Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A41707
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The primitive Christian justified and Jack Presbyter reproved, or, A scripture demonstration, that to be innocent and persecuted is more eligible than to be prosperously wicked delivered in a sermon in the Abby-Church of Bath by William Goulde.
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Gould, William, d. 1686.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing G1441; ESTC R9434
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18,041
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33
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and Debaucheries Hast thou a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is thy Body turned black and sallow and thy beauty faded 't is probably occasioned by a too great delight and content in admiring the excellency of thy frail Complexion Hast thou a Paralysis is the use of thy Limbs taken from thee 't is Sin is the cause perhaps thy Hands have been shut to the Poor or thy Feet swift to shed Blood or to walk in the paths of ungodliness Sin therefore is not the object of a rational man's Choice because it is the Souls Sickness and the sourse of all bodily Distempers and Diseases Seventhly Sin is not a sit Object to be elected because it is the unhappy parent of Temporal Spiritual and Eternal Death By Sin Death entred into the World Rom. 5. 12. Death is the Child of sin not of Nature Nay it destroys our Souls as well as our Bodies The Soul that sinneth shall dye the death of Nature and the death of Grace Sin occasion'd both and not only so but the death that never dies is sins Wages 't is Sin keeps in the fire of Hell to all Eternity that lays on those everlasting torments prepared for the Devil and his Angels 't is sin that not only feeds the Worm with our Bodies but the never-dying worm with our Souls likewise it kindles the slames of Lust here in our hearts and blows the coals in Hell to torment both our bodies and souls to eternal Ages and who can dwell with everlasting burnings Lastly Sin is not the object of a rational Man or good Christians Choice if put in the ballance with Afflictions and that is the last Branch of the Thesis which I laid down at the beginning of my Discourse occasioned by Elihu's Reprehension of Job under the notion of chusing wickedness rather than sufferings and this I shall demonstrate briefly and plainly and make Application to our selves My Position is this without any Equivocation it is the property of a good Man to chuse the greatest Affliction before the least Sin or there is more evil in one sin than in all whatsoever Suffering This appears in ten Particulars 1. Sin separates from God but Affliction not 2. Affliction is not Sin is evil in its self 3. A sinful state cannot but an afflicted may consist with the love of God 4. The evil of Suffering is but momentany of Sin everlasting 5. We are called to Suffering commanded by Christ to take up our Cross and to follow him but not called to sin 6. The end of Suffering is glory of Sin shame 7. By suffering we lose some outward good by Sin the soul 8. Suffering speaks our conformity to Christ Sin to the Devils 9. God is the Author of Affliction not of Sin Lastly Afflictions may be good if sanctified to us but not Sins I shall not observe a strict order as to every one of these Heads but single out the chiefest and most useful for a mixt Audience 1. To chuse Affliction is a hard choice for Affliction is not good in its self but however it may be useful to us happy is the man that endureth temptations and chastnings the Scripture speaks in many places but happy is the man that commits Iniquity hath not the patronage of one single Text David could say upon tryal Psal 119. 71. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy Statutes but he never said It is good for me that I have sinned unlearned thy Precepts or broke thy Commandments David pleased himself in being afflicted but not in thinking he had sinned as is visible enough in his seven Penitential Psalms and particularly if we compare the 2 Sam. 10. chap. 11. ver with Psalm 51. we shall find David reckoning his sins as the 1 2 3. greatest punishment in all the World David did not first pray that his House might be delivered from the fury of the Sword or that his Wives might not be violated before his face his Children might not be Rebells the good man passed by these things as temporal and trivial punishments but he cries upon his Sins his Sins his Sins three times in a breath Psal 51. 1. as so many haunting Devils that disturbed his rest When Paul of a Persecutor became a persecuted Apostle and was delivered from his sins he was immediately so ravished with the love of his deliverer and the joy of his deliverance that he cared not to be delivered from any misery besides he even gloried in tribulation as very useful both to exercise and feed his patience as Rom. 5. 3. Acts 21. 13. he was ready not to be bound only but dye for the Lord Jesus Sickness and Plunder Banishment and Bonds and every kind of Persecution are heavy burthens to the Flesh but light being wighed in the ballance with the pressures and miseries of Sin and Wickedness when God the Father of Spirits afflicts his Sons and Daughters he doth it that they may be partakers of his Holiness as Heb. 12. 10 11. but Sin is the sting of all afflictions 't is the suffering as Evil doers that keeps men from being Martyrs but they are happy who suffer in a good cause for even hereunto are ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that we should tread in his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his lips Moses well understood himself when he chose rather to be afflicted with the people of God than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Heb. 11. 25. So the old Martyrs Will you have a Prison or deny your Saviour and your Lord Will you burn in this fire or commit that Idolatrous Act Will you dye by a Halter or forsake the Faith Oh say they give us Prisons Fires Axes Gibbets Wheels Lyons all the Torments invented by Men or Devils rather than we will comply with Sin and Wickedness This is a Point necessary in all but especially these Times wherein men boast of a Zeal for God but not according to Knowledge and seek to avoid future possible Afflictions by present unlawful Actions As in the Duke of York's Case no man that understands the Scriptures and will not suffer his Reason by passion to be ecclipsed can believe it lawful by Gods Laws to bar any man of his Right of Succession to a Crown of all temporal Rights the greatest to avoid future probable Inconveniences in Sacred and Civil Administrations nor do I believe that any the framers of this Bill would think it a piece of Justice to have their Children or in default of Issue their Brethren in the flesh thus debar'd of their Rights for different modes of Worship from what is now Legally Established That which is simply evil may not for any good be done the Case we are now upon if Saint Paul or the Holy Ghost speaking by him understood the Christian Religion 't is not lawful to tell an officious Lye for the glory of God as Job 13. 7.
I out of my mothers womb and naked shall I return thither c. and the same effect Affliction wrought in the late Martyr'd King of England who as he imitated the Piety so he had the troubles of David I shall not want saith he the heavy and envyed Crowns of this World when my God hath mercifully crowned and consummated his Graces with glory and exchang'd the shadows of my earthly Kingdoms among men for the substance of that heavenly Kingdom with himself Thus Afflictions wean us from the World and bring us nearer to God but Sin and the World are a Kin and of a blood and Sin is a departure from God the Lord saith to sinners you are departed and gone your iniquities have separated between you and your God as the Prophet Isaiah expresseth it 4. We are full of Worldly mindedness adhaesit pavimento as David spake but in another sense our soul cleaveth to the dust we all complain the World is naught and so it is the whole World lyeth in wickedness and yet as bad as it is it finds an entertainment in our hearts proportionably to our outward Prosperities the faster Riches and Honours and other Vanities increase the more eagerly we pursue and dote on these Transitory things 'T is Affliction that takes off their seeming pleasantness and imbitters the lusciousness of them to our taste that we have any apprehension at all of the Vanity of the World is due to those vexations of Spirit that are interwoven with it 5. To be innocent and to be Afflicted is the body and soul of Christianity its self I John your Brother and partaker of tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus said good St. John These were the Titles and Ornaments of his profession that is to say I John your fellow Christian for the former descant this is the plain Song Love is the Soul of Christianity and the soul of Love is Suffering God hath given a single Blessing to other graces but a double to this it is a double kindness we receive at Gods hands first to be Innocent and then to be persecuted with Jesus Christ The Church is like Moses his Bush when it is all on fire it is not at all consumed but made full of Miracle full of Splendor and full of God and unless we can find something that God cannot turn into Joy if he so please we have reason not only with the well instructed Heathens to be patient under but with St. Paul to rejoice exceedingly in Tribulation not to think a Fiery Tryal strange but rejoice that we are partakers of Christs Sufferings as St. Peter Paul's beloved Brother and our fellow Souldier under the banner of the Cross exhorts us and proportionably his brother James My Brethren Count it all joy when ye fall into divers Temptations Take the Prophets saith St. James as an example of Suffering Afflictions but Jesus Christ is beyond all these for he suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps These things considered is it not a barbarous thing for a grave Society of men to press their Sovereign wholly to lay aside the Rightful Successor of his Crown by the Laws of Heaven which is the doing evil to commit a known Sin to secure thereby the Protestant Religion that is that good may thence come or rather that the Zeal-drunk Presbyterian who prefers Rebellion before Martyrdom may not run the hazard of shewing himself no Christian by remonstrating against suffering Persecution A Papist cannot be a worse King than a Nero or Dioclesian and when St. Paul said we should stand to our Faith to imagine he intended we should stand to our Arms is a new and strange Interpretation But the Mischief is deeper yet for we cannot Disinherit this Gentleman but by a known Principle of the Court of Rome That Grace gives a a title to Dominion and accordingly the Pope disposeth of an Heretick Kingdom and barrs the Successor and gives it to another Man of his own nomination and to the next of the Line if he be of the Romish Perswasion and with what Conscience can these men mutatis mutandis press the King to an imitation of the Pope of Rome whilst they condemn in this very point his unjust Usurpation When St. Paul preached Obedience to the Higher Powers and the Primitive Christians prayed that the Father might be succeeded by the Son or the next of the Blood and Line could they be supposed to mean unless he were of this or that Religion and then it should be lawful to Disinherit them He that maintains such a point in a Parliamentary Session and at the same time calls himself a Christian is not so well qualified for Westminster as Bedlam The Doctrine of taking away the Right of Succession came from Rome the Pope had it from the Devil without question for St. Peter his pretended Predecessor taught no such thing but quite contrary exhorts all Christians and so includes the Presbyterian to endure the Fiery Tryal and rejoyce in being partakers of Christs sufferings now Christ came to give us an Heavenly not to take away any mans earthly Crown and accordingly as he knew no Sin so he underwent all sorts of Affliction He that saith I will not have this man to Reign because a Papist or a Puritan or saith this is the Heir let us by all means bar him of Possession is a much worse Christian than he that saith It is the Lord let him doe as it pleaseth him I will bear his Indignation because I have sinned against him This is the present Question under debate with reference to the Succession and not the Fighter for Reformation but the Patient under God's Correction is the best Defender of Christ Religion I can and will prove against all the Papists and Sectaries in Christendom I ask the Presbyterian these Questions and request an Answer to them 1. Doth the wrath of man work the Righteousness of God 2. Doth the Saviour of the World who came to save us from Sin not from Affliction stand in need of the sinful man to promote his Religion or the Interest of his Kingdom 3. Did Christ teach us by his Example or Doctrine to prefer Rebellion before Martyrdom and is not the contrary Position equal to a Mathematical Demonstration 4. Can the Pope in Cathedra or Pope Populus in Parliament by voting Evil good and Good evil sanctifie an unlawful action done with a good intention If these things be so I require him to prove it if not St. Paul's Doctrine will be found Billa vera in the Court of Heaven That we may not commit a present known Sin to avoid a future probable Persecution all the Bills Votes and Resolves of Froward men to the contrary notwithstanding I understand not the over-looking the lawfulness to pass to the expedience of the thing for Strafford lost his Head to please the Faction and then it was Voted on again by making it no President for the Peers of the Kingdom Suppose it be his Majesties judgement and perswasion as he hath declared that he cannot give consent to the Bill of Exclusion Is it either Religion or good Manners my Brethren to perswade our lawful Sovereign against St. Paul's advice which the Presbyterians quote sometimes to serve their own Interest and Turn Whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin Have not Princes Consciences as well as other men and may they not as well plead their Judicium discretionis who are only responsable to the God of Heaven as any private person who is and ought to be accountable both to God and Man Is it not sufficient for his Majesty to say what his Father Exemplified better one Man unjustly perish than the People be displeased is a fallacious Maxim especially considering the late King's conclusion hereupon I see it a bad exchange to wound a mans own Conscience thereby to salve State sores to calm the storms of Popular Discontents by stirring up a Tempest in a mans own bosome I hope the Commons of England will never arrive to that Insolence as to answer with Bradshaw to their Sovereign your Reasons Sir are not to be heard against the Supream Jurisdiction of this Nation and yet they have lately huss'd their Brethren and made them do Penance for being Jury-men and pay excessive Fees for no crime under the notion of Abhorrers of Petitioning And now we are upon the Petitioning point I remember a passage in Mr. Calamies Sermon Preached in 1645. at Michael Basing-Shaw London to the Lord Mayor and his Brethren when the Solemn League and Covenant was Renued with Prayer and Fasting You have saith Holderforth shot one Arrow already shoot another and if that miscarry shoot another He that cuts down a Tree though he cut it not down at the first or second blow yet the first and second blow prepare to the speeding blow that cuts it down You have delivered one Petition deliver another if that miscarry deliver another the speeding Petition will come at last That is in plain English Worry out your Prince with perpetual Noise and Clamours give him no rest till he submit to your Requests What this Fellow Preached in 1645. hath been practised for two years past yet must not I say so during the sitting of the Commons for fear of a Reprimand in such language as was never given a Priest by Imperial Princes But I bless God I have the spirit of an English man and my Knees due to God and the King shall never be yielded up to Usurpers come what will come Hanging Burning or any other or all the Torments that exercised the Patience of the Primitive Christians and herein I shew my self a Protestant whose great Principle it is rather than Sin to chuse Affliction FINIS