Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	adoption_n	father_n	receive_v	8,589	5	5.7408	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57286	A Rowland for an Oliver: or, a sharp rebuke to a sawcy levite In answer to a sermon preach'd by Edward Oliver, M.A. before Sir Humphry Edwin late Lord Mayor of London, at St. Paul's Cathedral, on Sunday October 22. 1698. By a lover of unity.	Ridpath, George, d. 1726.	1699 (1699)	Wing R1462A; ESTC R219686	15,209	25

not impos'd upon those of our Party as Terms of Communion For our parts we are so little concern'd about such things that we should not value it one rush if all the Youngsters of the Church wore their Shooes upon their Head and their square Caps upon their Feet as well as their Shirts on the outside of all their other Cloaths if they would not thrust them down our Throats as Terms of Communion and tell us we shall neither have the Priviledges of Men nor Christians if we don't let them do so But now he comes with the killing Stroke that it 's almost time for the Huntsman to sound the Death of the Hart with a Tone Tontontaven c. He tells us pag. 14. and 15. That the Objections against set Forms and the Pretensions to the Spirit from this Text are vain and frivolous Where is such Assistance promis'd or upon what account indeed necessary Let these Pretenders to Inspiration work Miracles too and then we shall believe these extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost which we rightly now judg to be ceas'd The very Opinion contradicts it self and what they pretend an extemporary Effusion is no more than a Form to all the Auditory and are often work'd up by Heat and Passion to say Amen to no better than Nonsense sometimes I fear even Blasphemy it self Strange is it that Men otherwise sober and that will not venture a Sermon which they will not address to the People without Care and Accuracy of Wording should yet dare to entertain Commerce with God at all Adventures buoy'd up with a little popular Applause and Self-Conceit Most evident it is that what they would make the World believe is immediately from Heav'n is attainable by Memory and a Volubility of Speech and perfected by a great share of Confidence Here as elsewhere this Novice hath entertain'd the Auditory with Ignorance Railing and Falshoods I could wish that his Tutor when he returns to Cambridge again would whip him a little for Ignoratio Elenchi Is it not a horrid shame that a Confident Prig should step up to the Pulpit of the Greatest Cathedral in England pretending to preach upon Controversies and not so much as understand the State of the Question he pretends to handle Then let him know that the Nonconformists don't deny the Lawfulness of set Forms provided they be sound and only made use of by those that can't do without them for they are always so good natur'd as to allow the Lame a Crutch But the thing they deny is this that it is unlawful for any Church or Society of Men upon Earth to impose stated Forms of other Mens composing to be used by Ministers in the whole Exercise of their Ministerial Function and no others This being a Yoke that many of the Conformists themselves don 't submit their Necks to but use Forms of their own composing or extemporary Prayers many times before Sermon at visiting the Sick and otherwise If our Author will read Didoclavius his Altare Damascenum an ancient and learned Author or Dr. Collins of Norwich a Modern Author upon the Subject he will find this to be and to have been the Principle of the Nonconformists upon that Head and the reason of it is this that the Gift of Prayer as well as of Preaching is given by our Saviour to his Ambassadors else how should they be the Mouth of the People to him as well as the Deliverers of his Message to them The stinting of Ministers to the Forms of others is perfectly to make them guilty of the neglect of part of that Gift which they receive at their Ordination by the hands of the Presbytery against which the Apostle cautions Timothy 1 Tim. 4.14 It is likewise plain by Acts 6.4 that it is the Duty of Ministers to give themselves to Prayer as well as to Preaching and seeing many of the Preachers by giving themselves to it nay most of those in other Countries attain to a Faculty of delivering the Message of God in good Method and Language without Notes for what Reason can our Author think it impracticable for them if they likewise give themselves to Prayer to deliver their own and their Peoples Desires in the same manner to God without the help of a Form I confess for such as he who seems to be grosly ignorant of the Office and Duty of a Minister and is more like Jeroboam's Priests of old that by consecrating themselves with a Bullock and ten Rams were fit to be Priests to them that were no Gods a Form of Prayer may be necessary for by his ignorant Twattle he seems to be such a Parson as the Story goes of who could not tell what Prayer to read for a poor Man that came to him when his House was on Fire but at last bethought himself of that for Rain which he wisely conceiv'd would extinguish the Flames But when he came to mumble it over it was only for moderate Showers which the poor Man knowing not to be enough for his Necessity made bold to mend the Form and cried out for whole Buckets full For his ignorant and irreligious Questions Where the Assistance of the Spirit is promised or upon what account indeed necessary they smell so rank of the Libertine that we may justly enter our Exceptions against his Evidence in matters of Religion as an utter Enemy to it But to reform him if possible let him read his own Text once more which is a Promise as well as a Prophecy that the Spirit should assist the Saints under the Gospel in their Worship of which Prayer is a very great part Let him read Rom. 8.26 27. and there he will find the assistance of the Spirit to be necessary to help our Infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh Intercession for us with Groanings which cannot be uttered and he that searcheth the Hearts knoweth what is the Mind of the Spirit because he maketh Intercession for the Saints according to the Will of God He may likewise read the Fifteenth Verse of that same Chapter and there he will find that true Christians receive the Spirit of Adoption by which they cry Abba Father and are as naturally enabled thereby to pour out their Souls before God in Prayer for Spiritual Mercies as we are by Nature prompted to request such things of our Earthly Parents as we stand in need of without a Set Form Let him read John 14.26 and there he will find a Promise That the Comforter the holy Spirit shall teach us all things and if Prayer be a Christian Duty it must certainly be included in the Bosom of this Promise If he thinks to evade this by pretending that we alledg the very words of our Prayers are inspir'd Let him quote any Dissenting Author Quakers or some such excepted that have said so if he can I conceive his profane Raillery that we entertain Commerce with God at all Adventures is