receive and derive this Nature Nature I say first fallen for unto Nature Innocent belonged Originall Righteousnesse and not Originall sinne 2. Nature derived by ordinary generation as the fruit of the loynes and of the womb For though Christ had our Nature yet hee had not our sinne 3. Nature whole and entire For neither part as some conceive is the Totall spring and fountain of this sinne For it is improbable that any staine should be transfused from the Body to the Soul as from the foule vessell to the cleane water put into it The Body it selfe being not Soly and alone in it selfe corrupt and sinfull else all Abortions and miscarrying conceptions should be subject to damnation Nothing is the seat of sin which cannot be the seat of Death the wages of sinne Originall sinne therefore most probably seemeth to arise by Emanation partiall in the parts totall in the whole from Mans Nature as guilty forsaken and accursed by God for the sinne of Adam And from the parts not considered absolutely in themselves but by vertue of their concurrence and Vnion whereby both make up one compounded Nature Though then the Soule be a partiall subject or seat of Originall sinne yet wee have not our sinne and our soule from one Author because sinne followes not the part but the Nature whole and entire And though we have not from our Parents Totum naturae yet we have totam naturam wee have our whole nature though not every part of our nature Even as whole Christ was the Son of Mary who therefore by vertue of the Communication of properties in Christ is justly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of God against the Nestorians in the Councell of Chalcedon Though in regard of his divine Nature he was without beginning the reason is because the integrity of Nature ariseth from the Vnion of the two parts together which is perfected by Generation so then wee say that Adam is the Originall and meritorious cause Our next Parents the instrumentall and immediate cause of this sinne in us not by way of Physicall Emission or Transmigration of sinne from them to us but by secret contagion as S. Augustine speaks For having in the Manner aforesaid from Adam by our Parents received a nature most justly forsaken by God and lying under the Guilt and Curse of the first praevarication from this Nature thus derived as guilty and accursed doth immediately and intimately flow Habituall pollution So then Habituall Concupiscence is from Adam alone meritoriously by reason of his first praevarication From Adam by the mediation of our Parents seminally by naturall generation And from Nature generated not as Nature but as in Adam guilty forsaken and accursed by secret and ineffable Resultancy and Emanation This is that which I conceive of this Great difficulty not unmindfull in the meane time of that speech of S. Augustine That there is nothing more certaine to be knowne and yet nothing more secret to be understood than Originall sinne For other Arguments to prove the Traduction of the Soul they are not of such moment And therefore I passe them by and proceed to the consideration of the Soule in its Nature CHAP. XXXIII Of the Image of God in the Reasonable soule in regard of its simplicity and spirituality COncerning the dignity of the soule in its nature and essence Reason hath adventured thus farre to confesse that the soule of man is in some sort a spark and beame of divine brightnesse And a greater and more infallible Oracle hath warranted that it was breathed into him by God himselfe and was made after his Image and likenesse not substantially as if there were a Real Emanation and Traduction of the Soule out of God which were blasphemous and impious to conceive but only by way of Resemblance and imitation of God properties in mans originall created nature which is more notable in him than in the otheâ—… parts of the world there is indeed in all God works some kind of image and lineaments anâ—… footsteps of his glory Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque Tractusque maris Coelumque profundum c. For all the tracts of Earth of Sea and Sky Are filled with divine immensity The whole world is a great book wherein we read the praise glory power and infinitenesse of him that made it but man is after a more peculiar manner called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the image and glory of God the greater world is only Gods workmanship wherein is represented the wisdom and power of God as in a building the Art and cunning of the workman but man in the originall purity of nature is besides that as wax wherein was more notably impressed by that divine spirit whose work it is to seale a spirituall resemblance of his owne goodnesse and sanctity Againe the greater world was never other than an Orator to set forth the power and praises of God but he made the soule of man in the beginning as it were his Oracle wherein he fastned a perfect knowledge of his law and will from the very glimpses and corrupted Reliques of which Knowledge of his Law some have beene bold to call men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the kindred of God And Senec. Liber Animus Diis cognatus which is the same with that of Aratus cited by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for wee are his off-spring yea Euripides as Tully in his * Tusculans observes was bold to call the soule of man by the name of God and Seneca will venture so farre too Quid aliud vocas animum quà m deum in humano corpore hospitantem But to forbeare such boldnesse as it may be one of the Originals of heathen Idolatry Certaine it is that there are as Tully many times divinely observes sundry similitudes betweene God and the minde of man There are indeed some Attributes of God not only incommunicable but absolutely inimitable and unshadowable by any excellency in mans soule as immensity infinitenesse omnipotency omniscience immutability impassibility and the like but whatsoever spirituall and Rationall perfections the power bounty of God conferr'd upon the soule in its first Creation are all of them so many shadowes and representations of the like but most infinite perfections in him The Properties then and Attributes of God wherein this Image chiefely consists are first these three Spirituality with the two immediate consequents thereof Simplicity and Immortality in which the soule hath partaked without any after corruption or depravation Concerning the former it were vast and needlesse to confute those sundry opinions of ancient Philosophers concerning the substance of the soule many where of Tully in the first of his Tusculans hath reported And Aristotle confuted in his first de Anima Some conceived it to be blood others the braine some fire others ayre some that it consists in Harmony and Number and the Philosopher
Object that is understood Because as the Wax after it is stamped is in some sort the very Seale it selfe that stamp'd it namely Representative by way of Image and resemblance so the Soule in receiving the species of any Object is made the picture and image of the thing it selfe Now the understanding being able to apprehend immortality yea indeed apprehending every corporeall substance as if it were immortall I meane by purging it from all grosse materiall and corruptible qualities must therefore needs of it selfe be of an immortall Nature And from the latter of those two Principles which I spake of namely that the quality of the Being may be gathered from the Nature of the Operation Aristotle inferres the separability and independance of the understanding on the Body in the third de Animâ afore-named For the Soule being able to work without the concurrence of any bodily Organ to the very act it selfe as was before shewed must needs also be able to subsist by its owne nature without the concurrence of any matter to sustaine it And therefore hee saith in the same place that the understanding is separable uncompounded impassible all arguments of immortality Other reasons are produced for the proofe hereof taken from the causes of corruption which is wrought either by Contraries working and eating out Nature or by Defect of the Preserving cause as light is decayed by absence of the Sunne or thirdly by corruption of the subject whereon it depends None whereof can be verified in the Soule For first how can any thing be contrary to the Soule which receiveth perfection from all things for Intellectus omnia intelligit saith Aristotle yea wherein all Contraries are reconciled and put off their Opposition For as a great man excellently speaketh those things which destroy one another in the World maintaine and perfect one another in the Minde one being a meanes for the clearer apprehension of the other Secondly God who is the only Efficient of the Soule being else in it selfe simple and indivisible and therefore not capable of death but only of Annihilation doth never faile and hath himselfe promised never to bring it unto nothing And lastly the Soule depends not as doe other Formes either in Operation or Being on the Body being not only Actus informans but subsistens too by its owne absolute vertue CHAP. XXXV Of the Honour of Humane Bodies by Creation by Resurrection of the Endowments of Glorified Bodies ANd now that this particular of immortality may farther redound both to the Honour and comfort of Man I must fall upon a short digression touching mans Body wherein I intend not to meddle with the Question How mans Body may be said to be made after the Image of God which sure is not any otherwise than as it is a sanctified and shall be a Blessed Vessell but not as some have conceited as if it were in Creation Imago Christi futuri nec Dei opus tantum sed Pignus As if Christ had beene the patterne of our Honour and not wee of his Infirmity since the Scripture saith Hee was made like unto us in all things and that he Assumed our Nature but never that we were but that we shall be like unto him not I say to meddle with this I will only briefly consider the Dignity thereof in the particular of immortality both in the first structure and in the last Resurrection of it The Creation of our Bodies and the Redemption of our Bodies as the Apostle calls it What Immunity was at first given and what Honour shall at last be restored to it In which latter sense it shall certainly be Secundum Imaginem after his Image who was Primitiae the First fruits of them that rise That as in his Humility his Glory was hid in our Mortality so in our Exaltation our Mortality shall be swallowed up of his Glory And for the first estate of Mans Body we conclude in a word that it was partly Mortall and partly Immortall Mortall in regard of possibility of Dying because it was affected with the mutuall Action and Passion of corruptible elements for which reason it stood in need of reparation and recovery of it selfe by food as being still Corpus Animale and not Spirituale as St. Paul distinguisheth a Naturall but not a Spirituall Body But it was Immortall that is Exempted from the Law of Death and Dissolution of the Elements in vertue of Gods Covenant with man upon condition of his Obedience It was Mortall Conditione Corporis by the Condition of a Body but immortall Beneficio Conditoris by the Benefit of its Creation else God had planted in the Soule such naturall desires of a Body wherein to work as could not be naturally attained For the Soule did naturally desire to remaine still in the body In the naturall Body of Adam there was no sin and therefore no death which is the wages of sinne I come now to the Redemption of our Bodies already performed in Pignore in Primiâ—…its In our Head in some few of his Members Enoch Ellas and as is probable in those dead Bodies which arose to testifie the Divine power of our crucified Saviour and shall be totally accomplished at that day of Redemption as the same Apostle calls the Last day that day of a full and finall Redemption when Death the last enemy shall be overcome And well may it be called a day of Redemption not only in regard of the Creature which yet groaneth under the Malediction and Tyrannie of sinfull Man nor yet only in respect of Mans Soule which though it be before admitted unto the purchased Possession of the Glorifying Vision and lives no more by Faith alone but by sight shall yet then receive a more abundant fulnesse thereof as being the day of the Manifestation and plenary discovery both of the Punishing Glory of God in the Wicked and of his Merciful and Admirable Glory in the Saints but also and as I think most especially in respect of the Body For there is by vertue of that Omnipotent Sacrifice a double kinde of Redemption wrought for us The one Vindicative giving us Immunity from all spirituall dangers delivering us from the Tyrannie of our Enemies from the Severity Justice and Curse of the Law which is commonly in the New Testament called simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Deliverance from evill The other Purchasing or Munificent by not only freeing us from our own wretchednesse but farther conferring upon us a Positive and a Glorious Honour which St. Iohn calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Power Priviledge Prerogative and Title unto all the Glorious Promises of Immortality which like wise St. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Redemption of a purchased Possession and a Redemption unto the Adoption of Sonnes Now then the Last day is not Totally and Perfectly a day of Redemption unto our Soules in either
or to retaine any the least Prints of those Pure and Divine Impressions of Originall Righteousnesse yet still there remaines even in depraved and Polluted Nature fome shadowes thereof There is stil the Opus Operatum in many Actions of Mortality though the Obliquity of the Heart and Ignorance of the true end whether it should be directed take away the Goodnesse and the Sanctity thereof The top and highest pitch of Nature toucheth the hemme and lowest of Grace We have in us the Testimonies though not the Goodnesse of our first estate the Ruines of a Temple to be lamented though not the holy Places thereof to be Inhabited It is true indeed those great endowments of the most severe and illightned Heathen were indeed but glorious miseries and withered Vertues in that they proceeded from a depraved Nature and aymed at sinister and false ends yet withall both the corruption of them proves their praecedent losse which also the Heathen themselves espied in their distinction of Ages into Golden and Iron times And likewise the pursuit and practice of them though weak imperfect corrupt imply manifestly that there was much more an Originall Aspiring of Nature in her perfection to be like her Maker in an absolute and universall Purity Now in this Rectitude and Perfect Regularity of the Soule in this divine Habit of Originall Justice did man most eminently beare the Image and Signature of God on him And therefore notwithstanding we continue still Immortall Spirituall Reasonable yet we are said to have defaced that Image in us by our hereditary Pollution And hee alwayes recovereth most thereof who in the greatest measure repaireth the ruines and vindicateth the Lapses of his decayed estate unto that prime Originall Purity wherein he was Created These are the Dignities of the Soule considered wholy in it selfe In all which it farre surmounts the greatest perfections which the Body or any Faculty thereof are endowed withall And yet such is the preposterous and unnaturall basenesse of many men that they are content to make their Soules vassals to their owne Servant How do they force their Understandings which in their owne worthiest objects those deepe and Divine Contemplations are as drowzie as Endymion to spend and waste themselves in proud luxurious vanishing Inventions How doe they enthrall that Supreame and Architectonicall Power in Mans little World his Will to the Tyrannie of slavish appetite and sensuall desires as if they served here but as Cookes to dresse their owne Bodies for the Wormes Strange is it that Man conscious to himselfe of Immortality and of an Heroicall and Heavenly complexion that hath received such immediate Impressions of God and is the very Modell of all Natures Perfections should so much degrade himselfe as to doat only on that part which is the vassall and slave of Death If there were no other mischife which sinne did the Soule but to debase it even that were argument sufficient for noble spirits to have it in detestation For man being in honour and which understandeth not is like the beasts that perish CHAP. XXXVII Of the Faculty of Vnderstanding Its operations outward upon the Object Inward upon the Will Of Knowledge What it is The naturall Desire and Love of it Apprehension Iudgement Retention requisite unto right Knowledge Severall kindes of Knowledge The Originall Knowledge given unto Man in his Creation The Benefits of Knowledge Of Ignorance Naturall Voluntary Penall Of Curiosity Of Opinion the Causes of it Disproportion betweene the Object and the Faculty and an Acute Versatilousnesse of Conceits The benefit of Modest Hesitancie NOw it followes to speak of the parts or principall powers of the Soule which are the Vnderstanding and the Will Concerning the Understanding the Dignity thereof though it may partly be perceived in the Latitude and excellent Variety of its Objects being the whole world of things for Ens Intelligibile are reciprocall omnia intelligit saith Aristotle of the understanding yet principally it proceeds from the Operations of it both Ad extra in respect of the Objects and ad intra in respect of the Will The one is a Contemplative the other a more Practique office whereby the speculations of the former are accommodated unto any either Morall or Civill Actions Those which respect the Objects are either Passive or Active Operations Passive I call those first Perceptions and apprehensions of the Soule whereby it receiveth the simple species of some Object from immediate Impression thereof by the Ministry of the Soule as when I understand one Object to be a Man another a Tree by Administration and Assistance of the Eye which presents the Species of either Another sort of Passive Operations that is of such as are grounded on Impressions received from Objects are mixed Operations of Compounding Dividing Collecting Concluding which wee call Discourse Of all which to speake according to their Logicall Nature would be impertinent Their Excellencie chiefly stands in the End whereunto they move and serve which is Knowledge of the which I shall therefore here speak a few things Knowledge is the Assimilation of the Understanding unto the things which it understandeth by those Intelligible Species which doe Irrâ—…diate it and put the power of it into Act. For as the beames of the Sunne shining on a glasse doe there work the Image of the Sunne so the species and resemblances of things being convayed on the Understanding doe there work their owne Image In which respect the Philosopher saith That the Intellect becommeth All things by being capable of proper impressions from them As in a Painters Table wee call that a face a hand a foot a tree which is the lively Image and Representation of such things unto the eye There is not any Desire more noble nor more Naturall unto a Man who hath not like Saul hid himselfe amongst the stuffe and lost himselfe in the Low and perishing provisions for Lust than is this Desire of Knowledge Nature dictating to every Creature to be more intent upon its Specificall than upon its Genericall perfection And hence it is that though Man be perfectest of all Creatures yet many doe excell him in sensitive Perfection Some in exquisitenesse of Sight others of Hearing others of Tast Touch and Smell others of Swiftnesse and of Strength Nature thereby teaching us to imitate her in perfecting and supplying of our Desires not to terminate them there where when wee have made the best Provision wee can many Beasts will surpasse us but to direct our Diligence most to the improving of our owne specificall and rationall perfection to wit our Understandings Other Faculties are tyred and will be apt to nauseate and surfet on their Objects But Knowledge as knowledge doth never either burden or cloy the Minde no more than a Covetous man is wearied with growing Rich And therefore the Philosopher telleth us that Knowledge is the Rest of the Vnderstanding wherein it taketh delight as a Thing in its naturall Place
like an Itch or Vicer in the Body which is with the same nayles both angered and delighted and hath no pleasure but with vexation Thirdly they are ever attended with Repentance both because in promises they disappoint and in performances they deceive and when they make offers of pleasure do expire in pains as those delicates which are sweet in the mouth are many times heavy in the stomacke and after they have pleased the Palat doe torment the bowels The Minde surfets on nothing sooner than on unnaturall Desires Fourthly for this reason they are ever changing and making new experiments as weake and wanton stomacks which are presently cloy'd with an uniforme dyet and must have not onely a painefull but a witty Cooke whose inventions may be able with new varieties to gratifie and humour the nicenesse of their appetite As Nero had an officer who was called Elegantiae Arbiter the inventor of new Lusts for him Lastly unlimited Desires are for the most part Envious and Malignant For he who desires every thing cannot chuse but repine to see another have that which himselfe wanteth And therefore Dionysius the Tyrant did punish Philoxenus the Musitian because he could sing and Plato the Philosopher because he could dispute better than himselfe In which respect hee did wisely who was contented not to be esteemed a better Orator than he who could command thirty legions Secondly unbounded Desires doe worke Anxiety and Perturbation of Minde and by that means disappoint Nature of that proper end which this Passion was ordained unto namely to be a means of obtaining some further good whereas those Desires which are in their executions Turbid or in their continuance Permanent are no more likely to lead unto some farther end than either a misty and darke or a winding and circular way is to bring a Man at last unto his journeyes end whereof the one is dangerous the other vaine And together with this they doe distract our noble Cares and quite avert our thoughts from more high and holy desires Martha her Many things and Maries One thing will very hardly consist together Lastly there is one Corruption more in these unlimited Desires they make a man unthankfull for former benefits as first because Caduca memoria fâ—…turo imminentium It is a strong presumption that he seldome looks backe upon what is past who is earnest in pursuing some thing to come It is S. Pauls Profession and Argument in a matter of greater consequence I forget those things which are behind and reach forth unto those things which are before And secondly though a man should looke backe yet the thoughts of such a benefit would be but sleight and vanishing because the Mind finding present content in the liberty of a roving Desire is marvellous unwilling to give permanent entertainment unto thoughts of another Nature which likewise were they entertained would be rather thoughts of murmuring than of thankful fulnesse every such man being willing rather to conceive the benefit small than to acknowledge the vice and vastnesse of his owne Desires The next rule which I observed for the government of these Passions do respect those Higher and more glorious Objects of Mans Felicity And herein 1 Our Desires are not to be Wavering and In constant but Resolute and full of Quicknesse and Perseverance First because though we be poore and shallow vessels yet so narrow and almost shut up are those passages by which wee should give admittance unto the matter of our true happines yea so full are we already of contrary qualities as that our greatest vehemency wil not be enough either to empty our selves of the one or to fill our selves with the other And therefore the true Desires of this Nature are in the Scripture set forth by the most patheticall and strong similitudes of Hunger and Thirst and those not common neither but by the pantâ—…ng of a tyred Hart after the rivers of water and the gaping of the dry ground after a seasonable showre Secondly overy desirable Object the higher it goes is ever the more united within it selfe and drives the faster unto an unity It is the property of Errours to be at variance whereas Truth is One and all the parts thereof doe mutually strengthen and give light unto each other So likewise in things Good the more noble the more knit they are Scelera disiâ—…dent It is for sinnes to be at variance amongst themselves And those lower Goods of Riches Pleasure Nobility Beauty though they are not Incomparable yet they have no naturall Connexion to each other have therfore the lesse power to draw a conslaâ—… and continued Desire But for nobler and immateriall goods wee see how the Philosopher hath observed a connextion betweene all his morall vertues whereby a man that hath one is naturally drawne to a desire of all the rest for the minde being once acquainted with the sweetnes of one doth not onely apprehend the same sweetnesse in the others but besides findeth it selfe not sufficiently possest of that which it hath unlesse it bee thereby drawne to procure the rest all whose properties it is by an excellent mutuall service to give light and lustre strength and validity and in some sort greater Vnity unto each other And lastly for the highest and divinest good the truth of Religion that is in it selfe most of all other One as being a Beame of that Light and Revelation of that Will which is Vnity it selfe And therefore though we distinguish the Creed into twelve Articles yet Saint Paul calleth them all but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Faith as having but one Lord for the Object and End of them Now then where the parts of good are so united as that the one draweth on the other there is manifestly required united desire to carry the soule thereunto II. The last Rule which I observed was that our Desires ought not to bee faint and sluggish but industrious and painefull both for the arming us to avoid and withstand all oppositions and difficulties which we are every where likely to meet withall in the pursuit of our happinesse and also for the wise and discreet applying of the severall furtherances requisite thereunto And indeed that is no True which is not an Operative Desire a Velleity it may be but a Will it is not For what ever a man will have hee will seek in the use of such meanes as are proper to procure it Children may wish for Mountaines of gold and Balaam may wish for an happy death and an A theist may wish for a soule as earthly in substance as in Affection but these are all the ejaculations rather of a Speculative fancie than of an industrious affection True desires as they are right in regard of their object so are they laborious in respect of their motion And therefore those which are idle and impatient of any paines which stand like the Carman in the Fable
Dicaearchus that it was nothing at all but the body disposed and fitted for the works of life But to let these passe as unworthy of refutation and to proceed to the truth of the first property There are sundry naturall reasons to prove the Spirituality of the soule as first the manner of its working which is immateriall by conceiving objects as universall or otherwise purified from all grosnesse of matter by the Abstraction of the Active understanding whereby they are made in some sort proportionall to the nature of the Intellect Passive into which the species are impressed Secondly it s in dependance on the body in that manner of working for though the operations of the soule require the concurrence of the commonsense and imagination yet that is by way only of conveyance from the object not by way of assistance to the elicite and immediate act They only present the species they doe not qualifie the perception Phantasmata are only objecta operation is the objects they are not instrumenta operandi the instruments of the soules working The Act of understanding is immediatly from the soule without any the least concurrences of the body there unto although the things whereon that act is fixed and conversant require in this estate bodily organs to represent them unto the soule as light doth not at all concurre to the act of seeing which solely and totally floweth from the visive faculty but only serves as an extrinsecall assistance for qualification of the Medium and object that must be seene And this reason Aristotle hath used to prove that the understanding which is principally true of the whole soule is not mixt with any body but hath a nature altogether divers there-from because it hath no bodily organ as all bodily powers have by which it is enabled to the proper acts that belong unto it And hereon is grounded another reason of his to prove the Soule immateriall because it depends not on the body in its operations but educeth them immediately from within it selfe as is more manifest in the Reflexion of the soule upon its owne nature being an operation as hee expresly speaketh seperable there-from the soule being not only actus informans a forme informing for the actuating of a body and constitution of a compound substance but actus subsistens too a forme subsisting And that per se without any necessary dependance upon matter It is an act which worketh as well in the body as whereby the body worketh Another reason of Aristotle in the same place is the difference betweene Materiall and Immateriall powers For saith he all bodily cognoscitive faculties doe suffer offence and dammage from the too great excellency of their objects as the eye from the brightnesse of the Sunne the eare from the violence of a sound the touch from extremity of heat or cold and the likâ—… But the understanding on the contrary side is perfected by the worthiest contemplations and the better enabled for lower enquiries And therefore Aristotle in his Ethicks placeth the most compleat happinesse of man in those heavenly intuitions of the minde which are fastned on the divinest and most remote objects which in Religion is nothing else but a fruition of that beatificall vision which as farre as Nature goes is call'd the contemplation of the first cause and an eternall satiating the soule with beholding the Nature Essence and glory of God Another reason may be drawn from the condition of the Vnderstandings Objects which have so much the greater conformity to the soule by how much the more they are divine and abstracted Hoc habet animus argumentum suae divinitatis saith Seneca quòd illum divina delectam This argument of its divinenesse hath the minde of man that it is delighted with divine things for if the soule were corporeal it could not possibly reach to the knowledge of any but materiall substances and those that were of its owne Nature otherwise we might as well see Angels with our eyes as understand any thing of them in our minds And the ground of this reason is that axiome in Philosophy that all reception is ad modum recipientis according to the proportion and capacity of the receiver And that the objects which are spirituall and divine have greatest proportion to the soule of man is evident in his Understanding and his will both which are in regard of truth or good unsatisfiable by any materiall or worldly objects the one never resting in enquiry till it attaine the perfect knowledge the other never replenished in desire till it be admitted unto the perfect possession of the most divine and spirituall good to wit of him who is the first of Causes and the last of Ends. From this Attribute of Spirituality flowes immediatly that next of Simplicity Vnity or Actuality for Matter is the root of all perfect composition every Compound consisting of two Essentiall parts matter and forme I exclude not from the Soule all manner of composition for it is proper to God only to be absolutely and perfectly simple But I exclude all Essentiall composition in respect whereof the Soule is meerely Actuall And so I understand that of Tully Nihil est Animus admixtum nihil concretum nihil copulatum nihil coagmentatum nihil duplex CHAP. XXXIV Of the Soules immortality proved by its simplicity independance agreement of Nations in acknowledging God and duties due unto him dignity above other Creatures power of understanding things immortall unsatiablenesse by objects Mortall freenesse from all causes of corruption ANd from this Simplicity followes by a necessary unavoydable consequence the third property spoken of Immortality it being absolutely impossible as Tully excellently observes it is the argument of Iul. Scaliger on this very occasion for any simple and uncompounded Nature to be subject to death and corruption For saith Tully Interitus est discessus secretio ac direptus earum partium quae conjunctione â—…liqua tenebantur It is a separation and as it were a divulsion of parts before united each to other so that where there is no Union there can be no separation and by consequence no death nor mortality Another reason may be the same which was alledged for the spirituality of the soule namely independance in operation and therefore consequently in Being upon the body And that Independance is manifest First because the acts of the soule are educ'd immediately in it selfe without the Intercedence of any organ whereby sensitive faculties work Secondly because the soule can perceive and have the knowledge of truth of universals of it selfe of Angels of God can assent discourse abstract censure invent contrive and the like none of which actions could any wayes be produced by the Intrinsecall concurrence of any materiall faculty Thirdly because in Raptures and Extasies the soule is as it were drawne up above and from the body though not from informing it yet certainely from borrowing from it any assistance