not from reason conclude as is said in hatching of chickens the shell is broken but there commeth forth a chicken Secondly for proofe that the soule is immortall see what is the ordinary cause that things perish fire either goeth out for want of nourishment or is quenched by his contrary water water is resolved into ayre by fire which is his contrary the cause why the Plant dieth is extremity of cold or drought or unseasonable cutting or violent plucking up also mans body dieth by encreasing or diminishing the humors called complection or by violence of all these causes which can wee chuse to have any power against our soule I say against the soule of man which notwithstanding it be united to matter to a body is it selfe a substance unbodily unmateriall and only conceivable in understanding nay what can be contrary to that which lodgeth contraries equally in it selfe which understandeth the one of them by the other which coucheth them all under one skill and to be short in which the contrarieties themselves abandon their contrariety so as they doe not pursue but ensue one another Fire is hot and water is cold Contrarieties cannot kil the soule our bodies mislike these contraries and are grieved by them our mind linketh them together without either burning or cooling it selfe and it setteth the one of them against the other to know them the better the things which destroy one another throughout the world maintaine one another in our minds nothing is more contrary to peace then warre and yet mans mind can maintaine peace by preparing for warre and lay earnestly for war in seeking for peace even death it selfe which dispatcheth our life cannot be contrary to the life of the soule for the soule seeketh life by death what can the soule meet withall in the whole world that can be contrary to it which can enjoyne obedience to things most contrary contrarieties then cannot do it Nor want of food What then can want of food How can that want food in the world which can feed on the whole world or how can that forsake food which the fuller it is the hungrier it is the more that it hath digested the better able it is to digest the more it hath the more it desireth take from it the sensible things and the things of understanding abide with it still bereave it of earthly things and the heavenly remaine with it the more abundantly to be short a bridge it of al worldly things yea and of the world it selfe and even then doth it feed with greatest ease and maketh cheer agreeable to its owne nature Also the body filleth it selfe to a certaine measure and delighteth in some certaine things but what can fill the mind fill it as full as you can with the knowledge of things and it is the more eager and sharper set to receive more the more it taketh in the more it still craveth and yet for all that it never feeleth any rawnesse it never catcheth a surfit for want of concoction what shall I say more discharge your understanding from minding it selfe and then doth it live in him and of him in whom all things doe live againe fill it with the knowledge of it selfe and then doth it feele it selfe most empty and sharpest set upon the desire of the other now then can that die for want of food which cannot bee glutted with any thing vvhich is nourished and maintained vvith all things and vvhich in very deed liveth upon him by whom all the things which we wonder at here beneath are upheld Nor violence Well violence you will say perhaps may doe the deed what is violence but a justling of two bodies together but the soul is no body nor bodily substance as I proved before can there be any violence between a bodily and spirituall substance or betweene two sprituall substances seeing that oftentimes when they would destroy one another they uphold one another and if the soule cannot be pushed at neither inwardly nor outvvardly is there any thing in nature that can naturally hurt it No! will some say Object wee see it weakned by an incounter as we may discerne by the senses the more excellent the thing is which the sence receiveth so much the more the sense it selfe offended and grieved therewith As for example the feeling by sire the taste by harshnesse the smelling by strong savour the hearing by the hideousnesse of the noyse whether by a Thunder-clap or by the falling of a River the sight by looking upon the Sun upon fire or any thing that hath a glistering brightnesse I omit that in most of these Answ it is not the sense it selfe but the outward instrument of sence that is offended hurt But let us here see whether ther be the like in the soule or no nay the contrary the more of understanding and excellency the thing is the more doth it comfort and refresh the mind if it be darke so that we understand it by halves it hurteth us nor yet it doth not delight us nay as we increase in understanding it so it liketh us the better and the higher it is the more doth it stir up the power of our understanding and as you would say reach us the hand to draw us to the attainment thereof as for them that are dim-sighted we forbid them to looke upon the things that are over-bright but for them of rawest capacity wee offer them the things that are most intelligible when the sence beginneth to perceive most sharpely then is it faine to give over as if it felt the very death of it selfe contrary wise where the mind beginneth to understand then is it most desirous to hold on still and whence ariseth this but that our sences worke by bodily Instruments our mind worketh by a bodilesse substance which needeth not the helpe of the body and seeing that the nature the nourishment and the actions of the soule are farre different not only from the nature nourishment and actions of the body but also from all that either is done or wrought by the body can there be any thing more childish then for us to demee our soules to be mortall by the abating and decaying of our sences or by the mortality of our bodies nay contrariwise it may be most soundly and substantially concluded thereupon that mans soule is of its owne immortall seeing that all death as well violent as naturall commeth of the body and by the body Thirdly the immortality of the soule may be firmely proved even from death it it selfe The two best definitions of death that eyer I heard of or read of are these and both true 1. Death is a seperating of the matter from his forme 2. Death is the utmost period of moving from both which the immortality of the soule may be proved and first of all from the first Wee have already proved the soule to be the forme and the body must needs be the matter then
his understanding as well as in his members he that is sicke of any disease should also be sicke in his reason he that limpeth or halteth should halt in his reason also the blind mans soule should be blind and the lame mans lame but the contrary appeares the maimed the sicke the cripples the blind have their understanding cleere sighted their reason sound their discourse vigorous and their soule safe and sound on the other side many a man dieth whose body is sound and differeth not a whit in any part from what it was when he was living anatomize him the quickest eyed Chyrurgian shal see nor perceive no cause of his death outward nor inward nor failing of any particular to cause it and yet life motion sence and understanding are out of it we may say then if wee are not wilfully blind for none so blind as he that will not see that there was something in the body that was not of the body that was a farre other thing then the body Object But some say that the force and strength of the soule groweth with the body Children have none and Drunkards have soules by jumps and many other crotchets as vaine as ridiculous I answer it cannot be said that a Childs soule groweth or is strengthned by time but rather his nerves or sinewes are hardned and strengthned which the soule useth as strings and instruments to move withall R O. treat of Mortality p. 19. where hee pleaseth himselfe with the merry conceits of his own fancy which hee doth in many other places of that treat or or act by and therefore when age weakneth them a man useth a staffe to helpe them with though he have as good a will to run as he had when he was young you may often heare a decrepid old man boast and talke of the valorous acts of his youth he desires to be doing the same then for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh The soule then which moveth all at one beck hath the selfe same power in infancy that it hath in age and the same in old age that it hath in the flower of youth the fault is only in the instrument which is unable to execute the operation therof the skilfulnesse of a Musician is not diminished by the slacknesse hardnesse or moystnesse of his Lute-strings nor increased by the goodnesse curious setting or straining of them only in the one he cannot shew his cunning in the other he may shew it more or lesse Likewise the speech of Children commeth with their teeth howbeit the speech doth manifestly utter it selfe first in that they prattle many things which they cannot pronounce and in old men it goeth again with their teeth and yet their eloquence is not abated thereby as in Demosthenes though he surmounted all the Orators of his time yet there was some Letters he could not pronounce give unto old age or infancie the same sinewes and teeth and as lusty and able limbs and members as youth hath and the actions which the soule doth with the body and by the body I mean so farre forth as concerne the abilities of sense and livelinesse shall be performed as well in one age as in another Be but as impartiall in judging of the force and power of thy owne soule as of the skilfulnesse of a Lute-player I say not by the nimblenesse of his fingers which may perchance be knotted with the Gout but by the sweetnesse of his Harmony which plainly sheweth that hee hath cunning in his head though hee can shew it no more with his hands so as thou wouldst consider how thou hast in thy selfe a desire to goe though thy feet are not able to beare thee a discretion to judge of things that are spoken though thine eares cannot convey it to thee a sound eloquence though for want of teeth or any other impediment thou art not able to expresse it and which is above all a substantiall quick and heavenly reason even when thy body is most debile infirme weake crazie earthly sick and drooping Thou wouldst soone conclude that the force and power of quickning moving and perceiving is whole and sound in thy soule and that the default is only and altogether in thy body in so much that if thy soule had a new body and new instruments given to her it would be as lusty and as cheerfull as ever it was and the more it perceiveth the body to decay the more it retireth or laboureth to retire to it selfe the more active the thoughts are of another being of a better being of an eternall being which is a plaine proofe that it is not the body nor any part of the body but the very life and inworker of the body Arg. 4 Fourthly unlesse man have in him a soul or something else that is immortall there can be no resurrection This I shall prove by solid reason though R. O. hale in the contrary to make up the number of his absurdities for if the soule dye with the body or if there be no soule at all and man all body and so reduced to the prima materia how can there be a resurrection there may be a new Creation if you please the first was a Creation the matter is the very same that it was before the Creation Ergo the worke the very same viz. a new Creation see it by the example of the Creation of the world a fit paralel for R. O. 2 Pet. 3.10 The day of the Lord will come as a Theife in the night in which the Heavens shal passe away with a great noyse and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up and vers 13. neverthelesse we according to his promise looke for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth Righteousnesse What will God raise up the Heaven and Earth Sun Moone and Stars againe out of the Chaos will he make a Resurrection of the world no no man they are brought to the prima materia this is worke for a Creation not a Resurrection Esay 65.17 Behold I create new Heavens and a new Earth c. See it by the Apostle Pauls owne Comparison 1 Cor. 15.36 37. Thou foole that which thou sowest is not quickned except it dye and that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body which shal be but bare grain c. If this graine have not in it a vitall spirit a growing a spirit a resuscitative spirit a spirit of life it cannot grow it is true the terrene part of it dies but the vitall part lives and give a Resurrection if I may so call it to another Plant of the same kind Take an Oake Tree that is dead and rotten set in the ground it will not grow while the world stands Take an A corne set that in the ground it will grow why will that and not the other because there is spirit in that which dies not but causeth
life to the terrene part of it which dies and consumes vvhereas the other hath none So if man have no immortall spirit in him here is no place for a Resurrection it must be an absolute Creation if any thing that gives him life againe but the whole current of Scripture hold forth a Resurrection and therfore man hath something in him immortall In the fift place I might prove that man hath an immortall spirit uncapable of death by the testimony of the ancient Heathen far ancienter many of them then Plato which also is a rationall proofe of a point for what the God of nature hath taught to all men by nature is and must needs be a truth But the God of nature hath taught all men by nature that there is a God that they have an immortall spirit therefore it is a truth I doe not say he hath taught it some one man or some one nation but the whole world the Vniversality of it shewes it to be of God The Divel teacheth not all nations one and the same particular sinne but different according to the constitution of the climate they live in else he would loose his labour and that he knows well enough he hath taught it by nature for those nations that never heard what grace was hold and confesse and leave to posterity this truth all men universally and particularly have learned it in one Schoole from the mouth of one Teacher and he perfect therefore a truth The holy Scripture which teacheth us our salvation useth no Schoole-arguments to make us beleeve there is a God and why so because we find him present in his works neither to prove this point which shines so cleere in nature Both Greeke and Latine Authors have plentifully left it to posterity Phocylides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The soule is immortall and liveth perpetually and never waxeth old And againe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The remainder of dead men remaines void of death If you aske him the cause of this hee will answer you in another verse thus for he was a rationall man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sybilla The soule is Gods Instrument and Image in mortall men Hitherto comes that of the Sybill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man by all reason is indued with the Image of God of the same opinion also were Orpheus Theognis Piadar in the second song of his Olympiads Homer in the funerals of his Iliads Herm. in his Paenander ◠pag. 10. Homer Hesiod Pindarus and all the Poets of old time which may answer for themselves and their Countries and for the residue of their ages Hermes saith the soul is the garment of the mind and the garment of the soul is a certaine spirit wherby it is united to the body and this mind is that which wee call properly the man that is a heavenly wight not to be compared to the beasts but rather to the gods of heaven if it be not yet more then they the heavenly cannot come downe to the earth without leaving the heaven but man measureth the heaven without removng from the earth to be short his conclusion is that man is double mortall as touching his body immortall as touching his soul which soul is the very man and created of God saith he as the light is bred immediatly of the sunne And Chalcidins saith that at his death he spake these words I goe home againe into mine own country where my better Forefathers and kindred be Zoroastres who is of more antiquity then Hermes this article is reported to be one of his that mens souls are immortall and that one day there shall be a generall rising againe of their bodies and the answer of the wise men of Chaldea Who were the heires of his doctrine doe answer sufficiently for him There is one that exhorteth men to returne with speed to their heavenly father Who hath sent them a soul indued with much understanding Another exhorteth them to seeke Paradice as the peculiar dwelling place of the soule A third saith that the soule hath God as it were shut up in it and that it hath not any mortality therin for saith he the soule is as it were drunken with God and sheweth forth his wonders in the harmony of this mortall body A fourth saith it is a cleare fire proceeding from the power of the heavenly father an incorruptible substance and the maintainer of life containing almost all the whole world with the full plenty therof in his bosome But one of them proseedeth yet further affirming that he that setteth his mind upon Godliness shall save even his body though it be never so fraile and by those words hee acknowledgeth the very glorifying of the body All these are reported by Psellus and he confesseth that Plato and Pythagoras learned the doctrine of the souls Immortality of the Caldeans in so much that some thinke the Caldeans are those that Plato speakes of Lil. Legum 11. ep 2. when hee saith that the ancient and holy Oracles are to be beleeued which affirme mens souls to be immortall and that in another life they must come before a Iudg that wil require an account of all their doings the result wherof commeth to this that the soule of man proceedeth immediatly from God that is to say that the father of the body is one and the father of the soule is another that the soule is not a bodily substance but a spirit and a light that at the departure therof from hence it is to goe to a Paradice therfore ought to make haste unto death and that it is so far from mortality that it maketh even the body Immortall what can wee say more at this day even in the time of light wherin we live of the same opoinion was Hordelitus as is reported by Philolaus Clement of Alexandria Of Epicharmus we have this saying if thou beest a good man in thy heart death can doe thee noe harme for thy soul shall live happily in heaven It were endlesse to recite al the words of the ancient about this subject conifiming this trueth for of this opinion were Thales Anaxagoras Diogenes and Zeno Lucretius Socrates Xenophon read Plato his Timaeus his commonwealth his Phadon his Politicks his laws Aristotle his books of living things of the soul his morralls Michael of Ephesus upon his morrals Cicero his Tusculaves his Comforts his nature of the gods his first booke of lawes his Scipios dreame Seneca to Gallio to Lucillius concerning the Lady Martiaes son the shortnes of his life his book of comforts Prophririus 4. booke of abstinence Plutarke these ancient For moderne Philosophers Epictetus Simplicius Plotinus lib. 1. Aenead 4. concerning the being of the soule lib. 2. Chapter 1. lib. 3. Chapter 18. 14. 20. 21. 23. lib. 4. Chapter 11. and the 7. Book throughout his book of the senses memory his Bk. of doubts concerning the soule these and thousands more confirme the point
made the mixture of these bodies hath for the perfecting our body beyond nature breathed a soul into it to be short the property of a body is to suffer the property of a soule is to doe if the body be not put forth by some other thing then it selfe it is a very blocke whereas the soul which is in our body ceaseth not to stirre up down though it have nothing to move it from without therefore it is to be concluded fom these reasons and the like that might be alleaged that the soule is a substance incorporeall unbodily notwithstanding it be united to our bodies Thirdly as our soule is a substance unbodily 3 Immateriall so is it unmateriall likewise that appeareth first because matter receiveth not any forme or shape but according to his owne quantity and but only one forme at once wheras our soule receiveth all formes without quantity come there never so many at once or never so greate Secondly no matter receiveth contrary formes at once but our soule comprehendeth and receiveth them together as fire and water heat cold white and blacke and not only together but also better by laying and matching of them together Lastly to be short it appeares that the soule is not materiall seeing the more we depart from matter the more we understand surely there is nothing more contrary to the substance of the soule then the nature of matter then is this reasonable soule of ours neither a bodily nor a materiall thing nor depending upon matter in the best action thereof then must needs be of it selfe and not proceed from body or matter for what can a body bring forth but a body matter but matter and materialls but materialls and therfore the soule is an unmateriall substance which hath being of it selfe 4 Imomrtall and incorruptible Plutarke de sera â—uminis vindicta tractat Fourthly the soule as it is a substance incorporeall immateriall so is it incorruptible and immortall Plutarke saith it is in vaine to dispute thereof for saith he the doctrine of Gods providence that of the immortallity of the soule are so lincked together that take away the one the other follows God grant that experience prove not Plutarkes words true in some now living for saith he to what purpose was the world created if there were no body to behold it or to what end behold we the creatures in the world but to serve him and why should wee serve upon no hope and to what end hath he endewed us with these rare gifts of his which for the most part doe but put us to paine and trouble in this life if we perish like the bruit beasts which know not God But because all are not of Plutarkes mind wee will see if we can satisfie the contrary minded by reason for the better satisfying of those who take not so much paines as to enter into themselves I shall indeavour to paint out to them their right shapes by lively reason which they have defaced by ignorance and therefor now to the purpose First I shewed before that the soule is not a body neither increaseth nor decreaseth with the body but contrary wise the more the body decreaseth the more the understanding increaseth the neerer the body draweth to death the more freely doth the mind understand the more the body abateth the more powerfull is the mind why then should we thinke that the thing which becommeth the stronger by the weaknesse of the body which is advanced by the decay of the body should perish to dust with the body a mans seeing fails because his eyes faile but the blind mans understanding encreaseth because his eyes are not busied and the old mans reason becommeth more perfect by the losse of his sight therefore why say we not that the body failleth the soule but the soule faileth not the body that the glasses are out of the spectacles but the eyes good still Objoct 1 But Mans mortality pag. 13. saith R.O. the part or member is endowed with the faculty so seeing is in the eye naturally really and not the soule sees by the eye and hearing locally in the eare and so common sence judgment memory locally adherent to and inherent in their places hee proveth it with this frigid argument because if the member be perished the sence falles Answ To which I answer if the ey be the thing that seeth and the eare the thing that heareth why doe we not see things double and heare sounds double seeing wee have two eys two ears it is the soul then that seeth heareth and these which hee taketh to be our sences are but the instruments of our sences for when our eys are shut or pickt out we then behold a thousand things in our mind yea and then our understanding is most quick sighted when the quickest of our eye-sight is as good as quenched or quite dead how is it possible that the reasonable soule should be tied to the sences what a worthy reason is it to say the soule dyeth with the sence seeing the true sences do grow increas even then when the instruments of the sences doe die Also I pproved before that the soule is not the body nor any part of the body seeing then it is so why measure we that by the body which measureth al bodies or make that to dye with the body wherby the bodies that died many hundred yeares agoe do after a certaine manner live still or who can hurt that thing whom nothing hurteth or hindreth in that body though a man loose an arme yet doth his soule remaine whole stil let a man forgoe the one halfe of his body yet is his soule as sound as before for it is united in its owne substance by the force and power of its selfe it sheddeth it self into all parts of the body though the body rot a way by peice meale yet abideth the soule whole undiminished let the blood drain out the moving wax weake the strength perish yet abideth the mind sound lively it never forsakes its lodging till there be no roome left for it to lodge in when our sences are overcome by death then it doth most labour to surmount it selfe working as goodly Godly actions at that time when the body is at poynt to faile it yea and oftentimes more godly too then ever it did while the body was in health as for example it taketh order for it selfe for our houshold for the commonwealth for a whole kingdome that with more uprightnesse goodnesse wisedome and modration then ever it did before yea and perchance in a body so far spent so bare so consumed so withered without and so putrified within that he that lookes upon him sees nothing but earth and yet to hear him speake would ravish a man up to heaven now when a man sees so lively a soule in so weake and wretched a body may he