Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	bondage_n	fear_n	life_n	4,336	5	4.4939	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44287	The primitive origination of mankind, considered and examined according to the light of nature written by the Honourable Sir Matthew Hale, Knight ...	Hale, Matthew, Sir, 1609-1676.	1677 (1677)	Wing H258; ESTC R17451	427,614	449

have their proper gust and relish with him yet he is under the fear of Sickness Pain and Discomposure which fear renders the Disease in a manner present before it comes and so gives a distast and disrelish to even his present fruition And now if it be said That as this sagacity and foresight sometimes gives a disadvantage under Enjoyments by the Passion of Fear so it makes an amends under sensible Inconveniences by the Affection of Hope I answer It is true it doth make some amends but yet it is not answerable For first the anticipations of Fear are ever more vigorous than the anticipations of Hope 2. The objects means and occasions of our fears in relation to sensuals are ever more and greater than the objects of our hopes because we are obnoxious more to dangers and those of divers kinds than we are to deliverances and recoveries from sensible evils 3. But that which is instar omnium is this Death puts a period to all sensual Comforts and this Death is certain will overtake us and we know not how soon and this foresight of Death is a certain foresight and a continual object of certain fear And this fear of Death and the anticipation thereof is always present with us and we cannot deliver our selves from the fear and foresight of it no more than we can deliver our selves from the thing it self and commonly the anticipation and fear of Death is more terrible and dressed up in a more hideous prospect than Death it self And this one provision and anticipation of Death is that which makes all sensual Goods utterly incompetible to be a suitable end of fruition to a Man upon these two accounts viz. First that this presensation and anticipation of Death doth sadly allay all sensible enjoyments makes them weak and renders them ungrateful The Expression is excellent Heb. 3.15 Who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage the delicacies of a Man in Bondage lose their tast and relish Again secondly it presents all our enjoyments as determined or determinable in a short time which takes off the value of any sensible enjoyment It must needs be that sensual enjoyment must be abated when he that enjoys it doth in the very enjoyment thereof know it must not last long a Beast enjoys his full Pasture with greater contentment that yet shall be taken from him or he from it to morrow than any Man can enjoy the sweetest Provision for his Sense while he is under the actual sense that he must dye to morrow The advantage of the anticipation of Death is that which renders it impossible that a sensual good can be the ultimate good of fruition to Man since it is by that very advantage rendred a less good to him than to the Beasts that perish The Proof of the Immortality of the Soul of Man belongs to some of the following Discourses I shall not now launch out into that Deep But to me this very Consideration that the very excellence of the humane Faculties especially that whereby he hath a prospect and considerate anticipation of Death renders the good of Sense less good delightful and pleasant to this excellent Creature Man than it is to the very brute Beasts hath been a strong Moral Evidence that there is an immortal Soul in Man for which an immortal Good is reserved Because it seems not suitable with Divine Wisdom and Oeconomy that the Brutes should have a greater felicity than Man yet so it must be if the end of Man's fruition were only a sensible Good or a Good suited only to the Life of Sense 2. And surely if the good of Sense be not the adequate end of humane fruition then much less can those things be the end of fruition intended for Man which are but provisional and subservient only to the good of Sense and such are Honours Grandeur Power and Wealth they are but so many subservients to the acquiring or performing of the good of Sense or the fruition of a sensible Life to him that hath them and therefore lower and less valuable than those things for whose sake and use they serve And thus far I have gone in the Negative whereby I have endeavoured to evince that the good of Sense the fruition of those good things that serve for a sensible Life Meat Drink Clothing the Pleasures and Delights of the Senses the expletion of the Faculties of the Sensible Nature their motions are not the peculiar end of fruition designed by the wise God to the Intellectual Nature of Man I come to consider it Positively That there is an end of Fruition and what we may reasonably conjecture it may be That Man was created for an end of fruition appears 1. From the nature of the Efficient It is as before is observed the property of every intelligent and wise Efficient in all his Works and Actions to intend an End and an end suitable to the value of the work but that is not always an end of fruition to the work it self it is sufficient that there is an end in the work Many times a wise Agent produceth a work or effect in order to something else an instrument subservient to some other thing and thus he might have made Man only to serve glorifie and honour his Maker as a Man makes a Saw or a Watch as an Instrument for his own use without any communication of a Good of fruition to the thing thus made But as Almighty God is a most wise Efficient so he is a most benign and bountiful Efficient He made all things not only for the glory of his Wisdom but for the communication of his Goodness to the things He thus made according to the measure and capacity of their participation He made the inferior Animals for the glory of his Wisdom and Power and for the service of Man and yet he communicated to them so much of fruition and enjoyment and of such a Good as was suitable to their nature namely a sensible Good There is not the meanest Insect in the World but hath a Good of fruition proportionate to its nature namely of a sensible Good in which it delights and which it endeavours to preserve And thus as the Wisdom of this great Efficient made Man the most excellent of Visible Natures for an end and such an end as was suitable to the excellence of the Nature he thus made namely actively to serve and glorifie his Maker so the Goodness and Beneficence of this bountiful Efficient designed an end of fruition to this Creature and designed unto him also such a fruition and of such a good as is proportionate to the excellence of that Nature he thus made And otherwise he should have been proportionally less beneficent to the noblest of sublunary Creatures than he is to the meanest of living Animals which together with the end designed in them in ordine ad aliud have an end of fruition of such a Good as is

qualities common to other Bodies it hath in it some parts more active and fiery others more passive and waterish or earthy it hath its tendencies to corruption and dissipation And though after the separation of the Soul from the Body it perchance loseth some of those particular Qualities Figurations and Properties that it had before yet it retaineth many of them for many of these Proprieties of a Body as such do not depend upon the Specifical Form of the Humane Nature as such Again there is in this Body a certain Active Specifical Form whereby it is constituted in Esse Hominis which hath in it and doth communicate to the Body certain operations specifical to it by this he exerciseth those operations which either flow from or are communicated by that Form as Life Sense Intellection Volition and the like And though Life and Sense be common to Man and Brutes and their operations in many things alike yet by this Form he lives the Life of a Man and not of a Brute and hath the Sense of a Man and not of a Brute For there is no such thing as Animal or Vivens not determined unto some particular Species as there is no such thing as a Man not determined in some individual For Universals are but Notions and Entia Rationis having their existence only in the understanding power and not in reality And these Operations and Faculties of Humane Life Humane Sense and Humane Understanding and Volition flow not from the corporeal Moles but from some other active regent Principle that resides in the Body and governs it whiles it lives which we call the Soul And therefore although the corporeal Moles after some kinds of Deaths retain the same bulky Integrals the same Figure Colour and many other accidents yet the Soul being removed the Faculties and Operations of Life Sense and Intellection cease from that Moles corporea and are no longer in it This Principle of Life Sense and Intellection in Man called the Soul hath the Body as its Province and Districtus wherein it exerciseth these Faculties and Operations and we shall find the Actions which are performed by it in the Body are of three kinds or natures 1. Some are immanent and not terminated immediately in any external or corporeal action 2. Some are transient and spontaneous terminating in the Body or some parts or motions thereof 3. Some transient but involuntary and exercised and terminated in or upon the Body These seem to be the several kinds of Actions of the Soul at least relating to the Regiment and Oeconomical Government of the Soul upon the Body 1. The internal and immanent Faculties and Acts of the reasonable Soul besides those of Common Sense Phantasie Memory Passion and Appetite common to Men and inferiour Animals are Intellect and Will and the proper Acts of the Intellect are Intellection Deliberation and Determination or Decision The proper Acts of the Will are Volition Nolition Choice Purpose or Resolution and Command in relation to Subordinate Faculties And although there be many actings both of the Intellect and Will that are relative to other things or objects than what immediately concern the Microcosm it self yet the principal part of that analogical Providence that the Soul exerciseth in relation to the Microcosm or Humane Compositum are Intellection Deliberation and Determination in the Understanding and Choice Volition Nolition and Purpose in the Will and these do or should regularly precede all those imperate Acts of the Soul that relate to the Compositum Before I write or speak or go a journey or eat or any the like action there is the deliberation of the Understanding whether I shall do this action the decision of the Understanding that it is fit to be done the choice of the Will to do it the purpose of the Will that it shall be done And although many times the distinction of these several procedures of the Soul do not always appear distinct especially in sudden or ordinary actions which seem to have but one act antecedent to the thing done namely the willing of it to be done yet in actions of weight and importance all these have their distinct order and procedure For although in the most incomprehensible and perfect Will of Almighty God there is no such succession of procedure yet in the operations of the rational Soul that is linked to the Body there is ordinarily that successive procedure of those immanent acts of the Soul that relate to any thing to be done This therefore is the first part of that analogical Providence that the Soul exerciseth in relation to the Body namely deliberation or counsel and decision in the Intellect and choice and purpose in the Will 2. The next Act which immediately succceds Purpose is the Command that is given by the volitive Faculty of the Soul and the Execution thereof and herein are considerable First The Power commanding which is the Will now determined by purpose or resolution Secondly The things to which these commands relate or the Object of them which in relation to the Body is in effect nothing but motion of the Spirits Nerves Muscles parts of the Body or the entire Compositum by virtue of this command the Muscles the Hand the Eye the Tongue perform those imperate commands of the Will I do not digest sanguifie nor my Heart move nor my Blood circulate nor my Meat digest by any immediate command of my Will but I eat I drink I move my Eye my Hand my Muscles my whole Body in pursuance of this command of my Will Thirdly The executive Instrument of this command mediately are my Nerves and Muscles but immediately those subtil invisible and forcible Engins which we call the Animal Spirits these being the most subtil parts in Nature and parts of matter subtilized next in degree of purity to that Soul that commands them are in their nature proper fit and suitable to be the first recipients of the Empire of the Soul they are the nimblest agil strongest Instruments fittest to be executive of the commands of the Soul they are a middle nature between the Soul and the Body the nexus animae to the Body and these subtil Messengers speedily dispatch themselves through the Nerves to the Muscles which are by these Spirits and the native Indoles that is in them and the exact texture of them fitted to move those Integrals of the Body to which they serve and as the Spirits shot through the Nerves are the first and immediate Instruments of the Soul in its imperate acts so the Muscles are as it were the Instruments of the Spirits or the remote Instruments of these imperate motions And by this means the Soul hath the actual imperium and command of all those motions of the Body which are spontaneous or capable of being commanded by the volitive Power of the Soul 't is by this the Eye-lid opens or shuts the Eye is converted to this or that object the Lungs are intended or