Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	flesh_n	live_v	mortify_v	7,524	5	11.3904	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62628	Sermons preach'd upon several occasions. By John Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. The fourth volume	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1694 (1694)	Wing T1260B; ESTC R217595	184,892	481

foundation than the Faith of the Gospel and the Practice of its Precepts doth build his house upon the Sand which when it comes to be tryed by the Rain and the Winds will fall and the fall of it will be great And elsewhere If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them And he does very severely check the vain confidence and presumption of those who will needs rely upon Him for Salvation without keeping his commandments Why call ye me says He Lord Lord and do not the things which I say Does any man think that he can be saved without loving God and Christ And this saith St. John is the love of God that we keep his commandments and again He that saith I know him and by the same reason he that saith I love him and keepeth not his commandments he is a lyar and the truth is not in him If ye love me saith our B. Lord keep my commandments And again He that hath my commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me Does any man think that any but the children of God shall be heirs of eternal Life Hear then what St. John saith Little children let no man deceive you he that doth righteousness is righteous even as He is righteous And again In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil he that doth not righteousness is not of God In a word this is the perpetual tenour of the Bible from the beginning of it to the end If thou dost well saith God to Cain shalt thou not be accepted And again Say ye to the righteous it shall be well with him for they shall eat the fruit of their doings Wo unto the wicked it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him And in the Gospel when the young man came to our Saviour to be instructed by Him what good thing he should do that he might inherit eternal life our Lord gives him this short and plain advice If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments And in the very last Chapter of the Bible we find this solemn declaration Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the Tree of Life and enter in through the Gates into the City that is into Heaven which the Apostle to the Hebrews calls the City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God So vain and groundless is the imagination of those who trust to be saved by an idle and ineffectual Faith without holiness and obedience of life II. I proceed now in the Second place to convince us all if it may be of the necessity of minding Religion and our Souls When we call any thing necessary we mean that it is so in order to some End which cannot be attained without it We call those things the necessaries of Life without which men cannot subsist and live in a tolerable condition in this World And that is necessary to our eternal happiness without which it cannot be attain'd Now happiness being our chief End whatever is necessary to that is more necessary than any thing else and in comparison of that all other things not only may but ought to be neglected by us Now to convince men of the necessity of Religion I shall briefly shew That it is a certain way to happiness That it is certain that there is no other way but this And that if we neglect Religion we shall certainly be extremely and for ever miserable First That Religion is a certain way to happiness And for this we have God's express Declaration and Promise the best assurance that can be He that cannot lye hath promised eternal life to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality All the happiness that we can desire and of which the nature of man is capable is promised to us upon the terms of Religion upon our denying ungodliness and worldly lusts and living soberly and righteously and godlily in this present world A mighty reward for a little service an eternity of happiness of joys unspeakable and full of glory for the diligence and industry of a few days A happiness large as our wishes and lasting as our Souls Secondly 'T is certain also that there is no other way to happiness but this He who alone can make us happy hath promised it to us upon these and no other terms He hath said That if we live after the flesh we shall die but if by the spirit we mortify the deeds of the flesh we shall live That without holiness no man shall see the Lord And that he that lives in the habitual Practice of any Vice of Covetousness or Adultery or Malice or Revenge shall not enter into the kingdom of God And we have reason to believe Him concerning the terms of this happiness and the means of attaining it by whose favour and bounty alone we hope to be made partakers of it And if God had not said it in his Word yet the nature and reason of the thing doth plainly declare it For Religion is not only a condition of our happiness but a necessary qualification and disposition for it We must be like to God in the temper of our minds before we can find any felicity in the enjoyment of him Men must be purged from their Lusts and from those ill-natur'd and devilish Passions of Malice and Envy and Revenge before they can be fit company for their heavenly Father and meet to dwell with him who is love and dwells in love Thirdly If we neglect Religion we shall certainly be extreamly and for ever miserable The Word of Truth hath said it that indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish shall be upon every soul of man that doth evil Nay if God should hold his hand and should inflict no positive torment upon sinners yet they could not spare themselves but would be their own Executioners and Tormentors The guilt of that wicked Life which they had led in this World and the Stings of their own Consciences must necessarily make them miserable whenever their own Thoughts are let loose upon them as they will certainly be in the other World when they shall have nothing either of pleasure or business to divert them So that if we be concern'd either to be happy hereafter or to avoid those Miseries which are great and dreadful beyond all imagination it will be necessary for us to mind Religion without which we can neither attain that Happiness nor escape those Miseries All that now remains is to perswade you and my self seriously to mind this one thing necessary And to this end I shall apply my Discourse to two sorts of Persons those who are remiss in a matter of so great concernment and those who are grosly careless and mind it not at all First To those who are remiss in a matter of such vast concernment Who

for abstaining from Revenge and so far we are to forgive our Enemies even whilst they continue so and though they do not repent And not only so but we are also to pray for them and to do good offices to them especially of common Humanity and this is the meaning of the Precept in the Text. But sometimes Forgiveness does signify a perfect Reconciliation to those that have offended us so as to take them again into our Friendship which they are by no means fit for till they have repented of their Enmity and laid it aside And this is plainly the meaning of the other Text. 2. It is further objected That this seems to be a very imprudent thing and of dangerous consequence to our selves because by bearing one Injury so patiently and forgiving it so easily we invite more and not only tempt our Enemy to go on but others also by his Example to do the like Which will make ill natur'd Men to provoke us on purpose with a crafty design to wrest benefits from us For what better Trade can a man drive than to gain Benefits in exchange for Injuries To this I answer three things First It is to be feared that there are but few so very good as to make this kind return for Injuries Perhaps of those that call themselves Christians not one in a hundred And he is not a cunning man that will venture to make an Enemy when there is the odds of a hundred to one against him that this Enemy of his will take the first opportunity to take his Revenge upon him Secondly It is also on the other hand to be hoped that but very few are so prodigiously bad as to make so barbarous a return for the unexpected kindness of a generous Enemy And this is encouragement enough to the practice of this Duty if there be a probable hope that it will have a good effect and however if it should fall out otherwise yet this would not be reason enough to discourage our goodness especially since the kindness which we do to our Friends is liable almost to an equal Objection that they may prove ungrateful and become our Enemies it having been often seen that great Benefits and such as are beyond requital instead of making a man more a Friend have made him an Enemy Thirdly Our Saviour never intended by this Precept that our goodness should be blind and void of all prudence and discretion but that it should be so managed as to make our Enemy sensible both of his own fault and of our favour and so as to give him as little encouragement as there is reason for it to hope to find the like favour again upon the like provocation Our Saviour commands us to do the thing but hath left it to our prudence to do it in such a manner as may be most effectual both to reclaim the Offender and likewise to secure our selves against future and further Injuries 3. Lastly It is objected What can we do more to our best Friends than to love them and bless them than to do good to them and to pray for them And are we then to make no difference betwixt our Enemies and our Friends Yes surely and so we may notwithstanding this Precept For there are degrees of Love and there are Benefits of several rates and sizes Those of the first rate we may with reason bestow upon our Friends and with those of a second or third rate there is all the reason in the World why our Enemies should be very well contented Besides that we may abstain from Revenge yea and love our Enemy and wish him and do him good and yet it will not presently be necessary that we should take him into our bosom and treat and trust him as our intimate and familiar Friend For every one that is not our Enemy is not fit to be our Friend much less one that hath been our Enemy and perhaps is so still There must be a great change in him that hath been our Enemy and we must have had long experience of him before it will be fit if ever it be so to take him into our Friendship All that now remains is to make some Inferences from the Discourse which I have made upon this Argument by way of Application And they shall be these four I. If we think it so very difficult to demean our selves towards our Enemies as the Christian Religion doth plainly require us to do to forgive them and love them and pray for them and to do good offices to them then certainly it concerns us in prudence to be very careful how we make Enemies to our selves One of the first Principles of Humane Wisdom in the conduct of our Lives I have ever thought to be this To have a few intimate Friends and to make no Enemies if it be possible to our selves St. Paul lays a great stress upon this and presseth it very earnestly For after he had forbidden Revenge Recompence to no man evil for evil As if he were very sensible how hard a matter it is to bring men to this he adviseth in the next words to prevent if it be possible the occasions of Revenge If it be possible and as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men That is if we can avoid it have no Enmity with any man And that for two weighty Reasons The first I have already intimated because it is so very hard to behave our selves towards Enemies as we ought This we shall find to be a difficult Duty to Flesh and Blood and it will require great Wisdom and Consideration and Humility of Mind for a Man to bring down his Spirit to the Obedience of this Command For the fewer Enemies we have the less occasion will there be of contesting this hard Point with our selves And the other Reason is I think yet plainer and more convincing because Enemies will come of themselves and let a man do what he can he shall have some Friendship is a thing that needs to be cultivated if we would have it come to any thing but Enemies like ill Weeds will spring up of themselves without our care and toil The Enemy as our Saviour calls the Devil will sow these Tares in the night and when we least discern it will scatter the Seeds of Discord and Enmity among men and will take an advantage either from the Envy or the Malice or the Mistakes of Men to make them Enemies to one another Which would make one wonder to see what care and pains some men will take to provoke Mankind against them how they will lay about them and snatch at opportunities to make themselves Enemies as if they were afraid to let the happy occasion slip by them But all this care and fear surely is needless we may safely trust an ill natur'd World that we shall have Enemies enough without our doing things on our part to provoke and procure them But above all it concerns