Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	abide_v	able_a	mind_n	30	3	4.8496	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67307	A sermon preached in Christ-Church before His Excellency the lord deputy and the honorable House of Peers, October the 8th, 1695 being the day appointed for a solemn thanksgiving for the taking the strong cittadel of Namur, and for the other happy successes of His Majesty's forces, and those of his allies in Flanders this campaign / by Edward, Lord Bishop of Down & Connor.	Walkington, Edward.	1695 (1695)	Wing W458; ESTC R38411	13,472	20

upon that estimation of the Judgment by which we honour God in our thoughts to be without value for it is an excellent indication of a mind rightly dispos'd to the Love and Fear of God and the foundation or beginning of all the true Piety in the World These honorable thoughts of the divine power and goodness have a vast and unbounded Subject to employ ' em We can cast our eye upon nothing whether in Heaven or Earth or in the great deep we can contemplate none of the great and amazing works of Art or Nature but they give us occasion to admire and adore him and what Hypothesis or System of the World have we seen that could give any tolerable account of the smallest appearance in Nature without a God at the bottom of it neither is his power and greatness less visible in the moral than in the natural World The great and extraordinary occurrences which have sometimes hapned contrary to the hopes and expectations of the most discerning men such as as have defeated the power and baffl'd the Councels of the Wise and Mighty and have had such demonstrations of an over ruling providence as sufficiently shew'd the hand from whence they came These cannot but imploy the thoughts of those who honour God and who must from hence reason themselves into this conclusion that the Lord is great and powerful that his Works are Wonderful and that there is no end of his Greatness Small and common matter may pass unregarded but when the Arm of the Lord is made bare as the Prophet Isaia expresseth it when it is lift up and stretched out who can but see it and know it to be his when these extraordinary works of providence are such only as denote his power and greatness then indeed the people ought to hear and fear and do no more presumptiously But when they are instances of his love and kindness too this add's to our fear and reverence such a proportion of Love and gratitude as beget's the highest honour and esteem of him and warms our affections towards him to that degree that we count all things dross in comparison of him The hloy Scripture gives us such an Idea of his power and greatness and of his mercy and goodness that it is an argument of the most strange stupidity in the world not to be affected with it Who can but fear and reverence the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who is glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders Who ruleth over all the Kingdoms of the Earth and in whose hand is such power and might that none is able to withstand him the Lord God to whom belongs Greatness and Power and Glory and Victory and Majesty the Great and Mighty and Terrible God who brings Princes to nothing and makes the Judges of the Earth as Vanity who takes the Wise in their own craftiness so that the counsel of the froward is carried headlong who scatters his Enemies with a strong Arm who can make the worm Jacob to thrash the Mountains and beat 'em small and make the Hills as chaff who commands the Sun and it riseth not and seals up the Stars Who is the only true and living God and everlasting King at whose wrath the Earth do's tremble the Nations are not able to abide his Indignation Who I say can be so stupid as not to have his mind constantly affected with the thoughts of such power and greatness and who can be of so base and degenerate a frame of spirit as not to be thoroughly affected likewise with a sense of his infinite goodness and mercy to whom we owe our being preservation and all the benefits we enjoy all the necessaries conveniences and pleasures of this life we have received from his bountiful hand neither has he stopt here but given us the reasonable tenders and well grounded hopes of a better life who is not only merciful and gracious but liberal and munificent He not only pardons our sins that makes us unworthy of his mercies but upon our repentance and amendment he powers out his favours with a plentiful hand gives freely and upbraids no man but keeps Covenant and Mercy and will never forsake them that seek him who fills our hearts with food and gladness who is the hope of Israel and his Saviour in the time of trouble who has redeem'd us from the power of the Sword and who will deliver us in six troubles yea in seven that no evill shall touch us When these exalted and affectionate thoughts concerning God do break out into words as they undoubtedly will do if the heart be truly affected with the divine Favors they become that which we call Praise and Thanksgiving Praise for his Power and Greatness and Thanksgiving for his Mercy and Goodness and these are the most noble and perfect parts of Divine Worship for they are the imployment of the blessed in Heaven in which they spend Eternity So that they who desire to go thither methinks should take a great deal of care and delight to habituate themselves to that way of spending their time which is to last with them for ever for want of which I am perswaded it is that we generally see those who do not accustom themselves to this duty nor take any pleasure in the performance of it are so immers'd in this world so burthen'd either with the pleasures or the toyls of it that as they seem to think of none but this world so neither is it probable that they desire there should be any other But they that fear the Lord who have thoroughly consider'd his power and goodness and that his promise of happiness cannot be made good to 'em in this life where the greatest Riches and Honours have their troubles and where the most refin'd pleasures do cloy and surfeit those that most eagerly pursue 'em have their minds imploy'd in the search of more uoble and exalted divertisements and therefore they endeavour to have a tast of heaven before they come there which cannot be better done than by imitation as far as is possible of those that wait upon the Throne of God singing hallelujahs to him that sit's upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever hence it is that in all well constituted Churches Psalms and Hymns of praise and thanksgiving are a great and principal part of the publick worship the decent and Solemn performance of which gives the minds of the Congregation such exalted notions of God and has such an Air of Zealous piety in the manner of expressing 'em that they generally make the deepest impressions upon the imagination and memory of any part of divine service This shews the necessity reasonableness of publick praise and the great and astonishing mercies that we have had at the hand of God both Spirirtual and Temporal both private and publick do ingage us to thanksgiving which to an ingenuous mind is the most pleasant of all duties To hide the

monstrous and uncouth production for which humane Nature is not accountable but it may be said perhaps that this sense of a Deity and the pious regards that have been constantly paid to it is a notion invented and instill'd into the minds of men by cunning Politicians who found it difficult to Govern the World without it I confess indeed that to Govern the World without it is not only difficult but impossible which is no disparagment but a great honour to Religion and a great Argument of the truth of it but it does not therefore follow that it was contriv'd by Politicians for besides that it is very hard to conceive that all the Politicians of every Age and Nation in the world should so luckily hit upon the same State Maxim who differ almost in every thing in the world besides I think it is sufficiently unaccountable how the most rude and barbarous Nations and such amongst 'em as never convers'd with a Polititian in their lives shou'd upon the first dawning of Reason discover this Notion in their minds and express it in their practice It remains therefore that Piety and Devotion towards God and the necessity of our Addresses to him which is the thing here exprest by the Fear of the Lord is a dictate of the Law of Nature and is indeed a Consequence easily deducible from our sense of our own wants and of the divine goodness and Power to redress ' em And that these wants are great and this goodness and Power to which we apply our selves for relief infinite are two of the first and principal truths to which the humane understanding does clearly and distinctly attain But we Christians whose understandings are assisted by an additional and greater light the Revelation of the will of God made to us in his holy Word are not only distinctly inform'd of this matter in general but the nature of our wants the several kinds degrees and occasions of 'em the misery of our Condition if they be not redress't the infinite power and unspeakable mercies of God the great and signal instances of his favour to sinful men his kind and gracious invitations of those who have provok'd him and his promise of receiving 'em as oft as they make their applications in the way that he has prescrib'd are all reval'd to us in Scripture and every one of these is a clear and forcible Argument upon us to fix in our minds this Fear of the Lord this habit of Reverence and this resolution of waiting upon him in his holy Ordinances for a supply and continuance of his benefits If we look into our wants they are such as either relate to our Spiritual or Temporal Conditions Our Spiritual Condition is very deplorable by the fall of our first Parents and by that fomes peccati as the School-men call it which they have communicated to our Natures It has like a strong disease corrupted our whole mass and spead it 's ill influence thro' all the faculties of our souls It has blinded our understandings with error and prejudice and perverted our wills with our lusts passions insomuch that scarce our most holy duties are free from some or other ill consequence of this unhappy State This is the cause why when we are about to do good evil is present with us this is the War in our members this is the Carnal lust that resists the Spirit and is at Enmity with God A sett of Expressions that do extreamly well represent the great power that this pollution of our Natures has upon us and seem to intimate that our slavery under it is so great that it comes near to destroy even the freedom of our wills In short this is it which in our Prayers deads our Faith our fervency our trust and affiance in God and our close attention upon that holy duty This is it that casts in impertinent thoughts loose desires wrong ends and the like which are as so many blemishes in our Sacrifice This is it that in our hearing or reading the divine truths possesses our minds with prejudice inadvertency misapplication and sometimes with down-right Infidelity which makes it a Savour not of Life unto Life but of Death unto Death to minds so fatally corrupted In fine this is it that in our most serious meditations upon our great eternal concern make us light and unsettl'd driving to no point or issue fixing no firm immoveable Resolution of a sincere uniforn obedience to the will of God Against this deplorable condition we have no relief but by our applications and addresses to the Throne of Grace zealous and frequent acts of which make up this habit of Piety or fear of the Lord which makes us acquainted with his great and glorious Attributes as that his infinite power makes him able and his infinite goodness willing to relieve us which he does by sending the Comforter the blessed Spirit of Grace by whose assistance and influence we have full redress of all our wants and hardships This powerful influence of the Spirit of God like a good medicine diffuses its vertue every where applys it self to every disaffected part It bears down before it the dulness and prejudice of our understandings with the strength and clearness of the divine truths and with a sweet and endearing violence it sets upon our wills and unruly affections and subdues 'em to the obedience of Faith This efficacy of the Spirit of God upon the minds of men is call'd by the Prophet Jeremiah the writing the Law in the heart and putting it into the inward parts It is call'd by our Saviour the Father's teaching the holy Spirit 's convincing men of sin of righteousness and judgment and the Apostle St. Paul calls it the spiritual revelation of Wisdom out of the Word unto the Conscience And thus I have shew'd you the reasonableness and necessity of Piety or the devotional part of Religion which is here call'd the Fear of the Lord with regard to our spiritual wants and the way of redressing ' em Our temporal wants will be considered either as we are single persons or as we are united into a Body-Politick under the same common Laws and Government As to our temporal wants which concern us as we are single persons they are such as make us to depend upon providence for the smallest things we enjoy The very preservation of our Beings is but a continued creation which makes infinite providence as necessary to preserve as infinite power to create us The common accidents of humane life are so obvious and yet so unavoidable that no man living can either by his wisdom foresee or by his power and greatness prevent ' em The health and vigour of the strong the plenty of the rich and the honours of the great and powerful are such as the possessors of 'em cannot command their stay nay whilst they do enjoy 'em they generally have those cares and anxieties to attend 'em that usually embitter the sweetest of '