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
A93056	Holy things for holy men: or, The lawyers plea non-suited, his evidence proved insufficient, his foul mouth civilly wiped, and his arrogant railings admonished, and bridled; in some Christian reproofe and pitie expressed towards Mr Prynn's book; intituled, The Lord's supper briefly vindicated, (or rather indeed by him therein exposed, vilified, and profaned: and the conscientious ministry therein abused, injured, and affronted. By S.S. minister of the gospel.	Shaw, Samuel, 1635-1696.	1658 (1658)	Wing S3037; Thomason E946_2; ESTC R207597	33,401	60

Doth not the Apostle charge us Act. 20. 28. To take heed to our selves and to the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made us over-seers A Scripture that Mr. Pryn doth preposterously apply to the mollifying us towards the administring to unregenerate persons p. 18. 57. what manner of duty and care then is incumbent upon us here if ever we may say Abundans cautela non nocet 't is good to be sure to enquire into the fitness of all is safe and to do it with an affectionate tender and inoffensive respect is civil I wish Mr. Prynne and his abettors had read Chrysostom upon that 1 Cor. 11. 28. who blameth mens examination of themselves Non quem ad modum nunc facimus c. Communicants should not satisfie themselves as now they do to come to the Lords Table at such or such a solemnity onely as others do A man must forbear in a Fever from his own table because of the abundance of his ill-humors Longè magis hanc tangere nefas est much more it is dangerous to come to the Lords Table when absurd lusts hinder us that are worse then a Fever These are Chrysostoms words which if Mr. Prynne had well considered he would not perhaps so far have indulged wicked persons as to tell them that the Lords Supper is converting to the unregenerate and reforming to the vitious nor have snibb'd nay almost anathematized serviceable conscientious Ministers for their examinate care and love I wish second thoughts might convince Mr. Prynne of his unhappy error but if not they must yet more fully perswade us of our duty not to be careless and remisse in the rule and oversight that God hath betrusted unto us I wonder where M. Prynne and his would set the limits of our Ministerial vigilancy Are we Gods builders and may we lay any rubbish upon his foundation that is hurried or tumbled thither by the impulse of Satan for damnation Are we Gods Stewards 1 Cor. 4. and give no better account of our trust but to give Loiterers nay hinderers and disturbers of others our Lords meat drink and wages No we have learned Mat. 24. 45 Luk 12. 42. that the faithful and wise servant must give every one in the houshold his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his proportion of meat not feeding all alike and it must bee done in season he must know when to give and what to give The Lord give us that wisdome and faithfulness and the blessing that followeth in the next verse Blessed is that servant whom his master when he cometh shall find so doing 6. The Apostle forewarns us 1 Tim. 5. 22. Not to be partakers of other mens sins What can be a greater partaking if qui patitur facit if connivance be a sin then for any of us to inveigh against sin in the Pulpit sullenly refuse unregenerate wretches swearers drunkards c. at our own Table and to receive them at the Lords Table and there to give them fellowship and carve them of the royall dainties Is not this to indulge and absolve him in the Sacrament whom I have condemned in the Word and disclaimed in private conversation such as have not repented of their uncleanness 2 Cor. 12. 21. Gods word saith 1 Cor. 6. 9. such shall not inherit the kingdom of God Shall my words and action witness unto him in Mr. Prynns language that he is a member of Christs misticall body and shall I so far as in me lies give him the seal of the inheritance when as if he were to be baptized I should not dare to baptize him God forbid 7. If Ministers have indeed a power to admit it must evidently follow they have a power to exclude or else Infelix ò patrum Gen. 9 unhappy are those fathers that have not the power of the Rod as well as provision of bread and a spirit of meekness But 't is objected that 't is too much to be trusted to one man alone to suspend from the Communion I answer 't is too much to be trusted to one beast alone to prophane the Lords Table at his bruitish pleasure to his own destruction 8. I shall shew what herein hath been received as true Evangelical Sacramentall doctrine by those that have had a name and a pillar in the house of GOD. M. Hooker in his Ecclesiasticall pollicy lib. 5 sect 68. The examination of communicants we reject not consenting to learned M. Cartwright therein Lest we admit Popish Communicants whom we ought not to admit in any wise till their Gospell-like behiviour hath removed all suspition of Popery from them And saith in Cartwrights very words he that giveth such the Sacrament giveth the bread provided for Chilidren unto doggs and bringeth into the pasture provided for the sheep Swine and unclean beasts which is contrary to the faith and trust that ought to be in a steward of the Lords House For the administration of the Sacraments unto them is a declaration of Gods favour and reconciliation with them and a plain preaching Partly that they are washed already from their sin Partly that they are of the Houshold of God and such as the Lord wil feed to eternall life Which is not to be done unto those which are not of the houshold of faith Thus far saith the learned man according to the received doctrine Doctor Field lib. 5. cap. 22 saith the guides of the Church have power to punish sin with suspension excommunication c. and saith that he that for his contempt and disobedience is debarred from the use of the Sacraments is undoubtedly excluded from all accesse to the Throne of grace He saith further ibid and lastly the power of Ministers is twofold they have the key of science and iurisdiction To teach reprove govern and yield sacramentall assurance of Gods mercy and grace by dispensing the Sacraments Christ hath instituted So far affirmeth that worthy man all in one chap. Mr. Randall in his Tract upon the Sacrament layes a great charge upon us to be choise and wary whom we admit to the Lords Table Bishop Bilson pag. 222 useth an apt similitude If the Guard keep out an noble man from the pallace upon command are they therefore above the nobles and if a pastor turns one from the Communion he is not therefore above him Lastly for I am not for number but weight of proofs unto what I do affirm Mr. Baxter now flourishing whom I love and honor not for his Aphorismes but for his zeal activity and skill in our work makes a fair overture to them that will be Communicants Perform your duty so far as is antecedent to mine and I must offer you the Sacraments but if you will refuse to repent and believ and professe so in a credible sort or in will or life profess you do not so and yet demand the Sacrament you do not your duty and so I am not obliged So far M. Baxter Disputation fourth These evidences are enough yet if

rushed him upon such absu●dities and wild conceits Scaliger tells us In homine docto tria omnino excellere debent morum integritas at que civilitas eruditio varia ac multa ingenium summum cum accerrimo judicio conjunctum a learned man should have intire good manners and civility various and much learning and a high wit joined wit a piercing judgment You have had Mr. Prynns integrity good manners and civility expressed freely against the conscientious Ministers before his multiplicity abundance of reading if his Scriptures had been right applyed in the quotations of places cited of which we have had a tast an unsavory one Now to his Ingenium summun cum accerrimo judicio cujunctum high and huge wit and judgment Where I wish I could justifie the latter as I can affirm the former But I hope this is but his disease of his fancy and some distemper and heat and not a perfect calenture of his conceit that may prove curable and that 't is not the very constitution of his serious and more considerate soul I do wish heartily for I loved him as a great Puritan a strict and regular professor he may out-live this discracie that is at present fallen upon him and be more useful to the Church of God then thus Yet to see and pitty the discomposure of Spirit that he is under hear the man talk a little and observe his strange kind of unreasonable reasonings and remember what the Spirit of God saith Eccl. 10. 1. Dead Flyes cause the oyntmen of the Apothecarie to send forth a stinking savor so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour Pag. 9. M. Prynne saith this position of some That to deliver the Lords Supper to such as have no pre-existent saving grace and faith within them is but to set a seal to a which cannot work any saving grace and conversion in them This position he saith is as false as God is true Doth Mr. Prynne understand no more of the Truth of GOD then thus where is non sence in Divinity and what is an impious Paradox Mr. Prynnes words if this be not Let him no more talk of untheological and almost blasphemous assertions except he will justifie the madness as Irenaeus calls it of Marcion and his followers that affirmed there were two Principles at first or two beginning of good and evil that were equally poised Else I hope Mr. Prynne will as the distemper wears off return to his former right mind And that he will live to affirm the great and glorious Truth of GOD to bee truer then the mistake of any weak and sinful man can be false 2. But that which aggravateth the matter is this That what Mr. Prynne saith is as false as God is true Is indeed a very truth according to God an undeniable serious holy truth Yet this must bear Mr. Prynnes brand for an infinite unspeakable incomprehensible falshood as false he saith as God is true This I suppose is ignorant bold and false enough And yet brethren this bold affirmer of alas he knows not what for I am angry at such palpable stuffe takes upon him to adjure us to acquiesce in his conceits and follow his advise and fancy in no lesse matters then in tremendis mysteriis in the managing and administring the Lords Supper Let Mr. Prynne give counsel in the Law with an honest mind and good successe wherein they say he hath good skill but God forbid we should no better understand our Theological work then to take our Institutions and precepts anew from him that though never so learned in his own is but very jejune and empty as to these great and holy things of our Calling and Ministry and is therein but like him that Prov. 13. 7. maketh himself rich and hath nothing In his seventh page he gives a very mean answer to another position that he cavils at viz. That Sacramental Seals serve onely to confirm pre-existent not convey non-existent grace This he quarrels at and miscalleth it a grosse Solecisme in Divinity and Law Corrigit magnificat nescit quid significat To confute the Position he tells us the primary p. 8. original most usual end of Seals and sealed writings is to convey and transfer new rights titles c. and their secondary end to confirm corroborate enlarge estates formerly conveyed How shal Mr. Prynne teach us in our Profession that falls short in his own For doth not experience teach us and do not as wise Counsellors affirm that the Seal and Writings are matters of Record that of themselves properly convey nothing but are a lasting memorial of what was bargained demised purposed and conveyed and on what terms before 'T is the act and deed of the parties concerned and agreed before that is the conveyance And if it cannot be proved that there was no personal actual conveyance as well as a Seal and a Writing Mr. Prynne himself for a small fee will give it for Law that such a Writing and Seal is little better then a blank and signifies nothing It makes me smile to hear him Romance it so gallantly in p. 14. and 15. where he relates how the three Knights Mr. Maurice Mr. Humphrey and himself kill'd the Gyant that still liveth At least he shews you the ropes of sand where with they bound him thus Saith Mr. Prynne Because preaching and hearing may sometimes work damnation yet doth sometimes work and convey by the concurrence of Gods Spirit faith grace and repentance so doth the Lords Supper likewise as he saith he shall prove anon or to morrow or never Mr. Prynne retains and constrains thirty or forty Scriptures to bear up the bedabbled train of this vaporing conceit but to prove it indeed I find not a word in his Book nor is there a word for it in the Bible But we are commanded to preach and teach to rebuke exhort c. and by such means and by walking like lights c. to indeavour the conversion of the Unregenerate And for this we have evidence of the Word and abundant witness in the conscience of many blessed be the Lord. But for Mr. Prynns conceit and his fellows of a proper work of Conversion by the Sacrament for all the rich flourishing applause that their own mouths give it it is but but a failing bankrupt conceit And pag. 17. he offers to compound at half a crown in the pound with a Why should they not constantly and frequently administer the Lords Supper to them viz. the Unconverted because some of them may possibly may probably be converted really reclaimed from their sins renued saved by it And pag. 18 and 19 hee followeth the same importunity Possibly saith he some may be converted by it and pag. 24 he saith 'T is usually and properly wrought by the Lords Supper And if he hath not proper proof for it there is none in all ●he Bible for he proves it from the Queen of Sheba 1

digged out with his own claws And his heart I fear is almost as cruel as his hard speeches he would eject and suspend and play the Haman with us He cannot heat the furnace of his indignation hot enough to shew his rage against poor shelterlesse Ministers that will not bow down to the Idol of his imagination But blessed be the Lord that hath not delivered us as a prey to his and the teeth of all his furious ones I will passe by therefore his monstrous railing large and long false and vehement as David the curse of Shimei and shake it off as Paul the Viper into the fire And if he can recover his mind and sweeten it a little with the love of Truth and peace I will shew him the reason and necessity of our pre-examination and trial of the grace and fitness of those with whom we communicate and to whom we dispense the Lord's Supper 2. First for pre-examination therefore though charity hopeth all things 1 Cor. 13. 5. and believeth all things yet take Chrysostoms and Aquinas and Lyra's exposition as very good Charity hopeth onely all that can be hoped omnia bona Sit malus licet adest corrigens prospiciens studium impendens Chrysost in loc Charity corrects and takes pains with the bad as well as care and studie for the good But the other two carry the Text quite away from our Adversaries and apply it otherwise charitas omnia sperat quae promittuntur c. Charity believs all the promises suffers all that God inflicteth and expects with patience Aquin Lyr. in loc The Apostle bids us shun 2 Tim. 2. 16. nice acuteness profane and vain babblings wrangling controverting for they increase to more ungodlinesse 'T is a general mischief that falls upon all the vain Disputers of this world that they yoak not themselvs to the Truth but seek all over to have onely some appearance of truth on their parts willing rather to hide their shame then to forsake it But he that is of the truth cometh to the light and is sound in the Word and in the Faith and shifteth not to corners and snatches not at quiddities for defence He holds the antient decisions of the Church those old Land-marks and fears not the plea nor objection of any for they resist to no more purpose then Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses Arons rod eat up all the rods of the Inchanters so the clear Word of Scripture and the forme of wholesome words in the tenents of the Church of God and the standing doctrine of the everlasting Gospel will devour all upstart falshoods and conceits whatsoever 2. It was the praise of the Angel of the Church of Ephesus Rev. 2. 2. That he was careful to examine and he did examine and found some liers was it a glory to him and is it as Mr. Prynne calls it a soul-murthering cruelty in us Shall Mr. Prynne and his Legion tell us You take too much upon you you sons of Levi. 'T is but a smal matter for us to be judged by them that have tongues longer then their arms that can judge falsly but through divine restraint cannot execute 3. Might nay must the Priest in the Law separate between the clean and the unclean and may not the Ministers of the Gospel do the like in their stations no not where we see the Leprosie in their foreheads Mr. Prynne saith no Who shall controul his bare word He tells us the Sacrament is a reforming Ordinance to the vicious c. as you have heard before and he would have us jurare in verba for he doth adjure us to his conceit And for the duty of Examination he referrs that to the profane and vicious themselvs and therefore he often drops that Scripture 1 Cor. 11. 28. into the margent and presseth it as none of our duty to examine But how if it be and we neglect it wil Mr. Prynne be retained on our part to plead for us will he answer to God for our neglect I doubt his face will not be hard enough nor his case good enough to stand in the judgment You may see how those that have a mind to cavil at the Truth will snatch at any thing to support them The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but once in all the Scripture translated to examine 1 Cor. 11. 28 Let a man examine himself c. and yet here they all lay hold conclusum est contra dogmatistas O they have enough against them for whom they have no names bad enough But suppose the word had here been translated as often 't is to like to allow to approve Rom. 4. 22. 1. 28. 2. 18. 1 Thes 2. 4. 1 Cor. 16. 3. Phil. 1. 10. c. how would these crackers have done for an argument would they have inferred that they that can allow and like and approve themselves the Ministry and Church of God must do so too Will not the most obdurate and profane person like and allow and approve better of him and take Mr. Prynnes counsel to be confident enough then the most tender-hearted repentant and fit Communicant But if personal examination were sufficient can a Drunkard or Unregenerate person of the like sort examine himself where the very imagination is bruitish and the mind axd conscience corrupted and defiled Is not a young and sanctified child better and fitter for the Communion then an old and foolish beast These words therefore Let a man examine himself are not to be understood exclusively but of the superabundant care that is to be had and examination and proof of every mans conscience to himself in the sight of God For it often may happen that a loving willing flexible Minister may be too gentle facile and indulgent loath to discourage and forward to admit but set a man be severe and examine himself yet more thorowly and not rest wholly upon a forreign favourable approbation 4. If all Ordinances be granted to be converting as M. Prynne asserts amongst heaps of other the like notions where then doth the Scripture deny it unto the examining care of a conscientious Pastor who is commanded to know the state of his flock and Christians to submit unto his over-sight Heb. 13. 17. Obey them that have the rule or guide over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you Yet let the Saints of God know in all the Church and Churches of England that this rule and guidance is not as Mr. Prynne suggesteth to arrogate power to our selves for we professe with the Apostle 2 Cor. 1. 24. We have not dominion over your faith but are helpers of your joy Examining Communicants is service and help and not a dominion We help the joy and settle the spirit of a believer and we help on the sorrow and repentance and conversion of unbelievers by it 5.