Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	lord_n	power_n	soul_n	7,217	5	4.8221	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95939	A vindication of certaine citizens that lately went to the leaguer, then before Oxford, or, Their answer to some prevaricating passages, inserted in an epistle, lately published by William Dell, minister of the Gospel. Occasioned, by their attesting his delivering of certain positions, in a sermon at the leaguer, here set down, they being thereunto called by the House of Lords. Published by authoritie.		1646 (1646)	Wing V472; Thomason E344_14; ESTC R200964	9,495	18

To what purpose hath your furious fury all this while runne descant Phil. 3.19 Glory not in your shaine Is there no other way to accomplish a greater and more open discovery of the truth and to cause the beames thereof to be scattered in the Kingdome but by your curtaild notes Oh! what pitty is it that another and not your selfe did not write the forepart of this your Epistle Let another man praise thee and not thy owne mouth Pro. 27.2 a stranger and not thy owne lips Good Master Dell doe not conceive the children of the truth to be so dull but that they wil entertaine the truth where and by whomsoever it comes without asking you any leave Whither are you now roving You are gotten againe into the clouds and fall againe upon your paradoxes and because you will not too much tautalogize you have laid aside your before mentioned cunning and deceiving malignity and have found out Synonimaes for Designes and now you tell the world that wee betray our owne and our fellowes Cause and overthrow our owne and their ends We freely professe our ignorance herein we understand you not neither know we what to make of nor how to unfold these your ridiculous riddles but this we plainly from our soules pronounce and say Cursed be that person that shall think of oppressing the truth let it propogate and flourish and let all its enemies perish let it flourish yea we are confident it will flourish and that through slanders oppressions contradictions villanies and all other your reckoned up rascally rabble And this our confidence is built upon a strong foundation John 3.35 The Lord of heaven and earth having given all things into the hands of his Sonne Heb. 2.8 Col. 1.18 and having put all things in subjection under his feet so that at length hee shall most certainly have the preheminence for at the name and by the onely power of Jesus Christ Phil. 2.10 every knee shall bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth Let your thoughts of us be as meane and low as you please this is that great day and thing that we looke and long for Oh! now at length pitty your soule repent your railing 2 Sam. 16. 2 Kin. 18. act no longer Shimei nor Rabshakeh's part Be astonished and magnifie the omnipotent God that hath thus discovered the deceitfulnesse of your heart Jer. 17.9 and let our soules blesse the Lord that he the sole wonder-working God hath by his power and goodnesse out of this your intended evil towards us produced thus much unspeakable joy comfort to our spirits causing us through the riches of his mercy to cleer up our evidence for heaven and enabling us by the freenesse of his grace tovindicate our aspersed selves as to the world so we hope to your own conscience Cease therefore we beseech you to calumniate those that from their soules desire to look and walk heaven-ward We verily be leeve did you truly know us you would not suffer one mans whispering to be so prevalent with you as thus to alienate your affection from us Though we are strangers to you 1 John 3.14 we hope the Lord loves us Why should you injure and oppresse us Nay we are Brethren why should you not love us We wish that your * C. F. Informer were so godly a Citizen as you take him to be you will not deny that dissembled piety is double iniquity What think you of that godlinesse that is accompanied with drunkennesse to say no more of him though we might speak of pride lying backbiting but we are loath to brand him too much Could we insinuate into and fawne upon you as others doe then we think you would not thus condemne us Howsoever 1 Joh. 3 21. Mat. 12.7 since our hearts condemne us not why should you doe it And you have little reason to count us thorny hearers for that you find by experience that the Word is not choaked in us Mat. 13.22 As for that one among us that came to you he was not urged thereunto as you pretend neither doe you set downe either a true or full relation of that discourse that passed between him and you The truth is there was some such discourse as you have set downe concerning Presbytery and Independency and this was that wherein he rejoyced as seeming to you satisfied but you must needs remember that other matters were then spoken of Neither was he so satisfied as you would make the world beleeve and how could he or any of us be satisfied when as this your exposition tendeth much to division by extolling the Independent party and yet in private you wil pretend to put no difference between Presbytery and Independency and then evade it by going about to make us and others beleeve that your intentions were not according to your expressions And your Relater is much mistaken in this Christians stomack for his stomack hath been no other either concerning your selfe or this businesse then becommeth a Christian to have But of this particular and of this Christians more particular answer to so much of your Epistle as concernes himselfe singly you may perchance hereafter have a more full relation Thus having by the assistance and direction of our prudent and good God discharged our consciences and endeavoured to satisfie both your selfe and the world by fully answering every particular of your charge against us we doe heartily commend you to the grace of God earnestly entreating you to be no longer mistaken in us but to be convinced in your judgement that our study is for such we assure you is the bent of our soules the Lord pardon our sins our imperfections to live peaceably with you and all men Rom. 12.18 Heb. 12.14 as much as in us lieth and to acquire holinesse without which we are most certaine no man shall see the Lord. Sir we are according to your owne denomination in the end of your Epistle Christian Readers FINIS

of Christians as Presbyterians and Independents this being onely a distinction of mans making tending to the division of the Church and added That as in Christs Kingdome Neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature So in this same Kingdome of Christ Neither Presbytery availeth any thing nor Independency but a new creature and that the Kingdome of God stands not in Presbytery nor Independency but in righteousnesse and peace and joy in the holy Ghost and that if I saw any thing of God or Christ or the Spirit in any one I reckoned him as a Brother not taking any such opinion into consideration and that the unitie of Spirit and not of opinion is the bond of peace in Christs Kingdome The man then pretended to be satisfied and to rejoyce in his satisfaction but since as is related hath shewed his stomack againe But because he seemes to be a Christian The Lord lay it not to his charge Thus farre the Epistle relates to us our Vindication and Answer followeth To Master Dell. SIR HAving received and perused your Epistle directed to your Reader wee thinke our selves bound in dutie as well for the Vindication of our Innocency as the satisfaction of our fellow Citizens and others who have or shall read you to let your selfe and the world know that wee the persons against whom you are pleased to be so invective are such as by our fruits our lives and conversations desire to be knowne By Gods grace wee are what wee are wee desire not that our talkative tongues should applaud us before men but that our sincere soules should approve us to God To him the searcher of all hearts wee appeale 2 Chron. 28.9 for he knowes and his discerning Spirit testifies to and with our spirits that we are every one of us free from all those your virulent expressions which causeth our spirits to be perplexed and our very soules to grieve not for our owne sakes whom you have endeavoured to shoot and stab with the sharpe Arrow and direfull dart of your siery tongue But for your own sake that you whom wee esteemed to be principled from Heaven and so some of us reported of you should discover your rotten principles Ephesi 4.31 by your bitternesse wrath ang●● calmour evill speaking and malice whereas your speech ought to be alwayes with grace Col. 4.6 seasoned with salt Could it be imagined that a man of your pretence could possibly thus miscarry Where is that divine strength that should have conquered your peevish passion What! professe so much grace and demonstrate so much unsubdued nature Before you did thorowly resolve to belch out so many Bedlam blasts why did you not remember your owne honour Surely that though Gods glory would not might have deterred you from your rayling rage Sir You must give us leave to trace your Tract that so wee may fully answer every piece of your patcht Epistle that shall concerne us for one jot further wee will not step No wee have already appealed to God And now wee will appeal to the world whether or no wee be such as your terme us mad-men furious brutish beasts Phrases that your carnall Christian surely scornes to breath forth The providence of God disposing of our thoughts to visite the Leaguer lately before Oxford the rather for that it was credibly reported in London that Oxford would certainly be surrendred on Saturday the sixth of June last And having never beene at nor seene a Leaguer hoping likewise that this would be the last Leaguer that wee should have occasion to see in England by Gods assistance setting forth from our dwellings in London on Friday the fifth of June in the afternoone wee came to the Leaguer the day following without the least thought of any manner of designe O censorious Sir You saw not our hearts our hearts to whom the very name malignitie much more the thing come it whether in your first or second edition if under that notion of malignitie t is odious t is abominable T is publiquely knowne that wee have layed out our selves and ours for the publique On the Lords day the seaventh of that June in the morning we desiring so much as we could at such a distance from home and in such a place to spend that day to Gods glory and our owne good hearing that there would be no Sermon at Wheatly where we Inn'd we repaired to the Leaguer and inquired at the Head-quarters who was to Preach before his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax and where the Sermon would be and were informed that your selfe were to exercise at the meeting-place at Marston learning at length that by Meeting-place was meant the Church thither we repaired where we saw and heard from you Master Dell a great deale of other Matter then the Presse hath met withall and till then most of us never saw nor heard of you Yet were we so farre from anger or headinesse by you charged upon us against the plaine and cleere truth of the Gospell which you then delivered in your Exposition that we commended you for all that we found to be commendable in you As we did doe and will say say you what you will that you did deliver some very good matter But yet since we are necessitated and since as it now appeares to us wise men are not alwayes so wise as they should or might be therefore you will have us promulge our thoughts to the world we must declare we were not satisfied with all that then you did deliver But pray let us tell you you doe ill to conclude that because we spoake not with you therefore we durst not come to you to discourse with you or looke you in the face for all of us had not the opportunity to come unto you and indeed after our rehearing from you by a Gentleman of our Company who did speake with you as you have acknowledged though wee could have gained time we had but little desire the reason whereof we hereafter give you in this our Answer On the Munday morning the eighth of June we tooke our journey homewards and by Gods blessing returned that night well and safe to our dwellings leaving behinde us at the Leaguer some of our Company * C. F. which we had just cause to suspect because you put us in minde of Designes went thither to carry on a Designe as appeared by deserting of us by maintaining the rumour of the SCOTS comming against the Army by discountenancing some of our godly Preachers in London and such other passages Having bin a few dayes at home a rumour came to our eares of a seditious Sermon lately Preached in the Leaguer and the peoples voyce pitcht upon this your mentioned Exposition to be that Leagver Sermon which so tended to sedition The whole truth and substance whereof notwithstanding your affirmation to our knowledge is not exactly set downe in the Printed Copy For as very much is abated which you

then delivered so something is added of like words indeed but of much different sence whereof we will not presume to passe any manner of censure or judgement for that is above us and now depending For the report hereof stayed not long within the Citie wals insomuch that within a few dayes following notice having bin taken of our late returne from the Leaguer we were with much wonderment on our part and without our foreknowledge privity or desire summoned to make our appearance on Munday the nine and twentieth of the same June in the Lords House of Parliament Whither being come we were there demanded by the right Honourable Lord the then Speaker Whether we were lately at the Leaguer and whether we heard you Preach there We answered we were there and there we heard you Expound the s●ven last verses of the 54. Chapter of Jsaiah Then was produced by one of the Clarks of that House a Paper which when he had read we found that it contained certaine passages of your Exposition which it seemes you have now forgotten and therefore have either omitted or minced them But being demanded whether we remembred them to passe from you or not we must speake the truth and did confesse that those or the like words in effect were then and there by you delivered Whereupon we were for that time dismissed and commanded to attend againe on Thursday following being the second of this July where having attended some time we were without calling in commanded to depart till further summons What was then and there read unto us as by you delivered in your Exposition if not in those very words yet to that effect doth here follow viz. There are no more of the Church of God in a Kingdome then there be such as have the spirit of God in that Kingdome Neither Old nor new Testament doe hold forth a whole Nation to be a Church Whatsoever a State an Assembly or Counsell shall say ought not to binde the Saints further then the judgement of those Saints shall lead them The Saints are those that are now stiled Anabaptists Famalists Antinomians Independents Sectaries and the like The power is in you the People keepe it part not with it The first Party that rose against you namely the Prophane ones of the Land are already fallen under you and now there is another party Formalists and carnall Gospelers rising up against you but I am confident they shall also fall under you They are willing to become Subjects to make the Saints slaves nay they are willing to become slaves themselves that they may tread upon the necks of the Saints Now that being thus by your selfe occasioned we have declared our consciences in setting forth the whole truth of our knowledge in these proceedings we doe in the presence of God protest against the very thought of all or any either old or new Designe to be acted by us notwithstanding your so much urging the same and harping thereupon But if instead of our acting those of riper and more diving judgements then we are can or shall out of your owne mouth collect a Designe now in hand on your part to them we shall leave both it and you Be not ashamed Sir to charge home descend from your mighty mouthing Generalls your pretended fierce furious contradicting blaspeming hellish speeches words not beseeming so mild a mouth as a Ministers ought to be to plaine particulars spare neither our persons words nor actions you have severall times met with us pointed at us Oh why would you not daigne to speak with us We are we hope of such a Generation as you are if you be as we hope you are notwithstanding the transcendency of your passion of that generation that feares God Suppose the worst that we had wronged you though should you say it we dare say your conscience would check your tongue Oh me thinks you should not recompence to us evill for evill Pro. 24.29 Rom. 12.17 nor thus in this vaine frothy wording way seek to avenge your selfe Rom. 12 19. Why should you be thus transported You know whose vengeance is and who hath said he will repay to him both you and we must stand and fall Why will you thus presumingly usurpe Gods Throne Pray remember what it is to judge Mat. 7.1 2. 1 Cor. 4.5 the Lord preserve us from any and you from further operation of that Spirit in whom no truth is Iohn 8 44. The whole City filled with lyes slanders O hyperbolicall and you poore simple man charged with things you knew not or rather that you will not remember but there are though not hundreds yet a competent number of credible witnesses and some of them of knowne worth and piety that when they shall be called to it will in discharge of their conscience and according to the Covenant which they have taken put you in mind of something which you would be loath to heare Ah Master Dell what del-usion is it that hath thus seized upon you What must meere necessity constraine this and the following Generations to be acquainted with your juglings Because you are afraid that your whole exposition if it look upon the Sunne will not endure the light thereof and searing least we being called thereunto will make a cleer discovery therefore you cry out these men resist the Spirit and act against Christ himselfe in the Word a strange conclusion We hint your drift you think perchance by your prejudice to cloud and eclipse us yet your expectation may be frustrate Truly Sir for our parts we must needs confesse that your discourse in print is plainer then your discourse in the Pulpit was yet both there and here we whom you esteeme children borne after the flesh and carnall Christians the Lord more and more spirituallize both you and us cannot be so blind but we must needs and doe acknowledge something of the spirit in it against which we abhorre to be at any enmity and are as seriously resolved as you are or can be notwithstanding your boisterous blustering and sesquipidalian verborsity to stand to and maintaine the Cause of Christ and the cleering up the brightnesse of his comming in the Ministery of the Gospell against the power and malice of the Devill and the world according to our Vocation so farre as possibly we may or can though with the losse of what is most deare and precious to us even to the laying downe of our lives themselves and this profession notwithstanding all the venome that you have or can spit against us we doe here jointly and severally we thank you for it for we take it as an accidentall curtesie make and hold forth not doubting but knowing assuredly that the spirit of Christ which we trust is in us and hope and pray that it may be in you is and will be predominant over that spirit that is in the world And now Sir where or what is that Victory that your verball vaunting boasts of