Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	comforter_n	father_n	spirit_n	4,076	5	5.9897	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45138	The middle-way in one paper of election & redemption, with indifferency between the Arminian & Calvinist / by Jo. H.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1673 (1673)	Wing H3689; ESTC R20384	34,415	44

man-kind or of human nature but what he does in the Spirit that may be peculiar in some points at least onely to his elect Hence it is that when he tells us he Laid down his life for the World yet I pray sayes he not for the World but for those thou hast given me out of the World The prayer of Christ is a part of his intercession which is Distinct from his oblation and it is no argument from his not Praying for the World that therefore he Died not for it If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give his holy Spirit to them that ask him God hath given his Son to those that never ask him even to the whole World but he gives the Spirit of the Son only to his Children even to such as can cry Abba Father when they have received it I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter even the Spirit of truth whom the World cannot receive When he prayes not for the world that he prayes for is the Spirit and the Spirit which works grace in the heart whereby we are sanctified and perseverance to bring us to glory is peculiar to those whom God does give to Christ and of whom Christ can say For they are thine and all mine are thine and thine are mine and I am glorified in them You may say on the one hand If it be no more which Christ hath purchased for Peter then for all then Peter might perish for all Christs Purhcase I answer you may say so and without ignominy to his Redemption provided you know also that the Election of God and Christs Prayer will provided for Peter that further which it provides not for all and Jesus Christ when he hath made his purchase is the Executor of Gods Election On the other hand it may be said But to what purpose is this Redemption universal when none but those that perform the condition are saved I answer it is therefore universal that none of those who performe the condition may misse of Salvation As also that though it be all one to him that does not perform the same in regard of the event as if he was not all Redeemed Yet it is not all one as to God and the Verity of Scripture and his Judgment according to it The Scripture sayes often Christ Dyed for All and that God will Judge the World according to this Gospel He that belives shall be saved he that believeth not shall be damned the Foundation whereof is Christs Death which must reach so far as to make this good And who knows not that the very business of our whole Religion does depend upon the Establishment of the Verity of the Holy Scriptures I must confess I should most willingly hearken to any that could make Christs Death more Advantagious and when his purchase hath procured Faith and Repentance to no body but Remission and Salvation to All upon their Faith and Repentance if they are willing to say that there is sufficient Grace also purchased for the World that all and every one should Repent and Believe and apply that Redemption I am indifferent to the use of their Thoughts But if when I rather grant a universal Power arising from Christs purchase not as a direct fruite of his Death but as a consequential Event N.B. from the Abatement only of the terms that God is not wanting to any in necessariis and consequently that all men have sufficient Light Spirit Grace or Power to be saved if they will Yet so long as we cannot deny him but he may abound in gratuitis and to give the Will and Deed it self is more than to give Power as to have given to Adam the Ipsum velle had been more and a gratuitum wherein he might have abounded if he had pleased than in giving him only Posse velle I cannot see by any means but when Christs Death is made universal the Fathers Election must be left still Per modum decreti efficaciter operantis By way of a decree effectually operating free and absoute in regard to the condition of it's Application If all men have alike the Posse velle The Power to will and no more then must the reason Why one man Repents and is Saved and not another be resolved into his own self only and so may and must he say it is I I my self have made the difference when the Scripture does say Who is it O man that hath made thee to differ But if we allow as Redemption to be universal so a Posse velle from general I say not a Posse velle as to the Covenant of our Creation but as to the Terms of the Gospel And to the Elect the Ipsum velle from special Grace we shall neither have any thing to charge God nor give occasion to Mans boasting Neither shall the condition be held impossible nor when we have performed it shall we rob God of his Glory It is pleaded That unless Faith and Repentance does lie in every Man 's own Breast Christ's purchase of Pardon upon that Condition is but a Mock I answer To deny that to Believe and to Repent does lye in our Power were indeed to evacuate Christ's Death to All besides the Elect But to say that Faith and Repentance therefore does flow from our own Wills is another matter I must offer moreover If Christ had purchased Faith and Repentance for some which All have not the Reprobate might here have something to say That the Reason why he Repented not as the Elect did was because Christ purchased Repentance for the One and not for the Other But if Christ hath purchased nothing for One but what he hath purchased for All which directly is true then cannot the purchase of Christ be a Mock to any seeing some do reap a real Benefit by it and if others do not it must be their Own fault Indeed those Divines who confound the Blessings we have in Christ so as to make them All alike the direct Fruits of his Death with no difference must be under some manifest Prejudice here against St. Augushine and his Doctrine It stands not with reason that any thing which is part of Christ's Purchase should be peculiar for how then hath Christ dyed for All That which is of meer Favour is fit for the Elect that which is of Purchase should be universal or for All Mankind If that Grace then whereby we Believe and Repent is a Fruit flowing from Christ's Death no otherwise than the Covenant it self does these Divines alone must speak agreeably who will allow no other but that which they call sufficient putting all men into an aequi librium or equal Ballance between Choosing and Refusing and so leaving it upon their own Wills to make the Difference Who are saved and who are not saved But to what little purpose such Grace as this is distinguished at all from

the Grace of God is not given according to mans merit Another is that there is no man how great soever his righteousness be that lives without some sins The third is that men are born liable to the guilt of Adams first transgression De bon persev c. 2. The consequent of the second opinion that Election is ex praevisa fide of fore-seen faith is That although our good works are indeed the fruit onely o● Gods Spirit and to be ascribed to Gods grace yet must our frith upon which the Spirit or this grace is given or by which it is impetrated as that Father speaks be both in our own power and from our own will as being that and that alone in man that makes the difference between one and another or the reason why God should choose such a one to give him his grace and pass by the other And this doctrine with the Consequent of it must be acknowledged to be St. Augustine's in his first writings which he chose no doubt as the most moderate then in the Church which as we may judg by Prosper and Hilary's Epistles to him was never used to define election otherwise than secundum praescientiam according to foreknowledg till his dayes And this was the reason that those of Marsilia ad quorum authoritatem non sumus pares sayes one of those Epistles quia multum nos et vitae meritis antecellunt sacerdotis honore were so offended at that Father for his change And from hence does Arminius professe some-where Non stamus Augustino We stand not with Augustine for which this also as I remember is his reason Quia sibi ipse non stetit because he stood not to himself The Consequent of the other two doctrines which belong to Absolute election and come in this repect I have said bat to the same is on the contrary hand That neither our good works nor our faith it self nor indeed any good that is in man is of our selves but of the operation of God or of his Spirit who does at first excite our wills to Faith and a holy life by his continual assistance carry us on in perseverance unto the end that we may be saved so that the whole business of our salvation first and last must be ascribed to Him alone And if any ask the reason then why he gives not the same grace to others as to his Elect he shall find these words still in St. Augustine's mouth And who art thou that repliest aga●nst God May he not do what he will with his owne Hath not the Potter power over his clay O the depth of the knowledge and wisdome of God how unsearchable are his judgments and his wayes past finding out It were but jniury to quote a sentence or two out of the Father for this which is the designed contents of severall of his last books See de Praedestinatione gratia De correptione gratia De praedestinatione sanctoram De bono perseverantiae to name no more The great difficulty now in this Consequent of Election which appears does undoubtedly lye here If neither the faith nor good works of man do spring from his own free will but from the grace of God and Election then may the unbeliever and wicked excuse themselves and say It is not long of themselves that they believe not nor obey but the cause is in God who gives them not faith and obedience and they cannot help their own reprobation They will not say that Reprobation is any other than a negative decree which infuses no malice in them but it denyes them that grace which Election gives others and if it be not in their power to beleeve and repent without that grace How can they be condemned for their not beleeving and repenting This difficulty I am assured did stick so fast upon this Father in his first writings that I do hardly think him quite out of the gravell in any of his last Let us turn to his book De spiritu littera In his one and thirtieth Chapter he offers the question Whether faith be in mans power and determines that it is and must be so Upon this in his thirty third chapter he comes to another question which is put to the quick Whether the will whereby he believes be therefore of himself or of God If it be not of our selves sayes he but of Gods gift then may man say according to the objection proposed that he beleeved not because God gave him not the will If it be of our selves How can that text of the Apostle what hast thou O man thou didst not receive be true seeing this will to beleeve he hath of himself For the extricating us out of this distresse he yields to the first and seems convinced that faith must be both in our own power and of our selves for that reason Dicit Apostolus Idem Deus qui operatur omnia in omnibus nusquam autem dictum est Deus credit omnia in omnibus Quod ergo credimus nostrum est quod autem bonum operamur illius est qui credentibus dat Spiritum sanctum In his Exposition upon the Romans The Apostle sayes that God works all in all but never that he beleeves all in all That We beleeve therefore it is of our selves but that we do good works it is of him who gives his holy Spirit to them that beleeve To the last therefore he chooses to answer Liberum arbitrium naturaliter attributum a Creatore animae rationali illa media vis est quae vel intendi ad fidem vel inclinari ad infidelitatem potest Et idco nec istam voluntatem qua credit Deo dici potest homo habere quam non acceperit quandoquidem vocante Deo surgit de libero arbitrio quod naturaliter cum vocaretur accepit Vult autem omnes homines salvos fore in agnitionem veritatis venire non sic tamen ut eis adimat liberum arbitrium quo vel bene vel male utentes justissime judicentur The substance is that The will whereby we beleeve may be said to be received of God although it proceed from our selves because the faculty from whence it arises is received from him that is Because the nature we have is of our Creator the will which is of nature is of Him This does not satisfy me for these reasons 1. That which the Father sayes as to the voluntas qua credimus The will whereby we beleeve I take to be the same which Pelagius said as to the voluntas qua bene operamur The will whereby we doe good works But if this text and such as this be good against Pelagius they must be good against Augustine here that neither is our faith of our selves upon the same account The truth is The judgment of this Father while he wrot this book is this The Spirit is given to a man upon his beleeving This Spirit infuses grace charity or justification This