Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	bless_a	lord_n	soul_n	6,252	5	5.0695	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50170	The triumphs of the reformed religion in America the life of the renowned John Eliot, a person justly famous in the church of God, not only as an eminent Christian and an excellant minister among the English, but also as a memorable evangelist amoung the Indians of New-England : with some account concerning the late and strange success of the Gospel in those parts of the world which for many ages have lain buried in pagan ignorance / written by Cotton Mather.	Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728.; Mather, Increase, 1639-1723. De successu Evangelii apud Indos in Nova-Anglia epistola. English.	1691 (1691)	Wing M1163; ESTC W479490	74,580	162

Evangelist or one separated for the employment of Preaching the Gospel in such places where no Churches have hitherto been gathered be not an Office that should be continued in our days but this I know that our Eliot very notably did the Service and Business of such an Officer ¶ The Natives of the Countrey now Possessed by the New-Englanders had been forlorn and wretched Heathen ever since their first herding here and tho we know not When or How those Indians first became Inhabitants of this mighty Continent yet we may guess that prob●bly the Divel decoy'd those miserable Salvages hither in hopes that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus would never come here to destroy or disturb his Absolute-Empire over them But our Eliot was in such ill terms with the Divel as to alarm him with sounding the Silver-Trump●ts of Heaven in his Territories and make some Noble and Zealous Attempts towards outing him of his Ancient possessions here Just before the first Arrival of the English in these parts a prodigious Mortality had swept away vast Numbers of the poor Indians and those Pagans who being told by a Shipwrack'd Frenchman which dy'd in their hands That God would shortly extirpate them and introduce a more civil and worthy people into their place blasphemously reply'd That God could not kill them were quickly kill'd with such a raging and wasting Pe●tilence as left the very earth covered with their Carcases Nevertheless there were I think Twenty several Nations if I may call them so of Indians upon that spot of ground which fell under the Influence of our Three Vni●●d Colonies and our Eliot was willing to rescue as many of them as he could from that old usurping Land-Lord of America who is by the wrath of God the Prince of this world I cannot find that any besides the Holy Spirit of God first moved him to the blessed Work of Evangelizing these perishing Indians 't was that Holy Spirit which laid before his mind the Idaea of that which is now on the Seal of the Massachuset-Colony A poor Indian having a Label going from his mouth with a COME OVER AND HELP US It was the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ which enkindled in him a Pitty for the dark dying damning souls of these Natives whom the god of this world had blinded through all the By past Ages He was none of those that make The Salvation of the Heathen an Article of their Creed b●t setting aside the unrevealed and extraordinary Steps which the Holy One of Israel may take out of His usual Pathes he thought men to be lost if our Gospel be hidden from them and he was of the same Opinion with one of the Ancients who said Some have endeavoured to prove Plato a Christian till they prove themselves little better than Heathen It is indeed a principle in the Turkish Alcoran That Let a man's Religi●n be what it will he shall be saved if he conscientiously live up to the Rules of it but our Eliot was no Mahometan He could most heartily subscribe to that passage in the Articles of the Ch. of Eng● They are to be held accursed who presume to say that every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law ●nd Light of Nature For Holy Scripture doth set out unto us Only the Name of Jesus Christ whereby men must be Saved And it astonished him to see many dissembling Subscribers of those Articles while they have grown up to such a Phrensy as to deny peremptorily all Church-state and all Salvation to all that are not under Diocesan Bishops yet at the same time to grant that the Heathen might be saved without the Knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ No it very powerfully moved his holy Bowels to hear the Thunderclapps of that Imprecation over the heads of our Naked Indians Pour out thy Fury upon the Heathen that know thee not and thought he What shall I do to rescue these Heathen from that all-devouring Fury But when this Charitable pitty had once begun to flame there was a concurrence of many things to cast Oyl into it All the good men in the Country were glad of his Engagement in such an undertaking the Ministers especially encouraged him and those in the Neighbourhood kindly supply'd his place and perform'd his work in part for him at Roxbury ●hile he was Abroad Labouring among them that were Without Hereunto he was further ●wakened by those expressions in the Royal Charter in the assurance and protection whereof this Wilderness was first peopled namely To win and incite the Natives of that Country to the knowledge and Obedience of the only true God and Saviour of Mankind and the Christian Faith in our Royal Intention and the Adventurers free profession is the principal end of the Plantation And the remarkable zeal of the Romish Missionaries compassing Sea and Land that they might make Proselytes made his devout Soul think of it with a further Disdain that we should come any whit behind in our care to Evangelize the Indians whom we dwelt among Lastly when he had well begun this Evangelical Business the good God in an answer to his Prayers mercifully stirred up a liberal Contribution among the godly people in England for the promoting of 〈◊〉 by means whereof a considerable Estate and Income was at length entrusted in the hands of an Honourable Corporation by whom 't is to this Day very carefully employ'd in the Christian Service which it was designed for And then in short inasmuch as our Lord Jesus had bestow'd on us our Eliot was gratefully and generously desirous to obtain for him The Heathen for an Inheritance and the utmost parts of the Earth for a Possession The exemplary Charity of this excellent person in this important Affair will not be seen in its due Lustre unless we make some Reflections upon several circumstances which he behold these forlorn Indians in Know then that these doleful Creatures are the veriest Ruines of Mankind vvhich are to be found any vvhere upon the face of the Earth No such Estates are to be expected among them as have been the B●●●s which the pretended Converters in other Countries ha●e snapped at One might see among them what an hard master the Devil is to the most devoted of his Vassals These abject Creatures live in a Country full of Mines we have already made entrance upon out Iron and in the very surface of the ground among us there lies Coper enough to suppl● all this world besides other Mines hereafter to be exposed but our shiftless Indians were never Owners of so much as a Knife till we come among them their name for an English man was a Knife man Stone was instead of Metal for their tools and for their Coins they have only little Beads with Holes in them to string them upon a bracelet whereof some are white and of these there go six for a

which were in subjection unto us as well as the Pagan Indians that were in Hostility against us vented a very wicked Rage at our holy Eliot because of his concernment for the Indians and one profane Monster hearing how narrowly Mr. Eliot escap'd from Drowning 't is said he wish'd this man of God had then been Drowned But within a few da●s that woful man by a strange Disaster wa● Drowned in that very place where Mr. Eliot had received his Deliverance There was indeed a certain health of Soul which he arriv'd unto and he kept in a b●essed measure clear of those Distempers which too often disorder the most of men But the God of Heaven favoured him with something that was yet more Extraordinary By getting and keeping near to God and by dwelling under the shadow of the Almighty ●he contracted a more exquisite sense of mind than what is usual among other Professors of Christianity he somtimes felt a lively touch of God upon his refined and exalted Spirt which were not in any paper of ours lawful or easy to be uttered and he was admitted unto a singular Familiarity with the Holy One of Israel Hence 't was that as Bodies of a rare and fine constitution will for●bode the Changes of the Weather so the sublimed Soul of our Eliot often had strange Forebodings of things that were to come I ha●e been astonished at some of his Predictions that were both of a more personal and of a more general Application and were follow'd with exact Accomplishmen●s If he said of any Affair I cannot bless it it was a wo●se Omen to it than the most inauspicious praesages in the world but sometimes after he had been with God about a thing he was able successfully to foretel I have set a mark upon it it will do well I shall never forget That when England and Holland were plunged into the unhappy War which the more sensible Protestants every-where had but sorrowful Apprehensions of our Eliot being in the height and heat of the War privately asked What News we might look for next answered unto the surprize of the Enquirer Our next News will be a peace between the two Protestant Nations God knows I pray for it every day and I am verily perswaded we shall bear of at speedily and it came to pass accordingly It is to be confessed That the written Word of God is to be regarded as the perfect and only Rule of our Lives that in all Articles of Religion if men speak not according to this word there is no light in them and that it is no warrantable or convenient thing for Christians to look for such Inspirations as directed the Prop●et● that were the Pen-men of the Scriptures Nevertheless there are some uncommon Instances of Communion and Fruition which in our days the Soveraign God here and there favours a good man withal and they are very Heavenly persons persons well purify'd from the Faecul●n●tes of Sensuality and persons better purged from the Leaven of envy and malice and intollerable pride than usually those vain pretenders to Revelations the Quakers are that are made partakers of these Divine Dainties Now such an one was our Eliot and for this wo●thy to be had in everlasting Remembrance It would not be improper under this File to lodge the singular and surprizing successes of his Pr●y rs for they were such that in our distresses we still repair'd unto him under that encouragement He is a Pr●phet and he shall pray for thee and thou stalt Live I shall single out but one from the many that might be mentioned There was a godly Gentleman of Charlstown one Mr. Foster who with his Son was taken Captive by Turkish Enemies Much prayer was employed both privately and publickly by the good people here for the Redemption of that Gentleman but we were at last informed that the bloody Prince in whose Dominions he was now a Slave was resolved that in his Life-time no Prisoner should be released and so the Distressed Friends of this Prisoner now concluded Our Hope is lost Well upon this Mr Eliot in some of his next prayers before a very solemn Congregation very broadly beg'd Heavenly Father work for the Redemption of thy poor Servant Foster and if the Prince which detains him will not as they say dismiss him as long as himself lives Lord we pray thee to kill that cruel Prince kill him and glorify thy self upon him And now behold the answer The poor Captived Gentleman quickly Returns to us that had been mourning for him as a lost man and brings us News that the Prince which had hitherto held him was come to an untimely Death by which means he was now set at Liberty Thus we now know That a Prophet has been among us Part II. Or Eliot As a MINISTER Article I. His Ministerial Accomplishments THe Grace of God which we have seen so Illustriousl● Endowing and Adorni●g of our Eliot as well Qualify'd him for as Dispos'd him to the employment wherein he spent about Six Decads of his years which was The service of the Lord Jesus Christ in the ministry of the Gospel This was the work to which he apply'd himself and he undertook it I beleeve with as Right Thoughts of it and as Good Ends in it as ever any man in our Da●●s was acted with He look'd upon the Con●uct of a Church as a thing no less Dange●ou● than Important and attended with so many Difficulties Temptations and H●miliations as that nothing but a C●●l from the Son of God could have encouraged him unto the susception of it He saw that flesh and blood would find it no very pleas●nt thing to be Oblig'd u●to the oversight of a Number that by a solemn Covenan● should be listed among the Voluntiers of the Lord Jesus Christ that it was no easy thing to feed the fouls of such a people and of the Children and the Neighbours which were to be brought into the same Sheepfold with them to bear their manners with all patience not being by any of their infirmities discouraged from Teaching of them and from wa●ching praying over them to value them highly as the Flock which God has purch●sed with his own blood notwithstanding all their miscarriages and in all to examine the Rule of Scripture for the warrant of whatever shall be done and to Remember the Day of Judgment wherein an Account must be given of all that has been done having in the mean time no expectation of the Riches Grandeurs which accompany a worldly Domination It was herewithal his opinion That as the great Owen expresses it notwithstanding all the countenance that is given to any Church by the publick Ministry yet whilst we are in this world those who will faithfully discharge their Duty as Ministers of the Gospel shall have need to be prepared for suffering and it was in a sense of these things that he gave himself up to the sacred Ministry A Stranger to Regenera●ion can