Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	holy_a	person_n	trinity_n	8,176	5	10.0802	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30442	A free but modest censure on the late controversial writings and debates of the Lord Bishop of Worcester and Mr. Locke, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Locke, the Hon[ora]ble Charles Boyle, Esq., and Dr. Bently together with brief remarks on Monsieur Le Clerc's Ars critica / by F.B., M.A. of Cambridg.	F. B.	1698 (1698)	Wing B59; ESTC R3091	24,181	32

thus thou shalt be mortal or be in the state of mortality of which no other reason can be given than this that he was willing to use his own words to accommodate this threatning to his own Opinion In the same Chapter he shews his good will to the Racovian Divinity when he interprets Jer. 31. 33. of the Memory only I will put my Law into their inward parts and write it in their Hearts that is saith he I will take care that the Israelites shall retain the Law in their Memories and shall not want a Monitor to put them in mind of it This is the whole emphasis of the words And to confirm this he quotes the next words as a proof of what he saith They shall teach no more every man his Neighbour c. but we find nothing of proof in them there is not the least intimation that the foregoing words are to be meant of bare remembrance But this is the slender fare which we must expect when this learned Writer pretends to make the greatest Provision and to satisfy the Readers appetite Nor can it be otherwise when a man of his Parts and Reading truckles to a Cause and submits himself to be led by false Notions and to uphold them wrests the Holy Scripture as he doth here under a cloak of Criticism Any unprejudiced man may be convinced that the forementioned words are the Covenant or Promise of Grace and Salvation by the Messiah Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant ver 31. and those days are the days of the Gospel as appears from the occasion of citing and applying the foresaid Text in Heb. 8. 8. That Covenant is in a more signal manner fulfill'd under the Evangelical Dispensation the Divine Law is put into the inner parts of the Faithful and written on their Hearts that is by virtue of the Holy Spirit their Understandings are so enlightned and their Wills and Consciences so effectually wrought upon that they are enabled to observe that Law This is the privilege of the Evangelical Covenant but our Author was not to comply with this because it is repugnant to the Doctrine of those men he adheres to who explode all special Grace and Assistance of the Spirit and solve all by Moral Swasion It is no wonder then that in obeysance to those Doctors he makes writing the Law in the Heart and inner parts to be no more than bare remembring of it Thus you have his Interpretation and you have the true ground and occasion of it He proceeds to try whether he can by Quotations out of Gentile Writers prove that writing in the Mind or Heart is of the same signification with Remembrance but some of his Instances which he alledges come not up to what he quotes them for and if they did the Sacred and Pagan stile are not to be parallel'd always as he himself expresly acknowledges among his Critical Observations And as for the Citation out of Josephus Antiq. 1. 4. c. 8. The writing of the Laws on their Minds and the preserving them in their Memories seem to be two distinct things The truth is so far as I can judg this Learned Gentleman shapes his Criticism according to the Doctrines he hath imbraced and that is the ground of his mistaking here and in other places This may be perceived in his Critical Notes in this same Chapter about opening the Eyes where the design was to fetch in Acts 26. 18. To open their Eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and then from his premised Critical Glosses to insinuate that there is no Emphasis no Energy as he saith in those words So he continues that there is nothing Emphatical in the Apostles words concerning Lydia Acts 16. 14. The Lord opened her Heart Her Conversion was not by any special Power and Efficacy only as he strangely expresses it It was by divine Providence whatever machins God made use of at last that Lydia gave an attentive Ear to Paul He tells us that the wonderful change that was wrought in this Female by the preaching of the Gospel was the work of Providence by which all other things come to pass in the World And it was a Mechanical Operation for that he must mean by his Machins it was an external work void of an inward efficacious and energetical Principle This is his way of describing Lydia's Conversion to the Christian Faith only to serve his Hypothesis about Grace and Conversion This was the reason why our Critick would have us take no notice of any Emphasis in those foregoing Phrases no not in the writings of the Bible Chap. 5. He approaches nearer to his designed business he so orders his way of Criticizing that he must take notice of ambiguous words and words of different significations and then he brings in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the price of Redemption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to redeem and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 redemption and represents these as ambiguous and doubtful terms and hard to be understood when they are applied to Christ's Redemption And here he perplexes the matter and renders it difficult and obscure and unsettles and confounds the belief of the weak It is observable he undertakes afterwards to reckon up all the significations of the word Spirit in the Old and New Testament as well as in other Writers but he can't find one place where it signifies the third Person in the Trinity He acknowledges indeed that there is mention of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament but it is only as much as God in general or a Divine Power or some invisible force not any distinct Person in the Trinity It is true he saith The Christian Divines both Antient and Modern fitted or accommodated several of those places to the Holy Ghost the third Person in the Trinity and so do the Divines at this day but he is not pleased to say that either in the Old or in the New Testament the word Spirit doth occur in this sense No that was not to be expected for his method of Criticism was to be guided by his prepossessions concerning the doctrine of the Trinity or rather his denial of that Doctrin His whole Catalogue of Places in Writers that mention the word Spirit seems to be inserted into this Chapter on purpose to patronize that mistaken Notion that the Scriptures mention not the Spirit as a distinct Person in the Deity For this cause the divers senses of the word Spirit were hook'd in under this Chapter which treats of ambiguous words In the next he considers the larger and the narrower acceptions of the words Justice or Righteousness Charity Faith but all along seems to be upon design and forces his Critical Observations into some subservienty to the Principles and Practices he hath a kindness for In the 7 th Chapter he lays down this Rule viz. That proper words must not be confounded with improper ones and then tells us that the