Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	doctrine_n	holy_a	scripture_n	5,857	5	5.8596	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47216	A sermon preached at St Maries in Cambridge, to the Universitie September the 6, 1668 the Sunday before the Sturbridge fair / by Edvvard Kemp ...	Kemp, Edward, d. 1671.	1668 (1668)	Wing K259; ESTC R19271	11,870	26

to the people in our sensing and interpreting it shall parcel out Scripture and so vend it as it were by retail and not in gross without a due regard to the whole scain intireness harmony and unity or to what the rich and full sense of one piece may supply to to the short conciseness and seeming vacuity of the other how easily may we err and be deceived and if any temptations lie in our way as very oft they do especially of profit or popularity deceive others and perhaps which is the height of the accusation in the text purposely and maliciously too When we once lay aside that standard the Churches exposition upon which God hath set so remarkably in all ages his arms ingraven his motto and name it is verily to be beleeved at least it is suspicious when we yeeld the balance to our own wit understandings fancies and inventions to hold it that though it may go even to the eyes of men yet there may be too as it often happens more cunning then innocency in the hand that directs it so needfull it is for us to hear for the conduct and safety of souls to obey and best too for the peace and unity of Christians is the Churches skill sincerity uprightness and authority that we can with no hands better trust these weights and measures the beam of the Sanctuary it self her balance and scale who may and no doubt will preserve its steadiness constancy and evenness and is the most unlikely to beguile deceive or delude us And this is a truth that experience hath taught us that when people make light of the Churches doctrine and are fond of new disguisings and interpretations of holy Scripture the Priest shall easily comply with that humour nay by insinuations and hintings to them much cherish it for he is under no trivial temptations to do so he cannot but foresee the Mart he may open for all comers to resort to many passions are set on work besides pride which tickles him with the conceit of great abilities in himself to deceive which confinements to an authorized sense of the word restrains him from and which latitude and freedom cannot but gratifie him in especially having felt the pulse of this age distemper'd and bearing high with feavers and new diseases of refractoriness to Catholick Doctrine and wholsome words and indeed with great inclinations and longings for feculent glossings upon the dictates of the holy Spirit and divine and celestial verities but now being master of the mint which is in his eye it cannot but be a gainfull office to him for the Scripture will be a rich Bullion to coin what doctrines he shall please out of it and then to imprint or stamp what gay and holy names he shall think good upon it Indeed we should be workmen that need not be ashamed yet though our pains is in the word which is the finest Gold we can mix much dross of our own fancy with it so that the ear-rings which we make out of it for the people and vessels which we frame for the Altar and Sanctuary service are too too oft of a mean and baser metall We trade in the most holy of Grains the sacred Text but it is so ill threshed out and winnowed by some of us that the wise buyer is loath to cheapen it so ill it will serve for holy uses or bread of life It is not long since though I hope we are now reconciled to a greater sobriety and primitive truth that the Word the Scripture and its pure streams were fathomed plummed searched every bed every corner of it every grain and sand of it to the least scruple weighed to ex authorize the Hierarchy and to shuffle into the Church an Apocryphal Ordination This Word that teacheth us exactly from whose hands we must receive our holy Orders without which we should not dare to minister in holy things yet hath this been shamefully wrested to decry all solemn Designment of persons to holy offices and to level the Function with the very loom These brave and gallant attempts have been made upon our Profession not by filings or washings of some scattered pieces or medals of holy Scripture but by melting down the whole Plate the sacred Text every dram of it This Word that allows no protection no patents for committing any evil no though good may come of it yet have some culd examples out of it and so have upon occasion limned them out as handsome beautiful pieces not onely to look upon but for imitation as of Phinees Samson Ehud and Elias and seeing these drawn with colours laid in oyl in the Scripture that preserves them yet fresh some will not know but that they may copy them out but sure we must not speak wickedly for God nor talk deceitfully for him for should now any be so furiously bold beyond any moderate zeal to tread the stage as they did and innocently might do by some heroical Acts which are not our measure they must be sure to have the same licence commission and anointings the same spiritual dress and attire even Elias his mantle too which they can never for all their pretensions and illuminations wear or gird about them This is the Word so strict in precepts so severe in menaces against disobedience to them whom God hath set over us this holy Canon of Scripture this sacred Forest in which from the tallest Cedar to the lowest shrub is nothing but shade and protection for Princes and Governours to preserve their Crowns and dignities from winds and storms the rude violence of subjects nothing but sap and oyl to anoint their persons and to sacre them yet have some malicious wits feld timber from it unbark'd hew'd hackt and exposed it to sale for fuel to kindle seditions to put kingdoms into combustions to frame new Common wealths to erect Judgement-seats for arraignment Bars for Princes to plead at nay to build scaffolds and stages and then to dye them with Royal bloud This is the Word wherein as in a glass we may see our own deformities and we that hold out this glass to the people should not make it so dim with our breathing upon it we should so set it before them that is so impartially expound the Word that men may well see and view their many imperfections frailties and infirmities by which they have contracted paleness and wanness much guilt and sin whereas some of us do so cunningly hold it that they can spie in themselves nothing but beauty comeliness and excellent features that they are the children of Grace when had this glass been with less art and more innocency placed before them not upon a hollow vaulted and inclining wall bending to parties factions and adherencies they might have seen many spots and blemishes in their lives which they daily sport in and converse with as new and fresh guests yea and some wrinckles and furrows too Customary aged sins which have long lodged and

housed in them this artificial and dexterous representing to men their condition and state indeed soothing and flattering them with the gay title of Saints and godly parties whil'st they see their faces in a crackt glass by the divided word or in the whole glass exposed to them by some false light in which they shew them unheard of marks and characters of grace in them yet seals to them of their election which if the word were but truly and without deceit applyed to them would perhaps make them soon renounce and break in pieces such counterfeit seals of adoption and by all Christian endeavour and a holy care even to repent of those graces and call for more true and holy to wash them out And this is so dangerous besides a deceitfull handling of the word i even to their souls to whom they present this kindness of Saintship so unwarrantably as they do that by this means they keep them perpetually warm with conceits of I know not what purity that they seldom but content themselves with that which they are assured from their Preachers gives them a title to eternal life and blessedness Thus these Drainers of holy Writ for they quote it much by opening such wide sluces to some doctrines have dryed up the streams that is made as it were useless the precepts that should feed a holy life to the impoverishing of the Christian Common-wealth and making us bankrupts of graces a deceit and cozenage so prejudicial to our holy Commerce that we cannot but look upon them as great betrayers of the profit treasure and wealth of good souls and will one day answer for bringing into this Mart such wares as cannot but be forfeited as no way vendible to sober and well-minded Christians But it is less to be wondred at that men content themselves with so few graces and good works to go to heaven with even without purifying their lives and conversations when by some of our Scripture-drivers they are assured of eternal life and sonship upon another account which no vitiousness or licentiousness can reverse no good life can further nor ill led life can cancel and so without any further pursuit of true pietie and holiness indeed make a stand there never seeing the errour they are soothed into which is perhaps embracing filthy lusts as spiritual pride and schism for graces and going away in triumph with these never looking back to repentance humilitie or godly sorrow which we may well suppose was never taught them for they were ingaged in those sins under the specious Titles of Vertues and Godliness are miserably in the way to destruction which these preachers have paved for them with wrested and abused Scripture This Word is precise in all rules of holiness and austerities of life mortification self denyall taking up the Cross yet have some trimmers up of more generous Doctrine smoothed and kembed these Texts to the great satisfaction of the looser joviall and more sanguine Christian either by lessning the weight of these Injunctions or urging something in favour of them who have altogether dispensed with themselves for such severities if not by scoffs taunts and censure of chastisers of the body as of morose unsociable sowr tempers But for taking up the Cross I marvel not that that Text feels not much the hammer of our Commenting we are unwilling to preach what people are averse to hear perhaps our selves not well resolved to practise and truly some have got so much I think by wise avoiding of suffering that I should wonder ever to see them in the blessed list of Confessours Alas they are too tender Christians to endure scratches with thorns though Christ himself our Head bleeded with them and wore a Crown of them in his Inauguration to his bitter passion Indeed we cannot but conclude that such texts in their hands are the greatest sufferers which they torture make confess and extort from them what the holy Ghost never breathed upon wise politick Doctrines it may be and so having something of the Serpent but few feathers of the Dove in them He that would save his life shall lose it saith our Saviour It is astonishment then to hear them boldly aver that Martyrs were too easily won out of their lives and estates too soon parted with and lost all to see them make sallies from such texts for self preservation which is indeed most in their eye though Martyrdom may be in their tongue to hear them put in their cautions and advices lest we should unwisely strip our selves of the enjoyments of this life and give our back to the plowers Indeed lest they themselves should not lay in provision to live in all times in all changes and variations lest they should be to seek how to clear Texts from difficulties that may betray them some time or other to proverty or want lest they should fail of Arguments to swallow once more all Oaths or to demur upon alteration of religious worship nay without any niceness to step into other mens livelyhoods proprieties and estates Thus these Rovers at Sea and pirates in the trade of holy Scripture exercise their violence and robberies upon the sacred Text sinking with their force lesser vessels wavering weak unstable Christians which are a prey to them and they easily boarded and indeed seldom themselves strike sail to primitive and unerring verity I may soon tire you with the sorting out of such doctrines as are exposed to sale upon pretence that they are choice Balsams Sovereign Restoratives distilled waters of the Spirit costly spikenard perfumes rich embroideries fine wooll of the holy Lamb such names have they fixed to desperate errours they have vended varnisht disguised with the Word it self clapt holy Scripture upon them to put them off with and to drill the buyer Such are Doctrines that wrong God and injure him in his Attributes his power justice and mercy such as withdraw us from the love of God our hearts and affections from him such as too much favour profanation abhorrencies of persons that are not of our adhevencies perjuries Sacriledge schism disobedience irreverence slighting of Gods holy Service and Worship These can never come out of that Mint out of that store-house of holy Writ onely such as exhort us to doing of justice shewing mercy walking humbly to study to be quiet to do our own business to work out our salvation with fear and trembling to purge us from wordly lusts that we may be vessels unto honour meet for the Masters use prepared unto every good work These are Merchandizes not shut up in tills or boxes not upon high shelves that we need stretch our arms wrench our sinews our invention to reach them but they lie scattered open spread in every corner in the lowest desk of holy Writ I shall take notice but of one thing more in this Text Our Apostle doth not conceal but confess the number of these Corrupters and Deceivers Many that corrupt And truly the world is much