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	jesus_n	lord_n	17,123	5	3.7490	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95973	The impostures of seducing teachers discovered; in a sermon before the Right Honorable the Lord Major and court of Aldermen of the city of London, at their anniversary meeting on Tuesday in Easter weeke, April 23, 1644. at Christ-Church. By Richard Vines, minister of Gods word at Weddington in the county of Warwick, and a member of the Assembly of Divines. Imprimatur, Charles Herle.	Vines, Richard, 1600?-1656.	1644 (1644)	Wing V557; Thomason E48_2; ESTC R11333	24,964	44

THE IMPOSTVRES OF Seducing Teachers Discovered In a SERMON before the Right Honourable the LORD MAJOR and Court of ALDERMEN of the City of London at their Anniversary meeting on Tuesday in Easter weeke April 23 1644. at Christ-Church By RICHARD VINES Minister of Gods Word at Weddington in the County of Warwick and a Member of the Assembly of DIVINES Imprimatur CHARLES HERLE 2 TIM 2. 17. And their word will eate as doth a gangrene LONDON Printed by G. M. for Abel Roper at the signe of the Sunne over against St Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1644. TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE THE LORD MAIOR AND Court of ALDERMEN of the famous Citie of LONDON Right Honourable and Right Worshipfull AN Epistle Dedicatory usually bespeakes a Patron and then the Reader is epistled afterward I intreat Readers only and Patrons no further than the Truth may challenge them suo jure Though I should have done my selfe but right in sending this Sermon forth into publike yet your Commands were the stronger tye upon me It was received with ill resentment by some whose Character not I but the Apostle gives in this Text the aspect whereof is I believe no more pleasing than the Sermon Either they should not weare such faces as are afraid of this glasse or wash first and then they will not be angry I should rejoyce to offend any man for his good and be afraid to please him for his hurt I intended it for a stay to the nutant and unstable a stop to that Gangrene which I hope is not crept so neere the Head as to have taken any of you who in other things have beene so farre from being Children tossed to and fro with windes stormy winds that from you posteritie shall learne to be men The very holding up of the Text in open view may be a quo vadis to one or other If not Yet Thou hast delivered thy soule Ezek. 3. 19 21. is some comfort to him who humbly presents this Sermon to your hands and eyes with some enlargements here and there which the time denyed to your eares and whose honour it is to be Your Servant for Christ RICHARD VINES THE IMPOSTVRES OF Seducing Teachers Discovered EPHES. IV. XIV XV. That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftinesse whereby they lye in wait to deceive But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the Head even Christ THE Gospell had no sooner ascended the Horizon of the Gentiles and dispel'd that universall shade wherein they had been benighted but the Devill erected his factories in those new discoveries to intercept the trade of truth therefore is our Apostle in many of his Epistles so much in fortifying beleevers against the impressions of seducing teachers and the hystorie of a Fatemur quidem novas quasdam antea non au●itas ●ectas Anabaptistas Liber●inos Mennonios Zwenk●el●l●anos statim ad exortum Evangelij ex ●ir●sse Ju●l Apol. Eccle. Anglicanae Vide Sl●idanum in commentarijs Luthers time doth witnesse also that it is the lot of reformations while they are greene and recent to be infested with such sects and doctrines as haply were never before heard of and therefore it concernes all to be carefull what money they take when the markets are so full of adulterate coyne and to be armed against the scandall thence arising as if the truth was the mother of such monsters which are none of hers but are laid at her doore to bring her into discredit we must expect no lesse nay haply we have hereby an argument that the truth is at the threshold for it is not ordinary that tares grow any where but in the wheate field The Text too fitly serves our own meridian being purposely chosen to give antidote against the infection of seducing teachers Whether the word Henceforth doe look back to the time past and imply that the Ephesians had been like children tossed to and fro as is generally conceived by the b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Theophilact Oecumenius c. Greeke expositors and others I shall neither enquire nor insist upon it but shall take it as a result from what the Apostle had said in the beginning of the Chapter where having in the 4 5 6 verses named seven ones one body and one spirit one hope of your calling one Lord one faith one baptisme one God and Father of all wherein the Ephesians and all beleevers are concenterated He passeth on and toucheth upon gifts and ministeries given to the Church by Jesus Christ sitting at the right-hand of God in which forme of expression he seemes to allude to the c As he doth elsewhere viz. Luk. 2. 15. and to the Olympick exercis●s 1 Cor. 9. 24 25 c. alibi Romans in their tryumphs wherein the Conquerour having the glorious Captaines at his Chariot scattered his munificence in congiaries and donatives to the souldiery and people for so our Saviour ascended up on high and led captivity captive and gave gifts to men and what are those gifts which might become the magnificence of a Conquerour so triumphant are they not ministeries ver 12. He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pa●●ours and Teachers a royall donative given in the day of his triumph but the use and end whereunto these ministeries are subservient and instrumentall addes value to them as it is set forth ver 12 13 14 15. For the perfecting of the Saints c. That we henceforth be no more children In the Text you have A Character and An Antidote The character is of 2. sorts of persons The Seduced The Seducer The Seduced are called children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine The Seducers are said to be sleighty crafty and to have their artifices methods stratagems of deceiving by the sleight of men and cunning craftinesse whereby they lye in wait to deceive The Antidote or preservative is two-fold 1. The Ministery which Christ hath given to his Church He gave some Apostles c. That henceforth we be no more children c. for the salt yee are saith Christ the salt of the earth serves to preserve the people from being flye-blowne with every corrupt doctrine unto putrefaction 2. The holding fast of the substance and vitals of practick godlinesse ver 15. Following the truth in love grow up in all things into him which is the Head even Christ The fortifying of the vitalls is a repercussive to all infections from the stinking breath of a currupt teacher I shall open each part of the Text as I come to it And first the character or description of the Seduced or of them that are unstable for there is no doubt but the Apostle intends to descypher instability and fluctuancy by these words Children tossed to and fro and carried about with

immortall or at least if it survive not for that cannot be applied to the resurrection when the rich man will have no brethren on earth to send unto neither can there be any sence in that portion of Scripture but upon supposall of the soule outliving the body I had rather draw a curtaine before this face of things then paint it out unto you How sad a hearing is it to heare I am of Paul I am of Apollo I am of Cephas was not this that which as Ierome observes did at first set up Bishops our divisions are their factours but that is not all more sad it is to heare here is Christ and there is Christ for we are so impotent in our opinions that every man makes his own to be the very Shibboleth of the Church a thing unheard of before our times that men of divers Trades in this famous City can be all of one Company but being of divers opinions they cannot be of one Church nor will be all of one Schoole except they be all of one forme which breakes our communion into fragments Now what may be the cause of this transportation of people are they children ungrounded in knowledge that is too much to be feared or are they proud and wanton and have taken surfet of the great things of the Law or are they ashamed to stand in the levell of sober practicall Christians but must be masters and set up the trade of some new opinion for themselves and build Babel to get a name and to be some body in in the eyes of a party I know not what to say but the Lord stop the gangrene and turne all our eyes to the great things of the Law that so this tithing of mint and cummin may be left to a second place 3. Be not children and oh that this word might stop the fury of your precipitate levity as Coesar did the sedition of his Army by one word Quirites you have had the vitals of Religion a holy and pure doctrine and there is not another Gospell For Ministers that have burn'd and shined themselves out in holding forth essentials and saving truths the whole world since the Apostles time could not overmatch you and for Christians the seale of their Ministery begotten and bred up under their shadow in respect of the power of godlinesse there hath not been another England on earth since that time I doe not ascribe this to the government and discipline no more then I doe ascribe the multiplying of Israel to Pharaoh but under God to the paines and diligence of faithfull pastours whom I would not have any man now to undervalue and debase as brats of Antichrist they were Heroes and Worthies our regeneration and faith are their monuments let no man digge up their ashes and degrade them in esteeme nor belch out poison against the learning livings callings of their godly successors in this Church for wise men will interpret that they doe it upon no other reason then Herod burnt the Registries of the families and genealogies of the Iewes in consciousnesse of his own obscurity And as for this Church certainely she hath had a wombe to beare children and breasts to give them suck which two things doe make a faire proofe for her against all calumnies though alas she had also a generarion of vipers eating through her bowels Finally This Kingdome owes as much to Religion as any in the world we have seene wonders of Gods love and miracles of deliverance and if God shall now bring his Arke to Ierusalem and set it up in greater state then before time let us dance before it but withall let us not despise the house of Obed-Edom which God blessed for the Arke sake we must not put downe the Temple because it s made a den of theeves but rather whip them out of it and for that we fast and pray as also that those seven Ones in the fourth and fifth verses may continue with us for ever One body and one spirit one hope of your calling one Lord one Faith one baptisme one God and Father of all which should be as so many quoines to lock together all parts of the building into one as indeed they would if men were not so opinion-big as to make every extravagant or at least extrinsicall opinion fundamentall and as an Atlas to a new-Church building I come now to the second part of the Text which is the haracter or description of the impostours and seducers that doe unsettle men whereof I shall open the termes or words 1. Sleight of men The originall word for sleight doth properly signifie Dice-playing and by ametaphor taken from players at Dice which sort of men you shall seldome reade of in sober authours without some brand of infamie it sets out the qualitie of false teachers and in this all agree but then in the very point of application of this similitude there is a little difference 1. As the cast of the Die is changeable and variable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alea nihil incertius so are these teachers and such is their doctrine and therefore he calls it sleight of men opposing this doctrine of theirs to that of Gods pure word which is alwayes like it selfe and hath no interests passions crooked ends as men have 2. As dice-players can cogge the Die and make it answer what cast they please so these teachers have an act of mixing and adulterating the word so as to make it answer their own profit or advantage but whether it be so or so or both wayes you see what these teachers make of their hearers meere tablemen which the dice-player carries hither and thither and moves from point to point as he pleases 3. Cunning craftinesse The same word that is used to expresse the subtilty of the serpent tempting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eve 2 Cor. 11. 3. He beguiled Eve through his subtilty and it signifies the deep policie of men 1 Cor. 3. 19. He taketh the wise in their own craftinesse and so it imports that these teachers are veterators beaten fellowes men exercised and skilfull to deceive 4. They lye in wait to deceive And the word in this Text is also used Ephes 6. 11. that ye may be able 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he to stand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the stratagems of the Devill for it signifies properly an ambushment or stratagem of warre whereby the enemy sets upon a man ex insidijs at unawares denoting the specious and faire overtures and pretences of false teachers spreading their net under the chaffe to catch the silly bird for it is plaine that all their sleight and craftinesse is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to this very end and purpose that they may entrap and catch men within the ambush of their impostures That which I collect from this part of the Text is Doct. 1. What oddes the Apostle makes between the seducer and the seduced even as much as between