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…

Another Reason of the Souls immortality may be drawn from the dignity and preeminence of Man above other Creatures: for he is made Lord over them, and they were ordained to be serviceable to him, and Ministers for his contentments: which dignity cannot possibly stand with the Mortality of the Soul. For should not many other Creatures far exceed Man in¹ the Durance of their being? And even in their time of living together, how subject to weaknesses, sickness, languishing, cares, fear, jealousies, discontents, and all other miseries of Mind and Body, is the whole Nature of Man, of all which, other creatures feel the least disturbance? ⟨p. 414⟩Are not Men here, beyond the rest, the very proper² subjects and receptacles of misery? Is not our heart made the Natural centre of fears and sorrows? and our Minds, as it were, Hives to entertain numberless swarms of stinging and thorny Cares? Are we not Vassals and Slaves to many distempered passions? Have not our very Contents their terror, and our Peace disturbance? Are not all our Comforts, wherewith we strive to glut and stuff our selves here, the glorious Vanities, and golden delusions and cozenages of the world? And how miserable must their miseries be, whose very happiness is unhappy? And for Reason, what comfort could we find in it, when it would always be presenting unto us the consideration of an eternal loss of all our contentments, and still affright us with the dark and hideous conceit of Annihilation? Mortality and Corruption makes Unreasonableness a Privilege; And in this case the Beasts would be so much the more happy than Man, by how much the less they know their own wretchedness. An Atheist would be in this life far happier than he is, if he could bring himself to have as little Reason as he hath Religion.

Another Reason of the Soules immortality may be drawne from the dignity and preheminence of Man above other Creatures: for hee is made Lord over them, and they were ordained to be serviceable to him, and Ministers for his contentments: which dignity cannot possibly stand with the Mortality of the Soule. For should not many other Creatures farre exceed Man in¹ the Durance of their being? And even in their time of living together, how subject to weakenesses, sicknesse, languishing, cares, feare, jealousies, discontents, and all other miseries of Mind and Body, is the whole Nature of Man, of all which, other creatures feele the least disturbance?