things moved by God some having a created Life and mind and some none what needs then any further proof § 31. But if you hold That we have now distinct Spirits which are individual Substances why should you fear the loss of our individuation any more than our annihilation or specifick alteration If God made as many substantial individual Souls as men is there any thing in Nature or Scripture which threatneth the loss of Individuation I have shewed you and shall further shew you enough against it § 32. You say page 7. Every thing returneth to its element and loseth its individuatiou Earth to Earth Water to the Sea the Spirit to God that gave it What happiness then can we hope for more than deliverance from the present calamity or what misery are we capable of more than is common to all Ans 1. Bodies lose but their Composition and Spiritual forms Do you think that any Atome loseth its individuation If it be still divisible in partes infinitas it is infinite And if every Atome be infinite it is as much or more than all the world and so is no part of the world and so there would be as many Worlds or Infinites as Atomes It is but an aggregative motion which you mention Birds of a Feather will flock together and yet are Individuals still Do you think any dust or drop any Atome of Earth or Water loseth any thing of it self by its union with the rest Is any Substance lost Is the simple Nature changed Is it not Earth and Water still Is not the Haecceity as they call it continued Doth not God know every dust and every drop from the rest Can he not separate them when he will And if Nature in all things tend to aggregation or union it is then the Perfection of everything And why should we fear Perfection 2. But Earth and Water and Air are partible matter Earth is easily separable The parts of Water more hardly by the means of some terrene Separaror The parts of Air yet more hardly and the Sun-beams or substance of fire yet harder than that tho it's contraction and effects are very different And Spirits either yet harder or not at all Some make it essential to them to be indiscerptible and all must say That there is nothing in the Nature of them tending to division or separation And therefore tho God who can annihilate them can divide them into parts if it be no Contradiction yet it will never be because he useth every thing according to its nature till he cometh to miracles Therefore their dissoluâ—ion of parts is no more to be feared than their annihilation 3. But if you take Souls to be partible and unible then you must suppose every part to have still its own existence in the whole And do you think that this doth not more advance Souls than abase them Yea you seem to Deifie them while you make them all to return into God as drops into the Sea And if you feign God to be partible is it not more honour and joy to be a part of God who is joy it self than to be a created Soul If a thousand Candles were put out and their light turned into one Luminary as great as they all every part would have its share in the enlightning of the place about it Is it any loss to a single Soldier to become part of a victorious Army 4. But indeed this is too high a Glory for the Soul of man to desire or hope for It is enough to have a blessed union with Christ and the holy Society consistent with our Individuation Like will to like and yet be it self Rivers go to the Sea and not to the Earth Earth turns to Earth and not to the Sun or Fire And the holy and blessed go to the holy and blessed And I believe that their union will be nearer than we can now well conceive or than this selfish state of man desireth But as every drop in the Sea is the same Water it was so every Soul will be the same Soul 2. And as to the incapacity of misery which you talk of why should you think it more hereafter than here If you think all Souls now to be but one doth not an aking Tooth or a gouty Foot or a calculous Bladder suffer pain tho it be not the body that feeleth but the same sensitive Soul is pain'd in one part and pleas'd in another And if all Souls be now but God in divers Bodies or the Anima mundi try if you can comfort a man under the torment of the Stone or other Malady or on the Rack or in terror of Conscience by telling him That his Soul is a part of God Will this make a Captive bear his Captivity or a Malefactor his Death If not here why should you think that their misery hereafter will be ever the less or more tolerable for your conceit that they are parts of God They will be no more parts of him then than they were here But it 's like that they also will have an uniting inclination even to such as themselves or that God will separate them from all true unity and say Go you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels c. § 33. No doubt it 's true that you say page 7 and 8. That matter is still the same and liable to all the changes which you mention But it 's an unchanged God who doth all this by Spirits as second Causes who are not of such a changeable dissoluble partible nature as Bodies are It is Spirits that do all that 's done in the world And I conjecture as well as you That universal Spirits are universal Causes I suppose That this Earth hath a vegitative form which maketh it as a matrix to receive the Seeds and the more active influx of the Sun But Earth and Sun are but general Causes Only God and the seminal Virtue cause the species as such The Sun causeth every Plant to grow but it causeth not the difference between the Rose and the Nettle and the Oak The wonderful unsearchable Virtue of the Seed causeth that And if you would know that Virtue you must know it by the effects You cannot tell by the Seed only of a Rose a Vine an Oak what is in it But when you see the Plants in ripeness you may see that the Seeds had a specifying Virtue by the influx of the general Cause to bring forth those Plants Flowers c. Neither can you know what is in the Egg but by the ripe Bird nor what the Soul of an Infant is but by Manhood and its Acts. § 34. You here pag. 7. divert from the point of the Immortality or Nature of the Soul to that of the Resurrection of the Body of which I will now say but this Christ rose and hath promised us a Resurrection and nothing is difficult to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oft signifieth our living another
of Believers before you are a Believer in Christ 2. And you must believe that Christ was God and Man and came to save man before you believe that there is such a creature as man or what he is and whether he have a soul capable of salvation But I have oft elsewhere opened these Absurdities and Contradictions where you may see them confuted if you are willing § 36. Your question about the souls nature existence and Individuation may be resolved by a surer and easier way as followeth I. By your own certain experience 1. You perceive that you see feel understand will and execute 2. You may know as is oft said that therefore you have an active power to do these 3. You may thence know that it is a substance which hath that power Nothing can do nothing 4. You may perceive that it is not the terrene substance but an invisible substance actuating the body 5. You may know that there is no probability that so noble a substance should be annihilated 6. Or that a pure and simple substance should be dissolved by the separation of parts or if that were every part would be a spirit still 7. You have no cause to suspect that this substance should lose those powers or faculties which are its essential form and be turned into some other species or thing 8. And you have as little cause to suspect that an essential vital intellective power will not be active when active inclination is its Essence 9. You have no cause to suspect that it will want Objects to action in a World of such variety of Objects 10. And you have as little cause to suspect that it will be unactive for want of Organs when God hath made its Essence active and either can make new Organs or that which can act on matter can act without or on other matter He that can play on a Lute can do somewhat as good if that be broken 11. And experience might satisfie you that several men have several souls by the several and contrary Operations 12. And you have no reason to suspect that God will turn many from being many into one or that unity should be any of their loss All this Reason tells you beginning at your own experience as I have and elsewhere more fully opened § 37. II. And you have at hand sensible proof of the individuation of spirits by Witches Contracts and Apparitions of which the world has unquestionable proof tho there be very many Cheats Read Mr. Glanvill's new Book published by Dr. Moore Lavater de Spectris Zanchy de Angilii Manlii Collect. Bodin's Daemonolog Remigius of Witches besides all the Mallei Malificorum and doubt if you can If you do I can give you yet more with full proof § 38. III. But all that I have said to you is but the least part in comparison of the assurance which you may have by the full revelatson of Jesus Christ who hath brought life and immortality to light in the Gospel where the state the doom the rewards and punishment of souls is asserted And without dark and long Ambages or Roman Juggles we prove the truth of this Gospel briefly and infallibly thus I. The History of Christ's Life Miracles Doctrine Death Resurrection Ascension the Apostles Miracles c. is proved by such forementioned evidence as hath physical certainty Not such as dependeth only on mens honesty or moral argument much less on a pretended determining authority but such as dependeth on necessary acts of man even the consent of all sorts of contrary minds and interests as we know the Statutes of the Land or other certain History But we are so far from needing to ask which part of Christians it is that is this Church that is to be believed that it tendeth to the assertaining of us that all the Christian World Papists Protestants Greeks Moscovites Armenians Jacobites Nestorians c. herein agree even while they oppose each other To know whether there was a Julius or Augustus Caesar a Virgil Ovid Cicero and which are their Works yea which are the Acts of Councils no man goeth to an authorized determining Judg for the matter of Fact but to historiCal proof And this we have most full II. And if the History be true the Doctrine must needs be true seeing it is fully proved by the matters of Fact Christ being proved to be Christ all his words must â—eeds be true § 39. The Gospel of Christ hath these four parts of its infallible evidence I. The antecedent and inhererent Prophecies fulfilled II. The inherent impress of Divinity on the Gospel it self unimitable by man It hath Gods Image and Superscription and its Excellency propria luce is discernible III. All the Miracles and Resurrection and Ascention of Christ the Gift of his Spirit and extraordinary Miracles of the Apostles and first Churches IV. The sanctifying work of the Spirit by this Gospel on all Believers in all Ages of the World by which they have the Witness in themselves A full constant unimitable Testimony § 40. And now how highly soever you think of Bruits think not too basely of Men for whom Christ became a Saviour And yet think not so highly of Men Bruits and Stones as to think that they are God And think not that your true diligence hath confounded you but either your negligence or seducers or the unhappy stifling of obvious truth by the ill ordering of your thoughts And I beseech you remember that Gods Revelationt are suited to mans use and our true knowledg to his Revtlations He hath not told us all that man would know but what we must know Nothing is more known to us than that of God which is necessary for us Yet nothing so incomprehensible as God There is much of the Nature of Spirits and the world to come unsearchable to us which will pose all our Wits yet we have sufficient certainty of so much as tells us our duty and our hopes God hath given us Souls to use and to know only so far as is useful He that made your Watch taught not you how it 's made but how to use it Instead therefore of your concluding complaints of your condition thank God who hath made man capable to seek him serve him love him praise him and rejoyce in hope of promised Perfection Live not as a willful stranger to your Soul and God Use faithfully the Faculties which he hath given you sin not willfully against the truth revealed and leave things secret to God till you come into the clearer light and you shall have no cause to complain that God whose goodness is equal to his greatness hath dealt hardly with mankind Instead of trusting fallible man trust Christ who hath fully proved his trustiness and his Spirit will advance you to higher things than bruits are capable of God be merciful to us dark unthankful sinners Ri. Baxter Mar. 14. 1681. ERRATA IN the Second Part p. 12. l. 9. for primus r Prime p. 16. l. 21. for is r. are I have not leisure to gather the rest if there be any Here 〈◊〉 what 〈◊〉 want 〈◊〉 the Aâ—… Copy
difference them But what if fire should differ from air materially but in degree of subtilty and purity or sensitive Souls from igneous and mental from sensitive but in higher degrees of purity of matter Is it not the form that maketh the specifick difference Air hath not the igneous Virtue of Motion Illumination and Calefaction nor ignis the sensitive Virtues nor meer sensitives the rational Virtues aforesaid Forma dat esse nomen This maketh not a meer gradual difference but a specifick There is in Compounds matter and materiae dispositio receptiva forma There is somewhat answerable in spiritual uncompounded Beings There is substantia and substantiae dispositio forma These are but intellectually distinct and not divisible and are but inadequate conceptions of one thing That substantia is conceptus fundamentalis is confest Some make penetrability and indivisibility substantiae conceptus dispositicus But the Virtus vitalis activa intellective volitiva in one is the conceptus formalis 2. But what mean you by the active Principles concentration in its own body It is a strange Expression 1. If you mean that it 's annihilated then it remaineth not 2. If you mean that it remaineth an active Principle you mean a substance or accident If a substance it seems you acknowledg it a self-subsisting being only not separate from its carcass And if they be two why are they not separable If separable why not separated When the dust of the Carcass is scattered is the Soul concentred in every atome or but in one And is it many or one concentred Soul If you mean That it 's but an accident that 's disprov'd before what accident is it If concentred in the body the body and every dust of it is vital and intellectual And if so every clod and stone is so which I will not so much wrong you as to imagine that you think § 12. But you would know what 's meant by a spirit whether all that is not evident to sense Ans It is a pure substance saith Dr. More penetrable and indivisible essentially vital perceptive and appetitive § 13. You add How shall I know the difference between the highest degree of materials and lowest of immaterials To me an immaterial and spiritual being seems a kind of Hocus a substantial nothing Ans If you take matter for the same with substance it is material But not if you take matter as it 's usually taken for corporeal or gross and impenetrable and divisible substance uncapable of essential vital self-moving perception and appetite If this seems nothing to you God seems nothing to you and true Nature which is Principium motus seems nothing to you And all that performeth all the action which you see in the world seems nothing to you It 's pity that you have converst so little with God and your self as to think both to be nothing § 14. What you say out of Gen. 1. is little else but mistake when you say all was made out of the deep waters by the spirit of God The Text nameth what was made of them It saith nothing of the Creation of Angels or Spirits out of them no nor of the Light or Earth or Firmament And whereas you say God made man of the dust of the ground but the body only is not man ergo Ans You use your self too unkindly to leave out half the words Gen. 2. 7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul when the Text tells us the two works by which God made man will you leave out one and then argue exclusively against it What if I said The Chandler made a Candle of Tallow and then by another kindled it or a man made an house of Bricks and cemented them with Mortar c. will you thence prove That he made a Candle burning without fire or the House without Mortar Words are useless to such Expositors § 15. Page 4. you say You know all matter is eternal But you know no such thing If it be Eternal it hath one Divine perfection and if so it must have the rest and so should be God But what 's your proof You again believe the Souls concentration in its body Ans Words insignificant It 's Idem or Aliud If Idem then dust is Essentially Vital and Intellectual Deny not spiritual forms if every clod or stone have them If. Aliud how prove you it to be there rather than elsewhere And if you considered well you would not believe essential substantial life and mind to lye dead and unactive so long as the dust is so § 16. You come to the hardest Objecti The Souls defective acting in infants ideots the sick c. and say It would rather not act if it were as represented Ans 1. It cannot be denied but the Operations of the Soul here are much of them upon the organized body and tho not organical as if they acted by an Organ yet organical as acting on an Organ which is the material Spirits primarily And so there go various Causes to some Effects called Acts. 2. And the Soul doth nothing independently but as dependent on God in Being and Operation and therefore doth what God knoweth and useth it too as his Instrument in the forming of the body and in what it knoweth not it self And as God as fons naturae necessitateth the natural agency of the Soul as he doth the Soul of Bruits But as the wise and free Governor of the world he hath to moral acts given mans Soul free-will and therefore conducting Reason which it needs not to necessitated acts as digestion motion of the blood formation of the body c. And as it is not made to do all its acts freely and rationally so neither at all times as in Apoplexies Infancy Sleep c. It is essential to the Soul to have the active power or virtue of Intellection and Free-will but not always to use it As it is essential to the substance of fire tho latent in a flint to have the power of motion lighe and heat And its considerable that as a traveller in his journey thinking and talking only of other things retaineth still a secret act of intending his end else he would not go on when he perceiveth and observeth it not at all He that playeth on the Lute or Harpsical ceaseth when his Instrument is out of tune because he acteth by free-will But the Soul of an Idiot or mad-man acteth only per modum naturae not by free-acts but necessitated by God by the order of nature Only moral acts are free and that some other are but brutish and some but vegitative is no more a wonder than that it should understand in the head and be sensible only in the most of the body and vegitative only in the hairs and nails It operateth in all the body by the Spirits as valid but about
God nor did every bruit that had also that Faculty Therefore there is a Soul which is not God in every Animal nor yet an Universal Soul 3. Adam no doubt could not know external sensible Objects till they were brought within the reach of his sense no more can we 4. Adam knew the Creatures as soon as he saw them and gave them Names suitable This is more than we could so soon do 5. Adam had a Law given him and therefore knew that God was his Ruler He knew that God was to be obeyed he knew what was his Law else it had been no sin to break it He knew that he ought to love and believe and trust God and cleave to him else it bad been no sin to forsake him and to believe the Tempter and to love the forbidden Fruit better than God He knew that Death was the threatned Wages of Sin In a word He was made in the Image of God And Paul tells us it is that Image into which we are renewed by Christ And he describeth it to consist in wisdom righteousness and true holiness 6. And we have great reason to think that it was Adam that taught Abel to offer Sacrifice in Faith and delivered to his Posterity the Traditions which he had from God Tho Adam did not do all this at once he did not receive a new Soul or Faculty for every new act Can Apes and Monkeys do all this Doth God give them Laws to know and keep as moral free-agents But you say Adam knew not that he was naked Ans What! and yet knew God and his Law and how to name the Creatures and how to dress and keep the Garden He knew not that nakedness was shameful for he had newly made it shameful Perhaps you think of Adam's forbidden desire of knowledg and his miserable attainment of it But that did not make him a new Soul that had no such Faculty before Adam was the Son of God by Creation Luk. 3. and it was his duty and interest to live as a Son in absolute trust on his Fathers care and love and instead of this he was tempte◠〈◊〉 self-dependance and must needs know more than his duty his fathers love and reward He must know good and evil fâ—â— himself like a Child that must know what Food and Rayment and Work is fittest for him which he should know only by trusting his Fathers choice or as a Patient that must needs know every Ingredient in his Physick and the Nature and Reason of it before he will take it when he should implicitly trust his Physician Man should have waited on God for all his Notices and sought to know no more than he revealed But a distrustful and a selfish knowledg and busy enquiring into unrevealed things is become our sin and misery § 36. You say Suppose all this answered what will it avail as to a life of Retribution if all return to one element and be there immerged as Brooks and Rivers in the Sea and we lose our individuation Ans I answer'd this in the Appendix to the Reaâ—… of the Christian Religion I add â— Do you believe that each one hath now one individual Soul or not If not how can we lose that which we never had If we have but all one universal mover which moveth us as Engines as the Wind and Water 〈◊〉 Mills how come some motions to be 〈…〉 as a Swallow and others so slow or none 〈◊〉 all in as mobile a body â— Yea how cometh 〈◊〉 motion to be so much in our Power that we can sit still when we will and rise and go and run and speak when we will and cease or change it when we will A stone that falls or an arrow that is shot cannot do so Sure it is some inward formal Principle and not a material Mechanical mobility of the matter which can cause this difference Indeed if we have all but one Soul it 's easie to love our Neighbours as our selves because our Neighbours are our selves But it 's as easie to hate our selves as our Enemies and the good as the bad if all be one for forma dat nomen esse But it is strange that either God or the Soul of the World shall hate it self and put it self to pain and fight against it self as in Wars c. But if you think still That there is nothing but God and dead matter actuated by him I would beg your Answer to these few Questions 1. Do you really believe that there is a God that is an eternal infinite self-being who hath all that power knowledg and goodness of will in transcendent â—â—â—â—…ey which any Creature hath formally and is the efficient Governor of all else that is If not all the world condemneth you for it is not an uncaused Being and can have nothing but from its Cause who can give nothing greater than it self 2. Do you think this God can make a Creature that hath a subordinate Soul or Spirit to be the Principle of its own Vital Action Intellection and Volition or not Cannot God make a Spirit If not it is either because it is a Contradiction which none can pretend or because God is not Omnipotent that is is not God and so there is no God and so you deny what you granted But if God can make a Spirit 3. Why should you think he would not Some of your mind say That he doth all the good that he can or else he were not perfectly good Certainly his goodness is equal to his greatness and is commmunicative 4. Hath he not imprinted his Perfections in some measure in his Works Do they not shew his glory Judg of his Greatness by the Sun Stars and Heavens and of his Wisdom by the wonderful Order Contexture and Goverument of all things Even the Fabrick of a Fly or any Animal poseth us And do you think that his love and goodness hath no answerable effect 5. Do you think that passive matter doth as much manifest Gods Perfection and honour the Efficient as vital and Intellectual Spirits If it be a far nobler Work for God to make a free vital mental Spirit to act under him freely mentally and vitally than to make meer atomes why should you think that God will not do it 6. And do you not dishonour or blaspheme the prime Cause by such dishonouring of his Work as to say he never made any thing more noble than Atomes and Compositions of them 7. Is there not in the Creature a communicative disposition to cause their like Animals generate their like Fire kindleth fire Wise men would make others wise God is essential infinite Life Wisdom and Love and can he or would he make nothing liker to himself than dead Atomes Yea you feign him to make nothing but by Composition while you say That matter it self is eternal 8. But when the matter of Fact is evident and we see by the actions that there is a difference between