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	action_n	active_a	53	3	9.1477	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29868	Religio Medici	Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.	1642 (1642)	Wing B5166; ESTC R4739	58,859	162

out-lived the Apostles also and were revived at the conversion of Nations many yeares after we cannot deny if we shall not question those Writers whose testimonies we doe not controvert in points that make for our owne opinions therefore that may have some truth in it that is reported by the Jesuits of their Miracles in the Indies I could wish it were true or had any other testimony then their owne pens they may easily beleeve those Miracles abroad who daily conceive greater at home the transinutation of ●hose visible elements into the visible body and blood of our Saviour for the conversion of water into wine which he wrought in Can● or what the devil would ●ave had him done in the wildernesse of stones into Bread compared to this scarce deserves the name of Miracle Though ●ndeed to speake properly there is not one Miracle greater than another they being the extraordinary effect of the hand of God to which all things are of an equall facility and to create the world as easily as one single creature For this is also a miracle not only to produce effects against or above Nature but before Nature and to create Nature as great a miracle as to contradict or transcend her We doe too ●arrowly define the power of God restraining it to our capacities I hold that God cannot doe all things but sin how he could worke contradictions I doe not understand yet dare not therefore deny I cannot see why the Angels of God should question Esdras to recall the time past if it were beyond his owne power or that God should pose mortality in that which ●e was not able to performe himselfe I will not say God cannot but he will not performe many things which we plainly affirme he cannot this I am sure is the mannerliest proposition wherein notwithstanding I hold no Paradox For strictly his power is the same with his will and they both with all the rest doe make but one God But above all things I wonder how the curiosity of wiser heads could passe that great and indisputable miracle the cessation of Oracles and in what swoun their reasons lay to content themselves and sit down with such far-fetch't and ridiculous reasons as Plutarch alledgeth for it The Jewes that can believe the supernaturall solstice of the Sun in the dayes of Ioshuah have yet the impudence to deny the Eclipse wch every Pagan confessed at their death but for this it is evidentt beyond all contradiction the Devill himselfe confessed it Certainly it is not a warrantable curiosity to examine the verity of Scripture by the concordance of humane history or ●eeke to confirme the Chronicle of Hester or Daniel by the authority of Megasthenes or Herodotus I confesse I have had an unhappy curiosity this way till I laughed my selfe out of it with a piece of Iustine where he delivers that the children of Israel for being scabbed were banished out of Egypt And truly since I have understood the occurrences of the world and know in what counterfeit shapes and deceitfull vizzards the time represents on the stage things past I doe beleeve them little more then things to come Some have beene of opinion and endeavoured to write the History of their owne lives wherein Moses hath out-gone them all and left not onely the story of his life but of his death also It is a riddle to me how this story of Oracles hath not worm'd out of the world that doubtfull conceit of Spirits and Witches how so many learned heads should so far forget the Metaphysicks and destroy the Ladder and scale of creatures as to question the existence of Spirits for my part I have ever beleeved and doe now know that there are Witches they that doubt of these do not onely deny them but Spirits and are obliquely not consequently a sort not of Infidels but Atheists Those that to confute their incredulity desire to see apparition shall questionlesse never behold any nor have the power ever to be so much as Witches the Devill hath them already in a heresie as capital● as Witchcraft and to appeare to them were but to convert them Of all the delusions wherewith he deceives mortalitie there is not any that puzleth me more the● the Legerdemaine of Changeilng I doe no● credit those transformations of reasonable creatures into beasts or that the Devil● hath the power to transplant a man into ● horse who tempted Christ as a triall of his Divinity to convert stones into bread I could beleeve that Spirits use with man the act of carnality and that in both sexes● I conceive they may assume steale or contrive a body wherein there may bee action enough to content d●crepit lust or passion to satisfie more active veneries yet in both without a possibility of generation and ●herefore that opinion that Antichrist should be borne of the Tribe of Dan by conjunction with the Devill is ridiculous and a conceit fitter for the Rabbins then Christians I hold that the Devill doth really possesse some men the spirit of melancholy others the Spirit of delusion others that as the Devill is concealed and deemed by some so God and good Angels are pretended by others whereof the late defection of the Maid of Germany hath left pregnant example Againe I beleeve that all that use sorceries incantations and spels are not Witches or as we terme them Magicians I conceive there is a traditionall Magicke not learned immediately from the Devill but at second hand from his Schollers 〈◊〉 having once his secret betrayed are able and doe empirically practice without his advice they both proceeding up●n the principles of nature their actives actively conjoyned to disposed passives will under any Master produce their effects Thus I thinke at first a great part of Philosophy was Witchcraft which b●ing afterward derived to another proved but Philosophy and was indeed n●●●ore but the honest effects of Nature W●●at invented by us is Philosophy learn●● from him is Magicke We doe surely ●we the discovery of many secrets to the discovery of good and bad angels I could never passe that sentence of Paracelsus without an asteriske or annotation Acce●dens constellatum multa revelat quaerentibus animalia naturae i. e. opera Dei I do thinke that many mysteries ascribed to our owne inventions have beene the courteous revelation of Spirits for those noble essences in heaven beare a friendly regard unto their fellow●natures on earth and therefore beleeve that those many prodigies and ominous prognosticks which fore-run the ruines of States Princes and private persons are the charitable premonitions of good Angels which more carelesse enquiries terme but the effects of chance and nature Now besides these particular and divided Spirits there may be for ought I know an universall common Spirit to the whole world It was the opinion of Plato and it is yet the Hermeticall Philosophers if there be a common nature that ●●nties and tyes the scattered and divided individuals into one species why