The immortality of mans soul, proved bothThe immortality of mans soule, proved both

For what is the thing whereof our Soul suffereth ought in the substance thereof, I mean where by the substance of our soul is any way impaired or hurt, by minding, or conceiving the same in understanding? as little doth the fire hurt it, as the air, and the air, as the fire, as little hurt receiveth it, from the frozen Ice of Greenland, as from the scorching sands of Afric, as little also, doth vice annoy it as virtue; for vice and virtue are so far off from encumbering the substance of the soul, that our mind doth never conceive, or understand them better, then by setting together one against the other, that thing therefore, which doth no whit impair it self, but taketh the ground of perfecting it self by all things, cannot be marred or hurt by any thing.

For what is the thing whereof our Soule suffereth ought in the substance thereof, I meane where by the substance of our soule is any way impaired or hurt, by minding, or conceiving the same in understanding? as little doth the fire hurt it, as the ayre, and the ayre, as the fire, as little hurt receiveth it, from the frozen Ice of Groenland, as from the scorching sands of Africk, as little also, doth vice annoy it as vertue; for vice and vertue are so farre off from incumbring the substance of the soule, that our mind doth never conceive, or understand them better, then by setting together one against the other, that thing therefore, which doth no whit impaire it selfe, but taketh the ground of perfecting it selfe by all things, cannot be marred or hurt by any thing.

In the Second place, I said, death is the uttermost point of moving, and the uttermost point of this life, for even in living we dye, & in dying we live, & there is not that step that we make in this life, but we step forward unto death, after the manner of a dial or a clock which endeth its moving, in moving from ⟨p. 31⟩minute to minute, take a way moving from a body, & it liveth no longer; now let us see if the soul also, be carried with the same moving, if it be, it may die with the body, if not it cannot, but we see it moves not with th body, nay we see the contrary, a man may have his mind as free as an Emperor, though his body be in prison, whether the mind rest, or whether it be busied, bout the proper operations thereof, it is not perceived, either by the panting of the hart, or by the beating of the pulses, or by the breathing of the lunges, the body carries the soul about like a ship, the sticking fast thereof, or the tying of it to a post, hinders not our going up and down in it still.