Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	death_n	sleep_n	sleep_v	3,486	5	10.6583	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52415	Christian blessedness, or, Discourses upon the beatitudes of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ written by John Norris ... ; to which is added, reflections upon a late essay concerning human understanding, by the same author.	Norris, John, 1657-1711.	1690 (1690)	Wing N1246; ESTC R16064	112,867	310

be the Object of my Love But when 't is said I am proud of my Vertue here 't is as plain that Vertue is taken Formally for my Habit of willing it whereby I am denominated vertuous For I cannot be supposed to be proud of Vertue in its abstract Idea but only of the Love I have towards it To be short Moral Vertue may be taken either for the things which are fit to be done or for the Habitual Will of doing them The former is the righteousness of the Law prescribing what ought to be done the latter is the righteousness of the Man willing to do what is so prescribed These are the general kinds of Righteousness Now to the Question What kind of Righteousness that is which if we hunger and thirst after we shall be fill'd I answer First That the Righteousness here intended cannot be Judicial Righteousness since the mere desire of Pardon or Justification is not of it self sufficient to procure it or to avert the Sentence of Condemnation It must therefore be Moral righteousness If you ask in what Sense Whether as materially or as formally taken I think either Sense may be admitted But then there will be difference in the Proposition according to the Sense presumed For if Righteousness be here taken materially then the hungring and thirsting after it will be a Simple and Direct Act of the Will but if Formally for that Righteousness whereby a Man is formally good and vertuous then the hungring and thirsting after it will be a Reflex Act of the Will that is a Desire not of material Righteousness but of the Love of material Righteousness which is a Man's formal Righteousness And this Sense of Righteousness I take to be most agreeable to the exigence of this place because the desiring material Righteousness by a direct Act of the Will actually makes a Man formally Righteous and so prevents and anticipates that Repletion which our Lord promises as a future Reward and Blessing Whereas the desiring formal Righteousness or the Love of material Righteousness by a Reflex Act supposes the Man not yet actually Righteous as he is also supposed in the Beatitude and so leaves him capable of having the Promise made good to him that he shall be filled Now as to the Degrees of Christian Righteousness the Masters of Spiritual Life usually assign Three By Degrees I suppose meaning not all those Advances in Righteousness whereby a Man may exceed either another or Himself for then they might as well have reckon'd 3000 there being an infinite Latitude in Goodness but only such Advances as imply different Periods and distinct States of the Divine Life These they assign to be Three grounding this their Division upon the Authority of St. John who they say represents Christians as under a threefold State by bespeaking them under the several Titles of Little Children Young Men and Fathers By little Children meaning young or new Converts who must be fed with the Milk of the Word with the plain Doctrins and Principles of Christianity By young Men those who are grown up to some strength in Holiness and have made some Progress in the Mortification of the Inferiour Life By Fathers those who are arrived to a perfect habit of Goodness and as far as Human Nature will admit are fully regenerated into the Divine Life But I think this Computation must be retrench'd For with all the Invention which I have I can find but three States or Degrees for the whole Moral Condition of Mankind For all the Men in the World and every particular Man in several Periods of his Life may be reduced to one of these three Orders Either he is one of those who do not apprehend Sin as an Evil who either through want of understanding and reflection have not attain'd to any sense of its Malignity or through Debauchery and habitual Viciousness have lost it and so will and choose Sin purely and intirely with Unity of Consent and without any mixture of reluctancy which is the most exalted pitch of Wickedness that a Creature is capable of Or else one of those who indeed do look upon Sin as Evil and as such nill and are averse to it but not looking upon it always as the greatest Evil do oftentimes nill it only imperfectly and absolutely speaking do will and choose it to avoid as they then think some greater Evil. Or else lastly one of those who looking upon Sin not only under the Notion of Evil but as the greatest of all Evils nill and refuse it not only in some certain respect but absolutely and throroughly so as not by any means to be persuaded to commit it These Three Degrees will comprize the whole Moral State of Mankind And accordingly I observe that St. Paul makes mention of a three-fold Law The first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law of sin which is in the Members The Second is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law of the Mind or Conscience The Third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law of the Spirit of Life These three Laws answer exactly to the three Moral States of Human Nature Under the first Law the Law of Sin are those who will and embrace Sin purely and entirely Under the Second Law the Law of the Mind are those who nill and stand averse to Sin in some certain respect as Evil but yet will and chuse it absolutely and effectually Under the third Law the Law of the Spirit of Life are those who absolutely and thoroughly nill the Commission of Sin The first of these States is a State of meer Sin and Death and those of this Order are they who are said to be Dead in Trespasses and Sins The Second is a State of Imperfect Life The Third is a State of Health and Vigour The first is a State of Rest and Acquiescence in Sin The Second is a state of Contention The third is a state of Victory In the first state the mind is laid fast in a deep sleep In the second she is between sleeping and waking In the third she is broad awake and well come to her self He that is in the first state is born only of the Flesh and has no higher Principle in him He is that Animal Man that perceives not the things of God He that is in the second has indeed some quickning Motions some ineffective Stirrings and Endeavours of the Divine Life But he that is in the third is born of the Spirit and of God and doth not commit Sin because his Seed remains in him From this Distribution of the Moral State of Man 't is evident that there can be but two distinct Degrees of Righteousness or states of the Divine Life For the first of the three as was before remark'd is a state of meer Death and Sin Righteousness and Life belong only to the two latter but with this great difference that the first of these two Degrees tho it has something of