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	son_n	word_n	14,353	5	4.5058	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B09701	The life of a Christian which is a lamp kindled and lighted from the love of Christ, and most naturally discovereth its original, by the purity, integrity and fervency of its motion, in love to its fellow-partners in the same life. Briefly displayed in this its peculiar and distinguishing strain of operation. As also some few catechistical questions concerning the way of salvation by Christ. Together with a post-script about religion. / By Isaac Penington, (junior) esq;.	Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.	1653 (1653)	Wing P1176; ESTC R181602	61,844	104

would not a natural spirit throughly sensible do to avoyd its perfect misery and attain its perfect life rest and happiness Again Dost thou know how near thou mayst approach to the Truth and yet remain short of it how far thou mayst walk in a way like the strait way and yet it not prove the way how high thou mayst ascend on the ladder which seemingly to thee leads up to Heaven and yet that not prove the ladder There is no Christ can save but the Lords anointed nor can he save any otherwise then by his anointing thee in the Name and with the Nature of the Lord He shall save because of the anointing Thou mayst have all the similitudes of Truth and Salvation in every kind and yet not one spark of Truth in any kind Thou mayst have light great light which thou mayst confidently beleeve to be the light of the Lord and yet it may not prove so Thou mayst have fresh and vigorous life and yet not that life prove the life of the Spirit neither And if so then all the motions of this life all thy steps in this light will not lead thee towards but further from the Lord. Thou mayst offer sacrifices and yet those sacrifices not be the Lords though in thine appearance instituted by him and by thee dedicated to him Thou mayst season them with salt and offer them up with fire on that which thou takest to be the Lords altar and yet neither that salt that fire nor that alter be the Lords To come yet nearer Thou mayst have faith in God through Christ love to God and the Saints peace in thine own spirit rest and joy in beleeving and obeying the voyce of the Lord and all these very pure and spiritual in thine own view and yet not so before the Lord who knoweth things and cannot be deceived with vain appearances In a word Thou mayst come from a Land of bondage through a wilderness into a state and condition of rest and yet this may not be the child of the Lord whom he called out of Egypt out of Egypt have I called my Son nor this Egypt the Egypt out of which he calleth his Son nor this state of rest Gods Canaan Gods holy Land unto which he leads his son There are Egypts states and places of bondage for the spirit of man There are wildernesses thousands of wildernesses as there were many wildernesses in the world besides that which Israel passed through in which the spirit of man may be entangled and through which he may travel and after his passage through them may find a condition of rest But yet the Lords Egypt the Lords Wilderness the Lords Canaan are different from these as they are prepared for a different end namely the subjection the correction and enlargement of his son There is a threefold state of persons standing for life There are three sorts of Runners all which make account to obtain but only one of them can 1. There is the pure extract of this Earth the natural man him I mean not whom thou art apt to call so but he who notwithstanding all his Religion all his devotion his reading the Scripture his praying hearing beleeving c. in the eye of God is so and by his tryal will be found so This man though he be very zealous yet he hath no more Religion in him then the spirit of man by serious consideration with himself and by solid meditations on the Scriptures may attain to This man finding a necessity of beleeving and just ground for it cannot but beleeve cannot but love cannot but strive after obedience in the midst of all incumbrances and hangings back his spirit thus lighted convinceth perswadeth and thus directeth him This man makes no question of acceptance here and of enjoying God hereafter Of this sort is the greatest part of Religious persons upon the face of the Earth though because the spirit of man is more enlightened and heightened in some then in others therefore some are apt exceedingly to justifie themselves and condemn others calling the Religion of others formal and earthly little suspecting that their own is so not only in its most sublime out-goings but even in its very root 2. There is an heavenly kind of birth from an heavenly gift from a gift of a new life as it were from a light let from God into the Soul which shining about it and quickening it which shewing it the world to come and letting in the powers of it must needs make great changes in it and beget an higher faith love and obedience then the former These make no question but that theirs is the Kingdom and yet these may fall away and miss of it as is testified Heb. 6. and what if they had kept their standing can a nature subject to change inherit Eternity In rewards appertaining to Dispensations there may be loss or gain but in eternal life there comes in no consideration of the motions of the creature but it is the free gift of God through Jesus Christ which he that well understandeth can unfold many riddles wherein the spirit of man must needs be entangled and lost 3. There is a birth from a new nature from the life of God sown and springing up in the Soul which seed contains in it and brings forth faith and love and every other spiritual thing Joh. 1.12 13. This man is not changed either by outward Reason or inward impressions from Nature or Scriptures or by a gift of light let into his spirit but by the true Nature of God shed into him and swallowing him up into it and bringing him forth anew in it This is the only change for all other changes will return again to their principles The others make real changes in their kind but this alone is the perfect kind of change this only is true full lasting consisting of the very Nature and Life of God and therefore must of necessity abide with it and admit of no change but what it is also capable of Now what is thy Religion what image what superscription beareth it How rare is it to find the natural Religion of the spirit of man fairly improved and well grown Alas the Religion now abroad cannot justly satisfie the plain honest spirit of natural man but where shall we find the second kind and if we be put to it for the second where shall we seek for the third The present estate of Religion is exceeding sick and weak Religion hath lost its first light its first life its first strength and vigor True Religion eats out the life and strength of man bringing forth a life of another nature but where is there any Religion now which floweth out from the nature of man which would easily be acknowledged were the nature of man rightly measured and understood We have indeed a great deal of humane knowledg of the things of God a great many fleshly fabricks but who can produce one spiritual building The best

often striving who should be greatest expecting fleshly pomp and advantage by him much failing in love to him what not watch with me one hour in so much as they left him when he had most need of them they hid themselves from him they denyed him they feared a little reproach or danger for his sake who feared nothing for theirs And yet how tender was he of them continually not upbraiding them for their unkindnesses nor neglecting any act of kindness towards them After his Resurrection he stayeth forty days from glory for then sakes to satisfie them about his Resurrection and his love to them and to give them full instructions about the ordering of his Kingdom here on Earth wherein their safety peace and comfort lay And now he is in Heaven he spends his whole time for them He is taking up still there what belongs to them He is keeping all surmises from the heart of God and dashing all pleas which the Devil craftily and maliciously is still entering in against them He is suing out warrants from God to have dayly bestowed upon them what grace can do for them for the best according to their conditions And he sends his best friend the Spirit out of his own bosom to bring him news how it fares with them and to look to their hearts while they are in this world and to be dayly working them up to blessedness And methinks I hear Christ ever and anon renewing his charge as he sends him Go look to my little ones see they want nothing that thou canst do for them See that they want no light in that dark world wherein they are See they want no life in the midst of that dead world See they want no comfort in the midst of those distresses which it pleaseth my Father to exercise them with Go and bear with their unkind actings towards thee Consider where they are consider what they are consider what they suffer and deal gently with them for my sake and what affronts they put upon thee or what injuries they offer thee I will make up to thee as I have already done unto my Father 2. Look on the actings of his love towards them under the variety of their conditions First In their unconverted estate in that most loathsom estate wherein he findeth them lying before he bringeth them home to God His heart doth not then loath them but is pitying them and contriving how he may bring them home with most advantage Other sheep I have which are not of this fold them also I must bring Joh. 10.16 He shews where his heart was when he said little namely upon his sheep his lost sheep his scattered sheep about bringing them into the fold where they may be safe and at rest 2dly In their converted estate and their several turns and changes there In all their sicknesses in all their relapses in all the miseries which befall them by their own folly in all their sinful actings against God in all their unkind actings towards him in the midst which goeth most to his heart of their grieving of his holy Spirit when they are stubborn and rebellious and act most unthankfully when they will not trust him nor by no means be perswaded of the love he beareth towards them but are interpreting that ill which he intended well striving against all the good which he is doing them and doing that most eagerly which his Soul most abhorreth in them yet then even then is he doing for them the best offices of love which possibly can be done As they then most need the care love and tenderness of Christ so he will be sure then to lay it out for them And when at any time he worketh in them by his own Spirit what is pleasing in his eyes he attributeth it to them and accepteth it from them as if it were their own Indeed they do nothing not so much as think a good thought of themselves but he doth all in them and yet he attributeth all to them If he put it into their hearts and enable them to feed or clothe any of his he setteth it upon their account and upon an high account too even as their feeding and clothing of him He thinks no ill of them he interprets every thing in the best kind concerning them He loves them so as nothing in them or from them can mitigate his affection to them or hinder him from doing the utmost he can for their good He takes occasion from all their unloveliness to stir up his heart to acts of love towards them suitable to that their state but never to decline thereby from them Here is love indeed It would be too tedious to instance in the several acts in the several kinds of it as in pity in care in bounty in delight c. wherein the high and noble strain of his love doth on every occasion put forth it self Let it suffice therefore to have given a little touch at it V. For the manner of his acting love Love acteth in him this fourfold way or he performeth the acts of love after this fourfold manner Primarily Purely Suitably and Fervently 1. Primarily He is first in love and first in every act of love What he speaketh of that one act of love viz. of Election Joh. 15.16 Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you he was first in it is true of every act else He doth not stay for acts of love from us before he performeth acts of love to us but we love him because he loved us first and we perform acts of love to him because we first learned them of him As Christ learned his love of the Father so we learn our love of Christ Yea before we can perform any act of love to him there must several acts of love go forth from him towards us he must both give us the grace and quicken it and draw it forth whensoever we act any thing with affection towards him They are not our prayers that move him but his love is before them and yet what can move him more but it is his love the spirit of his love from and according to his love that teacheth guideth and enableth us to pray 2. Purely not with by-ams or by-ends concerning himself but as he loves with pure affection so he loves in a pure manner As his love is spiritual love so it acts spiritually it hath no by-ends no by-ways but all its motions are like it self It s purity discovereth it self in these three respects 1. It will do nothing to dishonour God through love to them Though Christ love them unspeakably exceedingly desiring their happiness and his enjoyment of them yet he will not intrench upon God in the least in effecting of it Lo I come I delight to do thy will O my God And again I do always the things which please him And when he speaks of having finished his course Joh. 17. I have glorified thy Name saith he Though

they were in Christ and had the eternal life of God and Christ in them They knew that they were of God and that the Son of God was come who gave them an understanding to know him that is true and that they were in him that is true in his Son Jesus Christ And this was no high-flown fancy concerning God and eternal life which consists only in the elevation of the imagination but the truth This is the true God and eternal life 1 Joh. 5.19 20. What shall we say then to these things Is it not time for us to make a stand and look about us Is it not time for us to miss the Lord and seek to begin with him Man is naturally confident and yet commonly deceived in the ground-work of his confidence From our first springing up in Popery unto all our rents and divisions thence both in Doctrine and Worship we have still been confident that we have always been in the right How vain is man In every change he confesseth himself wrong and yet that still to which he changeth must needs be right Ah wretched man There is a lye in thy heart which springs up in all thy thoughts and ways of devotion and until thou beest new formed thou wilt not be capable of entertaining the truth but only of deluding thy self What should I advise thee what can be proper for thee but to examine the true ground and joyn with the house of Israel lamenting after the Lord to bewail the loss of his light his life his guidance his presence The cause of joy is not the cause of grief only is and is in abundance and where it is manifested with demonstration and power there will not need any exhortation to it I must profess I would rather chuse tears although I were sure they should never be wiped away from mine eyes after substance after that which my spirit wants and can alone take up with then the greatest mirth or pleasure which vanity for such I account all the Religion of man with all that springs from it can afford Rejoyce in the Lord always They might well rejoyce always in the Lord who enjoyed the Lord who had a kind of constant presence of the Bridegroom in their spirits Their Lord lived in them walked with them and kept them company by his Spirit But is this spoken to us who are Orphans Though the spirit of man in his several ways of Religion is not an Orphan therefore he may rejoyce also The same Spirit of the Lord which piped unto the Apostles and primitive Christians administring unto them occasion of dancing mourneth unto us and our proper way of answering it is in lamentation Lament therefore after the Lord and mourn over Jerusalem Mourn over the ruines and desolations of Jerusalem Pity the dust of Sion Jerusalem hath been layd waste Sion lieth in the dust nay Sion is it self burnt into dust by the extream jealousie and fury of the Eternal who hath let out his flames more fiercely upon her then upon any abomination to be found among men Jerusalem hath drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury yea it hath drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling and wrung them out Isai 52.17 Yet she is still Jerusalem she is still Sion and her very dust is lovely The Lord knoweth her and loveth her dust and it is impossible for any to discover her native worth and beauty and not to pity and mourn over her present condition What is this the Lords darling is this the only beauty will scoffing earth say Ishmael cannot but despise Isaac though growing though thriving though owned by the Lord how contemptible then must he needs be in his death and burial The world wanting the inward eye wonders to hear God speak such great things of his people of the abundantly rich glory and excellency of their life they appear so mean to them at the best They never have the loveliness of man in them how loathsom then must they needs be when all that which is their own beauty is broken down in them when the remainders of their earthly beauty with the whole frame of their spiritual beauty is dashed in peeces like a potters vessel and burnt up together Yet how precious is the seed of God under all these how amiable is this very dust of Sion The very brokenness sickness misery of this estate is of more true value then all the soundness then all the health of life and Salvation that is any where else to be found throughout the whole Earth Yet this object is very lamentable and it would grieve any ones heart to behold it He who hath seen known tasted or had the least glimpse of Sion in her glory O how would his heart throb at the view of her here yet here if not here alone is she to be found Is it nothing to thee O thou Preserver of man that the foundations of thine own holy Habitation are thus shaken Where is thy Zeal where is the sounding of thy Bowels at the death and misery of thine own seed O Lord wilt thou also bring forth children to the Murtherer Awake O Lord Rouze up thy self Let thine own everlasting Spirit stir in the motions of its own life and never leave till it hath raised up disconsolate Jerusalem desolate Jerusalem afflicted Jerusalem distracted Jerusalem Jerusalem which is sunk dead and rotten Jerusalem which is not and hath made it the praise of the whole Earth AMEN FINIS