Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	deny_v	live_v	ungodliness_n	2,303	5	11.2667	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66604	A discourse of the Resurrection shewing the import and certainty of it / by William Wilson.	Wilson, William, Rector of Morley.	1694 (1694)	Wing W2954; ESTC R24575	126,012	256

deprives them of their Souls and Justice sends them into the other World and no Mercy but such as is Revealed can assure them that they who die by the Hand of Justice shall have their Souls restored to them again when once they have lost them For those who were not informed of this matter by any Divine Revelation never thought of such a thing as a Resurrection though they did believe that Mercy was an Attribute that belonged to the Divine Nature Neither does the Mercy of the Gospel consist only in revealing to us that God is Mercifull For there needs no Revelation to such a purpose And a Revelation of this nature would be of no great use to us if the Extent of his Mercy was not made known to us in some particular Instance that might encourage us to depend upon it and assure to us the Certainty of the Blessing that we hope for from his Mercy i.e. If he had not Reveal'd to us what we are to Hope for and upon what grounds we are to build our Hopes For to hope in his Mercy only because he is Mercifull is to hope for nothing that is certain and that can afford but cold comfort to Creatures that know they must be miserable for ever unless he shows 'em such a special Favour and Mercy as they stand in need of And it is observable that they who build their hopes of Mercy at large do talk very much at random as if they knew not what to hope for and were altogether unskill'd in the state and condition of another life Further it does not consist in prescribing to us the most perfect Vertue in the Rules and Example of our great Lord. For though this be an Eminent part of the Gospel-Mercy and Goodness yet it would be no Mercy if we were not put into a condition of obeying the Gospel with Hope For what Mercy is it to have the most exalted Vertue set before us if we cannot attain unto it and yet must perish if we do not Or if though we could attain unto it we must die by reason of a former Sentence For it is too late for a Malefactour to apply himself to that Obedience that the Law requires when he is already condemned for transgressing it Neither can he receive any Benefit from the best Informations concerning his Duty till he is acquitted from the Sentence he is fall'n under And therefore Zacharias in his pious Hymn celebrated the Mercy of the Gospel upon this account That being deliver'd out of the hands of our Enemies we may serve God without fear Luk. 1.74 Once more It does not consist only in God's Revealing to us that he will forgive us our Sins upon our Repentance and not charge the many Errours of our Lives upon us if we do our best to perfect Holiness None must deny but this is a very great degree of Mercy and that the Gospel does acquaint us that there is such Mercy with God For it encourages us to turn from Satan to the living God by the Promise of Forgiveness and assures us of Everlasting life upon the Sincerity of our Obedience So that he who applies his Mind with the greatest care and industry to improve himself according to the Rules of the Gospel will be acquitted even by the very Justice of his Redeemer when he comes to be Judged though he has not a Righteousness every way compleat to plead at that day But though this be a very mercifull Condescention yet it does not set before us the utmost height of that Mercy that the Gospel sets before us For it further lets us know That God's just Sentence of Death upon us is remitted without which all his other Mercy would have been to no purpose And that as upon this account St. Paul exhorted the Corinthians 1 Epist 15.58 We may be stedfast unmoveable and always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as we know that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord i.e. Because we are assured we shall rise again from under our former Sentence and be rewarded with Everlasting life And therefore this is styled the Hope of the Gospel Col. 1.23 to denote it to be the peculiar Mercy wherewith it encourages us to live according to the Laws of Christ The grace of God which brings Salvation or makes known our being discharged from Death as a Punishment and that therefore we shall rise to Life again teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godlily in this present World looking for that blessed hope Tit. 2.11 12 13. i.e. That Immortal life that this Mercy encourages us to labour for For he that has this hope which no Man could have unless he was freed from Condemnation i.e. Justified purifies himself as God is pure 1 Joh. 3.3 And still for our greater encouragement the Gospel lets us know that this Mercy is merited and that the Hopes of rising to Life again which we are begotten to is founded upon the Redemption we have by Jesus Christ and the price of our Mediatour's Blood That there is forgiveness with God because Divine Justice is satisfied and the Power of Justifying us to Eternal life is committed to him who has suffer'd the Punishment of our Sins This is that height of Mercy that the Gospel reveals to us 'T is Mercy that is procured for us by the Death of our Redeemer and Exemplified to us in his Resurrection And therefore we know what it is that we are to expect from him 'T is Mercy that we have a right to upon the account of the Price that has been paid for it and therefore we know that it is just with God to restore us the Lives we lose In a word it is Mercy that is in the Hand of our Mediatour that has conquer'd and triumph'd over Death and on that account we have a full Assurance that he will remember his own Mercy and compell Death and the Grave to give up the Dead that are in them The Mercy of the Gospel then is a sufficient encouragement to us to do our Duty because it does not leave us at Uncertainties as those Hopes do which are grounded only upon the Mercifull Nature of God It is owing to the Mercifull Nature of God that we have the Hopes of Immortality But that Resurrection to Life which is the great Grace of the Gospel is not a thing that we are still to depend upon the Will and good Pleasure of God for For it is already granted us And though it is the Gift of God it is a Gift in the Hands of our Surety who is entrusted with the Power of giving Life 3. Since he has received Power to Justifie i.e. to Raise us and to give Eternal lise to his sincere Disciples This may inform us what Honour and Reverence is due to him And this is a Matter well worth our Consideration because there are a sort of Men that discourse as

to a sensible Creature But that which is most grievous in it is That it comes upon us as a Punishment and that we die by the just Judgment of God upon us And how much comfort must it give us to think that we are discharged from that Condemnation which is the severest Consideration in Death How may it revive our Spirits and raise our Heads to think That though in Adam all die yet in Christ shall all be made alive To know that we are justified in the Resurrection of him who died for our Offences is such a healing Consideration to our Minds as leaves nothing in Death that is troublesome but those little Aversions that Nature has to a Dissolution It is 't is true and always will be difficult matter to meet Death without concern and something of consternation because there is something praeter-natural in it But yet how unwilling soever Nature is to submit to so hard a fate yet we know we must and since the Law that has appointed us to die is irreversible the only wise thing we have to do in such Circumstances is to reconcile our selves to the thoughts of dying as well as we can that we may go out of the World with as little disquiet and aversion to a thing that we cannot help as is possible And the only Consideration that is sufficient in this case is this of our being in a Justified state and that we know the Reason of that Hope which alone is sufficient to bear up our Minds For with what peace and satisfaction may we go to our Graves when we know that the place our Souls go to will not be an Eternal Prison to them and that Death is not inflicted as an Eternal Punishment 5. Let us consider with how much care we ought to live while we are in this World For since we are acquitted from Condemnation we are not in so hopeless a Condition as those that must die without Mercy For the Grace and Favour of God that has remitted to us that Sentence has favour'd us with an opprtunity of escaping from the Wrath that is Eternal This is the favour that he publishes to the World in the Gospel and that which he calls upon us to do is to lay hold on this opportunity and to make a good use of it The grace of God i.e. the Gospel which brings or acquaints us with this Salvation teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts Tit. 2.12 For it sets Life and Death before us i.e. it lets us know that God is willing to try us once more and therefore favours every Man as he did Adam with the Liberty of chusing for himself which of these two he pleaseth And surely it is but a just and reasonable Expectation that we should lay hold of the opportunity that is put into our Hands of escaping for our Lives That if Death be so terrible a thing to us as we make it and we cannot very easily brook being condemned for a fault that is none of ours we should be very carefull for the future not to do any thing that may provoke God to condemn us for our own faults and be extremely fearfull of offering Violence to our selves and having our own Hands in the blood of our Souls It might be judg'd a hard Law by us that the fault of others should be charged upon us and that we should be under a Condemnation to Death because our first Parents sinn'd Therefore he calls upon us to look to our selves and tells us there is no more occasion for complaint as if the Children's teeth were set on edge by the sowre Grapes that our Fathers have eaten For he has remitted to us that Sentence that assigned us over to the power of Death and has privileg'd us with the liberty of taking care of the Life we are so unwilling to lose And if Life be so precious a thing to us as by our Apprehensiveness of Death we would be thought to account it what a wretched Madness is it while we are complaining of the hardship of our Circumstances as we are condemn'd in Adam to take so little care of it now it is put into our own hands to secure it as if it was all one to us whether we lived or died If Death be an indifferent thing to us why do we tremble at it Why does the near approach of it put us into terrible Agonies Why do we seem to account it a hard fate to be doom'd to die for a fault that was not in our power to help But if it be as really frightfull as it appears why should we neglect so favourable an opportunity of providing for our future safety as it put into our hands This will be a very great Aggravation of the Folly and Misery of wicked Men when they come to be condemn'd to a second Death that there will be no altering of that Sentence no more Mercy to be expected for the delivering them from the Wrath that their own faults will then bring upon them Oh how many sad Reflections will it occasion to think that they have twice forseited Life and that it is in spight of Mercy and Grace that they have destroy'd themselves by their own saults That they have been tried a second time whether they would chuse Life and Immortality but have made no better a choice for themselves than their first Fathers did So that the Mercy that deliver'd them from the Death they were condemn'd to in Adam was thrown away upon them and which will not a little add to the Misery of the second Doom as much as they fear'd dying they have yet made it their choice And since this will be the Fate of all Men that neglect so great Salvation ought we not to be carefull how we use it Surely after such an escape as this is there is great reason that God should expect that we should look well to our Ways and be very watchfull over our selves for the future That when-ever any sensual Appetite begins to be over-craving or the Riches Pleasures or Honours of this World do tempt us to Covetousness or Oppression to Sensuality or Intemperance to Pride or Ambition we should call to mind the Danger we have escaped and that we shall perish with scorn and contempt if we let our Love of our Bodies undo us twice This use we ought to make of our being in a Justified state for since the Sentence of Death is remitted we have a fair opportunity put into our Hands of securing a Life that is Immortal But if we lose this opportunity we shall sorfeit our Lives again and all the Mercy that would save us 2. His being raised for our Justification does imply his receiving Power and Authority to justifie us And here we are to consider Two things 1. That he is invested with Power and Authority to deliver us from Death 2. That this Power he received when he rose from the Dead 1. That he is invested with