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	lord_n	soul_n	7,621	5	5.0274	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79440	Sighs for Sion: or, Faith and love constraning some grievings in her sorrow, and groanings for her deliverance: by a few of her weak and unworthy children. Humbly, and in all faithfulness, presented to those assemblies of hers, where grace hath set them as watchmen; and unto any others, that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. In way of essay, to blow the trumpet in Sion, and sound an alarm in Gods holy mountain, to the awakening them that are at ease, and pressing and encouraging all the upright in heart, to be in pain with her, in this day of her sore travel, and great expectation.	Cheare, Abraham, d. 1668.	1656 (1656)	Wing C3761; Thomason E884_8; ESTC R207314	12,644	21

greatly to encourage and excite the faithfulness of any though the weakest and most despised of the Lords holy ones who are in a right spirit engag'd for and together with Christ in their constant waitings and fervent expectations of this manifestation of his Glory they hereby witnessing that they have the mind of Christ and having one mind give their power and strength to the Lamb 1 Cor. 2.16 Rev. 17.13 14. Psa 72.15 137.6 Heb. 13.3 1 Cor. 12.27 as CALLED and CHOSEN and FAITHFUL when others have one minde to give theirs to the Beast making prayers also for him continually and preferring him and his interest before their chief joy through the spirit of faith and love always reckoning themselves as being in the body and members in particular A taste of this worthy Spirit Brethren beloved in the Lord we humbly trust our God is giving us who address our selves to you with some fervent desires that we may be made more to partake of it And indeed such is our love to your Souls and delight through grace in this work before us that we cannot but commend it to you with more then an ordinary importunity beseeching you and every one of you from the greatest to the least notwithstanding divers differences amongst you touching the time way and manner of Gods effecting those great things that by the will and in the way of the Lord you be found reaching after the same Spirit and wrestling much together and apart for it And Oh! that it may be the pleasure of the Lord herein 2 Cor. 9 2. that your zeal may provoke many and you may be found to have stood in this hour of Temptation Rev. 14.1 and this BACK-SLIDING TIME faithful with the Lamb on the Mount Sion Psa 84.5 6 7. having not onely His Fathers Name written on your Foreheads but his work graven upon your hearts and all those blessed Characters disposing you thereunto shining in all your conversations which will make you covet that the Lord make his Work appear to you as his servants though he reserve the revelation of his glory unto your Children Psa 90.16 For what greater joy or Crown of rejoycing can we have at the appearing of our Lord then that we with you and yee with us be presented faultless before his Throne whereunto we also labour Jud. 24. Col. 1.28 and desire to strive mightily according to his working In which work and to which end we pray you bear with us while we follow this Exhortation a little further in a few words Is not the exercise of such a PUBLIKE SPIRIT for the whole Work of the Lord most desirable if we consider farther not onely its sweet likeness unto and fellowship with the heart of Christ but withall Isa 66.10 Zeph. 3.18 that very great Blessing that hath been promised and all ages they have found to their particular souls who have been given up to mind most naturally and follow most fully that designe of God that had its present tendency in that very age to promote Sion the Lord is not unrighteous to forget such work and labour of love Heb. 6.10 that is shewed towards his name How hath that word been made good to them that pray for her Peace Psa 122.6 They shall PROSPER that love thee And see we pray you dear Brethren how God hath bid his choice remnant to consider and reckon from that very day wherein they set their hearts and hands about the Work of Sion from this day will I bless you Hag. 2.18 19. what choice Testimonies of the great love of God to himself did Daniel finde at several times He is said to be a man greatly beloved or a man of desires Dan. 9.23 10.11 19. when he was wrestling for the NAME and Work of God singly not minding a word of his own interest that we reade of farther then it was wrapt up in the Lords besides the great secrets that were opened to him of the deep designes of God for a great while to come What a desirable foresight had David given him by the Spirit 1 Chro. 28.12 19. c. in all the patern of the house of the Lord and large furnishments thereunto yea what provision to his astonishment did God make for building him an house 2 Sam. 7. beg and establishing his Kingdom when in the time of his rest he was taking care of that house of Gods glory 1 Chro. 6.33 because of which all the people of the earth might know his name What a constant observation was Nehemiah enabled to take of the hand of God for good upon him Neh. 5.19 6.9 13.14 22 31. Neh. 2.8 18. and what boldness and clearness of access and appeal to the Lord was he still furnished withall whiles he was in the fear of God Chap. 5.9 15. about the work of Sion Was not Ezra's experience much of the eye and hand of the Lord accompanying him Ezra 5.5 7.6 9.8 8.18 22 31. in all that great work he did for the Lord his God Moreover it deserves our serious observation being written for generations to come Psa 102.17 18. how much the Lord is delighted in the faithful fervent prayers of those who have sought him in behalf of the People called by his name in that he hath carefully preserved the memorial of them causing them to be expresly recorded in his book as appears in the first of Nehemiah and the ninth of Daniel all which with many others that might be named are ensamples unto us that we by their patern might be stirred up to serve our generation Act. 13.36 with faithful spirits by the will of God To which also we might adde the remembrance of the Curse on them that hate Sion yea Psa 129.5 the apparent withering and blasting that hath been and is on them that in following their private interests neglect her and defer her work under this pretence The time is not yet come Hag. 1.2 to 11. the time that the Lords house should be built whilest in the mean time they prefer their relations possessions and other worldly accommodations before this dear interest of Jesus Christ for which that Judgement in a spiritual sense is come upon some and may justly be feared as coming on others Hag. 1.10 11. The heavens over them are stayed from dew c. Yea and hath not God punished this neglect in many with such a decrease of their spiritual moisture as that word is made good in them Psal 137.6 Their tongues even cleave to the roofs of their mouthes whilest others faithful in improving their received measure of a Spirit of Faith and Prayer are abundantly encreased therein Oh! what dreadful Woes are pronounced to them that finde their pleasures in such a season but regard not the work of the Lord Isa 5.11 12. 22.12 13 14. Amos 6.1 to 6. Isa 32.9 11.

57.1 4. nor consider the operation of his hands that are at ease in Sion but are not grieved for the afflictions of Joseph Careless daughters that lay not to heart the perishing of the righteous and consider not the taking away of the merciful men with whom the Lord will plead as with them that sport themselves against him the desire of such slothful ones will kill them Prov. 21.25 and their prosperity destroy them Prov. 1.32 And now Brethren is it not high time that we cry aloud Isa 58.1 Joel 2.1 15. and spare not lift up our voice like a Trumpet when it is too too evident that in the day of a little ease wherein for a little space grace hath been given us from the Lord our God even a little reviving in our bondage to set up the house of our God Ezra 9.8 9. and to repair the desolations thereof men are sleeping lying down loving to slumber in every corner saying It is not nigh let us build houses c. And is not Pride Ezek. 16.49 and fulness of bread companions to this abundant idleness Prov. 18.9 through which the building decayeth Oh that at length for the Lords sake we might be provoked to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord and that knowing the time Rom. 12.11 13.11 that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now ours and Sions Salvation is neerer then when we believed For the Quickning of our hearts to this work and the heighthning of our expectations therein hath not the Lord given us among many other this remarkable signe of the times even a mighty spirit of faith and prayer through some choice discoveries of grace raised up in his people by the exercise of which in the management of SIONS CONTROVERSIE great and glorious WONDERS have been wrought in these Nations by unlikely meanes in answer to the prayers of the Saints as hath been openly confest by the instruments imployed which have caused themselves and others beholders to stand amazed thereat and although many who once seemed to be pillars in this Cause have soon forgat these great works and have turned back fom following fully after God in this way yet there is a REMNANT a generation that remain upon their WATCH-TOWER with whom the hand of the Lord rests wonderfully upholding their faith and hope for Sion notwithstanding all discouragements in their uncessant prayers for her Hath God said to his at any time Seek ye me in vain Isa 45.19 hath not God by evident answers of prayers in these dayes sealed it in a good measure to his people that the time to favour her yea the set-time is come for he hath regarded the prayer of the poor destitute and hath not despised their prayer and is not this written for our sakes see Psa 102.17 18. God who beautifieth his mercies to his people by giving them in their due season having in these latter dayes given forth this glorious blessing of a Spirit of grace and supplication so abundantly and continuing the same hath he not some great work to be further carried on thereby Oh! that we could present unto you in a lively way what our souls have begun to taste of those first ripe fruits of that arising and growing Spirit that grace hath in a measure visited some Saints withall that have joyntly and severally desired to be found faithful for the Lord they have to our abundant refreshing witnessed that their labour is not in vain in the Lord nay in keeping such Commandments there is great reward whilst they have felt though as yet it be but a little of Sions pangs upon their hearts they have been strongly carried up into the Spirit of that day and their souls were made as the Chariots of Aminadab Cant. 6.12 which declareth clearly to us that were we but put into perfect travel in our Spirits Isa 66.8 did we take Pleasure indeed in her stones and favour the dust thereof it would turn to us for a further Testimony that the time of God's arising to shew mercy to Sion Psa 102.13 14. the time to favour her yea the set time were come But alas for us we have not onely sought our ease when pain should have been upon us but as foolish Children Hos 13.13 have stayed long in the place of the breaking forth of Children and by the iniquities that we have contracted since we were named Sions Children Jer. 5.25 we have kept back good things from her what remaineth now but that we lay her state so much the more deeply to heart as we have drawn grief upon her and added to her deformity being earnest in a SPIRIT of faith and prayer NIGHT AND DAY in her behalf as becometh Children nursed at her side sutably affected and acted with and for her not expecting our own deliverance Esth 4.13 14. Heb. 11.40 any other way then in hers knowing that we without her cannot be made perfect And that we may hold on our way without fainting not be in our mournings as men without hope Luke 18.1 would it not prove of great advantage to the raising and keeping up our Faith to be much exercised and delighted in the prospect that is to be had through the promises into her ready to be revealed glory However her visage is now blacker then a cole Lam. 4.8 Isa 24.16 59.9 11 c. she is not known in the streets treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously with her a disappointment hath be faln many of her hopeful expectations because her transgressions are many reproach hath befallen her at the hands of Professors and the enemies that know not the Lord Blaspheme The light and Spirit of the Lord is belyed and abused by vain men unsound in the faith disobedient to and despisers of the Precious Ordinances of Jesus Christ through which also loss of Children hath here and there betided her Assemblies Yet hath JEHOVAH spoken it and his faithfulness is engaged in an Everlasting Covenant that though she hath Been forsaken and hated that no man went through her yet he will make her an eternal Excellency a Joy of many generations the City of the Lord Isa 60.14 15. the Sion of the Holy one of Israel shall She be called Zech. 2.10 in nothing more glorious then in the perpetual presence of her KING and GOD with her Ezek. 37.27 28 29. Rev. 21.3 21 22 23. who shall Tabernacle with men and dwell with them they being his people and he himself shall be with them and be their God being in stead of a Temple Sun and Moon the glory of God and the Lamb alwayes lightning her the Lord being her everlasting light Isa 60.19.20 and her God her glory How amiable in the day of her deliverance shall Sion be through the bringing to her glory that ancient People the Family of Abraham Zech. 12.10 Gods friend when they shall see

SIGHS for SION OR FAITH and LOVE Constraining some grievings in her Sorrow and groanings for her Deliverance By a few of her weak and unworthy Children Humbly and in all faithfulness presented to those Assemblies of hers where Grace hath set them as Watchmen and unto any others that in every place call upon the Name of JESUS CHRIST our Lord both theirs and ours In way of ESSAY To blow the Trumpet in Sion and sound an Alarm in Gods holy Mountain To the awakening them that are at ease and pressing and encouraging all the upright in heart to be in pain with her in this day of her sore travel and great Expectation PSAL. 137.1 We wept when we remembred Sion ISA. 62.6 7. I have set Watchmen upon thy walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence and give him no rest till he establish till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth LAM 2.18 19. Their heart cryed unto the Lord O wall of the daughter of Sion let tears run down like a river night and day give thy self no rest let not the apple of thine eyes cease arise cry out in the night in the beginning of the watches pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord c. MIC 4.10 Be in pain and labour to bring forth O daughter of Sion like a woman in travel ISA. 66.8 As soon as Sion travelled she brought forth her Children LONDON Printed for Livewel Chapman at the Crown in Popes head alley 1656. To the several Congregrations respectively to which we stand especially related viz. In Plymouth Abingdon Totness Bovhey-Tracy and Dartmouth Dearly Beloved WE know and acknowledge our selves to be debtors yea we owe our own selves to the Lord and you for the exceeding grace that we though most unworthy have found in his sight counting us faithful and putting us into the Ministry of his Gospel and for that our service amongst you hath been and is in any measure accepted Under the sense of which engagement it is the least we can do to be ready to render an accompt of our selves from time to time unto you the which we the more chearfully now undertake as being under the perswasion of a Call of the Lord leading us forth thereunto and having good hopes through grace that our labour shall not be vain in him in and through whom we are Yours faithfully labouring though in much weakness for your Souls prosperity as those whose joy and rejoycing both here and in the day of Christ wait to be fulfilled therein Abraham Cheare Henry Forty John Pendarves Tho Glasse Robert Steede Sighs for Sion c. THE GREAT GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH who hath GRAVEN you O YE PRECIOUS SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF SION on the Palms of his Hands hath also greatly endeared you to our hearts insomuch as we may say with the Apostle Ye are in our hearts in the Lord to live and dye with you yea we trust our inward affection is more abundantly toward you then our visible expression in the ensuing lines whereof at present we finde no better Testimony wherewith to present you then that which is here tendred to your view Your candid acceptance of so poor a mite with a favourable construction and a due improvement of this Word in season to the Glory of God our Father and the comfort of you his dear Children will be that wherein our Desires and Ends will be answered and our Souls encouraged in the Work of God and your Work with resolution in the power of God to hold on therein passing by evil and good report yea and gladly to spend and be spent for Christs sake and for your sakes who are Christs But here we must begin with judging our selves and covering our faces with deserved shame that we who have stood forth so long to minister the Word among the Saints and to make mention of the Work of God and have yet had so little searchings of heart in the matter that is now before us have known and felt so little not onely of the power but even of the form of this blessed Work so as either to stir up and engage our own hearts or to provoke the Churches of the Saints unto their concernments of this nature But have rather eased and pleased our selves and others in discoursing of and prosecuting some other things though good in themselves and in their places yet such as wherein our private interest of Peace and Comfort is more sensibly wrapt up in the mean time falling short of at least not so self-denyingly reaching after the advancement of that Name Interest and Glory of God that should be upon our hearts to have made manifest in all the earth from the rising of the Sun and from the West Isa 59.19 And as we cannot but be sensible of the narrowness of our own spirits with grief and shame so also as that which is weighty on us we do observe That a self-seeking and self-pleasing Spirit hath taken great hold of and advantage on many Professors in these dayes witness their little naturally-caring for Sions state most seeking their own things and so few seeking the things of Jesus Christ and of their Brethren for edification And Oh! that there were not among you even among you 2 Chron. 28.10 who are the Churches of Christ cause of complaint in this respect These things we mention not to cast reproach upon you but with grieved hearts God knoweth And now that we might discharge and have the answer of a good conscience in following the Lord fully we have taken the opportunity of this Work that we trust himself hath been fixing on our Spirits after seeking to God and waiting upon his Majesty To beseech and provoke you and every one of you as you have any fellowship with Christ our Head by faith or in and with his body the Church of the first-born by love you would for his and his Sions sake hear and receive our exhortations considering with weighty Spirits what we say and the Lord give you understanding in all things The Cause then that we desire with trembling to plead Jer. 30.17 Brethren is Sions even hers whom men have called an out-cast saying This is Sion whom no man seeketh after and of whom that ancient Lamentation may in a great measure be taken up as verified in this our day Isa 51.18 There is none to guide her among all the Sons whom she hath brought forth neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the Sons that she hath brought up Lam. 1.2 among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her c. And her Professed friends many of them have dealt treacherously with her and are become her enemies Dear Souls our request on her behalf is that you would look upon Sion Isa 33.20 Psal 87.3 50.2 48.2 Isa 60.15 that City of

our Solemnities of whom glorious things are spoken and layed up in Promise for her even to the rendring her the Perfection of Beauty An eternal Excellency The joy of many generations And oh that your hearts may be so sutably affected with an holy sympathy in her state through that one Spirit that is in Promise for all her children that you may truly say as Souls whom faith and love have transported into her interest Psal 78.7 All my Springs are in thee But lest we be mistaken in your thoughts while we speak of her in that figurative term and to the end our apprehensions may be distinct and clear in our wrestlings together on her behalf we pray you to consider what we intend and minde in the expression Sion First SION considered in a more large sense Heb. 12.22 23 Joh. 10.16 2 Tim. 2.19 Joh. 17.20 21. Col. 1.29 Gal. 4.19 2 Tim. 2.10 takes in the whole Election of God Whose names are written in Heaven that whole Body for which Christ gave himself and whereof Christ is given to be Head not onely those who have believed but those also who shall believe for whom as Christ hath prayed That they all may be one as the Father is in him and he in the Father that they may be one in them that the world may believe that the Father hath sent him so ought we to strive mightily with God and them travelling in birth for them till Christ be formed in them all enduring also all things for their sakes that they also may obtain the Salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory But secondly by Sion Eph. 2.19 3.15 Gal. 6.16 Isa 34.8 Luke 18.7 8. Rev. 18.20 24 Psal 73.1 Rom. 10.12 Jer. 50.34 we here intend more especially and particularly Gods called and faithful people Jews and Gentiles fellow-Citizens in Christ even the whole Israel of God as considered or concerned in a controversie with Babylon stated in the Scriptures taking in as well those of that blessed family who are now in heaven for the avenging of whose blood we ought without fainting to cry day and night as the peculiar people of God upon the face of the whole earth even all that in every place call upon the name of the Lord out of a pure heart in whom the glory of God is more highly concerned then in all things else in the world not onely in his pleading thorowly their cause in all the controversies of Sion with her Adversaries but also in beautifying her with his glorious Presence and restoring her to her primitive Glory in respect of a pure GOSPEL-FAITH UNION and ORDER wherein being found as a blessed BRIDE prepared for the coming of the glorious BRIDEGROOM she may be counted worthy of all that glory that shall be brought unto her at the second appearing of Jesus Christ NOW DRAWING NIGH. This blessed People this SION Gods glorious Building and Workmanship in Christ the true seed of Abraham and Heires of the Promise both Jews and Gentiles Isa 49.14 15 16. however in the Issue they shall be a Name and Praise to him in all the Earth And although this great Work in and for them be still before him yet is it the wisdom and good pleasure of the Father in the depths of his Everlasting Counsel to let the manifestation of it in the world and his dispensations about it be very various and seemingly to carnal eyes unsutable to such intendments through the many deaths distresses and unlikelyhoods with which he cloatheth it in their sight the which he turneth nevertheless to the exceeding advantage of his Name all along Mic. 4.11 12. not onely by exercising thorowly the Patience Rev. 13.10 14.12 Obedience and Faithfulness of his Children in owning the truth of his Testimony and bearing their Testimony for him unto the death but withal by giving full occasion and opportunity for that MYSTERY OF GOD to be Finished who hath Testified and declared by the Spirit of Prophesie to the Churches and permitteth by an hand of Providence the rising and raging of That man of Sin that Bloody Mystery of Iniquity until it have answered and fulfilled whatsoever is held forth of it in all the various Scripture-Prophesies figures and representations both of its Civil and Ecclesiastical concernment The which as it hath gotten to its heighth both of Renown and Crueltie by the occasion of that exceeding great offence wherewith the cause of Christ hath been presented in its appearance to the World being a Stumbling-Stone to the Children of this worlds Wisdom and Glory So shall its ruine arise from that Jealousie of the Lord wherein he hath promised to plead the cause of his own and his peoples glory finding in and recompensing on that generation on whom the houre of his wrath shall fall all that righteous blood that hath been shed and all that unworthy and treacherous usage that SION hath met withall in the days of her poverty and distress The day of SIONS FULL DELIVERANCE the destruction of her enemies the setting up of CHRISTS GLORIOUS KINGDOM is very much upon his heart Isa 63.4 as a fruit of the sore Travel of his Soul Isa 53.11 12. and recompence of that unworthy usage that himself Isa 49.7 61.3 7. his cause and people have had upon the earth and for which sitting at the right-hand of God he is in continual expectation Heb. 10.13 as that which must be given him as a fruit of his intercession Psal 2.8 9. and to which he is preparing his way by terrible things in Righteousness Psal 65.5 8. Shaking both Heaven and Earth and making a Quick dispatch Luk. 18.7 8. ordering and ruling all things therein and making them subject to this his great and glorious work And indeed so much the more is this Design and Work declared to be upon his heart as the whole management of it will lie upon his own shoulders Isa 9.7 Psal 132.17 they being very few among men that will be found to have regard to it in the budding of it not onely through the blindness and enmity of those that are aliens from him but the very great sleep and slumber that will be found among them that pretend to him either through their want of faith Luk. 18.8 or their sensual engagements in this present evil world Chap. 17.26 c. So that notwithstanding that Salvation he works for them and his pleading their cause lays them under no small engagement to him when his cause comes to be pleaded the complaint is made by the Prophet Isa 59.16 And he saw that there was no man and wondred that there was no intercessor Therefore his arm brought Salvation unto him The which great defection even of Saints themselves from FOLLOWING THE LAMB in this special service together with the fixation of the work upon the heart of Christ notwithstanding this serveth highly now more then ever the day drawing neerer to commend and