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
deny'd the Resurrection and future Recompences after the Death of the Person and so do Atheists So as the Observer is unjusty pointed at as one of their Tribes tho' he maintain the important Doctrine of the Resurrection the Happiness of which and the Dread of it are to be prepared for in the time of this Life by the same means that are required for the obtaining the Happiness of a Blessed Immortality and avoiding the Pains and Penalties of a cursed one Mr. M. endeavours to puzzle his Readers by propounding a hard Question Whether Matter be divisible ad infinitum or not Which the Observer says is nothing to the present Point in question and therefore he leaves the choice to Mr. M. which side of the Question he will maintain in a Dispute which here makes nothing to the purpose He asks further Shall the Immortality of the Soul stand upon so lubricous a foundation as this is no such matter The Observer answers It has not a foundation so good as this might prove nor any firm foundation at all either in Reason or in Scripture and therefore may be rejected as a vulgar Errour Mr. M. forbids to shift off the Question upon the Words material or immaterial The Observer answers He pretends to no such matter as appears by what he has already said in answer to Mr. M's Scriptures and Reasons the only Weapons which he pretends to use in this Controversie and which are used more at liberty in his fore-mentioned larger Treatise Mr. M. says Some great Philosophers have affirmed That the Soul is more knowable than the Body He ought to have given us their Reasons means and manner of attaining such Knowledge or to have produced something of his own to that purpose that the Readers might make some judgment concerning the verity of this Assertion And because he has failed in so doing his Saying proves very impertinent He says further The Substance of our Souls differs so much from any Corporeal thing that it may well enough be called immaterial This he has Brass enough to say in the Face of a Man who he knows utterly denies That it has any Substance at all And places it as an ens rationis whose Substance and Existence consists in Notion and Opinion only and this he does without proving or offering to prove any thing concerning the quod sit or the quid sit of it The last Words of this Chapter may justly be put into the Mouth of Mr. M. qui plus praestare potest praestet There is great need of some other Mens Labours to supply the weak Pretences and performances of Mr. M. in this Chapter Chap. IX Seems not directed to the Observer or those who go upon the Grounds of Scripture or Reason but to Persons of vicious Practices so powerfully as to be over-ruled in their Judgments by their own bad Inclinations which may happen too often but are a mistake and uncharitable Censure in this case if they be intended to prove any thing in the present Question and upon the Party now maintaining his part of the Question in this Treatise disputed Pag. 110. Mr. M. says The design of those Men who oppose the Soul's Immortality is to perswade themselves and others that it dies with the Body and shall not be called to an account for its unnatural self-debasement The Observer answers That the Soul single and separate shall not be called to an Account he believes for no other end but because he thinks it to be the very Truth and without any other design but that only of maintaining the certainty of a future Account and Judgment wherein every Man shall give and yield a full reckoning of his Stewardship and the Talents which were committed to his Administration wherein his smallest Actions shall be considered and an Account given for every offensive and idle Word many of which may possibly arise to magnifie Mr. M's Account from the Records of his present Treatise He quotes Vives again who makes every jot as much for the Observer as for himself Mr. M. says further Some thinking Persons of a sober Conversation may so far affect singularity in Opinions to make themselves more taken notice of as to maintain the Mortality of the Soul upon that Account The Observer thinks it enough in him to deny this Charge being well assured of the errour and falshood of it and that Mr. M. can never bring a shadow of Proof by which it may be annexed to the Person or Intent of the Observer Whence the Reader may cast it upon Mr. M. as a bold and unproved Calumny P. III. He says Men wou'd not have their Souls to be immortal for fear of a future Punishment for their Crimes The Observer answers They are apt to deny a Resurrection for the same reason Mr. M. says further Be not over-fond of the present Conceits it becomes you to suppose that you may be mistaken because many as wise Men have been so mistaken before you The Observer turns the point of this Direction upon Mr. M's own Face and bids him follow that Direction which he gives to others P. 112. Mr. M's Direction in this Page is very good and deserves to be well followed by himself who has no other advantage to exempt him from it but the commonness of his own Opinion which is no certain Proof of the Truth of it for that some like mistakes have long since prevailed in the world to as great an Universality Mr. M. further says 'T is a matter nearly concerns you to know whether your Souls be immortal or no The Observer agrees it to be a matter of great concernment for Men to think right in this matter lest their Expectations shou'd be deceived on either side and therefore he has pursued the Search of it to the best of his Abilities and writ this Pamphlet which Mr. M. now pretends to answer with Design to excite Mr. B. to the performance of his Promise to prove the Soul's Immortality hoping to draw some light from his Writings concerning the certainty and truth of it Mr. M. has thrust himself into this Dispute pretending in this Treatise to make a good performance of Mr. B's Promise in fully proving such an Immortality Whether he has well performed his Undertaking or not shall be left to the Judgment of such as read and consider what thereupon has been said on both sides And Lord give us Understanding well to consider and resolve according to Truth in this Question P. 113. Mr. M. says If after all this pains you have taken to make your self believe the Mortality of the Soul you find your self mistaken The Observer answers He has taken no pains at all to make himself believe it so and yet after the Search he has made he is convinced that most probably it is so and has no Fears upon him from it being otherwise For that he makes the same Provision for a happy Resurrection as he wou'd do for a happy Immortality
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