Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A58775
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A peaceable plea for union and peace in an expostulatory address to the conformist and non-conformist being an appendix to a late discourse of superstition &c. / by W.S.
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Shelton, William, d. 1699.; Shelton, William, d. 1699. A discourse of superstition.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing S202; ESTC R184058
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9,541
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35
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of all the Clergy-men in England whom you can think honest and conscientious and true to the Subscriptions they have made and the Prayers they use As to failures in our manners tho' I am willing to hope they are not so great or many as the exaggerations of envious men would insinuate yet I wish they were fewer I insist not on this plea that if you were without sin you might better throw stones at us Yet this I say Nothing of this nature can be a sufficient cause of your separation But I ask you no more questions nor will I be farther troublesome to you What remains shall be in common directed to both parties We have on both sides disputed and preached and printed and bewail'd Divisions and pleaded for Peace and acknowledged how desirable Union is And still we have looked for Peace but no good comes We are not yet of one heart and one soul Nor is there any great appearance of our being of one way Come now Let us pray for one another We all pretend to Christianity We call Jesus Christ our Lord and by the merits of the same Saviour we hope for that one common Salvation which he has purchased and to enjoy it together in the same Heavens And if it should please God to suffer a foreign Religion to prevail upon us no great doubt but we should be all Gibellins and in the same common danger Shall we love and pray one for another Let us believe that Church divisions are very deplorable and if that be any motive to our Prayers I will offer it in the words of Mr. Baxter If the Scriptures were conscionably Christian Concord ad finem observed men would take Church division for a greater sin than Adultery or Theft Mutiniers and Divisions do more infallibly destroy an Army than almost any other fault or weakness And therefore all Generals punish Mutineers with death as well as flat Traytors I confess ten or twelve years ago I wondred oft to find both Scripture and almost all the Voluminous writings of the Fathers in every age to be filled with Exclamations against Church dividers But now I know a little better the reason of it and how prone even godly zealous Men especially young unexperienced Christians are to it and of what desperate consequence it is Our union is our strength and beauty Commonly they that divide for the bringing in any inferior truth or practice do but destroy that Truth and Piety that was there before I like not him that will cure the Head-ach by cutting the throat No Master no Law no profession was ever more merciful gentle meek more for unity love and concord than the Master law and profession of Christians Oh that the Lord would speedily arise and stir up in all his people in the world so mighty a zeal for Unity and sanctity that those Blessed Twins might conjunctly flourish which thrive so ill when they are divided And that the true Saints of Christ may once tast that sweetness which such a blessed state of the Church would afford However the friends of Peace and holiness shall tast of it True it is if we regard iniquity in our hearts God will not hear our Prayers If we pray for Peace and harbour within our own souls revenge and spite and ill will If a spirit of contradiction rule in us at the same time when we bewail the Divisions of the times If we do not all that is possible as much as lyes in us towards living peaceably our Prayers will be very idle and ineffectual But when we have well consider'd the state of this Church and Nation when we are throughly resolved to use our utmost diligence then pray we to the God that makes men to be of one mind in an house pray we to the Author of peace and lover of concord that he would teach us how we may keep the Unity of the spirit in the bond of peace And Oh that we could live to see the time when as Brethren we might dwell together in Unity Oh that it were not too much to hope for so much of heaven in this world How should I rejoyce to discern the first dawnings of so happy a day Welcome gladly welcome would be the least appearance of Peace the very first approaches towards Unity I read indeed that Abraham against hope believed in hope but he had the assurance of a particular promise to make him strong in the Faith But I should flatter my self and dream if I should promise much in this thing Men abound too much in their one sense men divide themselves from the whole and consider what would singly gratifie themselves not what would be best for the whole body Wherefore though I am willing as I have used some of the first words of Mr. Hooker's Preface so to conclude with the last words of the same Preface yet I am heartily sorry that I cannot use them as my own words That good Man had a Charity as vast as his Learning and was willing to hope the best But length of time which spends some humors has made our distempers rather the more incurable Yet I will use his words that I may put good men and lovers of Peace in mind to pray that the time may once come when we may say as he Our trust in the Almighty is that with us Contentions are now at the highest flote and that the day will come for what cause of despair is there when the passions of former enmity being allay'd we shall with ten times redoubled tokens of our unfeigned reconciled love shew our selves each towards other the same which Joseph and the Brethren of Joseph were at the time of their enterview in Egypt Our comfortable expectation and most thirsty desire whereof what man soever among you shall any way help to satisfie as we truly hope there is no one amongst you but some way or other will the Blessings of the God of Peace both in this world and in the world to come be upon him more than the Stars of the Firmament in number FINIS