Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	bear_v	flesh_n	kingdom_n	6,050	5	7.3681	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26929	Richard Baxter's farewel sermon prepared to have been preached to his hearers at Kidderminster at his departure, but forbidden.; Farewel sermon prepared to have been preached to his hearers at Kidderminster at his departure but forbidden	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1683 (1683)	Wing B1266; ESTC R4900	39,816	48

and the abatement of his graces in us And all the works of mortifying self-denyal and forbearing all forbidden pleasures which God doth call his servants to Though in the Primitive and Principal part of Holyness there is nothing but what is sweet and pleasant to a Soul so far as it is holy As the Love of God and the Love of others and worshipping God and doing good and joy and thanks and praise and obedience c. Yet the Medicinal parts of grace or holiness have something necessarily in them that is bitter even to nature as nature and not only as corrupt such as are contrition self-denyal mortification abstinence as aforesaid 7. There are Charitable sorrows for the dishonour of God and for the sin and hurt and miseries of others These also are our Duties and we must be Agents in them as well as Patients As we must first pray for the Hallowing of the name of God and the coming of his kingdom and the doing of his will on earth as it is done in heaven So we must most grieve for the abuse dishonor of Gods name the hindering of his Kingdom and the breaking of his Laws that so many Nations see not the Peril and know not God and have not the Gospel or will not receive it but live in rebellion against their maker and in blindness obstinacy and hardness of heart and are given up to commit uncleanness with greediness that so many nations which are called Christians are captivated in ignorance and superstition by the blindness pride carnality and covetousness of their usurping self-obtruding Guides That so many men professing Christianity have so little of the knowledge or power of what they generally and ignorantly profess and live to the shame of their profession the great dishonour and displeasure of their Lord and the grief or hardening of others that the Church of Christ is broken into so many sects and fractions possessed with such an uncharitable destroying zeal against each other and persecuting their Brethren as cruelly as Turks and Heathens do that the best of Christians are so few and yet so weak and lyable to miscarriages All these are the matter of that sorrow which God hath made our duty And all these sorts of sorrow do go before a Christians fullest joy Reas 1. God will have some conformity between the order of Nature and of Grace Non-entity was before created entity The evening before the morning Infancy before maturity of age weakness before strength The buried seed before the plant the flower and fruit And infants cry before they laugh weakness is soon hurt and very querulous No wonder then if our sorrows go before our joys 2. Sin goeth before grace and therefore our sorrows are before our joys The seed is first fruitful which was first sown Joy indeed hath the elder Parent in esse reali absoluto but not in esse causali relativo We are the Children of the first Adam before we are Children of the second we are born flesh of flesh before we are born Spiritual of the Spirit And where Satan goeth before Christ it is equal that sorrow be before joy 3. Our gracious Father and wise Physician doth see that this is the fittest method for our cure That we may deny our selves we must know how little we are beholden to our selves and must smart by the fruit of our sin and folly before we are eased by the fruit of Love grace It is the property of the flesh to judg by sense and therefore sense shall help to mortify it The frowns of the World shall be an antidote against its flatteries It killeth by Pleasing and therefore it may help our cure by displeasing us Loving it is mens undoing and hurting us is the way to keep us from overloving it These wholsom sorrows do greatly disable our most dangerous temptations and preserve us from the pernicious poyson of prosperity They rowze us up when we are lazy and ready to sit down They awake us when we are ready to fall asleep They drive us to God when we are ready to forget him and dote upon a deceiver They teach us part of the meaning of the Gospel without them we know not well what a Saviour a promise a pardon grace and many other Gospel terms do signify They teach us to pray and teach us to hear and read with understanding They tell us the value of all our Mercies and teach us the use of all the means of grace They are needful to fix our flashy light unconstant minds Which are apt to be gazing upon every baite and to be touching or tasting the forbidden fruit and to be taken with those things which we had lately cast behind our backs till medicinal sorrow doth awake our reason and make us see the folly of our dreams Yea if sorrow check us not and make us wise we are ready to lay by our grace and wit and to follow any goblin in the dark and like men bewitched to be deceived by we know not what and to go on as a bird to the fowlers snare as an ox to the slaughter and as a Fool to the correction of the stocks 4. Moreover precedent sorrows will raise the price of following Joys They will make us more desirous of the day of our deliverance and make it the welcomer to us when it comes Heaven will be seasonable after a life of so much trouble and they that come out of great tribulation will joyfully sing the Praises of their Redeemer 5. And God will have the members conformed to their Head This was Christs method and it must be ours We must take up the Cross and follow him if ever we will have the Crown and we must suffer with him if we will be glorifyed with him Though the will of God be the Reason which alone should satisfy his creatures yet these Reasons shew you the Equity and goodness of his waies use 1 Use 1. If sorrow before Joy be Gods ordinary Method of dealing with his most beloved servants learn hence to understand the importance of your Sorrows You say as Baruch Jer. 45.3 Wo is me now For the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow I fainted in my sighing and I find no rest You are ingenious in recounting and aggravating your afflictions But are you as ingenious in expounding them aright Do you not judge of them rather by your present sense than by their use and tendency You will not do so by the bitterness of a Medicine or the working of a Purge or Vomit You will like it best when it worketh in that way as usually it doth with them that it cureth And should you not be glad to find that God taketh that way with you which he most usually takes with those that he saveth Sure you do not set light by the Love of God! Why then do you complain so much against the signs products of it Is it not because you

comforts And others limit the word therefore to the following Crosses or sufferings which they must undergoe for the sake of Christ And accordingly they interpret the cause of their succceding joy But I see no reason but both are included in the Text but principally the first and the other consequently As if he had said When you see me Crucified your hearts and hopes will begin to fail and sorrow to overwhelm your minds and you will be exposed to the fury of the unbelieving World but it will be but for a moment for when you see tha● I am risen again your Joy will be revived and my Spirit afterwards and continual encouragements shall greatly increase and perpetuate your Joys which no persecutions or sufferings shall deprive you of but they shall at last be perfected in the heavenly everlasting Joys The cause of their sorrow is first his absence and next their sufferings with him in the World when the bridegroom is taken from them they must fast that is live an afflicted kind of life in various sorrows And the causes of their succeeding Joy are first his Resurrection and next his Spirit which is their comforter and lastly the presence of his Glory at their reception into his glorious Kingdom Their sorrow was to be short as that of a woman in Travail and it was to have a tendency to their Joy And their Joy was to be sure and near I will see you again and great your heart shall rejoice and everlasting your joy no man taketh from you The sense of the Text is contained in these six Doctrinal propositions Doct. 1. Sorrow goeth before joy with Christs Disciples Doct. 2. Christs death and departure was the cause of his Disciples Sorrows Doct. 3. The Sorrows of Christs Disciples are but short It is but Now. Doct. 4. Christ will again visit his Sorrowful Disciples though at the present he seem to be taken from them Doct. 5. When Christ returneth or appeareth to his Disciples their sorrows will be turned into joy Doct. 6. The joy of Christians in the return or reappearing of their Lord is such as no man shall take from them Of these by Gods assistance I shall speak in order and therefore be but short on each Doct. 1. Sorrow goeth before joy with Christs disciples The evening and the morning make their day They must sow in tears before they reap in joy They must have trouble in the World and peace in Christ God will first dwell in the contrite heart to prepare it to dwell with him in glory The pains of travail must go before the joy of the beloved birth Qu. what kind of sorrow is it that goeth before our joy Ans 1. There is a sorrow positively sinful which doth but should not go before our joy Though this be not meant directly in the text yet is it too constant a foregoer of our comforts It is not the joys of Innocency that are our portion but the joys of Restoration And the pains of our disease go before the ease and comfort of our recovery we have our worldly sorrows and our passionate and pievish sorrows like Jonas's for the withering of his gourd According to the degree of our remaining corruption we have our sorrows which must be sorrowed for again Sometimes we are troubled at the providences of God and sometimes at the dealings of men at the words or doings of enemies of friends of all about us we are grieved if we have not what we would have and when we have it it becomes our greater grief nothing well pleaseth us till we so devote our selves to please our God as to be pleased in the pleasing of him 2. And we have our sorrows which are sinful through our weakness imperfection when through the languishing feebleness of our Souls we are overmuch troubled at that which we may lawfully sorrow for with moderation When impatience causeth us to make a greater matter of our afflictions than we ought If God do but try us with wants or Crosses if we lose our friends or if they prove unkind we double the weight of the Cross by our impatiency This cometh from the remnants of unmortified selfishness carnality and overloving earthly things Were they less loved they would be less sorrowed for If we had seen their vanity and mortification had made them nothing to us we should then part with them as with vanity and nothing It 's seldom that God or men afflict us but we therefore afflict our selves much more As the destruction of the wicked so the troubles of the godly is chiefly of themselves 3. There is a m●er natural suffering or sorrow which is neither morally good or bad As to be weary with our labour to be pained with our diseases to be sensible of hunger and thirst of cold and heat to be averse to death as death as Christ himself was and at last to undergo it and lie down in the dust There are many sorrows which are the fruits of sin which yet in themselves are neither sin nor duty 4. There are castigatory sorr●ws from the hand of God which have a tendency to our cure if we use them according to his appointment Such are all the foresaid natural sufferings considered as Gods means and instruments of our benefit He woundeth the Body to heal the Soul He lanceth the sore to let out the corruption He letteth us blood to cure our Inflamations and Apostemated parts He chasteneth all that he loveth and receiveth and we must be subject to a chastening Father if we will live For he doth it for our profit that we may be partakers of his holiness 5. There are honourable and gainful sufferings from blind malicious wicked men for the cause of Christ and righteousness Such as the Gospel frequently warneth believers to expect These are the sorrows that have the promises of fullest joy Not that the meer suffering in itself is acceptable to God But the Love which is manifested by suffering for him is that which he cannot but accept So that the same measure of sufferings are more or less aceptable as there is more or less Love to God expressed by them and as the honor of Christ is more or less intended in them For to give the body to be burned without Love will profit us nothing But when the cause is Christs and the heart intendeth him as the end of the suffering then Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven c. 6. There are penitential and medicinal sufferings for the killing of sin and helping on the work of grace which are made our duty In the former we are to be but submissive patients but in these we must be obedient agents and must inflict them on our selves Such are the sorrows of contrition and true repentance The exercises of fasting abstinence and humiliation The grief of the Soul for Gods displeasure for the hiding of his face