Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	brain_n	spirit_n	vital_a	2,340	5	11.1626	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56381	An account of the nature and extent of the divine dominion & goodnesse especially as they refer to the Origenian hypothesis concerning the preexistence of souls together with a special account of the vanity and groundlesness of the hypothesis it self : being a second letter written to his much honoured friend and kinsman, Mr. Nath. Bisbie / by Sam. Parker ...	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1666 (1666)	Wing P454; ESTC R22702	53,301	116

by confounding the phautasms that lodge therein disturb all its conceptions and operations then does it concern the Soul to abate and cool this unruly heat which is effected by restraining the violence of the Torrent which is effected by its influence upon those Nerves that are the passage and high way from the Brain to the Heart And therefore the Providence of nature has made a peculiar passage for commerce between the Head and the Heart in Man where it has made none in Beasts viz. whereas the Praecordia of Beasts are furnished with nervous branches only from the Par vagum to supply the vital functions with spirits in man there are peculiar large branches derived from the Intercostal Nerve into the same region only for a way of commerce between the Brain and the Heart and passage of the Animal spirits from the one to the other as need shall require In so much that we may define Prudence and Virtue to be nothing else but a due commerce between the Brain the Heart which Plotinus only expresses more abstractedly when he describes it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which the fore-cited machless Author supplys us with a clear Example viz. that dissecting a Changeling or Natural Fool the chief defect he could discover in him was that this Plexus of the Intercostal Nerve which is proper to the body of Man and is the way of commerce for the Animal spirits between the Heart and the Brain was exceeding small and its branches very thin By reason whereof his Soul could have but very little command over his Passions and Appeties in the impotency and irregularity whereof consists the nature of Folly The result of all is this that mankind is compounded of contrary Principles endued with contrary desires and inclinations to the end that there might be an order of Beings in the world without which there would perhaps have been one Species wanting to compleat the Universe capable of all those Heroick Vertues which consist in the Empire of Reason over the brutish and sensual Faculties As also that by the right use and emprovement of our superiour Powers we might be raised to greater Capacities and qualified for higher and more divine Accomplishments So that man seems to differ from the Angels only in this that he must by conquest and industry win the happiness which is entail'd on their Natures for when we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our dispositions we shall be made so too in our enjoyments the Divine Goodness having graciously appointed that when the Soul is so far advanced in Vertue as to live above the reach of all its Passions and Desires that then it shall be translated into a more free and disintangled state where it shall be neither enticed nor vex'd with the importunity of these lower and bruitish Appetites but shall enjoy the Serenity and Pleasures of a pure and intellectual Being as the Reward of its former Pains and Industry As on the contrary when any man suffers his Passions and Brutish Appetites to beat Reason out of its Throne and to run headlong into an ungovernable Anarchy he degenerates from humanity grows incorrigible in sin and sinks so deep into the Animal life as to be made uncapable of acting Vertuously and suitably to the ends of his Being and thence is congruously doom'd to the Portion of degenerate and apostate Spirits as being fit for nothing else So that the whole designe of Providence in sending us into this world is only that we may in a way congruous to rational Agents prepare our selves for another and therefore the Souls of men shall at their departure hence be stated in a condition proportion'd to their good or bad Qualifications I am apt to be positive and dogmatical in this Hypothesis not so much because it gives a rational and satisfactory account of Gods sending pure and innocent Souls into Bodies full of brutish and irregular Inclinations as because it exactly agrees with the Condition of our Natures with the natural tendency of Vertue and Religion and with the whole Oeconomy of Providence in conducting mankind to their future happiness Not to mention its consonancy with Saint Pauls Hypothesis in his Account of the Civil and Intestine War between the law of the Mind and the law of the Members And now having laid my Hypothesis I come to shew 1. that mankind is endued with such faculties by the use whereof he may attain to the highest degrees of Vertue and Happiness 2 that we have the greatest endearments and advantages in the world to push us forward to a diligent and vigorous Prosecution thereof And if Vertue and Happiness be in our own power and if we are invited to pursue and endeavour after them by the greatest endearments and perswasions then certainly Providence has placed us in a sufficient capacity of being happy and if it happen that we should at last be abandoned to Misery we must owe it to our own choice and prodigious folly 1. First then Mankind is furnished with such faculties by the use whereof he may arrive at Vertue and Happiness To evidence this I require no other Postulatum then that which is the great foundation of all Religion and Morality viz. that the Mind of man is endued with Reason and Understanding able to discern the essential differences of Good and Evil and with Liberty and Election able to choose and pursue the one and eschew the other This I say is a Postulatum so just and evident as that it cannot be denyed without destroying not onely the Nature of Good and Evil but of Man himself For if in any thing we differ from Brutes 't is in the Reason and Liberty of our minds all our other faculties we have in common with them 't is these alone that are the peculiar Prerogatives of humane Nature and therefore without them we may be Sheep or Oxen but not Men. Separat haec nos A grege mutorum atque ideo venerabile soli Sortiti Ingenium divinorumque capaces Atque exercendis capiendisque Artibus apti Sensum à caelesti demissum traximus Arce However these are the efficient Causes and necessary Foundations of all Morality for no Action can be morally Good or Evil but what we can choose and concerning which we can deliberate because without them all our Actions would be either Casual or Fatal and the meer Issues of Chance or Necessity and by consequence as uncapable of being moral as those motions that result purely from Mechanical Powers as I have already I think demonstrated in what I have discoursed concerning the Freedom of the Divine Goodness And now if the mind of man be a deliberative and elective Principle able to discern between Good and Evil Happiness and Misery and to choose the one and refuse the other then 't is at its own choice and in its own power to be Vertuous and Happy for no body questions but that Goodness and Happiness are much