Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	body_n	nature_n	soul_n	16,493	5	5.5392	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51399	A pious and Christian consideration of life and death and of all humane actions. Written originally in French by the famous Philip Morney Lord of Plessis. Translated into Latin by Arnoldus Freitagius. And now done into English by M. A. for the benefit of his countrymen.; Excellent discours de la vie et de la mort. English	Mornay, Philippe de, seigneur du Plessis-Marly, 1549-1623.; Freitag, Arnold.; M., A.	1699 (1699)	Wing M2801; ESTC R216834	34,660	74

recovered of some Chronical Disease blame their health not the remainder of their Distemper as the cause of their last pains and grief What is it to be dead but only to be no longer in this World And is that so calamitous a matter Did we never feel any pain nor undergo any trouble whilst we were in the World Are we ever more like to Dead Men than when we are fast asleep And yet we never enjoy more rest and quiet than when we are so If therefore we be free from trouble and sorrow whilst we sleep why then do we impute those pains we suffer when the Soul leaveth the Body to Death which ought rather to be imputed to Life from whence they proceed unless by the same reason we foolishly accuse that time in which we were not for those pains which we endure at our entrance into Life But if no Man can enter into Life without pain why should it seem strange that the end should be answerable to the beginning If from the beginning of our Generation we weave the Web of sorrow no wonder if in like manner we finish the same If in that time when we were not we were void of grief and trouble but now that we see the light we find our selves encompassed with them and assaulted by them on every side whether of these periods shall we accuse for them whether that time in which we were not or that in which we are and shall be we never think we shall die 'till we find our breath fails us but if we would rightly consider the matter we should find our selves dying every day every hour yea every moment We look upon Death as some unusual thing when as we carry nothing about with us which is or ought to be more familiar to us Our Life is scarce any thing else but a continual dying Every day that is added to Life is a day taken from it so that the lengthning of it is but the shortning thereof We are no sooner entred into one step of Life but we are so far onwards in our Journey towards Death He that hath passed the third part of his Age is a third part dead and he that hath passed half is half dead The by-past time of our Lives is dead the present liveth but is dying and that which is to come shall certainly fall under the power of Death Whatsoever is past is not that to come is not as yet and the present is but in a moment is no more In a word our whole Life is nothing else but a kind of Death Life is like a Candle lighted up in the Body which in most Men is melted away by the wind in many others it is so agitated that it seems to be only half lighted Some indeed there are in whom it is preserved whole and entire to the last But howsoever it be what quanity of light soever it giveth by the same it consumeth it self The brightness of it is a deflagration its flame suddenly becomes a vanishing smoak and its last blaze ends in a stinking snuff The same is the Life of Man for in him to live and die is the same thing But if we call our last breath by the name of Death we cannot deny the same name to the rest because they all flow from the same Fountain There is only one difference between this Life and that which we call Death that so long as that lasteth it daily supplieth us with new matter of dying but when that is ended there is an end of us too we are no longer in this World This at length is confessed by all that those who believe Death to be the end of all their labour and travel have no handle for fear to take hold on Whosoever is desirous of a longer Life is also desirous of a longer Death And he who feareth lest Death should come too suddenly upon him feareth also to be too soon rid of that which occasioneth Death But to those who walk by more holy Rules Death is quite another thing For they do not like the Heathens seek for consolation against Death but embrace it as a most certain remedy against all kind of afflictions Nor do they study how they may despise it or at least not fear it but rather how they may comfortably hope for it and chearfully embrace it Because they do not look upon Death as the end of all pain and grief only but as a store-house of all good not as the end of Life but of Death and the beginning of an Immortal Life Well therefore did the wise Solomon say An Heavenly Life only good That the day of ones Death is much better than the day of his Birth And why so Because that day is not the last that shall shine upon us but the beginning of a never failing day and of a most happy Eternity In that brightness we shall neither be concern'd for the trouble of time past nor greatly desire that to come for then all things shall be present and that present time shall never have an end None shall then any more enslave themselves to those vain and troublesom allurements of the World but every one shall then enjoy the true real and solid joys of the world to come Nor shall any one think it worth his while to heap up earthly things being possessed of the eternal Seats of the Blessed in Heaven having left behind them and rejected all Earthly treasure which by its weight did for some time keep them under and fixed down to the Earth Blind Ambition shall not then inflame the Mind they shall not then desire to ascend higher nor climb the steps of greater Honours and Dignities being fixed in a place far above Earth and all Earthly things they will laugh at the madness and folly of those whom once they admired who for little or no cause wage war who like Children contend for trifles They will then find no Civil-war within themselves the Flesh being then wholly subdued the Spirit at full liberty and enjoying a plenary and perfect Life and all the passions and affections which formerly were so troublesom and tumultuous submitting themselves to the guidance and governance of Reason The Soul being then freed from this nasty and filthy Prison in which by so long a space of time it had contracted some ill habits and was sate down wearied with labouring under its own weight shall now look up and breath in a purer air it shall acknowledge its old habitation and remember its ancient Honour and Dignity It is not so O Friend as you think neither that Flesh which thou feelest nor that Body which thou touchest is the Man Man is the Inhabitant of Heaven from whence he first came that is his Countrey that is the air he loveth to breath in If you look upon the Body you see the place of his banishment and proscription the Man doth properly consist of Soul and Spirit Man is of an Heavenly and

Divine Nature which hath nothing of rude matter in it but the Body is but as the bark or shell in which the Spirit being inclosed there lieth hid and if we desire to be delivered therefrom to live and behold the light that shell must be broken that bark must be stripp'd off and that case must be opened By what reasons can we perswade our selves that we live and think when in the mean time we are even spent and worn out with long sloath and idleness and can very difficultly stretch out our wings so long as we are loaden and burthened with this mass of Earth we cannot flie towards Heaven We see indeed but it is with such Spectacles as deceive us we have eyes indeed but they are covered with a white Film we think we see but we do but dream and are mocked by a lying sight and fallacious apparition Whatsoever we possess or know it is all but meer Vanity and meer Imposture It is only Death that can restore us both Life and the sense of Living And yet so brutish are we that we suspect this as if it were about to despoil us both of Life and Sense We call our selves Christians we believe there is and after this Life ended hope to enjoy a Blessed and Immortal Life nor do we think Death to be any thing else but only a separation of Soul and Body and that the Soul returns to her rest there to enjoy perpetual Joys with God in whom alone all good things and all the treasures of Happiness are laid up and that after the end of this World it will be restored to its own Body which shall never more be subject to corruption With these kind of Heroical and most Noble Expressions we stuff whole Volumes and yet when it comes to the push we shake for fear and tremble at the voice of Death as if it were of all things the most horrible And why so I pray if you believe those things I have even now mentioned Is it Happiness and true Pleasure that ye abhor which without this we cannot pretend truly nor scarce in part to believe we must look upon all that hath been said upon this subject to be only idle talk and no better than the vain Discourses of Men in their Jollity Some there are who constantly and with sufficient confidence affirm and will by no means be perswaded to doubt but that after this Life they shall pass to another far better and much more excellent than this is but when they consider the ruggedness of the way and the difficulty of the passage thereunto both their constancy and confidence do very much abate and they begin to fear and tremble at the thoughts of it How broken and disjoynted are the Minds of those Men who fear not oftentimes to expose themselves to Death for the preservation of their Lives who can be content to endure a thousand pains for that cause who to please others are not afraid to expose themselves to a thousand wounds who for the sake of some vile frail and perishing trifles and such as are not only subject to destruction themselves but also draw their owners into the same snare and ruine do a thousand times encounter Death without attaining the End they aim at and yet at the difficulty of one small passage by which they may procure unto themselves a sure and certain tranquility and that not for one day but for ever not a common rest but such an one as the Mind of Man is not able to comprehend do shake and tremble their courage fails them and they suffer themselves to be overcome by their own fears In vain do they accuse that grief which they suffer this is only a frivolous excuse for that little Faith or rather that great incredulity under which they labour For how they can possibly perswade either themselves or others to the contrary I see not when they chuse rather to wear out themselves with Aches in their Bones with the pains of Gout or Stone rather than by some more gentle kind of Death to change this Life without pain for one far more happy They had rather lose Limb after Limb and die by degrees that they may miserably out-live their own Senses Motions and Actions than by some sudden Death to be delivered from those so many and so great Evils that they may live and live happily for ever But they have an excuse ready for this they only desire their Lives may be prolonged that they may learn to live There are none who are ignorant of that it is an Art which all have learned It is not therefore the Art of Living but the Art of Dying that we ought now to study and learn which that we may happily do let us learn every day to die to our selves We cannot better fortifie our Minds against all assaults than by looking upon every day as the last day of our Lives But it happeneth out far otherwise more is the grief for there is no word more troublesome to the Ears of Men than the mention of Death How foolish and inconsiderate are Men who for the gain of a little money are hired to take up Arms and expose their Lives to the Fortune and Chance of War who in hope of Prey will first scale the Walls and attempt those Places from which they have little or no hope to return in safety so Prodigally do they hazard both their Bodies and Souls upon that account But to exempt themselves from the injuries and mockeries of Fortune that they may gain things rare and incomparable that they may enter into an Immortal Life that we look upon as a dangerous and difficult passage though all the danger and difficulty thereof is only in learning to know it right i. e. in imprinting upon our Minds a right notion of it considering that whether we will or no that passage at one time or other must be entred into and passed by us But alas Men are so much addicted to their own mischief that there are few or none to be found though oppressed with never so much misery who are willing to adventure upon this passage Some alledge their Age saying they could more readily and willingly submit to the Laws of Fate if they had attained to the Fiftieth or Sixtieth year of their Age but in their blooming years in their flourishing youth they think it hard to leave the world and a difficult thing to die that they would willingly know the world before they leave it But these Men do not consider how ignorant they are of all things they do not think that the greatest Age if it be compared either with time past present or to come is but like a point Do ye not see that when ye are arrived at that Age to which ye did aspire time past is as nothing and ye burn with a greater desire of that which is to come The remembrance of time past will be troublesome to you the

without some Disease some pains or aches in his Joynts or Bones and at last finds his whole Body and all the Members thereof greatly weakned and worn out partly by those labours and partly by growing Age. That he may gain ease and quiet he engageth himself in business that he may get Riches he denieth himself the necessaries of Life and offereth violence to Life it self Now grant that together with Riches he hath obtained his ease grant that he now rejoyceth in the spoils of all the East and hath exhausted the Mines of the West is he thereby like to be one jot the happier or more quiet After all his trouble cost and travel what hath he got even a great heap of care and sorrow He is tossed from one trouble to another and yet there is no end of his misery but only a change of his Calamity He hath toiled and sweat out of an ardent desire to heap up Riches and now he labours under great fear and anxiety of Mind lest he should lose them again with a feverish ardour he heaped them together and now he possesseth them with fear and trembling He oftentimes exposed himself to the assaults of Thieves and Robbers that he might make them his own and now he hath got them he liveth in perpetual fear of Thieves and Robbers lest they should take them from him With great care and pains he took them out of the Bowels of the Earth and now his great care is how and where he may safely hide them in the Earth again And to say all at once having finished his whole Journey he at length finds himself a Prisoner instead of those labours and sorrows which infested his Body he now finds himself surrounded and attended by infinite troubles and disturbances of Mind and Spirit But what hath the poor wretch got for all this pain and labour Mammon who is called the God of Covetousness perswadeth him by vain illusions to hope for some great and good thing but it happens to him as it usually doth to those wicked Men whom he is wont to draw into his Snare who instead of coined Gold find their hands full of leaves He now possesseth that or rather is possessed by it which in its own Nature is of no power nor efficacy which cannot ease much less remove any malady being in that inferiour to all Herbs and Plants that the Earth produceth He heaps up vile excrements he hath put on such a Beast-like Nature that he adorns his head with those things which he ought to tread under his feet But is his Covetousness thus satisfied By no means it is so far from that that he is inflamed with greater and stronger desires than before We commend that Drink which quencheth thirst and those Meats which in least quantity nourish the Body and stanch Hunger These things are of that kind that the more you use of them against thirst and hunger the less you quench the one or stanch the other Covetousness is a Dropsie an imaginary hunger an insatiable appetite or desire of having much so that we may rather expect to see a Covetous Man burst or break in sunder in the middle than to see him satisfied with Riches But the worst of it is this thirst this insatiable appetite hath taken such deep root in them that though they have never so much plenty yet still they want that which should satisfie their longing In the middle of Rivers they die with thirst in Store-houses well fraught with provisions they perish with hunger though they have abundance they dare not use it They seem to enjoy them though they reap no benefit by them they have indeed heaped them up but neither for their own nor the use of others and therefore cannot be thought to have any thing of that which they possess and yet they are grievously tormented with the want of what they possess not That Proverbial saying therefore hath a great deal of truth in it viz. A Covetous Man wants what he hath as well as what he hath not Wherefore let us return to the point in hand which is to demonstrate that the acquisition of those things which by a false name are called Goods is nothing else but the pain and trouble of the Body and the possession of them for the most part is the burthen of the Soul which is much more heavy than that of the Body because the Mind is endued with a much quicker and purer sense than the Body is Then are they overwhelmed with misery when they are spoiled of their Goods when either by Shipwreek or by Plunder or by Fire or by any such like Calamity they are violently taken out of their hands and consumed Hence is it that with howling and crying they bewail their lost goods hence is it that they so macerate themselves with cares and grief of heart for them and will not be comforted No reason can prevail with them to believe that all those things which mortal Men possess in this World are subject to those or the like misfortunes They and their Riches are become so much one that when they are bereaved of their wealth they think themselves to be slead alive and their skin pull'd over their ears By which it comes to pass that these Men who have placed all their confidence in these trifles and fixed all their thoughts upon Earth when once they come to be despoiled of them their hearts sink within them and they fall into the snares of despair out of which it seldom happens that any of them ever escapes and returns to a better and founder Mind But that which surpasseth all madness is that they think themselves to have lost all that which they do not get by Usury they account all that as their loss and to diminish their store which by some unusual and unlawful way of gain is not added thereunto and this drives many of them to that height of madness that they conspire their own death In a word the reward which Covetousness bestoweth upon its Slaves and Clients is much like that which the Devil bestoweth upon his who after he hath for some time indulged and gratified them at last leaves them either in the hands of the Executioner or makes them become their own Executioners I pass by those many prodigious and monstrous offences which Covetous Men in heaping up Riches are wont to enslave themselves unto by the Conscience of which their Minds as it were with so many Furies are perpetually vexed and disturbed At length it happens that by this violent exercise in which the much greater part of Mankind do busie themselves the Body is wasted and destroyed the Mind is undermined and the Soul it self without any delights or pleasures of Life at length miserably perisheth Now let us proceed to the consideration of Amhition Ambition which by too earnest a desire of Honour doth foolishly and madly force many otherwise exceilent Men to run counter to all the