Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	creator_n	young_a	youth_n	81	3	8.7602	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45313	Satans fiery darts quenched, or, Temptations repelled in three decades : for the help, comfort, and preservation of weak Christians in these dangerous times of errour and seduction / by I.H. ...	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1647 (1647)	Wing H410A; ESTC R34452	86,739	386

that head and this body Into their secret let my soule come and unto their assembly let mine honour be united But if where I find weaknesse of grace and involuntary failings of obedience I shall say Stand by thy selfe come not neer me for I am holier then thou how can I make other account then that this pride shall be a smoke in the nostrils of the Almighty a fire that burneth all day and that he will recompence it into my bosome Shortly I know none so fit to depart from as from my selfe my owne pride self love and the rest of my inbred corruptions and am so far from over-looking others that I know none worse then my selfe X. TEMPTATION However the zeale of your scrupulous Preachers is wont to make the worst of every thing and to damne the least slip to no lesse then hell Yet there are certaine favour able temperaments of circumstances which may if not excuse yet extenuate a fault such as age complexion custome profit importunity necessity which are justly pleadable at the barre both of God and the conscience and are sufficient to rebate the edge of divine severity Repelled VVIcked tempter I know there is nothing upon earth that so much either troubles thee or impairs thy kingdome of darknesse as the zeale of conscionable Preachers those who lift up their voice like a trumpet and shew Gods people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sin this is it that rescues millions of souls from the hand of hell and gives thee so many foyles in thy spirituall assaults This godly and faithful zeal represents mens sins to them as they are and by sins the danger of their damnation which thy malicious subtilty would faine blanch over and palliate to their destruction But when thou hast all done it is not in their power to make sin worse then it is or in thine to make it better As for those favourable temperaments which thou mentionest they are meere Pandarismes of wickednesse faire visors of deformity For to cast a glance upon each of them Age is not a more common plea then unjust The young man pretends it for his wanton and inordinate lust The old for his gripplenesse techinesse loquacity All wrongfully and not without foule abuse Youth is taught by thee to call for a swing and to make vigour and heate of blood a priviledge for a wild licentiousnesse for which it can have no claime but from a charter sealed in hell I am sure that God who gives this marrow to his bones and brawne to his armes and strength to his sinewes and vivacity to his spirits lookes for another improvement Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth saith Solomon And his father before him Wherewithall shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word Lo the young mans waies are foule with lusts and distempered passions and they must be cleansed and the way to cleanse them is attendance not of his owne vaine pleasures but of the holy ordinances of his maker Thou wouldst have him run loose like the wild Asse in the desert God tells him It is good for a man to beare the yoake in his youth even the yoke of the divine precepts the stooping whereunto is the best truest of al freedoms so as he may be able to say with the best Courtier of the wickedest King I thy servant feare the Lord from my youth The aberrations from which holy lawes of God are so far from finding an excuse from the prime of our years as that holy Iob cries out of them in the bitternesse of his soule Thou hast made mee to possesse the iniquities of my youth and as David vehemently deprecates Gods anger for them Remember not Lord the sins of my youth so Zophar the Naamathite notes it for an especiall brand of Gods judgement upon the wicked man that his bones are full of the sins of his youth and God declares it as an especiall mercy to his people Thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth The more head-strong therefore my youth is the more straite shall I curbe it and hold it in and the more vigorous it is so much the fitter it is to be consecrated to that God who is most worthy to be served with the best of his own As for old age it hath I grant its humours and infirmities but rather for our humiliation then for our excuse It is not more common then absurd and unreasonable that when we are necessarily leaving the world we should be most fond in holding it when wee are ceasing to have any use of riches then to endeavour most eagerly to get them when we should bee laying up treasure in heaven to be treasuring up wrath for our selves and baggs for we know not whom To be unwilling to spend what we cannot keep and to be mad on getting what we have not the wit or grace to spend If then thou canst perswade any man to bee so gracelesse as to make his vicious disposition an apology for wickednesse let him plead the faults of his age for the excuse of his avarice As for morosity of nature and garrulity of tongue they are not the imperfections of the age but of the persons There are meek spirits under gray haires and wrinkled skinnes There are old men who as that wise heathen said of old can keepe silence even at a feast He hath ill spent his age that hath not attained to so good an hand over himselfe as in some meet measure to moderate both his speech and passion If some complexions both incline us more and crave indulgence to some sinnes more then other the sanguine to lust the cholerick to rage c. wherfore serves grace but to correct them If we must be over-ruled by nature what doe we professing Christianity Neither humours nor stars can necessitate us to evill whiles thou therefore pretendest my naturall constitution I tell thee of my spirituall regeneration the power whereof if it have not mortified my evill and corrupt affections I am not what I professe to be a Christian The strongest plea for the mitigation of sinne is Custome the power whereof is wont to be esteemed so great as that it hath seemed to alter the quality of the fact and of sin to make no sin Hence the holy Patriarchs admitted many consorts into their marriage-bed without the conscience of offending which if it had not been for the mediation of Custome had beene justly esteemed no better then criminous But however where is no contrary injunction Custome may so far usurp as to take upon it to be no lesse then a law it selfe Yet where there is a just regulation of law the plea of Custome is so quite out of countenance as that it is strongly retorted against it selfe neither is there any more powerfull reason for the abolition of an ill use then that is a custome so much