Riches of mercy to men in misery, or, Certain excellent treatises concerning the dignity…

if you have the same lusts reigning in you, if you use the same evil company, and have the same haunts that ever you had, you have not the spirit; And so long as you remain thus, do you think that Christ will come and sup and dine with you; And yet you will not erect a building for him in your hearts? Therefore, if you would have Christ and the spirit, labour to get holiness.

The fourth sign whereby you may know whether you ¹have the spirit, is this: If it be but a common spirit. you shall find, that it will do by you, as the Angels do by assumed bodies. They take them up for a time, and do many things with them to serve their own turns, but they do not put life into them: So in like manner examine whether the spirit makes you loving men, or no. That is when the sanctifying spirit shall join with the soul of a man, it will make him do suitable things, and brings forth suitable actions. The body is dead without the soul, so the soul hath of it self no spiritual life to good without the spirit: Therefore that which Paul speaks of unchaste widows that they are dead while they live: so I may say of every man that hath not the Spirit: they are dead men, dead to good, to grace, to holiness. I say there is no life without the Spirit, Men are not living men, because they walk, and talk, and the like, but they are living men that live in the Spirit and by the Spirit: And on the contrary there is no true life, neither are men to be esteemed living men that want the spirit: Now the difference between the assumed bodies, and the bodies which have the souls joined with them, are these; By the examination of which it will appear that the most men which think they have the spirit, are deceived with the common spirit, That is because they do the actions of assumed bodies.²

The fourth sign whereby you may know whether you ¹have the spirit, is this: If it be but a common spirit. you shall find, that it will do by you, as the Angels do by assumed bodies. They take them up for a time, and do many things with them to serve their own turns, but they do not put life into them: So in like manner examine whether the spirit makes you loving men, or no. That is when the sanctifying spirit shall joyn with the soul of a man, it will make him do sutable things, and brings forth sutable actions. The body is dead without the soul, so the soul hath of it self no spiritual life to good without the spirit: Therefore that which Paul speaks of unchaste widowes that they are dead while they live: so I may say of every man that hath not the Spirit: they are dead men, dead to good, to grace, to holiness. I say there is no life without the Spirit, Men are not living men, because they walk, and talk, and the like, but they are living men that live in the Spirit and by the Spirit: And on the contrary there is no true life, neither are men to be esteemed living men that want the spirit: Now the difference between the assumed bodies, and the bodies which have the souls joyned with them, are these; By the examinnation of which it will appear that the most men which think they have the spirit, are deceived with the common spirit, That is beause they do the actions of assumed bodies.