Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	grow_v	young_a	youth_n	43	3	7.7384	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62960	An exhortation unto reformation amplified, by a discourse concerning the parts and progress of that work, according to the word of God, delivered in a sermon preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the Massachusets colony, at Boston in New-England, May 27, 1674, being the day of election there / by Samvel Torrey ...	Torrey, Samuel, 1632-1707.; Mather, Increase, 1639-1723.	1674 (1674)	Wing T1916; ESTC R13732	47,259	54

with the workers of iniquity but peace shall be upon Israel Psal 125.5 2. Let all the Friends Lovers Well-wishers Well-willers unto the Publick Good and Prosperity of these Churches up and be doing in the Work of Reformation You who are of the passing generation of the first undertakers of this Work of Reformation surviving and who have seen with your eyes and told us what works God did in your dayes as Psal 44.1 who have therefore yet a living remembrance of the gracious Wayes and glorious Works of God to his people in the first beginnings and prosperous progress of the Work of Reformation and so of the House of God of the Churches here in their first glory Hag. 2.3 You have also seen and observed the gradual declension and defection of these Churches and therefore you cannot chuse but be most sadly and sorrowfully sensible of our present necessity of Reformation O then be moved to do what in you lyeth by your Faith Prayer Life and Example to revive the Work of Reformation again before you die You also who are the present standing Generation the next and immediate Successors unto those first Reformers who have been actually betrusted with Church-Order Ordinances and Administrations with the whole Cause of God Kingdome of Christ and Interest of Religion and so with this great and glorious Work of Reformation and who are likely to be found most guilty of this general defection and have too much already endangered the loss of all O be you moved to stand up strongly unto the work under that Charge and all those solemn Obligations and Engagements which God hath laid upon you the weight and burthen of the Work lyeth upon you we have been raised up in the stead of our Fathers as Josh 5.7 to carry on this Work And truly if we should desert or be slight and negligent therein it will soon fall to the ground and sink past recovery and we shall thereby at once cut off the hope of our Fathers and lay the Foundation of the Ruine of Succeeding Generations utterly undo all Posterity O let us therefore make it our Prayer which is in 1 Kings 8.57 58. The Lord our God be with us as he was with our Fathers let him not leave us nor forsake us that he may incline our hearts unto him to walk in his wayes c. And you who are of the Rising Generation Adult Youth and Young men You are many of you if not most of you a Third Generation from those whom God first brought out into this Wilderness You are they who are likely to out-live Joshua and all the Elders of Israel that out-lived Joshua and all that Generation as it is said of them Judg. 2.7 8 9. You cannot many of you remember the works which God wrought for your forefathers You have never seen these Churches in their first Beauty and Glory nor the Worship and Ordinances of God in their first Spiritual Power and Purity It hath been so far your unhappiness that you have been brought forth and lived under the decaying state of these Churches and of Religion and therefore are like to grow up under the prevailing power of a Spirit of Apostacy And alas upon you is likely to fall all the Calamity and Misery of this Apostacy which is begun you will see and feel the sad and lamentable Effects of it O therefore that Youth and Young persons could lay this Consideration unto their hearts and be moved also to engage in this Work of Reformation before it be too late by labouring unto a sound Conversion and a religious Conversation in the dayes of their Youth O that All thus concerned would Vp and be doing True it is there are many great discouragements so that the hearts of those who are most and best disposed unto the Work are ready to fail especially considering that all means of Reformation have hither unto failed nothing hath hither unto done us any good So that God himself may justly complain of us as he did of that people Hos 6.4 O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee c. Jer. 6.29 the bellows are burnt Truly Reformation it is likely to prove a very hard and heavy Work yet we must never despair of Reformation as that people seemed to do Ezek. 33.10 If our transgressions and our iniquities be upon us and we pine away in them how then should we live q.d. You call us to Repentance and Reformation and denounce Wrath and Judgement against us if we do not do it but alas to what purpose for God is resolved to suffer us to pine and die away in our sins And therefore God doth instantly give them an encouraging call to Repentance and Reformation Ver. 11. Say unto them As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn and live Turn ye turn ye for why will ye die O house of Israel Surely God is yet calling of us unto Reformation and waiting upon us for Reformation It is yet a Probation-time with us wherein we are standing before God upon our Tryal God hath repented once more of the evil as Amos 7.3 the unprofitable Tree hath one year more to stand in the Vineyard Luk. 13.8 Yet truly now God seemeth to be limitting of us to a certain day Psal 95.7 To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts O let us take heed then unto this day this limited day which will put a period unto Gods patience and long-suffering lest God swear suddenly and irrevecably in his wrath against us if once our day be past it will be indeed too late witness our Saviours mournful doleful Lamentation which he wept out over Jerusalem Luke 19.42 If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things of thy peace but now they are hidden from thine eyes And why see ver 44. Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation therefore I say now now it is high time to reform It is pressed as a present as an instant duty Zeph. 2.2 3. Before before before before that is in all haste speedily Hos 10.12 It is time to seek the Lord that is it is high time more then time the onely time now if ever now or never I do now re-inforce the Exhortation at least by way of allusion to that in Hag. 2.4 Yet now be strong O Zerubbabel and be strong O Joshua the son of Josedech the high Priest and be strong all ye people of the Land saith the Lord and work for I am with you saith the Lord of Hosts according to the word that I Covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt so my Spirit remaineth among you fear ye not So let Magistracy Ministry and People be strengthned and encouraged to this Work believing and hoping that Gods Spirit remaineth among us according to the Covenant which he made with his people when he brought them forth first into this Wilderness

from whence thou art fallen So to the Church of Laodicea Rev. 3.18 Anoint thine eyes with eye salve that thou mayest see that is See and be sensible of thy defection God hath made it the work of divers of his faithful Servants whom he hath of late sent and set to speak upon this Occasion in this general Assembly to Awaken and to Couvince to Plead with us in a way of Conviction to Cry aloud not to spare to lift their voices like a Trumpet to shew New-England their transgressions and this people their sins Isa 58.2 and surely untill we are thus awakened and convinced there will be no hope of Reformation Exhort II. Repent So remember from whence thou art fallen as to Repent It must be a Penitential Remembrance such a remembrance as doth both move and lead to Repentance Ezek. 16.61 Then shalt thou remember thy wayes and be ashamed ver 63. That thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame so Ezek. 6.9 20 43. When and where there is such an awakening convincing Remembrance there will be Repentance Surely God expects and calls for a deep thorough general Repentance Repentance in all the parts of it the full exercise of it the whole work of it unto all the fruits effects and ends of it expressed in Confession Contrition Humiliation Supplication from a right Spirit of Repentance God calls for heart-breaking heart-rending Repentance Jol 2.12 Rend your hearts and not your garments God expects to hear New-England as Ephraim bemoaning himself Jer. 31.19 Surely after I was turned I repented after I was instructed I smote upon my thigh I was ashamed yea even confounded It is impossible that we should Reform except we thus Repent for the foundation of the whole work of Reformation is laid in Repentance the work of Reformation is wrought in Repentance and therefore our Lord Jesus Christ layes the burthen of all the work upon Repentance in the Text Except thou repent Exhort III. Do the first works So remember from whence thou art fallen and repent as to do the first works that is Reform And here chiefly lyes my present business viz. in pressing this part of the Exhortation And the rather I shall take leave to insist a while upon it as a suitable and seasonable word because we have been Originally a Reforming and a Reformed people a people separated and set apart by God to be the Subject of a very great and glorious Work of Reformation Reformation hath been the design of New-England and therefore Reformation it is the Profession of New-England This work of Reformation it hath been especially by this Generation not onely much neglected but even almost utterly deserted by a general defection and declension which we are fallen into so that we are now become a declining and declined people There hath been and there is a general Complaint and Cry for want of Reformation it is generally confessed and acknowledged that there is an absolute necessity of a speedy thorough Reformation and that without it we are an undone people We have in our publick Solemnities made many solemn Vows and Promises of Reformation unto God wherein we have too much flattered him with our lips and lied unto him with our tongues whilst our hearts have not been stedfast with him there is yet therefore an utter total neglect and defect of Reformation no kinde no degree of Reformation as little and in some respects less hope and probability thereof then ever before and truly without speedy Reformation our defection is likely to prove irreparable and irrecoverable sin and sinners growing every day more and more incorrigible and incurable and the heart of the Generation more and more corrupted with a Spirit of Profaneness and Apostacy and so bent to back sliding Hos 11.7 insomuch that it is too likely to be a perpetual backsliding And that which is yet more then all and most of all pressing it is the danger that we are in of being given up justly and judicially by God unto a spirit frame and way of Back-sliding and Apostacy if we do not speedly reform Has 4.16 Ephraine back slideth like a back-sliding-heifer Ephraim is joyned to Idols let him alone Psal 81.11 So be gave them up to their own harts lusts Deut. 32.20 I will hide my face from them I will see what their end will be q.d. I will have no more to do with them in a way of grace and mercy I will leave them to themselves to finish their Apostacy to fill up the measure of their iniquity I will see what miserable lamentable end they will bring themselves unto and truly if so then wo unto us we shall soon destroy our selves But yet God is in mercy waiting that he may be gracious Isa 30.13 and therefore that which God is yet calling for looking for yea to speak after the manner of men that which God is longing for it is out Reformation as Jer. 13.27 O Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be These Considerations may move our Attention unto this Exhortation And here I shall take leave to speak unto Reformation in general and so not onely unto a restitution from our defection but the progress of the Work of Reformation God expects not onely that we should do our first works but that our last works should be more then our first which was the Commendation of the Church of Thyatira Rev. 2.19 I shall therefore propose some general duties to be laboured in in order unto Reformation and endeavour as God shall help to suit my Discourse herein unto the present condition of this people and these Churches First It should be our labour to get a new Heart and new Spirit This is the life and spirit of the work of Reformation Ezek. 18.30 31. Repent and turn your selves from your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruine and make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will ye die O horse of Israel When God doth work reforming grace and renew his Covenant with his people upon terms of Reformation he doth first take away the corrupt hard impenitent unbelieving backsliding apostatizing heart and gives them a new heart and a new spirit Jer. 31.33 32.39 Ezek. 11.19 36.26 The foundation of the work of Reformation it must be laid in a new heart because the original of our defection and Apostacy it is in the heart and therefore God every-where complaineth of that backsliding people that they had an uncircumcised heart Jer. 9.26 a whorish heart Ezek. 6.9 that their heart was set upon their iniquity Hos 4.8 Truly so it is the very heart of New-England is changed and exceedingly corrupted with the sins of the Times there is a Spirit of Profaneness a Spirit of Pride a Spirit of Worldliness a Spirit of Sensuality a Spirit of Gainsaying and Rebellion a Spirit of Libertinism a Spirit of Carnality Formality Hypocrisie and Spiritual

open and professed Enemies unto pure Churches Worship and Ordinances are arisen unto so high a degree of bold Presumption among us and that notwithstanding they know that Publick Authority is by good and wholsome Laws and so by Oath and so by Conscience and by divers obligations both Civil and Sacred engaged against them I am no Casuist in the great Case of Toleration neither shall I undertake either to state dispute or decide that Question what is in it self or in divers respects or cases at divers times and places either Tolerable or Intolerable in matters disputable But this I take to be undeniable That gross bold scandalous presumptuous transgression of any one or more or all the Commandments of the First Table perpetrated and persisted in with an high hand notwithstanding all due means of Conviction used and against clear light held forth and manifestly under the Prevailing Power of a Spirit of Errour with malignity in open opposition to the Truth the true Churches worship and ordinances of Christ I say I take it to be unquestionable That such transgression it is Intolerable Such I take to be the transgression of those who do grosly and scandalously profane any of the holy Ordinances of Christ in the Administration of them presuming to offer strange fire but much more of those who do both professedly and practically deny most if not all Fundamentals both of Faith and Order and are known and acknowledged so to do by all the Reformed Churches in the world who are in their wayes of corrupt worship no less the Synagogue of Satan then those in Rev. 2.9 Now I say if such Transgressors and Transgressions should after the long labour and patience of these Churches in a strong and stedfast encounter and conflict with this Temptation at last prevail to break open a door unto corrupt worship by Teaching Seducing Tempting and Enticing others unto corrupt Communion with them according to the Doctrine of Balaam to cast a stumbling block before the people of the Lord as Rev. 2.14 I say if this should come to pass our case would be exceeding dangerous especially this coming upon us in our declining and languishing state when we have lost so much of our first life and love that we have soarcely strength enough left to reinforce our former Zeal and Courage in the Encounter yea and at such a time when the Generation is lamentably exposed by the sins of the Times which are all tempting unto a Compliance with such a Temptation and are too much without grace to resist it and in a very unsetled state as to their standing before God under his Covenant even standing upon the dangerous Precipice of a gross Apostacy the very opportunity for Satan to over throw us by such a Temptation Surely if it be thus or likely to be thus then there is very great need of watchsulness against this Temptation Neither let it be slighted or accounted a light thing for such Profanations and Abominations if Indulged will become the sins of the Land and the guilt and Punishment of them will lye and fall exceeding heavy upon the Land in a day of wrath O they will pull down wrath upon this Land and upon this People and the filth of them will pollute and defile the Land it will be such Pollution as will not be purged away without fire the guilt and filth of corrupt worship is not purged away without the fire and the fornace And that which is most Perillous it is the universal diffusion of the Corruption and Contagion of corrupt worship by the subtile and insensible infusion and influence of a Spirit of Libertinism a Spirit and Principle it is of all other most dangerous and destructive unto Pure Churches and will soon open a wide door unto all kinde of Abominations for all false worships although they seem in themselves to be contrary Extremes yet they all agree in this Principle of Libertinism and will break in at that door It will be in vain for us to hope for or Promise our selves Security from gross Superstition and Ceremony if we will leave open this door or admit of a contrary Extreme in corrupt worship And truly if we should give way unto any kinde it will be just with God to give us up Judicially unto all kindes of corrupt worship And let me adde That a Spirit of Libertinism if it prevail will in the end bring in all kinde of Licentiousness and Profaneness for it is a Womb big with all kinde of Abominations for corruption in Worship and conruption in Manners do alwayes grow and go together See at large Ezck. 22. beginning Although Libertinism doth promise much Liberty yet it bringeth into bondage to Corruption 2 Pet. 2.19 It doth gender altogether unto bondage O that these Churches may recover their first Zeal against Libertinism both the Spirit Principle and Practise of it and so against all corrupt worship which hath been the common destruction of Reformed Churches and will most certainly be of these Churches if it should break in upon us O let us consider we have been hither unto a People extraordinarily Priviledged with Immunity from corrupt worship we are yet free from any foraign or forcible Temptation thereunto we have yet all Advantages and Encouragements to withstand it and to keep it out If we admit of will-worship we shall lose all the glorious work of Reformation which our Fathers laboured in which consisted chiefly in Separation from corrupt Worship we shall at once reze the Foundation and ruine the Superstructure of these Churches which in the very Constitution were set up and stand in a way of opposition unto corrupt worship such Churches will not cannot bear any degree of corrupt worship VVill-worship it would even destroy our very Religion and reduce this VVilderness-People unto a kinde of Heathenism O wo unto us if we admit of will worship we shall soon fill up the measure of our sin and prepare our selves for Judgement even wrath to the utmost O wo unto New-England if ever God be provoked to revenge this quarrel of his Covenant upon us according to that Threatning Lev. 26.25 If we admit of will-worship New-England will become the shame and scandal of Religion and of all Reformed Churches the Reproach of the Christian world the Scorn and Triumph of Antichrist and in all respects a most sinful and miserable People Thus we are to do our first works in all things pertaining to the worship of God 4. Labour unto the promotion and progress of the work of Reformation by the full and faithful discharge of duty to the Children of the Covenant multiplying and growing up under the Covenant in those Churches under how great and general omission of duty towards them we have cause seriously and sadly to consider and to lament Truly it is much to be feared that we shall so long doubt and dispute the Interest and Right of fuch Children and controvert and neglect our duty towards them