Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	heart_n	holy_a	let_v	7,137	5	4.4451	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66383	The case of lay-communion with the Church of England considered and the lawfulness of it shew'd from the testimony of above an hundred eminent non-conformists of several perswasions.	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1683 (1683)	Wing W2691; ESTC R1501	57,793	83

a duty on a Believer that he disjoyn and separate himself from such a Church And they give this reason for it that then they must separate from all Churches So M r Baxter c. Is it not a high degree of Pride to conclude that almost all Christs Churches in the World for these thirteen hundred Years at least to this day have offered such Worship unto God as that you are obliged to avoid it and that almost all the Catholick Church on Earth this day is below your Communion for using Forms and that even Calvin and the Presbyterians Cartwright Hildersham and the old Non-Conformists were unworthy your Communion I know there are several Objections against Forms of Prayer but I know also that these are answered by them But since the most common is that of quenching and stinting the Spirit I shall briefly give their sence of it They say 1. To say that persons should use no set Form but pray as moved by the Spirit is a fond errour 2. They say that the Spirit instructeth us what to ask not in what phrase of speech It stirreth up in us holy desires but giveth not ability suddenly and without help to express and lay open our hearts in fit method and significant Words Ability of speech is a common gift of the Spirit which the Lord bestoweth upon good and bad c. 3. That the measure of the Spirit standeth not in Words and Forms but in fervent sighs and groans 4. That there is nothing letteth but that in such Forms the hearers hearts may profitably go with the same both to humble to quicken and to comfort And D r Owen cannot deny but that they may be for edification and that persons in the use of them may have Communion with God 5. They say that the Scriptures insisted upon in this case are grounded upon mistakes and are misapplyed as M r Tombs in particular hath clearly manifested Fourthly I shall consider what their opinion is as to the English Liturgy or Common Prayer both as to the Liturgy it self and Communion in it As to the Liturgy it self it s acknowledged 1. That the matter for the most part is good sound and divine and that there is not any doctrinal passage in any of the Prayers that may not bear a good construction and so Amen may be said to it as D r Bryan with others do maintain 2. That as no Church for this 1400 Years has been without its publick Forms so ours is the best So the old Non-Conformists Compare the Doctrines Prayers Rites at those times throughout in use in the Churches with ours and in all these blessed be the name of the Lord we are more pure than they And it s not much short that we find in M r Baxter in the name of the present Non-Conformists 3. That which is accounted faulty is tolerable and hinders not but that its acceptable to God and edifying to pious and well-disposed Persons Tolerable So M r Corbet The Worship contained in the Liturgy may lawfully be partaked in it being found for substance in the main and the mode thereof being laudable in divers Forms and Orders and passable in the most though in some offensive inconvenient or less perfect Acceptable to God So the old Non-Conformists In them that join with the Prayers according to Christs command and liberty of absence from Christ hath not been shewed notwithstanding the corruptions we hold the Prayers to be an holy acceptable Sacrifice to God c. Edifying to well-disposed Persons To this purpose M r Hildersham M r Rogers c. And accordingly M r Corbet professeth his own experience Though I judge their Form of Worship to be in many respects less perfect than is desired yet I have found my heart spiritually affected and raised towards God therein and more especially in receiving the Lords Supper I judge this Form may be use formally by the formal and spiritually by those that are spiritual It is my part to make the best of it being the established Form As to Communion in the Liturgy it is granted 1. That there is no cause to renounce it or the Communion of the Church for it and that so to do is a Sin 2. That all the Reformed Churches in Christendom do commonly profess to hold Communion with the English Churches in the Liturgy if they come among us where it is used 3. It s declared on the part of the old Non-Conformists That they ordinarily and constantly used the Communion-Book in their publick Ministrations and that the People generally were in their days satisfied in it And for the present it s declared We can lawfully not only hear Common-Prayer but read it our selves I shall not trouble the Reader with the several Objections against the Liturgy and the answers return'd to them by the old and present Non-Conformists but shall content my self with that which it seems was much insisted upon in the days of M r Ball and their reply to it The Liturgy in the whole matter and Form thereof is too like unto the Mass-Book If the Liturgy be Antichristian it is so either in respect of the matter or of the Form Not of the matter for that which properly belonged to Antichrist the foul and gross errors is purged out Not of the Form for Order and Phrase of speech is not properly Antichristian 2. That the English Liturgy is gathered according to the Ancients the purest of them and is not a collection out of the Mass-Book but a refining of that Liturgy which heretofore had been stained with the Mass c. and is not a translation of the Mass but a restitution of the ancient Liturgy Thus saith that Learned Person and much more to whom many others do likewise consent And in this Mr. Tombs is so zealous that he concludes I cannot but judge that either much ignorance or much malice it is that makes any traduce the English Common-Prayer Book as if it were the Popish Mass-Book or as bad as it and to deter men from joyning with those Prayers and Services therein which are good as if it were joyning with Antichrist the Pope when they can hardly be ignorant that the Martyrs in Queen Mary ' s days were burnt for it is impudent falsehood Having thus far considered the Forms I shall now § 3 proceed to shew what their opinion is of the gestures required in Lay-Communion such as kneeling at the Sacrament and standing up at the Creed and Gospels As to Kneeling 1. It s granted that the posture in the Sacrament is not determined So Mr. Baxter I never yet heard anything to prove Kneeling unlawful there is no Word of God for or against any gesture 2. It is granted whatever the gesture of our Saviour in it was yet that doth

which men's minds have been corrupted I find in whatsoever they differ one from another yet in this they agree That it 's unlawful to hear in publick which I am perswaded is one constant design of Satan in the variety of ways of Religion he hath set on foot by Jesuits amongst us Let us therefore be the more aware of whatsoever tends that way Of this Opinion also is M r Tombs though he continued an Anabaptist who has writ a whole Book to defend the Hearing of the present Ministers of England and toward the Close of the Work hath given forty additional Reasons for it and in opposition to those he writes against doth affirm Sure if the Church be called Mount Sion from the preaching of the Gospel the Assemblies of England may be called Sion Christ's Candlesticks and Garden as well as any Christians in the World I shall conclude this with what M r Robinson saith in this Case viz. For my self thus I believe with my heart before God and profess with my tongue and have before the World that I have one and the same Faith Spirit Baptism and Lord which I had in the Church of England and none other that I esteem so many in that Church of what state or Order soever as are truly Partakers of that Faith as I account thousands to be for my Christian Brethren and my self a Fellow-member with them of that one Mystical Body of Christ scattered far and wide throughout the World that I have always in spirit and affection all Christian Fellowship and Communion with them and am most ready in all outward Actions and Exercises of Religion lawful and lawfully done to express the same And withal that I am perswaded the hearing of the Word of God there preached in the manner and upon the grounds formerly mentioned both lawful and upon occasion necessary for me and all true Christians withdrawing from that Hierarchical Order of Church-Government and Ministry and the uniting in the Order and Ordinances instituted by Christ. Thus far He. From what hath been said upon this Head we may observe that though these Reverend Persons do go upon different Reasons according to the Principles they espouse though they agree not in the Constitution of Churches c. yet they all agree that the Parochial Churches are or may be as I have observed before true Churches of Christ that Communion with such Churches is lawful and that we are to go as far as we can toward Communion with them Though they differ about the Notion of Hearing as whether it be an Act of Communion and about the Call of those they hear yet they all agree in the lawfulness of it And therefore to separate wholly in this Ordinance and from the Parochial Churches as no Churches are equally condemned by all 3. They hold that they are not to separate from a Church for unlawful things if the things accounted unlawful are not of so heinous a nature as to unchurch a Church and affect the Vitals of Religion or are not imposed as necessary terms of Communion 1. If the Corruptions are such as do not unchurch a Church or affect the vital parts of Religion So saith M r Tombs Not every not many Corruptions of some kind do un-church there being many in Faith Worship and Conversation in the Churches of Corinth and some of the Seven Churches of Asia who yet were Golden Candlesticks amidst whom Christ did walk But such general avowed unrepented of errours in Faith as overthrow the foundation of Christian Faith to wit Christ the only Mediator betwixt God and man and salvation by him Corruptions of Worship by Idolatry in Life by evil manners as are utterly inconsistent with Christianity till which in whole or in part they are not unchurched For till then the Corruptions are tolerable and so afford no just reason to dissolve the Church or to depart from it So M r Brinsley Suppose some just grievances may be found among us yet are they tolerable If so then is Separation on this ground intolerable unwarrantable in as much as it ought not to be but upon a very great and weighty cause and that when there is no remedy So M r Noyes Private Brethren may not separate from Churches or Church-Ordinances which are not fundamentally defective neither in Doctrine or Manners Heresy or Prophaness To all which add the Testimony of D r Owen and M r Cotton The former asserts That many errours in Doctrine disorders in sacred Administrations irregular walking in Conversation with neglect and abuse of Discipline in Rulers may fall out in some Churches and yet not evacuate their Church-state or give sufficient warrant to leave their Communion and separate from them The latter saith Vnless you find in the Church Blasphemy or Idolatry or Persecution that is such as is intolerable there is no just ground of separation This is universally own'd But if any one should yet continue unconvinced let him but peruse the Catalogue of the faults of nine Churches in Scripture collected by M r Baxter and I perswade my self he will think the Conclusion inferr'd from it to be just and reasonable Observe saith he that no one member is in all these Scriptures or any other commanded to come out and separate from any of all these Churches as if their Communion in Worship were unlawful And therefore before you separate from any as judging Communion with them unlawful be sure that you bring greater reasons for it than any of these recited were 2. They are not to separate if the Corruptions are not so made the Conditions of Communion that they must necessarily and unavoidably communicate in them M r Vines speaks plainly to both of these The Church may be corrupted many ways in Doctrine Ordinances Worship c. And there are degrees of this Corruption the Doctrine in some remote Points the Worship in some Rituals of mans invention or custom How many Churches do we find thus corrupted and yet no Separation of Christ from the Jewish Church nor any Commandment to the Godly of Corinth c. to separate I must in such a Case avoid the Corruption hold the Communion But if Corruptions invade the Fundamentals the foundation of Doctrine is destroyed the Worship is become idolatrous and what is above all if the Church impose such Laws of her Communion as there is a necessity of doing or approving things unlawful in that Case Come out of Babylon The Churches of Protestants so separated from Rome But if the things be not of so heinous a nature nor thus strictly required then Communion with a Church under defects is lawful and may be a Duty So saith M r Corbet in the name of the present Non-Conformists We hold not our selves obliged to forsake a true Church as no Church for the corruptions and disorders found therein or to separate from its Worship for the tolerable faults thereof while our personal profession