Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A84322
|
The church-sleeper awakened, or A discourse on Act. 20. 9. being the substance of two sermons composed and preached at Corke in Ireland. / By Joseph Eyres master of arts, and a servant of God in the Gospel of his son.
|
Eyres, Joseph.
|
1659
(1659)
|
Wing E3949; Thomason E1902_2; ESTC R209968
|
16,328
|
119
|
Christ bids them watch and pray He knew full well that if they did not watch neither could they pray Math. 26.41 2. To hear him speaking unto you by the Ministery of the Word Our business is not only to poure out our complaints and requests into Gods bosome but likewise to receive answers and tidings of peace into ours Now the sleepy Hearer stops up the passages thorough which the Lord is wont to convey his grace into the soul I hope you are not of the opinion that the Lord now speaks to his people by dreams and that therefore there is no need of a waking attention Thus you see how the intercourse betwixt God and sleepy souls is interrupted and dammed up Surely that must needs be a very great sin that doth obstruct duty and renders the Ordinances of God frustraneous and ineffectual Secondly you are in the presence of the Angels who are wont to frequent the solemn and sacred Assemblies of the Saints which seems proveable from 1 Cor. 11.10 and to take notice of any disorders in sacred Conventions You cannot make a wry mouth laugh fleere in the Ministers face take a nap be guilty of a lascivious glance wanton look or any other immodest behaviour but it is done not only in the presence of the God of heaven but also in the presence of the Angels of heaven who are strict observers of you and have a watchful eye upon you Besides the Angels do with much wonder and delight make inspection into the profound Mysteries of the Gospel Eph. 3.10 manifested and made known to and by the Church 1 Pet. 1.12 if you did so too you would not be possessed with such a spirit of slumber as you are Thirdly you are in the presence of the Church You are now in Gods family not your own You may not take liberty to do that here which you would make no scruple of to do at home Any publick Assembly especially of Saints and they ingaged in a worke of the highest nature requires an aweful and respective behaviour in such as do attend it We may not offend any much less the Church 1 Cor. 10.32 We may not offend a single Saint much less a Society of such Besides the Church is an orderly Society all things in it should be done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14.10 Whilst one is singing another should not be snoring 2. Consider whose work it is that you are about We are not only in Gods presence but are also employed in Gods work Now we are commanded to be fervent in spirit whilst we serve the Lord Rom. 12.11 It becomes not Gods servants of any to be of a drouzy disposition especially when they should be diligent and intent upon their Masters business It s hard if you cannot watch with Christ one hour Christ did watch and pray in the Garden the Disciples should have done so too and have kept him company Matth. 26.40 It was a patheticall expostulation that of Christ Could you not watch with me one houre q. d. If any of your Friends and neer Relations were pained in body and perplexed in minde if they lay under the thousandth part of that agony and anguish of spirit that I lie under you would have watched with them and why then can you not watch with me Yea you would have watched all night with them untill the dawning of the day and is it possible that you can not watch with me one houre I could pray for you in a Mountain and cannot you pray with me in a Garden I could spend a great part of the night in prayer for you and can you not spend an houre of the night in prayer with me Me thinks it should not be such a tiresome task and intollerable The service of God doth deservedly require the utmost ardour and intenseness of spirit the most elevated inlarged inflamed affections that creatures are capable of Whatsoever our hand findeth to do especially in matters spirituall should be done with all our might 3. The work that you are emploied about is of loftiest consequence and concernment Your souls are concerned in it Life and death are before you We should hearken to the word of God as for our lives for it is our life Deut. 32.46 47. VVhat a man doth for his life he will do with the utmost vigour and vivacity VVith what panting and pressing earnestness doth an almost famisht and hunger-bitten begger cry for bread VVith what awakening heart-penetrating expressions doth a Prisoner at the bar plead for his life Not a word passeth unobserved by him he doth with much greediness of attention hearken to the Evidence of VVitnesses Verdict of the Jury Sentence of the Judge and no wonder for his life lies at the stake He must be either acquitted and live or else condemned and dye You who are here this day must be tried by that word which you hear by it your eternall estates and conditions must be cast Now whose eares would not be tickled with extraordinary delight at the hearing of the promises of life and whose eares would not glow and tingle at the denunciations and threatnings of eternall death But the mischief on it is the Church-Sleeper is like the Smiths dog whom neither the hammers above him nor the sparks of fire falling round about him can awaken 4. You are not wont to sleep whilst you are about your own work You rise up early and sit up late and do with much eagerness and unweariedness prosecute your own affairs The Husbandman doth not sleep with his Plough in his hand neither doth the Pilot sleep whilst he is at the helm guiding the Ship Though you sleep in the Church yet you do not sleep in the shop whilest you have any thing to do and customers to attend How contentedly will you refrain from eating drinking sleeping all the day long nay and a great part of the night too provided the merry penny may be coming in thewhiles You can sit chatting and discoursing with your Friends many hours and it s very late many times ere you can part but when you come into Gods presence to enjoy fellowship and communion with him you are nodding presently and there you sit like so many liveless logs and senseless statues I have heard of feasts that have lasted four or five hours but hardly of any Guests that were sleeping whilest others were eating But when people come to feast with God to make a meale upon an Ordinance they cannot hold open their eyes for their hearts You are not wont to sleep whilst the naturall glass is before you but when the pure chrystall glass of the Law is by the Minister held forth unto you and set before you as loth belike to behold what manner of persons you are you wink with the eye 5. VVicked men do not sleep whilst they are about the Divels work If Judas have a treacherous plot in hand out of doors he will though in the night and put his
summoned to come in and entertain his Message with perpetual quarrels and endless contradictions This is a lamentation and shall be for a lamentation Let me passionately beseech you in the bowels of Christ Jesus your Lord and mine to be wise in this your day and mind the things that do belong unto your peace Let the sounding of the Silver Trumpet of the Gospel awaken you and cause you to shake off that unweldy frame of spirit that makes men dull and indisposed to the duties of Religion Let your hearts be upright with God and be you faithfull to the Truth in giddy and declining Times Buy the Truth at any rate Prov. 23.3 but part with it at no rate whatsoever It will be your safety and honour to retain and hold fast the form of wholesome words delivered to you and to remain unshaken in your Principles though stormy winds of temptation and persecution should arise and blow upon you with a formidable and affrighting fury Though all men should forsake Christ yet do not you forsake him There are many windfals in Christs Orchard be you like those few remaining berries in the top of the uppermost bough abhorring disunion and defection and resolving not to be rent though with a violent hand from your Renowned Root Mortifie throughly and betimes all itching desire after novelty lest it break forth into the spreading and crusty scab of Apostacy Beg wisdome of God whereby you may be able to distinguish betwixt the voice of Christ and the voice of a stranger Be not taken with the flaring light of every blazing Comet and ignis fatuus that would slock you into by-wayes and dangerous paths Keep your heads and hearts from being fly-blown with the unsavoury breath of every rotten-hearted Preacher Take heed of going forth and dancing after their delusive pipe who the better to deceive and draw you into the snare pretend to rare and rich discoveries lest you come home with a vertigo in your heads and be troubled with the staggers in Religion ever after I shall conclude with pressing upon you that serious and savoury advice which his Excellency the Lord Deputy when at Corke in his late Progress gave to the Chief of you with some Justices of Peace of the Country that were then present You may remember that you were commanded and incouraged 1. To put a stop to the overflowing flood of prophaneness by putting in execution the severall wholesome Lawes that are in force against swearing drunkenness uncleanness and the like enormous practises 2. To provide for the sanctification of the Sabbath by making use of that power that is put into your hands in punishing and suppressing its too frequent and Atheistical violation Let it not lie as a reproach on Corke that Ordinance-despisers and Sabbath-breakers cannot be so secure from the stroke and dint of Justice in any place in Ireland as in this 3. To make use of provided and proscribed means for the conversion of the Popish Irish within your Jurisdiction The work is desirable and of grand concernment conducing whereunto among many other are the following expedients 1. The bringing of the Natives to the Puklick Worship Compel them to come in that Gods house may be full Bring them within the compass of the net if ever you expect they should be caught Let not their rooted and peevish lothness to attend upon the Ordinances deterre you from doing your duty They that now quarrel and contend with you as being too severe and harsh will in the day of visitation glorifie God and call you blessed 2. The removeing and transplanting of such as to use his Excellencies own words are stiffe and sullen in their way and are not only possessed themselves with grinning prejudices against the Protestant Religion but do likewise make it their design to create and continue the like prejudices in the rest of their Brethren who possibly might otherwise be reclaimed and brought unto the knowledge of the truth Remember the Oath of God with which you are bound to act and rule according to Law and be you faithful unto your Trust Yield Obedience to his Excellencies Commands in the expressed instances and buckle in good earnest to the business of Religion and Reformation that so we may at length become amountain of holiness an habitation of righteousness in which the Lord will delight to dwel which shall be promoted by the prayers and indevours of From my Study in Corke Sept. 7. 1658. Your Servant in the Lords work JOSEPH EYRES THE EPISTLE TO THE READER Courteous Reader A Christian how plausible soever his pretences may be cannot be right at root so long as the bare bulk of duty satisfies without regard had to the manner of the performance The iniquity of holiest things and the sinful adherencies of the best duties are highly provoking and sufficiently ponderous to depress and sink the soul into the lowest hell so that it neerly concerns us to enter upon spiritual employments and ingage in holy services with much caution and circumspection for fear of a miscarriage It 's not without cause that the Spirit adviseth us to keep our feet when we go to the house of God and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools The eare is the cunduit-pipe thorough which grace comes flowing in to the soul and therefore should be kept open which cannot be done whilest the eye is shut My design is to apply the smarting eye-salve of the Spirit that so the peccant and concerned may be cured of the wonted winking of their eyes The Subject in hand seems to be ordinary and to have little of sublimity in it But when I considered that every Pew almost hath its Eutychus and that our Congregations do generally abound with luke-warm Laodiceans and are little better many of them than so many Consorts of snoring Sleepers which make sweet Musick in the Divels eares whose designe doubtless in mens present snorting is their future howling I thought it my duty as a Watchman to do something that might awaken I am willing to stir up and startle those who whilest they should be smiting on their thighs and laying their hands upon their hearts are in a yawning posture and rubbing their eyes being ing possessed with a confused stupor and it 's a pretty while ere they can recover themselves and understand where they are and what about I wish this small Treatise may prove a mote at least in the eye of the sleepy Hearer and make it water which is the way to be more watchful Christian Reader be a diligent Hearer and I have my end who desire to approve my self Thy faithful Monitor and Soul-Friend Joseph Eyres THE Church-Sleeper Awakened ACT. 20.9 And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus being fallen into a deep sleep and as Paul was long preaching he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third Loft and was taken up dead THE Apostle Paul after