Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	degree_n	general_n	great_a	47	3	2.1572	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50650	The moral history of frugality vvith its opposite vices, covetousness, niggardliness, prodigality and luxury / written by the Honourable Sir George Mackenzie ...	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing M179; ESTC R20197	43,307	108

Innovation in this Point may starve some yet it would not starve so many as might be easily entertained upon what the Luxurious and Avaritious possess beyond a due measure and in a little time all these Artisans who now drudge to please Luxury would follow other Trades whereby they might please God Almighty much better whose Service is the chief end of Man and to please whom is his chief happiness And these Arts neither provide Meat nor Drink as the Husbandman does from which it follows clearly that Husbandry and not these Trades sustains the World And there would be need of no such Arts to draw Mony from the Rich for the supply of the Poor since this would bring Men to a greater equality as to Riches and Poverty It is very observable that many of these Tradesmen starve whereas few Husbandmen do and it is also observable that Prodigality and Luxury entertain always the worst of Men for they are ordinarily such who Trade in things that please the Vitious Men being either by Force or Custom easily induced to imitate the Masters on whom they depend and to esteem those whom they serve whereas the Frugal Man not only chooses fit occasions on which to spend his Mony but persons worthy of his Employment And yet if Men do bestow their Mony upon Perfumes Pictures and such other Baubles with design to let it fall unto Hands which need it their sincerity in this design will certainly rescue them from the severity of a Censure which they would otherwise deserve This Discourse tends not to forbid the use of all Pleasure nor even the pleasing our Senses for it is not to be imagined that God Almighty brought Man into the World to admire his Greatness and tast his Goodness without allowing him to rejoyce in these things which he sees and receives The best way to admire an Artist is to be highly pleased with what he has made and a Benefactor is ill rewarded when the receiver is not pleased with what is bestowed his Joy being the justest Measure and Standard of his esteem We find that in Eden the tasting of all the sweet and delicious Fruits was allowed save only that of the Tree of Knowledge and why should all these Fruits have been made so pleasant to the Eye and so delicious to the Tast if it had not been to make Man his beloved Guest happy there And I really think that the Eye has got the quality of not being satisfied long with any Object nor the Ear with hearing any Sound to the end that they might by this Curiosity be obliged to seek after that Variety in which they may every moment discover new Proofs of their Masters Greatness and Goodness But I condemn the pleasing of the Senses only where more pains is taken and more time is spent in gratifying them than is due to those inferior or less noble parts of the Reasonable Creature The Soul being the Nobler and more Sublime part our chief care should be laid out in pleasing it as a wise Subject should take more care in pleasing the King than his Ministers and the Master than his Servants The true and allowable Luxury of the Soul consists in Contemplation and Thinking or else in the practice of Virtue whereby we may employ our time in being useful to others albeit when our Senses and other inferior Faculties have served the Soul in these great Employments they ought to be gratified as good Servants but not so as to make them wild Masters as Luxury does when it rather oppresses than refreshes them I do also think that our chief Pleasure should not be expected from the Senses because they are too dull and unactive to please a thinking Man they are only capable to enjoy a little and are soon blunted by Enjoyment whereas Religion and Virtue do by the ravishing hopes of what we are to expect or the pleasant remembering of what we have done afford constantly new Scenes of Joy and which are justly augmented by the concurring Testimonies of the best of Mankind who applaud our Virtuous Actions and decry the Vitious So that the Virtuous Man is by as many degrees pleased beyond the Vicious as the past and future exceed the single moment of the present time or as many suffrages exceed one Nor doubt I but these who have relieved a starving Family by their Charity have feasted more upon the little which they have bestowed with Joy than ever Lucullus or Apicius did in all the delicacies their Cooks could invent I am convinced that any generous Gentleman would be much more troubled to think that his poor Tenants who toil for him are serued up to some degrees that look too like Oppression than he could be pleased with any Delicacies which that superplus of Rent could buy for him and that he who has rescued a poor innocent Creature from the Jaws of a ravenous Oppressor finds a greater Joy irradiated on his Spirit by the great and just Judge than any General does in that night wherein he has defeated his Enemies merely for his glory We remember to this day with veneration and esteem John the Baptists Locusts and Wild Hony but the deliciousness of Herods Feasts lasted no longer than the Tast and even the Pleasure of the present moment which the Luxurious only enjoy is much lessened by the prevailing Conviction which arises from that small remaining force which is still left in the reasonable Faculty of the most corrupted Men and which can never be so blinded as not to have some glimmerings whereby it can discover the ugliness and deformity of Vice It may surprise a serious Man to see that Men immediatly after being at the Sacrament of Baptism or about the Celebration of Marriage which all acknowledge to be of Divine Institution and which many own to be a Sacrament also they should run out immediately into such Luxurious Extravagancies as may make lookers on rather conclude that they acknowledge no God than that they are obliged to him for those great Mercies or that they hope by their Gratitude to improve them into Blessings Whether Avarice Prodigality or Luxury be the more dangerous and polluting Vice is less worth our care than the a voiding of all three But however it seems that Avarice lies under more disadvantages than any of the two For Prodigality and Luxury are useful to many Avarice to none These are ordinarily the Extravagancies of Youth and are cured by Age but the other grows stronger by it Interest and Self-Preservation may contribute much to cure these but both do argue most frequently to the advantage of Avarice These have a great deal of Liberality in their Composition and Prodigality has all that Liberality has except its Moderation whereas Avarice has nothing of Virtue in it Luxury wants many things but Avarice all things Luxury may seem the more desirable quality in a Governor because they who love to please themselves are observed to desire all