Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	law_n	sin_n	sinner_n	2,820	5	9.3094	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67691	The method of salvation In two parts. I. A sinner's conversion to saving faith in God through Christ. II. The progress of a believer from his conversion to his perfection, under the work of sanctification. By John Warren, M.A. sometime minister of the gospel at Hatfield Broad-Oak in Essex.	Warren, John, minister of Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex.	1696 (1696)	Wing W975; ESTC R219940	84,414	163

THE METHOD OF Salvation In TWO PARTS I. A Sinner's Conversion to Saving Faith in God through Christ II. The Progress of a Believer from his Conversion to his Perfection under the Work of Sanctification By JOHN WARREN M. A. Sometime Minister of the Gospel at Hatfield Broad-Oak in Essex LONDON Printed for T. C. and are to be Sold by Richard Simpson at the Three Trouts in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCXCVI THE METHOD OF SALVATION THE Method of Salvation THE Way and Method of God's working upon Men to save them eternally is to be attended according to the dependance which one part of that Blessed Undertaking has upon another as the Holy Scripture sets it forth and that partly in the Account which it gives of the nature of the several impressions made upon the Soul in order to its Ultimate Happiness and partly in the Examples of Persons whose Converson to God and Progress towards Heaven is therein reported And though it pleases God to glorify his manifold Wisdom as to Circumstances Time and Measures in this as in all his Works yet usually he observes the same Order in his Saving Operations on the Souls of men as Mar. 4.28 29. And hereunto the ordinary Experiences of the People of God bear witness In handling this Method we may observe 1. The Degrees or Steps by which a Soul is brought into the estate of Salvation i. e. till he believes in Jesus Christ 2. The Moments of his Progress in Grace till he comes to Glory 1. Of the former The First Step or Degree is A serious and solemn Consideration which the Sinner takes of his own Estate in reference to God When it pleases God in his great mercy to take hold on a Sinner that he may bring him home to himself he makes choice of some fit time and means to press him upon a sad and serious thoughtfulness of his Eternal Condition and the present state of his Soul in reference to it Ezek. 18.14 28. He considers and turns This is the first good tidings we hear of a Sinner He considers Sinners of themselves are wild and careless Creatures forgetting God and their own Souls Psal 50.22 Now consider this ye that forget God c. And so God complains of the Israelites Isa 1.4 My people doth not consider They are rash and heady in their ways not thinking soberly what they do nor what is like to be the end of it Jer. 8.6 But when God undertakes the saving of a Soul he takes him aside and makes him lay his hand as it were upon his heart and bethink himself where-about he is which way he is a-going and what is like to be his latter end Here observe 1. How the Sinner is brought to this Consideration And 2. How he proceeds in it 1. That which puts the Soul upon this Consideration is first and principally the Word of God the grand Instrument and Engine in the whole work of Salvation whereby he calls all men every-where and commands them to repent Thus saith the Lord Consider your ways And by thus saying he makes men consider them It is the Word that awakens the sleepy Souls of secure Sinners and makes them look about them It is the Word that makes them remember God and themselves and enquire how the Case stands between him and them and without its admonition they never go about this Work to any purpose The Nations that have not the Word made known to them forget God and forgetting him can never take any effectual cognizance of their own Estate in reference to him 2. Secondarily and under the Word there are divers things that God uses as means to induce men to this Consideration of their Spiritual Estate according to his own good pleasure Sometimes a sharp Affliction makes the Patient consider how he has offended God and how unable he is to bear his displeasure but in those touches of his Hand which he now feels and consequently how miserable he must needs be if all his Wrath should break out upon him Thus God seals Instruction to the Sinner by his afflictive Providence J●b 33.16 and makes him when bound in those Cords to study and ponder those things which while he was well he little regarded Sometimes the Sinner is put upon this Consideration by observing the Complaints which others make and the Fears which they express about the Estate of their Souls For thinks he if these men be in such danger it 's good for me to look about me Sometimes yea very often the Care and Diligence of Godly men to work out their Salvation induces Sinners that observe it to remember themselves and take their own Estate into consideration If so much care and pains be necessary to the saving of a Soul then sure it concerns me to be careful for my self I have a Soul to save as well as others and if the saving of a Soul requires so much attendance it will be ill for me to neglect it says the hitherto-secure and inconsiderate Sinner Thus Parents Masters Neighbours by following closely the Work of their own Salvation may do much towards the Conversion of their Children Servants and Neighbours And there are some Remarkable Instances of this kind that might be here inserted but for the study of brevity 2. Now for the manner and order of the Soul 's proceeding in this Consideration it admits of much variety But according to the Condition of the Subject-matter and the End whereto such Consideration serves it may be briefly thus stated 1. The Soul considers what the Law of God requires of Man and how he has transgrest and broken it what exact Holiness and Purity God demands of him and how far he has fallen short of it in thought word and deed Lam. 3.40 Let us search and try our ways and turn In order to a true Conversion the Sinner must examine his ways and consider where and how they have been faulty which he can never do but by comparing them with that Rule which God has given men to walk by He must enquire by the direction of the Law what he has not done that he should have done and what he has done contrary to it There is no returning to God till a man be duly informed of his departing from him nor any clear understanding of that but by a serious and severe comparing of his Life with the Law For by the Law is the knowledge of Sin Thus men come to know themselves to be Offenders and to have displeased and provoked God But here usually the Sinner's thoughts are very much confined to some one sin or other in which he apprehends himself especially to have offended As the Jews in Acts 2. had their Eye especially upon that sin of their Crucifying the Lord of Life as indeed well they might it being beyond expression heinous And the Jailor Acts 16. was doubtless especially mindful of his Cruelty to the Apostles the evening before his Conversion Yea 't is observed yet farther

rests it self in the Act of Saving Faith may thus appear 1. Man being an Offender and guilty of Death Eternal cannot be saved but in a way of Pardon which is an act of Mercy And thereforefore he can have no hope of Salvation from God but as he is a merciful God He that 's bound over to the punishment of Eternal Death must either suffer it or be forgiven it Now nothing forgives but Mercy Look upon God as Almighty and it speaks terror to the guilty Soul Power makes him able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell Look upon him as Just and Justice speaks terror as that which makes him hate Sin and punish Sinners But consider him as he is merciful and pitiful to poor Creatures in their misery and there you have some ground of hope Hope can never find whereon to rest the sole of its foot till you come to a sight of God as merciful God be merciful to me a sinner Luke 18.13 He could light on nothing in all the World to stay his Hope upon but Mercy The poor Leper Matth. 8. urged our Saviour with his power to make him clean but if he had not had some hopeful conceit of his willingness to relieve poor Supplicants in such a case he would never have asked him for the cure He that expects a Debt may trust in the Justice of him that owes it But he that expects an Act of Grace must rest on the mercy of him from whom he expects it or he has nothing to trust to Obj. You will say a Believer hopes in the Faithfulness of God and the infallible Truth of his Word as well as in his Mercy Ans I grant it A believer hopes in the Truth of God but 't is only as his Truth and Faithfulness doth assure the Soul of his Mercifulness God professes and declares himself merciful the Soul believes that he is so and will approve himself so because it judges him faithful and therefore hopes in Mercy so declared So the Soul relying on Mercy relies upon the Power of God but only as Mercy turns and uses it to the saving of Sinners otherwise he is true to punish according to his Threatnings as well as he is true to save according to his Promise So he is mighty to destroy as well as to save Yea the Soul relying on Mercy relies also on the Justice of God as he is just in shewing mercy But all this while Mercy lies at the bottom as the foundation of a Believer's Hope Let God be never so mighty never so wise never so faithful never so righteous all this speaks no encouragement to the poor humbled Sinner but all against him till Mercy be discovered and then some ground appears for him to build his hopes upon And now the other Attributes of God give their assistance and bear up Expectation 2. But yet no man can safely hope in the absolute Mercy of God for Salvation but only in the Mercy of God consider'd as he is merciful in Jesus Christ i. e. as he is merciful so as to provide and accept a satisfaction to Justice in the Death of his Son and so to offer Salvation freely to Sinners or in the words of Scripture As loving the world so as to give his only begotten Son that whosoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life For 1. If the humbled Sinner considers Mercy absolutely Justice presently comes in and damps his hopes of Salvation For as it is not to be expected that God though he be Almighty should do any thing which his Wisdom doth not allow of because he is infinitely Wise as well as Almighty so neither can it be hoped though he be infinite in mercy that he should do any thing in a way of pity to a Sinner which his Justice will not bear because he is just as he is merciful Now Justice requires that the Law should proceed and that the Soul that has sinned should die Gal. 3.10 Deut. 27.26 But God in giving his Son to die for Sinners has so satisfied the Law that Justice has nothing at all to plead against the Salvation of any one Sinner whom God will please to save Rom. 3.25 26. By this means God has so ordered it that he is highly just in shewing mercy to the Sinner as having laid the punishment which belonged to him upon his own Son And therefore Mercy thus considered is a sufficient ground of hope but not otherwise as Heb. 9.21 Without shedding of blood there is no remission no hope of Pardon and Salvation but through the Death of Christ though God be never so merciful Secondly If the humbled Soul considers Mercy absolutely he can have no Assurance of the Terms on which he will save Sinners supposing that he will save any of them and so the Soul may object against his own hopes of Salvation Obj. 1. It may be God will be so merciful as to save Sinners that have not broken out into gross wickedness but have restrained themselves to some bounds of fairness and morality And 't is great mercy if he will save such But I have exceeded in Sin and done evil with an high hand Obj. 2. It may be he will be so merciful as to save Sinners that have sinned out of ignorance as being uninformed and unconvinced of the evil of the things wherein they have offended and 't is great mercy if he will save such But I have rebelled against the light and sinned against knowledge and the express dictates of my own Conscience Obj. 3. It may be God will be so merciful as to save Sinners that accept the first or second call that he gives them to Repentance and close with offered Grace betimes and 't is great mercy if he will save such Sinners But alas I have withstood many gracious Invitations and neglected Salvation when it has been offered to me God knows how many times and so my day may be expired It may be God will be so merciful as to save Sinners that have not signally contradicted their Professions in the course of their lives who as they have not practised Godliness so have never much pretended to it and 't is great mercy if he will save such or some of them But I have dissembled with him and lived the life of the Ungodly under the profession of Godliness yea I have given up my Name to Christ and yet have given my hand to Satan and my own Lusts Object 4. It may be God will be so merciful as to save Sinners that have not sinned against the Holy Ghost and 't is great Mercy if he will vouchsafe to save some of them But I fear I have sinned the Sin that 's never to be pardoned Object 5. It may be God will save some great and eminent Sinners but they are such only as are within the eternal purpose of Election and he shews great mercy in saving them but I fear I am under the decree of Reprobation