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	speak_v	word_n	18,458	5	4.5398	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B04528	The lavvfulnes of hearing the publick ministers of the Church of England proved, by Mr. Philip Nye and Mr. John Robinson, two eminent Congregational divines. Together with the judgment of Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Owen, and other independents, as well ancient as modern, concerning forms of prayer, parish-churches, and communion with them: and the judgment of other nonconformists about kneeling at the sacrament.	Nye, Philip, 1596?-1672.; Robinson, John, 1575?-1625.	1683 (1683)	Wing N1496; ESTC R203023	37,350	46

Besides they which were his Sheep and would not hear Strangers in the Lord's Sense heard outwardly those Strangers preach and by hearing them discovered them to be Strangers that is false Prophets The Strangers of whom he speaks were of the true Church and of Israel but brought false Doctrine tending to kill the Soul Such Strangers none should hear that is believe and follow Object 12. The Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament warn God's People of false Prophets which the Ministers of that Church are having an unlawful Calling Answ 1. They warn not to hearken unto them nor to believe them Deut. 13.3 1 John 4.1 but to try them which without hearing them cannot be done Not that all false Prophets are to be heard by all that they may try them for that were to tempt God But I now answer the Scripture cited which speaks of Prophets in the true Church which were to be heard till they were orderly repressed or at least plainly discovered by their Doctrine heard to be such 2. No Man's unlawful outward Calling makes him a false Prophet nor his outward lawful Calling a true but his true or false Doctrine only makes him a true or false Prophet A Man may have a lawful Office of Ministry and yet be a false Prophet if he teach false Doctrine so may he be a true Prophet if he teach the Truth tho in an unlawful and Antichristian State of Ministry Yea Balaam was both a false Prophet in cursing in purpose where God would have him bless and in teaching Balack to put a Stumbleng-block before the People of Israel Numb 22.25 Josh 13.22 2 Pet. 2.15 26. Rev. 2.14 and yet a true Prophet in blessing Israel by the Spirit of Prophecy and Word of the Lord put into his Mouth Numb 25.5 9 10 c. and Chap. 24.23 c. He is a Prophet that speaks or declares a thing past present or to come And to prophesy in our Sense is nothing else but to speak to Edification Exhortation and Comfort 1 Cor. 14.3 He that doth this is a true Prophet he that speaks the contrary a false It were good if they in whose Mouths the challenge of false Prophets is rifest would better weigh how themselves expound and apply the Scriptures in their prophesying lest notwithstanding any outward lawful Church-state they be deeper wounded by the rebound of their Accusations this way then their Adversaries Object 13. The Lord forbids Judah going to Gilgal or to Bethel Hos 4.15 16. Answ The meaning is plain and the words express that they were not to go thither to offend and play the harlot in joyning to Idols vers 15 16 17. This I grant is to be done in no place but deny any such thing to be done in the Hearing by me pleaded for The Scriptures every where forbid the going or coming to such Places or Persons as in or by which some Evil is done to wit for the doing of any thing evil or unlawful in or with them Object 14. They that eat of the Sacrifice partake of the Altar 1 Cor. 10.18 so they that receive the Word from an unlawful Officer partake with his Office Answ I deny the Consequence The Office is not to the Word as the Altar is to the Sacrifice The Altar makes the things to be offer'd actually to become a Sacrifice which it was not before save only in Destination as Christ plainly teacheth saying The Altar sanctifieth the Gift Mat. 23.19 but so doth not the Office make that to become the Word of God which was not so actually before This Argument hath its special weight being applied to Sacraments or proper Institutions The Church and Ministry under God make in a good sence the Bread and Wine Sacramental in their use which before they were not And to the Sacraments especially the Supper of the Lord the Apostle in the place cited hath an eye shewing the proportion between the eating of the Sacrifices in Israel which in that use became their Sacraments and the eating the Sacrifice of the Heathens which were their Sacraments and the eating of the Lord's Supper as the Sacrament of Christians With these things join in the last place that Sacrifices considered as proper Institutions might not be offered or eaten but in the place chosen Deut. 12.5 6 7. and sanctified by the Lord for that purpose No more may Sacraments now be eaten but in the Church whereas the Word may be preached to any as well out of the Church as in it Object 15. The Places called Temples and Churches having been built for Idolatry should be demolished and therefore are not to be frequented specially being accounted and made Holy Places Deut. 12.3 Answ 1. The difference of Places under the Law when all other places for the most solemn Worship as opposed to that one place as holy were unholy is now taken away so as no place now is holy or unholy as then 2. Suppose it be the Magistrates Duty to destroy them of which I now dispute not nor how far he should proceed therein yet I deny the Consequence and that I may not use that lawfully which he ought to destroy The Magistrate ought to have destroyed such Cities in Israel as whose Inhabitants had been corrupted with Idolatry Deut. 13.12 13 14. Yet might the Cities if spared by the Magistrates lawfully be dwelt in afterwards and Synagogues in them both be built and frequented for God's moral Worship Jericho should have been an execration and heap for ever 2 King 2.3 5. yet being built again and standing was the Seat of the School of the Prophets The Murtherer ought to be put to death yet if he be spared and survive his Wife Children and Servants lawfully may and in Conscience ought to converse with him according to the natural and civil relations between them and him 3. I know no Law in force nor Doctrine received in the Church of England that ascribes any holiness to the places And for Errors and Abuses personal they rest in the persons so erring I suppose some such Holiness be abscribed unto them as to Holy Churches Holy Buildings Consecrated Places c. Yet I see no sufficient reason why I may not use lawfully a natural and civil place in them for any lawful Work Civil or Religious Private or Publick for there is one reason of all these If any think those places like the Idolathites he mistaketh therein The things offered to Idols and eaten in the Idols Temple and Feast were in proportion as the Bread and Wine being blessed in the Lord's Supper as both the Apostle and reason of the thing manifests Whereas the place which I use though for a religious Action to be performed in it whether in the Temple or in mine own House hath only the Consideration of a natural and civil Circumstance The Temple as a Temple which yet I do not think is done in England by any either received Doctrine or Law may be made an Idol

by Consecration and yet every particular place in it not made unlawful for all Uses If any further Object that in preaching and hearing God's Word therein we have a religious use of it they err not considering that tho the Work done be religious yet the Place is no more religious therefore than the time in which I do it Time and Place are natural Circumstances and without which no finite Action can be performed and some time and place more commodious and fit than others for the doing of things of all kinds I have no more religious Use of the place which I hear publickly than in which I pray privately in my House or Chamber Object 16. Seeing whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin what Word of God and so of Faith is there for this Practice Answ Every Scripture that either commands the hearing of God's Word and promiseth a Blessing to them that hear and keep it Mat. 7.24 Luke 11.28 or that commands me to edify and build to my self 1 Pet. 2.5 or to obey the Magistrate Tit. 3.1 or to follow after Peace Heb. 12.14 or to prevent Offences 1 Cor. 10.32 warrants and in Cases enjoyns this Practice supposing no Sin to be in the way of which in answering the former Objections to which I suppose all other of weight or colour may be referred I hope I have cleared it And for any unsatisfied or other-wise minded I wish I knew their Reasons either for their good by a sufficent Answer to be given unto them or for mine own by admitting of them as there may appear weight in them In the mean while let me intreat of the differently minded one way or other that they would exercise mutually that true Christian Charity one toward another and Compassion one of anothers Infirmities which becomes all that will be in Truth and Deed Followers of Christ Jesus and which is most needful specially in things of this kind for the preserving of the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peaee which Bond of Peace whilst Men are not careful to keep inviolated by brotherly Forbearance in matters of this nature they miserably dissipate and scatter themselves and one another even as the Ears in a Sheaf are scattered when the Bond breaketh But as few or no good things of any kind are so well used by some but others as much abuse them so it is to be feared there will not want who will change the lawful Liberty this way into lawless Licentiousness and so take up instead of all other religious Exercises a Hearing Course only And those specially of them who disliking the present Church-state in England yet want due Zeal and Love to that which themselves approve Let me a little turn my Speech to such for the preventing in some and remedying in others of that inordinate and broken Course And first I demand of such what is this Course of hearing such Ministers as whose state of Ministry they approve not Is it any particular Ordinance left by Christ and enjoyned all Christians in all Ages and Places Verily no. It were to be wished that no Church-Ministry were to be found which is not approveable by the Word of God notwithstanding any good Act performed by them that possess it This Hearing is only a work-of natural Liberty it self as I have shewed and sanctified to Believers by their Faith It is lawful to use it upon occasion as it is to borrow of other Men but to make it our Course is to live by borrowing which no honest Man that can do otherwise possibly would do Yea what differs it from a kind of spiritual Vagabondry in him that can mend it tho with some Difficulty to live in no certain Church-state and under no Church-order and Government To print deep in our Hearts the Conscience of our Duties this way let us briefly consider how many Bonds of Necessity the Lord hath laid upon us to walk in the Fellowship and under the Ordinances of the ministerial and instituted Church First We have lying upon us the necessity of Obedience to Christ our Lord in the Commission Apostolical enjoyning that after we be made Disciples as the Word is and baptized we be withal taught to observe whatsoever he hath commanded Mat. 28.19 20. It must not then suffice us that we are Disciples and Christians but we must join herewith the entire observation of all the Ordinances of Christ as we can find means from the greatest to the least And let us beware that like the Scribes and Pharisees we call none of God's Commandments little because we would make our selves and others believe that little and light account is to be made of observing them lest we our selves be called little that is be indeed none in the Kingdom of Heaven Our Sins of Ignorance and humane frailty alas are too many let us not add thereunto presumptuous Sins either of Commission or Omission to provoke God withal 2. The Church and ministrations therein are not needless but most needful means sanctified of God and given of Christ for our Salvation and edification thereunto which he that despiseth that is doth not submit his Soul and Body unto as he hath means and converse therein with good Conscience tho in Affliction and Persecution despiseth not Man but God and Christ to the depriving of himself of the Fruit of God's most gracious presence in his House and Temple where he hath promised to dwell and of Christ's ascension into Heaven for the pouring out of all Kingly Gifts and Largesses upon Men for the Work of the Ministry 3. Our great Insirmities whereof both the Scriptures every where and our own experience warn us shew in what great need we stand of all the Lord 's Holy Ordinances and Institutions for the supplying of what is wanting in us and correcting what is amiss and continuing and encreasing of what is good unto the coming of the Lord where we must also take knowledg and remember that it is one note of difference and the same very clear between the wisdom of the Flesh and the wisdom of the Spirit that the former will be sure to provide for the Body and outward Man what may be tho with danger and prejudice of the Spiritual the other will take care and order for the Spiritual State tho the outward pinch for it And if any out of the view and persuasion of his own strength of Grace come to conceive that he stands in no such need of Christ's Ordinances or of any Christian Fellowship for the dispensing of them let such a Man consider that the less need he hath of others by reason of his greater plenty of Grace received the more need others have of him for their supply But whatsoever any imagine of himself the Apostle who was not partial teacheth that the very Head the chief and highest Members cannot say to the Feet the lowest and meanest Members I have no need of you 1 Cor. 12.21 4. And lastly It

is necessary for our sound and entire comfort with the Lord our God that our Obedience be entire in respect of all his Holy Commandments which we do or can discern to be such and to concern us according to that of the Man of God Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect to all thy Commandments Psal 119.6 That so we may have our part in the Testimony given by the Holy Ghost of Zachary and Elizabeth which was that they were Righteous before God walking in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord blameless Luke 1.5 6. That is both in the Moral Precepts and Sacred Ceremonies and Institutions of the Lord. Whose Examples we in our Place and Times are to follow not balking with the Lord in any thing great or small nor seeking starting-holes whereby to escape from him in his Word which is holy good and pure Good as coming from our good God good in it self and good for us if we converse therein as we ought in good Conscience towards God Zeal for his Ordinances Modesty in our Selves and Charity towards other Men specially towards them with whom God hath joined us in the most and best things taking heed lest by any uncharitable either judgment of or withdrawing from their Persons for such humane Frailties as unto which into one kind or other all Adam's sinful Posterity are subject we sin not more by our course held against them than they by theirs in them which God forbid To conclude For my self thus I believe with my Heart before God and profess with my Tongue and have before the World that I have one and the same Faith Hope Spirit Baptism and Lord which I had in the Church of England and none other that I esteem so many in that Church of what state or order soever as are truly partakers of that Faith as I account many thousands to be for my Christian Brethren and my self a Fellow member with them of that one Mystical Body of Christ scattered far and wide throughout the World that I have always in Spirit and Affection all Christian Fellowship and communion with them and am most ready in all outward Actions and Exercises of Religion lawful and lawfully done to express the same and withal that I am perswaded the heating of the Word of God there preached in the manner and upon the grounds formerly mentioned both lawful and upon occasion necessary for me and all true Christians withdrawing from that Hierarchical Order of Church-Government and Ministry and the appearances thereof and uniting in the Order and Ordinances instituted by Christ the only King and Lord of his Church and by all his Disciples to be observed And lastly That I cannot communicate with or submit unto the said Church-Order and Ordinances there established either in State or Act without being condemned of mine own Heart and therein pro●oking God who is greater than my Heart to condemn me much more And for my Failings which may easily be too many one way or other of Ignorance herein and so for all my other Sins I most humbly crave pardon first and most at the Hands of God And so of all Men whom therein I offend or have offended any manner of way even as they desire and look that God should pardon their Offences Thus far Mr. Robinson ADDENDA The Judgment of several other Independent Ministers as well Ancient as Modern concerning this Matter MR. Henry Jacob a strict Independent in his printed Declaration 1612 annexed to his Book called The Divine Beginning and Institution of Christ's True Visible Church he hath this Assertion pag. 6. For my part I never was nor am separated from all publick Communion with the Congregations of England I acknowledg therefore that in England are true visible Churches and Ministers tho accidentally yet such as I refuse not to communicate with and those of the Separation in some Matters are streighter than I wish they were And the Brownists in their Confession of Faith printed 1616 they declare That a Minister receiving Prelatical Ordination if he be a Parish Minister it makes not a nullity of the Ministry of him in every respect besides That is it makes not void all truness of Ministry in him as a believing Congregation assenteth to hear him and useth him for their Minister when on some weighty occasion they joyn only to that which is true in the said Minister and testify in the best manner they can that they do so orrdinarily leaving the Parish Congregation and Ministry for their Error With all professing publishing and practising freely and constantly the simple Truth therein with our selves this quitteth us from all Evil and appearance of Evil in this Matter it being no Evil nor appearance of Evil to join with the Parish-Congregation and Ministry in such respects and so far forth as is aforesaid we ought sometimes on weighty Occasions so to join and we sin if we do not And though we do not think every form of Prayer sinful and absolutely unlawful yet we think it not so profitable and to some hurtful Mr. Norton of New-England upon those words of our Blessed Saviour The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chair all things that they say unto you that observe and do Which saith he not only permits but requires and implieth full Communion The five dissenting Brethren viz. Dr Goodwin Mr. Bridg. Mr. Ny Mr. Greenhill and Mr. Sydr Simpson in their Apologetical Narrative pag. 6. they say We have always professed and that in those times when the Churches of England were the most either actually overspread with Defilements or in the greatest danger thereof that we both did and would hold a Communion with them as the Churches of Christ Mr. Firmin argues about this Matter pag. 29. Suppose there should be some humane Mixtures are all the Ordinances of God polluted Why do you not communicate with them in those Ordinances which are pure And in his Separation Examined pag. 40. says Corrupt Members there were enough in the Jewish Church and so in the Christian Church soon after and in the Apostles Times but you have no Example of separating from them Dr. Thomas Goodwin on the Ephesians pag. 487 488 489. His Judgment concerning Parish Churches Ministry and Communion In my last Discourse I handled what was meant by the word Church There was a necessity that lay upon me to open that distinction of Church Universal and Particular I gave you two Cautions about two Errors concerning each of these both toward the Church Universal and toward Particular Churches Concerning which I must necessarily say something to take away some Mistakes and Misapprehensions of my meaning for I walk by this Rule to give no offence to Jew or Gentile or to the Churches of God as the Apostle speaks The first Error I told you was of the Donatists of old who denied the Church Catholock and restrained it to one part of the World and yet the imputation of this Error lieth