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

Thus this Text hath favoured (as some think) that opinion of two souls in a man, his rational and sensitive, not in the Manichean way, but in a Philosophical way; and some learned men indeed have thought by holding two distinct souls, many inconveniences would be avoided, wch are maintained in Philosophy, and also the conflict and combat that is between the flesh and the spirit, would be better explicated. But certainly the Scripture speaketh constantly of man, as having but one soul, What will it profit a man to win the whole world and lose his soul? not his souls, which Chrysostom used as an argument to make man watchful to the salvation of it, saying, If thou hast lost one eye, thou hast another to help thee; if one arm, another to support thee, but if thou losest thy only soul, thou hast not another to be saved.

Thus this Text hath favoured (as some think) that opinion of two souls in a man, his rational and sensitive, not in the Manichean way, but in a Philosophical way; and some learned men indeed have thought by holding two distinct souls, many inconveniences would be avoided, wch are maintained in Philosophy, and also the conflict and combate that is between the flesh and the spirit, would be better explicated. But certainly the Scripture speaketh constantly of man, as having but one soul, What will it profit a man to winne the whole world and lose his soul? not his souls, which Chrysostome used as an argument to make man watchfull to the salvation of it, saying, If thou hast lost one eye, thou hast another to help thee; if one arm, another to support thee, but if thou losest thy only soul, thou hast not another to be saved.

Others therefore that they may avoid this inconvenience of holding three parts in a man, do by spirit understand the work of grace in a man; Thus the Greek Interpreters of old, and some learned men of late, but this doth not appear any ways probable, nor will the Context run smoothly, to make grace (as it were) a part of a man; neither is it coherent to pray, that God would preserve our grace, our soul and body, but rather grace in them; Therefore we take spirit and soul for the same real substance in a man, only diversified by its several operations. Lactantius calls it an inextricable Question, Whether animus and anima be the same thing in man, meaning by anima, that whereby the body is enlivened; by animus that whereby we reason and understand, but there seemeth to be no such difficulty therein, the Scripture promiscuously calling it sometimes a soul, and sometimes a spirit. It's called the spirit in regard of the understanding and reason, as