Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	sin_n	soul_n	work_n	7,280	5	5.6981	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62277	Concio ad clerum a sermon preach'd to the clergy at the arch-deacon's visitation, held at Huntington, May 19, 1696 ... : to which is added a preface to the clergy / by Sam. Satwell ...	Saywell, Samuel, 1651 or 2-1709.	1696 (1696)	Wing S799; ESTC R23166	26,607	48

more which occasioned that sharp contention and division which happened betwixt St. Barnabas and him that we read of Act. 15.39 and Demas quite forsook his Ministry for the love of this present World 2 Tim 4.10 we read also that there were some defects in most of the seven Angels i. e. the seven Bishops of the seven Churches in Asia Rev. Chap. 2.3 and very gross failings in those two of Sardis and Laodicea But that which is most strange of all is That this very Timothy whom St. Paul makes his special exception in this place is generally supposed to be the person whom Christ himself writes to and reproves by St. John for having forsaken his first love Rev. 2.1 for the Historians do mostly agree and 't is highly probable that he was Bishop of Ephesus at that time and when he is censured for forsaking his first love the meaning is not that he had quite lost his Charity and love to Christ but that he had abated of his first Zeal for his honour through the manifold temptations great difficulties and dangers he met with in the discharge of his office which is not a thing unlikely to happen to a person of so great virtue and holyness as he was But now if this were so as we have great reason to believe it should be a matter of special consideration and admonition to all the Bishops and Pastours of Christs Church throughout all Generations for then it will follow that this very holy Timothy himself whom St. Paul here so highly commends and distinguisheth did afterward in some measure fall under the same censure with the rest and that he did more than was fitting seek his own not the things of Jesus Christ And if together with the subtlety of our spiritual Enemies we consider the strange moveableness deceitfulness and inconstancy of Mans nature and the many unexpected difficulties surprizing accidents and temptations he is continually subject to while he is in this World and that our most natural inclinations are Enemies to us when we are in the greatest danger It will not be thought extreamly marvellous if the best and holyest of men should degenerate by degrees or fall suddenly from a state of some eminency and perfection in holyness But then it must be remembred that such as these are in a greater likely-hood than others to repent and recover themselves again upon some special admonition or other and therefore we have no reason to question but that Bishop Timothy did return to his former love and zeal for Christ upon the reproof that was given him 'T would be too tedious to mention the many Complaints that are made by God himself and the great failings that are recorded in his word of the Priests under the law and 't would be endless and nauseous to reckon up the defects and miscarriages of the Bishops and Governours of the Church that are to be found in the Ecclesiastical Historians Grievous likewise are the complaints that are made of the Clergy of their own times by such holy men as St. Chrysostom S. Salvian Gregory the Great St. Bernard Petrarch and many others And there is nothing more remarkable of this kind than what we meet with in the little work of our own Countryman Gildas for 't is a most dismal account that he gives of the Corruption of the British Clergy a little before this Island was over run and destroyed by the Saxons But I shall wave all these and such like ungrateful matters and proceed to make but two Observations from what hath been already said on this second general 1. We may hence observe how very apt Mans Nature is to degenerate and swerve from the ways of God and how difficult a matter 't is for us constantly and duly to attend to spiritual things i. e. to the things of Jesus Christ And if there were no other Arguments to prove the corruption of humane nature yet the very observing how constantly all Orders and Societies of Men are apt to fall away from the wise and pious Laws and strict Rules given them by their first Formers and Founders is enough to convince us of it and the Bodies of Men are scarce more apt to corrupt and turn noy some after their Souls are departed from them than their minds are to alter and be corrupted if they are not carefully watched and continually seasoned with God's grace But the grace of God is not to be obtained but by the use of such means as are proper to cultivate our Souls and to preserve and renew the spirit of God in them Hence appears the necessity of reading hearing meditating and taking an account of our own actions inward as well as outward the frequent and serious confession of our Sins constant Prayers and the often renewing of our Covenant with God in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper For by the frequent and due use of such holy Exercises as these the Souls of Men are season'd with God's Spirit as all the Sacrifices were to be seasoned with Salt under the Law Lev. 2.13 and by the due use of these means we shall always have spiritual Salt in our selves as Christ admonisheth us of the Clergy especially to have Mar. 9.50 and we shall be able to present our Souls and Bodies as sound and living Sacrifices which are the reasonable services which God now requires of us under the Gospel Rom. 12.1 and all our actions and speeches will become sound and savoury according to the Apostles advice Col. 4.6 and Tit. 2.8 But if these Exercises be performed after a dead careless and lifeless manner they will be but like dead salt neither that hath lost its saltness and they will not afford Virtue enough to season our selves and our own services much less will they fit us to season others Therefore it should ever be remembred that we are every way and on all accounts so lyable to degenerate and to be corrupted without a continual and strict watch over our selves that even those which should be our best and choicest services may be so far from being acceptable to God that they may become offensive and loathsome to him And we must ever take it for an undoubted truth that the graces of God's holy Spirit such as Faith Hope and Charity do not naturally breed in or grow up out of the hearts of men but that the seeds of them must first be sown by God's Husbandry and that they must be continually cherished and watered by Man's Care and Industry together with the continued influence of God's Spirit which he is always ready to give to such as rightly use the means that he hath appointed and made proper to those purposes Nay the mind of Man is not only born a stranger to all spiritual objects and divine Revelations but there is also in us by nature a great averseness to all such holy dispositions from whence the habits of Christian Graces are to arise and by which Christ is to be formed

Concio ad Clerum A SERMON Preach'd to the CLERGY AT THE Arch-Deacon's Visitation Held at Huntington May 19. 1696. Publisht at their Request To which is added a PREFACE to the CLERGY By SAM SAYWELL B. D. and Rector of Bluntsham in Huntingtonshire and sometime Fellow of St. John's College in Cambridge LONDON Printed by Tho. Warren for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1696. To his Reverend Brethren of the Clergy and more especially to those who are under the Jurisdiction of the Arch-Deacon of Huntington and were Auditors of the following Discourse THE Christian Church began and was established in all its Essentials by that Authority which Christ himself gave to his Apostles his first Commission-Officers and 't was by the care and faithfulness of them and their Successors together with the special presence of Christ with them and his undoubted blessing upon their honest Endeavours that it shall last to the end of the World Though therefore we are sure the Church shall never utterly fail or be destroyed so long as the Heavens and the Earth which are now shall endure yet it may ebb and flow decay and flourish loose its strength and comeliness and recover them again and under go innumerable changes and alterations in the several parts and branches of it But I think it may truly be said that no particular Church so well constituted as ours is can turn to decay much less can it die and be extinguished where the Clergy are Learned and Prudent Sincere and Diligent Vnanimous and Zealous in the discharge of their several Offices And this Consideration gives us great reason to hope that the days of the prosperity of this Church may not be so short as too many do wish they may and many others are ready to Prophesie they certainly will be For no Church of the same extent can shew so many Learned Wise and Industrious Clergy-men as ours can do at this day Now if all these were also truly unanimous in their Counsells and firmly united and unfeignedly zealous in their Endeavours for the promoting the common Cause of Christianity amongst us they might so far influence animate and direct the whole Body of the Clergy as to make them the Instruments of Curing the most dangerous distempers of this Church and of bringing of it likewise to great beauty and perfection And that all sorts and degrees of the Clergy whether they be high or low may be truly serviceable to the Church and instrumental towards the healing her breaches and making up of her defects they should take great heed unto themselves that they may have right and clear spirits within them i. e. Neither distorted with Vice nor polluted or sowred with any kind of peccant humour They should not be envious peevish or malignant against any and much less should they be so against one another They should not be of lofty morose covetous or selfish Spirits but of minds really generous loving humble meek tractable and charitable towards all ever rejoicing in truth and in that which is good what ever condition themselves are in And in a word they should above all men look not every man on his own things but every man amongst them especially also on the things of others Phil. 2.4 and as it follows in the next Verse to let this mind be in them which was also in Christ Jesus c. and let me add That was in his most noble heroical and most faithful Servant St. Paul as 't is partly set forth in the following discourse And then they must needs be blessings to the Church let their own stations in it be what they will For if we observe matters narrowly and will judge according to righteous judgment 't will appear that 't is mens seeking their own and not the things of Jesus Christ that makes them they are not always serviceable to the affairs of the Church For if men were of right Spirits they would ever be of pure minds and also peaceable modest and humble in all their behaviour and if they could not serve the cause of true Religion in one kind they would not fail to do it in another and 't is the doing what we can in our Capacities that makes our services acceptable to God and Men. And if any see it necessary to advertise or reprove their Brethren for some dangerous slips they may have made or for some pernicious Errours they may unawares have fallen into they should undoubtedly do it in the most friendly manner and they ought not to exceed the bounds of Charity nor the Laws of the spirit of Meekness in a work of so nice and difficult a nature And if all the sacred Tribe had duly regarded the great Apostles advice Gal. 6.1 we should not have heard of such snarlings and bitings and opening of Mouths amongst them as if they would devour one another For it is not to be told in Gath nor published in the streets of Askalon what bitter Satyrs and invectives some Clergy-men have of late published against their Brethren But if they who should teach all Mankind and be Exemplary to them in every grace of the Spirit shall give themselves the liberty to chasten one another at such a rate we may easily guess what sort of Persons they will make sport for and what the consequences of such kind of doing will be And that we may not help to destroy our selves when we have so many Enemies that are seeking our ruine we should deeply consider that the Spirit which dwelleth in us lusteth to Envy and that the best and wisest of all are but Men subject to many passions failings and infirmities and we should often remember what the Scriptures of truth do witness concerning those who would be accounted the wisest when their Wit and Wisdom proceeds not from the Spirit of Wisdom or descendeth not from above 1 Cor. 3.19 20 21. and Jam. 3.13 14 15 16. And knowing the manifold distempers of the late times and under what different prejudices Persons have been bred up it is great injustice for men to be over-severe in censuring and judging one another and if we can but agree in all the parts of our present Constitution according to our Oaths and Subscriptions that should be enough to make us all Friends and should be accounted the only sure bond of Vnity that is fit and able to hold us together and if all can be brought by gentle methods to be conformable to the Rules of the Church and to submit their Doctrines to the Judgment of their Superiours as every sound Member of a true Church ought to do all Names of distinction amongst our selves should be wholly laid aside And seeing the Sentiments of Men are and ever will be various according to the several prejudices they have imbib'd in a distracted time and finding the nature of Mankind is so frail and touchy 't is greatly to be hoped that the Reverend Fathers of the Church