Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A95894
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The picture of Independency lively (yet lovingly) delineated. By John Vicars.
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Vicars, John, 1579 or 80-1652.
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1645
(1645)
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Wing V322; Thomason E273_11; ESTC R212169
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12,106
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16
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Sudent in the Vniversty of Cambridge his Contemporaries there with him have reported and witnessed of him that he ever loved to maintain and defend strange Opinions among them Whereby it seems the man Salamander-like cannot live out of the fire of contention offensive opinions notwithstanding that one of his bewitched pert if not malepert Proselytes most absurdly superciliously falsly called him A great Master in Israel and the best of men How also hath that foresaid Noble Berean I mean Mr. Prynne been yet more lately and more boldly abused by a most scurrillous proud and illitterate poor Pamphlet under the notion or title of Mr. Iohn Lilborne Letter to Mr. William Prynne Wherein how frothily fondly and falsely hath he abused not only precious Mr. Prynne whose Books in point of a Disputant he is most unworthy to bear after Mr. Prynne wilfully mis-reciting and mis-reporting his Positions point-blank against his words and writings which surely he either read not or understood not as if Mr. Prynne concurred with the Jesuites in a point wherein he is most opposite unto them complaining against the Parliaments just restraint against libellous printing even in his libellous Letter in print before ever it came to Mr. Prynne in writing But also reviling the whole Reverend Assembly of most learned and pious Divines terming them most rudely and unmannerly at least three or four times no better then Black-Cotes and The profest enemies of Christ himself yea and most audaciously daring to censure the most honourable Parliament it selfe both Lords and Commons with dishonourable breach of their Covenant But it hath pleased the most righteous Judge of all men in some measure to meet with the evill of both these most ungratefull Sons of their Mother the Church of God in way of punishment as I for my part cannot but give God the glory so account it the one by just shame in being deservedly thrust out of his Living in London by the Parliament the other by smart receiving a most dangerous wound in one of his eyes by a Pike immediately after his publishing of that most shallow and silly Letter God give them both hearts to lay these things to heart lest a worse thing follow Again if Pride give me leave I pray you without offence still to use the language of Canaan to speak in the dialect of Gods own Holy Spirit which ye seem to delight in if Pride I say and Self-seeking or Self-engagements be not the Spring of al these your most unhappy and unholy contentions with us what then means your most unjust and causelesse Schisme and separation from us and disdaining to joyn and communicate in holy Ordinances and Assemblies with us putting your selves into an unwarrantable way of gathering peculiar Churches out of Churches to your selves falling point-blank upon that complaint and crimination of palpable Schisme which I admire ye see not and ingenuously acknowledge not even to this day but most obstinately and wilfully I fear run on in which the Apostle Paul himself so complains of viz. That one is of Paul another of Apollo and another of Cephas So ye one is of Dr. Holmeses another of Mr. Goodwins and another of Mr. Lockyers Congregation the very same thing ye see that the holy Apostle Paul himself there complains of even thus as much as in you is to divide and rend Christ himself a sunder By this means also making and esteeming every particular Congregation yea every particular Saint of yours as ye eal them a true and entire Church as Mr. D. one of your Independent Brethren holds and publickly teaches to every of whom equally ye say the Keyes belong and I think by this rule to the Women-Saints as well as to the Men-Saints not being subject to any appeale or coercive-power other then your own no nor to admit of any counsell or advice from other Congregations further then ye please to ask and entertain it your selves Now if such an uncough Chaos and strange Church-way as ye call it as this is should be admitted over this whole Kingdome O I tremble to think and conceive what a Humano capiti cervicem jungere equinam c. as the Poet Horace or what a Monstrum horrendum informe ingens c. as Virgil this would prove in short time And yet you our most improvident Dissenting Brethren call and count this only Christs way and your Selves only that run in it of Christs Kingdome excluding all other Christians very many of whom every way else as godly and gracious as your selves and by some of your own learned more moderate Independents even your five Apologists themselves held to be a true Church of Christ and to have a true Ministry yet shutting out I say all these Christians from Christs kingdome even as the profest enemies thereof and accounting them and their innocent bubes and children no better then Ethnicks and Pleatheus whom ye will by no meanes admit into your Assemblies or Congregations to partake of the precious Ordinances of life and salvation Baptisme and the Lords Supper if they will not joyn with you in your Church-way and take your unwarrantable and unscripturall formall-Covenant invented by your selves or if they be poor and cannot help to support with their purses your Congregationall-way I speak but what I know herein and can produce my testimonies Tell me I beseech you where in all the whole Book of God from Genesis to the Revelations Separation from Christian Brethren every way as good and godly as your selves is either commended or communded And if ye are not able as to this day ye never were nor ever can to make this clear unto us Then how dare ye thus obstinately and causelessely separate from us into Corners and Chambers and I know not what private and unwarrantable Assemblies Whereas we can most plentifully prove yea your own consciences cannot but check and chide you for the contrary namely how clearly it is the will of God that Christian Unity and Society be maintained Witnesse that especially among many other full Texts of Scripture for it of the Apostle Ephes 4.1 2 3 4 c. I therefore Paul the prisoner of the Lord beseech yet that you walke worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called With all lowlinesse and meeknesse with long-suffering forbearing one another in love Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace For there is one body and one Spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling One Lord one Faith one Baptisme one God one Father of all who is above all and through you all and in you all Together I say with very many other most pregnant Scriptures to this purpose How then O my Brethren dare ye do these things except it be by that most destructive and pernicious plea for Liberty of Conscience which ye so urge and cry up and cry out for to do what ye list in pretended matters of conscience vehemently urging
be the reason of this unreasonable and irreligious contending to divide Christs seamlesse-Coat wherein indeed our Dissenting Brethren shew themselves far worse then the Christ-crucifying Souldiers for the pretended fringe sake thereof What 's the cause hereof I say if it be not too much of that knowledge which puffeth up and too little of that love which edifieth Do ye think my Brethren that Men and Women given to strife contentions envyings malitiousnesse hypocrisie lying pride covetousnesse and such like being fruits of the flesh and sinnes exceeding sinfull in Gods sight Col. 3.5 6 7 8 9. Tit. 3.2 3. shall not be shut out of Heaven as certainly as those given to swearing drunkennesse murther whoredome and such like more open enormities For shame then my Brethren forbear any longer to bear-up your meer opininions with such an unfriendly feud and irreconcileable rancour strife and contention What had ye rather that three famous and lately flourishing Kingdomes nay Christs Kingdome it selfe as much as in you is should be ruinated destroyed for a Kingdom or Church divided within it self sayes our blessed Saviour cannot stand than that your hitherto unproved opinions should by you be left and laid down What must ye be Caesars or nothing Had ye rather lose Peace and Truth too then Victory May not the mocking and revyling Royalists at Oxford and the Malignant scoffers at London yea the Atheists and Papists too every where else justly jeer us both and in derision tell us the King and his party know not what to grant us since we thus agree not among our selves and know not what should be granted unto us Nay may not the King of Heaven the Lord our God himself deny us the mercies which we hitherto have had great hopes he intends to bestow upon us when we his children like unthankfull as I toucht before and wrangling wantons fall out among our selves about a too-bold choice fitted only to our own fancies and will have this or that or none at all Must Beggars I say be their own carvers both for the time and thing or else they will frampally flye in their Brothers faces O where is that pious pull-back of holy Abraham to Lot Let not us fall out together for We are Brethren Object But here I know ye will object and tell us But Christ in the times of the Gospel came not to send peace on the earth but a sword and to set men at variance one against another the father against his child and the daughter against her mother c. Mat. 10.34 Answ I but let me answer therein ask you this question What sword was this which this blessed Prince of Peace brought into the world in the times of the Gospel was it a sword of strife and contention of variance and vitious discord of one godly and Christian Brother against another of the godly father against his pious childe of the truly religious daughter against her godly mother No certainly no such matter but of the godly father against the ungodly son of truly vertuous children against obstinately irreligious carnall parents only in this sense as I take it that those of a mans own house should be his utter enemies But in the other sense and to the other sort of godly Brethren and truly pious Christians among themselves even his Disciples and Saints 't is I believe and ought to be far otherwise O here sayes our Saviour Peace I leave you my peace I give unto you John 14.27 This indeed was the great and everlasting Legacy which Christ before his death bequeathed to his children set the mark of Love upon them to be known to be his Disciples And therefore in this respect let me advise you my Brethren to take great heed lest by your unjust jarres ye come too near the number and nature of those to whom our Saviour prenounces a Woe for offending any of his innocent and peaceable Little-ones of the Presbyterian-party his undoubted beloved ones for though as Christ fayes offences may and must or will come Matth. 10.7 yet take heed ye be not those as I fear ye are by whom these offences do come For believe it my Brethren ye give us too great cause to set a mark upon you Rom. 6.17 for raising and causing such unjust divisions and offences among us to wish ye had all kept in New-England Holland still then thus to come among us to molest our at first so hopefull and happy peace and reformation as ye have done ever since ye came over to us Only herein we may and must see the hand of God sorely upon us in thus raising you up who we hoped would and should have been a mighty help unto us to help to whip us for our former unworthy walking and to be no small means to keep off the enjoyment of powerfull and pure ordinances longer then we expected But though thus ye will so inconsiderately and indeed so unchristianly still retain your ungrounded opinions in your selves yet will ye not at least endeavour with us to maintain the grounds of publick peace and christian-Christian-unity and unanimity of spirit against the Common Adversary but thus discover your impatient nakednesse for the scoffing Chams of the Kingdome to deride and detest us both and all I say by your unkinde and causelesse quarrels with us truly my Brethren if thus ye wil unbendingly persist to prefer your own wils before Gods will and way which is godly love communion not unwarrantable wrangling confusion then take heed I beseech you lest ye too justly fall into the compasse and capacity of the generation of those men who as Solomon sayes Prov. 30.12 are pure in their own eyes and yet are not washed from their filthinesse And who as the Lord himself sayes by the Prophet Esay 2.5 walk in a way that is not good even after their own thoughts who say unto their Brethren stand by your selves come not near unto us for we are bolier than ye Truly my Brethren if these Scriptures be not exceeding nearly yea most punctually and properly applyable to you to what end is your so wilfull and obstinate separation from us to your own so pretended pure Congregationall waies and Church Assemblies not admitting any other of your Christian Brethren to joyn with you nor you by any means willing to joyn or continue with them but as I said before counting them mark this and their children as unholy Heathens hereby saying thus much in effect Stand by your selves for we are holier than ye Be not I pray displeased at the words for they are Gods own words not mine nor with the comparison or resemblance for ye easily see how peculiarly appliable it is to you not unto us for we desire most cordially your incorporation and communion with us and it behoves you as I toucht before who have first made the breach and most unkindly and as we conceive most unjustly separated and departed from us with all Christian humility and godly self-denyall to return unto us and so to repair and make-up the sad and bad breach ye have made between us Which that it may be so that so we may with holy David in a heavenly harmony of hearts and voyces sing out a loud and lovingly Behold how good and joyfull a thing it is Brethren to dwell together in Vnity It is and shall be the sincere and incessant prayer of Your Christian Brother J. V. Imprimatur Ja. Cranford FINIS