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	word_n	work_n	9,170	5	5.6799	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64289	A sermon preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Canice Kilkenny, Feb. 27. 1669. By Joseph Teate, dean of St. Can. Kilkenny	Teate, Joseph.	1670 (1670)	Wing T620; ESTC R219172	20,777	55

Solomons in Peace and Plenty They thought that the Roman Eagles would be gathered as Chickens under his Wings and that his Gleanings would be better then the Vintage of all the Kingdomes upon Earth But when he told them his Kingdome was not of this World that his Crown must be of Thorns how few did bear his reproach to follow him without the Camp to honour him in the indignities of his passion What is this but the Artifice of filthy Lucre to make a Gain of Godliness to assemble for Corn Wine and Oyl to bake Cakes to the Queen of heaven not to be consumed with famine to court the Kings Daughter because she is an Inheritrix of temporal Blessings and not for the Beauties of her Holiness but they that are affraid or ashamed of the Profession of Godliness before Tyrants Tribunals Flames and Faggots of them will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in the glory of the Father with all his holy Angels Let thy Form have such an inviting Modesty as to allure others to a Love and Participation of the Power of Godliness Musitians observe in the Sympathy of sounds that if two Viols be tuned to a Consonancy and the String of one be struck the same string of the other will sound though laid at a Distance such an Harmony there is of Souls that if a well-tuned Heart be struck with the Finger of God it will send forth such a Melody that will work in others an Unison and Concord with it self Dauid went up with the Tribes to worship Andrew brought Simon Philip Nathaniel the woman of Samaria the City of Sychar to the presence of the Messiah The Apostles did triumph in the Myriads of the Jews the Kingdoms of the Gentiles the Numberless Accessions of the World to the little Flock of Christ A Form well ordered in all things by a sweet and gracious Conversation doth powerfully and placidly insinuate it self to produce this Effect which I shall demonstrate thus The Word is the great Instrument of Faith it hath a Moral and Suasive Power to propound Arguments to the Understanding and Objects to the Will Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God But this Cause is not irresistible for we find the Apostle taking up the Complaint of the Prophet Who hath believed our report But where the Word is deficient the Form of a good Conversation may be Efficient of Faith in Christ St. Peter exhorts Wives to be in subjection to their own Husbands that if any obey not the Word they may without the Word be won with the conversation of their Wives while they behold their chastity coupled with fear It seems the Eye is a better Organ then the Ear sometimes to conveigh Light and Happiness to the Spirit and good Works are better Orators then good Words For so we read in Story that Theodolinda Queen of the Longobards converted both her Husbands the First from Gentilism the other from Arianism an auspicious Lady to espouse them both to the great Bridegroom of Souls but the Story is still Big with greater Wonder for her Virtues were so Exemplary and Eminent that they executed an Apostolick Office and converted the Nation of her Subjects to be baptized into the Catholick Faith If thou seest a beauty in the Form of Godliness and wouldst preserve it from decay avoid the sins mentioned in the Catalogue The Enemies of a form are those of her own house no Sins make her more Odious then those that are Shrowded and Sheltred under her Protection All sin hath such an abhorrence to the powers of holiness that they hate the Form and Fringes of her Garment as is commonly observed of the Panther that he so abhors the person of a man that he tears in pieces his picture For a Form extorts from Seducers and Sectaries those Actions that are against the Bent and Inclination of their hearts They are Covetous and yet the false Apostles at Corinth preached freely to get Occasion of Glory and disgrace St. Paul who was there forced to live by his Mechanick Labours that he might not be Burdensom or Chargeable to that Opulent and Censorious City They are Self-lovers in their Benificence and Good Will towards men I need not mention anymore seeing Self-love is so Prolifical a Parent of all the other Sins that they must have a Commixture and Co-incidence with it as Branches in the Stem from whence they grow So that the Form is a Restriction to and Contradiction of their Villanies though they use it as an Artifice to palliate their sweet and secret Sins and to make way for an open Dissolution The sixth verse calls them Creepers while they creep into houses unawares and privily sow their Tares and are Despicable they insinuate themselves with Pretences of Strictness and a Tender Conscience of Modesty and Meekness of Condescentions and Philanthropy but when the Creeping Party becomes prevailing they soon forget their formal Complements and break the Bonds of their former Restrictions asunder and cast away their Cords from them they are Blasphemers and fill heaven with Reproaches Traytors and fill Kingdoms with Seditions the Tender Conscience soon betrayes it self in Searedness and unnatural Affection is incontinent in all Excesses and fierce in all Errors with a Rage reaching up to heaven how contrary is this to the Light of the Gospel that is altogether Serene and Pacifical to the Tongues of Fire that descended on the Apostles that by all-powerfull words did create those Miracles that were all like his that sent the Comforter the instances of mercy new light soon turns into Wild-fire and the Tender Conscience Ravens as a Wolfe to make havock of the Church The Arians and Donatists of old and Anabaptists in Munster and Sectaries of England of late have been sufficient Arguments to make this manifest to all men and Alarms to Princes whose security consists in the Preservation of Religion In this vigilancy Babilon exceeded Zion for Nebuchadnezar made a Decree that what ever Nation spake against the God of Shadrach should be made a Dunghill but of Judah where God was known the Prophet complains according to the Number of thy Cities so are thy Gods O Judah to return An Hypocrite Loves not freely and heartily his Reigning Sin because it exerciseth a Tyranny and Co-active Power over him it restraines him from swallowing the sweet Morcels he tacitely hungers after therefore he Dethrones it and takes away the Scepter of Authority from it when he can have his other Lords to Reign over him and exposes his Form when he hath cast of its Yoak to the greatest Odium and Contempt what cheap thoughts must men have of a Form of Godliness when it 's infected with Dishonesty the feigned Saint is manifestly a real Knave and all his Humiliations and Prayers wherein he deprecates the Evils of Covetousness are apparently but feigned words to make merchandise of the Inheritance of Orphans the Houses of Widdowes the Patrimony of the

in the external glorifications of God and is like those sort of Meteors that shine onely in their fall from heaven But a Form in conjunction with the Power is an Ornament of great Price in the sight of God St. Paul doth not discourage a form that is modest in Complexion grave in Gesture discreet in the Expressions of it self that waits on the Power of Godliness as a Disciple on his Master or a Servant on his Lord as he saith in the first Epistle Good works become women professing Godliness Religion is not to be like those mineral mountains that appear barren when the Veins of Gold lodge in their Bowells but as the Kings daughter all glorious within yet her Rayment is of wrought Gold Can a Maid forget her ornaments or a Bride her attire or the Spouse of Christ her Rayment of Needle-work as David invited all his faculties within him so his Glory his Tongue to joyn in the Chorus as the most natural proper and musical Instrument whereby an heart Big with the Burden in the songs of Praise could best deliver it self our Lights are so to shine before men that they seeing our good works may glorifie our Father which is in heaven The corruption of this form is either Gross and Pharisaical when men are Zealots for the first Table for the Temple and Invocation for Sacrifices and Altars for Incense and Oblation Sabbaths and solemn Feasts but break in pieces the second neither sparing their neighbours Wives in Lust nor their Lives in their Anger nor their Estates in their Avarice nor their Good Names in their Ambition as if the two Tables were as the two Principles and Gods of the Manichees the one Good and the other Evil the first Table a Sacred Edict a Royal Promulgation to be kept the second to be violated as a Snare and Tyrannical Exaction The other corruption is Subtile and Moral when a Form of Godliness and Honesty do meet together and Kiss each other A man may be born in the Pale of the Church baptized into the most holy faith instructed in her Catechismes and Homilies And only be a Patriot of Virtue in the profession of Faith he may stand up at the recitation of the Creed and say Amen to every Article and yet be just in his actions temperate in his life generous in his spirit upon no other principles then Socrates or Seneca might be his Religious Duties are all Moralities he reads the scripture and entertains them with an humane Faith as the stories of Zenophon or Plutarch he gives to the Poor and calls it Charity when his Almes are the Issues of a natural Compassion and Benignity what he doth is from the Dictates of Reason which are perfective of the humane nature not from an assent to a divine Revelation or Obedience to the will of God Now Virtue in a Profession of Godliness is the highest semblance of Grace I cannot perswade my self that the light of nature that convinceth Atheism and contemplates on the Omnipotence and Wisdom of God is an ignis fatuus or that the Law of Nature that God hath written in the Sacred Scriptures as well as the hearts of all men is a Throne of Iniquity or that Honesty Temperance Chastity and Justice are glittering sins but rather beleive that they are Rudiments of our Creation not wholy Obliterated by the fall of man though they do not please God in that way of Complacency that faith doth they may be Strictures and darker Shaddowes though Graces are the Bright and Orient Colours in that Soul that is created after Gods image To apply all this if a man professeth himself a Christian and is only Chast as a Brave Romane out of Glory or a Mind cultivated by Reason none can resolve the Sophism and say that his Virtue doth not flow from the influences of faith but the infallibility of Heaven and his own Conscience The Formes of Godliness being then skilfull to deceive I shall absolve my discourse in two particulars First in shewing Reasons why Godliness will express it self in a Form then Rules to direct the Form by the Power Reasons why Godliness hath a Form The nature of Graces is to be active in the Discovery of it self The Spirit of God is no where more Rhetorical then in the Variety of Metaphors on this Subject He calls it a Light that must shine before men that may as easily be suppressed in its Heat as conceal'd in its Brightness He compares it to the vital moysture of a Tree planted by the Rivers of water that sendeth forth its Blossoms and Fruits in due season to Leaven whose Fermentation continues till it hath Leavened the whole Lump to perfumed Garments the smel of Lebanon and the Powders of the Merchants such an Impulse there is in Grace to display its own Glory So it was with St. Paul who was to beare the name of Christ before Kings saith he I beleived therefore have I spoken and in St. Peter who bare the name of Christ before the Sanedrim we cannot but speake the things we have seen and heard when David mused the Fire burned but it flamed forth when he spake out of the Abundance of his heart with the heart a man beleiveth unto Righteousness and with the tongue Confession is made unto Salvation The sense of those great Priviledges and divine Relations we have by Godliness excites us to it if we are a chosen Generation a Royal Preist-hood a Holy Nation and Peculiar People it is to shew forth the Praises of him that called us so David that was a chosen Prince a Royal Prophet a Peculiar Person did Come and heare all ye that fear God and I will tell you what he hath done for my Soul it is not proper for that Soul that is Loud in begging mercyes to be Silent when it receives them God hath delivered my Darling from the Paw of the Lyon redeemed me from sin rescued me from Satan ransomed me from the Bottomless Pit and with a greater depth of Love hath invited me with glorious Liberties made me a member of his Son equal to the Angels an Heir of his Kingdom and if I am still silent I must implead his goodness because it is unutterable and my own joy that is unspeakable and full of glory It is Gods end in giving Graces that their intrinsick Worth and Lustre may shine forth to his own Glory and the Good of others we are filled with the fruits of Righteousness to the praise and glory of God and hereby is the Father glorifyed if we bring forth much fruit Grace loseth that advantage of its Influence and Exemplarity when it is a candle put under a bushel which it hath when all the Graces shine as a Branch of lights to the whole house when faith leads a Monastick Life is an Hermit in Solitudes and agitates devout meditations in a private Bosome it is an inclosed Garden in a Wilderness it gives pleasure to a contemplative Life but