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spirit_n	father_n	jesus_n	lord_n	17,123	5	3.7490	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90497	A sermon of Mr. Benjamin Perkins, at the funeral of Mrs. Martha Robient, who deceased September the 15th, at Colchester, 1700 enlarged into a discourse on the excellent life and glorious death of a Christian, from 2 Tim. 4. 7,8 : with an enquiry into the reasons of the grand prohibition on the servants of God to continue here in his service, signify'd to them by death, from Heb. 7. 23 / by T. Beverley.	Perkins, Benjamin.; Beverley, Thomas.	1700 (1700)	Wing P1542aA; ESTC R43716	24,091	54

Righteousness in the Court of Righteousness or Justification and placing all in the Righteousness of God by Faith in Jesus Christ In his obedience in his Expiation Filling up and so replenishing that Court That nothing else can enter but is kept out by the Flaming Sword of the Fiery Law Yea Angels that never sinn'd yet Cover their Faces Esa 6. and their Feet their Excellency and the Nakedness and Folly of all Created Being before Increated and consist in and by Christ Christ as the Head of Amity and Perseverance in their Glorious State and Adam not Flying to it upon those tenders of it signifid to Him as by that real evidence of it That he was and could be no more then the Figure of Him that was to come Rom. 5.12 And that His and His Posteritys standing in Him was only their standing in Christ as this was also represented in those Sacramental Types the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Gen. 2. Warning Him against subsisting in Himself as a God knowing or able to determine Good and Evil but to look to the Tree of Life so great a Type of Christ as we find in the Revelation Nothing therefore can enter into the Court of Justification but Poor empty single Faith Receiving Owning Acknowledging Grace Receiving Grace in Abundance excluding all else and the Gift of Righteousness by Jesus Christ alone And to this it is enabled by Grace and Accepted only for that Righteousness sake it does receive As to the enforcement by way of Action and Practice we see in this Great Portraicture the Apostle gives of a Man in Christ that Fights the Good Fight Finishes his Course keeps the Faith That a Believer in Christ is not a Loose or an Idle Slothful Unactive Person but shall appear in that Day as of the Overcomers in those so Famed Games or Exercises of all Prowess Courage Action so as to be judg'd worthy of those Crowns of which they were so Ambitious though but corruptible by the justest Judges or Arbitrators of them So the Saints shall be presented before the Father the Lord Jesus the Eternal Spirit of Holiness and before Saints and Angels to the Terror and Amazement of all the Lost as Persons of distinct Excellency and the Overcomers as in the Apocalyptic Expression is repeated and yet all in Christ and to the Glory and Praise of Grace in Him So that the Doctrine of Free Grace is indeed the most Powerful Effective Fruitful Doctrine of Holyness and so is most Discriminative of Persons in Christ and with greatest severity on those who are not and of those who shall be thought worthy of the Crown and who not and yet without the least Injury to Free Grace in Christ 3. Great Consolation have they who knew our Deceased Friend who had always Admiring Adoring thoughts of Free Grace and thereby a great sense of Perfecting Holiness in the Fear of God but all through Christ strengthning Her and in Fighting Running holding fast an Eye to the Crown but as purchased for her by Jesus Christ and that therefore she Loved the Appearance of Jesus When the Crown already received shall with Glory be set upon her at that Day That we may yet enter into the deeper enquiry into and consideration of all this Triumphant Declaration of the Apostle concerning Himself and all Saints in that supreme Point their receiving the Crown of Righteousness I will propose to give a breif resolution of these following Points 1. How in the lost undone State of the Children of Adam there can arise such a Generation of Servants of God both more eminent and smaller in this World 2. How or why they fall all under the Prohibition of serving God any longer here in the World then the Finishing such a Course of service on such a Measure of their Line Prescribed by God 3. Why this Prohibition is serv'd upon them by Death Two Persons only Enoch and Elias and why they only excepted Herein I shall with all the care and Caution according to the understanding given to me by and from the Word of God Discourse each of these Point 1. It is indeed the wonder of Divine Grace and Power That there should have been and are such a Generation of the Servants of God in the World in every Age down to the present Time in the midst of such a World of Men Ignorant of God Alienated from his Life without God in the World without Christ and Enemies in their Minds so much given up to the World and the Lusts of it as to be called The World and the Men of this World in a State of Enmity to God and his Kingdom the Seed of the Serpent the Dragon Haters of his Servants and on all opportunities Slaying them as Cair the Seed of the Wicked one Did Abel in the very Beginning That yet in the midst of all these there should be a Generation of Men and Women that should be in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a course a Lincal succession of the Saints and Servants of God like the succession as in the House of Levi of the Preisthood and of the High Preisthood in the Family of Aaron the more Eminent and the less Eminent among the Servants of God but all a Royal Priesthood or like the Stars of the First Magnitude in the Regions above and those they call the Sporades the Multitude of the lesser Stars Now the very Root and Foundation and Corner Stone of all this is That Grand Elect Servant of God in whom His Soul delighteth who in Raising up a Generation of the Servants of God dealeth with all mildness A Bruised Reed shall He not break nor smoking Flax shall He quench but shall send forth Judgment unto Truth of Victory Esa 42.1 That Servant of the Lord with the Key of David on his shoulder and strengthn'd with the Girdle of Faithfulness and Righteousness The Nail fasten'd in a sure place Esa 22.20 c. Upon whom is Hung all the Glory of his Fathers House the off-spring and the Issue All Vessels of Greater and smaller Quantity from the Vessels of Cups even to All the Vessels of Flagons Had not He been a Servant in the Foundation There had never been a Servant of God in the World It is He who hath Loved and washed in His Blood and constituted Kings and Preists unto God and His Father Rev. 1.5 Now the Charter of His making Servants to God among the Children of Men was given to the Second Adam Immediately upon the Fall of the First Adam so quick and immediate as to surprize the Power of Sathan in the First Effort when God in a Judiclary process upon Sathan says to Him under the disguise of the Serpent I will put enmity between thy Seed and of the Woman and this Seed of the Woman the one Seed Christ shall break the Head of the Serpent Gen. 3. unto perfect Victory and Thou shall bruise His Heel of which is presently to be spoken There

as they please or to be Slothful Negligent Careless Unactive in these great Transactions For though they live all in Christ depend wholly on Him for acceptance yet all His are under the Holy Constraints of Love and the Obligations of Filial Obedience and Christ in them is a Principle of Spiritual Life and Highest Activity So that they can neither be loose or plead Liberty as a Cloak of Wickedness nor be dull and stupid in the ways of Christ And herein our Deceased Friend had learned Christ In all things sensible of Duty but Living as to Justification and Acceptance with God above With those who ●re the Circumcision Worshipping God in the Spirit rejoicing in Christ Jesus and having ●o confidence in the Flesh and so she was able ●hough so young a Person to sing the Song of Victory O Death Where is thy Sting h Grave Where is thy Victory I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord who hath ●iven me the Victory This made Her ear●estly desire a remove out of the Body and ●o be with Christ Thus I have given the True Evangelical sense of the Apostle placing so much upon himself I have Fought and Finished and Kept 'T is but as if he had said I have 〈◊〉 can do all things through Christ strength●eing me and I can look look upon all with Joy and Triumph because all my Impurities and Imperfections are answered for and my Person is washed with the pure Water of his Sacrificing Blood Let us then consider the great sence of the Apostle I have faught a good Fight Wherein he comes forth in the strength of Jehovah Jesus Christ the Lord of Hosts As David the Warrior of the Lord under the Captain of Salvation Resolved and arm'd ●t all Points and that had with Courage ●nd Fidelity almost now to the very last carried on so far as his Station reach'd ●he full Conquest and Victory of Jesus Christ he is now triumphing over all Enemies For the Explaining of this warfare in the warrs of the Lord as they are stil'd Numb 21.14 We are to consider the Grea● Lord mighty in Battle who arms all his even the Lord Jesus who appoints them who are therefore stiled Good Soldiers of Jesus Christ who hath Redeemed them from being slaves of Justice of Wrath of Satan and they therefore are said to over come by the Blood of the Lamb. So their very setting out is by his Blood They are Arm'd by him with Courage Spirit and Might within He teaches their hands to War and their Fingers to Fight by him they run through a Troop by him they leape over a Wall it is he that Girdeth them with strength to the Battel that they may help the Lord against the mighty and that all Enemies may be subdued to him and trherefore the Fight is called a good Fight with great Reason 1. The Apostle had to Fight with himself his carnal Reason to Throw down the strong holds of that to bring every thought into Captivity to Christ all those high Thoughts of self-Righteousness to slight all conferences with Flesh and Blood and to repel them when tempted to such disloyal Treaties to bring under the Law o● his Members that warred against the Law of his Mind and would bring him int● Captivity to the Law of Sin and Death to bring under subjection that carnal Mind that is enmity to God not subject to the Law of God nither indeed can be that in dwelling Sin All those Willings and Lustings against the Spirit In regard of which the Apostle Expresses himself in the Language of a Combatant in those Games that deals the most subduing and mortifying Strokes and Blows so he upon all Bodily Inclinations and Lusts And this is one great Point of the good Fight the Apostle reviews with so much comfort But it is in Christ and through Christ by whom in whom as Crucified with him the Flesh with its Lusts and Affections are Crucified and not in or by himself 2. The Apostle had to Fight with the World in all both its inticements and blandishments and in regard of its Threats Rages and Persecutions In both regards saith He I am Crucified to the World and the World to me Gal. 6.14 But it is in Christ and his Cross alone enabled Him 3. He had to Fight with all the Enemies of the Gospel of Christ in resistance to the Grace of Christ in the Hearts of all to whom He Preached For speaking of the Preaching of the Gospel He saith The Weapons of our Warfare are mighty So with the open professed Oppositions to the Truth of Christ in his Redemption To the Jews a Scandal as it it was contrary to all the Revelation of God in the Old Testament and to the Gentiles Foolishness as if it had no Agreement with the Reason Learning and Wit of Men of Understanding and Accomplishment 1 Cor. 1.23 4. He had to Fight with the Powers of Darkness Spiritual Wickednesses in high Places as every Christian hath For as He says we War not That is not principally against Flesh and Blood but against Principalities and Powers the Rulers of the Darkness of this World And for the maintaining this Fight He had the same necessity with all Saints To take to himself the whole Armor of God that he might stand in the evil day and having drne all to stand Eph. 6.10 5. All the Persecutors and their cruelty like the Beasts of Ephesus in what Sense soever taken He had to Fight with wherein He suffered as an evil doer and was Killed all the Day long But in all He was more than a conqueror through him who Loved him 6. He had to Fight with Guilt Death and the Grave the Wrath to come and with all the unbelief of his own Heart But he over came by the continual Application He made to the Death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus who Loved him and gave himself for him in whom he desired to be Found So that he Ran up to that assurance to make that challenge who shall lay any thing to my charge as one of Gods Elect to be assured That neither Life nor Death Things present nor Things to come should be able to separate him from the Love of Christ and so he could Sing that Triumphant Song Oh Death where is thy Sting Oh Grave where is thy Victory The Sting of Death is Sin the Strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord as in the case of the Body of Sin and Death All he places still in Christ and thus we see on all accounts The Apostle Fought a good Fight and through Christ had the Prospect of a High and Noble End of the VVar that is of Victory Head 2. I come then to the Second Point of the Apostles Triumphing Declaration of his own State in Christ I have finished my course That we may rightly apprehend Here are two things to be understood by it I. The General course

of his Servants are proportion'd to each He sees and knows and so Limits accordingly There was one Noah and no more in the Old World One Elijah only in view in that so Fowl Apostacy of the Ten Tribes And when the Light is clearest and most High It must not be clear Light till his Kingdom The General Assembly cannot be before so each Time hath such and such Numbers of Stars which He telleth the Number of and calleth them All by their Names and knoweth what Lustre of Rays and Beams each and together shall cast There is a Counterpoizing consideration of Wicked Men in the World and the Darkness and Fire of Hell they spread But that is not within the present purpose 4. There is a Gracious Pleasure of God There should such Numbers of his Servants be all along from Age to AGe with Jesus Christ their Lord Philip. 1. Dissolved from Body and with Him in Spirit Absent from the Body and present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.1 c. And in their House not made with Hands Eternal in the Heavens And that our God may come and All His Saints with Him Zech. 14. He cometh with Ten Thousand of his Saints as the Armies of Heaven on white Horses Bodys of the Resurrection washed in the Blood of Jesus in fine Linnen clean and white Rev. 19.14 To shew This hath been all along from the former Times of the World There is a Reception in Heaven Styled Abrahams Bosome A Jerusalem above the Mother of us All that shall come down from Heaven Gal. 4. With all its Children Rev. 21. There is the State of the Spirits of Just Men Heb. 12. Who shall be made perfect in Bodys made like to his Glorious Body Phil. 3. ult There must be therefore a Limitation of their Time of Service here below That they may be taken within the Veil and made acquainted with the Glory that is to be Revealed And the Apostle Intimates These Dead in Christ shall have some precedency For the Dead in Christ shall not be prevented by the Living Remaining as we Translate but shall not be so much as overtaken according to the true force of the Original we shall not attain or come equal with those asleep 1 Thes c. 4. v. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nullo Modo Assequemur Now in all such Particularities God is pleas'd to be at Liberty in dealing with His own Servants The essential Glory the Crown of Righteousness the Crown of Life the Crown of Glory being alike sure to all And so I have open'd the second Point propos'd The Limitation of the Time of the Servants of God continuing in His Service here on Earth I come to the Point 3d. 3. That the Limitation of their Time is made known to them in the manner of a severe and angry Process in the way of what we Call a Prohibition the proper sense of what we Translate not saffered Heb. 7.23 And this is a Point worthy to be enquired into for the removing the fears of Death and for the Consolation of Saints in Death 1. It must then be Acknowledg'd that the outward Face and appearance of Death hears the Resemblance of a Judgment and of that Denunciation In the Day thou Eatest thou shalt Dye Dust thou Art and to Dust thou shalt return It comes as a King of Terrors Flesh and Blood is ready to be affrighted at it Life is naturally Dear even to the Servants of God who desire not to be uncloathed They desire to continue in the Service of God here but when they are raised by Higher Considerations of being present with the Lord Clothed upon with their House from Heaven they even desire to be Dissolved And it cannot be denyed That God doth in the Dying of his Servants bear a Regard to that Justice and Truth of His Word That when Sin came in Death came in and passed upon All because All have sinned Rom. 5.12 When the Servants of God therefore are warm and zealous and lively in His Service Often there comes a Prohibition Thou mayest no longer continue in my Service here like the command to Moses to anoint Eleazar and to strip Aaron of his Priestly Garments who was presently to Dye A Prohibition to Moses to carry Israel over Jordan but to come up to Mount Nebo and to Dye Deut. 33. God plainly sent to Hezekiah to set His House in Order and to Dye against which Prohibition that it might be under as it were an Arrest of Judgment He so earnestly Prayed It is therefore to be duly considered That for the Display of the Judgment and Indignation of God against sin and because of the present State of the Saints under a Remaining Body of Sin and so of Death and in the present State of this World full of Sin and Evil and of so many of the Children of Adam Children of Death even of the Second Death In the Wisdom and Holiness of God It was by the Counsel of the Father and the Son that Death should continue and have the Face of a Judgment and of a Legal Prohibition to continue in the Service of God any longer on Earth Till the Kingdom of Christ the Kingdom of Redemption should bring in a State of the Living Saints then Remaining being chang'd and not to Dye 2. Jesus Christ our Lord Because the Children were Partakers of Flesh and Blood He took part of the same that through Death He might subdue Him that had the Power of Death that is the Devil and Deliver them who all their Life were subject to Bondage by reason of the Fear of Death and now therefore Death came upon Him with the Violence and Terror of a Judgment from which He was taken and from Prison Esa 53.8 By the Mighty Power of his Resurrection It becomes all His to submit then to the Face of a Judgment in Dying that they may be conform'd to their Captain and from the First Born Heb. 2.14 Obj. It may be Objected against this necessity of Dying How were those two Enoch and Elias exempted from that sentence of the Righteous and Holy Law that is stretched out so upon all seeing sin had extended it self on them as well as on others Answ The Death of Jesus Christ stood as a Full Ransom and Price of Redemption from the very first promise so that it is not indeed a Point of Justice or of the Truth of God That Believers in Jesus Christ are served as I may so speak with a Prohibition by Death but a Wise and Holy Dispensation of Government with Relation to the Servants of God in the present World where therefore in that wise Government God thinks sit there might be such an exemption from the General Statute of Dying or Prohibition by Death as of Enoch and Flijah and many more Examples of such Exemptions there might have been if He had seen Good having received such full satisfaction to his Law and to his Justice and He hath it in reserve an