Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A30290
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The way to peace A funeral sermon on Job 22.21. Preached upon the decease of the right honourable Elizabeth, Countess of Ranalagh. By Daniel Burgess.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing B5719; ESTC R224017
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30,595
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82
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word Nothing slayeth Sinners or woundeth Saints more than Sloth In sacred Things he who is not doing is undoing whoever is not busy is not holy And of them who are so every slothful Servant is more a Thief than a Servant The slothful in Business is Brother to the slothful out of it God's Acquaintance is both entred and exercised by Diligence Memorable is the Royal Psalmist's word Thou hast commanded us to keep thy Precepts diligently Exh. 2 Think strain your Minds in the Thoughts Commune with your Hearts frequently and seriously concerning the Excellency and Necessity of God's Acquaintance Being come to Thinking beware of mispending your Thoughts by whose waste not a few Souls are lost The Number being great who mind little of Religion more than the Husks The Formalities which swallow up many Mens Care are in Reality no more And in fiery Contentions about them the most do seem rather to disgorge their Malice than to discharge their Conscience For what Conscience can dream either that any Way of Religion can please God without Acquaintance with Him Or that Difference in those Notions and Practices which consist with his Acquaintance is not very tolerable without Strife and Variance Wherefore shake this Viper off from your Hands away with the Serpent and take Fish away with the Stone and take Bread Look to the End of the Commandment which is Charity out of a pure Heart and a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned Mind you the Soul and Body of Religion be less intent upon the Garb and Dress Be a thousand times more careful to excel in Acquaintance with God which all do agree to be Saving-Religion than to promote this or that Opinion about which Men of unquestionable Integrity cannot agree whether it be from Heaven or of Men Of these Things put your selves in remembrance You were created to be acquainted with your Creator Your Conscience his Envoy in your Hearts tells you this Your Minds were given you to know Him and your Wills and Affections to Chuse and Love Him The Son of God was sent to die for you and his Spirit is sent down from Heaven to live in you that ye might be acquainted with God! And if you refuse to be so you vex God the Holy Ghost and put God the Son to open shame The Helps vouchsafed in the Gospel for God's Acquaintance are incomparably greater than those afforded under the Law So that if you improve not your Advantages you receive greater Damnation than Old-Testament Sinners Your Sin is aggravated and your Sentence will be so God's Acquaintance is great Gain and all the World without it is Vanity and Vexation If you enjoy not God the most despicable Insect enjoys as much as you and if you do enjoy Him the highest Cherub enjoys no more than you In God's Acquaintance there is great Reward even upon Earth where there is least of it If acquainted with Him you can have no Wants but he will supply them no Losses but he will repair them no Combats but he will be Second yea Principal in them and make the Victory as sure as the Fight In short Without God's Acquaintance no Sin will die in you and no Divine Grace will live Without this Acquaintance Enmity to God will be bewrayed or if buried buried alive Heavenly Vertue and Love of God will not be seen in you or if it be it will be seen to be but painted not engraved He must be a Man of such Thought that is ever acquainted with God With such Thought his Heart must stir him up and his Spirit must make him willing Exod. 35.21 Exh. 3 Resolve purpose let a Vote pass in your Souls and deliberately Design to get and encrease Acquaintance with God Resolution is the only generous Issue of Thought Which hath never been rightly fixed upon our Objects or into our Hearts when it is barren and bears it not Determine now therefore and fully engage to pursue Acquaintance with God Always to consult is as bad as never to consult at all For what is Consultation without Action And what can be either acted before it 's attempted or be attempted before it be resolved In vain I speak and in vain you hear any further if this Resolution be not first settled If your Wills remain still in suspence and you halt between two between God's Friendship and the World's it were more expedient that I should sit down and weep over you than preach on and direct you to what you intend not The Ark of God and the Idol of Philisthia could not stand upon the same Altar Neither can a Choice of God's Acquaintance and the World's consist in the same Heart Heaven and Earth be not such Equals as that they should compound and agree to take equal Shares in our Affections So that if any thing be done to purpose to this Effect must be your Language What have I to do any more with Idols I do renounce them with full purpose applying my self to seek God's Acquaintance I am on and off no longer now but fixed I see the Necessity and cease from the Impertinence of pleading Difficulty Let it cost me right Hand and right Eye they shall go if need be I will not give over seeking this Acquaintance though I die No Man comes into God's Acquaintance and Favour till he is made thus willing in the Day of his Power Exh. 4 Hope the best if your spiritual Hands hang down and Knees be feeble yet lift them up Hope even against Hope that as much as you have provoked Him to Vengeance God will now bring you to his Acquaintance That now he has given you to Will he will also strengthen you to Do all that is necessary Humble you much with the afflictive Thoughts of your long Enmity unto Him But join not with the Tempter against your self and your so gracious Father Do not tell your selves that you shall never see any Good come of your good Purposes That they are in vain and 't is not likely that the Majesty so Holy should ever be propitiated to you or you be made sutable or acceptable to Him But that as when He was willing you would not be reconciled so now that you are willing he will not incline to Friendship Give him not so insolently the Lie with your Mouth or Hearts and abhor the thought of his being unreconcilably angred or your being unalterably wicked Tell your selves the truth He is not implacable by the Oblation of his Son nor are you unreformable by the Power of his Spirit A Spirit which he hath promised to give unto them that ask as you are now resolved to do and that without ceasing No Man came ever into God's Acquaintance without this Hope and Confidence that There is Forgiveness with him Exh. 5 Seek as for Silver search as for hid Treasure for the sound Knowledg of your Righteousness your Strength and your Steps Hope is a Spring of Motion and unto nothing more
concerning than this can it move you Your Righteousness is Jesus Christ His Righteousness is the true and only that satisfieth for Iniquity and meriteth Mercy The great Apostle protests against Trust in any beside Though after his Conversion he was a sort of incarnate Angel he dared to plead no other Righteousness at God's Tribunal Knowing all other Garments to have both Defects and Defilement he declareth the Righteousness of God's Son to be the Robe of his Salvation Phil. 3.7 8 9. Natural Conscience as soon as it 's awake cries out What shall I do to be saved But as soon as its Eyes are touched with the Eye-salve of the Gospel it sees that It can never be saved by what it will ever be able to do When we have done all we are unprofitable Servants Your Strength is the Holy Ghost We have no more Justifying Righteousness than we receive from Christ nor any more sanctifying Righteousness than we receive from the Holy Ghost The Spirit helpeth our Infirmities Look over the Gospel you will find him entituled to all To all Grates as the Worker of them to all Duties as the Assister in them He it is that works all Good in us and by whom we are acted when we do what is Good The Body is not more dead and unactive without the Soul than the best Soul is without the Holy Spirit Without him we can do nothing No Man can call Jesus Lord but by the Spirit Your Steps thro Christ and by the Holy Ghost to God's Acquaintance are these e.gr. Painful Sense of your want of it for Blessed are they that mourn Longing desire after it for Blessed are they that hunger and thirst Humble Acknowledgment of your Weakness and disability to raise your selves to it for Blessed are the poor in Spirit Like acknowledgment of your being unworthy that God should raise you up for we are Ungodly as well as without Strength and less than the least of God's Mercies Faith of God's Power and Readiness in his Gospel-way to raise you up to it for He that cometh to God must believe that he is and is a Rewarder of them that seek him Faith of his Willingness with his Acquaintance freely to give you all things for so is his Promise No good Thing will he withhold from the Upright Lastly Humble Boldness in the Faith aforesaid to trust and serve Him for so is the Divine Prescription Let us come boldly to the Throne of Grace When you are come boldly thither you must lay down the Body before you can get higher For it is so high that the next Step is Glory saith one of Note in the Church These things Bind on your Fingers write on the Table of your Hearts Praying incessantly that by the Holy Spirit 's strengthning Power you may ever take these Steps and through Christ's meritory Righteousness be accepted in them For this keep you praying with all Prayer Exh. 6 Sanctify a Fast some Time set apart and go Vow unto the Lord to be his solemnly give your selves unto him present your selves living Sacrifices With what solemnity is the Nuptial Bond entred every where in the World With what Solemnity is a Coronation-Oath taken Yet what is the Pleasure of the one or the Honour of the other to that of the Covenant of Grace The Covenant by which our Maker becomes our Husband And we are made Princes How congruous is it that the Day of our entring it should be kept with greatest Solemnity and signalized as a Day never to be forgotten That every one joined to God therein should all Days of his Life most joyfully commemorate it saying This is the Day whereon I renewed my Baptismal Covenant Was married to my God was crowned with the Honour of his near Acquaintance and enriched with all Peace and Good Thanks be to God on every Remembrance That this Renewal of our Baptismal Vow is needful and the Repetition of it upon all proper Occasions none can question The Examples that commend it and the Reasons that enforce it are well known I say but this God though no Debtor at all to us pleaseth by Promises of Free Grace in effect to become one Men love to have their Favours free are impatient of being fettered by Promises unto their Alms-fokls and do reserve to themselves a Power of revoking their Charity at Pleasure But God is Love and such that tho all his Blessings be Gifts he condescends to be engaged for the conferring of them and allows them in a Sense to have the Quality of Debts In short tho his Word is established in Heaven and with Him is no shadow of turning yet his Mercy is secured by Covenant and his Covenant secured by Oath Even the highest Oath by his Life and by his Holiness What then Shall we who are Debtors the deepest we whose Gifts unto Him all are Debts and ten thousand times less than our Debts We whose Hearts are false and need be fix'd and fastned sluggish also and need to be quickned shall we think much to be bound in Vows Or shall we dare to trust our Treacherous Spirits without them What Bands and Cords can be too many for us Surely it stands us upon by these Vows as so many Girdles of Truth to bind on us the whole Armour of God if breaking off our old Agreement with Hell we would enter and maintain Acquaintance with God! And thus doth every Penitent who attends the Overture made by his Redeemer Let him take hold of my Strength that he may make Peace with me and he shall make Peace with me Isa 27.5 Exh. 7 Pay your Vows prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect Will of God be not content to keep you from presumptuous Sins unless the Words of your Mouth and the Meditations of your Heart be acceptable in the sight of God! Vows turn to a sad Account unless being bound you do thus Obey Taking heed of Gnats as well as of Camels of Moats as well as of Beams Ambitious to please to well-please yea and to best-please God Your Minds proving what doth do so by studying it out your Wills by embracing it and your active Powers by practising it Practising it to the best of your Light and to the utmost of your Strength with all your Mind and with all your Soul For as fair as the Tree of Knowledg is to look on the Tree of Life is the best to feed on And if practical Holiness be not the Life of our Religion our Judg will abominate our Heads of Gold upon Feet of Clay Follow you therefore the Apostle's Rule too hot for Hypocrites to hold Whatsoever things are True are Honest are Just are Pure are Lovely are of good Report if there be any Vertue i. e. any more vertuous than others if there be any Praise i. e. more praise-worthy than others Think on these things these things do It is true and a most comforting Truth that in our weak and tempted State God