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
A93662	Aphonologos. A dumb speech. Or, A sermon made, but no sermon preached, at the funerall of the right vertuous Mrs Mary Overman, wife to Mr Thomas Overman the younger. Of the parish, formerly called, Saint Saviours, or vulgarly Mary Overis, in Southwarke. By B. Spencer, minister of Bromley.	Spencer, Benjamin, b. 1595?	1646 (1646)	Wing S4942; Thomason E1180_3; Thomason C.54.aa.1(3); ESTC R208123	32,914	87

his gain For what life can stirre up this resolution in a man but the life of Christ onely And what advantage are we like to make by gloryfying Christ in our bodies in life and death if death yeeld not an advantage when all is lost in this world But therefore he finding this fruit of resolution shewes the reason of it thus For to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain That makes me so bold to do as I say and because God hath given me grace to magnify Christ I am no lesse comforted for Christ is life to me and death advantage 1. What is common to man with other creatures To Live First let us see what is common to man with other creatures to wit to live and dye This is also common to all men to Heathens as Christians To live is no priviledge from the Ant to the Elophant every creature can boast as much a Dog hath his day a Flower hath its flourish and fading every leafe hath its spring and fall and wherein doth a man exceed these if he do but live Nay wherein do not these exceed him in naturall life For they have a certaine time of life man hath not Eccles 3.1 He that said there was a time for all things said not there was a time to live So they renew their age every yeare but man is in a continuall decay or decrease from his very birth Gen. 1.25 26. The Beasts and he were made all upon one day to forewarn him that he became not like one of them But man remained not in honour Psalm 49.12 but became like the Beasts that perish Nay worse He commeth up and is cut down like a flower Wee scarce can peep out our heads but Times Scyth is ready to mow us down For all flesh is grasse saith Isaiah It is not so good our bodies are like baskets of dust which a little wind can scatter and all our glory like a bladder of wind which the least incision will soon empty What is there in life to boast of but either A Being A Lasting or A Seeming happy Accident 1. Being First for a Being It is not worth boasting of every Emmet hath an Esse this makes a small difference let Solomon teach them better who boast of this Eccles 3.18 where he wisheth that God would so manifest himselfe to the sons of men that they who trust to an Esse or meer being might see themselves to be but Beasts Yet some men are infinitely in love with life why I know not I thinke if they found as many checks in it as some doe they would rather cry with Moses and Eliah 1 Kings 19.4 Lord take me out of the world that I may not see my wretchednesse But it may be they know no other happynesse which makes them dote on this life like Birds and Brutes and onely dream of worldly felicity as the Iews lookt for Christ in a temporall Kingdome and as the Turkes did and do looke for their great Prophet Mahomet who hath promised at his return to his Disciples the world to enioy at pleasure and all other men to be their slaves A doctrine taken up by some Christians long since Euseb 7. lib. cap. 24. as Ebion and Corinthus damnable Hereticks both and by others of late onely to keep up the lean hopes of their hungry followers who gape but onely after carnall felicity what ever they pretend to piety if they can be bewitched by such stuffe as this Poore soules All this is but an externall being Micah 2.10 which is not the place of your rest no more then your Lords Kingdome is of this world But these kind of teachers have cozened you of your meat and now for feare like children you should cry and scratch they fain would please you with a Puppet Beloved Believe not every Spirit 2 Pet. 2.18 19. Phil. 3.20 St. Iude tels you of dreamers Be not led by a dreamer of dreames nor be thou carryed away by high swelling words of vanity by which the hearts of the simple are deceived Look for Christ your life to appeare but not according to the fashion of this life Prepare to meet the Lord in the aire Coloss 3.2 not upon the earth set not your mind on things that are beneath but on the things that are above Let no man spoil you of your reward by thrusting himselfe into things he hath not seen vainly puffed up in his fleshly mind Let them enioy their thousand yeares upon earth without envy look thou to enjoy Heaven forever For that thousand yeares the Millenaries talk of so much Brightman on the Revelation taken from Rev. 20.4 is not any earthly Kingdome of Christ with his Saints Because it is called the first resurrection and seemeth to entail eternity onely upon those who did enjoy it Which if so I pray what shall become of the rest of the Saints who shall arise after the thousand years be past who maintain the war against Gog and Magog Are not they blessed though they did not partake of that thousand yeares Or are these the same Saints which did enjoy the thousand yeares If so then they must live upon earth more then a thousand yeares and so the truth of the 4th verse will be doubted Or what shall become of the Saints who never were beheaded for the testimony of Christ and yet good Christians shall not they be delivered from death at the second resurrection because of the first they could not partake being no martyrs Apage I willtrouble you nor my selfe no further with raking in this mud Yet some love life more then these it seemes who say that an evill Being is better then none at all First because say they a Being is good but no being is no good Secondly because a being has a capability of exaltation but no being hath none Nay some have been bold to say that it is better to be in hell then not to be at all But there I leave them For Solomon saith that a nonens Eccles 4.3 a not being is better then them both viz. who were oppressors or were oppressed though the one had power to do mischiefe which is a kind of unhappynes and the other had no power to resist it which is a great misery so ver 1. Yea Eccles 4.1 he preferres it before them that were dead whom yet he thinkes in better state then the living because the dead have had life and lost it and the living are subject to vanity and mutability while they have it And Christ himselfe saith Math. 26.24 It had been better for Iudas if he had never been born For certainly though that Being simply considered in it selfe is better then not to be yet it is not better to be in an evill condition then not at all because that which was never had was never lost and therefore no griefe vexeth one for that But to be and to be

' ΑΦΩΝΟ'ΛΟΓΟΣ A DVMB SPEECH OR A SERMON made but no Sermon preached at the Funerall of the Right Vertuous Mrs MARY OVERMAN Wife to Mr THOMAS OVERMAN the younger Of the Parish formerly called Saint Saviours or vulgarly Mary Overis in Southwarke By B. Spencer Minister of Bromley The reason you may find if you reade the Epistle If these should hold their peace the stones would cry S. Gregor Moral Humilitas aperit Superbia scientiam operit LONDON Printed for JOHN CLARK and are to be sold at his shop under Saint Peters Church in Corn-hill 1646. To the worthily respected and his much honoured friend Mr THOMAS OVERMAN B. S. wisheth all happinesse Worthy Sir WHen God made Man he left nothing to make more but himselfe Man that Man might eternally enjoy himselfe For he fore-seeing that Man would lose himselfe though he had made him perfect so farre as was consistent with such a creature determined to finde him againe by searching him out through bryars and brakes and bushes worse then those Thickets in Paradise in which Man hid himselfe after he had sinned In these thornes Christ was caught like Abrahams Ramme by the head whose seed whilst he took hold of he was taken hold of and by wicked hands crucified and slaine for bearing witnesse to the truth If the Sonne of God the Lord of glory hath thus suffered for the Servants shall not the servants for their Lord and Master All this he did to set us an example to take up the crosse whose heavie burthen the world will impose upon his disciples sufficiently though the world like the Pharisee will not touch it nor endure the touch of it with one finger Let the world straine at Gnats and swallow Camels I am perswaded better things of you and your worthy family though I thus speak For as you have been ever industrious to finde the truth so never wanting to support it in what shape soever it hath appeared to you being not ashamed of the Crosse of Christ Now as you have not been ashamed of it so you must not be dejected under it Though I confesse the losse of so vertuous a wife is a great tryall But to be prevented of her due obsequies addeth to the affliction being a custome allowed by all Nations to the dead except by the Massagetae of Scythia who eate up their ancestors to prevent the wormes and the Hircanians and Caspians who buryed the dead in the mawes of wild beasts and the gorges of vultures to prevent Funerall charges peradventure As the Bactrians devoured their dead by dogs kept for that purpose to avoid all Funerall ceremonies Which buryalls were good enough for them who neither feared God nor reverenced Man who made no difference of a dead man and a meere Carrion as some doe not of a dead Christian who dies in hope and an Heathen that dies without Whose stupidnesse neither the examples of Scripture nor Antiquity nor laudable Customes nor the allowance of the State nor the permission of the Reverend Synod can remove Poore soules What Lethargie now troubles them being the Liturgie by them so called is taken away But this prevention of your Funerall Rites happened through your love to me and your earnest desire that I should doe that last duty for your deare Spousesse Which prevention I feared and premonished though you had the leave of all those that were interessed in the Church For those few that in your parts disaffect me are of Ammons disposition it seems who when he had ravished Thamar could not abide the sight of her though he himselfe had done the wrong Like an Ape he would break that glasse which shewed him his visage God forgive the they have ravished me of my living by misconstructions where I lived many yeares in good repute I thanke God taking great paines as is well knowne and giving no just offence what ever some might take through ignorance or ill will which never speaketh well though now some cannot abide to see me because they see their owne ill deeds in me Which it seems facient iterùm si se fecisse crediderint as saith Seneca hoping to over-awe justice by their violence and to make Authority like themselves take pleasure in oppression But their troubling of me turned to my good for the Honorable Committee found themselves abused by their false reports as well as my selfe Now therefore being I was prevented of preaching this Sermon by their false suggestions procuring a Warrant which took me off as I went before the Corpse I cannot deny your just request for a Copy of that which I meant to have said at that time Wherein you may and shall perceive how fearfull these men were where no feare was For the false accusation of our endeavour to preach without the Ministers consent and the rumour of Souldiers raised to support me and Malignants gathered together to heare me was but a ridiculous pretence to get a Warrant to hinder the Sermon The thing therefore which they feared was no carnall weapons but the Spirituall weapons of the true Christian warfare viz the sword of the Spirit the word of God with two edges and the mutiny which that might make in their own guiltie consciences of which you will finde me very tender in this Sermon not that I would excuse sinne but because I would take occasion from them that seek occasion to blame my Ministery of spleene or partiality As therefore you have the greatest part in the Crosse and the greatest right to the Sermon so I pray accept it as a crouch to rest the Crosse upon Remember that the devill bid Christ cast himselfe downe worldly sorrow seconds him I hope you are too wise with Christ to obey either much lesse to vexe your selfe at those who doe after evill counsell Psal 37.1 The fooles sport is to do mischief for he flings fire-brands and saith it is in jest Let them therefore walk in the light of their owne fire Isa 50.11 and in the sparks that they have kindled they shall at last sit downe in sorrow For the deceitfull man seldome rosteth what he took in hunting Non gaudet tertius haeres But as the crackling of thornes under a pot so is a fooles joy soone in and as soone out God knoweth the way of the righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish I meane not hereby that you should so carry this wrong as to be infensible of it For Ferendo injuriam fortasse invitas novam A wrong not rightly carryed may invite another But so to beare your selfe that Dum non vis calcari neque videaris posse calcari as you would not be trodon so to shew your self above their wretched spleene by whose teeth a poore wretched corps cannot passe without being snapt at But as it was said of Socrates so let it be of you who retreating in the reare of his retyring Troops lookt with such a countenance as put courage in his pursued friends

a day may bring forth Being without well-being is not worth our desires wee must looke to another life if wee desire to see good dayes and that is the life Christian which doth difference our lives from all others For our life is hid with Christ in God Coloss 3.3 and from this life wee are denominated as righteousnesse doth a righteous man for as Non vivere sed valere est vita not to live but to be in health is life the rest is sicknes and deaths equipage so not to live is a Christian life but to live godly God lookes Non tam multum sed quam bene not how long but how well wee live there is therefore not onely a life naturall but a life spirituall which prepares us for a life eternall as the wildernes of Sin and the Kingdome of Bashan did lead to Canaan This is when wee lead a naturall life after a spirituall manner as to be a Mary in contemplation and so anticipate the joyes of heaven or a Martha by good actions and so become our own rewarders by laying up for our selves a good foundation against the time to come that wee may lay hold of eternall life or like Lazarus to come out of the grave at the call of Christ or to make Christ our pattern who hath left us an example that wee should follow his steps or like St. Paul to make Christ our life that death may be our gain So I come to that life which puts a difference between other men The life different of a Christian and a Christian viz. to be their life Of this St. Paul speakes who made not the world his life nor his pleasure his life but as the worke of Christ was his meat and drinke so Christ was his life also This may be understood Operativè Or Objectivè First Operatively that is if I live Christ is my life by the operation of faith Gal. 2.20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me For Christ lives in a man by his Spirit by faith and by love First by his Spirit justifying me that his righteousnes is mine in the merit of it that he hath deserved for me to be held guiltlesse of all sin in the sight of God so by his spirit also sanctifying me to a new and true spirituall obedience lastly Rom. 8.16 exciting me by the same spirit to every good worke To this purpose St. Paul saith The spirit witnesseth to our spirits that wee are the sons of God This is Pignus salutis the pledge of our salvation Greg. which never goeth alone without the other for that spirit that gives the pledge of salvation giveth also the Robur vitae the strength of life by which those things are easie which before seemed hard and lastly Lumen scientiae the life of knowledge which like light doth illuminate what was darke and produceth what lay hid in our earthy natures Secondly Christ lives in me by faith urging me to believe that by his grace I am that I am Thirdly He lives in me by love by which fayth worketh me first to acknowledge my selfe to be his in all true obliegement and then to do him all manner of service Therefore St. Austin prayeth to God that his spirit may thus live in him Sanctum semper opus in me spira ut cogitem suade ut diligam urge ut faciam inspire me with thy holy worke perswade me to love urge me to do And so comes in the second sence of this text viz. Objectivè which I take to be here especially meant namely To me to live is Christ that is I accompt my life Christs to be spent and disposed of in him and for him to be spent in his service as David saith Psal 116.16 I am thy servant So all the Apostles write themselves CHRISTS and the CHURCHES servants the Pope writes himselfe so but t is meerly titular he Lords it too much over Gods inheritance to be a servant This is a good Christian complement when it is essentiall that whether wee live wee live to to the Lord or whether wee dye Rom. 14.8 wee dye to the Lord. Secondly To live to me is Christ if my life be willingly at his disposall as St. Paul said Acts 21.13 I am not ready onely to be bound but to dye for the Lord Iesus so that here we see if Christ be our life then our life must be Christs the one of these depends upon the other Christ hath bought us wee are not our owne Glorifie therefore saith the Apostle God in your bodies and in your spirits for they are Gods Wee must not live to our selves 1 Cor. 6.20 2 Cor. 5.15 let us first find that Christ is our life then the other wil be found also that our life shall be Christs for such an unionthere is between Christ and us as there is between the Head and the Members the Vine and the branches If the Body have a living Head the sense of the Body is derived from the Head and disposed of to the good of the Head and therfore here is set down that Christ is to me life because Christ is all in all to them that are his in the flux reflux of grace in the preventing operating in the donation and retribution Quest How shall I know Christ to be in me that I may say comfortably to my selfe That Christ is life to me Answ By the Spirit that he hath given us 1. Joh. 3.24 which Spirit is known by divers motions First by a purpose to obey God and an inclination to that purpose Therefore Christ minded Gods work with David Joh. 4.34 more then his dayly food and he was straitned till that was accomplished that he was sent to suffer but you must observe this purpose and inclination is in us not onely in extremities as in Pharaoh Exo. 9.28 while the rod was upon him he promised fair but even while we are in health and have the world at will God loves to be chosen as freely as he was forsaken and it is a great comfort to a man and a good token of Gods spirit when a man can say This good I did embrace and this evill I did forsake meerely for Gods cause without any other respect or constraint as Ioseph did Gen. 39 9. How can I do this great wickednes and sin against God The Devil as the Proverb is when he was sick would be a Monke which savours of more religion then those Monkes who while they be well will be devils but being well he was the devill still so many of us cry in affliction and pretend repentance but the storme being over we doe as he did that vowed to a Saint if he came safe to shore a wax Candle of twelve pound weight but when he came there he gave one

In a word let sin die before thee and then it cannot follow thee to judgment Feare not death but looke to the errour of your life break off sinne by repentance and entertaine Christ and death will be found without sting yea no crosse but a crowne no dart but a scepter shalt thou find in Christs hand or an olive in token of our victorie As confidently thou maist passe deaths teeth as once Ignat. did the teeth of wild beasts who said before hand when he was condemned I care not what death I suffer for seeing I am Gods corn I care not with what flaile of death he please to beat me out for I am willing to beground even by the teeth of these beasts that I may make cleane bread for Christ who became the bread of life for me How cheerfully may we then say Egredere anima mea egredere Goe forth my Soul Ps 142.9 to meet thy Saviour with David pray Lord bring my soul out of this prison that I may praise thy Name And with Saint Aug. Creasti nos ob te and Lord thou hast created us for thy selfe and I cannot be quiet til I come to thee And then shall begin that heavenly Epithalamium or wedding song of foure parts sung in Antiphona's and Responsories The Lamb saith Come and the Spirit saith Come and the Bride saith Come and thy soule shall say Come Lord Jesus come quickly So did this our deceased Sister Mrs MARY OVERMAN descended of an ancient and worthy Family of the Breretons marryed into an accomplished Family of the Overmans with whom though she found sufficiencie and satisfaction to her owne hearts desire yet she breathed after another life Not because she was sullenly faln out of love with the world but in love with Christ as appeared by her dying words which must eternize her memory when as a little before her dissolution this earnest and pious prayer departed from her first Lord when shall I come and appear before the presence of Christ my JESVS Dying MARY it seemes by this was ready for living CHRIST and living CHRIST as willing to receive dying MARY for soone after he took her to himselfe Who though she was weak in body yet was she strong in faith and hope which viaticum she had with her to strengthen her in her journey and to convey her soule into the hands of her Redeemer Herein as well approving as professing her selfe a true MARY in choosing that better part which now shall never be taken from her Next to Christ her Head in heaven she loved her Head on earth whom God had given her and like the Turtle loved her Mate yet was not like Rachel importunate for children nor yet dejected for want of them She spent her time not idly as many of her degree too usually doe even in these times whose miseries call to baldnesse and sackcloth but like another Dorcas she seemed to those that have seene her constant employment so farre from being idle that she was most an end well busied and full of good works So that as it was written of the Ladie Paula so it may be of Her too that she spent most of her time either in good workes or Gods worship Her chamber was not onely a shop of Confection as the fashion is but an Oratorie for Devotion Thirdly In a long and tedious consumption she behaved her selfe very patiently and knowing under whose hand she suffered opened not her mouth in any discontent and well perceiving it was the Lords doing thus to permit her to suffer she laid her downe and possest her soule in patience only with the meeke spirit of Iob intending Saint-like to imitate him in this her sanctified affliction in the depth of her consumption yet in the height of her devotion applyed ever and anon Jobs deploring words to her languishing selfe and like him wholy submitting her selfe to Gods dispoall said My months are moneths of vanity and sad nights are appointed for me And at other times in Davids words for she conversed much with dead Saints whiles she was living and had therefore learnt to use their language now she was dying when in his prayer he deciphered his miseries that he might the easier implore mercy Psalm 31.10 My life is consumed with greif and my years with sighing So that as Saint Ambrose said of one dying of such a disease so may we of hers that it seemd a martyrdome Yet was she not childishly afraid of death nor struggled she much to retaine life as some doe from whom God is faine as it were to teare away their soules but she offered up hers as a free-will-offering with a contempt of the world saying Away with all these things and with an earnest desire besides to be with Christ who having beene her life made death her gaine Which Text it seemes was some time since her owne meditation as appeares by her notes under her owne hand with this her devout paraphrase found upon them Heaven is my home I am a stranger here Which undoubtedly was the language of her heart as well as of her hand And if so what can we lesse perswade our selves she is then what she made her selfe by her pious endeavours a true a very MARY that is by interpretation Excellent Excellent in Contemplation thereby anticipating the joyes of heaven whilst she walkt upon the earth and excellent in action too her actions speaking her a perfect servant of the Almighty And therefore now no doubt after death a partaker of his glory with her fellow Saints for right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of such Saints so deare that he takes them into his bosome And for our parts we may say of her as Saint Hierome said of Fabiola Ex annulo Ecclesiae monile perdidimus We even wee have lost a precious jewell out of the Ring of the Church But lost she is not I doe her wrong to say so of her whom God hath found She is not dead but sleepeth And her flesh doth rest in hope that what is sowne in weaknesse shall rise in power according to his mightie working who is able to subdue all things unto himselfe who bringeth downe to the grave and raiseth up by whom death is already swallowed up in victorie and so made an advantage to us Thus passed this precious Saint from sicknesse to perfect health from weaknesse to perfect strength from bondage to perfect freedome from trouble to perfect peace from losse to perfect gaine from heavinesse to perfect joyes In a word she is passed from death to life and from earth to heaven to be for ever in perfect happinesse where wee leave her safe and come to cloze with you Now therefore as the death of Christ doth for us make a gaine of death so may the death of good men and women worke some advantage also for us in that point and so their death may be a gaine to us Therefore Solomon sayes