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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A30153 A holy life, the beauty of Christianity, or, An exhortation to Christians to be holy by John Bunyan. Bunyan, John, 1628-1688. 1684 (1684) Wing B5537; ESTC R30867 84,448 237

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transgressor and so concluded to be one that loveth not Christ tho' I make a noise of my obedience to Christ and of my partaking of his significative ordinances The Jews of old made a great noise with their significative ordinances whiles they lived in the breach of the moral Law but their practice of significative ordinances could not save them from the judgement and displeasure of their God They could frequent the Temple keep their feasts slay their Sacrifices and be mighty apt about all their significative things But they loved Idols and lived in the breach of the second Table of the Law Wherefore God cast them out of his presence hark what the Prophet saith of them Come to Bethel and transgress at Gilgal multiply transgression and bring your Sacrifices every morning and your tithes after three years And offer a Sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven and proclaim and publish the free-will offerings For this liketh you O ye Children of Israel saith the Lord God Thus as I said the hypocrite gives us the slip for when he heareth that love is in the keeping of the Commandments of God then he betakes him to the more external parts of worship and neglecteth the more weighty matters to the provoking of the God of Israel Secondly As love to God is shewed by keeping of his Commandments So love to my Neighbour is the keeping of the Commandments of God likewise By this we know that we love the Children of God when we love God and keep his Commandments For this is the love of God in us both to God and Man that we keep his Commandments and his Commandments are not grievous He that keepeth not Gods Commandments loves neither God nor Men. Thus then we must learn to love one anoth●r He that keepeth Gods Commandment doth to his brother what is right for that is Gods Commandment He that keeps Gods Commandment doth to his Brother even as he would be done unto himself for that is Gods Commandment He that keeps Gods Commandment shutteth not up his bowels of Compassion from him for the contrary is his Commandment Further He that keepeth Gods Commandment sheweth his Brother what he must do to honour the Christ that he professeth aright Therefore he that keeps the Commandment loves his brother Yea the keeping of the Commandment is loving the Brethren But if all love which we pretend to have one to another were tryed by this one Text how much of that that we call so would be found to be nothing less Preposterous are our Spirits in all things nor can they be guided right but by the word and spirit of God the which the good Lord grant unto us plentifully that we may do that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yea and that there may by them be wrought sound repentance in us for all that hath been done by us amiss lest he give Jacob to the spoil and Israel to the Robbers for that they have sinned against him by not walking in his ways and by not being obedient to his Law Let me add lest God doth not only punish us in the sight and by the hand of the wicked but imbolden them to say it was God that set them on yea lest they make those sins of ours which we have not repented of not only there bye-word against us to after generations but the argument one to another of their justification for all the evil that they shall be suffered to do unto us saying when men shall ask them wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this Land What meaneth the heat of this great anger even because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their Fathers and walked not in his ways John Bunyan A HOLY LIFE THE BEAUTY OF Christianity 2. Tim. 2.19 And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity TImothy unto whom this Epistle was writ was an Evangelist that is inferior to Apostles and extraordinary Prophets and above ordinary Pastors and Teachers And he with the rest of those under his circumstances was to go with the Apostles hither and thither to be disposed of by them as they saw need for the further edification of those who by the Apostolical Ministry were converted to the Faith And hence it is that Titus was left at Creet and that this Timothy was left at Ephesus For they were to do a work for Christ in the world which the Apostles were to begin and leave upon their hand to finish Now when the Apostles departed from places and had left these Evangelists in their stead usually there did arise some bad Spirits among those people where these were left for the furtherance of the Faith This is manifest by both the Epistles to Timothy and also by that to Titus wherefore Paul upon whom these two Evangelists waited for the fulfilling of their Ministry writeth unto them while they abode where he left them concerning those turbulent Sprits which they met with and to teach them how yet further they ought to behave themselves in the house of God which is the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of truth And to this purpose he gives them severally divers instructions as the judicious Reader may easily understand by which he incourageth them to the prosecution of that service which for Christ they had to do for those people where he had left them and also instructeth them how to carry it towards their disturbers which last he doth not only Doctrinally but also by shewing them by his example and practice what he would have them do This done he laboureth to comfort Timothy with the remembrance of the stedfastness of Gods eternal decree of Election because grounded on his foreknowledge saying tho' Hymeneus and Philetus have erred from the Faith and by their fall have overthrown the Faith of some Yet the foundation of God standeth sure having this Seal the Lord knoweth them that are his Now lest this last hint should still incourage some to be remiss and carnally secure and foolish as I suppose this Doctrine abused had incouraged them to be before Therefore the Apostle immediately conjoyneth to it this exhortation And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity Two truths strangely but necessarily joyned together because so apt to be severed by the children of men for many under the pretence of their being elected neglect to pursue Holiness and many of them again that pretend to be for Holiness quite exclude the Doctrine and motives that election gives thereto Wherefore the Apostle that he might set mens notions as to these things right he joyns these two together signifying thereby that as electing love doth instate a man in the blessing of eternal Life so Holiness is the path thereto and that he that refuseth to depart from iniquity shall be damned notwithstanding he may think himself secured from Hell by