Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	adam_n	law_n	moral_a	4,944	5	10.5377	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A12099	Five pious and learned discourses 1. A sermon shewing how we ought to behave our selves in Gods house. 2. A sermon preferring holy charity before faith, hope, and knowledge. 3. A treatise shewing that Gods law, now qualified by the Gospel of Christ, is possible, and ought to be fulfilled of us in this life. 4. A treatise of the divine attributes. 5. A treatise shewing the Antichrist not to be yet come. By Robert Shelford of Ringsfield in Suffolk priest.	Shelford, Robert, 1562 or 3-1627.	1635 (1635)	STC 22400; ESTC S117202	172,818	340

cum peccati praejudicio nati potestatem acceperunt adjustitiam renascendi validius donum factum est libertatis quàm debitum servitutis Where sinne abounded there grace hath superabounded and those who were born with the guilt of sinne have received power to be reborn to righteousnesse for the gift of freedome is made of more force then was the debt of bondage and slaverie But it will be objected that God might justly command things impossible to man fallen for the law was given to Adam in paradise though not written in tabulis lapideis yet in cordibus hominum as we reade Rom. 2. 14. For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law these having not the law are a law unto themselves which shew the work of the law written in their hearts If the Gentiles much more had our first parents this law of nature which is nothing else but the nature of God written in their hearts likewise And therefore because man by his free-will made himself unable to keep this law thus written God may now justly exact impossibilities of us in this our present miserie and wretchednesse I answer that although the law may be truely said to have been given to Adam in paradise though there not promulgated as by Moses afterward as likewise that man was able in paradise to perform the whole law of nature or morall law but afterwards God subtracting his grace as justly he might for his sinne this inabilitie fell upon him as a punishment now it is tyrannicall and cruell therefore impossible for Almighty God to require that abilitie which he himself thus took away of those too that are his friends and in league with him unlesse he had restored it again And so surely he hath by giving us gratiam potentiorem though Adam had laetiorem for grace now by Christ is more powerfull because Adam in his puritie had lesse reluctancie and therefore lesse grace might suffice as S. Augustine plainly Per Adam amissa est gratia quâ homo perseverare possit per Christum datur gratia crebrior uberior ut in tanta infirmitate inter tot hostes fortior stet actu perseveret It may be objected that the two precepts one of loving God with all our heart and all our strength and that other Non concupisces Thou shalt not covet are impossible to be kept seeing as long as we carrie about with us this bodie of flesh concupiscence or the law of the members must be in it as S. Augustine de perfectione justitiae and elsewhere seems to affirm For the first we make no doubt but every childe of God doth keep that though not with the same intention we shall do in heaven where nothing is to distract us And is not that to love God with all our hearts and souls when we preferre him above all the world as the Martyrs did which endured for the love of God most exquisite and horrid torments What an excesse of charitie was in S. Paul above all imagination who desired not onely to die but to be accursed if it were possible for the glorie of God in the salvation of his brethren And here I may crie out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as the Apostle in another case Secondly this is no expresse particular commandment in the decalogue therefore it followeth that he necessarily fulfils that eminent and generall commandment which keeps the ten particular commandments and therefore Christ sayes If you love me keep my commandments And lastly God commands us to love him as much as ever we are able and if we do that as doubtlesse we may what can God desire of his children more then to love him as much as they can possibly in this life As for the last commandment of all Non concupisces I take it that the consent of the will is onely forbidden and the cherishing of the first motion to sinne according to the scripture every where Let not sinne reigne in your mortall bodies and Go not after thy concupiscence to fulfill the lusts thereof Touching which opinion S. Augustine most clearly Quantum ad nos attinet sine peccato semper essemus donec sanaretur hoc malum si ei nunquam consentiremus ad malum and so it is rather praeceptum medii quàm finis a precept of the means to labour to resist and to keep those motions from overcoming us and leading our will captive The end it onely shews and points out that which by these actions we should tend to even that perfection which we cannot fully attain in this life but shall be most consummate in our countrey and celestiall citie of God and that is not to feel the motions of concupiscence To which purpose S. Augustine writeth to Asellicus thus Hoc lex posuit dicendo Non concupisces non quòd hoc valeamus sed ad quod proficiendo tendamus Now the end is not enjoyned in commands but demonstrated onely as if a captain bid his souldiers overcome their enemies if they fight valiantly though they do not utterly overcome we may in reason suppose the commandment of the generall truly fulfilled though the end be not fully accomplisht The Apostle surely was of this minde when he said If I do that which I would not I consent unto the law that it is good for I delight in the law of God according to the inward man as if he had said I work not that which the foam and sourse of concupiscence within me entices unto and therefore though he had these motions of concupiscence yet for all that he kept the law as he concludes in the last verse Igitur mente servio legi Dei Id est saith S. Augustine Concupiscentiae non consentiendo non enim damnatur nisi qui concupiscentiae carnis consentit ad malum And that which was beside his minde was none of his neither was he guiltie of it as is plainly set down in that chapter Secondly that concupiscence without the wills consent is not sinne is more then intimated by S. Augustine from the words of S. Cyprian in his epistle de mortalitate We must encounter saith he with covetousnesse immodestie anger and ambition with carnall vices also and secular enticements a daily and dangerous strife we must endure The minde of man is every way assaulted and environed with the devils wiles it scarce withstands them scarce resists If avarice be overcome ariseth lust if lust be vanquisht ambition then succeeds if ambition be trampled on anger rageth pride swelleth drunkennesse allures envie marres concord and by emulation friendship is quite dissolved so many persecutions the minde daily suffers with so many dangers the heart is vexed and yet delights here long to stay amids the devils engines when rather it should desire and pray by death to be prevented and forthwith to repair to Christ. Thus S.