Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostle_n	contain_v	doctrine_n	2,322	5	6.1087	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61631	Twelve sermons preached on several occasions. The first volume by the Right Reverend Father in God Edward Lord Bishop of Worcester.; Sermons. Selections	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1696 (1696)	Wing S5673; ESTC R8212	223,036	528

imploy their power in promoting a doctrine so contrary to their interest For Heaven and Hell cannot be more distant than the whole design of Christianity is from all the contrivances of wicked Spirits How soon was the Devil's Kingdom broken his Temples demolished his Oracles silenced himself baffled in his great design of deceiving mankind when Christianity prevailed in the world Having thus far asserted the truth of the thing viz. that there was such an effusion of the Holy Spirit we now come to consider 2. The nature of it as it is represented to us by Rivers of living waters flowing out of them that believe by which we may understand 1. The plenty of it called Rivers of waters 2. The benefit and usefulness of it to the Church 1. The plentifulness of this effusion of the Spirit there had been some drops as it were of this Spirit which had fallen upon some of the Jewish nation before but those were no more to be compared with these Rivers of waters than the waters of Siloam which run softly with the mighty River Euphrates What was the Spirit which Bezaleel had to build the Tabernacle with if compared with that Spirit which the Apostles were inspired with for building up the Church of God What was that Spirit of Wisdom which some were filled with to make garments for Aaron if compared with that Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation which led the Apostles into the knowledge of all Truth What was that Spirit of Courage which was given to the Iudges of old if compared with that Spirit which did convince the world of sin of righteousness and of judgment What was that Spirit of Moses which was communicated to the 70 Elders if compared with that Spirit of his Son which God hath shed abroad in the hearts of his people What was that Spirit of Prophesie which inspired some Prophets in several Ages with that pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh which the Apostle tells us was accomplished on the day of Pentecost But these Rivers of Waters though they began their course at Ierusalem upon that day yet they soon overflowed the Christian Church in other parts of the world The sound of that rushing mighty Wind was soon heard in the most distant places and the fiery tongues inflamed the hearts of many who never saw them These gifts being propagated into other Churches and many other tongues were kindled from them as we see how much this gift of tongues obtained in the Church of Corinth And so in the History of the Acts of the Apostles we find after this day how the Holy Ghost fell upon them which believed and what mighty signs and wonders were done by them 2. The benefit and usefulness of this effusion of the Spirit like the Rivers of Waters that both refresh and enrich and thereby make glad the City of God The coming down of the Spirit was like the pouring water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground Now God opened the Rivers in high places and fountains in the midst of the valleys that the poor and needy who seek water might be refreshed and they whose tongues failed for thirst might satisfie themselves with living wa●er These are some of the lo●ty expressions whereby the Courtly Prophet Isaiah sets sorth the great promise of the spirit none better befitting the mighty advantages the Church of God hath ever since enjoyed by the pouring out of the spirit than these For the fountain was opened in the Apostles but the streams of those Rivers of living water have run down to our Age not confined within the banks of Tiber nor mixing with the impure waters of it but preserved pure and unmixed in that sacred doctrine contained in the Holy Scripture Within those bounds we confine our faith and are not moved by the vain discourses of any who pretend to discover a new Fountain-head to these waters at Rome and would make it impossible for them to come down to us through any other Channel but theirs But supposing they had come to us through them have they thereby gotten the sole disposal of them that none shall tast but what and how much they please and must we needs drink down the filth and mud of their Channel too As long as they suffer us to do what Christ hath commanded us to do viz. to take of these waters of life freely we do our own duty and quarrel not with them But if they go about to stop the passage of them or adulterate them with some forrain mixture or strive with us as the Herdsmen of Gerar did with Isaac's Herdsmen saying the Water is ours then if the name of the Well be Esek if contentions do arise the blame is not ours we assert but our own just right against all their encroachments For as Isaac pleaded that he only digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his Father and although the Philistins had stopped them after the death of Abraham yet that could be no hindrance to his right but he might open them again and call their names after the names by which his Father had called them So that is the substance of our Plea we pretend to nothing but to clear the passage which they have stopped up and was left free and open for us in the time of the Apostles and Fathers we desire not to be imposed upon by their later usurpations we plead for no more but that the Church of God may have the same purity and integrity which it had in the primitive times and that things may not only be called by the names by which the Fathers have called them but that they may be such as the Fathers have left them But otherwise let them boast never so much of the largeness of their Stream of the Antiquity of their Channel of the holiness of their Waters of the number of their Ports and the riches of their Trading nay and let them call their stream by the name of the Ocean too if they please yet we envy them not their Admah and Pharpar and all the Rivers of Damascus so we may sit down quietly by these living waters of Iordan We are contented with the miracles which the Apostles wrought without forging or believing new ones we are satisfied with the gift of strange tongues which they had we know no necessity now of speaking much less of praying in an unknown tongue we believe that Spirit infallible which inspired the Apostles in their holy Writings and those we acknowledge embrace and I hope are willing to die for But if any upstart Spirit pretend to sit in an infallible Chair we desire not to be brought under bondage to it till we see the same miracles wrought by vertue of it which were wrought by the Apostles to attest their infallibility 3. The last thing to be spoken to is the season that this effusion

opened not his mouth but only in Prayer for them who were his bitter enemies and though nothing had been more easie than for him to have cleared himself from all their accusations who had so often baffled them before yet he would not now give them that suspicion of his innocency as to make any Apology for himself but committed himself to God that judges righteously and was brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers was dumb so he opened not his mouth And the reason thereof was he knew what further design for the good of mankind was carrying on by the bitterness of his passion and that all the cruel usage he underwent was that he might be a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the World Which leads to the last thing propounded to our consideration 4. Which is the causes why God was pl●ased to suffer his Son to endure such contradiction of sinners against himself I know it is an easie answer to say that God had determin'd it should be so and that we ought to enquire no further but sure such an answer can satisfie none who consider how much our salvation depends upon the knowledge of it and how clear and express the Scripture is in assigning the causes of the Sufferings of Christ. Which though as far as the instruments were concerned in it we have given an account of already yet considering the particular management of this grand affair by the care of divine Providence a higher account must be given of it why so divine and excellent a Person should be exposed to all the contempt and reproach imaginable and after being made a Sacrifice to the tongues and rods of the people then to dye a painfull and ignominious death So that allowing but that common care of divine Providence which all sober Heathens acknowledged so transcendent Sufferings as these were of so holy and innocent a person ought to be accounted for in a more than ordinary manner when they thought themselves concerned to vindicate the Justice of God's Providence in the common calamities of those who are reputed to be better than the generality of Mankind But the reasons assigned in that common case will not hold here since this was a person immediately sent from God upon a particular message to the World and therefore might plead an exemption by virtue of his Ambassage from the common arrests and troubles of humane nature But it was so far otherwise as tho' God had designed him on purpose to let us see how much mi●ery humane nature can undergo Some think themselves to go as far as their reason will permit them when they tell us that he suffer'd all these things to confirm the truth of what he had said and particularly the Promise of Remission of sins and that he might be an example to others who should go to Heaven by suffering afterwards and that he might being touched with the feeling of our infirmities here have the greater pity upon us now he is in Heaven All these I grant to have been true and weighty reasons of the Sufferings of Christ in subordination to greater ends but if there had been nothing beyond all this I can neither understand why he should suffer so deeply as he did nor why the Scripture should insist upon a far greater reason more than upon any of these I grant the death of Christ did confirm the truth of his Doctrine as far as it is unreasonable to believe that any one who knew his Doctrine to be false would make himself miserable to make others believe it but if this had been all intended why would not an easier and less ignominious death have served since he who would be willing to dye to confirm a falshood would not be thought to confirm a truth by his death because it was painful and shameful Why if all his Sufferings were designed as a testimony to others of the truth of what he spake were the greatest of his Sufferings such as none could know the anguish of them but himself I mean his Agony in the Garden and that which made him cry out upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Why were not his Miracles enough to confirm the truth of his Doctrine since the Law of Moses was received without his death by the evidence his Miracles gave that he was sent from God since the Doctrine of remission of sins had been already deliver'd by the Prophets and received by the People of the Iews since those who would not believe for his Miracles sake neither would they believe though they should have seen him ri●e from the Grave and therefore not surely because they saw him put into it But of all things the manner of our Saviour's sufferings seems least designed to bring the World to the belief of his Doctrine which was the main obstacle to the entertainment of it among the men of greatest reputation for wisdom and knowledge For it was Christ crucified which was to the Iews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness Had the Apostles only preached that the Son of God had appeared from Heaven and discovered the only way to bring men thither that he assumed our Nature for a time to render himself capable of conversing with us and therein had wrought many strange and stupendious miracles but after he had sufficiently acquainted the World with the nature of his Doctrine he was again assumed up into Heaven in all probability the Doctrine might have been so easily received by the World as might have saved the lives of many thousand persons who dyed as Martyrs for it And if it had been necessary that some must have dyed to confirm it why must the Son of God himself do it when he had so many Disciples who willingly sacrificed their lives for him and whose death would on that account have been as great a confirmation of the truth of it as his own But if it be alledged further that God now entring into a Covenant with man for the pardon of sin the shedding of the blood of Christ was necessary as a federal rite to confirm it I answer if only as a federal rite why no cheaper blood would serve to confirm it but that of the Son God We never read that any Covenant was confirmed by the death of one of the contracting parties and we cannot think that God was so prodigal of the blood of his Son to have it shed only in allusion to some ancient customs But if there were such a necessity of alluding to them why might not the blood of any other person have done it when yet all that custom was no more but that a sacrifice should be offer'd and upon the parts of the sacrifice divided they did solemnly swear and and ratifie their Covenant And if this be yielded them it then follows from this custom that Christ must be consider'd as a sacrifice in his death and