Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	good_a	heart_n	soul_n	7,867	5	4.7017	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30426	A sermon preached in the chappel of St. James's, before His Highness the Prince of Orange, the 23d of December, 1688 by Gilbert Burnet.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1689 (1689)	Wing B5883; ESTC R27817	13,997	18

In a word as this is the Lord's doings and marvellous in it self so it ought to be so in our eyes for it is certainly in the the eyes of all the World beside We ought to make such pauses in thinking on it as may lead us up to adore and admire the great Author of it in this his doing 1st We ought in a most profound prostration to magnify the good-of God to us in it to him belongs the Glory of it for his hand has wrought this Salvation for us Some may mention their Chariots and some their Horses but we ought only to mention the name of the Lord our God. It will not all derogate from the Honour of our Great-Deliverer to consider him as the Instrument whom God has so highly exalted in bringing about so great a work by his means and so to direct our Homage and Adoration to the Original of this and all our other Blessings And God has imployed an Instrument in it who desires that the acknowledgments may be wholly made to that Eternal Purpose that brings abour all its Designs in so Sovereign a manner This is indeed in all it parts above the skill and wisdom of Man and therefore let us offer up the whole honour of it to God and when that is done this will lead us best of all to pay all the due returns of gratitude and esteem to Him whom God hath now blessed for the second time with the greatest honour that can fall on a mortal Man that he seems born to be the great Blessing of the Age. His first appearance in the World carried with it a Deliverance to those happy Provinces for happy they were from the time that they came under His protection We that saw their Peace and Plenty and the Order and Justice that Reign among them and the sense that they have of that Conduct that procures it saw an earnest of those Blessings that seem to be before us And indeed the passion that they all expressed at His leaving them was to us the truest Indication of the joy and confidence with which we ought to receive Him here and of the hopes that we may promise our selves under so glorious a Protection Let us therefore ponder all these Providences of God so as to admire them not only into a lazy and silent wonder but in those true acts of Praise and Adoration by which our souls and all that is within us may he stirred up to bl●ss the Lord and not to forget anyone of all those benefits which he has bestowed on us upon this occasion in which he has redeemed our life from destruction and crowned us with bis loving-kindness and tender meroies 2dly If this Work of God does possess us with that veneration which is due to it we ought not to stop the course of it till it has had its full effect nor to daub matters by slight and palliating remedies We see now before us the most glorious beginning of a noble Change of the whole face of Affairs both with relation to Religion and the Peace of Europe that we could have wisht for It is so for beyond our hopes that we durst scarce let our wishes go so far we may it we are not wanting to put selves and to the Conjuncture before us hope to see that which may be according to the Prophetick style termed a new Heaven's and a new Earth But if a Spirit of jealousy and murmuring of impatience and faction and of returning back to that out of which God has so signally extricated us grows up so that instead of reaping the fruits that we have now in prospect we have not Souls big enough nor Hearts good enough to carry this on to perfection then we may justly fear our being delivered up avail those Evils from which we will not be healed But it on the other hand we raise our minds above every narrowness of thought and all partial regards and consider matters with such a naked impartiality as becomes Christians Prorestants and Englishmen and provide such Remedies as are requisite then we may hope to see this blessed morning to grow up to a perfect day In a word Life and Death are before us and Blessing and Cursing Those who chuse Life and every thing that leads to it secure a Blessing to themselves and entail it on their Posterity but if we chuse Death rather than Life there is no help for it such persons secure a curse to themselves and do what in them lies to entail it on their Posterity and there is scarce any indication more certain of the Sins of a Nation being grown up to that height that it must be destroyed than the Miscarriage of so great a Deliverance is God has wrought for us which will be an eternal Blot on the Wisdom of the Nation since in that Case the Figure of our Saviour must be justly applyed to us We have piped to you but you have not danced or these other words of his O Jerusalem Jerusalem how often would I have gathered thee under my wings at the hen gathereth her brood hut thou wouldest not Or that of the Prophet That while Children were in the Womb there was not strength to bring forth 3dly But if we will carry on and perfect this marvellous Work of GOD we must study to be such that GOD may not repent him of the good which he seems to have prepared for us While we are under such a happy Influence of Heaven we must not raise up such an Interposition between it and us as may not only make us lose this happy Opportunity but turn it to a Curse by the ill use we may make of it We have not forgot the Criminal Excesses of the year Sixty and how that great Revolution that seemed to promise all that a Nation that had been so long tossed with Wars and changes of Government could wish for was so unsuccessful but instead of the Nations receiving that with those Acknowledgements that were due for such a Blessing how did all People as it were conspire to defeat the ends of Providence in it The excesses of Rioting and Drunkenness and the Disorders of all sorts grew not only to be practised but gloried in as if those Abominations had been the proper distinctions of a Loyal man a Virtuous man looked out of Countenance if he could not go in to the madness of the time and because the high Professions of Religion in the former times had been a disguise to many ill Designs men not only laid aside all the Decencies of Religion but began to think it a peece of breeding to decry it as an Imposture This went so far that perhaps in no Nation under Heaven did men treat the Religion which they professed so familiarly as we did and those who were not concerned any further in Religion than as it might advance their ungodly Designs were willing to encourage this Spirit of Atheism hoping that it would make way for

a Religion which in some respects is worse than no Religion at all for tho with relationto particular Men there is no Comparison indeed to be made between Popery Atheism yet with relation to humane Society a Religion that dissolves Faith and good Nature and gives Authority both to Perfidy and Cruelty is worse than none at all As we reflict upon these Abominations and on the fatal Consequences of them which have been on us so long so in order to the preventing the return of the like Evils we must avoid the relapsing into the like Sins It is neither the Union nor Wisdom of Councils nor the Strength of Fleets or Armies that will secure us from the Judgements of God which we may expect will fall upon us with an extraordinary redoubling according to the Prophetick Phraise of seven times heavier than any thing that we have yet seen or known if those that are filthy will be filthy still If the Atheist will think that his standing up for the Protestant Religion is a warrant to him to laugh at all that is Sacred In a word if Men think that their Fears are over that therefore they may give themselves up to work wickedness without restraint then we may justly expect a return of the like if not of greater Miseries We despised our Religion and GOD has threatned to take it from us yet it seems the Prayers of the Few have prevailed over the cry of the sins of the many But we have no reason to expect that it should be always so We are certainly the happiest Nation in the World if we can but know and value it as we ought to do Our Climate through none of the best yet is Kind and Fruitful and if the Sun is less favourable to us yet our Situation as it separates us from all the World so it lets the Wealth of the whole World in upon us and keeps Danger and War at a distance from us We have all the Liberties of Freemen tempered with a firm and steady Government But which is above all we are blest with that holy Religion which the Son of God revealed to the World and we are Reformed from those Corruptions which had defiled it and that in so equal manner that we are the chief Object of the Roman Fury as well as the just Glory of the Reformation We have had the truths of Religion both in the points of Speculation and Practice opened to us with such advantages that if we stumble or lose our way in the midst of so much light we have more to answer for than any Nation under Heaven and to Crown all God his put us so far into the hands of our Enemies as to let us clearly see what we were to expect from them They had devoured us in their hopes and seemed to be Haman's Friends calling Lots and watching a fit opportunity to destroy us when of a sudden the Snare was broken and we have escaped out of it I hope none of those that were here well soon or easily forget how near they were to be swallowed up and if they had then grave thoughts and serious purposes I hope this change in their Fortunes will not make them dismiss or forget them And for us that saw God's Wonders in the Deep and that after we had past an Eminent Danger languished so many dayes in the Harbour between Hope and Despair upon which we seemed to put on firm resolutions and make solemn Vows of amendment Can we be guilty of so hainous an Ingratitude and breach of Faith as to forget the engagem●nts into which we then entred of a serious and universal Reformation 4. But while we let our thoughts out to wonder at the Wisdom and Goodness of God let the admiration of these produce somewhat like them in our selves we ought to grow wise for our Experience has cost us dear and had almost proven a very dreadful School to us We now see the folly of trusting to that Religion and of imagining that any weight was to be laid on all the Promises that could be made us by them It is not to be doubted but that many were so little acquainted with the depths of Satan that are in that Black Society as to believe it was possible for them to maintain Truth Honour and Good nature notwithstanding the points of Speculation that are in their Schools we resolved to make the Experiment and they have taken such pains to let us see our mistake that it is to be hoped will never at any time hereafter relapse into the like Error The goodness of God that appears now in such endearing Characters to us ought likewise to form the like temper in us Our minds have been to much embittered on all hands by reason of some inconsiderable differences which our Enemies have always managed with so much address as to engage us to weaken our common Force by dividing our selves into Parties and by a fatal serie of woful Accidents these sparks have been blown up into such a flame that they had almost quite consumed us But it is to be hoped that we will study to be all of one mind or if we cannot arrive at so great blessing that at least we will love one another and remember that we are Brethren fellow Christians and fellow Protestants that must have been destroyed together and therefore must now support and bear with one another But as I doubt not but the happy disposition of all peoples minds will now produce a desired temper in those matters so we must not bound out Charity within so narrow a compass No we are Christians and therefore we must not only love our Brethren but even our Enemies and our Persecutors and so overcome their evil with good For how hard thoughts soever we may justly have of the Spirit and Councils that govern that that Church yet many among them in the simplicity of their heart and according to the impliciteness of the Principles follow those Opinions that have been dropt into them from their Childhood they have not strength of thought to look narrowly into them nor do their Rules allow them in so bold a thing as to examine whether they are in the right or not and though it is hard to imagine how any should go over to them yet it is easie to imagine how these who are among them should be shut up blindfold muffled up with the awful bonds of Authority Infallibility And for such though we are under the highest provocations that any Nation can have yet after all let us still remember that we are Christians and that as we have declared openly against the Injustice and Cruelty of our Enemies we govern our selves by the Rule of doing as we would be done by It is a presage of Moderation in our whole proceedings that even the less governable Part of the Nation I mean the unruly Multitude has been so happily restrained from extravagant acts of fury for