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	holy_a	son_n	6,062	5	5.4793	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27558	Of the happiness of the saints in heaven a sermon preached before the Queen at Whitehall, October 12, 1690 / by William Beveridge.; Of the happiness of the saints in heaven	Beveridge, William, 1637-1708.	1695 (1695)	Wing B2097; ESTC R14203	15,307	36

to see God To that the Apostle answers in my Text by calling it the Inheritance of the Saints in light It is true All men are born at sirst spiritually blind and so generally live in the dark seeing no more of God or any spiritual object than as if there was no such thing in being But when a man is born again his eyes are opened and he is turned from darkness to light as well as from the power of Satan unto God And therefore all such are called the Children of light and the Children of the day because they have a marvellous light as St. Peter calls it constantly shining in them whereby they discover many glorious things which lye perfectly hid to all other mortals By this Elisha's servant when his eyes were opened saw the Mountain full of Horses and Chariots of sire even a whole Legion of the heavenly Host round about his Master By this St. Stephen saw the Heavens opened and Christ standing at the right hand of God yea by this Moses saw him that is invisible God himself And thus all that are real Saints being the Children of light see more or less of God at least so much as to make them love and desire and fear and trust on him above all things in the world Indeed they cannot see his face and live as he himself told Moses But they see him as Moses did in his back-parts in his works the effects and products of his divine Perfections And the reason why they cannot see his face and live in this world is because they are still in their imperfect state and therefore cannot possibly have a perfect sight of so glorious a being or if they had it would strike them dead for they could not possibly bear it or as Job expresseth it by reason of his highness they could not endure so as to live under it But seeing God himself saith that no man shall see his face and live he thereby gives us to understand that some shall see his face when they are dead and departed out of this life And so questionless do all the Saints that are in Heaven For they live in a City which hath no need of the Sun nor of the Moon to shine in it For the glory of God doth lighten it and the lamb is the light thereof Or as the Prophet Isaiah words it The Lord is to them an everlasting light So that as the Sun is to us upon Earth the fountain of all that light whereby we see any object here below so to the Saints that are above in Heaven God himself is pleased to issue forth light immediately from himself which exceeds the light of the Sun infinitely more than that exceeds the glimmering of a Glo-worm Neither doth it only shine as the Sun doth upon them but into them and so enlightens themselves too as well as all things that are about them And what is there in the world which they cannot see by such a glorious such an insinite light as this is By this light they see not only the supersicies but the very substance and contexture of every creature they have a mind to look upon as exactly as if it was perfectly anatomized and laid open before them By this they see the several vertues qualities and operations of things here below and the great ends and purposes for which they are designed By this they see the causes of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea and other great Phoenomena of nature which so much puzzle Philosophy and make it but a meer conjecture By this they see the secret and wonderfull Powers that God hath put into all Animals and Vegetables of propagating their respective Species so that none of them ever did or can ever fail to be in the world By this they see both the composition and the several motions of the Sun and all the other Planets as well as fixed Stars and what insluences they have upon terrestrial bodies By this they see the wise establishment of second Causes how they depend upon one another and all upon the first The sight of which and such-like things must needs be an extraordinary pleasure to them by reason of the most admirable Art and Contrivance they observe in them and also because their faculties are by this means employed to the proper uses for which they were made and to which they therefore tend For as God made all things for the manifestation of his own glory he endued men with reason on purpose that they might behold and admire the glory of those Perfections which he manifested in them And hence it is that all things naturally tending to their end all men naturally desire to know and many apply their minds wholly to find out such things as those are And if they can but guess at any of them with the least shew of reason or so much as probability they are mightily pleased with it But what a pleasure then must it be to have a full view and prospect of them and of that infinite Wisedom Power and Goodness which appeareth in them as the Saints in Heaven have by that light which shines upon their inheritance Moreover by this light they look back upon their former lives and see the steady hand of providence ordering and over-ruling not only the greater occurrences but even the least circumstances in them and the holy Spirit of God making some use or other of every one of them to work them over to himself By this they see God's infinite love and goodness to his Church militant here on earth in all the straits and difficulties he brings it into and how good and necessary it is for it that every thing should be just as it is By this they see the holy Angels and all their fellow Citizens in the new Hierusalem and converse familiarly with them as we do with one another By this they see their ever blessed Saviour the eternal Son of God in their nature exalted at the right hand of the Father far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named in Heaven or Earth By this they see all the glory which the Father hath given him as he himself once prayed they might Yea by this they see the most high God face to face even as we see the Sun by his own light and that too as clearly as fully as perfectly as it is possible for creatures to doe it Which so refreshes enlivens elevates and cheers their Spirits that they are always rejoycing and singing and praising God admiring adoring magnifying and giving thanks to his almighty all-glorious and all-gracious Majesty Father Son and Holy Ghost for his creating redeeming and sanctifying them so as to bring them through the various changes and chances of this mortal life to such an inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away eternal in the heavens in glory in bliss in

is ready upon all occasions to assist us in our endeavours after piety and to crown them with that s●ccess as to make us sincerely pious For which purpose as he sanctified our humane nature in general by assuming it into his divine person so he sanctifieth our humane persons in particular by making us partakers of his divine nature which he doth by sending his Holy Spirit of the same divine nature with himself into our Hearts which by degrees makes us also holy and spiritual and so in our capacities like unto himself and partakers of his own nature Now the great thing which he requires of us in order to his doing this great work for us is that we believe in him For he himself faith that we are sanctified by faith that is in him Not by believing only his Gospel in general to be true but by believing particularly in himself so as to have a sure trust and confidence on him to give us such illuminations and assistances of his Holy Spirit whereby we may be turned from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God and so be made sincerely as he is infinitely pure and holy And indeed this is the first and great thing that we ought to believe and trust in our Saviour for and that which is the foundation of all our other expectations from him For we have no ground to expect either pardon or any other blessing at his hands untill we repent and be converted But if we firmly believe and depend upon him in the first place for grace to repent and turn to God and so to become holy and new creatures according to the promises that he hath made us to that purpose as he will then most certainly perform such promises to us so all the other blessings that he hath purchased for us will then follow in course For if we be truly sanctified and made holy then our sins will be all pardoned our persons justified our duties accepted God reconciled to us and at length our Souls eternally saved But all these things depend upon our being first sanctified by him as that doth upon our believing in him But Faith as the Apostle saith is the Gift of God and therefore if we desire to beli●ve so as to be sanctified we must ask and exp●ct it from him in the use of those means which he hath appointed both for the begetting and increasing of it We must reade and hear and medi are upon his Holy Word We must fast and pray and receive the Sacrament of our Lord's Supper For these are the ordinary means which God hath established in his Church whereby to make known himself unto us to convince us of the truth and certainty of his Promises and so work and confirm in us a true belief of them by the power of the Holy Ghost which for that purpose doth continually assist and influence the administration and performance of such duties which therefore are not onely holy duties in themselves but the means too whereby we may become holy But for that purpose we must perform not onely one or more but all of them so as to go through the whole course that God hath prescribed for the healing of our spiritual distempers and for the restoring us to a sound frame and constitution of mind wherein as I have shewn the nature of true holiness properly consists And that we must doe too not onely now and then but through the whole course of our lives so as to be constantly as much as possibly we can employed in some or other of these holy exercises not in a careless and supersicial manner but heartily sincerely earnestly as for our lives for our lives our eternal lives in a great measure depend upon it For it is by our continual exercise of those holy duties and the Grace of God always accompanying of them that our hearts are insensibly taken off from sin and the world and raised up higher and higher towards God and Heaven till at length our whole Souls being sanctified by a quick and lively Faith in Christ we are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light And what cause have they who are so to give thanks as St. Paul here doth to God the Father for it For the whole of our Salvation from first to last must be ascribed unto him It is begun continued and ended all in him For it was he who so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life It was he who spared not this his Son but delivered him up to be tempted to be scourged to be spit upon to be arraigned condemned crucified and all for us and for our Salvation It was he who having raised up this his Son Jesus sent him to bless us by turning every one of us from his iniquities And made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him It was he who hath exalted him with his own right hand to be both a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance and remission of sins It is he who hath passed by the greatest part of mankind and hath revealed himself and his Son to us the unworthiest of all his creatures It was he who caused us to be born and bred within the Pale of his Holy Catholick Church and in one of the soundest and purest parts of it upon the face of the whole Earth It is he who still continues the means of grace to us and us to them and his blessing both to them and us It is he who gives us his holy spirit to mortifie the deeds of the flesh and to quicken us with newness of life to raise up our minds from the world and fix them upon himself to keep us from evil and to enable us to doe or suffer any thing we can for his sake It is he who calls upon us continually by the ministery of his Word to repent and believe the Gospel and gives us grace to doe it In a word It is he who hath sent me the unworthiest of all his ministers at this time to acquaint you in his Name how ye may be meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light and it is he alone can make you so And therefore all who are so made may well join with the Choire of Heaven in those Seraphick Anthems we find them singing in the Revelations Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb. Amen Blessing and glory and wisedom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be unto our God for ever and ever Amen FINIS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4● Ps●l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 12. 10. 2 Pet. 1. 4. Isa 6. 3. Rev. 4. 8. Ephes 4. 24. 1 Pet. 1. 15. 〈◊〉 ●hess 4. 7. P 〈…〉 1● 〈◊〉 1 C 〈…〉 1● 58. Rom. 8. 17. Heb. 1. 2. Rev. 21. 7. 1 Cor. 3. 21 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A●t 26. 1● 1 Thess 5. 5. 1 Pet. 2. 9. 2 Reg. 6. 17. A●t 7. 55 56. Heb. 11. 17. Exod. 33. 20. Job 31. 23. Rev. 21. 23. Isa 60. 19. Jon. 17. ●4 Matt. 17. 4. 〈…〉 〈◊〉 2. 14. 1 Cor. 1. 〈◊〉 Joh. 15. 5. Phil. 4. 13. Act 26. 18. Ephes 2. 8. Joh. 3. 16. Rom. 8. 32. Act. 3. 26. 2 Cor. 5. 21. Act. 5. 31. Revel 7. 10 12.