Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	soul_n	time_n	1,787	5	3.7088	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37239	The original, nature, and immortality of the soul a poem : with an introduction concerning humane knowledge / written by Sir John Davies ... ; with a prefatory account concerning the author and poem.; Nosce teipsum	Davies, John, Sir, 1569-1626.; Tate, Nahum, 1652-1715.	1697 (1697)	Wing D405; ESTC R14959	39,660	143

And are astonish'd when they view the same Nor hath he giv'n these Blessings for a Day Nor made them on the Body's Life depend The Soul though made in Time survives for ay And though it hath Beginning sees no End SECT XXX That the Soul is Immortal proved by several Reasons HER only End is Never ending Bliss Which is the Eternal Face of GOD to see Who Last of Ends and First of Causes is And to do this she must Eternal be How senseless then and dead a Soul hath he Which thinks his Soul doth with his Body dye Or thinks not so but so would have it be That he might Sin with more Security For though these light and vicious Persons say Our Soul is but a Smoak or airy Blast Which during Life doth in our Nostrils play And when we die doth turn to Wind at last Although they say Come let us eat and drink Our Life is but a Spark which quickly dies Though thus they say they know not what to think But in their Minds ten thousand Doubts arise Therefore no Hereticks desire to spread Their light Opinions like these Epicures For so their stagg'ring Thoughts are comforted And other Men's Assent their Doubt assures Yet though these Men against their Conscience strive There are some Sparkles in their flinty Breasts Which cannot be extinct but still revive That though they would they cannot quite be Beasts But whoso makes a Mirror of his Mind And doth with Patience view himself therein His Soul's Eternity shall clearly find Though th' other Beauties be defac'd with Sin 1. Reason First in Man's Mind we find an Appetite To learn and know the Truth of ev'ry thing Which is co-natural and born with it And from the Essence of the Soul doth spring With this Desire she hath a native Might To find out ev'ry Truth if she had time Th' innumerable Effects to sort aright And by Degrees from Cause to Cause to climb But since our Life so fast away doth slide As doth an hungry Eagle through the Wind Or as a Ship transported with the Tide Which in their Passage leave no print behind Of which swift little Time so much we spend While some few things we through the Sense do strain That our short Race of Life is at an end E're we the Principles of Skill attain Or God who to vain Ends hath nothing done In vain this Appetite and Pow'r hath giv'n Or else our Knowledge which is here begun Hereafter must be perfected in Heav'n God never gave a Pow'r to one whole Kind But most part of that Kind did use the same Most Eyes have perfect Sight though some be blind Most Legs can nimbly run though some be lame But in this Life no Soul the Truth can know So perfecty as it hath Pow'r to do If then Perfection be not found below An higher place must make her mount thereto 2. Reason Again How can she but Immortal be When with the Motions of both Will and Wit She still aspireth to Eternity And never rests till she attain to it Water in Conduit-pipes can rise no higher Than the Well-head from whence it first doth spring Then since to Eternal GOD she doth aspire She cannot be but an Eternal Thing All moving things to other things do move Of the same kind which shews their Nature such So Earth falls down and Fire doth mount above Till both their proper Elements do touch And as the Moisture which the thirsty Earth Sucks from the Sea to fill her empty Veins From out her Womb at last doth take a Birth And runs a Nymph along the grassy Plains Long doth she stay as loth to leave the Land From whose soft Side she first did issue make She tasts all Places turns to ev'ry Hand Her flow'ry Banks unwilling to forsake Yet Nature so her Streams doth lead and carry As that her Course doth make no final stay Till she her self unto the Ocean marry Within whose watry Bosom first she lay Ev'n so the Soul which in this Earthly Mould The Spirit of God doth secretly infuse Because at first she doth the Earth behold And only this material World she views At first her Mother Earth she holdeth dear And doth embrace the World and worldly things She flies close by the Ground and hovers here And mounts not up with her Celestial Wings Yet under Heav'n she cannot light on Ought That with her heav'nly Nature doth agree She cannot rest she cannot fix her Thought She cannot is this World contented be For who did ever yet in Honour Wealth Or Pleasure of the Sense Contentment find Who ever ceas'd to wish when he had Health Or having Wisdom was not vex'd in Mind Then as a Bee which among Weeds doth fall Which seem sweet Flow'rs with lustre fresh and gay She lights on that and this and tasteth all But pleas'd with none doth rise and soar away So when the Soul finds here no true Content And like Noah's Dove can no sure Footing take She doth return from whence she first was sent And flies to him that first her Wings did make Wit seeking Truth from Cause to Cause ascends And never rests till it the first attain Will seeking Good finds many middle Ends But never stays till it the last do gain Now GOD the Truth and First of Causes is GOD is the last good End which lasteth still Being Alpha and Omega nam'd for this Alpha to Wit Omega to the Will Since then her heav'nly Kind she doth display In that to GOD she doth directly move And on no mortal thing can make her Stay She cannot be from hence but from above And yet this first true Cause and last good End She cannot here so well and truely see For this Perfection she must yet attend Till to her Maker she espoused be As a King's Daughter being in Person sought Of divers Princes who do neighbour near On none of them can fix a constant Thought Though she to all do lend a gentle Ear Yet can she love a foreign Emperor Whom of great Worth and Pow'r she hears to be If she be woo'd but by Ambassador Or but his Letters or his Pictures see For well she knows that when she shall be brought Into the Kingdom where her Spouse doth reign Her Eyes shall see what she conceiv'd in Thought Himself his State his Glory and his Train So while the Virgin-Soul on Earth doth stay She woo'd and tempted is ten thousand Ways By these great Pow'rs which on the Earth bear sway The Wisdom of the World Wealth Pleasure Praise With these sometimes she doth her Time beguile These do by fits her Fantasie possess But she distastes them all within a while And in the sweetest finds a Tediousness But if upon the World 's Almighty King She once doth fix her humble loving Thought Who by his Picture drawn in ev'ry thing And sacred Messages her Love hath sought Of him she thinks she cannot think too much This Honey tasted still is ever

sweet The Pleasure of her ravish'd Thought is such As almost here she with her Bliss doth meet But when in Heav'n she shall his Essence see This is her sov'reign Good and perfect Bliss Her Longing Wishings Hopes all finish'd be Her Joys are full her Motions rest in this There is she crown'd with Garlands of Content There doth she Manna eat and Nectar drink That Presence doth such high Delights present As never Tongue could speak nor Heart could think 3. Reason For this the better Souls do oft despise The Body's Death and do it oft desire For when on Ground the burthen'd Ballance lies The empty part is lifted up the higher But if the Body's Death the Soul should kill Then Death must needs against her Nature be And were it so all Souls would fly it still For Nature hates and shuns her Contrary For all things else which Nature makes to be Their Being to preserve are chiefly taught And though some things desire a Change to see Yet never Thing did long to turn to nought If then by Death the Soul were quenched quite She could not thus against her Nature run Since ev'ry sensless thing by Nature's Light Doth Preservation seek Destruction shun Nor could the World's best Spirits so much err If Death took all that they should all agree Before this Life their Honour to prefer For what is Praise to things that nothing be Again If by the Body's Prop she stand If on the Body's Life her Life depend As Meleagers on the fatal Brand The Body's Good she only would intend We should not find her half so brave and bold To lead it to the Wars and to the Seas To make it suffer Watchings Hunger Cold When it might feed with Plenty rest with Ease Doubtless all Souls have a surviving Thought Therefore of Death we think with quiet Mind But if we think of being turn'd to nought A trembling Horrour in our Souls we find 4. Reason And as the better Spirit when she doth bear A Scorn of Death doth shew she cannot die So when the wicked Soul Death's Face doth fear Ev'n then she proves her own Eternity For when Death's Form appears she feareth not An utter Quenching or Extinguishment She would be glad to meet with such a Lot That so she might all future Ill prevent But she doth doubt what after may befal For Nature's Law accuseth her within And saith 'T is true what is affirm'd by all That after Death there is a Pain for Sin Then she who hath been hood wink'd from he Birth Doth first her self within Death's Mirrour see And when her Body doth return to Earth She first takes care how she alone shall be Who ever sees these irreligious Men With Burthen of a Sickness weak and faint But hears them talking of Religion then And vowing of their Souls to ev'ry Saint When was there ever cursed Atheist brought Unto the Gibbet but he did adore That blessed Pow'r which he had set at nought Scorn'd and blasphemed all his Life before These light vain Persons still are drunk and mad With Surfeitings and Pleasures of their Youth But at their Death they are fresh sober sad Then they discern and then they speak the truth If then all Souls both good and bad do teach With gen'ral Voice That Souls can never die 'T is not Man's flatt'ring Gloss but Nature's Speech Which like GOD's Oracles can never lye 5. Reason Hence springs that universal strong Desire Which all Men have of Immortality Not some few Spirits unto this Thought aspire But all Men's Minds in this united be Then this Desire of Nature is not vain She covets not Impossibilities Fond Thoughts may fall into some idle Brain But one Assent of all is ever wise From hence that gen'ral Care and Study springs That Launching and Progression of the Mind Which all Men have so much of future things That they no Joy do in the present find From this Desire that main Desire proceeds Which all Men have surviving Fame to gain By Tombs by Books by memorable Deeds For she that this desires doth still remain Hence lastly springs Care of Posterities For Things their Kind would everlasting make Hence is it that old Men do plant young Trees The Fruit whereof another Age shall take If we these Rules unto our selves apply And view them by Reflection of the Mind All these true Notes of Immortality In our Heart's Tables we shall written find 6. Reason And though some impious Wits do Questions move And doubt if Souls immortal be or no That Doubt their Immortality doth prove Because they seem immortal things to know For he who Reasons on both Parts doth bring Doth some things mortal some immortal call Now if himself were but a mortal thing He could not judge immortal things at all For when we judge our Minds we Mirrors make And as those Glasses which material be Forms of material things do only take For Thoughts or Minds in them we cannot see So when we God and Angels do conceive And think of Truth which is eternal too Then do our Minds immortal Forms receive Which if they mortal were they could not do And as if Beasts conceiv'd what Reason were And that Conception should distinctly show They should the Name of Reasonable bear For without Reason none could Reason know So when the Soul mounts with so high a Wing As of Eternal Things she Doubts can move She Proofs of her Eternity doth bring Ev'n when she strives the contrary to prove For ev'n the Thought of Immortality Being an Act done without the Body's Aid Shews that her self alone could move and be Although the Body in the Grave were laid SECT XXXI That the Soul cannot be destroy'd AND if her self she can so lively move And never need a Foreign Help to take Then must her Motion everlasting prove Because her self she never can forsake But though Corruption cannot touch the Mind By any Cause that from it self may spring Some outward Cause Fate hath perhaps design'd Which to the Soul may utter Quenching bring Perhaps her Cause may cease and she may die God is her Cause his Word her Maker was Which shall stand fix'd for all Eternity When Heav'n and Earth shall like a Shadow pass Perhaps some thing repugnant to her Kind By strong Antipathy the Soul may kill But what can be Contrary to the Mind Which holds all Contraries in Concord still She lodgeth Heat and Cold and Moist and Dry And Life and Death and Peace and War together Ten thousand fighting things in her do lie Yet neither troubleth or disturbeth either Perhaps for want of Food the Soul may pine But that were strange since all things bad and good Since all God's Creatures Mortal and Divine Since God himself is her eternal Food Bodies are fed with things of mortal kind And so are subject to Mortality But Truth which is eternal feeds the Mind The Tree of Life which will not let her die Yet Violence perhaps the

have suck'd in from Lucretius or Hobbs This would acquaint them with some Principles of Religion for in Old Times the Poets were their Divines and exercised a kind of Spiritual Authority amongst the People Verse in those Days was the Sacred Stile the Stile of Oracles and Laws The Vows and Thanks of the People were recommended to their Gods in Songs and Hymns Why may they not retain this Privilege for if Prose should contend with Verse 't would be upon unequal Terms and as it were on Foot against the Wings of Pegasus With what Delight are we touch'd in hearing the Stories of Hercules Achilles Cyrus and Aeneas Because in their Characters we have Wisdom Honour Fortitude and Justice set before our Eyes 'T was Plato's Opinion That if a Man cou'd see Virtue he wou'd be strangely enamour'd on her Person Which is the Reason why Horace and Virgil have continued so long in Reputation because they have Drawn her in all the Charms of Poetry No Man is so senseless of Rational Impressions as not to be wonderfully affected with the Pastorals of the Ancients when under the Stories of Wolves and Sheep they describe the Misery of People under Hard Masters and their Happiness under Good So the bitter but wholsome lambick was wont to make Villany blush the Satyr incited Men to laugh at Folly the Comedian chastised the Common Errors of Life and the Tragedian made Kings afraid to be Tyrants and Tyrants to be their own Tormentors Wherefore as Sir Philip Sidney said of Chaucer That he knew not which he should most wonder at either that He in his dark Time should see so distinctly or that We in this clear Age should go so stumblingly after him so may we marvel at and bewail the low Condition of Poetry now when in our Plays scarce any one Rule of Decorum is observed but in the space of two Hours and an half we pass through all the Fits of Bethlem in one Scene we are all in Mirth in the next we are sunk into Sadness whilst even the most labour'd Parts are commonly starv'd for want of Thought a confused heap of Words and empty Sound of Rhyme This very Consideration should advance the Esteem of the following Poem wherein are represented the various Movements of the Mind at which we are as much transported as with the most excellent Scenes of Passion in Shakespear or Fletcher For in this as in a Mirrour that will not Flatter we see how the Soul Arbitrates in the Understanding upon the various Reports of Sense and all the Changes of Imagination How compliant the Will is to her Dictates and obeys her as a Queen does her King At the same time acknowledging a Subjection and yet retaining a Majesty How the Passions more at her Command like a well-disciplined Army from which regular Composure of the Faculties all operating in their proper Time and Place there arises a Complacency upon the whole Soul that infinitely transcends all other Pleasures What deep Philosophy is this to discover the Process of God's Art in fashioning the Soul of Man after his own Image by remarking how one part moves another and how those Motions are vary'd by several positions of each Part from the first Springs and Plummets to the very Hand that points out the visible and last Effects What Eloquence and Force of Wit to convey these profound Speculations in the easiest Language expressed in Words so vulgarly received that they are understood by the meanest Capacities For the Poet takes care in every Line to satisfy the Understandings of Mankind He follows Step by Step the workings of the Mind from the first Strokes of Sense then of Fancy afterwards of Judgment into the Principles both of Natural and Supernatural Motives Hereby the Soul is made intelligible which comprehends all things besides the boundless Tracks of Sea and Land and the vaster Spaces of Heaven that Vital Principle of Action which has always been busied in Enquiries abroad is now made known to its self insomuch that we may find out what we our selves are from whence we came and whither we must go we may perceive what noble Guests those are which we lodge in our Bosoms which are nearer to us than all other things and yet nothing further from our Acquaintance But here all the Labyrinths and Windings of the Humane Frame are laid open 'T is seen by what Pullies and Wheels the Work is carry'd on as plainly as if a Window were opened into our Breast For it is the Work of God alone to create a Mind The next to this is to shew how its Operations are perform'd UPON THE Present Corrupted State OF POETRY IN happy Ages past when Justice reign'd The Muses too their Dignity maintain'd Were only then in Shrines and Temples found With Innocence instead of Lawrel crown'd Anthems and Hallelujahs did resound In these Seraphick Tasks their hours they pass'd Pious as Sybil's and as Vestals chast They justly then were stil'd the Sacred Nine Nor were the Heav'n-born Graces more Divine Like them with Heav'n they did Alliance claim And wisest Kings their Votaries became Who though by Art and Nature form'd to Reign Their Homage paid amongst the Muses Train They thought Extent of Empire less Renown And priz'd their Poet's Wreath above their Prince's Crown Heav'ns Praise was then the only Theme of Verse Which Kings of Earth were honour'd to rehearse Their Songs did then fair Salem's Temple fill And Sion was the Muses Sacred Hill At length transplanted from the Holy Land To Pagan Regions pass'd the Sacred Band In Greece they settled but with lessen'd Grace And chang'd their Manners as they chang'd their Place Here Poetry beginning to decline First mingled Humane Praises with Divine Yet still they sung alone some Worthy's Name And only gave restoring Hero's Fame But grew at last a mercenary Trade The gift of heav'n the price of Gold was made Brib'd Poets with Encomiums did pursue The worst of Men and prais'd their Vices too They gave destroying Tyrants most Applause Who shed most Blood regardless of their Cause If meerly to Destroy can merit Fame Famines and Plauges the larger Trophies claim But this and worse with our licentious Times Compar'd in Poets were but Venial Crimes That Poetry which did at first inspire Coelestial Rapture and Seraphick Fire Her Talent in Hell's Service now employs The Prostitute and Bawd of Sensual Joys On Mischief's side engages all her Charms Against Religion her Offensive Arms Whilst Lust Extortion Sacrilege pass free She points her Satyr Virtue against Thee And turns on Heav'n its own Artillery But Wit 's fair Stream when from its genuine Course Constrain'd runs muddy and with lessen'd Force Our Poets when Deserters they became To Virtue 's Cause declin'd as much in Fame That Curse was on the lewd Apostates sent Who as they grew Debauch'd grew Impotent Wit 's short-liv'd Off-springs in our later Times Confess too plain their vicious Parents Crimes No Spencer's Strength or Davies