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	scripture_n	truth_n	7,532	5	5.8743	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43611	The black non-conformist, discover'd in more naked truth proving, that excommunication, confirmation, the two great Episcopal appurtenances & diocesan bishops, are not (as now in use) of divine, but human make and shape, and that not only some lay-men, but all the keen-cringing clergy are non-conformists ... : also a libel, and answer (thereunto) fitted to every man's case (be it what it will) that is cited to ecclesiastical courts, whose shallow foundation is unbared, and a true table of ecclesiastical court fees, as it was return'd into the star-chamber, Anno Domini 1630, by the ecclesiastical fellows themselves, and compar'd with the statutes : also concerning the unlawfulness of granting licences to marry, Quakers-marriages, folly, as well as other evil consequences of that new law-maxim, viz. that no non-conformists ought to be jury-men : shewing also, that, religion, religion, that should have been the world's great blessing, is become the plague of mankind, and the curse of Christendom ... / by Edm. Hickeringill ...	Hickeringill, Edmund, 1631-1708.	1682 (1682)	Wing H1797; ESTC R22899	136,499	106

but of one ear reserve but one for me unstufft with prejudice and if you had never so lawful a Court I neither need nor require a greater or other favour from you whilst I live But to leave me to them you shall not leave me to them I 'le wash my hands of them God bless me from them I tell you here I 'le not come at them And I would have told you so at Lambeth but I dare not come there neither without your Order and Permission and when I writ to you and the Gentleman I sent ask't you If you would have me to attend you you said No you left all to your under Officers so that I have no other way but this publick way to approach your hand or ear which is I hope a sufficient Apology for this Humble Address of which I trust you will not be an Abhorrer 'T is true these Vncivil-Civilians that make Markets of Souls do but I know truckle under the Clergy for a Livelihood yet they are as petulant to the Clergy as if they were only their Sport or May-game or poor tame Asses fit for nothing so much as to be the Objects of their Wrath and the Subjects of their Affronts and Scorn Thus have I known wanton Jades kick the Hand that fed them and made them fat nay and throw their Masters too when Provant prick't them I Prophesie tho' that I have taken off the keen edge of their onely Toole these Ecclesiastical Fellows work for money with viz. Excommunication with a poor Formality-Priest standing Surrogating in black like at their right hand to see Livery and Seizin given of the Excommunicate Person that is delivered to Satan they shall fight hereafter but with rebated Weapons they are so cruel in their Fulminations and for such Trifles too That ever a Kingdom of Christians should be so long bewitch'd to believe that any can damn them or forgive sins save God onely or that any man has power on earth given him from God to keep others from the Ordinances the means of Grace the Sacraments the Food of Souls and the Bread of Life because they are Sinners Sinners Why there should need no Ordinances nor Sacraments if it were not for Sinners nor did ever any man receive the blessed Sacrament but Sinners all except our Saviour onely The Soul is sick 't is granted more need of Physick and Food The whole have no need of a Physician Nay the first that ever partook of the Blessed Supper if they were Penitents they were soon relaps't For in Luke 22. in the 20th Verse they took it and in the 24th Verse they were no sooner come out from the Holy Feast but they fell a quarrelling and justling for the place and striving it runs in the kind perhaps which of them should be the greatest But the crafty Popish Priests finding that Sinners found the goodness and sweetness of the Blessed Sacrament and long'd for it and they were the onely Stewards of those Mysteries they resolved to make the best benefit of the Stewards place And indeed I have observ'd in some Countries where I have been that when once the Clergy have perceiv'd that their Office was found so mighty necessary they resolve to take the occasion and make their best advantage of it Did the People find comfort in the Bread of Life and also were made to believe that none could Consecrate it but a Priest or Popish Priest Ay quoth the Popish Priest Sinner Do you see Do you see here what I have got in my hands Would you not be glad to have some Nay Hold Stand off Here is the Bread of Life but not a Bit upon a march not a Bit upon the great march and High-way to Heaven though it would save your Soul except you be obedient to your Diocesan nay and swear Obedience to Canons and Laws of Holy Church though you starve and dye for a Bit. He therefore that can make a Sacrament and debarr ad libitum sinners from it may well take the wall of all other Men in Christendom But there is no Scripture in the Old or New Testament that ever I found that ever gave power to any Man Men or Church to debar any Man from the Sacraments that is pleased to come to them for such as were deliver'd to Satan in the Apostles days were therewith kill'd their Flesh was destroyed 'T is true an impenitent Sinner he comes at his own peril if he venture to eat unworthily but 't is not a greater sin to eat unworthily than not to eat at all rejecting of the Ordinance is certain damnation whereas he that eats unworthily makes a hopeful Assay of Obedience to Christ and as he said Lord I believe help my Vnbelief so it is acceptable worthiness to say Lord I endeavor to eat and drink worthily help my unworthiness And as he that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks his own damnation so he that prays preaches or hears unworthily preaches hears and prays damnation to himself Nor need I tell you my Lord that the world is generally mistaken in the meaning of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unworthily better Translated unbecomingly or unsuitably namely to the Institution as when Men make the Sacrament of Christ or take the Sacrament of Christ for no other Cause than a Test or State-Sacrament only making it the Sacrament of a Corporation or of Preferment only to get into a Ship or a Fort or on the Bench. And this Construction of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have in Ephes 4.1 Col. 1.10 Phil. 1.27 1 Thess 2.12 Rom. 16.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as becometh Saints for there is none but Papists that plead the merit of Condignity or that any man is worthy of God or worthy the Gospel otherwise than as endeavouring to walk becomingly and suitably thereto And to back this Interpretation I have the great Le Groot or Grotius on my side a Name that with me out-weighs all the Popish Priests put together We are all Sinners and the Sacrament's made on purpose for us and none but those that have the gift of God of discerning of spirits infallibly by the Holy Ghost as the Primitive Christians had can judge of the truth of any mans Repentance or consequently setch power from the Scriptures to debar men from the holy Ordinances or shut the Church-doors against them I know Priests have made a gainful Trade on 't but abating that By what Authority Divine do they these things and who gave them that Authority I always except the Rubrick in the Common-Prayer Book Sacramenta non sunt Vaenalia Sacraments are too holy to be made Vendible Commodities And if my Child shall not be baptiz'd 'till I have compounded with the Priest whose Religion is No Penny No Pater-noster Nor if I must not come into the Church but be barr'd out 'till I have pleas'd that is paid the Sumner the Register the Proctor and the Court-Fees Good Lord deliver us

Introduction SOME that have thought my Pen already too sharp and smart those especially that have been gall'd sore men where the skin 's off and have therefore long lay'n at catch for somewhat whereby they might accuse me will now good men upon the reading of this Title-Page Hug themselves for joy to see me again treat at this time of day too upon such touchy Subjects and Discourse that a man had need have the dexterity to split a hair that shall handle them pertinently usefully and yet safely and warily Besides a Coxcomb knows not how to write of such deep and high dark and mysterious points of Divinity Law and Policy and none but a Coxcomb say others will speak Truth in this lying coging fawning dissembling perfidious and treacherous Age. So that if I discuss these Arguments never so well and warily yet if I speak out plain and home there 's Piety in 't indeed but where 's the Wisdom and the Policy of it says Sir Politick Would-be And therefore as for the Naked-Tiuth-men tear them rend them fleece them shear them hire Thompson and the Be-Jesuited Heraclitus to Libel them bely and slander them all the Kingdom over hire some Welsh-Taffee of a Hackney-Tongue and Prostituted Conscience with broad staring eyes brim-full of Pride Self-conceit and Fury in all Companies on all Occasions to bespatter them Trepan them Teague them Taffee them and Man-catch them nay if they cannot be Godfreydiz'd nor Arnoldiz'd yet if you can hang them out of the way What should they do living here Make an Example of such fellows as have so little wit as to speak plain Truths in an Age of Hypocrisie Did you never see a Crow or Magottepye sit pecking and cawing crowing and chattering upon an Asses back or a Swines back Why these tame creatures are born for affronts However if they be rich use all Arts and Stratagems imaginable to beggar them that Truth if it will live and walk may yet walk only the length of a Jayl and in a Threadbare-Coat Which puts me in mind of that Jeering Leering old Doggerel Rhithmer that said of old Curia Romana non captat ovem sine lana The Roman-Wolf is no such fool To worry Sheep that have no Wooll Some have antiently render'd it in English thus The Court of Rome does think it brave To Man-catch such as Money have If any man think my style too Jocular and Airy for the gravity of a Divine and so grave a Subject let such busie Censurers use their own Lumpish Dumpish grave way and lull themselves and their Readers asleep and so get applause beyond the fame of Opium whil'st this facetious I was going to say this Erasmus his way of writing catches the Reader gently and insensibly making him a Captive Volunteer and once entred he knows not how to desist though call'd away by business hunger or sleep What has any man to do with my way of writing I do as little care as I have little cause to hope for a Plaudite let Fame-catchers mind their stops their cadences and their periods I hate Affectation as much as I do Hypocrisie or the Vulgar I 'le follow my own humor my Genius and Inclination that which is most natural is most to the life and I had rather please my self than any man alive let Knaves and Slaves and Pimps and Sycophants cringe and skrew their faces after the fashion the French mode or after the fashion of others and Pimp for Preferment I need none I am a plain free English-man that love my Country and my Countries welfare beyond their applause I had almost said or mine own repose and so God willing I 'le live and die Yet not to vapour too much of my Publick Spirit I must confess the Naked Truth on 't what if the publick-weal be gratified by any thing here writ not I but the men of Doctors-Commons merit the thanks For I am by my temper complexion choice and inclination of a retir'd Genius I hate the crowd a noise a stage or to be pointed at or to appear in publick but especially in Print though thank my fate it falls out otherwise of late and contrary to my beloved obscurity Yet this I can truly say in my just Apology that I never appear'd in Print of late years but as I was hall'd hurried and irritated by men that never yet medled with me but to their hurt But malice like Murder and Gunpowder will break out as it did on this occasion which forc'd me in my own defence thus to take the length of their Sword I mean their weapon their only and none-such weapon Excommunication Which might have slept for me in the peaceful Scabbard but that four or five Lay-Elders four Lay-Doctors of the Canon-Law and a Lay-Register drew it upon me a Divine the last week Bless me thought I here 's courage with a witness for Lay-men to attack a Spiritual person and at his own Spiritual-weapon too Excommunication And all this Delivery to Satan without the least fair Warning to bid me stand to my Arms shift for my self and stand upon my Guard against the foul Fiend The best on 't was I was not so soon Thunderstrook with Excommunication for a Nonne-no but I was sooner Absolv'd namely within half an hour and less after I first heard of it but not without delivering my Purse for the delivering to Satan by Excommunication together with the delivery from Satan by Absolution in Doctors-Commons cost me a Guiney not to dissemble the matter neither more nor less I believe I shall love a Guiney for this trick if it be but for this vertue inherent in it the better as long as I live Old Poets tell a Tale of Charon the Ferry-man of Hell that wafts men thither over the dismal River Styx but he makes them pay Ferriage a Naubum in Scotch money Sex pennies or a Baubee in English two farthings for fraight but what they paid for being Sculler'd back again is not in the Book of Rates I suppose because 't is needless for Charon's boat is always empty of Passengers back again They tell a tale of no man that ever return'd from Hell except one Bag-piper called Orpheus and all may be but Fiction But I tell you a real Truth and that every man knows to be true the Trade is currant and setled long ago first by the Pope betwixt himself and the Devil and a brisk Trade there has been between the Devil and him though of late somewhat decay'd and the price of Souls to the Devil and Hell and back again is much lower'd of late days though three hundred times better and more advanc'd than what it was in Charon's time for the Pope I say really and truly without a Fiction I know it to my cost to be true made himself the real Ferry-man of Hell and though he did not carry Souls thither always himself as did his Predecessor Charon yet he sent them thither by his Emissaries for

the old Garment of the Church was not of one colour but wrought about with divers colours St. Peter of one judgment and St. Paul of another The Samaritans would not receive Jesus Christ whereupon James and John were clearly for an Inquisition Fire and Fagot to consume them Luke 9.54 55 56. But the Lord of life rebuked them and told them They knew not what manner of spirit they were of for the Son of man came not to destroy Mens Lives but to save them What 's worse then for Nursing Fathers to become Saturns and devour their own Off-spring Let Magistrates rather imitate God that sends his Rain upon the just and unjust the Sun shines on Dunghils as well as Gardens Yet some Men are so hardned to Folly herein that they will not be taught no not by their own Mistriss Experience woful Experience the Mistriss of Fools Did not the Spaniard lose the Vnited Provinces of Holland c. by forcing Men to Popish Vniformity with Fines Jayles Confiscations or the Inquisition Eating up God's People as they eat Bread and making God's House that should be an House of Prayer a Den of Thieves And are not the said Vnited Provinces by the contrary Arts and Politicks of Latitude and Comprehension become the great Arcenal of Arts and Arms and the great Mart not only of Europe but of the whole world And the Blood and Ruine that those Draco's Laws writ in blood by the High-Commission Court Jayles and Pillories caus'd in England is too fresh in most Mens memories to need repeating Thus the Spaniard converts the Americans forcing them to Heaven upon pain of death Nor could all the Art of Man or Rome to this day find any medium or middle way betwixt Freedom and Force betwixt Liberty of Conscience and an Inquisition in Spain For Force is force though severer in some places more than other and is but the Inquisition in Characters or Short-hand they are of the same Nature begot and made of the same Principles and malus Cervus malum Ovum a good Bird cannot come of an ill Egg. But Solomon says Bray a Fool in a Mortar yet will not his Folly depart from him as if he should say Fools must be beaten to 't like the Wives of Moscovy before they be good Go Wise-men go go make the Stars of Heaven all alike uniform and of equal bigness light and influence with your Projects for Vniformity or play the Taylors and cut out a Coat of uniform shape daily to fit the Moon from day to day But let fierce and fiery Persecutors of all that are not uniform like their Infallibilities hug themselves and hug one another in the laudable employment of an Executioner undaunted with the fatal success of Nero's Dioclesians Julian's the Apostates and all such in all Ages none whereof so sure is Divine Vengeance entail'd upon them without so much as one Exception in the Horrid Rubrick ever escaped dismal Exit's whil'st every honest Man amongst us will no more fear to act than to suffer with a Courage that becomes a Christian and an English-man Read a Prophesie of the nature and downfall of the High-Commission-Court Inquisition or Persecution in Luke 12.45 46. Time was when Athanasius himself was cry'd down for an Heretick For Truth can subsist comfortably amongst Christians in the absence and want of outward Peace But neither outward nor inward Peace can subsist long amongst Christians in the absence and want of Truth Of old English-men could praise God some secundum usum Sarum some secundum usum Bangor as every one liked best and no quarrel about the matter The Cope then and Surplice we see should still by the Act of Vniformity be retain'd amongst us but only at the Celebration of the Holy Communion in King Edw. VI. time commonly called the Mass and are the very garments the Popish Priests wear at this day whilst they say Mass But you do not hear me say as one rashly did That the English shov'd the Pope out of Doors so hastily that he had not time to take his Garments with him Nor yet with the Brain-sick Bishop of London bloody Bonner jearing when he heard that we had retain'd some of the Romish Ceremonies and Weeds said So so they have begun to tast of our Broth and in time they 'l eat of our Beef But 't is so fat larded and luscious that he must have an Ostrich-stomack a raving Boulimy or the Canine-appetite and hungry Feaver than can swallow all that comes as most people do without chewing God bless us from such London Bishops for they have been ominous sometimes Thus have I at mine own peril without faith or hope in any man's assistance for there are few men of Truth or friends to Truth or true friends in this World of Flattery and Hypocrisie but only by the assistance and infused courage from God alone have I made this bold Adventure to tell bold Truths such as no man else either did or durst to charge all the cringing Clergy with Non-Conformity that use to be so washpish stinging and stingy against Non-Conformists For now they 'l be sensible that at the same time that they roar out Anathema's against all Non-Conformists and egg on every little Jury-man and Church-Warden to Present them they do with the same out-stretched jaws and open mouth publish their own Doom and Sentence themselves amongst the rest And is it not just that quarrelsome men that love to be dealing Blows amongst the quiet Neighbourhood should meet with some rugged Counter-Buffes when the old man is too much provok't We see 't is some Priviledg to sin in good Company in the Company of Singing-boys Singing-men Bishops Canons Prebends petty Canons and Cathedral-men especially when they are not only great but cruel and fierce to mark what is done amiss nay and to strike too if it were not for fear of hitting themselves Gramercy Charity or rather self-love which last I usually look't upon as a Weed and so it is but I see it is good for something nay more medicinal and has more vertue in it we see than some mens charities Then Charity Hussy stand off keep your ' loof and your distance all you could do for Dissenting-Judgments hitherto has come to nothing what prevailing Rhetorick can there be in cold Charity especially this Frosty Weather And come hither my dear my dear self-love Gramercy self-love for thy sake alone Non-Conformists shall be hereafter more conniv'd wink'd at and embrac't The mercies of the wicked are cruelty but the self-love of the wicked is their only charity and the only remedy against their cruelty Blessed be God for I have found it true by frequent repeated and multiplied experience that the more opposition and rage I have been expos'd to by the malice and cruelty of wicked and revengeful men the more extraordinary assistance I have had from God in some remarkable unexpected and strange Providence No man of my Quality having been more oppos'd

and no man of my Quality m●…e Blest and Protected depressa resurgo says the Palm-tree more weight more ●…ght like Israel the more they were afflicted the more they grew God give a blessing to my poor endeavours to do much good if at least they have but so much vertue as Common Ink to allay the spreading venom of such Ring●…ms whose fingers itch to be at it in the Portugal and Spanish-mode of Inquisition and Persecution which has made a Desolation Rebellion Poverty want of Trade and Depopulation in those Countries rather than any great Conversion how Hypocritical soever to the Roman Faith But ye fools when will ye be wise saith holy David Psal 94.8 as if he should say Will you ne'r be good 'till you 're beaten to 't with your own rods Go to and let men of little and narrow Souls uncapable of any love or regard to the publick good and their Countries welfare smile at the Improvidence of such as like Lamps and Torches waste scorch and consume themselves to enlighten others And if the Cathedral Highflyers or any Bishops be offended that I have thus publickly rebuk't before all their publick transgressions and defiance of the Act of Vniformity in the said Illegal Rites and Ceremonies they may in part thank the peevishness and frowardness of some that occasion'd it irritated perhaps thereunto by that old inveterate and everlasting piece of malice and hatred S. J. S. who has always though always in conclusion to his own shame and loss endeavour'd to set men upon me by getting false Calumnies and Slaunders invented in his hollow and canker'd Breast to which one-ear'd men giving credit and therewith also prejudic't and pre-possest and knowing my Spirit and Temper not over-patient to bear Affronts he knew there would be what he labour'd for a Quarrel I know it is a Devilish thing and the very daily work of the Devil to devise wicked imaginations and with a proud look lying tongue hands ready to shed innocent Blood and feet that be swift in running to mischief to be a false witness that speaketh lies only to sowe discord amongst Brethren And are the six or rather seven things that are abomination to the Almighty Prov. 6.16 17 18 19. Yet he that created Light out of Darkness and life preservation to Israel ought of the malice of Joseph 's Brethren in selling him to the Gypsies and unity and amity to his people by mens Differences and Dissentions can and I hope will create beauty and order out of our Confusions Chaos Disorders and Discords and out of the eater bring forth meat and out of the strong sweetness and Truth and Light from the Collisions Interferings and mutual strikings of the hardest and blackest Flints Thus the contentions of Paul and Barnabas tended by their Parting and Dissentions to the more nimble Propagation of the Naked Truth Therefore be not all of a flame like that fiery-fac'd bloody Bishop Bonner against all Dissenters and Non-conformists Bandying and Ecchoing the word Heretick Heretick at one another and to and again For the servant of the Lord should not strive should not be a Jupiter Altitonans a Boanerges all for consuming and destroying with fire from Heaven or Earth ye know not what manner of spirits ye are of A Bishop should not be a striker 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is no Persecutor no striking at second hand signifying and giving aim to the Magistrate where and whom and when to strike as well as no Gladiator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a litigious Informer former nor Promoter but a stranger to Law-Suits and Contentions as Plaintiff especially either through covetousness in hopes thereby to enrich themselves by beggaring their Brethren like the said old Bonner that seem'd to be in Fee with the Gaolers and the Hangman But bid farewel to the plum'd Troops and the big Wars that make Revenge vertue but in patience forbearance temperance and in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves or are Non-Conformists concluding as I will with wise Gamaliel that even for your own sakes ye ought to take heed to your selves what ye intend to do as touching these men Act. 5.35 38 39 40. And now I say unto you Refrain from these men and let them alone For if this counsel or work be of men it will come to nought But if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it lest haply ye be found even to fight against God And to him they agreed Discite Justinian moniti non temnere Divos Omnia cum liceant non licet esse pium Take warning whilst you may and dread Heavens Rod Do not with Gyant-Force brave the Great God Shall he that checks sin have for Tears more Cause Than those Suborning Pimps that break the Laws In Dangers Cowards Bold at Heaven to strike Are these true English-men Tories more like A True Table of all such FEES as are Due or can be Claimed in any Bishops-Courts in all Cases As they were Given in to the Commissioners of His Majesty King Charles I. Nov. 1630. By the Commissaries Registers Proctors c. under their own Hands in the Star-Chamber Necessary to be known by all Persons liable to be Concerned in the said Bishops-Courts 'T IS no part of the Scope of the ensuing Table to debate the Legality Expediency or Inconveniency of those Courts and Jurisdictions commonly called Spiritual or Ecclesiastick as they are now managed Nor whether the Persons that hold them and grant forth Citations in their own Names and Stiles and not in the KINGS do not thereby Incur the Penalty of a Praemunure But its Business is to Present you with an Exact Copy of their FEES as they were stated by themselves to certain Commissioners appointed by King Charles I. to Inspect them Nov. 1630. which Table being long since stifled as much as in them lies it is thought fit to Re-print the same from the Original first Printed Anno Dom. 1631. In cases of Instance that is between Party and Party To the Comissary To the Register To the Apparitor   s. d. s. d. d.   IMprimis For Decreeing the Original Citation and for Sealing of it 00 06 00 06 00   Item For Decreeing the Original Citation in a Matrimonial Cause with an Inhibition and for Sealing of it 01 00 01 00 00   Item For the Decree of every Party principal 00 09 00 09 00   Item For every Decree V●is Modis 00 09 00 09 00   Item Only at the Release For every Excommunication or Suspension in Writing 00 09 00 09 04   Item For every Absolution from an Excommunication or Suspension 00 09 00 09 04   Item For Letters Testimonial to be made upon a Search or any other Cause 06 08 06 08 00   Item For the Oath of every Witness upon any matter 00 00 00 00 02   Item For Examination of every First Witness upon any matter 00 09 00 09 00   Item For Examination of