Selected quad for the lemma: grace_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A24004
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The Christians testimony against tythes in an account of the great spoil and rapine committed by the Bishop of Chester's tythe-farmer at Cartmell in Lancashire upon the people there called Quakers in the years 1677 and 1678 : acting first as an informer upon the Act against Conventicles for which his witnesses stand indicted for perjury, secondly by suits in inferiour courts (for tythes) contrary to law.
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Atkinson, Thomas.
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1678
(1678)
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Wing A1431A; ESTC R28313
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9,339
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16
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was come he said Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy loaden and ye shall find Rest for your Souls A blessed Invitation to all that can receive it this Eternal Rest which the Jews Resting Day was a Figure of remains a Rest for the People of God forever yet the Wise and the Learned and the Scribes and the Pharisees among the Jews they could not believe Christ Jesus when he was come but reviled him and set him at nought and restless they were till they had crucified and put him to death the Scriptures of Truth declare the same And Saul that great Persecutor for all the wisdom learning he had in the first nature thought he did God good Service when he got Letters from the Chief Priests and Rulers to persecute the Churches of the Saints Servants of God where-ever he found them such as feared God and worshipped him in Spirit and Truth till it pleased the Lord to smite him with his Righteous Judgments and bring down his Pride and Presumption and when he was blind and cast down then the Lord appeared to him and let him see the Evil he had done against the Lord and his harmless People and so from a persecuting Saul he became a converted Paul and a Minister not of the Letter but of the Spirit then all his Human Learning and Natural Wisdom was by him deny'd and set at nought as may be read at large in his first Epistle to the Corinthians in the beginning thereof for it s neither Natural Wisdom nor Natural Learning that can or ever did bring to the True Knowledge of God it must come in the Self-denyal and in the revealed Will of God For none knows the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son reveals him and as the wise and prudent of the World and the chief Priests and Rulers would not come to Christ for Life and Salvation but thought to have it in the outward Letter of the Scriptures as Christ then told them so the same dark spirit in people denyes the Teachings of Christ in spirit in this Age they will not come to the Light of Christ in themselves to be taught by that but set up Hireling Teachers without them which tell them They must continue in Sin for term of Life and so are alwayes confessing that they are miserable Sinners erring and going astray doing that they should not do and leaving that undone which they should do but all such shall know that it is not they that confess but they that forsake that shall find Mercy with the Lord so that if ever people will come to the Knowledge of God Christ they must first come to the Witness of God in themselves the Light of Christ in their own Consciences for as the Apostle saith when he came to be a Minister of the Spirit That which may be known of God is manifested in man for God has shewed it to him this same Apostle who had been the great Persecutor when he came to preach the Cross of Christ which is the Power of God it was to the Jews a Stumbling-block and to the Greeks Foolishness and for that Persecution was his Portion from the great Learned Men Priests and Rulers and the baser sort of men joyned with the Scriptures record the Truth thereof which I do refer all sober men to try if they do not find it to be so for then the change came from a Persecutor to be Persecuted Hated Whipped and Imprisoned and at last Death by the Romans And besides all this the Terrors and Judgments of the Lord as a just Reward for his Wickedness done against Christ and his Faithful Servants seized upon him that he was forced in the anguish of his spirit to cry out Oh Wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death c yet it pleased the Lord who is full of Mercy to all who truly repent and forsake the Evil of their doings to bring him through Judgments and to remit his Sins that he could in the integrity of his heart say He had obtained Victory through Christ Jesus that loved him 1 Cor. 15. and in other of his Epistles to the several Churches as may be read at large And so let none think strange that a Change be wrought and witnessed in this Life for it was the Apostle's Exhortation To workout your own Salvation with Fear and Trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will to do of his own good Will and Pleasure For are not all Mankind by nature Children of Wrath we as well as others it is by Grace that we are redeemed saved not of our selves it is the Gift of God and this universal and free Grace hath appeared to all people upon the face of the whole Earth but all are not taught by this Grace and the Reason is in themselves because they deny it and so turn this Grace of God into Wantonness following the Lust of their own Hearts and here lies the whole World Priest and People Professors and Prophane sinning out their dayes for term of life their best Actions being Sin For the plowing of the wicked is sin and the prayers of the wicked are abomination to the Lord but it is not so with the Godly for this Grace which hath appeared to all men teached them the Saints to deny Vngodliness and Worldly Lusts and to live soberly in this present evil World This Grace was and is and forever will be the Saints Teacher and as many as are led and guided by this free Grace the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God and if Sons then Heirs and the Heir abides in his Fathers House forever Published to the World by THOMAS ATKINSON