Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	law_n	nature_n	transgression_n	6,060	5	10.0236	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37239	The original, nature, and immortality of the soul a poem : with an introduction concerning humane knowledge / written by Sir John Davies ... ; with a prefatory account concerning the author and poem.; Nosce teipsum	Davies, John, Sir, 1569-1626.; Tate, Nahum, 1652-1715.	1697 (1697)	Wing D405; ESTC R14959	39,660	143

which the World contains Then she of nothing must created be And to create to God alone pertains Again if Souls do other Souls beget 'T is by themselves or by the Bodies Pow'r If by themselves what doth their Working let But they might Souls engender ev'ry Hour If by the Body how can Wit and Will Join with the Body only in this Act Since when they do their other Works fulfil They from the Body do themselves abstract Again if Souls of Souls begotten were Into each other they should change and move And Change and Motion still Corruption bear How shall we then the Soul immortal prove If lastly Souls do Generation use Then should they spread incorruptible Seed What then becomes of that which they do lose When th' Acts of Generation do not speed And though the Soul could cast spiritual Seed Yet would she not because she never dies For mortal things desire their Like to breed That so they may their Kind immortalize Therefore the Angels Sons of God are nam'd And marry not nor are in Marriage giv'n Their Spirits and ours are of one Substance fram'd And have one Father ev'n the Lord of Heaven Who would at first that in each other thing The Earth and Water living Souls should breed But that Man's Soul whom he would make their King Should from himself immediately proceed And when he took the Woman from Man's side Doubtless himself inspir'd her Soul alone For 't is not said he did Man's Soul divide But took Flesh of his Flesh Bone of his Bone Lastly God being made Man for Man's own sake And being like Man in all except in Sin His Body from the Virgin 's Womb did take But all agree God form'd his Soul within Then is the Soul from God so Pagans say Which saw by Nature's Light her heavenly Kind Naming her Kin to God and God's bright Ray A Citizen of Heav'n to Earth confin'd But now I feel they pluck me by the Ear Whom my young Muse so boldly termed blind And crave more heav'nly Light that Cloud to clear Which makes them think God doth not make the Mind SECT VIII Reasons from Divinity GOd doubtless makes her and doth make her good And grafts her in the Body there to spring Which though it be corrupted Flesh and Blood Can no way to the Soul Corruption bring Yet is not God the Author of her Ill Though Author of her Being and being there And if we dare to judge our Maker's Will He can condemn us and himself can clear First God from infinite Eternity Decreed what hath been is or shall be done And was resolv'd that ev'ry Man should be And in his turn his Race of Life should run And so did purpose all the Souls to make That ever have been made or ever shall And that their Being they should only take In Humane Bodies or not be at all Was it then fit that such a weak Event Weakness it self the Sin and Fall of Man His Counsel's Execution should prevent Decreed and fix'd before the World began Or that one Penal Law by Adam broke Should make God break his own Eternal Law The settled Order of the World revoke And change all Forms of Things which he foresaw Could Eve's weak Hand extended to the Tree In sunder rend that Adamantine Chain Whose golden Links Effects and Causes be And which to God's own Chair doth fix'd remain O Could we see how Cause from Cause doth spring How mutually they link'd and folded are And hear how oft one disagreeing String The Harmony doth rather make than marr And view at once how Death by Sin is brought And how from Death a better Life doth rise How This God's Justice and his Mercy taught We this Decree would praise as right and wise But we that measure Times by First and Last The sight of things successively do take When God on all at once his View doth cast And of all Times doth but one Instant make All in Himself as in a Glass he sees For from him by him thrô him all things be His Sight is not discoursive by degrees But seeing the whole each single part doth see He looks on Adam as a Root or Well And on his Heirs as Branches and as Streams He sees all Men as one Man though they dwell In sundry Cities and in sundry Realms And as the Root and Branch are but one Tree And Well and Stream do but one River make So if the Root and Well corrupted be The Stream and Branch the same Corruption take So when the Root and Fountain of Mankind Did draw Corruption and God's Curse by Sin This was a Charge that all his Heirs did bind And all his Off-spring grew corrupt therein And as when th' Hand doth strike the Man offends For Part from whole Law severs not in this So Adam's Sin to the whole Kind extends For all their Natures are but part of his Therefore this Sin of Kind not personal But real and hereditary was The Guilt thereof and Punishment to all By Course of Nature and of Law doth pass For as that easie Law was giv'n to all To Ancestor and Heir to First and Last So was the first Transgression general And all did pluck the Fruit and all did taste Of this we find some Foot-steps in our Law Which doth her Root from God and Nature take Ten thousand Men she doth together draw And of them all one Corporation make Yet these and their Successors are but one And if they gain or lose their Liberties They harm or profit not themselves alone But such as in succeeding Times shall rise And so the Ancestor and all his Heirs Though they in number pass the Stars of Heav'n Are still but one his Forfeitures are theirs And unto them are his Advancements giv'n His Civil Acts do bind and bar them all And as from Adam all Corruption take So if the Father's Crime be capital In all the Blood Law doth Corruption make Is it then just with us to disinherit Th' unborn Nephews for the Father's Fault And to advance again for one Man's Merit A thousand Heirs that have deserved nought And is not God's Decree as just as ours If he for Adam's Sin his Sons deprive Of all those native Virtues and those Pow'rs Which he to him and to his Race did give For What is this contagious Sin of Kind But a Privation of that Grace within And of that great rich Dowry of the Mind Which all had had but for the first Man's Sin If then a Man on light Conditions gain A great Estate to him and his for ever If wilfully he forfeit it again Who doth bemoan his Heir or blame the Giver So though God make the Soul good rich and fair Yet when her Form is to the Body knit Which makes the Man which Man is Adam's Heir Justly forthwith he takes his Grace from it And then the Soul being first from Nothing brought When God's Grace fails her doth to Nothing fall And this

sweet The Pleasure of her ravish'd Thought is such As almost here she with her Bliss doth meet But when in Heav'n she shall his Essence see This is her sov'reign Good and perfect Bliss Her Longing Wishings Hopes all finish'd be Her Joys are full her Motions rest in this There is she crown'd with Garlands of Content There doth she Manna eat and Nectar drink That Presence doth such high Delights present As never Tongue could speak nor Heart could think 3. Reason For this the better Souls do oft despise The Body's Death and do it oft desire For when on Ground the burthen'd Ballance lies The empty part is lifted up the higher But if the Body's Death the Soul should kill Then Death must needs against her Nature be And were it so all Souls would fly it still For Nature hates and shuns her Contrary For all things else which Nature makes to be Their Being to preserve are chiefly taught And though some things desire a Change to see Yet never Thing did long to turn to nought If then by Death the Soul were quenched quite She could not thus against her Nature run Since ev'ry sensless thing by Nature's Light Doth Preservation seek Destruction shun Nor could the World's best Spirits so much err If Death took all that they should all agree Before this Life their Honour to prefer For what is Praise to things that nothing be Again If by the Body's Prop she stand If on the Body's Life her Life depend As Meleagers on the fatal Brand The Body's Good she only would intend We should not find her half so brave and bold To lead it to the Wars and to the Seas To make it suffer Watchings Hunger Cold When it might feed with Plenty rest with Ease Doubtless all Souls have a surviving Thought Therefore of Death we think with quiet Mind But if we think of being turn'd to nought A trembling Horrour in our Souls we find 4. Reason And as the better Spirit when she doth bear A Scorn of Death doth shew she cannot die So when the wicked Soul Death's Face doth fear Ev'n then she proves her own Eternity For when Death's Form appears she feareth not An utter Quenching or Extinguishment She would be glad to meet with such a Lot That so she might all future Ill prevent But she doth doubt what after may befal For Nature's Law accuseth her within And saith 'T is true what is affirm'd by all That after Death there is a Pain for Sin Then she who hath been hood wink'd from he Birth Doth first her self within Death's Mirrour see And when her Body doth return to Earth She first takes care how she alone shall be Who ever sees these irreligious Men With Burthen of a Sickness weak and faint But hears them talking of Religion then And vowing of their Souls to ev'ry Saint When was there ever cursed Atheist brought Unto the Gibbet but he did adore That blessed Pow'r which he had set at nought Scorn'd and blasphemed all his Life before These light vain Persons still are drunk and mad With Surfeitings and Pleasures of their Youth But at their Death they are fresh sober sad Then they discern and then they speak the truth If then all Souls both good and bad do teach With gen'ral Voice That Souls can never die 'T is not Man's flatt'ring Gloss but Nature's Speech Which like GOD's Oracles can never lye 5. Reason Hence springs that universal strong Desire Which all Men have of Immortality Not some few Spirits unto this Thought aspire But all Men's Minds in this united be Then this Desire of Nature is not vain She covets not Impossibilities Fond Thoughts may fall into some idle Brain But one Assent of all is ever wise From hence that gen'ral Care and Study springs That Launching and Progression of the Mind Which all Men have so much of future things That they no Joy do in the present find From this Desire that main Desire proceeds Which all Men have surviving Fame to gain By Tombs by Books by memorable Deeds For she that this desires doth still remain Hence lastly springs Care of Posterities For Things their Kind would everlasting make Hence is it that old Men do plant young Trees The Fruit whereof another Age shall take If we these Rules unto our selves apply And view them by Reflection of the Mind All these true Notes of Immortality In our Heart's Tables we shall written find 6. Reason And though some impious Wits do Questions move And doubt if Souls immortal be or no That Doubt their Immortality doth prove Because they seem immortal things to know For he who Reasons on both Parts doth bring Doth some things mortal some immortal call Now if himself were but a mortal thing He could not judge immortal things at all For when we judge our Minds we Mirrors make And as those Glasses which material be Forms of material things do only take For Thoughts or Minds in them we cannot see So when we God and Angels do conceive And think of Truth which is eternal too Then do our Minds immortal Forms receive Which if they mortal were they could not do And as if Beasts conceiv'd what Reason were And that Conception should distinctly show They should the Name of Reasonable bear For without Reason none could Reason know So when the Soul mounts with so high a Wing As of Eternal Things she Doubts can move She Proofs of her Eternity doth bring Ev'n when she strives the contrary to prove For ev'n the Thought of Immortality Being an Act done without the Body's Aid Shews that her self alone could move and be Although the Body in the Grave were laid SECT XXXI That the Soul cannot be destroy'd AND if her self she can so lively move And never need a Foreign Help to take Then must her Motion everlasting prove Because her self she never can forsake But though Corruption cannot touch the Mind By any Cause that from it self may spring Some outward Cause Fate hath perhaps design'd Which to the Soul may utter Quenching bring Perhaps her Cause may cease and she may die God is her Cause his Word her Maker was Which shall stand fix'd for all Eternity When Heav'n and Earth shall like a Shadow pass Perhaps some thing repugnant to her Kind By strong Antipathy the Soul may kill But what can be Contrary to the Mind Which holds all Contraries in Concord still She lodgeth Heat and Cold and Moist and Dry And Life and Death and Peace and War together Ten thousand fighting things in her do lie Yet neither troubleth or disturbeth either Perhaps for want of Food the Soul may pine But that were strange since all things bad and good Since all God's Creatures Mortal and Divine Since God himself is her eternal Food Bodies are fed with things of mortal kind And so are subject to Mortality But Truth which is eternal feeds the Mind The Tree of Life which will not let her die Yet Violence perhaps the