Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	salvation_n	zeal_n	zealous_a	19	3	8.8417	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27065	The vain religion of the formal hypocrite, and the mischief of an unbridled tongue (as against religion, rulers, or dissenters) described, in several sermons, preached at the Abby in Westminster, before many members of the Honourable House of Commons, 1660 ; and The fools prosperity, the occasion of his destruction : a sermon preached at Covent-Garden / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Fools prosperity.	1660 (1660)	Wing B1448; ESTC R13757	102,825	412

his administrations so much less must we accuse God of negligence or injustice by stepping into his throne And though the Railers of these times excuse their sin with the name of Justice they must shew their Commissions for the executing of that Justice before it will pass in heaven for an excuse Is not God severe enough will not his judgement be terrible enough would you wish men to suffer more then he will inflict on the impenitent what more then hell and will it not be soon enough are you so hasty for so dreadful a revenge can you not stay when the Judge is at the door Mark both the usage and remedy of believers in Jam. 5. 5 6 7 8. To the rich and great ones of the world he saith Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter Ye have condemned and killed the just and he doth not resist you There 's your usage Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord There 's the remedy But must we stay so long he thus repeateth his advice Be ye also patient stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh Let your moderation be known to all men the Lord is at hand Phil. 4. 5. Shall not God avenge his own elect that cry day and night unto him though he bear long with them I tell you that he will avenge them speedily Luke 18. 7 8. There 's no contradiction between crying long and avenging speedily 5. Consider what compassion rather then reproach you owe to those by whom you suffer They do themselves much more hurt then they do you Are they great they have the more to answer for and their fall will be the greater Jam. 5. 1 2 3. If you are your selves believers go into the Sanctuary and ask the Scriptures what will be their end and then deny them compassion if you can Alas consider they are at the worst but such as you were formerly your selves as to the main Paul makes a sad confession of his own persecution of the Church when he was before Agrippa and doth not complain that he was himself so hardly used I verily thought saith he with my self that I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus 〈◊〉 of the Saints I shut up in prison little thinking that they were Saints I gave my voice against them I punished them oft in every Synagogue And being exceedingly mad against them I persecuted them Acts 26. 9 10 11 12. He would not tell Agrippa that he was mad but he might speak more freely of himself O sirs pitty poor men that have the temptations of worldly greatness and prosperity and must go through a Camels eye if they will come to heaven who stand so high that sun and wind have the greatest force upon them Who see so much vanity and little serious exemplary piety who hear so much flattery and falshood and so little necessary truth saith Seneca Divites cum omnia habeant unum illis deest scilicet qui verum dicat si enim in client●●am falicis hominis potentumque perveneris veneris aut veritas aut amicitia perdenda est If you were in their places you know not how far you might be prevailed against your selves If little temptations can make you miscarry in your places so oft and foully as you do what would you do if you had the strongest baits of the world and allurements of the flesh and the most dangerous temptations that Satan could assault you with Have you not seen of late before your eyes how low some have fallen from high professions and how shamefully the most promising persons have miscarried tha were lifted up and put to the tryal of such temptations of prosperity as they had never been used to before O pitty those that have such dangerous tryals to pass through and be thankful that you stand on safer ground and do not cruelty envy them their perils nor reproach them for their falls but pray and daily pray for their recovery 6. Consider this speaking evil of those by whom you suffer hath too much of selfishness and corrupted nature in it to be good If another suffered as you do and you were advanced as another is would you not speak more mildly then Or if not so yet the proneness of nature to break out into reviling words though it were for Religion and for God doth intimate to you that it hath a suspicious root Do you find it as easie to be meek and patient and forgive a wrong and love an enemy Take heed lest you serve Satan in vindicating the cause of God It s an unfit way of serving God to do it by breaking his Commands Read seriously the description of a contentious hurtful soul-tongued zeal in Jam. 3. and then tell me what thanks Christ will give you for it The two great Disciples James and John thought it would have notably honoured Christ and curbed the raging Spirit of the ungodly if he would have let them call for fire from heaven to consume a Town that refused to receive him But doth Christ encourage their destroying zeal No but he tells them Ye know not what spirit ye are of They little knew how unlike to the tender merciful healing Spirit of Christ that fiery hurting spirit was that provoked them to that desire nor how unpleasing their temper was to Christ This is the very case of many thousand Christians that are yet young and green and harsh and have not attained to that mellowness and sweetness and measure of charity that is in grown experienced Christians They think their passions and desires of some plagues on the contemners of the Gospel are acceptable to God and blame the charitable as too cold when they little know what spirit it is that raiseth that storm in them and how unlike and unacceptable it is to Christ Were you as zealous to serve all others in love and to stoop to their feet for their salvation and to become all things lawful to all men that you may win some this saving zeal would be pleasing to your Lord who comes to do the work of a Physician and not of the Souldier to save and not to destroy and therefore most approves of those that serve him most diligently in his saving work 7. Lastly consider your passions and evil speakings will but increase your suffering and make it seem just if otherwise it were unjust If you are not meek you have not the promise of inheriting the earth Matth. 5. 5 If you honour not your Parents or superiours you have not the promise that your daies shall be long in the land And your evil speaking will make men conclude that you would do evil if you could and durst As it s said to be Zoilus answer when he was askt why he spoke evil of Plato and such worthy men Quoniam malum facere cum velim non passum

And first Negatively it is not Vain to his own carnal ends but to the true ends of Religion 1. He intendeth by it the quieting of his own accusing conscience and the keeping up his hopes of salvation and keeping off the terrors of the Lord and so consequentially the deceiving of his own heart and to these ends it s not in Vain Here he sitteth as quietly as if all were well between God and him and heareth the threatenings as securely as if they concerned not him at all and applyeth the promises as boldly as if he were one of the heirs of promise you would little think that this man must shortly be cast into utter darkness from the presence of the Lord and have his portion with Hypocrites Matth. 24. 51. His everlasting horrours appear not now to himself upon his heart nor to others in his face what sign can you see of the curse of the Law or the wrath of God in that mans countenance what sign of his spiritual captivity and slavery and of the load of sin that lyeth upon his soul unless it be that he feels it not what sign of a man in so great danger of eternal torment unless it be that he little feareth it Doth he sit there like a man that is within a step of hell and shall shortly be there with the Devil and his Angels as sure as he is here unless he be saved by that grace and holiness which he now resists No he is as confident to be saved as the precisest of you all he is as little troubled with the fears of hell or the wrath of God as those that are discharged from it by Justification and perhaps much less For all this he is beholden to his Vain Religion that in the point of self-deceiving is not Vain As solid evidences promote the com●orts of true believers so this superficial kind of Religion promoteth the present peace of the presumptuous 2. This Religion is not Vain as to the frustrating of all the means of grace and hindering the conversion and Salvation of the Hypocrite This is his armour of defence against the sword of the Spirit that would pierce his heart and let out his close corruption and separate him from his beloved sin What tell you him of Repentance and Conversion He thinks he needeth no Conversion or is converted long ago what is he not a Christian a Protestant a Religious man Tell swearers and cursers and drunkards and extortioners and cruel Land-lords and fornicators of Conversion tell these that they are slaves of Satan and under the wrath and curse of God that are indeed so past all controversie but tell not him of it that makes no doubt but he is a member of Christ a Child of God and an heir of heaven He loveth to hear a Minister rouze up the prophane and grossely sensual offendors and seems in pitty to wish for their conversion and perhaps will exhort them to turn and mend their lives himself But he little thinks that he is faster in the prison of Satan then they and that he is himself in the same condemnation Do you go about to tell him of the necessity of the fear of God and of loving him above all and of trusting him and serving him as our only Lord Why all this he will confess and perhaps is as forward to say as you and verily thinks that he is one that doth it you may assoon make him believe that he is not an English man as that he is not a Christian and that he loveth not himself as that he loveth not God even while he liveth not to think of him to speak of him to call upon him to obey him while he loveth not his word his waies or servants or while he loveth the world and the pleasures of sin more heartily and seeketh them more eagerly and cleaveth to them more tenaciously yet if you would perswade him that he hath not a heart as true to God as any of you all you will lose your labour Do you tell him of hypocrisie he will tell you that its the thing he hateth who speaks against it more then he And because the world shall see he is no Hypocrite he will call them all Hypocrites that are faithful to God and to their souls and will not sit down in his truely-hypocritical Vain Religion but will be more holy and diligent then he What can you say to such a man in order to his conversion which his self-deceiving Religion will not frustrate Do you tell him of hell fire and of the wrath of God against the ungodly All this he can hear as calmly as another man for he thinks that he is none of the ungodly he hath scapt the danger let them be afraid of it whom it doth concern If you tell him of his sins he can tell you that all men are sinners we are here imperfect and you shall never perswade him that his raigning deadly sins are any other then such humane frailties and infirmities as may stand with grace Do you put him upon the inward practice of Religion and the fuller devoting of his soul to God and the life of faith and a heavenly mind Hee 'l tell you that in his measure he doth all this already though none of us are so good as we should be And his heart being unseen to you he thinks you must believe him Do you blame him for his slightness and Formality in Religion and put him upon a more serious diligent course and to live as one that seeketh heaven with all his heart and soul and might why he thinks you do but perswade him to some self-conceited over-zealous party and draw him from his moderation to be righteous overmuch and to make too much ado with his Religion Unless he be an Hypocrite that falleth into the Schismatical strain and then he will make a greater busle with his opinions and his outside services then you can desire So that one with his meer book-prayers forms and ceremonies and the other with his meer extemporate words and affected outside seeming fervour and both of them by a meer Opinionative lifeless carnal kind of Religion subjected to their fleshly ends and interests do so effectually cheat their souls that they are armed against all that you can say or do and you know not how to get within them or fasten any saving truth upon their hearts 3. This Vain Religion is not Vain as to the preserving of his reputation in the world It saveth him from being numbered with the filthy rabble and from being pointed at as notoriously vicious or branded with the disgraceful characters of the scandalous Men say not of him There goeth a drunkard a swearer a curser a fornicator or a prophane ungodly wretch He may be esteemed civil ingenuous discreet and perhaps Religious and be much honoured by wise religious men Though most commonly his formal or opinionative heartless kind of Religion is discerned or much suspected

themselves the more easily that they are as good as those opinions and that company doth import and that they are truely such as those they joyn with As men are taken by others for such as those they correspond with so hypocrites take themselves for such As if it would prove that a man is sound because he dwelleth with them that are so Or as if it would prove a man rich or honourable that he converseth with such As God will not save any Nations on earth because they are such Nations nor will he save men because they are of such or such a trade or because they are skilled in this or that art or science no more will he save men for being of this or that party or Sect in matters of Religion One thinks when he hath lived a fleshly life that he shall be saved for hearing or saying the Common-prayer or because he is for Prelacy and Ceremonies another thinks he shall be saved because he can pray without a book or form of words or because he frequenteth the private meetings of those that more diligently redeem their time for spiritual advantages then others do another thinks he shall be saved because he is mocked as a Puritan or as too strict as others are that are serious believers and diligent in the things of God and another thinks that he shall be saved because he is rebaptized or because he joyneth with some separating Congregation which pretendeth to be more strict then others But none shall be saved on any such account as these Cain could not be saved for being the first born in the family of Adam Cham could not be saved for being in the Ark and family of Noah Nor Esau for being in the house of Isaac Nor Absalom for being the son of David Nor Judas for being a Disciple in the family of Christ Even Mary that brought him forth could not have been saved by him if she had not had a better title and had not bore him in her heart Mark 3. 34 35. when they talk to him of his Mother and his brethren Christ looked upon those that sate about him and told them that Whosoever shall do the will of God the same is his Brother his Sister and his Mother It is no outward badge and livery but a heart-title that must prove you the heirs of heaven You may be snatcht out of the purest Church on earth and from the purest ordinances and out of the arms of the most upright Christians and cast into hell if you have no better evidences then such to shew for your salvation If ever you be saved it must not be because you are Papists or Protestants Lutherans or Calvinists Arminians Antinomians Anabaptists Independents Presbyterian or Prelatical formally and meerly as such But because you are true Christians that have the Spirit of Christ Rom. 8. 9. and are conformed to him in his sufferings death and resurrection and live in sincere obedience to his will But Hypocrites that want the inward life and power of Religion and are conscious of their willfull sins would fain borrow something from the parties which they joyn with or the opinions which they take up or the formal outward worship which they perform or the alms which they give to make up the want and cheat their souls with a self-created confidence that they shall be saved But more specially you may hence observe the reason that Popery hath so many followers and that it is so easie a thing to make an Infidel or whoremonger or drunkard to turn a Papist when yet it is not easie to bring them to faith and chastity and temperance much less to the unfeigned love of God and to a holy heavenly life Though I doubt not but there are many sincere-hearted Christians among the Papists yet Popery it self is of an hypocritical strain and is notably suited to the Hypocrites disposition It is revived Pharisaisme I marvel that they tremble not when they read themselves so lively characterized by Christ with the addition of so many terrible woes as in Matth. 23. and other places frequently they are Woe to you Scribes Pharisees Hypocrites They bind heavy burdens of external observances to lay upon the consciences of their Proselytes They make broad their Phylacteries and in variety of holy vestures they make ostentation of such a Religion as a Peacock may have when he spreads his tail They contend for superiority and titles to be called Rabbi Pope Cardinal Patriarck Primate Metropolitane Archbishop Diocesane Abbot Prior Father c. to the great disturbance of all the Nations of the Christian world They must needs be the Fathers and Masters of our faith They shut up the Kingdom of heaven against the people forbidding all to read the Scriptures in their vulgar tongue without a special license from their Ordinary and commanding them to worship God in a strange tongue which they do not understand By the numbers of their Masses and prayers for the dead they delude the souls and devour the Patrimony of the living In Temples and Altars and Images and Ornaments consisteth no small part of their Religion They make more of tything mint anise and cummin then of judgement mercy and faith the weightier matters of the Law The outside they make clean and appear as beautiful to men as ceremonies and outward pompe can make them They make it a part of their Religion to murder the living Saints and keep holy dayes for the dead They build the Tombs of the Prophets and garnish the Sepulchres of the righteous and say If we had lived in the dayes of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets Thus Matth. 23. is their description They have their Touch not ●aste not handle not after the commandements and doctrines of men their voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels and other rudiments of the world and things that have a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh Col. 2. 19 20 21 22 23. How easie a thing is it to bring an ungodly man to be of a Religion that consisteth in such things as these in eating fish on certain dayes in stead of flesh in saying over so many Pater Nosters and Ave Maries and naming so oft the name of Jesu in worshipping a piece of consecrated bread with divine worship in bowing and praying before an Image in praying to the souls of such as the Pope tells them are Saints in heaven in crossing themselves and being sprinkled with holy water and using agnus dei's and consecrated grains and amulets in dropping of beads in saying such words as a prayer at such a canonical hour and such words at the next canonical hour in hearing a Masse in Latine and saying a Latine prayer in being anointed with hallowed oyl burning hallowed candles on the Altars by day-light in going so many miles to