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
A29218	Signes of the times, or, Prognosticks of future judgements with the way how to prevent them / by Edward Bagshaw ...	Bagshaw, Edward, 1629-1671.	1662 (1662)	Wing B425; ESTC R22957	20,184	37

reason mainly that our Saviour so long delayes his coming because then he intends to put an end to and to take vengeance of the wickednesse of men and therefore he waits till they have filled up their measure Revel 15.15 Till the harvest of the earth be ripe and sinne like a common contagion hath once more overspread the face of all Lands he will not command his Angel to thrust in his sickle And therefore it will be dreadfull to live at the end of the world for as a stone that descends to its center the nearer it approaches the more speed and swiftnesse and withall the more weight it contracts or as the people of Israel Acts 7.17 The nearer the time grew of Gods promise to them the more they multiplyed as Stephen observes So the nearer the world hastens to its end the more will iniquity abound and by its enormous redundancy provoke and accelerate an utter desolation Quest But some may ask How shall we know when the iniquities of a Nation are arrived unto that measure and proportion against which judgement is decreed Answ I answer By comparing the event of the Prophets predictions against Jerusalem in these two fatall Epocha's when their City and Temple was burnt up first by the Chaldeans and after that by the Romans it will appear that a Nation which professeth to serve God in the truth and purity of Religion hath then filled up its measure of sinne and consequently lies under the immediate arrest of some great and irreparable judgement when there are committed by them these three great abominations First When a people newly come out of great affliction relapse into the very same sinnes for which they were afflicted The end of all affliction on Gods part is to purge out sinne and to get himself glory by our repentance as he speaks by the Prophet By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged Isai 27.9 and this is all the fruit to take away his sinne When God misseth of this end then one judgement sleighted and contemned onely makes way for another As he threatens by Moses Lev. 26.23 24. If ye will not be reformed by me by these things but will walk contrary to me Then he doth not say I will leave off striking and give you over but will I also walk contrary unto you and will punish you yet seven times for your sinnes As a Judg doth seldome spare an incorrigible Felon but after he hath been once burnt in the hand if he comes again before him he gives immediate order for his Execution So when Gods lighter strokes have been beaten back without making impression we must then expect to feel the weight of his hand This is that which the Prophets by joynt consent take notice and sadly complain of in the people of Israel Isai 9.12 13. Esay having recounted the sad estate of the Jews by reason of the many enemies which did surround them Yet saith he for all this his i. Gods anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still For which he assignes this reason For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts So Jeremy Jer. 5. ● They have refused to receive correction they have made their faces harder than a rock they have refused to return Therefore I said they are foolish for they know not the way of the Lord nor the judgement of their God i. e. They understand not what is Gods designe and end in bringing judgment which was to bow and incline the heart unto himself Whereupon it follows Verse 7. How shall I pardon thee for this As if he had said this is a sinne which I cannot pardon but must go on to punish Amos 4.11 So Amos repeating several judgements as famine drought barrenness the plague and the like which God had brought upon them yea saith he I have overthrew some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a fire-brand pluckt out of the burning yet ye have not returned unto me saith the Lord Then presently he threatens Verse 2. Therefore thus will I do unto thee i. e. I will execute what I formerly denounced to take away them and their posterity with fish books i.e. to make clean riddance And because I will do this unto thee therefore prepare to meet thy God O Israel i. e. Look upon God as thine enemy and sit thy self for the encounter For as it is in Ezekiels words Ezek. 24.13 Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee i. e. I will so satiate mine anger that I shall not need to renew it as the Prophet Nabum speaks Nahum 1.9 Affliction shall not rise up a second time I will once for all ease me of my adversaries by breaking them to pieces with one stroke of my fury When men run greedily to enjoy their unlawful pleasures and are so much the fiercer and more eager upon them the longer they have been restrained Isai 5.12 there is a Woe pronounced against them The harp and the viol the tabret and the pipe and Wine are in their feasts but they regard not the work of the Lord neither consider the operation of his hands i. e. They never consider that when God sends a publick jugdment he is then like a Judg upon the Bench and expects that his clemency in releasing and taking it off should not be affronted with a new miscarriage Secondly The sins of a Nation then seem to have attained their full measure when there is a general and an allowed corruption in the publick Preachers of the Word when they either Preach vainly or live viciously Vain Preachers are such in the Prophet Ezekiels words Ezek. 13.2 3. Who prophesie out of their own hearts Foolish Prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing Who have never felt the power of the Word themselves and therefore speak not to the heart 2 Cor. 2. ult but only to the ears of others Such in the Apostle Pauls phrase as do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we render it corrupt the Word but properly it is to deal with the Word as bankrupt Merchants do with their Wine i.e. dash and allay it by mingling water with it So these by trickments of humane eloquence and fantastick curiosity dresse up the Word of God and by robbing it of its plainnesse do as far as they can take away likewise its power 2 Pet. 2.3 Such as Peter speaks of who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by counterfeit and cunning words make merchandize of men i. e. make Preaching which God appointed as a means to save souls meerly a trade to get money by whom he there severely threatens Whose judgment now of a long time i. e. which long since was decreed against them lingreth not or is

Samuel would declare how angry God was with the People for their wantonnesse in desiring a change of their Government he tells them that he would call for thunder and rain 1 Sam. 12.17 which at that time of the year in those parts was altogether strange That saith he ye may perceive and see that your wickednesse is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord in asking you a King And when upon this the Lord sent thunder and rain the people were so apprehensive of their danger that immediately they cry out to Samuel Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we dye not as conceiving that God would not stop or rest satisfied with a bare denunciation of his anger but go on to the extremity of it Joel 1.15 17. So the Prophet Joel makes an unseasonable seeds-time and an unfruitfull harvest forerunners of some greater vengance Alas saith he for the day for the day of the Lord is at hand and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come And this he gathers because The seed is rotten under their clods the garners are laid desolate the barns are broken down for the Corn is withered As when the pillars and supports of an house are removed and taken away we may learn infallibly that the house it self will not long stand So when Bread-corn which is called in Scripture the stay and staff begins to fail we need not doubt but some worse judgement is at the doore and just entring in Under this head of extraordinary mutations I may rank Eclypses Comets unusual Apparitions and strange Accidents in any of the Elements which our Saviour sayes should and as we read in Josephus did actually precede the destruction of Jerusalem But of these I spoke before Secondly Signe 2 Another Sign of an approaching judgement is when the heart and affections of such as God sends to Preach in his Name are mightily drawn out to speak against the abominations of a Land but they meet with no successe answerable to their labours but are either reproached and scorned or Imprisoned and Silenced for it Among the aggravations of Zedekiahs sinnes this is reckoned as one 2 Chron. 36.12 That he humbled not himself before Jeremiah the Prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord. And likewise of Herods who though he were an incestuous and voluptuous wretch yet saith the Text He added this above all Luke 3.20 that he put John Baptist a sharp and severe Preacher in prison As if his other sins were small in comparison of this It is therefore recorded as the cause which did both hasten and compleate the ruine of Jerusalem 2 Chron. 36.15 16. That The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers rising up betimes and sending because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place And therefore sent his Heralds before he would wage open War But sayes the Text they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his Prophets and what followed Untill the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and there was no remedy For when a people refuses to hear the voice of God which speaks alwayes in these Prophets that he Commissions then he hath no way to vindicate his honour but to make bare his arme in their destruction As David avenged the outrage offered unto his Embassadors in the utter slaughter and devastation of the Ammonites When the Jews had arrived to that degree of complacency in sin as to say unto the Prophets Amos 2.12 13. prophesie not then God presently threatens I will presse your place as a Cart presseth that is full of sheaves i. e. I will so load and pursue you with my judgements that they shall dash and break you to pieces as a loaded Cart doth crush the Waggoner or whatever else it falls upon And therefore it is observable that none ever imprisoned Gods Prophets but they met with sudden and unexpected deaths When Ahab had commanded to put Micaiah in Prison the next news we hear of is 1 Reg. 22. that he went down to Battle and perished there Amos 7.10 12 And when Amaziah the High Priest of Bethel had accused Amos of sedition and treason and forbad him to prophesie any longer at Bethel for it was the Kings Chappel and the Kings Court Amos denounceth against them this heavy doome that his Wife should be a strumpet his children should fall by the sword and notwithstanding his endeavour to prevent his prophesying by Prison and Pillory yet God would certainly fulfill it It is so unpleasant a taske so contrary to flesh and blood and so full of apparent hazard to reprove sinne in the world that where-ever God stirs up the spirit of any to do it with those Cautions and in that manner which the Word of God warrants such an one will have Gods power to stand by and to defend him and to suppresse this duty in any onely hastens the judgement as when in a rage men put out the Candle it presently involves them in an helplesse and irrecoverable darknesse Lastly It is an assured signe of an approaching judgement when the iniquities of a Nation are arrived to their height There is a certain fixed measure and fullnesse of sinne which when it is once made up the stroke of the Clock doth not more certainly follow the motion of the Hand than Gods judgement doth pursue the cry of those sinnes It is therefore rendred as a reason by God why he did defer the punishment of the Amorites so long because saith he Gen. 15.16 The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full And when God descends to visit Sodom he alledgeth this as the occasion of it Gen. 18.20 The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is very great and their sin is very grievous wherefore saith he I will see whether they have done according to the cry of it implying that their sinne was grown so clamorous loud and importunate that it had attained its full growth and therefore he could no longer defer his vengeance This is expressed in Scripture under the similitudes of an Harvest and a Vintage Jer. 51.33 as in Jeremy God saith of Babylon The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floore it is time to thresh her yet a little while and the time of her harvest shall come i. I will mowe her down with my judgements because she begins to be as it were mellowed in sin and thereby ripe for ruine So in Joel Joel 3.13 Put ye in the sickle for the harvest is ripe come get you down for the presse is full the fats overflow for their wickednesse is great or according to the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is multiplyed i. e. There is not one sinne wanting to compleate the number which when it is made up judgment alwayes follows it as the breaking of the Ordnance doth its being overcharged with Powder It is for this