Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	figure_n	matter_n	motion_n	3,415	5	9.0997	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29027	Some considerations about the reconcileableness of reason and religion by T.E., a lay-man ; to which is annex'd by the publisher, a discourse of Mr. Boyle, about the possibility of the resurrection.	Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691. Some physico-theological considerations about the possibility of the resurrection.	1675 (1675)	Wing E42A; Wing B4024; ESTC R16715	73,261	198

acknowledge that by with-holding his Concourse or changing these Laws of Motion which depend perfectly upon his Will he may invalidate most if not all the Axioms and Theorems of Natural Philosophy These supposing the Course of Nature and especially the Establish'd Laws of Motion among the parts of the Universal Matter as those upon which all the Phaenomena of Nature depend 'T is a Rule in Natural Philosophy that Causae necessariae semper agunt quantum possunt But it will not follow from thence that the Fire must necessarily burn Daniel's three Companions or their Cloaths that were cast by the Babylonian King's Command into the midst of a Burning fiery Furnace when the Author of Nature was pleas'd to withdraw his Concourse to the Operation of the flames or supernaturally to defend against them the Bodies that were exposed to them That Men once truly dead cannot be brought to life again hath been in all Ages the Doctrine of meer Philosophers but though this be true according to the Course of Nature yet it will not follow but that the contrary may be true if God interpose either to recall the departed Soul and reconjoin it to the Body if the Organization of this be not too much vitiated or by so altering the Fabrick of the matter whereof the Carkass consists as to restore it to a fitness for the Exercise of the Functions of Life Agreably to this let me observe to you that though it be unreasonable to believe a Miraculous Effect when attributed onely to a meer Physical Agent yet the same thing may reasonably be believ'd when ascrib'd to God or to Agents assisted with his absolute or supernatural Power That a Man born blind should in a trice recover his sight upon the Application of Clay and Spittle would justly appear incredible if the Cure were ascrib'd to one that acted as a meer Man but it will not follow that it ought to be incredible that the Son of God should work it And the like may be said of all the Miracles perform'd by Christ and those Apostles and other Disciples of his that acted by virtue of a Divine Power and Commission For in all these and the like Cases it suffices not to make ones Belief irrational that the things believ'd are impossible to be true according to the course of Nature but it must be shewn either that they are impossible even to the Power of God to which they are ascrib'd or that the Records we have of them are not sufficient to beget Belief in the nature of a Testimony which latter Objection against these Relations is Forreign to our present Discourse And as the Rules about the power of Agents will not all of them hold in God so I might shew the like if I had time concerning some of his other Attributes Insomuch that ev'n in point of Justice wherein we think we may freeliest make Estimates of what may or may not be done there may be some cases wherein God's supreme Dominion as Maker and Governor of the World places him above some of those Rules I say some for I say not above all those Rules of Justice which oblige all inferior Beings without excepting the greatest and most absolute Monarchs themselves I will not give Examples of his Power of Pardoning or Remitting Penalties which is but a relaxing of his own Right but will rather give an instance in his Power of afflicting and exterminating Men without any Provocation given him by them I will not here enter upon the Controversie de Jure Dei in Creaturas upon what it is founded and how far it reaches For without making my self a party in that Quarrel I think I may safely say that God by his right of Dominion might without any violation of the Laws of Justice have destroy'd and ev'n annihilated Adam and Eve before they had eaten of the forbidden Fruit or had been commanded to abstain from it For Man being as much and as intirely God's Workmanship as any of the other Creatures unless God had oblig'd himself by some promise or pact to limit the Exercise of his absolute dominion over him God was no more bound to preserve Adam and Eve long alive than he was to preserve a Lamb or a Pigeon and therefore as we allow that he might justly recall the Lives he had given those innocent Creatures when he pleas'd as actually he often order'd them to be kill'd and burn'd in Sacrifice to him so he might for the declaration of his Power to the Angels or for other Reasons have suddenly taken away the Lives of Adam and Eve though they had never offended him And upon the same grounds he might without Injustice have annihilated I say not damn'd their Souls he being no more bound to continue Existence to a Nobler than a less noble Creature As he is no more bound to keep an Eagle than an Oyster always alive I know there is a difference betwixt Gods resuming a Being he lent Adam and his doing the same to inferior Creatures But that disparity if it concern any of his Attributes will concern some other than his Justice which allow'd him to resume at pleasure the Being he had only lent them or lay any Affliction on them that were lesser than that Good could countervail But mentioning this instance only occasionally I shall not prosecute it any further but rather mind you of the Result of this and the foregoing Consideration which is That Divinely reveal'd Truths may seem to be repugnant to the dictates of Reason when they do but seem to be so Nor does Christianity oblige us to question such Rules as to the cases they were fram'd for but the application of them to the Nature of God who has already been truly said to be Ens singularissimum and to his absolute Power and Will so that we do not reject the Rules we speak of but rather limit them and when we have restrain'd them to their due bounds we may safely admit them From Mens not taking notice of or not pondering this necessary limitation of many Axioms deliver'd in general terms seems to have proceeded a great Error which has made so many Learned Men presume to say That this or that thing is true in Philosophy but false in Divinity or on the contrary As for instance that a Virgin continuing such may have a Child is look'd upon as an Article which Theology asserts to be true and Philosophy pronounces impossible But the Objection is grounded upon a mistake which might have been prevented by wording the Propositions more warily and fully For though we grant that Physically speaking 't is false that a Virgin can bring forth a Child yet that signifies no more than that according to the course of Nature such a thing cannot come to pass but speaking absolutely and indefinitely without confining the Effect to meer Physical Agents it may safely be deny'd that Philosophy pronounces it impossible that a Virgin should be a Mother For why should the

Revelation in their Inquiries into Natural things do yet both think and as to the two first of them very plausibly prove the three grand Principles of Epicurus That the little Bodies he calls Atoms are indivisible That they all have their motion from themselves and That there is a vacuum in rerum naturâ to be as repugnant to meer Reason as the Epicureans think the Notion of an Incorporeal Substance or the Creation of the World or the Immortality of the Soul And as for the new Somatici such as Mr. Hobbs and some few others by what I have yet seen of his I am not much tempted to forsake any thing that I look'd upon as a Truth before ev'n in Natural Philosophy it self upon the score of what he though never so confidently delivers by which hitherto I see not that he hath made any great discovery either of new Truths or old Errors An Honourable Member of the Royal Society hath elsewhere purposely shewn how ill he has prov'd his own Opinions about the Air and some other Physical Subjects and how ill he has understood and oppos'd those of his Adversary But to give you in this place a Specimen how little their repugnancy to his Principles or Natural Philosophy ought to affright us from those Theological Doctrines they contradict I shall here but not in the Body of this Discourse for fear of too much interrupting it examine the fundamental Maxim of his whole Physicks That nothing is removed but by a Body contiguous and moved it having been already shewn by the Gentleman newly mention'd that as to the next to it which is that there is no vacuum whether it be true or no he has not prov'd it If no Body can possibly be moved but by a Body contiguous and moved as Mr. Hobbs teaches I demand How there comes to be Local motion in the World For either all the portions of matter that compos'd the Universe have motion belonging to their Nature which the Epicureans affirm'd for their Atoms or some parts of Matter have this motive power and some have not or else none of them have it but all of them are naturally devoid of Motion If it be granted that Motion does naturally belong to all parts of Matter the dispute is at an end the concession quite overthrowing the Hypothesis If it be said that naturally some portions of Matter have Motion and others not then the Assertion will not be Universally true For though it may hold in the parts that are naturally moveless or quiescent yet it will not do so in the others there being nothing that may shew a necessity why a Body to which Motion is natural should not be capable of moving without being put into motion by another contiguous and moved And if there be no Body to which Motion is natural but every Body needs an outward movent it may well be demanded How there comes to be any thing Locally mov'd in the World which yet constant and obvious experience demonstrates and Mr. Hobbs himself cannot deny For if no part of Matter have any Motion but what it must owe to another that is contiguous to it and being it self in Motion impels it and if there be nothing but Matter in the World how can there come to be any Motion amongst Bodies since they neither have it upon the score of their own nature nor can receive it from external Agents If Mr. Hobbs should reply that the Motion is impress'd upon any of the parts of the Matter by God he will say that which I most readily grant to be true but will not serve his turn if he would speak congruously to his own Hypothesis For I demand Whether this Supreme Being that the Assertion has recourse to be a Corporeal or an Incorporeal Substance If it be the latter and yet be the efficient Cause of Motion in Bodies then it will not be Universally true that whatsoever Body is moved is so by a Body contiguous and moved For in our supposition the Bodies that God moves either immediately or by the intervention of any other Immaterial Being are not moved by a Body contiguous but by an Incorporeal Spirit But because Mr. Hobbs in some Writings of his is believed to think the very Notion of an Immaterial Substance to be absurd and to involve a Contradiction and because it may be subsum'd that if God be not an Immaterial Substance he must by Consequence be a Material and Corporeal one there being no Medium Negationis or third Substance that is none of those two I answer That if this be said and so that Mr. Hobbs's Deity be a Corporeal one the same difficulty will recurr that I urg'd before For this Body will not by Mr. Hobbs's calling or thinking it divine cease to be a true Body and consequently a portion of Divine Matter will not be able to move a portion of our Mundane Matter without it be it self contiguous and moved which it cannot be but by another portion of Divine Matter so qualified to impress a Motion nor this again but by another portion And besides that it will breed a strange confusion in rendring the Physical Causes of things unless an expedient be found to teach us how to distinguish accurately the Mundane Bodies from the Divine which will perhaps prove no easie task I see not yet how this Corporeal Deity will make good the Hypothesis I examine For I demand How this Divine Matter comes to have this Local Motion that is ascrib'd to it If it be answer'd That it hath it from its own Nature without any other Cause since the Epicureans affirm the same of their Atoms or meerly Mundane Matter I demand How the Truth of Mr. Hobbs's Opinion will appear to me to whom it seems as likely by the Phaenomena of Nature that occur that Mundane Matter should have a congenit Motion as that any thing that is Corporeal can be God and capable of moving it which to be it must for ought we know have its Subsistence divided into as many minute parts as there are Corpuscles and Particles in the World that move separately from their neighbouring ones And to draw towards a Conclusion I say that these minute Divine Bodies that thus moved those portions of Mundane Matter concerning which Mr. Hobbs denies that they can be moved but by Bodies contiguous and moved these Divine Substances I say are according to the late supposition true Bodies and yet are moved themselves not by Bodies contiguous and moved but by a Motion which must be Innate deriv'd or flowing from their very essence or nature since no such Body is pretended to have a Being as cannot be refer'd as a portion either to the Mundane or the Divine Matter In short since Local Motion is to be found in one if not in both of these two Matters it must be natural to at least some parts of one of them in Mr. Hobbs's Hypothesis for though he should grant an Immaterial Being

pour the dissolved Camphire into a large proportion of that Liquor to whose upper parts it will immediately emerge white brittle strong-scented and inflameable Camphire as before One main Consideration I must add to the foregoing ones namely that Body and Body being but a parcel and a parcel of universal Matter Mechanically different either parcel may successively put on forms in a way of Circulation if I may so speak till it return to the form whence the reckoning was begun having only its Mechanical affections alter'd That all Bodies agree in one common Matter the Schools themselves teach making what they call the Materia Prima to be the common Basis of them all and their specifick differences to spring from their particular forms And since the true Notion of Body consists either alone in its Extension or in that and Impenetrability together it will follow that the differences which make the varieties of Bodies we see must not proceed from the Nature of Matter of which as such we have but one uniform Conception but from certain Attributes such as Motion Size Position c. that we are wont to call Mechanical Affections To this 't will be congruous that a determinate portion of Matter being given if we suppose that an intelligent and otherwise duly qualified Agent do watch this portion of Matter in its whole progress through the various forms it is made to put on till it come to the end of its course or series of changes if I say we suppose this and withal that this intelligent Agent lay hold of this portion of Matter cloath'd in its ultimate form and extricating it from any other parcels of Matter wherewith it may be mingled make it exchange its last Mechanical Affections for those which it had when the Agent first began to watch it in such case I say this portion of Matter how many changes and disguises soever it may have undergone in the mean time will return to be what it was and if it were before part of another Body to be reproduced it will become capable of having the same Relation to it that formerly it had To explain my meaning by a gross Example suppose a Man cut a large Globe or Sphere of soft Wax in two equal Parts or Hemispheres and of the one make Cones Cylinders Rings Screws c. and kneading the other with Dough make an appearance of Pie-crust Cakes Vermicell● 〈…〉 the Italians call Paste squeezed through a perforated Plate into the form of little Worms Wafers Biskets c. 't is plain that a Man may by dissolution and other ways separate the Wax from the Dough or Paste and reduce it in a Mould to the self-same Hemisphere of Wax it was before and so he may destroy all that made the other part of the Wax pass for several Bodies as Cones or Cylinders or Rings c. and may reduce it in a Mould to one distinct Semi-globe fit to be reconjoined to the other and so to recompose such a Sphere of Wax as they constituted before the Bisection was made And to give you an Example to the same purpose in a case that seems much more difficult if you look upon Precipitate carefully made per se you would think that Art has made a Body extreamly different from the common Mercury this being consistent like a Powder very red in colour and purgative and for the most part vomitive in operation though you give but four or five grains of it and yet if you but press this Pouder with a due heat by putting the component Particles into a new and fit motion you may reunite them together so as to re-obtain or re-produce the same running Mercury you had before the Precipitate per se was made of it Here I must beg your leave to recommend more fully to your thoughts that which soon after the beginning of this Discourse I did but purposely touch upon and invite you to consider with me that the Christian Doctrine doth not ascribe the Resurrection to Nature or any created Agent but to the peculiar and immediate operation of God who has declar'd that before the very last judgment he will raise the dead Wherefore when I lately mentioned some Chymical ways of recovering Bodies from their various disguises I was far from any desire it should be imagined that such ways were the only or the best that can possibly be employed to such an end For as the generality of Men without excepting Philosophers themselves would not have believed or thought that by easie Chymical ways Bodies that are reputed to have pass'd into a quite other nature should be reduc'd or restor'd to their former condition so till Chymistry and other parts of true Natural Philosophy be more throughly understood and farther promoted 't is probable that we can scarce now imagine what Expedients to reproduce Bodies a further discovery of the Mysteries of Art and Nature may lead us Mortals to And much less can our dim and narrow knowledge determine what means even Physical ones the most wise Author of Nature and absolute Governor of the World is able to employ to bring the Resurrection to pass since 't is a part of the imperfection of inferior Natures to have but an imperfect apprehension of the powers of one that is incomparably superior to them And even among us a Child though indowed with a reasonable Soul cannot conceive how a Geometrician can measure inaccessible heights and distances and much less how a Cosmographer can determine the whole compass of the Earth and Sea or an Astronomer investigate how far 't is from hence to the Moon and tell many years before what day and hour and to what degree she will be eclipsed And indeed in the Indies not only Children but rational illiterate Men could not perceive how 't was possible for the Europeans to converse with one another by the help of a piece of Paper at an hundred Miles distance and in a Moment produce Thunder and Lightning and kill Men a great way off as they saw Gunners and Musqueteers do and much less foretell an Eclipse of the Moon as Columbus did to his great advantage which things made the Indians even the chiefest of them look upon the Spaniards as persons of a more than humane Nature Now among those that have a true Notion of a Deity which is a Being both omnipotent and omniscient That he can do all and more than all that is possible to be performed by any way of disposing of Matter and Motion is a Truth that will be readily acknowledged since he was able at first to produce the world and contrive some part of the universal Matter of it into the Bodies of the first Man and Woman And that his power extends to the Re-union of a Soul and Body that have been separated by Death we may learn from the Experiments God has been pleased to give of it both in the Old Testament and the New especially in the raising

again to life Lazarus and Christ of the latter of which particularly we have Proofs cogent enough to satisfie any unprejudiced Person that desires but competent Arguments to convince him And that the miraculous Power of God will be as well as his Veracity is engaged in raising up the Dead and may suffice if 〈◊〉 be so we may not difficultly gathe● from that excellent Admonition of ou● Saviour to the Sadduces where he tell● them as I elsewhere noted that th● two Causes of their Errors are their no● knowing the Scriptures wherein God hath declared he will raise the Dead nor the Power of God by which he is able to effect it But the engagement of Gods Omnipotence is also in that place clearly intimated by St. Paul Act. 26.8 where he asks King Agrippa and his other Auditors why they should think it a thing not to be believed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that GOD should raise the Dead And the same Truth is yet more fully exprest by the same Apostle where speaking of Christ returning in the Glory and Power of his Father to judge all Mankind after he has said that this divine Judge shall transform or transfigure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our vile Bodies speaking of his own and those of other Saints to subjoin the Account on which this shall be done he adds that 't will be according to the powerful working 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3.21 And now 't will be seasonable to apply what has been deliver'd in the whole past Discourse to our present purpose Since then a Humane Body is not so confin'd to a determinate Bulk but that the same Soul being united to a portion of duly organized Matter is said to constitute the same Man notwithstanding the vast differences of bigness that there may be at several times between the portions of Matter whereto the Humane Soul is united Since a considerable part of the Humane Body consists of Bones which are Bodies of a very determinate Nature and not apt to be destroyed by the operation either of Earth or Fire Since of the less stable and especially the fluid parts of a Humane Body there is a far greater expence made by insensible Transpiration than even Philosophers would imagine Since the small Particles of a resolved Body may retain their own Nature under various alterations and disguises of which 't is possible they may be afterwards stript Since without making a Humane Body cease to be the same it may be repaired and augmented by the adaptation of congruously disposed Matter to that which pre-existed in it Since I say these things are so why should it be impossible that a most intelligent Agent whose Omnipotency extends to all that is not truly contradictory to the nature of things or to his own should be able so to order and watch the Particles of a Humane Body as that partly of those that remain in the Bones and partly of those that copiously flie away by insensible Transpiration and partly of those that are otherwise disposed of upon their resolution a competent number may be preserved or retrieved so that stripping them of their disguises or extricating them from other parts of Matter to which they may happen to be conjoined he may reunite them betwixt themselves and if need be with particles of Matter fit to be contexted with them and thereby restore or reproduce a Body which being united with the former Soul may in a sense consonant to the expressions of Scripture recompose the same Man whose Soul and Body were formerly disjoined by Death What has been hitherto discours'd supposes the Doctrine of the Resurrection to be taken in a more strict and literal sense because I would shew that even according to that the difficulties of answering what is mentioned against the possibility of it are not insuperable though I am not ignorant that it would much facilitate the defence and explication of so abstruse a thing if their opinion be admitted that allow themselves a greater latitude in expounding the Article of the Resurrection as if the substance of it were That in regard the Humane Soul is the form of Man so that whatever duly organized portion of Matter 't is united to it therewith constitutes the same Man the import of the Resurrection is fulfilled in this that after Death there shall be another state wherein the Soul shall no longer persevere in its separate condition or as it were Widowhood but shall be again united not to an etherial or the like fluid Matter but to such a substance as may with tolerable propriety of speech notwithstanding its differences from our houses of Clay as the Scripture speaks be call'd a Humane Body Job 4.19 They that assent to what has been hitherto discours'd of the Possibility of the Resurrection of the same Bodies will I presume be much more easi●y induc'd to admit the Possibility of the Qualifications the Christian Religion ascribes to the glorified Bodies of the raised Saints For supposing the Truth of the History of the Scriptures we may observe that the Power of God has already extended itself to the performance of such things as import as much as we need infer sometimes by suspending the natural actings of Bodies upon one another and sometimes by endowing humane and other Bodies with preternatural Qualities And indeed Lightness or rather Agility indifferent to Gravity and Levity Incorruption Transparency and Opacity Figure Colour c. being but Mechanical affections of Matter it cannot be incredible that the most free and powerful Author of those Laws of Nature according to which all the Phaenomena of Qualities are regulated may as he thinks fit introduce establish or change them in any assign'd portion of Matter and consequently in that whereof a Humane Body consists Thus though Iron be a Body above eight times heavier bulk for bulk than Water yet in the case of Elisha's helve its native Gravity was render'd ineffectual and it emerg'd from the bottom to the top of the water And the gravitation of St. Peters Body was suspended whilst his Master commanded him and by that command enabled him to come to him walking on the Sea Thus the Operation of the activest Body in Nature Flame was suspended in Nebuchadnezar's fiery Furnace whilst Daniels three Companions walked unharm'd in those Flames that in a trice consum'd the kindlers of them Thus did the Israelites Manna which was of so perishable a Nature that it would corrupt in little above a day when gather'd in any day of the Week but that which preceded the Sabbath keep good twice as long and when laid up before the Ark for a Memorial would last whole Ages uncorrupted And to add a Proof that comes more directly home to our purpose the Body of our Saviour after his Resurrection though it retained the very impressions that the Nails of the Cross had made in his hands and feet and the wound that the Spear had made in his side and was still call'd in the Scripture his Body as indeed it was and more so than according to our past discourse it is necessary that every Body should be that is rejoin'd to the Soul in the Resurrection And yet this glorified Body had the same Qualifications that are promised to the Saints in their state of Glory St. Paul informing us that our vile Bodies shall be transform'd into the likeness of his glorious Body which the History of the Gospel assures us was endow'd with far nobler Qualities than before its Death And whereas the Apostle adds as we formerly noted that this great change of Schematism in the Saints Bodies will be effected by the irresistible Power of Christ we shall not much scruple at the admission of such an effect from such an Agent if we consider how much the bare slight Mechanical alteration of the Texture of a Body may change its sensible Qualities for the better For without any visible additament I have several times chang'd dark and opacous Lead into finely colour'd transparent and specifically lighter glass And there is another instance which though because of its obviousness 't is less heeded is yet more considerable For who will distrust what advantageous changes such an Agent as God can work by changing the Texture of a portion of Matter if he but observe what happens meerly upon the account of such a Mechanical change in the lighting of a Candle that is newly blown out by the applying another to the ascending smoke For in the twinkling of an Eye an opacous dark languid an stinking smoke loses all its stink and is changed into a most active penetrant and shining Body FINIS