Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	body_n	natural_a	sow_v	2,624	5	11.4108	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48890	Mr. Locke's reply to the right reverend the Lord Bishop of Worcester's answer to his second letter wherein, besides other incident matters, what his lordship has said concerning certainty by reason, certainty by ideas, and certainty of faith, the resurrection of the same body, the immateriality of the soul, the inconsistency of Mr. Locke's notions with the articles of the Christian faith and their tendency to sceptism [sic], is examined.	Locke, John, 1632-1704.	1699 (1699)	Wing L2754; ESTC R32483	244,862	490

Infant have the same Body But this is a way of Certainty found out to establish the Articles of Faith and to overturn the new Method of Certainty that your Lordship says I have started which is apt to leave Mens Minds more doubtful than before And now I desire your Lordship to consider of what use it is to you in the present Case to quote out of my Essay these Words That partaking of one common Life makes the Identity of a Plant since the Question is not about the Identity of a Plant but about the Identity of a Body It being a very different thing to be the same Plant and to be the same Body For that which makes the same Plant does not make the same Body the one being the partaking in the same continued vegetable life the other the consisting of the same numerical Particles of Matter And therefore your Lordship's inference from my Words above quoted in these which you subjoin seems to me a very strange one viz. So that in things capable of any sort of Life the Identity is consistent with a continued succession of Parts and so the Wheat grown up is the same Body with the Grain that was sown For I believe if my Words from which you infer and so the Wheat grown up is the same Body with the Grain that was sown were put into a Syllogism this would hardly be brought to be the Conclusion But your Lordship goes on with consequence upon consequence though I have not Eyes acute enough every where to see the connection till you bring it to the Resurrection of the same Body The connection of your Lordship's Words are as followeth And thus the alteration of the parts of the Body at the Resurrection is consistent with its Identity if its Organization and Life be the same and this is a real Identity of the Body which depends not upon consciousness From whence it follows that to make the same Body no more is requir'd but restoring life to the organiz'd parts of it If the Question were about raising the same Plant I do not say but there might be some appearance for making such inference from my Words as this Whence it follows that to make the same Plant no more is required but to restore life to the organized parts of it But this deduction wherein from those Words of mine that speak only of the Identity of a Plant your Lordship infers there is no more required to make the the same Body than to make the same Plant being too subtle for me I leave to my Reader to find out Your Lordship goes on and says That I grant likewise That the Identity of the same Man consists in a participation of the same continued life by constantly fleeting particles of Matter in succession vitally united to the same organized Body Answ. I speak in these Words of the Identity of the same Man and your Lordship thence roundly concludes so that there is no difficulty of the sameness of the Body But your Lordship knows that I do not take these two sounds Man and Body to stand for the same thing nor the Identity of the Man to be the same with the Identity of the Body But let us read out your Lordship's Words So that there is no difficulty as to the sameness of the Body if life were continued and if by divine Power life be restored to that material Substance which was before united by a Re-union of the Soul to it there is no Reason to deny the Identity of the Body Not from the Consciousness of the Soul but from that Life which is the Result of the Union of the Soul and Body If I understand your Lordship right you in these Words from the Passages above quoted out of my Book argue that from those Words of mine it will follow That it is or may be the same Body that is raised at the Resurrection If so my Lord your Lordship has then proved That my Book is not inconsistent with but conformable to this Article of the Resurrection of the same Body which your Lordship contends for and will have to be an Article of Faith For though I do by no means deny that the same Bodies shall be raised at the last day yet I see nothing your Lordship has said to prove it to be an Article of Faith But your Lordship goes on with your proofs and says But St. Paul still supposes that it must be that material Substance to which the Soul was before united For saith he It is sown in Corruption it is raised in Incorruption It is sown in Dishonour it is raised in Glory It is sown in Weakness it is raised in Power It is sown a Natural Body it is raised a Spiritual Body Can such a material Substance which was never united to the Body be said to be sown in Corruption and Weakness and Dishonour Either therefore he must speak of the same Body or his meaning cannot be comprehended I answer Can such a material Substance which was never laid in the Grave be said to be sown c For your Lordship says You do not say the same individual Particles which were united at the point of death shall be raised at the last day and no other Particles are laid in the Grave but such as are united at the point of death either therefore your Lordship must speak of an other Body different from that which was sown which shall be raised or else your meaning I think cannot be comprehended But whatever be your meaning your Lordship proves it to be St. Paul's meaning That the same Body shall be raised which was sown in these following Words For what does all this relate to a conscious Principle Answ. The Scripture being express That the same Persons should be raised and appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive according to what he had done in his Body it was very well suited to common Apprehensions which refined not about Particles that had been vitally united to the Soul to speak of the Body which each one was to have after the Resurrection as he would be apt to speak of it himself For it being his Body both before and after the Resurrection every one ordinarily speaks of his Body as the same though in a strict and philosophical sense as your Lordship speaks it be not the very same Thus it is no impropriety of Speech to say This Body of mine which was formerly strong and plump is now weak and wasted though in such a Sense a you are speaking in here it be not the same Body Revelation declares nothing any where concerning the same Body in your Lordship's Sense of the same Body which appears not to have been then thought of The Apostle directly proposes nothing for or against the same Body as necessary to be believed That which he is plain and direct in is his opposing and condemning such curious Questions

Particle of it having some bulk has its Parts connected by ways inconceiveable to us So that all the Difficulties that are raised against the Thinking of Matter from our Ignorance or narrow Conceptions stand not at all in the way of the Power of God if he pleases to ordain it so nor proves any thing against his having actually endued some parcels of Matter so disposed as he thinks fit with a Faculty of Thinking till it can be shewn that it contains a Contradiction to suppose it Though to me Sensation be comprehended under Thinking in general yet in the foregoing Discourse I have spoke of Sense in Brutes as distinct from Thinking Because your Lordship as I remember speaks of Sense in Brutes But here I take liberty to observe That if your Lordship allows Brutes to have Sensation it will follow either that God can and doth give to some parcels of Matter a Power of Perception and Thinking or that all Animals have immaterial and consequently according to your Lordship immortal Souls as well as Men and to say that Fleas and Mites c. have immortal Souls as well as Men will possibly be looked on as going a great way to serve an Hypothesis and as it would not very well agree with what your Lordship says 2 Answ. p. 64. to the Words of Solomon quoted out of Eccles. C. 3. I have been pretty large in making this Matter plain that they who are so forward to bestow hard Censures or Names on the Opinions of those who differ from them may consider whether sometimes they are not more due to their own And that they may be perswaded a little to temper that Heat which supposing the Truth in their current Opinions gives them as they think a Right to lay what Imputations they please on those who would fairly examin the Grounds they stand upon For talking with a Supposition and Insinuations that Truth and Knowledge nay and Religion too stands and falls with their Systems is at best but an imperious way of begging the Question and assuming to themselves under the pretence of Zeal for the Cause of God a Title to Infallibility It is very becoming that Mens Zeal for Truth should go as far as their Proofs but not go for Proofs themselves He that attacks received Opinions with any thing but fair Arguments may I own be justly suspected not to mean well nor to be led by the Love of Truth but the same may be said of him too who so defends them An Error is not the better for being common nor Truth the worse for having lain neglected And if it were put to the Vote any where in the World I doubt as things are managed whether Truth would have the Majority at least whilst the Authority of Men and not the examination of Things must be its Measure The imputation of Scepticism and those broad Insinuations to render what I have writ suspected so frequent as if that were the great Business of all this Pains you have been at about me has made me say thus much my Lord rather as my Sense of the way to establish Truth in its full Force and Beauty than that I think the World will need to have any thing said to it to make it distinguish between your Lordship's and my Design in Writing which therefore I securely leave to the Judgment of the Reader and return to the Argument in Hand What I have above said I take to be a full Answer to all that your Lordship would infer from my Idea of Matter of Liberty and of Identity and from the power of Abstracting You ask How can my Idea of Liberty agree with the Idea that Bodies can operate only by Motion and Impulse Answ. By the omnipotency of God who can make all things agree that involve not a Contradiction 'T is true I say That Bodies operate by impulse and nothing else And so I thought when I writ it and yet can conceive no other way of their operation But I am since convinced by the Judicious Mr. Newton's incomparable Book that 't is too bold a Presumption to limit God's Power in this Point by my narrow Conceptions The gravitation of Matter towards Matter by ways unconceivable to me is not only a Demonstration that God can if he pleases put into Bodies Powers and ways of Operation above what can be derived from our Idea of Body or can be explained by what we know of Matter but also an unquestionable and every where visible Instance that he has done so And therefore in the next Edition of my Book I shall take care to have that Passage rectified As to Self-consciousness your Lordship asks What is there like Self-consciousness in Matter Nothing at all in Matter as Matter But that God cannot bestow on some parcels of Matter a Power of Thinking and with it Self-consciousness will never be proved by asking How is it possible to apprehend that meer Body should perceive that it doth perceive The weakness of our Apprehension I grant in the Case I confess as much as you please that we cannot conceive how a solid no nor how an unsolid created Substance thinks but this weakness of our Apprehensions reaches not the Power of God whose weakness is stronger than any thing in Men. Your Argument from Abstraction we have in this Question If it may be in the power of Matter to think how comes it to be so impossible for such organized Bodies as the Brutes have to enlarge their Ideas by Abstraction Answ. This seems to suppose that I place Thinking within the natural Power of Matter If that be your Meaning my Lord I neither say nor suppose that all Matter has naturally in it a Faculty of Thinking but the direct contrary But if you mean that certain parcels of Matter ordered by the Divine Power as seems fit to him may be made capable of receiving from his Omnipotency the Faculty of Thinking that indeed I say and that being granted the Answer to your Question is easie since if Omnipotency can give Thought to any solid Substance it is not hard to conceive that God may give that Faculty in an higher or lower Degree as it pleases him who knows what Disposition of the Subject is suited to such a particular way or degree of Thinking Another Argument to prove That God cannot endue any parcel of Matter with the Faculty of Thinking is taken from those Words of mine where I shew by what connection of Ideas we may come to know That God is an Immaterial Substance They are these The Idea of an eternal actual knowing Being with the Idea of Immateriality by the intervention of the Idea of Matter and of its actual Division divisibility and want of Perception c. From whence your Lordship thus argues Here the want of Perception is owned to be so essential to Matter that God is therefore concluded to be Immaterial Ans. Perception and Knowledge in that one Eternal Being