Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	gospel_n	law_n	life_n	7,267	5	5.2543	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85829	A mistake, or misconstruction, removed. (Whereby little difference is pretended to have been acknowledged between the Antinomians and us.) And, Free grace, as it is held forth in Gods Word, as wel by the prophets in the Old Testament, as by the apostles and Christ himself in the New, shewed to be other then is by the Antinomian party in these times maintained. In way of answer to some passages in a treatise of Mr. John Saltmarsh, concerning that subject. / By Thomas Gataker, B. of Divinity and pastor of Rotherhith.	Gataker, Thomas, 1574-1654.	1646 (1646)	Wing G323; Thomason E333_22; ESTC R200760	44,396	50

h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indebted is obliged to it as a debt as a duty for what is duty but du debt to walk as Christ walked to live as he lived But I wil insist onely upon Paul as zealous and as precise a preacher of free grace as ever any he albeit he affirm confidently that i Rom. 8.1 there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ yet he subjoyneth withall and that is I suppose a qalification at least k Ibid. who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and yet further a litle after l Verse 12. Therefore brethren we are m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 debtors we stand obliged and bound to it as a du debt if ever we look to be saved not to live after the flesh but as before he said to be thence supplied here to live after the Spirit and that this is his meaning and it is in nature of a condition on mans part reqired it is apparent by what followes n Verse 13. For if ye live after the flesh ye shal die but if by the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shal live Which tho it be pure Gospel and life even upon such terms propounded free grace for no Law ever promised life unto mortification of the flesh no more then the sight of God to such imperfect purity as our blessed Saviour above spake of yet if the Minister of Christ shall in these daies pres he shal not escape the odious and opprobrious brand of a deep and down-right Legalist Howbeit we need not be ashamed a whit of our teaching when we can vouch such precedents as these are for it in regard either of this or any the like aspersions or ignominious terms that presumptuous and self-conceited persons shal endeavor to fasten upon us and must light upon them as well as upon us who have in their teaching taken that cours before us and with whom if we must be deemed erroneous we shal not blush so to be but shal o Acts 5.41 esteem it p 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Casaub a grace to be disgraced with them and for doing as they did To draw all to a hed if the Gospel propound and promise pardon of sin and salvation q Pag. 126. without any condition at all as this Autor tels us required on our parts and all conditions and qalifications which he is so r Ocas word p. 5. Treatis p 22 29 97 188 198. c. oft girding at destroy the freenes of grace then neither John the Baptist nor Christ nor the Apostles of Christ from the ſ Matth. 10.2 first to the t 1 Cor. 15.8 last did any of them preach either Gospel or free grace and if the Gospel and free grace that this Autor and other his coasseriers of free grace hold out to us be such as admits not nor acknowledgeth any such conditions or qalifications as have been above-recited then we may boldly conclude that it is another Gospel and another free Grace then ever John or Christ or his Apostles preached But this Autor a Occasionall word p. 9. if he have erred in any thing he saith it is in filling out that Wine too freely which the Master of the feast if he mistake not hath bidden him saying Drink yea drink abundantly O beloved Can. 5. And b Treatise pag. 82. if he must erre he would erre rather with those that pas for Antinomians then with those that go for Legall Teachers c The latter in his Treatise because he mentioneth the other first the former whereof he must prefer before the latter for that they being jealous least free grace loose her du cry down men to exalt Christ whereas those other being jealous lest holines should be sleighted to exalt men cry down Christ and the danger here it seems therefore also he supposeth the lesse because d Occasionall word p. 2. Free grace can not of it self tempt any to sin Where first for the filling out of this Wine TOO freely let me advise him in sober sadnes to be wel advised what he doth and to take heed how he contract the guilt of so haynous an exces it is liqor too * 1 Pet. 1.19 precious to be wastfully spilt If the Master have choice Wine reserved for his reconciled friends that are willing tho before at ods yea at dedly fewd with him yet now to come in and entertain terms of amity with him and the servant shal pour out of it to dogs and swine e Matth. 7.6 or serv it out to sturdy rogues and idle vagrants at the dore such as either scorn and curs his Master or refuse all commerce and acqaintance with him tho invited thereunto because they like not his disposition nor can endure his demeanour I suppose such a servant would have litle thanks from his Master for his labour And had not this Autor clipt off the first words of the Text which he points us to for his warrant herein it would alone have been sufficient to check this his professed profusenes and have enformed him withall what manner of persons they are unto whom this Wine is to be dispensed Eat O friends f Cant. 5.1 saith he and drink yea drink abundantly O beloved But what speciall warrant by revelation or enthusiasm matters now a daies much pretended he may profes to have for this I know not Wel I wot and am sure that neither the place alledged nor any other Scripture the onely sure touchstone we have now to try truths by for the Spirit speakes not but according to it doth or can warrant much les enjoyn any such exorbitant exces either in this particular or in ought els 2. For the crying down of Christ it is a foul and fals calumny which together with many others of the same stamp this Autor here would fasten on the faithful Ministers of Christ men as jealous of and zealous for the honour of Christ their Master I may boldly say it for their labours shew it as himself 3. It is true indeed that Free grace cannot of it self have such an effect as he speakes of but this brother may remember what a zealous preacher as g Simon Judas surnamed the Cananite or Cannite Matth. 10.4 not of country but of condition or disposition from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 zealous the Zelote Luke 6.15 Canin de voc N.T. his name imports and assertor of Free grace telleth us that there are not wanting and those not a few that h Jude 4. turn Gods grace i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into wantonnes or lasciviousnes and men may preach and publish free grace in that manner that they may by such their preaching pave a path to that foule abuse which that many of our Antinomian tenents do is to me beyond controversie and I shal leave it to the consideration of others religious and judicious

matter as may give fuller satisfaction then they are as yet able to attain Nor is this a Page 29. to place them on the bottome of their own righteousnes as he injuriously chargeth it b Page 28. like the botome or point of a top as he is pleased to resemble it as if this were that which they perswaded men to rest on as that whereby the guilt of their sins were discharged and Gods justice satisfied which yet according to this mans principles was done in the the times of the old Testament when by such means as these Gods favour and pardon of sin was c Pag. 167. purchased as with a price but to give them assurance by d Rom. 8.23 the first fruits of the spirit bestowed on them and begun in them which the holy Ghost is pleased to call e 2 Cor. 1.12 5.5 Ephes 4.14 Gods earnests and the Seal of our redemption that they are of the number of those that have interest in Christ f Ephes 5.30 2 Cor. 1.22 by whom as freedom from Hel and the gvilt of sin so Heaven and happines is purchased for them But this wary man g Pag. 29. Dares not take this way for that is to take the disease for the Physitian and to give men no oyntment but blood of their own wound to heal them And so belike John did when he went this way to work as before was shewed h Ibid. Nor would be take that other way which many do that are of this legall strain too as to apply promises to them first which many times in steed of drawing the soul to Christ puts it further of bringing some conditions which the soul qestioning in themselves dares not meddle with before it be prepared by Christ and his freenes He might have said which mans corrupt and carnall heart until it be wrought upon by Gods Spirit and prepared by Christ who is said to i Acts 4.26 give as wel repentance as remission of sins yea first repentance and then remission of sins k Acts 5.21 to Israel and to bles them as wel by turning them away from their iniqities as by discharging them of the gvilt thereof is very loth to condescend unto and we therefore have invented a readier way and a shorter cut for them without all that ado But let them carry men on along so long as they please in a fools paradise unles the conditions that Gods Prophets for there is no new way to Heaven now but the same that ever was and Christs Apostles propound to all that look for salvation by Christ be performed there is little hope for any man to attain life eternall unles some other way can be discovered that the Word of God hath not But you see the man is humorous and very hard to please by any way that these Legall Teachers take tho never so consonant to Scripture And therefore altho that Peter when l Page 36. They in the Acts after he had laid open their sin of shadding the blood of Christ were prickt to the heart for it and being inwardly troubled and wounded said Men and brethren what shall we do m Acts 2.37 38 Exhorted them to repent yet these Legal Preachers when they take the like cours n Page 39. They run saith this Autor to the Law in their dealing with such souls for their thorow humiliation as they say or pretend for such sinister ends as before you heard and not to the Gospel and faith in Jesus Christ and who ever severs these and so o Ibid. bring fier and not water to quench them but kindle them the more and setting the everlasting burnings of the Law before their souls put them all into a spirituall flame and vexation And that he may not pretend that this is spoken but by way of supposition if they do so and so which yet the whole drift of his discours wil easily unmaske he telleth us a litle after in expresse terms that p Page 40. The Divinity of some former ages to these present times he knows it hath made up all their receipts for distempered souls of so much Law and so much Gospel and usually but a grain or dram of Gospel to a pound of Law not being cleer enough in judgement to unmingle things that Antichrist hath confounded and put together as the two Testaments and two Covenants and not rightly discerning Christs manner or way of preaching and the Apostles both in their holding out Law and Gospel Who belike then q Honey-comb c 7. p. 137. making a miscelan and mixture of the Law and the Gospel as Mr. Eaton saith of these Legalists preached neither good Law nor good Gospel but a miscelan and marring of both And we do no other now then they did But thus saith this Autor r Pag. 41. They would make the Law the ministery of life and of the Spirit being not of such a spiritual discerning as the Lord hath now reveiled Reveiled to whom think we but to himself and those of the Antinomian strain by some dream or enthusiasm sure it must be for not by the word which holds out that cours that the Legalists take pressing men upon repentance and sorrow for sin and humiliation which these men can not abide And I would gladly know of them whether of the two is ſ Matth. 7.13 1● the streit gate and the narrow way that leads to life and few list to take ours or theirs But saith this man t Ibid. Such put a soul upon a legall method of conversion or comming to Christ First they must be kept so long under the Law for humiliation and contrition and confession and then brought to the Gospell as many books and Teachers do Thus he describes the dealing of our Ministers with men for the bringing of them to repentance as if he were painting out some Popish Priest pressing men to shrift and putting them upon hard penance as ye shal anon heare him resembling their preaching remission of sins unto the penitent to the Popes giving out his pardons But that which follows is far wors u Pag. 37. Who like some Chirurgians that keep their Patients from healing too soon that they may make the cure the more admired do accordingly keep such souls with their wounds open and if they pour in any thing it is rather Wine then Oyl rather something of the Law then of the Gospel so as they are not onely long in healing and getting peace through Jesus Christ but they carry a scar with them still and are as it were lame in their consciences a long time after like some poor Patients that have had as much of the sound flesh cut away as the rotten and so have been healed tho but to a bodily infirmity all their life time And what is all this indeed but meer Mountebank practise to tell men that the Physitians and Chirurgeons they have formerly made use

theirs as also those i John 2.23 24. who tho they are said to believ in Christ yet Christ himself would not trust them and those vain k James 2.14 18 20. ones James speakes of that had a fruitles and baren faith Nor were this to aske the master of the feast whether his dainties were meer delusions or to make our blessed Saviour for he I suppose is the feast master he meaneth a sorcerer but to enqire whether we our selves have not been deluded when in some night vision such as the enthusiasts of our times too much hanker after we have with l Luciani Micyllus in Somnio sive Gallo Lucians sowter dreamed of a great feast and of such his dainties and of communion with him in them when as all hath been nothing but m Esay 29.7 8. a nightly delusion They did not qestion the truth of God that sought for wisdome whereby to discern between Gods messages brought by his Prophets and those n Jer. 23.25 26. dreamers dotages who yet pretended to be sent by God as wel as the best and would not stick to demand of Gods Prophets o 1 Kings 21.24 when the Spirit of God went from themselves to speak unto them Nor did the Apostle Paul when he called upon the Corinthians to p 2 Cor. 13.5 try their faith nor the Apostle John when he called on the faithful to q 1 John 4.1 try the Spirits whether they were of God or no thereby incite them to qestion Christ the foundation of faith or to qestion Gods Spirit the worker of it but to be wise and wary in discerning between truth and falshood between sound and unsound between faith wel grounded and deceitful fancies and groundles presumptions between teachers delivering the doctrine of life and grace according to the word and such as warping from that rule yet pretended to have the Spirit Tru it is indeed that mans weaknes in the apprehension of the work of Gods Spirit in him may make the truly godly without ground or good cause sometime to qestion the truth of it in them but there is no ground or just cause for any thence to infer that no man ought to qestion whether he believe or no or whether his faith be tru or no. every one otherwise should be bound to presume that he doth beleev and that his faith is tru faith For not to insist on that which we lately touched on that when the Apostle called upon some to try their faith he presumed that some such faith there was as would not go for currant but would proov r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unsound when it came to the touch or the test and when he useth more then once that discriminating term of ſ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 1.5 2 Tim. 1.5 faith not counterfeit or unfained he implies therein that there may be counterfeits and there are indeed not a few as of Christianity so of faith Not to insist hereon I say this Autor himself acknowledgeth that t Pag. 9. there may be a kind of faith as in them that believed in the parable and in time of temptation fell away and yet not in the power of Christ nor in the life of the Spirit and that u Pag. 8. such faith tho a ded faith may go far in resemblance carying the image of something like the new man and whether think we then is such faith to be questioned or no or wil this Autor say that for those that have such a faith to call their own faith in qestion is to qestion Christ himself But indeed according to this Autors ground there is no need for any man to qestion what manner of faith his faith is since that without any such ado whatsoever his faith be he may have interest in Christ For saith he 10. x Page 30. For the way of comming by a right or purchasing an interest in this righteousnes or salvation wrought by Christ it is held forth without price or works onely for taking and receiving and believing on all being wrought to our hands so as this is as good a ground for one to believ on as another without exception y Pag. 153. the covenant being such as was established with Noah Gen. 9.11 nothing reqired on mans part and z Pag. 30. this being a Scripture way he would upon these principles leav a soul Where to set aside his terms of purchase and price as if ought in that kind were by any of us attributed to faith or repentance or any work of ours and yet herein he contradicteth himself when he telleth us one while that salvation is held out a Pag. 24 30. freely by the Prophet Esay in that phrase without price and yet an another while that b Pag. 167. all the ministery of the Prophets did run in this strain as if Gods love were to be had in way of purchase by duty and doing Nor to resume again what hath been formerly said of believing and receiving another manner of matter then this man makes of them And that the like may be charged on him to that he chargeth upon the Legalists to wit c Pag. 29. propounding to men the promises of the Gospel with such conditions of repentance d Pag. 19.21 27 and sorrow for sin c. which because they are things that they e Page 27. can not do f Pag. 29. in steed of drawing a soul unto Christ put it further of from him for may it not as wel be objected to him as it is by him to them that he professeth indeed to make an offer of free grace and free promises but he propounds them so clogged with conditions of receiving and taking believing on that these being such as men are not able to do of themselvs g Ibid. they dare not medale with them until they be prepared by Christ Unles this Autor can or dare say that men may and can believ on Christ tho they cannot repent of their sins or be sorry for them and that the one is an easier work then the other or is not of h Ephes 2.8 Gods gift and i Phil. 1.29 a work of grace as wel as k Acts 5.31 11 18. the other But not to insist on these things If there be as good ground for any one without exception to believ as another that is as he defines faith to perswade himself that Christ loves him and he hath a share in the salvation purchased by him why did not Peter exhort Simon the sorcerer to perswade himself so but bad him l Acts 8.22 23 repent and pray for pardon yea why doth he himself make distinction of persons saying d Pag. 57. I speak now to the weak and wounded believers for sins not to the carnall and unregenerate in sin Yea if the Covenant of the Gospel that is of life and salvation by Christ be

prosecute the direct contrary to that which at first himself propounded I remember to have read sometime a Catechisticall Treatise of one who in his Preface complained much of the variety of Catechisms ascribing the ignorance or non-proficiency at least of people hereunto that Teachers made use of many several Catechisms and kept not to that Common one publikely allowed to which for matter and method he gave the preeminence and yet himself at the same time together with that Preface set out such a form as differed more from that common one so highly by him commended thou the most of them ordinarily then in use did The very like doth this Autor In the Introduction to his Treatise he commends Peace to his Readers and wisheth the name Legal Teachers wholy laid down as a cours thereunto much conducing yet in the Treatise it self and the body of his Book he is ever and anon girding at our Ministers under the name of l Pag. 85. tru Legall Teachers and those m Pag. 82. that pas for Legall teachers and that n Pag. 2● are of a legall strain and that o Page 169. run in a legall way whom also he doth insolently and contumeliously not reprove onely but reproach as in part also hath already been shewed Indeed the truth is Mr. Eatons spirit seems to be in this man revived tho carying the matter somewhat more covertly and cunningly then he did For thoroughout this whole Treatise this is one principall mark and matter that his discours mainly drives at to tax and traduce to debase and disgrace the Ministery and manner of teaching of the most faithful painful famous and renowned servants of God as wel of these times as of former ages by whose pious labours and religious endeavours backed with Gods blessing an innumerable number of souls have been won and brought in To which purpose let these few ensuing passages among a multitude of others be observed p Pag. 71. The way of the Spirit is not so gros and carnall as the Divinity of former times and some of this present age would make it And why so but because they teach men by such signs and marks as they meet with in Gods Word and q Esay 59.21 the Word and Spirit I hope cros not but concur to try their spirituall estates For so afterward r Page 72. They that write so of a regenerate estate and set us down such infallible signes as we meet with commonly do take their experiences too low and carnally and mistake the allegory and way of the Word or Scriptures which speaks of things because of the infirmity of our flesh write upon Spirituall workings as Philosophers upon morall vertu and do bring down the Spirit into the Allegory and so allegorize and incarnate or make fleshly the things of the Spirit Where by the way observe a prety evasion here closely insinuated a litle before more expresly propounded that may serv to shift of whatsoever of the Apostles method matter and manner of teaching was before related contrary to that that these men approov and agreeable to that which is by those practised whom they control and oppose ſ Ibid. The Apostle speakes many things too as himself says because of the infirmity of our flesh and they belike have found out a more spirituall way then that the Apostles in their teachings and writings used which if they have much good may it do them we shall be content to tread in their steps whom we know to have had * John 16.13 1 Cor. 7.40 an unerring spirit Again t Pag. 186. Man 's obedience to God is not so notionally nor orderly caried nor so purely as the Gospel cals for This because we reqire of those that desire pardon of sin peace with God and salvation by Christ repentance and humiliati●n and sorrow for sin and prayer for pardon and a new cours of life as our Saviour himself and his Apostles did But saith this man u Pag. 163. They run in a legall strain and would work God down into his old and former way of reveiling himself as under the Law when he seemed to be onely in the way to reconciliation and peace rather then pacified and thus in prayer and fasting and other acts of obedience they deal with God as they did under the old Testament not considering the glorious love reveiled in Christ crucified and how all Gospel ordinances are onely ways and means to reveil this love and grace by the Spirit of adoption not any waies or meanes of ours for getting some love from God which Christ himself hath not gotten for us Then belike in the time of the old Testament these were waies and means for Gods people that then lived whereby to get some love from God which Christ himself had not gotten for them But if God in those times were not pacified or did not cary himself toward them as pacified how says the Psalmist x Psalm 85.1 2 3. Lord thou hast been favourable to thy Land that is the inhabitants thereof Thou hast forgiven the iniqity of thy people and hast covered all their sin a passage * See Gods eye on his Israel p. 6. absurdly prest by the Antinomians to proov that to be done now which they deny to have been then thou hast wholy taken away thy wrath and turned from the fiercenes of thine anger Was not Christs blood think we as effectuall for the pacifying of Gods wrath in those times as in these These be new doctrines indeed But y Pag. 27. This is the common way of dealing with souls and bringing them up into assurance as thus Repent and pray and live an holy life and walk according to the Law of God And dare this man without any of these give any man assurance If he do he dare do and doth more then Christ or his Apostles are read to have done But in jeering way mine Autor proceeds z Ibid. If they answer they can not do thus oh then say they can you not desire to pray and repent and if they say they cannot desire oh but then say they can you not desire that you may desire and thus they wind them up by acts of their own spirit and run them out to the end of their own working when as their desires of desires and the spinning of such fine threds in Divinity are not strong enough to bind up a broken spirit Thus is he pleased to skof some qestions that such Divines as go * Jerem. 6.16 the old way of the Prophets and Apostles with repentance and sorrow for sin which these of the new out can not away with do some time propound to disquieted consciences in which they seem to descry some beginnings of grace not as this man speaks to wind them up by acts of their own spirit but to sift out the workings of Gods spirit in them and thereby to make way for such further