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	lord_n	soul_n	7,621	5	5.0274	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96973	Five sermons, in five several styles; or Waies of preaching. The [brace] first in Bp Andrews his way; before the late King upon the first day of Lent. Second in Bp Hall's way; before the clergie at the author's own ordination in Christ-Church, Oxford. Third in Dr Maine's and Mr Cartwright's way; before the Universitie at St Maries, Oxford. Fourth in the Presbyterian way; before the citie at Saint Paul's London. Fifth in the Independent way; never preached. With an epistle rendring an account of the author's designe in printing these his sermons, as also of the sermons themselves. / By Ab. Wright, sometimes Fellow of St John Baptist Coll. in Oxford.	Wright, Abraham, 1611-1690.	1656 (1656)	Wing W3685; Thomason E1670_1; ESTC R208406	99,151	247

day or as the Moon that gives light to the night and that the time will come that God himselfe will be the light of men without creature-helps or meanes and these teachings of God shall never cease Then secondly as we are to deny the Ordinance of Preaching so likewise of Praying and Fasting and all ordinances whatsoever so as I said before to rest upon them to lay our faith upon them And the reason is cause that Ordinances are nothing without the Lord. Every one will confesse that the letter is a dead letter without the Spirit and the Ordinances are meer formes without God's appearance in them and therefore our designe is to couple the Lord and Ordinances together and we cannot endure to heare of the parting of them though many now adayes do who crie so we have Ordinances we are well Now this is that we must deny or else it will appear that we promise to our selves something from the bare outward form of an Ordinance and so like the Israelites we are hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt though they had better meat in the wildernesse yet their flesh-pots run in their minds So though God offer himselfe and though the Saints tell you they cannot find God in such and such formes but find him abundantly good in the spirit and they find that he recompences the want of all formes in the spirit and presses you to wait till God appeares to you in the spirit O! say you I can never believe that God should do it without an Ordinance or that God should strengthen you without an Ordinance God thinke you with an Ordinance can strengthen me and deliver me and save me out of temptation not otherwise This is to say that the Ordinance or fleshly form doth add something to God If you confesse God to be all in an Ordinance you must confesse him to be all without an Ordinance to be sufficient of himselfe I desire not to be mistaken I judge not those that find God in Ordinances and outward formes Let them wait upon God and let them receive and partake of the benefit of the Ordinance and let them blesse God for it and be faithfull to their own principles and let them be sweet to others But when we do find God in a Forme and in an Ordinance to say he is not to bee found and enjoyed any other way this is not a right spirit and this is to be resigned up and denied by us A maine and principall reason of the point is that God alone may be exalted For as civil formes are accompanied with many corrupt yet cleaving interests so spirituall administrations are attended in their Proselites with flesh forme selfe which doe many times deprave and corrupt the Administration and render it ineffectuall to the end for which it was appointed And as it is the designe of God to purge the civil administration from its dregs and filth so the Lord carries on the same designes in paring away all humane interests from the spiritual that so he alone may bee exalted besides as civill formes are not the substance but the out-side onely and appearanee of that equity and reason which they ought to represent So is it with the spiritual as being onely supplemental to our wants absence weaknes until such time as we come to live in the very life or substance its selfe So that spiritual administrations being of an inferior and entervening notion cannot possibly hold forth the most compleat and glorious way of enjoyment which in the Scripture is said to bee by sight and not by faith and such a sight as is not in forme or glasse but face to face The sight which Moses had of God as it did transcend the ordinary discovery to common Saints so it was farr inferiour to this vision for Moses saw but the backpa●t of God And yet as their sacrifices did t●●e out the true sacrifices which we enjoy so this vision in regard of the immediateness of it beares some proportion with that glorious discovery in the Saints where God shall be seen as he is but this discovery is darkned and vail'd in the outward forme even in the designe of God himselfe for the weake understanding being not able to behold the brightnesse of this presence as the Israelites fled from the sight of God it is the pleasure of the Father to cast a vaile over his glory which vail is the forme that so the discoveries thereof may bee born by us Our enjoy ments will be then most sublime when this vail is rent a sunder and way made to the Holy of Holies or the naked glory by the power and purity of the spirit In the mean time the forme is proportioned to the darknesse of the fleshly understanding and therefore it is that the glory is limited and confined therein and given out according to the measure of our stature by degrees this justifies the design and wisedom of God in choosing these waies and methods in the manifestation of himself For the occasion of spiritual administrations is the darknesse and weaknesse of the creature all which make up a bundle of necessities which are thus summ'd up Man beeing clouded with a dark and mistie understanding stands at a great distance from the clear light of God by reason wheros hee apprehends nothing but what is suitable to himself and his enjoiment is answerable to his light that is weak and glimmering But God stoops down to humane frailtie and gives out himself in weak appearances Mosaical forms which are as mediums between God and us But when this darknesse and distance is removed by the power of God man becomes near and his enjoiments immediate which must needs be the best because nearest the fountain For the appearances of God like the beams of the Sun the farther they passe the more weak and imperfect are they as to us Hence it is that God in spirit beeing the most immediate appearance is therefore strongest God in flesh the next to that but of an inferiour cognisance and operation And the deeper God descends into flesh as into the sacrifices of old the more is his glory cloath'd upon and by consequence the more dark and obscure is his presence and our enjoiment So that still while we are within the compasse of appearances they may afford us a good but not the most excellent life For the highest life is above all appearances even in the substance it self For which is better to live in the appearance of a thing or in the thing it self in the branch or in the tree in the root or in the rinde To live in the substance is a life fuller of heavenly contemplation and rest For as the daies of God's labour were common and ordinarie but the day of his rest sanctified and holy so it is with the Saints The life of a Christian under administrations and forms is the day of his labour and he meets with many uncertainties disappointments and

to say after him The flesh profiteth nothing If you onely know Christ as dying and rising without you it will profit you nothing unlesse you know him as dying and rising within you Any man is capable of remembring the storie of Christ and rehearsing it if hee have but common reason and can say as well as another that Christ died for him and can throw himself upon Christ and can hang upon Christ this is not faith this is not salvation for saith James Faith without works is dead and Rom. 8. 2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath `made me free from the law of sin and death he doth not say that such a proposition or text of the Gospel did set him free he doth not say that the hearing that Christ died for the sins of men doth set him free No there was the Spirit of life in Christ as well as the law or letter it is that entails life upon Christ and his seed There is an outward Covenant and there is an inward Spirit The outward Covenant is this I will be thy God and the God of thy seed and may not any man pretend to be in this Covenant of this seed do not thousands professe themselvs to be so Do not thousands in the world say Lord Lord Lord and presse to enter into heaven We cannot put a difference betwixt one or other except we know this truth for they say they are within the Covenant and of Christs seed and what hold they forth for this they hold forth the confession of Christ and say that he died for their sin and rose for their justification and this they believe and upon this they lay their souls for salvation May not the veriest hypocrite do so as well as the truest Saint but here 's that which puts the difference when the spirit of Christ brings this Covenant to the heart of a poor creature when the Spirit of Adoption the Spirit of son-ship revealing God as our Father revealing God in Union with us our righteousnesse our strength hee doth indeed seal us to the day of Redemption he sets apart Christs sheep and this distinguisheth them from the other So that if you lay salvation upon an historical Christ you 'l be deceived If you would have that in which you may confide you must have Christ revealed in you in the Spirit you must have the same Spirit of Faith that was in Christ and the same spirit of power that wrought in him you must have the same eternal spirit by which you must offer up your bodies offer up your flesh to God as a sacrifice yea your selves and your own righteousnesse this is true salvation this is salvation manifested unto life To make this yet more clear I shal shew you the difference between Christ in the flesh and Christ in the Saints between that work of God within us and that work of God in Christ the latter is the truth of the former Sanctifiethem through thy truth Joh. 17. 17. that is do thou act those things really in them which are done in a figure for them upon mee there is the truth I desire to clear this to you by some familiar experience You know that Jesus Christ is said to die for our sins and rise for our justification Here is now Christ in the flesh here is his ministration Why now hereupon salvation is preach'd to men and they are told that God is reconciled for he hath sent his Son there is nothing to be done God is reconciled his justice satitfied onely believ Here is the outward difpensation But now a poor soul notwithstanding all this lies under the guilt and weight of sin whereby he cannot believe or take comfort in these glad tidings Do you not see that there is need of another ministration Is there not need of the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus as well as the proposition of the Gospel You come and shew a poor soul the proposition of the Gospel that whosoever believeth in Christ shall have eternal life Yet all this while the poor soul lies dead till not onely the letter but the spirit of the Gospel comes and appears to him till Christ appears not onely in his first Court that is his own flesh or the letter of the Gospel but the inmost place of all that is in this man's conscience For wee may allude to Heb. 9. 24. That Christ is not entred into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true but into heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us These words are spoke figuratively It is true he went visibly into heaven that is a place remote from their sight a cloud received him out of their sight The true heaven and that heaven where Christ doth appeare to the comfort and releife of a poor soul is the conscience of a poor sinner and that is called heaven because as heaven is the place of God so is the heart of man He is sayd ●o be the searcher of the heart God sits there and wounds and heales there that is God's true place It is not in the understanding of a man in the Notions there but it is in the heart of man there it is gone Christ in the spirit is in the heart of his people that is Christs place and there it is that Christ Jesus speakes a word for a poor soul there it is that Christ Jesus sits as King in our conscience Christ may offer himself long enough in the letter in the history of the Gospel but if he appeare not in the spirit and sit in our consciences to quiet them we shall never have any true understanding of the word Now for this reason I shall desire you to looke within your selves and I make no question but if you do wait upon God without prejudicate spirits he will clear this truth unto you And now while I come to some application of this truth I shall desire you in the feare of God not to mistake me Let us take heed of idolizing even the humanity of Jesus Christ himselfe of idolizing his doings and his sufferings We see God through these doings and sufferings of Jesus Christ as through a glasse but it is not blasphemie to say that a believer may come to see a love born unto him above and before the manifestation of it in the sufferings of Jesus Christ he may see it in God himself though by Christ Do not think you know so much as you need to know in knowing the flesh of Christ in knowing the man Christ Jesus for unlesse you know God in his appearance under that form you mistake Christ and make him an Idol I am nothing saith Christ and hee that sends is greater then he that is sent If God be greater then Christ then Christ himselfe is but a medium through which you come to be acquainted with God and in which you must not rest Take

the Lord foretold them in the 31. of Deuteronomie when saies hee I shall have brought Israel into the land that floweth with milke and honey and they shall have eaten and fill'd themselvs then will they turne unto other gods then and not till then and just so they did for in the very next Chap. at the 15 ver you have Jeshurun which is Jsraell wax'd fatt and kicking and then saies the text hee forsooke God which made him Another end of fasting is to elevate the soul and put her upon the wing of holy contemplation and prayer for it stands with reason that so long as shee is conversant in the kitchin so long as her spirits and faculties are spent in dispersing vapours and exhalations of meats shee her selfe must needs bee l●sse apt and free for heavenly emploiment Full bellies are fittest for ●est and not the body so much as the soule is most active with emtinesse for this reason fasting and praier go together in Scripture and as in Scripture so in our Churches practise solemne praier almost ever takes fasting to att●nd it A third reason of fasting is to ●estify our repentance by our penance the prostration of our soules by the humiliation of our bodies and thus did the primitive times by their course diet and cloathing present their unworrhinesse of the benefits of this life and by casting ashes on their heads speake themselves but dust altogether deserving to be as farre underneath the earth as they were above it and this repentance Christ implied to bee the most reall and unfained of all others when hee told the Jewes That had the mighty works been done in Tyre and Sid●n which were done amongst them they would have repented and is that all no they would have repented sitting in sack-cloath and ashes their very cloaths and haire had done pennance For t●ue repentance is not a bare turning to God but turning with fasting they are Gods own words Turn to mee with fasting weeping and mourning The belly must grieve and sympathize with the heart and the eye be as contrite as the minde Repentance then must together with fasting under the Law in Leviticus it was so their solemne repentance was ever at the time of their generall fast and they which had not the law as Nineve● nature it selfe taught them to take this Physicke as wee use all other fasting and fasting wee must take it if wee would have it worke kindly Nay Saint Basil in his first dejejunto saies it works not at all upon a full stomack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 repentance without fasting is idle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meerly idle without any stirring any moving the ill humors atall The meaning is according to S. James As faith without works so repentance without fasting is little better then dead and again As faith without works so fasting too without works is dead and this is another end of our fasts the exercise of our charity alms To keep a fast for a nation and relieve it not is but to repeat that Sarcasme in the 2 d of S. James Depart in peace when they are already destroied by war warm your selves and fill your bellies without fire or meat Could we everimagine how our devotion should rout an enemie or our fasts raise a siege Joshua must sight against Amalek as well as Moses pray it were well then if they would order it that our hands may be lifted up no lesse then our votes and praiers and our Chests lie as open as our Church-doors For this is to fast saies God by his Prophet Isaiah To deal thy bread to the hungrie to bring the poor to thy house Israel was not chid for eating but laying up of their Mannah and therefore saies a Father Ita jejuna ut alio manducante prandisse te gaude as so fast that the poor may fare the better for it let thy Eves be their Festivals thy Lent their Easter And now we have got a fast for our time let us see whether wee can finde a time for our fast a tunc for our jejunabant which is my last part to be handled the circumstance or time of this fast implied in the Adverb then And then they shall fast and then Allowing the thing we can't chuse but allow it a time for there is a time for every thing under the Sun a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourne and a time to dance saies the preacher to dance when the Bridegroom is with us to sit down and mourn when hee is taken away when the marriage feast is at an end and this is that then in my text then shall they fast that is when the Bridegroom is taken away and the Bridegroom is taken away saies our Church Homilie when we are cast down with sicknesse grief of minde or the like As for sicknesse 't is a plain case that takes away the stomack quite and the time of grief is a time of fasting too Thus Hannah when she was upbraided by her adversarie wept and how then and did not eat saies the 1 of Sam. 1. 7. nor drink neither I believe unlesse her tears So Ahab also when he could not obtein the Vineyard mourn'd I that 's granted you 'l say for 't is wine that maketh glad the heart of man and Naboth denied that mourn'd yes and fasted saies the text no meat would down with him he was so vexed And so 't is here while Christ was with the Apostles they could not grieve for they had the fulnesse of joy but when that fulnesse of joy was to be taken away then they shall mourn tunc jejunabunt and then they shall fast mourn and fast all one in the text Another time of Fasting is the time of danger for when men are in jeopardy what pleasure can they take in meat knowing not how soon they may eat their last When the children of Israel saw the Egyptians at their heels they had no time then to think of their flesh-pots and onyons And this then this time of fasting is the most usuall in all the Scripture if a plague famine or Rabshekah bee fear'd sanctifie a fast in all hast put on sackcloath send for the Arke And thus was it with the Apostles Christ was their rocke and sure tower of defence from all danger and the feare of it but when this rocke was removed when Christ was once taken away then they were at St Pauls quotidie morimur every hour in danger to be drawn to the stake tunc jeiunabant and then they did fast Now if for the effect of sin we fast for the cause for sinne it selfe much more and this then this time of fasting for our sinns should wee duely observe our tunc would bee nunc our then would be now and as now ita nunc semper in secula so both now and for ever for should wee live alwaies wee should sinne alwaies and so fast alwaies But this because wee