Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A60477
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Christian religion's appeal from the groundless prejudices of the sceptick to the bar of common reason by John Smith.
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Smith, John, fl. 1675-1711.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing S4109; ESTC R26922
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707,151
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538
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propounded as the Results of Reason as the collections of humane Ratiocination while in the mean time their Gods taught them by their Examples the quite contrary Ut ab ipso caelo traduci in terra satis idonea videatur authoritas That the inartificial argument that of divine Authority for Debauchery as drawing its extract from Heaven might counter-ballance all the most artificial perswasions to Virtue August de civitat 2. 10. Those Gods saith St. Austin Ibid c. 6. Not only permitted men to be overwhelm'd in their minds with loose opinions and to grow to the height of Villany without their interposing any terrible threatnings for they are not able to name the place or time when any of them perswaded to virtuous actions or disswaded by menacies from avarice ambition fraud cruelty luxury c. But they spurr'd them forward to all manner of licentiousness by their own Example 2. Nor prest with such Motives of eternal retribution as the Gospel propounds 3. Nor seconded with that aid of Divine Grace which attends the Preaching of the Word of Life rightly administred Hence all Philosophical Instructions became so ineffectual as it became a question Whether it was possible to discipline men to Virtue de virtute disputamus docerine possit Plutarch ethic tom 2. and though Plutarch affirms it may yet the best proof he brings of his Assertion is the absurdity of the contrary that men should learn all other Arts and Sciences and be incapable of learning the Art of right living seems to him highly absurd but he either labours with such penury of Examples or thinks those that were commonly alleadged so inconcludent as he doth not produce one for an Essay to the Probat of his Opinion but leaves the Virtuous Man for all the Culture of the Schools in the rank of black Swans even where his Antagonists had placed him Viri boni nominantur tantùm eo pacto quo hippocentauri Good men are entià rationis fancied only not really existing And â—ully after the perusal of both Greek and Latin Authors was as far to seek for a good man of the Philosophers making as Plutarch what one of the Philosophers saith Tully is so well manner'd so disposed in mind and life as reason requires which of them look upon their own Discipline not as an ostentation of science but the law of life who listens to himself or observes his own decrees you may see some of them to be persons of that light and yet supercilious carriage that they would have been better if they had never gone to school Some so coveting mony others praise and many such slaves to lust that their speech and life are at greatest enmity And his Nephew Cornelius beats upon the same string I am so far saith he from thinking Philosophy to be the Mistress of Life and that which perfects virtue as I rather incline to this Opinion that no men stand in more need of an instructor how to live than the most of them who spend their lives in discussing the rules of living well For I see the greatest part of them who in the Schools do most subtilly give Precepts 〈…〉 ing Modesty and Continency to wallow in the Mire of all nâ—thy Lusts. To this Seneca gives his suffrage in his exhortations Most Philosophers saith he are such kind of men as they are eloquent in reproaching themselves whom if you heard declaiming against Avarice Lust and Ambition you would think they had receiv'd a â—ee to plead thâ—ir own Condemnation so do their revilings of Vice which they send abroad recoile upon themselves as you cannot conceive any otherwise of them but as Physicians whose Boxes have on the outside the Titles of healthful Druggs but are within full of Poyson Yea so palpable was the inefficacy of their own Rules to make the best of them throughly honest as Seneca is forc'd to cast over them and himself for company the Cloak of this Excuse Omnia quae luxuriosi faciunt quaeque imperiti facit sapiens sed non eodem modo eodemque proposito That the wise man may do the same things which fools and the luxurious do but after another manner and to another end as if the goodness of the Intention could either rectifie the pravity of an Action in it self vitious or remove the scandal seeing the badness of the example is apparent but the drift of the mind out of sight Thus Aristippus defended his Familiarity with the Strumpet Lais by saying there was a great difference betwixt him and the rest of Lais servants for Lais had them but he had Lais. Oh brave Wisdom cries Laciantius and deserving to be imitated by good men who would not send his Children to this Philosophers School to learn to have a Whore who can assign no other difference betwixt himself and persons of profligated honesty but this That they wasted their Fortunes in that Luxury which he enjoy'd gratis In which point yet the strumpet overwitted him who so held the Philosopher for her Pandar that all the Youth being corrupted by the Example and Authority of their Master might flock unto her without any shame And yet this is he whom the Censors of Manners the Satyrists prefer before the rest of the Gown'd Crew Such an empty sound of words were all Philosophical Precepts as the Teachers of them could not hear themselves speak with an obediential Ear whom therefore Cicero affirmeth not to have sought the bettering but delighting of themselves in the study of Morals In good sooth saith he I fear that all their disquisition though it contain most plentiful Fountains of Virtue and Science yet if we compare it with their actions and things that are brought to perfection may seem only to have been a pleasant diversion from business The Emperour Antoninus Philosophus his Sanctity grew almost into a Proverb for its perfection but Julius Capitolâ—nus suspects it to be counterfeit dederunt ei vitio quod fictus fuisset nec tum simplex quod videretur and for all the oftentation of virtue which that Royal Philosopher made makes this the main point of difference betwixt him and Verus that Verus could not dissemble as he did à cujus sectâ lasciviâ morum vitae licentioris nimietate dissensit Erat enim morum simplicium qui adumbrare nihil posset Jul. Cap. verus And Lampridius hath this Note upon Commodus Sed tot disciplinarum magistri nihil ei profuerunt But Evangelical Precepts do not only gingle in the Ear but ring in the Conscience and come not in word only but in power being accompanied into the hearts of such as do not resist the holy Ghost with such a Majesty as commands Obedience like that Word whereby God called things that were not into being by vertue of that Spirit which in the Old Testament-prophecies God promiseth shall never be separated from his Word and which in the New Testament and subsequent Ecclesiastical History we find always moving upon the Face
Israel and to have born up the Spirits of Idol-worshippers sinking under those burthens which Gods Prophets saw against false Gods whom according to their Prophesies we have seen broken to pieces like a Potters vessel with the Iron-rod of that Son of God whom he hath set up as King upon the Hill of Sion to whom he hath given the Heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for his possession Who coming out of his Chamber as a Bridegroom that is Conjugatum carni humanae Verbum processit de útero virginali August de consens 1. 16. the Word Married to humane flesh came out of the Virgins Womb. Rejoyceth as a Giant to run his course not only from one end of the Hemisphere unto the other as they would bound Christs Kingdom who exclude America from the hopes of it but from one end of the Heaven to the other and if that be not plain enough nothing is hid from the heat thereof not any part of the round World that the corporeal Sun visits Mankind receives the cherishing warmth of its Beams and basks it self in that Fountain of Light The Serpent feels their scorching heat and flees therefrom Et adhuc isti fragiles contradictiunculas garrientes eligunt magis isto igne sicut stipula in cinerem verti quam sicut aurum à sorde purgari And will the crazy-headed Sceptick yet chatter and gaggle out his petit and bublie Exceptions which break with the least touch with the gentlest blast and choose rather to be consumed to ashes in this fire as stubble than to be purged by it from his dross as Gold § 3. Or is he of so thick-skin'd a Soul as not to feel the heat of Christs Divinity in those Prophetick Rayes emitted from his Spirit before he came in the Flesh as not to conceive that the accomplishments of Old Testament-Prophecies is a demonstration not only of their own but of the Gospels Divine Original which can be the Workmanship of none other Architect but of him who drew the Model and Idea of these new Heavens that new Creation that new face of things which we see produc'd in the Age of Christianity Humane Wit indeed might have drawn another Model perfectly resembling that might have fram'd an History parallel to Prophecy though they that could make the Counter-part so exactly answer the Original and write so perfectly after the Copy as the Apostles have must be Persons of a steady Hand excellently composed Spirits and solid Judgements And therefore all the Inference we drew in our Second Book from the Apostles proportioning every Limb and Line of their Story to the Old Testament-Draught was that they had thereby demonstratively acquitted themselves from all suspicion of being themselves deluded But it is out of the reach of Humane power to bring the Matters there prophesied of unto Birth the erecting of the Structure it self the production of what was fore-told into real existence cannot be the Effect of any but of him alone who hath as great an Infinity of Power to bring to pass as he hath of knowlege to foresee them And therefore having proved the Truth of what the Apostles reported that what they say was done in order to the accomplishment of Prophecy was done indeed he must be a person of very short Reason that from the improvement of the Premisses cannot improve the Conclusion and draw this Inference That as nothing but Omnisciency could foresee so nothing less than Omnipotency could effect That a Virgin should bring forth a Son externally so mean as those among whom he convers'd saw so little comliness in him as they Crucified him as an Impostor for saying he was the Son of God the King of the Jews that Messia promised in the Law and so much predicated by the Prophets and yet really so full of Majesty as he is become King of Kings hath subdued the World to his Obedience abolish'd all the Gods of the Nations and erected every where the Worship of that one God that made Heaven and Earth that God of whom Moses writes known formerly only in Jewry but now no where less known than among the Jews they being the greatest strangers to their own Prophets and their Fathers God being the greatest stranger to them of any Nation upon the face of the Earth § 4. But that I may not put the Sceptick to the expence of all the Reason he hath and that he may not think it is through penury of New Testament-prophecies that I pitch upon those of the Old and that he may grope out the Divinity of the Blessed Jesus in some palpable accomplishments of the Predictions he made in person as well as by Proxy I shall here mind him of this Note That Christ espoused all the Old Testament-prophecies commented upon them applied them and not only attested the coming to pass of what the Prophets had foretold in general but as it were individuated those generals by more particular and punctual Circumstances not so much as hinted by them of old and appeal'd to their accomplishment in that way and with those Circumstances wherewith he cloath'd them The prophets gave only the rough draught of what Christ drew to the life he lickt their rude Lumps into so distinct and explicite forms as the Prophecies became his own his Gleanings were more than their Vintage To instance in one for all Christ in his Prophecy of the Destruction of Jerusalem referrs to Daniel when you shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel thereby appealing to its accomplishment as that which he was content to stand or fall by as to mens belief that he was the Messias as if he had said if you see it not within the Term of Daniels Weeks within so many years after my offering an Attonement for sin as Daniel states it after the Oblation of the Messias believe me not that I am he But withal he leaves it not in such curious Calculations as Daniel did but what he had writ in figures Christ transcribes in words at length and applies it to that Generation with that perspicuity and in such particularities as an Historian can scarce tell what has been done more punctually than Christ foretells what should be done 1. As to the time of its taking Effect there be some saith he standing here that shall not tast of Death till all these things shall be fulfill'd and in particular St. John shall tarry till Christ come to avenge himself on the Jewish Nation 2. As to the Instruments to be employed by Christ for the destruction of their place and Nation he describes them by their Banners the Eagles under which the Roman Legions those Birds of prey march'd when divine Justice conducted them into Judaea that they might flesh themselves upon that Nation whose Inhabitants their sins being ripe were as Carcasses fatted and prepared for them signified as Tacitus thinks by that prodigy of a Dog bringing to Vespasian a dead