Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	flesh_n	fulfil_v	law_n	6,597	5	5.9828	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86451	The grand prerogative of humane nature namely, the souls naturall or native immortality, and freedome from corruption, shewed by many arguments, and also defended against the rash and rude conceptions of a late presumptuous authour, who hath adventured to impugne it. By G.H. Gent.	Holland, Guy, 1587?-1660.	1653 (1653)	Wing H2417; Thomason E1438_2; ESTC R202443	95,057	144

in proportion to these we are to think that the degree of reason though never so imperfect is essentially distinct from that of sense though never so perfect and is superiour unto it As then it would be no small absurdity for us to confound the confining degrees of life and no life sense and vegetation so also would it be to confound sense and reason and to allow between them a difference no greater then accidentall secundum magis minus Secondly the same appeareth by the different objects of either faculty Reason for example is sensible of religion of spirits of future times of shame of compassion but Brutes have no sense at all of these no feeling of them neither more nor lesse neither perfect nor imperfect But if the degrees of sense and reason differed onely accidentally that is to say according to greater or lesse graduall perfection and no more then would it follow that whatsoever reason apprehends perfectly sense also would apprehend at least imperfectly in one degree or other which seeing sense does not we may safely inferre from thence that reason is essentially different from sense and again that sense is not an imperfect reason but contrariwise no reason at all perfect nor imperfect Again we see that Reason bridles Sense and like a shoar confines it and therefore Reason and Sense are no more one thing then the Bridle and the Horse or then the Shoar and the Ocean Of which point more may be seen in Aquinas his Commentatour Ferrariensis l. 2. cont Gentes c. 66. Thirdly the same also doth appear out of the contrariety and disagreement which we daily do experience betwixt the two judgements of reason and sense as also between the two appetites sensuall and rationall and the great repugnancy we find between them throughout our whole life and by the great businesse and sharp conflicts which are caused thereby much to our cost and labour The opposition betwixt the indication of sense and the judgement of reason is evident because the sense for example judgeth the sunnes diameter to be but a span reason here opposeth and concludeth it to be much greater then the diameter of the whole earth Infinite other examples might be given but this one may suffice for all The disagreement of the two appetites and how they draw severall waies and torture the heart of man is evident First by every mans experience Secondly by the suffrages of the Genes Ovid brings in Medaea complaining tragically in these words Metamorph. l. 17. Aliudque cupido Mens aliud suadet Video melioraproboque Deteriora sequor A new-felt force my striving powers invades Affection this discretion that perswades I see the better and approve it too The worse I follow Seneca in Hippolyto accords Quae memoras scio Vera esse Nutrix sed furor cogit sequi c. Good Nurse thy counsell I confesse is true But forc'd by fury I the worst pursue The writings of Plato Cicero Seneca Hierocles and other Philosophers abound with the doctrine of making resistance against passions and the unruly appetitions of the body Aristotle l. 1. Ethic. c. ult l. 7. c. 23. The pleasures saith he of the minde be repugnant to those of the body and those actions which delight the minde are praeternaturall to the body So he The same lesson is taught us by the Authour of Pythagoras his life extant in the Bibliotheca of Photius Wherefore saith the Authour we being made up of various faculties do lead a toilsome life and incommodious forasmuch as every other creature is governed by one simple nature but we by severall which natures do draw wayes contrary to one another as namely we are sometimes moved to the better by that within us which is divine but at other fits the portion irrationall being predominant we are overwrought unto the worse But admit say you all this is so yet it proves no peculiar perfection in man above that of other creatures of sense because this same contrariety of appetites is common to him with brute beasts for example it is found in a dogge which having an appetite to a piece of meat dares not touch it for fear of blows lo then here is one appetite of eating and another contrary unto it which is of keeping his bones whole which later being the greater crosses the former and makes him to refrain I answer by denying that here is any contrariety between those two appetites but onely an accidentall inconsistency between the objects of them which hinders him at that time from satisfying of them both no contrariety I say because one of them does not oppose directly or condemne the other for he both likes the meat and likes also the saving of his skinne harmlesse just as a man thievishly disposed likes to steal a horse and likes also the keeping of his person safe from the severity of the laws in which case the dogge and the thief are much at one both of them being disposed like beasts but now with an honest and rationall man it is farre otherwise for as with one appetite he is incited to the stealing of the horse so with another he disapproves it and condemnes it as an act unjust and irrationall and herein consists the difference of these appetites from the former So in fine although the objects of the appetites such as beasts and bestiall men do covet might be consistent as many times they may as for example that a man may both steal a horse which he likes and also escape the law which to do he likes as well yet neverthelesse the rationall appetite would contradict and countermand the theft as an act irrationall and unjust Lastly the Holy Scripture is plentifull in this argument The Spirit saith our Blessed Saviour is willing but the Flesh is weak And his Disciples advise Walk ye in the Spirit and the desires of the flesh you shall not fulfill The spirit coveteth against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit I find in my members a law leading me captive unto sinne I do not that which I will c. Mark 14.38 Gal. 5.17 Rom. 7.22.23 Also Rom. 7.21 I am delighted with the law of God according to the interiour man but in my loins I see another law repugnant to the law of God and captivating me in the law of sinne Yea so apparent was this disagreement as that Galen l. 5. de dogmat Hippoc. thought they could not subsist in one and the same soul and therefore concludes that in man there must be two different souls and into this same errour afterwards fell the Manichees as S. Augustine testifyeth l. de duab Animab l. 1. Retractat c. 9. Which erroneous believers deduced also falsly that there were two first principles or Gods one of them good the other bad that from the good the rationall soul proceeded and from the bad the sensuall from one the appetites of good from the other the desires of evil Pythagoras Aristotle Julianus