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	soul_n	think_v	5,441	5	4.8272	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30441	A sermon preached at the funeral of the Honourable Robert Boyle at St. Martins in the Fields, January 7, 1691/2 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1692 (1692)	Wing B5899; ESTC R21619	22,132	38

A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF THE HONOURABLE Robert Boyle AT St. MARTINS in the Fields JANUARY 7. 1691 2 By the Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of SARUM LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown and Iohn Taylor at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCII ECCLES II. 26. For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom knowledge and joy WHEN the Author of this Book the Wisest of Men applied his heart to know and to search to seek out wisdom and the reason or nature of things and summed up the Account of all Article by Article one by one to find out the thread of Nature and the Plann of its great Author tho his Soul sought after it yet the Riddle was too dark he even he could not discover it But one man among a thousand he did find and happy was he in that discovery if among all the Thousands that he knew he found One counting Figure for so many Cyphers which tho they encreased the Number yet did not swell up the Account but were so many Nothings or less and worse than Nothings according to his estimate of Men and Things We have reason rather to think that by a Thousand is to be meant a vast and indefinite number otherwise it must be confessed that Solomon's Age was indeed a Golden one if it produced one Man to a Thousand that carry only the name and figure but that do not answer the end and excellency of their being The different Degrees and Ranks of Men with relation to their inward powers and excellencies is a surprizing but melancholy Observation Many seem to have only a Mechanical Life as if there were a moving and speaking Spring within them equally void both of Reason and Goodness The whole race of men is for so many years of Life little better than encreasing Puppits many are Children to their Lives end The Soul does for a large portion of Life sink wholly into the Body in that shadow of death Sleep that consumes so much of our time the several disorders of the Body the Blood and the Spirits do so far subdue and master the Mind as to make it think act and speak according to the different ferments that are in the humours of the Body and when these cease to play the Soul is able to hold its tenure no longer all these are strange and amazing speculations and force one to cry out Why did such a perfect Being make such feeble and imperfect Creatures Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain The Secret is yet more astonishing when the frowardness the pride and ill-nature the ignorance folly and fury that hang upon this poor flattered Creature are likewise brought into the Account He that by all his observation and encrease of knowledge only encreaseth sorrow while he sees that what is wanting cannot be numbred and that which is crooked cannot be made straight is tempted to go about and with Solomon to make his heart to despair of all the labour wherein he has travelled But as there is a dark side of Humane Nature so there is likewise a bright one The flights and compass of awakened Souls is no less amazing The vast croud of Figures that lie in a very narrow corner of the Brain which a good memory and a lively imagination can fetch out in great order and with much beauty The strange reaches of the Mind in abstracted Speculations and the amazing progress that is made from some simple Truths into Theories that are the admiration as well as the entertainment of the thinking part of mankind The sagacity of apprehending and judging even at the greatest distance The elevation that is given to Sense and the Sensible powers by the invention of Instruments and which is above all the strength that a few thoughts do spread into the mind by which it is made capable of doing or suffering the hardest things the Life which they give and the Calm which they bring are all so unaccountable that take all together a Man is a strange huddle of Light and Darkness of Good and Evil and of Wisdom and Folly The same Man not to mention the difference that the several Ages of Life make upon him feels himself in some minutes so different from what he is in the other parts of his Life that as the one fly away with him into the transports of joy so the other do no less sink him into the depressions of sorrow He scarce knows himself in the one by what he was in the other Upon all which when one considers a Man both within and without he concludes that he is both wonderfully and also fearfully made That in one side of him he is but a little lower than Angels and in another a little a very little higher than Beasts But how astonishing soever this Speculation of the medly and contrariety in our composition may be it contributes to raise our esteem the higher of such persons as seem to have arisen above if not all yet all the eminent frailties of humane nature that have used their Bodies only as Engines and Instruments to their Minds without any other care about them but to keep them in good case fit for the uses they put them to that have brought their souls to a purity which can scarce appear credible to those who do not imagine that to be possible to another which is so far out of their own reach and whose Lives have shined in a course of many years with no more allay nor mixture than what just served to shew that they were of the same humane nature with others who have lived in a constant contempt of Wealth Pleasure or the Greatness of this World whose minds have been in as constant a pursuit of Knowledge in all the several ways in which they could trace it who have added new Regions of their own discoveries and that in a vast variety to all that they had found made before them who have directed all their enquiries into Nature to the Honour of its great Maker And have joyned two things that how much soever they may seem related yet have been sound so seldom together that the World has been tempted to think them inconsistent A constant looking into Nature and a yet more constant study of Religion and a Directing and improving of the one by the other and who to a depth of Knowledg which often makes men morose and to a heighth of Piety which too often makes them severe have added all the softness of Humanity and all the tenderness of Charity an obliging Civility as well as a melting kindness when all these do meet in the same person and that in eminent degrees we may justly pretend that we have also made Solomon's observation of one man but alas the Age is not so fruitful of such that we can add one among a thousand To such a man the Characters given in the words of my

Inward motion to it by the Holy Ghost and the first Question that is put to those who come to be Initiated into the Service of the Church relating to that Motion he who had not felt it thought he durst not make the step least otherwise he should have lyed to the Holy Ghost So solemnly and seriously did he judge of Sacred Matters He was constant to the Church and went to no separated Assemblies how charitably soever he might think of their Persons and how plentifully soever he might have relived their necessities He loved no narrow Thoughts nor low or superstitious Opinions in Religion and therefore as he did not shut himself up within a Party so neither did he shut any Party out from him He had brought his Mind to such a freedom that he was not apt to be imposed on and his Modesty was such that he did not dictate to others but proposed his own Sense with a due and decent distrust and was ever every ready to hearken to what was suggested to him by others When he differed from any he expressed himself in so humble and so obliging a way that he never treated Things or Persons with neglect and I never heard that he offended any one Person in his whole Life by any part of his Deportment For if at any time he saw cause to speak roundly to any it was never in Passion or with any reproachful or indecent Expressions And as he was careful to give those who conversed with him no Cause or Colour for displeasure so he was yet more careful of those who were absent never to speak ill of any in which he was the exactest Man I ever knew If the Discourse turn'd to be hard on any he was presently silent and if the Subject was too long dwelt on he would at last interpose and between Reproof and Rallery divert it He was exactly civil rather to Ceremony and though he felt his easiness of access and the desires of many all Strangers in particular to be much with him made great wasts on his Time yet as he was severe in that not to be denied when he was at home so he said he knew the Heart of a Stranger and how much eased his own had been while travelling if admitted to the Conversation of those he desired to see therefore he thought his Obligation to Strangers was more than bare Civility it was a piece of Religious Charity in him He had for almost Forty years laboured under such a feebleness of Body and such lowness of Strength and Spirits that it will appear a surprizing thing to imagine how it was possible for him to Read to Meditate to try Experiments and to write as he did He bore all his Infirmities and some sharp Pains with the decency and submission that became a Christian and a Philosopher He had about him all that unaffected neglect of Pomp in Cloaths Lodging Furniture and Equipage which agreed with his grave and serious course of Life He was advised to a very ungrateful simplicity of Diet which by all appearance was that which preserved him so long beyond all Mens expectation this he observed so strictly that in a course of above Thirty years he neither eat nor drank to gratifie the Varieties of Appetite but meerly to support Nature and was so regular in it that he never once transgressed the Rule Measure and Kind that was prescribed him He had a feebleness in his Sight his Eyes were so well used by him that it will be easily imagined he was very tender of them and very apprehensive of such Distempers as might affect them He did also imagine that if sickness obliged him to lie long a Bed it might raise the Pains of the Stone in him to a degree that was above his weak Strength to bear so that he feared that his last Minutes might be too hard for him and this was the Root of all the caution and apprehension that he was observed to live in But as to Life it self he had the just indifference to it and the weariness of it that became so true a Christian. I mention these the rather that I may have occasion to shew the Goodness of God to him in the two things that he feared for his sight began not to grow dimm above four Hours before he died and when death came upon him he had not been above Three hours a Bed before it made an end of him with so little uneasiness that it was plain the Light went out meerly for want of Oil to maintain the Flame But I have looked too early to this Conclusion of his Life yet before I can come at it I find there is still much in my way His Charity to those that were in Want and his Bounty to all Learned Men that were put to wrastle with Difficulties were so very extraordinary and so many did partake of them that I may spend little time on this Article Great Summs went easily from him without the Partialities of Sect Country or Relations for he considered himself as a part of the Humane Nature and as a Debtor to the whole Race of Men. He took care to do this so secretly that even those who knew all his other Concerns could never find out what he did that way and indeed he was so strict to our Saviour's Precept that except the Persons themselves or some one whom he trusted to convey it to them no body ever knew how that great share of his Estate which went away invisibly was distributed even he himself kept no Account of it for that he thought might fall into other hands I speak upon full knowledge on this Article because I had the honour to be often made use of by him in it If those that have fled hither from the Persecutions of France or from the Calamities of Ireland feel a sensible sinking of their secret Supplies with which they were often furnished without knowing from whence they came they will conclude that they have lost not only a Purse but an Estate that went so very liberally among them that I have reason to say that for some years his Charity went beyond a Thousand Pound a year Here I thought to have gone to another Head but the Relation he had both in Nature and Grace in living and dying in friendship and a likeness of Soul to another Person forces me for a little while to change my Subject I have been restrain'd from it by some of her Relations but since I was not so by her self I must give a little vent to Nature and to Friendship to a long Acquaintance and a vast Esteem His sister and he were pleasant in their Lives and in their Death they were not divided for as he lived with her above Fourty years so he did not outlive her above a Week Both died from the same Cause Nature being quite spent in both She lived the longest on the publickest Scene she made the greatest Figure in all the Revolutions