Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	death_n	sin_n	sin_v	14,462	5	10.3751	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52773	Six Sermons preached (most of them) at S. Maries in Cambridge / by Robert Needham.	Needham, Robert, d. 1678.; Calamy, Benjamin, 1642-1686.	1679 (1679)	Wing N410; ESTC R26166	88,797	240

conclusion and could such an Argumentation deceive we could have little encouragement to believe any thing upon the testimony of our Faculties Again If this were the effect of some early revelation made to men when they were yet few in number and retained in the dispersion of Nations and still preserved notwithstanding the gross ignorance they fell into as to other matters This must be a great evidence of the clearness and evidence of that revelation at first and must consequently much confirm us in the belief of it And indeed it is not improbable that the rational Evidences of this Truth of a Judgment to come might have been confirmed to the first Ages of the World by some divine revelations which were communicated to all and thence derived and propagated through all the several Religions and Superstitions which afterward were entertained by the Heathen World It is not to be doubted but that Noah understood this Truth and would not fail to instruct his Family which were all humane souls that were left alive in so necessary a matter which might have so great influence upon them to keep them in obedience to God who had so lately delivered them from so universal a destruction Nay there is still extant the remainder of a Prophecy concerning a Judgment to come much ancienter than the Flood This we find cited by Saint Jude 14. And Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied saying Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him And this leads me to the last and most undeniable evidence of this truth 4. The particular revelation of it in holy Scripture but the testimonies of this Truth that there is a Judgment to come are so frequent in the Writings of the Evangelists and Apostles that it were altogether needless to recite them to you Every one that hath heard of the Gospel must understand that is one chief Article of our Christian Profession Nothing more plainly revealed nothing more frequently inculcated than that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ I proceed therefore to the second thing proposed The Method of proceeding at that day Every one shall receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad That the good or evil of mens actions in this life is the rule and measure according to which they shall be judged at the great day that they who have done good shall receive the good they have done and they who have done evil shall receive according to that likewise is a Truth so fully and plainly taught in holy Scripture that one would think men could not easily mistake or deceive themselves in this matter For 1. It is very plain that no other way of proceeding can be agreeable to the Purity and Justice of the Divine Nature The righteous God loveth righteousness and his countenance will behold the the thing that is just and he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity The righteous therefore and they onely can be capable of reward from him when he cometh to judge the Earth and the wicked and unrighteous and they only must be the objects of his wrath and vengeance To do otherwise than so and to invert this method would be a contradiction to all the divine Attributes and to all the Methods whereby God hath made himself known to the Sons of men And therefore the Author of the Book of Wisdom saith thus to the Almighty Wisd xij 15. For as much as thou art righteous thy self thou orderest all things righteously thinking it not agreeable to thy power to condemn him who hath not deserved to be punished To which we may also add That it is not agreeable to his Purity and Justice to reward the unrighteous and disobedient And therefore we may observe That in all the methods of Gods dealings with the Sons of men he hath all along declared the greatest abhorrence of sin and wickedness and the greatest severity against those that continued in the commission of it It was Sin onely that brought Misery and Death into the World For by one mans disobedience sin entered into the World and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned And when God was pleased out of his infinite mercy and compassion to contrive the way of our recovery and to send his Son into the World for our Redemption he would not admit us to terms of Peace and Reconciliation without the greatest demonstration of his justice and severity against sin and that in the Sufferings of his onely begotten Son For he was made sin for us who know no sin he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities by his stripes we are healed Now we are not to persuade our selves that our Saviours sufferings in our stead can be available to us or free us from the punishment of our sins while we continue in them For he bare our sins in his own body on the tree for no other end but that we being dead to sin might live unto righteousness that so being saved from our sins here we might be saved from the Wages of them hereafter And therefore Saint Paul tells us that the grace of God hath appeared to all men to bring salvation no otherwise than by teaching us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live righteously soberly and godly in this present World Thus if we consider the nature of God and his dealings with Mankind we cannot but expect that when he cometh to judge the World he will judge according to righteousness They who have done good shall be rewarded by him and they who have done evil shall receive a due recompence of their evil deeds 2. This is further evident from the several promises and threatnings in Scripture which are all along made use of as Arguments to persuade us to the practice of righteousness and true holiness and to discourage and dissuade us from sin and wickedness which it were in vain to do if the promises of the Gospel can be due to any but upon condition of their obedience or if the Wrath to come could be avoided any otherwise than by forsaking those sins to which it is threatned Thus Saint Paul argues from the promises of the Gospel 2 Cor. vij 1. Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God Thus again S. Peter i. 4. tells That by the Gospel there are given unto us great and pretious promises that by these ye may be partakers of the Divine Nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through Lust and besides this giving all

and true c. Such also are the general notions of good and evil which God hath planted in every mans soul which have so evident an obligation that no pretended demonstration in the World ought to shake our belief of them But there are other opinions which men take up upon lesser evidence which they are sometimes as tenacious of as of those first fundamental principles And these sort of prejudices are commonly the great hindrances of the propagation of truth there being scarcely any Sect in Religion which have not some peculiar tenets which they take up upon weak and incompetent grounds in proportion to which they judge of all other doctrines and make them the rule and measure according to which all places of Scripture must be interpreted Now in regard we all confess our selves liable to infirmity and mistake it is certainly the most equitable and reasonable thing in the World that when we come to enquire after truth we resolve with our selves always to submit to clear evidence though we have been otherwise persuaded Now that the want of this temper is a very great hindrance both to the receiving the Gospel and to our understanding it aright when we have received it I shall endeavour to prove by two notorious instances of the power of prejudice in either of these cases The first instance shall be that of the Jews in our Saviours days The great opposition which our Saviour met withall among the Jews the great reason why they would not receive him for their Messias was grounded upon this prejudice that they took it for granted that their long expected Messias was to have been a temporal Prince and to have appeared with worldly pomp and splendor and that he should have delivered them from the Roman Yoke and have reigned gloriously in Jerusalem And therefore when they saw him appear in so mean and despicable a condition not all the demonstrations of a divine authority accompanying him in all his mighty work not the greatest wisdom with which he spake not the most divine and excellent precepts he gave not all the predictions of their Prophets fulfilled by him not any of these things though they were in themselves as great evidence as they could have required yet none of them could prevail with them against that one prejudice that his Power was to be temporal and that he should restore the kingdom to Israel in a literal sense which was inconsistent with that state of sufferings in which our Saviour appeared Now that this Opinion of the Jews was taken up upon insufficient grounds is evident from hence because though there are glorious things spoken of the Messias yet his sufferings also are foretold by the same Prophets in as plain words as the other Nay it is expresly said by Isaiah that the glory that should be given to the Messias was to be consequent upon his sufferings as a reward of them And the Jews themselves have been so far sensible of the force of those predictions to prove that the Messias should suffer that to salve those prophecies they invented a Fable concerning a two-fold Messias one of which was to suffer for them and the other to redeem them and to reign gloriously over them Though the Prophet Isaiah ch liij v. 12. expresly attributes both to the same person making the suffering of the Messias the reason of the glory which God would afterward confer on him Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death c. But the minds of the Jews were strongly affected with the love of this present World and the glory of it and they hoped that in the days of the Messias they should plentifully enjoy all the blessings of this life and therefore they were resolved to believe no more of the Prophets than agreed with this opinion that was so suitable to their inclinations and were uncapable of being convinced by the most powerful demonstration to the contrary that could possibly be given Thus we see how great the power of this one prejudice was to hinder the Jews from receiving the Gospel at first Nor is the power of preconceived opinions and prejudices less dangerous to hinder our understanding the Gospel when we have received it And of this I might produce many instances in the several dissenting Parties in Christendom every Sect having some peculiar and darling Notion which they hold tenaciously against all opposition and to comply with which all other doctrines must be bowed and wrested as they can best contrive it I shall give but one instance of this kind and that is the doctrine of Infallibility as it is maintained in the Church of Rome This is the leading prejudice of that Party which being once firmly received it becomes the Mother of the most absurd and contradictious opinions in the World and which is worst of all makes those who believe it uncapable of conviction by any argument though never so clear and cogent For what argument can possibly prevail with those who resolve to reject the testimony of their senses though never so well qualified rather than call in question the infallible decision of their Church And this the Papists plainly do in the doctrine of Transubstantiation which hath so many plain absurdities in it and is so clearly contradicted by our several senses that are capable of judging in that matter that there can be no other reason of their obstinate defending of it but that they cannot renounce the doctrine without quitting their claim to Infallibility It is beside my present business to consider upon what grounds they build that infallible power of their Church in determining matters of Faith but yet methinks I cannot persuade my self that they have any Argument for it so plain and cogent as the testimony of their senses and therefore it cannot but seem a strange way of arguing which they use to deny matter of fact evident to their several senses to maintain a doctrine for which they have infinitely less evidence than that they reject We see then how far preconceived opinions and prejudices may prevail both to make men uncapable of receiving the Gospel and of understanding it rightly when they have received it and consequently how much this simplicity of mind doth contribute to our success in the enquiries we make after divine truth 2. The second branch of duty which doth highly conduce to our receiving the Gospel and understanding it aright is purity of heart which consists chiefly in the moderation of our sensual appetites and pleasures He that intends to do the will of God must not retain in his bosom any lust or habitual inclination which he is not willing to forego if he find it contradictory to his will whom he resolves to obey and for that reason must have a constant watch over his sensual desires to keep them in their due bounds Those natural