Two treatises of Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs. The first of earthly-mindedness

The first Reason.

Because their souls that are their better part, they are from Heaven. You know, that when God made Man, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. The Soul of man, it is as it were, the breath of God: God did not say of Mans Soul as of other creatures, Let it be made, let there be a soul in mans body. No, but when he had formed the body, he breathed the soul into him. It was to note, that the soul of man had a more Heavenly, and Divine original, than any of the other creatures that are here in this world; and because the original it is so Divine, and Heavenly, therefore it is, that when the soul is (as it were) its self, is set at liberty, it would be at its original: Indeed, though mans soul be of a Divine, and Heavenly Nature, yea through the fall of man, so it is, that the soul of man is even almost turned to be flesh, and so mingled with unclean drossy things as if it had no such Divine and Heavenly original? and therefore a natural man is called flesh, That that is born of the flesh, is flesh; as if he had no soul at all: for I say, the soul of man through his fall, the Nature of it seemed to be changed, it is at least depressed down to such vile things, as if it never had such a Divine and Heavenly original. But now, when God works grace in the soul, the soul of man begins to return to its self, and to know its self, and begins to return to its own nature that it had in its first creation: and as soon as ever the soul begins to know its self, it looks then presently at all these things that are here below as vile things in comparison, as contemptible; for indeed, all these things in this world are infinitely beneath the soul of a man: [Infinitely] that is, in comparison, we may even call it an infinite distance between mans soul and all these things that are here below in the world; the soul of man is near unto God himself, and therefore when as the soul return unto its self, it would be some where else than where it is, and would converse with those things that are suitable to its original. As it is with ⟨p. 229⟩