Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	body_n	soul_n	union_n	2,456	5	9.5499	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93862	Theologica mystica two discourses concerning divine communications to souls duly disposed ...	Stephens, Edward, d. 1706.	1697 (1697)	Wing S5444; ESTC R42916	66,591	136

like must necessarily be joyned with like p. 9. The same which I have said of Pythagoras may in effect be said of SOCRATES also both as to the Disposition of his Mind as to his Travels for acquiring of Knowledge and as to his Principles from the Observations and Confessions of such as were no Friends to Mystick Theology They were Scholars in the same Schools and received the Tradition of the same Doctrine as did Plato also from thence and from them so that I may dispatch this in a few Observations of what is known and confessed concerning him That he had as clear Notions as any touching God his Nature Unity and other Sacred Mysteries which he could never have attained unto but by some borrowed Tradition c. That he asserted That Virtue is neither by Nature nor by Teaching but by Divine Inspiration and that all true Knowledge of God comes by Divine Infusion and called God his Tutor That while Man is subject to and under the Impression of Corporal Images sensible Forms and terrene Affections he is not rightly disposed for Divine Contemplation which requires a Mind defecated c. That Divine things and Mysteries cannot be comprehended but by a refined Judgment by such as have their Souls abstracted from all Corporal Images Impressions and Affections and therefore Men should be very intent on getting a Reformed Life that the Mind being exonerated of its depressing Lusts might by a natural Vigour lift up it self to Eternals and by that Purity of Intelligence contemplate the Nature of that Eternal Incommunicable Light where the Causes of all created Natures live in Stability v. Aug. de Civ Dei lib. 8. c. 3. And as to his own Life That he instituted his whole Life even from his Childhood by the assistance of his Divine Inspiration which he called a Daemon a Voice a Sign And that Plato reports of him that he stood a whole day without any alteration in the same posture his Mind being abstracted with pure Contemplation and that Favorinus in A. Gellius saith that he did this often And now to return to our principal Author and the Words of PLATO in him which are these Being often in the Depth of Contemplation my Body being left behind I seemed to enjoy the Chief Good with incredible pleasure Wherefore I stood as it were astonished finding my self to be a part of the upper World and to have obtained Immortality with the clearest Light which cannot be expressed with Words nor heard with Ears nor understood by the Thoughts of Men and then he describes the Sadness he felt at the decay of that glorious Light and the pleasure which returned with his former Extasies The Words are At last my Intellect being wearied with this Contemplation fell back into phantasie and then that Light failing I became somewhat sad But again having left my Body returning thither again I perceived my Mind abounding with Light and that flowing then into the Body then raised above it Nor of Plato himself doth our Author take any more notice then of that one passage but of the later Platonists Plotinus Jamblicus Porphrygius and Proclus who as he saith out of Psellus did wholly approve of the Chaldaick Theology he gives us some larger Tasts and particularly The short account of Plotinus his Hypothesis is this That the Soul of Man being immersed in the Body suffers very much by reason of its Vnion with it by which means it is drawn to the Affections of the Body and to a Conversation with Sensible things and so becomes Evil and Miserable That its Good and Happy Condition lyes in being like to God not in regard of Vnderstanding but a State of Quiescency That the Practice of the Virtues of the Active Life is insufficient for Assimilation to God but in order to it those which are properly Intellectual are most necessary whereby the Soul draws it self off from the Body Thus for the Soul to act by its self is Wisdom Introversion is Temperance Abstraction from Matter is Fortitude to follow Reason is Justice That by the Practice of these the Soul purifies its self i. e. casts off the things without its self and so recovers its Purity by bringing those things into Light again which lay hid under the rubbish of Sensible things before so that the Soul did not know them to be there but for the Discovery of them it was necessary for the Soul to come near a greater Light than its self and to bring the Images which are in it to the true Originals The way of Purifying the Soul he calls by the Names of Abstraction and Recollection which he else-where expresses by awakening the Soul out of Sleep wherein it was disturbed by sensible Images not as though the Soul had need of any other way of Purifying but only restraining it to its self by taking away that load of Matter which oppressed it and then it naturally endeavours after the nearest Vnion with the first Being which he calls the True Being and the super-Essential Being And he saith When the Soul endeavours after this Vnion it must lay aside all sensible and intellectual Images of things and make use only of the purest and supream part of the Mind or the Fund of the Spirit that God then is not to be considered under the Notion of Being but as something above Being and that we are not either to affirm or deny any thing of Him that Our Contemplation of Him is not by Knowledge or any Intellectual Operation but by a Divine Presence which far exceeds any Knowledge for Knowledge he saith hinders Vnion therefore we must go beyond Knowledge and be abstracted from all other Objects and be united to Him only by the Power of Divine Love from whence follows a clearer Light in the Soul And in this State saith he there is not only a Cessation of Passion but of Reason and Vnderstanding too neither is the Person himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like one in a Rapture or an Extasie he enjoys God in that State of Quiescency as in a silent Wilderness which he calls being in God and in other places seeing God in themselves being the same with God being one with God and which is the highest of all being God which is the perfect State of Dei-formity Of Porphyry who was a Disciple and Confident of Plotinus the same Author gives us this account That he looked upon the Theurgick Way as lyable to deceit and not capable of advancing the Soul to highest Perfection Which Theurgick Way lay in the initiating of Men in some Sacred Mysteries by partaking of certain Rites and Symbols by which they were admitted to the Presence of some of their Deities the End whereof as they pretended was reducing the Souls of Men to that State they were in before they came into the Body So St. Austin tells us from Porphyry That they who were purified after this manner did converse with glorious appearances of Angels which they were fitted