Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	body_n	life_n	natural_a	5,868	5	6.7181	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97172	The preparative for London. Be mercifull to your selves. An hearty and friendly premonition to the City of London, before their meeting in a Common-Hall, which is now to be called, by the good providence of God, upon Saturday the 24. June. VVhereby they have, if they neglect it not, a gracious opportunity offered them to become the happy instruments of their owne safety, and the peace and preservation of these kingdoms. / By Thomas Warmestry. D. D.	Warmstry, Thomas, 1610-1665.	1648 (1648)	Wing W887; Thomason E449_26	11,417	16

of evacuation then nourishment that I say no more that like the spleene in the body maintaine their growth by the consumption of the whole Body The particular motions and inclinations of natural agents maintaine themselves in their utmost force whilst their currents run toward the. Ocean and comply with the universall good But as the Tide of the Sea carries back the Rivers so when these naturall agents receive a prohibition or supersedeas from the superiour Court of the generall safety Then Xanthe retro properat versaeque recurrere lymphae Incipiunt Then those streames do loose their force And do retreat from wonted course The particular element of water will forget its fluidity and without any bonds of a frost or ice will be consistent as waxe to preserve the integrity of the universe and upon the same termes it wil remove its descensive motion ascend upward and the ayre will take leave of its lightness and descend downward for the prevention of a vacuum offering the tribute of their single natures as it were an homage due unto the security and supportance of the whole Body of the world This is the Policy that God hath set up in the creatures The whole world is a great Corporation and this is the great and inviolable law whereunto God hath engaged all the parts of that Body which is the great ligament of the entirenesse thereof and keeps out schisme from that great Congregation There is a publike spirit I was about to say a kinde of spirit of naturall martyredome and self-denyall that runs through all the particles of this great fabrique that makes each parcell thereof ready to sacrifice it selfe its appetite its force its kind of life it s very being unto the safeguard of the totall compact men I am sure should be of an higher schoole The Philosopher tells us man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A politique living creature not made then for himselfe but for publike Benefit God hath ordained the good of mankind to hang as it were upon the societie of mankind and hath forbidden man to be happy alone that he might engage him to seek after the common securitie Therefore it is we may well conceive that God hath made him the most inermous of all the creatures and the most necessitous of all the creatures almost That the very love of himselfe might bind him to love the publike before himselfe as it were as without whose felicity himselfe would be but a kind of damage and burden to himself This as dark as it was in the now defaced records of nature yet it was legible enough unto the very heathens and produced these savings among them Homo sum nihil humanum à me alienum puto I am a man and reckon my selfe to be no stranger unto any thing within the bounds of humanity And again Dulce decorum est pro patria mori Sweet is the damage though 't be great yea 't is a noble gain To part with life that Countries good thereby we may maintain And answerable to these sayings was the practice of many of them as you may reade in the stories of those heathen Heroes Curtius Regulus and others which however it was perhaps sophisticated with vain-glory and came short of the true value of genuine and native vertue for want of the inward soule and life of it and of the true guide which is the knowledge of the true God yet they may shame too many that pretend to have better eyes about them Christianity is the repairer and purifier of that corrupt and drossie humanity which we have received from our degenerated Ancestours This refines mankind again and sets us higher than the meere pitch of humane affection It doth clear and rectifie this publike spirit files it and fourbisheth it from the dross of vain-glory and establisheth it firm upon the right foundation it doth set again the dis-joynted bones of humane societie which were broken and dislocated by the fell of Adam and fastens them together with a stronger ligament than mean humane regards even with that great sinew of Christian charity This teacheth us that we are all fellow-members of one another and that therefore as the particular members will dispense with their private good for the benefit and preservation of the whole so ought we to behave cur selves in the body of the Church and State The Gangrened member refuseth not to be cut off that it may secure the life of the rest of the frame The arme will not my its own integrity by exposing the head unto a mortall blow but will interpose it selfe to receive that wound which might otherwise be the destruction of all by the maime of a more noble part upon whole entirenesse and safety the safety and welfare of the whole fabrique doth depend And to this purpose are those sacred lawes of the Christian Common-wealth binding us to account every man our neighbour to love our neighbour as our selves which leaves no roome for a meere private affection but breakes open all enclosures from about the heart of a Christian and makes is to be of a publike interest teacheth us that no man ought to seeke his owne 1 Cor. 10.24 but every man a wealth to have our prayers in common Our Father which art in Heaven c. our wealth in common though not in Anabaptisticall sence not to the destruction of propriety but the Christian disposing of it He that hath this worlds good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him nay to hold our lives in common too we ought to lay downe our lives for the brethren 1 Ioh. 3.16 A true Christian is to reckon of himselfe and of his life and of all his riches commodities and advantages as none of his owne but the publick interest 1 Cor. 6.19 Yee are not your owne faith the Apostle for you are bought with a price If we had any right in our selves any private right Christ hath bought it and hath given it as it were unto the Church and to the publicke unto pious uses for the benefit of all A true Christian is the best Politician in the world And Christs common-wealth is far better than Platoes And is it not strange then that against all these rules of nature of humanity and of Christianity men that would be accounted Christians and the chiefe and only Christians should yet stand upon their private concernments and advantages where the ruine of a whole City of a whole Church and Kingdom nay of three Kingdoms is in the question to secure themselvs from those losses which they have wilfully that I say not wickedly exposed themselves unto by the hazard of a totall destruction and desolation That they should employ their wits to interrupt and delay those seasonable remedies which the pious and Christian inclinations of so many in your Citie have through the goodnesse of God set their hearts