Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	bear_v	life_n	live_v	4,791	5	5.2156	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

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

Pherecides held opinion that the Soule is a bodylesse and immortall substance put into this body as into a Prison for sinning And whereas the fleeting of soules out of one body into another is fathered upon him although the opinion be not directly against the immortality of the soul yet doe many men thinke that he hath wrong done unto him And his Disciple Timaeus of Locres reporteth otherwise of him For what punishment were it to a voluptuous man to have his Soule put into a beast that he might become the more voluptuous without remorse of sinne Soothly it is all one as if in punishment of murther or theft yee would make the murtherer to cut the throats of his own father and mother or the thiefe to commit treachery against God Howsoever the case stand he teacheth in his verses that man is of heavenly race and that as Jamblichus reporteth he is set in this world to behold God And his Disciple Arckitas sayth that God breatheth reason and understanding into him Likewise Philolaus affirmeth that the Divines and Prophets of old time bear record that the soule was coupled with the body for her sins and buried in the same as in a grave Of Epicharmus we have this saying If thou beest a good man in thy heart death can doe thee no harme for thy soule shall live happily in heaven c. Also of Heraclides we have this saying We live the death of them that is to say of the blessed his meaning is that we be not buried with our bodies and we dye their life that is to say we be still after this bodie of ours is dead Of the like opinion are Thales Anaxagoras and Diogenes concerning this point yea and so is Zeno too howbeit that he thought the soule to be begotten of man wherein he was contrary to himselfe To be short scarcely were there any to be found among the men of old time save onely Democritus and Epicurus that held the contrary way whom the Poet Lucre imitated afterward in his Verses Yet notwithstanding when Epicurus should dye he commanded an Anniversary or Yeerminde to be kept in remembrance of him by his Disciples so greatly delighted he in a vain shadow of immortality having shaken off the very thing itselfe And Lucrece as it is written of him made his book being mad at such times as the fits of his madnesse were off him surely more mad when hee thought himselfe wisest than when the fits of his phrensie were strongest upon him Whosoever readeth the goodly discourses of Socrates upon his drinking of poyson as they be reported by Plato and Xenophon himselfe cannot doubt of his opinion in this case For he not onely believed it himself but also perswaded many men to it with lively reasons yea and by his own death much more then by all his life And so yee see we be come unto Plato and Aristotle with consent of all the wise men of old time ungainsaid of any saving of a two or three malapart wretches whom the ungraciousnesse of our dayes would esteem but as drunken sots and disards Certesse Plato who might peradventure have heard speake of the Books of Moses doth in his Timaeus bring in God giving commandement to the under-gods whom he created that they should make man both of mortall and of immortall substances Wherein it may be that he alluded to this saying in Genesis Let us make man after our own image and likenesse In which case the Jews say that GOD directed his speech to his Angels but our Divines say he spake to himselfe But anon after both in the same book and in many other places Plato as it were commming to himselfe again teacheth that GOD created Man by himselfe yea and even his Liver and his Brain and all his Sences that is to say the Soule of him not onely endued with reason and understanding but also with sence and ability of growing and increasing and also the instruments whereby the same doe worke Moreover he maketh such a manifest difference betweene the Soule and the Body as that he matcheth them not together as matter and forme as Aristotle doth but as a Pilot and a Ship a Common-weale and a Magistrate an Image and him that beareth it upon him What greater thing can there be than to be like God Now sayth Plato in his Phoedon The Soul of Man is very like the Godhead Immortall Reasonable Uniforme Undissoluble and evermore of one sort which are conditions sayth he in his matters of State that cannot agree but to things most divine And therefore at his departing out of the World hee willed his Soul to return home too her kinred and to her first originall that is to wit as he himself sayth there to the wise and Immortall Godhead the Fountain of all goodnes as called home from banishment into her own native Country Hee termeth it ordinarily {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that is to say of Kyn unto God and consequently {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that is to say Everlasting and of one self-same name with the immortall ones a Heavenly Plant and not a Earthly rooted in Heaven not in Earth begotten from above and not heer beneath and finally such as cannot dye heer for as much as it liveth still in another place To be short seeing sayth he that it comprehendeth the things that are Divine and Immortall that is to wit the Godhead and the things that are unchangeable and uncorruptible as truth is it cannot be accounted to be of any other nature than they The same opinion doth Plutarch also attribute unto him which appeareth almost in every leafe of his Writings As touching the ancienter sort of Platonists they agree all with one accord in the Immortality of the Soul saving that some of them derive it from God and some from the Soule of the World some make but the Reason or Mind onely to be Immortall and some the whole Soule which disagreement may well be salved if we say that the Soul all whole together is Immortall in power or ability though the execution and performance of the actions which are to be done by the body be forgone with the instruments or members of the body The disagreement concerning this point among such as a man may vouchsafe to call by the name of Phylosophers seemeth to have begun at Aristotle howbeit that his Disciples count it a commendation to him that he hath given occasion to doubt of his opinion in that behalfe For it is certain that his new found Doctrine of the eternity or everlastingnesse of the world hath distroubled his brain in many other things as commonly it falleth out that one error breedeth many other Because nature sayth he could not make every man particularly to continue for ever by himselfe therefore shee continueth him in the kinde by matching male and female together This is spoken either

they receive and perceive the thing that grieveth them and for that the manner of their behaving of themselves towards their objects is subiect to suffering But as for the reasonable Soule which receiveth all things after one manner that is to wit by way of understanding where through it alway worketh is never wrought into how is it possible for it to corrupt or marre it selfe For what is the thing whereat our Soule suffereth ought in the substance thereof I meane whereby the substance of our Soule is any whit impaired or hurt by minding or conceiving the same in understanding As little doth the fire hurt it as the aire and the aire as the fire As little hurt receiveth it by the frozen ice of Norwey as by the scorching sands of Affricke As little also doth vice annoy it as vertue For vice and vertue are so farre of from incombering the substance of the soule that our mind doth never conceive or understand them better than by setting them together one against another That thing therefore which doth no whit appaire it selfe but taketh the ground of perfecting it selfe by all things cannot be marred or hurt by any thing Again what is death The uttermost point of moving and the uttermost bound of this life For even in living we dye and in dying we live and there is not that step which we set downe in this life which doth not continually step forward unto death after the manner of a Diallor a Clock which mounting up by certain degrees forgoeth his moving in moving from Minute to Minute Take away moving from a body and it doth no more live Now let us see if the soul also be carryed with the same moving If it be caryed with the same moving then doth it undoubtedly move therewithall Nay contrariwise whether the mind rest or whether it be buzyed about the proper operations thereof it is not perceived either by any panting of hart or by any beating of pulses or by any breathing of Lungs It is then as a Ship that carieth us away with it whether we walke or sit still the sticking fast whereof or the tying thereof to a poste hindereth not our going up and downe in it still Againe if the soule be subiect to the sfin corruption of the body then is it subiect to the alterations thereof also and if it be subject to the alterations it is subject to time also For alterations or changes are spices or rather consequents of moving and movings are not made but in time Now man in respect of the body hath certain full poynts or stops at the which he receiveth manifest changes and thereafter groweth or decayeth But commonly where the decay of the body beginneth there beginneth the chief strength of the mind Howbeit that in some men not only their chinnes are covered with down but also their beards become gray whose minds for want of exercise shew no signe at all either of ripenesse or growing Moreover time as in respect of the body cannot be called againe but in respect of the mind it is alwayes present Yea and time perfecteth accomplisheth and increaseth our mind and after a sort reneweth and fresheth it from day to day whereas contrariwise it forweareth washeth away and quight consumeth both it selfe and the body with the life thereof It followeth then that the reasonable Soule is not subject to time nor consequently to any of the changes and corruption that accompanie time Nay we may say thus much more That nothing in the whole world is nourished with things better than it selfe neither doth any of them contain greater things than it selfe But the things that are corruptible do live of corruptible things and cannot live without corrupting them as for example beasts live by herbs men by beasts and so forth And therefore things which live by uncorruptible things and can so receive and digest them as to turne them into the nourishment of their nature and yet not corrupt them are uncorruptible themselves to Now the Soule of man I meane the reasonable soule or mind conceiveth reason and truth and is fed and strengthened with them And reason and truth are things unchangeable not subject to time place or alteration but steady unchaungeable and everlasting For that twice two be fower and that there is the same reason in the proportion of eight unto six that is of fower unto three or that in a Triangle the three inner angles are equall with the too right angles and such like are truths which neither years nor thousands of years can change as true at this day as they were when Euclide first spake them And so forth of other things It followeth then that the Soule comprehending reason and truth which are things free from corruption cannot in any wise be subject to corruption Again Who is he of all men that desireth not to be immort all And how could any man desire it if he understood not what it is Or how could he be able to understand it unlesse it were possible for him to attain unto it Surely none of us coveteth to be beginninglesse for none of us is so neither can any of us be so And as we cannot so be so also can we not comprehend what it is For who is he that it not at his wits end but onely to thinke upon eternitie without beginning On the contrary part there is not so base a minde which coveteth not to live for ever insomuch that whereas we looke not for it by nature we seeke to obtain it by skill and pollicie some by books some by Images and some by other devices and even the grossest sort can well imagine in themselves what immortality is and are able both to conceive it and to believe it Whence comes this but that our soules being created cannot conceive an everlastingnesse without beginning and yet neverthelesse that forasmuch as they be created immortall they doe well conceive an immortality or everlastingnesse without end And whereto serves this universall desire if it be not naturall or how is it naturall if it be in vain and not onely in vain but also to bring us to hell and to torment Let us wade yet deeper Who can dispute or once so much as doubt whether the soule be immortall or no but he that is capable of Immortality And who can understand what difference is betwixt mortall and Immortall but he that is Immortall Man is able to discerne the difference between that which is reason and that which is not and thereupon we terme him reasonable Whosoever would hold opinion that a man is not reasonable should need none other disproof than his own disputing thereof for he would go about to prove it by reason Man can skill to discerne the mortall natures from the immortall and therefore we may well say he is immortall For he that should dispute to the contrary shall be driven to bring such reasons as shall of themselves make him to prove