Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	body_n	holy_a	life_n	6,877	5	4.4602	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56701	A sermon preached at St. Paul's Covent Garden on the day of thanksgiving Jan. XXXI, 1668 for the great deliverance of this kingdom by the means of His Highness the Prince of Orange from popery and arbitrary power / by Simon Patrick ...	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1689 (1689)	Wing P847; ESTC R18296	19,982	42

follow and attend every one of them if we will heartily receive the present Favour that he doth us We find this true in his Spiritual Blessings He not only prevents us with the Blessings of his Goodness and is found of them that seek him not but when we do set our selves seriously and diligently to seek after him he not only graciously meets us as the Father is said to do to the Prodigal Son but is desirous to dwell with us and to take up his abode in us He would not give so little as a Pardon to a returning Sinner but his Holy Spirit the joys and comforts of an holy Life an assurance of eternal Bliss All his Laws likewise whereby he governs us not only gives inward Peace and Satisfaction to our minds when we are ruled by them but the happiness of our Bodies and of our Families and of whole Kingdoms and Churches inseperably twisted with the faithful observance of them For by these we come to be united in the most sweet and pleasing Relations of Familiars and Friends Nay his whole Religion if we would receive it secures the rarest Friendship among Men that is imaginable It Sows the Seeds of Love and Kindness of Peaceableness and Christian Communion of mercifulness and good works in their highest Perfection which must needs spring up into such a Familiarity as the Heathens themselves accounted the greatest Blessing in the World. There is nothing more demonstrable than this and it is no less plain that as all his Spiritual Blessings draw Temporal along with them so likewise the outward Blessings he bestows are intended as pledges not only of more Mercies of the same kind but likewise of diviner and nobler favours to our Souls There is no deliverance he gives us from temporal Calamities but he designs should draw us nearer to him who is the Fountain of all Good. He would give us himself together with it he would fill us with his love and increase our confidence in his goodness make us more fruitful in all good Works and dispose us to such a sense of him and of our duty that we may be every way happy together with all those who enjoy the same Blessing in common with us This is the Use we ought to make of all the marvellous Works of God which have been done among us far surpassing all our expectations They declare that God is near us He comes to see what entertainment we will give him He opens the door to see how we are disposed to receive him But let us not presume he is only near we may put him away and his Mercy from us VVe may shut the door against those divine Blessings those heavenly Graces which he would introduce into our Hearts 3. On these let us set our affections and since Gods presence with a People is the greatest matter of praise as these words intimate for he gives thanks for Gods wondrous works upon this account because they declar'd him to be with them let this be the principal cause of our joy this day because we hope true Religion will be more than ever promoted unfeigned godliness countenanced prophaneness and debauchery every where curbed regular and orderly piety incouraged all our unnatural heats quenched and our rigors abated brotherly love and kindness peace and concord firmly established For if we rejoyce merely because we hope peace and quietness will be secured plenty and abundance flow in upon us trade and commerce quickned riches increase and grow to a greater height and the strength and power of the Nation much exalted we may justly fear we shall have none of these long to rejoyce in but God will find some way as unexpected as our deliverance to punish us for our ingratitude to him Did not Jerusalem presume it was for ever secured after such a miraculous preservation as that in the days of Hezekiah for which the Psalmist it is probable in my Text gives the highest thanks to God And yet this very City in process of time was burnt with Fire not to mention the preceding calamities before this came the Temple destroyed and the People carryed Captive into a strange Land. And after God had inspired the heart of Cyrus to send them back to their own Country and given them such favour in the sight of the Heathen that they built their City and their Temple again and grew a very great Nation it s very likely that sleepy and careless minds might dream they were now under such a peculiar care of Heaven that no evil should henceforth befal them And yet they were again miserably harazzed and afflicted by Antiochus with a rage against them that differed little from madness The very same Confusions hath impiety made in the Christian World and that by the hands of contemptible Instruments Those that they dispised and thought themselves able to resist though they had been far stronger than they were got the the Mastry of them when the Sins of Christians had taken their Defence and Protection from them Many Examples of which have been observed by divers Authors out of Salvian What was it saith he that abandon'd Spain to the Vandals Were they the strongest of all the barbarous Nations No such matter but God would show these two Things First how much he hated the lusts of the flesh for he delivered the impure filthy Spaniards into the hands of a chast People And then he put them under the yo●e of the weakest Enemies that he might show it is not strength which prevails but something else they being over-run not by the force of their sluggish Enemies but by the Power of their own vices And how came France also to be vanquisht Why at that time it was but one great gulph of riot one Brothel-house of filthiness and uncleanness And when some objected and said these Gothes and Vandals are all Arian Hereticks sure God will give us the better who are good Christian Catholiques Alas replies that good Father what a folly is it to rely on this fancy what do you talk of being good Catholiques when almost all Religion is dirided by us what can the Prerogative of a Religious Name profit us what good can it do us to boast that we are the Faithful and they the Hereticks When we live as wickedly as the wickedest Heresy can make us we our selves could be no worse if our Opinions were as bad as theirs Once more how came these People to take the confidence to invade Africk had they an infinite number of Legions whereby they might hope to prevail No we are expresly told by good Authors that they were very small forces wherewith they wasted themselves over to those shores But it was an hand from above saith Salvian which carryed them thither to punish the horrid Vices of those Countries the whole Territory of Africk being nothing less than one huge House wherein all vices met and dwelt together It is a madness then unless we could shew some priviledg protection we have to secure us from those punishments which have come upon others to plung our selves into ●●ose vices that Irreligion that Filthiness that Debauchery which hath undone so many They are the more deadly in us after such a deliverance as this They will cry to Heaven for vengeance on such Miscreants as are not satisfyed to have undone a Kingdom once or twice but in defiance of all that they have seen with their eyes as well as of what they have heard from the Report of ancient Times will proceed on still in their Trespasses to undo it over again God of his infinite Mercies inlighten our Eyes that we may see these things and strike our Hearts that we may consider them and implant in us such a reverend Sense of himself and of his righteous Providence that we may fear before him and obey him for our Good all the days of our Lives Amen FINIS