Aristotle himself in whose supposed Authority you seem to glory tell you That the Understanding is made one with the Object understood which yet must be interpreted cum grano salis No wonder if those who have gross material conceptions of their own Souls be suspected of Atheism it self as Epicurus was of whom Cicero saith he did nomine poncre re tollere Deos in word confess but in effect deny a Deity And why do you not answer Dr. Stillingfleet's Demands Origin Sacr. pag. 416. Can Atoms dispute whether there be Atoms or no And whether the Soul be corporeal or no Can Atoms frame Syllogisms in Mood and Figure Can meer Matter argue pro and con whether it be Matter or something else Or if these Questions be too hard for you why do you not accept the Challenge which Scaliger Sennertus and others have given you and tell the World how Matter and Motion can produce even Sense it self which is 〈…〉 â—â—ior Nature What poor contâ—◠〈…〉 â—ork do Lucretius Gassendus 〈…〉 â—â—e rest of your Tutors mak◠〈…〉 to solve these Phaenomena in a Mechanical way Nil dat quod non habet 3dly The self-determining power of the Will its Acts and Objects do further argue that the Soul is of a Spiritual and Immortal Nature This is that Faculty which chuseth refuseth or suspends its Acts as Objects appear and are estimated good or evil or of doubtful consideration This renders a man capable of moral Government by Laws with their annexed Sanctions Promises Threatnings c. This Faculty is the first Subject of Moral Good or Evil. The whole Frame of Government All Legislation Judgment and Execution Rewards and Punishments depend upon it And as the Understanding pursues Truth so doth the Will Goodness and if at any time it willeth Evil it is sub ratione boni under the appearance or notion of Good in some respect or other An inclination to Happiness is essential to its Nature neither can it be satisfied with sensible material corruptible Objects but mounts higher and reacheth forth after Spiritual and Divine things and can never rest till it centre upon the Infinite Good the Blessed God himself Fecisti nos ad te Oâ—â—â—â—equietum est cor nostrum donec requiesâ—◠〈◊〉 August Confess lib. 1. cap. 1. Thou hast made us for Thy self and our heart is restless till it rest in Thee So Lib. 4. cap. 10. Quaquaversùm se vertit Anima hominis ad dolores figitur alibi praeterquam in Te. Which way soever the Soul of man turns it can meet with nothing but grief till it rest in God Hi motus animorum at que haec certamina Now I would ask those Philosophers for so they yet affect to be called with whom I have to do How they will explain the Liberty of the Will by the Laws of Matter and Motion of which more under another Head And if the Soul be nothing else but the purer Spirits of the Blood meer perishing matter how comes it to pass that material corruptible Objects will not satisfy its Desires There is in every thing so great a tendency to union with its like that 't is become even a Proverb like to like simile gaudet simili Earth to Earth Water to Water c. And if the Soul be made of corruptible perishing Matter how is it that it so stretcheth it self beyond its compass and will not rest in Objects like it self but must needs be aspiring after Immortality and will not be satisfied with the Sphere which they have assigned to it but is for â—â—â—â—â—rsing with the invisible World of Spirits and cannot rest but in the Infinite Eternal Good Certissimum est signum c. It is says one a most certain sign that the Nature of the Soul doth excel all perishing things because none of those things can be found which will not in time grow vile and insipid to it Alsted It s Divine Tendencies and Flights speak its Extraction and Duration too 4thly The Power which the Soul hath of reflecting upon its own Acts both as to their Nature and Morality is a further proof of its Spiritual Immortal Being It not only understands but knows that it does so It contemplates and reflects upon its own Contemplation It can form Arguments and then examine and weigh the strength of them It can sift its own Notions and consider what may be objected against them and fortify it self against these Objections Thus it improves it self in the knowledge of Truth and then reflects upon the improvements which it has made It can retire from its commerce with external Objects and take a view of its own essential Powers and Virtues And indeed we cannot know what our Souls are but by these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their circular and reflex Motions and converse with themselves which only can steal from them their own Secrets as a Learned Man observes Smith of the Immortality of the Soul And if any doubt of this reflective Power his very doubting is enough to prove it for he could not doubt but by Reflection upon himself as Dr. Stillingfleet And what say you to the mighty power of Natural Conscience which reflects upon our Acts under a Moral Consideration compares them with the Law accuseth or excuseth raiseth Storms or speaks Peace and so is in part an Executioner as well as a Witness and a Judge How bitterly doth Tiberius complain of the lashes it gave him as Tacitus imforms us and so doth Suetonius and Dion Cassius The like may be said of Otho Jugurtha and many more Prima est haec ultio quod se Judice nemo nocens absolvitur Juv. Thus you see how Conscience gives Men a foretast of what 's like to come after whether they will or no. Insomuch that the greatest pleasures of the Soul and its most piercing troubles are from Moral Causes And what have Matter and Motion in them that can rationally be supposed adequate to such effects as these yea or so much as to the production of a thought Debate this Point impartially and closely with your own Faculties and I had almost said think so meanly of the Soul if you can Is it possible that any Man in his wits should believe that the Notions of Moral Good and Evil the remorse of a bad Conscience and the joys of a good one should proceed from nothing else but the shufflings and cuttings of the spirituous Parts of the Blood up and down the Cavities and Ventricles of the Brain Nothing can be imagined more absurd unless it be that the World also was made by a fortuitous concourse of Atoms which is the height of Nonsense and Extravagancy 5thly The Soul hath a power of rectifying those mistakes to which an over-credulous regard to Sense and Imagination too often betrays us Thus Reason boldly concludes that the Oar is straight though when part of it is under Water it appears crooked because of the Refraction of Rays through a double Medium of
delight when it hath found it Contemplative Persons know this to be true which makes them so unwearied in their Studies and pleased with any discoveries they can make for the advancement of Knowledge This made divers of the Ancient Philosophers travel into remote Countries that they might converse with Learned Men and glean up any Fragments of Knowledge where-ever they could find them So did Apollonius Plato Pythagoras Thales c. and the Queen of Sheba came from the uttermost Parts of the Earth to hear the Wisdom of Solomon Seneca thought that Man buried alive who lived without Books And Lipsius thought himself on the top of Olympus when he read Seneca Aristippus thought a Man had better be a Beggar than unlearned Laert. in Arist 50. And what unaccountable delight had Julius Scaliger in Luâ—â—â— who â—â—ought twelve Verses in him better than all the German Empire So ravishing are intellectual Pleasures Impressions from without are made upon the Organs of Sense various according to the variety of Objects and hence correspondent Ideas are formed in the Imagination and laid up in the Memory But there is something higher which sports it self with these Phantasms compounds and divides them at pleasure and makes new ones out of them as of Centaurs Syrens little Boys with Wings and what the Painter pleaseth which have no pattern in rerum natura to answer them What is it which abstracting from the individuating Circumstances of singular Beings forms universal Notions entia Rationis inadequate Conceptions of those beings and so rangeth the World of Entities under the several Species to which they belong by observing wherein they agree or differ from each other and considering their mutual Analogies and Respects What is that which withdraws the Imagination from attending the Organs of Sense insomuch that a Person intent upon his Studies is sometimes as if h◠〈◊〉 in a Dream though awake 〈…〉 not what you say to hi◠〈…〉 the Time goes on though the Clock strike near him What is it that from suitable Premises infers certain Conclusions and thus argues it self into a firm assent to many things above the discovery of Sense yea and contrary to sensible appearance Of which more hereafter And what say you to Mathematical Speculations how far are they beyond the reach of Sense or Imagination The Ingenious Descartes in his Sixth Meditation de Primâ Philosophiâ sets himself to examine the difference betwixt Imagination and pure Intellection and thus proceeds I can imagine a Triangle as distinctly as if I saw it and with some more difficulty a Pentagone but when I come to consider a Figure with a thousand or ten thousand Angles I can form no such distinct Idea of it in my Imagination and yet I can easily understand that such a Figure there may be as well as either of the other and so he goes on Thus you see how soon the Imagination is jaded and tired out but the Understanding can demonstrate the Properties of those several Figures and argue it self into a satisfactory assurance of many Mathematical Truths which at first seem extravagant and unreasonable And hoâ—e it spends upon its own 〈…〉 and deaves Sense and Imagâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 it and many of the Precepts of Geometry are utterly unimitable in the purest matter that Phansy can imagine And yet with what unspeakable satisfaction doth the Mind acquiesce in these Demonstrations so abstract from matter and incompetible to it And when it hath thus by abstraction as it were unbodied them it takes them for its own and hath a perfect understanding of them and makes both Sense and Imagination know their distance and if they will be too busy it silenceth and controlls them by its Sovereign Power and pursues its search with so much earnestness that it knows not how to give over Hence the Mathematical Sciences are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Purifications of the Reasonable Soul Archimedes was so intent upon it that when the City was taken he observed it not and when the Soldier that killed him came into the Room where he was busy at it he bids him have a care of disordering his Figure It were easy to enlarge much on this Particular but I am very confident that no Mathematician who seriously considers what hi◠〈◊〉 â—â—s when intent upon Demonsâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 possibly persuade himself 〈…〉 a piece of folly as 〈…〉 â—â—â—â—le Wheat-meal in two or three days time should become capable of such Speculations as these It were every jot as irrational as to conclude with the Comedian That if the Blood of an Ass was transfused into a Virtuoso there would be small difference between the Emittent Ass and the Recipient Philosopher Shadwell But follow me a little further and you shall see yet greater things than these The Understanding is not satisfied with the knowledge of lower or less important Truths but it riseth up from visible Effects to the invisible Causes and Springs of Action and resteth not till it come to the Ens Entium the Cause of Causes the Fountain of Being and so contemplates him who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One and Truth it self as Plato speaks Crit. pag. 57. It considers its Relation to God its Dependence upon him its Duty to him It understands moral Good and Evil Right and Wrong Vertue and Vice which fall not under the Laws of Matter and Motion It studies the Nature of Spiritual Substances ad intimas rerum Spiritualium quidditates penetrat aut penetrare contendit Scheibler's Metaph. â—â—b â— â—â—g 272. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈…〉 of the Understanding differ 〈…〉 sensible Objects as the I 〈…〉 â—om Sense Max. Tyr. Dissert 1. pag. 9. We have many abstracted Notions and Idea's of immaterial things which depend not on Bodily Figures And in what Subject can these Notions be lodged but in one that is Immaterial Therefore I say Si renunciatur tanto bono Immortalitatis c. If we renounce the Immortality of the Soul so great a good we must also renounce our Wit Reason and Mind by which we are Immortal Lud. Viv. de ver Fidei Lib. 1. pag. 147. And now let the whole Herd of our Epicurean Novelists who cry up the unconceivable power of Matter and Motion muster up their Forces and fairly deduce from the Principles of their Hypothesis a rational intelligible account of those Operations of the Intellect which are so spiritual and abstract from Matter What say you Can Matter and Motion contemplate the Glorious Attributes of God Can a Spiritual Object be apprehended without a Spiritual Act And can such an Act be produced without a Spiritual Power And can such a Power be radicated in meer Matter â—â—â—â—â—â—r modified or moved Must 〈…〉 be an Analogy between the 〈…〉 the Object Can any Eye 〈…〉 â—â—â—h is spiritual and Inâ—â—◠〈…〉 â—ho is a Spirit and Invisible Can Matter and Motion contemplate that Perfection which excludes all Corporeal Imperfection Is not this to act extra Sphaeram Does not
too Begin when you please I hope I shall not be unprovided for you But till then I am not obliged to incumber my Defence of the Soul's Immortality with needless Controversies 4. Though it should be granted That the Souls of Brutes are both Material and Mortal we are still sure that the Humane Soul is much more excellent than they as appears by those Operations in us which are not descernible in them I think it is ill done of those Philosophers who debase or deny the Sensitive Faculties of Beasts and make them meer Machines and I deny not that there is something in them which looks like Reason But what then These higher Operations of the Souls of Men which have a more immediate and direct reference to Immortality are such as we see no appearance of in the Inferior Creatures They know not God they love him not they have no apprehensions of a Future State no sense of Moral Good or Evil as Man hath and this is enough to distinguish us from them and to shew that our Natures are made for higher Ends than theirs as the Poet speaking of Religion says Seperat haec nos A Grege Brutorum And therefore to argue from the Mortality of the Souls of Brutes against the Immortality of the Souls of Men is every way to beg the Question 5. And thus again you carry the Controversy into the dark as the manner of such Philosophers is and plead Uncertainties against those things which are Certain not knowing the premises while you will needs hold the Conclusion and so abuse your Reason and lose the Truth and your Labour both together This method may indeed serve the ends of perverse Wranglers but is not the way to make any man wiser There is a great deal observable both in the Souls of Men and Brutes which the best Philosophers do not comprehend Must we therefore deny what 's plain because we are not agreed about more remote Difficulties This is the way to introduce Scepticism and unthankfully to reject what God hath made known to us because he hath not laid open all the rest The words of Tertullian in his Treatise de Animâ are very remarkable in the present Case Quis enim revelabit quod Deus texit unde sciscitandum est praestat per Deum nescire quia non revelaverit quam per hominem scire quia ipse praesumpserit pag. mihi 342. Your Masters have not yet satisfied the Learned World in any Account they have given of Sensitive perception and Appetite by reducing them to the Laws of Matter and Motion You must lay your Foundation better before you build so much upon it But Cicero and Laertius tell us That the Epicureans abandoned Logick and so do their Abettors If supposing would serve instead of proving there would be no great difference between an Ideot and a Philosopher Obj. 2. But Thinking Arguing c. which you ascribe to the Soul belong to the whole Compositum or contexture of Soul and Body which is the efficient proper cause of them pag. 2 4. Answ According to your own Hypothesis each part of the Compositum is not alike concerned in these Acts but especially the Animal Spirits and the Brain which you suppose to be a materia cogitativa but these are not the whole Compositum so that you must first reconcile your Philosophy to it self and then answer what I have said against the Capacity of these Material Corruptible Spirits for the production of such Acts before this Objection be at all valuable They very use which the Soul now makes of Corporeal Organs and Instruments plainly evinces That it doth exert some Action wherein they assist it not for it supposeth an operation upon them antecedent to any operation by them When therefore the Soul makes use of a bodily Organ its Action upon it must needs at last be without the ministry of any Organ unless you multiply to it Body upon Body in infinitum as a Reverend Author observes Blessedness of the Righteous pag. 205. Nullam vim virtutem aut aptitudinem ad ipsum intelligendi aut volendi actum purum formalem in se à spiritibus aut à sensu animus recipit Quomodo enim inferius vilius passivum virtutem activam nobilem Naturae superiori praestantiori activae communicare potest Method Theol. part 1.162 Obj. 3. Matter and Motion may do much as appears by a Musical Organ in the hand of a good Artist page 2. Answ The Instrument is not conscious of the Harmony produced by it as the Soul is of its own Acts and therefore your Similitude is far from running upon all four Obj. 4. Matter has a self-moving Power for if it be reduced to a fine Powder part of it will rise up into the Air like a thin Cloud pag. 7. 13. Answ The Air is a fluid body in which those little Particles are moved as Sticks or Straws are in the Water according to its motion and not by a self-moving Power of their own Though as our Author not observing how he almost confutes himself tells you in the very next words that they are apt to be moved with every little breath I believe indeed they are very susceptible of impressions from without but have no self-moving power within them If the Dust in the Streets fly into you Eyes will you therefore say it has a self-moving power stop it but close up in a Bottle where Wind and Air cannot disturb it and I will be bound for its good behaviour As for the nature of Fire you have light and heat as well as motion to give an account of which I fancy will put you hard to it Neither know you whence the Wind comes nor whither it goes nor what it is that puts it in motion and so we are not at all edified by your Assertion concerning it Obj. 5. The Spirit of the Egyptian whom David found at Ziklag in the field famished came to him again after they had given him Fruit and Water pag. 11. Answ No wonder that his Material Animal Spirits were refresh'd by suitable Nourishment but that proves not that he had no nobler Principle in him Neither do I deny that these Spirits are the immediate Instruments of the Soul 's Operations in its state of union with the Body But this is only ad modum not ad formam actus and therefore to say the Soul cannot subsist nor act in a state of Separation from them is an Argument à Bactdo ad Angulum And yet it is no wonder if it leave the Body when these Spirits are no longer fit to be a vinculum of vital union between them Obj. 6. It cannot be conceived how the separate Soul should think without the Brain see without an Eye c. Answ The Infant in the Womb hath no conception of these Actions which it shall perform when it is come into the World and grown up to maturity The Cases are much alike To conclude Except
made them Keep it not so high as to make it Masterless nor so low as to unfit it for duty A Servant when he ruleth is one of the things which the Earth cannot bear The Body is a good Servant if well managed but a bad Master Keep your Minds as much as you can above the power of Corporeal Impressions Let not the Objects of Sense and Appetite prevail too much upon you These two will quickly plead prescription and put in for Sovereignty if too much indulged They have ever been disposed to rebel since our First Parents gave them that fatal advantage and the sway they bear over their degenerate Posterity carries in it the mark and brand of that first Apostacy 'T is this which threatens our ruin a second time And shall we split upon the same Rock again after so dreadful a warning Suspect all those pleasures in which the Body is much concern'd lest the Spirit be debased by them and begin to put too high a value upon them and so contract a terrene sensual disposition and disrelish those noble delights which are perfective of its Nature Make not your Prison too strong Think how quickly this Flesh must be laid aside as useless and offensive Why then will you cherish it and make an Idol of it a◠if you thought you must never leave it What relief will it be to your miserable Souls to remember that in this Life you had your good things Or if it were reasonable to suppose as some have done that the Souls of the wicked hover about the places of their Bodies Interment what satisfaction would it be to such a Soul to think Here lies Dust which while I studied to pamper I forgot and lost my self A cutting Reflection to a desolate forlorn Spirit stript of all those Vanities which before inveigled it and destitute of those Virtuous Principles which would have enabled it to mount aloft into a purer Region It is therefore a great point of Wisdom to sit loose to the accommodations of this present Life And if at any time we find our Minds disposed as they are too apt to be to an over-great pleasure in our worldly enjoyments 't is fit that we remember this is not our home our highest Interests are above and the Relation which we bear to the world of Spirits whither we are going should make us look more shily upon these temporary perishing things as foreign and extrinsick to us and no way suitable for the Immortal Spirit to rest in And if the least thought should insinuate it self That it is good for us to be here we ought to reject it with disdain and turn our Minds to nobler Objects till the powerful sense of them hath awak'd us out of our dream and shew'd us the vanity and emptiness of it Neither should we be over-much concern'd at any crosses or disappointments which may meet us in our passage through this world Do not give them the way suffer them not to come too near you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Epictet Enchir. Cap. 10. It is not the things themselves which trouble men but their Conceits and Opinions about them At least they grow heavier by weighing and so we create and multiply troubles upon our selves by our anxiety and sollicitude about these things which to a calm serene temper would have been but light afflictions Are your Circumstances low and mean in the world you are less in danger of growing in love with it and so being ensnared and undone by it Besides Nature is content with a little though mens Lusts are insatiable Are Friends and Relations unkind selfish unfaithful or otherwise unsuitable to you Who bad you over-value them or promise your selves too much from them or repose too great confidence in them you may thank your selves in this case as in most others if you be answer'd according to your Idols Is your Body afflicted with pain sickness or languishing you knew it was mortal before and to what purpose have you liv'd all this while if not to prepare for such a time as this Are you vilify'd and reproach'd by men as it oft falls out for keeping close to your Duty You ought no more to stop at it than a man in a race for his Life should be daunted at the braying of an Ass or the gagling of Wild-geese Our Life on Earth is but a dream It passeth away as a vision of the night Men are startled at phansied dangers but not duly apprehensive of real ones 'T is not amiss sometimes to suppose as Marsilius Ficinus directs forsitan haec non vera sunt forsitan in praesentiâ somniamus and as there is more of truth in such a supposition than most men consider so it will prevent our being over-much lifted up with prosperity or dejected with adversity since they are both alike parts of a dream and the invisible World of realities is so very near us whither when we are once arrived we shall think as contemptibly of the far greatest part of the Transactions of this world as men are wont to do of their dreams after they are well awake The CONCLUSION THUS I have endeavoured to prove That the Soul is Immortal and laid open the Absurd and Mischievous Consequences of the opposite Hypothesis and withal I have shewed what improvement ought to be made of so important a Doctrine A great deal more might have been said on this occasion but what some will think too little others will think too much and therefore to prevent misunderstandings on both hands I shall only add Two or Three particulars more 1st If any say That I have undertaken a needless piece of work and that such a Discourse deserved not to be answer'd but with scorn and contempt I must tell them That the degeneracy of this Atheistical Age is a sad but sufficient Apology for what I have done It can never be unseasonable to put men in mind of a Future State much less now And though I look upon our Author's Cause to be stark naught yet his management of it perhaps is not so contemptible as some may think However I am sure the effects of it upon others are not so 2dly Others it may be will think I have been too severe in the Remarks which I have made considering the Quality of the person with whom I have to do To which I answer I hope they will not accuse me of any rude personal Reflections and as for his Opinion to answer it is to expose it He has publickly debased all Mankind and himself among the rest and therefore ought not to think much at any rational endeavours to right both him and them And the figure he bears in the world makes an answer so much the more necessary When a person of considerable Note a sober Life and one that has the reputation of a studious thinking man shall vent such Opinions as these the Infection is like to spread so much further Nullis Aconita bibuntur Fictilibus Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se Crimen habet quanto Major qui peccat habetur 3dly Some perhaps will object That I have not laid stress enough upon the Immateriality of the Soul in the present Controversy I would have such to consider that over-doing is undoing and to argue à minus notis is not the way to defend the Truth but to open the Mouths of its Adversaries If I have proved that the Soul is no such perishing corruptible Matter as our Author supposeth this is what I undertook and if the use of the word Material will please him let him take it for me so long as he draws no bruitish Conclusion from it And as for those that have more refined Notions of Immaterial Substances I envy not their improvements let them rejoice in their greater Light provided they take not up with Arbitrary Conceits instead of solid Knowledge nor injure more plain and certain Truths by pretending to know these things which to a Soul in Flesh are hardly if at all intelligible how true soever It seems clear to me that our Author hath over-shot himself by pretending to prove the Soul Mortal because he fancied it was hard to prove it immaterial and this he thought gave him the advantage but to use his own phrase pag. 12. I judge he hath taken a wrong Sow by the ear And tho' I desire not to contend with any man yet if he himself or any of those who have espoused his Sentiments shall think it convenient to Answer what I have written they may expect a Reply if they deserve it For as on the one hand I think not my self obliged to follow any one who impertinently rambles from the matter and seeks sorry little Shifts and Evasions to avoid the force of plain evidence So on the other hand I think it worth my while to allot a considerable part of my remaining Life if just occasion be given me to the Defence of the Soul's Immortality and the running down of these unmanly Notions which ought to be exploded and hiss'd out of the World by the meanest of Human Race FINIS