Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	action_n	body_n	spirit_n	4,810	5	5.3791	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28981	A free discourse against customary swearing ; and, A dissuasive from cursing by Robert Boyle ; published by John Williams.	Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.; Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1695 (1695)	Wing B3978; ESTC R27221	44,234	188

of the greatness of their folly They must be thought strangely necessitous of meriting qualities that do so meanly by their bad ones implore and court men's good opinion And I know not whether be the greater their impudence to expect it for the recompence of vice or their profuseness that should squander it away on those who have no juster title to our esteem than that by which the miserablest of Beggars pretend to our Charity the multitude of their imperfections and wants Wise men will make these poor and empty projects the objects solely of their scorn and laughter and only those that want esteem for themselves will reward you with it and for such peoples praises they will but discommend you So that that empty applause you are ambitious of will either be impossible to be purchas'd or not deserve to be pursued But what your Oaths will make men take you for a Gentleman you are deceived there is too little Epicurism and Chargeableness in your vice to be affected to that Quality 'T was still so cheap and now grown so common that I wonder our Grandees though they desist not for the sins sake renounce it not at least for the Company 's Must then Vices be arguments of the possession of that dignity that Vertue is the sole true means to purchase I 'm sure it should not be so but grant it were Will you pretend to Nobility by that alone which is not the property but the vice of Gentlemen and entitle your self to that illustrious Quality by that which in God's Eye makes them unworthy if not divests them of it At that rate your pretensions would parallel his mirth who boasted a descent from the first Caesars barely upon his being like most of them almost deformedly Hawk Nos'd deriving his interest in their blood only from his sympathy with their defects For my part I must confess I am not ambitious of those badges of Gentility that Christianity delivers for the symptoms of Reprobation Nor do I find men desirous of the Gout though the Proverb have appropriated that disease to Rich men But then you think your courage will be unquestionable And indeed it may seem that you want not probability to prop up your hopes since you desperately hazard the incurring of Immortal Torments for that for which no Wise man would venture the stretching of his little Finger But since the kindred betwixt vertues is not so remote that the want of any one should conclude the possession of any other and your impiety convince us of your courage Experience teaches us That no men more fear what they should contemn than those that contemn most what they should fear And Martyrs have embrac'd those Flames with joy that impious persons durst not so much as think of without horror That boldness that men personate against their Maker were it real would not be the effect of their resolution but either of their inconsiderateness or their unbelief The wicked flee says Solomon when no man pursueth but the righteous are bold as a Lyon And indeed it is no great encouragement to despise this life to want either hope or at least confidence of a better Nor will all men so easily conclude that he that fears not to venture his Soul dares freely venture his Body For since it is not the essential worth of things but the proprietary's value of them that their dearness to us is to be measured by That standard and most mens actions will present us the soul and body in a very inverted order of precedency the greater part of men living for the Body as if they were all Body and slighting their Souls as if they had no Souls or had them but to lose It being but too true of the very greatest of those people that in themselves as in their stables the Employment of the Man is but to serve the Beast And truly he that considers that the neglect of the Soul proceeds from the former dotage on the Body will think that a very unlikely consequence that infers a readiness to hazard the latter from the carelessness of what becomes of the former He that shakes off the emboldening Fear of God betrays himself to as numerous apprehensions as did the weak-ey'd Frantick who to be secur'd from the offensiveness of the Sun 's brighter Beams by pulling out his eyes expos'd himself to all those dangers and those horrors that attend on blindness PLEA XIII But say some Swearers if I renounce this Vice my Repentance will procure me a derision I shall be asham'd of Ans Must then that Bashfulness which is both the Livery and Guard of Virtue oppose our addresses to it Like Ditches when the Draw-bridge is cut down which tho their use be to secure the Fortress from Enemies forbid access to them that once have salley'd when they are meditating a Retreat But yours is an excuse as receivable as the Whores who pretended Bashfulness for their turning honest I was much taken with an Italian Gentleman who spying a Friend of his peep out his head from behind the door of a Bordello to see if he might retire undiscover'd Come forth come forth cries he you need not be ashamed to leave that sluttish place but you should have been asham'd to have entred it Have Innocence and Vice then so chang'd natures that he that did not blush to commit sin should blush to forsake it And he that hath once fram'd mishapen Characters be ashamed afterwards to write a Neater Hand The blushes that do wait on our Repentance proceed from an implicite confession it imports of some former faultiness and so if it have been shameful to have committed a fault how much more should we be ashamed to continue and how little can it discredit us to forsake it And truly he that thinks a fault a just engagement to a relapse lest his Conversion should make him laugh'd at deserves the Censure men would pass upon that fool who having slipt one foot into a Quagmire should rather proceed to be entirely bogg'd than by timely stepping back to confess a mischance that may provoke mens laughter I had much rather men should laugh at my retracting than God frown upon my relapses and care not so much who smiles at any action that makes my Conscience do so not by way of derision but of applause How contradicting are the desires of mortals We are angry if we are not thought virtuous and yet we are ashamed to appear so and think it a just ground of quarrel to be reported the contrary of what we blush to seem Like Ladies who tho they long to live till they grow old fret to appear what they desire to be The sinner that is overmuch concerned in bad mens opinions of good mens actions does as it were swear Allegiance to the Devil and let him bore his Ear through with an Awl against the Door-Post sealing an engagement to perpetual bondage for as the same men that crucified

they shall be satisfied Thus he that graciously accepts the will for the deed counts good desires but Infant Holiness as things that differ from more perfect Graces not in their Nature but their Age and Growth In the mean time let this Consideration comfort you That those sins displease God least that displease the Doer most And that in this our Combats against sins are differenc'd from our Battels amongst men that in the former the Victory depends not so much on our Success as our Resistance since none are there held vanquish'd but submitters And for your further comfort you may take each Victory Grace wins of your Corruptions not only for a Preparative to new ones but an Earnest of more For the Conquests of Saving Grace in the Soul are not like those the Sea makes upon the Strand when it makes Acquisitions by the Flow but to lose them again within few hours by the Ebb But the Expeditions of the Spirit against Vices are like those of the Crown'd Rider of the White Horse in the Revelation of whom it is said That he went forth conquering and to conquer DIRECT III. In the next place as far as conveniency will permit 't were fit to fly the Conversation or at least the Familiarity of profest Swearers This Advice of declining Infectious Company tho in a general Caution ever found prevalent against all Vices has a peculiar property against this For there being very small if any Temptation to it in our natures it is principally imitated from others as when one yawns most of the Company though otherwise uninclin'd to that act do usually yawn out of sympathy and so subsists but as 't is cherish'd by Example and Custom its Motive and its Nurse And therefore a very effectual Remedy against Swearing is by conversing where it is discountenanc'd to starve it by discontinuance forcing that shame of singularity that first begot it to make amends for the mischief it has occasion'd by employing it to the ruin of its own Productions As Physicians make Scorpions their own Antidote by preparing out of them an Oyl that is Sovereign against their Stings Lovers of the same Sin may methinks be resembled unto Firebrands which being laid together kindle each other by their mutual heat but being sever'd and kept so asunder each single Brand after a little smoaking does of it self go out DIRECT IV. For the Fourth Remedy I should advise the Swearer to oblige himself to pay or suffer somewhat for every Oath he swears those little Forfeitures serving both as Monitors and as Penalties But if the Bargain tye you to Pecuniary Disbursements be sure distressed Christians be at least Sharers in them For if as Divines tell us the Poor be God's Receivers they seem to have a Title as well by Justice as by Charity to the Amerciaments that are estreated upon Trespasses against their Lord. But have a care you turn not this Physick into Poyson by imagining that when you have fin'd for your engagements you have done Penance for your sins and by your Justice to your Compacts cancell'd your Disobedience to your Maker No no God requires not that you should part with your Sixpences but with your Sins and the Repentance he accepts consists not in a paying for but in forsaking your Transgressions Esteem then these inconsiderable Mulcts but as Remembrancers of your Faults not Satisfaction for them Ally'd to this Expedient is that useful one of procuring some discreet Friend by putting you in mind of every Oath to force you to take notice of your Faults which this course will very much contribute to make you both weary and asham'd of Provided always that these Reprehensions be as well seasonable as just for to correct men in the first violent transports of their Choler is by administring Physick in the extremity of the Fit but to exasperate instead of curing Reason being to our Passions as the Wind to the Fires the same Puff that will blow out the Flames of a Candle will but kindle those that prey upon a Faggot Reprehensions may suppress Passions when they are weak but do but incense them whilst they are raging 'T is listed amongst the Miracles of Christ that he once chid a Storm into a Calm DIRECT V. The Fifth thing that I must prescribe our Swearer is to resolve at once to renounce that Vice by a Desertion not only sincere but unsuspended and intire Were it but one of these mere Moral Failings whose Unfitness or Misbecomingness makes all the Guilt I should possibly counsel you to wean yourself of it by degrees whose progress were scarce discernible before its end just as Physicians use to reclaim those that have been long accustomed to unwholsome Diet. But as the same Physicians when once a dangerous Surfeit is contracted restrain not by degrees but totally and abruptly those Excesses that occasion'd it and whose continuance would prove fatal to the Patient so here where that which is to be forsaken is not so properly a Fault as a Sin we must refrain without the least Exception or Connivance since else the thing prohibited being in it self a Sin we allow our selves to offend God as much as ever tho not so often by committing the same Sins in Quality however not in Multitude Indeed what is lessen'd by the Number of our Oaths in this partial Reformation is recompenc'd by the aggravated Heinousness of their nature those that seem'd formerly but the slips of Infirmity being now authoriz'd by Dispensation This bare abatement of the Tale of our Sins is a good Refuge but a bad Design Many times this diminution is the utmost our Endeavours can arrive at but then it ought to be practis'd and not to be intended for true Repentance and a purpose of relapsing are hugely inconsistent the one not being real without a property destructive to the other since he but very lamely repents his Crimes that resolves not against Relapses into the Crimes that he repents No no this faint desisting from some acts of Vice does but endear the rest that is unexil'd and that importunately urge for the recalling of their banish'd Companions This mild remissness if it do not prune a Vice at least it does but lop it and that prohibits not its future growth which the only way infalliby to prevent is to dig it up by the Roots with the Spade of an absolute and irrevocable Resolve never to accord to our selves so much as by connivance the least License that may endanger a Relapse In this case Extirpation is that alone which can secure our quiet and the only way that leads to an establish'd safety is a severity that its object secures from all possibility of excesses A Sinner's condition may be resembled to a Mouse in a Pail of Water if she can get out at one leap well and good otherwise her toyl will prove but fruitless in attempting to get out by degrees DIRECT VI. Lastly My concluding Precept is To make