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	holy_a	receive_v	7,630	5	5.5906	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67569	A philosophicall essay towards an eviction of the being and attributes of God. Immortality of the souls of men. Truth and authority of Scripture. together with an index of the heads of every particular part.	Ward, Seth, 1617-1689.	1652 (1652)	Wing W823; ESTC R203999	52,284	168

eternity So then whatsoever befals us here we shall conclude it requisite to provide that we be not miserable hereafter and consequently that we make our selves a friend of him that hath the issues of death in his power and moderates and dispenses the rewards of Eternity but there is no way to have him propitious to us but by obedience no reason to expect that he should satisfie our longing or fulfill our will to all Eternity unlesse we fulfill his will for our time of triall in this life and that is by the exercise of Religion only attainable So that the consideration of the Souls Immortality will likewise enforce us to a necessity of Religion Thus farre the common principles of naturall reason will force us even the first and most common principles of intelligence such as are grounds of clear evident and perfect demonstration so that it must be the Fool alone as the Psalmist speaks which can be an Atheist so that they are without excuse whoever glorifie him not as God thus farre those poor remains of sight which yet is left to the corrupted off-spring of our degenerate Parent will serve to leade us to the generall necessity of Religion but here indeed it Jeaves us destitute of the certain waies of pleasing God and consequently destitute of clear and solid grounds of hope of attaining to eternall happinesse And here it is that the Scoffers and irreligious men take occasion to reason themselves and others to destruction seeing that nature hath here deserted us and left us no infallible Rules of particular waies of devotion they contend that ther are none such and consequently that our Religion is vain and uncertain uncertain in the issue because uncertain in the grounds and principles And here now against them we pretend that wherein our naturall light hath failed us the mercy of God hath been pleased to supply us that God hath not left us without a certain rule and Canon of Religion not without a light shining to us in this dark place particularly that he hath given to us his holy Word to be a Light to our feet and a Lanthorn to our paths and that the books of the holy Scriptures are that Word of God PART III. Concerning the truth and Authority of our Scripture SECT. I. Petitions and Cautions premised to the question YOu will doe me the favour to consider that our present controversie is against those that deny the Authority of the holy Scriptures so that we cannot have the advantage of those Arguments which in every other controversie of Religion are the most valid I mean Arguments drawn from the Authority of the Scriptures themselves which is the best if not the only authentike rule of decision of such differences as doe arise such as doe indeed arise in the Church of God who all doe agree in a profession of that faith which is delivered in these holy Books this I say they agree upon in these generall tearms however with wonderfull heat and distance they vary in their judgements whether or no some particulars be of the recommendation of the Scripture It is then the common principle of Christians and the ultimate rule for the judgement of those that are within but as for them that are without the Church they ae likewise out of the jurisdiction of this Canon or Judge and to give over their incredulity or rather infidelity as some of our Divines have done with this ill-interpreted axiome for rejection that they deny our principles and so are not worthy to be disputed with or to referre them only to the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} of the Scriptures and to the spirit working with the reading and hearing of them it might be to prove a scandall to them without and to such as are weak and wavering within it were tacitely to imply that we have no way to gain the question unlesse our of courtesie the adversary be pleased to yeild it to us to resolve the motives of our Catholique Faith into private impulses and particular dictates of the Spirit arguments of very great credit and reputation due to our selves as particular favorites of the holy Spirit but such as being deserted by the tenor and regiment of our lives render us dishonourable to that holy Spirit whereto we pretend whilest in the apprehension of men we doe at least obliquely entitle it to such actions as are inconsistent with it professing we hold our faith by private revelation and consequently have our understandings taken up by the holy Ghost at such time as our wils are guilty of enormous sinnes A fancy that is the mother of diverse prodigies lately broken into the Church as that either God sees no sinne in beleevers that Murther Adultery Incest Sacrilege any thing may be committed and that these are no sinnes in beleevers arguing thus that they which have the holy Spirit are free from sinne such as do beleeve the Gospel they have the holy Spirit because there is no other motive sufficient besides a private illumination so then they cannot be guilty of sinne but yet they may and doe commit such things as those we mentioned wherefore those are no sinnes Thus doth Satan transform himself into an Angel of light and act his Tragedies in the likenesse of the holy Spirit Nay we say and doe beleeve that the Devils also beleeve and tremble that the Kingdome of Heaven is like a Net which drew to shore fishes of all sorts some to be put into vessels and others to be thrown away We say and doe acknowledge to the glory of God that the internall light of the holy Scriptures is sufficient to make the man of God perfect to salvation and that in some it is the means of generating faith in men but that the most of those beleevers who have the happinesse to be trained up from their infancy in any part of the Christian Church by observing the esteem which in their Church is had of those holy Bookes they doe betimes upon the reputation of their Church receive them with a kinde of veneration that upon this motive they receive the faith and that others doe upon other inducements entertain it and once for all we say that besides the secret and free illuminations of the holy Spirit these want not Arguments to enforce the reason of unbvassed men to entertain the Scripture as the Word of God and that all such as without the engagement of perverse affections shall admit those Arguments in their apprehensions must necessarily be of that belief Before I betake my self to the proof of this assertion I must premise that by the books of the holy Scripture I mean such books of the old and new Testament as in the Church of England have been accounted Canonicall and that I intend not here to take up the controversie which is betwixt the Church of Rome and us concerning the books which are Apocryphall the drift of my discourse being against those who beleeve