Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	bear_v	enter_v	kingdom_n	5,396	5	6.1932	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34946	The new paradise of God, or, The regenerate and his fruit set forth in a sermon to the Hertfordshire-citizens at Bow-Church in Cheapside, London, July 2, 1657, being the day of their publick festival / by Isaac Craven ...	Craven, Isaac, d. 1660.	1658 (1658)	Wing C6862; ESTC R7152	19,959	32

description of a blessed man representing him 1. In his Regeneration like a Tree planted 2. In his accommodation by the rivers of waters 3. And lastly in his fructification that bringeth forth his fruit in his season So that not to burden you with any secondary distribution the regeneration of a sinner the accommodation of the regenerate and his answerable fructification these with Gods assistance shall be the boundaries of this exercise And first of the first particular in this description of a blessed man as he is represented in his regeneration like a tree planted Not simply sicut arbor like a tree For a man whether blessed or cursed is capable of that resemblance Arbor inversa as the Philosopher cals him a tree with his root upwards dilating and branching downwards insomuch as the dimmest sighted may say with him in the Gospel I see men walking like trees h Mar. 8. 24. but sicut arbor plantata there lies the discrimination like a tree that is planted And planted not meerly externally as a visible disposall in the Church within whose aspectable Territories many are called few chosen i Mat. 20. 16. but spiritually and mystically by an invisible ingrafture into Christ For otherwise that which is born of the flesh is flesh saith our Saviour k Joh. 3. 6. And not one saith Job that can bring a clean thing out of an unclean l Job 14. 4. If Adam if any of his off-spring beget a son t is onely his own likeness m Gen. 5. 3. Depraved nature cannot act beyond the sphere of its activity The Gentiles before their calling dead in trespasses and sins n Eph. 2. 1. The Jews before their believing children of wrath even as others o Eph. 2. 3. Yea of the lawfull marriages of Gods own people Non generantur filii dei saith Augustine There are not generated children of God but of this world p Lib. 1. de nupt conc cap. 17. Which if the Pelagian oppose with his like from like that learned Father is not behind for answer The Saints saith he beget not after the Spirit of their renascencie but after the flesh of their first Nativity q Non gignunt secundum spiritum per quem renati sunt sed secundum carnem è qua pati sunt To borrow his lively illustration the son ye know of a circumcised Israelite was uncircumcised born r Ser. 14. de verb. Apost Of the seed of a good Olive-tree comes nothing but Oleaster a wilde one ſ Ibid. So the faithfull spring not up naturally as the Oake from an Acorn or the Peach from a Stone but by the gracious operation of a Divine hand Fiunt saith Tertullian non nascimur Christiani t Apost cap. 17. Or as Hierom non nascimur sed renascimur Christiani u Advers Vigil True Christians are not such by their carnal birth but as they are born again and made members of Christ Nothing to speake them blessed till they be implanted into Christ for in him it is and in no other name w Act. 4. 12. that all the Nations of the earth shall be blessed x Gen. 22. 18. And hence you may observe by the way that this implantation is much different from those in our Hortyards where Scions commonly the better correct the Stocks reduce them to their own nature No such matter here We work not an alteration in the Trunk or Stock but are our selves transformed and renewed by it 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature Once unprofitable now profitable y Philem. v. 11. once dead now quickned z Eph. 2. 1. once unclean and with Hierusalem in our blood a Ezek. 16. 6. now sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God b 1 Cor. 6. 11. A Doctrine of such importance as we may not dismiss it without a few deductions For First if the Christians plantation be by way of insition and this insition so necessary in order to true felicity it naturally ensues that a Right and Title to Heaven can never be grounded upon the Nobleness of a Carnal extraction or the naturall qualities of Constitution or the moral habit of Education All these though valuable in their kind are too light in the ballance of the Sanctuary to demonstrate a blessed condition Yea although they should all be found to concenter in the same subject yet as it sometime fared with Naaman the Syrian a great man with his Master an honourable man a mighty man in valour but a Leper c so whether naturall 2 Kings 5. 1. abilities or secular priviledges or moral qualifications or their confluence in any one the state of irregeneracy distaynes them all Some indeed there have been and may be still for ought I know of a judgment extreamly favourable in behalf of heathen Moralists as if the fruit of their fair deportment were no lesse then the fruition of Heaven But it must sound very strange in the eares of sober Christians that such Ethnicks should be transplanted to heaven as were never implanted into Christ or live by vision who never lived by faith or see Gods kingdom who were never born again Undoubtedly the trees of the Paradise of God are none but whom his own right hand hath planted No arbores sylvestres common trees to be found there No inheritance in heaven but for Sonnes of God d Rom. 8. 17. No children of God but by faith in Christ e Gal. 3. 26. And such faith not of our selves Eph. 2. 8. it is the gift of God Well may we admit of Natural Theologie f Rom. 1. 19 20. but as a grave judicious Writer there 's no Natural Christianity g Dr. Reynolds in Psal 110. p. 261. seeing they that believe in Christ are born not of blood of the impure beginnings of their conception nor of the will of the flesh by the power of Nature and Free-will nor of the will of man by the prevalencie of a civill education but of God h Josh 1. 12 13. And except a man be so born by the speciall vertue and work of the Spirit he can neither see nor enter into the Kingdom of God i Joh. 3. 3 5. Wherefore secondly if the case stand thus recount I beseech you how neerly it concerns us to make this ingrafture and implantation sure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the words of the Apostle Examine your selves whether ye be in the saith And having so done over with it again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prove your own selves Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be Reprobates k 2 Cor. 13. 5. It is altogether preposterous to conclude an interest to heaven without assurance of this spiritual implantation Assurance none without experience of a supernatural change An easie matter to pretend to a communion

earth they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness l Ezek. 14. 14. Well may the good m Non possunt in die judicii aliorum virtutes aliorum vitia sublevare Hier. lives and deeds of others be matter for thy imitation or a relief to thy necessities they cannot answer for thy sinful security Though born of Religious Parents disposed in a Religious Familie seated under a Religious Pastor of acquaintance with religious People all this wil not serve to excuse thy barren profession No the righteousnesse of the righteous shall be upon him and the wickednesse of the wicked shall be upon him n Ezek. 18. 20. and the righteous Judge give every man according to the fruit of his own doings o Jer. 17. 10. Presume not then with those foolish Virgins upon the oyl in others vessels p Mat. 25. 8. Think not saith the Baptist to say within your selves We have Abraham to our Father q Mat. 3. 9. It was but a sorry commendation of Lewis the Eighth of France that he was son to an excellent Father and Father to an excellent son r Isaacsons Chron. ad an 1223. Nam quae non fecimus ipsi vix ea nostra voco s Ovid. Those things which ye have heard and seen in me do saith the Apostle Phil. 4. 9. So the laudable things of others do in your own persons and call them not yours till ye exemplifie them in your practise For that 's the first importment of Fructum suum a personal fructification He brings forth his own fruit 2. It imports a genuine correspondencie his fruit that is secundum speciem suam according to his kinde That as the Earth was appointed to bring forth the Fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kinde t Gen. 1. 11. So a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things saith our Saviour u Mat. 12. 35. And the wisedom that is from above is full of mercy and good fruits w Jam. 3. 17. 'T is true the choisest Saints upon Earth have their aylings their failings In many things we offend all x Jam. 3. 2. Not a just man upon Earth that doth good and sinneth not y Eccl. 7. 20. Nor from the first transgression of the first man can it be said of any save Him who is God and Man non nvoit pecatum he knew no sin Howbeit the sincere Believer is in a different habitude to the products of Corruption and the proper fruits of Regeneration Consider him according to the New Creature or as he is born of God 't is plain upon the Tables 1 John 2. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin Non facit peccatum quia patitur potiùs saith Bernard z De nat dignit Divin amoris cap. 6. He is rather passive then active in the businesse of sin He acknowledgeth to his grief peccatum inhabitans the sin that dwelleth in him a Rom. 7. 17. 24 but he cannot own the works thereof as his genuine and proper fruit b Rom 7. 15. 17. No that 's of another nature Rom. 7. 25. I my self saith the Apostle serve the Law of God That 's Repentance and Mortification and Newnesse of life Rom. 6. That 's vertue and temperance and patience and godlinesse and brotherly-kindnesse and charity 2 Pet. 1. And these not after the rigour of the Law in the perfect performance of duty but in the truth and sincerity of a Christians desires in the uprightnesse and integrity of his will and purpose in his careful pursuances and daily endeavors after all goodnesse and righteousnesse and truth For in these consists the fruit of the Spirit Eph. 5. 9. And in the practice of a sound Believer these only appertain to Fructum suum to his suitable and proper fruit He is born of the Spirit and to answer his spiritual birth is careful to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit Now the due consideration hereof as it should humble the holiest in the consciousnesse of whatsoever unkindlike and unanswerable fruit work them to a self-confusion for the surreptitious inordinancies of the Old Man continue them in a stedfast reliance upon the righteousnesse of the Tree of Life So it may serve to arm them against the proposals of the World and provoke them to an Examination and Trial of their fruit For 1. Whereas the World would alienate us from the vertues and life of God and would gain our consent to bring forth heterogeneous fruit c Qui genitoris opera non facit negat genus Chrysol Ser. 123. lust of the eye alledging It will be for your Profit lust of the flesh suggesting It will be for your Pleasure pride of life pretending It will be for your Advancement the truly regenerate Soul may hence be sufficiently furnished and prompted to answer That great God whose I am by his grace and whom I serve with my Spirit hath not been as a Wilderdesse or barren heath unto me but having mercifully chosen me out of the Commons of the World he hath planted me in his inclosed Garden ingraffed me into a Noble Stock supplied me with Rivers of Living Water And is it equitable after all this to yield him no better fruit Is this correspondent to the nature of so high a Calling Is it Fructus meus a kindlike fruit consentaneous to a spiritual state As Nehomiah d Neh. 6. 11. Should such a man as I flee No the time past of my life may suffice me to have wrought the will of the Gentiles e 1 Pet. 4. 3. to have brought forth la●ruscas four grapes those wilde fruits of the Old Man Haec vita aelios mores postulat It must be otherwise now that I am planted in the house of the Lord In the words of Leo f Serm. 1. in Nativ Dom. Agnosce O Christiane dignitatem tuam c. Acknowledge O Christian thine own dignity and being made partaker of the Divine Nature return not into thy former vilenesse by a degenerate conversation But then In the second place whereas there may be much mistaking in the account of kindlike fruit a way that may seem right unto a man when the end is the wayes of death g Pro. 16. 25. It therefore neerly concernes us to search and try our wayes h Lam. 3. 40. and every man to prove his own work i Gal. 6. 40. For the fruit which thou mayst think to be right say it be of likely appearance yet if destitute of divine allowance either expresse or by derivation what can it be deemed but either the fruit of an ignorant phantasie or an arrogant superstitious vanity And thy greatest diligence in bringing it forth only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a laborious losse of time Again admit it be of Gods commanding yet if it arise not from a Supernatural root from a Principle of special grace from faith working by love