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	truth_n	worship_v	16,055	5	9.8540	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62896	An awakening voice to the Papists declaring to them the fallen state of the Pope from Peter's, and of the Church of Rome from what it once was : in love to the souls of those who have any uprightness in their hearts towards the Lord (but through ignorance are held in bondage) that they may be awaked, and see where they lie, and if any shall smother these things, lest they should come to the sight or knowledge of that people, let them take heed, that they bring not upon themselves the guilt of their blood / William Tomlinson.	Tomlinson, William.	1673 (1673)	Wing T1845; ESTC R10231	20,715	28

but quit your selves of that one principle of Darkness and with single Hearts search into Truth as the Bereans did you would come to see many more things of your own selves to be faulty How easily might you see by the Scripture the horrid Blasphemy of that Man of Sin that such a one as Simon Magus who thinks that the Gift of God may be purchased with Money should claim so near Title to the unspotted pure and holy Lamb of God while he is in the Gall of Bitterness and Bond of Iniquity deluding your Souls with his pretended pardons for Sin to rob you of your Money But indeed he cannot sell you that nor give you that which he hath no Power in Many other things are corrupted among you if I may not say all and you are far from that pure State in which the Church of Christ was at the first at Rome But these things were first presented in the Light before me to mind you of that if it be the good Will of the Lord some of you may have your Eyes opened that you may see to whom you enslave your Souls and may flee out of Babylon lest you partake of her Sins and so pertake of her Plagues And if any of you shall be incensed against me for telling you the Truth I must bear it For I write not these things in Contempt of any or to vilifie any particular Person but in Faithfulness and Compassion to your Souls to lay before you the State wherein you stand enthrawled in your Spirits to a false Power no Successor of Peter but of Simon Magus a fallen Star the Angel of the bottomless Pit King of the Destroyers who hath his Name Abaddon and Apollyon who is exalted above all that 's called God or that is worshipped and so seeing where you are you that are simple-hearted and have any Honesty in your Hearts towards the Lord you may be awakened to look about you and to quit your selves like men and may seek after the Liberty of the Sons of God and to serve him as his Free men purchased by the Blood of Christ from the vain Traditions and Injunctions of men which the Lord hath not commanded Other things still open themselves before me which I would not hold back from you but as the Lord doth open the Error of them to me so to communicate the same to you Your Beads and set number of Prayers and Crucifixes and antick Crossings of your selves they are all Works of Darkness and of the Night and not of the Day and will not abidethe Light Think you that that God which searcheth the Heart and Reins and saith My Son give me thy Heart that he delights in Lip-Labour or in the Number of Prayers insomuch that you stand in need of a String full of Beads to count the number of your Prayers by This is just to do like the Heathen who think to be heard for their much babbling and vain Repetitions which Christ forbad to his Disciples Mat. 5.7 8. And which the Lord hated and cryed out against by his Prophets among the Jews Isa 1.15 When you spread forth your Hands I will hide mine Eyes from you yea when you make many Prayers I will not hear your hands are full of Blood And its in vain also for you so long as you retain your Bloody Tenents or Bloody Thoughts to expect to be heard of the Lord. God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth for such the Father seeketh to worship him Joh. 4.23 24. And they that so worship him they have a better helper and remembrance then either Beads or Books We know not what to pray for as we ought saith the Apostle to the ancient Church of Rome to whom he writ Rom. 8.26 27. But where 's our Helper then Not from Books or Beads but the Spirit helpeth our Infirmities There was the Helper of the ancient Church of Rome and there 's our Helper one that knows the mind of our Spirit and makes Intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered There 's the Helper of those that cannot tell how to utter a Word and their groanings are heard of the Lord who searcheth the Hearts And this Helper administers Words also according to the Condition of the Heart as there is need But when the Heart is far from him then to draw near him with the Lips this is but an Abomination before him and to offer up the Sacrifice of Fools and so your Beads are of no use but in the offering up the Sacrifice of Fools I wonder that you your selves do not consider the Childishness and Ridiculousness and Folly of them they are so Ridiculous Childish Bables that they are not worthy to be mentioned by Christians who should know a measure of the Spirit of Christ in them to teach them to pray know ye not that Christ is in you except you be Reprobate reprobate to every good Work But I shall come closer to your Prayers then your Beads Your Prayers themselves are all Abomination to the Lord with Beads or without Beads by the help of Books or without them Your private Devotions or Prayers and your publick Prayers all are Abomination to the Lord while your Hands are full of Blood and your Hearts and Thoughts full of Blood Your Principles are bloody your Practices are like them full of blood Market-places Stones in the Street will witness against you that you are a bloody People your Prisons your Inquisitions will witness against you and therefore your Prayers are an Abomination to the Lord. And it will not cure the Sore it will not hide your blood-guiltiness to say they are Hereticks they are Tares that we cut off such as infest the good Wheat they are Troublers of the Church and it s no Sin to kill a Heretick So indeed you are taught as by your Practices hath sufficiently appeared to the World But have you never read what Christ said to those his servants who enquired of him whether they should pluck up the Tares or no Math. 13.29 30. How he forbad them saying Nay Let both grow together until the Harvest and then he explains to his Disciples when the Harvest shall be and whose Work it shall be to separate the Tares from the Wheat The Parable begins ver 24. and ends with ver 30. And Christ's own Explanation of that Parable you may read from ver 36. to ver 43. where he saith plainly The Harvest is the End of the World and the Reapers who are to do that Work are the Angels And so he reserves that Work for them who shall be sufficiently able to distinguish Tares from Wheat Heroticks from true Christians And therefore till then they are to be let alone in the Field which is the World Now here are two contrary Lessons your Masters say you may kill Hereticks and so instigate you thereto and make you believe that you do good Service to God and

Sons of God and so walking with God in the Spirit they needed no such thing to keep them in mind of God nor did they use any such things But wherefore I say again do you set Images and Pictures before you when you pray to the Lord Is it to divert your minds that you should mind something else besides the Lord in your prayers lest you should serve the Lord with all your heart and with all your mind or you set such things as mediators between God and you If so then know that you have Chosen to your selves mediators which God hath not appoirted but you have set up the devices of your own hearts If it be only to put you in mind of the Lord then when you are put in mind of him and go to pray to him turn from them and put them out of your sight lest they divert your minds But wherefore must the Image of Mary the Mother of Jesus and the Image of Peter or any other holy servant of Christ be set before you when you pray Do you worship their Pictures Or do you pray to the Picture or to them If you worship their Pictures or pray to their Pictures you are Idolaters If you pray to them that are represented by the Pictures you make Gods of them and so still you are Idolaters And you give them that worship which is only due to God which Paul and Barnabas durst not take to themselves when the men of Licaonia would have done Sacrifice to them but rent their clothes and ran in among them to constrain them as soon as they perceived it If you say That was Sacrifice but this is prayer to them I Answer Is not prayer Sacrifice Is it not preferred before burnt Sacrifice Is it not above the burning of a Lamb or an Ox or above the burning of Incense Is not the thing it self more then the Type or Shaddow The Type sometimes is an abomination though of Gods own appointment as Sacrifices and burnt Offerings and burning of Incense was Isa 66.3 But the true Incense the prayers of Saints never is so Therefore prayer is greater then sacrifice which the Apostles abhorred to be done to them Nor would Petor suffer Cornelius to worship him but took him up saying stand up I my self also am a man Act. 10.25 26. Neither would the Angel of the Lord suffer John to worship him when he fell down before his feet to worship but saith to him See thou do it not for I am thy fellow Servant and of thy brethren the Prophets and of them which keep the sayings of this Book Worship God Rev. 22.9 You may hence learn if you be Ignorant of it That Angels and the Prophets and others that keep the sayings of this Book are all Fellow-Servants to God And because they are Fellow-Servants they ought not to worship one another the least Member is not to worship the greatest neither Saint nor Angel That 's the reason the Angel gives why he would not suffer John to fall down before his Feet to worship because he was but his fellow-Servant Do you think that Mary or Peter or John or any other holy Servants of the Lord would not say the like if they were present and see you falling down to worship before their Feet and to pray to them would they take the Honour of God to themselves any more then the Angel did No surely they would not stand between God and his Honour any more then the Angel did Your falling down to worship them shews that you are ignorant of that pure and holy Spirit that dwelt and dwelleth in the Saints which makes them Jealous of such actions lest God thereby should be robbed of his Glory There 's no right Spirit will desire it or delight in it but be afraid of it It s the spirit of the Devil that delights to be worshipped who would have had Christ to fall down and worship him and now would have Men to fall down and worship any thing but God and it s that spirit which Men gratify when they worship any other but the Lord. Therefore turn from this Idolatry and worship the only Lord God who made you the Heavens and the Earth and all the Host of them even all the Angels and Holy Men that are in Glory who themselves fall down and worship him and dare not take to themselves that which belongs to God Will you make Gods of Men and imagine them to be present as God is over the Face of the Earth It may be ten thousand Persons or more in several parts of the Earth as far distant some of them as the East is from the West may be all praying at once to the Virgin Mary or to Peter or some other do you think them to be present in all Places to hear their Prayers as God himself is present If you do so think of them then how differ they from God in his Omni-presence and Omni-science If you say No they are not present every where as God is then if they could hear Prayer yet how many of these must pray in vain to those who cannot hear them I thus follow you to convince you of your Error if it may be Away away with your abominable Idolatry in making God's of Men and praying unto them as if they were every where and let your Hearts turn to the Lord who hath created you and in whom you live and move and have your being who upholds all things by the Word of this Power and who is present in all your Hearts and Reins and sees the Intents and Purposes of your Hearts Who though he made all things and the Heaven be his Throne and the Earth his Foot-stool yet humbleth he himself to draw near unto his Creature and to this Man will I look saith he that is poor and of a contrite Spirit and trembleth at my Word Isa 66.1 2. Therefore none need to be discouraged and pretend to make Mediators of the Saints as if they themselves were unworthy for the poorer in Spirit that any one is the nearer doth the Lord draw to that man And he hath appointed no Mediator between himself and us but one even the Man Christ Jesus for so the Apostle Paul hath plainly expressed it 1 Tim. 2.5 For there is one God saith he and one Mediator between God Men the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a Ransom for all to be testified in due time Therefore they they set up to themselves other Mediators they are gone from the one Mediator which God hath appointed and follow devices of their own Hearts and the vain Traditions of men which will not profit them Lastly you give us all ground to think that you are guilty to your selves or at least wise your Predecessors were guilty to themselves of breaking the second Commandment by your Images and Pictures or else what need they have put it out of your Bibles or out of the number of the ten Commandments But it look't them so full in the Face that they were not able to behold it and therefore expunged it out of your Bibles It may be some may read it here who never read it in their Bibles therefore I will set it down here for them to read Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image or the Likeness of any thing which is in the Heavens above or in the Earth beneath or that is in the Water under the Earth Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them for I the Lord thy God am a Jealous God visiting the Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth Generation of them that hate me and shewing Mercy unto thousnds of them that love me and keep my Commandments This is that second Commandment which your Books want because your Practice will not bear it it s written Exod. 20.4 5 6. If any be so bold as to say there is no such Commandment let them consult with the Jews and ask them whether their Bibles have it in or no for they can give you certain Information in that point and from them we have all received the old Testament Thus I have in Faithfulness laid before you what was represented to me from the Lord concerning your Condition And God is my Witness before whom I stand that I have not writ these things in Malice or Wrath against you or any Person among you but in Faithfulness to your Souls to let you see where you are And if any of you continuing in your bloody Principles and bloody spirit for you are noted for a bloody People shall seek my Life for my Love to you in dealing plainly with you in leting you know the Truth and so add that also to your Blood-guiltiness I value it not upon this Account in Testimony of the Truth delivered to you and of service to your Souls therein And therefore I subscribe my Name who am a Lover of Truth and Righteousness Meekness Humility Love and Faithfulness in whomsoever I find them and of all whose Hearts are towards the Lord in Sincerity Written in the Year 1673. and in the 7th Moneth By William Tomlinson THE END