Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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B05871
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The voyce of the just uttered: his passing out of Ægypt through the Red Sea, through the wildernesse to the promised land, where rest and peace is enjoyed. / By him who is known to the world by the name of Thomas Symonds.
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Simonds, Thomas, d. 1666.
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1656
(1656)
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Wing S3804; ESTC R184170
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9,406
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8
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be rewarded according to your workes and deedes done in the body and this is according to Scriptures which are as a cloud of witnesses against you and witnesseth for the innocent people scornfully reproachfully by you called Quakers who are brought to witnesse the truth of them in their lives and conversations and therefore are hated of the world who love their own if we were of the world the world would love us but because we are not of the world therefore the world hates us as it was from the begining so it is now known and seen in the light according as the Scriptures declares they that are borne after the flesh persecute those that are borne after the spirit even so it is unto this day poore hearts you are warned and the witnesse of God in you will witnesse for me and against your ungodly deedes So though I be counted a soole to the world and of them hated it is for Christs sake and my wisedome I counted not too dear to give up unto him and though a mad man as Paul was counted yet stayed in the light and speaking the words of sobernesse unto all men with whom I have to doe and as one that is dead but alive unto God and I counted not my life dear unto him who hath called me and hath made known his mighty power in me whereby I know that he is in me and I in him and so redeemed out of the world and from the Teachers of it not any longer to be deceived by them but in the eternall light of God I doe them see and comprehend and know them to be of that sort spoken of in the Scriptures who shall and doe lead silly women Captive laden with sin and pleading for no live in it led away with divers lusts ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth But it they are taught to oppose the light of Christ by the blind guides of the world who are sensuall having not the Spirit as is made manifest by their works and fruits they living in pride and covetousnesse in envy and malice haling and cause to be haled those that are moved of the Lord to witnesse against their ungodly practices and now all people who have any sobernesse and stayednesse remaining and any desire to know the Lord God who have created you and with his light enlightned you to the light of Christ take heed which reproveth you of sinne and evill allthough you act it never so secretly and leave the blinde guides of the world and their silthy saigned words deny for by them they seek to make merchandise of your souls feed them no longer with dishonest gain lest they destroy the simplicity in you you perish with them who deny the light of Christ to be sufficient to guide the creature unto God and cal it natural and so would have a naturall Christ sutable to their naturall fleshly mindes but he is a spirit and cometh from the father of spirits and all who come to know him must know him in his l ght worship God in spirit and in truth all who are brought into Christs right to waite know him to be a qu ckning spirit and that he is made manifest in flesh to discover and destroy sin in the flesh this is known to the Children of light but hid from the darke world who perish in their iniquities from the wise and prudent and is revealed to babes sucklings even so holy father for so it seemed good in thy sight And now a few lines to you all deare friends who have had a taste of the good word of God and of the powers of the world to come keepe in the taste and knowledge your mindes stayed in the light and in the eternall stilnesse to dwell not striving in your owne wisdomes to Comprehend the truth this is not your worke neither will you come to a growth by it but your worke is to stand still in the light the life to know and there feed that yee may see Pharaoh the oppressor his Chariots and mighty ones overturned and drowned in the red Sea and the soul saved and the creature redeemed out of Egypt and bondage the promised Land you to enjoy which brings forth all pleasant riches which is durable and fadeth not away Dear hearts fight not in your wills neither strive in your wisedomes but stand still in the light and know the battell is the Lords you that are entered into the wane you being quiet and patient and still in your spirits the limbe shall get the victory over the uncircumcised Philistians and hard hearted Pharachs you being stayed in the light there is your power and it will give you victory over the uncleane spirits and uncircumcised in hearts and eares and in the power and authority of the Lord God knowne in the light trample upon them all that they shall be ashes under your feet this I know who am your brother in the eternall truth and therein stand as a witnesse against all those that know not God who am knowne and by their scornfully called Quaker From my outward being in Norwich the 30 day of the 4 Month 1656. London Printed for Thomas Simmons at the Signe of the Bull and Mouth neer Aldersgate 1656.
love grace mercy and light is free but this must goe with it abide in his-love in his mercy in his grace and light and here is something to doe contrary to the will of man and this answers Christs words who saith if ye abide in the vine c. he further exhorting them abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot beare fruit of it selfe except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me which man to owne I now see he must deny himselfe and take up the Crosse and deny that liberty which all the professors of the world are pleading for who are out of the life and enemies to the light so these things above mentioned being in the time of my ignorance blindnesse and darkenesse received into my understanding the worke of God was stopt and the witnesse his light in me quenched then carelesnesse and wildnesse and unstaiednesse with me increased and I could be merry and sport my selfe in the day time and so grew sottish darke and dull and my profession withered and my zeale abated and my stayednesse and sobernesse was turned into wantonesse and laughter and could plead for it that it was the liberty of the Saints to be merry and cheerly in the world else it might dishonour the Gospel and discourage others and in this condition I was for some yeares after I had taken a wise and fell to trading and much buying and selling and great acquaintance with man I began to have and to increase in my estate as to the outward then I grew tall and great in my thoughts and began to thinke the Lot of my inheritance was in a good place then with my fellow tradesmen I delighted often to be in Taverns Inns and drinking houses and often times and money I spent that way and thought it my liberty so to dee and some small covering of profession was still with me which hid me from the world as praying and reading in my family and going to the chiefest places of worship so counted but all this would not hide nor cover me from the wrath of the Lambe and now my fellow tradesmen and sometimes companions in wickednesse in excesse of drinking eating and wicked singing and idle jestings and foolish laughter in the day time and often in the night season be warned to flee and shun all foolish laughter and wantonesse and idle communication which corrupts the good manners and wait in the light of Christ which convinceth you of sinne and of your ungodly deeds to know the living God who somtimes you will talke of and in words professe him but in workes deny him for all workes of darknesse are contrary to the pure God who if ever you come to know you must know him a consuming fire to all your idle filthy foolish uncleane corrupt communications and to all your lusts and pleasures which yee at present take delight and live in poor hearts there is a tendernesse in me towards you and all men consider your estates your living carelesly as to your eternall estate your bodyes growing far with ease and fulnesse but enter in to your owne closers and let the dore be shut and be quiet and still in your spirits and with the light of Christ diligently search and see the leanesse and starvedness of your souls and how faint and feeble they are that the pantings and breathings after God from the innocent in you which lyeth oppressed you may come to know and your present conditions come to see in the light for really when you come to be searched and sound out with eternall light of God Christ Jesus then woe to you that laugh now for yee shall mourne and lament and your joy and gladnesse will be turned into sighing and bitter weeping for the life of sinne and wickednesse you have lived in and still take delight in this I now know and see in the eternall light of God that it is your present states and conditions for it is not long since I was in that state with you which was pleasing to my fleshly minde though while I was with you in that mirth and delight to the sinfull minde yet the Lord was present to condemne me with his light and this if you will deal plainely with your own hearts in particular with the light of Christ you may come to see the Lord condemning you in the midst of all your mirth and witnessing with his light in you against your ungodly deeds in the midst of your sportings and riotings thus it was with me whilst I with you in wickedness did joyn which was untill neer the time called Michaelmas in the year 1654. I then journying towards Cambridge purposing to take my delight at that place called Sturbidg faire hearing of a people in Cambridge called Quakers I had a great desire to see them altho they were counted as the off scouring of the world some of the people being then prisoners after my stay one night in that place I went to prison to see the despised one of the world named Anne Blackely who is a mother in Israel I seeing her sober stayed countenance after some little space began to aske her some questions which she in discreet and wise manner answered with much tendernesse to me she seeing in the eternall light of God my condition spake as she was moved to the witnesse of God in me which did soone answer the soundnesse of her words and I was brought into much tendernesse and many were the teares that then fell from mine eyes and really such a condition I was then in as I was never made sensible of before in all the time of my profession for I was pierced and wounded and made sensible of my condition and exhorted where to wait which exhortation tooke deepe root in me it not parting from me day nor night but to the light of Christ in my conscience I was kept which brought me into sobernesse and stayednesse so the inten ded evill of my journey I was kept from and soone after departed out of that towne towards my outward being which was at Norwich where I had and have a wife and tender babes who were and are deare unto me in their places but the forme of my countenance being changed from laughter and foolish jesting into sobernesse and stayednesse caused a change in my wife at that time she weeping and crying out and asking me often what I ayled for long I lay under Judgement mourning sighing and groaning the innocent in me to be delivered and pangs tooke hold on me for the delivering of the man child and then grones and sighs I came really to know which could not nor cannot be uttered and then the ministrations of condemnation which is glorious in its time I came to know and when under the greatest condemnation judgment I was brought sensible of a spirit of burning in me then had the innocent one in me which never consented to sin