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	know_v	soul_n	7,408	5	4.7811	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26882	Catholick communion doubly defended by Dr. Owens, vindicator, and Richard Baxter and the state of that communion opened, and the questions discussed, whether there be any displeasure at sin, or repentance for it in Heaven : with a parallel of the case of using a faulty translation of Scripture, and a faulty lyturgy.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1684 (1684)	Wing B1208; ESTC R11859	46,778	44

will upon Good as Good before it come to Election of Compared Goods which is usually de Mediis Displicence is its contrary and its object is Evil as Evil. One is called Volition or Willing the other Nolition or Nilling As Pleasedness and Displeasedness are in the Passions and signify Ioy and Trouble we have nothing here to do with them having expresly excluded sorrow but as they are in the Will I thought till now that all sober Divines had been agreed Protestants and Papists that not only in Saints and Angels and Christ as Man but in God himself who is most remote from imperfection there is Complacence and Displicence Willing and Nilling which though in Creatures that have Accidents they really differ as Acts yet in God who is most simple they are say the subtiler part of the School Doctors but the Essence of God by extrinsick denomination from relation of the effects differenced from the Essence simply considered and from each other or as the Scotists formaliter or as the Thomists ratione ratiocinata but none deny these to be in God I suppose that Volition or Complacence you deny not As to Displicence or Nolition answering the Judgments dislike I prove that it is in Heaven in God and Creatures 2. If the will of God Angels and Spirits have any Act about Evil it is Displicence But some Act about Evil they have Ergo c. For the Major if they have any Act it is Displicence or Complacence for the will hath no other primary Acts before Election even frui intendere presupposing this Complacence But God and good Spirits have no Complacency in sin or evil as such Ergo they have a Displicence Aut placet aut displicet being the first in nature That God or Spirits at least have some Act of will about evil as such is commonly agreed Else all the sin and evil in the world would come to pass without any Act of God or good Spirits in Heaven about it Sure they that for Predetermination have written so many Volumes and one against me are not of that mind They say this is to feign God and all in Heaven asleep or having nothing to do with Earth I have my self proved indeed with others that God hath no Volition or Complacency of Evil as such but a Displicence I have proved 2. If God have no Displicence as to sin then there is no effectual impediment to it but all the world would be drowned in wickedness For the Creature would presently run into evil But sin is restrained If any in excess of subtilty say that Nolitions are not in God but Volitions of the Good are instead of Nolitions of Evil this is bold and at least the language unfit and reductively these Volitions are Nolitions of their Contraries And however none of this can be feigned of Souls 3. If God be not disp'eased with sin then his prohibitions are no signs of his displeasure any more than his Commands But c. 4. Then his Judgments and Execution in Hell are no effects of his displeasure 5. Then Christ came not to reconcile us to a displeased God nor is he any more displeased with Persecutors then Saints nor with Cursing than with Blessing nor with any man for doing it 6. If the subtilty which I have taken notice of in my Catholick Theology asserting Volitions without Nolitions in God were defensible it would as I said be of no truth as to Creatures if Souls in Heaven have no displicence against sin how is their will holy in the Image of God that hateth Iniquity Devils love sin Stones and Brutes neither love nor hate it Saints in Heaven hate it and love it not meerly not-loving it is not their full holiness 7. If Saints there are not displeased with sin how can they glorify Christ for dying for it or God for punishing it 8. Or how can they be everlastingly thankful to Christ for saving them from it 9. What a change must they impute to Christ that came so low and suffered as in a sort forsaken to destroy the works of the Devil and now hath not so much as the least displeasedness with sin 10. Then Christ and Saints there are no more displeased at Persecution Prophaneness Murder Adultery then at Piety and Love 11. Then it no more displeaseth Souls there that they here sinned then that they did well Pauls mind is much changed then about his Persecution The best is though you and yours are offended with me it is not displeasing to Dr. O. if he know it But if your reason be because that all displeasedness hath some suffering of the mind or trouble 1. As to my meaning you know I excluded sorrow 2. And it is not true that you suppose Pure Displicency of the will in God and the blessed hath no trouble It is not exercised in a body that hath a Heart or Head troubled by commotion of the Blood and Spirits nor yet in an imperfect Soul that hath hurting passions It is the pure perfection of the will and nothing but its Aversation from sin and contrary to Love Love and Hatred are names that may well here be used but Complacence and Displicence being the same sound as less to signify Passion And if there be Passion in Heaven which you cannot disprove it might be without diminution of felicity II. But I am not hopeless that you will deny none of all this as to the matter but turn all into a quarrel at words and say that the name of Displeasure is not fit for any Act of God or Saints or Angels in Heaven If that be the worst which is bad enough let us next try that wordy Controversy I. By Scripture II. By School Divines III. By common practical Divines I. Scripture use of words in Sacred Things is our best Dictionary He that is our great Teacher knoweth how to speak If you dislike his words methinks you should not accuse Men of Errour and that against the common sense of all that you meet with for imitating God and speaking as he doth And that at the same time when you are defending one that would have no Mode or Accidentals in Worship used which God prescribeth not If by my words I must be Justified or Condemned I hope God will not condemn me for speaking as he taught me no more then for doing as he bid me though all your party should do it And I can bear their Condemnation The Hebrew phrase which we translate by Displeasing God or Man is oft It was Evil in his Eyes which speaketh a positive Act of the Understanding de malo And that there was no answerable Act of the Will let him say that dare Prov. 24. 17 18. Rejoyce not when thy Enemy falleth and let not th● heart be glad when he stumbleth lest the Lord see it and it displease him No say you fear not that any in Heaven should be displeased Gen. 38. 10. The thing that he did displeased the

about consists wholly in the Institutions and on the Authority of Men and therefore is false Worship and to renounce the Kingly Office of Christ in the Church Nor that It belongs to the faithfulness of Christ to appoint and command all things in the Church that belong to the Worship of God in the Forms and Modes of them Doth this speak only of the English Lyturgy Nor that liberty to use gifts in Prayer and Preaching is ridiculously pretended they are excluded in all the solemn Worship of the Church 17. You defend not that This Practice joyning in the Lyturgy condemns the suffering Saints of the present Age renders them false Witnesses of God and the only blameable cause of their own sufferings And if all the Nonconformists that 1660. gave their Testimony for a Reformed Lyturgy were not Saints at least they have been Sufferers And doth not this as much make them false Witnesses And if both you and we were mistaken I am confident you will not justify all that we suffer by and say we are the only blameable Cause As if every such mistake were worthy of all the punishment undergone Nor will you think that every good Mans Opinion must be justifyed which he suffereth for lest he be made the only Cause 18. You defend not that All the Promises Aids of the Holy Spirit with respect to the Prayer of the Church whether as to the matter of them or ability or the manner are rejected and excluded by this Form of Worship 19. You defend not I hope that your Church Covenant is to observe nothing but what Christ commandeth in the Worship of God 20. Nor that The Practice inquired into contains a vertual renunciation of our Church State and of the lawfulness of our Ministry and Ordinances therein If you do it is no renunciation of ours I thank you that you defend none of all these For truly they be not things Indifferent but if they be not true they are of confounding dividing unpeaceable Consequence SECT 2. III. AS to the third thing which taketh up most room viz. your blaming me 1. For using the Doctors name 2. For the manner of my Confutation I say distinctly 1. I confess I think that the name of Christ and Religion and its Honour is to be preferred before all mens And I had many years ago heard a Conformable Preacher before a very honourable and learned Auditory charge the Nonconformists with holding that A thing lawful in itself in Gods Worship becometh unlawful if it be commanded by the Magistrate And that Forms and Liturgies were unlawful because they be not made in Scripture by Christ. And I have read too many such Charges And I always answered that we were slandered 2. I quickly heard that the Manuscript was commonly spread and he that brought it me said he believed a thousand were confirmed by it against going to the Parish Churches and Lyturgy 3. Several of my Friends and Acquaintance had got it and told me they thought it unanswerable And all named the Doctor as the Author 4. I was suddenly told of a very able Conformist that was going to answer it and I feared he would lay it on us all 5. I made no doubt but Pulpits and Press would loudly say these are the Nonconformists Principles and if I denyed it would cite the Doctors Paper and Name 6. I knew divers of his Printed Books have the same Opinion of the unlawfulness of Imposed Forms what now should I say against such reporters of the Nonconformists Opinions Must we all bear the Accusation of so many Errours and be published with Scorn and Contempt to be such to make us odious to all rather than one Man should be Confuted I purposed at first to conceal his Name till I saw that all took notice of it and none denyed it and after I conjecture it is your self that in the Letter to me affirmed it I know that multitudes of Men of Name Learning and Power scorn us as they do the Quakers as believing them that say We make all this noise and Schism as a distinct Party and suffer silencing and Imprisonment because we will not Communicate with the Lyturgy which the Martyrs owned I dare not suffer the Innocent to lie under such a slander for one or many Mans Name we gave them our publick Testimony to the contrary 1660. and 1661. If a few that would not come in then and be seen among them that pleaded the Cause of the old Nonconformists have now by our distempers got so many of their mind as that we must be thought intolerably to wrong them if we necessarily give our reasons against them and shall pass their Excommunicating Sentence against the Cause of the old Non-Conformists and yours I cannot be one that shall betray the Truth and Cause of Catholick Communion by silence at such a time when the Erroneous expect that their Opinion should be so necessary to our Union that none must contradict it Therefore your saying that you have met with none that approveth my writing if it were for the Cause as well as my faultiness will make me see the greater necessity of bearing my Testimony against them Epidemical diseases most need Physicians if not to cure the sick yet to preserve the sound Paul wanted not Love nor Prudence to Peter when he not only reproved his Temporizing Separation to his Face but left it with his Name on Record to all Generations when they were both dead Christ had immediately before abundantly honoured and praised Peter who yet for his miscarriage speaketh to him as he did to the Devil Get thee behind me Satan c. Mat. 16. And yet the miscarriage was done in Love to Christ by a prime and dear Disciple and his name must be thus left under this most sharp reproof to be read from Age to Age by all Iames and Iohn were choice Disciples and yet their Ambition and their Uncharitable Zeal for Christ must be recorded with their Names as men that desired they knew not what and knew not what manner of Spirit they were of We are not so much better than they as the Passions of some Applauders intimate Christ will not be more tender of our Names than of his Cause and the good of Souls If David will cause Gods Enemies to blaspheme his sin shall be punished in the sight of the Sun though the sharpest part of the punishment be pardoned But as for my naming the Dr. and your intimation that it 's long of me that he is named as the Author of those Arguments I further say 1. Is not a Man named openly till his Name be Printed Was not the uncontradicted report still continued a publication Was there no publication of Names till 224 years ago when Printing was invented 2. All that I yet desire is to be able to deny it to be his that the next Man that hits the Non-Conformists in the Teeth with it as the Doctors may but be told

shew what the Church professeth to own if the Minister should blutter out any Errour or Undecency and yet not restrain Ministers from the due use of free speech XVIII It is a great sin out of a fond Conceit of the excellency of either way above it 's due value to think speak with unjust vilifying of the other way when God hath tied us to neither alone It is contrary to knowledge love peace and concord out of a self-conceitedness peevishness or false prejudice received from others to think and speak worse of other mens words in Prayer than they deserve and to frighten the ignorant from lawful Communion by calling that sin or false Worship that is not so XIX Not medling with Ministers Subscribing Declaring Swearing nor with the Discipline By-offices Baptizing as by our sort of Godfathers Covenanting without the Parents Crossing and undue application of words at Burial and such like I know nothing in the common Lords-day Worship spoken in the name of the Church which a godly Christian may not joyn in with the exercise of the Spirit of Prayer with faith and comfort if prejudice and false apprehensions of it affright him not or put not his Soul out of relish with it As on the other side prejudice distasteth many too much with the faulty methods and words of many mens extemporate Prayers XX. There are so few Churches on Earth that Worship God without all set Lyturgies or Forms as are next to none And there are very few in all the World so good as the English Lyturgy and that have so few faults Which Martyrs composed and joyfully used And it is unchristian to renounce Communion with any one Church for a reason that is common to all or almost all It being contrary to the Communion of Saints in one body and far worse than to slander any single man XXI It is great self-condemnation in them that cannot bear to be censured nor scarce be contradicted yet thus to censure almost all the Church XXII They that think that Conforming Ministers are guilty of great Sin must consider what diversity of Education Company and Interest may do even on men of Conscience and that we have all our sins And it 's sinful uncharitableness to think and speak worse of them than they deserve and to talk against all for the faults of some XXIII So great is Gods mercy to this Land in yet giving many Godly able Ministers to the publick Churches that it is sinful ingratitude to overlook or deny it though many others be never so bad XXIV The Religion that keepeth possession of the Parish Churches will be the National Religion Mourn therefore before God that ever any men professing Godliness should either labour to get all sound Protestants to desert the Parish Churches or that any such have been against the restoring of Nonconformists by that called a Comprehension which was but the withdrawing of such Impositions as these very men thought sinful and all this lest it should diminish the number and strength of the private Churches By this we see what we are doing against our selves if God save us not XXV They that say Conformists Convert no Souls take on them to know that of thousands which they know not and forget that before 1640. there were few but Conformists to Convert them in the land and that all the Westminster Assembly save eight were such And that the Parliament kept near 7000 in the Ministry that all Conformed on Aug. 24. 1662. XXVI In most Counties of England many hundred Persons to one must have Church Communion in the Parish Churches or have none at all And to renounce all Church Worship and Communion rather than joyn in the Parish Churches and with the Lyturgy and to persuade all to do so is almost to draw the Land to live like Atheists And is so pernicious to Souls that no good Christian should favour it And it is a-gross breach of the Covenant which renounceth Prophaneness Schism and all that is contrary to godliness XXVII So much are Papists angry at Protestant Ministers that keep them out of the Parish Churches reviling them as Trimmers supposing that Conventicles can do them less harm that all that love the Protestant Religion should do their best to encourage all such Orthodox Men and to strengthen the Protestant interest in the Parish Churches and not joyn against them with the Papists however it be with other intents and minds XXVIII So great is the peace and comfort of many Parishes where the publick Ministers and all the Religious People live together in Love and Amity that it loudly tells us how much better that is than to study to render each other odious or vile and excommunicable XXIX Such use of godly publick Ministers may well stand with the best improvement we can make of the private help of others XXX If we would win any that we think worst of yea or ease our selves it must be by love to them and not by condemning them on controvertible accounts or by causeless singularities XXXI It is lawful to have transient Communion with an occasional Assembly of Christians that are no fixed Church nor the Minister the fixed Pastor of any particular Church XXXII It is lawful to have transient Communion with a Church of Strangers or Neighbours without taking an account of the calling of their Pastors or of their Discipline XXXIII When we have right to Gods Ordinances if many intrude that have no right when we cannot hinder it we must not therefore forsake our right or Gods Worship XXXIV Though we must prefer better before worse that worse may be best to us at that time and place when we cannot have better without more hurt than benefit to the publick or our selves Among many Ministers weak and strong all cannot hear the best nor must renounce the weaker To live under the countenance of Government under an honest Minister of mean Parts in Peace and Concord though he use the Lyturgy is more to the common advantage of Religion and to the profit of most particular Souls than to hear an abler Man with the distraction of Disturbers and to be Fined and lie in Prison on no better a Cause XXXV It is not only the Law of Man that maketh the foresaid Parish Communion a Duty but it is Gods Law of Love Concord Peace and Universal Communion if there were no constraining Law of Man XXXVI They that constantly refuse Communion in the publick Churches while it is commanded and while many write to prove it sinful and many are in Prison and ruined for refusing it are justly to be interpreted to hold it to be unlawful unless they openly profess the contrary and give some better reason for their forbearance XXXVII To hold that any Congregations are such whose Worship is faulty but such as God forgiveth and accepteth but that it is unlawful for us to joyn with them lest it make us guilty of their sin this though it should be

name Dr. O. in my Cure of Church Divisions or his Books I told you great reasons against it what now you call a brave advantage would have been otherwise called by yours I was not inclined to note a little evil among much good If you cannot see the Doctors Arguments there answered by me I cannot help that Must. I transcribe them to convince you Pag. 177. D●r 32. Obj. Where hath God given any men power to prescribe impost Forms for others or commandea others to obey them Read the answer pag. 178 179 180. At least not on Ministers p. 181. Christ hath given gifts to all his Ministers and commanded them to use them They use them not when they use imposed Forms So pag. 190. p. 196. of approving of sin and signifying Consent by joyning More fully p. 201. And in my Christ. Direct If you never found these Arguments there answered in Dr. O. Book I cannot help that others have Pag. 11. I thought you had known how usual it is to speak to the second person in answering Books many hundred years old If not you have free leave to take it for my folly I 'le not contend with Quakers whether we should say You or Thou nor with you whether it be better to say Him or You. You say It displeaseth him not Pag. 15. If numbring mens Errours used to do hurt be worse than committing or defending them I mistook Pag. 16. I consent that you do so by me so you speak nothing but truth 2. Repentance is a hard work and the impenitent impatient therefore we all suffer what we do Pag. 17. My Pleas for Peace have been all ill taken by the other side And which of you therefore were so offended at them 2. I am sorry that you seign the healing Parliament to have disowned our Repentance I preacht to the Parliament but once and it was for Repentance I have oft publickly accused my self and I hope I break not the Act of Oblivion by it They forbad reproaching and troubling one another but not remembring our sin nor seeling when we suffer nor asking what caused it to stop the like again if not for a cu●e But dear Brother do you not know that it was your divulged Writing that rubb'd upon the sort and broke the Act of Oblivion if this be breaking it Did it not tell what work the imposing the Lyturgy had made against Reformation for Ignorance Rtviling and Reproaching the Spirit sit up ungifted Ministers made great disolations in the Church silencing painful Ministers ruining Families destroying Souls c. Do you think this broke the Act of Oblivion or is condemned by the healing Parliament or doth nothing break it but on one side Look on both sides and tell me how such Arguments misused should be answered but by shewing that there was danger and ill effects also on the contrary extream Did the Parliament forbid one side only this Commemoration I pray you if but one side may be called to Repent let it be us that we may be forgiven Pag. 18. If you know not that the Principles of Separation were the great cause in Armies and elsewhere of the subversions and confusions which brought us to what we have felt I do And you would not at once live under the fruit of it as we now do and I yet make so light of it as to take it for a noli me tangere if it had cost you as many painful days and nights as many ungrateful disputes as many groans and tears and as much blood as it hath done me And how little is my part to that which England cotland and Ireland hath suffered even by that cause conjunct with Pride and Ambition these sourty years If I may not have leave to say as Bradford Repent O England you should give me leave to Repent my self that ever I preacht one Sermon with any byass of overmuch desire to please Persons of the accusing separating humour Pag. 19. I said of our late overturnings in England that all this is publickly known Many late Volumes on both sides record it were it but Whitlocks Memorials it were enough The Nations ring of it and I have ost lamented it heretofore and you mistaking all this seign me to say that the passages debated in Dr. Owens Papers and his words were all known before and so bestow many reproofs upon a fiction of your own Pag. 20. You would put such terms upon me in dispute a Veron devised to put on the Protestants I must oppose his Doctrine only as in the Syllables written Accidentals in Worship signify you think at least an Integral Part. Doth in turn Accidents into parts Are Accidents parts because Inherent Are not your Quality Quantities Immanent Acts Passions c. inherent Is not Kneeting putting off the Hat Methods Translations Meeter Tunes c. in the Worship of God And is it unlawful because in it If it be therefore a part of Worship you must conclude that either all these are unlawful or that it 's lawful for men to make parts of Gods Worship 2. Are all things duly belonging to it parts of it I believe you own none of this your self Pag. 21. The Doctors 7th Argument was that this practice condemneth the suffering Saints of the present age rendring them false Witnesses of God I answered Let us not stand to any dividing Principle or Cause lest the Saints be blamed that have fathered it in God I used the word Saints but as repeating his own phrase And this you make to have better become the Observator Is not this partiality May the Argument use a term which the answerer may not repeat And dear Brother is it not a sad case if among the many ill causes fathered on God any or all of them should say We must not repent ●or amend lest we be blamed as false Witnesses of God Pag. 22. Sir if telling me of any sin that ensnareth Souls be using me more scornfully then the most virulent adversaries spare me not but use me so wo to me if Repentance become odious and intolerable But I must stop lest I cross my purpose of not writing for my self but you The conclusion of all is dear Brethren the longer I study the Gospel and the longer I live in the world the more fully I am Convinced that Love is the great work of the Spirit and the Men that Love most are the best Men and those the worst that have least love And I would write in golden Letters as my Motto GOD IS LOVE and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him And if Christians loved no more than others they would be no better than they And that Love desireth union and familiarity and that censoriousness contempt and flying from each other both signify and breed hatred Could we but so live as to make all our Enemies believe that we heartily love them it would conquer their enmity and tie their Hands and Tongues by reconciling