Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	able_a	act_v	active_a	25	3	8.3645	4	false

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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

the very presence of God himself is there as he saith I will dwell in them and walk in them Agreeable to this is that of Christ where he saith All this shall they do to you for my Names sake that is when the Name of Christ is called upon us and we are taken into his Name that is into his righteousnesse and life and truth and wisedom and holinesse and into his Nature which comprehends all this then when the world perceives the Name of God in the Sons of men and the nature of God in the natures of men then presently they fall a persecuting the Saints for this Name and Natures sake and he that strikes at God in his Saints would if he could strike at God in himself And therefore let the world take heed what they do in this point for while they persecute the Saints they are found fighters against God himself because God is one with them and they are one with God in Christ And let the Saints be admonished so to hide and retire themselves into God through Christ that whoever is an enemy to them and opposes them may rather be an enemy to God and oppose God then them they living and acting in God and not in themselves Now this affliction the Church meets with in the world is profitable for the Church it is good for it that it should be afflicted for the more it is afflicted in the flesh the more it thrives in the Spirit this affliction stirres us up to the exercise of our faith and prayer yea then is our faith most active and vigorous and our prayers most fervent till they fill the whole heavens again then are we most in the use of the Word then are we set off furthest from the world then do we keep closest to God then have we neerest intercourse and communion with him so that we could better want fire and water and the sun then want affliction which God out of his meer love through his over-ruling power and wisedom causes to work unto us for good So that we who are placed in the hand of Christ are set in such a condition wherein nothing can do us any harm for ever but evil it self must work good unto us But we proceed tossed with tempest Where we see that the Church is not onely afflicted but violently afflicted one wave comes against it after another as in a tempest and the more spiritual the Church is the more doth the world become as a raging sea against it because the more spiritual the Church is made it is set in the more contrariety to the world and the world to it The Psalmist describes this temper in the world against the Church They came upon me like a ramping and a roaring Lion And again They came upon me to eat up my flesh as they would eat bread When the Saints have appeared in the Spirit and acted in the Spirit how violent and enraged hath the world been against them it would tosse them as in a tempest from place to place from post to pillar as they say till it hath quite tost them out of the world Yea men naturally meek and moderate how fierce have they become against the Saints when there hath appeared any glorious discoveries of Christ in them For the enmity that is in the seed of the Serpent against the seed of the woman will be still breaking forth And though it may for a time be covered under many moral vertues and a form of godlinesse yet when God leaves them to themselves and lets them act outwardly according to their inward principles how ernelly and maliciously and fiercely and desperately do they act against the Saint of God Yea there is not that enmitie between Turk and Jew as there is between carnac Gospellers and spiritual Christians the former hating these and being angry against these to the very death And whenever the Lord shall suffer these to exercise their enmity against the Church then shall the Churches condition become such as it is here described afflicted and tossed with tempest and not comforted The Chuurch of God in all the evil it meets withal in the world hath not one drop of comfort from the world it hath affliction tribulation persecution from the world but no comfort This we see in Christ the Head you know what he suffered in the world in the days of his flesh he was despised and rejected of men and so full of sorrows that he took his name from them and was called A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief At last out of meer envie and malice they apprehended him bound him buffeted him spit on him crucified him and all this would have been but a small matter to have suffered from the Heathen but he suffered all this from the onely visible Church of God in the world who put him to the most painful and shameful death of the Crosse between two malefactors to bear the world in hand that he was the third and the chief And in all this evil he had no body to pitie him or have compassion on him but they laughed at him and derided him and mocked and jeered him but no body comforted him And as it was with Christ the Head so it is with Christ the body and members they in all the evils and woes and sorrows and oppositions and persecutions they have from the world have no body to comfort them or take compassion on them Refuge failed me saith David no man cared for my soul Lover and friend hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance into darknesse saith Heman Psal. 88. 18. Brethren and Beloved ye that are partakers of the heavenly calling and of the divine nature if ever the Lord suffer the world to prevail against you to afflict you and tosse you from one evil ●o another as in a tempest to reproach you throw you out of your comforts banish you imprison you c. you shall finde no body to comfort you no body will take notice of you or regard you or own you or pitie you or be so sensible of your condition as to say Alas my brother You must look for affliction in the world but you must look for no comfort there When God shall cast us into sorrows and sufferings let us not look for one worldly man to stand by us no not of those that now smile upon us and pretend friendship to us no nor yet of our neer relations but then that shall be fulfilled I was a stranger to my brethren an alien to my mothers children Nay yet further they that are weak or worldly Christians will stand aloof from thee and will be shye to own and countenance and encourage and comfort thee publikely The disciples of Christ when he was led to the Crosse they all forsook him and fled and left him to tread the wine-presse alone And so if you suffer in the righteousnesse and truth of God you shall finde little comfort from men O thou

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