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	call_v	heaven_n	31	3	5.1322	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50410	Certain sermons and letters of defence and resolution to some of the late controversies of our times by Jas. Mayne.	Mayne, Jasper, 1604-1672.	1653 (1653)	Wing M1466; ESTC R30521	161,912	220

men altogether unletter'd men called from mending nets to preach the Gospell If this were so That God according to his good pleasure without any consideration of study or height of parts chose simple unlearned unstudied men to be Prophets and Apostles and Teachers then why should any thinke he hath so confined or entailed his free Spirit or vocation of men upon great parts and studies that he may not if he please call the like unstudied simple men from the Plough or Fisher-boat or Stall or Shop-board to be Ministers of his Gospel and Teachers of his people now My Brethren you see I have not prevaricated or diminished ought of the strength of the Argument which is urged in favour of Lay-mens preaching In answer to which laying aside all partiality to my selfe and prejudice against them I shall with the same spirit of meekness and Candour with which Saint Paul here in this Text bespoke his Corinthians beseech you who heare me this day to observe and weigh and consider well this which I shall say for a Reply First Far far be it from me so to flatter the place of my Education or so to biass my beleef by any false ovevarluing of humane Industry or great parts that I should pinion as it were or put limits to the power of the Almighty Or should be so irreligiously bold as to gain-say that piece of his Gospell which compares his holy Spirit to the Wind which bloweth where it listeth If they who thus pretend to a private Inspiration doe meane that whatever God did in the times heretofore he is able to doe now I shall easily grant it And here in the presence of you all confesse my selfe to be of their opinion Nor shall I make any doubt or scruple at all to say that if we looke upon what God is able to doe by the same power by which he was able to raise up Children to Abraham out of stones or to speake yet more neerly to the Argument in hand by the same power that hee was able to make a Herd-man a Prophet or a Fisher-man an Apostle he is able in our times also if he please to make the meanest Tradesman one of the greatest Luminaries of his Church Since to an Omnipotent Agent whose gifts are meerly Arbitrary and depend wholly upon the pleasure of his owne will the greatest endowments of men and the least are alike easie But though he be able to doe this and in the ancient times of the Scripture have imparted his Gifts without respect of Persons yet whether he now will or whether in our times hee doth still thus extraordinarily raise up Teachers to himselfe is extreamly to be doubted For here with all the Christian gentleness and reason which may possibly conduce to the clearing of this doubt were I to argue this Controversie with one of those men who invade our function and from gathering of Sycamore fruit step up into the Pulpit I would onely aske him this question What Commission he hath thus to usurp upon our Office Or who signed him his patent Since the Apostle tells us in the fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrewes at the fourth Verse A place well worth your marking my Brethren That no man taketh this honour of a Priest to himselfe But he who is called of God as was Aaron I know his common answer will bee that God hath called him to this Office by the secret Instinct and Motion of his Holy Spirit But then he must not take it ill if I yet farther aske him by what signes or markes or testimonies or tokens he can either ma●… it reasonably appeare to himselfe or others that God hath dealt with him as he dealt with some of the Prophets or Apostles called him from his Trade by such a motion of his Spirit Elisha we know made Iron swim and knew mens Closet-discourses in a farre Countrey which was a sure and certaine signe that God had called him to be a Prophet The Apostles also we know wrought many of Christs miracles which was a most infallible signe that God had chosen them to be Apostles If any of these men who derive their warrant from the same sacred spring can make Iron swim or like Elisha remaining here in their owne Israel can tell us what the King of Syria saies in his Bed-chamber Or if like Saint Peter they can cure fevers and diseases by their bare shadowes passing over them Or if like the rest of the Apostles having never before knowne Letters they can of a sudden speake all Languages the Controversie is at an end It would bee a very great sinne against the Spirit of God to deny that hee is in them of a Truth But if all the proofe and signe they can give us that they have him be onely a strong perswasion of themselves Nay if by an infallible Illumination they could assure themselves that they have him yet as many as have not the like infallible Illumination to assure them so too will not be guilty of an unpardonable offence if they suspect they have him not For here I must once more repeat my former Question and aske by what effects or signes of the Spirit men shall know them to be called By what will some man say why Doe you not heare them preach expound Scripture unfold Prophecies interpret Parables nay plucke the veile and cloud from the Booke of Mysteries it selfe the very Revelation Can any of you great Schollers with all your study of Philosophers Fathers Councells Schoole-men Historians Oratours Poets either hold your Congregations longer or send them away more edified And will you yet ask Questions Or doubt of the certainty of their vocation I must not dissemble with you if I could meet with an unlearned Handicraft-man who without study can doe this to the same height and measure of Truth as those unjustly-cryed downe learned and well-studied men doe I should begin to alter my opinion And should reckon him as hee deserves in the number of the inspired But alas my Brethren as I am not come hither to disparage the guifts of the Holy Ghost in what person soever I finde them or to perswade that Scripture rightly expounded is not one and the same from the mouth of a Priest or an inspired Lay-man so this I must freely say to you That as many of those strange Teachers as I have heard have expounded Scripture indeed and have ventured upon some of the hardest places of the Prophets But then if all my studies of the Bible assisted with all those holy uncorrupted learned helps which might enable mee to understand it aright have not deceived me their expositions and Sermons how passionately delivered or how long soever are evident proofes to mee that they have not the Spirit If they had they would never certainely expound Scripture so directly contrary to his meaning Or make the writings of the Prophets or Apostles weare only that present shape not which the holy Ghost hath

a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one we are not to keep Company No not to eat I grant indeed S. Paul sayes so and doe think it very fit that S. Paul should be obeyed But how doth this prove that they are to forsake our Congregations That there are such men among us as S. Paul doth there describe is a Truth too cleare to be denyed But are our whole Congregations composed of such men Are all Drunkards Are all Fornicatours Are all Raylers Are all Extortioners Are all both Priests and People so like one another that when they meete they make not a Church Assembly but a Congregation of such sinners Or are they onely some And they perhaps the lesser part who are guilty of those sinnes Nay suppose they should be farre the greater part who are guilty of these sinnes yet you know our Saviour Christ compares the Church to a Field sowne with good seed But then he tells us too That to the Worlds end among the good seed there shall still grow Weeds and Tares Againe in the 13. chapter of S. Mathew at the 47. and 48. verses of that Chapter he compares the Kingdome of God here in this World to a Net cast into the Sea which inclosed Fishes of all sorts Bad as well as Good And what the meaning of this draught of mingled Fishes is I shall desire you to read at the 49. and 50. verses of that chapter where he sayes That at the End of the world and not till then the Angels shall go forth and shall separate the wicked from among the Iust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Originall Greek They shall separate the wicked from the midst of the Iust which clearely doth prove to us That till this finall Separation in the Church of God here on earth there will alwayes be a mixture To divide or separate therefore from the whole Congregation because some wicked men are in it is a course so unreasonable as if they should refuse a Field of Corne because there grew some weeds or should renounce a Field of Wheat because it beares some Tares Besides I would faine know how farre they will extend the meaning of that Text where S. Paul sayes That they are not to eat with a Brother who is a Drunkard or Adulterer or Rayler or Extortioner Will they extend it to all sorts of persons who are such If they will Then if a Woman have a Drunkard to her Husband she must separate from him because he is a Drunkard if she doe not every time she eats with him she disobeyes S. Paul and in every meale she makes with him she commits a Scripture sinne By the same reason also If the Sonne have a Drunkard to his Father he must remove Tables and not dyet with his Father And so there will be one Division more then those the Scripture speakes of For that onely tells us that the time shall come when the Sonne shall be divided from the Father and the Mother from the Daughter But if this Interpretation be true the Wife must divide and break her selfe from her distemper'd Husband too Nay give me leave to goe one step farther yet If the sinnes of a part be a just sufficient Ground to separate from the whole Why doe not they who separate divide and fall assunder For here let me ask them and let me ask without offence Are they all so Innocent so pure so free so voyd of sinne that there is not one disorderly Brother among them Is their place of private Meetings so much the New Ierusalem That no Drunkard no Adulterer nor Rayler enters there I wish there did not my Brethren We Ministers should not then so oft be called Dumb Doggs Idol shepheards Limbs of Antichrist Baals Priests by Tongues wich if S. Iames say true are set on fire of Hell If then it be not the meaning of S. Paul in that place that we should separate from all because some of those All are wicked upon what other just Ground doe they break Communion with us Is it because we preach in Churches They are Gods House of prayer Made his by the Piety and Devotion of our Fathers who if they lived now would hardly call them Saints who preferre a Barne nay a Hog-stye before a consecrated Temple Or is it because there is Haeresie or Superstition mixt with our once Common Forme of prayer If there had been you see that scandall is removed Or doe we persecute or force or drive them from our Congregations We are so farre from that that you see they are ready to require that our publick Congregations should stoope and bow the Knee to their private Meetings What other secret reason t is which thus divides them from us I can by no meanes think unlesse it be wrapt up in the Mystery and cloud of the 18. chap. of the Revelations which is their other strong Herculean place of Scripture which hath been urged to me to make good their Separation From which dark place of Scripture when I have removed the veyle and Curtaine I will put a period and conclusion to this Sermon T is there said that S. Iohn heard an Angel proclaime aloud and say Babylon the Great is fallen is fallen and is become the Habitation of Divels the Hold of every uncleane Spirit and a Cage of every uncleane and hatefull Bird As you may read at the 2. verse of that chapter T is farther said That he heard another voice from heaven saying Come out of her my people that yee be not partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her plagues As you may read at the 4. verse of that chapter where by Babylon fallen they understand the Church of England falne By the Habitation of Divels the Hold of foule Spirits and Cage of uncleane Birds They understand our Parish Churches and Congregations which meet there which they say are so much a Cage of uncleane Birds places so corrupt so full of wickednesse and sinne that God by his Spirit as it were by a voice from the Clouds hath said unto them Come out of them my people divide your selves from them lest ye be partakers of their sinnes and go sharers in their plagues This is or must be their Interpretation of that place or else 't will no way serve to uphold their Separation If I say by the Habitation of Divells and Cage of uncleane Birds be not meant our Church Assemblyes from which they doe divide they doe but build a House of straw and choose the sand for a Foundation I am sure I have been told that this was the very Interpretation which the Gentleman gave of this place who just now disputed with me at a dispute which not long since he had with Mr. Gibson of Chinner But now will you heare my censure of this wilde Interpretation Take it then thus Among the severall Expounders of the Revelation I once met with one who when he came to interpret the