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
and the seperation of the soule from the body is commonly called death now then what death can there be of the soule seeing it is immateriall death must worke upon a matter or nothing for as one saith a man may take away the roundnesse or squarnesse of a table of copper because they have no abiding but in the matter but had that or any thing else such a round or square forme as might have abiding without matter or stuffe wherein to be out of all doubt such a forme or shape should continue for ever nay which is more how can that be the corrupter of a thing which is the perfection thereof the lesse our minds are tyed to these bodily things the more lively and cheerfull they be at a word the full and perfect life thereof is the full and perfect with-drawing thereof from the body and whatsoever the body is made of and this follow by direct consequence from the former All these things are so clear that they need no proofe for wee know that every thing worketh according to the proper being thereof and that same which perfecteth the operations of a thing perfecteth the being thereof also it followeth therefore that seeing the seperation of the body from the soule and of the forme from the matter perfecteth the operation or working of the soule as I said before it doth also make perfect strengthen the very being thereof and therefore cannot in any wise corrupt it and what else is dying but to bee corrupted and what else is corrupting but suffering and what else is suffering but receiving and how can that which receiveth all things without suffering receive corruption by any thing fire corrupteth and marreth our bodies and we suffer in receiving it so also doth extreame cold but if wee suffered nothing by it it could not freeze us our sences likewise are marred by the successive force of the things that they light upon and that is because they receive and perceive the thing that grieveth them and for the manner of their behaving themselves towards their objects is subject to suffering but as the reasonable soul which receiveth al things after one manner that is by the way of understanding by which it alway worketh and is never wrought into how is it possible for it to corrupt or marre it selfe For what is the thing whereof our Soule suffereth ought in the substance thereof I meane where by the substance of our soule is any way impaired or hurt by minding or conceiving the same in understanding as little doth the fire hurt it as the ayre and the ayre as the fire as little hurt receiveth it from the frozen Ice of Groenland as from the scorching sands of Africk as little also doth vice annoy it as vertue for vice and vertue are so farre off from incumbring the substance of the soule that our mind doth never conceive or understand them better then by setting together one against the other that thing therefore which doth no whit impaire it selfe but taketh the ground of perfecting it selfe by all things cannot be marred or hurt by any thing In the Second place I said death is the uttermost poynt of moving and the uttermost poynt of this life for even in living we dye in dying we live there is not that step that we make in this life but wee step forward unto death after the manner of a diall or a clocke which endeth its moving in moving from minut to minut take a way moving from a bod it liveth no longer now let us see if the soule also be caryed with the same moving if it be it may dy with the body if not it cannot but we see it moves not with thâ—… body nay we see the contrary a man may have his mind as free as an Emperour though his body be in prison whether the mind rest or whether it be busied bout the proper operations thereof it is not perceived either by the panting of the hart or by the beating of the pulses or by the breathing of the lunges the body carries the soule about like a ship the sticking fast therof or the tying of it to a post hinders not our going up and down in it still Fourthly if the soule be subject to the finall coruption of the body it must needs be subject to the alteration therof also and if it be subject to alterations it is subject to time also for alterations or change are consequents of moving and moving is not made without time now time past in respect of the body cannot be called againe but in respect of the mind it is alwaies present yea and time perfecteth accomplisheth and encreaseth our mind and refresheth it from day to day whereas contrary wise it sorely weareth wasteth away and quit consumeth the body It follws then that the soule is not subject to those changes and corruption that alter the body therefore cannot dy with it Fifth It appears that the soul is immortal incorruptible because it lives by incorruptible things nothing in the world is nourished by things better then it selfe neither doth any of them containe greater things then it selfe but the things that are corruptible doe live of corruptible things and cannot live without corrupting them as for example beasts live by herbs men by beasts both by corrupting them turne them to nourishment of their nature and therefore things that live by incorruptible things and can so disgist them as to turne them into the nourishment of their nature yet not corrupt them are incorruptible themselves too Now the reason able soule or mind of man conceiveth reason and truth and is fed and strengthened with them and reason and truth are things unchangable not subiect to time place or alteration or any thing else that may or can breed corruption but are stedy unchangable and everlasting for that twice two is fowr that there is the same reason in the proportion of eight to six that there is from four to three or that in a triangle the three inner angles are equall to the two right angles and truthes that neither years nor thousands of yeares can chang as true at this day as they were when Euclid first spake them as true in our schooles as in his it followeth then that the Soule comprehending reason and trueth which are things free from coruption cannot it selfe in any wise be subject to corruption And in the sixt and last place we might fitly bring in such an argument as we did in the first Chap. viz. if all that is in us were mortall and transitory we should never question what immortality is for of contraryes the skill is all one if a man had no actuall life or had it only by promise were it only a mortall life hee could not dispute of it till he had it actually neither by the same argument could he speake of immortallity were he not immortall but of this more before therefore I Passe it
quite freed from the body But Object say they wee see men forgoe their reason as fooles and melancholly persons and seeing it is forgone it may also be corrupted and if corrupted it may also die for what is death but an utter and full corruption Nay thou shouldst say rather I have seen divers who have seemed to have lost their right wits have recovered them againe by good diet and medicinable drinks but had they beene utterly lost and gone no physick could have restored them againe therefore of necessity the soule was as sound as before it was but like an ecclypse of the Sunne it seems be dimmed but it is but by the comming of the Moone betweene him and us in his light there is no abatement at all but only quoad nos likewise our eye conceiveth things according to the spectacles through which it looketh upon them take away the Moon or clouds and the Sun shineth cleare take away the impediments the eye seeth clear purge away the humours our imaginations shall be pure and our understanding as bright as ever it fareth not with our soules as it doth with our bodies which after a long sicknesse retaine still either a hardnesse of the spleene or a shortnesse of the breath weaknesse of body or a falling downe of Rheume upon the lungs nor as a wound that retaineth a scarre which cannot be worne out for neither in their understanding nor in their wils doe our soules feele any abatement and this appeareth in lunatick folks and others who have their wits troubled at times and by fits for they be not vexed but at the stirring of their humour being at other times sober and well enough staid in their wits the like is seen in them that have the falling sicknesse their understanding seemes only to be ecclipsed during the time of their fits but afterward they be as discreet as though they ayled nothing you shall never see any body out of his wits in whom the Physician may not manifestly perceive either some default of tht instruments or some overflowing of some melancholly humour that troubled and marred his body before it troubled or impaired his mind To be short whosoever saith that mans soul perisheth with the body because it is troubled by the distemperature or indisposition of the body may as well uphold and maintaine that the Child in his mothers wombe dieth with his mother because he moveth with her and is partaker with her in her harmes and throws by reason of the straight conjunction that is between them and yet we see many children have lived safe and sound notwithstanding their mothers have died yea and some of them have come into the world Object even by the death of their mothers Lastly whereas some say that our minds cannot conceive any thing here but by the helpe of the imagination and therfore when the imagination is gone with the instruments whereto it is tyed the soule can not worke nor consequently be To this I answer that it is all one as if they should say that because the child being in his mothers womb taketh nourishment of her blood by his navill therefore he cannot live when he is come out of her womb and his navill strings cut off when wee see that then is the time that the mouth and the tongue and the other parts of the Child doe their dutie which served before to no purpose saving that they were prepared for the time to come even so the soule being scaped out of the body as a Child out of the wombe shall begin to performe his operations by himselfe and that more certainely for that it shall not bee subject to false reports neither to the sences inward or outward but to the very things themselves which it shall have seene and learned in it selfe To be short it shall live but not in prison it shall see but not through spectacles it shall understand but not by reports it shall will but not by the way of lusting the infirmities which the body casteth upon it now shall then be done away Let us conclude then that our soule is an understanding reasonable power over which death or corruption have no power If any man yet doubt thereof let him but examine himselfe for even his owne doubts will prove it to him If he stand in contention still let him fall to reasoning with himselfe for by concluding his Arguments to prove his soule mortall hee shall give judgement himselfe that it is immortall If I have left out any thing that might bee alleaged for who is able to alleage all in justification of any point let it suffice that here is sufficient for the satisfaction of the ingenuous If any be otherwise minded let him see how they can answer these my aforesaid Arguments Consider vvhat I have writen and the Lord give you a right understanding Scriptures to prove the being of the Soule after it is seperated from the Body and before the Resurrection I Am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is farre better neverthelesse to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you Phil. 1.23.24 heer 's a being with Christ after a departure And to abide in the flesh why is this added if there were not an abiding out of the flesh before the resurrection Math 10.28 Feare not them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soule but rather feare him that is able to cast both body and Soule into Hell Heer 's a body that may be killed a soule that cannot be killed but to evade thes R O makes a great puzle to prove noe hell till the resurrection a lusty strong superlogicall argument there is noe hell till the resurrection Ergo man hath noe Immortall soule Risum teneatis amici might not his Dromodoticall argument be rightly retorted backe heer upon himselfe 2. Cor 5.6.8 Therefore wee are alwais confident knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. The words are so plaine they need noe explanation but hold forth the immortallity of the soule as cleere as the snnne at no one day Luke 23.43 Verile I say unto thee this day thou shalt be with me in paradice Is this the word of God may a man build his faith upon it then both Christ and the penitentiall theife were that day in parradice there bodies were not there then their soules must unlsse any should say parradice is in the grave which is as rediculous as false Eccles 12.7 Then shall dust returne to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it A scripture beyond exception heere is soule body described by their originall by their pedegree the one taken from the earth to it it must returne the other comes from Iehovah and to him it shall returne who is not the God of the dead but of the living FINIS
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
of sence so mightily doth reason over-rule sence To be short sence hath his peculiar inclination which is appetite and reason likewise hath his which is will and like as reason doth oftentimes over-rule sence and is contrary to it so will correcteth the apetite or lust that is in us warrath against it for in Agues and feavers wee covet to drink in Apoplexies and Bethargies to sleepe and in hunger to eate yet from all these things doth our will restraine us the more a man follows his lust the lesse is he led by his will for no man wils to be miserable which lust leads him too the more he standeth upon pleasing of his sences the lesse reason ordinarily useth he Secondly let us consider that bruit beasts which have this sensitive part as well as we if wee have no more then that how comes it to passe that a little child driveth whole flocks and herds of them vvhether hee listeth sometimes whether they would not wherof commeth it that many of them in their kind doe all live nestle and sing after one sort whereas men have their Laws Common-wealths manners of buildings and formes of reasoning not only divers but also commonly contrary now what can harbour these contrarieties together but only that which hath not any thing contrary to it and wherein all things doe lay away their contrariety Surely it is not the sence can doe it whose proper and peculiar object is most contrary to sence Beside this as I said before whereas we conceive wisedome skill and vertue and such other things as are all bodilesse our sences can worke upon nothing but the qualities of bodily substances and whereas wee make universall rules of particular things the sences attaine no further then the particular things themselves and whereas wee conclude of the causes by the effects our sences perceive nothing but the bare effects so that hee that denieth that besides the common sence there is a reason or understanding in Man distinct and severed from sence is void both of understanding and sence Yea Object but this reason say they or power of understanding which is in Man is corruptible as well as the power of perceiving by the sences I thinke I have proved the contrary already nevertheles let us examin the reason a little further The forme or shape of every thing say they doth perish with the matter Now the soule is as they would say the forme or shape of the body therefore it corrupteth with the body This Argument were rightly concluded if the soule were a materiall forme but I have proved that the soule is immortall and hath a continuance of it selfe and indeed the more it is discharged of matter the more it retaineth his own particular forme therefore the corrupting of the matter toucheth not the soule at all Another saith if dead mens soules live still why doe none of them come to tell us so And Answ now he thinketh he hath stumbled upon a very subtle device Christ answers Luke 16. ult yet we will see a little the rationality or rather the irrationality of it viz. of the objection What intercourse I pray is there betweene things that have bodies and things that have none wee see there is small or no intercourse betweene some Kingdomes under the Sunne But we would have God send us soules from Heaven to make us beleeve as who should say it stood God greatly in hand to make us beleeve more then it did us that we should beleeve in effect what else is all this but a desiring that some man might returne againe into his Mothers wombe to encourage young babes against the bitter pinches and paines which they abide in the birth which he would no lesse abhorre then wee doe death if he had the knowledge of them Object But they will still beare us in hand that seeing the vegetive and sensitive powers be corrupted and perish the understanding or reasonable part must needs perish by the same rule also To this in a word I answer this is all one Answ as if a man should say you told me such a man was a very religious man a good Fencer and a good Musician but now he hath lost his right hand he can neither handle sword nor lute how then can hee be a religious man still as you reported him to be nay though he loose Instruments yet ceaseth he not to be an honest man yea and a Fencer and Lute-player too in respect of skill likewise when our soules have forgone these exercises yet cease they not to be the same they were before To make this a little cleare yet of the powers of the soule some are exercised by the instruments of the body othersome without any helpe or furtherance of the body at all These which are exercised by the body are the sences and powers of the sences and the powers of the growing which may carry the same like answer that is betweene a Musician and his Lute Breake his Lute his cunning remaineth but his putting it in practice faileth give him another Lute and he fals to playing againe afresh Give unto the oldest Hag in the world the same eyes he had when he was young he shall see as well as ever he did after the same manner it is with the growing and thriving power the vegative power in man restore to it a good stomack a sound Liver and a perfect heart it shall execute its function as well as ever it did before The power which worketh of it selfe without the body is the power of reason and understanding which if wee will wee may call the mind but if you still doubt thereof consider when thou mindest a thing earnestly what thy body furthereth thy mind therein and thou shalt perceive that the more fixedly thou thinkest upon it the lesse thou mindest the things before thee in so much that many times the earnestnesse of his thoughts drives a man that is going out of his way as who should say that the workings of the body are the greatest impediments that can be to the peculiar acts of the mind nay which is more this understanding part groweth so much the stronger and greater the lesse it is occupied busied about these base and contemptible things and is altogether drawne home wholly to it selfe as is plainly seene in those that want their eyes whose minds are commonly most apt to understand and most firme to remember do we debate of a thing in our selves neither our bodies nor sences are busied about it doe wee will the same as little doe they stir for that too to understand and to will which are the operations of the mind the soule hath no need of the body as for working and being they accompany one another saith Aristotle Therefore to continue still in being the soule hath not to doe with the body nor any need of the body therefore for the soule to act well or to be well it had need be