Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	law_n	sin_n	transgression_n	4,002	5	11.2412	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B10034	Of the day of grace, or, A discourse concerning the possibility and fear of its being past before death shewing the groundless doubts, and mistaken apprehensions of some as to their being finally forsaken and left of God, with the dangerous symptomsand approaches of others to such a sad state, in four sermons from Psalm LXXX1. 11, 12 / by John Shower.	Shower, John, 1657-1715.	1694 (1694)	Wing S3679A; ESTC R184224	54,234	156

Spirit Corruption and Grace in the best while in this World yet which Party dost thou side with Which has thy most willing Consent Which way is thy prevailing Desire Love and Choice Dost thou not bewail the Body of sin and Death And wish to be delivered from Corruption more perfectly To gain a more intire Victory Dost thou not watch and wrestle and strive and pray against it from day to day Is this the true state of thy Case Then never think thou art left of God As to Some of you I may go further and desire you to look back upon your former Humiliations for sin when First you turned to God Though all have not the same sensible Degree of Humiliation yet hath not the Spirit of Grace convinced you of the Holiness and Equity of the Law of God And of your own wretched accursed Condition under the Guilt of sin Have you not been brought to tremble at the thoughts of his righteous Vengence So as to disrelish all the Pleasures of this World by reason of the sense of sin seeing no way out of this Perplexity but by the free and unconceivable Mercy of God in Christ and therefore Renouncing all things that might separate between Christ and thee ready to part with all thy Lusts and Pleasures and Profits and Honours Thou wert made willing to accept of his Mercy on his own Terms crying earnestly for pardoning and sanctifying Grace acknowledging thy Unworthiness of the least Favour owning the righteousness of God if he should condemn thee and yet upon the Invitation and Call of the Gospel looking up to his Mercy-seat with Hope Resolving there to anchor and take no Denial Now after all this and the Covenant Dedication of your selves to God in Christ that followed upon it and some Calmness and stability of Soul consequent thereto will you question all again Because Corruption is not quite mortified nor Sin quite destroyed Even that sense of remaining Sin that you make the matter of your Objection against your selves is an Argument for you and will conclude the Contrary to what you alledge it for IX THO You cannot say so much as to present sense of your Hatred of sin and Loathing of it as you desire yet examine your selves as to the Sins of Others and what sense you have of the Dishonour of God by them We may sometimes gather matter of Comfort this way concerning our own Sincerity and Love to God when we cannot so well have it nearer home As bad as thou art or thinkest thy self to be Art thou not tender of the Honour of God Art thou not concerned for his Interest and Glory Doth not thy soul tremble and thine Heart ake when the Being of God is denied or his Sacred Name blasphemed or the Glory of the Mediator Struck at and the Authority of his Gospel questioned by the Atheists and Saduces and Infidels of the Age Or the Progress of it obstracted Doth not thy Heart rise within thee if thou happen into wicked Company where the Word of God his Institutions his Ministers and Servants are vilified and reproached and bold Impieties vented and vile Impurities boasted of c. X. BUT I do not Grow I rather wax worse will some say As to that Consider that though there be Precepts Promises and Examples of growing in Grace that shew what is Gods usual way and the Proper Tendency of the Spiritual Life yet those Promises are not so Absolute without any Condition as that there is no true Believer who doth not alwaies grow in Grace For Experience shews that some decline and lose their first Fervour and need to be awakened to Repentance The Promises of Growth and Faithfulness are not absolute but depend on the Improvement of Grace received and the Performance of many Duties with great watchfulness and Diligence in our whole Christian Course And many Christians live not up to the Condition of the Accomplishment of such Promises as concern the Growth and thriving of Spiritual Life They decay and decline through their own Carlesness and Negligence Sensible Affections be sure and vigorous Encrease in that respect is not the true Measure whereby to Judge of growth in Grace For different Ages and Tempers and Circumstances of our condition in the world will make a great Difference in sensible Affections You may grow in Grace by a more Judicious Esteem and value of God and Holiness Love to Christ and his Grace and Glory so as it may be harder for the Devil to draw you off from God than before even when you think you do not grow you may be more stable and resolved though not so lively and affectionate And the decay of natural strength and vigor of parts by old age or sickness may make a Difference with some Your Humility your self denial and Patience may encrease when you think otherwise And he who grows more humble thrives in every other Grace whether he believe it and take notice of it or no. But if you are declin'd the Remedy must be to Awake and to use Gods appointed Means to make you grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ You cannot thereupon conclude that you have no Grace much less that you are left of God and given over Such as enquire not whether they grow or decay who have little or no Concern about their own Case as to these things have most reason to fear it of themselves whilst such as do really grow for a time may not discern it And sometimes others may observe it when they themselves disown it or perceive it not But if you are under some declension Remember the cause that it is from sloth and negligence in the use of God's appointed means for Encrease from the want of daily Mortification of sin and Watchfulness against it from countenacing some Lust so that its power is encreased suffering the Love of the World to steal upon you and conforming to it giving way to Formality and carelessness in divine Worship and the Duties of Religion and Apply the Remedy by Repentance Mortification and doing your first works Rev. 3.1,2 But make not hasty unjust Conclusions concerning your final state XI MOREOVER Consider there may be much more of Blame and Faultiness of Guilt and sin in your unbelieving Objections and Despondency than you are aware of Therefore while you complain of sin take heed you do not encrease and add to your sin by disobeying the command of God to Believe and Hope God hath made Hope a positive Duty and Gods Command were enough if there were nothing else in your Case Your Despair as if your Case were desperate and your Condition hopeless that God had finally given you over is a plain sin And will you justifie it He obliges you to hope he hath not bid the Devil or the damned to hope as he hath commanded you It is by hope we are saved and he takes Pleasure in them that hope in his Mercy

not be thought a Rule Therefore in ordinary charitable Reason we ought to Judge more hopefully of those Men who have not run into the grossest sensualities and Corruptions of the World of such especially who by any common Influence of the Spirit with the Word have been kept back from great Transgressions so that by the Knowledge of Christ they have escaped the Pollutions of the World and by the Advantage of their Education and common Grace and Providence have been restrained from foul Miscarriages If such as these do afterwards become profane and loose and sensual and grosly carnal it is said of them their latter End is like to be worse than their Begining And it had been better for them not to have known the Way of Righteousness than after having known it to turn from the holy Commandments That some Men may sin themselves into a state of Incurable Impenitence is very plain from Scripture Your neglect and Provocations may put Christ to his Irreversible Oath and make him swear as he once did that you shall not enter into his Rest Heb. 3.11 And that this is of force in the times of the Gospel is more than intimated v. 12. Exhorting professing Christians at that time to beware of an Evil heart of Vnbelief from the Example of the Israelites That Terrible place Isa 6.9 Is quoted no less than six times in the New Tastament as if it belonged to them who sit under Gospel Light As to that difficult passage Heb. 6.4 5. Concerning those who had been made Partakers of the Holy Ghost and tasted of the good Word of God and of the Powers of the World to come and yet did fall away it is said it is impossible to renew them again In the ordinary way it is not to be expected Though that Passage do especially respect such Apostates as openly renounced Christianity crucifying the Son of God afresh Yet such as after a plausible Profession turn to a loose and notoriously wicked Life whether they keep that Profession still or abandon it they are greatly in danger of the like Judgment For the Earth that drinks in the Rain that often comes upon it and yet brings forth nothing but Briars is rejected and is nigh unto Cursing whose end is to be burned as it there follows 7 8. V. Their Case is next to hopeless and desperate And what reason have all Backsliders to fear lest they sin themselves into such a dismal state Vse 1. And let that be the first Improvement I would make of this Discourse To awaken Apostates and Backsliders to Consider their Danger It may be you have gratified your Lusts notwithstanding the Light of Conscience and the Motions of the Spirit Now it may be you can sin with less Regret and don 't feel the Wounds you give your selves by your Transgressions Can you say but that the Blessed Spirit is retired in great measure already And is it any Wonder after so many struggles and Conflicts if he should for ever Retire and leave you to the full uncontroulable Dominion of your own Lusts If he should say he that is filthy let him be ●●thy still because you would not bepurged you shall not be purged till I make my Fury to rest upon you Awake therefore and consider your Danger You that find any of these things agree to your own Case beware lest you be in the Number of those that draw back unto Perdition in whom God says his Soul can take no Pleasure Heb. 10.38 Take no Pleasure that is whom he loaths and detests Were we not under some great Declension some sad degree of Hardness of Heart our selves how should we pity the Case of all such Persons who are near this Judgment With what hearty Concern for them should we endeavour their Recovery did we know better and believingly consider more what it is to be left of God and given over With what hearty Grief should I mourn over such Persons With what Groans and Tears of Compassion should I warn them and try to awaken them if my own Heart were not under somwhat of this Hardness which they are like to be totally given up unto I confess at first I was loth to preach or publish these things lest I should drive some to Despair But upon more serious Consideration I do not think that the Generality of People are so very apt to Despair They have ten thousand ways to flatter themselves and they will hope for the most part in despight of all Arguments to the Contrary In all the Scripture there is but one Example of a despairing Man and that was Judas Who did not despair by reason of any terrible Doctrine which was preached to him but because of the Load of his own foul sin and the Weakness and Pusillanimity of his own Spirit But for one who despairs O what Multitudes are there who live in sin and yet Sibi suaviter benedicunt think themselves in a good Condition and that all is well Though the Scriptures say that the Righteous shall scarcely be saved and that the Gate is straight that leads to Life yet every Body almost hopes to be saved in the Course they are in though it be the broad way YOU that are under any of these dangerous Symptoms that approach to such a Judgment take heed of Encouraging your selves in a false Hope of ●vation Bethink your selves ap●nd your Da●ger and awake to prevent the dismal Issue Make haste and escape for your Life if yet there be Hope of your Recovery It must be speedy Repentance now while it is called to day before the Master of the House be gone and the Door shut For then many shall seek to enter and shall not be able For so we read Luk. 13.24 25 Verses connected without a full stop between them as in our Translation If you are not yet sealed up and given over as the Motions of the Spirit yet striving with you and some Concernedness about your own Case is a good Argument that you are not O awake and call upon God! Remembering whence you are fallen and repent presently For if you resist and refuse this Call of God you may never have Another or never have Grace to hearken to another and then the Issue will be the same I would hope that none of those to whom I now speak are so Lost but they may be Recovered And I cannot think that any who reads this is in so hopeless a Case but he may find Me●cy if yet he will seek it He has 〈◊〉 sinned the sin unto Death who is afraid left he be guilty of it You are not absolutely given over and forsaken of God or sure that you shall finally be so that this Spirit will no more return though in some Degree you are forsaken If you are brought to consider your Danger and to resolve to use Means to prevent the fatal Issue You are not finally left of God whatever dangerous Approaches you have made to such a