Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	believe_v	eternal_a	life_n	3,820	5	4.8065	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62741	[Hebrew] or Wisdome and prudence exhibited in a sermon before the right honourable the Lord Chief Justice Rainsford, and the Lord Chief Justice North. In their late western circuit. By Tho. Tanner, Rector of Brightstone in Hants.	Tanner, Thomas, 1630-1682.	1677 (1677)	Wing T148; ESTC R232919	19,177	33

still so far from being satisfyed that he is rather sad and discomposed partly through vanity of the Creature and partly through the remorse of his Conscience reflecting upon so much of the vanity of Sin as he is sensible of in the things that he hath acted or wherewithal he was affected for the time So that instead of recovering himself by reason and by resolution he is usually re-mitted to the same disease to be healed as they say that a second burning of the finger will cure the first Now if this part of a mans soul if I may divide it into parts troubled the Heathen themselves as I cannot stand to cite sentences and instances that might be quoted out of Authors how much more may I presume it may do in such as have heard the Gospel preached all their dayes from which they cannot choose but to have received some impressions howsoever impregnable they may pretend to be In a word whereas true religion pacifies the conscience and alone is able to render that tranquillity of mind which the Gentiles sought in vain an irreligious life maketh men meticulous as oft as the wind doth blow or the clouds are rent with thunder A religious man is in peace at home impavidum ferient ruinae The end of the world will be no amazement to him though the heavens fall or glow with fervent fire as they must do at the last he is not to be dismayed by it Thirdly and Lastly There is as much latitude in Christian prudence as a wise man could wish For there is nothing in religion that makes against a right prudence nay it comprehendeth all and far excelleth human prudence you cannot instance in a case wherein you may not be the best resolved Hence Philosophers have prescribed much austerity and Idolaters have used and do use great severity but the Christian Religion required nothing but what is gentle and agreeable unto nature and civility There is enough in it to preserve the Temporal felicity and to augment it Enjoy as much of the goods that God hath given you as will do you good and be sure if God had not known better then we what was good for us he would have allowed to us the larger size Some restraints indeed we must acknowledge but such as are for our greater priviledge and enlargement another way Some think it a restraint if they may not riot but if they do it spoileth bodies and estates others that there is no Community but where there is most impunity for that the blood is most corrupted Others that Polygamy at least is not permitted but where it is it engendreth unto feuds more then unto love And when community was once too much indulged the Romans were fain to provide by law that every man of such a quality should have at least one wife The Laws of God therefore are the basis of all other prudence the establishment of the earth such as far exceeded those of all other Nations to make both the publick and the private man the happier so that every way it is the better policy I think our own Law approves of it and hath this rule Lex Dei est lex terrae The Law of God is the Law of the Land and that there is no such preamble to any of our Statutes as nos mitigantes regorem juris divini c. do enact that it shall not be accounted murther in a Noble man if he kill a Paisan If it were so it would not only be a violation of religion but much against the policy of ENGLAND Certainly then this Christian prudence cannot interfere with the Civil because it doth not only farre surmount but comprehend it It hath been said that all vertue is comprised in justice much more in piety which is not only the greatest motive unto justice but the primum mobile a superiour orbe that doth contain and carry it about with its own motion Whatsoever therefore makes against piety makes as much against justice and all other vertues and as much against the felicity of mankind even in this civil life Adde to this the vantage we have shew'd that true religion laies but few and light restraints but it opens such enlargements of happiness and fruition on another hand as are neither to be counted by curious observation nor yet to be exprest or uttered by the tongues of men and Angels What if I should resume my text but that it is too late to be expounded mystically and yet without an allegory you see that wisdom and prudence are here set forth as two persons and prudence for her part as if she had an house large enough to entertain wisdom What if I should say upon the whole that it is not obscurely signified by this that Christ the Son of God the wisdom of the father dwelleth in them that do believe by his own spirit whereby he is as much the soul of their souls as their souls are the life of their bodies and so doth prompt and inspire them by his grace in such a manner that they shall not only not lightly forego or so much as slip any point that tendeth to their happiness temporal or eternal for all things work together for good to them that love God but doth also fill them full of such inward joys as carnal wisdom is not able to conceive Such as have been addicted to their studies have placed the chiefest felicity of life in contemplation we must suppose that a man be of sufficiency to be vacant to it and to make his choice of what he liketh because this is the pleasure of the mind So our master Aristotle although his own speculations were but dry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Sencea distinguisheth betwixt that part of Philosophy which is conversant about the natural questions and that which riseth up to the researches that are concerning God speaking of this later as being above the other as much as the Heaven is above the Earth yet he moveth only such remote questions of contemplation as these are what the nature of God is and whether he be wholly intent upon himself or hath sometimes regard to us pronouncing notwithstanding of this later part that it is more high and spritely then the other and such as wraps us up above this darkness wherein we were mantled before as in thick clouds and brings us near unto that light from whence it self doth shine Such pleasures did they pretend to take in their poor and low sentiments of Philosophy the highest of which do hardly reach the threshold of Divinity The Poets seemed to be full of one of the nine Goddesses the Muses and to take great pleasure in it when their Genius worked kindly towards verses and therefore used to begin their poems with a prayer to one or other of them which was counted most propitious unto such a vein or strein of Poesy as they then intended The Heathen Priests in their Temples gloryed

in being possessed with the Daemon strutting in the Penetralia like the bird of Juno Cicero delighted in the notion of immortality but it was of name only that of the Soul he accounted as a problem Of death he therefore maketh the less account as other of the Heathens who thought it but indifferent because it brought as much good as evil with it Cato was much taken with Socrates his discourses about the immortality of the soul when he was about to kill himself and uttered strange and admirable sayings to the Heathen hearers yet he dreamed not of a resurrection an Heaven or but only of Elysian fields or shades and so he dyed not so much out of good-will as to save himself from falling into the hands of enemies which he thought would use him contumeliously But when we come to contemplate one God distinguished and not divided into three persons for our sakes in the workes of creation redemption and sanctification unto glory how infinitely farre is our contemplation enlarged beyond theirs when we meditate on the attributes of his glory as that he is merciful and bounteous and the rest in a word that he is light and love which are unfolded only in the Scriptures what an infinite of tenters arethere to extend this wooff untill there be no more place nor space but that which runs into eternity When we shall consider what he is in respect to us In whom we live and move and have our beings who covered us when we were made in secret and in whose book our members were all written being yet unperfect who was not only the Father of our Fathers but much more then a Father to every one of us in particular giving us all the good that ever we did enjoy and is never weary of it but above all who is our redeemer and the Father of Our Lord and husband together with himself God blessed for ever O admirable contemplations O what peculiar pleasures do belong to this adoption O the ecstasies of study love and wonder what can there be wanting if we think but of the least of these to raise our soules up to a near alliance with the Angels that are in Heaven it is from this doctrine that the soul comes to have her wings full summed that were hardly impt before that did but hover about indeed in clouds of darkness What though the Poets boast of raptures they terminate in a Woman and for the most part desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne What though the heathen Priests seemed to have some familiarity with the Gods in whose Temples they did attend and serve they were usually deadly sick with it Let Cicero please himself about an immortal name we should not know him from another man though we should meet him though we talk of him he cannot hear us and if he be not what is he the nearer as Valla argueth Let Cato speak bravely of the immortality of the soul it self since he thought it better to dye then to protract his misery yet none of his admirers could sind in his heart to quit an indifferent life here for the best that they could make of the other But since it is another kind of immortality that the Christian faith doth grasp and gaspe after no wonder if the excellency of so sublime an object do draw them up far above the state of other men that seem to have more in them then themselves and give them other manner of fruitions which are unspeakable and full of glory without deceit or stilt in a word that it silleth them not only with a true contempt of death which the other do but seign but impelleth them to triumph over it and often to provoke it in the way of Martyrdome Let us move yet but one step further that we may reach the goal Others are not much addicted unto contemplation but rather leave it as a fancy to them that like it better yet they will not quit their own pretensions unto happinesse They had rather have it placed in an active or a quiet life supported with such means and aides as may best administer unto either of them as they themselves should choose Be it so we are at all points ready to shew where happiness is sooner then any other for Godliness is profitable unto all things having the promises of this life and of that which is to come Carnal wisdom seems to teach how to enjoy and manage the goods of fortune but it cannot get them whereas the true wisdom hath length of dayes in her right hand and in her left riches and honour Carnal wisdom teacheth to enjoy them alone but this how to enjoy God together with them which is much more Carnal Wisdom teacheth a pretended equanimity and indifference in adversity which it cannot possibly prevent but it can no more do it then it can satisfie thirst and hunger with dainty words whereas this wisdome and prudence whereof we speak affords such a true support within as hath really made many and still doth to rejoyce in tribulations And if you ask me what this inward support is I answer it is the spirit of Union through faith whereof I gave you but an hint before indeed how the Saints are united mystically unto Christ and have thereby unspeakable enjoyments and full of glory we cannot shew in Act because it is internal and a mystery but it plainly appeareth by the effects for they are oft transported in their private prayers who have Communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ they have admirable gifts when they come abroad That Spirit which we account as their higher souls or by way of eminence sheweth wonders when occasion draws it forth to outward observation But it is not according to the will of man neither of him that hath it always to exert the power of it nor of others to make collusion with it but rather it makes but little shew to the world till God himself do set it forth to action or to patience because it aboundeth most in mortified men who being filled with the Spirit look never the fuller for it and while they are invincible in the Faith do but shew to be the meekest men And so each one doth acknowledge for himself when he professeth with St. Paul The Life which I seem to live in the stesh I live not but my life is hid with Christ in God To conclude since we must needs be reduced unto some bounds though our subject cannot here is the highest pitch of this excellency which hath no pearch below the clouds but pierceth into the Empyrean heavens This wisdom doth secure us of a better life while it is so far from diminishing that it added unto this as I have shewed you but irreligion hazzards both upon a fond supposition what if there be no resurrection yet by piety you shall live more happily here then without it The mad-man