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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	holy_a	part_n	scripture_n	3,691	5	5.5467	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62632	Several discourses viz. Of the great duties of natural religion. Instituted religion not intended to undermine natural. Christianity not destructive; but perfective of the law of Moses. The nature and necessity of regeneration. The danger of all known sin. Knowledge and practice necessary in religion. The sins of men not chargeable on God. By the most reverend Dr. John Tillotson, late lord arch-bishop of Canterbury. Being the fourth volume; published from the originals, by Ralph Barker, D.D. chaplain to his Grace.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.; Barker, Ralph, 1648-1708.; White, Robert, 1600-1690, engraver.	1697 (1697)	Wing T1261A; ESTC R221745	169,748	495

defined and determined so that no Man that is in any measure free from interest and prejudice can easily mistake in any great and material part of his Duty We have the Nature of God plainly revealed to us and such a Character of him given as is most suitable to our natural Conceptions of a Deity as render him both awful and amiable for the Scripture represents him to us as Great and Good Powerful and Merciful a perfect hater of Sin and a great lover of Mankind and we have the Law and manner of his Worship so far as was needful and the Rules of a good Life clearly exprest and laid down and as a powerful Motive and Argument to the obedience of those Laws a plain discovery made to us of the endless Rewards and Punishments of another World And is not this a mighty advantage to the doing of God's Will to have it so plainly declared to us and so powerfully enforced upon us So that our Duty lies plainly before us we see what we have to do and the danger of neglecting it so that considering the advantage we have of doing God's Will by our clear knowledge of it we are altogether inexcusable if we do it not Secondly The knowledge of our Lord's Will is likewise a great obligation upon us to the doing of it For what ought in reason to oblige us more to do any thing than to be fully assur'd that it is the Will of God and that it is the Law of the great Soveraign of the World who is able to save or to destroy that it is the pleasure of him that made us and who hath declared that he designs to make us happy by our obedience to his Laws So that if we know these things to be the Will of God we have the greatest obligation to do them whether we consider the Authority of God or our own interest and if we neglect them we have nothing to say in our own excuse We knew the Law and the advantage of keeping it and the penalty of breaking it and if after this we will transgress there is no Apology to be made for us They have something to plead for themselves who can say that tho' they had some apprehension of some parts of their Duty and their Minds were apt to dictate to them that they ought to do some things yet the different apprehensions of Mankind about several of these things and the doubts and uncertainties of their own Minds concerning them made them easie to be carried off from their Duty by the vicious inclinations of their own Nature and the tyranny of Custom and Example and the pleasant temptations of flesh and blood but had they had a clear and undoubted Revelation from God and had certainly known these things to be his Will this would have conquered and born down all Objections and Temptations to the contrary or if it had not would have stopt their mouths and taken away all excuse from them There is some colour in this plea that in many cases they did not know certainly what the Will of God was but for us who own a clear Revelation from God and profess to believe it what can we say for our selves to mitigate the severity of God toward us why he should not pour forth all his wrath and execute upon us the fierceness of his anger Thirdly The neglect of God's will when we know it cannot be without a great deal of wilfulness and contempt If we know it and do it not the fault is solely in our wills and the more wilful any sin is the more hainously wicked is it There can hardly be a greater aggravation of a Crime than if it proceed from meer obstinacy and perverseness and if we know it to be our Lord's Will and do it not we are guilty of the highest contempt of the greatest Authority in the World And do we think this to be but a small aggravation to affront the great Soveraign and Judge of the World not only to break his Laws but to trample upon them and despise them when we know whose Laws they are Will we provoke the Lord to jealousie are we stronger than he We believe that it is God who said Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not Steal thou shalt not bear false witness against thy Neighbour thou shalt not hate or oppress or defraud thy Brother in any thing but thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self and will we notwithstanding venture to break these Laws knowing whose Authority they are stampt withal After this contempt of him what favour can we hope for from him what can we say for our selves why any one of those many stripes which are threatned should be abated to us Ignosci aliquatenus ignorantiae potest contemptus veniam non habet Something may be pardoned to ignorance but contempt can expect no forgiveness He that strikes his Prince not knowing him to be so hath something to say for himself that tho' he did a disloyal act yet it did not proceed from a disloyal Mind but he that first acknowledgeth him for his Prince and then affronts him deserves to be prosecuted with the utmost severity because he did it wilfully and in meer contempt The knowledge of our Duty and that it is the will of God which we go against takes away all possible excuse from us for nothing can be said why we should offend him who hath both Authority to command us and Power to destroy us And thus I have as briefly as I could represented to you the true ground and reason of the aggravation of those Sins which are committed against the clear knowledge of God's Will and our Duty because this knowledge is so great an advantage to the doing of our Duty so great an obligation upon us to it and because the neglect of our Lord's Will in this case cannot be without great wilfulness and a down-right contempt of his Authority And shall I now need to tell you how much it concerns every one of us to live up to that knowledge which we have of our Lord's Will and to prepare our selves to do according to it to be always in a readiness and disposition to do what we know to be his Will and actually to do it when there is occasion and opportunity And it concerns us the more because we in this Age and Nation have so many advantages above a great part of the World of coming to the knowledge of our Duty We enjoy the clearest and most perfect Revelation which God ever made of his Will to Mankind and have the light of Divine Truth plentifully shed amongst us by the free use of the holy Scriptures which is not a sealed Book to us but lies open to be read and studied by us this Spiritual Food is rained down like Manna round about our Tents and every one may gather so much as is sufficient we are not stinted nor have the word of God given out to

others as above any occasion of being contemned by them He grudges no Man's happiness and therefore cannot tempt Men to Sin out of a desire to see them miserable So that none of those Considerations which move the Devil to tempt Men to Sin and Evil Men to tempt one another to do wickedly can be imagined to have any place in God And thus you see the force of the Apostle's Argument that because God cannot be tempted to evil therefore he can tempt no Man None tempt others to be bad but those who are first so themsemselves I shall now in the Second place Consider the Nature and Kind of the Argument which the Apostle here useth Let no Man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempteth he any Man He does not reject this impious Proposition barely upon his own Authority but he argues against it from the Nature and Perfection of God and therein appeals to the common Notions of Mankind concerning God We might very well have rested in his Authority being an Apostle Commissioned by our Saviour and extraordinarily assisted and witnessed to by the Miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost wherewith he was endowed But he condescends to give a Reason of what he says and appeals to the common Principles of Mankind For all Men will readily agree to this that God hath all imaginable perfection but it is a plain imperfection to be liable to be tempted to Evil and therefore God cannot be tempted to Evil. And if so it is as impossible that he should tempt others to it for none can have either an inclination or interest to seduce others to Evil but those who have been first seduced to it themselves Now in this Method of Arguing the Apostle teacheth us one of the surest ways of Reasoning in Religion namely from the Natural Notions which Men have of God So that all Doctrines plainly contrary to those Natural Notions which Men have of God are to be rejected what Authority soever they pretend to whatever plainly derogates from the goodness or justice of God or any other of his Perfections is certainly false what Authority soever it may claim from the Judgment of Learned and Pious Men yea tho' it pretend to be countenanc'd from the Texts and Expressions of Holy Scripture Because nothing can be entertain'd as a Divine Revelation which plainly contradicts the common Natural Notions which Mankind have of God For all Reasoning about Divine Revelation and whether that which pretends to be so be really so or not is to be govern'd by those Natural Notions And if any thing that pretends to be a Revelation from God should teach Men that there is no God or that he is not Wi●e and Good and Just and Powerful this is Reason enough to reject it how confident soever the pretence be that it is a Divine Revelation And if any thing be upon good grounds in Reason received for a Divine Revelation as the Holy Scriptures are amongst Christians no Man ought to be regarded who from thence pretends to maintain any Doctrine contrary to the Natural Notions which Men have of God such as clearly contradict his Holiness or Goodness or Justice or do by plain and undeniable Consequence make God the Author of Sin or the like because the very attempt to prove any such thing out of Scripture does strike at the Divine Authority of those Books For if they be from God it is certain they can contain no such thing So that no Man ought to suffer himself to be seduced into any such Opinions upon pretence that there are expressions in Scripture which seem to countenance them For if they really did so the Consequence would not be the confirming of such Opinions but the weakning of the Authority of the Scripture it self For just so many Arguments as any Man can draw from Scripture for any such Opinion so many Weapons he puts into the han●s of Atheists against the Scripture it self I do not speak this as if I thought there were any ground from Scripture for any such Doctrine I am very certain there is not And if there be any par●●cular expressions which to prejudic'd Men may seem to import any such thing every Man ought to govern himself in the interpretation of such passages by what is clear and plain and agreeable to the main Scope and Tenour of the Bible and to those Natural Notions which Men have of God and of his Perfections For when all is done this is one of the surest ways of Reasoning in Religion and whoever guides himself and steers by this Compass can never err much but whoever suffers himself to be led away by the appearance of some more obscure Phrases in the expressions of Scripture and the glosses of Men upon them without regard to this Rule may run into the greatest Delusions may wander Eternally and lose himself in one Mistake after another and shall never find his way out of this endless Labyrinth but by this Clue If St. James had not been an Apostle the Argument which he useth would have convinced any reasonable Man that God tempts no Man to Sin because he cannot be tempted with Evil himself and therefore it is unreasonable to imagine he should tempt any Man For he argues from such a Principle as all Mankind will at first hearing assent to And thus I have done with the first Thing asserted by the Apostle here in the Text That God tempts no Man to Sin Let no Man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted of evil neither tempteth he any Man Before I proceed to the second Assertion That every Man is his own greatest Tempter I should draw some useful Inferences from what hath been already delivered but I reserve both the one and the other to the next Opportunity SERMON XV. The Sins of Men not chargeable upon God but upon themselves JAMES I. 13 14. Let no Man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempteth he any Man But every Man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed WHEN I made entrance upon these Words I told you that next to the Belief of a God and a Providence nothing is more fundamentally necessary to the Practice of a good Life than the Belief of these two Principles That God is not the Author of the Sins of Men and That every Man's fault lies at his own door And both these Principles St. James does clearly and fully assert in these Words First God tempts no Man to Sin Secondly Every Man is his own greates● Tempter The first of these I have largely spoken to in my former Discourse and from what I then said I shall only draw a few useful Inferences before I proceed to the second Viz. These which follow First Let us beware of all such Doctrines as do any ways tend to