patiently what they know they have deserved and there is no thanks or commendations to be expected for their so doing But if there happen to be much Truth in this Opinion he may add to his Patience Hope and some measure of Joyfulness For the Apostle there adds If ye do well and suffer for it patiently this is acceptable with God and Chap. 3.14 If ye suffer for the truth's sake happy are ye James 1.2 My brethren count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations viz. of this kind And so the Hebrews took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods which was perhaps a greater degree of Persecution Matth. 5.11 Blessed are ye when Men shall revile you and persecute you for the truth's sake But this measure of Joyfulness which belongs to a Reviling for Truth 's sake shall by the Observer be put off and deferred till the Point here in Question shall be more fully Examined and Discussed And therefore his Intention is to sit down with the Practice of our Lord's Rule In your patience possess ye your Souls without making any other return to these Elders or Ministers than by repeating to them the Motto of the Garter viz. HONI SO IT QVI MAL Y PENSE with Advice to remember our Lord 's own Prediction viz. With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again Altho' the Observer never intends to make them any Return of that nature Hence we proceed to the Treatise it self which Mr. M. has divided into Ten Chapters Upon each of which the Observer intends to make some short Observations That it may appear he has Perused and gone through them all Upon Chap. 1. p. 2. He observes That Mr. M. well understands the Powers Men may obtain by getting such an Ascendant over their Proselytes and attaining such an Esteem amongst them as that he may be able to Command their Understandings because perhaps he may say true That they themselves never knew how to use them Secondly p. 8. Mr. M. says many things concerning the Soul which the Observer agrees with him in Mutatis mutandis viz. by changing his Name of Soul into the Terms of the Rational Faculty or Mind of Man which has given vim Intelligendi Volendi cum Angelis and yet be Acted by such Materials as God has Appointed and Formed in Man for those Purposes P. 9 Mr. M. says The Soul of Man was Redeemed by the Sufferings of Christ By which he seems plainly to intend Such a Soul as is Intelligent in it self had once a Being separate from the Body is during Life conjoin'd to the Body and after Death shall Live Act and Suffer in a State of Separation from the Body And then the Observer utterly denies the truth of his Proposition and says The true End of Christ's Coming into the World was to Save Sinners the Persons of them both Souls and Bodies It is an usual Practice of the Scripture both in the Old and New Testament to intend and design the Humane Person by the Term and Name of Soul and the same is also sometimes done by the Name of Body though nothing so often And this is done by the common Synecdoche of Pars pro toto For the Proof of which two Instances of each kind are here intended to be produced First Gen. 3.7 God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living Soul The Observer Asserts That Soul in this Place must intend the Person of Adam and be so understood as if it had been said Man became a Living Person It has been commonly supposed to intend That the Breath which God breathed into Adam's Nostrils became a Living Soul But this surmise is plainly Confuted by the Grammatical Construction of it For the Words which would have suited to that intent should have run thus God breathed into his Nostrils the Breath of Life and that or it viz That Breath became a Living Soul But Moses was so cautious in this Point that he chose to use something of a Tautology in this Place rather than that his Readers should be so mistaken in his meaning He says God made man and breathed into his nostrils the breath of Life and man became a living soul or Person He would not suffer them to think That Breath became a Living Soul but prevents that Conceit by saying That it was the Man that became the Living Soul or Person Whence this Observer concludes That by the Soul in this Place the Person of Adam was somewhat clearly intended by this Great Prophet and Law-giver of the Jews His next Quotation for this use shall be Isaiah 53.10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin He shall see his seed and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand The Observer says That by Soul in this Place must needs be intended the Person of Christ whose Body as well as Soul was made an Offering for Sin that was bound Whipt Buffetted Spit upon Crowned with Thorns Loaded with his Cross Nailed to it and Expir'd upon it to obtain Redemption for Sinners and the whole Race of Mankind Whence he concludes That by Soul in this Place Is intended the whole Person of Christ as well Body as Soul He proceeds in two like Instances for the Body The 1st He takes from Heb. 10.5 Sacrifice and offerings thou would'st not but a Body hast thou prepared me ver 7. Lo I come to do thy will O God ver 10. By the which Will we are Sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all The Observer saies By the Word and Term of Body in this Place is intended the whole Person of Christ whose Soul was sorrowful even unto Death and his Mind and Intellects so afflicted as to wring Drops of Blond out of his Body and reduce him to that bitter Exclamation upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me All which do sufficiently Prove That by the Word Body in this Text the whole Person of Christ is comprehended and intended His next Text is Luke 12.4 where the Words are Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do He saies That the Word Body in this Text must needs intend the Person or whole Compositum of Body and Soul for that a Body without a Soul is Dead and therefore cannot be Killed By which Instances and Arguments he thinks it well Prov'd That though the Redemption be called of the Soul in divers Texts of the Scripture yet all those Places do intend the Redemption of the Person and that there never was any such Redemption intended or performed as Mr. M. has in this Page Asserted viz. Of the bare naked Soul separated from the Body asbefore has been Collected and Specified Hence we proceed to his Second Chapter
Chap. II p. 14. Mr. M. saies That a Soul made of corruptible perishing Matter is not fit to be called an Image of the Immortal God But the Observer saies That Man made as he is of corruptible perishing Matter was yet made after the Image of God and is so accounted to continue at this Day and for that Purpose He has join'd the Soul and Body together in a strict Union which cannot be Dissolved but by Death P. 15 Mr. M. saies That the Reasonable Soul was Created after the Image of God Which the Observer denies and saies That the Reasonable Soul is but one Constituent Part of the Man and his Body is the other that the Soul therefore is not the Man any more than a Part can be equal to the Whole and that it was the Man that was made after the Image of God and not any other Part or Parcel of that Compositum And Mr. M. goes on here and calls that which Moses calls the Breath of Life the Spirit of Life Which difference perhaps the Hebrew may bear as the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does in that Language He saies of this Spirit or Breath That it was Created by God at Adam 's Creation Which is more than Moses's Text does Warrant him to say For the Text of Gen. speaks of no other Creation there than that of the Man without saying that God then Created either the Spirit or the Breath nor is there any other Creation there spoken of save that of the Man The rest he passes as the Invention of Mr. M. who like some other Scholars may desire an Enterprize to be better than his Book In this Chap. he has Collected many Texts of Scripture which seem to maintain his Assertion amongst which there is nothing new to this Observer save the great use he pretends to make of St. Paul's Rapture which he sets down p. 17. from whence he pretends to Prove That St. Paul conceiv'd his Soul was really divisible from his Body and capable of a Subsistence without it As if he agreed with Dr. Moor's Opinion who Teaches That the Humane Soul may and sometime does forsake its Body and wander about in the Airy Region and other Parts of the World and make its return to the Body again at convenient times or upon some sudden Occasions But the Observer denies That St. Paul was of any such Opinion and takes the sense of St Paul's Words in the body or out of the body to be no other but that he was wrapt up into the third Heaven and there saw and heard as perfectly and distinctly as if he had done it with his Bodily Organs and remember'd it as well So that he could not certainly know whether these Bodily Organs were imploy'd in that Rapture or not or whether that Vision was only a Rapture or Extasy of his Mind We find a parallel Place to this in the History of the Kings where Micaiah the Prophet saies to Ahab I saw the Lord sitting upon his Throne and all the host of Heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left And there further relates what he heard and saw in that Vision And it is thereupon probable That he was not certainly knowing whether it was made in his whole Person of Soul and Body or whether it was only a Rapture and Extasy of his Mind and Intellect He thinks this Case very like that of St. Paul's and that the Words of his Rapture must prove exceeding weakly the separate Subsistence of Souls after Death Amongst all the Texts of Scripture he has Quoted there is no more than one which clearly maintains his Assertion viz. that of St. Matth. 10.28 Cited by him p. 17. Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul These Words the Observer grants do with clearness Prove That Souls may have a separate Subsistence after the Death of the Person And therefore he will take upon him here memoriter Collecting the Summ and Substance of that which he has said more at large in his fore-mentioned Treatise upon this Subject Where in opposition to the force of this Text he Quotes Luk. 12.4 where the Words of our Lord are Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but fear him who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell The Observer believes That these two Texts of Matth. and Luke do intend to relate one same Fact and Doctrine of our Saviour And this Text of St. Luke does not prove That Souls have a separate Subsistence after the Death of the Body nor make any mention of the Soul at all And that upon these two Texts the Question must needs arise Which of them have truly related the Expressions which our Lord us'd at the delivering of this Doctrine Upon which Question may be considered the Persons and Qualities of these two Writers St. Matthew was indeed an Apostle but his former Profession and Practice was that of a Publican an Office very hateful to those of the Jewish Nation and so much that no Person of Quality would undertake it nor willingly Converse with those that Practis'd it And hence the Observer Collects He was not likely to be furnished with any great stock of Humane Learning but might easily be carried away by the common Opinion of that Time believing the Humane Soul was Immortal and capable of Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body and that therefore he might and probably did deliver this Part of our Saviour's Doctrine in Words and Terms suiting his Conceptions of the Things And that on the contrary St. Luke was a Knowing and Learned Physician and wrote from the Mouth of St. Paul who was the most Knowing and Learned amongst all the Apostles and who it seems was not possessed with the Opinion of the Soul's Immortality or the separate Subsistence of it after the Death of the Person and therefore has delivered this Doctrine in Terms very different from those of St. Matthew and for the further strengthening of this Apprehension the Observer Quotes Matth. 21.1 where the Words are Jesus sent two Disciples saying go into the next village and there ye shall find an asse tied and a colt with her loose them and bring them unto me And they went accordingly and found the asse and the colt and brought them to Jesus and put on them their cloths and sat him thereon This Relation plainly Intends That they brought two Beasts to Jesus and set him upon them both at one time which is an unusual and very unlikely sort of Riding incongruously and somewhat untruly related For that the other three Evangelists are clearly against him in it for each of them relate this Fact of our Lord and mention but one Ass in the Case which truly was a Colt the Foal of an Ass And this Error of our Evangelist seems not a bare but a willing mistake for the
a great Naturalist viz. What kind of Matter or Thing is the Soul apart from the Body Where lies the Cogitation which she hath What doth she apart by her self without the assistance of Bodily Organs Mr. M. in this Chapter ascribes to his sort of Soul a great number and variety of Actions and Powers but he does not so much as affirm that any of them are Used or Acted without the assistance of the Bodily Organs P. 25. he ascribes Noble Faculties and Capacities to the Humane Soul which he does not say ever appear'd to the World saving in and by its Conjunction with the Body He saies The excellency of a Substance must be known by the Powers Radicated in it It seems he should first have proved or said something concerning the Substance of his Soul separated from the Body or that really there is such a Substance before he had ascribed such Excellencies to it The Observer ascribes all those Excellencies to the Person agreeing that they do belong especially to the Rational Faculty or Mind of Man which Mr. M. neither does nor can maintain to have a separate Subsistence after the Death of the Body P. 26. Mr. M. saies It is manifest that the Nature of the Soul is very vigorous and sprightly He should first have Proved That a Soul considered separate from the Body has a Nature and discovered something to us concerning it But he did well to forbear the pretending to that Performance which the Observer believes is far beyond his Ability but seeing he has not done it the Observer conceives That all his following Structure and Arguments proceed ex non concessis and therefore make no good Proof of those things which they have been alledged for But that all those things which he has ascribed to the Soul are really belonging to the Person but are principally Performed by the Rational Faculty or Mind of Man P. 27. Mr. M. saies When we are asleep the Soul is often at work in causing divers Dreams and Apprehensions in the Night And thus he ascribes to the Soul those Operations which properly belong to the Imaginations of Men and which never was known to proceed from a Soul separately considered Mr. M. says further That a Philosopher thought That Men's Dreaming when asleep was an intimation that they should Live when Dead Which Thought is here past by the Observer for a Philosopher's Dream P. 28. Mr. M. saies It is evident from his Collections here That the nature of the Soul is very active Whereas it does not yet appear That the Soul has any Nature at all if it shall be separately considered from the Body He saies further That the vigour of the Mind in dying Persons appears sometimes as strong or rather stronger than it did in their better health This Case the Observer thinks to be very rare and that when it happens it may reasonably be ascribed to such Obstructions as hinder the passage of those Spirits to and through the other Parts of the Body which forces them to a close and more full residence in and about the Brain than in their former State they us'd to have P. 29 Mr. M. saies That when the E. of Rochester was very near his End his Body very weak in all the other Parts of it his Reason and Judgment was still so strong and clear as that be became thereby more strongly perswaded of the Soul's Immortality To which the Observer Replies That the Earl might possibly be mistaken as well in the strength of his Reason and Judgment as in that of his Soul's Immortality He might have a better Opinion of his Reason and Judgment at that time than perhaps there was cause for but if that Opinion of his was true The Observer saies That the Spirits might then be more plentiful in his Brain because they had little Employment in the other Parts of his Body and because they are better preserved in the Head from all assaults of Nature by the strength and fortification of the Dura mater and the Pia mater and the strong Efforts of Nature to preserve the Head for whose Defence the other Members of Man's Body are apt and ready to expose themselves P. 30. Mr. M. saies That the Vnderstanding is a very Noble Faculty eager in its pursuits after Knowledge And then goes on to Prove this by divers Instances but without any need for his so doing because all that he has said here agrees well with the Observer's Opinion and is not opposed by him P. 13 Mr. M. asks What it is that compounds and divides things at pleasure and raises invented Beings of them The Observer Answers It is the Imagination of Man He makes several Demands What it is produces several like Effects Answered It is the Mind of Man or his Rational Faculty which dies and perishes with the Person P. 32 M. M. saies here That there is a difference betwixt Man's Imagination and his Vnderstanding Which the Observer thinks consists more in Terms and Notions suited to Men's Conceptions and Discourses than in the essential or real Differences amongst the Things or Powers He saies further That the Imagination is jaded and tired Which the Observer takes liberty to deny For that if the Eye can be satisfied with Seeing or the Ear with Hearing yet the Imagination is never tired with Conceiving or Thinking in general although it may be glutted with Thinking very long of one Subject P. 33. Mr. M. goes on here to magnify the Power of Humane Understanding from many Topicks all which it seems conduce little to the Proof of this Point for that in all this he never observes or affirms That it Acts in any thing separated from the Body nor without the assistance of Bodily Organs nor has any Man ever affirmed nor does himself say That the Humane Understanding survives after the Death of the Person Mr. M. saies further That Men cannot imagine that a little Wheat-meal in two or three Days should become capable of Mathematical Speculations By which Words it appears clearly to the Understanding of the Observer That Mr. M. is very much mistaken in the State and Case of this Argument For the Observer has never said intended or maintained That Wheat-meal in Two or Three Days time or at any time is or can be capable of understanding any thing at all and it shews want of ordinary Apprehension in Mr. M. if he ever has or does now conceive there was such an Error in that Pamphlet which he undertakes to Answer And therefore to clear up the Clouds of his Understanding in this Point The Observer will take pains to inform him That the State of the Case in this Question stands thus He conceives and affirms That God Created the Body of Man and put it into such a State of Perfection so filled with Blond and Humour and set them into such a State of Pullulation and Fermentation that the Steems thence arising became fit and capable of being tinded and
Procreation of a Body Mr. M. and his Aids reject the very true way of producing Mankind viz. That of Generation being convinced that whatsoever is Generated grows decays and is corruptible Orig. Sacr. P. 432. our Learned Bishop says Nothing in the World produced by Generation can be incorruptible To avoid therefore this Rock of producing the Soul by Generation tho' it be never so true Pherecydes the Invenrer of the Immaterial Opinion with his Scholars and Successors Pythagoras and Plato and those who came after them pretended another sort of Original of the Soul The more Ancient held That Mens Souls did Pre-exist long before they came into the several Bodies and had been Existent in a former World before the present World and for Offences given to God in their former Stations they were Doomed to inhabit Bodies of Clay in this World sometimes of Men and sometimes of Beasts as a Purgatorial Punishment upon them that they liv'd in such Bodies as in Cages and Prisons desiring continually to be delivered from them and to escape thence into the open Air. But the latter and Christian Platonists amongst whom some of the Fathers say They Believ'd That God at the Creation of the World made a vast number of Humane Souls enough by coming going and removing to Actuate and Inhabit all such Humane Bodies as should after be Generated in the World and that all Mens Souls are still of that Pre-existent Nature But Mr. M. and his present Aids upon divers inconveniencies found in this Opinion have utterly rejected this sort of Original of Humane Souls and give themselves up to maintain this sort of Original of them viz. The Opinion of God's new Creation of a Soul for every new Procreation of a Humane Body be the same never so foul and Beastly in Adultery Incest or the Conjunction of Men with Beasts If the Product fall out to be of Humane shape God say they is ready at every such Procreation to make and does Create a new clean and spotless Said to Actuate and Inhabit such a newly Procreated Body The Observer hereupon conceives That all Creations are the Miraculous Works of God! They do not tell us whether their sort of Creation be out of Matter or Ex nihilo but which soever of those ways it be it is however a Miraculous Work of God And by this course such Miracles must be multiplied continually over the Face of the whose Earth and through the Minutes of Time which pass through the Ages of it Another Miracle necessary for the maintenance of the Immaterial Doctrine and flowing from such new Creation of Souls is this That these new Created Pure Innocent Souls are put thrust or cast into the Seminal Matter not exceeding perhaps the bigness of a Nutt derived and coming from the Loins of Adam and tinctured like an unsavory Cask with a foul Ingredient of Original Sin This unhappy Intelligent Spirit presently infected with that abominable Poyson and going on to increase in Conjunction with such a Body is by no Natural force able to shake off this Deplorable Corruption but it goes on increasing together with the Body and the Soul till they both together Taste deeply the ill Effects of it in this Life and when separated this at first Pure and Innocent Soul in the Natural Course of it falls or is carried to be a Companion of Devils and a fellow-sufferer in the Torments of Hell And this is a second Miracle necessary for the maintenance of the Soul's Immortality They are both of them extremely improbable and very little agreeable with the Goodness and Glory of God To these a Third Immaterial Doctrine shall be added necessary for the maintenance of that opinion viz. That Souls of Dying Persons go immediately before God and receive a a Judgment and Doom from him within a short time after their Deaths The Observer has said in his larger Treatise and repeats it here in this Place That if the Immaterialists can by Reason or Scripture make a clear Proof of any one of these Three Tenets which are all necessary for the maintenance of their Doctrine viz. Of this new Creation of Souls This sort of infecting them with Original Sin Or that there is an intermediate Judgment betwixt Mens Deaths and the Resurrection If they can make a good clear Proof of any one of these Points from Reason and Scripture or from either of them the Observer will be ready to submit to their Judgment in the main Point of the Immortality P. 72 Mr. M. saies The knowledge of the Spirits above us must arise from the knowledge of our own Souls The Observer denies this Assertion and saies That the knowledge of Superiour Spirits has two other Originals viz. Sensation and Revelation and we do plainly know and perceive more concerning Immaterial Spirits by the effects of their Operations and such Revelations as the Scripture makes of them than either is Revealed to us or can be perceived by us of such an Immaterial Spirit as Mr. M. pretends to be in us Mr. M. saies further That the knowledge of our own Souls must necessarily go before the knowledge of God The Observer saies That both by Reason and Revelation we may and do attain to a more large knowledge of God and a greater certainty of his Being and Actions than Men yet ever have had or are ever likely to have of the Immaterial Intelligent Soul of Man P. 73. Mr. M. Quotes a saying of Epicurus That God is not angry or pleased with any Men. Which he says is a Notion more befitting Sardanapalus than a Deity This Comment of Mr. M. upon his Quotation speaks him in the Observer's Judgment a Man of a narrow Capacity and therefore he will endeavour to inlarge his Thoughts upon this Subject It passes for an accepted Rule That if the Words of a Speaker or Writer may fairly and easily be taken in a good Sense it is a sign of ill Nature at least to take them in a bad one To understand the Words of Epicurus both in a true and a good Sense Men must reflect with great Observation upon such an Idea as the Scriptures have Revealed and Reason Teaches to Believe concerning the Being of God Job 23.3 O that I knew where I might find God he works round about me but I cannot perceive him with what words shall one speak of him Surely if one speak of him he that doth so shall even be swallowed up and confounded We cannot order our Words concerning him nor have we an Order of Words that can reach him He has no particular Faculties Powers or Parts but being One and entire is All in One. Concerning him Job 40.5 once have I spoken but I will not Answer yea twice but I will proceed no further This Transcendent Immensity having no Parts contained in no Place affected with no Time touched with no Passion filling and in himself containing all Places and Things Guiding without Care Working without Labour Commanding without
of them which if this vile Railer cannot or do not produce the Observer hopes he will pass among his Readers for a false Slanderer and Condemner of the Innocent P. 123. He talks of turning our Eyes in upon our Souls The Observer demands of him whether he ever did so and that he will tell the World what evidence of his Soul follow'd upon his so doing It seems just none at all or else he 's very faulty in not declaring the same to the World He says That as the Soul is separated from the Body by Death so in Contemplations we must abstract it from Corporeal Commerce The Observer says This must needs pass for Gibberish and Nonsense with one who denies the Subsistence of Souls in a State of separation from the Bodies Here he Quotes Pythagoras pretending Men shou'd desire Death That their Souls might be delivered from the Prisons of their Bodies and some in those times kill'd themselves that their Souls might the sooner obtain their Liberty And thus this apprehension became a Doctrine of Devils and it seems the present Opposer now thinks it cannot well be maintained without the Practice of Devils viz. lying and slandering P. 124. He says Their Bodies are an hinderance to them in searching after Truth The Observer says Souls can make no Searches after Truth at all nor do any other Thing without their Bodies nor can he or any other Man prove That they ever did so or can do so He says After Death and not before the Soul will subsist without the Body Here he denies what some of his Partakers affirm That the Soul sometimes wanders from the Body and after some time returns to it again But all with a great probability of Falshood both in the one case and in the other It seems he matters not how meanly he begs the Question when he utter'd his last Position as it were ex Cathedra pronouncing that as an undoubted Truth which he well knows his Opponent fully denies and how weakly himself has offered at the poof of it P. 126. He says further That if men follow the practice of a good Life they will soon be convinced that their Souls are Immortal and not such earthly material Things as you are ready to imagine The Observer Replies That the Evidences of a good Life are well known to himself and as evident to the World as any thing Mr. M. can produce for himself and yet he does not find himself the more perswaded of the Truth of the Soul's Immortality nor believes it ever the whit the more for the false Suppositions and Pretensions which are made for it by Mr. M. in this Treatise But rather is confirmed in the contrary Opinion by those deceitful and false Courses which the Opponent is driven to use for the support and maintenance of his Opinion P. 127. The Opposer speaks Of Divine Raptures and Anticipations of the Soul's Immortality while they are in this World All which the Observer thinks to be as well founded as Castles in the Air which are only Products of Phantasie and vanish with the meer change of the Apprehension The Adversary says further That if your Phantasie be right placed you will be apt to acknowledge the Natural Image of the Deity which is antecedent to the Knowledge of God The Observer Answers That the Image of God in Man is not in any single Part or Portion of him but that the whole Man is the only Image of God for that in the Image of God made he Man without any more respect to his Soul than his Body which are both together the wonderful Work of God and so great a Wonder to Immortalists as they can by no means believe That God has Wisdom and Power enough to produce Sense and Understanding in the Humane Person by the Energy and Activity of Material Spirits but that of necessity he must be driven to use the subservience of an immaterial Intelligent Spirit for those purposes And this shall be left upon them as a very gross Mistake and Error of their Minds Our Adversary says further That there are a World of Spirits Malignant and such at seek the ruin of mankind and carry on a Warfare against God and his Interest and Religion in the World That such Spirits there are the Observer does not deny and that prompted by the malignity of their own Natures they carry on a War against true Religion and the Happiness of Man he grants but that they do War against the Interest of God or can do it he confidently denys and says That they have no power to act or effect any thing without the Permission License or Direction of that Omnipotent Being known to us by the Name and Term of God The Adversary says Those Spirits know well enough that the Souls of men are Immortal Cujus Contrarium the Observer says est verum and saith farther The Evil Spirits take no pains at all to destroy the Soul but the Man of whose contexture the Soul is but Part and such a Part as extinguishes at the Death of the Person P. 128. The Adversary says you may read from divers Authors there named that there are good Spirits which watch over Men for their guidance and preservation The Observer says This needs no Proof from his named Authors for that the Scriptures do testifie abundantly for the Truth of it P. 129. The Adversary discourses concerning Apparitions of dead Persons and delivers divers Historical Relations upon that Subject The Observer does not deny That divers such like Apparitions may have been jussu aut permissu superiorum and that such Apparitions have taken upon them the Image or likeness of the dead Persons But he places all that sort of Apparitions to the account of inferior separate Spirits ready to execute what shall be appointed them in that kind What is in this Place quoted out of Baronius the Observer imputes either to meer Invention or otherwise conceives it to have been a lying Relation of one of those Malignant Spirits What he relates there from Glanvil concerning a Major and a Captain may better pass for a Truth because the tenor of it agrees with what the Observer has before said concerning such Things who always Establish'd That such Apparitions are not acted by the Souls of Men already dead but by inferiour separate Spirits subsisting by themselves and which never were united to the Persons of Men. P. 130. The Adversary says Men may find nobler things in the World than Matter and Motion to entertain themselves with This Assertion the Observer thinks to savour strongly of Ignorance and Falsehood especially because he mentions no Particulars of such Things of which he ought to have given some Instances and for want thereof the Observer concludes him true to his Principles of Boldness and Ignorance He quotes here the Names of Authors as Plato Plotinus Epictetus Cicero Senecae Antoninus which it is likely may have drawn him to the Belief of the Soul's
sorts of Souls Quod quid unde quando ubi quomodo quo in none of which Points they ever yet came to an agreed Resolution nor can they make any tolerable Demonstration concerning any one of those Quaeries that may give a Reasonable Satisfaction to a diligent Enquirer after them He says That if his Soul had not been hindred by vicious Courses it wou'd have mounted aloft into a purer Region Which Doctrine is pure Platonick and Heathenish not proveable in any Part of Scripture or Dictate of Reason The Parable of Dives says Lazarus was carried by Angels into a Place of Rest intending likely his Person but clearly he was carried and did not mount aloft of himself into any more pure Region He speaks of a Relation we have to a World of Spirits whither we are going The Observer denies we have any Relation to those Spirits after our Deaths or that any of us go to them or have a Subsistence amongst them Whence the Adversary shou'd better have proved what he here delivers or have been less magisterial and positive in the Delivery of it P. 159 He advises Men to think they do but dream of Afflictions Sufferings and Pains when they lie under them and are sensible of them This way of amusing himself the Observer thinks is fallen upon the Advers whilst he sits musing and inventing with himself concerning the Being Nature and Actions of his immortal Soul For if he conceive Men may imagine real Pains and Sufferings but to be Dreams well may his Imaginations concerning Immortal Souls be reputed Dreams by those who nearly and impartially shall examine them P. 160 He speaks still of Adversity and Prosperity as if they were but Parts of a Dream Which Opinion really is yet a most manifest Error and which he shall never be able to perswade intelligent Persons to consent to He speaks of our Arrival at the invisible World of Realities which it seems he believes but as if we was in a Dream which the Observer conceives he has been in during the greatest Part of that Time wherein he wrote this Treatise First he has dream'd That there is such a Soul in Man as is an Intelligent Spirit and shall subsist in a State of Separation after the Death of the Body And that after its Departure out of the Body it shall go to an invisible World of Realities to abide among them Where or how he neither does nor can tell but he still dreams forward That his Soul and those of whom he has a good Opinion shall be in some sort of Happiness but what sort of Happiness himself yet is no way resolv'd whether in Heaven Abraham's Bosome or in the Air or in Alcinous's Garden the Fortunate Islands or the Elysium Fields or that with the Americans they shall live dancing and singing beyond certain high Mountains or in Mahomet's Paradise shall sit by Rivers of Milk Honey Oil and Wine and fulfil their lustful Appetites as often as they please Take all these sorts of States of Souls after Death they are all but Dreams of a suitable sort and Nature fit Subjects for Men of Fancy to be employ'd about And to such Pleasing Imaginations the Adversary shall be left whilst the Observer sets up his Rest upon what the Scripture teaches plainly and proves concerning the Resurrection of the Dead and last final Judgment and a blessed or cursed State after them finding by divers clear Natural Experiments That the Life of Man is maintained by Blood and Breath and acted by the inflamed Particles of Blood call'd the Spirits which must daily be renew'd and refresh'd with Nourishment and Rest that when these are spent the Person languishes and decays and when they are restor'd and refresh'd the Person is vivid and active If Nourishment fail or the Breath be stopp'd the Person dies beyond all Remedy and the total Extinguishment of that Flame of Life which is nourish'd in the Blood is the Death of the Person and cannot be rekindled in it by less than a Divine Power who first kindled and tinded it in the Body of our Grand-father Adam And the same Death which dissolves the Contexture between the Soul and the Body destroys the Persons of Men as well as the Contextures of Beasts without any other Difference between them save that of the Resurrection This is foretold promis'd and threaten'd to Mankind and the World of Humane Persons without that there are any such Prophecies Promises and Threatnings deliver'd concerning the Beasts and therefore David rightly calls them the Beasts that perish utterly And as by natural Experience we find that maintains the Life of Man so if we search into the Beginning of his Nature and Composition ab ovo as Men use to speak we may find one Man do's not less perfectly beget another than a Horse or any other Animal begets Creatures of a like Species with themselves There passes a Vital Principle in their several Seeds which being coagulated in loco idoneo proceed to a Fermentation and being there fomented in their proper Receptacles they arise and grow by degrees to a Vegetation This Vital Spirit still operating in the Mass now vegetated it proceeds to the Formation of the several Parts and Organs of the Body extending and spreading it self throughout the whole Mass and therein working till all the Parts and Organs of the Body are fully form'd and perfected And thence this Vital Spirit proceeds to the Production of Sense in the newly form'd Embryon which perfected it brings with it into the World the two fore-named Faculties of Vegetation and Sense which remain with the new-born Infant as its only proper Powers for some time after its Arrival in the World till that by degrees the Bodily Organs become so dilated and strengthened and the Spirits of the Blood so vivid and active that they produce in the Infant some low degrees of Thinking and Knowledge such as we find in the Brutes what Diet pleases them and to distinguish such for their Friends as give them Food Ease and Pleasure and to avoid such Things and Persons as are terrible and strange to them And thus they live and grow till their Bodily Organs encrease and grow in Capacity and Strength till the Stomack Liver and other sanguificial Parts are able more strongly to concoct the Nourishment and to prepare and rectifie the Blood to a higher Degree of Purity and Vigour And thence the Spirits ascending to the Brain and finding there the Organs or Instruments still more enlarged and apter to perform the Duties of the Rational Faculty they act therein to such Purposes as God has there appointed and ordained to be performed And thus the Vital Spirits and Bodily Organs proceed and grow together until they both obtain their Perfection of Degrees such Blood and Spirits acting throughout the whole Body and in every Parcel and Member of it those Powers and Activities which the great Artificer intended them for And by the Continuity and active Motions
kindled by the fanning of a competent Breath or Wind which God caus'd to be Breathed into him or according to the usual Expression God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life This Breath tinded the fresh Steems of the Bloud and Humour and kindled in Adam the Flame of Life And that was continued and maintained in his Body by the continual fanning of that Breath of Life And whensoever that Breath is stopped such Flame must needs be extinguished and that Extinguishment is the very Death of the Person Now tho' this gentle Flame when the Body is well conditioned is not uritory but lambent yet thereby and by continual Motion of the pure Bloud which Daily supplies inflamed Spirits for Actuating and Enlivening the several Parts of the Humane Body upon that account it suffers a considerable and Daily waste and consumption for supply of which a little Wheat-meal or something of that Nature is often required and Daily necessary Our Daily Experience teaches us that an active and lively Spirit may be Extracted from a Decoction of the Grains of Wheat or Malt or Flesh or any like sorts of Nourishment which by Comminution is fitted for a more easie Concoction after which the fitting result is converted into Chyle and that after is changed into Bloud and is then sent up to the Heart for a Purification and thence departing is fanned and made glowing by the Breath and those inflamed Particles pass up through the Arteries into the Head and Brain where meeting with Organs prepared by God for that purpose they cause and maintain such Life Power and Activity as are suitable to those Purposes for which God at the first Created and Intended them And by such their Motion Activity and Energy amongst those Capital Organs are produced the Affectionate Sensitive Perceptive Imaginative Estemative Memorative and Voluntary Powers and Faculties of the Humane Head or Brain And such Stock of Spirits as are found redundant in that Receptacle descend from thence by the Nerves and are by them Communicated to every Part and Member of the Body to which they Communicate Life Sense and Motion but no understanding because there are no other Organs in the Body capacitated for that Performance but only in the Head These Spirits and the Bloud of which they are formed give Life Strength and Motion to every Part and Member of the Body and therefore are called Vital Spirits and yet these Spirits and the Bloud out of which they are formed have neither Sense nor Life For if a Vein be opened and the fresh Bloud be suffer'd to spurt into the Fire neither the Blood nor the Party will be sensible of Pain by the so doing Whence it appears That these Bloud and Spirits cause that Sense and Life in the Body which they themselves have not when separated from it And the like we say for the Inflamed Spirits which ascend up to the Head and actuate the Organs there found We say that the Kephaline Organs deprived of such Spirits are not intelligent but a dead and stupid Matter And that the Inflamed Spirits though of great Metle and Activity are neither Intellective nor Sensitive but that by acting the Kephaline Organs they cause and produce Life Sense Reason and Activity in the Person and thereby are performed such Actions and they produce such effects as God intended should commonly be produced in the Persons of Men. And this may be much illustrated and proved by an Argument a Simily taken from the Structure of a Musical Organ the Fabrick of which consists of a great number of Pipes well ordered and put together every of which Pipes is made to render a Singular and Particular Sound of Treble Mean Tenor or Bass All which together well Constituted and rightly Ordered by the Skill of the Artificer imployed by an Active Hand send forth such Pleasing and Harmonious Sounds as are both delightful and admirable to the Considerate Hearers and yet all this Fabrick is but a dead and stupid Matter and can do nothing of it self without being supplied with a suitable Spirit from another Agent the Bellows But upon receiving from thence a suitable Breath or Spirit for putting all its Powers and Capacities into Action it makes the most excellent Harmony of any Instrument in the World which is a Proceeding well known unto Men by daily Experience and whereby it clearly appears That the Fabrick of the Organ by it self or the Inspiring Breath or Wind of the Bellows can make no Musical Sound at all but are each of them singly utterly incompetent for that purpose The Wind proceeding from the Bellows has no such Sound in it self but by entring into the Pipes and acting them receives such a Modulation and Conformation of Sounds as the Artificer who made the Organ intended should be produced And by this Simily it plainly appears That neither the Wind by it self nor the Fabrick of the Organ by it self can perform any part of that Harmony which by the Design of the Artificer was intended to be effected So as the Wind coming from the Bellows which has no Sound at all does by its Passage into the Fabrick and Pipes thereof and the acting of them produce Sounds so melodious as affect the considerate Hearers with Delight and Wonder And now the Observer does apply this Simile to Teach and Demonstrate the great Art and Skill shewn by the great Artificer of the World in contriving the Body and especially the Head of Man in such wonderful manner as it might be continually Enlivened and Acted by such a Material Spirit as he intended for it to be continually supplied from the Bloud which was also to be supplied by Daily Nourishment provided by God and given to Man for that purpose and was always to be fanned and thereby continued in a lasting Flame so long as the Life of the Person should endure This Similitude Proves That a Material Spirit Acting in fit Organs may produce such Operations as the Spirit alone or the Organs alone have not the like Capacity to Perform quae non prosunt singula juncta juvant The inflamed Spirits of Bloud have neither Affections Senses nor Intellect nor have the Kephaline Organs these Powers of or by themselves but the Spirit Acting those Organs as the Wind does in the Organ-Pipes there is produced in both the Fabricks in Statu Composito by those Powers and Faculties so Acted that which is in no measure is found in the Constituent Parts of such a Compositum considered in a State of Separation from one another And upon this whole Discourse the Observer thinks it very clear That Mr. M. either did not understand the Intent of that Pamphlet he pretends to Answer and the Forms of Expressions there used or else he intended to Impose upon his unwary Readers and Ridicule them by his witty Expression here used If the former he seems thereby Convicted of great Ignorance and Mis-apprehension if the latter it seems he Disingenuously intended to
Affections and Passions and to keep or bring them within that Compass and Order which they may desire to do And the odds seems to be at least Forty to One on the side of the Affections and Passions against the Forces and Powers of the Rational Intellect So as the Observer cannot discover that Monarchical and Regent Power in Man's Intellect which Mr. M. pretends to be there But rather conceives That the Powers of the Intellect and Reason in Man are Co-ordinate with the Powers of Sense and Affection and have not such a Command over them as Mr. M. supposes because these Faculties are always in Contention one with another from the Cradle to the Grave and are seldom if ever totally Subjugated one of them to another Insomuch that Aristotle compares their Struglings to a Game at Ball where sometimes one side prevails sometimes the other so as that no Man can guess with certainty whether Party shall have the total Victory or Conquest till the last Stage of the Humane Life be run out and the last Scene thereof finished Whence the Observer concludes That the Powers of Sense and Intellect in Man are Co-ordinate and adds that both of them are ready to submit to the Vegetative Power against the Inclinations and Desires of them both when the great Occasions and pressing Necessities of the Microcosm do so require And from all these Premises he concludes That there is no such Monarchical or Regent Power in the Microcosm as Mr. M. has surmised nor such an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit as he has pretended But that the Bodily Organs and especially those of the Head and Brain are so fitly made suited and ordered by their Great Artificer and are so apt for the Execution of those Offices for which they were Ordained that all those Effects may be perfectly produced amongst them by the Intervention and Energy of the Superfine yet Material Unintelligent Spirits of the Blood And consequently Mr. M's Arguments on this Topick are not sufficient to maintain his part of the Question And for the account which he says is to be made for Mens misbehaving themselves in this World the Observer conceives That it can be truly expected at the last Judgment only as he thinks Dr. Sherlock in his late Book well Proves And he does not remember or know there is any Scripture-Proof of an Intermediate Judgment between Death and the last Judgment but desires Mr. M's Directions for finding out some Scripture-Proof of that Point which is no other ways investigable or subject to a Rational Enquiry P. 44 Mr. M. saies That there is in the Soul or Mind of Man a natural apprehension of its own Immortality which the Observer saies he does not agree or grant but does conceive that Opinion to be no elder in the World than the time of Pherecydes as Mr. M. in this Treatise after affirms He saies That Pherecydes liv'd in the time of Cyrus the first Persian Monarch in the beginning of whose Reign the Jews return'd from their Babylonish Captivity and laid the Foundation of their second Temple And ' saies further That from the beginning of Genesis till that time we meet with no mention of the Soul's Immortality except Solomon's short Expression The Spirit returns to God who gave it The Books of Moses make no express mention of the Soul's Immortality or of any other Future State after Death which seems to the Observer a strong Argument that the Apprehension of the Soul's Immortality is not naturally grafted in the Minds of Men but acquired and raised from other Seeds which have been sown amongst them which from the time of Pherecydes spread that Opinion far and Wide over the Face of the whole Earth and was greedily received and cultivated amongst Men and was communicated also to the Weaker Sex So that Mothers and Nurses were able to Sow it in the tender Minds of Children from their first Infancies which Fathers and Tutors increas'd amongst their Children and Disciples till it became generally accepted amongst Men and spread it Pelf amongst all the World Error as it was In like manner as the Opinion of the Sun's Course about the Earth in Twenty four Hours was received Also as the Doctrine and Practice of Idolatry possess'd and overspread the World from the Time of the Flood untill the present Time Of the Ancient Practice thereof we read much and of our present Time we have certain evidence that it continues to be practised in India Tartary China Japan Africa and amongst the Gentiles of America and amongst the whole Grecian and Romish-Christian Churches So as by the Argument of Mr. M. It seems Men may as well conclude That the Doctrine and Practice of Idolatry is Natural to Mankind It is not the far spreading and long duration of an Opinion that can certainly Prove it to be Natural But that which is truly Natural must have been from the Beginning and have a continuance amongst Men so long as their Natural State shall endure as an Incident to the whole Kind and Race who attain to the common perfections of Parts and of Degrees as Effluxes of their Natural Constitutions Of which sort he does not conceive that any Opinion can be For Opinions in their Natures are mutable Naturalia non mutantur and therefore God did not leave Man to learn the Knowledge of himself from any Natural Power Instinct or Inclination But himself Instructed their First Father and divers others of his Progeny down to the Time of Noah and his Sons in the Knowledge and Fear of God And when these Rules became Obliterated in the general Race of Men he chose out Abraham from amongst them and communicated to him a greater measure of Knowledge concerning God and his Will than any Man since the time of Noah had received before him After which he Reveal'd to Moses many more Particulars concerning himself his Attributes and his Will Afterwards he declar'd the same to Samuel and after to all the Degrees of Prophets down to Zechary and Malachy And these Prophets have delivered many Revelations in their Books Amongst all which there is not one Sentence or Saying That the Soul of Man is Immortal except what may be Collected by Construction from the Fore-quoted Sentence of Solomon transiently delivered by him Whence it appears That this Opinion was not from the Beginning and therefore not Natural as Mr. M. supposes And if from hence we pass to the New Testament we find not in it any Text which saies The Soul of Man is Immortal It is true That St. Matthew's Cannot kill the soul seems somewhat strongly to infer the Soul's Subsistence in a State of Separation altho' it does not appear thereupon That our Lord did not principally intend to Teach the Nature of the Soul in that Place But concerning this Text we must refer to what has been before spoken with intent to diminish the Credit and Power of it The Parable of Dives agrees something with this Opinion but
we take it not for Proof because it was but a Parable spoken as we conceive to a quite other Intent and without Design to Teach any Thing concerning the State of Man after Death Neither of these two Texts do Assert positively the Soul's Immortality And there is not another Text in the New Testament which speaks with any manner of clearness concerning it But Men are forced first to Collect from them by Constructions and then to draw Inferences from such Collections for Proving their Opinion of the Soul 's Immortality When our Lord Discourses with Martha concerning her Dead Brother neither he nor she takes notice or makes mention of his Soul but pass that Particular as a Thing not known to them or deserving their particular Examination and yet they both Discourse of his Future State Our Lord saies Thy brother shall rise again She Replies I know he shall rise again at the Resurrection of the last day The Observer pretends by as good a Right as his Opposer does to Collect and Infer from this Discourse That neither of these Parties knew the Soul of Lazarus to be Immortal for that such Knowledge would have occasioned them to mention something concerning it in this Discourse And further the Observer saies That in all the rest of the New Testament there is no clear Mention or Declaration made concerning this supposed Truth nor is it any where so much as said The Soul of Man is Immortal How then can this Opinion pass for Natural amongst Men of common Understanding and Reading when it is so little mentioned and with so little certainty and so great obscurity throughout both the Books of the Old and New Testament And upon this Argument it shall be left to the Reader to conceive what he thinks fit concerning the Naturalness of this Opinion Mr. M. saies further That God Rules the World by the Force and Virtue of this Opinion of the Soul's Immortality To this the Observer Answers That if his Mind were set upon making sharp Returns here were a fair Field and a fit Occasion for putting that Design in Execution But he will here content himself with the abhorring the grosness of Mr. M's Opinion in it and to Attest against him That God makes no use at all of this Opinion in his Government of the World but grounds his Government of it upon his own Goodness Wisdom and Power without having any regard to the Opinions of Men whether they be True or False Mr M. saies God need not will not Rule the World in a way of Deceit The Observer agrees this Assertion and thence concludes That in such his Government he has no regard to this Opinion at all P. 45 Mr. M. says That the illiterate Vulgar who are guided by the meer simple Dictates of Nature have more impression of this great Truth than some of the Learned Which the Observer would have mended by altering it to many of the Learned and then he takes it for one of the truest Things which Mr. M. has said and applies to it the Old Rule which says That Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion The truth of which is well proved by the Effects it produces amongst the Romish Proselytes and those of other Sects and Parties in the Church P. 47. Mr. M. saies That the Author himself P. 15. of his mentioned Pamphlet saies That by Death the Man's Faculty of Thinking is certainly destroyed Yet elsewhere he speaks more dubiously viz. P. 3 11 12. of that Pamphlet Whence he pretends to Infer That the Minds of such Persons are always wavering and unsatisfied The Observer upon this Charge consulted his said Pamphlet in the 3 11 12 Pages before Quoted and found not in any of them any sort of Doubt concerning the Point before Quoted nor could others whom he employ'd to that purpose find there any Doubt upon that Point Which Proves Mr. M. in his last Quotations and that whatsoever he builds thereupon is a Fallacy And it seems doubtful whether this Mis-quoting were accidental or intentional because Mr. M. in some other Quotations has miscarryed accordingly viz. P. 23. of his Treatise where he Quotes Rev. 14.13 Reciting it in this manner Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord and their works do follow or rather accompany them Whereas the very Words of that Text are these Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Hence it appears That Mr. M. has altered this Text both by taking from it and adding to it He takes from it the Words That they may rest from their labour and adds to it the Words or rather accompany them Apparently intending to disguise the true Sense and meaning of it For the true Words themselves seem clearly to import That the Blessedness here intended was a resting from the Labours and Troubles of the World and that their Works do not accompany but follow them and that in due time viz. The Resurrection and Judgment they may be beneficial to them This Sense he pretends to pervert by turning that into Heavenly Enjoyment which the Text calls here a rest from their labours and making those Works accompany them which the Text saies do follow them And this he Designingly does with intent to maintain his side of the Argument beyond what the Truth or Text can allow of Likewise P. 75. he Quotes 1 Cor. 15.32 Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die The true Words of that Text are these If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus what advantageth it me if the dead rife not Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die Here Mr. M. suppresses the Words if the dead rise not and by that mutilation or falsification intends to make his Reader believe that St. Paul intended to declare That if the Soul was not Immortal Men might Eat and Drink and Die without any Hope or Fear of future Recompences after this Life Whereas the express Words of this Text and the whole Tenor of this Chapter do plainly declare That there shall be a Resurrection and do lay the whole Expatiation of future Recompences upon that Ground and the Promises of Christ declared in the Gospel concerning it without mentioning the Immortality of the Soul or taking any manner of notice of it So as in this Place Mr. M. has suppressed those words to which his quoted Expression is by the Speaker apply'd for which the Observer believes he deserves a sharp Censure and that however from the Mis-quotations before Cited his Readers ought to be wary how they confide upon his Fidelity in Cases of the like Nature in which they may do to trust him no farther than they see him or can search the Truth of what he delivers It being apparent he is so much possest with his Opinion of the Soul's Immortality than like the Bilious Eyes he has before mentioned he thinks he sees Arguments for it in those Places of
much in the Resurrection above the reach of Natural Reason The Observer saies the same concerning the Immortality of the Soul and further That it is not only above but also opposite to the Sensations of Man Mr. M. asks What must the poor Heathens do to whom the Resurrection has not been revealed Upon which the Observer asks What must such poor Heathens do to whom the Mystery of Christ's coming in the Flesh has not been Revealed P. 57 Mr. M. saies That the Immortality of the Soul was commonly and naturally known to Men. To this the Observer has spoken before and now adds a Request to Mr. M. That he would produce some Evidence of such Knowledge besides Solomon's short Saying before the time and Doctrine of Pherecydes or else he ought not to be believed That his Opinion has any thing of Natural in it Further Mr. M. here saies That the Observer world not be thought to deny That there are Immaterial Intelligent Spirits The Observer Answers That if he did deny them either in Word or in Thought he would not seek a Pretence to be thought not to deny them If he very much fear'd the Censures of Men's Opinions he would not as he now does maintain the Humane Soul's Materiality Mr. M. supposes as himself saies very unreasonably That the Observer does deny the being of a Superiority and Order in the Invisible World But therein Mr. M. is very much mistaken For that the Observer does Profess to Allow and Believe That there are great Differences and Degrees in the World of Intelligent Spirits the lowest of which are often conversant upon Earth and sometimes with the Inhabiters of it P. 58. Mr. M. saies There is something in Plants like Sense in Brutes like Reason and in Men like Spirits The Observer saies something like the Inferiour Intellectual Spirits viz. Apprehension Reason and Intellect which is as great a Participation with the lower Degree of separate Spirits as the Brutes have of the Rational or the Plants have of the Sensitive Nature The Observer further agrees with Mr. M's Metaphysical Author P. 59. Mr. M. Quotes the Observer's Saying concerning Dr. Moor and Mr. Baxter who say That the Souls of Brutes have separate Subsistence after the Death of their Bodies and there he saies That Dr. Willis did not think this Opinion merited the trouble of his Confutation And both there and here the Observer is of the same Judgment That this Opinion neither deserves or needs any other or further Refutation than the repugnancy which it will find in the common Sensations of every ordinary Reader except such only as can swallow and digest the Pythagorical Opinion of the Transmigrations of Souls Pythagoras was the Disciple of Pherecydes and from him receiv'd the Doctrine of the Soul's Immortality and rais'd out of it the Doctrine of the Metempsychosis Teaching from thence That the Soul 's of Men departed sometimes entred into Infants and sometimes into the Whelps and Cubs of Beasts and reciprocally That the Souls of Beasts Transmigrated into and Animated the Bodies of Humane Infants or of Beasts as it might happen to fall out To Pythagoras Plato succeeded and held also a Transmigration of Souls but more restrained then that of Pythagoras imagining That Souls of Men had in a former World been separate and Intelligent Spirits and that for their Offences then committed they were Doomed to Inhabit and Actuate Bodies of Clay in our present World in Nature of a Penalty and as means of Purgation of and for the Offences by them committed in the former World and that as soon as they were dislodged from one Person they must wait for opportunity to enter into another Person or Embryon of Mankind This Doctrine of Plato bounded the Transmigration of Souls within the Compass of Mankind excluding the Bestial Race from such a Communication with Men Concerning which Doctrine Mr. Lock Dict. Lib. fol. 189 saies Taking as we ordinarily now do the Humane Soul for an Immaterial Substance independent upon Matter there would be no Absurdity to suppose That the same Soul may at different times be united to different Bodies and in each make up a Man This Doctrine therefore of Transmigration of Souls from one Man to another seems to him a Rational Deduction from the Nature and Subsistence of such a Soul and accordingly the Opinion of such a Transmigration spread it self far and wide over the Face of the Earth so as the Christian Platonists accepted of it and Origen and some others of the Fathers were of that Opinion The Gallick and British Druides maintain'd it and the most gross part of it viz. The Transmigration Reciprocal from Man to Beasts is still believed among the Gentile Indians Tartarians Chineses and Japanners in our own Times grounding it upon the Opinion of the Soul 's compleat Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body The Observer saies That if he had to deal with such Men as these he would deal with them as with Dr. Moor and Mr. Baxter by endeavouring to perswade them and offering to them such Proofs as he could produce as he does to this present Opponent That the Soul of Man is not an Intelligent Substance nor capable of subsisting in a State of Separation from the Body and if thereof he should be able to Convince them that Conviction would be a sufficient and perfect Cure for all these Errors of theirs and all other like Opinions concerning the same He further saies The wiser and holier any Man is the more firmly he believes and rejoices in the Consideration of the Soul's Immortality Other Proof of this Assertion he gives none so that we have but his bare Word for it in the truth of which the Observer has no great Confidence and he believes That Mr. M. is therein much mistaken Mr. M. saies Men will not be perswaded that That Divine Goodness which has so often embraced them mill ever desert them But that God is Stronger than Death and more Powerful than the Grave and that they cannot believe That their Souls shall ever fall down into a Dead unactive State because they have been Irradiated by the Divine Light and Grace The Observer Answers Here are Two Assertions First they will not believe That God who has embraced them with his Goodness will ever desert them but that God will preserve and deliver them from the Grave This Assertion the Observer willingly grants The Second Saying is That Mens Souls can never fall down into a Dead unactive State This the Observer denies and saies That if by Souls he does not mean Persons his saying That they are irradiated by God's Grace in any sort or way abstracted or removed from the Body his Assertion here is Erroneous and Deceitful For that he never has Proved nor can Prove That God ever bestowed any thing upon a single Soul in a State of Separation from the Body But all his Graces and Favours Corrections and Punishments are applied to the Person
Mr. M. here seems to imitate an Old Father who us'd in his Oracles to mix Truth and Falshood together so that one of them might make passage for the other He has met indeed with a mean Scholar to whom he apply's the Term of Philosopher whom the Truth which he discovers in that Tenet enables to maintain the Affirmative of his latter Tenet viz. That the Extinguishment of the Soul is the Death of the Person But for the former part of it viz. That Man has every Week a a new Soul he lays and leaves it at M. M's own Door as an Imp and Product of his own Brain The Observer has sufficiently shown That his sort of Soul is always as much the same as a River or the Sea or Blood or Sap of a Tree are the same Tho' they are always in Motion and Alteration yet they continue always the same things the Supplies of them being of the self-same Nature of that which is spent or altered And Mr. M's Metaphysical Arguments to the contrary are but like the Scholars making Three Eggs out of Two and may well pass for parts of vain Philosophy which ought rather to be Condemned than Approved amongst Men and notwithstanding all the Daily Changes of this Soul mentioned by Mr. M. it is and ever will be as much the same as the Persons raised at the General Resurrection shall be so The Observer does not design to follow the Tract of searching into divers Modes of Vain Philosophy or Science falsly so called because Error est multiplex but rather to give Mr. M. and the Reader an Account what he thinks to be true Philosophy It begins with the Capacities of tender Age Teaching to Speak and Write truly their own Mother-Tongue and so to proceed in others especially the Learned Languages and this is commonly termed the Art of Grammar After which it Teaches to Speak and Write Elegantly Floridly Teachingly and Passionately and this is called the Art of Rhetorick From Words it proceeds to Teach the Arts of Things and Thinking to Form Notions or abstracted Ideas and to Divide Compare Compound Collect Propose and Infer also to direct distinct Places and Repositories for Things of different Natures and to rank them in fitting Orders for the support and assistance of the Memory and this Art is called Logick as directing the Mind in the Ordering and Disposition of Things Thence Men proceed to the Arts Mathematical of Arithmetick Geometry Astronomy and Harmony which help to fix Mens wandring Appetites and Notions to the Apprehension of known and certain Objects and the Comprehension of them Next we go on to the general Contemplation of Nature and all Things that have known and certain Beings in the World and this is called Physica and proceeds to examine the Nature both of Heaven and Earth the Heavenly Bodies and the four Elements and all their Inhabitants and things pertinent to them the divers sorts of Earth Minerals Metals and Stones So rising to the Surface of it and there examining the Grasses Herbs Flowers and Plants proceeding to the Insects Fishes Fowls Brutes and Men examining their formerly call'd Specifick Forms and Qualities lately changed for the Terms of Capacities and Powers without a great difference of their significations For the better effecting such Examinations Men Daily make the best use they can of their Sensations viz. of their Five Senses assisted as they must be by their Rational Faculties able and ready to Correct divers Mistakes which the Sensual Faculties are Naturally liable unto Thus Mens Senses furnish the Mind with suitable Objects for its Examination and searching Men make Tryal of them all and whatsoever belongs to them the Parts of which they are Composed the Causes and Effects of them their several manners of Working and whatsoever by their Senses can be found out concerning them They ponder and ruminate upon them and divide compare compound and collect from them frame Propositions concerning them and thence Infer as to themselves seems most Reasonable Then they communicate their Opinions to other Men whom they think capable of Judging in such Cases and Dispute and Argue the same with such Persons as their present Occasions may require sometimes extending such Conferences to Foreign Regions and far distant Places They examine the Traditions of their Fore-fathers and what our Ancestors have said and thought concerning them They Read and Study the Books which have been Written upon such Subjects from the earliest Times which they can attain unto and thus they Cultivate and Enrich their Understandings by storing up in their Written Collections and Memories the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge derived to them from the beginnings of Time and the most remote Parts of the Earth grounded upon the Testimonies of many Sensations and Experiments which do not easily or frequently deceive the Expectations of such as ground themselves upon them The Observer Designs to apply this to the Question now in Dispute and saies He had pass'd the 62d Year of his Age under the apprehension and belief of the Soul's Immortality and that then solitarily and unmoved by any Discourse or Writing the Consideration of this Question fell upon him He was Convinced or Perswaded by his Sensations That the Constitution of Man's Body was made up of Matter and Spirit as those of all other Sublunary Creatures were The Grass Flowers and Plants have Matter and Spirit which appears plainly to the searching Inquirers The Infects have Matter of a light and weak Composure and an Humour analogous to Blood and Spirit The Fishes are watry yet have some Blood and some of the greatest sorts of them have it in great quantities The Fowls are light and Airy their Matter being Flesh and Bones and their Spirits of Blood which some of their greatest sorts as Geese and Turkies have in considerable quantities The Matter and Spirits of Brutes are very well known amongst us and it is visible and palpable to us That the Life of them is in their Blood and that they never do nor can Live without it and that Breath is as necessary to them and upon the same reason that it is to Men. And Solomon Disputing upon this Question Ecclesiastes the 3d. speaks concerning the Similar Natures of Men and Beasts they are generated alike have need of a like Blood and Breath and their Bodies return to the like dust and who knows what difference there is concerning their Spirits He leaves that undetermined which is now the Subject of the present Question But that the Life of both is in the Blood Moses declares and Experience verifies For if one draw out of a Beast its whole Blood and at another Orifice let into its Body the Blood of another Beast sufficient for its repletion the latter Beast must Die by the loss of its Blood but the first Beast may Live by the newly received Blood and be affected with no perceivable harm by such a change And the same also befals Men If we let
and puts no difference between them in respect of humane Endeavours believing that which will gain the one will gain the other and what will lose the one will lose the other But he thinks the Resurrection to be far better proved more undoubted and certain than the Immortality is that therefore the first is founded upon a Rock and the other but upon Sand or bare Ground at the best And therefore he builds his Faith and relyance upon the Resurrection and believes concerning the Immortality That it is an Errour or a Possibility so uncertain as no Man reasonably shou'd relye upon it P. 114. Mr. M. says The best way to know that he Soul is Immortal is to keep its Noblest Faculties in due Exercise The Observer replys That he has endeavoured as much as in him lay so to do but found an Effect thereof quite contrary to Mr. M's Assertion viz. That the more he read labour'd and ponder'd thereupon the more he has been hitherto confirm'd in the Opinion of the Soul's Mortality and even the weak Arguments Mr. M. has produced in this Treatise of his for the Proof of the contrary have added some strength to that Opinion which he had before received as the Effect of his former Endeavours in this kind P. 115. Mr. M. says We should seek Truth for its own sake and to be thereby better enabled for the service of God And then he says We may better expect Afflatum divini numinis The Observer says He has done the one and hopes he has received some measure of the other so as Mr. M's rash and indiscreet Censures make no Impression at all on him nor he hopes will do upon any Intelligent Readers of his present Treatise thus answered Further Mr. M. directs to lay down the most plain and certain Truths first and so ascend gradually to those that are more difficult trying those Things that are uncertain by those that are clear and certain The Observer may here justly reproach Mr. M. for his not observing the Rules which he has here laid down for that in his pretences of proving the Soul's Immortality he has not produced so much as one Experiment or Rule that is clear and certain which the Observer thinks he did not omit through negligence but because he cou'd find no Experiment or certain Rule from whence he cou'd raise Arguments for the proof of his Immortality Mr. M. says further There are many puzzling Questions concerning his sort of Soul viz. concerning its unde its Vnion with the Body its moving of it and direction of the Spirits its different mode of Operation in a separate State and its reunion at the Resurrection The Observer replys That all these Questions become frivolous to those that accept the Opinion of the Soul's Extinguishment at the Death of the Person which fully silences them all and proves them needless and somewhat ridiculous and that is the best and surest Solution that can be given of them altogether Mr. M. says further We must not deny the Formation of a Child because we know not how 't is made The Observer agrees this because Sensation and Experience prove there is a Child Let Mr. M. prove by Sensation Experience or other Ways That there is such a Soul in Man as he pretends to and then he shall have leave to dispute de modo formationis as he pleases But to dispute de modo of a Thing which is not granted or proved to have a Being must pass for a Dispute de lana caprina or as of a Thing not extant in the World He says further The Soul it Fettered in the Body But this the Observer utterly denies and avers That the Contexture of the Soul and Body is naturally and ordinarily the most amicable and pleasing Conjunction in the World and their Separation is ordinarily one of the most terrible Actions that befalls Mankind and that it was a most gross Errour in Plato and those that follow him to think otherwise P. 117. Mr. M. says Atheism and Sadducism spring both from the same Root and must be attacked together The Observer answers That his tacking Atheism and Sadducism together prove That they who believe the Resurrection are neither the one nor the other whatsoever Mr. M. may fancy Mr. M's Demands concerning the Making and Governing the World are very frivolous and needless in this Question or to be demanded of the Observer who has often ascribed the Creation of Man and all other Creatures to God and has acknowledged his Providence upon all Occasions so as those Questions and those which follow them are left by the Observer as a Fruit of Mr. M's florid Speaking but in our present Dispute somewhat insipid and of no concernment at all P. 119. Mr. M. says That Epicurus and his Followers said That the World was not Created by God nor Governed by his Providence The Observer demands Quorsum haec quorsum sic What makes all this to the Immortality of the Soul or the Observer's Opinion concerning it It shall therefore be past as nothing to the purpose nor deserving any Answer nor needing any as it is produced upon this Occasion P. 121. Mr. M. demands Dare you take God's Name in vain or vilifie his Works to his dishonour You may flatter and befool your self for a while what will you do in the end thereof How dismal will the Thoughts of Eternity be to you in the last Hour How severely will Conscience pay you home for all the Tricks and Abuses you put upon it The Observer replys That if a Man should judge Mr. M. by those Expressions it seems they might judge him the very Spaun of Satan whose proper Office it is to bring false Accusations against the Servants of God and slander them with such Things as they were never guilty of or intended to be so His Demand Dare you take God's name in vain Or vilifie his Works to his dishonour Seems pregnant with an Affirmative That the Observer dare do such Things And if it be so taken it is a slanderous Surmise and as false as any Thing that his Father cou'd suggest to him The Devil himself was more fine in his Suggestions against Job which procur'd that Holy Man a severe Conflict and a terrible Tryal Upon which the Observer will make no other return than that which the Angel made to Satan in the case of Joshua The Lord rebuke thee O Satan the Lord that hath pleasure in the prosperity of his Servants rebuke thy lying lips and thy deceitful tongue What reward shall be done unto thee thou false tongue Even mighty and sharp arrows with hot burning Coals who puttest forth the horns of a Lamb but speakest with the voice of a Dragon P. 122. He goes on with divers such Calumnious Questions pointing at the Observer who utterly denies all the Charges laid against him in those Pages and says They are false and feigned and defies his false Accuser demanding the Proof of any one
Immortality or confirmed him therein But their Opinions weigh not much with the Observer who in his Pamphlet upon Mr. B's Sermon propounds to decide this Controversie by the sole assistance of Scripture and Reason The Adversary pretends to flourish with Names and Quotations of many Author rather to create an Opinion of his own Reading than because they were needful or useful in this Disputation a Practice purposely avoided by the Observer as being apt more to perplex and lengthen the Argument than to shorten or come close up to it and the Particulars of it The Adversary says If you believe that God regards the Affairs and Actions of Mankind then look unto him for light in this matter and he that so seeks after the Truth is in a very likely way to find it The Observer Replys Physician Cure thy self If thou had'st heartily pursued the course here directed it is very probable That God might have preserved thee from uttering and publishing such false and slanderous Calumnies as are inserted in thy Treatise levelled and discharged against an Innocent Person whom thou knowest not not ever hast heard any Man speak so of him much less that thou art able to prove any one of those Slanders which thou hast heap'd upon him and for which he leaves thee to the lashes of God and thine own Conscience and to the judicious and Rational Censure of thy Readers Chap. X P. 131. To the beginning of this Chapter the Observer thinks fit to annex an old English Proverb Let the Geese beware when the Fox Preaches For that although many of these Things which he says may be true according to the practice of an Old Father Obscuris vera involvens yet they are all spoken with intent to perswade and induce the Belief of an Erroneous Doctrine P. 132 The Advers says If I believ'd such Things as the Soul's Immortality I should use the greatest care and diligence to be Holy The Observer applys this to the certain and firm Doctrine of the Resurrection which all Christians do profess to believe He says This Doctrine requires as great Endeavours and striving by way of Preparation for it as that of the Soul's Immortality can do and is much better founded and assured than that is and therefore he advises all Christians to take it more into their Considerations than they formerly have done The new Doctrine of the Immortality has in a great measure shouldred out that of the Resurrection And indeed if the former were certain and true there wou'd be little need of the latter among Christians Persons after the Resurrection are likely to live upon the New Earth and under the New Heaven which will doubtless be a very happy State but if it be compared to the Heaven of Heavens and Throne of God whether they say Good Souls repair at the Death of the Person the Joys of the Earth can come in no Competition with the Joys of Heaven which those separate Souls must then forsake and come to live upon Earth again in their Bodies though Glorified plainly such a Change as those Souls must make at the Resurrection of the Persons is more likely for the worse than for the better Whereas the Doctrine of the Resurrection intends a compleating of the Happiness of Man and bringing it to its highest degree and Perfection as has always been expected and desired by the Church as the highest Happiness the Nature of Man is capable of For Proof of this he quotes Joh. 6. our Lord there four times over says Those that believe and serve him shall be raised up at the last day And at his Departure he tells his Disciples I will come again and receive you to my self that where I am ye may be also Without saying any thing of an intermediate State It runs through all the Gospels that at the Resurrection the Angels shall come and sever the Good from the Bad preserving the one sort and destroying the other Our Lord in Judgment says Come ye Blessed inherit the Kingdom prepared for you and Go ye Cursed into Everlasting fire Not return ye Blessed to Heaven from whence ye came nor return ye Cursed to the Flames of your former Fire But they are both to go to new Places where they had not been before 1 Cor. 15.1 1 Thess 4. Paul in both these Chapters Treats professedly concerning the future State of Man after Death and builds the whole strength of future Recompences upon the Doctrine of the Resurrection only without mention of or pointing to any Thing concerning the Soul's Immortality So Hebr. 11.35 Christians then suffer'd chearfully in expectation of a better Resurrection He also prays that Onesephorus might find mercy in the Last Day And tells Timothy That a Crown of Glory was laid up for him against that Day And so for all other true Christian Believers And the Observer saith That of all the Texts of Scripture quoted for the Immortality not one of them is delivered in a Place where the future State of Man after Death is particularly discoursed of or intended to be taught except what the Parable of Dives may have of that Nature Hence the Observer concludes That the Doctrine of the Resurrection is the main and Rocky Foundation upon which the Expectation of future Recompences can safely be builded and therefore he leaves the Immortality to those who think they find better Ground for it than he hath yet been able to perceive or attain to P. 133 The Advers says If you believe your Souls to be Immortal take care to secure your eternal interest by a good course of life The Observer says If you hope for a happy Resurrection you must take the same Course and to his other Saying and Quotations here the Observer applys them all to the Resurrection which is most certain whatsoever the other may be P. 134 He asks What will make amends for the loss of their Immortal Souls The Observer asks What will make amends for their unhappy Resurrection and Condemnati-at the Last Judgment The Advers says further You must labour to understand what it is must make your Souls happy if ever they be so The Observer says They are never like to be happy or miserable without the Body and therefore labour to obtain a safe and happy Resurrection of them both P. 135 He says That mens souls will tell them something if they take them apart and freely converse with them The Observer wishes he had told us some matter of Fact concerning himself or some other Man who had taken his Soul apart and so conversed with it without which all he says here is but Amusement intending to make Men suppose Their Souls may be taken apart from their Bodies which wou'd truly be the Destruction of them both for that the Person only consists in the Contexture of them both Further the Advers says That the Immortality is suitable for the Nature of the Soul The Observer denies That the Soul has any Nature except
only in Contexture with the Body and the Delights here the Advers speaks of are only agreeable to his own Fancy and such as adhere to his Opinion who may with him fancy themselves conversing with Spirits or the like fruits of their own Imaginations which Men easily give themselves up unto who are apt to follow the Dictates of their own Fancy P. 136 He exhorts his Followers to exercise themselves in the Contemplation of a Deity 'till correspondent Impression be wrought upon their own Spirits transforming them into the same Image The Observer thinks he gives his Followers a piece of dangerous Counsel to imitate the high Extasies of St. Paul in his Extraordinary Raptures and Revelations For that they catching at the Words without understanding the true sense and meaning of them or the design of their Delivery are apt to run into great Errors of Fancy and pretending to make themselves like God become in such Applications more extravagant and vain than the more sagacious sort of Beasts that perish not understanding what they say or whereof they affirm And as one of that sort the Advers shall here be left The Blind to lead the Blind till both fall into the Ditch P. 138 He says The Immortal Spirit may be starved for want of Food The Observer says The Souls of Men may be so for want of their Meal Malt or their other Nourishment which it is every Man's Duty to provide for them to their Power in due Seasons and Distances of Time which may require the same The Advers says further What if God e're this had sent you into a Place where the Immortality of the Soul is better known The Observer says He ought to have named his Place and proved that there is such a Place in rerum Natura before he pretend his Immortal Soul is better known in any Place than it is here But it seems his Place and his Soul are both of a Piece subsisting more in Imagination than in Reality We may consider the use of such a Place If truly such a Place there be wherefore should it have been provided Dr. Sherlock in his Book of the Last Judgment has well proved That the Devils are not yet in Hell The Advers himself says That the Malevolent Spirits wander in the World and sometimes converse with the People in it Which is Evidence That they are not presently in Hell St. Peter and St. Jude tell us That the Devils expect their Punishment after a Condemnation at the Last Judgment which they believe and tremble at The Revelations express That there was War in Heaven Michael and his Angels fought there with the Dragon and the Dragon fought and his Angels but they were vanquished and cast out of Heaven Which was done but a very short time before the Consummation or Last Judgment Whence it seems reasonably inferrible That the Devils are yet not only out of the Verges of Hell but that they are at some Liberty in the World and make sometimes their Progress unto Heaven Whence there seems no need of a present Hell for the Punishment of Devils and for the Separate Souls of Wicked Men There is as little present need of it for that in Truth there seems to be no such Thing in the World as a Humane Soul subsisting in a State of Separation after the Death of the Body Whence if there should be at present such a Place as Hell it must remain utterly unfurnished empty and void which would not be a natural way of Proceeding Quia natura nihil facit frustra So as the Discourses of Separate Souls going to Hell seem rather a Bugbear than a Verity But to this Men reply If there be no fear of Punishment before the Resurrection bad Men mill grow more bold in their Wickedness This the Observer does not grant but believes That they who will not care for the dread of a cursed Resurrection will not be perswaded by the pretence of an immediate Immortality a Truth which daily Experience confirms to us The Distance of Time between Death and the Resurrection how great so ever the same may appear to Living and Sensible Persons is not accounted of by the Dead nor is any Thing dead more Sensible of its passing than the Urn or Stone is wherein the Dead Man's Ashes or Dust are inclosed Whence they rise as but newly fallen asleep without any Sense or Perception of what has passed over them So that Sensibly and Effectually to them no Time has passed over them at all But their Death and Resurrection follow one another immediately without their perceiving that any intermediate Time has passed at all between them But after the Resurrection and Last Judgment past at the Creation of the New Heaven and Earth we read There shall be a Hell also contrived Isa 66.22 23. After God had made the New Heavens and the New Earth those raised to a Happy State shall go forth and look upon the Carcasses of the Men that have transgressed against me For their Worm shall not die neither shall their Fire be quenched So Revel 20.24 Death and Hell delivered up the Dead which were in them and every Man was judged according to his Works and Death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire and every one that was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire Viz. Such as were Condemned at the Last Judgment At which time God creates a New Heaven and a New Earth without a Sea but with a Hell for the Punishment of Condemned Creatures Chap. 21.14 Blessed are they who stand acquitted at that Judgment for that they may enter in through the Gates into the City and have right to the Tree of Life For without are Dogs and Sorcerers and Whore-mongers and Murderers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a Lye And such as follow the old Satanical Rule Audacter calumniare aliquid haerebit Among which number the present Adversary shall have a prime Place given him by the best and truest Judgment which the Observer can make in this Case Pag. 140 the Adversary quotes a Poet some of whose Verses are fit for this Place Think lastly on the World 's great Doom When guilty Souls must to an Audit come A far more heavy Reckoning than e'er You met with here P. 142 The Adversary says Men of the best Reasons will esteem our strongest Reasonings as the Leviathan does Iron or Brass but as rotten Straw and rotten Wood. The Observer grants he is very much in the Right in this Expression but when he adds If he should happen to convine them of which there is little likelihood he thinks their Lusts would prevail against his Arguments and their Convictions In this the Observer says he is True Blew and continues very uncharitably and malevolently Censorious P. 143 The Power of Christianity is scarcely consistent with a dividing censorious uncharitable Frame and Disposition Hence the Observer inferrs That the
Adversary has very little of the Power of Christianity in him for that the latter Part of his Treatise is full of censorious uncharitable Expressions without any Truth in there or Provocation to them but proceeding rather from his own natural Inclination and Practice perfectly Pharisaical which was to dignifie and magnifie themselves by vilifying and despising other Men. Upon which Practice Meekness it self was whetted to use sharp Expressions Our Lord says Mat. 23.33 Ye Serpents ye Generation of Vipers how can ye escape the Damnation of Hell Ch. 12.36 I say unto you That every idle World that Men shall speak they shall give Account thereof in the Day of Judgment What then is like to become of the Adversary at that Day concerning his many idle uncharitable censorious false Expressions purposely deliver'd in this Treatise without any just Provocation given him for so doing May not our Lord's Words be reasonably applied to this Person Thou Serpent thou Generation of a Viper how canst thou escape that Damnation of Hell which after the Day of Judgment shall be made ready to receive not the Souls of condemned Persons but their Souls and Bodies together into everlasting Burnings where the Worm dyeth not and the Fire is not quenched If Practice has made this Course so habitual to thee as that thou canst not forbear the Usage of it yet oughtest thou to be careful to confine it to thy own Flock or Herd who probably are much us'd to it illa te carcere regnare sit tibi satis Be thou therefore advis'd to follow thine own Trade within the proper Sphere of its Activity and be guided by the old Rule Ne sutor ultra crepidam Solomon directs Men to take care of their own Flocks and their own Herds and St. Paul forbears to judge them that are without And yet if the Adversary thought himself oblig'd to contend for the Truth against those who are without his Precinct he ought however to have done this modestly tho' earnestly and therein to have avoided those contumelious Expressions which he has frequently used especially all Injuries and false Aspersions laid upon his Opponent contrary to the clear Truth and the Civility of Manners which ought to be used by Men of his Profession not to name his Calling for that it does not appear whether he has any or no. P. 144 The Observer demands of the Adversary Is this Course which he has follow'd to imitate the Innocence of little Children Is this to demonstrate we are Christ's Disciples by loving one other Or is it not rather to proclaim to the World that he knows not what Spirit he is of May his Readers not have a just Cause of Suspicion that such Fruits are earthly sensual and Devilish The Adversary says further That the Love born to one another is the best Badge of Christianity acting thereupon like Rowers in a floating Vessel who look one way and row another P. 145 He speaks of such who would hear God's Words but not do them What shall then his Judgment be who will speak but neither the Words of God nor those of civil Persons amongst Men. The Adversary speaks of many good Duties Men may be able to perform to which he shou'd have added That wise and good Men are able to bear patiently with other Men who may fall into such Over-sights as they may think to be Weaknesses and Errors without reproaching and reviling them upon those Accounts remembring St. Paul's Admonition Take heed to thy self lest thou also be tempted P. 146 he quotes divers Texts of Scripture good in themselves without any of his Comments upon them We read Matt. 4. Texts of Scripture used by the old Serpent in his Temptation of Christ and we meet with like Things in divers other Places of Scripture and that Satan can change himself and is apt to change himself into an Angel of Light thereby to deceive and mislead such as he can perswade to hear and follow him P. 147 He says It is no easie Matter to be a Christian indeed The Observer grants it and that the Adversary's present Treatise is a good Proof of it P. 149 He says meaning it is likely concerning his own Congregation That there are many who know not what Regeneration means nor the other ordinary Duties belonging to the Christian Religion and if they be ask'd concerning them cannot answer Three Words of Sense about them The Observer replies That in the Catechism of the Church of England the Doctrines necessary for the Salvation of Men are well deliver'd and specified and that ali devout Members of that Church are taught and requir'd to learn the same Memoriter and are daily taught in their Churches the Sense and Meaning of those Articles and all other Doctrines contained especially in the New Testament So as that if there be not great Fault and Defect either in the Teachers or the Hearers either one or both of them the People of our Church cannot be so ignorant as he pretends Men commonly are so as not to know the Water of Baptism is the Laver of Regeneration the Catechism teaching them That by Baptism they are regenerated and ingrafted into the Church of Christ and are thereby directed and enabled for dying to Sin and to be Partakers of a new Birth unto Righteousness the Benefits of which are to be made a Member of Christ and an Inheriter of the Kingdom of Heaven And in Prosecution of that Design Men are thereby directed to forsake the Devil and all his Works believe the Articles of the Christian Faith and keep God's Holy Will and Commandments and walk in the same all the Days of their Lives P. 150 The Advers does here wish to know many fine and curious Questions and Things concerning Angels and the future State of separate Souls The Observer thinks all his Conceit and Fancy thereupon to be vain and unedifying or else to be frivolous and false What he talks of the Angels is vain and utterly unknown to him what he pretends to know of Souls is false and frivolous He demands further Can ye believe two States so vastly different hereafter as a happy or cursed Resurrection and yet not consider there must be some suitable Preparatiens made whilst we are here for avoiding the one and obtaining the other The Observer assures himself There are very few Men who believe in that manner except they may be such as are of the Advers own Education The Advers says He has set a Description of Heaven before his Reader meaning it seems such a Heaven as Mens Souls go to presently upon the Death of the Person The Observer replies That he finds no Description of that or any sort of Heaven in this his Treatise and for Souls going thither at the Death of the Persons he and all they who read our Writings cannot but know that it is the very Point in Question And for him to think that any Body will be led away by his presumptuous
taking his Part of the Question for granted Truth seems to be a Folly and Vanity suitable to the rest of his Deportment throughout this Treatise P. 152 The Advers says In many Things we shall be in the Dark without the Assistance of supernatural Revelation The Observer says There is a Sufficiency of supernatural Revelation in the Scriptures of God for the bringing Men a happy Resurrection and a blessed State after it But for our better Illumination the Advers cites a Sentence out of Porphyry who was as great an Opposer of Christianity as any he could have named being a bare Platonist and no more To this he adds the Names of Plato and Socrates pretending to collect thence a more lofty Strain for his Imaginations to work upon than those which are deliver'd in Holy Writ and spares not to quote the Devil's Oracles in Confirmation of his own fantastical Idea's nor the Sibylline Verses dictated usually by a Spirit of the like nature The Advers says That the great Heathen Law-makers pretended to take Help of Spirits and Daemons for the Inventing and Establishing their Laws From which Example perhaps he may intend to derive a Confirmation of his Opinion That there are other supernatural Revelations to be expected at this Day for Mens Guidance and Direction in their Religion than those that are deliver'd us in Holy Scripture Which is an Opinion rejected by the Observer and not received by the Reformed Christian Churches After this Train of Heathen Oracles and Spirits the Adversary returns again to the Holy Scriptures as if he pretended to add some Credit or Authority to them by the Testimony of his Commendations which they neither need nor can his Credit any way extend to the advancing of their Reputation Men knowing it is rather a Disgrace than an Advantage to be prais'd or commended by a slanderous Tongue But those Records are so Sacred that they can suffer no Disadvantage by any Man's Commendations or Discommendations but stand fixed and firm as Pillars and Foundations of the Christian Faith not enduring to be compar'd with the Fictions of idle Oracles Philosophick Daemons or Poetical Inventions nor with the Miracles or Enthusiasms of the Romish Mahometical or Phanatical Imaginary Revelations There can be no reasonable Comparison of such Vanities with the Text of Holy Scripture and therefore whatsoever the Advers pretends to say to that Purpose seems a great Piece of Vanity in him and an idle Imployment of his Time P. 155 The Advers says If you believe that the Soul is Immortal be not over-fond of the Body The Observer replies If you believe the Resurrection and the Last Judgment be not so fond of the Body or any thing else as thereby to be drawn out of the way of endeavouring to make your Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 3.10 The Day of the Lord shall come as a Thief in the Night in which the Heavens shall pass away with a great Noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent Heat the Earth also and the Works that are therein shall be burnt up Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of Persons ought ye to be in all Holy Conversation and Godliness looking for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwells Righteousness Wherefore seeing ye look for such things be diligent that ye may be found of him in Peace without Spot and Blameless St. Paul 1 Thess 4.13 directs That they should not sorrow for their dead Friends as if they were without Hope concerning them For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him and they shall be rais'd at the Sound of the Trumpet and the Voice of the Archangel He does not tell his Proselytes That their Friends Souls are gone to Heaven as any Comfort or Ease of their Sorrows but he builds their Comforts upon the strong Rock of the Resurrection And thus have we both Peter and Paul to sound and credible Witnesses in this Case directing to a good Life and a strong Comfort in Death from a firm Hope of a future Resurrection in due Time without one Word concerning the Soul's Immortality or drawing any Comfort or Help from thence at all P. 156 The Advers says Make not your Prison too strong as if he assented to the false Platonick Imagination That the Body was made by God for a Prison to the Soul Which every Man 's daily Experience contradicts and proves certainly to us as has been before said That the Conjunction of the Soul and Body is the most amicable of any thing in the World and their Separation most grievous and terrible and That the Body's being a Prison to the Soul is an Opinion both false and foolish tho' it seems very well fitted for the Adversary's Part. He goes on and says Think how quickly this Flesh must be laid aside He should have added And this Spirit extinguished and then there will be no miserable or happy Soul to take notice of P. 157 the Advers demands What Relief will it be to your Souls to remember that in this Life you had your good Things The Observer does not believe that before the Resurrection there will be any such Soul or Remembrance It is true that in the Parable of Dives Abraham says to him Son Remember that in thy Life-time thou hadst thy good Things But the Parable no where makes mention of a Soul but in all Places it applies to the Person Lazarus died and was carried by Angels into Abraham's Bosome And Dives died and being in Hell he lift up his Eyes and saw Lazarus afar off in Abraham's Bosome It seems fit to be consider'd how Dives cou'd see a Soul at so great a Distance and speak audibly to Abraham afar off without a Tongue Men do usually imagine This Discourse and Proposal shou'd be applied to the Souls of these two Persons But the Observer thinks there 's no Necessity to take it in that Sense but either to let it pass as a bare Similitude or Parable invented or that it may as well or better be intended concerning the Persons mentioned in the Text before quoted and the rather because Abraham calls Dives Son Remember This Term of Son cannot be applicable to a separate Soul because that Term is properly applied to the Person and also because if our Adversary say true such a Soul cou'd not be descended from Abraham but was newly created by God upon the Begetting of the Body of Dives Whence it seems still That the Relation concerning these Person is but a bare Similitude or Parable and proves nothing Or must be applied to the State of these two Person consider'd in the Contextures of their Bodies and Souls together The Adversary seems to doubt whether Souls go to appointed Places or hover about those Places where their Bodies are interr'd The Observer says It is no Wonder that Men of his Opinion have many Doubts concerning their
of those Spirits spread over the whole Body it comes to pass that the least Wound in the end of a Finger or Toe is immediately felt over the whole Body and so by Sight Hearing Smelling or Tasting the whole Person is immediately perceptive and affected therewithal like the String of an Instrument how long soever the same may be if touched to a vibration in any Part of it the whole String answers to that Vibration and sounds accordingly And this seems to be the Reason of the wonderful Velocity of Sensation and Perception in the Persons of Men and therewithal the Brutes may well be conceived to have a great Affinity upon a like Account This Spirit is not incaged or incarcerated in the Body but maintains as amicable a Conjunction with it and with as much Liking and Kindness to each other as any known Things in the World can do And the Athanasian Creed tells us That as the Body and Soul are one Man so God and Man are one Christ whence the Union of the former seems as amicable and kind as that of the latter tho' using a joint Contexture one of them with another this sort of Spirit acting in and by the Bodily Organs and Members they together effect in the Person all those Motions Faculties and Powers which the great Artificer intended and designed to be produced in the Humane Person be they those of Vegetation Sensation or Rationality all which Powers and Faculties they continue to maintain so long as their said Contecture has a Conrinuance Whence the whole Person both Spirit and Members are all alike affected one of them with another and never contrarily or differently one of them affected against another It is true that divers great Variances do often happen between the two different Faculties or Powers of Sense and Reason which Differences are as durable and lasting as the Life it self And these two Faculties St. Paul often calls by the Name of Flesh and Spirit which must pass in his Writings for tropical and figurative Expressions Upon which and divers other Accounts St. Peter says there are some Things in St. Paul ' s Writings which are hard to be understood Our Experience teaches us That there are no real Differences between the Bodily Organs and Members and this sort of Spirit of which we are now speaking but that they live and act together during the Time of their Contexture in the greatest Amity and Sympathy that can be imagin'd They are pleas'd and displeas'd rejoice and mourn together as two constituent Parts of the same Person they grow together to a State of Perfection are sick and well together decay and decrease in like manner And where Men live to the uttermost Age their Perceptions Understandings and Memories fail oftentimes before their Tasting and Feeling which continues with them the whole Extent of their Lives Then the Person consisting of such Flesh and Spirit dies together the Flesh and Members turning to Dust and the Spirit which is the Flame of Life extinguishing at the Time of that Separation And at the Time of the Resurrection the Body shall again be raised with such a Temperature of the Blood as shall then again be tinded and kindled into such a Flame of Life as the Person had enjoy'd in his former State as St. Paul declares 1 Cor. 15. whereby there shall arise and accrue to the same Person the same Sensation Perception Understanding Memory and Conscience that he had before in the Time of his former Life So as Mr. Lock seems to be in the right when Fol. 183. of his said Book he teaches That it is the same Consciousness which at the Resurrection makes the same Person such a sameness as St. Paul declares by his Similitude of Grains of Corn as much the same as Grains are of the same Nature which spring one out of another Thus united again by the Resurrection the Flesh and Spirit in a like Contexture as they were before shall come to Judgment at the last Day before the Tribunal of the Lord Christ and shall there receive Judgment Sentence and Doom according to their Works and shall thence depart to Places of Joy and Happiness or to those of Sorrow and Misery as by that Sentence and Judgment shall be appointed for them Thus from Experience it seems proveable That there is such a Soul or Spirit in Man as has been before specify'd That the same consists in the Spirits of the Blood inflam'd and made lucid and glowing That the Original of this Spirit proceeds from a Vital Principle in the Seed The visible quando of its Operation appears with the first Commencement of Vegetation in the Embryon The Vbi of its Residence is every Part and Member of the Body through which the same is contiguously spread or rather is one continuate Spirit mixed with the Flesh throughout the whole Body As to the Quo and what becomes of this Spirit at the Death of the Person it has been declared to go out by Extinguishment The only Point which the Observer professes Ignorance in is that of the Quomodo operatur He professes not to know how these Spirits of the Blood work in the Stomack a right and healthful Concoction and due Separation how in the sanguifical Parts the Chyle is converted into Blood how the Breath fans maintains and communicates such Vigour and Flame to Particles of the Blood which ascend to the Head how those Particles of Blood working in the Head and Brain produce there Sensation Perception Imagination Understanding or Memory how passing thence by the Nerves into the rest of the Body they cause Motion Activity Strength and Vigour all obedient to the Will of the Person and subjected to the Dictates of his Judgment Those are some of the chief Ways of God with Man and are most evident Proofs of his Divine Skill and Power concerning which and other-like Divine Operations Solomon says Eccles 8.17 Man cannot find out the Work that is done under the Sun because tho' a Man labour to find it out or the Wise among Men endeavour to come to the Knowledge of it yet shall they not be able to find it In this Ignorance therefore the Observer is contended to be a Partaker with the rest of the World without herding himself amongst those who because they cannot find out the Quomodo of this Performance are easily perswaded to believe That God has not Skill or Power enough to perform this and is therefore driven and must be driven to act those Things in Man by an immaterial intelligent Spirit which they fancy therefore is newly created by God upon every fruitful Coition of Man and Woman or Man and Beast where the Form of the Product happens to be Humane and that this new Soul which comes from his Hand innocent and pure shou'd presently be thrust by him into an impure Body at the best contaminated by Original Sin which presently communicates that Tincture to that pure innocent but unfortunate miserable Soul so newly created by him These Absurdities following upon and flowing from this Error prove the Opinion from whence they arise to be erroneous And from this and from all that has been spoken before on this Subject the Observer concludes That the Opinion of Man's being acted by an immaterial intelligent Spirit capable of subsisting in a State of Separation from the Body is an Error and that it is much more probable That the Person of Man is a Contexture of Matter and Spirit both rising from the seminal Agitation and both mortal and that the sound Foundation for the Expectation of Recompences future to this Life ought to be grounded upon the rocky Foundation of the Resurrection And herewithal shall be finish'd the present Observations upon this Treatise FINIS