Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	blood_n	body_n	heart_n	5,603	5	5.0093	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42547	God's soveraignty displayed from Job 9. 12. : Behold he taketh away, who can hinder him? &c., or, A discourse shewing, that God doth, and may take away from his creatures what hee pleaseth, as to the matter what, the place where, the time when, the means and manner how, and the reasons thereof : with an application of the whole, to the distressed citizens of London, whose houses and goods were lately consumed by the fire : an excitation of them to look to the procuring causes of this fiery tryal, the ends that God aims at in it, with directions how to behave themselves under their losses / by William Gearing ...	Gearing, William.; Gearing, William. No abiding city in a perishing world.	1667 (1667)	Wing G435A; ESTC R18630	101,655	265

this so great affrightment He saw a hand what hand the hand of a man What could one hand of a man saith one terrifie so mighty a Monarch Had he seen the paws of a Lion of a Bear or Dragon there had been some cause of terrour but need such a puissant Prince fear the hand of a man so much at whose beck and command an hundred Troops of Armed Horse would presently fly to his assistance What dreadful weapon could that one hand wield or mannage None but a Pen with which it wrote No other man would much less a King be afraid of a writing pen. Had he beheld the three darts of Joab or the Fiery Sword of the Flaming Cherub brandished directly against him he had then had some argument of astonishment But one hand one pen one piece of writing which he understood not this was that which daunteth him Sometimes the imagination that this or that evil will befall them doth so disturb them that they are presently over-whelmed with fear There are more things which affright us than there be which oppress us some things do torment us more than they ought some things do afflict us before they ought some do disturb us which ought not We often give place to our imaginations and do not give a check to those things which lead us into fears but feeding our fears by our fancy we turn our backs and fly and many times fly when none pursueth I have read of certain Souldiers who being amazed at a little dust raised up by a flock of sheep turned their backs as if the Enemy had been at their heels The French History tells us that the men of Burgundy were so affrighted at the apprehension of the approach of their Enemies that they thought long Thistles to be men with Lances We read that in the daies of Ahaz King of Judah that Rezin the King of Syria and Pekah the Son of Remaliah King of Israel went up to Jerusalem to war against it but could not prevail against it and it was told the house of David that Syria was confederate with Ephraim hereupon the heart of Ahaz was moved and the heart of his people as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind Isa 7.1 2. This kind of fear fills the heart with all confusion leaving a man without memory judgement or will to encounter any danger that threatens his ruine it dis-spirits a man and enfeebleth his spirits that whereas fear is a spur to generous spirits to strengthen them stirring them up to the use of the most effectual means to avoid the danger it doth so deject the faint-hearted and fearful man as he remaineth like a meer block or stone uncapable at all of any action There is a slavish fear when the dread of evil drives us to desperateness in evil and forceth us to fly from the presence of God This is the worst plague of all other no terrour is like inward terrours arising from a guilty Conscience The Conscience of sin is the Mother of fear saith Chrysostome sin is horrours fuel This was the ground of Cains fear the accusation of a guilty Conscience followed him where-ever he went he knowing that blood required blood feared lest every one that met him would kill him Gen. 4. 14. Such a fear surprized Caligula the Roman Emperour of whom it is written that when it thundered he would get into a Vault he had under the earth to hide himself from the wrath of God Such was the fear of some whom Aulus Gellius speaks of who thought there was a plurality of Gods and they divers in quality so some good some bad some good to whom they sacrificed and prayed to help them and some bad also whom they desired to please that they might not hurt them Sin makes in man an Assizes where the soul standeth arraigned and condemned before a terrible Judge The Heathen said that the greatest terrour was earthquakes thunderbolts burnings deluges the earth gaping but what is all this to a trembling heart to the thunderbolts of Gods Judgements to the burning Lake to the inundations of the waters of bitterness to the yawning of the gulf of hell this and worse is the condition of that man whose heart is the habitation of terrour such a man is Magor Missabib he is compassed about with terrour on every side yea he is a terrour to himself he feels a deadly arrow wounding him to the very heart there is both a fire burning and a knife sticking in his tender heart SECT IV. He takes away beauty from man Beauty is but momentaneum corporis accidens If the body fall to ruine the accident cannot stand Among all the qualities that flee away with the body of man there is none more swift than beauty When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth Psa 39.11 David complained that when Gods hand lay heavy upon him his moisture was turned into the drought of Summer Psa 32.4 The radical moisture or chiefest sap of his body was dried up wasted and worn away so as he was even brought to deaths door and become little better than an Anatomy or bag-full of bones The radical moisture is an airy and oily substance dispersed through the body whereby the life and vigor of the body is fostered which being spent death ensueth And Solomon tells us that a sorrowful spirit drieth the bones Prov. 17.22 the gathering together of much blood about the heart extinguisheth the good spirits or at least dulleth them and that humor having seized on the heart it cannot well digest the blood and spirits which ought to be diffused through the whole body but turneth them into melancholly the which humor being dry and cold drieth up the whole body and consumeth the beauty thereof for cold extinguisheth heat and driness moisture which two qualities do principally concern the life of man The passion of fear hath likewise wrought strange effects upon some mens bodies I have read of some to whom the sentence of death hath been brought in the Evening whose hair hath turned white before the next morning Beauty is but skin-deep a very slender vail a painted flower that soon withereth although thy hair doth now flourish thy flesh doth shine like ivory though thy Rofial face be beautified with the twinkling gems of thy rolling eyes though the health of thy body doth now minister ability though youthful age doth promise space of longer life though reason springeth and the bodily senses are nimble and vigorous though the sight be quick the hearing ready the going right and strait the face and countenance most pleasant and delectable yet a violent Fever will debilitate thy body and a few fits of a Quartan Ague turn thy beauty into swarthy deformity old age and the space of a few years will shew the slightness of it and death will utterly consume it If vain

shaking Ague makes the strong-bodied and the stout-hearted men to tremble so likewise the Fever is of Gods appointment which wasteth the spirits dries up the radical humor and puts men into a scorching flame The like is threatned Deut. 28.22 The Lord shall smite thee with a Consumption and with a Fever and with an Inflammation and with an extreme burning And ver 27. The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt and with the Emerods and with the scab and with the itch whereof thou canst not be healed Ver. 28. The Lord shall smite thee with madness and blindness and astonishment of heart Ver. 59. The Lord will make thy plagues wonderful and the plagues of thy seed great plagues and of long continuance and sore sicknesses and of long continuance Ver. 60. Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt which thou wast afraid of and they shall cleave unto thee Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book will the Lord bring upon thee Thus you see every disease in the world is the stroke of God Men may attribute it as Pagans do to ill luck you may attribute it to the unseasonableness of the weather to extremity of heat or cold to drought or moisture to the illness of the seasons All these are of God it is he that changeth times and seasons it is he that maketh the constellations of the Heavens to meet in such and such conjunctions it is he that causeth a distemper in the air it is not the unseasonableness of the year the illness of diet that can bring diseases upon the body unless God appoints them over a sinful people Yea sometimes God imployeth Angels to execute his wrath upon mens bodies he permits the Angels to infest the air and so plagues and pestilential diseases are over a people it is the Lord that sends forth these destroying Angels sometimes he suffereth the Devil to smite men as he did permit him to smite the body of Job with sores whom or whatsoever you may look upon as the causes of diseases they are of Gods appointment it is he that taketh away the health and strength of any person or people SECT II. He takes away life Psa 90.3 Thou turnest man to destruction and sayest Return ye Children of Adam to the dust dust ye are and to dust ye shall return When the living God saith Return there is no nay in his hand is our life and breath and all our wayes Dan. 5.23 The Chaldee Paraphrast renders my Text thus Si rapuerit hominem è mundo If he shall snatch man away out of the world So S. August if he will stop thy breath and deliver thee up to death who can hinder him as if Job should have said thus He hath taken away my Children my Cattel my substance my health my strength and all my outward comforts and if he now come and take away my life too I cannot hinder him God threatned the old world Gen. 6.6 7. I will destroy man from the face of the earth The Original word signifies as Pareus observeth upon the place I will steep him as a man steepeth a piece of earth in water till it turn to dirt man is but clay a speaking piece of clay and is apt to forget his Maker and the matter whereof he is made none but God can reduce man to his first principles and original matter whereof he was made there is no dust so high but the great God is able to give it a steeping In the City of Jerusalem during the time of the siege by the Romans there died and were killed eleven hundred thousand and there were taken by the Romans ninety and seven thousand at which time there were slain in all Judea in several places to the number of twelve hundred and forty thousand Jews besides an innumerable multitude who perished with famine exile and other miseries In the second Carthaginian War in Italy Spain and Cicily in seventeen years fifteen hundred thousand men were consumed The Civil War of Caesar and Pompey swallowed down three hundred thousand Pompey the Great wrote it upon the Temple of Minerva that he had scattered chased and killed twenty hundred eighty and three thousand men and one Cains Caesar gloried in it that eleven hundred ninety and two thousand men were killed by him in the Wars King Mithridates by one Letter caused eighty thousand Roman Citizens to be slain who were dispersed through Asia for traffique In Judea in the time of King David one Pestilence in a very short time swept away seventy thousand men Under Gallus and Volusianus Emperours a Plague arose from Ethiopia and invaded the Roman Provinces and emptied them for fifteen years together and sent an innumerable company of mortals to their graves In the time of Justinian the Emperours in the City of Constantinople and the places adjoyning the Pestilence raged so much that every daylit dispatched five thousand and some daies ten thousand to their long home In Numidia eight hundred thousand persons died of the Plague in the Sea-Towns of Africa two hundred thousand In Greece Anno Christi 1359 there was such a Pestilence that the living were scarce able to bury the dead In Athens the Pestilence raged for twelve years together When Italy was wasted by the Gothes in Picene only fifty thousand persons were starved with hunger At Fidenae under Tiberius the Emperour by the fall of the Amphitheatre there perished the number of twenty thousand Spectators How many thousands were swept away the last year in the great City of this our Land by the Pestilence and yet in many other Cities Towns and Villages of this Kingdome the Plague devoureth at noon-day the Plague cries with a loud voice still to us Death is neer Death is in your streets Death is creeping in at your houses and entring in at your windows Now whosoever or whatsoever be the Instrument of Death it is God only that takes away the lives of men at his pleasure See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive Deut. 32.39 SECT III. He takes away the spirits and courage of men that albeit they have opportunities put into their hands of doing this or that yet their hearts shall fail them and they shall not be able to effect it He is said to cut off the spirits of Princes Psa 76. ult Princes are usually men of the stoutest spirits but God sometimes cuts off the spirit of Princes When Belshazzar that Babylonish Monarch was in the midst of his jollity drinking Wine with a thousand of his Princes in the Vessels of gold which his Father brought from the Temple of Jerusalem he suddenly saw a hand-writing upon the wall at which sight the King was amazed so that his countenance was changed and the joynts of his loyns were loosed and his knees smote one against the other What was the cause of

these fading helps he placed all his trust and hope in God who would heartily embrace those that came unto him and never forsake those that trusted in him SECT IV. A fourth end God aims at in taking away these things from us is to have us to be instructed in this that mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth Luk. 12. 15. By life two things are understood 1. That a mans happiness doth not consist in the abundance of the things he doth enjoy only Christ and a right to assurance of heaven that is a mans happiness in this life and the fruition of Christ and heaven hereafter is the eternal happiness of a man Lazarus was an happy man though he had nothing and Dives a miserable man though he had abundance Earthly-minded persons seek for satisfaction from earthly things therefore there be many that say Who will shew us any good 1. Such a satisfying good as may make our souls happy they look downward and think to find this happiness in outward things But David opposeth his resolved choice to their vain wandring desire Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me as if he had said I know where to have enough Lord let me enjoy thee and have the light of thy countenance shineing upon me and I am satisfied Then he speaks of his former experience that formerly he had found satisfaction from God Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine encreased Psal 4.6 7. as if he had said the fullest Barns and Wine-cellars cannot yeeld that content to an earthly heart that my soul hath formerly found in thee when they are as full as they can hold yet their immortal soul is not satisfied but I by enjoying thee am fully satisfied Then David compareth the satisfaction he had found in God not only with the abundance of these things but with the encrease of them for it is the encrease of outward things that is apt to win the heart a lesser estate encreasing doth more win the hearts of natural men than a greater estate not encreasing But David found more content in God than worldlings did not only in the abundance but also in the encrease of corn and wine Lastly saith he Thou hast put gladness into my heart Thou hast infused it into my soul it is God that sheddeth sweet consolation into the spirit of a man he doth not only give matter of joy and ground of comfort to a believer but giveth as it were the very affection of it to the soul As for earthly things they put not comfort into our hearts if a man will have any good from them he must extract and draw it out and when the heart and the world do close most yet it then falls short of satisfaction but God doth put gladness into the heart and he can satisfie it 2. By life is meant likewise that although a man had never so many possessions had an house full of gold and silver yet all his wealth cannot prolong his daies nor adde a minute to his life as if our Saviour should reason thus I wonder to see men take such great pains for the things of this life to toil and labour in a restless manner if every pound they got and had would adde a day or year more to their lives there were some reason why men should thus toil for riches but can a rich man redeem his life from death with thousands of gold and silver for a day would not a rich man that feareth death and hell give a world if he had it that he might not die and be damned and yet ten thousands of worlds cannot redeem a mans soul from death and hell therefore why are men so greedy after these things that cannot make their lives any longer Let us take a view of the Parable which our Saviour spake upon this very occasion of a rich Farmer wherein several things are to be observed 1. His Trade was very gainful intimated by his ground which brought forth plentifully the world was coming on upon him apace 2. He had heaped together abundance of riches he had so much he could not tell where to lay them 3. See what he resolved upon viz. to follow his pleasures and contentments without all controul as the Proverb is What is a Gentleman more than his pleasure he would take his pleasure as well as the best man in his Country he would play the Glutton and Hunt and Hawk and Whore and Drink and Swear and Swagger and let him see what man would dare controll him he would make the Town and Country too hot for him Thus saith he to himself Soul thou hast riches enough and that not for a day or a moneth or a year but for many years go take thy pleasure eat drink and be merry thy abundance of riches will maintain thee in it here you see the prosperity of a rich covetous fool Mark now the end and conclusion of him behold the lamentable Tragedy of an Earth-worm behold what God saith unto him Thou fool He was but a fool for his labour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 insipiens an unwise man so the word signifies one that lived by sense like a bruit not forecasting for the future This night they shall take away thy soul Mark the words This night Thou hast to day promised thy self long life mirth and pleasure thou art deceived thy riches shall not lengthen thy life for this night thou shalt die They i. e. the Devils shall come and take away my soul And thou that didst dream of many years pleasure shalt burn in hell to Eternity Salvian hath a good meditation on this place With his goods he prepareth happiness for others misery for himself mirth for others tears for himself a short pleasure for others everlasting fire for himself His Heirs that enjoyed his riches did game eat drink and were merry and this poor covetous wretch was howling and roaring weeping and wailing in hell Now see our Saviours use of this Parable So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God that is so is every covetous wretch that laboureth more for temporal riches than for grace and godliness such a one is a fool though he gets abundance of riches such a one will God cross in his plots and purposes and when he thinks to enjoy his pleasures then God will cut him off and throw him into hell his children after him shall spend his wealth he shall be tormented in hell when they are merry and jovial upon earth SECT V. A fifth end is that thereby we may learn to mortifie our selves Clemens Alexandrinus spake to the purpose The Vine turneth wild and degenerateth unless it be pruned man proveth exorbitant except he be scourged for as the luxuriancy of the Vine-tree runneth out into wilde branches except it be cut and curbed and bringeth forth

no less a father to them than when hee granteth their requests for wee know not what is conducing to our good so then whether we be masters of our desires and wishes or whether wee miss of them yet must wee give thanks Thus Chrysostome To this purpose Thomas de Kempis speaks excellently in his Book of the imitation of Christ I give thee hearty thanks O Lord my God that thou hast not spared my faults but hast visited me with thy stripes for them inflicting griefs and sending sorrows within without thy correction shall instruct me and thy rod shall tutor me unto salvation Gregory speaks sweetly to this very purpose Who can be unthankful even for blows when as he went not out of the world without stripes who came into and lived in it without faults Therefore he is of a right judgement who not only praiseth God in prosperity but also who blesseth his name even for calamities if thou shalt by thanksgiving in adversity gain Gods peace with thee things which were lost shall be restored with multiplication and moreover eternal joys for the time of thy sorrow shall be surely added Thanks must bee given to a Father for his scourges and severest discipline for the blows of a father are better than the kisses of an enemy SECT III. Labour to bear your losses chearfully St. August speaking of the great joy and courage which the Christian Martyrs had in the midst of their losses and sufferings hath this expression Doing and suffering such things they rejoyced and shewed themselves glad it was a pleasure to them to obey all his commands who had suffered more for them their inexplicable reward set their hearts on fire The Hebrews took with joy the spoyling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in heaven a better and enduring substance Heb. 10.34 The Lords corrections to his children are very comfortable God's rod like Aaron's is a blooming rod St. James implies no less even in the first exhortation which he giveth to the Churches of Christ for even immediately after the inscription of his Epistle he saith Count it all joy my brethren when you fall into divers temptations or tribulations Jam. 1.2 joy is to bee found in the sharpest trials wherewith God doth exercise his children True it is no grievous loss or affliction in it self if a man turn his thoughts upon it and upon the smart of it is comfortable for it is an evil and depriveth us of some good but the right consideration of the Author of it of his great love toward us of the minde with which and the end for which he laies it on us may make it very comfortable to us As when a man hath a very dangerous wound in any part of his body and a searching drawing plaister if applied unto it to get out the corrupt blood that may be made for the cure of the wound there can be no comfort in the plaister as it smarteth yet comfort in it as it giveth hope of a perfect cure so in this respect there being many sores in our souls and much corruption in them these afflictions are like searching and drawing plaisters and are not joyous in respect of the smart but in respect of the hope they give us that we shall be healed by them yea in regard of the beginning of healing which we feel by them when they are upon us for even then shall a Christian begin to feel a vent given to the putrifying sores of his heart and the lusts and corruptions of the same beginning to languish which yeeldeth some degree of present comfort but moreover the Lords Rod is joyous in regard of the future issue and howsoever it may smart as to present sense nevertheless afterward it yeeldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 So David after his afflictions were over found it was good for him that he was afflicted was it not good for David that his Shepherds Crook was changed for a Scepter that his mean Hood was turned to an Imperial Crown that he was advanced from the Sheepfold to a Majestick Throne that from wearing Shepherds weeds he was brought to be cloathed in purple These things were good and David was no way unmindful of those large benefits He took it for a singular great favour that God took him from the Sheepfold from following the Ewes great with young and brought him to feed Jacob his people and Israel his Inheritance but yet he esteemed it a far greater favour that God had humbled him in the state of Royalty as he was when he fled from Absalom his Son therefore David reckoneth this among the choicest blessings and saith It is good for me that I have been afflicted this I esteem more precious than if thou hadst given me thousands of gold and silver Why was this so good for David That I might learn thy Statutes Hitherto I have been altogether unacquainted with the language of that heavenly Court I was a stranger to thy divine Law but I am become a great Proficient in that School where none are good Scholars but such as are humbled by the Rod of Correction Great losses and crosses do put into our hands the Torch of Wisdome and great tribulations do make us truly wise and though they seem to be very unpleasant and are many times very unwelcome yet they are Lectures of holy Discipline and therefore we ought to bear them cheerfully SECT IV. Labour to bear your losses with submission to the will of God Many Heathens from a Stoical Apathy from vain-glory and a vain affectation of praise from pride and stoutness of stomack have endured the severest torments and suffered the loss of all things with great undauntedness of spirit and meerly upon certain carnal grounds and for sinister ends As 1. That impatience is no part of manhood but meer childishness of spirit 2. That impatience may much aggravate but cannot ease us of our troubles or remove them 3. Because others suffer with them it is the common lot of mankind to suffer 4. Because there is an inevitable necessity that they must be born feras non culpes quod vitari non potest that must be borne that cannot be avoided saith Seneca 5. Because they cannot last alwayes therefore they will endure them But as August saith well there is no true virtue where there is no true Religion they are not right unless they be fruits of the spirit True Religion teacheth us to bear losses and endure afflictions out of love to God and in obedience to Gods Command and with submission to his will There are some who are possessed with a spirit of obstinacy that they disdain to bow under the yoke and though the rod smart never so much to testifie any submission or remorse Pharaoh was such a one how terribly did God lash him with a ten-stringed whip yet still he hardens his heart against him