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	member_n	soul_n	7,274	5	5.4826	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27472	A mirror that flatters not, or, A looking-glass for all new-converts to whatsoever perswasion, Roman-Catholicks, Conformists, or Non-conformists : that is, certain sermons of St. Bernard translated into English ... : together with a preface of the translator to all new-converts ...; De conversione ad clericos. English	Bernard, of Clairvaux, Saint, 1090 or 91-1153.	1677 (1677)	Wing B1982; ESTC R5454	46,594	72

Alms of which also perhaps he will require labour prohibiting them theft as it is written He that stole now let him not steal but rather labour with his hands that which is good that he may have to give to him that is in necessity Eph. 4. But whilst he is thus promulgating Laws and proposing Decrees to all his members on the sudden they interrupt his commanding Voice and unanimously exclaim Whence this new Religion You command to do as best likes you But there shall be one found that will oppose your new Decrees that will contradict your new Laws But who 's that say you And 't is answered to wit she the Paralytick that lies sick at home and is sadly tormented For she it is if you have not forgotten whom you have long siince ordered us to serve to wit to obey her concupiscences Miserable creature at this Voice he waxed pale and with confusion held his peace For his Spirit was troubled at it But the members of his body forthwith address themselves to their unhappy Mistress that they may accuse their cruel Master and complain of his too severe commands Gluttony complains that she 's commanded the mean of a spare diet and prohibited the pleasure of surfeiting and drunkenness The eyes complain a charge is laid upon them to weep and all wanton looks forbidden them The several members going on in these and such like complaints the will is awakened and vehemently exasperated exclaims what is this a Dream or a Fable that you tell me But then the tongue having gotten a fit opportunity for its complaint in very deed says it so it is as you have heard For I also am commanded to abstain from fables and lies and must henceforth speak nothing but what 's serious and absolutely necessary CHAP. VIII How the will of man by Gluttony Curiosity and Pride and by all the senses of the Body rebels against the Divine Voice AT this the old Beldam raging mad leaps out of the Bed and forgetting all her sickness comes forth with her hair about her ears her garment rent her breasts naked scratching her wounds gnashing her teeth and infecting the very air with her virulent breath If there yet remain any thing of reason in the Sinner how can he be but wholly confounded at such a sad meeting and attack of the miserable will as this What says she is this your Conjugal Faith and Fidelity do you thus compassionate my sorrows Is this your forbearing to add grief to my wounds Perhaps it seemed to you that something of my too great Dowry was to be taken from me but this being taken away what 's left me This is all you gave to me miserable Paralytick and you did once know how all its Services were distributed But now if perhaps you have forgotten the triple malignity of this worst of Diseases of which I am sick yet I have not forgotten it For I am Voluptuous I am Curious I am Ambitious and by reason of these three Ulcers there is no soundness in me from the sole of my foot to the crown of my head Therefore my jaws and the obscener parts of my body are deputed to pleasure seeing you will needs have me recount all particulars a new The wandring foot and undisciplin'd eye serve Curiosity The ears and tongue are at the beck of Vanity whilst by the former the oil of Sinners makes fat my head and by the other I my self supply when they seem to have come short or to have done too little in my praises For I am greatly delighted both to receive praises from others and as opportunity serves to praise my self also ever desiring to be commended and extolled by my own mouth and by the mouths of others To which Disease your wit or reason is wont especially to administer very much matter or nouriture Moreover the hands which are free to be moved every way these we do not depute to any special work but they exhibit a very diligent service sometimes to Vanity sometimes to Curiosity and other whiles to Pleasure All which things being so disposed none of them could ever yet in any one thing fully satisfy me because the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing and I wish sometimes when I am beholding something that likes me that my whole body were made an eye or when I am at meat that all my members were turned into jaws And do you now attempt to take from me this little comfort which I in a manner beg Thus she And with indignation and fury going away I am in possession said she and long long will I hold it CHAP. IX How the reasonable part of the Soul being now vexed and afflicted is convinced of the vainly presumed facility and confounded at the difficulty of this matter SO now meer vexation gives understanding to reason now at length the difficulty of this business is in some measure made known now the presumed facility is vanished For it sees the memory is full of unclean filth and it sees other and other ordures in great abundance flowing in it sees the windows which are open to death can by no means be shut and that the over-ruling languid will still commands all notwithstanding all the putrid corruption did flow out of her Ulcers In fine the Soul sees it self defiled and this not by another but by its own body nor from any other than it self But as there is something of the Soul to wit the memory which is infected so the will is that which infects Finally the whole Soul is nothing else but Reason Memory and Will But now even Reason also is found defective and in a certain manner blind for that it has not all this while seen these things and absolutely infirm for that when the matter was discovered it could not prevail to temper and reduce all to order the Memory most foul and noysom the Will languid all over full of horrid Ulcers And least of all the things appertaining to a man there should remain something untouch'd even the Body is become rebellious and all the members so many windows by which death enters into the Soul and without ceasing the confusion encreases more and more CHAP. X. A comfortable Respiration to the poor in Spirit LET every Soul therefore which is such an one hear the Divine Voice and let hear her it with astonishment and admiration saying Blessed are the poor in Spirit because theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Who more poor in Spirit than he who in all his Spirit finds no rest finds not where he may lay his head And this is the counsel of Piety that he who is displeased with himself should be pleasing to God and that he who hates his own House to wit an House full of filth and infelicity should be invited to an House of Glory an House not made with Hands eternal in the Heavens And no wonder if he trembles at the greatness of this condescention

we much to labour to come to hear this Voice the labour will be rather to stop thine ears that thou maist not hear it For the Voice it self offers it self intrudes it self nor does it cease continually to knock at every one's door In fine Forty years says he I have been very neer to that generation and have said they always err with their heart He is still very neer unto us he still speaks and perhaps there is not who hears him He still says these err with their heart Psal 94. He is still very near unto us he still speaks and perhaps there is not who hears him He still says these err with their heart still Wisdom cries in the streets Transgressors return to your heart For this is the beginning of our Lord 's speaking and this Word seems to have gone before to all those who are converted to their heart not only calling them back but also bringing them back again and setting them before their own face for it is not only a Voice of power but also a Ray of light telling men of their sins and enlightning the hidden things of darkness Nor is there any difference betwixt the internal Voice and Light the same Son of God being the Word of the Father and the Splendor of his Glory and the substance also of the Soul in its kind spiritual and uncompounded without any distinction of senses is whole seeing if we may call it a whole and also in like manner whole hearing For what is done by that either Ray of Light or Word but that only the Soul is made to know it self For the Book of Conscience is opened the miserable order of the Life is unfolded a sad Story is repeated Reason is enlighten'd and the unfolded Memory is exhibited to certain eyes as it were of the Soul But both is not so much any thing of the Soul as the Soul it self so that the same is both the beholder and the beholded the Soul set before her own face and by sturdy apparitors to wit of thoughts sent into her she is compelled as a guilty Criminal to appear before her own Tribunal And who is able to undergo this Judgment without being troubled My Soul is troubled at my self says the Prophet of our Lord Psal 142. and doest thou wonder that thou canst not be set before thy face without reprehension without turbation without confusion CHAP. III. That by the Voice of God the reasonable part of the Soul is made able to see reprove distinguish and discern all its own miseries NOR must you hope to hear from me what Reason distinguishes discerns and reprehends in your Memory Apply thy hearing turn the eyes of thy heart to within and thou shalt learn by thy own experience what is done there For no body knows what things are in man but the Spirit of man which is in him If Pride if Envy if Covetousness if Ambition or any such Plague lie hidden there it will hardly escape this examen If Fornication if Theft if Cruelty if any Deceit or any other Fault shall have been committed the Criminal will not be able to hide himself from this Judg within nor will he deny it before him For all that itch of unlawful delight and all the enticing pleasure was soon ended but it imprinted certain bitter marks in the memory it left behind it foul footsteps For into that Repository as into a Sink all the abomination ran all the filth flowed A large Volume in which all thinge are written and that with the Pen of truth now the belly is griped with bitterness although it seemed to have delighted the miserable jaws in its short passage with a certain frivolous sweetness Miserable man that I am grieved for my belly I am grieved for my belly And why should I not be pained for the belly of my memory into which such a deal of filth hath been cast My Brethren who of us when he takes notice that the garment which he wears is all over bedawbed with foul spattle and defiled with filthy ordure does not vehemently abhor it does not presently put it off does not with indignation cast it away from him wherefore he that discovers not his Garment but himself within under his garment to be in such a manner defiled ought so much the more to grieve and be in consternation by how much neerer he carries about him what he abhors For the defiled Soul cannot so cast away it self as it can its bespotted Coat In fine who is there amongst us of so great patience and vertue that if perhaps as we read concerning Mary the Sister of Moses he should see his flesh by a certain leprosy on the sudden white with an ill whiteness should be able to bear it with an equal mind and give his Creator thanks Now what is this flesh of ours but a certain rotten Coat with which we are clothed Or what is this bodily leprosy to be looked upon by the Elect but as the Rod of our Father's correction and the purgation of our Heart But there there is vehement tribulation and most just cause of grief when a Sinner awaked out of the sleep of his miserable pleasure shall begin to deprehend and see that internal leprosy which he has got to himself with much study and labour For no body hates his own flesh much less can the Soul hate it self CHAP. IV. That he who loves Wickedness hates both his own Soul and Body BUt perhaps somebody may be moved with that of the Psalmist He who loves iniquity hates his own Soul But I say that he hates also his own Body For does he not hate it for which he daily merits more and more fire in Hell for which according to his hard and impenitent heart he treasures up wrath against the day of wrath Notwithstanding this hatred as well of the Body as of the Soul is rather in effect than affection So the phrenetick man hates his own flesh when he endeavours to mischief himself the diliberation of Reason being asleep in him But can there be a worse phrensie than impenitency of heart and an obstinate resolution to go on in sin For such an one lays violent hands upon himself nor does he tear and gnaw his flesh but his mind If thou hast seen a man fret and scratch his hands till they bleed again thou hast in such an one a clear and lively pourtraicture of a Soul when it sins For the pleasure gives place to grief and pain succeeds the itching delight Nor was he ignorant of it that so it would be but dissembled it when he scratched himself So we tear and wound our unhappy Souls with our own hands but with this difference that we wound them so much the more grievously by how much a spiritual Creature is more excellent and more hardly cured Nor do we this out of hatred or ill-will but out of a stupid internal insensibility For the Soul being poured out abroad it has no