maintain the Truth But say you I cannot be sure that the Materiality is a Truth I grant that I am not sure but I would be sure if I knew how to be so and therefore I applied to you for obtaining your chief Arguments against it And I am ready to do so to any other likely Person capable to assist me in searching the Truth concerning it And therefore in my Observations upon Dr. Bentley's Sermon Intituled Matter and Motion cannot think I have requested and even provoked him to perform his promise made in that Sermon viz. that he will make good Proof of the Souls Immateriality from some positive Grounds Rational or Scriptural For that his telling us that God cannot make Men and act them by a Material Spirit nor by any other means but by an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit seems to me precarious erroneus and arbitrary in him And I think I may as well say God can make Man and act him by a Material Spirit as well as he hath done with his inferior Creatures and for ought that hitherto appears to me I think it most likely that he hath so done This finishes my Reply to my Friends Third Opposition after which I received a Fourth Paper of the like Nature Dated 6. Nov. 93 divided into 8 Paragraphs 1. Paragraph Concerned only the intent or meaning of Paul in his term of Nature whether intended absolutely in puris Naturalibus or cultivated by Education Rule or Example 2. Paragraph Was concerning my Expression of making Men trust in a Lye 3. Paragraph I Reply to it You seem to think that God can make Matter Cogitative and will not deny that to be in his Power and we are agreed in that but you think God hath not done so I think he hath done so and this it seems need not be determined but remain a Dissention without making it a Difference the Proof on either side appearing a very great difficulty 4. Paragraph Desiring to shew that there is a Knowledge of what is Morally good or bad Grounded in Nature Unassisted by Rules Education or Institution You Cite an Instance in Cain who you think knew he had sinned in killing his Brother and that before his Nature was assisted by Rules or positive Institution Here I say are Two Assertions First that he knew the Fact to be wicked next he knew this by simple Nature unassisted by any Rule or Institution whatsoever To the First I Answer It doth not appear in the Text that he knew that his Fact to be a Crime You say it appears upon the Margent The Text says My Punishment is greater than I can bear The Margent says Mine Iniquity is greater than can be forgiven Evident it is that the Complaint succeeds immediately to the Sentence pronounced after that Fact which induces me to believe it applicable to the Punishment rather than to the Sin and that therefore the Reading put into the Text by our Translators is more likely to be the true and proper Reading than that upon the Margent But if that which you pretend should be admitted and the Marginal Reading should be accepted Yet it seems the State of Cain at that time was not a State of bare and simple Nature unassisted by Institution or Rules For Adam was Divinely Instructed and probably brought up his Children under Discipline or a directive Education They were Taught the use of Sacrificing and vers 7. God himself gave Cain Directions for his Instruction in Morality and Piety Hence to me it seems your instance of Cain doth not enough prove that Conscience without Rules or Instruction is a Natural Guide to direct Men in their Actions able to make a true Distinction betwixt evil and good Rom. 5.13 For until the Law Sin was in the World but Sin is not imputed when there is no Law And Chap. 7.7 I had not known Sin but by the Law Vers 13. Sin by the Commandment became exceeding sinful viz. until or before the Law bad Actions were Sins but not imputed because not known to be Sins but when Institution and Laws have detected or discovered to Mankind the Sin of such Actions viz. that they are Sins against God and his Laws This knowledge makes that which before was a Sin though not imputed to become by such Revelation exceeding sinful First a Sin in it self and next as made known to the acter by the Law or some other Institution that it is a Sin You give no farther or other Answer to what I had largely spoken concerning the Nature and Operation of Conscience in Man I desired to know your Apprehensions concerning the same and your silence therein seems to admit of my Conceptions thereupon as firm or probable 5. Paragraph You say I desire to know of you whence Humane Affections and their Powers grow You Answer They grow from the Corruption of Mans Nature by the Fall of Adam and the Curse attending it to evince which it seems you should shew what Man 's Nature was before the fall and wherein and how far the same became Corrupted upon that Occasion But that is a thing which I think you neither know nor have means to discover and that therefore we are driven to consider Humane Nature as we now find it so considered It is found and you grant that Affections and Passions have a very great Power in disposing of Humane Actions and the Applications and Practices of the same that they do very often and most commonly over-power and mislead the National Faculty and its Dependencies and drive or draw the Person Soul and Body into very impure and wicked Practices even reclamante Ratione and maugre all the Spiritual Powers which ordinarily they meet with in Mankind And these Affections Ambition Covetousness Lust and the Passions Wrath and Fear are as natural to Man as his Vital and Rational Faculties are All Men have them and one who hath them not is not perfect in his Nature The Beasts have them viz. Lust Wrath and Fear and they act with as much Violence and Power in the Beasts as in the Men And our First Parents had them before the Fall The Woman saw the Tree was good for Food and pleasant to the Taste hereby was her Lust tempted And a Fruit desirable to make one Wise here was her Ambition tempted and by these Affections Satan prevailed as amongst Men of our times he daily doth to draw our First Parents into the ruinous Accomplishments of Sin and Wickedness I say then The Affections and Passions appear to grow not as an effect of Adam's Fall but as a Fruit of Natural Production and from the same Principles and Originals that his Nutritive Generative and other Vital Powers do grow that his other Sensitive and his Rational Faculties do also grow They seem to have one same Original and that they are as Natural to Man as any of the other are and that they have received no more Detriment or Vitiated Quality from the Fall than the other
shed the Blood of Abel his Brother Whether he knew this Fact to be a Sin or not doth not appear in the Text. You observe in his Answer to God after his Condemnation for it he says My punishment is greater than I can bear Say you The Margent of some Bibles render the words Mine iniquity is greater then I can bear and in this you say truly It seems the same Hebrew Expression may bear either Sense but seeing it follows next after the Sentence our Translators in my mind have done right to put Punishment into the Text and set the diversity of Reading only in the Margent But whether Cain knew his Killing at that time to be a Sin or not it afterwards was made known to be a Crying Crime amongst Men. God blessed Noah and his Sons and said to them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth the flesh with the life thereof which is the blood thereof shall ye not eat and surely the blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it and at the hand of man at the hand of every mans brother will I require the life of man Accordingly the First Command of Moses his Second Table is in express Terms Thou shalt not Kill a man thy brother presumptuously innocent or not deserving such punishment soon after which Promulgation viz. Exod. 32.25 Moses commands a promiscuous killing of his brethren by which there fell about Three thousand men and this summarily without hearing or judgment So Numb 25.5 Moses said to the Judges of Israel Slay ye every one his men that were joyned unto Baal-peor Also Phineas warmed by Zeal and without any other Warrant but that Heat slew two Persons by one through thrust of a Javelin without regard to their future state or giving them time to call upon God for mercy and yet this Fact was both approved and rewarded by God David shed blood abundantly upon the earth and yet not reproved for his so doing So Soldiers at this day in pursuit of a flying Army kill with commendations as many as they can without imputing Crimes to them or particular provocation from them And this continues an avowed Practice and a daily Trade amongst Christians hired to it for money Amongst our Ancestors and other German Nations the Killing of any Man might be legally compensated by Money at a stated Rate or Price sutable to the Degrees or Qualities of Men amongst them even though the Person killed were a King of the Nation or a holy Bishop amongst them There was a certain Price set upon every Quality of Persons called Weargelt and the Payment of that Price in Money or Goods to that Value was a lawful Satisfaction for such Killing and a Discharge from any farther Punishment appertaining to the same We read that at Rome it was accounted brave for People to kill themselves And in Greece it was counted glorious to kill Tyrants and so in all places to kill Enemies These Facts and Fashions incline me to believe that Killing is not a Sin so much discoverable by Nature as by Politie or Positive Law God directed Noah and his Sons concerning it and from them it past to their Posterities all Nations of the World as a great Offence but rather against Law than Nature unless we shall take Nature in the Sense of General Custom which is a Second Nature and able to correct or supplant and overcome the Inclinations of Mankind which we know to be Natural Whence it seems the Knowledge that Killing is an high Crime is rather acquired than Natural And we see daily that Legislators set a Rate of Killing upon what Facts they think fit and Men who are after executed for such Facts are counted to be lawfully killed and it seems from a like Original that Killing is counted Criminal and not from Nature alone uncultivated and savage as the same may reasonably be conceived and sometimes actually found I say then this Second Nature meliorated by Rules directed by the Wisdom of God and the Practice and Experience of Men hath a Power and Effect of Conscience universally thereunto annexed not proper to an Humane Nature in its naked State or the absolute simplicity of it But if in that low condition there be at all a Conscience any more than what some Beasts can attain unto I suppose it can extend no farther than to the practice of our Lords two general Rules of doing to others what Men think Just and Good if done to themselves and Loving and Honouring that God which Nature hath a great Propensity to fear and invoke in times of Mens Distress or Terrour I am not confident that Men in their lowest estate can without a long practice and some sort of communication with others be able to attain a Power and Practice of Conscience extending to these two Universal Principles but I confide the Power of Nature in its Simplicity cannot reach beyond a Sense of these Principles if it can attain unto them For other Sins as Adultery those who know not what Marriage is cannot know what Adultery is And for Theft and Robbery it hath past for a Glory in Ancient Barbarism and at this day we find it in the continual Practice of the Turks and French and used without any manner of Sense of Conscience for the same without any alteration but of the Name from Robbery to Conquest as the Pirate very well observed to Alexander in his time And the like may be said for all Moses's Laws Paul says I should not have known Covetousness to be a Sin if the Law had not said Thou shalt not covet and so for Incest if the Law had not forbidden it At the first it was necessary and lawful Abraham was late in the practice of it and Amram Son of Kohath Son of Levi married Jocabed his Fathers Sister and it became usual for the Ptolemy's and Persian Kings to marry their Sisters and so it is at this day for the Moguls and Kings of Siam China and other parts of India to use their Sisters and even their Daughters without any Reclamation of their Natural Consciences in those Cases Hence it seems your Argument for the Immateriality derived from a Natural Conscience directing the Actions of Men can have but a small strength of Coercion in it and because you say you will hold me to this Argument from Conscience as the most Noble Natural Proof of the Immateriality I have been as long as I though need required in my Answer of it 3. Parag. You say Your sort of Soul hath a power able to controul the actions of Men naturally I grant Men have a Rational Faculty that doth often resist and sometimes prevail against their Sensual Appetites but not without some kind of Cultivation by Rules Custom or Example Nay say you but bare Nature hath in it self that Power and Practice and in Proof you alledge Sr. Paul's Words The Gentiles do by Nature the Things contained
and Man Whereas the Fact of our Savage who hath not nor knows any Law may pass well enough without discerning by any Light of Nature that his Fact was Turpe And so may the Case be for Adultery or Incest amongst Persons who neither live under Laws nor have any knowledge of them they cannot naturally discern the Turpe in such Actions and for Theft and Robbery it would be the delight and glory of such Savages and was the common practice of the Savage World and is the common Arabian Profession at this day And we may add to them the petit Pirates and even the great Conquerours and Spoilers of Nations who because they live without Laws or above them do not or will not discover any Natural Turpe in those Ravages which they make upon the to them innocent and harmless people All these Cases or Instances seem to evince that the Discovery of Honestum and Turpe grows not from Nature barely or in its extreamest Simplicity nor without some assistance from Education or Institution Next our opposing Immateriallists do alledge That upon the committing of any known and great Turpe there arises amongst Men a great and tormenting Sense of such Evil flowing from Nature in Man and which is never found in Beasts of any Kind But I do not assent to either of these Assertions First For Conscience in Man I have said the Conscient Powers viz. Understanding Memory and Judgment are Natural and so are the Effects viz. Pleasure and Joy Sorrow and Fear But to compleat a Conscience in Man there must be more than Nature viz. Some sort of Rules or Directions growing from Education or Institution and such may derive themselves from Three Originals First By Revelation from God or Spirits Secondly From Precepts or Examples of other Men. Thirdly From the Person himself concerned in the Inquiry his own Observations Opinions Phantasies Now take any of these Sorts of Rules which any Man hath accepted for his Guides and submitted himself unto if he find his Actions agree with his Rules that Agreement produces Comfort and Joy and the contrary produces Sorrow and Fear the wideâ—â—er they differ the greater the Fear and proportionable to the degrees and duration of Rewards an1Punishments taught and believed to be expected and the reputed certainty of them And it seems the Rule accepted and submitted to be it right or wrong true or false obliges the Conscience of the Believer and strikes him with remorse upon any his irregular Actions as strong the false as the true and this shews the Faculty not to be wholly from Nature for that she is more constant in her Directions and Notices then to be ordinarily liable to such great aberrations We say then a Savage can have no Conscience for want of Rules whence that Power cannot be derived from bare Nature in Man The other Assertion viz. That Conscience is not to be found in Beasts of any kind I do not assent unto yet granting that naturally none of them have it But I conceive that by an Education amongst Men and a Conversation with them some Beasts may attain and have obtained to such Conscient Faculties as are agreeable to the low degrees of their Understanding and I give instance in a Mastiff Dog if he go at liberty without Education and meet with a Sheep hungry he falls on and kills and eats till he have enough and departs without any sign or sense of remorse for his so doing But take one of that kind and give him an Education amongst Men and being taught his Duty in that Case if after this Dog happen to worry a Sheep he becomes so sensible ashamed and afraid togteher that his guilt and fear appear in his whole carriage and the Temper and posture of his Body so as his looks and carriage give evident proof that he is a Sheep-biter So for a Setting-Dog if his over-eager desire carry him into his Game and that he spring it his Conscient Power smites him upon that Fact so that he dare not will not approach his Master or Teacher but will a void and flie from them by all means and for a competent time till their anger may be allwaged and some of them have been thereby so scared as to run quite from their Masters and forsake them for ever We know also that some Horses which have been corrected for tripping upon the High-way it by accident they make a trip they suddenly dart themselves forwards remembring the former Corrections and sometimes do by that means escape the punishment which otherwhiles would have fallen upon them And in like manner the most Docible Creatures Dogs Horses Apes Elephants are made tractable and tâ—ught by Rewards and Punishments and the Desire Fear and Expectations of them the same which are the Grounds and Effects of Conscience in Man And thus Arguendâ— and with hard rubbing it seems there is taken off from the Nature of Man this last Piece of Varnish or Ornament which by divers hath been so hard laid on and fastened as it seemed like a Fixation inseparable and quarto modo peculiar to it in consequence of which I say That we have now laid the Nature of Man as naked and bared of its Ornaments as before we did that of our Organ And as then that Instrument so bared had for its Materials no other then what the Inferiour Instruments were made of viz. Wood or Common-Metal so is it like to fall out with the Body of Man there will appear in it nothing but Skin Bone Flesh Blood Joynts Muscles Nerves Arteries Sinews Veins Heart Head Brain and Breath c. all of the same kind with those of the Inferiour Animals And for the Active Principle in them both as Wind and Breath of the same Nature but stronger or weaker moves and acts as well the Organ as all the other Inferiour Instruments So it seems a Spirit inflamed and of a like Nature is the Active Principle in the whole Animal Kind and Nature viz. both of Man and Beast The Flame may be purer and grosser brighter and dimmer but in all of a Similar Kind and Nature one of them with he other as the Wind and Breath was to the forenamed Instruments And this Conclusion shall close and finish my present Simile and that put end to my intended Argument against the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Soul For the publishing of which I offer this Reason That having an Inclination and Desire to find out or learn the Truth in the Point before disputed and having in my Answer to Doctor Bentley's Sermon summoned him to perform his promise of proving the Separate Subsistence of an Humane Soul I thought it requisite to lay before him or any other who being qualified for it shall undertake the Imployment all or the most important of those Grounds and Reasons which moved me in a Mature and Decaying Age to perswade my self that the Opinion of the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Humane Souls after Death of their Bodies is an Errour to the intent that having before them the true State of the Malady and the Causes of it they may be the better inabred to direct their Applications for the Cure and take the whole State of the Case together and shall say no more save by way of Caution viz. That hitherto the Fabrick of the Argument is held together as by Nails driven through Boards yet remaining with streight points so as they may be pinched out again with more ease and little damage to the Materials it proper Endeavours shall be used to that purpose viz. By a full strong reasonable and well grounded Answer to the Objections which have been in this Tract or Treatise produced but if pregnant Persons shall enter upon the Undertaking without Direction or Advice and make infirm cholerick or any way insufficient Answers thereunto that will prove like a clenching or rivetting the points of the Nails on the farther side and make them so hard to be drawn out again as there may be great difficulty and some inconvenience in the performance of it My Desire and Prayer to God is That he will by his good Providence and Spirit direct such as out of a Pious Inclination and for Love to Truth shall in Peaceable and Christian Manner undertake the Rectification of those Errours which shall be with clearness detected in this Treatise And that he will finally discover to us what is the very Truth in the Point here disputed And to an Answerer I shall conclude with St. Paul 2 Tim. 2.7 Consider what I say and the Lord give thee understanding in this and in all things especially enable thee for the Discovery declaring and proving of the Truth in this Point FINIS