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	trinity_n	7,211	5	10.1332	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66577	Cultus evangelicus, or, A brief discourse concerning the spirituality and simplicity of New-Testament worship	Wilson, John, M.A.	1667 (1667)	Wing W2926D; Wing W2901; ESTC R9767	88,978	144

imperfect and finite but when we appear before God and do reverence to him we must do it with apprehensions of eminency and that such as is uncreated perfect infinite There are two dangerous rocks we are apt to dash our selves upon the one is the ascribing to the creature the perfections of God by conceiving of him carrying our selves towards him as God and the other is the ascribing to God the imperfections of the creature conceiving of him and carrying our selves towards him as a creature Now to give to the creature the Prerogative of God and to charge upon God the defects of the creature are equally absurd and dangerous It must therefore be our care that our worship be suitable to the object to which it is tendered That is fit for the Creator that is not fit for the creature and that is fit for the creature that is not fit for the Creator In our worshipping the creature we must take heed of going too far and in our worshipping the Creator we must take heed of falling short As God would not have us give to him the honour he hath allowed the creature so neither will he have us to give the creature that honour he hath reserved for himself but we must give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods If we neglect to worship man we offer violence to the commandments of the second table if God then we offer violence to the commandments of the first To worship God and not man is to overthrow that beautiful and comely order he hath established in the world and to worship man and not God is to deny him that natural right that belongs to him and prefer his own creature before him which must needs be a sin of a very hainous nature We must see therefore that we worship both man and God man with the worshhip belonging to him and God with the worship belonging to him which what it is more particularly is the next thing I am to speak of 2. I am to shew what is meant by worshiping God in spirit For the better understanding whereof let us first enquire what is meant by the simple term spirit For if it be a true rule that the way to finde out the meaning of a complex term is first to take it asunder and seek out the meaning of the simple terms included in it then the way to find out the meaning of the worshipping God in spirit is first to take the clause asunder and seek out the meaning of the simple term spirit We cannot tell what is meant by worshiping God in spirit till we have first found out what is meant by spirit and when we know that we may easily know the other Now the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word of various significations too many here to be reckoned up It is a word that the holy Ghost hath made use of to express the highest and eminentest beings in the world There is not any intelligent being whatsoever but it is applyed to it Sometimes it s spoken of God considered both essentially and personally Sometimes of angels both good and bad Sometimes of the soul of man and that not only vital but rational as it comprehends the understanding conscience heart will affections and all the powers thereof And in this last sense that is as it is put for the reasonable soul it uses to be taken when it is mentioned with the service and duty that we owe to God Though the sacred Pen-men put it for several things yet when they joyn it with our duty to God they mean by it the reasonable soul which as it is the interiour so it is the superiour nobler and better part of man whereby only he is capable of knowing God understanding his will and doing him service Witness these passages God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit And I will pray with the spirit And praying alwayes with all prayer and supplication in the spirit And so our Saviour uses the word in this place by spirit he means the reasonable soul or inner man as it stands in opposition to the body or outward man The meaning then of worshiping God in spirit is this that we must not worship him only with the body or outward man as heathens and hypocrites use to do but with the soul or inner man which is that which he in all holy addresses mainly looks after This I might have been larger on but I shall have occasion to say somewhat of it under the next particular 3. I am to shew you the meaning of worshiping God in truth And of this passage I may say as Maldonate did of another perhaps it had been easier had not men obscured it by their expositions Having perused several writers upon it I find them very different in their apprehensions concerning it Such of their opinions as are most remarkable I shall give you an account of and then recommend to you that which I take to be the true and genuine sense of it 1. Some think that by spirit in this place we are to understand the third person in the Trinity and by truth the second and that to worship God in spirit and in truth is to worship the Father in the Son and the Son in the Holy Ghost which is to worship the whole Trinity This way goes Athanasius but as Tolet the Jesuit saith truly it is difficult to accommodate this to the context Had this been our Saviours meaning he should rather have said they that worship him must worship him in truth and in spirit than as it is here in spirit and in truth But the mistake is evident and therefore I need to say no more of it 2. Others think to worship God in spirit and in truth are one and the same thing that to worship him in spirit is to worship him in truth and to worship him in truth is to worship in spirit and so they will have the one to be an exposition of the other And they say to worship him in spirit and in truth is not to worship him under a visible representation or similitude as if he were a material substance or body For the Samaritans worshipped him under the image of a dove and circumcised their children in the name thereof And so they will have our Saviours words to imply as much as if he had answered the woman thus Thou enquirest of me concerning the true place of worship whether it be mount Garizim or Jerusalem which is a thing now not very material for as much as the time is at hand that the worship of God shall be confin'd to neither of them But there is a greater difference betwixt us then that of place which thou takest no notice of and that is about the object of worship ye worship ye know not what

his to devise and that blasphemous tongue of his to utter but far different from what the Holy-Ghost dictaed to the Prophets and Apostles As God would not have us to worship him with the body only so neither would he have us to worship him with the soul only but with soul and body both together He is maker and Lord both of the one and the other and therefore he expects to be worshipped with the one as well as with the other When he calls so much for our worshipping him in spirit he doth not thereby exclude or discharge us from worshipping him with the body he never intended any such thing He calls upon us indeed to worship him with the spirit principally but not only Thus the Saints of old acted and guided by the Holy Ghost ever understood him and therefore did not only imploy their spirits in worshipping him but their bodies also To instance in the duty of prayer therein they bowed their knees lifted up their eyes voice hands smote upon their breasts and the like thereby teaching us that when we imploy our selves in the worship of God we must not only ingage the soul but the body likewise And Amyrald who writes against such quodlibetick spirits tells us that there never was any Nation that thought it enough to serve God in thought only without making demonstrations of their devotion by gestures and external actions And though bodily exercise as it is single and divided from the spirit doth as the Apostle saith profit little yet when it joyns with it it profits much It assists the spirit elevates the heart inflames the affections excites to devotion and makes us far more lively in the service of God than otherwise we should be What difference is there commonly in the intention of mens affections betwixt their praying only inwardly in the spirit and outwardly with the voice what deadness and straitness do usually attend the one and what life and inlargement the other Hence we find that the ancient Christians when they set upon the service of God did on purpose take in the body to assist the soul and further their devotion in it Witness that of Augustin by words saith he and other signes we greatly excite our selves to increase holy desire And upon this and such like grounds Aquinas teaches that prayer though secret may be vocal or that in our closet-performances when we have no spectators but God and Angels we may use the voice Anatomists say there are certain strings that come from the heart to the tongue so that the agitation and motion of the tongue doth stir and shake the heart and thereby awaken and affect it rendring it more vigorous and lively in its present services If therefore when we are waiting upon God in secret we find our hearts dead and liveless we may make use of the tongue for the quickning of them and rendring them more fit for the enjoyment of communion with him and better carrying on of his service The truth is such is the indisposition of our hearts to good that they are apt like Eutichus to drop asleep in the service of God and therefore we have need of something to awaken them and if we find the voice will do it we may use it If we find them lively and in good frame and fit for the service we are about we may then spare it and pray as Hannah did in her heart but if otherwise we may and ought to use it This I speak of the duty of prayer and that prayer which is secret the use of the voice is also necessary when one prayes in the person of many as the Master in his family or the Minister in the Congregation Those that are to joyn with them are to know what Petitions they make and say Amen to them which they cannot do except they use the voice And as the voice is thus to be used in the worship of God so must other parts of the body as the occasion serves and the nature of the duty requires And this is the common Doctrine of Protestants and therefore it is an unworthy slander of Maldonate the Jesuite that the Calvinists interpret worshipping in spirit a worshipping with faith alone as if they were Solifidians and against all external services Now what shall be done to thee thou false tongue sharp arrows of the Almighty and coals of Juniper This is even as true as that the Devil ran away with Luther that Calvin dyed blaspheming that Beza recanted that Junius had a cloven foot Nay this is as true as that their St. Patrick caused the stoln Sheep to bleat in the belly of him that had eaten it that St. Lupus shut the Devil all night up in a Tanckard that St. Dunstan held him fast by the nose with a pair of Tongs that St. Dominick made him hold him the Candle till he burnt his fingers with abundance of such ridiculous childish fables which yet their deluded vulgar take to be as true as the Gospel it self Let any man that hath eyes but read Calvin himself on the Text and he shall find him speaking not only for faith and purity of heart but likewise for prayer giving of thanks and innocency of life Nay their own Cajetan hath spoken as much if not more upon this Text for internal worship than Calvin hath done In spirit that is saith he not in the Mount not in Jerusalem not in any place not with temporal worship not with the tongue but with inward worship consisting in spirit that is in the mind as it bears the office of the spirit and layes out it self in spiritual matters What if Calvin had said all this then the angry Jesuite would sure have opened his mouth indeed But we may not wonder that the Jesuites carry it thus towards us Their friend Jarrigius hath told us what kind of dealing we are to expect from them It is saith he speaking to one of them your ordinary custome according to the secret and mysterious rules of the society to impose things upon the pastors of the reformed Churches in your injurious and treacherous refutations and make the world believe they say what never came into their thoughts A Jesuites tongue then is no slander but no more of this 2. Though it be our duty in these dayes of the Gospel to worship God in truth or without the use of Ceremonies yet we do not understand this to the exclusion 1. Of such Ceremonies as are of divine institution When Christ abolished the Jewish and Samaritan Ceremonies he instead thereof instituted some of another nature that were to continue Of this sort are water in Baptism bread and wine in the Supper with the several actions pertaining to them That these are Ceremonies both Papists and Protestants as Chamier shews grant and that they are of divine institution none but infidels will deny And these ceremonies notwithstanding what hath been