Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	see_v	sin_n	soul_n	6,896	5	5.1461	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41707	The primitive Christian justified and Jack Presbyter reproved, or, A scripture demonstration, that to be innocent and persecuted is more eligible than to be prosperously wicked delivered in a sermon in the Abby-Church of Bath by William Goulde.	Gould, William, d. 1686.	1682 (1682)	Wing G1441; ESTC R9434	18,041	33

and if you will pardon my hasty Conceptions I resolve to speak what is very Plain Innocent and Honest consonant with the primitive rule of Reforming and preservng Churches recommended by Christ and his Apostles and their immediate and best Successors First Sin is not the object of a Rational man's choice considered either in its self or Consequences 1. Not with respect to its self for it is de numero ineligibilium as the Schools speak There is no Form nor Beauty in it that we should desire it Election is the act of the Will whose adequate object is good and so Sin which is malum in se evil in its self cannot be properly said to be elected hence it comes to pass that such who have not their Senses exercised to discern between Good and Evil chuse Sin by a mistake thinking it to be good putting light for darkness and darkness for light Isaiah 5. 20. thus Saint Paul rather Saul before he was Converted verily thought with himself that he ought to doe many things against Jesus of Nazareth and Christ tells his Disciples that some that Kill'd them by a mistaken zeal should think they did an acceptable service unto God thus Iniquity in practice passeth for Duty and Error in opinion for Truth and Evil is chosen sub ratione boni not for its own sake but under the notion of being at least seemingly good Others chuse Sin that good may come thereof that God may have glory or themselves advantage by it This was objected against St. Paul and his Doctrine which in great Disdain he rejected not as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say Let us doe evil that good may come whose damnation is just Rom. 3. 8. Others chuse evil to escape Danger by it elect the evil of Sin to avoid thereby the evil of punishment So Demas resolving to sleep in a whole skin and not to be persecuted for Christs sake forsook St. Paul and imbraced the present world now in all these three respects whether Sin be chosen under the notion of good by a mistake or that good may come thereof or that Danger be escaped by it each of these single and much more united are a clear demonstration that Sin is not eligible for its self Sin indeed is the worst of any thing that is enemy to God or man it is very much worse than Hell not only as its cause or parent but considered in its self for Hell is good for something even to glorifie God's Justice but Sin serves only to abuse his grace and goodness Hell was of God's making Sin of the Devil 's Nay God made Hell as well to terrifie men from coming there as to punish the willful intruders into that place of torments And hence the chief end of Christs taking our flesh was to save us from our sins our worst kind of enemies Hence in Scripture when God is said to be angry to the highest pitch the stile runs thus I will give him up that is filthy to be filthy still I will choose your delusions give them over to their iniquities so that were there no Hell 't were in this sense a kind of Damnation to be sinners Of all sorts of punishments sin it self is the greatest and so not the proper object in its self of a Rational mans or true Christians choice Secondly As Sin is not to be chosen in and for its self so neither with respect tothe Consequences thereof The first and most immediate fruit of Sin is ignorance man was first tempted by the promise of Knowledge and fell into darkness by believing the Devil holding forth his new lights Adam and Eve knew what was good before the Devil promised them the knowledge of evil and had they not imbraced this temptation they had continued in their happiness This knowledge of evil was the introduction of ignorance the Understanding being baffled the Will became foolish and both conspired to ruine each other for the Will beginning to love Sin the Understanding was set on work to commend and advance it and so became both Factious in approving their new miserable Purchase for ever since Adam and Eve yielded to the Tempter who told them they should be as Gods in knowledge Man hath a double disadvantage for the Devil is hence grown more quick-sighted to abuse us and we the more blind by his opening of our eyes as is sufficiently manifest by the prevalence of Atheism and Idolatry in the world than which nothing can be more ridiculous occasioned originally by the Fall of our first Parents from their native paradise A second effect of Sin is Shame which is an immediate consequence of all sort of wickedness what fruit had you then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed Rom. 6. 21. We see the truth of this by a too sad Experience what Arguments what Preaching what Necessity can perswade men to confess their sins how do men chuse to involve Sin in excuses and denials in the clouds of Lying and the white Linnen of Hypocrisie to shew that a mans spirit is amazed and his face confounded when he is dressed of so shameful Disease It was the unhappy Patrimony which our first Ancestors bequeathed us first to Sin and then to be ashamed of our selves and Actions The woman which thou gavest me said Adam charging his sin upon God The Serpent beguiling me said Eve imputing it to the Devil both betraying the nakedness of their Souls as well as bodies and proportionably making Aprons of Excuses as well as Leaves And you may read the Character of the Parents in the Childrens foreheads for Shame makes us as backward to reveal our sins as we are forward to confess our Sicknesses and less desirous to trust God with the diseases of our Souls than the Physician with those of our Bodies None will own sin amongst all its acquaintance If a man pursue Vengeance he will Christen it Justice he that hates another mans person pretends enmity to his sins and the theft of Rachell shelters its self under the modesty of her sex Genesis 30. 34 35. he that designs to play the Devil first personates the Saint and Rebells call themselves the people of the Lord thus Sacriledge and Schism are a godly thorough Reformation popular Fury is Zeal Obstinacy against Laws tenderness of Conscience Treason and Nonsence praying by the Spirit to dye in Rebellion a glorious Martyrdom and the madness of the Commons against the King and the Priests is courage in the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ oppression of our brethren Subjects calls its self a High Court of Justice and such as seize our Estates were the Keepers of our Liberties and Doctors Elders and Deacons the only Sceptre of Christ and to avoid Arbitrary Government we kneel at the bar of our fellow-Subjects and are imprison'd for new unheard of Crimes to preserve our Properties and Privileges A clear Argument that Sin dares not appear in its own colours

I out of my mothers womb and naked shall I return thither c. and the same effect Affliction wrought in the late Martyr'd King of England who as he imitated the Piety so he had the troubles of David I shall not want saith he the heavy and envyed Crowns of this World when my God hath mercifully crowned and consummated his Graces with glory and exchang'd the shadows of my earthly Kingdoms among men for the substance of that heavenly Kingdom with himself Thus Afflictions wean us from the World and bring us nearer to God but Sin and the World are a Kin and of a blood and Sin is a departure from God the Lord saith to sinners you are departed and gone your iniquities have separated between you and your God as the Prophet Isaiah expresseth it 4. We are full of Worldly mindedness adhaesit pavimento as David spake but in another sense our soul cleaveth to the dust we all complain the World is naught and so it is the whole World lyeth in wickedness and yet as bad as it is it finds an entertainment in our hearts proportionably to our outward Prosperities the faster Riches and Honours and other Vanities increase the more eagerly we pursue and dote on these Transitory things 'T is Affliction that takes off their seeming pleasantness and imbitters the lusciousness of them to our taste that we have any apprehension at all of the Vanity of the World is due to those vexations of Spirit that are interwoven with it 5. To be innocent and to be Afflicted is the body and soul of Christianity its self I John your Brother and partaker of tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus said good St. John These were the Titles and Ornaments of his profession that is to say I John your fellow Christian for the former descant this is the plain Song Love is the Soul of Christianity and the soul of Love is Suffering God hath given a single Blessing to other graces but a double to this it is a double kindness we receive at Gods hands first to be Innocent and then to be persecuted with Jesus Christ The Church is like Moses his Bush when it is all on fire it is not at all consumed but made full of Miracle full of Splendor and full of God and unless we can find something that God cannot turn into Joy if he so please we have reason not only with the well instructed Heathens to be patient under but with St. Paul to rejoice exceedingly in Tribulation not to think a Fiery Tryal strange but rejoice that we are partakers of Christs Sufferings as St. Peter Paul's beloved Brother and our fellow Souldier under the banner of the Cross exhorts us and proportionably his brother James My Brethren Count it all joy when ye fall into divers Temptations Take the Prophets saith St. James as an example of Suffering Afflictions but Jesus Christ is beyond all these for he suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow his steps These things considered is it not a barbarous thing for a grave Society of men to press their Sovereign wholly to lay aside the Rightful Successor of his Crown by the Laws of Heaven which is the doing evil to commit a known Sin to secure thereby the Protestant Religion that is that good may thence come or rather that the Zeal-drunk Presbyterian who prefers Rebellion before Martyrdom may not run the hazard of shewing himself no Christian by remonstrating against suffering Persecution A Papist cannot be a worse King than a Nero or Dioclesian and when St. Paul said we should stand to our Faith to imagine he intended we should stand to our Arms is a new and strange Interpretation But the Mischief is deeper yet for we cannot Disinherit this Gentleman but by a known Principle of the Court of Rome That Grace gives a a title to Dominion and accordingly the Pope disposeth of an Heretick Kingdom and barrs the Successor and gives it to another Man of his own nomination and to the next of the Line if he be of the Romish Perswasion and with what Conscience can these men mutatis mutandis press the King to an imitation of the Pope of Rome whilst they condemn in this very point his unjust Usurpation When St. Paul preached Obedience to the Higher Powers and the Primitive Christians prayed that the Father might be succeeded by the Son or the next of the Blood and Line could they be supposed to mean unless he were of this or that Religion and then it should be lawful to Disinherit them He that maintains such a point in a Parliamentary Session and at the same time calls himself a Christian is not so well qualified for Westminster as Bedlam The Doctrine of taking away the Right of Succession came from Rome the Pope had it from the Devil without question for St. Peter his pretended Predecessor taught no such thing but quite contrary exhorts all Christians and so includes the Presbyterian to endure the Fiery Tryal and rejoyce in being partakers of Christs sufferings now Christ came to give us an Heavenly not to take away any mans earthly Crown and accordingly as he knew no Sin so he underwent all sorts of Affliction He that saith I will not have this man to Reign because a Papist or a Puritan or saith this is the Heir let us by all means bar him of Possession is a much worse Christian than he that saith It is the Lord let him doe as it pleaseth him I will bear his Indignation because I have sinned against him This is the present Question under debate with reference to the Succession and not the Fighter for Reformation but the Patient under God's Correction is the best Defender of Christ Religion I can and will prove against all the Papists and Sectaries in Christendom I ask the Presbyterian these Questions and request an Answer to them 1. Doth the wrath of man work the Righteousness of God 2. Doth the Saviour of the World who came to save us from Sin not from Affliction stand in need of the sinful man to promote his Religion or the Interest of his Kingdom 3. Did Christ teach us by his Example or Doctrine to prefer Rebellion before Martyrdom and is not the contrary Position equal to a Mathematical Demonstration 4. Can the Pope in Cathedra or Pope Populus in Parliament by voting Evil good and Good evil sanctifie an unlawful action done with a good intention If these things be so I require him to prove it if not St. Paul's Doctrine will be found Billa vera in the Court of Heaven That we may not commit a present known Sin to avoid a future probable Persecution all the Bills Votes and Resolves of Froward men to the contrary notwithstanding I understand not the over-looking the lawfulness to pass to the expedience of the thing for Strafford lost his Head to please the Faction and then it was Voted on again by making it no President for the Peers of the Kingdom Suppose it be his Majesties judgement and perswasion as he hath declared that he cannot give consent to the Bill of Exclusion Is it either Religion or good Manners my Brethren to perswade our lawful Sovereign against St. Paul's advice which the Presbyterians quote sometimes to serve their own Interest and Turn Whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin Have not Princes Consciences as well as other men and may they not as well plead their Judicium discretionis who are only responsable to the God of Heaven as any private person who is and ought to be accountable both to God and Man Is it not sufficient for his Majesty to say what his Father Exemplified better one Man unjustly perish than the People be displeased is a fallacious Maxim especially considering the late King's conclusion hereupon I see it a bad exchange to wound a mans own Conscience thereby to salve State sores to calm the storms of Popular Discontents by stirring up a Tempest in a mans own bosome I hope the Commons of England will never arrive to that Insolence as to answer with Bradshaw to their Sovereign your Reasons Sir are not to be heard against the Supream Jurisdiction of this Nation and yet they have lately huss'd their Brethren and made them do Penance for being Jury-men and pay excessive Fees for no crime under the notion of Abhorrers of Petitioning And now we are upon the Petitioning point I remember a passage in Mr. Calamies Sermon Preached in 1645. at Michael Basing-Shaw London to the Lord Mayor and his Brethren when the Solemn League and Covenant was Renued with Prayer and Fasting You have saith Holderforth shot one Arrow already shoot another and if that miscarry shoot another He that cuts down a Tree though he cut it not down at the first or second blow yet the first and second blow prepare to the speeding blow that cuts it down You have delivered one Petition deliver another if that miscarry deliver another the speeding Petition will come at last That is in plain English Worry out your Prince with perpetual Noise and Clamours give him no rest till he submit to your Requests What this Fellow Preached in 1645. hath been practised for two years past yet must not I say so during the sitting of the Commons for fear of a Reprimand in such language as was never given a Priest by Imperial Princes But I bless God I have the spirit of an English man and my Knees due to God and the King shall never be yielded up to Usurpers come what will come Hanging Burning or any other or all the Torments that exercised the Patience of the Primitive Christians and herein I shew my self a Protestant whose great Principle it is rather than Sin to chuse Affliction FINIS