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	reap_v	sow_v	14,782	5	11.5940	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53750	A true and lively representation of popery shewing that popery is only new-modell'd paganism, and perfectly destructive of the great ends and purposes of God in the Gospel.	Owen, Thankfull, 1620-1681.	1679 (1679)	Wing O830; ESTC R18583	46,596	82

or shall your Wonder-working Priest give you an entrance into Heaven when the express Declarations of Christ Jesus exclude you thence No wonder that Papists have their Priests in such high esteem and Veneration no marvel they declare they cannot live without them when they are endued with such an Omnipotency as to change the setled order of things to alter the Decrees of Heaven and cancel the fixed Laws of life and death by shutting them out of the presence of God whom Christ Jesus is ready to receive and intromitting others that he has declared shall be for ever banished thence But be not deceived God is not mocked for whatever a man sows that shall he also reap He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting 6. Hitherto in general I have shewed the opposition of the Popish Doctrines to the Grand End and Purpose of God in the Gospel I shall now descend to the particulars afore-mentioned the first of which was this that in order to the replantation of the Divine Nature in the souls of men Almighty God designed the utter extirpation of Idolatry Now though the Church of Rome endeavours by many fine shows and specious pretences to free her self from the imputation of so foul and horrid a Crime yet he that impartially weighs things shall find her no less guilty than was the Pagan World before the coming of Christ And if this do not evidently appear to every candid and ingenious Reader I am well assured that 't is not from the weakness or inconclusiveness of the Arguments but from some partial and preconceived Opinion or some other prejudice his mind labours under and is prepossessed and preingaged withal for this I do confidently affirm that there is no truth of greater usefulness and concernment to Reformed Christendom nor any that can more clearly and irrefragably justifie the necessity of our separation from that Church than this That I may therefore make a clear and demonstrative proof of this Charge which I have laid against the Romish Church I must a little recur to what I have said of the Pagan Idolatry which mainly consisted in these two things 1. In that they worshipped besides one Supreme God other Inferiour Beings not as independent and self-existent but as so many created Deities and these were worshipped by them upon these two accounts either as thinking that the honour done to them redounded to the Supreme or else that they might be their Mediators and Intercessors Orators and Negotiators with him 2. In that they worshipped both the supreme God and likewise their subordinate Deities in Images and Statues This Foundation being laid it will be no difficult task to draw the parallel between the ancient Paganish Idolatry and that now practised in the Church of Rome That the Saints and Angels are worshipped both publickly and privately in the Romish Church needs no other testimony than the daily practice of Papists who express a greater fervour and zeal in their Invocation of the Saints than of God himself so that as a learned Person observes Sir Edwin Sands Europ Spec. for one prayer to God they put up ten to the Virgin Mary Nay so mad are they after this extravagant humour that Cassander ingeniously confesses that some and those no bad men have made choice of some certain Saints as their Patrons and place their trust and confidence in their Merits and Intercessions more than in the Merits of Christ Cassand Consult do Invoc Sanct. and so laying aside the Mediation of Christ they have substituted the Saints and especially the Virgin Mary in his room And hence Cardinal Hosius is not ashamed to say We ought to believe in the Saints They build Temples and Altars to the Saints and prostrate themselves with the most humble devotion before their Images They swear by the Saints not only in their common speech but in their more solemn Oaths and to them they direct their Vows likewise Now upon the same accounts that the Pagans worshipped their inferiour Deities do the Papists adore and worship the Saints and Angels 1. Because the honour done to them redounds to God himself It is for the Majesty and Grandeur of the supreme God to have a multitude of inferiour Deities under him says Plotinus It is not only suitable with the bountiful and noble disposition of God not to grant many graces and favours but by the Intercession of the Saints but likewise for his glory that the world should know this Answer to certain Questions propounded by King James says Fisher the Jesuit which he further illustrates by this similitude because says he 't is impossible to honour and praise the Boughs without honouring and praising the Root therefore when the Saints and Angels are invocated and adored it is for the honour of the supreme God the Root and Spring of all things 2. They make them Mediators and Intercessors between God and them which was the office and imployment of the Mediae Potestates or middle Deities of the Heathen and the ground or reason of this is given by S. Austin because they excel us Mortals in Merits De Civ Dei lib. 8. c. 22. And that the Papists urge the Merits of their Saints is evident from divers of their publick forms of prayer The Saints are in high grace and favour with God and for this reason we poor Mortals implore their Intercession say the Romanists as we make use of a Courtier to deliver a Petition to an Earthly Prince After this manner Celsus argues when he would perswade the Christians to the worship of Daemons that they ought to seek their favour as the Ministers of the Great God To whom Origen replies Origen contr Celsum l. 8. that the Christians allow indeed an honour and reverence to the blessed Angels as Gods Ministers in a sound sense but they are taught to give Religious Worship only to God and to his Son his Word and Image by whom they offer up their Supplications to God the Lord of all beseeching him who is the Propitiation for our sins that he would be pleased as our High-Priest to offer up our Prayers and Sacrifices and Intercessions to the great God And again God alone is to be adored and our Prayers are only to be offered to the only begotten Word of God the First-born of every Creature who as our High-Priest offers our Supplications to his God and our God to his Father and the Father of all those that live according to his Word But if the favour of many be to be sought for we learn from the Scriptures that thousand thousands minister unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before him who afford their friendly assistance to those that humbly invoke the Supreme God and earnestly contend after Salvation disdaining not to be officious to them that worship the same God with themselves For as the

Imprimatur March 12. 1678 9. Guil. Jane R. P. D. Henr. Episc Lond. a Sac. Dom. A true and lively REPRESENTATION OF POPERY SHEWING That Popery is only New-modell'd PAGANISM AND Perfectly destructive of the great Ends and Purposes of God in the Gospel Jer. 10.2 Learn not the way of the Heathen Gal. 5.1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not intangled again with the yoke of bondage LONDON Printed by R. Everingham for W. Kettilby at the Bishops Head in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1679. A true and lively Representation of Popery THAT there is but one true way to Salvation is readily acknowledged by all that profess themselves Christians but whether this way lye on the right hand or on the left whether through the Church of Rome or in the Reformed Religion that is made a Question And though the Romanists with confidence enough vainly arrogate this to themselves as if there were no way to Heaven but by associating and joining in Communion with their Church and will hardly unless in a good mood allow a dying Protestant to be saved yet I doubt not but I have sufficiently made it appear by such evident and clear Demonstrations as are within the sphere and comprehension of an ordinary Capacity not only that the Reformed Religion is hugely agreeable and subservient to those Grand purposes of God in the Gospel for the Salvation of Mankind but that Popery is infinitely prejudicial and destructive of them And although considering the various Artifices and subtle Stratagems the Popish Emissaries make use of not only in gaining but confirming their new Proselytes I cannot hope to recover such as are already ensnared by them yet I may reasonably suppose that these few sheets if they chance to fall into the hands of some one or other who desires impartially to seek and embrace the Truth where-ever he meets with it or by what hand soever it be brought to him may be so fully perswaded and satisfied of the Goodness of the Protestant Religion and of the gross Impiety and Wickedness of the Popish as that whatever censure he pass upon this yet of the other he may say that God is in it of a truth 1. I consider therefore that the great End and Design of the Christian Religion is to form in men the sacred life and nature of God for so S. Peter assures us That those glorious and inestimable Promises which God through Christ was pleased to make to the World were designed to recover men from their Sins and Corruptions into a participation of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 And that we may not conceive and think this to be a mere airy Notion and an insignificant sound of Words our blessed Saviour himself expresses it by the name of The new Birth Except a man be born again And his Holy Apostle S. Paul styles it the New Creature Joh. 3.3 All which being of a like signification and respect denote a certain state and condition of life Gal. 6.15 to which men are brought by the Power and Grace of God in the Gospel whereby their hearts and minds are tuned into an universal Consent to Gods holy will That state of sin and misery into which all men by their first Prevarication and Rebellion are involved is nothing of the true nature of our Souls but an Extraneous and Adventitious thing a meer Usurpation upon the Lords Inheritance whereby the minds and spirits of Mankind are preternaturally forced against their proper bent and inclination and God by the Gospel comes to free them from this heavy Pressure and Bondage and quickens and invigorates their decayed Powers with a strong and potent endeavour towards a Restitution and Freedom And this Conatus or Effort whereby they endeavour to throw off their uneasie load is expressed and decypher'd in the Holy Scriptures by the Name of Spirit as in Rom. 8.1 where the Apostle puts an opposition between the Flesh and the Spirit and says they are two several Laws and States of Being the one tending wholly to the abasing and dishonouring and captivating the Soul to vile and low purposes and making it drudge like a Slave to promote an Animal and sensual life but the other being nothing but a Law of Holiness and Righteousness and consequently connatural to it endeavours the freeing it from all that violence and force used upon it And this very same active and enlivening Principle shall be so far quickned and invigorated by the assistance of God's Holy Spirit that it shall at last through his benign and powerful Influence break into a Flame and consume all Terrestrial Dregs and Incumbrances and immortalize these our dull and sluggish Bodies So the Divine Apostle tells us If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you Rom. 8.11 he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in you Now that this blessed frame and temper of mind may be raised and renewed in us God sent his Son into the World and he incites and encourages us to the attaining of so desirable a State by mighty and stupendious Promises suited and adapted to our best and highest Capacities and that we may not think the participation of the Divine Nature or the new Creature that is that constitution of mind and soul which the Gospel came to implant in us to be a thing which we can have no rational Idea or Conception of I shall give such a brief and comprehensive Character of it as that Eternal Wisdom has legibly engraven in the frame and contexture of the Christian Religion Thus therefore I conceive of it That it is a Holy Principle of Life and Power implanted in the Soul by the Spirit of God bringing every Thought Word and Action into conformity and obedience to the Divine Will and begetting such a natural and genuine sense of what is Holy and Righteous that it is as hard for a man truly possessed of this excellent nature to act contrary to it as to suffer a Discission of his bodily life and though we bear this precious Treasure in Earthen Vessels and it be surrounded with the frailties and infirmities of flesh and blood yet does it fill our minds with comfortable hopes and assurance that our mighty Saviour and Redeemer who expressed the greatness of his love by dying for us will perfectly release and set it free from the heavy pressure of those Earthly Bodies and at last Crown it with such a body of Light and Glory as he himself is possessed of in the highest Heavens This is indeed the main end and scope of the appearing of the Grace of God to the World and that the Son of God might take possession of his own Inheritance and effectually and fully accomplish the recovery of Mankind from the cruel Bondage of Sin and Satan into this so desirable a state of Liberty and Freedom wherein