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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	doctrine_n	part_n	sum_n	3,251	5	11.0356	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62638	Several discourses of repentance by John Tillotson ; being the eighth volume published from the originals by Ralph Barker.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.; Barker, Ralph, 1648-1708.	1700 (1700)	Wing T1267; ESTC R26972	169,818	480

to believe in Christ who are already perswaded that he is the Messias and do entertain the History and Doctrine of the Gospel Ans The Faith which the Apostle here means and which he would perswade men to is an effectual belief of the Gospel such a Faith as hath real effects upon men and makes them to live as they believe such a Faith as perswades them of the need of these Blessings that the Gospel offers and makes them to desire to be partakers of them and in order thereto to be willing to submit to those Terms and Conditions of Holiness and Obedience which the Gospel requires This is the Faith we would perswade men to and there is nothing more necessary to be prest upon the greatest part of Christians than this for how few are there among those who profess to believe the Gospel who believe it in this effectual manner so as to conform themselves to it The Faith which most Christians pretend to is meerly negative they do not disbelieve the Gospel they do not consider it nor trouble themselves about it they do not care nor are concerned whether it be true or not but they have not a positive belief of it they are not possest with a firm perswasion of the truth of those matters which are contained in it if they were such a perswasion would produce real and positive effects Every man naturally desires Happiness and 't is impossible that any man that is possest with this belief that in order to Happiness it is necessary for him to do such and such things and that if he omit or neglect them he is unavoidably miserable that he should not do them Men say they believe this or that but you may see in their lives what it is they believe So that the preaching of this Faith in Christ which is the only true Faith is still necessary I. Inference If Repentance towards God and Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ be the sum and substance of the Gospel then from hence we may infer the Excellency of the Christian Religion which insists only upon these things which do tend to our Perfection and our Happiness Repentance tends to our recovery and the bringing of us back as near as may be to innocence Primus innocentiae graedus est non peccasse secundus penitentia and then Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ tho it be very comprehensive and contains many things in it yet nothing but what is eminently for our advantage and doth very much conduce to our happiness The Historical part of the Gospel acquaints us with the Person and Actions of our Saviour which conduceth very much to our understanding of the Author and Means of our Salvation The Doctrinal part of the Gospel contains what God requires on our part and the Encouragements and Arguments to our Duty from the consideration of the Recompence and Rewards of the next life The Precepts of Christs Doctrine are such as tend exceedingly to the Perfection of our nature being all founded in Reason in the nature of God and of a Reasonable Creature I except only those positive Institutions of the Christian Religion the two Sacraments which are not burthensome and are of excellent use This is the first II. we may learn from hence what is to be the sum and end of our Preaching to bring men to Repentance and a firm belief of the Gospel but then it is to be considered that we preach Repentance so often as we preach either against sin in general or any particular sin or vice and so often as we perswade to holiness in general or to the performance of any particular Duty of Religion or to the exercise of any particular Grace for Repentance includes the forsaking of sin and a sincere resolution and endeavour of reformation and obedience And we preach Repentance so often as we insist upon such Considerations and Arguments as may be powerful to deter men from sin and to engage them to holiness And we preach Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ so often as we declare the grounds of the Christian Religion and insist upon such Arguments as tend to make it credible and are proper to convince men of the Truth and Reasonableness of it so often as we explain the Mystery of Christ's incarnation the History of his Life Death Resurrection Ascension and Intercession and the proper Ends and Use of these so often as we open the Method of God's Grace for the salvation of sinners the Nature of the Covenant between God and us and the Conditions of it and the way how a sinner is justified and hath his sins pardoned the Nature and Necessity of Regeneration and Sanctification so often as we explain the Precepts of the Gospel and the Promises and Threatnings of it and endeavour to convince men of the Equity of Christ's Commands and to assure them of the Certainty of the Eternal Happiness which the Gospel promises to them that obey it and of the Eternal Misery which the Gospel threatens to those that are disobedient all this is preaching Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ III. This may correct the irregular humor and itch in many people who are not contented with this plain and wholsom food but must be gratified with sublime Notions and unintelligible Mysteries with pleasant passages of Wit and artificial strains of Rhetorick with nice and unprofitable Disputes with bold interpretations of dark Prophecies and peremptory Determinations of what will happen next year and a punctual stating of the time when Anti-Christ shall be thrown down and Babylon shall fall and who shall be employed in this Work Or if their humor lies another way you must apply your self to it by making sharp Reflections upon matters in present controversie and debate you must dip your stile in Gall and Vinegar and be all Satyr and Invective against those that differ from you and teach people to hate one another and to fall together by the ears and this men call Gospel preaching and speaking of Seasonable Truths Surely St. Paul was a Gospel Preacher and such an one as may be a Patern to all others and yet he did none of these he preached what men might understand and what they ought to believe and practice in a plain and unaffected and convincing manner he taught such things as made for peace and whereby he might edifie and build up men in their holy Faith The Doctrines that he preached will never be unseasonable that men should leave their sins and believe the Gospel and live accordingly And if men must needs be gratified with Disputes and Controversies there are these great Controversies between God and the sinner to be stated and determined Whether this be Religion to follow our own lusts and inclinations or to endeavour to be like God and to be conformed to him in Goodness and Mercy and Righteousness and Truth and Faithfulness Whether Jesus Christ be not the Messias and Saviour of the world Whether Faith and

Lord Jesus Christ at the day of Judgment will sentence men as the great Judge of the world and this is to believe the Kingly Office of Christ And this is the sum of that which is meant by Faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ which the Apostle saith was one Subject of his preaching And the proper and genuine effect of this Faith is to live as we believe to conform our lives to the Doctrine to the truth whereof we assent Hence it is that true Christians that is those who fashioned their lives according to the Gospel are call'd believers and the whole of Christianity is many times contained in this word believing which is the great Principle of a Christian life As in the Old Testament all Religion is express'd by the fear of God so in the New by Faith in Christ And now you see what is included in Repentance and Faith you may easily judge whether these be not the sum of the Gospel that men would forsake their sins and turn to God and believe the revelation of the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ that is heartily entertain it and submit to it What did Christ preach to the Jews but that they would repent of their sins and believe on him as the Messias And what did the Apostles preach but to the same purpose When St. Peter preached to the Jews Acts 2. the effect of his Sermon and the scope of it was to perswade them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus that is to profess their belief in him v. 38. And so Acts 3.19 This is the conclusion of his discourse repent therefore and be converted and then he propounded Christ to them as the Object of their Faith being the great Prophet that was Prophesied of by Moses who should be raised up among them v. 22. So likewise St. Paul when he preached to the Jews and Gentiles these were his great Subjects Acts 17.30 This is the conclusion of his Sermon to the Athenians to perswade them to repent by the consideration of a future Judgment and to perswade them to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who was to be the Judge of the world from the Miracle of his Resurrection But now he commands all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day c. whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead So that you see that these are the great Doctrines of the Gospel and were the sum of the Apostles preaching all their Sermons were perswasives to these two Duties of Repentance and Faith Secondly For the Necessity of these Doctrines They are necessary for the escaping of eternal misery and attaining of everlasting happiness And this will appear by considering the Nature of them and the Relation they have to both these For the avoiding of eternal punishment 't is necessary that guilt should be removed which is an obligation to punishment and that cannot be but by pardon and sure we cannot imagine that God will ever pardon us without repentance he will never remit to us the punishment of sin so long as we tell him we are not at all troubled for what we have done and we are of the same mind still and will do the same again and till we repent we tell God this and we may be sure God will not cast away his Pardons upon those that despise them so that Repentance is necessary to the escaping of Hell And Faith in Christ is necessary to it for if this be the method of God's grace not to pardon sin without Satisfaction and Jesus Christ hath made Satisfaction for sin by the merit of his Sufferings and if it be necessary that we should believe this that the benefit hereof may redound to us then Faith in Christ is necessary to the obtaining of the pardon of sin by which the guilt of sin is removed that is our obligation to eternal punishment And then for attaining Salvation Christ having in the Gospel revealed to us the way and means to eternal happiness it is necessary that we should believe this Revelation of the Gospel by Jesus Christ in order to this end So that you see the necessity of Faith and Repentance because without these we can neither escape Misery nor attain to Happiness I should now come to draw some Inferences from this Discourse but I will first give satisfaction to a Query or two to which this Discourse seems to have given occasion 1. Query You will say why do I call Repentance a Doctrine of the Gospel It is a Doctrine of Nature Natural Religion tells us that when we have offended God we ought to be sorry for it and resolve to amend and reform Ans I do not make the Doctrine of Repentance proper to the Gospel as if it had not been revealed to the world before but because it is a Doctrine which the Gospel very much presseth and perswadeth men to and because the great Motives and Enforcements of it are peculiar to the Gospel So that the Doctrine of Repentance considered with those powerful Reasons and Arguments to it which the Gospel furnisheth us withal is in this sense proper to the Gospel and not known to the world before There are two Motives and Enforcements to Repentance which the Gospel furnisheth us with 1. Assurance of Pardon and Remission of sins in case of repentance which is a great encouragement to repentance and which before the Gospel the world had never any firm and clear assurance of 2. Assurance of eternal Rewards and Punishments after this life which is a strong Argument to perswade men to change their lives that they may avoid the misery that is threatned to impenitent sinners and be qualified for the Happiness which it promiseth to Repentance and Obedience And this the Apostle tells us in the forementioned place Acts 17.30 31. is that which doth as it were make Repentance to be a new Doctrine that did come with the Gospel into the world because it was never before enforced with this powerful Argument the time 's of that ignorance God winked at but now he calls upon all men every where to repent because c. When the world was in ignorance and had not such assurance of a future state of eternal Rewards and Punishments after this life the Arguments to Repentance were weak and feeble in comparison of what they now are the necessity of this Duty was not so evident But now God hath assur'd us of a future Judgment now Exhortations to Repentance have a commanding power and influence upon men so that Repentance both as it is that which is very much prest and inculcated in the Gospel and as it hath its chief Motives and Enforcements from the Gospel may be said to be one of the great Doctrines of the Gospel Query 2. Whether the preaching of Faith in Christ among those who are already Christians be at all necessary Because it seems very improper to press those