A30247:1441
A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is
A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is, by pregnant texts of Scripture vindicated from false glosses / by Anthony Burgess.
London : s.n., 1658
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.
SECT. VI.
Of the Nature of it.
And as for the Nature of memory, though Aristotle and others after him, have undertaken to say much about it, yet Austin doth much bewail the ignorance and weakness of a man in this thing, (l. 10. conf.) calling it, the unsearchable recesses and vast concavities of the memory, saying, It is in vain for a man to think to understand the nature of the Heavens, when he cannot know what his memory is: Under this difficulty (he saith) he did labour and toil, and yet could not come to any sure knowledge. This is certain, that the things we remember are not in our souls themselves; when we remember such a tree or stone, the tree or stone is not really in us: Hence (saith Austin) we may Doloris laeti reminisci, and Laetitiae dolentes reminisci, Remember with joy former sorrow, or with sorrow former joy: Yea (he saith) we may Oblivionis reminisci, we may remember our forgetfulness; Now if these things were really in us, it could not be but that sorrow remembered would make us sorrowful, or forgetfulness remembered make us forgetful. The objects then remembered are in us by way of Species or Images, the Phantasmata are there conserved, and when by them we come to remember, then they are [Greek or Hebrew]; Hence (they say) that sometimes a man thinketh he remembereth, when he doth not, yea he cannot tell whether he remembereth such a thing or no, because (say they) the Phantasma is thus absolutely presented, and not as [Greek or Hebrew]; Even as a man may look upon a picture, either absolutely, as having such lineaments and colour, or relatively, as an Image, whereby we come to remember such an one. But these Philosophical notions about Phantasmata and Species are so obscure, that it is better with Austin, to acknowledge our ignorance of this noble and admirable power in the soul, whereby it doth remember things; whatsoever it be, though given us as an admirable and useful gift, yet now it is grossly polluted, and is the conserver of all evil and vanity.