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	heaven_n	soul_n	11,370	5	5.1820	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70613	The Count of Gabalis, or, The extravagant mysteries of the Cabalists exposed in five pleasant discourses on the secret sciences / done into English by P.A. Gent., with short animadversions.; Comte de Gabalis. English	Villars, abbé de (Nicolas-Pierre-Henri), 1635-1673.; Ayres, Philip, 1638-1712.	1680 (1680)	Wing M2494; ESTC R14099	55,502	206

or unlawful art Thus you see my Son that the Sages are more innocent than you thought You say nothing to me I admire Sir said I and I begin to fear that you will make me become a Chymist Ah! God preserve thee from that my Child cryed he 'T is not to these fooleries that your Nativity designs you I will warrant you on the contrary from being troubled about that I told you already That the Sages shew not these things but to those whom they will not admit into their Society You shall have all these Advantages and others infinitely more Glorious and more Pleasant by wayes cleerly more Phylosophical I had not described these Methods to you but to let you see the Innocence of this Phylosophy and to take you out of these Panick Fears I thank God Sir answered I I am not at present in any such Fear as I was even now And although I do not yet resolve upon the Accommodation which you pose to me with the Salamanders I cannot refrain from having the Curiosity to learn how you have discovered that these Nymphs and these Sylphs Dye Truly replyed he they tell us so and we see them Dye How said I Can you see them Dye and yet your Commerce renders them Immortal That would be well pur●ued he if the Number of the Sages equalled the Number of these People Besides that there are many amongst them who rather choose to Dye than hazard by becoming Immortal the being so unhappy as they see the Devils are And 't is the Devil who Inspired them with these Opinions for there is no Mischief which he doth not do to hinder these poor Creatures from becoming Immortal by our Allyance Insomuch that I look upon it and so ought you my Son as a most pernicious Temptation and a Motion of very little Charity to have this Aversion which you shew to it Moreover as concerning their Death of which you speak What was it that obliged the Oracle of Apollo to say That all those who speak Oracles were Mortal as well as he as Porphyrius reports And What think you was the meaning of that Voyce which was heard on all the Coast of Italy and struck so great a Terror into all those who were upon the Sea THE GREAT PAN IS DEAD They were the People of the Air who gave notice to the People of the Water that the Chiefest and most Aged of all the Sylphs was newly Dead At that time when this Voyce was heard said I to him I suppose that the World worshipped Pan and the Nymphs And that these Gentlemen whose Commerce you are Preaching of to me were the False Gods of the Heathens 'T is true my Son reply'd he The Sages have alwayes been of that opinion That the Devil never had the Power to make himself Worshipped He is too Unhappy and too Weak ever to have had this Pleasure and this Authority But he has been able to perswade the Elementary Hosts to shew themselves to Men and make men erect Temples to them and by the Natural Dominion which every one has over the Element which he inhabits they trouble the Air and the Sea set the Earth in Combustion and dispense the Fire of Heaven according to their Humour Insomuch that they had no great trouble to be taken for Deities so long as the Sovereign Being differ'd the Salvation of the World But the Devil never received all the Advantage of his Malice which he hoped he should For it has happened from thence that Pan the Nymphs and the rest of the Elementary People having found the Means of changing this Commerce of Worship into a Commerce of Love for you may remember that amongst the Antients Pan was the King of those Gods whom they called Incubuses and who alwayes earnestly sought the Acquaintance of Maids many Heathens have escaped the Devil and shall never Burn in Hell I do not well understand you Sir said I. You have not minded me to understand me continued he smiling and in a jeering Tone Behold what you pass over and likewise what your Doctors pass over who know not what these Excellent Physicks mean Behold the Great Mystery of all this Part of Phylosophy which concerns the Elements and which will take away if you have but never so little Love for your self this Repugnance to Phylosophy which you have witnessed to me this Day Know then my Son and go not about to divulge this great Arcanum to any unworthy Ignorant Know that as the Sylphs acquire an Immortal Soul by the Allyance which they Contract with the Men who are Predestinated so also the Men who have no right to Eternal Glory Those Miserable Wretches whose Immortality is but a lamentable Advantage for whom the Messias was not sent Then you Gentlemen of the Cabal are Jansenists likewise interrupted I We know not what that is my Child proceeded he somewhat Angryly and we ●corn to inform our selves wherein consists the different Sects and divers Religions with which the Ignorant puzzle their Heads We keep to the Antient Religion of our Fathers the Philosophers wherein 't is very necessary that I instruct you But to come again to the purpose These Men whose sad Immortality is nothing but an Eternal Misfortune The unhappy Children whom the Sovereign Father has neglected have also this Recourse that they may become Mortal by Contracting an Allyance with these Elementary People So that you see the Sages hazard nothing for Eternity If they are Predestinated they have the Pleasure to carry with them to Heaven in quitting the Prison of this Body the Sylphide or Nymph which they have Immortalized And if they be not Predestinated the Commerce of the Nymph renders their Soul Mortal and delivers them from the Horrors of the Second Death So the Devil saw all the Pagans escape who Allyed themselves to the Nymphs And so the Sages or Friends of the Sages when God Inspires us to Communicate to any one the Four Elementary Secrets which I have now been teaching you free themselves from the Peril of being Damned Without Lying Sir cryed I not daring to put him again into an ill Humor and finding it requisite to defer the telling him plainly my Opinion till I should have discovered all the Secrets of his Cabal which I judged by this Glimps must needs be very full of Pleasure and Divertisement Without Lying You advance Wisdom to a great Height And you had reason to tell me That this surpassed all our Doctors And I believe that this likewise passes all our Magistrates too And that if they could discover who those were that ecsaped the Devil by this means as Ignorance is very Unjust they would engage in the Devil's Interest against these Fugitives and make a strong Party for him Yes It is for that pursued the Count that I have so strictly commanded you and do again command you to keep Religiously this Secret Your Judges are strange Persons They Condemn a most innocent Action as a dismal

make this unhappy Compact So the Devil wicked as he is by his Treaty with this Gnome makes the Soul of a man become Mortal and deprives it of the right of Eternal Life How Sir cryed I These compacts in your opinion of which the Demonographes relate so many examples are they not with the Devil No surely continued the Count has not the Prince of the World been chased out of it Is he not shut up Is he not bound Is he not cursed and damned from off the earth and Throne down to remain at the bottom of the work of the Supreme Architect can he mount up into the Region of Light and there make his concentred Darkness resplendant No He can do nothing against man He can only inspire the Gnomes who are his Neighbours to make these propositions to such men whom he most fears may be saved to the end that their Soul may die with their Body Then do you believe added I that the Souls dye They dye My Child answered he And those who make these compacts pursued I are not they damned They cannot be said he for their Soul dies with their body They are quitted then at an easie rate continued I and are but slightly punished for having committed so Enormous a Crime as renouncing their Baptisme and the death of Christ Do you esteem it replyed the Count a slight punishment to re-enter into the Black Abyss of Nothing Know that it is a far greater pain than to be damned for there is still a remainder of Mercy in the Justice which God exercises against sinners in Hell Since it is a great favour not to consume them in the Fire which burns them To be Nothing is a greater Misery than to be in Hell This is the Doctrine which the Sages Preach to the Gnomes when they call them together to make them understand what an Injury they do themselves to prefer Death before Immortality and Nothing before the Hope of Eternal Happyness which they justly might lay claim to if they would ally themselves with men and not Solicite these Criminal Renunciations Some of them who believe we marry to our Daughters Do you preach the Gospel then to these Subteranean people Sir said I to him Why should we not replyed he We are their Doctors as well as of the other People of the Fire of the Air and of the Water For the Philosophick Charity is extended indifferently to all the Children of God For as they are now subtil and more clear than commonly the Children of Men so are they more Docible and more capable of Discipline listen to the Divine Truths with an Attention and Respect which astonishes us It must needs be a Ravishing Sight said I smiling to see a Rosy-Crusian Philosopher in a Chair preaching to all these little Gentle-Folke You shall have the Pleasure of it my Son when you please said the Count. And if you desire it I will assemble them this very Evening and Preach to them at Midnight At Midnight cryed I I have heard say that That is the Hour of their Sabbath At this the Count fell a Laughing You put me in mind said he of all the Fooleries which Demonographers relate concerning this Business of their Imaginary Sabbath I could wish for the rarity of the Conceipt that you would believe them too Alas For those Tales of the Sabbath replyed I I do not believe one of them You do well my Son said he for once more I must tell you the Devil has not the Power to sport himself so with Mankind nor to treat or correspond with them muchless to make himself Adored as the Inquisitors believe That which has given Rise to this Popular Report is That the Sages as I have been telling you assembling the Inhabitants of the Elements to Preach to them the Mysteries of the Secret Sciences and their Morality And as it ordinarily happens that some Gnome being convinced of his gross Error and apprehending the Horror of being reduced to Nothing consents to his Immortalization Then has he a pritty Maid given him is Marryed and the Wedding Celebrated with all the Rejoycing which so great a Conquest as has then newly been made requires These are those Revellings and Tokens of Joy which Aristotle says were heard in certain Islands where nevertheless they could not see any Body The Great Orpheus was the first who convocated the Subterranean People At his first Sermon Sabasius the Antientest of the Gnomes was Immortalized And it was from this Sabasius that this Assembly took its Name in which the Sages addressed their Discourses to him so long as he Lived As it appears in the Hymns of the Divine Orpheus The Ignorant have confounded these Things and taken occasion to make a thousand Impertinent Stories and to describe an Assembly which we convoque not but to the Glory of the Soveraign Being I did never imagine that this Sabbath said I to him had been an Assembly for Devotion Yet it is continued he a most Holy and most Cabalistick one Which the World will not easily be perswaded to But such is the Deplorable Blindness of this unjust Age that Men still do besot themselves with a vulgar Report will not suffer themselves to be undeceived The Sages have a fine time of it that the Sots are believed before them A Philosopher would have a worthy Task to take a Survey of all the absurd Falsities and Chymaeras which have been forged and to give manifest Proofs against them For whatsoever Experience or whatsoever solid Reason he might imploy Should there but come a Man in a Square Cap and write underneath This is False Experience and Demonstration have no more Force and it is no more in the Power of Truth to Re-establish its Empire Men will believe this Square Cap before their own Eyes The Famous Cabalist Zedechias was moved in his Spirit in the Reign of your King Pepin to Convince the World that the Elements are Inhabited by all these People whose Nature I have been describing to you The Expedient to bring all this about was in this manner He advised the Sylphs to shew themselves in the Air to all the World They did it with great Magnificence These Creatures appearing in the Air in Human Shape Sometimes ranged in Battle Marching in good Order or standing to their Arms or Encamped under most Majestick Pavillions At other times on Airy Ships of an Admirable Structure whose Flying Navy was tost about at the Will of the Zephirus's Well and what was the Issue of all this Do you think that this Ignorant Age fell into a Consultation about the Nature of these Marvellous Spectacles The People presently believed that they were Sorcerers who had gotten a Power in the Air there to exercise their Conjurations and to make it Hail upon their Corn-Fields The Learned Men the Divines and the Lawyers were presently of the same Opinion with the Rabble The Emperors also believed and this Ridiculous Chymaera got such Credit

unjustice to suspect me as though I would give credit to the secret Sciences under pretence of making them Ridiculous I may continue to make my self merry with the Count of Gabalis and suddainly give you another Tome THE TRANSLATOR'S Animadversions ON THE Foregoing Discourses I Have ventur'd to Translate at my vacant Hours being much affected at the odd Curiosity of the Cabalistick Sciences this Tract somewhat resembling a Philosophick Romance as Fabulous and Weak as an Old Monk's Legend In it you will find the Cabalist to be a miserable Blind Creature fit for a Dog and a Bell yet in his own Conceit more seeing than all the World and best qualifyed for the Office of a Guide Much Devoted to idle Traditions by which crooked Line he measures Religion and Reason A great Hater of Women yet much addicted to Venery in a Philosophick Way In a word A Creature of much Choler and little Brains The Madness of him may make you Laugh but his Folly will sometimes grieve you I presume none but a French-Man would at first have taken the pains to Collect and give such Credit to these Cabalistick Whymseys as my Author seems to do That Nation being so Airy and so Amorous may boast it self if it please sprung from the Sylphes those Brisk Inhabitants of the Air mentioned in this fore-going Treatise I shall not envy them if they say Pharamond the Founder of their Kingdom was Begot by the Salamander Oromasis or any other of his Fiery Successors who for his GLORY only shall make offensive Wars upon his peaceful Neighbors and whil'st he Lives shall be the Incendiary of Europe to gain after Death the Name of Nimrod a Mighty Hunter That Nations may be said like Hares to have fled before him Yet to the Comfort of an English-Man the Greek Historians tell us That Xerxes who sayled upon the Continent and walked upon the Deep who was so imprudent as to whip Neptune and to bluster with the North-Wind was at last easily beaten by the People who trusted by the Order of Providence in Wooden-Walls But as to this Cabalistick Discourse which my French-Man has gathered for us with pretence of deriding it but indeed does not to much purpose seeming rather like some Habitual Lyar by long Continuation in Falshood not to observe it It may not be unsit to answer its vain Hypothesis from Authors as it pretends to defend it self in abuse of them Heathen Writers both Philosophers and Poets never make mention but of two Intellectual Beings besides the Gods viz. the Demi-Gods and the Souls of Men. The Semidei were always esteemed by them Immortal from the good Pleasure of Jupiter whom Plato introduces speaking to them thus Vos quidem Immortales esse non potestis sed mea potestate Immortales critis You indeed may be Mortal but through my good Pleasure you shall be Immortal As to the Souls of Men because upon solid Reasons they could not deny their Immortality and since they were not able to understand the Circumstances of our future State they were necessitated not knowing how to dispose of the Souls of Men after Death either to allow of Pythagoras his Transmigration which was a Marching of the Immortal Tenant from one House to another after its Lease was expired Or else according to Virgil who had it from Plato That the Soul desired to be Incarnate again after its Purgation in the Elizian Fields Rursus incipiunt in Corpora velle reverti But in all Ages Speculative Men in their nicest Metaphysicks could never be thought well in their Wits who presumed the Existence of Semi-homines Half-Men and Women that inhabited the Elements Creatures compounded of Material Souls and Bodyes Inferior yet Superior to Man in Faculties and Powers Strange Contradiction That Beings consisting only of Mater should act impossibly against their Nature Since Mater according to the Axioms and Statute-Laws of all Philosophers whether Academicks Peripateticks Stoicks or Cynicks is not able to act or think really Now to over-throw the Assertion of these Elementary People at once and by undermining the Foundation to destroy the Superstructure Let us consider what can be more Absurd or Fallacious in Logick and Philosophy than to beg a Principle of a Thing that cannot be and then to fasten a Conclusion from most Erroneous Premises To propose a Creature whose Essence and Form is Mortal and consequently Material Yet at the same time to make this Creature Divine in its Faculties Acute in its Operations and Superior to Man in its Vnderstanding either as to Divine or Human Objects which can proceed from nothing but an Immortal and Immaterial Cause Let any thinking Person judge whether such Notions do not more deserve Hellibore to purge them than Disputation to confute them And whether Bedlam be not the fittest Accademy for the Believers This Cabalistick Fancy certainly in its Original seems exactly to mimick the Follies of the Alcoran The Poets of old feigned three Gods to piss in an Oxes Hide to make the famous Orion So the Ingredients of Arianism Judaism and Ethuicism composed a Religion obliging to the Carnal Turk Thus a Prophane Interpreter of the Old and New Testament with the false conceptions of Heathen Philosophy soon degenerate into a Cabalist Sometimes the Venial Follies of many passages Created Laughter in me But I was grieved at the rambling Prophanation of some places of Holy Scripture Pinge duos Angues Sacer est locus Pers Amongst others as to his perverting the sence of Adams eating the Apple to lying with his Wife I will gravely if it be necessary make Answer in the Orthodox words of St. Augustine De Civit Dei Lib. 14. Cap. 26. Praeoccupante peecato exilium de Paradiso ante meruerunt quam in opere ferendae propaginis tranquillo arbitrio convenirent They first finned and were banished out of Paradice before they attempted the propagation of posterity Then if these Elementary People by nature are Good Just Holy and Honourers of God How dare they rob him of his Honour by permitting the application of it to themselves as in this story amongst other Vnscholastick Errours of History and Chronology Oromasis according to their Chymaeras being Prince of the People which inhabit the Fire had two Children by Vesta the Wife of Noah viz. Zoroaster and Egeria Zoroaster a great Hero and the Inventer of Magick is reported by Justin to have been King of the Bactrians yet was overcome by Ninus for all his magick and valour living after this computation about the end of Noahs Life Now how doe the Cabalists know Noahs Wife supposing her name was Vesta not to be dead before her Son Zoroaster was Born and if Justin mistakes as 't is very probable he may and calls him Zoroaster whom Ctesias calls Oxiartes King of the Bactrians For Pliny doubts very much whither magick be of so long a standing and if Xanthus the Lydian a very Ancient writer reckons but 600. Years between Zoroaster and Xerxes