A10663:965
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.
It would be a long and large labour to speak of the Honour which God hath bestowed upon our Nature in this noble Gift of Speech, making our Tongue [Greek or Hebrew], as the Poet calleth it, The1 Messenger of Reason, and as it were the Pen of the Mind which clotheth our Conceits with Characters, and makes them obvious unto others. I shall not engage my self on so great an Argument, which hath already filled the Volumes of so many learned men, who have written some Rhetorical, others moral Institutions and Precepts touching Speech. I shall therefore content my self with but naming some few particulars, by Consideration whereof we may acknowledge the Bounty of God, and Excellency of our Nature, which is attended on by so noble a servant.
It would be a long and large labour to speake of the Honour which God hath bestowed upon our Nature in this noble Gift of Speech, making our Tongue 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, as the Poet calleth it, The1 Messenger of Reason, and as it were the Pen of the Minde which cloatheth our Conceits with Characters, and makes them obvious unto others. I shall not engage my selfe on so great an Argument, which hath already filled the Volumes of so many learned men, who have written some Rhetoricall, others morall Institutions and Precepts touching Speech. I shall therefore content my selfe with but naming some few particulars, by Consideration whereof we may acknowledge the Bounty of God, and Excellency of our Nature, which is attended on by so noble a servant.
- 1[…].〈…〉.
• For the Dignity hereof it appears in this, That whereas in other less Considerable Perfections, other Creatures have an Exquisiteness above man, yet in this man excelleth all other Inferior Creatures, in that he is able to communicate the Notions of Reason clothed in sensible Characters unto others of his own kind. For though some melancholy men have believed that