Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	believe_v	faith_n	grace_n	8,077	5	5.8830	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52291	An answer to an heretical book called The naked Gospel which was condemned and ordered to be publickly burnt by the convocation of the University of Oxford, Aug. 19, 1690 : with some reflections on Dr. Bury's new edition of that book : to which is added a short history of Socinianism / by William Nicholls.	Nicholls, William, 1664-1712.; Bury, Arthur, 1624-1713. Naked Gospel.	1691 (1691)	Wing N1091; ESTC R28145	124,983	144

which the Scripture does recommend for our Pattern was not this bare rational assent but an inspired Vertue that was founded and excited in him by the preventing and co-operating Grace of God 1. For first Faith under the Gospel is a spiritual Grace or an inspired Habit 't is a true and stedfast belief in and reliance upon God through the merits of Jesus Christ and the sanctification of the holy Spirit not by the bare assent only of our reason but by the co-operating Grace of God I know not for my part any truth in all our Religion more expresly revealed than that Faith is a Grace inspired by God It is said to be the gift of God Eph. 2. 8. And again for unto you is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but to suffer for him Eph. 1. 29. Upon Peter's confessing our Saviour's Divinity Christ tells him flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven Matth. 16. 17. We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. 3. 5. It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do Phil. 2. 13. No man can come unto me except the Father which sent me draw him Joh. 6. 4. And so Gal. 5. 22. Faith is reckoned among the gifts of the Spirit And the Father of the Demoniack Mark 9. 24. cries out Lord I believe help my unbelief Now if all our Vertues and good thoughts are the effects of God's Grace most certainly this eminent Vertue of Faith must if the Inspiration of God be requisite even for St. Peter's Faith it must surely likewise be so for ours if we are to be drawn to the belief of the Gospel by God we cannot come then upon our own pure accord if the belief of one that was an Eye-witness of our Saviour's Miracles did lack help and improvement from God ours likewise cannot stand in need of less I do not say that God inspires this belief into us without any concurrence of our own judgments that he moves our Assents as if we were meer Machines but his preventing Grace does first excite our belief and his assisting Grace does still further it by giving a blessing and effectualness to the word and without this divine assistance according to the present measures of God's dispensations it is impossible we should ever attain it For the certainty of this divine truth we have Scripture Councils Fathers and Learned Men in all Ages the Doctrine of our own Church and all sober Christians but only a few Socinians and Remonstrants that are for levelling all Scripture and Revelations to their own sense and humour Nay I am apt to think that this Doctrine will be look'd upon as too Calvinistical by some since the Systems of the Remonstrants which condemn this Doctrine are so admired in the world but 't is not Systems but God's word we are to be governed by and from hence we have proof enough to maintain this Doctrine against all the Remonstrants and Socinians in the World 2. Now as to his making the Faith of Abraham by which he is said in Scripture to be justified to be only a natural Faith I answer First Though we should not allow this Faith of Abraham to be the true Christian Justifying Faith or a Faith in Christ Jesus yet we cannot allow it to be only a plain moral Act or Habit for if it were only a bare credence out of Justice to God's Veracity that too must be allowed to come from God because without him we are not able to think a good thought much less to do a good action Though by the light of Natural Religion a man might be covinced that it was his duty to believe God in all his promises yet when these promises by their difficulties seem strangely incredible Flesh and Blood will be apt to shrink and give way and rather to fall a disputing the possibility of them than readily upon God's Authority to believe unless their Faith be strengthned by the assisting Grace of of God's holy Spirit And so Philo the Jew says in this case of Abraham That 't is not so easie a matter to believe in God alone by reason of that cognation we have with that Mortal part we are yoked to which is the cause that we trust in Money and Glory in Honours and Friends and the like but to be purged from all these and to distrust all created things which are unfaithful in themselves and to trust in God alone who is always faithful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the work of a great and heavenly Mind that is an inspired one Secondly But besides this Faith of Abraham was a formal Christian justifying Faith or a Faith in Christ Jesus It was the opinion of the Ancients That all the Patriarchs and all other Good Men both before and under the Law were saved by an express Faith in Christ Eusebius tell us That all the Fathers before Abraham were Christians though not in Name yet in reality and that they followed the Faith of him whom we now follow And St. Hierom That the Saints that were of old were justified by Faith in Christ And St. Gregory That as we are saved by Faith in the past Passion of our Saviour so the ancient Fathers by Faith in his Passion which was then to come Nay Cyril goes farther and makes Abraham from the seeing of the three Angels to have believed in the Consubstantial Trinity And if we look into Scripture we shall find that these great Men had reasons enough to ground them in this Opinion for our Saviour tells the Jews Joh. 8. 56. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad Now what should all this gladness and rejoicing be for but that from the Promise which God had made him Gen. 11. 35. that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed he was fully persuaded That God in his good time would send such a Person as Christ into the world that should save the People from their Sins that should die for the Sins of the whole world to reconcile them to God now the consideration of this was matter of the greatest Joy to him then as it is now to all good Christians so that as St. Gregory says there is little difference in this between his Faith and ours but that ours is after and his before Christ's Passion So likewise St. Peter tells the Jews Act. 4. 12. Neither is there Salvation in any other but Christ for there is no other Name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved Now whereas 't is certain by Scripture that these good Patriarchs were saved as appears by God's declaring himself to be their God and by making a lying down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to be an expression for Everlasting Happiness

just exception is a social duty and which any Man that speaks truth and has not justly lost his reputation may claim from us as Fellow Creatures But when the matter related is incredible or which my Reason tells me is not enough probable or when the Relater is sufficiently exceptionable or if any thing else accompany the Relation which will give sufficient suspition of falsity to a prudent Man then if I believe such a Relation I am truly said to be Credulous because there I make my Belief exceed its just bounds I give more credit to the Relater than he ought to have whereas my Faith in this case ought to stop at the confines of probability I let it pass over them and believe things improbable But there can be no such thing in a divine Faith for taking that in our Authour's sense to be only a piece of justice to God there can be no excess in believing what he reveals or relates to us 't is impossible there should lie any exception against him as a Relater for he is most true and cannot deceive us as to whatever difficulty there lies in the matter related he is most powerful and can make good what he promises his Wisdom is infinite and knows exactly the express Modus of those Truths he had revealed to us which our finite understandings cannot comprehend It is impossible for us to believe too much what God affirms unless we could suppose that our Belief could be greater than God's Veracity or that God could say something was so which we knew impossible to be so So that to make Credulity an excess of Faith is to prescribe bounds how far Men should believe God and to give them caution that they should not credit him any farther than they saw reason for it but when his Relations began to them to seem unreasonable that then they should choose whether they would believe him or no that then they should stand upon their own guard for fear of being censur'd for easy Men and being thought the worst of all Fools the Credulous So that in short whatever Credulity is 't is not an excess of divine Faith unless we could believe God too true or that God could tell us something was true which was manifestly false Secondly That an acquiescence in the determinations of General Councils though in matters of Faith is not Credulity I would not have our Authour think that we ground our Faith in the Blessed Trinity upon the determinations only of general Councils which he means by his greatest humane Authority as if we had nothing in Scripture to urge for it we have Arguments enough from thence to confound all the force and subtilties of our Heretical Adversaries and several learned Men in the beginning of this Age have brought so much from thence as perfectly silenced this Heresy for a time and has baffled their Cause for ever I am sure at least against all such espousers of it as this Authour seems to be And as for Councils when we rely upon their determinations in asserting and explaining the Ancient Faith I do not think we are so much credulous as these fort of Gentlemen are saucy to say no worse when they bespatter these August Assemblies with so much Contumely and Buffoonry as they use to do There are none of our Church that look upon the determinations of general Councils to be the infallible Oracles of God they are as our Authour speaks humane Authorities but then they are the greatest humane Authority upon Earth they are the Representatives of the Church Universal and if our judgments are apt to be inclined by the Authority of single Doctors they ought to be much more so by the Authority of such a number of good and learned Men convened from all the parts of the Christian World We do not run up the Authority of Councils so high as to give them power to constitute new Articles of Faith as the Papists do but then we look upon them to be the best Judges in the World of old ones and of what was the true ancient and Catholick Faith to declare what Doctrines according to Lirinensis's Rule have Universality Consent Antiquity when they come to be contested by Hereticks For the Members of these Councils being Bishops drawn from all parts of the World are able to give an account of the Belief of the Faithful in their Districts and of the uncorrupted Writings and Traditions of their Fore-fathers Neither yet do we allow them if they shall oppose their Opinions or Traditions against the express word of God but only when they declare the truth of their Doctrine as Theodoret speaks of the Nicene Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of Scripture words piously understood of which there is no o●e but must allow them to be the most excellent and the most authentick Expositors And yet though we cannot grant it to be an Article of our Christian Faith That general Councils cannot err because there is no such proposition found in Scripture nor by any necessary consequence to be deduced from thence but most good Men look upon it as a Theological Verity for which there are some probable Arguments out of Scripture alledged as Mat. 18. 20. When two or three are gathered together in my name I will be in the midst of them and Joh. 16. 3. When the spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth and the most good and learned Men in all times have generally thought that the inerrability of a general Council that was fairly called and duly celebrated was one of the piè credibilia which a good Man though he is not necessitated is yet well disposed to believe For if we consider the great love which God does bear to his Church and the peculiar Providence he does exercise over it if we consider the promises that he has made to it that it is his desire that all Men should be saved and should come to the knowledge of all necessary Truth there is no good Man but will be inclined to believe that God out of his infinite love and goodness which he has declared to bear to his Church will not suffer the Representatives of it in these sacred Assemblies to err in any important matter of Faith that he will not permit any deadly poison thus to sink into the bowels of his Church when they use all the fair and honest means they can to avoid it but that he will give his holy Spirit to direct them in settling the true Faith as may be best for the edification of his Church But though general Councils have not a divine inerrable Authority yet they have in matters of Religion the greatest humane and coercive one especially when owned and confirmed by the secular Power therefore though we were certain that they had determined something erroneously and which our own reason and judgment told us was so yet we ought to keep this reason to our selves and