Selected quad for the lemma: water_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
water_n	air_n	element_n	fire_n	13,062	5	7.1789	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67569	A philosophicall essay towards an eviction of the being and attributes of God. Immortality of the souls of men. Truth and authority of Scripture. together with an index of the heads of every particular part.	Ward, Seth, 1617-1689.	1652 (1652)	Wing W823; ESTC R203999	52,284	168

contemplation of themselves and in the scruting of the waies of their own internall operations is over-frequent and considering how little reason there is to expect it of those who by their way of living are more deeply engaged among things no way exceeding the affections and circumstances of bodies and bodily motions and perhaps may think themselves unconce●ned to be busy in the knowledge of themselves It will be requisite that we insist more particularly upon it that so the matter may be cleared even to the most vulgar apprehensions supposing only that they can but obtain so much of themselves as w●rily to attend to that which is to be delivered Now the substance of all that I shall speak towards the demonstration of the souls Immortality shall be summarily comprised in this one Syllogism Whatsoever substance is incorporeall it is immortall But the souls of men are incorporeall substances Ergo The former of these Propositions is indeed in it self undemonstrable as being a principle evident to a considering minde and so not resolvible into any former principles so that all that can be done to a further clearing of it will only be to examine and follow home the terms to their first originall notions which they are assigned to represent Indeed the word mortality as it is usually apprehended hath alwaies reference to a compounded substance or to a body which hath in it self some principle and cause of motion and signifies no more but a capacity of the materiall and passive part to be deprived of that inward active principle of its motions as is evident by those things which we use to say may die or are dead as men and beasts and plants but when the question is only of that active principle it cannot so justly be put in the terms of mortality as of corruptibility or a naturall tendency to a corruption so then that which we are to strive for is the true and accurate notion of corruption and when we have driven it to the highest we shall finde that corruption is nothing else but a dissolution of things joyned together and that this dissolution is nothing but a separation and that separation is nothing but division and that division is an immediate and â formall act of quantity and quantity is nothing else but a mode of corporeity so as you see that corruptibility doth even in the notion of it include corporeity whatsoever therefore is incorporeall it is incorruptible which was to be demonstrated SECT. II. A Proof of this Proposition that the souls of men are incorporeall substances by comparing the affections of bodies with those of souls BUt the souls of men are incorporeall substances That they are substances is evident seeing that they are subjects of certain properties and affections which is the very formall notion of a substance It remains only therefore that we demonstrate them to be incorporeall Now for the clearing of this it is requisite that we consider wherein consists the being of a body and wherein consists the being of an humane soul nor can we use any possible means to come to an apprehension of their being but by considering those primary passions and properties whereby they make discovery of themselves the first and primary affection of a body is that extension of parts whereof it is compounded and a capacity of division upon which as upon the fundamentall mode the particular dimensions that is the figures and the locall motions doe depend the figure being nothing but a particular and determined extension of the matter towards such and such parts and locall motion being nothing but division so that whatsoever may possibly be performed by any body it must have its originall ground-work in divisibility and its actuall being in division towards which the situation and figure and determined quantity of parts must make the disposition Again for the being of our souls if we reflect upon our selves we shall finde that all our knowledge of them resolves into this that we are beings conscious to our selves of severall kindes of cogitations that by our outward senses we apprehend bodily things present that by our Imagination we apprehend things absent that we oft recover into our apprehensions things past and gone that upon our perception of things we finde our selves variously affected sometimes with pleasure or pain for things present sometimes with hope or despair of things absent and the like Nay we are conscious to our selves of objects which could not by any bodily impressions be wrought in our fancies or our brain and of superiour passions answerable to those objects In one word we finde that our souls are a kinde of essences which are conscious or having a sence of things Now then we are to compare together these two properties of a body and a soul and so conclude either an agreement or a disagreement in the natures of those subjects And here upon the very first view of a considering minde it will appear that divisibility is not apprehension or judgement or desire or discourse that to cut a body into severall parts or put it into severall shapes or bring it to severall motions or mix it after severall waies will not serve to bring it to apprehend or desire it is not the hammering and filing and fitting of the wheels of a watch which can make it apprehend the end for which it serves or comprehend the motion of the sun which it is made to measure nor is it materiall whether we take an example in things naturall or artificiall or upon what principles of mixture we proceed the conclusion will be still the same for sence and perception and apprehension and desire c. they are as great strangers to the obscure notions of heat and cold and moisture and drought and of those elements to which they are assigned to fire and air and earth and water as they are to quantity and scituation and figure and motion and the like there is no man certainly that can clearly apprehend that combining any proportion of fire and air and water and earth should make the lump of it to know or comprehend what is done to it or by it we see not then any the least inducement in our notion of bodies simple or mixed or howsoever varied to bring us to an apprehension of cogitation Nor yet will our reflection upon our cogitation bring us to any apprehension of corporeity or divisibility the truth is our sense and apprehension of bodies cannot infallibly assure us that there are any bodies in the world but we must be forced to an higher principle whereon to ground that assurance so farre is cogitation and apprehension and the like from involving in its being any corporeity nay we see manifestly that upon the division of the body the soul remains entire and undevided it is not the losse of an hand or foot or eye that can maim the understanding or the will or cut off the affections so that we have not any the

too little and not those who beleeve too much Secondly I must premise that we are not here to expect the necessity of demonstrations but must content our selves with such arguments as the nature of our subject will admit there can be no true and perfect demonstration unlesse the property to be demonstrated do naturally flow from the subject of the demonstration In matters then depending upon the free election of causes there cannot possibly be any perfect demonstration and such is the giving of a rule of life in respect of God so that there cannot be a perfect demonstration of it So then we must content our selves with arguments falling short of the necessity of demonstration but such as no man shall be able to deny without denying some such principles as all men doe acknowledge to be true SECT. II. The Assertion resolved into two Propositions the former undertaken that whosoever beleeves the Historicall part of the Scripture must beleeve the Doctrinall 1. TO beleeve that these Books of Scripture are the Word of God there are very great and important reasons 2. To disbeleeve it there are no reasons or not any sufficient reasons And first of all to prove that those bookes of Scriptures are the Word of God it is sufficient if we prove the truth of them because themselves pretend to be of divine inspiration All Scripture is of divine inspiration the tenor of the Old Testament runnes generally so The Lord spake unto Moses or other of the Prophets such as were the Penmen of the holy Scripture indeed the generall pretence of those that wrote both Testaments is that holy men did speak and write as they were inspired by the holy Ghost so then if this pretence of it be true it must be true that it proceeded from the holy Ghost and consequently to prove the truth of it will conclude that it is the Word of God Now as concerning the truch of those writings we have 1. The same Arguments or as great as for the truth of any writings in the world Nay 2. We have Arguments morall Arguments to evince the truth of them such as no other writings can pretend to That we may shorten that we have to perform you may consider that the things delivered to us in the holy Scriptures are either matters of History or Doctrine and that these are frequently interwoven in the Scripture so as when Saint Matthew doth in an historicall narration bring in our Saviour preaching in the Mount and delivering there a summary of his Doctrine so that it will appear that if the historicall part of the Scripture be undoubtedly true there cannot rationally be any doubt made of those doctrinall rules and precepts which there are delivered As for the doctrine of any party whatsoever concerning God there is not imaginable any argument so ready to evince the truth of it as God himself freely attesting to the deliverers of it by mighty signes and wonders by great and undeniable miracles such as are instances of the immediate hand of God such as by skillfull and knowing men are acknowledged to be no way performable by the praestigatory act of Magicians or by the power of evill spirits Such were the miracles which are delivered to us by Moses all along the course of Gods bringing the children of Israel out of Egipt to his own land and afterwards wrought by the Prophets And such were the works of our blessed Saviour all along the course of his Ministry before his passion and such and more admirable was his resurrection and ascention Whosoever doth beleeve that there was such a man as Moses that this man Moses did professe himself to have received from God a Law which was to be delivered to a people he may hitherto very well doubt whether or no he was not deceived in imagining that he had received such a law But if withall he shall be assured or stedfastly beleeve that this man Moses to make good his pretences to Gods revelations could obtain so much of God as to the eyes and senses of millions of gainsayers and opposers of what he did deliver to shew great and palpable miracles whosoever doth beleeve that he did turn a rod into a serpent and that back again into a rod that by stretching forth that rod upon the River Nilus he turned their waters into bloud and slew their fish how afterwards he brought frogs upon all the land of Egipt even into their Kings chambers how he brought flies and caterpillars and lice and thunder and lightning and mighty hail-stones how he brought botches and murrain amongst men and cattell how he brought upon all the land of Egypt a darknesse that might be felt and slew their first-born afterwards how he divided the Red Sea for the people to passe through it and when he had served the turn of his party how the flouds returned and overwhelmed his enemies he that shall beleeve that after this he brought water out of the rock sweetned the waters of Marah brought Quails into the wildernesse procured Manna to fall about their tents all the week and none upon the Sabbath how the fire from Heaven consumed Nadab and Abihu only for adventuring to offer strange fire otherwise then he had prescribed them that the earth opened and swallowed up Korah and covered the Congregation of Abiram that at the time of the promulgation of his Laws God himself appeared visibly that the glory of his presence overshadowed the Mount how there were thunder and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the Mount Exo. 19. how Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoak because the Lord descended upon it in fire and the smoak thereof ascended as the smoak of a furnace and the whole mountain shaked exceedingly Whosoever beleeves these works to have been done by the same party that professed a revelation from God cannot avoid the beleif of his profession unles he can beleeve that God by so great miracles would attest to Blasphemy and Sacrilegious impostures a thing which is palpably mad to be beleeved and is against the light of common sense and reason So likewise whosoever doth beleeve that in the daies of Augustus Caesar there was such a man as Jesus of Nazareth commonly called Christ and that this man did professe himself the sonne of God and pretended to deliver to all the world a way of Religion a Covenant of life eternall an abrogation of the ceremonies of the former law and those other things which he professed there is no necessity that he should beleeve that either he was the Son of God or that his doctrine was infallible But if together with these professions he shall take into beleif those things which Jesus did though for his owne sake he see no reason to beleeve him yet at least he will beleeve for the works sake if he shall beleeve that God himself did attest to these professions he will likewise beleeve those professions of his to have been true and Gods attestation