Selected quad for the lemma: grace_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
grace_n	covenant_n	deny_v	infant_n	2,377	5	9.5458	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A12099	Five pious and learned discourses 1. A sermon shewing how we ought to behave our selves in Gods house. 2. A sermon preferring holy charity before faith, hope, and knowledge. 3. A treatise shewing that Gods law, now qualified by the Gospel of Christ, is possible, and ought to be fulfilled of us in this life. 4. A treatise of the divine attributes. 5. A treatise shewing the Antichrist not to be yet come. By Robert Shelford of Ringsfield in Suffolk priest.	Shelford, Robert, 1562 or 3-1627.	1635 (1635)	STC 22400; ESTC S117202	172,818	340

neither warrant for it nor president The like difference is at this day among our professours One sort will not sociate with the rest of their neighbours in the house of God because they have not every day a sermon to teach them more knowledge Both these the Apostle here reproveth in saying Knowledge puffeth up that is to say makes men proud but Charitie edifieth What the Apostle hath here put down in the generall I will proceed to prove in the particulars And to begin with the pride of knowledge In the creation God made his angels exceeding bright and glorious in understanding and then propounded to them his Sonne to be their governour to direct them in his service according to that Heb. 1. 6. Let all the angels of God worship him as if it were said Let them follow his direction But they seeing themselves made in such perfection of knowledge were so lifted up in pride that they refused a directour and would serve him after their own understanding for which their pride they were thrown down from heaven to hell After this the angels perceiving that the pride of their knowledge had thrown them down they set upon Adam and Eve perswading them also to break their order in eating of the tree of knowledge The serpent-angel told them that if they would eat of this tree they should be as Gods knowing good and evil This conceit of knowledge did so puffe them up too that they broke Gods commandment and were ipso facto thrown out of Paradise After this when man was ejected out of Paradise so politick and proud grew they that they would make a tower to clamber up to heaven and to defend themselves against Gods providence God seeing their pride confounded their devices by changing their language and then they were dispersed all the earth over like straying herds The like pride hath now adayes puft up our Puritanes that being but very ignorant people yet they will not be content to be accounted men of any mean knowledge or be satisfied with any setled estate but they will run from church to church from preacher to preacher and from one opinion to another untill they have lost and confounded themselves in the tower and Babel of their own fancies Knowledge puffeth up saith the Apostle and when a man is at the highest then he falls lowest Knowledge threw the angels out of heaven to hell knowledge threw Adam and Eve out of an earthly Paradise into a wildernesse of miseries and wittie policie cast mighty Nimrod with all mankinde out of the citie to seek straw and stubble with the children of Israel all the world over But saith the Puritane We have no sermons we are without a preacher we shall perish for want of knowledge I answer It is not knowledge that shall save because then all they that know the will of God and the mysteries of life must needs be saved But so they shall not because our Saviour saith He that knows his masters will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes and S. Paul saith The hearers of the law are not righteous before God but the doers of the law shall be justified Then knowledge without charitie saveth not but increaseth punishment and puffeth up Besides if knowledge were able to save then the devils might be saved because they know more then the best minister in the land And whereas thou standest upon much knowledge for we will yeeld thee that which is sufficient I say more unto thee that one may be saved without any knowledge at all Know you what you say yes the childe of three moneths old when by Gods providence it departeth what knowledge hath that of salvation yet the Church in all ages hath taught that such shall go to the kingdome of heaven and what should let it is without originall sinne because that is washt away in Baptisme and actuall sinne it never committed any by reason it wanted the use of free-will Besides the infant after Baptisme is within the covenant and united to God by his grace and God cannot denie either his grace or his covenant Now if the poore infant shall be saved without any knowledge at all why then shouldest thou think that thou canst not be saved with mean knowledge fit for thy estate But thou wilt say The infant is not suffered to live to the means of knowledge and therefore he is excused for the want of it Then what sayest thou to the men and women which want the gifts of understanding whom some call fools some innocents who know not the right hand from the left or whether there be a heaven or a hell what shall these be damned which want the knowledge that thou hast where dwells thy charitie I will not beleeve thy knowledge because that makes thee proud and the proud will condemne all save themselves The School Tenet is Amentes furiosi infantes non peccant that is Fools mad-men and children sinne not Therefore mad-men though they kill a man are not put to death for it Again the Church hath ever taught that all they that are within the covenant are in the state of grace untill they fall away but these Christian innocents cannot fall away because they cannot sinne and they cannot sinne because they want knowledge and free-will And my charitie teacheth me to hope that as the Saviour of the world at his first coming had mercie on the Gentiles who before lived without faith and without God in the world so at his second coming he likewise will shew favour to these want-wits and weak-wits and then open the windows of their understanding to see God face to face because they are within the covenant and are baptized Christians But to return to thy former challenge We have no sermons we want a preacher we shall die in our sinnes we know not what to do The Lord open thy eyes as he opened the eyes of Elisha his servant in the 6 chapter of the 2 book of Kings and then thou shalt see a multitude of preachers First all Gods creatures are thy preachers and daily teach thee And to prove this turn to the 19 Psalm 1 2 3. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handie work One day telleth another and one night certifieth another There is neither speech nor language but their voices are heard among them Again turn to the 12 of Job 7 8. and there he will bid thee ask the beasts and they shall teach thee and the fowls of heaven and they shall tell thee Or speak to the earth and it shall shew thee or the fishes of the sea and they shall declare unto thee When thou travellest abroad and seest a good piece of ground a good cow or a good horse thou wilt say I would my neighbour would sell me these for reasonable money Canst thou see the goodnesse of the creature in these and not see the goodnesse of the Creatour Canst thou

learn in these books what is good for thy bodie and not learn what is good for thy soul Open thy eyes wider and then thou shalt see that there could be no goodnesse in the creature except God had made it and that if the effect be good then the cause of this good must needs be infinitely more good and therefore he above all things is to be sought of us And this is so cleare a lesson that except a man will shut his eyes he must see it and understand it because the Apostle saith Rom. 1. 19 20. That which may be known of God is manifest in them For the invisible things of him that is his eternall power and Godhead are seen by the creation of the world being considered in his works that they should be without excuse And these preachers are of S. Paul acknowledged for preachers in the 10 chapter following and the 18 vers having relation to the 14 verse Have they not heard no doubt their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world Secondly Gods Word is thy preacher And this is proved by the book of Solomon called Ecclesiastes for that book as the learned know signifieth a preacher Again turn to Acts 15. 21. and there the holy Ghost will tell thee that Moses was preached every day in the Synagogues while his words were read unto them If thou saist that Gods scriptures are too high for thy capacitie then what sayest thou to the 19 Psalm vers 7. which teacheth that the testimony of the Lord giveth wisdome to the simple And art thou so simple to think that when God gave his scriptures to the Church he gave them so darkly that men might not understand them then he might as well not have given them Thou wilt object that of the Eunuch in Acts 8. 30 31. where when Philip asked the Eunuch whether he understood what he read he answered How can I except I had a guide And I answer thee again that there is a great difference between the Eunuch and thee and this place of scripture which he read and the places of scripture which to thee are propounded for he was out of the Church which is the house of light and thou art in it Again that scripture was to him a mysterie but to thee it is no mysterie For in Isaiah no name is exprest but it is read He was led as a sheep to the slaughter but what he this was the articles of our faith expresse to the simplest that it was Jesus Christ the Messias of the world who was delivered by the Jews to Pontius Pilate to be slain for our redemption and therefore this excuse of darknesse is utterly taken from thee because the Gospel is the blazing of the Law and there is nothing so dark in one place but in some other it is so bright that the very blear-eied may see it Therefore Fulgentius saith In verbo Dei abundat quod perfectus comedat abundat etiam quod parvulus sugat Ibi est enim simul lacteus potus quo tenera fidelium nutriatur infantia solidus cibus quo robusta perfectorum juventus spiritalia sanctae virtutis accipiat incrementa In the word of God aboundeth that which the perfect man may eat and that which the little one may suck For there is both drink of milk whereby the tender infancy of the faithfull may be nourished and solid meat whereby the strong youth of the perfect may receive the spirituall increase of holy vertue Thirdly Gods holy Sacraments are our preachers while by visible and sensible signes they teach us what we are to beleeve for which they are of the learned called visibilia verba words visible Therefore when we see the water in Baptisme this bringeth to our remembrance the water and bloud which came out of our Saviours side and when we see the bread and wine this preacheth to us that his bodie was broken and his bloud shed for our sinnes as the water signifieth the washing away of our transgressions And these Sacraments do that for us that all the preachers of the land cannot do For they by their words can but onely teach us and enlighten our understanding but these preachers the Sacraments besides the light which they give to our understanding infuse through Christs power and effectuall ordinance grace into our souls and make us acceptable before God Yea so effectually do they this that they can never want grace after who rightly receive them and preserve the vertue of them Therefore our Lord said to the woman in John 4. 14. Whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never be more athirst but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into eternall life This water is that grace which is bestowed upon us in Baptisme which after the Eunuch had received as we reade in Acts 8. 39. he went away rejoycing and we reade not that he heard any more sermons or received any other Sacraments for his well of water which he carried away with him into a farre heathen countrey was sufficient for him But oh the lamentation of our times Who shall make our people to beleeve that Christs Sacraments bestow grace they say they signifie onely and that faith cometh by hearing onely yet when they have heard what they can and beleeve what they will they shall never be saved without the grace of the Sacraments at least in desire I can shew you of some that are saved without the hearing of the word preached our baptized infants but I can shew you of none saved ordinarily without the Sacraments in regard of our Saviours exception in John 3. 5. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdome of God Therefore the men which shut up all in the preaching of the word evacuate Christs Sacraments and do they know not what for preaching is but a preparation for the Sacraments and there the principall grace lies hid For this cause our Saviour said to his Apostles Matth. 28. 19. Go teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost For people must first be taught that God bestoweth grace in the Sacraments or els they will not receive them And the principall Sacrament is Baptisme because that onely bestoweth new life and the rest strengthen and preserve it Fourthly printed sermons are thy preachers For assoon as there is any rare sermon preached by and by it is put to print and from the presse it is disperst all the land over There is scarce a house in any town but one or other in it by reading can repeat it to thee Then how shouldest thou starve for want of preaching when the best preachers in the land such as thou never sawest nor they thee yet by this means continually preach unto thee Fifthly Gods Spirit