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	law_n	work_n	8,151	5	6.0996	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66396	The divine authority of the scriptures a sermon preached at St. Martins in the Fields, Sept. 2. 1695 : being the sixth of the lecture for the said year, founded by the honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire / by John Williams ...	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1696 (1696)	Wing W2704; ESTC R1959	15,908	41

and Authority by virtue of their Office Paul an Apostle c. requiring the same regard and the like submission to what they Writ as to what they Spoke when present And as they thus magnified their Office so they writ as from Christ himself after this and the like form Grace be to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 1. 7 c. Nay they insist upon their Inspiration which they received when they writ to gain it Authority with those they wrote to So St. Paul Gal. 1. 1. Paul an Apostle not of men neither by man but by Jesus Christ c. Ver. 11 12. I certify you brethren that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man for I neither received it of man nor was I taught it but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ And that Apostle expresly saith The things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord 1 Cor. 14. 37. 2 Cor. 1. 13. So St. Peter 1 Epist 5. 12. I have written briefly exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand Now if they conceived themselves to be Inspired in Writing who themselves were Inspired as has been before proved and did Write with the same Apostolical Authority as they Taught it is certain that they were Inspir'd in Writing for they were the best Judges of their own Inspiration and could best know when they were Inspired And therefore if any would undertake to disprove the Divine Authority or Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures they must first of all prove that those Writers were not inspired nor did ever give sufficient Evidence that they were Inspired But if they were Inspired and do withal declare that they Wrote those Books by Inspiration we have as much reason to receive those Books as such upon their Affirmation as we have no believe that they themselves were Inspired or did ever Teach by Inspiration 4. There is the same Proof for the Inspiration of the Apostolical Writers in their Writing as their Teaching as what they Write is the same with what they Taught and therefore what they Taught being confirmed by sufficient Evidence to be from God so must what they Writ the same Proofs that belong to the one belonging to the other And accordingly they in their Writings often appeal to what they Taught as concordant with what they Writ and to the Testimony given to the one for the confirmation of the other They appeal to what they Taught So St. Paul 2 Cor. 2. 13. I write none other things to you than what you read or know and acknowledge So Gal. 1. 8 9. Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received let him be accursed So they appeal to the Evidences of their Inspiration in Teaching for a confirmation of what they Writ So 2 Cor. 12. 12. Truly the signs of an Apostle were wrought among you in all patience and signs and wonders and mighty deeds Gal. 3. 5. He that ministreth to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you doth he it by the works of the Law or the hearing of Faith From whence it is that the Apostles challenge the same regard to be paid to their Writings as their Teaching which they could not have done were not their Writings of as good Authority as their Teaching and were they not alike directed and assisted in the one as the other So St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. 1. Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ or Apostles 1 Cor. 5. 3 4. I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have judged already as though I were present c. in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my Spirit c. All which is to give Authority to what they writ but what Authority could that be of to oblige others to receive it if they themselves received it not by Inspiration and that their Teaching and Writing were not the same and obtained in the same way 3. The Holy Scriptures are worthy of such Authors as were Inspired and have upon them the Characters of such Inspiration I have before proved That the Matter contained in Scripture has upon it the Characters of a Divine Revelation But the Design before us now is to shew That the Writing it self has upon it such Characters as will entitle it to Divine Inspiration and is worthy of such Persons to write as were Inspired And that 1. If we consider who the Persons were that were the Penmen of the Sacred Writ that were as well Ignorant and Illiterate as Learned Thus we find in the Old Testament an Amos that was no Prophet nor Prophet's Son nor bred up in their Schools but an Herdman and Gatherer of Sycamore fruit is made at once a Prophet and as Inspired as the Great the Noble and Eloquent Isaiah And under the Gospel we find a Matthew and a John as well as a Luke a Peter as well as a Paul For when the Workmanship proceeds not from the Hand but the Intelligent Mind not from the Instrument but the Efficient it is not what the Hand the Instrument and Agent is but what the Efficient pleases and so God could make an Apostle and an Inspired Person out of an Illiterate Fisherman as well as out of him that sate at the Feet of Gamaliel For God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty c. that no flesh should glory in his presence 1 Cor. 1. 27. And as it was in Preaching so it is in Writing the Gospel in which God no less gave them a Mind to indite than a Mouth and Wisdom in Teaching to speak So that they needed no more to meditate before what to write than in that case what they should answer It was there as the Spirit gave them utterance and here as that did direct and assist or suggest St. Paul exhorts Timothy to give attendance to reading till he himself should come to give him farther Instruction and to meditate and give himself wholly to them that his profiting might appear to all 1 Tim. 4. 13 c. But we find no such dependance on human means in what they wrote Then it is Paul an Apostle not of men neither by man but by Jesus and God the Father the Gospel he wrote was the same he taught and which when he wrote he no more received from man than when he taught and which he was taught by the revelation of Jesus Christ Gal. 1. 1 11 12. And therefore where all was by Revelation it was not as the Man was but as he was made And as St. Peter was as much an Apostle an Inspired Teacher so he was as much a Divine Writer as St. Paul and writes with the same Divine Power and Authority and with as much

comprehended in it all the several Books the Prophets containing not only the Books properly so called but also the Historical as written by Inspired Persons and the Psalms containing all the Poetical And they descend yet lower for of the Thirty nine Books of the Old Testament there are very few not above Seven or Eight but what are quoted in the New Testament by Name or for some remarkable Passage and as Books of the same Character So that if we can prove our Saviour to be infallible and the Evangelists and Apostles inspired as we have done before when we proved the Matter revealed by them to have been of Divine Authority at the same time we prove the Scriptures of the Old Testament to be of Divine Inspiration because they had this Testimony and Credit given to them by those that were themselves Infallible and Inspired The like Testimony have we for the Divine Authority of St. Paul 's Epistles by St. Peter who gives them the same Title of Scripture with the Books that were of the Jewish Canon Our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you as also in all his Epistles Which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as also the Other Scriptures But though this be a good and sufficient Proof where it may be had yet it is not applicable to all since the last of the Inspired Writers could have no such Evidence as Malachi among the Jews and St. John in the Primitive Church who survived all the rest of the Divine Penmen And therefore where this Proof of the Attestation given to some is wanting as to others we must have recourse to other Arguments that will supply what is deficient The Old Testament has the Testimony of the New to vouch for its Divine Authority but what can thus testify to the New when there is no other Revelation and no Inspired Persons to come after But this will be help'd by the next Evidence which is That 2. The Scriptures were written by Persons Inspired and that were Inspired in the writing of them 1. They were written by Persons Inspired Thereby is meant that whoever were the Authors known or unknown we have yet good and sufficient Evidence that the Penmen were Inspired both as to the Matter and Manner or Way of Writing But this belongs to another place Or that the Authors of those Books were the same that before taught by Inspiration That the Writers of the Old Testament were of this kind we have already proved from the Testimony of the New as far as that is of Authority to verify it And that the Evangelists and Apostles whom we have before proved to be Inspired were the Authors of the Books of the New Testament we have as good Assurance as the Jews had that the Pentateuch was written by Moses or the Psalms by David or that ever there were such Philosophers as Plato and Aristotle or such Physicians as Hippocrates and Galen or any Books writ by them Nay so much the stronger Evidence have we as it has been the Duty as they thought and the Interest of so considerable a part of mankind as the Christians are to preserve these Records safe and entire and to take care that they be such in all points as they received them and consequently according to their sense of them they are of Divine Inspiration and wrote by those Inspired Persons And for which there can be no greater Evidence than this sort of Tradition unless we would have God reveal to every particular person That the Authors of those Books were Inspired or point it out by some special Miracles which shall serve as the Star to the Wise Men to direct us to it But since this is wanting and cannot reasonably be expected we must rest satisfied with that which is the only possible Evidence and which not only the Primitive Christians did admit as sufficient but was not contested by the most violent Adversaries of their Religion Among whom the Question was not Whether the Persons reputed to be Inspired were the Authors of those Books or Whether those whose Authors are not known were of the same condition with those that were known but Whether the matters of that supposed Revelation and contained in those Books were true and that those Authors were sincere Relaters of it And whereas there were some Books of Scripture that were not so early and universally embraced as others yet they were not so much doubted of as to their Authority as the Authors such as the Epistle to the Hebrews the second and third of St. John and the Revelation unless it were by the Alogi that Epiphanius writes of who rejected the Works of St. John as not agreeable to their Opinion That Christ was a mere Man 2. The Sacred Penmen were Inspired in their Writing in the sense before spoken of p. 4. For 1. There was as much need to Write as to Teach to Write with respect to the absent and to Posterity as to Teach and Preach to the present for there is no other way to Teach in those cases than by Tradition or Writing But the Defect which those Holy Men found all their Discourses labour'd under as to their Conveyance by Tradition through the infirmity of Human Nature and an incapacity of transmitting the Matters now contained in the Scriptures to future Ages in that way without Prejudice Corruption and Abuse disposed them under the direction of the Holy Spirit to commit them to Writing So St. John 20. 31. These things are written that ye might believe So St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 5. I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance 2. There was as much need to Write by Inspiration as to Teach by Inspiration for Writing is but another way of Teaching And if the Apostles had the Assistance of the Holy Ghost in all matters of moment when they Taught it is reasonable to suppose had we no other Evidence for it that in the same Circumstances they had the same Assistance in what they Writ Nay so much the more might it reasonably be expected that they should have the Assistance of that Divine Power operating upon their Minds and guiding as it were their Pen in what they Writ as what they Writ was to continue in the Church and to be a Standard of Faith and Rule of Life to all Ages Whereas what they Taught could continue no longer than the Memories of fallible men could retain it So that we may conclude That if they Taught and Preach'd by the special Assistance of the Holy Spirit they were also under the Conduct of it when they Writ 3. Those Divine Penmen conceived themselves to be alike Inspired in what they Writ as in what they taught Therefore we generally find the Apostles and St. Paul always unless when he writes in conjunction with others to begin their Epistles with a Declaration of their Commission