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

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59872	The second part of the preservative against popery shewing how contrary popery is to the true ends of the Christian religion : fitted for the instruction of unlearned Protestants / by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1688 (1688)	Wing S3343; ESTC R35181	73,416	99

ANother principal end and intention of the Gospel was to cure the Degeneracy of Mankind and to advance Humane Nature to its utmost Perfection for as Man fell from his original Happiness by falling from the purity and integrity of his Nature so there was no restoring him to his lost Happiness much less no advancing him to a more perfect state of Happiness not to an earthly but to an heavenly Paradise without changing and transforming his Nature and renewing him after the Image of God. And therefore our very entrance into Christianity is a new Birth Except a man be born of water 3 Joh. 5 6. and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit And such a man is called a new Creature and a Christian Life is a newness of Life and living after the Spirit 8 Rom. 1. and walking after the Spirit and this new Nature is the Divine Nature the Image of God the new man 4 Eph. 24. 3 Col. 10. which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him So that there are two things wherein this new Nature consists Knowledge and Righteousness or true Holiness and I doubt it will appear that the Church of Rome is no great Friend to either I. Knowledge Now I suppose neither the Church of Rome nor any one for her will pretend that she is any great Friend to Knowledge She is so horribly afraid of Heresie that she endeavours to nurse men up in Ignorance of their Religion for fear they should prove Hereticks and indeed she has some reason for it for the Church of Rome was never so Triumphant as in the most ignorant and barbarous Ages but as Knowledge broke in upon the World so men turned Hereticks apace If there be any knowing Papists and it would be very hard if there should be none they are not beholding to their Church for it which deprives them of all the means of Knowledge for she will not allow them to believe their Senses which is one way of knowing things and the most certain we have and yet she commands us to believe Transubstantiation which no man can do who believes his Senses and if I must not believe my Senses in so plain a matter as what is Bread and Wine I know no reason I have to believe them in any thing and then there is an end of all Knowledge that depends on Sence as the proof of the Christian Religion itself does for Miracles are a sensible proof and if I must not trust my Senses I cannot rely on Miracles because I cannot know whether there be any such thing as a real Miracle The Church of Rome also forbids men the use of Reason in matters of Religion will not allow men to judge for themselves nor to examine the Reasons of their Faith and what knowledge any man can have without exercising his Reason and Understanding I cannot guess for to know without understanding sounds to me like a contradiction She also denies Christians the use of the Bible which is the only means to know the revealed Will of God and when men must neither believe their Senses nor trust their Reason nor read the Scripture it is easie to guess what knowing and understanding Christians they must needs be But it may be said that notwithstanding this the Church of Rome does Instruct her Children in the true Catholick Faith though she will not venture them to judge for themselves nor to read the Scriptures which is the effect of her great care of them to keep them Orthodox for when men trust to their own fallible Reasons and private Interpretations of Scripture it is a great hazard that they do not fall into one Heresie or other but when men are taught the pure Catholick Faith without any danger of Error and Heresie is not this much better than to suffer them to reason and judge for themselves when it is great odds but they will judge wrong Now this would be something indeed did the Church of Rome take care to Instruct them in all necessary Doctrines and to teach nothing but what is true and could such men who thus tamely receive the dictates of the Church be said to know and to understand their Religion How far the Church of Rome is from doing the first all Christians in the world are sensible but themselves but that is not our present dispute for though the Church of Rome did instruct her people into the true Christian Faith yet such men cannot be said to know and understand their Religion and to secure the Faith by destroying knowledge is a direct contradiction to the design of the Gospel which is to make men wise and understanding Christians For no man understands his Religion who does not in some measure know the reasons of his Faith and judge whether they be sufficient or not who knows not how to distinguish between Truth and Error who has no Rule to go by but must take all upon trust and the credit of his Teachers who believes whatever he is told and learns his Creed as School boys do their Grammar without understanding it This is not an active but a kind of passive knowledge such men receive the impression that is made on them as wax does and understand no more of the matter now will any one call this the knowledge and understanding of a man or the Discipline of a Child But suppose there were some men so dull and stupid that they could never rise higher that they are not capable of inquiring into the reasons of things but must take up their Religion upon trust yet will any man say that this is the utmost perfection of knowledge that any Christian must aim at is this the meaning of the word of God dwelling in us richly in all wisdom 3 Col. 16. is this the way to give an answer to any one who asks a reason of the hope that is in us the perfection of Christian knowledge is a great and glorious attainment to understand the secrets of God's Laws those depths and mysteries of wisdom and goodness in the oeconomy of Mans Salvation to see the Analogy between the Law and the Gospel how the Legal Types and ancient Prophecies received their accomplishment in Christ how far the Gospel has advanced us above the state of Nature and the Law of Moses what an admirable design it was to redeem the world by the Incarnation and Death and Sufferings and Intercession of the Son of God what mysteries of Wisdom and Goodness the Gospel contains the knowledge of which is not only the perfection of our Understandings but raises and ennobles our Minds and transforms us into the Divine Image These things were revealed that they might be known not that they should be concealed from the World or neglected and

of the Saints furnish us with and yet I know of no better the Church of Rome has It is impossible to prove that a private Tradition cannot be corrupted it is unreasonable to think that any thing which concerns the necessary Articles of Faith or Rules of Worship should be a private and secret Tradition for several Ages Miracles themselves cannot prove any Tradition which is contrary to the written Rule and the Catholick Faith of Christians for several Ages as several of the Trent-Doctrines are nay no Miracles can prove any new Article of Faith which was never known before without proving that Christ and his Apostles did not teach all things necessary to salvation which will go a great way to overthrow the truth and certainty of the Christian Faith for Miracles themselves can never prove that Christ and his Apostles taught that which the Christian Church never heard of before which is either to prove that the whole World had forgot what they had been once taught which I doubt is not much for the credit of Tradition or that the Church for several Ages did not teach all that Christ taught which is no great reason to rely on the teachings of the Church or to prove against matter of fact that Christ and his Apostles taught that which no body ever heard of and I do not think a Miracle sufficient to prove that true which every body knows to be false or at least do not know it to be true though they must have known it if it had been true And does not every body now see how improper unwritten Traditions are to supply the Defects and Imperfections of the written Rule for they can never make one Rule because they are not of equal Authority A Writing may be proved Authentick an obscure unwritten Tradition cannot and can any man think that Christ would have one half of his Gospel written the other half unwritten if he intended to perfect the knowledge of Christians for they cannot have so perfect a knowledge because they cannot have so great certainty of the unwritten as they have of the written Gospel Writing is the most certain Way to perpetuate Knowledge and if Christ intended that his Church in all Ages should have a perfect Rule of Faith we must acknowledge the perfection of the written Rule The truth is I cannot but admire the great artifice of the Church of Rome in preaching up the Obscurity and Imperfection of the Scriptures for she has hereby put it into her own power to make Christian Religion what she pleases for if the Scriptures be obscure and she alone can infallibly interpret them if the Scriptures be imperfect and she alone can supply their defects by unwritten Traditions it is plain that Christian Religion must be what she says it is and it shall be what her interest requires it to be But whether this be consistent with our Saviour's design in publishing the Gospel or whether it be the best way of improving the knowledge of Mankind let any impartial man judge 5ly An Implicit Faith or believing as the Church believes without knowing what it is we believe can be no Gospel-Doctrine because this to be sure cannot be for the improvement of knowledge Some of the Roman Doctors think it sufficient that a man believes as the Church believes without an explicite knowledge of any thing they believe but the general opinion is that a man must have an explicite belief of the Apostles Creed but as for every thing else it suffices if he believes as the Church believes without knowing what the faith of the Church is that is it is not necessary men should so much as know what the new Articles of the Trent Faith are if they believe the Apostles Creed and resign up their Faith implicitely to the Church Now this is a plain confession that all the Doctrines in dispute between us and the Church of Rome are of no use much less necessary to salvation for if they were they would be as necessary to be known and explicitely believed as the Apostles Creed and I cannot imagine why we Hereticks who believe the Apostles Creed and understand it as orthodoxly as they may not be saved without believing the new Trent Creed for if we need not know what it is there seems to be no need of believing it for I always thought that no man can and therefore to be sure no man need believe what he does not know So that it seems we know and believe all things the explicite knowledge and belief of which by their own confession is necessary to salvation except that one single Point of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome believe but that and ye need believe or know nothing more but the Apostles Creed and yet go to Heaven as a good Catholick which makes an implicite Faith in the Church of Rome as necessary as Faith in Christ is But if the intent of the Gospel was to improve our Knowledge then Christ never taught an implicite Faith for that does not improve Knowledge and if the Faith of the Church of Rome excepting the Apostles Creed which is the common Faith of all Christians need not be known then they are no Gospel-Doctrines much less necessary Articles of Faith for Christ caught nothing but what he would have known and though the knowledge of all things which Christ taught is not equally necessary to salvation yet it tends to the perfecting our knowledge and Christ taught nothing which a man need not know which I think is a reproach to meaner Masters and much more to the eternal and incarnate Wisdom Secondly The improvement and perfection of Humane Nature consists in true Holiness and Virtue in a likeness and conformity to God and a participation of the Divine Nature and this is the great end of the Gospel to advance us to as perfect Holiness as is attainable in this life Christ indeed has made expiation for our sins by his own Bloud but then this very Bloud of Atonement does not only expiate the guilt of sin but purges the Conscience from dead works that we may serve the living God for no Sacrifice not of the Son of God himself can reconcile an impenitent and unreformed Sinner to God that is can move God to love a Sinner who still loves and continues in his sins which an infinitely holy and pure being cannot do Indeed the expiation of sin is but one part of the work of our Redemption for a sinner cannot be saved that is cannot be advanced to immortal life in the Kingdom of Heaven without being born again without being renewed and sanctified by the holy Spirit after the Image and likeness of God. For this new Nature is the only Principle of a new immortal life in us an earthly sensual mind is no more capable of living in Heaven than an earthly mortal body In both senses flesh and bloud cannot inherit the Kingdom of God neither can corruption inherit incorruption The