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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	ceremonial_a	law_n	moral_a	3,536	5	9.8204	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28181	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, November 5, 1689 by P. Birch ...	Birch, Peter, 1652?-1710.	1689 (1689)	Wing B2938; ESTC R19813	10,539	40

makes our Zeal intemperate it is that which makes every Affection so the being Lovers of our selves and leaning to our own Understandings for this never fails of making us seek to impose upon other Men one effect of which always is that we proportion not our displeasure to the weight of the things contended about but to the opposition we meet with and this easily leads us into a Fond Belief that the Goodness of the Intention will sanctifie our Excesses It was St. Paul's own case whilst he liv'd a Pharisee he says Act. 26. That he verily thought with Vers 9. himself he ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth and yet we never find this pleaded as a Justification of his Fact but though he obtained Mercy because he did it ignorantly 1 Tim. 1. 13. in Vnbelief yet he still confesses himself to have been a Blasphemer and a Persecutor and Injurious and he afterwards pronounces That whosoever does Evil that Good may come his Damnation is just The Reason of this Declaration we find to have been a Slanderous Report that he Rom 3. 8. held the contrary And it seems to have been a Calumny upon our Saviour himself for before his Exposition of the Decalogue Matth. 5. he forewarns his Followers That they should not think he came to destroy the Law and the Prophets and the following words shew the great Reason he had to do so For verily I say Vers 8. unto you till Heaven and Earth pass one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled This is spoken of the Moral Law for the Ceremonial ceas'd at his coming and the Judicial was of no force but in the Common-wealth of Israel and the profession is of absolute Necessity to the receiving of the Gospel For if that were not agreeable to the Common Principles of Good and Evil implanted in us already we could have no sufficient Motive to obey it because the same God who is the Author of our Faith is also Author of our Reason and gave us that to judge of our Faith by so as for him to evacuate any Moral Command is to contradict himself To say there may be new Rules of Justice Temperance or Fidelity is no better sense than that there may be a new Truth in a Necessary Proposition For the Law written in our Hearts was at first given us to guide Mankind to the End of his Creation and therefore must be as Immortal as our Nature That which was restored by the Sanctions of Christianity was this very Law and as such it was received by the World. And it could not be received upon any other account For the Learned part of the World was before instructed that True Religion and Vndefiled was ever the same only Time and the Necessities of Men have varied it in the manner of expressing it It was always true That God is the most Excellent Being in Himself and the greatest Benefactor to us and therefore to love and serve him out of a prevailing sense of his Goodness was always to be Religious and he that in every Nation thus worked Righteousness was accepted of him So likewise in the Duties relating to one another the Reason of them never changes though the Laws vary which are built upon it We must for instance live in some Society or other because one part cannot say to another I have no need of thee and therefore we are bound for our own good to all those Duties by which Societies are supported We may all want our Neighbours Assistance and therefore ought in good Reason to supply him in his turn If we do not our Neighbours Justice in their Possessions we cannot long expect to be safe in our own And in all these cases it is Equity and Right Reason which makes the Law Obligatory though that determines the particular Act. The common Reason of Mankind obliges us not to invade one anothers Property but it is the Municipal Law of the Country which teaches us what it is to do so by defining what shall be esteem'd Theft Murder or Adultery When therefore we find Constitutions to vary this is not an Alteration in the great Fundamental Principles of Reason but it arises from the different Circumstances Men are under or at most only proves that one Body of Men is not so wise as another And for this cause the old Christian Apologists who best understood the Things they wrote about did not begin their Method of Conversion where the Modern Controvertists do by trying the strength of a Mans Faith and gageing his Credulity by first propounding of a Mystery But they represent the Doctrine of Christ as an higher and a more excellent Improvement of Morality than ever was before They deny not that the same Virtues are found in the Heathen Moralists which are in the Christian but they affirm these are better taught and encouraged by more certain Promises of an Eternal Reward As for the Powers now claimed to give away Heretical Kingdoms to dispense with the Faith of Treaties to commit Massacres in cold Blood and the like Works of Darkness these were never thought a part of Religion and had they been so this alone had been a sufficient Conviction that it was not from God. And therefore we need not wonder that those Unbelievers who border on Christians that teach such things continue in their Infidelity For so far as they believe these a part of Christianity so far they are in the right not to own it and there is no way to convince them but by separating this Corruption from the Truth of the Gospel In a word there must be some defect in every Action that thwarts the Original Design of all Religion And though we cannot always see the Deficiency of a Cause yet we may be fure there is one where-ever the product is bad and consequently whatsoever Passion hurries us on to Actions of Fraud or Injustice it can be no part of the Wisdom from above or an effect of saving Knowledge but of the blindness of our Minds as our Saviour declares in the Text. II. It was next propounded to consider How Men come to he misled into so gross and palpable an Error and by what Steps and Degrees their Zeal becomes so intemperate Now the Zeal we have either for or against any thing does evidently depend upon the Judgment we make of it and consequently it is perverted whenever it is ill placed and must necessarily err when it hath not Knowledge for its Guide So that to recount all the Errors that mislead our Affections were an endless Task because they are as numerous as the ways by which we come to be mistaken In general every inordinate desire is able to make our Zeal so and at the same time persuades us we do well to be angry Pride Covetousness or Ambition or whatsoever rules the Man and carries the main of our Actions after