Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
world_n church_n rome_n visible_a 2,048 5 9.2278 5 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
B10050 A description of the natural condition of being in the flesh. A sermon / preached by Nicholas Smyth ... And published at the request of some private friends for the publique good. Smith, Nicholas, d. 1680. 1657 (1657) Wing S4138; ESTC R184316 20,153 60

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

A DESCRIPTION OF THE NATURAL CONDITION OF Being in the flesh A SERMON Preached by NICHOLAS SMYTH Mr of Arts and Preacher of Gods Word And published at the request of some private friends for the publique good Prov. 23. ver 23. Buy the truth and sell it not also wisdom instruction and understanding Iob 19. ver 28. But ye should say why persecute we him seeing the root of the matter is found in him Printed by J. Owsley for Rich. Knowls 1657. TO THE CHRISTIAN READER CHristian Reader it is well known unto the world that the Church of Rome hath a long time arrogated to her self to be the outward visible Church out of which there is no salvation and hath excluded all others which will not hold of her and acknowledge her to be the mother Church from all hopes of heaven and happiness And divers moderate and temperate Christians of all Churches yeilding a possibility of salvation to many ignorant seduced Christians who live in that Church or hold of her and not being willing to usurpe upon Gods prerogative to judge either the Church in general to be no Church or any particular members of the same to be no Christians they make use of their adversaries charity and by the glorious name of the Church out of which there is no salvation which they restrain onely to themselves deceive multitudes We have a long time expected a blessed reformation and have with sighes and prayers and tears desired of God that a general assembly of Divines might be called wherein the errours of the Church of Rome and more particularly this dangerous and pernicious errour of theirs in casting all out of the Church which will not comply with them in their errours and gross absurdities might have been condemned But instead thereof there are risen up in this land divers Sectaries who appropriate salvation to themselves and their own companies and exclude all others from the Kingdom of heaven I shall name none of them but leave them to the judgement of God and the verdict of their own consciences But divers Sectaries there be who make the world believe that they are the Elect of God or the companies wherein the Elect lie hid And our charity being the like to them that it is to the Church of Rome we conceiving that there are among them some ignorantly seduced Christians who are the true Elect of God and not daring to usurpe upon Gods prerogative to judge any of them They make advantage of our charity and make the world believe that there can be no safety for any that look for salvation but by flying to them and their companies So that by this means the Church of God is miserably distracted there scarce seemeth to be any face of a Church So that Mr. Pl●dell in a speech in Parliament made Feb. th● 8. 1641. as a worthy member of the honourable Assembly of Parliament of the great Parliament at its first sitting did fear it would come to pass we see it is come to pass We have rather changed our Pilot then our condition and if we be come out of Rome have onely shifted places to finde our ruin But yet we hope that God will in due time deliver us from all those men and companies of men that disturb the quiet and peace of the Church and Common-wealth Though our charity be never so great toward them and we will not judge them yet if they be guilty they cannot escape the judgement of God nor the verdict of their own consciences I have here in a plain Sermon described the natural condition of being in in the flesh so that all that read the Sermon if they be not willingly ignorant or wilfully sinful may know whether they themselves be in Christ or whether they be in the flesh and I am perswaded that all that read this Sermon if they be truly regenerate spiritual not carnal they will abstain from all rash censuring of the present condition and from all uncharitable and unchristian judging of the future and the final condition of their brethren It is my request to thee Christian Reader that thou wouldst not be carried away with the sway of the times rashly to censure or uncharitably to judge others but that thou wouldest in all humility of heart judge thy self and if in this Sermon thou findest any new lights yet if they be true lights acknowledge as the author doth that they come from above from the Father of lights who is pleased in dark times by the light of his word and by the light of his holy spirit to inlighten his Church Read then the Sermon without prejudice and if thou reapest any benefit by it give God the praise and pray for the increase of knowledge and grace in him who is and will remain Thine in the work of Grace NICHOLAS SMYTH A DESCRIPTION of the NATURAL CONDITION OF Being in the Fesh Rom. 8. ver 8. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God THat hereditary stain and original corruption which we all drew from the loins of our first parents Christian and beloved brethren it sticketh fast and close unto us and so long as we carry about us this body of clay this burden of flesh we can never be perfectly rid of it And the weight and burden of sin doth so press and weigh down a true Christian that it causeth him to cry out almost dispairingly with the Apostle S. Paul O miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of sin But as we say in Philosophy elementa in suo loco neque gravant neque levant the elements in their proper place they are neither light nor heavy So is it with sins when they are in their proper place the hearts of wicked men they weigh nothing there and whether they be light sins or heavy they are insensible of the burden of them and if hypocrites complain of sin in others and true Christians of sin in themselves they that are fleshly minded meer natural men as they know not what sin is so they feel not the burden of it And if they be not over curious to see sin in others they are not over careful to see or amend it in themselves and therefore they think themselves of all others in a happy condition who neither trouble them selves with others sins nor yet with their own Whereas in truth there is no peace promised but to the troubled conscience no quiet nor rest but to the burdened soul those that are weary and heavy laden with the burden of their sins While therfore these men are pleasing themselves with this vain phantasie and thinking that they of all others have right to heaven and to earth too The Spirit of God in the Scripture meeteth with them and sheweth them that they may please themselves but they cannot they do not please God while they remain in their natural condition without purging sin out of their hearts So then they that are