Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	faith_n	soul_n	word_n	7,065	5	4.2672	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38573	Witt against wisdom, or, A panegyrick upon folly penn'd in Latin by Desiderius Erasmus ; render'd into English.; Moriae encomium. English	Erasmus, Desiderius, d. 1536.; Kennett, White, 1660-1728.	1683 (1683)	Wing E3215; ESTC R15011	99,706	204

and fetter'd by the gross particles of Matter so that she can neither freely range after nor when haply overtook can quietly contemplate her proper Object of Truth Farther Plato defines Philosophy to be the meditation of Death because the one performs the same office with the other namely withdraws the mind from all visible and corporeal objects therefore while the Soul does patiently actuate the several organs and members of the Body so long is a man accounted of a good and sound disposition but when the Soul weary of her confinement struggles to break Jail and flie beyond her cage of flesh and bloud then a man is censured at least for being maggoty and crack-braind nay if there be any defect in the external organs it is then termed down-right madness And yet many times persons thus affected shall have Prophetick Extasies of foretelling things to come shall in a Rapture talk languages they never before learned and seem in all things actuated by somewhat Divine and Extraordinary And all This no doubt is only the effect of the Soul's being more released from its engagement to the Body whereby it can with less impediment exert the energy of Life and Motion From hence no question has sprung an observation of like nature confirmed now into a settled Opinion That some long experienced Souls in the world before their dislodging arrive to the height of Prophetick spirits If this disorder arise from an intemperance in Religion and too high a strain of Devotion though it be of a somewhat differing sort yet it is so near a kin to the former that a great part of mankind apprehend it as a meer Madness especially when persons of that superstitious humour are so pragmatical and singular as to separate and live apart as it were from all the world beside So as they seem to have experienc'd what Plato dreams to have happened between some who inclosed in a dark cave did only ruminate on the Ideas and Abstracted speculations of Entities and one other of their company who had got abroad into the open light and at his return tells them what a blind mistake they had lain under that he had seen the substance of what their dotage of imagination reach'd only in shadow that therefore he could not but pity and condole their deluding dreams while they on the other side no less bewail his phrensie and turn him out of their society for a Lunatick and Madman Thus the vulgar are wholly taken up with those objects that are most familiar to their senses beyond which they are apt to think All is but Fairy-land while those that are devoutly Religious scorn to set their thoughts or affections on any things below but mount their soul to the pursuit of incorporeal and invisible Beings The former in their marshalling the requisites of Happiness place Riches in the front the endowments of the Body in the next rank and leave the accomplishments of the Soul to bring up the rear nay some will scarce believe there is any such thing at all as the Soul because they cannot literally see a reason of their faith while the other pay their first-fruits of service to that most simple and imcomprehensible Being God employ themselves next in providing for the happiness of that which comes nearest to their immortal Soul being not at all mindful of their corrupt bodily carcasses and slighting money as the dirt and rubbage of the world Or if at any time some urging occasions require them to become intangled in secular affairs they do it with regret and a kind of ill will observing what St. Paul advises his Corinthians Having wives and yet being as though they had none Buying and yet remaining as though they possessed not There are between these two sorts of persons many differences in several other respects As first though all the Senses have the same mutual relation to the Body yet some are more gross than others as those five corporeal ones of Touching Hearing Smelling Seeing Tasting whereas some again are more refined and less adulterated with Matter such are the Memory the Understanding and the Will Now the Mind will be alway most ready and expedite at that to which it is naturally most inclined Hence is it that a pious soul imploying all its power and abilities in the pressing after such things as are farthest removed from Sense is perfectly stupid and brutish in the management of any worldly affairs while on the other side the vulgar are so intent upon their business and imployment that they have not time to bestow one poor thought upon a future Eternity From such ardour of Divine meditation was it that St. Bernard in his study drank Oyl instead of Wine and yet his thoughts were so taken up that he never observ'd the Mistake Farther among the Passions of the Soul some have a greater communication with the Body than others as Lust the desire of meat and sleep Anger Pride and Envy with these the Pious man is in continual war and irreconcileable enmity while the Vulgar cherish and soment them as the best comforts of Life There are other affections of a middle nature common and innate to every man such are Love to ones Country Duty to Parents Love to Children Kindness to Friends and such like to these the Vulgar pay some respect but the Religious endeavour to supplant and eradicate from their Soul except they can raise and sublimate them to the most refined pitch of Virtue so as to love or honour their Parents not barely under that character for what did they do more than generate a Body nay even for that we are primarily beholden to God the first Parent of all Mankind but as Good men only upon whom is imprinted the lively image of that Divine nature which they esteem as the chief and only Good beyond whom nothing deserves to be beloved nothing desired By the same Rule they measure all the other offices or Duties of Life in each of which whatever is earthly and corporeal shall if not wholly rejected yet at least be put behind what Faith makes the substance of things not seen Thus in the Sacraments and all other Acts of Religion they make a difference between the outward appearance or body of them and the more inward Soul or Spirit As to instance in Fasting they think it very ineffectual to abstain from flesh or debar themselves of a meals meat which yet is all the vulgar understand by this duty unless they likewise restrain their passions subdue their anger and mortifie their pride that the Soul being thus disingaged from the intanglement of the body may have a better rellish to Spiritual Objects and take an Antepast of Heaven Thus say they in the holy Eucharist though the outward Form and Ceremonies are not wholly to be despised yet are these prejudicial at least unprofitable if as bare Signs only they are not accompanied with the thing signified which is the body and bloud of Christ whose

from their Subjects or Provocations from their Allies which in a more settled posture they would scorn to bear or comply with Thus as the Reasons of each are parallel though the Cases be as widely different as the Confidence of speaking Truth and the Impudence of a Lie our Government can now find courage enough to sentence and suppress such treasonable and seditious Libels which not so long since perk't up with undaunted foreheads and stared even Majesty it self out of countenance Yet however our Author was not questioned by publick Authority we are sure that he hereby gall'd and chafed several not only of his profession in general but of his more intimate friends and acquaintance among which his beloved Dorpius with whom he had contracted as near a familiarity as personal conference and frequent correspondence could either occasion or improve was so nettled at the first appearance of this Tract that he sends him a rattling Reproof to which though Erasmus subjoyned a very reconciling Reply yet we have good grounds to presume that they were never afterwards cordially Friends And Lister who in Erasmus his life-time republished this Treatise with his own Notes or Commentaries undertook this task not so much out of respect to his friend the Author or care for the promotion of Learning as he did to salve and palliate the several reflexions upon the then fashionable Religion as will appear to any indifferent observer who cannot but see that the obscurities and difficulties of the Text which perhaps are too few and mean to need any explication are but slightly toucht at while great pains and caution is imployed in either perverting or at least mollifying those passages which lay too heavy a hand upon any of their hallowed corruptions Nay the whole Catholick party were so incensed at his liberty of Reflecting that though for the fore-hinted inducements they did not by any formal Interdict send him in person to the Devil while alive yet since his death they have dispatcht him half way to Hell in Effigie and few of their late Historians do any where occasionally mention him without some little wiping character as it were easie to find materials for instances in several particulars Yet what was sure to be the consequence and indeed was but just he impaired his esteem with the Romanists at no faster a rate than he advanced his reputation with the Reformed especially here in England where a Translation of his Paraphrase on the New Testament was in the first of Edward the Sixth ordered to be placed in all Parish Churches and in some of them to this day remains The method whereof is very profitable and the sttile both easie and eloquent yet on some Texts there is imposed but an harsh Interpretation as I am in one particular more especially engaged to take notice because the same sense is given of the same passage toward the latter end of this following piece where animadverting upon the disingenuity of Commentators he singles out Franciscus de Lyrâ who treating on that Text of St. Luke c. 22. v. 36. He that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one had without much impropriety taken the whole literally though indeed with a very extravagant Inference for the Legitimacy of Private Defence in case of Persecution Our Author might reasonably arraign this Deduction of a dangerous Influence but not ●ontent with this he proceeds and as well ●ere as in his Paraphrase maintains That the Sentence is such a sort of Metaphor as by the Sword must be understood that only of the Spirit It is true a great many Commentators interpret the sense Figuratively yet so as the word Sword shall be taken for neither Material nor Spiritual but only denote the foretelling of Persecution and caution the providing for Tribulation and Martyrdom Yet some other Expositors do with more of Naturalness and perhaps not less of Truth apprehend the words literally and conclude That our Saviour hereby authorised his Disciples to be furnished with weapons for security against the assaults of private Robbers who at that time Iosephus observes were very numerous These same Arms which might be employed for the preventing private Pillage or Assassination were to be laid down on all other the most urging provocations at the feet of Publick Authority of which when there appear'd but a bare face our Lord commands Peter to sheath his sword and threatens that whoever upon any such occasion did hereafter take it should perish by it This may perhaps be thought too serious and as so impertinent for the introducing so light and Comical an Argument But it ought to be supposed proper enough since it has an immediate relation to a passage in the following Discourse wherein with submission I presume the Author was a little too bold in his Comment and in some measure incurs the same guilt himself which he so smartly upbraided in others His misunderstanding of which may however be the more meriting an excuse because it may well be supposed to have been occasioned by an honest defign of promoting Unity Peace and Charity in the obviating that pretence which was by some drawn from this very Text of propagating Christianity by all the most enforcing methods of Torture War and Slaughter as if the teaching of Nations were to be accompanied with the Baptizing them in Bloud and Converts must have their own wounds to bleed before they could become sensible of the benefits of a wounded and bleeding Saviour There needs no Excuse for any other Failure through the following Discourse so that to remove the guard to that place which the enemy may find easiest to attaque I must divert the Apology for the Author to one more requisite for the Translator Against whom beside all other piques and exceptions there will no question be pointed this thrusting Objection namely That this same Piece of Wits Pageantry has been twice already cloath'd in our Mother-tongue so that the Republishing at least of one of these Translations might have superseded the trouble of a new one It may I hope be no scandal to confess That till after my first Onset I had neither by Sight nor Report gathered any intimation of the fore-stalement herein of which I were yet the less inquisitive because the Person who imposed on me the Undertaking took the Negative for granted though he stood in better circumstances of being informed and was more concerned in the consequence But allowing the worst Re-translations of late have been so successively performed so much to the service of the present times and justice to the first Authors that Attempts of like nature can be no longer invidious if they are grounded on the same Inducements and do answer the same End and Design How far I can square my Apology by this Rule will in part appear by this following Observation Originals of one language are differently to be rendred into another according to their respective Matter and Subject In an argument of