Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	flesh_n	holy_a	sin_n	5,360	5	4.5024	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58819	A sermon preached before the queen the 22d of May, 1692 upon occasion of the late victory obtained by Their Majesties fleet over the French / by John Scott ...	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1692 (1692)	Wing S2076; ESTC R34060	18,980	39

'em higher than we do now the greatest But as for those Benefits of God which concern our better Part and eternal Interest they are such as only an infinite Goodness can bestow for what Goodness less than Infinite could have prepared for us a Heaven of immortal Joys Joys which the holy Angels yea which God him self lives upon What lesser Goodness could send down the Son of God to us from the Bosom of his Father to assume our Nature and therein to make Expiation for our Sins to Consecrate for us a new and living Way through the Veil of his own Flesh into the heavenly Sanctuary and by the Light of his Doctrine and the Footsteps of his Example to guide and direct us thither What less than the same Goodness could send down the Holy Spirit to us to instruct and teach us to perswade and admonish us and thereby to cultivate our rank and degenerous Natures in which there is such strong aversions to all the heavenly Enjoyments and to render us fit for the glorious Inheritance of the Saints in Light In a word what less than an infinite Goodness could thus industriously employ the whole Sacred Trinity in contriving preparing and accomplishing our everlasting Happiness by such amazing such refined and expressive Methods of Mercy For verily when I set my self to consider the mighty Things which God hath done to make us happy I seem to be looking down from some stupendious Precipice whose heighth fills me with a sacred horror that turns my Head confounds my Understanding and almost oversets my Reason so that I am forc'd to cry out sometimes with the Psalmist Lord what is man that thou art mindfull of him or the Son of man that thou visitest him with such astonishing favour And sometimes with S. Paul with a little more variation O the depth of the riches of the goodness and bounty of God! how unsearchable are his designs of mercy and his ways of beneficence past finding out Thirdly Consider the generous Freedom of the Divine Benefits on God's part Even the noblest Benefactors among Men have great intermixtures of selfishness with their Beneficence for either they gratifie their own Vanity with it and affectation of popular Applause or they rid themselves of a troublesom Importunity or ease the yearning Bowels of their own Compassion or hope to secure themselves a firm and lasting Interest in those they do good to and even those who act from the nobler Principles of Religion and do good in submission to God and in conformity to his Nature are not so utterly divested of these selfish Regards but that they many times intermingle 'em even with their purest Intentions and even whilst they act upon those Religious Principles it is all along in prospect of their own everlasting Happiness Thus we poor Creatures even in our most pious and generous Beneficences are by the sense of our own Want and Indigency continually biassed towards our own Interest either temporal or eternal or both But in God who wants nothing but is Self-sufficient and infinitely happy in his own infinite Perfections Matters are far otherwise he seeks nothing without himself because he wants nothing and so can have no Self-End in any Action ad extra from all the Benefits that he heaps upon us he can reap no other advantage but only the satisfaction of doing Good and the Gratification of the infinite Generosity of his Nature So that his own Action is his End and he doth good meerly for doing goods Sake He is neither compell'd to it by Necessity nor oblig'd to it by any other Law but that of his own Nature He is neither wearied nor worried into it either by our Importunity or by any painful Sense he hath of our Misery He is neither flattered by our Promises nor indeared by our Deserts nor bribed by any Prospect he hath of future Advantage to himself but being absolute Master of his own Actions and sole Counsellour and Lawgiver to himself being the most perfectly independent and all sufficient Source of his own Happiness beyond which he cannot so much as desire or expect or hope being infallibly secure that nothing which either we or any other Creature can do either for or against him can either add to or subtract from his essential Glory and Beatitude being all this I say and a thousand Times more than all this from a most uninterested Bounty and pure good Will and generosity of Nature he delights to do us Good heaps Benefit after Benefit upon us for no other end but to benefit us and in plentiful Showers is continually pouring down his Graces and Favors upon us purely that he may profit and please us and if possible content and satisfie us and render us happy both here and hereafter This is all the return he expects for his Benefits and if he can but do us good by them he hath his end and is gratified to the utmost of his Expectations O the boundless Freedom of the Goodness of God towards us that without any other aim but to do us good le ts forth itself in such plentiful Effusions How excellent is thy loving Kindness O Lord how indearing are thy Favors who can rehearse thy noble Acts who can shew forth all thy Praise who with such an unparallell'd frankness and generosity of Soul art continually multiplying thy Benefits upon us Fourthly Consider the great Immerit and Undeservedness of Gods Benefits on our parts considering the number and greatness of Gods Mercies and Favors to us A Stranger to Mankind would be prone to imagine that by our extraordinary Services we had laid some vast Obligation upon God for which he esteemed himself so deeply indebted to us that nothing within the compass of an infinite Goodness could be too great a repayment but God knows the Case is far otherwise for instead of obliging him to be kind to us we have so ungratefully requited his Kindness and our Carriage towards him hath been so froward and perverse under the most indearing expressions of his Goodness that were he not as infinite in Patience as he is in Justice and Power we had long since provoked him to extirpate the whole Race of us from the Face of the Earth and to consign us our Portion with our fellow-Rebels the Devils in everlasting Horror and Despair for instead of acknowledging his manifold Favors by our dutiful Behaviour which is the most acceptable return we can make of them as if it had been as much our care to affront and provoke him as it is his to oblige us by perpetual Beneficence We treat our own base Lusts which are the only things he hateth with his Mercies and Favors we give his Bread to our Glutrony his Drink to our Intemperance his Cloths to our Pride and Vanity he lends us Breath and we blaspheme him with it he inspires us with Wit and Understanding and we expose and ridicule him with it he gives us Health and Strength and we