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	name_n	son_n	14,571	5	5.9519	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29252	Diatribae, or, Discourses upon select texts wherein several weighty truths are handled and applyed against the papist and the Socinian / by Henry Bagshaw.	Bagshaw, Henry, 1632-1709.	1680 (1680)	Wing B429; ESTC R25261	55,475	208

am sure such as these are the Greatest Persecutors of our Lord. The putting of a Reed into his hand before he should suffer was but the mocking of his Power but to put a Sword into his hand that is come to save us is a flat denyal of his Goodness and so they impiously number him with the Transgressors I need not farther enlarge on this Subject nor demonstrate the wildness of their Tenet which both our Saviours Life and manner of Government the Commands and Practise of the Apostles the Examples of primitive Martyrs and in a word the Profession of the best Saints has condemn'd But this by the way It here lies upon me to prove how Christs words are the proper words of Eternal Life which may be easily made out from that Gospel he has deliver'd to his Church wherein we find him 1. A Minister in that He has fully reveal'd it to the World 2. A Purchaser in that he has acquired a right to bestow it 3. A Worker in that He has made the Doctrine of it effectual to Salvation I. A Minister in that he has fully reveal'd it to the World as He did also the Doctrine of Eternal Death which I before handled And He has revealed this Life in a way of Authority and Sweetness proper to himself at once forcing us to assent to the truth of that evidence and raising our affections to pursue it He therefore delivered it in such a Style that might powerfully engage us both ways as when He did not onely expresly mention the thing it self but likewise described it by such inviting Characters as Joy Glory the Kingdom of Heaven nay in a peculiar Emphasis the Kingdom where Life and Immortality are enthron'd Now who is there but must acknowledge the blindness that cover'd the Gentile World till this Great Prophet came to enlighten us For we sat in darkness and in the very shadow of Death which encompassed us round and beset us and took away from us any farther Prospect not to be open'd nor enlarg'd till this Light came which gave us Knowledg and Salvation What force soever there may be in Natural Religion which some boast of yet the great Masters of those Schools which taught it were miserably dimsighted as to any future state of Life and Happiness except wee 'l say a walk in Elysium for Wandring Souls or a wretched Pilgrimage through several Bodies be a proper Condition to be desired Yet thus did the best of those Writers dream who apprehended well enough a God and his Worship and though they might deliver fine notions of both yet fancy came in to corrupt all with gross devices and foolish mixtures in their Reward Hence the morality even of their Chiefest was suited to their Principles that is They had the Shadow of a Good Life as they had the Shadow of Immortality The greatest height of vertue they ever arriv'd to was but to disguise their Passions and by stopping some foul effects of them to consult a Fame of well-doing whereas the seed and root of a corruption was still cherished and lust secretly ruled in their hearts and lives for want of a discovery which we Christians enjoy about the eternal Wages of our deeds Upon this account Tertullian and the rest of the Ancients had sufficient ground to condemn their choicest Philosophy since the study of it was followed with no other fruit than this That it serv'd for Paint to hide Vice but prov'd no Antidote to expell it But if Natural Reason did thus fail must we also complain of any defect in those Inspirations which Gods own Prophets were assisted with No for the words they delivered were words of life onely the Jews that heard them were in their nonage bred up at first with milk and honey and that Infant-food of a Carnal Promise and therefore it was judg'd fit by Divine Wisdom to wean them by degrees from these outward things and not allow them a Spiritual Diet of perfect happiness till they arrived at the strength of a Masculine Understanding But the Prophets themselves had that state revealed to them in all its clearness only that Discipline which their Hearers were under causi'd it to be dispenc'd to them by a Figurative application But Christ came in the very fulness of time when Life and Immortality were to be shown and He answer'd that fulness by his own Teaching so that all those Prophets who went before him serv'd but like the light of a Morning-star to usher in the brightness of that discovery Let us consider him in the next place II. As a Purchaser in that He acquir'd a right to bestow it And this Title He has to such a donation by that Price he laid down for his own People when He bought them out of their old Thraldom and cancell'd that forfeiture they had made of Life Eternal by the merits of his Death and the infinite Satisfaction of his Sufferings His Gospel is the Evidence of this his Purchase wherein Eternal Life and our Lords Propriety is declard whereby He is qualified not only to possess it in himself but to conferre that Inheritance upon others And therefore to him we must have recourse in all our Devotions and upon his Merits alone ground our addresses Heb. 7.25 who is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him But the Romanists seem to have found out other Purchasers at least many Sharers with him in that Prerogative when dividing the Vertue of his Mediation they fly to Saints and Angels by a solemn invocation of them to intercede What is this else but an Idolatrous act when the Creature is set up by them for a peculiar Object they must adore and for a Meritorious Helper they should trust to or wherein do they differ from the old Heathens who worshipped their Demons or Inferiour Gods as intermediate Agents with the Supreme If they upon that score were condemned as Idolaters by the ancient maintainers of our Religion certainly a like charge does most deservedly fall upon such Worshippers that parcel out and communicate Divine Glory nay the Charge is much heavier in this respect because the Heathens were ignorant of Gods will but for Christians this way to beg life it is to libel Gods Word that speaks otherwise it is to exclude his Son from his own Office and Royalty in whose Name we are bid to pray and by whom alone we have access to our Heavenly Father nay it is repugnant to the condition of those Spirits above who can neither hear every mans prayers throughout the world nor look into the hearts of those that call on them Yet O ye blessed Saints and Angels if ye can behold such Worshippers as these men see with what wicked Plots and bloody hands they offer Incense Can ye possibly accept their Prayers No none can accept them but their own Martyrs But all Worship how innocent soever is rejected in Heaven where the God of it alone is