Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	divine_a	feel_v	great_a	215	3	2.1569	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59575	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, and Aldermen of London, at Bow-church by John Sharpe ...	Sharp, John, 1645-1714.	1676 (1676)	Wing S3001; ESTC R15183	21,301	51

so secret yet he cannot be confident they will always continue so and the very Apprehension of this makes him feel all the Shame and Amazement of a present Discovery But put the case he hath had the good luck to sin so closely or in such a nature that he need fear nothing from Men yet he knows there is an Offended God to whom he hath a sad and a fearful Reckoning to make a God too Just to be Bribed too Mighty to be Over-awed too Wise to be Imposed upon And is not the man think you under such Reflections as these likely to live a very Comfortable life Ah none knows the Bitterness of them but himself that feels them To the Judgment of others he perhaps appears a very happy man he hath the world at his beck all things seem to conspire to make him a great Example of Prosperity we admire we applaud his Condition But ah we know not how sad a heart he often carries under this fair Out-side we know not with what sudden Damps his spirit is often struck even in the heighth of his Revellings We know not how unquiet how broken his sleeps are how oft he starts and looks pale when the Wife that lies by his side understands not what the matter is with him He doth indeed endeavour all he can to stifle his Cares and to stop the mouth of his Conscience He thinks to divert it with Business or to flatter it with little Sophistries or to drown it with rivers of Wine or to calm it with soft and gentle Airs And he is indeed sometimes so successful in these Arts as for a while to lay it asleep But alas this is no lasting peace the least thing awakens it even the sound of a Passing-Bell or a clap of Thunder nay a Frightful Dream or a Melancholy Story hath the power to do it and then the poor man returns to his Torment And now judge you whether the Honest and Virtuous Man that is free from all these Agonies that is at Peace with God and at Peace with his own Conscience that apprehends nothing terrible from the one nor feels any thing troublesome from the other but is safe from Himself and from all the world in his own Innocence Judge I say whether such a one hath not laid to himself better and surer Foundations for Pleasures and a happy Life than the man that by indulging his Lusts and Vices only breeds up a Snake in his Bosom which will not cease to Sting and Gall him beyond what a Tongue is able to express or a witty Cruelty to Invent. Fourthly and lastly besides the benefits of Religion for removing the hinderances of our Pleasures it also adds to Humane Life a world of pleasures of its own which vicious men are utterly unacquainted with And these are of so excellent a kind so delicious so enravishing that the highest gratifications of sense are not comparable to them Never till we come to be heartily Religious do we understand what true Pleasure is That which ariseth from the grateful motions that are made in our outward senses is but a faint shadow a meer dream of it Then do we begin to enjoy true Pleasures indeed when our Highest and Divinest Faculties which were wholly laid asleep while we lived the life of sense begin to be awakened and to exercise themselves upon their proper objects when we become acquainted with God and the Infinite Abyss of Good that is in him when our hearts are made sensible of the great Love and good will he bears us and in that sense are powerfully carried out in Joy and Love and desire after him when we feel the Divine Nature daily more and more displayed in our souls shewing forth it self in the blessed Fruits of Charity and Peaceableness and Meekness and Humility and Purity and Devotion and all the other Graces of the Holy Spirit It is not possible but that such a Life as this must needs be a Fountain of inexpressible joy to him that leads it and fill the Soul with transcendently greater content than any thing upon earth can possibly do for this is the Life of God this is the Life of the Blessed Angels above this is the Life that is most of all agreeable to our own natures While we live thus things are with us as they should be our Souls are in their natural Posture in that state they were framed and designed to live in whereas the Life of Sin is a state of Disorder and Confusion a perpetual violence and force upon our Natures While we live thus we enjoy the Pleasures of men whereas before when we were governed by sense we could pretend to no other satisfactions but what the Brutes have as well as we In this state of life we gratifie our Highest and Noblest Powers the intellectual Appetites of our Souls which as they are infinitely capacious so have they an infinite good to fill them whereas in the sensual Life the meanest the dullest and the most contracted Faculties of our Souls were only provided for But what need I carry you out into these Speculations when your own sense and experience will ascertain you in this matter above a thousand Arguments Do but seriously set your selves to serve God if you have yet never done it do but once try what it is to live up to the Precepts of Reason and Virtue and Religion and I dare confidently pronounce that you will in one month find more Joy more Peace more Content to arise in your spirits from the sense that you have resisted the Temptations of Evil and done what was your duty to do than in many years spent in Vanity and a Licentious course of living I doubt not in the least but that after you have once seen and tasted how gracious the Lord is how good all his ways are but you will proclaim to all the world that One day spent in his Courts is better than a thousand Nay you will be ready to cry out with the Roman Orator if it be lawful to quote the Testimony of a Heathen after that of the Divine Psalmist that One day lived according to the Precepts of Virtue is to be preferred before an Immortality of Sin You will then alter all your sentiments of things and wonder that you should have been so strangely abused by false representations of Virtue and Vice You will then see that Religion is quite another thing than it appeared to you before you became acquainted with it Instead of that grim sowr unpleasant Countenance in which you heretofore painted her to your self you will then discover nothing in her but what is infinitely Lovely and Charming Those very Actions of Religion which you now cannot think upon with Patience they seem so harsh and unpleasant you will then find to be accompanied with a wonderful Delight You will not then complain of the narrowness of the Bounds or the scantiness of the Measures that it hath confined your desires

lie within our power it takes off the sowrness and moroseness of our Spirits and makes us Affable and Courteous Gentle and Obliging and willing to embrace with open Arms and an hearty Love all sorts and conditions of men In every Relation wherein we can stand to one another it influenceth upon us in order to the making us more useful it makes Parents kind and Indulgent and careful of the Education of their Children and Children Loving and Obedient to their Parents it makes Servants diligent to please their Masters and to do their work in singleness of heart not with eye-service as men-pleasers but as unto God and it makes Masters gentle and forbearing and careful to make provision for their Family as those that know they have a Master in Heaven that is no respecter of persons In a word there is no condition or capacity in which Religion will not be signally an instrument of making us more serviceable to others and of doing more good in the world And if such be the spirit and temper of it how is it possible but it must needs acquire a great deal of Respect and Love from all sorts of men If Obligingness and doing good in ones Generation do not endear a man to those that know him do not entitle him to their Love and Affections what thing in the world is there that is likely to do it But secondly True and unaffected Goodness seldom misses of a good Reputation in the world How unjust to Virtue soever men are in other respects yet in this they generally give it its due where ever it appears it generally meets with Esteem and Approbation nay it has the good word of many that otherwise are not over-fond of Religion Though they have not the grace to be Good themselves yet they rarely have the confidence not to commend Goodness in others Add to this that no man ever raised to himself a Good name in the world but it was upon the score of his Virtues either Real or Pretended Vice hath sometimes got Riches and advanced it self into Preferments but it never was accounted Honourable in any Nation It must be acknowledged indeed that it may and doth sometimes happen that Vicious men may be had in Esteem but then it is to be considered that it is not for their Vices that they are esteemed but for some good Quality or other they are eminent in And there is no doubt if those men were without those Vices their Reputation would be so far from being thereby diminished that it would become much more Considerable It must also be acknowledged on the other hand that even Virtuous and Good men may sometimes fail of that Esteem and Respect that their Virtue seems to merit nay in that degree as to be slighted and despised and to have many Odious Terms and Nick-names put upon them But when we consider the cases in which this happens it will appear to be of no force at all for the disproving what has been now delivered For first it ought to be considered what kind of Persons those are that treat Virtue and Virtuous men thus Contemptuously we shall always find them to be the Worst and the Vilest of mankind such who have debauched the natural principles of their minds have lost all the notions and distinctions of Good and Evil are fallen below the Dignity of Humane Nature and have nothing to bear up themselves with but Boldness and Confidence Drollery and Scurrility and turning into Ridicule every thing that is grave and serious But it is with these as it is with the Monsters and Extravagances of Nature they are but very Few Few in comparison of the rest of mankind who have wiser and truer sentiments of things But if they were more numerous no man of understanding would value what such men said of him It looks like a Crime to be commended by such Persons and may justly occasion a man to reflect upon his own actions and to cry out to himself as He did of old What have I done that these men speak well of me But secondly it cannot be denied but that some persons who are otherwise Virtuous and Religious may be guilty of such Indiscretions as thereby to give others occasion to slight and despise them But then it is to be considered that this is not to be charged upon Virtue and Religion but is the Particular Fault of the Persons Every one that is Religious is not Prudent the meanness of a mans Understanding or his Rash and Intemperate Zeal or the moroseness of his Temper or his too great Scrupulosity about little things may sometimes make his Behaviour Uncouth and Fantastick and betray him to do many actions which he may think his Religion obliges him to that other People will be apt to fancy Silly and Ridiculous But this doth not at all reflect upon Religion nor doth it follow that because the Imprudence of this or the other Particular man exposes him to the Mirth and the Pleasantness of others that therefore all Religious Persons must fall under the same Fate Most certainly Religion wherever it is governed by Knowledge and sound Principles wherever it is managed with Prudence and Discretion is a thing so Noble so Amiable that it attracts Love and commands Respect from all that are acquainted with it unless they be such profligately wicked Persons as I just now spoke of There is one Objection made from the Scripture against this and the former Point I have been speaking to which I desire to remove before I proceed to the third General Head of my Discourse It is this That the Scripture is so far from representing Godliness as a means to Improve our Fortunes or attain a Reputation in the world that it seems directly to affirm the contrary for it assures us that All those that will live godly in Christ must suffer Persecution That the Disciples of Christ shall be Hated of All men for His Names sake That the World shall revile and persecute them and speak all manner of Evil of them and that through many Tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of God But to this it is easily answered that these and other such like Passages of Scripture do not speak the General and Common Fate that attends Godliness in all times and places of the world according to the Ordinary course of Gods Providence but only refer to that particular Time when Christianity was to be planted in the world then indeed Persecution and Disgrace loss of Goods and even of Life it self was to be the common portion of those that professed it nor could it otherwise be expected for when a new Religion is to be set up and such a Religion as is perfectly destructive of all those others that have been by long custom received and are by Laws established in the world It cannot be imagined but that it will meet with a great deal of Contradiction and Opposition from all sorts of persons But