Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	worship_n	worship_v	worthy_a	83	3	6.7453	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02834	A vision of Balaams asse VVherein hee did perfectly see the present estate of the Church of Rome. Written by Peter Hay Gentleman of North-Britaine, for the reformation of his countrymen. Specially of that truly noble and sincere lord, Francis Earle of Errol, Lord Hay, and great Constable of Scotland.	Hay, Peter, gentleman of North-Britaine.	1616 (1616)	STC 12972; ESTC S103939	211,215	312

Scripture to signifie the Pagan gods which were things false and so nothing Esay saith of the gods of the Gentiles Behold you are nothing and your workes are of no worth Vnto the which Saint Paul alluding Wee know said he that an Idol is nothing in the world because howsoeuer it bee made of mettall timber or stone yet because the falshood which it representeth is nothing it is said to be nothing Now so ielous is God of his honour and worship That hee hath not only forbidden materiall images to bow down to them but there is also spirituall Idolatry forbidden whereof there is two sorts The first is of these who directly or indirectly haue society and company with the Diuell and trust in him as Sorterers Magitians Witches Consulters The second is of those who mainetaine any erronious opinion concerning the worship of God or against the word of God or who doe cherish and defend any great and odious vice by a displayed banner against God as the Prophet Samuel speaking of the disobedience of Saul Your rebellion saith he is the sinne of Witchcraft and your trangression Idolatry the reason is because hee who doth obey God after his own fantacie and not after Gods expresse Commandement he doth prefer his own conceipt and make an Idol thereof as Saint Ierome in this same sense shewes how there was oftentimes Idolatry among the Iewes when they had no materiall Idoles as the Gentiles saith he worship corporall Idoles so the Iewes hold for gods those Idoles which they haue forged in their soules and therefore they are Pagans and Idolaters Saint Austen expounding the meaning of Iosua when he exhorted the Iewes newly entred in Palestina to put away their strange gods It is not to be thought that in this time the Iewes had any Pagan god said hee because immediatly before he did praise their obedience neither is it to bee thought that hee spake these wordes without cause so it was said he that the holy Prophet vnderstanding them to haue in their hearts erroneous opinions of God contrarie to his honour hee desired them to leaue them Saint Paul doth cleerely testifie that the auaricious man and the glutton be Idolaters the one of his gold the other of his belly Quorum Deus venter est Many were among the Phylosophers whose wisdome did neuer suffer them to worship Creatures as Idoles yet were they spirituall Idolaters by denying of the Resurrection and of the immortality of the Soule in that true eternity which God hath appointed for it The Iewes and Turkes this day doe not worship any materiall Idol yea they worship the same God whom we doe yet they are Idolaters because they doe not acknowledge him as he is a Diuine Essence distinguished in three persons but after a fantasie deuised by Mahomet here and there be the Cabbalists of whom and of of all such Saint Basil saith Cursed be the men who forge false imaginatione in their owne braines and carry spirituall Idolatrie in their hearts And Gregorie Nazianzene more plainely How is it come saith hee euen to this that euery wicked man doth make a God of his wickednesse his filthy passions his wrath his murthers his lust and drunkennesse and other abominable excesse And Saint Ierome writing vpon Isay and Hosea in diuers places and Augustine in the City of God doth reckon monstrons numbers of false gods whom poore Gentility had forged to themselues aswell in their fantasies as in their Temples both which sorts of Iolatrie God hath very well forseene and very strictly forbidden by his precept of no grauen image in heauen aboue nor in the earth beneath wherein no doubt by the heauen are meant not onely the Planeticall bodies but imaginations of Angelicall figures to be counted of vs for gods and all intellectuall phantasies and falsehoods contriued by humane braine in matters of Gods worship that they shall haue no place in our mindes which point your Lo sees how cleare it is It being so then that the poore blinded Pagans who are strangers to doctrine of holy Scripture and kept backe from it by the lawes of Tyrants they are thus conuicted by the Doctors of the Church not onely for materiall Idolatrie but euen for spirituall through the excesse of euery predominant vice or erroneous phantasie which did transport them and that Saint Augustine introduces Iosua as we haue heard exhorting the Iewes to quit their Idolatry of wrongfull opinions I wil in like manner appeale to the diuine light of your Lo conscience how vigilant you thinke a good Christian must be about the points of Gods worship or what warrant there is this description of Idolatry admitted first to erect and maintain such number of images in the Popish Church Secondly what warrant to equall with God the power of the blessed Virgin And lastly and aboue all what warrant presumptuously to affirme that any elementarie thing is really the person of God himselfe I vnderstand that from such grounds as bee in the Romane Church your Lo will giue pretended reason enough but that is contrary to my protestation whereby I haue tyed your Lo. to that which the Diuine instinct of your conscience doth say to you in fauours of the meanest of those superstitions as for the last two of them I need not insist much because I thinke they bee extra controuersiam Idolatries But vnderstanding well how your Lordshippe will holde for the Images by reason of the good meaning and vse which is had of them and from the common ground ab abusu ad non vsum non est argumentum Certainely such fearefull abuses haue I seene which make me to say alas wee doe not remember what a peremptorie terrible and Iealous God hee is in the whole order and in the smallest circumstances of his worship he hath said hee is a Spirit and will be worshipped in spirit and no other will content him Let vs exhauste our whole meanes let vs distill our braines from neuer so good a meaning to worship him if our doing goe not with his owne rule it is hatefull abomination in his eyes and chiefly where any thing is added or altered to the substance and Essence of Gods word giuen out by himselfe it is Idolatry and which is more in the highest degree whereof that one instance of King Saul his disobedience might suffice for a thousand examples who could haue doubted of his extraordinary good meaning in sparing the fat beastes to sacrifice vnto the Lord more who would not haue imagined it should approue his thankefulnesse towards God and yet the Prophet Samuel called it the sinne of Witchcrafte which is Idolatry in the Superlatiue degree and for it had denounced the renting and transferring of his kingdome why because the Lord who knowes the heart of man he did see that Saul by his addition to his Commandement did preferre his owne inuention thereunto hunting thereby after a reputation of zeale in Gods seruice and so honour

my Palinodie The better and worse condition of things earthly standeth in comparison because there is no perfect condition here and the trueth of our pleasures and displeasures standeth in the fortitude or weakenesse of our apprehension therefore to know surely what a Prince and what a state wee haue wee are to remember our selues what may bee in Princes as they are Prnces and what also is commonly found in them and in their rule What may be in a Soueraigne King Looke to the holy Story of Sauls Creation Hee shall appoint your sonnes for his Chariots and for caring of his ground hee shall take your daughters and make them Cookes hee shall take your fields vineyards and best Oliue trees and giue them to his seruants saith the Lord. Out of this you shall truely obserue what a state it is you liue in next to vnderstand what oftentimes is in Princes I might in this argument send you to contemplate the cruell domination of Nero the exorbitant gouernement of Caligula the auaricious raigne of Galba the treacherous Empire of Tiberius c. But because it hath no kind of Decorum to bring those in ballance with a most vertuous most Christian Monarch I will wish you to call to memorie what was your condition during the Ciuill calamities of your neighbour Countries of France and of the Netherlands for a whole age when vnder the ●…adow of your Princes winges you was couered from those miseries while you stood securely on the shore and behelde the troubled Ocean of those tempests doe not you confesse that those countries haue felt more afflictions in one moneth then wee in all our time Or if his Maiestie by violent and vnlawfull ambition should bring such armies vpon our neckes whither would you then make any great reckoning of a light Subsidie or would you cry that his Maiesty should make a bridge of gold for your enemies to goe forth Is there any marke of a Prince approued of God and happie among men so infallible as to become a great Monarch by iust and peaceable meanes as to enioy long and introubled tranquilitie Is there any happinesse comparable with it Besides the priuate ioyes which peace doth yeeld vnto vs it is the nourse of good letters and good policies and of whatsoeuer is good As for riches it is true indeed that the accumulation of treasures is both lawfull and necessarie for Princes because they are the Gardians of people and states And Pecunia est neruus Belli but speaking of subiects remember when great Kings be most mechanicke there the people are most gouerned Sub virga ferrea whereof we haue seene examples enough not farre from our coastes How is it then we should so lightly esteeme two such rare benefits of a constant peace and of a glorious Monarchie reserued for many yeeres to be the most conspicuous blessing of this age certainly peace is so heauenly and extraordinary a good that the spirit of God hath allowed we know the Church to pray for Infidell and wicked Princes that they might haue peace vnder them seeing our peace then and prosperitie is matchlesse as no man can denie it is wicked ingratitude in vs that we should not thanke God and cry Quis poterit similiter gloriari nobis If it were not that our ignorance doth parly excuse our ingratitude for how can he valew the sweetnesse of hony who hath neuertasted of tartnesse and acerbitie the lightnesse of his yoake compared with the pride and insolence of many great dominators and the serenitie of his raigne to speake so hath bene without any intermission that how could you know what a thing is the waight and austerity of domination and if it should not be that our owne follies and euill gouernment should breede vnto vs more discontents and aggrauations then the misgouernment of the state doth we were apparantly the most fortunate subiects vnder the sunne And if any should grudge in the court I will speake thus farre vnto you with humble reuerence because you are the most excellent Creatures that of all the grudges which be within the kingdome that is most pernitious such a malignant and proud spirit made Lucifer to be put to the doore ' when the court of Heauen was first established hee is not worthy to liue at a Princes elbow who knowes not that as godly and Orthodoxall Kings beare the liuely image of God vpon earth so their Courts must resemble the seat of God in the heauens replenished with innocent Maiestie vertuous glory noble and actiue creatures subiect to perpetuall sympathie and loue tranquilitie obedience and order you haue the place of the Spheares which are neerest vnto God Imaque telluris ventos tractusque coruscos Nimborum accipiunt nubes exedit Olympus Pacem summatenent So should you be free of those clouds which are bred in the inferiour ayre of popular distemper and discontentments yea by your serenitie and secret influence you should purge them and make the multitude to admire the close harmonie of the Court euen as wee are astonished to behold the silent murmure and musicke of these celestiall orbes which are aboue the troublesome elements The Lord God hath not found it good to make all his Creatures equally capable of his graces the Angels are not of like degree yet all of them take sacrety of Gods countenance the inferiour Planets haue not bodies sufficient to containe the whole splendor of the Sunne yet they are all saciate of light to illuminate their owne spheares God did vouchsafe vnto Miriam a propheticall spirit but not in that measure as he did to Moses therefore she was strucken with leprosie for her grudging remember that if the sunne shine of his Maiesties bounty bee remoued from you for your murmuring you should bee plagued with a sort of Leprosies to desend againe into the inferiour world carrying in your faces the visible impressions of consuming and contemptible enuy shall the potsheard say to the Potter what dost thou make certainely no And you who may happen to be principall Planet of the Court or first moouer of the Courtly spheares if it should please you to learne the right lesson of your motion in the common schoole of Nature it should hardly fall forth to you to become an errant Planet wherfore hath the Lord God made the huge bosom of the great Ocean to be so spacious and receptible of waters not that shee should acquiesce in her selfe and bee delighted in the largenesse of her fountaines but that by secret channells shee should continually communicate the vse thereof to those riuers which bee appointed to water the earth and as a common seruant in the house of Nature render to the Sunne her ordinary moystures to furnish raine for the fruites of the earth wherefore hath God planted this glorious Lampe in the Sunne not that he should pride himselfe in his owne splendour for that was a Luciferian tricke but that hee should illustrate and beautifie inferiour Planets