Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	father_n	flesh_n	son_n	7,126	5	5.5139	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70079	Golden remains of Sir George Freman, Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath being choice discourses on select subjects.	Freeman, George, Sir.; Freeman, Sarah, Lady.	1682 (1682)	Wing F2167B; ESTC R21279	41,541	130

promoted by our Essential consistency of Spirit and Body the material and bodily part always disposing us to the pursuance of Outward things contrary to the approbation of the Intellectual But since the depravation of Mans Will by the fall of Adam we are united to Errour and need not a Tempter to lead us out of the way for both the Principles of our Being do now dispose us to wrong Objects therefore to lay open this grand Fallacy it being in a matter of so great concernment as is the Eternal happiness or perdition of Men let us examine what is requisite to the constituting of true Pleasure To the making up then of true and real Pleasure I shall lay down these three Conditions as requisite First That the Object be suitable to the Soul Secondly That the Soul be put into Fruition of this suitable Object Thirdly That the perpetuity of this Fruition be ensur'd to it Now let us enquire whether External things considered simply in themselves and not relatively as they have respect to greater ends have these three Conditions in them or no. First then Is any External thing an Object suitable to the mind of Man I answer That no External thing is because they all want two Qualifications which are requisite to make an Object suitable to the mind the first of which is That it be congeneal and of the same nature with the Soul that is a substance immaterial or spiritual The second that it have in it a sufficiency to gratifie all the Appetites of the Soul First No outward thing is immaterial or spiritual for a spiritual substance comes not within the notice of our senses and though in Scripture we read of the appearing of Angels as three to Abraham two to Lot one to Cornelius another to S t Peter yet this must be suppos'd to have been by the assumption of bodies to which they were united not essentially but occasionally and pro tempore for in other places the Scripture tells us what their natures are calling them Spirits Psal. 104. vers 4. Heb. chap. 1. vers 14. and although I find no decisive Text for that Opinion of the Church of Rome that there is a Tutelary and a seducing Angel attending upon every Man and Woman and likewise Children which was indeed held amongst the Heathen under the terms of bonus and malus Genius yet it speaks indefinitely Heb. 1. 14. that they are all ministring Spirits for the Elect but notwithstanding their presence appears not to them when they come in their own Natures So likewise the Souls of Men are not within the notice of our senses being Spirits and incorporeal substances as Angels are for which we have the testimony of Scripture Man was made after the Image and Similitude of God But since the sense of these words Image and Similitude is much controverted in the Schools let us look into the twelfth of the Hebrews at the ninth verse Furthermore we had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live where Souls are called Spirits in opposition to flesh Besides the Testimony of Scripture we have a demonstration of their nature in the death of every Man for though the Soul be separated from the body yet the standers by see it not we hear nothing but the groans of the dying person caus'd by the motion of Parts we feel nothing but a coldness in the extremities of the body caused by the cessation of motion we smell nothing but a putrid savour caus'd by the corruption of humours neither do we tast any thing On the contrary all outward and corporeal things are obvious to some one of our senses for instance though we cannot hear the Light we can see it though we cannot see the Air we can feel it and though we taste not the white of an Egg yet we can see it or feel it and though we cannot smell a piece of Glass yet we can likewise see it or feel it and so of all material things that are at a due distance from the organs of our sense And here before we look into the second thing requisite let us examine why it is necessary that the Object be of the same nature with the Soul Thus then the Soul of Man being immaterial that which makes it happy by the fruition of it self must likewise be immaterial for as it is a fundamental in Physick that Nutrition is made by Similaries so likewise is this assertion true in the Metaphysical complacency between the Soul and the Object it cannot receive a proper supply from any thing that doth not bear an affinity with it in its substance and qualities This reciprocall delight between Parties is discoverable in every species of Created Beings and in every action in Natura naturata In Physicks flame and flame embrace one another but a furious conflict ariseth from the convention of fire and water in Morals goodness accords with goodness but vice will not be suffered to dwell with virtue and in the Metaphysical action of the contemplation of the Soul we see experimentally that she cannot content her self with inferiour Objects but is still seeking to her self some more excellent matter of delight which desires of the mind intelligent men may take notice of in themselves if they will be self-observers This appetite of the Soul is the reason why Solomon was not contented with all his clusters of delights though he turn'd over the whole world as it were yet he arrived not to the summ of his desires but still there remained in his spirit an appetite after something more than any exteriour thing could furnish him withall so that at last he openly proclaims them all to be excuse the catachresis but full of emptiness Seneca saith of Augustus Caesar that he delighted to talk of laying down the Scepter and of betaking himself to a recluse life And we read that the Emperour Charles the fifth resigned up the Low-Countries and Burgundy and afterward all the rest of his Dominions to his Son Philip in his life-time And of the Emperour Theodosius that he delivered up the charge of the Empire to his two Sons Arcadius and Honorius though with power to resume it which he never did and many other precedents of the same kind doth History present us withall of which it is reasonable to think that it was not only the troubles which usually attend Crowns caused this in them others being deputed to bear the greatest burdens in that kind but rather that all their enlargements could not present them with any thing agreeable to those secret appetites of their minds and this dissatisfaction there is in all the entertainments of sense by which it appears that the great capacities of the Soul can never be filled up with these lean and scanty Objects and whiles that Capacity is unsupplyed there will be a coveting of those things which are

the proper Objects of its nature and so long as there is that appetite the mind cannot be said to enjoy true pleasure But here I expect to have it objected to me That upon this account the Virtuous Man as well as the Sensualist cannot be said to enjoy true Pleasure because the former as well as the latter hath not while he is in the body his appetite satisfied To this I answer That when the mind is once set right and hath made a choice of that which is intrinsecally good and suitable to its nature immediately it begins to enjoy true Pleasure because although it do still desire more yet doth it not covet any thing better or of a more excellent nature than it hath already tasted of so that the desires of the mind are stopt quoad rem because it doth not covet any thing contrary to or desperate from what it hath already pitch't upon but not quoad mensuram rei because it desires to be put into a full fruition of that which it now enjoys but in part upon which account the Kingdom of Grace and Glory seem not to me to differ otherwise than gradually so that the Spiritual man hath something of that he desires but not all yet so much as he hath sufficeth to bring him true Pleasure though not to make up the integrality of it while the Sensual Man pursuing a wrong Object cannot possibly while he doth so arrive at true pleasure The second thing requisite to constitute or make an Object suitable to the mind is that it have wherewithal to gratifie all the appetites of the Soul but no external thing can accommodate the mind with more than it hath in it self that is it cannot entertain it with spiritual delights how far short will it prove then of satisfying the Soul with all it is capable of in spirituals this being more than any created Intelligence can administer to it for though we find many excellencies in Angels and the Souls of Men by the reason that they are intelligent Natures yet they have not that sufficiency in them which is requisite to an Object that is in all respects suitable to the mind which must not only present it with something spiritual and incorporeal but likewise with whatsoever it can covet within the genus of spiritual and immaterial existencies and this nothing can do but that satiating Plenitude which is only to be found in God which appears to be true by that propensity which Men of large apprehensions have to enquire into those remote Truths which yet they cannot see clearly into there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1. 19. which hath such a Magnetick virtue in it that it is alwayes drawing the Soul towards it self neither will the Spirit of Man be ever at rest till it be united to the Son of God and put into a full fruition of the Deity How do we hear even young Students wrangle about the dividing of a body into so small parts and that it is not capable of further division for not conceiving how it can be that so long as there remains something in quantity that quantity should not be capable of being separated at least Intellectu though not Actu and yet not understanding how a body can admit infinite separations they are still searching into this Abstrusity which remains with God What Battologies have we about Free-will and respective Decrees not being able to distinguish between the precognition of God and his concurrence of volition or necessitation how are we prying into the mystery of the Incarnation into the nature of the Trinity there are certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which S t Peter speaks of to be in S t Pauls Epistles which although they are things hard to be understood yet are we still coveting to comprehend them which aspirations of the Soul do shew that it was created for matters of a higher concernment than any created substance can furnish it withall from themselves for such things are to be found only in God inhesively or subjectively but they may be communicated to us by Angels who know them either by acquisition or divine infusion and these tendencies of the mind are arguments to me that the Soul of Man is capable of apprehending those abstracted Truths which it so covets to know while it is in the body because our pressing to know seem's to me to be an immediate effect of our wanting or being ignorant of something which our minds are comprehensive of and therefore Beatified spirits cease to desire more because their capacities are fill'd which is perfect Happiness ad modum recipientis But it may be objected That the Angels which fell desired to be equal with God but it was impossible it should be so therefore we must not measure our capacities by our desires To this I answer First that I do not believe they ever did because it must seem to be below the extent of their knowledge which reached to so vast a height to entertain with the least hopes such a childish Ambition but rather that their Lapse did arise from a spleen and malice to God for advancing Mankind so high or if it could be so we must distinguish between an undue and vitious and a natural or necessary act of the will I 'le suppose their's to have been an audacious and arbitrary willing of that which was ipso facto destructive to their happiness but these propensities of our Souls which God hath so infused into us that we cannot suppress them are continual willings as it were against our wills and are therefore natural and to be accounted of as the effects of our present defective state and these I am induced to believe will hereafter attain to what they have strain'd for here But not to make any farther digression Let us enquire into the second thing requisite to true Pleasure which is fruition It is not enough that there is in nature an Object suitable to the mind but there must be such an application of it to our persons as may make us true Possessors of it and here I cannot say exclusively that there is no fruition in the Pleasures of sense for were there not the Devil would have no train at his heels but they will be found to be very inconsiderable and equivalent with none at all And first let us consider the Glutton who makes not that the end of eating which he should namely the support of his natural life as S t Augustine Hoc mihi docuisti ut quemadmodum Medicamenta sic Alimenta sumpturus accedam How soon doth his sweet bit pass over the threshold of his tongue and then his Pleasure is over for that morsel consisting but in ipso transitu and although he puts in another and another yet it cannot be long e're his stomack will be filled and then he must cease repeating it till Nature or Art have disposed of the Load after a Scene of sick Qualms in the mean