Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	divine_a	ghost_n	holy_a	8,040	5	4.8433	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92748	Funeral sermon at the interrment of the very great and noble Charles late Earl of Southeske who died at his castle of Leuchars in the shire of Fife, upon the 9th. of August. And was interr'd at his burial-place near his house of Kinnaird in the shire of Angus, upon the 4th. of October 1699. By R.S. D.D.	Scott, Robert, D.D.	1699 (1699)	Wing S2081; ESTC R229815	16,859	28

and in the High Ways of the Countrey Or doth either the Urgency of our Affairs or the duty we owe to our friends settle us in any Society seldom or never do we dismiss or part from one another without some Notice or Memorial of Death given from the Fate of our Friends or Neighbours Or take we History in our hand whether Sacred or Prophane and scarce have we Celebrated the Birth and but a little Traced the Life when we are surprised with the Death of the greatest Hero's in the World How Familiar is Death made to us Day by Day in the common Occurrents of our Life and yet how little are we acquainted with the Shibboleth and Language of it or with the Work of the Grave For 1. So little Impression doth it make upon the Minds of Men to Day they are in the House of Mourning and either are or or ought to be deeply Affected with the Stupendous Changes that Death maketh upon the Persons and Families of their Friends and to Morrow their Discourses are as much Larded as ever with Foolish and Prophane Nauseating and truly defileing Jests and Entertainments Others are proud of having a Roman Spirit ascribed to them and therefore talk of Death with as much Superciliousness and Indifferency as these Sadducees against whom the Holy Apostle reasons in the forcited 1 Cor. 15.32 And of whom the Holy Prophet Esay taketh notice in his days Isai 22.13 the common Jargon of whose Communications was Let us eat drink and be merry for to morrow we must die Plutar. Let Epaminondas his Fortitude have all the Praise that the Grecian Ethicks did then deserve who being wounded at the Battle of Mantinea with a Dart or Spear the feathered end of which being broke off stuck in his Body and being told that so soon as it were plucked out he behoved to die took no other notice of the direful Advertisement than to ask first if his Shield were Safe and next if his Army was Victorious and being answered to both in the affirmative thought then fit to tell his Friends that he had lived long enough since he died unvanquished and then bid pluck out the Dart and with it breathed out his last But forgive me to prefer the digested Seriousness of the wise Solomon Eccles 12. who understood the Consequents and weighed the Work of Death in a deeper Recollection of Mind and therefore thought fit to pen a whole serious Chapter upon the different steps of its Approach though in a Natural way And the more ponderous account that Job's Friend makes of it Job 18.14 when he calls it the King of Terrors How great a Stranger and yet how familiar soever a Comerad it be found to the most of Men how little soever they seem to understand the Language of Death and the Work of the Grave so little impression doth it take upon the Minds of Men. II. So little Change doth it work upon their Lives they are alse False and Treacherous they are alse Proud and Vain they are alse Unjust and Unrighteous they are alse Intemperat and Unclean they are alse much sunk in Dotage upon the World they are alse much Strangers to the things of another Life as ever This is too too obvious in the Practice of many Profligats who in the time of their witnessing the Severity of Justice upon the Persons if not of their Accomplices yet of their Neighbours and Acquainrances can have the Hardiness or rather Stupidity to perpetrat the very Crimes for which they die So Picking and Stealing are commonly enough to be found at the Executions of Theeves and Robbers Or at the out-breaking of accidental Fires when the Lives and Goods of some are consumed in Merciless Flames the Hellish Hands of others are busied in carrying away what remains And when these Wicked and Ungodly Men Men Cruel and Unjust come themselves within View of Death seldom do we find them inclined to restore what they have unjustly taken How great Strangers must these needs be to the right Improvement of the Approaches of Death or to the Work of the Grave made Plainly evident in our two former Condescendences however familiar Death be made to them in the common Occurrents of their Lives O Tempora O Mores And thence it is that III. When they come to die they are either shaken with Fears or sunk in Confusion of Mind and no wonder for Death to them is die Executioner of a double Sentence at once strikeing off their Present Beeings and their future Hopes Their Life hath been bad and their Conscience is no better GOD is at Enmity with them and the Pit must needs stand open for them Thence come Horrors and deep Concussions of Mind the exact Reverse of Saint Paul his Prospect of Death Philipp 1.21 To me to live is Christ and to die is Gain But their Life being but a total Alienation from the Life of Christ their Death must necessarly lead them to these Fears and Confusions we speak of For a Wounded Spirit who can bear And it was an excellent Observation of Tacitus upon the Horrors that Tiberius the Emperor professed he dayly endured for his Bloody Cruelty Tandem said he Facinora Flagitia in Supplicium vertuntur At length Mens Sins become their Punishments Witnessing how little these Men have been acquainted with Death or busied about the Work of the Grave May we ask What can make Men Serious It seems nothing from without them can Should Almighty God order a Dreadful Spectre in all the Formidable Shapes in which we can fancy or represent Death to hang about a Mans Body from his Cradle to his Grave at least from his Riper Years when he becometh capable of Rational and Solid Fear We may presume after a short times Familiarity it should become but like the common Scar-Crow which is set up to fright Birds from the early or tender Seed which in a little sit down upon it without Fear This hath been the common Disease of Mankind from the beginning of the World to this day Hence was it that by all the terrible Appearances that GOD made in his Theocracy and immediat Government he took over die Jews they were not frighted unto their Duty or at least kept in it for any considerable time So was it with all the Miracles that the Blessed Jesus did in his Theophania or Divine Appearance amongst Men Notwithstanding of all which His very Disciples and Apostles were not inviolably knit to him or the Work which he came to do in the World You know that one betrayed another denyed and all forsook him upon the first Approach of a Tryal but the Truth is these were Men not yet arrived at these Measures of Grace and Divine Illumination they attained to at the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon them after the Resurrection of our Lord so that nothing from without is like to work upon the Spirits of Men. How just is that Answer which Abraham gave to Dives