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
A33907	The difference between the present and future state of our bodies considered in a sermon / by Jeremy Collier.	Collier, Jeremy, 1650-1726.	1686 (1686)	Wing C5251; ESTC R23724	13,546	37

upon ill Books or Company he will be dispos'd to dilute his Creed with Principles of Libertinism that so he may make it more agreeable to the Complexion of his Body and reconcile it with the use of unlawful pleasures But here we must observe that these motives do but incline they by no means force us upon mistakes so that then when we are swayed by them it is our own fault The reason why I mentioned them is that we might take the greater care to enquire into the particular defects and propensities of our temper and form our judgment with a suitable caution and suspition of our selves 3. Bodily pain is likewise no small impediment to the enlarging our understandings because while it continues upon us it takes off our thoughts from other things and fixes them only upon that which troubles us And oftentimes when it is over it leaves such ill effects behind it by altering the Texture of the Brain or Blood that the mind hath not fit instruments to assist it in the work of close and constant Meditation 4. The generality are forced to spend a great part of their time in providing for the necessities of life so that they have little leisure to attend to the improvement of their minds But let them not be discouraged upon this account if they take care to live well in this World their utmost curiosity and thirst after knowledge shall be satisfied in the next without being encumbered with that labour and difficulty which attends very inconsiderable Attainments here Then as the Apostle informs us We shall know even as we are known and see God as he is in whom all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge are hid 1 Cor. 13. Joh. 1. 3. To what hath been said upon this Argument if we add that considerable number of hours which those who are most covetous of their time are obliged to spend in eating sleeping and recreation we shall see that he had great reason for his Opinion who hath told us that Art is long and Life but short But notwithstanding these inconveniencies with which our bodys are attended in this state of imperfection we are not to complain as if God had dealt hardly with us because they are not just such as we could desire them let us rather consider that if the conveniencies of them were much less than they are it was more than God owes us besides how impatient soever men may sometimes be under extremity of pain yet their general behaviour is a plain argument that they have no contemptible Opinion of their Bodies for they are commonly loath to leave them when they are at their worst condition Let us therefore be thankful that God hath made them so commodious for us now and hath promised to improve them to the utmost of our wishes afterwards which brings me to the second thing at first propounded viz. to shew That the Qualities of Glorified Bodies are opposed to those defects and free from those inconveniencies we are now sensible of 1. They will be very much refined and consequently fitter for the Soul to act with It shall be raised a spiritual body 1 Cor. 15. 44. which implies that it shall be changed into an exalted and vigorous condition All grossness and feculency which adheres to it now shall be purged off all unevenness and roughness of parts will then be filed into an exact serviceableness and the Soul will no longer labour under the disorders of an unweildy and incompliant constitution The Body will then be exactly at its beck and execute all its commands with pleasure and dispatch That Quality which we call Heaviness which hinders our motion and confines us to the lower part of the World will then no more molest us for the Refined Body by its nearer resemblance to the Air about it the improved Activity of its Spirits and the greater force the Soul will in all probability have to set them a work By these advantages we shall be enabled to meet the Lord in the Air and fly up into the Regions of light and happiness and that the Soul may be the better accommodated the Sences will be improved in two respects beyond what they are now 1. They will be larger that is able to take in more objects at a time and reach them at a father distance than they can now 2. They will be quicker that is whatever notices they convey to the Mind will be more intimately and vigorously communicated to it Upon which two accounts they must afford the Soul a much greater pleasure than they do now And that the Sences will be thus improved follows from a principle which every one that owns the Resurrection must grant namely that Glorified Bodies will be endued with far greater Activity than they are at their highest condition here now we know men have a more full and delightful use of their sences in their youth than at any other time Now of all the sences those of Seeing and Hearing are not only the most instructive to the mind but likewise the most refined and as I may say the most creditable sences Therefore we need not question but they will accompany the Bodies of the Saints to Heaven and possibly that of Smelling too but as for the two other grosser sences they belong to a State of imperfection and are too coarse and insignificant to have much employment there for ought we know they may be changed into two new ones of a more spiritualized and refined nature which it is not possible for us to understand or conceive till we are possessed of them which we shall cease to wonder at if we consider that were a man born Deaf or Blind it would be impossible for him to have the Vulgar notion of sound or colour Nay I may add he could have no imaginable Idea of these qualities except he received some description of them from others 2. And as the Bodies of the Saints will be defective or superfluous in nothing but be exactly fitted for the service of the Soul so likewise they will be much more splendid grateful than now they are which is another property of the Image of the Heavenly Instead of those obscure and unamiable qualities they appeared in here they will be decked with light as with a garment and be cloathed with Majesty and Honour they will then be all beauty and brightness without any disfiguring blemish any scars remaining except of those wounds they have received in their Masters cause which then probably will shine out with a more orient and distinguishable lustre This is indeed to bear the Image of the Heavenly of which we are assured from more places than the Text. As Philip. 3. 21. the Apostle affirms Our Saviour shall change our vile Bodies that they may be like his glorious Body a representation of which we have at his Transfiguration though I believe but a faint one and yet the Evangelists tell us his face shone like the Sun and

by any accidental distemper 1. The Sences grow flat and do not enjoy and relish their respective objects with that quickness and eager satisfaction which they formerly did But if this was all the alteration we were liable to we ought possibly rather to account it an advantage than a loss because the lessening of sensual delights would rebate the edge of our desires and make them submit to the Laws of Religion with less reluctancy But the flower of Youth does not only go off quickly but which is more to be regretted the fruit of it too and the abatement of the Sences vigour is usually followed with an apparent decay of strength Thus life when it is once fermented to the height hath its spirits continually flying off till it is drawn to the Less and that part of it only remains which oftentimes makes us uneasie both to our selves and others so that when the mind is embarked in any design of considerable length and advantage it is usually set a shore upon the other World before it hath reached its intended port or else forced to spend that stock of time and abilities which remains in stopping the Leakage and piecing up the ruins of the Vessel which is not only a hindrance of the main business but is likewise a very troublesome employment A 3. Inconvenience of our bodies consists in their making us subject to passion That our passions at least the violence of them are immediately caused by the motion of the spirits that is the finer parts of the Blood will appear if we consider that those who have a greater stock of spirits supplied them from youth or intemperance are soonest overborn which disorders of this nature 'T is true God made our minds subject to the impressions of Passion upon a very good account that by such unusual commotions within us we might be awakened and as it were roused up to pursue those things which are useful and avoid the contrary with the greater vigour and industry For if we had nothing but dry reason and cool Blood to contrive and execute for us our apprehensions in many cases would be too flow and our endeavours faint But notwithstanding the advantage the Passions were design'd to give us as they are commonly managed they do more harm than good For we are apt either to place them upon wrong Objects to fly them to too high a pitch or to continue them upon us when they ought to be discharged which makes us hasty in our Resolutions injurious and careless in our words and actions they make us dote almost to Frensy upon trifles and by being too kindly entertained by us improve a sudden disgust against our Neighbour into a setled and habitual malice infinite almost are the indecencies and sins which the ill Government of our Passions betrays us to they discompose the whole frame of mind and body disquieting the one and disordering the other the effects of them are different according to their nature and the power they have gotten over our reason sometimes they make men languish and pine away with envy or desire sometimes through an excess of fear they betray them into worse inconveniencies than those they were afraid of Some are said to have absolutely lost their wits in their anger and raved themselves into Bedlam and others we may observe are over-joyed to perfect folly and ridiculousness Now though a great part of our present vertue and future reward depends upon the due management of our Passions neither can they come up to this height which I have mentioned without our own fault yet in regard our bodies are the immediate instruments of their violence we must grant they are inconvenient upon this account For if our reason was quick enough to apprehend and pursue our interest of it self without being spurred upon duty by Passion if the mind had sufficient power to command the body upon its utmost without being concerned with its motions any farther than it thought fit our condition would be much more perfect and secure For if we knew we are naturally invincible we need not give our selves the trouble of standing upon our guard then we should be free from all inward tumults and the ill consequences of them and then as the power of Passion declined that of Reason would grow up and flourish and the pleasures of the mind would more than counter-ballance those which we lost by shaking off some of our correspondence with the body and we might have delight equal to those of a corporeal transport without the violence and danger of them 4. Our bodies are inconvenient because they make us liable to suffer pain It must be confessed that the state of separation does not exempt us from having ungrateful perceptions but in some respects makes us more obnoxious to them if we lye under any moral indisposition For when the Soul is disengaged from the oppression and soil of the body it will act upon it self with greater vigour and make the Springs of Thought go much smarter than they do now so that ill men will be made much more powerful to torment themselves insomuch that it may be a question whether all the Fire and Feinds in Hell are a greater punishment to the wicked than the guilt of their own Consciences besides the Passions which I have mentioned when they are violent bring an easiness along with them But then the reason why I distinguish pain from the trouble which proceeds either from passion or the more abstracted and immediate operations of the mind is because the Soul is not only liable to this disturbance purely upon the account of its Union with the Body but because it is perfectly out of our power to prevent it For let a man be never so innocent and compos'd let Prudence and Religion secure him never so well against Vice and Passion yet there is no fence against bodily pain This proceeds from those motions over which the Will hath little or no command and when we consider what a vast number of parts the Body consists of many of which are very fine and slenderly tyed together otherwise they would be unserviceable and upon this account are easily put into disorder when we consider how ignorant the generality are of the frame and constitution of their Bodies of the due proportion and quality of their nourishment how careless and immoderate they are often in their Labours Recreations and Passions to which if we add the sometimes sudden alterations of seasons many other unavoidable accidents when we consider all these things I say we have great cause to admire and bless the providence of God that our bodies are not oftener put out of order than they are Now though some decays of the Body are unobserved by us yet generally when there is any considerable jarr made in the wheels of this curious Machine when the harmony of the humours is disturb'd when the strings are wound up too hard or too slack when any thing