Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	apprehend_v	faith_n	justify_v	5,487	5	8.9539	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41536	The tryall of a Christians growth in mortification, purging out corruption, or vivification, bringing forth more fruit a treatise handling this case, how to discerne our growth in grace : affording some helps rightly to judge thereof by resolving some tentations, clearing some mistakes, answering some questions, about spiritual growth : together with other observations upon the Parable of the vine, John 15. 1, 2 verses / by Tho. Goodwin.	Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.	1650 (1650)	Wing G1262; ESTC R10593	96,023	122

exceedingly advanceth the abounding of this grace 2. It serves exceedingly to illustrate the grace of perseverance and the power of God therein for unto the power of God is our perseverance wholly attributed 1 Pet. 1. 5. Ye are kept as with a garrison as the word signifies through the power of God unto salvation And were there not a great and an apparent danger of miscarrying such a mighty guard needed not There is nothing which puts us into any danger but our corruptions that still remain in us which fight against the soul and endeavour to overcome and destroy us Now then to be kept maugre all these to have grace maintained a spark of grace in the midst of a sea of corruption how doth this honour the power of God in keeping us As much in regard of this our dependency on him in such a condition as hee would otherwise be by our service if it were pepfect and we wholly free from those corruptions How will the grace of God under the Gospel triumph over the grace given Adam in his innocencie when Adam having his heart full of inherent grace and nothing inwardly in his nature to seduce him and the temptation that he had being but a matter of curiosity and the pleasing his wife and yet he fell When as many poore souls under the state of grace that have but mites of grace in comparison and worlds of corruption are yet kept not onely from the unnecessary pleasures of sin in time of prosperity but hold out against all the threats all the cruelties of wicked persecutors in times of persecution which threaten to debar them of all the present good they enjoy And though Gods people are foyled often yet that there should still remaine a seed within them 1 John 3. 9. this illustrates the grace of Christ under the Gospel For one act in Adam expelled all grace out of him when yet his heart was full of nothing else Were our hearts filled with grace perfectly at first conversion this power would not be seen The Angels are kept with much lesse care and charge and power then we because they have no bias no weights of sin as the Apostle speaks hung upon them to draw them aside and presse them downe as we have Neither 3. would the confusion of the devill in the end be so great and the victory so glorious if all sin at first conversion were expelled For by this meanes the devill hath in his assaults against us the more advantages faire play as I may so speak faire hopes of overcomming having a great faction in us as ready to sinne as he is greedy to tempt And yet God strongly carries on his owne worke begun though slowly and by degrees backeth and maintaines a small partie of grace within us to his confusion That as in Gods outward goverment towards his Church here on earth he suffers a great party and the greater still by farre to be against his Church and yet upholds it and rules amongst the midst of his enemies Psal 110. ult so doth he also in every particular beleevers heart When grace shall be in us but as a sparke and corruptions as much smoake and moisture damping it Grace but as a candle and that in the socket among huge and many winds Then to bring judgement forth to victory that is a victory indeede Lastly as God doth it to advance his owne grace and confound the devil so for holy ends that concerne the Saints themselves As 1. To keep them from spirituall pride He trusted the Angels that fell with a full and compleat stock of grace at first and they though raised up from nothing a few dayes afore fell into such an admiration of themselves that heaven could not hold them it was not a place good enough for them They left the text sayes their owne habitation and first estate Jude ver 6. Pride was the condemnation of the devill 1 Tim. 3. 6. But how much more would this have beene an occasion of pride to a soule that was full of nothing but sin the other day to be made perfect presently perfectly to justifie us the first day by the righteousnesse of another there is no danger in that for it is a righteousnesse without us and which we cannot so easily boast of vainly for that faith that apprehends it empties us first of our selves and goes out to another for it But Sanctification being a work wrought in us we are apt to dote on that as too much upon excellencie in our selues how much adoe have poore beleevers to keepe their hearts off from doting upon their owne righteousnesse and from poring on it when it is God wot a very little They must therefore have something within them to pull downe their spirits that when they look on their feathers they may looke on their feet which Christ sayes are still defiled John 13. 10. 2. However if there were no such danger of spirituall pride upon so sudden a rise as indeed it befalls not infants nor such soules as dye as soone as regenerated as that good thiefe yet however God thinkes it meet to use it as a means to humble his people this way even as God left the Canaanites in the land to vexe the Israelites and to humble them And to have beene throughly humbled for sin here will doe the Saints no hurt against they come to heaven it will keepe them Nothing for ever in their owne eyes even when they are filled brim full of grace and glory For 1. nothing humbles so as sinne This made him cry out Oh miserable man that I am He that never flinched for outward crosses never thought himselfe miserable for any of them but gloried in them 2 Cor. 12. when he came to be led captive by sinne remaining in him cryes out Oh miserable man And 2. it is not the sinnes of a fore-past unregenerate estate that will be enough to doe this throughly For they might be lookt upon as past and gone and some waies be an occasion of making the grace after conversion the more glorious but present sense humbleth most kindly most deeply because it is fresh and therefore sayes Paul Oh miserable man that I am And againe we are not able to know the depth and height of corruptions at once therefore we are to know it by degrees And therefore it is still left in us that after we have a spirituall eye given us we might experimentally gage it to the bottome and be experimentally still humbled for sinne And experimentall humbling is the most kindly as pity out of experience is And 3. God would have us humbled by seeing our dependance upon him for inherent grace And how soone are we apt to forget we have received it and that in our natures no good dwells Wee would not remember that our nature were a stepmother to grace and a naturall mother to lusts but that we see weeds still grow naturally of themselves And 4. God would have us