Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	kingdom_n	zeal_n	zealous_a	25	3	8.8937	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52055	Smectymnuus redivivus Being an answer to a book, entituled, An humble remonstrance. In which, the original of liturgy episcopacy is discussed, and quæries propounded concerning both. The parity of bishops and presbyters in scripture demonstrated. The occasion of the imparity in antiquity discovered. The disparity of the ancient and our moderne bishops manifested. The antiquity of ruling elders in the church vindicated. The prelaticall church bounded.	Smectymnuus.; Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.; Calamy, Edmund, 1600-1666.; Young, Thomas, 1587-1655.; Newcomen, Matthew, 1610?-1669.; Spurstowe, William, 1605?-1666.	1654 (1654)	Wing M784; ESTC R223740	77,642	91

●f Geneva were incorporated into him as this Remonstrant doth And for Spanhemius himselfe we may truly say in the place cited he dilivered a complement rather then his judgement which in Dedicatorie Epistles is not unusuall We know that reverend Calvins and learned Beza have said as much upon occasion in their Epistles and yet the Christian world knowes their Judgement was to the contrary Little reason therefore hath this Remonstrant to declaime against all such as speake against this Government as unlawfull with the termes of Ignorance and spitefull Sectaries because they call the Government unlawfull had they proceeded further to call it Antichristian which he charges upon them they had said no more then what our eares have heard some of their principall Agents their L●gat● à Latere speake publikely in their visitations That howeve● th● Chu●ch of ●ngland be as sound and Orthodox in her Doctrine as any Church in the World yet in our Discipline and Government we are the same with the Church of Rome which amounts to as much as to say the Government is Antichristian unless they will say the Government of Rome is not so nor the Pope Antichrist SECT XVI NOw our Remonstrant begins to leave his dispute for the Office and flowes into the large praises of the Persons and what is wanting in his Arguments for the Place thinks to make up in his Encomiasticks of the Persons that have possest that place in the Church of God and tells us that the Religious Bishops of all times are and have been they that have strongly upheld the truth of God against Satan and his Antichrist It is well he sets this crown only upon the heads of Religious Bishops as knowing that there are and have been some Irreligious ones that have as strongly uph●ld Satan and his Antichrist against the truth of God But the Religious Bishops are they that have all times upheld the truth What they and onely they did never any uphold the truth but a Religious Bishop did never any Religious Minister or Professour preach or write or die to uphold the truth but a Religious Bishop if so then there is some perswasive strength in that he saith and a credulous man might be induced to think If Bishops go down truth will go down to● But if we can produce for one Bishop many others that have been valiant for the truth this Rhethoricall insinuation will contribute no great help to their establishment Nor indeed any at all unlesse he were able to make this good of our times as well as of all others which he assaies for saith he Even amongst our own how many of the reverend learned Fathers of the Church now living have spent their spirits worne out their lives in the powerfull opposition of that man of sin how many I Sir we would fain know how many that there are some that have stood up to beare witnesse against that Man of sin we acknowledge with all due respect to the Learning and worth of their Persons But that their Episcopall dignity hath added either any flame to their zeal or any Nerves to their ability we cannot believe nor can we think they would have done lesse in that cause though they had beene no Bishops But what if this be true of some Bishops in the Kingdome is it true of all are there not some that have spent their spirits in the opposition of Christ as others have in the opposition of Antichrist and are there none bu Zealous Religious Prelates in the Kingdom are there none upon whom the guilt of that may meritoriously be charged which others have convincingly and meritoriously opposed And are there not some Bishops in the Kingdome that are so far from opposing the Man of sin that even this Remonstrant is in danger of suffering under the name of Puritan for daring to call him by that name we doubt not but this Remonstrant knowes there are But if he will against the light of his own Conscience beare up a known errour out of private respects we will not say these papers but his own Conscience shall one day be an evidence against him before the dreadfull Tribunall of the Almighty But there is yet a second thing that should endeare Episcopacie and that is the careful peaceable painfull conscionable mannaging of their Charges to the great glory of God and the comfort of his faithfull people Which in not seeming to urge he urgeth to the full and beyond This care conscience paines of our Bishops is exercised and evidenced either in their Preaching or in their Ruling for their Preaching it is true some few there are that Labour in the Word and Doctrine whose persons in that respect we Honour but the most are so far from Preaching that they rather discountenance discourage oppose blaspheme Preaching It was a Non-preaching Bishop that said of a Preaching Bishop He was a Preaching Coxcomb As for the discharge of their office of ruling their entrusting their Chancellors and other Officers with their visitations and Courts as ordinarily they do whiles themselves attend the Court doth abundantly witnesse their care in it The many and loud cries of the intolerable oppressions and tyrannies of their Court-proceedings witnesse their peaceablenesse their unjust fees exactions commutations witnesse their conscionablenesse in managing their Charges to the great glory of God and the comfort of his faithfull people And hence it is that so many at this day hear ill how deservedly saith this Remonstrant God knows and do not your Honours know and doth not this Remonstrant know and doth not all the Nation that will know any thing know how deservedly Some nay Most nay All the Bishops of this Nation hear ill were it but onely for the late Canons and Oath But why should the faults of some diffuse the blame to all Why by your owne argument that would extend the deserts of some to the patronage of All and if it be a fault in the impetuous and undistinguishing Vulgar so to involve all as to make Innocency it self a sin what is it in a Man able to distinguish by the same implication to shrowd sinne under Innocencie the sin of many under the Innocency of a few But have our Bishops indeed beene so carefull painfull conscionable in managing their Charges how is it then that there are such manifold scandalls of the inferiour Clergy presented to your Honours view which he cannot mention without a bleeding heart and yet could finde in his heart if he knew how to excuse them and though he confesse them to be the shame and misery of our Church yet is he not ashamed to plead their cause at your Honours BARRE Onuphrius-like that was the Advocate of every bad cause and to excite you by Constantines example in a differ●nt Cause alledged if not to suffer those Crimes which himselfe calls hatefull to passe unpunished yet not to bring them to tha● open

Invocation and Thanksgiving when there is one extant and ready to be produced that was constantly used by Gods people ever since Moses dayes and put over to the times of the Gospel and confirmed by Apostolical practise or else great is our losse who are so unhappily deprived of the best improvement the Church made of her peace and happinesse in the first 300. years for rejecting those Liturgies that are confessed by the Learned to bee Spurious we challenge this Remonstrant to produce any one Liturgie that was the issue of those times And blessed Constantine was herein as unhappy as wee who needed not have composed forms of prayer for his Guard to use upon the Lords day but might and would have taken them out of former Liturgies if there had been any And can ye with patience think that any ingenuous Christian should be so transported as upon such weak and unproved premises to build such a Confident conclusi●n as this Remonstrant doth and in that Conclusion forget the state of the controversie sliding from the question of a prescribed and imposed Liturgy to an arbitrary book of prayer In his Rhetorical Encomium of conceived prayer we shall more willingly bear a part with him then they whose cause he pleads for had that been in their hearts which is in this book to hate to be guilty of powring water upon the Spirit and gladly to adde oyle rather so many learned able Conscientious Preachers had not been molested and suspended for letting the constant flames of their fixed conceptions mount up from the altar of their zealous heart unto the throne of grace nor had there been so many advantages watched from some stops and seeming soloecismes in some mens prayers to blaspheme the spirit of Prayer which though now confest to be so far from being offensive that they are as pleasing Musick in the eares of the Almighty yet time hath been when they have sounded as meer Battologies nay no better then meer Blasphemies in the eares of some Bishops And if this conceived prayer be not to be opposed in another by any man that hath found the true operation of this grace in himself with that spirit then are those possest that have not onely thus raged with their tongues against this way of prayer but by sealing up the mouthes of Ministers for praying thus in publike and imposing penances upon private Christians for praying thus in their families and compelling them to abjure this practise have endeavoured with raging violence to banish this divine ordinance from our Churches and dwellings and profest in open Court it was fitter for Amsterdam then for our Churches But howsoever this applause of conceived prayer may seem to be Cordial yet he makes it but a vantage ground to lift up publike formes of sacred Church Liturgy as he calls it the higher that they may have the greater honour that by the power of your authority they be reinforced which work there would have been no need to call your Honours to had not Episcopal zeal broke forth into such flames of indignation against conceived prayers that we have more just cause to implore the propitious aide of the same Authority to re-establish the Liberty of this then they to re-inforce the necessity of that Yet there are two specious Arguments which this Remonstrant brings to perswade this desired re-inforcement the Original and Confirmation of our Liturgy For the first he tels your Honours it was selected out of ancient Models not Roman but Christian contrived by the holy Martyrs and Confessors of the blessed reformation of Religion where we beseech your Honours to consider how we may trust these men who sometimes speaking and writing of the Roman Church proclaime it a true Church of Christ and yet here Roman and Christian stand in opposition sometimes they tell men their Liturgy is wholly taken out of the Romane Missal onely with some little alteration and here they would perswade your Honours there is nothing Romane in it But it is wholly selected out of pure Ancient Models as the Quintessence of them all Whereas alas the original of it is published to the world in that Proclamation of Edward the sixt And though here they please to stile the Composers of it holy Martyrs and contrivers of the blessed Reformation yet there are of the Tribe for whom he pleads not a few that have called them Traitors rather then Martyrs and Deformers rather then Reformers of our Religion His other Argument for the Liturgy is taken from that supply of strength it hath received from the recommendation of foure most Religious Princes and your own Parliamentary establishments and more especially from the Proclamation of King James of famous memory the validity of which plea your Honours are best able to judge and therefore we leave it at your Bar yet these two things we know first that this forme was never established to be so punctually observed so rigorously pressed to the casting out of all that scruple it or any thing in it as many of his Majesties Subjects now doe to the almost justling out of the preaching of the Word and Conceived Prayer altogether And secondly as sure we are that your Honours think neither your own Lawes nor the Proclamation of that most famous and ever admired Prince to be as unalterable as the Lawes of the Medes and Persians And now having briefly shewed that Liturgies are not of that antiquity that this Remonstrant pretends but that conceived prayer was in use in the Church of God before Liturgies and is justified from their own mouthes and not to be found fault with by any but a gracelesse man and having likewise shewed that our Liturgy was taken out of Models not onely Christian but Romane and had since the first compiling of it suffered alteration to the worse and though established by Law and confirmed by Proclamation was never intended to the justling out either of preaching or conceived prayer these things declared we humbly crave your Honours leave to propound these two Queries QUERE I. Whether it be not fit to consider of the alteration of the present Liturgy First because it symbolizeth so much with the Popish Masse as that the Pope himself was willing to have it used if he might but confirme it It was made and composed into this frame on purpose to bring the Papists to our Churches which we finde to be with so little successe as that it hath rather brought many of us to them then any of them to us and hath lost many of ours from us Because many things therein contained are stumbling blocks before the feet of many such as these the clogging it with Ceremonies and the often and impertinent reiterating of the Lords Prayer the ill translation of the Psalmes and other Scriptures the many phrases in the very prayers which are liable to just exception And whereas the Minister by the Scripture is the peoples mouth to God this