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	law_n	sin_n	20,113	5	5.9622	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37244	A work for none but angels & men that is to be able to look into and to know ourselves, or a book shewing what the soule is, subsisting and having its operations without the body ... : of the imagination or common sense, the phantasie, sensative memory, passions, motion of life, the local motion, intellectual power of the soul ... Thomas Jenner has lineas composuit.	Davies, John, Sir, 1569-1626.; Jenner, Thomas, fl. 1631-1656.	1658 (1658)	Wing D410; ESTC R27853	22,709	36

for us to aime at for this very end and purpose that all the world should misse it Can he that is the faithfull and true God put such a trick of fraud and mockery upon his creatures No surely righteousnesse evangelicall righteousnesse is the only thing intended per see in all Gods Commandements and sin which is nothing else but a missing of the marke comes in by accident sin is that which God will either destroy and banish out of the World by the clear discovery of his truth in the hearts of men or else he will at last chain it in the bottomlesse pit to all eternity and make the blacknesse of it to be a soyle to set off the glory of his justice But it is suggested by some that Christ will not therefore bestow any true righteousnesse holinesse or sanctification upon a Saint on purpose that he might keep him humble as if the only way to make men truly humble were to make them wicked and as it men would be so much the more proud by how much the more holy and made truly partakers of the image of God Away then w●th this fond conceit whereby we doe nothing else but gratifie mens lusts And smother and extinguish the life of God in the world it is the sluggard that sayes there is a Lion in the way but the true beleever saith Who art thou O great mountain before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain nay the truth it selfe saith All things are possible to them that beleeve we may undoubtedly by the power of God in us prevaile every day more and more over the power of sin and Satan the weapons of our warfare are very powerfull and able to batter down the strong holds of Satan in our hearts he that is indeed born of God shall overcome the world and the flesh and the Devil to by the power of God in him he shall destroy the law of sin in his members by the true Law the Law of the Spirit of life and if we should with unfeigned simplicity of heart apply our selves to God and resigning up our selvs to him to be taught led by him we should certainly find that his free spitit would inwardly lead us into all wayes of obedience and that it would be as naturall and as delightfull to us to walke on in those pleasant pathes of holinesse and righteousnesse as ever it was to wander in those crooked wayes of sin and wickednesse nay the true Regenerate christian is so far from delighting secretly in the wayes of sin as the false hearted hypocrite thinks he doth that there is nothing that more hurts and wounds his soule then that he hath not a more lively sence of evill for the divine life in him being a delicate and tender thing hath the most quickest sence of any thing that is contrary to it and is most ingenious and industrious for selfe preservation against it wisdome is easie to the wise sayes Solomon and her wayes are wayes of pleasantnesse to them and all her paths are peace and sin is the most ugly and forlorn thing in the world Let not therefore these evill spyes that bring an evill report upon this Land of Promise dishearten and discourage us but let us goe on in the Power of God and his strength and exercise our faith in this not only that we shall be freed from Fire and Brimstone here after but that we shall be delivered from the power of sin and Satan in our own hearts this is that faith whereby we overcome the world and if we had more of this faith in the power of Christ to destroy our corruptions in us and to tread down Satan under our feete and all that fond and ungrounded confidence that God intends to save us while we continue under the power of sin we should goe on more successefully and prosperously in the way to Heaven And it is a dangerous mistake now under the Gospel to conceive that God will save men out of a fond affection towards them without renuing of their natures and begetting his own son the new Creature in their hearts Meerly for beleeving this very thing that they shall be saved as if it were possible for men to be made happy without being delivered from the power of sin which is all one as if we should say that it were possible for men to be saved without salvation surely such as these think heaven nothing else but a meer place without them a fine glistering place whose gates are of pearl and the walls of Jasper and the bottome paved with starrs a very Turkish Paradise for had they once tasted of the true pleasures of the soule purg'd from sin and really establisht in the life of God they would then see so much deformity in sin that they would not accept of heaven upon such terms as those that is to be placed in an outward heaven without the inward change and renuing of their mindes without the conforming of their soules to the Image and likenesse of God I am sure a true Saint would not take heaven on such conditions as these are that he might enjoy all the outward pleasures that are possible that he might have a shining glistering body that he might tread upon Stars and flye upon the wings of the winde that he might converse with Cherubims and Serafims Angels and arke Angels if all this while he must continue filthy within full of noysome and stincking lusts voyd of divine wisdome that purges and purifies the soule having a darke and sottish minde unruly affection continually strugling and quarrelling within God he may indeed dispence with the punishment that belongs to sin he may forgive and pardon in respect of punishment but he can never account those truly holy that are truly wicked and bond slaves to sin and Satan Now this can never make us happy to be freed only from the punishment of sin we can never be happy till we be made pertakers of the life of God himselfe till we have the same minde and life in us that is in God himselfe If God should account us righteous except we were truly possessed of a righteousnesse within us I may speak it with reverence this could doe us no good no true christian would be contented with it no more then a man that is sick could be contented to be accounted whole or one that is poor and naked could be contented to be accounted rich and cloathed no more then one that is frozen in a cold winter night could be contented to be accounted hot nothing without us can make us really happy till we be inwardly made pertakers of the Image of God But it is very plain and easie to discover the ground of these mistakes because carnal men desire not so much to enjoy heaven as to be freed from hell or if they desire heaven they desire nothing at all in it but only their own ease and carnall pleasure it would serve their turn

or Gaole delivery for in this third life reason will be so bright as her sparkes will be like the Sun beames and shall the reall ●●ght enjoy of God being still increast by divine influence Then let us take up this acclamation O ignorant poor man what bearest thou lockt up in the casket of thy breast what Jewels and what riches and what heavenly treasure hast thou in so weak a chest Looke into thy soule and thou shalt see such virtues honour and pleasure and whatsoever is counted excellent in this life Thinke of her worth and then know that God did mean thy worthy mind should embrace worthy things Blot not her beauties with unclean thoughts neither dishonour her with thy base passions destroy not her quickning power with surfeitings and drunkennesse let not her sensitive power be mar'd with sensualities and fleshly desires let not her serious thoughts be employed on idle things and enslave not her will to vanity and whensoever thou thinkest of her eternity have not this evill thought of her that death is against her nature no assure thy selfe it is a birth in which she is brought forth to a better being and when thou comest to dye sing and rejoyce as a swan that thou art a going to blisse if thou have faith to beleeve in Jesus Christ that thy sinns may be forgiven thee and whereas before thou did'st fear as a child which is in the darke fear not now having this light brought into thee and now O thou my soule turn thine eye inward and view the rayes and beams of thy divine forme and know that whilst thou art clouded with this flesh of thine thou canst not know any thing perfectly study the highest and best things but retayne an humble thought of thy selfe cast down thy self and strive to raise the glorious and sacred name of thy Maker and blessed Redeemer use all thy powers to praise that blessed power which gives thee power to be and also power to use those powers thou art endewed withall and thus shut up all and say O the depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his Judgments and his wayes past finding out Of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory for ever FINIS WHAT HEAVEN IS VINDICATED From the Vulgar mistakes and grosse conceivings of many some of which mistakes is mention made in this Title the rest of them manifested and enlarged in the ensuing Treatise AS I. Mistake of Heaven is that fancey the happinesse of Heaven to consist only in things without them and look upon it only as an outward place and not as an inward state and disposition of the Soule II. Grosse conceit of Heaven is as if it were nothing but a Theatre a place of sights and showes and God himselfe were nothing but a more Pompious spectacle there to be gazed upon by these bodily eyes whereas we are never at a distance from him but only in the dispersion multiplicity distraction and scattering of our bo●●●s and in the dissimilitude and disproportion of our soules unto him III. Another Vulgar and common mistake is that God doth not require any endeavours or activity of ours in the businesse of Heaven and that he deales with us in matters of Grace and Glory as meere stocks and stones and inanimall creatures and not in any way suitable to us as free and rationall for although we cannot make alive the new man in us yet we may concur to the killing and destroying of the old by refusing to satisfie the lusts and cravings of it IIII. Neither are we to entertain this conceit that God hath found out any other way to save his people from Hell and destruction without saving of them from their sins and wickednesses Infaelix cujus nulli sapientia prodest What Heaven is vindicated from the Vulgar mistakes and grosse conceivings of many False Gospellers undermine the true righteousnesse of God and make the Gospel nothing else but a slight imagination we should not entertain any such conceit as if Christ came with any new devise to bring men to heaven without the hard labour of mortifying their lusts as if the intent of his coming was to promulgate ease and liberty to the flesh and by his being crucifyed for us upon the Crosse to excuse our crucifying the old man in our hearts as if he had found out a way to save his people from hell and destruction without saving of them from their sins and wickednesses 1. The possibility of attaining that righteousnesse that is required of us in the Gospel it is by the power of Christ attainable or else none could enter into the Kingdome of Heaven He that is born of God sins not for his seed remaines in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God and must we needs say that he that is born of God can and may doe nothing else but sin is the immortall seed of Gods holy spirit of Gods eternall word in the hearts of true believers is nothing else but the seed of the Serpent and the Cockatrice Eggs it is possible that the divine nature that the Scripture speaks of should be nothing else but the nature of the Devil that Gods holy spirit in us shou●d make us habitations for it selfe to dwell in and yet suffer us at the same time to be vessells of sin and Satan is the end of the holy Gospel not at all to free us from sin by the power of Christ but only to spread a Purple vaile over us not all to destroy the works of the Devill in us but only to cover them from Gods avenging eye Is the end of the Gospel nothing else but to paliate over the diseases of our corruptions which remain in us ever sence the fall and not at all to cure them If so then surely the reason of this is either because Christ is not able to overcome sin and Satan in us as the Manikees of old dreamed or else because he is not willing and that is a greater disparagement to him then the former for the other robbs him only of the Glory of his power but this spoyles him of the Glory of his goodness as if Christ should envy that to us which of all other things is the most necessary to make us happy or as if God were not as carefull to advance his Kingdome of light here in the world as the Devill is to inlarge his Kingdome of darknesse as if God did not love his own butifull Image his own son and nature but would willingly suffer it to be choaked and smothered here in the world by those Fiends of darknesse whom he hath long since lockt and fettered up in chains of darknesse and reserved for the judgment of the great day Say's the Philosopher no man sets up a marke on purpose that men might misse it and shall God set up this marke of righteousnesse in the Gospel as a Butt