Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	father_n	holy_a	nature_n	8,877	5	5.8462	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62992	A letter to Mr. Mead, in answer to several unscriptural, and unsound sayings of his in a sermon against the seventh-day-sabbath, preached at his place of meeting, the twenty third of the second month. 1682. Wrote the same day the sermon was preached, refuting his arguments, and turning them back, making their unskilfulness and weakness manifest; and clearly evidencing, that the seventh-day is the sabbath day; by clear scripture-testimony, and sound arguments grounded thereon. Published for his hearers, because he would neither hear an objection in publick, nor admit of a conference in private.	Tovey, W.	1682 (1682)	Wing T1957B; ESTC R222359	11,750	16

accept it in Love and if I shall get the farther Knowledge of Sin in my self by this Controversy so that I may overcome it I shall count I have good Gain but if I can also convince him and you of the Error in his Doctrine which I write against I shall gain that I Labour for Though what I have said in hast be very short of what might be pleaded for the Truth yet if fudes be laid aside and a Conference be admitted in a calm cool Spirit I doubt not but to Answer whatever this Objecter hath to say against the Truth and Duty I pleaded for But if instead of that Sin be added to Sin and I am slanderously reported and scandals be raised of me which for matter of Fact are not true and need to be answered you must not expect that I can print books to clear my self No that will be too costly The cheapest way I can think of at present is to publish my Defence if I am wronged in some of the News books And there you may expect to hear of me on any such Occasion W. T A LETTER to Mr. MEAD c. Honoured Sir THe Leave I Craved with humble submission in your publick Assembly this day being not granted I have wrote some of those Objections I had then to make Ex Tempore against the greatest part of your Sermon which you delivered premeditately and with the help of Notes And though I am but a Youth in Years and of mean Capacity whereby I am much your Inferior and Unequal yet I hope through Grace I am a Babe in Christ having a Spiritual Pallate whereby I can in some good measure discern the sincere Milk of the Word from the unsavory sayings of men without and against the word of truth And from thence it is I am Emboldened to ingage in this Controversie with you And before I ingage in the Refuting your Arguments against the Lords Honourable-Seventh-day-Sabbath I first assure you that I will endeavour to keep as close as I can to the exact form and due order of your Arguments and if in any thing I miss it if you will make it known to me in writing I will admit that to be your mind and meaning which you shall so declare to me in writing to be your meaning And that you may not mistake me I declare to you that it is not any Argument against the God-head or against the Power of Christ that I do oppose for I do firmly believe The Lord Jesus Christ to be God Equal with the Father that he is Jehovah and the Holy Spirit is Jehovah Father Son and Holy Spirit one Jehovah But my Objections are against your Assertion That Jesus Christ has Changed the day of the Sabbath And that it was necessary he should so do Your Scriptures for it you said you laid down the day before and I not being present then do not know them and so cannot Answer to them but those Texts of Scripture which have usually been brought against it by Dr. Owen and other Objectors against the Lords Honourable day are largely discoursed and their Genuine sense and proper meaning are held forth and cleared up agreeing with the whole Scripture where it Treats of that Subject matter in a Treatise of the Sabbath wrote by Mr. F. Bampfield sold by Mr. Lawrence at the Angel in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange Your humane Authorities which you brought to back your other plea have no Authority with me neither ought they to have any Authority in the conscience of any man being contrary to Christ and the word of Christ and contradicting of one another Justin Martyr your first Author saith they assembled on the Sunday and gives this as the ground of it That being the first day wherein God separating the light from the darkness did Create the World And Jesus Christ our Saviour rose again from the dead This is the ground of their Assembling and both groundless For the world was not made in a day but in Six days and the Seventh was Created a Sabbath and Sanctified a Sabbath and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Fourth Command being future Piel he shall Sanctifie does clearly prove the Continuance of its Sanctifiedness for it is still a speaking word the like you have in the first of Genesis concerning the light which your Author would make a wrong use of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there shall be light and there shall be light the Word not only gave light a being but continues it in its being so this Word not only Sanctified the Sabbath but continues it Sanctified as long as the word remains in the Command what because Justin Martyr and the people with him voluntarily met on that day and gives a groundless reason for it will you from thence Embolden your hearers to Transgress the Seventh-day-Sabbath which sin the Lord hath Threatned so many Judgments against and which fin you can hardly prove your Author Guilty of for although they met upon Sunday and observed several other Festivals with as great Veneration and imposed them with as great Authority even Easter day and all the fifty days from Easter to Whitsuntide were accounted Holy and Solemnized with no less observation than the Sundays were Thus the Church was Corrupted with the observation of Holy-days so early and with divers other Superstitions as Mixing water with the Wine in the Lords Supper and standing in their devotion making Kneeling which is the proper posture in prayer to be a crime in those Holy-days with many other Corruptions and must the practise of such a corrupt generation of Churches be brought forth for a Confirmation of a Doctrine in this age of growing light No it s too late to impose upon us with such Authorities Yet your own Authors call no other day the Sabbath but the Seventh nor for a thousand years after Christ were Historians so bold to call any other day by that name or give that day any other name and very many Churches did observe the Seventh-day-Sabbath as your Historians mention and one main difference between the Eastern and Western Churches was that the Western Churches fasted and afflicted themselves on the Sabbath which being no proper work on a Sabbath day the Eastern Churches admonished them to reform it Neither did they observe Sunday as a Sabbath but did their common business thereon when their Assembling was over neither did they pretend any Scripture ground for their meeting on Sunday but took it up Voluntarily and afterwards when it came to be confirmed by Edicts of men even then much work was allowed to be done upon it and the Seventh-day-Sabbath was not made void but obedience required to that also but I am a weary of this How contrary to the word of God in your own Judgment was the sentence of the venerable Counsel of Laodicea that you even now when your first day is at the height durst not say Amen to it but the Churches were

corrupted in the Apostles time Antichrist was then already come and therefore we need not run to the Church History to find Errors in them for which we should not take them for a rule since we are not referred to them but to the Law and to the Testimony But you come to Arguments to prove that Christians are not tied to the observation of the Seventh day-Sabbath though tied to the observation of the Fourth Command a plain contradiction in its self and one of your Arguments which you call unanswerable is That believing Gentiles or Christians are not bound to the observation of the Seventh-day-Sabbath neither by the Law of Nature nor by the Law of Moses nor by the Law of Christ and because this is the great Argument you rest upon and trust in I shall first put you in mind of some of your own Concessions and then speak directly to your Argument as you inforced it You grant that believers are bound to the observation of the Ten Commands as a Rule of Life and I hope you will grant as a Rule of Faith and Worship too or else you will leave out the greatest Commandment you also grant that Law can no more be Changed then the nature of good and evil can be Changed that its the Express Idea of Gods image and that God can as soon cease to be as the Law to be Changed that what is of Moral Equity Extends to every believer or every man. Although you disowned all that was in the Fourth Command to be Moral yet you owned these three things Moral as First the Observation of a Sabbath Secondly that this Sabbath is a Seventh part of time Thirdly that this Seventh part of time must be of Gods own appointing and as Corrupt as you are in your opinion about the Fourth Command either through ignorance of the proper Significancy and Genuine meaning of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or worse then ignorance yet you have granted so much Truth that you cannot deny the Seventh day to be the Sabbath without contradicting your own words for Sabbath-day and Seventh-day are connatural it is the Seventh-days proper nature to be the weekly Sabbath and that I will evidence to you if you will appoint time and place and the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are Notes of demonstration pointing out a certain known determined fixed unchangable Day in every week and not a Seventh part of time barely but that set Seventh day And the Lord hath never appointed another day which you grant must be of the Lords appointing and when you spake that Christ hath power to change the Sabbath as he is God do you not tremble to impose upon your hearers with such devices Did you not declare God could as soon cease to be as the Law of the Ten words to be changed your unskilful defining of the Law of nature shall not help you out in this case as I will shew you presently therefore I now come to answer your supposed unanswerable Argument in its Three parts You said believers are not bound to the observation of the Seventh day Sabbath by the Law of nature because say you the light of nature can't discern the Seventh day from any other for there is no difference between one day and another in nature take a man and shut him up in a dungeon a considerable time where he can see no light and when he comes forth he cannot know the Seventh day from any of the other days and because the Seventh day cannot be known by the Light of the nature it is not of the Law of nature With a great many more of such like words by the way I would tell you that exact Astronomers have observed that natural days are not of Equal Length and it were worth your research into it whether the Seventh day be not longer in time and have more minutes in it then the first But for answer to your Argument if no Law be a Law of nature but that which may be known by the Light of nature then the first Command cannot be a Law of nature for by the Light of nature we cannot come at the knowledge of the True God of a God in Christ neither by that Rule is the Second Command a Law of nature for by the Light of nature as it is depraved by the fall man knows not that an after God is not to be worshiped but the Heathen and Pagans that have not the Light of the written word nor of the Enlightning Spirit they worship after Gods. Neither can the Third Command be a Law of nature by that Rule for by the Light of nature men know not that great and dreadful name Jehovah AElohecha which is not to be taken in vain neither can that part of the Fourth Command which you acknowledge to be Moral a Seventh part of time be a Law of nature by that Rule for to use your own dark demonstration shut a man up in a Dungeon all his days where he can see no Light and the Light of nature will not teach him the knowledge of the Seventh part of time No he must be taught by the Word which is the ground of knowledge how to number Seven and how to measure the days by the Luminaries of heaven Neither can the Fifth Command be a Law of nature by that Rule for take a Child from his Parents before it knows them as the Turks do and breed it up where they shant know of one another and call it by another name and it cannot know its Parents to Honor them Neither can the Sixth Command be a Law of nature by that Rule for you know you said if it were a Law of nature natural Conscience would Check for the breach of it but unbelieving men that have not faith they have killed and will kill the Saints and think they do God good service in it they are so far from the Checks of Conscience For shame retract this ignorant definition of the Law of nature But to Answer your second part of your imaginary unanswerable Argument Secondly Your second part of your Argument was That Believers are not bound to observe the Seventh-Day-Sabbath by the Law of Moses or the Law as given forth by Moses because the Law of Moses was given only to the Jews and therefore Believers were freed from the whole Law as given by Moses and must receive it as renewed by the Power of Christ Answ How is that Dare you say again as you did That we are freed from the Law as given at Sinai Did not Jehovah Christ give the Law at Sinai Psal 68. 17 18. Did not the whole Earth quake at his Presence and Voice ver 7 8. Heb. 12. 25 26. Eph. 4. 8. Is not this Christ the Angel that was with Moses in the Wilderness who then spake to him in Mount Sinai of whom Moses received the lively Oracles to give unto us