Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	satan_n	zeal_n	zealous_a	21	3	8.9861	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26915	Directions and perswasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation of souls, and of those scandals, heresies, and desperate apostasies that are the consequents of a counterfeit, or superficial change / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing B1243; ESTC R15278	227,645	552

those best that are of his own Opinion though there be nothing of the special Image of God upon his Soul Or if he love a true Christian it is not so much for his Holiness and Spirituality as because he is of his mind in those matters of Opinion Hence it is that he is usually a bitter censurer of those that are not of his Opinion how upright soever they may be His very esteeme of men and love to them is partial and factious to those that are of his Mind and Sect A Papist will esteem and love men of the Popish Sect and an Anabaptist will esteem and love men of that Sect most yea a Protestant if he be an Opinionist doth esteem of men and love them as a Sect Whereas the true Christian as he is truly Catholick and of the Catholick Church which is not confined to Papists no nor Protestants so he hath truly Catholik affections and loveth a Christian as a Christian a Godly man as Godly yea if he saw more serious Godliness in one that is not of his Opinion in lesser things yet would he love him more then one that is in such matters of his Opinion that is ungodly or of more doubtfull Piety For as it is God in Christ that he principally loveth so it is Christ that he admireth in his Members and so much of Christ as he sees in any so much are his special affections towards them 9. Ordinarily the meer Opinionist will Sacrifice the very Ends of the Gospel and the honour and success of the great fundamental Truths of God to the interest of those Opinions which he hath in a singular manner to his Own He will rather hinder the propagation of the common Truths and the Conversion of the ignorant then he will silence his Opinions or suffer them to lose any advantages with the world Hence it is that we cannot prevaile with the Papists to silence a while the differences between us and them till we have taught their ignorant in Ireland and other barbarous parts the knowledg of those Truths that all are agreed in Nor can we get many Anabaptists or any such Sect that is engaged in a division to forbear their Opinions till we have endeavoured ●o lay the necessary grounds on which all must build that will be saved But though it be apparent to the world that their disputes and contentions do exceedingly harden the ignorant and ungodly against all Religion and hinder their Conversion and Salvation yet will they go on in the unseasonable intemperate bruting of their conceits and will not be perswaded to agree on those terms for the managing of differences as most tend to secure the interest of Christ and his Gospel in the maine If an Opinionist be for the Truth he is usually without much zeale for it because that Nature doth not befriend the great Spirituall Truths of the Gospel so much as it doth errours and private conceits But if he be of Erroneous Opinions he is usually very zealous for them For Corrupted Nature and Self and Satan and the world oft-times do more befriend these and furnish him with a Zeale for them and blow the coale The counterfeit Angel of Light is very ordinarily also a spirit of heat and great activity not a reviving fire nor a refining fire but a consuming fire devouring Christian Love and meekness and patience and therewith the Church and Truth of God so far as it can prevail For lesser matters that minister Questions such men can say by that which tends to Godly Edifying in Faith 1 Tim. 1. 4. Yea that Charity which is the very End of the Commandement out of a pnre Heart a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned vers 5. From these they swerve and turn aside to vain jangling oft times desiring to be Teachers of such thigs in which they understand not what they say nor whereof they speak vers 6 7. Consenting not to the wholsome Words of Christ and the Doctrine which is according to Godliness they teach otherwise being proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strife of words whereof cometh envy strife railings evill surmisings perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the Truth 1 Tim. 6. 3 4 5. Yea they sometime take their Opinions or their worldly gain that they often ayme at to be instead of Godliness And think that to be Godly is to he of their mind and way They use to strive about words to no profit but to the subverting of the hearers and their vain bablings increase to more ungodliness 2 Tim. 2. 14 16. But the True Convert looks principally to the main He loves every known Truth of God but in their Order and accordingly to their worth and weight He will not for his own Opinions wilfully do that which shall hazard the main or hinder the Gospel and the saving of mens Souls Though he will not be false to any Truth yet he will avoid foolish and unlearned questions knowing that they do gender strife and the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men and meekly instruct opposers following Righteousness Faith Charity Peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart Tim. 2. 22 23 24 25. 10. Lastly True Converts are stedfast but Opinionists are usually mutable and unconstant The sound Convert receiveth the greatest Truths and receives the Goodness as well as the Truth and takes it not only into the Head but into the Heart and giveth it deep rooting He closeth with God as his only felicity and with Christ as his only Refuge and Redeemer and with Heaven as the sure everlasting Glory to which the world is but a mole-hill or a dungeon No wonder then if this man be stedfast and unmovable alwaies abounding in the Work of the Lord that knows his Labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. But the Opinionist either fasteneth on smaller matters or else holdeth these great matters but as bare Opinions and therefore they have no such interest in his heart as to stablish him against shaking tryals and temptations For two sort● there are of these Opinionists the on● sort have no Zeal for their own Opinions because they are but Opinions And these are time-servers and will change as the King or their Land-lords change and fit their Opinions to their worldly Ends. The other sort have a burning Zeale for their Opinions and these use to wander from one Opinion to another not able to resist the subtilty of seducers but are taken with fair and plausible reasonings not able to see into the heart of the cause These are as Children t●ssed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the slight and cunning craftiness of men whereby they lie in weight to deceive Eph. 4. 14. When with great confidence they have held one sort of Opinions a while and railed against those that were not of their mind ere long they

yea and the current of your prayers and all the rest of your religious performances When in confession you should acknowledge and la●ent an unregenerate carnall state you will only confess that you have the infirmities of the Saints and that you have this or that sinne which yet you think is mortified When you should importunately beg for Renewing grace you will beg only for strengthning grace or assurance When you should be labouring to break your hearts you will be studying to heal them and will be hearkning after present comforts when you have more need of godly sorrow It will fill your mouthes in prayer with Pharisaicall thanksgivings for the mercies of Regeneration Justification Adoption Sanctification which you never received Little doth many a soul know what sanctification and the feverall graces of the Spirit are that use to give God thanks for them There 's many and many a one that must for ever be in hell that were used in their prayers to give God thanks for their hopes of glory And the common cause of all this deceit and misery is that men do run from under the hands of their Physician before he ever went to the bottom of their sore and go away with a half-conversion and so spend all the rest of their lives in a meer delusion as verily thinking they are converted when they are not How confidently will such receive the Lords Supper and thrust themselves into the communion of the Saints as if they had as good right as any to be there till the Lord of the Feast shall take them to task and say Friend how comest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment and then they will be speechless Mat. 22. 12. How many false deceiving comforts and perhaps even seeming raptures and assurance may these have in themselves as verily thinking their case is good when alas they never yet laid the foundation Yea and it is to be observed that Satan is a friend to the comforts of this kind of men and therefore will do all that he can to promote them For he would willingly keep his Garrison in peace Luk. 11. 21. And therefore he may possibly be a comforting spirit to them himself and imitate the Holy Ghost the Comforter of the Saints And it may be give them such raptures as seem higher then those which the Spirit of holiness doth give He envieth the Saints their peace and comfort because he foresees how durable they will prove But he can be content that deluded hypocrites may have joy because their comforts do not weaken but strengthen his Kingdom within them and he knows they are like to endure but for a while And thus you may perceive how hard it is to convert one of these half-converted men that have strangled the New Creature as it were in the birth and that are fortified against all the means of grace by a false conceit that they are sanctified already See therefore that you make sure work and take not up in the middle and with halves but take your present time and give up your souls to a totall change 4. Consider If you take up short of a through Conversion you lose all your labour and sufferings and hopes as to the matter of your salvation And what pitty is it that so much should be lost Alas to see many of our hearers toucht at a Sermon and come to a Minister and bewail their sinne and seem to be humbled and promise to be new men and yet all this to be lost How sad a case is this to think of To see them leave their company and former course of life and come among the professors of holiness and all men take them for reall Converts and yet all this to be lost and their souls lost after all How sad a case is this If you grow up to the greatest parts for outward duty and be able to discourse or pray or preach even to the admiration of the hea●ers yet if you do not ground this on a through Conversion all is but lost as to your own salvation If you keep up the highest strain of profession and get the highest esteem in the Church so that others depend upon you as Oracles yea if the Pope with all his infallibility should cannonize you for Saints it were all but loss If you should keep up the most confident perswasions of your salvation and hope to go to Heaven to the last hour of your lives it were all but lost if you build not all on a through Conversion Yea if you should be taken by persecutors for one of the party to which you joyn and should suffer for the cause of Religion among them all were but lost without a sound Conversion 1 Cor. 13 1 2 3. It is a pittifull case to see some poor unsanctified souls how they wander and change from one opinion to another and from party to party to find out that which they want within They turn to this party first and that party next and then to another and then think they are sure in the way to Heaven when they never throughly turned to God by Jesus Christ and therefore are certainly out of the way whatever party it be that they joyn with Some go to the giddy Sects that make the highest pretences to strictness And some go to Rome because they think that there they shall have more company and hear the deluding sound of Vnity Vniversality Antiquity Succession Miracles and such like And then they think they have hit the way Alas poor souls If God were but nearest and dearest to your hearts and Christ and his Righteousnes exalted within you and your soules unfeignedly turned from your sinnes you would be in the certain way to Heaven in what Countrey or company or Church soever you were supposing that you believe and do nothing there which is inconsistent with this life of Grace Though yet every Christian should choose that particular Society if he can where he may not only be saved but most certainly saved and find the greatest helpes and least hinderances or else where he may do God the greatest service But choose what company you will in all the world the strictest the most reformed the most splendid in outward pompe and glory or of whatever excellency else you can imagine you will never be saved in it your selves as long as your hearts are unconverted I know the Papists have found out many devices by Sacraments and Ceremonies and the Merits of the Saints to patch up the defect of a through Conversion but all are meer delusions that pretend to such a thing O then think of this poor sinner Hast thou gone so farre and done so much and shall all be lost because thou wilt not follow it to the end Hast thou groaned and wept and confessed and bemoaned thine own condition Hast thou prayed and read and heard and fasted and changed thy company and much of thy course of life and shall all