A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

Again, I add, God createth it a spiritual substance. This opposeth the Sadducees, who denied any spirits. It is plain by Scripture, that they are substances and spiritual ones, because they subsist without the body. Tertullian, though he doth so acutely perstringe the Philosophers about the soul, yet some of them were more sound then he, Men (saith he) have thought about the soul, either as Platonis honour, Zenonis vigour, Aristotelis tenor, Epicuri stupor, Heracliti maestor, Empedoclis furor persuaserint. It is true, some of these thought the souls to be bodies, and so doth Tertullian, and happily he might have been excused by taking body largely, for that which is not nihil, in which sense he attributeth a body to God, but that he saith the soul is not only a body, but effigiated and shaped also, yea that the souls differ in sex, which is very irrational; We may then conclude this with a saying of Numertus, That if any souls are corporeal, it is of those, who say, souls are corporeal.

Again, I adde, God createth it a spiritual substance. This opposeth the Sadduces, who denied any spirits. It is plaine by Scripture, that they are substances and spiritual ones, because they subsist without the body. Tertullian, though he doth so acutely perstringe the Philosophers about the soul, yet some of them were more sound then he, Men (saith he) have thought about the soul, either as Platonis honor, Zenonis vigor, Aristotelis tenor, Epicuri stupor, Heracliti maestor, Empedoclis furor persuaserint. It is true, some of these thought the souls to be bodies, and so doth Tertullian, and happily he might have been excused by taking body largely, for that which is not nihil, in which sense he attributeth a body to God, but that he saith the soul is not only a body, but effigiated and shaped also, yea that the souls differ in sex, which is very irrational; We may then conclude this with a saying of Numertus, That if any souls are corporeal, it is of those, who say, souls are corporeal.

A second Proposition is, That though God doth create immediately the souls of all men spiritual substances, yet they are not complete and perfect substances, as Angles are, but the essential parts of men. Upon this Proposition depends much weight of this Truth about the communicating of original sin, for we are apt to think God createth our souls like Angels, perfect and having subsistency of themselves, whereas they are created as parts of a man, neither do they come from God any otherwise, If God should create a soul to subsist of it self, and not to be united to the body to constitute a man, that soul would not be polluted. But because every soul is created as an essential part of man, and so hath its being: Hence it is, That it cometh into the world part of Adam, and so obnoxious to that curse, which he had deserved; whatsoever then in its first being is part of man, that is partaker of Adam's sin and curse; But the soul in its first instant of being is part of man, therefore no wonder if it became polluted and cursed. The example of that miraculous Resurrection of Lazarus and others may something clear this, they were fully dead, their souls and bodies union dissolved, yet because their souls were not made perfect and pure without sin, and translated into Heaven, but by the power of God detained here on earth, that the glory of Christ might be exalted, he doth unite this soul, though with pollution to the body: Now Gods uniting of the sinful soul to the body, did not make him the cause of any sin therein, Because he united it as part of that man, who yet was not wholly purged from sin. Now the reason why the soul is created, not as a perfect substance in it self, is, Because it's the form of man, not an assisting form, and therefore is not in the body, as when an Angel did assume bodies, or as a man in his house, or as a Musician useth an Instrument, but a form informing, whereby it is made an intrinsical essential part of a man: The truth of this will give much light to our point in hand, the soul is created by God, The informing form of a man, and so hath no other consideration, but as an essential part of him; and therefore seeing the man is in Adam, whose soul this is, that is thereby exposed to all the sin of Adam;