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
A57286	A Rowland for an Oliver: or, a sharp rebuke to a sawcy levite In answer to a sermon preach'd by Edward Oliver, M.A. before Sir Humphry Edwin late Lord Mayor of London, at St. Paul's Cathedral, on Sunday October 22. 1698. By a lover of unity.	Ridpath, George, d. 1726.	1699 (1699)	Wing R1462A; ESTC R219686	15,209	25

not impos'd upon those of our Party as Terms of Communion For our parts we are so little concern'd about such things that we should not value it one rush if all the Youngsters of the Church wore their Shooes upon their Head and their square Caps upon their Feet as well as their Shirts on the outside of all their other Cloaths if they would not thrust them down our Throats as Terms of Communion and tell us we shall neither have the Priviledges of Men nor Christians if we don't let them do so But now he comes with the killing Stroke that it 's almost time for the Huntsman to sound the Death of the Hart with a Tone Tontontaven c. He tells us pag. 14. and 15. That the Objections against set Forms and the Pretensions to the Spirit from this Text are vain and frivolous Where is such Assistance promis'd or upon what account indeed necessary Let these Pretenders to Inspiration work Miracles too and then we shall believe these extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost which we rightly now judg to be ceas'd The very Opinion contradicts it self and what they pretend an extemporary Effusion is no more than a Form to all the Auditory and are often work'd up by Heat and Passion to say Amen to no better than Nonsense sometimes I fear even Blasphemy it self Strange is it that Men otherwise sober and that will not venture a Sermon which they will not address to the People without Care and Accuracy of Wording should yet dare to entertain Commerce with God at all Adventures buoy'd up with a little popular Applause and Self-Conceit Most evident it is that what they would make the World believe is immediately from Heav'n is attainable by Memory and a Volubility of Speech and perfected by a great share of Confidence Here as elsewhere this Novice hath entertain'd the Auditory with Ignorance Railing and Falshoods I could wish that his Tutor when he returns to Cambridge again would whip him a little for Ignoratio Elenchi Is it not a horrid shame that a Confident Prig should step up to the Pulpit of the Greatest Cathedral in England pretending to preach upon Controversies and not so much as understand the State of the Question he pretends to handle Then let him know that the Nonconformists don't deny the Lawfulness of set Forms provided they be sound and only made use of by those that can't do without them for they are always so good natur'd as to allow the Lame a Crutch But the thing they deny is this that it is unlawful for any Church or Society of Men upon Earth to impose stated Forms of other Mens composing to be used by Ministers in the whole Exercise of their Ministerial Function and no others This being a Yoke that many of the Conformists themselves don 't submit their Necks to but use Forms of their own composing or extemporary Prayers many times before Sermon at visiting the Sick and otherwise If our Author will read Didoclavius his Altare Damascenum an ancient and learned Author or Dr. Collins of Norwich a Modern Author upon the Subject he will find this to be and to have been the Principle of the Nonconformists upon that Head and the reason of it is this that the Gift of Prayer as well as of Preaching is given by our Saviour to his Ambassadors else how should they be the Mouth of the People to him as well as the Deliverers of his Message to them The stinting of Ministers to the Forms of others is perfectly to make them guilty of the neglect of part of that Gift which they receive at their Ordination by the hands of the Presbytery against which the Apostle cautions Timothy 1 Tim. 4.14 It is likewise plain by Acts 6.4 that it is the Duty of Ministers to give themselves to Prayer as well as to Preaching and seeing many of the Preachers by giving themselves to it nay most of those in other Countries attain to a Faculty of delivering the Message of God in good Method and Language without Notes for what Reason can our Author think it impracticable for them if they likewise give themselves to Prayer to deliver their own and their Peoples Desires in the same manner to God without the help of a Form I confess for such as he who seems to be grosly ignorant of the Office and Duty of a Minister and is more like Jeroboam's Priests of old that by consecrating themselves with a Bullock and ten Rams were fit to be Priests to them that were no Gods a Form of Prayer may be necessary for by his ignorant Twattle he seems to be such a Parson as the Story goes of who could not tell what Prayer to read for a poor Man that came to him when his House was on Fire but at last bethought himself of that for Rain which he wisely conceiv'd would extinguish the Flames But when he came to mumble it over it was only for moderate Showers which the poor Man knowing not to be enough for his Necessity made bold to mend the Form and cried out for whole Buckets full For his ignorant and irreligious Questions Where the Assistance of the Spirit is promised or upon what account indeed necessary they smell so rank of the Libertine that we may justly enter our Exceptions against his Evidence in matters of Religion as an utter Enemy to it But to reform him if possible let him read his own Text once more which is a Promise as well as a Prophecy that the Spirit should assist the Saints under the Gospel in their Worship of which Prayer is a very great part Let him read Rom. 8.26 27. and there he will find the assistance of the Spirit to be necessary to help our Infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh Intercession for us with Groanings which cannot be uttered and he that searcheth the Hearts knoweth what is the Mind of the Spirit because he maketh Intercession for the Saints according to the Will of God He may likewise read the Fifteenth Verse of that same Chapter and there he will find that true Christians receive the Spirit of Adoption by which they cry Abba Father and are as naturally enabled thereby to pour out their Souls before God in Prayer for Spiritual Mercies as we are by Nature prompted to request such things of our Earthly Parents as we stand in need of without a Set Form Let him read John 14.26 and there he will find a Promise That the Comforter the holy Spirit shall teach us all things and if Prayer be a Christian Duty it must certainly be included in the Bosom of this Promise If he thinks to evade this by pretending that we alledg the very words of our Prayers are inspir'd Let him quote any Dissenting Author Quakers or some such excepted that have said so if he can I conceive his profane Raillery that we entertain Commerce with God at all Adventures is

not so much as once have mentioned the Name of Jesus in his Definition of worshipping God by the Spirit I suppose he would be very angry at those who should forbear bowing at hearing of his Name which is no where ●●●manded and yet he pretends to explain Spiritual ●●rship without taking so much as once notice of that ●lessed Nane though there be none other under Heaven by which we can be sav'd Another thing he hath omitted in his Definition is that to VVorship God in Spirit must necessarily infer the worshipping of him according to the Direction of his own Spirit in the Sacred Scriptures without which all those Impressions of his Majesty Power Rule and Wisdom that he talks of signifie nothing The Heathens have express'd themselves to Admiration on all these Attributes and yet we cannot say that they worshipp'd him in Spirit because it was not according to his Revealed Will they worshipp'd they knew not what as our Saviour here tells the Samaritan Woman He goes on thus Page 10 That h●ving once this true Notion of the Almighty we ex●rt our selves in Acts of Piety and publick Devotion express our Sense of his Pow●r and Rule by our daily Supplications ou● Ackno●l●dgments of his Goodness by our continual Praises our Love by our Charity to our Neighbours and Zeal for his Wo●ship and Service and our Fear by abstaining from the lea●t Appearance of Evil and all this with Humility and Reverence Decency and Order with Obedience to Authority and Respect to those whom he has set over us these being most certain and spiritual Duties nay the only things wherein we are capable of t●stifying that we really do worship him in Spirit A little further he says That God is a Spirit and therefore his Wo●ship ought to deduce its Source from the Reason and Soul of Man And in the 1●th Page That if Worship takes its rise from the Heart then is it a Spiritual Worship And this he takes to be the true meaning of worshipping in Spirit It 's well he does but take it but I think it 's plain from what has been already said he mistakes it for all this while it 's evident that Cato in his Distich before-named had as true a Notion of Spiritual Worship as Mr. Oliver And therefore I will make bold to tell him that if he don't make haste to increase more in Spiritual Knowledge than hitherto he has done it will be a great while before he deserve to be made a Spiritual Lord but I am afraid he has already spoil'd his Lawn Sleeves during this Reign whatever hopes he may have in another I would fain know whether by part of his own definition of Spiritual Worship he hath not excluded himself from the number of Spiritual Worshippers by failing in his Obedience to Authority and in his Respect to those whom God has set over us in railing thus against those whose Worship is establish'd by Law as well as his own Does he think that when the King and Parliament pass'd the Act for Liberty they design'd that every little Pragmatical Priest should revile Magistrates to their faces and reflect upon the whole Dissenting Party in such a manner as he has done for non compliance to Humane Ceremonies in Divine Worship If it were so then the Nonconformists are only ty'd down to a Stake to be baited by every dumb Dog that cannot bark except it be for gain from his Quarter Such kind of Dogs as these the Apostle enjoyns us to beware of as well as of the Concision by which they made a Schism in the Church and would have forc'd Circumcision and other Jewish Ceremonies into the Christian VVorship Phil. 3.2 Just so our Author seems to be one of those that would tear the Flock and return again to the old Vomit of Persecution he and his Brother the Author of the Mystery of Phanaticism would make a delicate couple to be under the Conduct of some of Antichrist's Huntsmen for they seem both of 'em to be deep-mouth'd and so well vers'd in the Art already that they understand all the Hunters Notes from Tone to Tontontontontavon We come next to hear him open upon full scent for Page 11 and 12. with a Medley of a Charge he falls foul upon some of the Dissenters saying They are above Ordinances and all manner of Rule guided by Fancy and a Frantick Zeal I am afraid he has in those very words describ'd himself and the rest of his Kidney who will force their own Impositions into the most Solemn Ordinances of the Gospel and exclude those from the Church that won't comply with them for if this be not to set themselves above all manner of Ordinances and Rule when the Scripture expresly forbids any adding or diminishing to its self as the Rule of our Faith and Manners I cannot tell what is However I know that by this he means the Quakers and some others but then in common Ingenuity he ought to have made a distinction and not have added all Dissenters together to inflame the Reckoning and in the mean time let me tell him that such as he set them a very bad Example in going so far astray from the Rule and making things they own to be indifferent necessary terms of Communion He falls next upon those that make use of his Text against all manner of Ceremonies But who these are I know not nor never heard of nor I believe no body else had he said significant Ceremonies or a kind of Party-per-pale Sacraments that must be outward and visible Signs of inward and Spiritual Graces such as the Sign of the ✚ is made to be our fighting under Christ's Banner c. he had said somewhat and then I should have made bold to tell him tho' I incur the danger of an ipso facto Excommunication for it by the Canons of his Church that such Ceremonies are ipso facto condemn'd by this Text that teaches us we must worship God according to Truth which is his Revealed will and if he can find any thing there enjoyning those Ceremonies I will yield him the Cause and for his further Comfort I will also tell him that what the Scripture doth not Command in matters of Worship it forbids and without the Law and against the Law as in Policy so in Divinity are both one according to Tertullian in his Corona Militis and I am of the mind he made a greater Figure in the Church than ever our Author will do so long as his Name is Oliver So little does this Zealous Ceremony-monger understand the Controversie in which he is so fierce a Disputant that he tells us we our selves make use of Ceremonies and what are they Why truly they are set Looks a formal Voice and forc'd Gestures a wonderful Discovery worthy of the Genius of that Noble Author call'd The Mystery of Phanaticism But does not this little Sprig or Sucker of Divinity know that these Things if they must be Ceremonies are

sufficiently censured already when I have made it appear that we have the Promise of the Spirit to help our Infirmities But I shall tell him further that if ever he come to have any Experience of the Work of God upon his own Soul to see the Sinfulness of his Nature and that he is eternally undone without a Saviour it will be no longer such a Mystery to him and I would fain know his reason why a Minister that is acquainted with the Condition of his People as all of 'em ought to be and is able to instruct them in their Duty and to reprove them for their Sins without a Set Form may not as well and as easily represent their Desires to God in the same manner pray for his Assistance against their particular Temptations and Sins beg for those Graces they want offer up Praises for such Mercies as they have received and turn his Instructions to them into Petitions for them without hazard of Blasphemy or Nonsence Let him give us his reason why all Ministers and Christians must be tied up to the Forms of others who have no more right to those Promises abovementioned than themselves and as appears by the Event have had a lesser share of them than many others have had Our Author before he had made so many ill grounded Objections and Charges against Extemporary Prayer ought first to have taken the Beam out of the Eye of his own Party before he had offer'd to pull the Mote out of those of others He cannot but know or have heard that the Book of Common Prayer is objected against as being the Mass-Book Romish Breviary and Rituals translated with some Amendments as K. Edw. 6 th own'd in his Proclamation to the Devonshire Rebels that it is chargeable with vain Repetitions that it stints God to such a daily Measure of Prayers hinders many necessary Petitions and the enlarging on those that it has according to the necessity of the Persons that join in it and many other things that I shall not now touch upon It ill became our Author to charge Dissenters with Blasphemy in their Prayers at random meerly upon report or slander when his Party oblige all their Clergy to assent and consent to all the Mis-translations of the Psalms and other places of Scripture in their Common-Prayer-Book when its evident that sometimes a whole Verse or more is left out as in the 72 d Psal. where the Words Pr●ise ye the Lord are 17 times omitted as is the Conclusion of the Lord's Prayer according to the Example of the Popish Missal and part of the First Commandment sometimes the Translation is blasphemous as in Psal. 18.26 where 't is said of God that he shall learn frowardness with the froward sometimes it is absurd and sensless as Psal. 58.8 and sometimes adds Words and Sentences which change and obscure its meaning as Psal. 2.12 and Psal. 14. Page 15 and 16. He goes on with his usual Assurance and says Our Saviour prov'd by a Form that the World has been so sensible of the Necessity of one that there is no Age or Church that has left themselves at liberty Not one word of which he can prove Our Saviour indeed hath giv'n us that usually call'd the Lord's Prayer as a Rule and which we own we may lawfully use as a Form but not to exclude others of our own composure The idle Pretence that our Saviour compos'd this out of the Jewish Form● then in Use hath been long since exploded or if it were so is a strong presumption that 't was only to be us'd as a Form during the Jewish Oeconomy But it is so evident in the Scripture that our Blessed Redeemer and his Apostles tied themselves to no certain Form of Prayers that none who have ever read the Bible can be ignorant of it Is it not strange if they judg'd a set Form necessary that they should not have compos'd one themselves or have told us who they empower'd to do it And is it not a reflection upon the Scriptures that they which are able to make the Man of God wise unto Salvation should not be thought sufficient to direct us how to pray without set Forms as well as it is to make Men able Ministers of the New Testament without set Homilies Would not Mankind look upon it as an Imposition on humane Nature if Forms should be impos'd upon them in which and no other they should be obliged to sue for Relief to their Superiors in all the Calamities that may befal them when it is impossible to compose such as will answer all Circumstances And is it not equally nay more absurd to restrain Men to Forms compos'd by others for addressing the Almighty in their various Exigencies that none can know so well as themselves and which tho' not expressed in such Terms as may please such envious Criticks as our Author yet He that searcheth the Hearts knows the Mind of the Spirit as we have heard before As to his Assertion that no Age hath been without a Form 't is Gratis dictum he has it only by Tradition and that he says himself is but little to be credited I think the known Passages of Justin Martyr and Tertullian in their Apologys are more than enough to answer such a pert Youngster The Passages are to the following Import Tertullian speaking of the Worship of the Christians Illuc that is towards Heaven suspicientes Christiani manibus expansis quia Innocuis capite Nudo quia non erubescimus denique●ine Monitore quia de pectore Oramus And Justin Martyr on the same Subject says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If this pert Sophister knows any thing he knows that those pretended Liturgies of Peter James Matthew Andrew c. are spurious and therefore shall say no more on the Subject but this that Eusebius in his Epistles of the Churches of Smyrna Vienna and Lyons is silent as to any Liturgy The like silence there is in the Epistles of Clemens Ignatius and the Writings of Justin Martyr Tertullian and Origen Nay Baronius ad An. 58. Numb 102. treating expresly of the Publick Prayers of the Church keeps the same silence as to the use of Forms Mr. Oliver's other silly Reflections of want of due Reverence in Places of Worship are so like himself that they deserve no other Answer but Contempt If others keep on their Hats there let him make amends for it if he pleases by pulling off his Shoes and while others sit may he be condemned always to stand and while others take no notice of the Altar may he bow to it till his Breeches burst behind For my own part I know no reason for being cover'd or uncover'd at any Sermon but as Convenience directs for though the Text be divine the Commentary is humane and I thin● his own Sermon is a convincing Instance that every thing delivered to us from the Pulpit is not the Message of God We must bring them to the Touchstone as the Bereans did to try whether they be so or not and I am certain his will never abide that Test. I shall conclude this extemporary Answer to a premeditated Sermon against extemporary Prayer with this one Reflection that the late Lord Mayor may well be abused in the street by Ballad-singers Hawkers and raskally Fellows when he was first abus'd to his face in the Pulpit by a pedantick Parson A Noble Example and as bravely followed but if the City of London suffer their Chief Magistrate and the ●reatest of the Kind in the whole Nation to be thus abus'd for going to Meetings which was neither contrary to the Laws of God nor Man they don't acquit themselves according to their Character It is utterly intolerable that a Gentleman who his very Enemies must own has acted the part of a good Magistrate should be so scandalously abus'd If this be Mr. Oliver's deference to Dignities it 's pity he should ever preach in any other Place but Bedlam where his name-sake Oliver's Porter us'd to rave And thus I leave the Huntsmen who sounded the seven strokes to the Field to sound the stroke of nine to draw home the Company for I believe their ..... will scarcely recover his Game so that he may ev'n sit down contented with the Honour of being the Ring-leader of those who sing such goodly Ballads as they were gathering Grigs about the streets one day and cry Lampoons against Magistrates another FINIS