or (because the some are called in the Latine Spiritus)
Spirits; as when they call that aeriall substance,
which in the body of any living creature, gives it
life and motion, Vitall and Animall Spirits.
But for those Idols of the brain, which represent Bodies
to us, where they are not, as in a Looking-glasse,
in a Dream, or to a Distempered brain waking, they
are (as the Apostle saith generally of all Idols)
nothing; Nothing at all, I say, there where they seem
to bee; and in the brain it self, nothing but tumult,
proceeding either from the action of the objects, or
from the disorderly agitation of the Organs of our
Sense. And men, that are otherwise imployed,
then to search into their causes, know not of themselves,
what to call them; and may therefore easily be perswaded,
by those whose knowledge they much reverence, some
to call them Bodies, and think them made of aire compacted
by a power supernaturall, because the sight judges
them corporeall; and some to call them Spirits, because
the sense of Touch discerneth nothing in the place
where they appear, to resist their fingers: So
that the proper signification of Spirit in common
speech, is either a subtile, fluid, and invisible
Body, or a Ghost, or other Idol or Phantasme of the
Imagination. But for metaphoricall significations,
there be many: for sometimes it is taken for
Disposition or Inclination of the mind; as when for
the disposition to controwl the sayings of other men,
we say, A Spirit Contradiction; For A Disposition
to Uncleannesse, An Unclean Spirit; for Perversenesse,
A Froward Spirit; for Sullennesse, A Dumb Spirit,
and for Inclination To Godlinesse, And Gods Service,
the Spirit of God: sometimes for any eminent ability,
or extraordinary passion, or disease of the mind,
as when Great Wisdome is called the Spirit Of Wisdome;
and Mad Men are said to be Possessed With A Spirit.
Other signification of Spirit I find no where any;
and where none of these can satisfie the sense of
that word in Scripture, the place falleth not under
humane Understanding; and our Faith therein consisteth
not in our Opinion, but in our Submission; as in all
places where God is said to be a Spirit; or where by
the Spirit of God, is meant God himselfe. For
the nature of God is incomprehensible; that is to
say, we understand nothing of What He Is, but only
That He Is; and therefore the Attributes we give him,
are not to tell one another, What He Is, Nor to signifie
our opinion of his Nature, but our desire to honor
him with such names as we conceive most honorable
amongst our selves.
The Spirit Of God Taken In The Scripture Sometimes
For A Wind, Or Breath Gen. 1. 2. “The Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the Waters.”
Here if by the Spirit of God be meant God himself,
then is Motion attributed to God, and consequently
Place, which are intelligible only of Bodies, and
not of substances incorporeall; and so the place is
above our understanding, that can conceive nothing
moved that changes not place, or that has not dimension;