Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	know_v	receive_v	world_n	7,869	5	5.0949	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66419	A sermon preached July 26, 1685 being the day of publick thanksgiving appointed by His Majesty for the late victory over the rebels, in the parish-churches of St. Mildred's Poultrey, and St. Ann's Aldersgate : published in vindication of that, and the author / by John Williams ...	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1685 (1685)	Wing W2726; ESTC R7297	12,118	36

all good Order and Government Peace and Unity in the World doth so much derogate from the Honour of Gods Providence and his Religion doth so much pervert the Tempers of men that it must needs be very hateful to him who is a God of Truth Equity and Order and so can no more like than he can need such Conclusions and Practices And consequently the Persons holding such Principles and engaging in Practices issuing from and conformable to them must also be the Objects of his heavy Displeasure But it may be said Where is this Principle to be met with and where are the Persons that do hold and defend this Principle This is to be resolved in the last General Which is IV. To shew the Prevalency of this in the Christian World And here I could wish I had nothing further to say but that as no Religion has more discountenanced such Prineiples and Proceedings than the Christian so no Nations nor Persons had more discountenanced the thing than those that have professed it but it is too notorious to be dissembled For that there have been Rebellions against and Depositions of Princes Dissolutions of Governments taking and breaking of Oaths and other things apparently evil of that and the like kind done to serve a Cause a Party or a Church is no Mystery now-a-days And if any one lacks to be inform'd I had rather at the present he should receive it from the Publick Records in which those things are deposited than from me All I pray is That at length the Christian World may understand their Religion better and their secular Interest less or that they would see it to be their best and truest Interest to be guided by their Religion which teaches the wholsome Doctrine of being subject to the higher powers and that they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Rom. 13.2 And as in the Text That we must not do evil that good may come And according to this Principle of the Apostle that it was unlawful and damnable to do evil that good may come did our Saviour Christ and the Christians of the Primitive Church proceed None ever had a Power greater than our Saviour to confound and destroy his Enemies nor a better end to serve and which he died to accomplish and yet he did not use that power when urged by the Apostles to command Fire from Heaven to consume those that would not receive him but rebuked them and said Ye know not what spirit ye are of Luk. 9.54 55. And the Primitive Christians though so desirous of professing and propagating their Religion that they cheerfully laid down their Lives to bear witness to it and that the World might see they followed not cunningly devised Fables yet never made use of any Secular Power to defend it or themselves when not without it but like Moses endured all things as seeing him who is invisible and that knew when God thought fit and the fulness of his time was come that Truth should over-power all manner of opposition whatsoever And in Conformity to this are the Confessions of Faith in all the Protestant and Reformed Church●s from which there can nothing be drawn that will justifie Opposition or Rebellion against Civil Authority but they expresly declare against it And if any particular Persons amongst them as there are have defended it we know from whence they fetched their Artillery I mean their Arguments and whither they went to sharpen their Weapons And I may say That generally speaking they have acted according to those Principles of Submission in all lawful Things to Superiours and of making no hostile opposition to them So it was in our Nation when Queen Mary was a known Member of the Roman Church yet the Protestants first joined with her against the Lady Jane Grey who was invested with the Title of Queen and was a Protestant And in France the Protestants joined with Henry the 3 d of another Religion and supported him against the League of those that were of his own Perswasion And this particularly is the avowed Doctrine of the Church of England in all its Articles and Homilies at large Three of which are against Rebellion From all which we may understand what Enemies they are to our Religion as well as the Publick Peace that do proceed upon the Principle of doing evil that good may come and that so they set up Religion care not what they do nor what disparagement they bring upon that as well as Injury to the Publick And what to think of those that were animated to the late Rebellion amongst us so happily quelled by this pretence It is evident I think that the chief of them had other Things in their Eye and that it was not so much Religion as Ambition or Revenge or the avoiding punishment for other Crimes c. that instigated them hereunto But if we allow the Reason to be true and not fictitious yet it is not good nor sufficient as I have shewed And we have therefore Reason to bless God that he hath prevented as well the propagating this principle by their success as the Blood-shed and Confusion that would have ensued and the Rebellion and Contention that would otherwise have prevailed with it if not been entailed upon these Nations We have indeed deserved that God should thus punish us whom Plague and Fire and other Judgments have left for the most part unreformed And therefore so much the greater Reason have we for the Blessing of God that he has yet had Mercy for us and that he has rather taken up the Rod to affright us than to destroy us that we may yet sit under our own Vines and Fig-Trees and enjoy our selves and the Fruit of our honest Labours and Industry and what is more the Gospel in Peace The Lord grant that we be truly sensible of his undeserved Favours and may shew our Thankfulness by our Loyalty to our Prince Stedfastness to our Religion and the Holiness of our Lives that by our Submission to Authority the Peaceableness and Piety of our Conversations we may bring Honour to God and our Religion If we thus do good we are sure that Good will come of it for the fruit of Righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace FINIS * It should be six or six parts of the Homily