Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	adoption_n	cry_v	father_n	9,732	5	5.0154	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23663	A discourse of the nature, ends, and difference of the two covenants evincing in special, that faith as justifying, is not opposed to works of evangelical obedience : with an appendix of the nature and difference of saving and ineffectual faith, and the	Allen, William, d. 1686.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1673 (1673)	Wing A1061; ESTC R5298	108,111	235

made the Children of God Gal. 3. 26. Ye are all the Children of God by Faith in Christ Iesus Joh. 1. 12 13. As many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to those that believe on his Name Which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God Now to be born of God or which is the same to be made the Child of God is to have ones Nature restored to the likeness of God in which Man was first made and is the same thing with that wich is called Regeneration and a being born again and a new Creature Which new Creature or the nature of Man renewed by Faith is also called the new Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Ephes. 4. 24. To be born again is to have the faculties of Mans Nature restored to a rectitude in their motions and operations in reference both to God and Man to be restored to their proper moral use for which they were made It is in a word that which is called a being made partakers of a Divine Nature For those which are begotten of God are begotten in or to his likeness Men can adopt those which are not their natural Children to inherit their Estates but they cannot adopt them to a participation of their Moral Endowments But God adopts his Children to a participation with him in the Inheritance by adopting them to a participation of the Moral perfections of his Nature that is to a consimilitude to him in them And this we say is done by Faith that is by Faith in God and by Faith in his Word For in order of Nature God is first believed to be a God of Truth before his Word is believed to be the Word of Truth And the creditableness of his Word depends upon the knowledge or belief of the fidelity of his Nature And this Truth of God and of his Word is the immediate Object of Faith By Faith a Man believes that to be true which God reveals or declares as his Mind and Will let the Import of it be what it will But then this Faith operates upon the Will and Affections according to the Tenour and Import of that which is revealed If it be matter of sad import it works a hatred to him that threatens it and a fear of the thing threatned if it be apprehended to proceed from an enemy And this is the effect of the Faith of Devils who believe and hate God who believe and tremble Iam. 2. 19. But if that which is revealed by God and believed by Man betoken unspeakable love good will in God to Man and matter of the greatest benefit to him as a proof of such love then it worketh love to him that expresseth such love for Faith worketh by Love Gal. 5. 6. and a longing desire after the promised benefit And as the Soul grows more and more in love with God because of his love in love with his blessed Nature and Divine Perfections such as are his Love and Goodness Truth and Faithfulness Purity and Patience Mercifulness and readiness to forgive which render him altogether lovely so it contracts a likeness to God in these upon the Soul and so changes and renews the Moral habit and constitution of the Soul and consequently of the whole Life There is an aptness and promptness in men to imitate that in others and so in God for which they love them And frequent imitating Acts beget habits Custom changing Nature And hence it is that through Faith we are made partakers of a Divine Nature We all with open face beholding as in a Glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3. 18. This beholding the glory of the Lord is by Faith For we walk by Faith and not by sight 2 Cor. 5. 7. and by it Moses saw him who is invisible Heb. 11. 27. And the medium by which this Prospect is taken is the Gospel by which the Lord in his lovely Perfections is now openly revealed And Faith being from time to time busied in beholding of and conversing with these Perfections it transforms the Soul into the same Image or likeness from glory to glory that is gradually as by the Spirit of the Lord that is through the co-operation of God's Spirit with Mans Faith To comprehend the breadth length depth and heighth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge is the way to be filled with all the fulness of God by transcribing all his imitable perfections upon the Soul Ephes. 3. 18 19. And it is by virtue of their Relation to Christ and being thus begotten and born of God and made partakers of a new Nature conformable to God's that Men can with confidence call God Father This blessed effect of God's Spirit is the Spirit of Adoption by which they cry Abba Father And it is this new Nature that is the Spring and Fountain of a good Life of all Pious and Virtuous Actions As it is said of God Thou art good and dost good so it is true of all those that are born of him A good Man out of the good treasure of his heart thus renewed bringeth forth good fruit The Tree being good the Fruit will be good And as this new Creature groweth up to strength and maturity so doing of good and acting worthily will become natural and pleasant to him in whom it is To such an one the Commandments of God are not grievous but he will be able in some good measure to say I delight to do thy will O God yea thy Law is in my heart And for sin it being contrary to this new Nature there is a kind of Moral Impotency in him in whom it is to commit sin He cannot sin because he is born of God 1 Joh. 3. 9. Or if such an one be overtaken in a fault it will work a disturbance in the Soul just as that will in the stomach which a Man hath eaten against which he hath an antipathy in Nature But as for such as perform Religious Duties and do things materially good only by the strength of Extrinsecal Motives and not froman inward Principle of this new Nature or love to the things themselves to such those actions being unnatural become grievous and burdensome and will be continued in no longer than those Motives continue in their strength Sect. 8. The last thing I proposed to consider about God's Promise to Abraham is What we are to understand by God's counting Abrahams Faith to him for righteousness And I take it to signifie thus much That God in a way of special grace or by virtue of a new Law of grace and favour which was established by God in Christ Gal. 3. 17. that is in reference to what Christ was to do suffer in time then to come did reckon his Practical

unto thy Fathers to give thee Deut. 11. 21. That your days may be multiplied and the days of your Children as the days of Heaven upon Earth A great variety of outward blessings is promised as the reward of keeping that Covenant And therefore Wisdom under that Dispensation is described as having length of days in her right hand and in her left ha●d Riches and Honour whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths peace Prov. 3. 17. And as this Covenant was National so there were Promises of National Blessings such as was the setting them on high above all the Nations of the Earth making them the Head and not the Tail The giving them victory over ●nemies multiplying the Nation and bestowing on it Health Peace and Plenty Deut. 28. Lev. 26. When it 's said once by Moses thrice by Ezekiel and twice by St. Paul that the Man that doth them shall live in them Lev. 18. 5. Ezek. 20. 11 13 21. Rom. 10. 5. Gal. 3. 12. thereby Epitomizing the first Covenant I conceive that by living is meant a long and prosperous life in this World As on the contrary the condition of one greatly afflicted is in Scripture-Dialect a kind of Death and such an one said to be free among the Dead Psal. 88. 5. And that which inclines me so to think is not only the Reasons already given to prove that no other life was promised in the first Covenant but also the congruity of this sense with other passages in the Writings of Moses As Deut. 30. 15. See I have set before you this day Life and Good Death and Evil. If you would know what is meant by Life here the next verse will inform you That thou mayest live and multiply and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the Land whither thou goest to possess it The contrary whereunto is the death he had set before them saying I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish and that ye shall not prolong your dayes upon the Land c. Deut. 32. 46 47. Set your hearts unto all the words which I testifie among you this day for it is not a vain thing for you because it is your life and through this thing ye shall prolong your dayes in the Land wherein ye go The latter words are exegetical of the former Through this thing ye shall prolong your dayes is the interpretation of those it is your Life And it may be considered also whether this Particle in which if a man do he shall even live in them may not determine the nature and kind of that reward which was promised in the first Covenant as it was a present reward a reward which was received even while the work was doing according to that Psal. 19. 11. In keeping them there is great reward And this is agreeable to what fell out in the event The Lord was with them to prosper them while they were with him but when they forsook him presently troubles overtook them The pouring out of God's fury on them to consume them in the Wilderness being put in Ezek. 20. 13 21. as the direct contrary to those words which if a man do he shall even live in them seems greatly to favour this Nation But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the Wilderness They walked not in my Statutes and they d●spised my Iudgments which if a man do he shall even live in them Then I said I would pour out my fury upon them to consume them in the Wilderness And indeed one main difference between the two Covenants which I would have here observed lies in this to wit the presentness of the reward promised in the first and the futurity of that promised in the second St. Paul in his Allegorical description of the two Covenants Gal. 4. 24 c. represents those that adhered to the first Covenant by the children of Bond-servant to whom Abraham gave gifts in present and sent them away as in Gen. 25. 5. and those that adhered to the second by the Son of the Free-woman Isaac who was Abrahams Heir to whom he gave the whole Inheritance at last And the Adoption of Sons as the Priviledge of the New Covenant is opposed to the condition of Servants under the Old Gal. 4. 7. And what are they adopted to but to an Inheritance for the future for by Adoption they are made Heirs If a Son then an Heir of God through Christ an Heir of what of an Inheritance for the future an Inheritance Incorruptible undefiled and which fadeth not away reserved in Heaven 1 Pet. 1. 4. And therefore they are said to wait for the Adoption to wit the redemption of their Bodies at the resurrection Rom. 8. 23. Sons and Heirs serve their Father with a free and ingenuous Spirit though they have but little for the present in confidence of what he will do for th●m hereafter in another world when they shall come to age But those under the Old Covenant were like Servants who serve with a servile Spirit because they do it with expectation of present pay The one walk by Faith which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen the other were influenced in their obedience by the expectation of present reward because that was it which the first Covenant promised to the observers of it These Promises now insisted on were promises of reward to the observers of this first Covenant But besides these there was another sort of Promises exhibited in the first Covenant and they were Promises of pardon in many cases when the Laws of that Covenant were broken There were as I have shewed Laws of Indemnity which made many of the breaches of the Laws of duty pardonable upon certain conditions And such were all sins of Ignorance and Inadvertency and some of those also which were committed wittingly But presumptuous sins and such as carried in them a kind of contempt of the Law these were exempted from pardon Heb. 10. 28. He that despised Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses But for the other there were promises of pardon upon certain conditions which conditions were not always the same In some cases the offering of a Sin-offering or Trespass-offering was the Condition In other Cases that with confession of Sin was the Condition And in some other Cases Sacrificing Restitution and Satisfaction were the Condition And afflicting of the Soul as well a the Sacrifice for Atonement on the day of general Expiation was always a Condition of forgiveness These things in the particularities of them you have in the 4 5 6 16 and 23d Chapters of Levit. And then the Condition of the Promises of Purgation of Legal Uncleannesses and the penal effects of them was the observing the Rules prescribed for purifying the Unclean Now the forgiveness promised by these Laws of Indemnity did not free the Conscience from all Obligation to Eternal punishment but only freed the