Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	common_a	nature_n	reason_n	4,591	5	4.8578	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26905	The crucifying of the world by the cross of Christ with a preface to the nobles, gentlemen, and all the rich, directing them how they may be richer / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing B1233; ESTC R17065	262,204	331

you By this then you may perceive in whom you should glory 8. Moreover without Christ you cannot make use of the Grace that he hath given you The life and comfort of your grace is in the exercise To draw forth your Faith and Love and Joy into exercise is the way to encrease them and to shew you experimentally their nature truth and worth and to attain their ends And without Christ you will never do this You may lie as if you were dead and dry and withered if he do but withdraw his quickning influences For without him you can do nothing Judge then by this in whom you should glory 9. Yea further as you cannot do these of your selves so neither can you go to Christ your selves for strength to do them You will not so much as move a hand or lift up your voice to cry for help For the nature of sin is to make the sinner willing of it and unwilling to be delivered from it You would rather God would let you alone and thus you would continue 10. Yea more without Christ you would not so much as understand and be sensible of all this misery and disability in your selves You will think your selves well when you are next the worst and give no one thanks that would pitty or help you So that lay all this together and judge in whom it is that you should Glory 11. And indeed the very nature of all your graces if you have any will lead you from a glorying in your selves to a glorying in Christ. Repentance will lay you low and make you vile in your own eyes and loath your selves for all your abominations Ezek. 36. 31. Self-denyalis a great part of the new creature Faith leads you out of your selves to Christ. Love will carry you quite above your selves to God And so it is with other graces To live in your selves upon your selves and to your selves is the state of the unsanctified To live in Christ and upon Christ and to Christ is the state of all his living members So far then as you are new creatures this Law is written in your hearts and I have the less need to teach you this lesson and perswade you to the practice of it because you are really taught of God to Glory in Christ and not in your selves 12. To conclude even Nature and Common Reason may teach you that you have little cause to glory in your selves For it may easily tell you that you have nothing of your selves and therefore nothing that is originally your own Who knows not that we have our being and all the means of our well-being and every thing that is worth the having from God alone As Nothing could not make itself to be Something so neither can that dependent Something uphold it self or carry on it self unto its End What hast thou which thou hast not received And if thou hast received it why shouldst thou glory as if thou hadst not received it 1 Cor. 4. 7. To such poor empty unworthy worms as we are one would think it should be an easie thing to know that we have nothing but what we have of God For whence else should we have it In him we live and move and have our being and of him and by him and for him are all things and therefore to him must be the praise for ever Rom. 11. 36. Not therefore to our selves but unto him must we give the glory Psal. 115. 1. Though Nature cannot lead us to Christ it may tell us that we are creatures and have nothing but from the bountifull hand of our Creator It is therefore against this Nature and Reason to Glory in our selves Use. SEE then that you abhor all self-advancing thoughts And receive no Doctrine that gives the glory of Christ unto your selves They are miserable that are made irreligious by their pride But they are more miserable because more uncurable that make themselves a Religion by their pride and frame to themselves both Doctrines and Devotions whose tendency and use is to keep alive this devilish sin You do not believe well nor repent well nor pray well nor do any Christian duty well if you be not more humble in and after it then you were before It s a sad case for a man to preach himself and pray himself into hell and to strengthen the bonds of sin and Satan by his devotions And yet proud Devotions are as ready a way to this as you can devise If you read or confer or preach or pray with a mind that is lifted up and glorieth in it self you do but serve the Devil with the name of God and his holy Ordinances And therefore we have seen by sad experience in a multitu● of sects and horrible delusions of late in this Land that none run to such dreadfull outrages in sin nor go so far against the Lord as proud self-conceited professors do As you love your souls take heed of being conceited of your own understanding or worth and of being proud of your supposed holiness or abilities What fearfull ends have we seen of such If indeed thou art a Christian thou must become as a little child and learn of Christ to be meek and lowly and be a servant to all And lay thy self still at the feet of Christ as sensible that all the sin is thine but the good is his from whom thou didst receive it Thou canst destroy thy self but in him is thy help Thou hast the skill and ability to set thy own house on fire but it s he that must quench it or repair it Thou art wise to do evil but thou hast no knowledge to do good but what he giveth thee Thou hast the art of stabbing thy self but not of curing thy self He must do that for thee or else it must be undone You can snarl and ravel the state of your own souls but it s he that must untye the knots which thy folly and carelesness have tyed Thou canst with Ionas raise the storm and cast thy self over-board but it s he that must provide the Whale to receive thee and bring thee to the Land Remember therefore that though thou be a vessel of mercy it is the fountain that filleth thee and not thy self Thou canst scarce more dishonour thy qualifications and actions and consequently thy self then to say they are thine own and originally from thy self For sure all that is thine and from thee will be like thee and therefore must be weak and bad as thou art When ever therefore thou gloriest in thy graces do it but as the beggar gloryeth in his alms that ascribes all to the giver or as the patient gloryeth in his cure that ascribeth all to God and the Physitian or as a condemned rebel doth glory in a pardon which he ascribeth to the mercy of his Prince I durst not have told you as I did before of the duty of Glorying in your Crucifixion to the world without adding this caution to tell