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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	life_n	speak_v	4,234	5	4.7152	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57675	The philosophicall touch-stone, or, Observations upon Sir Kenelm Digbie's Discourses of the nature of bodies and of the reasonable soule in which his erroneous paradoxes are refuted, the truth, and Aristotelian philosophy vindicated, the immortality of mans soule briefly, but sufficiently proved, and the weak fortifications of a late Amsterdam ingeneer, patronizing the soules mortality, briefly slighted / by Alexander Ross.	Ross, Alexander, 1591-1654.	1645 (1645)	Wing R1979; ESTC R200130	90,162	146

his brother Ioseph to lye with his mistresse Saul to persecute the Church and Felix to tremble at the mention of a future judgement if the soule be mortall Admit but such Lucretian doctrine you may shake hands with heaven and hell Esse aliquos Maneis subterranea regna Iuven. Sat. 2. Et contum Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras Atque unâ transire vadum tot millia cymbâ Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum are lavantur Here I had ended but that I have now lighted on a Sect. 16. Mans mortality Pamphlet by chance the Scribler of which was ashamed to put to his name his cause is so bad He undertakes to prove the soules mortalitie but so weakly that I should lose too much time and spend too much paper to answer him according to his folly For there is nothing in it but the froth of a luxurious wit wantonly abusing Scripture and obtruding a cloud in stead of Iuno shadowes of reason in stead of solid arguments As first when hee will prove the death of the soule out of Scripture hee brings those places that speake of the metaphoricall or spirituall death of the soule which is the defiling of her by sinne and her separation from God and so hee confounds the life of nature of grace and of glory as he doth death spirituall and corporall Secondly hee abuseth the Synecdochicall speeches in Scripture when he will have those phrases which are spoken of man to bee understood of the soule and bodie dis-junctively And so when the Scripture speakes of mans dissolution and death hee will have the soule die as well as the bodie but by this meanes hee must affirme that the soule eates drinkes playes sings weeps because these things are spoken of men What were the soules of the Egyptians drowned in the red sea and the soules of the Chaldeans burned in the fiery fornace or the soule of the disobedient Prophet torne by the Lion because these men died such deaths Many things are spoken of the whole man but not wholly the totall compositum is the subject of such predications but not totally Christ died was buried was borne was crucified and yet his Divinity suffered none of these things Hee is a bad Divine that knowes not that by the communication of properties that is spoken of the person of Christ which is proper onely to either of his natures and so that is spoken of man which is proper onely to either of his essentiall parts Thirdly he confounds the act and the habit concluding that the habit is lost because the act ceafeth as that there is no habit or faculty of reason in a mad man because the act of reasoning is hindered As if you should say that a Musician hath lost his skill in Musick when he ceaseth to play Fourthly some old objections hee hath inserted which wee have already sufficiently answered and the rest of the passages in his Pamphlet are so frivolous that they are not worth the answering or reading for Magno conatu magnas nugas dicit And so he that shall diligently read this former Discourse of ours and shall make use of these foure Observations which now I have set downe will find that this irreligious Rapsodie of his is but froth a vapour or one of his dreames Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno Virgil. and which I thinke will little prevaile with any rationall man much lesse with him who is truly sanctified with grace For he that was led meerely by reason confessed that the fatall houre of death was the last houre to the body onely not to the soule Decretoria illa hora non est animo suprema sed corpori Seneca For even reason will teach us that the soule which in her selfe is immortall I exclude not here the generall but the speciall or miraculous concourse of the Almighty may naturally subsist by her self after separation for if her subsistence from the body were violent then her returne to the body should be naturall as if the holding of a stone in the aire be violent the falling downe of that stone upon the removing of the impediment must needs be naturall But her returning to the body is an not miraculous and of supernaturall power for though the soule as she is the forme of the body hath a naturall propensity or innate appetite to a reinforming of or re-union with the body yet is she not againe conjoyned with the body but by a speciall and supernaturall worke of God in the resurrection Neither againe must we thinke that the soule subsists after separation by any speciall or supernaturall power for then we shall make the soule so subsisting of no better metall then the yron so swimming on the water both being sustained not by their owne but by a speciall and miraculous power and by this meanes the soule of a dog may as well subsist after death as the soule of a man but he that thinks so that the soule hath no other being after this life may be in name a Christian professor but is indeed a Cynick Philosopher or Epicuri de grege porcus fitter to dwell in the Isle of dogs then among men Therefore as it was naturall for the childs soule to subsist in the mothers wombe and it is as naturall for the same soule to subsist without it so is the subsistence of the same soule in and without the body essentiall and naturall to her and not violent or supernaturall But to leave these men whose soules are fitter Sect. 17. to dwell with Nebuchadnezzars in a beasts body then in their owne I will conclude this Discourse with an acknowledgement and confession of that solace and true comfort which I take in these dismall and calamitous times in which we live from the consideration of my soules immortality that however she be now tossed upon the proud and lofty billowes of the turbulent sea of afflictions in this life with Noahs Arke yet a higher mountaine then those of Ararat is prepared for her to rest upon and however this weary Dove flutter upon these boysterous waters that she can find no rest for the soales of her feet yet she sees a window in that celestiall Arke which is above ready open to receive her Christ hath not in vaine gone to prepare a place for us he hath prepared it that we may enjoy it and to what end should he shed his blood for our soules and redeeme them at so deare a rate if they be mortall and can not enjoy that which they long after as earnestly as the Hart brayeth after the rivers of water Doth God mock us when by his Prophet he tels us of fulnesse of joy in his presence and at his right hand pleasures for evermore Is God our Father and Heaven our Inheritance and must we be put off from the enjoyment of either We are here miserable Pilgrims and strangers if after our tedious journey we have

the mind are not one with those of the body and so in the ninth and tenth Chapters of his Ethicks we may see how he affirmes the immortality of the soule by her desire of beatitude And whereas some think that he held the soule mortall because he saith she depends on the phantasie in her operation they are mistaken for he speaks of the soule as she is united to the body and so she depends on the Phantasie but yet onely objectively instrumentally and occasionally as the Philosophers speake and not efficiently or formally for it is true that the Intellect receives its species from the phantasie and therefore in the body depends antecedently from the phantasie otherwise the Intellect is meerly inorganicall and no waies depending on the phantasie as a proper mover and of it self but onely the passive Intellect thus depends on the active and the act of understanding is altogether independent And so when he sayes that the passive Intellect is corruptible he meanes nothing else but the phantasie or cogitative faculty which because it is in some sort capable of reason he cals the Intellect as he cals the passive Intellect sometimes by the name of phantasie because it is moved by the superiour Intellect And so when he sayes that remembrance and love perish in the soule he meanes that their dependence the one from the phantasie the other from the appetite perisheth because these are corporeall faculties and perish with the body but otherwise recordation and love in respect of their entity remaine in the soule as in their subject So likewise when he saith that the Intellect is in the possibility of the matter he meanes that it is in the possibility of the matter in respect of introduction not of eduction as the matter is capable to receive it when by a superiour power it is thither induced The soule then is in the possibility of the matter by way of reception but not by way of extraction So likewise when he sayes that the dead are not happy he meanes the happinesse of this life which consisteth in operations flowing from the compositum of which the soule is not capable And lastly when he sayes that all have ending which had beginning he meanes of those things which had beginning by generation and so it is true but the soules originall is by creation Out of all then that wee have said it is apparent to any man who is not a wilfull Saducee or Arabian that the soule is every way incorruptible both in respect of grace and in respect of nature both in respect of externall and internall agents both in respect of annihilation and dissolution There is onely an obedientiall power of dissolution in the soule as there is in Angels and in the heavenly bodies by the infinite power of the Almighty and that rather by the negative act of his influx then any positive act of resolving that into nothing which he made of nothing so that the soule hath no parts principles or causes in her selfe of corruption nor of annihilation Such reasons and arguments I take to be more evincing then these far-fetched notions of Sir Kenelm's which he hath clothed with too many words whereas Philosophicall arguments sort not well with Rhetoricall flourishes and Tullian pigments Now let us see what hath of old been or can of late be objected against this knowne and generally acknowledged truth by the impugners thereof Sect 6. Object 1. First they say that the soule is immortall by grace not by nature To which I answer that shee is immortall by both by grace in that the soule hath her dependence from God the first and sole independent entitie of whom and by whom she is what she is and so by that entitie as I said shee may be deprived of that being which of his bounty she obtained for though she be free from subject and termination yet she is not free from the causality of the first agent Shee is also immortall by nature in that there is nothing either in her owne or in the universall created nature that can destroy or dissolve her Our bodies are destroyed either by externall agents or by internall the naturall heat wasting our radicall moisture as a candle that is either wasted by the wind or by its owne heat but in the soule which is a spirit there is no such thing Secondly they alledge Solomons words for them Eccles Sect. 7. Object 2. 3. 19. where hee saith There is one end of man and beasts as man dieth so doe they Answ. Here is no comparison between mans soule and that of beasts but between the death of the one and of the other so that both are lyable to death and corruption and to outward violence and inward distempers which procure death in both and both are so lyable to the law and dominion of death that from thence there is no redemption or returning by the course of nature So that it 's no more possible for man to avoid death or its dominion of himselfe then it is for a beast Secondly Solomon speakes not this in his owne person but in the person of the Atheist who will not forgo his earthly pleasures because hee beleeves not any heavenly or any life after this Thirdly they would make Iob plead for them when Sect. 8. Object 3. he sayes there is more hope of a tree cut downe then there is of man Iob 14. Answ. Iob speakes not there in his owne person but in the person of a wicked man Secondly though hee did speak this as from himselfe yet this will not availe our moderne Saducees for by the course of nature man cannot revive againe though the tree may sprout again after it is cut which the Poet intimates when he sayes Pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit mox Horat. lib. 4. od 7. Bruma recurret iners Damna tamen celeres reparant coelestia Lunae Nos ubi decidimus Quò pius Aenaeas quò Tullus dives Ancus Pulvis umbra sumus Thirdly man shall not returne againe to live that life or to performe those functions which he did in this world when he lived here but hence it will not follow that man shall not be raised by that power which gave him being at the first or that he shall enjoy no life because he shall not enjoy this life Fourthly they would faine draw in Austin to their Sect. 9. Object 4. side because sometimes he doubts of the manner of the soules production whether it is by creation or traduction Answ. 'T is true that sometimes hee doubted of the manner how the soule entered into the bodie because he doubted of the manner how originall sin is propagated but will this prove that therefore hee doubted of the soules immortalitie which hee strongly maintaines throughout all his Workes And so hee doth also the soules creation and infusion although in a few places he speaks doubtfully of traduction so farre as it hath relation

cannot be a notion for Metaphysick tels us that identity is reall And what will you say of that similitude which Adam had with God or which a regenerated man hath consisting in righteousnesse and true holinesse Is this image of God in man which by us was lost and now by grace is repaired a bare notion then will our happinesse and joy and hopes and religion consist rather in conceit then in reality Dii meliora piis erroremque hostibus illum Sect. 4. Cap. 1. p. 360. BEING or a thing the formall notion of both which is meerly being is the proper affection of man This anigma would trouble Oedipus or Sphynx himselfe for in your margin by this word being you understand existence But is this the proper affection of man what becomes of other creatures have they no existence If they have then it is not proper to man quarto modo If they have not then they are but entities in possibility for existence is the actuating and restraining of the essence which in it selfe is indeterminate and in possibility to actuality which we call existence therefore existence is not the proper affection of man but of entity as it is in act or rather the formality of actuall entity Besides if existence be the proper affection of man what shall we say of Angels and other spirits nay of God himselfe Is there no existence in them Againe existence is not an affection or propertie for it is no accident but the very essence of the thing actuated which before was in possibility and therefore by Philosophers 't is called actus primus to distinguish it from properties and operations which are called second acts for a thing is first actuated by its existence and then by its properties and operations But what you meane by the formall notion of both Pag. 361. which and of their meerly being I know not Sibylla's leaves are not more obscure to which you may adde your stock of being and the grafts inoculated into it for Pag. 361. with such mists of metaphors you involve your Philosophy against the rules and custome of Philosophers and so you leave your Readers as Sibylla left hers unsatisfied thus Inconsulti abeunt sedemque odere Sibyllae I wish M r. White had helped you here whose aid hath not beene wanting to you at a dead lift hitherto I should trifle away too much time and paper if I should insist or name all your fancies of the tribes as you call them of predicaments whose office you will have to comprehend all the particular notions that man hath and how you will have all entities to be respective and all notions to be grafted on the stock of being c. Abundance of such stuffe with which your booke is fraughted I passe over as being not worth the expence of time and indeed they refute themselves As likewise that you make essence and existence the same whereas they are one and the same in God onely but not in the creatures in whom the essence and existence differ for whilst a thing is in its causes it hath an essence but no existence till it be produced by its causes and as it were quit of them All the knowledge we have of our soule is no more but that Pag 368. c. 2. it is an active force in us I hope you know more of the soule then this to wit that it is an immortall immateriall substance infused by God into the body created of nothing consisting of the intellect and will capable of beatitude You know also I hope that the soule had no being till it was infused into the body and that it is not in a place as bodies are by way of circumscription and that it is all in all and all in every part of the body and that after death it immediatly goeth to hell or heaven not lingring about the grave or sleeping in the dust till the resurrection But it seemes you have not very great knowledge of the soule when you say that a thing apprehended by the soule becomes a part or affection of the soule for neither hath the soule any parts nor can that be an affection of the soule which comes from without In your 5. Chapter you make 1. Being to have a very Sect. 6. Pag. 395. c. 5. neere affinity with the soule 2. To be the end of the soule 3. To be the soules patterne and Idea For the first there is small affinity betweene the soule which is a substance and Being which is neither substance nor accident but a transcendent Being or existence is the generall affection of entity so is not the soule the body hath existence before the soule is infused and when the soule is gone it hath existence still the body hath no more existence from the soule then the soule from the body 2. If being be the end of the soule then it moved God to create it for the end moveth at least metaphorically but sure nothing moved God except his owne goodnesse and glory and how can that existence which God gave to the soule in the creation be the end of its creation Is creation the end of creation and the giving of being the end why being is given what can be more absurd And wereas being is internall and essentiall to the soule how can it be the end which is an externall cause 3. Being is not the patterne or Idea of the soule for Being is intrinsecall to the soule so is not the patterne or Idea but extrinsecall As the Idea or patterne of a building is in the mind of the builder but not in the house which is built and if being is the end of the soule how can it be the Idea for the end excites the action of the agent but the Idea determinates that action and these are very different You will not have the understanding to be the objects it Sect. 7. Pag. 404. c. 6. understands by way of similitude but by way of respects Understanding is by way of similitude not of respect for your son who hath a neere respect or relation to you doth not the more for that understand this your Booke I beleeve he understands books written by strangers to whom he hath no respect better then these your intricate mysteries There are relations and respects between inanimate or senslesse creatures and yet no understanding it is not therefore the respect but the reception of the species into the intellect and its assimilation or similitude with the intellect that makes understanding Besides there are some respects grounded upon similitudes then I hope there are some things understood by way of similitudes I may truly say all things for nothing is understood but what is in the understanding and nothing can be there but by way of similitude every thing is intelligible actually if its similitude be in the intellect actually The amplitude of the soule in respect of knowledge is absolutely Sect. 8. Pag. 405. c. 6.

which is in Christ by which he justifieth Rom. 12. many in respect of which he is called the Wisdome of the Father for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdome and knowledge Or had you meant that which wee have of Christ by illumination and in respect of which the Apostle accounted all things lost desiring to know nothing but Christ crucified If I say you had meant such guides I had approved of your judgement and I had been your fellow-traveller for indeed by these onely our wants are supplied and our accounts made up And in this respect naturam sequi est Deo obsequi The Conclusion wherein is asserted the Soules Immortality and Objections answered THus Sir Kenelme I have briefly run over your voluminous Discourses of the nature of Bodies and of the Soules immortalitie in which though you have shewed much wit and good language yet your arguments and descriptions of the Soule are not of that evidence and validitie which I have shewed as to convince our understanding and to vindicate our beliefe in assenting to all your dictats in this your laborious Work therefore give mee leave without prejudice to your paines to point briefly at such reasons and arguments as I conceive will be more evincing and pressing and more prevalent both with Christians and Pagans then those which you have imparted to us 1. We will first then begin with divine Testimony which is of greater authority then all humane capacity God tells Moses Exod. 3. that he is the God of Abraham Isaac and Iacob by which words our Saviour proves the soules immortalitie in affirming that God is not the God of the dead but of the living Matth. 22. and consequently that these were not dead but alive in their soules Solomon tells us Eccles. 12. that the spirit returnes to God that gave it The Scripture tells us that Samuel's soule was alive after her separation 2 Sam. 28. which place though it be controverted whether it was truly Samuel's soule or not yet that apparition which was beleeved by the Iewes shewes that they doubted not of the soules immortalitie Christ tells us of Lazarus his soule that was carried by Angels into Abraham's bosome and the rich Gluttons into hell Luke 16. Hee tells us also of that rich mans soule which after his barnes were full was to be taken from him Luke 12. But if she perished with the bodie how could she be taken away Hee assures the good thiefe that his soule should be with him that night in Paradise Luke 23. And hee will not have us feare them that can destroy the bodie but cannot kill the soule Matth. 10. by which he intimates that the soule is not liable to death as the bodie is 2. Wee prove it by arguments grounded on the Scripture as first The soule of Christ was immortall when it was separated therefore our soules are so The consequence is evident because Christ was like to us in all things except sin The antecedent no Christian will deny except he will deny the hypostaticall union of the Divinitie and the Humanitie which was not nor could not be dissolved by death for the Divinitie was not separated from Christs bodie in death much lesse from his soule to which it was immediately united 'T is true Christs bodie died because the soule was separated by which the Divinity gave life to the bodie to wit effectively not formally but God being united immediately and principally to the soule shee could not die And though God hath not so united our soules to himselfe as he did Christs yet hee is so neerly united to our spirituall soules being a spirit himselfe that they cannot die except hee should forsake them which hee will not doe for he will not leave our soules nor forsake them nor suffer them to see corruption Secondly man was made to the image of God Gen. 1. which image consisteth partly in hyperphysicall graces as righteousnesse and true holinesse and partly in five physicall gifts 1. understanding 2. will 3. dominion 4. liberty 5. immortality Thirdly mans soule was not educed out of the earth and water as the soules of other creatures were but immediately inspired by God Genes 1. by which it is plaine that the soule of man is of a farre more excellent condition and nature then the soules of beasts are and that shee hath immediate dependence from God not from the bodie therefore not mortall Fourthly if the soule die with the bodie there can be no resurrection and so 1 Cor. 15. our hope and faith are in vaine Now there can be no resurrection of the bodie if the soule its forme be not pre-existent For how can the soule be re-united to the bodie or informe it againe if it be extinguished with the bodie Fifthly the Kingdome of Christ the joyes and Luke 1. Matth. 25. happinesse of the Saints and the torments of the wicked are eternall therefore the soules of men which are the subjects of Christs Kingdome and the inheritors of joy or paine cannot be mortall for what subjects shall this eternall King have or to what end are the rewards and punishments eternall if the soules which are the chiefe subjects and chiefly interessed in these rewards and paines perish and die Sixthly Moses shewes that the Sun Moon and Stars of heaven were made for the service of man Deuteron 4. which argueth that man is of a more excellent nature then they Now this could not be if he were not spirituall and immortall in his soule for in his bodie hee is inferiour to them in regard they are incorruptible and unchangeable substances 3. We prove that the soule is not onely immortall by Divine power but also of her owne nature First she is made to the image of God but this image as I have shewed consisteth not onely in supernaturall graces but also in naturall powers and faculties of the soule Secondly the soule is a spirit of her owne nature therefore of her owne nature immortall for spirits are free from the prime qualities which are the causes of corruption Thirdly the soule is a simple uncompounded substance therefore cannot be corruptible for how can that be dissolved which was never compounded And though Tertullian held the materiality yet he acknowledgeth De resur c. 34. the soules immortality to be naturall to her Salva erit anima natura sua per immortalitatem Fourthly if the soule were not in her selfe immortall how should the Heathen Philosophers who knew not God nor the Scriptures dispute so accurately as they do in defence of her incorruptibility But when I say that the soule is immortall by nature my meaning is not that she is the efficient cause of her owne immortality or that she is not mortall and dissoluble by externall power for so God is onely immortall as the Apostle sheweth and as the sixt Tim. 6. Sess. 11. Synod hath defined and some Fathers have proved so that the Angels in this respect