Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	body_n	death_n	separation_n	20,420	5	10.8447	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52422	An idea of happiness, in a letter to a friend enquiring wherein the greatest happiness attainable by man in this life does consist / by John Norris ...	Norris, John, 1657-1711.	1683 (1683)	Wing N1252; ESTC R16906	19,100	45

Corporeal Appearance of Christ and the Saints the 11 is the Imaginary Appearance of the same the 12 is the Intellectual Vision of God the 13 is the Vision of God in obscurity the 14 is an admirable Manifestation of God the 15 is a clear and intuitive Vision of him such as St. Austin and Tho. Aquinas attribute to S. Paul when he was rapt up into the third Heaven Others of them reckon seaven degrees only viz. Tast Desire Satiety Ebriety Security Tranquility but the name of the seaventh they say is known only to God I shall not stand to examine the Scale of this Division perhaps there may be a kind of a Pythagoric Superstition in the number But this I think I may affirm in general that the Soul may be wound up to a most strange degree of Abstraction by a silent and steddy Contemplation of God Plato defines Contemplation to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Solution and a Separation of the Soul from the Body And some of the severer Platonists have been of Opinion that 't is possible for a Man by mere intention of thought not only to withdraw the Soul from all commerce with the Senses but even really to separate it from the Body to untwist the Ligaments of his Frame and by degrees to resolve himself into the State of the Dead And thus the Iews express the manner of the Death of Moses calling it Osculum Oris Dei the Kiss of God's Mouth That is that he breath'd out his Soul by the mere strength and Energy of Contemplation and expired in the Embraces of his Maker A Happy way of Dying How ambitious should I be of such a conveyance were it practicable How passionately should I joyn with the Church in Canticles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him kiss me with the Kisses of his Mouth But however this be determin'd certain it is that there are exceeding great Measures of Abstraction in Contemplation so great that sometimes whether a Man be in the Body or out of the Body he himself can hardly tell And consequently the Soul in these Praeludiums of Death these Neighbourhoods of Separation must needs have brighter glimpses and more Beatific Ideas of God then in a State void of these Elevations and consequently must love him with greater Ardency Which is the next thing I am to consider The love of God in general may be consider'd either as it is purely intellectual or as it is a Passion The first is when the Soul upon an apprehension of God as a good delectable and agreeable Object joyns her self to him by the Will The latter is when the motion of the Will is accompany'd with a sensible Commotion of the Spirits and an estuation of the blood Some I know are of Opinion that 't is not possible for a man to be affected with this sensitive Love of God which is a Passion because there is nothing in God which falls under our imagination and consequently the imagination being the only Medium of conveyance it cannot be propagated from the Intellectual part to the Sensitive Whereupon they affirm that none are capable of this sensitive passionate love of God but Christians who enjoy the Mystery of the Incarnation whereby they know God has condescended so far as to cloath himself with flesh and to become like one of us But 't is not all the Sophistry of the old Logicians that shall work me out of the belief of what I feel and know and rob me of the sweetest entertainment of my Life the Passionate Love of God Whatever some Men pretend who are strangers to all the affectionate heats of Religion and therefore make their Philosophy a Plea for their indevotion and extinguish all Holy Ardours with a Syllogism yet I am firmly persuaded that our love of God may be not only passionate but even Wonderfully so and exceeding the Love of Women 'T is an Experimental and therefore undeniable Truth that Passion is a great Instrument of Devotion and accordingly we find that Men of the most warm and pathetic Tempers and Amorous Complexions Provided they have but Consideration enough withal to fix upon the right Object prove the greatest Votaries in Religion And upon this account it is that to heighten our Love of God in our Religious Addresses we endeavour to excite our Passions by Music which would be to as little purpose as the Fanatic thinks 'tis if there were not such a thing as the Passionate Love of God But then as to the Objection I Answer with the excellent Descartes that although in God who is the Object of our Love we can imagine nothing yet we can imagine that our Love which consists in this that we would unite our selves to the Object beloved and consider our selves as it were a part of it And the sole Idea of this very Conjunction is enough to stir up a heat about the Heart and so kindle a very vehement Passion To which I add that although the Beauty or aimableness of God be not the same with that which we see in Corporeal Beings and consequently cannot directly fail within the Sphere of the Imagination yet it is something Analogous to it and that very Analogy is enough to excite a Passion And this I think sufficient to warrant my general division of the Love of God into Intellectual and Sensitive But there is a more peculir Acceptation of the Love of God proper to this place And it is that which we call Seraphic By which I understand in short that Love of God which is the effect of an intense Contemplation of him This differs not from the other in kind but only in degree and that it does exceedingly in as much as the thoughtful Contemplative Man as I hinted before has clearer Perceptions and livelier Impressions of the Divine Beauty the lovely Attributes and Perfections of God then he whose Soul is more deeply set in the Flesh and lies groveling in the bottom of the Dungeon That the Nature of this Seraphic Love may be the better understood I shall consider how many degrees there may be in the Love of God And I think the Computation of Bellarmin is accurate enough He makes four The first is to Love God proportionably to his Loveliness that is with an infinite Love and this degree is peculiar to God himself The second is to Love him not proportionably to his Loveliness but to the utmost Capacity of a Creature and this degree is peculiar to Saints and Angels in Heaven The third is to love him not proportionably to his Loveliness nor to the utmost capacity of a Creature absolutely consider'd but to the utmost capacity of a Mortal Creature in this Life And this he says is proper to the Religious The fourth is to love him not proportionably to his Loveliness nor to the utmost capacity of a Creature consider'd either absolutely or with respect to this Life but only so as to love nothing equally with him or