Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	death_n	sin_n	sin_v	3,797	5	9.4651	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41331	The real Christian, or, A treatise of effectual calling wherein the work of God is drawing the soul to Christ ... : to which is added, in the epistle to the reader, a few words concerning Socinianisme ... / by Giles Firmin ...	Firmin, Giles, 1614-1697.	1670 (1670)	Wing F963; ESTC R34439	271,866	392

able to subdue all the enmity of his heart against God all his lusts and corruptions he must mortifie and walk before God in a holy frame continually he that undertakes this undertakes a hard task if he understand it he will soon find either of them impossible one as easie as the other chuse which you think is the easiest Thus then the Spirit takes him off First By convincing him of the nature of sin of guilt what it is to have a holy and just Law broken What are all thy duties thou performest What is thy righteousness though it were pure which it is not to satisfie the holy Law of a Just God which thou hast broken so many thousand times and hast a heart opposite and enemy to it If thy nature were now holy and all thy life from this time holy this is but thy duty and so it was alwayes Can thy doing that which is now thy duty to answer this day make satisfaction for not doing thy duty all thy life before If a man be taken clipping the Kings Coin or hath committed some one capital Crime if he comes before the Judge and pleads he lived all his life time before clear from such Crime and will do from henceforth it was but once that he did so will this answer the Law Will the Judge acquit him He did and doth but his duty if he lived before and will do after as he pleads he should have done so when he committed that Crime the Law calls him a Son of death and dye he must for that one Crime Shall then a man having a nature that hates the righteous Law of God and tramples upon it daily think with a few pittiful duties repentings c. to answer a thousand and ten thousand breaches of the holy Law of his Soveraign The wages of sin is death and dye thou must unless a ransome can be found Secondly By convincing him of the sin of his nature he opens to him that fountain of iniquity that sinning sin and if this be once opened by the Spirit it will take down the pride of any self-Justiciary let him that fecleth this talk of his righteousness duties works if he can if he doth I know what his language must be When I read men denying original sin I do not wonder at all their proud Opinions and self-advancing Doctrines Whence did these men descend Not from our father Adam surely there is talk now of another World in the Moon the inhabitants there came not from the stock we did certainly these men dropped out of that world and therefore deny this sin of our nature they find it not in their nature This I am sure of say these men what they please I know nothing that doth so abuse a man beats him out of himself and all conceits of his own righteousness that makes a man see himself loathsome undone damned for ever in himself as the discoveries and sense of this sin of sins Take a man who hath committed the vileir actual sins could I suppose that man to be guilty only of them and without this original sin I should not judge that man so sinful as he that is defiled with this original sin though by the restraining Providence of God he be kept from breaking out into actual gross evils I do more adore the riches of Gods grace in pardoning this sin then in pardoning any actual sin except Adam's first sin yet his grace deserves to be adored for pardoning actual sins Though Christ did beat Paul down to the earth with that miraculous light and voice which he heard yet I conceive he had not beat him out of his Pharisaical righteousness had not another light discovered this woful sin of his nature which makes the unspotted blameless Pharisee cry out and confess In me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing Rom. 7.18 Before there was no evil now there is no good Thus I agree as I said before with Mr. Shepherd if a man like Paul whom he mentions have trusted to his own goodness duties honest conversation righteousness and here have found his rest if ever God shew mercy to such a one then in the first stroke of Conviction he rips up this Monster he shall need no more I warrant him to make him change his thoughts and make him see the need of another righteousness and a strong Redeemer Thirdly God may let the same corruptions of which he was convinced at first and which caused those fears and sorrows to be working again putting forth themselves in strong motions the feeling of which doth almost sink his heart he thinks to Hell now he must go for he finds his lusts are too strong for him though he hath smarted for them and thought he should never have any thing more to do with them yet now he finds his heart is naught vile wicked as ever and begins to despair it may be in his struggling with his lusts he flabs is foiled if not carried away as before and this kills him Fourthly God may let more corruptions loose that is to be inwardly working that the man can see nothing but corruption and cryes out he was never so bad Sin taking occasion by the Law wrought in me all manner of coneupiscence Rom. 7.8 Luther found temptations to all sins but Covetousness Paul felt all manner of Concupiscence a common thing for Christians under the work to cry out they were never worse never so bad Fifthly God shews no acceptance of his duties le ts him find no peace or quietness by them but Conscience is still roaring at him drawing up bills of indictment against him still charging him with fresh sins which it may be he had forgotten or doth still commit so that the Soul finds no rest Sixthly The Lord may and doth many times withdraw his assistance unto duties that the man cannot pray nor mourn as before is not so lively but grows more dead and blockish hard hearted as he conceives and feels himself God is free in his assistance and influences he is not bound to give them while the man could pray and relent in prayer his heart tender and mourning he had some hopes but now his eyes are dry his heart hard cannot relent now all is naught this cuts off all his hopes and now must perish Seventhly The Spirit sets home this Doctrine with authority so that there is no opposing Without Christ there is no salvation He that believeth not is condemned already John 3.18 He that hath the Son hath life he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5.12 Thou thinkest thou hast this and that which will speak well for thee Hast thou Christ If a Christless Soul have you what you will else the wrath of God abideth on thee John 3. ult Such words are set home with that life that there is no gainsaying the Soul must look out for a Saviour else all will be naught More possibly may be added but I think these