Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	abandon_v	foundation_n	sin_v	16	3	9.9028	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80530	Experience, historie, and divinitie Divided into five books. Written by Richard Carpenter, vicar of Poling, a small and obscure village by the sea-side, neere to Arundel in Sussex. Who being, first a scholar of Eaton Colledge, and afterwards, a student in Cambridge, forsooke the Vniversity, and immediatly travelled, in his raw, green, and ignorant yeares, beyond the seas; ... and is now at last, by the speciall favour of God, reconciled to the faire Church of Christ in England? Printed by order from the House of Commons.	Carpenter, Richard, d. 1670?	1641 (1641)	Wing C620B; ESTC R229510	263,238	607

but who can say now look you even now it encreaseth though hee may say it hath encreased since I saw it last CHAP. 11. ONe passage more from Spaine and then I my selfe passe from it that I may leave something to come by the next Post if they stirre mee farther By great chance there came to my hands a Booke called Regulae Societatis Iesu The Rules of the Jesuits which Booke they have not formerly suffered to be printed but onely in the Jesuits Colledge at Rome And this Book their Superiours alone make use of and are permitted to have It containeth in part a strange kinde of direction how to square and fashion their Novices in the time of their two yeares Noviship and especially how to sift them and search into their lifes and natures at their first entrance The quick and angry disposition most pleases them because in persons owing such dispositions all the passions are more lively and stirring How also to dispose of their young-men in the divers wayes of their naturall inclinations and how to deale with them according to their severall tempers and chiefely if they begin to look another way and to lean from them And how when they send Letters from house to house to mark them with private stamps in the inside lest the character going alone should bee counterfeit with many more cunning pleats of Jesuiticall government And it is one of their daily brags that they live under Rule we without Rule But were their Rules seasoned with more Christianity and lesse policie they would be more Christian My Reader shall have his Rules likewise and live under them if he please Thus much before I begin It is not obscure to mee that these irreligious orders of Religion fit and prepare their young subjects in their Noviships by turning and twining their wills with the sight of strange pictures and with the manifold acts of blind obedience for great businesse hereafter perhaps for the killing of Kings The Doway-Monk gave Pius quintus in my presence no better name then old doting Foole because he called in the B●ll which he had published against Queen Elizabeth wherein notwithstanding hee did absolve her subjects from their Oath of Allegeance and from all obedience to her and expresly commanded them to ●ake Arms against her RULE 1. LEt your understanding which is the first and superiour faculty of your soul stand not under but over all your other faculties and take a survay of your Nature And not this onely but also learne exactly the maine course and moreover the divers turnings of your owne secret disposition For knowing perfectly our owne natures wee can best direct them a proper way to God And the man that perceiveth himselfe to be jealous or angry or otherwise deficient by nature will upon occasion more easily suspect an errour in himselfe then in others and consequently discover acknowledge and suppresse with all readinesse the tumults of Passion and indeed will be more sound and able in the managing of all his affaires as well temporall as spirituall Every man is composed of a man and a beast and the beast is given to the man to be tamed and governed by him he that desireth to tame a beast desireth also chiefly to know the secrets of his nature and all the q●●int tricks of his inclination This distinction in man of man from himselfe riseth from the two parts or portions of the reasonable soule the intellectuall or superiour part and th● inferiour otherwise called the sensuall part which though it may be said if you will say so a part of the reasonable soule while it continueth in the body is void of reason and it is hard to direct one void of reason This is all Be Master of your selfe The wise Master will know and by his knowledge governe RULE 2. ROot evill Habits out of your Soule and plant their contraries Decline from evill and doe good sayes the Royall Prophet For as a habit is gained and Psal 34. 14 strengthened by a frequent repetition and multiplication of Acts which are of the same stampe and colour with the habit as a habit of swearing is gained and strengthened by swearing often so it is abated by disturbing and abolished by destroying the course of such acts as a habit of swearing is abated and abolished by him that having often sworne now seldome or never sweareth It is not one or a few acts which generate a habit nor a small cessation from them which utterly corrupts it And therefore Children entring upon the first yeare of knowledge and discretion plant vertuous habits with great ease in their souls and with much more facilitie then people whose yeeres and sinnes are many though much enabled with knowledge wisdome and experience The Reason is open They are like faire paper ready to take any inscription these have much weedingworke before they can turn to a new Plantation Here I beseech thee learne to remember thy Creatour in the days of thy youth Eccl. 12. 1. It was a Law in the days of old that Manna should be gathered in the morning And the rich orient Pearle is begot of the morning dew God requireth of you the sweetnesse of the morning the breake of the day and the dawning of your life Note that we may sin grievously put on by custome though suddenly rashly and without reflexion because wee have not abandoned the custome and certain danger of sinning RULE 3. BEcause nothing can possibly stand without a Foundation the Foundation of the spirituall edifice and Temple of God in your soule can be no other but Humilitie Humilitie lyeth very low And the deeper the Foundation is laid the more strong will be the building and more able to beare the injuries of Time assaults of the weather And this as all other Foundations must be laid in the ground in a deep and profound consideration that you are all earth on the one side and on the other side all filth all barrennesse according to that of the Prophet Esay Wee are all as an unclean thing Esay 64. 6. and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags Rags are of small use in themselves but filthy rags are abominable It little mattereth in whose name hee speaketh these words for every man may fit them to himselfe And according to that of our deare Saviour When yee shall have done all those Lu. 17. 10. things which are commanded you say wee are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our dutie to doe Humilitie doth not consist in esteeming our selves the greatest sinners for then it should consist in a lye because we are not all the greatest but in esteeming our selves great sinners and ready to be the greatest if God should pull away himselfe from us and feeble workers with Gods grace Our Saviours case was different for hee was most humble yet could not esteeme himselfe a sinner O Humilitie saith Saint Bernard Quàm facilè S. Bern.

knowledge and practice which otherwise should never either have beene practised or knowne no patience of the best proofe but occasioned by an injury no injury guiltlesse of sinne the cleannest exercise of our Charity towards our neighbour supposes in our neighbour the want of a thing requisite and all want of that generation is the poore childe of sinne the most high and most elevated praxis or exercise of our charity towards God then flames out when we seale our beliefe with our blood in martyrdome no martyrdom but usherd with persecution no persecution free from sinne If we are not sorry that he sinn'd we are not sorry that millions of millions of soules shall now be lost eternally lost never to be found again which if Adam had stood upright had certainely shone with God in Heaven as long as hee And if we are sorry that he sinn'd wee are sorry that Christ joyn'd our flesh and soule to his Divinity expressed his true love to us by dying for us was seene by us here in the world and will feast even the corporall eye in Heaven with the most delightfull sight of his blessed body for ever And howsoever some think otherwise if Adam had not sinned Christ had not tooke our nature for he was not so much delighted with humane nature as hee was desirous to die for mankinde And if wee are not sorry that he sinn'd wee are not sorry that one sinne was the cause of all sinnes and all sinnes the cause of all punishments and that one punishment is behind and waits for us in another world with which all other punishments put together and made one punishment are in no kinde comparable and that I and my neighbours and he that is abroad and perhaps now little thinks of such a businesse are all ignorant how we shall dye now we are borne how wee shall end our lifes now wee are alive now wee are put on how we shall get off and when the Ax is laid to the root which way the Tree shall fall and what shall become of us everlastingly Be wee sorry or not sorry Adam sinned It being done God's will be done And yet because it was but his permissive will his will of sufferance and hee suffers many things against his will not of necessity but because he will I will be sorry that Adam sinn'd that is offended God God made the soule of man as upright as his body and clothed it with the white garment of originall Justice God being the fountaine of all power grace and sufficiencie could have hindred the fall but because he was not his neighbour nor obliged by any law for who should give a law to the first Law-giver and to demonstrate the full extent of his dominion over his creatures he would not and having left man in the hand of his owne counsell and set within the reach of his hand fire and water and man having wilfully plaid foule God strived to make the best of an ill game and therefore hee drew from the fall of Adam besides the former benefits a more ample demonstration of his power wisedome justice providence and chiefly of his charity the triall of reason the triumphs of vertue in all kindes and the greater splendour of his Church It is as plaine as if it were wrot by the finger of God with the Sun-beames which St. Austin saith speaking of God Non sineret malum nisi ex malo sciret Aug. de corrept et grat cap. 10. dicere bonum He would not suffer ill if he did not well know how to strain good out of ill and sweetnesse out of sowernesse O sweet God I have committed a great deale of sower evill come in thy goodnesse and draw good and sweetnesse out of it the good of Glory to thee and the sweetnesse of peace to mee both here and hereafter Thou hast held my hand in all my actions as well evill as good as a Master the hand of his Scholler whom he teacheth to write and in evill actions I have pulled thy hand thy power after mine to evill which was onely evill to me because I onely intended it in good actions thou didst alwayes pull hold and over-rule my hand and truly speaking it was thy good for I of my selfe cannot write one faire letter And I know thou hast not suffered me to run so farre into evill but thou canst turne all to good An infinite wisedome joyn'd with an infinite goodnesse can joyne good in company with evill be it as evill as it can be MEDITATION VII ANd if now I clip away an odd end of ensuing time a little remnant of black and white of nights and dayes a small and contemptible number of evenings and mornings wee strong people that now can move and set to work our armes and leggs and bodies at our pleasure wee that look so high and big withall shall not be what now we are For now we live and pleasing thoughts passe through our heads We runne we ride we stay we sit downe we eat and drink and laugh We rise up and laugh againe and so dance then rest a while and drink and talk and laugh aloud then mingle words of complement and actions of curtesie to shew part of our breeding then muse and think of gathering wealth and what merry dayes we shall enjoy But the time will suddenly be here and it stands now at the dore and is comming in when every one of us from the King God blesse his Majesty to the Beggar God sweeten his Misery shall fall and break in two peeces a soule and a body And the soule be given up into the hands of new Companions that we never saw and be carried either upward or downward in a mourning weed or in a robe of joy to an everlasting day or a perpetuall night which we know there are but wee never saw to be nor heard described by any that saw them And when the body shall bee left behind being now no more a living body no more the busie body it was but a dumb deafe blind blockish unsensible carcasse and now after all the great doings not able to stirre in the least part or to answer to very meane and easie questions as how doe you are you hungry is it day or night and be cast out for carrion it begins to stink away with it for most loathsome carrion either to the wormes or to the birds or to the fishes or to the beasts And when the holy Prophecie of Esay will be fulfilled The mirth of tabrets ceaseth the noise of them that rejoyce endeth the joy Es 24. 8. 9. of the harpe ceaseth They shall not drink wine with a song Nor yet without a song And there shall be no joy but the joy of Heaven no mirth or noise of them that rejoyce no singing but in Heaven O wretched Caine that built the first Citie upon earth because he was banished from Heaven Ille primus in terra fundamentum

quickly after she began to faint and suffer a kind of ecclipse of Nature Shee fell into the armes of one of her mayds and she vvas not able to looke upon him or stand before him till hee rose from his throne caught her into his armes and said What is thy request it shall be even given thee to the halfe Est 5. 3. of the Kingdome Farre more vveake and afflicted vvould be the case of a soule appearing in the presence of God did not God himselfe enable her The splendour of his Glory vvould appeare so bright that hee could not be look'd upon The greatnesse of his Majestie vvould shew it selfe so terrible that hee could not be endur'd And therefore hee does as it vvere put out his hand and lift up the soule being fallen before him and then she takes courage and runnes upon him as a pretty little mayd into her Fathers armes MEDITATION XIIII BUt the vvicked besides their present punishments must expect a dreadfull sentence in the Lords day Depart from me yee cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Mat. 25. 41 devill and his angels What horrour vvhat fearfull trembling vvhat a mighty confusion of severall cries vvhat howling vvhat bellowing vvill there then be how they vvill be tormented even before they are dragg'd to the torment Depart from mee O gracious God perhaps they may reply remember vve are thy creatures and thou canst not but remember for vvee depend now in our being of thee We vvere made by thee and for thee let us not O let us not be divided from our last end for after such a divorce vvee shall never enjoy repose or take any rest vvhich every thing vvith all the bent of nature desires If we should goe from thee now wee should never know vvhere to meet vvith thee again Wee are made according to thine owne image O drive us not from our patterne Shall we part from thee in whom are met the excellencies of all creatures in a most excellent manner purified from all stain of imperfection and in whom all finite perfections are infinite From thee who art the great sea out of which all Rivers run and to which they ow themselves return Wee were the master-peece of all earthly creatures When thou hadst created all the spacious Universe thou diddest draw an abridgement and Epitome of it againe in us and nothing was found in the whole Volume which was not touch'd and mention'd in the Epitome All other creatures were framed looking downwards toward the earth as having nothing heavenly in them or in heaven to hope for thou gavest us faces erected towards thee and heaven And since we have look'd towards thee so long let us be with thee now in the end we beseech thee No Depart from me Yee have no part in me My merits by which yee hope for mercy are so farre from helping yee that they rise in judgement against yee Depart from mee and goe to him yee serv'd demand your wages If then wee must goe and goe from thee at least good Father give us your blessing before we go Set a mark upon us that when we are found by thine and our enemies they may know to whom we belong and spare us for feare of thee Thou that hast so great store of blessings to give we hope hast one yet in store for us We crave but a small blessing O it is a little one Thou art our Father witnesse Gen. 19. 20. our Creation and it is a chiefe property of a Father to blesse his children No. Depart from mee yee cursed In place of a blessing take the full curse of your Father as having beene most prodigall and disobedient children I catch from yee all your title to mee and my Kingdome and because yee have followed him who had my first curse share curses with him If if then wee must goe from thee and goe accursed Yet appoint us blessed God a meet and convenient place for our residence Create a fruitfull peece of ground let a goodly Sun daily shine upon it let it have sweet and wholsome ayre and be stor'd with fruits and flowers of all formes and colours Give us under-creatures in great variety to serve fitly for our uses And because we are enforced to goe from thee the source and fountaine of heavenly sweetnesse afford us plenty of earthly pleasure which may in some sort recompence our paine of losse Speak but the old word Fiat let it be and such a place will presently start up and shew it selfe No Depart from mee yee cursed into fire Though I intended not the burning of spirits and soules For I am faine to lift and elevate fire above it's nature O the wisedome of God! to such an extraordinary way of action because sinners have transgressed the Law of na●ure in disobedience You sinned against nature I punish above nature because I cannot punish against nature vvho am the prime Origin of nature and may not proceed against my selfe Fire Alas that ever wee were borne Of all the foure Elements of which the world consisted it is the most active and curious and searches farthest and where it but onely touches a sensible thing it is seconded by a paine unsufferable Thou didst create fire for mans use and shall it now rebell against man as man against thee and become his tormentor Who is able to rest in fire The very thought of it burneth us already we are tormented Come come let us run away but whither Lord God if it be irrecoverably in thy Decree that wee must goe thus naked as we came into the world and went out of the vvorld into fire let the sentence stand but for a very short time quench the fire quickly halfe an houre will seeme a great while there and be alwayes mindfull that they are thy creatures vvho are in the fire that they are men and vvomen whose nature thou hast exalted to a personall Unity with thy Divinity No Depart from mee yee cursed into everlasting fire It was kindled by my breath and it hath this property amongst other strange qualities that it is an unquenchable fire as long as I am God it shall endure and yee broile in it which being the most active and powerfull amongst inferiour creatures hath a charge to revenge the injuries done to God and all other creatures by man O horrible Yet heavenly Judge alot to vs some good Comforters whose smooth and gentle words may i● it can be sweeten our torment and somewhat dull the most keene edge of our extremity Let the Angels recreate us with Songs and Hymnes of thee and thy blessednesse that we may heare at least that sweetly deliver'd which others in a full manner enjoy No no to the rich man in the Parable I did not grant one of his requests which he made from hell nor will I meet your desire in any thing Therefore Depart from mee yee cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devill and his

us from it hee would quickly thinke Had I my body and life againe whither would I not goe What would I not undergoe to shun this wofull extremity I would lye weeping upon the cold stones all covered with dust and ashes if it might be suffered a million of yeares for my sinnes I would begge my bread of hard-hearted people in a new world from one end of it to the other I would spend as many life 's in trembling feare and fearfull trembling if I had them as there bee lifes in living creatures I would doe any thing Now my soule doe not grieve that Hell is provided for sinners for such griefe stands so farre under the lowest degree of vertue that it is a sinne but give two teares at least from the eyes of thy body because thou hast sinned against thy good God Such teares are Pearles and rich ones and will in time make thee a rich man The holy Fathers call these teares the jewels of Heaven and the wine of Angels And as the world was a gallant world and there were such creatures and such doings as we now see before I was any thing so it will unlesse God please in the meane time to cut off all by his glorious and second comming remaine a very gallant world and there will againe be such creatures and such doings when I shall lye quietly under ground corrupt and putrifie and by little and little fall away to a few wretched bones and these shall remaine to mocke at what I have beene And he that is now so trim and so much talk'd of shall not be so much as remembred in the world his generation shall forget him and people will speake and behave themselves as if he had never beene CHAP. V. REader beware the Papists are crafty and profound in craft And they will object to relieve their cause one of these two things or both I have beene long trained in the knowledge of their wayes That I owe them thankes for many devout observations Something I have learned of them and I thanke them for it yet little if experience stand aside but what I might have learned in England My friends know that when I was a boy at Eton Colledge I began to scribble matters of devotion And I have seene much unworthinesse in them beyond the Seas not to be imitated which I could not have learned in England But the knowledge which they worke by shall lye dead in me Their other prop will be that my writings come not from the spirit of devotion but of oratorie I am short in these revelations that point at something in me who am nothing Reader thou hast the language of my spirit but I must digge farther into this veine of Meditation or Consideration Consideration 1. THe reasonable soule though now of composition is composed of three faculties the Understanding the Will the Memory All faculties being active have one most proper act or exercise to which they are most and most easily inclinable if not restrained The most proper act or operation of the Understanding is to see or know Truth Of the Will to will and love good Of the Memory to lay up and keepe in it selfe as in a Treasury all profitable occurrences By the sinne of Adam the Understanding is dazled in the sight or knowledge of Truth By the sinne of Adam the Will becomes chill and colde in the willing and loving of good so colde that it wants a fire And from the sin of Adam the Memore hath learn'd an ill tricke of treasuring up evill where it shall be sure to be found againe and of casting aside good where it may be lost with a great deale more ease then it was found Where one part is wounded and one well one part may succour and cherish the other the part well the wounded part In the soule all parts are wounded And therefore there is great neede of Grace and supernaturall helps that strengthened by them wee may recover health and partes deperditas the parts we have lost Lord assist my contemplation with thy Grace Wherefore the holy Apostle speaking of those who in all their adventures were guided onely by the weake directions of nature sayes they became Rom. 1. 21. vaine in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned First vaine and then more darke Saint Hieromes Translation speaketh after this manner in Genesis The Gen. 1. 2. earth was vaine and voide and darknesse was upon the face of the deepe What the Eye is in the body the Understanding is in the soule The Eye is the naturall guide of the body the Understanding is the naturall guide of the soule For when we beleeve as well as desire the things we doe not understand even then also we take a naturall direction from the Understanding which he holds a convenience of such things in respect of the motives with beliefe and desire though not with Understanding The Eye sees the outward shape of a thing the Understanding sees both outwardly and inwardly as being advanced more neerely in its degree and therefore also in its making to God The Eye discernes one thing from another the Understanding conceives as much The Eye judges of colours the Understanding judges of white and blacke of good and evill The Eye cannot see perfectly many things at once and such a one is the understanding For the more a power be it spirituall or corporall being finite is spread and divided in its operation the lesse power it hath in every particular The eye sees other things but I cannot turne it inward to see it selfe the Eye of the soule lookes forward but in the body it shall never obtaine a sight of it selfe in its owne essence Indeed the Understanding is a kinde of Eye and the Eye is a kinde of Understanding Such an excellent sweetnesse of agreement there is betwixt the soule and the body which moved to the marriage and union betwixt them Now this Understanding this Eye of the soule is not altogether blinded by the great mischance of originall sinne For omnia naturalia sunt integra as Dionysius sayes of Dionys Areop the fallen Angels all the naturall parts are sound How from being broken not from being bruised This Eye then although darke so farre sees that it sees it selfe lesse able to see somewhat darke in the sight of naturall things and much more then somewhat darke in the sight of spirituall things I may stand betwixt both and clearely behold the different case of the soule before and after the fall of Adam in order to spirituall contemplation and practise if I looke upon the various condition of a man in health and sicknesse in order to the actions and operations of life The sicke man is weake and ill at ease his principall parts are in paine his head his heart He cannot use his minde seriously but his head akes he cannot looke stedfastly nor at all upon a shining object discourse is tedious to