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
A86055	Natura prodigiorum or, a discourse touching the nature of prodigies. Together with the kinds, causes and effects, of comets, eclipses, and earthquakes. With an appendix touching the imposturism of the commonly-received doctrine of prophecies, spirits, images, sigils, lamens, the christal, &c. and the propugners of such opinions. / By John Gadbury philomathēmatikos.	Gadbury, John, 1627-1704.	1660 (1660)	Wing G91; Thomason E2131_3; ESTC R202414	80,331	276

do in Tom. 1. fol. 29. of his Ephemerides where he shews that the Sun and all the Planets are vast distances from the Firmament yea many millions of miles Yet I suppose I may modestly demand of any holding this opinion If the Orbs of the Erratique stars be so vast a distance from the Firmament as Argol averreth Why should not the eighth Sphear viz. the Sphear of the fixed stars be at full as great a distance if not greater then them unless they conclude the eighth sphear to be the firmament which I presume they do not because it is contrary to the rules of Astronomy And if hence it shall be supposed that the fixed stars are any space be it little or much distant from the firmament why then should any be so ridiculous as to affirm that they may or do fall from or out of the firmament But I shall pass this over and leave the discussion to abler Pens and conclude with the divine Poet. That shooting stars those some do fondly call As if those heavenly Lamps from heaven could fall 8. Of Illuminations or scattering fire This scattering fire or illuminations appearing in the uppermost part of the lowest Region is caused when many exhalations hot and dry are drawn up into the middle Region of the air and there meeting with many cold clouds are sent back again Which violent and forcible motions backward and forward are the occasion of its being set on fire And the parts thereof being not equally thick or joyned together seemeth to the beholders as if fire were scattered or spread in the air Yea sometimes the whole air seemeth to burn and all the Heavens do appear on fire as they did in the year 1574. on the fifteenth day of March as is recorded by Stow in his Abridgment Dr Fulks saith At such an apparition as this the whole Air seemeth to burn as though it would rain fire from Heaven and so saith he it hath come to pass that whole Cities and Towns have been fired 9. Of the Ignis fatuus or foolish fire This foolish fire is so called saith Dr. Swan not that it hurteth any but only feareth or scareth fools and is generated of a fat and oyly exhalation which is heavie in regard of the glutinous matter of which it consists by reason of which quality the cold of the night beats it back again when it striveth to ascend upward through which strife and violent motion or tossing it is set on fire and falls downward according to that of Dubart in Sec. days work If th'exhalation hot and oyly prove And yet as feeble giveth light above To th' airy regions everlasting frost Incessantly th' apt tinding flame is tost Till it inflame then like a squib it falls Or fire-wing'd shafts or sulph'ry powder-balls And being thus fired it passeth forward and backward upward and downward according to the motion of the Air in a silent night by gentle gales not going or moving exactly toward one point Note that if the wind be high or any way sharply stirring this Apparition or Meteor cannot appear at all For the wind disperses the matter whereof it is made and will not suffer it to be conjoyned This kind of light is often seen in hot and fenny Countreys and in such places where there is abundance of fat and unctious matter as in Church-yards c. where through the corruption and putrefaction of many dead bodies there buryed the earth is full of such substance as also in places where many battles have been fought And this Meteor appearing in these places as indeed there is most re●son it should the ignorant and superstitious people have thought them to be the souls and spirits of men departed and accordingly have stood in a kind of slavish fear of them Henry Cornelius Agrippa li. 4. de occult Philos prope sinem augmenteth to this error very much and endeavours to render pobable reasons of the souls mourning as he calls it over his quondam partner the body thus Usually where people are buryed you shall see many nocturnal Visions Monsters and other hideous shapes to appear and this is the reason that walking over such places in the night time it is the more terrible And more especially where executed bodies are buryed and where dead souldiers that have lost their li●es in battel are buryed by heaps for saith he the sacred rites of buryal being denied to dead bodies hinder the souls going further admirable and right occult Philosophy sure that the soul should be thus sensible without an organical body ●●t ●●epes them there untill the day of Judgment But such fancies as these with most ingenious persons have been and are deemed no other then Delirious Dotages and Ridiculous Assertions altogether unbecoming the tongue or pen of a Philosopher And Noble Cornelius in his book de vanitate Scientiarum ingenuously acknowledgeth as much Object But saith the vulgar humorist If these lights and apparitions be not walking spirits how come they to lead men out of their way as it is more commonly then truly reported I answer The main cause why they lead men out of their way if the phrase be proper is because those silly wretches that see them and pretend to be led by them being sore amazed and aff●ighted at them not knowing their true cause you may be sure do look so earnestly after them that they forget their way And then being never so little out of their road and frighted withall they wander they know not whither sometimes to Pits Rivers and other very dangerous and dismal places And when at the last they happen into their road again and get home with their hair an end and themselves sweating and staring they fall a telling their friends strange and incredible stories how that some devil or spirit in the likeness of fire hath led them out of their way I cannot nor they neither very well or truly tell how far or how long time and that it came so neer them it would have done them hurt had not their prayers or some heavenly cogitations such no doubt as amazed men are capable of diverted it When notwithstanding all this while the great dangers those poor ignorant wretches dread is in the depravedness of their own senses for there is none to them outward at all Now the chief cause that this apparition seemeth to follow or go before men is by reason of the motion of the Air by the going or motion of the man before or after whom it thus goes Which Air being moved drives it forward or backward as it is either placed before or behind the person Whence it will rationally follow that it is not the fire that leads or drives the fool but the fool the fire but when this fire happens to be at a greater distance the mans eye and the air moving maketh the man to think the fire moves These lights appear also oftentimes at Sea as well as at land sometimes one alone sometimes

this granted that it was his aim and intent so to do and will it not readily result that there was not so much of truth or reality as subtilty policy in the thing Another thing worthy of good consideration I meet with in the Publisher thereof That had Dr. d ee but lived in Turkie when he conversed with Angels and Spirits thus there is no doubt saith he but they would have spoke as much for the Mahome●an faith and profession as by his being in Europe they did for the Catholique or Christian And indeed if we seriously consider this Doctrine c. we shall finde that both Angels and Spirits c. always fitted their Answers and Oracles to the humors and customes of the times and place or places in which they were delivered Which very thing proclaims the whole business to consist of nothing b●t deceit and imposture And really it is a wonder to me that any person that is ingenious should esteem of it otherwise I have read the ●ook seriously over whereas the Pu●lishers desire is but to read a quarter thereof before a man pass his censure or opinion upon it and protest really I find nothing in it but a meer Romance Storie in a pretended Saint-like Scripture-language the stile Platonick and of so indifferent a vein for eloquence and fancie That I presume an ordinary wit might have flown a far higher pitch Ben. Johnsons Bartholomew Fair is far above it both for language and matter plot and contrivance and indeed in all other respects There is one thing in it above all the rest worthy to be noted and plainly proves the designers of this new-found Whimsey not so religious as they pretended It is this In the progress of these Stories Dr. d ee and Mr. Kelly could seldome agree At last they resolved to invocate an Angel or Spirit to acquaint them with the reason thereof they being of one and the same faith and professing and practising one and the same thing To be brief an Angel as saith the Book was called and the question being propounded The Angel returned this in answer The reason of their disagreeing so much was because they were not cross matched Upon the hearing of this answer from the Angel Dr. d ee and Kelly begin to interpret the same To their not having layen with each others wife And this was the best and only gloss they could put upon their Angels answer Now to put this blessed work into practise To tempting the women they go And sayes the Book the women cryed thereat deeming the action sinful And that which is the more intolerable To these Lecherous and filthy conceits they were not ashamed to abuse the holy and glorious name of God and of the Trinity Immediately after to render the cheat for no other can it be notwithstanding some account it of as good a stamp for truth as the Gospel of St. John the more plain and clear they subjoyn a question of Theft answered by Astrologie and the very text of Haly de judic Astr urged for the reason of their judgment Which had there been any thing of excellencie or certainty in their pretended Doctrine of Angels I suppose they would never have been beholden to poor Haly or have craved the assistance of an Aphorism from him in any case whatsoever In another place they fall to their trade of Exorcising again and an unmannerly shee-Angel appears and incontinently shews them her nakedness Such is the excellencie and Religion of such Hyperbolical fooleries What this Kelly was the Publisher tells you at large that he was a Philosopher undone by fire or by seeking after the Elixir a thing that hath befooled the wisest of men Afterwards he fell into some ill trade or course of living that as the Publisher saith he lost his ears in Lancashire and then fled beyond the Seas c. but for Dr. Dee's part I believe him much abused in the thing For it is impossible for reason to conclude a person of so great learning and parts a general scholar one that had the advantage of the best wits in his time which was of power sufficient to keep his reason from sinking or suffering shipwrak and himself so great a Proficient in all arts and sciences could be so strangely deluded If we should admit that this Kelly being as you have heard before a person reduced to a condition desperate might once by his subtiltie delude him Or that himself in some more then ordinary Melancholy Mood should willingly yeild to the tryal of some such project Yet I cannot conceive but he must easily have discovered the vanity and uncertainty to say no worse of the practise before it could possibly grow up unto so large a book in folio I leave the modest Reader to judge of the thing If it be falsly fathered upon Dr. Dee my estimate thereof is not then vain if it be truly really his own I then account it no miracle for vain and foolish things to confound and destroy the wisdom judgments and understanding of the wise Thus much for the substance and excellence of Dr. Dee and Mr. Kelly in their large folio Book of Spirits lately published 3. Of Pughs Prophecies The learned Frenchman James Gafferel fol. 285. tells us That the Astrologie of the Hebrewes had not as yet lost any of its lustre so long as it was practised by those of their own Nation only But so soon as the more Northern Nations began to have any knowledge of it they presently fell to venting of such strange wilde fancies and to increase the number of fables in such sort as that it is no marvel that the Science hath been so much cry●d down So while the Spirit of Prophecie remained in its proper Channel i. e. Among persons ab Aeternitate appointed for such an office it was most worthily honored as indeed it ought still to be but when once the seed of Baal began to abound and the whole race of Pseudo-Prophets overspread the world such lyes vanities forgeries and falsities have been vented under pretence of their being acted by the Spirit of Prophecie that it hath occasioned many to blaspheme the same and think lightly of the true Prophets sent of God In the number or retinue of which vanities I rank the Prophecies now in question Where in pag. 1. our Prophet tells us That Elphin son of Gwidduo Garranir having requested the benefit of fishing for one night which being granted him by his father he rises early the next morning and taking up his net finds no fish therein but instead thereof espyes entangled about the Net a close leather bag the which he took up and ripped open and found a child therein named I know not nor he neither by whom Taliesin Pag. 2. this wonderful childe declares it self for the Protestant Religion Albeit Luther the father thereof was not born some centuries of years after Elphin is grieved he hath missed his prize by fishing Taliesin pag. 3. promiseth to be better to him then 300. Salmons Pag 4. this Taliesin pretends to have been contemporary with Jonas from whom he received another name even Merddin Duplex Nomen Duplex Nebulo he was also with God before Lucifer fell he was also in the banner leading Alexander He knoweth the number of the Stars not better sure then A●atus from the North to the South He was in the Ark with Noah and Alpha. He saw the destruction of Sodome and Gomorrha He was at ●ff●ick before the Building of Rome Pag. 5. He was Protector to Elias and Enoch He was chief overseer at the building of Babels Tower perhaps he there l●arnt to broach this strange confusion He was at Dyon before there were Gyants born He has been at Jerusalem among the Prophets yet he sustained imprisonment at a King of Britaines Court in the Tower for a year and a day Pag. 6. He conducted Moses thorow the Sea of Jordan But that is no other then a River He was in the Air with Mary Magdalen He received the gift of Poetry from the boyling furnace of Caridwin a she-Gyant that lived in Northwales He will be upon the earth till the day of Judgment though no body know where his residence is but knows not really whether he be flesh o● fish Pag. 7. He determines the years of Christ Which indeed are like Solomons Virgins without number Pag. 8. he tells a story how Panton made humane body and rested 500. years upon the Sandy Valley of Hebron before he was made a living soul With divers other frivolous and impertinent and most incredible stories of Adam and Eve of Eve's cheating Adam by which means Rye came into the world They that can make head or tail truth or sence for Prophecies none but mad-men will accept them of such strange complexion'd stuff as this I envy not their happiness but I protest unfainedly it is no company for my reason or understanding By this you may discern to what a height of impudence and error men are grown by allowing reins to their fancies to believe any thing and by subjugating their reason and laying it in fetters that it shall not dare to peep up against such silly senseless and ridiculous trash Let men of reason halt no longer between two opinions but let truth be embraced and cherished and falshood and error in every thing but chiefly in these things by reason of their evil be discountenanced and rejected And thus much for this second Section and for a conclusion to the whole discourse Percurrent multi augebetur cognitio Dan. 12.4 FINIS