Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	apostle_n	sin_n	transgression_n	5,988	5	10.4357	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23661	A discourse of divine assistance, and the method thereof shewing what assistance men receive from God in performing the condition of the promise of pardon of sin and eternal life / by W.A.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1679 (1679)	Wing A1059; ESTC R17227	99,779	333

Doubtless it came to pass by the awakening of their minds by God to consider things more than their Neighbours did to consider the nature and tendency of morality and immorality and what was like to be the issue of both at last in respect of rewards and punishments in another World And the innate light and reason of their minds would dictate to them that Vice could not possibly tend to their happiness nor Vertue to their infelicity in the next World And this made them before they were Proselytes so far as the light of nature assisted by God did lead them to chuse to do what was most likely to end in happiness and to avoid what was most likely to make them miserable at last This no doubt made them betake themselves to the worship of the true God onely when others of their Neighbours did not and in this to join with the People of Israel though not entirely in the same Institutions of Worship because they were not given them in command as they were to the Jews This difference between them and other of their Country-men did first spring as I say from their taking important things more into consideration than others did And by this they came to be prepared to receive the Gospel so that they fell in with it readily when it was preached unto them sometimes at the first hearing Those Proselytes we read of Acts 13.48 were such as were ordered and disposed in their own minds towards eternal life to wit to look after it and to be thoughtful about it and as many as were so did as we there see believe Such as these Proselytes were those other sheep I doubt not of which our Saviour spake John 10.16 which as he said are not of this fold them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice They were made tractable afore-hand ready to follow the Shepherd when they should hear his voice Such also we may well suppose the good Ground hearers to be who were of good and honest hearts as they are described Luke 8.15 of honest minds not willing to represent things to themselves better than they are nor to put a cheat upon themselves and their own souls by flattering them into a better opinion of themselves and of their good condition Godward than there is cause Like him of whom the Psalmist speaks Who flattereth himself in his own eyes until his iniquity be found to be hateful Psal 36.2 They are not of such partial and dishonest minds as to be thoughtful and careful about the outward Man and things of this present World and to be altogether regardless and careless of their souls the better part and of the concerns for Eternity nor treacherously to betray them Thus far to shew how God hath prepared men for the belief of the Gospel onely by making principles and notions of natural religion operative in them by a powerful impression of them upon their minds CHAP. II. How God by adding Revealed Religion to that which is Natural prepared the Jews for the performance of the condition of the Promise IN times under the Law and before the appearance of Christ in the World Almighty God prepared the People of the Jews for the Faith in Christ by adding Revealed Religion to that which is Natural and by making that which was Natural more powerful and operative to such an end by that which was revealed After the Original Law which is implanted in the Nature of all men became much blurred and defaced in the minds of men a fair Copy of it was delivered to that People by God written in two Tables of Stone And this was done as for other ends so for this to wit to awaken in them a greater sense of the guilt of sin and their liableness thereby to the wrath of Almighty God and to condemnation The Law worketh wrath saith S. Paul Rom. 4.15 that is it maketh the Transgressor of it the more punishable and exposeth him the more to wrath For the strength of sin is the Law as the same Apostle saith in another place 1 Cor. 15.56 it is that which armeth those actions against a man which would not have been punishable if there had been no Law against them For where there is no Law there is no transgression as he saith in the former Text. And where there is no transgression there can be no punishment due And by parity of reason where the Law is more obscure and less discernable the transgression of it must be the less punishable and the more manifest and express the Law is by which men are left without all excuse of ignorance touching the evil prohibited the greater and more criminal must the offence needs be as when committed against a Law promulgate and fully known This is that which stops the mouths of men against all excuse and plea of ignorance and lays them naked and open to the penalty of the Law What the Law saith it saith to them that are under the Law that every mouth might be stopt and all the World found guilty before God or subject to his judgment Rom. 3.19 And as the offence against the Law is aggravated and enhansed by how much the more the Law is known to be expresly against it by so much may the punishment be expected to be increased by that means He that knew his Masters will and yet did it not shall be beaten with many stripes above what he shall suffer whose opportunity of knowing his duty hath been less Now this was the case with the Jews they were under the natural Law before it was promulgated to them as well as all other Nations But that Law of Nature was grown so blurr'd and illegible through the pravity and degeneracy of men that they could hardly discern that to be sin in many cases which was sin by the Law of Nature As for instance I had not known Lust to be sin saith S. Paul unless the Law had said thou shalt not covet They could hardly discern inward concupiscence in this or that particular to be sin unless it brake out into open act But now by the promulgation of the natural Law this came to be known to be sin which indeed was so before but not so certainly known to be so and the like in other cases But when this and other things were by a promulgate Law more clearly known to be sin it was then at their greater peril if they fell into them and consequently they must needs be the more apprehensive of their danger and their fear the greater in case they did S. Paul personating a Jew both before and after the promulgation of the Law saith I once was alive without the Law but when the commandment came then sin revived and I died He did not know himself to be in so ill a case as the Law when it came discovered him to be And therefore he saith again that sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived him and by it slew

him Rom. 7. By all this we may understand what S. Paul meant when he said that the Law entered that the offence might abound Rom. 5.20 that is that the offence in the evil nature and mischievous effects of it might be more abundantly known and men made more sensible of their sad condition by reason of it and that for this reason among others that grace might so much the more abound in the sight of men when the way and means of escaping that condition should be made known to them Where sin abounded grace did much more abound This state of theirs under the Law was that state of the spirit of bondage to fear whereof S. Paul speaks Rom. 8.15 But then this prepared the way of the Gospel by making that which tended to remove those fears the more acceptable To you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings saith the Lord speaking of his sending Christ among them Mal. 4.2 he came with healing to those souls which had been bruised and made sore before by fears and terrours that did arise in their minds out of that darker state of the Church wherein the way of salvation by Christ was more obscurely revealed But besides this by the promise they had of the Messiah and by the types and shadows of him in the Law and by the many predictions of the Prophets concerning him the Lord prepared them for the reception of him when he was come The Law in these respects was a Schoolmaster to bring them to Christ as the Apostle speaks Gal. 3.24 The many precepts of moral righteousness and goodness also wherein they were instructed out of the Law and the Prophets prepared them likewise to receive Christ for the true Messiah when he was come indeed for this reason viz. because of that harmony and good agreement that was between our Saviours precepts of living and what they had been taught before both by natural light and by revealed Religion superadded to it By this former teaching of the Father some of them became such Sheep as our Saviour said his Father had given him John 10.27 29. It was by vertue of this preparatory teaching of the Father that they knew the Shepherds voice when they heard it By this they could distinguish between the voice of the true Shepherd or Messias and the voice of Strangers the voice of hirelings Because the doctrine of our Saviour agreed with that way of righteousness which they had learned by the teaching of the Father as none others did that were but pretenders It was this that made such of them as had heard and learned of the Father to come to Christ to follow this Shepherd when they heard his voice that is to become his Disciples And yet more particularly John the Baptist was sent by the Almighty Father to prepare them by his Ministry for their reception of Christ and believing in him It was foretold by the Angel before his birth that he should make ready a People prepared for the Lord Luke 1.17 and by a spirit of Prophecy at his birth that he should go before the face of the Lord to prepare his way Vers 76. which he did by two things especially by awakening them to repentance and by giving them notice of the near approach and appearance of the Messiah He came into all the Countrey about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins Luke 3.3 The People of the Jews were in great part become such a generation as Solomon speaks of that were pure in their own eyes and yet not washed from their filthiness Prov. 30.12 strict observers of the Ritual part of the Law but very immoral in their temper and in their lives full of a self-chosen righteousness their fear towards God taught by the precepts of men to wit the tradidition their Elders They were not sensible of the badness of their state their obnoxiousness to the wrath of God nor of their need of repentance in amending their lives And under these circumstances a Christ that should come to save them from their sins was not like to be very welcom unto them nor to answer their expectation who looked to be saved from the Roman Yoke by the Messiah but not from their sins Now that our Saviour might not lose the end of his coming amongst them John the Baptist was sent before him to convince them of their bad condition of their guilt of sin before God and of their liableness to his wrath That whereas thitherto the judgments upon their Nation even the worst that had befallen them had been but like the lopping of branches from off the trees that would grow again But now the Axe was laid to the root of the trees to cut them quite down never to grow again that the utter ruine of their State Nation and Temple was not far off if not prevented And that nothing could prevent it but confession of sin and bringing forth fruit meet for repentance Now this raised a spirit of fear in them of the wrath of Almighty God which hung over them for their sins which made such multitudes to come to his Baptism to confess their sins and by his Baptism to list themselves as Penitents And by this teaching of the Father they were the better prepared to receive Christ when he came especially when pointing to him he told them this is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the World that sin of theirs which exposed them to such danger and that put them in such fear as aforesaid And who were the Ring leaders in opposing Christ when he was come but the Pharisees Lawyers and Scribes such as rejected the counsel of God against themselves and would not be baptized of John They were such as were never prepared by a sense of their sin and of the danger they were in thereby but trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others They were such as thought themselves so whole as to need no such soul-physician as Christ They did not believe as the Publicans and Harlots did that they were in any such danger by reason of sin as John told them they were and that was the reason why they kept themselves out of the Kingdom of God whilest the others entered in as our Saviour told them Mat. 21.31 32. Verily I say unto you that the Publicans and Harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you And he gives the reason of it in the next words For John came to you in the way of righteousness and ye believed him not but the Publicans and the Harlots believed him Those who did believe John and were awakened with a sense of their danger because of sin they crouded as it were into the Kingdom of God while that impression lasted From the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force saith our Saviour Mat. 11.12 If