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	part_n	8,155	5	4.9083	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30416	A sermon preached at St. Dunstans in the West at the funeral of Mrs. Anne Seile, the 18th of July, 1678 by Gilbert Burnet.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1678 (1678)	Wing B5871; ESTC R13574	12,193	32

MEMENTO MORI A SERMON Preached at St. Dunstans in the West AT THE FUNERAL OF Mrs. ANNE SEILE The 18th of Iuly 1678. BY GILBERT BURNET LONDON Printed by Mary Clark 1678. A SERMON On Ephes. v. 15 16. See then that you walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise Redeeming the time because the days are evil THis Text seems very proper on this occasion since what is here recommended agrees very near to the Character which I have had given me of the Person to whom we are now paying the last duties but having been a stranger to her my self and she being much better known to you all among whom she led her life I shall say no more of her But apply my self to the Text. This is an Exhortation following very naturally upon the preceding Discourse in which St. Paul had been comparing the state of Christians under the Gospel to Light opposing it to the darkness of the former superstition under Heathenism Which was made up of many mysterious Riddles and unaccountable Rites and Performances the chief design whereof was rather to darken than enlighten its blind Votaries But the Gospel being a plain and clear direction how to attain eternal life in the practice of the most excellent Rules that ever were delivered is therefore fitly as well as frequently in the New Testament compared to Light in which there are no dark secrets which must be known only to a few Priests But all is laid open and made plain to every discreet and diligent Reader And though it contains several things which are dark and mysterious as in the clearest light places at a great distance seem black yet the darkness is not in the manner of Revelation which is explicite and plain but rises from the remoteness of the object which being at such distance from us and so far above us cannot be made so visible to us as those things that are before us and lie in our way About which not only the Precepts are plain and express but the reason of them is so apparent that like publick high ways the Rule is so plain that without some art a man cannot be mistaken so that if the History of past Ages and the sad prospect of the present did not give us an unanswerable objection to the contrary one that considers the thing in it self would hardly think it possible that a man could be mistaken about it This being then laid down The Exhortation in the Text I have read does naturally follow He that walks in the dark though he stumble often it is forgiven him and if he makes but any tolerable progress in his way it is wondered at But if we should see a man stumbling who walks in full day light and if he made no considerable progress we must needs conclude him under some distemper of body or mind So how justly soever we admire the vertues of the Heathens whose Religion tended rather to corrupt than purifie them yet it will be an eternal reproach on us if we who are enlightned by so heavenly a Doctrine do not far outstrip them both in the exactness of our deportment and our constant progress in vertue I shall without any accurate Division follow the thread of my Text and offer from it such Considerations as may be most profitable and suitable to the present o●casion and shall consider First What is imported in this walking circumspectly or exactly and accurately Secondly The Character given of such a walk That it is the consequence of true wisdom and that the contrary is the greatest folly in the world Not as fools but as wise Thirdly That we ought to be making a daily progress in vertue Either making up what we have lost by our former idleness and folly or cutting off those superfluities of naughtiness which consume so much of our time Redeeming the time And Lastly The reason given for all this Because the days are evil To walk circumspectly according to the true notion of the word is to live with all possible strictness and accurateness Not affecting a Pharisaical Sowrness nor a nicity about some lesser matters This exactness consists not in a coarse habit sullen looks an affectation of odd gestures or a peevish scrupulosity about little things These are the arts of hypocrisie which though a discerning mind see through and despise them yet have in all Ages wrought much on the feeble and easily deceived multitudes It is true a man cannot be religious in good earnest but let him use what secresie and care soever he can to conceal it it will shine in his deportment and even in the external parts of it there will appear so much of a composed gravity tempered with a just mixture of sweetness and good nature that he will shine as a light in the world Yet there is such a variety of mens humours and dispositions some being naturally melancholy others more gay and jovial that we ought never on the one hand to be taken too much with an outward appearance how fair soever nor be on the other hand too apt to censure people for such things in their external behaviour which do perhaps rise from their natural tempers and dispositions But to walk circumspectly is a thing of far greater Importance It is in a word to govern our hearts and inward affections and our lives and outward actions by the rule of the Gospel It is not only to be so far good as to live without scandal in the world nor to quiet the clamours of Conscience which may rise upon us after some more notorious sins but it imports somewhat beyond all these That a man should dedicate himself to Religion making it his business and as the bloud circulates over the whole body in greater vessels thorough the nobler parts and in smaller ones even thorough the remotest members so the true spirit of Christianity runs through a mans whole life with a due proportion of care and application Not putting his whole strength to lesser matters and doing the greatest slightly and carelesly but applying his greatest Industry to things of chief concernment yet so as not to be too remiss in the smallest matters He therefore that would walk circumspectly must First Lay down to himself a complete Scheme of his whole life that he may form distinct rules to himself in all the parts of his business by which he shall govern his life and actions He that has not thus digested into his thoughts a clear model of what he resolves to be lives at random and cannot walk circumspectly For he knows not what it is An Architect that builds by Rule has a plane or model according to which the house must rise and without which all must be irregular and out of order If therefore we set about the raising of this spiritual building we must both lay down a regular frame of it and cast up the expence of what it rises to Therefore he that will