A10663:941
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.
If we enquire after the prime Fundamental Cause, the Gate by which Error came first into the World. Syracides will tell us in a word, that Error and Darkness had their beginning together with Sinners: And the reason is, because sin ⟨p. 484⟩being a partition-wall, and a separation of man from God, who is P•ter Luminum, the Father and Fountain of all Knowledge; and whose perfections man did at first one principal way by Knowledge resemble, cannot choose but bring with it darkness and confusion into the Soul. But I shall enquire rather after the more Immediate and Secondary Causes; some whereof, amongst sundry others, I take to be these:
If wee enquire after the prime Fundamentall Cause, the Gate by which Errour came first into the World. Syracides will tell us in a word, that Errour and Darknesse had their beginning together with Sinners: And the reason is, because sinne ⟨p. 484⟩being a partition-wall, and a separation of man from God, who is P•ter Luminum, the Father and Fountaine of all Knowledge; and whose perfections man did at first one principall way by Knowledge resemble, cannot chuse but bring with it darknesse and confusion into the Soule. But I shall enquire rather after the more Immediate and Secondary Causes; some whereof, amongst sundry others, I take to be these:
1 A first and most special one is the Abuse of Principles: For the Understanding must have ever something to rest it self upon: and from the conformity of other things, thereunto to gather the certainty and evidence of its Assents. For it is the nature of mans mind, since it had at first it self a beginning to abhor all manner of Infinity, á Part-Ante (I mean in Ascending and Resolution) as well of Sciences and Conclusions, as of Entities and Natures, as I before noted. And therefore as the Understanding is not quieted in Philosophical inquiries about created things, till it have according to their several differences ranged them severally within the compass of some Finite Line, and subordinated the Inferiors of every kind, Sub an Summ Genere, under one