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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	ceremonial_a	law_n	moral_a	5,536	5	9.9611	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35344	A sermon preached to the honourable Society of Lincolns-Inne by R. Cudsworth ...	Cudworth, Ralph, 1617-1688.	1664 (1664)	Wing C7470; ESTC R38833	29,413	70

them to be without us being nothing but the Vital Energies of our own Spirits In a word God would have Man to be a Living Temple for himself to dwell in and his Faculties Instruments to be used and employed by him which need not be thought impossible if that be true that Philosophy tells us that there is Cognatio quaedam a certain near Kindred and Alliance between the Soul and God Lastly we must observe though this inward Victory over Sin be no otherwise to be effected then by the Spirit of Christ through Faith and by a Divine Operation in us so that in a certain sense we may be said to be Passive thereunto yet notwithstanding we must not dream any such thing as if our Active Cooperation and Concurrence were not also necessarily required thereunto For as there is a Spirit of God in Nature which produceth Vegetables and Minerals which humane Art and Industry could never be able to effect namely that Spiritus intus alens which the Poet speaks of which yet notwithstanding doth not work Absolutely Unconditionately and Omnipotently but requireth certain Preparations Conditions and Dispositions in the Matter which it works upon For unless the Husbandman plow the Ground and sow the Seed the Spirit of God in Nature will not give any increase In like manner the Scripture tells us that the Divine Spirit of Grace doth not work Absolutely Unconditionately and Irresistibly in the Souls of men but requireth certain Preparations Conditions and Cooperations in us forasmuch as it may both be quenched and stirred up or excited in us And indeed unless we plow up the Fallow-ground of our hearts and sow to our selves in Righteousness as the Prophet speaks by our earnest endeavours we cannot expect that the Divine Spirit of Grace will showr down that Heavenly increase upon us Wherefore if we would attain to a Victory over Sin by the Spirit of Christ we must endeavour to fight a good Fight and run a good Race and to enter in at the streight gate that so overcoming we may receive the Crown of Life And thus much shall suffice to have spoken at this time concerning the First Particular The Victory over Sin I Shall now proceed to speak something briefly to the Two other Victories that remain which are attainable also by Christ over the Law and Death And the Law may be considered two manner of waies First as an outward Covenant of Works that pronounceth Death and Condemnation to all that do not yield absolute and entire Obedience to whatever is therein commanded and which imposed also with the same Severity a multitude of outward Ceremonial Observations which had no intrinsecal Goodness at all in them but kept men in a state of Bondage and Servility Now the Law in this sense as it is an outward Letter and Covenant of Works is already conquered externally for us by Christ's Death upon the Cross Galat. 3. 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree That the Blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the Promise of the Spirit through Faith And he hath thereby freed us also from our Obligation to those Commandments that were not Good having broken down the Middle-wall of Partition that was betwixt Jew and Gentile abolishing in his Flesh the Enmity even the Law of Commandments Ephes. 2. 14 15. And blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and taking it out of the way nailing it to his Cross Coloss. 2. 14. Secondly The Law is sometimes also considered in Scripture as an inward state of Minde wrought by the Law and Truth of God whether written outwardly in the Letter of the Scripture or inwardly in the Conscience prevailing onely so farre as to beget a Conviction of mens Duty and of the Wrath of God against Sin but not inabling them with inward strength and power to doe what is commanded willingly out of a Love of it It is such a State when men are onely Passive to God's Law and unwillingly subject to it as an Enemy for fear of Wrath and Vengeance And this must needs be a state of miserable Bondage and Servility Distraction and Perplexity of minde when men are at once strongly convinced of the Wrath of God against Sin and yet under the power of their Lusts haling and dragging of them to the commission of it It is that state as I conceive which S. Paul describes Rom. 7. after this manner The Law is Spiritual but I am Carnal sold under Sin for that which I doe I allow not for what I would that doe I not but what I hate that doe I. And again I see another Law in my Members warring against my Minde and bringing me into Captivity under the Law of Sin O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Now from the Law in this sense that is from the Bondage and Servility of the Legal state we are not delivered nor made Conquerors by what Christ did outwardly upon the Cross as some imagine as if he had there purchas'd for us an Indulgence to sin without controll but by the inward working of his Holy Spirit freeing us from the Power and Bondage of Sin and unbewitching us from the Love of it Wherefore there is a double Freedome from this Legal state to be taken notice of a True a False Freedome which I cannot better explain then by using the Apostle's own Similitude in the beginning of the 7. Chap. Know ye not Brethren that the Law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth or rather as long as It that is the Law liveth For the Woman which hath an Husband is bound by the Law to her Husband so long as he liveth but if her Husband be dead she is loosed from the Law of the Husband So then if while her Husband liveth she be married to another man she shall be called an adulteress but if her Husband be dead she is free from that Law so that she is no adulteress though she be married to another man Where the Law is compared to an Husband and one that is under the Law or in a Legal state to a Woman that hath an Husband And as there are two waies by which a Woman may be freed from her Husband The one if she break loose from him whilst he yet liveth contrary to the Laws of Wedlock and marry to another man which is an undue and unlawful Freedome for then she is justly styled an Adulteress Another if she stay till her Husband be dead and then being free from the Law of her Husband does lawfully marry to another man In like manner there are two waies by which men may be freed from the Law as it is an inward state of Bondage and Servility The first is when

to say That the inward sense of every true and sincere-hearted Christian in this Point speaks the same language with the Scripture For a true Christian that hath any thing of the Life of God in him cannot but earnestly desire an inward Healing of his sinful Maladies and Distempers and not an outward Hiding or Palliation of them onely He must needs passionately long more and more after a new Life and Nature and the Divine Image to be more fully formed in him insomuch that if he might be secured from the pains of Hell without it he could not be fully quieted and satisfied therewith 'T is not the Effects and Consequents of Sin onely the External Punishment due unto it that he desires to be freed from but the Intrinsecal Evil of Sin it self the Plague of his own Heart As he often meditates with comfort upon that Outward Cross to which his Saviour's hands and feet were nailed for his Sins so he impatiently desires also to feel the virtue of that Inward Cross of Christ by which the World may be crucified to him and he unto the World and the Power of Christ's Resurrection in him still to raise him farther unto newness of Life Neither will he be more easily persuaded to believe that his sinful Lusts the malignity and violence whereof he feels within himself can be conquered without him then that an Army here in England can be conquered in France or Spain He is so deeply sensible of the Real Evil that is in Sin it self that he cannot be contented to have it onely histrionically triumphed over And to phansy himself covered all over with a thin veil of mere external Imputation will afford little satisfactory Comfort unto him that hungers and thirsts after Righteousness and is weary and heavy laden with the Burthen of his Sins and doth not desire to have his inward Maladies hid and covered onely but healed and cured Neither can he be willing to be put off till the hour of Death for a Divorce betwixt his Soul and Sin nor easily persuaded that though Sin should rule and reign in him all his Life-long yet the last parting grone that shall divide his Soul and Body asunder might have so great an Efficacy as in a moment also to separate all Sin from his Soul BuT that we may not seem here either to beat the Air in Generals and Uncertainties or by an indiscreet zeal to countenance those conceited and high-flown Enthusiasts of latter times that forgetting that example of Modesty given us by the blessed Apostle Not as though I had already attained or were already perfect But this one thing I doe forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press toward the Mark boldly arrogate to themselves such an Absolute Perfection as would make them not to stand in need of any Saviour nor to be cleansed by the Bloud of the Lamb which therefore they allegorize into a mystical sense we must declare that we speak not here of Inherent Righteousness and a Victory over Sin in a Legal or Pharisaical sense but in such an Evangelical sense as yet notwithstanding is true and real The First Degree whereof is a Principle of New life infused into the Soul by the Spirit of Christ through Faith which the Apostle calls Semen Dei the Seed of God inclining it to love God and Righteousness as a thing correspondent to its nature and inabling it to act freely and ingenuously in the waies of God out of a living Law written upon the Heart and to eschew Sin as contrary to a vital Principle For the true Gospel-Righteousness which Christ came to set up in the world doth not consist merely in outward Works whether Ceremonial or Moral done by our own Natural power in our Unregenerate state but in an inward Life and Spirit wrought by God Which those very Philosophers seemed in a manner to acknowledge that denied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Vertue could be taught by outward Rules and Precepts like an Art or Trade and Aristotle himself also when he inclines to think that men are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that their being Good depends upon some extraordinary Divine Influence and Assistence Which I the rather take notice of because some late Pretenders to Philosophy have prophanely derided this Doctrine after this manner as if it made Good Thoughts and Vertuous Dispositions to be POURED and BLOWN into men by God But there is a Second Degree of Victory over Sin which every true Christian ought not onely to look upon as possible but also to endeavour after and restlesly to pursue which is such a measure of Strength in the Inward man and such a degree of Mortification or Crucifixion of our sinful Lusts as that a man will not knowingly and deliberately doe any thing that his Conscience plainly tells him is a Sin though there be never so great Temptations to it Whether or no this be that Evangelical Perfection which was the Mark that S. Paul pressed towards and which he seems mystically to call the Resurrection from the Dead or any thing further I leave it to others to make a Judgement of But doubtless they that have attained to such a Principle of New Life and such a measure of inward Strength as is already mentioned that is to the Perfection of unfeigned Sincerity may notwithstanding the Irregularities of the first Motions violent Assaults and Importunities of Tentations sudden Incursions and Obreptions Sins of mere Ignorance and Inadvertency which are all wash'd away in the Bloud of Christ in a true Evangelical sense be said to have attained to a Victory over Sin Wherefore I demand in the next place Why it should be thought impossible by the Grace of the Gospel and the Faith of Christ to attain to such a Victory as this is over Sin For Sin owes its original to nothing else but Ignorance and Darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every wicked man is ignorant And therefore in that sense that other Maxime of the Stoicks may have some Truth also that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men sin against their will because if they knew that those things were indeed so hurtful to them they would never doe them Now we all know how easily Light conquers Darkness and upon its first approch makes it flie before it and like a guilty shade seek to hide it self from it by running round about the Earth And certainly the Light of God arising in the Soul can with as much ease scatter away the Night of sinful Ignorance before it For Truth hath a cognation with the Soul and Falshood Lies and Impostures are no more able to make resistence against the Power of Truth breaking forth then Darkness is able to dispute with Light Wherefore the Entrance in of Light upon the Soul is half a Conquest over our Sinful Lusts. Again though Sin have had a long and customary Possession in the