Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	eye_n	light_n	see_v	6,470	5	4.2726	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33729	A reply to the Answer of the man of no name to His Grace the Duke of Buckingham's paper of religion, and liberty of conscience by G. C. ...	Care, George.	1685 (1685)	Wing C504; ESTC R6951	14,712	36

precarious is all this First Assert and then If he mistakes not the Duke meant so But if the Duke meant not so then he is mistaken and the Duke could not mean as he states his understanding of it For though he takes leave to mistake the Duke the Duke does not mistake himself There is not one Word of Humane Reason in the Question nor is Humane Reason that Instinct of the Deity We have a Natural Capacity to apprehend Divine things but 't is that Instinct which gives us the Religious use of it All Men that have Eyes have the Capacity of seeing but without light they cannot see Pray who was he that said There is a Spirit in Man but the Inspiration of the Almighty gives Vnderstanding and that Whatsoever may be known of God is manifested in Man Rom. 1. By what else is it that the Prophet declares That God tells unto Man his thoughts And St. Paul expresly says That those that had not the Law became a Law unto themselves By what if not by this Instinct this Synteresis their Conscience accusing or exeusing them before God And St. John goes farther who says If our Hearts condemn us God is greater but if our Hearts condemn us not then have we boldness before God And does this make as much for the Alcoran as for the Scripture and Pythagoras's Writings as St. Pauls's Epistles The Duke spoke to a peculiar Rank of Men Wits without much Religion to give Religion the beginnings of Credit with them He did not say That was enough That Scripture or other external helps were useless or not requisite And yet when all is done we must chuse for our selves and not by the Political Reason of Community or else we shall believe upon Authority and not upon Conviction which was not the Christian way St. Paul bids us Pray with understanding and if so surly our understanding ought to be satisfied to whom and how to pray And this Gentleman makes it an Error not to pray knowingly and if so certainly we should have some Reason for our Hope too And therefore I cannot perswade my self to believe that Noble Peer writ like a Minor when he proceds to this Deduction That it is one of the greatest Crimes a Man can be guilty of to Force us to act against that Instinct of Religion and something a kin to the Sin against the Holy Ghost This Notion the Gentleman throws with scorn at the Quakers an Honest and well-meaning People and if this be a Kin to their Doctrine they are sounder than he that despises them And to say true He does them greater Honour than it may be he is aware of But why not believe upon Conviction For Whatever is not of Faith St. Paul tells us is Sin And Force upon any Man's Conscience must overthrow the Reason of this Fear Faith and Hope For how dark and feeble any Man's Conscience is Force brings no Light no Knowledge It may distract doubt and so damn But I cannot enough admire at the Conclusions this Gentleman draws from this most Inoffensive and Orthodox Expression The First is this That Reason is the Guide of every Man's Religion This is spurious For though he that embraces a Religion without Reason has no more Religion than my Horse yet a Man 's own Reason so rectified is not the Guide of Man in his Religion for his Reason is that which is to be Guided His Second is yet more Extravagant viz. That Divine Revelation is not necessary to Salvation In which he has bid boldly for there is not a word in the Duke's Discourse about it He asserts the Divine Instinct That it inclines and disposes Men to be Religious That they are to be commended that beat a sincere Respect to it But not a word that Men should not crave further Help or read the Holy Scriptures that contain our Revealed Religion On the contrary he tells us He therefore wav'd the Vse of them in this Discourse because of the Persons to whose Condition he calculated it Were it not a sine Conclusion in this Doctor to say A Man that goes to Rochester shall never come to Canterbury though it be in the Way and the better part of it Just so Reasonable his Consequence is against the Duke But he advances in his Humour of perverting his Words for the Third Consequence he draws in his Name is this That it is a most horrid Sin to lead Men out of Errors pag. 13. when there is not one word of Leading in the Question For the Duke says To Force and he infers To Lead His Words are That it is one of the greatest Crimes a Man can be guilty of To Force us to act or sin against that Instinct of Religion and something a-kin to the Sin against the Holy Ghost The Duke says To force Men to sin he says To lead Men out of Errors As if Leading and Forcing were the same when one is the way of Perswasion and the other of Fines and Prisons I cannot tell what this Gentleman would not say he may as honestly apprehend a Beggar on the Road for an High-way-Man His Fourth and last Consequence he bestows upon this Noble Peer is this pag. 13. That Men who believe a God and follow the Dictates of Reason in his Worship may be saved in any in all Religions provided they know not a better And what if he had said so It had shewn his Charity Does not God wink in times of Ignorance And what is Knowing no better but a State of Ignorance Is there no Allowance for Times Places and Conditions Certainly this Man thinks Aristotle and St. Paul are as much below him as he is above the Duke of Buckingham This is riding Tantivy through thick and thin But to Answer his short yet full This Charge upon his Grace charges himself First That Faith in God and the Dictates of Reason can swallow all sorts of Religion for he excepts not the most Idolatrous yet sets up Reason elsewhere to judge of true Religion pag. 14 36. And Men must leave Reason when they fall under Superstition and Idolatry Secondly That this Hero is for chusing his Religion without Reason And that 's not worth a Fig with his leave Thirdly That the Duke does not prefer Christianity by the Course of his Deductions which he plainly does pag. 18. But after he hath shewn the Duke's Weakness or Mistake in his Opinion to make him abler than he found him and the Book worthier the Reader 's notice with a Modesty almost equal to his Reason he tells us NOW IF I WERE TO DISCOVRSE AN ATHEIST pag. 9. and IF I HAD BEEN TO FOLLOW HIS GRACE's BLOW I would have urged This and I would have done That c. By which I perceive this Gentleman is better natur'd than Sir Jo. Falstaff that being call'd upon for a Reason for what he said answer'd That if Reasons were as rife as Black-Berries he would not give him one I have seen

half a Whig and his Answerer it t'other half who tells us That his opinions have ever been Diametrically opposite to those of his Grace's Paper and whose Book it self is Persecution And is it not a pretty thing to consider that the Bill and Answer the Plaintiff and Defendant as he calls them should make up one Whig But to do it when Whiggism is super-annitated and looks like a cast Mistris and is contemn'd of all heightens the Man's Admiration And perhaps he knew the Duke when he did not use to make such stale choices too But to make him amends the Man places it to his Compassion which is yet Satyr enough upon himself that not only has none but makes it Whiggish in that Noble Person to Pity Age and Necessity Mad he must be or he would not yield away so great a Vertue to so ill a thing But is she super-annuated and cast pray why then feared in one part and loved so fondly in another by this Knight of the Robe She is but half Cast the Toleration side is only super-annuated with him t'other is not above Eighteen yet fresh strong and ruddy in his Desires at least And that she may live longer a-that side he is blowing Breath through his Quill as fast as he can And to say true he has Air enough to help her But when all is done he will make an Ill Mistress of her for she is to be Old and Cast if not Dead a one side still This is her Palsie and his Phrensie I am of Opinion when he thinks what he has done he will like his young Gallant Pag. 6. cry a Pox upon Consequences I hate Consequences So Pragmatical so Incongruous and so Indiscreet has the Gentleman been in his hasty Attaque But to come to the body of his pretended Answer After telling us p. 6. He will not Anatomize nor Dissect each Nerve and Muscle of His Grace 's Paper though else where it has neither in his Opinion and that he hates Hashing of Books and serving them up with Limon and Anchovies turning Chryrurgeon and Cook in a breath he says He will deliver his thoughts in a lump as if he had a mind to a Pudding more than a Hash The Truth is he has little Shape and less Life and therefore the Gentleman has in one word Whiglike turn'd Gossip to his own Chits with more propriety than is in all his Book beside But let 's look upon his Lump a little further First he says His Grace has taken an Improper way to confute the wity Atheist or Establish Religion And why so Because the changeableness of the World does not disprove its Eternity any more than the Mutations of his Grace's Body alters him from being that George D. of Buckingham that he was Forty Years ago But the D. of Buckingham does not pretend to be the same Man that he was Forty Years ago and would give this Gentleman Ten thousand pound to make him so And to say true he that says A changing World is Eternal is not many removes from that which we call a Changling For though a Man be the same as to his Faculties and Properties Yet we have fresh Spirits and Flesh and this World has its Alterations and Renewings too What the first Matter was and how formed and which way it subsists are much beyond us yet the more we look into them the more we are led from the Regular Motions and Seasons of the Fabrick we see with the distinct kinds and species of Creatures therein to Conclude and Admire a Prior and Superior Being A Man that is a Creature of time may be said to be and in some cases not to be the same for he is not the same in the same Being always but an Eternal thing cannot be so varied And 't is fallacious to argue from a Man's being the same Man under changes to the World 's being Eternally the same World under Changes since it were to say That a thing were the same in that in which It changes for that were to be in that which is not or is not any more that which it was The supeamest Non-sence a Man can be guilty of The Duke was not strict in this matter and his Answer is stricter with him than wise especially when he faults him in a thing Disputable and yet promises not to disturb but improve his Arguments for a God But so unhappy is the Genius of this Gentleman that he frequently breaks his Word though be breaks his Head with it There are but three of four things the Duke goes upon That the World did not make it self That he that made it is God That he was dignified Man with something more Excellent than what belongs to other Creatures That this makes him look and hope beyond Death therefore Immortality probable That those that do well shall be Happy the contrary Miserable That to this Choice they are free and uncompell'd And lastly That none should Extinguish Men's Religious Impressions by forcing them against their Perswasion These Sober and Worthy Thoughts might have been better treated 'T is true he says pag. 7. his Notions are very fine and many of them very natural and true but not too Logical No matter for that he Writ like a Gentleman and not a Pedant But to see how true this person is to himself within six lines after the Character of many natural and true Notions he tells us without blushing though not without confusion That the Consequences which necessarily follow the Duke's Conceptions are greatly to the disadvantage not only of Religion but of the politick Frame and Government of the World I cannot imagine which way and he has carefully avoided to inform me But I cannot see how the Government of the Great Turk and the Great Mogul are concern'd in the Duke of Buckingham's Book They may indeed if they could read it because he Recommends to all Men the Christian Religion pag. 18. And if I know any thing the Consequence of his Contradictory Assertion is That the Mogul must be Infidel still and the Great Turk must be a Mahometan still For this good Christian goes upon this Principle That the Religion Establish'd by Law ought therefore to be Conformed to of all and consequently Liberty even to Christian's Consciences is dangerous to the Political Frame of that Government that is not Christian He proceeds to oppose the Duke's Deduction in Reference to the Worship of God pag. 11 12. For in truth says he if his Argumentation be allowed here is as fair a plea for the ALCORAN as the NEW TESTAMENT for PYTHAGORAS's GOLDEN VERSES as St. PAVL's EPISTLES For if I be not mistaken in what his Grace calls that Part of us which is nearest a-kin to the Nature of God and the Instinct of a Deity this must be humane Reason not as Regulated by any Publick and Politick Reason of a Community but as every private person's Reason shall dictate But how unjust and