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	true_a	6,841	5	5.3213	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29934	The certainty of the future judgment asserted and proved in a sermon preached at St Michael's Crooked Lane, London, Octob. xxvi, 1684 / by Matth. Bryan ...	Bryan, Matthew, d. 1699.	1685 (1685)	Wing B5246; ESTC R19907	26,200	46

ungrateful use of his patience and long-suffering But 't is such as the Wise man spake of and observ'd long ago Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil and St Paul here intimates and sadly observes and bewails in this his passionate Expostulation Despisest thou the riches of his Goodness c. But hear O despising scoffing ungrateful man Hear what follows v. 5. After thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up unto thy self wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous Judgment of God who will render to every one according to his deeds For though the Lord is long suffering yet he will not be ever-suffering But the day of the Lord will come as St Peter observes ver 10. and it will come speedily as a Thief in the Night unlookt for and so surprize or as 't is worded 1 Thess 5.2 3. The day of the Lord so cometh as a Thief in the night for when they shall say Peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a Woman with Child and they shall not escape Secondly This Doctrine of the certainty and severity and dreadfulness of the future Judgment may serve to awaken secure Sinners out of their sinful and dangerous security As there are some that Atheistically scoff at Religion so there are others that are sufficiently careless of it do not speak but act against it who live vicious lives and are led by their passions and appetites and are regardless of the World to come and stupidly and securely sinful They are perhaps more carnal and sensual than the former though not so Diabolical If there are any such here let me seriously ask them Sirs Do you believe the Bible to be true Do you believe the Articles of the Christian Faith that there is a God that made the World and governs it that you have immortal Spirits within you that are capable of endless happiness or misery that you must dye and come to Judgment appear before the Judgment-Seat of Christ who shall come from Heaven to judge the quick and the dead Do you believe all this You 'll readily answer Yes that we do God forbid we should be Unbelievers we can say our Creed as sincerely and devoutly as the best Can you so What! and live in such manifest contrariety and opposition to what you believe and the terms of salvation as if all this were false as if all were cheat and imposture as if the Gospel were a Fable or an idle Romance For God's sake Sirs be serious and consider and do not suffer your selves so tamely to be impos'd upon and baffled by your Spiritual Enemies those that hate you and will laugh at your folly and triumph over your misery Do not live the reverse of your Reason and Religion too and contradict your Faith and Perswasion and suffer your selves to be fool'd out of that eternal happiness which you say you hope for and lose the best and greatest interest which is more valuable than all the Treasures and instances of happiness in this World which you must shortly leave and dye from when nothing here below neither Riches nor Friends can help you but only an effectual saving interest in the Judge of the World 2 Thess 1.7 8. who will shortly be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that do not obey his Gospel O that I could make some secure Sinner here to tremble Ephes 5.14 and effectually warn him to flee from the wrath to come Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Thirdly It exhorts us to Holiness And indeed this Doctrine is a powerful disswasive from Vice and perswasive to Vertue a disswasive from Vice because it will be certainly and severely punished a perswasive to Vertue because it will be certainly and amply rewarded I doubt not but there are some that are very indifferent as to the State of happiness in the other World for which they are not greatly concern'd but could be content to part with it provided they might not be miserable they could be content that their Bodies and Souls too should sleep eternally They could be content perhaps not to be rewarded in Heaven so that they might not be punished in Hell But know Christian that there is no medium here If we are not rewarded we shall certainly be punished if we are not happy we must be miserable If we do not go to Heaven we must to Hell If we have not the enjoyment of God we must have the company of Devils for ever So that holiness is indispensably necessary not only to intitle us to Heaven but to keep us out of Hell And there is no greater or more forcible Argument to perswade to holiness than this of Judgment to come This is the great Argument the Wise man useth to perswade both to negative and positive holiness Thus in the 11th of his Ecclesiastes ver 9. he does tacitly exhort to negative holiness i. e. he does by a sharp and keen but pleasant Irony disswade from Vice and youthful Lusts and sinful Pleasures Rejoice O young man in thy youth and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes there follows a terrible But which is like the Damp to the Candle or the Death's Head to the Egyptian Feasts a Cooler to the heat of Lust and like Belshazzer's hand upon the Wall dasheth all that mirth and jollity But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into Judgment And Chap. 12. ver 13. he exhorts to positive holiness not excluding negative i. e. to the practice of Vertue and doing good Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole Duty of man And this he presseth by the same Argument the great Motive of Judgment to come ver 14. For God shall bring every work into Judgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil This is the great beaten Argument that both the Prophets and Apostles are frequently upon and spreading before the eyes of men Most of the weighty Exhortations in Scripture like the Scales upon the Beam are fastned upon this therefore work walk run strive deny your selves be stedfast 1 Cor. 15. ult unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 'T is the great Argument both to Active and Passive Obedience Saint Paul observes it to be so 2 Tim. 4.7 8. I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day

at which he must account for all his faults the mighty Felix trembled 'T was too harsh a Note and jarring Sound and unpleasant Musick for his delicate Ears and accusing Conscience to hear and therefore presently dismiss'd the Preacher Go get thee gone says he for this time and when I have a more convenient season I will call for thee Though the Athenians mocked when they heard of the Resurrection of the dead yet not at the hearing of the Day of Judgment The Heathen by the very Light of Nature had a sense of Divine wrath and vengeance which would pursue Sinners Thus the barbarous People in the Island of Melita where St Paul arriv'd after his Shipwrack when they saw the Viper leap out of the Fire and fasten upon his hand they said among themselves Acts 28.3 4. No doubt this man is a Murderer whom though he had escaped the Sea yet vengeance suffereth not to live Why whence had they this Notion of vengeance Where had this barbarous People these Notices What Gospel-Preacher ever arriv'd there before to preach to them this Doctrine of the Divine wrath and vengeance This Preacher dwelt within them 'T was the Witness and Light of God within them which made discoveries of the heinous Nature and Guilt of Murther and the vindicative Justice of the invisible Powers which they believ'd will call every man to an account for his most secret Guilts That 's a famous Instance of the Heathen Mariners in Jonah Jon. 1. The Mariners there being affrighted at the terrible and unusual Tempest which God for Jonah's sake sent out into the Sea resolve among themselves v. 7. to cast Lots that they might know for whose cause that Evil was upon them Which intimates that they believed that the most secret faults were not unknown to the Omniscient Being and therefore resolv'd to cast Lots which they apprehended did not fall fortuitously and by chance but by Divine direction and the guidance of an invisible hand So Solomon observes Prov. 16. ult The lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. And though the Lot fell upon Jonah who confest that he was a Fugitive Prophet and that for his sake the Sea was tempestuous and that the only Expedient to asswage its raging was to cast him over-board which he bid them do yet the men were afraid Jon. 1.12 being loth to contract the guilt of Murder knowing that 't was a crying sin and that the voice of his Bloud would cry aloud and plead against them before the invisible Judge of the World and therefore they tugg'd hard to get the Ship to Land but all would not do the Sea being more and more tempestuous wherefore being forc'd to throw him over-board for their own safety yet they did it with Cries and Prayers and earnest Supplications to the great God deprecating the guilt of Murder and the cry of innocent Bloud v. 14. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord and said We beseech thee O Lord we beseech thee let us not perish for this man's life and lay not upon us innocent bloud And if Natural Conscience is so much affrighted at the thoughts and hearing of Judgment how much more 2. An enlightned one A Conscience enlightn'd by the Light of Scripture which gives the truest measures of sin and Divine wrath and vengeance The Christian has the best and truest account of the nature of sin and the sad consequents of it is suppos'd to know and understand it best And so he does and therefore is sufficiently affrighted at its ghastly looks when he is under an apprehension of a speedy approach to Judgment Witness the cries and groans the sighs and lamentations of the sick dying Sinner whom you may hear if you step into his Chamber as he lyes languishing upon his sick Bed lamenting and cursing his wicked life and bewailing his sins with all the aggravating instances of abhorrence and detestation Why what 's the matter What ails the man How comes it that he is now so troubled at sin who before never fear'd it Why 't is the Witness of God within him whose mouth was stopt before that thus speaks His Conscience is awaken'd and does lash and sting him with a sense of guilt and the fiery vengeance shews him what he has done and whither he is a going that he is making his trembling approach before the Judgment-Seat of Christ That 's the Second Evidence of the certainty of Judgment viz. the Voice of Conscience The third is Thirdly The Voice of God's Justice which requires that there should be a future Judgment They who will not be convinc'd by Scripture may perhaps by this Argument The consideration of God's Justice together with the State of Affairs and things in this Life They who have any sense of Religion and believe there is a God must believe him to be just that he is the just and righteous Governour of the World a Lover of Justice and will administer Justice to his Creatures Now in regard we are not capable of an immediate converse with God who is a Spirit and invisible he is pleas'd to converse with us by men by Creatures like our selves and does appoint some as his Vice-gerents his Delegates and Substitutes here on Earth to execute the Laws of Justice and make an equal distribution of it in giving rewards and inflicting punishments according to the nature and merit of the actions of men and to render to every one his due Now 't is notorious that Justice is not universally and impartially executed in this Life The vertuous are not always rewarded nor the vicious punished according to the different nature of their actions Of which I could give you various Instances As 1. In the Case of Persecution Good men that fear God are many times perseucted for the true Religion as the Martyrs in the Marian Days and other Protestants in Christendom These were good and yet receiv'd evil they had not the reward of their Vertue here What should I speak of that Cloud of Witnesses that noble Army of Martyrs mentioned in the 11th of the Hebrews who had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment were stoned were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword wandred about in Sheep skins and Goat skins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the World was not worthy On the other side their Persecutors fared well though they did so ill did not receive the recompence of their Vices and wickedness and cruelties and blasphemies had not their punishment in this Life liv'd in pleasure and dy'd in peace i. e. outward peace And now where is the Justice of God in rewarding Vertue and punishing Vice if there is no future Audit of these matters if these things eternally sleep thus if the persecuted shall never be rewarded and their Persecutors never be punished But God is just and will see Justice done and impartially executed So the Apostle tells