Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	dead_a	life_n	live_v	7,322	5	6.0283	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63684	Christ's yoke an easy yoke, and yet the gate to heaven a strait gate in two excellent sermons, well worthy the serious perusal of the strictest professors / by a learned and reverend divine.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Hove, Frederick Hendrick van, 1628?-1698.	1675 (1675)	Wing T295; ESTC R38275	26,780	106

cooperate But the next instance of the reward of Holy Obedience and conformity to Christ's Laws is it self a duty and needs no more but a meer repetition of it We must be content in every State and because Christianity teaches us this lesson it teaches us to be Happy for nothing from without can make us miserable unless we joyn our own consents to it and apprehend it such and entertain it in our sad and melancholy retirements A Prison is but a retirement and opportunity of serious thoughts to a person whose Spirit is confin'd and apt to sit still and desires no enlargement beyond the cancels of the Body till the state of separation calls it forth into a fair liberty But every Retirement is a Prison to a loose and wandring fancy for whose wildness no precepts are restraint no band of duty is confinement who when he hath broken the hedge of duty can never after endure any enclosure so much as in Symbol But this Precept is so necessary that it is no more a Duty than a rule of Prudence and in many accidents of our Lives it is the only cure of sadness for 't is certain that no Providence less than Divine can prevent evil and cross accidents but that is an excellent Remedy to the evils that receives the accident within its power and takes out the sting paring the Nails and drawing the Teeth of the Wild-beast that it may be tame or harmless and Medicinal For all content consists in the in the proportion of the Object to the appetite And because external accidents are not in our power and it were nothing excellent that things happened to us according to our first desires God hath by his Grace put it into our own power to make the happiness by making our desires descend to the event and comply with the chance and combine with all the issues of Divine Providence And then we are noble persons when we borrow not our content from things below us but make our satisfactions from within And it may be considered that every little Care may disquiet us and may encrease it self by reflexion upon its own Acts and every discontent may discompose our Spirits and put an edge and make afflictions poynant but cannot take off one from us but makes every one to be two But content removes not the accident but complyes with it it takes away the sharpness and displeasure of it and by stooping down makes the heights equal proportionate and commensurate Impatience makes an Ague to be a Fever and every Fever to be a Calenture and that Calenture may expire in madness But a quiet Spirit is a great disposition to Health and for the present does alleviate the Sickness And this also is notorious in the instance of Covetousness The love of money is the root of all evil which while some have coveted after they have pierced themselves with many Sorrows Vice makes poor and does ill endure it For he that in the school of Christ hath learnt to determine his desires when his needs are served and to judg of his needs by the proportions of Nature hath nothing wanting towards Riches Vertue makes Poverty to become rich and no riches can satisfie a covetous mind or rescue him from the affliction of the worst kind of Poverty He only wants that is not satisfied And there is great infelicity in a Family where Poverty dwells with discontent there the Husband and Wife quarrel for want of a full Table and a rich Wardrobe and their Love that was built upon false Riches sinks when such temporary supporters are removed They are like two Milstones which set the Mill on fire when they want Corn. And then their combinations and society were unions of Lust when not supported with Sacramental and Religious Love But we may easily suppose St. Joseph and the Holy Virgin Mother in Egypt poor as hunger forsaken as banishment disconsolate as strangers and yet their present lot gave them no affliction because the Angel fed them with a necessary Hospitality and their desires were no larger than their Tables their Eyes look'd only upwards and they were carless of the future and careful of their duty and so made their life pleasant by the measures and discourses of Divine Philosophy When Elisha stretch'd himself upon the body of the Child and laid hands to hands and applied mouth to mouth and so shrunk himself into the posture of commensuration with the Child he brought life into the dead Trunk and so may we by applying our Spirits to the proportion of a narrow fortune bring life and vivacity into our dead and lost condition and make it live till it grows bigger or else returns to health and salutary uses And besides this Philosophical extraction of Gold from Stones and Riches from the dungeon of Poverty a holy life does most probably procure such a proportion of Riches which can be useful to us or consistent with our felicity For besides that the Holy Jesus hath promised all things which our Heavenly Father knows we need provided we do our duty and that we find great securities and rest from care when we have once cast our cares upon our God and plac'd our hopes in his bosome besides all this the Temperance Sobriety and Prudence of a Christian is a great income and by not despising it a small revenue combines its parts till it grows to a heap big enough for the emissions of Charity and all the offices of Justice and the supplies of all necessities Whilest Vice is unwary prodigal indiscreet throwing away great revenues as tributes to intemperance and vanity and suffering dissolution and forfeiture of estates as a punishment and curse Some Sins are direct improvidence and ill-husbandry I reckon in this number Intemperance Lust Litigiousness Ambition Bribery Prodigality Gaming Pride Sacriledge which is the greatest spender of them all and makes a fair estate evaporate like Camphire turning it into nothing no Man knows which way But what a Roman gave as an estimate of a Rich Man saying He that can maintain an Army is Rich was but a short account for he that can maintain an Army may be begger'd by one Vice and it is a vast revenue that will pay the Debt-Books of Intemperance or Lust. To these if we add that Vertue is honourable and a great advantage to a fair reputation that it is praised by them that love it not that it is honour'd by the followers and Family of Vice that it forces Glory out of shame Honour from contempt that it reconciles Men to the fountain of Honour the Almighty God who will honour them that honour him There are but a few more Excellencies in the World to make up the Rosary of temporal felicity And it is so certain that Religion serves even our temporal ends that no great end of State can well be served without it not ambition not desires of wealth not any great designs but Religion must be made its usher

to follow St. Paul as he followed Christ. But then on the other side how apt are Men when they humble themselves to do it with greater pride Est qui nequiter humiliat se there is that humbleth himself wickedly I cannot insist upon the particulars but actions Spiritual are of so nice and immaterial consideration that both not to be deceiv'd and to discover it when we are deceived are matters of no small difficulty You may see in little that a Man may go a great way in Piety and yet not enter into Heaven What then shall we think of such persons whose Piety hath no more age than a Fly no more labour in it than walking in a shadow no more expence than in the farthing-alms of the street or high-way no more Devotion than going to Church on Sundays no more Justice than in preserving the rules of Civil Society and obeying the compulsion of Laws no more Mortification than fasting upon a Friday without denying one Lust and the importunity of sinful Desires These certainly are far from entring into the Gate because they are far from striving to enter And yet there want not some Men will not do a quarter of this and yet would spit in your face if you should put them in doubt or question their Salvation Some Men are so fond as to think Heaven is intail'd upon a Sect or an Opinion and then nothing is wanting to them when they once have entred their name into that perswasion Some are confident they shall be saved because of their good meaning and they think they mean well because they understand nothing and in the mean time refuse not any opportunity to an evil Alas they cannot help it Flesh and Blood is frail for who can forgive him that hath undone me and my Family 'T is true indeed I should if you speak like a Divine but we have Flesh and Blood about us Alas I hate Drunkenness and I am never intemperate for love of the Drink but when a Man is in company he cannot do as he would do And yet these Men will think to go to Heaven and yet will not do so much for it as either decline the company and opportunity of it or the inconveniences of it Flesh and Blood is the excuse and yet we remember not that Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God but we by m●king it to be our excuse hope to enter the rather for it Remember those great words and terrible spoken by an Oracle by the Blessed St. Peter If the Righteous scarcely be saved where shall the wicked and Sinner appear If after much striving many fall short and the Best is to work out his Salvation with fear and trembling What confidence can they have that are indifferent in their Religion that have no engagement to it but custom no monitors but Sermons and the checks of a drowsy Conscience no fruits of it but not to be accounted a Man without a Religion But as for a holy life they are as far from it as from doing Miracles and he that is so and remains so no Miracle will save him These are the Men that when the Eternal scrutiny shall come then they shall seek for they never seek till then to enter and then it is as fruitless as it is late as ineffectual as unreasonable Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Light and he that openeth only the way for us to go in there whither himself is entred before if we strive according to his holy Injunctions we shall certainly enter according to his holy Promises but else upon no Condition FINIS A TABLE OF THE CONTENTS CHrist's Yoke though easie quits us not of Duty Page 2 Christian Duties carry along with them a Reward so great as to wake the Considerate willing to do violence to all their passions Page 4 Vertue hath more pleasure in it than Sin Page 5 Every degree of love makes Duty delectable Page 8 There is even in our very nature a principle as strong to restrain from Vice as disposition to invite thereto Page 9 10 Our Vertues are difficult because we at first get ill habits Page 13 In the strict observance of the Law of Christianity there is less trouble than in the habitual courses of Sin Page 14 The ways of Vertue are much upon the defensive part Page 15 There is more pain in Sin than in the strictness of holy and severe Temperance Page 18 19 The ways of Vertue are strait but not crooked narrow but not unpleasant Page 21 Peaceless spirits give an Alarm to all about them Page 28 If we would live according to the discipline of Christian Religion one of the great plagues that vex the world would be no more Page 31 A Prison is but a retirement to a person of a peaceable spirit Page 32 All Content consists in the proportion of the object to the appetite Page 34 Impatience makes an Ague become a Fever and a Fever a Calenture Page 35 He only wants that is not satisfied Page 36 Humility the ready way to Honour Page 42 The Gate to Heaven a strait Gate and cvlls for a continual striving Page 45 Good Ends are the Crown of good Actions Page 48 49 We are apt to learn to love God as to learn to love our Parents if we be taught it Page 52 54 All striving in Christianity is little enough towards doing our Duty Page 57 58. A man may cease from the act of Sin and yet retain the Affection Page 59 60 A bad sign when returns of Sin is frequent and of Religion seldom and unpleasant Page 62 Faith works Miracles but Charity works more Page 64 God requires no more than he gives us Nature and Grace to perform Page 65 Many Vertues and Vices are so alike that it 's often difficult to distinguish them exactly Page 67 68 Sometimes Vertue and Vice differ but in one degree Page 69 There is a right hand and a left in the paths of our Life and if we decline to either we are undon Page 71 There 's an hundred ways to wander in but one only way to Life and Immortality Page 73 God's Counsels are secret but they are ever just Page 78 A thought a minute may destroy all our hopes of a blissful lmmortality which twenty or forty years have been with great labour in erecting Page 79 Spiritual Vices are most dangerous and yet most apt to insinuate themselves in the actions of greatest perfections Page 82 A Man may go a great way in Piety and not enter into Heaven Page 83 If after much striving many fall short and the best is to work out his Salvation with fear and trembling what confidence can they have that are indifferent in their Religion Page 86 FINIS