Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	law_n	moral_a	positive_a	5,166	5	11.3209	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60521	The character of a weaned Christian, or, The evangelical art of promoting self-denial being an essay, alluding to the severities and advantages of infant-weaning, both pleasant and profitable / by S. S., ...	Smith, Samuel, 1620-1698.	1675 (1675)	Wing S4164; ESTC R19902	63,054	160

Love that the Lord strikes and stroaks a Saint Thus his Faith can turn an Hell of deep disquietment in Sense into an Heaven of Joy and Triumph A weaned Saint highthens his contentment to a thankful Spirit for Afflictions as happy opportunities of Improving a Gracious Frame This thankfulness is conjoyned with a Resolution to hold fast his Integrity though the Lord smite him into the place of Dragons and cover him with the shaddow of Death Yea a weaned Saint is quickened to become more Active in Obedience by how much the more he is deprest in grievous exigencies and distresses Thus the Ball struck with the Racket rebounds the higher The Vine being pruned bleeds not to death but weeps it self into greater Fruitfulness Again a Saint Censures not the Lords weaning Methods before the Result and winding up of the design When the Lord fires him out of all his Earthly injoyments yet he knows that the good will of the Lord dwells in the Bush to make it flourish in the midst of the consuming Flames Therefore says he it is good to draw nigh to the Holy One when his Dispensations are most dreadful and severe Thus his Faith informs and assures him that he can as little want the Discipline of the Cross as an Heavenly Inheritance That by deep and heavy Tryals the Lord stamps a Badg of honour upon him accounting him to be his Champion and a resolute defender of the Faith of Christ Thus weaned Saints quiet themselves under all their distresses yea Triumph in the Cross of Christ as the top of their felicity and the Crest of their preferment 10. The tenth sort of Sinners not thorowly weaned are partial but not Repenting Reformadoes A Child withdrawn only from the Breast yet brought up by hand with the Bottle and the Spoon is not weaned in as proper strict Sence but only equivocally till it can acquiesce in a more Manly kind of Food So though Sinners lie not soaking at the Brests of the World by some accidental diversion from the more Usual and common ways of cherishing their Lusts yet if they find pleasures from some more Refined methods and secret contrivances in sinning which more sutably promote their present design they cannot be said to be weaned in any tolerable sence Lust is Lust whether it be maintained by secret immediate Self-Love in Acts of Self-seeking self-confidence and self-exalting or from the Bottle and Spoon of some forreign collateral succours which more visibly tend to the sensual gratification of our fleshly Appetite There is a strange kind of sinful metempsychosis the strength of concupiscence may pass out of one extreem into another Lesser Lusts may be intent upon feeding the main Spring as paying a Homage to it yet are they no Losers by this Officiousness for they are not starved hereby but strengthned Thus divers parts of the Body serve to convey nourishment to the Liver as the Fountain of Blood from whence they are moistned and supplied afterwards with an Addition of growth and strength So little are our hearts weaned from the Love and Reign of any sin while its proper operations are suspended to uphold the design or gratifie the Interest of some Capital Lust Every Breast doth not agree with the Constitution of every Child Nor doth every particular kind of sin suit the desire of every sinner Some as Romulus and Remus suck a Wolf in the Exercise of Oppressive Power Others though they live not on Rapine and sucking of Blood as Eagles yet as the Salamander they take delight to frisk in the Flames of Contention And as the Cameleon they pant and gasp after the pleasing yet fickle Air of popular applause The Epicure though he do not make the Wedg of Gold his Confidence yet he makes his Belly and sensual Pleasures his God As Cleopatra who at one draught exhausted as many dissolved Pearls as amounted to the value of a Kingdom Such dig their Graves with their Teeth and are buried Alive in their excessive Riots as Sardanapalus that Monster of Intemperance 11. The Eleventh sort of Sinners not really weaned are such who though they may comply with easier and plain commands yet remain partial in their Obedience and limp like a Badger with one Leg when Commands are difficult or lie cross to Carnal Reason personal Credit or Worldly Interest For the Former this is a deep tryal of self denial when an Injunction is put on a person the dutiful observance of which seems to Contradict Duty When the precept of tryal seems to thwart the setled Precept of ordinary Obedience Nay to justle and run counterwise against the Promise of God When a Man can hardly obey God but he must make him a Lyar. As in Abraham's Case he could not offer up his Son but he must violate that Command Thou shalt not kill yea if he had consulted Carnal Reason he must have offered some Violence to his Faith and seemingly to the Veracity of God that all Nations should be called and blest in Isaac Now different Obligations begetting cross apprehensions in the Soul do exceedingly puzzle oppress and distract it yea increase its tryals and troubles to a perplexing height Yet a Weaned Soul who is not selfconceited nor strives for the supremacy of his own Will can reconcile seeming contrariant Precepts in the Holy Vnity and simplicity of the Divine Nature For the very Command of the Lord stamps Holiness on that very Action which otherwise were unlawful You must know that other Actions which are only indifferent in their own nature yet become absolutely necessary upon a Divine positive Law injoyning them Some are commanded because precedently good in their own Nature as to love God for himself to hate sin as an unnatural Act to a Mans self Moral Duties are generally and universally known by the very Light of Nature and are grounded in their necessity and suitableness on the very notion of the Deity and his unchangeable Holiness But particular positive Duties which bind by express Revelation are good and necessary to be fulfilled because of the Wisdom and Authority of the Lawgiver though Carnal Reason cannot guess at their Equity usefulness or necessity Of this Nature were the Jewish Ceremonies which yet were punctually in every Circumstance observed by the Faithful Forefathers What Reason can be assigned why the Jews should be prohibited such and such sorts of Meats which were pallatable and wholsome yet they were tutored in their Bill of Fare and trained up to Self-denial in these severe restrictions Though I suppose some Moralities might lie couchant in them As they might not plough with an Ox and an Ass nor sow divers Seeds promiscuously in the same plat of Ground nor wear a Garment of Linsi-Woolsie to signifie how hatefull to God all impure mixtures are in his Service or any disagreeing Principles in Religion But if such Mysteries never were made known in these positive Laws yet the bare Authority of God is Reason sufficient and obliging why

Favour before all the delights and Courtship of the whole Creation Thus the Lord 's Marab's his Children whom he weans in the bitterness of their Spirit shall become his Naomies his fair Ones or Spouses of Delight yet first they must be desolate in themselves that they may learn to cleave to the Lord as the Center of their trust and satisfaction This is the very Law of their Espousals unto Christ 3. There is an absolute necessity of this weaned State otherwise the Spirit of the World Satan and Lust will rule in your hearts and hold you under their Vassalage How will every petty temptation worry out your formal faint resistance Nay you will never strike stroke out of the base treachery of your sensual-hearts Your Mouths will rather water after forbidden Fruit you will tempt the Tempter to tempt you and cast your selves as a Prey into the Jaws of this devouring Lyon How should the Apostacy of such who have surfeited on their Lusts to a loathing of all Religion season our hearts with a Holy-Fear not to disdain or oppose this Self-denying Frame O do not trust to the Eminency of your present profession but make God the Guide and Guardian of your hearts Get them thorowly weaned from the Love of Lusts and the World otherwise you will be exposed to an open renouncing of the Faith of Christ Voetius in his Disputes of Atheism relates of one Vaninus who was a sad instance in this respect He wrote a Book entituled the Amphitheater of Divine Providence to prove that there is a God yet afterwards he Apostatiz'd into a meer speculative dogmatizing Atheist and was burned at Paris for it Thus the fairest formalists make the subtlest Seducers the fiercest Persecutors and most desperate Atheists This appeared in the said Vaninus who being advized at his Execution to ask God the King and his Judges Pardon thus replyed I need not ask Pardon of God for I do not believe there is any nor of the King for I have broken none of his Laws nor of my Judges for were there a Hell I would send them all thither Thus the unclean Spirit re-entred to take up a surer Station without any fear of disturbance or a future dispossession Such will be the End of all Masquarading Professors who only make a Mock-show of Religion To such the impartial Judg will one day say as Isaac not out of any dimness of sight but exactness of search Come near thou Proud Pharisee thou peevish Hypocritical Worldling who didst question or quarrel at my Providence but never distrustedst thine own heart or ways Let me feel the Pulse of thy Soul how it beats and works toward me in Love and self-denyal What sayst thou Art thou a Weanling of Christ's or a Nursling and Fondling of Satans How sad will it then be to be estranged from the Bosom of the Lord for ever because such would not be divorced from the Breasts of Lusts and the World Even Children retain in their fancy the bitter severities used for their alienation from the Brest Let soaking Worldlings look on their tractable example and be ashamed of their own greedy snatching at Worldly prosperity though it poyson the Vital briskness of the Soul in not affecting an heavenly Conversation The second General Head How Natural and Spiritual Weaning differ 1. Some Children never live to be weaned but every New-Born Babe in Christ is actually weaned so as to deny it self in the Renunciation of Worldly Lusts and its confidence in its own Righteousness A general slight Conviction of the Creatures Vanity will not prove sufficient to wean us from all Priding in our own conceited Worth and the Opinion of self-sufficiency Nothing can supply the necessity and Divine Vsefulness of Faith or Regenerating Grace in working us to a weaned Frame For a meer form of Godliness spends it self in airy speculations and in boasting of a conceited Conquest over Lusts and the World But a Holy Frame of Heart is the Life of Christ himself dwelling and acting in every New-Born Christian in whom it hath a secret Vertue to accomplish a wonderful Conquest in weaning of the heart The power of Godliness begets Divine Fear this Contracts the heart toward the Creature and unites or inlarges it to God in Christ Now a Holy Oneness of Spirit fortifies the affections as the Rays of the Sun contracted into one point of the Burning-Glass inflames the nearest Object So a longing desire after Communion with the Lord consumes the Combustible matter of all temptations which damp our Spiritual Joy and oppress the Activity of our Obedience Godliness draws In and binds fast the heart to delight in the Lord abstractly for his own Divine and infinite perfections It brings with it an ingenuous freedom of spirit to serve the Lord with chearfulness as his Redeemed and peculiar Ones Godliness sets glorious priviledges and high hopes before a Saint these animate to do and suffer much for God Evangelical Promises applyed by Faith have a purifying vertue in them whereby they estrange us from inordinacy of affection toward the Grandure of the World Yea Godliness gathers strength by Conflicting with difficulties thereby approving the Souls Integrity and Chastity unto the Lord. 2. Difference Weaning is a State Proper and Peculiar unto Infancy and Childhood But every Aged Father in Christ stands more and more in need of Spiritual weaning because being arrived to any pitch in Grace they let fall their Watch and Christian-Circumspection they grow more self-Confident and the World more incroaches on them Their Love is usually more ardent and fearful to offend at first yea they are more Cautious and Curious of what they take into their Bosome lest they should transgress the Divine Law of Gratitude in their Espousals unto Christ Even David the Man after God's Heart prays in the sense of his imperfect weanedness Incline my heart unto thy Testimonies and not to the wanderings of Concupiscence Turn away mine Eyes from beholding Vanity Ps 119.36 37. Nature it self aims at perfection in Generation and the Growth of all Creatures Why should not the New-Creature much more by a Divine Instinct pursue the highest attainments in the Mysteries of a weaned State Paul was so advanced and improved this way that he profest that he acted the Man's part in his Christian high-Calling and had put away all Childish Dispositions Opinions and Practices 1 Cor. 13.11 His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or City-Life and Trade was dayly in Heaven thither he was rapt up in his Spiritual Thoughts Aims Affections and Designs Yea he strove to attain to the very Resurrection of the Dead Consider that Eminent Saints have been often foyled at the Exercise of that very Grace wherein they have been most expert for want of a watchful and progressive weaned Frame of Heart Even Abraham the Father and Pattern of the Faithful how Childishly is he afraid of losing his Life in Abimelech's Country He advised his Wife to Guard her Beauty