Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	anguish_n	draw_v	great_a	18	3	2.1554	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55678	The prerogative of man: or, The immortality of humane soules asserted against the vain cavils of a late worthlesse pamphlet, entituled, Mans mortality, &c. VVhereunto is added the said pamphlet it selfe.	Overton, Richard, fl. 1646.	1645 (1645)	Wing P3220A; ESTC R203203	29,475	38

halitu Immistus nebulis cessit in aëra Et nudum tetigit subdita fax latus Is it a truth or that our feares Have buzz'd a fable in our eares That mans hovering spirits doe live And their interred corps survive When greived consorts hands do close Their eyes and their last dayes oppose Our bright Hyperions beamy light And drownes the slender shades in night Then when our bones to ashes burne To be confin'd within an urne Be not the funeralls our fate But there must be a longer date For wretched man Or doth he dye Intirely and entombed lye Or may he not forthwith consume And vanish all in slender fume Then when his wandring spirit flyes And mingles with the aiëry skies And when the dismall funerall torch His side insensible doth scorch After this sort do anxious and afflicted spirits often times argue and dispute within themselves laying before their eyes all the doubts and difficulties immaginable before they descend to the making of any conclusion at all or to the determining of any settled doctrine Thus and no otherwise did Solomon when first revolving in his thoughts the matter of the soules condition and touching upon the various suspicious of men concerning it with no small sense and anguish of mind at length c. 12. drawing to a conclusion determines saying let the Eccle 12. dust returne unto the earth from whence it came and the spirit unto God who gave it And this text alone is sufficient to confound the Adversary and to confute whatsoever he hath endeavoured to draw out of scripture for mans totall corruption and mortality CHAP. 4. His argument out of reason viewed and examined WHat the severall fancies were of heathen Philosophers touching the nature and definition of the soule is not much regardable sundry of them being so monstrous and absurd But it is a thing very considerable that amongst so many stragling and wilde conceits all or most of all at least of the noblest and the best Philosophers have taught the immortality of the soule it selfe Howsoever in other businesses concerning it they might sometimes disagree Permanere animos arbitramur saith Cecero consensu nationum omnium qua in Cicero Tuscul l. 1. sede maneant qualesque sint ratione discendum est * and againe in his Hortensius as witnesseth Saint Augustine l. 14. de Trinitate Antiquis Philosophis hisque maximis ●●ngèque clarissimis placuit quod aeternos animos divinosque habeamus We are perswaded by the consent of all nations that soules remaine but must learne of reason of what quality they are and in what places they remaine This assertion of Cicero for consent of nations and Philosophers in this truth hath beene shewed to the eye by the great diligence and learning of Augustinus Steuchus commonly called Eugubinus in the 9 booke of his excellent ●ugubinus l 9. ●e Peren. Philosoph worke de perenni Philosophia in which he voucheth to this purpose the authorities of Pherecides Syrus who as Cicero witnesseth was the first that delivered this verity in writing also of Trismegistus and the Chaldean monuments of Plato likewise Pythagoras Aratus Philo Cicero Plotinus Jamblichus Hierocles and sundry others as also of Aristotle the Prince of the Peripatetiques who is judged by the greatest searchers into his doctrine to have directly taught the immortality although he hath not declared himselfe in that point as in many others nor as others have done peradventure concealing himselfe on set purpose because he for want of light from divine revelation was not able to tell what to do with them after death nor was he willing to make up his matter with fictions poeticall as his master Plato had done The same Philosophers also are diligently alleadged ●less c. 15. de ●erit Christ Rel. by Monsieur Plessy in his booke de veritate Relig. Christianae which is every where extant Besides the same doctrine of immortality hath beene constantly taught by the learned Aben Sina or Avicen in the last booke of his Metaphysiques and also in his Almabad in which treatise he maintaineth constantly the immortality of the soule but earnestly impugneth the bodies resurrect ion and withall which is most false and improbable defends that Mahomet in his law never taught it but only parabolically and for fashion sake complying with the peoples rudenesse whereby they were not sensible of any doctrine teaching a felicity that was spirituall Another Arabique author who goes under the name of Aristotle is of the same minde with Avicen seeing saith he it is manifest out of the bookes of Author secret sap secundum AEgyptios p. 1 12. the ancient and already proved that the soule or minde is not a body nor doth perish but remaine c. Thus he l. 1. de divin sap secundum Aegyptios c. 2. consonantly to other Philosophers though afterwards in the very next chapter most absurdly he affirmes as much of the soules of Beasts Afterwards c. 4. he addeth saying If our foreelders had beene doubtfull of the soules immortality they had never for the confirmation thereof by natures dictamen made a law against which no man is but he who is entangled in vice And a little after The soule therefore passing out of this life and gotten into the other world doth not at all perish Lastly l. 12 a c. 10. ad 17. he by many arguments assayeth to prove that the soule is void of corporeity Thus he of whose credit and excellency see the judicious censure of Doctor Guiliel Dunal in Synopsi doctrinae Peripateticae cap. ultimo Next unto this Author I produce Manilius yet not as a light Poet but as a sage Philosopher he flourished in the time of Cesa Julius This same same Author l. 1. Astronomicωn speaking of the Galaxia and indeavouring to give a reason of it writeth on the manner following Nec mihi celanda est famae vulgata vetustas Mollior ex niveo lactis fluxisse liquorem Pectore reginae divum caelumque colore Infecisse suo quapropter lacteus orbis Dicitur nomen causa descendit ab ista An Major densâ stellarum turba Coronâ Contexit flammas crasso lumine candet Et fulgore nitet collato clarior orbis An fortes animae dignataque nomina coelo Corporibus resoluta suis terraque remissa Huc migrant ex orbe suumque habitantia coelum Aethereos vivunt annos mundoque fruuntur Nor will we hide what ancient fame profest How milke that gusht from Juno's snowy breast In heaven that splendent path and circle drew From whence the name as erst the colour grew Or troopes of unseene starres there joyne their light And with their mingled splendours shine more bright Or soules Heroïck from their bodies freed And earthly partes attaine their virtues meed This shining Orbe and from their lowly herse Ascending high enjoy the universe And live Aethereall lives And againe Iam capto potimur mundo nostrumque parentem Pars sua conspicimus genitique accedimus

astris Nec dubium est habitare Deum sub pectore nostro In coelumque redire animas coeloque venire Of the whole world we' are now possest And cleare behold our Parent blest A part of him and from these warres Make our approaches to the starres No doubt but under humane brest A sacred Deity doth rest And that our soules from heaven came And thither must returne againe Lo here how he doth signifie not onely the soules of men be divine and immortall but besides that they had not their originall from the earth or from any earthly agent with whom consenteth a Greeke Philosopher Sallustius Emescenus in his booke de Diis mundo lately published and vindicated from the moathes by Leo Allatius This Philosopher c. 8. teacheth on this sort First saith he let us know Sallustius Emasenc 8. what the soule is The soule is that which makes things living or animated differ from the livelesse or inanimate Their difference consists in motion sense phantasie and intelligence The soule devoyd of reason is a life that serves apparences and the senses but the rationall using reason beares rule over the sense and Phantasie Indeed a soule destitute of reason followes the affections of the body for it desires and is angry without reason but a rationall according to the rule of reason contemnes the body and entring into combate with the soule irrationall if it get the better doth follow virtue if vanquisht declines to vice This of necessity must be immortall because it knowes the Goddesse and no mortall thing can know that which is immortall besides it contemnes humane things as if they were belonging to some other person and being it selfe incorporeall is a verse from things corporeall which bodies if they be faire and fresh it languisheth if old it begins to flourish Also every diligent soule makes use of the mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the soule is not generated by the body for how should any thing that wanteth reason generate that which hath Thus Sallustius out of whose words we have first that the soule differs from the body 2. That the rationall from the irrationall or the sence 3. That the rationall is immortall and the reason why 4. That it is ingenerable and for what cause With this greeke Sallustius agrees the Roman who l. de bello Jugurth saying Ingeniiegregia facinora sicut anima immortalia sunt The egregious atcheivments of the wit are like the soule immortall and by and by Omnia orta occidunt aucta senescunt animus incorruptus aeternus rector humani generis All things which rife do fall and being ever eased doe wax old the minde is incorrupt and eternall c. Our next authority is that of Apollonius Tyanaeus that famous Pythagorean Phylosopher whose life Philostratus Lemnius hath writ at Apollonius apud Philostrat l. 8. de vita ejus large and amongst other accidents relates of him how after his decease he appeared to a young man a student in philosophy resolving him as followeth The soule is immortall and no humane thing but proceedeth from the providence divine This therefore after the body is corrupted as a swift courser released from his bonds and delivered from a troublesone servitude removeth up and downe and intermingles with the gentle aire Thus he to whom consenteth most expressely Hierocles in his commentary upon the golden verses of Pythagoras in sundry places telling us that the soule is not only incorruptible but also made immediately not by procreation but the hand of God See him of the Greeke and Latine edition of Paris pag. 101. 103 132. I will adde to these the words of the Emperour Marcus Antoninus commonly called Aurelius l. 4. n. 13. according to Merick Casa●bon's division If soules saith he remaine how from all aeternity Marc. Antonin l. 4. de vitasu● n. 13. could the aire hold them or how the earth retaine their bodies As here the bodies after they have lyen a while within the earth are changed and being dissipated leave space for other carkasses so soules carried up into the aire after they have beene there sometime whither kindled or liquefied are conjoined to the common 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is unto the originall mind or great soule of the world Thus he as if he had said with Solomon the spirit returnes to God that made it for the great soule of the universe or the originall minde of all is nothing else Horace consenteth saying Melior pars nostri vitabit lebitinam and Tacitus in vit Jul. Agric. Siquis piorum manib locus sive sapientib placet non cum corpore extinguuntur magnae animae placide quiescas If to the spirits of the pious there be any place remaining if great soules be not together with their bodies extinguished mayest thou rest in peace To these Ovid subscribeth Metamor l. ult Cum volet ille dies quae nil nisi corporis hujus Jus habet incerti spatium mihi finiat avi Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis Astra ferar nomenque erit indelebile nostrum Come when it will my Deaths uncertaine hower Which of this body only hath a power Yet shall my better part transcend the sky And my immortall name shall never die The same doctrine is constantly taught by Pythagoras as appeares by his doctrine of Metempsycosis and also both Jamblichus Porphyry in their severall histories of his life do witnesse of him as also Diogenes Laërtius I conclude this Jury with the judgement of Macrobius who c. 14. Macrob. in som scipio c. 14. in somnium Scipionis after he had recited sundry and differing fancies of severall Philosophers touching the nature of the soule concludes as followeth Obtinuit tamen non minus de incorporalitate ejus quàm de immortalitate sententia Neverthelesse the opinion touching the incorporeity of the soule as well as touching the immortality of it hath beene prevalent Against all these therefore it importes little that Dicaearchus Messenius a Peripatetique Philosopher Scholler to Aristotle or as Aristoxenus should as Cicero relateth in the first of his Tusculanes and in his second of his Academiques hold and defend it to be mortall or that both he and as Cicero reporteth out of him another more ancient Philosopher by name Pherecrates one of the linage of Deucalion did thinke there was no soule at all neither in man nor beast and forasmuch as concerneth the same Dicaearchus Sextus Emp. l. 2. Hypotyp c. 5. Fr. Picus l. 1. de Doctrin vanit Gentium c. 14. we read in Sextus Empericus and Tertullian as also in Joh. Fr. Picus of Mirandula he was of the same opinion for there is nothing so absurde which some one Philosopher or other hath not maintained Sextus Empericus was of the same minde also as he l. adv Mathematicos acknowledgeth But now by the way I note how sublimely most of these heathen wise men did Philosophize when as they conclude the soules

with raking so long in such a heap of dirt and therefore at this instant I leave him to bethinke himselfe about making a timely recantation Now turning with delight unto my Reader to solace and refresh my selfe after all this travaile I desire him to look into Hierocles Commentary upon the Golden Verses ascribed to Pythagoras in Hierocles in Carm. Pyth. which he seemeth to have discovered the originall of this pernicious errour touching the soules mortality What availes it faith he with perjuries and murders and other wicked wayes to gather wealth and to seem rich unto the world and to want those good things which are conducible unto the minde But besides to be stupid and insensible of them and thereby to augment the evill or if they have any remorse of conscience for their offences to be tormented in their soules and affraid of the punishments of Hell comforting themselves with this alone that there is no way of escaping them and from hence are ready to cure one evill with another and by a perswasion that the soule is mortall to sooth up themselves in wickednesse judging they are not worthy to have any thing of theirs remaining after death that so they might avoid those punishments which by judgement should be inflicted on them for a wicked man is loath to thinke his soule to be immortall for feare of the revenges that are to follow his misdeeds Wherefore preventing the Judge who is below he pronounceth the sentence of death against himselfe as holding it fit that such a wicked soule should have no longer a being nor subsistence Behold here the fountain head of this errour opened and purged by Hierocles In fine from whatsoever puddle this errour sprung let us remember what Socrates being to die delivered touching the various condition of soules after this life He said as Cicero relateth there were two different pathes or voyages of soules at their departure Cic. l. 1. Tuscul from the bodies for all such as with humane vices had contaminated themselves and were delivered wholly up to lust with which as with domesticke vices being blinded they had by lewd actions defiled themselves or had attempted against the Common-wealth any crime or fraud inexpiable that these had a wandring way assigned for them sequestred from the assemblies of the Gods but such againe as had preserved themselves entire and chaste contracting little or no contagion from the body having alwayes retired and withdrawn themselves from it and had in humane bodies imitated the conversation of the Gods these found opened for them an easie way of returne to them from whom they proceeded at the first This is the Doctrine both of Cicero and of Socrates what then remaines to do but to hearken attentively to the wise Counsell of the Prince of Philosophers Aristotle and to suffer it to have a powerfull influence into all the passages of our life His words l. 10. Ethic. c. 9. according to the division of Andronicus Rhodius be as follow If then saith he our understanding in respect of man be a thing divine so Arist l. 10. Ethic. c. 9. that life which is lead according unto the understanding if compared with life humane is divine also neither as some perswade is it lawfull for a man to relish and follow onely that which is humane and being mortall those things onely which are mortall but as much as in him lieth he ought to vindicate himselfe from all mortality and to take speciall care that he live according to that part which is most excellent within him Now that which is best within us is our minde which though it be small in bulke and weight yet in power and excellency doth surpasse the rest And with this wise counsell of the Philosopher I conclude this whole Question which though the day of every mans departure will decide and give a finall resolution to it yet in the mean season are not disputes of this nature fruitlesse or superfluous because if they be well performed they are like burning torches which in the darke gallery of this life teach us how to direct our steppes and before that blacke day come to helpe us for the making our preparations before-hand that so with better hopes of safety we may meet our deadly enemies in the gate Without all doubting for the repressing of brutish bestiall and unworthy affections and again for our encouragement to noble and generous designements the best preparatives against Death there is no consideration so powerfull and efficacious as that one of the high perfection of mans soule and the immortall nature and condition of it for as Cicero observeth l. 1. de legib Qui se ipsum nôrit primùm aliquid sentiet se habere divinum ingeniumque in se suum sicut symulachrum aliquod dedicatum Cicero l. 1. de legib putabit tantoque munere Deorum semper aliquid dignum faciet sentiet He that doth know himselfe will forthwith finde within him something that is divine and will hold his understanding as a statue dedicated and be alwayes thinking or doing something answerable to so great munificence of the Gods That is to say he will be mindfull that as in upright shape of body and the perfection of his spirit he excelleth beasts and all creatures irrationall so he will endeavour to do in the condition of his living by disdaining to stoop to any thing which is base or to defile the house in which his soule inhabits with any unworthy or ignoble actions I will seale and signe this whole dispute with the determination and censure of the book of Wisedome which book whether it be received into the Canon or no yet is it confessedly very ancient and therefore by consent of all may claime a just precedence of authority before any Heathen Philosopher whatsoever the words are these Justorum animae in manu Dei sunt non tanget illos tormentum mortis visi sunt oculis insipientium mori illi autem sunt in pace The soules of Sap. 3. the just be in the hands of God and the torment of Death shall not touch them To the eyes of the foolish they seemed to die but they remain in peace Behold here in the judgement of this venerable Authour what kinde of people they are who hold the soules mortality namely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as be destitute of true judgement and understanding This is not my censure neither is this character of my making for who am I that should presume so farre but it is the judgement of the ancient Authour of the Book of Wisedome whose yeares and credit may deserve regard even amongst those spirits that be most confident of their own conceptions and be the greatest admirers and idolaters of themselves In fine this ancient Sage brands all deniers of our soules immortality with the selfe same note of ignominy that David the kingly Prophet did marke that wretched mortall who Psalm 13. closely and in his heart had said There is no God Yet there is this ods between them two and worthy to be observed for though both of them be impious and absurd yet one of them had some shame in him and said it onely in his heart But this Adversary of ours goes further and had the face to publish his impiety in Print or at least the heart so to do it as he himselfe might lie concealed and his name unknowne which covert way of his though it appeare not altogether so bold and bad as if he had put his name unto his worke yet was it an act too bold for any Christian man or true Philosopher to exercise or to be an Authour of in Print for alas after so many great Divines and deep Philosophers whose uniforme suffrages we have for the dignity of man that is to say for the soules immortall nature and incorruptibility how could the cogitations unto the contrary of this poore worme be a matter any way considerable with men of understanding and ability FINIS