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	trinity_n	7,211	5	10.1332	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26695	A sure guide to heaven, or, An earnest invitation to sinners to turn to God in order to their eternal salvation shewing the thoughtful sinner what he must do to be saved / by Joseph Alleine.	Alleine, Joseph, 1634-1668.	1688 (1688)	Wing A977; ESTC R28088	129,275	198

mayst have disgorged a troublesome fin that will not sit in thy stomach and have escaped those gross pollutions of the world and yet not have changed thy swinish nature all the while 2 Pet. 2 20. 22. You may cast the lead out of the rude mass into the more comely proportion of a plant and then into the shape of a beast and thence into the form and features of a man but all the while it is but lead still So a man may pass thro' divers transmutations from ignorance to knowledge from profaneness to civility thence to a form of Religion and all this while he is but carnal and unregenerate while his nature remains unchanged Application Hear then O sinners hear as you would live so come and ●ear Isa. 55. 3. Why would you so wilfully deceive your selves or build your hopes upon the sand I know he shall find hard work of it that goes to pluck away your hopes It cannot but be ungrateful to you and truly it is not pleasing to me I set about it as a Surgeon when to cut off a putrified Member from his well Beloved friend which of force he must do but with an aking heart a pitiful eye a trembling hand But understand me Brethren I am only taking down the ruinous house which will otherwise speedily fall of it self and bury you in the rubbish that I may build fair and strong and firm for ever The hope of the wicked shall perish if God be true of his word Prov. 11. 7. And wert not thou better O sinner to let the word convince thee now in time and let go thy false and self-deluding hopes than to have death too late to open thine eyes and find thy self in hell before thou art aware I should be a false and faithless Shepherd if I should not tell you that you who have built your hopes upon no better grounds than these forementioned are yet in your sins Let your conscience speak what is it that you have to plead for your selves Is it that you wear Christ's livery that you bear his name that you are of the visible Church that you have knowledge in the Points of Religion are civilized perform religious duties are just in your dealings have been troubled in conscience for your sins I tell you from the Lord these pleas will never be accepted at God's Bar. All this though good in it self will not prove you converted and so will not suffice to your salvation Oh look about you and bethink your selves of turning speedily and soundly Set to praying and to reading and studying your own hearts rest not till God hath made thorough work with you for you must be other men or else you are lost men But if these be short of Conversion what shall I say of the profane sinner It may be he will scarce cast his Eyes or lend his Fars to this discourse But if there be any such reading or within hearing he must know from the Lord that made him that he is far from the Kingdom of God. May a man be civilized and not converted where then shall the Drunkard and Glutton appear May a man keep company with the wise Virgins and yet be shut out Shall not a companion of fools much more be destroyed Prov. 13. 20. May a man be true and just in his dealing and yet not be justified of God What then will become of thee O wretched man whose conscience tells thee thou art false in thy trade and false of thy word and makest thy advantage by a lying tongue If men may be enlightned and brought to the performance of holy duties and yet go down to perdition for resting in them and sitting down on this side of conversion what will become of you O miserable families that live as without God in the world and of you O wretched sinners with whom God is scarce in all your thoughts that are so ignorant that you cannot or so careless that you will not pray O repent and be converted break off your sins by righteousness away to Christ for pardoning and renewing grace give up your selves to him to walk with him in holiness or else you shall never see God. Oh that you would take the warnings of God! In his name I once more admonish you Turn you at my reproof Prov. 1. 23. Forsake the foolish and live Prov. 9. 6. Be sober righteous godly Tit. 2. 12. Wash your hands you sinners purifie your hearts ye double minded Iames 4. 8. Cease to do evil learn to do well Isa. 1. 16 17. But if you will on you must die Ezek. 33. 11. Chap. II. Shewing positively what Conversion is I May not leave you with your eyes half open as he that saw men as trees walking Mark 8. 24. The word is profitable for Doctrine as well as reproof 2 Tim. 3. 16. And therefore having thus far conducted you by the shelves and rocks of so many dangerous mistakes I would guide you at length into the Harbour of truth Conversion then in short lies in the thorow change both of the heart and life I shall briefly describe it in its nature and causes 1. The Author it is the spirit of God and therefore it is called the sanctification of the spirit 2. Thes. 2. 13. and the renewing of the holy Ghost Tit. 3. 5. Yet not excluding the other Persons in the Trinity For the Apostle ●eacheth us to bless the father of our Lord Jesus Christ for that he hath begotten us again 1 Pet. 1. 3. and Christ is said to give repentance to Israel Acts 5. 31. and is called the everlasting Father Isa. 9. 6. and we his seed and the Children which God hath given him Heb 2. 13. Isa. 53. 10. O blessed Birth Seven Cities contended for the Birth of Homer but the whole Trinity fathers the new creature Yet is this work principally ascribed to the Holy Ghost and so we are said to be born of the Spirit Iob. 3. 8. So then it is a work above man's power We are born not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God Iohn 1. 13. Never think thou canst convert thy self If ever thou wouldst be saveingly converted thou must despair of doing it in thine own strength Ier. 13. 18. It is a Resurrection from the dead Rev. 20. 5. Eph. 2. 1. a new creation Gal. 6. 15. Eph. 2. 10. a work of absolute omnipotency Eph. 1. 19. Are these out of the reach of humane power If thou hast no more than thou hadst by thy first birth a good nature a meek and chast temper c. thou art a very stranger to true Conversion This is a supernatural work 2. The moving Cause is Internal or External The Internal mover is only free grace Not by works of righteousness which we have done But of his own mercy he saved us by the renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3. 5. Of his own will begat he us Iam. 1. We are chosen and called

Jesus Christ Acts 4. 12. Thou must unlearn t●y self and renounce thine own wisdom thine own righteousness thine own strength and throw thy self wholly upon Christ as a man that swimmeth casteth himself upon the water or else thou canst not escape While men trust in themselves and establish their own righteousness and have confidence in the flesh they will not come savingly to Christ Luke 18. 9. Phil. 3. 3. Thou must know thy gain to be but loss and dung thy strength but weakness thy righteousness rags and rottenness before there will be an effectual closure between Christ and thee Phil. 3. 7 8 9. 2 Cor. 3. 5. Isa. 64. 6. Can the lifeless carcass shake off its grave cloths and loose the bonds of death Then mayst thou recover thy self who art dead in trespasses and sins and under an impossibility of serving thy Maker acceptably in this condition Rom. 8. 8. Heb. ●1 6. Therefore when thou goest to pray or meditate or to do any of the duties to which thou art here directed go out of thy self call in the help of the Spirit as despairing to do any thing pleasing to God in thine own strength Yet neglect not thy duty but lie at the pool and wait in the way of the Spirit While the Eunuch was reading then the Holy Ghost sent Philip to him Acts 8. 28 29. when the Disciples were praying Acts 4. 31. when Cornelius and his friends were hearing Acts 10. 44. then the Holy Ghost fell upon them and filled them all Strive to give up thy self to Christ Strive to pray strive to meditate strive an hundred and an hundred times try to do it as well as thou canst and while thou art endeavouring in the way of thy duty the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee and help thee to do what of thy self thou art utterly unable unto Prov. 1. 23. Direct V. Forthwith renounce all thy sins If thou yield thy self to the contrary practice of any sin thou art undone Rom. 6. 17. in vain dost thou hope for life by Christ except thou d●part from iniquity 2 Tim. 2. 19. Forsake thy sins or else thou canst not find mercy Prov. 28. 13. Thou canst not be married to Christ except divorced from sin Give up the Traitor or you can have no peace with Heaven Cast the head of Sheba over the wall Keep not Dalilah in thy lap Thou must part with thy sins or with thy soul. Spare but one sin and God will not spare thee Never make excuses thy sins must die or thou must die for them Psal. 68. 21. If thou allow of one sin though but a little a secret one though thou may'st plead necessity and have a hundred shifts and excuses for it the life of thy soul must go for the life of that sin Ezek. 18. 21. and will it not be dearly bought O sinner hear and consider If thou wilt part with thy sins God will give thee his Christ Is not this a fair exchange I testifie unto thee this day that if thou perish it is not because there was never a Saviour provided nor life tendred but because thou preferredst with the Jews the Murderer before thy Saviou● sin before Christ and lovedst darkness rather than light Iohn 3. 19. Search thy heart therefore with Candles as the Jews did their Houses for Leaven before the Passover Labour to find out thy sins enter into thy Closet and consider What evil have I lived in What duty have I neglected towards God What sin have I lived in against my Brother And now strike the darts through the heart of thy sin as I●ab did through Absalom's 2 Sam. 18. 14. Never stand looking upon thy sin nor rolling the morsel under thy tongue Iob 20. 11. but spit it out as poyson with fear and detestation Alas what will thy sins do for thee that thou shouldst stick at parting with them They will flatter thee but they will undo thee and cut thy throat while they smile upon thee and poyson thee while they please thee and arm the justice and wrath of the infinite God against thee They will open Hell for thee and pile up fuel to burn thee Behold the Gibbet that they have prepared for thee Oh serve them like Haman and do upon them the Execution they would else have done upon thee Away with them crucifie them and let Christ only be Lord over thee Direct VI. Make a solemn choice of God for thy portion and blessedness Deut. 26. With all possible devotion and veneration avouch the Lord for thy God. Set the world with all its glory and paint and gallantry with all its pleasures and promotions on the one hand and set God with all his infinite excellencies and perfections on the other and see that thou do deliberately make thy choice Iosh. 24. 15. Take up thy rest in God Iob. 6. 68. Set thee down under his shadow Cant. 2. 3. Let his promises and perfections turn the scale against all the world Settle it upon thy heart that the Lord is an all-sufficient portion that thou canst not be miserable while thou hast a God to live upon take him for thy shield and exceeding great reward God alone is more than all the world Content thy self with him Let others carry the preferments and glory of the world place thou thy happiness in his favour and the light of his countenance Psal. 4. 6 7. Poor sinner thou art fallen off from God and hast engaged his power and wrath against thee Yet know that of his abundant grace he doth offer to be thy God again in Christ 2 Cor. 6. 17 18. What sayest thou man Wilt thou have the Lord for thy God Why take this counsel and thou shalt have him Come to him by his Christ Ioh. 14. 6. Renounce the Idols of thine own pleasures gain reputation 1 Thes. 1. 9. Let these be pulled out of the Throne and set Gods interest uppermost in thine ●eare Take him as God to be chief in thine affections estimations intentions for he will not endure to have any set above him Rom. 1. 24 Psal. 73. 25. In a word thou must take him in all his Personal Relations and in all his Essential Perfections First In all his Personal Relations God the Father must be taken for thy Father Ier. 3. 4 19 22. O come to him with the Prodigal Father I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight and am not worthy to be called thy Son but since of thy wonderful mercy thou art pleased to take me● that am of my self a dog a swine a devil to be thy child I solemnly take thee for my Father commend my self to thy care and trust to thy providence and cast my burden on thy shoulders I depend on thy provision and submit to thy corrections and trust under the shadow of thy wings and hide in thy chambers and ●ly to thy name I renounce all confidence in my self I repose my confidence in thee I depose my concernments with