only in Contexture with the Body and the Delights here the Advers speaks of are only agreeable to his own Fancy and such as adhere to his Opinion who may with him fancy themselves conversing with Spirits or the like fruits of their own Imaginations which Men easily give themselves up unto who are apt to follow the Dictates of their own Fancy P. 136 He exhorts his Followers to exercise themselves in the Contemplation of a Deity 'till correspondent Impression be wrought upon their own Spirits transforming them into the same Image The Observer thinks he gives his Followers a piece of dangerous Counsel to imitate the high Extasies of St. Paul in his Extraordinary Raptures and Revelations For that they catching at the Words without understanding the true sense and meaning of them or the design of their Delivery are apt to run into great Errors of Fancy and pretending to make themselves like God become in such Applications more extravagant and vain than the more sagacious sort of Beasts that perish not understanding what they say or whereof they affirm And as one of that sort the Advers shall here be left The Blind to lead the Blind till both fall into the Ditch P. 138 He says The Immortal Spirit may be starved for want of Food The Observer says The Souls of Men may be so for want of their Meal Malt or their other Nourishment which it is every Man's Duty to provide for them to their Power in due Seasons and Distances of Time which may require the same The Advers says further What if God e're this had sent you into a Place where the Immortality of the Soul is better known The Observer says He ought to have named his Place and proved that there is such a Place in rerum Natura before he pretend his Immortal Soul is better known in any Place than it is here But it seems his Place and his Soul are both of a Piece subsisting more in Imagination than in Reality We may consider the use of such a Place If truly such a Place there be wherefore should it have been provided Dr. Sherlock in his Book of the Last Judgment has well proved That the Devils are not yet in Hell The Advers himself says That the Malevolent Spirits wander in the World and sometimes converse with the People in it Which is Evidence That they are not presently in Hell St. Peter and St. Jude tell us That the Devils expect their Punishment after a Condemnation at the Last Judgment which they believe and tremble at The Revelations express That there was War in Heaven Michael and his Angels fought there with the Dragon and the Dragon fought and his Angels but they were vanquished and cast out of Heaven Which was done but a very short time before the Consummation or Last Judgment Whence it seems reasonably inferrible That the Devils are yet not only out of the Verges of Hell but that they are at some Liberty in the World and make sometimes their Progress unto Heaven Whence there seems no need of a present Hell for the Punishment of Devils and for the Separate Souls of Wicked Men There is as little present need of it for that in Truth there seems to be no such Thing in the World as a Humane Soul subsisting in a State of Separation after the Death of the Body Whence if there should be at present such a Place as Hell it must remain utterly unfurnished empty and void which would not be a natural way of Proceeding Quia natura nihil facit frustra So as the Discourses of Separate Souls going to Hell seem rather a Bugbear than a Verity But to this Men reply If there be no fear of Punishment before the Resurrection bad Men mill grow more bold in their Wickedness This the Observer does not grant but believes That they who will not care for the dread of a cursed Resurrection will not be perswaded by the pretence of an immediate Immortality a Truth which daily Experience confirms to us The Distance of Time between Death and the Resurrection how great so ever the same may appear to Living and Sensible Persons is not accounted of by the Dead nor is any Thing dead more Sensible of its passing than the Urn or Stone is wherein the Dead Man's Ashes or Dust are inclosed Whence they rise as but newly fallen asleep without any Sense or Perception of what has passed over them So that Sensibly and Effectually to them no Time has passed over them at all But their Death and Resurrection follow one another immediately without their perceiving that any intermediate Time has passed at all between them But after the Resurrection and Last Judgment past at the Creation of the New Heaven and Earth we read There shall be a Hell also contrived Isa 66.22 23. After God had made the New Heavens and the New Earth those raised to a Happy State shall go forth and look upon the Carcasses of the Men that have transgressed against me For their Worm shall not die neither shall their Fire be quenched So Revel 20.24 Death and Hell delivered up the Dead which were in them and every Man was judged according to his Works and Death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire and every one that was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire Viz. Such as were Condemned at the Last Judgment At which time God creates a New Heaven and a New Earth without a Sea but with a Hell for the Punishment of Condemned Creatures Chap. 21.14 Blessed are they who stand acquitted at that Judgment for that they may enter in through the Gates into the City and have right to the Tree of Life For without are Dogs and Sorcerers and Whore-mongers and Murderers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a Lye And such as follow the old Satanical Rule Audacter calumniare aliquid haerebit Among which number the present Adversary shall have a prime Place given him by the best and truest Judgment which the Observer can make in this Case Pag. 140 the Adversary quotes a Poet some of whose Verses are fit for this Place Think lastly on the World 's great Doom When guilty Souls must to an Audit come A far more heavy Reckoning than e'er You met with here P. 142 The Adversary says Men of the best Reasons will esteem our strongest Reasonings as the Leviathan does Iron or Brass but as rotten Straw and rotten Wood. The Observer grants he is very much in the Right in this Expression but when he adds If he should happen to convine them of which there is little likelihood he thinks their Lusts would prevail against his Arguments and their Convictions In this the Observer says he is True Blew and continues very uncharitably and malevolently Censorious P. 143 The Power of Christianity is scarcely consistent with a dividing censorious uncharitable Frame and Disposition Hence the Observer inferrs That the
Mr. M. here seems to imitate an Old Father who us'd in his Oracles to mix Truth and Falshood together so that one of them might make passage for the other He has met indeed with a mean Scholar to whom he apply's the Term of Philosopher whom the Truth which he discovers in that Tenet enables to maintain the Affirmative of his latter Tenet viz. That the Extinguishment of the Soul is the Death of the Person But for the former part of it viz. That Man has every Week a a new Soul he lays and leaves it at M. M's own Door as an Imp and Product of his own Brain The Observer has sufficiently shown That his sort of Soul is always as much the same as a River or the Sea or Blood or Sap of a Tree are the same Tho' they are always in Motion and Alteration yet they continue always the same things the Supplies of them being of the self-same Nature of that which is spent or altered And Mr. M's Metaphysical Arguments to the contrary are but like the Scholars making Three Eggs out of Two and may well pass for parts of vain Philosophy which ought rather to be Condemned than Approved amongst Men and notwithstanding all the Daily Changes of this Soul mentioned by Mr. M. it is and ever will be as much the same as the Persons raised at the General Resurrection shall be so The Observer does not design to follow the Tract of searching into divers Modes of Vain Philosophy or Science falsly so called because Error est multiplex but rather to give Mr. M. and the Reader an Account what he thinks to be true Philosophy It begins with the Capacities of tender Age Teaching to Speak and Write truly their own Mother-Tongue and so to proceed in others especially the Learned Languages and this is commonly termed the Art of Grammar After which it Teaches to Speak and Write Elegantly Floridly Teachingly and Passionately and this is called the Art of Rhetorick From Words it proceeds to Teach the Arts of Things and Thinking to Form Notions or abstracted Ideas and to Divide Compare Compound Collect Propose and Infer also to direct distinct Places and Repositories for Things of different Natures and to rank them in fitting Orders for the support and assistance of the Memory and this Art is called Logick as directing the Mind in the Ordering and Disposition of Things Thence Men proceed to the Arts Mathematical of Arithmetick Geometry Astronomy and Harmony which help to fix Mens wandring Appetites and Notions to the Apprehension of known and certain Objects and the Comprehension of them Next we go on to the general Contemplation of Nature and all Things that have known and certain Beings in the World and this is called Physica and proceeds to examine the Nature both of Heaven and Earth the Heavenly Bodies and the four Elements and all their Inhabitants and things pertinent to them the divers sorts of Earth Minerals Metals and Stones So rising to the Surface of it and there examining the Grasses Herbs Flowers and Plants proceeding to the Insects Fishes Fowls Brutes and Men examining their formerly call'd Specifick Forms and Qualities lately changed for the Terms of Capacities and Powers without a great difference of their significations For the better effecting such Examinations Men Daily make the best use they can of their Sensations viz. of their Five Senses assisted as they must be by their Rational Faculties able and ready to Correct divers Mistakes which the Sensual Faculties are Naturally liable unto Thus Mens Senses furnish the Mind with suitable Objects for its Examination and searching Men make Tryal of them all and whatsoever belongs to them the Parts of which they are Composed the Causes and Effects of them their several manners of Working and whatsoever by their Senses can be found out concerning them They ponder and ruminate upon them and divide compare compound and collect from them frame Propositions concerning them and thence Infer as to themselves seems most Reasonable Then they communicate their Opinions to other Men whom they think capable of Judging in such Cases and Dispute and Argue the same with such Persons as their present Occasions may require sometimes extending such Conferences to Foreign Regions and far distant Places They examine the Traditions of their Fore-fathers and what our Ancestors have said and thought concerning them They Read and Study the Books which have been Written upon such Subjects from the earliest Times which they can attain unto and thus they Cultivate and Enrich their Understandings by storing up in their Written Collections and Memories the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge derived to them from the beginnings of Time and the most remote Parts of the Earth grounded upon the Testimonies of many Sensations and Experiments which do not easily or frequently deceive the Expectations of such as ground themselves upon them The Observer Designs to apply this to the Question now in Dispute and saies He had pass'd the 62d Year of his Age under the apprehension and belief of the Soul's Immortality and that then solitarily and unmoved by any Discourse or Writing the Consideration of this Question fell upon him He was Convinced or Perswaded by his Sensations That the Constitution of Man's Body was made up of Matter and Spirit as those of all other Sublunary Creatures were The Grass Flowers and Plants have Matter and Spirit which appears plainly to the searching Inquirers The Infects have Matter of a light and weak Composure and an Humour analogous to Blood and Spirit The Fishes are watry yet have some Blood and some of the greatest sorts of them have it in great quantities The Fowls are light and Airy their Matter being Flesh and Bones and their Spirits of Blood which some of their greatest sorts as Geese and Turkies have in considerable quantities The Matter and Spirits of Brutes are very well known amongst us and it is visible and palpable to us That the Life of them is in their Blood and that they never do nor can Live without it and that Breath is as necessary to them and upon the same reason that it is to Men. And Solomon Disputing upon this Question Ecclesiastes the 3d. speaks concerning the Similar Natures of Men and Beasts they are generated alike have need of a like Blood and Breath and their Bodies return to the like dust and who knows what difference there is concerning their Spirits He leaves that undetermined which is now the Subject of the present Question But that the Life of both is in the Blood Moses declares and Experience verifies For if one draw out of a Beast its whole Blood and at another Orifice let into its Body the Blood of another Beast sufficient for its repletion the latter Beast must Die by the loss of its Blood but the first Beast may Live by the newly received Blood and be affected with no perceivable harm by such a change And the same also befals Men If we let
out all the Man's Blood at one Orifice and in the mean while intromit the Blood of a Calf or a Sheep into that Man's Body at another Orifice the Beast must Die but the Man will Live without any clear sense of the loss of his own Blood Nor will he only live or move by the Virtue of his new receiv'd Blood but he will have the use of all his Senses Speech Intellect and Memory as he had before and which without such fresh supply of Blood would have been utterly lost The Observer further consider'd That by a failure of any of the sensitive Organs the Man may and often does lose the use of that Sense so as the Spirit cannot act the Sense but only in its proper Organ and both of them must be sound for the production of it The Spirit also can Speak by the Tongue but not without it it can Imagine in the fore-part of the Brain but no where else it can Estimate and Judge in the middle-part of the Head and Remember only in the back-part of it If the Blood and Spirit be over Thin and Watry Phlegmatick Scorbutick or too Hot and Fevescent too Salt or Sharp the Brain may be ill affected from any of these or the like Causes which Physicians intend to remedy by Purging or restoring to a right State the Stomack Liver or other Parts where the Sanguification is made If the Imagination be tainted they apply Fomentations Blood-letting or Plaisters to the fore-part of the Head if the Judgment be crazed they apply to the middle-part of the Head if the Memory fail they do so to the hind-part of the Head and divers times with very good success performing divers Cures thereupon He further Consider'd That in Distempers of the Brain and failures of the Understanding Physicians do Advise and Men Practise with good success the changes of Air Diet Company fresh or sweet Smells Mirth Jollity with a Cup of good Wine and good Effects have follow'd all these Prescriptions and Practices The Observer ponder'd and conceiv'd within himself That all these were Natural and proper Remedies for correcting the Distempers of the Blood and restoring the imbecillities of the Organs or removing such Obstructions as hinder'd the Operation of them but neither any of them nor altogether were likely to effect or work any thing at all upon an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit Men tell us That this Spirit Acts and Works all that it does by Intervention of the Material Spirits of the Blood but they give us no other Proof of what they say than that the Bodily Organs are not cannot be Acted but by means of these Spirits That we grant and say That there neither is nor needs an Intelligent Spirit for the Acting of them but that they of themselves do Act and are enough to Act the Bodily Organs Daily supplied as they are with Food and Nourishment from the Ambient World as a River is supplied from its Fountains and Plants with Sap extracted from the Earth If the Root cannot extract that the Plant must die if the Fountains fail the livers dry up and if the Sensitive Creatures want nourishment their Spirits fail and their Limbs and Bodies wither consume and die for want of such Supplies gas are suitable to their Natures These Considerations wrought upon the Observer to make a further search into this Disquisition He ruminated long upon it and then propounded it to other People whom he thought capable of it but found not one amongst them who had a compliance for it but maintain'd the contrary The main Argument that they rely'd upon for the defence of it was the largeness of it spread in the World and amongst the Divines and Doctors of it whence it was become so radicated that if it was an Error it was become irremediable and that the endeavouring to remove it out of Mens Minds might do more harm to the Peace of the Church than the Planting of a new Opinion tho' true could do good by the Truth of it This Argument à Commodo did not enough prevail with the Observer to give over and desert his Design and Search concerning this Point but he still Ruminated Conferr'd and Read as Opportunity serv'd him He search'd the Scriptures and Read them many times over and Noted upon a Paper whatsoever he there met with concerning this Subject He procur'd all Books that Treated of it and which he could attain by Buying or Borrowing and gave them an attentive Perusal and then Writ down his own Thoughts and Collections upon them and Publish'd that Pamphlet how opposed by Mr. M. in such a manner as the Observer cannot tell in what manner to Reply to it Mr. M. has so twisted and complicated together his Rhetorick Logick and Metaphysick that it is not easie to distinguish which of his Expressions belongs to one which to another and delivered what he saies in such an Athletick and Domineering Style that he has sometimes attracted a Sympathizing return from the Observer different from the usual course of his Nature He apprehends that Mr. M. intended with Alexander to cut in sunder the Gordian Knot of this Question by his sharp and piercing Style But he thinks he is there-from well Defended by the Shield and Buckler of Faith and Patience the Faith and Belief That he holds the Truth in this Point and a Patience supported with a knowledge That New Truths are not to be maintained without an apparent Consequence of Suffering Prov. 26.4 5. Solomon gives a double Direction in this Case one in direct Words contrary to the other and the Observer has happened to follow the Direction of both Places sometimes of the one sometimes of the other according as it happen'd and perhaps as Solomon intended The Observer did Incite Mr. B. to Write an Answer to his Pamphlet expecting from him such an one as would be Knowing Solid and Temperate instead of which Mr. M's Treatise is Printed with little of the first Requisite in it and nothing at all of the other two as tho' he did not design to draw a Sinner from the Error of his way but weakly Triumphum canere ante Victoriam He saies Men will be apt to censure all Philosophy for the ill use the Observer has made of it in his Pamphlet The Observer saies That there are ill uses made by Mr. M's Metaphysical Arguments produced concerning the uncertainty of Mens Persons happening by the Alterations pertaining to their Bodies and Souls and such other like Parts of his Treatise But those that consider the Scheme of Philosophy that the Observer has now laid down cannot without contradiction to their own Sensations pretend a probable Reason of Quarrel to it If that Herd amongst which Mr. M Officiates shall happen to make any Quarrel to it it will but prove the state of their own Ignorance and that they Err in so doing as perhaps they may be found to do in divers other Things The Observer did ever and does still