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
A70179	A blow at modern Sadducism in some philosophical considerations about witchcraft. To which is added, the relation of the fam'd disturbance by the drummer, in the house of Mr. John Mompesson, with some reflections on drollery and atheisme. / By a member of the Royal Society..	Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680.	1668 (1668)	Wing G799; Wing G818; ESTC R23395	62,297	178

the action by the evidence and not the evidence by the measures of our fancies about the action This is proudly to exalt our own opinions above the clearest testimonies and most sensible demonstrations of fact and so to give the Lye to all Mankind rather than distrust the little conceits of our bold imaginations But yet further 3 I THINK there is nothing in the instances mention'd but what may as well be accounted for by the Rules of Reason and Philosophy as the ordinary affairs of Nature For in resolving natural Phoenomena we can only assign the probable causes shewing how things may be not presuming how they are And in the particulars under our Examen we may give an account how 't is possible and not unlikely that such things though somewhat varying from the common rode of Nature may be acted And if our narrow and contracted mindes can furnish us with apprehensions of the way and manner of such performances though perhaps not the true ones 't is an argument that such things may be effected by creatures whose powers and knowledge are so vastly exceeding ours I shall endeavour therefore briefly to suggest some things that may render the possibility of these performances conceivable in order to the removal of this Objection that they are contradictions and impossible FOR the First then That the confederate Spirit should transport the Witch through the Air to the place of general Rendezvous there is no difficulty in conceiving it and if that be true which great Philosophers affirm concerning the real separability of the Soul from the Body without death there is yet less for then 't is easie to apprehend that the Soul having left its gross and sluggish Body behinde it and being cloath'd only with its immediate vehicle of Air or more subtile matter may be quickly conducted to any place it would be at by those officious Spirits that attend it And though I adventure to affirm nothing concerning the truth and certainty of this supposition yet I must needs say it doth not seem to me unreasonable And our experience of Apoplexies Epilepsies Extastes and the strange things men report to have seen during those deliquiums look favourably upon this conjecture which seems to me to contradict no principle of Reason or Philosophy since Death consists not so much in the actual separation of Soul and Body as in the indisposition and unfitness of the Body for vital union as an excellent Philosopher hath made good On which Hypothesis the Witches anointing her self before she takes her flight may perhaps serve to keep the Body tenantable and in fit disposition to receive the Spirit at its return These things I say we may conceive though I affirm nothing about them and there is nothing in such conceptions but what hath been own'd by men of worth and name and may seem fair and accountable enough to those who judge not altogether by the measures of the populace and customary opinion And there 's a saying of a great Apostle that seems to countenance this Platonick opinion what is the meaning else of that expression Whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell except the Soul may be separated from the body without death which if it be granted possible 't is sufficient for my purpose And 2. The Transformations of Witches into the shapes of other Animals upon the same supposal is very conceivable since then 't is easie enough to imagine that the power of imagination may form those passive and pliable vehicles into those shapes with more ease than the fancy of the Mother can the stubborn matter of the Foetus in the womb as we see it frequently doth in the instances that occur of Signatures and monstrous Singularities and perhaps sometimes the confederate Spirit puts tricks upon the senses of the spectators and those shapes are only illusions BUT then 3. when they feel the hurts in their gross bodies that they receive in their aiery vehicles they must be supposed to have been really present at least in these latter and 't is no more difficult to apprehend how the hurts of those should be translated upon their other bodies then how diseases should be inflicted by the imagination or how the fancy of the Mother should wound the Foetus as several credible relations do attest AND 4. for their raising storms and tempests they do it not be sure by their own but by the power of the Prince of the Air their friend and allie and the Ceremonies that are enjoyn'd them are doubtless nothing else but entertainments for their imaginations and are likely design'd to perswade them that they do these strange things themselves AND lastly for their being suck'd by the Familiar I say 1 we know so little of the nature of Doemons and Spirits that 't is no wonder we cannot certainly divine the reason of so strange an action And yet 2 we may conjecture at some things that may render it less improbable For some have thought that the Genii whom both the Platonical and Christian Antiquity thought embodied are recreated by the reeks and vapours of humane blood and the spirits that derive from them Which supposal if we grant them bodies is not unlikely every thing being refresh'd and nourish'd by its like And that they are not perfectly abstract from all body and matter besides the reverence we owe to the wisest antiquity there are several considerable arguments I could alledge to render it exceeding probable Which things supposed the Devil 's sucking the Sorceress is no great wonder nor difficult to be accounted for Or perhaps 3 this may be only a diabolical Sacrament and Ceremony to confirm the hellish covenant To which I added 4 That which to me seems most probable viz That the Familiar doth not only suck the Witch but in the action infuseth some poisonous ferment into her which gives her imagination and spirits a magical tincture whereby they become mischievously influential and the word venefica intimates some such matter Now that the imagination hath a mighty power in operation is seen in the just now mention'd Signatures and Diseases that it causeth and that the fancy is modified by the qualities of the blood and spirits is too evident to need proof which things supposed 't is plain to conceive that the evil spirit having breath'd some vile vapour into the body of the Witch it may taint her blood and spirits with a noxious quality by which her infected imagination heightned by melancholly and this worse cause may do much hurt upon bodies that are impressible by such influences And 't is very likely that this ferment disposeth the imagination of the Sorceress to cause the mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or separation of the soul from the body and may perhaps keep the body in fit temper for its re-entry as also it may facilitate transformation which it may be could not be effected by ordinary and unassisted imagination Thus we see 't is not so