Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A61828
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A sermon preached before the University of Oxford on St. Andrews-day by Tho. Stripling.
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Stripling, Thomas, 1652?-1679.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing S5978A; ESTC R23726
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14,699
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38
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its infancy met with such cold entertainment in the world because men so value themselves of their reason that they will admit nothing but what hath stood the tryal of that criterion and thereupon some have presumed to dictate to Heaven and prescribe to the Almighty Because I say that some have arrived to that pitch of impudence to reason Christ out of his Divinity it s no wonder if others when their flesh and blood is concerned endeavour to argue him out of his Humanity I mean the reasonableness of his Precepts they look no farther than their outside and because they seem terrible to their flesh they presently conclude them against their reason and run like Children from their friends when they have put vizards on But if they would take the pains to consider the design of them and the reward they purchase they would find them to be for their greatest good and exactly consonant to the dictates of right reason For what can be more reasonable than that hardships and sufferings should accompany those Precepts to which God has annexed so great a reward and that the way should be steep rugged and difficult that leads to eternal glory Nature hath prepared Crowns for the Valiant and Triumphs for the Conqueror but he shall wade for them through blood he shall first undergo the Severity of Military Discipline the hardships of the Field and the danger of a Battle God hath also provided a Canaan for his Children and a Land flowing with Milk and Honey for his Inheritance but they shall first run through an Egyptian bondage they shall travel for it through the Red-Sea they shall endure the hardships of the Wilderness the taedium of a War And he that shall murmur or repine at the one shall certainly be defeated of the other For so it happened of all the Children of Israel that were numbred in Sina not one beside Caleb and Joshua were permitted to enter into the Promised Land because they provoked God to Anger in the Wilderness and murmur'd at him in the Desart Christ has likewise purchased for us a better Canaan even eternal mansions in Heaven but men must not expect to go thither on a Feather-bed lest it should prove but the delusion of a Dream and they awake into a worser Eternity He that was made perfect through sufferings hath told us Mat. 7.14 that that way is narrow and that there is not room for a Drunkard to stagger in or the Latitudinarian to expatiate either his Principles or his Practice he must crucifie his Affections and Lusts that will share with him in his Kingdom he must endure Persecutions and Sufferings yea and Death it self for his sake who hath redeemed him from a worse In a word he must take up his Cross that will be his Disciple and he that will wear a Crown of Glory must at least be ready to wear a Crown of Thorns This being then evident that because Christ hath commanded us to suffer therefore it is reasonable I shall farther make it appear to be highly the reasonableness of it and that Because Christ commands it Christ commands his Disciples nothing but he inforces it with an Argument from himself he must first suffer for us and through these sufferings enter into Glory then he enjoyns them as the means for us to arrive unto it for thus he told his Apostles before they were sent forth to the conversion of the world You are my sheep and I am the good Shepherd yet I must send you among Wolves and expose you unto the unmerciful fury and rage of cruel Tyrants who will not only slight and contemn your Doctrin and Persons but force you to undergo the sharpest pains and exquisite tortures and for your farther encouragement deprive you of your Honour and your Lives for my sake after they have dealt so by me The sadness of the news might somewhat surprise them when but a little before they were questioning among themselves which should be greatest in his Kingdom but it did not at all abate their courage or dishearten them from executing their office Men certainly much strengthned from above most of them poor and of low descent but Fishermen who could not boast of that sprightly blood great Heroes pretend to have running in their veins but through Gods assistance there was nothing able to daunt the courage of a Christian but they resolved to behave themselves as stout and undisturbed in their sufferings for Christ as they were willing to dye for him their Lord and Master who not long after was treated by his enemies as he had foretold for his Conversation was slighted and contemned his Doctrine derided and scoffed at and his Miracles were said to be done by the help of Magick and the assistance of the Prince of Devils his person was vilified and soon after put to the most Barbarous Cruel and Shameful Death that of the Cross And to behold the Son of God Omnipotence it self thus hanging on the Cross cruelly murdered by the most wicked evil and malicious men to behold him who could have Legions of Angels to his rescue or have destroyed his enemies with the least blast of his mouth willingly submitting himself to the will and power of his cruel Murderers and all this for our sakes to make a full Attonement and Satisfaction to his Father for our sins and free us from the wrath to come Certainly we cannot grudge or repine when we suffer for him or tax his Precepts of the least unreasonableness but rejoyce as did his holy Apostles who counted it all joy when they were to enter into Tribulation for they betook themselves to their Officium as soon as they had received their Commission and Preached Christs Doctrine with the purest Zeal and in the true Evidence and Demonstration of the Holy Spirit and for their pains and travel they were traduced for the vilest offenders and made as the filth of this world they were hated and persued as enemies and disturbers of the Peace In a word they were vilified and contemned exposed to Pain and Tortures and then to Death it self all which they suffered with perfect Constancy and Patience being assured that it was for his sake who had endured much more for them Thus was our Religion and her Votaries treated for Christ at its first entrance into the world no sooner had the glimmerings of the Gospel been displayed but presently clouds and vapours rise up which strive to extinguish its Light or at least so to interpose that they might hinder its progress from comeing to those that lived in Darkness and in the shadow of Death but as they were altogether unable to put out its Light so neither could they stop it in its progress For the All-wise Providence was pleased to design that Christianity should be propagated by Sufferings and grow strong by those very means which were used to weaken and extirpate it for it was not to be done with Arms or
murmuring or being disturbed in their Sufferings that they rejoyced in the midst of their Tortures and thanked their Executioners for tearing them in pieces Since then we have had such a cloud of Witnesses who have gone before us and obtained the end of their Hopes even the Salvation of their Souls let us not be discouraged or be disheartned in our duty but run with patience the race that is set before us resolving boldly to follow the Captain of our as well as their Salvation But we cannot become Martyrs for Christ as did his holy Apostles and those in the Primitive Times since our Religion is generally embraced and the Cross sits as an Ornament on the Foreheads of Kings and Emperours but although we do not suffer for him in the propagating his Religion among Heathens and Infidels yet we may suffer nearer home we have enemies in our breasts for this house of clay is divided against it self and wageth more than Civil War within us so that every Christian is permited to be his one Executioner and without swerving from his Duty to be his own Tyrant and Persecutor and he that suffers by afflicting his Body and contending with infamous pleasures by conquering his Passions and Subduing his Lusts by humbling his Pride and stifling in his Breast the desire of Riches and Honours may very well boast himself to be in the list and number of these Illustrious Heroes whom God was pleased to honour with Martyrdom in the first ages of Christianity and then received them into his Eternal Mansions in Heaven which brings me to my last Particular The Reward we purchase by Suffering We shall also reign with him Christianity is a life of Faith and Hope fastned on future Promises which God will accomplish when we have done what he appoints us in the interim to do or suffer for we cannot expect that he should satisfie our longing or fulfil our desires to all eternity unless we fulfil his Will for our Time of Trial in this Life we must behave our selves like our forerunner to be worthy of him and gain the victory here on Earth before we Triumph and wear the Crown in Heaven To describe this place express its joys or determine where it is surpasseth the understanding of Man since that very Apostle that seemed to have a glimpse thereof hath left us only a negative Description which neither Eye hath seen nor ear heard nor entred into the heart of man to conceive Let us not then endeavour to search out what God hath thought to conceal Quid animum divinis consiliis minorem fatigas say the Poet Why dost thou vex thy mind with the Decrees of the Almighty beyond thy reach It is Heaven what canst thou know that there is such a place we may assure our selves since Truth it self hath spoken it and in it many Mansions too where our Souls shall receive the full measure and compliment of Happiness being rewarded with the Participation of Christ's Glory and the boundless appetites of those spirits remain cempleatly satisfied In having a full and perfect knowledg and the fruition of the Beatifick Vision Knowledg is mans greatest perfection it distinguishes him from his fellow creatures and makes him to be Lord over them nay it makes a difference between one man and another for by how much the more a man advances in it by so much he is thought worthier and better than another this makes us Toil and Labour in its acquest and willing to increase in sorrow that we may increase in knowledg But what is it we with so much difficulty have acquired 't is no more than that which shall be then a Mole-hill to the greatest Mountain nay a Drop to the Ocean For our greatest knowledg is but the least part of what we are ignorant and Socrates himself said that he knew nothing Here indeed we do but darkly apprehend and can but guess at Causes by their produced Effects for if we endeavour to discover the Motions and Operations of the most inconsiderable creature our understanding is presently gravelled and our strongest reasoning at a stand and we are forced to cry out How unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out But there we shall have a full and perfect knowledg and be able to discern all things in their most Intricate and hidden Causes for our knowledg shall be advanced into a full grown Science and we shall arrive to the perfect Man at the measure of the stature and fullness of Christ Here we like the Spouse in the Canticles seek our Beloved onely in the dark view onely the Picture of his Habitation which is this Visible World behold only his back-parts in the Glass of his Creatures and tast somewhat more of him in his comfortable Ordinances and but sufficient to make us Sick with Love but hereafter we shall see God face to face know him as he is nay as we our selves are known and knowing him we shall know all things for he is all in all Nor shall we only know him as he is but enjoy him too our Happiness shall consist in the Contemplation of his most Divine Perfections which must needs create Pleasures as infinite as themselves that neither trouble nor sorrow shall interrupt for all tears shall be wiped from our Eyes here shall be a perpetual joy without the least mixture of the Gall of Bitterness and continual Praises issuing from our mouthes for the Psalmist says That those that dwell in his House will be still praising him Here the wicked do not approach to hurt us nor the workers of iniquity to do us any harm for the oppressor cannot take away our goods nor the cruel Tyrant deprive us of our lives we being as far above the envy of the one as we are the malice of the other Here a David may enjoy his beloved Jonathan and be for ever free from the Fury and Rage of a persecuting Saul Here pious Souls enjoy what Socrates of old could but wish for the intimate converse of those brave Heroes that have gone before them and Here with Angels and Spirits of Just men made perfect we shall always be celebrating the excellencies of the Divine Perfections in the Beatifick Vision Having an Eye then unto this so exceeding great reward Let us resolve notwithstanding the Malice of Men and Devils faithfully to adhere to this our profession to obey its Precepts of suffering even unto Death with Patience Constancy that at the last our Innocence may break forth as the Lightning and our just dealings as the Noon-day and for this Life of Temporal Sufferings we shall have an Eternal Life of Joy in his prescence where there is fulness of it and at whose right hand there are Pleasures for evermore To which God of his infinite Mercy bring us all through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most due all Honour Glory Praise Might Majesty and Dominion now and for evermore The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all evermore Amen FINIS