THE IMMORTALITY OF Man's Soul, PROVED BOTH BY SCRIPTURE and REASON.  
Contrary to the Fancy of R. O. In his Book Entitled Man's Mortality; wherein he (vainly) affirmeth he hath proved Theologically, and Philosophically, that whole man is a compound wholly mortal, and that the present going of the soul into Heaven or Hell is a mere fiction, and that at the Resurrection is the beginning of our Immortality, and then actual Damnation or Salvation, and not before.  
LONDON, Printed by Peter Cole at the sign of the Printing-presse in Cornhill, near the Royal-exchange. 1645.   

THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN'S SOUL. Proved both by Scripture and Reason.  

CHAP. 1. That Man consisteth of two parts, Soul 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 abridgement of both, of God in respect of the Soul, of the world in composition of the Body, as though the Creator on purpose to set forth a mirror of all his works, intended to bring into one little compass, both the infiniteness of his own nature; and also the hugeness of the whole world together, after his own Image in respect of his soul, after his other creatures in respect of life, sense and moving, mortal so fare as he holdeth forth the Image of the creature, immortal so fare as he holdeth forth the Image of GOD his Creator.  
This Arg. 1 may be proved by pregnant arguments.  
1 No creature can work out of his own proper sphere, how can man if totally mortal conceive of immortality, can mortality comprehend immortality? as probably as a man may throw a stone and knock down the sun which is fare above his sphere. The beasts mind altogether the earth they eat when they are hungry drink when they are dry and go when they are beaten and regard their Creator no more than they do 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 rational and therefore cannot work above their sphere, but man conceives not only the things of this world, but also of a better, immortality, glory eternity, therefore must needs have something in him that is immortal. Who is he that desireth not to be immortal? how can he desire it unless he know what it is? how can he know what it is unless he have something in him immortal? none of us covereth to be beginninglesse, because 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 look not for it by nature we seek to obtain it by skill and policy, some by books, 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 believe it; but the wisest and learnedest man alive, should he live as long as Mathusalah, and study what it is to be with out beginning all his life time, he must at last yield to death without fulfilling or filling full his desires; whence comes this? but that our souls being created, cannot conceive an everlastingness without beginning yet being created immortal can well conceive an everlastingness or immortality without end.  
Let us yet wade a little deeper, who can dispute, or once so much as doubt whether the soul be Immortal or no, but he that is capable of Immortality? or who can understand a difference between 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 dog? no, why? because thy are mortal, and can reach no higher than mortality Immortality is out of their Sphere, out of their Element, as the Proverb is, Man is able to conceive what is reason, and what is not; and by that we term him rational, Man knows a difference betwixt Mortality, and Immortality; and therefore must needs be immortal: for to what end should God teach Immortality to a mortal wight.  
If a man should hold an argument, that man is not rational, and dispute it, he needs other confutation than his own arguments: so he that disputes that the soul is mortal, his own reasoning of it, shall to a wise man prove it immortal.  
Secondly, it is plainly proved, Arg. 2 that man consists of two parts, Soul and Body; because they perform several and different works at one and the same time. The soul or mind of man will be at Constantinople, then at Rome, at Paris, at Lions, in America, in Africa, and dispatch all these journeys in a trice, look wheresoever thou directest it, there it is, and before thou callest it back, it is at home, while the body all this time is at home at work, or perhaps in bed; therefore the soul and body are two different parts: nay, the soul may, and often doth mind and desire good, when the body is acting sin, Rom. 7.23.24, 25 I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind (or soul) and bringing me into captivity, to the law of my members, but was it his body that warred against his mind, and brought it into captivity? read 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 mortal body. So then (saith he) with my mind I will serve the Lord, but with my flesh the law of sin: thus it plainly appears, the soul and body are two different parts.  
Thirdly, Arg. 3 that the soul is not the body, nor any part of it, but soul and body two very different things, appears of itself without further proof, for if the soul 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 die with the body, but daily experience proves the contrary, for were soul the same with, or part of the body, the greater the body were, the greater would the soul be: but the contrary appears, those that are strongest in mind, are commonly weakest in body, and the soul is seen to be full of liveliness in a languishing body, and to grow the more in force by the decay of the body, by growing of the soul I mean, (mistake me not) not that it increaseth or diminisheth, it is capable of neither, but its profiting in power and virtue; again, if the soul were the body or any part of it, it would languish with the body: he that is wounded in his body, would be wounded in his understanding, as well as in his members: he that is sick of any disease, should also be sick in his reason: he that limpeth or halteth, should halt in his reason also; the blind man's soul should be blind, and the lame man's lame; but the contrary appears, the maimed, the sick, the cripples, the blind, have their understanding clear sighted, their reason sound, their discourse vigorous, and their soul 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 Chirurgeon shall see, nor perceive no cause of his death, outward nor inward, nor failing of any particular, to cause it, and yet life, motion, sense, and understanding, are out of it, we may say then (if we 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 fare other thing then the body.  
Object. But some say, that the force and strength of the soul, groweth with the body, & Children have none, and Drunkards have souls by jumps, and many other crotchets, as vain as ridiculous.  
I answer, it cannot be said, that a Child's soul groweth, or is strengthened by time, but rather his nerves, or sinews are hardened and strengthened, which the soul useth as strings and instruments to move withal, 
R O. treat of Mortality, p. 19 where he pleaseth himself with the merry conceits of his own fancy, which he doth in many other places of that treat.  or or act by; and therefore when age weakeneth them, a man useth a staff to help them with, though he have as good a will to run, as he had when he was young, you may often hear a decrepit old man boast and talk 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 soul then which moveth all at one beck, hath the self 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 thereof, the skilfulness of a Musician is not diminished by the slackness, hardness, or moistness of his Lute-strings, nor increased by the goodness, curious setting or straining of them, only in the one he cannot show his cunning, in the other he may show it more or less.  
Likewise, the speech of Children cometh with their teeth, howbeit the speech doth manifestly utter itself 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 infancy the same sinews and teeth, and as lusty and able limbs, and members as youth hath, and the actions which the soul doth with the body, and by the body, (I mean so fare forth as concern the abilities of sense and liveliness) shall be performed, as well in one age, as in another: Be but as impartial in judging of the force and power of thy own soul, as of the skilfulness of a Lute-player, (I say not by the nimbleness of his fingers, which may perchance be knotted with the Gout, but by the sweetness of his Harmony, which plainly showeth, that he hath cunning in his head, though he can show it no more with his hands) so as thou wouldst consider how thou hast in thyself a desire to go, though thy feet are not able to bear thee, a discretion to judge of things that are spoken, though thine ears cannot convey it to thee, a sound eloquence though for want of teeth (or any other impediment) thou art not able to express it; and which is above all, a substantial, quick and heavenly reason, even when thy body is most debile, infirm, weak, crazy, earthly, sick and drooping: Thou wouldst soon conclude, that the force and power, of quickening, moving, and perceiving, is whole and sound in thy soul, and that the default is only, and altogether in thy body: in so much, that if thy soul had a new body, and new instruments given to her, it would be as lusty, and as cheerful as ever it was, and the more it perceiveth the body to decay, the more it retireth, or laboureth to retire to itself, the more active the thoughts are of another being, of a better being, of an eternal being, which is a plain proof that it is not the body, nor any part of the body, but the very life, and inworker of the body. Arg. 4  
Fourthly, unless man have in him a soul (or something else) that is immortal, 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 soul die with the body, or if there be no soul 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 work the very same, viz. a new Creation, see it by the example of the Creation of the world, a fit parallel for R. O. 2 Pet. 3.10. The day of the Lord will come as a Thief in the night, in which the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burnt up, and vers. 13. nevertheless, we according to his promise look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth Righteousness. What? will God raise up the Heaven and Earth, Sun, Moon, and Stars again out of the Chaos? will he make a Resurrection of the world? no, no, man, they are brought, to the prima materia, this is work for a Creation, not a Resurrection, Esay 65.17. Behold, I create new Heavens, and a new Earth, etc.  
See it by the Apostle Paul's own Comparison, 1 Cor. 15.36, 37. Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die, and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain, etc. If this grain have not in it a vital 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 vital part lives, and give a Resurrection (if I may so call it) to another Plant of the same kind: Take an Oak Tree that is dead and rotten, set in the ground, it will not grow while the world stands. Take an A corn, set that in the ground, it will grow: why will that, and not the other? because there is spirit in that which dies not, but causeth life to the terrene part of it, which dies, and consumes; whereas the other hath none. So if man have no immortal spirit in him, here is no place for a Resurrection, it must be an absolute Creation (if any thing) that gives him life again, but the whole current of Scripture, hold forth a Resurrection and therefore man hath something in him immortal.  
In the fift place I might prove that man hath an immortal spirit, uncapable of death, by the testimony of the ancient Heathen, far ancienter (many of them) than Plato, which also is a rational proof 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 immortal spirit, therefore it is a truth.  
I do not say he hath taught it some one man, or some one nation, but the whole world, the Universality of it shows it to be of God: The Devil teacheth not all nations, one and the same particular sin, but different according to the constitution of the climate they live in, else he would lose 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 confess, and leave to posterity this truth: all men universally, and particularly have learned it in one School 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 believe there is a God, and why so? because we find him present in his works, neither to prove this point, which shines so clear in nature.  
Both Greek and Latin Authors have plentifully left it to posterity.  

Phocylides.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
The soul is immortal, and liveth perpetually; and never waxeth old. And again, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   
The remainder of dead men, remains void of death.  
If you ask him the cause of this, he will answer you in another verse, thus (for he was a rational man) 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   

Sibylla.  The soul is God's Instrument, and Image in mortal men. Hitherto comes that of the Sibyl.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
Man by all reason is endued 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 certain spirit whereby it is united to the body, and this mind is that which we 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 than they, the heavenly cannot come down to the earth without leaving the heaven, but man measureth the heaven without remoung from the earth: to be short, his conclusion is that man is double, mortal as touching his body, immortal as touching his soul, which soul is the very man, and created of God (saith he) as the light is bred immediately of the sun.  
And Chalcidins saith, that at his death he spoke these words, I go home again into mine own country where my better Forefathers and kindred be.  
Zoroastres, who is of more antiquity than Hermes, this article is reported to be one of his, that men's souls are immortal, and that one day, there shall be a general rising again of their bodies, and the answer of the wise men of Chaldea (Who were the heirs of his doctrine) do answer sufficiently for him.  
There is one that exhorteth men to return with speed to their heavenly father: Who hath sent them a soul endued with much understanding.  
Another exhorteth them to seek Paradise, as the peculiar dwelling place of the soul.  
A third saith, that the soul hath God as it were shut up in it, and that it hath not any mortality therein, for (saith he) the soul is as it were drunken with God, and showeth forth his wonders in the harmony of this mortal body.  
A fourth saith it is a clear 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 thereof in his bosom.  
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 frail: and by those words he 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 Chaldeans, in so much that some think the Chaldeans are those that Plato speaks of, 
Lil. Legum 11. ep. 2.  when he saith, that the ancient and holy Oracles are to be believed, which affirm men's souls to be immortal, and that in another life, they must come before a judge that will require an account of all their do, the result whereof cometh to this, that the soul of man proceedeth immediately 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 to a Paradise, & therefore aught to make haste unto death and that it is so far from mortality, that it maketh even the body Immortal: what can we say more at this day, even in the time of light wherein we live of the same opoinion was Hordelitus, as is reported by Philolaus.  

Clement. of Alexandria.  Of Epicharmus we have this saying, if thou be'st a good man in thy heart, death can do thee no harm, for thy soul shall live happily in heaven:  
It were endless to recite all the words of the ancient about this subject, conifiming this truth, for of this opinion were Thales, Anaxagoras, Diogenes, and Zeno, Lucretius, Socrates, Xenophon, read Plato his Timaeus, his commonwealth, his Phadon, his Politics, his laws, Aristotle his books of living things, of the soul his morals, Michael of Ephesus upon his morals, Cicero his Tusculaves, his Comforts, his nature of the gods; his first book of laws, his Scipio's dream, Seneca to Gallio, to lucilius, concerning the Lady Martiaes' son, the shortness of his life, his book of comforts, Prophririus 4. book of abstinence, Plutarch, these ancient.  
For modern Philosophers, Epictetus, Simplicius, Plotinus, lib. 1. Aenead. 4. concerning the being of the soul 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 soul, these and thousands more confirm the point though they differ in circumstance, that man consists of two parts, viz. a body and a reasonable and immortal soul, and where they had this notion I shown before   

CHAP. 2. Of the Abilities; Or Faculties of the Soul,  
IN the inward man, we have a sum of whatsoever life, sense, moving, is in all creatures and moreover a shadow of the godhead itself, and that is the thing we have to examine in this Chapter.  
In plants we perceive that besides the bodies which we see, there is also an inward virtue which we see not, whereby they live, grow, bud, and bear fruit, which we call the quickening virtue and it maketh them to differ from stones, and metals, which have it not.  
In sensitive things, we find the very same virtue, which worketh while they sleep, and are after a sort as plants, and there withal we find another sort of virtue or power, which seethe, heareth, smelleth, tasteth and feelleth, which also in many of them doth hoard up the things brought in by the senses, which manner of power the plants are void of; this we call the sensitive virtue, because the effects there of are discerned and executed by the senses.  
In man we have both the quickening and sensitive the former uttering itself in the nourishing and increasing of him and the latter in the subtlety of sense, and imagination, through which he hath both quickening and sensitive life together: but moreover he hath a mind, which reapeth profit by the things brought in by the senses, which by his seeing conceives the things it seethe not; which of that which is not, gathereth that which is, which elevateth the thoughts from the earth and earthly things, yea, and after a sort from himself too, this we call the reasonable soul, and it is the thing that maketh man to be man, and not a plant or a bruit beast as the other two do.  
But by the way, whereas I say, that the inward man hath a quickening power as a plant hath, a sensitve qower as a beast hath, and a powe of understanding whereby he is man, my meaning is not that he hath three souls but only one soul, that like as in a bruit beast the sensitive soul comprehends the quickening soul; so in man the reasonable soul comprehends both sensitive, and quickening, and excecuteth the offices of them all three, all at one and the same time, it both heareth, seethe, smelleth, reasoneth, at one & the same time: the mind of a man will intent his own household affairs, the affairs of the commonwealth, & heavenly things all at once.  
Or to speak more fitly, these three degrees are three degrees of life, whereof the second exceedeth and containeth the first, the third exceedeth and containeth both the other two, the one, without which the body cannot live, is the vegetable, and is so tied to the body that it showeth not itself in any wise out of it, the second which cannot live without the body is the life of a beast, a sensitive life, which doth well manifest its power abroad, but yet not otherwise, but by the members and instruments of the body, whereto it is tied, the third which can of itself live without the body; but not the body without it, is the rational soul of man, which giveth life inwardly to all his parts, and deliniaments, showeth forth his life abroad in perceiving all things, subject to sense, and retaineth still his force (as we shown before) yea and increaseth it, even when the strength of the body: yea & the very liveliness thereof doth fail, you shall see a man forgo all his senses one after another, as the instruments of them decay, & yet still have life untouched and reason qvick, the reason is, the instruments of life fail, but life itself which quickens them fails not, whereby its aparent that in this soul of man (which notwithstanding is but one) there are diversities of power, abilities and faculties, the quickening power, doth nourish, increase, and maintain us, & reason nor sense meddle not with it, neither have they power to impeach the working thereof: the truth of this appears, in that these things are best done when our mind is at rest, and our senses a sleep, in so much that oftentimes we forgo the sense and moving of some parts, by some rheum, or some palsy, and yet some parts cease not to be nourished still, also the sensitive life seethe and perceiveth a far off, yea oft times without setting the mind thereupon, or without considering what the sense conceiveth, some men which have but weak senses, have very quick understandings, & on the contrary, again some fall into a consumption, which want not the perfect use of their senses, sometimes the reasonable part is so bend and occupied, about the things that it liketh of, that by the increasing of itself, it hurteth and diminisheth, the part of it quickeneth: Also it standeth in argument against the senses, & reproveth them of falsehood, & concludeth contrary to their information, & it may be the man that hath his digestion good, and his senses sound, not his wit and reason, sound in like Case, now were the soul but only one faculty it could not be, so but now it is divided manifestly into wit, or understanding, and will, the one serving to device, the other to execute, for we understand many things which we will not, & we will divers things which we understand not, which conttary operations, cannot be attributed to one power, nevertheless the uniting of these powers is with that distincknesse, and the distinguishing of them with that union, that ordinarily they meet altogether in one and the same action, the one of them (in all liklyhood) as readily as the other, howbeit every one of them doth his own proper work severally by himself, and one before another in respect of their objects.   

CHAP. 3. Of the Essence of the Soul.  
IT is not enough to know we have a soul, say some, whereby we live, feel, and understand, etc. and which being but one, hath in itself alone, so many powers, faculties, and abilities, but it will be demanded, what this soul is: and truly, if I should say I cannot tell what it is, I should not belly myself, I should but confess mine own ignorance, as many learned men have done before me, and I should do no wrong at all to the soul itself, sigh we cannot deny the effects of it; and truly, in my opinion, the less we are able to define the nature, and being thereof, the more doth the Excellency thereof shine forth, and appear, the dulness of the understanding is such by the fall of man in Adam, that it cannot conceive of the nature of spirits affirmatively, but by the effects, or negatively, and those that went about to define it, ran into many errors and absurdities; yet it follows not, that man hath no soul; were it not a worthy and learned Argument, for a man to reason thus: I know not what the soul is, therefore there is none, or the learned differ in the definition of it; therefore there is none: its just, as if a man should say, I know not where the Indies are; therefore there are none; since it is so then, it needs no long scanning, 
1 Soul not a quality but a substance.  whether it be a substance or a quality; for qualities have no being but in another thing than themselves; the soul which causeth another thing to be, cannot be a quality; for as much as the soul maketh man to be man, who otherwise were but a carkeiss, or carrion; therefore we must needs grant, that the soul is a forming substance, and substantial form; yea, and a most excellent substance, infinitely passing the outward man, which by the power and virtue thereof, causeth another thing to have being, and perfecteth the bodily substance, which seemeth inwardly to have so many perfections.  
Secondly, as the soul is a substance, not a quality, 
2 Vnbodily.  so it is a substance unbodily, incorporeal. 1. If we consider the nature of a body, it hath certain dimensions and comprehendeth not any thing, that is not proportioned to the greatness and capacity of it, for as itself must have place in another thing ' so must other things occupy some certain place in it; by reason whereof it cometh to pass, that things can have no place therein, if they be greater than it, without annoying one another, to be short if the thing be less than the body that contains it, the whole body shall not contain it, but some part of it only, and if it be greater, some part must needs be out, for there is no measuring of bodies but by quantity, but we see our soul comprehends heaven and earth, without annoying either other, and also time past, present and to come, without troubling one another: and also innumerable places, persons and towns, without cumbering our understanding, great things are there in their full bigness, and small things in their utmost smallness, both of them whole and sound, in the soul whole and sound, and not by peice-meale, or only in part of it: Moreover the fuller it is, the more it is able to receive; the more things are couched in it, the more it still coveteth, and the greater the things be, the fit is it to receive it, even when they be at the greatest. It followeth therefore, that the soul (which after a sort is infinite) cannot be a body, and so much the less can it be so, for that, whereas it harboureth so many and so great things in it, itself is lodged in so small a body.  
Secondly, a body cannot be in divers places at once, nor cannot pass without removing, but the soul as a thousand places may be in it, without occupying any places, so is the mind in a thousand places without changing place, & that not by succession of times, nor by turns, but often times altogether at one instant, as we shown in the first chapter, now there is not a body, that is or can be ubiquitary, or in divers places at once, it is against the nature of a body, all bodily motion requires time, yea & such time, as within a little over or under is proportioned both to its place, and to the length of its way it hath to go, than it is certain that our soul is not a bodily substance, which thing appeareth so much the more plainly, that it being lodged within this body, which is so movable, it removeth not with the body.  
3 Also it is a sure ground, that two bodies cannot mutually enter either into other, or contain either other, but the greater must needs always contain, and the other lesser must needs be contained, but by our souls we enter not only into other bodies, but also either into other minds, so as we comprehend either other, by mutual understanding, & embrace either other, by mutual love, it follows then that this substance, which is able to receive, abodiles thing can be no body, & so much the rather, because the body that seemeth to hold it containeth it not  
Fourth. That the soul is no bodily substance is manifest, in that it maketh all things that it lodgeth in it after a sort spiritual, therefore itself must needs be a spiritual substance, because it bereaves the thing it contains, after a sort of its body, & makes it spiritual, if there were any bodiliness in it, it were unable to enter into the knowledge of a body, a thousand several shapes are seen in a glass, if the clear of the glass had any peculiar shape of its own, none of those shapes could be seen but only its own, also all visible things are imprinted in the eye, if the sight of the eye had any peculiar colour of its own, either it would not see at all, or all things would seem like to that colour, which is in the eye; likewise the tongue is the discerner of all tastes, if it be not clear, but encumbered with humours, all things will be of the taste of the humour that the tongue is encumbered with, if it be bitter, they also are bitter, if waterish, they are waterish, yea if it be bitter, it cannot judge of bitterness itself, that a thing may receive all shapes all colours, & all tastes it is requisite that it be clear of all shape, of all colour, of all savour of its own, and that a thing may in understanding, know and conceive all bodies, as our soul doth, it is requisite that it be altogether bodiless itself, for had it any bodilinesse in it, it could not receive any body into it, without marring or altering itself or the other, for if you look nearly into the nature of a body, you shall find that no body receiveth into it the substantial form of a nother body without altering or losing its own, or the other, neither can pass from one form to another, without marring the first, as is plainly to be seen in wood, when it receiveth fire, in seeds, when they spring forth into buds, and so in other things, what is to be said, then of man's soul which receiveth, & conceiveth the forms and shapes of all things, with out corrupting its own, and morover becometh the perfecter by the more receiving, for the more it receiveth, the more it understandeth, and the more it understandeth, the more perfect it is.  
Fiftly, if it be a bodily substance, from whence is it, or of what mixture is it; if of any, then of the Elements, if of the Elements, how can that give life, which hath none in itself; how can that give understanding, that hath no sense; that divers things that have no being of themselves, should give being to another, or be made a thing that hath a being? that of divers outsides should be made one body, or of divers bodies, one soul; or of divers darknesses one light, of divers deaths one life; surely this one absurdity is able to countervail and outweigh all those 69. in R. O. his treaties of man's Mortality, by this it plainly appears, that he which made the mixture of these bodies, hath for the perfecting our body (beyond nature) breathed a soul into it, to be short, the property of a body is to suffer, the property of a soul is to do, & if the body be not put forth, by some other thing than itself, it is a very block, whereas the soul which is in our body, ceaseth not to stir up & down, though it have nothing to move it from without, therefore it is to be concluded from these reasons (and the like that might be alleged) that the soul is a substance incorporeal, unbodily, notwithstanding it be united to our bodies.  
Thirdly, as our soul, is a substance unbodily, 
3 Immaterial.  so is it unmateriall, likewise, & that appeareth, first because matter receiveth not any form or shape, but according to his own quantity, and but only one form at once, whereas our soul receiveth all forms without quantity, come there never so many at once, or never so great.  
Secondly, no matter receiveth contrary forms at once, but our soul comprehendeth and receiveth them together, as fire and water, heat & cold, white and black, and not only together, but also better by laying and matching of them together.  
Lastly, to be short, it appears, that the soul is not material, seeing the more we depart from matter, the more we understand, surely there is nothing more contrary to the substance of the soul than the nature of matter, then is this reasonable soul of ours neither a bodily nor a material thing, nor depending upon matter in the best action thereof, then must needs be of itself, and not proceed from body, or matter, for what can a body bring forth but a body, & matter but matter, and materials but materials; and therefore the soul is an unmateriall substance, which hath being of itself.  

4 Imomrtall and incorruptible. Plutarch, de sera ●uminis vindicta tractat.  Fourthly, the soul as it is a substance, incorporeal, immaterial, so is it incorruptible, and immortal, Plutarch saith, it is in vain to dispute thereof: for saith he, the doctrine of God's providence & that of the immortality of the soul are so linked together, that take away the one the other follows, (God grant that experience prove not Plutarkes words true, in some now living) for, saith he, to what purpose was the world created, if there were no body to behold it? or to what end, behold we the creatures in the world but to serve him? and why should we serve upon no hope? and to what end hath he endued us with these rare gifts of his, which for the most part do but put us to pain and trouble in this life, if we perish like the bruit beasts, which know not God.  
But because all are not of Plutarkes' mind, we will see if we can satisfy the contrary minded, by reason, for the better satisfying of those who take not so much pains as to enter into themselves, I shall endeavour to paint out to them, their right shapes, by lively reason, which they have defaced by ignorance, and  now to the purpose.  
First I shown before, that the soul is not a body, neither increaseth nor decreaseth with the body, but contrary wise, the more the body decreaseth; the more the understanding increaseth, the nearer the body draweth to death the more freely doth the mind understand, the more the body abateth the more powerful is the mind, why then should we think that the thing which becometh the stronger, by the weakness of the body, & which is advanced by the decay of the body, should perish to dust with the body? a man's seeing fails, because his eyes fail, but the blind man's understanding increaseth, because his eyes are not busied, and the old man's reason becometh more perfect, by the loss of his sight, & therefore why say we not, that the body faileth the soul, but the soul faileth not the body, that the glasses are out of the spectacles, but the eyes good still.  
Objoct. 1 But, 
Man's mortality pag. 13.  saith R.O. the part or member is endowed with the faculty, & so seeing is in the eye naturally, & really, and not the soul sees by the eye, and hearing locally in the ear, and so common sense, judgement & memory locally adherent to, and inherent in their places, & he proveth it, with this frigid argument: because if the member be perished the sense falls.  
Answ. To which I answer, if the eye be the thing that seethe, and the ear the thing that heareth, why do we not see things double, and hear sounds double, seeing we have two eyes & two ears, it is the soul then that seethe & heareth, and these which he taketh to be our senses are but the instruments of our senses, for when our eyes are shut or picked out, we then behold a thousand things in our mind, yea and then our understanding is most quick sighted, when the quickest of our eyesight, is as good as quenched, or quite dead how is it possible that the reasonable soul should be tied to the senses? what a worthy reason is it to say the soul dyeth with the sense, seeing the true senses, do grow & increase, even then when the instruments of the senses do die.  
Also I pproved before, that the soul is not the body, nor any part of the body, seeing then it is so, why measure we that by the body, which measureth all bodies, or make that to die with the body, whereby the bodies that died many hundred years ago, do after a certain manner live still, or who can hurt that thing, whom nothing hurteth or hindereth in that body? though a man lose an arm, yet doth his soul remain whole still, let a man forgo the one half of his body, yet is his soul as sound as before, for it is united in its own substance, & by the force and power of its self, it sheddeth itself into all parts of the body, though the body rot a way by piece meal, yet abideth the soul whole & undiminished, let the blood drain out, the moving wax weak, the strength perish, yet abideth the mind sound, & lively, it never forsakes its lodging, till there be no room left for it to lodge in, when our senses are overcome by death, than it doth most labour to surmount itself, working as goodly & Godly actions at that time when the body is at point to fail it, yea and oftentimes more godly too, then ever it did while the body was in health, as for example, it taketh order for itself, for our household, for the commonwealth, for a whole kingdom, & that with more uprightness, goodness, wisdom and modration, than ever it did before, yea and perchance in a body so far spent, so bare, so consumed, so withered without, and so putrified within, that he that looks upon him sees nothing but earth, and yet to hear him speak would ravish a man up to heaven, now when a man sees so lively a soul in so weak and wretched a body, may he not from reason conclude, as is said in hatching of chickens, the shell is broken, but there cometh forth a chicken.  
Secondly, for proof that the soul is immortal, see what is the ordinary cause that things perish; fire either goeth out for want of nourishment, or is quenched by his contrary water: water is resolved into air by fire, which is his contrary: the cause why the Plant dieth, is extremity of cold, or drought, or unseasonable cutting, or violent plucking up; also man's body dieth by increasing, or diminishing the humours called complexion, or by violence; of all these causes which can we choose to have any power against our soul? I say against the soul of man, which (notwithstanding it be united to matter to a body) is itself a substance unbodily, unmateriall, and only conceivable in understanding; nay, what can be contrary to that which lodgeth contraries equally in itself? which understandeth the one of them by the other, which coucheth them all under one skill; and to be short, in which the contrarieties themselves abandon their contrariety; so as they do not pursue, but ensue one another.  
Fire is hot, and water is cold, 
Contrarieties cannot kill the soul.  our bodies mislike these contraries, and are grieved by them, our mind linketh them together, without either burning or cooling itself, and it setteth the one of them against the other to know them the better, the things which destroy one another throughout the world, maintain one another in our minds, nothing is more contrary to peace then war; and yet man's mind can maintain peace by preparing for war, and lay earnestly for war in seeking for peace; even death itself which dispatcheth our life cannot be contrary to the life of the soul; for the soul seeketh life by death; what can the soul meet withal, in the whole world that can be contrary to it? which can enjoin obedience to things most contrary; contrarieties than cannot do it.  

Nor want of food.  What then, can want of food? How can that want food in the world, which can feed on the whole world, or how can that forsake food, which the fuller it is, the hungrier it is; the more that it hath digested, the better able it is to digest; the more it hath, the more it desireth; take from it the sensible things, and the things of understanding abide with it still; bereave it of earthly things, and the heavenly remain with it the more abundantly: to be short, a bridge it of all worldly things; yea, and of the world itself, and even then doth it feed with greatest ease, and maketh cheer agreeable to its own nature.  
Also, the body filleth itself to a certain measure, and delighteth in some certain things; but what can fill the mind? fill it as full as you can with the knowledge of things, and it is the more eager, and sharper set to receive more; the more it taketh in, the more it still craveth; and yet for all that it never feeleth any rawness, it never catcheth a surfeit for want of concoction; what shall I say more, discharge your understanding from minding itself, and then doth it live in him, and of him, in whom all things do live; again, fill it with the knowledge of itself, and then doth it feel itself most empty, and sharpest set upon the desire of the other; now then can that die for want of food, which cannot be glutted with any thing, which is nourished and maintained with all things; and which (in very deed) liveth upon him, by whom all the things which we wonder at here beneath are upheld. 
Nor violence.   
Well, violence (you will say) perhaps may do the deed; what is violence, but a justling of two bodies together, but the soul is no body, nor bodily substance, as I proved before, can there be any violence between a bodily, and spiritual substance or between two spiritual substances; seeing that oftentimes when they would destroy one another, they uphold one another; and if the soul cannot be pushed at; neither inwardly, nor outwardly; is there any thing in nature, that can naturally hurt it?  
No! will some say? Object. we see it weakened by an encounter, as we may discern by the senses; the more excellent the thing is, which the sense receiveth; so much the more the sense itself offended, and grieved therewith: As for example, the feeling by sire, the taste by harshness, the smelling by strong savour, the hearing by the hideousness of the noise, whether by a Thunderclap, or by the falling of a River, the sight by looking upon the Sun, upon fire, or any thing that hath a glistering brightness.  
I omit that in most of these, Answ. it is not the sense itself, but the outward instrument of sense that is offended, & hurt: But let us here see whether there be the like in the soul, or no; nay the contrary, the more of understanding, and excellency the thing is, the more doth it, comfort and refresh the mind, if it be dark so that we understand it by halves, it hurteth us nor; yet it doth not delight us; nay, as we increase in understanding it, so it liketh us the better; and the higher it is, the more doth it stir up the power of our understanding; and (as you would say reach us the hand, to draw us to the attainment thereof; as for them that are dim-sighted, we forbidden them to look upon the things that are over-bright; but for them of rawest capacity, we offer them the things that are most intelligible; when the sense beginneth to perceive most sharply, then is it feign to give over; as if it felt the very death of itself, contrary wise, where the mind beginneth to understand, then is it most desirous to hold on still; and whence ariseth this, but that our senses work by bodily Instruments, our mind worketh by a bodiless substance, which needeth not the help of the body; and seeing that the nature, the nourishment, and the actions of the soul are fare different, not only from the nature, nourishment and actions of the body, but also from all that either is done, or wrought by the body: can there be any thing more childish, then for us to demee our souls to be mortal, by the abating and decaying of our senses, or by the mortality of our bodies? nay, contrariwise, it may be most sound, and substantially concluded thereupon, that man's soul is of its own immortal; seeing that all death as well violent, as natural, cometh of the body, and by the body.  
Thirdly, the immortality of the soul may be firmly proved, even from death it itself: The two best definitions of death that eyer I heard of, or read of, are these, and both true. 1. Death is a separating of the matter from his form. 2. Death is the utmost period of moving, from both which the immortality of the soul may be proved; and first of all from the first.  
We have already proved the soul to be the form, and the body must needs be the matter then, and the separation of the soul from the body, is commonly called death: now than what death can there be of the soul, seeing it is immaterial, death must work upon a matter, or nothing; for (as one saith) a man may take away the roundness, or squarnesse of a table of copper, because they have no abiding, but in the matter, but had that or any thing else, such a round, or square form, as might have abiding without matter, or stuff wherein to be; out of all doubt, such a form or shape should continue for ever; nay, which is more, how can that be the corrupter, of a thing, which is the perfection thereof? the less our minds are tied to these bodily things, the more lively, and cheerful they be, at a word, the full and perfect life thereof, is the full and perfect withdrawing thereof from the body, and whatsoever the body is made of, and this follow by direct consequence from the former. All these things are so clear that they need no proof; for we know that every thing worketh according to the proper being thereof; and that same which perfecteth the operations of a thing, perfecteth the being thereof also; it followeth therefore, that seeing the separation of the body from the soul, and of the form from the matter, perfecteth the operation, or working of the soul, (as I said before) it doth also make perfect, & strengthen the very being thereof; and therefore cannot in any wise corrupt it, and what else is dying but to be corrupted? and what else is corrupting, but suffering? and what else is suffering, but receiving? and how can that which receiveth all things without suffering, receive corruption by any thing? fire corrupteth and marreth our bodies, and we suffer in receiving it: so also doth extreme cold; but if we suffered nothing by it, it could not freeze us, our senses likewise are marred, by the successive force of the things that they light upon; and that is because they receive, and perceive the thing that grieveth them; and for the manner of their behaving themselves, towards their objects, is subject to suffering; but as the reasonable soul which receiveth all things after one manner, that is by the way of understanding, by which it always worketh, and is never wrought into; how is it possible for it, to corrupt or mar itself.  
For what is the thing whereof our Soul suffereth aught in the substance thereof, I mean where by the substance of our soul is any way impaired or hurt, by minding, or conceiving the same in understanding? as little doth the fire hurt it, as the air, and the air, as the fire, as little hurt receiveth it, from the frozen Ice of Groenland, as from the scorching sands of afric, as little also, doth vice annoy it as virtue; for vice and virtue are so fare off from encumbering the substance of the soul, that our mind doth never conceive, or understand them better, then by setting together one against the other, that thing therefore, which doth no whit impair itself, but taketh the ground of perfecting itself by all things, cannot be marred or hurt by any thing.  
In the Second place, I said, death is the uttermost point of moving, and the uttermost point of this life, for even in living we die, & in dying we live, & there is not that step that we make in this life, but we step forward unto death, after the manner of a dial or a clock which endeth its moving, in moving from minute to minute, take a way moving from a bod, & it liveth no longer; now let us see if the soul also, be carried with the same moving, if it be, it may die with the body, if not it cannot, but we see it moves not with th●… body, nay we see the contrary, a man may have his mind as free as an Emperor, though his body be in prison, whether the mind rest, or whether it be busied, 'bout the proper operations thereof, it is not perceived, either by the panting of the hart, or by the beating of the pulses, or by the breathing of the lungs, the body carries the soul about like a ship, the sticking fast thereof, or the tying of it to a post, hinders not our going up and down in it still.  
Fourthly, if the soul be subject to the final corruption of the body, it must needs be subject to the alteration thereof also, and if it be subject to alterations it is subject to time also, for alterations or change are consequents of moving, and moving is not made without time, now time passed in respect of the body cannot be called again, but in respect of the mind it is always present, yea and time perfecteth accomplisheth and increaseth our mind, and refresheth it from day to day, whereas contrary wise it sorely weareth, wasteth away, and quit consumeth the body. It follws then that the soul is not subject to those changes and corruption, that altar the body, therefore cannot die with it.  
Fifth. It appears that the soul is immortal & incorruptible, because it lives by incorruptible things, nothing in the world is nourished by things better than itself, neither doth any of them contain greater things than itself, but the things that are corruptible do live of corruptible things, and cannot live without corrupting them, as for example, beasts live by herbs, men by beasts, both by corrupting them turn them to nourishment, of their nature, and therefore things that live by incorruptible things, and can so disgist them as to turn them into the nourishment of their nature, & yet not corrupt them, are incorruptible themselves too. Now the reason able soul or mind of man, conceiveth reason and truth, and is fed, and strengthened with them, and reason and truth, are things unchangeable, not subject to time place or alteration, or any thing else that may or can breed corruption, but are steady, unchangeable and everlasting, for that twice two is fowr, that there is the same reason in the proportion, of eight to six, that there is from four to three, or that in a triangle, the three inner angles are equal to the two right angles, and truths that neither years nor thousands of years can change, as true at this day as they were when Euclid first spoke them, as true in our schools as in his, it followeth then that the Soul comprehending reason and truth, which are things free from corruption., cannot itself in any wise, be subject to corruption.  
And in the sixth and last place, we might fitly bring in such an argument, as we did in the first Chap. viz. if all that is in us were mortal and transitory, we should never question what immortality is, for of contraries the skill is all one, if a man had no actual life or had it only by promise, (were it only a mortal life) he could not dispute of it, till he had it actually, neither by the same argument, could he speak of immortality, were he not immortal, but of this more before, therefore I Pass it here.   

CHAP. 4. Objections against the Souls. immortality answered.  
ANd first for the objection and argument of R. O. whom I suposse to be an ingenious man, I defy him, to look into himself, take a little notice, of the dimensions and parts thereof, let him tell me the reason of the continual motion of the heart, the breathing of the lungs, & not the effects of it, but the motive cause of it, if he cannot, then let him confess he hath something in himself, which fare transcends himself, and the weakness of his capacity, which out of ignorance he reasons against, though he know not what it is, & therefore I reject all his arguments, ob Jgnorantiam Elenchi, and pass to other things objected to me.  
Saith one, Object. the soul dieth with the body because the soul and body are both one, and why thinks he so because he sees no more than the body.  
I answare, Answ. this argument is all one with there's that denied there was a God, because they saw him not, but yet by his works thou mayst perceive there is a God, discern also by the do of thy soul, that thou hast a soul, for in a dead body thou seest the same parts remain but thou seest not the same works that werein it before, when a man is dead his eye seethe nothing at all, yet there is nothing changed in his eye, but whil he is alive he seethe infinite things that are divers, the Pour then that seethe is not of the body how lively and quick sighted soever the eye be, it seethe not itself, wonder not then though thou have a soul and yet thy soul seethe not it self, for if thy eye sight saw itself, it were not a power or ability of seeing, but a visible thing, likewise if thy soul saw itself it were no more a soul, that is the worker in, and quickener of the body, but a very body unable to do any thing itself, a massy substance, subject to suffering, for we can see nothing but bodies, & bodily substances, because the organ of our sight is corporal; but seeing thou conceivest so many divercities of bodies at once in thy imagination, needs must thou have a Power in thee which is not a body. Object.  
But be it (say some) that we have a Power of sense, yet have we not a power of reason, for that we call the power of reason or understanding, is nothing but an excellency or rather a consequence of sense, in so much that when sense dieth, the residue dieth with it. Answ.  
In this very objection, thou hast surmounted sense, which thou couldst not have done, if thou hadst had nothing in thee but sense, or nothing far beyond sense, for whereas thou sayest, if the sense die, the rest dieth also, it is a reason that proceedeth from one term to another, and it is a gathering of reasons which conclude one thing by another; now the senses do indeed perceive rheit objects, but yet how lively soever they be they reason not; we see a smoke, so far extendeth the sense, but if we thence infer, therefore there must needs be a fire, and thereupon seek who was the kindler thereof, that surmounteth the ability of fence; we hear music, that may a Beast do as well as we, but his hearing of it, is but as a bare sound, whereas we in hearing, regard the harmony, and discern the cause of the concord's and discords which either delight or offend us, the thing that heareth the sound, is the sense, but the thing that judgeth of that which the sense conceiveth, is another thing, the like may be said of smelling, tasting, and feeling, our smelling of scents, our tasting of savours, & our feeling of substances, is indeed the six work of our senses, but our judgement of the inward virtue of a thing by the outward sent, or of the wholesomeness or unwholsomenesse of food by the taste, or of the hotness or vehemency of a fever, by feeling the pulse, yea and our proceeding even unto the very bowels of a man, whither the eye being the quickest of all senses is not able to attain, surely it is the work of a more mighty power then the sense is, & indeed R. O. saith true on that, there are Beasts, which do hear, see, smell, taste and feel, much better and quicker than man doth, yet none of them confereth the contraries of sounds, colours, scents and savours; none sorteth them out, to serving one of another or to the serving of themselves; 
job. 39.20. Psal. 49.20. Read Pliny's not. hist. Elephant's  the reason is (as God saith of the Ostrich) the Lord have given them no understanding, and are David saith, the man without understanbing, dies like a Beast, showing that a Beast hath none, but often times, man concludes contrary to his senses, our eye tells us there are no stairs up at noon day, but reason tells us there are, or the ends of lines in a long walk, meet in a point, whereas reason certifies us that they run direct upon equal distances, one from the other, for want of this discretion certain Elephants saith vetillio (though the wisest of all Beasts) which were passing over a long bridge, turned bacl, being deceived, and yet they wanted fight no more than we do, yet they that lead them were not deceived, their leaders then, had in them another power or virtue besides their eye sight, which corrected there sight, and therefore aught to be of higher estimation, in like manner is it with the other senses, our hearing tells us that the thunderclap is after the lightning, but reason assureth us that they are both together, for there is a certain power in us, that is able to discern, what proportion is between hearing & seeing, also the taste of one troubled with a disease of choler, beareth him in hand that even sugar itself is bitter, which notwithstanding he knoweth by reason to be untrue. To be short, those that have their senses most quick and lively, be not of the greatest wisdom, and understanding, a man then differeth from a beast, and excelleth them by some other power then sense, a man rideth a great way to learn experience, the man perhaps comes home the wiser, but his horse which perhaps saw as much as he, comes home just as he went out.  
Now you see then, there is a great difference between the sense and the power that governeth the sense; like as the report of a Spy is one thing, and the Spy himself another, and the wisdom of the Captain which receiveth the report, and judgeth of it, is a third: nay, who can deny, but sense and reason are divers things, or rather, who will not grant, that in many things they are clean contrary? Sense bid deny, eat, and eschew grief: whereas reason biddeth sometimes, proffer our leg to the Chirurgeon to be cut off. He that should see Scevola, or Archbishop, Cranmer of late times, burn off their own hands without once gnashing their teeth, would he not think they were utterly void of sense, so mightily doth reason overrule sense. To be short, sense hath his peculiar inclination, which is appetite, and reason likewise hath his, which is will, and like as reason doth oftentimes overrule sense, and is contrary to it, so will correcteth the appetite, or lust that is in us, & warrath against it for in Agues and fevers we covet to drink, in Apoplexies, and Bethargies to sleep, and in hunger to eat, yet from all these things doth our will restrain us: the more a man follows his lust, the less is he led by his will (for no man wils to be miserable, which lust leads him too) & the more he standeth upon pleasing of his senses, the less reason ordinarily useth he.  
Secondly, let us consider that bruit beasts which have this sensitive part as well as we, if we have no more than that, how comes it to pass, that a little child driveth whole flocks and herds of them, whether he listeth, & sometimes whether they would not? whereof cometh it, that many of them in their kind, do all live, nestle, and sing after one sort: whereas men have their Laws, Commonwealths, manners of buildings, and forms of reasoning, not only divers, but also commonly contrary? now what can harbour these contrarieties together, but only that which hath not any thing contrary to it: and wherein all things do lay away their contrariety? Surely, it is not the sense can do it, whose proper and peculiar object is most contrary to sense. Beside this (as I said before) whereas we conceive wisdom, skill and virtue, and such other things, as are all bodiless: our senses can work upon nothing, but the qualities of bodily substances: and whereas we make universal rules of particular things, the senses attain no further, than the particular things themselves: and whereas we conclude of the causes by the effects, our senses perceive nothing but the bare effects, so that he that denieth, that besides the common sense, there is a reason, or understanding in Man, distinct and severed from sense, is void both of understanding and sense.  
Yea, Object. but this reason (say they) or power of understanding, which is in Man, is corruptible as well as the power of perceiving by the senses. I think I have proved the contrary already: nevertheless let us examine the reason a little further. The form or shape of every thing (say they) doth perish with the matter: Now the soul is, (as they would say) the form or shape of the body; therefore it corrupteth with the body. This Argument were rightly concluded, if the soul were a material form, but I have proved that the soul is immortal, and hath a continuance of itself: and indeed the more it is discharged of matter, the more it retaineth his own particular form, therefore the corrupting of the matter toucheth not the soul at all.  
Another saith, if dead men's souls live still, why do none of them come to tell us so?  
And Answ. now he thinketh he hath stumbled upon a very subtle device, Christ answers, Luke 16. ult. yet we will see a little the rationality, or rather the irrationality of it viz. of the objection.  
What intercourse I pray is there between things that have bodies, and things that have none? we see there is small, or no intercourse between some Kingdoms under the Sun. But we would have God send us souls from Heaven to make us believe, as who should say, it stood God greatly in hand to make us believe, more than it did us that we should believe, in effect, what else is all this, but a desiring that some man might return again into his Mother's womb, to encourage young babes against the bitter pinches and pains which they abide in the birth, which he would no less abhor than we do death, if he had the knowledge of them. Object.  
But they will still bear us in hand, that seeing the vegetive, and sensitive powers be corrupted and perish, the understanding, or reasonable part must needs perish by the same rule: also,  
To this (in a word) I answer, this is all one, Answ. as if a man should say, you told me such a man was a very religious man, a good Fencer, and a good Musician, but now he hath lost his right hand, he can neither handle sword nor lute: how then can he be a religious man still, as you reported him to be? nay, though he lose Instruments, yet ceaseth he not to be an honest man, yea and a Fencer, and Lute-player too in respect of skill; likewise, when our souls have forgone these exercises, yet cease they not to be the same they were before. To make this a little clear yet, of the powers of the soul, some are exercised by the instruments of the body, & othersome, without any help or furtherance of the body at all. These which are exercised by the body, are the senses, and powers of the senses, and the powers of the growing, which may carry the same like answer, that is between a Musician, and his Lute. Break his Lute, his cunning remaineth, but his putting it in practice faileth; give him another Lute, and he falls to playing again afresh. Give unto the oldest Hag in the world, the same eyes he had when he was young, he shall see as well as ever he did: after the same manner it is with the growing and thriving power, the vegative power in man, restore to it a good stomach, a sound Liver, and a perfect heart: it shall execute its function, as well as ever it did before.  
The power which worketh of itself without the body, is the power of reason and understanding, which if we will, we may call the mind, but if you still doubt thereof, consider when thou mindest a thing earnestly, what thy body furthereth thy mind therein? and thou shalt perceive, that the more fixedly thou thinkest upon it, the less thou mindest the things before thee, in so much, that many times, the earnestness of his thoughts drives a man (that is going) out of his way, as who should say, that the workings of the body are the greatest impediments that can be, to the peculiar acts of the mind: nay, which is more, this understanding part, groweth so much the stronger and greater, the less it is occupied & busied about these base and contemptible things, and is altogether drawn home, wholly to itself, as is plainly seen in those that want their eyes, whose minds are commonly most apt to understand, and most firm to remember, do we debate of a thing in ourselves? neither our bodies nor senses are busied about it, do we will the same? as little do they stir for that too: to understand, and to will, which are the operations of the mind, the soul hath no need of the body, as for working and being, they accompany one another, saith Aristotle. Therefore to continue still in being, the soul hath not to do with the body, nor any need of the body: therefore for the soul to act well, or to be well, it had need be quite freed from the body.  
But Object. (say they) we see men forgo their reason as fools and melancholy 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 again by good diet and medicinable drinks, but had they been utterly lost and gone; no physic could have restored them again; therefore of necessity the soul was as sound as before: it was but like an eclipse of the Sun, it seems be dimmed; but it is but by the coming of the Moon between 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 clear: take away the impediments, the eye seethe clear, purge away the humours, our imaginations shall be pure, and our understanding as bright as ever, it fareth not with our souls, as it doth with our bodies, which after a long sickness retain still, either a hardness of the spleen, or a shortness of the breath, weakness of body, or a falling down of Rheum upon the lungs; nor as a wound that retaineth a scar which cannot be worn out, for neither in their understanding, nor in their wills do our souls feel any abatement: and this appeareth in lunatic 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 stayed in their wits: the like is seen in them that have the falling sickness, their understanding seems only to be eclipsed, during the time of their fits, but afterward they be as discreet as though they ailed nothing, you shall never see any body out of his wits, in whom the Physician may not manifestly perceive, either some default of  instruments, or some overflowing of some melancholy humour, that troubled and marred his body, before it troubled or impaired his mind. To be short, whosoever saith, that man's soul perisheth with the body, because it is troubled by the distemperature, or indisposition of the body, may as well uphold and maintain, that the Child in his mother's womb dieth with his mother, because he moveth with her, and is partaker with her in her harms, and throws, by reason of the strait 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 help of the imagination: and therefore when the imagination is gone, with the instruments whereto it is tied, the soul can not work, nor consequently be.  
To this I answer, that it is all one, as if they should say, that because the child being in his mother's womb taketh nourishment of her blood, by his navel, therefore he cannot live when he is come out of her womb, and his navel strings cut off, when we see that then is the time that the mouth, and the tongue, and the other parts of the Child do their duty, which served before to no purpose, saving that they were prepared for the time to come: even so the soul being scaped out of the body, as a Child out of the womb, shall begin to perform his operations by himself, and that more certainly, for that it shall not be subject to false reports, neither to the senses inward or outward, but to the very things themselves, which it shall have seen and learned in itself: 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 soul is an understanding, reasonable power, over which death or corruption have no power: If any man yet doubt thereof, let him but examine himself: for even his own doubts will prove it to him: If he stand in contention still, let him fall to reasoning with himself, for by concluding his Arguments to prove his soul mortal, he shall give judgement himself, that it is immortal. If I have left out any thing that might be alleged, (for who is able to allege 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 what I have written, and the Lord give you a right understanding.   

Scriptures to prove the being of the Soul, after it is separated from the Body, and before the Resurrection.  
I Am in a straight betwixt two, having a desire to departed and to be with Christ which is fare better, nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you, Phil. 1.23.24. heers 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. Fear not them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him that is able to cast both body and Soul into Hell.  
here's a body that may be killed, a soul that cannot be killed but to evade thes R: O, makes a great puzzle to prove no hell, till the resurrection, a lusty strong, superlogicall argument, there is no hell till the resurrection, Ergo man hath no Immortal soul Risum teneatis amici? might not his Dromodoticall argument be rightly retorted bacl here upon himself?  
2. Cor, 5.6.8. Therefore we are always 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 plain they need no explanation but hold forth the immortality of the soul as clear as the sun at no one day.  
Luke: 23.43. Verile I say unto thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.  
Is this the word of God? may a man build his faith upon it? then both Christ and the penitential thief were that day in paradise, there bodies were not there then their souls must; unlsse any should say paradise is in the grave, which is as ridiculous as false.  
Eccles: 12.7. Then shall dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.  
A scripture beyond exception, here is soul & body described by their original, by their pedigree, the one taken from the earth, to it, it must return, the other comes from jehovah and to him it shall return who is not the God of the dead but of the living.   
FINIS.