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	part_n	soul_n	20,019	5	5.7069	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29049	A brief treatise about the spiritual nature of God and of His worship by Edw. Bagshaw ...	Bagshaw, Edward, 1629-1671.	1662 (1662)	Wing B405; ESTC R9965	16,963	38

a third but it runs over Innumerable Idea's it ranges infinitely distant places it admits of all manner of Contraries and yet remains still the same by one Entire Absolute Indivisible Act influencing every Part of the Body and Animating the whole which were it not a Spirit it could not do 3. The last Operation of the Soul which showes it to be a Spirit is Knowledge The utmost perfection of a Body is Motion and let a Body be vested with whatever Circumstances to set it out yet Figure and Motion do answer and resolve all it's Phenomena But to reflect upon it self to move so as to know that it moves to understand and to be Conscious of it's own Actings to take in all manner of Idea's and Species of things and to Spiritualize them in its Apprehension these with many millions of such kind of Actions which are daily performed by the Soul of man in the faculties of its Understanding and Will are all beyond the Possibility of a Body and therefore the Principle which produceth them is not a Body i. e. It is a Spirit And indeed what ever our Modern Sadduces may argue who are not afraid to tell us that there is neither Angel nor Spirit Yet when a man hath wearied himself with contemplating his Inward Frame and in seeking to Unriddle those Mysteries which he is alwayes privy to in himself he will at last find it not the most safe and pious onely but the most reasonable way to conclude Job 32.8 Prov. 20.17 that there is a spirit in man and the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth Vnderstanding as Job saith or as Solomon The Mind of Man is the Candle of the Lord i. e. a Light placed in us and to be used by us but springing from and savouring of its Divine and Unconceiveable Original Having thus by those Actions of the Soul which every man is conscious to in himself demonstrated at least abundantly to my own satisfaction that there is some Being or Nature in the World which is not Corporeal I define a Spirit thus A Spirit is a Being created by God and endued with Qualities whereby it is enabled to move its self and to reflect upon its own actings and therefore Incorporeal since neither of those Properties are conceivable how they can be performed by any Body in the most Subtil and Abstracted Consideration And so much for the first Querie viz. What is a Spirit 2. Secondly The next thing to be explained was in what sense God is said to be a Spirit And I answer in all those senses wherein a Spirit can be conceived or expressed by us 1. Negatively God is a Spirit i.e. He is not a Body but infinitely removed from and incapable of those Imperfections which do arise from Matter according to that Definition of the Apostle John God is Light 1 John 1.5 and in him is no Darknesse at all i. e. No mixture of any thing which might be an Allay to his Ineffable Purity and Perfection 2. Comparatively By way of Proportion or Resemblance to the Soul of man Thus God is a Spirit i. e. what ever Excellence or Perfection we find in our selves that is to be ascribed unto God in a more Absolute and Perfect manner Psal 94.8 as the Psalmist He that made the eye shall not he see He that made the ear shall not he hear c. 1 Cor. 2.12 And the Apostle As none knoweth the Things of Man but the spirit of Man which is in him so none knows the Things of God but the Spirit of God For since God made man after his own Image there can be no Divine Quality in the Soul of man but it is in the Arch-Type or Pattern in a more Supreme and Inexpressible degree And therefore 3. God is a Spirit Transcendentally i. e. In a way of Eminency and Superlativenesse of Perfection Therefore God who doth often compare himself to man thereby to familiarize himself unto our Apprehensions doth as often take us off from dwelling too long upon those Thoughts least we should thereby lessen God and think him to be altogether like unto our selves For this reason we are frequently called upon to consider that God is in Heaven and we are on Earth that The Heaven of Heavens is not able to contain Him whereas Our Foundations are in the Dust with many Expressions to the same Purpose So that as Shade to Light as the Picture of the Sun in water unto the Real Globe in the Firmament as Painters Flame unto a Burning Fire or whatever else are most distant from the things they Figure so is the soul of Man if compared to God So that when we say God is a Spirit the meaning is God is a Being Infinitely Perfect and Pure in himself but altogether Incomprehensible and Inexpressible by us And so much for the second Query in what sense God is a Spirit The Use or Inference from hence is that Spiritual Worship is the onely True Worship Vse That is to say In all our Prayers and Addresses to God we must fix an eye of Faith especially and mainly upon those Attributes and Descriptions of God which do most clearly represent and expresse his Spiritual Nature unto us For the understanding of this we must take Notice that the principal thing which keeps a Man in his Dark Estate of Unbelief and Unregeneracy Ephes 2.12 is a secret Thought that there is no God at all and this is the condition of all Natural men in the World as Paul affirms of the Ephesians that before their receiving of Christ 1 Thes 4.5 they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without God or plain Atheists in the World and in another place The Gentiles knew not God know nothing of him for as he argues how should they know of whom they had not heard i. e. though God hath imprinted upon his Creatures certain legible Characters of his Power and Divine Goodnesse yet very few can spel the meaning of them or from the works they see be brought to acknowledge a Power whom they do not see as the Apostle elsewhere testifies The world by wisdom knew not God But when 1 Cor. 1.21 by the Power of some conviction arising either from an Intent view of the Frame Make of the World or from the observation of some remarkable turn of Providence a man is brought off from his Atheism he presently is apt to fall into another gulf as dangerous and as fatal and that is of thinking God to be like Man full of the same passions and pleased with the same things which we imagine are most taking with men like our selves And this conceit lies at the bottom of every mans Nature and is the Foundation of all that VVill-VVorship and Devised Service which heretofore was entertained in the Gentile or Atheistical and at this day reigns in the Papal or Antichristian World when men do measure God by themselves and go no higher in the contemplation

and are infallibly assured that Salvation is of the Jews i. e. the saving Doctrine is onely to be found amongst us and you Samaritans have nothing to shew that any such thing is committed unto you Our Saviour having thus fully satisfied this Womans Scruple and rectified her Erroneous Practise by bringing of her unto a Rule of Worship which alone can be a comfortable ground of any Religious Action since God looks not onely after the Matter but the Manner of our Worship and disdains to be served by the Inventions of Men since by their Adding to his Word they onely presume to be Wiser and Holier then he Therefore our Saviour repeats and enforces again what he had mentioned before and tells her plainly Vers 23 that as Gods Worship should no longer be confined to a certain place by way of Special Holinesse so neither should it be clogged with those Outward Forms and Ceremonies as before No such things as Pompous Garments Legal Washings and Fleshly Rites should be required any longer but the True Worshippers should worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth Which alone is the True Worship because all those External Rites were onely Shadows and Representations of it As if our Saviour had said it is no longer your Temples nor your Altars nor your Outward State and Magnificence which God now looks after but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he seeks with earnestness and approves with Delight and Complacency onely such as worship him in a Spiritual and Inward Manner The reason of which our Saviour gives in the words of the Text because God is a Spirit and therefore he expects a Worship altogether suitable to his own Nature They that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth In the words there are two things considerable 1. What God is God is a Spirit 2. What kind of Worship must be paid unto him They that Worship him must Worship him in Spirit and in Truth From whence arise two Observations the first of which I shall handle as a Doctrine the other as an Use or Inference from it 1. God is a Spirit or a Being altogether Spiritual 2. The Spiritual Worship of God is the onely True Worship For the understanding of the first there are two things to be explained 1. What is a Spirit 2. In what sence God is said to be a Spirit For the first viz. what is a Spirit the Schooles define it to be an Immaterial or Incorporeal Substance where if in stead of the word Substance which is a Term very few understand they had put the word Essence or Being which answers to the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they had spoke some but not all the Truth For thus our Saviour likewise defines a Spirit in opposition to a grosse and palpable Body Luke 24.39 A Spirit said he hath not Flesh and Bones as you see me to have Which place though some have made use of for the definition of a Spirit yet it is clear our Saviour speaks there only of a Spirit in that sense that we call a Phantasm or an Apparition a Spirit and therefore Ignatius in one of his Epistles instead of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A bodiless Demon or Ghost But in the word Spirit is implied something more Positive then barely to tell us what it is not and as in the Definition of a Man it would but little satisfie us to tell us that he is not an Horse nor an House c. because these Negative Descriptions would never lead us to those Essential Characters and Properties by which the Nature of man might be discerned So nakedly to tell us as the Schools do that a Spirit is Incorporeal i. e. not a Body will give but very little satisfaction to the Enquiry What it is To find out therefore more positively what a Spirit is I shall lay down this Ground The Nature of every thing is to be discerned by its manner of Operation as though we can see neither Fire nor Air yet we may justly conclude they have Different Natures because they produce Diverse and Contrary effects So that if there be some Things or Beings in the World which have such kind of Operations as are no way applicable to or produceable by Bodies then They have a Distinct Nature from Bodies i. e. They are Spirits What those Operations are every man may observe in the Actions of his Soul And I shall instance onely in these three 1. Power 2. Presence 3. Knowledge 1. The first Action by which the Nature of the Soul of man may be discerned to be Spiritual is Power I mean that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or self-moving-virtue by which it can move not onely it's self but the Body too to which it is conjoyned And this no meer Body is capable of for motum movetur No Body can otherwise move then as it hath an Outward Principle to move it but the Soul hath no other Motive of it's Actings but it 's own Will and Pleasure And though there be some who affirm that the Will doth alwayes follow the last dictate of the understanding yet this is Demonstrably false by the experience of all men in the World as well as of the Apostle Paul who cries out of himself Rom. 7. The things I like not these do I. And it is a very true saying of one to whose writings the Christian world is little beholding As oft as Reason is against a man so often will a man be against Reason For which no cause can be given but meerly the Power of the Will to move i. e. to determine it self in spight of all contrary suggestions from the Vnderstanding Solomon therefore speaking of dying man divides him into his two distinct and seemingly inconsistent Natures The dust sayes he i. the Body returns to the Earth as it was but the Spirit i. Eccles 12.7 the the Soul returns to God who gave it It is the Spark of Divinity within us which puts Life and Motion into the Dull and Unactive piece of Earth about us and so enlivens it for the doing of such Actions as Flesh alone could not compass without the Influence and Conduct of some more Heavenly and Spiritual Principle 2. The second Operation which demonstrates the Soul of man to be a Spirit is Presence We know that every Body is tied and limited to a place out of which it cannot stir and whenever it is moved it moves onely one way and with one kind of Motion at once making a dull leasurely progress First how then there by steps without any Variety at all Herein therefore doth the Spirituality of the Soul of man most convincingly appear in that at one instant it can attend so many different Employments and without any distraction at all wheels about in so many Contrary and Repugnant Motions not onely Seeing in one place Hearing in another Feeling in