Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	enter_v	righteousness_n	scribe_n	2,630	5	11.0710	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40073	The design of Christianity, or, A plain demonstration and improvement of this proposition viz. that the enduing men with inward real righteousness or true holiness was the ultimate end of our Saviour's coming into the world and is the great intendment of his blessed Gospel / by Edward Fowler ...	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1671 (1671)	Wing F1698; ESTC R35681	136,795	332

explained by Turning from the power of Satan unto God And the following clause viz. And the Glory of thy people Israel signifieth the same thing Namely that in the place of their outward and Ceremonial observances called by the Apostle Beggarly Elements He should bring in among them a far more Noble viz. an inward substantial and Everlasting Righteousness and by abrogating that and establishing only this Righteousness He should enlarge their Church an accession of the Gentiles being by that means made unto it Fifthly This is expressed by S. Iohn the Baptist immediately before our Saviour's solemn entrance upon his office as the business he was undertaking Matth. 3. 11 12. I indeed baptize you with Water unto repentance that is especially from the more plain and confessed exorbitances but he that cometh after me is mightier than I whose shoes I am not worthy to bear he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire which will take away those stains and pollutions that Water cannot whose fan is in his hand and he will throughly purge his floor Sixthly Again after our Saviour's entrance upon his office he himself declared that He came to call sinners to Repentance And that he was so far from coming to destroy the Law and the Prophets that he came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fulfil or perfect them that is by giving more and higher instances of Moral Duties than were before expresly given And he tells the Jews presently after that Except their Righteousness shall exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees that is unless it be above their Practical and meerly External Righteousness they shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And he abundantly made it appear as will be quickly shewn that the Reformation of mens lives and Purification of their Natures were the Great Business that he designed Lastly This was frequently asserted after he forsook the World by the Apostles he left behind him S. Peter told his Countrey-men Acts 3. 26. That as God sent Christ to bless them so the Blessing designed them by him consisted in turning them from their iniquities To you first saith he God having raised up his Son Iesus sent him to bless you by turning every one of you from his iniquities Again Acts 5. 31. The same Apostle with others saith that Him hath God exalted with his Right Hand to be a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance to Israel and forgiveness of Sins Repentance first and then Forgiveness S. Iohn tells us 1 Epist. ●… 8. that for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil And S. Paul calleth the Gospel of Christ The Mystery of Godliness 1 Tim. 3. 16. The Doctrine that is according to Godliness And gives us to understand that that which the Grace of God which brings Salvation teacheth is that denying Vngodliness and all worldly Lusts we should live Soberly Righteously and Godlily in this Present World Tit. 2. 12. CHAP. III. A Particular Demonstration that Holiness is the only Design of the Precepts of the Gospel And that they require 1. The Most Extensive Holiness 2. The most Intensive An Objection answered BUT to give a more particular proof of what we have undertaken First It is most apparent That Holiness is the Design the only Design of the Christian Precepts and that this is the Mark which they are wholly levelled at What the Apostle spake of the Iewish may be much more said of the Christian Law that It is Holy just and Good For as Clemens Alexandrinus in his Paedagogus saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Even Infant-Christianity is perfection compared with the Law or the Mosaical Dispensation There is no Affirmative Precept in the Gospel but it either Commands Holiness in the general or one or more Particular Vertue or Habit of Holiness or some Essential Act or Acts of it or Means and Helps to the Acquiring Maintaining or Encrease of it Such as Hearing and Reading the Word Prayer Meditation Good Conference Watchfulness against Temptations Avoiding occasions of evil c. And there is no Negative Precept but doth forbid the Contrary to some one or more of those Duties but doth forbid some thing or other that doth tend either directly or indirectly immediately or mediately in its own nature or by reason of some Circumstance to the depraving of Humane Nature and rendring us Perfectly Wicked or in some degree or other less holy To make this appear by going over the Several Precepts contained in the Gospel would be a work of too much time but whosoever as he reads them shall duly consider each of them cannot be to seek for Satisfaction concerning the truth of what I have now said and I dare undertake he will readily acknowledge That there is nothing that is not upon its own or some one or other account greatly Becoming us and Perfective of Humane Nature in the whole Gospel Commanded And that there is not any thing in it self and in all respects innocent there forbidden This can be by no means said concerning the Precepts of the Law of Moses but that it may concerning those of the Gospel is absolutely Certain But my whole Discourse upon this present Argument shall be confined to these two Heads Namely to shew That the Christian Precepts require the most Extensive and most Intensive Holiness that is exactly such a Holiness as hath been described First They require the most Extensive Holiness Not onely towards God but also towards our Neighbour and our selves In the forecited place Tit. 2. 12. S. Paul puts all these together under the Phrases of Living Soberly Righteously and Godlily as making up that Holiness which the Grace of God that brings Salvation teacheth The Precepts of our Saviour command us not onely to give unto God the things that are God's but also to Caesar the things that are Caesar's Not only to obey God in all things but to be subject likewise to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords Sake that is to every Ordinance of Man that doth not Contradict the Law of God Not only to fear God but also to honor the King and to obey our spiritual Governors likewise which watch for our Souls c. and to behave our selves towards all persons sutably to the Relations we stand in to them Wives to submit themselves to their own Husbands as unto the Lord Husbands to love their Wives even as Christ loved the Church Children to obey their Parents in the Lord and Fathers not to provoke their Children to wrath but to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Servants to be obedient to their Masters with singleness of heart as unto Christ c. and Masters to do the same things unto them forbearing threatning or a harsh behaviour towards them knowing that they have a Master in Heaven with whom is no respect of persons We are commanded to love

that all that have the conduct of Souls committed to them should do the like S. Paul exhorted Timothy first to take heed to himself and then to the Doctrine and the former advice was of no whit less necessity and importance than was the latter For as woful experience assureth us a Minister of a careless and loose life let his parts and ability in preaching be never so great nay though he should behave himself never so faithfully in the Pulpit and be zealous against the very vices he himself is guilty of which would be very strange if he should must needs do more hurt incomparably than he can do good And though as some of them will tell them it is the Peoples duty to do as they say and not as they do yet is there nothing more impossible than to teach them effectually that Lesson Mankind as we had before occasion to shew is mightily addicted to imitation and Examples especially those of Governors and Teachers have a greater force upon people ordinarily than have Instructions but chiefly bad Examples in regard of their natural proneness to vice than good Instructions Had not the Apostles expressed as great a care of what they did as of what they said how they lived as how they preached Christianity would without doubt have been so far from prevailing and getting ground as it hath done that it could not have long survived its Blessed Author if it had not bid adiue to the world with him Most men do what we can will judge of our Sermons by our Conversations and if they see these bad they will not think those good nor the Doctrines contained in them practicable seeing they have no better effect upon those that preach them And besides no man will be thought to be serious and in good earnest in pressing those duties upon others which he makes no conscience of performing himself Nay every man's judgement in Divine things may warrantably be suspected that is of a wicked and vicious Life And those that are conscious to themselves that they are not able to pass a judgement upon Doctrines may not be blamed if they question their Minister's Orthodoxy while they observe in him any kind of Immorality and see that he lives to the satisfaction of any one Lust. For the promise of knowing the Truth is made onely to such as continue in Christ's words that is that are obedient to his Precepts And I adde that such a one 's talks of Heaven and Hell are like to prevail very little upon his Auditors or to be at all heeded by the greatest part of them while they consider that the Preacher hath a soul to save as well as they And therefore the love that they bear to their lusts with the Devil's help will easily perswade them that either these things are but mere sictions or else that the one may be obtained and the other escaped upon far easier terms than he talks of But as for those few in whom the sense of true Vertue and Piety have made so deep an impression as that they have never the slighter opinion of the necessity thereof in regard of their Minister's wicked Example the prejudice that they cannot but conceive against him renders his discourses insipid and unaffecting to them and so they ordinarily take all opportunities to turn their backs upon him and at length quite forsake him And then if they are not as understanding as well meaning people are too easily drawn away from all other Churches when they have left their own and become a prey to some demure and fairly pretending Sectary And I am very certain from my own observation that no one thing hath so conduced to the prejudice of our Church of England and done the separating parties so much service as the scandalous lives of some that exercise the Ministerial Function in her The late Excellent Bishop of Down and Connar hath this memorable passage in a Sermon he preached to the University at Dublin If ye become burning shining Lights if ye do not detain the Truth in unrighteousness if ye walk in light and live in the Spirit your Doctrine will be true and that truth will prevail But if you live wickedly scandalously every little Schismalick will put you to shame draw Disciples after him and abuse your flocks and feed them with Colo●…ynths and Hemlock and place Heresie in the chair appointed for your Religion But to hasten to the dispatch of this unpleasant Topick wicked ministers are of all other ill-livers the most scandalous for they lay the greatest stumbling block of any whatsoever before mens souls and what our Saviour said of the Scribes and Pharisees may in an especial manner be applyed to them viz. that they will neither enter into heaven themselves nor yet suffer them that are entering to go in so far are they from saving themselves and those that hear them But I would to God such would well lay to heart those sad words of our Saviour Luke 17. 1 2. It is impossible but that offences will come but woe unto him through whom they come it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the Sea c. And those words are not more effectual to scare them than are these following of a Heathen viz. Tully concerning vicious Philosophers to shame them into a better life saith he in his Tusculan Questions the second book Quotusquisque Philosophorun●… invenitur qui sit ita moratus c. What one of many Philosophers is there who so behaves himself and is of such a mind and life as Reason requireth which accounteth his Doctrine not a boast of Science but a law of life which obeyeth himself and is governed by his own precepts We may see some so light and vain that it would have been better for them to be wholly ignorant and never to have learn d any thing others so covetous of money thirsty of praise and honour and many such slaves to their lusts ut cum eorum vitâ mirabiliter pugnet oratio That their lives do marvellously contradict their Doctrine Quod quidem mihi videtur esse turpissimum c. Which to me seems the most filthy and abominable of all things For as he which professing himself a Grammarian speaks barbarously and who being desirous to be accounted a Musician sings scurvily is so much the more shame-worthy for his being defective in that the knowledge and skill of which he arrogates to himself so a Philosopher in ratione vitae peccans miscarrying in his manners is in this respect the baser and more wretched Creature that in the office of which he will needs be a Master he doth amiss artemque vitae professus delinquit in vitâ and prosessing the art of well-living or of teaching others to live well is faulty and miscarrieth in his own life Could this excellent Heathen thus inveigh against wicked Philosophers what Satyre can be tart and