Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
soul_n death_n sin_n wage_n 4,853 5 11.4614 5 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A65555 A practical and plain discourse of the form of godliness, visible in the present age and of the power of godliness: how and when it obtains; how denied or oppressed; and how to be instated or recovered. With some advices to all that pretend to the power of godliness. By Edward Lord Bishop of Cork and Rosse. Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713. 1683 (1683) Wing W1512; ESTC R222295 59,356 200

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

36. Not a just man upon earth that doth good and sinneth not Eccles vii 20. And the like passages of St. James and St. John so well known that they need not to be cited And further they may say If there be any man of such excellent temper as just now described What is the reason that we find some whom we take to be of the best of men and in whom the Power of Godliness has undoubtedly had good effect complaining notwithstanding of the dulness hardness and worldliness of their hearts Though too many be all are not Hypocrites in these complaints nor are the Complaints meerly Cant. My Answer hereto shall be First By desiring my expressions before may be carefully considered and not strained beyond their import or my intention I have said Men in whom the Power of Godliness prevails Generally that is For the main attend unto the Christian Doctrine and examine and judg such actions as occur thereby that they comply with such judgment and endeavour constancy in such compliance that hereby they arrive at this pitch not to allow themselves in the practice of any known sin or in the neglect of any known Duty and thence follows generally or habitually such a temper of heart as described I did not say nor do I mean that in some one or few single instances it is never otherwise in any of the particulars There came a Traveller 2 Sam. xii 4. that is there entred an Act of Lust which was a stranger there unto David and he was afterwards for a considerable time in a very strange temper But I do say now 2. Such Lapses Miscarriages or Crimes and any internal distempers consequent thereupon in good men proceed not doubtless from the power of Godliness in them but from the Defect interruption or some violent obstruction of it And if very good men too little express or not constantly enough comply with the power of Godliness that will not warrant any person either who is to teach it for stating it too low or who is to practice it for not aiming above the faults of such Precedents And as to David's case it is sure David did live and was generally what I have described and though this Practice and this Temper were for a while by that dreadful fall interrupted yet the power of Godliness prevailed again and finally so that he recovered and remaintained both But as far forth as either failed so far forth at that time or times came he short of approving himself a person actuated by the power of Godliness and in the great instance mentioned there is no doubt till his recovery he forfeited both Gods Favour and all claim he could lay to be a Godly Man though I do not think the internal principle of Holyness was thereby in him quite extinct nor are Habits rased out of the Soul of man but as they are introduced that is by frequent practice or repetion of acts Lastly and distincty as to what Sins may be conceived consistent with the general prevalence of the Power of Godliness in man For mine own part I take Sins of Ignorance and of Error even under the Gospel to be Sins truly so called and to stand in need as well on our hands of a general Repentance or Repentance of them in the lump if I may so speak as of a Pardon on Gods Now that in the most godly men these are frequent there is no doubt And as to Sins of surprisal common inadvertencies and at other times the infirmities of Passions seising us together with the Distempers of Mind Dulness Flatness Hardness in some measure Discomposedness and what else may flow from such originals not allowed there can be no question but they may be and are incident unto those men in whom the Power of Godliness most prevails For we are here Men having Flesh and Bloud about us and not Angels But as to deliberate sinning though the time of Deliberation should be but short still I stand to it the allowing a mans self in any known Sin whether of Commission or Omission is contrary to irreconcilable with and in tantum for so much destructive of the Power of Godliness nor may any person so allowing himself conclude while he so allows or has not recovered himself by mature Repentance that he is under the Power of Godliness or Conduct of Gods Spirit or indeed in a savable Condition For know ye not to whom ye yield your selves Servants to obey his Servants you are to whom you obey whether of Sin unto Death or of Obedience unto Righteousness Rom. vi 16. Observe this yielding our selves to obey Sin is in it self unto death and ver 20. Being Servants of Sin ye are free from Righteousness out of a justified estate for v. 21. the end of these things and v. 23. the Wages of Sin is Death Nor do I doubt but in this Doctrine I am faithful as well as tender to the Souls of men § 6. Now of these things which on this head we have said the sum is Godliness at least as the world now stands does not usually get power over men but by several degrees We are first brought to the understanding of then to a conviction and belief of the Doctrine of Christian Faith and Manners hereby Conscience awakened as well as inlightned attends its Office judges and dictates aright With these dictates the man complies as swayed by what he is before supposed to believe which Belief sways not to comply only in some few single instances but to endeavour an universal conformity to good Conscience and the Evangelical Law the sense of both which are supposed by this time to be one and the same From this constant and honest endeavour of such conformity the rule of our Duty proceeds a Facility and Cheerfulness in holy Practice and from thence a general seriousness tenderness and heavenliness of mind Now in as many as lead this life though with a multitude of infirmities to which Flesh and Bloud is subject I say the Power of Godliness appears or Godliness has obtained its due Power For it has transformed such mens Lives and Hearts And though it has not set them above all Sin and all disorders of mind which to do in this life is not the pretence of Christianity yet has it wrought out all the old Leaven of Malice and Wickedness 1 Cor. v. 8. of vitious Self love of Covetousness Pride Disobedience Formality and the other evils taxed by the Apostle in the famous 2 Tim. iii. 2 3 c. and replenished their Souls with Sincerity and Truth of Holiness with an amiable and heavenly temper which was the thing Godliness here was to effect Therefore in and on such Godliness through Divine Grace has its due Power And into this estate may every one who reads this find himself transform'd Amen CHAP. III. Of Denying the Power of Godliness Sect. 1. The Practices by which men Deny the Power of Godliness reduced to two Heads Sect.