Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	apostle_n	know_v	knowledge_n	2,057	5	6.6899	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28430	Anima mundi, or, An historical narration of the opinions of the ancients concerning man's soul after this life according to unenlight[e]ned nature / by Charles Blount, Gent.	Blount, Charles, 1654-1693.	1679 (1679)	Wing B3298A; ESTC R18935	47,250	120

dum mori post mortem timent interim mori non timent ita illis pavor fallax spes solatio redivivo blanditur Whereby it appears that in things which Nature hath not made our Reason capable of foreseeing as is the Souls future estate there strong belief is not alway a sign of Truth For in some cases who so bold as blind Bayard There never was any Sect so sottish and false but may boast of its Martyrs Let this be understood of corrupt unenlightned Nature that we may not confound Christianity with Paganism Many good men have died to justifie what Vaninus died madly to oppose so contrary are mens perswasions Some of the Aegyptians died fighting for the Deity of Garlick others for the Deity of Onions so that a mistaken Martyrdom rather betrays the easiness of the Party than the truth of his Cause For to believe otherwise were to do too great an honour to those Atheists or Hereticks who have suffer'd for their Irreligion under the Laws of Christianity The Apostles suffer'd for the truth of what they saw with their own eyes whereas many of the Heathens did but like Knights of the Post affirm the verity of things they knew not only had receiv'd by a Traditional hear-say from others whose vain Opinion of their great knowledge fill'd them with pride as being the only men which knew the secrets of Heaven like Aesop's Conjurer they pretended to know all things which were done in Heaven and Earth but was ignorant that his own House was on fire at home XVI The two primitive Essentials which constitute all compounded things were by the Ancient Greeks term'd Psyche and Hyle that is Spiritus and Materia Soul and Body Both these they held as consider'd in their single Natures to be from all Eternity and to continue to Eternity which together united in one Infinite they held to be God whom they believ'd to be Maker of the World Not by operation from without as a Cook makes a Pye of several materials which he hath gather'd together and being no part of him can after it is made subsist without him but by inoperation rather resembling the Soul in a living Creature which by its intrinsick plastick vertue forms the Animal with all its faculties and parts both internal and external not being able to subsist without that Spirit which did first animate and inform it however perform'd with no less trouble and concern to the Anima Mundi than the hairs of our head are to us and to this inoperation of the Divine Nature Virgil alludes saying Principio Coelum ac Terras camposque liquentes Lucentemque globum Luna Titaniaque astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet This I say was an opinion generally receiv'd among the Heathens only the wiser sort so reputed asserted that God made all things of nothing but Himself whom they acknowledge to be Infinite and therefore could not imagine that there were any other real things besides him supposing that if there were then God must have been but one eminent thing among many others which to speak or think might be esteem'd as great and sottish a blasphemy in Philosophy as Religion and to this purpose Lucan speaks Iupiter est quodcunque vides c. Also Ovid Praesentemque refert quaelibet herba Deum But the absurdity of this Opinion is already by several ingenious Pens made known unto the World As 1. If every thing be God or a portion of God some parts of the Deity must perceive what others do not 2. Several parts of the Deity as Stones Metals c. must be void of understanding 3. Idolatry were no crime but only an amicable officiousness in one part of the Deity toward another To which purpose Athenagoras writes saying If God and Matter be the same thing under various appellations then were it no less than Impiety in us to deny Divine honour to Stones Trees or Metals Lastly there would be no such thing as Virtue or Vice Pain or Pleasure unless you will make God to commit the one and suffer the other XVII Now they who held this vain Opinion term'd every Creature especially Man who is esteem'd the most excellent of all others a Microcosm or little World as composed of Psyche and Hyle Also Moses hath been thought to intimate as much in saying That in the beginning of the Creation the Spirit moved upon the Waters for so the Rabbins and Cabbalists expound him They say it was the Ruah Elohim viz. the Spirit of God which moved upon the Waters Hippocrates seems likewise to agree with this Doctrine asserting the beginning of Sublunary things to proceed from Fire and Water But Moses who was skill'd in all the Aegyptian Learning alludes perhaps to their Hieroglyphicks wherein the figure of an unit signified God as a Cypher stood for a Non-entity i. e. for Nothing the character of Ten did signifie the World and in the old Hebrew Characters as in our modern Figures of a different shape the figure of an unit placed before a Cypher signified Ten by which was meant the World as I said and hereby they express'd that God made the World of Nothing And perhaps in further conformity herewith he is said to make Man more excellent than other Creatures after his own Image that is not in outward Effigies or Features of face and limbs but as the Universe composed of Spirit and Body And so they held the World to be consisting of a Being partly corporeal and visible and partly spiritual and invisible the visible or material part by reason of its more or less gross and solid corporeity is of it self more or less unfit for motion but properly capable to receive the impulses of the more active spiritual part And thus in the little World of Man as long as his Spirit remains in him it quickens his gross Body carrying it up and down from the remotest parts of the Earth contriving many projects and working great things however in a moment after that Spirit is gone the Body is left a dull putrid piece of Earth and all his Thoughts perish XVIII But here give me leave to Montaignize and so far to digress from my subject as to acquaint you with a great dispute which happen'd among the Ancients concerning Motion for although as I lately told you there were some who thought the material part of the World unfit for motion yet there were others of a contrary sentiment and from hence arose the dispute concerning the motion of the Earth Aristotle Ptolomy and Tycho Brahe h●…ld that it was immovable especially the two former because they saw the Sun rise in one place and set in another as also their Houses stand in the same place to day as they did yesterday they thought it an infallible truth that the Sun danced about the Earth whilst that stood still to receive its Salutation In opposition to

excels him in Religious discourse The Epicureans observ'd honesty above others and in their conversation were usually found in offensive and vertuous and for that reason were often employ'd by the Romans when they could perswade them to accept of great Employs for their fault was not any want of ability or honesty but their general desire of leading a private life easie and free from trouble although inglorious For where Immortality is not own'd there can be no ambition of posthumous Glory such as excited Tyrants to commit those follies which the Poet derides in these two lines Idemens saevas curre per Alpes Ut pueris placeas declamatio sias Now such as these were none of the Epicureans but they instead of those bloody Scenes of Gallantry undertook to manage carefully the Inheritances of Orphans breeding up at their own charge the Children of their deceased Friends and were counted good men unless it were in point of Religïous worship For they constantly affirm'd there were no Gods or at least such as concern'd not themselves with humane affairs according to that of the Poet Nec benè promeritis capitur nec tangitur irà Neither as he goes on doth the hopes of Immortality conduce to Fortiude as some vainly suggest for Brutus was not valianter then Cassius and if we will confess the truth the deeds of Brutus were more cruel then those of Cassius For he used the Rhodians that were his Enemies far more kindly then Brutus did those amicable Cities which he govern'd In a word though they both had a hand in Casar's murder yet Brutus was the only Parricide So that the Stoicks which believ'd a Providence liv'd as if there were none whereas the Epicureans who denyed it liv'd as if there were This is that which Cardan urges perhaps with an impious intent in favour of the Epicureans which is not at all convincing nor will it serve to wipe off the deserved reproach cast upon them I esteem the Epicurean Philosophy like Gaming even when manag'd with the greatest Art and cunning to be but a rational kind of madness Besides however there might have been found some few good men of all Sects how absurd soever yet that must not go for a ruled case that the Sect is so That Opinion which conduces most to the good of Mankind is to be incouraged If these led such vertuous lives while they were under the obscurity of Paganism and a wrong perswasion how much more eminent would they have been had they been guided by a true Light Besides all Historians agree not that Seneca was so vicious and Epicurus himself so vertuous neither Dion nor Laertius being altogether infallible XXXII The next Sect to the Epicureans in point of incredulity concerning the Soul I conceive to be the Scepticks who were by some esteemed not only the modestest but the most perspicacious of all Sects They neither affirm'd nor denyed any thing ●…ut doubted of all things Omnia in rebus humanis dubia incerta suspensa magis omnia verisimilia quam vera They thought all our knowledge seem'd rather like truth then to be really true and that for such like reasons as these 1. They denied any knowledge of the Divine Nature because say they to know adaequately is to comprehend and to comprehend is to contain and the thing contain'd must be less than that which contains it to know inadoequately is not to know 2. From the uncertainty of the Senses as ex gr our Eyes represent things at a distance to be less than really they are A straight stick in the water seems to be crooked the Moon to be no bigger than a Cheese the Sun greater at Rising and Setting than at Noon The Shore seems to move and the Ship to stand still square things to be round at distance an erect Pillar to be less at the top Neither do we know say they whether objects are really so as our eyes represent them to us for the same thing which appears white to us seems yellow to him that hath the Jaundies and red to a Creature that hath red eyes also if a man rubs his eyes the figure which he beholds seems long or narrow and therefore it is not improbable but that Goats Cats and other Creatures which have long pupils of the eye may also think those things long which we call round For as Glasses represent the object variously according to their shape so it may be with our eyes And so the sense of Hearing deceives Thus the Eccho or Trumpet sounded in a Valley makes the sound seem before us when it is behind us Besides how can we think that an Ear which hath a narrow passage can receive the same sound with that which hath a wide one Or the Ear whose inside is full of hair to hear the same with a smooth Ear Experience teacheth us that if we stop or half stop our Ears the sound cometh not in the same manner as when the Ears are open Nor is the Smelling Tast or Touch less subject to mistake For the same scents please some and displease others and so in our Tasts to a rough and dry tongue that very thing seems bitter as in an Ague which to the moist tongue seems otherwise and so is it in other Creatures The like is true of the Touch For it were absurd to think that those Creatures which are covered with Shels Scales or Hairs should have the same sense in touching with those that are smooth Thus one and the same object is diversly judged of according to the various qualities of the Instruments of Sense which conveyeth it to the Imagination from all which the S●…eptick concludes that what these things are in their own nature whether red white bitter or sweet he cannot tell for says he why should I prefer my own conceit in affirming the nature of things to be thus or thus because it seemeth so to me when other living Creatures perhaps think it otherwise But the greatest fallacy is in the operation of our inward senses for the fancy sometime is perswaded that it hears and sees what it doth not and our Reasoning is so weak that in many disciplines scarce one demonstration is found though this alone produces Science Wherefore it was Democritus his opinion that Truth is hidden in a Well that she may not be sound by men Now although this Doctrine is very inconsistent with the light of Christianity yet I could wish Adam had been of this perswasion for then he would not have mortgaged his Posterity as he did for the purchase of a Twilight Knowledge Now from these sinister observations it was that they esteemed all our Sciences to be but Conjectures and our Knowledge but Opinion Whereupon doubting the sufficiency of humane Reason they would not venture to affirm or deny any thing of the Souls future state but civilly and quietly gave way to the Doctrines Ordinances under which they lived without raising or