Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	holy_a	mercy_n	miserable_a	4,748	5	11.1845	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59623	Salvation by grace and never the less of grace, tho it be through faith and not without it in several sermons on Eph. II, viii / by John Sheffield.	Sheffield, John, 1654?-1726.	1698 (1698)	Wing S3065; ESTC R10848	48,475	122

Crown of Life 2 Pet. 1. 5 6 7 8 11. Give Diligence to add to your Faith Vertue and to Vertue Knowledge c. for so an entrance shall be ministred unto you into the Everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour And those Threats on the other Hand to those that do not Persevere Heb. 10. 38. If any Man draw back my Soul shall have no Pleasure in him Heb. 12. 14. And Holiness without which no Man shall see the Lord. What I shall say to the last Point of Doctrine viz. That Salvation being thro' Faith doth not hinder or oppugn its being of Grace shall be in answering three Questions or Objections that may be made against its being of Grace Quest. 1. How is our Salvation of Grace since it is not without the Merit and Satisfaction of Christ But before I come directly to Answer this I must Premise something for the better Understanding of this Matter which is this That the Scripture speaking of the Salvation of Sinners as it doth assert that it is of Grace so we frequently meet with this Phrase that it is through Faith and elsewhere most frequently that it is thro' Christ. It is of Grace through Faith saith the Text 2 Tim. 3. 15. Wise unto Salvation through Faith in Christ Jesus Heb. 6. 12. Who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises And elsewhere we find that Salvation and all the Parts of it are said to be through Christ Rom. 3. 24. Through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus Eph. 1. 7. Redemption through his Blood Tit. 3. 5 6. But according to his Mercy he saved us which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour in these and many other Scriptures you may observe that Grace Mercy or Love as it is a Love of Benevolence or Good-will is at the Head or Top of all which is Gods gracious Free Propension and Inclination to do good to us to Pardon and Save us this you see is at the Head of all and before all but the Effects and Fruits of it is said to be given to us sometimes through Christ through his Blood and through his Redemption and sometimes through Faith and yet these hinder not its being of Grace 1. Salvation is through Christ with respect to God giving and bestowing of it that he may give such great and undeserved Mercies and Benefits to Sinners in a way becoming himself becoming of his Wisdom Holiness and Justice which could not be if they were given absolutely without respect to the Redemption and Satisfaction of Christ. 2. And it is said to be through Faith with respect to our receiving and being made actual Partakers of these Benefits of Pardon Life and Salvation We must receive these great and undeserved Benefits through Faith and partake of them only by Faith that we may in our very partaking of them honour both the Father and the Son both our Supream Rector and Redeemer that is we must receive and partake of them in such a way wherein we shall acknowledge admire and adore the Love and Mercy the Wisdom Holiness and Justice of God the Father Together with the Love Grace Condescension and Kindness of our Saviour and Redeemer God gives Salvation through Christ and his Redemption that he may give as becomes himself so as becomes an infinitely Wise Holy and Just Governour and we must receive or partake of it only through Faith that we may receive it as becomes our selves that is as becomes miserable guilty lost and undone Sinners we must receive the Salvation of Grace in such a way wherein our very receiving is an acknowledgment that our selves are nothing and that God and Christ is all that even when we receive a Pardon we shall at the same time yea in the same Act acknowledge that we deserve to be condemned and that Gods Grace freely bestows all upon us for the sake of the Redemption and Satisfaction of Christ so much in the general and which will afford Light for the solving of the following Questions or Objections Obj. 1. How is our Salvation of Grace and of such free Grace when it is not without the Merit and Satisfaction of Christ when so great a Price as the Life and Blood of the Son of God was exacted by God and paid by Christ for the Purchase of it Ans. The Socinians will easily answer this in their way for they say that our Pardon and Salvation is meerly an Act of Dominion and Favour and not procured by the Sufferings of Christ as a Punishment and Satisfaction for our Sins For they say that Christs Sufferings was no Punishment for our Sin nor any proper Satisfaction to Divine Justice and that our Sin was no antecedent inpulsive Cause of Christs Suffering nor his Sufferings any meritorious Cause of our Pardon or Salvation But this cannot be admitted without subverting the whole Gospel and destroying the very Foundations of the Christian Religion for this makes the whole Mediation Death and Sufferings of Christ to be in vain or of very little use for they assign but little if any thing more to the Death of Christ then what may be attributed to the Death and Sufferings of the Martyrs This therefore must be acknowledged that the Death and Sufferings of Christ were a Punishment for our Sins a proper Satisfaction to Divine Justice a price of our Redemption and yet that our Pardon and Salvation is of Grace notwithstanding For the right Understanding of which it is necessary to shew 1. How or in what Relation God is chiefly to be considered in this business of the Redemption and Salvation of Sinners 2. What is the Reason and Use of Christs Sufferings 1. God in the Business of Redemption is to be considered principally as the supream Ruler and Governour of the World infinitely Wise Holy and Just who was greatly offended and provoked by Sin and his Law and Government slighted dispised and trampled upon by Sinners and yet of his own infinitely good and gracious Nature was propense and inclined to shew Pity and Mercy yea to deliver and save his miserable Creatures that had made themselves so by their Sin and Apostalie But this could not be effected without some way or medium whereby the Honour of God's Law and of his Wisdom Justice and Holiness as the righteous Governour of the World shall be secured and preserved for God can do nothing unjustly nothing unwisely or unholily but should he of meer Grace and Favour without any Punishment of Sin or a sufficient Satisfaction to his Justice have pardoned the Sin of Man there would have lain great Imputations against his Wisdom and Holiness his Truth and Justice and such inconveniences as would have reproached if not subverted his Government It may not be amiss to give you alight touch of this for I design to not insist upon it so largely as it might be 1. If God should have pardoned and saved Sinners without a Satisfaction this would have reflected upon

plead the end of your Creation which was that you might serve him your Maker in a pleasing and acceptable manner go to him then and plead this Can you not say Lord thou hast shewed me that the very end of my Being is that I might please and serve thee which in this corrupt and depraved state I am in I can never do without thy renewing and sanctifying Grace O that as thou hast magnified thy Power in making of me out of nothing so let thy Grace be magnified in recovering a lost and undone Creature in reconciling an apostate Creature to thy self deny not the help of thy Grace to recover a depraved corrupted Creature that would fain answer the end of his Being that would fain be capable of that Work and Service thou madest him for Lord I would fain fill up the place in thy Creation that thou hast set me in and not be an unprofitable Drone or a useless Burden in it 3. Your may plead your own Misery as Ps. 79. 8. Let thy tender Mercy prevent us for we are brought very low While Persons are under the Means of Grace and Salvation Misery is a good Argument to plead with a gracious and merciful God plead then your Misery with God say Lord I am a lost Creature an undone Creature laiden with Guilt and Sin and like to be lost and undone for ever if thy Mercy pity not if thy Grace do not help and save me in time my Misery is such that none can help or save me but thou and if thou save not I must perish for ever Say tho as I am an Apostate sinner I am a most deserving object of thy Wrath yet as I am a miserable lost creature here is a fit object for thee to glorifie thy Grace and Mercy upon Will it not be the Glory of thy Mercy to Pity and Help the miserable and will it not be the Glory of thy Grace to save such as deserve thy Wrath 4. You may plead your own weakness and inability to help or save your selves that you can do nothing without him nothing that will be to any purpose or that will be of any avail to Salvation without his special Grace Say Lord I have destroyed my self I confess but in thy Grace alone is all my Hope and Help thou knowest that I have such an hard Heart that none but thou can soften such an Iron Sinew in my Will that none but thou can bend such a carnal corrupt earthly Temper and Disposition that none but thou can renew and change it O let thy Mercy Pity and thy own Grace move thee to help a miserable lost Creature that has no help in himself or in any other besides thee 5. You may plead the very End and Design of Redemption which was the Glory of his free Grace and Mercy in the recovery and Salvation of miserable and lost Sinners Say Lord didst not thou contrive the Work of Redemption and send thy Son into the World and deliver him up to Death for this very End and Design that thy Grace together with other of thy Perfections might be glorious in pardoning justifying sanctifying and saving of depraved guilty and lost Sinners Now behold here a miserable lost Child of Adam didst thou not send thy Son that thy Grace might be glorified in the Salvation of such and will not thy Grace be as glorious in saving of me as of any other O be not Angry with the Prayer stop not thine Ears against the cries of thy poor lost Creature that begs but for such things as are suitable and agreeable to thy own gracious Design Thus you see what Arguments all may use with God 5. If it be by Grace that we are saved then if you would partake of it's saving Influences this directs you to lye in the way of it that is exhibite the greatest Seriousness Diligence Earnestness in the Use of Gods appointed Means that possibly you can for as Grace gives all freely and chooses it 's own Objects upon whom it will bestow it's Gifts so it chooses and appoints it 's own Way and Means wherein and whereby it will communitate it's saving fruits and Effects to Men and these are the Word and Ordinances and Duties of Holiness and Worship Hence the Gospel is called the Gospel of the Grace of God and the Ordinances of Worship are called the Means of Grace not only because the Grace of God is therein revealed and made known but also because it is thereby in the serious diligent and reverend Use of them communicated and bestowed upon carnal blind and dead Sinners for the inlightening sanctifying and saving them therefore here you must lie and wait for it as the impotent Man did at the Pool of Bethesda waiting for the Motion of the Waters There was a healing Vertue communicated but it was by those Waters and no others So Grace doth communicate it's healing sanctifying and saving Virtue but it is by it's own chosen and appointed Means and no other As it is the influence and blessing of Heaven that give us the Fruits of the Earth but this only by blessing Mans Labour and Industry in Plowing and Sowing and never without it so it is here Carnal Hearts are apt to draw a quite contrary Conclusion from hence and to say if it be Grace that saves us then we have the less if any thing to do our selves But you see the contray Inference to this of theirs is clear viz. that we should not do the less our selves but rather the more because Grace saves us as the Apostle saith Work out your Salvation with Fear and Trembling for it is God that Works in you both to will and to do A strange Inference some would think and yet it is very clear as you may see in other things the Husbandman when the season fits him doth bestir himself the more in plowing and sowing and gathering in the Fruits of the Earth because he knows he hath not the Season in his own Power and all his Labor and Industry without that will signifie nothing at all so here if it be Grace that must save us if ever we be saved Then you have great Reason to bestir your selves in using the Means wherein Grace communicates it self 6. If Grace saves us then as you must use the Means that are of it's appointing so you must use then dependently with an Eye to Grace for its Blessing upon them to make them successful Grace is too little eyed too little sought unto too little depended on in the Use of Means and therefore the Success is for the most part accordingly Persons in hearing the Word eye Men that are Instruments but eye not God and his Grace which is the Life and Soul of all Ordinances Persons eye Men and not God depend more upon Mens Parts and Abilities than upon Gods Grace and Blessing and therefore they find in Ordinances what a Man can do and no more And what is that Why a