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	holy_a	trinity_n	9,904	5	10.2376	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54460	A sermon preach'd before the King and Queen in Their Majesties chappel at Windsor, on Trinity-Sunday, May 30. 1686 by the Reverend Father John Persall ...	Persall, John, 1633-1702.	1686 (1686)	Wing P1651; ESTC R11064	11,103	35

A SERMON Preach'd before the King and Queen IN Their MAJESTIES Chappel at Windsor on Trinity-Sunday May 30. 1686. By the Reverend Father JOHN PERSALL Of the Society of JESUS Professor of Divinity Published by His Majesties Command LONDON Printed by Henry Hills Printer to the King 's most Excellent Majesty for his Houshold and Chappel 1686. A SERMON Preach'd before THEIR MAJESTIES On Trinity-Sunday May 30. 1686. In Nomine Patris Filii Spiritûs Sancti Matth. c. 28. v. 19. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Matth. c. 28. v. 19. THE Inscrutable Mystery of the most Blessed Trinity propos'd to our Veneration in this Days Solemnity is so sublime that no Created Intellect can reach it the most high-flying Wits fall infinitely short of it so profound and deep that the most penetrating Judgments cannot fathom it so infinite in all its Excellencies and Perfections that neither Humane nor Angelical Capacity can comprehend it The great St. Augustin thought it once worth his labour to employ his noble Thoughts in discovery of these admirable Secrets that are couch'd in this Sacred Mystery he walks by the Sea-shore contemplating the Divine Processions and Relations a true Trinity of Persons in a perfect Unity of Substance the Father Son and Holy Ghost three really distinct Persons yet so that the Father is in the Son the Son is in the Father the Holy Ghost in the Father and the Son all three in each by a strict Identity of one Substance The Father is not the Son the Son is not the Holy Ghost the Holy Ghost is neither Father nor Son and yet the Father Son and Holy Ghost are one and the same thing Lat. 4. c. 2. Idem omnino In the middle of these Thoughts St. Augustin's Eyes chanced to glance upon a Child just by the Sea-side very busie in lading out the Sea into a little Pit he had made there and asking him what he meant to do the Child answer'd To empty the Sea into this Pit But dost thou not see says the Saint that thy Pit is too little to hold all those Waters I can more easily do this replies the Child than you compass what you are about Thus Almighty God did teach this great Servant of his how little proportion all Humane Industry has 〈◊〉 order to the understanding this ineffable and incomprehensible Mystery far less than the Child's little Pit in order to contain an Ocean of Waters Yet for all this St. Augustin ceased not from contemplating this great Mystery of which he wrote Fifteen Learned Books besides divers Sermons but he changed his way of Speculating he studies no more to understand it and therefore to How can this be he ever answers Nescio I know not I am a Christian I believe it I adore I reverence respect and love it but to understand it comprehend it express it as it is I am not able He contemplated it as the prime Object of his Faith Adoration and Affection in like manner we in imitation of this great Doctor neither searching too curiously into that which Faith teaches to be inscrutable nor yet passing over in silence what the Church on this Day proposes to our Thoughts as a Mystery which is to be the Subject of our Eternal Happiness will consider it First as the Object of our Faith Secondly as the Object of our Love Thirdly as the Object of our Imitation In the First Point we 'll see what we are to believe and from the hardness of it learn a Principle which will ground us in true Faith and Religion In my Second we 'll learn where to settle our Affections In my Third how to make our Souls what they were created perfect Images of the Trinity by squaring our Actions according to this Divine Pattern Three Parts of one and the same Discourse so that the Second proceeds from the First Love from Faith the Third from the First and Second Imitation from Faith and Love Now that all may succeed to the greater Glory of this Great Trinity let us have recourse to the Intercession of the Immaculate Virgin-Mother Daughter to the Eternal Father Mother to the Eternal Son Spouse to the Holy Spirit perfect Temple of the whole Trinity saluting her with the Archangel Ave Maria. I Know not by what better means we may arrive to frame a true right and profitable Idea of this Mystery than by contemplating its Image the Soul of Man where you will find that as often as any thing excellent and amiable is objected to her she presently speaks it saying This is fine this is admirable this deserves to be belov'd indeed from whence connaturally proceeds a certain breathing an affection or desire of enjoying that so amiable Object In like manner Almighty God with an Infinite Clarity comprehending his own infinitely amiable Essence and in it all created truths that are possible speaks what he knows expressing himself as he is Infinite in all perfections then he breaths forth a certain Divine Love proceeding from his speaking and the word spoken this speaking or producing the Word constitutes the First Person God the Father the Word spoken is the Second Person God the Son the Third Person is the Love which both the First and Second jointly breath forth God the Holy Ghost or Spirit The second is the Son because as it is the property of a Father to propagate his Nature and give it a second Being in his Son so the Eternal Father speaking propagates his own Divine Nature giving it as it were a second Being in that Consubstantial Image whereas the Holy-Ghost being Love gives not any Being to its Object but only embraces what it finds Now because nothing can be in God or affect God but what is God each Person must needs be God Again because the very Notion of God excludes a Multiplicity as including all perfection imaginable and consequently leaving none to be possessed by an other only by participation the property of a Creature it follows that all three Persons are but one and the same God now how this can be three Persons one only God is above our reach here it is we are to obey the Apostle making Reason stoop to Faith But what says the Atheist or Heathen must I then become Irrational before I can be a Christian Must I renounce that very faculty which distinguishes me from a Bruit Must I admit things that evidently contradict the first Principles of Reason and thwart the very light of Nature Three Persons one God the Father and the Son the self same thing and yet two Persons really distinct Nay then adieu all Discourse adieu all Knowledge if we renounce the very grounds of Knowledge and Discourse This Objection lies under the very same inconveniences it objects against the Mysteries of our Faith 't is irrational it contradicts the first Principles of Reason and thwarts the very light of Nature whereas our Faith tho' supernatural tho' above