Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	abide_v	ability_n	soul_n	13	3	6.1176	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89326	The soules own evidence, for its own immortality. In a very pleasant and learned discourse, selected out of that excellent treatise entituled, The trunesse of Christian religion, against atheists, epicures, &c. / First compiled in French by famous Phillip Mornay, Lord of Plessie Marlie, afterward turned into English by eloquent Sir Phillip Sydney, and his assistant, Master Arthur Golden, anno Domini M D LXXX VII. And now re-published. By John Bachiler Master of Arts, somtimes of Emanuell Colledge in Cambridge. Published according to order.; De la verité de la religion chrestienne. English	Mornay, Philippe de, seigneur du Plessis-Marly, 1549-1623.; Sidney, Philip, Sir, 1554-1586.; Golding, Arthur, 1536-1606.; Batchiler, John, ca. 1615-1674.	1646 (1646)	Wing M2802; Thomason E324_3	62,858	73

world have their memory still notwithstanding that to some mens seeming it goe away with the sences as the treasury of the sences Howbeit he affirmeth it to be the more excellent kinde of memory not that which calleth things again to minde as already past but that which holdeth and beholdeth them still as always present Of which two sorts this latter he calleth Mindfulnesse and the other he calleth Remembrance I will add but onely one sentence more of his for a full president of his Doctrine The soule sayth he hath had company with the Gods and is immortall and so would we say of it as Plato affirmeth if we saw it faire and cleere But for as much as we see it commonly troubled we think it not to be either divine or immortall howbeit that he which will discerne the nature of a thing perfectly must consider it in the very own substance or being utterly unmingled with any other thing For whatsoever else is added unto it doth hinder the perfect discerning of the same Therefore let everyman behold himselfe naked without any thing save himselfe so as he look upon nothing else than his bare soule and surely when he hath viewed himselfe in his own nature meerly as in respect of his minde he shall believe himselfe to be immortall For he shall see that his minde aymeth not properly at the sensible and mortall things but that by a certain everlasting power it taketh hold of the things that are everlasting and of whatsoever is possible to be conceived in understanding insomuch that even it selfe becommeth after a sort a very world of understanding and light This is against those which pretend a weaknesse of the soule by reason of the inconveniencies which it indureth very often in the body Of the same opinion are Numenius Jamblichus Porphirius and Proclus notwithstanding that now and then they passe their bounds suffering their wits to run ryot For in their Philosophie they had none other rule than onely the drift of their own reason It was commonly thought that Alexander of Aphrodise believed not the immortality of the soule because hee defined it to be the forme of the body proceeding of the mixture temperature of the Elements Surely these words of his doe us to understand either that he meant to defiue but the sensitive life onely as many others do and not the reasonable soule or else that he varieth from himselfe in other places And in very deed he sayth immediately afterward that he speaketh of the things which are subject to generation and corruption But speaking of the soule he sayth it is separable unmateriall unmixed and voyd of passions unlesse perchance we may thinke as some doe that by this soule hee mean but onely God and not also the soule that is in us for the which thing hee is sharply rebuked by Themistius who notwithstanding spake never a whit better thereof himselfe Howsoever he deale elsewhere these words of his following are without any doubtfulnesse at all That the Soule sayth he which is in us commeth from without and is uncorruptible I say uncorruptible because the nature thereof is such and it is the very same that Aristotle affirmeth to come from without And in his second Booke of Problems searching the cause why the abilities of the soule are oftentimes impeached If a mans brain be hurt sayth he the reasonable soule doth not well execute the actions that depend thereon But yet for all that It abideth still in it selfe unchangeable of nature ability and power through the immortality thereof And if it recover a sound instrument it putteth her abilities in execution as well as it did afore But I will reason more at large hereafter against the opinion that is fathered upon him What shall we say of Galen who fathereth the causes of all things as much as he can upon the Elements and the mixture and agreeable concord of them if after his disputing against his own soule hee bee constrained to yield that it is immortall Surely in his book concerning the manners of the soule he doth the worst that he can against Plato and in another place he doubteth whether it be immortall and whether it have continuance of it selfe or no Yet notwithstanding in his book of the doctrine of Hippocrates and Plato It must needs be granted sayth he that the Soule is either a sheare body and of the nature of the skie as the Stoicks and Aristotle himselfe are inforced to confesse or else a bodilesse substance whereof the body is as it were the Chariot and whereby it hath fellowship with other bodies And it appeareth that he inclineth to this latter part For he maketh the vitall spirit to be the excellentest of all bodily things and yet he granteth the soule to be a far more excellent thing than that What shall we then doe Let us wey his words set down in his book of the conception of a childe in the mothers wombe The Soule of man sayth hee is an influence of the universall Soule that discendeth from the heavenly Region a substance that is capable of knowledge which aspireth always to one substance like unto it selfe which leaveth all these lower things to seeke the things that are above which is partaker of the heavenly Godhead and which by mounttng up to the beholding of things that are above the heavens putting it selfe into the presence of him that ruleth all things Were it reason then that such a substance comming from else where than of the body and mounting so far above the body should in the end die with the body because it useth the service of the body Now hereunto I could adde infinite other sayings of the ancient Authors both Greeke and Latine Philosophers Poets and Orators from age to age wherein they treat of the judgement to come of the reward of good men of the punishment of evill men of Paradise and of Hell which are appendants to the immortality of the Soule but as now I will but put the reader in minde of them by the way reserving them to their peculiar places To be short let us run at this day from East to West and from North to South I say not among the Turks Arabians or Persians for their Alcoran teacheth them that mans soule was breathed into him of God and consequently that it is uncorruptible but even a mong the most barbarous ignorant beastly people of the World I meane the very Caribies and Canniballs and we shall finde this beliefe received and imbraced of them all Which giveth us to understand that it is not a doctrine invented by speculations of some Philosophers conveyed from Countrey to Countrey by their Disciples perswaded by likelyhoods of reasons or to be short entered into mans wit by his ears but a native knowledge which every man findeth and readeth in himselfe which he carryeth everywhere about with himselfe and which is as easie to be perswaded

one is as an appendant to the other And in very deed to what purpose were the World created if there were no body to behold it Or to what end behold wee the Creator in the world but to serve him And why should we serve him upon no hope And to what purpose hath he indewed us with these rare gifts of his which for the most part doe but put us to pain and trouble in this life if we perish like the brute Beast or the Hearbes which know him not Howbeit for the better satisfying of the silly Soules which go on still like witlesse Beastes without taking so much leysure in all their life as once to enter into themselves let us indevour here by lively reasons to paint out unto them againe their true shape which they labour to deface with so much filthinesse The Soule of man as I have sayd afore is not a body neyther doth it increase or decrease with the body but contrary wise the more the body decayeth the more doth the understanding increase and the neerer that the body draweth unto death the more freely doth the mind understand and the more that the body abateth in flesh the more workfull is the mind And why then should we think that the thing which becommeth the stronger by the weaknesse of the body and which is advanced by the decay of the body should returne to dust with the body A mans Sences fayle because his eyes fayle and his eyes fayle because the Spirits of them fayle but the blind mans understanding increaseth because his eyes are not buside and the olde mans reason becommeth the more perfect by the losse of his sight Therefore why say we not that the body fayleth the Soul and not the Soule the body and that the Glasses are out of the Spectacles but the eysight is still good Why should we deeme the Soule to be forgone with the Sences If the eye be the thing that seeth and the care the thing that heareth why doe we not see things double and heare sounds double seeing we have two eyes and two ears It is the soule then that seeth and heareth and these which wee take to be our sences are but the instruments of our sences And if when our eyes be shut or picked out we then behold a thousand things in our minde yea and that our understanding is then most quick-sighted when the quickest of our eysight is as good as quenched or starke dead how is it possible that the reasonable soule should be tyed and bound to the sences What a reason is it to say that the soule dyeth with the sences seeing that the true sences doe then grow and increase when the instruments of sense doe die And what a thing were it to say that beast is dead because he hath lost his eyes when we our selves see that it liveth after it hath forgone the eyes Also I have proved that the soule is neither the body nor an appertenance of the body Sith it is so why measure we that thing by the body which measureth all bodies or make that to die with the body whereby the bodies that die yea many hundred years agoe doe after a certain manner live still Or what can hurt that thing whom nothing hurteth or hindereth in the body Though a man lose an arme yet doth his soule abide whole still Let him forgoe the one halfe of his body yet is his soule as sound as afore for it is whole in it selfe and whole in every part of it selfe united in it selfe and in the own substance and by the force and power thereof it sheadeth it selfe into all parts of the body Though the body rot away by piecemeal yet abideth the Soule all one and undiminished Let the bloud dreyn out the moving wax weake the sences faile and the strength perish and yet abideth the minde neverthelesse sound and lively even to the end Her house must be pierced through on all sides ere shee be discouraged her walls must be battered down ere she fall to fleeting and she never forsaketh her lodging till no room be left her to lodge in True it is that the brute beasts forgoe both life action with their bloud But as for our soule if we consider the matter well it is then gathered home into it selfe and when our sences are quenched then doth it most of all labour to surmount it selfe working as goodly actions at the time that the body is at a point to fail it yea and often times far goodlier also than ever it did during the whole life time thereof As for example it taketh order for it selfe for our household for the Common-weale and for a whole Kingdome and that with more uprightnesse godlinesse wisdome and moderation than ever it did afore yea and perchance in a body so far spent so bare so consumed so withered without and so putrified within that whosoever looks upon him sees nothing but earth and yet to heare him speake would ravish a man up to heaven yea and above heaven Now when a man sees so lively a soule in so weake and wretched a body may he not say as is said of the hatching of chickens that the shell is broken but there commeth forth a chicken Also let us see what is the ordinary cause that things perish Fire doth either goe out for want of nourishment or is quenched by his contrary which is water Water is resolved into aire by fire which is his contrary The cause why the Plant dyeth is extremitie of cold or drought or unseasonable cutting or violent plucking up Also the living wight dyeth through contrarietie of humours or for want of food or by feeding upon some thing that is against the nature of it or by outward violence Of all these causes which can we choose to have any power against our Soule I say against the Soule of man which notwithstanding that it be united to matter and to a bodie is it selfe a substance unbodily unmateriall and only conceivable in understanding The contrarietie of things Nay what can be contrarie to that which lodgeth the contraries alike equally in himselfe which understandeth the one of them by the other which coucheth them all under one skill and to be short in whom the contrarieties themselves abandon their contrarieties so as they doe not any more pursue but insue one another Fire is hote and water cold Our bodies mislike these contraries and are grieved by them but our mind linketh them together without eithet burning or cooling it selfe and it setteth the one of them against the other to know them the better The things which destroy one another through the whole world do mainteine one another in our minds Againe nothing is more contrary to peace then warre is and yet mans mind can skill to make or mainteine peace in preparing for warre and to lay earnestly for warre in seeking or inioying of peace Even death it selfe which dispatcheth our life cannot bee contrary

here gather together their owne speeches one after another Hermes declareth in his Poemander how at the voyce of the everlasting the Elements yeelded forth all reasonlesse living wights as it had bin out of their bosomes But when he commeth to man he sayth He made him like unto himselfe he linked himselfe to him as to his Sonne for he was beautifull and made after his owne Image and gave him all his works to use at his pleasure Againe he exhorteth him to forsake his bodie notwithstanding that he wonder greatly at the cunning workmanship thereof as the very cause of his death and to manure his soul which is capable of immortality and to consider the originall root from whence it sprang which is not earthly but heavenly and to withdraw himselfe even from his sences and from their trayterous allurements to gather himselfe wholy into that minde of his which hee hath from God and by the which he following Gods word may become as God Discharge thy selfe sayth he of this body which thou bearest about thee for it is but a cloke of ignorance a foundation of infection a place of corruption a living death a sensible carryon a portable grave a household thief It flattereth thee because it hateth thee and it hateth thee because it envieth thee As long as that liveth it bereaveth thee of life thou hast not a greater enemie than that Now to what purpose were it for him to forsake this light this dwelling place this life if he were not sure of a better in another world as he himselfe sayth more largely afterward On the other side what is the soule The soule sayth he is the garment of the minde and the garment of the soule is a certain spirit whereby it is united to the body And this minde is the thing which we call properly the man that is to say a heavenly wight which is not to be compared with beasts but rather with the Gods of heaven if he be not yet more than they The heavenly cannot come down to the earth without leaving the heaven but man measureth the heaven without removing from the earth The earthly man then is as a mortall God and the heavenly God is as an immortal man To be short his conclusion is That man is double mortall as touching his body and immortall as touching his soule which soule is the substantiall man and the very man created immediately of God sayth he as the light is bred immediately of the Sunne And Chalcidius sayth that at his death he spake these words I goe home again into mine own countrey where my better forefathers and kinsfolke be Of Zoroastres who is yet of more antiquity than Hermes we have nothing but fragments Neverthelesse many report this argument to be one of his That mens souls are immortall and that one day there shall be a generall rising again of their bodies and the answers of the wise men of Chaldye who are the heirs of his Doctrine doe answer sufficiently for him There is one that exhorteth men to return with speed to their heavenly father who hath sent them from above a soule endowed with much understanding and another that exhorteth them to seeke paradice as the peculiar dwelling place of the soule A third sayth that the soule of man hath God as it were shut up in it and that it hath not any mortality therein For sayth he the soule is as it were drunken with God and sheweth forth his wonders in the harmonie of this mortall body And again another sayth It is a cleere fire proceeding from the power of the heavenly father an uncorruptible substance and the maintainer of life containing almost all the whole world with the full plenty thereof in his besom But one of them proceedeth yet further affirming that he which seteth his minde upon godlinesse shall save his body fraile though it be And by those words he acknowledgeth the very glorifying of the body Now all these sayings are reported by the Platonists and namely by Psellus and they refuse not to be acknowne that Pythagoras and Plato learned them of the Chaldees insomuch that some think that the foresaid Hermes and Zoroastres and the residue afore-mentioned are the same of whom Plato speaketh in his second Epistle and in his eleventh Book of Laws when he sayth that the ancient and holy Oracles are to be believed which affirme mens Souls to be Immortall and that in another life they must come before a Judge that will require an account of all their doings The effect whereof commeth to this That the Soule of man proceedeth immediatly from God that is to say that the father of the body is one and the Father of the Soul is another That the Soul is not a bodily substance but a Spirit and a Light That at the departure thereof from hence it is to go into a Paradise and therefore ought to make haste unto death And that it is so far from mortality that it maketh even the body Immortall What can we say more at this day even in the time of light wherein we be Pherecydes the Syrian the first that was known among the Greeks to have written prose taught the fame And that which Virgill sayth in his second Eglog concerning the Drug or Spice of Assyria and the growing thereof every whereis interpreted of some men to be ment of the Immortalitie of the Soule the doctrine whereof Pherecydes brought from thence into Greece namely that it should be understood everywhere throughout the whole world Also Phocylides who was at the same time speaketh thereof in these words {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} That is to say The Soul of man immortall is and never weares away With any age or length of time but liveth fresh for aye And again {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Remnants which remayn of men unburied in the grave Become as Gods and in the Heavens a life most blessed have For though their bodies turn to dust as daily we do see Their Souls live still for evermore from all corruption free And in another place he says again {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} We hope that we shall come agayn Out of the earth to light more playn And if ye aske him the cause of all this he will answer you in another verse thus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Because the Soul Gods Instrument and Image also is Which saying he seemeth to have taken out of this verse of Sibil● {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} In very reason Man should be The Image and the shape of me Of the same opinion also are Orpheus Theognis Homer Hesiodus Pindar and all the Poets of old time which may answer both for themselves and their owne Countries and for the residue of their ages Likewise Pythagoras a disciple of