Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A44763
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The vision, or, A dialog between the soul and the bodie fancied in a morning-dream.
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Howell, James, 1594?-1666.
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1651
(1651)
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Wing H3127; ESTC R11503
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50,341
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190
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lickering my boots already to that purpose but that which is father'd upon Paul the third is beyond all these when he said upon his death bed that shortly he should be resolved of two things whether ther be a God and Devil or whether ther were a Heaven and Hell Therefore Earth may be said to be worse then Hell in one respect because it bear's Atheists which Hell doth not but rather converts them in regard they feel God ther by his judgments and begin to have an historicall faith of him which here they had not Nor am I of that drowsie opinion to think that I shall sleep all the while among the common mass of souls in som receptacles ordain'd I know not where for that purpose till I be rejoyn'd unto you Nor doth the Religion I am of admit of any suburbs in hell as purgatory and other places where I must be purified some yeers before I ascend to heaven As Fray Iulian of Alcala doth averr upon record which is made authentique producing other spectators besides himself that he visibly saw the soul of Philip the second going up to Heaven in two ruddy clouds some two yeers after his death at such an hour of the night Body Let not my Soul bee offended if I bee curious to know somthing touching that most comfortable point of the immortality of the Soul and this curiosity doth not arise out of any doubt but a desire to be further confirm'd therein because there be some busie Spirits that stumble at it alledging that it is but a new tenet of Christian Faith not establish'd in the Church till the latter Lateran Councell and pumping out other quaeres and cavils concerning this Article Soul It is in Divinity as in Philosophy for as it was said long since that in this an impertinent Sceptic may blurt out a question which all the Sages of Greece were they alive could not answer So in Divinity an irresolute inconformable stubborn spirit may raise doubts that the whole Academy of Christian learning cannot solve such Pyrrhonians and perverse spirits have bin in all Ages ther are no principles can tie them their braines may bee said to bee like a skein of thrumb'd small threed any thing will entangle them and their thoughts like a bush of thornes that takes hold of any thing they are never satisfied either in points of faith or the operations of nature like him who would have found somthing to shear off upon an egge This may be cal'd one of the truest sorts of superstitions whose etymologie is super stare to stand too precisely and peremptorily upon a thing specially things indifferent and to bee over hot either in the abolition or maintenance of them to the destruction of whole Nations as also in recerches after supererogatory knowledg and interpretations of Scriptures wherby they would make the Holy Spirit speak what he never meant whereas the moderat and submiss sober minded he or she are the best proficients in the school of Divine knowledg But wheras you say that you desire to be strengthned and illuminated further touching the imateriality and consequently the incorruptibleness and immortality of the Rational Soul Let me tell you that not only Christian Divines but the best of Pagan writers both Poets Philosophers and Orators have done Her that right One calls Her Divinae particulam aurae Another sings Igneus est olli vigor coelestis imago Another Mens infusa Deo mortalis nescia sortis And Cicero among other hath a remarkable saying to this purpose si erro credendo Animam esse Immortalem libenter erro If I err in beleeving the soul to be immortall I willingly erre Moreover the Intellectuall humane soul doth prove Her self to be immortall both by her desires her apprehensions and operations Her desires are infinit and still longing after eternity now ther is no naturall passion given to any finit Creture to bee frustraneous Her apprehending of notions of Eternall truth which are her chiefest employment and most adaequat objects declare her immortall Al corruption comes from matter and from the clashing of contraries now when the soul is sever'd from the body she is beyond the sphere of matter therefore no causes of mortality can reach her ther is nothing in her that can tend to a not being Her operations also pronounce her immortall which she doth exercise without the ministery of corporeall organs for they are rather a clogg to Her she doth use to spiritualize materiall things in the understanding to abstract ideas from all Individuals she is an engin that can apprehend negations and privations she can frame collective notions all which conclude her immateriality and where no matter is found ther 's no corruption and wher ther is no corruptibleness ther must be an immortality now her prime operations being without any concurrence of matter she may be concluded immortall by that common principle Modus operandi sequitur modum essendi for in the world to come the state of the soul shall be a state of pure Being nor will ther be either action or passion in that state whence may be inferr'd she shall never perish in regard that all corruption comes from the action of another thing upon that which is corruptible therfore that thing must be capable of being made better or worse now if a separate soul be in her utmost final estate that she can be made neither it follows she can never lose the being she hath Moreover since the egress out of the body doth not alter her Nature but only her condition it must be granted that she was of the same nature while shee continued incorporated though in that imprisonment of hers she was subject to be forg'd as it were by the hammers of materiall objects beating upon her yet so as she was still of her self what she was Therfore when she goes out of the passible ore wherin she suffers by reason of the foulness and impurity of that ore she immediatly becomes impassible and a fix'd subject of her own nature that is a simple pure Being Both which states of the soul may be illustrated in som measure by what we find passeth in the coppelling of a fix'd mettall for as long as any lead or dross or any allay remains with it it continueth melting flowing and in motion under the muffle but as soon as they are parted from it and that it is become pure without mixture and single of it self it contracteth it self to a narrower room and at that instant ceaseth from all motion it grows hard permanent and resistent to all operations of the fire and admitteth no change or diminution in it 's subject by any extern violence so the Rational Soul when she departs from the drossy ore of the body and comes be her single self she becomes as it were exalted gold to be perfectly by her self she can never be liable any more to diminution to action passion or any kind of
mercie either out of any despondencie of Spirit and despair in rejecting it as some do or by presumption in slighting it as others do For if the first Man who was immediatly moulded and made by God himself in such a state of perfection had his frailties If Samson the strongest man had also his If Salomon the wisest man had his If David the holiest of men who had so many advantages as to be a Prophet and so anointed with oyl above others if that Prophet who came of the chosen seed and consequently was not cast in so corrupt a mold as others I say if the Prophet David who was a Man after Gods own heart a character the like whereof was never given to any but unto him I say if such a man and such men had infirmities in so high a measure how is it possible but that I should have them in a greater number therefore my transgressions are but deeds of my defects and effects of those general frailties that have attended and are entail'd upon the best of men Now touching my corporeal Organs and Senses which you tax so much 't is true that my eyes have oftentimes gazed upon earthly vanities and grass-green objects yet at other times they have looked upon sky-colour I have cast them up towards Heaven and fixing them a good while with some ejaculations upon a part of the deepest azure I could spy they cur'd me once of a shrewd defluxion by which experiment I also found that such a fixation doth much corroberat the nerves and conserve the sight that distil'd into them I have by Them oft admir'd the fair fabrick of the Universs surveing all the parts thereof round about as farr as my opticks could reach stood astonisht at their Excellencies as beams streaming from a heavenly Creator refracting on the visible world on whom their preservation depends and in whom they were concentred intentionally before they had any existence I observe how Nature is here and there check'd by Him when I see how he sets bounds to the vast tumbling Ocean and that those mountains of snow which hang in the Ayrie Region those floud-gates of waters do not fall down and precipitate at once to over-whelm the earth which is so little a thing in comparison of the vast expansion of the Air As also in the operation of divers other productions of Hers. For if Nature did go on still in her own course constant method of effects and causes this might induce a belief that she were Governness of all things but when we see that sometimes she hath not her full swing intending things that she is not able to perfect but falls short of her purposes as also that her ordinarie operations are restrained and grow lame We must conclude that there is a predominant Power that ore-sways her and moves the sphere of her activitie as he lift Thus by the opticks of the Ey the eminentest of my senses I make the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the Universe my Universitie to studie my Maker breaking out often when I go into the fields and find all things subservient to Man into that ejaculation of the Psalmist Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and declare the wonders he doth for the children of men Nor do I by the benefit of the Ey read Divinitie among sublunarie creatures where every spire of grass may serve for a letter but I spel my Creator among the stars and indeed there is not any mundane object doth delight and ravish me so much as to contemplate those glorious lamps of Heven in a clear night wherewith I find my self so much affected that with Emilius I could find in my heart to congratulate the Moons deliverie from an Eclips therefore it may stand well with Christianitie to hold those the best of Pagans that ask blessing of the Sun Touching my Organs of hearing 't is true as you say they serve too often to let in every frivolous tale or sonet yet as the Philosopher calls the Hearing sensum disciplinae the sence of learning whereby the soul as he thought being at first infusion a kind of rasa tabula recovers all her notions by way of Reminiscence I have made it often let all this be spoken without vanity the sense of saving knowledge for Faith comes by hearing I have set open the anfractuous passages thereof to take in the sacred Oracles of God and the mysteries of salvation and when I hear a holy anthem it brings all my spirits to my ears in throngs A grave elaborat sermon works the like effect such a sermon as he speak of who coming out of a Church and being asked whether the sermon was done yes said he 't is done in the church but it begins now in me but while my Faith is fed I do not love to have my Reson famished I do not love to be worded to death by such tautological rambling insipid confused stuff that some Enthusiasists use to evaporat wherein it is as difficult to find any coherence in point of matter or methodical contexture as it is to make a rope of that sand whereby they prate My feet 't is true go too often astray to the by-paths of vanity but they come back again to the right track as one going on a journey and hearing by the way a pack of hounds he goes and follows the sport a while and then returns to his road I have the grace to direct them often to Gods holy house where with leggs and knees I employ them in the humblest manner of genu-flection to offer him sacrifices of prayer and prayses I reach out my hands sometimes to lend unto the Lord by relieving the poor according to my pittance knowing that Charity doth cover a multitude of sins my fingers also I find pliable now and then to write divine meditations whereunto I employ them altogether upon the holy Saboth My mouth my toung and heart also joyn be it still spoke without vainness at least to ejaculat my guilt and his glory and I find the arterial bloud which is in the least ventricle thereof boyling me thinks within me in affection towards him the exhalations whereof rise up and fill all the cells of my brain to contemplat his goodness as will appear unto you in these few ternaries of Stanzas Could I screw up my brain so high With soaring raptures that mightfly Unto the Empyrean skie How would I laud the Lord of light Who fills all things and every wight With plentie vigor and delight My voice with Halelujahs loud Should pierce and dissipat the clouds Which in the Airie region croud Then through the Element of fire Unto the Stars they should aspire And so to the seraphic quire Thus earth and skie with every thing Should joyn with me and carrols sing Unto the everlasting King Touching my interior Passions I confess they have too great a dominion in me choler which hath more