Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	dead_a	quicken_v	trespass_n	3,621	5	10.4863	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26832	Vulgar errors in divinity removed	Battell, Ralph, 1649-1713.	1683 (1683)	Wing B1150; ESTC R10796	49,392	154

no part of the Ceremonial Law Indeed in the Levitical Law the Jew was commanded to blow with Trumpets on the Sabbath and New Moons But you never read Moses commanded to sing Praises with Strings and Pipe Again the Ceremonies were shadows of things to come and most of them referred unto Christ but this kind of service is no ways typical of the Messiah and therefore not Ceremonial Neither is it sinful for it was first taught us by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost see 2 Chron. 29.25 Hezekiah set the Levites in the House of the Lord with Cymbals Psalteries and Harps according to the commandment of David and Gad the Kings Seer and Nathan the Prophet for so was the Commandment of the Lord by his Prophets So that to praise God with Instruments of Musick in his House is so far from being sinful that it was instituted first of all at the command of God himself by his Prophets If it be farther objected although it was appointed of God yet it was appointed under the Old Law before Christ came therefore ought now to vanish My answer is so were the Ten Commandments yet they ought always to stand in force we must not look so much to the time when a Command is given as to the intrinsick nature of a Command if we would know whether it be always to stand in force or no For if the Law have in it a Moral equity though given under the Law it may oblige us under the Gospel Now that the great and glorious God should be praised with Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs sung after the best and skilfullest manner to make his Service more solemn must needs be most equal and having in it a moral equity cannot be displeasing to Almighty God still to be kept up by us Instruments of Musick have great influence into the Affections of men we use the Trumpet to stir up the courage of men in War Why should we not use these to stir up our Affections to Gods Service to make us sing lustily and with a good courage If it be said it will hinder our devotion by carrying away the mind to the Musick I answer this is not essential to it but only accidental So may a pleasant Voice but we must not take away the use of a thing because it may be abused Watch therefore more narrowly thine own Heart and think these Wings were added to thy soul to make her fly the swifter up to Heaven and not to flutter here below God loves no lukewarm drouzie service that therefore that will heighten our zeal and take away our drouziness will be a help and not an hindrance to our devotion To this end David prepared two hundred fourscore and eight skilful Singers to praise God being instructed in the Songs of the Lord as we read in 1 Chron. 25.7 And he made four thousand Instruments to praise God withal 1 Chron. 23.5 Thus he took order that with Trumpets and Shawmes they should shew themselves joyful before the Lord their King The infirmities of our nature and the weaknesses of flesh and bloud are much relieved by Musick We read of a strange effect that Musick had upon Saul 1 Sam. 16.14 Saul had forsaken God and now Gods Spirit forsakes him and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him and it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul that David took a Harp and played with his hand so Saul was refreshed and well and the evil spirit departed from him If it had been the Spirit of God that had been expell'd by Musick no question but this place would have been brought by some against us But seeing it was the evil spirit that was constantly chased away by it why should it not make for us For whether it were a deep melancholy only or a Devil possessing him and stirring and carrying that melancholy passion further than naturally it would have gone Expositors do doubt But be it which it will you see Saul was miserably out of tune with it till Davids Harp composed his affections and made him sedate and quiet and fit for the Society of men again If Musick be known to heighten our joy at a feast Why may it not heighten our joy in the Lord whilst we make a chearful noise unto the God of Jacob If we are commanded when merry to sing Psalms Surely to make the tune more melodious with Harp or Organ can be no offence If to hear a Psalm sung out of tune hinders our devotion and is apt to move scorn and laughter then by the rule of contraries to be brought to good time and tune by an Organ must needs make the Service of God more solemn more devout and more acceptable both to God and man Vulgar Errors CONCERNING The WILL Removed ALthough Faith and Hope be Gods gifts and called Gods Armour yet we must put this Armour on We must cooperate with the grace of God or else his grace will be offered us in vain The Greek Proverb says A man must defend his Weapons if he would have his Weapons defend him And St. Augustine says truly He that made thee without thee will not save thee without thee But how far and after what manner the Will of man concurs with the grace of God in things pertaining to Salvation is much controverted by the Learned which that you may the better understand I shall first explain the terms unto you 1. Telling you what the Will is 2. What the grace of God is and then shall consider of their manner of concurrence in all gracious acts 1. The Will is the rational appetite or a free power of choosing or refusing of a thing or of preferring one thing before another when divers things conduce to the same end 2. Grace is strength and assistance from God to do something above nature Without me says Christ ye can do nothing we are not able of our selves so much as to think a good thought 'T is said Pelagius taught that the Will of man needed nothing of grace but only to be enlightened by the Word of God to know his Will and the danger of not doing it and the reward of performing it and then it was able by its own natural powers to perform it grounding his opinion on such Texts as these If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin but now they have no cloak for their sin Now ye say we see therefore your sin remaineth Some on the other side think the Will is subject to the special motion of God in the act of Conversion or any other gracious act so that the grace of God is irresistably powerful and what mixture men bring from the vertue of the Will to grace is only the corruption of it they ground their opinion on such Texts as these You hath he quickned who were dead in trespasses and sins And again We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works from whence

they infer That as a dead man doth nothing to the raising of himself no more do we that are spiritually dead As God put forth an Almighty power at the Creation of the world so an irresistable power at our Conversion which is called the new Creation Now the truth is in the middle we need Gods grace as well to assist the Will in goodness as at first to excite to goodness and it is very reasonable to think that as the Devil is dayly and hourly suggesting evil motions to us so God or his good Angel is dayly and hourly inspiring and assisting us to what is good according to that of the Apostle Phil. 1.6 Being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it that is will assist you to perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ So that it is plain against Pelagius that God doth not only assist to will but also to do what is good of his good pleasure Neither is it less plain against the other that grace is not so efficaciously inspired into the Soul that is not in the power of the Will to refuse it for this would quite destroy the nature of the Will for as he said well He that cannot chuse but chuse doth chuse because he cannot chuse which is a palpable and thick contradiction Secondly it appears from our Saviours words How oft would I and ye would not that grace is not so irresistibly put to the Will that it is not in the power of the Will to refuse it seeing he blames them for so often forsaking their own mercy So that they not only had a power to resist his grace but brought that power into act in judging themselves unworthy of everlasting life The truth I told you was in the middle way and it hath been the antient opinion of the Church of God for above a thousand years ago that the Will is not destroyed by grace but only repaired A dislocated joynt when it is well set again doth not lose the nature of a joynt but rather is restored to its former use and comliness so the grace of God healing the Will doth not take away the nature of the Will but only makes it able to obey Gods Will. So that when Grace cooperates with the Will man is left in the hand of his own Counsel to turn or not to turn to the Lord God sets life and death before him and bids him reach out his hand to whether he will This is apparent from Isa 5.4 What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild Grapes under the Parable of a Vineyard the whole House of Israel is shadowed out unto whom God was not wanting in the least measure of gracious dispensations to make them good yet they remained unreformed and were wanting to themselves I shall briefly shew you the meaning of those Scriptures which these men mistaking the one attributes too much the other too little to the Will in Conversion and so proceed Where it is said Now they have no cloak for their sin because Christ came and spake to them by coming and speaking is not only meant barely enlightning them but as appears by the Context he by Miracles so convinced them that resisting those Convictions our Saviour says They hated both him and his Father Joh. 15.24 And as for the other Text urged by Pelagius If ye were blind c. it doth not from thence follow that the Will enlightned needs no other assistance but only thus sins against knowledge are not so easily forgiven as sins of ignorance but deserve more stripes And as for those Texts which are urged on the other hand where it is said We are dead in trespasses and sins and Created in Christ Jesus unto good works c. These speeches are meerly Metaphorical and figurative which they so squeeze till they bring bloud and not milk out of the breasts of the Scripture They are Similitudes only and they would have them run on four feet as if all things that agree to a dead man did agree to a man in the state of nature whereas the one is capable of preventing grace the other is not the one may be raised by means the other can be raised only by miracles Neither sin nor grace take away the natural power of the Will but only thus it is Sin hurts and weakens it especially ill habits grace heals and strengthens it and brings it near to its primitive goodness An old heart and a new heart differ only as an Instrument in tune and the same Instrument out of tune there are the same strings still but not the same ordering of them So the same Understanding Will and Affections a man had before only now placed on God and delighting in goodness which before delighted in sin which they not minding make a man meerly as a Tool in the hand of a Workman or a Pen in the hand of a Writer meerly passive to any good action A man before any Grace be offered hath a Free Will to natural acts and a remote one to supernatural that is a power to embrace Grace and work in the strength of it in case it be offered The man which lay at the Pool of Bethesda had not lost his Limbs only the use of them When Christ strengthened those palsie members he arose took up his Bed and went unto his house Thus the weak Will is strengthened by the grace of Christ but being strengthened is able to do what is good God doth persuade the Will by extrinsical helps as well as intrinsical inspirations Those providential acts of Abigail meeting David or of Sauls sleeping in the Trench when David took away his Spear from his Bolster were of grace not only to David but also to Saul and turned his heart from pursuing David Efficacious Grace to use their own term is nothing but perswasion which doth not determine the Will but only is so congruously and seasonably put that it is not rejected of the Will Extraordinary gifts are wrought immediately by Gods holy Spirit without mans cooperation Sauls Prophesying was without his assent to it if every act of grace were thus given what difference would there be between his manner of giving ordinary and extraordinary gifts The Spirit of God is said to help our infirmities in our Prayers in stirring up ardency of devotion in us the original word for Help is a double compound and is Metaphorically put for it hath relation to one that helps to bear part of anothers burthen for him taking it off in part from his shoulders and putting it on his own or else helping him to lift it up Now he that is holpen in bearing or lifting a burthen doth something sure himself towards the bearing or lifting of it And so did St. Paul cooperate with the grace of God for he saith I