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	scripture_n	19,615	5	6.1818	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74632	Herbert's remains, or, sundry pieces of that sweet singer of the temple, Mr George Herbert, sometime orator of the University of Cambridg. Now exposed to publick light.	Herbert, George, 1593-1633.; Oley, Barnabas, 1602-1686.	1652 (1652)	Thomason E1279_1	88,323	339

are first a holy Life remembring what his Master saith that if any do Gods will he shall know of the Doctrine John 7. and assuring himself that wicked men however learned do not know the Scriptures because they feel them not and because they are not understood but with the same Spirit that writ them The second means is prayer which if it be necessary even in temporall things how much more in things of another world where the well is deep and we have nothing of our selves to draw with Wherefore he ever begins the reading of the Scripture with some short inward ejaculation as Lord open mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of thy Law c. The third means is a diligent Collation of Scripture with Scripture For all Truth being consonant to it self and all being penn'd by one and the self-same Spirit it cannot be but that an industrious and judicious comparing of place with place must be a singular help for the right understanding of the Scriptures To this may be added the consideration of any text with the coherence thereof touching what goes before and what follows after as also the scope of the Holy Ghost When the Apostles would have called down fire from Heaven they were reproved as ignorant of what spirit they were For the Law required one thing and the Gospel another yet as diverse not as repugnant therefore the spirit of both is to be considered and weighed The fourth means are Commenters and fathers who have handled the places controverted which the Parson by no means refuseth As he doth not so study others as to neglect the grace of God in himself and what the Holy Spirit teacheth him so doth he assure himself that God in all ages hath had his servants to whom he hath revealed his Truth as well as to him and that as one Countrey doth not bear all things that there may be a Commerce so neither hath God opened or will open all to one that there may be a traffick in knowledg between the servants of God for the planting both of love and humility Wherfore he hath one Comment at least upon every book of Scripture and ploughing with this and his own meditations he enters into the secrets of God treasured in the holy Scripture CHAP. V. The Parsons Accessary Knowledges THe Countrey Parson hath read the Fathers also and the Schoolmen and the later Writers or a good proportion of all out of all which he hath complied a book and body of Divinity which is the storehouse of his Sermons and which he preacheth all his Life but diversly clothed illustrated and inlarged For though the world is full of such composures yet every mans own is fittest readyest and most savory to him Besides this being to be done in his younger and preparatory times it is an honest joy ever after to looke upon his well spent houres This Body he made by way of expounding the Church Catechisme to which all divinity may easily be reduced For it being indifferent in it selfe to choose any Method that is best to be chosen of which there is likelyest to be most use Now Catechizing being a work of singular and admirable benefit to the Church of God and a thing required under Canonicall obedience the expounding of our Catechisme must needs be the most usefull forme Yet hath the Parson besides this laborious work a slighter forme of Catechizing fitter for country people according as his audience is so he useth one or other or somtimes both if his audience be intermixed He greatly esteemes also of cases of conscience wherein he is much versed And indeed herein is the greatest ability of a Parson to lead his people exactly in the wayes of Truth so that they neither decline to the right hand nor to the left Neither let any think this a slight thing For every one hath not digested when it is a sin to take something for mony lent or when not when it is a fault to discover anothers fault or when not when the affections of the soul in desiring and procuring increase of means or honour be a sin of covetousnes or ambition and when not when the appetites of the body in eating drinking sleep and the pleasure that comes with sleep be sins of gluttony drunkenness sloath lust and when not and so in many circumstances of actions Now if a shepherd know not which grass will bane or which not how is he fit to be a shepherd Wherefore the Parson hath throughly canvassed al the particulars of humane actions at least all those which he observeth are most incident to his Parish CHAP. VI. The Parson praying THe Countrey Parson when he is to read divine services composeth himselfe to all possible reverence lifting up his heart and hands and eyes and using all other gestures which may expresse a hearty and unfeyned devotion This he doth first as being truly touched and amazed with the Majesty of God before whom he then presents himself yet not as himself alone but as presenting with himself the whole Congregation whose sins he then beares and brings with his own to the heavenly altar to be bathed and washed in the sacred Laver of Christs blood Secondly as this is the true reason of his inward feare so he is content to expresse this outwardly to the utmost of his power that being first affected himself hee may affect also his people knowing that no Sermon moves them so much to a reverence which they forget againe when they come to pray as a devout behaviour in the very act of praying Accordingly his voyce is humble his words treatable and flow yet not so slow neither as to let the fervency of the supplicant hang and dy between speaking but with a grave livelinesse between fear and zeal pausing yet pressing he performes his duty Besides his example he having often instructed his people how to carry themselves in divine service exacts of them all possible reverence by no means enduring either talking or sleeping or gazing or leaning or halfe-kneeling or any undutifull behaviour in them but causing them when they sit or stand or kneel to do all in a strait and steady posture as attending to what is done in the Church and every one man and child answering aloud both Amen and all other answers which are on the Clerks and peoples part to answer which answers also are to be done not in a hudling or slubbe ring fashion gaping or scratching the head or spitting even in the midst of their answer but gently and pausably thinking what they say so that while they answer As it was in the beginning c. they meditate as they speak that God hath ever had his people that have glorified him as wel as now and that he shall have so for ever And the like in other answers This is that which the Apostle cals a reasonable service Rom 12. when we speak not as Parrats without reason or offer up such sacrifices

it there being a promise that if the Kingdome of God be first sought all other things shall be added even it selfe is a Sermon For the temptations with which a good man is beset and the ways which he used to overcome them being told to another whether in private conference or in the Church are a Sermon Hee that hath considered how to carry himself at table about his appetite if he tell this to another preacheth and much more feelingly and judiciously then he writes his rules of temperance out of bookes So that the Parson having studied and mastered all his lusts and affections within and the whole Army of Temptations without hath ever so many sermons ready penn'd as he hath victories And it fares in this as it doth in Physick He that hath been sick of a Consumption and knows what recovered him is a Physitian so far as he meetes with the same disease and temper and can much better and particularly do it then he that is generally learned and was never sick And if the same person had been sick of all diseases and were recovered of all by things that he knew there were no such Physician as he both for skill and tendernesse Just so it is in Divinity and that not without manifest reason for though the temptations may be diverse in divers Christians yet the victory is alike in all being by the self-same Spirit Neither is this true onely in the military state of a Christian life but even in the peaceable also when the servant of God freed for a while from temptation in a quiet sweetnesse seeks how to please his God Thus the Parson considering that repentance is the great vertue of the Gospel and one of the first steps of pleasing God having for his owne use examined the nature of it is able to explaine it after to others And particularly having doubted sometimes whether his repentance were true or at least in that degree it ought to be since he found himselfe sometimes to weepe more for the losse of some temporall things then for offending God he came at length to this resolution that repentance is an act of the mind not of the Body even as the Originall signifies and that the chiefe thing which God in Scriptures requires is the heart and the spirit and to worship him in truth and spirit Wherefore in case a Christian endeavour to weep and cannot since we are not Masters of our bodies this sufficeth And consequently he found that the essence of repentance that it may be alike in all Gods children which as concerning weeping it cannot be some being of a more melting temper then others consisteth in a true detestation of the soul abhorring and renouncing sin and turning unto God in truth of heart and newnesse of life Which acts of repentance are and must be found in all Gods servants Not that weeping is not usefull where it can be that so the body may joyn in the grief as it did in the sin but that so the other acts be that is not necessary so that he as truly repents who performes the other acts of repentance when he cannot more as he that weeps a floud of tears This Instruction and comfort the Parson getting for himself when he tels it to others becomes a Sermon The like he doth in other Christian vertues as of faith and Love and the Cases of Conscience belonging thereto wherein as Saint Paul implyes that he ought Romans 2. hee first preacheth to himselfe and then to others CHAP. XXXIV The Parson's Dexterity in applying of Remedies THe Countrey Parson knows that there is a double state of a Christian even in this Life the one military the other peaceable The military is when we are assaulted with temptations either from within or from without The Peaceable is when the Divell for a time leaves us as he did our Saviour and the Angels minister to us their owne food even joy and peace and comfort in the holy Ghost These two states were in our Saviour not only in the beginning of his preaching but afterwards also as Mat. 22.35 He was tempted And Luke 10.21 He rejoyced in Spirit And they must be likewise in all that are his Now the Parson having a Spirituall Judgement according as he discovers any of his Flock to be in one or the other state so he applies himselfe to them Those that he findes in the peaceable state he adviseth to be very vigilant and not to let go the raines as soon as the horse goes easie Particularly he counselleth them to two things First to take heed lest their quiet betray them as it is apt to do to a coldnesse and carelesnesse in their devotions but to labour still to be as fervent in Christian Duties as they remember themselves were when affliction did blow the Coals Secondly not to take the full compasse and liberty of their Peace not to eate of all those dishes at table which even their present health otherwise admits nor to store their house with all those furnitures which even their present plenty of wealth otherwise admits nor when they are among them that are merry to extend themselves to all that mirth which the present occasion of wit and company otherwise admits but to put bounds and hoopes to their joyes so will they last the longer and when they depart returne the sooner If we would judg ourselves we should not be judged and if we would bound our selves we should not be bounded But if they shall fear that at such or such a time their peace and mirth have carryed them further then this moderation then to take Jobs admirable Course who sacrificed lest his Children should have transgressed in their mirth So let them go and find some poore afflicted soul and there be bountifull and liberall for with such sacrifices God is well pleased Those that the Parson findes in the military state he fortifyes and strengthens with his utmost skill Now in those that are tempted whatsoever is unruly falls upon two heads either they think that there is none that can or will look after things but all goes by chance or wit Or else though there be a great Governour of all things yet to them he is lost as if they said God doth forsake and persecute them and there is none to deliver them If the Parson suspect the first and find sparkes of such thoughts now and then to break forth then without opposing directly for disputation is no Cure for Atheisme he scatters in his discourse three sorts of arguments the first taken from Nature the second from the Law the third from Grace For Nature he sees not how a house could be either built without a builder or kept in repaire without a house-keeper He conceives not possibly how the windes should blow so much as they can and the sea rage as much as it can and all things do what they can and all not only without dissolution of the whole but also