Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A44443
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The vanity of the vvorld by Ezekiel Hopkins.
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Hopkins, Ezekiel, 1634-1690.
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1668
(1668)
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Wing H2741; ESTC R14252
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37,261
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152
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can no more live upon these things than the body can upon a thought or notion There is a threefold unsuitableness between worldly things and the soul First The soul is spiritual these are drossie and material Of all things belonging to a man his breath is the most subtile invisible and spiritual But now the soul is called the * Gen. 2.7 Breath of God and therefore must needs be spiritual in a high degree And what then hath a spiritual soul to do with clods of Earth or acres of Land with Barns full of Corn or Bags full of Gold These are too thick and gross to correspond with its refined nature But rather bring spiritual things to Spiritual God who is the * Heb. 12.9 Father of Spirits his love and favour an interest in him and communion with him the consolations of the Holy Ghost the actings of Grace and the hopes of Glory these spiritual and clarified Essences which a carnal eye cannot see nor a carnal judgment value these are most suitable to the soul that is a Spirit and ought not to be unequaly yoak't to the dregs and dross of earthly enjoyments Secondly The soul is immortal but all worldly things are perishing and wear out in the using And therefore it was but small comfort when the rich man sung his Requiem to say Soul take thy ease thou hast Goods laid up for many years Thou fool What is an estate for many years to a soul whose duration is not measured by years but by Eternity What when those years of plenty are expired How destitute will thy soul be when it shall have out lived all its good things It may out-live them even in this world God may nip and blast all that thou settest thy heart on and make all thy comforts fall off from thee like so many withered leaves However if thou hast no other than what this miserable world can afford thou shalt certainly out-live them in the world to come And what wilt thou do not in those years but in that Eternity of Famine As it is with those that are invited to feast in some noble Family the Furniture is rich the Entertainment splendid and magnificent but when they depart they cannot of all that pomp and bravery carry any thing away with them So is it here the world is Gods great House richly furnisht and we well entertain'd in it we have all things liberally afforded us for our use but nothing of all is ours And therefore God hath set that grim Porter Death at his Gate to see that as we brought nothing into it so we carry nothing out of it What a sad parting hour will it be to the soul when it must go into another world and leave all that it admired and loved behind in this How will it protract and linger How loath will it be to enter upon so great a journey and carry nothing to defray the charges of it Certainly dying must needs be a terrible thing to those who have gotten nothing but what they can no longer keep when their souls must be set on shore in a vast and black Eternity all naked and destitute having nothing to releive or support them Thirdly The necessities of the soul are altogether of another kind than those which worldly things are able to supply and therefore they are wholly unsuitable Natural things may well serve for natural wants Food will satisfie hunger and Rayment fence off the injuries of the weather and Riches will procure both But the souls necessities are spiritual and these no Natural thing can reach It wants a price to redeem it nothing can do this but the pretious Blood of Christ It wants pardon and forgiveness nothing can grant it but the free and abundant mercy of God It wants Sanctification and Holiness Comfort and Assurance nothing can effect these but the Holy Ghost Here all worldly things fall short The Exigencies of the outward man they may supply but the greatest abundance of them can never quiet a troubled Conscience nor appease an angry God nor remove the condemning guilt of the least sin No Psal 49.8 The redemption of the soul is pretious more pretious than to be purchased by these poor things and it ceaseth for ever Possibly now in the time of your peace and prosperity you regard not these spiritual wants but when the dayes of sorrow and darkness shall come upon you when God shall drop into your Consciences a little of his wrath and displeasure you may as well seek to cure a wound in your body by applying a plaister to your garment as seek to ease a wounded Spirit by all the Treasures Pleasures and Enjoyments of this world Prov. 11.4 Riches saith the wise man profit not in the day of wrath For indeed they cannot reach the soul to bring any true solace to it Thus you see how unsuitable the World is to the Soul Unsuitable to the Nature of it for the Soul is spiritual but all earthly enjoyments are drossie and material the soul is immortal but these are all perishing Unsuitable also to the necessities of the soul which they can never reach nor supply Again The Vanity of the World appears in its Inconstancy and Fickleness Gods Providence administers all things here below in perpetual vicissitudes His Hand turns them about like so many wheels to which they are compared Ezek. 1. the same part is now uppermost and anon lowermost now lifted up in the Air and by and by grated through the mire This is the mutable condition of the world And therefore we find it compared to the Moon Rev. 12.1 where the Church is described to be Cloathed with the Sun and to have the Moon that is the World under her seâ—t And well may it bear the resemblance for it is still waxing and waning sometimes full of brightness at other times scarce a small streak of light to be discerned There are none of us but have had experience in some kind or other of the inconstancy of these sublunary enjoyments When the Sun shines bright and warm all the flowers of the Field open and display their leaves to receive him into their bosomes but when night comes they fold together and shut up all their glories And though they were like so many little Suns shining here below able one would think to force a day for themselves yet when the Sun withdraws his Beams they droop and hang the head and stand neglected dull and obscure things So hath it fared with us While God hath shone upon us with warm and cherishing influences we opened and spread and flourisht into a great pomp and glory But he onely hides his Face draws in his Beams and all our beautiful leaves shut up or fall to the ground and leave us a bare stalk poor and contemptible Or if there have been no such considerable mutations in what concerns us yet the revolutions that God hath of late years brought upon others so