Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	act_n	act_v	active_a	90	3	8.9504	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25568	An answer to several remarks upon Dr. Henry More, his expositions of the Apocalypse and Daniel, as also upon his Apology written by S.E. Mennonite, and published in English by the answerer ; whereunto are annexed two small pieces, Arithmetica apocalyptica, and Appendicula apocalyptica ...	S. E., Mennonite.; More, Henry, 1614-1687.	1684 (1684)	Wing A3379; ESTC R10256	245,076	439

the Spirit of Prophecy that came upon them 10. Whereas the four Beasts are upon the Throne and the twenty four Elders surround it sitting on their seats in their Kingly and Princely Habits signifying the Heavenly station they are exalted to by the Spirit of God being a Principle of life dwelling in them from which new nature they become as active spirits to doe what the others have no power unto but by the adventitious acting of the Spirit of God upon them 11. The living Creatures appearing like burning Coals and Lamps may signifie the burning zeal or spirit of Elias they are acted by in distinction from the pure serene Christian spirit of faith working by love which answers to the still small voice which afected the Prophet more than the precedent strong Wind and Earthquake and Fire Hence though our Saviour calls Iohn the Baptist a burning and shining light yet he says He that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he 12. That the Temple-Vision designs to set forth such a perfect legal state of righteousness and the Spiritual communion attending the same as aforesaid seems concludible First from Chap. 43.10 11. where the Prophet is commanded to shew the house of Israel the pattern of the house that they may be ashamed which if they be he is to shew them all the form and Laws and Ordinances of it that they may keep and doe them So that all the Laws and Ordinances given by the Prophet after the manner of Levitical Law are of the same import and to be taken in the same sense with those delivered by it which they had before broken 13. Secondly from the Oblation of the holy portion being 25000 Reeds square and the City being 5000 and the Sanctuary 500 square which all are symbolical Numbers of a natural or fleshly state So that as the Number of the Beast 666 the root of which is 25 sets forth a complete carnal politick state according to humane natural Wisedom so here seems to be signified the perfection of a people in a natural state by being solely under the conduct and government of divine Laws and the righteous Judgments of God agreeable to that state 14. Thirdly from the 18000 measures which is the compass of the City being the Perimeter of the Cube of 12000 furlongs which is the Cubical measure of the New Ierusalem as appears by Mr. Potter whereby seems to be signified that the one represents the state of a people under the Rule of Divine Laws and the righteous Judgments of God according to an external legal state so long as they can perfectly conform thereunto And the other such a solid state of righteousness or inward Dispensation of life as does inable men to a perfect walking with God by fulfilling all his righteous Judgments But as our Saviour hath taught us first to cleanse the inside of the Cup that the outside may be clean also so it 's onely by the inward Dispensation of the latter whereby we become able to fulfill the righteousness designed by the former So that the waters out of the Sanctuary becoming a River and the Trees growing on the banks thereof with what else in this Vision agrees with that of the New Ierusalem signifies what would have been fulfilled in the Israelites in that state if they could have been ashamed of all their iniquities and kept all the Laws Forms and Ordinances then given and what will be fulfilled in that righteous state wherein all the Statutes and Judgments of God shall be duly performed 15. As to the difference of the Mosaical Laws and the Laws of Ezekiel's Temple the Reason thereof is That the one delivers to them what was required of them that they should doe the other what they ought to doe to live up to the height of that Dispensation whereby to become partakers of the Blessings thence signified But enough of Conjectures about things so obscure and mysterious Ans. The Remarker according to that competent share of confidence Nature has endued him with thinks it may be safely concluded that the living Creatures and Wheels are not Angelical But does he think it so safe a thing to conclude of his own private opinion against the sense to say nothing of the consent of Christian Interpreters of the whole School of the Iewish Rabbins who as they call their Natural Philosophy Bereshith so their more abstruse Theology touching God and Angels they call Mercavah which is this very Vision of Ezekiel and signifies Currus a Chariot And that the Chariot of God is Angelical is plain from that in Psal. 68.17 The Chariots of God are twenty thousand even thousands of Angels and the Lord is among them as in Sinai in the holy place In which Sinai Moses also saw this glory of the Lord Exod. 24. And chap. 25.18 he is commanded to make two golden Cherubims in imitation of this Cherubick Chariot which Ezekiel afterwards saw which were to be placed upon the Ark where was to be the Throne of God in the Temple And Psal. 18. he rode upon a Cherub and did fly c. Where Grotius thinks that of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rechub currus was writ not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cherub But it tends all to one the Cherubims being his Chariot And what follows He came flying on the wings of the wind the word there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Spirit as well as a Wind and so the whole sense may be he rid on his Chariot viz. his Angelical Chariot and was carried swiftly on the wings of his ministring Spirits that readily execute his word And Psal. 99. He sitteth between the Cherubims c. And these living Creatures in this Vision of Ezekiel ch 10. are at least ten times called Cherubims And are not Cherubims Angels And the same may be said of the Seraphins Esay 6. which is a like Representation of the Divine Majesty are they not Angels But the Remarker alledges Reasons why the living Creatures in Ezekiel's Vision are not Angels First because these four living Creatures agree in number and name with the four Beasts Revel 4. and therefore they signifying a successive body of men Ezekiel's four living Creatures must signifie a body of men also Secondly they all four have the likeness of a man and a man's hand under every wing and therefore they must be men that are signified thereby Thirdly they have Calves-feet which signifies the laboriousness of men under the Sun Fourthly and lastly A spirit is said to be in them and in the Wheels Wherefore Angels cannot be signified by either Angels being called Spirits and not described by any Spirit abiding in them But in answer to this I say First that this Vision is an Ideal Symbolum or Symbolical Idea of the glorious Majesty and Empire of the God of Israel over the whole Angelical World divided into four parts the Cabbalists give names to them Azeluthick Briathick Ietzirathick and Asiathick he

the Lion denoted the same The swiftness of whose expeditions viz. of the King of Babylon Ieremy compares to the slight of Eagles chap. 4. and chap. 40. Wherefore these four wings of this Leopard answer exquisitely to the description of the He-Goat in the next Chapter which is the same Empire viz. the Greek Behold an He-Goat came from the West on the face of the whole Earth and touched not the ground What did he then but in a manner fly And what can better set out such a flying than wings So fitly do these two Visions explain one another as to this passage But in the mean time the Remarker professeth himself of a wonderfull indistinct conception that cannot distinguish the nature of the four wings in general from the Number of them wherein yet he contradicts himself For he will not say that the four wings as four signifie haughty aspiring but as wings Wherefore as he from the general nature of them would have signified ambitious aspiring which if they did both here and in the Lion it clashes not with the Expositor's Interpretation one Symbol being capable of several senses by an Henopoeia of the second kind so the Expositor from the said general nature of them will have them signifie swiftness which is at least the more principal sense as has been proved and will reach also the swift division of the Greek Empire into four parts Alexander living so little a while after his Conquest Vers. 9. Though it be difficult to give an account of Ezekiels Vision chap. 1. yet I think it may be safely concluded that the living Creatures and Wheels are not Angelical as is here supposed For those four living Creatures agreeing in number and name with the four Beasts Revel 4. for they are both called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the four faces of each of these living Creatures being the faces of the four Beasts it shews that as the last signifies a successive body or society of men so the other must have the like signification Which is farther confirmed by their all four having the likeness of a man and a man's hand under every wing and their having Calves feet signifying the labour and travel which is given to men under the Sun and also by the spirit that is said to be in them and in the wheels Whereas Angels are called Spirits and not described by any Spirit abiding in them 1. The four faces and the four wings of the living Creatures I take to signifie the same thing viz. The complication in humane nature of the nature of those four Animals signified by the faces that is of Reason Religion Courage and Industry Of these four does humane nature consist and subsist by them they being the life and support of humane affairs The four wings may signifie the several spirits from which these operations are produced and the man's hand under each wing the management of all these operations by reason and prudence The four Beasts all of them representing the same body or society of Christians have the same signification with the four faces and wings of each living Creature but it would not have agreed with them that each of them should have had four faces as it doth with the erect stature of the living Creatures and also it would have been needless being the same thing is signified by the four several Beasts Besides those Beasts having six wings there would have been faces wanting to two of them 2. Which two wings added to the other four I take to be the same with the two wings with which the Seraphims fly Esay 6. these six-winged Beasts being the same with those Seraphims and to signifie that grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ or that Life and Truth which he says he is and thereby the way to the Father And we being by this grace or life and truth quickened and raised unto newness of life in Christ Jesus whereby we cease to be of the World and are delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of our Lord and so raised up and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Ephes. 2.6 they thereby become truly wings to us in exalting us from a worldly or earthly unto such an heavenly state Ezekiel's Vision therefore of the living Creatures and Wheels I take to be a Representation of the ruling of the God of Israel over his people in a natural state under a Legal or Iudaical Dispensation as the twenty four Elders and the four Beasts represent the same rule in a Christian state under the Dispensation of the Divine life The latter of which is to be fulfilled in the Millennium but the former was never fulfilled completely because the Iews failed of living up to the height of that Dispensation 3. But this Vision of Ezekiel and his other also of the Temple seem to be designed for the like purpose as the Tree of life was planted in Paradise viz. to signifie that Dispensation of life which men in due time were to be admitted unto but not then the natural earthly state of man not admitting thereof 4. So likewise the two mentioned Visions the first of them seems to signifie the Spiritual power wherewith God would have ruled over his people and the last the Spiritual communion he would have had with them with the blessing attending the same if they had walked perfectly with him according to all his righteous judgments in that legal dispensation 5. Hence the close of the Vision of the Temple is The name of the City from that day shall be The Lord is there that is from the time they shall keep and observe all the Laws and Ordinances then delivered 6. And hence the God of Israel on sending Ezekiel to prophesie the ruine of the City and Temple and Captivity of the people does to render their iniquity more heinous shew himself to the Prophet in the glory of that government which their transgressions made them fail of or fall from to be cast off 7. Two instances of their falling from that Government are First their making the Calf whereon God who Exod. 29.45 46. had promised to dwell among them does chap. 33.2 3. say he will send his Angel before them but refuseth to go up in the midst of them lest he destroy them Secondly their desiring a King which is said to be not the rejecting of Samuel but of God to rule over them 8. The Wheels I take to be the same to the four living Creatures as the four Beasts are to the twenty four Elders viz. as the Governed to the Governours 9. And both the Wheels and living Creatures being under the Throne and not rising but as lifted up nor moving but as acted by the spirit which was in both seems to signifie the natural earthly state of those they represent whereby they were as mere passive Subjects to the actings of the Spirit of God upon them like as the Prophets were to