THE IMMORTALITY OF Mans Soule PROVED BOTH BY SCRIPTVRE and REASON Contrary to the Fancie of R. O. In his Book Intituled Mans Mortality wherein hee vainely affirmeth hee hath proved Theologically and Philosophically that whole man is a compound wholy mortall and that the present going of the soule into Heaven or Hell is a meer fiction and that at the Resurrection is the beginning of our Immortality and then actuall Damnation or Salvation and not before LONDON Printed by Peter Cole at the signe of the Printing-presse in Cornehill neer the Royall-Exchange 1645. THE IMMORTALITY OF MANS SOVLE Proved both by Scripture and Reason CHAP. 1. That Man consisteth of two parts Soule and Body COncerning GOD we are acknowledge him to be a Spirit as touching the world we are to conceive of it as a body in man we have an abridgment of both of God in respect of the Soule of the world in composition of the Body as though the Creator on purpose to set forth a mirror of all his workes intended to bring into one little compasse both the infinitnesse of his owne nature and also the hugenesse of the whole world together after his own Image in respect of his soule after his other creatures in respect of life sence and moving mortall so farre as he holdeth forth the Image of the creature immortall so farre as hee holdeth forth the Image of GOD his Creator This Arg. 1 may be proved by pregnant arguments 1 No creature can worke out of his owne proper spheare how can man if totally mortal conceive of immortality can mortality comprehend immortality as probably as a man may throw a stone and knock downe the sunne which is farre above his spheare The beasts mind altogether the earth they eate when they are hungry drinke when they are dry and go when they are beaten and regard their Creator no more then they doe the clock when it strikes The fish live in the water as the beasts upon the earth because they are aqueall the other terrene neither rationall and therefore cannot worke above their sphear but man conceives not only the things of this world but also of a better immortality glory eternity therfore must needs have something in him that is immortal Who is hee that desireth not to be immortal how can he desire it unlesse he know what it is how can he know what it is unlesse he have somthing in him immortal none of us covereth to be beginninglesse bcause none of us are so neither can be so and because we are not so we can not comprehend what it is for who can conceive of eternity without beginning but he will end his Wits before his desires but on the contrary there is not so base a mind upon earth which coveteth not to live for ever in so much that whereas we looke not for it by natur we seeke to obtayne it by skill and pollicy some by bookes some by images and some by other devices and even the ignorantest sort of people can well imagine in themselves what immortality is and are able both to conceive it and beleeve it but the wisest and learnedest man alive should he live as long as Mathusalah and studie what it is to be with out beginning all his life time he must at last yeild to death without fulfilling or filling full his desires whence comes this but that our soules being created cannot conceive an everlastingnesse without beginning yet being created immortal can well conceive an everlastingnesse or immortality without end Let us yet wade a little deeper who can dispute or once so much as doubt whether the soule be Immortal or no but he that is capable of Immortality or who can understand a difference betweene mortal and immortal but he that is immortal Though they shall rise again as well as man saith R O. treat of Mortality pag. 50. can a * horse an ox a dogge no why because thy are mortall and can reach no higher than mortality Immortality is out of their Sphear out of their Element as the Proverbe is Man is able to conceive what is reason and what is not and by that wee terme him rationall Man knows a difference betwixt Mortality and Immortality and therefore must needs be immortall for to what end should God teach Immortality to a mortall wight If a man should hold an argument that man is not rationall and dispute it hee needs other confutation then his owne arguments so hee that disputes that the soule is mortall his owne reasoning of it shall to a wise man prove it immortall Secondly it is plainly proved Arg. 2 that man consists of two parts Soule and Body because they performe severall and different works at one and the same time The soule or mind of man will be at Constantinople then at Rome at Paris at Lyons in America in Affrick and dispatch all these journies in a trice looke wheresoever thou directest it there it is and before thou callest it back it is at home while the body al this time is at home at worke or perhaps in bed therefore the soule and body are two different parts nay the soule may and often doth mind and desire good when the body is acting sinne Rom. 7.23.24 25 I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind or soule and bringing mee into captivity to the law of my members but was it his body that warred against his mind and brought it into captivity reade the next verse you shall see O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death or this body of death as the margin more truly hath it this mortall body So then saith he with my mind I will serve the Lord but with my flesh the law of sin thus it plainely appears the soule and body are two different parts Thirdly Arg. 3 that the soule is not the body nor any part of it but soule and body two very different things appears of it selfe without further proofe for if the soule were the body or any part of the body it would nay must needs grow with the body and decline with the body it would be maimed with the body and sick with the body for else how can it dye with the body but daily experience proves the contrary for were soule the same with or part of the body the greater the body were the greater would the soule be but the contrary appears those that are strongest in mind are commonly weakest in body and the soule is seene to be full of livelinesse in a languishing body and to grow the more in force by the decay of the body by growing of the soule I meane mistake me not not that it increaseth or diminisheth it is capable of neither but its profiting in power and vertue againe if the soule were the body or any part of it it would languish with the body hee that is wounded in his body would be wounded in
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
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
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