Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	ghost_n	holy_a	inspire_v	2,844	5	10.2489	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59657	Certain select cases resolved specially tending to the right ordering of the heart, that we may comfortably walk with God in our general and particular callings / by Thomas Shephard ...	Shepard, Thomas, 1605-1649.; Adderley, William.	1650 (1650)	Wing S3104; ESTC R33878	30,111	60

expresse fully my thoughts about our Spirituall union in his lib. 4. cap. 17. I answer I have forgot what he hath writ and my selfe have read long since out of him and for the present I have no bookes about me where I am and therefore cannot satisfie you in this neither know I when I shall seeke to finde out the booke and place If I have leisure I will either write to you or tell some of your friends before I am gone what he hath said or writ that way c. Againe thirdly You desire me to tell you how my selfe came to the cure of Atheisticall thoughts and whether they did weare out or whether they were rationally overthrown I answer at first they did wear out meeting with fruitlesse and dead-hearted company which was at the University 2. The Lord awakened me again● and bid me beware lest an old sore broke out again and this I found that strength of reason would commonly convince my understanding that there was a God but I felt it utterly insufficient to perswade my will of it unlesse it was by fits when as I thought Gods Spirit moved upon the Chaos of those horrible thoughts and this I thinke will be found a truth 3. I did groane under the bondage of those unbelieving thoughts looking up and sighing to the Lord that if he were as his workes and word declared him to be he would be pleased to reveale himselfe by his owne beames and perswade my heart by his owne Spirit of his Essence and being which if he would do I should account it the greatest mercy that ever he shewed me And after grievous and heavy perplexities when I was by them almost forced to make an end of my selfe and sinnefull life and to be mine owne Executioner the Lord came between the bridge and the water and set me out of anguish of spirit as she prayed for a child to pray unto him for light in the midst of so great darkenesse In which time he revealed himselfe manifested his love stilled all those raging thoughts gave returne in great measure of them so that though I could not read the Scripture without blasphemous thoughts before now I saw a glory a majesty a mistery a depth in it which fully perswaded and which light I desire to speake it to the glory of his free grace seeing you call me to it is not wholly put out but remaines while I desire to walk closely with him unto this day And thus the Lord opened mine eyes and cured me of this misery and if any such base thoughts come like beggers to my doore to my minde and put these scruples to me I use to send them away with this answer Why shall I question that Truth which I have both knowne and seen But you say this remedy is good viz. of prayer but that you cannot use it especially because you question the truth of God Yet deare Sir give not over this Trade you will doubtlesse finde it gainefull when it may be God hath laden you more with these thoughts and made you loath your selfe for them But the thing seemes strange to me if I mistake you not viz. that your heart will not be perswaded but that you must resolve your doubts concerning the perfection of Scripture not by seeking to h●rmonise those passages that seeme to crosse one another but by ascribing some humanity or error if I may interpret you to the pen-men seeing St. Paul saith We prophesy but in part and seeing one of the Evangelists leaves out the doxology in the Lords prayer Sir if you take these thoughts arising from these and the like grounds as your burden I do not blame you but pitty you in that respect but if your judgement indeed thinke so I am sorry you should harbour such thoughts one houre within doores for you know that holy men writ the Scriptures but so far they might erre but it is added as they were inspired or as the Originall hath it as they were moved or carried in the armes of the holy Ghost and so how could they erre how could God lie It is true Paul did prophesie but in part and is this an argument because he did not prophesie fully therefore in some things he did not prophesie truly I am perswaded you will say there are many things my poore thoughts have suggested to you as true and yet I am perswaded I doe in them prophesie if I may so say but in part The Spirit of God directed the foure Evangelists to write yet so as they did not all write what another writ but in great wisdome left some things doubtfull and short in one which are more cleare and full in another and hence the Doxologie is fully set downe in one and not in another and many reasons I could set you downe why but that it is needlesse I grant you ought not to put up all with a charitable opinion of Scripture but if you can by reason reading and comparing helpe your heart to a full perswasion this is Scripture but many things you cannot get satisfaction for by that way and meanes but still your Spirit will be left darke and doubtfull What course will you here take for resolution which is Scripture The Papists say it is so because the Church hath christned it for Scripture you say you will see reason for it that it is so or else you cannot be satisfied then I feare you wil never be satisfied I thinke In this case therefore these two things you are to do 1. To go to God by prayer to give you a resolution of all your doubts and by some meanes or other some light to see whether this is his word or not Secondly if this be his word that he would perswade your heart of it that it is so For the least resolution which is Scripture and which is not is made by the same perswasion and sole perswasion of the same Spirit that writ the Scripture Concerning the Angels that appeared to Mary see Gerard and he briefly I thinke will satisfie you In your answer to the particular scruples about the Scripture sense and the dissonancy of them Onely this I will adde to the last clause about these things that if the Scripture be inspired by the holy Ghost and that not in the sum and substance of it but to every word and sentence of it which I thinke you will not doubt of when you have considered it then I thinke it will undeniably follow that the same Spirit of truth is also a Spirit of order and hence the method of various penning of it is from the Spirit too which you say you sticke at Againe to your third thing concerning your spirit being burthened with involuntary infirmities as burdens but not as sinnes I say nothing now because I perceive by one part of your reply that the Lord hath done you some good by the first answer onely it is your griefe you cannot

between himselfe and himself himselfe as he is in Christ and so to joy and triumph and himselfe as hee is growing on his first root and so to sorrow and loath and condemn himself so that to wi●de up all that I have said looke upon your selfe as in Christ you may say these involuntary infirmities do not shall not condemn me But Lord it is grace Grace that it is not so and this is Evangelicall humiliation Look again upon your self as you stand on your own bottom and live in your owne nature and so you may say after the least infirmity I have now broken a most holy and righteous Law and therefore I am already condemned O woe is me I have already undone my selfe by mine iniquity and this is Legall humiliation which serves for mortification as the first for vification I know it is very difficult to bring the heart to acknowledge freely it deserves death after so ●mall an involuntary offence but when the Lord reveales two things First himself in his glory Secondly how the least sinne strikes him I perswade my selfe the vilest heart cannot but be forced to confesse how just God should be in his severest proceedings against him And withall consider the more involuntary any sinne is the more strong and naturall it is and the more naturall the more horrible as to be a naturall Thief is farre worse then to be a deliberat thiefe who sometimes steales and therefore good Sir take heed of looking no deeper nor seeing no further then the bare act and unvoluntarinesse and accidentalnesse and suddennesse of your infirmities for if you do you look through the wrong end of the glas●e and they will appear so small that you will find it a very tough work to bring your heart consentively to say if I may say and use your owne phrase It is thy mercy Lord that I am not consumed for them but look upon them as indeed they are in respect of that infinite glory you strike doing the greatest mischiefes to God by them and which makes them the viler as they are so strong you cannot remove them and so horrible as that it is naturall to you to commit them c. And surely you will not through grace finde such thoughts haunt you long not but that they wil be haply rising and tempting but never allway vexing and prevailing Satans ground reaching as far as the minds of Gods people and therefore so farre he may come and there he may walke for the came into the minde of innocent Adam nay Iesus Christ by his suggesting temptations but the heart is Christs peculiar pos●ession and purchase and if he shall still there offer to come in and vex you and prevail against you and to lodge his suggestions this or any other way with you you have Law and Christ on your side by this little light now given you to cast him out The third thing that troubles you is the disranking of the Persons in the Trinity for though you thinke the holy Ghost is God yet you have not so high a repute of him as of the Father and the Sonne because the Sonne addresseth himselfe to God the Father in all his prayers and acknowledgements in a more immediate manner then unto the holy Ghost and therefore you would know if the word Father as in the Lords Prayer includes not the Unity in Trinity To this briefly consider three things 1. Without all question the same God which lies under that relative property of Father is the same God with the God-head of the Sonne and the God-head of the holy Ghost there being not three Gods and therefore the God-head of the Sonne and Spirit are not excluded but included in the Godhead of the Father when we looke upon the Father as God in the Lords Prayer or anywhere else 2. But secondly the Father as Father is never taken for the same holy Ghost in Scripture nor the Sonne as Sonne is taken for the Father nor the holy Ghost as holy Ghost is at any time taken for the Sonne For it is a rule in Theologie though the res subs●rata the thing that lies under the Relative property viz. the God-head of every person be common and communicated yet the same God-head considered as clothed with his Relative property as Father Son and Spirit it is not common but peculiar For the God-head of the Father as Father is not the God-head of the Son as Son c. 3. Hence it followes that when Christ addre●seth himselfe to the Father as Father in Scripture it is not because he is either a diverse or greater God then the holy Ghost but it is for two other reasons 1. Because the Father as Father received primarily the wrong that sinne did against his worke of creation For the Father being the first Person in order and creation the first transient act as election and reprobation were the first immanent hence this worke is attributed chiefly to God the Father in respect of our orderly apprehension and hence man sinning then when he was onely made this is chiefly attributed to be against the Father because his worke appeared to be chiefly there and not against the Son for his worke chiefly appeares in redemption hee being the second Person and this the second main and wonderfull work neither against the holy Ghost for his worke chiefly appeares to us in application being the third Person And this the third main act that ever God will do or show forth to the world in this life hence God the Father receiving to our apprehension the wrong in creation by sinne he is the Person that is to be satisfied and not the holy Ghost And hence Jesus Christ in all his prayers hath a most speciall eye to him and not to the holy Ghost as holy Ghost because he came into the world by his death and intercession and strong cries to satisfie God the Father and not God the holy Ghost as a third Person And hence it is said 1 John 2. 1. 2. If any man sinne we have an Advocate with God the Father not God the holy Ghost because he was to our apprehension the Person wronged and hence we are after sins committed chiefly to eye the Father in our prayers and to go to him for pardon with our advocate with us because to whom offence is chiefly offered from ●im chiefly pardon and reconciliation is to be expected 2. Therefore Christ addresseth himselfe chiefly in his prayers to God the Father because hee is the originall and first cause of all good because he is the first Person in order of subsisting and therefore first too in the manner of conveying I know the God-head is the originall of all good but consider the Persons one with another and so the father is ever the first in operation as the holy Ghost is the last in consummation for all good comes from the Father Iames 1. 17. through the Sonne by the holy Ghost And hence