Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A46799
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Practical discourses upon the morality of the Gospel
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Jenks, Sylvester, 1656?-1714.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing J630D; ESTC R220354
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63,738
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198
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Holy Will contented with his Appointments always Calm Serene and Undisturb'd When Worldly Cares are thus restrain'd they are no more than Duties But when they pass these Limits then it is that they are Thorns which not only prick our Feet but pierce the very Hearts of us They wound our Feet I mean those Pious Affections of our Soul which are the only Feet by which we move towards Heaven and pierce our Conscience with a terrible Remorse of loving this World too much and for ought we know a great deal more than the next 'T is possible you 'll say to love the World to a very great degree and yet love God a little better which if we do we love him above all things and that 's enough to save us But surely you are not in good earnest Your whole Heart is due to him And can you think you do him Justice by allowing him a little more than half Your whole Heart ought to be a House of Prayer And is it just to make almost one half of it a Den of Thieves Your whole Heart ought to be the Temple of God And dare you offer to defile it by making a Partition in it and erecting Altars to his Mortal Enemies the World the Flesh and the Devil A true Christian cannot be so false-hearted If we believe the Gospel He has the best of Hearts His Heart is Good and Honest He 's no Trimmer betwixt God and the World He hates all double Dealing and endeavouring to please both Parties He scorns to do so mean and base a thing as to divide His Heart and steal away any part of it from him who has a Right to All. He does not use the World because He loves it but because He needs it He Eats and Drinks and Sleeps that He may live He does not live that He may Eat and Drink and Sleep If He takes care of His good Name it is because it will enable Him to do more Good If He diverts himself 't is only to refresh His Spirits and prepare them for a better use He knows very well that all the Comforts and Reliefs of our Corrupted Weak and Sickly Nature are very pleasing and delightful to it and are therefore apt to entice our Hearts to love them But alas He sees and grieves at his diseased Condition And tho' He gladly uses the Remedies because His Nature wants them and His Misery makes it His Duty to apply them yet He is so far from loving them that He could wish with all His Heart He were so Healthy and so Happy as not to stand in need of them The Sores of His Mortality are grievous to Him and the itching Pleasure of His Plaisters does not make him such Amends but that He had much rather be without them He hears and He believes there is a State of Immortality where Health and Happiness expect Him where He may be sure to find them if He please and where once found it is impossible to lose them The Word of God assures him of it And this is the Word which in a good and honest Heart he receives joyfully keeps faithfully and brings forth Fruit with Patience because he is not so much concern'd for any Worldly Matter as to be impatient about it Discourse II. Of the Advantages of Christianity and Duties of a Christian JEsus said to his Disciples Blessed are the Eyes which see the things that you see For I tell you that many Prophets and Kings have desired to see those things which you see and have not seen them and to hear those things which you hear and have not heard them And behold a certain Lawyer stood up and tempted him saying What shall I do to possess Eternal Life He said unto him What is written in the Law How readest thou And he answering said Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy Strength and with all thy Mind and thy Neighbour as thy self And he said unto him Thou hast answered right this do and thou shalt live But he willing to justifie himself said unto Jesus And who is my Neighbour And Jesus answering said A certain Man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among Robbers who stript him and wounded him and departed leaving him half dead And by chance there came down a certain Priest that way and when he saw him he passed by And likewise a Levite when he was at the place came and looked on him and passed by But a certain Samaritan as he travelled came where he was and when he saw him he had Compassion on him and went to him and bound up his Wounds pouring in Oil and Wine and set him on his own Beast and brought him to an Inn and took care of him And on the Morrow he took out Two Pence and gave them to the Host and said unto him Take Care of him and whatsoever thou spendest more when I come again I will repay thee Which now of these three thinkest thou was Neighbour unto him that fell among the Robbers And he said he that shewed Mercy unto him Then said Jesus unto him Go and do thou likewise Luke 10. v. 23 to 38. The Glorious Advantages of Christianity and the Principal Duties of a Christian are the whole Matter of this Gospel The Advantages are so great that we should be ungrateful if we pass'd them slightly over and the Duties are of such Importance that we should be inexcuseable if we refus'd to take them into serious Cosideration I. S. Paul in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians considers the Preheminency of the Law of Christ above the Law of Moses And that we may better understand the Comparison it will not be amiss to observe the Rise and Progress of the Divine Law from the first Establishment of it God in the first Creation gave to Man a Natural Knowledge of his Duty which Knowledge is the Law of Nature By this Abel offer'd Sacrifice Enoch walkt with God Abraham paid Tythes to Melchisedec Lot was hospitable to Strangers Job was Patient Just and Humble In a Word All the Saints who lived before the Law of Moses by the Light of Nature were instructed in their Duty Mean time the growing Malice of Corrupted Nature every Day encreased the Will became more prone to Evil and the Custom of transgressing being as it were a second Nature superinduced a second Law which the Apostle calls the Law of Sin The Dictates of this Law of Sin altho' they were not able to efface the Original Impression of the Law of God yet they obscured and darkned it The Understanding which ought to have led the Will was now misled and blinded by it And. Vice prevailing almost universally the Law of God was in a manner out of Sight and out of Mind When the World was in this desperate Condition God of his Infinite Mercy promulgated the Law of Moses the Morality of which was formerly
of our Neighbour's Sins not ours The covering of our own avails us nothing unless we Repent Confess and Forsake them 'T is written in the Proverbs that He who covers his Sins shall not Prosper But whosoever confesses and forsakes them shall have Mercy 9. Others presume upon their being Children of the Catholick Church But as it was in vain for the Jews to say within themselves we have Abraham for our Father so likewise 't is to little purpose for us Catholicks to say we have the Church for our Mother The Gospel assures us that Every Tree which brings not forth good Fruit Fruits worthy of true Repentance shall be hewed down and cast into the Fire So true it is that there 's no Ground at all for our Presumption no Pardon to be obtain'd no Mercy to be hop'd for without Sincere Repentance and a thorough-paced Amendment II. When Faith has once Levell'd these Mountains of Presumption and Pride the next Affair in Hand is to prepare the Way of our Lord by making it Straight There 's nothing so Crooked as Self-Love It makes us Crooked in all our Ways It invents a Thousand Turnings Windings and By-ways to compass its designs It never engages in any thing abroad without contriving to bring something home It begins from it self it tends to it self it bends till both ends meet and what can be more Crooked On the contrary the Love of God is Straight It directs us in the Way of his Commandments And leads us in a Straight Line to that Blessed End for which he made us It prepares our Hearts to God that we may serve him only It prepares us for the Kingdom of God within us that every Loyal Heart may be the Throne of his Divine Majesty that all our Passions Inclinations and Humours may be Faithful Subjects to him in doing his Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven and that his Love may not only Live but Reign in us and not only now but for ever His Love must begin to Live before it begins to Reign in us It must First move us to Repent before the Kingdom of God which always is at Hand can be Establisht in our Hearts Our Penitential Tears will never sufficiently prepare the Way of our Lord unless the Spirit of Love begin to move the Waters Our Self-Love may Cry its Eyes out and almost break its Heart with Grief Alas This Crooked Love can never make the Way Straight There 's nothing but the Love of God who is all Truth all Justice and all Holiness there 's nothing else can make all Straight by making us truly Repent and moving us to Detest and Hate all Falshood all Injustice and all Wickedness The Council of Trent in the 6. ch of the 6. Session describing Repentance such as always was and now is Requisite as well before Baptism as before the Sacrament of Penance lays the whole Train of Penitential Dispositions in this Natural Order It mentions 1. Our Fear of the Divine Justice 2. Our Hope of Mercy through Christ 3. Our beginning to Love God as the Fountain of all Righteousness 4. Our being therefore moved with Hatred and Detestation of our Sins 5. Our purposing to begin a New Life by keeping the Divine Commandments And again in the 4. ch of the 14. Session the same Council declares that all true Repentance includes not only a Cessation from Sin but also a Beginning of a New Life and a Hatred of the Old One according to the Prophet Cast away from you all your Transgressions and make you a New Heart and a New Spirit Let us now consider a little this Doctrine and we shall find it so Clear and Rational as not to need the Authority of a Council to Recommend it to us 1. When Sinners Sleep securely they Dream of nothing but the Sensual Satisfactions and the Transitory Pleasures of this Life But when they once are rouz'd and throughly awaken'd with a Strong Belief and Lively Apprehension of a future State in which God's Justice will Eternally deprive them of these things and punish them severely with the contrary there 's nothing more Natural than to be struck with Fear of such a Punishment And although they see it by a Super-natural Light they dread it with a Natural Fear Neither is there any need of quoting Aquinas for this Truth It being as evidently Natural to to fear the Pain of Sense as it is to Love the Pleasure of it 2. The uneasiness of this Fear is Troublesome to us And when 't is great we dare not shake it off as usually we do our Creditors whom we refuse to Speak with when we have no Mind to give them Satisfaction The Fear of being Arrefted and Eternally confin'd from all that ever pleas'd us when it once looks Big and Terrible upon us it soon brings down our Stomachs and makes us contented now to think how Merciful God is and seek for Hope of Comfort in the Merits of his Son 3. When we are thus considering how good God is and how bad we are how great his Mercy is and how little we deserve it how severe his Justice is and how much we have provok'd it When we are wavering 'twixt Hope and Fear and pondering the Reasons on both sides admiring that Incomprehensible Mercy which moved the most High God to send his only Son for the Redemption of the World and being Astonisht at his Inexorable Justice which would not be aton'd by any other Sacrifice When we compare the Crookedness of Sin with the Straight Paths of Virtue the Truth the Purity and Equity of God's Laws with our Hypocrisie Vncleanness and Iniquity When we study the Charming Features of his Divine Beauty and in his own Light see our Horrible Deformity 'T is then that we begin to Love him as the Fountain of all Righteousness and because we love him therefore we Detest and Hate our Sins by which we have offended him 'T is then that we are sensible what Fools we have been to forsake our God the Fountain of Living Waters and seek our Happiness amongst his Creatures by hewing out Cisterns Broken Cisterns which can hold no Water 'T is then our Heart is ready to Break with Grief to think that we have erred from the Straight Ways of Truth and we tried our selves in the Crooked Ways of Wickedness and Destruction 'T is then I say we firmly purpose to begin a New Life because we Hate the Old One And then according to the Prophet we cast away from us all our Transgressions because we have now a New Heart and a New Spirit we love our God whom hitherto we slighted and for his sake we Hate the Vices which formerly we Loved and Love the Virtues which heretofore we Hated By what has been already said 't is easie to answer a very Important Question Whether Sorrow arising from the Fear of Hell alone may deserve the Name of True Repentance 'T is agreed by all and declared