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	pray_v	prayer_n	13,124	5	6.7659	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43621	Gregory, Father-Greybeard, with his vizard off, or, News from the Cabal in some reflexions upon a late pamphlet entituled, The rehearsal transpros'd (after the fashion that now obtains) in a letter to our old friend, R.L. from E.H.	Hickeringill, Edmund, 1631-1708.	1673 (1673)	Wing H1808; ESTC R7617	145,178	344

questions too if they pleased as the Doctors with our Saviour Luk. 2. 46. So that those worthy cares of the Fathers of Modern Orthodoxy in their Preachments has not so much as the face true form and resemblance of Christ's Sermons but is a whimsey cryed up so long by themselves till it has justled Sacraments Prayers Catechizing quite out of the Church having not the power of godliness in that there are no such villains as I said before as these Sermon-mongers upon the face of the earth as every body must acknowledge and confess except themselves who are always apt to find fault with other men for superstitious when they themselves are the most superstitious people I know in the world as I 'l show more fully on some other occasion superstitious at the best their sermonizing is and has been but that 's not all it has been blasphemous atheistical damnable and prophane as I have shown in their debauch'd interpretations and comments on Holy Writ and I fear it is so yet they do not use to amend And God looks upon these Devotions of theirs that they keep such a puther for but as the cutting off of a dogs neck and will say to them one day who required these things at your hands it is iniquity even your solemn meetings And they may thank the King and Parliament with all their hearts if like careful Parents they will not suffer these wilfull foolish head-strong people have their wills no longer be gull'd by a pack of cheats not permitting the blind Cobler Tinker Weaver Taylor Chimney-sweeper c. nor the wilfully blind but crafty canting Presbyter to lead the blind lest they both fall into the ditch remedilesly If I were to commend a Father it should be him that has a care of his Children and keeps them from hurting themselves spite of their teeth and that chuses rather to do them good than get their good will when they come to discretion which is not likely till they have wiser and honester guides then they 'l thank this good Father for his care Alas if they were in their right mind durst they blaspheme the Holy Ghost when they father their impertinent nonsensical blasphemous ravings in Prayer upon the Holy Ghost calling it the spiritual gift of Prayer and the Spirit of Prayer and I know not what good titles on so ill a deserving faculty obtain'd at best but by custom use confidence and volubility of words which I can speak as experimentally of it and knowingly as any Modern Orthodoxman yet do I not account my self for it a jot the better man being an Art of which every Porter Cobler Chimney-sweeper or Hector may easily be a Master and attainable by every common Billings-gate-scold I say again they lye to the Holy Ghost and blaspheme the Spirit of God that call such pitiful low easie and beggerly gifts the gifts of the Spirit other than of a confident foolish rash impudent blasphemous spirit that is rash with his mouth in uttering any thing before God before whom our words ●…ught to be few Eccles. 5. 2. Which brings to my mind that bold and seditious Petition which a Scotch Minister put up in his Prayer before Sermon in St. Peters Church at Colchester two or three years ago when he was about to pray for his sacred Majesty and our gracious Queen Katherine in these very words Gud Laird bless the King and Queens Majesties and keep them from aw Lownery but confund aw their Images and Idols gud Laird whether having none of the Kings Images in gud white Syller in his awn Pouch he was in hopes to get some amongst the factious crew so much the more by this libelling prayer or having the Kingscoyn in his pocket he never fear'd that God would hear his prayer in confounding those Images of the King sure I am he made a shift to chouce many of the Fops of the King's Images in good coyn and away he run with his Scotch Frow that followed him But yet I cannot think that the extravagancies of bold men in prayer even for the King are to be allowed or trusted to excellently provided against in our Liturgy to which I think all publick Preachers ought strictly to be limited And though many Ministers usually pray for the King in their invented Prayers before Sermons harmlesly one would think at the first blush yet upon stricter examination their Petitions for the King are but a kind of rayling and blasphemy as when they beg of God that he would be pleased to over-rule the Kings heart and make him a chaste pious wise holy just and temperate Prince and a thousand such like expressions and of worse nature not fit here to rehearse but infinuating and hinting as if he was a Prince that needed their Prayers in those particulars and sounds little better than Treason in rendring him to their utmost odious to his people For to pray in the spirit is to pray in the mind or spirit that is to mind what we pray and heartily beg the same of God in my mind or spirit whether I use words or no words in private prayer the matter is not great so that whether with words or without words my mind or spirit intercedes for mercies at the throne of Grace where the spirit of God helps our infirmites other prayer by the spirit there is none but all other than this is pharisaical babling out of ostentation covetousness or some base design unworthy of and inconsistent with so holy a duty whether in words plac'd in wonted order as most certain and profitable or in words of order diverted subject to rash uncouth if not nonsensical sometimes and blasphemous expressions And they that understand not this know not what it is to pray in spirit not knowing what they say nor whereof they affirm whilst these gifted brethren lie to the Holy Ghost as Ananias did how can they escape the judgements of God Father forgive them they know not what they say But when men Pray in Publick as the Church did Acts 4. 24. then they should render him the calves of their lips with one mind and one mouth too Rom. 15. 6. Glorifying God all speaking as in our divine Letany and Liturgy at least all saying Amen lifting up their voyces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with one accord as the Church did Acts 4. 24. And that you may be assured it was by a Common-prayer-book at that time in set words known to all it is said there they did lift up their voyces with one accord which is imp●…ssible to be done but by a Liturgy otherwise one of the Church might be praying for faith hope or patience whilst others were praying for charity temperance or chastity c. and one would have done his prayers whilst another was scarcely heated at it or had not half done but to end the Controversie their set form of prayer is there registred upon Record in the 25 26 27 28 29 and 30. verses of that

honest words like the Divel in Samuels Cassock 1 Sam. 28. 14. And the weeds that may now annoy the Churches Garden may yet prove medicinable virtute officii though not virtutis officio Galba Otho and Vitellius as our Richard the Third were good Emperours though bad men and 't is possible bad men may yet sometimes be good Preachers Yet we may say as of weeds they do more harm than good in the Garden of God they make the way of Truth to be evil spoken of and stain the Surplice they wear Being the Churches Opprobrium Rom. 2. 23 24. the scandal of their Profession and high Calling putting Religion to the Blush For when we compare their prophane lives with those of the good Apostles whom they succeed we may say as that Painter replyed to a Cardinal who was angry with him for painting the faces of St. Peter and St. Paul so red I do it saith he for the very nonce that they may be thought to blush at the lives of their Successors He was in the right on 't that of old complain'd that formerly the Church had wooden Chalices and golden Ministers but now saith he we have golden Chalices and wooden Ministers Such Drones so they get the Honey care not who labour or under what discouragements they labour that 's work for the poor Bee Thus Damasus the Scholar to St. Hierom stept up into the Infallible Chair whilst poor St. Hierom ended his days in a Cell at Bethlehem Yet it is more true Honour to deserve Honour and want it than by Simony or smock Simony to bluster in swelling Titles without merit Cato had rather men should question why he had no statues erected in honour of his great worth than why he had any True Piety and Vertue is vera nobilitas it s own ornament and needs not the varnish of dear-bought Heraldry to set it off And if true Piety be required in any man much more in a Clergy-man whose escapes like a City upon a Hill and the oyntment of the right hand cannot be hid especially in these times when men watch for advantage against them and like the Divels rejoyce in iniquity A little spot is seen in white in a Swan not so in Swine fine Lawn is sooner stain'd than course Canvas every little flaw spoils a Diamond The people are affected opere more than ore exemplis plus quam verbis more with Examples than Precepts more with deeds than words except they be very flattering words and pronounc'd by such glozing Parasites as will lick up the peoples spittle in hopes of gain or fame humoring them to the life but to their own and the peoples everlasting death like Demas that forsook St. Paul to be further preferr'd to the favour of the rabble and in the Idol Temple at Thessalonica They therefore that tread in high places had need look to their steps that they walk uprightly especially when they have many followers and dependents lest they be accessary to other mens fall as well as principally to their own As the due place of the Clergy sets them above many others Heb. 13. 17. 1 Thes. 5. 12. so should they be more eminent than others in Learning and Piety Gods high Priest of old had Pomegranates for smell as well as Bells for sound King Solomon the Preacher call himself Koheloth the Preacheress of the feminine gender and Preachers are called wisdoms Maids Prov 9. 3. And the Apostles are called Joh. 3. 29. Christs Nymphs to teach the Clergy purity as Virgins The longer their Gowns and Robes are the more apt to contract dirt and therefore the more carefully to be holden up lewdness in a Virgin is insufferable Epicurism and Libertinism prevail'd in the World not for the goodness of the Doctrine but because of the sober and austere life of the Doctor that brought it Epicurus And I am confident that rebellion and schism which is factions libertinism had never prevail'd so far in the hearts of the people of England against so righteous a King and Laws but for the austerity of many of the most vile incendiaries and the loosness and remissness of others who went not so steddily though walking upon better ground Thus you see my friend I am not possest with a spirit of contradiction right or wrong to oppose all that Greg. does say I can be content to accept truth even when it comes from the father of lyes and all I have now writ toyou upon this occasion given me by Greg. is only out of my hearty well wishes to the Clergy that the enemy by standing on their ground may have no advantage over them for we are not ignorant of his devices endeavouring to foyl and always twitting a good cause where he finds the least resistance and defence Though in the greatest latitude of Charity no man can imagine that Father-Gray-beard exposes the loosness of any of the Clergy for any love he has to a more strict conversation either in himself or them That which is most admirable in the man is the pregnancy of his fancy in only one Art to wit the superfetation of wit in all the kinds of railing the worst Butter-whore is to seek and may well go to school to Trinkles he and she both being so sertile sure the brood they ingender will all be Marvelous railers With what exuberancy of stile and variety of invectives does he prosecute the Ecclesiastical Politician Bishop Bramhall Arch-bishop Usher Bishop Sparrow Bishop Andrews deceased Arch bishop Laud deceased King Charles deceased with many sinister reflexions upon his gracious Majesty and this happy Parliament How falsly does he charge the Church of England when he says it admits none to Baptism without the sign of the Cross whereas the sign of the Cross is not the Cross in Baptism by her Constitutions But the Cross after Baptism when the God-fathers and God-mothers vouch for the visibility of the Childs profession and education in Christ's Religion and is a practice as ancient as innocent amongst Christians who being scofft by the Heathens for believing in Christ crucified on a Cross they did ever since the Apostles time thereby testifie and openly and couragiously justifie to the World that they were no Gnosticks but like St. Paul not ashamed of the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And whereas he makes it such a horrid thing to keep men from the other Sacrament of Christ viz. the Lords Supper because they will not kneel and stoop to a Ceremony let him know they do justly and warrantably in so doing granting there is such an Humane Law and Ordinance for the same which ought to be lest men left to their liberty some would out of novelty singularity or capriciousness loll or lye upon the ground in unseemly if not in immodest postures and consequently tempt some to abhorr the offering of the Lord. And whether we stand or keep walking all the time as many Calvinists do or sit as do some other Calvinists

Jezabel had to paint with with what face can we call our late happy times the times of Reformation and Gospel days when it will not be allowed that they were so much as the resemblance or likeness of Gospel-days Gospel-worship our forementioned attainments friends wherein through mercy we get glory must not now be admitted to serve for so much as a vizor a mask a cloak of Religion nay he makes the very cloak friends the cloak at Troas to be no more canonical than a Gown or Cassock these are heart-piercing and heart-breaking discouragements friends what will become of us Tenthly Beloved And is it so Then the use we should make of all should be to begin with an use of enquiry who this same E. H. is that we may blacken him friends as brother Harrison said upon another occasion I say friends we must blacken him blacken I am sure must be the word Eleventhly friends further enquire How shall we blacken him was not the father of this E. H. some Jesuit and his mother a Strumpet was not the whore-son born at Tripoly and one of the three that came over in four Ships Has he not a mole above his chin and another on his left knee enquire after that friends if it be so then Beloved our friend and cause-advancing Brother William Lilly will tell us that there is no dealing with him especially if this E. H. was born as I hear he was in the very same year and month with Charles II. before whom we have begun to fall and then I must tell you friends I that am your Prophet must then tell you dear friends with a sad heart as the wise men and Zeresh his wife told Haman that then we shall never prevail against him but shall surely fall before him Twelfthly Again enquire and seek out from among your selves in this nation and Common-wealth as I may so call it friends among our selves friends here 's none here I hope but friends I say enquire and seek out for a Common-wealths man and a modern Orthodox man for some brother well gifted to defend us and our Holiness which E. H. makes a nothingness nay not worth a Louse as being neither so useful vertuous nor so hard to be acquired especially in some Countries enquire therefore for some man amongst us that may endeavour to weaken at least the Authority of his Letter and be sure to blacken him Thirteenthly Friends I think I only give you my advice but in mine opinion there is not of our Party any so well qualified to deal with him as J. O. if He be not too much out of credit already or rather what think you of brother Wild he has some cause to be netled and therefore will the more readily undertake this E. H. who has taken him up already a little smartly and indeed all of us that were at brother Caryl's Funeral I think we had as good have staid at home Friends yet since it is as it is friends as I said but now there is none of us have so much wit for the work as our brother Wild but the mischief on 't is this drink by this drink friends by this vile beastly drinking friends brother Wild has now made his brains as foul and slubberly with his Guzling as are the fore-skirts of his doublet what therefore shall we do dear friends Fourteenthly enquire still I say friends I am upon the use of enquiry whether or no it will not be our wisest course to sit still and never offer at an answer to this Letter from E. H. who I perceive is a merry man and would joy in another opportunity to make us more ridiculous a scorn and a Proverb now that his hand is in I wish it was off Yet Fifteenthly Beloved since this E. H. has rob'd us also which I had almost forgot of that never to be forgotten Good Old Cause mark that friends that Cause I say which we have fought for over head and ears resisting even to blood dear friends and since this E. H. has made it an old rotten Cause that stink●… above ground saving your presence friends Therefore I say therefore some course or other must be taken to answer him if it be but for the Cause sake which now with modern Orthodoxy lies it would pity ones heart to see it friends thus lie a gasping Sixteenthly What think you friends I only propose it what think you of making another Gathering among the Churches for our friend The Author of The Rehearsal Transpros'd to chear up his drooping spirits for I hear he is crop-sick and his spirit like Nabal's almost dead within him but a little encouragement from you I only give you my thoughts would perhaps make him still get some more Ink and Elbow griese and spend it briskly once more in behalf of modern Orthodoxy and the Good Old Cause which though he says is now too good to be fought for be not angry at him friends for he means no harm to us nor it so long as he does not think it a Cause too good to be writ for so he do but vindicate it the second time with his pen we expect no more from such white-livers let us alone to vindicate it with the Pike Seventeenthly and lastly Beloved one use more and I have done it is an use of Exhortation you have heard what E. H. has done in robbing us and making us naked and bare you have also heard several enquiries what may be thought fit to be done in our defence which I leave friends to your consideration which if you think useless fruitless goodless and purposeless then in the last place let me exhort you never to repent as long as you live let them say what they will or laugh their hearts out Repent and recant that would be pretty indeed that would be as much as to confess this Indictment and acknowledge our selves to have been guilty of all the innocent blood shed in these nations Royal blood and all and also to acknowledge that brother Oliver deceased had no Right to White-Hall nor we to the rest of the Kings-Lands Bishops-Lands Lords-Lands Gentlemans-Lands sequestred sold to us in those happy Gospel times the very thoughts wherof friends do you see makes me weep so that my eyes dropping so fast my words can no longer drop as the rain I 'll sob out a little more though in the conclusion of this so necessary use of Exhortation namely that you would friends abhorr this Book or this Letter call it what you will from E. H. so that you abhorr it as much as the Apocrypha or as the Tabernacle of a Robber or as that lewd womans house you read of avoid it pass not by it turn from it and pass away for there are charms in it I speak mine own experiences there are charms in that Book that will force your wills 't is strange to be ruled by your understandings and then farewel blind zeal for