Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	death_n	eternal_a	life_n	10,289	5	4.7511	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64234	A preservative against Deism shewing the great advantage of revelation above reason, in the two great points, pardon of sin, and a future state of happiness : with an appendix in answer to a letter of A. W. against revealed religion in the oracles of reason / by Nathanael Taylor.	Taylor, Nathanael, d. 1702.; A. W.	1698 (1698)	Wing T548; ESTC R8096	94,525	312

For the proposing vast Recompences for very slight and trivial Matters betrays great Want of Judgment in not setting a true value upon things either upon Rewards or Services or both Now by the Law of our Creation we owe God all possible Duty and Obedience a great deal more than the best of us do yield to him And should God have exacted it on the Account of his Sovereign Authority over us without promising us any thing at all much less any great Matters we had been indispensably obliged to it And our best Actions stand in need of Pardon so far are they from deserving to be Crowned Nothing in us or done by us can bear the least Proportion to the Heavenly Glory And therefore that besides a Pardon God should promise us Eternal Life as the Reward of what we do for him is what can hardly enter into our Thoughts But now Revelation does relieve us in this Matter The Scriptures tell us That Christ by his perfect Obedience and Death in our room and stead hath highly Glorified God and his Government and not only redeemed us from Hell and Destruction to which we were liable but also merited Everlasting Glory for us And that the Design of this whole Affair is to magnify the Riches of God's Grace and show the vast Regard he has to the Death and Intercession of his own Son that on his Account he offers such an unspeakable Reward to us Rom. 5.12 That as Sin has reigned unto Death so might Grace reign through Righteousness to Eternal Life by Jesus Christ our Lord. It is not for any Works of Righteousness that we have done or can do it is not because of their Intrinsick Worth that such great Things are given to us Heaven is the Purchase of Christ's Blood it is for His Sake we are accepted and rewarded And so upon our Faith and Obedience we freely receive the Blessings which he hath merited And the more we abound therein the greater is our Reward not because of our Merits but because of God's gracious Promise and Respect to the Blood of his Son for which he assigns us different Degrees of Glory in Proportion to our different Measures of Holiness and Obedience VII § VII I shall add one Consideration more which will equally reach both this and the foregoing Head viz. Natural Light and Reason cannot assure us where Grace is to be had to enable us to perform the Terms on which the Pardon of Sin and the Enjoyment of the Heavenly Glory is suspended Whosoever consults himself the Vanity of his own Mind the Corruption of his own Heart the Turbulency of his Passions the unruliness of his Appetite the Strength of Temptations the Weakness of his Resolutions and the Force of Evil Examples will quickly see an absolute Necessity of a Divine Power to turn him into and keep him in the Paths of Holiness Some Ingenious Men tell us very strange and surprizing Stories of the mighty Strength of Wheels and Pullies and Screws that 't is possible by the Multiplication of them to pull up an Oak by the Roots with a single * Bishop Wilkin's Archimedes p. 96. Hair of a Man's Head lift it up with a Straw or blow it up with ones Breath So that by these Contrivances one of Sampson's Locks when shaven off would have had far greater Strength and done greater Wonders than he himself when all of them were on As Extravagant as this may seem to be yet 't is much more easy and likely than for any Man by his own feeble Arm to pluck up those inveterate Evil Habits which Time and Custom have settled in him and made natural to him Now what well-grounded Confidence can we have from the meer Light of Nature of Divine Help for the accomplishing this great and necessary Work Whether any shall ever enjoy it seeing the same Sins that make us need it render us most unworthy of it Or in what Proportions it shall be given forth and how long it shall be continued Whether the Spirit of God shall be like those Periodical Winds which in some Parts of the World do annually blow to help the Mariner forward in the pursuit of his gainful Voyage or whether it shall only be like that bright Minute which Astrologers tell us of that comes but once in the whole Compass of a Man's Life and which if he lazily let slip he shall never have such another but is doom'd to Misery by a Fatal Necessity all the remainder of his Days But the Christian Institution is peculiarly called the Ministration of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8 c. as contra-distinguish'd from the Judaical one tho' that also had God for its Author so small a Portion of it was given forth under the one like little Drops of the Dew from Heaven which just wets the Ground in Comparison of what is bestowed under the other like a plentiful Shower of Rain from above that abundanly Waters it It was in the New Creation as in the Old The cold and dark Evening went before the warm and bright Morning and God appointed the lesser Light to Rule the Night and the greater one to govern the Day The Jewish Dispensation like the Moon had its Glory and its Influence on these lower Bodies But the Gospel is like the Sun who may with more reason than any thing which some Ancient Philosophers dreamt of be called the Soul of the World whose bright and warm Beams give a new Life and Being to all things here below awaken the sleepy and drowsy Spirit in every Creature and cause the Fruits of the Ground to Spring up and flourish and Crown the Year with an abundant Increase Therefore our Blessed Saviour stiles himself the Light of the World Joh. 8.12 a Title which he doth deserve because of the Objects that he hath informed us of having set those Old Truths which before were but darkly apprehended in a full and clear Light and acquainted us with those New ones which had it not been for him we had for ever remained Igrant of And he doth deserve it no less because of that Vital Influence with which his Heavenly Doctrine is accompanied without which all Knowledge in our Minds would be but like decayed Drugs which tho' taken into our Bodies having lost all their Virtue never operate upon them nay Men could not act worse if they verily believed or knew those Doctrines to be false than they do now they believe and know them to be true Joh. 1.4 Ephes 5.14 His Light is the Life of Men Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the Dead and Christ shall give thee Light And by the Scriptures we are certified that God hath appointed his own Son to be his High Almoner to distribute this Royal Gift of his among us his needy Creatures That being God and Man he hath the Infinite Goodness of the one and the tender Bowels of the other united in him And

because of the Corruption of Human Nature And withal shews whither we should apply our selves for Divine Grace for the changing the habitual Frame of our Souls and the amending of our Lives So much for the Nature of Christianity II. Now for the Proof of it The Word began first to be spoken by the Lord Heb. 2. and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness both with Signs and Wonders and with divers Miracles and Gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own Will And he would never have set the Broad Seal of Heaven upon it if it had been a Cheat and an Imposture and so have unavoidably led us into a most fatal Error To this may be added the wonderful Spreading of the Gospel which is very Admirable considering the Strictness of its Precepts the Weakness of the Instruments by whom it was propagated the strong Opposition that was made against it every where by Men in Authority and those of the greatest Wit and Learning the general Prejudices with which the Minds of Men were filled against it and its overturning all other Religions wherein Men had been Bred and Born and which therefore they use to be very tenacious of If it had been a Lye it would never have been so blessed and prospered of God Consider further what a wonderful Reformation it wrought in the Hearts and Lives of all that entertained it Surely that Seal could be no Forgery but must be cut by a Divine Hand which made so many Divine Impressions upon such Multitudes of Souls To all which may further be added The Case of the Jews who tho' scattered all the World over yet contrary to all other Instances in Nature do not mingle and incorporate with any People but keep themselves as a Body distinct from all the Nations among whom they dwell And they are the Filth and Off-scouring of every Place even among the Heathens as well as the Christians The very Mahometans despise them The Indians * Terry 's Voyage into the East-Indies have a very Emphatical way in their Language of calling a Man two or three very ugly Names in one Compound Word yet that of calling a Man a Jew is reckoned worse than all the Terms of Reproach heaped up together They are every where standing Monuments of Divine Vengeance for rejecting the Gospel and a lasting Proof and Testimony of the Truth of our Saviour's Prophecies against them Especially if we consider the many Attempts which they have made but always in vain but more especially their last in the Reign and by the zealous Encouragement of Julian the Apostate Emperor to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem on purpose to prove our Saviour a False Prophet and the miraculous Overthrow of it and his Design by Balls of Fire from Heaven whereby the Workmen were consumed and the sorry Remains of the Foundations of that Temple were entirely razed and he made further to fulfil the Prophecy of Christ by his very attempt to overthrow it which is testified not only by the Christian Authors but by the Heathen Historian * Ammianus Marcel l. 23. also Neither are the Prophecies in Scripture concering Christ to be forgotten such as that of Daniel concerning the Messiah's being cut off within such a compass of Years Chap. 9.24 which tho' it hath its lesser Difficulties yet as to the main Substance is very plain and therefore Porphyry most unreasonably pretended the Book of Daniel was a History forged after the Events came to pass And that Prophecy of Christ's coming before the Destruction of the Second Temple Mal. 3. But above all that which was one great Occasion of the Conversion of that Noble * Earl of Roch. Life by Burnet p. 140 141 142. Man who was once as remarkable for his Debauchery and Infidelity as ever he was for his Wit or Quality viz. the Prophecy of Isaiah in his 53d Chapter concerning the Death of Christ which does so exactly correspond with the History of our Saviour's Passion tho' it was wrote many Ages before Christ's Appearance in the World and which the Jews who abhor the Notion of a Crucified Messiah and constantly Blaspheme our Lord Jesus Christ still kept in their Hands as a Book Divinely inspired Pilate writ an Inscription on the Cross over the Head of Christ This is the King of the Jews in Latin Greek and Hebrew Characters Every Jew is a Pillar of Brass which God has set up and whereon he has engraven in Capital Letters That Christ was a Teacher that came down from Heaven And this not in two or three but in all Languages under the Heavens And he who hath Eyes to see will read and he that hath an Ear to hear let him understand And I think we ought not to slight the Acts of Pilate which he sent to Tiberius containing a Narrative of the Life Miracles Death and Resurrection of our Saviour These are mentioned not only by * Hist Eccl. l. 2. c. 2. Eusebius but also by Tertullian † Apol. c. 5. c. 21. and J. Martyr ‖ Apol. 2da p. 76. 84. Edit Paris who both of them more than once in their Apologies for the Christians boldly appeal to ' em And they must have been Mad-men in so doing if they had not been well assured of the Truth of ' em And one can't but think it highly rational that Pilate should send some Account of so Extraordinary an Affair to the Emperor But that which to me is of great Weight and which I am surprized to find omitted by Learned Men yea by those who have written warmly against them that have endeavoured to put a Slur on these Acts is this That Maximinus in his Perfecution caused Supposititious * Of which see Eusebius Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 9. l. 9. c. 5. c. 7. Acts of Pilate to be Forged full of Blasphemy against Christ which he made to be spread throughout the whole Empire to be taught in the Schools where the Boys were to get them by heart and to declaim upon them that our Saviour and his Religion and Followers might be every-where derided But Providence put an End to his Mirth and Laughter for Divine Vengeance seiz'd him and he died a wretched tormenting Death and just before it publish'd an Edict in Favour of the Christians Now if there had been no Real Acts of Pilate what need was there of these Counterfeit ones and of all this Industry for the spreading of ' em Of all these Heads of Discourse § V I have chosen to insist only on these two viz. The Pardon of Sin and a Future State of Happiness because tho' they have been very lightly touched upon by several yet I do not know any that hath thoroughly handled ' em This Vein hath been scarce open'd and then hath been presently closed again the Skilful Work-men having chosen rather to dig in some other Parts of the