Selected quad for the lemma: child_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
child_n	spirit_n	witness_n	witness_v	3,134	5	10.5018	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82313	The building and glory of the truely Christian and spiritual church. Represented in an exposition on Isai. 54, from vers. 11. to the 17. Preached to His Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax and the general officers of the army, with divers other officers, and souldiers, and people, at Marston, being the head-quarter at the leaguer before Oxford, June. 7. 1646. / By William Dell, minister of the Gospel, attending on His Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax in the Army. Together with a faithful testimony touching that valiant and victorious army, in the epistle to the reader. Published by authority.	Dell, William, d. 1664.	1646 (1646)	Wing D918; Thomason E343_5; ESTC R200942	30,138	43

The Building and Glory of the truely Christian and Spiritual CHURCH Represented in an EXPOSITION On Isai. 54 from vers 11 to the 17. PREACHED To His Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax and the General Officers of the Army with divers other Officers and Souldiers and People At Marston being the Head-quarter at the Leaguer before Oxford June 7. 1646. By WILLIAM DELL Minister of the Gospel attending on His Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax in the Army Together with a faithful TESTIMONY touching that valiant and victorious Army in the Epistle to the Reader Matth. 5. 11. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Verse 12. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you Psal. 69. 9. The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me Published by Authority LONDON Printed for G. CALVERT at the Black Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Pauls 1646. To the READER HAving obtained this grace from God to be called into some friendship and familiarity with Jesus Christ so as to hear and receive from him something of the minde and bosome of the Father according to his free grace who hath mercy on whom he will and having after many tears and temptations not unknown to many yet in the body obtained this further grace to speak the Word of God with boldnesse I have also been counted worthy to be taken into some fellowship with Christ in his sufferings and to endure the contradiction of sinners and oft-times to encounter the rage and madnesse of men yea and to fight with men after the manner of beasts altogether brutish and furious And thus it hath fared with me often especially at two remarkable times The one at Lincoln upon occasion of two Sermons preached there on these words of the Prophet Isaiah chap. 9. 7. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end Wherein giving unto Christ his own proper due many were angry I had taken too much from men to whom yet nothing belongs but iniquity shame and confusion they could not bear this that the Lord alone should be exalted But that Doctrine of truth the Lord hath strongly upheld with the right hand of his righteousnesse and the glory of it hath since shone into many hearts in this Kingdom much contrary to their desire The other time wherein I met with remarkable opposition was lately at Marston the Head quarter at the Leaguer before Oxford whither some coming out of the City of London in all probability out of some special designe seeing the old malignity now acts in a new form and is daily coming forth in a second and more plausible cunning and deceiving edition became exceeding angry and headie against the plain and cleer truth of the Gospel delivered in this following Exposition wherein the whole truth and substance of what was then delivered is exactly set down and nothing abated but rather some things farther pressed adding as Jeremiah in the second roll many like words to the former New some of these men seeing themselves and their new designe cleerly discovered by the light of the Word and made altogether naked suddenly they grew fierce and furious contradicting and blaspheming yea some of them speaking the language of hell upon earth of which there are some witnesses as became men of such a generation These men according to the operation of that spirit which works mightily in the children of disobedience come and fill the whole City with lyes and slanders laying to my charge things that I knew not the falshood and untruth whereof there are some hundreds and some of them of great and eminent worth and piety ready to witnesse Wherefore of meer necessity I was constrained to publish this Exposition as a witnesse to this present and the following generations of these mens resisting the Spirit and acting against Christ himself in the Word And though the discourse be very plain not savouring of any accuratenesse of humane wisedom and learning yet they that are themselves spiritual will acknowledge somthing of the Spirit in it and for that cause will rellish and love it though others will therefore be at the greater enmity against it But for my part I have set down my resolution in the Lord in this Cause of Jesus Christ not to weigh all the power of earth or hell one feather but to put it to the utmost trial whether the truth of the Gospel or the slanders and lyes of men shall prevail whether the smoke of the bottomlesse pit that comes forth out of the mouth of these and many others shall be able to blot out or darken the brightnesse of Christs coming in the Ministery of the Gospel yea and whether the power and malice of the devil and the world shall be stronger then the love and protection of Jesus Christ And I doubt not but the more the world acts in the Spirit of the devil the more will Christ enable us to act in his own Spirit till all at last shall be forced to acknowledge that the Spirit that is in us is stronger then the spirit that is in the world And what now have all these men obtained by all their malice and fury but a greater and more open discovery of the truth and to cause that that light of the Gospel that onely shone in one Congregation should through the printing of it have its beams scattered in many parts of the Kingdom and wherever the truth comes the children of the truth will entertain it ask no body leave And thus through the over-ruling power of Gods wisedom do these men betray their own and their fellows cause and overthrow their own and their ends and whilst they think to oppresse the truth propagate it the more and thus shall truths enemies perish and the truth it self flourish yea flourish through slanders oppositions contradictions blasphemies and all the vilenes and villany in the world And all this confidence in us arises hence because Christ is not as a dead man but is risen and ascended and sits at the right hand of God and fills all things doth all things in heaven and in earth in the world and in the Church among his friends among his enemies till these be made his footstool which is the very thing we are now in expectation of Now one thing more which I think fit to acquaint the world withal in this Epistle is this That none of these thorny hearers durst after come to discourse with me or to look me in the face but one among them that seemed of a better temper then the rest upon the urging of a godly Citizen then present did speak with me and the question he asked of me was this Whether I thought that all Presbyterians were carnal Gospellers I told him I was far from thinking any such thing for I knew

Christians you shall oft see and discern an excellent beauty in some gift or other which they have received from the Spirit which shines not forth so clearly in some stronger Christians And therefore let us not expect all gifts in all men and that every man should excel in every gift for then one would be saying to another I have no need of thee But God hath given diversity of gifts to divers Saints that each may acknowledge something in another which he hath not himself and may reckon his perfection to lie in his union and communion with them that so the Communion of Saints may be kept up in the world in despight of the world One Christian hath the gift of Faith another the gift of Prayer another the gift of utterance in preaching another the gift of courage another the gift of meeknesse and the like and no man hath all things in himself that every man in the sight of his own wants may be kept humble And this is a glorius thing in this building that the lustre of each stone addes to the lustre of all and the lustre of all is communicated to each stone and so in the Spiritual building what one hath from the Spirit it is for all what all have is for each one If thou hast the gift of utterance in the ministration of the Spirit it is to build up me if I have the spirit of Prayer it commends thee as carefully to God as my self one watches over another as over his own soul and if any be weak the strong support them if any be doubtful they that have the gift of knowledge direct them if one be troubled the rest mourn with him if one be comforted the rest rejoyce with him and they are all so linked together in the body of Christ that the good and evil of one extends to all Where thou canst finde such another communion there joyn thy self but if this be the onely excellent communion in the world who would not willingly joyn himself to that spiritual people where no man calls his grace his own but all gifts are in common among all every one having a share in the faith hope love prayer peace joy wisdome strength of all and all having a share in these gifts and graces that are in any one And thus much for the diversity of the stones as well as the preciousnesse of them 3. The third thing that reveals the sense of the words is to observe that this spiritual building of the Church of the New Testament is made up all of precious stones without any mixture of common stones is made up of Saphires Agates Carbuncles and addes And all thy borders of pleasant stones Here then must be no mingling of the precious and the vile the holy and the profane the faithful and the unbeliever the spiritual and the carnal but all must be precious If a man had a jewel that had here and there onely a precious stone in it and all the rest common pebbles there would be no great glory in such a jewel but the common stones would take off from the lustre of the precious ones And so the Church is Gods jewel in the world and it must be made up onely of precious stones as you see here And where are their eyes that perceive not this There be some that talk much against New Doctrine which is the old reproach of the Gospel but surely there was never newer Doctrine then this That the Spiritual Church of the New Testament should be made up of all the people that live in a Kingdom and that all that are born in such a Nation should necessarily be stones for the building up the new Jerusalem This is a new Doctrine indeed which neither the Old nor the New Testament owns but was conveyed into the world by the spirit of Antichrist For God doth not now make any people or kinred or nation his Church but gathers his Church out of every people and kinred and nation and none can be stones of this building but those that are first elect and after made precious through a new birth and the gift of the Spirit And this Doctrine the Word will justifie against the world for Paul writing to the Churches of Ephesus and Corinth c. doth he mean all the people that lived at Ephesus or Corinth No but the faithful and elect children by adoption Saints by calling and saith So it was meet for him to judge of them all And if any were mistaken for a Saint that was none surely he carried himself very like one he was outwardly in sheeps clothing or he had not been reckoned among the flock and so if a stone be taken into this building that is not truely precious yet it is so like one in shew and colour that it can hardly be discerned to be other but a very skilful Lapidary And indeed such a mistake there may be in Christs Kingdom here that a few counterfeit stones may be taken up among many precious ones but that is the mistake of a false Church where a thousand counterfeit ones are taken in for one truely precious wherein for one faithful Christian there are many formalists and many more profane This is not such a building the Prophet speaks of for this is all of elect and precious stones But I cannot enlarge on these things because this exercise I intend chiefly as an Exposition onely I will adde one or two things more touching this particular and so go on 1. If the Church of the New Testament is to be built all of precious stones what a building is that where the onely care is to keep these stones out of the building lest by their glory and lustre they should darken the rest 2. Consider when the Church shall be built up all of such precious stones what a glorious Church will that be when the glory of the Lord shall shine forth in every stone of this building how will there be then glory upon glory till the glory of the Church first darken and then put out all the glory of the world 3. Consider what great enemies they are to the true and native glory of the Church that would have every man in a Kingdom a member of the Church and would have those taken into the flock that are none of Christs sheep and those taken into the Church of God that are not of God and would gather up any stones to make up this Temple of God These are the men that would keep off those glorious things from being fulfilled in the Church which are spoken of it 4. We are to take notice who is the builder of such a structure as this all made up of pretious stones and you shall finde in the Word that the builder and maker of it is God I will doe it saith the Lord behold I will lay thy stones with faire colours and I will lay thy foundations with Saphirs and I will make thy windowes

of Aggates it is all Gods worke from the beginning to the end For who can build unto God a living temple to dwell in but himselfe This the Prophet speaks plainly where he saith the man whose name is the branch he shall build the temple of the Lord even he shall build it It lies in the power of no man to make such a building as this is what wild and wofull work do men make when they will undertake to be building the Chu●ch by their owne humane wisedome and prudence and counsell when they think we will have the Church of God thus and thus and we will make it up of such and such men and we w●ll govern it by such and such Lawes and we will get the power of the Magistrate to back ours then what we cannot do by the power of the Word Spirit we will do by the power of fl●sh and blood Poore men that think that these new heavens where in the Lord will dwell must be the work of their own fingers or that the new Ierusalem must of necessity come out of the Assembly which is to come down from God out of heaven or that they can build the house of God all of pretious stones whereas this must be Gods own work and his own doing and no State or Councel in the world can bring this about and after much tryall and paines and wearinesse the Lord will at last teach his own that the gathering and laying these pretious stones together must be the Lords owne doing even his own doing When the building of the Church is left to men how wofully is it mannaged why saith one we must needs admit such an one he is the chiefe man in the Parish or he is a man of good esteem in the world or he is a Nobleman or he is my neere kinsman or is thus and thus related to mee or he is a good civill faire dealing man and we must needs admit him and thus will flesh and blood bee ever making a carnall temple for God to dwell in but Gods true habitation can never be framed but by the Spirit And therefore for the building of the Church let us look higher then the highest instruments for it must be the Lords own work by the Word and Spirit and though every man be against it and oppose it yet the Lord will doe it when there are no hands to build it up he will build it up without hands I will lay thy stones with c. It followes Vers 13. And thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children See here how the Prophet by the Spirit carries up the Saints above all visible and sensible things even as high as God himselfe God saith he to the Church shall build thee and God shall teach thee all thy children shall be taught of the Lord The note is this That all the true and genuine children of the Church have Gods own teaching in all the things of God they have the Father and the Sonne to teach them by the Spirit This truth Christ himselfe confirmes where he saith It is written that they shall be all taught of God he therefore that heard and learned of my father commeth to me And againe the spirit when he is come he shall lead you into all truth Which doctrine John after preached thus 1 Ioh. 2. 27. The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man should teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you all things Hereby now we perceive how few true children of the Church there be among those who are commonly called Christians for among all these how few are there who have the teaching of God but most have their teaching only from men and no higher Consider therefore I pray whether the knowledge you have be from the teaching of God or the teaching of man you all pretend to know that Christ is the Son of the living God and that redemption and salvation is by him alone but how came ye by this knowledge did you read it in the letter or did some body tell you so or hath God himselfe taught you this For no man knowes the Sonne but the Father and he to whom the Father will reveale him and therefore when Peter said thou art Christ the Son of the living God Christ answered flesh and blood hath not taught thee this but my Father which is in heaven And so though all of you professe your selves Christians yet none of you know Christ truly but only such as are taught of the Father And this holds in all other points as touching calling and faith and union and justification and sanctification and the gift and sealing of the Spirit touching the spirituall Kingdome of Christ and the Government of it oh consider whether you have the teaching of God in these things or no and if you have not the teaching of God you are none of the children of the Church what ever truth thou knowest from the letter if thou hast not the teaching of the Spirit it will doe thee no good thou knowest not any thing spiritually and savingly wherein thou hast not the teaching of God All thy children shall bee taught of the Lord And therefore what a sad thing is it when men look for their teaching no farther then men they only look to the Minister or to such an able learned Orthodox man as they phrase it or at the highest to the Assembly and what they shall teach them they are resolved to stand by it and build upon it for their foundation in the meane time never regarding in truth the teaching of God but say what can so many grave learned godly men erre and shall not wee believe what they determine why now these are none of the children of the spirituall Church for they neither have Gods teaching nor care for it but the spirituall Church is all taught of God Object But you will say doth God teach without meanes Answ. I Answer no God teacheth but it is by the Word and that chiefly in the Ministry of it and he that pretends to bee taught of God without the Word is not taught of God but of the Devill And therefore no man is to despise the Ministry of the Word which is Gods own Ordinance and to depend upon I know not what revelations and inspeakings without the word seeing God teacheth all his children by the word and none without it And therefore it is not the Prophets meaning when he saith all thy children shall be taught of the Lord that they should neglect and despise the Word and the Ministry of it but that we ought so use the Word and the meanes as not to look for our teaching from them but from God himselfe in and through them and when you come to heare not to think I will heare what Mr such an one or Mr such one will say but with the Psalmist

I will hear what the Lord God will say And truly I would not care to hear what any man in the world would say in whom Christ himselfe did not speake Now much more might be said of this teaching of God but that I intend brevity in all as namely that this teaching 1. Is a clear and evident teaching that you shall have certainty in what you are taught and shall be so taught of God no man or Angel shall be able to unteach you againe 2. It is an inward teaching though by the outward Word reaching to the inward soule and spirit to the hidden man of the heart 3. It is a successefull teaching he so teaches as men learn he that hath heard and learned of my father hearing and learning goe together hee teaches faith and wee believe humility and wee are humble patience and wee endure c. But I cannot enlarge any farther in this point It followes And great shall be the peace of thy children That is when men are taught of God then there is nothing but peace among them when God comes and teacheth thee and me and another and many then we all agree because we are all taught of God and see all things by the same light and apprehend all things by the same knowledge and perceive all things by the same spirit because all have the same teaching And so they that are taught of God though one come out of the East and another out of the West and another out of the South and never had any former communion together yet they all agree in the same truth and think and speak the same things and so there is love and amity and peace and unity among them because they are all taught of God and have learned the truth not as it is in this or that man or assembly of men but as it is in Iesus And truly this is the true ground of all the differences and dissentions and heats that are in the Kingdome at this time to wit because some are taught of God and some are not taught of God but of men only the carnall Church is only taught of men and goes no higher but the spirituall Church is truly taught of God Now they that are taught of God and they that are taught of men see the same truths with a great deale of difference and hereupon arises the Controversie and quarrell for one will have the truth as hee sees it in the light of God another will have it as hee apprehends it in his own fancy and the carnall man will not yeeld to the spirituall and the spirituall man cannot yeeld to the carnall Saith one this is the minde of God and I have learned it from his own teaching saith another this is not the minde of God for such a learned Minister or Ministers taught me otherwise and so I apprehend it and thus as the flesh and spirit are contrary so are their teachings and hence our divisions and troubles But when men are all taught of God then they are all at peace one with another and all doe agree in the substance of the truth of the Gospel and if some doe not know the same things they doe they can waite with patience till God also reveale that unto them for they know with all their hearts that they themselves could never have known those things except God had taught them and so they cannot be angry at others whom the Lord as yet hath not vouchsafed to teach and so they are meeke and gentle towards all as beseemes the spirit as well as at peace among themselves All thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall bee the peace of thy children For they know that no man is higher or lower then another in the Kingdome of God but all are equall in Iesus Christ they know that no man can challenge Christ more to himselfe then another but all have equall interest in him and Christ is alike neer to all in whom he dwells yea they all as willingly communicate their owne things to the brethren as they themselves doe partake of Christs things and so there is nothing but peace When men know that no man is any thing in h●mselfe but every one is all that he is in Christ and when men love Christ meerly for himself and where they see most of Christ there love most and if Christ be more in another then himself can love such a one more then himselfe not for his owne sake but for Christs sake then there is nething but peace Great shall be the peace of thy children Verse 14. In righteousnesse shalt thou be established c. This spirituall Church had need of establishment for when God hath done all this for it when he hath built it and taught●t himselfe it shall not want trouble and opposition and contradiction and persecution in the world and therfore it stands in great need of establishment But how shall this be done Why saith he In righteousnesse shalt thou be established That is not by any outward power or force or armies or fortifications or factions or confederacies all these are but a staffe of reed but in righteousnesse and that is both in the righteousnesse of Christ received by us and working in us the first is the righteousnesse of justification the second is the righteousnesse of sanctification and our establishment lies in both 1. In the righteousnesse of Iustification which is called the righteousnesse of faith or Christs owne righteousnesse received into us and in this sense it is said Except ye beleeve ye shall never be established for by faith we partake of the righteousnesse of God through Christ and this is an infinite and everlasting righteousnesse that hath neither spot nor blemish in it this is able to establish us for ever and ever so that the Church hath no more establishment then it hath of the righteousnesse of Christ by faith and as the Church goes from faith to faith so it goes from establishment to establishment 2. Our establishment lies in the righteousnesse of our sanctification which is nothing but Christ working in us as the former was Christ dwelling in us for the same Christ that is the righteousnesse of our justification is the righteousnesse of our sanctification Now the establishment of the Church is when we let the righteousnesse of Christ worke all in us and we worke all in the righteousnesse of Christ then are we established mightily and invincibly indeed and how much Christians swerve from this Rule so much they become weake and unsetled sometimes Christians will bee living out of Christ in themselves and they will be moving and acting and working according to humane wisedome and prudence and the counsels and devises of flesh and blood but in all this they have no establishment at all And therefore ye that are faithfull see to it that ye turne aside neither to the right hand nor to the left through any worldly hopes or fears