Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A27966
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The Bachelor's directory being a treatise of the excellence of marriage, of its necessity, and the means to live happy in it : together with an apology for the women against the calumnies of the men.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing B261; ESTC R40746
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88,169
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301
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for Marriage as the Maidens had and that both Sexes were under an equal passion for this condition of life We may inferr it from the prodigious multiplication of the family of Jacob in Egypt When it went down there it was composed but of seventy persons in all and when they departed from thence four hundred and thirty years after they were six hundred thousand Men without computing Women and Children Exod. 12.37 who in all appearance amounted to twice or thrice the number as it is easy to imagine Prodigious and scarce to be believed but in supposing what is true and that no People ever so much loved or practifed Marriage as this ancient People and that they confin'd themselves under it's pleasing chains almost as soon as they distinguish'd reason This People Sir was the People of God whom he tenderly loved a People whom he lookt upon as his most valuable Treasure A People for whom he multiplied every day the wonders of his Providence and Wisdom In a word a People who ought by consequence to serve for an Example to all other People upon the Subject of Marriage which was in the midst of them and so much recommended and blest of God What do you suppose David calls the greatest of the blessings of God upon earth It is neither Riches nor Honours nor even a Crown He passes beyond all this without haesitation The happiness which he engages to him that fears God is to have a fruitful Bed and a numerous Posterity Would you know Sir those two men of all those whom the Scripture speaks of that I esteem to have been the most happy of the world Do not imagine that it is either a David or a Solomon or an Hezekiah They are Ibzan and Abdon If you ask me the reason Judges 12.9.14 you may read it in the Book of the Judges of Israel in whose number are they There you will find concerning the first that he had thirty Sons and thirty Daughters And of the second that he had forty Sons and thirty Grand-Children whom he saw all together on horse-back What can be a greater happiness to a Father What can be more observable in the life of a man It is likewise true that the sacred Author in speaking to us of those two famous Captains contents himself to report this single circumstance of them which in my opinion goes beyond all the great deeds of Caesar and Alexander You may apprehend it as you please but to me it seems that such a geniture contains somewhat very noble in it and that one cannot be observed in the History of Men through a finer place It must be granted that these Men well understood the Art of immortalizing their Families What Sir will not so great an Example encourage you to look after the Subsistence of yours would you suffer it to perish with your Name for want of marrying will you always entertain a repugnance for Marriage will you never divest your self of those false Ideas you have conceiv'd thereof will you always be ingenious to frame to your self in order to remove your self from it such punishments as do not exist which I shall make appear in the sequel and will you never be convinced of those real delights which I have shewn to be in that state and which ought to attract the whole world It is the only advantage that is wanting to your happiness But assure your self that without this all the rest is of no value As well provided as you are with the goods of Fortune and Morals can you fail to please your self in Hymen and to partake of pleasures a thousand times more affecting than those which can be found in the happiest Celibacy How much satisfaction shall you give to those illustrious persons to whom you owe all things with your being what glory shall you not obtain by adding to their comfort what they desire with the utmost zeal can you decently refuse them this mark of your acknowledgment must they go down to the grave without seeing a young Sprig shoot forth from you that may assure them their Name and Blood will not perish with you will you give them cause to make this sad complaint of you Tecum una tota est nostra Sepulta domus Catull. ad Mal. 69. Grisly Grave is buried our whole house Spare them this heaviness and your self this confusion Do not render your self guilty of your own annihilation Become jealous of your glory Determine your self at last to this generous action whereof one might truly say with regard to your family Tota domus laeta est paterque materque The whole family rejoyces Hearken to the Precept of a wise man Ne maneas sine nuptiis ne sine nomine pereas Phocil Live not unmarry'd lest you dy without a name An ancient Author of Paganism it is Musonius examining the Motives of Marriage finds none more pressing than those I have offered After having much enlarged upon this matter and in a wise and eloquent way he at length concludes his discourse with these words Quisquis igitur homines nuptiis privat is abolet familiam Muson apud Stobaeum Serm. 186. civitatem totum genus humanam quod absque generatione non potest permanere ut neque justa legitima generatio sine nuptijs Since then without a continual Series of Generations Families Common-wealths and all humane Kind would be absolutely annihilated and that Marriage is the sole lawful cause of these Generations according to the remark of this learned man judge of the obligation you are under to marry The heavenly voice seems to call you to it Resist no longer its Vocation But to the end that you may know all the Engagements you are under to pay obedience to it make some reflections if you please upon the quality of the faithful which you have taken into the bosom of the Church This Sir is the greatest motive which ought to determine you for Marriage It even recollects in it self all the rest What do you take the Church to be It is according to St. Paul the City of the living God Jerusalem from on high Heb. 12.22.23 the Mother of us all The Assembly of the first-born whose names are written in the Heavens 1 Tim. 5. â—5 The Pillar and Support of Truth The house of God The Common-wealth of Israel according to the Spirit The divine Family whereof God is the Father Jesus Christ the eldest Son and the Elect the younger ones if one may be allowed to speak so Tell me I beseech you if in all these regards there is any thing more precious in the world than the Church Tell me likewise if there is any thing to whose Subsistence men are more obliged to contribute What are all our Interests in comparison of that If you ask me the true reason that ought to make us desire the propagation of Mankind the duration of States and the Conservation of Families It is nothing
You may well be astonished at what I have told you replies Sosia but it is a manifest truth Sum profecto hic illic I am both here and there Nothing I confess is more Theatral than these ways of speaking but it must be granted also that nothing better explains the nature of this strict union that Marriage makes There are no words that can exactly represent it One ought for that end to compose a new Grammar One cannot speak of it but in making Solecisms and in confounding the plural with the singular and the singular with the plural They are no more two but one flesh says God himself of Man and Woman They are one in two persons They are but one person in two bodies Animae duae two Souls Animus unus one mind Idem Velle idem nolle and one will There happens nothing to one but what arrives to t'other The Husband and the Wife feel the same things They suffer the same evils They enjoy the same good things Grief and joy make the same impressions in each of them Morbo detinetur unus Detinentur duo Adversa premunt unum Sensus in utroque est utrumque risus utrumque lachrymae Prospera laetaque tenent unum tenent utrumque As the Phylopher so well expresses in Seneca The same distempers and misfortunes reach both If one laugh so doth the other their tears are the same c. This is too strong for a simple friendship Such a one as this never appeared Or if such a one has been found one must necessarily suppose it to be more than a union of Spirits You know that another was practised frequently enough amongst the Pagans which might much contribute to the making of such friends but which is so scandalous to nature that you must be contented to read it in the first Chapter of St. Paul to the Romans without hearing it named But Sir if you would be perfectly convinced that there is nothing in nature more excellent than Marriage you are only to look upon it with relation to the great mysteries it represents The holy Spirit has made use of in a thousand places in our Divine Scriptures to testifie to us the tenderness of the Father under the Law and of the charity of the Son under the Gospel I will espouse thee to me for ever Hosea 2. I will espouse thee to me in justice in judgment in mercy and in compassion I will espouse thee with constancy and thou shalt call me thy Husband said God himself to his ancient Israel I have appropriated you 2. Cor. 11. Eph. 5.23.32 said also St. Paul to the new People to one single Husband to present you as a chast Virgin to Jesus Christ Besides the Church is called the Body of Christ and the Spouse of the Lamb the Song of Songs is nothing else but the Epithalamium of this Divine Marriage Thus God was Married with the Jewish Church Jesus Christ is also Married with the Christian Church 'T is thus the Sacred Authors represent to us that intimate union of the Faithful with the Divinity and Flesh of Christ 'T is thus they insinuate to us that profoundness of love we find in his heart 'T is thus they instruâ—â— us how dear we are to him and it as we ought to make our interests of his so he never fails to make ours his own The ancient Doctors have carried yet further the perfection of Marriage when they considered it as the natural Image of the Hypostatick union of the two Natures in Christ One must acknowledge in effect that nothing discovers to us better the bottom of this adorable mystery As we have seen of one Man and one Woman Marriage makes but one and the same person they are no more two but one flesh From thence proceeds this reasoning of St. Paul that he who loves his Wife loves himself The Son of God being also united to our Flesh is become the Son of Man He doth not think it a point of usurpation to make himself equal to God and notwithstanding in uniting himself to us by the Incarnation he is become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone By the incomprehensible force of this union he has ceased to be simply God neither is 〈◊〉 become simply Man He has reunâ—â—ed 〈◊〉 one and the same person those two opposite Natures which make him to be our Emanuel God with us He is not only Man he is Man-God He is not only God he is God-Man but as in Marriage the union which is made as intimate as it is yet destroys not the substance of the two parties which compose it each preserving its own with its essential qualities So the Hypostatick union of the two Natures in Christ confounds them not The one is not absolv'd by the other The both subsist in him after a distinct and inexpressible manner without any alteration of their essential qualities Do not imagine with the Nestorians two persons there is but one Do not fancy to your self with the Eutichians a single Nature there are two In a word the Ancients affirm of Marriage that it is the Symbol of the union of regenerate Souls with God They are all in him and he in all them As he who joyns himself to a Wife becomes one and the same body with her So says St. Paul Cor. 6.16 17. John 17.21 He who is joyned to the Lord is made one and the same Spirit with him It is by the efficacy of this mystical union that Jesus Christ said of the whole body of his elect Gal. 2.20 That they are but one with him and with his Father That his Apostle says He lives no more but that it is Jesus Christ who lives in him And that the holy Spouse says That her well-beloved appertains to her Cant. 2.16 and she to her well-beloved It is the divine Love that is the efficient cause of this mystical union 'T is that which produces in us this holy metamorphosis 'T is that which transforms us into God himself Solus amor est quo convirtimur ad Deum transformamur in Deum ad hearemus Deo ut simus unus Spiritus cum eo Said a learned man T is love alone by which we are turn'd to God transform'd into God we stick to God that we may be one Spirit with him O Love that always burns and is never extinguished Inflame me all over with thy fire to the end that being consumed by the sweet fâ—â—â—es of thy affection I may be never â—â—â—ble of any other love said also the same holy Soul How much I beseech you ought one to determine in all these prospects for the perfection and excellency of Marriage All other Societies are transitory unfertile made up of nothing or of a pure temporal interest This of Marriage is only eternal Death it self that puts an end to all doth not always conclude this because it doth not only unite the Bodies It unites also