Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	dangerous_a	form_n	good_a	25	3	2.1572	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26882	Catholick communion doubly defended by Dr. Owens, vindicator, and Richard Baxter and the state of that communion opened, and the questions discussed, whether there be any displeasure at sin, or repentance for it in Heaven : with a parallel of the case of using a faulty translation of Scripture, and a faulty lyturgy.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1684 (1684)	Wing B1208; ESTC R11859	46,778	44

Ministry and me I answered him modestly in my Book called The unreasonabless of Infidelity The Ranters I detested The Quakers when they bitterly reviled me I gave free leave to dispute with me in my Congregation as long as they would The Seekers that said Scripture Church Ministry and Sacraments were all lost till new Miracles restored them I dealt with peaceably But I confess I took all these for such as were as unfit for my Communion as they thought me for theirs and mischievous to the Souls of Men. But I never thought of as equal with these the Persons that I then wrote against as Antinomians nor those that I now name on such accounts I know that the Libertines Opinions called Antinomianism by too near consequence subvert the Gospel But I believe that the good men did not see such Consequences but believed the fundamentals wh●ch they so subverted and erred through ignorance and unskilfulness and confusion in managing Disputes and zeal for Free-Grace drew them in the dark to injure and dishonour it These erroneous Men for ought I know might love God through Christ more then I and if so they were so much better men then I. Amesius saith that Theology is so connext that every Errour by consequence overthroweth the foundation If that be so who is not guilty of it I write here against no man as Episcopal Presbyterian Independant Erastian or Anabaptist but only against hating one another on such accounts and doing those things by alienation excommunication opposition or other aversation unnecessarily which signify detestation or want of Love or tend thereto As to the men named by me take not the knowledge of their Opinions from me but from their publick Books Mr. Erbury Prince Lilburn and such others have spoken too loud by the Press I think much better of Mr. Saltmarsh W. Sedgwick Den Hobson c. and yet better of Mr. Powell Cradok Lloyd whom I named whom you may know in print The last by a Dialogue between Martha and Lázarus about his Soul and Letters to Mr. Erbury That which I say of such I fully believe that is 1. That the Dr. greatly mistakes in his intimations as if Lyturgies had been the only cause or at least greater than they were of a defective Ministry when so many of its greatest Adversaries have been so faulty and defective 2. Because those Errours may be dangerous to the hearers which God forgiveth to the ignorant speaker I assert that sound Doctrine read out of Notes or Books is less hurtful to the Hearers then dangerous practical Erro●r delivered with fluent extemporate fervency and that when Calvin Hildersham and such great and holy men prayed usually in the Pulpit by a Form they failed not of the Spirits help so much as they that extempore pray erroneously And that Mr. Phil. Nye spake not mistakingly when to me he wish't that the publick Congregations in Wales had good Sermon books read to them though men should call them Homelies in contempt not to put down Preaching but where it 's wanting And that a very excellent Ministry beyond Sea use publick Lyturgies and Pulpit Forms And excellent Holy Men in England long used the English Lyturgy from whom I never would have separated even such A. Bishops and Bishops as Granmer Parker Grindal Abbot U●her c. Ridley Hooper Farrar Iewel c. such holy Teachers as Bolton Whately Preston Sibs Crooke Bifield and abundance like them Men of such rare Learning and Piety as Davenant Gataker Stoughton Bishop Miles Smith Dr. Field c. And I do not believe that the Westminster Assembly were all save eight Ministers void of the Spirit or unfit for Communion while they used the Lyturgy Nor yet that of the 9000 that were in the publick Churches in 1659. or 1660. the 7000 that Conformed Aug. 24. 1662. were suddenly made insufficient if they were sufficient before though I meddle not with the question whether they did well And yet against the contrary extream I say if many thousands be not in Heaven whom Bishops have Excommunicated and thought intolerable yea whom great Councils have called Hereticks wo to those Bishops that are worse than they I conclude with thanks to my Reverend Monitor and tell him that I would sain whose Censure soever I undergo avoid both their sin who undervalue mens Piety for tolerable Errours condemn those that are better than themselves themselves by consequence much more and theirs who in honour of good mens names extenuate their dangerous errours and practices and hinder publick Repentance forgiveness and deliverance by hiding or smoothing over publick sins But being my self lyable to forgetfulness when I remember what answer a false Argument calls for and what notice young people need for their preservation I am sometime less sensible of the impatience of the partial and mistaken and how much harder it is to bear blame then to deserve it and how ill the effects of their impatience may be Therefore while I stand to the Rule that he mentioneth if I have by ignorance hast or any other Cause done that by naming or confuting any which hath truly a greater tendency to do hurt than to do good I repent of all that 's so said and done and ask forgiveness of God and Man And if any be unhumbled for the publick sins of the Land or any Party of their Minds which have dishonoured God and our Religion and hardened Adversaries and brought us all into distress and threaten yet worse to all the Land and our Posterity the Lord humble them before it be too late And if any that are far worse themselves take advantage from any mens Errours Misdoings or Confessions to feed their own and others malice to reproach Piety to oppress or calumniate the Innocent and lay the faults of a few that got military advantages upon them that were furthest from the guilt yea on the Nation and the Protestant Cause the day is at hand that God will vindicate the just and stop the mouths of false Accusers with as great severity at least as we can well desire And delay is no violation of his promise Though he stay long he will avenge them speedily Luke 18. And he knoweth that their day is coming And then we shall say it was the fittest time POST-SCRIPT REader the sight of a Book of one Mr. Edw. Petit called Visions of Government calls me to tell you that all his reviliu● language needs no reply or confutation But his story about Major Iennings how I stood by while he was wounded and encouraged it and took the Meddal from about his neck is already by me confuted before my Defence of the History of Councils which I have made known to Mr. L'Estrange and Major Iennings And though the Rector of Burton in the Life of Dr. Heylin publish it with Major Iennings affirmation I do here again as in the presence of God take a voluntary Oath that it is false and that I was not near him at that time nor never saw the man in my life unless I might see a man unknowingly in a Congretion or distant croud nor did I see any wound him nor take any Meddal of him But that in the house where I was I heard the Soldiers tell how they wounded stript him and took his Meddal laughing at a silly Soldier that called it a Crucifix And the man that took it offering it to Sale I gave him eighteen pence for it and some years after sent it Major Iennings freely which it seems made him think and rashly affirm falsly that it was I that took it from him As for the rest of the Diabolism of that Book and his and others uncessant charges from one Book retracted so many years ago and accused by my self consenting to the Oxford men that burnt it it doth but tell the world what furious implacable wrath in the engaged Enemies of Love and Peace can do and sheweth itself more effectually then any other can As do three others that have taken the like course FINIS

about consists wholly in the Institutions and on the Authority of Men and therefore is false Worship and to renounce the Kingly Office of Christ in the Church Nor that It belongs to the faithfulness of Christ to appoint and command all things in the Church that belong to the Worship of God in the Forms and Modes of them Doth this speak only of the English Lyturgy Nor that liberty to use gifts in Prayer and Preaching is ridiculously pretended they are excluded in all the solemn Worship of the Church 17. You defend not that This Practice joyning in the Lyturgy condemns the suffering Saints of the present Age renders them false Witnesses of God and the only blameable cause of their own sufferings And if all the Nonconformists that 1660. gave their Testimony for a Reformed Lyturgy were not Saints at least they have been Sufferers And doth not this as much make them false Witnesses And if both you and we were mistaken I am confident you will not justify all that we suffer by and say we are the only blameable Cause As if every such mistake were worthy of all the punishment undergone Nor will you think that every good Mans Opinion must be justifyed which he suffereth for lest he be made the only Cause 18. You defend not that All the Promises Aids of the Holy Spirit with respect to the Prayer of the Church whether as to the matter of them or ability or the manner are rejected and excluded by this Form of Worship 19. You defend not I hope that your Church Covenant is to observe nothing but what Christ commandeth in the Worship of God 20. Nor that The Practice inquired into contains a vertual renunciation of our Church State and of the lawfulness of our Ministry and Ordinances therein If you do it is no renunciation of ours I thank you that you defend none of all these For truly they be not things Indifferent but if they be not true they are of confounding dividing unpeaceable Consequence SECT 2. III. AS to the third thing which taketh up most room viz. your blaming me 1. For using the Doctors name 2. For the manner of my Confutation I say distinctly 1. I confess I think that the name of Christ and Religion and its Honour is to be preferred before all mens And I had many years ago heard a Conformable Preacher before a very honourable and learned Auditory charge the Nonconformists with holding that A thing lawful in itself in Gods Worship becometh unlawful if it be commanded by the Magistrate And that Forms and Liturgies were unlawful because they be not made in Scripture by Christ. And I have read too many such Charges And I always answered that we were slandered 2. I quickly heard that the Manuscript was commonly spread and he that brought it me said he believed a thousand were confirmed by it against going to the Parish Churches and Lyturgy 3. Several of my Friends and Acquaintance had got it and told me they thought it unanswerable And all named the Doctor as the Author 4. I was suddenly told of a very able Conformist that was going to answer it and I feared he would lay it on us all 5. I made no doubt but Pulpits and Press would loudly say these are the Nonconformists Principles and if I denyed it would cite the Doctors Paper and Name 6. I knew divers of his Printed Books have the same Opinion of the unlawfulness of Imposed Forms what now should I say against such reporters of the Nonconformists Opinions Must we all bear the Accusation of so many Errours and be published with Scorn and Contempt to be such to make us odious to all rather than one Man should be Confuted I purposed at first to conceal his Name till I saw that all took notice of it and none denyed it and after I conjecture it is your self that in the Letter to me affirmed it I know that multitudes of Men of Name Learning and Power scorn us as they do the Quakers as believing them that say We make all this noise and Schism as a distinct Party and suffer silencing and Imprisonment because we will not Communicate with the Lyturgy which the Martyrs owned I dare not suffer the Innocent to lie under such a slander for one or many Mans Name we gave them our publick Testimony to the contrary 1660. and 1661. If a few that would not come in then and be seen among them that pleaded the Cause of the old Nonconformists have now by our distempers got so many of their mind as that we must be thought intolerably to wrong them if we necessarily give our reasons against them and shall pass their Excommunicating Sentence against the Cause of the old Non-Conformists and yours I cannot be one that shall betray the Truth and Cause of Catholick Communion by silence at such a time when the Erroneous expect that their Opinion should be so necessary to our Union that none must contradict it Therefore your saying that you have met with none that approveth my writing if it were for the Cause as well as my faultiness will make me see the greater necessity of bearing my Testimony against them Epidemical diseases most need Physicians if not to cure the sick yet to preserve the sound Paul wanted not Love nor Prudence to Peter when he not only reproved his Temporizing Separation to his Face but left it with his Name on Record to all Generations when they were both dead Christ had immediately before abundantly honoured and praised Peter who yet for his miscarriage speaketh to him as he did to the Devil Get thee behind me Satan c. Mat. 16. And yet the miscarriage was done in Love to Christ by a prime and dear Disciple and his name must be thus left under this most sharp reproof to be read from Age to Age by all Iames and Iohn were choice Disciples and yet their Ambition and their Uncharitable Zeal for Christ must be recorded with their Names as men that desired they knew not what and knew not what manner of Spirit they were of We are not so much better than they as the Passions of some Applauders intimate Christ will not be more tender of our Names than of his Cause and the good of Souls If David will cause Gods Enemies to blaspheme his sin shall be punished in the sight of the Sun though the sharpest part of the punishment be pardoned But as for my naming the Dr. and your intimation that it 's long of me that he is named as the Author of those Arguments I further say 1. Is not a Man named openly till his Name be Printed Was not the uncontradicted report still continued a publication Was there no publication of Names till 224 years ago when Printing was invented 2. All that I yet desire is to be able to deny it to be his that the next Man that hits the Non-Conformists in the Teeth with it as the Doctors may but be told

will upon Good as Good before it come to Election of Compared Goods which is usually de Mediis Displicence is its contrary and its object is Evil as Evil. One is called Volition or Willing the other Nolition or Nilling As Pleasedness and Displeasedness are in the Passions and signify Ioy and Trouble we have nothing here to do with them having expresly excluded sorrow but as they are in the Will I thought till now that all sober Divines had been agreed Protestants and Papists that not only in Saints and Angels and Christ as Man but in God himself who is most remote from imperfection there is Complacence and Displicence Willing and Nilling which though in Creatures that have Accidents they really differ as Acts yet in God who is most simple they are say the subtiler part of the School Doctors but the Essence of God by extrinsick denomination from relation of the effects differenced from the Essence simply considered and from each other or as the Scotists formaliter or as the Thomists ratione ratiocinata but none deny these to be in God I suppose that Volition or Complacence you deny not As to Displicence or Nolition answering the Judgments dislike I prove that it is in Heaven in God and Creatures 2. If the will of God Angels and Spirits have any Act about Evil it is Displicence But some Act about Evil they have Ergo c. For the Major if they have any Act it is Displicence or Complacence for the will hath no other primary Acts before Election even frui intendere presupposing this Complacence But God and good Spirits have no Complacency in sin or evil as such Ergo they have a Displicence Aut placet aut displicet being the first in nature That God or Spirits at least have some Act of will about evil as such is commonly agreed Else all the sin and evil in the world would come to pass without any Act of God or good Spirits in Heaven about it Sure they that for Predetermination have written so many Volumes and one against me are not of that mind They say this is to feign God and all in Heaven asleep or having nothing to do with Earth I have my self proved indeed with others that God hath no Volition or Complacency of Evil as such but a Displicence I have proved 2. If God have no Displicence as to sin then there is no effectual impediment to it but all the world would be drowned in wickedness For the Creature would presently run into evil But sin is restrained If any in excess of subtilty say that Nolitions are not in God but Volitions of the Good are instead of Nolitions of Evil this is bold and at least the language unfit and reductively these Volitions are Nolitions of their Contraries And however none of this can be feigned of Souls 3. If God be not disp'eased with sin then his prohibitions are no signs of his displeasure any more than his Commands But c. 4. Then his Judgments and Execution in Hell are no effects of his displeasure 5. Then Christ came not to reconcile us to a displeased God nor is he any more displeased with Persecutors then Saints nor with Cursing than with Blessing nor with any man for doing it 6. If the subtilty which I have taken notice of in my Catholick Theology asserting Volitions without Nolitions in God were defensible it would as I said be of no truth as to Creatures if Souls in Heaven have no displicence against sin how is their will holy in the Image of God that hateth Iniquity Devils love sin Stones and Brutes neither love nor hate it Saints in Heaven hate it and love it not meerly not-loving it is not their full holiness 7. If Saints there are not displeased with sin how can they glorify Christ for dying for it or God for punishing it 8. Or how can they be everlastingly thankful to Christ for saving them from it 9. What a change must they impute to Christ that came so low and suffered as in a sort forsaken to destroy the works of the Devil and now hath not so much as the least displeasedness with sin 10. Then Christ and Saints there are no more displeased at Persecution Prophaneness Murder Adultery then at Piety and Love 11. Then it no more displeaseth Souls there that they here sinned then that they did well Pauls mind is much changed then about his Persecution The best is though you and yours are offended with me it is not displeasing to Dr. O. if he know it But if your reason be because that all displeasedness hath some suffering of the mind or trouble 1. As to my meaning you know I excluded sorrow 2. And it is not true that you suppose Pure Displicency of the will in God and the blessed hath no trouble It is not exercised in a body that hath a Heart or Head troubled by commotion of the Blood and Spirits nor yet in an imperfect Soul that hath hurting passions It is the pure perfection of the will and nothing but its Aversation from sin and contrary to Love Love and Hatred are names that may well here be used but Complacence and Displicence being the same sound as less to signify Passion And if there be Passion in Heaven which you cannot disprove it might be without diminution of felicity II. But I am not hopeless that you will deny none of all this as to the matter but turn all into a quarrel at words and say that the name of Displeasure is not fit for any Act of God or Saints or Angels in Heaven If that be the worst which is bad enough let us next try that wordy Controversy I. By Scripture II. By School Divines III. By common practical Divines I. Scripture use of words in Sacred Things is our best Dictionary He that is our great Teacher knoweth how to speak If you dislike his words methinks you should not accuse Men of Errour and that against the common sense of all that you meet with for imitating God and speaking as he doth And that at the same time when you are defending one that would have no Mode or Accidentals in Worship used which God prescribeth not If by my words I must be Justified or Condemned I hope God will not condemn me for speaking as he taught me no more then for doing as he bid me though all your party should do it And I can bear their Condemnation The Hebrew phrase which we translate by Displeasing God or Man is oft It was Evil in his Eyes which speaketh a positive Act of the Understanding de malo And that there was no answerable Act of the Will let him say that dare Prov. 24. 17 18. Rejoyce not when thy Enemy falleth and let not th● heart be glad when he stumbleth lest the Lord see it and it displease him No say you fear not that any in Heaven should be displeased Gen. 38. 10. The thing that he did displeased the