and free from all Degrees of Exception We take then the Case concerning the Salvation and Damnation of Mankind to be thus far clear that the greatest Part by far do go in the Broad Way and pass through the Wide Gate and but a few in Comparison do find out and walk in the Narrow Way and so pass through the Strait Gate And upon it we demand to have God's Proceedings upon this Point reconciled and made coherent with the Justice and especially the Goodness of God How is it coherent to Rules of Justice and Goodness amongst Men that God by his Providence should so act in and dispose of Second Causes as that the Eternal Destruction of vastly the greater Number of Humane Souls should finally fall out and follow thereupon and that according to his Will the hugely greater Part of Men Bodies and Souls should finally fall into Everlasting Torments to make God's Proceedings in this Point coherent to the Rules of Justice and Goodness amongst Men is the Thing in demand and which would pass for a great Degree of Happiness to see well and solidly performed But this some quick Men will soon say and perhaps think may be very easily done by saying that this Course of Proceeding was not of God's making but came upon Mankind by Accident viz. by the Disobedience and Voluntary Sin of our First Parents That was the Cause and Original of all these Sins and Evils upon Man But to this Answer may be replied That by Revelation we know God was conversant with our First Parents in the Garden and if that had not been told us we know from Nature and Reason and other Revelations that God fills Heaven and Earth and is Omnipresent he was therefore in Paradise at that Time and knew when the Devil went about to possess himself of the Serpent a Fact which he could have hindered by saying nay he knew the Devil's Design in it and could have prevented its Execution or could have supported our Parents against the Force of Satan's Temptations but it was not his Will to use any of these or any other Preventions of that Calamitiy but the Thing was done the Devils Design succeeded and our Parents sinned all according tot he Will Providence and Appointment of God and according to our old and approved Rule of Morality Malum qui potest non prohibet jubet He who can hinder especially easily hinder Evil from being done and will not doth not hinder it is guilty of the Crime as well if not as much as he that acts it and we desire God may be fairly brought off from having acted incoherently to this our Approved Rule in Morality Evident it is he knew of all that was done and knew what would follow he could easily have prevented all or any Part of this if he had pleased but he did not would not do it Whence it seems clearly inferable it was God's Will that all things should fall out as they did that our Parents should sin and their Posterities should be infected and be Sinners and be Sufferers except some in comparison few whom it would please God to call out from the vast Number of People intended to be cast into Hell Fire I demand how these Proceedings of God are coherent or can be made coherent to Rules of Justice and Goodness amongst Men and if no Man be able sufficiently to perform this Postulatum I see not what should hinder Men to conclude from this Proceeding That God doth not tie himself nor will be tied by others to act according to the Rules of Moral Congruity passing amongst Men. Whence there is not a Necessity of framing a Self-subsisting Soul in Man capable of future Rewards and Punishments for that God may order Things in what other manner he pleases without being any ways tied to observe the Rules of Morality accepted amongst Men or to proceed in Satisfaction of their Expectations And this shall be the Conclusion of our Negative Argument before the total Departure from which it seems fit to reflect upon a Sting left in the Expression That Men are not able to justifie the Proceeding of God concerning the exceeding Multitude of the Damned in comparison of the Saved nor to reconcile that sort of Acting to the Common Rules of Justice and Goodness It appeals a Thing so difficult as we think Reason too weak an Instrument for the Performance of it and that no sufficient Revelation hath yet been made unto Men upon which they may ground any clear Justification of the same in a fully intelligible Manner but that this may be said thereupon with very great Assurance That God is essentially Justice and Goodness and certain it is he cannot act against his own Essence and therefore all that God doth is agreeable to Justice and Goodness in respect to him and to his Manner of Acting And that Men are not able to demonstrate that Truth in this Point proceeds from our own Ignorance and Infirmity but if by God's farther Revelation concerning such things in this Life or in a future State after this Life Men do come to understand the true State of Affairs concerning this Question they need have no Doubt but that God's Proceedings with Men will then appear full of Goodness Justice and Mercy since in Nature and Truth the Thing cannot possibly be otherwise We now proceed to our Positive Proof That for the due and proper Application of Rewards and Punishments future to this Life there is no Necessity or any Need at all to introduce or constitute the Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul For that there is a Resurrection of the Dead openly declared as appointed by God to that very Purpose and Intent that both Bodies and Souls may be sure of receiving Future Rewards and Punishments according to their Works and Farms of Living in this World a Thing which the Ancient Jews and Gentiles could never imagine nor could it enter into the Heart of Man to conceive that such a thing might be unless the same had been revealed from Heaven and so well and fully asserted and testified as there is no Room left for Doubt or Infidelity concerning the same But before we proceed to the full Proof of this Point some Observations concerning the Resurrection shall be propounded fit for People to take into their Considerations 1. That it is a Thing as clearly asserted in Scripture as any other Article of the Christian Religion whatsoever and hath as full and concurrent Evidence for the Proof and Certainty of it as that Christ Jesus came to save Sinners and we have the same Grounds to believe the one as well as the other and in this Assurance and Certainty the Resurrection doth far transcend the Opinion of the Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul which is not dogmatically asserted by any one Text of Scripture nor doctinally taught in it but is supported only by a Collection upon Inferences from some Texts which mention the Soul or Spirit of
as a Pilot is in a Ship who having brought it to Shore leaves it Chap. 2. The Soul is amongst those things which are called Principles having the special Faculties of Nutrition Sense Reason and Local Motion but there is doubt whether all these proceed from the whole Soul or that they are separated Parts of it and if separated then whether in Place or only in Imagination the Vegetative Soul will act in Slips and Branches and enable them to grow but the Soul of Man seems to be of another Sort and that this only is capable of a Separation from the Body as that which is Eternal may be separated from that which is subject to Corruption but all other Parts of the Soul except that which is purely Contemplative are inseparable from the Body The Soul is that Principle by which we have Life Sense and Vnderstanding as from our proper Form and Ratio and this is not the Body but belongs to it she is not the Body nor can she be without it In a Body therefore she is and such an one as is sutable to her Operations and is her proper Matter whence she is the Active Principle bearing a reasonable or natural Proportion to the Matter which is to be informed by her or to her Body We may observe how warily or uncertainly Aristotle handles the Separate Subsistence of Souls saying first That the Soul of Man is the only Sort that seems capable of it and that it doth seem capable of a Separate Subsistence as an Eternal Being But this is spoken without Addition of Reason or farther Dilucidation or Confirmation of the Thing as if in Compliance with Vulgar Opinion and then presently subjoins The Soul is not the Body but belongs to it nor can she be without it In a Body therefore she is and likely cannot be without it Farther it may be observed that in this Chapter we begin to enlarge our Strides and omit all such things which do not properly belong to Souls or is Declarative of their Natures or Properties and this Course will be followed in our future Progression in this Author Chap. 3. Where there is Sense there is Appetite viz. Lust Wrath and Will also Pleasure and Pain or that which is Pleasing and Troublesom Lust desires that which is Pleasant and Animals are nourished by Dry and Moist Things and by Hot and Cold Things Hunger and Thirst belong to Lust Hunger desires the Dry and Warm Things and Thirst the Cold and Moist Man hath a Discursive Understanding or if there be any thing in Nature above that Man hath it Creatures in the lowest Degree Rational have all things pertaining to Animation Sense Appetite Motion c. and yet they all perish in Death Of the Contemplative Intellect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems there may other Things be spoken or conceived We may observe here the same cautelous Expressions of Aristotle concerning Subsistence of a Rational Soul in a State of Separation from the Body that hath been usual with him Chap. 4. It is one of the properest and most natural Qualities of all Living Creatures perfect in their Kinds to generate such another as themselves are and the first able Effect of a Soul arrived to Perfection and the most universal is to generate its Like and support its Species Whence the Souls first Denomination may be Generativa except from her first Acts she should be called Nutritiva The Soul is the first Principle and Cause of Life in the Body and first of Motion both as to the what and why She is the very Essence of the Body or the Causa cur sit and the Life of Living Bodies is the very Being of them and this is of the Soul and all Natural Bodies are Instruments of the Soul Empedocles thought Plants had their Nourishment from the Earth below which was carried up by a Power of Heat and Fire Says Aristotle Earth and Fire are Contraries What keeps them then in an amicable Temper This is the Soul and therefore this is the Prime Cause of Nutrition Yet the Fire or Natural Heat is a Concomitant Cause not yet so Principal as the Soul which bounds the Force of the Fire knowing otherwise no Bounds Nothing can take Food or Nourishment that is not an Animated Body so as such Bodies do therefore these Actions come from the Soul therefore the Soul is such a Principle as hath sutable Faculties to preserve the place of her Abode If that have no Aliment it cannot subsist and therein are Three Particulars viz. 1. What must be nourished 2. With what 3. What effects the Nouriture and that is the Soul The other Two are the Body and the Aliment and all Aliment must be digested and all Digestion is effected by Heat therefore all Living Things have Heat We may apply what Aristotle says here of Generation as the most Natural Action viz. to generate another Creature of his own Likeness and Kind This imports a Generation of the whole Matter and Form Body and Soul according to Natural Inclination and Power of all other Living Creatures Chap. 5. Treats of the Senses and the Objects of them The first Motions towards Sense grow from the Seminal Power then that which is procreated obtains Sense natural to Sensitive Creatures as Science and Contemplation is to Man But Objects of the Senses are external Things and those of Science as Things Universal are inward and within Compass of the Soul it self and it can understand when it will not use the Senses without their proper exterior Objects not hear without a Noise Chap. 6. Each Sense judges of its proper Object without being deceived in it the Distance and Medium being fit and the Organ found But Motion Rest Number Figure and Bulk are not peculiar to any one Sense to the peculiar Object the Essence of the Sensible Power applies it self Chap. 7. Light is as it were the Colour of the Perlucid Body when enlightned by Fire or the Heavenly Luminaries but Light is not Fire nor clearly a Body nor the Effluction of a Body for then it self would be a Body But it is the Presence of Fire or other Lucid Thing in the Perlucidum We may say the Presence of that Habit which expels Darkness is Light and of that Habit Darkness is the Privation The Perlucid Body hath no proper Colour whence it cannot be seen as Air or can hardly be seen as Water The Motive to discern Colours is the Perlucidum enlightened but the Act of discerning is from the Light Fire may be seen both in the Dark and Light for that it enlightens the Darkness Chap. 8. All Sounds occasion Ecchoes though not perceptibly even as all Light hath its Reflexion which causes the Light where the Sun doth not shine or in the Shade The Air seems to be an inane or void Space fit for Sounds The Terms of Acute and Obtuse or Slack is derived from Sounds A Voice is the Natural Sound of an Animal and no Inanimate Thing
Body whereas the Intellect is separable from the Body and then when it hath obtained Knowledge that being Actu in the Soul which before was there but Potentially the Intellect can understand it self and by it self the Difference made betwâ—â—â— Thing and the Essence of that Thing is but notional for â—â—…hing is thereby changed substantially Plato placed Intellect in the Brain Senses in the Heart and the Vegetative Power in the Liver This was an Error of putting the Thing in one place and the Essence of it in another whereas Aristotle makes the Difference amongst those Faculties but Notional and not Real as the different Places would make them And as things that are Real may by Conception be abstracted from Matter and made Notional so may the Intellect be separated It is still a Doubt whether the Intellect be a Simple and Impassible Thing or not seeing that Intelligere est pati quiddam for in Vnderstanding there is something common between the Intellect and that which it apprehends It seems if the Intellect can understand it self it should always be so employed We may observe Aristotle continues still in his former Doubt concerning the Subsistence of a Soul in a State of Separation from the Body Either it hath something common with the Body or it hath not or it uses and needs the Body or not and if it neither use nor need the Body nor have any Common with it it self may subsist in a State of Separation not so if it have Need or Vse of the Body or have any thing common with it Cap. 6. Because that universally in Nature there is always something like the Matter or Subject and another thing which hath the Force of Efficiency and works as the Cause of what is produced like as the Case stands betwixt Art and Matter it seems in the Soul there must be the like different Principles Hence he devises a Difference in the Intellect or Soul it self viz. that there is an Intellectus Agens and an Intellectus Patiens of the Suffering Intellect he spake in the preceding Chapter Calls it here the Means whereby Acts are produced But the Active Intellect is the Force Impulsive why Acts are produced in nature of an Habitual Activity as the Light causes or produces Colours This Active Intellect he says is separable from the Body is an Act Essential not mixed but pure and impatible For the Efficient is ever of more Value than the Patient and the Active Principle than the Material Where Power towards an Act and the Act it self are in uno in one Subject or Being there the Power must precede as to Time but if they be not respected as in uno the Power hath no Precedence at all of the Act not so much as in Time but is every way Inferior to the Act. This Act or Active Intellect being separated from the Body all that can be said of it is it is that which it is and that only is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Immortal anti Eternal but because this Intellect is impatible it cannot have Memory For the Patible Intellect without which the Active Part could not understand Worldly Matters perishes in Bâ— We may observe what is common in the World Men confess God in their Words but in their Works they deny him So Aristotle seems to do with the Intellect or the Soul First he divides it according to the Old Rule Divide Impera then he appropriates all Ways and Means of Knowing or Knowledge to the Suffering Part of it and this Part together with the Senses Affections Phantasies and Memory do all perish in Death What is there then left to subsist in a State of Separation after Death Why there is still left an Active Intellect Essential Pure Impatible Immortal and Eternal If you enquire what manner of Thing this is He answers I can tell you no more of it but it is that which it is and nothing else and this only which is so is Immortal and Eternal This which hath neither Sense Affection Phantasy Memory nor Means of Understanding this for which he knows neither Name nor Nature that can neither remember nor account for any thing that is impatible and can suffer nothing nor feel or desire any thing this unintelligible Spark of Activity is the only thing which is in Man capable of Separate Subsistence after his Death and is his only Immortal and Eternal Part or Principle Cap. 7. Simple Apprehensions of the Intellect are commonly true but in Compounding them the Verity and Falsity is soon attendant and if the Time of Things be considered it adds to the Composition and to Compositions Falshood is commonly Incident That which compounds and makes one Proposition out of many Parts is the Intellect A Thing may be Individuum potentially or actually that which is Actu individuum may be considered in an Individual Time but if actually divided it hath a double Consideration and a like Time unless a Compositum be made of them That which is Individuum by Reason of its Natural Form without Respect to its Bulk is understood in Individual Time and by an Individual Part of the Soul viz. the Intellect Things Naturally Indivisible as a Point are known as Privations are known viz. by their Contraries ut malum ex privatione boni Now that which can so understand viz. one Contrary by another must be one in it self and have both the Contraries potentially in it and must be the Suffering Intellect for that only hath Knowledge of the other Contrary and is potentially all that can be known Apprehensions of the Intellect are not all true yet where it apprehends Simple Objects it seldom fails but often in Compounds just as it fares with the Senses in like Cases We may observe Aristotle divides his Individuum into Three Kinds viz. the Bulkily so the Formally so or so by their Indivisibility Little we meet with here that concerns the Souls Being Nature or Operations and might have spared much of this Chapter Cap. 8. To be Perceiving by Sense is a Simple Act and is in Truth but so to perceive with pleasure or trouble is like an Affirmation or Negation and induces to follow or flie from the Object or to feel Pleasure or Pain is only to be drawn by Sensible Means towards Good or Evil and to pursue or flie accordingly And like to such Sensible Objects are the Phantoms of the Rational Soul and this sort of Soul never understands without assistance of the Phantasmata The Common Sense is but One and that which terminates the Five and they by this Proportion and Unity are made agreeable in One So doth the Intellect deal with the Species amongst the Phantasmata and thence makes her Judgment what to seek and what to avoid And though the Senses have not perceived the things yet if they rise and grow up in the Phantasie or may be collected from what appears to the Senses the Intellect is moved and affected accordingly Men see a
that it is a Vegetation holding upon the Part of the Matter only and hath in it no Performance of the Office of a Soul and yet it fashions an Organical Body to make it fit for the Reception of a Soul To which I answer There is nothing of this either proved or granted P. 40. He tells us what Dr. Sennertus says in his Books viz. he holds it probable That the Soul proceeds from Procreation and that from the first Instant of the Conception the Seed is animated with a Rational Soul Also That nothing created is Immortal by a Principle of Nature but only by the Free Will and Gift of God Also That by Force of God's Direction and the Words Increase and Multiply there was given Power to every Soul to Multiply another To the first of these Positions our Writer says That by the Doctor 's Leave it infers the Soul's Mortality for whatsoever is generated is Corruptible and must go out as it came in And this is easily granted him To the next he says It is neither true likely nor Philosophical for by this a Fly may be as Immortal as a Soul And this is also granted him As to the Seeds having in it the Principle of producing a Reasonable Soul the Writer demands P. 41. what becomes of all those Souls contained in mis-spent Seed or ineffectual Coitions Innumerable Souls says he must so be lost and perish He might as well have said Bodies also for there is no Soul till there be a Body they are both equally in the Seed and but potentially But they rise and grow together out of the same Root and Power and together and if their Principle the Seed perish nothing is lost but it self any more than Men can say when a Swine eats Akrons that he hath eaten up so many Oaks Then he demands Why doth the Soul depart from the Body but because it leaves to be Organical I may as well ask Why the Body departs from the Soul And we do not find that either doth depart from the other until Death them depart and that they cannot help it Durum Telum Necessitas and that is the Common or only Cause why the Soul and Body are parted or rather do cease to be And it seems not likely that when they are parted there remains any more a Soul than a Body The Man is departed the Body is turned to a Carkass and what becomes of the Soul no Man naturally can tell unless it extinguish with the Vital Flame and Spirits of the Body Thus many Thousands Years are past in the Worlds Age and yet Men are but as wise as Solomon left us in that Point and as Men had been from the Beginning to his Time For if former Times had known it he could not have doubted as he did Aristotle who lived about 700 Years after Solomon and doubted and searched in this Point as that Wise King did yet he could not resolve but hath left Posterity under the same Doubts that Solomon did Who knows the Difference or that there is a real Difference between the Natures or Souls of Men and Beasts in Point of their Separate Subsistences after Death Our Writer tells us It is the Father's Office to provide a Body for his Child's Soul which he performs by his Deputy Seed For my part I should rather have thought this to have been more properly the Office of the Mother But he goes on and tells us how this is Naturally Performed The Seed says he hath a Natural Strength and Cunning to frame a Body for the Child's Soul done by the Form of the Seed without any Animation of it with a Soul and so doth an Akron by Virtue derived from the Tree upon which it grew and the Forming Virtue is the Seeds own Form excited and assisted by the breeding and connatural Warmth of the Maternal Body and works as the Seed of the Cock impregnates the Egg with a Chicken And yet says he is it probable that in so small a Seed as comes from the Cock the Soul or Essence of a Cock should be resident Why not say I as well as the Vegetative Soul and Essence of an Oak in an Akron And to what he last before affirmed That the Father provides a Body for his Child's Soul he offers no Proof and for ought appears he may as truly prepare a Soul for the Body as a Body for the Soul He says The Forming Virtue is the Seeds own Form I say the Quickening Virtue is as properly in the Seed as the Forming Virtue and nothing can Naturally enliven the Body but the Soul and therefore both Soul and Body proceed Equally and Naturally from the Generation and Efficiency of the Parents without any need of New Creation of Souls in such Cases P. 42. Our Writer agrees the Effect of Sennertus's Assertion upon the Words Increase and Multiply but not by deriving the Younger Souls from the Elder but by the doing of some Act out of which such Forms should connaturally flow As Material Forms he says they grow by Resultancy but the Immaterial by Creation from a higher Cause which Creation is to follow and is due by a Regular Ordination and Existence of Nature and so they may be truly generated viz. given and communicated though not made by the Force of Generation I say This Act done out of which the Humane Form should connaturally flow or follow must be the Natural Coition of the Man and the Woman and the Form of the Child being by this Tenet Immaterial must be created as a Thing due by regular Ordination and Exigence of Nature to such Fact of Coition I demand from what Original he hath copied out the Regular Ordination here delivered He quotes no Authority in the Point nor offers any Reason for the maintaining it Therefore we take it for a bold Romance invented by himself for Supporting his Tenet of the Souls Immateriality the Dissenters from which have no need of this Conceipt agreeing That the Essential Parts Constituent of the Man viz. his Body and Soul are generated and take Growth together till they attain to their Perfection of Degrees and then decline decay and perish accordingly maintaining a strict Union and Copartnership both in Weal and in Woe till Death dissolve and finish their Association Men thus perswaded have no need of our Friend 's invented Regular Ordination or Exigence of Nature but may reasonably fix upon it the Terms of a bare and a needless Fiction P. 42. He tells us that Sennertus argues If the Parents do not give the Form viz. the Soul then they do not generate the Man but they do generate the Man and therefore they do give the Soul also and unless they do communicate the Soul it cannot be truly said that Like doth generate its Like Our Friend answers The Parents do give and communicate both Form and Matter but without producing either of them certain it is they give the Matter and as certain that they do
quasi spirituosam toti adaequatam coextensam constiâ—â—unt ex creationis lege Here he shews how these Active Particles first work in semine and form a Consistence and Body sutable to its own activities as a Case may be exactly fitted to a Jewel haec anima ex se statim dissolvi tenuesque in auras evanescere apta a corpore continenti in subsistentia sua actu conservatur ita anima tenuissima licet est corporea P. 11. Corpori intime unitur ejusque velut subtegmen existit attamen textura subtilissima sensibus nostris percipi nequit sed solum modo ab effectis operationibus suis dignoscitur And when the Creature dies Statim ejus particulae à concretione sive mutua adhaesione sua abruptae absque vestigio quovis relicto prorsus dissipantur P. 30. After treating of Brutal Souls he says Ac in eadem classe etiam hominis animam corpoream ponimus idque jure quoniam in utrisque praecordiorum nec non cerebri ejusque appendicis nervosi eadem est confirmatio P. 38. Anima corporea brutis perfectionibus homini communis cum toti corpori organico extenditur singula tum partes ejus tum humores vivificat actuat irradiat ita in duobus illorum eminentius subsistere atque sedes velut imperiales habere videtur Here our Doctor declares the manner how this Material Soul acts and works in the Head and Heart principally P. 39. The Modes and Manner of its Operation by such inflamed Particles of the Blood and specially in the Head whence they are dispersed over all the Body effecting therein Perception by the Senses and all other Faculties their Order Causes and Manner of Working very much deserving the perusal of those who really desire satisfaction in the Enquiry which you have propounded viz. Quomodo operatur Anima Materialis in Homine There you may find a better account to this purpose and a larger than I dare pretend to give you of my own My Answer to your Question How Mens Faculties and Powers can be acted by a Material Spirit given in my former Treatise is That although I were not able to give Evidence of the Manner how but should plead Ignoramus in Answer thereunto this could be no great Detriment to the Tenet of a Material Soul in Man For that Men do not know nor can find out how the Material Soul in Plants produceth Wood Bark Leaves Blossoms Fruits of great Diversities in Nature Shape Firmness Taste Colour Smell Natural Qualities both for Meat Medicine and divers other uses Nor do Men know how the Material Soul in Insects doth or can produce the admirable Order Oeconomy and Regiment which is plainly visible amongst the Bees the Orderly Proceedings and Industry amongst the Ants and the fine and regular Textures of Spiders the wonderful Faculties of Birds in chusing commodious Places for their Nests their Building Sitting Hatching Feeding Guarding and Training of their Young Their Musical Notes and Modulations their Exercises of Power the Stronger over the Weaker and which the Weaker apprehend at the very first sight Neither do men know nor can find out how or by what means the Beasts discern and know their proper Nouritures and Medicines the Means and Causes of their Disgestion Nutrition Generation Appetites Passions Spontaneous Motions Ejections of Excrements the putting out their Hair Horns Hooffs Claws c. Or the Means or Causes of using their Senses and perceiving by them Their Common Sense Phancy Memory and the low Degree of Understanding which they have I say the next Means and Causes of these Effects and their like men cannot discover or find out And yet there appears no doubt but that such Effects flow from the Material Souls or Spirits with which every one of them in their Kinds or Species are endowed Ergo Though I may not be able to declare how a Material Spirit doth or can act in Man his Superiour Faculties of his Reason and Mind yet that may not prove an Argument sufficient to overthrow the Materiality of a Humane Soul For such a Soul may and probably doth actuate all these Superiour Powers and Faculties in Man although we cannot perceive or understand the manner and next Causes of such Productions in any plain or declarable manner It seems enough that we find there are apt Matter Members and Organs to serve those Effects and there is an Active Principle or Spirit though Material yet sufficient for enlivening and acting those Organs or Instruments for the serving such turns to as great Perfection as is ordinarily found in Humane Nature although we do not and rationally are not able to discover the adaequate or perhaps the true Reasons or Means the How and the Why of such Performances Sir Kenelm Digby in his Maintenance of the Soul's Immortality Fol. 394. says Gross Earthly Bodies create Idea's in the Minds of Men and by that means doth Spiritualize such Bodies and that which can so do must needs be Immaterial Now if you ask me how this comes to pass and by what Artifice Bodies are thus spiritualized I confess I shall not be able to satisfie you but must answer That it is done I know not how by the power of the Soul Shew me a Soul and I will tell you how it works But as we are sure there is a Soul that is to say a Principle from which these Operations spring though we cannot see it so we may and do certainly know that this Mystery is says he as I say though we cannot know nor express the manner of it And I may say the like for the Material Soul that it is also Invisible too fine to be perceived but by its Effects and therefore its Operations or the Manner of them are not Perceptible by Mens Senses and thereunto the old Theorem may reasonably be applied Nihil venit in Intellectu quod non prius fuit in Sensu And it seems not reasonable to expect a clear Description or Declaration of such Things or Productions as are not perceptible to Sense or that doth not at some time come or in some measure come under the Test and Trial of those Informers To comply with your Demands I have thus repeated to you that I have before expressed in my First Treatise although it seem more than the Exigence of the Case requires For that although nothing had been said in the Defence Proof or Discovery of what concerns the Souls Materiality yet it seems not to me a good or clear Consequence That therefore it must be Immaterial But that the Proof of that will still be necessary and lie upon your hand to shew De Anima Immateriali quod sit in Rerum Natura quid sit unde oritur quando ingreditur quomodo ubi residet in Corpore quomodo actuat Corpus cum Membris omnia ejus Organa as well in the Vital Nutritive Generative Faculties as in the Loco-motive Affective and Passionate Powers and
founded upon Rules and whether those Rules are right or wrong really their being accepted for right makes them obligatory to the Party accepting them so as Offences against Erroneous Rules reputed true are equally burthensome to the Conscience as if they were the most true and rectified that can be delivered to Men and yet they are capable of a more easie Cure viz. by discovery of the Falsity and Errour of them Hence may be inferred that without some sort of Rules and Submission to them the Acts and Power of Conscience are not perceivable which shews they do not flow from the Soul Material or Immaterial but from Education Custom Opinion and Rules to which Actions must be compared for without such a Comparison Judgment cannot be made whether they are right or wrong That Conscience grows as aforesaid appears also from diversity in the acts of it for some Men make a great scruple of Conscience to do things which others think they are bound in duty to do and cannot omit them without check of their Conscience whereas Immaterial Souls pass for all alike And if Conscience were a Natural Efflux from them there could not be such difference and contrariety in the Acts of it I have observed how it grows in Children and Beasts from the effects of their Education made powerful in them by the terrour of a Humane Vengeance expected to follow upon their swerving from the Rules of their Discipline and which the apprehension of Legal Punishments hath often inflicted upon Offenders before Temporal Execution overtook them The Conscience of Sins against God is of a like nature and the Terrour of it grows from Fear that he being offended for the Breach of what Men are perswaded he hath commanded to be done or not done will inflict terrible punishments for the same of unimaginable torment and endless duration as Men are taught to believe and expects by such Rules and Doctrines as are daily represented to them and pressed upon their apprehensions and belief And thus have I summed and shortned my formerly longer Expressions concerning Conscience to which I shall be glad to receive a reasonable Answer either long or short 4. Paragraph You quote the words Whatsoever is not of faith is sin and you say Faith here signifies Conscience My sense of those Words is Whatsoever Men do believing it to be a Sin that is a Sin in them though the Action in it self be good but if it be contrary to those Rules to which a Man hath submitted himself this is a Sin against the Mans Conscience though if there were no accepted Rule against it there would be no transgression in it You express also to think that Beasts cannot be brought by any Education to resist and conquer their Appetites forgetting what formerly I said of a Setting Dog whose Mouth will water and his Chaps move and all his Members and Motions shew a great Desire to be in with his Game and yet he will sit for a long time constrained by the remembrance of punishment to be expected and executed upon his doing otherwise And many instances may be produced of other Bestial Actions in this kind You make it my wonder That Sensual Powers do for much the greater part over-rule the Rational and prevail against it You say I may likely find it often so in my self and I grant it and therefore is that none of my wonder And you demand From whence comer Mens uneasiness of Mind upon such occasions I answer It comes from finding their Actions do not agree with their Rules and therefore not with their Duties for the Failure in which they expect punishment less or more according as their Delicts may seem to deserve not from Powers of Nature in its Simplicity but its Cultivated Capacity under the Conduct of Rules Examples or Opinions to which Men have submitted their Minds and this makes men nocent as the contrary makes men innocent in the judgment of their own Underftanding which is their Conscience 5 Paragr Upon your maintaining That Mans Soul is an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit created each for the Government of each Person I demand Whence it comes that this Soul doth not or cannot so prevail with or over the Person whom it should Govern as to keep it in Rational and Vertuous Ways of Living and Practice but that the far greater number of people follow Vicious Practices contrary to Right Reason and the Desire and Design of such an Intelligent Spirit And the true Cause of my wonder is What that can be in Man which hath Power to oppose and overthrow the Government and Command of this Kind of Soul in him To this you answer You say with St. James This comes from mens lusts which war in their members To you I reply and ask From what Original in Man do such Lusts grow viz. Affections Passions Sensualities Either they grow from the same Originals with Reason and his other Faculties viz. from the Contexture of his Soul and Body or from some other Cause You say I should not wonder at the thing for that universal Experience teaches that so it is This I grant and therefore do not wonder at the being so of the thing but at the Cause and Manner how this comes to pass viz. from what Original in Man this Effect can grow Apparent it seems that Affections and Passions in Man grow from the Contexture of his Soul and Body as all his other Powers and Faculties do and are Natural to him for one that hath them not is not a compleat Man But if their Energy proceed from Mans Soul a Spirit governing this Soul in acting the Affections and Passions so vigorously seems to act blindly and unintelligently or else that it is divided against it self and therefore its Kingdom cannot stand but such Lusts as it self produceth and acteth prevail to overthrow its Government and bring the poor indiscreet Soul under the Pestilent Power of Sin and Satan If thus it be not I desire you will Answer what I Object in this Point which is that Mans Soul acts against reason and its own Interest in so highly actuating of these Lusts or which is far more likely that the Humane Soul is not Intelligent For what you say concerning St. Paul's Text Rom. 9. I hold with you that many places of Scripture do testifie a Power in Man to act for his own Advancement in Piety and towards future Happiness And I assent to that Opinion the rather for that the same is consonant to the reason of Mankind but to agree this Opinion with St. Paul's Text is beyond my Capacity and I should be glad to know your manner of doing it You mention ill effects from the Opinion of the Materiality Omnia tuta timens consonant to the Nature of Zeal and Affection That in your Exhortations you have a great respect to the Resurrection and last Judgment I think to be well done and upon very firm Grounds but for the Immateriality it seems no
Recompencs are warrantable to be expected viz. at Christ's Second Coming and to look for them sooner is against his own Direction in this Text Well fortified and confirmed by Acts 3.19 Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ whom the Heaven must receive until the times of the restitution of all things The time when amongst other things Men shall be restored to their former Beings and become the same Persons that they were before and so shall account at the Last Judgment and in all probability not before Well but what becomes of people in the mean time I take it for most likely that the Body verges to Dust Gradatim and the Flame of Life which I take for the Soul extinguishes in Death as Dr. Willis says Illico nihil est it vanishes as the Flame of Spirit of Wine when the Spirit is consumed And thus I conceive Men die thus they rest and Believers sleep in Jesus till time of the Restitution of all things Job 14.12 Even as the Flood decayeth and drieth up so Man lieth down and riseth not at all till the Heavens be no more they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep Thus Job and I agree punctually in our State of Death and so we do in that of the Resurrection Job 19.25 I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the later day upon the Earth and though after my Skin Worms destroy this Body yet in my Flesh shall I see God And as 1 Joh. 3.2 We know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is At his Second Coming and not till then not by going to Heaven in Effigie But till then Believers in Death enjoy such a Rest as the Revel calls Blessed They sleep in Jesus and rest from their Labours So Heb. 4.1 There is a Promise left us of entring into his Rest Ver. 6. Some must enter therein Ver. 9. There remains a Rest to the People of God Ver. 10. He that is entred into his Rest hath ceased from his own Works as God did from his And such a Rest is a pious Death and in assured hope of a joyful Resurrection Dan. 12.13 The Angel says to him Go thy way till the end be for thou shalt rest and stand in the Lot at the end of the days And here I cease and rest my Second positive Argument against the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Souls and their going to Heaven or Hell before the Resurrection And upon this Argument I intend to make Three short Observations The First of which grows from our Author's Expressions Page 49. of his said Book There he says 'T is a great Mistake that the Soul is capable only of Social Glory or Suffering or a Blessedness in Partnership with the Body and that it can neither exert its own powers nor enjoy its own happiness in the absence of the Body The Opinion of a sleeping Interval of the Soul he says took its rise from this Error They conceived the Soul to be so dependant upon the Body at least in all its Operations that when Death rends it from the Body it must needs be left as in a swoon or sleep unable to exert its proper Powers or enjoy that felicity which we ascribe to it in its state of Separation Thus our Author To which I Reply They who so conceived were Fathers very Ancient and of great Authority in the Church and in my Opinion the Ground they stood upon was firm and good viz. they and we and all Men who consider may and do perceive by hourly Experiences that the Soul doth no more act or suffer without the Body than the Body without the Soul nor either of them without the other This constant Experience teaches To this also Reason very well agrees and Men have never yet met with good Reason plain Experience or clear Scripture to the contrary Nor doth our Author or any other shew any convincing or strong or likely Evidence that ever any Soul did or that it can act or suffer without Partnership with the Body and in Conjunction with it It may be asked How then can it subsist in a State of Separation from the Body if it can neither act nor suffer without it I Answer That I am not to Account for such a Subsistence because I deny the thing and say the Soul extinguishes in Death But those who held both Opinions viz. The Separate State and the Non-Activity did imaginarily cast the Soul into such a Swoon or Sleep as the Author mentions in a Limbus or Dormitory created by Invention to that purpose and those who so believe both Opinions are necessitated to invent such Places That the Soul neither acts nor suffers without the Body being true and the Separate Subsistence being granted Places for Dormitories were a reasonable and necessary Invention But if the Truth stand with me and the Soul extinguish in Death it neither acts nor suffers without the Body nor yet is there need to invent Dormitories or Purgatories for reception of such Souls as have no real Subsistence He hath truly related a Cause why the Ancients did believe Souls rested in Dormitories till the Resurrection not going to Heaven or Hell till that time and a Re-union with their Bodies viz. Because they believed Souls could not act or suffer without their Bodies according to the common Course of Nature and Experience This I agree to be true and a reasonable Ground for them to stand upon in this Point and that they erred only in believing a Separate Subsistence whence they were forced to invent Dormitories But I say though the Author have given us a true and good Cause why the Ancients thought Souls went not to Heaven or Hell before the Resurrection grounded upon the Nature and Constitution of Mankind there is another Cause and Reason for their so believing as true well grounded and evident as the former which will weigh with many Believers more than that can do viz. The Tenour and Consent of all the Texts before quoted by me in this Argument There is another Marvellous Agreement amongst them for all say the same things viz. That all Men must after Death appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ at his Second Coming at that Day at the Last Day when he shall appear Without mention of any other Time or any other Judgment or any going to Heaven or Hell in the mean time This sort of Declaration of the state of things after Death was a good and sufficient Ground for those Ancients to believe that Souls went not to Heaven or Hell before the Resurrection and I hold this Declaration to be a good true and sufficient Ground for People so to believe at this day And with this I finish my first Observation upon this Argument 2. My
A Search after Souls and Spiritual Operations in Man SOLOMON was a great Searcher after Knowledge a Power or Faculty in Man capable of being imployed about all Created Beings and Things and of making Enquiries into their Natures and Actions and the Qualities Modes and Orders of them Eccles 7.25 He says That he applied his heart to know and to search and to seek out Wisdom and the Reason of Things and there is everlasting Imployment for all People in this Design Chap. 8.17 For Man cannot find out the Work that is done under the Sun and though a Wise Man intend to make the Search yet shall he not be able to find it But men are not to be thereby totally discouraged from making Enquiries into the Works and Natures amongst which they converse for he tells us Prov. 2. That men ought to seek Knowledge as Silver and search for her as for hid Treasures and that shall lead thee to understand the Fear of the Lord and to find the Knowledge of God viz. As that is discovered in the Greatness Exactness Order and Variety of his Works And though a General Search into Nature and an Enquiry into Omne Scibile be a task over large for any Humane Nature perhaps a Single Search stinted to a particular Subject however sublime the same may be will not be taken for a hopeless or impossible Project But that by Divine Assistance without which nothing comes to pass there may be something found out concerning our present Subject which may open more fully or more clearly the Genuine Nature of its Being and Working amongst us and help to clear up Doubts thereupon depending by propounding them in the World and giving occasions to Men who are able or think they are so for the clearing and maintaining of that which concerning the same appears to their Judgments most reasonable and most true In all Material Searches there seem to be three Degrees of Application requisite First That it be diligent whence the Woman in who lost one of her ten pieces lighted up a candle swept the house and searched diligently and she found and rejoyced accordingly Seondly The Search must be with a great desire to find Luke 22.15 Our Lord says With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you He grealy desired and obtained it and so did the Prodigal Son return to his Father with unexpected Success Thirdly The Search ought to be importunate and solicitous the Syrophenician Woman searched eagerly and found our Lord and prevailed by crying after him and pleading to him so did the importunate Widow upon an unjust Judge who neither feared God nor regarded Man We would not have it seem strange if our Search have a participation with all these Qualifications although the over diligence may prove tedious the over great desire to find be offensive and the importunate pressure somewhat unmannerly and injurious and it seems most of these inconveniencies or even all of them are incident to such Enquiries and they cannot likely be prosecuted without them to any great degree of Satisfaction And as in the Search so in the Subject of it there are three special Requisites First That certainly there be the thing in Rerum Natura or else it can never be found but there never was doubt concerning the Being of a Soul in Man therefore we may be certain that such a Soul there is and then our Labour in the Search after it is not likely to be in vain Secondly The Subject of our Inquiry ought to be of such worth and value as the finding it may be a convenient satisfaction and recompence for all the Study Time and other Expences and Troubles which may likely be undergone in the Prosecution of a difficult Search and made more so by a complication with Worldly Interests and the power and prejudices of former and radicated Opinions thereupon Thirdly That the Subject of our Search be placed at such a convenient distance as we may not have cause to demand Who shall bring it to us from Heaven or Hell or from beyond the Sea But our Subject is near us in our Mouth and in our Heart in our Hand and in our Head Having in mind revolvendo some Thoughts concerning the State of Souls as arrived to Davids Period of Mans Age or very near it there happened to come to hand a Book entituled Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts a second Edition in 8 vo printed Lond. 1688. There in his Contents the very first line he resolves That Souls departed go immediately to Christ then the necessity of believing this It seemed an over great morsel to swallow all this together totidem verbis without such a rumination as might comminute and separate every part of it from the other that being so used it might be made of easier concoction and of sounder nourishment I found the Author speaking himself of 67 years of Age at the writing it and that for the space of above 43 years he had been a Practical Minister of the Gospel much followed and applauded though he says it who perhaps should not then in the very first page of his Book he stumbles upon a block which Solomon had long since cast in the way to his Tenet Eccles 3.19 he desires Gods manifestation to Men that they may see that they themselves are Beasts that things fall out alike to Men and Bests as the one dies so dies the other yea they have all one breath all go to one place all are of the Dust and all turn to Dust again Who knoweth the Spirit of a Man that goeth upward and the Spirit of a Beast that goeth downward to the Earth Our Author is too deliver and active to stumble at this Block but passeth as lightly over it as if were but a Straw by saying that Solomon here speaks only of the Time and Things of this World There are no words in the Text that mention or that it seems do intend the Authors Sense for the Text mentions the Spirits departed both of the one and of the other with a Query upon the places to which they go and that cannot pass for a matter of this Life only this Text therefore stands still in his way as much as at first it did and as if he had said nothing against it because his allegation upon it may not pass for true but for an Answer feigned out of his own Brain and with some impeachment to the credit of his Word for the future Pag. 2. The Author tells us If our immediate going to Christ upon out Deaths be not soundly seems fully believed a Man must Live besides or below the end of Life and must have a false end and yet says he knows it may be objected That if I make it my end to please God to Love Serve Worship and Obey him and to do all the good I can for my Neighbour and that I trust God with my Soul and future Estate as a faithful Creator who
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
Tongue and Lips So as this Kernel must be like a Hand to the Soul without which it can do nothing of moment Art 45. The Soul cannot excite or remove Passion by its own Power or Will but is put to contest with it by Arguments and other Natural Helps And we know that oftentimes Passions prevail over the Powers of Reason as if they grew but out of the same Root both viz. the Activity Life and Motion of a Material Spirit Art 47. In the Contest between Sense and Reason in Man Here says he the Kernel may be driven by the Soul on the one side and then by the Animal Spirits violently set on the other side or some Spirits may present to the Kernel what they can offer for the Passions others may do the like on behalf of the Soul and what it advises and desires and whither the Kernel inclines that side prevails over the other And if the Case be so our Author puts Mankind under the Government of an Unknown Immaterial but confessedly a very Silly Soul that must apply it self upon all Occasions to a pitiful small Lump of Matter a Kernel without whose Kindness and Inclination it must always become subject to the Slavery of Sensuality and Passion Art 48. One would think here that he would say all Souls are not alike but some are weaker and some stronger he hints it plainly yet without positive Assertion And if Souls be Immaterial Spirits then An recipiunt magis minus who knows Art 50. Every Motion of the Kernel seems naturally to be knit to every one of our Thoughts from the beginning of our Lives and Words which not naturally but only by Institution are significant can excite Motions in the Kernel Says It is observable in Beasts that though they want Reason and perhaps all Cogitation yet they have all the Motions of their Animal Spirits and their Kernels whose Motions excite Passions in them as well as ours in us tending to the same End of preventing Harms to them But these he will not call Affections in the Beasts but Motions of the Nerves and Muscles which produce the same Effects in Beasts that those which he calls Affections in Men use to do in them Whence it seems clear he grants the same Nature in Mens Passions and those of Beasts before needlessly and bootlessly denied by him His Title to this Article pretends to shew how Mens Souls may get the Mastery of their Passions but all that he directs upon that Point is That well-taught Spaniels are learn'd to curb their Passions and to sit though they have a mind to run You see says he the Thing is feasible even by Beasts and therefore Men may do it more easily and effectually But I doubt of that 1. Whether Humane Power can do it 2. Whether Beasts may not as easily and fully be brought to it as Men Art 51. It is plain says he that the next Cause of Passions in the Soul is no other but the Motion by which the Spirits do stir this Kernel which is in the Middle of the Brain He sets down his own Cogitation or Fiction as if the Thing were to pass for a Granted Truth That this Immaterial Spirit must rule or be ruled by this Diminutive Kernel Art 122. He says When that Fire which is in the Heart becomes extinguished we die beyond Remedy Art 137. Love and Hatred Joy and Sorrow Lust Fear c. are all Naturally referred to the Body and belong not to the Soul but as it is joined to the Body Art 138. The Beasts direct their Lives no otherwise than by such Corporal Motions as Men usually do follow and would draw the Soul along with them and have her Consent to such Actions Art 139. He says We ought also to consider these Passions as they belong to the Soul But he hath before denied they do naturally belong to the Soul And here he doth not shew that they do depend upon it And these are all the Particulars we find in this late Philosopher concerning the Soul And we observe upon them That all the Particulars which he applies and refers to the Soul of Man are applicable to and agreeable with the Rational Faculty of his Material Soul And all those Things Actions or Passions which he applies and refers only to the Body of Man are applicable to and agreeable with the Sensual Faculty of the Material Soul and Spirit of Man in both which Faculties and in the Vegetative the Body is equally concerned and so is the whole Soul and all its Faculties in all things that pertain or happen to the Body and there is no Separation made or to be made betwixt the Soul and Body of Man during his Natural Life And all which our Author says of the same is feigned out of his own Heart or is a Fiction of his own Cogitation utterly to be rejected as before hath been said And we do not find that he hath said any thing Material for Proof of an Immaterial Soul of Man or that deserves or requires a more particular Reply or any farther Consideration Hieronimus Zanchius was a Reformed Divine of Strasbourgh in the later End of our K. H. 8. and writes upon the Creation and Gods Works then made his Books are in Quarto Printed Newstadt in Anno 1602. His Design led him to treat of Animals and Souls And Lib. 7. cap. 2. Sect. 12. he says the Life of Animals is in their Blood as Moses says also and that all Men agree it subsists by Heat and Moisture Sect. 15. pag. 595. Says God's Creation ceased not with the First Week but he still daily creates Humane Souls and forms the Bodies of Animals Pag. 598. Every Animal hath an Organical Body and a Soul with Vegetative Motive and Sentient Faculties Pag. 599. The Quadrupedes are the next Sort to Mankind both for the Parts of their Bodies and the Strength and Genius of their Minds or Souls endowed with Senses both outward and inward as Men are and use the like Actions both as to Life Sense and Motion Pars 3. Lib. 1. Pag. 603. He says The Breath which God breathed into Adam was a created but incorporeal Thing but the Food then granted to Men and Beasts was alike And he cites Gen. 7.15 The Beasts went into the Ark and all Flesh wherein was the Breath of Life Yet gives no Answer to it nor shews how this Breath and that breathed into Man did differ Yet he would have us learn hence Pag. 617. That our Souls are not from our Parents per traducem but only from God who breathed into Adam's Nostrils id est says he God made him respire by his Nostrils and that is not opposed Pag. 618. Again This Breath was created not out of God but out of some other Invisible Thing and he then created and gave it viz. gave the Soul in that Visible Sign Shews Plato made a Difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nostram and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
Competitors sharing in the Command and Government and this sine fine The Contest hath no Determination but by Dissolution of the Compositum and this proves the Thing to be of Nature and so doth the Universality of it there being not a Humane Soul rightly constituted wherein this Contest is not fully evident Our Author hath well foreseen that his Definition of the Souls being a true Spiritual Incorporeal Substance would be easily granted But his Word Immaterial was that which would make the Boggle and therefore he promised diligently to prove the same but in this Argument we meet not with any Mention of that Quality and therefore conclude we are not at all pressed by it Pag. 710. He propounds Three Rules upon Material Forms 1. That they act not but when they are Forms of some Body 2. They are that Principle by which the Compositum is acted and do not work to Effect but by the Compositum 3. They are limited in their Extent not reaching farther than the Subject in which they are And to these we do also agree He argues the Humane Soul is not only the Cause that the Man doth understand but such Soul doth understand by her self For this he cites Arist De Anima Lib. 3. Cap. 4. I have searched that Chapter but do not find it there and however do not grant or believe the Thing to be true 2. He argues The Senses take Harm by an over-vehement Force of their Objects but the Intellect doth not so This he hath from Aristotle Hence he concludes the Soul to be Immaterial which we pass for an apparent non sequitur 3. He argues The less our minds are employed in External Things the more apt and ready they are to work This I deny and say the more exercised and practised the more apt and ready they are for those Things be they Worldly or Contemplative 4. He argues The Soul understands and knows it self its Powers and Actions and that it is a Substance differing from the Body All this I deny 5. Argues The Intellect can apprehend all Finite Things but if it were Material it could not discern one Matter from another nor know their Differences This I say the Beasts do easily perform 6. Argues The Intellect perceives Abstracted Things and Immaterial as God Angels Universals and Mathematical Notions therefore it is Immaterial We answer Universals and Notions are derived from Particulars and Materials and what Men know of God and Angels comes from Revelation and Sense of all which a Material Spirit acting in and with fit Organs is enough capable 7. Argues Quicquid recipitur fit ad Modum recipientis but the Intellect turns all into Universals and Immaterial Notions This I deny can do it I grant It is capable both of Particulars and Universals seems alike capable not one more Natural than the other whence the Modus recipiendi is first of the Particular by observing and Correction of which Rules are framed and Notions raised by ordinary Proceeding in a Rational Intellect not needing or to me proving an Immateriality of the Soul 8. Argues The Outward Senses convey the Species of their Objects to the common Sense that transmits them to the Phantasie thence there must be Organs to convey them to the Intellect but once come thither the Intellect orders them and judges of them without Help of any Organs at all This if he can maintain by good Proof Erit Apollo and shall have the Garland but till that be done we are where we began 9. Pag. 713. His Ninth Argument seems to be a Ramble Pag 716. His Tenth Argument is taken ex non Concessis 11. Argues God is the Souls Chief Good Therefore the must necessarily have Means to attain to him but that she cannot do whil'st she is in the Body obstructed by Sensual Powers therefore she must have a Subsistence out of the Body in which she may arrive to that Enjoyment I answer this beggs the Question or presumes the Case determined that there is such a She as our Author promised to prove and now brings her to stand upon a bare Supposal with as little Firmness as when he began his Argument The Subsistence in Separation is continued to be denied and till that evinced to be Erroneous this Argument is very Vanity 12. Argues That which doth really move and act it self must be Immaterial But Mens Souls do so and have a free Will and Choice to do or not to do I demand if these Things be not in Beasts He says the Elements do not move because they are Material I demand how he disposes of the Fire which the World takes to be always in Motion and that Naturally He says the Beasts can make no Resistance to their Appetites but must needs follow them yet every day affords us Proofs that Beasts can and do resist their Appetites A Setting-dog hath a great Desire to run and his Mouth will work and his Chaps water and yet he contains himself and sits still in sight of his Game for a long time together 13. Argues Pag. 717. Men have Power to chuse Loss of their Blood and Lives and that shews their Souls Superior and not dependent upon their Bodies And we agree the Soul to be all that and that the Intellect hath a swasive Power over other Faculties and sometimes prevails with them to suffer Pains and Present Death in expectation of believed future Rewards and this by a Power of Discretion in the Intellect without Dependence upon the body or Immateriality in the Soul Pag. 718. Says If the Soul were Material it would languish with the Body suffer in its Sickness feel its infirmities and weaken as the Body grows weak And all this we say it doth Sequitur Temperamentum Corporis and that is a Proof of its Materiality He says Mens Minds in Sickness and at Death are more lively sensible of their Sins than in Health that grows from Tear of approaching Danger of being taken away in a State of Sin for which Punishment is undoubtedly to be awarded at the Resurrection without Means or Hopes of any Alteration in the Space intermediate betwixt Death and that and not from a Quickness of Mind more than or above ordinary but from the nearness and greatness of the Concern He says When Men forsake Worldly Business they are made more apt for Contemplation And it is agreed that there are outward Helps as Abstinence and Retiredness which may advance the Intellective Faculty of the Soul and strengthen it against the Passionate and Sensual Faculties and so it may be assisted by Purging Bleeding or other Physick so by good Air good Company and even by good News which all are Tokens of the Souls Participation with the Body and induce to apprehend its Material Subsistence with and in the Body Our Author concludes he hath enough proved the Souls Immateriality but we still deny that he hath enough done it and how much he hath done towards it shall be left to common
that Soul as well as it is in the Beasts With it and by it they live move and act With its Extinguishment they die and turn to immediate Corruption and Gradatim to their Original Earth and Dust So was it with Adam and his Soul and Body and from his Time hath so continued without Exception save in Enoch and Elijah by Divine Power or Miracle manifested in reviving Lazarus and some other dead Bodies by re-kindling in them the extinguish'd Flame of Life 2. He doubts not but that Eve's Soul was like Adam's and if his were created so was hers And this we grant as well the one as the other 3. Adam did not speak of her Soul but owned her Body of his therefore he knew not her Soul or what or whence it was Whence 't is not likely her Soul was made out of his but was a Creation from nothing I grant her Soul was not made out of his but made like his The Body Blood and Humours being prepared and fit the Flame of Life was kindled in her by the Divine Power and after her first Breath she lived by Respiration as Adam did so long as that Flame of Life continued unextinguished and she was made and so long she continued a Living Soul or rather a Living Compositum both of Body and Soul 4. If the Soul were generated there would be a subject Matter out of which it grew And then Solomon could not properly say it returned to God that gave it but it should rather return into such Matter as it was raised from He says Austin applied this Saying of Solomon only to Adam's Soul or the Orignal of Souls for that he would not oppose the Generation of Souls But the Author says it must doubtless be understood of all Souls Concerning this I say it appears as clearly that Solomon was not resolved concerning Humane Souls whether they went upward or downward or what became of them upon a Solemn Consideration and Argument Yet he doth after and without Argument summarily say the Spirit returns to God who gave it In both Places our Translators use the Term of Spirit and not of Soul The Breath Spirit and Life which is in Man goes not perceivably to Sense any whither Likely it is the common Opinion of his Time was for a Separate Subsistence of Souls For we read Saul applied himself to the Witch for bringing up of Samuel intending his Separately Subsisting Soul And the Devil favours this Opinion in pretending to be Samuel's disquieted Soul In these few Words of Solomon it may be conceived that unresolved in himself he thus expressed himself in Compliance with the Common Opinion of his Time and Country Also what is intended by Spirit Whether Breath and Life or Soul seems not very clear David says When God takes away Mens Breath they die and are turned again to their Dust Psal 104. But if he let his Breath go forth Men are made and the Face of the Earth renewed This Informing Breath first breathed into Adam leaves the Body at Death returns says Solomon to God who gave it But elsewhere says he knows not what to think of it whether it go upward or be extinguished with the Life as those of the Beasts are 5. and 6. Pag. 766. He cites Isa 57. Zach. 12. Exod. 21. That God makes the Souls And what Austin answers thereunto That it is by God that they come from the Parents He cites Theodoret That the Foetus in the Womb is first an unformed Embrion then becomes formed into the Perfect Shape of a Body and after That it first obtains a Soul Pag. 767. And if so How can the Soul rise out of the Seed or from Generation If says he you will say that in the Seed there is Vis Animae Parentis out of which the Infant 's Soul arises in due Time This he refuses by any means to admit of but why he doth not say because it is against Reason or Nature But because then it would follow that the Soul must be Corruptible and Mortal And to this Conclusion which he maintains with divers Arguments we do easily agree Pag. 771. See the same 7. The Soul of Christ was not from Generation Ergo other Mens are not so I say It seems Christ was born from the Seed of David and was the Seed of the Woman and being by Operation of the Holy Spirit upon her might be made and born in all things like to us except Sin For what he took by Generation from the Holy Spirit could not partake of Sin And it seems Temerity to affirm any thing concerning Christ's Soul which is not revealed as this Point is not for that neither the Manner nor the Matter can be traced or found out by the Powers of Humane Reason or the Dependance of Natural Causes to all which Proceedings this Birth is an absolute Mystery P. 769. He says both these Opinions viz. that of a continual New Creation of Souls and that of Propagating them by Generation have had great and many Abettors and Defenders in the Church For the New Creation of Souls he enumerates Greg. Nyssen Theodoret. S. Jerom Leo I. a Bishop of Rome S. Ambrose Hilary Says Flesh generates the Flesh but the Soul is the Work of God I say this is no absolute Denial of the Souls being generated as Austin hath said by God's Power and Providence For the Souls being generated with the Body held Tertullian Pag. 770. S. Augustin Greg. I. a Bishop of Rome he omits here Apollinaris and most of the Fathers of the Western Church before remembered The Opinions differed upon two Difficulties some would have a New Creation for that Generation concluded Souls to be Mortal others would have Souls generated with the Bodies because whole Man is involved in and put under the Guilt of Original Sin which if his Soul were Newly created by God can have no sound and reasonable Derivation upon it Our Author means to shew how New created Souls may be taken within the Guilt of Original Sin Pag. 772. He begins with Philsophers who have highly extolled the Soul and said it came from God Pag. 773. 1. Says Souls and Angels are of the same Nature Kind and Substance alike subsisting of themselves and as one Angel doth not generate another so it is for Souls they generate not I say this Parallel of Souls and Angels is bold but never granted 2. Says The Soul can understand and will without the Body or its Organs and therefore subsist without it I grant both alike and one as much as the other 3. The Soul is an Immaterial Spirit and cannot be propagated no not from another Soul and if it rise from another Soul it cannot be Immortal All but its Immateriality is granted 4. The Opposers say the Body cannot infect a New created Soul with Original Sin much less says he can it generate such a Soul nor can such a Substantial Immaterial Spirit proceed from Flesh and Blood a Spirit which
Masters in Philosophy That they answer and solve all Arguments which may be alledged against this Tenet of the Immortality N. 7. He says Let the Learned search into the Reasons and Grounds of this Immortality which all confess to be taken principally from God's Special Providence for Rewarding the Good and Punishing the Wicked in a Future State N. 8. Goes on upon the same Ground N. 9. Mentions only that some do reason for it from Man's Capacity to apprehend Eternal Things and to desire and expect them but doth not insist upon such Arguments or so much as say that they are firm N. 1. He discourses concerning Powers and Acts of Souls Separated with little Assurance and says They have an Innate Inclination and Appetite again to inform and to be united to their proper Matter Upon this our Author we may observe a Love and Inclination to Truth somewhat constrained by the Duties of his Obedience and Profession and the Place of his Abode and Conversation but in Things not forbidden him he seems congruous enough to the Natural Truth and Reason of Things I met with a Pamphlet printed 1645. in English intituled The Prerogative of Man or The Souls Immortality the Author not named but learned full of Quotations concernining our present Point Page 9. He says The Old and Great Philosophers have agreed a Separate Subsistence of Souls And this I do not deny He cites Cicero Permanere Animos arbitramur But what they then are and whither they go we are yet to learn Pag. 13. Cites Marcus Aurelius Emperour As Bodies dying are turned to Earth and Dust by Degrees so Souls carried into the Air are liquified and conjoined to the great Soul of the World which says the Author is nothing but God Cites Tacitus In Vita Agric. If to Good Spirits there may be any Place remaining if Great Souls extinguish not with their Bodies may'st thou rest in Peace Cites Macrobius who after reciting sundry Opinions touching the Nature of the Soul concludes That the Opinion that it was Incorporeal and Immortal had prevailed over all the other Opinions And this we do easily grant Page 10. He grants Aristotle did not declare himself in this Point but thinks he forbore so to do because he knew not how to dispose of such Souls after Death Page 14. He says It imports little that Dicoearchus Aristoxenus Pherecrates Tertullian Sextus Empericus and some other Learned Men have thought the Soul to be Mortal for that some Philosophers have held very odd Opinions He says The Term of Soul is taken for an Exhalation of the Purer Blood sometimes for a Ruling Spiritual Intellect and sometimes for the Immaterial Immortal Part of Man Page 15. He says Increase or Diminution of Knowledge grow from the Difference Advantage or Alteration in the Organs and thence a Man understands better than a Child a Learned than an Illiterate and a Diligent better than a Negligent Person And this we agree to with this Addition That the Soul or Flame of Life hath its Vicissitudes as well as the Body and its Organs Page 16. He says Some Acts of the Soul are Independent of the Body and wholly Inorganical as divers Learned Authors have shewed This shews like an open Blot in his Tables for this Thing is the most precise Point in Issue Prove this and carry the Cause And that in this Point he should shuffle us off without offer of one Quotation or one Reason in Proof of his Assertion inferrs he could find nothing to say in it that was satisfactory to his own Reason or likely to satisfie other Inquisitive People P. 17. Says An Immortal Soul cannot be generated And therefore it is not dependent upon Matter or the Being of a Compositum And this would be true if the Thing were so viz. that Mans Souls were Immaterial but that still wants Proof and so the Argument proceeds ex non concessis He cites an Argument against his Opinion viz. The Anatomies of Men and Beasts shew their Bodies to be alike and their Senses Affections Memories Phantasies are found to be alike and they have each an Intellect and Common Sense some more and some less Perfect whence then can such Difference arise between them in Nature that the Souls of Beasts must be Mortal and those of Men Immortal And this carries the Sense of our former and main Objection and being put by our Author upon himself it seems he should make a Substantial Answer to it but all the Answer he gives is this viz. We do collect from the Operations of the Souls of Men and of Beasts That there is not only a Gradual but an Essential Difference between them and that their being like doth not prove them the same The last we grant and for what he will collect it may be what he pleases but need be no Rule to others But here is no Reason shewn why or wherefore he makes such a Collection nor how that must needs or can be so done P. 18. He offers as some Proof the Difference between the Faculties of Mens Sensual Affections and their Reasons Yet he doth not say a Man hath two Souls and that Affections proceed from one of them and Reason from the other but pretends an Essential Difference between the Faculties of the same Soul which seems absurd in Nature and he might with as good Reason say that Love and Hatred in Man should inferr a Specifical Difference in his Soul Pag. 25. He affirms Generation cannot produce a Humane Soul but argues ex non concessis supposing it Immaterial and then what he says is true But it begs the Point in Question and which will not be granted him P. 26. Says Reason cannot be generated no more can Sense But the Organs of both may be so and the Powers and Spirits that actuate them I but says he Reason and Judgment can and do at times act Inorganically This hath been said before but neither then nor now was nor is proved or offered to be so and therefore is not believed Pag. 26. Says Generation is not performed by Acts of Wit or Vnderstanding but those of Vegetation and Sense and a Soul doth not generate a Soul still supposing a Non supponendum that a Soul is Immaterial and separately subsisting but taking it for a Material Spirit the producing it by generation is easie and natural Pag. 27. It follows says he that because a Man doth not generate with his Mind but his Body therefore his Body is Corruptible and his Mind or Soul is Immortal It seems this needs no Answer Pag. 28. says The Learned Sennertus a famous Physician was moved by certain Reasons which he could not overcome to think the Soul is generated and that the Seed it self is animated with a Humane Soul as in the Case of the Beasts but this Physician and Justus Lipsius called before the Divines and told the Consent of Divines was to the contrary they declared their Resolutions to obey the Order of
do not make use of their ignorance for the extracting from thence an Unintelligible Extraneous Spirit for the Government of a Humane Body Memory or Understanding The case of the Watch shews the thing moved and made a noise and the Indians did not and could not discover the cause thereof and therefore they concluded it was moved by a Spirit which contains the very Ground of your Argument viz. We understand not how a Material Agent can perform such a sort of acting Therefore there must be an Intelligent Spirit in the case or else such things could not be done yet if you will but make this Grant That a Man doth generate a Man as truly and perfectly as one Horse generates another it will prove like Archimedes his Postulatum of a Ground whereupon to fix his Instrument for thence will apparently follow all that in my Treatise hath been asserted For what is begotten and born of Flesh is Flesh and I would not advise you to venture upon the task of proving any other way of proceeding or framing of Humane Souls 7. Paragraph You pretend to prove an Intelligent Spirit in Man from the Power and Effects of Conscience in him You say no Beasts have it and yet it is very potent and prevalent in Man And I agree that Man hath a Conscience and that it hath a great Power in him and over him But I do not grant the Beasts are without it in a degree sutable to their Capacities and Understandings You say That Conscience in Man is natural to him or slows from his pure Natural Faculties unassisted by Education or Rules But this I deny and assert that Conscience in Man is not derived barely from Nature in such manner as his Vital Powers viz. Digestion Nutrition and Generation are nor as his Passionate Powers viz. his Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear are nor as his Sensitive Powers or the use of this Senses are nor as his Rational Powers viz. his Understanding Phancy Memory Judgment are For all these Faculties are so natural to every Man that he can and doth act them and by them without either Rule Tutor or Example But Speech is not so natural nor is Conscience so natural but they must both be Learned and Directed by Rules Doctrine or Examples and then they may be varied and changed according as things shall fall out or it shall come into the Phancies of Men But without some sort of Education Rule Direction or Opinion there is no more Conscience in Man than in Beasts For take a Salvage Person bred up amongst Beasts he will not know that Killing in a Sin nor spare a Man in his Hunger or his Wrath any more than a Beast And for Adultery he is not capable of knowing it because he knows not what Marriage is And for Incest it is naturally so much unknown as that the first People practised it with Sisters lawfully and it seems Abraham thought it no Crime nor the Princes to whom he avowed it for that it pass'd without Punishment or Reproof from them And for Theft and Robbery it pass'd for a Glory amongst Barbarous People and so it doth amongst Conquerours at this day and it is counted a sufficient Crime for the Vaniquished to defend his Goods or Women from the Conquerour and he will yet be kill'd for so doing without any remorse or sense of Conscience in the Conquerour Nor is the Fact against Nature however Rules may perhaps determine otherwise I say then that Conscience is not an absolutely Natural Faculty in Man but rather is Faculty Complicated of Nature and other Adjuncts and Ingredients the Natural Powers that act in it are the Understanding the Memory and the Judgement and the Effects of it viz. Joy and Grief are also Natural but to compleat the Faculty of Conscience in Man there must be also some Rule for Direction of the Judgment whose proper Office is to compare the Fact and the Rule together and if they be found to agree the Effect is Joyous and Pleasing if they differ the Effect is Sorrow and Fear and the widelier they differ the stronger Effects are produced But say you these Effects are sometimes so potent and violent as they could not be if they did not proceed from an Intelligent Spirit Concerning which I will again quote to you Melanct. dicto lib. pag. 148. There he says Let our Students learn to admire the Wonderful Works of God in Man our Principal Powers and Faculties Vital Sensitive Affectionate Cogitative efficiuntur Spiritu Vitali Animali ideo aliqui dixerunt Animam esse hos Spiritus seu Flammulas Vitales Animales sua Luce superant Solis omnium Stellarum Lucem quod Mirabilius est his ipsis Spiritibus in Homibus piis miscetur ipse Divinus Spiritus and makes this Light in Man more Refulgent Active and Inclinable to apprehend Divine Truths and to practise accordingly And on the contrary When the Devil gets a Possession or but an Entrance amongst them he disturbs and tortures both Heart and Brain and drives them into Cruel Motions and manifest Furies And thus this Excellent Divine instructs us what are the proper Causes of the great and violent Stings of Conscience which you have chosen for a strong Proof of an Intelligent Immaterial Spirit in Man And that Conscience is not barely from Nature but is a Complex of Nature and Rules there are divers Texts of Scripture which may be cited to prove Rom. 2. St. Paul says Men do by Nature the things contained in the Law of Moses this intends a Cultivated Nature ordered and directed by other Rules although they were ignorant of Moses's Law and those other Rules became to them a Law written in their hearts which if they followed their Conscience was satisfied and if they acted contrary to those Rules their Consciences accused them for it St. Paul's Nature in this place therefore intends not Nature in puris naturalibus utterly unpolished and barbarous or salvage and naked of Rules Education and Examples but such a Nature as hath submitted it self to some Rules Education or Example though they be utterly ignorant of Moses's Laws Rom. 5.13 Though sin those acts which are sinful were in the world until or before the Law yet sin is not imputed where there is no Law or Rule to direct the Judgment and therefore without some sort of Rule rising from Institution Example or Opinion as there can no Sin be imputed so no Consciousness of Sin nor Sting of Conscience for it So Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin but by the Law some Rule Education or Example which taught me that this is Sin bare or salvage Nature would not have taught me what was a Sin and what was not John 9.41 Our Lord says to the Pharisees If you were blind purely ignorant ye should have no sin Chap. 15.22 If I had not spoken to them instructed them they had not had sin 1 John 3.4 Sin is the Transgression
to such purposes 1. Making the Soul Tota in qualibet parte 2. Setting on foot a New Creation of Souls by God every day and for Adulterous Incestuous and Buggered Procreations where the Shape is Humane by a Creando infunditur 3. It immerses pure young innocent Souls newly created in the filth of Original Sin without any Cause given or Offence committed by them 4. St. Austin had thereby his Imagination confounded not knowing if such Soul was One and not Two or Two and not One or were at once both one and Two and made him think the last though a Paradox to be the most likely 5. Upon this Errour is grounded the Prae-existence of such Souls and the Consequences thereof viz. their hovering in the Air their attending New Procreations of Bodies that thence they may glide down into them and forsaking Dying Bodies return again into those Aiery Habitations 6. The Transmigration of such Souls from one Humane Body to another and some made the Transmigration Common between Men and Beasts as the Pythagorean Schools maintained at this day by the Eastern Indians and the Chineses 7. Hence have grown the Inventions of Mahomet's Paradises his Purgatories and his Gehenna's as formerly the Heathens had their Eliziums and Barathrums supposed Receptacles in the Bowels of the Globe of our Earth Such a Case we find argued in Salust betwixt Caesar and Cato Caesar calls Mortem aerumnarum requiem jam cuncta mortalium mala dissolvere ultra neque curae neque gaudio locum esse Cato answers that by this Speech it appears what Caesar thought of Death Credo falsa existimans ea quae de inferis memorantur diverso itinere malos à bonis loca tetra inculta foeda atque formidolosa habere 8. Hence hath arisen the Popish Purgatorium where his Holiness is allowed to have an absolute Command and by which he makes Profit accordingly 9. Hence hath grown the Errour of Praying for the Dead in the Romish Churches 10. Those Churches have upon this Errour followed the Heathen Practices of Adoring Dead Persons the one as Gods and the other as Saints Pliny in his Natural History lib. 7. cap. 55. says That the Body or Soul of Man hath no more Sense after Death than they had before their Nativity and yet the folly and vanity of Men says he is so great as that they imagine the Humane Soul extends even to future Ages and that they have Sense whereupon Men render them honour and worship making a God of him who is not so much as a Man as if the manner of Mens breathing differed from that of other Creatures And thus hath the Popish World practised to make them Images and to believe their Personal Appearances as Saul believed the Soul of Samuel appearing in the Witches Specter and to it Saul stooped with his face to the ground and bowed himself so worshipping the Devil instead of the Prophet as the Papists do instead of their Saints who likely have no manner of being nor shall have until the Resurrection at the Last Day You say That a Separate Subsistence of Souls doth not infer Purgatory And I grant it but it is the causa sine qua non of that Opinion for if no Separate Subsistence then no Purgatory nor no Prayers for or to Persons departed this life and returned to the dust from whence they were taken Farther to evince a Sparate State of the Soul you offer to raise Evidence out of a Collect in the Office of our Burial Praying That we and those departed may have a perfect consummation of Bliss in Eternal Glory I say this Consummation of Bliss is to be intended after the Resurrection without necessarily supposing any Intermediate State unless it be to such as are before-hand perswaded that there is such a State In the close of your 6th Paragraph you say That your Zeal against the Opinion of the Materiality is grounded upon your own apprehensions that this conceipt would introduce an inundation of Atheism and Prophaneness Looseness and Sensuality To me these Consequences do not appear at all likely Not of Atheism for that it asserts God the Creation Generation and Resurrection all acted by Divine Power Nor of any the other three for that it approves and maintains the extreamest Recompences dispensable in a Future State after the Resurrection And my Apprehension is That although in your Future Ministration you should never insist more upon the Souls Immortality but inforce your Exhortations pertaining to Future Recompences from the Certainty and Concernment of the Resurrection the Last Judgment and Execution of the same your Auditors would not thereby become any whit more Atheists than they were before or more Sensual Loose or Prophane upon that Occasion but probably would continue to act and live as formerly they have done without that any alteration would thereupon be visible or consequent And for the Intermediate State you say The Fathers owned a Middle State which was neither Heaven nor Hell and because they either could not tell what that State was or not agree about it we seem left at liberty by them to think as we may concerning it We have not found any Text of Scripture positively asserting the Separate Subsistence nor such a Doctrine concerning it as that the principal aim and intent of it was to teach this Assertion for a Truth The Fathers Opinions about it are disagreeable to one another and unknowing of what was the clear Truth in this Poin. You say They thought Souls were neither in Heaven nor Hell I have quoted to you Mr. Baxter's Book p. 398. where he tells us That many of his friends holy persons were gone to Heaven and that is spangled with their spiritual stars the place is honoured with them and they with it This his Opinion of going to Heaven or Hell upon Death I take to be the most commonly embraced amongst us and I shall be glad to receive your particular Opinion thereupon but these Uncertainties concerning the Separate State the Manner and Places thereto belonging make me more to question the Verity of it and to conclude upon it rather in the Negative You quote to me a Saying of Cicero That if the Opinion of the Immortality be an Errour libenter erro this you translate the Opinion pleaseth me well it is an innocent Disception as if the liking of an Opinion and the innocency of it were the same thing whereas it is evident Men like and chuse sometimes false and harmful Opinions before those which are tried innocent and beneficial as I doubt not but you think I do in this Point not sub nomine erroris but by a deceived heart carried and drawn away by pride conceitedness contumacy and disobedience to the Ordinance of God as you word it and yet you do not cite one Ordinance of God to which the Opinion of the Materiality is contrary but I desire you will do it in your next Return You say You do not require an implicit
high Building should be erected upon it as judging that Ground not to be Rocky 6. Paragraph You except against my Expression of making Men trust in a lye You say it is uncivil to tell a Man that he lyes or that he Teaches others to trust in lyes To this I say it seems you perused my Paper in haste and with a greater desire to Answer than to consider it for I find none of these sayings or things there either in letter or sense As to the Consequences of the Materiality we differ in Judgment and they appear worse to your fears that to me Experience was never yet made of them and I see not cause to apprehend them as you do Upon your Discourse of Purgatory you say Men must not renounce the truth because some draw ill Consequences from it and I grant it but find no cause or need for asserting it 7. Paragraph You say The Fathers generally thought that Souls departed do not go strait-way to Heaven the same which you said in your last Paper and thereupon I demanded why Men do noâ— think otherwise viz that Souls at this day go immediately to Heaven or Hell and I desired to know your Opinion upon this difference and which of them you think to be the truer but to neither of these Queries do you here return me any Answer But you think it strange that if the Opinion of the Separate Subsistence be an error it should be so early and so generally accepted in the Christian Church To this I Answer That those most early Professors found this the prevailing Opinion in the World at that time yet so as there were many disbelievers of it That St. Matthew Apostle and Evangelist did believe it seems something clear by his Relation Chap. 10.28 but that neither St. Paul St. Peter nor St. John believed it I hold the more probable of St. Paul from I Cor. 15. and 1 Thes 4.13 of Peter from 2 Peter 3.10 of John from 1 Joh. 3.2 and Chap 2.28 Our Lord also lays the Expectation of future Recompences upon the time of the last day John 6. in four places or expressions in that Chapter Another evident Cause of accepting the Opinion of a Separate Subsistence likely was the Expression in St. Matthew's Gospel before Quoted This Gospel was the most early Written and in the proper Language of the Jews the Hebrew Tongue and they were the first Preachers and Planters of the Christian Religion The other three Gospels are of a later date whence this Text of St. Matthew might likely have Planted this Opinion and confirmed the old Belief of the World But after St. Luke had from St. Paul's Mouth Published his Gospel there was reason to examine St. Matthew's Relation of that Fact or History by comparing his Chap. 12.4 with Matthew's 10.28 They agree exactly in the main Point of Doctrine viz. That we ought to fear God more than Men but when they give the reason why Men should do so they Word that reason in a different manner St. Matthew Worded it according to his Opinion in Expressions importing a Separate Subsistence of the Soul but St. Paul's Words or Expressions are not of that import What the very Words were wherein Our Lord delivered this Doctrine we have no means to discover without a future Revelation and therefore I conceive we may accept which of these we shall judge most agreeable to the reason and nature of things Those who judge immateriality most agreeable to Nature and the most reasonable are likely to adhere to the Words of St. Matthew And those who judge the Materiality most agreeable to the Nature and State of Man are likely to adhere to the Words of St. Luke as the very Expressions delivered by Our Lord and Saviour I believe that God hath given to Men for their Instruction ordinarily the two great Codes of Nature and Scripture and that where these two do with cleerness agree the difference of Opinions among Learned Men cannot be very great But the common cause of their differing is the differences appearing between Nature and Scripture Not that I believe either of them are or can be false or deceitful nor really contrary the one unto the other and therefore where there appears a difference between them the same ought to be accommodated by favourable and fair Constructions according to the Nature of the Subject then under Consideration viz. If the Subject be Supernatural or beyond the Capacities of Humane Senses and Reason to judge lightly of as are the Persons in the Holy Trinity The Incarnation or Uniting the Manhood with the Godhead The Proceeding of the Holy Ghost and the actings of it The Production of a Child by a Virgin The Power of Sacraments a Spiritual Regeneration by the Water of Baptism That Bread and Wine become the real Body and Blood of Christ after a Spiritual manner In all these and the like Cases if Mens Reason takes boggle and cannot understand them nor freely or readily consent unto them it seems Duty for Men to be over-ruled therein by Words or Expressions which the Scripture uses concerning them and to endeavour by all means to think of such things as the sence of Scripture Expressions do direct us On the other hand If the Subject doubted be a Natural thing falling clearly under the Notice and Power of the Humane Senses or Reason and Understanding to judge of If in such Cases some Scripture Expressions seem to thwart the true Nature of the thing or the Sense and reason of Mankind Working thereupon As for instance Moses says God made Two great Lights viz. the Sun and Moon This seems to intend that these Two were the biggest Luminaries yet when Astronomers teach the Moon to be the least or one of the least amongst those Luminaries Men do rather chuse to believe them and Collect that Moses did not intend to Teach in that Matter but spake at large according to common Apprehension And so upon the Question whether our day and night be made by a Circuit of the Sun about the Earth in every 24 hours or by the Circunvolution of the Earth it self in that space of time The Expressions of Scripture viz. Jos 10.12 and Psal 19. and 2 Kin. 19. which do all favour the going of the Sun about the Earth and yet Humane Art and Reason have lately so far prevailed as to perswade amongst Learned Men that the Circumvolution of the Earth is the true cause of day and night amongst us And for Scripture in the Point they say as before it spake ad captum Humanum of that time grown since to be ad capturd vulgi without intention to Teach the truth of Science concerning such things The long disputed Words viz. hoc est Corpus meum are a like Proof or Church and many other Churches refuse to accept them in their plain and usual import and fay they must be Figuratively taken because in their plain sense they thwart and oppose the common
which St. Matthew delivers Chap. 10.28 Luke delivers Chap. 12.4 in Words which do not import a Separate Subsistence of Souls In the main Doctrine of fearing God more than Men because Men can punish but in this Life but God can cast into Hell in a Future State they both fully agree and therein it seems Our Lord might have respect to the Words of Isa Chap. 51. Vers 12. and 13. Who art thou that thou shouldst be afraid of a Man that shall die and forgetest the Lord thy Maker and who hath made Heaven and Earth and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the Oppressor And where is the fury of the Oppressor Viz. It is but for a short time in comparison the Death of either Party will determine it These Things were Inducements to Christians to accept and follow the Old Opinions Rooted in the World concerning the Subsistence of Souls in a State of Separation from their Bodies Having thus traced the Original of the Opinion of the Immateriality amongst Christians I come to consider our Authors Argument Says he The Notion or Opinion of the Souls Separate Subsistence hath been thus Vniversal and Continuing therefore it is agreeable to Nature and Truth and ought to be accepted and acknowledged by all Men upon that Account I answer This I hold to be a Matter of great incertainty for the Proof of which I intend to produce Two Instances wherein Old and Universal Opinions have been changed upon Grounds of Truth and with Commendations of those who have acted in those Alterations One of them lies in the Theory and the other in the Practick That in the Theory concerns Nature and that in the Practick Religion The Theory concerning Nature lies in the Scheme or Nature of the World The Old Universal Opinion continuing divers Thousands of Years was is That our Earth was the real and true Center of the whole World that all the Heavenly Bodies or Bright Globes moved about it and particularly that the Sun as big as it is and at as great distance as it is from the Earth yet that every 24 hours this Vast Body at that Vast Distance made a Journey about the Earth and that his so doing was the true and only cause and occasion of Day and Night amongst us But later even late Times and Persons have found good and sufficient Reasons to alter this Theory or Scheme of the World and to place the Sun in the Center of it and to assign a Planetary Motion to the Earth as moving about the Sun like Mars and Venus and that it shines to those Planets and to the Stars and whatsoever Inhabitants may be in them as those inlightned or Inlightning Globes do to us and particularly that the Sun doth not compass the Earth in the foresaid 24 hours so to become the cause of our Day and Night but that the Earth it self suffers a Rotation every 24 hours being towards the Sun for one part of that time and from it for another part of that time and where one part of the Earth obstructs the Sun's Light from falling upon another part of it that Obstruction makes Night in the place from which the Sun's Light is so obstructed This Theory I say hath been quite altered what was formerly conceived concerning the World by the Universal Opinion of Mankind held for divers Thousands of Years together Held in Joshua's time in David's Psalms in Hezekiah's time asserted to by the Words or Expressions of Scripture continuing down to our own Time and in it so that it is still the Vulgar Opinion which passes amongst common People who for want of Leasure Capacity or Curiosity make no deep Inquiry into such Things It is true There have been some Men of the more Learned in divers Ages who did oppose the Old Theory in their times and so there have been a like or a greater Number of Learned Men in most Ages who have denied the Souls Separate Subsistence but the Universality of Opinion hath stood for the Old Theory of the World and for the Immaterialty of Souls But we see the New Theory now prevailing amongst the Learned of our Age and I believe the Change hath been made upon sufficient and convincing Reasons and that there are such for changing the Old Opinion of the Immateriality for that of the Materiality of Souls and that we are not therefore obliged to hold still the Opinion of the Immateriality because the same is very Ancient and in a manner Universally accepted but that rather we may and ought upon sufficient Reasons appearing change the Belief of the Immateriality of Souls for that of the Materiality My Second Instance intended to prove the Weak Coercion of our Authors Argument I take from one of the most Antient and Universal Practices of Religion that have been used amongst Men viz. the pacifying God's Wrath and obtaining his Favour and Blessing by shedding the Blood of Bulls and Goats and his other Creatures offered in Sacrifice to him sprinkling their Blood and burning their Flesh and Bones upon Altars Erected for such Purposes though this Fact was not Grounded upon any Consonancy of Reason To which it doth not agree That such shedding the Blood of God's Creatures should be pleasing to him nor that the Fumes of such Offerings should be as Moses calls them A sweet Savour of an Offering made by Fire This Practice seems not to have grown from Rules of Reason nor hath as I have said any great Consonancy thereunto and yet the Practice of it seems as early as any thing pertaining to Religion in the World For Abel brought an Offering to the Lord the Firstlings of his Flock and of the Fat thereof And this Practice it seems continued to the Flood after which Noah made a great Sacrifice of every clean Beast and Fowle and the Lord smelled a sweet Savour and the Lord said in his Heart I will no more Curse the Ground And this Practice was used by Abraham and Jacob and came thence to Moses who Established a great Number of Laws concerning Sacrifices And these were observed by the Jews and practised in all Ages even till the utter Destruction of their Temple by Titus about Anno Christi 74 And for the Gentiles all Countries had their Sacrifices in very abundant manner Noah's Sacrifice was a Lecture to them all both to his Sons and their Posterities We find the Assirians Egyptians Cananites the Chaldeans Persians Graecians Romans Celts Cimbers Gauls Britain Saxons and all other known Nations offering Sacrifices and Blood to God some of Beasts and Fowles and some of Men and Children according as the Devil directed or perswaded them Nor know we of any Nation or even Person that refused or condemned the shedding of Blood in Sacrificing and Offerings made to their several sorts of gods And this Practice held Universal in the World till about the 20th Year of Constantine the Great Emperor about Anno Christi 330. He first discouraged Sacrificing
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