Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A64939
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A review and examination of a book bearing the title of The history of the indulgence wherein the lawfulness of the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the ministry granted by the Acts of the magistrates indulgence is demonstrated, contrary objections answered, and the vindication of such as withdraw from hearing indulged ministers is confuted : to which is added a survey of the mischievous absurdities of the late bond and Sanquhair declaration.
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Vilant, William.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing V383; ESTC R23580
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356,028
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660
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the Lord your God before he cause darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light he turn it into the shadow of death and make it gross darkness When folk will follow their own imaginations and will not walk in the light of the word of God the Lord fills them with drunkenness and leaves them to dash upon one another and destroy one another like drunken men fighting in the dark But neither words nor rods will be rightly understood or laid to heart till the Spirit be poured from on high If the Lord would pour out his Spirit we would not only be brought to see our sins but to be ashamed of them to take shame and confusion of face to our selves we would sorrow and mourn and lament after the Lord we would turn from our sins to the Lord and joyn our selves to the Lord and we would joyn together in seeking the Lord in his Ordinances then the Wilderness would be a fruitful field the dead and scattered bones would be joyned together and live then Judah and Israel would be one stick in the hand of the Lord Ezek. 37. Then the Children of Israel and Judah would come together going and weeping seeking the Lord their God asking the way to Sion with their faces thitherward saying Come and let us joyn our selves unto the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten Jer. 50.4 5. When the Spirit is poured out from on high upon his people then the Lord turns to them a pure Language that they may call upon the Name of the Lord to serve him with one consent then they turn humble Suplicants and pour out their hearts in groans and sighs that cannot be uttered then Pride and Haughtiness is taken away and people become poor in Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh but trust in the Lord and rejoyce in the Lord Jesus Zeph. 3.9 10 11 12. Rom. 8.26 27. Phil. 3.3 Till the Lord come till he return with mercy and loving-kindness and turn us again and cause his face to shine and see our ways and heal us we will but wax worse and worse there is no remedy for us but in his Sovereign Gracc and those mercies that have been of old and endure for ever Let us look to him who is exalted to give Repentance to Israel and Remission of sins that he would turn us that we may be turned and heal our backslidings and heal our breaches that he may utter that quickning word Ezek. 37.9 Come from the four winds O breath and breath upon these slain that they may live O Lord come and overcome our evil with thy goodness for who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passes by the transgression of the Remnant of thy heritage and retains not anger for ever because thou delights in mercy who will turn again and will have compassion upon us he will subdue our iniquities and thou wilt cast all their sins in the depth of the Sea thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham which thou hast sworn to our Fathers from the days of old Micha 7.18 19 20. We have not remembred our Covenant but have spoken words falsly in making a Covenant Nevertheless O Lord remember thy Covenant and establish to us an everlasting Covenant that we may remember our ways and be ashamed Establish thy Covenant with us that we may know that thou art the Lord that we may remember and be confounded and never open our mouth any more because of our shame when thou art pacified toward us for all that we have done O Lord Righteousness belongs to thee but unto us confusion of faces as it is this day to all of us to our Kings Princes Fathers Ministers people of all ranks belongs Confusion but to the Lord our God belongs mercies and forgiveness tho' we have sinned against him Lord give us Repentance and turn us and we shall be turned Let thy power be great according as thou hast spoken saying The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy forgiving iniquity and transgression Lord humble our uncircumcised hearts that we may take with our sins and accept of the punishment of them that we may remember them with shame and sorrow but do not thou remember against us former iniquities but according to thy mercy remember us for thy goodness sake O Lord remember for us thy Covenant and repent according to the multitude of thy mercies and for thy names-sake pardon our iniquities for they are many and great And when Wisdom and Council and Strength when Light and Life is gone and when Unity is gone when there is none to help and none of the Sons of Zion to take her by the hand in her distress when there is none to make up the breach no Intercessor let thine own arm bring salvation When all earthly Glory is stained blasted and gone appear in thine own Glory in the glory of thy wisdom power and Sovereign grace in building Sion build the house and bear the glory that when thou hast done the work by thy Spirit grace grace may be glorified and that this may be written for the Generations to come that the people which shall be created may praise the Lord. We do not present our Supplications before thee for our righteousness for we are all as an unclean thing and our righteousness as filthy rags but for thy great mercy O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and do defer not for thy own sake O our God! for this people are called by thy Name O Lord the hope of Israel the Savior thereof in the time of trouble though our iniquities testifie against us do for thy name sake if thou mark our iniquity we cannot stand but there is forgiveness with thee that thou may be feared there is mercy with thee and plenteous redemption and thou redeemest Israel from all his iniquities and troubles O remember not against us former iniquities let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low help us O God of our Salvation for the Glory of thy name and deliver and purge away our sins for thy name sake save this people bless thy Inheritance feed them also and lift them up for ever Save us O Lord our God and gather us to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting and let all the people say Amen Praise ye the Lord. Unto the King eternal immortal invisible the only wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and and ever Amen FINIS
A REVIEW AND EXAMINATION OF A BOOK bearing the Title of the HISTORY OF THE Indulgence Wherein the lawfulness of the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the Ministry granted by the Acts of the Magistrates Indulgence is demonstrated contrary Objections answered and the Vindication of such as withdraw from hearing Indulged Ministers is confuted To which is added a Survey of the mischievous absurdities of the late Bond and Sanquhair Declaration Rom. 14.19 Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and things wherewith one may edifie another Prov. 24.21 My son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change c. LONDON Printed for Tho. Cockerill at the Three Legs in the Poultrey over-against the Stocks Market 1681. A Review and Examination of a Book bearing the Title of the History of the Indulgence c. AMongst the many sad tokens and prodigious Prognosticks of Gods anger against the Church of Scotland our multiplied Divisions are none of the least The righteous and holy God being deeply provoked hath armed every man against his brother so that Manasseh is against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manasseh and they both together against Judah And the Lord hath hereby in the open view of the Atheistical and prophane world poured contempt upon the remnant of his people that desire to cleave to his way and truth and made them despicable as a broken vessel that cannot be made whole again And this is the more afflicting that these contentions abound in a time wherein the Protestant Religion is visibly in so great danger from Popery and Popish Plots It therefore concerns all them who are any thing affected with the wrath and anger of a jealous and provoked God to lye in the dust to search out their own sins and provocations and sincerely bewail them before the Lord. And although the publick defections and provocations ought not to be slighted but much sorrowed for yet it is to be feared that personal humiliation repentance and reformation hath been little minded by many pretending to the abhorrence of publick sins O that every one of us might find grace seriously to enquire what we have done and that at such a time when all souls serious exercise of Religion is like to evanish into notions and debates every one of us would lay to heart the evil of his way both as to accession unto publick provocations and as to personal sins It is now high time when the Lord is so visibly taking vengeance for our inventions It hath been the sad observation of divers that every new tryal hath been the occasion of a new difference if not division The Lord partly in his holy displeasure withdrawing light and chastising his people for their sins and partly trying and exercising of them in that great duty of mutual forbearance so little made conscience of and partly discovering infirmities much dross in his own by the contests so carnally managed This we are now to instance in the Indulgence which although it was first looked on as a favour and mercy from God and the Ministers that imbraced it were advised thereto by the generality of outed Ministers a great part whereof were then at Edenborough yet now the contention about it is come to such a height that the acceptance is cried down as highly sinful and the hearing of Indulged Ministers Preached and written against as utterly unlawful The Indulged Ministers have generally hitherto for ought I know with much Christian meekness and patience endured reproach finding that what Letters were spread abroad against them did contain nothing but high Magisterial dictates without any shew of arguments as also they were resolved by their silence and forbearance to evidence their great desire to prevent contentions but now lest their silence should be looked on as faintness arising from the conviction of the evil of their Cause which it seems made the Author of one of these Letters to write that they never had the heart to dare to speak or themselves I shall say something in their behalf I must confess I am astonished to read these Papers that are going up and down amongst the people wherein with high and bitter words which I love not to repeat the Indulged Ministers are represented as having acknowledged and homologate a formal Ecclesiastick Supremacy assumed by the Magistrate and having subjected their Ministry in a direct line of subordination unto his cognizance as inferiour Civil Courts are unto the superiour yea not only so but these grave and worthy Ministers who thought it their duty to notice and bring to an account some few Probationers that were visibly sowing sedition and kindling a flame are represented as enamoured with that Idol of Jealousie meaning the Indulgence and as acted by the spirit of Antichrist And wherefore Because they took upon them to question the carriage of a few hardy and extravagant young men the tendency of whose way will ere long make it to appear what a spirit they were acted by But before I go further I must here protest that the personal reproaches cast upon those honest Ministers are not so much the motive that prevails with me to put Pen to Paper upon this Subject as respect unto the Truth and publick Interest of the Church the unity and order whereof seems to be wholly shaken and going to ruine by the courses driven on by some and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ Preached by them who I am sure have been armed by God in the Ministry with a blessing upon the souls of many though it is like these that now seek to decry the Indulged Ministers will not believe that ever their Ministry was blessed and countenanced of God and how can they seeing they look not upon them as the Ambassadors of Christ But blessed be God who hath looked upon them as his Ambassadors and hath not left their Ministry without the seal of a sensible blessing upon many But that I may inform honest well-meaning people who are jumbled and confounded with questions about the acceptance of the Indulgence and about hearing of Indulged Ministers I shall endeavour to lay the matter open in a plain conference The persons conferring shall be a Minister not Indulged but clear for hearing Indulged Ministers an ingenious Farmer who scruples to hear Indulged Ministers and a Preacher who is against the hearing of Indulged Ministers Farmer Sir it is now near Sun-setting I would be much obliged to you if you would be pleased to lodg at my house this night Minister I would be nearer the Church ere I take up my lodging for I use to make my Sabbath-days journeys as short as I can Farm You will be nighted ere you can come where you can have any tollerable lodging and you may with ease reach the Church to morrow before Sermon-time Min. Well I am content to stay with you Farm I assure you of welcom When you have taken some refreshment I