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	know_v	sin_n	5,214	5	4.5501	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60630	The faithful witness, or, A hand of love reached forth, that the blind may be guided, and the scattered gathered also, mans sinne and rebellion declared and the long-suffering of the Lord shewed: with a true call unto all people to meet the Lord by speedy repentance ..., also the state of professors plainly manifested ..., with a warning unto all the tender hearted amongst them to arise, and receive the hand of love ... : also, truth defended and cleared from the lyes and slanders declared by Ionathan Iohnson of Lincoln, a Baptist in profession / from one who bears no evil will to any man, but wisheth well to all men, and am known to many by the name of William Smith.	Smith, William.	1659 (1659)	Wing S4300; ESTC R38932	32,830	41

for you to serve the lusts of the flesh which makes you one with the World again in Words and Practises where the Enemy hath taken you captive and leads you in earthly pleasures and covetous practices in which you are wanton and light-minded in foolish jesting and vain talking turning the Grace of God into wantonness and making shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience being heightned in your imaginations in what you have taken up in the observation in which Satan hath transformed himself by his deceitful working in bringing forth a form in the imitation where you are set down and have taken up your rest and here he hath deceived you with a vain hope having setled you in a form without power and doth work a perswasion in your minds that it is the right Way and so sets you in enmity against the pure motion of the light of Christ in you having got your minds out to look abroad and have your expectation from something that is without and so he hath drawn your minds from that which is within that once did truly move in you and would have brought you into the power had you been faithful to the end but you are fallen short of that which they witnessed whose practice you pretend to follow and are turned against it and become the greatest Enemies unto it for he that hath prevailed over you and betrayed the simplicity in you seeks to pervert the right Way of the Lord by you and fills you with fury to cry out against those that walk in uprightness of their hearts before the Lord and in his fear are kept that they dare not sin against him but walks in righteousness and holiness in which the light leadeth them and which by his Grace he teacheth them from which you are erred and gone astray and walks after the imaginations of your own hearts where your own Wills leads you to take up a practice in imitation of what others have done who was by the Spirit of Truth guided and by it commanded and in which they performed all their services but unto this Spirit you are found Enemies and fighting against it in the strength of your own Wisdoms and so runs into error not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God but denies that which gives the understanding to know them and so never comes to the fulfilling of them nor to have unity with them but as they are Words declared and recorded for you stand not in obedience to the same spirit that in the inner man it might teach you and lead you to the Lord God who hath life in himself and gives life unto all that come unto him and believes in him by which all the children of obedience are refreshed and satisfied who lives by faith looking for and waiting to receive those things which are not seen but that which you take up your rest in and are satisfied with is visible and temporal which is seen and beheld with natural eyes and so you miss that which is spiritual and cannot be seen which is the substance and the end of all changeable things not living by Faith but by sight and contents your selves with created refreshments but that which the soul hungereth after and panteth for is living Bread that comes down from Heaven which whoso eats shall never dye for it is the Bread of life whose flesh is meat indeed and whose blood is drink indeed O pure refreshment from the Lords presence Blessed are all that are found worthy to sit down at this Table and to partake of this Bread and drink of this Cup which is the Communion of Christ's blood Be ye of an understanding heart O ye professors and consider if you have the substance and that you live in Christ and he in you and that you feel those things you feed upon to have life in themselves and to give life unto you if life be not in your Bread and Wine they are not the Communion of Christs body nor blood but bare Bread and Wine retaining their own quality and vertue as created refreshments and if you say this was their practice who enjoyed Christ and fed upon him and that the Bread which they brake was the Communion of Christs Body and the Cup which they drank was the Communion of Christs Blood but I say Examine your selves whether you be in the Faith least you eat and drink damnation to your selves not discerning the Lords body for that which they received and had Communion in who lived by Faith was not Bread of grain nor Wine in a silver Cup but the Bread which they brake was the Communion of Christ's body and the Cup which they drank was the Communion of Christ's Blood and you cannot prove any other thing without inventions and they being many was one Bread and one Body but the mystery is hid from your eyes who in your Earthly Wisdom would comprehend the things of God for you being run from the Guide which once did give you light and for a season you rejoiced in it you are departed from that which vvould have given you a true discerning of the Lo●ds Body wrought Faith in you to have believed though you had not seen and if you had been obedient to have followed that of God vvhich once did truly move in you then you vvould have continued in the holy Commandments given of God and have walked in them as children of obedience and discerned the Lords Body and the Communion which they had in it who did eat and drink and fed upon it in their hearts by faith And this was the Bread which they did eat and the Cup which they drank and had their life in him who is the Bread of Life whose examples none can follow in truth but such as receive the same Spirit of Faith and walks in obedience to it which you are found fighting against with the Words which from it were declared which you say is more sure then it is in its movings What a Vail hath overspread you And what thick darkness hath covered you who denies the motion of the Spirit from which the Scriptures were declared Did not holy men of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Did it not first move within them and gave them a Divine inspiration by which they came to know the things of God made manifest in them and from the motion of the Spirit declared as it gave them utterance and so the Scriptures came to be given forth and a true Record it is of what they were made Witnesses of who had communion with the Spirit and tasted of the Word of life and the Scriptures are profitable where the manifestation of the Spirit is received and believed in by which the understanding is opened to know them and the power of God but not to set them above Christ not against him as you are doing who are your selves departed from him and yet uses your tongues to speak the Words which were

THE Faithful Witness OR A HAND OF LOVE REACHED FORTH That the blind may be guided and the scattered gathered ALSO Mans Sinne and Rebellion declared and the long-suffering of the Lord shewed ●ith a true Call unto all People to meet the Lord by speedy repentance and vvait to yeild him ready obedience for here is the right Way of the Lord open'd Also the state of Professors plainly manifested wherein they may see how they are erred and hovv the Serpent hath deceived and betrayed them 〈◊〉 a Warning unto all the tender hearted amongst them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and receive the Hand of Love that they may no longer abide in 〈◊〉 but walk in the way of righteousness where true rest and peace 〈◊〉 ●●joyed Truth defended and cleared from the Lyes and Slan●●●s declared by Ionathan Iohnson of Lincoln a Baptist in profession 〈◊〉 who bears no evil will to any man but wisheth well to all men and am 〈◊〉 to many by the Name of William Smith ●●●DON Printed for Thomas Simmons at the Bull and Mouth near Aldersgate 1659. THE Faithful VVitness GIve ear all ye Inhabitants of the Earth for these sayings are true and faithful be meek and lowly in your hearts and how your ears to Wisdoms voice and turn at her reproof for in your own Ways are you wandering where peace you know not the bowels of compassion is freely opened from the Fathers love and his good will is made known amongst you in that he is striving with you to turn you into the right way that you might walk therein for he hath not left himself without a Witness in all your consciences which doth not consent to your ungodly deeds but doth convince you thereof and bears testimony against your ways of vanity which your minds are exercised in and all your wicked practices which by you are brought forth from your vain minds where you are beset with sin and servants thereunto your carnal minds being at enmity against God and not subjected to his Law you are at liberty in the flesh and satisfying the lust thereof and though you all profess to know God yet in Works you deny him and your hearts are far off from him therefore is your Worship vain for Gods fear is not before your eyes therefore you run to do evil and rebels more and more against the Lord wallowing in the mire of defilements that pollutes and stains your own consciences your minds being in the earth and your faces downward thick Clouds of darkness doth compass you about and the Prince of darkness ruleth over you and leads you all out of the way vvhere none doth good you are a Cage of unclean Birds every one follovving the lust of his own heart that you multiply your transgressions with delightings and commits sin vvith greediness and strengthens your hands in vvickedness a sinful Nation you are and a seed of evil doers filling up the measure of iniquity and nourishing your hearts as in a day of slaughter from the crown of the head to the sole of the feet there is no whole part in you O! how long will you suffer the Lord to wait that he may shew mercy to you How often have you rejected his loving kindness and grieved his holy Spirit What a day of a patience and forbearance hath he exercised towards you that you might have turned unto him and received his mercy You are a stiff-necked people who sets your selves against the Lord and every visitation of his love refusing to return and hating to be reformed for when you have been called by that of God in your own conscience you have not hearkened and when it hath smiten you have refus'd correction have you not felt a Witness in your own conscience against you when you have been acting iniquity that it hath judged condemned you for your secret faults that fearfulness hath surprised you paleness of face hath come upon you when no man hath been near you nor no tongue accused you yet that hath been within that hath numbred up your transgressions set your sins in order before you and brought them all to light in your own conscience which the eye of man hath not seen nor for which the tongue of man could accuse you yet they have appeared fresh in your minds though many years before they had been committed by you O consider what it is all you that have so long outstood it and yeild obedience to the reproof of it that you may be acquainted with it and thereby know it to be Gods faithful Witness in your own conscience placed against sin and the hand of Love reached forth to lead you out of sin and so come to have communion with it and walk in the light of it that you may not fall under the eternal condemnation thereof for though it be as a sign every where spoken against by those who are at enmity with it and that they call i●●atural and a delusion yet if you turn at the reproof the of and yeild obedience to it you wil know it to be God ●ighty Power unto salvation and this vvill give you the e●●●ence in your selves that it is a manifestation of God which doth discover all that in you which is contrary to its own property which it hath no fellowship nor communion with and this can neither be natural nor a delusion which doth reprove the natural man in his natural state where he is an Enemy to God a fervant to sin and under the Devils power by whom he is tempted and deluded to consent to the motion of sin and to bring forth the Works of Iniquity vvhich the Faithful Witness doth not consent to but testifies against and shews it to be evil in the conscience of every man and reproveth thereof and calls every man to seperate from it as an unclean thing this you may all read in your selves in the light which you are enlightened withall Yea drunkards swearers lyars and all prophane persons you all have a manifestation of God in you which doth discover your sins unto you and brings them unto your remembrance and many times strikes you with fear and terror for the evil of your doings and brings you into sadness and mourning for your sins past which in the light is made manifest unto you in your own conscience and this is not a natural thing nor a delusion but it is Christ the light of the World who was before the World was and is the power of God made manifest to destroy sin and the Devils Works and this is he unto whom you are all to look and stand obedient unto whatsoever he doth command you that you may know salvation in him and redemption by him whose Hand of Love is reached forth in this his day of power that a willingness he might beget in you to follow him be guided by the Hand of Love out of darkness where the god of this World ruleth who is a deceiver unto whose

delusions many are given up and do believe his lyes in which they oppose the truth and are at open enmity with it being filled with Wrath and Envy against it Now such whose deeds are evil loves not the light neither will come to it but runs from it and speaks despightfully of it as the Pharisees did of him who is the Son of God and though mighty signs and wonders he did amongst them making the blind to see and the dumb to speak yet were they filled with envy against him and said he cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils But he knowing their thoughts said unto them Every kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation and if Satan cast ●●t Satan he is divided against himself how shall then his kingdome stand But if I cast out Devils by the Spirit of God then the kingdom of God is come unto you this you may read Matth. 12. And here you may read whose off-spring you are for this Scripture is fulfilled this day upon this ungodly generation though your eyes be blinded that you see it not therefore repent and be converted that the hand of love may lead you and that your sins may be blotted out for with a light of Christ are you all enlightned that doth discover your secrets parts and makes manifest the counsels of all your hearts and is the true light that lighteth every man that comes into the World Ioh. 1. 9. This is plain Scripture and you say you believe the Scripture but you say again This Scripture doth not speak of a light within then weigh it wisely and see how every man that comes into the World is enlightned and by it you may read 2 Cor. 4. 6. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledg of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ This is plain Scripture and this was the Apostles Testimony That the light shone in the heart that 's within people and there gave them the light of the knowledge of Gods glory But then you say These were believers and you grant that believers have a light of Christ in them but not people in their natural state the Apostle was once in the natural state and was a persecutor of those that did believe in the light yet was the light in him shining in the darkness but the darkness comprehended it not but when it came to shine round him and convince him that he was an enemy to it and kicking against it he bowed before it and submitted unto it and yeilded ready obedience Lord what wilt thou have me to do Then did it shine forth of darkness and did shine in the heart in which the knowledge of Gods glory was made manifest read this in Gods pure fear and consider if you be not where the Apostles once were and there stands in open rebellion against that which he came to believe in and bear his testimony unto and further witnessed That a people who held the truth in unrighteousness had a manifestation of God in them Rom. 1. 19. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them Here was a people who was not in the faith and yet that which might be known of God was manifest in them and whatsoever doth make manifest is light Eph. 5. 13. then the light was within them and the truth was within them but they did not believe in it but changed it into a lye Ver. 25. and did not like to retain God in their knowledge Ver. 28. Therefore unto vile affection did God give them up that they might believe lyes because they received not truth in the love of it this is a Witness which none of you can flye from whithersoever you go it will ●●nd you out contend no longer against it for in it doth the Grace of God appear to all men by which the love of God comes to be felt in all that do obey and submits to the teachings of it and though there be many in the unbelief that speaks unadvisedly of it neither knowing what they say nor whereof they affirm who calls it a natural light and delusion yet in that love which unto me is freely opened and through the Grace which I have received in it I am constrained to bear my Testimony and to declare unto all people That the light of Christ with which every man is enlightened is the mighty power of God unto salvation to every one that do believe in it and a living Witness in every mans conscience is placed to condemn the Workers of iniquity who hath not a love to it because their deeds are evil there is no escaping of it for it is quick and powerful searching trying proving all secrets and the counsels of all hearts are naked and bare before it Read this soberly for it is written plainly in the love of God who is rich in mercy and plenteous in goodness and truth whose bowels of compassion moveth in pitty towards a sinful generation who hath no pleasure that any of you should dye therefore in this his day doth he reach forth a hand of love to lead and guide out of darkness all that turn unto it and are made willing to be guided by it Now all prove your selves in the light which you are enlightened withall and examine your selves truly and see if you cannot witness this testimony to be faithful and true and feel the Testimony of the Spirit bearing witness in your inward parts unto what is here declared for unto that of God in all consciences I am manifest which doth not consent to your sins but is seperate from sin and made manifest to take away ●in who is the Lamb of God pure and undefiled and though you have a general talk amongst you of Faith in Christ and living by faith upon him and that he is your Saviour and Redeemer yet you work iniquity daily and pleads for sin term of life and neither knows salvation nor redemption in him who is the Son of Gods love Therefore be not deceived with a vain hope and groundless Faith which stands onely in Words when your Works denies your Faith to be living being yet in your sins for the lusts of the flesh you do fulfil and draws iniquity with Cords of Vanity look inward the light will not deceive you but manifest every secret sin which lodgeth in your hearts which you would keep hidden to have your life in for though you may not be committing all sin so greedily as may stand with your hearts against many things which may be commonly counted prophane yet examine if you have not something secretly lodged which your minds are captivated in and which the light of Christ in your consciences doth reprove you for there is your lover and that must be cast out and trodden under foot if ever you come to vvitness redemption