Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	ghost_n	holy_a	lord_n	23,094	5	4.0162	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70654	Threnodia, the churches lamentation for the good man his losse delivered in a sermon to the Right Honourable the two Houses of Parliament and the reverend Assembly of Divines at the funerall of that excellent man John Pym, Esquire, late a Member of the Honourable House of Commons : preached in the Abbey-Church of Westminster / by Stephen Marshall ...	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1644 (1644)	Wing M794; ESTC R17869	27,959	53

The Churches sensiblenesse of her present condition Woe is me for it The words need no great explication only let us enquire what is meant by the good man Secondly what by the good mans perishing By a good man in the largest sense is meant a godly man a holy man a righteous man but more strictly here a good man is an usefull man such are instruments of good to others such as are good Magistrates the pillars of a State who execute judgement and justice in the gate a Mordecai who seeks the wealth of his people and procures peace to all his seed Or good Ministers such an one as Jehojada who did good in Israell such an one as Barnabas a good man and full of the holy Ghost by whose Ministrie much people were added unto the Lord A good Father in a Family as Abraham who teaches all his children the feare of the Lord Thus some interpret that place Rom. 5. 7. Scarcely for a righteous man will one dye yet per adventure for a good man some would even dare to die that though they would hardly die to excuse an ordinary man though godly yet some eminent usefull man they would not onely with the Galathians pluck out their eyes but lay downe their lives for them Secondly what by perishing how the good man may be said to perish You know to perish in the common acceptation is taken in the worst sense to be cut off from the Land of the living by the hand of God in wrath and fury and their soules cast for ever into the pit of Hell but thus the good man perisheth not though the wicked be driven away to Hell in his wickednesse yet the righteous hath hope in his death But here to perish and elsewhere is to dye immaturely unseasonably to bee cut off from the place where they were usefull and could ill be spared Many excellent lessons doe these words hold forth unto us As first The Prophet makes the Churches condition his own with Aaron bearing them on his shoulders on his brest-plate yea in his very heart If it be ill with the Church you may discerne it in his countenance heare it by his speech If well by the cheerefullnesse of his spirit If they be afflicted he mournes if they rejoyce he is cheerefull with them Secondly the Prophet observes all his people whose faces stand towards heaven who looke another way who are Saints who are Children of Belial is diligent to know the state of his flock Thirdly that it is no new thing to find in the Church of God many evill and few good in Gods field many tares little good Corne in his Barne floar much chaffe and little Wheat in his great house many Vessels of dishonour and few of honour many stones few precious stones in his drag Net abundance of weeds many bad Fishes and few good ones in his Vineyard many wilde grapes and few right Grapes Fourthly And this also that even those few Godly men which are the Churches Treasure are subject to Death even immature and untimely death as well as others But I passe over all these with a bare mention of them and confine my selfe to these two Observations as most cleerly held forth in the Text and suitable to this sad meeting First that the most excellent and usefull men are often taken away when the Church could ill spare them The Church at this time did abound as wee also now doe with Sons of Belial compassed about with many Enemies and therefore needed the first ripe fruits many choise Instruments and yet those very few Shee had were now taken away the good man is perished out of the Earth Secondly that when God doth this it is a matter of sad lamentation Woe is mee the good Man is perished c. The first of these that God often takes away choisest men Men more precious then Gold then the fine Gold of Ophir When the Church hath greatest need of them hath alasse abundance of sad evidence A whole Cloud of Witnesses might easily be brought in A large Catalogue of Examples Abel the first Flower that ever grew in the Lords Garden cropt off as soone as blowne and in him all the seed of the Woman devoured by the seed of the Serpent slain by the eldest sonne of reprobation So Moses and Aaron when the Israelites were to take possession of the Land of Canaan to root out thirtie Kingdomes to set up both Church and Common-wealth these long experienced and able Leaders Prince and Priest taken off in the very beginning of the work and all seem to be left to raw heads and hands that know not how to manage it so Elisha the man of God fell sick and died when in the judgement even of a wicked King he was all the Chariots and Horsemen of Israel all the strength they had left So Iosiah that rare and excellent Prince who seemed to be created as a new Star purposely to shine in those darksome times cut off in the midst of his work for whose death Jeremiah composed the whole book of the Lamentations And in the Christian Church in the beginning of it when all the World was to be subdued to the faith of Christ The Harvest very great and the Labourers but few Iohn the Baptist a greater Prophet then whom was never borne of a woman comming in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers and the disobedient to the instruction of the wise taken away violently after but two or three years work whiles he was making ready a people for the Lord James the brother of Iohn one of the Pillars one of the chief Apostles cut off by the sword and Stephen a rare man full of the Holy Ghost whose wisdom and spirit the enemie was not able to resist exceedingly fitted to convince the Iewes and to prove that Iesus was the very Christ suddenly taken off and knocked on the head in a popular tumult and commotion And now of late our Edward the sixth another Iosiah when this Land had been long in bondage unto Antichrist overwhelmed with the darknesse of Idolatry and Superstition and seemed to be purposely raised up to bring light and salvation to this desolate Land while he was preparing this wildernes to be the Lords fruitfull Vineyard planting it with the choisest Vines and setting up a Wine Presse in the midst of it walling it and fencing it about after five or sixe years labours suddenly snatched away So the incomparable King of Sweden brought over the Baltick Sea by the hand of God to restore the ruines of Germanie travelling in the greatnesse of his strength and working little lesse then wonders for two or three yeares together and drawing the eyes of all men towards him as the man that should undoubtfully have delivered that woefull Countrey in a moment this bright Sun set soon

to lift up a voice of mourning but even to refuse to be comforted I know large encomiasticall praises of the dead unlesse their lives were eminent in goodnesse and free from any notable blot are much condemned by the most judicious and godly Divines as a thing of very evill consequence first to the Minister himself who hereby is evill spoken of as a man who for a reward or some other base respect like unworthy Heralds will give greatest badges of honour to any ignoble person Secondly to the deceased whilest it occasions some others who haply knew them better to rake into their lives and lay open their former faults which otherwise had been buried in oblivion Thirdly but the worst of all is that wicked men make this a fearfull stumbling-blocke who when they heare such men highly commended in whom peradventure they knew such and such enormities doe hereupon conclude that our preaching for abandoning of all evill is of no great necessity even in the Preachers own judgement who sends men to heaven in his Funerall Orations who yet lived and for ought they know dyed in the practice of such things as the Minister useth to declaime against But I am called to speake of a man so eminent and excellent so wise and gracious so good and usefull whose works so praise him in every gate that if I should altogether hold my tongue the children and babes I had almost said the stones would speak upon whose Herse could I scatter the sweetest flowers the highest expressions of Rhetoricke and eloquence you would thinke I fell short of his worth you would say this very name JOHN PYM expresseth more then all my words could doe should I say of him as they of Titus that he was Amor deliciaegeneris humani should I say of his death as once the Sicilians upon the Grecians departure Totum ver periit ex anno Siciliano should I say he was not onely as one of Davids thirtie Worthies but one of the three one of the first three even the first and chiefe of them the Tachmonite who sate in the seat should I say our whole land groaneth at his death as the earth at the fall of a great mountaine I might doe it without envie in this Assembly Yea should I write a whole booke in his commendation and publish it many of you would say as a Philosopher once did who falling on a booke entituled Encomium Herculis said with indignation Et quis Lacedaemoniorum eum vituperat he thought it time ill spent to praise him whom none could blame and I beleeve your selves are resolved to make some such monument of your high esteeme of him that after-ages as well as the present shall know you valued him above my words But I am well pleased to be impar huic negotio Est hoc maximum laudis genus quum orationis copiam virtus exuperet magnitudo laudati sicque vinci nobis est multo gloriosius quam saepe vicisse And for that I am able to say I am presently at a losse having in my serious thoughts viewed him in his naturals in his moralls in his graces in his relations in his publicke and private behaviour inopem me copia fecit I know I could not speake long but you would be weary of such a speaker and I remember Salusts speech when he was to speake of Carthage Praestat tacere quam pauca dicere then I wisht seriously that it had fallen to the lot of some such able tongue to have so characterized and deciphered him before you that you who now mourne for his losse and knew his worth might say This is the very image of the Man and might once at least be refreshed to see His lively picture represented to your eyes by such a tongue as was suitable to His worth and this present Auditory that that might have been your refreshing which was once Cyprians Auditors to heare the Martyrs praised by such an Oratour as Cyprian was I spare to English what was spoken of the holy Martyr his Eloquence because to doe the like is above my Sphere I want such a tongue and therefore must study to be short and shall confine my self to that rule which Basil worthily called the great observed in the praise of Gordius the Martyr It s the custome of the World said he when they would praise a man to speake of his Family to derive his Pedigree through many discents to open to the full his education parts and learning and such other accomplishments Sed Ecclesia haec tanquam supervacua dimittit The Church lookes onely at those things which may glorifie Christ in his Saints and thereby do good to them who remaine alive According to this rule I shall forbeare to speake any thing of his Family Education naturall endowments His cleare understanding quick apprehension singular dexteritie in dispatch of busines His other moralleminences in His justice patience temperance sobriety chastity liberality hospitality His extreme humanity affability curtesie cheerfulnesse of spirit in every condition and as a just reward and just fruit of all these the high and deare esteeme and respect which hee had purchased in the hearts of all men of every ranke who were acquainted with him such onely excepted of whom to bee loved and well reported is scarce compatible with true vertue All men who knew him either lov'd or hated him in extremity such as were good extremely delighted in him as taken in a sweet captivity with his matchlesse worth the bad as much hated Him out of their antipathy against it But all these things though most desirable and excellent in their place I passe over and shall insist only upon two things which alone are desirable in any man which indeed make a man more precious then Gold then the fine gold of Ophir First he was a true Christian man a faithfull servant of Iesus Christ one who long since was borne againe of Water and the Holy Ghost engratted into Christ adopted to be the Childe of God justified freely by his grace renewed in the spirit of his mind sanctified throughout in spirit soule and body one who had made God his portion and Gods word his guide who in his whole course had left off to fashion himselfe according to the World but in all things studied to know as his rule what was the good and perfect will of God in a word He was a true Nathaniel in whom there was no guile Secondly Hee was a man of a publike spirit a most usefull man He was the good Man of this Text wholly laid out for the publike good the publike safety was written in His heart as men report Queen Mary said that Callis was in hers it was His meat and drinke His worke His exercise His recreation His pleasure His ambition His all What 〈◊〉 was was onely to promote the publike good in and for this Heliv'd in and by this He died And this excellent usefull