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	union_n	7,019	5	9.6724	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30432	A sermon preached before the King & Queen at White-Hall, on Christmas-Day, 1689 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5890; ESTC R19736	17,332	42

my Text of God's dwelling among us in flesh is likewise called a Mystery as containing in it not any secret which was too sacred to be trusted to Lay-hands that Priests only might know but carrying in it a sublime discovery of the Divine Nature and of the Person and Conception of the Saviour of the World II. And this leads me to the second point which is to shew That if any such extraordinary discovery is made we ought not thereupon to be prejudiced against it because it contains some things of which we can form no clear and distinct Notion It seems indeed at first view a hard imposition on us to require us to believe that of which we can form no thought at all and which by consequence is nothing to us It seems also unreasonable to think that God has given us Faculties which yet we must contradict and over-rule in matters of Religion But all this how much soever it may be enlarged and how specious soever it may appear will have less force when it is considered That really our Faculties are so defective that we do not penetrate into the Essence of any one thing what soever and therefore tho'we can never be obliged to believe any thing that is contrary to our Faculties and to our simplest Conceptions yet we may be obliged to believe things in which we find Difficulties through which we cannot make our way The notions of Time Space and Motion are entangled with inextricable difficulties the continuity of Matter or the admitting of Vacuities in it are subject to no less exceptions but these are matters of a more remote speculation That which is more sensible to every one is That there are in us thinking Beings which we call Souls that are united to Beings of a quite different nature which are Bodies in so strange a manner that the acts of the Mind give the Body a great variety of motions We will we reason we remember speak or move and immediately our animal Spirits go into the Chanels into which they are directed without mistaking their Way or their Errand Now how the acts of a Mind should give or at least direct the motion of Matter is as unconceivable to us as how the motions of Matter should give a Mind Pain or Joy yet after all in fact we find it is so though we can give our selves no reasonable account how it should be so Indeed if we examin Memory alone it affords us matter enough for wonder for it is not conceivable how we should have lodged in our Brain the Figures of all words persons and things which we can call up when we please and so quick as words come into our Mouths when we speak Now what the Nature the Variety and Order of all these Figures should be is that which we can as little understand as how the Soul should read them if I may so speak and be able to do nothing without them Thus it appears that in the thing which of all others we should be like to understand best I mean our own Souls dwelling in our Bodies and acting upon them we plainly perceive that a thing may be true though at the same time all the notions that we can form of it do present to us difficulties concerning it which we cannot overcome It will then be no prejudice against Religion if it should offer some things to us that we can as little reconcile to our own notions as we can do that of our Souls lodging in our Bodies and governing them It seems indeed to be very unconceivable how the same Person should be both God and Man but it is not a whit more conceivable how the same Man should consist both of Body and Soul so united in one that the Properties of both should belong to the same man who from the characters of his Mind may be said to be just wise and good and from the characters of his Body may be said to be tall fair or sickly So that though these strictly speaking belong only to one part of a Man yet the denomination from each of them goes to the whole It cannot be denied that our Souls are united to our Bodies though we do not conceive how it should be so for we must consider that all that which is imported by this Union is that our Bodies being put and kept in such a mechanical texture and disposition our Souls act upon and govern them both in their vital and their free or rational Operations And this Government is called the Union of our Soul and Body which is no other than the Bodies being put and kept in such a Mechanical State that the motion of the Animal Spirits runs regularly through it which way soever the Acts of the Mind do determine and direct it and when the structure of the Body is so disordered that the animal Spirits do their work imperfectly then Pain and Sickness follow upon it but when they can do nothing then Death comes the Body being no longer in a disposition to be subordinate to the Mind By vertue of this Union the Mind receives likewise many Sensations from the Body All which lead us very near the forming somewhat like a notion of the Union of the Two Natures in Christ. For if a Body which is a different sort of Beings from the Soul is capable of being brought under such an immediate and constant direction from the Mind as we see it is in our selves then it is not at all absurd to think that the Soul of a man should be brought under an immediate and constant actuation from the Divine Nature which may as well denominate God and Man to be one as the Union of the Soul and Body denominates the Compound of both to be one Man and as the whole Man has the Attributes both of Soul and Body given to him so the whole in our Saviour may also have the Attributes both of God and Man given to him And this is as true an Union as is that between Soul and Body only whereas the Body gives sensations of Pain and Pleasure to the Mind by vertue of the Union between them the perfection of the Divine Nature is such that it can receive no reciprocal Returns from the Humane Nature though it does immediately and constantly act upon and conduct it I do not pretend that this does fully explain the Mystery but it brings it nearer to our Thoughts So that if it does not help us to comprehend it clearly yet it carries us so far toward it that we perceive that it is not impossible and that is all which is at present offered at There is somewhat in the Old Testament that will also contribute to give us a more distinct notion of this Mystery There was a Mass of shining Matter that hovered over the Cherubims which was wrapped about with a Cloud and it sometimes broke through it and gave Answers to the Israelites when they consulted God by the High-Priests