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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	evil_a	good_a	tree_n	33,809	5	11.7409	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27062	Two treatises tending to awaken secure sinners viz., 1. The terror of the day of judgment, from 2 Cor. 5. 10, 2. The danger of slighting Christ and his Gospel, from Matth. 22. 5 / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Terror of the day of judgment.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Danger of slighting Christ and his gospel.	1696 (1696)	Wing B1443; ESTC R16419	109,733	266

〈◊〉 Governour When it tendeth to Infidelity the evil will teach you to debase Man even lower than 〈◊〉 would do The two and thirtieth Excuse Sin is no Being and ●ll Men be damned for that which is nothing Answ 1. It is such a Mode as deformeth God's Create It is a moral Being It is a Relation of our ●●tions and Hearts to God's Will and Law 2. They that say Sin is nothing say Pain and Loss 〈◊〉 nothing too You shall therefore be paid with one ●●thing for another Make light of your Misery and 〈◊〉 it is nothing as you did of your Sin 3. Will you take this for a good Excuse from your ●hildren or Servants if they abuse you or from a ●hief or a Murderer shall he escape by telling the ●dg that his Sin was nothing Or rather have Death ●ich is nothing as the iust Reward of it The three and thirtieth Excuse But Sin is a transt● Thing At least it doth God no harm and therefore why ●uld he do us so much harm for it Answ 1. It hurts not God because he is above ●rt No thanks to you if he be out of your reach You may wrong him when you cannot hurt him ●nd the Wrong deserves as much as you can bear If a ●aitor endeavour the Death of the Prince in vain 〈◊〉 Endeavour deserves Death though he never hurt him You despise God's Law and Authority you cause the Blaspheming of his Name Rom. 2. 24. He calls it a Pressing him as a Cart is pressed with Sheaves ●●os 2. 13. and a Grieving of him 3. And you wrong his Image his Church the pub●●ck Good and the Souls of others The four and thirtieth Excuse But God's Nature is so ●●od and merciful that sure he will not damn his own Crea●●re Answ 1. A merciful Judg will hang a Man for a Fault against Man By proportion then what is due for Sin against God 2. All the Death and Calamity which you see in the World comes from the Anger of this merciful God why then may not future Misery come from it 3. God knoweth his own Mercy better than you do and he hath told you how far it shall extend 4. He is infinitely merciful but it is to the Heirs of Mercy not to the final Rejecters of his Mercy 5. Hath not God been merciful to thee in bearing with thee so long and offering thee Grace in the Blood of Christ till thou didst wilfully reject it Thou wi●● confess to thy everlasting Wo that God was merciful had he not been so merciful thou wouldst not have been so miserable for rejecting it The five and thirtieth Excuse I would not so torment mine Enemy my self Answ No reason you should Is it all one to wrong you and to wrong the God of Heaven God is the only Judg of his own Wrongs The sixth and thirtieth Excuse All Men are Sinners and I was but a Sinner Answ All were not impenitent unbelieving rebelious Sinners and therefore all are not unpardoned condemned Sinners All did not live after the Flesh and refuse to the last to be converted as you did God will teach you better to difference between Sinners and Sinners The seven and thirtieth Excuse But if Christ have satisfied for my Sins and died for me then how can I justly suffer for the same Sins will God punish one Sin twice Answ 1. Christ suffered for Man in the Christ of Man but not in your Person nor you in him It was not you that provided the Price but God himself Christ was not Man's Delegate in satisfying and therefore received not his Instructions from us nor did on our Terms but his own It was not the same thing which the Law threatned that Christ underwent for that was the Damnation of the Sinner himself and not the Suffering of another for him it cannot therefore be yours but on Christ's own Terms He died for thy Sin but with this intent that for all that if thou refuse him thou shalt die thy self It is therefore no wrong to thee to die for it was not thou that diedst before and Christ will take it for no wrong to him for he will judg thee to that Death It is for refusing a Christ that died for thee that thou must perish for ever The eight and thirtieth Excuse But I did not refuse Christ I believed and trusted in him to the last and repented of my Sins though I sometime was overtaken with them Answ Had this been true thy Sin would not have condemned thee But there is no mocking God He will shew thee then thy naked Heart and convince thousands that thought they believed and repented that indeed they did not By thy Works also will this be discovered that is by the main bent and scope of thy Life as Mat. 25. throughout and Jam. 2. The nine and thirtieth Excuse I did many good Works and I hope God will set those against my evil Works Answ Thy good Works were thy Sins because indeed they were not good being not done in sincerity of Heart for God The best Man's Works have some Infirmity which nothing can cleanse but the Blood of Christ which thou hast made light of and therefore hast no part in If all thy Life had been spent in perfect Works except one day they would not make satisfaction for the Sins of that Day For they are but part of thy Duty Wo to him that hath no better a Saviour at Judgment than his own good Works The fortieth Excuse I lived in Poverty and Misery on Earth and therefore I hope I have had my Suffering here and shall not suffer in this World and another too 1. By that Rule all poor Men and Murderers and Thieves that are tormented and hanged should be saved But as Godliness hath the Promise of this Life and that to come so Impenitency and Wickedness hath the Threatning of this Life and that to come 2. The Devils and the damned have suffered much more than you already and yet they are never the nearer a Deliverance When thou hast suffered ten thousand Years thy Pain will be never the nearer an end How then can a little Misery on Earth prevent it Alas poor Soul these are but the Foretasts and Beginnings of thy Sorrow Nothing but Pardon through the Blood of Christ could have prevented thy Condemnation and that thou rejectedst by Infidelity and Impenitency His Sufferings would have saved thee if thou hadst not refused him but all thy own Sufferings will yield thee no Relief So much for the answering of the vain Excuses which poor Sinners are ready to make for themselves wherein I have been so large as that this part I confess is disproportionable to the rest but it was for these two Reasons 1. That poor careless Souls might see the Vanity of such Defences and consider if such a Worm as I can easily confute them how easily and how terribly will they be all answered by their Judg 2. I did it the

with the Mammon of Unrighteousness and ventured all his Hope in this Vessel And now he findeth the Wisdom of that Choice in a rich Return God made him so wise a Merchant as to sell all for this Pearl of greatest Price and therefore now he shall find the Gain As there is no other true Happiness but God in Glory so is there nothing more sutable and welcome to the true Believer O how welcome will the Face of that God be whom he loved sought longed and waited for How welcome will that Kingdom be which he lived in hope of which he parted with all for and suffered for in the Flesh How glad will he be to see the blessed Face of his Redeemer who by his manifold Grace hath brought him unto this I leave the believing Soul to think of it and to make it the daily matter of his delightful Meditation what an unconceivable Joy in one Moment will this Sentence of Christ will fill his Soul with Undoubtedly it is now quite past our Comprehension though our imperfect Forethoughts of it may well make our Lives a continual Feast Were it but our Justification from the Accusations of Satan who would have us condemned either as Sinners in general or as impenitent unbelieving Rebels against him that redeemed us in special it would lift up the Heads of the Saints in that Day After all the Fears of our own Hearts and the slanderous Accusations of Satan and the World That we were either impenitent Infidels or Hypocrites Christ will then justify us and pronounce us righteous So much for the Condition to which they are judged 2. The Reason or Cause of this Justification of the Saints is given us both 1. In a general Denomination and 2. In a particular Description 1. In general it is because they were righteous as is evident Mat. 25. 6. The Righteous shall go into Life everlasting And indeed it is the Business of every just Judg to justify the Righteous and condemn the Unrighteous And shall not the Judg of all the Earth judg righteously Gen. 18. 25. God makes Men righteous before he judges them so and judgeth them righteous because they are so He that abominateth that Man who saith to the Righteous Thou art wicked or to the Wicked Thou art righteous who justifieth the Wicked and condemneth the Righteous will certainly never do so himself Indeed he will justify them that are Sinners but not against the Accusation that they are Sinners but against the Accusation that they are guilty of Punishment for Sin but that is because he first made them just and so justifiable by pardoning their Sin through the Blood of Christ And it 's true also that he will justify those that were wicked but not those that are wicked but Judgment findeth them as Death leaveth them and he will not take them for wicked that are sanctified and cleansed of their former Wickedness So that Christ will first pardon them before he justify them against the Charge of being Sinners in general and he will first give Men Faith Repentance and new Obedience before he will justify them against the Charge of being Impenitent Infidels or Hypocrites and consequently ●mpardoned and doubly guilty of Damnation This twofold Righteousness he will first give Men and so constiture them just before he will declare it and sentence them just 2. The Reason of the Sentence particularly described is from their Faith and Love to Christ expressed in their Obedience Self-denial and forsaking all for him For I was hungry and ye fed me I was thirsty and ye gave me daink I was a Stranger and ye took me in naked and ye clothed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in Prison and ye came to me Verily I say unto you inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my Brethren ye have done it unto me Mat. 25. 35 to 41. Here is 1. The causal Conjuction for 2. And the Cause or Reason it self Concerning both which observe 1. How it is that Man's Obedience and Self-denial is the Reason and Cause of his Justification 2. Why it is that God will have the Reason or Cause thus declared in the Sentence For the first observe that it 's one thing to give a Reason of the Sentence and another thing to express the Cause of the Benefit given us by the Promise and judged to us by the Sentence Man's Obedience was no proper Cause why God did in this Life give Pardon of Sin to us or a Right to Glory much less of his giving Christ to die for us And therefore as to our constitutive Justification at our Conversion we must not say or think that God doth justify us for or because of any Works of our Obedience legal or evangelical But when God hath so justified us when he comes to give a Reason of his Sentence in Judgment he may and will fetch that Reason partly from our Obedience or our Performance of the Conditions of the new Covenant For as in this Life we had a Righteousness consisting in free Pardon of all Sin through the Blood of Christ and a Righteousness consisting in our personal Performance of the Conditions of the Promise which giveth that Pardon and continueth it to us so at Judgment we shall accordingly be justified And as our evangelical personal Righteousness commonly called inherent was at first only in our Faith and Repentance and Disposition to obey but afterward in our actual sincere Obedience in which Sense we are constitutively justified or made righteous here by our Works in James his sense James 2. 24. so accordingly a double Reason will be assigned of our sentential Justification one from our Pardon by Christ's Blood and Merits which will prove our Right to Impunity and to Glory the other from our own Faith and holy Obedience which will prove our Right to that Pardon through Christ and to the free Gift of a Right to Glory and To this last is to be pleaded in Subordination to the former For Christ is become the Author of eternal Salvation to all them that obey him Heb. 5. 9. He therefore that will be saved must have a Christ to save him as the Author and an Obedience to that Christ as the Condition of that Salvation and consequently both must be declared in the Judgment The Reason why the Judg doth mention our good Works rather than our believing may be because those holy self-denying Expressions of Faith and Love to Christ do contain or certainly imply Faith in them as the Life of the Tree is in the Fruit but Faith doth contain our Works of Obedience but only as their Cause The Works also are a Part of the personal Righteousness which is to be enquired after that is we shall not be judged righteous meerly because we have believed but also because we have added to our Faith Vertue and have improved our Talents and have loved Christ to the hazard of all for his