Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	fruit_n	love_n	peace_n	5,469	5	5.7820	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34216	A conference between a Bensalian bishop and an English doctor, concerning church-government shewing the difference betwixt that of Bensalia and the Church of England : together with a letter from the Bishop of Bensalia to the Archbishop of Canterbury in order to the healing of our church-differences ...	Do-Well, Theophilus.	1681 (1681)	Wing C5725; ESTC R20811	20,094	22

you well can But we compel not at all and yet our flock by such soft tender means as we treat them with is much larger yea more secured and fixt to us than yours by your severer method is or in probability ever can be For we chain them to us by our friendliness Christian charity and tender affection shewn to them upon all occasions by which we purchase more love from them than yours can ever do by all threats of Citations Excommunications Capias's and other vexatious browbea●ing modes of treating them all which sets them more aloof off you and confirms them more in their several Classis of Separation Thus our Bishops good old and reverend Fathers are they are not only afraid lest the pomp of the world should steal away their hearts from God and they thereby should become dronish Shepherds who thence should not only not feed the flock of Christ but perhaps through idleness and the heaping up of worldly wealth might give way to that error as to endeavour to hinder others from feeding the flock whom God had fitted with endowments and gifts for that purpose but also are afraid lest by too stiff maintaining arbitrary and disputable Ceremonies they should give cause to the beginning of divisions in our happy and peaceable Church Now my Son what remains to be spoken according to my propos'd method is next to shew you the reasons hereof and lastly to propose some expedients in order to the healing your long contracted differences in your Churches As to the first of which you may if you observe take notice that I have most-what interwoven the reasons with the differences I have been acquainting you with And that in the main the reasons of your differences and divisions amongst your selves chiefly if not solely springs from the deviation of your Church of England from ours of Bensalia as you may easily and with much perspicuity see in the lately quoted seven Heads to which we have reduc'd the most remarkable differences and deviations of your Church from ours which is obvious to any one who reads them Which I shall here only in short recount viz. 1. In your Head 2. In your permission and indulgence of dubious Controversies and jangling Disputations 3. In your strict imposition of dispensible Ceremonies upon your weak and dissatisfied Brethren 4. By your upholding those vexatious Courts call'd Spiritual Courts that newly furbished Inquisition or Religious-house of Correction where your sinswindgers from money-mulcts got by Citations Excommunications c. raise their fortunes out of the ruins of your weak and distressed Brethren whom you should rather pity commiserate and receive into tender bowels of compassion 5. In your Visitations by your scourging the people rather than removing bad exemplary and therefore scandalous Ministers the great eye-sore of your people 6. In that your Bishops as to dignity are Lords and as to function rarely preach Lastly By your compulsion in matter of Religion In all which I say you differ and deviate from us and our Church-discipline And therefore no wonder that you have not enjoyed those expected fruits which we constantly possess of love unity and peace but rather have been imbroiled in Domestick dissentions animosities and intestine Wars the bane and reproach of Christianity For can you expect to gain the credit of being endowed with Christian charity while you shew so much of a spirit of enmity as to impose burdens upon weak Consciences and not condescend in matters dubious and therefore indifferent to the weaknesses of your dissatisfied Brethren And can you think to procure a happy unity amongst your selves which we always enjoy while in the forenamed Heads you take away the very basis and foundation thereof Lastly can you upon serious consideration perswade your selves that ever you shall possess peace while you vex disquiet and sit upon the skirts of your Brethren in matters indifferent wherein they ought in all Christian tenderness not only to be received but to be as well satisfied as your selves But I hast lest your company will wonder what is become of us therefore as to the last thing I propos'd to discourse viz. to propound some happy Expedient in order to the healing your clashing differences and towards the begetting a Christian charity and firm union amongst your discording Churches which because it would be too tedious now to insist upon as also would I fear too much intrench upon your Companies patience I shall therefore refer to its due place in a Letter which I intend if it shall be permitted by our King and Sophi to write to one of your Arch-Bishops in England To conclude at present take notice my Son that I have not discours'd these matters to you without both the knowledg yea and advice of our King and his Sophi whose leave and consent we desire before we discourse any thing of this nature to strangers But in as much as you are my Son highly favour'd by them more than any stranger that ever yet came upon our happy Island I was I say not only permitted but indeed advised to make this relation of the state of our Church and to compare it with yours that thereby you may legibly view the difference Whether at your return from us you may have leave to publish this relation in your own Country in order to their good I know not as to which you are to wait our King with his Sophy's pleasure therein Only this on the by I may take leave to acquaint you with that none of your Country-men that we call to mind was ever before cast upon our coasts except one which was my Lord Verulam whose stay in the Country was so short as he took but a transient view and therefore gave but a slight and imperfect account thereof to the world Now in order to your more through information I have perform'd my charge and hope others according to their several incumbent tasks will do the like and if it shall be permitted to come abroad I pray God what I have said of ours may become exemplary to your distracted Churches in Europe especially to England that happy Country if they knew their own good to which place we seem with a joint consent I had almost said harmonically to wish well and to write the first copy after our original pattern which with a great deal of seriousness concluding the great God of Heaven for his beloved Sons sake bless unto you Amen Which done I made my Obeysance to the Bishop and humbly thank'd the Reverend Father for his great condescention love and familiarity in his late admirable discourse As I was coming forth of the withdrawing-room the Bishop thrust a heavy paper well lin'd with red into my hand What mean you Reverend Father said I the fee is rather due to you for you have given the advice while I have been your Auditor and our Church your Patient Come come saith the Bishop this is only a small pledg of the kindness and

the Song Of Moses and the Lamb. And indeed our mental people as we call them viz. such as are spiritually minded and given up to high contemplation of the mercies wisdom and wonders of the most high God are sometimes in such sweet concording harmony even wrapt up well nigh into extasies and have much ado to contain their divinely symbolizing souls within the narrow confines of their bodies But to return We suffer no Jesuits or other Papist-Priests whatsoever to come amongst us as well knowing how spreading and contagious their leven is and has been to those Kingdoms and Countries where it hath been admitted Yea it cannot easily slip out of our memories what danger we had like to have been in both as to our Church and State upon admission of an unknown Jesuit who being in a Merchants Ship driven upon our Coasts was suffered to dwell amongst us and in a very little time he had so poysoned near a score of our people with his venomous leaven which like a contagious ferment had got footing among us and if that joint of our body-Politick had not been seasonably cut off the Gangreen would in no great time have endangered the whole body But by the prudence of our King and Sophi we the Bishops not a little contributing the grand Jesuit was apprehended and all his proselytes who upon good proof being found to be such were sentenced to the Staffee and thence for Islands near America Only this liberty was granted to those of our own inhabitants that as many of them as would return to their own mother-Church and reclaim that of Rome was to be received again which most of them accepted The rest with the Jesuit was speedily ordered for the Staffee And because it happened at a time that Ships were not shortly to go off therefore to prevent further delay a Ship on purpose was appointed to go away with them and because they would not have other places which are much peopled hazarded by them gave command to set them upon some Island remote from America For although quoth the Bishop your Laws are so severe in England as to punish with death Jesuits that are so prov'd to be which yet how duly executed you know best yet ours doth not sentence any man whatsoever to death for his opinion in Religion We think that Law of death to persons of different Religions not to be agreeable to the judgment custom or president of the Primitive Church of God therefore we avoid it Thus my Son I have in short shew'd you the state of our thrice happy Church and Government thereof only before I conclude this head it will not be impertinent to touch a little further upon the nature or manner of our Church For the Church I have been speaking of is made up of living stones well knit and cemented together in every of which Christ by his Spirit dwelleth and is thereby render'd a true Church Our people which convene and are linkt together in Church-fellowship are the Church not the place of Convention Which places of Convention or meeting-places we do not call Churches left we should lose the Primitive and true sense of that name but for distinction sake call them Convents or in short Covents which are built very conveniently for meeting but are no stately Fabricks nor is our Worship attended with any gaudry or any spiritual sort of pageantry wherefore we wave all Surplices Copes Tippets Caps c. lest our people being amus'd with the external should lose the internal acts of devotion lest too much busied in their heads their hearts should let go the main object Give me thy heart saith God not thy head or thy eye and lest they should let themselves too much forth into the outward they should leave nothing for God in the inward Yea in short lest our people whom we always watch over with a jealous eye by such spiritual shews in the external pageantry of Worship should be drawn aside only to an outside Religion and so should commit spiritual fornication which we dread to think on and therefore rather abate in Ceremonies than to have them supernumerary And as our Pastors Teachers c. avoid all pomp in the performance of all Religious duties so likewise our people come not together in such gaudy dress as we hear yours do who come rather as if they were to act their parts in a Play than to such solemn Worship in such pageantry of dress as would more become their appearance in either of the two Parks or a Masquerade than their prostrate approaches to the footstool of Grace more likely to beautifie a Comical scene than such a solemn Convention As to which even many of your professors who as more strict should see and forsake the folly of the former to their great shame are guilty herein Is it not so saith he to me I cannot answer I but confess Reverend Father to the truth hereof and am much asham'd of it Ah saith the Bishop how becoming and suitable to the profession of the Gospel is a modest garb our people accounting the Graces of the Spirit in a vertuous mind the chief ornaments And now my Son to acquaint you with the result and genuine effects of our so happy Church it is no less than love unity and peace and what can be expected more in any Church in the world The glory of God and good of Souls being the main aim and end of the Bishops Presbyters Pastors and Teachers set over the flock of Christ What love we have to each other and in what unity of heart and mind we are established you may in part read in every family you come and in every publick meeting and Congregation whether upon matters Civil or Divine For it 's a great part of the work of our Teachers we set over them at seasonable times to visit their people and in Christian love to quiet and compose the differences quarrels or private animosities amongst them by removing the causes and bringing them to a right understanding of each other studying by all mild and prudential means their reconciliation nipping their feuds and quarrels in their first bud so prevent their becoming publick As to the publick peace we enjoy no people Country nor Kingdom whatsoever can vye with us having now enjoyed great peace without any division fraction or schism either in Church or State for so many hundred years Tell me I challenge you what Country Nation Kingdom or States can glory of the like It 's true that of the States of Venice come the nearest to us of any known parts of the World having had their Government unvaried for about 1400 years which no Princes or Kingdoms in Europe can boast of But yet they maintain their peace and unity at home by their Wars abroad which very thing renders their peace the less peaceable whilst we have no enemies at home or abroad to annoy or disturb our peace And thus my Son as I