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	word_n	7,457	5	4.1658	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27042	A sermon of repentance preached before the honourable House of Commons, assembled in Parliament at Westminster, at their late solemn fast for the setling of these nations, April 30, 1660 / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; England and Wales. Parliament. House of Commons.	1660 (1660)	Wing B1413; ESTC R209398	26,650	54

thousands that will still be so careless of themselves Once more therefore I entreate you Remember your misdoings lest God remember them And bless the Lord that called you this day by the voice of Mercy to Remember them upon terms of Faith and Hope Remembred they must be first or last And believe it this is far unlike the sad remembrance at Judgement and in the place of woe and desperation And I beseech you observe here that it is your Own misdoings that you must Remember Had it been only the sins of other men especially those that differ from you or have wronged you or stand against your interest how easily would the duty have been performed How little need should I have had to press it with all this importunity How confident should I be that I could convert the most if this were the Conversion It grieves my soul to hear how quick and constant high and low learned and unlearned are at this uncharitable contumelious remembring of the faults of others how cunningly they can bring in their insinuated accusations how odiously they can aggravate the smallest faults where difference causeth them to distaste the person how ordinarily they judge of actions by the persons as if any thing were a crime that is done by such as they dislike and all were vertue that is done by those that fit their humours How commonly Brethren have made it a part of their service of God to speak or write uncharitably of his servants labouring to destroy the hearers charity which had more need in this unhappy time of the bellows then the water How usual it is with the ignorant that cannot reach the truth and the impious that cannot bear it to call such Hereticks that know more then themselves and to call such Precisians Puritanes or some such name which Hell invents as there is occasion who dare not be so bad as they How odious men pretending to much gravity learning and moderation do labour to make those that are dear to God and what an art they have to widen differences and make a sea of every lake and that perhaps under pretence of blaming the uncharitableness of others How far the very Sermons and discourses of some learned men are from the common rule of doing as we would be done by and how loudly they proclaim that such men love not their neighbours as themselves the most uncharitable words seeming moderate which they give and all called intemperate that savoureth not of flattery which they receive Were I calling the several exasperated factions now in England to remember the misdoings of their supposed adversaries What full-mouth'd and debasing Confessions would they make What monsters of Heresie and Schism of impiety treason and rebellion of perjury and perfidiousness would too many make of the faults of others while they extenuate their Own to almost nothing It is a wonder to observe how the case doth alter with the most when that which was their adversaries case becomes their own The very prayers of the godly and their care of their salvation and their fear of sinning doth seem their crime in the eyes of some that easily bear the guilt of swearing drunkenness sensuality filthiness and neglect of duty in themselves as a tolerable burden But if ever God indeed convert you though you will pitty others yet he will teach you to begin at home and take the beam out of your own eyes and to cry out I am the miserable sinner And lest these generals seem insufficient for us to confess on such a day as this and lest yet your memories should need more help is it not my duty to mind you of some particulars which yet I shall not do by way of accusation but of enquiry Far be it from me to judge so hardly of you that when you come hither to lament your sins you cannot with patience endure to be told of them 1. Enquire then whether there be none among you that live a sensual careless life cloathed with the best and faring deliciously every day in gluttony or drunkenness chambering and wantonness strife or envying not putting on Christ nor walking in the Spirit but making provision for the flesh to satisfie the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 13 14. Is there none among you that spend your precious time in vanities that is allowed you to prepare for life eternal that have time to waste in complements and fruitless talk and visits in gaming and unnecessary recreations in excessive feasting and entertainments while God is neglected and your souls forgotten and you can never find an hour in a day to make ready for the life which you must live for ever Is there none among you that would take that man for a Puritan or Phanatick that should employ but half so much time for his soul and in the service of the Lord as you do in unnecessary sports and pleasures and pampering your flesh Gentlemen if there be any such among you as you love your souls Remember your misdoings and bewail these abominations before the Lord in this day of your professed humiliation 2. Enquire whether there be none among you that being strangers to the New birth and to the inward workings of the Spirit of Christ upon the soul do also distaste an holy Life and make it the matter of your reproach and pacifie your accusing consciences with a Religion made up of meer words and heartless out-side and so much obedience as your fleshly pleasures will admit accounting those that go beyond you especially if they differ from you in your modes and circumstances to be but a company of proud Pharisaical self-conceited hypocrites and those whom you desire to suppress If there should be one such person here I would entreat him to remember that it is the solemn asseveration of our Judge that Except a man be converted and be born again of water and the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven Joh. 3. 3 5. Mat. 18. 3. That if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8. 9. That if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are past away and all things are become new 2 Cor. 5. 17. That without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. That the wisdom that is from above is first Pure and then Peaceable Jam. 3. 17. That God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth John 4. 23 24. That they worship in vain that teach for Doctrines the commandments of men Mat. 15. 8 9. And that Except your righteousness exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of heaven Matth. 5. 20. And I desire you to remember that its hard to kick against the pricks and to prosper in rage against the Lord and that its better for that man that offendeth one of his little ones to have had a mill-stone fastened to his neck

conscience speak as before the Lord that sees your hearts and will shortly judg you Have you had such a sight of your naturall and actuall sin and misery of your neglect of God your contempt of Heaven your loss of precious hasty time your worldly fleshly sensuall lives and your omission of the great and holy works which you were made for have you had such a sight and sense of these as hath filled your souls with shame and sorrow and caused you in tears or hearty grief to lament your sinfull careless lives before the Lord Do you loath your selves for all this as being vile in your own eyes and each man say What a wretch was I what an unreasonable self-hating wretch to do all this against my self what an unnaturall wretch what a monster of rebellion and ingratitude to do all this against the Lord of love and mercy what a deceived foolish wretch to preferre the pleasing of my lust and senses a pleasure that perisheth in the fruition and is past as soon as it s received before the manly pleasures of the Saints and before the souls delight in God and before the unspeakable everlasting pleasures was there any comparison between the bruitish pleasures of the flesh and the spirituall delights of a believing soul in looking to the endles pleasure which we shall have with all the Saints and Angels in the glorious presence of the Lord Was God and glory worth no more then to be cast aside for satiating of an unsatisfiable flesh and fancie and to be sold for a harlot for a forbidden cup for a little aire of popular applause or for a burdensome load of wealth and power for so short a time where 's now the gain and pleasure of all my former sins what have they left but a sting behind them How neer is the time when my departing soul must look back on all the pleasures and profits that ever I enjoyed as a dream when one awaketh as delusory vanities that have done all for me that ever they will doe and all is but to bring my flesh unto corruption Gal. 6. 8. and my soul to this distressing grief and fear Add then I must sing and laugh no more I must brave it out in pride no more I must know the pleasures of the flesh no more but be levelled with the poorest and my body laid in loathsome darkness and my soul appear before that God whom I so wilfully refused to obey and honour O wretch that I am where was my understanding when I plaid so boldly with the flames of hell the wrath of God the poison of sin when God stood by and yet I sinned when conscience did rebuke me and yet I sinned when Heaven or hell were hard at hand and yet I sinned when to please my God and save my soul I would not forbear a filthy lust or a forbidden vanity of no worth when I would not be perswaded to a holy heavenly watchfull life though all my hopes of Heaven lay on it I am ashamed of my self I am confounded in the remembrance of my wilfall self-destroying folly I loath my self for all these abhominations O that I had lived in beggery and rags when I lived in sin and O that I had lived with God in a prison or in a wilderness when I refused a holy heavenly life for the love of a deceitfull world Will the Lord but pardon what is past I am resolved through his grace to do so no more but to loath that filth that I took for pleasure and to abhorre the sin that I made my sport and to die to the glory and riches of the world which I made my idoll and to live entirely to that God that I did so long and so unworthily neglect and to seek that treasure that Kingdome that delight that will fully satisfie my expectation and answer all my care and labour with such infinite advantage Holiness or nothing shall be my work and life and Heaven or nothing shall be my portion and felicity These are the thoughts the affections the breathing of every regenerate gracious soul For your souls sake enquire now Is it thus with you or have you thus returned with self-loathing to the Lord and firmly engaged your souls to him at your enterance into a holy life I must be plain with you Gentlemen or I shall be unfaithfull and I must deal closely with you or I cannot deal honestly and truly with you As sure as you live yea as sure as the word of God is true you must all be such converted men and loath your selves for your iniquities or be condemned as impenitent to everlasting fire To hide this from you is but to deceive you and that in a matter of a thousand times greater moment then your lives Perhaps I could have made shift instead of such serious admonitions to have wasted this hour in flashy oratory and neat expressions and ornaments of reading and other things that are the too common matter of ostentation with men that preach Gods word in jeast and believe not what they are perswading others to believe Or if you think I could not I am indifferent as not much affecting the honour of being able to offend the Lord and wrong your souls by dallying with holy things Flattery in these things of soul concernment is a selfish vilany that hath but a very short reward and those that are pleased with it to day may curse the flatterer for ever Again therefore let me tell you that which I think you will confess that it is not your greatness nor your high looks nor the gallantry of your spirits that scorns to be thus humbled that will serve your turn when God shall deal with you or save your carcasses from rottenness and dust or your guilty souls from the wrath of the Almighty Nor is it your contempt of the threatnings of the Lord and your stupid neglect or scorning at the message that will endure when the sudden unresistible light shall come in upon you and convince you or you shall see and feel what now you refused to believe Nor is it your outside hypocriticall Religion made up of meer words or ceremonies and giving your souls but the leavings of the flesh and making God an underling to the world that will do any more to save your souls then the picture of a feast to feed your bodies Nor is it the stiffest conceits that you shall be saved in an unconverted state or that you are sanctified when you are not that will do any more to keep you from damnation then a conceit that you shall never die will do to keep you here for ever Gentlemen though you are all here in health and dignity and honour to day how little a while is it alas how little till you shall be every man in Heaven or hell unless you are Infidels you dare not deny it And it is only Christ and a holy life that is your way to Heaven