Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	ghost_n	holy_a	jesus_n	15,155	5	6.0417	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02586	The remedy of prophanenesse. Or, Of the true sight and feare of the Almighty A needful tractate. In two bookes. By Ios. Exon.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1637 (1637)	STC 12710; ESTC S103753	54,909	276

every where must bee acknowledged to be ever in a glorious manner present with us manifesting his presence most eminently in the high heavens and yet filling both heaven and earth with the Majesty of his glory In him it is that we live and move and have our being he comprehends the whole world himselfe being only incomprehensible secluded from no place included in no place neerer to us than our owne soules when we die we part from them from him we cannot part with whom remotenesse of place can make no difference time no change when the heart is thus throughly assured it is in a faire way to see the Invisible for now after all the former impediments the hinderance of distance is taken away and nothing remaineth but that the eye bee so affected and imployed hereabouts as it ought SECT V. TO which purpose in the third place there must be an exaltation and a fortification of our sight An exaltation rasing it above our wonted pitch for our heart is so inured and confined to bodily objects that except it bee somewhat raised above it selfe it is not capable of spirituall things A fortification of our sight so raised for our visive beames are at our best so weak that they are not able to look upon a sight so spiritually glorious alas wee cannot so much as look upon the Sunne-beames but we are dazeled and blinded with that which gives us opportunity of sight how shall wee be able to behold the infinite resplendence of him that made it St. Stephen was a true Eagle that blessed protomartyrs cleared exalted fortified sight pierced the heavens and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God Whence was this vigor and perspicacity Hee was full of the holy Ghost that Spirit of God that was within him gave both clearnesse and strength in such miraculous manner to the eyes of him who should strait-way see as hee was seene who should instantly by the eye of his glorified soule no lesse see the incomprehensible Majesty of God the Father than now by his bodily eye he saw the glorified body of the Son of God It must bee the only work of the same Spirit of God within us that must enable us both to the faculty and exercise of seeing the Invisible for the performance whereof there must be in the fourth place a trajection of the visuall beames of the soule thorow all earthly occurrences terminating them only in God as now we look thorow the aire at any object but our sight passes thorow it and rests not in it whiles we are here we cannot but see the world even the holiest eye cannot look off it but it is to us as the vast aire is betwixt us and the Starry heaven only for passage all is translucid till the sight arrive there there it meetes with that solid object of perfect contentment and happinesse wherewith it is throughly bounded When it hath therefore attained thither there must bee in the fifth place a certaine divine irradiation of the mind which is now filled and taken up with a lightsome apprehension of an infinite Majesty of a glory incomprehensible and boundlesse attended and adored by millions of heavenly Angels and glorified Spirits whereto way must be made by the conceit of a transcendent light wherein God dwelleth as far above this outward light which we see as that is above darknesse For though we may not in our thoughts liken God to any created brightnesse bee it never so glorious yet nothing forbids us to think of the place of his eternall habitation as infinitely resplendent above the comparison of those beames which any creature can cast forth He is clothed saith the Psalmist with light as with a garment Lo when wee cannot see a mans soule yet we may see his body and when we cannot see the body yet wee may see the clothes Even so though wee may not think to see the essence of God yet we may see and conceive of this his resplendent garment of light Farre be it therefore from us when we would look up to a Deity to have our eye-sight terminated in a gloomy opacity and sad darksomnesse which hath no affinity with any appendance of that divine Majesty who hath thought good to describe it selfe by light Let our hearts adore such an infinite spirit as that the light wherein he dwels is inaccessible the light which he hath and is is inconceiveable and rather rest themselves in an humble and devout adoration of what they cannot know than weary themselves with a curious search of what they cannot comprehend A simple and meek kind of astonishment and admiration beseemes us here better than a bold and busie disquisition But if this outward light which of all visible creatures comes neerest the nature of a spirit shall seeme too materiall to expresse the glory of that blessed habitation of the Highest Let the mind labour to apprehend an intellectuall light which may be so to our understanding as this bodily light is to our sense purely spirituall and transcendently glorious and let it desire to wonder at that which it can never conceive How should this light be inaccessible if it were such as our either sense or reason could attaine unto SECT VI. WHen we have attained to this comfortable and heavenly illumination there must be in the sixt place a fixing of the eye upon this beatificall object so as it may be free from distraction and wandring Certainly there is nothing more apt to be miscarried than the eye every new sight winnes it away from that which last allured it It is not hard or unusuall to have some sudden short glympses of this happy vision which yet the next toy fetches off and makes us to forget like as the last wave washeth off the impression of the former what are we the better for this than that patient who having the filme too early raised from his eye sees the light for the present but shall never see any more Would wee see God to purpose when we have once set eye upon him we may not suffer our selves by any means to lose the sight of him againe but must follow it still with a constant and eager intention Like as the Disciples of Christ when they had fixed their eyes upon their ascending Saviour could not be taken off with the presence of Angels but sent their eye-beames after him into heaven so earnestly that the reproofe of those glorious spirits could hardly pull them off You are now ready to tell me this is a fit task for us when we are in our heaven and to plead the difficulty of such our settlement in this region of change where our eyes cannot but bee forced aside with the necessity of our worldly occasions and to question the possibility of viewing two objects at once God and the world not considering that herein lyes the improvement of the Christians skill in these divine Opticks The carnall eye looks through God at the world The