Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	father_n	flesh_n	son_n	7,126	5	5.5139	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52087	A sermon preached at St. Margaretts in VVestminster on Sunday the sixt of February last, before many of the worthy members of the Honorable House of Commons in this present Parliament / by John Marston...	Marston, John, Master of Arts.	1642 (1642)	Wing M817; ESTC R15682	29,903	48

of presumption which onely is a helpe in despaire This was a particular act of Christ as Saint Augustine notes and so can make no generall rule if a Prince pardon one malefactor at the place of execution a thousand others dye without it This was to display the power of Christ on the Crosse then in his greatest infirmity that when he would not save himselfe from a temporall death yet he would save him from an eternall death 'T was a rare thing that a Theefe should confesse Christ when his neerest friends forsooke him and the reward of this was as rare as his goodnesse Truly the point is of such consequence I know not how to leave it and therefor● let me inferr further that this late repentance must needs be very dangerous when as repentance at the best withall advantages of life is a worke of the greatest difficulty why then should we post off that to the last minute for which all our life is to little Converse with a soule newly loos'd from ●infull slave●ie and it will tell you that She sayl'd in a calme while she went the Devills voyage but when once she begun to thinke of returning home and leave that Sea so full of Sy●ens then the storme arose temptations multiplyed like the Waves every billow striving which should first devoure her And truly I have spent many thoughts upon that storie of him in the 9. of Marke possest with a dumbe and deafe spirit and I thinke it wonderfully remarkable that the Devill would neither heare nor speake whilst he had a quiet possession of that body but when Christ went about to turne him out of dores charging him to goe out of him then the mercy of Christ to the man wrought an unpleasing miracle on the D●vills for the deafe heard presently and the dumbe spake and now forced to depart he tore and rent him and tormented him into such a trance tha● 〈◊〉 spectators thought him dead 〈◊〉 heare the Wise man in this My sonne when thou 〈◊〉 come to the service of God prepare thy soule for temptations though perhaps we feele not the Devill in us before yet when holy resolutions come upon us then he begins to strive and struggle presently And would it not make one afraid to pray with David Creat● in m●e O Lord a cleane heart humanum dico I speake now af●er the manner of men when as the ●ouse i● the Gospell was no sooner swept but ●ight D●●vills rusht in at once but the Text there gives the reason they found it empty but if God be in thy heart if the Trinity keepe house there wee neede feare no Devillish intrusions But to prosequte the point in hand See it figured out in Pharaoh who when he found in the Children of Israel a disposition to depart then his boyling rage ran over in the multiplication of afflictions If Saint Paul have a motion of the law of the spirit presently the Divill urgeth his statute law in the law of his members to resist the law of the spirit you see then repentance is not without strife and conflict it stirr's up warre in the soule and blessed is he who in this strife can get the Victorie and I hope we shall thinke it a hard worke ere we have done it will be a signe we are the neerer to it Much more might be added to this purpose The Fathers are full of it but I le shutt up the point with some breife collections out of the conversion of Saint Augustine in the eight booke of whose confessions 1. and 2. Chap we find his flesh and spirit in a dreadfull conflict God drawing on one side the world the flesh and the Divill pulling him backe on the other In this Agonie of temptation he repaires to Simplicianus a learned and a devout man then to Saint Ambrose these were his Councell of warre in these assaults of his soule But after consultation with these he was more furiously encountered then before The Divill it seemes was loath to loose this great witt Then he retyred him selfe to privacie and then Saith he what did I not say against my selfe how did I beate and whipe my Soule forward to make her follow thee O God but like a ●ullen jade she hung backe loath to leave her old path of sinne Heere insued a grievous conflict and then some truce made for a time he goes into an Orchard ' I le not dispute the conveniencie of that place but if Saint Augustine come off heere he will doe more then Adam did But heere all his Carnall pleasure● past begun to Court him Dimittesne nos a moment● issto non erimus tecum ultra in aeternum wilt thou forsake us and must we part with thee now for ever And then as the same Father tells us the Devill bayted his hooke with all his sinfull pleasures past and truely t' was doubtfull but he might then have swallowed some of them but contrary at the thought of these a suddaine tempest of teares shrow'rd from his eyes and whilst he was thus weeping and talking to God in deepe contrition of spirit he heard a voyce from heaven Tolle lege Tolle lege Take up and reade Then opening his booke the first Scripture that presented it selfe was that of Saint Paul Not in chambering and wantonnesse c. Which hit Saint Augustines disease right and then denying all worldly lusts he accomplish't his finall Conversion and in exultancie of Spirit sends forth his soule in thanksgiving O Lord I am thy Servant thou hast broken my bonds in sunder let my heart and my tongue praise thee O Lord and let my bones crie unto thee and say who is like unto thee O Lord and say thou to me I am thy salvation And now to summe up this Repentance is a worke of warre many assaults st●ong resistance It wants first councell then grace to follow it it requires private an often conferrence with God by prayer an over-ma●●ering force of zeale to spurre the sluggish soule forward a contempt of former pleasures which will now againe flatter us for entertainement It requires ●●ouds of teares and the voyce of God to call us though not thus miraculously yet by the still voyce of his spirit and all this considered now tell me whether it be so easie a thing to repent that it should be left to the last Whether we can retreate backe to God in an hower that have strayed fro● him all our lives whether a few dropps at the end of our dayes are sufficient to cleanse that soule to whom sin hath contributed the staines of many yeares No no And therefore for this shall every man that is godly make his prayer unto thee in a time when thou mayst be found but in the great water flouds they shall not come nigh t●ee Now then doubtlesse is our time to seeke and I pray God we be not neere our time not to find The waters of affl●ction are risen indeed the fl●●ds

and another thing to will an alteration that God never doth but this often Mutat sententiam non matat consilium say the Schooles So that this alteration argues no change in God since in every thing hee doth what he will and so is constant to his will and that will is himselfe But they that repent not at the gratious messages of mercy finde a double punishment one for offending another for dispising favour and think then I beseech you what madnesse 't is after we have sinned to withstand our owne pardon by Impenitence and how fearefull a thing it will then to fall into the hands of the living Lord For if we repent not we treasure up wrath against the day of wrath making our selues more miserable in this that our impenitency procures our compleater veniance For God though he be mercifull and long suffering and waites the leisure of our repentance by many expectations of ●onuersion yet if a man will not turne he will whet● his sword and wound the hairie scalpe of s●ch a one as goeth on still in his wickednesse And why thinke you is it there said that God will whet his sword where t is said if men will not turne but only to shew that those that refuse the offers of Grace shall haue sharper veniance deep wounding Iudgments bee quite cutt off in utter ruine and confusion B●loved God hath dealt everie way graciously with us and he hath not dealt so with every Nation But now I Confesse our sinnes haue prouoked him to whet his sword nay more his hand hath bin stretched out nor is his arme now shortened but his hand is stretched out stil Nay more {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as the Septuagint render that place not only extenta but exce●sa not only stretched out for so it is in the least stroake of correction and those haue not reformed us but his hand is high lifted up to strike us with full force and furie But as yet we hope there is mercy and that we may turne away all these evills with our teares for sprinkled with thes● the destroying Angell will passe by us And let us consider with wonder and thankfullnesse that as h●louingly invited Iudeas Conuersion by his Prophet so he 〈◊〉 ours now for Ioell being dead yet speaketh and tells you that God would faine haue you turne unto him T●e proclamations of princes usualy threaten penalty to all that either neglect or contemne them what then will become or those that slight the messages of heauen T is as much as your soules are worth if now knowing who it is that Cōmands you to turne you should not obey him And where fore is it that God thus earnestly longs for our repentance that he mercifully desires not our merrited destrnction that he should so thirst to shew us mercie that h●s very bowells should yearne within him For the word in the Hebrue for mercie is Racham an signifies and inward Commotion and yearning of the bowells God is in pain for want of our repentance And why all this doth our Conuersion aduantage him cannot he glorifie himselfe as well in our Confusion truly yes but heere appeares his loue to us that all he aimes at is our good that so his mercy might make us happie and not his Iustice mise●able How ready are we to perform the Diuils command though we see damnation at the end of it wheither it be with Adam to eate forbidden fruite mounting the tree fall presently whether it be with Caine to murther our Brother and soe liue for Cains life was his punishment and a wounded Conscience is worse then death Though it be to plot mischeife in a State with Achitophell and proue cunning at last only in our owne confusion though it be with Iudas to betray our Master and with Pilat to Condemne him and then presently through dispaire bid the world farwell in a halter Though it be to denie the Holy one to mu●ther the Lord of life and desire the life of a murtherer though by putting out that light wee bring darknesse upon our soules and contrive a curse through a generall blessing bringing his bloud upon us and all our Children We do this more at the Diuils command have we no obedience for the Lord of heauen what other wages can the Diuil 〈…〉 then the multiplication of our torments But God for our obedience giues us such p●ace of conscience in this life as no storme can d●sturb us Prepares our soules for Glory by such dayly augmentations of his Grace as will make us love to serue him being never so well Contented as when he Commands us Giues us such a faith as brings heauen downe into our soules to giue us earnest that he will one day call up our soules to heauen where to reward our obedience he will haue us liue eternally with him who commands us and in the meane time such a loue and desire to him that in Comparison of heauen we esteeme Paradice but a hell and life it selfe but Martyrdom The Angels are more excellent then we yet are they nothing else but obedience in the very nature of their being messingers to goe upon the employment he sends them for are they not all ministring spirits See then to be obedient to God is to live the life of angels But oh God stooping our contemplations lower how are we ashamed and confounded at the obedience of Abraham who was readie at the command of god to slay his sonne his only son the sonn whom he loued and so take a way his life that was the ioy of his owne to sacrifice Isaac to his God and so become a religious Murtherer But God layes no such harsh Commands upon us not to sacrifice a sonn but to Kill a sinn not to shed bloud but to abstaine from shedding it No horror in our seruices no Cruelty in his Commands Not to doe any thing against the nature of a Compassionate hart but to turne unto him withall our heart Not to giue him o●r childrens bloud but our owne teares and those not to aduantage him but clense us And as a motive to all this I beseech you consider who 't is that commands you 't is the Lord the Lord that made you and can confound you the Lord that made you of clay and can breake you in peices like a Potters vessell The Lord who to plague you can create a Hell in your consciences in this life and when you dye if you live but to resist his commands will cast your soule into Hell where the worme never dyes The Angels doe his will both Cito Celeriter without delay when they goe about it and with the speediest dispatch when they are in the imployment of it consider then that now the Lord calls upon you to turne and he calls upon you to turne to him Now and that 's the next point The second point And next to the Authour the opportunity speakes the