Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A93058
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Samuel in sackcloth: or, A sermon assaying to restrain our bitter animosities, and commending a spirit of moderation, and right consittution of soul and behaviour towards our brethren. Upon I Samuel 15.35. By S.S.
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Shaw, Samuel, 1635-1696.
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1660
(1660)
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Wing S3044; Thomason E1029_4; ESTC R208909
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13,185
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27
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God discharged him saying How long wilt thou mourn for Saul So that notwithstanding God did afterwards prohibit Samuel to mourn for Saul yet wee may safely conclude that till then hee did well to mourn for him Therefore in my discourse I shall look upon Samuel as performing a duty in so doing and shall propound him as a pattern for us that wee may go and do likewise Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul 1 Let us consider the Agent Samuel And wee may consider him under these notions 1 Samuel an holy gracious man a man full of the Spirit of God mourned Some new lights men pretending to a great Gospel-Spirit preach nothing but priviledges practise nothing but joy and spiritual rejoycing saying It is for low spirits weak puny Christians to lye mourning and weeping and filling their souls with heaviness But holy Samuel here was either yet below their spirits which I cannot think he was or beside their mind And so indeed hee was for hee mourned for Saul Hee was beside their mind and I doubt they besides themselves For I am sure our Saviour pronounces a blessing upon Gospel-mourners Mat. 5. 4. And I also know that the most gracious spirits have been ever the most tender and sympathizing and most mournful over the sins and sufferings of others Moses the familiar friend of God who was faithful in all his house though of a great and gracious spirit mourned over the stiff-necked hard-hearted and rebellious Israelites Josiah was a man of singular piety and yet of singular tenderness Elijah was a man full of the Spirit of the Lord and yet full of complaints for the Idolatry and backslidings of the people 1 King 19. 10. David was a man after Gods own heart and yet much in tears Psal 119. 28. 136 c. Jeremiah was a man that found grace in the eyes of God a man much of Gods mind and hee was one of a mournful spirit Hee wrings his hands and fqueezes his eyes nay and drains his very soul too for tears all up and down his Prophecie especially chap. 4. 19. 9. 1 2. 13. 17. Nay hee mourns bitterly for the desolation of Moab a rebellious uncircumcised people Jer. 48. 31 32. Paul a man of a Gospel-spirit and otherwise of a great and undaunted spirit thinks that mourning for the sinful and impenitent was a duty suitable enough to his spirit 2 Cor. 12. ult Wee may learn from the example of holy Samuel mourning for Saul that mourning is not an exercise unbecoming the most gracious spirits 2 Samuel a man mighty in prayer mourned for Saul Hee was so mighty in prayer with God that when God would express a man prevalent in prayer hee uses Samuels name to signifie him by Jer. 15. 1. Though Moses and Samuel stood before mee yet could not my mind bee towards this people Yet Samuel did not improve his interest at the Throne of grace against Saul did not implore God for his ruine but betook himself to his tears Samuel mourned for Saul Note It is observable That the servants of God who have been most strong in prayer have rarely improv'd their interest at the Throne of grace against any no not their enemies Moses when hee was sleighted and set at nought by the people and threatned also yet did not pray for their ruine but for their relief rather Exod. 17. 4. Such a spirit was holy David of as you may see in his behaviour upon occasion of Shimei's cursing 2 Sam. 16. 10. This was the spirit of holy Stephen who was so full of the Holy Ghost Act. 7. 60. Instead of putting up imprecations of wrath against them hee deprecates the wrath that might justly have fallen upon them saying Lord lay not this sin to their charge This spirit was in our blessed Saviour Mat. 26. 53 54. Luk. 23. 34. and 9. 54 55. And this spirit hee commends to all his Mat. 5. 44. True indeed sometimes wee finde the servants of God ready to pray against their enemies in Scripture But then it was either out of weakness as the two Disciples Luk. 9. 54. or being acted by an extraordinary prophetical spirit as Elijah 2 King 1. and David oft-times in the Psalms or in passion as Jer. 20. 15 16. But you shall never hear any such thing from them unless they were besides themselves in passion and so they must not bee imitated or above themselves extraordinarily acted and so wee cannot imitate them But alas how few such spirits how little such moderation is to be found amongst us If many hot spirits had as much strength with God and interest in the Throne of grace as Samuel had wee should quickly have fire upon our heads whereas Samuel who was greater in power and might improved not his might against Saul but mourned for him Nay it is most sad of all to hear Gods people groaning in prayer one against another Insomuch that if the wise God were not merciful to them in denying their prayers sometimes they would set the world on fire whereas they ought rather to mourn for one another as Samuel here who was otherwise strong in prayer even to a Proverb 3 Samuel a man as much hating Saul's manners as any man yet mourned for his condition It is a hard thing to bee displeased at a mans manners and yet nor to hate his person nor to rejoyce in the evil that befalls him Commonly when wee are displeased with a mans actings wee are proportionably pleased with his sufferings To distinguish between a mans conditions and his condition so as to abbor the one and yet to commiserate the other is a great art and such a one as David may seem sometimes not to have very well learnt when hee rejoyced in the death of churlish Nabal 1 Sam. 25. 39. Unless wee chuse rather to say that David rejoyced not that Nabal was dead but that hee did not kill him which yet doth not seem to bee all However at any other time hee shews himself an artist in this art to the life as may appear to him that reads Psal 35. 11 12 13 14. Oh admirable soul oh wonderful self-denying frame of spirit ready to dye for thine enemy that is sick go in sack-cloth for the affliction of an unkinde adversary Oh blessed soul every one will admire thee but who can imitate thee oh labour wee all to bee ashamed of our selves that one and the same hatred is so apt to comprehend the man with the manners and for the future to imitate holy David who although hee was offended at a persecuting Saul yet lamented a dying Saul and good Samuel who although hee rejected 2 Sam. 1. 17. a sinning Saul vers 26. yet mourned for a rejected Saul vers 35. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul So much for the Agent Samuel and what may be gathered from him 2 The Action Mourned Samuel mourned for Saul 1 Wee may observe that hee did not rejoyce in Sauls rejection much less in his sin