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	scripture_n	son_n	7,316	5	5.5655	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26935	Gods goodness vindicated for the help of such (especially in melancholy) as are tempted to deny it, and think him cruel, because of the present and future misery of mankind, with respect to the doctrine of reprobation and damnation / by Richard Baxter ... ; published and prefaced by a friend at whose desire it was written, and to whom it was committed.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1671 (1671)	Wing B1278; ESTC R5256	19,834	110

such a Creature as noble and as meet for God to make as a stone or a toad or worm or Serpent If God choose to please his own holy will by making a world of such Intellectual free agents whom he will ordinarily rule by the way of Moral Lawes and Motives is this any disparagement to his Wisdome and Goodness It is true that such a mutable free-will is below a confirmed immutable will But it is as true that a Toad is below a man And that Infinite wisdome thought not meet to make all his Creatures of one rank or size not to make all faces alike nor all the stones in the street alike but in wonderful variety It is not then unbeseeming God to make a world of Rational free agents under such a moral Government by Laws Quest 11. If all these free agents have abused their Liberty and undone themselves if he so far shew mercy to them all as that they may be all happy if they will and none of them shall perish but for wilfull and final refusing of the saving means and mercy which is offered to them and if they will they may live with God himself and Christ and Angels in endless Glory and none shall lose this free-given felicity but for final refusal and contempt preferring certain vanity and dung before it And if officers be commissioned and means provided to acquaint all in several measures with the reasons why they should choose Heaven and Holiness before the dirty pleasures of sin and to importune them daily to such a choice And if a life of mercies be granted to allure them and afflictions to drive them and examples to invite them to choose aright I say after all this have any of these persons cause to complain that God dealeth not mercifully with them Shall they that will not accept of life and mercy offered them accuse him as cruel that importuneth them to accept it Quest 12. Is the Goodness of a King to be judged of by the Interest of Murderers in the Goal when he restrained them by Laws when he warned them by legal penalties when he encourageth and protecteth all the Good When the lives of the Innocent need this severity against the wicked when the Common Wealth would take him to be bad that would not restrain Thieves and Murderers by penalties Yea though this King could if he would have set a constant guard on these men to have kept these men from Murdering but he thinketh meet only to Govern them by Laws Will you rather argue That the Goal is a place of misery Therefore the King is cruel Then The rest of the Kingdom flourish in prosperity and peace Therefore the King is wise and gratious And is not this little dirty spot of Earth the next door to Hell a place defiled by wilful sin and unfit to be the Index of Gods benignity from whence we should take an Estimate of it Quest 13. Do not all men in the World confess Gods Goodness first or last Do not all true believers that are themselves acknowledge that he is Infinitely Good and Good to them and that his mercy is over all his works and endureth for ever And do not the Consciences of the Damned grind and tear them for the contempt of Goodness and setting against mercy even mercy to themselves This is the fewel that feedeth Hell not by way of delusion but experimental conviction If the man that doubteth of Gods Goodness and mercy to him do despair or fear damnation he foolishly contradicteth himself For Hell and Damnation is a state of misery and torment in the loss and in the Conscience and sense of refused and abused mercy If therefore God be not merciful to you then you need not fear being damned for sinning against and refusing mercy For that which is not cannot be sinned against or abused If God be merciful you may be saved if you will accept this mercy If he be not you cannot in Justice be damned for rejecting that mercy which was none And if God be not merciful and Just he is not God And if there be no God there is none to damn you But all confess in Heaven and in Hell some with Joy and some with self-tormenting anguish that God was unconceiveably Good and merciful Quest 14. What if it were but one or two in a whole Kingdom that were damned and that only for obstinate unperswadable final refusal of grace and salvation and all the rest of the World should be saved tell me would you then still suspect God of cruelty or deny his Goodness If not I further ask you Quest 15. Have you so good acquaintance with the extent of the universe the superiour World the number of Angels and blessed spirits as that you are sure that it is proportionably more in the whole universe that are miserable Though some pievish men have wrangled at what I have said of this in my forecited Books I am so far from flattering their self conceited Wisdom that I will say it over again That it is agreed on by Philosophers that the Earth as to the universe is no bigger than a point or inch is to the whole earth we see over our heads a wonderful Sun a multitude of fixed and unfixed Stars of wonderful magnitude divers of them many times bigger than all the earth besides the vast Ethereal interspaces we see in a Tube or Telescope a marvellous Likeness of the Moon to this Earth with Shades inequalities c. Multitudes of Starrs in the Galaxie and elsewhere are discernable in the Telescope which without it no eye can see Little know we how far the World extendeth it self beyond all these Starrs and Sun which we can see or whether there be Millions of the like beyond our sight The Scripture telleth us of innumerable Angels Holy and Glorious spirits that attend Christ in the service of this lower World No Scripture telleth us whether all the Glorious or blessed Spirits be thus imployed as Angels for Mankind or whether ten Thousand Thousand fold more be otherwise employed No Scripture or Reason telleth us whether Sun or Moon Starrs and intermediate Aether be inhabited or not It is temerity to affirm that they are And it is as great temerity to say that they are not It is lawful to doubt And it is lawful to conjecture that it is most probable they are Considering 1. That l●fe is the excellency of the Creation and the deadest parts are the basest 2. That the Earth and Water and Aire are full of Men Beasts Fishes Birds Worms Flies c. 3. That it is incredible to him that looketh upward that Sun Moon Starrs and Aether are baser Regions than this dirty Earth and consequently that they are baser as to their use and inhabitants These thoughts of an uncertain thing are lawful to him that will go no further than he hath evidence and not make an uncertain thing seem certain And certain it is that spirits are innumerable

believe that they are not commanded to do this in vain So that Gods own Providence by a course of such mercies which cannot stand with the execution of the unremedyed violated Law of Innocency together with his obliging all men to Repentance and to the use of a certain course of means in order to their salvation is a promulgation of a Law of Grace according to the first Edition and distinguisheth man from unredeemed Devils And they that say that all the Infidel World have all this Mercy Duty Means and hope without any Redemption or Satisfaction of Christ as the procureing cause are in the way to say next that the Churches Mercies too might have been given without Christ 9. Of a truth God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness is accepted with him Act. 10.34 35. For God will render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and incorruptibility eternal life Rom. 2.6 7. Glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Greek v. 10. For there is no respect of persons with God v. 11. For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things conained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves Which shew the work of the Law written in their Hearts their Consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another v. 14 15. And they shall be Judged according to that Law which they were under Natural or Mosaical even by Jesus Christ v. 12.16 And it is the work of the spirit promised to believers to write the Law of God in their hearts 10. Though a special promise was made to Abraham as an Eminent believer and the Jewish Nation were the peculiar people of God advanced to greater priviledges than any others in the World yet were they not the whole Kingdom of God the Redeemer nor the only people that were in a Covenant of Grace or in a state of Salvation For Sem was alive after Abrahams death who was not like to be less than a King and to have a Kingdom or people Governed according to his Fidelity And Melchizedock was a King of Righteousness and Peace not like to be Sem by the Scituation of his Countrey And a Righteous King would govern in Righteousness Job and his friends are evidences of the same truth And we have no proof or probability that all Abrahams seed by Ishmael and Esau and Keturah were Apostates for they continued Circumcision And what all the rest of the World was we know not save that in general most grew Idolatrous and the Canaanites in special But that they all apostatized from the Covenant of Grace made with Adam and Noah there is no proof We have not the History of any of their Countreys fully so as to determine of such cases In Nineve God ruled by that Law of Grace which called them to repent and spared them upon their Belief and Repentance Because he was a gracious God and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth of the Evil Jonah 4.2 And that God dealeth not with mankind now as the meer Judge of the violated Law of Innocency he declareth not only by the full testimony of his Providence or Mercies given to the sinful World but also by the very name which he proclaimeth unto Moses which signifieth his nature and his mind towards others and not what he is to the Jewes alone Exod. 34.6 7. The Lord The Lord God merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for Thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin All which is inconsistent with the Relation of God as a Judge of a people only under the Curse of an unremedied violated Law and unredeemed though he add and that will by no means clear the guilty c. that is will neither Judge them innocent that are guilty of the Crime nor Judge them to Life that are guilty of Death according to the tenour of the Law which they are under Purificando non purificabit as the literal version that is will not Judge unjustly by acquitting him that is to be condemned or as the Chaldee Paraphrase hath it not Justifying those that are not converted It is enough for us therefore to know that the visible Chruch hath manifold priviledges above all others Rom. 3.1 2 3. c. And that salvation is more easie sure and plenteous where the Gospel cometh than with any others and that we have therefore great Cause to rejoice with thankfulness for our lot and that the poor World lyeth in wickedness and must be pittyed prayed for and helped to our power and that God is the Saviour of all men but especially of them that believe and that he is good to all and his mercies are over all his works and that he will never damn one soul that loveth him as God But what is in the Hearts of all men in the World and consequently how they shall be used at last he only that searcheth the heart can tell and it is neither our duty nor our interest nor possible to us to know it of all particulars much less to conclude that none among them have such Love who believe him to be infinitely good and to be to them a merciful pardoning God And we know withall that all they that know not Jesus Christ as this determinate person that was Born of the Virgin Mary Suffered under Pontius Pilate was Crucified Dead Bu●ied Rose again c. do yet receive all the foresaid mercies by him and not by any other Name or Mediation nor yet without his purchasing Mediation 13. And if besides all the mercy that God sheweth to others he do antecedently and positively Elect certain persons by an absolute Decree to overcome all their resistances of his spirit and to draw them to Christ and by Christ to himself by such a power and way as shall infallibly convert and save them and not leave the success of his Mercy and his Sons preparations to the bare uncertainty of the mutable Will of depraved man What is there in this that is injurious to any others or that representeth God unmerciful to any but such whose eye is evil because he is good and as a free Benefactour may give more mercy to some than others of equal Demerits If they that hold no Grace but what is universal and left as to the success to the will of man as the determining cause do think that this is well consistent with the mercifulness of God surely they that hold as much universal Grace as the former and that indeed all have so much as bringeth and leaveth the success to mans will and deny to no man any thing which the other give do make God no less merciful tha● they but more if they