Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	holy_a	lord_n	work_n	7,405	5	5.2371	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56693	A sermon preached at the funeral of Mr. Thomas Grigg, B.D. and rector of St. Andrew-Undershaft, Septemb. 4, 1670 by Symon Patrick.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1670 (1670)	Wing P838; ESTC R4850	30,751	63

body which in the Platonical opinion is but a Prison in the Apostolical is a Temple when it is in Christ When our Lord possesses and governs it he elevates the condition of this vile body even while it is upon the earth He makes it a place where God dwells where God is worshipped and glorified where God appears and manifests himself What a strong invitation is this to all that believe to turn from every evil way and to be holy as he that hath called us is holy in all manner of conversation Whereby they will be turned into such beautiful and glorious Tabernacles as to become the habitation of God through the Spirit 4. And what can more powerfully move us than all these considerations to be stedfast and unmoveable in the work of the Lord if any temptation assault us and begin to shake the constancy of our Christian resolution The Apostle might well beseech us to stand fast as a body doth that is firmly seated upon a good basis and foundation for we know saith he that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. As we know that the temptations which flatter us are very inviting to our fleshly appetites as we feel the allurements of the pleasures and advantages of this world so we know if we be believers that there are infinitely better things to counter-ballance and weigh down the fairest of all the temptations which sollicite us We are assured if we keep our station and preserve our selves holy and undefiled that we have a building with God that is unmoveable and cannot be shaken Let us keep our selves therefore in our seat let us not be moved by any of the enticements of the world nor by any shock which violent hands may give us for we are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets who were sent by the will of God according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus Ephes 2. 20. 2 Tim. 1. 1. Our hope stands fast let us do so too and building up our selves in our most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost keep our selves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Jude 20 21. There are but these three things my beloved to be done for the attaining of this heavenly condition First Strongly to believe that there is such an happy state Secondly To believe that they only shall enjoy it who love God and live in obedience to the Gospel of Christ And Thirdly To be led by this faith and act according to the necessary direction of it Now how easie is that when we have convinced our selves thoroughly of the two former All the difficulty and labour is to believe seriously and stedfastly to perswade our selves of the truth of those things which God hath prepared for those that love him When they are become sensible to us and we look constantly for the mercy of our Lord unto eternal life we cannot chuse but endeavour to attain them more than the best condition that this world affords And when we see that they cannot be possessed without an holy life what should hinder us from having our fruit unto holiness whose end is everlasting life It is manifest that as the nature of man is formed to chuse that which is deemed good and to leave and eschew that which is apprehended to be evil so it is made to preferr a great good before a little and to abandon a trifling enjoyment if by that means we may escape a sore mischief and gain a more noble and illustrious happiness Now it is no less apparent that a Royal Pallace is more desirable in all mens eyes than a little hovel of Turf and Straw an everlasting building that will need no repairs nor ever fall to the ground to be chosen before a tottering frame which every gust of wind shakes and must shortly tumble into the dust upon which it stands What is the matter then that men preferr the condition of a Beggar before that of a Prince That they set their hearts upon that which is built upon a dung-hill before that whose foundations are in Heaven and stands upon the immutable Promise and Power of God I mean that the pleasures and enjoyments of this life gain an higher esteem in their thoughts than the delitious joyes of the world to come And the dull entertainments of this body are advanced and lifted up to an higher place in their affections than all the entertainments of the soul yea and those which God hath provided for the body it self if we would manage and order all its desires according to his holy will There can no cause be assigned of this preposterous choice but only this that they feel these present things but have no feeling of those that are to come They let sense prevail above faith and what here addresses it self to them they receive with a greater affection than they do the reports of those heavenly things which our Saviour hath brought to light by his Gospel They taste the pleasures of meat and drink and all the enjoyments of a fleshly Nature but have little or no rellish at all of those delights which are spiritual for the hope of which our Lord and his Apostles despised the other as not worthy to be compared with the pleasures that are at Gods right hand for evermore They feel this Body wherein they now are and though it be heavy and burdensome in some conditions of life yet it is better a great deal than none at all And such the heavenly building seems to be because our souls are not united to it and have no sense of it but look upon it as a thing that is not and never shall be bestowed on them We must perswade our selves then of the reality and certainty of the state which is to come we must labour to touch it and live in a constant sense and expectation of it By faith we must bring our minds to some such union and conjunction with that house not made with hands as they have with this tabernacle wherein they now inhabit We must let our thoughts as they say dwell upon it for though a thing be never so certain in it self yet if we do not apprehend it so to be it will no more move us than if it were not at all And according as the reasons and motives that we have of faith are little or great so will our perswasisions be weak and feeble or strong and powerfull If we would have our Faith then do any thing worthy of the Gospel and produce any good effects in our hearts we must firmly lay the grounds of it and keep them alwayes visible naked and bare to our eye and we must often look upon them and diligently consider them else all that we build upon it will shake and waver and be apt upon every temptation to be overthrown That is we must constantly represent to our selves the Lord Jesus as

cause to preferr above our selves And the more a man encreases in the knowledge of himself the more ready he will be to excuse the ignorance or errors of his neighbours Certain it is that the greater worth there is in any person the more humble and lowly he is Light things ascend aloft as is commonly observed but those that are heavy sink down and depress themselves beneath The little Brooks are very talkative and make a great noise when they and the Pebbles meet and prattle together But for all their haste and the dinn they make in our ears and the plenty of Water which seems to flow along alas their depth is so small that you may feel to the bottom of them with your finger Whereas the great Rivers which are very deep and carry great burdens and are as profitable as they are fair and beautiful how modestly and soberly as I may so speak do they go into the Ocean They do not so much as murmur in any bodies ears to tell them how profound they are but move silently and stilly on their way as if they would not be observed There is nothing better that I can think of than this vulgar comparison which every body uses to represent unto us the clear difference that is between the humble lowly Christian and those that are malepert and confident full of ostentation and ever talking even there where it would more become them to use their ears than they do their tongues For if they did it as the Brooks I mentioned only among the stones and blocks it were no great matter or if while they set out themselves they would not despise or defame their neighbours that far excell them it might be endured But to instruct their Teachers to babble before the Wise the aged and experienced to meddle with things which they do not and perhaps cannot understand nay to get up into the Seat of Judgement and pass sentence upon their Superiours is such an intolerable piece of arrogance as in the phrase of St. yprian * Epist. 55. is born of the Spirit of Antichrist and proceeds not from the humble discipline of our Saviour Which makes the loss of such a person as had the good education of Christian people under his care to be the more deplorable especially since he taught by his example as well as his preaching the younger to submit themselves to the elder and that in lowliness of mind each should esteem others better than themselves 1 Pet. 5. 5. Phil. 2. 3. 3. And truly if our Governours and Tutors be our Second Parents and we owe no less to those who breed us in knowledge than to them that breed us in the womb then this deserves not the least commendation that he carefully performed the part of a good Instructer and Curate of souls Alexander thought himself not more beholden to his Father who left him a Kingdom than to Aristotle who taught him how to govern it And Aristotle taught him this among other things that for those who ingraft right notions of things in our minds and make us wise there is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no honour proportionable to their merits Unless we will bestow upon them some such Veneration as is given to God and our Parents they being a kind of Earthly Gods and Heavenly Parents Antoninus also I remember in the beginning of his Book acknowledges the bounty of God in this as much as in any other blessing that he had made him the Disciple of such excellent Philosophers such as Sextus Maximus Rusticus and others The last of which Julius Capitolinus * In M. Antonin philosoph tells us he made of his Privy Council and used to salute with a kiss even before the Captains of the Praetorian Band. That he demanded publick Statues also of the Senate for him after his decease and in fine had such respect to all his Teachers as to pay an honour to their very Sepulchres and to have their Images in Gold in the very same place with his houshold Gods And the very truth is we are deeply indebted to them and the Memory of our Christian Instructers ought to be very dear and sacred with us as long as we live For they learn us how to live well and prepare us for a better life He that begins to take us into his discipline and piously discharges the Office of a good Tutor or Schoolmaster is our good Genius our Guardian Angel alwayes by our side the Guide of our youth the Security of our slippery age the Seeds-man of God the Dresser of infant souls the Husbandman that cultivates and improves the soil of the mind And a conscientious skilfull Minister to whose care and direction we are delivered afterward can be no less than all these to our riper years besides that he is our Counsellor in doubts our Comforter in affliction the Dispencer of the Mysteries of God and our Conductor to perfection and therefore ought to be highly esteemed for his work sake Such an one I dare boldly say you have lost in this place and it is a common loss to more than your selves a person both able and honest wise and pious So that as the same Antoninus saith he learn't of one of his Masters to suppress anger of another to mind serious things of a third kindness and benevolence of a fourth modesty of a fifth an uncounterfeited gravity of a sixth to bear with simple people and of others constancy patience and such an apt accommodation of himself to all that his conversation might be more soft and sweet than flattery it self so you me thinks might be able to say that all these you have learn't of him For Whose understanding and judgement if I may speak in the language of G. Nazianzen was more grave and aged even before gray hairs Whose Meditations were more concocted Whose Speech more unaffected Whose behaviour more solemn and composed Who is there that had less need of learning to commend him considering the integrity of his manners and yet how few that had so considerable a share of both A man of great candor and ingenuity of a tender and compassionate Spirit heartily desirous of the good of souls and very thoughtful and solicitous I can assure you how to promote it in the easiest plainest and most effectual methods Things the more to be prized in these dayes because as the Father now named complains in another place * Orat. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The most sacred Order of all other among us is in danger to become the most ridiculous No man can be acknowledged for a Physitian unless he have considered the nature of Diseases or for a Drawer of Pictures that knows not how to mingle colours And yet we can find with the greatest ease a Teacher of Divine Truth Not one that is laboured as his word is and prepared but that starts up on a sudden and is sown and comes forth as hastily as the Fable makes the Giants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We make Saints in a dayes space and wise men without any wisdom and guides to others who have nothing to qualifie them for that office but a great desire to be promoted to it Such a Novice our Friend was not but like that good Father himself who by retirement and much meditation fitted himself as he tells us for so great a charge He was sensible of these two things First That it is the Art of Arts and the Science of Sciences as his words are * Orat. 1. to guide and govern mankind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most humorous various and uncertain of all other creatures And Secondly That it requires great skill and not a little Spirit to give to every one in the houshold their portion of meat in due season and to mannage and dispence with judgement the Truths of Christian Doctrine They are great and many as he there numbers them which if any person think himself with little labour able to explain O how I wonder saith he at that mans understanding or to speak more plainly at his folly This holy Philosophy as he calls it requires that we should bring to the study of it great simplicity of mind an impartial judgement pure and holy thoughts quiet affections a patient Spirit and a will disposed to conform it self to God And if it had pleased the Almighty to have indulged this good man a little more time you might have seen a greater proof of his profiting by these means to the no small benefit I have reason to think of others as well as you that were more immediately under his care For to all these good qualities now named he had the advantage also of an even steady temper that was alwayes alike and not subject to any transports But God hath taken him off from his work and what have we to do but to submit with patience to his wise Providence And whether you remember his loss as a good Christian or a faithful Minister or a tender Husband or a kind Friend or a courteous Neighbour still to say It is the Lord. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord. He hath called him away no doubt to receive the reward of his labours praise and commendation from himself for his diligence and uprightness and so he stands in no need at all of ours Only these things may be fit to be considered by us that survive to excite us to the same love of God and man to the same modesty and humility of mind to the same industry and fidelity in our several charges that so our Faith also may be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ FINIS