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	worship_n	worship_v	2,773	4	8.6795	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45152	A plea for the non-conformists tending to justifie them against the clamorous charge of schisme. By a Dr. of Divinity. With two sheets on the same subject by another Hand and Judgement.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1674 (1674)	Wing H3703A; ESTC R217013	46,853	129

recession from it Disputes betwixt Kings and Parliaments we think are not to be determined by private Persons without the doors of the Pallace and Parliament-House nor medled with by the Subject till the matters in difference if any be be agreed by themselves and by some publick action notified to the People We know for the King of England in civil things to suspend the execution of an Act which he hath found inconveniently practicable till the Parliaments meeting and further agreeing in it is no more than hath been done even during this Parliament and possibly to all may not appear unreasonable § 11. Upon this foundation we stand and practice Preaching to our People in places distinct from the Parochial Churches What can we do less May we having this liberty sit still and live without the publick worship of God Thus indeed a very great number of the People of England possibly not inferiour to the N. Con. yet we have rarely heard of one of them Endited Presented or Prosecuted when our Brethren were in their fullest career against the new Recusants at least not comparably to those of their Brethren who they knew were every Sabbath day if not with them yet somewhere strictly worshipping God and either Preaching Christ or hearing him Preach'd Surely our eager Men should rather have bent their Bows and made their Arrows ready against these Atheistical livers than against the Servants of the Living God though of a little different Livery different too not in the Cloath but in the insignificant Fringes and Laces of formes and ceremonies What though they could say which we know in truth they cannot that Christ amongst the Nonconformists was Preached of envy and strife yet had they been of St. Paul's Spirit from whom they pretend to derive though indeed Christ amongst the Noncon had been Preached of Contention and not of Sincerity Yet a little charity would have commanded them to judge as Paul Some out of good will Preached him But however they being as St. Paul saith Phil. 1.16 17 18. Set for the defence of the Gospel should have said after him What then Notwithstanding every way whether in pretence or in truth Christ is Preached and I therein do rejoyce and will rejoyce We shall only say had they been of St. Pauls Spirit they would have said so § 12. We take it to be a confessed Principle That every individual Member of the Church-Catholick Visible is bound in duty both to God and his own Soul to joyn himself to some particular Society of Christians with which he may enjoy all the Ordinances of God so as may be for his Souls advantage What shall therefore these indulged Ministers and People do How shall they live up to this peice of the Divine Will Shall they joyn with the Parochial Societies in their Temples They have professed to the World that the business is so stated by the Act of Uniformity that they cannot do this without doing what they judge sinful If they could neither would the Ministers 1662. have parted together with that publick exercise of their Ministry with the livelihoods also of themselves their Wives Children or exposed themselves to Excommunications Imprisonments Fines Banishments and all manner of Reproach and Obloquy or their Families to the Charitable Baskets of Christians Neither would more private Christians have suffered so much in most of these kinds as they have suffered in vain § 13. It must therefore be in Congregations locally separate from the parochial meetings Accordingly having first obtained his Majestie 's Licenses they practice Presently they hear a great Out-cry of Schisme and sinful separation from true Churches Gathering Churches out of Churches and we know not what nor do we believe they do that clamour at this rate § 14. But the truth of this clamour must be a little examined for the Non-conformists have got very little by his Majesties favour by escaping the hands of men to fall into the hands of the living God We remember when David was in his great strait 2 Sam. 24.14 he acquiessed in this Let me fall into the hands of the living God for his mercies are great and let me not fall into the hands of men We think we may in this case say the same thing and that with some advantage which David had not for his heart smote him for a known sin our hearts as yet do not condemn us for any such black thing as a sinful separation and we do believe those that thus clamour do not well understand what they say Let men rather call us Schismaticks sinful Separatists so we may worship God as his Word and our own Consciences tells us he should be Worshipped purely and in Spirit and Truth rather than we not Worship God at all or so as our Consciences shall continually flie in our faces § 15. But certainly God's Word hath laid us under no necessity of sining let us therefore challenge our confident Accusers to the Law and to the Testimony 'T is worth the while to examine whether this great cry be not Vox et praeterea nihil A clamorous scandal nothing else which we are the more advantaged to hope that it will prove by a noted passage in a great Church-man Mr. Hales his discourse of Schisme It is this Schisme is one of those Theological Scare-Crowes with which they who use to uphold a party in Religion use to fright away such as make any inquiry into it and are ready to relinquish or oppose it if it appeareth to them either erronious or suspicious Not that Schisme truly so called is of no graver importance but that which generally by School-men and Casuists and very many and some of those Learned Divines though like Elias men subject to like passions with other men is no more is as evident as the shining of the Sun at Noon-day to any one who knoweth any thing of Books or of the World § 16. The Greeks say those of the Latine Church are Schismaticks and they because they are the most ancient Church seem to have best right but the whole Latine Church requites them with the same-name of Obloquy The Papist so call the Protestants but they requite them with the like term saying They that gave the cause of the separation are the true Schismaticks Amongst the Protestants the Lutherans so revile the Calvinists nor are the Calvinists behind them Amongst the Calvinists The Episcopal men so call the Presbyterians the Presbyterians so call the Independents and Antipaedebaptists Thus we have called one another Schismaticks round Let us therefore leave these pittiful uncharitable Boyish Revenges especially seeing in vulgar use lately the term hath had no further significancy than to speak persons not of our mind and for a name to brand such of our Brethren with who are a little more inquisitive than others into the things of God and is of the same import amongst Protestants that the word Heretick is amongst Papists that is not one

where the High-Priests Office was to be Executed at Hierusalem and to confine him to Anathoth where he could not execute the Office of the High-Priest and so he was in effect turned from the High-Priests Office 4. And Zadoc to whom that Office was due is invested with it But Abiathar remains a Priest still is so called after and joyned next to Zadoc but the High Priesthood could not truly belong to him but to the Elder House from Aaron and besides God had declared his Will that this should be done he is said to have done it that he might fulfil the Word of the Lord and he that did it was a man inspired by God and a Pen-man of Holy Writ What will follow from hence think we therefore Kings and Magistrates may remove 1. The chiefest Priests from their Preferments Dignities and their own Courts 2. That in case they have deserved death and the Magistrate thinks fit to shew mercy but yet to punish them with Banishment to remote places where their flock cannot come he may thus in effect turn them out from their Pastoral Relation 3. That in case he finds them no true Ministers of Christ he may forbid them to Minister 4. That if God from Heaven by a revelation or by any plain Scripture commands them to turn true Ministers out of Office they may do it I can see nothing more let the Author make his best of this § 55. But he had thought the distinction of the Office and the exercise of it had been uncontrouled by the Presbyterians and that they had granted that though the Magistrate could not degrade them yet as to the exercise of their Office he might and that he had power to silence such as he judged unmeet to Preach Presbyterians can without the help of this Authors Logick distinguish betwixt the Office and the exercise of the Office and make one distinction more between the exercise of the Office in publick places undoubtedly in the Magistrates disposal and in their own private Houses or in the private Houses of others They do believe it in the power of the Magistrate though not to take away their Office or Relation to their Flock Yet to hinder the exercise of it and that they ought to obey him commanding them to forbear the exercise of it in publick places belonging to the Magistrates and accordingly have generally been so obedient though the Law so far be not so plain that any are prohibited to Preach except such as are disabled which is the case of very few They know Paul Preached in his hired House at Rome Act. 28. and in the School of Tirannus when the Jewish Rulers forbad them the Synagogues the Office not taken away nor to be taken away they conclude the Relation attending the Office abiding But hitherto we have only justified our first Plea It is no separation because there never was an Union nor could be of very many of us to a Parochial Ministerial Governing Church And considering it only as a part of the Catholick Church we are in all points one with it § 56. But we will suppose that this is not the case of all our Brethren but some have been United to the Parochial Societies wherein they lived and implicitly consented to be one body with them by not only hearing the Ministers there but receiving the Communion with them What shall be said for them We say they are not sinfully separated 1. Are they separated They now indeed meet for worship in other places and that statedly but do they condemn the Ministers or Churches from which they are come do they not own them as true Ministers and such Churches as true Churches Do they not pay to the Ministers love the Brethren where 's the Schisme then For when men have said all they can Schisme is a sin against the command of Love to our Neighbour It is no command of God you shall be of this Congregation or another other then it falls under general precepts commanding us to use the best means for our Souls Now cannot I love my Neighbour except I dwell in his Family or chuse her for my Wife or him for my Husband Besides it is most certain I am bound to love my own Soul in the first place and as an Evidence to that I am tied to use the best means I can not contradicted by God's Word according to my own Conscience which certainly must judg for me in my highest concern for the Salvation of it § 57. I am a-ware of what this Author hath said That a man may not depart from a Congregation to which he was United either to enjoy the Ordinances of God more powerfully or purely or perfectly administred in another convenient enough for me to joyn with This is the substance of what he hath said and quoted from others as their Opinion But this will never enter into my thoughts Let them speak plainly to this Is it not the duty of every Christian to use what appears to his Conscience the best and most probable means for his Salvation The light of Nature as well as Scripture will evince this Now I would fain know of any person what it is under Heaven except the bare Word and Sacraments that God hath appointed as means for the Instruction Edification and Salvation of my Soul but the gifts of his Ministers or People with which in order to these ends his holy Spirit works not miraculously but in a national orderly way secundum quae nactus est Organa There is nothing more evident than that in Ministers there is a great diversity of Gifts and as much a diversity of Wills Humours and Fancies and also a great variety of peoples Capacities There 's nothing more evident than that our Ministers parts method of Preaching c. is really more fitted to the Instruction and Edification of some people than the Gifts and Methods of others are as we say every good Man makes not a good Husband for every good Woman so it is demonstrably true that every able and good Minister is not a fit and good Instructor for every good Christian they possibly understand not his language nor cannot learn his method possibly 't is Cryptick and requires a Schollar to understand it Shall these people be perpetually staked down in the case that let their Souls be never so much concerned they must not ordinarily joyn with another Minister and hear him though their habitations be convenient enough for it or must these persons possibly to the loss of their Trade and Livelihood which in Towns lyes much upon their habitation be forced to remove into that other Parish where hath God required any such thing § 58. Besides that I understand not much those of my Brethren that are so Zealous in this point In my little dealings in the World I use always to be afraid of that Trades-man whom I perceive using arts to tye me to his Shop and upon that Work-man that I see