Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	pray_v	prayer_n	supplication_n	6,912	5	11.1562	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62961	Mans extremity, Gods opportunity, or, A display of Gods sovereign grace in saving a people whose recovery as to men and means is next to desperate as it was delivered in a sermon preached before the Honourable Lieutenant governour ... of the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England on May 29, 1695 which was the day for election of counsellors for that province / by the reverend Mr. Samuel Torrey.	Torrey, Samuel, 1632-1707.	1695 (1695)	Wing T1917; ESTC R30168	29,972	66

Deploring Mournful Penitential Crys of Prayer although there are a Praying People yet left with us those who are Gods Remembrancers who stand before him in the Gap But alas how much of the Spirit Life and Power of Prayer is decayed and wanting among People and Professors in Publick Private Secret and how much we have failed and falsifyed with God in our Prayers We have sad cause to Consider O that there might be such a General Powerful cry of Prayer as sometimes there hath been with us and as God now expects and looks for and which is absolutely necessary as the way and means wherein we are to seek and labour to obtain this Salvation from God God hath therefore promised that his People shall pray Jer. 29.11 12. Then shall ye call upon me and ye shall goe and Pray unto me and I will hearken unto you and yee shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart This is a promise that then they should Pray when the time of Salvation was come God alwayes Saves his People in the way of Prayer Jer. 31.9 They shall come with Weeping and with Supplication will I lead them Oh that God would pour out the Spirit of Grace Supplication upon us But it may be inquired What we are more especially and particularly to Believe and Pray for in order to the Obtainment of such Salvation I Reply It must be for the returns and continuance of the Divine Presence and the accomplishment of the Promise of the Spirit 1. That God would no further or longer withdraw himself His Spiritual Gracious Saving Presence but return to us in those ways and by those degrees wherein and whereby he hath been departing from us We have yet all the visible signs and means of his presence that ever we had or any People can have But alas how much have we lost of the Spiritual Beauty Glory Power Saving Effects and Blessedness of his presence and of the comfortable Beatifical Apprehensions of his presence in Spiritual Communion with him and communications from him God is much with-drawn from our hearts and from his own House much of the Protecting Directing Prospering Propitious presence of God in the wayes of his Providence gone And truly the Divine presence seems still to be upon its remove from us we our People seem to be very little sensible of it and growing more insensible unconcerned about it surely then it is high time for us to stir up our selves to take hold of God we may complain with the Church Isa 64.7 There is none that call upon thy Name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee for thou hast hid thy face from us and consumed us Hos 10.12 It is time to seek the Lord till he come that is till he return Truly Wo will be to us if we suffer God to depart quite away from us Hos 9.12 It was therefore the burthen of the Churches Prayer Psa 80.3.7.19 Cause thy face to shine upon us and we shall be Saved More plainly Expressed Verse 14. Return O Lord we beseech thee When ever God Saves his People he returns and when ever he returns he brings Salvation with him Zech. 1.16 I am returned to Jerusalem with great Mercies 2. We must believe and pray for the accomplishment of the great Promise of the Spirit It was intimated before that God works more immediately to Save his People by his Spirit they therefore can expect no such Salvation otherwise then by the accomplishment of that Promise of the Spirit which indeed seems to be a Fundamental Article of the Covenant of Grace because it is by the performance of that he brings his People into Covenant with himself and applies all the Saving Grace of the Covenant unto them and so thereby he becomes their God and makes them his People therefore it is so often in express terms given and renewed in the Scripture both of the Old and New Testament as Isa 44.1 6. Isa 59.20 21. Ezek. 36.27 Ezek. 37.14 Ezek. 39.29 Joel 2.28 and elsewhere abundantly which signifies that God hath laid this Promise of his Spirit in the foundation of the Faith Hope and Confidence of his People and that the accomplishment of it is the great thing which they are to believe and pray for in order to their Salvation and therefore he hath directed his Church to wait upon him for Salvation until he pour out his Spirit Isa 32.15 Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high and the Wilderness become a fruitful field There were gracious Promises of Salvation made to the Church in that Context but they were to wait for it until the Spirit was poured upon them from on high It all depended upon the accomplishment of the Promise of the Spirit We have it may be sometimes thought and hoped that we had seen God working in the way of his Providence at this time and at that for our Salvation and we have been apt to be much raised in our Spirits with what we have so thought God hath been doing for us and that with very high hopes of being suddenly and perfectly restored to as good and happy condition as ever But alas do we see do we feel God working by the power of his Spirit Truly if not whatever other Signs or Prognosticks of good we may think we see we may assure our selves that all such hopes and confidences will fail us and we shall be left to complain with the Church Jer. 14.19 We looked for peace but no good hath come for a time of healing and behold trouble and as Isa 59.9 11. We wait for light and behold obscurity for brightness but we walk in darkness We looked for Judgment but there is none for Salvation but it is far from us Thus it will be so long as God doth with hold and suspend the Dispensation of the Spirit which is of all other the most humbling consideration of our present state and condition and therefore if we hope that God should ever have mercy upon New-England and Save us by himself we must labour our very Souls must labour by Faith in Prayer for the accomplishment of the Promise of the Spirit It is by the accomplishment of this Promise that God doth accomplish all other Promises and Prophesies also to his Church referring to their Salvation Yea it is by the accomplishment of this Promise of the Spirit that he doth accomplish all his most great and Glorious Works in the World referring more directly to his own Kingdom Name and Glory O may we obtain this Dispensation of the Spirit then his will be filled with his Spirit whereby the Ministry and Ministration of it will be made mighty and powerful as the Rod of Christs Strength sent out of Zion and we shall be made a willing people in such a day of his Power Psal 110.2 3. Then all Ordinances shall be filled with the Spirit and so become

powerful and effectual unto the most full and abundant communication of all saving grace and blessing represented in the Vision of the Candlestick by the two living growing Olive Trees or Branches distilling the Golden Oyl into the Pipes signifying the Spirit powerfully working for the communication of Grace Blessing by the Administration of Ordinances therefore the Vision was expounded by the Promise of the Spirit Zech. 4.6 Also God by filling his Word and Ordinances with his Spirit will fill his Churches with his Spirit then we shall see the Churches spirited unto Church Reformation and so flourishing again with all Spiritual Prosperity the Promise it is primarily made unto the Churches by the accomplishment of which God will also fill all his Servants betrusted with the management of the affairs of his People and Churches with his Spirit Yea all his people will be graciously influenced by his Spirit unto extraordinary Ability and Activity in his Service O that we may thus believe and pray effectually that God would Pour out his Spirit upon all Flesh according to his Promise Joel 2.28 29. Especially respecting the saving gifts graces of it in a general work of Conversion wherein more especially it is that God works more immediately to Save his People by himself and which is the only true and real Salvation And when God thus pours out his Spirit upon his People and Churches he works also in an extraordinary way and manner by his Spirit in the ways and works of his Providence especially with reference to his Church which is held forth to us in that Visional Scheme of Divine Providence Ezek. 1. By the Spirit of the Living Creatures and the Wheeles and the Throne and the appearance of a man upon it signifying our Lord Christ in the Administration of his Providential Kingdom by the working of his Spirit in the Dispensations of Providence a more glorious appearance of which will be seen in approaching accomplishments Hence we proceed to the 2 Exhortation Which is to Excite us to believe apply and improve this great Promise that God will have mercy upon New-England and Save us by himself Not by might nor by power but by his Spirit and that in a way of Sovereign Grace this seems to be the only hopeful way that we have left wherein God calls us to wait upon him for Salvation O therefore that we may obtain grace so to believe apply and improve this Promise and thereby enter into this most sure and happy way of Salvation Therefore 1. I take leave humbly to propose this Exhortation unto those who are or may be our Rulers together with the Representatives of the Perple in this General Assembly Right Honourable much Honoured and Respected Suffer your selves to be intreated in the Name of the Lord and by this Word of the Lord to undertake and carry on your whole work in the Administration of Government both by Legislation and Execution and in the management of all the great Affairs of the Publick Weal of this People of God which you are by him betrusted withal by a very powerful exercise of Faith in this great Promise that God will have mercy upon this his People and Save them by the Lord their God This is the Word of the Lord to you as it was to Zerubbabel the Governour of Judah Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts It remains as sure a foundation of Faith to you as it was to him Those whom God made Rulers and Deliverers of his People especially in times and cases of Difficulty and Danger they are Chronicled in Holy Writ for mighty men of Faith according to the Apostles Induction Heb. 11. Moses Gideon Barak Sampson Jeptha David Samuel to whom we may add Joshua Ezra Nehemiah Zerubbabel These all carried on their mighty works for the Salvation of Gods People by Faith and therefore were styled Saviours Neh. 9.7 According to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them Saviours who Saved them If God shall so spirit You unto believing we shall be comfortably perswaded if not assured that he will make you such Saviours and Save us by your means The present State of our People in this difficult distressing conjuncture of time and affairs doth require the extraordinary exercise and improvement of your Faith in God according to this promise nothing can be done effectually by you for our Salvation without it every thing will be savingly performed by it May you by the Exercise of Faith in Prayer obtain the accomplishment of this Promise to your selves you shall by an inexpressible Experiment feel the Spirit of God coming upon you moving and actuating of you by the more immediate influences of his Divine Wisdom Power and Grace in all Service unto God and his People in your several places and that with a sincere and single respect to his Glory and our good which is the highest good and end of all Government And then you shall be stirred up strengthened to set your selves with an high and holy zeal and courage in the Strength and Power of the Spirit of God against all the most powerful dangerous and destructive Sins and Evils of the Times The Spirit of God shall by you Lift up a Standard against them now they are breaking in upon us like a Flood It appears by Scripture Instances that it is Gods way to Save his People from their Sins by the power and working of his Spirit in and by Religious Rulers as well as in and by his Word seldome otherwise In the power of the Spirit also you shall labour effectually to recover uphold and advance Religion by promoting Holiness and Righteousness in all the wayes of it that so we may live quiet and peaceable lives in all Godliness and Honesty Much Honoured I do with all humble Importunity Pray Beseech you to suffer this word of Exhortation It will be your highest honour as well as happiness in your Station to Subserve so immediately by the Spirit unto God himself when he comes to Saves his People by himself The first New England Magistracy under whose Conduct God led his People into this Land by Faith obtained this Promise of the Spirit and being extraordinarily even divinely Spirited both in the undertaking and progress of that glorious work unto an happy consummation in Setting up Churches Worship Ordinances and the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ here May it therefore be your highest and very holy ambition to be through the power and assistance of the Spirit Repairers and Restorers of that work and of these Churches thereby unto their primitive beauty and holiness that more especially at such a time wherein God seems to be arisen unto an extraordinary way of working in preparation unto great Accomplishments for his Churches and People in the World Herein you shall not only be graciously accepted but gloriously Rewarded for if God thus improve you and you thus approve your selves unto God he