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	son_n	trinity_n	11,727	5	10.3297	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57062	A sermon preached before the Queen, at White-Hall, on Sunday, Aug. 16, 1691 by Nathanael Resbury ...	Resbury, Nathanael, 1643-1711.	1691 (1691)	Wing R1132; ESTC R12711	11,474	32

God and are apt of themselves and in the natural tendency of their own thoughts to offer at some kind of Worship But I fear this is gratis dictum sooner said than prov'd Histories give us frequent instances of several regions of a wild and uncultivated sort of Mankind that give no vilible intimations at all by which a man might guess they have any sense or apprehension of God This is true indeed that no one endu'd with reason however void of all thoughts of this nature he may have been but when the notion comes to be offer'd him and he is told there is a God above that gave him his being and that governs the world he speedily embraces it as highly reasonable and finds a natural and ready inclination to so great and probable a truth And this gives the Argument as strong a force against the Atheist in that the ready compliance of the mind with all such notions when first offer'd seems a demonstration that the thing it self has a native and original truth in it which needs only to be brought to remembrance and then reason falls in immediately with it But this is certain as there may be that failure and defect of Reason in some parts of the World where barbarous mankind may either have lost all notions of God or at least have taken up some that are no more suited to the divine nature than the conjectures of a man born blind would be in the description of colours or the figures and shapes of things So those that have the greatest advantages of revelation by the word of God himself and have improv'd these advantages by the greatest industry and enquiry thereinto yea that have wrought their minds into some participation of the divine nature by labour'd meditation fall infinitely short of all just and adequate conceptions of God For 1. We are greatly to seek in the first notion of God that he is a Spirit The Scripture tells us God is a Spirit but we are no more able to conceive what the nature of a Spirit is than the Child in the Womb apprehends what the nature of his being and sustenance is there To say the truth were the great searcher of hearts but to lay to our charge all those absurd Idolatries we commit in the odd conceptions the mean and bodily shapes we frame of God in our imaginations whiles we offer at the most solemn acts of worship toward him we might perish under the iniquities of our most holy things and the guilt of our most labour'd endeavours in devotion 2. As we are to seek in the notion of a Spirit so no less are we in that deep and bewondring mystery of the Trinity in Vnity which upon the strength of Divine revelation we justly believe and adore We are indeed sure from the H. Scriptures that the Father is God and that Jesus Christ the Son is not only God too but was so from all Eternity and that the H. Ghost is no less God than the Father and the Son We also know from the same express revelation that we are to own and worship no other than the One only and true God These things are certain matter of Divine revelation and being so we have all imaginable reason to believe and embrace them But then how these three distinct Persons should be so united in one undivided nature that while we worship three Persons we still do worship but one God this is a mystery reserv'd to be unfolded in the other world only We may perhaps endeavour to illustrate the notion by some faint and imperfect resemblances but alas they are so faint and imperfect that they rather serve to darken and obscure it still more II. As we are very short in apprehending the Nature of God so are we no less as to his Decrees and Counsels The one is the consequence of the other we therefore must needs conjecture uncertainly about his Decrees because we are so distant and so incompetent in all our Speculations about the Divine Nature There have been warm and heated disputes about these things amongst assuming men The Decrees of God have been canvast and talkt over by some as if they were the very rudiments of Religion and might be the first learnt and understood when in the mean time the dust that disputes have raised in things of so high and unsearchable a Nature have only serv'd to hurt the Eyes of both the contending Parties that they have seen the less for their warmth in arguing What man knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of a man Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.11 It is an excellent passage in the Apocryphal book of Wisdom to this purpose Chap. 4. from v. 13 ad finem What man is he that can know the Counsel of God or who can think what the will of the Lord is For the thoughts of mortal men are miserable and our devices are but uncertain for the corruptible body presseth down the soul and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things And hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon the Earth and with labour dowe find the things that are before us but the things that are in heaven who hath searched out and thy Counsel who hath known Except thou give Wisdom and send thy Holy Spirit from above It is plain how short we are in our thoughts of this kind not only from the irreconcileable differences about these things but also the infinite difficulties wherewith both ways of thinking are perplext Thus when any would be point blank representing God as from all eternity choosing out some few for everlasting happiness and decreeing the rest of mankind absolutely to eternal damnation how are they gravell'd in their thoughts when they observe God in his holy word exhibiting himself as so kind and benign a Lover of Mankind so unlikely to hate originally any thing he makes that he does never willingly grieve nor afflict the Children of men On the other hand when some are peremptorily rejecting all doctrines of this Nature how do they stick and labour under the inexplicable difficulty of Divine foreknowledge c. Herein therefore we should all imitate the Modesty of St. Paul who yet had the advantage of brighter revelations than ever we can pretend to He when he had been discoursing that difference it had pleas'd God to put betwixt the Nation of the Jews and all the rest of mankind results the whole in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and of the Knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out Rom. 11.34 35. III. Last Come we to consider lastly how short and imperfect we are in our knowledge of God as to his works either of Creation or Providence 1. The works of his Creation And therefore Elihu to confirm what he had said in the words of