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	sin_n	vicious_a	24	3	10.5742	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49801	Theo-politica, or, A body of divinity containing the rules of the special government of God, according to which, he orders the immortal and intellectual creatures, angels, and men, to their final and eternal estate : being a method of those saving truths, which are contained in the Canon of the Holy Scripture, and abridged in those words of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which were the ground and foundation of those apostolical creeds and forms of confessions, related by the ancients, and, in particular, by Irenæus, and Tertullian / by George Lawson ...	Lawson, George, d. 1678.	1659 (1659)	Wing L712; ESTC R17886	441,775	362

wofull estate it highly concerns all and every one of us whilst it is said to day if we will hearken to his voice not to harden our hearts lest God swear in his wrath that we shall never enter into his Rest. We that live in the last dayes and enjoy the Ministery of the Gospell have not onely many a fair Warning but many a fearfull Example represented before our very eyes These are the Punishments of the unregenerate § VIII which they suffer before the Resurrection There are also Punishments which God's own Children after their Regeneration and beginning of the estate of Justification suffer in this life For as they have their Negligencies Ignorances Failings and sometimes their grievous Sins So they have their Punishments accordingly For the most just God who is most holy and of purest Eyes will in no wise allow of Sin in his own dearest Children For though his greatest design is to save the sinner yet he will punish and destroy the sin As the greater their diligence care and zeal shall be the greater their peace joy and comfort shall prove So if they offend be negligent carelesse cold the lesse Communion they shall have with their God and the greater their doubts feares troubles griefs shall be And these spirituall Desertions of their God and the withdrawings of the Spirit are sad and heavy Judgments How great must their discomfort needs be when God doth hide his face Christ standeth at a distance and the Spirit doth not appear This is evident from the many dolefull complaints and lamentations of God's Servants and dearest Children They suffer many temporall Afflictions in their Persons Goods Families Children near Relations besides For they are many times chastened of the Lord that they should not be condemned with the World 1 Cor. 11. 35. The Sword departs not from David's house and his Children wrong and murther one another for his crimes of Adultery and Murther Yet these though grievous were not his most grievous and greatest Punishments The sting of sin and guilt thereof doth deeply pierce and torment his Soul the sanctifying and sealing Spirit was abated and in a great measure withdrawn as his divine Vertues so his blessed Comforts were almost reduced to a spark raked up in the ashes and if God had not in due time out of depth of Mercy revived it What had become of him What his case was we may easily understand by Psal. 51. at large especially by that earnest Petition Create in me a clean Heart and renew a right Spirit within me Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thine holy Spirit from me Restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit that is Comfort me with the Spirit of Adoption Psal. 51. 10 11 12. This Punishment Peter felt tormenting his Soul when he reflected upon his Sin in denying his Saviour And surely to find the Power of Sanctification and spirituall Consolation to abate in our Hearts and the Vigour of it for present extinct is an unvaluable losse and an intolerable Punishment to God's Saints Therefore we are advised not to grieve or offend the Spirit of God whereby we are sealed unto the day of Redemption Ephes. 4. 30. and exhorted to give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 1. 10. For the more diligent wa●chfull zealous constant we are in the Practise of holy Duties the more our sanctifying power shall be increased the ●●ronger our Hope the greater our Assurance and the more abundantly our Consolations will ●low Otherwise God being light will not communicate himselfe to men that live in darknesse nor to his own Children but as walking in the Light It 's strange that Saints and Martyrs in the midst of flaming fire and whilst under most cruell and most exquisite Torments should rejoyce with unspeakeable joy and in these Desertions should be so fearfully dejected Yet the cause is God will not abate the least Jot of his Justice when he shews the greatest Mercies After the Punishments inflicted by this most just Lord § IX and King upon single Persons declared briefly something must be said of the Punishments rendred to Persons associated as such These are considered either in a civill Capacity making up the body of a civill State or in an Ecclesiasticall and spirituall Capacity constituting a Church The Punishments of civill States and Kingdoms we may read and understand in sacred and humane Stories And so great are the Motions Shakings made in these great Bodies throughout the World in all times that we may easily understand that there is an universall and supreme Lord and that there is one most high whose Throne is in Heaven that ordereth the Kingdoms of men and disposeth all things in it according to certain Rules of Justice and Wisdome It 's a great Mercy of God to affoord us civill Government and to preserve the same And though the benefit thereof be generall and extends to all Mankind yet in the ordering and establishing Common-weales God hath a speciall care of the Church and the Society of Pilgrims and Strangers here on earth who seek eternall peace in Heaven as Subjects and Citizens of an eternall State This he continues protects and ordereth aright by his almighty hand and profoundest wisdom in the midst of all the Tumults Confusions Ruines D●solations of the Kingdoms of the World These have their Beginning Increase Corruptions Alterations Ruines and fatal Periods not according to any certain Numbers or revolution of times nor the motion and influence of heavenly bodies and Aethereal lights nor from the power or weaknesse the imprudence or policy of man but from God according to the eternall rules of Justice and Wisdom determined and observed by him Yet he doth all things in number weight and measure most exactly and in the execution of his Judgments ●●th the ministery of Angels Men and other Creatures When States that professe not the Gospel shall govern negligently imprudently unjus●ly and shall be corrupted and Corrupters and especially Persecutors of the Church and when States professing knowledge of the true God and the faith of Jesus Christ shall not onely violate the Lawes of Nature but neglect to protect the Church persecute the power of Godlinesse under what pretence ●oever become superstitious idolatrous prophane administer Injustice Cruelty be imprudent negligent unmercifull vitious and degenerate then the Punishments both of the one and other shall be Famine Pestilences Seditions civill Wars forreign Invasions Captivity Poverty Desolations many other Miseries and many times change of Government or the Translation of the Power Civill from one People to another and sometimes Anarchy and a totall dissolution of all order God useth the Governours to punish the People the People to punish their Princes and sometimes the Sword of a forreign Prince to punish or destroy both And when no Justice can be had from men on Earth he executes Vengeance in some extraordinary manner from Heaven Thus

it was in the beginning of civill States and it shall be so unto the end of the World God will have it to be so To all these Punishments must be added the losse of safety peace plenty and all other Blessings and Comforts which God doth usually give to men by good Government In the Execution of these Judgments the great Lord respects no Persons He punisheth many as well as few the mighty Monarchs of the World as well as the meanest Subjects The ruine of so many royall Families of so many large and potent Empires and Kingdomes might teach the Princes of the World to do Justice and to fear this everlasting Judge As there be civill § X so there are spirituall and ecclesiasticall Societies which as such have their proper Sins whereby they make themselves liable to those Punishments which God from Heaven inflicts upon them This Church which we call a spirituall Society began in a Family the first Family in the World of Adam and Eve being penitent and believing in that Seed of the Woman which should break the Serpent's head which was Christ. It encreased and was enlarged in that Family by their Children especially Abel first and then Seth and as mankind was multipled so it multiplied And at length there was a separation of the Sons of men from the Sons of God which Sons of God were in processe of time so degenerate mixed and polluted and the former Worthies and Sons of God translated into a better World that it was reduced again to that one Family of Noah Yet the greatest part of the Posterity of that Family who peopled the Earth did so apostate that a great part of Mankind was ejected and excommunicated out of this blessed Society And out of this great Body God calls Abraham and renews the Promise of Christ unto him more particularly and explicitly then formerly he had done He continues his Church in a more speciall manner in his Family and entailes the great Promise upon his posterity Isaac and Jacob and then in his Children who being multiplied into a Nation he brings out of Egypt and settles them in the Land of Canaan and encloseth them from all Mankind makes them his peculiar People continues the great Promise unto them trusts them with his Oracles and gives them Lawes and Statutes sends them Prophets and takes speciall charge of them till the Son of God was exhibited and incarnate Yet these with the Proselytes had their sins and according to their impenitency besides their temporall their spirituall Punishments But when Christ was once come into the World had finished the work of Humiliation was exalted to the right hand of Glory had powred down the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles God calls the Jewes first then the Gentiles and by them commissioned to go into all Nations he begins to gather a Church Christian For they preach the Jewes and Gentiles bear believe professe their faith and so are admitted as Subjects of God's spirituall Kingdom of Grace As Disciples and Professours were multiplied in any City or Country the Apostles or their Assistants and Commissioners appoint Elders and Ministers of the Word over them to take care of their Souls for to conform the converted and build them up and perfect them that were converted and convert others for to enlarge Christ's territories The Officers of Christ were extraordinary and ordinary and some did plant and some did water but God gave the increase And the Elders and ordinary Officers were trusted with the Word and Sacraments for to dispense the one and administer the other according unto their Commission After that not onely People but Ministers were encreased and severall Congregations setled under severall Ministers they begin to associate and combine for Discipline according to their Vicinities and other conveniences This was the beginning of outward Ecclesiastical● Po●●ties Christian The end of this discipline was to preserve the severall societies in unity and Purity of Doctrine an worship to promote Piety to prevent Errours Heresies Sch●m●s Scandall 〈◊〉 er●●●tion and Idolatry and so preserve them pure according to the first plantation of the Apostles and institution of Christ. The power of this outward discipline was 〈◊〉 Virtually in the whole body of the Church whether greater or lesse associated into one body but delegated for the exercise thereof in an orderly way unto such persons as should be judged most fit and able for that businesse This power did extend to the making of Canons constituting Officers exercising Spirituall jurisdiction in binding and loosing on Earth which should be made good in Heaven All the particular Churches of the World on Earth at one time make up one body § XI and community Spirituall subject unto Jesus Christ their Monarch I say as one Universall body its subject onely to Christ. For as for outward discipline we cannot find that Christ Instituted any Vicar-generall or erected any Court supreme in any one City or place of the World As God never made an Universall King so He never made a Catholick or Vniversall Bishop Men may fancy such a thing But it 's only a fancy not a reall truth nor ever can be proved to be so In the Church of Christ there are some living members Reall Saints who ha●e a reall communion with their head and derive Heavenly blessings and comforts from him and these make up that which we call the Mysticall Church of which no Prophane or Hypocriticall Wretch can be a member But in the Churches severall which we call Visible and Instituted there are good and bad sincere Believers and bare Professours and Hypocrites And of these visible societies I now intend to speak when I declare the judgments of God inflicted upon the Churches When Ministers and People begin to neglect the duties of worship are remisse in discipline as the Church of Ephesus Corinth Laodicea and many others were fall from their first Love Purity Piety abate in devotion and the fire of their zeal is quenched T●heir punishments spirituall besides their temporall are Persecutions from without Schism and Heresy from within By the one the body is torn asunder and by the other the members are poysoned And as they abate in their duty God abates in the powerfull and comfortable Workings of the Spirit And if they continue in their sins God in the end will wholly take away his spirit and remove the Golden Candlestick as He once threatned the Church of Ephesus and in it all other Churches in the like case And He will send his Word and Messengers unto another People and will let out his Vineyard unto other Husbandmen which shall render him the fruits in their season Thus He dealt with the Jew Many times God brings in upon their Cities an their Countries where they professe the Gospel but not Practise it Cruel and Barbarous enemies Thus He gave the Northern and Western Churches and Nations to the Goths and Vandals who like a mighty deluge overflowed them and like an

or disquiet us then our peace must needs be great This love of God is manifested to us many ways As 1 By Trials Chastisements Corrections which are bitter for the present sweet in the end so that we know God in these was not angry but did love us 2 By strange and wonderful Deliverances wherein his Power his Wisdom and special love unto us do evidently appear 3 By the return of our prayers which is many times such as that we certainly know that we were heard in Heaven and God did far more for us then we desired or could have desired 4 And most of all when we find our Faith strengthned our Graces increased our Power over Sin improved For by these things we know assuredly that God by the Spirit of Christ dwells in us and we are very sensible of his powerful presence in our Souls as in his Temple By these things when we look back we begin to discover God's everlasting love in Predestination and those stable and unchangeable Decrees made in Christ before the Foundation of the World And when we look forward we see Heaven open Christ our Saviour at his Fathers right hand making intercession for us our Eternal Mansions there by him prepared and an excellent estate of glory ready for us as reconciled and adopted to this estate And upon our Prayers our Eyes are enlightned so that we gain a further knowledge of the hope of his Calling and the Riches of the glory of his Inheritance in his Saints and of the exceeding greatness of his power towards us The more we do good and suffer ill for his sake the greater and more certain our hope of eternall glory is And though we live by hope and see somewhat dimly our heavenly Country afar off and have but some glimmerings of the eternal light that there doth ever shine yet for the present Faith is the substance of these things hoped for and the evidence of these things that are not seen nor enjoyed These imperfect Representations and apprehensions of this glorious estate do inflame our hearts with vehement desires of nearer approaches to our God cause us to presse with all our power towards our heavenly Prize and warmes our hearts with unspeakable joy because we know one day we shall have full Communion with our God and shall never be in danger to sin again Yet this joy § XIV and Peace may be interrupted much abated and sometimes seem to be extinct for a while For according to our neglect and abatement in the exercise of that Sanctifying Power God hath given us and the use of those meanes and our opportunities he hath afforded so our peace and joy abate And much more are they lessened and abated by our grievous sins As by word and prayer this heavenly fire was first kindled so by these it 's kept alive and increased Fervent and frequent prayers serious meditations upon Gods holy Precepts and his gracious Promises with constant practise are like fewel to this fire and like Bellows to stirr it up and cause it burn with a clearer and more ardent flame and so improve this joy unto an high degree But as when we either withdraw the fewel or powre water upon the fire it 's abated and ready to be quenched so by neglect of the former duties and especially by grievous sins we grieve and offend the blessed spirit of joy peace comfort and so he begins to withdraw himself Therefore let us not with Ephesus fall from our first love nor with Laodicea cool in our zeal nor with David contract the guilt of haynous Crimes For we must know that the most just God will judge his own people according to their Works and so reward or punish them If we neglect to walk with Him in the light of holinesse He will refuse to give us the light of joy and comfort When we either abate in our performances or fall into grievous sins our God either by afflictions or admonitio●s and reproofs or by the working of the blessed Spirit or by some or all these doth cause us to see our guilt and make us sensible of our sins and so bring us back again And upon our serious return our joyes are revived and our peace restored And great and wonderfull is his care over his Children in this kind for as he prevented them with his grace at first to convert them that he might make them his Children much more when they are his Children and do fall will he prevent them by his grace to raise them up again and revive the sparks of fire remayning He will not suffer them to dye He will punish them that He may Reward as He afflicted the offending Corinthians with sicknesse and some of them with death and so judged and chastened them that they should not be condemned with the World Lest this first Regeneration and title to the eternal inheritance should be in vain He will keep them by his power through faith unto salvation which is ready to be revealed in the last time 1 Pet. 1. 3 4 5. And if his power should not preserve their Faith as well as their Persons they must needs perish He hath signified that the Connexion between their Faith Love Patience and eternall glory is indissoluble For the patience and faith of the Thessalonians in all their persecutions and tribulations they endured were a manifest token of the Righteous judgment of God That they might be counted worthy of the Kingdome of God for which they did suffer 2 Thes. 1. 4 5. For if we suffer with Christ we shall be glorified with him Rom. 8. 17. 2 Tim. 2. 11 12. And this is a faithfull saying These things being so there was little reason why the Remonstrants in their Synoda● Acts and Writings should so mince the matter as though they were afraid to give any advantage to the Truth Upon the 5th Article of Perseverance they say that God 1 According to his absolute Power not according to the Law of Grace 2 In an extraordinary not an ordinary way 3 May reward not will reward 4 Not constantly but sometimes 5 Not all his Children but some long and much exercised in Piety and tried in Afflictions with the grace of not failing Perseverance 6 This they will not determine but leave indifferent How this can consist with the Scriptures I know not As there be Spiritual Rewards in this life § XV so there be after Death and before the Resurrection As for the Body because it hath been the Tabernacle of a Regenerate and sanctified Soul and with it a Temple of the Holy Ghost Therefore though it be separated from the Soul and turned into Dust yet it 's laid down in certain hope of the Resurrection For if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in us then He that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken our Mortal Bodies by his Spirit which dwelleth in us Rom. 8. 12. Besides it 's freed

essential And that perfect and perpetual obedience should be that condition upon which per●ormed it was God's Will Eternal Life should follow and no ways else was accidental So likewise it was that the sin of one should be the sin of all and His Death their death For the Law might have been a Law without any such thing This Law may be considered § IV 1. As given to Adam and in him to all Mankind 2. As continued yet with several accidental and extrinsecal alterations in the Kingdom of God-Redeemer As it was given to Adam it 's of a two-fold consideration in respect 1. Of him as Innocent 2. Of him as Fallen Adam as Innocent received this Law and it was given unto him as righteous and holy by Creation and he was able to keep it And he was bound to perform it perfectly and perpetually together with other Positives And this perfect and perpetual obedience was the onely condition of life to him and his and one sin one committed made him and his liable to death After that Adam and in him all his had sinned it was a Law of Sin and Death unto them and if God had made it a standing Rule of Judgment in strict Justice man must needs have b●en condemned to Eternal Death and there was no hope or possibility of Eternal Life by this Law For suppose God had pardoned this first sin and yet continued this Law in force man could not have been saved by it For he lost the Spirit of Sanctification and if God had continued to say Do this and live because he could not do this he could not live Neither was there any Promise of a Saviour to expiate his sin nor of the Spirit to enable him to keep it nor of Pardon upon expiation made if he afterwards transgressed it After that God in passing Sentence upon the Devil had said § V that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents Head this Law continued but with a great alteration in respect of man A Redeemer who should satisfie God's Justice and merit God's favour unto man was promised his satisfaction accepted the Spirit restored pardon and eternal life promised Faith in the Redeemer made the condition of life the Law of the forbidden Fruit ceased the Law of Works as the condition of life and rule of judgment for punishments and rewards repealed And all this was done in great mercy by God as Supream and absolute Lord above his own Law which bound not Him the Soveraign but Man His Subject Thus much I observed when I spake of the Judgment which God passed upon the Authors of the first sin But how the Law-Moral continued you shall hear-anon The knowledge of this Law § VI as applyed to the Acts Dispositions Habits of men is common●y called Conscience which is nothing else but the knowledge of a man's Acts Dispositions Habits as agreeable or disagreeable to this or other Laws of God This Knowledge in respect of acts future is the Law of God within him to bind him to obedience and restrain him from disobedience In respect of acts past it 's a Judge within himself or a Witness for or against him before the Tribunal of God This it is properly yet tropically in Scripture it 's several times taken in another sense according to the several adjuncts thereof For the practical judgment of man is sometimes more sometimes less perfect and great is his Ignorance and many his Errours both in matter of Law and of Fact and most of all in applying the Law unto the Fact or Fact unto the Law Sometimes it 's a false Witness and an unjust Judge and hence man's Security in greatest Guilt and Despair when there is hope of Mercy This Knowledge of this Law-Moral in Adam innocent was more perfect § VII in his Posterity more imperfect For the enlightening Spirit was taken from him it was not so purely diligently constantly taught neither was the outward Revelation thereof renewed to all Besides the erroneous Traditions without the Corruptions of man's Heart within with other vicious Habits together with God's just judgment had much impaired this Knowledge though not utterly razed it out For even the wicked Heathen who had not the Law written yet by Nature did something contained in the Law and were a Law unto themselves which did shew the Works of the Law of God written in their hearts Rom. 2. 13 14 15. Yet the knowledge of it was always preserved in the Church by constant Teaching and reiterated Revelations improving the Natural Light of Reason Yet some Positives and Ceremonials were always added and it was joyned to the Law of Faith God renewed the Doctrine of it more perfectly and in a more solemn manner unto Israel both by an audible Voice and by writing it in Tables of stone Moses and the Prophets Christ and His Apostles more fully and clearly explain it And by outward Teaching and inward Illumination God writes it by degrees in the hearts of His people The use of the Law may be considered § VIII 1. In respect of the Gentile 2. Of the Jew 3. Of the Church in general but especially Christian. In respect of the Gentiles who had other positive Laws and Customs either by Tradition or the invention of the Devil and wicked men this Moral-Law so far as it was left written in their hearts taught them their Duty to the onely true God and also unto Man For it was a Rule in matters of Religion and in matters of Justice unto them both as they were single persons and also associated in a Family or a Common-wealth It was the Rule of their Civil Government both in making Laws and in Judgment And according to the violation of this Law God judged single persons Families Nations and Kingdoms And the knowledge thereof which they had or might have had though imperfect did manifest in their own Conscience the justice of God's Judgments executed upon them And so much the more because by His patience long-suffering and bounty together with this law he sought to draw them to Repentance But they holding the truth of God in unrighteousness and continuing impenitent were inexcusable and justly delivered up unto a Reprobate mind as may appear Rom. 1. from ver 18. ad finem Chap. 2. from ver 1. to the 17th And they that disobeyed this clear light of Nature were justly punished by God with the ignorance of Jesus Christ and the want of the Laws and Promises of God-Redeemer It was of singular use to the Jew For § IX 1. It was added to the Promise made to Abraham four hundred and thirty years before 2. It was so revealed that it reduced all Moral Duties to a few Heads and digeste● those Heads into an exact and excellent Method and was given with a special application to that People 3. It was Supernaturally written in two Tables of Stone that it might be reserved in the Ark as a rare and lasting Monument from Heaven