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	pleasure_n	sensual_a	21	3	10.2467	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58802	The Christian life part III. Wherein the great duties of justice, mercy, and mortification are fully explained and inforced. Vol. IV. By John Scott D.D. late rector of St. Giles's in the Fields.; Christian life. Vol. 4.	Scott, John, 1639-1695.; White, Robert, 1645-1703, engraver.	1696 (1696)	Wing S2056; ESTC R218661	194,267	475

Temper consists for doubtless with the same Temper of Mind that we are of in this World we shall go into the other for meerly by going into the other World Men cannot be altered as to their main State though they may be perfected as to those good Dispositions that were here begun so that he that is wicked here will be wicked there too and that same Disposition of Mind that we carry with us to our Graves we shall retain with us in Eternity If therefore we would know what the Temper of a wicked Soul will be in the future State our best way will be to enquire what it is that we call a wicked Temper here because it will be the same here and hereafter Now a wicked Temper consists of two things First of Sensuality and Secondly of Devilishness By Sensuality I mean an immoderate Propension of the Soul to the Pleasures of the Body such an head-strong Propension as wholly diverts the Soul from all her nobler Delights to the brutish Pleasures of Intemperance and Wantonness and Gluttony together with those other Lusts that are subservient to them such as Fraud and Covetousness and Ambition and the like By Devilishness I mean those spiritual Wickednesses which do not so much depend upon the Body as the former but are more immediately centered in the Soul such as Pride and Malice and Wrath and Envy and Hatred and Revenge c. which are the Sins of the Devil by which those once glorious and blessed Spirits were transformed into Friends and Furies These are the Venomous Ingredients of which a wicked Temper is composed If you enquire therefore what the Temper of a wicked Soul will be in the future State I answer it will be the same there that it is here that is it will be sensual and devilish As for the latter there can be no doubt of it for Devilishness being immediately subjected in the Soul cannot be supposed to be separated from her by her Separation from the Body and may as well abide in naked and separated Spirits as it doth in the Apostate Angels And as for Sensuality though it cannot be supposed that a Soul should retain the Appetites of the Body after it is separated from it yet having wholly abandon'd it self to corporeal Pleasures while it was in the Body it may and doubtless will retain a vehement Hankering after a Re-union with it which is the only Sensuality that a separated Soul is capable of For when She comes into the World of Spirits her former accustoming her self unto the Pleasures of the Body will have so debauched and vitiated her Appetite that She will be incapable of relishing any other Pleasures but what are carnal and sensual which because She cannot enjoy but in the Body She must needs retain an earnest and vehement Longing to be re-united to it For having never had any former Experience of the Pleasures of Spirits when she comes into the other World she will find her self miserably destitute of all that can be pleasant and delightful to her and because she knows that the only pleasures she can relish are such as are not to be enjoyed but in conjunction with the Body therefore all her Appetites and Longings must needs unite into one outragious Desire of being embody'd again that so she may repeat these sensual Pleasures and act over the brutish Scene anew Which possibly may be the Reason why such sensual Souls have appeared so often in Church-yards and Charnel-houses Union with the Body being that which these wandring Ghosts have the most eager Affections to and that they are most loth to be separated from which makes them perpetually hover about and linger after their dear Consort the Body the Impossibility of their Re-union with it not being able to cure them of their impotent Desires but still they would fain be alive again Virgil. Iterumque ad tarda reverti Corpora quae lucis miferis tam dira cupido And this I doubt not was one great Reason of those extraordinary Abstinencies and bodily Severities that were imposed by the Primitive Church that by this means they might gently wean the Soul from the Pleasures of the Body and teach it before-hand to live upon the Delights of separated Spirits that so it might drop into Eternity with Ease and Willingness like ripe Fruit from the Tree and that when it was arrived into the other World it might not have its Appetite so vitiated with these sensual Delights as to be incapable of relishing those spiritual Ones and so be endlesly tormented with a fruitless Desire of returning to the Body again This therefore from the whole is plain and apparent that the Temper of wicked Souls in the other World will be much the same as it is in this that is sensual and devilish made up of Rage and Spight and Malice together with a vehement Longing after the deserted Body in which they enjoyed the only Pleasures they were capable of AND having thus shewed you what are the Felicities of the future State and what the Temper of wicked Souls will be in the future State I now proceed III. To shew you how contrary such a Temper and Disposition must be unto such Felicities And indeed Sensuality and Devilishness are the only Indispositions for Heaven but such Indispositions they are that if upon an impossible Supposition a Soul could be admitted with them into the Habitations of the Blessed She would not be able to relish one Pleasure there among all the Delights with which the beatifick State abounds there would none be found that would please her distemper'd Palate which like a fevourish Tongue must disrelish and nauseate the sweetest Liquor by reason of its overflowing Gall. And hence the Apostle exhorting his Christian Colossians to be thankful unto God for making them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light telleth them that this was effected by God's translating them out of the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of his own dear Son that is by enabling them to mortifie their Lusts and inspiring them with the Graces of the Gospel 1 Colos. xii 13. And this will evidently appear if we consider the particular Felicities of which the heavenly State consists which as I have shewed above consist First In the Vision of God Secondly In our Likeness or Resemblance to Him Thirdly In the Love of Him and fourthly In the Society of pure and blessed Spirits to all which there is an utter Antipathy and Disagreement in every sensual and devilish Temper and Disposition I. IN every sensual and devilish Mind there is an Antipathy and Contrariety to the Vision of God for the Sight of God can be pleasant unto none but those who are in some measure contemper'd to his Perfections and transform'd into his Likeness While we are unlike him and contrary to him as we must needs be while we are sensual and devilish the Sight of Him would be more apt to amaze and

of its benign Influences and altogether indisposed to be wrought upon by it For as the Sun enlightens not the inward parts of an impervious Dunghil and hath no other effect upon it but only to draw out its filthy Reeks and Steams though as soon as he lifts his head above the Hemisphere he immediately transforms into his own Likeness all that vast Space whether he can diffuse his Beams and turns it into a Region of Light even so the divine Glory and Beauty which is the Object of the beatifical Vision will never illustrate lewd and filthy Souls their Temper being impervious unto his heavenly Irradiations and wholly indisposed to be enlightned by it but instead of that it will irritate their devilish Rage against it and provoke them to bark at that Light which they cannot endure whereas it no sooner arises upon well-disposed Minds but it will immediately chase away all those Reliques of Darkness remaining in them and transform them into its own Likeness But doubtless the Sight of the divine Purity and Goodness will be so far from exciting sensual and devilish Spirits to transcribe and imitate it that it will rather inspire them with Indignation against it and provoke them to curse and blaspheme the Author of it Fourthly and Lastly IN every sensual and devilish Soul there is an utter Incongruity and Disagreement to the Society of the Spirits of just Men made perfect For even in this Life we see how ungrateful the Society of good Men is unto those that are wicked it spoils them of their fulsome Mirth and checks them in those Riots and Scurrilities which are the Life and Piquancy of their Conversation So that when the good Man takes his leave they reckon themselves deliver'd his Presence being a Confinement to their Folly and Wickedness And as it is in this so doubtless it will be in the other World for how is it possible there should be any Agreement between such distant and contrary Tempers between such sensual and malicious and such pure and benigne Spirits What a Torment would it be to a spightful and devilish Spirit to be confined to a Society that is governed by the Laws of Love and Friendship What an Infelicity to a carnalized Soul that nauseates all Pleasures but what are fleshly and sensual to be shut up among those pure and abstracted Spirits that live wholly upon the Pleasures of Wisdom and Holiness and Love Doubtless it would be as agreeable to a Wolf to be governed by the Ten Commandments and fed with Lectures of Philosophy as for such a Soul to live under the Laws and be entertained with the Delights of the heavenly Society So that could these wicked Spirits be admitted into the Company of the Blessed they would soon be weary of it and perhaps it would be so tedious and irksom to them that they would rather chuse to associate themselves with Devils and damned Ghosts than to undergoe the Torment of a Conversation so infinitely repugnant to their Natures accounting it more eligible to live in the dismal Clamour of hellish Threnes and Blasphemies than to have a tedious Din of heavenly Praises and Hallelujahs perpetually ringing in their Ears And indeed considering the hellish Nature of a wicked Soul how contrary it is to the Goodness and Purity of Heaven I have sometimes been apt to think that it will be less miserable in those dismal Shades where the wretched Furies like so many Snakes and Adders do nothing but hiss at and sting one another for ever than it would be were it admitted into the glorious Society of heavenly Lovers whose whole Conversation consists in loving and reloving and is nothing else but a perpetual Intercourse of mutual Indearments For this would be an Employment so infinitely repugnant to its black and devilish Disposition that rather than endure so much Outrage and Violence it would of its own accord forsake the blessed Abodes to flee to Hell for Sanctuary from the Torment of being in Heaven But this however we may rationally conclude that so long as the prevailing Temper of our Souls is sensual and devilish we are incapable of the Society of blessed Spirits and that if it were possible for us to be admitted into it our Condition would be very unhappy till our Temper was chang'd so that it is a plain Case both from God's Ordination and from the Nature of the Thing that our eternal Happiness and Welfare depends upon our mortifying the deeds of the Body To offer some Practical Inferences from hence I. WE may perceive how unreasonable it is for any Man to presume upon going to Heaven upon any account whatsoever without mortifying his Lusts. For he that thinks to go to Heaven without Mortification and Amendment presumes both against the Decrees of God and the Nature of Things he believes all the Threatnings of the Gospel to be nothing else but so many Bugs and Scare-crows and though God hath told him again and again that unless he forsake his sins he shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven yet he fondly imagines that when it comes to the Trial God will never be so severe as he pretends but will rather revoke the Decree that is gone out of his mouth than exclude out of the Paradise of endless Delights a Soul that is infinitely offensive to him As if God were so invincibly fond and indulgent as that rather than excommunicate an obstinate Rebel from Happiness he would chuse to prostitute the Honour of his Laws and Government and commit an Outrage upon the Rectitude and Purity of his own Nature For so long as he is a pure God he cannot but be displeased with impure Souls and so long as he is a wise Governour he cannot but be offended with those that trample upon his Laws so that before he can admit a wicked Soul into Heaven he must have extinguish'd all his natural Antipathy to Sin and stifled his just Resentment of our wilful Affronts to his Authority When therefore we can find any reason to imagine that God is no Enemy to sin and that he hath no regard of his own Authority then and not till then we may have some Pretence to presume upon going to Heaven without Mortification and Amendment But supposing this Hinderance were removed and that God were so easie as to be induced to prefer the Happiness of a wicked Soul before the Honour of his Government and the Purity of his Nature yet still there is an invincible Obstacle behind that renders her future Felicity impossible and that is that it cannot be without a plain Contradiction to the Nature of Things For as I have shewed you already the Genius and Temper of a wicked Soul is wholly repugnant to all the Felicities of the other World so that if they were set before her She would not be able to enjoy them but must be forced to pine and famish amidst all that Plenty of Delights there being not one Viand in all