Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A54462
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A sermon preached at the anniversary meeting of the Eton-scholars, at St. Mary Le Bow, on Decemb. the 6. 1681 by William Perse ...
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Perse, William, 1640 or 41-1707.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing P1653; ESTC R11012
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16,268
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40
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themselves But give me leave to shew you likewise how that Royal Society to which you did once belong hath all those conveniences which the Wisest and Discreetest Men have judged to be most proper and conducing to that great End for which it was designed The most Learned of the Jewish Writers have given their Opinion that congruity of place and separation from the World were two Circumstances not to be omitted in the Building of their Schools of the Prophets in Order to the quicker and easier attaining of that Natural Knowledge which might dispose them the sooner for the gift of Prophecy By congruity of place they meant its Situation in a good Air by the other a private Retirement from the noise and hurry of the World both very useful for the fitting and preparing the Mind for the free Entertaining the Principles and Elements of good Learning A chearful serene Air hath a great Influence upon the temper and complexion of the Body it puts the Spirits upon a gentle but active ferment and thereby renders the whole Crasis and Constitution more pliant and serviceable to the motions and sallies of the Soul than otherwise it would have been As Glasses are no where made in the same perfection for Beauty and Lustre as in Murano an Island near to Venice which is attributed to the clearness of the circumambient Air which hangs over the place and is continually purified and attenuated by the constant fires so it is observable that no Wits have been so pure and refined as those who were Bred and Educated in a Healthful and Temperate Clime And on the contrary a gross heavy thick Air imprisons and chains up the Spirits and robs them of their elastick Faculty so that the Soul cannot shew forth her Native brightness but only put forth some dull and faint glimmerings whilst she labours under the indisposition of a Body choak'd up and opprest with the impurities of a foul and Corrupted Air. Retirement also and Solitude do very much incline the Mind to receive the Characters and Images of Truth and Knowledge into the Sacred Treasury of the unprejudiced Memory which had it been distracted with variety of Objects would have been wholly filled and prepossest with trifling and impertinent Vanities Hence most of the fore-mentioned Schools of the Prophets were erected not in the Towns but in the Neighbour-hood of them Not in the Towns I speak with Reverence to the Famous Schools of this great City in regard the Temptations are so great and the Avocations so many amidst the throng and concourse of the Multitude the Youthful Fancy being apt to be taken with every thing that is gay and new and so please it self with those little useless Trifles it first meets with to its own prejudice and disadvantage In the Neighbour-hood that so the Mind may not be altogether a stranger to what passes in the World but have some private notices of things and persons as she will necessarily have if not purposely debarred of that Intelligence for the Improvement of her Judgment and the polishing her Conversation Otherwise if she be kept still in the dark and coopt up from the cognizance of the most material passages that are the common Theme and Subject of the present Time when she comes abroad she is frighted with the sudden Light and her Organs being not well fitted for the reception of those violent impressions which if entertained by degrees had been easily perceptible she becomes amazed and startles at that which every common Capacity that hath had a more free and open converse understands And this is the Reason why divers who have been Cloystered up from the Society of Men and only Conversed with their Books when they have chanced to appear in the World have rendred themselves contemptible and their Studies unfruitful it being all one to have no Learning and not to know how to make a right use of it And here I cannot but praise and commend the Wisdom of our Pious Founder in Building that Colledge which he designed for the Education and Instruction of Youth in such a place where the pleasantness of the Situation the temperature of the Air not so subtil as to prey upon yet so clear as to refine the Spirits and its proper distance from Town and Court do insensibly inlighten the Faculties of the Soul and make them more quick and ready to apprehend those excellent Lessons of Knowledge that are inculcated into them and indeed it seems as if it were contrived on purpose for the Head-Mansion-Seat of the Muses who have long dwelt in those delightful shades and I hope will never through the levelling designs of those who would root up the Church the Government and Leatning the Supporter of them both as was once intended be forced to forsake their Ancient Habitation This is our Nayoth which as Peter Martyr tells us signifies Green Pasture Situate by those pleasant Meadows and gentle Streams which enliven the Fancy and quicken and exalt the Imagination This is the Palace which Wisdom built for her self setting it upon those seven hewen Pillars the seven Liberal Sciences whose Foundation can never fail This is the place that I may with the addition of a word allude as our Learned Apostle St. Paul does in another case to one of your own Poets to your old School-fellow and Companion to one that will never leave your Society as long as Learning is encouraged to your beloved Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for which Quotation not well to be omitted I hope I shall easily obtain a Pardon from this Learned Auditory being assured that should I have occasion which I shall rather avoid than seek of making use of any more of the same Nature that I shall not incur our Apostles displeasure in speaking to you in an unknown Tongue And now before I take my leave of you suffer me most worthy School-fellows and Companions to apply my self to you in a few words and I shall cease to be further troublesome to you at this time You were all my dear Brethren planted at first in the same Pleasant and Fruitful Soyl had the same or the like cultivating and Manuring and drunk in the same sweet dews of Knowledge which distilled from the lips of those who were the Teachers and Governours of your Youth And all of you in your due seasons transplanted from that Nursery into larger Gardens of different Moulds and goodness one from another but all sufficient by virtue of that Original tincture you had imbibed there to enable you to bring forth in great abundance the proper fruits of your several Callings and Professions I need not desire you I know your own Ingenuity and geinerous Inclinations lead you to behave your selves so in your several Posts and Stations as that you may neither derogate from the place of your Education nor the Credit of your Professions but prove rather what I have great Reason to believe you are Ornaments to both You have
during their own time but to be Patterns and Examples to all succeeding Generations these supernatural Illuminations by degrees vanished and disappeared Now the Foundation was not only laid but a superstructure raised these Scaffolds which were only erected for the more easie and safe finishing of it were taken down He therefore who from this example of our Saviour will argue for a necessity of Enthusiastick Inspirations for the Interpretation of Scripture may by the same Rule maintain that a Christian Prince with an hundred Men may encounter a Pagan Enemy coming against him with Twenty Thousand because once by the especial Command of God Gideon reduced his great Army to three hundred and with them Vanquished the Host of the Midianites which were as the Sand of the Sea for multitude We are to Guide and Govern the several Periods and Circumstances of our Lives by those stated Rules and Measures which God in his Infinite Wisdom hath appointed for us not to propose one or two extraordinary Examples for our Patterns and Imitation We must make use of those plain easie and natural Methods which are laid down before us for the Improvement of our Reason and the Information of our Judgments not expect that our Understanding which the Wise Man calls The Candle of the Lord should be lighted as the Wood upon his Altar sometimes was by an immediate fire from Heaven And how necessary it is for all those who are designed to be the Ministers and dispenfers of the Word of God to apply themselves betimes to those means which are most proper for the attainment of that Knowledge which may prepare them for the through discharge of their Duty will sufficiently appear by the great damage the Church hath in all Ages sustained by the Ignorance of foolish and unlearned Men. He must not pretend to understand the Scriptures or to be conversant in the Style and Language of them who does not acknowledge that they abound in Tropes and Figures in Parables and dark Speeches and that there are divers weighty and important verities couch'd under those Allegorical and Enigmatical forms of Speech which cannot be discovered till that Vail and Covering be done away by the Skill and Industry of those whose Education entitles them to that sort of Learning What Monstrous Opinions what Prodigious Absurdities what Pernitious Doctrines hath this want of Art to distinguish between what is to be taken in a proper and literal what in a Forein and borrowed sense begat in the Christian World To this the Error of the Millenaries which began so early and hath continued so long more or less in the Church owes its first rise and Original Unskilful and unwary Men looking no farther than the bare letter of the Text applying those Glorious and specious Metaphors under which the Prophets of Old shadowed the Spiritual Riches and Happiness of Christs Kingdom to their down-right Natural meaning made such a Plat-form and Idea of that State as best suited with their Fancy and Imagination And how hard a matter it was even for our Saviour himself the great Teacher of Truth to wean his own Disciples from that false Opinion they had in the time of their Ignorance suck'd in of his Earthly and Temporal Kingdom the Evangelical History does abundantly demonstrate This sort of Ignorance begat the Follies and idle Dreams of the Anthropomorphites whilst taking those things which were spoken Figuratively in favour to the weakness of our shallow Understandings concerning the Essence of the Invisible God in their Natural Capacity they have represented him as a Corporeal Visible Substance consisting of Humane Members and even such a one as themselves And truly one would almost think that those of the Romish Church who stick so close to the literal sense of that Sacramental expression This is my Body had forgotten that our Saviour ever made use of any Figures of Speech in the several Discourses which he made whilst he was conversant here on Earth And when their great Bellarmine crouds in that Text Blessed are the Poor in Spirit to Patronize the Order of their Mendicant Friers I should almost judge him to be of the same Opinion had we not more Reason to believe that he and the rest of them do rather endeavour to bend the Scriptures to their Designs than to accommodate their Designs to the Rules of Scripture And as the inconveniences are many which have accrued to the Church by the Ignorance and Impudence of those who have presumed to touch the Mysteries of the Sanctuary with unwash'd and unhallowed Hands so on the other side she must acknowledge her self to owe the Defence of her Religion the Propagation of her Faith and the Confutation of her Adversaries to the Learned Pens and the Eloquent Discourses of those Wise Master-Builders which God raised up in all Ages for her Security and Preservation The Ancient Fathers and Writers who spent themselves and their time to serve the Church not only in their own Age but to succeeding Generations had lost much of their aim and the People of God much of the Benefit was intended them had their Learnned Apologies for the Christian Religion their Pious Explanations of the same Faith their useful Commentaries their strong and solid Arguments layen moulding in Libraries without a Key to unlock the meaning of them their Books had long since undergone the same Fate with themselves and become as they have done a prey for Moths and Worms But now by us though dead they yet speak and become profitable like the Scriptures of which they treat for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction in Righteousness Who unless he attain to the Knowledge of the Greek Tongue by the Advantages of a happy Education can discover the Golden Mines of St. Chrysostom's Eloquence For where is that Excellent Fluent Comprehensive Language Naturally now spoken Even Greece her self once the great Nurse and Favourer of Arts that labours as well under the sad and deplorable Fate of Barbarism and Ignorance as the Yoke of Turkish Slavery needs the help of acquired Learning to enable her to understand the great Masters of her own Attick Elegance I might Instance in the other Famous Language which like a Vagabond hath no certain home for Rome her self hath lost her Ancient Tongue as well as her first Faith Both whatever some pretend to say in the defence of them are Corrupted and her Language as well as Manners in the decay and declination of her Empire degenerated into a soft and effeminate Delicacy Should I pursue this Argument as far as it would go I might tire both my self and you but I must remember that I told you that that Learning which is the product of a Liberal Education was not only though chiefly necessary for those who wait at the Altar but also serviceable to all Persons in those several stations and Professions to which the Divine Providence hath assigned them which was the second Proposition I laid down Setting aside