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	soul_n	union_n	6,110	5	9.7698	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25669	Antiquity reviv'd, or, The government of a certain island antiently call'd Astreada in reference to religion, policy, war and peace some hundreds of years before the coming of Christ.		1693 (1693)	Wing A3510; ESTC R19475	60,242	129

ador'd by the limited qualification of humane Understanding Others have so lower'd the Divinities they celebrate as by their Commixtures with Mankind they either give 'em the Title o● Demy-godships as has been precedently observ'd or they express 'em in resemblance to humane Bodies and not only knowing of the Infirmities and Depravations of Mankind but in the worst conception Actors themselves which polutions of Heaven must have been politickly and for Interest devis'd and complicated with Beliefs that such as were so devoted might with more assurance hope for pardon from their Deities whom they judg'd no less than Men notoriously sinful These Particulars I thought previously necessary to inculcate here because they have affinity to the various Extravagancies that some Persons by their Doctrines undertake to defend in reference to the Immortalising of the Soul after this Life The first is That the humane Soul consists of a Spiritual Essence and that it is by the excellency of its substance likewise Immortal But how can these Dogmatizers of Religion according to this Notion of theirs not vent an Absurdity of the highest Nature For if the Soul of Man be essentially a Spirit and that they hold as they would be thought to do the God they adore a Spirit also Do they not in effect d●ifie the animating part of Mankind after death it being impossible to distinguish by any rational Discussion how much one Spirit is essentially purer than another On which ground it follows that wh●t is spiritually Immortal may be allow'd to be Infinite So little distinction is there by this Doctrine betwixt the Soul of Man and the Deity they worship and yet 't is well known to all of us how numerous a part of the World assert this Tenent as the first Maxim of their Creed Others affirm That the purest Substance or ghostly Form of Life when separated by Death is represented by a shadow of the Body which some pretend to have beheld in that Figure as ocular Witnesses that the Soul of Man do's in th●t manner outlive the Body And this your Grecian Poets to whose Inventions your Prie●thood is not a little beholding with their fanciful Glosses undertake ●o deliver But of what credit their Au●hority is I need not debate who in being Poe●● must be granted Divulgers of fabulous Contrivances And what can be a greater Solecism to Reason than a Position so vainly extravagant nay how is it possible to c●nceive that a Shadow do's not imply the presence of the Body if it appears as its Shadow a●d consequently that the Soul has no such separative existence after bodily death Besides all which the Absurdities are innumerable that redound from this Tenent for if every Body of Mankind were by its Soul to be shadow'd or liken'd it must follow that every Man and Womans Soul are commensurable and therefore differenc'd in breadth and length and lik●wise in substance as one Shadow may be proportionably finer than another or have more likeness to the Body it appertain'd to Notwithstanding I confess that whosoever was the first Author of this dark conceit that the Soul did survive as an umbrage of the Body after life comes nearer the confines of Sense than the precedent Opinion in respect that as the animating Faculty of Mankind do's furnish in due proportion every Member that it actuates and informs whilst it resides within the Body so it should remain after Corporeal Life in some kind of similitude to its operation within the composition of humane Nature when the Life of the Body was determin'd by Death The third Tenent of the Soul's Immortality appears more terrene and therefore not less familiar to the apprehension and this depends upon believing that the Soul of all things is essentially the same and differenc'd only in its being in variety of Bodies as Men Beasts Plants and whatsoever has life and motion This Opinion has had no less Vogue in the World than long acceptation with persons held of profound disc●rnment in the universal Series of Nature to which purpose they infer that the continuation of the Universe or at least of all corporal Beings within the compass of the sublunary World depends upon a perpetual course of Generation and Corruption from one individual Being to another and consequently that whatsoever dies by corruption do's tend to the generation of some other corporeal Being And this Position is so far apparently certain insomuch as Life in one kind or other is incident to Matter as it convertibly depends on whatsoever is generated and consequently alter'd into a corporeal Being differently animated to what it was before On which Philosophical Evidence added the Fidefendon do's consist the ancient opinion of not a few learnedly Famous who maintain'd the Transmigration of Souls when separated from their precedent Mansions by death and that they pass'd into other Bodies The Speculation however naturally passable do's in a high degree lessen the dignity of the humane Soul by reason that in such a method of progression from Body to Body it must at one time or other animate an ignobler Creature than Man which gives cause of Reproof to the Assertion Another Doctrine there is and much insisted on by some which I shall but touch because it seems more extravagant or opposite to the ordinary progress and course of Nature than any I have precedently mention'd and this undertakes to assert That the humane Soul is immortally generated which in plain words is to affirm That one immortal Thing begets another or that the Soul of the Father do's animate an Eternity in begetting the Soul of the Son which conceit is so fictitiously absurd as it is repugnant to the total method of the causes and effects of Generation However to repel these Contradictions the Abettors of this Doctrine assure us by an unintelligible method That the Soul is divinely infus'd from above and spiritually commix'd with the Act of Generation But how a Spirit as has been argu'd before can mix with a corporeal Substance is a Riddle fit to be left to such Authors to explain The last Opinion that remains to be expos'd to a free judiciary Determination is That Soul and Body of every Individual of Mankind is restor'd to an immortal Perfection and Union after Death Which Doctrine has gain'd a very plausable Reception with many Nor can it be thought ungrateful to the beautiful of both Sexes if the excellency of their Features and Proportions accompany them to a future Life which wonderful Receptacle of the Persons of Men and Women after Death not a few of you Grecians said the Fidefendon call the Elysium or another World in which Mankind shall have Being by a miraculous Restauration after Living here and where they shall be more or less happy or unhappy how long they have not certainly determin'd after made Survivors in their future Abodes But should it be ask'd of any of these wonderful Tutors what possible Assurance they have that the Persons of Mankind shall be