Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	according_a	ghost_n	holy_a	5,624	5	4.7363	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52134	Mr. Smirke; or, The divine in mode: being certain annotations upon the animadversions on The naked truth : together with a short historical essay, concerning general councils, creeds, and impositions, in matters of religion / by Andreas Rivetus, Junior, anagr. Res Nuda Veritas.	Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678.	1676 (1676)	Wing M873; ESTC R214932	95,720	92

of Christianity saith he were virtually contained in St. Peters short Confession of Faith Thou art Christ the Son of the living God For which Confession he was blest and upon which Faith Christ declared that he would build his Church as upon a Rock In conclusion I see Antiochus has ex mero motu certâ Scientiâ and Prince like Generosity given us the Question For I would not suspect that he hath hunted it so long till he lost it or let it go of Necessity because he could hold it no longer For the Extention as well as Intention of Peters Faith was terminated in these few words For it is no irreverence to take notice how plain the Apostles were under that dispensation The same John the Apostle and Evangelist C. 14. V. 26. and in the following Chapters showes how little it was and in how narrow a compass that they knew and believed and yet that sufficed Insomuch that where C. 16. V. 17. Our Saviour promises the Holy Ghost to instruct them further he saith only It is Expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not Come to you He saith not it is Necessary For that Measure of true Belief would have sufficed for their own Salvation but there was a larger Knowledge requisite for the future work of their Apostleship In how many of them and St. Peter himself as much as any were there such Ignorances I humbly use the word in matters of Faith that our Saviour could not but take notice of it and reprove them As for Peter when our Saviour was so near his Death as to be already be●…ray'd yet he Upon whose Faith he built his Church as on a Rock knew not the effect of his Passion but was ready with his sword against Christs Command and example to have interrupted the Redemption of Mankind And this short confession in which all the Fundamentalls were virtually contained as the Exposer here teacheth us and so hath reduced himself to that little Grain of Faith against which he contends with the Author was upon occasion of our Saviours question when Peter doubtless did his best to answer his Lord and Master and told him all he knew For that similitude taken from so small a G●…aine by our Saviour did equal the proportion of Faith then attainable and requisite And as in a Seed the very Plain and Upright of the Plant is indiscernably express'd though it be not branch'd out to the Eye as when it ge●…minates spreds blossomes and bears fruit so was the Christian Faith seminally straitned in that virtual sincerity Vital Point and Central vigour of Believing with all the heart that Jesus Christ was come in the Flesh and was the Son of the Living God And would men even now Believe that one thing thorowly they would be better Christians then under all their Creeds they generally are both in Doctrine and Practice But that gradual Revelation which after his death and Resurrection shined sorth in the Holy Ghost must now determine us again within the Bounds of that saving Ignorance by Belief according to the Scriptures untill the last and fu●…l Manifestation And the Intention of this Faith now also as it hath been explain'd by the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Sacred Writers is sufficient for Salvation without the Chcianrey and Conveyancing of humane Extentions And the Controverter himself hath if not by his own confession yet by his own Argument all along hitherto proved it In the 6. p he saith that where the Author charges some with introducing Many and New Articles of Faith He●… hopes he does not mean all our Thirty nine Articles If he hopes so why doth he raise the suspition for which indeed there is no cause imaginable but the E●…posers own disingenuity the Author appearing thorow his whole Book a True Subscriber to Then●…e without that Latitude of Equivocation which some others use or else they would not Publish those Doctrines they do and be capable nevertheless of Ecclesiastical Places But here as though any man had meddled with those Articles he explica●…es his Learning out of Bishop L●…y and of the Communio Laica which is but his harping upon one string and his usual Scanning on his fingers For the Author having named many and neew Articles of Faith the Exposer revolves over in his mind Articles Articles of and the word not being very pregnant he hits at last upon the Thirty nine Articles of the Church of England which yet the Exposer saith himself are Articles of Peace and Consent not of Faith and Communion Why then does he bring them by head and shoulders when the Author he knows was only upon Articles of Faith He might as well have sa●… the Lords of the Articles But this he saith is one as he takes it of our Churches greatest Ecclesiastical Policyes that she admits the many in thousands and hundred thousands without any subscription ad Communionem Laicam Truly she is ve●…y civil and we are an hundred thousand times oblidged to Her But I know not whether she will take it well of him that he not being content with so good an Office as that of her Exposer should pretend to be her Ecclesiastical Polititian over an other mans head that is fitter for both and not expect the Reversion And she cannot but be offended that he should thus call her Fool by craft assigning that for her greatest Ecclesiastical Policy when to have done otherwise would have been the greatest Impertence and Folly But who are these the many whom she so graciously receives Communionem Laicam without subscription Truly all of us whom she trusts not with Teaching others or with University Degrees The whole body of the Laity There again is another name or us for we can scarse speak without affronting our selves with some contemptuous name or other that they forsooth the Clergy have affixed to us Nos Numerus sumus the many fruges consumere nati Even his Majesty too God bless him is one of the many and she asks no su●…scription of him neither although I believe he has taken his Degree in the University Well we must be content to do as we may we are the many and you are the few and make your best of it But now though I am none of you yet I can tell you a greater Ecclesiastical Policy then all this you have been talking of It is a hard Word and though it be but one Syllable I cannot well remember it but by good luck it was burnt by the hand of the Hangman about that time that the Naked Truth was Printed And had that Policy succeeded the many must have taken not only all the Thirty Nine Articles but all the Ecclesiastical Errours and Incroachments that escaped notice all in the mass at once as if they had been Articles of Faith infallible unalterable but the State of the Kingdom had been apparently changed in the very Fundamentals For a

General Free Council is but a word of Art and can never happen but under a Fifth Monarch and that Monarch too to return from Heaven The Animadverter will not allow the second General Council of Nice to have been Free because it was over awd by an Empress and was guilty of a great fault which no Council at liberty he saith could have committed the Decree for worshipping of Images At this rate a Christian may scuffle however for one point among them and chuse which council he likes best But in good earnest I do not see but that Constantine might as well at this first council of Nice have negotiated the Image worship as to pay that superstitious adoration to the Bishops and that Prostration to their Creeds was an Idolatry more pernicious in the consequence to the Christian Faith then that under which they so lately had suffer'd Persecution Nor can a council be said to have been at liberty which laid under so great and many obligations But the Holy Ghost was present where there were three hundred and eighteen Bishops and directed them or three hundred Then if I had been of their counsel they should have sate at it all their lives least they should never see him again after they were once risen But it concerned them to settle their Quorum at first by his Dictates otherwise no Bishop could have been absent or gone forth upon any occasion but he let him out again and it behoov'd to be very punctual in the Adjournments 'T is a ridiculous conception and as gross as to make ●…m of the same Substance with the Council Nor needs there any strong argument of his absence then their pretense to be actuated by him and in doing such Work The Holy Spirit If so many of them when they got together acted like rational Men 't was enough in all reason and as much as could be expected But this was one affectation among many others which the Bishops took up so early of the stile priviledges powers and some actions a●…d gestures peculiar and inherent to the Apostles which they misplaced to their own behoof and usage nay and chalenged other things as Apostolical that were directly contrary to the Doctrine and Practice of the Apostles For so because the Holy Spirit did in an extraordinary manner preside among the Holy Apostles at that Legitime Council of Jerusalem Acts. 15. they although under an ordinary Administration would not go less whatever came on 't nay whereas the Apostles in the drawing up of their Decree dictated to them by the Holy Spirit said therefore no more but thus The Apostles Elders and Brethren send greeting unto the Brethren of c. Forasmuch as c. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and us to lay upon you no greater burthen then these necessary things that ye abstain from c. from which if ye keep your selves you shall do well Fare ye well This Council denounces every invention of its own far from the Apostolical modesty and the stile of the Holy Spirit under no less then an Anathema Such was their arrogating to their inferior degrees the style of Clergy till custom hath so much prevailed that we are at a loss how to speak properly either of the name or nature of their function Whereas the Clergy in the true and Apostolical sense were only those whom they superciliously always call the Laity The word Clerus being never but once used in the New Testament and in that signification and in a very unlucky place too Peter 1. 5. 3. where he admonishes the Priesthood that they should not Lord it or domineer over the Christian People Clerum Domini or the Lord's Inheritance But having usurp'd the Title I confess they did right to assume the Power But to speak of the Priesthood in that style which they most affect if we consider the nature too of their Function what were the Clergy then but Lay-men disguis'd drest up perhaps in another habit Did not St. Paul himself being a Tent-maker rather then be idle or burthensom to his People work of his trade even during his Apostleship to get his living But did not these that they might neglect their holy vocation seek to compass secular imployments and Lay Offices Were not very many of them whether one respect their Vices or Ignorance as well qualified as any other to be Laymen Was it not usual as oft as they merited it to restore them as in the case even of the three Bishops to the Lay-communion And whether if they were so peculiar from others did the Imposition of the Bishops hands or the lifting up the hands of the Laity conferr more to that distinction And Constantine notwithstanding his complement at the burning of the Bishops papers thought he might make them and unmake them with the same power as he did his other Lay-Officers But if the inferior degrees were the Clergy the Bishops would be the Church although that word in the Scripture-sense is proper only to a congregation of the Faithful And being by that title the only men in Ecclesiastical councils then when they were once assembled they were the Catholick Church and having the Holy Spirit at their devotion whatsoever Creed they light upon that was the Catholick Eaith without believing of which no man be saved By which means there rose thenceforward so constant persecutions till this day that had not the little invisible Catholick Church and a People that always search'd and believ'd the Scriptures made a stand by their Testimonies and sufferings the Creeds had destroyd the Faith and the Church had ruined the Religion For this General council of Nice and all others of the same constitution did and can serve to no other end or effect then particular order of menby their usurping a trust upon Christianity to make their own Price and Market of it and deliver it up as oft as they see their own Advantage For scarce was Constantine's Head cold but his Son Constantius succeeding his Brothers being Influenced by the Bishops of the Arrian Party turn'd the wrong side of Christianity outward inverted the Poles of Heaven and Faith if I may say so with its Heels in the Air was forced to stand upon its Head and play Gambols for the Divertisment and Pleasure of the Homoiousians Arrianism was the Divinity then in Mode and he was an ignorant and ill Courtier or Church man that could not dress and would not make a new Sute for his Conscience in the Fashion And now the Orthodox Bishops it being given to those Men to be obstinate for Power but flexible in Faith began to wind about insensibly as the Heliotrope Flower that keeps its ground but wrests its Neck in turning after the warm Sun from Day-break to Evening They could look now upon the Synod of Nice with more indifference and all that pudder that had been màde there betwixt Homoousios and Homoiousios c. began to appear to them as a Difference only

Consider But it is simply to say no worse done of him to call that Forme of words as it is ordered by our Saviour himself a Divine Criticisme as if Christ had therein affected that Critical glory which the Exposer himself in so subtile a Remarke doubtless pretends to But the Exposer will not only have Philip to have instructed the Treasurer in this Criticisme but to have read him so long a Lecture upon Baptisme as must for certaine have been out of the Assemblies and not Noel's Catechisme acquainting him and instructing him abundantly in those great Points of Faith the Dying Burying and Rising again of Christ for our Justification from our sins together with the Thing signified Death unto sin Mortification the New Birth unto Righteousness then the Mistery of the First and Second Covenant Original sin how thereby he was a Son of Wrath had hereby Forgiveness of sins Adoption being made a Child of Grace Co-Heire with Christ to live with him in the Communion of Saints after the Resurrection in Life Everlasting I am glad to see that at least when it serves to his purpose this Exposer will own all the Doctrines which another Exposer would have call'd so many Stages of Regeneration and have thought them too many to have drove over in one dayes journey but would rather have turn'd out of the Road and lay'd short all night somewhere by the way Here is a whole Calvinistical Systeme of Divinity that if the Treasurer had been to be Baptized in the Lake of Geneva more could not have been expected And he has in a trice made him so perfect in it that as soon as the Christ'ning was over he must have been fit to be received not only ad Communionem Laecam but the Clericam also if it were then come into fashion These Exposers are notable men they are as good as Witches they know all things and what was done and what was not done equally In earnest he has made us as formal a sto●…y of all Ppilip said and the Treasurer believ'd as if he had sate all the while in the Coock-boot and knows how long the discourse lasted as well as if he had set his Watch when they began and look'd upon it just as the Spirit caught up Philip to Azotus But suppose for the Exposers sake that the Treasurer were in a Coach discourse and for all the rumbling so distinctly and thorowly in so short a time too if it had been which is the uttermost a dayes passage Catechumeniz'ed it came to this short Print between them The Treasurer desires to be Baptized Philip replys If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest which can never signifie otherwise then with all the Intention of our Spirit as when we are said to love God wi●…h all our Heart The Treasurer replyes and that 's all I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Now it is worth the Readers observation that out of a desire of C●…villing and the luxury the Exposer takes in it he has quite forgot the matter he brought in Controversie For the Dispute is concerning New Creeds Imposed beyond clear Scripture the Authors arguments and proofs tended wholly thither and to that purpose he urged this passage of Philip to prove that God considers both but rather the Quality then Quantity of our Faith The Exposer amuses himself and us to tell what Philip preach'd to the Treasurer but never minds that let that have been as it will and the Eunuch have believ'd all that this man can imagine yet all the Creed demanded and all that he professes is no more then those formal words believed with all his heart I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Wherein the Author has clearly carryed and the Exposer thus far lost the Question And indeed Antiochus you are much too blame to have put the Romans to all this trouble to no purpose But any thing to stuffe out the Dimensions of a Book that no man may imagine he could have said so little in so much which is the new way of Compendiousness found out by the Exposer whereas he might have known that not God only but even men alwayes do respect the Quality of any Thing of a Book rather then the Quantity One Remarke I must make more before I take leave of this page how having thus liberally instructed both Philip and the Treasurer he immediately chops in p. 5. Now this Author may see what Use and Need There was of the Constantinopolitan Creed That puts in one Baptisme for the Remission of Sins I read it over and over for there was somthing in it very surprising beside the elegancy of the Verses For the Now in that place is a word of immediate Inference as if it appeared necessarily from what last preceded that he had notably foil'd the Author in some Arguments or other and therefore exulted over him To any man of common sense it can signifie nei●…her more nor less then that whereas I upon prospect of this spoke merrily of the Athanasian Creed Noel's and the Assemblies Catechisme c. wherein Philip instructed the Treasurer the Exposer means in good earnest if men mean what they say that Philip having studied the Constantinopolitan Creed himself very ex●…ctly explain'd every Article of it thorowly to the Eunuch and in especial manner that of Baptisme for the Remission of Sins Which happening to have been so many hundred years before that Council was in being must needs be an extraordinary civility in Philip and which he would scarce have done but for the particular sa●…isfaction of so great a personage that had the whole manage of the Revenue of the Queen of Ethiopia I am sure it is more then our Church will vouchsafe in Baptisme 〈◊〉 of Infan●…s or those of Riper Years with their God-Fathers but fobbs them of with the plain Apostles Creed And truly the easier the better if afttr that and by powering water upon them these persons be without any more adoe as the Priest according to our Rubrick shall then say Regenerate To as little purpose doth he trouble in this same 5. p. Another Scripture the first of John 4. 2. Every Spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh is of God Which the Author urges in confirmation of what he said before concerning the Intention of Faith But saith the Exposer Will a Mahumetan or a Socinian Confession of Faith suffice This is I trow what they call reducing a man ad Absurdum and I doubt he has hamper'd the Author mischievously No it will not suffice in the Mahumetam or Socinian interpretation but a Confession according to the true sense of this and the clear express words of Scripture in other places will do it especially if St. John as most men are of opinion writ his own Gospel Nay though the Exposer contends against this place he admits another concerning Peter that is not much more pregnant All the few primary Fundamentals