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	son_n	unity_n	6,121	5	9.7413	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50023	Man without passion, or, The wife stoick, according to the sentiments of Seneca written originally in French, by ... Anthony Le Grand ; Englished by G.R.; Sage des Stoiques. English	Le Grand, Antoine, d. 1699.; G. R.	1675 (1675)	Wing L958; ESTC R18013	157,332	304

fill our heads with wind she approves no skills that direct us not to vertue she rejects all that sublime knowledg whereof the learned make their boast She esteems them the inventions of ease and delights which after having a while entertained our fancy leave us in dispair of finding her Those arts which we stile liberal are but the pass time of youth School-boys must learn them and a man is not to converse with them any longer then while he is uncapable of more excellent knowledg For if they be the beginning they are not the end of his studies if they make part of our Apprentiship they are not to be our employment and if they help to make us knowing they contribute nothing to our vertue Also Seneca acknowledgeth but one science that leads us to wisdom that teacheth us modesty with the art of good Expression and that putting us into a state of liberty at once inspireth us with the Prudence of Politicians the Valor of Conquerors and the constancy of Philosophers But she is so excellent that she admits no rival she endures not inferior Allies and she would think it a Treason against her own Grandeur if she should vouchsafe them her company As the designs of Princes are not formed from the wild opinions of their People and as Commanders banish from their Counsels those advices which conduce not to the end proposed vertue rejects all that is not for her purpose she retains but what is necessary and as she esteems it an injustice in a covetous man to wish for superfluous Riches she concludes that it would be a kind of intemperance in a wiseman to desire the knowledg of more then he needeth We must not judg of the wisdom of a man by the multitude of things he hath learned Religion takes offence when we study her Mysteries rather for knowledg than reverence she commands that practice should be the end of our Travels and she permits us not to be of the number of them who spend their whole lives in the search without the love of Truth When God placed man in the terrestrial Paradice he inspired him only with the knowledg of things needful for him although the favors wherewith he honoured him were excessive He limited his Science He would not he should learn what could not profit him and in the opinion of Tostatus he sent him not the Animals made of Corruption to give Names unto but for that the knowledg thereof was not of use to him too much Learning is always insolent and edifieth not as we find no Conquerors that are not proud we see no learned men that are not puffed up Divines can tell us that the proud Angels strayed not from their Duty but by having too much knowledg Aristotle was of opinion that the famous men of old were often guilty of fantastical actions that they made small sallies which were little different from great follies that their Extasies surpast the strength of their Reason and that they could bring forth nothing above ordinary men which was not akin to fury Those great Wits which Antiquity puts amongst the number of Prodigies have not always been the wisest men their Works are not irreproveable no more than their Lives if they have written some things worthy of honor they have left us others as ridiculous and their Disciples confess they had intervals in which they were not more reasonable than mad men Although this Language be opposite to the common opinion of the people and that the benefits of knowledg oblige men to give it reverence where ever they find it yet I think it not hard to draw them to the contrary sentiment and to obtain their assent that the knowing men at this day are but delightful dotards who act the fool by authority and teach impertinencies with approbation For what is it that our Professors of Learning do when they instruct us to define all things by their chiefest attributes to separate their nature from their properties and by the aid of propositions infer that Vertue is a Gender that Justice and Prudence are the Species and that Vertue is separable from Temperance but that Temperance is not to be divided from Vertue What profit do we reap from these formalities Of what use is it to know how to compose a formal Discourse to reduce an Argument to an impossibility to frame Sophisms to ensnare the unlearned and to use Dilemma's and Inductions to surprize the unskilful What advantage can we hope from the knowledg of Natural Philosophy to be informed that the Earth is solid that God by his Power can separate the form from the matter that he unites at his pleasure two substantial forms into one compound and directs the substance to produce a third by the intermediation of accidents to which he communicates his efficacy What serves it us to discover the Influences of the Heavens to know that the Planets are corruptible that the Sun is a mixt not a pure Element that the Stars are void of Life and that the whole Earth is but a Point compared with the Firmament that surrounds it In fine what advantage do we acquire when we are taught by Divines that God is infinit that the Unity of his Nature agrees with the Trinity of his Persons that the Father begets the Son from all eternity and that the holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son hath the communication of their Perfections Were it not better that all the Arts were banished the Schools than that they should entertain us with so many unedifying things that they should teach us to regulate our Wills rather than our Fancies and how to live vertuously rather than to dispute well Were it not to be wisht that Logick by which we flourish our Harangues by which we examine the property of Speech and which boasteth of laying open Truth by the subtilty of Arguments taught us to reform our Manners and to reject all these vain amusements of the mind which benefit a wise man as little as they are troublesome and insignificant to the simple Were it not better that Geometry taught the rich to bound his Desires to divide a proportion of his Revenues amongst the poor than to shew him the Art of taking the contents of his Parks the height of his Palaces and the extent of his Lands Were it not to be desired that the Professors of Divinity would discover to us the way to love rather than define the Creator and instead of informing us of his Essence and labouring to make us conceive the mysterious Trinity of his Persons by the Unity of his Nature to teach us the ●wful adoration of Him whom we are not able to comprehend and to make us forgo all that is dearest to us in the world to be united to him who alone ought to possess all our affections But the delight of all Arts is the pleasure of discourse they are swallowed up of the words that compose them they are