have assured you of a future life of Retribution Is not this a just progress § 3. But you would know a Definition of the Soul But do you know nothing but by Definitions Are all men that cannot define therefore void of all knowledg You know not at all what seeing is or what light is or what feeling smelling tasting hearing is what sound or odor is what sweet or bitter nor what thinking or knowing or willing or loving is if you know it not before defining tell you and better than bare defining can ever tell you Every vital faculty hath a self-perception in its acting which is an eminent sense Intuition also of outward sensible Objects or immediate perception of them as sensata imaginata is before all Argument and Definition or reasoning action By seeing we perceive that we see and by understanding we perceive that we understand I dare say That you know the Acts of your own Soul by acting tho when you come to reasoning or defining you say you know not what they are You can give no definition what substance is or Ens at least much less what God is And yet what is more certain than that there is Substance Entity and God § 4. But I 'le tell you what the Soul of man is It is a Vital Intellectual Volitive Spirit animating a humane organized Body When it is separated it is not formally a Soul but a Spirit still § 5. Qu. But what is such a mental Spirit It is a most pure Substance whose form is a Power or Virtue of Vital Action Intellection and Volition three in one § 6. I. Are you not certain of all these Acts viz. That you Act vitally understand and will If not you are not sure that you see that you doubt that you wrote to me or that you are any thing II. If you act these it is certain that you have the power of so acting For nothing doth that which it cannot do III. It is certain that it is a Substance which hath this power For nothing can do nothing IV. It is evident that it is not the visible Body as composed of Earth Water and Air which is this mental Substance Neither any one of them nor all together have Life Understandâ—â—g or Will They are passive Beings and act not at all of themselves but as acted by invisible Powers They have an aggregative inclination to Union and no other Were it not for the Igneous Nature which is active or for Spirits they would be cessant Therefore you are thus far past the dark That there is in man an Invisible Substance which hath yea which is a Power or Virtue of Vital Action Intellection and Volition V. And that this Active Power is a distinct thing from meer Passive Power or mobilitie per aliud Experience puts past doubt There is in every living thing a Power or Virtue of self-moving else Life were not Life VI. And that this is not a meer accident of the Soul but its essential form I have proved so fully in my Methodus Theologiae in a peculiar Disputation that I will not here repeat it It 's evident That even in the igneous Substance the Vis Motiva Illuminativa Calefactiva is more than an accident even its essential form But were it otherwise it would but follow That if the very accidental Acts or qualities of a Soul be so noble its essential must be greater VII But it is certain That neither Souls nor any thing have either Being Power or Action but in constant receptive dependence on the continued emanation of the prime Cause and so no Inviduation is a total separation from him or an Independence or a self-sufficiency Thus far natural light tells you what Souls are § 7. You add your self That those attainments which you were made capable of you were designed to Very right God maketh not such noble Faculties or Capacities in vain much less to engage all men to a life of duty which shall prove deceit and misery But you have Faculties capable of thinking of God as your Beginning Guide and End as your Maker Ruler and Benefactor and of studying your duty to him in hope of Reward and of thinking what will become of you after Death and of hoping for future Blessedness and fearing future Misery all which no Bruit was ever capable of Therefore God designed you to such ends which you are thus capable of § 8. You say p. 3. Many have defended the Souls Immortality but none have proved a Subject capable of a life of Retribution It 's a Contradiction to be immortal or rewarded and not to be a Subject capable For nothing hath no accidents Nothing hath that which it is not capable of haing § 9. You say None tell us what it is How many Score Volumes have told it us I have now briefly told you what it is You say To say it is that by which I reason is not satisfactory I look for a Definition But on Condition you look not to see or feel it as you do Trees or Stones you may be satisfied I have given you a Definition The Genus is Substantia purissima the Differentia is Virtus Vitalis Activa Intellectiva Volitiva trinum a Imago Creatoris What 's here wanting to a Definition I have told you That there is an antecedent more certain Perception than by Definition by which I know that I see hear taste am and by which the Soul in act is conscious of it self § 10. You ask 1. Is it a real Being Answ I told you Nothing can do nothing 2. Is it really different from the Body Answ A Substance which hath in it self an Essential Principle of Life Intellection and Volition and that which hath not are really different Try whether you can make a Body feel or understand without a Soul 2. Those that are seperable are really different 3. You ask Is it able to be without it Answ What should hinder it The Body made not the Soul A viler Substance giveth not being to a nobler 2. Nothing at all can be without continued Divine sustentation But we see Juxta naturam God annihilateth no Substance Changes are but by composition and separation and action but not by annihilation An Atome of Earth or Water is not annihilated and why should we suspect that a Spiritual Substance is Yea the contrary is fully evident tho God is able to annihilate all things § 11. You say If it be meerly material and differ from the Body but gradually Death may be but its concentration of this active Principle in its own Body Answ If you understand your own words it 's well 1. Do you know what material signifieth See Crakenthorp's Metaphysicks and he will tell you in part it 's an ambiguous word Sometime it signifieth the same as substantia and so Souls are material Sometime it signifieth only that sort of Substance which is called corporeal Dr. More tells you That Penetrability and Indivisibility
life after this The Body hath more parts than Earth and Water The Spirits as we call them which are the igneous parts lodged in the purest aereal in the blood c. are that body in and by which the Soul doth operate on the rest How much of these material Spirits the Soul may retain with it after Death we know not and if it have such a body it hath partly the same and God can make what Addition he please which shall not contradict identity Paul saith of Corn God giveth it a body as pleaseth him in some respect the same c. in some not the same that was sown We do not hold That all the flesh that ever a man had shall be raised as that mans If one man that was fat grow lean in his sickness we do not say that all the flesh that sickness wasted shall rise It shall rise a spiritual body God knoweth that which you and I know not § 35. You add how easie it would have been to you to believe as the Church believeth and not to have immerged your self in these difficulties Ans 1. The Church is nothing but all individual Christians and it is their Belief which makes them capable of being of the Church As we must be men in order of Nature before we are a Kingdom of men so we are Believers before we are a Church of Believers A Kingdom or Policy maketh us not men but is made of men and Church-society or Policy maketh us not Believers but is made up of Believers Therefore Belief is first and is not caused by that which followeth it And why doth the Church believe Is it because they believe And whom do they believe Is it themselves I doubt you have fallen into acquaintance with those whose Interest hath made it their Trade to puzzle and confound men about things as hard to themselves as others that they may bring them to trust the Church and then tell them that it 's they that are that Church as a necessary means to the quieting their minds And they tell them You are never able by reason to comprehend the mysteries of Faith the more you search the more you are confounded But if you believe as the Church believeth you shall speed as the Church speedeth But it 's one thing to believe the same thing which the Church believeth and another to believe it with the same faith and upon the same Authority If a man believe all the Articles of the Creed only because men tell him that they are true it is but a human Faith as resting only on mans Authority but the true Members of the Church believe all the same things because God revealeth and attesteth them and this is a Divine Faith And so must you If you love light more than darkness and deceit distinguish 1. Believing men for Authority 2. Believing men for their Honesty 3. Believing men for the natural impossibility of their deceiving And the foundation of this difference is here Mans Soul hath two sorts of acts Necessary and Contingent or mutably free To love our selves to be unwilling to be miserable and willing to be happy to love God as good if known c. are acts of the Soul as necessary as for fire to burn combustible contiguous matter or for a Bruit to eat so that all the Testimonies which is produced by these necessary acts by knowing men hath a Physical certainty the contrary being impossible And this is infallible historical knowledg of matter of fact Thus we know there is such a City as Rome Paris Venice c. and that there was such a man as K. James Ed. 6. Hen. 8. William the Conqueror c. And that the Statutes now ascribed to Ed. 3. and other Kings and their Parliaments are genuine For Judges judge by them Lawyers plead them Kings own them all men hold their Estates and Lives by them Contrary mens Interest by Lawyers are daily pleaded by them against each other and if any one would deny forge or corrupt a Statute Interest would engage the rest against him to detect his fraud 1. The certain effect of natural necessary Causes hath natural necessary evidence of Truth But when all knowing men of contrary Dispositions and Interests acknowledg a thing true this is the effect of natural necessary Causes Ergo it hath natural necessary evidence of Truth 2. It is impossible there should be an Effect without a sufficient Cause But that a thing should be false which all knowing men of contrary Dispositions and Interests acknowledg to be true would be an Effect without a Cause for there is no Cause in nature to effect it It is impossible in nature that all men in England should agree to say There was a King James K. Edward Q. Mary or that these Statutes were made by them if it were false This is infallible Historical Testimony It were not so strong if it were only by one Party and not by Enemies also or men of contrary Minds and Interests And thus we know the History of the Gospel and this Tradition is naturally infallible II. But all the Testimony which dependeth on humane Acts not necessary but free have but an uncertain moral humane Credibility For so all men are Lyars i. e. fallible and not fully to be trusted And I. Those Testimonies which depend on mens Honesty are no farther credible than we know the Honesty of the men which in some is great in some is none in most is mixt and lubricous and doubtful Alas what abundance of false History is in the world Who can trust the Honesty of such men as multitudes of Popes Prelates and Priests have been Will they stick at a Lye that stick not at Blood or any wickedness Besides the ignorance which invalidates their Testimony II. And to pretend Authority to rule our Faith is the most unsatisfactory way of all For before you can believe that Jesus is the Christ and his Word true how many impossibilities have you to believe 1. You must believe that Christ hath a Church 2. And hath authorized them to determine what is to be believed before you believe that he is Christ 3. You must know who they be whom you must believe whether all or some or a major vote Whether out of all the world or a party 4. And how far their Authority extendeth Whether to judg whether there be a God or no God a Christ or no Christ a Heaven or none a Gospel or none or what 5. And how their determinations out of all the world may come with certainty to us and where to find them 6. And when Countreys and Councils contradict and condemn each other which is to be believed Many such impossibilities in the Roman way must be believed before a man can believe that Jesus is the Christ In a word you must not puzzle your head to know what a man is or whether he have an immortal soul but you must 1. believe the Church
things moved by God some having a created Life and mind and some none what needs then any further proof § 31. But if you hold That we have now distinct Spirits which are individual Substances why should you fear the loss of our individuation any more than our annihilation or specifick alteration If God made as many substantial individual Souls as men is there any thing in Nature or Scripture which threatneth the loss of Individuation I have shewed you and shall further shew you enough against it § 32. You say page 7. Every thing returneth to its element and loseth its individuatiou Earth to Earth Water to the Sea the Spirit to God that gave it What happiness then can we hope for more than deliverance from the present calamity or what misery are we capable of more than is common to all Ans 1. Bodies lose but their Composition and Spiritual forms Do you think that any Atome loseth its individuation If it be still divisible in partes infinitas it is infinite And if every Atome be infinite it is as much or more than all the world and so is no part of the world and so there would be as many Worlds or Infinites as Atomes It is but an aggregative motion which you mention Birds of a Feather will flock together and yet are Individuals still Do you think any dust or drop any Atome of Earth or Water loseth any thing of it self by its union with the rest Is any Substance lost Is the simple Nature changed Is it not Earth and Water still Is not the Haecceity as they call it continued Doth not God know every dust and every drop from the rest Can he not separate them when he will And if Nature in all things tend to aggregation or union it is then the Perfection of everything And why should we fear Perfection 2. But Earth and Water and Air are partible matter Earth is easily separable The parts of Water more hardly by the means of some terrene Separaror The parts of Air yet more hardly and the Sun-beams or substance of fire yet harder than that tho it's contraction and effects are very different And Spirits either yet harder or not at all Some make it essential to them to be indiscerptible and all must say That there is nothing in the Nature of them tending to division or separation And therefore tho God who can annihilate them can divide them into parts if it be no Contradiction yet it will never be because he useth every thing according to its nature till he cometh to miracles Therefore their dissoluâ—ion of parts is no more to be feared than their annihilation 3. But if you take Souls to be partible and unible then you must suppose every part to have still its own existence in the whole And do you think that this doth not more advance Souls than abase them Yea you seem to Deifie them while you make them all to return into God as drops into the Sea And if you feign God to be partible is it not more honour and joy to be a part of God who is joy it self than to be a created Soul If a thousand Candles were put out and their light turned into one Luminary as great as they all every part would have its share in the enlightning of the place about it Is it any loss to a single Soldier to become part of a victorious Army 4. But indeed this is too high a Glory for the Soul of man to desire or hope for It is enough to have a blessed union with Christ and the holy Society consistent with our Individuation Like will to like and yet be it self Rivers go to the Sea and not to the Earth Earth turns to Earth and not to the Sun or Fire And the holy and blessed go to the holy and blessed And I believe that their union will be nearer than we can now well conceive or than this selfish state of man desireth But as every drop in the Sea is the same Water it was so every Soul will be the same Soul 2. And as to the incapacity of misery which you talk of why should you think it more hereafter than here If you think all Souls now to be but one doth not an aking Tooth or a gouty Foot or a calculous Bladder suffer pain tho it be not the body that feeleth but the same sensitive Soul is pain'd in one part and pleas'd in another And if all Souls be now but God in divers Bodies or the Anima mundi try if you can comfort a man under the torment of the Stone or other Malady or on the Rack or in terror of Conscience by telling him That his Soul is a part of God Will this make a Captive bear his Captivity or a Malefactor his Death If not here why should you think that their misery hereafter will be ever the less or more tolerable for your conceit that they are parts of God They will be no more parts of him then than they were here But it 's like that they also will have an uniting inclination even to such as themselves or that God will separate them from all true unity and say Go you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels c. § 33. No doubt it 's true that you say page 7 and 8. That matter is still the same and liable to all the changes which you mention But it 's an unchanged God who doth all this by Spirits as second Causes who are not of such a changeable dissoluble partible nature as Bodies are It is Spirits that do all that 's done in the world And I conjecture as well as you That universal Spirits are universal Causes I suppose That this Earth hath a vegitative form which maketh it as a matrix to receive the Seeds and the more active influx of the Sun But Earth and Sun are but general Causes Only God and the seminal Virtue cause the species as such The Sun causeth every Plant to grow but it causeth not the difference between the Rose and the Nettle and the Oak The wonderful unsearchable Virtue of the Seed causeth that And if you would know that Virtue you must know it by the effects You cannot tell by the Seed only of a Rose a Vine an Oak what is in it But when you see the Plants in ripeness you may see that the Seeds had a specifying Virtue by the influx of the general Cause to bring forth those Plants Flowers c. Neither can you know what is in the Egg but by the ripe Bird nor what the Soul of an Infant is but by Manhood and its Acts. § 34. You here pag. 7. divert from the point of the Immortality or Nature of the Soul to that of the Resurrection of the Body of which I will now say but this Christ rose and hath promised us a Resurrection and nothing is difficult to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oft signifieth our living another
THE NATURE AND IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL PROVED In Answer to one who professed perplexing Doubtfulness By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed for B. Simons at the Three Golden Cocks at the West End of St. Pauls 1682. SIR I Have Reason to judg you no Stranger to such Addresses as these and therefore have adventured more boldly to apply my self to you Others would it may be rigedly censure this Attempt but your more Christian Temper will induce you I hope to judg more charitably did you but understand with what reluctancy I undertook this task I have had many Disputes with my self whether or no I should stifle these Doubts or seek Satisfaction Shame to own such Principles bid me do the first but the weight of the Concern obliged me to the last For I could not with any chearfulness or with that vigor I thought did become me pursue those unseen Substances those Objects of Faith Religion holds forth except I did really believe their existence and my own capacity of enjoyning them I thought at first to satisfie my self in the certainty of the things I did believe to confirm and establish my Faith by these Studies that I might be able to render a Reason of the hope that is in me but instead of building up I am shaken and instead of a clearer evidence I am invironed with uncertainties Unhappy that I am I had better have taken all upon Trust could I so have satisfied my Reason than thus to have involved my self in an endless Study For such I am afraid it will prove without help for that I may not in this Concern rest without satisfaction and yet the more I consider and weigh things the more are my doubts multiplied I call them only doubts not to palliate any opinions for I have not yet espoused any but because they have not yet attained so much maturity or strength as to take me off those things my doubts being satisfied I should conclude of indispensable necessity they are but yet in the Womb assist to make them Abortives I have not been wanting to my self but in the use of all means to me known have sought satisfaction both by Prayer Reading and Meditation I have weighed and consulted things according to my Capacity I have been as faithful to my self in all my reasonings as I could and void of prejudice have passed impartial Censures on the things in debate so far as that light I have would enable me and what to do more I know not except this course I now take prove effectual you inclining to assist me that I know have studied these things My request to you therefore is If your more publick Studies will permit you That you would condescend to satisfie me in the Particulars I shall mention I assure you I have no other design but to know the Truth which in things of such moment certainly cannot be difficult tho to my unfurnished Head they have proved so I hope my shaking may prove my establishment That I may therefore put you to as little trouble as I can I will first tell you what I do believe and then what I stick at First therefore I do really believe and am very well satisfied That there is a God or a first Cause that hath created all things and given to every thing its Being For I am not acquainted with any independent Being I know not any thing that is able to subsist without the Contribution of its Fellow-Creatures I am conscious to my self when sickness invades me and death summons my Compound to a dissolution I can do nothing to the preservation of the Being I enjoy And if I cannot preserve my self as I am much less could I make my self what I am For when I was nothing I could do nothing And Experience and Sense tells me As it is with me so it is with others as there is none can preserve their Beings so there is none could acquire to themselves the Being they have and if none then not the first man And indeed that was it I enquired after from whence every species had at first their Beings the way how and means by which they are continued I know not any Cause of the Being of any thing of which again I may not enquire the Cause and so from Cause to Cause till through a multitude of Causes I necessarily arrive at the first Cause of all Causes a Being wholly uncaused and without Cause except what it was unto it self My next Enquiry was into my self and my next business to find what Concern I have with my Creator which I knew no better way to attain than by searching the bounds of humane Capacity For I concluded it reasonable to judg those attainments I was capable of in my Creation I was designed for Now if man is nothing more than what is visible or may be made so by Anatomy or Pharmacy he is no Subject capable of enjoying or loving God nor consequently of a life of Retrobution In this Enquiry I found Man consisted of something visible and invisible the Body which is visible and something else that invisibly actuates the same For I have seen the Body the visible part of man when the invisible either through indisposition of its Orgains or its self or being expelled its Mansion hath ceased to act I speak as one in doubt the Body hath been left to outward appearance the same it was yet really void of Sense and wholly debilitated of all power to act But then what this invisible is what to conclude of it I know not Here I am at a stand and in a Labyrinth without a Clue For I find no help any where Many have I acknowledg defended the Souls Immortality but none have proved the existence of such a Being and a life of Retrobution and that copiously enough but none have proved a Subject capable of it I know all our Superior Faculties and Actings are usually attributed to the Soul but what it is in man they call so they tell us not To say it is that by which I reason or that now dictates to me what I write is not satisfactory For I look for a definition and such an one as may not to ought else be appropriated Is it therefore a real Being really different from the Body and able to be without it or is it not If not whatever it be I matter not If it be is it a pure Spirit or meerly material If meerly material and different only from the Body gradually and in some few degrees of subtilty it is then a question whether or not that we call Death and suppose a separation of the Compound be not rather a Concentration of this active Principle in its own Body which through some indisposition of the whole or stoppage in its Orgains through gross Corporeity hath suffocated its actings If it be a pure Spirit I would then know what is meant by Spirit and whether or no all things invisible and imperceptable