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
B02879	The result of a dialogue concerning the middle-state of souls. Wherein is asserted, the ancient doctrine of their relief, obtainable by prayers, alms, &c. before the day of judgment. / By F.D. professor of divinity.	Franciscus a Sancta Clara, 1598-1680.	1660 (1660)	Wing D355A; ESTC R175909	24,202	157

to measure them by that is where there is not a continuation by parts as in our time but each instant followes without ties But I think there is no need to explicate one obscurity by a greater for indeed it is hard to conceive what one indivisible added to another will have for the quotient but punctum which will leave us where we were And therefore staying in this rode I think it clear that the souls have acts and that according to their natures they are measured by aeviternity in its proper sense as Scotus and the rest teach though Aristotle out of a false principle of the souls absolute dependance upon the Fancy denies a separated soul to have any act at all but Avicen saith better following Platoes and as he contends Aristotles doctrin as I have done in the System that the soul hath the species of all things within it self Others conceive that without them it hath actual knowledge of all and therefore as to natural objects the soul in state of separation hath knowledge of all and consequently as they think is easily proved not to be subject to change in them and which is very considerable Mr. White goes no further l. 4. lect 4. Constans itaque est nullam mutationem ex naturae vi in anima separata posse existere CHAP. VIII Whether a soul can be changed by God and how in Purgatory The true state of the controversie explicated BUt when we speak of the soul in Purgatory we speak of a supernatural condition in which case notwithstanding its spirituallity it is moveable by objects of a superior order neither do I remember that Master White questioneth this of which it hath not connaturally any species Neither doth the production of any thing to a being after it had none hinder it from being spiritual or aeviternal else Angels and our souls created in time though not successively or in the parts of time would miss of both For example what repugnance is there in the soul to be moved if God shall please to present his blessed humanity to it in the state of separation as well as when it is again joyned to the body truly I doubt not but it would produce a far more noble and more intense act of the love of God in its separation being far more powerful then when it is united to the body when it works onely by help and order of the fancy as it must doe according to course of nature at the first apparition of that blessed object being the soul is supposed not to be yet beatified I see not that spirituality renders the soul incapable of that happinesse and it is certain that St. Paul thought it not so whence he cryes Sive in corpore sive extra corpus nescio He would have known if his soul extra corpus that is in her spirituallity had repugned to the vision If it be replyed that this is supernatural Is it not so that the soul at last is reunited to the bodie when you conceive it shall love God more intensely Nay is it not so that all ill affections which it carried out of this world shall remain till the reunion and then be abolished What natural reason will reach this Nay what principles of Religion will teach us that the souls of good Christians for so they must be shall be detained in Purgatory so many ages comprehended in aeviternity as till Doomsday to no effect in order to the soules since the very dregs of sin with which they parted from the bodies and their ill affections are not at all corrected or purged by occasion of that state but remain till after the reunion in all their degrees of intention so that their remainder there seems uselesse indeed purely vindicative against which you much insist Again the whole state of the soul here treated is supernatural that is under another series of causes then being with the body That the soul continues in the state of sin or dregs of it wherein it is at the time of separation and in a continual remorse or sting of conscience according to that of St. Luke c. 18. to the rich man Recordare quia recepisti bona in vita tua Remember what good things thou receivedst in thy life Also in a most afflictive and almost a vexatious desire of Heaven from which as they know sins or the dregs retard them All this is natural to it but that this state is temporary and relating or tending to a change of eternal felicity and that it is poenal that is inflicted as such is above nature I meddle not here with what other punishments do or may accompany this state No wonder then if in this supernatural condition it hath when God pleaseth these supernatural visits by wayes which we know not in which the soul is subject to mutation this I conceive sufficient for the matter here treated which is the souls change in order to Heaven To deny this to the souls is not to call in question their naturall power in which we are already agreed as to the negative but Gods power in order to them which in our conference you granted Whereas it may be objected that still here is no diversity of parts as an Agent and a Patient in an indivisible soule which is required in all actions even to avoid contradiction To this is replied according to Aristotle 3o. de An. versus fin as Roger Bacon and Gulielmus Parisiensis and others interpret him that God is therefore as intellectus agens who illuminates our understanding by a spiritual light as the Sun doth our sight in order to bodies and so actuates it in order to knowledge of things whereof it is capable and therefore he saith that intellectus agens is separated a possibili substantially and that it knowes all things and that it is alwayes in act c. which are proper to God as they think and indeed to make the understanding to be agens and possibilis it is a riddle being it is to make it Agent and Patient to it self although indivisible CHAP. IX The state of the Question further explicated The difference between an instant of time and aeviternity declared The resolution of the Question fully given as to change of souls IF you ask me how a Soul by the power of God can be chang'd from a not knowing to a knowing in the same instant without contradiction I answer first that our souls are indeed indivisible in their essences as not having quantity in the production of their acts or operations in state of separation as being not done by motion they are also indivisible in their durances or the measures of their durances are indivisible that is not by parts with which is consistent that their measures are not instantaneous as ours are but are capable and disposed upon Gods continuated and as it were connatural influence as the beames in respect of the Sun to include the whole presentiality of aeternity by

to be very much to undervalue her operations in such penal acts or passions as holy Church presents to our belief in the dead Nay even all other corporal afflictions and austerities in this life voluntarily undertaken you are thought to judge superfluous if not superstitious and derogatory to charity You know how far our neighbours have by urging this reduced all Christian duties of this kind to such a pure worshipping of God in spirit that there is no visible footstep of any old austerities amongst them and even all these old symptomes of Christianity are with them by a new sort of Chymistry evaporated It seems certain according to the received doctrine of great Divines wherein you doe not wholly dissent that all souls which depart from their bodies in a capacity of Heaven at their separation do appretiate God above all and do heartily desire that they had never placed any created object in his room which is never to have sinned mortally Which doctrine methinks is consequent to St. Thomas his opinion of infants in their first act of reason applying themselves to God And this act as I said is esteemed naturally indelible in the dead according to their state with which is consistent a desire of fulfilling Gods Laws in order to expiation of former sins nay that is inconsistent with it self without a desire of complyance with Gods ordinances in this and every other kind Whence follows that their sufferings after death are voluntary as relating to their former acts of conformity to Gods orders and the virtual or habitual durance of it howsoever by some so palpable a truth is denied The whole universe therefore having been deformed in some manner by our deordinations it must be reform'd by our pennances For according to Divines Infligitur poena ut ordinetur culpa and it is so even following nature So that the order of the Universe by Gods original position of causes exacts this method of us Therefore there is no necessity which some are affrighted at so much to attribute their penal detention to revenge in God though it is but quaestio de nomine as diversly taken since it is consequent to our peccaminous acts to be liable to it especially holding as truth seems to convince that the reliques of the sinnes themselves or those very sins of which the souls were guilty in death remain till the change of the souls after Purgation Which doctrine is very conformable to Scotus who holds that venial sins after proportionable punishment in hell it self cease to be that is after the remorse and punishment proportionable to such sin cease which as I have noted elsewhere is Origen's and Gregorie Nissenes clear doctrine for they both seem to admit that only Purgatory I said punishments for which we now call punishments as to the minds remorse for sin in time of nature we would call effects of sin as I shewed de Mundo It s true we have not injured God in our sins who is above and beyond the spheres of our most malitious activity but our selves are principally endamaged in mortal sins by losing all title to Heaven or at least by diminishing it as in venial Which losse caused by violation of his Lawes must be repaired by charity directing to submit to and to keep Gods Commandments according to that Text of our Saviour If you love me keep my Commandements whereof one is to submit to his orders in Purgatory wherein this voluntary due chastisement at last will procure remission of those sins which remain at the least in their dregs Charity indeed hath God himself under the noblest motives for its immediate object but it is exercised not onely in a naked wishing or willing well to God which is to love him but it breaks out into a hearty complyance with all his orders Hence St. Peter John the last Chapter v. 15. being demanded whether he loved God to his triplicated affirmation was as often subnected Feed my sheep c. So that this love hath a great extent though it alwaies terminates in God as it begins in him St. Paul also 1 Cor. 13.4 tells us summarily but pathetically the further operation of charity Charitas patiens est benigna est c. whence will follow that charity can be exercised in following any of Gods orders in respect of the living or the dead as in those St. Paul speaks of 1 Cor. 15.29 who were baptized that is suffered for the dead as the Text clearly speaks It is not then any indignity to charity that good Christians dying invested with it should be exercised afterwards in expiation of former deordinations by their passive complyance with Gods orders which dying in charity they could not but desire This divine order being fulfilled and expiation being effected the soul is rendred through Gods mercy capable of her hoped supervestition of eternity CHAP. VII How a soul according to others can change Of the horror of Doomes-day Whether it is to be prayed for I will now suppose that borrowed principle out of Aristotles Schooles that the soul is not capable of any change once separated from the body as having not the fancy whence the changes were occasioned Which doctrine although I have taught in my System and so do St. Thomas in his School Henricus de Gandavo and others as to natural causes yet it will not reach so far as I conceive as to build a consequence so remote from the common sense of Christians as this of all soules which do not immediately go to Heaven or to Hel their prestolation of the last day in Purgatory and that then upon the reunion of their bodies our blessed Lord shall represent to our corporal eies his most blessed humanity of which he made us not capable during our long expectation in the soules separation upon sight whereof they shall fall into raptures of divine love c. The whole complex taken altogether is the product of a great wit possessed of much learning and if kept within the Schooles as we use frequently impossible suppositions might exercise wits with profit and applause as I believe was intended but where it toucheth upon a noble particle of our Religion as here the putting it into a vernacular Idiome is dangerous and against the Councel of Trent in in this particular Sess 25. Apud rudem verò plebem difficiliores ac subtiliores quaestiones quaeque ad aedificationem non faciunt ex quibus plerunque nulla fit pietatis accessio a popularibus concionibus secludantur incerta item vel quae specie falsi laborant evulgari ac tractari non permittant c. This comes home We are forbidden to move these questions in English Prayer for the Dead as for such as are helped by it being in an indigent condition is one of the most universal most constant and most solemn practises of holy Church as all Monuments declare which by this your speculation is rendred speaking really of no use as being resolved by