Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A53750
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A true and lively representation of popery shewing that popery is only new-modell'd paganism, and perfectly destructive of the great ends and purposes of God in the Gospel.
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Owen, Thankfull, 1620-1681.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing O830; ESTC R18583
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46,596
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82
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Imprimatur March 12. 1678 9. Guil. Jane R. P. D. Henr. Episc Lond. a Sac. Dom. A true and lively REPRESENTATION OF POPERY SHEWING That Popery is only New-modell'd PAGANISM AND Perfectly destructive of the great Ends and Purposes of God in the Gospel Jer. 10.2 Learn not the way of the Heathen Gal. 5.1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not intangled again with the yoke of bondage LONDON Printed by R. Everingham for W. Kettilby at the Bishops Head in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1679. A true and lively Representation of Popery THAT there is but one true way to Salvation is readily acknowledged by all that profess themselves Christians but whether this way lye on the right hand or on the left whether through the Church of Rome or in the Reformed Religion that is made a Question And though the Romanists with confidence enough vainly arrogate this to themselves as if there were no way to Heaven but by associating and joining in Communion with their Church and will hardly unless in a good mood allow a dying Protestant to be saved yet I doubt not but I have sufficiently made it appear by such evident and clear Demonstrations as are within the sphere and comprehension of an ordinary Capacity not only that the Reformed Religion is hugely agreeable and subservient to those Grand purposes of God in the Gospel for the Salvation of Mankind but that Popery is infinitely prejudicial and destructive of them And although considering the various Artifices and subtle Stratagems the Popish Emissaries make use of not only in gaining but confirming their new Proselytes I cannot hope to recover such as are already ensnared by them yet I may reasonably suppose that these few sheets if they chance to fall into the hands of some one or other who desires impartially to seek and embrace the Truth where-ever he meets with it or by what hand soever it be brought to him may be so fully perswaded and satisfied of the Goodness of the Protestant Religion and of the gross Impiety and Wickedness of the Popish as that whatever censure he pass upon this yet of the other he may say that God is in it of a truth 1. I consider therefore that the great End and Design of the Christian Religion is to form in men the sacred life and nature of God for so S. Peter assures us That those glorious and inestimable Promises which God through Christ was pleased to make to the World were designed to recover men from their Sins and Corruptions into a participation of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 And that we may not conceive and think this to be a mere airy Notion and an insignificant sound of Words our blessed Saviour himself expresses it by the name of The new Birth Except a man be born again And his Holy Apostle S. Paul styles it the New Creature Joh. 3.3 All which being of a like signification and respect denote a certain state and condition of life Gal. 6.15 to which men are brought by the Power and Grace of God in the Gospel whereby their hearts and minds are tuned into an universal Consent to Gods holy will That state of sin and misery into which all men by their first Prevarication and Rebellion are involved is nothing of the true nature of our Souls but an Extraneous and Adventitious thing a meer Usurpation upon the Lords Inheritance whereby the minds and spirits of Mankind are preternaturally forced against their proper bent and inclination and God by the Gospel comes to free them from this heavy Pressure and Bondage and quickens and invigorates their decayed Powers with a strong and potent endeavour towards a Restitution and Freedom And this Conatus or Effort whereby they endeavour to throw off their uneasie load is expressed and decypher'd in the Holy Scriptures by the Name of Spirit as in Rom. 8.1 where the Apostle puts an opposition between the Flesh and the Spirit and says they are two several Laws and States of Being the one tending wholly to the abasing and dishonouring and captivating the Soul to vile and low purposes and making it drudge like a Slave to promote an Animal and sensual life but the other being nothing but a Law of Holiness and Righteousness and consequently connatural to it endeavours the freeing it from all that violence and force used upon it And this very same active and enlivening Principle shall be so far quickned and invigorated by the assistance of God's Holy Spirit that it shall at last through his benign and powerful Influence break into a Flame and consume all Terrestrial Dregs and Incumbrances and immortalize these our dull and sluggish Bodies So the Divine Apostle tells us If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you Rom. 8.11 he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in you Now that this blessed frame and temper of mind may be raised and renewed in us God sent his Son into the World and he incites and encourages us to the attaining of so desirable a State by mighty and stupendious Promises suited and adapted to our best and highest Capacities and that we may not think the participation of the Divine Nature or the new Creature that is that constitution of mind and soul which the Gospel came to implant in us to be a thing which we can have no rational Idea or Conception of I shall give such a brief and comprehensive Character of it as that Eternal Wisdom has legibly engraven in the frame and contexture of the Christian Religion Thus therefore I conceive of it That it is a Holy Principle of Life and Power implanted in the Soul by the Spirit of God bringing every Thought Word and Action into conformity and obedience to the Divine Will and begetting such a natural and genuine sense of what is Holy and Righteous that it is as hard for a man truly possessed of this excellent nature to act contrary to it as to suffer a Discission of his bodily life and though we bear this precious Treasure in Earthen Vessels and it be surrounded with the frailties and infirmities of flesh and blood yet does it fill our minds with comfortable hopes and assurance that our mighty Saviour and Redeemer who expressed the greatness of his love by dying for us will perfectly release and set it free from the heavy pressure of those Earthly Bodies and at last Crown it with such a body of Light and Glory as he himself is possessed of in the highest Heavens This is indeed the main end and scope of the appearing of the Grace of God to the World and that the Son of God might take possession of his own Inheritance and effectually and fully accomplish the recovery of Mankind from the cruel Bondage of Sin and Satan into this so desirable a state of Liberty and Freedom wherein
Work of the Efformation of the sacred Life and Nature of God in Mens Souls it would not be in any wise suitable and agreeable with his Design to make them only externally righteous and holy without an inward change of Mind and Disposition and therefore expresly informs all his Followers and Disciples That except their Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees they shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Which is as much as to say that he hath set the attainments of rational Souls at a higher Pitch than ever was or could be warranted by the Doctrines and Practice of the Scribes and Pharisees and now requires not only an abstinence from the outward and gross Acts of Sin but a hearty and sincere Purgation of the Soul from all Vice and the Reduction of all its Powers and Faculties into an Universal Complyance to God's holy Will By which likewise that false and carnal Liberty which some would assume to themselves is wholly destroyed and we are taught that Religion gives no allowance or toleration to any the least evil that without Holiness no Man shall ever see the Lord and that the Promise of seeing God is only made to the Pure in Heart Nor can we understand less by this Holiness and Purity of Heart than such a vital Frame and Temper of Spirit as does not only exclude all gross Defilements and Pollutions of the Flesh but likewise all secret Mixtures and Combinations of Hypocrifie and all those other more spiritual Sins whose Acts have no such intimate Conjunction and Commerce with the Body Nay so far is the Gospel of the Son of God from countenancing or giving any Dispensation to Sin that it strictly commands us to abstain from all appearance of Evil. For he came into the World to cleanse our Minds from all irregular and disorderly Lusts and Passions and to redeem us from all Iniquity that is not only from this or that particular Vice but from all manner of Evil to the end he might purifie unto himself a Peculiar People zealous of good works as we read Tit. 2.14 Sin and Evil is not a meer fantastick Being an aiery Notion or sound of Words but a real Nature and state of Defilement and Pollution and while the Soul is under its Dominion it is then said in Scripture to be clothed in filthy Garments But the true Clothing of the Soul is Righteousness and Holiness Zech. 3.3 4. and this is compared by the Spirit of God to fine Linen Rev. 19.8 clean and white 4. Lastly the Flower and Summity of that Divine Nature which our Lord and Saviour came to beget in Mankind being an Universal Love and Charity it is certain he does not only teach it by his Commands and Example but he condemns the contrary state and temper of Mind as directly opposite to the Excellency and Perfections of the Nature of God There is no one thing that ever our Saviour so earnestly press'd upon his Disciples as Love It is his new and his old and last Command that we love one another and he proposes his own Example for our Imitation Love one another as I have loved you Now How is that Surely Joh. 13.34 with a Love stronger than the Bands of Death which made him give his Life a Ransom for the World And this alone he tells us shall be the Badge and Cognizance by which his followers shall be known By this shall all Men know that ye are my Disciples if if ye have love one to another v. 35. For indeed there is nothing makes us more God-like nor is there any thing that so fully expresses the Nature of the Supreme Being as Love God is Love says St. John Love is the First-born of Heaven and the joy of Angels and holy Souls whose pure minds never shine with so great a splendor and glory as when they are irradiated with the powerful Influence of so sacred a Being Behold the grand Exemplar of Charity the Son of God himself made a Man and consider him in all his abasements his solitudes and sufferings from the first moment of his Birth to his dying on the Cross and we shall find very powerful and strong Emanations of dear Compassion and Benignity to the World He was so far from grieving or paining or injuring any that he went about every day doing them good freeing them from their miseries and easing them of their sorrows He never did the least hurt or harm to any Man living but rebuked the indiscreet Zeal of his Disciples who would have burned the Samaritans with Fire from Heaven for denying to their Lord an Hospitable entertainment adding that he came not to destroy but to save the lives of Men. This is the Grand Law of the whole Creation that consolidates and holds together all the parts of Heaven and Earth and makes them conspire in a sweet and universal Harmony and Consent and permeating and touching humane souls by a vital Energy impregnates and fills them with a sacred life which life is no steril and inactive Principle but diffuses it self in acts of dear kindness and benignity to all capable subjects and especially to Man a Creature most dear to God himself for whom every one that throughly partakes of this spirit of love will be ready to offer up even his own life according as the Beloved Apostle speaks Hereby perceive we the love of God 1 Joh. 3.16 because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the Brethren 5. Having seen the Grand Ends and Purposes of God in the Gospel of Christ Jesus I shall now manifest how perfectly all these are frustrated and destroyed by those Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome which are either established by Papal Laws and Statutes or countenanced approved and maintained with great vigour and industry by the Members of that Church by which it will likewise appear that the old Polytheism and Idolatry of the Heathens is really revived established and practised there though in another and newer Garb and Dress In the first place then I have declared that the great End and Design of God in the Evangelical Dispensation was to form his own blessed Nature in the hearts of men to consummate his Holy Image and to regenerate them by his own Spirit And would you think that any Company or Society of men that profess to be the Servants of Christ Jesus to advance his Crown and Dignity and to seek the Amplification and Enlargement of his Kingdom should yet be so treacherous as to undermine this Grand Purpose and maintain such Doctrines as do directly evacuate and destroy and are clearly repugnant to the Mind and Will of God in the Gospel Behold then such as are taught and allowed by the most eminent and leading men in the Romish Church I shall instance only in these three which are so notorious and so diametrically opposite to the very