Part 27

12. We have also a punctual History to this purpose, related by Hollingshead, Stow, and Sir Richard Baker, from Roger of Winchester, of King Henry the second, which is this: “This King, when he was carried forth to be buried was first apparelled in his Princely Robes, having his Crown on his Head, Gloves on his Hands, and Shoes on his Feet wrought with Gold, Spurs on his Heels, a Ring of Gold on his Finger, a Scepter in his Hand, a Sword by his Side, and so was laid uncovered having a pleasant countenance: which when it was told to his Son Richard, he came with all speed to see him, and as soon as he came near him, the blood gushed out of the nose of the dead Corps in great plenty, even as if the spirit of the dead King had disdained and abhorred the presence of him, who was thought to be the chief cause of his death. Which thing caused the said Richard to weep bitterly, and he caused his Fathers body to be honourably buried at Fonteverard.”

13. The last story that we shall relate of this nature, is from a Minister that is learned, sincere and of great veracity, who had it from those that were eye-witnesses, and is this: “In the year of our Lord God, 1661. January 30th on Saturday at night about nine of the Clock, did John How of Bruzlington-Bank, at the foot of an Hill (which is about two miles distant from Bishop-Awkland) murther Ralph Gawkley, who was a Glover in Bishop-Awkland: This How was the next day apprehended and brought to touch Gawkleys Corps, the lips and nostrils of the dead body wrought and opened as he touched (which made him afraid to touch the second time) then presently the Corps bled abundantly at the nostrils in the sight of Mr. Robert Harrison the Coroner (now Tenant at Bishop-Awkland to Mr. Franckland, from whom I had the relation) of Anthony Cummin and his Brother, &c. of the Jury, and of a great many towns people, who were then present. So How was Executed the next Assizes after at Durham: Witnesses against him were Anne Wall, whom he also wounded, yet she escaped with her life, and How’s own Wife, at the motion of her own Father (a very honest Man) who bid her tell the truth, and she should never want help.”

Some may think that I have been too large and tedious in heaping so many stories concerning the bleeding of the bodies of those that have been murthered; but I did it for this reason, because there are many that think it but to be a Fable of the credulous vulgar, and others think that it is but an ordinary matter that happens to any bodies that are dead, and no extraordinary or supernatural thing in it at all. But whosoever shall but use so much patience, as seriously to read and consider these select Histories that we have recited, may easily be satisfied, both that such bleeding is absolutely true de facto, and also that there is something more than ordinary in it, and therefore we shall inlarge in these observations.

1. It will not be found to hold touch upon diligent observation and strict inquiry, that all dead bodies do bleed fresh and rosie blood, especially after the third or fourth day, or after some weeks, as divers of the instances above given do manifestly prove; and therefore is an accident incident to some dead bodies and not to all. And it will as far fail, that wounded bodies, that have been slain in the wars, after the natural heat be gone, will upon motion bleed any fresh or crimson blood at all; for we our selves in the late times of Rebellion have seen some thousands of dead bodies, that have had divers wounds, and lying naked and being turned over and over, and by ten or twelve thrown into one pit, and yet not one of them have issued any fresh and pure blood: Only from some of their wounds, some sanious matter would have flowed, putrefaction beginning by reason of the moisture and acidity in the air, but no pure blood, and therefore is not a common accident to all humane bodies that die naturally or violently, but only is peculiar to some, and especially to those that are murthered by prepensed malice, as appeareth in the Histories recited above.

2. We shall acknowledge with Gregorius Horstius, Sperlingius and Gothofredus Voigtius, that sometimes the bodies of those that have been murthered do bleed, when the murtherer is not present, as is manifest from the sixth History recited from Horstius of the young Man of twenty five years old, that bled so long and so often, though the murtherer was not present; from whence they conclude that the presence of the murtherer, is not a necessary cause of the bleeding of the murthered body; and therefore that the bleeding of the body is not always a certain and infallible sign of discovering the murtherer? To which we reply, that the issuing of fresh and crimson blood from the wound or the nostrils of the persons body that hath been murthered, is always a certain sign that the Corps that doth so bleed was murthered, because those that die naturally or violently by chance, man-slaughter or in the war, do not bleed, as hath been proved before. Again, if the murtherer be certainly known, or have confessed the crime, in regard of the final cause which is discovery, there is no reason why the Corps should bleed: And though the presence of the murtherer may not be the efficient cause why the Corps doth bleed, yet is it the occasional, as is manifest undeniably by sundry of the Histories that we have related, where the murtherers had not been certainly known but by the bleeding of the body murthered.

3. Whereas the three Authors above named, thinking they have sufficiently confuted those that ascribed this effect of the bleeding of the dead body to Sympathy or Antipathy, or to the moving of the bodies, or heat in the air; have assigned the cause to be the beginning of putrefaction in the bodies murthered, by which a new motion is caused in the humors, and so in the blood, by which means it floweth afresh: against this these two reasons oppose themselves. 1. Must putrefaction needs begin at that very moment, when the murtherer toucheth the body? For in divers of them there was no bleeding until the murtherers were present or did touch the bodies, and their touching could not cause the beginning of putrefaction, and soon after their removing the bleeding hath ceased, so that putrescence in fieri cannot be the cause of the fresh bleeding. 2. Putrefaction beginning could not be the cause why the murthered Shepherds body in the ninth History should with its hands point to the wound, and to the murtherers, nor that the hands of the Wench murthered by the Jews, in the tenth History, should be stretched forth to the Prince of Baden, or that the Lips and Nostrils of the Body of Gawkley should work and open at the touch of the murtherer How; this must of necessity proceed from some higher cause than putrefaction, or any other they have laid down.

4. But though it should be acknowledged, that in some of these bleedings there were something that were extraordinary or supernatural, yet as learned Horstius tells us: “It is (he saith) an inconvenient Tenent of those that hold, that the Souls of those that are murthered, wandering about the Bodies, by reason of the hatred they bear towards those that were their murtherers, do cause these bleedings: but this in Philosophy cannot stand, because the separate form can by no means operate upon the subject any longer. And (he saith) the same thing in Theologie seems to be very impious; because the Souls of the dead are without mundane conversation, as is sufficiently manifest from the History of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Luke 16.”

“5. And if some should refer these effects immediately unto God, as many learned Authors have done; as though God by this means would sometimes make known those that are guilty: or to refer this unto the Devil, as though he would sometimes elude the Judges, and to do this that so the innocent might be punished with the wicked; We answer (he saith) to this briefly, by adding this only, that a supernatural cause is not rashly to be feigned where a natural one is ready at hand. And if there be such examples, which cannot be reduced to these aforesaid natural causes, of which sort many are related by Libanius part 2. fol. 172. then we can by no reason be repugnant, but that they are preternaturally brought to pass.” And of this opinion are most of the Pontificial Writers, that thereby they might the better maintain their Tenent, that miracles are not ceased; though we do not understand that if we should grant, that in these things there should be some concurrence of Divine Power more than ordinary, that therefore it must be a miracle, for it is yet not infallibly concluded what a miracle is, and every wonderful thing is not therefore concluded to be a miracle, and a miracle being not absolutely defined, what is not one cannot be certainly resolved.

6. Some there are that ascribe these strange bleedings of murthered bodies, and of their strange motions, with the sweating of blood, as upon the Pedlars bended dagger or knife, mentioned in the eleventh History, unto the Astral or Sydereal spirit (and that not improbably;) that being a middle substance, betwixt the Soul and the Body doth, when separated from the Body, wander or hover near about it, bearing with it the irascible and concupiscible faculties, wherewith being stirred up to hatred and revenge, it causeth that ebullition and motion in the blood, that exudation of blood upon the weapon, and those other wonderful motions of the Body, Hands, Nostrils and Lips, thereby to discover the murtherer, and bring him to condign punishment. Neither is any Tenent yet brought by any, that is more rationally probable to solve these and many other wonderful Phenomena’s than this of the Astral Spirit, if it can be but fully proved that there is such a part of Man that doth separately exist, which we shall endeavour to prove ere we end this Chapter.

7. But it is granted upon all sides, that if the murtherer be brought to the presence, or touch of the person murthered, and not quite dead, that then the wounds though closed and staid from bleeding, or the nostrils, will freshly break forth and bleed plentifully. The reason is obvious, because the Soul being yet in the Body, retaining its power of sensation, fancy and understanding, will easily have a presension of the murderer, and then no marvail that through the vehement desire of revenge, the irascible and concupiscible faculties do strongly move the blood, that before was beginning to be stagnant, to motion and ebullition, and may exert so much force upon the organs as for some small time to move the whole body, the hands, or the lips and nostrils. So that all that is to be done, is but to prove, that the person murthered is not absolutely dead, and that the Soul is not totally separated or departed forth of the Body, and this we shall do by undeniable proofs, as are these that follow in this order.

1. Though we generally take death to be a perfect separation of the Soul from the Body, which is most certainly a great truth, yet when this is certainly brought to pass, is a most difficult point to ascertain, because that when the Soul ceases to operate in the Body so as to be perceived by our Senses, it will not follow, that therefore the Soul is absolutely departed and separated.

2. It is manifest that many persons through this mistake have in the times of the Plague been buried quick, and so have some Women been dealt withal that lay but in fits of the suffocation of the Womb, and yet were taken to be dead. So that from the judgment of our Senses, no certain conclusion can be made that the Soul is totally departed, because it goeth away invisibly; for many that not only to the judgment of the vulgar, but even in the opinion of learned Physicians, have been accounted dead, yet have revived, as learned Schenckius hath furnished us with this story from Georgius Pictorius, “that a certain Woman lay in a fit of the Strangulation of the Womb, for six continual days without sense or motion, the arteries being grown hard, ready to be buried, and yet revived again, and from Paræus of some that have lain three days in Hysterical suffocations, and yet have recovered, and of divers others that may be seen in the place quoted in the Margent.

3. So that though the organs of the Body may by divers means, either natural or violent, be rendered so unfit, that the Soul cannot perform its accustomed functions in them, or by them, so as they may be perceptible to our senses, or judgments; yet will not that at all conclude, that the Soul is separated, and departed quite from the Body, much less can we be able to define or set down the precise time of the Souls aboad in the Body, nor the ultimate period when it must depart, for the union may be (and doubtless is) more strong in some than in others, and the Lamp of life far sooner and more easily to be quenched in some than in others. And the Soul may have a far greater amorosity to stay in some Body that is lively, sweet, and young, than in others that are already decaying and beginning to putrifie, and it may in all probability both have power and desire to stay longer in that lovesome habitation, from whence it is driven away by force, especially that it may satisfie it self in discovering of the murderer, the most cruel and inhumane disjoyner of that loving pair that God had divinely coupled together, and to see it self, before its final departure, in a hopeful way to be revenged.

4. If we physically consider the union of the Soul with the Body by the mediation of the Spirit, then we cannot rationally conceive that the Soul doth utterly forsake that union, untill by putrefaction, tending to an absolute mutation, it be forced to bid farewel to its beloved Tabernacle; for its not operating ad extra to our senses, doth not necessarily inferr its total absence. And it may be that there is more in that of Abels blood crying unto the Lord from the ground, in a Physical sense, than is commonly conceived, and God may in his just judgment suffer the Soul to stay longer in the murthered Body, that the cry of blood may make known the murtherer, or may not so soon, for the same reason, call it totally away.

There is another kind of supposed Apparitions, that are believed to be done in Beryls, and clear Crystals, and therefore called by Paracelsus Ars Beryllistica, and which he also calls Nigromancy, because it is practised in the dark by the inspection of a Boy or a Maid that are Virgins, and this he strongly affirmeth to be natural and lawful, and only brought to pass by the Sydereal influence, and not at all Diabolical, nor stands in need of any Conjuration, Invocations or Ceremonies, but is performed by a strong faith or imagination. And of this he saith thus: Sed ante omnia (ait) notate proprietatem Beryllorum. Hisunt, in quibus spectantur præterita, præsentia, & futura. Quod nemini admirationi esse debet, ideò, quia sydus influentiæ imaginem, & similitudinem in Crystallum imprimit, similem ei, de quo quæritur. And a little after he saith: Præterea sideribus nota sunt omnia, quæ in natura existunt. Cumq; Astra homini subjecta sint: potest is utiq; illa in subjectum ita cogere, ut voluntati ejus ipsa obsecundent. What truth there may be in this his assertion, I have yet met with no reasons or experiments that can give me satisfaction, and therefore I leave it to every Man to censure as he pleaseth.

The only story that seems to carry any credit with it, touching the truth of Apparitions in Crystals, is that which is related of that great and learned Physician Joachimus Camerarius in his Preface before Plutarchs Book De Defectu Oraculorum, from the mouth of Lassarus Spenglerus, a person excellent both for Piety and Prudence, and is, in effect this: “Spengler said, that there was one person of a chief family in Norimberge, an honest and grave Man, whom he thought not fit to name. That one time he came unto him, and brought, wrapt in a piece of Silk, a Crystalline Gemm of a round figure, and said that it was given unto him of a certain stranger, whom many years before, having desired of him entertainment, meeting him in the Market, he took home, and kept him three days with him. And that this gift when he departed, was left him as a sign of a grateful mind, having taught such an use of the Crystal as this. If he desired to be made more certain of any thing, that he should draw forth the glass, and will a male chast Boy to look in it, and should ask of him what he did see? For it should come to pass, that all things that he required, should be shewed to the Boy, and seen in the Apparition. And this Man did affirm, that he was never deceived in any one thing, and that he had understood wonderful things by the boys indication, when none of all the rest did by looking into it, see it to be any thing else but a neat and pure Gemm. He tells a great deal more of it, and that doubtful questions being asked, an answer would appear to be read in the Crystal: but the Man being weary of the use of it, did give it to Spengler, who being a great hater of superstition, did cause it to be broken into small pieces, and so with the Silk in which it was wrapped, threw it into the sink of the House.”

I confess I have heard strange stories of things that have been revealed by these supposed apparitions, from persons both of great worth and learning; but seeking more narrowly into the matter I found them all to be superstitious delusions, fancies, mistakes, cheats and impostures. For the most part the child tells any thing that comes into his fancy, or doth frame and invent things upon purpose, that he never seeth at all, and the inquirers do presently assimilate them to their own thoughts and suspicions. Some that pretended to shew and foretel strange things thereby to get money, have been discovered to have had confederates, that conveied away mens goods into secret places, and gave the cunning Man notice where they were hid, and then was the child taught a straight framed tale, to describe what a like Man took them away, and where they were, which being found brought credit enough to the couzeners, and this I knew was practised by one Brooke and Bolton. Some have had artificial glasses, whereinto they would convey little pictures, as Dr. Lambe had.

It being manifest by what we have laid down that there are apparitions and some such other strange effects, whereby murthers are often made known and discovered, and also having mentioned that it may be most rationally probable that they are caused by the Astral or Sydereal Spirit, it will be necessary to open and explain that point, and to shew what grounds it hath, upon which it may be settled, which we shall do in this order.

c. 28. Tom. 7.

1. There are many (especially Popish Authors thereby to uphold their Doctrine of Purgatory) that maintain that they are the Souls of the persons murthered and deceased, and this opinion, though unanswerably confuted by the whole company of reformed Divines, is notwithstanding revived by Dr. Henry Moore, but by no arguments either brought from Scripture, or grounded upon any solid reasons, but only some weak conjectures, seeming absurdities, and Platonick whimsies, which (indeed) merit no responsion. And we have by positive and unwrested Scriptures, in this Treatise afore proved, that the Souls of the righteous are in Abrahams bosom with Christ at peace and rest, and that the Souls of the wicked are in Hell in torments, so that neither of them do wander here, or make any apparitions; for as S. Augustine taught us: Duo sunt habitacula, unum in igne æterno, alterum in regno æterno. And in another place: Nec est ulli ullus medius locus, ut possit esse nisi cum Diabolo, qui non est cum Christo. And Tertullian and Justin Martyr, two most ancient writers do tell us: “That Souls being separated from their Bodies, do not stay or linger upon the earth: And after they be descended into the infernal pit, they do neither wander here upon their own accord, nor by the power and command of others; But that wicked spirits may counterfeit by craft that they are the Souls of the dead, Vid. Lavaterum de Spectris secunda parte c. 5.”

2. We have also shewed that these apparitions that discover murther and murtherers and brings them to condign punishment, cannot be the evil Angels, because they are only Ministers of torture, sin, horror and punishment, but are not Authors of any good either Corporeal or Spiritual, apparent or real. So that it must of necessity be left either to be acted by a Divine Power, and that either by the immediate power of the Almighty, for which we have no proof, but only may acknowledge the possibility of it; or mediate by the ministery of good Angels, which is hard to prove, there being no one instance, or the least intimation of any such matter in all the Scriptures, and therefore in most rational probability, either relations of matters of fact of this nature are utterly false, or they are effected by the Astral spirit.

3. Concerning the description of this Astral Spirit or Sydereal Body, (for though it be as a spirit, or the image in the looking-glass, yet it is truly corporeal) we shall give the sum of it, as Paracelsus in his magisterial way, without proof doth lay down. “He positively holdeth that there are three essential parts in Man, which he calleth the three great substances, and that at death every one of these being separated, doth return into, or unto the Womb from whence it came; as The Soul that was breathed in by God, doth at death return unto God that gave it: And that the Body, that is to say, that gross part that seems to be composed of the two inferior Elements of Earth and Water, doth return unto the Earth, and there in time consume away, some bodies in a longer time, some in a shorter: But the third part which he calleth the Astral Spirit, or Sydereal Body, as being firmamental, and consisting of the two superior Elements of Air and Fire, it (he saith) returneth into its Sepulcher of the Air, where in time it is also consumed, but requireth a longer time than the body, in regard it consisteth of more pure Elements than the other, and that one of these Astral Spirits or Bodies doth consume sooner than another, as they are more impure, or pure. And that it is this spirit that carrieth along with it the thoughts, cogitations, desires and imaginations that were impressed upon the mind at the time of death, with the sensitive faculties of concupiscibility and irascibility. And that it is this spirit or body (and not the Soul that resteth in the hands of the Lord) that appeareth, and is most usually conversant in those places, and those negotiations that the mind of the person living (whose spirit it was) did most earnestly follow, and especially those things that at the very point of death, were most strongly impressed upon this spirit, as in the case of the person murthered, whose mind in the very minute of the murther, receiveth a most deep impression of detestation and revenge against the murtherer, which this spirit bearing with it, doth by all means possible seek the accomplishment of that revenge, and therefore doth cause dreams of discovery, bleedings and strange motions of the body murthered, and sometimes plain apparitions of the persons murthered, in their usual shape and habit, and doth vocally and audibly reveal the murther with all the circumstances,” as is apparent in the two forementioned Histories of the apparition of Fletcher to Raynard, and of the Woman murthered by Mark Sharp, to the Miller Grimes.

4. And this Astral Spirit is no more than that part in Man that is commonly called the sensitive Soul, and by the Schools is commonly defined thus: “Anima sentiens est vis, quæ apprehendit & percipit ea quæ extra ipsam sunt. And this is corporeal, and (as Dr. Willis holdeth) mortal and coextended with the Body, and that it hath the power of imagination, appetite, desire, and aversion and the like, and in a manner, a sensitive way of ratiocination, and yet is distinct from the rational Soul or Mens that is incorporeal, immortal, and far more excellent.” And perspicacious Helmont holding this sensitive Soul to be distinct from the mens or immortal and rational Soul, saith thus: Est ergo anima sensitiva, caduca, mortalis, mera lux vitalis data à patre luminum, nec alio modo verboq; explicabilis. But of the rational Soul he saith: Ipsa autem mens immortalis, est substantia lucida, incorporea, immediate Dei sui imaginem referens, quia eandem in creando, sive in ipso Empsychosis instanti, sibi insculptam suscepit. So that both these late and learned Authors hold, that in every Man there are two distinct Souls, the sensitive that is mortal, corporeal, and coextended with the Body, and the rational, that is immortal and absolutely incorporeal: so that though in words and terms they seem to differ, yet in substance they agree. For the Hermetick School, the Platonists, Paracelsus, Jacob Behemen, and others do hold three parts in Man which they call, Soul, Spirit and Body, and these two last Authors do hold the body to be one part in Man, and two Souls besides, the sensitive and rational that are two distinct parts, the one corporeal and mortal, and the other incorporeal and immortal, and so they do but nominally differ. And now our task must be to prove, that first there are such three parts in Man, and that after death they do separately exist, which we shall attempt in this order.

1. Though arguments taken à notatione nominis, do not necessarily prove, yet they illustrate, and render the case plain and intelligible; and we shall find that the Hebrews have three distinct appellations for these three parts. As for the Soul, either rational or sensitive, or vital spirit, they use Nephesh which is common to brutes and reptiles as well as to Man, as saith the Text: And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth in which there is a living soul, Nephesh-Haiah. And therefore to distinguish the rational and immortal Soul, from this which is sensitive, mortal and common with brutes, the Text saith: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Upon which Tremellius gives us this note: Ut clarius appareret discrimen quod est inter animam hominis, & reliquorum animantium: Horum enim animæ ex eadem materia provenerunt, unde corpora habebant, illius verò anima spiritale quiddam est & Divinum. And upon the words; Sic fuit homo. Id est (ait) hac ratione factum est, ut terrea illa statua animata viveret. Another word they use, which is Ruah, and this is also generally attributed to Men and Beasts, as the words of Solomon do witness. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upwards, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? And in both these, touching both Man and Beast, the word Ruah is used as common to them both; and sometimes it is taken specially for the rational immortal Soul, as, And the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Also they have the word Niblah, and Basar, that is, corpus, caro, or cadaver, and by these three they set forth, or distinguish these three parts. And the Grecians have likewise their three several names for these parts, as ψυχὴ, anima, vita, which is taken promiscuously sometimes for the rational and immortal Soul, as in this place; And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. And it is taken for the life in that of the Acts: And Paul said, Trouble not your selves, his life is in him. Also they have the word Πνεῦμα, Spiritus, ventus, spiritus vitæ, being variously taken, yet sometimes for the rational and immortal Soul, as Father into thy hands I commend my spirit. So they have the word Σῶμα, Corpus, the body or gross and fleshly part. And to these accord the three Latine terms for these three distinct parts; Anima, Spiritus and Corpus.

2. This opinion of these three parts in Man, to wit Body, Soul and Spirit, is neither new, nor wants Authors of sufficient credit and learning to be its Patrons. For Hermes Trismegistus an Author almost of the greatest Antiquity saith thus: καὶ ὁ μὲν Θεὸς ἐν τῷ νῷ, ὁ δὲ νοῦς ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ ἐν τῇ ὕλη. That is, God is in the mind, the mind in the soul, and the soul in matter. But Marsilius Ficinus gives it thus: Beatus Deus, Dæmon bonus, animam esse in corpore, mentem in anima, in mente verbum pronunciavit. And further addeth: Deus verò circa omnia, simul atq; per omnia, mens circa animam, anima circa aërem, aër circa materiam. And some give it more fully thus. God is in the mind, the mind in the Soul, the Soul in the Spirit, the Spirit in the blood, and the blood in the Body. But besides this ancient testimony, it is apparent that the whole School of the Platonists, both the elder and later were of this opinion, and also the most of the Cabalists: For Ficinus from the Doctrine of Plato tells us this: Humanæ cogitationis domicilium anima ipsa est. Animæ domicilium spiritus. Domicilium spiritus hujus est corpus. But omitting multitudes of others that are strong Champions for this Tenent, we think for authorities to acquiesce in that of our most learned Physician and Anatomist Dr. Willis, and in those that he hath quoted, which we shall give in the English: First he saith: “Lest I be tedious in rehearsing many, it pleaseth me here only to cite two Authors (but either of which is a Troop) for the confutation of the contrary opinion. The one (he saith) is the most famous Philosopher Petrus Gassendus, who Physic. Sect. 3. lib. 9. c. 11. doth divide, toto Cœlo, (as is said) the mind of man, from the other sensitive power, as much as is possible to be done, by many and most signal notes of discrimination, yea disjoining of them (as it is said in the Schools) by specific differences: Because when he had shewed this to be corporeal, extended, nascible and corruptible, he saith the other is an incorporeal substance, and therefore immortal, which is immediately created, and infused into the body by God; to which opinion he sheweth Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and for the most part all the ancient Philosophers, except Epicurus, did much agree; excepting notwithstanding that they did hold, as not knowing the origin of the Soul, which they judged to be immortal, that it being cropt off from the soul of the world, did slide into the body, and that it was poured again into the Soul of the world either immediately, or at the last mediately, after its transmigration into other bodies.”

The other suffrage (he saith) upon this matter, is of the most learned Divine Dr. Hamond, our Countryman, who opening the Text Epist. Thessalo. 1. c. 5. v. 23. to wit, your whole spirit and soul and body &c. “He saith that Man is divided into three parts. 1. To wit, into the body, by which is denoted the flesh and the members. 2. Into the vital soul, which in like manner being animal and sensitive is common to man with the bruits. 3. Into the spirit, by which the rational soul, that was first created of God, is signified, which also being immortal doth return unto God. Annot. in Nov. Testam. lib. p. 711.” This his exposition he confirmeth by Testimonies brought from Ethnick Authors, and also from the ancient Fathers. From all which the learned Dr. doth make this conclusion: “And from the things above (he saith) it is most evidently manifest, that man being as it were an Amphibious animal, or of a middle nature and order betwixt the Angels and bruits, with these he doth communicate by a corporeal soul, framed of the vital blood and the stock of animal spirit, joyned likewise in one; and with the other he communicates by an intelligent soul immaterial and immortal.” And thus much for arguments brought from humane authority, which are prevalent, if they be brought affirmatively (as these are) from learned men or Artificers, and so we shall proceed to further kind of proofs.

3. But an argument arising from Divine Authority is of the most force of all, and therefore let us a little survey the Text it self, which in our English Translation is thus: And the very God of peace sanctifie you wholly: And I pray God your whole Spirit, and Soul, and Body be preserved blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle having given the believing Thessalonians all the spiritual counsel that could be necessary, to bring them to the perfection of sanctification, doth pray for them, that the God of peace would sanctifie them wholly, or as the word ὁλοτελοῖς signifieth (as Arias Montanus hath rendered it) omninòperfectos, altogether perfect, And that the whole, ὁλόκληρον, that is the whole part, portion or lot (for so the word properly signifieth) which he nameth by Spirit, Soul and Body, to be preserved blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore to this doth learned Beza add this note: “Tum demùm igitur (ait) homo integer sanctificatus fuerit, quum nihil cogitabit spiritus, nihil appetet anima, nihil exequetur corpus, quod cum Dei voluntate non consentiat.” And before he had said: “Therefore Paul by the appellation of spirit doth signifie the mind, in which the principal stain lieth: and by the Soul the rest of the inferior faculties, and by the body the domicile of the Soul.” And in another place he saith: “The mind is become vain, the cogitation obscured, the appetite hardened.” And to the same purpose doth learned Rollock upon the place say thus much: “Sanctification, or transformation is not of any one part, but of all the parts, and of the whole man. For there is no part or particle in man, which was not deformed in that first fall, and made as it were monstrous. Therefore μεταμόρφωσις, or transformation ought to be of the whole man and of every singular part of him. And further he saith: For the whole man the Apostle hath here the enumeration of his principal parts. And they are three in number, Spirit, Soul and Body. By the spirit (he saith) I understand the mind, which the Apostle Eph. 4. 24. calleth the spirit of the mind, and this is no other thing than the faculty of the rational mind, which is discerned in invention, and in judging of things found out. By the name of soul (he saith) I understand all those inferior faculties of the mind, as are the animal which are also called natural. The body doth follow these parts, to wit that gross part which is the instrument by which the spirit and soul do exert their functions and operations.” By all which it is most clear, that though they call them faculties, yet they are distinct essential parts of the whole man, which is most manifest, in that the body, though one of these three, cannot be a faculty, but a meer instrument, and yet is one of the essential parts, that doth integrate the whole man. But whosoever shall seriously consider, how little satisfaction the definition of a faculty given by either Philosophers or Physicians, will bring to a clear understanding, may easily perceive, that distinct parts are commonly taken to be faculties.

4. The first argument that this learned Physician urgeth, to prove that there are two Souls in man, the one sensitive and corporeal, the other rational, immortal and incorporeal, is in this order. “But (he saith) whereas it is said that the rational soul doth by it self exercise every of the animal faculties, it is most of all improbable, because the actions and passions of all the animal senses and motions are corporeal, divided and extended to various parts, to perform which immediately the incorporeal and indivisible soul (if so be it be finite) seemeth unfit or unable. Further (he saith) what belongeth unto that vulgar opinion, that the sensitive soul is subordinate to the rational, and as it were swallowed up of it, that that which is the soul in brutes, in man becomes a meer power; these are the trifles of the Schools. For how should the sensitive soul of man, which before hath been in act a subsistent, material and extended substance, losing its essence, at the advent of the rational soul, degenerate into a meer qualitie? But if it be asserted that the rational soul, by its advent also doth introduce life and sensation, then man doth not generate an animated man, but only a formless body, or a rude heap of flesh.”