Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	faith_n	gift_n	grace_n	6,936	5	5.6824	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34199	Urim and thummim, or, The clergies dignity and duty recommended in a visitation sermon preached at Lewes April 27, 1669 / by Malachi Conant ...	Connant, M. (Malachi), d. 1680.	1669 (1669)	Wing C5690; ESTC R43114	15,761	30

worst out that he speaks as well as never man spake and lives as ill as never man liv'd and therefore as a Right Reverend Father of our Church expresseth it It is so far from being serious piety Lord Bishop of Norwich that it is the worse sort of pageantry for men to preach Angelical Sermons and live Diabolical lives that it should be cast justly in any ones teeth Rom. 2.21 Thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy self that their mouthes should speak great swelling words and yet still walk after their own lusts and be like the Stoical Philosophers who could talk big of vertue till they came to practise it whom therefore Lucian derides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their works contradicting their words and their practice giving a lie to their profession How foolish ridiculous and disparaging must it needs be to make a long formal starch'd harangue about Religion and Vertue and declame Rhetorically against vice which they yet renounter in the whole course of their lives Which made the Comick say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He loathed such Sophisters and pretended Philosophers that were unwise for themselves Turpe est doctori c. 2. Consider the bad influence our example hath upon other men How can we expect that others should follow our doctrine when as we our selves forsake it as unpracticable or at least uneligible We see men rather apt to be lead by precedents than precepts and go like sheep Quo itur non quo cundum and especially to imitate their guides and Leaders Such persons therefore who are great talkers and little doers take the ready way to make more Atheists in the world than hath been hitherto made by the late licentious times which have corrupted Religion in the very foundations Will not men of loose principles be ready to look on Religion as a non-entity a cunning devised Fable of interested Priests which go about to perswade that to others which they believe not themselves These persons shine but in a wrong sense as if they understood the words of the Text so as a Romish Priest profanely applyed them who being to do Penance for some scandalous offence by going in Procession to the Church with a burning Taper in his hand scoffingly said sic luceat Lux vestra coram hominibus c. They shine but it is with the Devils light to Light men down to the Chambers of Death and make more Proselytes for his Kingdom He useth them indeed as some ill barbarous people do lights by the Sea-side which they hang up in dark stormy nights near rocks and quick-sands to make passengers cast away themselves upon their Coast that so they may make a prey of them What readier course could they take to open mens mouthes against Christianity and to say as that Indian did to one perswading him to turn Christian observing the Spaniards wicked lives What are Christians They are Gamesters Dicers wicked blasphemers backbiters quarrellers and concluded Christians could not be good and so we shall find it proportionably if we walk Antipodes to our doctrine and shew our selves such as Tertullian sharply inveighs against Quibus venter Deus est popina templum aqualiculus altare sacerdos Coquus Spiritus Sanctus nidor condimenta charismata especially there being more holyness expected of us then others and a spot in our Coat making more shew than in others We had need be clean who bear the vessels of the Lord especially in an hypocritical age Isaiah 52.11 wherein people are apt to espy motes in our eyes and look on all our faults through a magnifying and multiplying glass Which may serve for a 3d Consideration that we have so many enemies in the world to encounter what through the contradiction of sinners and scoffing Atheists on one hand and the weakness and peevishness of some at least pretended Saints on the other neither are we ignorant of Satans old devise of casting Ignominy and Contempt on Religion by disgracing and disparaging the publishers and professors of it Great reason have we therefore to walk circumspectly Ephes 5. not as fools but as wise and to take heed that we defile not our garments For we shall meet with but few Constantines in our days so tender of the Clergies honour as if he espyed them in a fault to cover them with his Imperial Robes but they will rather publish to the world all the evil they know by us and more than they know their own Inventions and misconstructions There are too many in the world that contemne our Calling envy our Dignities gape after our Revenues censure our most Innocent Actions and hate our very Persons Others separate from our Church as Impure and Anti-Christian abhor our Garments as Babylonish our Ceremonies as Popish and Superstitious our very Worship as Idolatrous look upon us as no better than Priests of Baal and Limbs of Anti-Christ Among these I cannot forget a leading high-flown separatist too well known in this place who not long since bespake the State in this Language Be wise now therefore O ye Kings be instructed O ye Judges of the earth Take away Parishes by Act of State away with all consecrated places for worship away with Patrones or Lay-founders away I say with all the appurtenances of a Parish Priest and again I profess quoth he were I a man in absolute Authority in a Nation I would make Scavengers of all the Parish Priests in England to clean the ways and to rake the Dunghills And this he confidently calls a voice from heaven when alass it is only such a noise as that of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proceeding out of it 's own belly and not knowing what Spirit he is of mistakes the strange fire in his own brain for a fire from heaven and minds me of the proud Gnosticks of old that arrogated to themselves so great a measure of knowledge and sanctity as to dictate to the world and obtrude their private sentiments on others as if they were Articles of faith and themselves guided by an infallible Spirit It is opinionativeness and spiritual pride of mens gifts and graces that puts men on separation and confining sanctity as the Donatists of old to their own party in one Corner of Africa and thus none must be Saints but those of their Calendar This makes them like sheep stealers take members out of other mens flocks and boast of things in other mens line made ready to their hand 2 Cor. 10.16 mistaking for conversion to God a bringing men over to their own forms and some petty inconsiderable matters in which the kingdom of God consisteth not These mind me of those in Prov. 30.12 a generation pure in their own eyes and yet not cleansed from their filthiness or of those in Esay 65.5 that say stand off come not nigh me for I am holier than thou These are a smoak in my nose a fire that burneth all the day and these