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
A59593	No reformation of the established reformation by John Shaw ...	Shaw, John, 1614-1689.	1685 (1685)	Wing S3022; ESTC R33735	94,232	272

interests are concerned are free to it If they can and doe why may not the same authority determine the circumstantials of the Second and Fourth Commandment as well as of the Third Are they not equally Precepts of Divine Worship And why may not the same require our conformity to their Constitutions in the adjuncts of religious Worship as well as command and enforce submission to their Acts for the modifying limiting and enlarging the duties of the Second Table Is not holy Text as much a rule of perfection for the Offices of Justice and Charity as for religious Duties Is not Christ the Lawgiver to both And can there be a fairer acknowledgment of the plenitude of his power than that by Commission he hath settled and delegated his Officers here on earth to make rules for the honest and honorary performance of what he hath indispensably commanded What therefore they by their Legantine power duly executed do order is ordered by him Quod quis per alium c. he that heareth you heareth me SECT 2. Ceremonies thus stated are in some degree necessary as we usually call ornamentals in an House necessaries because such is the exigence of all external actions that without them they cannot be solemnly performed which in all religious affairs as well as civil transactions ought to be respected All Societies have their ceremonial Observations as well as fundamental Constitutions to which they have so great respect that they suspect these to be sore shaken when the other are removed and the Catholick Church hath ever thought Ceremonies so subservient to the decent regular and reverend performance of Christian Institutions that without them the Service could not receive nor retain its due value and esteem In the Christian Community Unity and Uniformity are commanded duties and all Christians have hitherto believed Ceremonies are the best fences and securities for them and such as add much lustre and honour to exercises of Religion How great a part of the judicial Law was Ceremonial not onely by types and figures of good things to come which as carnal Ordinances were to expire when the fulness of time came but appendants and attendants of those good duties then enjoyned which are not abrogated by Christ That Text Matt. 5. 17. respects not one division of the Law but every part so that the whole remains in force to receive its perfection by the Gospel The moral Law though nulled in its presumed ability to justification which the grace of Jesus Christ supplieth yet liveth as a rule of obedience The judicial stands still in its full strength in matters of common equity though as to those Laws which peculiarly respected the Jewish State its rigour is abated to supply which God hath given to supreme Powers authority to enact such Decrees as are conducible to the great ends of Government The Ceremonial as it consisted of weak and beggarly rudiments is determined yet it holds as a directory to the Church for signification For one great end thereof was to teach us to serve God regularly and reverently Amesius Med. Theol. l. 2. c. 15. n. 16. confesses Institutions merely Ceremonial do yet contain in them a general equity and do yet teach us that certain fitting days therefore fitting Rites by parity of reason be assigned for God's publick Worship Substantia Legis Ceremonialis est perpetua Zanch. de Relig. Observ c. 15. Aphor. 4. J. Frig. p. 9. of his Ref. Pol. thus expresseth it in reference to the whole There is no abrogation well there may be some derogation which he hath borrowed from the Canonists and Casuists who thus distinguish Derogatur Legi cùm pars detrahitur abrogatur cùm prorsus tollïtur Barth Fum. Tit. Abrog and he thus explains it A derogation doth but expound an Edict as we see the Gospel derogateth from the Law by taking away the Letter and requiring it be taken after the Spirit now the spirit of the Law is the equity thereof but the letter is the rigour of the words We have a Saying the reason of the Law is its soul and every sense affixed contrary to the reason of its enacting is unreasonable Now as in several Statutes of Repeal some useless or prejudicial things are nulled but what conduceth to good ends is by cautious proviso's strengthened so the Mosaical Law in those things which were burthensome and inconvenient is quite out of all but those that are no way derogatory to the Discipline of Christ and his easie yoke and which are very agreeable with the Constitution of Christian Society and community have their full virtue It was the observation of Melancthon that the fourth Commandment was Morale praeceptum de Ceremoniali which if I understand him aright the ultimost reason of the Law is moral but what is specially commanded is Ceremonial and if so then plainly it is moral that some things should be Ceremonial And because Ceremonies have been by all almost adjudged serviceable to the common interchangeable good of Religion therefore they are not to be esteemed trivial or superfluous for nothing is so which is a concurring good mean to a good end or hath a social good end in good resolutions SECT 3. If the quarrel be at their significancy certainly the more significant they are the more expedient also they are and the Church hath good authority to expedients for what is both lawfull and laudable is in that degree necessary and if S. Paul thought it incumbent on every single Christian to provide things honest in the sight of all men Phil. 4. 8. then much more is the Church bound to take care in that respect for her self and her members Now these honest things which are to be provided are such as in the approbation of all wise men whether good or bad are grave venerable attractive and obliging and such are our Ceremonies which are experimented to be wholsome preservatives of the golden mean betwixt nakedness and vanity veneration and superstition gaudiness and rudeness and therefore of the kind of those honest things But S. Paul is yet more particular seeming to put significant Ceremonies sub Praecepto 1 Tim. 2. 8. I will therefore I appoint it by Apostolical authority saith Diod. that men lift up holy hands by this Ceremony saith he to express the devotion of the heart Pisc seconds him the lifting up the hands says he is a sign of the elevation of the heart with this proviso not that this gesture is so necessary that we are indispensably tyed to it For we find the Publican used it not but smote upon his Breast yet therein he was a true Conformist who observed an uncommanded significant rite according to the then received custome if Dr. Lightfoot's warranty be good that in Christ's time they prayed with their hands laid on their breasts the right hand being placed on the left Prostration was no commanded Rite yet approved 2 Chron. 7. 3. All these had their proper significations that of lifting up the

which made shrewd discoveries Secondly again I shall give you the opinions of the two Divines before hinted the first is Dr. Preston who thus delivered himself in a Sermon on Numb 25. 10 11. Not onely the great sins of the profane but the coldness of them that are otherwise good causeth the Lord to remove the Candlestick the old complaint may be now taken up The fire which before was hot is now onely light and p. 291. If we profess the cause of God why go we coldly about it if it be not the cause of God why do we not desert it yea but discretion and moderation must be used It 's true but doth one grace cross another Prudence doth not abate our love but guides it in its labour as for moderation it stands in avoiding the rock in declining the extremes but moderation in a good course is not moderation but coldness and lukewarmness The second is Mr. Bolton in his Gen. direct for comfortable walking with God p. 50. who thus declares Many unsanctifie themselves by making moderation a Saint and undoe their Souls by adoring discretion as an Idol Moderation and discretion truly so called and rightly defined are ornaments to the most zealous Christians but being tempered with coldness and edged against the fervency of the Spirit become the very desperate cut-throats of the power of godliness a pestilent consumption of the spirits heart and life of true zeal It will be confessed they thus wrote in reference to the Papists who as they conjectured were too much favoured But if the Diffenters be as dangerous to the Government and as pernicious to the Souls of those who are taken in their nets which plain matter of fact demonstrates then these censures are as applicable to them For every Schism and rebellion carries in its bosome the transgression of all God's Commandments if our Book of Homilies III. Rebellion which Julian the Apostate thinks the next best Book to the holy Bible inform us aright and if he or any other designing make-bate can say worse of the Papists let them doe it There is another Authour who it seems by the often reprinting of his Book was once in great credit it is Mr. Shepherd who in his Sincere Convert prin an 50. Ed. 5ta p. 159. speaks home to the case his words are Of the nine easie ways which men take to heaven but lead to hell the eight is that of moderation or sober descretion which is nothing else but lukewarmness of the Soul when a man contrives and cuts out such a way to heaven as to please all and displease none if they be rich especially or in power In p. 165. he falls heavily upon fawning Ministers who in their Sermons do mostly shoot a few pot-guns against some grosser sins but will not tell them roundly of their Herodias c. and p. 207. says Thus they cheat the people by their general dawbing Doctrines who conclude themselves to be honest religious men because their Minister hath given them a beggarly pasport for heaven and so they go out of this world and die like Lambs being wofully cheated Mr. Calvin did not like any should be more moderate than Christ our great Exemplar and Law-giver who used severity upon those who upheld an old custome profanely and for their avarice at two several times Matt. 21. 12. Joh. 2. 13. which execution S. Hier. looks upon as an evidence of his miraculous power in that none made any resistence and Musc notes none before did ever attempt it though the Law and custome was over-ruled Matt. 11. 13. In sum the Lay prudential moderate in times of distraction and action will for the most part all but the Caballers stand still as lookers on till they spie the time most for their purpose then if the Faction get uppermost they will strike in go along with it and to loose no time will take the advantage of the first turn in their common language and practice The Clergy will now and then speak of Conformity making use of such arguments as would make an honest well-meaning Soul more averse for scarce a word comes from them of obeying for Conscience-sake mostly to submit for the Laws sake or Peace sake which is to say its good policy at present to conform Again they will for shame of the world say something for Loyalty upon the Fifth of November the Thirtieth of January or the Nine and Twentieth of May very rarely at other times be the occasions never so urgent and vent some general loose expressions as all parties consent in and will serve for the purpose of a Republick or a Monarchy for an Usurper or their natural Liege Lord and then slur over the most pernicious principles of Rebellion and by no means will declare of what denomination they are who assert those principles and pursue the practices consequential to them when they speak most home yet to come off fairly with the populace they have two tricks to please and to cheat them the first is an Application or Use to make an Harangue against Drunkenness Adultery Swearing Sabbath-breaking and other universally condemned debaucheries we know their full aim in this as they would have it taken malicious hypocritical slander the rather because they do not say any thing at all against lying slandering pride malice covetousness and hypocrisie which as they are the more reigning so the more dangerous to the Government and more deadly in their nature propter eorum latentiam as Aquinas for their close sculking within the Soul that it seldom or never is sensible of them no sooner have these devilish deadly sins taken possession but the possessed begin to settle on their lees and ever after sit in the seat of the scornfull for then the Conscience is concerned and the pretence and privilege of Conscience hardens them against all admonitions and reproofs Matt. 21. 31 32. The other trick is to close all with an Exhortation to Union Charity and Forbearance wherein if they have a good meaning it 's a pure impertinency if a bad meaning it 's a piece of hypocrisie and a scurvy reflexion on the Government both Lay and Clergy will occasionally talk at a considerable rate for Loyalty and Conformity ad amoliendum periculum the danger of the Law and suspicion of their insincerity but on all other occasions where no danger of Law as in the Election of Representatives Impannelling of Juries hooking in a rich Widow for one of the Tribe or procuring a confiding cologuing Priest to be admitted upon a Vacancy into a Church they then are tooth and nail for Dissenters or some moderate Dissemblers It may be foreseen with half an eye some will say all this needed not to be so tediously and unseasonably superadded to this it 's soon replyed when the Traitours in Scotland had made a large progress in their rebellious courses some took the liberty to talk freely of the danger this Kingdom was in the rather because the