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
A58795	The Christian life. Part II wherein the fundamental principles of Christian duty are assigned, explained, and proved : volume I / by John Scott ...; Christian life. Part 2	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1685 (1685)	Wing S2050; ESTC R20527	226,080	542

inforced And if notwithstanding they would be so regardless of God as to take no notice of his Judgments and Mercies so rude to his Authority as not to mind either his Law within or his Law without them upon what reasonable Pretence can they excuse themselves But then as for us Christians we have not only all those natural Discoveries of our Duty which the Heathen had and all those Supernatural ones which the Jews had but a great deal more For in our Revelation the Laws and Motives of Vertue are set before us in a much clearer Light and are neither wrapt up in Mystical Senses nor overcast with typical Representations but laid before us in the most plain and easie Propositions For that which was the Mystical Sense of the Jewish Law is the literal Sense of the Christian in which all those Precepts and Promises and Threats which were delivered to the Jews in dark Riddles obscure and typical Adumbrations are brought forth to us from behind the Curtain and proposed in plain and popular Articles So that if we still continue in our sinful Courses we are of all men the most inexcusable The Heathen may plead against the Jews that their Law of Nature was not so clear in its Precepts nor yet so cogent in its Motives as the Law of Moses the Jews may plead against us Christians that their Law of Moses was neither so express in its Precepts nor yet so intelligible in its best and most powerful Motives as our Gospel but as for us Christians we have nothing to plead but by our own Obstinacy against the clearest Discoveries of our Duty do stand condemned to everlasting Silence So that when it shall appear at the dread Tribunal of God that we have persisted in our wickedness notwithstanding all these Advantages we must expect to be reproached by all the Reasonable World to be exploded and hiss'd at not only by Saints and Angels but by the Jews and the Gentiles and the Devils themselves who will all conspire with our own Consciences to second our woful Doom with the Loud Acclamation of Just and Righteous art thou O Lord in all thy Ways Wherefore as we would not perish for ever without Pity and Excuse let us make hast to forsake all ungodliness and worldly Lusts and to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present World SECT III. That those Actions which carry with them this perpetual Obligation are the main and principal Parts of Religion THE truth of which is most evident from the abovenamed Text Mic. 6.8 and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Which Interrogation tho it implies not an absolute Negation viz. that the Lord required nothing else of them for under the Law he required Sacrifices and sundry other positive Duties as under the Gospel he requires Sacraments and Reading and Hearing his holy Word c. which are positive Duties as well as those legal Institutions of Moses yet it plainly implies a comparative Negation viz. that the Lord requires nothing else so principally and affectionately so for the sake of the things themselves and upon the account of their own inherent Beauty and Goodness as he doth these Moral Duties here specified He did indeed require the Jews to offer Sacrifice to him and to perform those other Ceremonial Rites specified in the Law of Moses and for them wilfully to have neglected those Duties would have been such an avowed Defiance to his Authority as would have rendred them justly obnoxious to all the Judgments threatned in their Law but yet he did much more earnestly require them to be just and merciful and humble and manifested himself to be far better pleased with one Act of Moral Goodness than with a thousand Sacrifices And thus he requires of us Christians that we should communicate with him and with one another in our Evangelical Sacraments and dutifully conform to all those sacred Institutions and Solemnities of Religion which are contained in the Gospel and if we wilfully neglect them we justly incur all that everlasting Vengeance which is there denounced but yet our sincere compliance with the immutable Obligations of Piety and Vertue is a thousandfold more acceptable to God than our strictest Observation of these his positive Institutions So that the Question in the Text what doth the Lord require of thee plainly implies this Proposition that tho God doth exact of us certain Duties which are not moral i. e. have no intrinsick necessity in them yet it is the Moral Duties such as Justice and Mercy and Humility which he principally requires at our hand Thus concerning Sacrifice God plainly tells us I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice i. e. I will have Mercy rather than Sacrifice Hos. 6.6 And the Wise man assures us that to do Justice is more acceptable to the Lord than Sacrifice Prov. 21.3 And to the same purpose our Saviour himself pronounceth even before that Ceremonial Worship was Abolished that to love the Lord with all our heart with all our understanding with all our Soul and with all our strength and to love our neighbour as our selves is more than all burnt-Offerings and Sacrifices Mark 12.33 But for the clearer Demonstration of this great and necessary Truth I shall endeavour First to prove the Truth of it by some Scripture Arguments Secondly to assign the Reasons of it As for the Proof of it the following Particulars will be abundantly sufficient First THAT the Scripture plainly declares that the great Design of all the Doctrinals of Religion hath always been to move and perswade men to the practice of Moral Goodness Secondly THAT the main Drift and Scope of all the positive Duties of Religion hath been always to improve and perfect men in Moral Goodness Thirdly THAT God expresses in Scripture a great Contempt of all the positive Duties of Religion when ever they are separated from Moral Goodness Fourthly THAT where ever we find the Whole of Religion summ'd up in a few Particulars they are always such as are Instances of Moral Goodness Fifthly THAT wherever such Persons as have been most dear and acceptable to God are described in Scripture their Character always consists of some Instances or other of Moral Goodness Sixthly THAT the Scripture plainly declares that at the great Account between God and our Souls the main Inquisition will be concerning our Moral Good or Evil. I. THE Scripture expresly declares that the great Design of the Doctrins of Religion is to move and perswade men to Moral Goodness For so the Apostle speaking of the Grace of God i. e. the Gospel assures us that its great Design is to teach men to deny all ungodliness and Worldly Lusts and to live soberly righteously and Godly in this present World Tit. 2.12 And if we consider the Doctrines in Particular we shall find that they all conspire in this great Design For so the Doctrine of eternal life is

disbelieve them For there are a world of things which men do neither deny nor affirm believe nor disbelieve that is about which they never concern their thoughts nor trouble their heads one way or t'other And thus it is here there are many who pretend to believe another World but if you ask them why they can give no reason nor did they ever enquire whether there be any to be given so that it is plain whatever they imagine they do not believe it for to believe without understanding is as perfect nonsense as to understand without evidence or believe without faith So that that which they call faith is only not disbelieving whether there be another World or no they never troubled their heads to enquire and so having no evidence pro or con their understanding doth neither affirm nor deny believe nor disbelieve but negligently leaves the matter in suspence and uncertainty The natural means of faith therefore you see is a due enquiry into the evidence of the truth and reality of the things we believe and therefore if we would indeed believe that there is a future World of Rewards and Punishments we must seriously consider the reasons and evidences that prove and assert it and urge them close to our understandings 'till they have forced and extorted from them a rational and well-grounded assent which if we do laying aside all partiality and prejudice there is no doubt but they will be found weighty enough to turn the Scale against all Objections to the contrary especially if IV. And lastly You add to all these means fervent and hearty Prayer For Prayer in it self is a very proper and useful means to beget and confirm in us the belief of the other World because it is an abstraction of the mind from those sensitive and material objects which stand like hills and mountains between us and the invisible World and intercept our Prospect of it For whenever our mind is engaged in a serious and hearty prayer it dispels all earthly things before it and scatters them out of sight and having no Mists or Clouds in its way nothing but a fair and clear heaven above it thither it directs its Eyes and Thoughts and Desires without any lett or interruption Now the very withdrawing our minds from sensible things to converse with spiritual and invisible ones doth as I shewed before mightily dispose us to the belief of another World When therefore by frequent and hearty prayer our minds have been accustomed to retire from the objects of sense and to fix their thoughts and contemplations upon God they will be able to turn themselves with more ease and readiness to the invisible things of another World which the more familiar they are to us the better able we shall be to apprehend and believe them But then by our fervent and hearty prayers we shall also obtain the assistance of God without the concurrence of whose grace we can do no good thing and much less effectually believe the Rewards and Punishments of another life which is the root and principle of all true Piety and Virtue For to the forming a firm belief of this Doctrine in our minds there is required a very severe and impartial consideration of the Proofs and Evidences upon which it is founded and considering how vain and roving our thoughts are how apt to fly off from any serious argument and especially from this of another World which is so offensive to our vicious appetites and affections what likelihood is there that we should ever fix our mind to such a through examination of the Proofs of another World as is necessary to beget in us a lively belief of it unless God who alone can command our thoughts co-operates with us and animates our faint indeavours with his grace and assistance unless he by suggesting the evidences of the future state to us and by urging and repeating them imprints them on our minds with all their natural force and efficacy in a word unless by following our flying thoughts with these his holy inspirations and importuning them with and almost forcing them upon them he at last prevails with them to stay and look back and consider and seriously to ponder the weight and force of them it is very improbable they should ever abide long enough upon our minds to settle into a firm and efficacious belief Let us therefore earnestly implore the aid and assistance of God and beseech him frequently to inspire our minds with the Arguments of a future life and to urge and repeat and set them home upon our thoughts 'till by a due consideration of them we have extracted all their force and evidence and digested it into a lively and active belief and if to the use of all the abovenamed means you do but add this of Prayer and Supplication you may depend upon it that he who hath promised to open unto all that knock and to be found of all that seek him will never deny you any grace or assistance that is necessary to produce in you this fundamental Principle of Religion viz an effectual belief of the Rewards and Punishments of another world To conclude this Argument therefore since this belief is so absolutely necessary to subject our minds to the obligations of Religion let us endeavour as much as in us lies to found it in our reason by convincing our minds of the truth and force of those evidences upon which it is proposed For while we believe upon trust and we know not why our faith must needs be very weak and infirm and like a Tree without root in the midst of a storm be unable to outstand any blast of temptation For the temptations of sin are such goods and evils as are evident to our senses which do most certainly assure us that there are such things in the World as pleasure and profit reproach and persecution and therefore unless when we are tempted our faith can confront the evidence of Sense with the evidence of Reason and produce good proof of those future Goods and Evils which it puts in the ballance against these present temptations it will hardly be able to withstand ' em For what likelihood is there that the things which we believe without proof and evidence should have comparably that force and influence upon us as the things which we know and feel and experience So that when we come to oppose a Heaven and a Hell of whose reality and existence we have no evidence to pleasures or profits reproaches or persecutions which strike immediately on our senses it is easie to prognosticate which will be most prevalent BUT if our belief of the future Rewards and Punishments be founded on such evidence as satisfies our reason what temptation in the World is there that can prevail against it what good is there that can outbid Heaven or what evil that can vie terrours with Hell For we see by experience that the Objects of our faith when it is