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cause_n body_n death_n life_n 3,302 5 4.8128 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A26904 A sermon, or, The survey of man taken by J.B. as it was delivered at his father's funeral, September 4th, 1638. J. B. 1652 (1652) Wing B123; ESTC R32846 17,502 24

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passeth through the whole Heavens encompasseth the Earth and Seas this is invisible and cannot be perceived by sense For the operations of her Essence she hath Spirit Will and Judgement Sense Understanding Reason and for her Beauty Temperance Justice and other Vertues of the Minde in fine she is so divine that she can hardly be comprehended by Reason much less then be perceived by sense God hath given us a soul more to use it then to know it He only knows it perfectly that is above it we now know it only by the effects but shall come to a cleerer revelation in the eternal Heavens Neither do the Philosophers wrangle more concerning the Essence of our souls then they differ about the parts thereof Of the parts of the Soul Most and the latest writers would have them to be four Understanding Reason Anger and Desire but yet the best received opinion will allow no more then two under which they comprize the rest The one is spiritual intellectual and therein you have the discourse of Reason the other sensual brutish which is the Will wandering of it self disordered wherein all evil desires have their dwelling However the soul that is immortal cannot properly be said to be divided because what is divided dissolveth and what is dissolved perisheth yet it may be said to be compounded and made subject during the union with the body to these two principal parts the Will and Understanding The causes of Death The soul indeed may be said to be divided but in another sense to be separated from the body which may happen even in the best complexions Wherein Life consisteth if there be any excesse or defect in the Humors then it causeth Death in the Radical Humor I mean which is the root of Life for as the heat consumeth this Humidity so doth the party languish he dieth just like the flame which lesseneth her light and vigour as the oil wasteth in the Lamp till it be extinguished Again the life of man consisteth in his breath which is no more then winde or Air that refresh the Heart which if retained either in the Mouth or Artery the man is surely dead What then is death but the taking down of these sticks whereof this earthly Tent is built But the separation of two great Friends until they meet again but the Goal-delivery of a long Prisoner that rejoyces to be at liberty The sleep of the Body and the awaking of the Soul which hastneth to be gone flyeth away and where is she my last particular the Quere Man yieldeth up the Ghost and where is he Fourth part Vbi est Where is he Where the Body is Although it hath been a custom amongst some Heathenish people to burn the bodies of their dead and the more Barbarous for to eat them yet still the most civil nations had the humanity to bury the Corps of their deceased Friends for keep them we cannot because they corrupt they putrifie Their Bodies therefore are committed to the ground dust to dust and ashes to ashes as in THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER That the Bodies of the dead do return to the Earth from whence they were taken no man can deny But what is become of the soul Where the Soul there is the question Where is she Doth she vanish into nothing or wander in the Air doth she enter into beasts and so inform them is she idle and falls asleep or else doth she hasten into Purgatory or fly to Heaven There is the question Where is she Doth she vanish into nothing No. The Sadduces dare not die for fear of not being and do merrily sing with the Hogs of the Epicures Stye Ede bibe lude post mortem nulla voluptas But the Christian is assured that the soul is immortal otherwise he denyeth the hope of his resurrection and his faith is also vain he doth well know that his soul survives his body she cannot be annihilated nor vanish like a vapour why then where is she In the Air No. The spirits of the dead do not wander in the Earth nor Aia they frequent not Churchyards Sepulchers nor Tombs and what after death is seen is but the devil to deceive the people in their likeness she shall no more be beheld of men Why then where is she Doth she inform any other creature No. The transmigration of Souls was but a fable that the * Chrys hom 2. of Lazarus Egyptians had taught Pythagoras and Pythagoras the Platonists who * Herodian Lib. 2. Aug. Lib. 12. de civit Dei believed how that that in tract of time there should come a certain year wherein all causes and effects long past should return again and continue constant as for example that at Athens Plato himself who once had many Pupils there after a long appointed season 36000 thousand years the same Plato City and School should return again in which space Ptolomy the great Astronomer did conceive that the course and motion of the Sphere would be finished from West to East And in the mean time it is taught by these brutish men that when the soul doth depart the bodie she doth inform some Beast answerable to her former life that the soul of an hasty and an angry man should degenerate into a Serpent Thieves into Wolves and those that are delighted in swinish pleasure into Hogs Homer into a Peacock and Orpheus into a Swan Yea and Origen writeth * Origen lib. de proverb Solom that this Heresie of the souls departed hapned among some in his dayes that were seeming Christians occasioned by that they did not rightly understand the Scriptures as where it is said by Christ of John the Baptist He is Elias they refer that speech to the soul of John which was only meant to be in the Spirit or power of Elias to convert their souls unto God They did not know how a man doth become a Dog or an Asse Herod is a Fox it is by their resemblance in condition not that the soul doth depart into a Beast Why then where is she is she alwayes idle or asleep No. I saith the Lord am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Matth. 22. And if the soul departed live Matth. 22.32 she cannot be asleep nor idle for to live is to be in action and what action doth better agree unto a departed Soul then the love and contemplation of her God although Irenaeus and some others will not grant thus much before the resurrection day Whose opinion doth seem to be grounded on that in the sixth of the Apocalyps and the ninth verse Apoc. 6.9.10 where S. John saw lying under the Altar the souls of them that were slain but this is answered in the next verse That they cryed unto God and therefore were not asleep But where then doth this Altar stand when the soul is under it