Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	bar_v	find_v	unworthiness_n	40	3	16.4956	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39660	Englands duty under the present gospel liberty from Revel. III, vers. 20 : wherein is opened the admirable condescension and patience of Christ in waiting upon trifling and obstinate sinners, the wretched state of the unconverted, the nature of evangelical faith ..., the riches of free grace in the offers of Christ ..., the invaluable priviledges of union and communion granted to all who receive him ... / by John Flavell ...	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1689 (1689)	Wing F1159A; ESTC R40912	301,553	568

any Heart in the World to Christ and yet considering how fast the Hearts of Men are glued to their lusts fixed and riveted in their sins until the Spirit come upon them with powerful convictions and when under conviction what mighty discouragements they labour under from their former sinfulness and present unworthiness all this is little enough to bring them to faith nay in it self utterly insufficient without the Almighty power second and set them home with effect on the Heart for it is not meer moral suasion will do the work 'T is true Christ will not make a forcible entrance into the Soul he will come in by the consent of the Will but the Will consents not till it feel the power of God upon it Psal. 110. 3. Almighty power opens the Heart and determins the Will but still in a way congruous to the nature of the Will Hos. 11. 4. I drew them with the cords of a man with the bands of love When under the influence of this power the Soul opens unto Christ he will come in take that Soul for his everlasting habitation refresh and feast it with the sweetest consolations and privileges purchased by his Blood whence the Tenth Observation is DOCT. X. That Christ will certainly come into the Soul that opens to him and will not come empty handed but will bring rich entertainment with him I will come in to him and sup with him When the prodigal the Emblem of a convert returned to his Father Luke 15. 22. his Father not only received but adorned and feasted him In opening this Point I shall shew First What Christs coming in to the Soul intends Secondly How it appears Christ will come in to the opening Soul. Thirdly What that rich entertainment is he brings with him Fourthly Why he thus entertainsthe Soul that receives him and opens to him First What Christs coming in to the Soul intends and in general I must say this is a great mystery which will not be fully understood till we come to Heaven Iohn 14. 20. At that day you shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Then the essential union of Christ and his Father and the mystical union between believers and Christ will be more clearly understood than we are capable to understand them in this imperfect state yet for present so much is discovered as may justly astonish poor sinners at the marvelous condescension of the Lord Jesus to them More particularly this expression I will come in to him imports no less than his uniting such a Soul to himself for he comes in with a design to dwell in that Soul by faith Eph. 3. 17. to make such a man a mystical member of his body flesh and bones Eph. 5. 30. which is the highest honour the Soul of man is capable of indeed this coming of Christ into the Soul of a sinner doth not make him one person with Christ that is the singular honour to which our nature is advanced by the Hypostatical Vnion but this makes a person mystically one with Christ and though it be beneath the Hypostatical Vnion yet it is more than a meer Foederal Vnion Christs coming into the Soul signifies more than his coming into Covenant with it for it is the taking of such a person into a mystical Union with himself by the imparting of his Spirit unto him as the vital sap of the stock coming into the grass makes it one with the stock Iohn 15. 5. So the coming of Christs Spirit into the Soul makes it a member of his mystical body and this is a glorious supernatural work of God 1 Cor. 1. 30. most honorable most comfortable and for ever sure and indissoluble as I have elsewhere more fully shewed Secondly In the next place I shall evidence the truth and certainty of this most comfortable point that Christ will come in and that with singular refreshments and comforts to every Soul that hears his voice and opens to him No present unworthyness or former rebellions shall bar out Christ or obstruct his entrance into such a Soul. Whatever thou hast been or done all that notwithstanding Christ will come into thee and dwell with thee and make thy Soul an habitation for himself through the Spirit Eph. 2. 22. I say let thy Heart but open to him and he will both fill and feast thee with a non obstante as to all thy former miscarriages I know it is the common discouragement that multitudes of convinced humbled sinners lye under who seeing so much vileness in their natures and practices cannot be perswaded that ever the Lord Jesus will cast an Eye of favour on them much less take up his abode in them What dwell in such a Heart as mine which hath been an habitation of Devils a sink a puddle of sin from my beginning This is hard to be believed but sinner thou hast the word of a King from Heaven for it a word whose credit was never crackt or stained from the first moment it was spoken that whatever thy former or present vileness or unworthiness hath been or is he will not be shy of such a Soul as thou art if thou be but willing to open to him thy great unworthiness shall be no bar to his union with thee If any man open I will come in to him c. For First If personal unworthiness were sufficient to bar Christ out of thy Soul it would equally bar him out of all the Souls in the World for all are unworthy as well as thy self Where-ever Christ finds sinfulness he finds unworthiness and to be sure he finds this where-ever he comes Christ never expected to find worthiness in thee but it highly pleases him to find thee under a becoming sense of thy personal unworthiness Ier. 3. 13. Only acknowledge thine iniquity that thou hast transgrest against the Lord thy God c. The returning prodigal acknowledged to his Father I am not worthy to be called thy Son Luke 15. 18 19. But this did not bar his access to or hinder his acceptance by his Father All that come to God to be justified must see and confess their own vileness and come to him as one that justifieth the ungodly Rom. 4. 5. Secondly Thy former vileness and present unworthiness can be no bar to Christs entrance because it can be no surprize to him He knew thou wast an unworthy Soul when he made the first overture of grace and reconciliation to thee and if thy unworthiness hindred not the beginning of his treaty with thee it shall not hinder the closing and finishing act thereof in his union with thee I knew that thou wast a transgressor from the womb Isa. 48. 8. Thirdly Christ never yet came into any Soul where Satan had not the possession before him Every Soul in which Christ now dwels was once in Satans power and possession Acts 26. 18. To turn them from darkness to light and from the power of

skin which are not accidental but connate as the reasonings of Men can prevail to remove the mighty power of customary sin Physitians find it a hard thing to Cure a Cakexia or ill habit of Body 'T is a grave and serious note of Seneca A teneris assuescere multum est 'T is a great matter to be accustomed this way or that from our childhood every repeated act of sin confirms and strenghtens the habit and hence it is that we see so few Conversions in old Age. It was a wonder in the Primitive times that Marcus Caius Victorius imbraced Christianity in the sixtieth year of his age take an habituated Drunkard a self-righteous Moralist lay before them the necessity of a change and you shall find it as easie to stop the course of a River with the breath of your Mouth as to stop them in an accustomed course of sinning That 's the fourth Bar to Christ. Fifth Bar. The Fifth Bar opposing and resisting Christs entrance into the Soul is the sin of Presumption this is the sin that parts Christ and thousands of Souls in the World presuming they hope and hoping they perish when Men presume their condition is safe already their Souls never make out after a Saviour This was the ruine of Laodicea Rev. 3. 17. Because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked This damning presumption is discovered in three things 1 Many think they have that grace which they have not mistaking the Similar for the saving Works of the Spirit a fatal mistake never rectified with many thousands till it be too late 2 They presume to find that mercy in God which they will never find for all the saving mercies of God are dispensed to Men through Christ in the way of Regeneration and Faith Iude vers 21. 3 They presume upon that time for Repentance and Faith hereafter which their Eyes shall never see And thus presumption locks up the Heart against Christ and leaves sinners perishing in the presence of a Saviour They make a bridge of their own shadow and so perish in the Waters Sixth Bar. The Sixth and last sin barring up the Heart against Christ is a strong prejudice against holyness and the strict duties of Religion Thus in the very infancy of Christianity the World was scared and driven off from Religion by the common prejudices that lay upon the Professors of it Acts 28. 22. As concerning this Sect we know that every where it is spoken against Thus Iustin Martyr complains that Christians were every where condemned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by common same and upon this account Christ pronounces a wo upon the World because of offences Matth. 18. 7. Alas it will be the ruine of Thousands some have suckt in such prejudicate Opinions and vile Notions of Religio● and its Professors as makes them irreconcilable enemies to it Satan hath drest it up in their fancies in such an odious form and representation that makes them loath both name and thing These prejudices are drawn from various things sometimes from the necessary duties of Christianity which are laid as crimes upon the people of God Psal. 69. 10. When I wept and chastned my Soul with fasting that was to my reproach Sometimes the groundless and malicious slanders and inventions of the enemies of Christianity are the occasions of real prejudices to the World Ier. 18. 18. Come let us devise devices against Jeremiah and let us smite him with the Tongue Sometimes the innocent and serious Professors of godliness are censured and condemned for hypocritical professors sakes who never heartily espoused Religion And lastly the ways of holiness suffer for the slips and infirmities of weak Christians who commonly give too many occasions to disgust the World against the ways of God. By these things multitudes are kept off from attendance upon the means of Grace and multitudes more have their Hearts shut up from receiving any saving benefit under them These are the common Bars and Locks by which the strong Man armed secures his possession in the Souls of sinners and these Bars are too strong for any power beneath the Almighty power and Arm of God to remove or break t is said Acts 14. 27. That the Lord opened a door of Faith to the Gentiles The Arm of the Lord must be revealed or none will open to Christ by Faith Isa. 53. 1. 1. The iron Bar of the Law that thundering terrible Law cannot force open the Heart of an unbeliever all the dreadful curses flying out of its fiery mouth make no more impression than a Tennis ball against a wall of Marble Deut. 29. 19. You read of them that hear the words of this Curse yet bless themselves in their Heart saying they shall have peace though they walk in the imagination of their Hearts to add Drunkenness to Thirst. They play with Hell and Eternal Torments rush into iniquity as the Horse rusheth into the Battle act as men in love with their own Death as those that are at an agreement with Hell. Oh the besotting hardning infatuating power of sin 2. The Golden Key of free Grace cannot in it self remove these Bars and open mens Hearts to Christ Matth. 11. 17. We have piped unto you but ye have not danced The melodious and delicious Airs of Grace Mercy Peace and Pardon affect not the dead Hearts of unbelievers Like deaf Adders they stop their Ears at the voice of the Charmer charm he never so wisely These Gospel melodies only dispose them to a more quiet sleep in sin 3. No works of Providence are in themselves sufficient to open the Hearts of Men to Christ. 1. The Judgments of God cannot do it thousands have been made sick with smiteing that yet cannot be made sick for sin I have consumed them but they refused to receive correction they have made their Faces harder then a Rock they have refused to return Jer. 5. 3. Messengers of Judgment are abroad smiting some in their Estates scattering in one day the labour of many years and therein giving a warning blow at the Conscience to make sure of Christ and the World to come since their comfort and happiness is scattered in this World. Some are smitten in their dearest relations Death knocks at their doors and carries out the delight of their Eyes and with the same admonisheth their Souls to place their happiness in more durable comforts Some are smitten in their Bodies with Diseases giving warning of the near approach of their latter end and bidding them prepare for another habitation but all in vain 2ly No mercies of God are in themselves sufficient to open the obstinate Hearts of sinners to Christ. God hath heapt up mercies by multitudes upon many of you all these mercies of God lead you to repentance Rom. 2. 4 5. They take you in a friendly way by the Hand and thus talk with you