Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	christian_a	great_a	life_n	2,755	4	4.1264	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23659	The Christians justification stated shewing how the righteousness of Christ, the Gospel-Covenant, faith, and God himself, do operate to our justification / by W.A.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1057; ESTC R20597	102,725	303

in their willingness to be reconciled to him This is the first of the three things I mentioned which have a great aptness in them to persuade men to be reconciled to God for which end our Saviour does by the Gospel as he is Mediator of the New Testament not only reveal this but labours to possess men with a strong belief of it without which it will not operate on them at all towards such an end as the reconciling them to God is 2. Another of those motives by which our Saviour by setting the Gospel on foot seeks to reconcile men to God is by giving them great assurance that God is so far from desiring to revenge himself on them notwithstanding all their provocations if they were but as willing as he is to be reconciled as that in case they will be but persuaded to be reconciled to God by repentance for their former rebellion and by becoming really obedient to their power for the future as that then he will bestow upon them everlasting life advance them to such a state of happiness as that greater than which the heart of man cannot wish for or desire And surely this if it be throughly believed will if any thing will persuade men to be reconciled to God To this end our Saviour hath brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 And by this motive he doth almost every where in the Gospel persuade to Faith Love Repentance Obedience and Holiness which is the same with persuading men to be reconciled to God for in such things as these doth our reconciliation to God consist St. John speaks of this in a magnifying way as the great motive to man to entertain and obey the Gospel This saith he is the promise which he hath promised us even eternal life 1 John 2.25 And indeed it was this that did invite men to receive the Gospel to profess the Christian Religion at first and which did animate them to suffer any thing rather than to renounce and forsake it and the hope of eternal life which they had received by it They took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance Heb. 10.34 3. There is a great aptitude in our Saviours setting the Gospel on foot to reconcile men to God because he thereby convinceth them that if after God's gracious offer of being reconciled to them in case they will be reconciled to him and if after all that hath been done by God and suffered by his Son to prepare the way for a mutual reconciliation between them they shall yet obstinately refuse to be reconciled to God and persist still in their rebellion and disobedience That then God will be so far from being reconciled to them and from pardoning them notwithstanding all the willingness he hath declared to be reconciled to them upon condition of their reconciliation to him and notwithstanding all that Christ hath done and suffered to bring this about as that this offer of God and undertaking of Christ shall turn but to their heavier doom and greater condemnation in the next world This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness more than light John 3.19 How shall we escpe if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord himself and was confirmed to us by them that heard him Heb. 2.3 It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah and for Tyre and Sydon in the day of Judgment than for them that have refused to be reconciled to God when by the Gospel sent to them he hath offered to be reconciled to them on condition that they would be reconciled unto him And lest any should flatter themselves with vain hopes of being saved from the goodness of the nature of God and the death of Jesus Christ for sinners who yet take a liberty to live in known sin without reconciling themselves to God by leaving it off and returning to their duty as too many alas do there are two or three things revealed by Christ to take from them such vain hopes and to put them upon a necessity of chusing either to reconcile themselves to God or to be eternally miserable 1. The first is taken from the nature of God The nature of God is so pure and holy and so contrary to sin that it is as impossible for him to be reconciled to sin or to sinners while by it they are in open rebellion against him as it is for him to change his nature and cease to be God This is the message saith St. John which we have heard of him that is of Christ and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth 1 John 1.5 So that according to this message which Christ hath sent to sinners by his Messengers it is as possible to reconcile light and darkness as God and such as walk in darkness that is in wilful sin And St. Paul would make men themselves judges in the case and appeals to their own reason saying What communion hath light with darkness and what concord hath Christ with Belial 2 Cor. 6.14 15. and plainly intimates that if light and darkness are irreconcilable and can have no communion so is Christ and Belial or a lawless man 2. He hath taken away such vain hopes from sinners by declaring by his Gospel That God without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans work that is he will judg every man according to the right of his cause without favouring or dis-favouring the persons of men against the nature and right of their cause He that hath done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life and he that hath done evil unto the resurrection of damnation Even there where the Lord hath declared from heaven that he is merciful and gracious forgiving iniquity transgression and sin even there he hath declared also to the end men might not mistake that he will by no means clear the guilty no by no means not upon any account whatsoever will he clear such as are finally guilty by persisting in rebellion Exod. 34.6 7. All such persons therefore as will not be persuaded to be reconciled to God by becoming obedient to his government by his laws have no more reason to hope that they shall be saved upon the account of God's merciful nature or the merits of Christ's death than they have to hope that God for their sakes will go contrary to all his declarations in his word and contrary to the whole fixed frame of his government by which he rules and will judg the world And what sinner is there that can but give himself the liberty to consider things that is or can be so vain in his expectation as to promise himself any such thing since