Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	death_n	life_n	live_v	8,614	5	5.8823	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48733	A sermon preached at the funeral of Mrs. Mary Alston, wife to Joseph Alston Esq; who dyed, Jan. 25. and was interred at Chelsey, Feb. 7. 1670. By Adam Littleton, D.D. Recton of Chelsey.	Littleton, Adam, 1627-1694.	1671 (1671)	Wing L2569; ESTC R221361	13,363	38

could not be justified by or in the Law of Moses by or in him namely in Christ every one that believeth is justified First then what Justification is To be justified is to be accounted and lookt upon as righteous and perfectly just in the sight of Good our Law-giver and our Judge and thereupon to be absolutely discharged and acquitted according to the tenour of the Law by the Sentence of the Judge from all the penalties that were to be inflicted upon the transgressors of the Law and for that our Righteousness to be accepted of God in our persons and performances and in the end to be eternally rewarded And this all grounded upon the nature and sanction of a Law which as it proposes Commands and Rules to be observed so is ratified with Promises on one hand of reward to the obedient and on the other hand with Threats of punishment to those that shall be found guilty of the breach of it Now this Justification had the Covenant of Nature stood the Law of Moses continued in force must have been made out by our own personal exact obedience to every tittle of our obligations for this was the tenour of that Law Do this and live and Cursed be every one that continueth not in all the words of the Law to do them and this is that is called legal Righteousness But in Christ under the Covenant of Grace which was substituted in the room and stead of that other the Law of Faith has altered the terms thus He that believes shall be saved and He that believeth not shall be condemned So that now faith in Christ and sincerity of obedience for there are Commands too as well as Promises and Threats even in this Law of Faith is that we call Evangelical Righteousness whereby we are through that satisfaction Christ as our surety hath by his active and passive obedience wrought for us which through Faith in him is imputed unto us for Righteousness justified by him to the forgiveness of our sins to the acceptation of our persons and to the reward of our services Again this Justification is indeed attained in this life being laid hold on by Faith evidenced by our obedience and sealed to every particular Believers conscience by the Spirit of Promise but in the next life will be declared in open Court at the general Assizes of all Mankind at the last day so that the true Believer lives dies in peace of conscience as having an assurance through Faith that Christ by his death has satisfied for his sins and purchased for him everlasting life For so we find Justification explained in this very Chapter by comparing the 38. and 26. verses with our Text. What he had said there to you is the word of this salvation sent repeating it here in other words Through this man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins So that to be justified is to have our sins forgiven and our souls saved Having thus stated and distinguished Iustification we are now to remove the legal Righteousness that we may establish the Righteousness by Faith and to shew that the Law of Moses was unable and insufficient for the justifying of any one Where first we are to premise an usual Distinction of that Law into Moral Ceremonial and Judicial The Judicial Law was peculiar to the Jewish Common-wealth designed only for external polity and for the quiet and regular administration of the Civil State of that people nor has it any obligation upon any other people any further then as it was a body of Statutes appointed by God himself for the government of his own people it deserves our veneration and as far as the circumstances and customs of other Countries will admit an imitation The Ceremonial Law was most properly the Law of Moses wherein were delivered the rules of Gods Worship which consisted of Purifications and Expiations and other Levitical Rites That again obliged none but Jews and their Proselytes and was to have an end at the coming of Christ. The Moral Law was not so much the Law of Moses as the Law of Adam that which is written in every mans heart and was obligatory to all mankind before Moses and will be so to the end of the world such as are all the Precepts of the Decalogue For though there be somewhat in them ceremonial to which none but Jews were obliged as in the fourth the strictness of the Sabbath-rest and the very day it self for had it not been so it could not have been altered whatsoever is in its nature purely moral being of a perpetual as well as universal and of an indispensable obligation I say notwithstanding somewhat of Ceremony intermixt the things themselves commanded or forbidden in those precepts are acknowledged and owned by the very light of Nature as that God should have a proportion of our time bestowed on his service which in equity could not be less then a seventh part Beyond all this our Saviour himself tells us he came not to destroy this Law but to fulfil it in his own person and heighten its obligations upon us his followers And it appears by circumstances here that the Apostle addressing his speech to the Jews might very likely mean only the Law of Ceremonies as possibly he does in his Epistle to the Galatians and other places by works of the Law intend mainly the Circumcision and other Rites and observances which some Converts of that Religion at the first propagation of the Gospel mainly insisted on and mixed with their Christianity a perswasion and practice which the Doctor of the Gentiles does every where upon all occasions as he meets with it endeavour to confute Yet this Law also having been given by Moses in some sense as to the promulgation of it and the accommodating it to the use and interest of his Country-men I shall take it in too and make good that neither the observance of the Ceremonial Law which obliged the Jews could nor the performance of the Moral Law to which all men are obliged can or ever could justifie any man And this according to that place The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ where as Truth is opposed to Ceremony so Grace is to the Law of Nature First the Ceremonial Law besides that it laboured under other disadvantages as that it was burdensom in its charge and in its attendance and it was obscure compared to Gospel light as being but the shadow of good things to come it was in its very constitution imperfect and impotent and that in two respects 1. It was not commensurate to the necessities of all mankind that Levitical service having been prescribed only and appropriated to the Jews as a characteristical mark of distinction betwixt them and other Nations 2. It was not adequate to its end which was the expiation of guilt the atonement of wrath and propitiation for sins For it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats