Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	act_n	see_v	zion_n	19	3	8.8838	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90402	A voyce out of the thick darkness: containing in it a few words to Christians, about the late and present posture of spiritual affairs among them. Together with a post-script about darkening the counsel of God. As also, certain Scripture-prophecies concerning some transactions in the latter times. / By Isaac Penington, (junior) Esq;.	Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.	1650 (1650)	Wing P1217; Thomason E597_7; ESTC R203131	40,524	63

with what delight should I give it forth unto you I and yet why should I poor ignorant wretch be speaking when he who knows how to speak sees it good to be silent Had I not better fall a weeping over you but what value have my tears above my words yet let me weep or speak or both at worst it can be but like what we dayly meet with lost labour vanitie And I could almost fall into a patheticall perswading of you if I were sure it might be prevalent and profitable to weep with me yea and yet somewhat further even to leave this same eager prosecuting the Formes and Shaddows of things which passe away which perish in the very use which did not contain life and substance in them even whilest it passed through them to withdraw your Spirits from doting on your present enjoyments if they be present and to consider what is absent what is worth the enjoying and to mourn after it To forsake the house of Feasting in these poor low dark shallow things and to enter into the house of mourning after deep after excellent things after that life and substance which will alone be in request for food and satisfaction of Souls when these shall vanish and their emptiness and nakedness appear unto and be acknowledged by all There is ground of mourning in a double respect both in respect of what is lost and in respect of what was promised to be enjoyed First In respect of what is lost and that in a double respect also In respect of what you your selves have lost and likewise in respect of what the state of Christianity hath lost Consider what ye your selves have lost and mourn over that What Sweetness Meekness Patience Humility Faith Love c. did appear in Christians a while ago What Life and Vigour in Prayer What inward searching of heart and outward strictness of conversation Oh where is this Is it not gone Nay is it possible to be recovered Be provoked to jealousie O ye professors of this age hold forth the truth of things or give up the name also if ye have lost the Substance please not your selves with the Title but throw it away also rather then it should hinder you from pressing after the Substance again Consider likewise what the state of Christianity hath lost what it once possessed whereof the shadow is not now to be found What presence of God dwelling in them God dining supping walking up and down with them and they with him We know God by outward apprehensions sucked in from the letter of the Scriptures They knew God from the sight of him from his ingoings and out-goings in their own spirits They by a spiritual eye received from God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son saw themselves in God the Father and in Jesus Christ They saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in them They were come to Mount Sion to the City of the living God c. They saw they tasted they handled the Word of Life They had golden Candlesticks and Christ walking in the midst of them What Power of the Spirit of God going forth in them They could pray in the Spirit act in the Spirit live in the Spirit They knew how to move towards God in his own Spirit Out of their belly did indeed flow rivers of living Water which did continually run back and carry them back into the Sea of Life What Liberty of Spirit true Liberty wherein they knew how to use every thing and be in bondage to nothing Such Liberty wherein the Spirit might take its full scope to meet and enjoy God every where in every thing and the flesh have no advantage thereby to feed it self anywhere in any thing This was once the state of Christians that which they were in a way to attain that which some did attain yea that which was generally attained in some degree But where is it now Who comes near it Indeed a strong Imagination may fancy that it hath attained some kind of resemblance of it but do but compare it with the reality of this state how soon will it appear but an Imagination but a fancy and is not this a just occasion of lamentation Again There is ground of mourning in respect of what was promised More was promised then they enjoyed A more full presence of God a more abundant power of the Spirit a more perfect liberty in the Spirit He that beleeveth out of his belly shall flow Rivers of living Water I will dwell with them and I will walk in them and I will be your God and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty Though they had the enjoyment of this in respect of us yet this was but a promise in respect of what was to be enjoyed Promises are very large of plenty fulness of bread but the children of the promises are very scanty almost famished for want of it How full are the Scriptures of promises to the last days We say these are the last days and surely we meet with in part the misery that is spoken of as belonging to the last times but the happiness the sweet enjoyment of God the plentiful pourings forth of the Spirit which are so abundantly promised to those times seem more remote from us in view then they have been from preceding ages If ever there was a time for tears without and grief of spirit within this seems the season when after such an expectation of Light and Glory of Settlement and Establishment in the things of God such thick darkness such universal shame such dreadful Shatterings have so apparently overtaken us and are so likely dayly more and more to overtake us Not only our Superstruction but our very Foundation is shaken and when we have striven and tryed to the utmost to settle again we may be forced at length to confess that there is no setling any more upon it but we must come to a deeper bottom or sink for ever The Sense of A poor shattered Soul Concerning His Spiritual Loss Misery thereby Expressed in A LETTER To an intimate Friend The Letter MY dear Heart mine own Soul what shall I call thee I can call thee any thing in word in form but nothing in light in power I have not been unwilling to write to thee otherwise then I am made unwilling towards all motions But this I must confess I am unwilling so far to grieve thee as my writing necessarily will occasion How canst thou bear to hear how I have been tossed up and down stripped of all not of the outside but of the inside not of my corruptions which I hoped had been burning up and wasting away but of the vigor and life of my spirit Not one branch of knowledg not one sweet motion of my spirit but hath been confounded condemned taken from me and made odious to me Very shy have I been of new Notions till extremity made me desirous to entertain any thing that might in

but wonder at it when it is revealed but there is no certain guessing at it without his revealing it and it is no small peece of boldness to venture so to do 3. In respect of the state of the persons which is a low state far beneath God and a broken state far beneath it self The naturall state in its puritie is far short of Spiritualitie Adam the earthly man had an earthly image an earthly knowledge but not a spirituall and the naturall man cannot discern the things of God because they are spiritually discerned The Counsells of God are far above the reach of our nature yea above the reach of any spirit but his own His riddle is so deep that Christ himself could never have found it out but that he had his heyfer to plough with into his own bo●ome The Angels they peep into things as they are revealed but they cannot discern them till they be revealed How bold then is man poor weak man broken man that will be piercing into these things and holding them forth as the light of God without the light of God This raiseth the presumption very high What man almost in any trade if a person that hath no skill shall come and passe his judgement upon his workmanship but looks upon it with disdain accounting that person presumptuous though far above him in degree and yet man hath the same principle with man to receive the things of man into How disdainfully then think you will God take it that poor shallow man poor broken man silly weak-eye'd man that is so many regions below God so far beneath that principle wherein God lives and acts who lives in light and acts from light unapproachable should be opening Gods Counsells by his shallow brain should be measuring the light of Gods infinite Spirit by the darkness or if you will by the light of his own understanding So much for the second likewise Now from both we may take notice of these three things 1. It may blame us for our forwardness in opening Gods Counsell in things Every man almost can tell what God means in every thing this God intends in this this in that Is such a man afflicted so or so oh I thought he would be met with it was for such or such a thing There is hardly an action of providence but every man will be ready to interpret few Scriptures but bold man will be ready to shew Gods meaning in them and that very confidently if he have but a little bent his thoughts that way 2. It may shew us what the wisest undertakings in this kind are what our wise openings of Scriptures and Counsells of God without the light of God are if any man can truely and groundedly say n●t I but the Spirit of God in me opens this or that Scripture thus and thus unto me that is another matter I have nothing to say against that but I speak concerning our own opening though by our most ingenuous and industrious search by the fairest debating things i● our own understanding yea of our wise opening when we seem to give out the full intent the very life and heart of a Scripture and fence it about with strong Argumen's making that interpretation safe from all reasonings of all contrary judgements whatsoever what is this but a peece of folly of madness a setting up the wisdome of man an idolizing the pleasant conceptions of mans working brain but a darkening of God So God said of Job and so Job confesseth his to be chap. 42. ver. 3. Who is he that hideth Conncel without knowledge therefore have I uttered that I understood not things too wonderful for me which I knew not Ah what a fool have I been saith Iob to speak I knew not what to utter that out which I my self did not understand within to hide the wonderfull Cousell of God by my vain words and how presumptuous have I been in doing of it Who is he that hideth Councel c. he brings this reproach close to his spirit 3. It may be a ground of silence and waiting for the light This effect it likewise wrought in Iob. I will lay my hand upon my mouth I will stop all that my mouth would be uttering for the future once have I spoken but I will no more yea twice but I will proceed no further I will never undertake to open the Councels of God again after this rate Now I have seen God now I have heard God I perceive what my own knowledge was I see what a dark blind buzzard I was in the midst of my confidence concerning mine own cleer eye-sight Oh it were excellent to be brought to this by the sight of God as Iob was but its good also to check proud reason by its own light in which ballance if things were duly weighed there would appear little cause for our insulting over one another or for obtruding our light upon one another with such vehemencie and confidence as we are all too apt to do FINIS AN Additionall VVord TO Such as it may concern those who speak such lofty language with such high confidence saying God is All There is nothing besides the Lord All is good All is alike c. I Must impart to you my inward sence which is this If ye have received these things from pure power with true and clear light into an inward and spiritual understanding Oh how lovely how excellent is this to the relish of my spirit O how I long to be one with you in receiving the same things or any thing else after this manner Or if ye speak thus-like mad persons who have been hurried by extremity out of what ye were and understood into ye know not what or whither ye have liberty to say what ye please and my spirit cannot be offended at any thing that is said or done by you through the force of this extremity But if the strength of Reason by its workings hath purged out old notions and brought these and other like in their stead into the old vessel the creaturely imagination or understanding I must profess of all things this is the greatest abomination to my spirit and I thirst exceedingly to see the unquenchable fire let loose upon these notions and cannot but laugh in my spirit to behold what havock it will make among them of whom it will be as quick greedy and powerful a devourer as you expect to see it of any principles or notions that have gone before them The great Queen that looks to sit a Lady for ever that saith and thinketh I am and none else besides me must have those words and thoughts fired out of her throat and out of her heart and she also must come to sit as a widow and know the loss of children yea this misery shall light upon her even in perfection because of the multitude of her sorceries and inchantments wherewith she bewitched and intangled the poor desolated people of God and whereby