Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	life_n	light_n	soul_n	6,880	5	5.1250	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29665	A discovrse opening the natvre of that episcopacie, which is exercised in England wherein with all humility, are represented some considerations tending to the much desired peace, and long expected reformation, of this our mother church / by the Right Honourable Robert Lord Brooke.	Brooke, Robert Greville, Baron, 1607-1643.	1641 (1641)	Wing B4911; ESTC R17972	85,248	148

say if in This Case I give him forty shillings I betray not onely my owne priviledge which perhaps I may do but also the whole Liberty of the Commonwealth and so become in Re a Traytor to t●e State though in it selfe it be lawfull to give forty shillings to any man that askes yet now I must not do it because This officer commands it by unlawfull Authority and so without Commission Not yet that they thinke it necessary to stay disputing the Authority of a Commander there where is no appearance of Ground for a Doubt But if once they see and know the Command is grounded on no lawfull Authority or do but really doubt whether the Power Commanding or the Thing Commanded be Lawfull They conceive themselves bound to abstaine till their judgement be cleared which they professe to desire and by all lawfull meanes to endeavour lest while they doe they be condemned in their owne consciences because they do not act in Faith and what is not of faith is sinne I must leave These Things 'to be discussed by men of better judgements In the meane time I humbly desire againe I may not be mis-understood for it is not in my thoughts to abet the least miscarriage in any one of these poore men nor by any meanes to countenance any of them in a way of exercising those Duties that are too high for their parts and abilities which God hath given them yet if there be any of them that have extraordinary parts and endowments of judgement memory and utterance if God stirre up these to improve their Gifts to the best advantage yet with all meeknesse and humility I dare not condemne them till I heare them for I know the Spirit of God is not tyed to our Fancies but yet the Spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets I take not on me to warrant all the paths which some cut out to themselves Yet I most affectionately intreat men not to contemne all things in those they now brand with their usuall staine of Separatisme which phrase many use in such scorn as if with one stab of that Italian dagger they could run through Body and Soule at once Light was one of the first Creatures and yet not perfected till the fourth Day and perhaps not fully then so was spirituall Light the beginning of Reformation That New Creation yet it was not perfect at first dawning but increaseth still by degrees till it have quite chased away darknesse and there be no more Night All men yeeld there must be an increase of light in the world Now whether That be more probable to be in Doctrine or Discipline judge yee At the first Rising out of Popery the Church-lesse Church of the Albigenses Waldenses Holy Good men began an admirable Reformation This was much advanced by Ierome of Prague and Iohn Hus. Luther had many grosse errours yet must not lose his place among These glorious Lights After these appeareth Calvin shining yet brighter both in Doctrine Discipline Since Him Our God hath raised up a more glorious Light among These Northerne Iles. And yet some went from us lately with a candle burning brighter perhaps than Ours though it were lighted here Thus Light dilating enlarging it selfe seemeth to become more pure more Light more Glorious and yet it seemes not to be Noone The Light still will must cannot but increase why then do we shut our eyes Let it not be said of us that Light came in and grew up among us yet we would not use it for we cannot but receive it because wee loved darknesse Godly men may not onely neglect but abuse light Yea they may both grieve and quench Gods Holy Spirit A sad case yet are they not still in some part Carnall and the Flesh not onely lusteth but warreth against the Spirit We are too too apt to sleight the sweet breathings of Gods Spirit which Hee is pleased to communicate to others when we are destitute of the same Workings Some Christians are as it were wholly legall they Fast they Pray receive Sacraments heare Sermons pay every one his owne live inoffensively This is well done but This is not All yet This they take for enjoying God in Christ Jesus But alas Quantum distat ab illo Non est vivere sed valere vita These men may well be saved hereafter but in the meane time they lose the sweetest part of their life here On the other side if God please to communicate himselfe in any manner of sweetnesse so that a man begins to taste and see how Good Communion acquaintance with God is how easily it is interrupted by loose walking how sweete it is while enjoyed so that it ravisheth the soule and filleth the whole Heart that it cannot but flow out at the Lips in sweete breathings of for and after God in Christ Jesus God in Christ Jesus This man is presently stained with a taint of Madnesse and I know not what Enthusiasme If one that hath tasted and experimentally found the sweetnesse of Peace of Conscience knows how unpossible it is to keep it but by close walking with God how easily it is broken and how hardly it is made up againe when broken so that he is content to leave Friends Living Liberty All rather than to breake his Peace wound his Conscience sinne against God in sinning against Light or acting against Doubts O this man is beyond all Rule of Reason He hath a Tang of Phrensie one puft up with a spirit of selfe conceit a Ranke Separatist But sure it should not be so among Christians Can we not dissent in judgement specially in These lower points of Discipline while we agree in Doctrine but we must also dis-agree in Affection A Hard Case I confesse there are many now that turne the Light of Truth into a Life of Loosenesse vanity and profanenesse and we are all too too prone to This. There are some Enthusiastickes who prophane the Spirit This I would resist with all my might But let not all suffer with the wicked Some without warrant runne away from their callings and take up a bare empty fruitlesse Profession of Christianity without the least dramme of life or power These men my soule hateth But when God shall so enlarge his Hand and unveile his face that the poore Creature is brought into Communion and acquaintance with his Creator steered in all his wayes by His Spirit and by it carried up above shame feare pleasure comfort losses grave and death it selfe Let us not censure such Tempers but blesse God for them So farre as Christ is in us we shall love prise honour Christ and the least particle of his Image in Others For we never Prove our selves true members of Christ more then when we embrace his members with most enlarged yet straitest Affections To This end God assisting mee my desire prayer indeavour shall still be as much as in mee lyes to follow Peace and holinesse and though there may haply be some little dissent betweene my darke judgement weake conscience and other Good men that are much more cleare and strong yet my prayer still shall be to keepe the Vnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace And as many as walke after This Rule Peace I hope shall still be on Them and the whole Israel of God FINIS Object Answ. 1. Answ. 2. Object Answ. 1. Answ. 2. Object Ans● Object Answ. * See 2. Cor. 8.23 Object 1. Answ. Question Acts. 8.4 11 19.

I should exceedingly rejoyce if by the Spirit of Meekenesse men of that Learning and abilities which many of them are might bee reduced to That which I from my Soule conceive to bee truth and am perswaded will be so acknowledged by Themselves one day If these then be their Tenets as I suppose they will confesse them to be Is there any thing more Vnreasonable more Vnbrotherly more savouring of Selfe than These Positions Vnreasonable For allow the Church hath all power in Indifferents which I dare not yet yeeld who hath made the Church a Iudge beyond appeale what is Indifferent Is not this to bring necessary and indifferent things all under one notion If the Church shall judge indifferent things to be necessary and necessary to be indifferent which would to me be a sad story But you will say if the Church bee not the Judge of what is Indifferent who may be That Judge I tell you asking of questions is no answering of difficulties But secondly because I love to deale plainely I will tell you who shall be Judge In expounding of Scripture the Scripture but in finding out what is indifferent Recta Ratio must be Judge But who shall tell us what is Recta Ratio I answere Recta Ratio Will any man if the Church shall judge That to be indifferent which is not say it is indifferent or that my conscience is bound in this case Ex. grat I doe confesse the houre when the Congregation shall meete is indifferent if the Church will appoint hereupon Eleven of the Clock at night and Five in the morning in this Latitude under which we are I hope no man will say but that it is ill done of the Church and that neither my conscience nor my outward man is bound further in This than to a passive obedience certainely all force upon me in this case would be sinne in them But they will say this is a thing in its selfe Vnreasonable and so commeth not into the nature of indifferent thing But the Church having such power as is claimed who may dispute it But secondly this action must be considered either in the universall nature of it or else as it is presently to bee put in practise If you value and ballance it in this last sense nothing is indifferent no substantiall nor circumstantiall Being For we being bound to doe That which hic nunc is best That which is so with the circumstances will be our guide and the Church will have can have no power against This. But if you consider things in the universall nature not cloathed with these and these circumstances then it seemeth to have some Indifferency and then if ever it is in the Churches power and yet even then the Church can goe no further than what will be according to Reason For for a Church to say I will because I will is most Papall Tyrannicall and altogether displeasing to Christ but of This more in another place Thus their Tenets seeme to me very Vnreasonable They will doe more than Adam did He gave Names to Things according to their Natures they will give Natures according to their owne fancies Secondly very Vnbrotherly in that they make themselves the Church excluding all others in which act according to their Tenets they exclude all others from Salvation for they say in an ordinary way there is no Salvation out of the Church and They in this admit none into the Church but themselves Moses was upon a mistake reproved by the Jewes in that he made himselfe a Iudge though in that decision he released a Jew Truely I know not by what authority these Bishops stile themselves the representative Church for they must doe it either Iure humano or Divino By the last we doe not yeeld That is the Question in hand by the first they cannot for where doe the people either implicitely or explicitely elect them and resigne up their power to them Is it in their Convocation that they obtaine this priviledge That by the Lawes of this Land is not at all obligatory till confirmed by Parliament Secondly the people choose not These Convocation men but the Clergie and so they cannot represent the whole Church Thirdly the Clergie have no free election for the Bishop will appoint whom they must choose and this too Sub poena anathematis The Angells for the whole Ministery of the Church in the Revelation seeme to receive some particular honour from the Spirit yet not the power of a Representative Body but Quo jure humano aut Diuino Twenty sixe men shall challenge to themselves as proper That which is not so much as by a figurative right given to those Angels I know not And is not this Vnbrotherly to intrude my selfe and exclude all others from Their Right But lastly it savoureth very much of Selfe For certainely he that will out-doe the Pope is growne to a pretty height of pride Now in the Papacy it is a dispute whether the Pope alone or the whole Colledge of Cardinalls or a Generall Councell or the People or All These or Some of These with their joynt forces may stile themselves the Church But Our men without dispute like the Lyon in the Fable challenge All of whom the Poet is verified Aetas Patrum pejor avo tulit progeniem nequiorem And yet whoever takes up Errour at the Second hand will have an ill bargaine though he buy it cheape hee will be no gainer Error being like the Ierusalem-Artichoake plant it where you will it over-runnes the ground and choakes the Heart Thus having with the chaines of Indifferency bound up the Peoples Liberty they deale no better with their Prince Onely Polyphemus-like they leave Vlysses for the last For when the People are devoured Kings cannot escape But because Kings are of more prying Spirits they steale in upon them with Sugared Baites such as That of Theirs No Bishop No King But of This more anon I might instance in many other of their Maximes which I conceive very prejudiciall both to Church and State Policy But I will rather view their Practise according to These Principles of Indifferency In this I shall be very short not meaning to upbraide them with many monstrous miscarriages of late the rather because I am confident that God his Maje●tic and The Parliament will not permit them longer to transgresse in This height Onely I cannot but intreat you to observe how by Their Injunctions founded on Those Maximes They have imposed as necessary many things that are but Indifferent some things that are Vnlawfull First many Things but Indifferent they have injoyned as necessary Some to Ministers as Cassockes Gownes Tippets Hoods Caps Canonicall Coats Blackes and many other Some to People as Sitting with their hats off Standing up at Gloria Patri the Gospell and other parts of service Weighty matters indeed for Grave Learned Holy Reverend Divines to spend their time and thoughts upon I might perhaps goe a little higher