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	son_n	way_n	5,888	5	5.0772	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45315	Select thoughts, or, Choice helps for a pious spirit a century of divine breathings for a ravished soule, beholding the excellencies of her Lord Jesus / by J. Hall ...	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.; Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. Breathings of a devout soul.	1654 (1654)	Wing H413; ESTC R19204	93,604	402

happy an issue we are delivered and must applaud it or abide a contestation and expect a challenge The fairest paradoxes cannot pass without a contradiction it were strange if some as bold and forward wits as our own should not take up the gantlet now the fray is begun the multitude is divided sides are taken the world is in an uproare from skirmishes we grow to pitcht fields the Church bleeds on both parts and it were marvel if kingdoms could be free But that which most notably evinceth the deceitfulness of mans heart in this behalf is that this pride is too often lodged in those brests which are professedly devoted to a godly and mortified lowliness for as for those persons which are meer flesh they are carelesly indifferent to error or truth neither are at all moved with the success of either but the religious minde when it is once possessed with the conceit of some singular and important truth revealed to it and hid from the rest of the world is ready to say with the Samaritan Lepers I do not well this day is a day of good tidings and I hold my peace and therefore makes it matter of conscience to trouble the Church with a mis-grounded novelty Come we to the Test Let me ask these mis-guided souls that are no less confidently perswaded of their own humility then Truth Can it be any other then an height of pride for a man to think himself wiser then the whole Church of God upon earth wiser then the whole Church of God that hath been upon earth ever since the Apostles of Christ inclusively in all successions to this present time Can they without much pride think they can look deeper into the great mysteries of Godliness then those blessed attendants of our Saviour and their gracious successors the holy martyrs the godly and religious guides of Gods Church in all the following ages Had not they then the same God the same Scriptures the illuminations of the same Spirit Can they imagine it less then insolent to attribute more to their own private opinion then to the constant judgment and practise of the whole Christian world in all successions of Generations Can they suppose themselves in their single capacity though neither Prophets nor Prophets sons meet Judges or Questionists of those matters of Faith which the general Councils of the purer times have unanimously agreed upon as the main principles of Christianity can they think themselves priviledged by the liberty of prophesying to coyn new articles to deface old Surely if the hand of pride be not in all this I shall never desire to be acquainted with humility so as it is too plain that a man may be exceeding proudly and not know it this vicious habit lurks close in the soul and unless it discover it self by some scarce discernable effects which break out now and then especially upon occasions of opposition is rather more concealed from the owner then from the eyes of a stranger But if ever it bewrays it self in the affectation of undue eminence scornful under-valuation of others merits obstinacy in opinion sharpness of censures and impatience of contradiction Of all these the world is commonly no less guilty then all these are guilty of the common miseries Lord deliver us from our pride and our contentions will dye alone V What a strange praise and priviledge is that which is given to Enoch above all those generations of men that peopled the first world of whom the Spirit of God saies Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him Doubtless amongst all those successive families of the sons of Seth there were many religious and well-affected souls yet there was no one of them that had this character set upon him that he walked with God but he Whether it were that God did in a more open and entire way reveal himself to that exemplary Saint or whether that holy man did in a more close and familiar fashion converse with the invisible Deity the presence was certain and the acknowledgment mutual neither was this walk short for a turn and away but constant and continual even for the space of three hundred years And what did the blessed man retire to some desart far from all humane society that he might enjoy this heavenly company alone Did he this-while cast off all secular thoughts and abdicate all the care of his family Neither this nor that for in this space wherein he walked with his God he both begat sons and daughters and bred them like the children of such a father as one that knew to make the world subordinate not opposite to it's maker and had learn'd to reconcile the use of the creature with the fruition of the Creator What then were the steps of this walk but pious thoughts heavenly affections fervent love reverential fear spiritual joy holy desires divine ravishments of spirit strict obediences assiduous devotions faithful affiances gracious ingagements firme resolutions and effectual indeavors of good and whatsoever might work a dearness of respect betwixt the soul and the God of Spirits O God that which thou promisedst as a reward to those few Saints of Sardis that had not defile their garments thou hast before hand fully performed to this eminent worthy of the first world he walked with thee in white in the white of innocence here and in the shining robes of glory above so thou hast told us He was not for God took him Lo being and good were wont to pass for convertible but here Enochs not-being is his blessedness he was not at all here that he might be perfectly above The best being on earth is but miserable even Enochs walk with God cannot exempt him from sorrows he must cease to be that he may begin to be happy He was then happy not for that he was not a meer privation of being can be no other then the worst of evils but for that God took him The God with whom he walkt so long upon earth takes him away from the earth to himself for eternity Here below though he walk't with God yet withall he conversed with sinful men whose wickedness could not but many a time vex his righteous soul now he is freed from all those spiritual annoyances enjoying onely the glorious presence and vision of the Divine majesty the blessed Angels and the Saints co-partners of the same immortality There can be no doubt but that the souls of his holy predecessors Adam Abel Seth returned to the God that gave them but had not Enoch been blessed with a peculiar conveiance to his glory it had not been said That God took him were onely the spirit of Enoch yeilded up in the way of an ordinary death the man had not been taken now whole Enoch body and soul is translated to an heavenly life His father Jared and his son Methuselah went to God in the common way of men by a separation of the spirit from the