Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	covenant_n	grace_n	mediator_n	4,478	5	11.2745	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27004	The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural evidence the being of God ... : the second part, of Christianity, proving by evidence supernatural and natural, the certain truth of the Christian belief ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; also an appendix defending the soul's immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other pseudo-philosophers.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1667 (1667)	Wing B1367; ESTC R5892	599,557	672

these Who can say that God is unable to raise the dead who seeth so much greater things performed by him in the daily motion of the Sun or Earth and in the support and course of the whole frame of Nature He that can every Spring give a kinde of Resurrection to Plants and Flowers and Fruits of the Earth can easily raise our bodies from the dust And no man can prove that the Wisdom of God or yet his Will are against our Resurrection but that both are for it may be proved by his Promises Shall that which is beyond the power of Man be therefore objected as a difficulty to God 2. Yea it is congruous to the Wisdom and Governing Justice of God that the same Body which was partaker with the Soul in sin and duty should be partaker with it in suffering or felicity 3. The Lord Jesus Christ did purposely die and rise again in his humane body to put the Resurrection out of doubt by undenyable ocular demonstration and by the certainty of belief 4. There is some Natural Reason for the Resurrection in the Souls inclination to its Body As it is unwilling to lay it down it will be willing to reassume it when God shall say The time is come As we may conclude at night when they are going to bed that the people of City and Countrey will rise the next morning and put on their Cloaths and not go naked about the streets because there is in them a Natural inclination to rising and to cloaths and a natural aversness to lie still or to go uncloathed so may we conclude from the souls natural inclination to its body that it will reassume it as soon as God consenteth 5. And all our Objections which reason from supposed contradictions vanish because none of us all have so much skill in Physicks as to know what it is which individuateth this Numerical Body and so what it is which is to be restored But we all confess that it is not the present mass of flesh and humours which being in a continual flux is not the same this year which it was the last and may vanish long before we die Obj. X. If Christ be indeed the Saviour of the World why came he not into the World till it was 4000 years old And why was he before revealed to so few and to them so darkly Did God care for none on earth but a few Jews or did he not care for the Worlds recovery till the later age when it drew towards its end Answ It is hard for the Governour of the World by ordinary means to satisfie all self-conceited persons of the wisdom and equity of his dealings But 1. it belongeth not to us but to our free Benefactor to determine of the measure and season of his benefits May he not do with his own as he list And shall we deny or question a proved truth because the reason of the circumstances is unrevealed to us If our Physician come to cure us of a mortal disease would we reject him because he came not sooner and because he cured not all others that were sick as well as us 2. The Eternal Wisdom and Word of God the second Person in the Trinity was the Saviour of the World before he was incarnate He did not only by his Vndertaking make his future performances valid as to the merit and satisfaction necessary to our deliverance but he instructed Mankinde in order to their recovery and Ruled them upon terms of grace and so did the work of a Redeemer or Mediator even as Prophet Priest and King before his Incarnation He enacted the Covenant of Grace that whoever repenteth and believeth shall be saved and so gave men a conditional pardon of their sins 3. And though Repentance and the Love of God was necessary to all that would be saved even as a constitutive cause of their salvation yet that Faith in the Mediator which is but the means to the Love of God and to sanctification was not alwayes nor in all places in the same particular Articles necessary as it is now where the Gospel is preached Before Christs coming a more general belief might serve the turn for mens salvation without believing that This Jesus is the Christ that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buryed and descended to Hades and rose again the third day and ascended into Heaven c. And as more is necessary to be believed since Christs incarnation and resurrection than before so more was before necessary to the Jewes who had the Oracles of God and had more revealed to them than to other Nations who had less revealed And now more is necessary where the Gospel cometh than where it doth not 4. So that the Gentiles had a Saviour before Christs Incarnation and not only the Jewes They were reprieved from Legal Justice and not dealt with by God upon the proper terms of the Covenant of Works or meer Nature They had all of them much of that mercy which they had forfeited which came to them by the Grace of the Redeemer They had time and helps to turn to God and a course of means appointed them to use in order to their recovery and salvation According to the use of which they shall be judged They were not with the Devils left remediless and shut out of all hope under final desperation No one ever perished in any Age or Nation of the World who by believing in a mercifull pardoning holy God was recovered to love God above all And if they did not this they were all without a just excuse 5. The course of Grace as that of Nature doth wisely proceed from low degrees to higher and bringeth not things to perfection at the first The Sun was not made the first day of the Creation nor was Man made till all things were prepared for him The Churches Infancy was to go before its Maturity We have some light of the Sun before it rise much more before it come to the height As Christ now teacheth his Church more plainly when he is himself gone into Glory even by his Pastors whom he fitteth for that work and by his Spirit so did he though more obscurely yet sufficiently teach it before he came in the flesh by Prophets and Priests His work of Salvation consisteth in bringing men to live in Love and Obedience And his way of Teaching them his saving doctrine is by his Ministers without and by his Spirit within And thus he did before his coming in flesh and thus he doth since we that are born since his coming see not his Person any more than they who were born before But we have his Word Ministers and Spirit and so had they His reconciling sacrifice was effectual morally in esse cognito volito before the performance of it And the means of reconciling our mindes to God