Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	beget_v	father_n	son_n	11,645	5	6.8465	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69777	The intercourses of divine love betwixt Christ and his Church, or, The particular believing soul metaphorically expressed by Solomon in the first chapter of the Canticles, or song of songs : opened and applied in several sermons, upon that whole chapter : in which the excellencies of Christ, the yernings of his gospels towards believers, under various circumstances, the workings of their hearts towards, and in, communion with him, with many other gospel propositions of great import to souls, are handles / by John Collinges ...	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1683 (1683)	Wing C5324; ESTC R16693	839,627	984

to the King There 's no Faith in Christ nor pure Love to God and Christ to be got at Athens Flesh and Blood will not convey these things into a Soul Lastly Observe how the whole Trinity is concerned in the dispensations of grace It is the note of the Learned Mercer That the Mystery of the Trinity is here held out to us in the Plural Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I touched upon this before though indeed the works of the Trinity within it self be divided The Father begetteth and is not begotten The Son is begotten but doth not beget The Holy Ghost proceedeth from both and doth neither beget nor is begotten and although to denote the order of working in the holy Trinity Creation is made the work of the Father Redemption the work of the Son and Sanctification the work of the Holy Spirit yet it is most certain that all the works of the Trinity out of it self are individed what one person doth all do All that grace of which the Believer is made partaker floweth from the whole Trinity it is from the Father through the merits of the Son and by the Holy Ghost In the second place Will Christ go on in giving to his Saints more grace Let not then those of little Faith be discouraged Let not those that are strong despise the weak nor those who are weak be discouraged and despond in themselves If the Child of God hath Faith but as a grain of Mustard seed it shall increase If it hath but a stock of grace like the Widdows Meal in the Barrel and Oil in the Cruise yet the Meal shall not fail from the Barrel nor the Oil from the Cruise If the Child of a rich and indulgent Parent be despised by another that hath finer Clothes and richer Ornaments than the Wisdom of its Parent thinks fit at present to allow it it will comfort its self that its Father is able to do as much for it that he wants no love to prompt him to it that it hath a large Inheritance that is made sure unto it Shall not the Child of God thus comfort himself from its hopes of glory though it as yet hath but a small earnest of it from that fulness of grace which is in Christ He shall be holden up saith the Apostle speaking of the weak Brethren for God is able to make him stand Rom. 14. 4. And from that readiness that is in Christ and his Promise to give to him that hath so that he shall have more abundantly from the Promise of Christ to the Soul whose cheeks are already comely with Rows of Jewels and Chains of Gold that he will make for it Borders of Gold with spots or badges or studs of Silver Let true grace in the Soul be never so faint and weak it is the Seed of God it shall abide yea it shall grow and increase Hypocrisie is alwaies withering the Hypocrite groweth worse and worse his fair shews and appearances daily decay but true grace is alwaies growing Christ is alwaies adding to it And indeed this is one thing which distinguisheth a sincerity and truth of grace from all the counterfeits of it A Child of God is alwaies growing better and better the Lord is adding to his spiritual habits Wicked men and Hypocrites are growing worse and worse In the last place This Notion calls to all the People of God 1. For an admiration of the Love of God towards them what a God do we serve what a Saviour what a Friend what a Beloved hath every Soul whose Soul sincerely loveth the Lord Jesus Christ The Beloved of your Souls is not like anothers Beloved in himself he is not he is the chiefest of ten thousand he is altogether desires He is not to you as anothers Beloved he is unweariable in his acts of grace and dispensations of goodness Are there any Souls here whose iniquities are forgiven whose sins are covered whose Souls are regenerated renewed through the Sanctification of the Spirit might not these Souls go into their Closets with David and sit down and say Who are we O Lord God! and what were our Souls that the Lord should bring us hitherto that God should wash our Souls white in the Blood of the Lamb and give us another Spirit than we had by Nature a new Heart a new Nature that he should make us partakers of the Divine Nature But this was yet a small thing in the sight of God he hath spoken also of his Servants for a great while yet to come he hath spoken of more grace of making for us Borders of Gold with Badges of Silver A faithful man shall abound with blessings The beginnings of saving grace in the Soul in the Justification of the Soul and the first change and renovation of our Natures are blessings of that nature as Eternity will be too short a time to admire the Love of God in and for but will the Lord also add to his Servants stock and increase their heap will he be still making and preparing new Ornaments for them and giving further grace to them till all their wants shall be supplied all their emptinesses filled up what manner of Love is this Let our Souls be swallowed up in the admiration of this Love Let our Souls and all that is within us bless his holy Name 2. How doth this Notion call to us for all manner of holiness Holiness lyeth in two things 1. The mortification of lusts and sinful habits with the eschewing and declining of sinful acts which are the fruit of those trees 2. The exercises of Godliness Let me shortly press both from this notion of out beloved's being preparing still and making for us Chains of Gold and spots of Silver I will begin with the 2d 1. The exercises of our selves unto Godliness in all those positive duties which God requireth of us Whether they may be more internal such as faith hope Love or more external in our more external communion with God in Prayer reading hearing his word receiving his holy Sacrament Or in our conversation before and towards men I shall press these from this notion upon a twofold consideration 1. These exercises are the way to keep Christ still at work making for us these further Ornaments 2. They are the wearing and using of these Ornaments I say first these exercises will keep our Lords hand continually at work so as he will never be weary but be still adding to our Ornaments of grace I have had occasion often in my former discourses to hint to you that although God be ingaged by his covenant and faithfulness to bring the Souls of believers to glory and consequently to give out to them such necessary supplies of grace as shall make them meet for that inheritance yet he is at liberty as to the gradual manifestations of his grace to dispense them according to his own infinite wisdom and his Peoples behaviour toward him And the promises of that

and desireth the continuance of it The Ignorant bold presumptuous Sinner desireth not the Love of God the pardon of Sins he thinks he is sure of all Hence now it is that the believer desires the Loves of Christ it apprehendeth them good possible and what its Soul doth stand indaily and further need of which apprehension is the reason why our Souls desire any thing be it of what nature soever we can desire nothing but what we must apprehend good sutable to us in some of our circumstances possible to be attained and such as either wholly or in some degree at least we need 2. According to the degree of our knowledge or apprehension of the goodness of any object so are our desires after it This will justify itself upon experience in all other things we do not desire them according to the degree of goodness in them for then every man must desire the favour of God Union and Communion with him but according to the degree of our knowledge or apprehension of such a good as such Now there are various degrees of knowledge 1. The first and meanest is the meer act of our Understanding which by the help of our Eyes and Ears gaineth the knowledge of things And thus the vilest of men may know that the Loves of Christ are good yea good before wine that is they may have so read in the Bible so heard from Ministers of the Gospel And even this knowledge may produce in a bad man a desire after these things proportioned to his apprehension Hence such a man may faintly will and lazily desire these things 2. A Second degree of Knowledge is Opinion This riseth a little higher the man who thus knows that the Loves of Christ are good doth not onely know it from reading or hearing but from probable Arguments Nor is it difficult for a wicked man thus also to know that the Loves of Christ are good Assoon as he can be made to believe that there is a God and that he is the Fountain of Good and that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God and Equal with the Father both in Essence and all Divine Perfections his Reason will persuade him that there must be a Goodness yea a transcendent Goodness in Christs Loves But while Flesh and Blood only revealeth this thing unto him his Knowledge is incertain and faint and he is subject to thoughts that he may be mistaken and therefore though he may sometimes desire Christs Love yet it is but by fits and with incertainties according to the Nature of the Knowledge and Apprehension he hath of the truth of the things 3. A Third degree of Knowledge is Persuasion arising from Demonstration Now there is 1. A Demonstration of Sense thus we know the Sun shines the Fire burneth c. 2. A Demonstration of Reason when we can conclude a thing from infallible Principles of natural Reason 3. A Demonstration of Faith which is the Demonstration of the Spirit When men know things from the holy Spirits fully persuading them of the truth of this or that from a Divine Revelation This is the Demonstration of faith 4. There is yet a further and higher degree of Knowledg that ariseth from Experience being a sensible Evidence of the truth of what the Soul had before received a little of from the sight of the Eye and hearing of the Ear and more from the persuasion of the Spirit and some Argumentations within itself I say now that according to the degree of the Souls knowledge and apprehension so are the workings of the Affections This of desire in particular Hence the desires of Believers to the Loves of Christ must necessarily be the strongest For the degree of the Knowledge and Apprehension the Believer hath of the goodness of them is higher than it is possible any other Souls should have Other Souls may have read Books discoursing the Loves of Christ or heard Discourses of that tendency or judge so from Arguments of Scripture which may make such a thing probable to them But none but these have any persuasion wrought in their Souls by the Spirit of God of the Excellency of them none else have had any real Tasts and Experience of them Knowledge and Experience of the Goodness of any Objects being those things which move the Soul to desire them and the degree of the Souls apprehension of such Goodness and Excellency in Objects the ground of the Souls Intention in such desires it must necessarily follow that a good Christians Knowledge and Experience of that Goodness which is in Christs Loves must be the grounds of their desires after them There needeth no Scripture to prove this it is evident to our Reason Yet take the Instance of David Psal 4. 6. David desires of God to lift up the light of his Countenance upon him Observe now v. 7. what made him prefer the light of Gods Countenance to the Worldlings Corn and Wine and Oil Thou hast put gladness into my Heart Accordingly he tells us Psal 9. 10. They that know thy Name will put their trust in thee Hence you shall observe that David concludeth many of his Psalms of Praise with Prayer But will some say If they have had experience of the Loves of Christ why should they yet desire them None desires what they have This is true if our Enjoyments were perfect but there is an heighth and depth and length and breadth of the Love of God in Jesus Christ an heighth which the Soul hath not taken a depth which the Soul hath not fathomed a length and breadth which the Soul hath not measured from end to end It is true we desire nothing but what we want either in whole or in part therefore in Heaven will be no desire That which is perfect will be come and all that which is in part only will be done away But we shall never be filled with the Loves of Christ till our Mortality be swallowed up in Life I come now to the Application We may learn from hence That God must shew some act of Love to us before we can shew any Love to him Desires after the Loves of Christ though sincere are the least and first and lowest motions of our Souls toward God These you have heard must arise from a Knowledge and Experience of the goodness of those Loves Now this Knowledge this Experience must be the Gift of God to and the work of God in and upon the Soul yea and that not in a way of common Grace and Illumination but in a way of special Grace for though a common Illumination may produce some faint desires yet it will produce no sincere and effectual desires because the Knowledge begot by them will be flitting and incertain and attended with Doubts Fears and Incertainties So as till the Lord by his Spirit hath wrought in the Soul a persuasion of Faith commanding the Soul without dispute to give credit to what he hath revealed in his Word

up in him to study him more to converse with him more to keep to closer communion with Christ you yet know not the pleasantness that is in him there is a breadth of sweetness you have not measured and a depth of pleasure which you have not fathomed In the last place Is Christ not only fair but pleasant not only beautiful through Grace but pleasant lovely gentle sweet in his converse with the Souls of his Saints Let this commend pleasantness to every true Christian Labour not only to be gracious but to be pleasant I will name but two Arguments in the case 1. Consider Thus you shall be like unto the Lord Jesus Christ 2. Thus shall you honour your Profession An unpleasant Conversation in a Christian dishonours the Lord Christ it makes men think that he is an hard Master that Christianity is an odd thing which metamorphoseth men and women into strange kind of creatures unfit any longer for converse with the World Take off this scandal from the Gospel You may be pleasant yet not profane your conversation toward the World may be winning though you do not give your selves up to such a liberty as to hazard the ruine and loss of your own Souls It was a piece of Paul's pleasantness He became all things to all men that he might win some 1 Cor. 9. v. 22. 2 Cor. 10. 33. Sermon LX. Canticles 1. 16. Our Bed is Green I Am come to the Second Proposition of the Text in those words Our bed is Green The Chaldee Paraphrast making the Congregation of Israel the Spouse in this Song thus glosseth upon these words In the time when thou dwellest in our Beloved Bed our Children are many and multiplyed upon the Earth we grow and multiply like a Tree planted by the Rivers of Waters whose leaf is beautiful and whose fruit is much Possibly that antient Interpretation hath led the generality of Interpreters to expound the Text concerning the flourishing condition of the Soul and of the Church while it is in Spiritual conjunction with the Lord Jesus Christ it is not My Bed but Our Bed is Green and flourishing for so the word may be translated So that not to enlarge in further discourses about the Exposition of the Text taking it for granted that the Holy Ghost in this Text respecteth the Bed as it is the place for procreation or as it was the place where they did eat their meat in those Countries we may from it observe this plain Proposition Prop. That the fruitfulness of the Soul and of the Church doth depend upon Christs conjunction with them I shall speak to this Proposition by way of Explication confirmation and Application By way of Explication we will only enquire what is the gracious Souls fruitfulness or the Gospel Churches fruitfulness 1. The particular Souls fruitfulness lyes in its bringing forth of good works You read in Scripture of the fruit of the Body Deut. 28. 4. And of the fruit of the Land Deut. 7. 13. The Children of God are said to be Married unto Christ And as the fruit of the Womb is the consequent of carnall Marriage so the fruit of holiness is the consequent of Spiritual Marriage Rom. 7. 4. You are become dead to the law by the Body of Christ that you should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God This fruit unto God is called fruit unto holiness Rom. 6. 22. Christ is also compared unto a vine John 15. 2. We are the Branches and therefore purged that we may bring forth fruit ib. 5. 16. Whether therefore the gracious Soul be looked upon as the Spouse of Christ and Married to him by faith its fruit is holiness or whether it be looked upon as a branch in Christ still its fruit is holiness our works considering us as men are our fruit Now look as several Plants according to their different natures bring forth different fruit some bring forth pleasant some bitter fruit some wholsom some again noxious fruit so it is with men and women who are the Plants of the World by Nature they are all wild Plants and are corrupt and bring forth corrupt fruit called by the Apostle the fruit of sin unto death But having a new Nature given them by God they bring forth fruit unto life the fruits of righteousness which are also called the fruits of the Spirit Eph. 5. 9. Gal. 5. 22. the fruit of righteousness to shew the species or kind of them fruit unto life shewing the consequent of them the fruit of the Spirit shewing the more external cause of them Now as these fruits more or less abound in the Soul the Soul is more or less fruitful This is the particular Saints fruit 2. The Churches fruitfulness is its bringing forth many Sons unto God Children are the fruit of the body caused by generation Gods Children are the fruit of the Church caused by Regeneration Conversion is called a begetting 2 Pet. 1. 3. We are said to be begotten of God 1 Job 5. 1. God is our Father but the Church is our Mother It is the Church which bears us which travels and brings forth Children unto God And the Saints are called the Churches Children Isa 54. 13. All thy Children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy Children The thriving of the Church lies in this when many Souls are in it converted and brought home unto God This is the Souls fruitfulness and thriving and this is also the Churches fruitfulness and thriving This is that which my Doctrine speaketh of and saith that i t dependeth upon Christs conjuncton with the Soul and with the Church Look as the fruitfulness of the Woman depends upon the conjunction of her Husband with her as the fruitfulness of the plant depends upon its conjunction with the Earth as the thriving of the Body by its meat dependeth upon the blessing of God Man liveth not by bread only but by every word that cometh out of the mouth of God And as the thriving of the plant dependeth upon the influence of the Heavens the shinings of the Sun and the distillations of the Clouds so yea much more then so doth the thriving of a Church and of a Soul depend upon the influence of Christs grace I will prove it first concerning the particular Soul 2. Concerning the Church 1. Concerning the particular Soul 1. It is Christ that giveth the Soul a prolifick vertue The fruitful Woman must have a prolifick vertue so must the plant of the field otherwise the Woman is barren and the plant is barren That power which is in any Soul to bring forth the fruit of holiness that is its prolifick vertue and this is from the Lord this is that which the Apostle calleth to will in Philip 2. 13. The will is the root of all humane actions and the power in the Soul to do