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_v	worshipper_n	write_v	105	3	5.3784	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60620	A briefe answer unto a book intituled Shetinah, or, A demonstration of the divine presence in places of religious worship published by Iohn Stillingfleet, who stiles himself M.A. rector of Beckingham in Lincoln-shire, and late fellow of St. Iohns Colledge in Cambridge. In which book he hath declared many perverse things against the people of God (called Quakers,) and for so much as is considerable, wherein that people are any way concerned, it is in the power of God here answered, by one who is set for the defence of the Gospel, William Smith.	Smith, William, d. 1673.	1664 (1664)	Wing S4290; ESTC R220735	21,376	28

the matter thou undertakes to vindicate for as to the appointment or at least approvement of God concerning the sanctuary tabernacle temple and synagogues we do not deny but Christ is come the fulfiller of all figures and he saith neither at Jerusalem nor at this mountain shall men worship the Father but the true worshippers shall worship him in spirit and truth and thou sayest it was but the ceremonial part that was abolished but thou may know that it was the very place in which their worship was performed in that dispensation for Christ said concerning the temple that there should not be left one stone upon another which should not be thrown down which thing came to passe so that the place once appointed of God was thrown down and he did not command that it should be set up again for a place of worship and the true worshippers that followed Christ they worshipped in the spirit and they was not bound to time place or person but as they was ordered in the spirit so they was instant to serve God and worship him without regarding either p●ace or time so that it may be understood that there was never any particular place appointed or approved of God since that time as a place set apart onely for a place of worship and as for those places which are now called Churches they were never set apart by divine appointment for any such service as is practised in them and therefore the hearts of such as waits to be revived and comforted with the refreshings of Gods presence must turn away from them and turn to the light of Christ within where the streams of life runs sweetly for God is no other way known in that place which thou would have to be a Church nor in that worship which is there observed but by manifesting himself against them and when thou comes to be truly awakned in thy conscience thou wilt know that neither thy Church worship or ministry are either appointed approved or ordained of God Thou sayest do you count it your priviledge your perfection to throw off Gods publick ordinances with an admiration of your silent and dumb congregations in private must it not needs argue saidst thou a very sleepy not to say a benummed and besotted conscience thus to throw away the wholesome milk of the word in a disdainful pet and yet never complain of the hunger and thirst of your souls Answ Our priviledge and perfection is in Christ whom God hath ordained to be our salvation and he gives us the milk of his word and feeds us with meat in due season and that is our food in silence by which we are kept fresh and living unto God whilest all false worshippers are asleep in the first Adam and benummed and besotted in the earthly nature where they have no sense nor feeling of the virtuous springs and our tongues are not our own nor our wills at liberty and yet the Gospel is unto us committed and in the word of life we publish the glad tydings of it and though we do not speak words yet we feel the presence of God with us and that satisfies our hunger and refreshes our thirst and he answers all our complainings in secret but thou wouldst have us complain to such as thee and to buy thy words for food and to receive them for satisfaction which we turn away from knowing it is but a dry brest in which there is no vertue at all Thou saist a Quaker once told thee he got more good by their silent meetings then ever he got by hearing the Ministers in publick Answ As to thy publick Ministery his words might be true yet who are sent of God and preaches the Gospel of God we do get much good by their publick Ministery for thereby we are informed into the life and power of God which in silent waiting upon him we taste and feel and all our fresh springs are in him Thou seist God ordains not our immediate addresse to Heaven we must live by faith and not by vision but he commands us to use ordinary means Answ God doth ordain our immediate addresse to heaven and that in the work of our faith and we live by it and have the holy visions of God opened in it and by this means we find comfort to our souls and whether would thou have people to make their addresse if not to Heaven would thou not have them addresse themselves upto Christ and is not Christ in Heaven and what faith would thou have them to live by and what means would thou have them to use if they must not addresse themselves to Heaven for true faith and means goes to Heaven and all that lives by the faith ●f ●he Son of God and uses those means that he appoints them 〈◊〉 a●dresse 〈◊〉 selves immediately to heaven and in all their distresses and afflictions they finde grace to help them in their need ●nd by this faith we live in the power of an endlesse life Thou sayest well however Sampsons foxes may have their heads looking divers ways yet they are joyned together with firebrands in their tails and howsoever those that desert the publick means may tend some of them to prophanenesse others to a schismatical not to say an heretical separation many heresies going currently for new lights yet sayest thou this is the firebrand or rather the Devils dead coal Answ We are gathered in the unity of the Spirit of God in which our faces are turned Sion-ward and looks all one way and after the manner which thou calls heresie so worship we the God of our Fathers and thy words belongs to thy self and the sons of Adam in the fall who are looking some to one thing and some to another and yet the firebrand joyns your tails with which you would burn up the fruitful field and consume Gods heritage from the earth and this is a coal of Cains nature which the Devil blows up sometimes into a heat and sometimes into a flame and so thou may read the next Chapter which is the third to be thy own state in which thou speaks of Cains going forth from the presence of the Lord and sayest They which voluntarily leave Gods instituted worship and his commanded ordinances put themselves into a wandering condition Answ Yes they do so and therefore it must needs follow that they that forsakes the will worships and vain worships and comes to Gods instituted worship in his Spirit that they come into a stayed and settled condition and so it is thou and old Adam sons in the fall that are in Cains countrey sometimes wandring after one invention sometimes after another and this is your worship which God never instituted but the children of light are in covenant with God and rests in peace In the fourth Chapter thou sayest the sons of men which are of a mixt nature partly spirit and partly body are by their very being determined both to time and place in their rendring

art pleading for stipends and tithes thy doctrine demonstrates thy principle and thy practice doth manifest that Christ never sent thee for none of his Ministers ever took stipends or tithes for their labour in the Gospel and therefore thou art found out of their way and practice for which cause thy ministry is denied Thou also hast directed a Preface to the Reader wherein thou sayest the main scope and design of thy present undertaking is to vindicate the publick worship of God and his sacred ordinances from that undervaluing contempt which hath been thrown upon them by Quakers c. Answ Thy scope and design and undertaking is for desolution and as for the Quakers they n●ither undervalue nor contemn the publick worship of God nor his sacred ordinances for they have not so learned Christ but thy undertaking is to vindicate those things which God hath not appointed nor ordained and such things we do deny but we worship God in the Spirit which is the publick worship for it is without limitation and it is thy worship which is private who creeps into a house made with hands and wouldst limit the holy One unto it to be worshipped and thus thou ravines about in thy own way and calls evil good and undertakes to vindicate it Thou sayest Hereticks are the greater foxes and the lesser foxes and hunting and taking of such are not only a noble recreation adaequate indeed for the vast ability of the most generously spirited Christians but also a very charitable undertaking for the Church of God in those that can but any way help forward so serviceable a design Answ Thou thirsts to have thy design promoted and so presents it to others as a noble recreation and a charitable undertaking for Christians but true Christians did never recreate themselves after that manner nor never were found in such an undertaking for Paul saith after some admonitions a Heretick is to be rejected if he refuse to hear but he doth not say hunt them and take them and destroy them and Paul was a good Christian but thou art promoting thy design against the innocent and under the name of foxes would have them hunted and taken by which it is seen what is in thy heart if thy hands had power for it is to be understood that a lamb never hunted a fox but it is the nature of a fox to hunt the lambs and if he can come to his prey he devours and destroyes them and a fox hath his hole for the day and ravines in the night mark that and that is the hunter and devourer which is thy secret design but thou art chained and the lambs preserved Thou saist where could we find the proverb more fully verefied then in the subtil deluding Schismaticks of our age and for bloudy cruelty can we find a parallel of these where they get power and is it not high time saist thou to endeavour the reclaiming and reformation of those whose main intendment is to ruine the Church of God and deny the precious Truths and Ordinances of the Gospel Answ These ●hings are certainly thy own and it is high time for thee to reclaim and reform thy unruly spirit which is found in the highest degree of enmity and cruelty which the Quakers were never guilty of for their principle leads them in love and peace and good will to all men and that line doth not parallel with bloud-thirsty men who are destroying one another about their worships and Religion and it is high time that such were reclaimed and reformed from their iniquity of which the Quakers were never guilty Thou faist the Wolves were destroyed out of the Land by a victorious Prince oh saist thou that we could see the like deliverance from the Foxes Answ Here the bottome of the pit is come up and a murderer is seen which would destroy the innocent as Foxes and would have the help of a Prince to do it by which thou shewest the nature of a Wolf and the Land is spread over with too many such as thou art that the Lambs can hardly find an outward place to lie down quietly amongst you Thou saist for Iustice that puts thee upon looking well about thee at home since in that little spot of ground divine providence and goodnesse hath called thee to be resident upon in the work and calling of a Minister of the Gospel thou hast found many even too many saist thou of these little Foxes to have their fixed abode being sadly perverted by the grosse and strong delusions of the Quakers Answ Thou hast already manifested thy Justice and it is seen to be in the enmity and thy residence in that place as a Gospel Minister was never so ordered by Gods providence and goodnesse but a great Living called thee and in it man hath placed thee and it is for thy gain that thou looks so well about thee and if such as thou calls Foxes could put into thy mouth willingly as thou takes it from them unlawfully then it is like thou wouldst blot out the name of Foxes and give them the name of Christians and in this stands thy Justice to feed upon the fat and to live at ease in thy residence and for such whose fixed abode is there whom thou calls Foxes they was converted to the faith of Christ before thou came to be resident amongst them and it is the truth of God which they have received by which they are turned from errour and delusions and their fixed abode is their natural right and they are a people whom I very well know and I know that they live peaceably soberly and are of an honest conversation and thou hast nothing against them justly saving this one thing that they worship the God of their Fathers after the manner which thou calls heresie Thou saist they are hurried to a high degree of contempt of publick prayers preaching sacraments c. and these by right saist thou are part of my charge though they have withdrawn themselves from being any part of my flock Answ They are established in the truth and publick prayer and preaching in the spirit of God they never denied and they are not by right any part of thy charge for since thy coming among them they have denied thy practice and therefore they are not withdrawn from thee for they never belonged unto thee and if it should be granted that some of them were part of thy charge and of thy flock then hast not thou been a carelesse shepherd to let thy flock goe astray and be lost how canst thou say if it be so that thou hast kept all thy flock together which is the care of a good shepherd Thou saist to attempt the best means and to use the most likely wayes and method for their recovery seems not onely truly charitable but highly just and equitable Answ Thy attempts and means are far unlikely to recover them if they was in errour for thou attempts to be delivered from

manifestation for to remove suggest strengthen and raise is a work of the spirit but the teachings of the spirit is in checking reproving and convincing and as the obedience is yielded to it so it teaches to deny the evil which it doth convince of and reprove for and teaches to live in that which is good that comes from God and so it teaches to deny ungodlinesse and teaches to live soberly mark it well Thou saist concerning the enlightning of the mind that all the lights in the world is never able to make us see divine truths savingly till we are enlightned of the Lord. Answ Then why art thou contending against the light of the Lord seeing thou saist that none can see divine truth savingly till they be enlightned by him would thou keep people from that which will let them see divine truths but divine truths may be seen in the light and yet not savingly for salvation is not in the sight of truth but in the union with it for there may be much seen to be truth and yet the error not forsaken Thou saist none are truely enlightned but those that are in Christ Answ The light of Christ doth enlighten every one that comes into the world and yet every one that comes into the world is not in Christ but as the light which is manifest from Christ is obeyed so it worketh death upon the old man and raise up life and immortality and regenerates man into the nature of it where he becomes a new creature in Christ and is light in the Lord. Thou sayest There is no true light that leads to salvation but what comes from Christ the Son of righteousnesse Answ Then to preach that light is neither canting nor delusion as thou had termed it for it is the light which comes from Christ the Sun of righteousnesse which we preach and we know that there is not another name given under heaven by which any can be saved Thou sayest let others therefore sit down and embrace that so much mired darling of an inward natural yet saving light in all we know saist thou that it is but a changeling and not the genuine off-spring of the spirit Answ Thou hast said no light for salvation but from Christ and now saith the light within is a changeling and this is not agreeable with the Apostles doctrine who said the light that shines in our hearts gives us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus and thou cryes inward natural yet saving light in all and that it is but a changeling but we say the inward natural as it is of man is not saving to any but the inward spiritual light as it comes from the nature of Christ is saving to all that believe in it but the condemnation of such as believe not and therefore we say that the light of Christ within is not a changeling but the Alpha and Omega yesterday and to day and the same for ever In the thirteenth Chapter thou seems to hold forth the qualification of the spirits teachings by teaching fully pleasantly seasonably certainly and profitably and that it brings in no new lights objective and thou saist what makes souls to quit their comforts in this life their friends their estates their liberties yea their lives themselves rather then part with those truths the spirit hath taught them Answ Why this is the reason that makes them do all those things because they love Christ more then all and prizes the truth which he hath taught them more then all the world but that thou art of the number of those that are so given up to God and loves his truth doth not any way appear for thou enjoyes thy friends thy estate and liberty and life thou hast fulnesse and art at ease thou art not come to travel in hunger and cold and perils to make known the glad tydings of the Gospel thou art not in bonds and prisons for the truth of God and the testimony of a good conscience these things comes not near unto thee but thou art reviling the innocent who have received the teachings of Gods spirit and loves the truth above all the world or the enjoyments of it for which cause we suffer as to our libertie and estates and our lives are in jeopardy yet in the comfort of truth we have our rejoycing though thou adde afflictions to our sufferings Thou saist we have no foundation for such gradual teachings as to expect the spirit should teach more truths afterwards then are written in the word of God Answ The spirit of God is not limitted as to what may or may not be in mans expectation for God manifests the truth by his spirit according to his own pleasure and in his own time and the spirit opens the Scripture in fulfilling of them and also manifests the mind of God in what he will further reveal and make known Thou saist though the spirit teaches in the word that there can be no absolute perfection in this life telling us in the words of S. John that if we say we have no sin c. and yet saist thou the spirit teaches the soul gradually to breathe after perfection Answ The word and the spirit is perfect and all born of the spirit are perfect and the words of John in that Scripture doth not relate to the birth born of God for when he comes to speak of that birth he saith whosoever is born of God sinneth not c. and that which sinneth not is perfect and what good doth thy ministry if thou do not bring people to that which is perfect or where would thou have people to be perfect if they die imperfect surely thy message is sad to that which breathes after perfection and thou hast not received the gift from Christ which is for perfecting of the Saints and so thou art teaching another doctrine then the true Ministers teaches who labours that they may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus I now come to thy last Chapter wherein thou seems to hold forth practical deduction from Gods presence by his spirit and thou saist coming unto God in a way that God never owned nor prescribed is a direct turning away from him Answ Christ is the way unto the Father and there is none can come unto him by any other and they that walk in this way are preserved 〈◊〉 all by paths but they that walks in their own way they turn directly from God and if thou truly try thy self thou may find it so to be with thee Thou saist Gods Spirit teaches none to continue in the practice of known sins he doth not allow them to sin and then teach them that is to be spiritual to deem nothing sin that we possibly can commit Answ The Spirit of God teaches to deny all sin and all that obeys the Spirit they come to the Crosse which crucifies to the death the sinning nature and so brings into righteousnesse and