days does not move until the seventieth day, and is born in the
seventh month; when she is formed on the fortieth day, she does not move
till the eightieth and is born in the eighth month; but, if she be
perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day she moves on the ninetieth, and
the child is born in the ninth month; but if she that is formed on the
sixtieth day, moves on the one hundred and tenth day, she will be born
in the tenth month. I treat the more largely of love that the reader may
know that the reasonable soul is not propagated by the parents, but is
infused by the Almighty, when the child has its perfect form, and is
exactly distinguished in its lineaments.
Now, as the life of every other creature, as Moses shows, is in the
blood, so the life of man consists in the soul, which although subject
to passion, by reason of the gross composures of the body, in which it
has a temporary confinement, yet it is immortal and cannot in itself
corrupt or suffer change, it being a spark of the Divine Mind. And that
every man has a peculiar soul plainly appears by the vast difference
between the will, judgment, opinions, manners, and affections in men.
This David observes when he says: "God hath fashioned the hearts and
minds of men, and has given to every one his own being and a soul of its
own nature." Hence Solomon rejoiced that God had given him a soul, and a
body agreeable to it. It has been disputed among the learned in what
part of the body the soul resides; some are of opinion its residence is
in the middle of the heart, and from thence communicates itself to every
part, which Solomon (Prov. iv. 23) seems to confirm when he says: "Keep
thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." But
many curious physicians, searching the works of nature in man's anatomy,
do affirm that its chief seat is in the brain, from whence proceed the
senses, the faculties, and actions, diffusing the operations of the soul
through all parts of the body, whereby it is enlivened with heat and
force to the heart, by the arteries, corodities, or sleepy arteries,
which part upon the throat; which, if they happen to be broken or cut,
they cause barrenness, and if stopped an apoplexy; for there must
necessarily be ways through which the spirits, animal and vital, may
have intercourse and convey native heat from the soul. For though the
soul has its chief seat in one place, it operates in every part,
exercising every member which
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