Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	life_n	live_v	soul_n	13,623	5	5.6183	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89326	The soules own evidence, for its own immortality. In a very pleasant and learned discourse, selected out of that excellent treatise entituled, The trunesse of Christian religion, against atheists, epicures, &c. / First compiled in French by famous Phillip Mornay, Lord of Plessie Marlie, afterward turned into English by eloquent Sir Phillip Sydney, and his assistant, Master Arthur Golden, anno Domini M D LXXX VII. And now re-published. By John Bachiler Master of Arts, somtimes of Emanuell Colledge in Cambridge. Published according to order.; De la verité de la religion chrestienne. English	Mornay, Philippe de, seigneur du Plessis-Marly, 1549-1623.; Sidney, Philip, Sir, 1554-1586.; Golding, Arthur, 1536-1606.; Batchiler, John, ca. 1615-1674.	1646 (1646)	Wing M2802; Thomason E324_3	62,858	73

himselfe immortall Thou sayest the soule cannot be immortall and why Because sayst thou that to be so it would behove it to worke severally by it selfe from the body When thou thinkest that in thy minde consider what thy body doth at the same time Nay yet further who hath taught thee so much of the immortall nature if thou thy selfe be not immortall Or what worldly wight can say what the inworking of a reasonable wight is but the wight which in it selfe hath the use of reason Yet sayest thou still if the soule be immortall it is free from such and such passions How enterest thou so far into the Nature that is so far above thee if thou thy selfe beest mortall All the reasons which thou alleadgest against the immortality of the soule doe fight directly to the proofe of it For if thy reason mounted no higher than to the things that are mortall thou shouldest know neither mortall nor immortall Now it is not some one covetous man above all other that desireth immortality nor some one man excelling all others in wisdome that comprehendeth it but all mankind without exception It is not then some one severall skill or some one naturall property that maketh such difference between man and man as we see to be between many but rather one selfesame nature common to all men whereby they be all made to differ from other living wights which by no deed doe shew any desire to over live themselve● ne know how to live and therefore their lives doe vanish away with their bloud and is extinguished with their bodies If ever thou hast looked to die consider what discourse thou madest then in thy minde thou never couldest perswade thy conscience nor make thy reason to conceive that the soule should dye with the body but even in the selfesame time when it disputeth against it selfe it shifteth it selfe I wot not how from all thy conclusions and faileth to consider in what state it shall be and where it shall become when it is out of the body The Epicure that hath disputed of it all his life long when he commeth to death bequeatheth a yearly pension for the keeping of a yearly feast on the day of his birth I pray you to what purpose serve feastings for the birth of a Swine seeing he esteemeth himselfe to be no better than so Nay what else is this than a crying out of his nature against him which with one word confuteth all his vain arguments Another laboureth by all means possible to blot out in himselfe the opinion of immortallity and because he hath lived wickedly in this world he will needs beare himselfe on hand that there is no Justice in the world to come But then is the time that his own nature waketh and starteth up as it were out of the bottome of a water and at that instant painteth againe before his eyes the selfesame thing which he tooke so much pains to deface And in good sooth what a number have we seen which having been despisers of all Religion have at the hower of death been glad to vow their soules to any Saint for reliefe so cleere was then the presence of the life to come before their eyes I had lever sayd Zeno to see an Indian burne himselfe cheerfully than to heare all the Philosophers of the World discoursing of the immortality of the soule and in very deed it is a much stronger and better concluded argument Nay then let us rather say I had lever see an Atheist or an Epicure witnesse the immortallity of the soule and willingly taking an honourable farewell of nature upon a scaffold then to heare all the Doctors of the world discoursing of it in their pulpits For whatsoever the Epicures say there they speake it advisedly and as ye would say fresh and fasting whereas all that ever they have spoken all their life afore is to be accounted but as the words of Drunkards that is to wit of men besotted and falne asleepe in the delights and pleasures of this world where the wine and the excesse of meat and the vapors that fumed up of them did speake and not the men themselves What shall I say more I have told you already that in the inward man there are as ye would say three men the living the sensitive and the reasonable Let us say therefore that in the same person there are three lives continued from one to another namely the life of the Plant the life of the Beast and the life of the Man or of the Soule So long as a man is in his mothers womb he doth not onely live and grow his spirit seemeth to sleep and his sences seem to be in a slumber so as he seemeth to be nothing else then a plant Neverthelesse if ye consider his eyes his ears his tongue his sences and his movings you will easily judg that he is not made to be for ever in that prison where he neither seeth nor heareth nor hath any room to walk in but rather that he is made to come forth into an opener place where hee may have what to see and behold and wherewith to occupy all the powers which we see to be in him As soon as he is come out he beginneth to see to feel and to move and by little and little falleth to the perfect using of his limbs and findeth in this world a peculiar object for every of them as visible things for the eye sounds for his hearing bodily things for his feeling and so forth But besides al this we find there a mind which by the eys as by windows beholdeth the world and yet in all the world finding not any one thing worthy to rest wholly upon mounteth up to him that made it which minde like an Empresse lodgeth in the whole world and not alonely in this body which by the sences and oftentimes also without the sences mounteth above the sences and streyneth it self to go out of it self as a child doth to get out of his mothers wombe And therefore we ought surely to say that this Mind or Reason ought not to be ever in prison That one day it shall see cleerly and not by these dimme and cloudy spectacles That it shall come in place where it shall have the true object of understanding and that hee shall have his life free from these fetters and from all the affections of the body To be short that as man is prepared in his mothers wombe to be brought forth into the world so is he also after a sort prepared in this body and in this world to live in another world We then understand it when by nature it behoveth us to depart out of the world And what child is there which if nature did not by her cunning drive him out would of himself come out of his Covert or that cometh not out as good as forlorn and half dead or that if he had at that time knowledge and speech would not

a particular substance in every severall man as a light to lead him in the darknesse of this life for surely it was no more difficultie to the everlasting GOD to create many sundry soules that every man might have one severally alone by himselfe than to have created but onely one soule for all men together But it was far more for his glory to be known praised and exalted of many soules yea and more for our welfare to praise exalt and know him yea and to live of our selves both in this life and in the life to come then if any other universall spirit soule or minde whatsoever should have lived and understood either in us or after us Now then for this matter let us conclude both by reason and by antiquity and by the knowledge that every of us hath of himselfe That the soule and the body be things divers that the soule is a spirit and not a body That this spirit hath in man three abilities or powers whereof two be exercised by the body and the third worketh of it selfe without the body That these three abilities are in the one onely soule as in their root whereof two doe cease whensoever the body faileth them and yet notwithstanding the soule abideth whole without a batement of any of her powers as a craftsman continueth a craftsman though he want tools to work withall And finally that this soule is a substance that continueth of it selfe and is unmateriall and spirituall over the which neither death nor corruption can naturally have any power And for a conclusion of all that ever I have treated of hitherto in this book let us maintain That there is but onely one God who by his own goodnesse and wisdome is the Creator and Governour of the world of all that is therein That in the world he created Man after his own image as in respect of minde and after the image of his other creatures as in respect of life sense and moving mortall so far forth as he holdeth the likenesse of a creaturn and immortall so far forth as hee beareth the image of the Creator That is to wit in his soule That he which goeth out of himselfe to see the world doth forthwith see that there is a God for his works declare him every where That hee which will yet still doubt thereof needeth but to enter into himselfe and he shall meet him there for he shall finde there a power which he seeth not That he which believeth there is one God believeth himselfe to be immortall for such consideration could not light into a mortall nature and that he which believeth himself to be immortal believeth that there is a God for without the unutterable power of the one God the mortall and immortall could never joyne together That he which seeth the order of the world the proportion of man and the harmonie that is in either of them compounded of so many contraries cannot doubt that there is a Providence for the nature which hath furnished them therewith cannot be unfurnished therof it selfe but as it once had a care of them so can it not shake off the same care from them Thus have we three Articles which follow interchangeably one another Insomuch that he which proveth any one of them doth prove them all three notwithstanding that I have treated of every of them severally by it selfe Now let us pray the everlasting God that we may glorifie him in his works in this world and he voutsafe of his mercie to glorifie us one day in the World to come *⁎* AMEN a Igniculi scintillantes Onuphr. de Anima b {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Homer Odys 5. c {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Gen. 2 7. Man is both Soul and body In Man are three abilities of Soule The body and the soul be not one self-same thing That the Soul is a substance Bodilesse Vnmateriall The Soul hath being of it self Plutarch in his Treatise why God deferreth the punishment of the wicked Vncorruptible What is death Clevi lib. 1. Three lives in man Objections The opinion of the Men of old time The belief of the Patriarks c. The wise Men of Egypt Hermes in his Poemander {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Hermes in his Poemander cap. 10. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Hermes in his Esculapius Aenaeas Gaz. concerning the immortality of the Soule Chaldeans The Greeks Pherecydes Assyrium vulgo nascetur Amonium Phocylides Sybill Pindar in the second song of his Olympiads Homer in the Funerals of his Iliads Pythagor●s Heraclitus as he is reported by Philo. Epicharmus as he is reported by Clement of Alexandria Thales Anaxagoras Diogenes and Zeno Epicurus Lucretius Socrates Plato and Xenophon Plato in his Timaeus Plato in his Timaeus and in his third Booke of a Commonweal Plato in his Phoedon in his matter of State in his Alcibiades and in the tenth Book of his Commonweal Plato in his fifth Book of Laws Aristotl● in his second book of living things Aristotle in the third book of the Soule Aristotle in his 10. book of Moralls Michael of Ephesus upon Aristotles Moralls {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} In his second book of the Soule In the last book of the parts of beasts In the tenth of his Supernaturalls In his first book of matters of State The opinion of the Latine Writers Cicero in his first book of his Tusculane Questions and in his book of Comfort Cicero in his second book of the nature of the Gods and in his first book of Laws In Scipio's dreame Ovid in his first book of Metamorphosis Seneca writing to Gallio and to Lucillus Seneca concerning the Lady Martiaes Son and the shortnesse of this life In his Questions and in his book of comfort Phavorinus The common opinion of all Nations Porphyrius in his 4 book of Abstinence Which with their own hands made the fire to burn their bodies in and saw alive the kindled flame that should consume their skin Gebeleizie that is to say Register or giver of ease and rest Herocles in his 10. Chap. Plutarke in his treatise of the slow punishing of the wicked The opinion of the later Philosophers Epictetus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Simplicius Plotinus Plotin. lib. 1. Aenead 4. concerning the being of the Soule lib. 2. cap. 1. lib. 3. cap. 18 19 20 21 22 23. lib. 4. cap. 11. and the seventh book throughout Plotinus in his Booke of the Sences and of Memory En. 4. lib. 3. and in his Booke of doubts concerning the Soul cap. 26 27 Alexander of Aphrodise in his Books of the Soul In his second Book of Problemes Galen in his Book of the Manners of the Soul In his Book of the doctrine of Hippocrates and Plato In his Book of Conception The universall consent In the Alcoran Azo 25. and 42. It appeareth by the stories of the East West Indies Against Averrhoes Let the Reader bear these terms their significations in Mind for all the discourse here ensuing Averrhoes upon Aristotles third Book of the Soul Aristotle in his second Book of the Soul Aristotle in his first Book of the Soul Aristotle in his tenth Book of Supernaturals Aristotle in his third book of the Soule Against Alexander of Aphrodise

one is as an appendant to the other And in very deed to what purpose were the World created if there were no body to behold it Or to what end behold wee the Creator in the world but to serve him And why should we serve him upon no hope And to what purpose hath he indewed us with these rare gifts of his which for the most part doe but put us to pain and trouble in this life if we perish like the brute Beast or the Hearbes which know him not Howbeit for the better satisfying of the silly Soules which go on still like witlesse Beastes without taking so much leysure in all their life as once to enter into themselves let us indevour here by lively reasons to paint out unto them againe their true shape which they labour to deface with so much filthinesse The Soule of man as I have sayd afore is not a body neyther doth it increase or decrease with the body but contrary wise the more the body decayeth the more doth the understanding increase and the neerer that the body draweth unto death the more freely doth the mind understand and the more that the body abateth in flesh the more workfull is the mind And why then should we think that the thing which becommeth the stronger by the weaknesse of the body and which is advanced by the decay of the body should returne to dust with the body A mans Sences fayle because his eyes fayle and his eyes fayle because the Spirits of them fayle but the blind mans understanding increaseth because his eyes are not buside and the olde mans reason becommeth the more perfect by the losse of his sight Therefore why say we not that the body fayleth the Soul and not the Soule the body and that the Glasses are out of the Spectacles but the eysight is still good Why should we deeme the Soule to be forgone with the Sences If the eye be the thing that seeth and the care the thing that heareth why doe we not see things double and heare sounds double seeing we have two eyes and two ears It is the soule then that seeth and heareth and these which wee take to be our sences are but the instruments of our sences And if when our eyes be shut or picked out we then behold a thousand things in our minde yea and that our understanding is then most quick-sighted when the quickest of our eysight is as good as quenched or starke dead how is it possible that the reasonable soule should be tyed and bound to the sences What a reason is it to say that the soule dyeth with the sences seeing that the true sences doe then grow and increase when the instruments of sense doe die And what a thing were it to say that beast is dead because he hath lost his eyes when we our selves see that it liveth after it hath forgone the eyes Also I have proved that the soule is neither the body nor an appertenance of the body Sith it is so why measure we that thing by the body which measureth all bodies or make that to die with the body whereby the bodies that die yea many hundred years agoe doe after a certain manner live still Or what can hurt that thing whom nothing hurteth or hindereth in the body Though a man lose an arme yet doth his soule abide whole still Let him forgoe the one halfe of his body yet is his soule as sound as afore for it is whole in it selfe and whole in every part of it selfe united in it selfe and in the own substance and by the force and power thereof it sheadeth it selfe into all parts of the body Though the body rot away by piecemeal yet abideth the Soule all one and undiminished Let the bloud dreyn out the moving wax weake the sences faile and the strength perish and yet abideth the minde neverthelesse sound and lively even to the end Her house must be pierced through on all sides ere shee be discouraged her walls must be battered down ere she fall to fleeting and she never forsaketh her lodging till no room be left her to lodge in True it is that the brute beasts forgoe both life action with their bloud But as for our soule if we consider the matter well it is then gathered home into it selfe and when our sences are quenched then doth it most of all labour to surmount it selfe working as goodly actions at the time that the body is at a point to fail it yea and often times far goodlier also than ever it did during the whole life time thereof As for example it taketh order for it selfe for our household for the Common-weale and for a whole Kingdome and that with more uprightnesse godlinesse wisdome and moderation than ever it did afore yea and perchance in a body so far spent so bare so consumed so withered without and so putrified within that whosoever looks upon him sees nothing but earth and yet to heare him speake would ravish a man up to heaven yea and above heaven Now when a man sees so lively a soule in so weake and wretched a body may he not say as is said of the hatching of chickens that the shell is broken but there commeth forth a chicken Also let us see what is the ordinary cause that things perish Fire doth either goe out for want of nourishment or is quenched by his contrary which is water Water is resolved into aire by fire which is his contrary The cause why the Plant dyeth is extremitie of cold or drought or unseasonable cutting or violent plucking up Also the living wight dyeth through contrarietie of humours or for want of food or by feeding upon some thing that is against the nature of it or by outward violence Of all these causes which can we choose to have any power against our Soule I say against the Soule of man which notwithstanding that it be united to matter and to a bodie is it selfe a substance unbodily unmateriall and only conceivable in understanding The contrarietie of things Nay what can be contrarie to that which lodgeth the contraries alike equally in himselfe which understandeth the one of them by the other which coucheth them all under one skill and to be short in whom the contrarieties themselves abandon their contrarieties so as they doe not any more pursue but insue one another Fire is hote and water cold Our bodies mislike these contraries and are grieved by them but our mind linketh them together without eithet 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 through the whole world do mainteine one another in our minds Againe nothing is more contrary to peace then warre is and yet mans mind can skill to make or mainteine peace in preparing for warre and to lay earnestly for warre in seeking or inioying of peace Even death it selfe which dispatcheth our life cannot bee contrary

to the life of our Soule for it seeketh life by death and death by life And what can that thing meet withall in the whole world that may be able to overthrow it which can inioyne obedience to things most contrary What then Want of food How can that want food in the world which can skill to feed on the whole world Or how should that forsake food which the fuller it is so much the hungryer it is and the more it hath digested the better able it is to digest The bodily wight feedeth upon some certain things but our mind feedeth upon all things Take from it the sensible things and the things of und●rstanding abide with it still bereave it of earthly things and the heavenly remayne abundantly To be short abridge it of all worldly things yea and of the world it selfe and even then doth it feed at greatest ease maketh best cheere agreeable to his owue nature Also the bodily wight filleth it selfe to a certain measure and delighteth in some certain things But what can fill our mind Fill it as full as ye can with the knowledge of things and it is still eager and sharpe set to receive more The more it taketh in the more it still craveth and yet for all that it never feeleth any rawnesse or lack of digestion What shall I say more discharge our understanding from the minding of it selfe and then doth it live in him and of him in whom all things doelive Againe fill it with the knowledge of it selfe and then doth it feele it selfe most empty and sharpest set upon desire of the other Now then can that die or decay for want of food which cannot be glutted with any thing which is nourished and maintained with all things and which liveth in very deed upon him by whom all the things which we wonder at here beneath are upheld And what else is violence but a iustling of two bodies together and how can there be any such betweene a bodie a spirituall substance yea or of two spirits one against another seeing that oftentimes when they would destroy one another they uphold one another And if the Soule cannot be pushed at neither inwardly nor outwardly is there any thing in nature that can naturally hurt it No but it may perchance be weakened by the very force of his encounter as we see it doth befall to our sences For the more excellent and the more sensible the thing is in his kind which the sence receiveth so much the more also is the sence it selfe offended or grieved therewith As for example the feeling by fire the tast by harshnesse the smelling by savours the hearing by the hideousnesse of noyse whether it be of Thunderclap or of the falling of a River and the sight by looking upon the Sunne upon Fire and upon all things that have a glistering brightnesse I omit that in the most of these things it is not properly the sense it selfe but the outward instrument of sense onely that is offended or hurt But let us see if there bee the like in our reasonable soule Nay contrariwise the more of understanding and excellencie that the thing is the more doth it refresh and comfort our minde If it be darke so as wee understand it but by halves it hurteth us not but yet doth it not delight us Nay as we increase in understanding it so doth it like 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 behold the things that are over-bright But as for them that are of rawest capacity wee offer them the things that are most understandable When the sence beginneth to perceive most sharply then it is fain to give over as if it felt the very death of it selfe Contrariwise when the minde beginneth to understand then is it most desirous to hold on still And whereof commeth that but that our senses work by bodily instruments but our mind worketh by a bodilesse substance which needeth not the help of the body And seeing that the nature the nourishment and the actions of our soule are so far differing both from the nature nourishment and actions of the body and from all that ever is done or wrought by the body can there be any thing more childish than to deem our soul to be mortall by the abating decaying of our sences or by the mortallity of our bodies Nay contrariwise it may be most soundly and substantially concluded thereupon that mans soule is of its own nature immortall seeing that all death as well violent as naturall commeth of the body and by the body Let us see further what death or corruption is It is say they a separating of the matter from his forme And forasmuch as in man the soule is considered to be the forme and the body to be as the matter the separation of the soule from the body is commonly called death Now then what death can there be of the soule sith it is unmateriall as I have said afore and a forme that abideth of it selfe For as one saith a man may take away the roundnesse or squarenesse from a table of copper because they have no abiding but in the matter but had they such a round or square form as might have an abiding without matter or stuffe wherein to be out of doubt such forme or shape should continue for ever Nay which more is how can that be the corrupter of a thing which is the perfection thereof The lesse corsinesse a man hath the more hath he of reason and understanding The lesse our minds be tyed to these bodily things the more lively and cheerefull be they At a word the full and perfect life thereof is the full and utter withdrawing thereof from the bodie and whatsoever the bodie is made of All these things are so cleere as they neede no proofe Now wee know that every thing worketh according to the proper being therof and that the same which perfecteth the operations of a thing perfecteth the being thereof also It followeth therefore that sith the separation of the body from the Soule and of the forme from the matter perfecteth the operation or working of the soule as I have sayd afore it doth also make perfect and strengthen the very being thereof and therefore cannot in any wise corrupt it And what else is dying but to be corrupted And what els is corrupting but suffering And what els is suffering but receiving And how can that which receiveth all things without suffering receive corruption by any thing Fire corrupteth or marreth our bodies and we suffer in receiving it So doth also extreme colde but if we suffered nothing by it it could not freese us Our sences likewise are marred by the excessive force of the things which they light upon And that is because

here gather together their owne speeches one after another Hermes declareth in his Poemander how at the voyce of the everlasting the Elements yeelded forth all reasonlesse living wights as it had bin out of their bosomes But when he commeth to man he sayth He made him like unto himselfe he linked himselfe to him as to his Sonne for he was beautifull and made after his owne Image and gave him all his works to use at his pleasure Againe he exhorteth him to forsake his bodie notwithstanding that he wonder greatly at the cunning workmanship thereof as the very cause of his death and to manure his soul which is capable of immortality and to consider the originall root from whence it sprang which is not earthly but heavenly and to withdraw himselfe even from his sences and from their trayterous allurements to gather himselfe wholy into that minde of his which hee hath from God and by the which he following Gods word may become as God Discharge thy selfe sayth he of this body which thou bearest about thee for it is but a cloke of ignorance a foundation of infection a place of corruption a living death a sensible carryon a portable grave a household thief It flattereth thee because it hateth thee and it hateth thee because it envieth thee As long as that liveth it bereaveth thee of life thou hast not a greater enemie than that Now to what purpose were it for him to forsake this light this dwelling place this life if he were not sure of a better in another world as he himselfe sayth more largely afterward On the other side what is the soule The soule sayth he is the garment of the minde and the garment of the soule is a certain spirit whereby it is united to the body And this minde is the thing which we call properly the man that is to say a heavenly wight which is not to be compared with beasts but rather with the Gods of heaven if he be not yet more than they The heavenly cannot come down to the earth without leaving the heaven but man measureth the heaven without removing from the earth The earthly man then is as a mortall God and the heavenly God is as an immortal man To be short his conclusion is That man is double mortall as touching his body and immortall as touching his soule which soule is the substantiall man and the very man created immediately of God sayth he as the light is bred immediately of the Sunne And Chalcidius sayth that at his death he spake these words I goe home again into mine own countrey where my better forefathers and kinsfolke be Of Zoroastres who is yet of more antiquity than Hermes we have nothing but fragments Neverthelesse many report this argument to be one of his That mens souls are immortall and that one day there shall be a generall rising again of their bodies and the answers of the wise men of Chaldye who are the heirs of his Doctrine doe answer sufficiently for him There is one that exhorteth men to return with speed to their heavenly father who hath sent them from above a soule endowed with much understanding and another that exhorteth them to seeke paradice as the peculiar dwelling place of the soule A third sayth that the soule of man hath God as it were shut up in it and that it hath not any mortality therein For sayth he the soule is as it were drunken with God and sheweth forth his wonders in the harmonie of this mortall body And again another sayth It is a cleere fire proceeding from the power of the heavenly father an uncorruptible substance and the maintainer of life containing almost all the whole world with the full plenty thereof in his besom But one of them proceedeth yet further affirming that he which seteth his minde upon godlinesse shall save his body fraile though it be And by those words he acknowledgeth the very glorifying of the body Now all these sayings are reported by the Platonists and namely by Psellus and they refuse not to be acknowne that Pythagoras and Plato learned them of the Chaldees insomuch that some think that the foresaid Hermes and Zoroastres and the residue afore-mentioned are the same of whom Plato speaketh in his second Epistle and in his eleventh Book of Laws when he sayth that the ancient and holy Oracles are to be believed which affirme mens Souls to be Immortall and that in another life they must come before a Judge that will require an account of all their doings The effect whereof 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 Soul is another That the Soul is not a bodily substance but a Spirit and a Light That at the departure thereof from hence it is to go into a Paradise and therefore ought to make haste unto death And that it is so far from mortality that it maketh even the body Immortall What can we say more at this day even in the time of light wherein we be Pherecydes the Syrian the first that was known among the Greeks to have written prose taught the fame And that which Virgill sayth in his second Eglog concerning the Drug or Spice of Assyria and the growing thereof every whereis interpreted of some men to be ment of the Immortalitie of the Soule the doctrine whereof Pherecydes brought from thence into Greece namely that it should be understood everywhere throughout the whole world Also Phocylides who was at the same time speaketh thereof in these words {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} That is to say The Soul of man immortall is and never weares away With any age or length of time but liveth fresh for aye And again {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Remnants which remayn of men unburied in the grave Become as Gods and in the Heavens a life most blessed have For though their bodies turn to dust as daily we do see Their Souls live still for evermore from all corruption free And in another place he says again {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} We hope that we shall come agayn Out of the earth to light more playn And if ye aske him the cause of all this he will answer you in another verse thus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Because the Soul Gods Instrument and Image also is Which saying he seemeth to have taken out of this verse of Sibil● {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} In very reason Man should be The Image and the shape of me Of the same opinion also are Orpheus Theognis Homer Hesiodus Pindar and all the Poets of old time which may answer both for themselves and their owne Countries and for the residue of their ages Likewise Pythagoras a disciple of

the immortall spirit of our soule move and rule our frail body Hereunto consent all the writers of his time as Ovid Virgill and others whose verses are in every mans remembrance There wanted yet the wight that should all other wights exceed In lofty reach of stately minde who like a Lord indeed Should over all the res'due reign Then shortly came forth man Whom either he that made the World and all things else began Created out of seed divine or else the earth yet young And lately parted from the Skie the seede thereof uncloong Reteyned still in fruitfull wombe which Japets sonne did take And tempering it with water pure a wight thereof did make Which should resemble even the Gods which soverein state doe hold And where all other things the ground with groveling eye behold He gave to man a stately look and full of Majesty Commanding him with stedfast looke to face the starry skie Here a man might bring in almost all Senecaes writings but I will content my selfe with a few sayings of his Our Soules sayth he are a part of Gods Spirit and sparkes of holy things shineing upon the earth They come from another place then this low one Whereas they seeme to be conversant in the bodie yet is the better part of them in heaven alway neere unto him which sent them hither And how is it possible that they should be from beneath or f●om anywhere else than from above seeing they overpasse all these lower things as nothing and hold scorn of all that ever we can hope or feare Thus ye see how he teacheth that our souls come into our bodies from above But whether go they againe when they depart hence Let us here him what he sayes of the Lady Martiaes Sonne that was dead He is now everlasting sayth he and in the best state bereft of this earthly baggage which was none of his and set free to himselfe For these bones these sinewes this coate of skin this face and these serviceable hands are but fetters and prisons of the soule By them the soule is overwhelmed beaten downe and chased away It hath not a greater battell than with that masse of flesh For fear of being torn in peeces it laboureth to return from whence it came where it hath readie for it an happie and everlasting rest And again This soule cannot be made an Outlaw for it is a kin to the Gods equall to the whole world and to all time and the thought or conceit thereof goeth about the whole Heaven extending it selfe from the beginning of all time to the uttermost point of that which is to come The wretched course being the Iayle and fetters of the soule is tossed to and fro Upon that are torments murthers and diseases executed As for the soule it is holy and everlasting and cannot be layd hand on When it is out of this body it is at libertie and set free from all bondage and is conversant in that beautifull place wheresoever it be which receiveth mens soules into the blessed rest thereof as soone as they be delivered from hence To be short he seemeth to pricke very nere to the rising againe of the dead For in a certain Epistle to Lucillus his words are these Death whereof we be so much afraid doth not bereve us of life but only discontinew it for a time and a day will come that shall bring us to light againe This may suffice to give us knowledge of the opinion of that great personage in whom we see that the more he grew in age the nerer he came still to the true birth For in his latest bookes he treateth alwaies both more assuredly and more evidently thereof Also the saying of Phavorinus is notable There is nothing great in earth sayth he but Man and nothing great in Man but his soule if thou mount up thether thou mountest above Heaven And if thou stoope downe againe to the bodie and compare it with the Heaven it is lesse than a Fly or rather a thing of nothing At one word this is as much to say as that in this clod of clay there dwelleth a divine and uncorruptible nature for how could it els bee greater than the whole world As touching the Nations of old time we reade of them all that they had certain Religions and divine Services so as they beleeved that there is a Hell and certain fieldes which they call the Elysian fields as we see in the Poets Pindarus Diphilus Sophocles Euripides and others The more superstitious that they were the more sufficiently doe they witnesse unto us what was in their Conscience For true Religion and Superstition have both one ground namely the soule of man and there could be no Religion at all if the soule lived not when it is gone hence We read of the Indians that they burned themselves afore they came to extreme oldage terming it the letting of men loose and the freeing of the soule from the bodie and the sooner that a man did it the wiser was he esteemed Which custome is observed still at this day among the people that dwell by the River Niger otherwise called the people of Senega in Affricke who offer themselves willingly to be buryed quicke with their Masters All the demonstrations of Logicke and Mathematicke sayth Zeno have not so much force to prove the immortalitie of the soule as this only doing of theirs hath Also great Alexander having taken prisoners ten of their Philosophers whom they call Gimnosophists asked of one of them to try their wisedome whether there were moe men alive or dead The Philosopher answered that there were more alive Because sayd he there are none dead Ye may well think they gave a dry mocke to all the arguments of Aristotle and Callisthenes which with all their Philosophie had taught their scholer Alexander so evill Of the Thracians we reade that they sorrowed at the brith of men and reioyced at the death of them yea even of their owne childen And that was because they thought that which we call death not to be a death in deede but rather a very happie birth And these be the people whom Herodotus reporteth to have been called the Neverdying Getes and whom the Greekes called the Neverdying Getes or Thracians Who were of opinion that at their departing out of this world they went to Zamolxis or Gebeleizie that is to say after the interpretation of the Getish or Gotish tongue to him that gave them health saluation or welfare and gathered them together The like is sayd of the Galles chiefly of the inhabiters about Marsilles and of their Druydes of the Hetruscians and their Bishops and of the Scythians and their Sages of whom all the learning and wisedome was grounded upon this poynt For looke how men did spread abroad so also did this doctrine which is so deeply printed in man that he cannot but carie it continually with him Which thing is

world have their memory still notwithstanding that to some mens seeming it goe away with the sences as the treasury of the sences Howbeit he affirmeth it to be the more excellent kinde of memory not that which calleth things again to minde as already past but that which holdeth and beholdeth them still as always present Of which two sorts this latter he calleth Mindfulnesse and the other he calleth Remembrance I will add but onely one sentence more of his for a full president of his Doctrine The soule sayth he hath had company with the Gods and is immortall and so would we say of it as Plato affirmeth if we saw it faire and cleere But for as much as we see it commonly troubled we think it not to be either divine or immortall howbeit that he which will discerne the nature of a thing perfectly must consider it in the very own substance or being utterly unmingled with any other thing For whatsoever else is added unto it doth hinder the perfect discerning of the same Therefore let everyman behold himselfe naked without any thing save himselfe so as he look upon nothing else than his bare soule and surely when he hath viewed himselfe in his own nature meerly as in respect of his minde he shall believe himselfe to be immortall For he shall see that his minde aymeth not properly at the sensible and mortall things but that by a certain everlasting power it taketh hold of the things that are everlasting and of whatsoever is possible to be conceived in understanding insomuch that even it selfe becommeth after a sort a very world of understanding and light This is against those which pretend a weaknesse of the soule by reason of the inconveniencies which it indureth very often in the body Of the same opinion are Numenius Jamblichus Porphirius and Proclus notwithstanding that now and then they passe their bounds suffering their wits to run ryot For in their Philosophie they had none other rule than onely the drift of their own reason It was commonly thought that Alexander of Aphrodise believed not the immortality of the soule because hee defined it to be the forme of the body proceeding of the mixture temperature of the Elements Surely these words of his doe us to understand either that he meant to defiue but the sensitive life onely as many others do and not the reasonable soule or else that he varieth from himselfe in other places And in very deed he sayth immediately afterward that he speaketh of the things which are subject to generation and corruption But speaking of the soule he sayth it is separable unmateriall unmixed and voyd of passions unlesse perchance we may thinke as some doe that by this soule hee mean but onely God and not also the soule that is in us for the which thing hee is sharply rebuked by Themistius who notwithstanding spake never a whit better thereof himselfe Howsoever he deale elsewhere these words of his following are without any doubtfulnesse at all That the Soule sayth he which is in us commeth from without and is uncorruptible I say uncorruptible because the nature thereof is such and it is the very same that Aristotle affirmeth to come from without And in his second Booke of Problems searching the cause why the abilities of the soule are oftentimes impeached If a mans brain be hurt sayth he the reasonable soule doth not well execute the actions that depend thereon But yet for all that It abideth still in it selfe unchangeable of nature ability and power through the immortality thereof And if it recover a sound instrument it putteth her abilities in execution as well as it did afore But I will reason more at large hereafter against the opinion that is fathered upon him What shall we say of Galen who fathereth the causes of all things as much as he can upon the Elements and the mixture and agreeable concord of them if after his disputing against his own soule hee bee constrained to yield that it is immortall Surely in his book concerning the manners of the soule he doth the worst that he can against Plato and in another place he doubteth whether it be immortall and whether it have continuance of it selfe or no Yet notwithstanding in his book of the doctrine of Hippocrates and Plato It must needs be granted sayth he that the Soule is either a sheare body and of the nature of the skie as the Stoicks and Aristotle himselfe are inforced to confesse or else a bodilesse substance whereof the body is as it were the Chariot and whereby it hath fellowship with other bodies And it appeareth that he inclineth to this latter part For he maketh the vitall spirit to be the excellentest of all bodily things and yet he granteth the soule to be a far more excellent thing than that What shall we then doe Let us wey his words set down in his book of the conception of a childe in the mothers wombe The Soule of man sayth hee is an influence of the universall Soule that discendeth from the heavenly Region a substance that is capable of knowledge which aspireth always to one substance like unto it selfe which leaveth all these lower things to seeke the things that are above which is partaker of the heavenly Godhead and which by mounttng up to the beholding of things that are above the heavens putting it selfe into the presence of him that ruleth all things Were it reason then that such a substance comming from else where than of the body and mounting so far above the body should in the end die with the body because it useth the service of the body Now hereunto I could adde infinite other sayings of the ancient Authors both Greeke and Latine Philosophers Poets and Orators from age to age wherein they treat of the judgement to come of the reward of good men of the punishment of evill men of Paradise and of Hell which are appendants to the immortality of the Soule but as now I will but put the reader in minde of them by the way reserving them to their peculiar places To be short let us run at this day from East to West and from North to South I say not among the Turks Arabians or Persians for their Alcoran teacheth them that mans soule was breathed into him of God and consequently that it is uncorruptible but even a mong the most barbarous ignorant beastly people of the World I meane the very Caribies and Canniballs and we shall finde this beliefe received and imbraced of them all Which giveth us to understand that it is not a doctrine invented by speculations of some Philosophers conveyed from Countrey to Countrey by their Disciples perswaded by likelyhoods of reasons or to be short entered into mans wit by his ears but a native knowledge which every man findeth and readeth in himselfe which he carryeth everywhere about with himselfe and which is as easie to be perswaded