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	lord_n	soul_n	18,529	5	5.0289	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29382	The humble petition of many thousands, gentlemen, free-holders, and others, of the county of Worcester to the Parliament of the Common-wealth of England, in behalf of the able, faithful, godly ministry of this nation / delivered by Colonel Jeff Bridges, and M. Thomas Foly, December 22, 1652 ; with the Parliaments answers thereunto.	England and Wales. Parliament.; Bridges, John, Colonel.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Foley, Thomas, 1617-1677.	1652 (1652)	Wing B4477; ESTC R15906	5,044	9

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF Many thousands Gentlemen Free-holders and others of the County of WORCESTER To the Parliament of the Common-wealth of ENGLAND In behalf of the Able Faithful Godly Ministry of this NATION Delivered by Colonel John Bridges and Mr. Thomas Foly December 22. 1652. VVith the Parliaments Answer thereunto LONDON Printed by Robert White for Francis Tyton and Thomas Underhill and are to be sold at their Shops the three Daggers in Fleet street and the Bible 〈…〉 To the Honourable the Parliament of the Common-wealth of ENGLAND The Humble Petition of us Gentlemen Free-holders and others inhabiting the County of Worcester SHEVVETH THAT your Petitioners having with grief observed both the Language of many Pamphlets and persons of late times against the Ministers of Christ among us and Petitions preferred to you against their present maintenance without any regard to the substitution of a fitter and these pretending to the relief of the impoverished Nation as if they were the very sense and language of the body of this Commonwealth We cannot but suspect yea discern that there is a party that desire and endeavour the subversion of the Ministrie yet have we hitherto remained silent partly in hopes that they were so few and inconsiderable as not to deserve to be publikely taken notice of and mentioned to the dishonour of our Nation partly that we might not interrupt your weighty consultations but chiefly lest we should be mis-interpreted to suspect your fidelitie to the Ministrie and consequently to Christianity and Christ himself which we know you must needs resent as an uncharitable censoriousness considering how evident you have seen and how often acknowledged with greatest solemnity the Lord Jesus in your preservations and how deeply you are engaged to him above most men on earth and how sensibly you vindicated a persecuted Ministrie in the very beginning of this Parliament and how strongly you have obliged your selves not only to preserve the Reformed Religion in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government but also to promote in all these a further reformation where it is wanting as also considering what a tender respect to a faithful Ministrie you have all along to this day professed and are still consulting for the Propagation of the Gospel and have done Justice on some opposers so near you besides the augmentations you have allowed to many places where means was wanting We disclaim therefore all such ungrateful censoriousness and thankfully acknowledge all your favors to the Ministrie and Gospel of the Lord Jesus who is easily able to reward you and see that you be no losers by him and his Cause But yet least our continued silence should seem to signifie our consent to those that would undo us under pretence of releiving us and lest they be thought to speak our sense lest their audaciousness encrease while none contradict them and lest we dishonour our Nation in the eyes of the Christian world whilest they think that the voice of these few is the common voice and lest your own hearts should be overwhelmed with grief not only to see such a degenerated people living under your Government but also that so few gain say them as if the Nation had lost their love to the Gospel and that after such light profession and engagements and consequently you may think they will prove an ungrateful people to you who prove so ungrateful to the Lord their Saviour We have therefore adventured on this bold enterpellation and crave your patience while we do with more then ordinary importunity bespeak you seeing it is in the zeal of the Lord for his glory his Church his Gospel and the souls of our selves and posterity We know it was by Ministers of the Gospel that the Lord Jesus did set up his Kingdom on earth and hath subdued so much of the World to himself destroying the Kingdom of Darkness Paganism Idolatry and wickedness we know he granted their Commission upon the reception of his plenipotencie and upon his ascending he gave them for the perfecting of the Saints and the edifying of his body till they come to his fulness and that as a means to preserve them from Seducers and being tossed and carryed about as children with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4 9. to 15. and hath promised to be with them to the end of the world which promise he hath hitherto eminently accomplished It is the Ministrie by which Christ hath continued his Church to this day nor do we know or have heard of that place on earth where Christianity was ever maintained in splendor and vigor if at all continued without a Ministrie It was the Ministers by whom Christ did waken the superstitious world and discover to them the Romish delusions and by whom he begun and carryed on the Work of Reformation by them exciting a zealous Magistracie and after all their labours multitudes of them did sacrifice their lives in the flames It is the writings of a learned able Ministrie which yet stand up in the face of Heathenish Mahometan and Romish adversaries to their vexation and confusion which they may sooner reproach or burn then answer by which after-ages are and still may be stablished in the truth against all the subtill endeavours of Seducers It is a learned able faithful Ministrie which yet is the daunting and discouragement of the Jesuits and other deceivers who well know if these were but taken out of their way how boldly they might dare us how insultingly they might challenge us to dispute for our Religion and how easily they might silence and shame us and thereby carry away the multitude after them For who should strengthen the Peoples hearts and defend the Cause of the LORD against them if such a Ministry were down It was a faithfull Ministry who revealed Gods Mercy and the precious Truths of the Gospel to our own souls and whom God by the Cooperation of his Spirit hath blessed to be the means of converting or confirming or both the souls of all those of us who have attained to any saving knowledge of himself When we remember how often and how happily our souls have been revived and refreshed by their Ministry we are ashamed of the remisness of our Zeal in this Cause when we think that they are our Fathers and confirmers in Christ and how they must present us to him at his appearing as their Joy and Crown Phil. 2. 19 20. and that when we have escaped the flames of Hell and meet them in glory we must acknowledge them Instruments of so unvaluable a blessing we had rather there were no tongues in our mouths then that ever we should joyn with their reproachers and had rather suffer greater wants then ever we yet suffered then ungratefully deny them their necessary maintenance seeing our Lord himself said when he set them upon his Work The Labourer is worthy of his hire and the Holy Ghost saith Who goeth to warfare at his own charge They that minister about holy