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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	faith_n	good_a	justifi_v	5,059	5	14.2968	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42097	A sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of Durham upon the revival of the ancient laudable practice of that, and some other cathedrals, in having sermons on Wednesdays and Fridays, during Advent and Lent / by D.G. ...	Grenville, Denis, 1637-1703.	1686 (1686)	Wing G1941; ESTC R2757	16,701	34

Metropolitans and other Fathers of the Church as well as our own Right Reverend Diocesan seem to have well considered the bettering of our Circumstances by obliging us not only to more frequent Communion but putting us in a way to communicate especially at the two great Festivals before mentioned with greater Profit more Devotion through Examination and due Preparation To all which pious Christian ends and purposes a Course of Sermons in Lent and Advent prudently contrived according to the Religious Example of our Forefathers and Commands of Authority at present may in all probability so much contribute that I fear those will deserve much Blame who shall not heartily concur with so Edifying a design and imployment But the number of those will be I trust very few if any at all for as the Members of our Cathedral have readily complied with our Bishops motion so it is hoped that the People of the several Parishes of this City will as willingly comply with ours namely to come themselves when their Callings and necessary Affairs will give them leave or else to send some one at least of their Families to partake of this Christian and well designed method of Devotion and Instruction whereunto I do in the Name of God invite them by this honest and well meant Address preparatory to the Subject I have chosen to discourse on which is part of one of the Scriptures proper to the Season and which I now come to handle It is you see the burden of the Peoples Prayers to God as well as of the Churches Advice to the Congregation To cast away the works of Darkness and to put on the armour of Light which is also implied in the words of my Text whereby we are Exhorted to arise from sleep on consideration of the unseasonableness and unsuitableness of a drowsie stupid Condition in respect both of our State and Duty Our Salvation is nearer than when we believed the night is far spent the day is at hand Two things we may take notice of in the verse An Exhortation and the Reason of that Exhortation The Exhortation is To arise from Sleep The Reason or Ground from whence this Exhortation is drawn is the season or opportunity Seeing our Salvation is nearer than when we believed In handling these words I shall make the last in my Text the first in my Discourse and begin with the Season or Opportunity You see plainly this Exhortation To arise from Sleep to be a necessary Consequent from the Antecedent Proposition Our Salvation is nearer than when we believed And when this is proved we must not deny the Conclusion but rise from Sleep And that considering the Season it is high time so to do I begin with the first Proposition Our Salvation c. and here we must 1. Enquire of the true meaning of the Words 2. How it avails to bring in the Conclusion Some Commentators expound the Word Nearer in the Gorrhan Text by being more due to us Our Salvation is nearer i. e. more due to us for our good Works than when we first believed having no good Works Which is thus far true That whosoever believeth in the Merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ and justifieth this his Faith by a holy Life Salvation is nearer him than when he first believed he draws nearer and nearer to God by Works of Religion and Charity with Sincerity performed But that still not by way of Debt good Works being an Antecedent of our Salvation but not the Cause Others make this Speech of St. Paul to be relative Cornel. a Lapid Erasm between the times of the Law and the Gospel Our Salvation is nearer since Christ's Coming than before For before they were in the Night of Ignorance under the dark Cloud of Ceremonies which the bright Morning-Star Christ Jesus dispell'd at his Rising Abolishing all the Pharisaical Traditions purging Judaical Errors and freeing them from their sins And this Opinion in it self carries a Truth but not the whole Truth There being a Threefold Coming of our Saviour into the World 1. To Suffer 2. To Convert 3. To Judge By every one of which he may be said to be nearer us By the First when he came into the World to take our Nature upon him that he might be capable to suffer for us he may be said to be nearer us because he was manifested more plainly and made himself more sensibly known unto us And to this Coming this latter Opinion has Relation And this is the Coming which we have in our eye and for which we are preparing And as our Right Honourable and Reverend Diocesan hath provided that this Advent shall be the most Religious Advent that hath been kept in this Church these Five and Forty Years I shall take care by Gods Assistance as much as in me lies and I desire you all in Gods Name to join with me herein that the approaching Feasts may be the most Holy Christmas Our Saviour's Second Coming is when out of his Mercy he descends to any particular Soul to turn him from his evil ways and to regenerate him by the Spirit to a new Life And by this also he may be said to be nearer unto us For an Infidel is far from God and so from Salvation The first Act of his Conversion is his first Step towards God and his progress in a good Life is his direct Journey to Heaven And to this the former Opinion is most properly applicable But there is also a Third Coming of our Saviour i. e. To Judgment According to which St. Chrysostom and the Fathers do for the most part interpret these Words There is a last great Judgment at the end of the World of which we know neither the Day nor the Hour yet indefinitely that it approaches we all know and believe and should often consider And there is also a particular Judgment which every soul receives before it enters Heavens Gates And good Profiicents in the works of Piety and Charity as they approach every day nearer and nearer to the end of this Life so also to the beginning of that Life in which they shall receive their Reward through the Mercy of Christ according to their Works that is Eternal Happiness And of this this Text is especially to be understood which our Apostle uses as an Argument to incite and stir up the Romans to Works of Charity and Godliness The validity of which Argument how it prevaileth to conclude the forsaking of sin or our own arising from sleep I shall briefly show you in the next Place Our End our time of Dissolution is nearer than when we believed Therefore it is high time to arise from sleep Were it not dastardly Cowardice for a Soldier after a long Fight to give over and yield at the last Battel well promoted on with hope of Victory So it is vile cowardice in a Christian Soldier to lose the Victory only by not fighting being urged to it with an assurance of

Conquest The carnal Soldiers fight but in hope but the spiritual in Faith and Confidence Man seldom conquers his Enemies but by Death or Wounds but a Christian repels Satan only by resisting him Resist the Devil and he will flye from thee saith St. James If therefore the assurance of Victory cannot raise his Spirit to Battel methinks the easiness of the Combat should encourage him and if none of these can move him the Crown that is set before him must needs draw him on Will any refuse Gold refuse a Crown Behold ye Romans might St. Paul have said the happiness of your Estate your Battel is almost finished your Victory is certain your Crown ready to be set upon your Head Turpissimum in extremo Actu deficere it is base to fail in the last Act. Arise therefore in the Name of God arise from sleep forsake your sins for your Salvation is nearer than when you believed There is no man having a Temporal Estate to fall to him after the expiration of some Years but does more and more rejoice in it when he comes nearer to the Possession of it and should we not do thus much for our eternal Salvation Behold the date of this Life is almost expired with many if not most of us and we are not probably if we consider the course of Nature far from that dreadful Moment c. It does behove us to arise therefore from sleep to awaken and lift up our eyes towards Heaven where there is a better Inheritance of Eternal Bliss prepared by Christ Jesus for all those that diligently wait for him Our Life is a Race and Course from Earth to Heaven it were double shame for him that runneth to sit down when he sees the Stage No Traveller will faint when he sees the City before him and shall we lye drowzing in our sins when we see Heaven-Gates open before us ready to receive us all that strive to enter No no let us arise then if it be but for mere shame and suffer not the just Rebuke of the Galatians to fall upon us You began well but why did you not go on Who hindred you It is the end that shall be rewarded he and only he that continueth to the end shall be saved The Philosopher observes that those Motions which are swiftest in the beginning and slow towards the end are violent Motions from some Terrene extrinsical Principle but voluntary Motions begin slowly and grow more strong still towards the end having their cause within them And such must a Christians Progress be not forced but free still pressing forward to the Mark the nearer to the Mark the more care in his course And now we that are every day nearer the mark should be sure to mend our pace for we know the season our end our time may be sudden and we may the very next moment be called to an Account for our sins Shall we then not watch and pray c. a good season Who knows whether he may live to see the next day the next hour the next moment and if we neglect the first opportunity God alone knows whether he may ever grant us a second Those of this City I am sure ought to be alarm'd in a particular manner upon this Account it hath pleased God to visit many this last Year past with sudden death and cut off many persons some in the midst of their days God grant it may not be the fate of sundry others to be so cut off and in the midst of their sins The most certain way to prevent such fears is to follow this days advice namely To arise and look about us which if we do we shall soon find it is high Noon high Time to awake out of our sleep and set about our work for every one of us I fear the best slumbers if not sleeps the night will shortly come wherein no man shall work as we are told in the Gospel There cannot be therefore a greater Act of Wisdom than to follow our Saviours Advice in due season and walk while we have the light lest darkness come upon us Joh. 12. 35. By no means neglecting the Counsel of St. Paul to do good while we have opportunity Gal. 6. 10. Seeing our Salvation draweth near let us arise from sleep and that now considering the season it being high time so to do And so I come to the last Proposition the Consequent and Conclusion drawn from the former To arise from Sleep Before I can shew you what that is I must distinguish betwixt the several kinds of sleep The first sleep which is the sleep of nature is sometimes taken for the sleep of Death figuratively 1 Thes 4. 13. I would not have you ignorant Brethren concerning those that are asleep i. e. dead Sometimes properly for the Ligation of the senses or rest of the animal Faculties Joh. 11. 12. If he sleep he shall do well The 3d. sort of sleep the sleep of sin is the sleep meant in the Text and the same of which the Apostle speaks Eph. 5. 14. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead Of this sleep the Wiseman complains Pro. 6. 9. How long wilt thou sleep O sluggard when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep And which is the sleep which the Apostle here means from which it is high time to arise it is high time to arise from this sleep i. e. to shake off our sins and walk honestly as in the day as our Apostle expresses it not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying but putting on the Lord Jesus Christ and making no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof Which manner of Proof is drawn from the Analogy and Likeness that sin hath with sleep For as sleep inhibits all senses and other faculties of the soul from executing their several functions the Eye from seeing the Ear from hearing and the Understanding from judging the Will from wishing and the whole Man from acting which while we watch are imployed in their several Offices So the spiritual Senses and Motions of our mind Faith and Charity are smothered in the dead-sleep of sin and lose their very Essence and Being for Faith cannot be without Charity nor Charity without Operation or Working neither is there any working in sleep Would any one then approve his Faith and be accounted faithful Let him shew me his Faith by his Works and here take his beginning let him first rise from sleep i. e. Repent 'T is certain those that sleep in sin can never do the works of Faith But who those are that may be most properly termed thus to sleep in sin ought to be my next endeavour to shew you And here not insisting on or particularizing the greatest and soundest sleepers my time allotted will not permit me to reach them viz. Heathens Jews Atheists Hereticks and Schismaticks who may be truly said to sleep in utramque aurem soundly without the