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
A67824	A sermon concerning the wisdom of fearing God preach'd at Salisbury, on Sunday, July XXX, 1693 : being the time of the assizes / by E. Young ...	Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705.	1693 (1693)	Wing Y63; ESTC R6328	10,022	32

intended no more than the bare pleasing of our Passions But the Fear of God is a sure Guard against all these Mischiefs for when once this Fear has made us take care not to offend God our Souls will naturally tend to love him from the prospect of those gracious Promises wherein such as fear him are secure of a growing Interest Now the Wisdom of fearing God will be manifested 1 sty by considering the Reasonableness and 2 dly the Advantages of it 1 st I shall consider the Reasonableness of the Duty God Almighty gave us the passion of Fear on purpose to make us wise and its subserviency to Wisdom is visible in the whole course of Human Affairs For set aside Fear and there is no Providence in management no Weight in Counsel no Prudence in Election no Discretion in Acting all runs to Rashness and Folly and ends in exposing us to all manner of Evils As therefore in a Town alarm'd by an Enemy a Sentinel is set to watch their Approaches and to prevent the danger of a surprize so in regard of those many Evils and Dangers to which we are obnoxious in this Life God has set Fear in our Soul for a Sentinel to watch when and which way they come and to give us Caution that we may avoid them But the same God that has given us Fear for a Caution against Evils in general has in the mean time given us notice That His Displeasure is the greatest of all Evils and therefore as we account it a point of Wisdom to be watchful against other Evils so it is necessarily the chiefest point of Wisdom to be watchful against this The Fear of God is of so great importance to us that God seems to have intended a gracious intimation of it in every motion of our Natural Fears Our Natural Fears we know are either sudden or deliberate the sudden are such as come upon us surprizingly and without deliberation and of these we may observe that they are very often immoderate boundless and ungovernable and as they prevent our deliberation in their coming so they often baffle it being come and are not to be controul'd by any power of Reasoning How wonderfully will a man sometimes be affected at the hearing of a sudden noise in the Night his Blood runs back his Spirits sink his Soul melts within him and a Horror passes thro' every part of his Body Now such a Fear as this seems absolutely unreasonable a Wise and Good Man would not fear any Accident of Life no nor Death it self at such a rate and yet a Wise and Good Man cannot sometimes hinder such a Fear from rising upon a meer Bugbear occasion Now how unreasonable soever this Fear seems to be it carries a most reasonable Admonition along with it And as the Sentinel when set has a Word given him whereby to distinguish his proper Officer so GOD when he set this Fear in us seems to have given it his own Word a Word which it whispers to us upon each of its surprizing motions viz. Thus it is that a man ought to fear God Thus it is that a Man ought to fear God because ev'n as a man feareth so is his displeasure Ev'n as a Man feareth when he feareth most boundlesly most extravagantly so is his displeasure his Displeasure bears proportion to such a Fear as this tho' nothing in Nature does so besides it Thus God has made nothing in vain no not our vainest Fears from whom if we will give our selves leisure to reflect we may learn so important a Lesson Our deliberate and just Fears are as just to the same intimation and each of their motions point out God to the first glance of our Reasoning For if it be reasonable to fear Want how much more reasonable is it to fear Him whose Bounty is the Fountain of all our Supplies If it be reasonable to fear Disappointments how much more to fear Him whose Providence disposes the issue of all we project If it be reasonable to fear Disgrace how much more to fear Him whose estimation imports more towards it than that of all the World beside If it be reasonable to fear Pain and other Inconveniences of Life how much more to fear Him whose Pleasure determines both all our Ease and all our Sufferings In a word if it be reasonable to fear them that can kill the body how much more him who after he hath killed can cast into hell This then is the Moral and this is the Lesson of all our Fears Fear God And if it be not Wisdom to do so it is equally no Folly to kick against the Pricks to embrace a Scorpion to run under a falling Tower into the mouth of a Lyon into the bottomless Pit Thus much for the Reasonableness of the Duty let us 2dly consider its Advantages And to give my Thoughts a Track in this wide Field I shall confine them to this Particular viz. That the Fear of God is the cure of all other Fears and when I have said this I have imply'd a mighty Advantage because Fear when loose from God is undoubtedly both the greatest Burden and the greatest Snare that Human Life is acquainted with I call Fear the greatest Burden of Life because of its natural torturing power and I call it the greatest Snare of Life because of its moral corrupting power Let us reflect a little upon them both 1. Fear carries with it such a torturing power that could we but estimate the Conditions of all men together we should find that the World is at all times more miserable from what it fears than from what it feels Nay Fear is such a Tyrant that let us feel never so much it will still heap on weight and make that which may be worse than that which is As the Author of the Book of Wisdom tells us concerning the Egyptians That when they lay under their grievous Plague of Darkness yet their Fear was more grievous than the Darkness But 2. Beside this torturing power Fear has in it a corrupting and debauching power whereby its moral Mischiefs come to be excessive for Fear is the main Rock upon which most men split their Faith their Honour their Integrity all are sacrificed to some sort of cowardly compliances and Men become vitious perhaps less from the love of being so than from want of Courage to be otherwise And this is a sufficient Reason why Rev. 21. 8. the Fearful are set first in the List of those that go to Perdition So that tho' Fear was given us on purpose to make us wise yet it never effects that purpose till such time as it is fixed upon God and receives Virtue from that supreme Object to govern its motions in reference to all the rest for the fear of God like a wise Monarch set up in a disturbed State composes all the Tumults of vulgar Fears and keeping them subordinate to it self renders them both harmless and useful to their proper