Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	ghost_n	holy_a	scripture_n	19,615	5	6.1818	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30628	An argument for infants baptisme deduced from the analogy of faith, and [of the] harmony of the [Scr]iptures : in which in a method wholly new, and upon grounds not commonly observed bo[th the] doctrine (of infants baptism) is fully asserted, and the objections against it are obviated / by Richard Burthogge.	Burthogge, Richard, 1638?-ca. 1700.	1684 (1684)	Wing B6148; ESTC R35796	83,110	210

between God and him and though they all did worship and honour God in way of Sacrifices in all which the Blessed Jesus the true Lamb of God was figured and represented and though Jesus Christ himself saith before Abraham was I am yet that it pleased God to transact with all or any or either of them before Abraham in way of Covenant or Promise for Eternal Life and Salvation or that Jesus Christ was Preached to them or otherwise exhibited then in Types and Figures which we are not told they understood is no where said or recorded or so much as hinted in the whole Scripture Our Saviour saith indeed that Abraham did see his day but he saith not nor do the Scriptures say that Adam Abel Enoch Noah c. saw it What might be Preached by the Spirit further then the Scriptures tell us and then the Holy Ghost is pleased in them to Reveal to us is no proper subject for our now Inquiry We are now to mind but what is Preached by the Scriptures and Recorded in them Remembring that the very silence of the Scriptures is Mystical as is evident in the case of Melchizedeck who though whatever Learned Cunaeus thought he were a Man and consequently was not really without Father without Mother without Genealogy without beginning of dayes or end of Life yet for great ends he is taken and expresly said to be so and that because nothing in the Least is written and recorded in the Holy Scriptures touching him as to these particulars And shew me any Scripture that but hints a Covenant made with Adam Abel Enoch with all or any of the Antient Fathers before Abraham or Promise made to them or any of them of Grace Eternal Life and Salvation wherein Almighty God did pass his word to be a God to them or either of them and their or either of their Seed after them I do not doubt but God was a God to them all as I doubt not that Melchisedeck had a Father Mother Genealogy beginning of dayes and end of Life but as the Holy Scriptures do no where mention any of these in Relation to Melchisedeck so they no where intimate that God before Abraham was a God to any of the Antient Fathers in a way of Covenant or promise for Grace Eternal Life or Salvation and therefore the least that can be said if we should be prevailed to acknowledge any such transaction must be seeing the Scripture is so deeply silent in it that as there is a mistery in the silence of the Scripture touching Melchisedeck so there is a Mystery in the silence of it touching any such Covenant or Promise if any such were to the Fathers and that as Melchisedeck to be a figure of the Eternal Priest must be brought in in Scripture as a man dropt out of the Clouds without any mention of Father Mother c. So likewise to the end that Abraham might be according to the Scriptures what in the Divine Council he was appointed and set up to be namely the Father of all the faithful or express Believers in Christ there must be no record in the Sacred Scriptures of any Promise of Christ before as made to any other or of any Explicit belief and Faith in him before for had there been either how could Abraham possibly be understood in the account of the Scriptures to have been the Father and so the first of all the faithful of all Believers in Christ He only is first before whom no other is Christ I deny not may have been Preached before Abraham and also promised by the Spirit but he is not Revealed in the Scriptures so to have been either Preached or Promised The Scripture is entirely silent as to any such Transaction If any such Covenant or Promise were of Christ before certainly in the account of Scripture it is as none and so must be looked on of us as none not the least impression or footstep of any such concern appearing I acknowledge the old Fathers to be said to have had faith in God but they are not said to have had any in Christ and these Faiths are so distinguished that they may be Actually divided you believe in God sayes Christ believe also in me The Old Fathers did believe in God they believed both that God was and that he was a Rewarder but Abraham did not only believe as they did in God but he also believed in Christ. If you ask me but is not God 〈◊〉 a Rewarder in and through Christ and not otherwise I answer yes and yet it is possible they might believe in God and not believe in Christ They might believe God to be a Rewarder as some Heathen do though they did not know him and therefore could not believe him to be so but in Christ That God is and is a Rewarder are Points of Natural Religion But that Christ is and God a Rewarder in Him are Points of Revelation I acknowledge that what you say is commonly taken for granted viz. That the Promise of Christ the Seed of the Woman was made to Adam And so much is true that Jesus Christ is introduced by the Psalmist as speaking of himself and saying that in the Volume of the Book or as some do render it in the Head of the book it is written of him and so though happily the Psalmist may have Aspect upon something else I grant it is Gen. 3. 15. for when it is there said that the Seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head c. It must I confess be understood of Christ at least in the Mystery thus it is written of him but that Christ was promised to Adam is not written For what is written in the Volume or in the head of the Book concerning Christ is not written there as spoken by way of Promise to Adam but by way of denunciation to the Serpent and is part of the Sentence pronounced on him which if indeed it were within the hearing of Adam yet the Scripture doth not say it was so So little doth the Scripture concern Adam in that Transaction how great concern soever in reality he was to have in it So the Text Gen. 3. 14 15. And the Lord God said to the Serpent c. What he sayes to Adam is verse 17. 18 19. and of a very different nature Adeclaration I acknowledge there is of Christ from the beginning but in the Record of the Scripture that declaration is not noted as a transaction between God and Adam by way of Covenant or Promise All is said concerning it is in what did pass between God and the Serpent and some ad loc chuse to call it a Prophecy not a Promise of Christ. And it adds no little confirmation to the truth of what I have now discoursed that after the Revelation of Jesus Christ in what passed between God and the Serpent we have not for the long space of above Two Thousand Years the least Intimation in all the

Scriptures that any of the Fathers of that time had heard of that Revelation I do not say they had not heard but I say the Scriptures do not so much as hint they had and though the Scriptures tell us that in that time Righteousness was preached by the Spirit yet they do not in the least tell us that Christ was preached by it And surely had the declaration made concerning Christ in the Third Gene●●●… been in the Account of the Scriptures a Covenant or Promise of him to Adam c. I should much admire that the Apostle would insist so highly as he doth on the being of the Promise of Salvation by Christ for but some hundreds of years before the Law when had this been so he might have insisted on thousands and the Apostle Peter dates the Covenant of Grace from Abraham Act. 2. 25 26. and before him the Psalmist Psal 105. 8 9 42. But secondly on supposal that it had pleased God to transact with Adam or any of the old Fathers before Abraham in way of Covenant and Promise for grace Eternal Life and Salvation yet that Covenant and Promise could not be the Covenant of Abraham in which it pleased God to Promise to be a God to him particularly and to his Seed after him For the Covenant of Abraham could not be before Abraham himself existed And therefore seeing the believing Gentiles do not claim Eternal Life and Salvation from by and under Adam or any other of the Antient Fathers before Abraham nor by vertue of any Covenant Transaction that hath passed between God and them or any of them but only from by and under Abraham by vertue of the Covenant of Promise made with him It is as clear that the Termes Conditions and Methods on and in which it pleased God to transact with all or any of those old Fathers be those termes and methods any whatever they are nothing to us as that the Termes Conditions and Methods he is pleased to transact upon with Abraham in the Covenant of Promise are all in all to us That is in plain English That it is nothing in the least to us believing Gentiles whether the Fathers before the Flood or after the Flood before Abraham were in Covenant or not in Covenant were signed or not signed seeing we claim not from by and under them as Heirs to them but it is much to us on what Termes it pleased God to transact and deal with Abraham and under what Conditions and with what duties Abraham did receive the Covenant and Promise whether himself and his must be signed or not signed seeing it is from by and under him and by vertue of the Covenant of Promise made with him that we do claim and hold And surely if we do claim and hold in by and under Abraham by the Deed and Charter made to him we must also claim and hold as he did under the Duties and Conditions in that Deed and Charter and now is it not to deny the Conclusion after Concession of the Premises for you to deny Believers and their Children must be signed when yet you do acknowledge they are under Abrahams Covenant which as I have proved requires such signing Ay! but you will say the Patriarchs were in the Covenant of Grace before Abraham all as much as we and yet signing had no use among them and therefore the Incumbence and Obligation to sign and to be signed by vertue of the Covenant being founded not on the substance of it but on the Administration cannot be Immutably and everlastingly the same And indeed it must be acknowledged that signing was not in use among the Fathers before Abraham at least not in the Account of the Scriptures the Scriptures being deeply silent touching any such thing but then the Scripture is as silent touching any Covenant transaction made with those Fathers as it is touching signing by vertue of such a Covenant So that you are too positive Sir and without Book to affirm them as much in Covenant as we and their Children as Holy by vertue of a Covenant transaction as ours But supposing though not granting a Covenant transaction to have passed between God and the Fathers before Abraham for Grace Eternal Life and Salvation through the Messiah and supposing also no signing by vertue of that Covenant for all that space of time which however on supposal there was such a Covenant is a hardness to think yet in regard that Covenant could not be the Covenant of Abraham though there was no signing then the Obligation to sign and to be signed by vertue of the Covenant of Abraham which as I have shewed doth indispensibly and necessarily require it is as Immutably and Everlastingly the same and in the same Scriptural Sence as the very Covenant it self is so It is for Everasting though not from Everlasting it is Everlasting à Parte Post though not à Parte ante I will Establish my Covenant between me and thee and thy Seed after thee in their Generations for an Everlasting Covenant c. Everlasting not a parte ante as from Everlasting for before Abraham was this Covenant could not be between God and Abraham to be a God to him and to his Seed after him and therefore it must be understood a parte post as a Covenant to Everlasting And in this sence the Obligation and Duty of the Covenant is as capable of being Everlasting as the Covenant it self which was the third particular to be demonstrated What I have discoursed already might justly supersede any further answer to what you offer in the following Paragraph about the Church Membership of Infants on occasion of my saying that the Church is one though the Testaments be not and that Children were Members not only of the Legal but of the Gospel Church and that for above Four Hundred Years before the Law It being Gospel that was Preached to Abraham for you say on that occasion that the Gospel was Preached too to Adam at the time that he was told that the Seed of the woman should break the head of the Serpent But I have proved that it was not told as you express it to Adam but to the Serpent as being spoken not by way of Promise to the one but of denunciation of a Sentence on the other nor in the Account of the Scriptures was the Gospel Preached to Abel Enoch Noah c. nor were they in the Account of the Scriptures in and under any Covenant of Grace for Eternal Life and Salvation much less in and under the same Covenant with believing Abraham and his true Seed The Covenant of Grace in the Promise of the Messiah for Salvation and Eternal Life being in the Account of the Scriptures first transacted with believing Abraham and no otherwise And here by the way observe as a matter of no small moment that Almighty God did no sooner in the Account of the Scriptures transact with man in way of Covenant for Eternal Life and