Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	believe_v	heart_n	word_n	5,244	5	4.1630	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88149	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons: at their publique fast, holden in Margarets Westminster. Febr. 24. 1646./47. / By John Lightfoot, Staffordiens. a Member of the Assembly of Divines.	Lightfoot, John, 1602-1675.	1647 (1647)	Wing L2069; Thomason E377_27; ESTC R201371	27,223	40

tells thee no for the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that is commonly used to signifie to pray doth properly signifie To judge a mans selfe Thinkest thou thou canst receive the Sacrament aright without the exercise of this duty the Apostle tells thee nay but let a man first examine himselfe and then let him eate 1 Cor. 11. 28. The like might I say of singing of Psalmes which must be done with the Spirit 1 Cor. 14. 15 Of beleeving which must be done with the heart Rom. 10. 10. Of repenting of trembling at the Word and of other such duties how is it possible they should be done by us as they should if we have no acquaintance and communication with our own hearts how they stand to them and in them And lastly as for the duties we owe to our owne hearts as washing them Jer. 4. 14. Watching them Pro. 4. 23. Humbling them Lev. 26. 4. and the like Who can do them but he that conferres and is in acquaintance with his ownheart wash my heart why I never asked it not ever tooke notice how soyled and poluted it was Watch it Why I never observed nor it never told me of any danger it was in nor what need it had to be watched and looked after nor can I goe about to humble it for it and I were never so well acquainted as I to know how hard how proud how unhumbled it is Must not these be answers of him that holds not intelligence with his owne heart And must not this want of intelligence needs spoyle the offices that a man oweth to it And thus you see in the fourth place the great concernment of this duty of heart communication And thus though thus rudely and unskillfully have I somewhat cleared the truth of the Doctrine in clearing these foure particulars And now shall I crave leave in three particulars more to make use of it and to bring it home to our selves by application First By way of just reproofe of those that neglect and forget so speciall a duty and of so speciall concernment Secondly By way of exhortation and perswasion to every one to set seriously to the practice of this duty And thirdly By recommending to you some Quaeres and Interrogatories to propose to your hearts to practice this duty with them upon First then since it is thus that communing with a mans owne heart is so speciall and so important a duty it shewes that they justly deserve to be reproved that neglect this duty and hold no acquaintance with their owne hearts at all And because I will be sure to aime this reproofe aright I shall in the first place begin with my selfe and mine owne heart for there is a subject that I know and am sure deserves reprooving It may be I shall finde some Company in this Congregation that will joyne with me in this matter and that will finde my case theirs and that will make my words to be their owne There is a Patheticall Story of Origen that when he had fallen into a foule Apostacy and after some recoverie from it came into a Congregation and was desired to preach he tooke the Bible and opened it accidentally at the fiftieth Psalme and his eye fell first to read these words in the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of it But unto the Wicked God saith What hast thou to doe to declare my Statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behinde thee upon reading the words hee remembred his owne fall and in stead of preaching he fell a weeping and wept so bitterly that he caused all the Congregation to weep with him The fore-part of the story is too much mine owne case I would you would make the latter part of it somewhat yours I professe I cannot read the words of my Text but like Pharaoh's Butler after a long forgetfulnesse I must confesse my fault of that forgetfulnesse to day and I cannot speak what I have said upon this Text but that I must subscribe to the woman of Tekoas words in her speech to David that I speake these things as one guilty myselfe Is any one here whose heart hath been a stranger to him as my heart hath beene and is any ones heart here as my heart is desirous to be sensible to be humbled for this our strangenes come give me thine hand and let us joyne hand in hand and heart to heart to give glory to God by Confession and to take shame to our selves in a just reproofe for that we have so much neglected so great a duty and for that we have so greatly forgotten so neare a concernment Behold beloved among your selves and regard and wonder marvellously for I can tell you a sad story in your eares which ye will not beleeve though it be told you I have lived these forty yeares and somewhat more and carried my heart in my bosome all this while and yet my heart and I are as great strangers and as utterly unacquainted as if we had never come neare one another And is there none in this Congregation that can say the like He spake very good sense and much piety in it that complained that he had lived so many yeares above threescore and had been a Student in the Scripture all his time and yet could never attaine to take out that Leston in the first Verse of the nine and thirtieth Psalme That he should not offend with his tongue But it is to speake a thing of monstrousnesse and amazement to say that a man should live so long a time as I have done nay as some doe to threescore to fourescore yeares and yet never to get into acquaintance and to communication with their owne hearts who could believe such a report and yet how common is this amongst men I remember it was a wonder to me before I knew this City to heare of Families living so neare together all their lives as but one Chimney back between them and yet their doores opening into severall streets and the persons of those Families never knowing one another or who they were And mee thought that passage of Martiall was a strange one when I first met with it Quisquam est tam prope tam proculque nobis and that observation of the Jewes remarkable that sometime two Verses in Scripture be joyned as close together for place as close can be and yet as distant for sense and matter as distant may be and that relation of Seneca wondrous if I misse not my Author that a man through sicknesse did forget his owne name and that of the Naturallists as wondrous that there is a Beast that as he is eating his meat if he but once turne his head from it he forgets it But now a sad experience within mine owne selfe hath lessned these wonders and doth make a thousand of such strangenesses as these seeme nothing for I and my heart were borne

have recourse to it upon other termes namely as being a Witnesse Iudge and Moniter in the midst of us I might shew how the nearenesse of our hearts unto us doth challenge this duty and how the dearenesse of our hearts unto us should claime it and enforce it but I will conclude this as Paul to Agrippa Honourable and Christian auditory do you believe that this is a duty I know you beleeve it and I would that I and all that heare me this day could as readily comply with the duty as we cannot but readily confesse it if we will but commune with our owne hearts about it Thirdly the practise of this duty or the communication with our hearts is to be serious the intelligence and acquaintance we hold with them to be cleare as the womans scrutiny for her groat in the Parable to search and sift every corner of the heart according to that of Solomon Prov. 20. 27. The Spirit of man is the Candle of the Lord searching all the inward parts of the belly You may observe two Arguments used Gen. 44. the one by Joseph and the other by his Steward to impresse it upon the sons of Jacob that a serious and true search would be made for that silver Bowle that they had stolne the one taken from the Cup it selfe Is not this the Cup in which my Master drinketh and for which he will make a very trying search And the other from Joseph himselfe Know ye not that a man of my authority could make a very trying search Two such kinde of Topikes may I take up for the proofe of the thing in hand that the conference with our owne heart ought to bee with all seriousnesse The one taken from the matter of that Conference and the other from the temper of our hearts 1. The matter whereof we should or can commune with our hearts is most serious and sancta sanctè it must bee most seriously done As the two men that went to Emmaus communed sadly because they communed of a very sad matter Luke 24. 17. The onely matters that a man can or doth commune with his owne Conscience about are the matters and concernments of the soule For as the Conscience lodgeth in the very Center of the soule as I shewed before so there are the proper and the most close transactions of the soule managed It is the Center as was said before whither if there be any good in the soule it flowes thither and what evill there is in the soule it hath its Conflux thither also The understanding in its actings by knowledge and memory and the will in its actings by affections and desires practiseth upon and about things of an extrinsicall and forraigne Cognizance as well upon things of a mans owne concernment but the Conscience medleth onely with ones owne concernment and that concernment of the soule As naturall affection in the proper sense or affection of a relative nature moves not nor acts not unlesse the thing presented to it be of its owne interest As a Father or Mother seeing the misery or miscarriage of other mens children their affections may be moved with it but naturall relative affections stirre not till the storie comes home to their owne Children So is it with Conscience the knowledge knoweth naturall politique forraigne alien things and the memory retaines them so the affections are taken up with forraigne alien naturall politique matters and are moved with them but the conscience moves not unlesse the concernment come home to a mans owne soule and the matter reach thither As I might exemplifie in Achan if his Conscience had been awake to have done its part his carnall reason and knowledge told him the Wedge of Gold and the Babylonish Garment would be a rich prize and mend his estate very well then his Will and Affections answer I would I had them and they consent and put on to compasse them Here are extrinsick businesses onely in agitation with these faculties about wealth and growing rich But then a good Conscience if it had beene there would have stepped in and answered I but how will this comply with the good of my soule And so might I instance in other things as in mens desiring riches honours pleesures their carnall Understandings and Wils like Haman and Zeresh cast and conspire and consent together to compasse what they desire and it will be so brave for their port so contentive to their persons so beneficiall to their posterity These are fine things and easily swallowed but they are but out-side things there is not a word yet of the consequent and concernment to the soule that conscience must take into consideration or the consideration of that is quite layd aside That is proper for conscience only to act about and to take to conscience and consultation And thus it appeareth that our conference with our owne hearts had need to be serious because the things that we can conferre with them a bout only are of a most serious and weighty nature viz. the things of the soule only And secondly the needfulnesse of such a serious conference will appeare also upon the consideration of the deceitfulnesse of our owne hearts Talke close and home and have cleare intelligence with them or else they will deceive us they will tell us a thousand lyes As he in Story who hearing a man talk to himselfe as he walked along the high way and questioning whom he talked withall was answered I talke to my self why then saith he Cave ne cum malo loquaris take heed thou talke not with one that is naught You may resolve upon this whensoever you come to Commune with your owne heart that you have to deale with a very Cheat and a Jesuite a Proteus a Jugler that if you put it not home to it will not tell you one true Story amongst a thousand I speak this by the sad experience of a base false cosening and deceitfull heart of mine owne and I beleeve other mens hearts are of the same mettle O wretched heart thou hast deceived me and I have been deceived thou hast been too strong for me and hast prevailed But I speak this also upon the Warrant of him that knoweth all hearts even the Spirit of God that discerneth the things of the Spirit Jer. 17. 9. The heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Ah sad Climax deceitfull and deceitfull above all things wicked and desperately wicked and so bad of both that who can know it Such another miserable gradation ye have expressed concerning the very same subject in Gen. 6. 5. The frame of the thoughts of mans heart was wholly evill was onely evill and was evill continually There is a mutuall or reciprocall cozenage betwixt a man and his owne heart mentioned in Scripture Sometimes a man deceives his owne heart as James 1. 26. If any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue but