Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	power_n	soul_n	word_n	7,471	5	4.1227	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46641	An apology for, or vindication of the oppressed persecuted ministers & professors of the Presbyterian Reformed Religion, in the Church of Scotland emitted in the defence of them, and the cause for which they suffer: & that for the information of ignorant, the satisfaction and establishment of the doubtful, the conviction (if possible) of the malicious, the warning of our rulers, the strengthening & comforting of the said sufferers under their present pressurs & trials. Being their testimony to the covenanted work of reformation in this church, and against the present prevailing corruptions and course of defection therefrom. Prestat sero, quàm nunquam sapere.	Smith, Hugh.; Jamieson, Alexander.	1677 (1677)	Wing J446; ESTC R31541	114,594	210

none wonder we take this ticklish subject into consideration and dar adventure to give an accompt of our thoughts of the same to the world for we solemnly professe that on the exactest enquiry and search that we have been able to make about this mater we finde it as diametrically opposite to our true Covenanted principles as Prelacy and in its effects we fear shall prove as destructive to the Church and work of Reformation as any thing that appeared on the field against it Times past and present speak much to this but the future will say more the storme that this Supremacy threatens to this Church and nation is such that it is the part of all that wish well to Zion to pray inflantly day and night that it may be graciously averted The truth is as we look upon it as an high corruption in it self tending to the subversion of the Churches concerns in doctrine worship and Government so it lies at the bottome of our non-conformity to the law in Church maters and is not only one but a maine reason why we cannot joyne in Church assemblies especially for Government which thereby in our apprehensions are made nullities That our procedour in speaking to this may be distinct and clear to all we shall observe this method 1. We shall consider speak to the Government of the Church and shew what it truly is 2 We shall prove its distinction from independency on the civil Government And3 Shew how far this Government of the Church is by law lodged in and exercised by our Rulers contrare to Scripture and the practice of the Church till these hundered years past For more light to the whole we shall premise these preliminary considerations or propositions which we think will not readily be denied by any 1. Propos it is out of our rode and inconsistent with our intended brevity to insist on the tearms GOVERNMENT CHURCH what is usually signified by them these we leave to the Criticks and all that write on this subject but all are agreed in this that GOVERNMENT is a tearme importing power and authority which is nothing els but a right to rule others and an obligation on these invested therewith to use the same for attaining the ends of Government So that Government makes its acts due bindes them to all these acts means wayes by which Government is enabled to reach its ends 2. Propos All created power authority is originall in God as the first cheif cause thereof derived from him as the universal Supreme Monarch and Governour of all in heaven or earth hence it necessarly followes that as the power that cannot prove its descent from God is not to be admited so all just powers are directly subordinat to him as the universal head of all 3. Propos that the Church of Christ not being founded in nature but on supernatural revelations her Government must wholly depend upon flow from it in these things where it differs from other Governments so that the All of this Government is by positive institution and warrant from God supernaturally revealed 4. Propos That Christ Jesus as Mediator being made the head of the Church under God and thereby her Government fountained in him all powers in the Church must be derived from and subordinat to him as the Supream 5. Propos Beside the invisible and internal Government that Christ Jesus exerciseth by his Spirit on the souls and consciences of his people that consists in the inward light and power of his Spirit guiding and enabling them to that obedience he requires of them in his word there is likwise a true visible Government of the Church institute by him and visibly exercised in her in his name as her Supream 6. Propos The Government of the Church as shall be proved afterwards is not properly and in linea directa subordinat to the Magistrat for 1. It hath its derivation from another fountaine Christ Jesus who being the Churches Supream head and governour all power in her must come from and depend on him 2 The Magistrat cannot take away nor change the Government of the Church which he may do in Governments and powers subordinat to him yea he cannot impede its exercise in these intrusted with it seing they are under obligations for it antecedent superiour to these of the Magistrat 7. Propos That the holy Scriptures being the word and law of Christ as King of his Church must be the instrument and rule of the Churches Government according to which she ought to be ruled not only in these acts of faith and obedience in the inner man but also in the outward 8. Propos Although powers specifically distinct be not subordinat to one another yet there may be and is a mutual subordination of persons invested with these powers so as the persons are in different respects superiour and inferiour to one another as Jesse was to David supposing him to live in his son Davids reigne which subordination of persons does not take away the destinction of these powers nor the mutual subjection the persons owe to one another hence we assert that as Magistracy does not destroy the Ministry nor loose the persons cloathed therewith from the subjection they owe as Christians to Ministers in the right exercise of their Ministery so neither does the Ministery destroy Magistracy nor untye Ministers as subjects from that subjection and obedience due to Magistrats from their subjects Ministers are bound to this as much as any 9. Propos As in all Governments there are somethings that is intrinsick although visible wherein its nature and specifick essence does consist and somethings accidental and separable from it that belongs not to its esse but BENE ESSE so there are in the visible Government of the Church somethings essential intrinsick of which afterward and somethings accidental and extrinsick without which it can subsist even in its exercise 10. Propos These things in and about which the Government of the Church is conversant are of diverse sorts some are purely spiritual as the Word Ministery Sacraments and all Ordinances of divine appointment Others are of a mixt nature partly spiritual partly civil as the necessary circumstances and mods of worship and Government which although civil in their own nature and common to other actions yet partly by reason of the general divine appointments impowering the Church to dispose and order these partly by reason of their necessary connection with things purely spiritual are truely Ecclesiastick and become a part of the object of the proper power of Church Government called by all Divines DIATACTICK Some are properly purely civil in their owne nature and immediat ends as Churches Stipends Manses Glybs c. which although they be by general precepts secured to the Church and belonging to her yet they are formally civil and come directly under the Magistrates power as other civil rights and proprieties do about which

necessare righteous from the Word of God before their obligation can be admitted received which we have laboured to doe in this following discourse And if from it our Covenants and Oaths doe appear to be just are we not assured that the corruptions and sins engaged against by such divine tyes and relapsed into contrare to these engadgments doe provoke our Holy and righteous God to the inflicting of all those plagues and judgments threatened in the word against the violators of such sacred bonds And if this be a truth as we hope none will deny what can we then expect to our selves posterity if reformation repentance doe not prevent but ruine and desolation according to every ones accession to these evils which no doubt are crying for vengeance on this declining Church Next We pray your Lo. to consider that we build our conclusions on no other foundation then our worthy reformers in this Church and others laid downe in their arguments and debates against popery which for its want of and opposition to the holy Scriptures they have condemned for an Antichristian defection from the doctrines of Christ We hold to the sufficiency and perfection of the holy Scriptures resolving thorow the Grace of God to admit of no other rule of faith and obedience in the maters of our God but these what they condemne we must renunce whatsoever doctrins or practises in the house of our God want their authority and approbation we cannot yea dar not admit The experience of the Church in preceding ages shews what mischeifs the opening of this door hath brought in upon her to the almost uter ruine of all her concerns The present grouth of popery and the quick advance it makes among all degrees of Professors in this and our nighbouring Churches sayes to all we suppose to your Lo. that the fasety preservation of the protestant reformed Religion does in all prudence require that its real and sincere friends should be encouraged and not thus persecuted with violence which no doubt tends so to the weakening of the Protestant interest cause that in one of Queen Elizabeths Parliaments it was judged a sufficient reason not only to restraine the rigide pressing of conformity but likewise to encourage all Non-conformists who in those times were looked upon as stout antagonists to popery and such as might be employed entrusted and made use of in opposition to it Is it not to be feared that the ●ope having his instruments and emissaries amongst us for working out of his designes on these Churches which all his former engines have not hitherto effected and finding through our confusions and distempers the occasion fitted for his purpose hath no question a secret active hand in influencing and increasing of this violence which if the Lord in his mercy to this many wayes afflicted and ruined Church doe not prevent will facilitat his longed for much endeavoured designes against the reformed Religion in these Ilands And however we are represented to your Lo. as unfriends to Religion and the interests of State as if they must ruine if we stand yet the experience of past and present times beside our publick confessions doth sufficiently witnesse how malitious our adversaries are in this unjust calumny We are no innovators nor pleaders for innovation in Church or State but do hold adhere to and resolve through the grace of God to maintaine the reformed Protestant Religion against all sorts of enemies as it is contained in the holy Scriptures summed up and breifly comprehended in the Confessions of faith of the reformed Churchs especially in the Confession of faith Larger shorter Catachismes of this Church in opposition to all Popish Arminian Socinian and Sectarian errors and innovations We hold for our maine rooted principle the holy Scriptures to be the Word of God the absolute perfect and only rule of faith and maners not needing any supplement of Ecclesiastical tradition yet we do not deny Antiquity its due respect use reverence and although we maintaine that every Christian of what rank degree soever ought to study be conversant in the Scriptures yet we acknowledge the necessity and great use of a Gospel standing Ministry and receive the directive authority of the Church not with an implicit faith but with the judgment of discretion We hold the teaching of the Spirit necessare to the saving knowledge of Christ but absolutly deny that the Spirit bringeth new revelations in maters of doctrines worship Government but only that he opens the eyes and enlightens the understanding that we may perceive and rightly take up what is of old revealed in the word by the same Spirit We rejoice in Christ Jesus having no confidence in the flesh or in a legal righteousnes desireing to be found in him who of God is made unto us wisdom righteousnes sanctification and redemption yet we constantly affirme good works of piety towards God of equity and charity towards men to be necessare both necessitate precepti medii our Ministers presse on themselves hearers the necessity of Regeneration as the solid fundation of good works the severe strict exercise not of a popish out side formal but of a spiritual real mortification and self denial We extol all ordinances of divine appointment but reject all humane inventions especially religious and significant not institute ceremonies in the worship of God It ought to have no little weight with your Lo. that by using of such violence the most sober judicious universally religious and industrious part of the subjects and consequently the most useful and stedfast to his Maj true interest and honour are exposed to dayly vexation and trouble to the great dammage and prejudice of this Nation and Kingdom We suppose that upon an impartial view it will be found that the choice and better part of the subjects is dissatisfied with the Government now introduced into this Church and consequently obnoxious to the severity of the lawes enacted against non-conformists and of what dangerous consequence this may prove to Church and State we leave to your Lo. most serious consideration We know the certaine issue of all maters is known to God only but if we shall take our measures in conjecturing at future events from the working of present causes there is all rational ground to fear that there are dismal and heavy times coming on this nation which by taking and fallowing of right wayes in the present juncture of affaires your Lo. may prevent and if not done will no doubt afford mater of bitter sorrow repentance to your Lo or children afterwards It is shall be our hearty prayer to God that your Lo. may have the Spirit of wisdome and of the fear of the Lord poured out upon you to foresee the evils that are hastening towards us and in time to hide yourselves this Church Kingdom from them Is it not apparent to all that conscience does not

sake although differing from us in some other things 5 It is thought sufficient ground for this charge that some yea many of the persons that come to and haunt our meetings are found not to be conscientious and Christian in their walk but flagitious or in many of their practises scandalous We cannot think our adversaries are serious in this do beleeve as they speak seing 1 This does fall as heavy and will to onlookers reflect as much and more on the objectors themselves as on us whose meetings for worship are found to be the sinck of all debauched and profaine persons thorow the Land can they refuse this It is like the foresight of this forced them to say in their lybel of greivances against us that the abominations mentioned in one Article were commited at our meetings and not by persons present at them otherwise their assemblies for worship should have been as chargeab●● therewith as ours but in this our Antagonists 〈◊〉 like to the persecutours of the Christians in the pr●●mitive times who charged them for having these 〈◊〉 the like abominations commited at their assemblies as is to be seen in Church Histories The Lord deliver us from and rebuke the lying Spirit that is entered into and possesseth many 2. But if the presence of wicked and scandalous persons at the assemblies of Christians for hearing of the word and performing of other acts of worship be sufficient ground for chargeing the wickednesse and impieties of such on them as the cause inductive to scandals will not the assemblies that Christ his Apostles Ministers and Christians keeped in all ages be as lyable to this charge as we who excluded none but admited all to the hearing of the word and some other acts of worship as is manifest from Scripture and History whatever our adversaries will say for clearing of Christ Iesus his Apostles c. will acquit us 3. Do not men know that in preaching of the Gospel to sinners we should designe and labour their conversion as much as the edification of the converted Is not the Gospel with which Ministers are intrusted the mean and power of God to the one as well as to the other And seing this is our designe as it hath been our practice so it is our resolution not to exclude any from our assemblies how wicked soever they have been or are Truth is to charge us and our meetings with the sinnes and scandals of those that frequent the same is to reproach the Gospel of Christ and to Father all the wickednesse of its hearers on it contrare to its grand designe which is to save sinners from sin and all the miseries that follow upon it SECT V. Some Reasons why the Indulgence was not accepted IN the next place we come to the head of the Indulgence the not allowing of which hath been represented as a full evidence of our pivish wilful and stiff disposition to unpeacableness and distoyalty but we hope when our carriage in this mater is seriously thought upon and the reasons that determined us to this refusal are weighted in the ballances of the sanctuarie this charge will be found light and we are confident that upon trial it will appear we are not against but with all expressions of thankfulnes shall be ready to intertaine and receive any libertie for the Gospel its true interest and our selves that is consistent with our known principles that the Magistrat shall be pleased to grant us We look upon it as an unjust state of the question in this mater which hath been offered by some whether the Magistrat jure may or have it within the compass of his Magistratical power to give liberty to Ministers and people for serving and worshiping of God in his Son Christ Iesus according to his word this we do not deny but chearfully grant that although the exercise of Church power that is properly such be independent on the Magistrat yet the peacable exercise of it is truely from him it belongs to him no doubt to encourage countenance and protect the Church against all enemies and to relieve her of oppression when under it to this he is impowered and oblidged both as a Magistrat and as a Christian Neither is it with us a question whether the Magistrat may command Ministers to the duties of then function nor whether he may exeem them from the hazard of suffering to which they are obnoxious by law for their non-conformity nor yet whether he may confine Ministers simply and abstractedly considered from our present case which is only proper to the Magistrat and not all to the Church All these and much more we yeeld to the Magistrat about persones and maters Ecclesiastical according to the Word But the true state of the question to us is whether the Magistrat Jure Magistratico may of himself and immediatly without the Church the previous election of the people assigne and send Ministers to particular Churches to take the fixed and pastoral over sight of them prescribe rules and directions to them for the exercise of their Ministery and confine them to the said congregations The question thus stated being complex and consisting of several branches conform to the acts of Councel anent the indulgence we must of necessity for giving a just accompt of the grounds of our dissatisfaction therewith speak to them severally in some assertions with the reasons subjoyned Assertion First The Magistrat by vertue of his Magistratical power cannot of himself and immediatly assigne or send Ministers to particular congregations to take the pastoral charge and oversight of them For 1. We finde not in all the Word of God any such power given to or exercised by the Magistrat in the Church none hath yet given any instances of this If there be let them be produced and we shall acquiesce All acknowledge the Church not to be founded on the law of nature but on positive institution and supernatural revelation and therfore not to be governed in wayes and methods of Mens invention but in these that are revealed by the Holy Scriptures without which there cannot be a Church so that she owning her being constitution and all to them there must be some evident proof produced from these before we can yeeld to any such power in the Magistrat how long shall we exspect this 2. Also we finde the Church in the possession and exercise of this power from the times of the Apostles to the breaking up of the reformation by Luther and others in Germany as is manifest from Scripture and History We grant there was for some time a considerable debate betwixt the Pope and the Emperour of Germany about the investiture of Bishops which gave the rise to other Princes claming of the same seasing upon it but what says this to the mission of Ministers application of their Ministery to particular congregations For as Prelacy was the invention of men and the cause of horrid contentions in Churches and States so