Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	word_n	world_n	wrest_v	74	3	9.7941	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60612	Two sermons preached at two publick assizes for the county of Svffolk, in the sheriffalty of Will. Soame of Hawleigh, in Suffolk, Esq. by Will. Smyth, D.D., Pr. Nor. and vic. of Mendlesham in Suffolk.	Smith, William, b. 1615 or 16.	1674 (1674)	Wing S4283; ESTC R21663	29,870	126

all other Spirits to make an assimilation All which being thus represented as it must needs put the credulous into a great sense of the danger of being deceived so it makes their suspension of not believing every spirit very just and necessary This the first Secondly The second Argument from the Text by the words which do immediately follow it is Believe not every spirit because many false Prophets are gone out into the World that is because as there be varieties of spirits to delude the minds of men so those spirits while there is Folly Pride and Passion in in the World can never want agents in every place to execute their unkind offices and that will be sedulously active by gratifying the base humours and designs of some and by surprizing the weakness and credulity of others to disturb the Church and mislead the People Now there is no man that seriously considers the multitude subtilty and unwearied diligence of such Officers of Evil spirits when they are abroad but must believe himself to run a very great hazard of being deceived without the greatest care and strictest enquiry whom to trust And that the Church was never without such kinds of men to offer temptations to the most stedfast will appear by a very few instances What considerate person might not tremble at the thoughts of his danger of being deceived if he reads but the story of Core and his complices that such persons should ever mask their wicked designs with such a prevailing disguise of Piety as should be able to seduce so many thousands to their destruction Who would not dread his own instability and be engaged in the carefullest suspension of mind whom to trust and follow when he reads of the Jews prodigious defection in the Samaritan Schism or if ever he should meet a parallel temptation to go astray as they had who were obliged to believe one Elias against 450 Prophets of Baal set to deceive him And if such presidents of danger be not sufficient to chastize and awaken mens credulities how should our Saviours Cavear admonish them Beware of false Prophets Mat. 7.15 How should the frequent Apostolick predictions of such Seducers advise them as when it was foretold Acts 20.29 that grievous Wolves should enter in not sparing the Flock Lastly How should the almost incredible multiplication of such Prophets in every Age engage them in the severest care what spirits they should believe and by what Teachers they should be instructed St. Augustine reckons up 88 several sorts of Hereticks to his time and Philastrius 128 and so proportionably they increased in every following Century Of all which whosoever desires to see a perfect and yet compendious prospect to terrifie him from the danger of seducement through his own credulity let him but overlook the Churches Tragoedy lately acted in this Nation and as in a short Scene he may see almost all the heresies that ever were before besides a progeny of new ones upon the Stage together and may behold the subtle Professors of them not only acting over again all the ancient Arts of seduction but practising new tricks frauds and pageantries of Piety to cheat and deceive the World All which put together makes it very reasonable that because many false Prophets are gone out into the World the inhibition in my Text of not believing every Spirit should be as strictly and carefully observed as men would prize and secure their eternal safety This the second Argument And now shall common observation of former dangers make us wary whom we believe or relie upon in our secular affairs and shall we be carelesly credulous in matters of spiritual concern Shall Wordly wisedom teach us to trust no body in temporal things and yet believe every body in matters of eternal moment Shall we be more then wise men in the one and less then fools and babes in the other Can we suspend our faith in things in which sensible demonstration may direct our prudence And shall we easily trust where the Arguments are spiritual and in the dark as to sense and Evidence at distance and the danger of miscarrying the greatest that can be O let us be wary where we trust our souls And since every spirit is not of God and our precious souls lie at stake upon a right choice let us and there never was a time in which it was more needful take all possible care and use all our faculties and skill to try which are truly of God And that leads me to the second part of my Text the Exhortation But try the spirits 2. The duty is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to try where we are first to observe as an incouragement to undertake it that God hath so delivered the things of our Peace in Scripture as we are Creatures of Reason Choice and Judgment and therefore he was pleased that much in Religion should depend upon the exercise of our Reason by trial and examination For so it is as to the matter and general substance of our happiness we are obliged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 1.12 to try and search for the things that are excellent but there is no case wherein we are more concerned then in this the trial of spirits the guides of souls upon whose Offices and Gods Ordinances in their hands depends the Peace and Unity of the Church and the great event of every mans particular salvation Now that which makes this duty very reasonable is that as God was pleased there should in natural things be differential marks and incommunicable characters to guide mans understanding in distinguishing one being from another so much more in spirituals where the concern is greater we cannot suspect that God should impose a duty to try and chuse and leave us without sufficient means to discriminate and distinguish Not ought we to doubt it in this instant case in hand that since God hath put it upon our Trial and Choice what Guides we are to follow what spirits to trust too t●●t he hath also allowed us some differencing notes and characters how to understand the spirits that are of God from those that are not For the finding out of which at this needful time in which there appears so many different pretenders to conduct Religion and the souls of men is the business of this hour And that I may be sure not to miscarry in this great trial I shall first lay down the characters which false spirits or Teachers may have in common with those that are of God and then describe those that do really evince the difference 1. The first Character in common and undistinctive is a natural aptitude or a well acquired ability to Teach Though they be improved to a more then ordinary dexterity of the most gratifying and zealous utterance in Praying and Preaching Therefore St. Paul when he commanded the Romans to mark them that make Divisions renders them not distinguishable by their words and manner of speaking for saith he they

shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 16.18 by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple And when St. Peter forewarns them of false Prophets he tells them they shall come with the speaking character 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 2.3 with feigned words that is framed and fashioned perhaps to the highest strains of Piety But if those Teachers seem to be over-studious to exceed others in more pleasing and melting modes of speaking and to habituate themselves to extraordinary winning and humouring expressions though what they say be good yet they may justly give occasion to wise observers to collect some reasons to suspect their truth and sincerity Therefore St. Jerome observed in his time affabilis sermo blandum eloquium c. sunt haereticorum laequei quibus pisces capiunt volucres an affable way of discoursing and a flattering delivery were the sna●es of Hereticks by which they catched the little People into their affections and opinions But if in stead of the true spirits modest endeavour to found the Peoples souls in the common Articles of the Christian Faith they shall chuse to fly aloft like St. Judes empty Clouds at higher doctrines as they call them As when they turn the Gospel into a Mystery of which they themselves must pretend to be the only men that carry the Keys to open it and if instead of instructing the People in their obligations to obey Christs commandments and soberly directing them in all parts of holy life as Justice Mercie Obedience to Authority and the like which they reach the poor people to undervalue as legal preaching they be venturing at the seals of the Revelation numbring of heads and horns and beasts controuling Governments and disputing Laws or shall be towring up to the lofty Nothings of empty Metaphors extravagant Notions and Phrases or be continually trading with St. Judes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great swelling words of Priviledges Saintships Liberties Divine Unions and the like or be always at a thousand repetitions of the name of Christ getting him laying hold o● him closing with him and the like though they do all this with the greatest earnestness zeal and sweat imaginable they grow beyond suspicion their design is not good The sum is To be able to pray and preach with the best skill and capacity is no distinguishing mark for men may have those faculties and yet nevertheless be spirits Teachers that are not of God 2. Nor secondly can a pretence to a claim for their doctrines from the holy Scriptures be a sufficient mark of distinction for as much as no Ancient or Modern Heretick but did and do cry up an interest in Gods Word to support or at least to seem to palliate their plea and doctrines And this is pregnantly to be taken notice of through the whole stock of Ecclesiastick Records Tertullian very early observed in his famous Book De praescriptionibus Haereticorum that Suadere non possunt de rebus fidei nisi de literis fidei scriptur as obtendunt hac sua audacia quosdam movent it had not been possible to have removed some from the truth had they not been prevailed with by the sacred name of Scripture How much would this hour be too little for such heaps of observations of this kind as might be collected Now all the advantage which all false spirits do make by pretending Scriptures is because God hath so delivered his truths in them many of which are so wrapt up in Metaphors and other Tropes and Figures so immixt with occasional discourses and very often so obscurely delivered or as St. Paul expresseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so darkly and as it were in a riddle that they that have designs to deceive others that want humility to hear the sense of the Church and to obey their lawful Guides appointed to instruct them in their right interpretation may find Arguments semblable enough in Scripture to serve the ends of a Deceiver to satisfie a private and prejudicate spirit in any errour in the world wresting them as St. Peter adviseth us to their own destruction Hence it is that Hereticks of the greatest inconsistency among themselves and some of them in perfect contradiction one to another have laid their Plea upon the holy Scriptures So Vincentius observes of the Hereticks before his time and instanceth in Photinus Novatianus Sabellius Donatus and many others And we our selves in our days have seen the same effect To instance How have the Socinians found in Scripture a seeming authority to assert their denial of Christs Divinity and yet the Romanist can think he thence finds proof enough that a Priest in a Wafer may make him the mighty God and worship him accordingly How have the contending Armies of the Remonstrants and Contra Remonstrants whose principles stand at the Poles distance one from another managed their long War with the same weapon of holy Scripture And how from thence have the three great parties among us perswaded themselves that each of them can in Scripture trace the measures of their several Church-governments And which is most to be admired how have the unwarrantable practices of Rebellion Murder and confounding all that 's sacred been so far patronized from Scripture as to engage multitudes to believe them to be the prosecutions of Gods cause and instances of his most acceptable service Hath not experience taught us that such a distant Text as Down with it down with it even to the ground hath prevailed more to destroy the places of Publick Worship then that This House shall be called a House of Prayer could perswade men to keep them up that a binding Kings in chains have tempted men to the most execrable destruction of their natural Princes when they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation could not satisfie their Consciences to preserve them And have we not heard that a Curse ye Meroz could justifie all the Ravages committed upon the Loyal and the Innocent To be short the sum is A bate appeal and claim to Scripture is not an incommunicable mark but that nevertheless the spirit that doth it may not be of God 3. Thirdly and lastly A plausible and fair life and conversation doth not distinguish for as much as the greatest enemies of truth in all Ages have been noted for a greater pretext of framed sanctimony and formed piety outward innocency and humility or so much of these as might serve to advance a reputation to their Plea and Doctrines But this is the sheeps cloathing of false Prophets Mat. 7.14 and the transformation of false Apostles into the likeness of the Apostles of Christ 1 Cor. 11.13 And it is that which St. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 3.5 the form or appearance of godliness S. Austin relates that the great temperance and devotion of the Manachees betrayed himself and Alipius into the gross heresie of Manachism And S. Basil affirms of the Arians that ob confictam

adherence in some and a speedier return in others to the Communion of the Church of England as being a Church accommodated more to the designs of the Gospel as to all morals and the safety of all Societies then any Church or Profession in the World And as because woful experience hath taught us to date the Peoples declination from the blessed practices of Justice Honesty Veneration of an Oath obedience to Authority and all other Christian Vertues which only necessarily suits the happy mannagement of such affairs as these to the late confusions so to endeavour to bring men back to the same Church whence they were fallen must be believed the most reasonable expedient to recover them to the same excellent Vertues they lost by departing from it It is too pregnantly observed that ever since the breaking up the Foundations of this excellent Church we have sunk every day more and more in all the neglects of our duty to God and Man we have looked ever since like a People in ill handling possessed with an Evil Spirit and bewitched as Rebellion well resembles it to our mischief and undoing and to an universal unthriftiness in the enjoyment of Gods greatest mercies both spiritual and temporal O then it is high time to put to our hands for the Churches recovery and to bring back the People as fast as we can to her Communion that they may learn again to be honest and good and recover the excellent Genius of the old English spirit It is high time that we no more smother our defence for fear of offending or to preserve the Mistaken Title of Moderation Nor meal our mouths so long till we be choaked against all purposes of after-help and lest by pretending an over indulgence to men of weak minds we rock the People asleep in their Schism and Folly beyond all possibility of being ever awakened Designing therefore to do something which besides the respect I had to the present affairs I judged might be of the more publick and universal concernment in so general an Assembly I found nothing as the state of the Church now stands could answer my purpose so fully as to endeavour to confirm and fortifie them that yet adhere to the Church of England against all temptations to decline or desert it and to undeceive all those that already have unhappily departed from it And my Text offers a fair opportunity to attempt both in which are two parts to be discoursed 1. An Inhibition Believe not every spirit 2. An Exhortation But trie the spirits whether they be of God First The inhibition where it is fit we explicate the terms The meaning of Believing as to Spirits offers no difficulty though in reference to God and Christ it hath been perplexed with as many idle and extravagant notions and to as many ill purposes as any word in Scripture ever was But the word Spirit will admit some little examination Originally it signifies the Wind Scripturally and by Analogy may other things sometime the Soul of Man in general and then the several faculties in particular oftentimes it is taken for Angels and those good and bad most eminently it is taken for the Deity and then most distinctly for the third Person of the Trinity and particularly for it in its guiding and reaching Office whether immediately by it self or mediately by others and thus it is here taken really or so pretended And then the inhibition imports thus much That Christians should not credulously and without sufficient trial follow and be governed by every Teacher that pretends to the Office by a Plea or Commission from the Spirit of God Now the Text it self offers two Arguments against such a credulity and aptness of belief First because as the comprehensive indefinite 〈◊〉 every purports there be many kinds and varieties of Spirits by which Teachers may be deceived and be able to deceive others and which how many soever they be must be all false but one Thus the Devil when God permits turns a teaching Spirit I will saith he be a lying spirit in the mouth of the Prophets 1 Chron. 18.20 And there is a spirit of perversness Isa. 19.14 vertiginis as St. Hierome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Lxx that is as they render it a spirit of turning about or errour which God suffers to be dispersed among a People as a punishment upon them St. Paul mentioneth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spirit of a man that is his own fansie and opinion which is as various as the several humours and imaginations of men 1 Cor. 2.11 He adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spirit of the world which St. Augustine calls the spirit of Pride and Ambition And this spirit sets up many a Teacher and is as various as the different circumstances and humours of Times to which it must be always garbed and accommodated Further No man ought to wonder at the great variety of spirits when he considers what a strange gift of propagation every Evil spirit hath been observed to have and how if it hath had any the least respite from restraint it hath presently branched it self into many several Families and divided apartments of new Spirits And thus early the Mother-spirit of Gnosticism which we find so often reproved in the New Testament did in a short time become the Parent of such a fruitful Progeny that from its loyns descended the spirit of Valentinians Saturninians Macedonians and others as Ireneus and other Ancients testifie And St. Augustine observed of the Evil spirit of Donatism that it procreated so fast that it begat a very great company of new and disagreeing Parties But to go no further then our own experience No sooner was this glorious Church broken to pieces in our late Rebellion no sooner had one common spirit of Opposition known then but by the one name of Puritanism sacrificed the Churches Peace and Unity Government and Worship to its Rage and Lust but it begat Legions spawned an Offspring of such hideous shapes brought forth such Litters of so many deformed stocks of new Spirits as might make Heresie it self blush to bear their names and shamed any sort of men in the World into repentance but one for being the unhappy Parent of such a monstrous and equivocal issue And then to consider how far every one of those new Spirits had prevailed over the minds of men to be deceived by them I think it were alone enough to arm us with a resolution most carefully to observe the inhibition of my Text. But that which makes it yet more reasonable and necessary is because all such spirits how inconsistent soever they be among themselves do always contrive by some pretence or other to make themselves as like the Spirit of God as the case can possibly bear and the Folly and credulity of their Followers admit For since the Devil can transform himself into an Angel of Light as S. Paul argues 1 Cor. 13.14 it will be much easier for