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	word_n	5,396	5	4.2358	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44521	The first fruits of reason, or, A discourse shewing the necessity of applying our selves betimes to the serious practice of religion by Anthony Horneck ...	Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1686 (1686)	Wing H2830; ESTC R4566	37,544	144

be baptized and though he wavered much in his belief yet the Bishop thought it convenient to wash him with Water in the Name of the Lord Jesus not doubting but in a little time he would come to a full assurance of Faith Some weeks being past the Philosopher comes to Synesius and deposites three hundred pounds in his hand ordering him to distribute it to the poor yet with this Proviso that Synesius should give him a Bill under his hand that Christ should repay it him in the other world The Bishop cheerfully writ him a Bill and subscribed it and Euagrius goes home Not long after the Philosopher falls sick and finding death approaching calls his two Sons to him charging them to put the Bill Synesius had given him betwixt his fingers and so bury him which was done accordingly Three days after his death a Ghost in Euagrius's shape appears to Synesius by night bids him not be afraid but gives him thanks assuring him that the Bill was abundantly paid orders him to go to his Grave and in the Coffin he should find his Receipt subscribed with his own hand Synesius astonished at the sight and more at the Spirits words immediately repairs to the Philosophers Sons asks them what they had done to their Father They replied that they had performed his will and according to his order put a Bill he named to them betwixt his fingers The Bishop desirous to know the utmost of it causes the Grave and Coffin to be opened and there finds the Philosophers acknowledgment of having received what Synesius had promised him and his name Euagrius written under it The Spectators wondring at the mighty Providence run presently to Church and sing a Kirieleison or Lord have mercy upon us Though this passage may be of some use yet we have a surer word of Prophecy to establish our belief of Gods remembring our acts of Charity in the life to come He that is the Truth and the Life hath given us so many promises of it that there is no room left to doubt of it Nor is it onely our Alms that God will remember in the next life but all the good we have done Our Repentance our turning from our evil ways our contempt of the world our contemplations of the future Inheritance our love to God our Prayers and Praises our Obedience our watchfulness over our Hearts our endeavours to convert and comfort our Neighbour the Admonitions and Exhortations we gave them the Mortifications we used the pains we took to subdue our Lusts our attempts to follow the best Examples our self-denials our Temperance our Meekness our Humility our Sighs and Groans under the burthen of our sins our hunger and thirst after Righteousness our peaceableness our sufferings for Righteousness sake our doing his Will our self-resignation our affection to his Ordinances our delight in the House of God our rellish of his Word our frequent use of the holy Communion and our readiness to every good word and work There is a Register kept in Heaven of all these performances Men may forget them and our Neighbours may take no notice of them when we are dead and gone but God doth not forget them He takes notice of them here and he 'll take notice of them hereafter He 'll remember them to crown them to reward them to glorifie them In the Parable of Barlaam and Josaphat there is mention made of a Country where every year the people chuse a new King and whoever is chosen reigns for a year and after that is banished into some howling Desart or barren Island where he perishes with hunger A silly fellow being chosen one year surprized with the sudden alteration of his fortune gave himself over to all manner of debaucheries and spared no cost no pains to satiate his lustful desires and brutish appetite the present plenty made him forget the years of sorrow that were to ensue and when his year expired he was sent according to custom to the unfortunate Island where he spent and ended his days most miserably Another year a wiser man than ordinary being elected by the multitude he began to use his Royalty with great moderation and the thoughts of the dismal years that were to come made him reflect how he should live when all the present pomp and grandeur should vanish Having therefore a Counsellor of great prudence about him and demanding of him what he should do to make his future solitatary life easie to him he received this advice To engross what treasures he could during his splendid Fortune and send it away by trusty Officers to the place he was to be in till he died He did so and when he was forced to quit all his magnificence and commanded away into a desolate Country his Exile proved his happiness and he lived in great content to his dying day He that remembers his kind Creator here sends his goods away before him into another world makes provision for his Soul when it enters into Lands unknown and invisible and by the Carriages that arrive there the man is known and remembred by God his holy Angels His good works mount up to Heaven before him These keep him from starving when he quits his accommodations here These are the food he lives on when he leaves this world not that their natural strength and vertue is so great as to give him eternal Life but being perfumed with the merits of the Son of God they are remembred by God with Praises and Commendations and made everlasting food Ninthly Notwithstanding all these encouragements we cannot but with grief behold how little God is remembred by young and old and though he be in the midst of us and by his Providence upholds and supports us every moment how wretchedly he is forgotten by most men It 's true he is not so forgotten that his Name is never so much as mentioned some will do that if it were onely in their Oaths and Imprecations But how few will or have courage to remember him in their actions and think This God hath forbid and I must not do it this is against his Law and I must not venture upon it this clashes with his Word and I must avoid it this will displease his purer eyes and I must abhor it or this is acceptable to him and I will embrace it this is to act like the Children of God and I will follow them this is my great Master hath expressly commanded and I will obey All other remembrances without this are Complements not Devotions This Remembrance God values more than a thousand formal Devotions repeated as Papists do their Ave's This is to remember him rationally like persons who understand the right use and end of their reason He that doth not so forgets him and whatever his pretences may be of remembring him God looks upon it as oblivion while in his conversation abroad and at home his greatness and holiness is not thought of and those that

of their Houses and upon their Gates Deut. 6.7 8 9. And what could be the design of it but to shew that in vain we remember him except we remember his Laws so as to be ruled and governed by them And therefore we may justly conclude that he who being tempted either to uncleanness or drunkenness or lying or injustice or dissembling or Pride or ill-language or neglect of Alms and Prayer and consideration of his ways remembers the words of the Lord and what God hath said in his Gospel and trembles at it and bids the Devil depart from him will be applauded in Heaven for an admirable Memory more than if with Themistocles he could tell all the names of the Citizens of Athens or with Mithridates remember two and twenty Languages To arrive to such a remembrance there is no need of studying the art of Memory The Laws are generally known The application is all in all and he that knowing his Masters will applies the rules of it to the particular actions of his life and by them regulates his thoughts and desires and words and actions is the happy man that remembers God to the comfort and edification of his Soul And to all this he will be engaged more readily if he remembers that God is his Creator which brings in the second point Secondly What force there is in remembring God under the notion of our Creator 1. To remember God as our Creator is to think of him as the Author of our being and well being that we have nothing we can claim as our own and that all we are and have is his charity that originally he did frame us of nothing and by and in him we live and breath and move in the sphere appointed for us That we as well as the vast Fabrick of the world are the product of his exuberant goodness and that all things in Heaven and in Earth were formed by the word of his power He that seriously thinks of this will think no service too costly no Incense too sweet no Present too great no Sacrifice too pretious to lay upon his Altar He that raises a Slave out of dust and advances him to an honourable employment expects he should think nothing too good for the promoting of his interest who hath so generously lifted him up from the Dunghil much more may he that speaks a creature from nothing into being and gives him a view of all the glorious things his powerful hand hath wrought which he must have been forever ignorant of if he had continued in the shades of nothing He that creates gives all that the Creature hath and it 's hard if he that makes the Tenant and gives him Lands and Houses may not reserve to himself a quit-rent or a Pepper-corn rather as an acknowledgement that the Creature is the Usufructuary of his possessions All the service man can do or that God requires of us is nothing but a small and inconsiderable Rent our great Landlord reserves whereby we may own him the Maker and Author of our welfare Creation imports that we are made for his glory and a wonderful dignity it is that God will make use of such poor worms to promote and advance his glory To be made for his glory and to dishonour him to receive our breath on purpose that we may shew forth his praise and to act as if we had no relation to him are things inconsistent and imply a contradiction He denies that he hath his being from God that will not consecrate himself to do him service and is an Infidel under the divine influence while he refuses to hearken to his Counsels It was therefore a very rational inference which David made Psal. 100.2 3. Serve the Lord with gladness come before his presence with singing Know ye that the Lord he is God it is he that hath made us and not we our selves we are his people and the sheep of his pasture 2. To remember God as our Creator is to be importunate with him to create in us clean hearts and to renew right spirits within us that we may be capable of conversing with him forever The innocence which the first creation gave us was lost and tarnished by the Fall The glory of righteousness and holiness in Paradise the joy of Angels and the envy of Devils went off and vanished with our Apostacy and only some ruines of it do remain to shew how bright and splendid our Souls were in that state Hence comes a natural proneness to evil and that sinful inclination prompts us to greater contempt of God Hence it is that an aversion from goodness sits heavy on our Souls and when we would do good evil is present wi●h us and in this state we cannot please God this is the bar which forbids access to his Throne and the Soul that continues in this condition to the end is out of all hopes of ever enjoying his beatifick presence in Heaven This misery discovers the necessity of a new Creation the rather because with God neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but a new creature Gal. 6.15 When I say a new Creation I do not mean it of new Faculties but of new Qualities and Endowments of a new byass and bent and inclination of our better part and this is the work of God and to effect it the same power must be employed that spoke the World into being for as there so here the Chaos and the shapeless matter must be separated and divided the power of darkness dissipated and a new Light must 〈◊〉 our Understandings a Light whereby spiritual things and th●●● excellency necessity and t●●●●●endency above sublunary comforts may be discerned and the Soul look into things that are not seen The Spirit of God must move here too and upon waters too even on the waters of repentance and penitential Tears This Spirit must supple and warm and cherish the feeble parts make the Soul brisk and agile and ready unto every good word and work and a new face of all things must appear new Thoughts new Desires new Breathings new Notions a new Language new Delights and new Affections too The sins that were loved before must be hated now and the Follies which caused laughter must now cause grief and sorrow And this new Creation God is ready to bestow if our earnest Addresses knock at Heaven Gate The Soul that watches at his door shall not be sent away empty he that is able to create this new Heart hath promised it too if our laziness and love of the world and contempt of the mercy doth not discourage him So that to remember our Creator is not onely to reflect upon his power but our duty too 3. To remember our Creator is to think that he who hath created a Heaven for the tractable and docile and sincere hath created a Hell too where he means to lash the stubborn and impenitent man This Solomon alludes to in the last Verse of this