Selected quad for the lemma: grace_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
grace_n	salvation_n	teach_v	ungodliness_n	2,577	5	11.7800	5	false

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

Cause liable to be put to death this Law then was severely Penal and known it is sufficiently that Law-Givers on earth much more may the Supreme one in Heaven admit of a Relaxation of their Laws and accordingly so hath God done in divers Cases as for instance in case the high Priest or the Congregation or a Ruler of the People sinned through ignorance although according to the Rigour and utmost severity of that Law the Sinn●r ought to be put to death yet God accepted of a Sacrifice Concerning which Sacrifice we shall do well to observe three things viz. First that the thing Sacrificed whatsover it was was substituted in the place of the offender and this its Surrogation was usually signified by the imposition of his hands upon it and then secondly the Bullock or Kid of the Goats thus substituted in the stead or room of the offender was killed and offered in Sacrifice unto God and hereupon thirdly Gods Wrath was appeased by the Offering or oblation of this Sacrifice the Offender obtained pardon for his fault and his life was to be spared for the Priest thereby made an attonement for him concerning his Sin and it was forgiven him The suffering of a viol nt death was remitted he was no longer bound over to it he had no cause to fear it from the hand either of God or of the Magistrate Now know that the Law having but the Shadow of good things to come these things were Types of our state by Nature and deliverance therefrom by our Blessed Saviour a violent temporal death the penalty of transgressing the Ceremonial Law did Typifie or at least not Inelegantly adumbrate Eternal death the Sanction and Curse of the moral Law whereunto both by Nature and Practice we are all obnoxious but it pleased God to admit a Relaxation even of this Law and thereupon to send his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins i. e. to be a Sin-offering a Propitiatory Sacrifice or Sacrifice of Atonement and Exp●ation for them and this he was in his sufferings especially his Bloody Death and Crucifixion for the three essential parts of such a Sacrifice but now m●ntioned were all evidently contained therein as first his Surrogation in ●ur stead this is very plain to be seen in his Death for He gave his life a ransome for many his Body was given and his Blood was shed for you Christ dyed for the ungodly i. e. for all He did tast Death for every Man He suffered for us i. e. for our Sins the Just for the Unjust From any much more from all these Texts of Scripture the Surrogation of Christ in his sufferings is so plain and evident as that the Socinians with all their Criticisms and distinctions will never be able wi h any Probability to gain say it The like also we may observe concerning the second thing in a Sin-offering under the Law namely the Oblation thereof unto God this likewise is evident in our Saviours sufferings for through the Eternal Spirit he offered himself without spot to God And that this Oblation of himself to God was not made as some would have it by his entrance into Heaven but by his sufferings on the Cross appears if not from the Apostles making it the same or almost all one thing therewith by calling his offering of Himself in one verse his suffering in the next yet from the Comparison he makes between the condition of Christ and other Men it is appointed unto Men once to die so saith he Christ was once offered to bear the Sins of many so that Christ in dying w●s offered and in being offered he dyed so that 〈◊〉 are sa●ctified thro●gh the Offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all and this offering of his b●dy to God was antecedent to his Glory in Heaven for after he had offer●d one Sacrifice for Sin for ever he sat down on the right hand of G d it is n●t therefore to be doubted but our Saviour upon the Cross offered Himself a Sacrifice to satisfie divine Justice and so to appease the Wrath of God against us For lastly his Sufferings had the Effect that was natural and necessary to a Sin-offering namely the Atonement and Reconciliation of God to Sinners for when we were enemies we were Reconciled unto God by the death of his Son and you that were enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death hereby then methinks it is so plain as that nothing can be plainer unless it be to those that can see knots in a Bull-rush than that Reconciliation and Atonement was made to God for us in and by the death of his Son Thus fully do we see that our Blessed Saviour in his Temptations and Sufferings hath redeemed us from the power of Satan and the Curse of the Law or the Wrath of God against us But these things I confess are not sufficient for to any one that shall consider the imbecillity of humane Nature now in its state of Mortality and imperfection it must needs methinks be evident that after this great Salvation thus far wrought out for us and revealed unto us we still shall want Grace and Mercy to help in time of need Grace to help our Infirmities and to enable us acceptably to perform our Duty And Mercy to forgive us our Sins and to succour us in our Miseries Both these it is manifest that we want Know therefore lastly that both these Christ is enabled to give unto us by his Temptations and Sufferings for us for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted But was not he able to succour us before he suffered and was tempted Yes doubtless that he was as he is God over all blessed for ever but Infinite Wisdome and Goodness condescending to our infirmities were pleased to constitute another way of shewing mercy and affording Succour to us in miseries and temptations When we consider the Infinite distance between God and us together with our manifold sins and odious miscarriages against him we may well be afraid to approach him or else void of confidence in our approaches To the end therefore that we might have the highest assurance that may be both of Grace and Mercy and of their accommodation to our Nature under its abasing reflections on it self it seemed good to Infinite Wisdome so to order the matter as that the Divine Grace and Mercy should in some sort be made Humane for being conveyed to us through the Heart of our Lord Jesus the Mercy of God is so assimilated unto and made the Mercy of a man as that though we cannot conceive how the Divine Nature is disposed to shew Mercy yet by the familiar experience of our own hearts towards others we may conceive how Christ will be merciful unto us viz. by way of Pity