mind and will in his holy word and signified his intentions sufficiently that thus and thus he will proceed with an obstinate and incorrigible people 3. Judgments serve for examples and warning to others Punishment is so essential to government that without this it would soon be dissolved and confusion and all manner of disorder would break in upon the world it would be scarce possible to live with any kind of security It is fear which keeps men in and lays restraints upon their passions which otherwise would break out in fury and madness and what the sad and dismal consequences of the passions are when once let loose is easie to imagine and of which we may frame some tolerable kind of idea from the murders the sacrilegious rapines the villanies the desolations caused by a brutish rabble So that punishment becomes necessary not only that the criminal may make some satisfaction for the breach of Law but for security of the publick peace that others if the crime be capital especially seeing his shameful and untimely end may be deterred from following his bad example Which consideration is enough to vindicate the severity of the Laws upon the worser sort of malefactors not as if any delight were designed to be taken by heightning or prolonging the misery of any one be his crime never so heinous but only in terrorem to affright those who survive from attempting the like wickedness and to assure them withal what they are to expect if they do so This very method God Almighty is pleased to make use of in the government of the world His Laws are established with sanctions of rewards and punishments according as we either observe or disobey them None can pretend ignorance or complain of a surprize that they are punished before they knew the danger of the Sin For every judgment is a plain denunciation and threatning from heaven that if we equal others in their sin we may be made equal to them in their punishment It is true God takes his own time to punish he doth oftentimes forbear upon most gracious and wise designs he doth often let the sinner go on in his sins because the sinner is in his power and