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
A34136	Common-prayer-book devotions, episcopal delusions, or, The Second death of the service-book wherein the unlawfulness (with advantage) of the imposition of liturgies ... is clearly and plainly demonstrated from the Scriptures ...	C. W.	1666 (1666)	Wing C5572; ESTC R35602	67,445	80

correspondence any light or loose behaviour with known Adulterers or persons strongly suspected of that Wickedness Under the Law God strictly prohibited such things unto his People which were in themselves lawful enough though not necessary because they were observed by their idolatrous Neighbours See read consider and compare at leisure Levit. 19.27 28. 21.5 6. Deut. 14.1 2. with Isa 15.2 Jer. 48.37 9.26 25.23 49.32 according to the import of the Original noted in the margent of your larger Bibles at these three last Texts and Deut. 12.30 they are charged by him not to ask or enquire How did these Nations being idolatrous serve their gods that I may do so likewise And in the New Testament Christ insisteth upon the practice of the Gentiles as an argument to disswade his Disciples from taking thought for outward things For after all these things do the Gentiles seek c. Mat. 6.32 Besides for Saints to borrow of a superstitious wicked and idolatrous Generation Enemies unto God and to all that truly love and fear him a Model or Platform of Worship to be presented unto him by which they have in conjunction with other unhallowed Artifices supported nourished and kept up an Antichristian Interest for a long time in the World when as they the Saints have the manifold Wisdom of God before them in the Scriptures and may have his Spirit also for the asking to direct and teach them how to worship and serve him acceptably from time to time must needs in the eye of Reason it self be spiritually unnatural and most unbecoming those who pretend to the high honour and dignity of being Children of Light The Apostle Paul pleads this twice together by way of bar to the eating of things offered unto Idols by Christians The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof 1 Cor. 10.26 28. The connexion of this reason with that which he desires to perswade unto by it is this It is most unworthy the Sons and Daughters of God to defile themselves with eating the Devils meat that which hath been sacrificed and given unto him whereof he hath no great plenty neither whenas their Father is Lord and Owner of a world of Provisions clean and wholesome wherewith they have no cause to fear or doubt but that he will sufficiently supply them And of those who did or should presume to eat of the Devils portion he demandeth argumentatively and with great earnestness and vehemency of spirit thus Do we provoke the Lord unto Jealousie that is to the fiercest of his displeasure against us Are we stronger than he meaning otherwise that we are not like to escape the severity of his anger if we continue so to provoke him 1 Cor. 10.22 Is it not altogether as ill consistent with the Wisdom Honour and Peace of Believers in these days to be found of that Worship which hath been devised contrived formed and fashioned no man knows by what Rule nor by whose Directions by men justly given up by God unto strong delusions and to believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Lie of Lies 2 Thes 2.11 and to walk in abominable Idolatries as Peter speaketh whenas God in and by the Scriptures and supplies of his Spirit hath vouchsafed unto them means and opportunities in abundance to inable themselves to worship him with a Worship pure and clean no ways charged or encumbred with any suspicion or jealousie of Satans interposure with the least of his Fingers in the moulding and framing of it That which is commonly pretended to hide the baseness of the Parentage or Original of the Liturgy impleaded is but a vail that is transparent and easily seen thorow by those that are willing to examine it and look a little narrowly into it For the Martyrs and other pious and learned men in whose weakness the importune Commenders and Obtruders of this Liturgy our apocryphal Lord Bishops with those that are younger Brethren in the same iniquity with them do so much glory for advantage sake as if they were the Fathers or Compilers of it the truth is they were neither so nor so unless in a diminutive sense onely and that which is not much considerable for their purpose And if they had been as desirous to honour those Martyrs and pious men they speak of as they are to exalt themselves they should with the good Sons of Noah have cast some covering over their nakedness and not publish it upon all occasions as now they do unto the world with an intent to cover or rather to justifie their own by it Some afterwards Martyrs and other good men were indeed the Authors of our English Liturgy as such I mean as English and haply as wanting many strains of that gross Superstition Error and Idolatry which are sound in the Latin Mass-Book and likewise as having some few things of lesser moment added and inserted by way of accommodation to the Civil State the Romish yoke as well in Civil as Ecclesiastick affairs having been newly cast of by it Nor do I doubt but that much may be pleaded and this very Christianly for the justification of those worthy and good men in respect of the uprightness of their hearts the honesty and sincerity of their intentions in the Work who by a little refining of the said Popish Devotions and by altering the property of the Language wherein they were written thought they might make them commodious enough for English Protestants yea and probably they might suppose that when they brought the Service of God such as it was and they it seems esteemed it such as by a little purgation might be cleansed from all the noysom dregs of Popery and so become lawful out of an unknown Tongue into a Language which the People understood they had in a good sence brought light out of darkness and so might be well apaid in their Consciences with their Work But though it be granted that they were persons of eminent worth both for their Piety and Learning yet questionless they were no Prophets or else the spirit of Prophecy failed them in reference to the event and consequence of their Common-Prayer-Book Atchievement For had they so much as once dreamed that this Book would prove such a Root of Bitterness unto the Nation as it is too well known it hath been that it would create those sad distempers those divisions distractions tumults and confusions whereby both sin and sorrow have been abundantly encreased amongst the inhabitants of the Land or that it would be an Engine in the hands of men of unmerciful high-imposing Spirits wherewith to rack the Consciences and wreck the Comforts Liberties Estates c. of many thousands of the Saints and dear Children of God in the Nation being at this day employed and like to be employed in these bloody executions unless the Righteousness of God will please to restrain the remainder of the wrath of men Had I say the good men we speak of but once dreamed of those