Hebrews 12:9

Heb. 12:9. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected (us), and we gave (them) reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

Incidental to his main purpose in detailing the duties of a minister, Edwards here gives a fine definition of spirit and inheritance:

God is the creator of men in both soul and body; but their souls are in a special and more immediate manner his workmanship, wherein less use is made of second causes, instruments or means, or any thing pre-existent. The bodies of men, though they are indeed God's work, yet they are formed by him in a way of propagation from their natural parents, and the substance of which they are constituted is matter that was pre-existent; but the souls of men are by God's immediate creation and infusion, being in no part communicated from earthly parents, nor formed out of any matter or principles existing before. The Apostle observes the difference, and speaks of earthly fathers as being father of our spirits. Hebrews 12:9, "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?" Therefore God is once and again called "the God of the spirits of all flesh," Numbers 16:22, and chap. Numbers 27:16. And in Ecclesiastes 12:7. God is represented as having immediately given or implanted the soul, as in that respect differing from the body, that is of pre-existent matter; "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." And it is mentioned in Zechariah 12:1 as one of God's glorious prerogatives, that he is he that "formeth the spirit of man within him." And indeed the soul of man is by far the greatest and most glorious piece of divine workmanship, of all the creatures on this lower creation. And therefore it was the more meet that, however second causes should be improved, in the production of meaner creatures; yet this which is the chief and most noble of all, and the crown and end of all the rest, should be reserved to be the more immediate work of God's own hands, and display of his power, and to be communicated directly from him, without the intervention of instruments, of honouring second causes so much as to improve them in bringing to pass so noble an effect. It is observable that even in the first creation of man, when his body was formed immediately by God, not in a course of nature, or in the way of natural propagation; yet the soul is represented as being in a higher, more direct and immediate manner from God, and so communicated that God did therein as it were communicate something of himself: The Lord God formed man (i.e. his body) of the dust of the ground, (a mean and vile original) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; (whereby something was communicated from an infinitely higher source, even God's own living spirit or divine vital fullness) and so man became a living soul.

Heb. 12:10