Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	call_v	father_n	son_n	22,994	5	6.0917	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45557	Mans last journey to his long home a sermon preached at the funerals of the Right Honourable Robert Earl of Warwick, who died in London, May the 30th and was interr'd at Felstead in Essex, June the 9th 1659 / by Nath. Hardy ...	Hardy, Nathaniel, 1618-1670.	1659 (1659)	Wing H735; ESTC R19289	18,083	38

to his two constitutive and essentiall parts soul and body the egresse of the one His soul goeth forth and the regresse of the other he returneth to his Earth the one whereof is verified In ipso articulo mortis in the very point of death and the other is most evident in sepultura corporis at the time of his Buriall Both which when I have handled by themselves I shall discuss with reference to the quality of the person of whom especially they are spoken and then close up this first and main part of the Text with a sutable of Application 1. Begin we with Mans egress in those words His Breath goeth forth The Hebrew word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} being derived from {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as also the Greek {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} from {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the Latin spiritus from spiro most properly signifieth breath In this notion the Targum and our Translators here render it nor is it incongruous to the Psalmists design which is to give us a Character of death yea Calvin inclineth to this as the most genuine meaning of the word in this place And thus it is a most evident truth that when a man dyeth his Breath goeth forth Indeed it is not true that when a mans Breath goeth forth he dyeth Since life is maintained inspirando respirando by taking in and letting forth Breath but when we can no longer take in breath we are said expirare to breath forth our last and so dye In this respect man is fitly resembled to a bladder puffed up with wind which being by any prick let forth the bladder shrivels up when we cease to Breath we cease to live Upon how slender a thred doth our life hang it is but a puffe and we are gone we carry our lives in our hands or rather in our nostrils that is the Prophet Isaiahs Character Man whose Breath is in his Nostrils How easily how speedily is a mans breath beaten out of his body so quickly is he deprived of life our life doth not depend upon the soundness of our parts strength of our joynts one dyeth saith Job in his full strength but only upon our breath which how soon are we bereaved of no wonder if one Philosopher being asked what life was turned himself about and so went out and another resembles it by oculus clausus and apertus an eye shut and open or rather open and shut we dye in the twinkling of an eye and St. James putting the Question What is your life returneth this answer It is a vapour which appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away Oh that as we continually live by breathing so we would be thereby put in mind of dying when our breath shal go forth But though this construction be true yet I rather adhere to Theodorets and Hieromes gloss upon the place who by spirit understand the soul partly because when this word is applyed to man in holy writ it is most frequently so to be understood and where the sense will bear it is best to take words in their usuall acception partly because the next clause is generally referd to the other part of man his body and therefore it is most congruous to refer this to his soul chiefly because in that place of Salomon the Son which may very well be looked upon as fetched from and parallel to this of David the Father by spirit can be meant no other then the soul of man If you ask why the soul of man is called by this name of a spirit the answer is given both from the Etymology of the word and the nature of the thing 1. The word as you have already heard signifieth breath and the soul of a man is a breath both Passively and Actively 1. Passively Quia spiratur because it is breathed into us according to that of Moses in the Creation of Man God breathed into him the breath of life and however it be a controverted Question whither the rationall soul be propagated and infused generated or breathed yet it suiteth best as with the dignity of the soul so with the current of Scripture to affirme that the soul of man is still breathed into the body immediately by God himself 2. Actively Quia spirat because it is the fountain and originall of our breath which begins with the ingresse and ceaseth with the egresse of the soul upon which consideration the former sense appeareth to be included in this latter since together with the soul the breath goeth forth 2. The thing which this word spirit is used for the most part to signifie is an invisible immortall incorporeall immateriall substance upon which account God is said to be a Spirit and Angels are called spirits and in this respect the soul of man is a spirit as being not an accident but a substance and that void of gross corruptible matter This spirit when a man dyeth goeth forth for the further explication whereof it will be needfull to inquire the double term of this motion whence and whither it goeth 1. If you inquire whence the spirit goeth forth the answer is out of the body Conceive the body as an house or Tabernacle or rather with St. Paul to put both together the house of our Tabernacle the soul as an Inhabitant or sojourner in this house into which when it enters we begin to live and out of which when it goeth we dye The second death saith St. Austin Animam nolentem tenet in corpore detains the soul against its will in the body and the first Animam d●lentem pellit●e corpore driveth the sorrowfull soul out of the body when this bold Serpeant cometh with a Writt from the divine Majesty he entreth in and turneth this Tenant out of doores 2. If you would know whither the spirit goeth the Wise man giveth you the Answer where he saith the spirit of a man goeth upward and again where he saith it returneth to God that gave it as it goeth forth so it ascendith upward Sursum eam vocant initia sua saith Seneca it goeth whence it came To God it goeth and that for this end to receive its doome which being past it accordingly remaineth in a state of weal or woe to the day of the Resurrection By this it appeareth how dissonant both the Epicucuraean and the Pythagorean Philosophers are to truth the one whereof affirmeth that the spirit of a man goeth forth that is vanisheth away as the soul of a Beast doth and the other that his spirit goeth forth from one body to another whereas in truth the spirit of man goeth forth so as to subsist and that by it self till it be reunited with the body Tres vitales spiritus creavit omnipotens saith St. Gregory to this purpose very appositely The Almighty hath created three

living spirits the one Angelicall which is neither covered nor perisheth with the body the second bestiall which is both covered and perisheth with the body the third humane which is covered but doth not perish with the body but goeth forth Where our blessed Saviour saith Fear not them who kill the body but cannot kill the soul What doth he but clearly intimate that when the body dyeth the soul dyeth not for else they who kill the body would kill the soul too and where he faith again of Abraham Isaac and Jacob that they live to God and therefore God is not the God of the dead but of the living it plainly implyeth that though their bodies are dead their souls still live I end this with the gloss of Cajetan upon my Text who conceiveth that this title of spirit is here given to the soul in respect of its going forth As it is joyned with and giveth life to the body it is a soul and as it goeth forth and exists apart from the body it is a spirit since in this partaking with other spirituall substances which have a subsistence without any matter 2. Having given you this account of the egress of the soul pass we on to take a view of the regress of the body He turneth to his earth Had he only said he returneth it might be understood of the spirit which as it gooth forth so returneth and accordingly this very word is by Salomon applied to the spirit Had the Psalmist spoke of the Resurrection these words He returneth to his earth might have admitted a faire gloss in reference to the soul it returneth ad terram corporis sui to the earth of its body to which it shall then be united but it is manifest that these words are a periphrasis of dying And therefore with St. Jerome and Theodoret the sense is best given that the soul or spirit going forth {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} caro the body the flesh returneth to its earth Sutable hereunto is that note of the learned Muis who observeth that in the Hebrew whereas the Verb goeth forth is faeminine answering with the Noun spirit which is for the most part of that gender the Verb returneth is Masculine and so not to be referd to spirit but the son of man who in respect of his body returneth to his earth Returning in its proper notion is a going back to that place from whence we came so that in this clause here is a threefold truth implyed expressed inferd 1. That which is implyed in this phrase of returning is that man in respect of his body came from the earth and as it is here implyed so it is expressed concerning the first man by Moses The Lord God formed Man that is the body of man of the dust or according to the Hebrew dust of the ground and by St. Paul where he saith the first man is of the earth earthly True it is we are formed in our Mothers womb but yet inasmuch as we all came from the first man we are truly said to come from the earth only with this difference that he immediately we mediately are framed out of the earth This truth was engraven in full Characters upon the name of the first man who is called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Adam from a word that signifieth red earth and that very word is here used perhaps to mind us of that earth whereof man was first made yea according to the usuall Etymologie the name homo which in the Latins is a common name to both Sexes is derived ab humo from the ground For this reason it is that the earth is called by the Poet magna parens the great Parent of mankind and in the answer of the Oracle our mother and in this respect we are said by Eliphaz To dwell in houses of clay whose foundation is in the dust 2. That which is exprest is That Man when he dyeth returneth to the earth {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} saith the Poet We are all dust when dissolved As the white snow when melted is black water eso flesh and blood when bereaved of the soul becom the dust and ashes in which respect St. Paul giveth this Epithet of vile to our bodies Indeed mans originall being from the earth he had a naturall propensity to earth according to that Maxime Omne principiatum sequitur naturam principiorum every thing hath an aptitude of returning to the Principle whence it cometh but yet had he not turned away from God he had never actually returned thither It is sin which hath brought upon man a necessity of dying and that dying brings a necessity of returning to the earth in which respect it is observable that the threat thou shalt dye the death which was denounced against man before his fall being afterwards renewed is explained as to temporall death by those words to dust thou shalt return ●o that now the motion of the little world man is like that of the great Circulare ab eodem punct● ad idem from the same to the same and that as in his soul from God to God so in his body from the earth to earth The Rivers come from the Sea and they return thither The Sun ariseth out of the East and thither it returneth Man is formed of the earth and into earth he is again transformed with which agreeth that of the Poet Cedit item retro de terra quod fuit ante 3. That which is inferd in the emphaticall Pronoune his which is annexed to the Noun earth is that the earth to which man returneth is his this being that which ariseth out of both the former conclusions since it is therefore his earth because he cometh from and returneth to it Earth is mans Genesis and Analysis his composition and resolution his Alpha and Omega his first and last Ortus pulvis finis cinis earth is his both originally and finally So that our bodies can challenge no alliance with or property in any thing so much as earth For if we call those things ours which have only an externall relation to us as our friends our houses our goods our lands much more may we call that our earth whereof we are made and into which we shall moulder no wonder if as here it is said to be his so elsewhere he is said to be earth as being called by that name By this time you see how fitly death is described by the spirits going forth of the body and the bodies returning to his earth both which are the immediate consequents of death and informe us what becometh of either part when the whole is divided of the soul and body when the man dyeth It would be further observed that this is here affirmed of Princes and Great men as well as others Aequâ lance necessitas sortitur insignes imos said the Poet