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	worship_v	worshipper_n	7,267	5	12.9330	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60620	A briefe answer unto a book intituled Shetinah, or, A demonstration of the divine presence in places of religious worship published by Iohn Stillingfleet, who stiles himself M.A. rector of Beckingham in Lincoln-shire, and late fellow of St. Iohns Colledge in Cambridge. In which book he hath declared many perverse things against the people of God (called Quakers,) and for so much as is considerable, wherein that people are any way concerned, it is in the power of God here answered, by one who is set for the defence of the Gospel, William Smith.	Smith, William, d. 1673.	1664 (1664)	Wing S4290; ESTC R220735	21,376	28

the matter thou undertakes to vindicate for as to the appointment or at least approvement of God concerning the sanctuary tabernacle temple and synagogues we do not deny but Christ is come the fulfiller of all figures and he saith neither at Jerusalem nor at this mountain shall men worship the Father but the true worshippers shall worship him in spirit and truth and thou sayest it was but the ceremonial part that was abolished but thou may know that it was the very place in which their worship was performed in that dispensation for Christ said concerning the temple that there should not be left one stone upon another which should not be thrown down which thing came to passe so that the place once appointed of God was thrown down and he did not command that it should be set up again for a place of worship and the true worshippers that followed Christ they worshipped in the spirit and they was not bound to time place or person but as they was ordered in the spirit so they was instant to serve God and worship him without regarding either p●ace or time so that it may be understood that there was never any particular place appointed or approved of God since that time as a place set apart onely for a place of worship and as for those places which are now called Churches they were never set apart by divine appointment for any such service as is practised in them and therefore the hearts of such as waits to be revived and comforted with the refreshings of Gods presence must turn away from them and turn to the light of Christ within where the streams of life runs sweetly for God is no other way known in that place which thou would have to be a Church nor in that worship which is there observed but by manifesting himself against them and when thou comes to be truly awakned in thy conscience thou wilt know that neither thy Church worship or ministry are either appointed approved or ordained of God Thou sayest do you count it your priviledge your perfection to throw off Gods publick ordinances with an admiration of your silent and dumb congregations in private must it not needs argue saidst thou a very sleepy not to say a benummed and besotted conscience thus to throw away the wholesome milk of the word in a disdainful pet and yet never complain of the hunger and thirst of your souls Answ Our priviledge and perfection is in Christ whom God hath ordained to be our salvation and he gives us the milk of his word and feeds us with meat in due season and that is our food in silence by which we are kept fresh and living unto God whilest all false worshippers are asleep in the first Adam and benummed and besotted in the earthly nature where they have no sense nor feeling of the virtuous springs and our tongues are not our own nor our wills at liberty and yet the Gospel is unto us committed and in the word of life we publish the glad tydings of it and though we do not speak words yet we feel the presence of God with us and that satisfies our hunger and refreshes our thirst and he answers all our complainings in secret but thou wouldst have us complain to such as thee and to buy thy words for food and to receive them for satisfaction which we turn away from knowing it is but a dry brest in which there is no vertue at all Thou saist a Quaker once told thee he got more good by their silent meetings then ever he got by hearing the Ministers in publick Answ As to thy publick Ministery his words might be true yet who are sent of God and preaches the Gospel of God we do get much good by their publick Ministery for thereby we are informed into the life and power of God which in silent waiting upon him we taste and feel and all our fresh springs are in him Thou seist God ordains not our immediate addresse to Heaven we must live by faith and not by vision but he commands us to use ordinary means Answ God doth ordain our immediate addresse to heaven and that in the work of our faith and we live by it and have the holy visions of God opened in it and by this means we find comfort to our souls and whether would thou have people to make their addresse if not to Heaven would thou not have them addresse themselves upto Christ and is not Christ in Heaven and what faith would thou have them to live by and what means would thou have them to use if they must not addresse themselves to Heaven for true faith and means goes to Heaven and all that lives by the faith ●f ●he Son of God and uses those means that he appoints them 〈◊〉 a●dresse 〈◊〉 selves immediately to heaven and in all their distresses and afflictions they finde grace to help them in their need ●nd by this faith we live in the power of an endlesse life Thou sayest well however Sampsons foxes may have their heads looking divers ways yet they are joyned together with firebrands in their tails and howsoever those that desert the publick means may tend some of them to prophanenesse others to a schismatical not to say an heretical separation many heresies going currently for new lights yet sayest thou this is the firebrand or rather the Devils dead coal Answ We are gathered in the unity of the Spirit of God in which our faces are turned Sion-ward and looks all one way and after the manner which thou calls heresie so worship we the God of our Fathers and thy words belongs to thy self and the sons of Adam in the fall who are looking some to one thing and some to another and yet the firebrand joyns your tails with which you would burn up the fruitful field and consume Gods heritage from the earth and this is a coal of Cains nature which the Devil blows up sometimes into a heat and sometimes into a flame and so thou may read the next Chapter which is the third to be thy own state in which thou speaks of Cains going forth from the presence of the Lord and sayest They which voluntarily leave Gods instituted worship and his commanded ordinances put themselves into a wandering condition Answ Yes they do so and therefore it must needs follow that they that forsakes the will worships and vain worships and comes to Gods instituted worship in his Spirit that they come into a stayed and settled condition and so it is thou and old Adam sons in the fall that are in Cains countrey sometimes wandring after one invention sometimes after another and this is your worship which God never instituted but the children of light are in covenant with God and rests in peace In the fourth Chapter thou sayest the sons of men which are of a mixt nature partly spirit and partly body are by their very being determined both to time and place in their rendring

actual worship unto God Answ The mixture is in the fall but who are regenerated and born again they live in the spirit and knows both time and place to render actual worship unto God in the order of his spirit and yet are not determined to time or place by limittation Thou saist if the God of this world would have all Professours enjoy a total immunity from the Law of God and all manner of licentiousnesse allowed without check of conscience let him then make an every day Sabbath Answ Christ is Lord of the Sabbath and Christians enjoyes an every day Sabbath in Christ of whom the Jewes Sabbath was a figure and they are in his righteousnesse and doth not allow any licentiousnesse for their rest is holy and they lie down in it without check of conscience Thou saist publick worship speaks a joint concurrence of several worshippers for the performance of the same action of religious worship so that the very light of nature saist thou gives it clear suffrage for the necessity of convenient places of meeting for the performance of the publick worship and service of God Answ Christians do jointly concur in the spirit in which they have unity and that in the same action of religious worship but Apostates cannot do so and though they meet together in one place yet not having unity in the spirit they cannot jointly concurre in the woiship of God and so the place and worship which thou calls publick being set up in the apostasie and not after Christ the Christians cannot own them for light and darknesse hath no communion together Thou saist is not this to cry up inward light and yet plainly to live in darknesse Answ This is to cry up inward light and to live in it and therefore it is that we deny all false worships which is set up and practised in the darknesse Thou saist I have neither faith to believe nor any reason to see that there is any Separated I adde and Consecrated places for divine worship any such legal or ceremonial kind of holinesse which renders duties performed there more acceptable unto God then if performed by the same persons and in the like manner in any other places Answ Thou hast all this while been pleading for that separated place to be the Church and hast been holding forth a special presence of God in that worship which is there performed and now thou saith that duties performed there are no more acceptable unto God then if performed in any other places and if thou have neither faith to believe it nor reason to see it as thou saist then thou might have spared thy pains in writing thy Book for thy chief aim is to bring people to conform to the worship there observed as the worship of God in his Church which if duties be no more acceptable unto God which is there performed then if performed in any other place then such as withdrawes from it may perform duties as acceptable unto God in other places according to thy own faith and reason so it is not a true Church nor a true worship for the worship and duties performed in the true Church which is in God are only accepted of God and in no other place or places whatsoever and here thou hast pulled down thy own building with thy own hands Thou saist here then arises that ample provision that Christ hath made for his special presence in the places of religious worship viz. from the Communion of Saints meeting in convenient separated places for publick worship and from the promise annexed thereto and not from any peculiar holinesse in those places where they thus meet to worship God Answ The Communion of Saints is in the light of Christ and so saith John If we walk in the light as he is in the light then have we fellowship one with another and this is not the state of Adam in the fall neither can his Sonnes and Daughters perform a religious worship unto God and so no Church either by Communion of Saints or the place it self and therefore such worshippers have not the promise annexed In the fifth Chapter thou seems to hold forth the special presence of God in publick worship by his Train or Retinue of Angels to which I answer generally Answ That God is present in his publick worship which is performed in his spirit was never yet denied by us but thou hast not proved thy worship to be the worship of God and therefore we say that Gods presence is not in it to the comfort of the worshipper and this may answer all thy Jumblings about the Angels for thou art not come to the Angelical Ministration In the sixth Chapter thou seems to hold forth the practical inferences drawn from the presence of angels in the places of publick worship Answ When he bringeth forth his only-begotten Son into the world he saith and let all the angels of God worship him and this is a full answer to this whole Chapter In the seventh Chapter thou seems to hold forth Gods presence in publick worship by his word with some other particulars relating to that matter which I might mention and answer if I did intend largenesse but finding the whole matter of thy Book to lye chiefly as to Church worship ministry and practice as they generally now stand I shall not make needlesse repetitions by answering the same thing over and over yet this I say unto this Chapter that Gods presence by his word is in his worship and all that worship him aright he teaches them by his word but that thy preaching is the word of God or that the word of God is in thy preaching or his presence by his word in that publick worship through they preaching that thou hast not any where proved and therefore it falls of it self In the eighth Chapter thou seems to hold forth practical inferences that teachers of the word must not corrupt the word of God and that it must be owned as Gods word and received and mingled with faith and practised in obedience Answ I answer generally that they who are born of the word which is immortal they do not corrupt it but are true and faithfull ministers of it and many have received it as it is indeed the word of God and they mingle it with faith and practises it in obedience and such are doers of the word and are blessed but thy tongue must learn silence and thou must know a new birth and a new tongue before thou can truly minister the word of God In the ninth Chapter thou seems to hold forth the presence of God in his worship by his ministers and that the truths of God must be heard though from ungodly preachers and that ministers are Gods Embassadours and stewards of the mysteries of God and that God and man works together in the conversion of souls and production of saving faith Ans Thou said even now that teachers of the word must not corrupt the