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 jesus_n lord_n 7,172 5 3.5622 3 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A34730 A word to the LII London ministers shevving that the most zealous professors of religion in all ages have been the greatest persecutors of Christ and his most spirituall members, illustrated and proved / by Nicolas Cowling. Cowling, Nicholas. 1648 (1648) Wing C6514; ESTC R3567 8,345 24

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

the betrayers and murtherers of the Lord of life and so those people that but even now feared no danger for Christ being no higher principled than in the carnall commandement of godlinesse given by Moses which is but the utter Court of the Temple were easily drawn aside by the specious pretence of that seeming godlinesse which the Scribes and Pharisees lived in and thereby deceived themselves as well as the people and so thought it a more Pious equitable work to vote that a murtherer who was penitent should live than to preserve a Blasphemer that continues in his sinne and so disturbes the peace of their carnall Church Vpon the same accompt did our Popish Bishops destroy the Lollards and burne the Martyrs not because they were godly people but because they were adjudged Hereticks yet wee condemne them as great persecutors of the Saints and yet we must make up the measure of our Fathers iniquity if Penry Barraw and Grenwel will be so bold as to affirme Bishops to be Antichristian he must hang for it in the dayes of famous Elizabeth and if Hack●t will affirm that Christ is in him the hope of glory he must●russ likewise I hope you will not conclude our Clergy to be maliciously wicked but what they did was in order to the peace of the Church and the glory of God as it did then appeare unto them Christ told Peter that flesh and bloud revealed not that confession as if he should have said If thou hadst all the Divinities of the Preists Scribes Pharisees and learned Grecians nay if thou hadst been Doctor of the Chair in Oxford and Cambridge all these nor any of these can reveal me but my Father which is in Heaven and therefore the time shall come and still is that the Rabbies of the Churches shall thinke they doe God good service when they kill my beloved ones Now my deare hearts and fellow members in that glorious head the Lord Christ Iesus bee not bitter in your spirits and judge nothing before the time experience is the best teacher and therefore to you that are not privy to your selves of any secret selvishnesse but are simply and purely zealous for God as was Saul and will not knowingly smite or offend the least of Christs members I say let me be bold in love to impart unto you my former experience in the mysterie of Christ I thought a long while a faith in Iesus that dyed at Ierusalem was the top gallant of a Christian but since it doth cleerly appear that all the faith the disciples had in Christ their Master which was a faith only without and none of the mistery of Christ within them I say that faith in the person of the Lord Iesus dyed with him so that when he was dead there was not one that did expect ever to see him againe for Mary went not to see whether he was risen but to anoint his dead body yea the disciples who had ground enough for belief could be so charitable as to judge Mary to bee no better than a lyer in reporting fained things affirming that he was risen and we trusted it had been him that should have delivered Israel said the two disciples but he is dead so that its clear all the faith they had in Iesus dyed with Iesus now the Apostle tels you Phil. 3. 9. That we may be found in him not having mine own righteousnesse which is of the law but that which is through the faith of Christ not in Christ the righteousnesse which of God by faith And likewise it is not sufficient that wee beleeve there was such a one dyed at Ierusalem and God was fully pleased in him But the same Apostle tels you Col. 1. 24. That as the head passed through sufferings so there is a remainder of afflictions of Christ in our flesh for the bodyes sake And ver. 27. And that it sufficeth not that there is a Christ without us But Christ in you the hope of glory And therefore it is Christ in the mistery that will save a wooden leg that is tyed on may doe some service but the leg that is naturally fixt is usefull for all occasions seeing by all those former examples that the Prophets the Lord Iesus the holy Martyrs not one of them in their generation died as the servants of the Lord but as blasphemers and dangerous hereticks according to the account of the reverend Clergy then living whose zeal for God and the preservation of the peace and purity of holy mother Church to preserve the glory of the one and the honour of the other was the principle cause that led them forth to deal so cruelly with them Now seeing that unmatchable Pharisee Saul which profession in the church of God in that generation was accounted most pious that could say as concerning the law he was unblameable in his conversation being mad in his zeale for God against the dear Saints of God Consider in how desperate a condition he was in when going to Damascus if mercy had not met him and seeing the Lord Iesus constitute in his church never a Constable nor Iustice of peace to meddle with any of his Saints why are you so importunate to call in the Magistrate for your assistance seeing you doe not produce your warrant or president from him seeing I find but one civill officer in his family namely a Treasurer and for his sake be so courteous as not in the least to engage the civill Magistrate with his corrective power to enforce any man to be a beleever before that holy spirit convince him so shall the church more probably bee freed from hypocrisie and backsliding and you shall not through mistakes attract any guilt upon them or your selves and the rather because you ingeniously confesse that you do but conceive this way you prescribe to bee the right way See how our grandmother Eve was deceived in her conception when shee brought forth Cain it could be no lesse then the Mesiah as she thought and lo a Murtherer and Abraham a Prophet of the Lord and the father of the faithfull thought he had gotten the heire of promise when he had Ishmael and hee had nothing but a persecuting scoffer therefore take heed of zeal not rightly enformed and surely those severall forty stripes save one which Paul so frequently met with will fall very smart upon his back that will at any time take the boldnesse upon his fallible judgement to lend them unto any Saint and surely it will not repent any Saint of God that he did not enterprise to grieve the least little one that beleeveth And therefore sweetly David 1 Sam. 25. 33 34 By which counsel he was diverted from executing the determination of his counsell of War consider seriously who they were that persecuted Iesus Christ the Prophets and the Martyrs were the men that did openly professe themselves enemies to godlinesse nothing lesse suppose in the dayes of Christ Iesus the people would have had Religion reformed who should have been chosen for the Assembly doubtlesse it must have been Scribes and Pharisees and no Publicans surely Gamaliel was likely to have been Prolocutor and his disciple Saul might have been the publique notary and yet see how these learned soules in their zeal for God were mistaken leave all the rest and to our present time how many of our reverend Divines in the time of their Prelaticall obedience how earnestly did they contend for the upholding of the Leturgie against such as opposed it which now they cast out with tonges and slice And had Bishop Laud not steadfastly beleeved God was highly concerned in those materiall churches and that mens cringing and crouching were of high concernment before God he would never have run the hazard of his head as he did It is good to be zealously affected alwayes in a good thing Gal. 4. 18. And having no other ground but our fallible conceptions to guide our selves and others by let us be very tender of enforcing Now Christ alone having the government upon his shoulders who is only wise and infallible and seeing the temple is filled with smoake and that he wil bring his people into the wildernes and plead with them and that tongues shall cease and ye shall no more say one to another know the Lord but ye shall be all taught of me from the greatest to the least why shall we limit the holy one of Israel and say the time is not yet And seeing he hath a fanne in his hand he wil throughly purge his floor And bee not like those officious husbandmen who no sooner thought they saw a blade like a tare but they must be picking of it up the answer was let both grow together untill harvest and unto Iames Iohn ye wot not of what spirit ye are of I come not to destroy but to save It may seem here is begging for a tolleration for my self I passe not what men conclude on in the matters of God if they break his bonds cast away his cords and will not have Christ to raign over them they are but laught at and will fall to pieces knowing and being wel assured that there is a rest for the people of God and they that enter into it cease from their workes as God did from his and that the kingdomes and the powers shall serve the Lord Christ in the Saints and this sufficeth me FINIS a Rom. 10. 2. b Gen. 3. 5. 6. a Numb. 16. 12. a Isa. 42. 1. 6. 7. b Isa. 66. 3. a Ioh. 11. 49. 50.