Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	die_v	flesh_n	live_v	7,051	5	6.1602	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44677	A funeral sermon for that very reverend, and most laborious servant of Christ, in the work of the ministry, Mr. Matthew Mead who deceased Oct. 16, 1699 / by John Howe ...	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1699 (1699)	Wing H3025; ESTC R3677	24,534	76

concern'd at the diseasedness that appears in our flocks but overlook the diseases and distempers of our own Souls That was meant for a bitter reproach to our Lord dying upon the Cross He saved others himself he cannot save To us if it might be truly said it must be a just reproach as well as bitter our saving our selves being our duty enjoyn'd us and tending to the saving of others whereas our Lords saving himself in the sense intended by those Scoffers was against the Law he was then under and against his own design tending to overthrow it and leave them to perish whom he was dying to save 4. The observable neglect of the design to save our own Souls would defeat and destroy the other design of saving theirs that hear us For who can think us serious in our preaching or that we believe our selves in what we say if we manifestly decline our selves that way of salvation which we propose to others we tempt men to Infidelity if we live like Infidels It was a cutting Repartee made by an Atheistical person to one that leading an ill life yet profest to wonder that the other the Arguments for a Deity being so plain and cogent did not own there was a God The other reply'd he much more wonder'd that he who did own him should yet live as he did This tends to overthrow all our preaching Tho' our Saviour directs to do as they said who sate in Moses ' s chair not as they did because they said and did not Yet he did not thereby justify those self-repugnant Teachers for his reflection upon them is sufficiently severe And we are to consider in the case not meerly what man's duty is but what their dispositions are Not what they ought but what they are apt to do If they think we do but act a part when we speak never so movingly to them they will be little mov'd by all that we can say They will be more apt to conclude that we who have studied and searched into the matters of Religion more than they have done have found some flaw at the bottom and perceive the very Foundations of it to be infirm and therefore practice not according to the Doctrines and Rules of it But that for our gain because it was the Calling we were bred to and we know not how else to live we are content and some way constrain'd to keep up the forms we found in use and maintain them that they may maintain us 5. Yet when it shall be found as upon strict enquiry it cannot but be that the Foundations of Religion are more firm than those of Heaven and Earth how dismal will it be to have preach't to others and our selves to be cast-aways 1 Cor. 9. 27. For as by loose licentious walking we hazard other mens Souls which we should endeavour to save so we more certainly lose our own God may save them some other way and by other more apt Instruments but we have little reason to expect that we shall save our own either while we design it not as if we were to be saved by chance or much less if we counteract any such design Which we may most destructively by that single Instance which the Apostle in that last mentioned place refers to an indulg'd intemperance or not keeping our bodies in subjection in servitude or in a serviceable temper as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports to subdue them into the state of Servants wherein rather than fail one would use the severity which this other word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies It is plain that if we live after the flesh we must die Rom. 8. 13. There is one Law for Ministers and People And it is only by the spirit we are so to mortify the deeds of the flesh that we may live How dismal when a Minister's own breath poisons him When the very Gospel which he preaches is a deadly odour to himself how horrid when a Shepherd is the Leader of the Epicurean Herd 6. But if by neglecting visibly the Gospel-way of saving himself he not only hazard but actually destroy other mens Souls together with his own he then perishes under a much heavier load of guilt than another man can that was not under his obligations As his obligation was double so is his guilt When sinfull vicious inclination hath depraved his mind put out the eye of his practical understanding so that the blind leads the blind both fall into the ditch but he falls much the deeper having the others destruction charg'd upon him together with his own Such Teachers as bind heavy burdens for others which they will not touch fall under an aggravated woe And the case is the same with them that prepare and set before their Hearers the most nutritive and delectable fare which they will not tast And for that Reason perhaps the People will not feed on them because the Preachers themselves too evidently appear to have no tast or relish of them 2. The Ministers of Christ ought to conjoyn the serious design and earnest endeavour of saving them that hear them with the design and endeavour of saving themselves They are not to be so bound up within themselves as only to mind their own things tho' of this most noble kind 1. The Law of Nature obliges them to it Which extends its obligation as far as humane nature extends And must therefore include them with the rest of Mankind under the same common notion viz. them who are Ministers not as they are such for nature hath not made them Ministers but as they are Men. Whom the Royal Law mention'd before requires to love their neighbour as themselves and therefore to seek anothers felicity not before but as their own We are taught to count it an unnatural barbarity when we see any prest and pincht by bodily wants and miseries to hide our selves from our own flesh Isa. 58. 7. How much more if we see immortal Souls in danger to be lost and perish that are of the same make and capacity with our own 2. The Law of Christ as such obliges Christians to the same thing Which is not in this instance therefore a divers Law but hath a different stamp and impress as being the Law of the Kingdom of God in Christ. We are to bear one anothers burdens so fulfilling the Law of Christ Gal. 6. 2. What so weighty a burden can there be upon any man as this the importance of his eternal salvation And which is plainly here referr'd to when we are required to endeavour the restoring of such as have been overtaken and lapsed into sin by which the precious Soul is hurt and endangered should they be left to sink under such a burden Christians are elsewhere required to have compassion on such as they see in such danger to save them with fear and pull them as firebrands out of the fire Jud. 23. These are obligations common to Ministers with others

be supposed to do Considering how numerous how intelligent and well instructed a People he was to take the care of I well remember that about 3 or 4 and 40 years ago being desir'd to give some help on a Lord's-day to that eminent Servant of Christ Mr. Greenhill whose praise is still in all the Churches I then first heard him preach and if my Memory fail not he had about that time in hand some part of that excellent Discourse of the Almost Christian I had then the opportunity of beginning an acquaintance with him His excellent good natural Parts his ingenuous Education his Industry his early Labours in preaching the Gospel of Christ in his native Country in the City and in this place His Conjunction̄ and Society for some years with that excellent Servant of God before named above all the gracious assistances he had from Heaven gave him great advantages to be a Minister of Christ approved unto God a Workman that needed not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth And his multiply'd years unto the 70th with the continual addition thereby to the rich Treasury of his Experiences still improv'd him more and more So that there being no decay of his natural Endowments and a continual increase of his Supernatural you had the best of him at last whereby indeed your loss was the greater but your obligation was also the greater that God continu'd to you the enjoyment of him so long and that in a serviceable state But when he could be no longer serviceable in his stated delightful work it was by the decay not of the inward but the outward man so that when he could preach to you and converse with you no longer he could earnestly and servently pray for you to the end And God did not afflict you by leaving long among you only the shadow the outside of the man and of such a man He took little pleasure in embroiling himself or his Hearers in needless and fruitless Controversies The great substantial Doctrines of the Gospel were his principal study and delight such as lay nearest the Vitals and the very Heart of Religion and Godliness and most directly tending to the saving them that heard him The Subjects which he chose to insist upon from time to time in the course of his Ministry shew'd as to this his Spirit and Design Having formed from the H. Scriptures that Scheme of Thoughts which satisfy'd him and gave him a clear ground whereupon to preach the Gospel with an unrecoiling Heart he lov'd not to discompose it His Judgment in things which had that reference being constantly moderate and unexceptionably sound remote from rigorous and indesensible extremities on the one hand and the other Hereupon he drove at his mark without diversion not so much aiming to proselyte Souls to a Party as to Christ. And to engage men as much as in him lay to be sound and thorough Christians Hitherto tended his Sermons from Year to Year The great Subject he had in hand and which he left unfinish'd when God took him off from his publick work was manifestly pointed this way viz. Of the Covenant of God in Christ. And his annual course of preaching a Sermon on May-day to Young Men had the same manifest scope and aim with which his publick Labours were concluded God so ordering it that his last Sermon was this Year on that day His Judgment in reference to matters of Church Order was for Union and Communion of all visible Christians viz. of such as did visibly hold the Head as to the principal credenda and agenda of Christianity The great things belonging to the Faith and Practice of a Christian so as nothing be made necessary to Christian Communion but what Christ hath made necessary or what is indeed necessary to one's being a Christian What he publickly essay'd to this purpose the World knows And many more private endeavours and strugglings of his for such an Union I have not been unacquainted with The unsuccessfulness of which endeavours he said not long before his last confinement he thought would break his Heart He having openly among divers persons and with great earnestness sometime before exprest his consent to some Proposals which if the Parties concern'd had agreed in the desire of the thing it self must unavoidably have inferr'd such an Union without prejudice to their Principles and on such terms as must have extended it much further else it had signify'd little But this must be effected as is too apparent not by meer humane endeavour but by an Almighty Spirit pour'd forth which after we have suffered a while shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 put us into joynt and make every joynt know its place in the Body 1 Pet. 5. 10. Shall conquer private Interests and Inclinations and over-awe mens Hearts by the Authority of the Divine Law which now how express soever it is little availeth against such prepossessions Till then Christianity will be among us a languishing withering thing When the season comes of such an effusion of the Spirit from on high there will be no Parties And a midst the Wilderness-Desolation that cannot but be till that season comes it matters little and signifies to me scarce one straw what Party of us is uppermost The most righteous as they may be vogu'd will be but as Briars and scratching Thorns and it is better to suffer by such than be of them In the mean time it is a mark of God's heavy displeasure when persons of so healing Spirits are taken away And if it awaken any of us that will tend to prepare us for the effects of it which Preparation seems a thing more to be hoped than prevention But this worthy Servant of Christ sees not the woful day whatever of it he might foresee His removal makes to many indeed a woful day and that all about him did long foresee He was long languishing and even dying daily But amidst surrounding death as a Relation told me there was no appearance of any the least Cloud upon his Spirit that obscured the evidences of his Title to a Blessed Eternity Being asked how he did he said Going home as every honest man ought when his work is done He was much in admiring God's Mercies under his afflicting hand saying every thing on this side Hell is Mercy That the Mercies he received were greater than his Burthens tho' in themselves grievous That he rested upon that promise that his Father would lay no more upon him than he would enable him to bear That he expected to be saved only by the Righteousness of Christ imputed to him Tho' he well understood as I had sufficient reason to know that Christ's Righteousness is never imputed to any but where if the Subject be capable there is an inherent Righteousness also that is no cause of our Salvation but the Character of the saved And having before precaution'd some as were about him not to be surpriz'd if he went away