Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n
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A39931
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A gospel-church, or, God's holy temple opened wherein is shewed from the scriptures ... / by Stephen Ford ...
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Ford, Stephen, d. 1694.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing F1510; ESTC R23167
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209,792
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396
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save them and that of his meer Grace and Love Joh. 6.37 40. Joh. 10. Joh. 17. Eph. 2.4 That God the Father gave and set his Son the second person in the Trinity to mediate peace between God and Men and to reconcile men to God by his active and passive Obedience That Jesus Christ gave himself and became a propitiation for their Sins That he assumed our nature and took it up into a personal Union with himself whereby there are two natures in one Person by which he was made capable of his Mediatorship That he being God-man in one Person took upon himself our guilt and punishment obeyed the whole Law of God that men had broken and did always do the things that pleased God That when he had finished his active obedience he became obedient unto the death of the Crosse to the wrath of God and curse of the Law Gal. 3.12 Phil. 2. That he really dyed and was buried lay in the Grave and rose again the third day and after forty days he went up into Heaven and sate down on the right Hand of God and that he will come again to Judge the Quick and Dead That he is King Priest and Prophet A King to give Laws unto men and command their obedience to them to rule and Govern his Subjects and to reward the obedient and punish the disobedient That all power in Heaven and Earth is committed unto him and that he is coequally and coeternally God with the Father and holy Spirit As a high priest he dyed and made Atonement for the Sins of his People and sits in Heaven to make Intercession and appear in the presence of God for them Heb. 7.25.9.24 That there are three persons in the God-Head but one God That the Holy Ghost is eternall God was sent into the World came from the Father Son for the elect sake that it is he that regenerates Persons works effectually in their Hearts applies Jesus Christ and all his benefits to men and savingly Convinces his Elect of Sin Righte ousness and Judgment Joh 3.5 Joh. 16.1 8.13 14 15. That all that rightly Believe in Christ shall be saved but those that believe not shall be damned and that all that believe in Christ must be careful to do good Works That Believers are made righteous with the Righteousness of Jesus Christ and that they have none of their own to commend them unto God That God hath made Jesus Christ unto his chosen Righteousnesse wisdome sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1.30 and that they are made the Righteousnesse of God in him 2 Cor. 5. ult That God imputed their sins to Christ and imputes the blood and Righteousnesse of Christ to them and that they are justified thereby and not by inherent holynesse and Righteousnesse That God Loves Pardons Justifyes and Saves men Freely without any respect to their good Works as any cause thereof but all the moving cause without himself is Jesus Christ and his mediation That the Ground and reason of their obedience and doing Good works is the revealed will and pleasure of Christ commanding them and the ends of them are to expresse their thankfulness to God for his Grace and Love to please and honour Him to meet with God and enjoy communion with him to receive of his Grace and the good of many promises To shine as lights in the World and be useful unto men to declare whose and what they are and to lie up for a reward in another World to keep their Lusts under and their graces in use and exercise and to manifest their Respect and Subjection to Jesus Christ his Authority and Law That the Law for the matter of it as qualified by Christ is the Rule and Law of all obedience that all are bound to yield obedience subjection to it That there shall be a Resurrection of the just and unjust That Regeneration is absolutely necessary to Salvation and that without it none can enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Joh. 2.3 5 7. That the Scriptures of the Old and New-Testament contain and hold forth unto men the whole revealed will of God and are sufficient to make the man of God perfect thorowly furnished to every good Work 2 Tim. 3.16 17. and that whatsoever you are to believe and do is contained therein and that it is the ground of their Faith Hope and Practice That Jesus Christ hath instituted and appointed many Ordinances of Worship for his own Glory and his Peoples profit and that all are bound to observe and waite on God in them That all persons are indispensibly bound to mind and carefully to observe the principal manner and end of all their duties and to see that they be right holy and Spiritual indeed and not please themselves with the matter of duty without them That no men can serve God or do any acceptable work unto him until they are regenerate and put into a state of Grace These are some of the matters of Faith that they should rightly in measure understand and believe that are admitted into full membership in the Churches of Christ And these and other Truths must not be notionally lightly and in the general known and believed but heartily powerfully and particularly not for others but themselves or else their faith and knowledge will no way profit their Souls to Salvation 3. They must be qualified also with blameless conversations Their Conversations must become the Gospel Phil. 1.27 or else they are not meet for membership with Gospel-Churches Carnal walkings will not suit spiritual Temples For they will greatly pollute and defile them stain and darken their beauty and Glory Therefore they must not be brawlers or contentious Persons they must not be coveteous and worldly minded vain and frothy Persons They must not be froward and peevish Persons neither must or may they be Defrauders or such as detain others dues carelessy from them nor such as slight the worship of God in their Families or are carelesse of Governing and educating them in good manners and the things of God They may not be such as are known to neglect duties and ordinances in their times and seasons or to have vitious families through their neglects nor any other such kind of persons whose stinking Spirits and conversations are odious to God and his People And therefore whatever their profession be they may not be accepted or received into the holy Temples of God until they have repented of these or any other hateful and scandalous evil in their carriages and walkings 4. If they are such as have chosen the Lord Jesus Christ for their King and head given up and made over themselves to Jesus Christ to live in him and to him have singled him out and set him apart as it were to be the object of their trust Love and delight of their service and obedience If they have chosen and closed up with him upon his own Terms as they hope renounceing and rejecting all their own
and receive more of the Grace that is in Christ Jesus for them to convince them of and shew them more clearly the evil of sin the deceits of their hearts the power of in-dwelling lusts the Wiles and Methods of Satan the necessity of Christ and his blood and of his Ordinances and Institutions To shew and convince them of the Excellency Beauty and Loveliness of Christ and the love and grace of God to them in him To Preach and hear their hearts and souls into clearer knowledge of the three persons and one eternal living God and into more acquaintance with them so likewise into more cordial and unfeigned more strong and fervent pure and constant love to him To acquaint themselves with the nature usefulness and proper life of faith perswade and work their hearts to it practically and dutifully to love it in all things works duties and conditions To arm and sence them against Satans fiery Darts and Temptations and the worlds snares and allurements To discover and detect self lusts and whatever warrs against our souls and to mortifie and destroy them and in order thereunto to know and be able expert and accurate in the use of our spiritual Weapons and Armour of proof which Christ hath sanctified and given unto us in Eph. 6. and elsewhere in the Gospel To sanctifie them throughout in soul body and spirit keep them from deadness coldness lukewarmness and indifferency of spirit and to prevent sleepiness and back-sliding from God neglect of duties and careless performance of them This Ordinance is intended for the further informing them of the holy will and mind of Christ and their duties to God and men to sweeten and dispose the heart to love and practice them and to enable them to persist in so doing without weariness and fainting grudging or disputing and with joy and delight To call back persons from their wanderings and to give them Repentance unto life These are some of Gods holy and blessed ends in setting up this Ordinance in the Church which all are indispensibly bound to aim at intend and endeavour in all their use of it See Eph. 4.10 11 12 17. Esa 30.20 21. Eph. 5.25 26 27. Eph. 3.18 19. Micah 2.7 1 Thes 4.10 Heb. 10.38 Rom. 1.16 17. 2 Pet. 3.18 1 Thes 5.23 Phil. 3.13 18. Joh. 17.17 19. Thirdly Prayer Prayer to God is a Church-Ordinance It is true that all men are bound to pray to God both publickly and privately the neglect whereof is severely threatned Jer. 10. ult It is a part of natural or moral Worship which all men ought to practise continually For as God is their Creator and they his reasonable Creatures he their Sovereign and they his Subjects and as such Creatures are to live and alwayes to have their dependency on him for their subsistence in this world so they are to express and manifest their so doing by their asking such things as they want of him For it is a Duty and Homage they owe him as him in whom they live move and have their being Acts 17.28 and profess him to be their God Protector and maintainer and expect all things from him They ought in all their wayes to acknowledge him Prov. 3.6 although they know him not in the face of Christ by any Gospel-Revelation But notwithstanding this is a Church-Ordinance also that is they are appointed to pray publickly in their meetings as a Church and that not as it is a moral Duty and agreeable to reason and mens natural principle but as it is a Gospel-Ordinance of Christ appointed for them and they commanded by him to observe it among themselves This the Church of Jerusalem was commended for Act. 2.42 And they continued in the Apostles Doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and in prayers and in Acts 12.5 't is said that prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God Now this Ordinance in the Churches of Christ must be observed and practised as an Ordinance of his appointing who is Lord and Head of them and because it is his Sovereign will they should so do without which they cannot in the doing of it approve themselves unto him as his obedient Children and Subjects in his house For whatever work they do and whatever Ordinance they observe in the Church they are indispensibly bound to respect his will and have their eye on his Authority therein as the ground and reason of what they do and because he hath so commanded and appointed therefore they do it Moreover to the well performance of this Duty and right observance of this Ordinance in the Church there is required a peculiar Ministerial gift in the Teachers or Overseers of the Church For they cannot rightly perform this part of their work in and for the Church by their natural and common acquired gifts and parts but in and by the spirit and his Ministerial gifts and grace conferred on them for their profitable and right performance of their Works and Duties in the Church Rom. 8.26 27. 1 Cor. 12.6 7 12. Fourthly Baptism water-Baptism is another Church-Ordinance to be holily reverendly dutifully and spiritually observed The power of administring this holy Ordinance of Christ is given to Pastors and Teachers and only to such as are authorized and called to administer other Ordinances and perform other parts of the work of the Ministry Authoritatively by virtue of their Commission from Christ received Any Disciple of Christ may not administer it but such as are set 〈◊〉 part for and appointed to the work For they must do it and it must alwayes be done by men in office-power Matth. 28.18 19 20. And Paul tells us Eph. 4.11 12. That Christ gave some Pastors and Teachers for the work of the Ministry and edifying of the body of Christ And we never read in Scripture of any other than such as were called to the work of the Ministry that did Baptize any This Ordinance is instituted and appointed in Matth. 28.18 19. and it was confirmed by the constant practice of the Apostles and Teachers afterward Act. 9.18 Act. 10.47 48. 1 Cor. 15. Baptism is a Sign Token and Seal of the Gospel-Covenant as Circumcision was Rom. 4.11 for the assuring and confirming Believers of the reality of the Covenant and the gracious purposes of God to perform it and convey unto them all the Grace and blessings of it in his time To raise and strengthen their hope in Christ and God the Father by him that God is and will be their God and also the God of their Seed according to that glorious grant and engagement of God in Gen. 17.7 I will establish my Covenant between me and thee and thy Seed after thee in their Generations for an everlasting Covenant to be a God to thee and to thy Seed after thee To which Covenant God set his Seal vers 10. This general sum or head of the Covenant given to Abraham and his Seed in their Generations we have produced and brought in