Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	worship_n	worship_v	wrought_v	66	3	7.8379	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59693	Theses Sabbaticæ, or, The doctrine of the Sabbath wherein the Sabbaths I. Morality, II. Change, III. Beginning. IV. Sanctification, are clearly discussed, which were first handled more largely in sundry sermons in Cambridge in New-England in opening of the Fourth COmmandment : in unfolding whereof many scriptures are cleared, divers cases of conscience resolved, and the morall law as a rule of life to a believer, occasionally and distinctly handled / by Thomas Shepard ...	Shepard, Thomas, 1605-1649.	1650 (1650)	Wing S3145; ESTC R31814	262,948	313

Commandment which therefore sets down the proper punishment for this sin So by love of God is not meant love of God at large which is seen in keeping every Command but in particular when we love God in his owne Ordinances and institutions Look therefore as hatred of God in setting up mans inventions and institutions which superstitious persons thinke to be much love to God is here condemned in the negative part of the Commandment so on the contrary love to God in closing with him and seeking of him in his owne Institutions whether Word or Sacraments c. is here enjoyned in the affirmative part of this Command and consequently not as Wallaeus would have it in the affirmative part of the fourth Command Keeping my Commandments being set downe as a fruit of this love and both together being opposed to hatred of God Hence by Commandments cannot be meant in generall all the ten Commandments as some imagine upon miserable weake grounds which I lift not to mention but in speciall Gods Institutions and Ordinances commanded in speciall by him to which humane inventions and Images of mens heads and hands are commonly in Scripture opposed and are therefore condemned because not commanded or because none of his Commandments Ier. 7.31 Deut. 12.30 31. Matth. 15.9 If therefore againe Gods Institutions and Commandments are here enjoyned in this second Commandment they cannot bee directly required in the fourth Command These things being thus cleared the objections of Wallaeus are easily answered For first he saith That from the negative part of this second Commandment cannot be gathered such an affirmative part as this is viz. That God will be worshipped by the Word and Sacraments But that this assertion thus barely propounded but not proved is false appeares from what hath been said concerning the true meaning of the negative part of this Command For if humane inventions under the name of graven Image bee forbidden then Divine Institutions such as Word and Sacraments bee are here commanded and from that negative any ordinary capacity may readily see what the affirmative is Hee saith again secondly That if instituted worship was contained under the affirmative part of the second Commandment then this Commandment is mutable because God was thus worshipped one way before Christ and another way since Christ but saith he the second Commandment is morall and therefore immutable and therefore such mutable worship cannot be enjoyned herein But we have formerly shewne that although this Commandment be morall and immutable in respect of it selfe yet in respect of the application of it to this or that object or thing commanded it may be in that respect mutable For it is an immutable law that God must be worshipped with his owne worship such as hee shall institute and this is the summe of the second Commandment it selfe yet the things instituted wherein there is onely an application of the command may be mutable the second Commandment doth not immutably binde to the observance of this or that particular instituted worship onely But to observe Gods instituted worship and to attend his appointments which is the onely morall law and rule in the affirmative part of this Command Hee thirdly objects That the worshipping of God in Word and Sacraments c. is never opposed in all the Scripture to the worshipping of Images But this is false for Gods Institutions of which Word and Sacraments are a part are frequently opposed to humane inventions the worship appointed by God to the worship devised by man Images of Gods devising are oft opposed to Images of mens owne inventing the voice of God which was onely heard with the eare is opposed to an Image or similitude which might bee seen Deut. 4.12 A graven Image a teacher of lies is opposed to the Lords teaching of truth and also to his presence in his Temple which was the seat of instituted worship Habak 2.18 19 20. The worship of Images which God would have abolished is opposed to the worship of God by Sacrifices and Ceremonies in the place which God should chuse Deuter. 12.1 to 20. but yet he tels us That to worship God in Images and to worship him in Spirit and Truth which is inward worship are opposite as also the lifting up of pure hands in every place John 4.28 1 Tim. 2.8 Hee tels us also that acknowledging of God in his Immensity and Infinite Majesty are opposed to image-Image-worship Rom. 1.20 21 22. Isa. 40.22 Bee it so But will it therefore follow that to worship God according to his own Institutions is not to worship him in Spirit and in Truth Is it rather a carnall than a spirituall worship to attend on God in Word and Sacraments May we not lift up pure hands in the use of Gods own institutions Is not Gods Immensity and Majesty acknowledged and seen in the use of his owne Ordinances as well as creatures and providences I confesse the blinder sort of Heathens might worship stocks and stones and Images of creeping things and four-footed Beasts in the place of God himselfe terminatively and God might account of all their Image-worship as such though used relatively and hence the opposition may well bee made between worshipping them as God and an infinite God and this worship as was said fals then under the first Commandment but assuredly this Image-worship which the Apostle condemnes Rom. 1.21 23. in debasing the infinite Majesty and limiting it to this and that Image wherein they did worship it is forbidden being only relative worship in the second Command For I think the Apostle in Rom. 1. hath an eye principally at the most lascivious Idolaters in the world viz. the Egyptians among whom principally we read of those Images of creeping things and foure-footed beasts in their Hier●gliphicks and yet we know that all that base worship did set out something or other of the Deity which therein and so relatively they did worship But I must not enter into the Discourse of these things here sufficient is said to cleare up this point viz. That Gods instituted worship fals directly under the second not fourth Command Thesis 62. It is true that the exercise of publick worship of many together is to be at this time upon the Sabbath but doth it follow that therefore this publick worship it self falls directly under this command For if publick Assemblies bee as some think a part of naturall worship so as that the light of nature directs all men dwelling together as creatures to worship God together publickly as Creator then this worship fals directly under the first not fourth Commandment where natural worship is directly commanded but if publick Assemblies be considered as distinct Churches politically united and combined publickly to worship God then such Churches considered thus as politicall not mysticall Assemblies do fall directly under the second Command as parts of instituted worship for as all devised formes of Churches whether Diocesan Provinciall Nationall Universall being the

and shadowes and figures when once the substance is come to wit when they come in this life to the highest attainment which is the bosome of the Father which bosome is the true Sabbath of a Christian man Now I confesse that the bosome of God in Christ is our rest and our All in All in heaven and our sweet consolation and rest on earth and that we are not to rest in any meanes Ordinances Graces Duties but to look beyond them all and to be carried by them above them all to him that is better than all to God in Christ Jesus but to make this bosome of God a kinde of canker-worme to fret and eat out the heart and being not only of all Sabbaths and Ordinances of worship but also of all duties and graces of Gods Spirit nay of Christ Jesus himself as he is manifested in the flesh and is an externall Mediator whom some lately have also cast into same box with the rest Being sent onely as they think to reveale but not to procure the Fathers love of delight and therefore is little else than a meere forme and so to cease when the Father comes in the room of all formes and so is All in All This I dare say is such a high affront to the precious bloud of Christ and his glorious Name and blessed Spirit of grace that he who hath his Furnace in Zion and his fire in Ierusalem will not beare it long without making their judgements and plagues at least spirituall exemplary and wonderfull and leading them forth in such crooked wayes with the workers of iniquity when peace shall be upon Israel Are these abstracted notions of a Deity into the vision and contemplation of whose amazing glory without seeing him as he is in Christ a Christian they say must be plunged lost and swallowed up and up to which hee must ascend even to the unaproachable light the true and onely Sabbath Are these I say the new and glorious light breaking out in these dayes which this age must wait for which are nothing else upon narrow search than Monkish imaginations the goodly cob-webs of the brain-imagery of those idolatrous and superstitious hypocrites the Anchorites Monks and Fryers who to make the blinde and simple world admire and gaze upon them gave it out hereby like Simon Magus that they were some great ones even the very power and familiars of God Surely in these times of distraction warre and bloud if ever the Lord called for sackcloth humiliation repentance faith graces holinesse precious esteem of Gods Ordinances and of that Gospel which hath been the power of God to the salvation of thousands now is the time and must Gods people reject these things as their A. B. C and must the new light of these times be the dreames and visions and slaverings of doting and deluded old Monks Shall the simplicity of Gospel-ministery bee rejected as a common thing and shall Harphius his Theologia Mystica Augustinus Elutherius Iacob Behmen Cusanus Raimundus Sebund Theologia Germanica and such like Monk-admirers be set up as the new lights and beacons on the mountaine of these elevated times Surely if so God hath his time and wayes of putting a better relish to his precious Gospel and the crosse of Christ which was wont in Pauls time to be plainly preached without such popish paintings and wherein Gods people knew how to reconcile their swe●● rest in the bosome of the Father and their Sabbath day Thesis 81. If sinne which is the transgression of the law bee the greatest evill then holines which is our conformity to the law is our greatest good If sin be mans greatest misery then holinesse is mans greatest happinesse It is therefore no bondage for a Christian to be bound to the observance of the law as his rule because it onely binds him fast to his greatest happinesse and thereby directs and keeps him safe from falling into the greatest misery and woe and if the great designe of Christ in comming into the world was not so much as to save man from affliction and sorrow which are lesser evils but chiefely from sinne which is the greatest evill then the chiefe end of his comming was not as some imagine to lift his people up into the love and abstracted speculation of the Father above the law of God but into his owne bosome onely where only wee have fellowship with the Father above the Law of sinne Thesis 82. The bloud of Christ was never shed to destroy all sense of sin and sight of sinne in Beleevers and consequently all attendance to any rule of the law by which means chiefely sinne comes to be seen but he dyed rather to make them sensible of sinne for if he dyed to save men from sin as is evident 1 Iohn 3.5 Tit. 3.14 then hee dyed to make his people sensible of sinne because hereby his peoples hearts are chiefely weaned and sever'd from it and saved out of it as by hardnesse and unsensiblenesse of heart under it they chiefely cleave to it and it to them and therefore we know that godly sorrow workes repentance never to be repented of 2 Cor. 7.10 And that Pharaoh's hardnesse of heart strengthened him in his sin against God unto the last gasp and hence it is also that the deepest and greatest spirit of mourning for sin is poured out upon Beleevers after God hath poured out upon them the spirit of grace as is evident Zach. 12.10 11. because the bloud of Christ which was shed for the killing of their sinne now makes them sensible of their sinne because it 's now sprinkled and applyed to them which it was not before for they now see all their sins aggravated being now not onely sinnes against the law of God but against the bloud and love of the Son of God It is therefore a most accursed doctrine of some Libertines who imagining that through the bloudshed and righteousnes of Christ in their free justification God sees no sinne in his justified people that therefore themselves are to see no sinne because now they are justified and washed with Christs bloud and therefore lest they should be found out to bee grosse liars they mince the matte● they confesse that they may see sinne by the eye of sense and reason but faith being crosse to reason they are therefore to see the quite contrary and so to see no sinne in themselves by the eye of faith from whence it followes that Christ shed his bloud to destroy all sight and sense of sin to the eye of faith though not to the eye of reason and thus as by the eye of faith they should see no sin so it will follow that by the same bloud they are bound to see no law no not so much as their rule which as a rule is index sui obliqui and in revealing mans duty declares his sinne I know that in beholding our free justification by the bloud of Christ we are to exclude all law

with the holy Ghost when they heard this Gospel thus preached upon condition of beleeving Act. 10.43 Doth not the Apostle say that the Gospell is the power of God to salvation because therein is Christs righteousnesse revealed not to sinners as sinners but from faith to faith The condition of works is impossible to be wrought in us by the Spirit but the condition of faith though it be impossible for us to work it in our hearts yet it is possible easie and unusuall for God to work it by requiring of it Ier. 3.22 which is no prejudice to Gods free-grace because faith is purposely required and wrought because it chiefly honours and advanceth free-grace Rom. 4 16. The promise is of faith that it might be by grace If Mr W.C. will not preach Christ upon beleeving how will he or any man else preach it Will they tell all men that God loves them and that Christ hath died for them that he that gives grace and salvation will work faith in them Truly thus W.C. seems to affirm but if they shall preach so to all sinners as sinners and tell ●hem absolutely God will work faith in them also I suppose that the Church wals and plentifull and abundant experience would testifie against this falsehood and the Scripture testifies sufficiently that every man shall not have faith to whom the Gospel is preached Now I do beseech the God and father of lights to pitty his straying servants who are led into these deep and dangerous delusions thorow feeble mistake of the true difference between old and new Testament Ministries and that he would pity his people for whose sins God hath let loose these blinding anct hardning doctrines by means of which they are tempted to receive that as the Gospel of truth which is but a meer lye and to take that as an evidence of salvation that is in truth the evidence of perdition and condemnation as hath been shewn Thesis 118. The second thing remains to be cleared whether sanctification may not be a first evidence and therefore more then a carnall inferiour and last evidence as Mr Saltmarsh cals it For if it be not a doubtfull but a clear and certain evidence in it self as hath been proved why may it not be a first evidence why may not the Spirit of God who works it in a person justified first reveal it as an evidence that he is justified What mortall man can limit the Spirit of God to what evidence he shall first bring in to the conscience of a justified estate For let sanctification be taken in the largest sense for any work of saving grace wrought in the Elect whether in vocation to faith or in sanctification which strictly taken followes our justification by faith and take evidence not for evidence of the object for Christ Jesus in his free-grace must be seen first as the ground on which faith rests but for evidence of testimony to the subject and then I thus argue that this first evidence of speciall actuall love in beholding Gods free-grace to a sinner it is either 1. Without the being of faith and other graces Or 2. Without the seeing of them only the eye looking up only to Christ and free-grace But this first evidence is not without the being of faith and holinesse for then it should be to a man actually under the power of sin and his filthy lusts and the devil which hath been already proved in the former Thesis to be a meer delusion there being no such word of the Gospel which reveals Gods free love and actual reconciliation to a sinner as a sinner and as under the power of his sins but the Gospel rather reveals the quite contrary and to affirm the witnesse of the Spirit clears this up is to pretend a testimony of the Spirit contrary to the testimony of the world and yet I strongly fear and do fully beleeve that this is the first evidence which some men plead for viz. to see Gods love toward them while they neither see grace or any change of heart in them or have grace but are still under the dominion of their sin And on the other side if any affirm that this evidence is not without the being of grace but onely without the seeing of it so that a Christians first evidence is the seeing of Gods free grace out of himself without seeing any faith or grace in himself and seeing nothing else but sin in himself this I confesse is nearer the truth but it is an errour which leads a man to a precipice and near unto the pit for if this be so then these things will unavoidably follow 1. That a Christian must see the love of God toward him in Christ and yet must not see himself to be the person to whom this love onely belongs for according to this very opinion it self it belongs only to a beleever and one that hath the being of grace and not to a sinner as a sinner 2. Then a Christian must not see the love of Christ and free grace of God by that proposition or testimony of the Spirit which reveals it and that is this Tu fidelis thou Beleever called and sanctified art freely beloved and thus a man must not see his estate good by the light of the spirit nay thus a Christian must receive the testimony of the Spirit which assures him that he is loved without understanding the meaning of the Spirit which is not thou sinner as such but thou Beleever art beloved not thou that hast no grace but thou that hast the being of it art beloved 3. Then the first evidence is built upon a meer weaknesse nay upon an untruth and falsehood for it is a meer weaknesse not to see that which we should see viz. the being of faith and grace in the heart in which respect the promise is sealed and if any man by not seeing it shall think and say there is no grace no faith no sanctification and now he sees Gods love to such a one and he thinks himself to be such a one when he sees Gods free grace and hath this first evidence it is a falsehood and an untruth for it is supposed to be there in the being of it all this while suppose therefore that some Christians at their first return and conversion to God or afterward have grace and faith but see it not in their assurance of Gods love the eminency of the object and good of it swallowing up their thoughts and hearts from attending themselves yet the question is quo jure they do not see nay should not see and take notice of the being of them in themselves Is not this a meer weaknesse and falsehood which is now made the mystery of this first evidence and indeed somewhat like Cusanus his summa sapientia which he makes to be this viz. Attingere illud quod est inattingibile inattingibiliter That a Christian must see and touch Gods deep love and yet neither