Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	fear_n	lord_n	wisdom_n	5,389	5	6.9425	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52449	A sermon preached before the King at New Market, October 8, 1671 by John North.	North, John, 1645-1683.	1671 (1671)	Wing N1289; ESTC R27521	11,649	37

it has been onely in compliance to them I would reclaim I waved it for the present onely that I might expose the mischiefs of those vices taken barely in themselves for the sake of which they reject Religion hoping that if the ends of a worldly policy could bring them off they might afterwards do it of their own accord upon a more noble Principle There remains onely an humble advice in the Name of God that we would continue to beware the splitting upon these two Rocks Debauchery and Profaneness which we ought more carefully to decline at this time for since there are so many addicted to them out of irreligion we shall be interpreted to do so too by which we sacrifice our own credit and unhappily confirm them in their desperate way for they will think there are so many suffrages the more added to their side They have been noted to gather Proselytes as much as any Party whatever and to dive into the mind of others by discourse whether they are not of the same bold opinion with themselves whereby it appears they support their timorous hearts more by their company by their fellows in iniquity then any strength in their Cause And that we may be the better armed let us novv vvhilst this solemn Exercise has composed our thoughts vvhilst no temptation hovers before our eyes duly perpend these things and if satisfied in the truth of them as surely we must let us use the same Method the Mathematicians do who having once proved a proposition do not examine it again as often as they have occasion to apply it but ever after take it for a Maxime and build other Theoremes upon it So here also being already convinced let us set an unmoveable Rule for our whole life Let not any cajoling pleasure reduce us to an uncertainty or to dispute the case again for then vve are sure to be overthrovvn If once vve be so easie as to admit any sin to plead for it self by its plausible and fawning excuses it vvill infallibly overcome There is a great deal of Mechanism in the body vvhen a pleasant object is presented there arises a tumult vvithin us vvhether vve vvill or no the unruly spirits flie in pursuance of it and oppress vvith their numbers the seat of the Understanding so that vve cannot then fairly deliberate or frame an exact scrutiny but must move upon some judgement vve have formerly made We have all experience hovv much a fit of anger does transport us beyond the limits of discretion each strong inclination is as truly a passion and does debauch our reason as much though the same violence does not outvvardly break forth Let us therefore at any unlawful opportunity not parly but command Let us not be ruled by the thoughts which are then suggested to us but summon into our mind the apprehensions we have had in such a place and at such a time as this In a word let us remember the Scripture almost always denotes Religion by the fear of the Lord by the fearing of his Name which is for that cause stiled the beginning of Wisdome and that Reverence here is like modesty in manners which if we once discard no bounds will ever after contain us Now to Almighty God the Father Son and holy Spirit be ascribed all Honour and Praise for ever and ever Amen I cannot forbear by way of Appendix to subjoyn the translation of that most excellent passage cited in Greek p. 12. out of Plato de leg where he thus accosts the young hectoring Atheist My son you are yet but a young man In process of time you will come to change for the quite contrary many of those Opinions you now espouse Stay therefore till then before you determine of great affairs and the greatest of all which perhaps you imagine not is the framing of a right Notion concerning the gods because on this depends the choice of a Wicked or a Vertuous life Now I 'le discover one thing to you which I may truly enough affirm And it is this You and your Camerades are not the first nor the onely persons which have had this desperate Sentiment concerning the gods There have been always more or less those that have fallen into this disease But I may tell you what has happened to most of them Never did any take up in his youth the denial of the Existence of a God that carried the same mind with him to his declining age Those Verses of Laertius cited p. 13. upon Bion the Atheist who falling sick in his old age applied himself in Prayers and Sacrifices to the gods whom he had always before derided may thus be rendred A Fool to think th' Existence of the gods Could for a price be bought or sold As if forsooth they onely then should Be When Bion pleased so to hold FINIS

A SERMON Preached before the KING AT NEW MARKET October 8. 1671. By the Honourable JOHN NORTH Fellow of Jesus College in Cambridge Printed by his Majesties special Command CAMBRIDGE Printed by John Hayes Printer to the University 1671. And are to be sold by Edw. Story Bookseller in Cambridge Psalm the 1. verse the 1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the Counsel of the ungodly nor standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful WE need not wonder that vice should engross a great parcel of the world if we consider that we are all endowed with a freedom of will which may easily be perverted by the flattering enjoyment that an unlawful action does present It has been already and will always be the constant humour of every Generation that passes to complain of its own Times as the latter Dayes as the dregs of an Iron Age which by a vast disproportion has outlasted the other three of a purer metal But the more deplorable things are the higher care we should employ to keep our selves unspotted from the general stain that we may neither be allured by pleasure nor invited by an evil and numerous example which as it is ever dangerous so chiefly when men are not content to be wicked unless they offer to justify it too Heretofore though they engaged in courses full as bad yet they did not throw off all sence of Religion they retained still their esteem of goodness confessed their infirmity and sometimes intermingled fits of a severe Repentance so that it might admit of a favourable construction to proceed rather from a strong and unreclaimed temper then a deliberate intent But now many abroad embrace Immorality as a profession transact it in the face of the world without the least remorse study the highest provocation boast of their horrid attempts proclaim as a matter of Glory to what a stress of impiety to what a Violence of sin their mind does submit and their body will endure 'T is their Counsel as the Psalmist calls it that which they pursue upon the maturest thoughts 'T is their way the path they are resolved to tread Nor are they looser in their lives then in their Principles and Discourse They would hide a naughty practice by the unsettledness of their mind They would vanquish fear altogether that it might not steal in upon them when their head is heavy or their spirits are exhausted And so they seat themselves in the Chair of the scornful turn Religion into a jest play with sacred things use the inspired Volume as a Topick from whence they raise their unsavoury wit They brandish some pitiful objections against Religion which have been confuted a thousand times they list themselves under some Champion or other who has been reported to espouse their cause his arguments they manage his Phrases they cite though they understand them not Now although the exposing of their rashness may seem a subject improper for an Auditory that expresses so much devotion as to fill these sacred places yet since 't is the frailty of our nature to regard less the proffer of happiness then a representation of danger I cannot better confirm the Vertuous in the excellent choice they have made then by disparaging the contrary vices this being the very manner our Psalmist takes of describing the godly I shall therefore for the entertainment here endeavour to shew the mischief to which that Counsel betrays the dismal mansion to which that way does lead and what a vain security the deceitful Chair of the scornful does afford which for the clearer Method I shall distinguish into these two Parts levelling the one against a dissolute the other against a profane kind of life And intending to demonstrate how inconsistent they both are with the least pretence to Religion how unsatisfactory in respect to an ordinary prudence and how unable to promote the design for which they are followed As for the former of these I must in the first place offer to your serious Reflexion that as sure as another state succeeds this here on earth so certainly a debauched person will miscarry Amongst the many subdivided Parties which discompose our Christian Profession we shall find this acknowledged on every hand what ever sort of Opiniators we admire among whomsoever we enroll our Name there prevails an obligation to a Virtuous life Though we disagree in the means how it is attained though we dispute how far it sufficeth yet every side grants the Necessity and that without it no entrance can be procured into Heaven It is this by which each novel Sect gains Proselytes by which every sinking faction supports its credit whilst by a strict observance of what is equally enforced by all they draw the simple into their remote and more dangerous Tenets If we travel beyond Christendome and search into the customes of those who do either now or have of old pretended to another Revelation as many countries as we survey so many concurring suffrages we may gather up None ever exercised a Religion who did not place in sobriety the most proper Service None ever owned a life hereafter who did not by that determine the happy or miserable condition there Nay though a foolish suspicion should arise within our breast concerning the truth of a particular Dispensation yet this other engagement we could never remove as that which Nature her self has implanted in us as that which constitutes a part of our Reason as much as any Notice or Axiome in speculative Learning We frame as evident a conception of good and evil as of like or unlike simple or compound and are as fully perswaded that we must avoid the one and pursue the other as that the whole does exceed the part both advanced beyond further proof And since none but the Founder of the Universe can have imbued us with such intimations we must esteem them as his eternal Law to which if the recompence always annexed be not evenly distributed here it must wait for us in another place Nor as to these duties of our Natural light can any plead the least colour of an excuse They are not involved in a forreign tongue not purchased from beyond the seas or transmitted by an uncertain Tradition but what he reads in a large and lively Character within himself by which alone it pleased God to govern far the greatest part of the Earth till our Saviours time and when he did impart a new discovery it seemed chiefly to aim at the renewal of this Image which superstition had defaced For though he imposed those minute Ceremonies with so severe a charge upon the Jews yet when not offered up together with a moral Virtue he throws them back with the greatest disdain as if he had never enjoyned them To urge then the inference How stupendious a piece of folly does the Dissolute commit who neglects what is commended by an Universal consent who stifly adheres to a certain sect of