Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	eye_n	new_a	scheme_n	48	3	16.0682	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90402	A voyce out of the thick darkness: containing in it a few words to Christians, about the late and present posture of spiritual affairs among them. Together with a post-script about darkening the counsel of God. As also, certain Scripture-prophecies concerning some transactions in the latter times. / By Isaac Penington, (junior) Esq;.	Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.	1650 (1650)	Wing P1217; Thomason E597_7; ESTC R203131	40,524	63

a cup of astonishment a cup of trembling a cup of confusion of sleep of death all which Jerusalem tastes in it when she drinks of it And Jerusalem cannot chuse whether she will dri●k the cup or no but must drink it which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord God stands like a mother that holds a potion of physick in her hand and will make her child take it though sore against the childs mind Yea some mothers will make their children drink the very thick of the potion the bottom of the cup And poor Jerusalem must drink the very dregs too if God will have it so O how sweet is God in building up how terrible in throwing down How pleasant how quickening is the cup of his love how dreadful how destroying is the cup of his wrath There is none can so much as imagine the power of his wrath that have not tasted the power of his love If Christ and his people had not felt and known so much sweetness in the Love and Life of God they could never have found so much bitterness in the cup of his indignation in that cup of death which he prepares to put an end to that kind of life The people of God must lose that very life that Christ lost by that very cup We must all taste of his Baptism O how sweet is that life in its season how pleasant is it to thrive and grow in it Communion with God The mutual opening of hearts one to another The continual meeting every where in everything in one and the same Spirit is very ravishing and transporting But to have this pass away or if the the life of be too strong so to do to have it killed by power by a cup of deadly poyson is so sharp and terrible that the pangs of dissolving the body are hardly worthy to be a shadow of it Yet if any have a desire before-hand to conceive what it is such as have tasted of the spiritual pleasure of this kind of life may give some guess at it This drink is the Wo God administers to expel the former drunkenness by This wine whoever is throughly made drunk with will quickly find all his former beauty and spiritual glory stained and his nakedness uncovered by it ISAI. 43. Vers 8. 21. Bring forth the blind people that have eyes and the deaf that have ears This people have I formed for my self they shall shew forth my praise This is the Issue the Result of all to Ephraim though little expected by him God liked not his beauty therefore stained it with his vomiting by the force of a new kind of wine But while Ephraim was drunk had lost his eyes and his ears could see nothing of God could hear nothing of God God was forming him anew and after he hath layn long enough in the grave for his former shape quite to rot and waste away he must be brought forth anew to the praise of him that formed him This people have I formed my self You thought I was destroying this people and perhaps they themselves because of what they felt thought so too They were become the blackest people under Heaven upon whom the blackness of darkness seemed to have seized for ever And indeed I was destroying that fleshly shape and Image of holiness wherein they formerly appeared and which their spirits too much doted upon this was I resolved to lay in the dust and not leave the least reliques of it They were the most deformed people too without eyes without ears could hear or see nothing of the greatest danger nothing of the greatest good but all good passes by them and every snare takes hold of them Thus did I deal with them thus did I undo them but withall I was forming them anew I was not only destroying the old form as men thought and they thought but I was likewise introducing a new form and that a very excellent one one for mine own self not to serve my design upon as allshapes I have hitherto cast my people in have been but for my self to possess enjoy and please my self in for ever These desolate spirits have I built into such a Tabernacle into such a Temple as shall never be pulled down again but here will I dwell for ever this is the true place of my rest these vessels shall indeed hold all my glory This fabrick shall be so perfect so fair so full of lasting beauty that all that behold it shall not chuse but praise the skill of the workman who hath prepared so fit an habitation for his own Spirit and so perfect glory pleasure and content for his own habitation Then shall the blind see and the deaf hear when those that now see and hear may be made blind and deaf When the new eye and the new ear is brought forth in new-made Israel the old eye and the old ear in old Israel will be out of request Amen saith my spirit within me Let old things pass away and all things become new Let the Scheam of this present world both outward and inward pass away and a new Scheam of both be brought forth A new light a new eye a new sound of things a new ear to hear that sound a new discovery of God a new mind to receive that discovery into a new Heaven a new Earth and new Inhabitants for both a new Worship new Worshippers new wine new bottles all new and he that is perfectly weary of the old cannot but say Amen with me Amen Halelu-jah Cursed be all the idol gods of the Heathen but blessed be the living God for evermore He shall be God indeed that doth these things Lo this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us and we will be glad and rejoyce in his Salvation Amen Halelu-jah Be not offended We must tune our Harps to the new Song when once we taste of the cup of this new Salvation ISAI. 65. Vers 13 14 15. Therefore thus saith the Lord God Behold my servants shall eat but ye shall be hungry behold my servants shall drink but ye shall be thirsty behold my servants shall rejoyce but ye shall be ashamed Behold my servants shall sing for joy of heart but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart and shall howl for vexation of spirit And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen for the Lord God shall slay thee and call his servants by another name O doleful O Joyful weeping wailing gnashing of teeth in some joy unspeakable in others The Prodigal shall be welcomed home with the fatted calf with mirth musick dancing which his other brother through grief and anguish of spirit cannot partake of nay perhaps it may prove the will of the father not to admit him to this feast which he makes to welcom home the unthrift He will fill the hungry with good things but the rich will he send empty away Yea the Lord God will slay thee Thou hast a name now that thou livest though thou art dead but the Lord will kill that appearance of life in thee wherewith now thou flourishest and cast thy name out for dead That name thou now hast shall rot and dye and be no more accounted for a living name He will call his people no more after that name but he will have a new name which the Mouth of the Lord shall name to write in the foreheads of his servants and to call them by ISAI. 35. Vers 5 6 7. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped Then shall the lame man leap as an Hart and the tongue of the dumb sing for in the Wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the Desart And the parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land springs of water Then the Wilderness shall become a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be counted for a Forrest Chap. 32. 15. And there will be great joy and singing among the blind the deaf the lame and the dumb when they shall all be perfectly healed when the barren parched ground shal abound with that water which it thirsted after and grew so heartless and barren for want of EZEK. 17. Vers 22 23 24. Thus saith the Lord God I will also take of the highest branch of the high Cedar and will set it I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one and will plant it upon an high Mountain and eminent In the Mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it and it shall bring forth boughs and bear fruit and be a goodly Cedar and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree have exalted the low tree have dryed up the green tree and have made the dry tree to flourish I the Lord have spoken and have done it Then said I When when O Lord God how long Thou hast a long time holden thy peace Awake awake put on strength O Arm of the Lord Uncloath thine Arm of flesh and cloath it with strength if thou meanest to do these things Sleep no longer under the vail of flesh but rent it from the top to the bottom and come forth in thine own likeness and so soon as we see this in this Equipage we will sing and shout Hosanna in the highest Blessed be he who is and was and is no longer a coming but come Even so Amen FINIS

may hear given out by persons concerning it which is of a very high kind they say they have tasted they have felt it in their own experience and commend it unto us as a thing they know already is in part and suddenly shall be more fully seen and enjoyed I intend to speak somewhat to both these and that very freely for I hope the time is coming wherein my heart and thoughts concerning all things shall be opened and first concerning the experience of these persons which though it come afterward in order of nature yet I shall begin with it to lay it out of the way and then I shall come more fairly and directly to the thing it self As touching the experience of those persons who thus speak though they have made a noise in the world drawn the eyes of many upon them and the hearts of many after them yet there lieth so just an exception against their persons and practises as cannot but damp their testimony and eat out that strength which otherwise it might carry with it There is a greater ground of rebuke and reproach lies upon them then hath usually attended the people of God who have always and that too justly layn open to reproach The weakness of every Administration the frailty of the persons under it the great boasts that have still been made by some of them of their interest in God nearness to God power from God and yet the low ebb that most commonly they are found in hath still given too much occasion to wise flesh to despise such a weak and mixed appearance of the Spirit of God in them yet this is not their worst but their ordinary state you shall sometimes have them buffeted by Satan overmastered by corruption forsaken by God giving up all their hopes My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord said Jeremiah Lam. 3. all their light darkened all their life extinguished to appearance and this is such a stumbling block as it is hard to leap over But none ever lay so open to reproach as these Persons wallowing with delight in that which the eyes of Sence and Reason if the eye of Religion were quite put out cannot but call unclean filthy wicked boasting that they are all and all is theirs and yet possessing nothing not knowing where to attain necessaries for the body speaking greater words then ever were spoken but with less demonstration of the Spirit and of Power then God was usually wont to give out to them whom he called to speak after a far lower rate How can any mans stomack forbear nauseating such kind of persons I must profess there is nothing I have met with more contrary to my temper and answerably more distasteful to me who have been always strongly bent towards and in prosecution of exact purity both within and without to the utmost extent and degree My temper hath likewise enclined me much to modesty sobriety silence I have still desired to be much to enjoy much but not to make any great sound of what I was made or enjoyed and I think few can testifie any great boasts they heard from me of that Light that Life that Power that Sweetness which once I tasted of nay for a season possessed but still kept back the discovery of it further then the drawing of it forth into action wherein I was not overforward neither did occasion it To be but not to appear was very delightful to me but to make a glorious appearance beyond substance to speak great words beyond what I felt or enjoyed was in no wise pleasing unto me or passable with me And if I deal ingenuously I must confess I never found my spirit rise with greater detestation against any thing then this which I am now speaking of It was irksom to me formerly to hear men talk of the Spirit of God of being assisted by the Spirit of God when it was too too clear that their own parts abilities were the Master-engine in all their performances but this was far more distasteful to me and that which I could in no wise brook until I was throughly battered and shewn my insufficiency to judg any thing Since which time I have learned by much experience that the clay is not its own but the Potters nor hath it liberty to chuse its own form but must be cast into what form the Potter pleaseth and into what several forms he pleaseth One while it shall be a vessel of honour by and by a vessel of dishonour anon a vessel of honour again then a vessel of dishonour again of greater dishonour then before and afterwards perhaps a vessel of greater honour then before The same peece of earth one while lyeth common with the rest of the world by and by is separated for a garden or vineyard to the Lord enclosed with his fence surrounded with his wall for him to possess and please himself with anon the fence the wall is broken down and it laid open and made common again and thus it is tossed and tumbled into several sorts of various conditions as often as the owner of it pleases and what shall be the issue of all who knows but he who is all There are many devices in the heart of man to exalt himself and throw down others every one thinks it will go well with him and is ready to prophecy Woes to others but the Counsel of the Lord it shall stand Others shall meet with that blessedness he promiseth to himself and he shall meet with those Woes he denounceth against others When Israel is a grievous slave the despicablest peece of earth throughout the whole Creation then is Israel picked out chosen for a vessel of glory When Israel lifts up it self above the rest of the world looks upon the rest as Heathen as Dogs it was their usual phrase to term the Gentiles by they were the chosen people the rest cast off they the holy people the rest prophane wicked sinners of the Gentiles Now must Israel be turned back and be put in mind of his own original which was the same with theirs his father was an Amorite and his mother an Hittite and he must change places with them a parcel of the Heathen must become the choyce separated people and these must be cast by Having tasted somewhat of this in my own spirit having been hurled by might and power into several forms and shapes and such too as I have been strongly fortified against and have strongly opposed it hath made me somewhat shy of finding fault with any peece of clay in what guise soever I find it And I cannot but advise all who have respect to their own ease and safety to take heed how they judg these persons This is no ordinary case and though Sence or Reason much more Religion may presume upon the seeming clearness of the ground and so grow bold in pronouncing sentence against them yet it is the light of the day can alone

of God in any particular transaction that is his Counsel To darken Counsel is to cover to hide this meaning of God to make it more intricate and difficult to be understood Light reveals opens discovers things Darkness vails hides things from sight To enlighten is to make manifest to expose to view to darken is to make obscure to hide from view By words without knowledg Knowledg is the persons understanding of a thing a persons acquaintance with a thing a persons insight into a thing whereby he is enabled to discover it to another which he that hath not knowledg cannot do A man cannot make that known which he himself doth not know When a man speaks concerning a thing to open it he pretends to bring light to bring words of knowledg round about it to make it manifest to him that is ignorant of it but if his words have not light in them if they do not reach the nature of the thing then they are words without knowledg darkening words This was Jobs case here He takes up his Friends sharply for darkening Counsel for words without knowledg and pretends to rectifie them to open that Counsel which they had hid and perverted to bring light about that which they had darkened and so he seems to do till God comes to take him up also and tells him that he also darkens Counsel by his shallow expressions of it and blames him for it as taking too much upon him Who is this that darkens Counsel by words without knowledg The words seem to give forth these two things of their own accord 1. The clearest holding forth of the Counsels of God without the Light of God is but a darkening of them Mans light mans understanding and from thence revealing the things of God though it may appear as a very eminent and glorious discovery of those things yet it is but a vailing but a clouding of them Man is very ignorant of God when he seems deep and high in the knowledg of him and does but darken him when he strives to make him manifest The light of man is but darkness before God and the casting abroad of this light is but scattering darkness about God which though it cannot darken God in himself yet it may and doth darken him to those to whom it seems to reveal him though they perceive it not but think they have attained some sight of God by it And Man would hardly beleeve if he were told that he shall not come this way to know God but must be plunged in darkness to have this light buryed before the true light break in upon him and yet it may be so though Man with his eye and in his day cannot discern it 2. It is an act of presumption a thing that does little beseem man to hold forth the Counsels of God without the Light of God Man goes beyond his sphere when he will take upon him by his shallow apprehension to measure the things of God and so to give them out as the things of God Who is this that takes so much upon him that will be opening the Counsels of God and yet hath not knowledg I may speak somewhat concerning both these For the first The clearest holding forth of the Counsels of God without the Light of God is but a darkening of them Job here a man eminently qualified with knowledg neither was he one whose knowledg God was likely to blast for any jugling in his spirit but of an entire heart too a man that spake as right of God as it was almost possible for a man to do yea God in part doth justifie him Chap. 42. 7. yet Job in thinking to open the Counsels of God darkens them In comparison of what his Friends said Job had spoken right it was light compared with their darkness but bring it to the touchstone set it by Truth by pure light then it also is darkness There is none knows the minde of God but himself What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him even so the things of God none knoweth but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 11. You may see a man doing many things but you know not his minde his intent therein so he that hath a true a spiritual eye to see some motions and actions of God yet may miss of his meaning in them unless his Spirit reveal it to him and he that knoweth it not how can he speak it forth his words must needs be without knowledg There is no gathering the minde of God from any of his words or works but by his own Light All the sight Man has of things without the Light of God doth not reach the minde of God Iob was as entire ingenuous searching a man as well could be and had no doubt that which we call the blessing and assistance of God and did attain much yet his knowledg was not the opening but the darkening of God the hiding of his Counsel The sight we have of things is both a shallow sight and a deceitful sight It is a dark shallow imperfect sight both in respect of the things we see and in respect of their reference one to another In respect of the things we see We see but part of things but the least part the outside the shape of a creature we see not the nature the inward properties much less the internal Substance of things So we see the outside the rationality of a Scripture but not the inward life and spirit of it We are come to the Mount that may be touched by our Sense Reason and Experience but the spiritual Glory and Majesty of God is not discovered from that Mount nor to that eye that looks there for it And for the reference of things one to another who sees how one creature one action of providence refers to another There is no man sees Gods Works from the beginning to the end And then that little sight we have of these is uncertain liable to deceit We see things as they are not not as they are The true Being is hid and the appearance of things being so various and mystical easily cozens a weak eye We cannot judg of things that are vailed by the vail that lies upon them and yet this is all the sight we have And what man from such a dark sight of things can give a clear account of things or of Gods Counsel of his meaning in things Therefore there is no knowing or grounded declaring any Counsel of God without his light As there is no knowing man or the things of man by any light beneath mans The sense the understanding of the creatures will not reach it that kind of knowledg they have of man deserves not the name of knowledg So there is no knowing God or the things of God by any light beneath his The light must be of the same kind with the thing it discovers or it cannot discover it The light of the