Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A82050
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A Protestants resolution: shewing his reasons why he will not be a Papist Digested into so plain a method of question and answer, that an ordinary capacity may be able to defend the Protestant religion, against the most cunning Jesuit or Popish priest. Useful for these times.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing D53A; ESTC R232727
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19,832
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73
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him of his Royalty and give his glory to another 3. Their Doctrines tend to the dethroning of Christ the disparaging his performances and lessening the Glory and Praise belonging to him witness their dividing the Soveraignty and Headship betwixt him and the Pope Satisfaction betwixt his Sufferings and their own Merits and Intercession betwixt him and Saints 4. Their Doctrines are against the power of Godliness and rob God of his prime Sacrifice the Heart witness their Tenets that the Opus operatum is enough their prayers in an unknown tongue and their assigning to God chiefly external superficial Service consisting in a rabble of empty childish Rites and gaudy Ceremonies thereby taking from him the nobler part of his Creature without which the Services or Emasserations of the body how splendid or severe soever are no more pleasing to him than the noisom evaporations of a Putrid Carcass to us 5. Their Doctrines tend not only thus to formality and lukewarmness but to open profaneness and dissolute living witness their notion of Venial sins their Pardons Absolutions Indulgences Dispensations c. It being observable that the most ignorant and careless or the most wicked and debauch'd make up the greatest part of their Proselytes nor is it strange since false Principles and bad Lives like Ice and Water mutually begat each other 6. Their Doctrines are absurd 1. Witness their fancy of the Popes Infallibility you can scarce cast your eye on any story where the Villany of Popes is not at large discovered and who can believe that the pure Spirit of God should endow with Infallibility of judgment Monsters so visibly fulsome and abominable We find that the Holy Ghost did under the Law hate and forbid all Impurities though in meer outward Circumstances how then should he under the brighter light of the Gospel suffer himself to be poured out of one unclean vessel into another beginning again with a Conjurer where he left with a Sodomite 2. Witness likewise the Prayer for the dead a practise if I may use so light a comparison altogether as vain and impertinent as that of Bowlers strenuously crying out rub or fly after they have delivered their Cast 3. Witness too their Darling whimsie of the corporal Presence attended with a numerous train of contradictions and incongruities they say it is a Sacrament or sign and can it be at once both the sign and thing signified If it be Christs body really how is it sacramentally If sacramentally how really and corporally They say there is no real and corporal Presence till the Priest repeat the words and if so then the creature and oftentimes a sad one makes his Creator and in receiving the Creator is comprehended by the Creature absurdities nothing short of Blasphemy when our Saviour instituted the Supper and said Take eat c. was the Bread and Wine both the giver and the gift the body blessing and the body blest did the same body hold the same body in its own Fingers Was it eaten in pieces by every one of the Disciples and yet then all whole without them all Mysteries of Religion may be above but never so directly against reason and seriously I admire any man of sense can be a Papist when the chief demonstration of his Religion must be his not understanding it 4. Their Doctrines are dangerous to the Temporal estate and just rights of Princes witness their Usurpations over not to say Assassinations of Kings disposing of Crowns absolving subjects from their Allegiance c. For in short the whole Romish Hierarchy is so far from being suited within the order of the Gospel that the main design of their Popes Cardinals Jesuits and Fryers of many sorts esteemed of the Religious Tribe is but to advance themselves above all that is called God and to gratify their base lusts instead of pleasing of him Directions how you may keep your self from being a Papist 1. STudy to have right notions and due apprehensions of the matter import and chief design of the Gospel be not a stranger to the knowledg of God in Jesus Christ and the blessed Spirit Acquaint your self with the mystery of the Gospel as it lyes in the Person Natures Offices Life and Death of the Lord Redeemer Let the Scriptures be your constant Counsellor without knowledg the heart cannot be good and a bad heart is prepared to suck in bad Principles 'T is not for nothing the Papists make Ignorance the Mother of their Devotion they that have truly learnt Christ and the Gospel will hardly be taught by Romes School-Masters 2. Study a sound and thorow Conversion I never yet knew any man blest with a broken and contrite heart that is a heart broken for sin and a heart broken off from sin that ever was taken with their Relligion 3. Get a faithful and a tender conscience I say faithful for then it will not be satisfied with dross instead of Gold with paint instead of true and sound Piety A faithful conscience will inform you that God is a Spirit and the more spiritual we are in our Devotions the more we please him that 't is not a pompous but a pure worship that he is delighted in And as to expiation of our guilt nothing but the blood of Christ can take away sin that 't is not their blind penances pilgrimages crossings cringings will answer the great end of our Redemption but a heart devoted to his fear and love and a mind fully set upon him 4. Be well acquainted with the plague of your own heart the nature of Original sin how it hath defiled and weakned all the powers of the soul This will let you see the necessity there is for the blessed Spirit to heal and help those spiritual distempers that without him ye can do nothing that 't is he that works in you both to will and to do 5. Look upon Superstition as a fruit of the flesh and that nothing is more grateful to flesh and blood than Idolatry and formality they that know what proneness there is in the nature of man to a carnal sensual vain Religion will not think it strange that the Papists have foisted in so many fulsome things into their Worship to comply with the carnal humours of men 6. Be much in the duty of Mortification and that will acquaint you with the way means and manner of it 't is through the Spirit Believers come to mortify the deeds of the Flesh at best the Popish Penances can but pen up sin but the next temptation will break the hedg Whereas the blessed Spirit lays his strong hand upon the irritating power of indwelling sin and thereby subjects the heart unto himself he heals the pollution of our nature renews us in the spirit of our minds cleanses our affections and thereby causes us who formerly delighted in flesh pleasing vanities to delight our selves in him his word will way c. 7. Know the mischief of Idolatry The setting your self against heart-Idols will keep you from Idol-worship you know who tells us expresly I will not give my praise to graven Images Remember how smartly the Jews suffered for this sin and yet had not such a spiritual dispensation as we that are under the Gospel if it be so dangerous to shape Idea's of God in our Fancies and Imaginations though never so much raised in our invention how dangerous must it be to be in a place where such Images are found in Wood and Cloth Lastly Allow your self in no known sin 'T is the conscience being made deceitful through such deceitful works that makes people forward to cover themselves with those figments of Popery whereas the man that makes it his due care and conscience to keep himself unspotted from allowed evil is the likeliest man to save himself from such an untoward generation of men as would put such a yoke on us as we nor our Fathers were not able to bear Your careful Father L. D. FINIS The two following Books are neâ—â—â— Printed for and Sold by Doâ—â—â—â—â— Newman at the Kings Aâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 the Poultrey LIfe in Gods favour A 〈◊〉 discourse in Death-Thâ—â—◠〈◊〉 times being the substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sermons upon Psalm 30.5 In 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Life By O. Heywood Minisâ—â—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gospel Twenty Sermons Preached 〈◊〉 â—â—veral Texts by that late Reveâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 â—â—ous and painful Preacher Mr. 〈◊〉 Nalton Minister of St. Leonard 〈◊〉 lane in the City of London Published for publick good
whom God grant a long and happy Reign Nor have we only instances at home but abroad the Murder of Henry the 4th of France and many others but above all the unparallel'd Murder of that Emperor whom they poysoned with the Sacrament I call it unparallel'd having never met with a Religion before that would poyson their God to kill their Emperor 6. 'T is a Blind Religion It leads men out of the way of salvation it hides the danger of damnation to all who have not their hearts thorowly changed from the love of sin to the love of God and Holiness from their eyes it covers the pit whose descent is into that which is bottomless with Spiders webs and perswades them 't is firm-ground it leaves them no sense noâ— notice of many sins no conscience of the most no fear of any no not of the worst such as themselves call deadly crimes it gives as much security to such wickedness as a heart that hath sold it self to it need wish for it keeps the Bible the Law of the Lord which good men make a light to their feet a lanthorn to their paths away from them it will not suffer men to believe their senses or act their reason nor bottom their faith upon the Scriptures That as that General first blinded the men then led them into the Enemies quarters so do they and all the answer you shall have from the common sort among them is this They believe as the Priest bids them and if he deceive them the Devil take him And as their faith is such is their Devotion the matter of their Prayers is lock't up from them and they as little concerned to know what becomes of them sure if the blind lead the blind they must both fall into the ditch Lastly 'T is a Blasphemous Religion In ascribing the peculiar Excellencies of the Divine Majesty and the Prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ to the blessed Virgin and other creatures and to their Popes though divers of them as themselves acknowledg were Monsters and Incarnate Devils When one Phocas took the Emperor Maurice and his family Prisoners who was his lawful Soveraign and having slain his Wife and Children before his eyes not sparing the little Innocent which hung at the Breasts did afterward cause his Master's Throat to be cut likewise a Proceduce so black and barbarous that Historians cannot mention it without horror Yet Pope Gregory congratulates this bloody Treason with abominable Blasphemies and begins his Address to this Phocas in his 36 Epistle with Gloria in Excelsis the Song of the Angels at the Nativity of our Saviour Glory be to God on high and then proceeds Let the Heavens send forth acclamations the Earth leap for joy and let all the people be glad thereof The Jesuits frequently teach that Jesus Christ might have sinned might have been subject unto vices might have fallen into error and folly and that it is no more repugnant to him to err or to speak a thing false in it self by the nature he hath assumed than to be tormented and dye in the same nature so Amicus so Vasquez and many more of them No other sort of Hereticks not excepting Turk Jew nor Pagan no not those of Calcute who adore the Devil did ever maintain by the Grounds of their Religion that it was lawful or rather meritorious as the Romish Catholicks calls it to murther Princes or people for the quarrel of Religion and although particular men of all professions of Religion have been some Thieves some Murtherers some Traitors yet ever when they came to their end and just punishment they confessed their fault to be in their nature and not in their profession But these persons cleave to it at their deaths as zealously as if all they had been doing were the immediate guidance of the blessed Spirit Such is their blasphemy A Protestant Fathers Letter of Advice to his Son in danger of being seduc'd to Popery SON BY a Letter last Week from your Uncle I am to my grief inform'd that you have lately fallen into the unhappy Acquaintance of some Popish Emissaries and are in danger of being inveigled by them to revolt from the Protestant Church to that of Rome I confess the news much surpriz'd me and I cannot but esteem it an essential part of my Fatherly care to admonish and warn you both of the unreasonableness and danger of such a change I do not much admire that those that have been always conversant in darkness should find their eyes offended with the Light which makes me extend very charitable thoughts to poor Souls train'd up in Papal ignorance labouring under the almost invincible prejudices of corrupted Education and Erroneous Principles but that you born and brought up in a Gospel Meridian and as I well hop'd understandingly grounded in the Protestant Doctrine should now stagger in those important Truths and be gull'd and cheated out of the Religion sealed with the Blood of your Martyr'd Ancestors and hazard your Soul by a Relaps to that long since exploded Faction and their slavish as well as ridiculous superstitions is matter of no less wonder than trouble to me the rather for that I am satisfied your circumstances admit not of any temptations of profit or honour to engage you to their party and without those allurements I profess you are the first that my experience can remember in danger of such a shameful Apostacy I shall not swell this Paper with a particular Examen of all the Romish Errors that task has been sufficiently and unanswerably performed by multitudes of our Learned Writers to whom I refer you and charge you to weigh their Arguments seriously before you suffer your Judgment to be debauch'd to a contrary perswasion but because I have some hopes your duty and filial respect may oblige you to a more near and sensible regard of what is said though briefly and weakly by my self that can have no design but the good of your Soul than to the abler reasonings of others more remote I shall offer some general Considerations which methinks should deter you from casting away your self in their communion First then I do affirm to you That to body of the Popish Religion so far as it differs from the Protestant is composed notwithstanding all their pretences to Antiquity of strange Doctrines Innovations and Abuses never instituted by Christ nor warrantable by Holy Scripture nor known nor practic'd in the Primitive Church but introduced at several times in latter Ages meerly to serve the pride or the vanity the covetousness or the sensuality of the Inventors 2. That their Doctrines interfere with and infringe the Greatness and Soveraignty of God and tend to the diminishing the honour and service due to him witness their dividing adoration betwixt him and Images Invocation betwixt him and Saints and absolute obedience betwixt him and the Church c. Now what gross and horrible sacriledge is this What is it less than to divest