Selected quad for the lemma: grace_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
grace_n	deny_v	teach_v	ungodliness_n	4,302	5	11.7286	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44932	The spirit of prophecy a treatise to prove, by the wayes formerly in use among the Jews, in the tryal of pretenders to a prophetic spirit, that Christ and his Apostles were prophets : together with the divine authority of christian religion and the Holy Scriptures, the insufficiency of human reason, and the reasonableness of the christian faith, hope, and practice, deduced therefrom, and asserted against Mr. Hobbs, and the Treatise of Hvmane Reason / by W.H.	Hughes, William, b. 1624 or 5.	1679 (1679)	Wing H3346; ESTC R19799	183,906	298

it was a more heinous sin to transgress them than the Written Law yea that whosoever dissents from his Teacher doth as much as if he dissented from the Divine Majesty and sinned against the Holy Ghost and for that Cause was guilty of Death viz. by the Scourge of Rebellion which was a sort of Punishment by cudgelling inflicted for the Breach and Contempt of Traditions Since I say they had these and many other such prodigiously wicked and cruel Inventions to uphold the Authority of their Traditions and Dictatorship it is no marvel if they proceeded against those that spake lightly of them as if Malice were the fittest Affection Vengeance and Cruelty the best Behaviour towards them Yet evident it is that Christ did not spare them but as the Prophets of old so did he detect the Hypocrisie and sharply reprove the faults of their Elders He did demonstrate the Vanity of their Righteousness and expose the cunning Wickedness of their Traditions He discovered the impiety of their Magisterial Dictates and freely unfolded the Mysteries of their Iniquity He pulled off the Guilding and Paint of their seeming Devotion and uncovered the Rottenness and P●trefaction of their Hearts He despised the Pageants of a Pompous Formality and set at naught the Ceremonies of their External Performances without inward and real Goodness Though the People did rage and the Rulers take Councel together against him yet he did constantly affirm that God had sent him and as the Prophets before him so did he undauntedly shew the People their Transgressions and the House of Jacob their Sins And in so doing he strived to retrive the Law and the Prophets to rescue them from false Glosses and Misconstructions to discover the Insufficiency of Traditions and Pharisaical Righteousness to inculcate the necessity of Morality and so to reduce the Jews to the Practice of Piety in all Holiness of Living and Fervours of divine Worship in Spirit and in Truth without their numerous Ceremonies or at least their mighty Confidence in their Priviledges and Performances which both he and his Apostles taught them to place in our Lord Jesus a stumbling Block and Rock of Offence unto them and was not this a great and strange Undertaking Such as loudly speaks the Greatness of their Minds and the Bravery of their Courage Which was not in the least abated but rather increased by Opposition in their Lives it did assist them to bear all Sorts of Afflictions and to endure the rudest Contradictions of Sinners against them and at their Deaths it did not forsake them for though after some solemn Mockeries of Justice enough to move ones Indignation they were cruelly Murdered and barbarously Butchered yet their Patience and Charity those truest Signs of M●gnanimity in Sufferings were conspicuous and admirable insomuch that They only of all Teachers may be compared with the Prophets or rather preferred before them for Fortitude Whereof also the Apostles gave abundant evidence among the Gentiles whom they found dead in Trespasses and sins prone to nothing so much as the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eye and the Pride of Life i. e. Sensual Pleasures Riches and Honours these things they did not only love and live in but in a sort adore and dei●ie for not only Gods Creatures and Men that were famous in their Lives nor only the Fancies and Fictions of Poets but their own Lusts and Passions called by other names were also enrolled among their Gods Venus and Cupid Mars and Baccbus were the Names of deified Concupiscence Wrath and Drunkenness although they forbad these Vices and made Laws against them yet their Causes as Theodoret tells them they saluted as heavenly Gods and gave divine Worship unto them And was it not a sad and direful Apotheosis whereby Enmity against God was advanced to his Throne the grossest Superstition and Un●leanness established for Religion for in their Festivals and Solemn Ceremonies of divine Worship all manner of Vice and Wickedness was appointed to be committed such filthiness as the most salacious would almost blush at in a Closet was committed in open Pomp and Ostentation insomuch that almost all the Sacred Games but especially the Bacchanals were as one calls them the Cause and Seed-plots of the greatest Wickednesses If the Ethiopian may change his skin and the Leopard his as soon as those do good who are accustomed to do evil although their Religion teach them to do the one and eschew the other how hard is it for those to do good who have been not only accustomed but taught to do evil and that under pain of Transgression against Conscience or at least the Laws and Customs of their Country if they omit it Especially considering their most wicked and filthy Practice could plead Prescription in the Examples of their Fore-fathers and Noble Heroes yea also it had the Power and Policy the Stratagems and Devices of the Devil the Cunning Guile and Craft of his Agents the Force and Authority of Civil Powers to countenance and uphold it in despite of all Opposition Was it not then an hard thing for any much more for a few private men and strangers such as the Apostles to turn them from Darkness unto Light from the Power of Satan unto God yet they undertook to do it and pursued it all their dayes although they very well knew that not only Labours travels and hardships of divers kinds but also Bonds and Afflictions of all sorts and degrees stripes and Imprisonments yea and Death it self would abide them in so doing Yet none of these things could trouble their Minds nor discourage their Attempt nothing could make them retract their Resolution or abate their Endeavours as they were able to promote it which to me seems a demonstration of Prophetick Fortitude viz. that that same Courage and Magnanimity whereby the Prophets were acted in the discharge of their Office did assist them in promulgating the Gospel Of the Prophetick Riches of Christ and his Apostles Sect. 4. And as in Wisdom and Fortitude so also in the Riches of the Prophets i. e. in all Moral Vertues but especially Contentment Christ and his Apostles were equal yea superiours unto them Hereof we need no other demonstration than the designed End of their Doctrine which as we before saw was the Promotion and Establishment of the most Elevated Vertue and Immaculate Purity but if any farther proof of it be desired we may find it in St. Paul by whom we learn that the Grace of God which bringeth Salvation which words are but a Periphrasis of the Gospel teacheth us that denying all ungodliness and worldly Lusts we should live sob●rly righteously and godly in this present World To this end both the Precepts and Institutions the Promises and the Threats of the Gospel are so extraordinary subservient as that they loudly speak the Holiness as well as Wisdom of its first Teachers It is no way probable that Lovers of Vice should so