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 know_v lord_n 5,736 5 3.6750 3 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A28181 A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, November 5, 1689 by P. Birch ... Birch, Peter, 1652?-1710. 1689 (1689) Wing B2938; ESTC R19813 10,539 40

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

Doctor BIRCH's SERMON Preached before the Honourable House of Commons Novemb. 5. 1689. Mercurii 6 Die Nov. 1689. RESOLVED THAT the Thanks of this House be given to Doctor Birch for the Sermon Preached before them Yesterday at St. Margarets VVestminster And that he be desired to Print the same And that Sir Thomas Clarges do acquaint him therewith PAUL JODRELL Cl. Dom. Com. A SERMON Preached before the Honourable House of Commons November 5. 1689. By P. BIRCH D. D. In the Savoy Printed by E. Jones and are to be sold by W. Nott in the Pall-Mall and R. Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1689. JOHN XVI 3. And these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor Me. THIS is the Reason our Lord assigns of the Jewish Zeal against his Followers why they put them out of their Synagogues and thought whosoever killed them did God Service And the Account so well agrees to their Successors in the same bitterness of Spirit that it can be no Immodesty in us to ascribe that Ignorance to a part which Christ himself charges for the same cause upon the whole Visible Church of God. The Jews at that time had all the Advantages of Possession They had a Church of God's own founding One that had continued in a constant and visible Succession for many Ages That had no need of the Modern Arts to found its Doctrines on the Credit of a Dream or cast out Devils where Men were hired to be possest but which had seen the Rod of Moses strike a Living Stream out of a Rock and the Sea divided to give them passage and protection One which had the Oracles of God committed to it and which truly sate in Moses's Chair And therefore for these Rulers of God's chosen People the High Priest and all the State of the Elders to be charg'd with Folly to see their Statutes and Ordinances in danger to be set at naught and themselves robbed of their Prerogative by a few illiterate Fisher-Men were Provocations that seem'd to justifie their Zeal and make their Fury Religious For to tell them They knew not God was next to affirming He had left himself without Witness And To reject their Authority was to Resist the Ordinance of God who had said The Priests Lips shall preserve Knowledge and the People shall seek it at their Mouths But on the contrary our great Prophet and Teacher who knew what was in Man and how little all these boasted Privileges would avail in the sight of God plainly charges these Unnatural Heats upon their Ignorance They knew not that a God of Mercy and Compassion excuses no Wrath that is cruel and that fierce Anger was not made for Man They understood not how great the Presumption was to fancy his Cause needed the support of their Sin That nothing which is Evil and Injurious can be made fit for our Election and that no Intention is good which puts us upon the choice of Ill Means And for this Reason to the end his Disciples should not be offended nor prefer Authority to Truth does our Saviour here affirm These things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor Me. The Words are plainer than any Comment would make them and they are designed in their First Intention to arm the Holy Apostles against the Malice of their own Country-Men They were the First Persecutors of Men who believed in the same God with themselves For what we read of Socrates Anaxagoras and others being condemn'd by the Court of Areopagus was not for Worshipping the Gods in a wrong manner but for Contemning all But in every Age we find the Jews Constant Promoters of the Heathen Cruelties And if we may guess at the Reason of their Passion by the first Spring of it it does not seem to be a true Zeal for their Law lest the Christians should only change the Customs which Moses delivered them but rather an Indignation or Envy to be so much over-matched by their Glorious Works and Excellent Abilities St. Luke relates Act. 5. That by Vers 12. the Hands of the Apostles were many Signs and Wonders wrought among the People then rose up the High Priest and they that were Vers 17. with him and were filled with Indignation and laid their Hands on the Apostles and put them in the Common Prison Afterwards when they could not silence these Witnesses of our Lords Resurrection they Vers 33. took Counsel to slay them and so literally fulfilled the Praediction in the Text. But this is written likewise for our learning who come after for no Prophecy of the Scripture is of a private or proper Interpretation it ought not to be confin'd to that single Occasion upon which it was first uttered but is a standing Instruction for all the Succeeding Necessities of the Church And therefore we who now celebrate a Deliverance wherein this Scripture is fulfilled in our Ears who labour under the like unjust Sentence as the Apostles once did and still hear Murder called a Sacrifice unto God may safely conclude that the Admonition belongs to us of the Present Generation no less than it did to them who first received it and though we have no great hopes it will convince Gain-sayers yet it may serve to fortifie our selves and to make us all sensible of Gods Mercy in so long escaping that Fury which first made Jewish Zealots and then Christian which particularly inspired the Conspirators of this Day and which we have reason to Fear was not buried in their Graves but will be always urging to the like Attempts For which Good Purposes I shall endeavour some account 1. Of the Falseness of that Principle upon which these Violences are generally built namely That they are Designs for God and Hallowed by their being so 2. Of those Mistakes which corrupt and misguide our Zeal to intemperate Degrees And 3. We may reflect on that wonderful Act of God's Providence in so eminently protecting us and the Gratitude we owe Him who so does His Marvellous Works that they ought to be had in Remembrance And I. If we enquire what it was which so far transported the Jews against the Holy Apostles we shall find it none of the weighter Matters of the Law Judgment or Mercy for these the Apostles observed better than themselves but that which inflam'd their Zeal was Traditions of their own the Commandments of Men and not of God. And of this our Saviour convinces them Matth. 15. in an eminent instance They had a custom of Devoting their Goods by Vow this the Pharisees adjudged Obligatory though a Father were in want and so made the Vow take place of the Commandment now it is hardly imaginable how they came to prefer this mad Practice to so plain and natural a Duty but that our Lord insinuates the Reason The Vow was of their own devising and that made them so fond of it Here then we have a plain discovery what