Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A25742
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Order and disorder, or, The world made and undone being meditations upon the creation and the fall : as it is recorded in the beginning of Genesis.
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Apsley, Allen, Sir, 1616-1683.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing A3594; ESTC R31266
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45,515
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85
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In guiding mens unto his own designs In these outgoings would I sing his praise But my weak sense with the too glorious rays Is struck with such confusion that I find Only the worlds first Chaos in my mind Where Light and Beauty lie wrapt up in seed And cannot be from the dark prison freed Except that Power by whom the world was made My soul in her imperfect strugglings aid Her rude conceptions into forms dispose And words impart which may those forms disclose O thou eternal spring of glory whence All other streams derive their excellence From whose Love issues every good desire Quicken my dull earth with celestial fire And let the sacred theam that is my choice Give utterance and musick to my voice Singing the works by which thou art reveal'd What dark Eternity hath kept conceal'd From mortals apprehensions what hath been Before the race of Time did first begin It were presumptuous folly to enquire Let not my thoughts beyond their bound aspire Time limits mortals and Time had its birth In whose Beginning God made Heaven and Earth God the great Elohim to say no more Whose sacred Name we rather must adore Than venture to explain for He alone Dwells in himself and to himself is known And so even that by which we have our sight His covering is He clothes himself with light Easier we may the winds in prison shut The whole vast Ocean in a nut-shell put The Mountains in a little ballance weigh And with a Bullrush plumm the deepest Sea Than stretch frail humane thought unto the height Of the great God Immense and Infinite Containing all things in himself alone Being at once in all contain'd in none Yet as a hidden spring appears in streams The Sun is seen in its reflected beams Whose high embodied Glory is too bright Too strong an object for weak mortal sight So in Gods visible productions we What is invisible in some sort see While we considering each created thing Are led up to an uncreated spring And by gradations of successive Time At last unto Eternity do climb As we in tracks of second causes tread Unto the first uncaused cause are led And know while we perpetual motion see There must a first self-moving Power be To whom all the inferiour motions tend In whom they are begun and where they end This First eternal Cause th' Original Of Being Life and Motion GOD we call In whom all Wisdome Goodness Glory Might Whatever can himself or us delight Unite centring in his Perfection Whose Nature can admit but only One Divided Soveraignty makes neither great Wanting what 's shar'd to make the summ compleat And yet this soveraign sacred Unitie Is not alone for in this one are three Distinguisht not divided so that what One person is the other is not that Yet all the three are but one God most High One uncompounded pure Divinity Wherein subsist so the Mysterious three That they in Power and Glory equal be Each doth himself and all the rest possess In undisturbed joy and blessedness There 's no Inferiour nor no Later there All Coeternal all Coequal are And yet this Parity Order admits The Father first eternally begets Within himself his Son substantial Word And Wisdom as his second and their third The ever blessed spirit is which doth Alike eternally proceed from both These three distinctly thus in one Divine Pure Perfect Self-supplying Essence shine And all cooperate in all works done Exteriourly yet so as every one In a peculiar manner suited to His Person doth the common action do Herein the Father is the Principal Whose sacred counsels are th' Original Of every Act produced by the Son By'the Spirit wrought up to perfection I' the Creation thus by'the Fathers wise decree Such things should in such time and order be The first foundation of the world was laid The Fabrique by th' Eternal Word was made Not as th' instrument but joynt actor who Joy'd to fulfill the counsels which he knew By the concurrent Spirit all parts were Fitly dispos'd distinguisht rendred fair In such harmonious and wise order set As universal Beauty did compleat This most mysterious Triple Unitie In Essence One and in subsistence Three Was that great Elohim who first design'd Then made the Worlds that Angels and Mankind Him in his rich out-goings might adore And celebrate his praise for evermore Who from Eternity himself supplied And had no need of any thing beside Nor any other cause that did him move To make a World but his extensive Love It self delighting to communicate Its Glory in the creatures to dilate While they are led by their own excellence T' admire the first pure high Intelligence By all the Powers and vertues which they have To that Omnipotence who those Powers gave By all their glories and their joys to his Who is the fountain of all joy and bliss By all their wants and imbecillities To the full magazine of rich supplies Where Power Love Justice and Mercy shine In their still fixed heights and ne're decline No streams can shrink the self-supplying spring No retributions can more fulness bring To the eternal fountain which doth run In sacred circles ends where it begun And thence with inexhausted life and force Begins again a new yet the same course It instituted in Times infant birth When the Creator first made Heaven and Earth Time though it all things into motion bring Is not it self any substantial thing But only Motions measure As a twin Born with it and they both at once begin With the existence of the rolling sphere Before which neither time nor motion were Time being a still continued number made By the vicissitude of Light and Shade By the Moons growth and by her waxing old By the successive Reign of heat and cold Thus leading back all ages to the womb Of vast Eternity from whence they come And bringing new successions forth until Heaven its last revolutions shall fulfil And all things unto their first state restore When Motion ceasing Time shall be no more But with the visible Heavens shall expire While they consume in the worlds funeral fire Th' invisible Heavens being still the same Shall not be toucht by the devouring flame Treating of which let 's wave Platonick dreams Of Worlds made in Idea fitter theams For Poets fancies than the reverent view Of Contemplation fixt on what is true And only certain kept upon record In the Creators own revealed word Which when it taught us how our world was made Wrapt up th' invisible in mystique shade Yet through those clouds we see God did create A place his presence doth irradiate Where he doth in his brightest lustre
grace That we may it with fuller joy embrace Which when it brings a frighted wretch from hell Makes it love more than those who never fell But mankinds love to God grows by degrees As he more clearly Gods sweet mercy sees And God at first reveals not all his grace That men more ardently may seek his face Averted by their folly and their pride Which makes them their confounded faces hide As still the Sun 's the same behind the clouds Such is Gods love which his kind anger shrouds Which doth not all at once it self reveal But first in the thick shadows that conceal Its glory doth attenuation cause Then the black dismal curtain softly draws And lets some glimmering light of hope appear Which rather is a lessening of our fear Than an assurance of our joy and peace A truce with misery rather than release Thus had not God come in mankind had died Without repair yet came he first to chide To urge their sin with its sad consequence And make them feel the weight of their offence To ' examine and arraign them at his bar And shew them what vile criminals they were But ah our utterance here is choak'd with woe With tardy steps from Paradise we go Then let us pause on our lost joys a while Before we enter on our sad exile Canto V. SAd Natures sighs gave the Alarms And all her frighted hosts stood to their arms Waiting whom the great Soveraign would employ His all deserted rebels to destroy When God descended out of heaven above His disobedient Viceroy to remove Yet though himself had seen the forfeiture Which distance could not from his eyes obscure To teach his future Substitutes how they Should judgements execute in a right way He would not unexamin'd facts condemn Nor punish sinners without hearing them Therefore cites to his bar the Criminals And Adam first out of his covert calls Where art thou Adam the Almighty said Here Lord the trembling sinner answer made Amongst the trees I in the garden heard Thy voice and being naked was afeard Nor durst I so thy purer sight abide Therefore my self did in this shelter hide Hast thou said God eat the forbidden tree Or who declar'd thy nakedness to thee She answer'd Adam whom thou didst create To be my helper and associate Gave me the fatal fruit and I did eat Then Eve was also call'd from her retreat Woman what hast thou done th' Almighty said Lord answer'd she the serpent me betray'd And I did eat Thus did they both confess Their guilt and vainly sought to make it less By such extenuations as well weigh'd The sin so circumstanc'd more sinful made A course which still half softned sinners use Transferring blame their own faults to excuse They care not how nor where and oftentimes On God himself obliquely charge their crimes Expostulating in their discontent As if he caus'd what he did not prevent Which Adam wickedly implies when he Cries 'T was the woman That thou gavest me Oft-times make that the devils guilt alone Which was as well and equally their own His lies could never have prevail'd on Eve But that she wisht them truth and did believe A forgery that suited her desire Whose haughty heart was prone enough to ' aspire The tempting and the urging was his ill But the compliance was in her own will And herein truly lies the difference Of natural and gracious penitence The first transferreth and extenuates The guilt which the other owns and aggravates While sin is but regarded slight and small It makes the value of rich mercy fall But as our crimes seem greater in our eyes So doth our grateful sense of pardon rise Poor mankind at Gods righteous bar was cast And set for judgement by when at the last Satan within the serpent had his doom Whose execrable malice left no room For plea or pardon but was sentenc'd first Thou said the Lord above all beasts accurst Shalt on thy belly creep on dust shalt feed Between thee and the woman and her seed And thine I will put lasting enmity Thou in this war his heel shalt bruise but He Thy head shall break More various Mystery Ne're did within so short a sentence lie Here is irrevocable vengeance here Love as immutable Here doth appear Infinite Wisdome plotting with free grace Even by Mans Fall th' advance of humane race Severity here utterly confounds Here Mercy cures by kind and gentle wounds The Father here the Gospel first reveals Here fleshly veils th' eternal son conceals The law of life and spirit here takes place Given with the promise of assisting grace Here is an Oracle fore-telling all Which shall the two opposed seeds befall The great war hath its first beginning here Carried along more than five thousand year With various success on either side And each age with new combatants suppli'd Two Soveraign Champions here we find Satan and Christ contending for mankind Two Empires here two opposite Cities rise Dividing all in two Societies The little Church and the worlds larger State Pursuing it with ceaseless spite and hate Each party here erecting their own walls As one advances so the other falls Hope in the Promise the weak Church confirms Hell and the world fight upon desperate terms By this most certain Oracle they know Their war must end in final overthrow Some little present mischief they may do And this with eager malice they pursue The Angels whom Gods justice did divide Engage their mighty powers on either side Hells gloomy Princes the worlds rulers made Heavens unseen host the Churches guard and aid Till the frail womans conquering son shall tread Beneath his feet the serpents broken head Though God the speech to mans false foe address The words rich grace to fallen man express Which God will not to him himself declare Till he implore it by submissive prayer Sufficient 't is to know a latitude For hope which doth no penitent exclude Had deaths sad sentence past on man before The promise of that seed which should restore His fallen state destroying death and sin Cureless as Satans had his misery been But though free grace did future help provide Yet must he present loss and woe abide And feel the bitter curse that he may so The sweet release of saving mercy know Prepar'd with late indulged hope on Eve Th' almighty next did gentler sentence give I will said he greatly augment thy woes And thy conceptions which with painful throes Thou shalt bring forth yet shall they be to thee But a successive crop of misery Thy husband shall thy ruler be whose sway Thou shalt with passionate desires obey Alas how sadly to this day we find Th' effect of this dire curse on