Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	gift_n	life_n	wage_n	3,267	5	10.5376	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62128	XXXVI sermons viz. XVI ad aulam, VI ad clerum, VI ad magistratum, VIII ad populum : with a large preface / by the right reverend father in God, Robert Sanderson, late lord bishop of Lincoln ; whereunto is now added the life of the reverend and learned author, written by Isaac Walton.	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.; Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.	1686 (1686)	Wing S638; ESTC R31805	1,064,866	813

the Divine Nature David hath taught us in the Psalm that The righteousness of God is as the great Mountains and his judgments as the great Deep A great Mountain is easie to be seen a man that will but open his Eyes cannot overlook it but who can see into the bottom of the Sea or find out what is done in the depths thereof Whatsoever we do then let us beware we measure not his ways by our ways nor his works by our works howsoever they seem to swerve from the Rules of our ways and works yet still The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works Though we cannot fathom the deeps of his judgments for The Well is deep and we have not wherewithal to draw yet let the assurance of the righteousness of all his proceedings stand firm and manifest as the mountains which can neither be removed nor hid but stand fast rooted for evermore This we must rest upon as a certain Truth howsoever whomsoever whensoever God punisheth he is never unjust The second Certainty To speak of Punishments properly No temporal Evil is simply and de toto genere a punishment By temporal Evils I understand all the poenal Evils of this life that do or may befal us from our bodily Conception to our bodily Deaths inclusivè hunger cold nakedness sicknesses infirmities discontents reproaches poverty imprisonments losses crosses distresses death and the rest in a word all that Sore travel which God hath given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith and that Heavy Yoke which is upon the Sons of Adam from the day that they go out of their Mothers Womb till the day that they return to the Mother of all things I say none of all these are properly and de toto genere to be accounted punishments For to make a thing simply and properly and formally a punishment there are required these Three Conditions 1. That it be painful and grievous to suffer 2. That it be inflicted for some fault 3. That it be involuntary and against the sufferers will That which hath but the first of these three conditions may be called after a sort and truly too Malum poenae a kind of punishment But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and properly that Evil only is a punishment wherein the whole three conditions concur Now these Temporal Evils though they have the two first conditions all of them being grievous to suffer all of them being inflicted for sin yet in the third condition they fail because they are not involuntary simply and perpetually and de suo genere involuntary to omit also a kind of failing in the second condition not but that they are ever inflicted for some sin deserving them but for that there are withal other Ends and Reasons for which they are inflicted and whereunto they are intended besides and above the punishment of the Offence It may not be gainsaid indeed but these things are involuntary sometimes in the particular and especially to some men even the least of them but simply and universally such they are not since by other some men the greatest of them are willingly and chearfully not only suffered but desired Not but that they are grievous to the best It must needs be some grief as to the Merchant to see his rich lading cast over-board and to the Patient to have an old festered sore searched and singed so to the Christian to have Gods correcting hand lie heavy upon him in some Temporal Affliction The Apostle telleth us plainly No Affliction for the present is joyous but grievous But involuntary it is no more in him than those other things are in them As therefore the Merchant though it pity his heart to see so much wealth irrecoverably lost yet getteth the best help and useth the best speed he can to empty the Vessel of them for the saving of his life and as the Patient though he smart when the wound is dressed yet thanketh and feeth the Surgeon for his pains in hope of future ease so the Christian though these temporal evils somewhat trouble him yet he is willing to them and he is chearful under them and he acknowledgeth Gods goodness in them and returneth him thanks for them because he knoweth they are sent for his future good and that they will at the last yield him the peaceable fruit of Righteousness when he shall have been sufficiently exercised thereby See Peter and Iohn rejoycing when they suffered for the Name of Jesus and S. Paul so far from fearing that he longed after his dissolution and the blessed Martyrs running to a faggot as to a feast Verily Gods children see great good in these things which others account evils and therefore they take them not as bare punishments sent to afflict them but as glorious trials to exercise them as gracious corrections to humble them as precious receipts to purge and recover and restore and strengthen them So that it is not any of the temporal evils of this life but much rather the everlasting pains of Hell wherein the just reward and punishment of sin properly and especially consisteth The wages of sin is death the proper wages of sin eternal death For so the Antithesis in that place giveth it to be understood viz. of such a Death as is opposed to Eternal Life and that is Eternal Death The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is Eternal Life Rom. 6. By the distribution of those Eternal Punishments then we are rather to judge of Gods Righteousness in recompensing sinners than by the dispensation of these temporal evils It was a stumbling block to the Heathen to see good men oppressed and Vice prosper it made them doubt some whether there were a God or no others nothing better whether a Providence or no But what marvel if they stumbled who had no right knowledge either of God or of his Providence when Iob and David and other the dear Children of God have been much puzled with it David confesseth in Psal. 73. that His feet had well nigh slipped when he saw the prosperity of the wicked and certainly down he had been had he not happily stepped into the Sanctuary of God and there understood the end of these men Temporal evils though they be sometimes punishments of sin yet they are not ever sent as punishments because sometimes they have other Ends and Uses and are ordinabilia in melius and secondly they are never the only punishments of sins because there are greater and more lasting punishments reserved for sinners after this life of which there is no other use or end but to punish since they are not ordinabilia in melius If we will make these temporal evils the measure whereby to judge of the justice of God we cannot secure ourselves from erring dangerously Gods purposes in the dispensation of these unto particular men being unsearchable But those

not from the deep of his heart that will not bend his endeavours withal to obtain what he desireth or rather indeed he prayeth not at all You may call it wishing and woulding and we have Proverbs against wishers and woulders rather than Praying Solomon accounteth the idle man's prayer no better and ●t thriveth accordingly with him The soul of the sluggard lusteth and hath nothing Prov. 13. To make all sure then here is your course Wrestle with God by your fervent prayers and wrestle with him too by your faithful endeavours and he will not for his goodness sake and for his promise sake he cannot dismiss you without a Blessing But omit either and the other is lost labour Prayer without study is presumption and study without prayer Atheism the one bootless the other fruitless You take your books in vain into your hand if you turn them over and never look higher and you take God's Name in vain within your lips if you cry Da Domine and never stir farther The Ship is then like to be steered with best certainty and success when there is Oculus ad coelum manus ad clavum when the Pilot is careful of both to have his eye upon the compass and his hand at the stern Remember these abilities you pray or study for are the gifts of God and as not to be had ordinarily with labour for God is a God of Order and worketh not ordinarily but by ordinary means so not to be had merely for the labour for then should it not be so much a gift as a purchace It was Simon Magus his error to think that the gift of God might be purchased with Money and it hath a spice of his sin and so may go for a kind of Simony for a man to think these spiritual gifts of God may be purchased with labour You may rise up early and go to bed late and study hard and read much and devour the fat and the marrow of the best Authors and when you have done all unless God give a blessing unto your endeavours be as thin and meagre in regard of true and useful learning as Pharaoh's lean kine were after they had eaten the fat ones It is God that both ministreth seed to the sower and multiplieth the seed sowen the Principal and the Increase are both his If then we expect any gift or the increase of any gift from him neither of which we can have without him let us not be behind either with our best endeavours to use the means he hath appointed or with our faithful prayers to crave his blessing upon those means These instructions are general and concern us all whatsoever our gifts be I must now turn my speech more particularly to you to whom God hath vouchsafed the manifestation of his Spirit in a larger proportion than unto many of your brethren giving unto you as unto his first born a double Portion of his Spirit as Elisha had of Elijah's or perhaps dealing with you yet more liberally as Ioseph did with Benjamin whose mess though he were the youngest he appointed to be five times as much as any of his brethrens It is needful that you of all others should be eft soons put in remembrance that those eminent manifestations of the Spirit you have were given you First it will be a good help to take down that swelling which as an Aposteme in the body through rankness of blood is so apt to ingender in the soul through abundance of knowledge and to let out some of the corruption It is a very hard thing Multum sapere and not altum sapere to know much and not to know it too much to excel others in gifts and not perk above them in self-conceit S. Paul who in all other things was sufficiently instructed as well to abound as to suffer need was yet put very hard to it when he was to try the mastery with this temptation which arose from the abundance of revelations If you find an aptness then in your selves and there is in your selves as of your selves such an aptness as to no one thing more to be exalted above measure in your own conceits boastingly to make ostentation of your own sufficiencies with a kind of unbecoming compassion to cast scorn upon your meaner brethren and upon every light provocation to fly out into those terms of defiance I have no need of thee and I have no need of thee to dispel this windy humour I know not a more sovereign remedy than to chew upon this meditation that all the Abilities and perfections you have were given you by one who was no way so bound to you but he might have given them as well to the meanest of your Brethren as to you and that without any wrong to you if it had so pleased him You may take the Receipt from him who himself had had some experience of the Infirmity even Saint Paul in the fourth of this Epistle What hast thou that thou hast not received and if thou hast received it why dost thou boast as if thou hadst not received it Secondly Every wise and conscionable man should advisedly weigh his own Gifts and make them his Rule to work by not thinking he doth enough if he do what Law compelleth him to do or if he do as much as other Neighbours do Indeed where Laws bound us by Negative Precepts Hitherto thou mayest go but further thou shalt not we must obey and we may not exceed those bounds But where the Laws do barely enjoyn us to do somewhat lest having no Law to compel us we should do just nothing it can be no transgression of the Law to do more Whosoever therefore of you have received more or greater gifts than many others have you must know your selves bound to do so much more good with them and to stand chargeable with so much the deeper account for them Crescunt dona crescunt rationes When you shall come to make up your accounts your receipts will be looked into and if you have received ten talents or five for your meaner brothers one when but one shall be required from him you shall be answerable for ten or five For it is an equitable course that to whom much is given of him much should be required And at that great day if you cannot make your accounts straight with your receipts you shall certainly find that most true in this sence which Solomon spake in another Qui apponit scientiam apponit dolorem the more and greater your gifts are unless your thankfulness for them and your diligence with them rise to some good like proportion thereunto the greater shall be your condemnation the more your stripes But thirdly Though your Graces must be so to your selves yet beware you do not make them Rules to others A thing I the rather note because the fault is so frequent in

for the clearing of God holiness in these his proceedings If sometimes he temporally reward Hypocrites is it not either for their own or for their works sake as if he either accepted their Persons or approved their Obedience No it is but Lex talionis he dealeth with them as they deal with him They do him but eye service and he giveth them but eye wages Indeed God can neither be deceived nor deceive yet as they would deceive God in their service with such obedience as falleth short of true obedience so they are deceived in their pay from him with such blessings as fall short of true blessings And all this may well stand with Gods both Iustice and Holiness Secondly it appeareth from the premises that Gods thus dealing with wicked and unsanctified men in thus rewarding their outward good things giveth no warrant nor strength at all either to that Popish corrupt doctrine of Meritum congrui in deserving the first grace by the right use of Naturals or to that rotten principle and foundation of the whole frame of Pelagianism Facienti quod in se est Deus non potest non debet deuegare gratiam We know God rewards his own true and spiritual graces in us which increase of those graces here and with glory hereafter we see God rewardeth even false and outward and seeming graces natural and moral good things with outward and temporal favours And all this is most agreeable to his infinite both Iustice and Mercy and may stand with the infinite Purity and Holiness of his nature But this were rather to make God an unjust and unholy God to bind him to reward the outward and sinful works of Hypocrites for the best natural or moral works without grace are but such with true saving Grace and inward sanctification Other Inferences and uses more might be added as viz. Thirdly for our Imitation by God example to take knowledge of and to commend and to cherish even in wicked men those natural or moral parts that are eminent in them and whatsoever good things they do in outward actual conformity to the revealed will andlaw of God And Fourthly for Exhortation to such as do not yet find any comfortable assurance that their obedience and good works are true sincere and yet to go on and not to grow weary of well-doing knowing that their labour is not altogether in vain in as much as their works though perhaps done in Hypocrisie shall procure them temporal blessings here and some abatement withal I add that by the way of stripes and everlasting punishment hereafter But I pass by all these and the like Uses and commend but one more unto you and that is it which I named before as one Reason of the point observed viz. the Comfort of Gods dear Children and Servants and that sundry ways First here is comfort for them against a Temptation which often assaulteth them and that with much violence and danger arising from the sense and observation of the prosperity and flourishing estate of the wicked in this world We may see in the Psalms and elsewhere how frequently and strongly David z Iob and Ieremy and other Godly ones were assailed with this temptation For thy instruction then and to arm thee against this so common and universal a temptation if thou shalt see fools on horseback ungodly ones laden with wealth with honour with ease Hypocrites blessed with the fat of the earth and the dew of heaven and abundance of all the comforts of this life yet be not thou discomforted at it or disquieted with it Do not fret thy self because of the ungodly neither be thou envious at evil doers Thou expectest for thine inward obedience an unproportionable reward in the life to come do not therefore grudge their outward obedience a proportionable reward in this life Some good things or other thou mayest think there are in them for which God bestoweth those outward blessings upon them But consider withal that as they have their reward here so they have all their reward here and whatsoever their present prosperity be yet the time will come and that ere long be when The hope of the hypocrite shall wither The end of the Wicked shall be cut off Again here is a second Comfort for the godly against temporal afflictions and it ariseth thus As Gods love and favour goeth not always with those temporal benefits he bestoweth so on the other side Gods wrath and displeasure goeth not always with those temporal afflictions he inflicteth For as he rewardeth those few good things that are in evil men with these temporal benefits for whom yet in his Iustice he reserveth eternal damnation as the due wages by that Iustice of their graceless impenitency so he punisheth those remnants of sin that are in Godly men with these temporal afflictions for whom yet in his mercy he reserveth Eternal salvation as the due wages yet by that mercy only of their Faith and Repentance and holy Obedience As Abraham said to the rich glutton in the Parable Luke 19. e Son remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented As if he had said If thou hadst any thing good in thee remember thou hast had thy reward in earth already and now there remaineth for thee nothing but the full punishment of thine ungodliness there in Hell But as for Lazarus he hath had the chastisement of his infirmities on earth already and now remaineth for him nothing but the full reward of his godliness here in Heaven Thus the meditation of this Doctrine yieldeth good Comfort against temporal afflictions Here is yet a third Comfort and that of the three the greatest unto the godly in the firm assurance of their Eternal reward It is one of the Reasons why God temporally rewardeth the unsound obedience of natural carnal and unregenerate men even to give his faithful servants undoubted assurance that he will in no wise forget their true and sound and sincere obedience Doth God reward Ahab's temporary Humiliation and will he not much more reward thy hearty and unfeigned repentance Have the Hypocrites their reward and canst thou doubt of thine This was the very ground of all that comfort wherewith the Prodigal son sustained his heart and hope when he thus discoursed to his own soul If all the hired servants which are in my Fathers house have bread enough and to spare surely my Father will never be so unmindful of me who am his Son though too too unworthy of that name as to let me perish for hunger Every temporal blessing bestowed upon the wicked ought to be of the child of God entertained as a fresh assurance given him of his everlasting reward hereafter Abraham gave gifts to the Sons of his Concubines and sent them away but his only son

other the most easie service in regard both of the certainty of the employment and of the help we have towards the performance of it He that serveth many Masters or even but one if he be a fickleman he never knoweth the end of his work what he doth now anon he must undo and so Sisyphus-like he is ever doing and yet hath never done No man can serve two Masters not serve them so as to please both scarce so as to please either And that is every mans case that is a slave to sin Tot Domini quot vitia Every lust calleth for his attendance yea and many times contrary lusts at once as when Ambition biddeth Let fly and Covetousness crieth as fast Hold whereby the poor man is infinitely distracted between a lothness to deny either and the impossibility of gratifying both St. Paul therefore speaking of the state of the Saints before conversion expresseth it thus Tit. 3. We our selves also were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures and that diversity breedeth distraction But the servant of God is at a good certainty and knoweth before hand both what his work must be and what his wages must be As is the Master himself so are his Commandments Yesterday and to day the same and for ever without variableness or so much as shadow of turning Brethren I write no new Commandment unto you but the old Commandment which ye had from the beginning 1 Joh. 2. It is some ease to know certainly what we must do but much more to be assured of sufficient help for the doing of it If we were left to our selves for the doing of his will so as the yoke lay all upon our necks and the whole burden upon our shoulders our necks though their sinews were of Iron would break under the yoke and our shoulders though their plates had the strength of brass would crack under the burden But our comfort is that as St. Austin sometimes prayed Da Domine quod jubes jube quod vis so he that setteth us on work strengtheneth us to do the work I can do all things through him that strengtheneth me Phil. 4. Nay rather himself doth the work in us Yet not I but the Grace of God in me 1 Cor. 15. The Son of God putteth his neck in the yoke with us whereby it becometh his yoke as well as ours and that maketh it so easie to us and he putteth his shoulder under the burden with us whereby it becometh his burden as well as ours and that maketh it so light to us Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easie and my burden is light Iuvat idem qui jubet What he commandeth us to do he helpeth us to do and thence it is that his Commandments are not grievous Thus the service of God is an easie service It is fourthly the most honourable service Caeteris paribus he goeth for the better man that serveth the better Master And if men of good rank and birth think it an honour for them and a thing worthy their ambition to be the Kings servants because he is the best and greatest Master upon earth how much more then is it an honourable thing and to be desired with our utmost ambitions to be the servants of God who is Optimus-Maximus and that without either flattery or limitation the best and greatest Master and in comparison of whom the best and greatest Kings are but as worms and grashoppers It is a great glory to follow the Lord saith the Son of Sirac Sirac 23. And the more truly any man serveth him the more still will it be for his own honour For them that honour me I will honour saith God 1 Sam. 2. and Christ Ioh. 12. If any man serve me him will my Father honour Thus the service of God is an honourable service It is fifthly and lastly the most profitable service We are indeed unprofitable servants to him but sure we have a very profitable service under him They that speak against the Lord with stout words saying It is vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his Ordinances Mal. 3. or as it is in Iob 21. What is the Almighty that we should serve him and what profit should we have if we pray unto him speak without all truth and reason for verily never man truly served God who gained not incredibly by it These things among other the servants of God may certainly reckon upon as the certain vails and benefits of his service wherein his Master will not fail him if he fail not in his service Protection Maintenance Reward Men that are in danger cast to put themselves into the service of such great Personages as are able to give them protection Now God both can and will protect his servants from all their enemies and from all harms Of thy mercy cut off mine enemies and destroy all them that afflict my soul for I am thy servant Psal. 143. Again God hath all good things in store both for necessity and comfort and he is no niggard of either but that his servants may be assured of a sufficiency of both when others shall be left destitute in want and distress Behold my servants shall eat but ye shall be hungry behold my servants shall drink but ye shall be thirsty behold my servants shall rejoyce but ye shall be ashamed behold my servants shall sing for joy of heart but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart and howl for vexation of spirit Isa. 65. And whereas the servant of sin besides that he hath no fruit nor comfort of his service in the mean time when he cometh to receive his wages at the end of his term findeth nothing but shame or death shame if he leave the service and if he leave it not death What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things is death The servant of God on the contrary besides that he reapeth much comfort and content in the very service he doth in the mean time he receiveth a blessed reward also at the last even eternal life He hath his fruit in holiness there is his comfort onward and the end everlasting life there is his full and final reward a reward far beyond the merit of his service And so the service of God is a profitable service And now I pray you What can any man alledge or pretend for himself if he shall hang back and not with all speed and chearfulness tender himself to so just so necessary so easie so honourable so profitable a service Methinks I hear every man answer as the Israelites sometimes said to Ioshua with one common voice God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve any other Nay but we will serve