Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	faith_n	grace_n	work_v	7,291	5	7.3947	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93662	Aphonologos. A dumb speech. Or, A sermon made, but no sermon preached, at the funerall of the right vertuous Mrs Mary Overman, wife to Mr Thomas Overman the younger. Of the parish, formerly called, Saint Saviours, or vulgarly Mary Overis, in Southwarke. By B. Spencer, minister of Bromley.	Spencer, Benjamin, b. 1595?	1646 (1646)	Wing S4942; Thomason E1180_3; Thomason C.54.aa.1(3); ESTC R208123	32,914	87

a day may bring forth Being without well-being is not worth our desires wee must looke to another life if wee desire to see good dayes and that is the life Christian which doth difference our lives from all others For our life is hid with Christ in God Coloss 3.3 and from this life wee are denominated as righteousnesse doth a righteous man for as Non vivere sed valere est vita not to live but to be in health is life the rest is sicknes and deaths equipage so not to live is a Christian life but to live godly God lookes Non tam multum sed quam bene not how long but how well wee live there is therefore not onely a life naturall but a life spirituall which prepares us for a life eternall as the wildernes of Sin and the Kingdome of Bashan did lead to Canaan This is when wee lead a naturall life after a spirituall manner as to be a Mary in contemplation and so anticipate the joyes of heaven or a Martha by good actions and so become our own rewarders by laying up for our selves a good foundation against the time to come that wee may lay hold of eternall life or like Lazarus to come out of the grave at the call of Christ or to make Christ our pattern who hath left us an example that wee should follow his steps or like St. Paul to make Christ our life that death may be our gain So I come to that life which puts a difference between other men The life different of a Christian and a Christian viz. to be their life Of this St. Paul speakes who made not the world his life nor his pleasure his life but as the worke of Christ was his meat and drinke so Christ was his life also This may be understood Operativè Or Objectivè First Operatively that is if I live Christ is my life by the operation of faith Gal. 2.20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me For Christ lives in a man by his Spirit by faith and by love First by his Spirit justifying me that his righteousnes is mine in the merit of it that he hath deserved for me to be held guiltlesse of all sin in the sight of God so by his spirit also sanctifying me to a new and true spirituall obedience lastly Rom. 8.16 exciting me by the same spirit to every good worke To this purpose St. Paul saith The spirit witnesseth to our spirits that wee are the sons of God This is Pignus salutis the pledge of our salvation Greg. which never goeth alone without the other for that spirit that gives the pledge of salvation giveth also the Robur vitae the strength of life by which those things are easie which before seemed hard and lastly Lumen scientiae the life of knowledge which like light doth illuminate what was darke and produceth what lay hid in our earthy natures Secondly Christ lives in me by faith urging me to believe that by his grace I am that I am Thirdly He lives in me by love by which fayth worketh me first to acknowledge my selfe to be his in all true obliegement and then to do him all manner of service Therefore St. Austin prayeth to God that his spirit may thus live in him Sanctum semper opus in me spira ut cogitem suade ut diligam urge ut faciam inspire me with thy holy worke perswade me to love urge me to do And so comes in the second sence of this text viz. Objectivè which I take to be here especially meant namely To me to live is Christ that is I accompt my life Christs to be spent and disposed of in him and for him to be spent in his service as David saith Psal 116.16 I am thy servant So all the Apostles write themselves CHRISTS and the CHURCHES servants the Pope writes himselfe so but t is meerly titular he Lords it too much over Gods inheritance to be a servant This is a good Christian complement when it is essentiall that whether wee live wee live to to the Lord or whether wee dye Rom. 14.8 wee dye to the Lord. Secondly To live to me is Christ if my life be willingly at his disposall as St. Paul said Acts 21.13 I am not ready onely to be bound but to dye for the Lord Iesus so that here we see if Christ be our life then our life must be Christs the one of these depends upon the other Christ hath bought us wee are not our owne Glorifie therefore saith the Apostle God in your bodies and in your spirits for they are Gods Wee must not live to our selves 1 Cor. 6.20 2 Cor. 5.15 let us first find that Christ is our life then the other wil be found also that our life shall be Christs for such an unionthere is between Christ and us as there is between the Head and the Members the Vine and the branches If the Body have a living Head the sense of the Body is derived from the Head and disposed of to the good of the Head and therfore here is set down that Christ is to me life because Christ is all in all to them that are his in the flux reflux of grace in the preventing operating in the donation and retribution Quest How shall I know Christ to be in me that I may say comfortably to my selfe That Christ is life to me Answ By the Spirit that he hath given us 1. Joh. 3.24 which Spirit is known by divers motions First by a purpose to obey God and an inclination to that purpose Therefore Christ minded Gods work with David Joh. 4.34 more then his dayly food and he was straitned till that was accomplished that he was sent to suffer but you must observe this purpose and inclination is in us not onely in extremities as in Pharaoh Exo. 9.28 while the rod was upon him he promised fair but even while we are in health and have the world at will God loves to be chosen as freely as he was forsaken and it is a great comfort to a man and a good token of Gods spirit when a man can say This good I did embrace and this evill I did forsake meerely for Gods cause without any other respect or constraint as Ioseph did Gen. 39 9. How can I do this great wickednes and sin against God The Devil as the Proverb is when he was sick would be a Monke which savours of more religion then those Monkes who while they be well will be devils but being well he was the devill still so many of us cry in affliction and pretend repentance but the storme being over we doe as he did that vowed to a Saint if he came safe to shore a wax Candle of twelve pound weight but when he came there he gave one