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	quicken_v	5,491	5	10.4511	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97256	The people's impartiall, and compassionate monitor; about hearing of sermons: or, The worlds preachers and proselites lively painted out, for a person of quality; upon occasion of hearing two famous divines, whose transcendent wit, oratorie, and elegancie, made many at their wits end with admiration! Being a rare discovery to vndeceive the deceiver. / By R. Younge of Roxwell in Essex.	Younge, Richard.	1657 (1657)	Wing Y171; Thomason E1583_1; ESTC R208949	45,797	44

THE People's Impartiall And Compassionate Monitor About hearing of Sermons OR The Worlds Preachers and Proselites lively painted out for a person of Quality upon occasion of hearing two famous Divines whose transcendent Wit Oratorie and Elegancie made many at their wits end with admiration Being a rare discovery to Vndeceive the Deceiued By R. YOUNGE of Roxwell in Essex Wee preach not our selvs but Christ Jesus the Lord c. 2 Cor. 4.5 My speech and my preaching was not with entising words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God c. 1 Cor. 2.4 5 to 9. I am come in my Fathers name and yee receive me not if another shall come in his own name him yee will receive Joh. 5.43 See 1 Joh. 4.1 London printed by J. B. for James Crumpe in Little Bartholomews Well-yard In the year 1657. TO THE TRULY NOBLE AND DESERVEDLY HONORED Sr NATHANAEL BASILE A WORTHY PATRON AND PATTERN OF WISDOM JUSTICE FORTITUDE PIETY AND SINCERITY R. Y. Dedicates this mean piece of his Labours and wisheth long life many followers with increase of all grace and happinesse The Peoples impartial and compassionate Monitor about hearing of Sermons Or the Worlds Preachers and Proselites lively painted out for a Person of Quality Upon occasion of hearing two famous Divines whose transcendent Wit Oratory and Elegancy made many at their wits end with admiration Section 1. Much honoured Sir ACcording to your Order I have heard another of your famous Preachers and will thereof give you an account as I promised And so that hundreds I hope shall be the better for it The truth is I extreamly admire them both though I honour them not at all The one made as rare a something of nothing as ever I heard The other for his skill in Sophistry is I confess a Non-such Both may be rare Preachers for ought I know but as he said of one little learned and lesse modest who usurped all discourse at the Table I never heard learning make such a noise So I never heard a solid Preacher deliver so many words for so little matter so much Oratory for so little Divinity Well may these plashes of water be held by some deep Divines but I presume you may gage their Divinity with one of your fingers As for their Sermons for so men call them though no otherwise then the Heathen Images are called gods Nor are they more like Sermons than Michaels image of goats hair was like David I may fitly liken them to a plume of feathers for which some will give any thing others just nothing Or if I compare them to a Nightingale tongue pye as being far more elaborate and costly than profitable or nourishing it is a great Hyperbole Indeed as a Reverend Divine speaks if I had no other Mistresse then Nature I would wish no other Master then such a Seneca Cicero or Demosthenes but being a Christian I go not to hear the rarities of human Eloquence but the eternal Word of God and more to profit my soul than to please my senses A wise man should yea a good Christian will propound to himself some end some good end of his going to hear for he that in his actions proposeth no mark or main end to himself is like a Ship that aimeth at no Harbour and no wind makes for him that hath no intended Port to sail unto neither can he expect any Voyage of advantage And to what end should any of Christs sheep go to the Assemblies but to hear his voice which is spirit and life to quicken those that are dead in sin and to raise up those that are therewith cast down Yea the Gospel is the strong arm of the Lord and the mighty power of God to salvation to every one that beleeveth Rom. 1.16 And therefore they never go to hear it but in hope to be the better for it Namely that they may have their faith strengthned by it or their patience increased or their judgement rectified or their wills reformed or their life and practise bettered or their love and zeal inflamed But certainly if any shall go to hear such Preachers as these bear with my boldness I beseech you to any or either of these ends he shall no less sail of his expectation then did those guests which Caligula invited to his golden banquet which being set before them did indeed delight the eye but neither pleased the pallate nor satisfied the stomach Nor do such Sermons more please the ear then they starve the soul Their simple hearers being like that Calf in the Epigram which went with no small appetite to suck the teats of a painted Cow Or rather like one that whets his knife upon a chalk stone which doth not sharpen but make it more dull and blunt Yea it were well if it were no worse for this is to be understood of the best of their Sermons whereas the other may be resembled to a poisoned fountain in the way which the innocent and thirsty passenger seeing is glad to drink of but in drinking is sure to dye for it Yea how many of these rare Preachers could I name that serve their hearers had they the wit to perceive it as Busirus whom Herculus slew served the poor who killed such as came to him for hospitality Or Theodosius the Prince who fraudulently called together seven thousand innocent persons as it were to see playes and then sent in souldiers to slay them For under a colour of feeding and curing their souls they impoison and kill them Or in case they be less cruel and do answer the hunger and thirst of an empty soul it shall be no otherwise then the Jews did our Saviour who gave him gaul for his meat and in his thirst vinegar to drink Psa 69.21 But this being a truth that transcends both the understanding and beleef of all that are unacquainted with Satans wiles Nor can it be beaten into the brains of unbeleevers who want the light of Gods Spirit and the eye of faith I have taken some pains in painting out these Preachers and their Proselites affirming no more then I know by grounded experience and shall fully confirm from the Word of truth Which commands us to try the spirits and their doctrine whether they be of God or no. Nor will you I hope think the time ill spent in your serious perusal thereof If it make you a gainer give God the glory Sect. 2. All sorts of Preachers may be comprised under four heads for either they are Preaching Or Non-Preaching Or Un-Preaching Ministers Or Preachers that are no Ministers Whereof I have to deal with Non-Preaching and Un-Preaching Ministers Non-Preaching Ministers I might martial into many Bands but the cheef are witty and Rhetorical Preachers and to these will I apply my self in the first place Witty and Rhetorical Preachers are such as Preach now and

then but it is to very little or rather to no purpose For as they neither aim at GODS glory nor the edification and conversion of their hearers but their own credit profit and preferment So their people are neither instructed in the mysteries of salvation nor any whit reformed in their lives Now these as preferring Abana and Pharpar before the River of Jordan chuse rather to feed their people with the Onions and Melons of humane speculations than with the spiritual Manna of GODS Word Which is the cause their hearers have such lean and hunger-starved souls There be a world of unhallowed Divines that being sent to sue for GOD wooe for themselves For all their aim and end is To set out their Learning and Reading and to breed admiration of their wit and worth With Gnatho they are desirous to please every mans humour and therefore lest their Sermons or rather Orations should not be thought Learned enough you shall have them so richly compounded of Divinity Morality and Policy with so great aspersion of all other Arts and Dapled so full of Authorities from Poets Orators and Philosophers and so stuft with rich magnificent pompous and painted words well-couched phrases Oratory Figures and pathetical Metaphors For they run all upon Metaphors and by their good wills speak not without a Figure Together with Hebrew Greek and Latine Sentences That no Room can be afforded for Scripture Yea they scorn the grave Eloquence the stately Plainness the Rich Poverty that Humble Majesty that shines in the Simplicity of the Scripture The contemptible Coursnesse of Scripture-phrase grates their Delicate Ears and offends their Queasie stomachs For they are not able to Peise and so not to Praise how in Fewness of words there is Fulness of Matter That they are Thick and Short Pithy and Pathetical Breef and yet Full Concise and yet Clear Careless and yet Accurate Which men if they cannot instruct GOD how to deliver his mind better yet they are not so Well pleased with the SPIRITS way of Expression as with their Own when delivering their Words by Weight and Drawing their Notions into Knots and Borders placing them like Checquer or Fret-work driving their Clauses to so Even a Cadency that they fall in a Just measure and sound And to give them their Due Their Discourses are so Curiously Couched so Neatly Starched and set Their Words so Ranked and meetly marshall'd as if they were a Kin to Him whose Name is Six-Hundred Sixty-Six And yet excel they never so much in wit learning order elegancy and phrase Admit they deliver their words in Wax with a Soaring-sublimity of high Strains and Choice Composures Though it move Great Delectation of affection Suppose they transport their hearers with the wind of words and flouds of eloquence wherein is more wit than art and more art than use yet they are but windy frothy and vain Preachers yea they preach no more in reality then Harpocrates the Egyptian who was always painted with his finger in his mouth For as every sound is not Musick so every Sermon is not Preaching A main end of Preaching is Converting as the end of Fishing is Catching But their Sermons tend to no such end Well may these Cobwebs of wit and learning be curious and admirable for their fineness of thread and work but they are of no substance or profit to the soul For admit them dainty Moral Discourses sufficient to satisfie the most curious car or refined Auditory yet they are as improper to the end before mentioned as were a bone for a child for wherein is the soul benefitted or comforted by a witty and Rhetorical Discourse Or in case some do dote thereon do they not resemble Ixion who embraced a cloud instead of Juno Their Sermons being meer breath which vanishes so soon as seen For as he said of the Delphick Oracle Quoties legitur negligitur It is not sooner gotten then forgotten so may I of their Learned Orations For as one nail drives out another so one sentence and one Sermon drives out another As for their Converting of a sinner or building up of a Christian they know not what it means Yea He appeal to their own consciences whether in all their lives they have so much as civilized or philosophized one drunken deboist and vicious liver by this their manner of Preaching or can any one of their applauders say such a man hath made me an hater of vice and a lover of virtue hand credo Yet this hath been familiarly effected by meer Philosophers upon their Disciples Now if they are insufficient to effect the lesser work what probability is there they should accomplish the greater of true and effectuall conversion which is no other then a miracle For no less true nor miraculous though spiritual is our raising up from an estate of inward corruption to the life of grace then was our Saviours restoring of sight to the blinde hearing to the deaf speech to the dumb health to the sick yea life to the dead and whatever in this kinde he did by himself while he lived the same he doth still by his Ministers through the mighty and powerful working of his holy Spirit with his written Word Sect. 3. Nothing proved him to be God more then his casting out of Devils For there is no casting out of devils but by the finger of God Luke 11.20 Neither is that strong armed man overcome and ejected but by a stronger than he verse 21 22. And is any stronger than he but God alone no verily As for man he is no way able to deal with him witness Adam in his state of perfection 〈◊〉 And yet as then himself cast out devils by speaking the words of eternal life so now his Ministers cast them out by applying the same Word for every reigning sin we have is a devil as Basil Austin and Saint Gregory affirm 2 Cor. 4.4 John 14.30 Ephes 2.2 2 Tim. 2.26 and of him that by the power of the Word hath pride covetousness drunkenness whoredome swearing envy or ignorance cast out of him or mortified in him we may say as properly as it was of Mary Magdalen he hath so many devils cast out Now it were a strange folly to think that these Preachers should cast them out and overcome them with the carnal weapons of their warfare which they borrow from men and not from God What cares the devil so long as they bring wit instead of weapons he fears them no more hearing the words of their Commission and espying them to have no courage no power no zeal for the glory of God no aim at the edification of their hearers than an Eagle fears a Swallow or a Laon a Lamb but makes answer as he once did to the sons of Sevah Jesus I acknowledge and ●aul I know but who are ye It is a silly Hare that will be caught with a Tabor and their Preaching is as prevalent to the casting out of devils as is the hunting

place to encourage us in this case is that 2 Chron. 34.27.28 too long to repeat I pray turn to it Again take notice that as hunger is a signe of good health so to hunger and thirst after Gods Word is a notable signe of our spirituall health and safety Matth. 5.6 Yea the sence of our wretchedness and the valuation of our spirituall helps is the best triall of our Regeneration In the next place delay not the opportunity of hearing but as the Holy Ghost saith Even to day hear his voice and harden not your hearts as in the provocation c. Heb. 3.7.8 The time present is the onely time to seek the Lord. To make short heat the Word indifferently and impartially have no prejudice against him thou hast heretofore most hated and slighted but hear him the rather for his bitternesse Perhaps God will convert and save thee by no other means or Minister then such as he hath placed thee under Despise not the meanest of Christs Messengers that delivers the Word purely aims at his glory and the good of souls And the better to induce you to esteem such consider with me a few particulars Section 22. Such Ministers as are of Christs sending are not onely appointed of God as watchmen to give us warning of ensuing danger Ezek. 3.17 and Pastors to feed our souls with the spiritual Manna of God's Word Eph. 4.11.12 and Captains to fight God's battels for us against our spiritual enemies and our Leaders to instruct us in the spiritual warfare Eph. 6.12 13. 2 Cor. 10.3 4 5. and God's Embassadors to declare his will and message unto us Eph. 6.20 and lye Leigers for the great King of heaven and earth So that whatsoever is done to them God takes and accounts as done to him Psal 44.22 But they are co-workers together with God in converting and saving our souls 1 Cor. 3.9 Hee shall speak words unto thee saies the Angel to Cornelius whereby both thou and all thine house shall be saved Act. 11.14 Wee are all born dead in sins and trespasses But what saies the Apostle Peter Unto this purpose was the Gospel preached also unto the dead that they might be condemned according to men in the flesh but might live according to God in the spirit 1 Pet. 4. ver 6. For conclusion of all hear the Word in season and out of season and so minde the same that if any virtue be commended practise it if any vice condemned avoid it if any consolation bee insinuated approoriate it if any good example be propounded follow it yea so mind what thou hearest as if it were spoken onely to thy self and be not like a childe who looking in a glasse thinks he sees another childs face and not his own For want of application is the sole cause that in the midst of so much means so few are converted Yea there be very few men that make not the whole Bible and all the Sermons they hear yea the checks of their own consciences and the motions of Gods Spirit utterly ineffectual for want of wit and grace to apply the same to themselvs Whereas if they would rightly and ingenuously apply but one text or two as Mat. 7.12 16.26 or the like unto their own souls as they can unto others being better able to discern others motes then their own beams they might be everlastingly happy And so much of Non-preaching now of Unpreaching Ministers who as much excell these as the Spider excells the Butterfly The ones Sermons being like that unblest food Hag. 1.6 the other like those bitter and venemous waters 2 King 2.19 20 21. Or that Pottage 2 King 4.39 40 41. wherein was put colloquintida as you will acknowledge when you have seen them in like manner cut up and anatomized which will be the sum of the second part of this discovery which had been joined with it onely I prorogue the printing of that until I see the acceptance of this because I much question whether those it concerns will be capable of its usefulness for having imparted both parts to some of those Non-preaching and Unpreaching Ministers for whose sakes they were both composed though they commend the pieces yet so unacqainted are they with their own hearts they conceive not that there are any such Preachers Now in case it shall not be printed and yet of some shall be desired they may please to read in lew of it my Characters of the kinds of Preaching published fourteen years since and sold by James Crumpe in Little Bartholomews Well-yard FINIS Imprimatur JOSEPH CARYL ERRATA Not to mention any of the literall mistakes or mis-poyntings in each sheet which are usuall At the top of Page 15. there was by what means I know not a whole line taken out after the proof was returned and put at the bottom of Page 16. whereby the one place is left defective and the other marred in the sence The words are these Gold of Cornucopia that it hath all things necessary for food in it of Panaces And in Page 39. line 33 there is most the instead of the most Neither of which faults though very grosse were espied vntill most of the sheet was printed off But the ingenuous Reader will either mend them with his pen or be so charitable as to bear with the Compositor However the Author must or else turn the buckle of his Girdle