Selected quad for the lemma: nation_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nation_n	abraham_n	great_a	seed_n	1,439	5	7.5728	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29102	The imperfect promulgation of the Gospel consider'd a sermon preach'd in the Church of St. Mary le Bow, January 7, 1699/1700 : being an appendix to the lectures of the last year appointed by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. / by Samuel Bradford.	Bradford, Samuel, 1652-1731.	1700 (1700)	Wing B4115; ESTC R25291	15,205	36

deny either of these Opinions to be true nor so much as say that they are probable yet this I will venture to say That I believe it very difficult for any Man to prove that they cannot be True and yet if either of them should prove True the Difficulty before us would be perfectly solv'd And thus much we may safely infer from these Conjectures that if contemplative Men can think of some such possible Ways for the solving this Difficulty there may be many more Ways of doing it known to the Divine Understanding and which will be clear and easie to our Understandings also when it shall please God to reveal any of them to us And I confess I would suppose any thing that is plausible nay any thing that is possible much rather than entertain one hard thought of the Maker and the Redeemer of Mankind But yet farther no Man certainly knows what Measures God will take at the last day with those who shall have liv'd and dyed unacquainted with the Gospel We are certainly inform'd how God will deal with those to whom the Gospel is publish'd He that believeth shall be saved And he that believes not shall be damned Mar. 16.16 But this believing or not believing plainly supposes the Gospel preach'd to them it being impossible as St. Paul suggests that they should believe in him of whom they have not heard Rom. 10.14 and as impossible that they should hear without a Preacher And how God will deal with those who were under this disadvantage the Gospel hath not so expresly told us it's Declarations being to them to whom it is publish'd But because this will fall under consideration in another Place I will add no more here but proceed to my next Proposition viz. Thirdly We may our selves discern very much of the Reasonableness and fitness of that Method which Providence hath taken both as to the time of our Saviour's coming into the World and the way and manner in which he order'd his Gospel to be publish'd Almighty God having made Men reasonable Creatures hath all along dealt with them as such in a way very suitable to their Nature and their present Condition in this Life His Providence wisely and gently orders and over-rules the Affairs of Mankind with as little Violence as is possible drawing and leading Men to Repentance and Amendment rather than driving and compelling them Accordingly ever since the Fall it hath pleas'd God to use such Methods as might reasonably promote tho' not necessitate their Recovery Thus in the first Ages of the World besides the Impressions which God had left of himself upon the Minds of Men in their very make and what they might farther have learned of him by contemplating his Works there was a plain and certain Tradition both of his first forming Man of the Law he gave to our first Parents of their Fall and of the kind Intimations of the Divine Compassion towards them after their Fall there was I say a plain and certain Tradition of all these and many more Particulars easily deriv'd down from Adam to Noah Adam being able fully to inform Methuselah and Methuselah to inform Noah of all that each of them knew And this one would in reason judge had been a sufficient means of instructing and reclaiming the sinful Race of Adam And accordingly there were some in each Generation who were recover'd from their fallen Estate to that degree as to become acceptable to God themselves and Instructors and Examples to others Gen. 5.24 Thus we read of Enoch that he walked with God that is pleased him by a pious and virtuous Course of Life and not only by his Conversation reproved Jude 14.15 but as St. Jude tells us prophesyed also against the ungodly Sinners of that Age and was indeed so much too good for a bad World that God took him to himself as an Encouragement to the few Good and a Warning to the many Bad Men of those times Gen. 6.9 Noah was such another of whom it is said that he was a just Man and perfect or upright in his Generations 2 Pet. 2.5 and that he walked with God as likewise that he was a Preacher of Righteousness to the World of the Ungodly And besides these external Means of Instruction and Reformation 't is intimated that God's Spirit also was all that while striving with Men. Gen. 6.3 Indeed when none of all these Means would prevail but the Case of Mankind was become deplorable and utterly desperate Gen. 6.5 when God saw that the Wickedness of Man was great in the Earth and that every Imagination of the Thoughts of his Heart was only evil and that continually then and not till then he determined to interpose miraculously by destroying Man from the Face of the Earth Verse 7. reserving only Noah and his Family as the Seed of a new and better World When by this Means there was a new Beginning of Mankind when Noah being himself a good Man and extraordinarily preserv'd and instructed by God was able to convey to his Off-spring a certain Tradition both of what he had deriv'd from Adam before the Flood and of what he had learn'd of God since and especially to give them an Account of that Stupendous Judgment whereby the old World was destroy'd one would have thought again that this should have effectually secur'd his Race in the Practice of Piety and Virtue for the future But when his Posterity also soon degenerated so that in the Space of somewhat more than four hundred Years even Idolatry began to infect the purest Branch deriv'd from him God then by a special Providence again interpos'd chusing Abraham calling him forth from his Country and his Kindred instructing and guiding him and as a Reward of his Eminent Faith and Piety appointing his Posterity to be his peculiar People whom he preserv'd and govern'd in a miracuious Manner from one Generation to another thereby to awaken other Nations if they would observe the wonderful Works of Providence towards that People or at least to preserve one Nation from the General Contagion Amongst them God raised up a Great Law-giver with a Succession of Prophets discovering still by degrees more of his Kind Intentions towards them and all the World and promising in due time to raise up of the Seed of Abraham One who should be the great Deliverer and Saviour of Mankind When the fulness of the time was come as St. Gal. 4.4 Paul emphatically expresses it God sent forth this great Person into the World dignified with the Title of his only begotten Son By which Expression The fulness of the time as hath been often observ'd by those who have consider'd this Point is not only to be understood that it was the Time to which all the Predictions relating to the Messiah pointed but moreover that it was the fittest Season that ever yet had been for the Appearance of such a Person It was then