Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	work_n	work_v	wrought_v	124	3	7.7428	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55305	The divine will considered in its eternal decrees, and holy execution of them. By Edward Polhill of Burwash in Sussex Esquire	Polhill, Edward, 1622-1694?; Owen, John, 1616-1683.; Seaman, Lazarus, d. 1675.	1695 (1695)	Wing P2754; ESTC R212920	238,280	559

ones Ver. 7. God's stretching out his hands is all one with his call Prov. 1. 24. but all men are not called after the ●●me rate as the called according to purpose Wherefore this place proves not that the workings of Grace as to the Elect are resistible but that the Offers of Grace as to the Non-elect are serious God in the Means really spreading out his Arms of Grace unto them Again they urge that of our Saviour These things I say that you might be saved Joh. 5. 34. which words were spoken to them which would not come to Christ Ver. 40. but that the holy Spirit spake as inwardly and powerfully to them as to the Elect who hear and learn of the Father what Chymistry can extract it out of this Text or from what other Scripture can it be demonstrated God commands the light to shine out of darkness in some hearts 2 Cor. 4. 6. but doth he so in all Whence then are those blinded ones Ver. 4 If there be any such where is the Remonstrants Equality of Grace Where when they say that Illumination is wrought irresistibly These things cannot consist together Wherefore our Saviours words shew not forth the weakness or superableness of Grace as to the Elect but the true End and Scope of Christ's Preaching as to the Non-elect what he spake to them was in order to their Salvation Again they urge that The Pharisees and Lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves being not baptized of him that is of John Luk. 7. 30. Here say they is their Thesis in terminis But this place is so far from proving that the internal Grace vouchsafed to the Elect is resistible that from hence it cannot be proved that these Rejecters had any workings of internal Grace at all in them For internal Grace runs in the Veins of Ordinances and the Ordinance here spoken of was John's Baptism and that these Rejecters would not partake of at all for so saith the Text They were not baptized of him and then which way should they come by internal Grace could they have it quite out of God's Way No surely there is little or rather no reason to imagine that these Rejecters so far scorning God's Ordinance as not so much as outwardly to be made partakers thereof should yet have the workings of internal Grace in them But suppose they had some internal Working must it needs be the baptism of the holy Ghost and fire such intimate and powerful working as is in the Elect Not a tittle of this appears in the Text wherefore this place proves not that the working of Grace in the Elect is resistible but it signally shews forth the nature of divine Ordinances Every Ordinance is an Ordinance from the Will of God 't is an Appointment dropt down from Heaven 't is divinely destinated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for edification and not for destruction 't is the Place where God records his Name 't is the Way where God would be met withal 't is the Oracle where God would be heard 't is a kind of Tabernacle of witness where God attesteth the Riches of his Grace John's Baptism was not a mere external Sign or Shadow but imported God's ordinative Counsel to bring men to Repentance 't was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to repentance as its proper End Matth. 3. 11. Gospel-preaching is not a mere sound or voice of Words but it importeth Gods ordinative Counsel to turn men unto himself Hence every true Minister is said to stand in Gods counsel and for this very End to turn them from the evil of their doings Jer. 23. 22. Every Ordinance speaks an ordinative Counsel for some spiritual End a serious Ordination for the good of Souls Oh! that every one would think so indeed how surely would they find that God is in it of a truth whosoever comes to an Ordinance so thinking justifies Gods Institution and meets his Benediction but he who comes and thinks otherwise doth by that very thought forsake the ordinance of his God and reject his counsel though not in so high and gross a manner as the Pharisees and Lawyers did who would not so much as outwardly partake of John's Baptism Again they urge that What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes Isai. 5. 4. Here say they were omnia adhibita not a tantillum gratiae wanting here seems to be the ultimus conatus the utmost Acting of Grace even equal to those Operations of Grace which were in the Converts of the Jewish Church and that upon a double account First because God says What could be done more Secondly because God had done so much that he expected the grapes of Holiness and Obedience from them and yet after all this they brought forth wild Grapes Hence the Remonstrants conclude that Conversion is wrought in a resistible way I answer those which will take the true measure of the Grace set forth in this Text must first consider to whom this Grace was afforded 't was to the Jewish Church in common even to every member thereof this granted as it cannot be denied I procede to answer first as to that expression What could have been done more Either the meaning of it is what could have been done more in a way of internal Grace or else it is what could have been done more in a way of external Means the first cannot be the meaning that God could do no more in a way of internal Grace if God had said so in that sence the Jewish Church might have aptly answered Lord couldst thou not write the Law in every Heart Couldst thou not make a new heart in every one of us O how many unregenerate Souls are there found in me But if not that Lord couldst thou not at least have inwardly enlightned every one Couldst thou not have given him some inward dispositions to Conversion O how many ignorant Souls are there which call evil good and good evil and put darkness for light and light for darkness Isai. 5. 20 these are not so much as inwardly inlightned O! how many Atheists are there which jear and scoff at the Threatnings of God saying Let him hasten his work that we may see it let the counsel of the holy One draw nigh that we may know it Ver. 9. These are so far from any dispositions to Conversion that they scarce have the sense of a Deity in them Lord thou who didst plant me a Vineyard or visible Church couldst have planted saving Graces in every Heart thou who didst gather out the stones of publick annoyance out of me couldst have took away the privy stone of hardness out of every Heart doubtless thou art Almighty and therefore thou canst do it thou art True and therefore thou wilt do it if thou hast said it Hence it appears that that Expression What could have been done more relates not

full of mercy as he is he could not forgive in a way opposite either to his Justice which in its nature calls for satisfaction for Sin or to his Truth which in the Law pronounces death on the Sinner but Justice and Truth being satisfied by Christ's death he is ready to forgive The mercy-seat was covered with a cloud of incense Levit. 16. 13. and the reason there rendred is very remarkable lest he that was before it should die What die before the Mercy-seat Yes even there unless the Merits of Christ be as a Cloud round about it Mercy as of it self alone would not save us but every Sinner must have died before it had it not been surrounded with the Incense of Christ's Merits God out of Christ is a consuming Fire to Sinners but in Christ he is reconciling them to himself The second is wrought by Christ's death as applied by Faith therefore 't is called propitiation through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 25. and both these were typified by the sprinkling of the blood of the Sacrifice under the Law That blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat Levit. 16. 15. prefiguring the first degree of Reconciliation by Christ's death in it self and it was sprinkled on the people Exod. 24. 8. prefiguring the second degree of Reconciliation by Christ's death as applied to us by Faith But you 'l say If God be first angry and then reconciled and reconciled by degrees there must be a change in God and his Will which cannot be admitted I answer that Reconciliation is not an immanent Act but a transient not so properly abiding in God as passing from him upon the Creature As when the Scripture saith the Wrath of God at such a time was kindled or arose 't is not meant that the Will of God was novelly inflamed but that the flame of wrath then broke forth in transient effects from thence so when it saith God is reconciled it imports not a cooling alteration in the Will of God but a gracious effluxion of Love breaking out from thence As in punishment wrath goes out from the Lord against sinners Num. 16. 46. and is upon them 2 Chron. 29. 8. So in reconciliation Love goes out from the Lord towards Believers and is upon them so that the change is not in God but in the Creature Proportionably to the nature of Reconciliation as a transient Act Christ reconcileth us unto God not by making a new Will in God but by doing his Will for so he himself saith when he came about the work Loe I come to do thy will O God God's Will as to this point may be considered under a double notion either as naturally pregnant with Vindictive Justice and decretively issuing out the Minatory Law both requiring that Sin if committed should be punished or else as decreeing within it self the way and manner how this Justice Law should be satisfied by a Surety in order to the Redemption of sinners Now Christ perfectly fulfilled God's Will in all these respects in him our Sins were punished according to the exaction of Justice and the equitable interpretation of the Law and that in such a way as was preordained by God's Will for our Redemption This Will being thus satisfied God is truly reconciled not only as the Socinian would have it we reconciled to him but he to us and this appears in three things 1. In that Sin is not objected before God's Will as it would have been had not Christ satisfied it would have been objected before it as that just cause for which God might nay according to the naturality of his Justice and veracity of his Law must have punished us Sinners to all Eternity But now it is not so objected before it for albeit there be an intrinsecal and inseparable desert of wrath in the nature of it yet now its obligation or redundancy upon the Sinner appears not because expiated in the Surety this the Apostle calls the reconciling of sin Heb. 2. 17. Without Christ's death Sin like a fury would have cried and clamoured for wrath and vengeance to be poured down on the Sinner but through his death Sin as one reconciled hath nothing to say against him but that he may have Life and Salvation on Gospel-terms 2. In that the effects of wrath do not issue out from God's Will against the Sinner as they would have done God who is infinite Holiness and essential Rectitude cannot but hate Sin and in this hatred there is nothing less than a velle punire and from thence condign punishment must have poured down upon the Sinner if it had not by the Will of God been derived upon the Surety but being derived thither that righteous Will is satisfied and the merited Wrath comes not forth against the Sinner but instead thereof 3. Effects of Love break forth from God's Will towards him Grace appears to all men Tit. 2. 11. to all men in a gracious Reconciliability and to Believers in actual Reconciliation Believers are actually accepted or ingratiated in the beloved Eph. 1. 6. and so shall all others as soon as they become Believers Thus God is truly reconciled yet without any change in his Will only Sin doth not cry to that Will against the Sinner punishment doth not break out of that Will upon him and Grace beams and sparkles out of that Will towards him whilest in all these his Will remains unchangeable Hence in Scripture we are rather said to be reconciled to God than God to us not as the Socinian would have it because we only are reconciled to God and not God to us but because God is reconciled to us in such a way as is not alterative but perfective and completive of his unchangeable Will Thus Christ bore our Sins and God's Wrath in a way so satisfactory to God's Justice and Law that thereby God is reconciled to us and we are redeemed from Sin and Wrath. But here I am obviated by an Objection If there be such a compensatory Price paid for Sin where is free Remission Free Remission cannot stand with plenary Satisfaction what is fully paid cannot be at all remitted I answer It cannot if there be a solution by the Debtor but it may if there be a satisfaction by a Surety it cannot if that Surety were of the Debtors own providing but it may if he were of the Creditour's procuring it cannot if the Suretie's paiment be irrecusable but it may if the Creditor's acceptance be free it cannot if the remission were to the same person who makes satisfaction but it may if one person make satisfaction and another find remission And thus it is in this case our debts were paid to God but by a Surety Jesus Christ and this Surety was of God's own sending and that his payment went for ours was of God's own Grace and hence it comes to pass that God hath full satisfaction and we free remission and this without any repugnancy for Christ who satisfied had no remission