Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	folly_n	young_a	youth_n	20	3	7.8542	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63741	Dekas embolimaios a supplement to the Eniautos, or, Course of sermons for the whole year : being ten sermons explaining the nature of faith, and obedience, in relation to God, and the ecclesiastical and secular powers respectively : all that have been preached and published (since the Restauration) / by the Right Reverend Father in God Jeremy Lord Bishop of Down and Connor ; with his advice to the clergy of his diocess.; Eniautos. Supplement	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1667 (1667)	Wing T308; ESTC R11724	252,853	230

loves noblier and desires purer and hopes stronger than it can do here But if these arguments should fail yet the felicity of Gods Saints cannot fail For suppose the Body to be a necessary Instrument but out of tune and discomposed by sin and anger by accident and chance by defect and imperfections yet that it is better than none at all and that if the Soul works imperfectly with an imperfect Body that then she works not at all when she hath none And suppose also that the Soul should be as much without sense or perception in death as it is in a deep sleep which is the image and shadow of death yet then God devises other means that his banished be not expelled from him For 2. God will restore the Soul to the Body and raise the Body to such a perfection that it shall be an Organ fit to praise him upon it shall be made spiritual to minister to the Soul when the Soul is turned into a Spirit then the Soul shall be brought forth by Angels from her incomparable and easie bed from her rest in Christs holy Bosom and be made perfect in her being and in all her operations And this shall first appear by that perfection which the Soul shall receive as instrumental to the last Judgment for then she shall see clearly all the Records of this World all the Register of her own Memory For all that we did in this life is laid up in our Memories and though dust and forgetfulness be drawn upon them yet when God shall lift us from our dust then shall appear clearly all that we have done written in the Tables of our Conscience which is the Souls Memory We see many times and in many instances that a great Memory is hindred and put out and we thirty years after come to think of something that lay so long under a Curtain we think of it suddenly and without a line of deduction or proper consequence And all those famous Memories of Simonides and Theodactes of Hortensius and Seneca of Sceptius Metrodorus and Carneades of Cyneas the Embassadour of Pyrrhus are only the Records better kept and less disturbed by accident and disease For even the Memory of Herods son of Athens of Bathyllus and the dullest person now alive is so great and by God made so sure a Record of all that ever he did that as soon as ever God shall but tune our Instrument and draw the Curtains and but light up the Candle of Immortality there we shall find it all there we shall see all and the whole world shall see all then we shall be made fit to converse with God after the manner of Spirits we shall be like to Angels In the mean time although upon the perswasion of the former Discourse it be highly probable that the Souls of Gods Servants do live in a state of present blessedness and in the exceeding joys of a certain expectation of the revelation of the day of the Lord and the coming of Jesus yet it will concern us only to secure our state by holy living and leave the event to God that as St. Paul said whether present or absent whether sleeping or waking whether perceiving or perceiving not we may be accepted of him that when we are banished this World and from the light of the Sun we may not be expelled from God and from the light of his countenance but that from our beds of sorrows our Souls may pass into the Bosom of Christ and from thence to his right hand in the day of Sentence For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ and then if we have done well in the Body we shall never be expelled from the beatifical presence of God but be Domesticks of his Family and Heirs of his Kingdom and Partakers of his Glory Amen I Have now done with my Text but yet am to make you another Sermon I have told you the necessity and the state of death it may be too largely for such a sad story I shall therefore now with a better compendium teach you how to live by telling you a plain Narative of a Life which if you imitate and write after the Copy it will make that death shall not be an evil but a thing to be desired and to be reckoned among the purchases and advantages of your Fortune When Martha and Mary went to weep over the Grave of their Brother Christ met them there and preached a Funeral Sermon discoursing of the Resurrection and applying to the purposes of Faith and confession of Christ and glorification of God We have no other we can have no better precedent to follow and now that we are come to weep over the grave of our Dear Sister this rare Personage we cannot chuse but have many virtues to learn many to imitate and some to exercise I chuse not to declare her Extraction and Genealogy it was indeed fair and honourable but having the blessing to be descended from Worthy and Honour'd Ancestors and her self to be adopted and ingraffed into a more Noble Family yet she felt such outward Appendages to be none of hers because not of her choice but the purchase of the Virtues of others which although they did engage her to do noble things yet they would upbraid all degenerate and less honourable Lives than were those which began and encreased the honour of the Families She did not love her Fortune for making her noble but thought it would be a dishonour to her if she did not continue a Nobleness and Excellency of Virtue fit to be owned by Persons relating to such Ancestors It is fit for us all to honour the Nobleness of a Family but it is also fit for them that are Noble to despise it and to establish their Honour upon the foundation of doing excellent things and suffering in good causes and despising dishonourable actions and in communicating good things to others For this is the rule in Nature Those Creatures are most honourable which have the greatest power and do the greatest good And accordingly my self have been witness of it how this excellent Lady would by an act of humility and Christian abstraction strip her self of all that fair Appendage and exteriour Honour which decked her Person and her Fortune and desired to be owned by nothing but what was her own that she might only be esteemed honourable according to that which is the Honour of a Christian and a wise Person 2. She had a strict and severe education and it was one of Gods Graces and Favours to her For being the Heiress of a great Fortune and living amongst the throng of persons in the sight of vanities and empty temptations that is in that part of the Kingdom where Greatness is too often express'd in great follies and great vices God had provided a severe and angry Education to chastise the forwardnesses of a young Spirit and a fair Fortune that she might for ever be so far distant from

a vice that she might only see it and loath it but never taste of it so much as to be put to her choice whether she would be virtuous or no. God intending to secure this Soul to himself would not suffer the follies of the world to seize upon her by way of too neer a trial or busie temptation 3. She was married young and besides her businesses of Religion seemed to be ordained in the providence of God to bring to this honourable Family a part of a fair Fortune and to leave behind her a fairer Issue worth ten thousand times her Portion And as if this had been all the publick business of her life when she had so far served Gods ends God in mercy would also serve hers and take her to an early blessedness 4. In passing through which line of providence she had the art to secure her eternal Interest by turning her Condition into Duty and expressing her Duty in the greatest eminency of a virtuous prudent and rare affection that hath been known in any example I will not give her so low a testimony as to say only that she was chast She was a Person of that severity modesty and close Religion as to that particular that she was not capable of uncivil temptation and you might as well have suspected the Sun to smell of the Poppy that he looks on as that she could have been a person apt to be sullied by the breath of a soul question 5. But that which I shall note in her is that which I would have exemplar to all Ladies and to all Women She had a love so great for her Lord so intirely given up to a dear affection that she thought the same things and loved the same loves and hated according to the same enmities and breathed in his soul and lived in his presence and languished in his absence and all that she was or did was only for and to her dearest Lord Si gaudet si flet St tacet hunc loquitur Coenat propinat poscit negat innuit unus Naevius est And although this was a great enamel to the beauty of her Soul yet it might in some degrees be also a reward to the Virtue of her Lord For she would often discourse it to them that convers'd with her that he would improve that interest which he had in her affection to the advantages of God and of Religion and she would delight to say that he called her to her Devotions he encouraged her good inclinations he directed her piety he invited her with good Books and then she loved Religion which she saw was not only pleasing to God and an act or state of duty but pleasing to her Lord and an act also of affection and conjugal obedience and what at first she loved the more forwardly for his sake in the using of Religion left such relishes upon her spirit that she found in it amability enough to make her love it for its own So God usually brings us to him by instruments of nature and affections and then incorporates us into his Inheritance by the more immediate relishes of Heaven and the secret things of the Spirit He only was under God the light of her eyes and the cordial of her spirits and the guide of her actions and the measure of her affections till her affections swell'd up into a Religion and then it could go no higher but was confederate with those other duties which made her dear to God which rare combination of Duty and Religion I chuse to express in the words of Solomon She forsook not the guide of her youth nor brake the Covenant of her God 6. As she was a rare Wife so she was an excellent Mother For in so tender a constitution of spirit as hers was and in so great a kindness towards her Children there hath seldom been seen a stricter and more curious care of their persons their deportment their nature their disposition their learning and their customs And if ever kindness and care did contest and make parties in her yet her care and her severity was ever victorious and she knew not how to do an ill turn to their severer part by her more tender and forward kindness And as her custom was she turned this also into love to her Lord For she was not only diligent to have them bred nobly and religiously but also was careful and sollicitous that they should be taught to observe all the circumstances and inclinations the desires and wishes of their Father as thinking that virtue to have no good circumstances which was not dressed by his copy and ruled by his lines and his affections And her prudence in the managing her children was so singular and rare that when ever you mean to bless this family and pray a hearty and a profitable prayer for it beg of God that the children may have those excellent things which she designed to them and provided for them in her heart and wishes that they may live by her purposes and may grow thither whither she would fain have brought them All these were great parts of an excellent Religion a● they concerned her greatest temporal relations 7. But if we examine how she demeaned her self towards God there also you will find her not of a common but of an exemplar piety She was a great reader of Scripture confining her self to great portions every day which she read not to the purposes of vanity and impertinent curiosities not to seem knowing or to become talking not to expound and rule but to teach her all her duty to instruct her in the knowledge and love of God and of her Neighbours to make her more humble and to teach her to despise the world and all its gilded vanities and that she might entertain passions wholly in design and order to Heaven I have seen a female Religion that wholly dwelt upon the face and tongue that like a wanton and an undressed tree spends all its juice in suckers and irregular branches in leafs and gum and after all such goodly outsides you should never eat an Apple or be delighted with the beauties or the perfumes of a hopeful blossom But the Religion of this excellent Lady was of another constitution It took root downward in humility and brought forth fruit upward in the substantial graces of a Christian in Charity and Justice in Chastity and Modesty in fair Friendships and sweetness of Society She had not very much of the forms and outsides of godliness but she was hugely careful for the power of it for the moral essential and useful parts such which would make her be not seem to be religious 8. She was a very constant person at her prayers and spent all her time which Nature did permit to her choice in her devotions and reading and meditating and the necessary offices of houshold Government every one of which is an action of Religion some by nature some by adoption To these also

God gave her a very great love to hear the word of God preached in which because I had sometimes the honour to minister to her I can give this certain testimony that she was a diligent watchful and attentive hearer and to this had so excellent a judgment that if ever I saw a woman whose judgment was to be revered it was hers alone and I have sometimes thought that the eminency of her discerning faculties did reward a pious discourse and placed it in the regions of honour and usefulness and gathered it up from the ground where commonly such Homilies are spilt or scattered in neglect and inconsideration But her appetite was not soon satisfied with what was useful to her soul she was also a constant Reader of Sermons and seldom missed to read one every day and that she might be full of instruction and holy principles she had lately designed to have a large Book in which she purposed to have a stock of Religion transcribed in such assistances as she would chuse that she might be readily furnished and instructed to every good work But God prevented that and hath filled her desires not out of Cisterns and little Aquaeducts but hath carried her to the Fountain where she drinks of the pleasures of the River and is full of God 9. She always lived a life of much innocence free from the violences of great sins her person her breeding her modesty her honour her Religion her early marriage the Guide of her soul and the Guide of her youth were as so many fountains of restraining grace to her to keep her from the dishonours of a crime Bonum est portare jugum ab adolescentiâ it is good to bear the yoke of the Lord from our youth and though she did so being guarded by a mighty providence and a great favour and grace of God from staining her fair soul with the spots of hell yet she had strange fears and early cares upon her but these were not only for her self but in order to others to her neerest Relatives For she was so great a lover of this Honourable Family of which now she was a Mother that she desired to become a channel of great blessings to it unto future ages and was extremely jealous lest any thing should be done or lest any thing had been done though an Age or two since which should intail a curse upon the innocent posterity and therefore although I do not know that ever she was tempted with an offer of the crime yet she did infinitely remove all sacriledge from her thoughts and delighted to see her estate of a clear and dis-intangled interest she would have no mingled rights with it she would not receive any thing from the Church but Religion and a Blessing and she never thought a curse and a sin far enough off but would desire it to be infinitely distant and that as to this Family God had given much honour and a wise head to govern it so he would also for ever give many more blessings and because she knew the sins of Parents descend upon Children she endeavoured by justice and religion by charity and honour to secure that her channel should convey nothing but health and a fair example and a blessing 10. And though her accounts to God were made up of nothing but small parcels little passions and angry words and trifling discontents which are the allays of the piety of the most holy persons yet she was early at her repentance and toward the latter end of her days grew so fast in Religion as if she had had a revelation of her approaching end and therefore that she must go a great way in a little time her discourses more full of religion her prayers more frequent her charity increasing her forgiveness more forward her friendships more communicative her passion more under discipline and so she trimmed her lamp not thinking her night was so neer but that it might shine also in the day time in the Temple and before the Altar of Incense But in this course of hers there were some circumstances and some appendages of substance which were highly remarkable 1. In all her Religion and in all her actions of relation towards God she had a strange evenness and untroubled passage sliding toward her Ocean of God and of infinity with a certain and silent motion So have I seen a River deep and smooth passing with a still foot and a sober face and paying to the Fiscus the great Exchequer of the Sea the Prince of all the watry bodies a tribute large and full and hard by it a little brook skipping and making a noise upon its unequal and neighbour bottom and after all its talking and bragged motion it payed to its common Audit no more than the Revenues of a little cloud or a contemptible vessel So have I sometimes compared the issues of her Religion to the solemnities and famed outsides of anothers piety It dwelt upon her spirit and was incorporated with the periodical work of every day she did not believe that Religion was intended to minister to fame and reputation but to pardon of sins to the pleasure of God and the salvation of souls For Religion is like the breath of Heaven if it goes abroad into the open air it scatters and dissolves like Camphyre but if it enters into a secret hollowness into a close conveyance it is strong and mighty and comes forth with vigour and great effect at the other end at the other side of this life in the days of death and judgment 2. The other appendage of her Religion which also was a great ornament to all the parts of her life was a rare modesty and humility of spirit a confident despising and undervaluing of her self For though she had the greatest judgment and the greatest experience of things and persons that I ever yet knew in a person of her youth and sex and circumstances yet as if she knew nothing of it she had the meanest opinion of her self and like a fair taper when she shined to all the room yet round about her own station she had cast a shadow and a cloud and she shined to every body but her self But the perfectness of her prudence and excellent parts could not be hid and all her humility and arts of concealment made the vertues more amiable and illustrious For as pride sullies the beauty of the fairest vertues and makes our understanding but like the craft and learning of a Devil so humility is the greatest eminency and art of publication in the whole world and she in all her arts of secrecy and hiding her worthy things was but like one that hideth the wind and covers the oyntment of her right hand I know not by what instrument it happened but when death drew neer before it made any show upon her body or revealed it self by a natural signification it was conveyed to her spirit she had a strange secret perswasion that the