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
A59820	A discourse concerning the object of religious worship, or, A Scripture proof of the unlawfulness of giving any religious worship to any other being besides the one supreme God part I.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1685 (1685)	Wing S3292; ESTC R28138	52,543	82

Mediators to address to but there are three considerations which may satisfie any man how far this is from a perfect state of Religion 1. That it argues very mean and low conceits of God for did men believe God to be so wise so good and so powerful as really he is they would be contented with one infinite God instead of ten thousand meaner Advocates The worship of Saints and Angels as I have already proved is a great reproach to the Divine perfections and therefore such worshippers must have very imperfect and childish apprehensions of the Supreme Being which is a plain proof what an imperfect state of Religion this is for the perfection of Religion is always proportioned to that knowledge we have of God who is the object of it 2. This worship of Saints and Angels is a very servile state it subjects us to our fellow-creatures who are by nature but our equals however are not our Gods It is a state of liberty freedom and honour to be subject to God who is our natural Lord and Soveraign but to fall down to our fellow Creatures and to worship them with Divine honours with all humility of address and sacred and awful regards is to debase our selves as much below the dignity of our natures as we advance them above it The excellency and perfection of reasonable Creatures principally consists in their Religion and that is the most perfect Religion which does most advance adorn and perfect our Natures but it is an argument of an abject mind to be contented to worship the most excellent Creatures which is a greater dishonour than to own the vilest Slave for our Prince Mean objects of worship do more debase the Soul than any other the wilest submissions and the more our dependancies are and the meaner they are the more imperfect our State and Religion is 3. The greatest perfection of Religion consists in the nearest and most immediate approach to God which I think these men cannot pretend to who flye to the patronage and intercession of Saints and Angels to obtain their Petitions of him Though we should allow it lawful to pray to Saints and Angels to mediate for us with God yet we cannot but own it a more perfect state to do as the Saints and Angels themselves do go to God without any other Advocate but Christ himself It is a great happiness to have a freind at Court to commend us to our Prince when we have no interest of our own but it is a greater priviledge to go immediately to our Prince when we please without any Favourite to introduce us This is the perfect state of the Gospel that we have received The adoption of sins and because we are sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying Abba Father That is this Holy Spirit which dwells in us teaches us to call God Father and to pray to him with the humble assurance and confidence of Children This is the effect of Christ intertercession for us That we may now come boldly unto the throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in a time of need The throne of Grace certainly is not the shrine of any Saints but the immediate throne and presence of God whether we may immediately direct our Prayers through the merits and intercession of Christ. Upon the same account the whole body of Christians are called a Spiritual house that is the Temple of God where he is peculiarly present to hear those Prayers which are made to him An holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And a chosen generation a royal priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people This is a priviledge above what the Jews enjoyed they had a Priesthood to minister in holy things and to offer their Sacrifices for them but the whole Nation was not a Priesthood nor had such immediate access to God but now every Christian has as near an access to God as the Priests themselves under the Law had can offer up his Prayers and Spiritual Sacrifices immediately to God and that very acceptably too through Jesus Christ our great High Priest and Mediator and if our Prayers be acceptable to God by Jesus Chrrist we need no other Mediators or Advocates This is the onely direction our Saviour gave his Disciples a little before his death to ask in his name with this promise If ye ask any thing in my name I will do it Hither to have you asked nothing in my name ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full And to give them the greater assurance of acceptance he acquaints them with Gods great and tender affection for them such as a Father has for his Children At that day ye shall ask in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you for the Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from God a reason which equally extends to all those who shall believe in Christ to the end of the world And can we now imagine that when our Saviour has purchast for us this liberty of access to God he should send us round about by the shrines and Altars of numerous and unknown Saints to the Throne of Grace When he will not assert the necessity of his own Prayers for us while we pray in his name because our heavenly Father hath such a tender affection for all the Disciples of Christ can we think it necessary to pray to St. Paul and St. Peter and the Virgin Mary to pray for us This is none of our Saviours institution nor can it be because Christ by his death and sufferings and intercessions brings us nearer to God as the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks Having therefore Brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh and having an high Priest over the house of God let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of Faith But the worship of Saints and Angels removes us at a great distance from God as not daring to approach his presence without the mediation of some Favourite Saint And though the Church of Rome does sometimes pray directly to God only in the Name and Mediation of Christ as the Pagans themselves sometimes did to their Supreme Deity yet it seems this is what they dare not trust to and therefore joyn the Meditation of Saints with their Prayers to God and never pray to God without it SECT VIII 5. THat the Gospel of our Saviour has made no alteration in the object of our worship appears from that Analogie which there is and ought to be between the Jewish and Christian Worship The Jewish and Christian Church are but one Church and their worship the same worship only with this

that God who created the world in six days and rested on the seventh and delivered them from their Aegyptian Bondage and gave them rest in that good Land both which reasons are assigned by Moses and therefore God commands them by the Prophet Ezekiel Hallow my sabbaths and they shall be a sign between me and you that ye may know that I am the Lord your God They had but three solemn Festivals every year and they were all in remembrance of the great Works of God and all the Males were to go up to Jerusalem to keep these Feasts and therefore all these were the Feasts of the Lord Jehovah And as they were to pray onely to God so they were onely to swear by his Name which is another part of Religious Worship and therefore to swear by the Lord of Hosts is called the Language of Canaan So that all the parts of the Jewish Worship were appropriated to the Lord Jehovah he was the onely object of their dread and fear and religious Adorations And when we consider that God had chosen them to be a peculiar people to himself that the Land was a Holy Land Gods peculiar Inheritance which he gave by promise to their Fathers and the Temple was his House where he dwelt among them it cannot be expected that any other Gods might be worshipt by such a people in such a Land and in such a house as God had appropriated to himself 3. It is very considerable that we have no approved example under the Law of any worship pay'd to Saints or Angels or any other Being but God alone We have too many sad examples of the Idolatry of the Jews both in worshipping the Molten Calf which Aaron made and Jeroboams Calves and Baalim's and other Heathen gods but had it been allowed by their Law to have pay'd any inferiour degree of Religious Worship to Saints and Angels which is now asserted by the Church of Rome to be a matter of such great benefit and advantage to mankind it is very strange that we should not have one example of it throughout the Scripture nor any authentick Records among the Jewish Writers All the Psalms of David are directed to God alone and yet we cannot think but such a devout man would have bestowed some Hymns upon his Patron and tutelar Saints had he worshipt any such as well as the Papists do now This the Church of Rome sees and acknowledges and thinks she answers too when she gives us the reason why it could not be so under the Law because those Old Testament-Saints were not then admitted into Heaven to the immediate vision and fruition of God Heaven-gates were not opened till the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour and therefore those blessed Spirits were not in a condition to be our Intercessors and Mediators till they were received into Heaven but now Saints and Martyrs ascend directly into Heaven and reign with Christ in Glory and it seems share with him in his peculiar Worship and Glory too Now 1 Whether this be so or not the Scriptures assign no such reason for it and therefore it is likely there might be other reasons and I think I have made it very plain that there was We are not enquiring for what reasons the Jewish Church did not worship Saint and Angels but whether they did worship them or not and it appears that they never did so that we have neither precept nor example for this during all the time of the Jewish Church Which is all we intend to prove by this argument 2. But yet it is evident that this is not a good reason why the Jews did not worship Angels under the Law For certainly Angels were as much in Heaven then as they are now whatever Saints were They are represented in the Old Testament as the constant Attendants and Retinue of God and the great Ministers of his Providence and therefore they were as capable of Divine Worship in the time of the Law as they are now nay I think a little more For the Law it self was given by the Ministry of Angels and their appearances were more frequent and familiar and the world seemed to be more under the Government of Angels then than it is now since Christ is made the Head of the Church and exalted above all principalities and powers And therefore sometimes the Advocates of the Church of Rome make some little offers to prove the worship of Angels in those days to this purpose they alledge that form of Benediction which Jacob used in blessing the Sons of Joseph The Angel which redeemed me from all evil bless the Lads But 1. This is not a direct prayer to the Angel but onely his committing of them to the care and patronage of that Angel with a prayer to God for that purpose And if he by experience had found that God had appointed his Angel to defend and protect him it was but reasonable to pray to God that the same Angel might protect his posterity 2. But yet according to the sense of the Antient Fathers this was no created Angel and Spirit but the Son and Word of God the Angel of the presence who is so often in Scripture stiled Jehovah a name which can belong to no created Spirit And it is no hard matter to make it highly probable that this is that Angel who redeemed Jacob out of all his troubles But it is strange if Angels were worshipt under the Old Testament we should have no clearer and plainer evidence of it than such a single Text which was never expounded either by any Jewish or Christian Writers to this sense till of late days and here the Priests of the Church of Rome are to be put in mind of their Oath to expound Scripture according to the unanimous consent of the Antient Fathers SECT III. The Testimonies of the Gospel considered whether Christ and his Apostles have made any alteration in the object of our Worship LEt us now proceed in the second place to consider the writings of the New Testament and examine what they teach us concerning the object of our Worship And that Christ and his Apostles have made no change in the object of our worship will appear from these considerations 1. That they could not do it Had they ever attempted to set up the worship of any other Beings besides the One Supreme God the Lord Jehovah the Jews were expresly commanded by their Law not to believe them nor hearken to them whatever signs and wonders and miracles they had wrought If there arise among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or wonder and the sign or wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of the Prophet or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the