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	true_a	truth_n	7,323	5	5.7216	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44693	A sermon on the much lamented death of that reverend and worthy Servant of Christ Mr. Richard Adams, M.A. sometime fellow of Brazen-Nose Colledge in Oxford, afterwards, minister of St. Mildred Breadstreet, London, more lately, pastor of a congregation in SOuthwark, who deceased Febr. 7th, 1697/8 preached, February the 20th, 1698 / by John Howe.	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1698 (1698)	Wing H3039; ESTC R15457	15,888	56

Mr. HOWE 's SRERMON On the DEATH of Mr. RICH. ADAMS A SERMON On the much Lamented DEATH OF THAT Reverend and Worthy Servant of CHRIST Mr. Richard Adams M. A. SOMETIME Fellow of Brazen-Nose Colledge in Oxford Afterwards Minister of St. Mildred Breadstreet London More lately Pastor of a Congregation in Southwark Who Deceased Febr. 7 th 1697 8. Preached February the 20 th 1698. By JOHN HOWE Minister of the GOSPEL LONDON Printed by S. Bridge for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers-Chappel 1698. To Mrs. Anna Adams Widow and Coll. John Adams Brother to the Deceased Mr. Richard Adams My Honour'd Friends DEath is too common a Theam and too obvious to our Sense to be thought strange any more than that we live But that the Course of our Life as to the Rise Progress and Period of it is at the dispose of one common Lord of all because it belongs to a Sphere above Sense is little considered by the most To you I doubt not it s far from being a new or unfamiliar Thought And thereupon that the Precious Life you have lately seen Finished was measured by Him who could not therein be unkind to him who is gone or to you who stay behind We do indeed Tempt our selves if we expect from his kindness unreasonable Things As that he should to Gratify us alter the Course of Nature or recal the Vniversal Commission of Death or only let it stand in force with an Exception as to our selves our Relatives and Friends or that he should tear his own most inviolable Constitutions by which the present State is to be but Transitory and the future the only fixed State which were to subvert the whole frame of Religion to nullify the design of Redemption to take down his Tribunal to abolish and lay aside all thoughts of a Judgment to come and finally to make the Kingdom of His dear Son to terminate in a Dunghil While no such wish hath place with you your Reconciliation is easie to the Providence that hath for the present bereaved you of so delectable a Relation And the Love of God which prevailing in you will prompt you to compliance with his will must be the evidence of your title to the best Blessings of both Worlds For both the things in the other State the Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard c. And the Concurrent Operation of all things for good in this present State do all belong to Persons of the same Character The Lovers of God 1 Cor. 2.9 Rom. 8.28 Which that you may constantly and fully experience to the end and in the end is the serious Prayer for you of Your very Respectful and Affectionate Servant in Christ JOHN HOWE A Funeral Sermon ON THE DEATH OF Mr. Richard Adams PHILIPIANS I. latter part of v. 23. Having a desire to Depart and to be with Christ which is far better The foregoing Words are I am in a straight betwixt two And then it follows Having a desire to depart c. IF you should have no other Subject for your present Consideration than only That one in your Neighbourhood is Lately Dead Even that it self would deserve your very serious Thoughts The Translation of Humane Souls from World to World and out of this Present into their Eternal State is no light Matter and does claim and challenge more serious Thoughts than it is commonly wont to find and meet with Nor does the commonness of such an occasion at all excuse the slightness of Mens Thoughts upon it but rather aggravate it unspeakably more That which we find to be so common and universal a Case we may be sure will shortly be our own And as it is now matter of Discourse with us that such a one is Dead we shall ere it be long according as we have been more or less regarded in the World be a like Subject of Discourse to others But it is a greater Thing when it can be said a Good Man is gone there is a more special Remark to be put upon the Decease of such a one Mark the perfect Man and behold the Vpright the 〈◊〉 of that Man is Peace as Psalm 37.37 There is that Agreement between his Way and his End they are so much of a Piece and do so exactly Correspond a course transacted in a constant Serenity and Peace meeting at length with Peace as the End of it An even course still uniform self-agreeable ever equal to and like it self ending at last in Peace Mark this how he goes off mark such a Life so ending But it yet Challenges more intense Consideration when such a one is taken away from amongst us and the Progress and Period of his Course come to be viewed together whose Life was a continued Series of Labours in the Lords Vineyard from the earlier to the later Hours of his Day when such a one has finished his Course and fought out the good Fight of Faith and is entered into his Rest by the vouchsafement of his indulgent Lord and Master is made to rest from his Labours and receive the Reward of them the Reward of Grace with a Well done good and faithful Servant enter into the Joy of thy Lord And sure it cannot be ungrateful to you to be desired here to stay a little to make a stand and pause and entertain your selves a while with the Consideration of such a Theam and Subject as this Especially it cannot be an ungrateful Contemplation to such as have known the Doctrine and Purpose and Faith and Charity and manner of Life of such a one as the Apostle speaks so as to be told of nothing but what you knew before And so they are not dubious and uncertain Thoughts that you are to employ upon such a Theam you are well assured of the Truth of the Fact and when you know it to be true you cannot but discern it to be very considerable and important Truth and of very great Concernment to you What the Spirit of such a one has been through his whole Course you have a very high Example of in this Blessed Apostle And a Copy has been written out fair after such a Pattern by this lately Deceased worthy Servant of Christ. Besides the many Straights and Difficulties that great Apostle met with in the Course and Current of his Time he meets with this towards the end of it to be in a straight between two and he does not know what to chuse viz. between these two Things The Consideration of what would be the best and most valuable good to himself and the Consideration of what would be the more valuable Good unto the Christian Church and particularly unto these Christian Philippians to whom he now writes He had no doubt at all in the Case but that to depart and to be with Christ would be the best and most valuable Good to himself And it was as little to be doubted of but that his continued abode and stay

been content to have staid longer for Publick Good This speaks so much the more of an Excellent Spirit When Desires are so Fervent after the Purity and Perfection of the Heavenly State that nothing but sincere Devotedness to the Interest of God in Christ could make them patient of longer Abode on Earth 'T is a Respect to God that either draws or detains them nothing but what is Divine inclines them either way Either the Enjoyment of God above or his farther service here below That is an Excellent Spirit that lies under such influences And the higher was the Excellency of such a Man the greater is the Loss of him The more he desired Heaven within such Limits the greater was his Value and with so much the brighter lustre he shone on Earth There is much of God conspicuous in such a Man And it was not a little of him that was observable in this Worthy Person Such a Course as his was that Even Course that Peaceful Course wherein was so eminent Devotedness to God and Benignity towards Man shewed his Spirit was toucht by the one for the other It could not be but by influence from Heaven that he so steadily tended thitherward himself and was only willing to stay so long out of it that he might invite and draw on as many as he could with him thither Hereby he appeared so much the more attempered to the Heavenly State and that World where Divine Love Governs making a Man by how much the more strongly he was attracted himself by it so much the more desirous to attract others It is what such a one has about him of God on Earth that makes him a desirable Thing to us here it is not what Men have of the earthly Spirit but what they have of the Divine Spirit That makes them useful both by their Labours and Examples to this World of ours as was this eminent Servant of Christ. It is a great Thing to have one pass so long continued Course as his was with so equal a temper It is like I may have known him longer than many or most of you that were not related About Fifty Years I remember his Course and our Conversation was not casual or at a distance as that of meer Colleagues chosen by others but as Friends inward and chosen by our selves many a day we have Prayed together conferr'd and taken sweet Counsel together when he was at once an Example and Ornament to his Colledge where he lived Respected and Beloved of all but of them most who most knew him That constant serenity and equality of mind that seriousness that humility wherein he excelled rendered him Amiable to Observers And therewith that industry and diligence that he used in his younger days by which he laid up that great Stock of Learning and Vseful Knowledge that made him when Providence called him to the City a well-instructed Scribe capable and apt to bring out of his Treasury Things New and Old whereof there is and will be a long extant Proof in his judicious and dilucid Expositions of the Epistles to the Philippians and the Colossians which was the Part he bore in the Supplement to that most Useful Work the English Annotations on the Bible by the Reverend Mr. Matthew Pool In the great City he shone a Bright and Burning Light till many such Lights were in one day put under a Bushel I need not tell you what or how black that day was And then though he was constrained to desert his Station he did not desert his Master's Work but still he was with God and God was with him and you know it I doubt not many of you what it was to live under so truly Evangelical a Minister to have Doctrine from time to time distilling as the Dew and dropping upon you such as from which you might perceive how great was his Acquaintance with the Mysteries of Christ In reference to those over whom he had opportunity to Watch it was undoubtedly if it were not their great Fault their very great Advantage As to his Domestick Relations knowing so much of him I cannot but so much the more Lament their loss God vvill I doubt not be the bereaved Widovvs Portion but it ought with tenderness to be consider'd What it was for one Person to lose successively Two such Helps as This her former Husband were who was also in another Vniversity my former and most inward Friend that Worthy Man Mr. Thomas Wadsworth both Eminent Instruments in the Church of Christ. And this has been more eminently Remarkable concerning him that is lately gone that the Relations of the Family to whom he was not Naturally Related the Branches from another Root yet had that apprehension of his Love and Care of them and of their own Loss as to desire this Publick Testimony might from them remain of him that he was to them as tender a Father as if he had been a Natural One such Fathers-in-Law are seldom known and therefore it ought to be mentioned as that which may signify somewhat towards the Embalming of his Memory among you Graces when diffused give their pleasant Relishes to all that any way partake of them What follows was delivered in Writing into my hands to be inserted by a Dear Relation of his His Humility and Self-denial were eminently conspicuous in his taking upon him the Care and Charge of so small and poor a People and continuing with them to the damage of his own Estate though he had considerable Offers elsewhere His Meekness as it was very visible in all his Conversation it was singularly shewed in his bearing and passing by Slights and Affronts even from those he had very much obliged taking off the Resentments that his Friends had of the Injuries of that kind put upon him by Abasing himself saying I 'm an Unworthy Creature I deserve no better His Candour every one was certainly made sensible of who should offer to speak any thing Reflectingly about any Person behind their backs for he was sure to vindicate or lenify in this Case as far as he could When Labours Weakness and Age had work'd out his Strength of Body there was never any thing appeared so manifestly to trouble him as being necessitated to desist from constant Preaching And notwithstanding all Temporal Discouragements he met with in the course of his Ministry his Mind to the very last was to have both his Sons brought up to it During the short time of his last Illness when his Head appeared somewhat disordered in other things by the Pains that were upon him it was observable that he always shewed himself sensible in Hearing or Discoursing about any thing Religious being among other things discoursed with by his Brother about the discharge of his Ministry he answered he hoped he had endeavoured to serve God faithfully and sincerely though he had been an unprofitable Servant About Five hours before his death he said God is my Portion and desired those about him to joyn with him in Prayer wherein he expressed himself very suitably to his Case as a dying Man concluding thus Grant that when this Earthly Tabernacle is dissolved I may be taken to those Mansions not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens As his Life was calm and serene so was his Dying for tho' throughout his Sickness he was all along apprehensive of Approaching death There was no Ruffle upon his Spirit Of which he himself then gave this Account I know in whom I have believed 2. Of Imitation And as such Stroaks when they come ought to be Lamented They that by such Stroaks are taken away ought to be Imitated The Example remains you have the Idea left you know how such a one Lived how he Walked how he Conversed with his Family how he Conversed with you as he had occasion That Excellent Spirit he discovered in all how much of an Imitable Example has it given to all those that are capable of Imitating and Receiving Instruction that way 3. Of Satisfaction But it ought also to have the effect of Satisfaction in the Divine Pleasure When such a Blow as this comes do not repine Peacefully submit tho' it carry smartness and severity with it You ought to feel it but yet notwithstanding to receive it with Submissive Silence to be dumb and not open your Mouths remembring who hath done it and that it is the disposal of Wisdom that cannot Err as well as of Power that cannot be resisted and of Kindness and Goodness that has its Gratefulness to this departed Servant of His. For consider that notwithstanding his Willingness to have staid longer if his Lord whose he was and whom he served had thought fit Yet this could not but be his Habitual Sense To desire to depart and to be with him which was far better And if Christ be pleased and he be pleased why should we be displeased This was the Will of Christ declared by his Word as to the thing Joh. 17.24 Father I Will that those that thou hast given me be with me where I am to behold my Glory And declared by the Event as to the time And his will both because it was Christs and because it was best Who are we that we should oppose our Will to so kind a Will on Christ's part and so well-pleased a Will on his part Or that a Dissatisfaction should remain with us as to what there is with Christ and him so entire Satisfaction FINIS Here follows some SERMONS and DISCOURSES which was written by the late Deceased Mr. Rich. Adams viz. THAT in the Morning-Exercise at St. Giles's SERM. XXVI of Hell from Matthew 25 th Verse 41. In the Supplement to the Morning-Exercise SERM. XVII What are Duties of Parents and Children from Colossians the 3 d. Verses 20 21. In the Continuatio● of the Morning-Exercise SERM. XXII How may Child-bearing Women be most encouraged and supported from 1 Tim. 2. Verse 15. Sen. Trag.