Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	body_n	soul_n	spirit_n	5,254	5	5.2345	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45358	Melampronoea, or, A discourse of the polity and kingdom of darkness together with a solution of the chiefest objections brought against the being of witches / by Henry Hallywell.	Hallywell, Henry, d. 1703?	1681 (1681)	Wing H464; ESTC R9358	42,600	134

Automaton that is any kind of Machine that moves of it self wound up having of it self the corporeal principle of those Motions for which it was instituted with all things requisite for its action and the same Watch or other Engine when it is broken and the principle of its Motion ceases to act From hence it will appear that there is no impossibility in the thing nor any such inextricable difficulty in conceiving how the Soul may actually separate from the Body for some time without ensuing Death For the further clearing of which there are these two things required 1. To shew how the necessary Functions of life may be conserved and kept up while the Soul is separate from the Body 2. To consider what those things are which may cause a Temporaneous disunion and disjunction of the Soul from the Body First then it will not seem at all strange that the principal Functions of life should be performed for some time without the presence of the Soul to them who will admit of the principles of the Cartesian Philosophy which supposes that the Soul contributes nothing to any of those Motions in the Body which depond not upon actual Will and Cogitation And if withal we suppose Brutes to be but Machines or Automata it will be very clear that all those Motions which we call Vital in the Body may be performed without the actual presence of the Soul But if this seem harsh and irrational to them who imagine bare Mechanism to be an incompetent cause for the production of such effects and that the Systole and Diastole of the Heart which later Anatomists have found to be a Muscular Constriction and Relaxation and the Circulation of the Bloud through all parts of the Body must proceed not from a Mechanical but Vital principle They may be pleased to consider that in Nature there is a certain Vis Plastica or rather Nature it self is it a Plastick Power or Inconscious Incorporeal life which passing through the Universe governs all the Motions of Matter every where according to such laws fatally imprest upon it and reconciles the enmities and contrarieties of particular things bringing them into one general Harmony in the whole and strikes the first and Rudimental lineaments in the formation of the Bodies of Animals and lastly may be particular Souls or Spirits be so far rapt and drawn into consent as to work strange effects not only upon their own but upon separate and distant Bodies Now by this Hylarchical principle or Plastick nature so many of the vital motions of the Body may be kept in play as shall render it as fit and convenient for the Inhabitation of the Soul at its return as it was when she dislodged and separated from it In answer to the second particular it may be said that it is possible the Soul may be rapt from this Terrestrial Body and carried to remote and distant places from whence she may make a Postliminiar return by either of these two ways 1. From a vehement affection or deep imagination piercing into the very lowest of her Powers 2. By the assistance and activity of a more potent Spirit While a House is standing whole and entire the occupier of it may go out and in and still keep the possession but when it is either thrown down and broken by an external violence or falls to pieces through the rottenness and consumption of its parts he must lye in the streets if he cannot get another dwelling Such is the condition of the Soul in respect of the Body whose principal parts in which consist the safety of the whole being corrupted she hastes away never to return till it be rebuilt But while they remain firm and safe she may be carried out by strong and powerful affections and re-enter and dwell there as before Nor is any Desire or Velleity whereby many will say they would fain go out of their Bodies to some distant place though without any more potent affection than to try the experiment enough to cause a separation but it must be so strong and vehement and so far imprint it self upon the imagination as to reach that Plastick Faculty by which the Soul is connected to the Body and these cords being loosened and untied she may without any difficulty pass into the open Air. And he that considers the strange and wonderful effects of Imagination even upon these our Earthly Tenements will have no reason to doubt but the same Power may extend to a Temporary disjunction of the Soul from the Body Common experience shows how the Pica or longing of a pregnant Woman will by a keen Fancy stamp and impress the character of the thing so passionately desired upon the Child in her womb I will not take upon me to maintain the truth of all those strange effects attributed to the strength of Imagination by Fienus Cornelius Agrippa and others though I must confess so much is said by them as to matter of Fact as may satisfie a free and unprejudicated mind that the power of Imagination even upon these gross and unwieldy Bodies is much greater and more notable than is by many supposed But if any one shall so far distrust the truth of such stories as to rank them among Legendary Fables let him consider what other could be Iacobs intent in that device of his in placing pilled and straked Rods before the flocks at the watring-places but only to heighten and invigorate the Imaginative Faculty of the Ews at the time of Conception Now that this hath actually hapned namely that the Soul hath been carried from the Body and after some time returned again the relations of disinterested persons would induce us to believe And it is very probable that upon a due search into the Causes and Natures of things it may not seem incredible what Cardan relates of himself that he could when he pleased fall into this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Disjunction or Abreption of his Soul from his Body A thing which is credibly reported of the Lappians who lying as it were in a Trance for some hours will give a perfect account of affairs at three hundred miles distance and by some evident token give assurance of their being in such places To which if we should add the story of Phaereus Pamphylius recorded by Plato of Hermotimus Clazomenius by Pliny and of Soleus by Plutarch it will at least assure us that grave and wise Persons did not think such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is here contended for to be altogether a thing so monstrous and incredible The other way whereby a Soul may be withdrawn from the Body and brought back again is by the efficiency and activity of a more powerful Spirit And hitherto some learned men refer that of Ezek. 37.1 The hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley And though S. Paul deliver it doubtfully as

guidance of an Almighty Providence and have recourse upon all occasions to those wandring Goblins who intend nothing less than the destruction of all those that have to do with them And that which adds a further confirmation of the greatness and Majesty of this Law is what the Iews themselves saw before their departure out of Egypt that is the opposition made against Moses by the Magicians of Pharaoh whose miracles were not Juggles and Impostures done by sleight of hand but real things produced and effected by the assistance of evil Spirits For had they been otherwise they might still have gone on and not cried out This is the finger of God when a power transcending theirs restrained and overruled them And indeed whoever considers aright the frame of the Polity and Kingdom of Darkness how far those evil Daemons have degenerated from all Goodness and Righteousness and how studious they are to promote and disseminate a Spirit and Nature of Wretchedness and Vice and withal how deadly and implacable foes of mankind and how ready at all turns to wait upon either the fond curiosity or more deliberate and designed purposes of those that will be tampering with them will not easily allow the concernment of these Laws to be so low and trifling as to look only at Juglers Cheats and Impostors But there having been such among the Pagans who surrounded the Iews as really practised Sorcery and entred into familiarity with wicked Spirits it is certain that such are here likewise meant by Moses And therefore In the second place the words themselves do properly bear that sence For Mecaseph denotes alike Magicians and Inchanters and both these are called in Scripture Melahesim which word is from Lahas susurravit because those persons did by whispering or muttering converse with or desire the assistance of Daemons The other word Ob will best be explained by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit of Python or by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belly-speakers i. e. those out of whose bellies as the Oracles out of Caves the Devil spake Ofthese Photius gives an account in his Epistles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The wicked and unclean Spirit that inhabits a mans belly as a Serpent his hole in the Earth and being unclean is fit to dwell in that place which is the receptacle of Ordure they appositely call Engastrimuthus And of this kind of Devil saith he which loves to dwell in the Ordure both of men and women 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. It is a great deceiver of people and Author of destruction to all that give ear to it These the Hebrew calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the belly and the reason is rendred by Galen because they speak without opening their mouth and so seem to speak out of the belly 2. The second particular to be insisted upon is this That nothing hinders in the reason of the thing it self but that there may be real confederations and contracts betwixt wicked and wretched Persons and evil Spirits To this purpose we must know that the Devil hath all along endeavoured to Ape and Imitate the actions of God Almighty and to deprave the Institutions he appointed in his Worship to perverse and wicked ends Thus because Sacrifices were offered to the True God the Arch-Fiend commands likewise the same to be done to him And as God sometimes by fire from Heaven declared his acceptation of the Sacrifices performed to him so this likewise hath been counterfeited by the Devil as in the Sacrifice offered up to Iupiter by the Rhodians And at Hierocaesarea and Hypaepae saith Pausanias wood laid upon the Altar is commonly set on fire without putting fire to it only at the mumbling of some few words by a Priest Moreover Solinus reports the same of the Vulcanian Hill in Sicily where when the Sacrifice is prepared ab ipso Numine fit accendium the green wood fires of it self and the Deity by consuming the Sacrifice by fire gives a testimony of his acceptance of the Oblation And upon some Mountain in Africa if I misremember not the Cacodaemon offers himself to those who for certain days have duly prepared themselves splendidâ circumfusum nube environ'd with a bright cloud an imitation doubtless of the Divine Presence manifested by a cloud upon the Tabernacle of the Iews or that which overshadowed the Disciples at the Transfiguration of our Saviour Now as the Sacrifices offered up to the true God of Israel were Federal Rites and those that did partake of them did thereby enter into a Covenant with God to become his servants and obey his Laws so the Aiery Principality hath Mimically observed the same thing and those that offered Sacrifices to Daemons were supposed by partaking of those Sacrifices to enter into a stricter league and familiarity with those evil Spirits And as all Covenants between God and Men have been performed by certain sensible Rites and Ceremonies the nature of man in these Earthly Bodies requiring that it should be so in like manner have all the mutual compacts and stipulations between wicked men and Devils been transacted by some sensible ways and signs or other If therefore in all confederations between men and superior and invisible Powers there have been some External and visible Ceremonies whereby these Consociations have been ratified and confirmed why should we startle so much at the intimacy and familiarity of an impure and foul Spirit with a Wizard or Witch Nay though there should intervene to complete the Hellish Contract some such External Rite as the drawing of bloud from those wretched persons by the wicked Daemon For the drinking of bloud hath sometimes been made use of by Conspirators and other wicked persons as the strongest Sacrament and Tye of a mutual Confederacy that could be imagined Thus Plutarch in the life of Valerius Publicola relates that the Conspirators against Brutus and his fellow Consul bound themselves one to another by a great and horrible Oath drinking the Bloud of a man and shaking hands in his Bowels whom they would Sacrifice And that the Gnosticks and Nicolaitans made use of the like Ceremonies is recorded by Eusebius Epiphanius and others whose impious Transactions gave occasion to the Heathens to object Thyestean Banquets against the Christians Of the Cataphryges S. Austin in his Catalogue of Heresies tells that they are said to have very abominable Sacraments for they celebrated their Eucharist with the Bloud of an Infant of a year old which they forced out of his body by pricking and making small wounds mixing it with flour and so making bread of it And what reason have we to think that there may not some such damnable solemnity be used in the compacts between Magicians and these silthy Daemons The result of all then is this If there have been Confederations and Compacts between men and Devils transacted and performed by sensible signs then there may still be an Agreement or Confederacy between an