Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	heat_n	spirit_n	vital_a	2,349	5	10.6043	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61109	A discourse concerning vulgar prophecies wherein the vanity of receiving them as the certain indications of any future event is discovered, and some characters of distinction between true and pretending prophets are laid down / by John Spencer.	Spencer, John, 1630-1693.	1665 (1665)	Wing S4949; ESTC R24607	75,252	150

surely not they which speak but the Holy-Ghost which speaketh in them Nature seems not sufficient for such singular performances upon the place Moreover their words like arrows pointed and fired make a very deep and abiding impression upon the hearts of the hearers the Souls of men become half unbodyed while they hang upon the lips of these extraordinary persons and therefore surely non vox hominem sonat there is more in these words then the voice of a Man and the charms of a little fervent and Pathetical language I answer This devout ardor with the effects consequent thereunto doth extremely inchant the minds of men with great Opinions of the Men in whom it appears and is readily received like the divine fire that came down upon the Sacrifice as the testimony of God to the person and to all he offers David George obtained the repute of a Prophet chiefly assiduo ac ardenti in speciem preces ad Deum funclendi studio Whereas all these strange phoenomena may be salved by meer mecharical principles all generally being but the ●ssue of a natural pregnancy and fervor of temper exerting it self in fluent words tinctured with religion and Scripture phrases Where there is naturalis quaedam animi mobilitas which Quintilian requires in order to speaking well ex tempore a natural moveableness of Soul whereby it is inabled to turn it self nimbly and with ease to new thoughts and words and this ass●sted or rather created by some more brisk and active spirits it may equal perhaps exceed the performances of more advised thoughts A moderate heat wherein all the Spirits flow to their proper principles and fountains the vital to the heart and the animal to the brain and are put into quick but manageable motions doth raise in a man a more fine and exquisite power of perception and cause the images of things to appear more distinct and to come faster upon his mind then otherwise they would and by consequence make the Understanding more pregnant and the expressions more fluent and easy And therefore when the Orators of old attributed their more fortunate performances and rhetorical inlargements in their extempore declamations before the people then much in use to the special assistance and incitation of God Quintilian judiciously gives them to the present heat and fermentation of spirits the great instruments whereby the Soul performs all its works in this embodied state His words are these Si quem calor ac Spiritus tulit frequenter accidit ut successum extemporalem consequi cut a non possit Deum tunc adfuisse Veteres Oratores aiebant sed ratio manifesta est nam bene concepti affectus recentes rerum imagines continuo impetu feruntur quae nonnunquam mora styli refrigescunt dilatae non revertuntur Which words I shall dismiss untranslated lest like liquors put into another vessel they should contract a flatness and loose Spirits Now these words of Quintilia● give a good account of the extempore felcities of the Orators of those times which themselves had such great thoughts of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak divinely or by inspiration was the usual phrase whereby they exprest speaking fluently pathetically and with coherence without more thoughts then just ushered the words they spake And that Spirit which generally inspires our Divine Orators and makes them un-over with such winning rhetorick is much of kind with that which incited those civil ones viz. a natural fervor of temper excited by some superficial affection and assisted by a plenty of fit expressions made familiar to them by study and custom For we find men of very evil lives Ignatius Hacket and others eminent for this religious Rhetorick and fervor and many of these Orators have confest themselves greatly straitned and bound ut as the phrase is when in their closets who are carried with full sails when to act before a Company because desire of Opinion makes them more concerned excites affection and consequently that ardor so essential to a smooth performance They are in the Phrase of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ful of the Theater are touched with applause and therefore act to the height of themselves in publick but are cold and indifferent where the breath of man is wanting to excite and blow them up Now our admired Prophets having this natural fervor and pregnancy of Spirit to wing their Fancies and this heat intended by the new forces of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Longinus stiles the Earthy vapor which inspired the Pythia an enthusiastick vapor of heated Melancholy arising from the hypochondria it cannot fail of displaying it self in such rapturous and lofty strains of divine rhetorick as shall be verily thought to flow è vena Israelis from the same Divine Spirit which inspired the Prophets when the persons are but heightned by a fume somewhat more gross and unruly then that which inspires our common Poets whose more happy heats and sprucer fancies have been thought the issue of borrowed Spirits and therefore the blood of the grape been generally vouched by them the most natural exciter of the poetick vein Besides these Prophets are much advantaged for a more lively imitation of Enthusiasm above the more Vulgar pretenders to it by an exalted Imagination For the most vehement Objects of Religion God Heaven Hell the glories of the new Hierusalem some prophetick Scheams being made familiar to their softer fancies stand before their minds in very distinct and affecting ideas Now where imagination is thus boiled up and often rub'd upon by the most moving objects it fails not of raising affections and and consequently expressions great and vehement as the objects are from whence they do arise And therefore Quintilian to assist the power of Speaking very movingly and fluently extempore which the Orators of those times so much endeavoured adviseth to imprint upon imagination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the images of the things we are to speak about as if we were to speak about the murder of any person suddenly to make all the terrible images of the bleeding man to walk upon the Scene of Phancy and to set as it were before our eyes all the black circumstances of the action thereby to quicken affection and by that Expression I intend not these words to stifle the devout ardors of holy men displayed in affectionate pantings after God and a divine Nature in desires too big for words divine relishes and that unforced Rhetorick which the abundance of their hearts instructs them unto when to bespeak God in private For our Religion could no more please our selves then God if it could not ravish the heart as well as renew it if it were a kind of caput mortuum an heavy stark insipid thing without heat and Spirit Heat and zeal is the calidum innatum of the New Man without which he neither lives nor moves Only care must be had that this heat and zeal like the