Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	dead_a	life_n	live_v	7,322	5	6.0283	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64253	A treatise of contentment leading a Christian with much patience through all afflicted conditions by sundry rules of heavenly wisedome : whereunto is annexed first, A treatise of the improvement of time, secondly, The holy warre, in a visitation sermon / by T.T.	Taylor, Thomas, 1576-1632.; Taylor, Thomas, 1576-1632. Treatise of the improvement of time.; Taylor, Thomas, 1576-1632. Holy warre.	1641 (1641)	Wing T571; ESTC R26964	82,319	242

24. Shall Christ so willingly buckle under his crosse and shall wee be as Simon of Cyrene who wi●● not beare it unlesse it be forced upon us The whole life of Christ was a continuall sorrow we read hee wept thrise over Lazarus over Ierusalem and in the garden but never that he laughed 2 The pleasures worthy a Christian are the pleasures of Gods house standing in remission of sinne peace with God peace of conscience joy in the holy Ghost and these are so proper and peculiar to the godly as they agree to no other These are the pleasures of an high and excellent straine which we are to reserve our hearts and affections for and the other in comparison of these heavenly and spirituall joyes to bee loathed and contemned Delight thy selfe in the Lord of all other delight say as Salomon It is madnesse 3 Solomon who tryed his heart with all worldly delights pronounced of them all that they are vanity and vexation of spirit And the Apostle affirmeth of widowes living in pleasure that they are dead while they live And what other is the profit of the lives of Epicures and b●lly-gods who seeke nothing more then to live in ease and pleasure They choake all holy cogitations unfit them as enemies to all godly studies refuse as uncapable all good admonitions and degenerate men from men into filthy beasts How do they infect the mind oppresse the soule dull the wit waste the body and bring harmes on a man a thousand more This made one of the fathers describe worldly pleasures thus It is an harlot fitting in her chariot whose foure wheeles are Gluttony Lust Pride in apparell Idlenesse the two horses are Prosperity and Abundance the two drivers are Idlenesse and Security and if he had added the retinue or attendants that follow and wait upon her as griefe too late repentance pale-faced sicknesse leane consumption beggery and death hee had made a most absolute description But who cannot by the quality of the Mistresse gather the nature of her handmaids Now this being the troup of earthly and unsanctified pleasures they are not onely to be contemned but hated of all Christians 4 Consider this present life as a warfare a pilgrimage a moment on which eternity dependeth a day of grace a space of repentance and of strife to enter in at the strait gate the time of our absence from home and from the Lord And how can we sing so merrily in a strange land What a number of enemies besiege us and watch for our security What a bad constitution is my heart of How labours it of the poison of sin How is it with me other then a seafaring man When he is safest there is but an inch between him and death and how can I in all these miseries set my selfe on a merry pin as the rich glutton did who heard that sentence Son remember thou hadst thy pleasure here and Lazarus paine but now hee is comforted and thou art tormented Or how shall God wipe away my teares in heaven if I shed none in earth And how shall I reap in joy if I sow not in teares I was borne with teares and shall die with teares why should I live without them in this valley of teares 5 Since our sinne cast us out of Paradise that place was shut up that we should looke for no Paradise on earth any more but toward that heavenly Paradise whereof the other was a type Wee must therefore use the world as not using it rejoyce as not rejoycing and not suffer any worldly joyes to be as the Devils birdlime to hinder us from mounting aloft in heavenly meditations here and much lesse to dimme our sight from beholding those admirable joyes and pleasures at Gods right hand prepared for the Saints How easie a thing were it to be a lover of pleasure more then of God but withall how dreadfull and unhappy Therefore I have them I must be watchfull if not I must be thankfull and contented 6 All the world cannot take my joy from me if I rejoyce in these things That my name is written in Heaven That Christ is mine as when Si●●on had him in his armes and Zacheus in his house And in the testimony of a good conscience and a life purely led according to the Word So of earthly pleasures In the want or losse of worldly honours and preferments godlinesse inforceth on the heart contentment upon these grounds 1 It teacheth to lay the foundati on of true Christianity in humility and in the knowledge of our selves Our selves are in our best mettall but dust and clay and ashes Our estate is to be borne to misery as the sparkes to fly upward Ioh. 5. 7. And by sin we are the children of death which by sin entred into the world This sinne of ours dishonouring God hath layd all our honour in the dust And the way to come to true honour againe is by humility which can neither greedily desire worldly advancements nor too impatiently bewaile their losse For this purpose Christ proposeth to us the example of a little child to whom we must be like Luk. 9. 47. 2 It lets a man see the truth of that our Saviour answering the woman who desired that one of her sōs might sit at his right hand and the other at his left in his Kingdome Yee aske ye know not what Mat. 20. 20. It is the blindnesse of ambitious men that excessively love and prize their honors to seeke to be aloft Little doe they know or thinke that they are climbing up to a greater and sudden fall as our Saviour saith He that exalieth himselfe shall be brought low Mat. 23. 12. Haman that was lifted up above all the Princes of Ahashuerus within one twelve moneths space was hanged on a paire of gallowes fifty cubits high of his own making Trees which stand in higher hils are subject to more vehement and blustering winds Little doe these see the temptations which their high estates expose them unto If smaller cares in a lower place distract a man from prayer and other spirituall exercises how should a man give himselfe to God when hee is burthened with more change and cares Little see they how little soundnesse and stability is in that honour which they raise themselves unto by dishonouring God by Machiavilian policies by supplanting others by playing the hypocrites and making shew of good parts which were never in them yea and which is supported and maintained by the same means doubled and repeated A building so weakely or rather wickedly founded threateneth a great ruine 3 Earthly honors are so far from furthering heavenly as they rather hinder the same In the history of Christs temptation may be observed what Chrysost noteth that the Devill caries men up aloft that he may throw them down headlong What an headlong fall had we all in Adam when not content with his estate he would be liker God thē he