Selected quad for the lemma: grace_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A35149
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Two sermons preach'd before the condemn'd criminals at Newgate, 1695 by B. Crooke.
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Crooke, B. (Banks), b. 1658.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing C7229; ESTC R24803
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18,708
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62
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adore his Infinite Mercy towards you and improve them directly to the End intended And you will do so if you make this Act of Grace a new life to your Souls as well as Bodies if with a just abhorrence of your selves and a design for the future to retract them you deliberately consider what were the beginnings of Wickedness and by what progress you arriv'd to that heighth of Iniquity that the Earth was scarce able any longer to bear you And if any of you are accounted unworthy to stay in the Land of your Nativity carry not your old Crimes to New Climates for God can find you out there and punish you for your repeated abuse of Mercy Have always then in your minds the bitter Fruits of Sin the servile Fear Shame and meanness of Spirit it betrays its Votaries to and the Temporal and Eternal Ruin that without Repentance will at length accompany it and hear and forbear and do no more so wickedly And since you have receiv'd such miserable Usage from Vice with a just disdain forsake its Service and for the future zealously ingage for Vertue against which there is no law Call to mind the lost Profession of your Christianity the Grace of God that heaps not Wrath and Misery on our heads but brings salvation teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live righteously soberly and godly in this present world Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works The neglect of this Lesson has cost you dear and the practising of it for the time to come is the only true Return you can make to that Merciful God who has deliver'd your Souls from death your Eyes from tears and now offers his Grace for the future to keep your feet from falling Let the time past of your life therefore suffice to have wrought the lusts of your flesh when you walkt according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the power of the air the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience for your Prayers are heard and more days added to your Life that you should no longer live the rest of your time to the lusts of men but to the will of God There is mercy with God says the Psalmist that he may be feared to be drawn by the cords of a man to be won to our Duty and melted down by loving-kindness is what an ingenuous Temper can hardly withstand but to continue in sin because grace has abounded is the mark of a base abject Nature fit for nothing but ruin and therefore should you forgetful of the Goodness extended towards you abandon your present Safety return to your old Sins and by them be brought into the same condemnation again your Behaviour though never so dejected and full of submission will not be believ'd will move no pity will procure no commiseration because of your renew'd false and perfidious dealings with God and your own Souls And now I shall come to the last and most deplorable Portion of my Discourse to speak particularly to you that are doom'd to dye and to persuade you to endeavour to behave your selves so that though your Temporal Calamity be unavoidable yet your God may not still cover the Eye of his Mercy from you or be deaf to your Requests for pity on your poor Souls And truly I confess I scarce know where to begin or how to find out words mournful enough for your Condition I am sure if you look into your own Consciences every one of you can say I well remember the time when thou O God wast near unto me by thy Grace and the good Motions of thy Spirit that Blessed Spirit which would have been a lamp unto my feet and a lanthorn unto my path if I had not ungratefully turned my back upon it But not to aggravate that which is too heavy of it self or fruitlesly lament but compassionately to help you to regain the Assistance of that Blessed Spirit so needful for you in your present Circumstances I will if the former part of my Discourse has fully bent your minds to good Counsel before it be evidently too late endeavour to shew you a Glimpse of Mercy tho after all my Wishes and Endeavours I must acknowledge that there is but one whole Virtue you are now capable to practice or so to practice as you your selves may judge of the Truth of it but yet 't is a Virtue that will supply the place of a great many others and perhaps by the Mercy of God atone for the Breach of all the rest but if you willingly fail in this and next to the Grace of God it depends wholly on your Will I think you are undone for ever And this Virtue is Sincerity which abhors any evasive Arts or Shifts which excludes all Hypocrisy all Double dealing all feign'd Pretences or deceiving of God or your own Souls it admits no Mixture of Dissimulation or sinister Aim no relying on your own private deprav'd Judgments but a ready unbiass'd Freedom of Mind to impart and lay open every thing plain and naked to be judg'd of by those who sincerely desire to direct you to Heaven And let me beseech you to yield to their advice and trust those whose desire is the Salvation of your Souls rather than those who have done all they can to destroy them And the Ground of this Virtue is Honesty of Heart Uprightness of Intention and God who searches the Heart and sees into the closest Recesses there knows when you act from this Inward Principle and when not and will certainly deal with you accordingly And he that is scarce able to do any thing and yet refuses to do the little he can sullenly lies down in misery and willingly accepts of his destruction But if this be not enough to say as I know not what is enough to rescue you from the blindness and hardness of heart a long train of iniquity has involv'd you in I will yet speak my mind more plainly to you for your Circumstances will not admit Palliation or Delay I know no way to Heaven for you but by abundance of Remorse and Contrition and that manifested to God the World and your own Consciences by Restitution to the utmost of your power and a candid Consession to prevent the like Evils to others which have befallen you And Repentance is scarce any thing else but Restitution join'd with a due Sorrow and Confession a Restoring to God the lost Service of his Creature a Restoring to our Wrong'd Countrey or Neighbours what we have injuriously depriv'd them of and a Restoring our Selves by the Grace of God to the first Dignity of our Nature to the Purity and Holiness which was that Image of God in which we were created And if you will not