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	speak_v	6,346	5	5.2623	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45400	Charis kai eirēnē, or, A pacifick discourse of Gods grace and decrees in a letter of full accordance / written to the reverend and most learned Dr. Robert Sanderson by Henry Hammond ... ; to which are annexed the extracts of three letters concerning Gods prescience reconciled with liberty and contingency ; together with two sermons preached before these evil times, the one to the clergy, the other to the citizens of London.	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1660 (1660)	Wing H519; ESTC R35983	108,515	176

and setting up our own imaginations if not prejudices for the oracles of God If this were well thought of it would infallibly set a period to all further disputes on this subject And the proposition which I have last set down from you is so irrefragably convincing that I hope it may be successful to so good an end and all men that read it resolve it their duty to preach no other Decrees of God from Scripture but this that all that receive the Gospel preached and live according to the praescript rule thereof for that is to receive Christ as there he is offered to them as a Lord and Saviour shall be saved and all they that reject it when it is thus revealed or live in contradiction to the terms whereon it is established shall be damned This would probably change curiosity into industry unprofitable disquisitions into the search and trying of our own wayes and working out our own salvation § 39. To this proposition if it shall be granted you annex two Corollaries and I that have not onely yielded but challenged the undoubted truth of the Proposition can make no question of the Corollaries The first is this § 40. That it will be impossible to maintain the Doctrine of Vniversal Grace in that manner as the Remonstrants are said to assert it against the objection which is usually made by their adversaries how evangelical Grace can be offer'd to such nations or persons as never had the Gospel preached unto them § 41. The truth of this Corollary as of all other must be judged of by the dependence from the Principle the connexion it hath with the former proposition That spake of the Decrees as they are set forth in Scripture and of the condition required of them that are elected to salvation receiving Christ preached as he is offered in the Gospel and accordingly it is most evident that they that will found their Doctrine on Scripture must find not onely difficulty but impossibility to maintain the gift of evangelicall Grace which I suppose to be a supernaturall power to believe and obey the Gospel to those to whom the Gospel hath never been revealed What the Remonstrants are said to assert in this matter I shall forbear to examine because I design not to engage in any controversie at this time with any onely as on one side it is evident that their adversaries can receive no benefit by the objection the salvability of all to whom the Gospel is preached being as contrary to their Doctrine of onely the Elect as it would be if extended to the heathens also all Christians being not with them in the number of the Elect so on the other side I should think it strange that in our present notion of Evangelical grace for a strength from God to receive and obey the Gospel preached it should by the Remonstrants or any other be affirmed from Scripture that it is given or offered to those to whom the Gospel hath not been revealed S. Paul stiles the Gospel the power of God unto salvation and the preaching of it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 administration of the spirit and indeed the spirit is in Scripture promised onely to them who believe in Christ and therefore speaking of what may be maintained by Scripture and confining the speech to evangelical Grace the Universality of it can no farther be by that maintained to extend then to those to whom the Gospel is preached for if Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word i. e. preaching the Gospel it must follow they cannot believe and so have not Evangelical Grace or strength to believe without a Preacher § 42. And therefore I remember the Learned Bishop of Sarisbury Doctor Davenant in his Lent Sermon I think the last he preached before the King declared his opinion to be as for Vniversal Redemption so for Vniversal Grace within the Church and as for this he was I think by none accounted an Arminian so I never heard any that was of the Remonstrant perswasions unsatisfied with the scantness of that declaration but thought it as much as speaking of Grace in the Scripture notion of it evangelical Grace could with any reason be required of him § 43. As for the state and condition of heathens to whom the Gospel is not revealed and yet it is no fault of theirs that it is not as all those that lived before Christ and many since as it is evident the Scripture was not delivered to them nor consequently gave to us Christians rules for the judging of them so it is most reasonable which you add in your second Corollary which is this § 44. That into the consideration of Gods Decrees such nations or persons are not at all to be taken as never heard of the Gospel but they are to be left wholly to the judgement of God since he hath not thought fit to reveal to us any certainty concerning their condition but reserved it to himself amongst his other secret counsels the reasons of his wonderful and unsearchable dispensations in that kind To which I most willingly subscribe in every tittle and challenge it as the just debt to the force of that reason that shines in it that no man pass fatall decretory sentences on so great a part of mankind by force of those rules which they never heard of nor without hearing could possibly know that they were to be sentenced by them And this the rather upon four considerations which Scripture assures us of First that as all men were dead in Adam so Christ died for all that were thus dead for every man even for those that deny him and finally perish which as it must needs extend and be intended by him that thus tasted death for them to the benefit of those that knew him not for if he died for them that deny him why not for them that are less guilty as having never heard of him especially when 't is not the Revelation of Christ to which the Redemption is affixt but his Death so the certain truth of this is most expresly revealed and frequently inculcated in the Scripture though nothing be there found of Gods decrees concerning them upon this ground especially that no person of what nation soever should have any prejudice to Christian Religion when it should be first revealed to him when he finds his interest so expresly provided for by so gracious a Redeemer who if he had not dyed for every man 't were impossible for any Preacher to assure an Infidel that he dyed for him or propose any constringent reason to him why he should believe on him for salvation To this it is consequent that whatsoever Gods unrevealed wayes are to deal with any heathen what degree of repentance from Dead works obedience or performance soever he accept from them this must needs be founded in the Covenant made with mankind in Christ which you most truly have established there being no other name under heaven

you say there are many other passages of Scripture on which 't is founded I shall mention but two 1. that of the Apostle who cals preaching the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the administration of the Spirit which the Father expresses by verbum vehiculum Spiritus the word is the chariot in which the Spirit descends to us 2. that description of resisting the holy spirit which S. Stephen gives us Act. vii 51. by their being like the Jews which persecuted the Prophets which spake unto them which concludes the holy spirit to be given with the preaching of the Gospel else how could the rejecting and persecuting the one be the resisting of the other So likewise though you mention but one reason yet that is as constringent as many nothing but sufficiency of supernaturall Grace being competent to render him that is acknowledged naturally impotent unexcusable And therefore deeming that abundantly confirmed to advance it above a disputable probleme I proceed to the next Proposition the third which you rank under the style of Conjectures It is this § 52. That because the sufficiency of this General Grace notwithstanding through the strength of naturall corruption it might happen to prove uneffectuall to all persons God vouchsafed out of the supereffluence of his goodness yet ex mero beneplacito without any thing on their part to deserve it to confer upon such persons as it pleased him to fix upon without inquiring into under what qualifications preparations or dispositions considered a more speciall measure of Grace which should effectually work in them faith and perseverance unto salvation This you say you take to be the election especially spoken of in the Scriptures and if so then the Decree of Reprobation must be nothing els but the dereliction or preterition of the rest as to that special favour of conferring upon them this higher degree of effectuall Grace Against this you say you know enough may be objected and much more then you esteem your self able to answer yet to your apprehension somewhat less then may be objected against either of the extreme opinions § 53. Of this Proposition as being the first by you produced to which your caution seems to be due some things may in passing be fitly noted First that for the stating of that community which is here set down as the object of Election and reprobation and exprest by a generall style all persons this Caution is necessarily to be taken in that the proposition is not to be interpreted in the utmost latitude that the style all persons is capable of but as analogy with your former doctrine strictly requires for the generality of men preach'd to and so neither belongs to heathens nor to the Infants or Idiots or uninstructed among Christians but to those that having the Gospel revealed to them and sufficient grace to enable them to receive it are yet left in the hand of their own counsell whether they will actually receive it or no. § 54. Now of these which is the second thing to be observed in your proposition it is manifest that if as you suppose both in the former and in this Proposition they have grace truly sufficient afforded them then they want nothing necessary to a faln weak sinful creature to conversion perseverance and salvation and if so then by the strength of this Grace without addition of any more they may effectually convert persevere and be saved and then though what may be may also not be and so it be also possible that of all that are thus preach'd to and made partakers of this Grace no one shall make use of it to these effects yet this is but barely possible and not rendred so much as probable either upon any grounds of Scripture or Reason In the Scripture there is no word revealed to that sense or that I ever heard of produced or applyed to it but on the contrary in the Parable of the Talents which seems to respect this matter particularly they that received the Talents to negotiate with did all of them except one make profit of them and bring in that account to their Master which received a reward which is utterly unreconcileable with the hypothesis of Gods foreseeing that the talent of sufficient Grace would be made use of by none that received no more then so As for that one that made not use of it all that is intimated concerning him is that if his share comparatively was mean yet by the Lord he is charged as guilty for not putting it into the bank that at his coming he might receive his own with usury which certainly evinces that that lazy servant is there considered as one that might have managed his stock as well as the rest and that that stock was improvable no less then the other according to their severall proportions and so herein there is no difference taken notice of in favour to your Conjecture And in Reason it hath no sound of probability that of so great a number of Christians sufficiently furnished by God no one should make use of it to their souls health 't is evident in the Apostles preaching at Jerusalem and elswhere that at the first proposal of the truth of Christ to them and the Doctrine of Repentance whole multitudes received the Faith and came in and no doubt many of them proved true and constant Christians and it is not amiss to observe of the heads of Doctrine which the Apostles agreed to publish in all their peregrinations that they are of such force and were on that account pitcht on by them as might reasonably and probably with the supposed concurrence of Gods Grace beget repentance and new life in all to whom they were preach'd over the whole world and then what the Apostles deemed a rationall and probable means to that end there is no reason or probability to think should never in any produce this effect according to that of Athanasius that the Faith confest by the Fathers of Nice according to holy Writ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufficient for the averting of all impiety and the establishment of all piety in Christ To which may be applyed that of S. Augustine of the Creed Quae pauca verba fidelibus nota sunt ut credendo subjugentur Deo ut subjugati recte vivant recte vivendo cor mundent corde mundo quod credant intelligant These few words are known to believers that by believing they may be subjugated to God that by being subjugated they way live well that by living well they may cleanse their hearts that by cleansing their hearts they may understand what they believe And herein the all-wise providence and infinite mercy of God seems to be engaged who in the Parable of his dealing with his Vineyard Isa v. not onely expostulates What could I have done more to my vineyard which I have not done but also affirmeth that he looked it should bring forth grapes and