Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A49841
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An argument concerning the human souls seperate [sic] subsistance
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Layton, Henry, 1622-1705.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing L755A; ESTC R34962
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12,820
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17
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And of this our daily Experience fully assures us by the sudden Death of those who pass out of this World by Hanging or Strugling which proves the want of this Breath to be a sudden and sure cause of Death Physicians have told us that if after the Childs perfection the Mother be ript open and the Child be taken from her in the Secondines it may live some Hours after without assistance from this Breath of Life but that after once it hath received this Breath whereby the flame of Life and Glowing of the Blood hath been kindled in it it can never after that live many Moments without such fanninig of the ambient Air drawn in through the Lungs as hath before been described An Umbrage or Similitude of this Operation we may read in Ezekiels Vision of the dry Bones of which there was a vast number then there was a shaking and the Bones came together Bone to his Bone then Flesh was super-induced over the Bones with the Arteries Sinues and Veins and all the rest of the Viscâ—ra to humane Bodies belonging after which the Skin was drawn over them all and yet they were still but dead Carcastes because as the Text says there was no Breath in them And therefore God directs the Pophet saying prophesie unto the Winds and say thus saith the Lord come from the four Winds O Breath and breath upon these slain that they may live and upon the Prophets doing so as he was directed the Breath came into them and they lived and stood up upon their Feet an exceeding great Army so as by the Winds breathing this Breath of Life and fanning the stems of their pullulent Blood and Humors the flame of Life was tinded and kindled in them by the Vertue and Activity of which they all aâ—ose stood up upon their Feet and became living Persons in the very same manner as Adam before had done And thus may be spared and saved that vast imployment which Men have needlesly put upon God of making or creating new Souls every day for all the several procreations in the World that bear the figure of a humane Shape be the coitions never so unlawful or bestial The sort of Soul last before described suits well with Moses Text concerning Adams Creation and agrees punctually with the resurrection of Ezekiels dry Bones and is a very probable and likely Specimen of that Resurrection which Men expect at the last Day and which we may look for with as great certainty as that there will be a too Morrow after the day now passing St. Paul thus testifying 1 Cor. 15.13 If there be no Resurrection of the Dead our Teaching is Vain and your Faith is also Vain ye are yet in your Sinns and all they that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished Whence it seems consequent that the expectations of future Recompenses to Christians is founded upon the resurrection of the Dead and if that could or should possibly happen to fail us it would make the whole Christian Religion an Oeconomy to become a vain pretence and of no benefit at all to them who profess it And our Apostle proceeds further upon this point to vers 29. and there in further proof of the Resurrection he says if in this Life only we have hope in Christ we are of all Men most miserable and the reason why Christians would be so is because that in this Life they are obliged to deny themselves and to mortifie and sometimes to crucifie the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts which Men do in expectation of great Rewards and avoiding punishments promised and threatned in a future slate to come after this Life is ended all which are here applyed to prove a necessity and certainty of the Resurrection of the Dead Then still the Apostle goes on to vers 32. where he says If I have fought with Beasts at Ephesus what advantageth it me if the Dead rise not Let us eat and drink for too morrow we dye plainly intending that let Men suffer what they will for the Name and Faith of Christ those sufferings shall profit them nothing unless there be a Resurrection of the Dead And then the Apostle proceeds to say something concerning the manner of this Resurrection and to give further proof of the same from other Topicks And the same Apostle 1 Thess 4. directs the Disciples not to sorrow very much for their dead Friends because they shall have a Resurrection those who sleep with Jesus shall Christ bring with him at his second coming after he hath raised them by the voice of the Arch-Angel and the trump of God and then shall they be caught up into the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Air and so shall we ever be with the Lord adding comfort one another with these words He doth not say comfort your selves or one another with the hopes or expectations of your dead Friends Souls being gone to Heaven although if that were a Truth and known to him I think he could not reasonably or even possibly have omitted it in this place 2 Tim. 1.16 The Lord give Mercy to the House of Onesiphorus the Lord grant unto him that he may find Mercy of the Lord in that day chap. 4.7 I have fought a good fight c. and henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to 〈◊〉 them who love his appearing which words plainly intend our Lords second coming Whence that day must intend the last Judgment 1 Pet. 4.13 Rejoyce in as much as ye are made partakers of Christs Suffering that when his Glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding great Joy cap. 5.4 He exhoâ—ts the Elders to be careful in their Offices and when the chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away 2 Pet. 3 The same Apostle exhorts seeing the earthly World and all that is in it shall be burnt up and dissolved what manner of Persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godlyness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God which though it be terrible to others shall to them be a great Recompence and Reward without mentioning an intermediate State of departed Souls 1 John 2 28. He exhorts the Disciples to abide in Châ—ist that when ye shall appear ye may have Confidence and not be ashamed before him at his Coming cap. 3.2 Beloved now are we the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is mentioning no expectations of future Recompences till our Lords second Coming and time of our own Resurrection when we shall see him as he is and be made like unto him Jam. 5.7 exhorts the Disciples that under all their Afflictions they should be patient unto the
the satisfaction of a deus providebit referring for the rest to 1 Cor. 15. as the best and largest account which I know to be given concerning it and as a parallel case thereunto I will point him to Jo 3. where our Lord discoursing with Nicodemus tells him the Wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but caust not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit Nicodemus replys how can these things be And so I think may every Man reasonably do who will nicely consider the points really considerable in our great mystery of the Resurrection of the Dead If Men could reasonably discover and account for the modes and manner of such a Resurrection it would need no more to be accounted amongst the great mysteries of Christian Religion as in all times it hath been esteemed We have a Faith next unto Knowledge that our Lords humane Person was procreated in a Virgin without the Knowledge or Assistance of a Man and I may as reasonably enquire de modo hujus generationis and after what manner the same was acted or came to pass Again my Writer and I and all that I know are agreed that the humane Person is acted and moved either by a substantial intelligent Soul or by a Superfine â—et material and unintelligent Spirit but neither of us nor I think any Man else can tell any thing de modo movendi or after what manner and by what means either of them doth or can act and move the wonderful Machine of the human Body These Sciences are justly to be ranked inter arcana opificis God hath not yet revealed unto Men the manner and means of such performances and there seems to be a nimium in the re-searches of those Men who may pretend to make strict and nice enquiries into the manner and nature of such mysteries or de modo operationis thereof It seems enough for Men to know God hath declared and promised that there shall be an universal Resurrection of the Dead human Persons of all sorts without making any such Declaration or Promise to any other sort of Creature whatsoever And for this reason the Brutes are called the Beasts that perish utterly which Doctrine may be and elsewhere hath been proved by me from a clear current of Testimonies in the Old Testament and by a potent and strong stream of Testimonies in the New P. 59. He says that if the present human Soul dye or perish with the Body then there must be a new Soul created for the rising Body at the time of its Resurrection which Soul cannot reasonably be accountable for acts done in the former Body or by the person which now is to be rais'd To this I reply That this Argument is founded upon a Fallacy or Mistake of the Writer whose consequence would be apparently fallacious if he do not first pretend to believe that Adam had a Soul as well and as particularly created for him as his Body And therefore this point shall be a little further examined to which purpose shall be quoted Gen. 2.7 God formed Man of the Dust of the Ground and breathed into his Nostrils the Breath of Life and Man became a living Soul As a Preliminary to this Examination I pretend to have it granted me that the words Man became a living Soul do intend or signifie the same thing as if it had been said that Man became a living Person That the word Soul in Scripture doth commonly and even ordinarily signifie the Person I am able to prove by many hundred Instances where the same cannot be intended to signifie any other then an humane Person Abraham going with his Wife into Egypt directs her to say she was his Sister for by that means he says his Soul shall live for her sake i. e. they should save him alive for her sake or he should still remain a living Person Gen. 19.20 Lot interceeds son the preservation of Zoar saying this City is near to flee unto and it is a little One O let me escape thither is it not a little one and my Soul shall live i. e. I shall live or still remain a living Person So when Jacob went down into Egypt he carryed with him Seventy Souls And Joseph's two Sons which were born to him before that time are called two Souls So Acts 27.37 In St. Pauls dangerous Voyage there were with him in the Ship 276 Souls I say that in these places and many hundred other places in the Scripture the word Soul cannot intend or signifie any other thing then Person by one of tâ—e most ordinary Synecdoches in the World viz. partis pro toto where by the most active and living part of the Person the whole Person is intended and signified I pretend then that leaving the figurative expression of this Text it may be thus read according to the true intent of it God breathed into Adam the Breath of Life and he became a living Person And thereupon I observe that there is express mention made here of the Creation of Mans Body but that there is no mention at all of creating a Soul for him But God breathed into his Nostrils the Breath of Life and thereupon I conceive that God who had then newly created and finished his Organical Body had made his Blood and Humors pullulent and ready to be tinded and raised into a flame by the acting or fanning of such a moderate Breath as was intended to be breathed into him for that purpose whence God breathed into him the Breath of Life by whose fanning the Blood and Humors then pullulent and ready for that operation were tinded and kindled into a flame or glowing which from that time continued and resided in the Blood and Humors of the Body acting and moving Adams whole Body and every part Member and Muscle of the same the same flame of Life being fanned and revived every moment by the gusts of the ambient Air drawn through the Lungs to fann and refresh the flame of Life residing about the Heart and the other most eminent and vital parts and viscera of the Body And this Breath continued to be absolutely necessary for these purposes during the time of Adams whole Life and when he begat a Sen in his own likeness his Seed by commixtion in loco Idoneo became coagulated and by the necessary fomentation thereof fermented and in its due time became a vegitative and living Mass which by degrees grew to an embrion which daily received some degrees of growth and motion and when by such vegitation and growth it had obtained its due perfection it sought by instinct and found passage through its Mother to the open Air which after it hath once received it cannot live without it for that upon failour of fanning by the ambient Air after it hath once received the same it fails and dyes again necessarily within the space or compass of some few Moments