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	love_n	love_v	5,814	5	7.1381	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56679	Mensa mystica; or A discourse concerning the sacrament of the Lords Supper In which the ends of its institution are so manifested; our addresses to it so directed; our behaviour there, and afterward, so composed, that we may not lose the benefits which are to be received by it. By Simon Patrick, D.D. minsiter of Gods Word at Batersea in Surrey.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1667 (1667)	Wing P822A; ESTC R215619	205,852	511

our company So handsomely do our deceitfull hearts teach us to cover our own nakedness by calling all that superstition which creates any trouble to us and crying out upon that as a spice of Will-Worship which doth not sort with our humour For it too plainly appears that if a Child of our own brain do please us well we are as fond of it as any of our Neighbours can be thought to be of their conceptions and would have the world embrace it as a divine Ordinance formed in Heaven The very truth is Men lend to God and their Devotion only such Offices as flatter their passions There is much of pleasure in having the ears tickled with a Sermon and it makes a great noise among our Neighbours to keep dayes of Fasting and Prayer and therefore these are accepted with a greater applause than the sad Meditations of Christs death and the frequent remembrance of the Wounds of a Crucified Saviour which prick too deep and make too wide gashes in our hearts Though this be more expresly commanded than many other things that men perform with a great noise and spend much zealous breath upon yet they cast but a cold and heavy aspect on it because it humours not their ease and speaks not kindly to their covetousness but makes too busie and narrow a search into their souls And really I doubt that mens endeavours to be removed as far as they can from Rome have done our Religion a great deal of harm They still retain the custome of celebrating every day but the Priest doth it alone and they make it a Sacrifice for the quick and dead Now some men so that this false notion was destroyed and private Masses abolished did not care though the frequent Communions were destroyed also together with them and it is our manner to pay this honour to Christ but twice or thrice in a year And so because they speak of Justification differently from us men are apt to live as though good works were a piece of Popery and as if Alms-deeds and Charity to the Poor were a scandalous thing in Religion Though men Communicate very seldome yet their Offerings are as sparing as if they Communicated every week and so their souls and the Poor are both defrauded and starved together Idleness and covetousness are mens darlings they are the brats of all new devices in Religion and these two are nursed up and dandled on the knees of this trifling conceit that zealous devout Christians do bear too great a reverence to this Sacrament and hope to go to Heaven by their charitable deeds Well! let sloth and avarice pride themselves a while it will not be long before God take down their Plumes and make it manifest that it was not superstition which prickt forward the first Christians to such frequent Communion nor vain-glory which made them so prodigal as the modern stile is in their liberality Methinks I see how the lazy and worldly Christians do thrust themselves into the Arms of Christ and do even melt and dissolve into his bosome in raptures of love their mouthes can relish nothing but Christ and his Name is so sweet that it is ingraven upon their lips they court him as if they would ravish his heart and they exceed the strains of all Romantick lovers If he will not bestow himself upon them they cannot imagine who should be taken into his heart They cannot believe but he will take it very ill if they will not trust him for their salvation without troubling themselves whom he is so tender of that he would have them void of all care and thoughtfulness It is a piece of self think such men to be so strict and curious Alas poor ignorant souls men would fain be doing something to procure salvation they would purchase Heaven and give something to attain it but we will give Christ the honour of doing all and only cast our selves upon him that he may save us You cannot imagine now how these mens hearts are tickled and ravished with these Liquorish thoughts and the pleasure of them doth but make them believe that they are in greater favour In this transport of fancy they do verily conceive that they have the testimony of the holy Ghost bearing witness to them that they are the Sons of God But how fearfully these persons will one day fall is a great deal further from all our conceits The Lord will shake off all these men with a great deal of disdain who offer but to touch the very skirts of his Garments O you vile and adulterous souls will he say who think that I am altogether such an one as your selves depart from me for I know you not ye workers of iniquity Down you arrogant spirits that thought to build your nests on high and by the wings of fancy to flie up unto Heaven I have no room in my heart for such flatterers nor can my foul love such Hypocrites and Unbelievers But come you blessed of my Father you who have loved me and kept my Commandments you that did what I bid you in remembrance of me and inherit the Kingdom prepared for you Then shall there be great wailing and men shall groan for anguish of spirit Then shall the worldlings say this is he whom we had sometimes in derision and a Proverb of reproach We fools accounted his life madness and his end without honour How is he numbred among the Children of God and his lot is among the Saints I wish all men would lay it to heart betimes and not think that it is preciseness to endeavour to observe all the commands of our blessed Lord. Which if we did then this command would not be so slighted of commemorating his death in the way he hath appointed nor should men be so unmeet for it as now they seem to be For Secondly What excuses can men find to palliate the neglect of this duty but what arise from an unholy or careless life Many pretences there are I know to keep me from waiting upon our Lord and accepting of his kindness but they all grow upon this bitter root of loving the world and the lusts of it We put him off with the excuse of too much boldness and rudeness that we should be guilty of if we should give him frequent visits Truly as the case stands most men would be too full of confidence if they should approach but the only reason is because they have a mind to live as strangers to him and not to be his houshold Servants and Domesticks for then they might alway come unto him Men plead their unworthiness but it were well if they were more sensible of it for then they would not remain so unworthy They think they must not come so oft because it costs them so much time to prepare themselves once but if they would spare so much time as to lead an holy life and be at so much trouble as to please God in other things they would not

as dear to him as his life Now whose heart would not faint and swound to think of being guilty of his most sacred blood There is no such load to the Conscience as to shed innocent blood Who then can have a heart strong enough to bear him up of being guilty of the body and blood of the Son of God 4. And that is the fourth thing I would have such persons to consider that they eat and drink damnation to themselves in a more spiritual sense than the Corinthians did that is they make themselves liable not onely to the plagues of God in this life but to his everlasting anger in the world to come You have seen already that in this Sacrament we make a solemn profession of our selves to be Christs Disciples we vow our selves to his service what doth he then but call for all the curses of God upon his head who takes no care to keep those engagements We here profess to believe the Gospel and to submit our selves to it now the threatnings of Christ are a part of his Gospel which we chuse here to fall under if we do not obey his commands We here receive Christ who is represented to us by the signs of Bread and Wine He therefore who embraces him with a dead faith which works not by love what doth he else but damn himself He professes Christ as solemnly as any Creature can do but he lives not according to him His own faith then and belief will condemn him And let that man think that he departs from the Lords Table exposed to all the mischiefs in the world that can fall upon a man unprotected from above The shadow of the Lord is departed from his head and he lies open to all the Thunderbolts of Heaven And beside he consigns himself over to eternal death he binds himself to endure the torments of Hell fire When a man can think of Christ of his death of his love and yet love his sin and keep the traytor in his brest it will at last prove a traytor to him and hale him to the most fear-full execution The flames of Hell will be the hotter because the blood of Christ will not quench them The Anger of God will be more incensed because men blew it up by their sins notwithstanding the stream of Blood which flowed from the side of his Son to slake it And you will see that he is in greater danger of Hell fire then other men and that he drinks damnation if you consider that which follows 5. Such a prophane person doth by this act more harden his heart in his sin and makes it more obdurate against all the methods of God It may be in the heart of some to say that there is no such danger of damnation for a man may repent and though he do not now leave his sin yet hereafter he may be out of love with it But this imagination will soon fly away if you set but the light of this truth and those that follow against it That a mans heart becomes more obstinate and unmalleable who is not softned by Christs Bloud and goes on in sin though he then perhaps entertained some resolutions against it This Bread will turn into a stone in such a mans heart and it will become as hard as the nether Milstone He that can sin though he remember often such a love that is in Christ and so great evil as is in sin and though he come and make engagements and professions of love to him must needs be very stupid and senseless And God withdrawing his Grace Christ departing away from such an unhallowed and impudent Creature must needs make his heart more seared and his condition more dangerous When he approaches to a soul and finds it a nest of unclean Birds he will take the wings of a Dove and flie away to a cleaner and whiter habitation Or rather if we refuse to hear his Law and obey his Word which is preached to us he will not come to us when we are so bold as to take this Covenant into our mouths and yet hate to be reformed And if he will not come to us what can follow but coldness and hardness by reason of his absence 6. The Devil enters into that heart which Christ leaves If the Lord can find no room in us we become fit for seven more foul spirits than dwelt in us before God leaves men more to the power of Satan when they offer such contempt unto his Son The powers of darkness rush with greater fury and with a greater throng upon such a person that loves to be in darkness in the midst of such Heavenly light The Serpent may infuse his venome more into their spirits as well as sting their bodies and he gets a stronger title to them after they have offered such an affront and mockery to the Son of God 7. It must needs be hard for such a person to get a pardon because he sins even against that Bloud by which the pardon is to be obtained Upon what score can he sue for forgiveness who made so light of the Covenant of forgiveness What will he plead for himself who makes so little Conscience of keeping Christ commands that he breaks them all at once for he that doth not receive Christ when he is so tendered and submits not himself to him he refuses all the Gospel and rejects all that he says I tell you it will cost a man many a tear and a very sad repentance before he obtain the mercy to wipe off those stains which the Blood of Christ leaves upon the Soul He must be washed in that very blood which he uses so irreverently and which he can sin against so boldly and what a strong faith must he have that can think this so easily to be obtained Let no man then approach hither that is in love with any sin whose heart is not so broken for his Rebellions that he verily thinks in his Conscience he shall leave them Let him bring nothing into the presence of Christ which his Soul hates unless he intend to be worse then a Jew who did not own him to be the Christ And if any man do find upon good consideration that he and his sins are so saln out that they shall never agree again and therefore desires here to make an open defiance of them and joyn himself most solemnly in a friendship with Christ let him be infinitely careful afterward that he do not return with a Dog to his vomit after he hath eaten this sacred food But let me add this that I do not say all this of the danger that is in this thing that you may not come as St. Chrysostome speaks but that you may not meerly come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hom. 24. in 1 ad Corinth For as to come on any fashion is very dangerous so not to come at all is certain famine and death As he may surfeit and kill