Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A27009
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The right method for a settled peace of conscience, and spiritual comfort in 32 directions : written for the use of a troubled friend / and now published by Richard Baxter ...
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1653
(1653)
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Wing B1373A; ESTC R17485
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252,137
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602
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sinful Condition and some motions and strivings at your heart to get out of it Certainly though you should be one that hath yet no Grace to salvation yet these continued offers of Grace and strivings of the Spirit of Christ with your heart do shew that God hath not quite forsaken you and that your day of Grace and Visitation is not past DOUBT XV. BVt I have sinned since my Profession and that even against my Knowledge and Conscience I have had Temptations to sin and I have considered of the Evil and Danger and yet in the very soberest deliberations I have Resolved to sin And how can such a one have any true Grace or be saved ANSWER 1. IF you had not true Grace God is still offering it and ready to work it 2. Where do you finde in Scripture that none who have true Grace do sin knowingly or Deliberately Perhaps you will say in Heb. 10.24 If we sin willfully after the knowledge of the Truth there Remaineth no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of Judgement and fire which shall devour the adversaries Ans But you must know that it is not every wilful sin which is there mentioned but as even now I told you Vnbelief is peculiarly called Sin in the New Testament And the true meaning of the Text is If we utterly renounce Christ by Infidelity as not being the true Messiah after we have known his Truth then c. Indeed none sin more against knowledge then the Godly when they do sin For they know more for the most part then others do And Passion and Sensuality the remnant of it which yet remaineth will be working strongly in your very Deliberations against sin and either perverting the Judgement to doubt whether it be a sin or whether there be any such danger in it or whether it be not a very little sin Or else blinding it that it cannot see the Arguments against the sin in their full vigor Or at least prepossessing the Heart and Delight and so hindring our Reasons against sin from going down to the Heart and working on the Will and so from Commanding the Actions of the Body This may befal a godly man And moreover God may withdraw his Grace as he did from Peter and David in their sin and then our Considerations will work but faintly and sensuality and sinful Passion will work effectually It is scarce Possible I think that such a man as David could be so long about so horrid a sin and after contrive the murther of Vriah and all this without deliberation or any reasonings in himself to the contrary 3. The truth is though this be to good cause for any Repenting sinner to doubt of Salvation yet it is a very grievous aggravation of sin to commit it against Knowledge and Conscience and upon consideration And therefore I advise all that Love their Peace or Salvation to take heed of it For as they will finde that no sin doth deepâ—ier wound the Conscience and plunge the sinner into fearful perplexities which oft times hang on him very long so the oftner such Zeal and Passion But let me tell you that you may grow in these and not grow in the body of your Graces Doubtless Satan himself may do much to kindle your Zeal if he do but see it voyd of sound Knowledge as he did in Iames and Iohn when they would have called for Fire from Heaven but knew not what spirit they were of For the doleful Case of Christs Churches in this age hath put quite beyond dispute that none do the Devils work more effectually nor oppose the Kingdom of Christ more desperately then they that have the hottest Zeal with the weakest Judgements And as Fire is most excellent and necessary in the Chimney but in the thatch it is worse then the vilest dung so is Zeal most excellent when guided by sound Judgement but more destructive then prophane sensuality when it is let loose and misguided On the other side you may decay much in feeling and fervour of Affections and yet Grow in Grace if you do but grow in the Understanding and the Will And indeed this is the Common Growth which Christians have in their Age Examine therefore whether you have this or no. Do you not understand the things of the Spirit better then you formerly did Do you not value God Christ Glory and Grace at higher rates then formerly Are you not more fully Resolved to stick to Christ to the death then formerly you have been I do not think but it would be a harder work for Satan to draw you from Christ to the flesh then heretofore When the tree hath done growing in visible greatness it groweth in rootedness The fruit grows first in bulk and quantity and then in mellow sweetness Are not you less Censorious and more Peaceable then heretofore I tell you that is a more noble growth then a great deal of austere and bitter youthful censorious dividing Zeal of many will prove Mark most aged experienced Christians that walk uprightly and you will find that they quite outstrip the younger 1. In experience knowledge prudence and foundness of Judgement 2. In well-setled Resolutions for Christ his Truth and Cause 3. In a Love of Peace especially in the Church and a hatred of dissentions perverse contendings and divisions If you can shew this growth say not that you do not grow 3. But suppose you do not grow should you therefore deny the sincerity of your Grace I would not perswade any soul that they grow when they do not But if you do not be humbled for it and endeavour it for the future Make it your desire and daily business and spare not Lye not still complaining but rouse up your soul and see what 's amiss and set upon neglected duties and remove those Corruptions that hinder your Growth Converse with Growing Christians and under quickening means Endeavour the Good of other mens souls as well as your own and then you 'l find that growth which will silence this Doubt and do much more for you then that DOUBT XVII I Am troubled with such Blaspemous thoughts and Temptations to Vnbelief even against God and Christ and Scripture and the Life to come that I doubt I have no faith ANSWER TO be Tempted is no sign of Gracelesness but to yield to the Temptation nor every yielding neither but to be overcome of the Temptation Most Melancholy people especially that have any knowledge in Religion are frequently haunted with Blasphemous Temptations I have oft wondred that the Devil should have such a power and advantage in the predominancy of that distemper Scarce one person of ten who ever was with me in deep Melancholy either for the Cure of body or mind but hath been haunted with these Blasphemous thoughts and that so impetuously and violently set on and followed that it might appear to be from the Devil yea even many that never seemed Godly or to mind any such
he be not sound in his Religion and so needs not a Conversion to a sound faith but onely to a soundness in the faith The suddenness of the News must needs make those Violent Commotions and Changes in the one which cannot ordinarily be expected in the other who is acquainted so early with the truth and by such degrees 5. But suppose you heard nothing of Sin and Misery and a Redeemer in your Childhood or at least understood it not which yet is unlikely yet let me ask you this Did not that Preacher or that Book or whatever other Means God used for your Conversion reveal to you Misery and Mercy both together Did not you hear and believe that Christ dyed for sin as soon as you understood your Sin and Misery Sure I am that the Scripture reveals both together and so doth every sound Preacher and every sound Writer notwithstanding that the slanderous Antinomians do shamelesly proclaim that we preach not Christ but the Law This being so you may easily apprehend that it must needs abate very much of the Terrour which would else have been unavoydable If you had read or heard that you were a sinner and the Child of Hell and of Gods 〈◊〉 and that there was no Remedy which is 〈◊〉 a Preaching of the Law as we must not use to any in the world nor any since the first promise to Adam must receive Yea or if you had heard Nothing of a Saviour for a year or a day or an hour after you had heard that you were an Heir of Hell and so the Remedy had been but Concealed from you though not denied which ordinarily must not be done then you might in all likelyhood have found some more terrours of soul that hour But when you heard that your sin was pardonable as soon as you heard that you were a sinner and heard that your Misery had a sufficient Remedy provided if you would accept it or at least that it was not Remediless and this as soon as you heard of that misery what wonder is it if this exceedingly abate your fears and troubles Suppose two men go to visit two several Neighbours that have the Plague and One of them saith It is the Plague that is on you you are but a Dead man The other saith to the other sick person It is the Plague that you have but here is our Physician at the next door that hath a Receipt that will cure it as Infallibly and as easily as if it were but the prick of a pin he hath cured thousands and never fail'd one that took his Receipt but if you will not send to him and trust him and take his Reâ—eâ—â—t there is no hopes of you Tell me now whether the first of these sick persons be not like to be more troubled then the other and whether it will not remove almost all the fears and troubles of the latter to hear of a Certain Remedy as soon as he heareth of the disease though some trouble he must needs have to think that he hath a disease in it self so desperate or loathsome Nay let me tell you so the Cure be but well done the less Terrours and despairing fears you were put upon the more Credit is it to your Physician and his Apothecary Christ and the Preacher or Instrument that did the work and therefore you should rather praise your Physician then question the Cure DOUBT III. BVT it is common with all the world to consent to the Religion that they are bred up in and somewhat affected with it and to make Conscience of obeying the precepts of it so do the Jews in theirs the Mahometans in theirs And I fear it is no other work on my soul but the meer force of Education that maketh me Religious and that I had never that great Renewing work of the Spirit upon my soul and so that all my Religion is but meer Opinion or Notions in my Brain ANSWER 1. ALL the Religions in the world besides the Christian Religion have either much errour and wickedness mixt with some Truth of God or they contain some lesser parcel of that Truth alone as the Jews Onely the Christian Religion hath that whole Truth which is saving Now so much of Gods Truth as there is in any of these Religions so much it may work Good effects upon their souls as the knowledge of the Godhead and that God is Holy Good Just Merciful and that he sheweth them much undeserved Mercy in his daily providences c. But mark these two things 1. That all persons of false Religions do more easily and greedily embrace the false part of their Religion then the true and those they are zealous for and practice with all their might because their natural corruption doth befriend it and is as combustible fewel for the fire of Hell to catch in but that Truth of God which is mixt with their Error if it be practical they fight against it and abhor it while they hold it because it crosseth their lusts insomuch that it is usually but some few of the more convinced and civil that God in providence maketh the main Instruments of continuing those Truths of his in that part of the wicked world For we finde that even among Pagans the Prophaner and more sensual sort did deride the better sort as our prophane Christians do the godly whom they called Puritans 2. Note that the Truth of God which in these false Religions is still acknowledged is so small a part and so oppressed by Errors that it is not sufficient to their salvation that is to give them any sound Hope nor is it sufficient to make such clear and deep and powerful Impressions in their mindes as may make them Holy or truly Heavenly or may overcome in them the Interest of the world and the flesh This being so you may see great reason why a Turk or a Heathen may be zealous for his Religion without Gods Spirit or any true Sanctification when yet you cannot be so truly zealous for yours without it Indeed the speculative part of our Religion separated from the Practical or from the hard and self denying part of the Practical many a wicked man may be zealous for as to maintain the Godhead or that God is merciful c. or to maintain against the Jews that Jesus is the Christ or against the Turks that he is the only Redeemer and Teacher of the Church or against the Papists that all the Christians in the world are Christs Church as well as the Romans and against the Socinians and Arrians that Christ is God c. But this is but a smal part of our Religion nor doth this or any heathenish Zeal sanctifie the heart or truly mortifie the flesh or overcome the world They may contemn Life and cast it away for their Pride and Vain-glory but not for the hopes of a holy and blessed Life with God This is but the prevalency of one corruption against another or