Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	abate_v	quench_v	save_a	21	3	10.6377	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45318	The shaking of the olive-tree the remaining works of that incomparable prelate Joseph Hall D. D. late lord bishop of Norwich : with some specialties of divine providence in his life, noted by his own hand : together with his Hard measure, vvritten also by himself.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.; Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. Via media.	1660 (1660)	Wing H416; ESTC R10352	355,107	501

carnal he threats with death If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye Those which are regenerate contrary to the wicked paradox of those men he assures of life If ye mortifie the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit ye shall live How doth he exclude the Spirit of bondage to fear which these good guides would lead in again how confidently doth he averr the inward testimony of Gods Spirit to ours and ascribes that voice to it which bars all doubt and disappointment and tels us by the powerful assurance of this Abba we are sons and if sons heirs coheirs with Christ Let them now go and say that God may disinherit his own son that he may cast off his adopted But say they to the same regenerate persons he applyes these two clauses and saith at once ye have received the Spirit of adoption and yet if ye walk after the flesh ye shall die what followes of this commination any assertion of the possibility of Apostasy in the regenerate Nothing lesse These threats are to make us take better hold and to walk more warily as a father that hath set his little son on horseback it is Zanchies comparison bids him hold fast or else he shall fall though he uphold him the while that both he may cause him hereby to sit fast and call the more earnestly for his supportation But the scope of the place plainly extorts a division of carnal men and regenerate the threats are propounded to the one the promises and assurance to the other and therefore no touch from hence of our uncertainty in a confessed estate of renovation For that Mat. 12.43 The Apodosis or inference of the parable might well have stop't the mouthes of these Cavillers for you shall finde in the end of it so shall it be with this wicked generation I suppose no man will be so absurd as to say these Jewes had formerly received true justifying faith How should they when they rejected the Messias And yet of them is this parable spoken by our Saviours own explication Maldonate himself a learned and spightful Jesuite can interpret it no otherwise Ideo Christus hoc dixit ut doceret pejores esse Judaeos quam si nunquam Dei legem cognitionem accepissent and to this purpose he cites Hilary Hierom Beda and this sence is so clear that unlesse the seven Devils had found harbour in the dry hearts of these men they could not so grosly pervert it Quench not the Spirit 1 Thes 5. will never prove a final or total extinction of saving grace the Spirit is quenched when the degrees of it are abated when the good motions thereof are by our security let fall we grant the Spirit may be quenched in tanto not in toto Or if we should so take it as they desire I remember Austin parallels this place with that other to Timothy Let no man despise thy youth Not saith he that the Spirit can be quenched or that contempt can be avoided but that in the one we may not indeavour to do that which may tend towards this wrong to the Spirit and in the other that we should be careful not to do that which may procure contempt The place I remember not directly but numeros teneo si verba tenerem But in all likelyhood that place sounds quite another way as may appear by the connexion of it with those two sentences following As if he should have said discourage not the graces that you finde in any of your Teachers despise not their preaching trye their doctrines And now what is this to the falling from Grace Which of us do not teach the necessity of perseverance He only that indures to the end shall be saved Be faithful to the death and c. But he that hath ordained we shall be saved hath ordained our perseverance as a mean to this salvation and hath appointed these sharp advises as the means and motives of our perseverance So as he that shall be saved shall also indure to the end Because no man plucks them out of my hand saith Christ How evidently doth the Spirit of God proclaime our certainty against these doubt-mongers Every where is he as full of assurance as these men of discomfort He that is borne of God sinneth not neither can sin because he is born of God and the seed of God remaines in them what an invincible 1 Jo. 3.3 and irrefragable consolation is this The seed of life is sown in the hearts of the elect though they could be dead to themselves yet to God they cannot And what a supposition is that of Christ that if it were possible the very elect should be deceived Desponsabo te mihi in perpetuum Mat. 24. Hos 2. and a thousand of this strain which your exercise in those holy leaves hath I doubt not abundantly furnisht you withal hold fast then my dear friend this sure anchor of our undeceivable hope and spit in the face of men or Devils that shall go about to slacken your hand Let these vain Spirits sing despair to themselves for us we know whom we have believed Thus hath my pen run it self out of breath in this so important a demand and much a do have I had to restrain it neither would I give you one houres intermission to my answer which I know your love cannot but accept as that which proceeds from a● heart zealous both of God and you Reverendissimo Viro D o. Marco Antonio DE DOMINIS Archiep. SPALATENSI Epistola DISCESSUS SUI Ad ROMAM dissuas NOli gravate ferre Reverendissime Praesul candidam hanc animi calami devotissimi tibi utriusque libertatem sane expressit mihi vel renitenti verba haec prius sincerus quidam religionis zelus tui Fama est te discessum a nobis meditari neque tam loco cedere velle quam fide strenua profecto suspicione non caret hoc ipsum proficisci neque enim cujusquam subire mentem potest hominem senem velle animi causa peregrinari deferbuit procul dubio jam diu juvenilis ille ardor relictas pridem oras curiose revisendi nec ita crassi sumus insulares ut credere possimus coelum te mutare velle nisi animum prius quadam-tenus mutare decrevisses multo vero minus septem illos invisos coelo totiesque tuo fulmine ictos colles repetere novimus nos sat bene ingenium Romae ecquem latere potest nedum hominem cordatum quam infida sit illa statio superbae Hierarchiae expugnatori Moneat te olim vester Fulgentius quam nihil ita tutum sit Pontificiae Majestatis tantillo violatori etiam post fidem si qua famae fides sancte datam post promissa munera post benignissimae invitationis blanditias Viderit tua prudentia ut te vel propudiosissima Palinodia tactaeque quas de jerasti prius arae liberaverint O tuam si quem modo profiteris sanus

works these he decrees to worke in his why should we be scrupulous in what place they come into the holy purposes of God which we graunt cannot be missing in our way to Heaven Why do we not rather labour to be such as he requires that we may injoy what he hath promised and pre-ordained for us What say the Belgick Defendents Neither did we ever say that those singular persons whom God chose from all eternity were to be considered without respect to Christ and faith in him but have ever roundly professed that the merits of Christ and faith in him are considered of God in this election of individual persons as means whereby he hath decreed to bring them to salvation see then how narrow this difference is God hath decreed by these means to bring men to salvation yet these fall not into his decree of ordinary choice to salvation they are in the execution of his decree and in the decree of his execution they are not in the decree of his election Let these be undoubted truths as they are yet what need the souls of quiet Christians be racked with so subtile questions It well befits the Schooles to examine these problemes but for common Christians it doth not so much concern them to enquire how the order of Gods decree stands in our apprehension of that one simple act of the divine understanding or will as how it is in respect of the execution Here comes in our main interest in these eternall Councills of the Almighty which drawes from us a due care and indeavour to be capable of this promised salvation and to avoid the wayes of death Could we be perswaded to take more from that speculation and to add more to this practise it would be much happier for us Neither is this election according to the Plea of the opponents made ever the more uncertain by this prerequisition of our faith since they profess to teach it supposed in our election not as a condition whose performance God expects as uncertain but as a guift which God according to his eternall prescience foresees in Man present and certain as the decree of sending Christ into the World did not depend upon a conditioned and uncertain expectation of what Man would do or would not do but upon the infallible notice of God who foresaw Man as presently sinning or falne so as the election of God is not suspended upon the mutability of Mans will but upon the infallible certainty of the foreknowledg of God to whose eyes our faith and perseverance is not more doubtfull then future and whose prescience hath no less infallibility then his decree If therefore God may have the sole glory of this work in the guift of that faith which he foresees and our election hazards no certainty as they profess to hold what is there that should need to draw blood in this first quarrell But what need I labour to reconcile these opinions which have no reason to concern us The Church of England according to the explication of R. B. Overall goes a mid-way betwixt both these For whiles the one side holds a generall conditionall decree of God to save all Men if they believe and a particular decree of saving those whom he foresaw would believe and the other side not admitting of that generall conditionate decree only teaches a particular absolute decree to save some speciall persons for whom only Christ was given and to whom grace is given irresistiblely all others being by a no less absolute decree rejected our Church saith he with St. Austin maintaineth an absolute and particular decree of God to save those whom he hath chosen in Christ not out of the prescience of our faith and will but out of the meer purpose of his own will and grace and that thereupon God hath decreed to give to whom he pleaseth a more effectuall and abundant grace by which they only not may believe and obey if they will but whereby they do actually will believe obey and persevere without prejudice to the rest to whom he hath also given gracious offers and helps to the same purpose though by their just fault neglected What can the Synod of Dort in this case wish to be said more Indeed with all he addeth a general conditionate will of God or a generall evangelical promise of saving all if they do believe since God doth will and command that all men should hear Christ and believe in him and in so doing hath offred grace and salvation unto all declaring how well these two may agree together That first God hath propounded salvation in Christ to all if they believe and hath offred them within the Church especially a common and sufficient grace in the means that he hath mercifully ordeined if men would not be wanting to the word of God and his holy Spirit and that to ascertain the salvation of man he hath decreed to add that especiall effectuall and saving grace unto some Neither of which truths can well and safely be denyed of any Christian Only the sound of a generall and conditionate will perhaps seems harsh to some ears whereto yet they should do well to inure themselves since it is the approved distinction of worthy Orthodox and unquestionable Divines Deum velle quaedam absolute manifestum esse literae sacrae confirmant etenim voluit mundum creari c. Eundem Deum velle quaedam conditionaliter docent itidem sacrae literae vult enim omnes salvari si velint implere legem aut in Christum credere proinde illam priorem voco absolutam voluntatem hanc vero posteriorem conditionalem Opusc p. 291. Caeterum illud tamen verum est Deum velle omnes homines salvos fieri voluntate scil revelata conditionali nimirum si velint in Christum credere ejus legi servandae studere hac enim voluntate nemo a salute cognitione veritatis excluditur c. ibid. pag. 285. Zanchius in his book de praedest Sanct. hath it interminis with a large exposition That God willeth some things absolutely saith he it is manifest and plainly confirmed by Scriptures so he absolutely willed the world should be created and governed so he absolutely willed that Christ should come into the World and dye for the salvation of his elect he wills also absolutely that the elect shall be saved and therefore perfomes to them all things that are necessary to their salvation that the same God willeth some things conditionally the Scriptures also teach us For God would have all men to be saved if they would keep the Law or believe in Christ and therefore I call that first an absolute will this latter a conditional And in the next leaf to the same purpose he saith it is also true that God would have all men to be saved in his revealed and conditionate will scil if they would believe in Christ and carefully keep his law for by this will no man is excluded from