Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	day_n	lord_n	soul_n	7,378	5	4.9322	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90065	A sermon, tending to set forth the right vse of the disasters that befall our armies. Preached before the honourable houses of Parliament, at a fast specially set apart upon occasion of that which befell the army in the west. In Margarets Westminster, Sept. 12. Anno 1644. / By Matthew Newcomen, Minister of the Gospell at Dedham in Essex.	Newcomen, Matthew, 1610?-1669.	1644 (1644)	Wing N913; Thomason E16_1; ESTC R18134	39,055	48

had six hundred thousand fighting men in his Camp still and what if all the Inhabitants of the land come against them they are enough are they not to deale with them yea but Joshua saw that God was angry he went not forth with their Armies and Joshua knew that if his 600000 Men were 600000 Millions if God continue still angry with them they should all fall before their enemies we talke of thousands were our thousands multiplyed into Millions if God frowne still upon our Armies as he now begins to doe we are but bread for our enemies Beleeve it it is a signe of a carnall heart that would shift off this stroke of God and is loth to lie under the sence of it to comfort it selfe at such a time as this is in our remaining Armies If God will not withdraw his anger the proud helpers stoope under him Job 9.13 If we will not beleeve this God will make us feele it Joshua had men of warre enough to have comforted himselfe in but he could not durst not doe it Fourthly did Joshua feare that this Disaster would give occasion to the proud heathen to blaspheme the Name of the God of Israel therefore he saith What wilt thou doe to thy great Name And may not wee feare the same upon this of our Army Nay doe we not know it how have they heretofore how often have they as with a sword pierced the hearts of Gods people Witnesse Bristoll and Bolton c. while they say daily in their reproach Where is now your God Psal 42.10 Where is now your God your God to whom you have prayed before whom you have wept fasted of whom you have made your boast Where is now your God Encline thine eare O Lord and heare Open thine eyes O Lord and see and heare all the words of thine enemies whereby they reproach the living God Isai 37.13 〈…〉 But O Brethren shall not all this affect our hearts shall not all this cause us to lie in the dust before the Lord seriously and sincerely humbled under him and mourning before him Oh that I could find this disposition in my selfe O that I could behold it in you especially in you Parliament men O that I could see your Eyes speaking the sense which your hearts have of this sad hand of God upon us even in Teares Beleeve it Right Honourable it would become you nay it is your duty O that I might obtaine it from you or obtaine it at the hand of God for you O Parliam●nt Teares are pretious Teares would you drop but every man a Teare this day before the Lord for England O what a Balme might it be for this bleeding Kingdome I tell you Brethren it is more to that great God before whom you stand and whose face you desire to seek this day to see you Parliament men to see you unfeinedly judging your selves sitting in the dust at his feet giving him glorie in all his righteous dealings with you Mourning under this frowne that he hath cast upon you it is more to God to see you doing this then to see some thousands of others in such a Posture Are not you as all the Tribes of England is not all England epitomized contracted in you If you be humbled All England is humbled virtually eminently If Joshua and the Elders be humbled it is as if all Israel were humbled if Rehoboam and the Princes of Judah be humbled it is as if all Judah had been humbled God will grant some deliverance and things shall goe well in Judah 2 Chron. 12.6 7 12. It hath often been the Prayer of some of your Remembrancers at the throne of Grace upon our dayes of Humiliation that whatever God doe with private Congregations yet that in this place and upon your hearts there might be a mightie Presence and Effusion of the spirit of Humiliation the same is my desire and prayer this day O that God would humble us all every soule of us but if not all if there be any of us whom God for our personall sins will leave to the hardnesse and dedolency of our hearts this day yet the Lord be mercifull unto you and unto us all in you That your hearts may be as Gideons fleece moystened with a dew from Heaven though we round about you should be dry which yet to us would be exceeding sad But somewhat it would comfort us concerning England would the Lord please to humble you Now the Lord humble you The Lord affect your hearts with his dealing the Lord cast you downe at his feet with Joshua that with a hand of mercy he may lift you up as he did Joshua and say Arise wherefore liest thou upon thy face Thirdly for Reproofe But if there be any Man here especially any Parliament man to whom it were more fit to say as the Master of the ship did to Jonah Vp sleeper and call upon thy God if so be that God will thinke on us that we perish not then as here God to Joshua Arise wherefore liest thou upon thy face If there be any man here that upon such a Day and such an Occasion as this is hath an unstirred and unawakened heart within him And I feare there are too many such I seldome come in a Fast into any Congregation where it is discernable by the face and garbe of the Assembly that they are in a dutie of Fasting and Mourning Our monethly Fasts are degenerated into most lothsome Formalities into lesse then a formality lesse then an outside then an appearance of Fasting and Mourning But that Man that can be so this day hath a heart more Atheisticall then the very Heathens had Inops Senatus auxilii humani ad Deos populum vota convertit lussi cum conjugibus ac liberis supplicatum ire pacemque exposcere ●●cûm omnia delubra imp●ent Stratae passim Matres crinib● Templa verrentes veniam irarum coelestium exposcunt Liv. lib. 3. He that reads the Romane Story will finde how they upon such like occasions as is this day presented unto us kept solemne dayes of Supplications and with what throngs of men women and children their Temples were filled how sad and mournfull their demeanour was how their Ladies and Matrons rowled themselves in the dust and swept the very pavements of their Idoll-Temples with the haire of their heads ô how farre are many amongst us from any such affection consternation I cannot but feare that there is a great deale more Atheisme and a great deale lesse sence Irarum Coelestium of the Anger of a God against us in the Calamities now lying upon us then was in those very Heathens O that their Dayes of Supplication may never rise up in Judgement against ours to condemne them The Lord humble every Soule of us that hath not yet been humbled Even this alone is sufficient Cause why we should now be humbled because in all our Dayes of Humiliation we have been unhumbled hitherto many of

us The Lord so humble every one of us by the mighty working of his owne blessed Spirit that he may please to take notice of his own worke in us as he did here in Joshua and say Arise wherefore liest thou upon thy face I have done with That which God tooke notice of in Joshua But before I passe to That which God gave notice of to Joshua Let me entreat you to take notice of something in God from God taking notice of something in Joshua and that is Gods tender and gratious regard to a humbled mourning heart No sooner doth Joshua here humble himselfe but God presently takes notice of him speakes comfortably to him Joshua Get thee up wherefore liest thou upon thy face Lord what is man that thou art thus mindfull of him that no sooner can a poore sinner in humblenesse of soule cast himselfe to the earth but the great God reacheth his hand from Heaven to raise him up againe Lord what is man that thou shouldest thus magnifie him and set thine heart upon him If the glorious Majestie of our God abase himselfe to behold the things that are done in Heaven Psal 113.6 ô then what a Condescension is it in our God to behold a Man a worme abased upon earth But Joshua was no ordinary man Joshua was a Saint a Friend a Son of God A man of such rare and matchlesse Piety as in all the thousands of Israel nay in all the world there was scarce such another man But One that we reade of if One in his Dayes that was to be compared to him No wonder if when such a man be humbled God takes notice of him But will God regard the Humiliations of other Men Men that are not of such rare and extraordinary holinesse when they are humbled will God take notice of them I will give you but two instances more to consider of for the proofe and illustration of this point and judge by them My first Instance is of Rehoboam who certainly was none of the best men nay as farre as we can take his Character by all that Scripture speakes of him first and last he was a very bad man For it is said of him in the 2 Chron. 12.1 that he forsooke the Law of the Lord he and all Israel with him And if you would know what was the degree and measure of their wickednesse how farre he and his people had forsaken the Law of the Lord looke in 1 Kings 14.22 23 24. and reade what their wickednesse was And Judah did evill in the sight of the Lord and they provoked him to jealousie with their sinnes which they had committed above all that their fathers had done For they also built them high places and images and groves on every high hill and under every greene tree And there were also Sodomites in the land and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the Children of Israel These sinnes within a very few yeares after Rehoboams comming to the Crowne had made them ripe for the judgement of the sword for so 2 Chron. 12.2 In the fifth yeere of Rehoboam King of Judah Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem because they had transgressed against the Lord. The terrour of this invasion is such as Rehoboam and his Princes cannot but humble themselves Whereupon the Princes of Israel and the King humbled themselves and they said The Lord is righteous ver 6. Now doth the Lord despise their Humiliations because they had been an idolatrous uncleane wretched people No reade and wonder at the goodnesse of our God towards humbled sinners ver 7. And when the Lord saw that they humbled themselves so then God tooke notice of this even in these the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah saying They have humbled themselves therefore I will not destroy them but I will give them some deliverance and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak And because God would have us take good notice of this his respect unto their Humiliations the holy Ghost mentions it againe in the 12. verse And when he humbled himselfe the wrath of the Lord turned away from him that he would not destroy him altogether and also in Judah things went well God did not only deliver him out of his present danger but prospered all the affaires of his Kingdome in his hand and yet certainly he even after this his Humiliation none of the best men as we may collect from that Censure which after this the Lord leaves of him ver 14. And he did evill because he prepared not his heart to seeke the Lord. My next Instance shall be of a Man who was so farre from having any thing of Piety at all in him that he was a man of the most transcendent Impiety that ever any almost was King Ahab is the man Doe but remember what the holy Ghost saith of him It is said 1 Kings 16.30 That Ahab did evill in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him and ver 33. he did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger then all the Kings of Israel that were before him and in 1 Kings 21.25 But there was none like to Ahab c. None of all that went before him or came after him like to him in wickednesse There were twenty Kings in Israel from the time that the ten Tribes revolted from the house of David to the time that God removed them out of his sight Of these twenty Kings there was onely One good Jehu And yet his Integritie may be doubted too But the other nineteen were all wicked and yet not One among them all to be compared to Ahab But there was none like unto Ahab An Oppressour he was and a murtherer and an idolater and a persecuter of that holy Truth which God had plentifully revealed to him by his Prophets and powerfully confirmed to him by miracles and mercifully sought to endeare to him by many gratious deliverances There were not such Prophets in Israel in any Kings dayes as were in his Nor such miracles wrought as in his Nor had any King more glorious Victories and Deliverances and Providences manifested towards him then he had and therefore in all likelihood he was an obstinate sinner and as some thinke very neere the sin against the holy Ghost This is that King Ahab against whom God by his servant Elijah thunders dreadfull things 1 Kings 21.20 21 22 23 24. The very hearing whereof something breakes the pride of his heart ver 27. And it came to passe that when Ahab heard those words he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly But will God regard it cares God for Ahab Truly we should have been ready to thinke that if such a wretch as Ahab should not onely have rent his clothes but have rent his flesh his heart should he