A26976:283
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
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.
which yet, notwithstanding could she, they could not be said to be the same bodies, because all bodies suffer such alteration daily, that they cannot be said to be the same to day they were yesterday; how then can they be capable of Reward or Punishment?
These are now my doubts; but are they the fruits of Diligence? and am I thus rewarded for not believing at a common rate? A great deal cheaper could I have sate down, and believed as the Church believes; without a why, or a wherefore, have been ignorant of these Disputes, and never have emerged my self in this gulf, than thus by Reflection to create my own disturbance. Had I been made a mere Animal, I had had none of these Doubts nor Fears that thus torment my mind; for doubting, happy Brutes happy, far more happy than my self! With you is none of this; with you only is serenity of mind, and you only void of Anxieties; you only enjoy what this world is able to accommodate with, and it may be too ⟨p. 20⟩have those Caresses we know not of, while we, your poor purveyors, go drooping and disponding, doubting, fearing, and caring about, and our whole lives only a preying on one another, and tormenting our selves. You have the carnal content and satisfaction; we nothing but the shell, a vain glorious boast of our Lordship over you, with which we seek to satisfy our selves, as Prodigals, with husks, while the truth is, we are afraid to confront our Vassals, except we first by craft and treachery beguile them from whom likewise we flee, if once enraged: and what a poor comfort is this? Is this a Privilege to boast of? Is this all Reason advanceth to, only a Purveyor to Beasts, and to make my life more miserable, by how much more sensible of misery! Well might Solomon prefer the dead before the living; and those that had not been, before both; intimating thereby, that being best, least capable of misery; that is, of Trees, of Herbs, of Stones, and all inanimates, which wanting sense, are insensible of misery. Better any thing than man therefore, since that every brute and inanimate stock or stone, are more happy in that measure: they are less capable of misery. What the advantage then, what the benefit that occurs to us from them, or what ⟨p. 21⟩