Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	baptize_v	ghost_n	holy_a	6,694	5	6.0083	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30350	Four discourses delivered to the clergy of the Diocess of Sarum ... by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1694 (1694)	Wing B5793; ESTC R202023	160,531	125

the Holy Ghost fell visibly on Cornelius and his Friends Can any man forbid water that those should not be baptized who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we And with this he settled the minds of those who were a little offended at that action This shews that no pretence to a high dispensation of the Spirit can evacuate that Precept since on the contrary an evidence of the giving the Holy Ghost was pleaded as an Argument for baptizing Nor does any one passage in which Baptism is mentioned in the New Testament limit it to that time and intimate that it belonged only to the beginnings of Christianity or that it was to determine when it was more fully setled so that this with the constant practice of all succeeding Ages without a shadow of any Exception must conclude us as to this Point Our Saviour did also appoint the other Sacrament to be continued in remembrance of him by which St. Paul says we shew forth his death till he come Now these words cannot be understood of any supposed inward and spiritual coming since the most signal coming in that sense was the effusion of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost and yet after that time the Apostles continued to practice it and delivered it to the Churches as a Precept still obligatory till Christ should come If then we ought still to remember him and shew forth his death if it is the Communion of his Body and Blood if it is the new Covenant in his Blood for the remission of sins then as long as these things are Duties incumbent on us so long we must be under the obligation of eating that Bread and drinking that Cup. Further If Christ has left different Gifts to different Orders of men some Apostles some Prophets some Evangeliste and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting the Saints for the work of the Ministry and for edifying the Body of Christ till we come unto a perfect man and are no more in danger of being tossed to and fro and carried away with every wind of doctrine These words do plainly import That as long as mankind is under the frailties of this present state and in this confused Scene that some of these Orders must still be continued in the Church and that those Rules and Preceps given to Timothy and Titus concerning such as were to be ordained Bishops or Elders that is Priests and Diacons were to be lasting and standing Rules for indeed if the design had not been to establish that Order for the succeeding Ages there was less need of it in that in which there was such a plentiful Measure of the Spirit poured out upon all Christians that such Functions in that time might have been well spared if it had not been for this that they were then to be setled under the Patronage if I may so speak of the Apostles themselves from whom they were to receive an Authority which how little necessary soever it might seem in that wonderful time yet was to be more needed in the succeeding Ages Therefore we may well conclude That whatsoever was ordered concerning those Offices or Officers of the Church in the first Age was by a stronger parity of reason to be continued down through all the Ages of the Church and in particular if in that time in which Women received the Gifts of the Holy Ghost so that some prophesied and others laboured much in the Lord that is in the Gospel yet St. Paul did in two different Epistles particularly restrain them from teaching or speaking in the Church to which he adds That it was a shame for Women to speak in the Church that is it might turn to be a reproach to the Christian Religion and furnish Scoffers with some colours of exposing it to the scorn of the Age. This was to be much more strictly observed when all those extraordinary Characters that might seem to be exemptions from common Rules did no longer continue As for those distinctions into which they have cast themselves of the Hat and the denying Titles and speaking in the singular Thou and Thee it is to be considered That how unfit soever it be and how unbecoming Christians to be conformed to this world yet it rather lessens than heightens the great Idea that the world ought to have of the Christian Religion when it states a diversity among men about meer Trifles Our Saviour and his Apostles complied as much in all innocent Customs as they avoided all sinful ones Honour to whom honour is due is a standing Duty and though the bowing the Body and falling prostrate are postures that seem liker Idolatry and more abject in their nature than the Hat yet the very Prophets of God paid these respects to Kings Outward Actions or Gestures signify only what is entended to be expressed and what is generally understood by them so that what is known to be meant only for a piece of Civil respect can never be stretched to a Religious respect and though that abject homage under which the Iewish Rabbies had brought their Disciples and which they had exprest in Titles that imported their profound submission to them was reproved by our Saviour yet we see that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir or Lord was then used as commonly as we now do since Mary Magdalen called him whom shee took for a Gardener Sir or Lord. And St. Paul gave Festus the Title which belonged to his Office it being the same that Claudius Lysias gave Felix who certainly was not wanting in that and that being the Title of men of Rank St. Luke adresses both his Books to Thephilus designing him in one ofthem in the same manner Words signify nothing of themselves as they are meer sounds but according to the signification in which men agree to use them so if the speaking to one man in the plural number is understood only as a more respectful way of treating him then the plural is in this case really but a singular Indeed these things scarce deserve to be so narrowly lookt into The Scruple against Swearing is more important both to them and to the Publick They have indeed the appearance of a plain Command of our Saviour's against all manner of Swearing which is repeated by St. Iames but this must be restricted to their communication according to the words that follow since we find Swearing not only commanded in the Old Testament but practised in the New The Apostles swear at every time they say God is witness and more solemnly when God is called for a record upon their Soul The Angel of God lifts up his hand and swears by him that lives for ever and ever God swears by himself and an Oath for confirmation that is for affirming any matter is the end of all Controversy We find our Saviour himself answered upon Oath when adjured by the High Priest to tell If he was the

the acceptance of them if well kept The Iews also fixed one Anniversary in commemoration of their Deliverance from Haman's wicked designs against them and another for remembring the Purifying the Temple from its Idolatrious Defilement by Antiochus Epiphanes This last was observed by our Saviour at least we find him in the Temple on that day Now can any reason be assign'd either from the nature of things or from any special limitations in the Scripture that should restrain the Power that is naturally in every body of men for appointing things of this nature The commemorating the Dispensation of the Gospel committed to the Apostles has nothing of the Superstition of Popery in it No Invocations or Addresses being made to them and no Sacraments administred for their Honor or recommended to their Intercession God is only blessed for those several Dispensations of which they were made the Channels and Instruments But we ought rather to be concern'd That these Commemorations are practic'd in so slight a manner that we seem much more liable to an Objection upon that account and tho in the first fervour of Christianity in which those early Converts lived almost wholly in the Meditations of Christ and of what related to him some Institutions of days for more special remembrances of particular Circumstances had not been made there might have been very good reason for the succeeding Ages to have studied to keep alive that fervour by such appointments of days for the more solemn Commemoration of such signal Blessigns and tho there were not the same clear warrants from Antiquity for every one of these yet it was still in the Power of the Church to make such new Orders as should seem necessary for carrying on the main Design of Religion The Ancient Church thought that the whole fifty days between Easter and Pentecost ought to be kept with a special Solemnity of Rejoycing for the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour and for the Effusion of the Holy Ghost since some more particular Devotions on those heads during that whole time did not break off the labours of their other Employments nor interrupt the common business of life upon the same parity of reason they might appoint some time before that season of Ioy to be spent in confessing past sins and mourning for them in higher degrees of Prayer and Fasting This being only the prescribing a method for appropriating such Exercises in Devotion to the several seasons of the year an over-valuing of these things together with a nice distinction of Meats was a piece of Superstition which might corrupt that which was good in any Constitution The distinction of Meats for that season is among us founded meerly on a Law of the Land for Civil and Political Ends since the Church only recommends Prayer and Fasting in general witout any further Specialities as to the measure of the Fast so no just exception lies to any part of this whole matter concerning days and times appropriated to particular Exercises I wish our Practice in these were such that this part of our Constitution were not too evidently a matter of Form and observed with too visible a slightness And thus I have gone round ●ll that I remember ever to have met with in Books or Discourses from any of the Dissenters except from those call'd Quakers against our Constitution and have offer'd you those answers which to me after the most impartial search that I am capable of seem full to satisfy 'em all It remains That I consider such as are offer'd by those who are called Quakers First They are against all sorts of stated Forms their main Principle being That nothing is to be done by us by virtue of any outward warrant unless there is an inward excitation or opening of the Spirit that leads to it And therefore all fixed Rules being contrary to the freedom of the Spirit they are against them all But either this Principle must have some limitation to restrain it or it will cast open a door to subvert all Religion and Policy for those inward Excitations being only known to those who have them every man's word must be taken concerning them If then a man by affirming that he had or had not such or such an excitation will be thereby justified or excus'd then he may do or not do what he will and the whole Order of Religion Morality and Civil Society will be thereby dissolv'd but if they say that there is that Harmony between the secret leadings of the Spirit and the Scriptures that whatsoever is commanded in the one is always witnessed to by the other then we are to examine this matter by the Scriptures and to conclude That if there are rules given in them for the constant use of the Sacraments then they are hereby condemned who have laid them aside Our Saviour encourag'd his Apostles to go and execute the Commission that he gave them to make Disciples and Baptize all Nations with this Promise That he was to be with them alway even to the end of the World The promise is given as as an encouragement to the duty enjoin'd and from hence we may conclude that the precept of Baptisme must continue likewise to the end of the World To this we must join those other words of our Saviour Except a man is born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven which is affirmed without any limitation of time By the Kingdom of Heaven is plainly meant the Dispensation of the Gospel and since Baptism was then practised and was well understood by them who were born Iews nothing in reason can be understood by the being born of Water and of the Spirit but the being initiated by Baptism and the being inwardly Sanctified The one as well as the other is made indispensably necessary to the being a member of this new Dispensation St. Mark also has recorded those words of our Saviour He that believeth and is baptized stall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Now since Baptism is only enjoined by Precept and is not necessary as a mean but only as an act of Obedience therefore tho the doing it is commanded in order to Salvation yet Damnation is not the consequent of its not being done since one may be prevented in it by death or other Impossibilities may put it out of his power to procure Baptism to himself And therefore as the one branch of this period shews the obligation laid on us to be baptized in order to Salvation so the leaving it out in the other branch shews that our not coming within the rites of our Religion when that failure is no fault of ours does not exclude us from Salvation or bring us to a state of Damnation In the beginnings of Christianity the wonderful effusion of the Holy Ghost was thought a true reason for baptizing such persons on whom it fell and therefore St. Peter said when