Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	world_n	worship_n	worship_v	1,635	4	8.6836	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26939	How to do good to many, or, The publick good is the Christians life directions and motives to it, intended for an auditory of London citizens, and published for them, for want of leave to preach them / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1682 (1682)	Wing B1283; ESTC R5487	40,184	56

of publick self-defence against its publick enemies that is against any that by his Religion or his own profession bindeth himself to destroy that Nation if he can or by open arms seeketh no less than their destruction But as few calamities are worse to a Land than War so much is to be endured to prevent it It is like a red hot Iron which Fools lay hold on thinking it is cold till it fetch off skin and flesh to the bones and perhaps set the house on fire If your Cause be bad God will not be for you and he that so taketh the Sword shall perish with the Sword and if you bite and devour one another you shall be devoured one of another And alas thousands of the innocent usually perish or are ruined in the flames which furious men do kindle No doubt as suffering a Prison so venturing in War is a duty when God calls you to it But in its self a Prison is a far more desireable sort of suffering than a War Therefore between the danger of the miseries of an unlawful War and the danger of betraying our King or Kingdom for want of necessary defence how cautelous should all sober Christians be IX If you would promote the common good do your best to procure wise and faithful Rulers Quest What can private men do in this Ans 1. In Cases where they have choosing Voices they ought to prefer the best with greatest resolution and not for slothfulness to omit their part nor for worldly interest or the fear of men betray their Country as ever they would escape the punishment of the perfidious Wo to that Judas that sells his Country and Conscience for any bribe or by self-saving fear 2. In other Cases where you have no Choosing Vote with men you have a praying Voice with God Pray for Kings and all in Authority that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty God hath commanded no duty in vain Do it earnestly and constantly and hope for a good issue from God Do it not selfishly that you may have prosperity or preferment by them but sincerely for their own and the Common good God is the Fountain of power the absolute Soveraign of all the world Men are but his Provincial officers none claimeth an universal Government of the world but one that pretendeth to be Christs Vicar General and none believe his claim but blinded men There is no power but of and under God who hath made Rulers his Ministers for our good to be a praise to them that do well and a terrour to evil doers that they that will not be moved with the hopes of Gods future rewards and the fears of his punishments may be moved by that which is near them within the reach of sense And all men regard their bodies tho only believers are ruled by the everlasting interest of their Souls Therefore pray hard for Kings and Magistrates For if they be good they are exceeding great blessings to the world They will remember that their power is for God and the Common Good and that to God they must give a strict account They will take Gods Law for the only Universal Law to the world and conform their own as By-Laws to it They will take their own interest to consist in pleasing God and promoting the Gospel and Kingdom of Christ and the piety and saving of Mens Souls They will be Examples of serious Godliness of Justice and sobriety trustiness and temperance and Chastity to their subjects in their eyes a vile person will be contemned but they will honour those that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. They will Love those most that Love Christ best and most deligently obey him and tenderly fear to sin against him Those please them best that please God best and are most useful to the common good They will set their hearts on the peoples welfare and are watching for all while all securely live under their vigilancy They will cherish all that Christ cherisheth and specially the faithful Pastors of the Churches that seek not the world but the welfare of the flocks When some are saying In this Mountain we must worship God and some at Jerusalem they will teach them all to worship God in Spirit and truth When Pastors and people grow pievish and quarrelsome for their several interests opinions and wills a Constantine will cast all their Libels into the fire and rebuke the unpeaceable and restreine the violent and teach them to forgive and love each other and will be the great Justice of Peace to all the Churches in the Land and pare their nailes that would tear and scratch their Brethren He will Countenance the sound and peaceable and tolerate all the tolerable but will tie the hands of strikers and the tongues of revilers He will contrive the healing of exasperated minds and take away the occasions of division and rebuke them that call for fire from Heaven or for the Sword to do that which belongeth to the word or to execute their pride and wrath Godliness will have all the encouragement they can giveit and innocency a full defence Malignity and Persecution and Perjury and unpeaceable revenge will be hateful where they rule and they had rather men feared sin too much than too little and would have all men prefer the Law and honour of God to theirs where the Righteous bear rule the people rejoyce The wisdom piety and impartiality of their Governours suppresseth prophaneness oppression and contention and keepeth men in the way of love and peace and as the welfare of all is the care of such a Ruler above his own pleasure wealth or will so he will have the hearts and hands and wealth of all with readiness to serve him No wonder if such are called Nursing Fathers and the light of our eyes and the breath of our Nostrils and the shaddow of a rock in a weary Land As they bear the Image of Gods Supereminency and doubly honour him they are doubly honoured by him so that the names of pious Princes shew not only the sense of Mankind but the special providence of God in making the memory of the Just to be blessed And as they could not indure to see in their days ungodliness triumph or serious godliness made a scorn or Conscience and fear of sinning made a disgrace or the Gospel hindred and faithful Ministers forbid to preach it so God will not suffer their Consciences to want the sense of his Love nor their departing Souls to fail of their everlasting hopes nor their memories to be clouded by obscurity or reproach Even among Heathens What a name have those Emperours left behind them who lived in justice charity and all virtue and wholly studied the good of all What a wonder is it that M. Antonine should be so extolled by so many Writers and not one of them all that I remember speak one word of evil of him save that a small and

Christians joy It will not be then a little flock not despised for singularity nor hid in the Crowd of impious sinners nor dishonoured by infirmities or paltry quarrels among our selves nor with the mixture of hypocrites It will not be over-voted or trod down and persecuted by the power or number of the ignorant Enemies O Christians go on in doing good to all men with chearfulness for it all tendeth to make up the body of Christ and to prepare for that glorious state and day Every Soul you convert every brick that you lay in the building tendeth to make up the House and City of God But as all motion and action is first upon the nearest object so must ours and doing Good must be in order First we must begin at home with our own Souls and lives and then to our nearest Relations and Friends and Acquaintance and Neighbours and then to our Societies Church and Kingdom and all the world But mark that the order of execution and the order of estimation and intention differ Tho God set up Lights so small as will serve but for one room and tho we must begin at home we must far more esteem and desire the good of multitudes of City and Church and Commonwealth and must set no bounds to our endeavours but what God and disability set II. But What is that Good that we must do Good is an attribute of Being and is its perfection or well-being Gods Goodness is perfection it self And as he is the fountain of being so also of Goodness and therefore his Goodness is called Love whose highest act is his essential self-love which is infinitely above his love to the world But yet it is Communicative Love which made all things good and rested in seeing them all good And as he is the fountain so the same Will or Love is the measuring Rule and the end of all derived good The prime notion of the Creatures goodness is its Conformity to the Will of God But the second is its own perfection as its own which indeed is but the same Conformity Therefore the true good which we must do men is to make them conformable to the Regulating Will of God that they may be happy in the Pleased Will of God and to help them to all means for soul and body necessary hereunto And this for as many as possibly we can III. The Rules for judging and doing good are these 1. That is the greatest good which is Gods greatest interest And his interest is his Glory and the complacence of his fulfilled Will 2. Therefore the good of the world the Church of Nations of multitudes is greater than the good of few 3. The good of the Soul is greater than of the body 4. The avoiding the greatest evil is better than avoiding less 5. Everlasting good is better than short 6. Universal good which leaveth no evil is better than a particular good 7. That is the best good as to means which most conduceth to the evil 8. There is no Earthly good that is not mixt with some evil nor any Commodity that hath not some inconvenience or discommodity 9. No sin must be done for any good 10. Some things may be done for good which would be sin were it not for the good which they are done for It would be sin to give a robber your mony were it not to save your life or some other Commodity It would be sin to do somethings on the Lords day which necessity or a greater good may make a duty Your own defence may make it a duty to strike another which else would be a sin 11. In such cases there is need of great prudence and impartiality to know whether the good or the evil do preponderate And a great part of the actions of our lives must be managed by that prudence or else they will be sinful 12. Therefore it is no small part of a Ministers duty to Counsel men as a wise skilful and faithful Casuist IV. To do good to many requireth many excellent qualifications This is so far from being every ones performance that we should be glad if a great part of Mankind did not do more hurt than good 1. He that will do his Country good must know what is good and what is bad A fools Love is hurtful He knoweth not how to use it He will love you to death as an unskilful Physitian doth his most beloved Patients Or love you into calamity as amorous fondlings oft do each other This is the great enemy of humane peace Men know not good from evil Like him that kild his Son thinking he had been a Thief or like routed Soldiers that run by mistake into the Army of the Enemy Malignity and errour make mad and doleful work in the World and worst in those that should be wisest and the greatest instruments of publick good The Scripture mistaketh not which tells us of Enemies and haters of God And most of the World are professed Adversaries to Christ The Jews Crucified him as an Enemy to Caesar and to the safety of their Law and Country And if we may Judge by their enmity to Holiness the Spirit of Christ is taken for an intolerable Enemy by no small part of nominal Christians The Laws of Christ are judged too strict The Hypocrites that bow to him and hate his Laws do call them Hypocrites that are but serious in the practice of Christianity and hate them that have any more Religion than Complements Ceremony and Set words The Image of a Christian and a Minister is set up in Militant opposition to them that are Christians and Ministers indeed If men that are Called to the Sacred Office would save Souls in good earnest and pull them out of the Fire and go any further than Pomp and Stage-work they pass for the most insufferable men in the world Elias is taken for the troubler of Israel and Paul for a pestilent seditious Fellow and the Apostles as the off-scouring of all things Many a Martyr hath died by Fire for seeking to save men from the Fire of Hell And when the Bedlam World is at this pass what good is to be expected from such men When men called Christians hate and oppose the God the Christ the Holy Ghost to whom they were vowed in Baptism when Drunkenness and Whoredom and Perjury and Lying and all debauchery is taken for more friendly and tolerable than the most serious Worship of God and Obedience to his Laws and avoiding Sin In a word when the greatest good is taken for unsufferable evil you may know what good to expect from such They will all tell you that we must Love God above all and our Neighbours as our Selves but to fight against his Word and Worship and Servants is but an ill expression of their Love to God And seeking their destruction because they will not Sin is an ill expression of Love to their Neighbours When men judge of Good and Evil as