A26976:379
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.
3. But if you take Souls to be partible and unible, then you must suppose every part to have still its own existence in the whole. And do you think, that this doth not more advance Souls than abase them? Yea, you seem to Deify them; while you make them all to return into God, as drops into the Sea. And if you feign God to be partible, is it not more honour and joy to be a part of God, who is joy it self, than to be a created Soul? If a thousand Candles were put out, and their light turned into one Luminary, as great as they all, every part would have its share in the enlightening of the place about it. Is it any loss to a single Soldier, to become part of a victorious Army.
3. But if you take Souls to be partible and unible, then you must suppose every part to have still its own existence in the whole. And do you think, that this doth not more advance Souls than abase them? Yea, you seem to Deifie them; while you make them all to return into God, as drops into the Sea. And if you feign God to be partible, is it not more honour and joy to be a part of God, who is joy it self, than to be a created Soul? If a thousand Candles were put out, and their light turned into one Luminary, as great as they all, every part would have its share in the enlightning of the place about it. Is it any loss to a single Soldier, to become part of a victorious Army.
4. But indeed this is too high a Glory for the Soul of man to desire, or hope for. It is enough to have a blessed union with Christ, and the holy Society, consistent with our Individuation. Like will to like, and yet be it self. Rivers go to the Sea, and not to the Earth. Earth turns to Earth, and not to the Sun, or Fire. And the holy and blessed, go to the holy and blessed: And I believe, that their union will be nearer than we can now well conceive, or than this selfish state of man desireth: But as every drop in the Sea, is the ⟨p. 59⟩same Water it was, so every Soul will be the same Soul.