Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n
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A89617
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Mary Magdalen's tears wip't off. Or The voice of peace to an unquiet conscience. Written by way of letter to a person of quality. And published for the comfort of all those, who mourn in Zion.
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Martin, T., 17th cent.
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1659
(1659)
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Wing M850; Thomason E1913_2; ESTC R202880
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54,570
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127
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must he be the ultimate end of our Actions But in this case we must distinguish betwixt what God is and what we apprehend him to be a Sinner is not presently brought to lay aside the fear of Gods revengefull hand and to imbrace and depend upon him for the mercie that is offered to him Ordinarily I conceive God doth manifest his love goodness and mercy to penitent Sinners gradually and with proportion to future experience of the truth and sincerity of their Repentance I mean such a manifestation of himself in these Attributes of complacency and benignity to Mankind which one may term the overshadowing of the Spirit of Love upon the Soul inlightning refreshing and comforting her against the terrors of the Divine Justice due to Sin without a Propitiation by Christ Let me therefore advise you to wait with patience till the day break and the shadows flee away Cant. 1.17 till this Sun of Righteousness arise upon your Soul with healing in his wings Mal. 4.2 and to endeavour to be perswaded as of other mens so of your own filiation and that you may the better believe it to bless God most frequently for the inestimable gift of his Son Jesus Christ by whom alone a Reconciliation was wrought betwixt God and mankind by the Faith whereof holy Men and Women look for the inheritance of Sons and Daughters and do not stand in fear of stripes as vassals and Bond-slaves being emancipated from the Spirit of Bondage through the freedom they have by the Spirit of Adoption whereby they cry Abba Father Rom. 8 15. meditating upon the greatness and excellency of that love the ever-blessed and glorious Trinitie hath exprest unto our Souls engraven before our eyes in eternal Characters of Blood even the Blood of the only Son of God largely described by all four Evangelists in their Histories of the Gospel though sundry yea innumerable other passages of our Saviours life are omitted S. Jo. 21 yea even the birth of Christ by two of them intimating unto us not only the certain truth of his Passion which had been unquestionable if but recorded by one of them and the great concernment of it to all mankinde as well in the example as necessity thereof but likewise recommending by that variety of describing the last tragical Act of his Blessed Life the frequent perusal of it in all times and kindes of Trial and Temptations What therefore you want of felicity at present and content in your New life do not despair of but expect assuring your self that you shall one day know and feel that the Kingdom of God is Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14.17 God alone knowes how much of Heaven 't is best to give you in this Life that Angelical state which you aim at might be much more dangerous for you then you imagine When St. Paul had been rapt up into the third Heaven and heard things impossible to be uttered because he should not be elated by the abundance of Revelations there was given unto him a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan 2 Cor. 12.7 some humiliating Temptation that might make him know that as yet he was lock't up in an earthly Tabernacle as lyable to the Assaults and Invasions of Satan and his Complices as to a final dissolution by death OBJECT XXV But still me thinketh if God had such a Love to my Soul he should vouchsafe me some manifestations thereof St. Paul rejoyced in his Infirmities desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ but nothing is so terrible to me as Death as if I had either no Christ to go unto or no such Christ as Saint Paul had SOLUTION 31. THe Consideration of the World to come and expectation of the Revelation of the Righteous Judgement of God dispensed by Jesus Christ according to the things that men have done in their bodies whether it be good or evil 2 Cor. 5.10.11 is questionless a very terrible thing even to such Christians as shall never have their share in the Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for evermore But is it not the same Word of God which promiseth a Pardon to the Penitent and threatneth damnation to the impenitent Sinner Why do you not believe him when he promiseth Mercy as well as when he threatneth Vengeance He that believes not the Divine Majesty in any one branch of Faith revealed plainly in his Word doth not believe him in the rest because the ground of Faith viz. the Veracity of God is the same in all the same Truth in Promises of Mercy as in Threatnings of Punishment the same Fidelity in performance of Good things as in the Execution of Evil. As for your instance in St. Paul I think I have already intimated unto you that he being a Saint of most eminent and exemplary piety of a Charity and Love to Christ and his Church even unto Extasie and Frenzy in the eyes of the World you ought not to expect the extraordinary favours vouchsaf't him by Heaven A lass why should you or I look for so much of Heaven to be delivered to us before hand or else must judge our selves wholly unconcern'd in the distribution of those heavenly Mansions I am confident either of us would be well content for such an assurance as had St. Paul to lye mouldring in our graves a million of years after the rest of our Brethren are crown'd with Glory yea perhaps as long in the Refining Flames of the Romish Purgatory But I mention not this as the faint Ejaculations of men that live without Hope but as expressions suitable to a sad Reflection upon our own Demerits Remember therefore that if God think fit to give you no Assurance yet he hath vouchsaf't unto you with the rest of Believers Promises of Glorification much fitter to be look't after and relyed upon then any sensible and experimental Consolation for what is tendred to us in the Holy Scriptures is immutable and permanent but such conclusions as are drawn only from experimental knowledge of our own obedience are very transjent and incertain never as is the Word of God infallible and eternal As for your Fear of Death which you are so far from meeting with St. Pauls alacrity of Spirit that you dare not encounter the thought of it in your breast the sound of a passing Bell or the Sight of a Friend strugling with the pains of Death being next to your remembrance of your own last end the formidablest thing imaginable no question the moral causes thereof ought to be heeded and the effects prevented I say moral causes because I presume there is in all creatures men not excepted a natural cause of fear of death which may be as innocent in men as the affections of Joy Delight Grief Anger c. and this can no more be alike in all men in the world then it can be imagined there should be the same degrees of other Affections in all constitutions and complexions of
whereof is the divers Methods that God hath made use of in delivering the System or Rules of either dispensation unto both People A 3d sence may be this the Apostle may intend by the Testimonie of the Spirit in Gods Children that Inclination and duct of Obedience which Gods Children do though not all of them in the same measure feel in their hearts sweetning their natures and bringing them gently to a complyableness with the Precepts of the Gospel and a putting their necks most willingly into the yoke of Christ his Commandments being no whit grievous to them 1 Jo. 5.3 like as yokes are very troublesome to Beasts not accustomed thereto as the Prophet speaks of the Jews Jer. 31.18 I was chastised as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke but to such whose necks have been used to draw in them yokes are no way dreadful or troublesome In the first of these senses the word Spirit must be taken personally for the third Person in the ever Blessed and Glorious Trinity in the 2d it must be taken tropically the word not signifying in the natural and proper sense thereof but yet not without example Rom. 8.2 2 Cor. 3.6 Gal. 4.29 in the 3d sense it must signify metonymically the effect of the Spirit being called by the name of him that works that blessed effect in the Souls of Gods Children In the first and second of these senses the Testimony of the Spirit is communicated to all true Christians but in the third I know lyes the ground of your exception but because I shall have occasion to speak somewhat afterward directly to this point be pleased for the present to remember that I have told you that this inclination to obedience the duct of the Gospel is not alike efficacious upon all the children of God this Spirit being not given in the same measure to all the Sons of God As to the third branch of your Objection rather but one part of it viz. the want of the Testimony of your own Spirit that might witness together with the other that you are the Childe of God to give full satisfaction therein we must inquire into 1. the meaning of the word Spirit in this place 2. What the Testimony thereof is And of 3. what Authority in a business of this Importance the Testimony of a mans own Spirit is For the first the word Spirit in this place must signify I conceive one of these two things either first some noble and sublime Essence presiding in a Christian either as a Distinct subsistence from that which is one of the essential constitutive principles of every man or else as the Celestial and more Seraphical part of the Soul informing ordering and governing the rational faculties in all Spiritual and Divine things And in this sense it must be conceived to have some Resemblance with the office of the Imaginative faculty which being seated betwixt the outward senses and the Vnderstanding conveyes the Species of all sensible objects to the Intellectual facultie being it self of a middle nature betwixt rational and sensible To one of these senses I judge those Divines referre their opinions who assert man to consist of 1. Spirit 2. Soul and 3. Bodie unless by Soul in this tripartite division they understand an Essence capable of no other offices in Man but the performance of sensitive and vegitative operations Or 2ly the word Spirit in this place may signify and me thinks not at all incongruously some excellent gift of the Holy Ghost infused from above in our Baptism into the Souls of Christians whereby they are not only made capable of receiving divine Revelations and things above Reason but likewise inclined and encourain the performance of all those things which God requires at their hands to render them capable of obtaining the further inestimable degrees of his Love and Favour to Mankinde And therefore 2ly the Testimony of any mans Spirit is that Evidence which it gives concerning the whole Series of his conversation in reference to those principles of Faith and Obedience which God hath given him in his revealed Will as the Grounds and Rules of his Practice The 3d Authentickness of which Testimony doth manifest it self to every man partly by the known truth of the things attested which are not concealed from him but represented as the things of himself and partly from that power which God hath over it not only in rectifying any Errors thereof but likewise in shewing himself merciful toward us in such things wherein such a Testimony is not for but against us This Testimony you say you want because you finde not any Witness in your self that you are a Childe of God I conceive it is not impossible for your Spirit to give this Testimony though you have deafned your ear to it and take it for some deception of flesh and blood or a delusion of Satan using all the Devices he can to insnare you in carnal security but whether it be thus or no I shall advise you to endeavour to elicite and call up this Testimony by that which is the Test of it Do you continue in any wilful course of deliberate sin what know you by your self are you still guilty of any of those sins which in the judgment of the Apostle render a man uncapable of any inheritance with the Children of God if you are then look not for this Testimony till you have repented and amended your life nor then neither for it presently until such time as you have good experience of your Resolutions how they have held out in the time of tryal and Temptation and that the greatest and sharpest that in all likelyhood may happen unto you But if you are not thus guilty as for my part I believe you a re not of any mortal sin reigning in your bodie go to the Rule with this argument in your mouth The Holy Spirit of God saith Whosoever is born of God doth not sin willfully and deliberately Joh. 3.9 But upon a strict survey of my self I finde that I do not commit any such sin Therefore I am borne of God Upon the Truth of the middle Proposition depends the validity of this Testimony of your Spirit for the major is infallible and the Conclusion is undoubtedly true upon supposition that there be no such sin either of omission or commission in your conversation which may exclude you from your Sonship But yet for as much as the Apostle doth tell us that though he knew nothing by himself yet was he not thereby justified we ought in reason to lay no more weight on this disquisition and search of our selves then it will bear for our Knowledge being imperfect this search and inquiry into our own wayes cannot be absolutely perfect and consequently we subject to errors therein yet is it most certain that if we do it in sincerity of heart without partiality to our selves not only not allowing in our practise any the smallest sin but by deeds of Mortification