Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	truth_n	worship_n	worship_v	19,034	5	9.4594	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30432	A sermon preached before the King & Queen at White-Hall, on Christmas-Day, 1689 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5890; ESTC R19736	17,332	42

Truth and that he will be worshipped accordingly When our Worship consists in humble Acts of confessing our own Sins that needed such an Expiation in earnest Prayers for a Share in all the Benefits of it and in solemn Acknowledgments of the Wonders of it and of all those Blessings which we are always to own as the Effects of it flowing to us through it When these I say are our Thoughts and Exercises in the Worship of God then does this become to us a Mystery of Godliness And finally when our Minds are so seasoned with it that our whole Lives carry the Impressions of it upon them when we are afraid of departing from the Rules of it when we are strict in observing them when it appears that we highly value the Blessing of the Knowledg of the Gospel that we are sensible of the danger of losing it and that we rejoice in it above all other things and when the Honour of our Religion does so affect us that we are wounded at Heart when it falls under any Reproach or Suffering but rejoice in all the Glory of it when we feel a sensible Concern in the whole Body that professes it and in all the Accidents that relate to it then do we shew that we make this to be that which truly it is a Mystery of Godliness But if we are only proud of our Religion and factious about it if it neither works on our Hearts nor reforms our Lives if we grow neither the better nor the wiser for it if on the contrary it is only a Pretence to cover ill Designs and a handle to manage Factions by if it makes us think that we may compound by our Heat in point of Opinion for our Coldness in true Piety and that Orthodoxy will atone for Immorality if we lay in fewel for our ill Nature from it if we make use of it to serve every End but that for which it was appointed of God and in a word if instead of growing better by it are really the worse for it Then here is the most fatal reversing of the greatest Design that ever was In order to the examining the Truth of all this it is necessary for us to consider what Impressions have the various Scenes that we have seen with relation to Religion made upon us How did our apprehensions of losing it affect us Was it only with the sense of a Party and the anger of thinking that we were depressed and like to be ill used Or did that Scene make us reflect on our Sins that had rendred us unworthy of so great a Blessing and that had brought us so near the danger of losing it did we in all that time of Fear and Melancholly turn to God repent us of our Sins and enter into solemn Vows of living more suitably to our Religion if God should be so gracious as to restore it to us Such a Preparation as this had made our Deliverance prove a double Blessing to us And how have we received it has it been only with the joy of seeing our Enemies fall before us and of finding our selves now come in for a turn in the Advantages of Fortune Does this serve only to lift us up upon our Success and Prosperity and to make us remember all Quarrels and so gratify Passion and Revenge Is our Ease and Abundance abused into Luxury and Vanity Are our Hearts lifted up or our Passions sharpened and instead of parting with our old Sins are we adding new ones to them If our Hearts when sincerely asked by us concerning all these things tell us that they are but too true then we need not wonder if we see a stand made in the course of those Blessings which God has been holding forth to us but that we have by our Sins not only stopt but turned many of them to Curses We ought in that case to ask our selves what have we done and wherein have we troubled Israel It is but a Melancholly Comfort when a man is full of so sad a speculation to think that man is so made that it ever was and ever will be so When the Christian Religion in Constantine's time became triumphant over all the Powers of Darkness that had conspired its destruction and that after many Cruel Persecutions had set on foot the last that was both the bloodiest and the longest of all that had gone before it in which for ten years together the Sword had been made drunk with the blood of the Saints and it was so firmly believed that the name of a Christian was extinguished that Medals were struck to perpetuate the memory of that Performance when I say the Christian Religion got out of all this and had not only Edicts of Liberty in its favour but was also cherished by the Kindness and Protection of Emperours One should have expected that a Society which had been so long in the fire as they had been must have come out of it freed from all its dross and that the Christians from the remembrance of the former Persecution and the reflections on their present Ease should have been so full of a sense both of what they had escaped then and what they enjoyed that there should have been nothing to be found among them but Churches full of Devotion Clergy-men animated with Zeal and Christians that were an honour to their Profession But how far was it from all this Generally Ignorant and Vicious Men were promoted to their best and greatest Sees who fell into most Extravagant Disputes concerning the Dignity and Privileges of their Episcopal Sees In Africk a Breach arose upon no greater matter than this Whether Cecilian the Bishop of Carthage was ordained by men that had during the Persecution denied the Faith or not This was of no great Consequence if it had been true and being a matter of fact that turned upon proof the case was judged against Donatus and his Party who complained of Cecilian but this did not stop the Breach which made such a fatal progress that almost in every Town in Africk there was a Church formed with a Bishop over it that adhered to Donatus and the Division continued above 120 years and at last grew to be a matter of so violent an Animosity that much Blood was shed upon it and they continued to be destroying one another till the Vandals broke in upon them and conquered and consumed them both At the same time that this Dispute began at Carthage another was raised at Alexandria occasioned at first by some indiscreet Words that passed between Alexander the Bishop and Arius whose Spirits being sharpned against one another upon secret Reasons they aggravated some mistaken Expressions too far as appears from the wisest Writing of that Age the Letter which Constantine writ to them upon this Occasion But this was carried afterwards so far that we may safely say the Spirit and Power of the Christian Religion was lost in the Dispute The Scandals given by the ill

overthrow the Credit of the whole Gospel We see by what both Suetonius Tacitus and Pliny have left to us that the Christian Religion was soon spread up and down the World and that both in Rome and in remote Provinces their Numbers and their Maxims made them to be very considerable We also see in the last of these that he had strictly enquired into their Doctrine their Worship and their Course of Life and had put some of the Women that were the Deaconesses in the Churches to the Torture to draw from them a discovery of such things whereof they were accused Yet he found nothing but a great probity of Manners and a great steadiness in adhering to the Doctrine which was believed among them Upon whose enquiry the Emperor ordered a stop to be put to the Persecution that was then begun So that this carries in it not only an Apology for the Morals of Christians but a proof of the Doctrines of Christianity for it being so easy a thing to have confuted them if these things which the Evangelists relate had been false since they cannot be said to be cunningly devised Fables we cannot conceive how it is possible that their Enemies who were then the Governing Party did not discover and so confound them Upon the whole Matter then it appears that God did by a profusion of Miracles if I may so speak give this Divine Doctrine its first Authority and Credit in the World and he continued to water what had been so planted with a succession of miraculous Powers which continued for some Ages in the Church and to which the Fathers made most solemn Appeals in the Apologies that they writ for their Religion of which some were address'd to the Emperors and others to the Senate of Rome If these Things which they assert and to which they appeal had not been known to be certainly true it is not easy to determine whether their madness in venturing upon such an Appeal or the Heathens in not joining issue with them in it was the greatest And thus without Controversy Great is the Mystery of Godliness or of the Christian Religion God was manifest in the Flesh that is in the Humane Nature of our Saviour in which he dwelt He was also justified in the Spirit that is proved to be so in the wonderful Evidences of the Divine Power that were solemnly given in the confirmation of it He was seen of Angels the Heavenly Host appearing visibly at his Nativity and celebrating the Glory of it preached unto the Gentiles by a company of poor illiterate Fishermen who went about with those mighty Credentials of the Gift of Tongues and the Power of Miracles attesting the Truth of what they themselves had seen and known upon whose Evidence he was believed on in the World by the Gentiles tho rejected by the Iews who being possessed with false Prejudices concerning the Messias could not then receive an humble and a suffering One while they look'd for nothing but Triumphs and Conquests under him But this loss was more than ballanced by the great Multitudes of the Gentiles who tho they laboured under the Prejudices of their Education and the more biassed Liberties which the Heathen Religion allowed them yet did in great Numbers renounce their Idolatry and embrace a Religion that both obliged them to a great strictness of Life and also exposed them to many present Sufferings besides what the first Planters of it warned them of concerning a Persecution that was quickly to overtake them We see by Tacitus what multitudes of them were in Rome in Nero's Time and by Pliny that almost all those of Bithnia and Pontus both in Town and Country were become Christian. And in conclusion God thus made manifest was received up into Glory which either relates to his Ascension when in the sight of his Apostles while he was talking to them and blessing them He was caught up so that they beheld him ascending up into Heaven or this received in Glory for so it may be rendred may relate to the glorious Instances of God's Power that appeared in the first planting of Christianity For as a Cloud of Glory had appeared hovering over the Tabernacle and leading the Israelites through the Wilderness which gave the chief Authority to the Law of Moses so in this first setling of our most Holy Faith God seemed as it were to have made bare his Arm and shewed the greatness of his Glory as well as of his Power Thus he appeared to St. Stephen at his Death and to St. Paul at his Conversion but above all the wonderful Effusion of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost was such a declaration of his Glory as far exceeded all that ever had appeared before or since V. In the last place it remains to be considered how this is said to be a Mystery of Godliness The word signifies true Piety or the right way of worshipping God So the meaning of this is That the Wonders and Glories which appeared in the Person of Christ and at the planting of his Gospel are not only lofty Declarations of the Greatness and Power of God and of the Truth of our Religion upon which we are to value our Selves and our Doctrines but that they were all intended by God to give our Religion the more Authority that so it might have the more Efficacy upon us for the reforming and governing of our Lives for all the use that we make of them besides is only to boast that we believe a Religion to which God has given a great deal of Credit but to which we will give none at all By Godliness is comprehended the having right Notions of God the worshipping him suitably to these and the framing our whole Lives according to them And therefore we treat this Mystery but as a sublime Cant and not as a Mystery of Godliness unless it has these Effects on us When our Minds are by this so possessed with a noble Idea of God and of his Attributes that we adore his Power we admire his Wisdom and rejoice in his Goodness and Love When we compare the Prophecies that went before with their Accomplishment in our Saviour's Person when we observe all the Circumstances of Providence that accompanied this Transaction when from thence we form right Notions of the hatefulness of Sin and of the Purity of the Divine Nature of his Justice as well as of his Mercy and when from all these laid together our Hearts become full of high and great Thoughts of God which dwell upon us and possess us then we make it become to us a Mystery of Godliness indeed Besides when this leads us to a right Notion of the Worship of God as not consisting in outward Pomp nor Glory much less in proposing to our selves visible Objects of Worship or in dressing it up as if it were rather a sort of Opera than the Worship of that God who has in his Gospel revealed himself to be Spirit and