Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	flesh_n	sin_n	sinful_a	9,953	5	10.5484	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35343	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at Westminster, March 31, 1647 by R. Cudworth ...	Cudworth, Ralph, 1617-1688.	1647 (1647)	Wing C7469; ESTC R22606	36,595	94

Gospel is a true Bethesda a pool of Grace where such poore lame and infirme creatures as we are upon the moving of Gods spirit in it may descend down not onely to wash our skin and outside but also to be cured of our diseases within And what ever the world thinks there is a powerfull Spirit that moves upon these waters the waters of the Gospel for this new Creation the Regeneration of souls the very same Spirit that once moved upon the waters of the universe at the first Creation and spreading its mighty wings over them did hatch the new-born World into this perfection I say the same Almighty spirit of Christ still worketh in the Gospel spreading its gentle healing quickening wings over our souls The Gospel is not like Abana and Pharphar those common Rivers of Damascus that could onely cleanse the outside but it is a true Iordan in which such leprouse Naamans as we all are may Wash and be clean Blessed indeed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sinnes are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sinne but yet rather Blessed are they whose sinnes are removed like a Morning-cloud and quite taken away from them Blessed thrice blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousnesse for they shall be satisfied Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Our Saviour Christ came as Iohn the Baptist tells us with a Fan in his hand that he might throughly purge his floore and gather his wheat into his garner but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire He came as the Prophet Malachy speaks like a Refiners fire and like Fullers sop to sit as a Refiner and Purifier of silver and to purifie all the sonnes of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousnesse Christ came not onely to write Holinesse to the Lord upon Aarons forehead and to put his Urim and Thummim upon his Breast-plate but This is the Covenant saith the Lord that I will make with them in those dayes I will put my Law into their inward parts and write it in their hearts and then I will be their God and they shall be my people they shall be all Kings and Priests unto me God sent his own sonne saith St. Paul in the likenesse of sinfull flesh and by a sacrifice for sinne condemned sinne in the flesh that the righteousnesse of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit The first Adam as the Scripture tells us brought in a reall defilement which like a noisome Leprosie hath overspread all mankind and therefore the second Adam must not onely fill the World with a conceit of Holinesse and meer Imaginary Righteousnesse but he must really convey such an immortall seed of Grace into the hearts of true Believers as may prevaile still more and more in them till it have at last quite wrought out that poison of the Serpent Christ that was nothing but Divinity dwelling in a Tabernacle of flesh and God himself immediatly acting a humane nature he came into the World to kindle here that Divine life amongst men which is certainly dearer unto God then any thing else whatsoever in the World and to propagate this Celestiall fire from one heart still unto another untill the end of the World Neither is he or was he ever absent from this Spark of his Divinity kindled amongst men wheresoever it be though he seem bodily to be withdrawn from us He is the standing constant inexhausted Fountain of this divine Light and Heat that still toucheth every soul that is enlivened by it with an out-stretched Ray and freely lends his Beams and disperseth his influence to all from the beginning of the World to the end of it We all receive of his fulnesse grace for grace as all the Starres in heaven are said to light their Candles at the Suns flame For though his body be withdrawn from us yet by the lively and virtuall Contact of his Spirit he is alwayes kindling cheering quickening warming enlivening hearts Nay this Divine life begun and kindled in any heart wheresoever it be is something of God in flesh and in a sober and qualified sence Divinity incarnate and all particular Christians that are really possessed of it so many Mysticall Christs And God forbid that Gods own Life and Nature here in the World should be forlorn forsaken and abandoned of God himself Certainly where-ever it is though never so little like a sweet young tender Babe once born in any heart when it crieth unto God the father of it with pitifull and bemoning looks imploring his compassion it cannot chuse but move his fatherly bowels and make them yerne and turn towards it and by strong sympathy draw his compassionate arm to help and relieve it Never was any tender Infant so dear to those Bowels that begat it as an Infant new-born Christ formed in the heart of any true believer to God the father of it Shall the children of this World the sonnes of darknesse be moved with such tender affection and compassion towards the fruit of their bodies their own Naturall offspring and shall God who is the Father of lights the fountain of all goodnesse be moved with no compassion towards his true Spirituall Offspring and have no regard to those sweet Babes of Light ingendered by his own beams in mens hearts that in their lovely countenances bear the resemblance of his own face and call him their father Shall he see them lie fainting and gasping and dying here in the World for want of nothing to preserve and keep them but an Influence from him who first gave them life and breath No hear the language of Gods heart heare the sounding of his bowels towards them Is it Ephraim my dear sonne Is it that pleasant child since I spake of him I do earnestly remember him my bowels my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have mercy upon him saith the Lord If those expressions of goodnesse and tender affection here amongst creatures be but drops of that full Ocean that is in God how can we then imagine that this Father of our spirits should have so little regard to his own dear Ofspring I do not say our souls but that which is the very Life and Soul of our souls the Life of God in us which is nothing else but Gods own Self communicated to us his own Sonne born in our hearts as that he should suffer it to be cruelly murdered in its Infancy by our Sinnes and like young Hercules in its very cradle to be strangled by those filthy vipers that he should see him to be crucified by wicked Lusts nailed fast to the crosse by invincible Corruptions pierced and gored on every side with the poisoned spears of the Devils temptations and at last to give up the Ghost and yet his tender heart not at all relent