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	transgression_n	3,416	5	11.8881	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33212	Eleven sermons preached upon several occasions and a paraphrase and notes upon the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth chapters of St. John : with a discourse of church-unity ... / by William Clagett.	Clagett, William, 1646-1688.	1699 (1699)	Wing C4386; ESTC R24832	142,011	306

or wishing and proposing to be better nor of external Penances fruitless Ceremonies vain Commutations purchasing Dispensations and buying Indulgencies not one or all of these put together is repentance Any man that hath his eyes in his head may plainly perceive that the Repentance to which pardon is promised in the Gospel is altogether as broad and as long as to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world So that God Almighty hath not issued out his pardon to any one Sinner in absolute and irrespective terms and then left it to his good nature whether he will thank him for it or no whether he will be kind and leave his sins or ungrateful and continue in them And they are very foolish who fancy themselves such Darlings of Heaven that for their sakes God had no respect to the holiness of his own Nature the honour of his Laws and the wisdom of his Government in determining to pardon them and receive them into his grace and favour Now to prevent all such presumtion and fond conceit it is as plainly revealed to us in the Gospel that God will not lose his right to our obedience as that he will forbear to use his right to punish us and that he will forbear that no longer when he sees his goodness doth not lead us to repentance The same Divine Revelation which assureth us God is so good that he will pardon a Sinner doth likewise assure us he is so just and wise as to pardon him only upon his repentance And indeed to pardon the incorrigible is not mercy but weakness he only is in a compassionable condition that is sorry for his sins and sins no more Seeing then Repentance consisteth in the practice of Religion and Virtue and that is the indispensable condition of our pardon and that out Pardon is infallibly secure upon that Condition From the belief of all this there ariseth a most pregnant and forcible engagement to the greatest care we can exert of living in the love and fear of God and keeping his Commandments 2. The second Principle of Revealed Religion the belief whereof is necessary to excite us to the practice of Godliness and Virtue is this That God is ready to accept of sincere obedience This likewise is only to be known by Revelation seeing if God had pleased he might have left us to the rigour of that original Law of Righteousness which required unsinning duty and according to which no Sinner can be justified i.e. he might have measured our Repentance the Condition of our Pardon by our amendment according to the strictness of that Law without making any abatements for Human Frailty for invincible Ignorance for surprize and those unduenesses of passion and those inadvertencies which are things of daily incursion But had it been thus little comfort could we have had from the belief that God will pardon us upon our repentance and obedience for the future if he would accept of nothing for that repentance and obedience which was short of that absolute perfection which 'tis morally impossible for any man in this state of imperfection to arrive unto For he that proffers a benefit upon terms impossible to the Receiver does but disquiet him the more taking away with the one hand what he giveth with the other Therefore Almighty God further to encourage us to repentance and the practice of Religion and Virtue hath not only promised to pardon our former sins upon that condition but he hath so described to us in the Gospel what that life is which for the future he will accept and be pleased withal that we have no reason to be deterred from attempting his Service by any jealousies of his austerity and rigour towards us That which he requires of us is to love him with all our hearts from whence it follows That the service and duty he expects from us is no other than what is a natural emanation from and a real expression of such a love to him which is to do what we are able that we may serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life Now to love God with all our hearts i. e. to love him above all things is a very possible and the most reasonable thing in the World That obedience therefore must be so too which is the natural effect of such a love to God That obedience which is the effect of due love to God is consistent with sins of mere frailty of unaffected ignorance of unavoidable surprise because these sins neither proceed from an evil will nor are wholly vincible in our present state but that obedience which is the effect of due love to God cannot consist with deliberate much less with presumptuous sins It cannot consist with wilful much less with customary transgressions of known and open Laws it cannot consist with sins proceeding from affected ignorance much less with sins against knowledge which 't is in a man's power to avoid It cannot consist with these kind of sins because 't is clear that the reason why men commit them is not because they cannot but because they will not forbear them But he that loves God with all his heart will do what he can to please him and he that doth so is accepted by Almighty God i. e. he is reckon'd by him a righteous man and according to the moderation and gentleness of the Christian Law not accounted a Sinner in which sense we are to understand those words of the Apostle St. John He that is born of God sinneth not So that as for sins of infirmity which do indeed stand as much condemned and will as as certainly exclude us from the favour of God according to the terms of the Original Law or the first Covenant if God should deal with us by those measures for those sins I say they are consistent with the favour of God to us according to the terms of the Christian Law or the Second Covenant because we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous who is our High-Priest and is touched with the feeling of our infirmities through whose intercession they are remitted upon our keeping from all wilful sins and our endeavour after perfection But if we sin wilfully there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin i. e. the Sacrifice offered for us will not avail to make such sins consistent with a justifiable state No they must be actually repented of and forsaken 't is only upon those terms that our Sacrifice remaineth in force and power to obtain our reconciliation to God Here I confess I have just occasion to proceed upon a Discourse concerning the difference between sins of weakness and sins of wilfulness to shew as exactly as the case will bear wherein lies that sincerity of obedience which God is ready to accept and which he will be pleased with us for But this would be to slide into an Argument that belongs not to the general