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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	eternal_a	life_n	soul_n	7,461	5	5.0564	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08579	A sermon preached at St. Bride's Church, Dublin, April 17. 1698. Upon occasion of a resolution taken in this city, of putting the laws in execution against vice and immoralities / by Pet. Browne.	Browne, Peter, ca. 1666-1735.	1698 (1698)	Wing B5137; ESTC R170843	15,624	46

sutable Punishments in this life But now the inward purity of our Souls is requir'd and nothing can make Men afraid of sinning in their Minds but a clear revelation of Hell and a full prospect of eternal damnation and therefore these are the only tertors of the Lord now In the first times of the Gospel indeed death was inflicted upon malicious obstinate Offenders by a supernatural power but this with all the other acts of God's extraordinary dispensations have ceased so that all such mighty impulses pretended now adays are only from the Devil The Gospel proposes no temporal Punishments for the sins of Men but such as follow the nature of the Sins themselves And therefore the severest Ecclesiastical Censures are the Exposing Men to shame and Cutting them off from the Body of the Church and so consigning them over unto the judgment of the Great Day But thô it be now utterly unlawful in us to punish Vice in others unless where we have Authority our selves or derive it from the Laws of the Land Yet thus much is very evident from this action of Phineas and those other instances of Zeal consequent to it that all Men may and ought to shew their Zeal for the glory of God and discouragment of Vice by all those means which are permitted by the Gospel And there are several ways of doing this As by shewing our dislike to it at all times and in all persons by reproving the sins of others whenever it is proper and seasonable and that we have any hopes our Reproofs will do good and lastly by doing all that in us lies to promote the Execution of those good and wholsom Laws which are Enacted against impudent Profaness and Impiety And that which makes this last way of shewing our Zeal so necessary now is because multitudes who go by the name of Christians have cast off all fear of any thing else but Temporal Laws all the Methods of the Church against such Scandalous Offenders have quite lost their force There was a time and O! that we might see it in our days when Men knew the strength of Ecclesiastical Censures when they were sensible that God was with his Church in all its Judiciary Proceedings ratifying all its just Sentences binding of them in Heaven and recording of them there to be produc'd at the great Day of Accounts But now they regard nothing but what they feel so that there is no way left of dealing with them but by those Human Laws which they dread more than Damnation and the Power of the Civil Magistrate which they fear more then that God who is a Consuming Fire II. The second thing I shall observe from these words is That the nature of a true Zeal consists in our Indignation at what is plainly against the Laws of God and evidently sinful That instance we have of a true Zeal here was against Adultery Fornication and the Idolatrous worship of Baal Pehor which as one observes from the signification of the name was an Idol purposely contrived to excite People to Lewdness and Impurity by the sight of it and therefore his Zeal was approved by God in these words while he was zealous for my sake among them This of being incens'd at the known and uncontested sins of Men is the being truly zealous for the sake of God and not when People are transported against things dubious and of no great moment when they lay out all their Zeal against Circumstances and things in their own nature lawful or indifferent There is more requir'd in order to a true Zeal than meer heat of our Blood and a great indignation of mind People may be thus far zealous in a bad as well as a good Cause For the Midianites were no doubt very zealous against the Israelites when they prostituted their Women of greatest Quality to destroy them So that being levell'd at things which are plainly against the Laws of God is the only distinguishing mark of a true Zeal And it is more or less true according to the evidence and plainess of those Precepts of God against which the sins are committed When the things against which we are zealous are dubious our Zeal if violent is blamable if the things are of no great moment or indifferent then our Zeal is trifling and frivolous if the things are in their own nature lawful then our Zeal is downright sinful Now Fornication and Adultery Cursing and Swearing Blasphemy and Profaness Drunkenness and Gluttony Unjust Gain and Oppression Rebellion and Disobedience to Laws and Government Breaking of Amity among Christians and Dissolving of Unity in the Worship of GOD These and such-like are openly and palpably against the express Commands of GOD and therefore these are the things against which our Zeal shou'd be levell'd For otherwise we have just cause to suspect that it proceeds from Natural Temper or Humor or Interest or Ignorance and Mistake or from the Delusions of the Devil and our own Imaginations But in things of that gross nature our Zeal is always Safe and Commendable And therefore here by the way I ought not to omit the Just Commendation of the late Zeal of our Dissenting Brethren in their hearty Endeavours and liberal Contributions for carrying on this Design of putting the Laws in Execution against such of those Vices as are made liable to Temporal Punishments Had they begun this Work no one could have said That it was the Factious Design of a Party but a True and Regular Zeal because the Instances are such as are plainly and directly against the Laws of GOD as well as those of the Land and not such as are Dubious and Indifferent in their own nature No we commend them for their hearty Concurrence with us and we hope not to be out-done by them in this good Work But since all this visible Piety and Zeal against Irreligion and Profaness hath first appear'd among the Members of the Establish'd Church it must be Acknowledged that our Constitution and Principles are better Calculated for the Encouragement of all Vertue and Goodness and the Suppression of Vice among them and nothing can possibly be a greater Inducement to all well-disposed People to joyn in its Communion than to see what a Natural Tendency it hath to make People truly Good and Vertuous We must both of us with Sorrow of Heart confess That our Separate Communions have been the immediate Natural Cause of all that Torrent of Profaness and Irreligion Immorality and Lewdness which during the two late Reigns came in upon these Lands with an Irresistable violence which hath so broke the Sinews of all Ecclesiastical Discipline and depriv'd the Church of that Power Originally inherent in it by a Divine Right deriv'd from Christ himself that we are both of us now forc'd to fly to Temporal Laws for the Suppression of such Sinners who having no fear of GOD before their Eyes must necessarily despise the Church And 't is a Melancholly Consideration that

A SERMON Preached at St. Bride's Church Dublin April 17. 1698. Upon Occasion of a RESOLUTION Taken in This City Of Putting The Laws in Execution AGAINST Vice and Immoralities By PET. BROWNE B D. Sen. Fellow of Trin. Col. DUBLIN Dublin Printed by Joseph Ray and are to be Sold at his Shop in Skinner-Row MDCXCVIII The Reader is desired to take Notice That the Third Head was Omitted in the Speaking and part of the Second for Brevity And that the Sentences under the Second Head in an Italick Character are Mr. Boyse ' s in his Sermon Dedicated to the SOCIETIES FOR REFORMATION NUMBERS XXV 11. Phinehas the Son of Eleazer the Son of Aaron the Priest hath turned my Wrath away from the Children of Israel while he was Zealous for my sake among them that I Consumed not the Children of Israel in my Jealousie WHen the Israelites came to their last Station in order to pass over Jordan the Neighbouring Countries were terrified with their Numbers and therefore the King of Moab combin'd with the Midianites against them And as was very usual with most Heathen Princes upon the like Occasions he sends for Balaam a Man famous for Divinations to consult about the Event and Encourage his People with a Promise and Assurance of Success But by the Order and Inspiration of GOD he prophesies quite the contrary and fore-tells the Destruction of Moab and the Neighbouring Countries by the Israelites for which he was sent home with Disgrace But thô he could not speak any thing to the King but what GOD had put in his Mouth yet his Affection for the Midianites who were probably his Country-men because we read he return'd home and afterwards was Kill'd among them made him give their Enemies the only Advice which cou'd possibly injure the Children of Israel and that was To send many of their Women into the Camp which by their Beauty and Allurements might entice the Israelites first to Unlawful Marriages and Whoredom and then to prophane the Name and Worship of GOD by their Idolatry And accordingly the Wile took and as we read in the first Verse of this Chapter The Men began to commit Whoredom with the Daughters of Moab Upon this GOD sent a Plague among them and Moses by his Command gave positive Orders throughout the Camp to all the Governours and Leaders that they shou'd put to death all those who were guilty of these Crimes But as appears from the manner of the Relation the Number and Quality of those who fell in League with the Heathen Women was so great that Execution was delay'd so that they out-brav'd the Laws and struck a Terror into all those who were well affected and had refrain'd from those lewd Practices Insomuch that Zimri a Person of Quality among them in open Contempt of the Laws and Magistrates brought a Midianitish Woman along with him in the sight of all the Congregation Phinehas seeing this follows them into the Tent and kills them both in the very Act of Fornication Then the Plague was stay'd and this Action of Phinehas said to be the Cause of it For Phinehas the Son c. Being at this Time to discourse concerning those Persons who have bravely set themselves to give Vice and Immoralities an open profess'd Opposition in this City and to stem that current of Wickedness which threatned to over-whelm us I have made choice of these words that I might propose to you this Excellent Pattern of Zeal that you might see how this was commendable in him and how far it is imitable by you And that I might lay before you those several things which in this Text are suggested as well for your Direction and more Prudent Management as for your Encouragement in that Worthy Design of yours which if rightly manag'd must be very pleasing and acceptable to GOD and all good Christians And therefore I. The first thing observable from these words is That Persons even in a Private Capacity may and ought to shew their Zeal for GOD against open and bare-fac'd Impiety For tho' Phinehas was the High-Priests Son yet we read of no Place nor Power that he had till he was afterwards employ'd as Commander against the Midianites So that this Action was not proper either to his Place or Quality but as he was an Israelite and he had the Execution of the Laws in his Power no otherwise than by vertue of that General Command at the 5th Verse which was common to others as well as him And accordingly thô Moses mention only Phinehas as being the first that led the way and Zimri as being a Person of the greatest Quality of those that were slain yet Josephus relating this Passage says That a great number of other young Men being Animated by this couragious Action took heart and rose up in open Opposition to the Transgressors and Executed the Sentence of Moses upon them all But tho' this Command was General yet there was this Peculiar in that Action of Phinehas that the Command being directed to the Judges and Leaders to destroy every one their Men i. e. to punish those under their Jurisdiction Zimri being Head of a chief House among them and therefore not so immediately under the Power of others thought to carry it with a high Hand to practice his Wickedness openly himself and by that means to encourage it in others But Phineas being acted with a Zeal for GOD and the Command of Moses undertook the Exploit and Executed that Sentence upon him which he neglected to Execute upon others Now this gave occasion to the Sect of the Zealots among the Jews whose Power was for a long time very sacred among them and they had a right to execute the Sentence of the Law upon any Person they apprehended in the very act of Blaspheming or Prophaning the Temple c. which was all built upon a tradition they held from Moses grounded as they conjectur'd upon this action of Phineas And we have some instances in Scripture of particular persons who upon extraordinary occasions have by a Zeal inflam'd and a mighty Impuls upon their Spirits become the Executioners of God's immediate Vengeance upon Bold and Scandalous Sinners As particularly that of Elias destroying all the Prophets of Baal and Matathias slaying the Jew that offered Incense upon a Heathen Altar And that action of our Saviours twice repeated of driving the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple thô he did it by the priviledge of his Kingly Power yet he was suppos'd by the Jews to do it upon this principle of Zealotism For otherwise they had a fair Accusation against him for a Riotous and Illegal Assault and being but a private Person taking upon him the Office of a Magistrate Now this fiery temper of the 〈◊〉 lots was very commendable and sometimes necessary under the Law yet it is not practicable in that degree under the tender and merciful Spirit of the Gospel For then their Obedience was external and therefore required