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	heart_n	work_n	7,151	5	5.4540	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45701	The Christians best garment: or, The putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ Wherein the absolute necessity, excellency, and usefulness of Christ, as a garment, to believing souls, is briefly open and applied. Secondly, the naked, miserable, lost, and undone condition of all unbelievers, who have not put on this garment, discovered. Thirdly and lastly, some few brief, but powerful motives to perswade us to the putting on of this garment, with directions how to live to the glory of Christ here, that so we may live with Christ hereafter in glory. By a godly, able, and faithful servant of Jesus Christ.	Hart, John, D.D.	1664 (1664)	Wing H930; ESTC R216385	16,154	50

make your souls amiable and lovely yea altogether lovely our souls being cloathed upon with this garment of Christ and his righteousness will appear lovely and beautiful in the eyes of God himself and by it we are made to be acceptable in the Lord as we are in our selves we are vile wretched sinful deformed creatures altogether unlovely but in Christ we are made to be amiable and beautiful yea altogether lovely Having thus given you the resemblances between Christ and our natural garments and having shewed you briefly wherein they do agree I shall now in a word or two shew you wherein they disagree or rather wherein this spiritual and heavenly garment of Christ super exceeds and excells all the garments in the world be they never so rich and costly and herein lies the disagreement First our natural garments are not durable they will last us but a little while before they be quite worn out but Iesus Christ is a durable and lasting garment yea an everlasting garment that will never be worn out while thou livest though thou livest never so long it will last thee for ever and ever both here and hereafter Secondly our natural garments they are the worse for wearing yea the longer we wear them the worse they grow and at the last by being over-worn they come to be worth nothing I but it is not thus with Christ this heavenly garment of Christ is the better for wearing and the longer we wear it the better it is and the better we are it doth not onely grow better it self but it also makes us grow better I but it is not thus with our natural garments they if they be worn often or by often wearing they grow worse and worse and at last they decay Thirdly our natural garments as we put them on in the morning so we put them off at night but where ever Iesus Christ is put on as a garment he is not nay he cannot be put off again Christ is a garment as well for the night as for the day the soul that hath once given up it self to Christ by a true and saving faith can never be taken away I mean not finally from Christ by all the craft and policy of the Devil they that are chosen by God in Christ shall be preserved by God in Christ Fourthly our natural garments grow out of fashion very often and suddenly but Iesus Christ is a garment that will never be out of fashion a better then which can never be imagined nor invented Iesus Christ is a garment as well for Summer as for Winter for all weathers in the Summer heat of persecutions and tryals Christ is a garment either to keep them off or else to sustain us under them and in the Winter of adversity Jesus Christ is a garment to defend and cherish us from all evils let the storms be never so great let the fire be never so hot Christ can sustain and uphold his people witness Daniel in the Lions Den and the Children in the fiery Furnace c. Fifthly our natural garments they are fitted to our bodies but to this garment of Christ out souls are made fit Christ is a garment made fit for all souls natural garments if they fit one they are either too big or too little for another but Iesus Christ is a garment fit or made fit for all souls for souls of all sorts a garment for men and a garment for women a garment for parents and a garment for children a garment for poor and a garment for rich a garment for Magistrates and a garment for Ministers and a garment for people a garment for Jews and a garment for Gentiles Christ is and will be to all his people an ornament of grace here and of glory hereafter I come now in the next place to shew you what kinde of garment Iesus Christ is and how he is to be worn and I shall briefly give it you in these following considerations And first of all he is a precious garment to you therefore which believe he is precious 1 Pet. 2.7 precious in regard of his nature God and man precious in regard of his worth and excellency the chiefest and the choicest of ten thousands But I must not insist upon these things Secondly Christ is a costly garment a garment that 's said to be of great price a garment of Gods own making a garment that cost a dear price the precious life and blood of a Saviour In a word for I must be brief he is a garment of more worth then all the world Thirdly Christ is a cheap garment the cheapest garment that ever thou worest in all thy life thou mayest have this garment as we use to say for God a mercy he is freely offered to thee Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and he that hath no money come ye buy and eat come buy wine and milk without money and without price Thou mayest have this garment for asking for it is true this garment cost the dearest price that ever any garment did the Blood of God one drop whereof is of more worth then ten thousand Worlds but Christians remember this garment is paid for already it s purchased by God the Father for thee shouldst thou go about to buy it thou couldst never be able to purchase it all thou hast nay all that all the men in the world have would never have been able to have bought this garment it was onely the rich God that God who hath all and is all that was onely able to purchase this precious this costly this excellent and this glorious garment and yet not withstanding all this thou mayest have him for nothing he is freely tendered and offered to thee in the Gospel of life though it be a costly garment to God yet it will be a cheap garment to thee God hath paid all and there is nothing at all left for thee to pay or to do but to take him and put him on Fourthly Iesus Christ is a seamless garment as Christ coat was seamless so is his person seamless there is no rent nor divisions in this precious garment and as there is no rents nor divisions in Christ so there ought to be none in Christians if there be no rents nor divisions in the head certainly there ought to be none in the Church which is the body And here beloved we might take up a sad and a bitter lamentation in in consideration of the sad rents and divisions that are now in the Church of Christ whereas one saith He is of Paul and another of Apollos are we not therefore carnal 1 Cor. 1. Certainly beloved these things ought not so to be all the Saints or God they shall all have one head 〈◊〉 so they must all be saved by one faith and therefore surely they should all be of one heart if not of one minde and therefore by the way those who go about to make rents and divisions

in the Church of God doth not do Gods work but the Devils the spirit of God is not a spirit of division but of love of peace and a pure minde and as the Apostle Jude calls seducers and false teachers ungodly men and separates from the Church are said by Jude in his 19. verse to be sensual and not to have the spirit And before I pass this point I hope it will not be amiss to shew you the wickedness and sin of those who go about to make divisions in the Church of Christ And first of all sowers of divisions are renters of Christ it is a horrible violence offered to the Body of Christ a dividing of Christ as St. Paul calls it in 1 Cor. 1.13 it would make Christ seem to be the head of two bodies a most monstrous conceit indeed Secondly it resisteth the commands of Christ which is love and opposes the very end of Christ in dying for sinners which was that all his Saints should be one Thirdly division in the Church is very dishonourable and injurious to the Church for how can a body be rent and torn without prejudice it hinders also the peace of the Church Schismaticks saith one more opposes the peace of the Church then heathens do if the body be rent and torn it is surely with much pain and smart and tearing and renting in the church will surely cut the very heart of one that 's a true Member of the Church It makes the Saints mourn and to be sure it makes the Devil laugh therefore let us labour to be rentless and seamless as Christ is To this end in the first place labour after holiness division and separation is a badge and mark of unholiness children in unholiness are ever men in malice Secondly be not overtaken with new fancies and novelties those new lights which hath set the Church of God so much on fire in these our dayes have all been taken out of the dark Lanthorns of old Hereticks and Iesuits all those lights which receive not their light from the word of God are all false lights and vapors that onely appear on purpose to draw men out of the way Truth should alwayes be imbraced though it be never in so old a dress they are itching ears that are most taken with novelties Lastly divisions beger sensuality sensuality usual follows seperation even at the heels separating themselves saith Jude sensual not having the Spirit not to speak any more of this our own sad experience hath too manifestly witnessed this for a truth What horrid impiety desperate villanies have been commited by wicked and ungodly seducers in our dayes my heart trembles with the very thought thereof Fifthly Christ is a spotless garment there is not so much as a spark or spot in this garment and therefore it is that the Saints are said in Scripture to be cloathed in white robes Rev. 6.11 and that he offered himself without spot to God Heb 9.14 and the Saints are said to be cloathed in fine linnen white and clean Rev. 19.14 And as Christ is spotless himself so he takes away all spots and defilements from his people they are washed in his blood and therefore are said to be clean by Chritst himself John 13.10 John 15.3 and therefore he is called the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world John 1.29 It was onely a sinless Saviour that could satisfie for and take away the sins of sinful men If Christ had not been without spots himself he could never have taken away our spots he that was manifest saith St. John to take away our sin in him was no sin 1 John 3.5 Christ hath suffered for us saith St. Peter 1 Pet. 2.21 22. who did no sinne neither was guile found in his mouth it is onely the blood of Christ that washes and needs no washing if he had not been without sin he could not have saved us from our sins nay he himself then had stood in need of a Saviour and although he took upon him our nature and was made slesh yet the nature of Christ was a pure nature in it self and therefore that of the Apostle doth most sweetly express this where he sayes of Christ that he in the likeness of sinfull flesh condemned sin in the flesh Rom. 8.3 and though he was in all things like unto us yet saith the Apostle Heb. 4.13 he was without sin Christ was not born in sin as we are he was conceived by the Holy Ghost and borne of a pure Virgin its true Christ was a sinner yea the greatest of sinners by imputation he having all the sins of all the Clect of God laid upon him But first had not Iesus Christ been sinless in himself he had never been able to have unvergone so heavy a burthen Christ suffered not for But first had not Iesus Christ been sinless in himself he had never been able to have undergone so heavy a burthen Christ suffered not for his own sins but for our sins He his own self saith the Apostle bore our sinnes on the Cross We indeed saith the converted thief on the Cross do suffer justly but this man hath done nothing amiss Luke 23.41 He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.21 He did no violence neither was there any guile found in his mouth Isa 53.9 Sixthly Christ is a comely garment a garment that will never be out of fashion He is the same yesterday and to day and for ever there is nothing so lovely and amiable in the eyes of Christians as Christ is Christians I beseech you consider you are never well drest till you have put on this garment nor you shall never be blest without it Seventhly Christ is a lasting yea an everlasting garment a garment that will last thee as long as thou livest and will never be the worse for wearing but will alwayes be the better for wearing the more thou wearest this garment the more glorious it will be and as this garment will last thee as long as thou livest so thou mayest carry it along with thee when thou dyest thou canst not carry any thing out of the world with thee for naked camest thou into the world and naked shalt thou go out of the world but if thou hast put on Christ as a garment in thy life thou canst not leave him behind thee when thou dyest thou shalt carry this garment with thee into the next world I should come now to shew you how this garment is to be worn but I shall speak of that by way of Use and Application Now the Uses that I shall make of this useful point shall be these Is it so that Iesus Christ is a Christians garment then in the first place I beseech you observe the miserable and wretched condition of wicked and ungodly men men out of Christ they are naked and have not as we use to say of some poor people a rag to