Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	break_a	contrite_a	heart_n	6,246	5	5.9059	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64567	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable, the Lords assembled in Parliament, in the abbey church of St. Peters, Westminster upon the fast-day appointed April 10, 1678 by William, Lord Bishop of St. Davids.	Thomas, William, 1613-1689.	1678 (1678)	Wing T982; ESTC R10527	17,218	50

Engine the Instrument of his bane wherewith he was entangled fettered God threatens to walk contrary to those who walk contrary to him He will baffle their enterprises who transgress his Precepts He will deride their anxieties who spurn at his summons I also will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh It is expressed after a corrupt humane manner in condescension to our infirmities it is to be apprehended in an unblemish'd Divine notion Julian the Apostate who shot poisonous Arrows scurrilous indignities against Heaven was himself pierced with an envenom'd Dart from Heaven with that mouth he acknowledg'd Christ a Conqueror an Avenger wherewith he blasphemed denied him a Redeemer The damned rich Caitiff in the Gospel was most tormented in his tongue whereby he had most offended Those Donatists who in the Primitive Church did cast away the Sacramental Elements of the Eucharist were themselves torn in pieces by Dogs The second eminent stamp of the Divine Justice is when the trespass and the scourge are like the Twins of Rebecca's Womb the later like Jacob a Supplanter taking hold of its elder Brother by the heels Thus when Nebuchadnezzar raised his Crest Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of my Kingdom for the might of my po●● the honour of my Majesty Built erected it was by Nimrod fortifi'd by himself whilst he o'er-spread his plumes whilst the word was yet in his mouth he was terrifi'd thunder-struck with a voice from Heaven The Kingdom is departed from thee So quick so fierce is God's resentment of arrogancy of vain-glory Whilst Balthazar riotously frolickt it in the Vessels of the Sanctuary the Wall became a Tribunal to condemn him He saw a hand-writing on the wall proceeding out of the Wall according to the Arabick Translation a visible Character of an invisible Scribe In that room in that house he was anxiously shivered wherein he presumptuously transgressed Whilst Herod owned the flattery the blasphemy of the People not rejecting not reprehending it there appeared not a Screech-Owl according to Josephus to presage a Judgment but an Angel was employ'd to inflict it not a damned Fiend according to Lorinus but an Angel of the Lord both an Assertor of his Honour and an Executioner of his Sentence Not to pursue this Meditation too far It will become us to be nicely critical to be strictly inquisitive within the precinct of our own bosoms to apply Gods particular scourges to our particular offences But when the Scene of Gods judgments is laid at distance they ought not to elate to swell to leven to imbitter us but to deject to envenom our spirits Not to be Lamia's putting on the Spectacles abroad but putting them off at home Monitors they are to mortifie reclaim us to keep aloof from their iniquities Quorum vestigia terrent Whose judgments we tremble at lest we close in the same Tragical period To this end they are punctually recited distinctly sorted by the Apostle recorded for examples to deter us according to the Original as Types figuratively to instruct us Repentance is the sole expedient to rescue us from perdition to be like brands snatch'd out of the fire Which casts me on the Tasque in my Text. Except ye repent Though Origen in too wide a candor hath extended repentance to the damned Spirits yet others have confined it to too narrow bounds the Montanists not admitting it to those that offend after Baptism the Novatians not allowing it to a recidivation of transgression to a relapse a return of guilt Happy it is for us that the Book of Life of a merciful God is not subject to the razures of opinionated men That the Keys of Heaven are not within the restraint of Heresies or Sects on earth The experience of all Ages manifests that where Truth hath been deserted Charity hath been discarded also The Divine Goodness commiserating humane frailties hath ordained repentance to be a continual Physick for a continual malady a reiterated Medicine for a reiterated wound A Cure that exacts not so much the Lamp of the Sanctuary the Glosse of the Pulpit as the practise of the Chamber without which the devotion the humiliation of the Temple this day is but a Pageantry of Piety without which repentance may be sought in our repentance and not found as Florus complained of Samnium demolish'd Confession is but a scanty essay of this duty the first step of repentance Pharaoh acknowledged himself and his People wicked when they were plagued but they relented not the festered wound of the Soul was unmask'd not lanced the veil withdrawn not the putrefaction In a further gradation Esau was pensive not penitent He found no place for repentance saith the Apostle though he sought it with tears Tears they were of indignation of bitter wrath not of contrition of an humble sorrow he had a flood yet not the grace of tears which St. Augustine sued for He had a melting eye but not a bleeding heart God doth not pour the oyl of his mercy but into a broken Pitcher into a contrite heart Our hearts like our Spices are the sweetest fragrance of Oblation when they are bruised The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit a troubled spirit that in it self is afflicted not a troublesom spirit that is an affliction to others The Vulgar Latine renders it in the Plural Number Sacrifices all other Sacrifices are comprehended completed in this The trouble the grief of Attrition will not serve though eek'd out assisted with the absolution of the Priest God will not set his Seal of Remission to a Blank not to a defective or defaced character A true penitential sorrow is not attrite in the Schoolmens style merely the product of our miseries but primarily sincerely contrite it accrues from the due recollection the deep impression of our sins When we are more dejected saddened that we are depraved than that we are distrest The most impenitent Malefactors in their Executions will mourn for their sufferings not for their crimes The Original phrase in my Text denotes not the piercing of the mind with anguish this is preparatorily requisite but the renewing of it with grace The remorse of Conscience for any guilt will not bestead us without the rectifying it The most obdurate sinners in their recesses exigencies have their bosom qualms their secret damps their piercing regret Judas resented bewailed his horrid offence but he renounced corrected it not There is a Worm to corrode there is dread and anxiety there is weeping and gnashing of teeth in Hell There is a Probe to search the most rankled corruptions of the heart but there is no balsam to heal them Aquinas's definition of Repentance is Concise and Orthodox Repentance is a sorrow for sin with a purpose of amendment St. Austin's counsel corresponds herewith Mourn for past sin beware of future Let not our resolutions like

Embrio's perish in the womb Let not these cords be untwisted unravelled by the opportunities the blandishments of inveigling darling vices The repentance of life is the life the power the lustre of repentance without which the profession of it is but a collusion We do but personate repentance this day in the Church our Religious Exercises are but scenes disguises if whilst we solemnly deplore our offences we do not sincerel desert them It is the sorrow of a Crocodile to lament for that mischief we yet indulge pursue secretly to embrace caress that wickedness which we openly declare to nauseate not to abandon that guilt which we profess to abhor Our Fasts our Austerities are proper Auxiliaries of repentance our reformed practises are the choice accomplishments of it Our mortification initiates begins this duty our reformation consummates perfects it In this notion the Thesis of Luther so much bogled at That true repentance is a new life is opposed by Invectives more than Arguments confuted by Satyr more than Logick Neither the Divinity nor the Grammar of the Text will warrant or dispence with the dilatoriness of the Task to resemble the Circassians not to be devout till impotent decrepit not to resort to the Temple till we are upon the brink of the Grave The Powers of Darkness are not stagger'd with a sigh nor o'er-whelmed by a tear they are not vanquish'd by a faint languishing gasping breath Could Satan having fortifi'd his interest by vitious habits and customs be so easily ejected out of possession dethroned out of his Dominion yet that God who hath promised remission to him that repenteth hath not promised repentance to him that sinneth especially voluntarily deliberately We are not ascertained of future grace to excite to promote this duty nor of time to actuate to exercise it In all the pomps the jollities of life we are upon the border of death Drusus received a deaths wound by a pear Adrian by a hair An excessive delight hath to some by a sudden dilatation dispersion of the spirits leaving the heart unguarded ushered in the terror of death Gods sharpest judgments inflicted or dreaded are the most piercing motives of penitential duties That there is wrath to come is the Baptists rousing Topick to awe the repentance of his Auditors My Text produces a more powerful Spel to conjure it You shall all likewise perish This short menace is more piercing than Ehud●s Dagger This is no pannick terrour This Prophecy was reduced to a History in Sacred and Secular Interests to the impenitent Israelites It imports not a particular personal but a National Universal destruction of Temple City People They perish'd before they perish'd as Salvian observes of his Gallican Contemporaries being divided depraved before they were destroyed Crumbled they were into factions Pharisees Sadduces Essenes Herodians Their Civil dissentions were more fatal than Forreign Invasions whilst they were attack'd storm'd by the Roman Soldiers they were bandi'd engag'd against themselves sheathing their swords in one anothers bowels under the conduct of fierce Zelots of Religious Assassinates They drank to one another the blood of the People The edge of the famine was yet sharper than of the Sword more dismal than that of Athens wherein a Father and a Son fought a duel for a prise the provision of a Mouse In a more prodigious instance at Jerusalem an eminent Matrone of a Noble Exstraction of an ample Fortune butchered and cook'd her own Child made the Issue of her womb the repast of her stomach a savage unnatural Sacrifice to her keen appetite This is no Tragical Romance but an Historical truth solemnly asserted by Josephus and Aegesippus As there was a general Convention from all parts of Palestine to celebrate the Feast of the Passover when the Jews crucified Christ so also when the City was surrounded by Titus The Judgment was as diffusive as the guilt The multitude of those that perish'd in the Siege of Jerusalem being computed to amount to 110000 persons besides 90000 prisoners No Nation more perversly impure none more irrecoverably miserable Christ the Mirror of Candor pathetically lamented when he denoun'cd their destruction and Titus renowned for singular clemency when he inflicted it and yet the obdurate Jews relented not when they sustained it more impenetrable than Iron not softned in the fiercest Furnace of affliction And the extent of the Fate is observable You shall all perish so is the similitude You shall likewise perish Some like the Galileans in the Temple were mixt mangled with their Sacrifices Others like those crush'd shatter'd at the Tower of Siloam were covered with the rubbish of the demolish'd batter'd Structures of the City The Inhabitants and the Habitations were in the same devouring flame consumed to ashes Their crimes were yet greater than their punishments vile despicable they became not contrite humble like Ivory blackned sullied they were by that fire that tribulation which should have refined beautified them Their state of living dying impenitents sharpens the doom in my Text with two edges in Lyrd's gloss You shall perish temporally you shall perish eternally The distresses of the Earth are to persevering unrepenting sinners the Prologue to the black Scene the succeeding torments of Hell The impenitent Aegyptians that pursued the Israelites were transmitted from the fierce surges of the Red Sea to the fierce flames of the burning Tophet Having thus accomplish'd my first Task the Explicatory part of my Text said I Accomplish'd it rather hudled it undigested unpolish'd as the Israelites did their dow unkneaded unleavened at their sudden departure out of Egypt There remains a requisite Applicatory Meditation without which I should entertain this great Assembly with an Harangue rather than a Sermon In order hereto to recapitulate to summe up what I have enlarged I have unclaspt my Text to two Propositions The one Negative Implicite the other Positive Explicite The Negative Implicite being thus unveiled Neither the miserable Galileans nor those unfortunate Wretches at Siloam were greater offendors than other Israelites I have offered at a double surveigh of the Negative Proposition Historical as to each instance severally Doctrinal joyntly in this tenor The greatest pressures the sharpest miseries the sadest periods of this life are no demonstrative arguments to conclude the greatest sinners In the second Proposition I have pointed out the restrictive adversative Particle But that links the parts regulates our censures Every man upon an impartial scrutiny for a sinner like Seneca's inquest for a fool both being of the same lineage will return the same Verdict with that Stoick I find my self When Christ advertised his Apostles that one of them should betray him they impeach'd not defam'd not one another but each suspected the corruption of his own heart wherewith he was best acquainted most strictly examined They said to him one by one Is it I According to the Original Is it not I A good man being a rigid Interpreter of