A10663:32
A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the…A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the…
A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the several dignities and corruptions thereunto belonging. By Edward Reynolds, late preacher to the honourable society of Lincoln's Inn: and now rector of the Church of Braunston in Northamptonshire.A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the severall dignities and corruptions thereunto belonging. By Edvvard Reynoldes, late preacher to the honorable society of Lincoln's Inne: and now rector of the Church of Braunston in Northamptonshire.
London: printed by R. Hearne and John Norton for Robert Bostock, 1640
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
CHAP. I. Of the dependence of the Soul, in her operations upon the Body.
CHAP. I. Of the dependance of the Soule, in her operations upon the Body.
IT hath been a just Complaint of Learned Men, that usually we are more curious in our inquiries1 after things New than excellent;2 and that the very nearness of worthy Objects, hath at once made them both despised and unknown. Thus like Children, with an idle diligence, and fruitless Curiosity, we turn over this great Book of Nature, without perusing those ordinary ⟨p. 2⟩Characters, wherein is expressed the greatest power of the Worker, and excellency of the Work; fixing our Admiration only on those Pictures and unusual Novelties, which though for their rareness they are more strange, yet for their nature are less worthy. Every Comet or burning Meteor strikes more wonder into the beholder,3 than those glorious Lamps of Nature, with their admirable Motions and Order, in which the Heathen have acknowledged a Divineness. Let a Child be borne but with six fingers, or have a part more than usual, we rather wonder at One superstitious, than at All natural. Sol spectatorem nisi cum desicit non habet, nemo observat Lunam 4nisi laborantem, adeò naturale est magis nova, quàm magna mirari: None looketh with wonde• on the Sun, but in an Eclipse; no eye gazeth on the Moon, but in her Travel: so natural it is with men, to admire rather things N•w than Common. Whereas indeed things are fit for study and observation, though never so common, in regard of the perfection of their nature, and usefulness of their knowledge. In which respect, the plain Counsel of the Oracle was one of the wiest which was ever given to man, To study and to know himself; because, by reason of his own nearness to himself, he is usually of himself most unknown and neglected. And yet if we consider, how in him it hath pleased God to stamp a more notable Character of his own Image, and to make him, amongst all his