Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	justify_v	law_n	moral_a	5,360	5	10.3036	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48737	Solomons gate, or, An entrance into the church being a familiar explanation of the grounds of religion conteined in the fowr [sic] heads of catechism, viz. the Lords prayer, the Apostles creed, the Ten commandments, the sacraments / fitted to vulgar understanding by A.L.	Littleton, Adam, 1627-1694.	1662 (1662)	Wing L2573; ESTC R34997	164,412	526

rise up against him by the evidence and verdict of their own conscience This Law being so perfect so pure and so holy 't is impossible for us who are altogether evill by our own natural strength to accomplish for we are not able of our selves so much as to think a good thought so that if we stand to the tenour of the Covenant of works whereby we are obliged to a punctual and exact obedience to the Law in all its parts in all our thoughts words and deeds and God should b● stric● to obs●●ve what is done amiss and should in judgement proceed against us accordingly no flesh would be justified in his ●ight for we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God short of it both as the end and as the reward of our actions we have neither lived up to it nor can we upon our own account be made partakers of it Wherefore that all mankind might not faint under this intolerable yoak and sink under the unsupportable burden of this Law God was pleas'd out of his love to mankind to strike a New Covenant with us in the Blood of his Son who has made the yoak easy and the burthen light by bearing it for us The terms of the first Covenant are D● this and live of the second Believe and thou shalt be saved The Covenant of Works requires an exactness the Covenant of Grace looks for the sincerity of obedience Nor doth this Law of Faith void and null the Moral Law but the terrours of the Law drive us to imbrace Gospel-terms for which reason the Law is called the Scholemaster to Christ. For when a sinner is convinced how unable he is of himself to fulfill the demands of the Law and how his multiplyed transgressions render him lyable to the curse of the Law and the fierce wrath of God he in the apprehension of his own guilt and insufficience flies to the Mediatour as to a city of refuge who hath fulfill'd the Law for us and hath undergon the wrath of an offended God and the curse of a righteous Law that he might be able to save those to the uttermost that should put their trust in him Neither doth the Law of works cease to be of use to those that are in Christ and are now under the Covenant of Grace for Obedience as well as Faith is required as a condition of the new Covenant for it must be a Faith acted or acting by love and though the person is justified by faith yet that faith must be evidenced by good works Shew me saith the Apostle thy faith by thy works The Moral Law then remains still in force as a rule of this obedience as it shews our misery and drives us to Christ so it regulates our gratitude when we are in Christ. The Law is a glass to present us with a sight of our sin by comparing our past actions with the rule and a lanthorn too to direct us in the path of our duty by comparing our future actions with the same rule In the one respect we see at what distance we have lived from the rule and repent in the other respect we see how to keep close to it and amend our lives The Law indeed has lost it's damning power as to the righteous but 't is still in force to direct though they are acquitted from the curse by the merit of our Saviours death they are not discharged from the duty as being risen again with him to a newness of life and created in him to good works Nay their obligations are heightned and they are to have greater respect to the Law that they may proportion the measures of their gratitude to the merits of their Redeemer for they who have had much forgiven must love much and love is the fulfilling of the Law Christ having bought us with a price we are no longer our own to fulfill the lusts of the flesh but we are his and we shall be known to be his by loving one another and keeping his commands And 't is plain that he meant not to release us from the Law but rather to improve and inhance the observation of it and in those things wherein the ties of the Law were slacken'd either by God's indulgence or false glosses and corrupt customes of men to fill it up and clear it from mistakes and lay greater weight on it's precepts as appears by his Sermon on the mount wherein he goes over most of the particulars And what the Apostle sayes before conversion If it had not bi● for the Law I had not known sin so we may say after conversion Were it not for the Law we should not know our duty The Law is divided into ten Commandements whence 't is called the Decalogue or ten Words which were written upon two Tables four on one Table and six on the other 'T is not amiss to take notice of the division the Law is a rule of practice and the hand the great instrument of action a Table for each hand and for every finger a Commandement A brief survey of the method scheme by which the commands are distinguished we may take thus The first Table sets down the duties we ow to God the second Table contains our duties to Man our neighbours and our selves All is but Love but with difference of degrees for our love to our neighbour must be subordinate and inferiour to our love to God so our Saviour hath resolved the summ of all Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy mind with all thy soul and with all thy strength to as high a degree as possibly we can for it may be supposed that these several words signify but the same thing that is the highest intension of love It would be too Critical perhaps to make a different sense of each word that the heart should signify the will the mind note the understanding the soul stand for the affections and strength imply our bodily service It means sure the whole man And thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self And that one would think should be very well but this Law teacheth us how to love our selves too There 's scarce any one doth that so well as he should doe Our neighbour cannot quarrel us if we love him as our selves but God will not be content with that he will be loved above every thing above self it self We must love every thing else for God's sake and God for his own The duties to God take up the first place and those being discharged will à priori effect the second table duties He that go's thorough the first table will never boggle at the second Religion and Knavery are inconsistent Can he be holy that 's unjust fear God that honours not his King doth he conscientiously fear an Oath who makes no conscience of a Lye a zealous professor and a cheat a strict Sabbath keeper and an Usurper a

people might fill their hands and become Priests to a Tyrant's interest when prosperous villany has been bless'd in the Name of the Lord and suffering Innocence has been impleaded as guilty when swearing is in so much credit is look'd on as the Character of Greatness and rash oaths have the reputation of Gallantry when we that have the Name of God call'd upon us live unworthy of that calling make his Name be evill spoken of O! let us pray as the Church has taught us Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law The fourth Commandement The third was the rule of our words the fourth of our works and that which is consequent to them rest That teaches us holy talk This instructs us in holy walking for so our Church-Catechism has resolv'd the sense of this Command to serve God faithfully all the dayes of our life so that 't is not the seaventh day onely but all seaven that we are to serve God in He that would serve God well on the Sabbath in a holy rest must first serve him in his week's labour and doing the work of the six dayes well The second and third concern the Manner of his worship This more especially the Time It hath also as the other two had two parts the Precept and the Reason of the precept The precept is attended with a large explication what is meant by Sabbath and what meant by Keeping it Holy First we may take notice of the extraordinary manner wherein it is deliver'd 't is usher'd in with a Memento Then what is to be remember'd the Sabbath and the Sanctification of it Then follows the explication What is the Sabbath by Opposition first to our dayes of work the other dayes of the week six dayes shalt thou labour and doe all thy work which indeed is precept too as well as concession no less a Command to oblige us to diligence in our calling then a Grant to give us leave to follow it And the injunction is twofold that we labour take pains in our imployment set our selves a work and that we finish and make an end of our business and doe all that we have to doe Then secondly by Position which punctually sets down the day But the seaventh day is the Sabbath What is it next to Sanctify the Sabbath or keep it holy To doe no work on that day nothing of our ordinary imployment wherein the strictness of the Command appears that all of the family as well as the Master all of the city as well as the Magistrate are concern'd being set down here by name Thou master and mistress or magistrate or whatever governour and thy natural dependencies thy son and thy daughter and thy acquired relations whether by Covenant or hire thy man●servant and thy maid servant or by purchase and possession thy cattle or by sojourning the stranger that is within thy gates The reason is taken from God's own example whereof we have first the Narration how he made all things in six dayes and rested the seaventh and then the Design of his so doing that he might appoint the Sabbath wherefore he blessed the Sabbath-day or as the Septuagint have it the seaventh day and hallowed it REMEMBER We are too apt all over to forget our duty wordlings especially in the pursuit of their earthly concernments would scarce make a stop at the Sabbath and therefore this Command summons them with a particular Alarum a word of much weight in the Hebrew Idiom where the Verb should be twice repeated Remember to remember i.e. be sure by all means to remember and denotes the former old custom of keeping the Sabbath even from the beginning of the world and therefore presents it here as an ancient institution to be remembred And it quickens our care not only for the observation of the day when it comes but for our preparation for it before it comes we must think of it all the week afore hand and provide for it that nothing may divert us from the celebration of it THE SABBATH-DAY A day of rest and leisure from the works of our ordinary calling that ceasing thus from our earthly affairs we may have opportunity to meditate on heavenly things and lift up our souls from the cares of this life to the contemplation of those joyes gloryes which those that serve God shall have in the world to come where there shall be an everlasting Sabbath TO KEEP IT HOLY To set it aside wholly for the service of God in publick by Prayer reading and hearing God's Word serving God in the solemn assembly in private by meditation and study of God's Book and other holy exercises We are to remember both the day and the keeping the day holy some are ready enough to remember the Sabbath as a time of leisure out of carnal indulgence but they are not so ready to remember the duty of the day to keep it holy and improve it for spiritual advantage SIX DAYES THOU SHALT LABOUR This as it declares the precept so it shews the equity of it if God allow us six we should not grudge him the seaventh Besides it has the force of a command and is deliver'd in the same manner as the other Commandements Thou shalt labour He that 's idle all the week has no right to the Sabbath-rest He that 's careless in doing his own work on the six dayes is unfit to be imployed in God's service on the seaventh The word many times hath a peculiar signification for the service of God and thus it will inferr that every day is a Christian's Sabbath and he is to be doing God's work even when he is doing his own AND SHALT DOE ALL THAT THOU HAST TO DOE Dispatch all thy business and leave nothing undone against the Sabbath that thou mayst be wholly vacant and have thy thoughts as well as thy body at rest and thy mind free from all distractions of worldly cares thou mayst have nothing else to think upon but the worship of God This calls upon us for diligence in our callings that we must not doe our work by halves but go thorough with it And it gives a Typical intimation too that we would in this week of our mortality set upon and accomplish the necessary work of Repentance Faith and Obedience that we may have all our accounts clear'd e're the eternal Sabbath come upon us when if we have left that work undone we shall have no time allow'd us to go on with it and bring it to an end BUT THE SEAVENTH DAY This is the Ceremonial part of the Command but that a seaventh should be kept is Moral For the Iews in memory of the Creation were to observe the seaventh Day which with us is Saturday as their Sabbath whereon God having made all things rested But Christians in memory of a greater work of Redemption led by Apostolical practise have constantly observ'd the first day of the week to wit