Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	ancient_a	year_n	young_a	53	3	5.4684	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61206	Satana noēmata, or, The wiles of Satan in a discourse upon 2 Cor. 2. 11 / by William Spurstow ...	Spurstowe, William, 1605?-1666.	1666 (1666)	Wing S5096; ESTC R22598	68,825	114

as that man cannot but be as unmeet an adversary to enter into the Lists with him or to maintain a dispute against him as the young Infant would have been to have resisted the Sword which Solomon called for to divide it between the two Harlo●s But I shall not need to wind up the knowledge of Angels to so high a key of perfection or to abet the common opinion of the School to make it any part of the Basis or proof in demonstrating the power of the Devil as a Tempter For I conceive with Cameron and others that their knowledge is arguitive as he terms it and not intuitive and that they do reason from the effect to the cause from the sign to the event as is apparent in those Conjectures that they make about the thoughts of men which no Angel either good or bad can otherwise discover than by some commotion which they cause externally in the body or internally in the Passions Only such is the marvelous quickness and agility of their Conceptions as that their intellectual motions are in respect of ours as the motion of the Sun in the heavens to the motion of the shadow on the Diall like the swift flight of an Eagle to the creeping of a Snail or the readiness of an expert Arithmetician to a slow and unskilful Accountant who can in a fewer minutes resolve that which you demand of him than the other can in many hours or happily daies And this vast imparity which is between the Angelical and Humane understanding is enough to make good this first demonstration of Satans ability to tempt as he is both a spiritual and intellectuall Essence I shall now proceed to another SECT II. THe second Demonstration which aptly confirms the same truth with the former is from the duration and long experience of the Devil who is thereby become skilful to destroy and to have his temptations like the Arrows of a mighty expert man none of which return in vain Jer. 50. 9. In Scripture as he is for his natural endowments often stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a knowing or intelligent one so he is for his acquired subtilty called an old Serpent Rev. 12. 9. having been well nigh as long a Tempter nay a murderer as he hath been an Angel Who must needs therefore by the many revolutions and successive generations of men in which he hath not been an idle spectator but a busie actor be more versed in this Art and Mystery of wickedness than he was in the non-age and infancy of his being when he first cloathed himself in the shape of a Serpent For it is proper only to God to whose knowledge all things are present at all times and before all times not to be taught by experience But there is no Creature so perfect in its knowledge but it may and doth learn something for the time present and to come by the times which are past Experience is li●e the honey that Jonathan tasted which enlightened his eyes and made him more fit for action than he was before It begets an aptitude for the managing of such affairs which youth can no more undergo than David could the Armour of Saul which he had not tried Who is more meet to minister Physick to a weak and crazy patient than an ancient and well practised Physician Who more able to medicine a wounded Spirit and to ease a troubled Conscience than an holy and experienced Divine Who may be better trusted to fit at the Helm of a State than such persons whom years have made both venerable and prudent It was the rash advice of Rehoboams young Counsellours that had well nigh lost him his Crown and occasioned the ten Tribes to fall off from the House of David and to form themselves into a distinct Kingdom 1 Kings 12. 20. They seemed in their Counsels to exercise more mettal and courage than the old men that stood before Solomon his Father but the other discovered more wisdom New Liquor when first tunned works and stirs more in the Cask than other but yet is as unfit to be drawn as their Counsel was to be followed It was also the unmeet choice of persons in the Council of Arimine deputed by the Orthodox unto the Emperour that did as Sulpitius judiciously observes much injure the truth they sending young men that were Parum docti parum cauti little learned and as little cautious in the weighty Affairs of Religion with which they were entrusted when the Arrians sent an equal number of their faction who were Senes callidi ingenio valentes Aged men and crafty well furnished with wit and learning whereby they easily prevailed against them And what other issue could be expected when unskilful Novices were to take up the Wasters against ancient and cunning Masters of the fence It is multitude of years that teacheth wisdom saith Elihu Job 32. 7. and produceth those mature fruits which youth that is like a Plant not well rooted is unable to bear Homer who extolls his Nestor as an Oracle for wisdom as a Fountain for fluency and sweetness of speech doth yet withall make him as wonderfull for his age as peerless for his perfection Josephus also attributes the Art of Astronomy to the Patriarches of the first Age who taught their Posterity the motions of the Heavens and the courses of the Stars by certain Monuments and Pillars in which they had set down the observations which themselves had experienced in those many Centuries of years to which the life of man was then extended It being one end as some have deemed of Gods giving unto them so long a time above others that they might be the Authors of this Science unto after Ages which otherwise after that great Systole or contraction of mans life by God himself would hardly if at all have been attained to If then time and experience be so requisite to knowledge and wisdom as that it is in some things the genuine Parent of it and in other things the great improver of it How much then must five thousand years experience enable Satan to tempt who hath all his time been as diligent an observer of men as he hath been an Adversary against them How skilful must he be in this his black and accursed Art who hath compiled his temptations into Systemes which he hath in readiness by him and doth with much Art continually make use of being one that knows not in the least what it is either to forget or grow old Sublunary beings though they do from time receive a maturity and perfection yet it is not extended in a Parallel line with their duration as they have a time of beauty and strength so also have they an age of deformity and weakness and by their long fitting under the deathful shades of the wings of time are at last wasted and worne out But Satan feeles none of its powerfull impressions time hath rather still added to him then taken ought from him