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
A35343	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at Westminster, March 31, 1647 by R. Cudworth ...	Cudworth, Ralph, 1617-1688.	1647 (1647)	Wing C7469; ESTC R22606	36,595	94

were to incorporate it in them Some Philosophers have determined that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} vertue cannot be taught by any certain rules or precepts Men and books may propound some directions to us that may set us in such a way of life and practice as in which we shall at last find it within our selves and be experimentally acquainted with it but they cannot teach it us like a Mechanick Art or Trade No surely there is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth this understanding But we shall not meet with this spirit anywhere but in the way of Obedience the knowledge of Christ and the keeping of his Commandments must alwayes go together and be mutuall causes of one another Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his Commandments He that saith I know him and keepeth not his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him I Come now unto these words themselves which are so pregnant that I shall not need to force out any thing at all from them I shall therefore onely take notice of some few observations which drop from them of their own accord and then conclude with some Application of them to our selves First then If this be the right way and methode of discovering our knowledge of Christ by our keeping of his Commandments Then we may safely draw conclusions concerning our state and condition from the conformity of our lives to the will of Christ Would we know whether we know Christ aright let us consider whether the life of Christ be in us Qui non habet vitam Christi Christum non habet He that hath not the life of Christ in him he hath nothing but the name nothing but a phansie of Christ he hath not the substance of him He that builds his house upon this foundation not an airy notion of Christ swimming in his brain but Christ really dwelling and living in his heart as our Saviour himself witnesseth he buildeth his house upon a Rock and when the flouds come and the winds blow and the rain descends and beats upon it it shall stand impregnably But he that builds all his comfort upon an ungrounded perswasion that God from all eternity hath loved him and absolutely decreed him to life and happinesse and seeketh not for God really dwelling in his soul he builds his house upon a Quicksand and it shall suddenly sink and be swallowed up his hope shall be cut off his trust shall be a spiders web he shall lean upon his house but it shall not stand he shall hold it fast but it shall not endure We are no where commanded to pry into these secrets but the wholesome counsell and advise given us is this to make our calling and election sure We have no warrant in Scripture to peep into these hidden Rolls and Volumes of Eternity and to make it our first thing that we do when we come to Christ to spell out our names in the starres and to perswade our selves that we are certainly elected to everlasting happinesse before we see the image of God in righteousnesse and true holinesse shaped in our hearts Gods everlasting decree is too dazeling and bright an object for us at first to set our eye upon it is far easier and safer for us to look upon the raies of his goodnesse and holinesse as they are reflected in our own hearts and there to read the mild and gentle Characters of Gods love to us in our love to him and our hearty compliance with his heavenly will as it is safer for us if we would see the Sunne to look upon it here below in a pale of water then to cast up our daring eyes upon the body of the Sun it self which is too radiant and scorching for us The best assurance that any one can have of his interest in God is doubtlesse the conformity of his soul to him Those divine purposes whatsoever they be are altogether unsearchable and unknowable by us they lie wrapt up in everlasting darknesse and covered in a deep Abysse who is able to fathom the bottome of them Let us not therefore make this out first attempt towards God and Religion to perswade our selves strongly of these everlasting Decrees for if at our first flight we aime so high we shall happily but scorch our wings and be struck back with lightning as those Giants of old were that would needs attempt to invade and assault heaven And it is indeed a most Giganticall Essay to thruft our selves so boldly into the lap of heaven it is the pranck of a Nimrod of a mighty Hunter thus rudely to deal with God and to force heaven and happinesse before his face whether he will or no The way to obtain a good assurance indeed of our title to heaven is not to clamber up to it by a ladder of our own ungrounded perswasions but to dig as low as hell by humility and self-denyall in our own hearts and though this may seem to be the furthest way about yet it is indeed the neerest and safest way to it We must {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as the Greek Epigramme speaks ascend downward descend upward if we would indeed come to heaven or get any true perswasion of our title to it The most gallant and triumphant confidence of a Christian riseth safely and surely upon this low foundation that lies deep under ground and there stands firmely and stedfastly When our heart is once tuned in to a conformity with the word of God when we feel our will perfectly to concurre with his will we shal then presently perceive a Spirit of adoption within our selves teaching us to cry Abba Father We shall not then care for peeping into those hidden Records of Eternity to see whether our names be written there in golden characters no we shall find a copy of Gods thoughts concerning us written in our own breasts There we may read the characters of his favour to us there we may feel an inward sense of his love to us flowing out of our hearty and unfained love to him And we shall be more undoubtedly perswaded of it then if any of those winged Watchmen above that are privie to heavens secrets should come tel us that they saw our names enrolled in those volumes of eternity Whereas on the contrary though we strive to perswade our selves never so confidently that God from all eternity hath loved us and elected us to life and happinesse if we do yet in the mean time entertain any iniquity within our hearts and willingly close with any lust do what we can we shall find many a cold qualme ever now and then seizing upon us at approching dangers and when death it self shall grimly look us in the face we shall feel our hearts even to die within us and our spirits quite

Power of Sinne in our hearts as preserve us from the wrath to come Let us go out against these uncircumcised Philistines I mean our Lusts not with Shield or Spear not in any confidence of our own strength but in the name of the Lord of Hosts and we shall prevail we shall overcome our Lusts for greater is he that is in us then he that is in them The Eternall God is our refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms He shall thrust out these enemies from before us and he shall say Destroy them We shall enter the true Canaan the good Land of Promise that floweth with milk and honey the Land of Truth and Holinesse Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God that you may be able to withstand let your loines be girt about with truth have on the brestplate of righteousnesse and let your feet be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace Above all take the shield of faith whereby you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the Wicked and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God And lastly be sure of this That ye be strong onely in the Lord and in the power of his might There be some that dishearten us in this spirituall warfare and would make us let our weapons fall out of our hands by working in us a despair of Victory There be some evil Spies that weaken the hands and the hearts of the children of Israel and bring an ill report upon that land that we are to conquer telling of nothing but strange Gyants the sonnes of Anak there that we shall never be able to overcome The Amalekites say they dwell in the South the Hittites Iebusites Amorites in the Mountains and the Canaanites by the Sea-coast huge armies of tall invincible Lusts we shall never be able to go against this people we shall never be able to prevail against our Corruptions Hearken not unto them I beseech you but hear what Caleb and Ioshuah say Let us go up at once and possesse it for we are able to overcome them not by our own strength but by the power of the Lord of Hosts There are indeed Sonnes of Anak there there are mighty Gyantlike Lusts that we are to graple with nay there are Principalities and Powers too that we are to oppose but the great Michael the Captain of the Lords Host is with us he commands in chief for us and we need not be dismayed Understand therefore this day That the Lord thy God is he which goeth before thee as a consuming fire he shall destroy these enemies and bring them down before thy face If thou wilt be faithfull to him and put thy trust in him as the fire consumeth the stubble and as the flame burneth up the chaff so will he destroy thy Lusts in thee their root shall be rottennesse and their blossome shall go up as dust But let us take heed that we be not discouraged and before we begin to fight despair of Victorie but to believe and hope well in the power of our God and his strength will be half a Conquest Let us not think Holinesse in the hearts of men here in the World is a forlorn forsaken and outcast thing from God that he hath no regard of Holinesse where-ever it is though never so small if it be but hearty and sincere it can no more be cut off and discontinued from God then a Sun-beam here upon Earth can be broken off from its entercourse with the Sun and be left alone amidst the mire anddirt of this World The Sun may as well discard its own Rayes and banish them from it self into some Region of darknesse far remote from it where they shall have no dependence at all upon it as God can forsake and abandon Holinesse in the World and leave it a poore Orphane thing that shall have no influence at all from him to preserve and keep it Holinesse is something of God where-ever it is it is an Efflux from him that alwayes hangs upon him and lives in him as the Sun-beams though they guild this lower World and spread their golden wings over us yet they are not so much here where they shine as in the Sun from whence they flow God cannot draw a Curtain betwixt himself and Holinesse which is nothing but the Splendor and Shining of himself He cannot hide his face from it he cannot desert it in the World He that is once born of God shall overcome the World and the Prince of this World too by the Power of God in him Holinesse is no solitary neglected thing it hath stronger Confederacies greater Alliances then Sinne and Wickednesse It is in league with God and the whole Universe the whole Creation smiles upon it there is something of God in it and therefore it must needs be a victorious and triumphant thing Wickednesse is a weak cowardly and guilty thing a fearfull and trembling Shadow It is the Child of Ignorance and Darknesse it is afraid of Light and cannot possibly withstand the power of it nor endure the sight of its glittering Armour It is allianced to none but wretched forlorn and apostate Spirits that do what they can to support their own weak and tottering Kingdome of Darknesse but are onely strong in Weaknesse and Impotency The whole Politie and Commonwealth of Devils is not so powerfull as one Child of Light one Babe in Christ they are not all able to quench the least smoking flax to exstinguish one spark of Grace Darknesse is not able to make resistance against Light but ever as it comes flies before it But if wickednesse invite the Society of Devils to it as we learn by the sad experience of these present times in many examples of those that were possessed with Malice Revengfulnesse and Lust so that those cursed Fiends do most readily apply themselves to it and offer their service to feed it and encourage it because it is their own Life and Nature their own kingdome of Darknesse which they strive to enlarge and to spread the Dominions of shall we then think that Holinesse which is so nearly allied unto God hath no good Genius at all in the World to attend upon it to help it and encourage it Shall not the Kingdome of Light be as true to its own Interest and as vigilant for the enlarging of it self as the Kingdome of Darknesse Holinesse is never alone in the World but God is alwayes with it and his loving Spirit doth ever associate and joyn it self to it He that sent it into the World is with it as Christ speaketh of himself the Father hath not left me alone because I do alwayes those things that please him Holinesse is the Life of God which he cannot but feed and maintain wheresoever it is and as the Devils are alwayes active to encourage evil so we cannot imagine but that the heavenly Host of blessed Angels above