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	teach_v	7,832	5	6.9447	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52808	The crown and glory of a Christian consisting in a sound conversion and well ordered conversation.	Ness, Christopher, 1621-1705.	1676 (1676)	Wing N450; ESTC R26867	31,261	167

wide Ocean which yet is but as a babe in the hands of the great God and as a little Infant in swadling bands Job 38. 9. If you or any that are near or dear to you be concern'd at Sea Oh how may this consideration comfort you that your God can as easily rule and repress the unruly Ocean as the mother doth her tender suckling when it is swadled up by her hands 't is the work of the Almighty to set bounds to that raging Element Job 38. 9 10. 2. Thus also it may mind you that though the Dragon cast forth flouds to drown the man-child Rev. 12. 15. and though the waters of affliction do rise rage against the Church and children of God yet at the rebuke of your God the waters shall be abated and the dry land shall appear Gen. 1.9 8. 3. and the Ship the Church shall come safe to shore whatever contrary wind she meets with in the world Mat. 8. 26. 14. 24. 3. The continual fluctuation of the Sea in its being tossed with tempests to keep it from stinking like a standing pool which if so would destroy the Earth This may teach you the wisdom of God in ordering all things in sending tides and winds to toss the waters and to make them some out their mire and dirt Isa 57. 20. and so keep them from corruption and likewise how needful it is for you to be afflicted and to be poured from vessel to vessel that you may not settle upon the lees as Moab did Jer. 48. 11. 4. Oh the divine Meditations that holy David had on this subject of the Sea in Psal 107.23 24 c. although his concernments lay very little in that Element as he had done before in looking upon the heavens Psal 19. 1. 8. 3. look upon all with Davids spectacles and spirit and the Sea as well as heaven and earth will afford you many divine Instructions It will teach you 1 that your heart like Reuben is as unstable as water for God and God lives Gen. 49. 4. 2 That the Lord sitteth upon the floods Psal 29. 10. and rules for ever all the fluctuations of your and the Churches afflictons God sits when they flote and fly away 3 That Merchants and Mariners in their trading and trafficking by Sea hang both their safety and success upon a few Ropes or rather upon a special immediate hand of Gods providence 4 That they which go down into the deep see such wonders of the Lord as may convince the worst Atheist in the world first as the ebbing and flowing of the Sea which should it always flow would soon overflow this Island if the hand of the Lord did not command it back by its ebb 2. As that it should not swell above its banks and break its swadling bands by the falling and flowing of so many great rivers into it 3. As the saltness of its waters although all those mighty rivers that flow into it be fresh and the innumerable company of fish in it be all fresh also 4. As those trade-winds that lay upon the face of the Sea to further Navigation every way with many other wonders 1. Thus far of occasional Meditation upon the book of Nature there is also Meditation appointed upon the book of Scripture which you must be acquainted with as far exceeding the other for the book of Nature though never so diligently read over yet will it not bring you to the saving knowledg of God in Christ nor throughly furnish you for every good work but the book of Scripture is a larger field furnished with all sorts of spiritual and fragrant flowers whereupon you may freely feed your best thoughts without ever hauseating If you can but unclasp the tables of your own heart when you unclasp your Bible a praying heart can never want a profitable subject Oh let it not please you that carnal hearts can think of things below not only an hour a day a week a month but even a whole year without weariness and that to think on Gods name Mal. 3. 17. should weary you so soon 2. This second sort of Meditation is a set and solemn acting of all the faculties of the soul upon some chosen subject till you can extract some sweet and soul-ravishing thoughts out of your own heart thereby your subject or matter of meditation must be some scriptural truth such as are summarily comprehended in Phil. 4. 8. that little Bible Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise think on these things In that one verse is contained the whole duty of man the good and the all of man Eccles 12. 13. Mic. 6. 8. The second Religious Action is Prayer which well follows Meditation for as 1. Meditation is a blessed beginning to prayer so prayer is a blessed conclusion of meditation and therefore is the double reading of Gen. 24. 63. Isaac went out to meditate or he went out to pray So then when your heart is well warmed with the Angelical duty of Meditation then fall upon the Evangelical duty of Prayer then tender and render your homage to the God of all your mercies crying with David Oh the God of my mercies Psal 59. 10. 2. You must know that Prayer is the pouring out of the heart to God Psal 62. 8. 'T is not the pouring out of your speech but of your spirit unto the Lord. God looks not so much at what you do as with what spirit you do for him you must serve God with your spirit in the Gospel of his Son Rom. 1. 9. not resting in a bare gift of prayer without the grace of prayer Zach. 12. 10. you may not fetch materials or abilities for this work from your self but you must pray in the Holy Ghost Jud. v. 20. Rom. 8.26 The lifting up of your own tools upon Gods Altar will not polish but pollute it Exod. 20. ult That earnestness in prayer which flows meerly from a natural spirit is but the cry of the creature and not the groans of that holy Spirit which helps our infirmities but expressions without impressions 3. You must pray that God may rebuke Satan that resists you in prayer watch the adversary that watches you and watch your own heart likewise which will not only hang off from this work but will also conspire with Satan to give you disturbance when you are breathing out your desires into your fathers bosom and sending this winged messenger to him you will find it hard to serve the Lord in this duty without distraction as 1 Cor. 7. 35. No enemy like one treacherous within 4. Take heed of formality in this duty as a Musicians fingers will run over such a song as he hath often played although his mind all the while be employed about other things so many run over such a

distill and drop down into Gods bottle as their Receiver Psal 56. 8. 3. The great book of nature with its three leaves of Heaven Earth and Sea as well as the blessed Book of Scripture may hereby afford you a rich spirit and quintessence The first leaf of that book to wit Heaven may afford you many divine lectures as first the purity of Heaven may teach you the purity of its Maker who made it of such pure matter as you behold and the purity also that ought to be in your heart that this pure God may dwell in it as in his palace temple and lower heaven yea and the purity of your life likewise as becometh one that expects to live for ever in that pure heaven into which no impure thing can ever enter 4. When you behold 2ly the glory and splendor of Heaven both by night and by day 1. By night how it is bespangled with glittering and glorious Stars then think with your self that this splendid firmament which I behold is but the outside of the palace of God and the under-seiling only thereof and if that have so much lustre and beauty how much more hath the inside where the divine transcendent Majesty of the Trinity with innumerable both of glorious Angels and of glorified Saints shineth forth 5. And 2ly by day when you behold how one Sun makes a most glorious Morning when it ariseth and when you arise out of your bed then meditate Oh what shall the morning of the Resurrection be 't will be ten thousand times more glorious when the Sun of Righteousness shall arise and with him Myriads of Saints and Angels which shall be all seven times brighter than the Sun of the firmament If it be a pleasant thing as Solomon telleth you to behold the Sun then think how 't is more pleasant yea and profitable too for you to behold the Sun of Righteousness that in his light you may see light Psal 36. 9. 6. When you view the changeableness of the face of Heaven and its outward appearance unto you this may teach you in the third place that as the Heaven is somtimes bright and sometimes clouded not all night nor all day the Sun sometimes over-cast with a black cloud and sometimes breaking out in its splendor and glory and as the Moon hath her changes her borrowed light ruling the night as the Sun the day so you may not expect any fixed constancy in any condition upon earth while there is such changeableness in the face of heaven 7. When you consider 4ly the firmness of the body of heaven how it hath continued firm and unworn notwithstanding its motion which wears all other things is with incredible swiftness from the Creation of the World then did the Lord spread out that heaven like a curtain and it hath continued spread for almost six thousand years yet not one hole can be discerned in that curtain to this day Oh how may this teach you the unchangeableness of God who was the Creator and is the upholder of Heaven and what a safe place heaven is to lay up your treasure in so far out of the reach of all rust and robbery The second leaf in the book of Nature is 1. the Earth which the Heaven oft hears and waters with showers of blessing sometimes God stops up those of heaven and sometimes he opens them Speak to the earth and it shall teach you Job 12.8 How the clouds are Gods watering pot and his spunges which he squeezes with a gentle hand that the rain may softly descend and drop fatness upon the furrows of the earth Consider Oh what dependency hath man upon God! the rain hath no father but God the vanities of the Gentiles cannot give rain Jer. 14. 22. 2. Meditate how the air blows upon the earth yet is invisible and although it be so yet is it the preserver of your life which is nothing but a vapour and a little warm breath turned up and down the nostrils how may this put you in mind of the invisible God who filleth all things and in whom you live move and have your being 3. When you consider how the Earth hangeth in the midst of the air poized equally every way and yet not reeled out of its place this five thousand years and upward notwithstanding the hideous tempests that hath been upon it and the dreadful Earthquakes that hath been within it Psal 104. 5 6 God laid the foundations of the earth that it cannot be removed for ever And he hangeth the earth upon nothing Job 26. 7. Now if the whole massy body of the Earth hang so steadily and stedfastly upon the powerful precept of God O then bethink your self how firmly you ought to hang upon the precious promise of God both for your safety in this world and for your salvation in the world to come 4. Behold the fruits of the Earth and consider that a woman when about fifty years of age is past child-bearing yet this great mother the Earth though she be above five thousand years old is not past fruit-bearing still and whence comes it but from the word of the great Jehovah Seed-time and harvest shall not cease Gen. 8. 22. You see the Earth is yearly loaden with fruit Oh then consider what are the riches of the Throne of God if there be so much upon his footstool say also within your self doth your ground and your garden answer your expectation and shall not you the expectation of your God he will have his visiting time Cant. 6. 11. and will come with his basket upon his arm to gather the fruit of his Vine-yard if he find none to fill his basket he will lay down his basket and take up his axe and cut you down that you may not cumber the ground any more 5. Your beholding of the grass of the field while you are walking ro meditate there as Isaac did Gen. 24. 63. may mind you of your mortality and of your withering condition All flesh is grass Isa 40. 6 7. that grass which the sythe cuts not down in Summer while 't is young and juicy the sharp frosts of an hard Winter will wither away so though you escape the sythe of death in the summer of your youth while your bones are full of marrow and your veins of blood yet the winter of old age will wither you 6. When you behold that variety of trees it may teach you the difference among men some are wild trees trees of the wood that is out of the Church whose fruit be crabs and acorns mask for hogs not meat and medicine for men as Ezek. 47. 12. Others are trees of Righteousness planted and watered by the Lord Isa 61. 3. as the other by the Devil and thus ordinary objects as birds and beasts c. may be hallowed to an heavenly end The ox knows his owner the swallow her season 1. The third leaf in the book of Nature is the Sea the great and