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	motion_n	soul_n	7,616	5	5.6016	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56118	Instructions to a nobleman's daughter concerning religion at first designed for one, now directed to all of that rank, and useful to young persons of quality, and others of that sex : with sacramental and other suitable devotions / by John Provoste.	Provoste, John.	1700 (1700)	Wing P3877; ESTC R35367	45,590	134

to Pray you may prepare and fix your Mind by some good Thoughts as short as may be of the Duty you are undertaking and of the God you are to Address to in the Duty and cast off for the Time all your common Thoughts of worldly Things that you may think more and better of the Duty and of God Your Thoughts are always harmless but they may not so easily be always useful nor always Pious in that degree of Elevation when they are exercised upon worldly Things they are formed and fashioned for the time into a likeness with them your Mind then complies and condescends to an unaffected Debasement it submits and bows down with a generous Regret to the Meanness of the Subject as the Eagle with all its greatness and lofty Flights vouchsafes sometimes to lower it self and come down when its Quarry is near the Earth As to the Work you are to undertake in Praying you may be pleased to consider that you intend to ask Blessings for Soul and Body and particular Blessings such and such things for both and you may consider particularly what things they are you intend to ask You may not forget that not only Prayer is a most holy Work but if you would obtain what you ask you are also to be Holy before and afterwards Pure Hands should be lift up if there be not Purity there will not be Strength in those Hands nor in the Prayer As to the God you Address to in Prayer you may consider that as you are a weak and needy Creature to want the things you Pray for so he is a great God and able a bountiful God and willing to give them That He may be moved to give them you are at all times but especially in the Praying time to pay all the Reverence to your Maker and the Maker of all the World to Him who dwells in Heaven and Governs on Earth to Him who dwells in the highest Heavens knows and preserves and governs all things to the Iowest Earth You may again consider that having retired from your ordinary Company you are now to Converse with an higher Being Indeed the remove from our common Business and Conversation to Prayer is so great that we cannot in such a sudden Motion without some preparing Thoughts take off our Mind from things of ordinary Exercise and place it on those of Devotion The distance between these things is so wide that however Spirits are said to be very nimble in their Motions the Soul cannot pass the next Minute from the one to the other Nothing more apt than Conversation to engage our Mind and after the withdrawing of our Body from it the remembrance of its Transactions whether pleasant or unpleasant seems to place us still in the midst of our Company and detain us with them In respect of this Conversation that with God is a thing altogether new it is more refined and excellent and therefore we cannot so very soon be capable of it as he who has Conversed with Peasants and the meanest Persons does not thus become the most Accomplish'd Man for the higher approach to the Presence and Thrones of Princes Very narrow and imperfect is all our Correspondence with Spirits and even with those who as some imagine have a nearer Alliance to Matter and so to us Our Eyes sees nothing our Understandings very little of them no Sense or Faculty is satisfied in the enquiry into them whenever we perceive their being near us we almost covet to be farther from them we entertain them with a Reverence very like Amazement and Horror If our Disadvantages be such in all our Entercourse with Spirits much more in that with the Father of Spirits And then should not Israel in the softer meaning prepare to meet his God And thus we shall make those Disadvantages as little as may be to us at least we shall be so prepared for our attending God as Men put on the best Dress they have when they are to wait on Persons much above them I have here allowed my self so much more enlargment on the necessity of forming our Minds into a suitable Frame before our Praying because otherwise there can be little Thought in our Prayer and less Affection and the Prayer which wants either must want Success Therefore is there so extraordinary Success to so many Prayers they may well not have it when they do not deserve it they cannot deserve what they seem not to desire If your other Engagements will comply with so many Times let your Prayers be thrice in a Day in the Morning the first Business at Night the last and at Noon before your Dinner because a Work so Carnal as Eating would make you less disposed for a Work so Spiritual as Praying and because this deserves a place before every other Business and it is to be our Meat thus to do the Will of Him who sent us and thus to pray for Grace that we may do the Will of him that sent us into the World Your Prayers are to be Publick and Private not only private but publick upon every Opportunity not only publick but private too and you constant in the Seasons of both As to publick Prayers the Church has prescribed and who has a better Right to prescribe Who could have better Success As to private your own Devotion will soon be skilful and the Advice of Pious Books will give you Laws Such Laws your Books will be ready to give and you to obey I would advise your having not only particular Times but a particular Place for your Private Devotion and so if the Place be not reserved for this use alone yet the Duty it self should be alway performed in that place reserved for that alone Then as often as you come near this Religious Apartment some good Thought will come near you too when you shall remember the Business you have there often done and you are now to do There may well be some Vertue in that Air which has been made fragrant and so often sweet with the Incense of your Prayers The Grace of God is the chief thing you are to pray for because all other things will follow this You are to pray for Grace that it may instruct you in all such things in which a Christian is to be instructed and may turn your Thoughts towards Religion and your Inclinations to a Desire for the Benefits thereof You are to pray for Grace that it may direct and move you to enter upon a solemn Course of Religion direct and give Strength to the whole Practice of it guard your Age so tender against the many Temptations of the World and fix it against the several Misfortunes thereof upon the true Foundations of Religion and Prudence and give it a true Notion of the World Then will you know that this gaudy World is a place of Vanity and that nothing but Religion can make it a place of Satisfaction and so you will know the wisest

spoken to me and in Words which were almost Written in his Blood and which I should be ready to Seal with mine do this in remembrance of me When he bids me and when thou repeatest what he said with new Engagements shall not I do this and every thing Can I chuse but do it when it is to be done in remembrance of him the Thought of whom is to be most pleasing to me his Name is as Ointment poured forth his Mouth is most sweet and he altogether lovely Can any thing be needful to make me remember him Can any thing be able to make me forget him till I can forget my self It yet there be no necessity for any thing to preserve the Memory of him there is one for the performing what thou Commandest If nothing can make me forget thy Love and the Son of thy Love yet I am to shew that I do not forget him in remembring his Precept From thy Goodness I have received a Command and now from thy Grace a Desire for the observing of it O grant me all the Measures the overflowing Measures of thy Grace for the Executing thy Command and my Desire and thy Grace as much need as I have thereof will be sufficient for me I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me Lord I desire help thou my Weakness in desiring and much more in the performing Be thou a Sun and a Shield a Sun to Chear and Enlighten a Shield to save and defend my Soul Gird me with Strength who have none of my own and let thine so wound my Spiritual Enemies that they may not be able to rise but fall under my Feet Let there be no want of Grace from thee and in me no want of Will I am Feeble and Weak but thou O Lord art Strong and Mighty and thy strength is made perfect in my Weakness and will make that perfect too As thy Mercy rejoyces against Judgment so does thy Power against Infirmity and thy Power the more I want of it will rejoyce so much more if my use of thy Gift be suitable to what thou hast given Thou givest to will and to do of thy good Pleasure for the partaking of this thy Holy this thy blessed Sacrament thou hast given me to will O give me to do of the good Pleasure which thou hast declared for me and declared to me in the Merits and for the fake of thy beloved Son and my never enough beloved Saviour Jesus Christ Amen Another Prayer before the receiving of the Sacrament with a regard to God's Favour and our Qualifications in our Approaches to the Sacrament O Thou the God of my Mercy and the God of my Salvation accept I pray thee thy most unworthy Servant in that Duty in which I should appear most worthy and accept my Weakest Service where the best of my Strength should be employed O thou High and lofty One that inhabitest Eternity whose Name is Holy thou dwellest in the High and Holy Place with him also that is of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive the Spirit of the Humble and to revive the Heart of the Contrite O make me contrite in Heart and humble in Spirit that thou may'st dwell with me that I may dwell with thee in thy House and at thy Table For thy Son's sake for thy own sake for thy Mercies sake contend thou not for ever and be not thou always angry that the Spirit may not fail before thee and the Soul which thou hast made Thou hast seen my ways O heal me lead me and restore Comforts to me and to my Mourners to all those Powers within me which mourn for my Sins against thee Be thou mine everlasting Light and the Days of my Mourning shall be ended Make me first to wash my Hands in Innocency and then admit me to compass thine Altar O Lord of Hosts my King and my God And how blessed are they who dwell in thy House they shall be always praising thee A Day in thy Courts is better than a thousand I confess my Sins O do thou forgive them I grieve for my Sins O make me to rejoyce in the Pardon of them Here remember as much as may be and confess the particular Sins of your Life Too long alas have I lived O make me to live no longer in a Correspondence with them Too long have I born the Burthen and thou the Defiance of them Too long have I been at Peace with my Lusts and then all the time not at Peace with thee and with my self I now Proclaim War against them do thou teach my Hands to War and coyer my Head in the Day of Battle give me the Shield of thy Salvation and thy right Hand shall hold me up and thy Gentleness shall make me great Give thou to me Grace and Glory and make me to live a Godly Life and then no good thing shalt thou withhold from me now in the Sacrament nor afterwards in any other part of Religion or any part of my Life Cloath my Soul with the Garments of Salvation cover it with a Robe of Righteousness as a Bride adorns her self with her Jewels Let that Pardon which this Sacrament is the Seal of be extended to all my sinful Imperfections in the receiving of it The Pardon of my Sins and the Acceptance of my self the great Benefits of thy Sacrament and a true Frame of my Soul that the benefits may be mine and I may be thine for ever vouchsafe O God who art rich in Mercy to grant to me who am poor in Performance O grant all to me in the Name in the Righteousness in the Mediation of thy only Son and my only Redeemer Thy blessed Son and my ever blessed Redeemer and I ask all again in his holy Words Our Father c. These Prayers are so much longer because it is supposed that good Persons set a part more time for this Occasion and so they are more at leisure for a length and they have then a stronger Devotion for the bearing it and the Retirement at such a Season is to take off our Thoughts from the World and to this Design Prayer is very useful and the more we are in that Duty the more we are out of the World the nearer we approach to God in Prayer the farther we are from the World in Thought Here follows a shorter Prayer to the same Preparatory Purpose O Blessed Jesu who hast Suffered who hast Died for me whose Sufferings and Death I am now to remember make me unworthy as I am not to Eat and Drink Unworthily in this solemn Remembrance That Worthiness which I have not be pleased to give me O give me that which thou hast purchased for me that which I have so little which thou hast so much of thou hast enough for me and for all Mankind besides me I ask it for my self and for all now and ever Amen Devout Ejaculations at the Holy Table before the receiving of the Sacrament THou hast invited me O merciful Lord to thy Table and lo I come Thou wilt receive whom thou hast invited O receive me graciously Lo I come to do thy Will O my God I am contented I delight to do it and let thy Law be always within my Heart In Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices for Sin thou hast had no Pleasure Sacrifice and Offering thou wouldest not but a Body hast thou prepared thy Sons Body to be Crucified O let a Soul too be Prepared my Soul to be Offered O most Kind and Compassionate Jesu who didst Exhort the Daughters of Jerusalem at the time of thy death not to Weep for thee but to Weep for themselves and for their Children have a favourable Regard to all my Weeping for my self and for my Sins upon this Remembrance of thy Death Devout Ejaculations after the receiving of the Sacrament I Have received O my God and I Praise thee I Glorify thee I Adore thee for the Honour of thy Command and the Favour of thy Leave to do so Thou hast given me Bread from Heaven Thou hast given me Wine that maketh glad the Heart of Man glad with a spiritual Joy which thus begins in this World and is not to end in another I did hunger and thirst after the Righteousness which is offer'd in this Sacrament and O let me now be filled let me now be blessed Let all the spiritual Vertues of thy Body and Blood O most holy Jesu enter into my Soul enter deep into it may they enliven may they norish may they strengthen it to an everlasting Life Amen However this Discourse has nothing to deserve such a Conclusion yet I ask leave to give the same to my Discourse which a Jew did to his when he had Written a Catechism by him named Good Doctrine of the Jewish Religion According to the Sincerity of my Purpose remember me O God The Jew says yet more which I cannot pretend to say with that Confidence which is more peculiar to Jews in the high Thoughts of their Favour with God I shall not blush nor be ashamed in this World nor in that to come but thou wilt give me the Portion common to those by whom many have been Exhorted to Piety and Righteousnese for they shall shine as Stars so so let it please thee FINIS