Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	great_a	soul_n	12,147	5	5.0848	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61522	The Bishop of Worcester's answer to Mr. Locke's letter, concerning some passages relating to his Essay of humane understanding, mention'd in the late Discourse in vindication of the Trinity with a postscript in answer to some reflections made on that treatise in a late Socinian pamphlet.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1697 (1697)	Wing S5557; ESTC R18564	64,712	157

the Vindication of his Leviathan he saith That his Doctrine is that the Soul is not a separated Substance but that the Man at his Resurrection shall be revived And he answers that place Fear not them which kill the Body but cannot kill the Soul thus Man cannot kill a Soul for the Man killed shall revive again I think he might as well have said That Man cannot kill the Body for that shall be revived at the Resurrection But what is all this to you I hope nothing at all But it shews that those who have gone about to overthrow the Immortality of the Soul by Nature have not been thought to secure the great ends of Religion and Morality And although we think the separate State of the Soul after Death is sufficiently revealed in Scripture yet it creates a great difficulty in understanding it if the Soul be nothing but Life or a Material Substance which must be dissolved when Life is ended For if the Soul be a Material Substance it must be made up as others are of the Cohesion of solid and separate Parts how minute and invisible soever they be And what is it which should keep them together when Life is gone So that it is no easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an Immaterial Substance and then we know the Solution of the Texture of Bodies cannot reach the Soul being of a different Nature And this is no more than what the wisest and most intelligent Philosophers have asserted merely from the consideration of the Nature and Properties of the Soul as you very well know and I need not for your sake run into such a Digression or as you call it step out of my way any farther then you give occasion for it in what follows For you tell me You have great Authorities to justifie your using a Spiritual Substance without excluding Materiality from it And for this you refer me to two great men indeed among the Romans Cicero and Virgil. I was surprized at what you say out of Cicero having been no stranger to his Writings about these matters and I have consulted the place you refer to where you say that he opposes Corpus to Ignis and Anima i. e. Breath and that the Foundation of his distinction of the Soul from the Body is because it is so subtle as to be out of Sight It is a very easie matter to multiply Citations out of Cicero where Spiritus and Anima are both taken for Breath but any one who will but read the very beginning of his Tusculan Questions may understand his meaning For in the Entrance of that Dispute he takes Animus for the Soul and neither Anima nor Spiritus and he tells us there were two opinions about it at Death Some held a Discessus Animi à Corpore a departure of the Soul from the Body others said that the Soul never departed but was extinguished with Life and the several opinions he sets down at large Ch. 9 10. and then Ch. 11. he summs up the different opinions and saith he If it be the Heart or Blood or Brain because it is a Body it will be extinguished with it If it be Anima the Vital Breath it will be dissipated if it be Fire it will be extinguished It is true he distinguishes here the Vital Breath from the Body and no one questions such a distinction of the Animal and Vital Spirits from the grosser parts of the Body but all this proceeds upon the Supposition of those who held nothing to survive after Death but then he goes on to those who held the Souls when they are gone out of their Bodies to go to Heaven as their proper Habitation And here he plainly supposes the Soul not to be a finer sort of Body but of a different Nature from the Body which it leaves Nam Corpus quidem saith he quasi vas est receptaculum Animi C. 22. and elsewhere he calls the Body the Prison of the Soul C. 30. and saith That every wise Man is glad to be dismissed out of the Bonds and Darkness of it and his business in the Body is secernere Animum à Corpore to draw off the Soul from the Body which the Philosophers called Commentatio mortis i. e. a Continual Exercise of Dying therefore saith he Disjungamus nos à Corporibus id est consuescamus mori Is it possible now to think so great a Man look'd on the Soul but as a Modification of the Body which must be at an end with Life Instead of it there are several things very remarkable in this very Book concerning the Immortality of Souls by Nature 1. He extremely despises those who made the Soul a mere Mode of Matter which was extinguished with Life and he saith they were Plebeii Philosophi Ch. 23. a mean sort of Philosophers and in another place minuti Philosophi De Senect c. 23. who held there was no Sense after Death But he represents Cato there as weary of the Noise and Filth of this World and longing to go to far better Company O praeclarum diem cum ad illud Divinum Animorum Concilium Coetumque proficiscar atque ex hâc turbâ colluvione discedam Did these men look on the Souls of Men as mere Modifications of Matter 2. He urges the general Consent of Nations for the Permanency of Souls after Death c. 16. and he affirms Nature it self de Immortalitate Animorum tacitè judicare c. 14. And I do not think the general Consent of Mankind in this Matter so uncertain or so slight an argument as some have made it even since the late Discoveries as I think it were no hard Matter to prove but I shall not here go out of my way to do it 3. The most ancient Philosophers of Greece held the same opinion as he shews from Pherecydes Pythagoras Socrates Plato c. c. 16 17 c. and they went upon far better Reasons than the other as he proves at large c. 21 22 23. 4. That the Bodies and Souls of Men have a different Frame and Original Our Bodies he saith c. 19. are made of Terrestrial Principles but the Souls he saith are of a divine Original and if we could give an account how they were made we should likewise how they were dissolved c. 14. as we may of the Parts and Contexture of Bodies but saith he Animorum nulla in terris origo inveniri potest nihil est enim in animis mixtum atque concretum aut quod ex terra natum atque fictum esse videatur c. 27. So that here he plainly makes a Difference between our Bodily Substance and that of our Souls which have no bodily Texture and Composition because there is no material Substance which can reach to the wonderfull Faculties and Operations of the Soul and therefore he concludes in these words Singularis est igitur quaedam natura atque vis

animi sejuncta ab his usitatis notisque naturis What can express the Soul to be of a different Substance from the Body if these words do it not And presently adds That the Mind is of a divine and Spiritual Nature and above Material Composition as God himself is I hope this may give you satisfaction as to Cicero how far he was from making the Soul a Material Substance And the only place you produce out of him c. 22. proves nothing but that the Soul is Invisible as you may see by looking upon it again As to Virgil you quote that Expression Dum Spiritus hos regit artus where it is taken for the Vital Spirit which sense I know no body questions and so Tully expresses life quae Corpore Spiritu continetur and opposes it to a Life of Immortal Fame which he there speaks of Pro Marcello c. 9. but the only matter in debate is Whether they excluded any other Notion of Spirit which was not done as I have made it appear concerning Cicero and so I shall of Virgil too For soon after Aeneid 4.385 he hath these Words Et cum frigida mors Animae seduxerit Artus Omnibus Vmbra locis adero dabis improbe poenas Which shews that Virgil did believe the Soul to be more than a mere Vital Spirit and that it subsisted and acted in a separate State And it is observed by Servius that Virgil uses Spiritus Mens and Animus for the same In Aeneid 6.726 Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem And he proves that Virgil asserted the Immortality of Souls and answers the arguments against it and as far as he could understand he saith that our Bodies are from the Elements and our Souls from God and the Poets intention was Vt Animos immortales diceret So that neither Cicero nor Virgil do you any kindness in this matter being both Assertors of the Souls Immortality by Nature If these will not do you bring me to Scripture and say that Solomon himself speaks after the same manner about Man and Beast as the one dieth so dieth the other yea they have all one Spirit Eccles. 3.19 I will not dispute about the proper Sense of the Hebrew Word but I must about Solomon's Sense For although he makes Life and Death common to Man and Beast yet he saith v. 21. The Spirit of a Man goeth upward and the Spirit of a Beast goeth down to the Earth But you say If the Notion of a Spirit excludes Materiality then the Spirit of a Beast must be Immaterial as well as that of a Man I answer that although the bare Word doth not prove it yet the design of Solomon's Discourse doth and so the going upward of the Spirit of a Man must be understood in a very different Sense from the going downward of the Spirit of a Beast For he saith concerning Man That the Spirit shall return to God that gave it c. 12.7 To what purpose To be dissipated in the common Air or to be lost in the vast Confusion of Matter no but he concludes his Book thus v. 14. For God shall bring every Work into Iudgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil If these be Solomon's Words as no doubt they were and he were a Man of Sense and laid his sayings together as no doubt he did these last Words must interpret the foregoing and his other sayings be made Consonant to this Yes you may say This relates to the general Iudgment and not to the Soul's Subsistence after Death But Solomon speaks of the Spirit of a Man going upward at Death and returning to God that gave it What Sense is there in this if it be a Material Substance which vanishes and is dissolved then And if the Soul be not of it self a free thinking Substance I do not see what Foundation there is in Nature for a Day of Judgment For where there is nothing but Matter there is no Freedom of acting where there is no Liberty there is no Choice where there is no Choice there is no room for Rewards and Punishments and consequently no Day of Iudgment But Solomon positively concludes there will be a Judgment to come as to good and evil Actions in another World and therefore he must be understood in those Expressions to mean a Free and Thinking and consequently an Immaterial Spirit in us But you urge farther That our Saviour himself opposes Spirit to Flesh and Bones Luk. 24.39 i. e. to such a gross Compages as could be seen and felt The question then was whether it were the real Body of Christ or only an Appearance of it and how could this be resolved better than our Saviour doth Handle me and see for a Spirit hath not Flesh and Bones as you see me have But he calls this a Spirit What follows Therefore a Spirit is only an Appearance I do not think that is your meaning And no body questions but the name of Spirits is sometimes given to Apparitions But this is far from our case which is whether that real Spiritual Substance we find in our selves be Material or not Doth a Spiritual Substance imply Matter in its Idea or not You cannot say it doth Then it may be Immaterial But how come we to know things but by their distinct Ideas Is the Idea of Matter and Spirit distinct or not If not to what purpose do we talk of Knowledge by Ideas when we cannot so much as know Body and Spirit from each other by them Is it then any Absurdity to call a Spiritual Substance Immaterial No you say You would not be thought to affirm that Spirit never does signifie a purely Immaterial Substance for in that Sense the Scripture attributes the Notion of Spirit to God and you have proved from your Principles that there is a Spiritual Immaterial Substance And this you think proves an Immaterial Substance in your way of Ideas But of that afterwards We are yet upon the proving an Immaterial Substance in our selves from the Ideas we have by Sensation and Reflection Now I say still this is impossible if the Spiritual Substance in us may be material And at last you grant That what I say is true that it cannot upon these Principles be demonstrated Then say I Your grounds of Certainty from Ideas are plainly given up But you say it may be proved probable to the highest Degree But that is not the point for it is not Probability but Certainty that we are promised in this way of Ideas and that the Foundation of our Knowledge and real Certainty lies in them and is it dwindled into a Probability at last The only reason I had to engage in this matter was a bold Assertion that the Ideas we have by Sensation or Reflection are the sole Matter and Foundation of all our Reasoning and that our Certainty lies in perceiving the Agreement or