Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	die_v	life_n	live_v	6,262	5	5.6877	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54342	Helps to the assurance of God's love whereby a true believer may with the help of Gods good spirit know that he had a being in the love of God before he had a being in the world : to which is added a spiritual touch-stone for the tryal of the sincerity of our love to God / by Samuel Pack.	Pack, Samuel.	1673 (1673)	Wing P150; ESTC R26175	21,542	70

that hath the Love of God shed abroad in it is insatiably desirous of more of it a David that hath tasted the sweetness of the Love of God he can in a sense thereof cry out Psal 4.6.4.51.8 Lord lift thou the light of thy countenance upon me and Lord restore unto me the Joy of thy Salvation It is reported of the Lyoness that when she hath once tasted of mans flesh she will never be satisfied without more of it when a Soul has once tasted of the sweetness of the Love of the lyon of the Tribe of Judah by feeding upon his flesh by Faith he will never be satisfied without more of it Now if God should put them to their choice as he did Solomon and ask such whether they would have the shinings in of Gods countenance or the pleasures of sin Oh say such Souls Give us the sweetness of thy love in Christ But suppose a Soul be asked whether it would have the Love of God or the pleasures and profits of the World oh saith the Soul the profits and pleasures of the world are but glistering vanities that are empty of what they promise and inticeing with what they have and God can quickly take the world from me or me from the world But if I have once the love of God I shall enjoy it for ever for neither death nor life Rom. 8 38 39 nor Angels nor Principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor highth nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now my friends I pray see whether you have these sharp appetites after more of the love of God then it is indeed sign that you are objects of the love of God a true Believer that has tasted the sweetness of the love of God is ready to say as Rachel did in another case Give me Children Gen. 30.1 or else I dye so saith the Soul give me more of the love of God or else my life will be a burden to me Oh saith the soul I am compassed about like Jehosaphat with Moab Ammon and mount Seir sin the world the Devil the father torments my Spirit and the children my flesh and being now in this deplorable state if God will not revive my soul with the sweet cordials of his Love what comfort can I have in my life Now if thou art thus breathing after more of the love of God it is a sign thou hast it already or else thou wouldst prefer any thing before it but if on the contrary thou canst with Herod prefer an Herodias sinful pleasure before the love of God and with Saul prefer the love of the people of the world before the love of God or with Demas prefer the profits of the world before the love of God Mat. 14.9 1 Sam. 15.30 2 Tim. 4.10 it is a sign thou never yet hast had it shed abroad in thy heart 6. Wouldst thou know whether thou canst assure thy self of the love of God then see whether God doth exercise thee with Afflictions and sanctify afflictions unto thee as unsanctified Prosperity is no certain sign of the love of God so neither are unsanctified Afflictions for Ahaz was under great afflictions and yet an object of Gods hatred and God is pleased to Stigmatize him to the world 2 Chron 28.22 to be that King Ahaz In which God does as it were point with the finger saying this is that incorrigible wretch that would not be wrought upon by Afflictions But if thou art exercised with Afflictions and those thou art exercised with draw thee nearer unto God and make thee mourn that thou shouldst provoke thy loving-tender-hearted father to lay such strokes upon thy back and that if thou wert put to thy choice thou hadst rather be rid of thy Sin than of thy afflictions and not be rid of thy sins also it is a sign that thou art an object of Gods love This is cleared up from the 3 of the Revelations compared with Psal 94. 〈◊〉 In the Revelations afflictions are made a sign of Gods love those whom I love I rebuke and chasten in that 94 Psal we may see when afflictions are signs of Gods love and that is when they are teaching Afflictions when in Afflictions God teacheth us to know the evil of sin in its cursed nature which is the meritorious cause of all Afflictions In a word when Afflictions are so sanctified as to make us love God more hate Sin more and contenm the world more and to desire to lye down patiently under the hand and will of God and say with Ely it is the Lord 1 Sam. 3.18 let him do what seemeth good in his sight and with Hezekiah Good is the word of the Lord good is this affliction from the hand of my good God and that it is the grief of thy soul when thou doest find a contumacious will thwarting the will of God and this reluctancy in thy will to submit to the will of God under afflicting providences is thy burden then I say it is a good sign nay an infallible sign that God doth exercise thee with those afflictions in love to thy precious Soul Indeed it is too ordinary for Gods people yea his beloved ones to look upon Afflictions as signs of Gods anger but though it be so with some yet it is not so with all I knew a gracious woman in Cambridge was wont to say that if God should not be pleased sometimes to afflict her she should fear he had forgot her and truly I think if there were more of this gracious submissive frame of Spirit amongst Christians in making a right construction of the dealings of God towards them it would put a period to those murmurings complaints and that uncomfortable deportment that doth so much predominate even in Gods beloved ones when they are under Afflictions 7. If thou wouldst know whether thou art an object of Gods love then see if God doth give thee Communion with himself in dutys an object of Gods hatred may injoy the ordinances of God but only true Believers can injoy Communion with the God of Ordinances Can. 2.4 The Spouse tells us that when her beloved brought her into the banquetting house his banner over her was love which in the original is the house of wines and is therefore very fitly translated banquetting because wine is frequently used at banquetting and that which is comprehended in the words is mainly this that when believers are found diligently attending on the means of grace God will at one time or other in one degree or other manifest himself and his love towards them The world is compared to a sea and Gods people in the world are like the disciples on the sea tossed with the waves of afflictions and temptations and Christ apppears to them spiritually as he did to the disciples corporally but they are ready to

us more earnestly to labour after the enjoyment of them when Gods beloved ones have too much delight in and too much love to the world so as to undervalue the heavenly manna of Gods love then the God of love will manifest his delight in and love to his people in leaveing them as to his comforting presence with the prodigal to seed upon the husks of outward injoyments till they are brought to see the incongruity that is between the empty inticeing transitory vanity of this World and their sublime and immortal Souls which can receive no real comfort from or any satisfactory delight or complacency in any thing but what is of its own nature For 〈◊〉 the soul of a believer meerly as it is a Creature is an immortal substance and the very breath of God and therefore no wonder though the creature find such an insufficiency of comfort in all outward injoyments they being so much below and unsuitable to its nature And that I take to be the reason why Solomon saith Prov. 14.13 that in the midst of laughter the heart may be sad the fading earthy mortal body may laugh in the injoyment of fading earthly momentany things and yet the heart and soul may be sad for want of something of its own nature for to take delight and complacency in Now let us draw to Conclusion in a word there must be an assimulation between the Object of delight and the Subject delighting it self in that object As for example a fish of a cold and moyst nature delights in the passive element of water being of its own nature But the Salamander being of a fiery nature delights in the active element of fire So a true believer being a new creature born of God by regeneration cannot but mourn in the bitterness of his soul when it does consider how the fleshy part has prevailed against his Spiritual part being off from his watch as with Michal to send away his blessed King David as to his comforting presence and have left nothing but an Image of outward Injoyments in the room thereof And if Gods beloved Sampsons will be solaceing of themselves in the laps of the deceitful Dalilahs you can expect nothing but that those sweet Syrene-like songs should end in the shipwrack of their spiritual Joys Having provoked God to deliver them up with Sampson to the Philistins to cut off the seven locks of their spiritual strength and leave them in the hands of their spiritual enemies that will by filling of their Souls with horror and vexation of Spirit do their utmost to keep those from heaven whilst they live which they see they cannot keep from heaven when they dye And now I come to the North wind of affliction which does often make Gods Davids cry out I have cleansed my heart in vain and with Gods Jobs to look upon outward afflictions to be signs of Gods anger and displeasure whereas indeed as well the North Wind of sanctified afflictions as the South Wind of sanctified prosperity blowing upon our gardens will make our spices flow forth will make us to be much in exercising the gifts and graces of the spirit of God in us Now soul see which of these winds it is that has blown up this dreadful storm in thy soul if it be the East Wind of sinful security or the South Wind of unsanctified prosperity or the North Wind of adversity And indeed as sin is the meritorious cause of affliction so affliction makes a soul apprehend it self to be a greater sinner than others when it is more afflicted than others And the Devil has a great hand in this for as he perswades the● that their prosperitis is a sign of Gods love so he perswades Gods people that afflictions are signs of Gods hatred If the people of God did but know the gracious end God has in afflicting them they would never look upon them to be signs of his displeasure For Gods ends in afflicting his people are to glorify his wisdom in their Direction and his holiness in their Sanctification and his power in their Supportation and Preservation and that they might be more conformable to Christ their head and that they may hate sin the more and contemn the world the more and long after heaven the more and that they may be in the better capacities to sympathize with Gods people in their suffering when they are under the like afflictions and to make heaven the sweeter to them by makeing the world bitter Now soul thou that art under these clouds and tossed with these tempests and not comforted be sure to look often into the waters of the sanctuary upon the bended knees of thy soul and there thou shall see the Comet that has made the interposition between the shineing rayes of Gods love and thy poor soul and when thou hast found out this Achan that troubles the camp that made thee flee before the men of Aie and after thou hast conquered Jericho and by Gods ministers sounding of the Gospel-Trumpet beat down the walls of the cursed Jericho of the Kingdom of darkness in thy soul when thou hast found out the Achan that would preserve any of the cursed thing be unpotant with thy blessed Joshuah which brings his true Israel into the land of promise that he would pass the sentence of death on this thee vish Achan that first stole thy heart from the God of comfort and consolation and then stole from thee the sweet consolations of thy God Oh soul let not the Silver or Gold of worldly-mindedness which lies hid in the midst of Achans tent let not any external profit that thy sin may bring thee in make Achan faire ever the better but seek diligently for it for it lyes hid in the midst of the tent where it might be the least suspected see if Achan has not been a troubler to thee by stealing something else besides the wedg of Gold see if he has not got a cloak of Shinar or a Babylonish garment of self-righteousness My meaning is this look diligently into thy heart see if thou art not ready to be prideing of thy self in thy dutys and having had great Inlargements in prayer art thou not ready to think that that duty as it comes from thee is more likely to find acceptance with God than those poor broken expressions of thy friend whom it may be thou contemnest as not having such abilities as thou hast Now soul if thou canst find this in thy heart then thou mayst say there is the Babylonish garment which the old man the unregenerate part the cursed Achan has stole and by which God was provoked against thee but if thou canst say of a truth upon serious self-examination that it is otherwise with thee and that thy heart doeth not condemn thee of stealing these wedges of gold that thou hast not an inordinate love to the world that thou hast not stole the Babylonish garment of spiritual pride in duty and