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	law_n	sin_n	20,113	5	5.9622	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52431	Reason and religion, or, The grounds and measures of devotion, consider'd from the nature of God, and the nature of man in several contemplations : with exercises of devotion applied to every contemplation / by John Norris ...	Norris, John, 1657-1711.	1689 (1689)	Wing N1265; ESTC R19865	86,428	282

Creation and by Extra-lineal motions to violate the Sacred Interest of Society 'T is lastly to incur the Anger of an Omnipotent and Just God and to hazard falling from his Supreme Good and the last end of his Being and the being ruined in his best Interest to all Eternity V. All this the Irregular Lover partly actually incurs and partly puts to the hazard in every wrong motion of his Love. And for what is all this Is it for any considerable interest for any thing that bears something of proportion and may pretend to competition and a rival Weight in the opposite Scale of the Ballance No. 't is only for a shadow for a trifle for the gratification of some baser appetite for the acquirement of some little interest which has nothing to divert us from adhering to that which is truly our best but only that poor advantage of being present tho' at the same time its vanity be present with it VI. And now is this a choice for a wise Man for a Man of common Sense Nay is it a choice for a Man in his right Wits to make Were a Man to beg an Estate would one need a better demonstration of a Man's being a Fool than such a procedure as this If therefore absurdity of choice be any argument of folly the Irregular Lover is certainly a very great Fool. VII But his folly will further appear if we consider Secondly the error and mistake that must necessarily precede in his Judgment before he does or can make such a choice All irregularity of Love is founded upon ignorance and mistake For as 't is impossible to chuse evil as evil in general so is it no less impossible to chuse or will any particular kind of evil as evil and consequently 't is impossible to will the evil of sin as such the Devil himself can't love sin as sin If therefore it be chosen it must be chosen under the appearance of good and it can have this appearance no otherwise than as considered as a lesser evil for that 's the only way whereby an evil may appear good or eligible And so it must be consider'd before it be chosen VIII He therefore that chuses sin considers it at the instant of commission as a lesser evil And therein consists his error and mistake He is either habitually or actually ignorant He either has not the habitual knowledge of all those things which should preserve him in his duty or at least he has not the actual consideration of them For 't is that which must bring him to repentance And 't is impossible a Man should sin with the very same Thoughts Convictions and Considerations about him as he has when he repents This I say is no more possible than for a Ballance to move to contrary ways with the same Weight and in the same Posture He therefore that sins wants that consideration at least to keep him in his duty which when he repents brings him to it And is therefore ignorant and mistaken IX The sum of this matter is whoever thinks sin a lesser evil mistaken in his judgment But whoever commits sin does then think it a lesser evil therefore whoever commits sin is mistaken in his judgment so great is the folly of Irregular Love both in reference to the absurdity of the choice and to the error and mistake of the chuser And so great reason has every Irregular Lover to take up that confession of the Psalmist So foolish was I and ignorant and even as a beast before thee Psal. 73. X. Having thus considered what it is to be an Irregular Lover let us now in the Second place consider how prone and apt Man is to be guilty of Irregular Love. 'T is the grand disadvantage of our Mortal condition to have our Soul consorted with a disproportionate and uncompliant Vehicle and to have her aspiring Wings pinn'd down to the ground We have a mixt constitution made up of two vastly different substances with Appetites and Inclinations to different Objects serving to contrary Interests and steering to opposite Points A compound of Flesh and Spirit a thing between an Angel and a Beast We lug about with us a Body of sin and the Earthly Tabernacle weighs down the mind We are at perpetual War and Defiance with our selves divided like the Planetary Orbs between contrary motions and imperfect tendencies and like a factious State distracted and disturbed with a swarm of jarring and rebellious Passions The Spirit indeed is willing but then the Flesh is weak We have 't is true a Law in our Minds but then we have also another in our Members which wars always and most times prevails against that of our Mind and brings us into captivity to the Law of sin so that as the Apostle says we cannot do the things which we would XI But notwithstanding this strong invigoration of the Animal Life pushing us still on to the enjoyment of sensible good were our Intellectual part always awake and equally attentive to that Divine Light which shines within her Man would always love regularly tho' with the reluctancy of an imperfect motion to the contrary But 't is far otherwise We do not always equally attend to the Divine Illumination but the light of our Understandings is often under an Eclipse and so does not shine upon our wills with an equal and uniform brightness Hence it comes to pass that our judgments and apprehensions of things are various and changeable And from this variety and changeableness of our Iudgements proceeds great variety and changebleness in our Wills. XII Now this being the condition of Man he must needs be very prone and liable to Irregular Love. For being always strong inclined to sensible good and not having the Eye of his attention equally open and awake he will be often apt to be actually ignorant of what he habitually knows and especially in the heat of a temptation to judge sensible good a greater good than that which is Moral and Divine and consequently the want of sensible good to be a greater evil than sin and so rather than want the enjoyment of sensible good he will consent to the commission of sin which through want of due attention he then erroneously thinks the lesser evil of the two XIII Thus apt and obnoxious is Man to Irregular Love. But that which most of all aggravates the badness of his condition is that 't is all owing to himself and that he himself is the sole Author of this his proneness to Irregular Love. 'T is a point Universally received That the present state of Man is not that state wherein God first made him but a state of degeneracy and depravation And indeed 't is no way congruous to suppose that God could with the Honour of his Attributes send such a piece of Work immediatetly out of his Hands as Man is now And if God could not make Man at first in such a state as he is now in then neither