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	order_n	son_n	5,249	5	6.4785	4	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

forget him thus cannot expect God should remember them in the day of Recompense as a Father doth his Children Great will be the terrour when the thoughtless Soul comes to appear before an all-seeing God and greater yet when to such forgetful sinners he shall say I know you not for so we are told Matth. 7.23 Then will I profess unto them I never knew you Depart from me ye that work iniquity How I never knew you How can any thing be hid from him when it is expresly said Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world Acts 15.18 True he knows them as his works but not as his Friends He knows them as Traitors but not as faithful Subjects He knows them as Creatures but not as his Children He knows them as Prodigals but not as Heirs of Heaven He knows them as Strangers but not as Domesticks How should he know them when they have lost the Character of his Sheep the mark whereby the Flock must be distinguished which is to hear his Voice And what a dismal condition must that man be in whom God will take no notice of and whom he doth not remember that ever he was of his Family If God knows him not no Angel in Heaven will know him no Saint no Spirit made perfect will know him He is shut out from Heaven excluded from the best and noblest Company no Society will receive him but that of hellish Spirits You may laugh at these Terrours now but when they come to pass what wise man would be under your circumstances As a Father plagued with a disobedient Son forgets that ever he had such a Child so God will forget that ever you had any relation to him He will remember your sins indeed he 'll remember how you have fought against him how you have doted upon the world how you have pleased your Flesh and counted his Laws as strange things how you have slighted his thunders and looked upon his offers of Mercy as words in course How you have enslaved your Souls to your Lusts and made the Mistress wait upon a pitiful Hagar how you have gone on in sin when your hearts have smitten you for it and thought your jolly life would never be at an end how you have loved unrighteousness more than goodness and turned the truth of God into a lie how you have thought the duties of Religion below you and put off God with the lame and with the blind for sacrifice how soon you have been weary of serving him and how you have looked upon your duties as things needless and unprofitable how you have had mens persons in admiration because of advantage and hearkned more to the perswasions of a Sot than to his wholesome Counsels how dear your credit and honour hath been to you and how you have valued it above his honour and glory how you have derided him that hath reproved you in the Gate and been wise to do evil how you have made the riches of the world the great end of all your endeavours and set your affections upon things perishable and inconstant This he 'll remember with a witness and none of all the hard Speeches you have vented against him or the power of godliness shall be forgotten But this Remembrance will be your misery and his thinking on your faults and wilful errours your condemnation Flatter not your selves that once you did remember his Will and Laws and Mercies with great sincerity though afterward tempted by the Devil and enticed by the frailty of your Flesh you departed from the holy Commandment delivered to you for he hath made already a Proviso against that Plea and protested that if the righteous man turn away from his righteousness and commit iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth shall he live all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned in his trespass that he hath trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Ezek. 18.24 He 'll forget all your little Services and your petty hypocritical Devotions indeed they are not worth remembring fitter to be scorned than to be remembred To remember them so as to crown them with bliss is a thing they are not capable of for Love the great principle and sap that must feed them is wanting Suppose you were in danger of losing all you have even life it self and stood in need of some great Princes assistance who had formerly expressed more than ordinary kindness to you and should he upon your address turn away his face from you not onely make himself strange to you as Joseph did to his Brethren by way of tryal but be really so what a fright and confusion would you be in Behold God is that puissant Prince who hath formerly courted you by Kindnesses and Mercies and Entreaties If you forget him in your Conversation here you will certainly be in danger of losing not onely all your Goods but eternal Life to boot Before this powerful Prince who alone can save you from perishing you must stand e'er long his help and assistance will be more needful and advantageous to you than all the Advocates that Heaven and Earth can afford And if this immortal King instead of remembring you shall frown upon you be strange to you acknowledge no such forgetful Creatures for Members of his Family or Objects of his paternal care and tenderness Can any Language express the astonishment your Souls will be in when he shall put you in mind of all the sins you have forgotten and of all the secret Follies you kept concealed from the world and the eyes of men when he shall remember and lay open all that you have buried in oblivion and make the wounds you gave to your Souls and skin'd them over bleed afresh how dumb how pale how surpriz'd will ye be at the tremendous Charge O consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver Psal. 50.22 But after all methinks this Discourse is incompleat except I add something concerning our Deceased Brother whose death hath brought us hither Though I had no personal acquaintance with him yet I have some reason to believe that the account given me of him is impartial and agreeable to truth He was it seems a person faithful in his Generation a man of Conscience a pious Christian a good Church-man a loving Brother and an excellent Servant Onely of his Death it may be said as David said of a far greater man Did the Lad die as a fool dieth Thy hands were not bound nor thy feet put into fetters but as a man falleth before wicked men so fellest thou In a word Murthered he was by men bruitish and barbarous and who like the Judge in the Gospel neither feared God nor regarded man I will not be too inquisitive into the reasons of this Providence though it be natural enough when such accidents befall