Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	blood_n	body_n	flesh_n	8,072	5	6.9865	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45359	A private letter of satisfaction to a friend concerning 1. The sleep of the soul, 2. The state of the soul after death, till the resurrection, 3. The reason of the seldom appearing of separate spirits, 4. Prayer for departed souls whether lawful or no.	Hallywell, Henry, d. 1703?	1667 (1667)	Wing H465; ESTC R18021	32,635	88

man can give no account or reason from any external cause but only from the purified and more subtle or fulsome and gross steams ascending into the brain and withall consider that the great Crown of our Faith and Patience the happiness and reward of glorified Spirits to purchase which for mankind the ever blessed Son of God left the sacred mansions of Heaven the bosome of blessedness and veiled his glory under the clouds of flesh and blood shall be an ethereall and heavenly body which Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resplendent vehicle and St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual body he I say that attentively perpends this that the instruments of the Souls operations both in this life and the next are corporeal will likewise think it probable that she is not wholly denudated of Matter in the intermediate space between death and the resurrection at what time she shall be possessed of her long expected joy and her vile body shall be transformed into the similitude of the glorious body of the Son of God Supposing then the Soul vitally united with matter after death she will both act and also be capable of pleasure or pain which are the unavoidable concomitants of her transactions in this life For can we imagine that God will put a stop to the course of Nature and alter that order and constitution of things which bears upon it the signature and Image of his eternal Wisdome Surely it cannot be that he should frustrate the hopes and expectations of men when all things so favourably conspire to give them an energetical and vital reception into the other World And if God do not drench the Souls of men in this lake of oblivion and soporiferousness which we have all the reason in the world to believe and ought to be confident that he will not they will infallibly be instated upon their dereliction of their earthly bodies into a condition of happiness or misery which will altogether take away that fanciful dream of their sleep till the great day of judgment For although here the voice of Conscience may be drowned by the clamours of Sense and those many Diversions arising from the present state of affairs in this life yet when death shall draw aside the curtain of mortality and those various objects which so often presented themselves to our view pass away like a shadow leaving nothing to the Soul but the vast prospect of an eternal Tragedy the conscience will then awake and pierce her with an extraordinary resentment and vexation For besides that the Soul shall see all her wicked attempts and designs blasted upon Earth the memory of her name cursed and detested and become throughly apprehensive of the miscarriage and iniquity of her past life and have a full and clear sight of all her impious actions stript of their painted gloss and varnish in their proper colours and genuine circumstances besides this I say the Fame of her unrighteous demeanour will go before her into the other World and quickly be dispread over the secret regions and receptacles of Spirits by those vigilant spectators who take cognizance and give intelligence of humane affairs which cannot but afflict her even unto death to see her self abandon'd both of good Angels and the spirits of just and holy men and confined to the society of degenerate Fiends and Daemons reserved to the judg●ment of the great Day And these fiery stings and gripeings of conscience shall rage perpetually and if we can imagine any intermission it will be but like the sleeps of the wind in a storm or the broken sighs of a tempest to recover its exhausted spirits and return with a greater impetuousness and fury But to take a view of those good and holy persons whom the Father of spirits has called out of this present life who yet are in as small a probability of being overtaken by this long night as the other there wants not sufficient employment to keep them vigilant and active For whether it be that they delight in converse and society they will find those immense tracts of space not empty desarts and wildernesses but replenished with diverse sorts of Beings some equal to others more noble than themselves who all studiously endeavour to promote and carry on that great and general design of the diffusion of the Life and Nature of God over the whole Creation they may there likewise meet with many of their departed Friends and Relatives with whom they may again renew their antient leagues of friendship and entertain an amicable correspondence and familiarity or whether they be contemplative and affect a solitary retiredness and recess from the rest of the World they may there call to mind their almost obliterate Speculations and please themselves in the exertions of the innate Idea's and notions of their minds and raise within them a high sense of joy and delectation in finding out many choise Theorems of Nature and Providence besides many other advantages which are not allowed or permitted to this state So that there is no fear the Soul should sleep or cease from acting when loosened from this earthly body The resurrection of the Sonne of God from the dead is so palpable a pledge of the Soul 's living and acting after death that he must commit a rape upon his faculties and do violence to all his intellectual powers who will not be convinced by it For that he should by wicked hands be bereaved of his innocent life and so throughly slain that his malitious enemies the Jews never question his death and which further confirms the truth of it lye three dayes buried in the grave and afterward rise again and exercise the proper functions of a living man and that not for some small and inconsiderable time but conversing forty dayes with his Disciples upon Earth to take away all cause and suspicion of delusion and then ascend in the sight and presence of his Disciples and Friends to the comprehensions of that Glory which not long before his death he prayed to his Father to glorify him withall this I say is a full and convictive Demonstration even to outward sense that that dull and lethargick stupour shall never take away sense and action from our Souls when they depart from their living graves and monuments of flesh and blood And as it was with him so shall it be with us in our order measure and proportion Christ our head lives and is seated at the right hand of God in the highest glory and felicity for he there makes intercession for his Church and because he lives we his members shall live also He is a living Vine and all the members of his mystical body are living branches not only in a moral but natural and physical sense For God is not the God of the dead but of the living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all live unto him Now if the Souls of men fall into so permanent a sleep they are

of their hope That of St. Paul Phil. 1.23 makes little to their purpose who think the Soul goes presently to Heaven upon the dissolution of the body for To be with Christ signifies no more than that our Souls are received by Christ into merciful joyful and safe custody as dear pledges committed to his trust and care till Hades shall deliver up it's dead and then we who before were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invisible shall come forth and be presented to the view of the World and receive that great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Crown of Righteousness which Christ has laid up for St. Paul and you and me and all that long for his appearance The sum of all is this that it cannot be made good either from Scripture or Reason that the Souls of men departed this life go immediately upon their separation to Heaven or Hell in a Scholastical sense For this we have the suffrage of Justin Martyr who disputing with Trypho the Jew taxes those as erroneous who say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your third Demand carries with it more d●fficulty and while I discourse of it I am wholly in the dark and can only give you a Conjectural Essay which if it may be subservient to my purpose that is please and gratifie your fancy and like the little dots or characters in Brachygraphy bring to your mind a more copious illustration of the present Theme I shall obtain my desire I consider therefore the whole World under God the great Monarch of the Creation so many I mean as participate of Reason and Intellect to fall under a Political Government and it seems altogether necessary that among the aereal Inhabitants it should be so for they being a mixed and heterogeneous number of good and bad if there were not a due execution of those Eternal and Sacred Laws enacted by the Counsel of Heaven for the promoting and establishing Piety and Virtue and the everting and eradicating Vice and Impiety the condition of all good and holy men would be unspeakably grievous and miserable there being so many degenerate Spirits who are only awake to the life of the Body and being wholly dead to all sense of Pity and Compassion please themselves in wreaking the rage of their furious and exorbitant Lusts upon the Innocent and Virtuous whose calamity must needs be Eternal should not that just Nemesis which pervades the essential contextures and inmost capacities of the whole Creation erect a Polity and Kingdom of Light to preside over and curb the lawless actions of the dark Associates And as the Condition and state of separate Souls is in a manner quite different from ours so their Laws and Mulcts are diverse and are best known to those that live under them But whatever they are 't is most certain their Penalties are severely executed upon offenders And for the due effecting of this and conserving the peace and quiet of this great Empire of Intellectual Agents there are Aethereal Princes set over the several Kingdomes of the World and in subordination to them are the Governours or tutelary Angels of Provinces and little Exarchats and last of all every mans particular Genius or guardian Angel so that this Government reaches even from Heaven to Earth and none can through subtilty or power free themselves from it Considering therefore The blew Arch or Concave of Heaven is so full of eyes and careful Inspectors of the several actions and demeanours of separate Spirits and their punishments so sharp and heavy 't is not to be thought that they will easily be induced to violate any of their Laws of which perchance this may be one of concealing their state from us Mortals unless some one begg a Patent or dispensation to satisfie the importunity of a relict Friend or discharge the obligation of an Oath And this may be one reason why we hear so little news from the aereal Regions Another great Cause of their so seldome appearing to us may be the d●fficulty and uneasiness of incrassating their Vehicles Thus have I seen of twenty boyes bathing and washing in the streams scarce one delight in diving to the bottom and if perchance he do his stay is so small and inconsiderable that had he been sent on Embassie to the Fishes the time would scarce permit him to have Audience before he were constrained to disappear And I am the more confirmed in this perswasion from those assiduous Apparitions of Spirits among the Laplanders whose Air being gross and clammy 't is no hard matter for a Daemon to condensate it to visibility and from hence it was that those people used to interr their deceased Friends under their hearths that so the warmth and heat of the fire accelerating the putrefaction of their bodies and rarefying the Crasie consistency of the Air might prohibit their otherwise more frequent Visits And he that shall recollect some of those many stories of Phantasms and the Apparitions of Spirits which every age supplies us with and take notice of those artifices and wayes which in all probability they make use of when they intend to shew themselves to the frail eyes of men he cannot but conclude it to be a pain and affliction to constipate and hold together the gross particles and glutinous suffusions of their Vehicles for any considerable time Hence it is that those Spectra which infest the Earth are generally maleficent Daemons whose spirital part grown fat and dull through a perpetual indulgence to their lower Faculties like Swine they take a great complacency in dabling and soaking their vehicles in the miry and caliginous tracts of the Air and often become visible by fermenting and agitating the stagnant blood of their despicable bodies they left behind them and which the charity of men laid to rest in the Earth And by the way this is the reason why sometimes the Spectra have never been seen or heard of after the burning and consuming of their bodies which furnished them with effectual instruments and provision for their gamesome or wicked attempts But if this be not ready at hand they descend into the nasty Caverns of the Earth and attract to them the thickest fumes and exhalations or else suck in the impure and fulsome steams arising from the blood of slain beasts like the Zabii licking the blood of the Aegyptian Sacrifices which is nor only a kind of Nutriment to their vehicles but the most likely means to transform themselves into whatsoever visible shape they please To this purpose is that of Porphyrie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this no doubt is the reason why the Familiars and Imps of Witches make themselves a kind of Teat in some part or other of the bodies of their accursed Consorts whereby they exhaust their blood and spirits and render their visages for the most part horrid and gastly like themselves when they appear to them From the consideration of these

which is gone abroad into the world That there is something in us that looks beyond the periods of this fleeting life and survives our ashes and is capable of acting freely and nobly when these carneous fabricks shall fall asunder and be cramm'd into their narrow Urns. The Soul of man while 't is held captive in the shackles and fetters of flesh and blood is but in a Sleep or a longer Dream and the expiration of this terrestrial period which we call Death is the expergefaction or awakening those nobler Faculties to a sense of Divinity and unmasking the intricate and perplexed apprehensions of the mind from error and falshood And hence it was that the Indian Brachmans affirmed The life of man in this World to be like the state of the Foetus in the Womb and Death to be the Birth to Life truly so called to a Life of Happiness in the Blest Reg●ons above in the quiet Plains of Heaven the Seat of the Immortal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Genii where the winds never ruffle up a cloud to intercept the light of the Sun 's brighter face nor Snow or Showers ever pass through but an undisturbed calm and serenity of an Eternal Day overspreads the utmost limits of these Blissful Mansions Your last Question propounded is concerning the lawfulness of Praying for the Dead and Whether the mutual obligations of friendship cease when they are removed from the ruinous fabricks of their Earthly Bodies And truly methinks it is a Problem worthy your eximious and generous mind which is not contented only to make use of all the instances and opportunities of doing good to mankind in this life but your pious charity would likewise follow them into the next and if it might be make them as happy as God at first created them For as I have often heard you discourse it is a pain and affliction great as the tearing and rending our bodily life to a noble and free spirit to perswade himself that when our Piety hath committed our dead Friend's body to the Earth its common Parent and besprinkled his Hearse with a Funeral tear and it may be for some small time after breathed out a fresh gale of Sighs upon the sight of a Picture or any thing which with his last words and dying groans he recommended to us as his Memorial that then he should be banished out of our minds and no more regarded than if he had never lived in the world or were now quite extinct and put out of Being I cannot therefore attribute this unconcernedness for the state and condition of departed Souls to any thing else but to that poverty and narrowness of spirit which makes men look upon themselves as private and particular Beings sent into the world to promote and advance their self designs and little interests in contradistinction to all the rest of mankind forgetting that they are a part of Gods Creation and members of that great Body Politick which reaches from Heaven to Earth and is extended every way through the vast comprehensions of immense Space and therefore that all the Creatures ought to have a share in their love and that the more perfect their Natures are the more they ought to be widened and enlarged in Charity and an universal Benignity towards all especially towards mankind in promoting to their utmost power the completion of their happiness For although men when they go away hence become invisible to us and we are in part at loss in reference to their affairs and concerns yet nevertheless we are assured they are in Being and members of that great Society of which we our selves make a part and therefore are not to be accounted such strangers to our thoughts and devotions and if their Prayers can at all prevail and be effectual in our behalf I do not see why the Prayers and Oraisons of a Good and Holy Person upon Earth may not enter the eares of Heaven and derive a blessing upon them supposing them to stand in need of those things he desires in their behalf That separate Souls are not unmindful of us when they have left the prisons of Flesh and Blood and inherit a new and stranger freedome cannot easily be denied unless we will say that the more perfect they grow the less charity and love they retain towards those who want those degrees of felicity they have arrived unto 'T is true those holy Spirits which depart hence are seated far above the reach of Envy or Passion and the dead Wife is not troubled at the songs sung at the next Bridal Feast nor grieved to see another inherit the Joyes of her Husbands-bed but yet they are not removed so farr as to beget in them an utter oblivion of those they have left behind nor doth the augmentation of their Happiness diminish their love towards us Mortals who begin our lives with weeping as a sure presage of our future calamities and the fi●st tribute we pay to the light of the Sun is to present him with a tear and watry eyes There is then without doubt a Relation continued still which not only the laws of their Friendship but their own native goodness which dispreads it self every way when freed from the contagion of Earthly Concretions will never suffer them to rescind To this purpose Josephus brings in Abraham thus bespeaking his son Isaac before that fatall stroke design'd to let out that pure Soul into the Skies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And St. Ambrose gave some things in charge to his dying brother Satyrus that he should do for him in the other world And as they present themselves before the Throne of Majesty in humble Petitions for us so certainly something belongs to us to do for them and we must by all those wayes we can preserve and continue the memory of our dead Friends and of all good men which can no wayes be better done than by desiring God with hearty and constant Prayer to call home his banished to him that those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those little particles and shreds of Divinity as Epictetus calls the Souls of men may be gathered up and re-united to the first and al comprehensive Good and when the periods of this world shall be expired they may have a joyful Resurrection and a perfect consummation of their Bliss in the Immortal Regions of Glory and Felicity Thus St. Paul prayed for Onesiphorus 2 Tim. 1.18 The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day who 't is probable was at that time dead because the Apostle salutes the house of Onesiphorus and not Onesiphorus himself who doubtless had he been alive and part of his family would have been named particularly in the first place and not afterwards distinct from his House But I do not lay so much stress upon this If therefore the dead are in a state and capacity of being