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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A70079 Golden remains of Sir George Freman, Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath being choice discourses on select subjects. Freeman, George, Sir.; Freeman, Sarah, Lady. 1682 (1682) Wing F2167B; ESTC R21279 41,541 130

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promoted by our Essential consistency of Spirit and Body the material and bodily part always disposing us to the pursuance of Outward things contrary to the approbation of the Intellectual But since the depravation of Mans Will by the fall of Adam we are united to Errour and need not a Tempter to lead us out of the way for both the Principles of our Being do now dispose us to wrong Objects therefore to lay open this grand Fallacy it being in a matter of so great concernment as is the Eternal happiness or perdition of Men let us examine what is requisite to the constituting of true Pleasure To the making up then of true and real Pleasure I shall lay down these three Conditions as requisite First That the Object be suitable to the Soul Secondly That the Soul be put into Fruition of this suitable Object Thirdly That the perpetuity of this Fruition be ensur'd to it Now let us enquire whether External things considered simply in themselves and not relatively as they have respect to greater ends have these three Conditions in them or no. First then Is any External thing an Object suitable to the mind of Man I answer That no External thing is because they all want two Qualifications which are requisite to make an Object suitable to the mind the first of which is That it be congeneal and of the same nature with the Soul that is a substance immaterial or spiritual The second that it have in it a sufficiency to gratifie all the Appetites of the Soul First No outward thing is immaterial or spiritual for a spiritual substance comes not within the notice of our senses and though in Scripture we read of the appearing of Angels as three to Abraham two to Lot one to Cornelius another to S t Peter yet this must be suppos'd to have been by the assumption of bodies to which they were united not essentially but occasionally and pro tempore for in other places the Scripture tells us what their natures are calling them Spirits Psal. 104. vers 4. Heb. chap. 1. vers 14. and although I find no decisive Text for that Opinion of the Church of Rome that there is a Tutelary and a seducing Angel attending upon every Man and Woman and likewise Children which was indeed held amongst the Heathen under the terms of bonus and malus Genius yet it speaks indefinitely Heb. 1. 14. that they are all ministring Spirits for the Elect but notwithstanding their presence appears not to them when they come in their own Natures So likewise the Souls of Men are not within the notice of our senses being Spirits and incorporeal substances as Angels are for which we have the testimony of Scripture Man was made after the Image and Similitude of God But since the sense of these words Image and Similitude is much controverted in the Schools let us look into the twelfth of the Hebrews at the ninth verse Furthermore we had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live where Souls are called Spirits in opposition to flesh Besides the Testimony of Scripture we have a demonstration of their nature in the death of every Man for though the Soul be separated from the body yet the standers by see it not we hear nothing but the groans of the dying person caus'd by the motion of Parts we feel nothing but a coldness in the extremities of the body caused by the cessation of motion we smell nothing but a putrid savour caus'd by the corruption of humours neither do we tast any thing On the contrary all outward and corporeal things are obvious to some one of our senses for instance though we cannot hear the Light we can see it though we cannot see the Air we can feel it and though we taste not the white of an Egg yet we can see it or feel it and though we cannot smell a piece of Glass yet we can likewise see it or feel it and so of all material things that are at a due distance from the organs of our sense And here before we look into the second thing requisite let us examine why it is necessary that the Object be of the same nature with the Soul Thus then the Soul of Man being immaterial that which makes it happy by the fruition of it self must likewise be immaterial for as it is a fundamental in Physick that Nutrition is made by Similaries so likewise is this assertion true in the Metaphysical complacency between the Soul and the Object it cannot receive a proper supply from any thing that doth not bear an affinity with it in its substance and qualities This reciprocall delight between Parties is discoverable in every species of Created Beings and in every action in Natura naturata In Physicks flame and flame embrace one another but a furious conflict ariseth from the convention of fire and water in Morals goodness accords with goodness but vice will not be suffered to dwell with virtue and in the Metaphysical action of the contemplation of the Soul we see experimentally that she cannot content her self with inferiour Objects but is still seeking to her self some more excellent matter of delight which desires of the mind intelligent men may take notice of in themselves if they will be self-observers This appetite of the Soul is the reason why Solomon was not contented with all his clusters of delights though he turn'd over the whole world as it were yet he arrived not to the summ of his desires but still there remained in his spirit an appetite after something more than any exteriour thing could furnish him withall so that at last he openly proclaims them all to be excuse the catachresis but full of emptiness Seneca saith of Augustus Caesar that he delighted to talk of laying down the Scepter and of betaking himself to a recluse life And we read that the Emperour Charles the fifth resigned up the Low-Countries and Burgundy and afterward all the rest of his Dominions to his Son Philip in his life-time And of the Emperour Theodosius that he delivered up the charge of the Empire to his two Sons Arcadius and Honorius though with power to resume it which he never did and many other precedents of the same kind doth History present us withall of which it is reasonable to think that it was not only the troubles which usually attend Crowns caused this in them others being deputed to bear the greatest burdens in that kind but rather that all their enlargements could not present them with any thing agreeable to those secret appetites of their minds and this dissatisfaction there is in all the entertainments of sense by which it appears that the great capacities of the Soul can never be filled up with these lean and scanty Objects and whiles that Capacity is unsupplyed there will be a coveting of those things which are