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A49845
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Observations upon Mr. Wadsworth's book of the souls immortality and his confutation of the opinion of the souls inactivity to the time of general resurrection, 80.
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Layton, Henry, 1622-1705.
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1670
(1670)
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Wing L758; ESTC R39124
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150,070
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217
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OBSERVATIONS UPON Mr. WADSWORTH's BOOK OF The Souls Immortality and his Confutation of the Opinion of the Souls Inactivity to the Time of General Resurrection 80. Printed London 1670. IN his Epistle to the Reader Page 2. he says There are certain sober Professors of Christianity who tho they deny the Existence of the Soul separate from the Body yet they maintain the Resurrection of the whole Man at the Last Day to receive Recompences according to their deservings in this life and thereupon asks the Question Is not that sufficient to uphold Religion and a due Reverence of God in the World In answer to which Question he says There are some Professors among us who deny the Resurrection of the Body as some of the Quakers are said to do but yet believe the Returning of the Spirit to God who gave it and then concludes That between one of these Opinions and the other all Recompences future to this life may come to be discredited and exploded Upon which his manner of arguing I observe That he seems to set up if not invent the Opinion of Denying the Resurrection of the Person and yet believing that Humane Spirits return to God who gave them Concerning which Opinion I say I never heard of the like before which makes me think it may be an Invention and the rather because he gives no better Confirmation of the Truth of it then that some of the Quakers are said to hold it whereas I rather apprehend the truth to be that neither the Quakers nor any other Christians ever did or do deny the Resurrection of the Dead and further I conceive that no reasonable man who reads and believes the Scriptures can deny or very much doubt the truth of that Prime Article of our Faith The Resurrection of the Dead and further I conceive That if the Souls Immortality had any thing near a like clear proof in Scripture that we find in it for the Resurrection of the Dead both I and all other Doubters of such Immortality would be ready to assent and submit to that Opinion whence I apprehend he pretends to set up that which he calls the Quaking Opinion on purpose to discredit and deâ—ery the Practice of mens setting up their rest and expectation upon the clear and undeniable Article of the Resurrection of the Dead But that Article is too well founded and too clearly evidenced by the Scripture to be shaken or brought in question by any Inventions of Men whatsoever Page 4. Mr. W. says Having sometimes found my own mind hopled and troublesomely intangled with the perplexity of conceiving how my Soul could possibly exist in a separate state from my Body to which I 〈…〉 so strictly united and with which I found it by experience so much so sympathize in this its union Thus he conâ—â—â—â— himself to have doubted of the Humane Soul 's Separate Subsistence adding That he believed divers others might be troubled with the like doubtings and his intent in writing this Book was to propound to them such Arguments as had satisfied the doubts of his own mind Hereupon I observe That this Author was by Profession a Minister of the Gospel as appears by the Title Page of his Book that he was a man of great Reading Wit and Industry as plainly appears in the tenour and course of his Writing that he was a true and sincere Professor of the Christian Religion and knew very well as in some places of this Book he testifies that the Primitive Christians and later Churches both Romish and Reformed the Mahometane Churches the Heathen Priests Poets and Philosophers and a great number of the Jews and Proselytes of that Church have professed with a great Unanimity and Universality to hold and believe the Natural Subsistence of the Humane Soul in a State of Separation from the Body and yet the Natural Evidences of the strict Union betwixt the Soul and Body and the necessary Assistance which the one of them gives to the other for the production of Life and Action in the Person appear'd so strong to the Rational Mind or Faculty of this Writer as they had power to make him doubt of the possibility or at least the probability of the Souls Natural Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body and hence I am apt to infer that if a Man framed de meliori luto so munited and assisted as this Writer was did fall into doubts concerning the Natural Subsistence of the Humane Soul in a state of Separation from the Body it seems nothing strange or wonderful that other persons less fortified should fall into the like doubts and scruples that he did without falling from the sincere Profession of the Christian Religion because perhaps they may recover from those doubts and errours wherein they are now involved and next because such Errour as may be in this Opinion seems meerly Speculative and to have little or no influence upon the Lives and Practices of Men however some may put a higher value thereupon then perhaps the thing it self may deserve for that it commonly seems to affect more the terror of the dying than the restraining evil persons from sinning and even at mens deaths it seems to lay more terrour upon the weak and fearful than upon the most sinful and wicked persons and in the practices of men it seems provable and granted by all parties that what will make a happy Immortality will likewise make a happy Resurrection and what will make the one miserable will make the other so too because the Tree lies as it falls and as Death leaves us so shall Judgment find us and therefore I conclude that if men do happen to fall under such scruples and do even doubt the Natural Subsistence of the Humane Soul in a state of Separation from the Body and for obtaining better satisfaction thereupon do declare such doubts and scruples to the world with the reasons and grounds upon which the same is founded they may not for their so doing really deserve to be black'nd with the Names and Titles of Epicure Sadducee Deist Atheist and other odious Epithets which men of eager Spirits do frequently use to bestow upon others who differ from them in any sort of Opinions which may be controverted amongst them and seems to be a practice very much opposing Charity and the Doctrines of the Gospel Page 5. Mr. W. saith His Mind in this Treatise is to confirm the faith of those who believe the Souls Immortality or to raise up those that are fallen into the doubts and scruples before mentioned of which sort he was informed there are not a few among the otherwise serious Professors of Christianity in England who notwithstanding such scruples might pass with our Author for good Christians who are to stand and fall by their Masters Judgment in such Cases without being subjected or subjecting themselves to the sharp Censures of other violent or uncharitable persons He says Besides such doubters there are other
divers other great things here named And in these Sayings I am at Agreement with him without believing these things are done by the Soul alone but by the Person in Composito chiefly acted therein by the Faculty and Power of its Reason Here he quotes an Author that says Homo solus est animus corpus autem hominis opus instrumentum animus intelligentiam exercet sine ullo corporis instrumento In English thus The Soul only is the Man and the Body is but the Souls Organ or Instrument and the Soul can exercise its Faculty of Vnderstanding without any Assistance of the Bodily Organs But this Quotation proves no more to me than that there are other Men who are of Mr. W's Opinion and think as he doth which there was no need at all to prove because I stand convinc'd that the World of Men in general are so But let Mr. W. prove that those Words of his Author are true and then Erit mihi magnus Apollo I will give up the Cudgels to him and confess him Victorious in this Dispute For I am agreed with Aristotle in the beginning of his Book de Anima That if the Soul ever was known to do or can be proved able to do any thing without assistance of the Body and its Organs such Proof will be Evidence enough to Convince considering Persons that she hath a Nature and Subsistence of her own wherein she can act in a state of Seperation from the Body But of this Power I find no more Proof but the Saying recited in this Quotation P. 42. Mr. W. says If the Soul will the Feet walk the Hands work and so for the Motion of the Eyes and other like things All which I pass as before for a Mistake mendable by saying If the Man will the Feet walk and the Hands work and the like Further in his Fifthly he saith The Soul is Vitally united with the Body and by virtue of that Vnion enlivens and acts it Thereunto I say That the Spirit of Life in Man or the Body make but one Person who whilst he lives moves directs and acts himself and uses his Intellective Voluntary and Memorative Powers and Faculties with full Liberty according to his own liking and pleasure naturally He speaks here of a Vital Union between the Body and the Soul which Expression I do not Approve because they both together make but one Person as two Ingredients which make but one Compositum not as two different things that are united and joyned together but as Ingredients may be totally mixed and a new Product arise out of them all so as that if any of them be wanting in the Composition the Product cannot truly be the same it was before P. 43. He says That to tell you what the Soul is so as to make it an Intelligible Notion is not so impossible a thing as some have conceiv'd it to be Thereto I say that by such Descriptions as he hath before made of the Soul and all that he hath hitherto spoken thereof I am not able to understand or believe any more coneerning his sort of Soul than I did before I began to peruse his Treatise The Repetition of those things which he saith he hath performed I pass over as finding no Proving Force among them I find no more Chapters in this Treatise than those Four which have before been Examined but that here Mr. W. begins to alter his Method and to divide the rest of his Treatise by Arguments to the Number of Eighteen of which he Treats distinctly and severally in his following Discourse and I purpose to follow him therein and use the same Method in my Observations The First Argument PAge 44. Mr. W. Says That upon Gods breathing into Adam He is in the Text called a Liveng Soul a Denomination taken from the more excellent Part of Man his Soul This Expression seems to Agree with what I have formerly spoken That here the Words a Living Soul signifie and intend a Living Person putting the more noble Part or Ingredient to signifie the whole Person so as it passes in his Judgment for a Figurative Expression P. 46. Mr. W. Says When God Breathed which he properly doth not there is something else meant which can be nothing else but a special Act of Creation by which he made the Spirit or Breath of Life which he breathed into Man I Answer That in the Text there is no express mention of a Creation either of Breath or Spirit P. 47. He Says By the Breath of God is meant that Act of Divine Power by which God made Man and gave Life to him I am not willing to differ from Mr. W. and therefore agree to this Expression He quotes Ps 33.6 By the word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth The later of them alluding to God's Power shewed in the Creation of Adam but thence he infers This Breathing into Adam must be look'd upon as the Creating somewhat But I find no strength at all in this Inference nor that it proves with any strength of Cohersion the Creation of any thing save Adam's Body at the time when God made Man And I grant that then whatsoever was Created besides his Body was a Creature But I do not herein find any manner of Proof that God then Created a Soul for Adam Here Mr. W. Repeats his former Argument concerning the signification of the Hebrew Word which our Translators have rendred by the Term of Breath and says That the same Word doth also sometimes signifie Spirit To this I say That our Translators thought it not fit to render it by the Term of Spirit in this place and I value their Judgment before those of Mr. W. or Mr. Buxtorf and therefore take that Word to signifie most properly in this place the Breath of Life P. 48. He pretends the words should run thus God breathed or created in Man the Breath of Life or that Spirit or Soul of Life And in truth if the words had run so they would have run much better for the maintainance of his Opinion than now they do but I do not perceive by what Authority he takes upon him so to Correct or as some may take it Corrupt the Text. The Breathing which he says discover'd a New Created Spirit to be there I say detected only a Spirit of Life to be there which was tinded and kindled in the Spirits of the Blood and Humours then fitted and ready for that Operation by the moderate fanning of that Breath which God or his Agents then breathed into Adam's Nostrils and this was the humane Spirit of Life tinded and kindled by that Breath of Life and from that time to this time it is and must be continually kept Flaming or Glowing by the constant respirations and fanning of this Breath by want of which this Flame would be Extinguished in a short time or a very few moments of it