Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	good_a	work_n	work_v	6,969	5	7.2984	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85440	A state of glory for spirits of just men upon dissolution, demonstrated. A sermon preached in Pauls Church Aug. 30. 1657. before the Rt. Honourable the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the City of London. / By Tho: Goodvvin, D.D. president of Magd. Coll. Oxon.	Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.	1657 (1657)	Wing G1257; Thomason E928_2; ESTC R202319	40,336	72

filled with when severed from your bodies Who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit §. We Preachers have it in use as to alledge proofs of Scripture for the points or subjects we handle So to give Reasons or Demonstrations of them And so doth our Apostle here of this great point he had been treating of and such Reasons or Demonstrations run often upon Harmony and Congruity of one Divine Thing or Truth kissing another Also upon Becomingnesses or Meetnesses that is what it becometh the great God to do For instance In giving an account why God in bringing many sons to glory did choose to effect it by Christs death rather than any other way It became him sayes he Heb. 2. 10. For whom are all things and by whom are all things c. And so in the point of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. 21. Since by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead that is it was congruous harmonious it should thus be the one answering correspondently to the other The like congruity will be found couched here in Gods bringing souls to glory afore that resurrection Now there are two sorts of harmonious Reasons couched in the fore-part of these words He that wrought us for this is God I. That it is Finis operis operntis The End of the Work it self upon us and of God as an Efficient working for an End God hath wrought on us for this very thing II. It is Opus Dignum Deo Authore A Work as he is the great God and as a thing worthy and becoming of God as the Author of it He that hath wrought us for this thing is GOD There is a third point to be superadded and that is It is the Interest of all three Persons Which how clearly evidenced out of the Text will appear when I have dispatched these former Doctrines I. Doctrine That it is a strong Argument that God hath provided a Glory for separate Souls hereafter That He hath wrought us and wrought on us a Work of Grace in this life Ere the Reason of this will appear I must first open three things natural to the words which will serve as materials out of which to make forth that Argument First that the Thing here said to be wrought is Grace or Holiness which is a preparation unto Glory 1. Grace is the Work And so Phil. 1. 6. termed The good Work A frame of Spirit created to good Works Eph. 2. 10. We are his Workmanship created unto good Works The Text here sayes Who hath wrought us There similarly We are his WORKMANSHIP And 2. Secondly this Work is a preparation to Glory For for one thing to be first wrought in order to another is a preparation thereunto Now saith the Text He hath wrought us for this thing and Rom. 9. 23. it is in terminis The vessels of Mercy which he had AFORE PREPARED TO GLORY which was by working Holiness for it follows ver. 24. Even us whom he hath called Likewise Col. 1. 12. Who hath MADE us MEET to be partakers of the inheritance of the SAINTS in light Meet by making us Saints So then Had prepared Hath made Meet is all one with Who hath wrought us for this thing Here The second what is the principal Subject wrought upon or prepared and made meet for Glory 'T is certainly the Soul in analogie to the phrase here We use to say when we speak of our Conversion Since my soul was wrought on And though the Body is said to be sanctified 1 Thess. 5. 23. yet the immediate subject is the Soul and that primitively originally the Body by derivation from the Soul And hence it is the Soul when a man dies carries with it all the Grace by inherency All flesh is grass which withers that is the Body with all the appurtenances saith Peter 1 Epist. c. 1. v. 24. But you having purified your Souls being born again of incorruptible seed our Bodies are made of corruptible seed which is the opposition there by the Word of God which lives and abides for ever And this is the Word he sayes he means which by the Gospel is preached every day unto you ver. 25. and by preaching is engrafted in your Souls purifying your Souls ver. 22. In no other subject doth that Word as preached for ever abide For the Body rots and in the grave hath not an inherent but a relative Holiness such as the Episcopal Brethren would have to be in Churches consecrated by them because once it was the Temple of the Holy Ghost who dwells in us And that it is the Soul the Apostle hath here in his eye in this discourse of his in my Text as that which he intends the Subject here wrought upon appears if we consult the Well-head of his discourse about the Soul which is the 16 ver. of the 4 Chap. Our inward man sayes he is renewed c. there is your wrought upon here whilst the outward the Body perisheth Which Soul in being call'd the inward man connotates at once both Grace and the Soul conjuct together and distinct from the Body as well as from Sin and Corruption Elswhere it is declared the subject first and originally wrought on Eph. 4. 23. Be renewed in the Spirit of your mindes Look round about the Text and what is the US wrought on plainly this Inward man by the Coherence afore and after Ask ver. 1. If our earthly tabernacle that is our Body be dissolved WE have c. that is This inner man our Souls have for the Body is supposed dissolved So likewise ver. 4. WE in this tabernacle that is our Souls in these Bodies More expresly after ver. 8. our very Souls not onely whilst in our Bodies but when separate from our Bodies have the WE given them We are willing to be absent from the body and present with the Lord The We present with the Lord and absent from the Body is nor can be no other than a separate Soul in its estate of widowhood And so here ver. 5. Hath wrought US The Soul bears the Person carries away the Grace with it Add to this the Time here specified in the Text in which we are wrought upon It is but this life and during the term thereof Hath wrought us sayes the Apostle not in the future Who shall work us for it That hath wrought referring to the work of Conversion at the first Who HATH MADE us meet to be partakers c. Col. 1. 12. and who doth continue still to work us the Preterperfect being often put by the Apostle for the Present God renewing the inner man DAY BY DAY Chap. 4. 16. So working upon it in order to this self-same thing continually Unto which words there these here have an evident aspect yet so as that time of working is but during this life For it is whilst the outward man is mouldring and that by afflictions which during this moment work an

God did import and carry this with it That he had provided this estate for them at their death even an heavenly and that otherwise as the Apostle glosseth upon it he had not come up unto the amplitude of nor filled full this convenanted Engagement and Profession of HIS BEING THEIR GOD Will you have it in plain English as we speak if he had not made this provision for their souls he would have been ashamed to have been called their God thus deeply doth this oblige him That he is our God and Father which is the point in hand And judge of this in the light of all that Reason we have hitherto carried along and again let this inference of the Apostle mutually serve to confirm us in all that Reason For poor Abraham to be driven out of his own Country by God who called him to his foot and said no more but as a Master to his Servant Take your Cloke and follow me who must presently without more ado trig and foot it after his Master as Isa 41. 2. and then to live a stranger in the Land of Promise upon the faith that God would be his God which faith in him was also to cease when he came to die If this God in this case should not have taken care to answer his faith in some greater way in stead of the possession of Canaan and that after upon his being turned out of that Country too which he sojourned in during this life if God had not provided another House or Country or City for his soul that was to live to bring it into when it should be deprived of all in this world The Apostle tells us God in this case would have been ashamed to have been called his God which now having provided so abundantly for him upon dying there is superabundant cause to say God is not ashamed for that is a diminutive implying That he infinitely exceedeth that their expectation could be supposed to be Let us but view the force of this inference of the Apostles and so of all the reasonings hitherto read But according to man or what is found amongst men and God will be sure infinitely to surpass men in his ways of favour Take an ordinary friend if his friend be turn'd out of house and home plundred banished driven out of all as the Steward in that Parable Luk. 16. was and comes to his friend at midnight as in that other Parable Luk. 11. 5 6. will not his friends entertain him into their houses as ver. 9. of Luke 16. yea and rise at midnight to do it as ver. 5 6. in that Parable of Luke 11. shall profession of friendship engage and oblige men to do this and shall not Gods professing himself to be our God Father Friend engage his heart much more Nay will he not so entertain them as shall exceed all wonderment What need I say more than this Wherefore He is not ashamed to be called their God He will therefore give you an entertainment that shall be worthy of his being your God The fifth and last Consideration is That these separate Souls having done and finish'd all their work that in order to glory God hath appointed them for ever to do they now at death appear afore him as a JUDGE AND REWARDER And that is the fifth Relation moving God to bestow at this season such a glory on them How that then the Soul returns to God you have heard again again out of Eccl. 12. 7. and that it is upon the account of his being the Judge thereof at the end of their work in this life The Chaldee Paraphrase hath long since glossed upon it It returns to God that it may stand in Judgement afore Him In this life it came unto God by faith as the Apostle speaks believing that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him and now at the end of its faith it comes unto God for the reward of its faith as some interpret that 1 Pet. 1. 9. which we so largely have insisted on This is certain That in that Promise to Abraham To be his God he intended and included his being to him an exceeding great reward And so we come to connect this fifth Head with the fore-going And therefore if the being his God moved him to prepare that City against his death as hath been said Then surely his being his Reward doth also then take place I shall not omit it because it falls in the next Chapter Heb. 12. 23. that in that stupendious Assembly of Heaven God the Judge of all is mentioned between the Church of the first-born which are written in heaven this afore and the Spirits of justified men made perfect this after it For there are none of these first-born or the Spirits of just men do come to sit down there but they pass the award of this Judge first for they sit down by him and surely having done all their work in the time of that day is allotted to each man to work in it is a righteous thing with God to give them a Reward in the evening of this day which is Christs time set for rewarding and it is the twelfth and last hour succeeding the eleventh of the day Matth. 20. 6 9. compared which is when the night of death comes Now there is a Law given by God that the wages to a man hired should be given him by him that set him awork in his day that is says the Septuagint the very same day so as his work or the wages of his work abide not with thee all the night untill the morning says God Deut. 24. 15. Did God take care for hirelings when their work was done not to stay any space of time no not a night and doth he not fulfil this himself unto his Sons that serve him Surely yes he defers not nor puts them off to the morning of the Resurrection as the Psalmist elegantly calls it Psal. 17. last It abides not with him all that dark and long some night or space after death in which their bodies rest in the grave which is termed Mans long home and The days of darkness are many says Solomon no he rewards them in the evening of the day besides what he will adde to it in the morning It is observable that Rev. 6. 9 10. concerning the separate Souls slain for Christ that whilst they cry for Justice on their enemies only And when he had opened the fifth Seal I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held And they cried with a loud voice saying How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth that they had white robes given them to quiet them in the mean time ver. 11. And white robes were given unto every one of them and it was said