Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	body_n	spirit_n	vital_a	3,629	5	10.6721	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25316	The evidence of things not seen, or, Diverse scriptural and philosophical discourses, concerning the state of good and holy men after death ... by that eminently learned divine Moses Amyraldus ; translated out of the French tongue by a Minister of the Church of England.; Discours de l'estat des fidèles après la mort. English.	Amyraut, Moïse, 1596-1664.; Minister of the Church of England.	1700 (1700)	Wing A3036; ESTC R7638	98,543	248

whose Religions in all other things are directly opposite must have without doubt some common Foundation and it cannot be common in such sort as it is unless it be established even in the very nature of things So that although it be not possible clearly and distinctly to explicate the reasons of it yet they may be sufficiently seen darkly and in gross to impress upon the mind an indelible perswasion of it For there are multitudes of persons that would find themselves much perplexed if you should oblige them to discourse particularly the reasons that have perswaded them that there is a natural difference between Vice and Virtue the most able among the Philosophers have found some difficulty in freeing themselves from the natural reasons that do either prove or deny the immortality of our Souls And among Christians there are none but Spirits much exercised in discourse which are fit by natural reason to dispute for the Being and Providence of a God against Atheists and yet nevertheless these things prove themselves so smartly to our understandings that the ignorant and vulgar themselves have an abhorrence for those that make any doubt of them Certainly the holy Scripture as I said in the beginning is the only place from whence we may draw lights sufficiently clear to perswade our selves of this truth by a perswasion that will deserve the name of faith and may be capable of giving any sound Consolation to our Consciences But nevertheless I shall not scruple to say that if the holy Scripture had not spoken it so clearly the belief of the immortality of our Souls would have been sufficient to have satisfied our reason that they make use of their faculties though the body should supply no Organs unto them For it is easy to conceive that there is in man whilst he is compounded of Soul and Body an understanding faculty which for some space of time doth not exercise its own proper Operations Since this conjunction is made in such sort that the Organs of the one must serve to the Operation of the faculties of the other and that they do Operate either always or for the most part by their Mediation when the Organs come to be disordered or hindred 't is necessary that the Operations of the mind do cease of themselves But that there is a substance that doth actually exist separate from the Body which is endued with an understanding faculty and nevertheless cannot use it because it hath no Body is a thing in my apprehension absolutely inconceivable For it cannot actually exist unless it live nor can we conceive any sort of life in it which doth not include in the same thought the use of its faculties You may easily conceive that the Body lives though the man do neither see nor discourse Because life may subsist in a man without seeing or discoursing But you cannot imagin that the Body of a man lives but you must likewise imagin that it is nourished and that his heart beats or at least that the Spirits have some heat and motion in the seat of life So that the faculty wherein life consists will move and Act though all the rest should be laid to sleep in the reasonable Soul then when 't is separated from the Body what power will act if it have no use of that of the understanding For there 's in them no power vital animal or natural like to those of our Bodies and as to that which we call the Locomotive that is to say the power by which we move from place to place if it have no use of its understanding there is no reason to imagin that it will have any power of removing it self from one place to another a thing whereunto nature it self will furnish us with a Testimony sufficiently evident and authentique in as much as it hath not given to any living Creature this power of moving it self unless it be to Animals endued with Phantasy and certain appetites which do necessarily require the removal of the Body for their satisfaction in such manner that if there be in the Soul neither understanding nor appetite it will be against all reason to imagin in it any use of the Locomotive faculty So that it will be the same thing to say that the Soul dies with the Body and will rise again with it as to say that it lives and yet nevertheless performs none of the actions of life But this is not all in this power of understanding that we here possess are imprinted certain habits which without doubt have nothing common with the Organs of the Body unless it be as I have said above that they have given occasion to the intellect to exercise Contemplations and to form those ratiocinations and discourses by which these habits are obtained Such is for Example the habit which in Philosophy we call by the name of wisdom which consists in a clear and certain understanding of the first principles of things and in the knowledg of Conclusions that depend thereon in objects the most Excellent and Noble that can be presented to the mind of Man For that this is an habit purely intellectual reason teaches us and experience consents unto it Because on the one side it performs its Operations on objects that have nothing of the nature of Bodies and on the other side it is not found in any subject of the nature of those that have no powers but Corporeal For there was never found neither Horse nor Elephant nor any other Animals devoid of Reason in whom appeared the least ray of that which we call wisdom Either then these kind of habits are wholly razed out by death or they remain in the Soul now there is no good reason why we should say they are obliterate For though I willingly grant that in some sort they intered the intellect by the means of the Body and that the Organs of the Body have contributed something to those reasonings by which they are formed nevertheless they are in themselves totally intellectual and have their proper seat in the reason it self as on the contrary although it be by the conduct of the intellect that the body learns to accustom it self to certain motions directed by measure and art as is for example the habit of Fencing well or Riding the great Horse the habit is nevertheless Corporeal So then when the reasonable Soul comes to be separated from the Body if the body by the presence of the sensitive Soul alone can subsist alive without it there is nothing can hinder but that it may preserve some of those habits which it obtained by the direction of the understanding as they say there are some Horses so well trained that they will of themselves move regularly though there be no Rider to govern them 'T is much more likely that the Soul remaining alive and subsisting after the Body the habits which are so perfectly proper to it should also remain and subsist with it If then they do subsist

no more They are at this time corruptible and mortal then they shall be incorruptible and immortal They are now heavy by reason of the Earth that doth predominate in them there they shall be agile beyond all imagination they are at this time capable of being wearied there they shall be indefatigable they are at this time dark then they shall be bright and shining to that degree that the Holy Scripture compares them to the Sun they are at this time perpetually subject to repletion and excretion then they shall be in a Constitution perpetually uniform they are at this time defective in their conformation many ways then the proportion of their parts shall surpass all the measures of nature and art Here they are troubled with the ill taste of their pleasures there their contentments being perfectly pure they will have always a Savour exquisite and eternally agreeable They are now a burthen and hinderance to our minds then they will assist to the vigour and quickness of their Operations In a word they are at this time marvellously earthly then they shall be altogether Heavenly As to what concerns the Operations of the senses and the motions of the affections which as we have said above have their seat in the Body forasmuch as it respects rather the Estate of the Soul when it shall at some time be reunited there and doth not respect the qualities of the body it self I shall speak but one word of it here and 't is this the objects that are perfectly well proportioned to them do indeed delight them but others do offend them so that light it self which in its own nature is so lovely and agreeable offends the eyes if it be but a little too lively and sparkling Instead whereof then the constitution of our senses will be such that they will be impassible and unalterable by grief whatever be the nature of the Objects that do occur unto them and that is it that the Apostle would teach us when he says there is a natural and there is a Spiritual Body For by Spiritual he doth not understand that which is entirely separate from matter otherwise since he calls it matter his words would imply a contradiction but he understands that which although it be matter hath notwithstanding those qualities that follow the nature of Spirits such as are to be immortal incorruptible and impassible When the wife of Lot became a Pillar of Salt if this change were made by degrees and by little and little she was marvellously astonished to see all the colour of her skin and all the substance of her body change and yet more when she perceived all her members to grow stiff in that manner that at last the obduration proceeded even to her very bowels If a while after she had seen her natural constitution to return little by little her Body to become soft and supple her skin return to its former colour and her members retake their precident pliableness in proportion to the horrour that she had of her self in her change in the same proportion will she have experience of ravishment and joy But if immediately after she had seen her self re-established in her first Estate she had begun to perceive an extraordinary strength in her person an Angelical beauty in all her Fabrick and Composition a vigour unknown before in all the Organs of her senses a nimbleness more agile than that of Birds in all her motions and that Majestick aspect that we suppose to have been in the female Hero's of time past implanted in all the comportment of her Body and on all the lines and stroaks of her countenance neither the word joy nor that of ravishment are capable of representing the emotions that she would have thereupon in her Soul Now the change that happens in our Bodies by death is much worse than a Transformation into a pillar of Salt and the condition into which they will be re-established in the Resurrection incomparably more Excellent than all that at this time can be imagined concerning it From whence 't is easy to conjecture in some manner what a spectacle so marvellous will produce in us Concerning the Soul and the condition wherein it will be found then when it shall be reunited to the Body if from these goodly lights wherewithall it is filled and encompassed in the Heavens it should be brought back into a Body incommodated with the trouble and confusion that is found in the affections and Organs of ours at present without doubt it would receive much disadvantage thereby this would be well nigh as if you should recal an excellent Philosopher from the top of an high Mountain where he did contemplate the Heavens and the Stars which are there and saw the Clouds and Fogs under his feet and make him descend to the bottom of it where he can contemplate nothing but through the darkness of the Clouds But the thing that happens to the Body will place it in such a condition as will in no wise incommodate the actions and Operations of the Soul Let the nature thereof be what it will 't is necessary that besides the Operations of understanding and reason that it now attend to the Conservation of the three faculties which we have in common with beasts The vital the natural and the animal As to the vital faculty our Soul will then so animate our Body that it will no longer hold it fast unto it self by the bond of that Coelestial heat and those Spirits that continually beat in our hearts it will be there even as light is in the Body of the Sun and will not keep it self there by any other bonds than it self the Body such as we now have is too far removed from the nature of Spiritual substances to be capable of being joined with them so closely unless it be by the means of something more subtil and less Earthy but the qualities wherewithall it will be reclothed by the Resurrection will purify and subtilize it in such manner that it will be further removed then from the gross qualities which we observe therein than now are those little Bodies which we call by the name of Spirits which serve as a bond and medium between our Bodies and Souls As to the natural faculty our Soul will be neither imployed in the Concoction as they call it nor in the assimilation of nourishment as now it is obliged to do to preserve unto the parts of the Body their just vigour and stature For in the frame wherein the power of God shall place them at first they shall remain for ever without any need of reparation in their substance or in their powers Such well near as is the nature of the Stars according to the Peripateticks whose matter is so pure or form so perfect or the bond that joins the matter to the form so strict and indissoluble that they can never suffer any alteration according to the opinion of those Philosophers As to the Animal

advance themselves as much as may be from day to day and from much to more in the knowledge of these objects notwithstanding they will always see infinite spaces above their thoughts Shall we call our minds from thence to the Contemplation of his mercy towards us These are Abysses that will never be sounded whose length and bredth whose height and depth will Eternally exceed all understanding and comprehension after this manner as the Eternity of our duration will consist in this that we shall never live so long above but we must yet live there and that the ages to come appear yet infinitely more long than those which we shall have passed already So will our knowledge and Conceptions be infinite in this point that the Eternally Flourishing beauty and the Eternally inexhaustible fertility of our Objects will give us always new matter for Consideration so that the things that remain to be seen will always appear to us as much and more worthy of our Contemplation than those that we shall have seen already Imagine then a Knowing and Curious man to whom every wave of the Sea brings some very fine singularity who at every step that he makes upon the earth finds some Rarity among the Plants and who at every time that he lifts his eyes towards the Heavens discovers some new Star Suppose you that he constantly Recollect them without weariness that he consider them with understanding the one after the other and Contemplate them with admiration Imagine you that he oft casts his eyes upon the vast extent of the Ocean from whence they come then that he recal them to consider in gross the beauties of the earth which doth produce them and afterwards that he pass through in an instant all the extent of the Heavens where so many wonders are scattered Give him friends with whom he may Communicate the content that he receives from thence and receive from them the Communication of that which the Observations which they on their part have made do give unto them Suppose you also that without ceasing he always moves about the World sometimes along the banks of the Sea sometimes amidst the Fields always Contemplating always Learning and never ceasing to Learn always in the company of his Friends without incommodity from the Air without indisposition of Body without unquietness in his mind without fear of any evil accident And above all imagine that without ceasing he lifts up his heart to God to admire and avow that his goodness is without bottom his wisdom inexpressible and you will have formed I know not what shadow of that happiness the substance whereof we shall possess in the Heavenly places Here were properly the place to touch the question concerning the equality or inequality of the glory of the Blessed for as it is certain that happiness will universally fill all the powers both of our souls and bodies so it is not to be doubted but that this plenitude of happiness must adopt it self to the capacity of the faculties that do possess it that it may be more or less great according as the faculties shall be more or less capable so that the understanding being the most noble part of our Being and by consequence most capable of glory and happiness so that it seems indubitable that although the other powers of our souls and all the parts of our bodies shall possess as much of it as they can contain nevertheless according to the proportion of its nature and its greatness our understanding will possess more of it for 't is here that the comparison that we ordinarily make use of on this subject must have place that although diverse Vessels that are plunged into a River at the same time are all equally filled in as much as there is not any one of them which receives not as much Water as the extent of its capacity will bear nevertheless they receive it unequally because this extent of their capacity is not equal such therefore as is naturally the proportion of the excellency of the parts whereof we are composed among themselves such without doubt must be that of the happiness and glory which doth attend them besides in a work so well composed as is man and which will be in much better condition by the Resurrection the most excellent parts and where the understanding resides do hold the government of the rest in such manner that they depend upon it every one in the degree of its subordination from whence it comes to pass that not only the proportion of more and less must be observed in what concerns their glorification in proportion to their natural excellency but it even seems that the glory and happiness of the understanding is in some sense the cause of that of all the other faculties if therefore the glory of the understanding of every Believer be unequal it will be also unequal in all that depends thereon On the contrary if the understanding of each Believer be equally glorified it will follow thence in like manner that they will be also equal in the remainder of their happiness Now we see indeed a marvellous great difference between the quickness the largeness and the vigour of spirit in men such as now we are For there are some that we look on with some kind of admiration and as persons in whom it hath pleased God to shew what he can do if he pleases they have so much both of lively and fruitful imagination a vast and constant memory subtil and curious fancies reasonings sublime vigorous and full of light Some others appear stupid and blockish and as one would think but little raised above the condition of beasts themselves Among believing Christians it cannot be denied but that there are many of whom we cannot speak more advantageously than by saying that they are indifferent But that proceeds either from the variety of their Temperaments and the Constitution of their Organs or from the diversity of their Exercises and Employments or from the great difference that is put in the manner of their Instruction and Education or chiefly from the differing manner after which it pleases God to deal with them be it by the efficacy of his Providence be it by the power of his Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation And all this seems a consequence of Sin and effect of that conduct which it hath pleased God to follow as well in the Establishment and Government of Kingdoms as in the Constitution of his Church and the Edification thereof This notwithstanding there is great probability that the Souls of men are well near all equal and that if they had remained in their integrity as all these differences had been neither equals nor expedients so we had never seen so great an inequality among us Therefore when Sin shall be totally abolished and all variety of Temperaments and Conformation of Organs done away when the Faithful shall be eternally fixed on the same Occupations and shall have perpetually the