Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	dead_a	life_n	quicken_v	5,491	5	10.4511	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65195	Two treatises ... both written by Sir Henry Vane, Knight in the time of his imprisonment.	Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Epistle general, to the mystical body of Christ on earth.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Face of the times.	1662 (1662)	Wing V80_PARTIAL; Wing V67_PARTIAL; ESTC R7026	96,369	132

or Priests with Christ or both that is joynt or co-heirs with Christ in the dignity and perfection of his Manhead in one or both of these Considerations of it This is intimated Isa 43. 10. Ye are my Witnesses saith the Lord and my Servant Christ whom I have chosen that ye may know and believe me or be one in Judgment and Will with me and understand that I am he Before me there was no God formed nor shall be after me And they are called Witnesses not only because they know and believe him and are one in Spirit with him as he is a glorified earthly man and a man also that is Michael God's fellow but as they Prophesie in Sack-cloth or in a suffering state not loving their lives unto the death rather then cease to be Witnesses and to bear their testimony to the Truth when called thereunto under the greatest contradiction of sinners 9. By the Woman chap. 12. clothed with the Sun c. who being with Child cried travelling in birth with a Man-child and pained to be delivered is meant the true Sarah or spiritual Womb of Christ's dead body Rom. 7. 4. which lawfully discharges us from the Covenant of the Law or obligation to act singly by the activity it gives that we should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead that we may bring forth fruit unto God as quicken'd into a life and activity much more excellent There is therefore set before the eyes of our Faith the Law of the Spirit of Life that is in-Christ Jesus risen from the dead for us hence-forward to be conformed and live unto as that birth of manly perfection which shines forth in him who was crucified indeed in weakness but was raised in power or a man of Power in whose hands all Power in Heaven and Earth is intrusted And those who become one in conjunction of Spirit with him by the new and everlasting Covenant are with him caught up to the Throne of God in the one or other capacity before intimated of the two sorts of Citizens that by the new birth are members of the Heavenly Jerusalem and of the remnant of the Womans Seed that keep the Commandments of God and have the Testimony of Jesus The great Contest and Battel which happened between the Witnesses on the one part comprehended under the name of Michael and his Angels and the Serpent and his brood on the other was as the one were Friends and the other Enemies to the Cross and Death of Christ and as the Judgment Opinions and Practises of the one or other made void or else established and advanced the Mystery and Efficacy of the Cross and the Law of it which those that observe and follow peace will be upon them as on all the Israel of God In this Quarrel the Witnesses do fight under the protection and blessing of Michael their Head as the other do under the support and encouragement of the Old Dragon their Head 10. By the Old Dragon we are to understand the Spirit that rules in the Children of disobedience who is for the present Head and chief Ruler over the World as managing the universal Scepter thereof by Christ's permission The Ensigns and Characters of this Empire according to Scripture phrase is seven heads and ten horns intimating the nature as well as perfection and universality of that worldly Power which is exercised by the Old Dragon in waging war against the Woman and her Seed This War he is capable to manage either as an Angel of Light and a false Prophet in the Church or as an universal Monarch and Governor in the World In the first Capacity as this Dragon transforms himself into an Angel of Light and Minister of Righteousness he works with all Power Signs and lying Wonders As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses and Aaron in their Commission so do the Serpent's Seed in Sheep's clothing and Christ's own likeness resist the Witnesses in their Testimony and oppose the Inhabitants of the Heavenly Jerusalem by pretending a greater Friendship to Christ and conformity to his written Law in all their words and actions than the true Seed of the Woman having indeed the form of Godliness but denying the Power and Spirit thereof After this manner did the Dragon and his Angels in the Primitive Church fight with Michael and his Angels to prevent the birth of the Man-child and to keep up the Credit and Authority of the Law and their following after Righteousness in the Principles and upon the terms of the first Covenant in opposition to the Ministry of the Spirit according to the Promise and Tenor of the new and everlasting Covenant This battel continued in the Primitive Church about four hundred years and came at last to this issue Satan was cast down out of Heaven upon an evident discovery of his deceitful workings and lying wonders in the Teachings and Inspirations which came out of his mouth as a false Spirit and Prophet so that he was not able singly this way to bear up any longer against the Power and Demonstration of the Spirit of Truth in the mouth of the Saints but found himself necessitated to resort to his earthly and worldly Weapons the Power of the Civil Sword that so joyning both his Interests together that of the Magistrate and false Prophet he might grow up into such a formidible posture as is mentioned Chap. 13. 4. where it is said Who is like unto the BEAST or able to make War with him This posture the Apostle John beheld the Dragon putting himself into when the seven-headed and ten-horned Beast arose out of the Sea and the two-horned Beast out of the Earth Both of these together do become the Seat or Throne to which the Dragon gave up his Power and Authority The first of these two Beasts receives him as the old unclean prophane heathenish Spirit they that are meant by that Beast are still the same in Principles as before only outwardly baptized into the name of the Christian Profession or Religion when Christian Religion became the Religion of the Roman Empire Thus was that Beast healed of its former Wound when Paganism was destroyed and pull'd down And because the bare name of Christian Religion or out-side Profession thereof without something of real Reformation and Power of inward Principles was not of credit or authority enough to advance Antichrist's Kingdom therefore the Ministry of the Law or first Covenant even the knowledge of Christ according to the flesh as it is capable to serve the Serpents Seed for a cover and vail of their enmity against the Cross of Christ and Power of his Resurrection doth spring up over the head as it were of the first Beast This second Beast or branch of Antichrist's Subjects and Kingdom with two horns like the Lamb but speaking as the Dragon chuses rather to joyn Interest with the first Beast than to suffer the Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem to come out

old ere ever the Earth was And what is true in Christ who is not only the Root but the chief and principal Branch hath its Witness and is declared in the Work which he begets and shines forth in amongst his Members knit to him by an abiding or indissoluable union all that are Branches in this true Vine whose Fruit is such as is cheering both to the heart of God and of Man that is to say of Man considered in his higher or lower attainments and growths up into the knowledge and love of God as he is Man and no more partaking of the Spirit of God by measure And secondly of Man made the only Begotten of God that lyes in the bosom of the Father and is anointed with the Oyl of gladness above his fellows which Christ's exalted Manhead is and that after such sort as not to have and inherit the dignity of it to himself single and alone but as the Head and Husband to that General Assembly of the First-born whose Names are written in Heaven and have right to the double portion The right opening of this is the great Key to all our practical and experimental Knowledge of God which is found amongst the dispersed Seed of God that are either of the one or other birth Children of the first or second Covenant in every Nation Tongue Language or Form truly searing God and working Righteousness and therein accepted of God either through Faith or with that common acceptance declared Gen. 4. If thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted whilst in the mean time they may be great strangers unto if not much prejudiced against one another for not walking together in one and the same way of Profession and external Communion Give me leave then to distinguish this Seed of God into Four sorts Two that are Witnesses unto Christ's first Ministry as he is the Author and Restorer of the Law and Principles of pure Nature and is the dispenser of God's Image and the manifestation of his Will upon the terms of the first Covenant And other two that are Witnesses unto the truth of Christ's second Ministry as he is the new Creator that regenerates and makes over again his first work anew is the Author of Life from the dead and bringer of Immortality to light which is not done by the first Covenant nor can be but by this second knowledge and Image of God begotten and wrought by and according to the tenor of the new and everlasting Covenant The first sort of Witnesses we shall speak unto and rightly to have the knowledge of them we must yet further consider Man in his first make and in the primitive constitution of being that was given to him in his state of Innocency before sin entred So as to enquire upon what terms Man then stood with God and in what respect he was pronounced good in God's eyes and might be said to be accepted of him Man then had the perfect knowledge of God and of Christ as his Creator and Law-giver for God created all things by Jesus Christ by the Word of God's mouth in the Mediator did all things live move and had their being so that what might be known of God even of his Eternal Power and Godhead by the things that were made that is by the means of any created beings visible or invisible it was manifested in man and was shewed to man by that mixt com pound being which was given him of an intellectual and sensual or animal Soul which furnished him with inward and outward senses proportioned for such a knowledge and which were retained in due subjection and subordination the one unto the other From such a prospect and survey of things as Man at first was fitted to receive both from within and without him the invisible things of the Godhead were clearly seen by him rendring him without all excuse being thereby instructed in the duty of his obedience and subjection to the Law of God under which he was made to the glorifying him as God which as God expected and required from man so he owned a liking and acceptance of from man with whom he treated and agreed upon the terms of his personal obedience and entire observance of all his Commands and continuance therein Three things man in this state might and did experimentally find in himself First The light and manifestation of God's Mind and Will as a Law within him called in Scripture The Candle of the Lord the Oyl with which God furnished the Lamp of man's spirit which he was to take care that through his default he did not let it go out nor diminish but quicken and renew it as it should need by such means God instituted The second thing which man experienced was the life of a rational and intellectual Soul that is to say a superior part in the same Soul affording the use of inward senses that by keeping open and awake he had as it were an intercourse with the spiritual and invisible beings of Angels and saw the intrinsick natures of the Creatures And thirdly He found also a brutish nature of which he was compouuded and made which furnished him with the use and operation of outward senses by which he might go abroad and walk up and down in converse with earthly things and inhabitants The fountain of these outward senses his inferior part to be in his soul or spirit With these he came to perform and put in execution that which the superior and directive part of him judged right and fit to be done This was the inward and outward order of actings that Man at first was created in with a freedom to make use of this Light within himself which God as a Talent had committed to him to imploy according to his will and rely upon his guidance and the sufficiency of it to attain the end God set before him in the way of his perfect obedience and keeping out the entrance of sin or else upon the sense of the instability he might discern in these Principles of Freedom that leave him alone and to himself and the Insufficiency to continue by the power of the Grace received in well-doing against all resisting and deceiving temptations to chuse rather to make resignation up of this his Freedom wherein he was at his own guidance and dispose in exchange for a better and more perfect Freedom that is to say in order to be intirely at the will of another and the leading influence thereof in all things even of such another whose service is perfect Freedom and who should be as Surety for the performance of the duty to God's Law and secure us from the penalty of the Curse therein threatned against the Transgression thereof which was pointed out to Adam in the Tree of Life as John interprets by the Promise mentioned Rev. 2. 7. To him that overcometh which is done through Faith will I give to eat of the Tree of Life or Immortality which is fed on

an irrecoverable fall in their own persons they come to be fixed in evil and bound up with the fallen Angels in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day ● Pet. 2. 20. Jude vers 12. and vers 6. This wavering spirit of Japhet considered singly in its own sphear and activity as neither advancing towards the tents of Sem and things above nor declining to the heathenish and prophane state of Cham is that spirit which properly constitutes the Israel after the flesh in distinction from the true Israel of God or Circumcision of the Spirit on the one hand and the heathenish uncircumcised Nations on the other whilst God kept up the war in the line of Abraham or seed of Israel according to the flesh till Christ's incarnation For in Abraham's line deriving from Heber and Shem did God renew and maintain the war with the Seed of the Serpent and continued it till his signal rejection of that line and utter cutting them off from being any more a Nation and People of themselves at the last sacking and destruction of Jerusalem after the death of Christ by the hand of Titus Vespasian 3. The mind that declares it self in the third sort of Inhabitants who dwell in the Sea or in the depth of alienation from the life of God without any sense or feeling of that which is morally and naturally good according to the Law hating and despising God's image in any kind where-ever it shines forth is that which was in Cham. For this was he cursed and judicially fixed in his bondage as a servant of sin resembled by that servant under the Mosaical dispensation who for refusing his freedom when offered was bored thorow his ear in token of his perpetual servitude Exod. 21. 6. 1. The first sort of these Inhabitants are heavenly having a mind and principles fix'd in that obedience of Faith which is acceptable and by entring into God's Rest through Faith do become unmovable in the right way of working Righteousness wherein they attain the end of their hope that is the salvation of their souls 2. The second are earthly unfixed either in good or evil wavering between both having a mind sometimes serving the Law of God and sometimes the law of sin These however they may draw near to God with their words and tongue their heart is alienated and at a distance from him at least may be for ought they know notwithstanding the form of godliness they live in For they are not able to make a true and certain judgment of themselves till they partake of that Anointing from above that can teach them all things This is that only that will enable them to keep the word of Christ's patience in the day of their tryal Without this Grace extended to them and possessed by them they will become Apostates forget they have been washed from their old sins and will shew themselves at last the most hardned and bitter resisters of the holy Ghost and Power of Godliness 3. The third are like the Sea foaming out their own filth and they are constant and fixed therein having minds and consciences seard and made harder than the nether milstone in works of darkness Being past feeling they have sold themselves to work wickedness Peradventure sometime they may be made a little sensible of the sting and penalties of the Law so as to make some slender acknowledgments and feigned professions of obedience and subjection thereunto the Devils also believe and tremble but no hearty or sincere repentance from dead works or pure obedience of love springing from the spirit of Adoption and appearing in a steady amendment of life is to be found in them Yea they are by God himself judicially hardned and unchangeably fastned in their own chosen wayes of darkness They give themselves up to work all uncleanness with greediness and God gives them up to vile affections to take their course and fill up the measure of their abominations till he see time to strike them once for all The first and last of the above-named minds or principles are the two extreams in the one or other of which the middle or second sort of Inhabitants that are in the wavering changeable contending state with whom God is striving by his Spirit will come at last to be unchangeably fixed The perfect and righteous state which Man was at first created in was this middle wavering and unfixed state of perfection which was at first and upon renewal thereof is again capable to be guided by the Spirit of God through Faith into a higher and better or to be tempted and seduced by Satan into a lower and far worse The sinful state likewise into which mankind was plunged by the first transgression and fall of Man is not fixed or made immutable and desperate until a new proof and tryal be made of all men In order to this by vertue of the Blood of the Redeemer and through observation of the Rules appointed by God for recovery out of the Fall a restitution to the rectified Principles and Righteousness of our first Creation is in Christ most certainly attainable by every sinner without exception For by Christ's Blood there is remission to be had for all sins past and a new tryal is propounded and set before every one for time to come upon the terms and according to the tenor of God's conditional or absolute Covenant Hence it is the War arises and the Enmity is set or comes to be fixed between the two seeds each serving as it were for the proof and tryal of the unmovableness of one another either in good or evil Through this was occasioned the quarrel between the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent growing up out of Noah's family The usurpation of the universal Government of the World in favour and assistance of the Serpent's seed was attempted and pursued by Nimrod and his successors Afterwards it came into Nebuchadnezzar's hands and by Daniel's interpretation of that prophetical Image of worldly Monarchy that Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream the continuance thereof in his line and three other successive branches of Universal Monarchy in the lines of the Medes and Persians Grecians and then Romans was foretold All these have been the inheritors of Cham's spirit upholding a heathenish state of Idolatry Ignorance and Prophaness against the Kingdom and Obedience of Christ kept up and witnessed unto all along in and by the line and seed of Abraham from Sem downward to the last sack and utter ruine of the Temple and City of Jerusalem under the Romans The chief memorables in this space of time that concern the opposit interest to these worldly Monarchies were the eminent Call of Abraham Isaac and Jacob to the Faith the giving of the Law the building and rebuilding of the Temple the long continuing of the Prophetical Office in the Jewish Church Christ's Incarnation Ministry Death and Resurrection About forty years after the Resurrection

and Body This is that Principle and Power that after the limited time of 1260 years must fall and be taken out of the way 15. By the Witnesses Prophesying in Sack-cloth are meant the true Circumcision in Spirit who Worship God in Christ Jesus and live in a through-resignedness of mind to him that is risen from the dead who is the Spirit of Truth which is given them by the Father to be their guide of whom and of whose Testimony they are not ashamed what ever disgrace it be in or however rejected by the Government under which the Providence of God hath placed them They do therefore own it as their Principle and make it their practice to bear and suffer under such worldly Powers and Governments in Faith and Patience whatever befals them for their Testimony 's sake without attempting to resist the Powers that are to disturb their peace or give them any just cause of offence They are called Witnesses because of the word of their Testimony which they forbear not to give in the worst and most suffering times whatever it cost them And they are Two described by two Candlesticks or Societies of Believers and two Olive Trees or Sons of Oyl because through Faith they are the receivers of the Anointing which comes from the Holy One and is Truth and no Lie This Anointing proportions it self in its Gift either according to the measure it finds the Nature of man capable to take in and possess without any new addition of a distinct superiour capacity and reception or else gives forth its self in a vast and boundless communication wherein it is capable to flow forth into man and to form in him an answerable Reception thereunto beyond and above that capacity and measure of knowledge and discerning which is proper to man in his first make or building to the extending and enlarging the intellectual part of man's Being into a more abundant fruition of God in a superiority to that of Angels even to a joynt inheriting seeing and enjoying of God with the exalted humane Nature of the Son of God in that Name which he obtains above Angels and wherein he is more excellent than they At this more excellent Name of Christ as it originally shines forth in Christ's own Person every knee must bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God the Father These two sorts of Saints are in most intimate Union and inseperable conjunction with the Lord that Spirit who is the Son of man glorified or justified in Spirit and who hath the gift of the Anointing in both the respects before-mentioned The one sort of these Saints as well as the other do with open face behold as in a glass the Glory of the Lord whether that wherein he is perfect man or that wherein he is more than man the man that is God's Fellow and Equal and so Superiour and Head to Angels Principalities and Powers ascended far above all Heavens And they are changed into the same Image respectively whether of the one Glory or of the other by the Spirit of the Lord or the Lord the Spirit These Two Witnesses do live and abide in their Principles and word of their Testimony when their persons die and they have put off their earthly Tabernacle For the Witnessing-work is carried on in a succession of new Witnesses brought upon the stage of this World one Generation after another during the time declared of 1260 years whilst they are appointed to prophesie in Sack-cloth And when that suffering season of theirs shall have an end put to it as it must the like two Companies and Societies of Saints spirited with the same Principles that these sackcloth or suffering Prophets are of both of them making but one Church and House of the Living God shall be quicken'd and rais'd up in Power by such a Redemption wrought in and upon their bodies even here in this life from the bondage of Corruption as is called the Adoption of the body Rom. 8. 23. This Adoption or Redemption of the body on this side the Resurrection will hold proportion very much with Christ's Transfiguration This state of the body is prophetically described Dan. 12. 3. where we are given to understand that the bodies of the Saints or of those that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and their Spirits as the Stars for ever and ever For into such an intimate relation and conjunction will Christ as he is the Head of Angels take and adopt the Spirits of Angels and men regenerated with himself and with one another as by his own influence on the Spirits of Saints and by his and the influence of their own Spirits on their bodily or sensual part to reduce their bodies into so near a relation to and conjunction with the Life of their Spirits and Christ in Spirit as will raise and advance them into a heavenly frame and render them meet for so great a glory of Spirit or eminent exercise of spiritual Life and Power This will be a glory of the body not before known as a common and general dispensation since the World began nor yet hardly so eminently experienced even by those few choice Types and Shadowes of it Enoch Moses and Elias or others This is that state of body or of the very outward-man and sensual part of the Saint whereby Christ will be glorified in his Saints and admired in all those that do believe A LETTER OF Sir HENRY VANE To his LADY from the Isle of SCYLLY My Dear Heart THe Wind yet continuing contrary makes me desirous to be as much in Converse with thee having this opportunity as the Providence of God will permit hoping these will come safe to your hand It is no small Satisfaction to me in these sharp Tryals to experience the Truth of those Christian Principles which God of his Grace hath afforded you and me in our measures the knowledge and emboldned us to make the profession of For surely by this Fiery Tryal which is from God appointed to try us no strange or unusual Dispensation of God hath happened to us differing from that which all his Servants and Prophets from the beginning of the World to this day have found also to be their Lot Nor is it other than the Condition as I may say and Law that all those must come under and submit unto that will approve themselves Christ's Disciples indeed Luk. 14. 26 27. And it is no small Mercy that the greatest Extremities we have already under-gone and which do as yet threaten have found that strength and rooting of the Grace and Love of Christ in our Hearts which causes us not to despair of being made more than Conquerors in the end without desiring those Conditions of peace vers 32. which are not consistent with our being such Disciples of Christ as will cheerfully when called to it forsake all they have in love to him and subjection to his Will Why should Christ ask us