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	soul_n	work_n	7,291	5	5.7496	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59548	The duty and happiness of doing good two sermons : the former, preached at the Yorkshire feast, in Bow-Church, Feb. 17, 1679 : the other, before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, at the Spittle, Apr. 14, 1680 / by John Sharpe ...	Sharp, John, 1645-1714.	1680 (1680)	Wing S2976; ESTC R6463	37,896	84

there goes more to a mans being truly grateful than the entertaining the person that obliged him with fair speeches and professions of his Obligations And on the other side to think of requiting God in a proper sence by returning real kindnesses to him for those he hath done to us is equally absurd for all the services we can pay to him cannot add any thing to his infinite Blessedness How then must we express our thankfulness for the wealth that he hath bestowed upon us why he himself hath prescribed the way to us He hath devolved his right to our kindness upon our Brethren He hath deputed them to receive the real testimonies of our gratitude to him and whatsoever obligations we put upon them he takes them as an expression of our Love and thankfulness to him This our Saviour himself hath told us in express words in the 25 of S. Matt. In as much saith he as ye have done it i. e. done acts of kindness and charity to one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me And the charitable contributions of the Hebrew Christians to their indigent brethren is by S. Paul styled a work and labour of love shewed to God himself Heb. 6. If therefore Rich men would not be unkind and ingrateful to him that gave them all they have there is a necessity they should do good c. Secondly The Practice of this must likewise be charged upon them in point of Iustice as well as Gratitude it is a piece of dishonesty not to do good with the wealth that God hath given us for it is a falsifying our trust it is an embezling our Masters goods and putting them to quite other uses than those he gave us them for We are not to think that God ever made a man rich for his own sake alone for the serving his own turns and the satisfaction of his own private desires without respect to the community No at the best we are but the Stewards of Gods blessings A stock of Talents he hath committed to all of us to some in greater and to others in smaller proportions and out of this stock he hath given us leave to make provision for the necessities and conveniencies of our selves and our families but we must not think all our own that accrues to us so that it is at our liberty whether we will hoard it up or spend it profusely No we must have regard to the rest of our Masters servants After we have served our own needs we must dispense the surplusage among the family of God otherwise we are false and wicked Stewards we abuse and misemploy our Masters Talents and a severe account we shall one day render for so doing Thirdly Mens Religion and Christianity are also deeply concerned in this point Works of Charity are so essential to all Religion and more especially to that which we call Christian that without them it is but an empty name in whosoever professes it Let men pretend what they will let them be never so Orthodox in their belief or regular in their conversation or strict in the performance of those duties that relate to the worship of God yet if they be hard hearted and uncharitable if God hath given them wealth and they have not hearts to do good with it they have no true piety towards God They may have a name to live but they are really dead An unmerciful Christian or a Religious covetous man are terms that imply a contradiction For the satisfying you of this I shall but need to put these following questions Can that man be accounted Religious that neither loves God nor his neighbour sure he cannot for these two things are the whole of Religion as the Holy Scripture often assures us but now the Covetous man neither doth the one nor the other His neighbors he doth not love that is certain for if he did they would find some fruits of it unless this be to be accounted love to give them good words to say to a brother or a sister that is naked and destitute of daily food depart in peace be ye warmed and filled when notwithstanding they give them not those things that be needful for the body But this kind of love S. Iames hath long ago declared not to be worth any thing And as for the love of God another Apostle hath put it out of doubt that the uncharitable man hath no such thing in him Whoso saith S. Iohn hath this worlds good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen Can he be thought a Religious man or a true Christian that wants the two main qualifications that go to the making up a Disciple of Christ that is to say Faith and Repentance yet this doth he that is rich in this world but is not rich in good works Good works are the very soul of Faith and it is no more alive without them than the Body is without the Spirit as S. Iames has expresly told us If we mean that our Faith should avail us any thing it must work or be made perfect by Charity saith S. Paul for though a man have all faith so that he could remove mountains i. e. though he be so heartily perswaded of the truth of Christs Religion as in the strength of his belief to be able to work miracles as was usual in the first times of Christianity yet if he have not charity his Faith is nothing If it be said that the charity that S. Paul makes so necessary to effectual Faith is not giving alms but quite another thing for according to him a man may give all his goods to feed the poor and yet want the Charity that he speaks of I answer it is true a man may give alms and very largely and yet want that Charity that S. Paul here so much recommends but then on the other side none can have that Charity that he speaks of but they will certainly express it in alms and bounty as they have ability and opportunity so that for all this suggestion Alms and bounty are absolutely necessary to the efficacy of Faith if there be opportunity of doing them The plain account of this matter is this S. Paul speaks of Charity with respect to its inward principle in the heart which consists in an universal kindness and good will to the whole Creation of God and we speak of it with respect to the outward fruits of it in the life and conversation which are all sorts of good works especially works of mercy and bounty but both these come to the same thing as to our purpose for the one always follows the other whereever there is charity in the heart it must of necessity shew it self in these kind of actions

distribute and willing to communicate let me at this time charge all of you that are rich in this world as you would not be unthankful to your great Benefactor nor unjust to your neighbours as you have any piety towards God or any care of your own souls that you put it in practice And two instances of this great duty the present occasion and the exigence of things doth oblige me more particularly to recommend to you The first is the business of the Hospitals the encouraging and promoting that Charity which the piety of our Ancestors begun and whose examples their Successors have hitherto worthily followed and of which we see excellent effects at this day for this we need no better proof than the Report given in of the great number of poor Children and other poor people maintained in the several Hospitals under the pious care of the Lord Mayor Commonalty and Citizens of London the year last past For these so great instances of Charity what have we to do but with all Gratitude to commemorate those noble and publick spirits that first began them and with all devotion to put up our prayers to God for all those now alive that have been promoters and encouragers of such good works and lastly with all chearfulness and diligence to follow these Patterns by liberally contributing to their Maintenance and advancement These are the Publick Banks and Treasuries in which we may safely lodge that money which we lend out to God and may from him expect the Interest O what comfort will it be to us when we come to dye to be able to say to our selves That portion of goods that God hath in his Providence dispensed to me I have neither kept unprofitably in a Napkin nor squander'd it away upon my lusts but part of it I have put out towards the restoring my miserable Brethren to the right use of their reason and understanding part of it to the amending mens manners and from idle and dissolute persons redeeming them to virtue and sobriety and making them someway profitable to the Publick part of it for the healing the sick and curing the wounded and relieving the miserable and necessitous and lastly another part of it towards the Educating poor helpless Children in useful arts for their bodies and in the Principles of True Religion for their Souls that so both in their Bodies and Spirits they may be in a capacity to Glorifie God and to serve their Countrey These are all great things and in which way soever of them we lay out our selves we serve excellent ends of Charity But there is another point of useful publick Charity which though the occasion of this meeting hath nothing to do with it yet the present necessity of the thing doth oblige me seriously to recommend to you There are few I believe in this City either ignorant or insensible of the extreme numerousness of Beggars in our Streets and unless care be taken their number is likely to increase for this seems to be a growing evil I dare not lay the fault of this upon the defectiveness of our Laws nor dare I say that the provisions made for the poor are incompetent or disproportionable to the number of them for perhaps the usual publick Taxes and private Free-will offerings discretely managed would go a great way towards the curing this evil supposing the richer Parishes to contribute to the maintaining the poorer But here is the misery we do not sufficiently distinguish between our poor nor take care to make provisions for them according to their respective necessities There are some that by reason either of old age or evil accidents are perfectly unable to earn a livelihood for themselves or to be any way useful to the publick except by their Prayers and their good examples and to see such go a begging is a shame to our Christianity and a reproach to our Government There are others that are fit to labour and might prove useful members of the Commonwealth many ways if they were rightly managed now the True Charity to these is not to relieve them to the encouragement of their idleness but to employ them to put them into such a way that they may both maintain themselves and help towards the maintaining of others and if they refuse this let them suffer for their folly for there is no reason that those should eat that will not work if they be able A necessity therefore there is if ever this scandalous publick nusance of common begging be redressed that these four things be taken care of 1. That those that cannot work be maintained without begging 2. That those that can work and are willing have such publick provisions made that they may be employed in one way or other according as they are capable and every one receive fruits of his labour proportionable to his industry 3. That those that can work and will not be prosecuted according to the Laws as Rogues and Vagrants and pests of the Kingdom And lastly after such publick provisions are made for the maintaining both sorts of Poor that are objects of Charity that is the helpless and those that endeavour to help themselves that all persons be exhorted and directed to put their private Charity in the right Channel wholly withdrawing it from the lazy and the lusty Beggars lest they be thereby encouraged in their infamous course of life and giving it to those who by publick order shall be recommended to them These things I hope I may without offence recommend to the Wisdom and Care of the Government of this Honourable City since there are both Heads enough to contrive the particular ways of curing these evils and Hands enough that will be open to contribute what is needful to so useful a work Certain it is the thing is practicable since it hath been and is practised in some Towns of this Nation and in several beyond the Seas And that it is needful there is none that hath any true sense of Charity which consists as much in taking care to prevent the miseries and necessities of mankind as in relieving them there is none that hath any regard to the Reputation of our Religion or the Honour and good Government of this City or Kingdom but must needs acknowledge It is one of the great Glories of this City that as they have been always faithful and prudent in the management of those Publick Charities that they have been entrusted with so have they been very ready to encrease and to add to them And God without doubt hath blessed them the more for this very thing as indeed the best atonement that any people can make for the many sins that the place is guilty of is the Sacrifice of Alms and Charity And I hope that which condemned Sodom to wit that there were not ten righteous men found in it that is men that were of a Publick spirit that were truly Liberal and Bountiful and Charitable for that is an usual