Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	aaron_n	anoint_v	king_n	72	3	4.5453	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59044	Animadversions upon a book entituled Inquisition for the blood of our late soveraign &c., and upon the offence taken at it wherein in order to peace the ground, reason, and end of our wars are discovered, the old cause stated and determined, the late insurrection animadverted, and a way of peace propounded / by William Sedgwicke.	Sedgwick, William, 1609 or 10-1669?	1661 (1661)	Wing S2382; ESTC R25203	133,070	314

God which did call them forth and then continue to judge them and God maintained his own and their authority over them We were called out at first not by Officers from God but by part of that we call Egypt or the world by the Parliament which we used as Egypt or Egyptians or worse we overthrew them and their authority 4. Israel had a Law given them from heaven and one Tabernacle built for all according to the pattern in the Mount of God We never had a Law from heaven to govern us but were left to the Laws and Customs of Egypt of the world No pattern for a Tabernacle but every one built according to his own mind which must needs make division and so bring confusion 5. God destroyed Egypt with his Plagues and armies of Frogs Lice Flies and Locusts but we our selves were these Armies that eat up this Egypt we were the Frogs Lice and Locusts that vexed the Egyptians 6. Israel were led out of Egypt into a Land that the Lord their God gave them We could never get out of Egypt nor had we any Land to go to They were driven out of Egypt by Pharaoh and the Egyptians we drove Pharaoh and the Egyptians out of Egypt and kept Egypt for our selves the goodly buildings the riches honours preferments and all the Laws Ordinances and Customs of Egypt and could do no other wayes for we had no Land of our own to go to 7. Pharaoh and Egypt first tasked and oppressed then persued Israel We had got the way of tasking and oppressing Egypt and then persued Pharaoh into the Sea and beyond the Sea Pharaoh and his Charets and Horse-men were drowned in the red Sea for his pursuing Israel And now our Charets and Horse-men are drowned in a kind of a Sea of confusion and it was for persuing with endless and implacable enmity Here is a wide difference betwixt us and our foundation and as wide an end There Israel overcame here Egypt overcomes And if that be our bottom and we build so very far from it we cannot expect a better end Let us consider the second ground the redeeming of Israel out of Babylon whether we have been truer to that Copy we have made great use of those Scriptures Prophesies and Promises how justly must be examined 1. First Israel did not destroy their enemies Babylon and the King of Babylon was destroyed by the hands of the Medes and Persians under the command of Cyrus a heathen Prince but anointed for that purpose But we have destroyed Babylon our selves and therefore have hitherto acted but the part of Cyrus the part of Israel is yet to come 2. In the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt God visited them by a King of their own Moses Who was King in Jesurun In this deliverance God visited them in the Emperour Cyrus and charged him to build his house And the Jews moved not but by Proclamation Command and Commission from the Prince When a succeeding King Artaxerxes forbade them to build the City they ceased until Darius made a new Decree enlarged their Commission and contributed to the work Afterwards another Artaxerxes was stirred up to give command for the carrying on the same work and supplying of all the wants of the builders We had no such authority for our work but on the contrary we went forth upon our own heads at our own pleasure according to our own minds without any authority and overthrew the Authority of the Nation because they would not joyn with us 3. Israel were the known people of God visibly distinct from the world owned to be so Even by those Princes in whose Dominions they were God gave them honour in the sight of the heathen where they were carried captive We have no such visible character no such justification but assume it to our selves and destroy others because they would not so honour us 4. Israel as they were outwardly and visibly the people of God so they were the known heirs of that Countrey to which they went they had an unquestioned Civil right to it although they had been for a time sequestred from it for their sins And when they returned home they recovered but what they lost enjoyed their own Temple Priests Tithes Offerings But we not content with our own inheritance usurp other mens rights Indeed the parallel fits the other side much better who have been for their sins driven out and now return to their inheritance to their Law Church Temple and Worship from which they were sequestred and driven away 5. When God brought Israel out of Babylon he instituted the same Officers Prince and Priest that he did when he brought them out of Egypt For Moses and Aaron then there was Zerubabel and Joshua now and to those was given a spirit that would scatter confusion a line and plumet the seven eyes the fulness of the Spirit to furnish them for the repairing the Temple and City of God The two anointed ones that stand before the Lord of the whole earth which through the golden pipes empty the golden oyl out of themselves And therefore it was then not by might nor by armies but by my Spirit saith the Lord But alas we have no King nor Priest no anointing to scatter confusion but confusion scattered us Our Motto may be contrary to theirs Not by Gods Spirit but by might and by Armies For we were successful in nothing else but in force and arms Therefore if the Scripture be a rule to measure your actions you must confess you have grosly erred and walked not only in crooked but in contrary pathes to it Consider fairly the third dispensation of God to his people the grace and salvation revealed by Christ and the Spirit in the Gospel Gospel-Ordinances Gospel-Saints Gospel Order and a Gospel-Spirit have been much spoke of I am grieved at my heart for you to think that any men should be so grosly deceived or deceive themselves as to perswade themselves that such works as you have done and such a way as you are engaged in should have any countenance or authority from the holy and pure Gospel of of the Lamb of God For though you have endeavoured to frame your outward forms of Worship according to the outward letter of the Gospel yet you have denyed and opposed both the Doctrine and Spirit of the Lamb and his Apostles and that not only in those things which you call miscarriages but in the main of your work and business 1. First Christ begins his Ministrie with blessing he blessed the poor in Spirit them that mourn the meek the merciful the peace-makers the persecuted so he taught so he practised he was himself a Lamb he sent his Disciples out as Sheep among Wolves and commanded resist not evil love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the children of your Father which is in

Government Or else by a friendly agreement with these or any other Governours If you resolve upon the first to destroy all that are not according to your conscience that your conscience may have liberty Then you would destroy all mens consciences but your own and all men for their consciences which is the most contrary to liberty of Conscience that can be Most contrary because you will endure none but your selves and that you would raise a war that you might establish a Law of cruelty which is a thousand times worse then to persecute by an established Law and Authority That power that you would have must be thorow the lives of thousands of your enemies and after that thousands of your friends for they that strive for a power never did nor never will agree in the sharing or administring of it But when through blood and destruction of friends and foes you have gotten it If you should prevail and you in your own persons escape yet that power gotten by war in that spirit you and we in reason must expect that it will be most cruel because raised and begotten by cruelty Indeed it is so horrid and irrational that the bare proposing of it will make reasonable men abhor such a thought For nothing but irrational and blind zeal with discontent and passion can so much blind the nature of man as to lead him into such unnatural things If your spirits do indeed drive to this to the removing and destroying the present state of things as an accursed thing then the ingenuous and seek not liberty from them nor complain of them for not giving it For every such acknowledgement of them doth confirm them and so contradict your prayers and endeavours to destroy them Sometimes secretly and cunningly to curse them and another time openly and for advantage to acknowledge them is falshood and deceit And will attain nothing but shame and confusion For there is little but shame and confusion in it It is a vile thing in private and secret to pray or warily to preach against a State and openly to comply with it in so doing our lives contradict our prayers or our prayers our lives But if this be the drift of your spirits though never so warily carried do you think it is not felt and understood by them that you so oppose you cannot conceal it from them It is wise counsel Solomon gives Curse not the King no not in thy thought or conscience for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter It must be understood spiritually for it cannot be meant literally Angels are intelligences and intelligencers they are principalities and powers and attend both the Throne and Altar they are present in dominion at Court and in your Closets at your devotions They are the birds and that which hath wings that tell the matter Publick authority hath publick ears and eyes and reach all corners Spiritual intelligencers as well as outward informers If they know and feel that you intend their destruction must they not abhor that spirit that under pretence of liberty of Conscience really endeavours liberty of destroying and of overthrowing Governments to exalt themselves And if they understand any thing they must think These men seek our destruction and as they pray for it and preach it so they will if they can or dare attempt it as they have done And therefore they having such a sense of you you cannot in reason expect but that they should labour to suppress you If they find rebellion war and wrath in the principles of it though in religious duties and conscience will they not suppress both the rebellion and conscience and the duties or worship in which it is And shall they not be justified in so doing I am sure your Law and Practise will justifie them For the same thing hath been done often and would be again if you had power while you are in this spirit When you shall recover either your own nature and reason or the nature of the Lamb out of this Spiritual drunkenness and cruel zeal you will find First That Antichrist the great enemy of Christ is also an enemy to man to his life peace civil order Law and to all humane Ordinances Secondly That this enemy is a spirit the Angel of the bottomless pit And therefore his chief seat and place is in spiritual things in conscience and in the spirits of men and in those things wherein spiritual men or the spirits of men are exercised in gifts religion and holy duties and his last and greatest strength is not in corrupt forms but in those that are most spiritual most lively zealous and gifted Others are but the flesh these the horns of the beast Thirdly And therefore conscience and the spirits of men even in Religion and in lively or spiritual Religion is grievously polluted by him This Templo of God is defiled by him You must come to know it and feel it as I have done Fourthly The nature of this beast is to destroy whence he hath his name Apollyon a destroyer His highest place is conscience gifted mens spirits enlightened and his highest work is to kill and destroy and in order to that to curse and blaspheme with those spiritual gifts Fifthly This spiritual beast this destroyer cannot but be seen and felt by the common reason of men although they cannot judge him yet they must have a sense of him as an enemy to that life and peace in which they live and to that Authority and Government which is committed to them Sixthly As they cannot but discern and feel the horns of this beast that pushes them and wounds them so they cannot but arm themselves with such weapons as they have against him If it be a State it will defend it self by Laws punishments policies and power Seventhly This self-defence though it be earthly cannot be denyed them yea they will be justified in it so far as it is rational humane and necessary and for the preservation of peace and common safety Wherein any are cruel and revengeful that is devilish also and then it is the beast against the beast But an humane care to maintain Law Authority and Peace though it be no more yet it is good against a destroying spirit that would bring in war and confusion under the highest notion of Religion and Reformation The ordinary and common Ordinances of man are to be justified in acting against a Religion Zeal that seeks the subverting of them The first is useful necessary and profitable the other is hurtful and destructive Eighthly The Law and Authority of a Nation defending it self from this spirit by its own weapons being outward must necessarily fall upon the persons lives and liberties of them that are ngaged in this spirit I am grieved in my soul for both both wound my heart both the agents and patients In love to mankind I am afflicted for them and feel the

matters promised in the Scriptures and drunk into your thoughts should cause you to adhere to your former opposition and so divert you from the plain path of peace and safety To answer you in this Know 1. The things that you expect both are and will be manifested and far more and greater then you imagine 2. But never to be obtained by enmity and wrath but by love peace and by the good Spirit of Christ 3. It is a false Prophet that holds forth greater and future things to restrain from an exercise of present and plain duties 4. I desire you to consider and remember that though these high strains have got up into your prayers and private discourses yet they never were of any power in your great business You will find that the strength of your cause as it was urged by the Parliament against the King and the Army against the Parliament lay in these low and common things of safety necessity and the interest of the honest Party and at the highest providence and success Consider now Whether the same principles do not now urge you to peace that carried you to war and more strongly and justly For safety and necessity it is both seen and felt that if you persist in an opposition to the present Government you will ruine your selves and families except a miracle appear for you You have no true ground nor faith for miracles if you have any you may sooner expect them in a Gospel way of peace reconciliation and perswasion then of war And for Providence it now directs you to agree with his Majesty For the great Providence of his restoration hath eaten up all your lesser Providences as Aarons rod eat up the Egyptian Magicians rod And all your success is now in the belly of this If then safety necessity interest and providence could then lead you to make war and the same things cannot now prevail with you to seek peace it will seem a dangerous and foul spirit To delight in war that is bloody and spoyling unclean and filthy and to decline the humble and meek way of reason and treaty is not Christian The second thing I doubt is your confidence in the multitude and earnestness of your prayers And to that I propound the words of our Lord which are of eternal authority Mat. 5.23 24. If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there rememberest that thy Brother hath ought against thee Leave there thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift The divine reason of it is this God is the Lord and Father of all men they are all his family if any one of his children or servants injure another and the injured person cry to him this cry comes up to him and is there put in as a bar or plea against that mans prayers till he make satisfaction For God is just and doth right to all men Now you know there is a cry gone up against you for the oppression of the Nation All Parties as well as your adversaries have something yea much against you And therefore mark what I say I speak it as a Priest unto God that do minister in his presence and as a Minister of the Word of Jesus till you can do these two things First forgive your enemies as heartily and truly as you desire God to forgive you And secondly ask forgiveness of them wherein they have ought against you Till these two things be done I put in a bar against all your prayers were they ten thousand times more then they are they shall not prevail Read but what follows ver 25 26. Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way Lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge and the judge deliver thee to the officer and thou be cast in prison Verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing Your adversary is your judge the more reason to agree with him You must either agree compound or stand it out If you stand out you must pay for all those years of trouble and vexation that you inflicted upon your enemies for all the poverty ruine and destruction you laid upon them and their families If you stand upon your righteousness all must be paid to the utmost farthing It is a great debt Except by forgiving and seeking forgiveness you agree troubles and disturbance will offend the Nation and then jealousies bonds and imprisonments will attend you Till satisfaction be made for former injuries to the last farthing If you desire peace and safety read this last Section diligently till you have made it your own If you desire either further satisfaction or my assistance I am ready to serve you Reader I Promised thee in the beginning of this Treatise a discovery of my life and state Thou hast some parts of it scattered here and there But the whole I must reserve to some further opportunity Because this hath swelled into a greater bigness then I did at first intend it And the matter of it is such that I judge it necessary to be first published FINIS