to highest and truest Beings is inconsiderable though it seem great to us especially those gross and dull ones we converse in or are to converse with and it is in greatest indulgence to us that they stoop down into them as wise men sometimes comply a little while with the fansies and humours of children 4. Their superiority to visible Beings in that they form their appearances with some extraordinaries or do things so great in them as convince them to be of a higher order Now for the assurance of these appearances I especially rest upon the Histories hereof in the Scripture those sensible evidences of the Divine Presence the appearances of the good Angels recorded in it which are so many and so plain as to make up a full proof of invisible Beings and not so much as with any likelihood of truth to be eluded by those who profess to believe those sacred Records The sallies of evil Angels upon the world and the possessions they took of the bodies of men doing things in them beyond the general Laws of Body related also to us in Scripture may be reduced hereunto As additional proof hereof we may entertain those memories of such appearances in common story that are writ with greatest judgment sobriety and arguments of veracity Now all this is applicable to the Souls of men thus far first as it gives a common proof there are Invisible Beings of which order we affirm the Soul to be and secondly seeing the Soul was made in the Image of God and in an allyance with Angels it hath a substantial greatness like them lastly it must as they be independent it self upon matter and have a force much above it though it be for a time subjugated to the laws of a Body and so cannot shew it self in its own nature till it be in a separated state or joined to a Body more suited to its operations If any should say why are not these appearances more frequent and usual The answer is That were altogether unsuitable to the state and majesty of these invisible Beings which like that of the Eastern Princes stands much in retirement and as they were rarely seen and not but upon great occasions when they had weighty designs to manage or when it had been called into question whether they were alive or not because not seen for some space of time Thus invisible Beings good and holy have in visible shapes though rarely visited the sublunary world and for great ends of service to God and also that they might thereby refute atheistick and unbelieving conceipts and give assurance of themselves Unholy spirits chained up by Divine Power appear but at command so often and no oftner than God pleases for it may be supposed the Devil would not thus appear but upon necessity and constraint laid upon him by Divine Providence because his Kingdom suffers so much by the knowledge of Beings removed from sense yet when he must appear it is most agreeable to so insolent a Spirit to do it to excess and with greatest troublesomness if not restrained by God But God for the general in this riper Age of the world and under the settled light of the Gospel teaches mankind by rational and intellectual evidences that are so easily to be drawn into observation by us and by those clear and spiritual documents given us in his Word especially since such a testimony as hath been granted to men of heavenly and invisible powers in a humane body acting with a virtue so divine and miraculous and so apparent to sense For what could be greater than the whole History of the Life and Death the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord to all that are indeed Christians an invisible power transacting so lively before sense all those so high demonstrations of it self and then framing and propagating a Doctrine every way agreeable to it self and spreading it through the whole world If notwithstanding all this the man of Sense will not apprehend nor accept any proof of such Beings except our Senses were daily Spectators of them he very ridiculously exacts the tryal of those things by Sense which are plainly affirmed to be out of the compass of Sense and all its reach he demands to see and touch that which cannot be seen or felt Now it is certain that which is out of the sphere of any faculty whatsoever cannot be tryed and judged by that faculty any more than the eye can judge of sounds or the ear of colours or light be heard or an excellent noise of musick be seen Sense ought not to be called to sit in judgment upon things that are above it as finite knowledge cannot measure the possibilities of omnipotency Ants may as well be consulted with whether a Palace may be built over their heap or Beasts decide whether there be any reflexes of Reason as Sense be put to judge those things that are only to be discerned by Reason or to measure by an unequal Reason what Faith which is Reason advanced by Revelation can alone give us an account of How liberal an allowance is it to Sense that there is in so many particulars as we have already taken notice of a foundation laid in it for Reason and Faith to ground their further search and assurances upon And as for the great perverseness of such men that would make Sense usurp higher and their presumptions against invisible Beings in the confidence of that the sager consents of wise learned and pious men and the general inclination the universality of mankind have discovered to a belief of such Beings make those presumptions appear no other than a diffidence or distrust in every thing but Sense and is no more considerable than a Scepticks suspicion of other things most assured to other men by sense it self or an ignorant mans difficulty to believe the Sun and Stars any bigger than they seem to be From this Discourse of Invisible Beings Inference very justly arises an expostulation with our selves for our irreligious brutishness and sensuality that we do not more mind these invisible natures and consider God our Souls the eternal state our neglect chiefly arising because they are not seen although we have other great assurances of them As Beasts we are only affected with what strikes our Sense But let us observe every thing the more invisible it is that indeed of the greater force and efficacy it is The Spirits of things lye hid and concealed from the eye till they issue out into operation There are some very few things quick upon the Sense that are also full of power as light fire a flash of lightning and we use by these to express spiritual Beings because they are of greatest separation from dull Body and ordinary gross matter and too mighty for Sense to be too free with But let us consider how worthy these Invisible things are of our thoughts by this plain instance If any of those Beings should make an appearance
to be always conformed to that exemplar shine forth together the created in subordination to the increated Of all which Body is altogether insensible and utterly incapable In the original therefore of man there is according to Scripture a clear distinction betwixt Spirit and Body 2. That the Scripture doth plainly own the distinction of the Soul from the Body in a state of conjunction with it I argue especially from the powers of mind and the actions of those powers wherein are laid and to which are directed continually all the Discourses and those pressing Reasonings Exhortations Admonitions and Reproofs we find in sacred Writings These powers according to the universal speech of mankind it calls Vnderstanding Faculty of Reason Conscience Judgment and the actions proceeding from these it names Thought Apprehension or Perceiving Consideration Reasoning Accusation and Apologie or Defence of Conscience Judging of Things and all these powers working out into these acts it comprehends in this word the Spirit of man and unites these acts with it speaking of these powers as the Essence of a man and of the acts as most connatural to that Essence to which also every mans knowledge and feeling within himself give as clear testimony and as full as the parts of Body give of themselves to Sense For the Spirit of a man knows the things of a man within him Now it is plain All these things are most improper to Body or so much as a brutal Spirit especially when they lift up themselves to the sense of a God and extend themselves to religious concernments when they receive those high proposals of the Gospel and Mysteries that lye out of the whole region of Sense so that though the organs and instruments of the body are sometimes spoken of and to in these cases yet it is only upon this account because they are such as by which the mind acts or are symbols and representations of this rational sense and motion These things being then so well known and every where met with in inspired Writings they are as great a demonstration of their consciousness to another greater and more excellent Being in man than Body as can be required seeing Body hath no fitness nor possible sublimation to these things that Scripture so wholly insists upon in relation to man There must be therefore another man a more excellent man within or else all thus spoken must have been in vain such powers and actions cannot be ascribed originally to the most excellent temper of Body or Tune of motions but must have a proper and peculiar substance to reside in and that whatever any one else will call it is that Scripture and common speaking calls Spirit And this being so plain and clear and of so general consent the Scripture without any industry as in a case presumed speaks of Spirit as one thing and Body as another distributes 1 Thess 5. 23. man into Body Soul and Spirit Body is well enough known Soul is either Spirit as it contains within it self the faculties of sensitive nature and takes the Government of them upon it self and the care and feeling of things that concern Body and the life of it or as it moves in the most excellent parts of Body that mediate betwixt body and mind and are fittest for the more immediate motions of Spirit in Body and so called Spirits Spirit is pure mind exalted to its own objects and the highest of those objects Divine Things This Spirit is that Inward Man holy 2 Cor. 4. 16. Writing speaks of renewed and repaired every day not in its substantial nature but in gracious and heavenly qualities of which it is the only residence and receipt and which are its true health and strength Lastly In this distinction of Soul and Body is founded that excellent discourse of the Apostle Rom. 8. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. of Being in the flesh and in the Spirit of being carnally minded or of the carnal mind and of being spiritually minded or of the spiritual mind By which on one side he describes this mind allured and drawn down to Body and Flesh which comes to pass first through nearness to Body and closest sympathy with all those natural and sensitive motions which it self inspires Body with but chiefly by degeneracy the Soul comes to feel it self and places its enjoyments wholly in flesh and makes that the Center of its reigning passions and affections and so it self becomes carnal and sensual and cannot please God On the other side is described Mind lifted up above Body and out of Flesh by Grace and the Divine Spirit to an inseparable adherence to God and Christ and eternal things to which it advances its own motions in Body also presenting them a living and acceptable Sacrifice which is the rational service of a man consisting of Soul and Body Thus the Flesh and the Heart together cry out for the living God In the mean time this Spirit of the mind subdues and restrains its own motions arising from unholy Bodily inclination and affection Now to be carnally minded is death The mind unpurged and glued to Body dyes in that sense a Spirit can dye that is a death of separation from God and deprivation of Divine Beauty and Happiness and the Body whose ministery it uses and makes it the seat of its carnal pleasures and sensualities perishes also leaving no possible satisfaction any longer from them and yet that Body because it was the Body of that unpurged Soul and retains its order to it remains guilty and foul dust and rises again so that the Soul may suffer and its misery may be seen in a Body even as it sinned in Body which is the second death But to be spiritually minded is life and peace For Mind renewed and made the habitation of the Holy Spirit and its righteousness cannot it self dye no not as Spirits dye because of that blessed and immortal allyance for it lives in the enjoyment of God likeness to him lively motions of it self in all goodness and blessedness And though the Body is dead that is is under the sentence of death to be unavoidably fulfilled in the separation of the Soul from the Body upon which the Body becomes a dead lump and further it must dye that the Soul may obtain a perfect purification from sin which it cannot have while cemented with Body sin being so lodged in that Cement that there can be no perfect purification till that Cement be dissolved Then when that Cement is dissolved the separated Soul becomes perfect Spirit and Divine through the almighty efficacy of the Divine Spirit resiant in it and bearing it up to the perfection of the Divine life for ever Thus the Spirit is life because of righteousness And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you That is The Body that
viz. That our Saviour intends no more than that mans killing the body is infinitely less than Gods destroying that Body and its whole life in Hell though after many Ages Yet it is observable in the first place our Saviour to imprint the fear of Divine Revenges places them not only upon the Body but upon the Soul as a distinct and greater part of man than body 2. And beyond this our Saviour plainly aims at the great odds there is betwixt a hand that can execute no further than dying once and in the body only and that almighty hand that sends down the Soul to Hell immediately and the Body at the Day of Judgment For he implies a man easily slips from mans severity by death for he may yet live and be happy in his Soul presently and in his Body at the Resurrection but death can give no escape from the stroke of God either to the Soul which incontinently falls under it nor to the Body awakened hereafter to endure it Now I know it is possible for Serpentine wits to glide off from these and many the like proofs of Scripture that might be produced for their way of elusion is very wonderful like that of Solomons Serpent upon a Rock that winding every way yet leaves no track of solid Reason behind it but yet I affirm that such concurrent Testimonies of Scripture are so conclusive that no sober consideration can escape from them unto which revealed Truth is also to be annexed Reason it self teaching us as I have already urged the effects of a Soul are too great to be ascribed to any power of Body and therefore seeing every Effect must have an equal Cause it is a high justification of the assertion of a Spirit to which those effects may be duly and worthily ascribed And therefore I shall further adventure to avouch from Scripture that the Soul is so much the Man that it hath the compleat substantial essence of a man so far in it self that in comparison of it the body is but prepared for a sensible mode or representation in which the Soul is to act and shew and illustrate it self visibly and sensibly and that man might thereby become of the order of the sensible and visible world beholding and judging by the ministery of sensitive organs of the beauty excellent array and variety of bodies in this Creation and himself appear the principal of them but retaining still a higher and nearer relation to the Invisible world to God to the state and life of Angels so that without any prejudice to his main being he may be removed out of the body thither and yet still be himself as to all the chief intents and purposes of his Creation and continue so till in the restitution of all things and the manifestation either of the goodness or severity of God after the manner of the sensible and visible Creation that is in such a plain way as seeing and knowing things by sense men be again set out by God in a bodily scheme or fashion at the Resurrection so that the Body it shall then have shall more compliably wait upon all the state and motions of the Souls happiness or misery The Soul then only visibly shews it self now in a body and is submitted to be in it but when it goes out of the body it wants nothing through the whole time of its separation that it had here but only the apparence of its motions in a body nor hath any thing added to it when it is cloathed with a body at the Resurrection but an opportunity for its glory or misery to be seen sensibly Even as God was excellent and perfect in himself from eternity when there was no Creation or any beside himself nor received he any thing or found any addition to himself by the Creation for all things that he made received their All from him but only he hath illustrated and manifested himself in the Creation and the Creatures do no more than shew the power wisdom and goodness of God in creating preserving and governing them After the same manner so far as we may with reverence compare any of the Creatures with the infinitely excelling Creator the Soul receives nothing from the Body or any of the parts of it but only such organs and instruments which it is to inspire govern and rule and thereby to shew its efficacy vigour and great endowments of understanding and virtue for all motions from the highest to the lowest derive from the Soul But as to the present case That the Soul falls in love with its self as dwelling in body and with its lower motions in it and forgets its own proper and higher motions of immediate converses with holiness and true wisdom and that rule of body committed to it according to these Laws this is only its sin weakness degeneracy and fall as of a created and mutable Being placed in a body All motions and appetites that we call in ordinary speaking motions of body and fleshly appetites are not any thing that body can first proffer to the Soul but those that the Soul communicates first by that universal life and motion it gives to body and then derives from its own communications the pleasure that it self finds from it self in body Yet is not the Souls good or ill management of Body all its holiness or sin there are many acts so retired that body shares not in their praise or guilt The Soul in such acts of goodness is like God and good Angels as if it had no body and as unconcerned in this world as God in his own immanent perfections and actions On the other side wicked men are in some wicked actions alone as it were from the body like Devils and damned Spirits those spiritual wickednesses the Apostle speaks of exercised in spiritual Impurities But to return The Souls acting and taking care of the body is but an inferiour and under-part of its administration and is for that higher end that there might be an image and likeness of God imprinted upon a body and sensibly seen in it by virtue of the Souls acting holily in and upon it This is the highest and most excellent part of its Government the pleasure it takes in the lower should be but an imitation of the Lord taking pleasure in his lower works who is never the less spiritual heavenly and divine for running through and governing the whole world of matter and rejoicing in his doings therein but is always in the perfect purity of his own Attributes and guides all things according to them But contrary-wise if the Soul makes its lower and less noble functions its principal and supreme and instead of moving the body rationally and religiously by it self continuing spiritual and intellectual it chiefly attends to and interests it self in its lower sensitive motions and so becomes carnal and sensual this is its great fall into sin and misery yet still it retains its prerogative of nature it is
and more especially as they are Divine and relate to God Because the knowledge of the Things themselves is most lost and the Understanding so cramp'd concerning them To be able therefore in such Treaties to speak so as to compare Spiritual things with Spiritual that is to observe the Decorum Spiritual Things require to be spoken with there is necessary the Divine Revelation of Scripture and the assistance of the Holy Spirit For so to speak is that Divine Vtterance or Elocution which the Apostle joins with Knowledge and magnifies as an Act of Grace to Fallen man in order to his Recovery derived from Jesus Christ the restorer of Humane Nature and is in various degrees distributed to the professors of Christianity and conveyed to them in the diligent Exercise of themselves in Sacred Writings 2. The Dulness and Inattentiveness of Hearers makes things hard to be interpreted especially things of great Retreat from ordinary Apprehension We cannot speak them plainly enough to make people conceive of them so as to be affected with them Yet notwithstanding we having so often occasion to converse with these great Sounds A Soul An Immortal Spirit and its Eternal State there is as great an obligation to search the Things as far as we can lest they appear to us no more than great sounds without as great a Substance whereas indeed their Substance and Reality exceeds their Sound how great soever And to encourage us in this most industrious search we are first to oppose to the Difficulty this Consideration That it is not so much the Unintelligibleness of the things themselves as the want of a due Intention of Mind in our inquiries as also an humble application of our selves to the Divine Assistance that makes it so hard to speak and hear of these Spiritual Subjects as Wise men and Christians For Discourses of them made up of such words as the spirit of God teaches jointed and put together by the same Wisdom and then aright received how significant and potent would they be how clearly representative to the Understanding how perswasive upon the whole Soul And seeing in these things we have a kind of natural Knowledge and Experience like Natural Arithmetique and Mathematiques which yet being adorn'd and cultivated by Art are much improved but especially because we have the Word of God so great a light to our feet and lamp to our paths in our Discourse concerning them and the promise of the Blessed Spirit to assist our Inquiries into Truth There is great reason of Confidence the closer our Researches and the more industrious our Explanations of the things are the brighter our apprehensions and the more prevailing our Knowledge of them will grow so as to enlighten and perswade others also Committing then this Undertaking to Divine Assistance I have chosen this great assumption of Elihu concerning Man to rest this Discourse upon There is a Spirit in Man and the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth him Vnderstanding Not that the Soul of Man and its excellent Nature deriving it self in Creation from God inspiring it is precisely and in the first place here intended or the original proceeding of the Finite Vnderstanding from the Infinite But the mighty Vigor and Force of this Spirit stirred up by God and the Understanding acted to the Height by a more gracious inspiration enlivening assisting and setting it on work in some peculiar persons and to some peculiar ends and employment is that which this Eloquent Reasoner immediately means and hath a particular respect to himself in it as notably assisted by God in his following Discourses Yet it plainly appears he alludes to that History of the First Creation the Tradition of which all Wise and Good men had conveyed and assured to them by undoubted Monuments for it very much agrees with and resembles that relation There is a Spirit in man says Elihu a mighty and Gen. 1. 26. excellent Spirit In the Image and Likeness of God as Moses describes it And the Breath of the Almighty giveth him understanding as Elihu speaks Which in the words of Moses is thus expressed God breath'd into his Face Gen. 2. 7. the Breath of Life and Man became a living Soul That Inspiration gave that Soul of Life whose Nature is Vnderstanding or Intellect and its Life Rational and Intellectual And herein rest fundamentally those extraordinary Vigors of which Elihu here speaks when God by a secondary Donation and Grace enables this Spirit and Vnderstanding to act like it self and to appear as it is For all excellent motions of Soul inspired by God into eminent personages are but Fairer Exemplifications of Creation and the Vniversal Nature of mans Soul So that while Elihu intends something further he assures the main position That Man in general hath a Great Spirit or Soul in him and an Vnderstanding or Intellect given him by immediate inspiration from God in Creation To give then a description of this Great Soul of man as a foundation of the whole Treaty concerning it I shall do it under these three following Heads 1. As it is considered in its substantial and Essential Nature and so I describe it An Invisible Spirit and Immortal made in the Image and Likeness of God and nearly allyed to Angels the very Nobleness and Excellency of mans Being above Brutes and Common matter 2. As it is to be understood in its immediate Emanations and Motions of it self and so it is An Intellectual Light indued with all the powers of Rational and Moral Action It is that by which a man breaths in the free and open Air of Reason and Intelligence It is the principle of such Action as is far above sense for if rightly ordered it bears the lofty Characters of Good Holy Virtuous and because it cannot sink upon a Common level if disorderly and irregular it carries the black indeed but Tremendous names of Sin Wickedness Vice 3. As it is to be known in its Resentments and so It is that which tastes and enjoys all Good or feels and endures discerns and perceives Evil and Misery If that be well the whole is well If that be wounded and in Torment there can be no Ease or Remedy And it is prepared to be a Great and Ample Receipt of and a most vehement Agent in its own Everlasting Happiness or Misery This Soul is that which is Eternally Happy or Miserable And though this Spirit be hid in the Body and the Body seems to be All yet it can indeed do nothing nor feel any thing but as the Soul does by it and this Body because as it is now it is an Instrument unfit is laid aside in Death without any prejudice to the Souls Action or Resentment but to the unspeakable Exaltation of it and at last a Body more fit for its use is given to it and which is every way proportion'd to its state whether of Happiness or Misery Now whosoever shall well weigh and consider this Soul will stand
of the coursness and thickness of matter as Breath Wind Air. This way of expressing these Beings hath been common to Language in general and particularly to Scripture which attributes to God that he is a Spirit and to Angels and the Souls of men under him And yet it may without injury to the cause be granted that this name may not have been original to these natures but derived from those things that have been more removed from Sense than others and from thence transferred to the most excellent part of the Temperament or whatever is most vigorous in any Being and yet least under the cognisance of Sense and so at last ascribed to Beings supposed to be wholly removed from Sense and all this doth but still enlighten the main notion of a Spirit for hereby it was intended to represent them in their native purity and separation from Body by those things that had least of the dregginess of matter and yet were well known so comprehending at once both their spirituality and reality their spirituality expressing them by things most refined their reality in that those things how fine soever were yet sufficiently known to be and to be of greatest reality and effect Hereunto may be reduced the mention Scripture makes of the Spirit of a Eccl. 3. 21. Beast Touching which leaving to Philosophical Disputes the abstrusity of its nature whether it be the highest of material or lowest of spiritual natures I only observe It deserves not the name of a Spirit in compare with the Soul of man in that it is most evident the Scripture speaks nothing of its likeness to God power of Reason moral action or immortality but degrades it from these when it says while the Spirit of a man goes upward the Spirit of a Beast goes downward that is as it is prepared for lowest uses so its state motion and last rest are altogether here below and therefore it cannot correspond in what is now to be spoken of a Spirit yet because it extends it self to actions beyond the measure of other material Beings unaccountably to Sense it is called a Spirit and yields light also to the general notion of a Spirit and shews the infinite Wisdom and Architecture of the Author of all created Beings who formed these Spirits so as to excel the possibilities of matter supposing they do excel them so little as to be disputed with some appearance of Reason whether they are any more than matter mechanized with highest and most curious skill that is to say the handy-work of God in matter But to return Whatever can be spoken in relation only to the word Spirit is of smaller moment the greatest concern is what is intended by it Whether it be no more than a meer mode notion or manner of speaking used to express the lively Temperament vigour or force of a Body only Or whether it mean a substance of an excellent nature distinct and separate from a Body In answer to which That the generality of those that have or do use this word Spirit concerning the Soul of man have and do understand it in this latter Sense is of very little dispute and that the Scriptures do as much as words or expressions can do to assure us they mean so also I shall endeavour to make good by observing what the Scriptures say concerning 1. The original of mans Soul and its first entrance into the Body 2. What expressions it makes use of to shew the distinction of the Soul from the Body while in it 3. How it expresses its distinction from Body and separation from it in death For the first The original of mans Soul we must have recourse to the History of mans Creation and we shall Gen. 1. 24 26. Gen. 2. 7. find that the wisdom of Scripture puts a great difference between the Creation of man and the other Creatures of life in that God consults and resolves to make him in his own Image and likeness and by an immediate hand first builds a Body as a receptacle for the life he intended him and when his Body was framed raised and contrived with all its organs offices and ministeries so that there wanted nothing that should complete and sum up the perfection of a Body he breathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life and from that breathing of God he became a living Soul A Soul living that life that proceeded from himself a life that proceeded from God and entered into that prepared Body and quickened it whereas God only commanded the Earth and it brought forth every other living Thing That and its life together The Command of God impregnated the Earth and then as at once it brought forth the living Creature and its life so that in the creation of this lower life and the subjects of it there appears nothing of that method and solemn order observed in mans creation nor did the Breath of God pass into them as it did into man when it filled all the several organs and instruments of the Humane Body with the motions proper to a Body and such a Body and which is far beyond all this The same Breath of God gives man Reason and understanding as we have already expounded this Breath out of Elihu's words and as he speaks in another place The Spirit of God made him and the Breath of the Almighty gave him life This inspiration of the Almighty comprehends this lower life in man that sensitive Beings live and that yet higher life of Religion and obedience to the Creator with which Body hath least to do For in the very Creation God put Wisdom into the inward parts and gave understanding to the heart and by the word of Creation he said to man The fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding That is As God created all things by saying Let it Be and pronouncing it good in confirmation of his Creation so he said to man by implanting it in his heart and approving it for very good The fear of the Job 28. 28 Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding As in the universal Creation he saw and declared he prepared and searched out wisdom that is he found out v. 27. within his own understanding fit natures for all things This was his preparing and searching out wisdom and then he gave the proper natures he had designed that was his declaring wisdom thus at the same time he both made up the beauty of the Universe and proclaimed his own infinite understanding And so particularly in the frame of man he was infinitely wise forming man into the propriety of such a nature as man should be that is a Soul whose perfection it should be to fear God and to depart from evil that was made with a power to do so upon Reason and Counsel in which at once the wisdom of God the original wisdom and the wisdom of man the derivative wisdom
was the habitation of the Spirit or Soul renewed and purged from sin that Spirit or Soul being it self the habitation of the Divine Spirit this Body because it hath still a relation to such a Soul loses its sinful taint while it moulders into dust and is raised a Body incorruptible and spiritual that is a habitation fit for the Spirit now made perfect and is filled thereby with the glory of life and immortality which is eternal life and all by virtue of that Divine Spirit that dwelt in that Soul while it was lodged and dwelt in that Body And herein lying the true substantial sense of this most weighty Paragraph of the Apostle how plainly doth it express the distinction of the Soul from the Body and that the Soul is a substance of it self independent upon Body and Body altogether dependent upon it even while it is most immers'd into Body For first The Soul it self gives all the life to its own impure pleasures and sinful reposes in bodily delights to which else Body is able to contribute no more than Oyl to the Flame which of it self we know always lyes still and dark 2. Spirit it self assisted by Grace retires into spiritual enjoyments and quenches and dryes up its own sensual affections to Body and blasts the satisfactions received from thence even before that Oyl be wasted by the decays of Body or dryed up by death Lastly It self carries its own fate if I may so call it and the fate of the Body along with it into eternity for according to what the Soul it self is so is its own happiness or misery and the Body of necessity follows its condition so that it self is plainly All and the Body only a Cypher attending the state of this principal Figure 3. The distinction of Spirit and Body in death is conveyed to us in very plain and easie terms and such as carry their meaning very open if not disturbed and prevented by ill interpretation Let us take a view of the clearness of Scripture herein First Solomon in his Ecclesiastes having considered with some passion and vehemency the little or no apparent preheminence of men above Beasts in their death that as one dies so dies the other they send out one common vital breath and go all to one place he then casts the account of this into the common heap of vanity and comes to a very warm enquiry Who knoweth Eccl. 3. 21. the Spirit of a man that goes upward and the Spirit of a Beast that goes downward Yet thereby resolving the main case enough viz. that these outward appearances laid so much to disadvantage are but only in the Body and outside the difference between the Spirit of a man and the Spirit of a Beast is still very great as great as between Heaven and Earth and the motion as contrary when they dye as upward and downward but still he complains that this is not possible to be seen by Sense and there are very few that reach it to any purpose by Reason and Religion and this saith he is one of the great points of the vanity of all worldly condition that both so great a principle of Truth and so great a dignity of Humane Nature should lye so far off be so indiscernable Here is then an equality in the outside or Bodies of men a dying and Beasts but a great inequality or excellency of men above Beasts which comes home to what we are asserting And thus Solomon understood of the Spirit of a man as is now explained he makes us more certain when after his travel over all things he comes to describe man in his end and does it thus The Dust returning to the Earth Eccl. 12. 7. as it was and the Spirit returns to God that gave it he allots to the several parts into which he distributes man a several motion and a several rest according to the several originals of each The Dust or Body returns to the Earth from whence it was taken the Spirit survives and hastens back to God that gave it Agreeably the care of holy men at death or in any great apprehensions of danger that presented death to them was to commend their Spirit to God as David Into thy hand I commend Psal 31. 5. my Spirit which words were prophetick of the dying words of our Saviour Father into thy hand I commend Luc. 23. 46. my Spirit and thus Stephen breathed out his Soul Lord Jesus receive Acts 7. 59. my Spirit Now in that Solomon affirms of the Spirit of man in general that it returns to God the Judge of all whether it be the spirit of a good man or a bad man or whether it be for happiness or misery and that thereupon holy persons recommended their Souls into the hands of God as a faithful Creator I know not how any thing can be more determinative of the distinction of Body and Soul in death For such words are not words of meer resignation of life back again to the Fountain of Life but an entrustment and dependent recommendation and not of a life to be secured only for the Resurrection but of a Spirit immediately going to God for else they might with as much care have committed Body to him who weighs the dust of the Earth in a Ballance much more that of the Bodies of men whom he will raise again most of all that of his Saints which he will raise to glory If there were not such an immediate return of good mens Spirits to God why doth the Apostle chuse to be Phil. 1. 23. dissolved or set at liberty that he might be with Christ Or why doth he profess in the name of Christians in general we desire rather to be absent 2 Cor. 5. 6. from than at home in the body that we might be present with the Lord What tolerable account can be given of such speeches for what composition is it that suffers dissolution that some part and what part is that might have immediate being with Christ Or who is it that would be set at liberty Or that is absent from the body or at home in it if not this supreme man the Soul Or why should death be preferred for the sake of a nearer and more immediate presence with Christ if all the man dye with the body Or what man is it that the Apostle speaks of caught up into the third Heaven and makes a doubt whether in the body or out of it Or how could there be such a being in the body or out of the Body if the body were all if there were nothing but body Or lastly why doth our Saviour amplifie the dread of the vengeance of God upon man above theirs that kill the body and have no more that they can do whereas the hand of God destroys Luc. 12. 4 5. both body and soul in Hell For let it be expounded to the greatest advantage of the opinion that encounters the Souls immortality
still the source and life of all motion though sinful for body alone cannot sin nor any way can it be guilty but as the Souls body The Soul then is All Thus it is now in the Resurrection it will be much more so when the body is so drawn up into the state of the mind that the mind hath no opportunity to be carnal in it and with it because it hath no longer such a low body as this for even the bodies of miserable Spirits are in this part so refined that the Soul can have none of its carnal delights in them which it had in these In that space of time then between death and the Resurrection the Soul must needs be no less compleat in it self for though it hath a fitness in it to animate a body yet that is as unnecessary to its absolute perfection as Gods actual Creation and Government of the world was to his power and wisdom whereby he created and governs and although at the Resurrection it appears in a body again yet this is from the ordination of God to set a beauty upon the visible Creation in which he will then fully display that part of his glory in the glorious body of his Son and Saints conformed to him and set out his justice and wrath visibly also in the dusky bodies of those that rise to everlasting shame and contempt That the Soul thus separated from the body is thus perfect I argue from that expression of our Saviour that they which are accounted worthy to obtain Luc. 20. 35. that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like and equal to the Angels so that though the Soul hath a power to act order and guide the motions of such a body as it is joined to now yet they are no way necessary to its true perfection for its highest state of perfection even in body is without the exercise of such acts viz. in the Resurrection And further they that are equal to the Angels have no more need of a body than the Angels have that is not as to themselves or their own perfection but only to serve the order of Divine Wisdom in the various disposition of the Creation a body and a body suited to this free and exalted state of the Soul is given to them Further The perfection of the separated Soul may be argued from the Apostles discourse of the state of immortality immediately entred into as soon as ever the weak and cumbersome Tabernacle of Earth is dissolved Through the gracious provision of God the Soul is invested with life and immortality and all the blessedness and entertainment of Heaven as the most natural receptacle and becoming robes of good Spirits without which they would be naked and Souls not so received but left naked of that blessedness are immediately shrowded in blackness and darkness hellish blackness and darkness For though Souls are indeed determined by the righteous judiciary appointment of God each sort to their own place yet the natures of these things themselves are so wisely contrived as fairly to comply therewith so that holy Souls uncloathed become Spirits Divine heavenly and blessed but Souls unpurged as soon become dark hellish and miserable Now that happy Souls immediately upon leaving the body enter into such a state is very plain in that they desire earnestly this state but if for want of bodies they lay asleep or if being nothing but body the whole man should lye so long in the earth as till the Resurrection it were a much worse state than the present for the time might be much better improved in the World than in the Grave and there would be no reason to groan for so long and dark an interval instead of a life of Grace converse with God and doing good in the world which is the life of holy men It may indeed be said It is safer every way to be laid up in the Grave and more quiet and this interval is not felt nor perceived in the dust but a thousand years seem as short as an hour now this is so far from an answer that it tends to subvert the great principle of a future life for ten thousand Ages and an everlasting duration beyond could as little be perceived There can be no complaint that so many Ages of duration were run out before men which lay out of life came into it nor can there be any sense of the want of life where it was never had and in like manner there can be none by them that are quite gone out of life But if this way of reasoning were good it might be as well for good men if there were no Resurrection at all for they that are thus muffled up cannot make any appeals to God for nor so much as know there is reason to desire a Resurrection nor resent the want of it and so would have no loss But if good men suffer loss in this total suppression of life they must suffer proportionably in those huge spaces of death the Saints of God dying in the beginning of the world have already and are still to lye under till the end of the world Further This silence and interval of life is equal as to the case we are now speaking of to Not Being and seems so to obliterate all the former state and the good or evil done in it as to acquit and discharge it as if it had never been to those whose actions are so quite broken off and so perfectly forgotten by themselves It is therefore certainly most agreeable to Reason as well as Scripture there should be at least a continuation of that sense and understanding we had of our actions in this world when we are passed out of it whether in relation to happiness or misery that all should not begin anew in our acknowledgment of them and evil men that have been some thousands of years out of Being as men should yet be forced to own those things they did so long ago having also been so many other things since in the various shapes the matter of their Bodies may easily have been supposed to pass into and in which they may have deserved better or at least been more innocent and harmless and if there be nothing higher than that matter tuned to rational motion as men of this opinion suppose we may easily allow an expiation may have been made by that same matter for the offences committed while it made up such a man in the innocency or better demeanour of it self in some other state into which it removed afterward and so on the other side the matter that hath been virtuous while it was such a man may afterwards come to be debauched in its future disguises and so a demerit of its former worthy performances ensue and thus body not be found by either sort of men such as they left it So unreasonable are these Hypotheses that are set up
the weaker or by the forcibleness of outward impression upon one or more of the ingredients a dissolution of that composure is brought to pass The Heavens and heavenly Bodies being purer and more uncompounded have stood so many Ages with so little alteration A Spirit being simply and entirely it self can neither be forced asunder by feuds within it self nor by violence from without there being nothing in its substance to make any intestine War nor any thing weaker or stronger to subdue or be subdued and therefore it receives all strokes upon its whole self as an Anvile that is beaten closer and more united by all the Hammers that fall upon it All the griefs and troubles and disquiets that rise up in it are only the crosses and counter motions and actions of its sentiments and apprehensions yea the very dismal falls of Divine Displeasure upon it do but awaken and stir up sad and grievous apprehensions in it but do not in the least touch the essence or substance of the Soul to weaken it This is that death the only death of the Soul that it is capable of a darkness in the loss of that Beauty and excellency of holy motion and in the deprivation of happiness and blessedness the favour of God a loss of its perfection without any diminution of Being And though it be now in the Body and seems to be lost in the ruines of that yet it is indeed so perfectly it self so separable in its nature from the Body as I have already discours'd at large so distinct and complete in it self that it is only acquitted from that in death not at all altered or changed in its substantial self So then this simplicity of the Soul witnesses the Immortality of its nature and that it cannot be dissolved like the things of this world that consist in the union of several things that conspire and meet together and afterwards flye asunder but the Soul hath nothing to lose or part from but its whole self being one simple thing One All and All One there can be no dissolution Nay the things of this world although they are several things united and made up so into one as several things can be and when those several things flye asunder that one thing is dissolved yet because the parts still continue to be they become something else for there can be no annihilation or bringing things back to nothing but by the omnipotency that created them so that all the death and dissolution that is in whole nature is but only a continual flux and reflux a perpetual passing out of one shape figure nature into another which because things love to be as they are look for the present like death perishing and the decay of the world it self although the composition for that time being is only brought to ruine and although the parts it may be are meliorated made more beautiful and advanced as when a Vessel of Silver designed for baser use is broken to pieces purged in the Refiners fire and then made a Vessel of honour and the materials of a meaner and decayed Building taken down and laid into a nobler Structure yet while this is doing it hath the appearance of spoil and destruction whereas indeed all even to the very Fragments is gathered up that nothing may be lost not so much as the filth of the Vessel or the dust of the Building We may then thus far derive from lower Nature what may make the Immortality of the Soul an easier Notion to us For we see It is the twisting things together with such unequal strengths of the Parts in motion one against another and the liableness of those Parts to the impression of Forreign Motion that let in the Mortality and Frailty that is in worldly Things that so by the prevalency sometimes of one thing sometimes of another there might be those continual Changes and Vicissitudes that God hath appointed for Purposes most agreeable to the greatness and mysteriousness of his most wise Government and Providence But the simpler and more self any thing is the more hardly it is altered till we come to that which is call'd First Matter and Motion which in the abstract Notion of them and as they are by themselves cannot be chang'd or lost but by annihilation For that we call First Matter or Matter as we understand it unimpress'd by Form or Particular Nature though as it is in Particular Nature it by always dying out of one Shape Figure Nature into another is yet so immortal in it self that it cannot it self perish but by annihilation And that Motion which is us'd by God for the twirling this Matter into so many several Forms and is perpetually flitting from one part of it to another and is even driven and expuls'd by the Contrasts it hath with it self as it is in those several parts of Matter from one to another cannot yet be spent in the Sum or any Degree of it be abated in the Total These two because thus abstracted they are perfectly and intirely themselves have thus much of Immortality that they never take End till an End is put to them by Almighty Efficiency But Matter is laid by God and so lies as a Foundation of his Works that cannot be removed and Motion is the Instrument he hath prepared for the management of those his Works and these in their simple selves have no Jars within nor cannot be touched by any extern Hand but as they are in composition undergo those several Changes and hasten out of the posture into another as it pleased God being still the same in themselves For all that Matter can be squeez'd into is Matter and all that Motion can be overcome into is Motion and so they will be till they are disannull'd by God And thus the Soul it s own Substance it s own Motion receiving both from God in its very Being and so being all Self as an unshaken Rock or First Matter bears and lies under all the disposes of God and as highest Life turns every way with subserves his admirable Administrations upon it self which are all in Righteousness Holiness Justice and Mercy This Spirit I say lies under all possible Impressions that can be made on a Soul and yet it is a Soul still it is always the same It is always the same as to its Essence and cannot be so altered or changed as to become another Thing It must be it self or it must be nothing and all Action upon it can but provoke it to Intellectual Action So it is found and so it is left by every thing that comes near it except God should come to make a final Determination upon its Being There is no change upon the Substance of a Spirit but Annihilation The State and Condition and Quality of it may be chang'd from Good to Evil from Evil to Good from Happiness to Misery from Misery to Happiness the very Being remains unalterable while it is The onely way
turns them for Creation Conservation or the Change of Things as he pleases What is his Favour or Displeasure but the highest Efficacies of Kindness or Severity of Joy unspeakable and full of Glory or of weeping and wailing without all ease or remedy How do all Spirits Good and Holy cast their Crowns before him and laud him with eternal Acknowledgments of both their Being and Happiness to his Grace and Goodness and Acclamations to his Praise And that Stream from himself that feeds with Being and Spirituality those so unhappy and wretched Spirits deposed from their Glory and Perfection necessitates them to survive the Instances of his Justice and Holiness to the admiration and everlasting wonderment of the Blessed yet with profoundest Reverence of unstain'd Holiness and their own astonishment and horror without end 2. If the Soul is a Being so excellent how foul is Sin that defiles it like a Poyson that presently darkens a Diamond or infects the very Beams of the Sun or soils the Light We should ever resist Temptations to sin with the sad consideration of defiling so excellent and immortal a Spirit 3. It shews how excellent the Price must be that redeems such a Spirit Great is the Redemption of the Soul by Christ the Renovation of the Soul by the Holy Spirit 4. We should consider this Spirit that though now it is enclos'd in the Body yet seeing it is prepar'd to much higher and more excellent motion it must burst out it cannot be always held it must have a freedom that it may expatiate it self Else so great Powers having so little Action now must have been prepar'd in vain 5. We should meditate much upon this great Character of a Spirit It cannot die It is so it-self that it cannot die It s very Being is Intellect Life and Motion so that it cannot cease to live except it cease to be God who alone hath power over it hath design'd it to be for ever and fram'd it for perpetuity and so that it can have no Adversary of its Life or Being It is so separate from all things else that nothing of Body can come near its Essence or Life What Sword or Fire can cut off or consume Thought much less the Soul the Original or Spring of it What most subtle thing in Nature can destroy the Affection of Love or Fear much less so attaque the Judgment or Reason as forcibly to suppress them They can kill the Body but they have no more that they can do No created Spirit how principal soever can come near the Being of the lowest orbed Soul thus to touch it Sathan the great Enemy of Spirits knows this so hopeless an attempt as never once to plot it All his intendments against Humane Spirits are onely to sway them to Evil and so precipitate them into Misery but yet they cannot be master'd by the highest Archangel so much as in the Government of themselves except they surrender and betray their own Absoluteness One Spirit may imprint Thought upon another offer Argument endeavour to induce Affection but the Soul is at its own choice for acceptation and whether it accept or not its Being is still the same its Power of Self-reservation the same so double-guarded is the Soul in this great Privilege of being It self Guarded in its Essence or Life guarded in its Liberty and Freedom which argues it a Being of greatest account Now in that it must always live Holiness and Happiness the enjoyment pleasure and perfection of its Life are with greatest earnestness and upon greatest necessity to be sought Sin and Misery such a degradation of its Life that the Scripture calls them Death are by all means to be avoided and escaped from And seeing it hath a Secret of its own Freedom that no Spiritual Principality or Power can enter into or invade it can onely charge its Ruine upon it self But in the Supreme Spirit God himself is all its strength who perpetuates his first Inspiration maintains its Immunities guides its Motions aright when it had lost it self redeems it from that great Enemy-Spirit by his Son the Lover and great Friend of Souls governs it by his own Holy and Good Spirit and is the Happiness and Glory of it for ever Oh the care that is due to such a Soul as this A care due from it self to it self yet miserably neglected by it self in its true self for it self as engag'd in a Body out of which it is yet always hasting and leaves it in death it self being in greatest danger of a death exceedingly worse though of another nature in the bringing about of which the malice of Hell is always busie and employ'd chusing that as a much higher effect of its spite and cruelty than Annihilation if it had been within the Power of Devils to turn a Soul into nothing 6. Lastly What unspeakable Sentiments of Happiness or Misery doth a self-moving a self-communicating Spirit enter into when it enters into its own place For there it meets those immense Objects God his Favour or Displeasure the true appearances of Sin and Holiness the General Assembly of Spirits happy and miserable with their universal and endless Condition It self appearing to it self in its full extent of Nature Duration and Relation to all these Now its self-motion and self-communication which are its very Being and therefore perfect in its own native Element are active to the highest Self-motion turns it every way with unutterable swiftness upon these Objects and Self-communication makes all its own converts unintermittingly all its Observations upon them into most beatifying or afflictive Resentments according to the Order it stands in to those Objects of Happiness or Misery Two principal Accounts of the Soul of Man are now dispatch'd the first of Invisible Beings the second of the Nature of a Spirit in which I laid down for a Ground That the Right apprehension of the Divine Nature and Being is the Key of the Knowledge of Mans Soul As therefore I endeavour'd to explain those two Points by it so I come now more fully to pursue the Resemblance the Soul of Man hath with God and in this next place to speak of it in the Potency Force and Excellency of its Being and Faculties first taking occasion to make this industrious Reflexion upon the Souls likeness to God It is an usual Observation That every Creature resembles God in that very regard that it hath a Being however obscure it be and the more any Creature advances in Being the clearer the Representation of God till the Scale of Creatures leads us up to those that God hath exalted into the nearest likeness to himself that Created Natures are capable of and these are Rational Spirits Angels and Souls of Men of which Angels are a higher Order and at greater Freedom being out of Bodies and the Souls of Men a lower Order being under the disadvantage of Bodies yet in themselves like to God and like to Angels Now it is the Privilege