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
B05829	Certain select cases resolved. Specially, tending to the right ordering of the heart, that we may comfortably walk with God in our general and particular callings. / By Thomas Shephard, sometimes of Emanuel College in Cambridge; now preacher of Gods word in New-England.	Shephard, Thomas, 1605-1649.	1695 (1695)	Wing S3105A; ESTC R227738	42,314	125

his first root and so to sorrow and loath and condemn himself so that to wind up all that I have said look upon your self as in Christ you may say these involuntary infirmities do not shall not condemn me But Lord it is grace Grace that it is not so and this is Evangelical humiliation Look again upon your self as you stand on your own bottom and live in your own nature and so you may say after the least infirmity I have now broken a most holy and righteous Law and rherefore I am already condemned O woe is me I have already undone my self by mine iniquity and this is Legal humiliation which serves for mortification as the first for vification I know it is very difficult to bring the heart to acknowledg freely it deserves death after so small an involuntary offence but when the Lord reveals two things First himself in his glory Secondly how the least sin strikes him I perswade my self the vilest heart cannot but be forced to confess how just God should be in his severest proceedings against him And withal consider the more involuntary any sin is the more strong and natural it is and the more natural the more horrible as to be a natural Thief is far worse than to be a deliberat thief who somtimes steals and therefore good Sir take heed of looking no deeper nor seeing no further than the bare act and unvoluntariness and accidentalness and suddenness of your infirmities for if you do you look through the wrong end of the glass and they will appear so small that you will find it a very tough work to bring your heart consentively to say if I may say and use your own phrase It is thy mercy Lord that I am not consumed for them but look upon them as indeed they are in respect of that infinite glory you strike doing the greatest mischiefs to God by them and which makes them the viler as they are so strong you cannot remove them and so horrible as that it is natural to you to commit them c. And surely you will not through grace find such thoughts haunt you long not but that they will be haply rising and tempting but never alway vexing and prevailing Ans Satans ground reaching as far as the minds of Gods people and therefore so far he may come and there he may walk for he came into the mind of innocent Adam nay Jesus Christ by his suggesting temptations but the heart is Christs peculiar possession and purchase and if he shall still there offer to come in and vex you and prevail against you and to lodge his suggestions this or any other way with you you have Law and Christ on your side by this little light now given you to cast him out Quest 3. The third thing that troubles you is the dis-ranking of the Persons in the Trinity for tho' you think the holy Ghost is God yet you have not so high a repute of him as of the Father and the Son because the Son addresseth himself to God the Father in all his prayers and acknowledgmenrs in a more immediate manner than unto the holy Ghost and therefore you would know if the word Father as in the Lords Prayer includes not the Unity in Trinity To this briefly consider three things 1. Without all question the same God which lies under that relative property of Father is the same God with the God-head of the Son and the God-head of the holy Ghost there being not three Gods and therefore the God-head of the Son and Spirit are not excluded but included in the God-head of the Father when we look upon the Father as God in the Lords Prayer or any where else 2. But secondly the Father as Father is never taken for the same holy Ghost in Scripture nor the Son as Son is taken for the Father nor the holy Ghost as holy Ghost is at any time taken for the Son For it is a rule in Theologie tho' the res substrata the thing that lies under the Relative property viz. the God-head of every person be common and communicated yet the same God-head considered as clothed with his Relative property as Father Son and Spirit it is not common but peculiar For the God-head of the Father as Fathet is not the God-head of the Son as Son c. 3. Hence it follows that when Christ addresseth himself to the Father as Father in Scripture it is not because he is either a diverse or greater God than the holy Ghost but it is for two other reasons 1. Because the Father as Father received primarily the wrong that sin did against his work of creation for the Father being the first person in order creation the first transcient act as election and reprobation were the best immanent hence this work is attributed chiefly to God the Father in respect of our orderly apprehension and hence man sinning then when he was only made this is chiefly attributed to be against the Father because his work appeared to be chiefly there and not against the Son for his work chiefly appears in redemption he being the second Person and this the second main and wonderful work neither against the holy Ghost for his work chiefly appears to us in application being the third Person And this the third main act that ever God will do or show forth to the world in this life hence God the Father receiving to our apprehension the wrong in creation by sin he is the Person that is to be satisfied and not the holy Ghost And hence Jesus Christ in all his prayers has a most special eye to him and not to the holy Ghost as holy Ghost because he came into the world by his death and intercession and strong cries to satisfie God the Father and not God the holy Ghost as a third Person And hence it is said 1 John 2. 1 2. If any sin we have an Advocate with God the Father not God the holy Ghost because he was to our apprehension the Person wronged and hence we are after sins committed chiefly to eye the Father in our prayers and to go to him for pardon with our advocate with us because to whom offence is chiefly offered from him chiefly pardon and reconciliation is to be expected 2. Therefore Christ addresseth himself chiefly in his prayers to God the Father because he is the original and first cause of all good because he is the first Person in order of subsisting and therefore first too in the manner of conveying I know the God-head is the original of all good but consider the Persons one with another and so the Father is ever the first in operation as the holy Ghost is the last in consummation for all good comes from the Father James 1. 17. through the Son by the holy Ghost And hence in all our prayers we are to look for all good from the Father for his Sons sake to be conveyed us by the holy Ghost

present I have no books about me where I am and therefore cannot satisfie you in this neither know I when I shall seek to find out the book and place If I have leisure I will either write to you or tell some of your friends before I am gone what he hath said or writ that way c. Quest 3. Again thirdly You desire me to tell you how my self came to the cure of Atheistical Thoughts and whether they did wear out or whether they were rationally overthrown Answ I answer at first they did wear out meeting with fruitless and dead-hearted company which was at the University 2. The Lord awakened me again and bid me beware lest an old sore broke out again and this I found that strength of reason would commonly convince my understanding that there was a God but I felt it utterly insufficient to perswade my will of it unless it was by fits whenas I thought Gods Spirit moved upon the Chaos of those horrible thoughts and this I think will be found a truth 3. I did groan under the bondage of those unbelieving thoughts looking up and sighing to the Lord that if he were as his works and word declared him to be he would be pleased to reveal himself by his own beams and perswade my Heart by his own Spirit of his Essence and Being which if he would do I shold account it the greatest mercy that ever he shewed me And after grievous and heavy perplexities when I was by them almost forced to make an end of my self and sinful life and to be mine own Executioner the Lord came between the bridge and the water and set me out of anguish of spirit as she prayed for a child to pray unto him for light in the midst of so great darkness In which time he revealed himself manifested his love stilled all those raging thoughts gave return in great measure of them so that tho' I could not read the Scripture without blasphemous thoughts before now I saw a glory a majesty a mystery a deprh in it which fully perswaded and which light I desire to speak it to the glory of his free grace seeing you call me to it is not wholly put out but remains while I desire to walk closely with him unto this day And thus the Lord opened mine eyes and cured me of this misery and if any such base thoughts come like Beggars to my door to my mind and put these scrupies to me I use to send them away with this answer Why shall I question that Truth which I have both known and seen Object But you say this remedy is good viz. of prayer but that you cannot use it especially because you question the truth of God Answ Yet dear Sir give not over this Trade you will doubtless find it gainful when it may be God hath laden you more with these thoughts and made you loath your self for them But the thing seems strange to me if I mistake you not viz. that your heart will not be perswaded but that you must resolve your doubts concerning the perfection of Scripture not by seeking to harmonize those passages that seem to cross one another but by ascribing some humanity or error if I may interpret you to the pen-men seeing St. Paul saith We prophesie but in part and seeing one of the Evangelists leaves out the doxology in the Lords prayer Sir if you can take these thoughts arising from these the like grounds as your burden I do not blame you but pity you in that respect but if your judgment indeed think so I am sorry you should harbour such thoughts one hour within doors for you know that holy men writ the Scriptures but so far they might err but it is added as they were inspired or as the Original has it as they were moved or carried in the arms of the holy Ghost and so how could they err how could God lie It is true Paul did prophesie but in part and is this an argument because he did not prophesie fully therefore in some things he did not prophesie truly I am perswaded you will say there are many things my poor thoughts have suggested to you as true and yet I am perswaded I do in them prophesie if I may so say but in part The Spirit of God directed the four Evangelists to write yet so as they did not all write what another writ but in great wisdom left some things doubtful and short in one which are more clear and full in another and hence the Doxologie is fully set down in one and not in another and many reasons I could set you down why but that it is needless I grant you ought not to put up all with a charitable opinion of Scripture but if you can by reason reading and comparing help your heart to a full perswasion this is Scripture but many things you cannot get satisfaction for by that way and means but still your Spirit will be left dark and doubtful What course will you here take for resolution which is Scripture The Papists say it is so because the Church has christened it for Scripture you say you will see reason for it that it is so or else you cannot be satisfied then I fear you will never be sarisfied I think In this case therefore these two things you are to do 1. To go to God by prayer to give you a resolution of all your doubts and by some means or other some light to see whether this is his word or not Secondly if this be his word then he would perswade your heart of it that it is so For the least resolution which is Scripture and which is not is made by the same perswasion and sole perswasion of the same Spirit that writ the Scripture Concerning the Angels that appeared to Mary see Gerard and he briefly I think will satisfie you in your answer to the particular scurples about the Scripture sense and the dissonancy of them Only this I will add to the last clause about these things that if the Scripture be inspired by the holy Ghost that not in the sum and substance of it but to every word and sentence of it which I think you will not doubt of when you have considered it then I think it will undeniably follow that the same Spirit of truth is also a Spirit of order and hence the method of various penning of it is from the Spirit too which you say you stick at Answ 2. Again to your third thing concerning your spirit being burthened with involuntary infirmities as burdens but not as sins I say nothing now because I preceive by one part of your reply that the Lord has done you some good by the first answer only it is your grief you cannot fear them nor condemn your self for them as damning sins For satisfaction of which I hope this reply to your second trouble will give you some satisfaction Quest 4. Again to your fourth