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	heart_n	word_n	5,244	5	4.1630	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27062	Two treatises tending to awaken secure sinners viz., 1. The terror of the day of judgment, from 2 Cor. 5. 10, 2. The danger of slighting Christ and his Gospel, from Matth. 22. 5 / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Terror of the day of judgment.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Danger of slighting Christ and his gospel.	1696 (1696)	Wing B1443; ESTC R16419	109,733	266

hath purchased this is a making light of him When Men ●ccount the Doctrine of Christ to be but a Matter of Words and Names as Gallio Acts 18. 4. or as Festus Acts 25. 19. a superstitious Matter about one Jesus who was dead and Paul saith is alive or ask the Preachers of the Gospel as the Athenians Acts 17. 18. What will ●●is Babler say This is a Contempt of Christ 4. When Men are informed of the Truths of the Gospel and on what Terms Christ and his Benefits may be had and how it is the Will of God that they should ●i●ve and accept the Offer and that he commandeth them ●o do it upon Pain of Damnation and yet Men will ●ot consent unless they could have Christ on Terms of their own they will not part with their worldly Con●ents nor lay down their Pleasures and Profits and Ho●our at his Feet as being content to take so much of ●hem only as he will give them back and as is consistent with his Will and Interest but think it is a hard ●aying that they must forsake all in Resolution for Christ this is a making light of him and their Salvation When Men might have part in him and all his Benefits 〈◊〉 they would and they will not unless they may keep ●he World too and are resolved to please their Flesh whatever comes of it this is a high Contempt of Christ and everlasting Life Mat. 13. 21 22. Luke 18. 23. you may find Examples of such as I here describe 5. When Men will promise fair and profess their Willingness to have Christ on his Terms and to forsake all for him but yet do stick to the World and their sinful Courses and when it comes to Practice will not be removed by all that Christ hath done and said this is making light of Christ and Salvation Jer. 4● 5. compared with 43. 2. III. The Causes of this Sin are the next thing to be enquired after It may seem a Wonder that ever Men that have the use of their Reason should be so sottish 〈◊〉 to make light of Matters of such Consequence But the Cause is 1. Some Men understand not the very Sense of the Words of the Gospel when they hear it and how 〈◊〉 they be taken with that which they understand not Though we speak to them in plain English and study to speak it as plain as we can yet People have so estranged themselves from God and the Matters of their own Happiness that they know not what we say as if we spoke in another Language and as if they were under that Judgment Isa 28. 11. with stammering Lips and with another Tongue will he speak to th● People 2. Some that do understand the Words that we speak yet because they are carnal understand not the Matt● for the natural Man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. They are earthly and these things are heavenly John 3. 12. Th● things of the Spirit are not well known by bare hearsay but by a spiritual Taste which none have but those th● are taught by the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 2. 12. that we ma● know the things that are given us of God 3. A carnal Mind apprehendeth not a Sutableness in these spiritual and heavenly things to his Mind and therefore he sets light by them and hath no mind of them When you tell him of everlasting Glory he ●eareth you as if you were perswading him to go play ●ith the Sun they are Matters of another World and ●ut of his Element and therefore he hath no more De●ight in them than a Fish would have to be in the fairest ●eadow or than a Swine hath in a Jewel or a Dog ●n a piece of Gold They may be good to others but ●e cannot apprehend them as sutable to him because ●e hath a Nature that is otherwise inclined he savour●th not the things of the Spirit Rom. 8. 5. 4. The main Cause of the slighting of Christ and ●alvation is a secret Root of Vnbelief in Mens Hearts Whatsoever they may pretend they do not soundly ●nd throughly believe the Word of God they are ●aught in general to say the Gospel is true but they ne●er saw the Evidence of its Truth so far as throughly to ●erswade them of it nor have they got their Souls ●ttled on the Infallibility of God's Testimony nor con●dered of the Truth of the particular Doctrines reveal●d in the Scripture so far as soundly to believe them 〈◊〉 did you all but soundly believe the Words of this Gospel ●f the Evil of Sin of the Need of Christ a●d what ●e hath done for you and what you must be and do if ●ver you will be saved by him and what will become of ●ou for ever if you do it not I dare say it would ●re the Contempt of Christ and you would not make 〈◊〉 light of the Matters of your Salvation But Men do ●t believe while they say they do and would face us ●own that they do and verily think that they do them●●lves There is a Root of Bitterness and an evil Heart 〈◊〉 Unbelief that makes them depart from the living ●od Heb. 2. 12. and 4. 1 2 6. Tell any Man in this ●ngregation that he shall have a Gift of 10000 pounds ●he will but go to London for it if he believe you he ●ll go but if he believe not he will not and if he will not go you may be sure he believeth not supposing that he is able I know a slight Belief may stand with a wicked Life Such as Men have of the Truth of a Prognostication it may be true and it may be false but a true and sound Belief is not consistent with so great Neglect of the things that are believed 5. Christ and Salvation are made light of by the World because of their desperate hardness of Hea●● The Heart is hard naturally and by Custom in sinning made more hard especially by long abuse of Mercy and neglect of the means of Grace and resisting the Spirit of God Hence it is that Men are turned into such Stones and till God cure them of the Stone of the Heart no wonder if they ●eel not what they know or regard not what we say but make light of all 〈◊〉 hard preaching a Stone into tears or making a Rock to tremble You may stand over a dead Body long enough and say to it O thou Carcase when thou hast 〈◊〉 rotting and mouldred to Dust till the Resurrection God will then call thee to account for thy Sin and cast thee into everlasting Fire before you can make it feel what you say or fear the Misery that is never so truly threatned When Mens Hearts are like the High-way that is trodd●● to hardness by long custom in Sinning or like th● Clay that is hardned to a Stone by the heat of thos● Mercies that should have melted them into

did and the merry Hours that he had but then when Sinners are come to themselves a little more they will remember and tell one another of these things with another Heart O that they did but know now how these things will then affect them 4. Another Witness that will then rise up against them will be the very Devils that tempted them They that did purposely draw them to Sin that they might draw them to Torment for Sin They can witness that you hearkned to their Temptations when you would not hearken to God's Exhortations They can witness that you obeyed them in working Iniquity But because you may think the Accuser's Testimony is not to be taken I will not stand on this Though it is not nothing where God knoweth it to be true 5. The very Angels of God also may be Witnesses against the Wicked therefore are we advised in Scripture not to sin before them Eccl. 5. 6. 1 Cor. 11. 10. 1 Tim. 5. 21. I charge thee before the Elect Angels c. They can testify that they would have been ministring Spirits for their good when the Wicked rather chose to be Slaves to the Spirit of Maliciousness The holy Angels of God do many a time stand by you when you are sinning They see you when you see not them they are imployed by God in some sort for your good as well as we And as it is the Grief of Ministers that their Labours succeed not so may we suppose that according to their State and Nature it is theirs For they that rejoice in Heaven at the Conversion of one Sinner may be said to sorrow or to lose those Joys when you refuse to be converted These noble Spirits these holy and glorious Attendants of Christ that shall wait upon him to Judgment will be Witnesses against rebellious Sinners to their Confusion Sirs you have all in you naturally a Fear of Spirits and invisible Powers Fear them aright lest hearkning to the deceiving Spirits and refusing the Help of the Angels of God and wilfully sinning before their Faces you should cause them at that Day to the Terror of your Souls to stand forth as Witnesses against you to your Condemnation 6. Conscience it self will be a most effectual Witness against the Wicked at that Day I before told you it will be a Discerner and force them to a Confession But a farther Office it hath even to witness against them If none else in the World had known of their secret Sins Conscience will say I was acquainted with them 7. The Spirit of Christ can witness against the Ungodly that he oft moved them to repent and return and they rejected his Motions that he spoke to their Hearts in secret and oft set in with the Minister and often minded them of their Case and perswaded them to God but they resisted quenched and grieved the Spirit Acts 7. 51. As the Spirit witnesseth with the Spirits of the Righteous that they are the Children of God Rom. 8. 16. so doth he witness with the Conscience of the Wicked that they were Children of Rebellion and therefore are justly Children of Wrath. This Spirit will not alway st●ive with Men at last being vexed it will prove their Enemy and rise up against them Gen. 6. 3. Isa 63. 10. If you will needs grieve it now it will grieve you then Were it not a Spirit of Grace and were it not free Mercy that it came to offer you the Repulse would not have been so condemning nor the Witness of this Spirit so heavy at the last But it was the Spirit of Jesu● that came with recovering Grace which you resisted And though the Wages of every Sin is Death yet you will find that it will cost you somewhat more to reject this Salvation than to break the Creator's Law of Works Kindness such Kindness will not be rejected at easy Rates Many a good Motion is now made by the Spirit to the Heart of a Sinner which he doth not so much as once observe and therefore doth not now remember them But then they shall be brought to his Remembrance with a witness Many a thousand secret Motions to Repentance to Faith to a holy Life will be then set before the Eyes of the poor unpardoned trembling Sinner which he had quite forgotten And the Spirit of God shall testify to his Confusion At such a Sermon I perswaded thy Heart to repent and thou wouldst not at soch a time I shewed thee the Evil of thy Sin and perswaded thee to have forsaken it but thou wouldst not I minded thee in thy secret Thoughts of the nearness of Judgment and the certai●ty and weight of everlasting things the need of Christ and Faith and Holiness and of the danger of Sinning but thou didst drown all my Motions in the Cares and Pleasures of the World Thou harkenedst rather to the Devil than to me the sensual Incl●nations of thy Flesh did prevail against the strongest Arguments that I used Though I shewed Reasons undeniable Reasons from thy Creator from thy Redeemer from Nature from Grace from Heaven and from Hell yet all would not so much as stop thee much less turn thee but thou wouldest go on thou wouldest follow thy Flesh and now let it pay thee the Wages of thy Folly thou wouldest be thy own Guide and take thine own Course and now take what thou gettest by it Poor Sinners I beseech you in the Fear of God the next time you have any such Motions from the Spirit of God to repent and believe and break off your Sins and the Occasions of them consider then what a Mercy is set before you and how it will confound you at the Day of Judgment to have all these Motions brought in against you and that the Spirit of Grace it self should be your Condemner Alas that Men should choose their own Destruction and wilfully choose it and that the Foreknowledg of these things should not move them to relent So much concerning the Witness that will be brought in against the Sinner 5. The fifth Evidence that will be given against the Sinner will be The Instruments and Effects You know among Men if a Man be found murdered by the high-way and you are found standing by with a bloody Sword in your Hand especially if there were a former Dissension between you it will be an Evidence that will prove a strong Presumption that you were the Murderer but if the Fact be certain by other Evidence then many such things may be brought for aggravation of the Fault So a twofold Evidence will be brought against the Sinner from these things One to prove him guilty of the Fact the other to aggravate the Fault and prove that his Sin was very great For the former 1. The very Creatures which Sinners abused to sin may be brought in against them to their Conviction and Condemnation For though these Creatures shall be consumed with the last destroying Fire which shall consume all the

will serve the turn for your latter Sins Not that you must purpose to sin and purpose to repent when you have done as a Remedy for that is an hypocritical and wicked Purpose of Repenting which is made a Means to maintain us in our Sins but Sin must be avoided as far as we can and Repentance and Faith in the Blood of Christ must remedy that which we could not avoid The Righteousness of Pardon in Christ's Blood is useful to us only so far as we are Sinners and cometh in where our imperfect inherent Righteousness doth come short but must not be purposely chosen before Innocency I mean we must rather choose as far as we can to obey and be innocent than to sin and be pardoned if we were sure of Pardon The twelfth Direction In this vigilant obedient penitent Course with Confidence upon God as a Father rest upon the Promise of Acceptance and Remission through the Merits and Intercession of him that redeemed you Look up in hope to the Glory that is before you and believe that God will make good his Word and the patient Expectation of the Righteous shall not be in vain Chearfully hold on in the Work that you have begun and as you serve a better Master than you did before your Change so serve him with more Willingness Gladness and Delight Do not entertain hard Thoughts of him or of his Service but rejoice in your unspeakable Happiness of being admitted into his Family and Favour through Christ Do not serve him in drooping Dejection and Discouragement but with Love and Ioy and filial Fear Keep in the Communion of his Saints where he is chearfully and faithfully praised and honoured and where is the greatest visible Similitude of Heaven upon Earth especially in the Celebration of the Sacrament of Christ's Supper where he seals up a renewed Pardon in his Blood and where unanimously we keep the Remembrance of his Death until he come Do not cast your selves out of the Communion of the Saints from whom to be cast out by just Censure and Exclusion is a dreadful Emblem and Fore-runner of the Judgment to come where the Ungodly shall be cast out of the Presence of Christ and his Saints for ever I have now finished the Directions which I tender to you for your Preparation for the Day of the Lord and withal my whole Discourse on this weighty Point What Effect all this shall have upon your Hearts the Lord knows it is not in my Power to determine If you are so far blinded and hardned by Sin and Satan as to make light of all this or coldly to commend the Doctrine while you go on to the End in your carnal worldly Condition as before I can say no more but tell thee again that Judgment is near when thou wilt bitterly bewail all this too late And among all the rest of the Evidence that comes in against thee this Book will be one which shall testify to thy Face before Angels and Men that thou wast told of that Day and intreated to prepare But if the Lord shall shew thee so much Mercy as to open thy Eyes and break in upon thy Heart and by sober Consideration turn it to himself and cause thee faithfully to take the Warning that hath been give thee and to obey these Directions I dare assure thee from the Word of the Lord that this judgment which will be so dreadful to the Ungodly and the Beginning of their endless Terrour and Misery will be as joyful to thee and the Beginning of thy Glory The Saviour that thou hast believed in and sincerely obeyed will not condemn thee Psal 1. 5 6. Rom. 8. 1. John 3. 16. It is part of his Business to justify thee before the World and to glorify his Merits his Kingly Power his Holiness and his rewarding Justice in thy Absolution and Salvation He will account it a righteous thing to recompense Tribulation to thy Troublers and Rest to thy self when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his Mighty Angels in flaming Fire taking Vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord and from the Glory of his Power Even then shall he come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe in that Day even because his Servants Testimony and his Spirits among them was believed 2 Thess 1. 6 7 8 9 10. That Day will be the great Marriage of the Lamb and the Reception of thee and all the Saints into the Glory of thy Beloved to which they had a Right at their first Consent and Contract upon Earth And when the Bridegroom comes thou who art ready shalt go into the Marriage when the Door shall be shut against the sleepy negligent World and though they cry Lord Lord open to us they shall be repulsed with a Verily I know you not Mat. 25. 10 11 12 13. For this Day which others fear mayest thou long and hope and pray and wait and comfort thy self in all Troubles with the Remembrance of it 1 Cor. 15. 55 56 57 58. 1 Thess 4. 17 18. If thou wert ready to be offered to Death for Christ or when the time of thy Departing is at hand thou mayest look back on the good Fight which thou hast fought and on the Course which thou hast finished and on the Faith which then hast kept and mayest confidently conclude that henceforth there is laid up for thee a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judg shall give thee at that Day and not to thee only but unto all them also that love his Appearing 2 Tim. 4. 6 7 8. Even so come Lord Jesus Rev. 22. 20. FINIS The Danger of slighting Christ and his Gospel Mat. 22. 5. But they made light of it THE blessed Son of God that thought not enough to die for the World but himself also be the Preacher of Grace and Salvation doth comprize in this Parable the Sum of his Gospel By the King that is here said to make the Marriage is meant God the Father that sent his Son into the World to cleanse them from their Sins and espouse them to himself By his Son for whom the Marriage is made is meant the Lord Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God who took to his God-head the Nature of Man that he might be capable of being their Redeemer when they had lost themselves in Sin By the Marriage is meant the Conjunction of Christ to the Soul of Sinners when he giveth up himself to them to be their Saviour and they give up themselves to him as his redeemed Ones to be saved and ruled by him the Perfection of which Marriage will be at the Day of Judgment when the Conjunction between the whole Church and Christ shall be solemnized The Word here translated Marriage rather signifieth the Marriage-Feast