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	speak_v	word_n	13,397	5	4.4123	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A18025	Chorazin and Bethsaida's vvoe, or warning peece A judicious and learned sermon on Math. II. vers. 21. Preached at St. Maries in Oxford, by tha[t] renowned and famous divine, Mr. Nathanael Carpenter, Batchellor in Divinity, sometime Fellow of Exceter Colledge; late chaplaine to my Lords Grace of Armah in Ireland.	Carpenter, Nathanael, 1589-1628?; N. H., fl. 1633.	1633 (1633)	STC 4673; ESTC S107660	26,403	96

are layd open yet vouchsafes he first to threaten ere he inflicts his vengeance as one who in his wisedome thought it most convenient as to approve the righteous so to make the wicked inexcusable that eyther the word preached outwardly to their eares or written inwardly in their hearts should eyther correct or condemne speake their comfort or confusion Betwixt mans transgression Gods Iustice a space is wide open for Repentance to make attonement Ere the Lord rained downe fire and Brimstone on Sinfull Sodome Abraham had his turne to play the Advocate and the Sodomites a time of mercy Ere the Ninivites expected their just destruction a truce of 40. dayes was granted for Repentance to gather forces Hence might every true Christian draw a doctrine for Gods mercy and judgement in that he usually threatens before he strikes and sends his Comminations as the Heralds to proclaime his vengeance The sharpest curbe to head-strong affections is the feare of censure farre too predominant should we finde the swinge of our carnall desires were there not a sharpe whip at their owne girdles Where transgression ends there judgement accoumpt begins and there of necessity must arraignement commence the first action where guilt left his last Impression But yet the greatest prerogative of a Iudg is mercy he strikes not ever where hee ought to spare nor spares alwayes where hee ought to strike at least he lightens where he thunders he displaies his red flagge of defiance ere hee gives the onset hee speaks at least unto the conscience of every wretched sinner ere hee seale his blacke warrant of death and destruction So that not without good cause might our Saviour in this Chapter take up the complaint of little children sitting in the Market place and crying We have piped unto you and yee have not danced wee have mourned unto you and yee have not wept At least might God speake unto them as Iob in another sense unto God Once have I spoken but I will speake no more yet twice but I will proceede no further Spake not God to the conscience of prophane Esau through his fathers neglected blessing the childish losse of his owne birthrigh Spake he not to the sinfull Sodomites through the month of Lot a carefull and religious Preacher Spake he not to Iosephs brethren through the remorse of a guilty conscience and their owne Confession Spake hee not to the idolatrous Israelites through sundry punishments and the fiery indignation of his servant Moses Who more proud and contemptuous than Nebuchadnezzer the founder of admired Babel yet was his courage suddenly cast downe at the sight of his owne vision and Daniels propheticke comment Who more stately than Royall Blashaser sitting at a costly banquet and crowned with a troope of Princes yet was hee taught in the fatall inscription on the wall to reade the Lords Iudgements and the subversion of his stately Empire Who more perverse and tyrannous than Pharaoh to the servile Israelites yet might hee heare the Almighty speaking through Moses unexpected Message prodigious miracles Who more frozen to piety than the furious Philistims in Davids admired victories and Goliahs shamefull overthrow Who more senceles than the old worldlings before the deluge yet might they understand Gods holy Majesty in Noahs unregarded Ambassage who more stubborne than the hard hearted and stiffnecked Iewes yet heard they daily in their streets and temples as it were the prostituted voyce of many Prophets and to descend a little lower in this streame of sacred History wherein all changes and actions give testimony Iudas that Epitome of all impiety never wanted a master to forewarne him of his sinne and a worme of conscience as it were to prepare him to eternall torments And what Pagan so drowned in the ditch of ignorance and so nusled up in the schoole of impiety to whose soule and secret apprehension God himselfe dictates not a law of nature grounded on certaine and undoubted Principles This might teach every true Christian not to spurne at Gods judgements or wilfully to kicke at his Invitations It is the Almighty who threatens a grievous punishment and shall wee not tremble at his displeasure He sends out his summons for our appearance and shall wee not provide against the time of our arraignement By his Ministers he daily cites us to the barre of justice by his workes by his word by his wonders he is wont to awaken us from security and rouze up our attention and shall we as the deafe adder stop our eares against so wise a charmer or returne backe his messengers with a sleevelesse answer What other can we expect but that the Lord at length finding all his shafts of judgment and commination eyther slightly lodged in their breasts or contemptuously reflected backe will be enforced at the length to draw home to the head and enforce our stiff-necks to acknowledge his power or stand it out to their owne destruction A wronged pacience among men soone degenerates into furious indignation and in the couse of ordinary conversation what greater motives of unkindenes than contempt or ingratitude But with one who in the precise scale of justice waighes all unrighteousnesse what greater motive can happen to stirre his indignation or hasten our destruction than to neglect his threats and carelesly to slight his judgements Two sorts of men are here found subjected to reprehension the first are such as carelesly neglect the other are such as contemptuously reject the soveraigne meanes of their salvation In the former ranke are numbred all such carnall Christians who too boldly trespasse on Gods pacience and like those unworthy guests whom our Saviour invited to his great Supper never want excuses One hath bought a farme and must goe see it the other a Yoake of Oxen and must goe try them the third hath married a wife and therefore cannot come as if Repentance were alwaies at hand to serve their humours and the Holy Spirit of God obliged to prostitute his graces to each howers importunity In these mens hearts is the Word of God sowen as seede amongst Tares which the cares of this world are ready to choak up in the first growth to prevent all hope of fruit or mature perfection Speakes the holy Spirit of God to the soule of the swinish drunkard and shewes him the shame of his lavish expences his riotous reyeling and lewd conversation A cup of wine is neare at hand to quench and extinguish his ungratefull melancholy Speakes he to the lustfull leacher presents unto his conscience his lustfull and wanton behaviour and Goatish fornication Some bewitching Lais is not farre off to ransome his soule from pensivenesse and drowne his sences in delicious and voluptuous pleasures Speakes he to the covetous Cormorant and discovers to his secret thoughts his griping Vsury his base Lucre and tyrannous oppression The very sight of his golden Coffers proves as strong as one of Circes charmes to bewitch his sences and inchant his Iudgment

the backsliding Iewes with a voyce of judgement and as it were with a warning peece awaked their sleeping apprehension but he strait backs his commination with the discovery of the cause or motive For if quoth he those mighty workes had bin done in Tyre and Sidon which have beene done in you they would have repented long agoe sitting in sackecloth and ashes The motive grounded on the comparative opposition betwixt Bethsaida and Chorazin on the one party and Tyre and Sidon on the other leades our enquiry to these circumstances First the parties opposed to Bethsaida and Chorazin to wit Tyre and Sidon Secondly the things wherein they were opposed the acceptance of our Saviours actions Thirdly the effect or consequence which might or should have followed the good use of those meanes to wit Repentance or contrition Through these points while I by Gods assistance and your Christian patience shall usher forth your attention May it please you in the first place to take a short survey of Tyre and Sidon standing as it were with Bethsaida and Chorazin in competition 10 Cities bordering on the Sea as they are inriched with great vertues so are they commonly subject to greater vices For there is a trafficque as well of manners as Merchandize for where the conflux of forreine nations by ordinary conversing makes the inhabitants seeme as it were so many domestique Travailours a great advantage is offred of advancing knowledge and suppressing ignorance But great opportunities are commonly seconded with great temptations and nothing more dangerous than armed madnesse This perhaps gave occasion to Aristotle and others to pronounce Sea-borderers of all the most dissolute and Plato in his booke De republica to forewarne his Cittizens the Sea as the mother of wickednesse And on this ground for ought I know hath Strabo derived the first off-spring of Robbery Pillage and murther from the sea and howsoever Themistoles would by all means have a Citty to depend from the Sea to the end as Coelius Rhodiginus imagins he might transferre the power frō the Nobility to the shipmasters Yet the old Athenians by his great wisedome and experience were perswaded to draw their inhabitants as much as they could from Sea traffique to tillage of the ground and husbandry whence as some suppose grew that fable of Neptune striving with Minerva for preheminence and victory wherein Neptune is said to have the worst This Seaborne disposition affecting the Citties of Tyre and Sydon might seeme much to disadvantage them in performance of such offices of piety and Religion which in Bethsaida and Chorazin the occasion of opportunities and expectation of others might seeme to challenge Finding then their conditionall repentance supposed to follow Christs Miracles had this then beene acted and opposed to Bethsaida's and Chorazins backwardnesse wee might hence aptly have collected this observation That men which with lesse meanes goe further in the progresse of Religion shall be better accepted than those which have greater yet come shorter of performance Nature Art and Exercise are the three first stones in learnings Edifice whereof the former commends our Makers bounty the second our Teachers care the other our owne industry Consonant to these three lights of humane science are discovered to us in holy Scripture the three first grounds of Religion An apprehensive Grace to receive a certaine Law or precept to direct and a religious practise to perfect And howsoever all three without the divine assistance prove lame and impotent unable to support us before God or lift us to salvation yet may the neglect of those offred meanes or the abuse of our free will even in our morrall actions wherein our industry claymes his interest set a barre betweene us and Christs acceptance No man can deserve or worke out his owne immunitie neither is Gods Spirit confined to outward meanes or our indeavours yet ought wee to measure his will by his word wherein he requires our diligence and condemnes our negligence Neither is Gods proceeding in this kind opposite to humane justice which as our Philosophers have taught us is wont to poize the scale of distributive justice in a Geometricall proportion and measure our naturall gifts by no other waight than their owne improvement He that rowes not with the tide of his owne opportunities comes as farre short of desert as expectation Rewards and punishments sooner follow the opportunities of our meanes than the importunity of our action and what diligent Master in his carelesse Scholler can content himselfe with a Mediocrity of proficiency where he findes an exceilence of capacity or suffer the choice fruits of a transcendent wit to come short of Maturity What greater evidence then beloved can start up to our shame than the example of others which flag in our meanes yet outrun our industry Or what surer harbinger of condemnation than among so many blessings diversly bestowed on mankinde to acknowledge in others the practise and good use of lesser and finde in our selves the neglect of greater Sodom Gomorrha those two first daughters of desolation are opposed in this comparative judgement to Capernaum a prime darling of the Iewish Nation What they wanted is here rejected and what was denyed to those others Acceptance is here granted to their refusall Willingly would they have throwne themselves into those armes of mercy which are daily open to these mens embracements and have prevented with repentance those judgements which these pursue with obstinacy Easier then shall it bee for Sodome and Gomorrha in the day of judgement than for them and those workes of theirs which no way deserve Gods approbation shall never the lesse bee pressed home to these mens pedition A multitude of examples would here bee mustred up to countenance this assertiō but I must saile along with my Text the happy wind which wafts us forward is the Divine Spirit of God which from those remote countries and farre distant ages is ready to arrive at our times and Regions as the last haven and through the Gentiles urgent testimony and the Iewes arraignement speakes at length to our shamefull reproach or sweet instruction 12. The old Carle in the Poet stood laughing amaine at the tale of Tantalus till hee found himselfe taunted in the end with a mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur Nothing seemed more ridiculous to the fond Athenians than the Carriers contention with the Scholler about the hire of an Asses shadow till they found themselves pointed at by Demosthenes in the serious Morall Ready enough was David to passe sentence on Nathans accusations till he found it to second his owne arraignement And which of you that heare me this day would not ratifie my former doctrine with his best assent and our Saviours judgement on the Iewes with approbation But shift the scene the selfesame Theater of judgement which even now left you spectators now findes you Actours and which of you all would not quickly shrinke at his owne censure and with the caviling