Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A85530
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The shepheards farewell to his beloved flocke of S.B.E.L. where he hath been above twenty yeeres their weake, yet vigilant pastour, / I.G. D.D.
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Grant, John, d. 1653.
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1645
(1645)
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Wing G1521; Thomason E270_18; ESTC R212344
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12,225
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25
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THE SHEPHEARDS FAREWELL TO HIS BELOVED FLOCKE OF S. B. E. L. Where He hath been above twenty yeeres their weake yet vigilant Pastour I. G. D. D. PSAL. 37. 25. I have been young am old yet never saw The just abandoned nor those that draw From him their breath with beggery opprest He lends in mercy and his seed are blest En me peractâ parte vitae maximâ Senecta jam cana premit Nec me usquà m rectam persequutum tramitem Meós ve sensi deseri Quaerelave vidi voce Divitum ad Ostia Miserum rogantes frustulum Printed in the yeere 1645. TO THE PARISH OF St. BARTHOLMEWS EXCHANGE LONDON BEloved in the Lord you have your desire and I have mine ease to betake me to a retired life in my crazy estate and manifold infirmities of age crept on me which makes it to me a disease and summoning to the Grave God enable me that patience in me may have the perfect worke and furnish you all with all his graces that shall have their continuation in glory This is my hearty prayer to which God vouchsafe a blessed Ratification For Preaching once yours For Praying ever yours JOHN GRANT aged 67. THE SHEPHEARDS farewell to his beloved FLOCK of S. B. E. L. PHIL. 4. ver. 4. to 8. Rejoyce in the Lord alway and againe I say Rejoyce Let your Moderation be knowne to all men The Lord is at hand Be carefull for nothing but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made knowne to God And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus IN this present evill world the dearest of God's Saints are often militant in a warfaring condition often and whiles here they are alwayes itinerant in a wayfaring condition alwayes They have Enemies enough and strangers are they unto all that are not right to Heaven-wards that are open sinners or but pretended Saints They are hated by many and not owned by the most persecuted by not a few deserted in their extreame wants almost by every one by all sure in whose hearts Christ dwelleth not by faith a So this Apostolicall exhortation is needfull for their consolation that they take none offence at the Crosse of Christ but that they closely buckle themselves to be with him crucified and soundly animated peremptorily to deny their owne selves to take up their owne crosse daily and so chearfully and undantedly to follow Christ b even unto death and in death to be his couragious and most constant Followers I called this Text an Exhortation I may fitly call it a chaine of Exhortations of sutable and seasonable Exhortations and all of them closed up in a pithy apprecation The first Exhortation is to the perpetuity of Rejoycing the next to the moderate behaving a mans selfe in all occurrences The last to a dependency upon God amidst the throngs of whatever cares the world presseth us withall and enforceth continually upon us to make us forgetfull of our God We are thus to the perpetuity of rejoycing by our holy Apostle exhorted and the Exhortation to worke us seriously unto it is redoubled Rejoyce in the Lord alwaies and againe I say Rejoyce The againe and againe rejoycing is the Christian rejoycing the rejoycing it is in the Lord Worldlings rejoycings are in their vanities ever with vexations accompanied mad rejoycings are they ever ending in horrour I have said of laughter it is mad and of mirth what doth it c Mad laughter and prophane mirth doth it knoweth not what Christs woe is thereon Woe unto you that now laugh for yee shall mourne and weep d Extremum gaudij luctus occupat all rejoycing out of Christ is wound up in mourning and that mourning shall have no ending nor shall any of the teares thereof be put up into the Lords bottels The right rejoycing that shall be an evermore rejoycing is the rejoycing in the Lord That our names are written in the book of Life is the very life of rejoycing e All other rejoycing is but madnesse it is groundlesse altogether it knoweth not what it doth it doth what it cannot know that it shall have Gods approbation nay if it reflect upon Gods revealings cannot but know that reprobation will thereof be the dismall conclusion But the Christian rejoycing is an evermore rejoycing Rejoyce evermore is our Apostles expression f In the hope of the glory of God is their rejoycing that have in their hearts this assurance by faith that their names are in the records of Heaven indelibly registred In the hope of the glory of God is their rejoycing g And not onely so the Apostle addes further in the three annexed verses but we the rejoycers in the Lord glory in tribulations not onely rejoyce but even glory in them as knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given unto us You here may cleerly see the wide difference now betweene the rejoycings of sinners and of Saints of prophane worldlings and of religious Christians The one is deceitfull vanishing perishing and in perdition enwrapping the other fixed eternall happy making and so continuing in those in whom it takes place being in prosperity and adversity still the same Plenties swell it not up neither wants cast it downe calme times never make it forgetfull of God nor tumults deterre them from the constant service of God in whom God works it by the Ministers of his owne appointing This rejoycing in the Lord alway this againe and again rejoycing is the joy in the holy Ghost it is that gladsome that sweet that comfortable motion of the heart by the Spirit of Adoption stirred up in the elect Servants and Saints of God upon the feeling of Gods love to them-wards in Jesus Christ as the forerunner and assurer of the life eternally happy Both in earthly and spirituall blessings have we the tokens of Gods love to us-wards in Christ especially in the spirituall The Kingdome of God is righteousnesse and peace and joy in the holy Ghost writes our Apostle h When Christs joy remains in us our joy becomes the Full joy i It is the joy unspeakable the glorious joy so by Saint Peter stiled k and fitly because of Heavens Kingdome it is a maine part With all joy and peace through beleeving are the elected and selected ones of God filled * A very Heaven is in their consciences and a constellation is there of all vertues and graces beamed from the Father of Lights in his Irradiations upon them This Saint Paul apprecaâ—es to the Romans and I in his words to you The God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in beleeving that yee may abound in Hope through the power of the holy Ghost l This were a fit bough alwayes to be