Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	apt_a	argument_n	good_a	25	3	2.1572	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66213	The missionarie's arts discovered, or, An account of their ways of insinuation, their artifices and several methods of which they serve themselves in making converts with a letter to Mr. Pulton, challenging him to make good his charge of disloyalty against Protestants, and an historical preface, containing an account of their introducing the heathen gods in their processions, and other particulars relating to the several chapters of this treatise.	Wake, William, 1657-1737.; Hickes, George, 1642-1715.	1688 (1688)	Wing W246A; ESTC R4106	113,409	130

The Fathers saith he were of opinion that Antichrist should one day seize upon the most Magnificent Temples of the Christians this was the opinion of St. Hilary and of St. Jerome this last mentions the very Rock of Tarpeius Therefore the Popes ought not to glory over-much in their Buildings since Antichrist shall one day place himself in them I like well enough to see such fine things as these but I confess that I have more devotion in a little Church without magnificence or rich ornaments than I have in such places I find that my devotion does insensibly divide and that sense doth sometimes carry away a part of my mind and transport it to sensible objects which do not deserve it and that my affection is thereby weakned whatever care I take to gather it up and unite it This hath a much more dangerous effect upon the Common people who have no knowledge and whose Religion lyes onely in their eyes and ears they do in an horrible manner fasten on these things which are onely obvious to their sense and go no higher And shall these things which the sober Romanists themselves confess to be an hinderance of piety destructive to devotion and fit to prevail upon none but fools be the motives to rational men to leave the pure worship of God to have their eyes delighted by gaudy shews and their ears pleased with all sorts of musick I doubt not but the doctrine of Ecstasies and raptures so highly applauded in the Romish Church hath its greatest support from these external glories which are proper to raise the affections to such a pleasing height as renders them almost insensible which though onely the effect of the pleasure the senses are entertain'd with are by them extoll'd as holy motions and divine illuminations while the soul is not at all affected or better'd by such transports There lyes therefore an indispensable obligation upon every person but especially upon such as by their natural dispositions are apt to be affected by such things to keep a constant and severe watch over their affections that they do not blind their understandings remembring Religion consists in the Vnderstanding and Will being rightly informed and directed not in the motion of the spirits and tickling of the senses the Doctrine of the Gospel being designed for the good of Souls never an Article of it calculated to gratifie and please the flesh Besides how unreasonable is it that those things which ANTICHRIST shall boast of and pride himself in should be ever us'd as an argument to proselyte any to a party as if they must needs be the onely true Church because in this they resemble ANTICHRIST If men would but seriously reflect it is an easie matter to perceive even from hence that what I noted in the Introduction of their designs is true for what doth all these glorious shews tend to the making a man wise unto salvation or the fitting him for the enjoyment of God All the tendency they can have is to work upon mens affections which I before observ'd is their main design Now we know that such emotions are seldom permanent which made the excellent Richerius speaking of these things though himself a Papist affirm That those who thought these methods would be long of force will in a little time find themselves mightily deceived And this is not unknown to the Missionaries who therefore strike while the Iron continues hot and ply the person whose affections are thus raised with their Miracles their Holiness and such particulars which we shall discourse of anon And I cannot think it one of the least weighty considerations to deter men from being gull'd by such trifles to reflect that these things are designed either for such as have no real sense of Religion or to bring them to have none the first sort being very glad of such a Worship as gratifies their voluptuous humours and others more soberly inclin'd are thereby taught to worship God wholly in a sensual manner and so estrang'd from the pure and spiritual part of Religion which God alone delights in Neither is this method onely calculated for such but they have likewise a singular dexterity in accommodating themselves even to the vices and corruptions they find men most addicted to if ambitious they endeavour to feed that humour if voluptuous to gratifie them in that if revengefull they permit them to follow their inclinations if covetous though of all vices they are most enrag'd against that yet for a while they can find a way not to be grievous to them and as pliable they are to the prodigal This is an observation made of the Jesuites by several Doctors of the Sorbonne in Paris They speak of nothing but magnificence and liberality to those who are vain telling them that by these actions they establish their reputation and the more to puff them up with such conceits they cite examples to that purpose Nay lest they should be terrified with the torments of Purgatory after this life Bellarmine affirms that in probability there is a Purgatory where those pains are not endured which is seconded by many of their Divines who together with Bellarmine found it upon Revelations made to venerable Bede and others and Aquila expresly and purposely defends this opinion And lest they should grow cold considering that they must not meet with sensual joys in Heaven all the happiness of the bless●d Spirits consisting in the Vision of God which these voluptuous men cannot apprehend any great delight in they have therefore coined a new description of that happy place affirming that there shall be a sovereign pleasure in kissing and embracing the Bodies of the Blessed that the Angels shall put on womens Habits and appear to the Saints in the dress of Ladies that women shall rise with long Hair and appear with Ribbands and Laces as they do upon Earth that married people shall kiss one another and their Children as in this life Thus these subtil Deceivers will rather follow Mahomet's steps in asserting a sensual Paradise than lose one of their Proselytes I neither design here to enlarge upon this Subject nor pretend to instance in all their turnings and artifices to this end the first because I refer it to another Head when I come to treat of their disguising and varying their Doctrine the latter because I cannot pretend to do it their Arts being numberless but by such instances as these are the Reader may easily discover them when they act a part of the same nature In Christmas Ann. 1624. one Father Leech told Mr. J. Gee That if any but hear Mass and after hearing be sprinkled with holy-Water and kiss the Priest's Garments he could not commit that day any mortal sin though he would never so fain and my Author cites in the Margin some Authors who teach the same an excellent Maxim to make the greatest Sin become none at all and very much a-kin

Father Drury a noted Jesuit ●reach in the Black Fryers Oct. 26. 1623. it pleas'd God that the Chamber where they were fell down and near a hundred Persons with the Preacher were kill'd out-right and many hurt yet had they the Confidence to affirm that this was a Protestant Assembly publishing a Book relating great Iudgments shewn on a ●ort of Protestant Hereticks by the fall of an house in Black Fryers London in which they were Assembled to hear a Geneva Lecture and Dr. Gouge tells us when and where this Relation was Printed in his Account of that sad Providence I might particularize in abundance of such passages but these are enough to let the Reader see that it was not without cause I gave him Caution in the first Chapter to suspect them for into what a maze of Errors doth he run who takes the Accounts given by those men of the Lives and Deaths of their Adversaries upon their Authority who give themselves such a Liberty to devise Fables and then report them This over politick and wise sort of men reach yet a note higher and knowing of how great Consequence the Revolt of any eminent Divine is are as liberal in their Reports that such and 〈◊〉 Persons are become Catholicks as they call them in which they have as little respect to truth as in the former Instances But they find by their experience that news make their impression upon their first reporting and that then if it be good it greatly raises up the Spirit and confirms the Mind especially of the Vulgar who easily believe all that their betters tell them that afterwards when such Stories happen to be controll'd mens spirits being cold are not so sensible as before and either little regard it or impute it to common error or uncertainty of things yea and that the good news comes to many mens ears who never hear of the Check it hath and at least it may serve their turn for some present Exploit as Merchants do by their news who finding some difficulty in accommodating their Affairs have in use to forge Letters or otherwise to raise bruits either of some prosperous success in Princes actions or of some great alteration in some kind of merchandise which may serve for that present instant to expedite their business Whether the Missionaries take this piece of Policy from them or are onely imitated by them is not material but that being secure of an evasion if their report be found untrue that they were mis-informed and knowing well that hundreds who hear the account they give are never undeceiv'd by wanting opportunities to discover its falsity they are no modester in this particular than in the other Slanders is most certain Thus in the year 1597. they spread a report throughout Germany Holland and Italy that Beza had renounced his Religion before the Senate and had exhorted the Magistrates to reconcile themselves to the Church of Rome and that by his example many Citizens of Geneva had done the like whereupon he was absolv'd by the Bishop of that City before his death by special Order from the Pope This we are assur'd by several French Priests was generally believed till Beza wrote several French and Latin Letters to convince the world of the Forgery and that he was yet alive and he died not till six years after Of the very same nature was the report of the Conversion of the Reverend Peter Du Moulin which even while he was Minister of the Protestant Church in Paris and writing against Rome was publickly preach'd in the City in many Pulpits and Benefices assigned to him they asserted in their Sermons that he was preparing to go to Rome which was so generally believ'd that the people flocked to a certain Church and there waited expecting to hear him make his Recantation Upon which he observes that such tricks are apt to astonish the people for a season and an untruth that was belie●●d for three days hath done some effect And I am able to prove that a Minister now in England travelling in company with others of our Nation of the Protestant Religion and making a small journey alone to a neighbour City to that they then resided in the Priests came to several of his fellow Travellers assuring them that the said Minister was become a Romanist that he was publickly reconcil'd and therefore surely they would not refuse to relinquish that Religion which he whose Profession obliged him to defend it and who understood it best durst not continue in This report was affirmed with so much confidence that upon the Ministers return several persons of the Roman Catholick Religion congratulated him for his happy Change and one of the English was ready to follow his example if he had not in time discovered the cheat And it is no longer since than the Winter 1685. that a report went current through all the Countreys in England where there are many Romanists that Dr. Burnet was at Rome become a Papist and 〈◊〉 great Preferments were bestow'd upon him this hath been 〈◊〉 to me by several for a certain truth when I made 〈◊〉 enquiry those Gentlemen affirming that they had it from very good hands and had seen some Letters from foreign parts which confirm'd it But more immodest was the pretence of the Dean of Norwich's Conversion about two years since which several Priests affirm'd to a Servant Maid whom they knew to be a great admirer of that Divine urging ●er to follow the example of such a Learned Man who was so deservedly esteem'd by her which they reiterated with so much confidence and frequency that the Maid promised to turn likewise but being convinc't by an eminent Person who carried her to hear the Reverend Dean preach that she was abus'd by a notorious untruth she was confirm'd in her aversion to that Church which is upheld by such unworthy means And I cannot but observe the Provid●●ce of God in this matter that the Sermon which the Maid was carried to hear was levell'd against the Popish Errors whereby she was not onely inform'd of the abuse but instructed too But their greatest traffick is in the pretended Conversion of dying persons thus they would make a Romanist of dying Beza six years before his death and this blot they have endeavoured to cast upon the Memory of that excellent Prelate Bishop King Mr. Musket the Jesuite publishing a Book of his Conversion to Rome upon his death-bed intituled the Bishop of Londons Legacy This relation we are assured did mightily shock the peoples minds but it is wholly false his Son Dr. Henry King since Bishop of Chichester Preaching a Sermon for his Fathers Vindication at St. Pauls Cross Nov. 25. 1621. where he assures the world that the Bishop before his death received the Eucharist at the hands of his Chaplain Dr. Cluet together with his Wife his Children his Family Sir Henry Martin his Chancellor Mr. Philip King his