〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but gives no Aswer to it Says Plato Origen and many Hebrews held Opinion the Adam's Soul and all other Souls did and do pre-exist and are thence called down as new Bodies require viz. from Superior Regions But this he says is both false and absurd And to prove this by Reason he says Pag. 619. cites Aristotle That the Soul is Actus Corporis Organici and therefore the Soul cannot be before the Body To this we easily assent and add That when the Body dies this Actus Corporis must cease for the same Reason He argues also That the Soul is a Spiritual Substance and it was not needful or proper to put that up at the Nostrils and that seems true but makes against his former Assertions Still there rises a new Difficulty viz. Whether this Soul if then created were created first within the Body or first without the Body and then was breathed or blown in The Text favours the later but the Author favours the former to the Intent that Men may not think Souls are still first created and then infused but think rather as he doth that Souls are created in their Bodies and to this end he approves Lombard's Invention of Creando infunditur Cites Essay 2.22 Cease ye from Man Cujus Anima in Naribus ejus est which we read whose Breath is in his Nostrils Pag. 620 The Soul of Man came to him from without although created within him He will have from without to signifie of another Nature or kind of Thing and not proceeding from the Body as the Beasts do But this he only says without offer of Proof for it Says The whole Soul comes together viz. Vegetative Sensitive and Rational whence it must come into the Body at the first Original of Life and there seems no doubt but there is a Vegetative Power and Principle in the Seed and likely for the Sensual and there appears no Reason against a like Course in the Rational these three being all Faculties of the same Soul from which none of them are separable Pag. 621. The Word signifying Spiraculum Vitarum is used as well concerning Beasts as Men. Pag. 624. Souls of Brutes are sometimes called Spirits in Scripture but never said to return to God Pag. 625. As God breathed into Adams Body the Breath of Life who thereupon rose from the Earth where he lay so shall his Breath effect Life in Bodies which shall rise at Sound of the Last Trumpet And as we read Ezek. 37. Pag. 667. Cites Gen. 1.28 God blessed the Man and Woman and said Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth as Ver. 22. he had said to other Creatures This seems to import Men do generate their Like as the Beasts do and the Creation of Souls for every fruitful Coition by Adultery Incest or Buggery is but a Fiction and not a likely or reasonable Contrivance Lib. 2. Cap. 1. Pag. 683. Mans Life consists in Heat and Moisture not simply but in Temperament with Cold and Dry and from the Four Elements The Four Complexions of Phlegm Sanguine Cholerick and Melancholy Health and Sickness Life and Death consist in a good and fit Temperature of these Humors and the Soul uses these as Instruments for Conservation of the Compositum the General Parts are Bones with their Nerves knitting them together and the Flesh with its Veins through which the Blood returns and Arteries through which the Vital or Animal Spirits have their Courses and God hath given to Men a more delicate Flesh and more Nice and tender Skin than to Beast Pag. 685. And the Temperament and Complexion of their Bodies are much finer Pag. 686. There are Three Principal Faculties of the Soul viz. Vegetation Sense and Motion 3. Intellect The Two later viz. Sense and Intellect are chiefly placed and acted in the Head and thence grow the Nerves passing to every Bone and Member Pag. 687. All Anatomists confess That in an Humane Body there are Innumerable Parts and Things which Men cannot find out and which are known only to God Pag. 689. The Common or Internal Sense cannot act without the Animal Spirits and the Soul uses these Spirits both for Understanding and for its other Actions which are to be performed in the Head and the Nerves which serve both for Sense and Motion through the whole Body have their Original from the Brain and are fixed in it or to it There the Soul reigns most effectually and who can express the various Instruments which God hath there provided for her Use Pag. 693. The Heart is the Original and Prime Instrument of Vegetation and Life which it communicates to the whole Body by its Intense Heat Motion and Rarefaction of the Blood and specially it communicates to the Head the Animal Spirits whereby Motion Sense and Cogitation are received and acted Thirdly The Heart is the Seat Fountain and Cause of all the Affections and there are two Principal Motions in it viz. that of the Systole and Diastole or of the Pulse effecting and Declaring Life the other Motion is of the Affections following the Conceptions or Intellect either with extraordinary Dilatation in the whole Body as in Accidents pleasing and joyous or with a like Compression or Contraction in Case of Accidents sorrowful or dspleasing Whence as Motion Sense and Intellect have their Original and Activity from and in the Brain and Head So Life and all the Affections are derived and acted from and in the Heart And betwixt the Heart and Head there is a wonderful Correspondence and Agreement to the Good and Benefit of the whole Compositum From the Heart Vital Spirits ascend to the Brain where they become Animal Spirits and by these Intelligence Cogitations and Notices of Things arise in the Mind from whence again such Cogitations and Notices strike upon the whole Heart exciting and stirring there the Affections and other Vegetative and Natural Motions which are either pleasing or displeasing tending to or towards Joy or Sorrow the one a great Help to and Supporter of Health and Life and the other great Hinderance to or a Destroyer of them both Pag. 694. The Liver is the Fountain of all the Veins and the Arteries through which the Vital Spirits do pass are always and in all Places conjoined with the Veins and upon them depend the Life and Motion of the Animal and the Soul uses the Blood and Spirits to such Purposes The Liver communicates Blood to the Heart and that again Vital Spirits to the Liver Pag. 195. And as Blood is never in the Veins without some Spirits so neither do the Spirits flow through the Arteries without some thin Rivage of Blood with them and as the Veins have need of the Arteries to stir the Blood in them so the Arteries of the Veins for Nourishment of the Spirits Pag. 696. Spirits of the Body are Vital or Animal and the Spirit is a Vapor drawn by Heat and Concoction of the Heart out of the purest Parts of the Blood
my Opinion when I found Roccius saying the same things and words and Melanchton apparently to the same Sense and Peter Martyr approaching thereunto and nearer than I do expect other men shall come in any short time Your Quotation out of Dr. Cave was drawn by him out of Euseb Hist lib. 6. cap. 36 and is quoted in my Treatise This Particular finishes your Opposition to my Treatise and shall put an End also to my Defence Yet because I have as you may see some room left upon this Sheet of Paper I am thereby invited to remember what you said in your Second Paragraph viz. That it is not unlikely that my Treatise might be the result of some years Study To set your Imagination right upon that Point I give you this Account of it That in Summer 1690 I practised my Monastick Discipline reading within Doors and labouring the Ground abroad Mutans quadrata rotundis What I read within I ruminated without I considered the close Connection of Soul and Body and even the Contexture of them that Humane Constitutions and Faculties are often alter'd by Diet Air Sickness Accidents that the best Reasons Memories or Judgments may be altered or spoiled by divers like Means and recovered sometimes by Medicines applied to the disaffected Parts or Organs of the Body How this might competere with the Acts and Powers of a Substantial Angelical Spirit as the Soul or Form of Man I found my self unable to comprehend but that rather it seemed there was a Dependency of the Soul upon the Body as well as of the Body upon the Soul Hence I concluded there was a Close and Natural Contexture between them and that likely they were both of one same Nature Connatural to Man viz. his Natural and Constituent Parts Then I considered the Brutes and that they had the same Senses and Affections with Men and some sort of Understanding Phancy and Memory and all liable to like Accidents Also both Sorts lived by Blood Breath and Fewel or Food and if any of these failed the Man must die as well as the Beast so as the Man's Soul could help in such or any other Vital or Natural Necessities no more than the Soul of a Beast can do in like Cases And thus I went on considering all the Summer and coming tube inclined I fell upon a very Natural Course of Proceeding in such Cases followed by St. Paul Acts 17.17 He disputed his Tenets in all Places and with all Persons of his Conversation proper for that purpose and so did I and read Books such as I had or could buy or borrow Lastly One lent me a Book called Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts and the Weak Defence which he and Sir Kenelm Digby and Doctor More made on behalf of that Immortal Opinion fortified my Conceptions to the contrary In Christmass I discours'd with many about it and soon after Candlemass I began to write and finish'd my Treatise about a Week after Midsummer in An. 1691 since which time divers have perused it and I refuse it to none who are like to use it cleanly and are capable of it I know you observe that I begin with Baxter's Book and end with it quoting and examining of it all along nor did I find it difficult to refute all that he says in maintenance of the Immortality except the Texts of Scripture which he quotes And those Texts in him and in you seem to me the only Defences of the Immortality Batteries you perceive are and may be raised against the intention and effects of those Texts which are quoted to that purpose and of what force they will prove Men are not like speedily to determine But my Judgment is not convinced or perswaded that by forbearing the Argument drawn from the Immortality and pressing in its stead that from the Resurrection and the Last Judgement there can any detriment arise to the Progress and Maintenance of the Christian and specially of the Protestant Religion If I had a desire to argue upon this Point and towards the Clearing of it as St. Paul did both in Synagogues Markets and Schools I do it much more desirously with you as professing my self Your much obliged and very humble Servant 8 March 1692. After this Answer to the Opponents Objections he was p1eased to reply thereunto in June following and his Replication was divided into Seven Paragraphs His 1. Parag Insists That I had not made that Proof which he demanded of the Quomodo How a Material Spirit was able to act or did act the Humane Faculties and Powers known to be in Mankind and carried to an excellent Perfection in some Men As this was a repeated Demand so I say that I answer to it as before viz. That there are many other Things and Actings in the World the Reasons and Causes of which Men neither do nor can enough comprehend or perceive Our Lord tells us That if one should watch the Corn Night and Day yet he could not perceive so as to know the Immediate and Proper Causes of its Growth but it will bring forth first the Stalk next the Blade then the Ear and lastly the Full Corn in it Men not perceiving the How or the Why of it and the Case is like for all other Plants How it was or whence it proceeds that they bring forth Fruits and Leaves of wondrous Variety and Diversity in Colour Figure Taste Smell Bulk and Operations We see that each of them have Root Bole Skin or Bark and we perceive and know that each of them hath an active and lively Juice or Spirit ascending from the Root into the Boles Branches and Tops of them and this Composition of Matter and Form in Plants we do reasonably believe to be sufficient and effectual for the production of all that doth ordinarily grow out of them But that Solomon or any other man ever did or can declare to us the manner of their proceedings or the next Reasons of them and of that great Variety in their Natures and Productions I do not know nor believe nor do I think it a Work of Humane Power to do Next Plants we may consider the Insects Solomon points us to the Spiders the Locusts the Ants and the Bees what are the Causes of their Motions and Actions Solomon tells us they do what is proper and best for their Beings but as Wonders to him and us who know neither the How nor the Why of them And so for the Fishes and the Birds we cannot know by what secret Engines and Motors divers particulars are done amongst them Concerning the Quadrupedes we see and know they have the same Flesh Blood Bones and Breath that Men have and in their Kinds sutable Bodily Members as Head Heart Liver Lungs Arteries Veins Fibres Muscles c. that Men have also a Generation and Production all alike I may demand what makes them live and grow in the Wombs of their Dams What forms their Members and how are they made in those
and Man Whereas the Fact of our Savage who hath not nor knows any Law may pass well enough without discerning by any Light of Nature that his Fact was Turpe And so may the Case be for Adultery or Incest amongst Persons who neither live under Laws nor have any knowledge of them they cannot naturally discern the Turpe in such Actions and for Theft and Robbery it would be the delight and glory of such Savages and was the common practice of the Savage World and is the common Arabian Profession at this day And we may add to them the petit Pirates and even the great Conquerours and Spoilers of Nations who because they live without Laws or above them do not or will not discover any Natural Turpe in those Ravages which they make upon the to them innocent and harmless people All these Cases or Instances seem to evince that the Discovery of Honestum and Turpe grows not from Nature barely or in its extreamest Simplicity nor without some assistance from Education or Institution Next our opposing Immateriallists do alledge That upon the committing of any known and great Turpe there arises amongst Men a great and tormenting Sense of such Evil flowing from Nature in Man and which is never found in Beasts of any Kind But I do not assent to either of these Assertions First For Conscience in Man I have said the Conscient Powers viz. Understanding Memory and Judgment are Natural and so are the Effects viz. Pleasure and Joy Sorrow and Fear But to compleat a Conscience in Man there must be more than Nature viz. Some sort of Rules or Directions growing from Education or Institution and such may derive themselves from Three Originals First By Revelation from God or Spirits Secondly From Precepts or Examples of other Men. Thirdly From the Person himself concerned in the Inquiry his own Observations Opinions Phantasies Now take any of these Sorts of Rules which any Man hath accepted for his Guides and submitted himself unto if he find his Actions agree with his Rules that Agreement produces Comfort and Joy and the contrary produces Sorrow and Fear the wideâ—â—er they differ the greater the Fear and proportionable to the degrees and duration of Rewards an1Punishments taught and believed to be expected and the reputed certainty of them And it seems the Rule accepted and submitted to be it right or wrong true or false obliges the Conscience of the Believer and strikes him with remorse upon any his irregular Actions as strong the false as the true and this shews the Faculty not to be wholly from Nature for that she is more constant in her Directions and Notices then to be ordinarily liable to such great aberrations We say then a Savage can have no Conscience for want of Rules whence that Power cannot be derived from bare Nature in Man The other Assertion viz. That Conscience is not to be found in Beasts of any kind I do not assent unto yet granting that naturally none of them have it But I conceive that by an Education amongst Men and a Conversation with them some Beasts may attain and have obtained to such Conscient Faculties as are agreeable to the low degrees of their Understanding and I give instance in a Mastiff Dog if he go at liberty without Education and meet with a Sheep hungry he falls on and kills and eats till he have enough and departs without any sign or sense of remorse for his so doing But take one of that kind and give him an Education amongst Men and being taught his Duty in that Case if after this Dog happen to worry a Sheep he becomes so sensible ashamed and afraid togteher that his guilt and fear appear in his whole carriage and the Temper and posture of his Body so as his looks and carriage give evident proof that he is a Sheep-biter So for a Setting-Dog if his over-eager desire carry him into his Game and that he spring it his Conscient Power smites him upon that Fact so that he dare not will not approach his Master or Teacher but will a void and flie from them by all means and for a competent time till their anger may be allwaged and some of them have been thereby so scared as to run quite from their Masters and forsake them for ever We know also that some Horses which have been corrected for tripping upon the High-way it by accident they make a trip they suddenly dart themselves forwards remembring the former Corrections and sometimes do by that means escape the punishment which otherwhiles would have fallen upon them And in like manner the most Docible Creatures Dogs Horses Apes Elephants are made tractable and tâ—ught by Rewards and Punishments and the Desire Fear and Expectations of them the same which are the Grounds and Effects of Conscience in Man And thus Arguendâ— and with hard rubbing it seems there is taken off from the Nature of Man this last Piece of Varnish or Ornament which by divers hath been so hard laid on and fastened as it seemed like a Fixation inseparable and quarto modo peculiar to it in consequence of which I say That we have now laid the Nature of Man as naked and bared of its Ornaments as before we did that of our Organ And as then that Instrument so bared had for its Materials no other then what the Inferiour Instruments were made of viz. Wood or Common-Metal so is it like to fall out with the Body of Man there will appear in it nothing but Skin Bone Flesh Blood Joynts Muscles Nerves Arteries Sinews Veins Heart Head Brain and Breath c. all of the same kind with those of the Inferiour Animals And for the Active Principle in them both as Wind and Breath of the same Nature but stronger or weaker moves and acts as well the Organ as all the other Inferiour Instruments So it seems a Spirit inflamed and of a like Nature is the Active Principle in the whole Animal Kind and Nature viz. both of Man and Beast The Flame may be purer and grosser brighter and dimmer but in all of a Similar Kind and Nature one of them with he other as the Wind and Breath was to the forenamed Instruments And this Conclusion shall close and finish my present Simile and that put end to my intended Argument against the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Soul For the publishing of which I offer this Reason That having an Inclination and Desire to find out or learn the Truth in the Point before disputed and having in my Answer to Doctor Bentley's Sermon summoned him to perform his promise of proving the Separate Subsistence of an Humane Soul I thought it requisite to lay before him or any other who being qualified for it shall undertake the Imployment all or the most important of those Grounds and Reasons which moved me in a Mature and Decaying Age to perswade my self that the Opinion of the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Humane Souls after Death of their Bodies is an Errour to the intent that having before them the true State of the Malady and the Causes of it they may be the better inabred to direct their Applications for the Cure and take the whole State of the Case together and shall say no more save by way of Caution viz. That hitherto the Fabrick of the Argument is held together as by Nails driven through Boards yet remaining with streight points so as they may be pinched out again with more ease and little damage to the Materials it proper Endeavours shall be used to that purpose viz. By a full strong reasonable and well grounded Answer to the Objections which have been in this Tract or Treatise produced but if pregnant Persons shall enter upon the Undertaking without Direction or Advice and make infirm cholerick or any way insufficient Answers thereunto that will prove like a clenching or rivetting the points of the Nails on the farther side and make them so hard to be drawn out again as there may be great difficulty and some inconvenience in the performance of it My Desire and Prayer to God is That he will by his good Providence and Spirit direct such as out of a Pious Inclination and for Love to Truth shall in Peaceable and Christian Manner undertake the Rectification of those Errours which shall be with clearness detected in this Treatise And that he will finally discover to us what is the very Truth in the Point here disputed And to an Answerer I shall conclude with St. Paul 2 Tim. 2.7 Consider what I say and the Lord give thee understanding in this and in all things especially enable thee for the Discovery declaring and proving of the Truth in this Point FINIS
nourishing the once kindled Flame so long as the Materials shall be able to last or endure and that in Men and Beasts is their old and decrepit Age and the utter Expence of that Humidum Radicale whereby their Flammula Vitalis might be nourished and maintained or that it be corrupted and vitiated by other noxious Humours and thereby rendred improper for the Purposes to which it was designed In Men and Beasts it seems there is a Material Spirit kindled and enflamed and thereby attenuated to so great a degree of Subtilty as to become Invisible and so asserts My Lord Bacon in the Place before quoted And so our Author Pag 72. says Some think that the Soul is Material yet of a purer Substance than things visible and thus thought Tertullian and almost all the Old Greek Doctors of the Church that write of it and so most of the Latines or very many Some thought the Soul an Igneous Body such as we call Aether or Solar Fire or rather of a higher purer Kind and that Sensation and Intellection are those Formal Faculties which specifically difference it from inferiour meer Fire or Aether And there are few of the Old Doctors or Fathers who thought it not some of these ways Material And to all this we do willingly subscribe and agree believing as the Primitive Fathers of the Church both Greek and Latine have by our Author 's own Testimony thought and taught before us And we conceive that the Beasts have a like Material Spirit inflamed lambently but whether altogether so fine and subtile as that in Humane Bodies we find not Ground enough to assert or determine But Solomon tells us what befalls Men befalls Beasts As one dies so dies the other Yea they have all one Breath and a Man hath no Preheminence above a Beast their Bodies go all to one Place they are of the Dust and turn to it again and who knows the Difference of their Spirits that of a Beast goes downward to the Earth viz. dies with the Body and turns to Dust and who knows that the Spirit of a Man doth not do so but goes upward Hence it seems there was an Opinion at that time amongst the Jews that the Souls of Men did not die with their Bodies like the Beasts And we find Solomon in the Close of this Book saying upon a Mans Death The Dust shall return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it Now whether he was better resolved in the Point at this time or that he used this Expression to comply with the Opinion of his Countrey we will not pretend to determine But it seems plain that amongst Men and Beasts there is a great Congruity in their Parts Frame and Composition as that all have different Members acting sutable to their Kinds as Head Feet Back Belly and Inward Parts as Heart Liver Lungs Spleen Brain and all the Organs of Sense and Nerves Veins Arteries Ventricles Muscles Joynts and the same Nature of Flesh Bones Blood and Breath which shall be left here and changed for the Consideration of their Internal Powers of Sense Motion Phancy Memory Intellect and of their Affections Passions and Powers of Perception Utterance and the like Faculties Concerning such Faculties we begin from the Senses and do find the Beasts have all the same with those of Men and that they can make as accurate and beneficial Use of them as any Men can do and in the Perceivance by them divers Beasts do excel Men some in the Use of one Sense and some of another and every Beast and Bird have Voices Tones and Notes all serving to warn and direct their Young ones to call for their Food or complain for the Want of it to give warning of Weather or Danger to call for Company of their own Kind to threaten and terrifie their Inferiours in Strength the Birds also to vie with one another in Melody delighting therewith the Ears of other Creatures that can perceive the Suavity and Variety of them The Affections and Passions in Beasts are the same with those in Men. We have named five Principals of them viz. Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear the three last of which are altogether as eminent and active in Beasts as in Men. Ambition is not so and yet Beasts and Birds of all Kinds will fight without giving quite over until there be an acknowledged Mastery amongst them the Stronger will compel the Weaker to give Way and to follow and observe him Nor is Covetousness in Beasts any thing comparable to that in Man some of them do hoard up Provision for their Support in Winter and others for whom it is proper will steal it from them or fight for it if there shall be an Occasion So as in Beasts these Affections are but very feeble in comparison to what they are in Man Whereas Lust Wrath and Fear are equally potent and prevalent in the one Kind as in the Other And for Proof that Beasts have Phantasies their Dreams are Evidence in which sometimes they are vehemently agitated and affected and that they have Perfect Memories is proved by a Horses learning to know a Way but once gone and sooner than ordinary Passengers do by a Cows returning to the Place where her Calf was parted from her although she be driven away many Miles from it by the Docility of Horses Camels Dogs Apes Elephants most knownly but truly of many other Creatures And there seems to be no sufficient Doubt of finding all other Powers that are in Man resident in some Beasts except that of his Intellect which he can imploy in framing many Notions or Propositions and drawing Consequences and Conclusions such we do not know that any Beasts can do nor have they Means of making them known to us Sometimes we light upon Effects which carry a great Semblance of Proceeding from such Causes as in Dogs their Kindness to the Bodies of their dead Masters and discovery of their Murtherers That of Sabinus supported his Master's dead Body in the Tiber till he sunk with it Alexander's Elephant who would never take Food after the Royal Harness was taken from him and put upon another but starved and died upon it Androgeo and his Lion are reported and made famous in divers Roman Histories and other-like Effects are related that might serve to this Purpose but too long and circumstantial to be here related But from the Docility of Creatures Beasts we may with some certainty collect that they have an Intellect of simple or single Notions what and when and how their Directors will have them to act And Hares and Foxes do it seems invent Means to deceive and baffle their Pursuers But of Complex Notions Discourse or Reasoning in their Minds we do not perceive that any Beasts are capable although they are notable Observers of their Masters Eyes and can perceive their Pleasure or Displeasure in them and act according as by them directed Yet that they
by something in us and that is some Substance and this we call the Soul it is not nothing and it is within us Thus he tells us a Humane Soul is an Immortal Spirit That being denied he neither proves it nor offers to do it but instead thereof he offers Proof that it is a substance for says he it moves and acts within us and it is not nothing This we grant but take it for no proof at all of the separated subsistance of a Soul for the Heart Brain Blood and Spirits and Breath are continually moving and acting within us and each of them are substances but have no subsistance in their Motions separate from the Body but all Die with it and so may that which is called by the names of Soul or the Form of a Humane Body or the Vital Principle of it Pag. 14. He Confesses That God is the continued First Cause of all Beings and that the Branches and Fruit depend not as effects so much upon their Causes the Roots Stocks and Branches as the Creature doth upon God whence it seems clear That God can make an Automaton moving and living by ways which Men may not be able to find out or understand and perhaps the Life and Actings of Animals may be such a Secret and because Men cannot find out how the Blood Spirits Nerves Arteries Veins Muscles and other Vital Parts are acted or moved nor the adequate or precise manner how they are all Excited and Actuated by that Flame and Glowing of that which is called the Flammula Vitalis not quite extinguished in Animals but with the Life how by the Unctuous Spirits rising from the Blood Urine and Humours of the Body this Flame is perpetually nourished and maintained and fanned and kept alive by continual and lively respiration nor how the Spirits raised and kindled in and about the Heart mount continually to the Head where in the Brain and the Ventricles of it and Motion or Conveyance of the Arteries thereunto belonging the Common Sense is furnished and excited to Act upon all Objects presented and to Lodge them in the Phantasie and the Memory whence they may be recalled and presented again to the common Sensorium or Judicial Power that it may consider them better or work with them or upon them as far as its own Capacity or Intellect can advance it self in the Powers and Practices of Arts and Sciences Such things we find are transacted and done in the Brain and Body of Man and we cannot pervestigate with any exactness how by the Vital Parts and Spirits of the Body such effects are particularly and properly Produced and this is more hard to be done because Men can never Compass the sight of a Dissected Body in the full Life Vigour and Motion of the Blood Spirits Humors Parts and Members of it but must be content with the view of them all Dead Cold Clammed whence they may have good pretences to conclude it very unlikely that the Powers of Sense Phantasie Intellect and Memory should be Actuated by such Materials or the Conjunction or Operation of them not enough considering that the Flamula Vitalis which is the Acter and Life of them all is extinguished before the beholders can be admitted to the sight and consideration of the Vital or Principal Parts of a Dissected Body And yet it seems from this want of Conception how the Parts and Spirits of the Body do or after what manner they can Act after and in performance of the Faculties of Sense Motion Intellect Phantasie Memory c. Men take their Principal or even only Reason to Introduce or Invent a Forreign Government and Governor for every Animal or at least Humane Body viz. a Spiritual Substance as our Author calls it Pure Invisible Immortal others add Indiscerptable and it will not be Difficult for Men to add and ascribe to it whatsoever their fancies happen to Invent in Cases where we can never expect to have any likely Trial of the Truth but this savours of expounding Obscurum per Obscurius or the stopping one Hole and making many Wherefore as to our not conceiving how the Animal Parts can Work and Act all those Parts which we know are performed amongst us wee seem to have ground enough to refer them to the Power and Will of our Creator That he can by such means effect all Mens performances no Man makes doubt and to many and learned Persons it seems likely that he hath done so and for those who meerly upon the fore-named reason will take the boldness to impose a Super-Humane or Spiritual Empire upon the Bodies of all Men we request them to take as the Acter or Imposer ought to do upon themselves the Onus Probandi and that they first prove to us concerning the Power intended by them to be Introduced amongst and over us which they call an Immortal Spiritual Substance 1. Quod sit 2. Quid sit 3. Quale sit 4. Quando Ingreditur 5. Vbi residet 6 Quomodo gubernat agit viz. That there is in Nature such a Humane Soul able to subsist in Seperation from the Body 2. What it is in its own Nature and whether it do pre-exist a Mundo condito or be derived ex Traduce from the Seed of the Parents or that Infundendo Creatur be Created by Gods Power upon every Fruitful Copulation 3. With what Qualities such Souls are indowed whether they are all well inclined or some ill or meeterly Whether all are of like Power or some more others less potent Whether they may cause or can help or hinder any Bodily Pains or Diseases Whether they can leave their usual place of Residence and go into other Parts of the Body or go quite out of it a wandring in the World and yet return to it again Whether they feel share of the Bodies Maladies and will not willingly consent to have Limbs cut off or to take strong Purges or Vomits for fear of being disturbed in their places of Residence Whether they are more pleased or have a greater desire to be in the Body or out of it Whether the Body be as a Prison to Souls and they be confined to it or that they chuse to be there and leave it unwillingly And if they be there confined by what Power or means are they so and what other Qualities of Souls they think fit to communicate to us 4 When it is that the Soul enters into the Body Whether before or after the Births and if before then how long after the Conception Whether it enter in its full Dimensions or grows larger as the Child grows or suffer detriment by sickness of the Body or its Consumption or Age Also when it leaves the Body finally Whether its leaving do kill or that it stay till the Flamula Vitalis be quite extinct and the Body dead Or If this Flame be suddenly extinct by the violent motion of a blow upon the Head Whether doth the Soul strive to re-kindle this Flame or
it Hence we may perceive that our Author instead of proving by Reason or from Nature That the Humane Soul is an Immaterial Self-subsisting Spirit is turned about to vain Jangling and with a wilful Blindness such as will not see he balks the known and ancient Opinion of the Primitive Fathers of the Church before cited by himself viz. That the Humane Soul was a Material Spirit kindled by our Creator in the Body of Man when he breathed into Adam 's Nostrils the Breath of Life and thereby made him a Living Soul We read that when Prometheus had framed and made a perfect Humane Body he could not enliven it for want of Heavenly Fire which he therefore stole from Jupiter and was condemned to have his Heart eternally torn and devoured by the incessant Gripes and endless Voracity of a Vulture or Raven Whether this shadow to us Lucifer's Offence in such Atempt we dispute not but apparent it is that this is the adequate Emblem of a guilty and tormenting Conscience for a Crime of the highest Nature and Provocation that possibly can be committed Ezek. 37. we meet with an Adumbration of such an enlivening Breath God directs his Words Say to the Wind thus saith the Lord Come from the four Winds O Breath and breath upon these Slain that they may live And the Bodies arose and they lived accordingly 1 Cor. 15.44 There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual Body The first Man Adam was made a Living Soul and the last Adam a Quickening Spirit For the truer Understanding of what is meant by the Term Living Soul parallel Expressions of Scripture shall be cited to that Intent Gen. 7.22 All in whose Nostrils was the Breath of Life upon the dry Land died in the Flood For the Use of the Word Soul Levit. 17.11 Ye shall have a holy Convocation and ye shall afflict your Souls viz. your selves 1 Sam. 10. Hannah was in bitterness of Soul and prayed and wept she was sore afflicted Ch. 2.16 Take as much as thy Soul desireth viz. as much as you will Ch. 18.1 The Soul of Jonathan was knit with the Soul of David and he loved him as his own Soul viz. his Affection was knit to him and he loved him as himself Ch. 25.29 A Man is risen to pursue thee and to seek thy Soul viz. pursue thy Person and seek thy Life Ch. 30.12 When the Egyptian taken at Ziklag had eaten his Spirit came again to him viz. his Vital Spirit 2 Sam. 30.39 The Soul of David longed to go forth unto Absalom Next Verse David 's Heart was towards Absalom seems the Heart Affection Life Person used to be expressed by the Term Soul Job 12.10 In God's Hand is the Soul of every living thing and the Breath of all Mankind Ch. 16.4 If your Soul were in my Soul's stead viz. if you were in my Case Ch. 21.4 Why should not my Spirit be troubled viz. why should I not be grieved Ch. 30.15 Terrors pursue my Soul viz. me And my Soul is poured out upon me viz. I am exceedingly afflicted Ch. 33.30 To bring back his Soul from the Pit to the Light of the Living viz. save his Life Ch. 34.14 If God gather to himself Mans Spirit and his Breath he shall turn to his Dust. We have proceeded thus far of the Bible to collect Texts to our Intent and should we go through the Psalms and forward it would be hard to recite the Collections and it seems the Texts cited are enough to establish the Sense of our Expression Man became a Living Creature or Person And thus by the Breath of Life derived from Heaven was the Flammula Vitalis the Promethean Fire enkindled in the Blood Spirits and Parts of Man's Body and by Breath it hath ever since been refreshed and maintained and when God takes this from us we die and are turned to our Earth and all our Thoughts perish our Fancies Intellects and Memories our Learning and Abilities as well as our Love and our Hatred our Passions and Affections The Vital Flame kindled in the first Man passing intermixed with the Seminal Substance and Prolifick Virtue and received in Habitacles fitting and proper for its Fomentation and Nutriment is first fermented by the Prolifick Energy or Internal Principle of Inclination to be coagulated and knit one Part of it to the other and by Fomentation is strengthened whence arises a Power of assimilating to it self such Nourishment as comes within the narrow Sphere of its Activity which being by its own Tendency to Heat and the Natural Warmth and Fomentation of its Receptacle compacted to and settled in a terminated Consistency and somewhat a fixed Unity of Coherence the Formation of Parts doth consequently commence and as Men have by a daily Observation found it in Eggs under a Hen it likely doth proceed viz. Two harder Accrescencies are principally framed and compacted viz. the Primum Vivens and Vltimum Moriens the Triangle of our Hearts and the Circular or Globular and Chief Member of our Bodies the Head and these are presently knit together first by small Ligatures Strings and Films and from those two Parts as Principal Pillars and Fountains of Life Motion and Action there are extruded and produced first the Fibres and Nervous Parts and Ligatures of the Body then the Arteries Veins and Muscles and lastly the Flesh and Bones and such Blood as may be required in an Embrion State or a Chile analogous thereunto proper to nourish and apt to be converted into Blood and to catch and maintain the Vital Flame which shall be kindled upon the first Breath and Fanning of the Ambient Air at its coming into the World And like to this is the common Fate and Form of all other Animals and the Production of Living Bodies whatsoever if we shall examine them and begin with Vegetables and take for Standards the Acorn and the Mustard-seed they and whatsoever other Seed it be if it fall upon unnatural or barren and unhospitable Places viz. into Waters barren and dry Sands upon bare Rocks or salt Marishes or the like the Seed missing and failing of a Sutable Receptacle and agreeable to its Nature cannot be expected to fructifie according to its Natural Inclination and Power but must needs prove abortive unfruitful and improlifick But where Seeds fall into good and tolerable Grounds agreeable to their Seminal Virtues Inclinations and Powers and wherein they may meet with a Nutritive Reception there they are first somewhat melted or softned and then they ferment and finding a sutable Fomentation in their Recipient they germinate and sprout and as the Sprouts bear upwards so from the other end of the Acorn proceed Fibres or thin very small Strings moist and somewhat glutinous or clammy Threads impregnated not only with its proper Juice but indued with a catching and penetrating Quality enabling it to fix and fasten it self in its hospitable Recipient where finding still a friendly and benigne Fomentation and Acceptance it
in it self or of moving any other Matter whatsoever It seems when he made this gross Mistake he did not remember that there was an Element of Fire in the World For we suppose he could have no doubting but that Fire was Matter nor that wheresoever it is found it shews it self to be a Self-moving and an Active Principle in Nature so violent as to disdain Resistance from any thing Fortresses and Castles are ordinarily and easily overthrown by it Rocks and Mountains cannot enough resist the Force of it But it can shake the solid Globe of Earth making Resistance to the Violent Force of its Motion and Activity How extream easie must it then be for a Principle of such Mettle and Vigour to move and actuate and to enliven and quicken the adapted Parts Members and Organs of an Animal or Humane Body wherein those Parts and Organs are fitted by a wise Creator to those Motions and Purposes and for those Offices in their first Formation intended It seems an Opinion of so little Doubt or Question as scarce leaves Matter or Occasion for any farther Dispute about the Verity of the Thing We have spoken before of the Spirits enflamed to a Tenuity so rare as it attains to a Degree of Invisibility And our Dr. Pag. 149. tells us of the Intense Heat that is about the Heart of Man such as that his Blood there is in a manner scalding-hot So Pag. 203. says The Aetherial Matter is that Fire which Trismegist affirms is the Vehicle of the Mind and which the Soul of the World doth most certainly use in all her Acts and Procreations Pag. 212. The Spirits thus fine and active move like Light as that of the Sun to our Sight the Motion is propagated not by Degrees but at once Pag. 214. If one part of the Blood he more Fiery and Subtil than another it will be sure to reach the Head From these Assertions it appears our Dr. was not ignorant of the Principle of Fire and its Activity in the Body and Mind of Man nor did he forget it Why then did he not mention and answer the Objection thence arising against his Position That Matter can neither move it self nor any other Matter there seems no Account or Reason to be given Our Author Baxter takes notice Pag. 21. That Life Intuition and Love are Acts as Natural to the Soul as Motion Light and Heat are Quoad actum to the Fire This Testifies his Opinion That Fire is a a Self-moving Principle and that it is evident and eminent in the Composition of the Body and Mind of Man is too well proved and apparent to be doubted Upon all these Quotations and Arguments it seems we may say as we have done before in the Case of Plants that in Animals Men do find a proper and sufficient Original in their Seed and the Fomentation and Nutriment of it and of its Growth and Tendency to the Perfection of its Kind that there are naturally produced the Parts belonging to such Bodies viz. inward as Heart Liver Lungs Bowels Brains Spleen Kidneys Bladder c. And outward as Head Feet Hands Arms Shoulders Neck c. Also those which under one Name contain many Particulars as the Muscles Nerves Veins Fibres Arteries Films Membranes Tunicles c. Lastly such as go through the Composure and every Part of it viz. Flesh Bones Blood and Breath God by his Hand-maid Nature and that Wisdom described Prov. 8. framed this Compositum at first out of the Dust of the Earth Of which David gives a true Character when he says I am fearfully and wonderfully made and making he endowed it with a Generative Power to be practised and used for the Continuance of their Species till Time and Place shall fail for such Productions and hath made such Performances the most pleasing and delightful Actions of their Lives to the intent the Species of Animals might never fail in the World or be extinguished When their Bodies were perfectly framed and fully finished furnished with Blood and Humours fit to be enkindled by the Promethean or Heavenly Fire He breathed says Moses into Man the Breath of Life which though Moses doth not express it was given and granted to the Beasts of the Field also and to the Heirs and Posterities of them all and by the first Blast and Fanning of this Breath were the pregnant Steems of the newly-created and pullulant Blood and Humours of the Body enkindled and enflamed with a Fire of Heavenly Product Natural and Lambent like those sometimes found in Ancient Urns and Sepulchres ever burning or shining without Consuming or Perception of Consuming their Materials This Fire Flame or Glowing pervades the whole Body and every Part and minute Particle and Member of it whither the Blood and Humours can and do come enlivening and actuating the whole and every Part of the Body to perform those Purposes for which by Nature they were intended But the Power of this Vital Heat and Fire is most apparent in and about the Heart where the Blood is most heated rarified and refined to a Spirit of that Pureness and Subtilty that like a rorid Steem they become thin to an Ivisibility ascending continually from the Heart to the Head as the Sap doth in Plants and the Vegetative Spirit from the Root to the Branches arriving in the Head they replenish the Brain and the Ventricles thereof acting and stirring and enabling all Parts and Organs to and in the Performance of those Parts and Duties for which by Nature they were intended Our Dr. before-quoted P. 298. tells us That by these Spirits the Soul hears sees feels imagines remembers and reasons and can do nothing without them And Pag. 329. The Souls Intellectual Operations depend upon these Spirits and it is the Fitness and Purity of them that invites and enables her to love and look after Divine and Intellectual Objects But we do not perceive more need of such a Soul in the Animal than there was before in the Plant there we found Materials and proper Organs for the Nourishment of it and a Natural Vegetative Spirit or Soul to enliven it to stir and actuate the Sap causing it to ascend and to spread it self in all Places even to the uttermost Branches and Twigs of the largest Trees where it produceth Leaves and Fruit according to its own proper Nature and why not the Blood Humors and Animal Spirits circulating in the Body of an Animal The Blood and Humors actuated with the Flame of Life and the attenuated Spirits actuating and applying to fit Matter and Organs of the Body made proper for their several Purposes and moving and stimulating to act accordingly and acting with them and in them why may not these act in the Natural Course of a Sensitive Animal without an Immaterial Self-subsisting Soul Our Dr. says Because you can shew me no Way how things can be by such Means acted and done in the Senses or Vnderstanding but so as I can make
Beasts haunted towards Houses for relief amongst them was observed one who ran sometimes on two feet and otherwhiles on four the Spectators took him for a Satyr they set the Haunt to take him and took him he was found a perfect Man of wonderful quick Senses especially in Smelling he learned again to speak and was known for the poor Womans Son and then related his manner of living amongst the Beasts accepted as one of their kind and so herded with them living as they did and the People named him John of Liege And this Fact discovers a near degree of Affinity between Man and Beast and so doth the Nourishment of Humane Bodies by the Milk of Beasts and the Support of Humane Bodies by the Transfusion of the Blood of Beasts into their Veins and Bodies which shews even a Consanguinity amongst us Our Predecessors in this Island in Julius Caesar's time and a good while after lived as naked as their Cattel and fed amongst other things upon Wildings Acrons Bollis Sloes Heps Haws c. as both Beasts and poor People divers times feed at this day And to prove That Beasts and Men in puris naturalibus do not greatly differ in the last place shall be cited the Case of Nebuchadnezzar who had for many years as high a place in the Throne of Glory as any other Man whatsoever and we may presume had indulged himself as Men in such Cases and Places use to do till by the Operation it seems of his Phancy his Heart or Inclinations became like those of the Beasts he hearded with the Oxen fed with them and lived amongst them his Skin was his only Covering and was wet with the Showers of Heaven his Hair grew to cover him like the Birds Feathers and his Nails like their Claws and this be was well enough able to endure and it stood with his choice and liking during such distemper of his Phancy the space of Seven years as an Apprenticeship under Discipline And it may serve for an Example and Proof that as Men and Beasts are under the same Genus or Kind of Creatures similar in their Bodies as to the Materials and Parts of them so they shall not be so exceedingly different in the Nature of their Souls as the received Opinion hath made them but more likely it seems That a Soul of such Nature as acts in the Brutes First Their Vital Faculties Digestion Nutrition Generation Secondly Their Passions of Lust Wrath and Fear Thirdly Their Sensitive Faculties Seeing Hearing c. Fourthly Such low Degrees as they have of Perception Understanding Phancy Judgment Will and Memory such a Soul as acts these last Faculties in a low Degree and all the former in as high a Degree as is done in Man such a like Soul should be enough able to act in Man all that his Body and Organs can perform and for which such Organs were first intended and made But against this Conclusion divers have objected and said That Man hath one singular Ornamental Quality peculiar to his Nature and so well fixed to it as the same cannot be separated from it nor be communicated to any Brutal Nature whatsoever and that is a Natural Power of Discerning Honestum from Turpe and distinguishing between them so as to approve the one and condemn the other To this I reply It seems Reason doth not drive Men to consent to this Assertion or to approve the Import of it But they re-joyn The Truth of it is proved Rom. 2.14 Those who have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law having the Law written in their hearts For an help to expound this Text I quote another 1 Cor. 11.14 Doth not even Nature it self teach you that if a Man have long hair it is a shame to him Here by Nature is intended an universal Custom of those Countreys which St. Paul had seen for in them all Men used to wear their hair short and that became amongst them a second Nature as our Proverb terms it Hence I collect for probable that in the quoted Text to the Romans Paul by the word Nature intended a Civilized and Cultivated Nature meliorated by some kind of Education or Institution as all the Nations that he knew were for his words having not the Law points at that of Moses and he seems to account that all who were not under that Law were under Nature and the Guidance of it but such a Nature as had the Cultivation of other Laws or Rules and which generally were much agreeaable to the Letter or Sense of Moses his Moral Laws and made like Impressions upon the hearts of the Gentiles as that of Moses did upon the Jews but that here by Nature he did not intend Humane Nature in puris naturalibus naked and bare of all manner of Institution or Education whatsoever not such a Nature as that of John of Liege the Lybian Jamnites and Sabunks where Men are so few as their converse amongst the more numerous Beasts makes them like one another not like the Caribbee Islanders or the most Northernly Americans or some miserable poor wild Irish have been reported It seems he doth not intend Nature thus naked but under the Cultivation of some Civil Education Now for Man's Natural Faculty of discerning Honestum from Turpe I say First That it is not in his Nature after the manner of his Natural Faculties his Vital Passionate Sensitive or Rational Powers for all these of which the Beasts are also partakers rise out of bare Nature or the Natural Contexture of Soul and Body and exert themselves upon emergent Occasions without any Teaching or Instruction whatsoever this Power of discerning Honestum from Turpe doth not so Adam did not by Nature discern that Nakedness was an undecent Thing or Turpe Who told thee that thou wast naked Discovered to thee that Nakedness was an Indecency in thee Or that thou hast need of any Covering but thy Skin Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin or what actions were sins but by the Law Ver. 8. Without the Law sin was dead seems unperceived Chap. 5.13 Sin is not imputed when there is no Law These prove that there is need of Rules to discern Honestum from Turpe even in the most gross actions for Rom. 4.15 Where no Law is there is no transgression Let us try this by a Case of Shedding Mans Blood viz. Two Men in Pure State of Nature or Savages happen to meet at large and to have view of an Object which they both desire they cannot dispute for want of Language but both seize the Object and fall to the Brutal Way of Contending viz. Violence and Force and in the Contest one kills the other It seems the Killer instead of remorse should glory in this Atchievement and be more encouraged and ready to follow the same Course another time And what otherwise do our practised Duellists but glory in their Shame with apparent disadvantage acting against the Laws both of God