Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	mortal_a	nature_n	venial_a	6,243	5	12.3225	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69777	The intercourses of divine love betwixt Christ and his Church, or, The particular believing soul metaphorically expressed by Solomon in the first chapter of the Canticles, or song of songs : opened and applied in several sermons, upon that whole chapter : in which the excellencies of Christ, the yernings of his gospels towards believers, under various circumstances, the workings of their hearts towards, and in, communion with him, with many other gospel propositions of great import to souls, are handles / by John Collinges ...	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1683 (1683)	Wing C5324; ESTC R16693	839,627	984

Body of Christ to the Body natural for the order of the Parts and Members the several offices of the Members the mutual subserviency of one Member to another and that sympathy which should be found betwixt the Members Hence we are commanded by the Apostle to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those that weep and Paul saith of himself who is weak and I am not weak who is offended and I burn not and again we are commanded to remember those who are in bonds as if we were bound with them and those that suffer adversity as being our selves in the Body So that 1. The precept of God obligeth us to it who having made his people all one Body hath made them also Members each of other 2. Their relation calleth to them for it It seems to be the law of nature upon all near relations for it is not only where as in natural Bodies the natural union is made by Nerves and Sinews but where love hath made an union as in the union betwixt Parents and Children Husbands and Wives c. Nor is this to be extended only to such cases where the person beloved feels a burthen or misery but where they lie under it though they be not sensible of it what Husband or Wife is not affected with the affliction of their correlate in an Apoplexy or under some distempers of which themselves possibly have iittle or no sense So will every good Christian be affected at the case of his Brother fallen tho he possibly hath not that due sense of his own fall which he should have and at the case of the Church under its blackness though possibly the Rulers or generality of the Members be not so sensible of their own corruptions and deviations and to look upon the Spouse of Christ in her blackness with a mournful pitying and compassionate Eye is very much the duty of every good Christian and what we find the constant and religious practice of the People of God at all times 2. We may so far look upon the Spouses blackness as our sight of it may inform us better or quicken us to seek God on her behalf It is our duty to pray for one another James 5. 15. Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another They are put together and the first seemeth to be mentioned as a means in order to the other How can I plead for a Church or a particular Child of God if I know nothing of their state how can I know it if I may not look upon it It is a divine indulgence granted by God to his People that they shall not be heard only praying for themselves but for their Brethren also 1 John 5. 16. If any man see his Brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall ask and he shall give them life for them who sin not unto death All a Christians sins in their own nature are mortal and unto death The Papists err in their distinction of sins into such as are mortal and such as are venial but no sin is mortal in that sense as it signifies what cannot be forgiven saving only the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost mentioned by our Saviour and in respect of Gods gracious Ordination no Child of God sinneth or can sin unto death Now where the sin is not unto death God hath promised us on the behalf of our Brethren that if we see them sinning and pray for them their sins shall be forgiven them Now if they may not look upon them in any sense or to any purpose how should they pray for them And thus it is highly the duty of Gods People to look both upon the Church and the People of God because of their blackness through affliction Is any man afflicted saith James 5. 14. let him pray and let them send for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over them and the prayer of the faithful shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he hath committed sin it shall be forgiven him In this sense it is so far from being Christians sin that it is their duty to look upon the Spouse because she is black 3. Lastly It is Christians duty to look upon the Spouse because she is black so far as to inable us in any measure to the purging out their corruptions A good Christian ought so far to consider the corruptions of a Church as in his place to endeavour its reformation and consequently it cannot be his duty to have communion with her in those things wherein she deviateth from the rule of her Lord. It is true the effectual Authoritative Reformation of a National Church belongeth to the Rulers if they be Christians as appeareth by all the instances of the Old Testament concerning the Kings of Judah and such a Reformation of a particular Church or Congregation belongeth to the Officers of Christ in it but every private Christian hath his part viz. to inform such in whom the power is to bear a testimony against such corruptions and not to have fellowship with the Church in such things I cannot grant that all Corruptions in the Doctrine Worship or Discipline of a Church are a sufficient cause to conclude it no true Church and wholly to withdraw himself from the communion of it But I doubt not to say that it is my duty to withdraw Communion from a Church in such acts as without sin I cannot have communion with it but of this more by and by The case is the same in the case of a lapsed Brother I am bound to admonish him to tell him of his offence and if he will not hear me to take two or three with me If he will not hear them to tell the Church that he might be separated from the Communion of it The Apostle hath directed us If our Brother be overtaken with a fault to restore him in the Spirit of meekness Gal. 6. 1. Now in order to the performance of this I may yea it is my duty to look upon my Brother when he is black for the Lord who hath willed the end must be understood to have also willed the means that are necessary to that end Let me in the next place shew you what kind of looking on the Spouse in her blackness is sinful this I shall more largely open in several particulars 1. First We ought not to look upon them with a censorious and condemning Eye Neither for their seeming blackness through Affl●ctions nor yet for their real blackness through coorruption either breaking out of a Christians heart or appearing in a Church Judge not saith our Saviour Luk. 6. 37. and you shall not be judged condemn not and you shall not be condemned He that judgeth the truth of a Christians Grace or of a Churches state from the more external providences of God either towards the one or towards the other doth not consider what hath been the lot of the

Look under the vail of Religious Persons in the day of their afflictions The Vail may be black and yet the face White You may possibly see the People of God glorifying him in the Fires eminent faith adherence to God constancy patience shining forth in the People of God in the hour of their tryals you may possibly hear Paul and Silas singing praises unto God at midnight and the Apostles going away from their place of punishment rejoicing that the Lord hath thought them worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ and here a Job resolving that Tho the Lord slayeth him yet he will trust in him These things speak a Lilly tho amongst thorns Sermon XXXVIII Cant. 1. 6. My mothers Children were angry with me I am now come to the 2d cause which the Spouse of Christ here assigneth of her appearing blackness The Anger of her Mothers Children My Mothers Children saith she were angry with me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Septuagint translateth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They fought in me or they fought against me In my explication of the verse I told you that some by Mothers Children understand those lusts and corruptions which are members of that body of death which yet remain in the best of Gods People those members mentioned by the Apostle Col. 3. 5. which we have while we live upon the Earth for our exercise to mortify these lye in the womb of the same Soul together with our habits of grace these are those which the Apostle calls the flesh which lusteth against the Spirit These cause that war in our members mentioned James 4. 1. they war against the Soul 1. Pet. 2. 11. Others 2. understand by the Mothers Children mentioned in the text False brethren such members of the Church as are indeed the Children of the Church our visible Mother but not the Children of our heavenly Father Tho in my own judgment I rather incline to the latter as the sense of the Text yet I shall give that deference to those worthy Interpreters that have mentioned the former that there being a truth in that I shall take both senses into the Proposition which I shall law down thus The conflict which particular believers have with their own inbred lusts and corruptions and which the Church hath with false brethren will often make them appear black to the Eye of the World Here are two propositions wrapped up together 1. That true Christians will have conflicts with their own lusts and corruptions and the true members of the Church with such as are false brethren 2. That both the particular Christians and the Church of Christ in these conflicts will appear black 1. True Christians will have conflicts with their lusts and corruptions This is so great a truth that this Spiritual conflict is a note of the truth of grace in the Soul It is indeed as wars use to be sometimes hotter sometimes cooler and more remiss and the Soul is in it sometimes more sometimes less a conquerour as God will please to afford the Soul more or less of his strength but it is always something When God did bring the Israelites into Canaan he was not pleased at once to drive them cut but by little and little Exod. 23. 28 29. neither were they faultless for many of the Tribes did not drive them out Judah could not drive them out Judg. 1. 19. It is said of several of the other Tribes that they did not drive them out Upon which God resolveth that he would not drive them out but they should be as thorns in their sides God in bringing Souls out of a state of nature into a state of grace doth not wholly drive out lust and corruption he bringeth sin out of its Dominion Rom 6. 13. So as it reigneth not in the mortal Bodies of the Saints sin like the tree in Nebuchadnezzars vision Dan. 4. 14. is hewed down many of its branches are cut off and its leaves and its fruit is scattered and the Soul is got from under it but yet the stump of its roots are in the Earth tho bound with a band of Iron and Brass kept under by the law of the Christians mind that he getteth no dominion the Soul is not under the power of it Now as there was a continual war betwixt the Canaanites left in the land and the Israelites so there is a continual war and spiritual combate betwixt those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these passions of sin these lustings of the flesh and the Spiritual part of the Spiritual man Paul doth excellently describe this conflict Rom. 7. 21. I find then a law that when I would do good evil is present with me for I delight in the law of God as to my inward man But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me c. Saint Paul sets forth himself there as a man in a battel and sometimes taken Prisoner So again Gal 5. ●7 For the 〈…〉 Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contr ary the one to the other And indeed in the last words lyes the reason of this war and conflict It is of the nature of contraries to expell one another not to indure one another in the same subject but to be in a continual combate till the one or the other hath got the Victory Grace in Scripture is compared to light sin to darkness light and darkness mutually expell one another so doth Grace and lust Now both these being in the Soul of the regenerate man who is but Sanctified in part and neither of them being lazy and inactive but active and operative principles there must be this conflict which I have mentioned this war in our members which makes the People of God look black 2. And as it fares with individual Christians with respect to their lusts and corruptions so it also fareth with the Collective Spouse the Church of Christ with respect to false Brethren who are the presumptive but not the true members of it 1. such will be in the Church while it is upon the Earth 2. And these will be angry with the true members of it 1. while the Church is upon the Earth it will be like a field of Wheat which hath tares in it the Gospel and the preaching of it is like a drag-net which draweth unto the Church as its shore Fish both good and bad there will come a time when the Lord will take his fan and throughly purge his floor but that will be in the day of judgment if we look upon Gods ancient Church the Congregation of Israel there was a Jannes and a Jambnes that resisted Moses a Corah Dathan and Abiram that rose up against Moses Aaron many false Prophets to mislead People many more false hearts that were easily misled the Chaldee