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	live_v	sin_n	7,486	5	4.8306	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75811	The Christian moderator: the second part; or, Persecution for religion condemned by the light of nature. Law of God. Evidence of our own principles. With an explanation of the Roman Catholick belief, concerning these four points: their church, worship, justification and civill government. Whereunto there are new additions since the octavo was printed.; Christian moderator. Part 2	Birchley, William, 1613-1669.	1652 (1652)	Wing A4246; ESTC R225799	36,103	34

That now the wisdom of the Parliament applying it self to establish the people of this Common-wealth in a quiet and setled condition your Petitioners take up an humble confidence that they alone shall not be excluded from so universall a benefit And therefore humbly pray that the Laws and proceedings concerning them may be taken into consideration and such clemency and compassion used towards them by Composition or otherwise as in the judgement of this honourable House may consist with the publike peace and your Petitioners comfortable lie ving in their native Country And they further humbly pray that it would please the Parliament to vouchsafe them the permission of clearing their Religion from whatsoever may be inconsistent with Government which will assuredly be done to full satisfaction if there may be a Committee appointed by this honourable House on whom they may have the priviledge to attend And your Petitioners shall ever pray c. THis to my sense bears it self with so much respect and submissiveness in the stile that it can no wayes be interpreted misbecoming the duty of good and peaceable subjects and for the matter of the Petition it seems to my eye so reasonable that I cannot believe but after a little patience till other more generall affairs afford the Parliament leisure it will certainly receive a satisfactory and relieving Answer Especially since not onely such Papists whose moderate delinquency leaves them some hope of mercy nor such who for preservation of their lives were forced to flye into the late kings Garrisons without ever acting any thing against the State but even the most innocent who all this while have sate still under so many pressures and never were charged with other accusation than their Religion yet all freely and humbly submit in this Petition to the absolute pleasure of the Parliament for Rules of Composition and this as to the single Papist for an offence which in no other society of Christians in this Nation is accounted any crime at all being meerly their different judgement in Religion a proceeding wherein certainly we shall use too much severity and partiality if we make it not onely unpardonable but unredeemable In the close of their Petition they humbly beg the favour of an opportunity to satisfy the Parliament in the point of consistency with Civil Government which being the chief Objection that without passion can be made against them surely we should not take offence at their most diligent applications and utmost endeavours to deliver themselves from so destructive a charge laid upon their Religion In order to which performance it seems divers Papists of considerable quality unanimously agreed upon this following Explanation to declare and witnes to the world the perfect consistency of their Religion both with civill society joyning also in the same paper the like expressions of their Belief concerning some few other points which they were informed to be more obnoxious to exception than the rest As the under-valuing of holy Scripture and over-valuing the authority of the Church Invocation of Saints and Angels and worship of Images and above all the proud opinion of Merits This paper they drew up as a preparatory to a more full and perfect clearing of their Faith from those prejudices and misunderstandings which ordinarily men of different perswasions entertain especially in Controversies about matters of Religion The Paper containing certain Doctrins of the Papists and by them delivered to divers persons of quality for their particular satisfaction WE believe the holy Scriptures to be of divine inspiration and infallible Authority and whatsoever is therein contained we firmly assent unto as to the word of God the Author of all Truth 1. But since in the holy Scriptures there are some things hard to be understood which the ignorant and unstable wrest to their own destruction we therefore professe for the ending of controversies in our Religion and setling of peace in our Consciences to submit our private judgments to the judgement of the Church represented in a free Generall Council 2. We humbly believe the sacred Mysterie of the Blessed Trinity one Eternal Almighty and incomprehensible God whom onely we adore and worship as alone having Soveraign dominion over all things to whom onely we acknowledge as due from men and Angels all glory service and obedience abhorring from our hearts as a most detestabbe sacriledge to give our Creators honor to any creature whatsoever And therefore we solemnly protest that by the prayers we addresse to Angels and Saints we intend no other then humbly to sollicit their assistance before the throne of God as we desire the prayers of one another here upon earth not that we hope any thing from them as originall authors thereof but from God the fountain of all goodnesse through Jesus Christ our onely Mediator and Redeemer Neither do we believe any divinity or vertue to be in images for which they ought to be worshipped as the Gentiles did their Idols but we retain them with due and decent respect in our Churches as instruments which we find by experience do often assist our memories and excite our affections 3. We firmly believe that no force of nature nor dignity of our best works can merit our Justification but we are justified freely by grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ And although we should by the grace of God persevere unto the end in a godly life and holy obedience to the Commandements yet are our hopes of eternall glory still built upon the mercy of God and the merits of Christ Jesus All other merits according to our sense of that word signifie no more then actions done by the assistance of Gods grace to which it has pleased his gooodness to promise a reward a Doctrine so far from being unsuitable to the sense of the holy Scriptures that it is their principal design to invite and provoke us to a diligent observance of the Commandements by promising heaven as the reward of our obedience 1 Tim. 4. 8. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of this life and of that which is to come And Rom 2. 6. God will render to every man according to his deeds to them who by patient confidence in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life And again Rom. 8. 13. If you live after the flesh you shall dye but if through the Spirit you mortifie the deeds of the body you shall live And Heb. 6. 10. God is not unjust to forget your work and labour of love which you have shewed for his name c. Nothing being so frequently repeated in the word of God as his gracious promises to recompence with everlasting glory the faith and obedience of his servants Nor is the bounty of God barely according to our works but high and plentifull even beyond our capacities giving full measure heaped up pressed down and running over into the bosoms of all that love him

had unto them whatsoever quality or condition they were of all were forced not onely to obey you but which is the greatest tyranny over mens Consciences they were made to swear that they thought as ye would have them albeit to your own knowledge many thought the contrary c. The whole Answer which bears dare 20 Jan. 1651. is worth the reading and is Printed in the Diurnall Numb. 118. I pray Christ a great part of the same arguments may not be turned against us for enforcing this Oath of Abjuration so positively against mens Consciences And since we all say that we abhor to violence and force any ones Conscience farther then to secure the publick peace and that only as necessity shall really appear and not upon any Voluntary or Counterfeit pretence I cannot see how the taking of this Oath avails to make a man either a better Neighbour or a better Subject I cannot see that the Parliament confides any more in those whom they have frighted to take it nor any places of trust committed to them in reward of their conformity and indeed there is lesse reason in my opinion to rely upon such as are involuntarily drawn to an outward complyance then even those that stand out their Sequestrations as being more exasperated against us by our severe proceedings since there can be no greater cause of resentment and hatred then the remembrance to have been compelled by us publiquely to swear against their Consciences unlesse their Judgements be really changed and then all penalties to enforce them are superfluous which leads me the direct way to this clear conclusion that such Oathes are alwayes either absolutely pernicious or altogether unnecessary if against the inward Judgement damnable if according to it uselesse Since then the receiving such an Oath against the Conscience is the highest degree of perjury and spirituall murther of the soul let us sadly consider how disadvantagious to the work of the Lord and scandalous to the eyes of men it wil be for us to fill up our Congregations with such unsanctified Members The ingenious Author of Mer. Poli●i●us Numb. 99. page 1554. hath an admirable Discourse upon this Subject If we seriously reflect sayes he upon the designe of God in bringing Christ into the world we shall find it was to set an end to that pompous administration of the Jewish form that as his Church and people were formerly confined within the Narrow Pale of a particular Nation so now the Pale should be broken down and all Nations taken into the Church Not all Nations in a lump nor any whole Nations or Nationall Bodies to be formed into Churches For his Church or people now under the Gospel are not to be a body Politicall but Spirituall and Mysticall not a promiscuous confusion of persons taken in at adventure but an orderly collection a picking and choosing of such as are called and Sanctified c. Not a company of men forced in by commands and constitutions of worldly power and prudence but of such as are brought in by the power and efficacy of Christs Word and Spirit For he himself hath said My Kingdome is not from hence My Kingdome is not of this World c. And therefore that hand which hath hitherto presumed in most Nations to erect a power called Eccclesiastick in equipage to the Civill to bear sway and bind mens Consciences to certain Notions ordained for Orthodox upon civill penalties under colour of prudence good order discipline preventing of heresie and advancing of Christs Kingdome and to this end hath twisted the spirituall power as they call it with the worldly and secular Interest of State this I say hath been the very right hand of Antichrist opposing Christ in his way whose Kingdome being not of this world depends not upon the helps and devises of worldly wisdom Thus that excellent Pen And a quick-sighted judicious member of Parliament in my hearing being made acquainted as with a supposed gratefull news that some indifferent Christians who professe amongst their old acquaintance no reall satisfaction of Conscience but onely a designe to save their Estates had taken the Oath of Abjuration and conformed said Truly our purchase therein is very little and the Papists losse much lesse In confirmation of this assertion I may here cite the case of Mr. Anthony Roan who was executed at Vsk in Monmouth sheire on the 4th of April 1650 for poisoning his Wife This Gent the very hour be●ore his execution made a publique confession to this purpose That he had been bred a Roman Catholick from his infancy and continued in that Religion till some two or three years before his death when being overcome by an unhappy necessity of preserving his family from beggery he forsook the Belief of his own Soul and went to Church to save his Estate after which the Devil taking advantage upon him in this disturbance and anxiety of Spirit he confessed that he had faln into many great Sins but denyed the guilt of that horrid crime of poisoning his wife for which he was condemned to die delivering further with a kind of confidence that if he had had the grace to have continued constant in his Religion he believed he had never so highly transgressed the Commandments of his God nor come to so unhappy an end And openly declared with much seeming repentance that he dyed in his old Religion Certainly this is a sad consequence of wresting the inward perswasion of poor Souls from that Belief which their own Conscience tells them is truth thereby making them lesse carefull of their salvation and their honesty and credit of lesse repute even with those who force them to this change For the heart of man is so frail and deceitful that it seldom is drawn by violence from those principles which it has long been used to esteem and practise but becomes slack and negligent in what concerns the other World and by degrees very often wholly insensible of any thing but sensuality UPon the news not long since of some Papists taking the Oath of Abjuration and frequenting the publique places of meeting I conceived my self sufficiently furnisht to answer a certain old saying which a Recusant of my acquaintance used often to repeat in my hearing that SANGUIS MARTYRUM EST SEMEN ECCLESIAE This upon all occasions he applyed the sufferings of Papists both here in England and ten thousand miles off in Japan in which two Islands have of late been sharper persecutions said he for matter of Religion then in any other place of the world This he continually insisted upon as a Soveraign remedy for all his sorrows nor could we ever beat him from his last hold wherein he fortified himself SANGUIS MARTYRUM c. nay more he sometimes ventured to affirm with strange assurance this assertion that this Church encreased and prospered still even whilst it was actually under the greatest pressures that his Church was as the Palme tree the heavier weights are