Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	angel_n	celestial_a	zion_n	54	3	8.3499	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33124	An account of Dr. Still.'s late book against the Church of Rome together with a short postil upon his text.	J. V. C. (John Vincent Canes), d. 1672.	1672 (1672)	Wing C426; ESTC R18260	35,205	79

We should ipso sacto renounce our Lord and all his whole Religion should we set up Moses his forbidden i●ols and make it our religion to worship them as heathens did But we are heartened incouraged and confirmed in our Christian Religion by looking on the faces of so many our glorious Martyrs holy Anchorets and Hermits pious Virgins and Confessours who profest this our Religion before us bravely triumphing by the power of Christs love and divine faith over sins allurements and deaths ugliest terrours though incompassed themselves with the like passions and infirmities we are our s●lves invironed round about And when we are entred into a Church amongst so many of our worthy predecessors we compose our selves more heartily to our devotion then otherwise we should do in imitation of them remembring now that we are come up to Mount Sion to the City of our living God to celestial Jerusalem and society of Angels to the Church of Primitive Christians conscript in the Heavens to God the Judge of all to the Spirits of just men perfected to Jesus the mediator of a new Testament and to the aspersion of blood speaking better things then Abel § 10. The Heathens saith he did ill in their idoll worship and yet the wiser sort among them testifie that they did not hold them to be Gods but worshiped God in them Our acute div●ne having now by his fine wit so clarified Moses law that it might not so much concern Idolaters as our vulgar painters he now begins so to purifie idolaters practice too that they may seem but in the same condition with our Catholick and best Christians And who would not give his penny to hear him act and speak The heathens all in general are so excused in their idolatry Aaron in his act of apostacy and Jeroboam in his great sin that they are all and each of them no otherwise faulty then the Church of Rome in his books Thus doth Mr. Stillingfleet convert idolatrous Nations while he sits dreaming in his closet Here he diminishes and there he exaggerates here he blacks with his pen and there he whitens and then he cryes out all is one all of the same measure all of the same colour And truly I believe the great Gyant Goliah and little David might thus be made equal if the Gyant were beheaded and cut off by the knees on one side and David on the other s●de set upon a high pair of stilts While Catholicks are made to do what they do not and heathens not to do what they do on a supposal that all this is true there can be no great difference Let us then hear him what he tells us of Heathens in general The wiser sort among them testifie quoth he that they worshiped not the idols as gods but worshiped God in them O very good Thus the wiser sort among the heathens say But first who are these wiser sort It behooved him to let us know this But yet for his own pocket-reasons he does not But 2ly what says he himself to it O that is needless for his reader will understand well enough what he ought to think when such a Doctor as Stillingfleet tells him what the wiser sort have thought No body would think with fools but with the wiser sort alwayes And his whole discourse proceeds on this supposed knowledge of the wiser sort and according to it concludes We cannot therefore doubt of his mind But have we no wise sort of antient beleevers who lived among the heathens to testifie unto us what the heathens did Have we no Apostles and Prophets to hearken to no renowned and infallible persons to inform us Surely we have and those so many that we need not have recourse either unto persons unknown amongst the heathens for their testimony or to Mr. Sillingfleet the ingenious tr●fler He tells us that the heathens did not worship their Idols as Gods but worshiped God in them But our Apostles and Prophets tell us contrary things Hear Moses speak who lived among the thickest of the Heathens To whom did they sacrifice O Moses whom did the heathens worship Imm●laverunt Demoniis non Deo Deut. 32. They worshiped not God but devils they sacrificed to devils saith he and not to God The Nations change their gods and indeed they are no Gods saith Jeremy ch 2. but my people have changed their glory unto an Idol Baruch another Prophet brings in his testimony chap. 4. You have provoked him who made you saith he even the eternal God sacrificing to Devils and not to God The holy Psalmist he tells us no less peremptorily That they immolated their Sons and Daughters to Devils and sacrificed to the idols of Canaan Ps 105. and that all the gods of the Heathens are Devils Ps 95. Saint Paul our own Christian Doctor is bold and expresly testifies both against Stillingfleet and his wiser heathens That the things which Centiles immolated they sacrificed to Devils and not to God 1 Cor. 10. And yet after all this our Doctor is not ashamed to justifie those his clyents the heathens They did not worship their idolls saith he for Gods but worshiped God in them And whom shall we here believe Moses Jeremy Baruch David St. Paul and all our Christian Doctors or Stillingfleet rather and his wifer heathens unknown to himself They sacrificed to devils and not to God they changed their glory into an Idol they irritated the eternal God immolating to devils and not to God they sacrificed their sons and daughters to devils not to God Thus speak our Prophets and Apostles But Mr. Sillingfleet affirms they sacrificed to God they imolated to God they worshiped god and not devils they worshiped not the idols but God in them But I discern well enough the cause of his mistake Because they abstracted the general notion of God and applied it each one to his own idols therefore he thinks he may say they worshiped God in them But this is a gross mistake For to worship God in a thing and to worship a thing for God who is no God are two very differing cases Christians worship God in Christ and they do well heathens who worshiped their Idols for God did ill Cromwell our late Usurper after he had murd●re● our good King and set the Crown upon his own head would have taken it well if his Army had to●d him they honoured him for their King but not if they had said they worshipped the King in him The first word had sounded in his ears as a grateful slattery the other as treason to himself To ●bstract the Deity and apply it to another subject unto whom it does not belong is as far as we are able to behead the true God and set h●s Crown upon the shoulders of usurping devils And because the true real Deity cannot be removed either by the pleasure of the Usurper or worshiper therefore are these idols devi●s and false Gods God cannot be worsh●ped in them because he is not