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	holy_a	nature_n	6,952	5	5.5158	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43464	A sermon preach'd at the funeral of the Honourable Col. Francis Collingwood, and of his lady who were both interr'd in St. John's Church, in the island of Nevis in America, May the 29th and May the 31st, 1699 / by Tho. Heskith ...	Heskith, Thomas.	1700 (1700)	Wing H1623; ESTC R12027	10,155	32

And therefore if we keep not a strong guard upon all our Passions if we pray not daily for the assistance of Divine Grace and for the conduct of God's Holy Spirit it 's a thousand to one but we fall from our Integrity and Vertue For a little Leaven our Saviour tells us leavens the whole Lump And that Saying of St. Paul is an experimental Truth That evil Communications corrupts good Manners Vice and Irreligion are of an infectious nature and they will as certainly destroy the Life of Godliness as the Plague will destroy the Body For without that Sovereign Antidote of assisting and confirming Grace 't will be impossible to keep any considerable Fellowship with the Sons of Wickedness and at the same time not to be infected by them Let good Men use the greatest Cautions in this Case imaginable let them set the strongest Guards let them put on the whole Armour of God and when they have done all they can they 'll find it no small difficulty to keep themselves unspotted from the World i. e. from the evil Communications and Corruptions of it The best Men in the World if they converse much in it will receive a Tincture from it Thus we find that the Holy Patriarch Vice-Roy of Egypt by conversing with that Court had learn'd to swear by the Life of Pharaoh The power of Example's strong especially when it 's back'd with Earthly Grandeur and Secular Interest when those that fit at the Helm of Government love vitious and irregular Lives their very Example is a authentick Copy for the rest to write by So that for this end and for several other Considerations tending to this purpose God is pleas'd oftentimes to remove pious Men out of this World lest their Innocence should be sullied and their Vertue debauch'd by the wicked Practises of the Ungodly But it 's high time that I should enter upon the last thing proposed which is to consider the Character of that Honourable Gentleman and his Lady which are lately taken away from us and to conclude the Discourse with an Application of the whole to our present Circumstances And to speak without Flattery I do not know but that God hath taken away a great part of this Family that their Eyes might not behold the Evil which he 's resolv'd to bring upon this Place This I must confess is a weighty Saying but I wish that there were not so many Reasons as there are to engage us to the belief of it Let us not flatter our selves For that Government or Body Politick whose Head and Members are unsound and sickly must needs be near its Grave its Ruine and Destruction Iniquity will certainly be the Ruine of any People if the Mercies of God and a serious Repentance prevent it not But that I may do all possible Justice to the Memory of this deceas'd Hero it 's needful that we consider him in all his Qualities First As he descended from the Loins of an Honourable Family a Family as antient as most in the North of England But that which makes it the more illustrious is That it hath not wanted for some Ages such Men as have been serviceable to the Crown and Government of England And I think I may say that among all the Braves that have sprung from that Family this Hero of whom I have the sad occasion to discourse at this time is none of the Least especially if we consider him under that Notion of a Soldier or of an Officer So soon as he left the Schools which was in his earlier Years his Genius rather prompting him to follow Mars than Minerva the Camp rather than the College He was sent with very powerful Recommendations into the Army where he had not been long until he was Commission'd to have a pair of Colours in which Post he behaved himself with all that Affability and Sweetness of Temper that his Society and Conversation was courted by All as if he had been the very Darling and Delight of Mankind And as he grew in Years so his Conversation became the more winning and obliging And in every Step of Honour the King was pleas'd to advance him to he behav'd himself in all respects as a brave and prudent Officer And which is very remarkable the Advancement of his Honour never alter'd the Sweetness of his Temper he retain'd the same Modesty the same Humility and Evenness of Mind when he arriv'd to that Honourable Post in which he died as he did whilst he was in an inferior Capacity What the Maiden Queen made use of for her Motto might very properly be applied to our Hero Semper idem No State or Condition of Fortune whether prosperous or adverse could change or alter the Disposition of his Soul He kept the same evenness of Mind and firmness of Temper amidst the Rocks and Shelves as he did when his Sails were fill'd with a prosperous Gale His Soul was too great to be sunk by Adversity too firm and steady to be turned away by the swelling Tides of Prosperity But I must not only consider him as a Civil or Moral but as a Military Person as a man of bravery and honour and to make good this part of his Character I shall only instance in two Particulars not but that upon every occasion when he was call'd to it he gave signal Proofs of his Conduct and Courage And these two shall be in that of Landen and Namure two great and illustrious Instances indeed both of them I am sure beyond the reach of Malice and probably the latter beyond that of Imitation As for that of Landen notwithstanding the great Inequality and Number of his Enemies he bravely charg'd in the face of them and as bravely maintain'd his Ground until at length being overpower'd by their Numbers he was forc'd to retreat in order to save the remains of a shatter'd Regiment But as for the Latter when he was ordered to attack one of the Glacy's of the Town of Namure With what cheerful Countenance did he receive the Command With what a pleasant Air did he head that brave Body And with what an unconcern'd bravery did he march through a field of Blood and Wounds How lightly did he esteem the hazard and boldly despise all these Engines of Death that were planted against him for his ruin Nay With what a fearless Presence of mind did he endeavour to make good his Post when fifty fell at his right hand and fifty at his left The Greatest Monarch in the World I mean his Royal Master beheld the Action with these two contrary Passions of Delight and Fear with Delight to behold the unparallel'd bravery of such an Attempt of Fear lest he should be depriv'd of so great an Officer The truth of it is the glory of that Day and Action is so much his own as neither Time nor Envy shall be able to obliterate the Fame thereof The Maes and Sambre shall sooner leave their Channels and the Sun and Moon

Graves in Peace Amongst the many inexplicable Mysteries of Providence this is not the least That God often-times makes use of divers methods in order to translate good and pious men to another State Sometimes Providence commissions a Destroying Angel to draw his Sword and to make whole Kingdoms desolate Thus the Angel of the Lord in one Night slew of the Assyrians a hundred forescore and five thousand And 't is not to be doubted but that in such a vast Number there were a great many moral good men who though they never had the advantages of Divine Revelation yet they wisely manag'd their Lives according to those natural Principles writ upon their Minds And thus God was pleas'd to suffer a great many of his faithful Servants to fall by the cruel and the bloody Sword of the insulting Babylonians And thus it happen'd in that last and great Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus the Son of Vespasian when all were met together to worship before and to sacrifice to the Lord their God Commissioned Death made no distinction betwixt the clean and the unclean between him that served God and him that served him not all sunk in the common Calamity And thus we find God hath dealt with Mankind in these latter Ages in the burning of Cities and in the plundering of Countries in all those Ruins made by Inundations and Earthquakes there has been no distinction made between good and bad for we find that they have been all equal Sufferers And indeed to speak reasonably it cannot be expected otherwise without a Miracle For when Judgments are universal without a distinguishing Providence all must partake of the same Fate The Righteous and the Wicked they are all mix'd whether it be in City Town or Country And therefore if the Neighbour-hood suffer some good Man or other must have a share in it The mixture of the good and bad in this Life is excellently represented by that Parable of the Wheat and Tares Where ever there 's one there 'll be the other for there 's no seperating these two Now the Wheat and Tares signifying unto us good and evil Men and this World the spacious Field wherein they are both sown we can never suppose any part of this Field to be destroy'd but we must conclude that some part of the Wheat must sink in the common Fate Thus we find in that Parable that when the Servants of the Houshold ask'd their Master if they should go and gather up the Tares that he answer'd Nay and he gave them this Reason least that whilst they gathered the one they should destroy the other And therefore his Opinion was that they should grow both together until the time of Harvest and when that came he would order each to be gather'd to their proper place the Wheat to his Garner and the Tares to be burnt with Fire But then again sometimes we find Providence picking out the good from amongst the bad with a mighty caution and surprizing Silence taking them away as it were by stealth and undiscernably until there 's not One left that doth good not One. This I must confess looks Judgment-like as if God had a Controversy with that place and people resolving to destroy them Thus we find that God brought Abijah the Son of Jeroboam to the Grave in Peace because in him only of that Family there was found some good thing towards the Lord And therefore upon that Score God could not destroy that Race until he had remov'd the pious Youth And this was the case of that godly Prince King Josiah God was resolv'd to take him away from that evil which he had threatned and denounc'd against the Kingdom of Judah that he might neither be a Partaker nor an Eye-witness of their Ruine I will gather thee unto thy Fathers and unto the Grave in Peace and thine Eyes shall not see the Evil which I will bring upon this Place So that God seldom or never takes good and pious Men out of any Place or Country but when he resolves to destroy and ruine the same And surely were but this great Truth seriously consider'd it would make this infidel and unbelieving Generation look about Them it would engage them to set a greater value upon Piety and Religion and to receive and caress the Ministers of Christ's Gospel with a greater warmth and zeal than they have done But I am afraid I must say of thee O Nevis as our Saviour in tears said to Jerusalem O thou that ston'st the Prophets and those that are sent unto thee How often would I have gathered thee under my Protection and Government but thou would'st not for Thou dost not believe and consequently wilt not practise those things which belong to thy Peace But then Thirdly I shall go on to give some Reasons why God is pleased very often to remove good and vertuous Men out of this Life that they may neither see nor partake of the approaching Evil. And First then It 's very reasonable to suppose that God sometimes takes away the Good from the Evil to come lest they should be destroy'd by those Judgments which He 's resolv'd to discharge upon the Wicked This Truth is very evident from that Parable of the Tares for the Master of the Houshold was well satisfied that it was an impossible Attempt to root out the one without prejudicing the other Good and Bad Men being so mix'd together in this World joined so near in their Habitations in their Lands and Interests in their Relations and other mutual Dependencies It 's impossible without the expence of a Miracle for God to save the one whilst he destroys the other But we find that this is God's usual method never to make use of Miracles for the accomplishment of his purpose whilst ordinary means will serve the turn God can easily execute his Wrath upon the Wicked to their utter Destruction without any detriment to the Good and Pious by removing them out of the way by Death or otherwise Thus God sav'd Noah and his Family from perishing by VVater when he resolv'd to destroy the whole Race of Mankind And thus God was pleas'd to remove Lot to little Zoar that he might the more effectually destroy Sodom Not that we ought to suppose that God's sparing the Righteous and punishing the VVicked in this Life are all and the only proper Rewards and Punishments of Vertue and Vice No but God is willing to preserve the good from perishing with the bad left Piety should be disregarded or lest the VVicked should triumph and say Surely there 's no Reward for the Righteous But then Secondly Another Reason why God takes away the good from the Evil to come is lest that by the power of Example and the growing Wickedness of the place they live in they should be tempted to desert Religion and a godly Life The best of Men and Women here are but imperfectly Holy As the Apostle saith We know and see but in part