Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A60132
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An exhortation to youth to prepare for judgment A sermon occasion'd by the late repentance and funeral of a young man. Deceased September 29. 1681.
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Shower, John, 1657-1715.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing S3664; ESTC R214018
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26,182
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49
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But let us make it our business to recover as many Souls as we can to God and when any are regain'd and born anew according to that ancient Idea of having all Children taken for the Children of the Common-wealth let us whoever was the happy instrument account they are neither mine nor yours but the Children of the Christian Church of the Common-wealth of Israel the Sons of God and a part of the Redeemers Seed How great will the common Joy be upon all such occasions And God will rejoyce over us all to do us good with all his heart and with all his Soul and to use us for the doing of much His Co-operation and Blessing may then be cheerfully expected when our united strength and endeavour is aimed all one way and directed to ends great and noble worthy of God and which he will not disdain or count it dishonourable and unfit to concur unto It will surely one day come to this Nor is it to be despaired of but that the late work of God's Grace upon this young man though since prematurely taken away may be the earnest and pledge of more of the same blessed kind and this Birth part of the first Fruits of a Pious Generation to succeed wherein Religion shall live and be transmitted in greater rigour to them that shall come after Our hope lies mostly among such And we earnestly desire you that are young and in the prime of your age and strength seriously to consider how much the stress of a Religious Interest for future time in England depends upon you Which that you may to better purpose consider also how much you more peculiarly have of present hope in your own case God hath a kindness for your Age makes his first applications to you at your entrance upon the common affairs and business of humane Life that you would then bethink your selves of him as your Creatour and consider how you came into the World whence it would not be difficult to collect for what He covets the beginning of strength his Soul desires the first ripe fruits And you have reason to be consident that what he seeks he will accept if you consecrate them to him as the first fruits were the sacred devoted part Some of you may perhaps already discern in your selves vicious inclinations but your vices are not yet so deeply rooted nor are so fixedly habitual as theirs who are grown old in Sin and estrangement from God You have not so oft grieved his good Spirit You have not resisted so many checks of Conscience nor stifled so many convictions as many others have You have a merciful God to deal with Those are his own words Prov. 1.23 and spoken more especially to such as you as you will see looking back to v. 4. Turn ye at my reproof behold I will pour out my Spirit to you Vnto that great God the Maker and Lord of Heaven and Earth you have been solemnly devoted Consider how great and awful names the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost were in your Baptism named upon you You are as truly obliged hereby as you are to your natural Prince though perhaps you have not as yet taken in your own Persons the Oath of Allegiance You would think it a reproach and it would probably prove a ruin to you to begin your course of commerce in the world with Treachery and Falshood Is it more Just or Prudent and Safe to deal deceitfully with your God than with men Do not think he is to be less the object of your Love Fear and Obedience for that you see him not How many Subjects in England have never seen the face of their King and are they the less bound to be Loyal and Obedient And how are you bound but for the sake of this invisible Lord and in him You have not seen your own Soul or whatever you will call the vital Principle in you which yet you are sure you have for can you not distinguish your living body from a dead are you not sure you live and do you not love your own life tho' you have not seen the very Principle it self which you live by the God you have not seen is as near you In him you live move and have your being You have great encouragement and obligation to seek the Lord that you may even feel Acts 17. and find him out who is so little far from any of you You are his Ofspring as the Holy Apostle tells you in the words of an Heathen that you might understand it to be no new or strange notion but even then ancient and common He is the Author and Parent of your Life and Being It is unnatural to affect distance and strangeness to your own Father It is through the high excellency of his nature that you see him not And he is the object therefore of your more excellent faculties You have a mind capable of knowing him and a will of choosing him for your God if they were made pure and holy and aright directed towards him which his Grace and Spirit can soon effect in you when you seriously seek and rely upon them 'T is of greatest concernment to you to have his Favour in whose Power you are and in whose Hand your Breath is And can you be exempt from his Power who made you and all things if you doubt whether he can dispose of you reward or punish you was not the making of this World a greater thing you cannot be so imposed upon if you use your understandings as to be made believe that it made it self For could you if you were not make your selves and were it easier for all things than for you And you may sensibly perceive if you will but reflect and use your thoughts that you are Subject to a Superiour Over-ruling Power that there is a Lord over you and that you live not according to your own wills For are you never sick against your wills or in pain against your wills and do you not know you must one day dye tho' you be never so unwilling is it not better to have that mighty Lord your Friend than your Enemy in his Favour is life And he is in a Redeemer reconcileable to you Read seriously 2 Cor. 5.17 18 19 20 21. Kingdoms and Nations are thrown into confusion if he be displeased and no course be taken for seasonable reconciliation * Jer. 18.7.8.9 10. And can you stand before his anger he hath long been England's God your God and your Forefathers Do not you in your own minds esteem that wise and sage counsel thy Friend and thy Fathers Friend forsake thou not * Pro. 27.10 How much more thy God and thy Fathers God! It lies upon you whether he shall continue the God of England The parental right derived unto young ones continues the visible relation while their nonage lasts and incapacity to treat and capitulate for themselves But