Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	divine_a	faith_n	revelation_n	3,413	5	9.3938	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95857	A charge against the Jews, and the Christian world, for not coming to Christ, who would have freely given them eternall life. Delivered in a sermon, before the Right Honorable the House of Peers, in the Abbey Church at Westminster, on May 26. 1647. being the day of their publick fast. / By Thomas Valentine, one of the Assembly of Divines, and Minister of Chalfont in the County of Bucks.	Valentine, Thomas, 1585 or 6-1665?	1647 (1647)	Wing V24; Thomason E389_6; ESTC R201520	27,808	35

and the greatest sinners that are most sensible of their miserie wil come most humblie and in much poverty of spirit no creature so wilde as a sinner in his jollitie who is as the wilde Asse in the wildernesse that runs up and down at pleasure none so tame as the penitent sinner that is taken in his moneth God hath humbled him and taken down the pride of his spirit he stood in his way as the Angel in Balaams he threatned him he had his bowe in his hand and his arrow on the string Psal 7.12 and the sinner not giving back he shot at him and wounded him and left the arrow sticking in his heart Psal 38.2 and now this wounded man he mourns inwardly and makes his moane to God Thine arrowes stick fast in me is willing to come to Christ to be healed and to have the arrow pluckt out and the wound cured Necessitie at first brings us unto Christ afterward we apprehend goodnesse and his divine perfections and we come in love to him we cannot stay away a poore man at the doore that hath scarce a ragge to cover his nakednesse not a peece of bread to satisfie nature he comes to aske for the Master not to be acquainted with him that were boldnesse but to be releived in his necessities so Christ is sought unto as a Saviour to take away our guilt to give a pardon to supply our wants and when we are sensible of our miserie we are easily induced to come to Christ But when we are justified and accepted and find the sweetnesse of fellowship and communion with Christ then we are delighted in him and if there were no necessity compelling us if no weaknesse in our faith no want in our souls yet we should desire to come to him they that have seen God in any ordinance are restlesse till they see him again Psal 63.2 David could bear well enough his banishment from the Court yet he much desired to come to the place of Gods publick worship that he might see his power and glory as formerly he had seen them in the sanctuary 4. To come to Christ is to beleeve in him and when he complains of the Jews not coming he chargeth them with unbelief He that comes to God must beleeve that he is Credere est actus intellectus assertientis veritati divinae ex imperio voluntatis motae à Deo per gratiam Aqui. and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him The Jews beleeved no such thing of Christ they did not think him to be God nor that he would reward them that come to him they gave no assent to what he spake they did not credit him Faith hath a double act one more common and generall and that is to give a firm assent to all Divine truth revealed in the Scripture Faith gives God the honour of his truth as love and hope do give him the honour of his goodnesse and bountie And truth is equally spread over all the Scriptures I beleeve as verily that Isaac was the son of Abraham as that Christ is the Son of God because Scripture affirms both and one thing cannot be more or lesse true then another one is more usefull then another Fides ambiguum non habet si habet non est fides and conduceth more to my good and in this generall act of faith I am to consider of one more then another but both are equally true but there should be nay there is no doubtihg though some men have doubted whether this or that part of the Bible were Scripture yet a beleever must not doubt whether Scripture be true that were to doubt whether God be true The truth which faith beleeves comes by divine revelation if I can prove by reason that all things that are Haereticus dubitens de uno articulo fidei opinionem habet de reliquis Biel. Gen. 1. were made by him that hath an absolute being and is the first cause of all I do not beleeve it because I can prove it but because Scripture saith it for in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth The Scriptures of the Old Testament held out clearly the Messiah and by those prophesies and promises wherin the Jews were very well verst they might know that he was the Christ and yet they did beleeve neither those Scriptures nor any thing himself spake or did And then no wonder if they fail in the second act of faith which is to relye and rest with confidence on Christ the Saviour Mar. 15.31 they were so far from this that they upbraid him at his death saying He could not save himself and therefore it was in vain to expect salvation from him Notitia assensus fiducia are made parts of Faith but two of them being in the understanding the 3 in the Will it may be doubted how one such grace can be in two faculties Schoolmen generally to salve this doubt make gne faculty subordinate to the other saying Faith is Actus imperatus a voluntate elicitus ab intellectu It is in the will ut in primo motivo in intellectu ut in proximo subjecto But the doubt is when they say it is ex imperio voluntatis they seem to give the precedencie to the will to shun such disputes we may rather call them acts in the beleever then parts of Faith But we have in these dayes all the means necessarie to work in us all the particulars required to a saving faith we have knowledge of him we question not his Divinity we beleeve he came with a commission from heaven we give a full and firm assent to whatsoever he spake as being undoubtedly true we would cast our selves with confidence into his arms that is able to save us we beleeve that God is reconciliable that sin is pardonable and this we do upon the hearing of the glad tydings of the Gospel and afterward we grow up into a greater confidence and assurance of the pardon of our sins purchased by his blood But those that do not beleeve shall have this great sin charged upon them and that we may clear Gods justice in punishing men that live in the Christian world for their infidelity it will be needfull to inquire where the power of beleeving lyes for if they cannot beleeve how is God just to require that of them which they have not power to do I answer Adam in his innocencie had a kinde of legall faith whereby he was to depend upon God for the performance of his promise for God promised him life as a reward of his obedience and he was to look for it Now what ever he had being a publick person we may be said to have it and must be accountable for it so as in him we had power to beleeve and therefore may be punished for unbelief And this Answer is given by many Reverend Divines and let it go as far as it may to the