Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	contain_v	law_n	moral_a	2,485	5	9.8922	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52162	A discourse concerning the love of God	Masham, Damaris, Lady, 1658-1708.	1696 (1696)	Wing M905; ESTC R3455	44,516	134

expresly tells us become through their Union with their Mothers Sinners and are in a state of Damnation before they are born into the World But both the Apostle and Reason assure us that where there is no Law there is no Transgression And Pere Malebranche opposes this upon no other ground offer'd by him for so doing but that the conclusion he makes viz. That Children are born Sinners is a necessary consequence of our seeing all things in God For God only causing us Pleasure he only has a right to our Love and all love of the Creature is sinful But a Child by virtue of its union with the Mother does whilst in her Womb know and love Bodies consequently therefore is a Sinner and shall be necessarily Damn'd p. 114. Tho' indeed in a Note upon that Word he mitigates the sense of it to being eternally depriv'd of the Possession of God And that we come into the World utterly uncapable to please God as he expresly says we do is not through any fault at all of our own but for Eve's Concerning whose Transgression any ways influencing her Posterity the Scripture yet makes no mention at all However this Principle is made by Pere Malebranthe p. 94. the Foundation of Christianity But it is certain that the New Testament tells us nothing of it And there it is surely that we ought to look for the Christian Religion What we are there told is That as in Adam all died so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. xv 22. That he came to abolish Death and to bring Life and Immortality to light 2 Tim. i. 10. That we shall be justified by Faith without the works of the Law Rom. iii. 28. And that for this end God sent his Son into the World that as many as believe in him might have Eternal Life Yet do we then says the Apostle make void the Law through Faith God forbid yea we establish the Law Rom. iii. 31. But the Wisdom of God in Christ Jesus is manifest in this that we are hereby at once the most effectually put upon using our Endeavours to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling And also kept from Despair in the sense of our own weakness to perform that Law which Adam in his more Advantageous Circumstances transgressing against forfeited thereby Bliss and Immortality We having not only a Promise that we shall receive from God whatever asking as we ought we shall ask in his Son's Name And also of his Spirit to help our Infirmities But to compleat all that for the sake of Christ our sincere tho' imperfect Obedience shall be accepted Faith in him supplying its defects This is what the Scripture tells us of the Dispensation of God to Mankind in the Gospel of his Son Which is so visibly suitable to and worthy of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness that no Inventions of Man can add any thing to it to make it appear more so yet were our Views larger than to comprehend only the compass of our little Globe they would probably afford us still further Matter for our Admiration For 't is a thought too limitted and narrow for Women and Children now to be kept in that this Spot of ours is all the Habitable part of the Creation But without understanding the System of the World or considering what Mathematicians and Naturalists offer to convince us that so many Regions fit for Inhabitants are not empty Desarts and such numberless Orbs of Light more insignificant than so many Farthing Candles We read in the Scripture of other Ranks of Intelligent Beings besides our selves Of whom tho' it would be Presumption to affirm any thing beyond what is reveal'd yet we know not what Relation may possibly be between them and us The Scripture plainly intimates great Numbers of them Superiour to us in the Dignity of their Creation to be fallen by Disobedience like Man from a Happier State And also that they are Enemies to us Whether out of Envy for what Jesus Christ had undertaken for our Redemption or for other Reasons we know not But by the small account we have of them they seem to have set up themselves in opposition to their Maker as thinking themselves sufficient to carve out their own Happiness And shall find full reward of their Folly and Rebellion when the Judgment of the great Day shall meet them But on Man who after his Transgression saw his Nakedness and was asham'd the Father of Mercies has had Compassion and has found out a Way for his Restoration Such a Way as may well humble these Proud ones in the Imagination of their hearts And which leaves no room to us for Boasting For it is certain That by the Works of the Law no Flesh shall be Justified Rom. iii. 20. Faith which would have preserved Adam in the state of Innocence shall alone justifie his Posterity And tho' the Wisdom of God has made Faith in his Son that which is required to Salvation in those to whom he is reveal'd We are told that the Just in all Ages have liv'd by Faith Which is necessarily the Immutable Basis of all true Religion For without we believe not only in the Being but also in the Veracity of God That he Is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him it is impossible we should love him with all our Hearts with all our Souls c. which contains the whole Moral Law Whose Obligations not being Arbitrary but arising from the Nature of things must necessarily under every Dispensation be always the same And Christ tells us expresly He came not to destroy this Law but to fulfil it He came to give us a clearer and fairer Transcript of it To inforce it by his Authority and Example To assure us of our own Future Existence which Reason could not And of the great Love of God to Mankind in accepting of Faith to supply the Defects of Sincere Obedience By which we are freed from the Terrours of an offended Deity And have hopes of being made Heirs of a glad Immortality Co-heirs with Christ the Author and Finisher of our Salvation Who for the Joy that was set before him indured the Cross and despised the Shame and has obtain'd for himself a Kingdom of which all true Believers are the Subjects We are restored by him to a more assured Felicity than that from which Adam fell by not believing that in the Day he ate of the forbidden Fruit he should surely Die Too little attending to the Light of his Reason Which would have taught him not to question the Divine Veracity and having yet no Experience to oppose to the Solicitations of his Appetite And perhaps God in this Restoration of Mankind by Jesus Christ who took not on him the Nature of Angels having herein put down the Mighty from their feats and exalted those of Low degree does by this Oeconomy of his Providence in our Salvation teach all the Orders of