Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	flesh_n	jesus_n	sin_n	6,802	5	5.0597	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A01139	The groanes of the spirit, or the triall of the truth of prayer	Foxle, George.	1639 (1639)	STC 11250.3; ESTC S114872	54,217	260

the spirit according to that undeniable position God heareth not sinners but if any man be a worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth viz. he heareth not nor granteth the desires of such as live in any sin but such as worship him according to his will and live accordingly have their desires granted But a party family or nation that liveth in any sin God will not hear them If I regard iniquity in my heart saith David or look upon it with a love to it God will not heare me Instances of this are innumerable in the Scripture The Lord telleth the Israelites for choosing Saul for their King that they should cry out in that day and hee would not heare them So all that set at naught the counsell of God when feare desolation and destruction commeth upon them They shall call upon the Lord but hee will not answer they shall seek him early but shall not find him Will men steale and rob commit murther and uncleannesse and conspire against God by impiety and iniquity as God saith by Ieremie yea will they hide it under their tongue and will they cry unto the Lord when unavoidable evill commeth upon them yea they shall cry saith the Lord but I will not hearken unto them For the farther confirmation of this point look these places Ezech. 8. to the 19. Micha 3. to v. 4. Zach. 7. 13. Did God ever heare the Israelites for all their teares supplications and cryes under the oppression of the Philistines untill such time as they put away their strange Gods yea their beloved Idols Baal and Ashteroth No sure witnesse the word neither will he to others till they doe the like yea God doth not onely deny to heare his people though they make many prayers but to enter so much as a parly with them till they put away the evill of their doings from before him Yea let the formalist hypocrite or hollow-hearted petitioner free from outward touch yet hiding iniquity under his tongue let him I say carry the matter as cleanly as he can yet God will not heare him witnesse that in Iob What is the hope of the Hypocrite will God heare his cry when trouble commeth upon him No sure the interrogation is a vehement negation a good reason is given of it As hee delighted not in God make what shew he can so God delighteth not in his prayers for they are not the prayers of the spirit neither hath he clensed his heart for the spirit to reside in That thou maist bee sure that thy prayer is from the spirit bee sure to walk in the Spirit submit thy selfe to the guidance of the spirit wash thy heart and make it clean wash thy hands in innocency and then compasse the Altar of the Lord with successe or as the Apostle pray every where lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting On this place one speaketh well the hands are holy when the heart is cleane further in the Text observe three remarkable conditions of prayer holinesse in a mans self love towards his brother and faith towards God prayers thus qualified shall surely be heard for Amen hath ingaged his promise for it Iehovah is neer to all that call upō him in truth the Lord is far from the wicked but hee heareth the prayers of the righteous But some of Gods people will here object that they feel a great deale of rebellion of sin in them as carnality hate infidelity pronesse to evill aversnesse to good pride hypocrisie selfe-love and the like a world of disorder in the affections a flat repugnancy in the will an apparant impossibility of selfe-deniall In a word the whole inner and the outward man is nothing but a confused masse of sin Can the spirit govern guide such a one where there is nothing but rebellion against the Spirit And if the Spirit beare not the sway in all over all though I am somewhat affected in prayer yet I pray not by the spirit at all because I want the guidance of the spirit To this I answer As the aforesaid graces accompanying the spirit of prayer may be in a childe of God in a very weake measure without sense feeling yet true in their own nature so the lusting of the flesh against the spirit may and doth mightily domineer in them so that they are carnall and sold under sin yea they have a law in their members rebelling against the law of the Spirit whereby they are led captive to the law of sinne which thing was the matter of the blessed Apostle's complaint making him to cry out Wretched man that I am who shall deliver mee from this body of death And yet the spirit lusting against the flesh will hold his own not onely overcōming but giving good evidence from the very strife that he reignes and rules there maugre the heart of the flesh by which they come at the length to thanke God through our Lord Iesus Christ that with the mind they serve the Law of God though with the flesh the Law of sin But Paul yee will say spake this of himselfe as of his unregenerate estate For answer The Papists would have it so and some of the Fathers take it so amongst whom Austin was one of that mind but upon better consideration reversed his judgment and that upon good grounds for the Apostle speaketh of himselfe of his present estate which none can deny to be regenerate Againe to will was present with him hee delighted in the Law of God and thanked him for his deliverance all which are evidences of a regenerate estate But this is strange say you that hee should be carnall sould under sin since the Saints are bought with a price war not after the flesh For answer he was not carnall in the service of the flesh as the unregenerate are but hee was carnall in respect of his pronesse to give way to the flesh So he was sold under sin and not as Ahab who willingly inslaved himselfe to sin but as Ioseph a captive or slave against his will O but you will say if it were so then these were Pauls strong stragling motions of cōcupiscence not breaking out in effect but I am not onely troubled with the first and second motions of sin but I am foyled with the very actions of sin I answer was not that Pauls case That which I doe I allow not for what I would that I doe not but what I hate that doe I where hee sheweth himselfe often to be so foiled by his carnall desires that he did that which in the inner man he did not desire but rather hate And so it is with the best of Gods people who both in words actions crosse their inward desires Yea but where lyeth the difference of failings and falls of the regenerate and unregenerate heart I answer in the chiefe