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	son_n	14,487	5	5.3429	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65850	A Christian epistle to Friends in general of weighty concern, for their present and future peace and safety from the soul's adversary's subtill devices and snares of death. To be carefully communicated to the children of light, and professors thereof every where. Being faithfully given forth, and recommended from the spirit of Christ; by his servant George Whitehead.	Whitehead, George, 1636?-1723.	1689 (1689)	Wing W1906; ESTC R220965	9,717	18

A Christian Epistle TO FRIENDS In General Of weighty Concern for their present and future Peace and Safety from the Soul's Adversary's subtil Devices and Snares of Death To be carefully Communicated to the Children of Light and Professors thereof every where Being Faithfully given forth and Recommended from the Spirit of Christ By his Servant George Whitehead Matth. 26. 41. Watch and Pray Praying always Ephes. 6. 18. With all Prayer and Supplication in the Spirit And watching thereunto with all Perseve●ance Printed by Andrew Sowle And sold at the Three-Keys in Nags-Head-Court in Grace-Church-Street 1689. A Christian EPISTLE to Friends in General c. Dear and Tenderly Beloved Friends and Called of God every where IN a real and deep sence of my Heavenly Fathers Love and tender Mercy revealed through his most dear Son our ever blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ which I am with many more livingly made a partaker of doth my Life and Spirit very dearly and tenderly salute you as truly and most heartily wishing and praying that divine Grace Mercy and Peace with all Spiritual Blessings and Divine Favours in Christ Jesus may be encreased and multiplyed among you and unto you to your great Consolation Peace and Prosperity in the Love of God. Dear Friends I finding for some time of late a living and holy constraint and pressure of Spirit to communicate some things of weight and concern unto you respecting your Safety Peace and Prosperity in the blessed unchangeable Truth am opened and encouraged by the precious Life and Spirit of our God to be clear and free therein towards you all and that in discharge of my tender Conscience in the sight and presence of the God of my Life whom I serve with my Spirit in the Gospel of his dear Son as I have sincerely done from my Youth upward blessed be his pure Name forever And having had these many Years experience in the weighty Service of the Lord our God through manifold Exercises Burthens Spiritual Travels and Oppositions I may not hide my Talent nor conceal those things my Lord and Master requires me to divulge for the Safety and Good of his People in their several Conditions States and Attainments as having long and truly seen the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living and the good and blessed Estate of his chosen and faithful Ones for which I praise the Name of the Lord my Redeemer in whom I have believed through his divine Goodness never to be forgotten by any of us as also being not ignorant of or unaquainted with the many Wiles various Workings and Depths of Satan the great Adversary of mans Felicity and of the Peace of God's People who worketh upon the divers Inclinations mutable Affections Wills Weaknesses and Infirmities of the Sons of Men to deceive pervert deprave and corrupt them that they may the more easily be led captive by him at his Will in their following their own unsubjected Wills and Spirits You therefore my dear Friends who have livingly felt and tasted of the Lord's Power and Goodness and known his Work in your Hearts in order to your Deliverance and Redemption out of the Evil World and the Corruptions thereof prize his tender Mercies and Goodness and forget them not Let the holy fear of the Lord God be your Treasure and true Wisdom and Understanding the Stability of your times in Righteousness Let your sincere Love to the pure Name and Truth of the Lord and one unto another be continued in that unchangeable Truth and Power of an Endless Life whereunto the Lord hath called us and I pray God increase your Love and Zeal for his Glorious Name and Christian Tenderness and Brotherly Affection one towards another that Life for evermore may be your Blessing and Portion as it will be to all them who dwell in Amity true Love and Unity of Spirit in our Lord Jesus Christ which is a most joyful comfortable and blessed state which too many Professors of Truth are short of for want of keeping near to the Lord in his holy fear Love of his blessed Name and Truth whose negligence and unfaithfulness to Truth in themselves hath caused a decay of Love want of Charity towards others and then instead of humbly waiting and depending upon the Lord some have exalted themselves in a Self-will Self-conceit Affection to preheminence in judgment over others until thereby Divisions and Self-separations have been caused and stirred up by them to the great grief of the Spirits of the upright who have kept their Integrity to the Lord his Truth and People And this Self-Exaltation slighting and contemning others have been and are the great Evils Snares and Engines wherewith the Adversary catches them that never were throughly subjected into true Humility Mortification true Self-denial or dying with Christ such though under Profession of Truth may make a great shew and flourish for a time in outward appearance Leaves and Blossoms yet they bring not forth Fruit unto perfection or ripeness in Christ. Therefore beware of Self-exaltation beware of an Earthly Spirit entring beware of Covetousness which is Idolatry Let not the Earth interpose betwixt any of your Souls and the brightness of that divine Glory which has appeared even in our Day and Times Spiritual Gifts may be lost or fallen short of if the Fountain of them the holy Spirit of Life it self be not diligently minded followed and where Love towards God and his Truth decays in any their love towards his Servants and People grows cold and then their Gifts decrease and dye as the Life of them is withdrawn or departed from or that Love lost which is the more excellent way for If I want Charity or Love I am nothing What Gifts Openings Discoveries Visions Revelations Wisdom Knowledge or Understanding soever any have yet still 't is the heavenly Root must bear them they must keep low their Minds and Spirits to that from whence Life and Love springs or else they fall wither dye and become empty uncharitable and hard-hearted and there the Enemy has his Evil Ends upon them in betraying them and corrupting their minds from the Truth from Life from Love from the Innocency and Simplicity which is in Christ the Way the Truth and the Life and there 's a danger in being too early and forward to censure and judge others and in judging censuring and undervaluing others Gifts Ministry and Labour● whom God hath called into his Work and Service for some whereby may either lose their own Gifts Life and Strength or fall short of those heavenly Gifts which otherwise they might attain to if they kept low and tender in Humility Love Society with their Brethren whereby they might also be serviceable with them For I have seen in my time some who never passed through Judgment in themselves yet very censorious judging detracting and whispering against their Brethren slighting them their Ministry and Labours who themselves have greatly lost by it

and God in displeasure hath suffered them to discover their own weakness and nakedness for their own abasement under the righteous Judgment of Truth And 't is evident from this kind of exalted censorious whispering and envious Spirit which worketh not for Love and Union have proceeded the several Divisions Schisms and Separations which have happened to the great trouble of the Church of Christ in our days as in the Primitive Christians days And the several sorts of Apostates Backsliders from Truth shew what and what kind and manner of Spirit they went and go out in by their Works and Fruits whether in a Spirit of Pride and Ambition in a Spirit of Envy and Hypocrisie in a scornful contemning Spirit in a covetous earthly Spirit in a loose prophane Spirit or in a drunken debauched Spirit of Ranterism and fleshly Liberty which come all from one evil Root and Seed according to the various corrupt Inclinations and Wills of Men upon which the Enemy works and appears with Baits and Temptations suitable thereunto that he may prevail the more And 't is certain that the envious Apostates and wilful Adversaries were the most troublesome to the Primitive Churches of Christ and his holy Apostles in their day and so in ours Therefore blessed and truly happy are they that keep their Habitations in the Truth and love of God and live in Christian Love and Charity one towards another for such walk in the Light where there 's no occasion of stumbling or scandal And as 't was Evidence unto the Primitive Christians that they were passed from Death to Life because they loved the Brethren and that they had purified their Souls through their Obedience of the holy Spirit unto unfeigned Love of the Brethren Even so now the same Evidence Testimony remains and lives in and for all them that dwell in the Love of God one towards another For all Envy Prejudice Back-bitings Whisperings Tale-carrying Lying Heats Passions Provocations Reviling Railing Clamours Scorn Contempt ill Language Flattery and Hypocrisie are to be utterly put away avoided judged condemned and forever excluded the Camp of God for they proceed from the false and degenerate Birth evil Seed and Spirit and not from the true Seed or Birth which is Innocent and hurts no body by Word or Action in Person Name Reputation or Property for that 's tender in all these things For false Reports Whisperings Back-bitings and Tale carrying cause Strife and Division and are condemned by the Law of God and Light of Christ and expresly forbidden by God himself Thou shalt not be as one that carries Tales up and down among my People Thou shalt not receive a false Tale nor raise a false Report against the Lord's People nor do his Prophets or Servants any harm And all who profess the Truth or make mention of the Name of the Lord among us ought to watch over their own Spirits Wills and Passions and have a care of hurting one another or crushing any tender Spirit or Plant or stopping or quenching any Spiritual Gift or Testimony God has given how little or low soever it may be or seem for some of a tender Spirit are sooner hurt and wounded than healed All keep in Christian Humility Meekness Patience Gentleness and Tender heartedness one towards another And Elders and Overseers in the Churches of Christ must be Examples of Believers both in Humllity Meekness Patience and Condescention as Christian Patterns and not self-willed nor soon angry nor given to Passion Striving Heats or Contention Such Christian Examples and Behaviour in the House and Church of the living God tends greatly to keep out and prevent Contentions and contentious Spirits and to the comfort and encouragement of the upright-hearted who are willing to serve the Lord his Truth and people My dear Friends the Lord our God has been good to us a tender Father through all our Tryals Sufferings and Exercises in upholding us by his free Spirit accompanying us with his presence comforting us in our Afflictions with his renewed Mercies and multiplied Favours in preserving us a living people to his praise until this day and affording us this present Liberty we have of late enjoyed and do pertake of the benefit and advantage thereof in our publick peaceable and Religious Assemblies for the Exaltation of the glorious Name holy Truth and divine Power of the Lord our God. Wherefore we have great cause to prize his tender Mercies and Goodness to us and walk humbly under the sence thereof that a right use and improvement may be made of all the Mercies and Priviledges we do enjoy and such a good use of the present Liberty as that none grow careless or negligent indifferent or luke-warm because thereof nor any to sit ●own at ease in the Flesh or in the Earth and therein promise themselves security from further Sufferings or Tryals because of the late present enjoyment of liberty and ease from Persecution This is no good use of the present Mercy nor safe Conclusion for God has many ways to try his people and National Calamities and Distresses whereof his own people sometimes partake are not at an end nor the Judgments incurred by Iniquity turned away because of the continued Provocations Wickedness Rebellions against God their Abominations Pride Hypocrisies Deceits Falshood and Presumption abounding in this and other professing Nations against the great and righteous God the Judge of all who is so long sparing and for bearing as he is to this Nation meerly for his small Remnant and Seed's sake which is already gathered and to be gathered Yet the great God will distress Nations and cause the Earth to tremble before him and Overturnings and Desolations in the Earth before Calamities are ended or Christ's peaceable Kingdom be set up more generally in the Earth or where as yet it is opposed and resisted For the cause why Wars Desolations and the devouring Sword are already in great Judgment entred so many Nations and Countries is because of the Crying Sins Great Provocations Persecutions and Cruelties in the dark Places of the Earth And dear Friends Brethren and Sisters whom I truly love in the Lord who retain your Integrity and Love in the blessed unchangable Truth you cannot be unsensible how that the Lord's Harvest is great and what need of faithful Labourers there now is an effectual Door being open in this time of Liberty the Lord in Mercy has granted for the good of many poor Souls that they may come and receive the Truth in the love of it and that they who have been or are of a fearful Heart may receive strength and know the Lord to be their Saviour and Redeemer in this his Evangelical Day and free and blessed opportunity he has afforded And yet though this Harvest be great the diligent and faithful Labourers are but few now raised up in Comparison of the greatness of the Harvest and necessity of the Work many of our antient Brethren and faithful fellow-Labourers