A26976:230
Of the immortality of mans soul, and the nature of it and other spirits.…
Of the immortality of mans soul, and the nature of it and other spirits. Two discourses, one in a letter to an unknown doubter, the other in a reply to Dr. Henry Moore's Animadversions on a private letter to him, which he published in his second edition of Mr. Joseph Glanvil's Sadducismus triumphatus, or, History of apparitions by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for B. Simons, 1682
OF THE NATURE OF SPIRITS: › Section 33-34: Ad SECT. XXXIII, XXXIV.
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.
Now a little to invert the Property of this luminous Orb, when we would apply it to a Soul or Spirit: As there can be no alteration in the radiant Centre, but therewith it is necessarily in every part of the Orb, so there is also that Unity and Indivisibility of the exterior parts, if I may so call them, of a Spirit or Soul, with their inmost Centre, that if any of them be affected, the Centre of Life ⟨p. 97⟩is thereby also necessarily affected, and these exterior parts of the Soul being affected by the parts of the Object with such Circumstances as they are in, the inward Centre receives all so circumstantiated, that it hath necessarily the entire and unconfused Images of things without, though they be contrived into so small a compass, and are in the very Centre of this spiritual substance. This Symbolical Representation I used before, and I cannot excogitate any thing that will better set off the nature of a Spirit, &c.]
Now a little to invert the Property of this luminous Orb, when we would apply it to a Soul or Spirit: As there can be no alteration in the radiant Center, but therewith it is necessarily in every part of the Orb, so there is also that Vnity and Indivisibility of the exterior parts, if I may so call them, of a Spirit or Soul, with their inmost Center, that if any of them be affected, the Center of Life ⟨p. 97⟩is thereby also necessarily affected, and these exteriour parts of the Soul being affected by the parts of the Object with such Circumstances as they are in, the inward Center receives all so circumstantiated, that it hath necessarily the entire and unconfused Images of things without, though they be contrived into so small a compass, and are in the very Center of this spiritual substance. This Symbolical Representation I used before, and I cannot excogitate any thing that will better set off the nature of a Spirit, &c.]
Here is the same and more than I have said, unless you think Light here to be no Fire; but take Light for a Substance, and Fire but for Motion: which if you say, I am willing to believe you will recall.