Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	punishment_n	sin_n	transgression_n	4,361	5	10.4522	5	false

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

necessary for the maintenance of Life as Bread c. In like manner by the holy Spirit which our heavenly Father is so ready to bestow upon his Children we must understand all Spiritual helps necessary for our improvement in Religion and Virtue viz. which hold the same proportion to the good of our Souls which Bread c. holds to the welfare of our Bodies this upon our asking i. e. upon our sincere endeavours after it we may promise our selves from the bounty of God to us since he hath promised it to us viz. such grace and spiritual help as shall be sufficient for us God will give to none of us less and he is unreasonable that expects more Now is not this evidently a strong Motive to Godliness and Virtue that God himself will cherish and maintain us will help and support us will prosper and guard us by the influences of his Holy Spirit upon us Have we such a Patron and Defender to overlook and care for us that we do not fall by our Spiritual Enemies for want of necessary help and yet can we be disheartned and dismay'd Can our Courage and Resolution leave us Can our hearts sink within us when such powerful Aids are near when such mighty encouragements are by us Is it not from hence plain that no man can fail of doing those things wherewith God will be pleased and his favour obtained but it must be through his own fault and slothfulness in not obtaining by his own endeavours or in not improving by his good Actions the graces of the holy Spirit wherewith he might have arrived to a Regenerate estate and persevered therein For God hath not made a feigned but a sincere promise of his Spirit to work and encrease his graces in us and if the promise be real it can imply no less and it needs not imply any more than a sufficient provision for our spiritual needs and if that provision be not effectual in the event no body is to be blamed for it but our selves The belief therefore of this Article of Revealed Religion That God is ready to assist by his holy Spirit our sincere endeavours to please him is a Motive of great force to persuade us to the practice of Religion and Virtue both because the Promise of God's Spirit made to us is sufficient to encourage us against all our fears of the difficulties of Religion and our own weakness to overcome them and likewise because it cannot but shew us what great aggravation our sins must receive if we continue in them because thereby we resist and do despight unto the spirit of grace 4. The last Principle of Revealed Religion fundamental to a holy Life is that which is mentioned in the Text viz. That God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him This point of belief is not knowable but by Divine Revelation because it depends on the will and pleasure of God whether he will reward our diligent seeking of him or no for if it were discoverable by natural reason as it is not that God would certainly pardon our Sins upon Repentance that he would accept of our sincere endeavours of obedience that he would by his Spirit assist our endeavours to please him If all this could be concluded from the general notion of Divine Goodness yet Natural Reason could not give us any other confidence about the effects of that pardon and our sincere endeavours to please God which are excited and assisted by the Holy Spirit I say the highest confidence we could arrive unto about the good effects of these things with regard to our selves could amount reasonably to no more than this That hereupon we should be exempted and released from that punishment which is due unto our sins For that God should pardon Sinners and that he should prescribe unto them such excellent and useful Laws as should tend to their advantage in this Life and which should recompence the obedience of them with a present reward and thereupon should remit the penalty due to sin this must needs argue as great goodness in God as any Sinner could with reason or modesty expect the manifestation of towards himself but that he should over and above requite our imperfect if sincere obedience with free and ample rewards in the Life to come that those rewards should be the highest and fullest which our natures are capable of that the continuance of them should be as long as our Beings that they should be no less than immortal glory and happiness than an Eternal Crown of Righteousness than Life Everlasting than the Society and Fellowship of Angels than the glorious and happy imployments of Spirits made perfect than the sight and fruition of God for ever this is such abundant benignity and good-will towards Sinners that it can flow from nothing but self-moving goodness free grace and unsought kindness and benevolence This could never be known by us but by God Almighty's Revelation of his purpose and intention so to do if we would labour to please him in all things This with modesty could never be expected by us if the declared Promise of God thus to deal with us had not given us confidence to believe it and made it our Duty so to do That we might therefore want no motive and encouragement to the practice of Religion and Virtue He who by his Son Jesus Christ calleth us to repentance promising pardon thereupon and acceptance and assistance hath moreover by the same Messenger who hath declared to us the things of God his secret and hidden purposes of Mercy and Goodness towards Sinners by him I say he hath assured us that the righteous shall go into life eternal into a state of immortal glory and happiness reserved for them in the Heavens This also after all the rest is a pregnant and strong motive to the practice of Religion and Virtue since as the rest shew the possibility thereof so this satisfieth us of the great advantage that will accrue to us thereby since God himself will be our rewarder if we diligently seek him If indeed we had no reason to believe that it would make for our advantage to accept of God's pardon and to study to please him in all things for the future the present Pleasures and Profits of Sin would captivate the minds of men and leave us less reason to wonder at the wickedness of the World but since the Bountiful and Righteous God hath bid an everlasting immense reward for our poor and to him unprofitable but to our selves most beneficial Services what can be said in our excuse if we undervalue so magnificent and free a Gift such rich Grace and Bounty If this cannot prevail with us to do those things which are so reasonable in themselves that a truly good man finds there is little need of any other temptation to do them what shame will it be to us if we prefer a Moment before Eternity and those Advantages we see but which we

do at last confess the plain truth of the Scriptures that without holiness no man shall see God And they say farther that 't is not only hard but impossible for a man left to that freedom which belongs to his Will to become regenerate But then what comfort does this persuasion leave Why they tell us that Regeneration and Holiness shall be wrought in our hearts by an Almighty operation of the Holy Spirit such as that whereby God will at last raise us from the dead Now I confess that nothing can be more easy than to become a good man this way because under the dispensation of irresistible Grace 't is impossible to be otherwise And I am not so vain as to refuse so great a blessing if it were in my power to refuse it But what if the Scripture hath no promise of such Grace Nay what if it had unless I knew how to obtain it or that I was one of a thousand and could not miss it What if I must be left to the common way of watching and praying and working out my Salvation And what if all this will be to as little purpose as if I had done nothing at all Is this the rest that Jesus hath promised we shall find to our Souls Let us therefore try another expedient what may be done by severe fasting and penance Will the punishing of my Body satisfy for the sin of my Soul This I think would almost do the business because 't is a greater pain to deny a craving Lust to stop a growing Passion and to resist a strong temptation to wicked Pleasure or unjust Gain or desired Revenge than to go through a reasonable course of outward mortification But can these things compensate for the omission of necessary duty or satisfy for the commission of known sin when under a more imperfect Law God refused harder things than these Shall I give my first-born for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul No He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord c. Bodily Austerities no doubt are pleasing to God and profitable for our Souls when they are intended to express a just indignation at our selves for having sinned when to break the wicked custom they are imposed as penalties and revenges to be inflicted as soon as we have committed any wicked Action when they are added to the inward trouble of the mind to make us weary of sinning and us'd to starve and mortify the evil Appetite For such reasons as these 't is necessary to keep the body in subjection But if bodily exercise profiteth nothing unless it be profitable unto godliness and helpeth to make the Soul the better we are still driven back to that hard point which we would fain lose the sight of That without a new heart and a new life there is no hope of God's pardon I shall try but one refuge more which indeed gives a fair prospect of relief and that is what comfort may be had from the power of the keys wherewith Christ intrusted his Church when he said Whose sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose sins ye retain they are retained Now this assures me that when the Church received me by Baptism into her Communion she gave me a right to remission of sins and that if she deprives me of it by excommunication she can by absolution restore me to it And therefore I will never break the Peace of the Church by Schism nor lose it by contempt of her Censures But then I doubt the Church cannot forgive sins more effectually than God does who is thus represented to forgive in the Parable of the Lord that forgave his servant ten thousand talents He forgave him indeed and yet he required the Debt afterward upon his unmercifulness to his Fellow-servant which evidently shews that the Pardon was but conditional So likewise saith our Saviour shall your heavenly Father do unto you And the Church cannot do more than God does who himself requires Conditions and therefore has not given to man the power of dispensing absolute Pardons unless we can think that to ratify the word of a man he has obliged himself to disannul his own And because he has reserved to himself the final Judgment of all whose sins are either remitted or retained in this World by the Authority of the Church therefore the Kingdom of God that is the Church is compared to a Field where the tares and the wheat grow together the time not being yet come for an exact separation For these Reasons all are forced to confess that the peace of the Church does then only ensure the favour of God when the Key does not err But what if my Conscience tells me the Key doth err and that whilst I do not forfeit the Churches Peace by scandalous Crimes I do yet depart from God by hidden Iniquities Can the erring Key open to me the Gate of Everlasting Life I would fain believe that the bringing of these secret sins to light and purposing to offend no more would help at last and that a Death-bed Repentance could by the power of the Keys be made effectual to Salvation But O Blessed Jesus how can I believe that thy most holy Doctrine should be but a Rule whereby to confess sin and to purpose against it instead of a Rule obliging me to forsake it To conclude this matter If we leave that one path of Obedience we may try a thousand By-ways but the Truth which cannot be corrupted will send us back again to that plain truth of our Saviour If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments which like the flaming Sword that turns every way keeps the way of the Tree of Life against all ungodly and unrighteous men If therefore that Rest which our Lord promiseth is not to be had out of the way of Obedience it remains that we must find it in that way if we find it at all Let us therefore try for better success here than we have yet had Let us see whether the exactness of Rules and the indispensableness of Obedience must needs make us uneasy under the Discipline of Christianity or rather if the Grace of the Gospel doth not mitigate all the severity of its Laws without making any of them void Now the first mitigation I shall consider is this 1. That the Gospel leaves room for repentance of known and wilful Sins committed after Baptism a most remarkable instance of which Grace we have in the Discipline of the Church as it stood in the Apostle's days For when the Incestuous Corinthian was brought to Repentance St. Paul commanded the Church to forgive and comfort him lest he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow And surely as God forgives those open Scandals for which the Penitent was cut off from the Body of Christ so upon repentance he will forgive those secret Offences too which can make no forfeiture of Church-Communion If

theirs to whom God hath committed it viz. Kings and Magistrates But Because another man hath done evil it is not lawful for me one jot the more to do evil too He hath injur'd me but I must not therefore be unjust to him by assuming a power over him that I have not nor be injurious to the Common-wealth by bringing many Disorders into it or to the Soveraign Authority by usurping some part of it or to the Law by putting it out of office Nay I might add to my own Soul by breaking the Law of God by doing despite to Religion by casting scorn and contempt upon the best and most excellent Rules of it In short private and personal Revenge be the Injury what it will is of most pernicious consequence it is a savage and barbarous Custom it is extremely unjust in it self and monstrously impious and unchristian But 2. It does not follow from this Doctrine of our Saviour as I have already shewn that we must lay our selves open to all manner of Injuries and Wrongs whatsoever but if great injustice be offered or considerable damage be done to us we may guard our selves against the former and redress the latter by proceeding according to the Laws Were it not that the Law gives relief and redress to the Innocent and allots punishment to the Evil doer every thing almost would be out of order and hardly any body secure but he that makes himself so by Iniquity and Oppression and things would soon be brought to that pass which the worst of men can desire to see Therefore if a man be greatly injured by his Neighbour it is but reasonable for him to make publick Complaint of it that the Injury may be redrest or if it be but design'd that he should guard himself against it by such means as the Law provides and that not only for the sake of a man 's own Interest which in great matters he is not to neglect in wisdom for himself but in charity also to the Evil doer that if possible a check may be given to his evil course The hands of the Violent are to be tied up and the mouth of the Slanderer is to be stopt when they proceed to commit great Iniquities that whether they are either restrain'd or punished they may bethink themselves of the evil they have done and by shame and fear and suffering be driven to repentance At least very necessary it is for the good of the World and for a caution to others that they who meditate mischief and are Examples of great Injustice should be Examples of the unsuccessfulness and the punishment of it too that those who would be inclin'd to imitate the former may be aware of it in consideration of the latter And therefore we are to thank God that there are temporal Laws to restrain men or at least to punish Offences and Wrongs that men may commit one against another And if we are to be thankful for them most certainly it is very lawful yea very prudent and necessary to make use of them for the redressing or guarding our selves against great Injuries For if we should not use them in this case there would be no use of them at all Now this it is that plainly shews our Saviour's Rule here in the Text to be no hard and grievous thing that although it certainly bars all private Revenge and restrains men from making the utmost advantage of Human Laws yet it leaves every man free to secure himself against great Injuries or to redress himself after they have been done him by the benefit of the Laws and therefore it is no great trial of his patience and meekness that our Saviour has here required But 3. In the third place it must be added That in prosecuting him that hath greatly injured us or defending our selves against one that would we must beware of a revengeful and bitter spirit for this is as much against the reason of the Law as retaliating the smallest Wrongs which a man would not do if it were not more to ease an angry mind than to get reparation for the wrong if he did not design the troubling and vexing of his Adversary and the pleasure that comes that way more than any real profit to himself Therefore to perform our Saviour's Rule in righting our selves upon the greatest Wrongs we must turn out all hatred malice and revengefulness out of our minds designing no more harm to our Adversay than what is necessary for the righting of our selves or for the ends of Common Justice and when we have a man that has deserved any ill of us at an advantage we should use it moderately and rather be satisfied with less reparation than is due to the nature of the Offence than exact the extremity of what may be due by Law But 4. We are bound in duty to our Saviour altogether to remit less Injuries and Offences viz. such as he has mentioned in the particular Instances i. e. not only to forbear righting our selves by our own Authority but even by troubling Courts of Justice about it although the Magistrate were bound to do us right if we complained of the lightest Offences that were by Law punishable In short As to meer Affronts and inconsiderable Debts and ordinary Trespasses and such Injuries as may easily be born withall this Rule of our Saviour holds generally and universally true But I say unto you Resist not Evil. The only difficulty in the understanding of our Duty in this point is that of being always able to determine between Injuries that are so little that we must absolutely remit them and such as we may redress by just appeal But to this I say where the Case is plain as 't is very often there is no room for pretending the difficulty He that offers at a man's Life or at his Estate or at his good Name by a dangerous Calumny he doth exceed the degree of doing wrong which is not to be resisted But on the other hand a meer Contempt and such a light Encroachment upon our Priviledges or Freedoms or any of our Rights as our Saviour here mentions can yield no matter of doubt whether they are little enough to be past quite over And therefore in the first place be sure to perform thy duty of this kind in all cases where 't is plain and if thou gainest so much honesty and ingenuity as that comes to it will give thee some light and direction where the case is doubtful There is indeed such variety in the Circumstances of Men that that which to one man would be a very small and inconsiderable Injury would happen to be a very great one and hardly supportable by another But if it be really difficult to know whether the Injury committed be little or great all things considered To this it might not be unfitly said That in doubtful Cases it is always best to take the safest course and to chuse that side which will secure our