Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	gospel_n	law_n	life_n	7,267	5	5.2543	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44072	The necessity dignity and duty of Gospel ministers discoursed of before the University of Cambridge.	Hodges, Thomas, d. 1688.	1685 (1685)	Wing H2321; ESTC R13341	17,011	31

a reason of what went before viz. why the world should persecute the Apostles because they were the salt of the earth their work was to reprove sinners sharply and sinners will usually hate and persecute him that reproveth in the Gate or in the Pulpit those that dawb with untempered morter those that sew Pillows under sinners Elbows those that preach Placentia pleasing things those that skin over wounds shall be accepted and well entertained but sinners love not those that will apply corrosives that will apply salt to search their wounds and make them smart though this method and means most tend to the making a perfect and thorough Cure 3. Hence Ministers may learn their duty they are salt and they must have the properties of salt in their preaching Now 't is observed that the properties of salt applied to raw flesh or fresh wounds are principally three First Salt will bite and fret being of nature hot and dry Secondly it makes it savoury unto our taste Thirdly it preserveth meats from putrefaction by drawing out of them superfluous moistness So Ministers must apply the word of God to their Auditors first preaching the Law thereby making them sensible of their sins giving them no ease in them but making them cry out as they Acts 2.37 Men and brethren what shall we doe secondly Ministers must preach the Gospel to them that men being sensible of their corruption like rottenness in their Souls may by the spirit of God be seasoned with Grace may be reconciled unto God and made savoury in his Nostrils Thirdly both Law and Gospel must be dispensed by Ministers that thereby sin and corruption may be daily more and more mortified and consumed in the hearts and lives of their hearers even as superfluous humours are dried up by salt And Ministers must endeavour to be seasoned themselves with the word that they may be the more able and fit to season others Fourthly Hence the people may learn to suffer the word of reproof when we have a cut or wound in our flesh we put salt upon it to hinder it from rankling and corruption and shall we not patiently and quietly suffer the word of reproof from our Teachers though it make our Consciences smart again because it tends to the health of our Souls Fifthly Hence we may learn all of us what we are by nature we are like flesh subject to corruption unsavoury flesh yea we are like stinking carrion in God's Nostrils if there were no danger of corruption God would not be at cost for the salt of the Ministry of his word to prevent it and to season us that we may be a sweet savour unto him Here may be reproved unsavoury Ministers they have the name of salt but they want the property of salt they want their acrimony they are not seasoned themselves and how should they be likely to season others There are four sorts of this unsavoury salt here to be reproved 1. Blind Watchmen Seers that see not Teachers that teach not Shepherds that feed not their flock Dogs that do not or cannot bark Salt-cellars or Salt-boxes without salt or else salt without its saltness such as have the name indeed of salt but want the virtue of it 2. Heretical Teachers are unsavoury Salt and here to be reproved Haeretici saith St. Austin Cimicibus similes vivi mordent mortui foetent they are like Gnats that bite whilst alive and stink when they are dead Infatuantur Doctores saith Maldonat in loc Cum malè docent aut malè aedificant These especially are unsavoury salt or worse who do not onely not season but poyson their People Qui pravo sapore inficiunt 't is a saying of Maldonat Degeneres Doctores haeretici imprimis are good for nothing Nisi ut conculcentur nisi ut crementur Degenerate Doctours Hereticks chiefly are good for nothing but to be trodden under foot but to be burnt but that they are in his sense to be salted with fire because they are unsavoury shall be no determination of mine If a Protestant Minister should fall away to Popery and become a Mass-Priest and after return again to the Reformed Church by true repentance he may be thereupon readmitted to be a Teacher and Pastour amongst us but such surely ought to be humbled for their Apostacy and may do well to have before their Eyes the Example of Ecebolius Ezekiel 44.10 11 12 13. who having often denyed the Faith and after return'd to the truth threw himself down at the Church Door and cried out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 kick me or tread upon me insensible Salt 3. A third sort of unsavoury salt may be reckoned a Preacher that preaches onely general truths but without application to his Hearers the use is the Salt and the Soul too of a Sermon Generalia non pungunt Such Preachers are like Fencers that make a great flourish but never strike to purpose like those Trumpets that give an uncertain sound and who then shall prepare himself to the Battel 4. Here are to be reproved those that have Salt for others but have no Salt in themselves or are unseasoned themselves such as preach well but live ill whose unsavoury Conversation makes that the word doth not season others as it should but becometh unfruitfull Oh what will become of you unsavoury Salt Expect you may to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of Men. Oh absurd and unreasonable Men you have a holy Calling and lead an unholy Life You call your selves spiritual Persons and the Spiritualty and yet live after the flesh the Ministers of God and yet are really the Servants of Sin If there be not such a thing as Religion why do you preach it if there be why do you not live it take heed lest while you preach to some others your selves become not cast-aways lest while you offer Heaven to others you fall short of it your selves lest whilst you warn others to take heed of Hell you your selves fall into it And so I come to the third sort of uses and they are of exhortation and that both to the Ministers and to the People And first to the Ministers Are the Ministers salt then labour to be like salt 1. Labour for the Whiteness and Purity of Salt get pure Hearts be of a pure Lip and sith ye are compared to Salt consider what manner of Persons ye ought to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness 2. Labour for the acrimony of salt be unto sinners a Reprover Salt is more necessary than Sugar sharp words than sweet and pleasing words to prevent the corruption of manners amongst your People 3. When sinners are wounded for their sins do ye stanch their bleeding wounds and keep them from rankling do ye preach the Gospel to wounded Consciences 4. Be ye universal Antidotes and Preservatives against Corruption every way against corrupt Doctrine and corrupt Affections against corrupt Speeches and against all those Children that are corrupt Yea labour to

occasions and occurrences to be able 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak upon the wheels that his words may be like Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver Prov. 25.11 A wise Man will not send a Fool upon his Errand and surely then a most wise God would have his Ambassadours seasoned with Salt to be throughly furnished to every good word and work and to be wise unto the Salvation even both of themselves and of them that hear them And as Ministers must have Salt in themselves so they must season others and this may be done two ways by their Doctrine and their Conversation or by their Preaching and by their Practice 1. They must be sure to preach always sound savoury wholsome Doctrine they must always avoid all unsound rotten or unsavoury Doctrine especially they must preach Christ he that is the Center yea in a sense the α and ω of the Scripture should be all in all in our Sermons We should above all as desire to know nothing but Christ and him crucified so preach nothing in comparison of Christ and him crucified 'T is thought by the Salt required with every Sacrifice both in the Tabernacle in Solomon's Temple and in Ezekiel's Temple and in Christ and by him it is that God hath entered into a Covenant of Grace with Man and this Covenant is an everlasting Covenant and so may be called a Covenant of Salt with this Covenant let Ministers endeavour as to season themselves so to season their Sermons and their Auditours Again Ministers must not dawb and flatter preach pleasing things sow Pillows under Peoples Elbows or throw Sugar upon them when Salt is necessary Their Sermons must have acrimony in them what though it makes Mens wounds smart It will keep them from rankling 'T is a sign of a weak and giddy Constitution of Soul to desire to have our Soul-food powdered with Sugar rather than with Salt God of old under the Law required Salt in every Sacrifice but yet he forbad Honey to be used in Sacrifices and 't is thought the reason was because Honey doth ferment This may teach us not to preach Doctrines that are likely to puff up our selves or others but let our Sermons rather when occasion serves rebuke Sinners sharply and let our Sermons be salted with sincerity I find that the Apostle Paul his Spirit was stirred in him at Athens Acts 17. When he saw the City wholly given to Idolatry Ministers must be savoury Salt they must season others by a good Life and Conversation and this by their words and by their works 1. Their Speech must be savoury season'd with Salt such as may minister Grace to their Hearers and this too out of the Pulpit viz. in their Converse and Communication with Men. No filthy Communication or rotten or unsavoury words must proceed out of their Mouths their Throats must not be like an open Sepulchre sending out Stench and Corruption These Watchmen must especially set a watch at the Door of their Lips lest they offend with their Tongue The Priest's Lips should preserve knowledge and there should always stand ready at the Door of their Lips some good or savoury Speech either a word of Instruction or of admonition or of reprehension To this purpose he had need to pray that God would touch his Tongue with a Coal from the Altar and be with his Mouth as sometimes with Moses that he may open his Lips and shew forth his praise 2. Ministers must season others by their good works by works of Piety Charity Mercy as they must be lively in their preaching so their Lives must be a Sermon They must walk exemplarily before their Family and before their Flock labour they must that they may say with the Apostle Paul to others be ye Followers of us as we also are of Christ 2. As good Ministers are like Salt in its primitive and pure Estate so are bad Ministers like Salt too but 't is in its unsavoury and degenerate Estate Salt may lose its savour and so Ministers if they be if they prove unfaithfull they are but unsavoury salt It was the Punishment of Lot's Wife for looking back to Sodom that she was turn'd into a Pillar of Salt and 't is the Case and Condition of Ministers who are called Angels in Scripture if they leave their station if they Apostatize to be like unsavoury Salt to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men Yet as we reade of fallen Angels and of Stars falling from Heaven so there are Ministers Angels of the Churches and that are sometimes compar'd to Stars and in this our Saviour's Sermon call'd the Light of the World some Ministers there have been who have proved faln Angels and falling Stars who have neither the Vrim nor Thummim neither purity of Doctrine nor integrity of Life but become unsavoury salt altogether useless and unprofitable We reade in Scripture of wicked Priests Sons of Belial Priests who made the people abhor the Sacrifices of the Lord we reade of a Judas a Devil amongst the twelve Apostles of our Saviour of false Teachers and false Apostles and false Prophets St. Cyprian in his time complained Non in Sacerdotibus Religio devota non in Ministris fides integra non in moribus Disciplina there was a great defection it seems as to their Religion their Faith their Works their Manners their silver was become dross and their wine mixt with water The truth is the true Prophets had no greater enemies than the false Prophets of old Ahab's Prophets opposed Micaiah Hananiah Jeremiah Amaziah Priest of Bethel the Prophet Amos Am. Chap. 7. the Scribes and Pharisees and Priests our Blessed Saviour the false Apostles the Apostle Paul the Arians the Orthodox and afterwards none more cruel or greater Persecutors under the Papacy than their Bishops and Priests Corruptio optimi est pessima Men of the best Calling if corrupted prove the worst But this truth that salt may prove unsavoury that there may be clouds without water and wandring and falling Stars false Teachers and bad Ministers this hath more need of a lamentation that it is so than of any proof or confirmation that it may be so But if it be so why is it thus How is the Gold and Silver become dross How comes this salt to be unsavoury To this I answer That salt is sometimes made of water taken out of the Sea and if you put it into the Sea again it loses its virtue Ministers are called and taken out of the World that troublesome Sea that always is casting out mire and dirt and if they trn thither again if they desire and affect to live in trouble in Law-suits Quarrels and Brangles with their Neighbours this renders them and their Ministry useless and unprofitable Contentiousness marrs a Ministers good Savour 2. Some Salt or at least the matter of which it is made is taken out of the Earth and if it be laid into the Earth again if buried in