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	whole_a	13,673	5	5.8632	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64764	A brief natural history intermixed with variety of philosophical discourses and refutations of such vulgar errours as our modern authors have hitherto omitted / by Eugenius Philalethes.	Vaughan, Thomas, 1622-1666.	1669 (1669)	Wing V145; ESTC R1446	49,654	136

A BRIEF Natural History Intermixed with variety OF Philosophical Discourses AND REFUTATIONS Of such VULGAR ERROURS As our Modern Authors have hitherto omitted By Eugenius Philalethes LONDON Printed for Matthew Smelt next door to the Castle near Moor-gate 1669. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER I Presume I shall no sooner appear upon the Stage I am prepared for but I must without evasion expect to be assaulted by that furious and inconsiderate Monster called Censour whose lashes I will receive with the same slight concern the Lacedemonians did the cruelty of their Correctors sporting themselves whilst their backs were torn with the unmerciful Whip Of that efficacy is Resolution that it presents pain but meer Opinion and values a scoffing Lucian or a satyrical Memphus no more then a harmless Hellespont did the vain threats of a proud Xerxes Seneca saith well better aliud agere quam nihil for Idleness is the Devils opportunity the Considerations of which with my assent to the Judgment of Thucidides who sayes To know a thing and not to express it is all one as thongh he knew it not made me to expose my self to publick view My Subject is good and great called by the Name of Nature here I present her expressing mans Ingratitude who is fit to strip her of those Robes of Priviledge that God himself hath endowed her with not considering that what she acts is by the vertue of his Power and that She is one of those Mirrours that represents him to us which a Philosophick Passion adores as the supream Efficient But indeed how can She expect our Veneration till we have divested our selves of that prejudice ignorance possesses us with which must be done by a serious reflex upon her Effects as this little Volumn will acquaint you if you read it with an impartial and unbyased Reason for I have as all others of the same Inclination must do used Philosophy as the Tellescope by which we must make our Observations as you will when you see find my curiosity descending to little Insects and that with wonder at their production out of Corruption from thence I view her care in beautifying this little Globe we live in with Robes sutable to every Season and when I ascend the lower Region and mark the Clouds ranging themselves in such bodies as though they intended another Deluge it occasions wonder so likewise the coldness of the middle Region with the heat of the upper and the Element of Fire must be Miracles to ignorance And if we observe the Moon with the Motion attending that of the Seas flux and reflux it would make us judge that there is some secret contract made ab Origine betwixt her and the watery Element Mercury and Venus I have spoken of in their places the next that presents us with cause of Admiration is the glorious Sun the Luminary of the Universe called by some and not improperly the Anima Mundi for we find her approach gives life to Vegitives sense to Animals and almost a new Nature to Rationals As for Mars Jupiter and Saturn the Eighth Sphere and Christalline Heaven the Empyreum I have treated on if not like a knowing Secretary of Nature yet a submiss Admirer of her And whereas I make a refutation of Errours as an addition to my Title some perhaps will say I am like the Tinker that for stopping of one hole make two or for my refuting of one Errour I have made two it may be I have in the Opinion of some But whether I have or no who shall be judge for what appears an Errour to one is to another a very evident truth sometimes a Week or a Day nay an hour puts a change upon an Opinion of many years standing But let my Errours be as great and as many as I pretend to correct Reason shall convince me and command my Acknowledgment for it 's our Errours that presents us human I have writ this to give Satisfaction to others if I can but if not howsoever I have secured it to my self And let the Reader judge of it as it pleases him I have writ that which delights me And if envie cause a misapplication of my intention it matters not the contempt of it will make me bold to say I value it and thee after the rate as thou dost it and me The assertions here laid down are plain and perspicuous convincing and satisfactory to the intelligent But I know that common prejudice which is usually taken of any thing though never so true which is contrary to any mans belief it does beget such Passion and animosity c. and makes such a breach as is hardly to be repaired And since our own Opinion may make it disputable what reason we have to pretend of convince another by I shall only offer this for common satisfaction that things demonstrable are the most evident marks of Truth and that they are so clearly manifested in this little Book deserves nothing but sobriety and moderation and a well weighing of the matter herein contained Reader I am loth to leave thee but that I would not keep thee from the Book it self which I hope will be to thy ample satisfaction c. Vale. Eugenius Philalethes A Brief Natural History Intermixed With variety of Philosophical Discourses c. GOD by his presential Essence gives unto all things an Essence so that if he should withdraw himself from them as out of Nothing they were first made so into Nothing they would be again resolved In the preservation then of the Creature we are not to consider so much the impotency and weakness thereof as the goodness wisdom and power of the Creator in whom and by whom and for whom they live move and have their being The spirit of the Lord filleth the world saith the Author of the Wisdom of Solomon and the secret working of the Spirit which thus pierceth through all things as Virgil AEneid 6 hath excellently exprest Principio coelum ac terras camposque Liquentes Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaq astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet The Heavens the Earth and all the Liquid Main The Moons bright Globe and Stats Titanian A Spirit within maintains and their whole Mass A Mind which through each part infus'd doth pass Fashions and works and wholly doth transpierce All this great body of the Universe The Spirit the Platonists call the Soul of the World by it it is in some sort quickned and formalized as the body of Man is by its reasonable Soul There is no question then but that this Soul of the World if we may so speak with reverence being in truth no other then the immortal spirit of the Creator is able for to make the Body of the World Immortal and to preserve it from Dissolution as he doth the Angels and the spirits of men were it not that he hath determined to dissolve it by the