other Things that are of a Different Nature from themselves viz. in those Things which Men call Substantial Forms and Real Qualities or Qualifications which many perswade themselves are resident and to be found in the Nature of Bodies or Things Nor how such Substantial Forms or Qualities have the Force and Power to excite Local Motion in other Bodies We know it says he to be the Nature of our Souls that different local Motions are enough for the Stirring and Excitation of all our Senses and that Bulk Figure and Motion act upon our Sensual Organs and this Act or Motion passes from them to the Brain and in external Objects we do not perceive any thing but the various Disposition of the Objects which affect our Nerves in various Modes or Manners All this seems to import no more concerning the Soul but that Men have a Substantial Form called by the Name of Soul My Copy of Des Cartes is in 8o. printed Lond. 1664. and contains his Principles and Diopticks his Meteors and De Passionibus We proceed to his De Methodo There Sect. 4. P. 21. he draws in somewhat abruptly a farther Consideration concerning the Soul Pag. 22. He derives his Knowledge thereof from his own prime Invention of Cogito ergo sum viz. Existo And no wonder that he thence derives his Knowledge of the Soul since he dare pretend to derive from thence the Knowledge also which he hath of God As if the Four Rivers of Paradise might competently be expected to flow from the Narrow and Shallow Fountain of his Cogitation But intending to fix his Anchors upon this Axiom as on a Rock He pretends to overthrow by his bare Authority his Ipse dixit all the Ancient Grounds of Humane Sense and Nature by believing that he hath no Body for the feigning without believing it would be but a Dream and unfit for his or for any Purpose Then by believing that there is no World or Place for a Body to be in why cannot I as well feign or believe that I have not a Being as that I have not a Body or that there is neither Place nor World You cannot do it says he so long as you are thinking but if you slacken the Reins and give over Thinking but for one Moment you can have no Reason to believe your own Existence during the time of your Vacation from Thinking how short or long soever that Time may be And hence says he I know my self to be a Substance whose whole Nature and Essence consists in Thinking Whence he seems to collect that this Thinking Substance hath no need of Place nor Dependence upon any other Material Thing Upon this I demand how he knows or can demonstrate that he could think at all without a Body and the Spirits and Organs thereof this he hath not attempted to do and I take it for an Impossibile upon him And till that be done I hold it fit and reasonable to reject his utterly unproved Assertions viz. That the Soul is plainly distinct from the Body more easy to be known than the Body is and would be the same that she is if she had not a Body These as they are barely asserted by him are as easily rejected and denied by me with a Cujus Contrarium Verum He proceeds to declare by what Degrees he derives the Knowledge that God is and what he is from the Fundamental Rock of his own Cogitation My Design is not Opposition to him or his pretended Alterations or Modes of Learning but only in Things concerning the Soul and therefore what he delivers concerning God and his Cogitative Knowledge of that Tremendous Majesty we will not offer to examine therefore we go over him till he return again to the Soul which he doth Pag. 25. He pretends to tell us the true Reason why many perswade themselves that the Existence of God and the Nature of Humane Souls are Things very difficult to be known The Reason says he is this those Men do not separate their Minds from their Senses nor raise them enough above Corporeal Things believing the Old Philosophical Maxim viz. Nothing can come into the Intellect but by the Passages of the Senses by which Passages neither God nor the Soul are ever like to get into the Intellect whence it need be no Wonder that they are no better or more easily understood We grant his Reason to be good viz. That because God and Spirits come not ordinarily by the Senses into the Intellect therefore they are Things very difficult to be apprehended and understood by Men but that Men shall be able by forsaking the Assistance of their Senses and giving themselves up to unguided and random Cogitations to obtain a more full or true Knowledge of God or Mens Souls I must take leave to deny We are told how God first instructed the first People to know obey and worship him He conversed with our first Parents in the Garden and drave them thence by an Angel He gave Commands for Worship and Obedience sutable to the Patterns imprinted upon Mans Reason at his Creation he reproved Cain sensibly and so translated Enoch directed Noah saving him and drowning all others in a visible miraculous Manner and so was Sodom destroyed so Abraham called and supported Isaac and Jacob chosen and supported Joseph sent into Aegypt Moses preserved and what was done at Sinai and the Journey out of Aegypt filled that Nation and all their Borderers with Acknowledgments Wonder and Terrors the Works and Wonders done for Jehoshaphat Hezekiah for Nebuchadnezzar Belteshassar and Daniel for Cyrus Alexander and the Foretellings of their Actions Then the Angelical Preparatives for our Lord 's Coming his Extraction Miracles Resurrection Ascension Mission of his Spirit to the Eyes and Ears of many Nations resident in Hierusalem and Witnesses each to their own People Then all the Apostles the Seventy Disciples the Seven first Deacons and their Disciples were inspired to prophesie speak with Inspired Tongues cast out Devils and to do miraculous Cures These Acts testifying a Superior and Supernatural Power to the Senses and Perceivings of Mankind suted to the Doctrines therewith delivered fill'd the Earth with the Knowledge of God as the Waters cover the Sea Now to the contrary where shall Men find so much as one single Person before Socrates who attained to so true a Knowledge of God as to determine That he was but One. All the roving Cogitations of Mankind never attained to so much Truth concerning God as this one most plain and single Assertion except in those Families or People where God by miraculous Means had made himself perceptible to the Senses of Men and by them made himself Way to Humane Understanding and Intelligence And from these things all true and irrefragable it seems we may conclude that to know God or any Spirit are things of very great Difficulty None knows the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him And God revealed himself to
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but gives no Aswer to it Says Plato Origen and many Hebrews held Opinion the Adam's Soul and all other Souls did and do pre-exist and are thence called down as new Bodies require viz. from Superior Regions But this he says is both false and absurd And to prove this by Reason he says Pag. 619. cites Aristotle That the Soul is Actus Corporis Organici and therefore the Soul cannot be before the Body To this we easily assent and add That when the Body dies this Actus Corporis must cease for the same Reason He argues also That the Soul is a Spiritual Substance and it was not needful or proper to put that up at the Nostrils and that seems true but makes against his former Assertions Still there rises a new Difficulty viz. Whether this Soul if then created were created first within the Body or first without the Body and then was breathed or blown in The Text favours the later but the Author favours the former to the Intent that Men may not think Souls are still first created and then infused but think rather as he doth that Souls are created in their Bodies and to this end he approves Lombard's Invention of Creando infunditur Cites Essay 2.22 Cease ye from Man Cujus Anima in Naribus ejus est which we read whose Breath is in his Nostrils Pag. 620 The Soul of Man came to him from without although created within him He will have from without to signifie of another Nature or kind of Thing and not proceeding from the Body as the Beasts do But this he only says without offer of Proof for it Says The whole Soul comes together viz. Vegetative Sensitive and Rational whence it must come into the Body at the first Original of Life and there seems no doubt but there is a Vegetative Power and Principle in the Seed and likely for the Sensual and there appears no Reason against a like Course in the Rational these three being all Faculties of the same Soul from which none of them are separable Pag. 621. The Word signifying Spiraculum Vitarum is used as well concerning Beasts as Men. Pag. 624. Souls of Brutes are sometimes called Spirits in Scripture but never said to return to God Pag. 625. As God breathed into Adams Body the Breath of Life who thereupon rose from the Earth where he lay so shall his Breath effect Life in Bodies which shall rise at Sound of the Last Trumpet And as we read Ezek. 37. Pag. 667. Cites Gen. 1.28 God blessed the Man and Woman and said Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth as Ver. 22. he had said to other Creatures This seems to import Men do generate their Like as the Beasts do and the Creation of Souls for every fruitful Coition by Adultery Incest or Buggery is but a Fiction and not a likely or reasonable Contrivance Lib. 2. Cap. 1. Pag. 683. Mans Life consists in Heat and Moisture not simply but in Temperament with Cold and Dry and from the Four Elements The Four Complexions of Phlegm Sanguine Cholerick and Melancholy Health and Sickness Life and Death consist in a good and fit Temperature of these Humors and the Soul uses these as Instruments for Conservation of the Compositum the General Parts are Bones with their Nerves knitting them together and the Flesh with its Veins through which the Blood returns and Arteries through which the Vital or Animal Spirits have their Courses and God hath given to Men a more delicate Flesh and more Nice and tender Skin than to Beast Pag. 685. And the Temperament and Complexion of their Bodies are much finer Pag. 686. There are Three Principal Faculties of the Soul viz. Vegetation Sense and Motion 3. Intellect The Two later viz. Sense and Intellect are chiefly placed and acted in the Head and thence grow the Nerves passing to every Bone and Member Pag. 687. All Anatomists confess That in an Humane Body there are Innumerable Parts and Things which Men cannot find out and which are known only to God Pag. 689. The Common or Internal Sense cannot act without the Animal Spirits and the Soul uses these Spirits both for Understanding and for its other Actions which are to be performed in the Head and the Nerves which serve both for Sense and Motion through the whole Body have their Original from the Brain and are fixed in it or to it There the Soul reigns most effectually and who can express the various Instruments which God hath there provided for her Use Pag. 693. The Heart is the Original and Prime Instrument of Vegetation and Life which it communicates to the whole Body by its Intense Heat Motion and Rarefaction of the Blood and specially it communicates to the Head the Animal Spirits whereby Motion Sense and Cogitation are received and acted Thirdly The Heart is the Seat Fountain and Cause of all the Affections and there are two Principal Motions in it viz. that of the Systole and Diastole or of the Pulse effecting and Declaring Life the other Motion is of the Affections following the Conceptions or Intellect either with extraordinary Dilatation in the whole Body as in Accidents pleasing and joyous or with a like Compression or Contraction in Case of Accidents sorrowful or dspleasing Whence as Motion Sense and Intellect have their Original and Activity from and in the Brain and Head So Life and all the Affections are derived and acted from and in the Heart And betwixt the Heart and Head there is a wonderful Correspondence and Agreement to the Good and Benefit of the whole Compositum From the Heart Vital Spirits ascend to the Brain where they become Animal Spirits and by these Intelligence Cogitations and Notices of Things arise in the Mind from whence again such Cogitations and Notices strike upon the whole Heart exciting and stirring there the Affections and other Vegetative and Natural Motions which are either pleasing or displeasing tending to or towards Joy or Sorrow the one a great Help to and Supporter of Health and Life and the other great Hinderance to or a Destroyer of them both Pag. 694. The Liver is the Fountain of all the Veins and the Arteries through which the Vital Spirits do pass are always and in all Places conjoined with the Veins and upon them depend the Life and Motion of the Animal and the Soul uses the Blood and Spirits to such Purposes The Liver communicates Blood to the Heart and that again Vital Spirits to the Liver Pag. 195. And as Blood is never in the Veins without some Spirits so neither do the Spirits flow through the Arteries without some thin Rivage of Blood with them and as the Veins have need of the Arteries to stir the Blood in them so the Arteries of the Veins for Nourishment of the Spirits Pag. 696. Spirits of the Body are Vital or Animal and the Spirit is a Vapor drawn by Heat and Concoction of the Heart out of the purest Parts of the Blood
and then in kindled or inflamed first for Conserving of Life and next for being a Principle of Motion in the Animal extending to every Member and Part of it stirring them up and inabling them to the Performance of those Duties for which they were by God intended and ordained The Vital Spirit is Flammula quaedam bred in the Heart out of the purest Blood and thence by Vital Heat communicated and conveyed to the rest of the Members imparting Power and Activity to them by their Natural Heat and Motion and stirring them to act and perform those Duties for which by Nature and Creation they were ordain'd and made The Organs for conveying this Vital Spirit into all Parts and Members of the Body are the Arteries The Animal doth no otherwise differ from the Vital Spirit save that in being transferred to the Brain that hath Power to rarify and make it more Lucid and Subtil and then being from thence infused into the Nerves it incites and enables them to exercise their Faculties Powers and appointed Offices of Sensation and Motion And by both these sorts of Spirits the Principal Actions of Animals and even of Humane Bodies are effected Namely Life is preserved and thence proceed Nutrition Generation Sense Motion Cogitations and Affections Hence it hath come to Pass that some have thought these Spirits to be the very Soul it self or at least the immediate Instruments to it by which the Body both lives and moves Hoc postremum says our Author verum est To which we do not assent but rather hold with the former Lib. 2. Cap. 2. Pag. 697. Treats Ex Professo de Anima and cites out of Tully That Dicaearchus a Peripatetick Philosopher and Scholar to Aristotle held there was no more Soul in Man than in Beasts This says our Author though it should be the Opinion of all Philosophers we ought not to follow or believe them in it because the Scriptures says he are against it Pag. 69â— He takes it pro confesso as agreed on all hands that Souls of Beasts do die with their Bodies without a Principle of separately Subsisting after Death of the Body but there are many Disputes concerning Humane Souls 1. What a Humane Soul is 2 Concerning its Nature and Operations 3 Concerning its Original Whether by continual New Creations or that it grow Ex traduce from Generation or be pre-existent And if newly created then whether first created and then infused or be created within the Body Whether the Vegetative the Sensitive and the Rational be all one same Soul in Man or that they be so distinct as that the two first may die and the third only be that which can separately subsist but the Question of the Souls Nature est per Difficilis per Obscura Tertullian S. Austin and Greg. Nyssen have written of it largely and Pomponacius and Simon Portius two famous Italian Philosophers have since taught That Aristotle held the Soul to be Mortal and that its Immortality cannot be proved by any sufficient Reasons But Men must be left to the Evidence of Faith for that Point and many there are who think there is not enough Evidence to be a sufficient Ground for that Faith Pag. 699. He therefore proposes his first Enquiry viz. What is the Nature and Essence of the Soul Upon this Query he propounds the Definitions made of the Soul by three Ancient Philosophers and very learned Men viz. Plato Aristotle and Galen the great Latin Physician but none of them come up to this Point and therefore he rejects them all especially that of Galen who says The Soul is but a Temperature and sutable Proportion of the Parts and Humours whereby the Animal hath Life and the Vse of all its Faculties And this Opinion he took from his Master Hyppocrates and endeavours to confirm it with divers Reasons and of this Opinion was then Dynarchus the Philosopher and Simmias and divers others The Author brings three Arguments against this Opinion but they are rather Sophistical than Solid He rejects also those of Plato and Aristotle But in lieu of them all he gives us one of his own Pag. 705. viz. A Humane Soul is a truly Spiritual Substance Incorporeal and Immaterial Upon this last Word he lays a great Stress For says he the Souls of Beasts are Essential Forms but drawn out of Matter from which they cannot be separated And there are those who think the Soul which is the Form to our Body to be neither Accident nor Body and that yet it is Material so as to depend upon Matter from which it cannot be separated and therefore must extinguish with Death of the Body Upon this therefore the whole Stress of the Question lies concerning the Mortality or Immortality of the Soul Whence says he this our Definition ought to be well and fully proved Says Humane Souls have the same Essence with Angelical Spirits their only Difference being that the one is Form to a Humane Body and the other not His Proofs he begins from Texts of Scripture but we yet in the Bounds of Nature and Reason will pass them over Animo revertendi and consider here his Arguments from Reason only to which he comes Pag. 709. 1. He says The Soul governs the Body and resists the Passions Complexion excites and begets Passions Here is the Soul contending against Passions and Natural Inclinations supporting them Ergo here is a Substantial Soul In Answer I say The Soul hath no greater Share in the Resisting than in the Exciting of Passions But that the Soul is the living and moving Principle in every Part and Member of the Body understanding and perceiving and remembring in the Head affecting and passionate in the Heart feeling and moving in the whole Body and in every member of it The Souls Regard and Care is for the whole Compositum to chuse the beneficial and to avoid the hurtful Things Hence Intellect and Passion are not one of them of the Soul and the other not the Soul but both are Faculties of the same Soul The Heart desires one thing as vitally Good or abhors it as Harmful The Intellect from common Sense and Understanding often opposes such Desires or Fears from Considerations more percipient and duly weighed and the Contest rises most often from the Nearness or Distance of what they contend about viz. Present or Future one Faculty affixing chiefly upon the Enjoyment and the other contemplating the Consequence withal Now if the Soul did govern the Body as our Author faith it doth the Contest could not be maintained against it by the Passions which should naturally be ordered to yield an easie Submission to it whereas it is too evident that the Passions do often over-power and over-rule the Intellect And as Aristotle hath told us their Contest is more like a Game at Tennis than a Government sometimes one of them prevails and sometimes the other So they look not like a Governor and a Governed but rather like Equal
help of other Circumstances of Time Place or Persons c. This we leave as doubtful Pag. 740. There are in Animals Three Sorts of Motion 1. Vital 2. Commanding or Stimulating 3. Prosecuting or Endeavouring That Commanding Force is in the Sensitive Appetite from whence all our Affections do arise and they reign and command in Animals Beasts and Men as Animal and act to Motion the whole Body or the several Members of it The Prime Vital Motion is that of the Pulse placed in the Heart the Seat of Life and Vital Motion acted by the Soul Pag. 741. The Actors in this Motion are the Inward Heat and Spirits viz. the Vital Spirits When this Motion ceases all Animals die and the Vital Spirits vanish But says he it doth not therefore follow that the Soul dies If he had proved or shall prove that there is a Soul in Man which did ever live doth live or can live in Separation from the Body we will admit of this Caution of his and not infer Death of such a Soul by the Ceasing of this Vital Motion in the Body Palpitations of the Heart agitated by the Affections and the Faculty of Respiration are also Vital Motions Appetive commanding Motion Pag. 724. is Vegetative Sensitive and Intellective It consists in prosecuting things liked and avoiding things disliked with Passion or at Leisure cites Matth. 15. They all proceed from the Heart and have their Rise from the Affections although many Causes may work in and upon them viz. Complexion of the Body Education Conversation Examples Doctrines c. their general Aspect is upon Pleasure or Pain to follow or avoid the Vigor of their Motion grows from Lust Wrath and Fear or present outward Sense greatly affected the Affections are not ill in themselves but useful helpful necessary for nothing is from God or Nature which is not Good the Evil which they produce is but by Accident Pag. 744. The Prosecutive Power lies in Local Motion This hath its Root in the Brain whence the Nerves and their Power and Motion are derived animated and enlivened by Spirits from the Heart This says he Galen teaches who is in that Point to be preferred before any other Testimony But it seems both he and Hyppocrates his Master were mistaken concerning Man's Compages of Body and Soul if our Author fall out to be right The Powers moving the Nerves and in them are the Vital and Animal Spirits and thence Motion is derived to the Muscles Bones Joints and every Member These Spirits which are partly Corporeal and partly quasi Incorporeal or Spiritual excited by the Soul omitting how or by what Means these Spirits move and guide the Nerves which are like Reins to the whole Body and they quicken and guide the Muscles and the small Cords or Strings which reach to them By these are the Bones Joints and Members of the Body moved And thus the moving Power of the Soul prosecutes the Mandates of the Appetite and Affections this seems a weak or foolish Sort of Soul that will or must use its Motive Powers to satisfie those Affections which drive to Action against the Will and Dictates of the Soul it self Whence we conclude it more likely that all these Motions are Natural and Animal that Intellect or Reason is one Natural Faculty in Man and that it is Chief and hath a Priority of Order and Power in him that Sense and the Affections are another Natural Faculty in Man and that Vital Inclinations and Powers of Vegetation are another Natural Faculty in him not divided by so many Souls but that one Soul serves all these Faculties viz. that Flaming Spirit or Principle of Life Motion and Action first breathed into Man by his Creator and once quite extinguished can never be again rekindled but from Heaven by miracle A Vital Spark or Origine of this Fire likely may be kindled in Heat of Coition lodged in the Matter by Ordinance of Nature and her Director This hath its appointed Natural Times and Means first of Vegetation and Motions then of Sense and Affections and lastly of Intellect and Reason The Matter Shape and Organs of the Body do by Degrees enlarge themselves and grow and they increase the Blood and Humors which nourish continually the Vital Active Flame whence the Increaseof Body and Soul goes on together till they arrive to their Fullness of Stature Proportions and Activities and in Ordinary Course of Nature they grow stand and decay together This Active is the Motive Principle enlivening and quickening all Man's Faculties to act according to their Natural Powers Propensities and Appointments If any Organ or Part of Matter be out of Order this Active Power not being Rational but in the proper Place for that Faculty cannot remedy that Want but can only put on to Action all that is in the Body fit for it inclining and helping them to and in the Actions that are proper or peculiar to them in the Heart the Primum Vivens and most Vital Part of the Body This Flame and Heat is most Predominant and Intense there the Blood is purified and ratified and refined there the Vital Spirits are generated and thence they are dispersed to several Parts of the Body but chiefly to the Head In the Heart therefore we place the Chief Seat of Life and Vegetation for whose Defence each other Part will be ready to expose it self knowing and feeling that the Loss of that Fort destroys the Microcosm The Place of next Value to this but of much greater Activity is the Head for there reside the Senses both Internal and External and there resides also the Rational Faculty viz. the Intellect and the Judgment so as these two Faculties of Sense and Reason are very close and near Borderers upon one another and although our Author go with the Stream of deriving Mens Affections all from the Senses therein seems to be an apparent Mistake for as we do allow to the Intellect a Will as well as to the Senses an Appetite so there must be allowed to Reason a Power of making and gaining the Affections of equal or greater Potency and Might then that which is attributed to the Senses Whence in Contests betwixt Reason and Sense or Will and Appetite that Part which prevails upon the Affections must be Victor over the other for the Affections stirred and gained excite move and sway the Heart which is drawn and bent by them to resolve and execute accordingly and there appears no such Difference between the Prevalency of either of these Faculties as that Men can determine which doth oftnest prevail or which of them is naturally endowed with the most strong and prevalent Power each have a Power in some Persons more than in others and in all Persons more at one Time or upon one Occasion then upon another In no Persons naturally doth the Stream run one Way but as S. Paul says 'T is not of willing or running but God gives the Victory perhaps often But
by something in us and that is some Substance and this we call the Soul it is not nothing and it is within us Thus he tells us a Humane Soul is an Immortal Spirit That being denied he neither proves it nor offers to do it but instead thereof he offers Proof that it is a substance for says he it moves and acts within us and it is not nothing This we grant but take it for no proof at all of the separated subsistance of a Soul for the Heart Brain Blood and Spirits and Breath are continually moving and acting within us and each of them are substances but have no subsistance in their Motions separate from the Body but all Die with it and so may that which is called by the names of Soul or the Form of a Humane Body or the Vital Principle of it Pag. 14. He Confesses That God is the continued First Cause of all Beings and that the Branches and Fruit depend not as effects so much upon their Causes the Roots Stocks and Branches as the Creature doth upon God whence it seems clear That God can make an Automaton moving and living by ways which Men may not be able to find out or understand and perhaps the Life and Actings of Animals may be such a Secret and because Men cannot find out how the Blood Spirits Nerves Arteries Veins Muscles and other Vital Parts are acted or moved nor the adequate or precise manner how they are all Excited and Actuated by that Flame and Glowing of that which is called the Flammula Vitalis not quite extinguished in Animals but with the Life how by the Unctuous Spirits rising from the Blood Urine and Humours of the Body this Flame is perpetually nourished and maintained and fanned and kept alive by continual and lively respiration nor how the Spirits raised and kindled in and about the Heart mount continually to the Head where in the Brain and the Ventricles of it and Motion or Conveyance of the Arteries thereunto belonging the Common Sense is furnished and excited to Act upon all Objects presented and to Lodge them in the Phantasie and the Memory whence they may be recalled and presented again to the common Sensorium or Judicial Power that it may consider them better or work with them or upon them as far as its own Capacity or Intellect can advance it self in the Powers and Practices of Arts and Sciences Such things we find are transacted and done in the Brain and Body of Man and we cannot pervestigate with any exactness how by the Vital Parts and Spirits of the Body such effects are particularly and properly Produced and this is more hard to be done because Men can never Compass the sight of a Dissected Body in the full Life Vigour and Motion of the Blood Spirits Humors Parts and Members of it but must be content with the view of them all Dead Cold Clammed whence they may have good pretences to conclude it very unlikely that the Powers of Sense Phantasie Intellect and Memory should be Actuated by such Materials or the Conjunction or Operation of them not enough considering that the Flamula Vitalis which is the Acter and Life of them all is extinguished before the beholders can be admitted to the sight and consideration of the Vital or Principal Parts of a Dissected Body And yet it seems from this want of Conception how the Parts and Spirits of the Body do or after what manner they can Act after and in performance of the Faculties of Sense Motion Intellect Phantasie Memory c. Men take their Principal or even only Reason to Introduce or Invent a Forreign Government and Governor for every Animal or at least Humane Body viz. a Spiritual Substance as our Author calls it Pure Invisible Immortal others add Indiscerptable and it will not be Difficult for Men to add and ascribe to it whatsoever their fancies happen to Invent in Cases where we can never expect to have any likely Trial of the Truth but this savours of expounding Obscurum per Obscurius or the stopping one Hole and making many Wherefore as to our not conceiving how the Animal Parts can Work and Act all those Parts which we know are performed amongst us wee seem to have ground enough to refer them to the Power and Will of our Creator That he can by such means effect all Mens performances no Man makes doubt and to many and learned Persons it seems likely that he hath done so and for those who meerly upon the fore-named reason will take the boldness to impose a Super-Humane or Spiritual Empire upon the Bodies of all Men we request them to take as the Acter or Imposer ought to do upon themselves the Onus Probandi and that they first prove to us concerning the Power intended by them to be Introduced amongst and over us which they call an Immortal Spiritual Substance 1. Quod sit 2. Quid sit 3. Quale sit 4. Quando Ingreditur 5. Vbi residet 6 Quomodo gubernat agit viz. That there is in Nature such a Humane Soul able to subsist in Seperation from the Body 2. What it is in its own Nature and whether it do pre-exist a Mundo condito or be derived ex Traduce from the Seed of the Parents or that Infundendo Creatur be Created by Gods Power upon every Fruitful Copulation 3. With what Qualities such Souls are indowed whether they are all well inclined or some ill or meeterly Whether all are of like Power or some more others less potent Whether they may cause or can help or hinder any Bodily Pains or Diseases Whether they can leave their usual place of Residence and go into other Parts of the Body or go quite out of it a wandring in the World and yet return to it again Whether they feel share of the Bodies Maladies and will not willingly consent to have Limbs cut off or to take strong Purges or Vomits for fear of being disturbed in their places of Residence Whether they are more pleased or have a greater desire to be in the Body or out of it Whether the Body be as a Prison to Souls and they be confined to it or that they chuse to be there and leave it unwillingly And if they be there confined by what Power or means are they so and what other Qualities of Souls they think fit to communicate to us 4 When it is that the Soul enters into the Body Whether before or after the Births and if before then how long after the Conception Whether it enter in its full Dimensions or grows larger as the Child grows or suffer detriment by sickness of the Body or its Consumption or Age Also when it leaves the Body finally Whether its leaving do kill or that it stay till the Flamula Vitalis be quite extinct and the Body dead Or If this Flame be suddenly extinct by the violent motion of a blow upon the Head Whether doth the Soul strive to re-kindle this Flame or
nourishing the once kindled Flame so long as the Materials shall be able to last or endure and that in Men and Beasts is their old and decrepit Age and the utter Expence of that Humidum Radicale whereby their Flammula Vitalis might be nourished and maintained or that it be corrupted and vitiated by other noxious Humours and thereby rendred improper for the Purposes to which it was designed In Men and Beasts it seems there is a Material Spirit kindled and enflamed and thereby attenuated to so great a degree of Subtilty as to become Invisible and so asserts My Lord Bacon in the Place before quoted And so our Author Pag 72. says Some think that the Soul is Material yet of a purer Substance than things visible and thus thought Tertullian and almost all the Old Greek Doctors of the Church that write of it and so most of the Latines or very many Some thought the Soul an Igneous Body such as we call Aether or Solar Fire or rather of a higher purer Kind and that Sensation and Intellection are those Formal Faculties which specifically difference it from inferiour meer Fire or Aether And there are few of the Old Doctors or Fathers who thought it not some of these ways Material And to all this we do willingly subscribe and agree believing as the Primitive Fathers of the Church both Greek and Latine have by our Author 's own Testimony thought and taught before us And we conceive that the Beasts have a like Material Spirit inflamed lambently but whether altogether so fine and subtile as that in Humane Bodies we find not Ground enough to assert or determine But Solomon tells us what befalls Men befalls Beasts As one dies so dies the other Yea they have all one Breath and a Man hath no Preheminence above a Beast their Bodies go all to one Place they are of the Dust and turn to it again and who knows the Difference of their Spirits that of a Beast goes downward to the Earth viz. dies with the Body and turns to Dust and who knows that the Spirit of a Man doth not do so but goes upward Hence it seems there was an Opinion at that time amongst the Jews that the Souls of Men did not die with their Bodies like the Beasts And we find Solomon in the Close of this Book saying upon a Mans Death The Dust shall return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it Now whether he was better resolved in the Point at this time or that he used this Expression to comply with the Opinion of his Countrey we will not pretend to determine But it seems plain that amongst Men and Beasts there is a great Congruity in their Parts Frame and Composition as that all have different Members acting sutable to their Kinds as Head Feet Back Belly and Inward Parts as Heart Liver Lungs Spleen Brain and all the Organs of Sense and Nerves Veins Arteries Ventricles Muscles Joynts and the same Nature of Flesh Bones Blood and Breath which shall be left here and changed for the Consideration of their Internal Powers of Sense Motion Phancy Memory Intellect and of their Affections Passions and Powers of Perception Utterance and the like Faculties Concerning such Faculties we begin from the Senses and do find the Beasts have all the same with those of Men and that they can make as accurate and beneficial Use of them as any Men can do and in the Perceivance by them divers Beasts do excel Men some in the Use of one Sense and some of another and every Beast and Bird have Voices Tones and Notes all serving to warn and direct their Young ones to call for their Food or complain for the Want of it to give warning of Weather or Danger to call for Company of their own Kind to threaten and terrifie their Inferiours in Strength the Birds also to vie with one another in Melody delighting therewith the Ears of other Creatures that can perceive the Suavity and Variety of them The Affections and Passions in Beasts are the same with those in Men. We have named five Principals of them viz. Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear the three last of which are altogether as eminent and active in Beasts as in Men. Ambition is not so and yet Beasts and Birds of all Kinds will fight without giving quite over until there be an acknowledged Mastery amongst them the Stronger will compel the Weaker to give Way and to follow and observe him Nor is Covetousness in Beasts any thing comparable to that in Man some of them do hoard up Provision for their Support in Winter and others for whom it is proper will steal it from them or fight for it if there shall be an Occasion So as in Beasts these Affections are but very feeble in comparison to what they are in Man Whereas Lust Wrath and Fear are equally potent and prevalent in the one Kind as in the Other And for Proof that Beasts have Phantasies their Dreams are Evidence in which sometimes they are vehemently agitated and affected and that they have Perfect Memories is proved by a Horses learning to know a Way but once gone and sooner than ordinary Passengers do by a Cows returning to the Place where her Calf was parted from her although she be driven away many Miles from it by the Docility of Horses Camels Dogs Apes Elephants most knownly but truly of many other Creatures And there seems to be no sufficient Doubt of finding all other Powers that are in Man resident in some Beasts except that of his Intellect which he can imploy in framing many Notions or Propositions and drawing Consequences and Conclusions such we do not know that any Beasts can do nor have they Means of making them known to us Sometimes we light upon Effects which carry a great Semblance of Proceeding from such Causes as in Dogs their Kindness to the Bodies of their dead Masters and discovery of their Murtherers That of Sabinus supported his Master's dead Body in the Tiber till he sunk with it Alexander's Elephant who would never take Food after the Royal Harness was taken from him and put upon another but starved and died upon it Androgeo and his Lion are reported and made famous in divers Roman Histories and other-like Effects are related that might serve to this Purpose but too long and circumstantial to be here related But from the Docility of Creatures Beasts we may with some certainty collect that they have an Intellect of simple or single Notions what and when and how their Directors will have them to act And Hares and Foxes do it seems invent Means to deceive and baffle their Pursuers But of Complex Notions Discourse or Reasoning in their Minds we do not perceive that any Beasts are capable although they are notable Observers of their Masters Eyes and can perceive their Pleasure or Displeasure in them and act according as by them directed Yet that they
such Exceptions against your Deductions as you are not able to give clear Answers unto nor can you make plain to Reason the particular Mode of the Operation of the Senses less concerning the Imagination Memory Intellect and Affections We will not stick to grant all this and yet reply by repeating what we have said Let the Dr. or any for him shew the particular Reasons and Causes and Manner of Working how and why Apple-trees bring forth Apples of such different Kinds yet constant each to his own Kind And why and how a Pear-tree is terminated to her Sort and Sorts in like manner Why and how a Thorn must needs bear Haws and a Vine Grapes c. Why and how some Plants and Flowers are sweet others stinking or without Smell Let them answer to the Queries before made concerning a Leaf and so as Men cannot make material and just Exceptions to their Deductions and then they may more reasonably pretend to bring in a Self-subsisting Soul to the actuating of the Senses in Animals and the Guiding and Conduct of their other Faculties And till then it is to be hoped they will allow Men to think that the Animal Spirits of a Sensitive Animal may have Activity Mettle and Power enough in them to move and employ the Brain the Senses the Body and all their Organs or Instruments whatsoever without the Government or Assistance of a Self-subsisting Soul or any Extraneous Spirit whatsoever Notice must needs be taken of an Objection which our Dr. himself makes or frames against his own Opinion Pag. 238. says he There will be an envious Objection cast in our Way Observe his Epethite is very sharp but the Strength of the Objection was the Occasion viz. Men will say that all our Demonstrations are meer Sophisms because some of them and the not of the least Validity do prove that Souls of Brutes are Substances Incorporeal and Self-subsisting after Death of the Body and consequently That they have a Pre-existence before their coming into the Body and that the Souls of Men have also the same Pre-existence Pag. 240. The Dr. owns these Opinions and says they are all true Pag. 241. And that the Deriving Souls ex traduce viz. from Seed of the Parents is a plain Contradiction and so impossible for a Body to beget an Immaterial Spiritual Substance The third Conceipt That God creates Souls to supply every Adulterous Incestuous Buggering successful Coition or for Monstrous Deformed Productions is too Indignous to be imposed upon his Majesty And there are but these Three Ways for Production of Souls and therefore they must pre-exist à Mundo Condito when many Miriads of Souls were created to serve in all Future Ages Pa. 447. Of this Opinion says the Jews Cabbala was Moses And he names here Seventeen more Ancient Philosophers who were of this Opinion and adds Origen and later Writers Pag. 245. says That all Philosophers of Note in all Ages who have held the Soul of Man Immortal and Incorporeal have likewise held the Pre-existence of it and this must hold for Beasts as well as for Men. Pag. 266. As the Souls of Men pre-existing slide down out of the Air into fitly prepared Matter so do the Souls of Brutes also Pag. 271. The Souls of Men and Brutes inhabit Air in a Terrestrial Vehicle Pag. 302. Hence Men will say the Souls of Brutes will live and enjoy themselves after Death To which our Dr. dares boldly answer That it is a thousand times more reasonable that they should be believed to do so than that the Souls of Men do not Pag. 304. There is no Reason to think Brutes cease to be alive after they are separated from their Bodies Our Author Baxter following it seems our Dr. holds the like Opinion and perhaps doubting to prejudice the Opinion of a Humane Soul's Self-subsistance Pag. 20. He says Chambre and some others make Brutes a lower Rank of Rationals and Man a higher Rank Pag. 38. Though it be but an Analogical Reason that Brutes have yet the Difference betwixt Man and them it more in the Objects Tendency and Work of Reason than in our Reason it self as such Pag. 201. Men conclude basely of the Souls of Brutes as if they were not an enduring Substance without any Proof or Probability Pag. 303. Some think too basely of Sense because they find it in lower Creatures they might accordingly deny Substantiality to Spirits because Brutes are Substances Pag. 380. The Sensible Souls of Brutes are Substance and therefore are not annihilated after Death It seems this Tenet of the Maintainers of a Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul is calculated for the Solution of an Objection which they foresaw would arise from that Power which Beasts evidently have and exercise in the Use of their Senses Affections Fancies Memories and Intellect of Simple Notions whereby their Actions may be and are directed How sufficient the Effect of this Tenet will prove for the solving or opposing an Argument drawn from this Ground will best appear when the Argument it self shall have been produced in which we shall proceed as we have done before in the Case of Trees Plants and other Vegetative Creatures We say then That the Beasts are indowed with the like Faculties and Powers that are found in Men they have a Local Motion as Strong Vigorous and Swift as Men and so for every Limb Joynt Muscle Nerve and Sinew of their Bodies acting as Spontaneously therein as can be done by Men They use and govern the same Five Senses that are in Man and enjoy and act them to as great Perfection and Effect as Men ordinarily do and some of them exceed Men in the Natural Effect Use and Vigor of some of those Senses They have the same Affections and Passions reigning in their Minds Inclinations and Bodies as those that appear in Men and their Lust Wrath and Fear are as Strong Vigorous and Vehement as they are in Men. They have very apt and tenacious Memories and have signs of Active and Moving Phantasies the full truth operation and extent whereof we are not able to discover for want of Dialect in the Beasts to discover them to us an Intellect also the Beasts are evinced to have by their perceiving Mens temper of displeasure or kindness in their Eyes Looks or Gestures by their slinking out of sight crouching and dejected Looks or Behaviour when they have done a Mischief a sign they use reflection upon themselves and so much of judgment as to be under Fear and Expectation of Punishment for the same even as we find the Servile People amongst Men will do a Vivacity also of their Intellect shews it self in their Docility inabling them to practice such Postures and Actions as some more stupid People could hardly or never attain to perform to their degrees of Perfection in the knowing understanding observing and obeying of a Sign a Nod a Gesture a Look the Moving of an Eye or by an angry or pleased Composure
of a Mans Countenance Things which dull or unbred People do not well perceive or understand Our Author Baxter Pag. 38. is so moved with the Considerations as he there says That in their own low Concerns a Fox or a Dog nay even an Ass or a Goose have such Actions as we know not well how to ascribe to any thing below some kind of Reasoning or Perception of the same importance Whence he infers That the Difference betwixt Men and Beasts is rather in the Objects and Work of our Reason than in our Reason it self as such and that therefore the old difference of Man from Beast in the Word Rationale should be changed into Religiosum That Mans Genus shall be Animal still but his Characteristical Difference should be changed from Rationale to Religiosum We say further That in the Beasts there is a Sensitive Soul of a Flamy Airy Nature a Material Spirit extracted from the Blood and Humours of the Body actuated by Natural Heat and that Flammula Vitalis which pervades their whole Bodies and every part member and parcel of them passing with their blood into all places whither that can come This Spirit it is that directs and actuates the Motions works by the Senses forms the Voices imagines remembers and understands in the Head inlivens and moves the Heart and by which all other Faculties of the Beasts are stirr'd actuated put upon and supported in their Natural Imployments and Duties performed according to the Natural Operations of Spirits with great Mettle Quickness and Imperceptibility and this seems to be the State and Composition of the Beasts Whence we argue That all that is thus found in Beasts and by them performed springs from the motions and actings of a Material Spirit and the force and power of a Natural Flame What hinders then but that a Material Spirit in Man may as well perform the same productions in Body and Mind of those of his Kind and Species both his Motions Senses Affections Imagination Memory and Intellect and all his other Faculties with some more advantage in the degrees of them by how much the Spirits are more pure and subtil in the Humane Bodies the matter more fine and copious the receptacles of them large and the Organs every where properly fitted and terminating the product and performance to the Effect for which by the Creator they were intended and appointed and we conclude in Affirmative that it is likely to be so in very deed But in answer thereunto our Opposers bring in their lately delivered Assertion calculated as we have said and set on foot for such a time as this Viz. That Beasts do not perform their Functions of the Senses Affections Phantasie Memory and Intellect their Local Motion or any of them by the acting or energy of a Material Spirit But they soberly say Beasts are indowed with and actuated by an Immaterial Self-subsisting Spirit which pre-existed before it came into the Body of the Beast and shall subsist by it self after the death and corruption of its Body They do but say this without making or offering any Proof at all of it And one of their Associates in Opinion pinch'd with this Argument of what the Beasts can and do perform in this Kind takes quite another way and manner of evading from under the force and pressure of it Sir K. Digby to shew us there are more ways to the Wood than one takes a Course directly contrary to that of our fore-cited Authors for he fol. 205. and thence to 210. would perswade us and demonstrate as he says That Beasts are not to be esteemed so much as Voluntary Agents or that they have so much as the knowledge of what they do or why they do it but that they act stupidly by a natural sense of Heat and Cold and the density and rarity of their Blood and Members that they are meer Automata without so perceiving by their senses as to distinguish one thing from another He tells us That in his youth he saw two Machines the one at Toledo for raising Water to a great heighth the other at Segovia both set on work by the Current of a River This was used for the Coining of Money and of these Machines he gives us there the Description and then he compares all sorts of Plants both great and small to his Water-Engine at Toledo and all Sensible Living Creatures to his Machine at Segovia They move and work as that Machine doth and they do things that are very proper and useful for their Natures and contrive and act things sometimes very artificial and curious as he says we see in Spiders Webs and Birds Nests But the Animals know not what it is they do but are prompted so to act by a temperament in their Bodies which makes them uneasie and restless until they do act and employ themselves according to a propensity which they have in Nature but they have as little choice or perceiving either why or what they do as his Machine at Segovia of which he relates many Useful and Artificial Practices continually performed without sense or knowledge of any thing that it did and this seems the single Truth of his fore-cited Assertions But he proceeds upon a like Design to many more folio's It seems evident that these two Opinions of our Opposers are directly contrary one of them to the other and yet are intended both for one same purpose viz. to invalidate such an Argument as might be raised from the Nature Power and Practice of a Sensitive Soul that might perswade to the belief of what hath been before asserted by us of the Rational Faculties and Duties being possible and likely to be acted and performed by a Material Spirit if either of the fore-cited Opinions were true it were enough to rebate the edge of such an Argument and to invalidate the force of it but with those who do not believe the truth of either of them they will be of no force at all to the purpose We confide there is no need to labour in the Confutation of either of them for that they will hardly be acccepted or agreed to by Men of Reading and Reason and that therefore our repeated Argument will be of force and continue unimpeachable by either of these Allegations Whence we are at liberty to proceed in our farther Inquiries concerning the Soul We find that Aristotle who lived about Two thousand years ago wrote a Treatise intituled Of the Soul divided into Three Books and those into Chapters the First Book into Nine and the other Two each into Twelve and he treats therein as we have done of all the Three Known Souls viz. The Vegetative the Sensitive and the Rational and calls his Work A History of the Soul and in the very entrance thereunto the First Chapter of it he tells us It is extream difficult to detect the Essence of any thing or the Quid sit Yet that is the most sound Principle of Knowledge if it can
as a Pilot is in a Ship who having brought it to Shore leaves it Chap. 2. The Soul is amongst those things which are called Principles having the special Faculties of Nutrition Sense Reason and Local Motion but there is doubt whether all these proceed from the whole Soul or that they are separated Parts of it and if separated then whether in Place or only in Imagination the Vegetative Soul will act in Slips and Branches and enable them to grow but the Soul of Man seems to be of another Sort and that this only is capable of a Separation from the Body as that which is Eternal may be separated from that which is subject to Corruption but all other Parts of the Soul except that which is purely Contemplative are inseparable from the Body The Soul is that Principle by which we have Life Sense and Vnderstanding as from our proper Form and Ratio and this is not the Body but belongs to it she is not the Body nor can she be without it In a Body therefore she is and such an one as is sutable to her Operations and is her proper Matter whence she is the Active Principle bearing a reasonable or natural Proportion to the Matter which is to be informed by her or to her Body We may observe how warily or uncertainly Aristotle handles the Separate Subsistence of Souls saying first That the Soul of Man is the only Sort that seems capable of it and that it doth seem capable of a Separate Subsistence as an Eternal Being But this is spoken without Addition of Reason or farther Dilucidation or Confirmation of the Thing as if in Compliance with Vulgar Opinion and then presently subjoins The Soul is not the Body but belongs to it nor can she be without it In a Body therefore she is and likely cannot be without it Farther it may be observed that in this Chapter we begin to enlarge our Strides and omit all such things which do not properly belong to Souls or is Declarative of their Natures or Properties and this Course will be followed in our future Progression in this Author Chap. 3. Where there is Sense there is Appetite viz. Lust Wrath and Will also Pleasure and Pain or that which is Pleasing and Troublesom Lust desires that which is Pleasant and Animals are nourished by Dry and Moist Things and by Hot and Cold Things Hunger and Thirst belong to Lust Hunger desires the Dry and Warm Things and Thirst the Cold and Moist Man hath a Discursive Understanding or if there be any thing in Nature above that Man hath it Creatures in the lowest Degree Rational have all things pertaining to Animation Sense Appetite Motion c. and yet they all perish in Death Of the Contemplative Intellect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems there may other Things be spoken or conceived We may observe here the same cautelous Expressions of Aristotle concerning Subsistence of a Rational Soul in a State of Separation from the Body that hath been usual with him Chap. 4. It is one of the properest and most natural Qualities of all Living Creatures perfect in their Kinds to generate such another as themselves are and the first able Effect of a Soul arrived to Perfection and the most universal is to generate its Like and support its Species Whence the Souls first Denomination may be Generativa except from her first Acts she should be called Nutritiva The Soul is the first Principle and Cause of Life in the Body and first of Motion both as to the what and why She is the very Essence of the Body or the Causa cur sit and the Life of Living Bodies is the very Being of them and this is of the Soul and all Natural Bodies are Instruments of the Soul Empedocles thought Plants had their Nourishment from the Earth below which was carried up by a Power of Heat and Fire Says Aristotle Earth and Fire are Contraries What keeps them then in an amicable Temper This is the Soul and therefore this is the Prime Cause of Nutrition Yet the Fire or Natural Heat is a Concomitant Cause not yet so Principal as the Soul which bounds the Force of the Fire knowing otherwise no Bounds Nothing can take Food or Nourishment that is not an Animated Body so as such Bodies do therefore these Actions come from the Soul therefore the Soul is such a Principle as hath sutable Faculties to preserve the place of her Abode If that have no Aliment it cannot subsist and therein are Three Particulars viz. 1. What must be nourished 2. With what 3. What effects the Nouriture and that is the Soul The other Two are the Body and the Aliment and all Aliment must be digested and all Digestion is effected by Heat therefore all Living Things have Heat We may apply what Aristotle says here of Generation as the most Natural Action viz. to generate another Creature of his own Likeness and Kind This imports a Generation of the whole Matter and Form Body and Soul according to Natural Inclination and Power of all other Living Creatures Chap. 5. Treats of the Senses and the Objects of them The first Motions towards Sense grow from the Seminal Power then that which is procreated obtains Sense natural to Sensitive Creatures as Science and Contemplation is to Man But Objects of the Senses are external Things and those of Science as Things Universal are inward and within Compass of the Soul it self and it can understand when it will not use the Senses without their proper exterior Objects not hear without a Noise Chap. 6. Each Sense judges of its proper Object without being deceived in it the Distance and Medium being fit and the Organ found But Motion Rest Number Figure and Bulk are not peculiar to any one Sense to the peculiar Object the Essence of the Sensible Power applies it self Chap. 7. Light is as it were the Colour of the Perlucid Body when enlightned by Fire or the Heavenly Luminaries but Light is not Fire nor clearly a Body nor the Effluction of a Body for then it self would be a Body But it is the Presence of Fire or other Lucid Thing in the Perlucidum We may say the Presence of that Habit which expels Darkness is Light and of that Habit Darkness is the Privation The Perlucid Body hath no proper Colour whence it cannot be seen as Air or can hardly be seen as Water The Motive to discern Colours is the Perlucidum enlightened but the Act of discerning is from the Light Fire may be seen both in the Dark and Light for that it enlightens the Darkness Chap. 8. All Sounds occasion Ecchoes though not perceptibly even as all Light hath its Reflexion which causes the Light where the Sun doth not shine or in the Shade The Air seems to be an inane or void Space fit for Sounds The Terms of Acute and Obtuse or Slack is derived from Sounds A Voice is the Natural Sound of an Animal and no Inanimate Thing
but not so well Vehement excessive Objects of other Senses do only destroy the present Act or at most but the Organ But such Objects of the Touch may kill as vehement Heat Cold Hardship Smell or Taste can also kill but that comes from their Touches and such Power as an Aspect may have to that Purpose is by Power of what touches Prov. 2.4 Solomon directs Seek Knowledge and Truth as Silver and search for them as for hid Treasures And thus have we ransacked the Treasures of this Philosophical Treatise and Storehouse the best furnished towards the present Purpose of any Magazine which by Art or Nature we know to have been collected there hath no Part of it been left without our closest Scrutiny by which we seem to have found that the Philosopher had made a like Search to this very Purpose in the Times Ages and Writings of those who had lived before him and by such Search had found that Orpheus and Thales held Opinion That the whole World was Animatum and that there was in it an Universal Soul from whence the particular Souls were sent out to animate and inform all that were in Capacity to receive both the Vegetative Sensitive and Rational upon whose future Dissolution the Form Soul Virtue or Active Principle returned back to the Universal Soul or Spirit or Power and mixed therewithal as the Drops of Water returning are received and incorporated into their Ocean or Element And if this were true there must thence follow a Subsistence of Souls after Dissolution of the inspirited Bodies but not in their Individuations or Particulars Next came Pythagoras and he taught an Individuation of Souls That every Animal had its particular Form or Soul and the Souls of Men and Beasts were all of a Mode and transmigrated sometimes into Men and sometimes into Beasts according to their Deserts or as it happened or there was Need in the World This Opinion maintains and requires a Separate Subsistence of Souls after Death of the Body and that in every Particular or in their Proper Individuations and necessarily supposes a Pre-existence of Souls And there must be a great Stock Magazine or Provision of Souls whence all who have need may abundantly be supplied Likewise it supposes an Immortality in the Souls or else in length of time they might come to be clean spent and worn out Then came Democritus and he and Leucippus were of another Mind For they thought that upon the Aptitude and Fitness of the Body for the Receipt of a Soul the Vital Heat required and obtained a Respiration and therewithal the Globular or Fiery Atoms which fly about in the Air are drawn in at each Breathing and they give continual Supply to such Atoms as were in the Body before So long therefore as Animals breath and draw in such Atoms they may live but no longer for want of fresh Atoms or Fire for a continual Supply of their Souls This Opinion makes a Soul created by the Congregating of Globular Atoms not capable of a Separate Subsistence as a Soul but is again dissolved into its Atoms upon Death of the Body Then the Philosophers who more regarded Rational and Knowing Faculties in the Soul than its Vital and Moving ones such as Empedocles and Plato They thought the Soul to be a Compositum of the Elements amongst which Fire was most eminent and potent that all being wrought into an amicable Inclination and mixed in a sutable Proportion there rose from that Mixture a Spiritual Flame which they called a Harmony of them all during whose Continuance the Animal lives and hath Vigor in a like Proportion but in Death it ceases And if this be not the Soul which then leaves the Body what can Men think to be that Soul that then leaves it But if in truth this be the Soul which in Death leaves the Body then first it hath a Beginning but together with the Body and this is taken also away with Death of the Body for that there doth not come to Humane Perceivance or Knowledge of any other sort of Soul departing at Death but this only Flame by them called Harmony Other Opinions of Anaxagoras Heraclitus Almaeon Diogenes Hippo and Critias are also cited before And it seems the Opinion generally current was That the Soul was a distinct Principle from the Body and had a separate Subsistence after Death so strongly conceited as some killed themselves to enjoy Soul-felicities the sooner And this Ancient and General Conceit had so much Power even over Aristotle himself as to induce him to discourse of the Soul generally after the Mode of his Time viz. as of a Self-subsisting Principle and to affirm that a Part of it the Prime and Contemplative Part of it the Intellect actu is Self-subsisting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Immortal and Eternal And to prevent any Bodies demanding what this Soul is he says It is that only which it is and that only is Immortal and Eternal But he gives no manner of Confirmation from Reason or offers any Dilucidation or any farther Discourse upon the Thing But on the contrary whensoever he comes to argue from Reason upon this Point of Subsistence of the Soul in a State of Separation from the Body all his Arguments conclude against such Subsistence of a Soul in that Separate State for that it hath nothing to do wherein the Body joins not with it nor can do any thing not so much as move it self but by the Body nor act any thing in the Body but by the Animal Spirits cannot go out of the Body nor alter any thing in it cannot command the Passions Affections or Appetite but struggles with them after a Natural Manner and uses sometimes Natural Means both outward and inward to obtain Victory cannot punish a rebellious Opposer nor make a Hair White or Black or diminish or increase the Stature can finally do nothing but in a Natural Way and by Natural Means by the Organs bodily and the Animal Spirits and therefore in all his Arguments and Collections from Particulars or Experience the Soul seems to be a Natural Agent acting in and by the Body and employing chiefly the Heart as Vital and the Head as Sentient and Intellectual and all other Parts in Passions Affections Appetites and Motions And yet as this Life of the Soul is according to Nature the same Strength of Reason may seem to conclude for her a sutable Exit such as may best agree with a Natural or Material Spirit Des Caries in his Philosophical Principles Part 4. Sect. 197. mentions thus much shall we say or thus little of the Soul he says We do well enough comprehend how by the Bulk Figure and Motion of one Body divers Motions and Changes may be excited in another Body and such as have great Power to affect the same by acting upon the Senses But says he we cannot at all understand by what Mode these Bulk Figure and Motion do produce or effectually Work upon
Hand Foot Heart and all Members sees in the Eyes hears in the Ears expresses in the Voice perceives in the Common Sense compares and compounds in the Phantasy records in the Memory reasons in the Intellect and judges in his Supream Seat or Power it desires in the Affections excites and acts in the Passions moving all to the intended Preservation Propagation Good and Advantage of each of those Faculties to which they most properly belong intending withal to the Good of the whole Compositum Hence the Affections and Passions do derive from the Soul as well as the Reason and Intellect and one of them is not naturally subjected unto the other but each of them hath its Faculties and Powers formally distinguished from one another but all identified in the Soul so as they act freely and without Dependance of one upon another Thus the Affections and Passions as Products of the same Soul with the Reason and Intellect are naturally at like Freedom and not the Former under Cohersion of the Latter The Seat of Judgment we place Supream in the Microcosm endowing that Power with Knowledge and Discretion to the Measure of that Compositum wherein it is This we say sways in the Government which is Monarchical and Legal and the Judgment cannot be corrupted or beaded to act otherwise than appears to be for the most Safety Good and Benefit of the Compositum all things then offered or appearing considered without Consent of this the Will or Voluntary Power cannot move or proceed to Execution and yet the Judgment often doth consent with great Measures of Reluctancy pressed thereunto by the Furies and Force of Passions viz. Wrath and Fear or by the extream troublesome and vexatious Importunities of Affections viz. Ambition Covetousness and Lust divided into that of Nutrition and Generation and these do so far oft-times importune and press the Judgment for its Consent to their Satisfaction as that upon the over-long Delay or utter rejecting of their Suit by the Judgment or their final Opposition from outward Obstacles they are able to drive the whole Compositum along with them into Frensie Despair Diseases and other ruinous Calamities as we have before quoted in the Case of Judas in which the Judgment consented to a Violent Death rather than bear the Stings and Torments of his Passions But this abates or takes away the Wonder upon the Judgment 's Consenting with Reluctancy to Execution of those Actions which it self doth not approve Thence we often do what we would not and do not what both Reason and Judgment desire to do And though S. Paul call this Sin in us I take leave to think it is Nature in us and that it was in Adam before Sin and was the Original of Sin in him and his Wife as well as in us For when the Woman saw that the Fruit was Good for Food and Pleasant to the Eyes here was her Lust tempted and prevailed upon And that it was to be desired to make one Wise here was her Ambition tempted and prevailed upon And these prevailed upon her Judgment which consenting the Voluntary Power moved the Hands to take and Chaps to grind and devour that which from S. Paul's Authority Christians have ever sine believed to be the Root of Original Sin and bad Inclinations in Men although by this they seem to grow from a higher Original viz. Nature in Man in which we do not place the Affections or Passions under the Regiment of Reason Naturally but take them for Powers Co-ordinate excited and acted by the Soul and set under Direction and Government of the Judgment upon which the Voluntary Power is Attendant And we say with this our former Author That the Souls Operations are assisted or hindred by the Fitness of Matter and Aptness of Organs in the Body If the Matter be of good Temper and the Organs apt and fit the Soul 's Operations are more Vigorous and Effectual If the Matter or Organs be indisposed the Soul 's Operations are more infirm and feeble and if the Instruments be corrupted or spoiled the Soul cannot operate at all by them as if the Eyes be out the Soul cannot see if the Memory be spoiled it cannot remember if the Intellect be crazed the Soul cannot reason if the Seat of Judgment be corrupted the Government fails and all goes out of Order Also the Judgment may be more Able and Firm in some than in others according as the Materials are tempered and the Organs apt and fit And Degrees of Perfection or Imperfection come upon it by good or ill Education Custom Company and other Accidents to which that and all other Faculties Powers Members and Organs of the Soul and Body are subject And they will be better and worse in the same Person at divers Times and upon several Accidents and Occasions all which seem to evince a Mutual Dependance of the Soul and Body one upon another The Body without the Soul is but a Dead Body void of Motion Sense and Life and the Soul without a Body hath no Place where it can lay its Head or set down its Foot the Body is its Natural Receptacle and there only it seems to be at Home enlivening the whole Body inciting each Member Organ and Faculty to the Performance of those Duties and Operations for which by God and Nature they were intended and appointed and acting in them and by them all that hath been before particularly mentioned All this we say is performed by that Flame of Life kindled from Heaven in the Bodies Blood and Humours of Adam and his Wife and by them propagated to all Future Generations this Flame passing in and with the Blood throughout and into every small Part and Member of the Body may it seems be easily conceived to act in all the Members and Organs of the Body and the Vital Sensitive and Intellectual Faculties thereunto joined and in and by its Organs performed working per My and per Tout all that is acted in the Body and in every Part and Parcel of the same because this Soul is spread and diffused over all But how things should in this Manner be performed by an Immaterial and Indivisible Spirit or Spark of a Soul that its whole should be and act in every Member and Organ of the Body and yet be but one for and in the whole Body this is so far from me conceivingly to believe as that I rather incline to think it an unintelligible Thing As we have said the Soul acts in every Organ of the Body and the Inward as well as the Outward So it seems it cannot act to its special Purposes but in those Places and Organs to those Purposes specially appointed by Nature It Sees in the Eyes and Hears in the Ears but it cannot See or Hear without them nor by any other Member or Instrument It cannot perceive but in the Common Sense nor frame idea's but in the Phantasy nor remember but in and by the Organ of Memory
Faith to Church Ordinances and do you shew me Ordinances of God convincingly such in this point and then I promise you to be obedient to them and there will need no more words in the Case now disputed But if you cannot or which will come to one do not do it you may have some Title to the Term of a False Accuser of your Brethren whose conceits or errours perhaps of weakness you cannot infect or sully by the sowre and tainted Originals from whence you are pleased ignorantly to derive them And for your Conclusion That the Opinion of the Materiality tends to subvert the Fundamentals al 's Religion it is neither proved nor granted but asserted to strengthen the Foundation of Future Rewards and Punishments by fixing them upon very many and very plain Texts of Scripture and the Articles of our several Creeds clearly proving the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment Whereas Proofs of the Immortality are neither plainly asserting nor with any manner of clearness proving the same nor is it made an Article in any of our Creeds nor is any thing of it in the 39. Articles of our Church But there I find Artic. 6. That whatsoever is not read in Scripture nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any Man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite to salvation We all perceive that during Life there is a Contexture of Soul and Body and such an Union as they jointly participate of all that befals the Person and act undividedly and inseparably from the Person and from one another That Death is a Separation of them is clear also and What then becomes of the Soul is our Question and that we trace from its Nature as near as we can investigate If it be a small intelligent Spiritual Substance created by God upon every Procreation of Man likely it is to have a Separate Subsistence after Death of the Person but then it cannot be properly said The Man or the Person dies but the Body dies And if the Humane Soul be a Flame of Life kindled by God in Adam when he made him a Living Person and from that time hath passed by generation from one Man to another then more likely it is that this sort of Soul is extinguished in Death or that the Extinguishment of this Flame totally or in every part of the Body is the Death of the Person Originally it seems Men were of kin to Beasts in their Manner and Way of Living and Acting Of the Thracians in Orpheus's time we read Silvestres homines sacer interpresque deorum Caedibus victu foedo deterruit Orpheus Dictus ob id lenire tygres rabidosque leones Our own Ancestors in Caesar's time and many years after were naked as their Beasts and had no other Covering but their Skins their Food Acorns and Wild Fruits and their Manners were much sutable and of late we have heard like things of Wild Irish People Americans Libyans and in divers other parts of Africa who go naked as the Beasts and feed upon Raw Flesh and Snakes and the very Guts and Garbage of the Creatures and are as wild says Lithgow as their four-footed companions in the Libyan desarts In a State of so great Simplicity it seems Mankind may be well enough compared by us as it was by David to the Beasts that perish Since my ending the very last Period came to my hands a little Book written by Naudaeus printed Lond. in 12o. 1637 in page 248 he cites Lactantius asserting that Democritus Epicurus and Dicaearchus would not have so confidently denied the Immortality of the Soul Mago aliquo praesente qui sciret certis carminibus cieri ab inferis animas adesse praebere se humanis oculis videndas loqui futura praedicere I do so little approve of the Fathers Opinion in this that if his Magus should shew me such Souls like the Witch of Endor I should take them for his Conjurati and to be no proof at all of the Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul P. 38. He mentions Archimedes his Mundane Globe the Moving Tripods of Vulcan made by Daedalus Architas his Pigeon Regiomontanus his Eagle and his Fly Men could not believe these Engines could move as they did without a Spirit which they thought could not be Material because that cannot act upon Hard Bodies as Wood Iron c. therefore they concluded those Motions were acted and guided by an Immaterial Spirit viz. a Daemon and that therefore these Artificers were Magi in the worst Sense very Conjurers But from this Crime our Author defends them and says The things were all feasible by Art Natural although Men do not now know nor did then understand the Rules or the Artifice of making such things or other things like or equal to them And this gives us a good semblance of Reason why Men have been apt to maintain their Souls to be Immaterial because they cannot perceive or learn the means and manner by which a Material Soul can act and govern Common Sense Apprehension Phancy Memory Judgment Conscience and the Affections and Passions incident to Humane Nature P. 299. In conclusion he says Men must take good heed not to be carried away with the current of common Opinions that when we are swayed by example and custom and go with the throng in the way we slip and fall one over another alienis perimus exemplis Besides this Book I have since this writing perused another viz. Mr. Robert Boyle his Experiments printed London 1662 2d Edition there p. 190 he says He inclines to think the Air necessary to ventilate and cherish the Vital Flame continually burning in the Heart And he found a new kind of resemblance betwixt Fire and Life the one lasting no longer than the other P. 190. The Flame of Spirit of Wine will burn long upon fine white linnen or paper without consuming either Eminent Naturalists do esteem the Heat which resides in the Heart to be a true Flame and this says he I do not oppose provided they add that it is such a temperate and almost insensible Fire as that before-mentioned and yet he thinks that to be hardly fine enough I have mentioned before a Tenuity to an Invisibility P. 197. He takes Animals for a kind of Curious Engines set on work and kept in Motion by Heat and Air. Dr. Willis in his oft quoted Book p. 4. tells us That Epicurus taught the Soul to be compounded ex atomis levissimis rotundissimis non multum diversis ab eis ex quibus est ignis compactum ex quodam calido flatuoso aerio P. 38. He says He hath given Reasons Quare haee flamma vitalis non uti flamma vulgaris visibilis destructiva fuerit P. 53. As soon as this flame is extinguished the compages of Soul and Body is dissolved and as long as this Soul is in the Body semper nascitur
goes suddenly away in a fright 5. Whether the Soul have a peculiar Place of Residence in the Body and where that is And if that part be ill affected and unfit for her can she change it and go to reside in another Or whether is there more places or another place in the Body that can be fit or can make room for her to reside and act in or that she is Tota in qualibet parte 6. How doth she Act can she do any thing by her self or her own peculiar Power without the Ministry of the Animal Spirits and other Parts of the Body Can she amend any thing that is amiss in the Body or know any thing without such Ministry of the Senses By what force doth she move the Bodily Spirits or can she inflict Pain or Punishment for their Disobedience Can she Govern the Passions by an absolute Sway or how far can she do it and by what Means And so for the Affections and whether is not she rather subjected often to their Power and how far and by what means that comes to pass How or by what means and ways doth she Imagine Judge Understand or Remember Or can any better or more Inteliligible Account be given that she doth and how she doth such things Then how the Spirits Brain and other Organical Parts of the Body do them actuated thereto by the Impulse of Nature and that Flammula Vitalis which pervades every part of the Body and most powerfully Operates in the Heart and Head stimulating and stirring them in and to the performance of Duties and Powers intrusted to them and Imposed or Imprinted upon them by Nature and the Contriver who made them for such purposes and hath appointed their Imployment and the Order and Power by which it seems they may be and are continually easily and naturally performed When the Introducers and Maintainers of a Spiritual Self-subsisting Soul in Man have opened their Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge so largely as to satisfie the Curious Inquirers concerning these and the like particular Queries they may then with better confidence deny the possibillity of the Animal Spirits Blood and Organical Parts of the Body their performing such Actions and producing such Effects as are daily done by us and are continually visible amongst us and thence derive their pretentended necessity of introducing within upon and over us such a Foreign Commander and Government as that of a Perfect Substantial Immortal and Self subsisting Spirit but withal we must desire them to declare why they do allow the boisterous Affections and Passions in Man viz. his Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear to be ungovernable by this Imperial Spiritual Power set over Man and his Actions but that such riotous Actors will oppose and over-rule this Spiritual Power and hurry this precious Soul and Potent Governor whether she will or not into very bad and wicked Actions such as her self doth not only resist and condemn but even detest and abhor These Affections and Passions our Spirit-imposers do commonly grant have their Rise and Growth from the Animal Spirits Propensities and Parts of the Body but they have not yet set forth any more rational Account of the Manner how or the Power by which such Effects are performed or produced than they say can be done for those of the Senses Phantasie Intellect or Memory They ascribe indeed the Faculties of the Head and Brain to the Spiritual Power and Government and the Affections and Passions they place in the Heart and suffer their Product and Power to remain with Flesh and Blood but they shew us no Reason of the Difference nor how it comes to pass and by what Mediums Flesh Blood Spirits and Animal Parts do or can produce one sort of these Faculties in Man and not the other It is true that after the Notion of a Living Spirit enlivening and ruling in Man is admitted and taken for true we do then easily conceive and believe the Faculties of the Brain are more suitable to that Nature and the Affections and Passions which sure not therewithal but are apt to resist and over-rule that Government Men do forwardly ascribe to the Production Actuating and Government of Flesh and Blood but perhaps more rightly to the same Flame and animal Spirits which act also in the Head but more refined there and meeting with fit Matter and Organs adapted intended by the Artificer and by him appointed for more Noble Purposes And our Experience tells us That Blood which produces Barking in a Dog will by Transfusion cause Baaing in a Sheep and likely Bleating in a Calf Grunting in a Hog and so will the Sheeps Blood by Transfusion produce Speaking and Singing in a Man according to the Matter and Organs which the Spirits arising from that Blood find in the Places adapted for such Productions This farther Piece of Work being cut out for our Spirit-imposers it shall here be left upon them to perform before they be permitted as a reasonable Course to go on in their Pretences That because Men are not able so fully to understand the Course of Natural Proceedings in the Head and Brain as to give a rational and satisfactory Account thereof that therefore Things cannot be done there as they are without such a Spiritual Power as Men have invented to substitute rather than confess in this Case the Truth of their Ignorance and that God's Works are in this Case particularly past finding out But if they shall give us as rational and satisfactory an Account of the Things concerning the Soul they speak of as they require other Men to give of the Acts performed in the Head by the Brain and the Membranes Arteries and other Parts to the same belonging and continually supplied by Animal and Subtil Spirits from the Heart and quickened and acted by the Flammula Vitalis Nay except they do give a better Account of their Soul and its Power and Manner of Acting than Men can do of the Manner of Acting in the Head and Brain by the Animal Spirits and other Natural Parts and Powers of the Body it seems they are not to be believed or admitted to impose upon-Men their Doctrine of a Spiritual and Self-subsisting Soul as a Distinct Being from that of the Body and it seems they may as well devise Souls for the Beasts upon the same Grounds viz. For that they cannot give a rational or satisfactory Account how and by what particular Means and Powers many of their Actions are framed guided and performed As how they come every one of them to know wherein their Prime Forces of opposing others and defending themselves do consist The Dog in his Teeth the Beasts Sheep Goats Deer in their Horns the Boar in his Tusks Cocks in their Bills and Spurs Porcupines in their Quills and the like and how every Species are taught and guided to use their several Weapons the most dexterously and most to their Advantage by what Power Order or Means the Subtilties of
are capable of a Judgment arising from a Discourse in their own Minds we do not perceive and therefore will agree that Men in the Discoursive Part of their Intellect are very much beyond and above the Beasts and so do the Humane Bodies much excel the Beasts in the Instruments and Operations of their Tongues and Hands And yet as these Advantages of their Bodily Organs doth not set their Bodies in so much a superiour Orb to the Beasts as to exempt them from the common Diseases and Death belonging unto both their Kinds So it seems the Advantage which they have over Beasts in Strength of Intellect and Discourse in their Minds may not be taken for a firm and assured Argument that there is in the one a Soul spiritually different from the other but that perhaps this Difference in Intellect may be but gradual and proceed from the greater Subtilty and Tenuity of the Spirit acting The Copiousness and Fineness of Matter in the Head and Brain of Man and the Largeness and Aptitude of the Organs which create the Difference and give the Superior Quality and Advantage to the Intellect of Man as we know it to be in the Body by Aptitude in the Organs of the Hands and Tongue Amongst those who argue for the Being of an Immaterial Self-subsisting Soul in Man some avoid the Defending their Principle by Arguments drawn from Reason or Nature by confessing the thing cannot be so proved because it is not made of any Mundane Thing but inspired as my Lord Bacon is before cited to have expressed it And Sir Kenelm Digby in his Treatise of the Soul Fol. 394. tells us If you ask me by what Artifice a Man is able to perform the Rational and Discoursive Actions of the Phantasy Intellect Memory c. I will answer that they are done in an Admirable and Spiritual Manner But if you demand what the Manner is and how produced I must answer It is done I know not how by the Power of the Soul shew me a Soul and I will tell you how it works It seems we want some such Evidence for its being what our Arguers affirm it is He offers at some parcels of Proof from Effects but they are long not fit for this Place and how firm the Perusers must judge each for himself Our Author Pag. 161. confesses he knows not whether Souls do pre-exist and if so Whether they are Individuate in their Pre-existence or shall be so after separating from the Body and whether the Semen in Generation is animated and how the animated Semina of two make one and if animated then what becomes of the Anima Seminis Perditi or of an Abortive Whether the Body be animated as Vegetative or Sensitive before the Entrance of the Rational Soul What is an Act or Habit in the Soul or how not acting or habited it differs from it self acting or habited How its Acts are Many and yet but One or its Faculties at least and some other Riddles concerning the Souls of his Mode All these Three Assertors of the Immaterial Self-subsisting Soul confess They know neither the Quid Quale Quando Vbi or Quomodo of their Sort of Soul and wave the Proving it from Reason or Nature or make but some weak Offers upon that Account without pretending to a full Conviction of such as shall peruse their Writings upon this Point But Dr. More in his Book of the Souls Immortality 8o. Printed Lond. 1659. offers to make irrefragable Proof from Reason and Nature That there is in Man an Immaterial and Self-subsisting Soul and grounds all his Arguments for that Purpose upon a Natural Necessity of the Thing For that says he without such a Soul it would not be possible in Nature for Men to use their Senses Affections Phantasies Intellects Memories and Motions as they do if they had not such an Immaterial Substance and Spirit within them for the actuating directing and governing of them and giving to every Part and Organ that Life and Vigour that may suffice to perform the Duty and Function to each of them belonging And because his Design is our proper Subject in this Place his own Assertions and Words shall be quoted for the better Assurance of that he hath thereupon delivered First he determines That if in Man there be not such a Spirit then there can be nothing in him but Matter And Pag. 125. says Matter is utterly uncapable of such Operations And we find there is but one same thing in us which hears sees and tastes and perceives all the Vanity of Objects presented to us and that which is the Common Sense judging of outward Objects must likewise imagine remember reason and be the Fountain of Spontaneous Motion and of the like Faculties and Powers in Man Pag. 133. Matter is not affected by any Perception but of Corporeal Impression by the bearing of one Body against another But the Seoundae Notiones or Mathematical and Logical Conceptions cannot be seated in Matter but must be in some other Substance distinct from it Pag. 154. says I have plainly proved that neither the more Pure Intellectual Faculties nor those less pure of Memory and Imagination are competible to meer Bodies and have convincingly demonstrated That not so much as what we call External Sense is competible unto the same Pag. 227. To the Nature of Sensation and the other Operations the Animal Spirits are not sufficient of themselves nor the Soul of herself without the Assistance of the Spirits Pag. 205. Yet the Soul hath not any Power or exceeding little of moving Matter but only of determining Matter in Motion Pag. 298. But the immediate Instrument of the Soul are those Tenuous and Aerial Particles called the Spirits by which the Soul hears sees feels imagines remembers reasons and by moving which or directing their Motion she moves likewise the Body and helps to form it in the Womb but till the Body is finish'd the Soul flutters betwixt it and the Spirit of Nature or Soul of the World Pag. 329. The Souls most subtile and most intellectual Operations depend upon the Fitness of Temper in the Animal Spirits and it is the Fitness and Purity of them that invites her and enables her to love and look after Divine and Intellectual Objects And the Souls Nature is such as she cannot act but in Dependance upon Matter Pag. 330. It is a very wild Leap in Nature that the Soul of Man should skip from the impure Body newly turned to a dead Carkass and ascend thence immediately to the highest Heaven and to the Presence and Company of God and Angels From these Quotations Dr. More 's Opinions concerning the Soul may easily be collected and those which are desirous particularly to consider of his Arguments at large may consult his Book which is but of a small Bulk But here Notice only shall be taken of his Principal Foundation viz. That no Matter or Thing consisting of Matter can have a Principle of Motion or Activity
be attained unto but the ordinary means of attaining it is by Searching into all or the most of the Accidents unto the same belonging and so searching we know not how to find any Affections or Accidents a Soul hath that are proper or peculiar to her self Commonly we find she neither does nor suffers any thing without Copartnership of the Body The Intellect seems her most peculiar and yet if that be a sort of Phantasie or cannot be performed without the Phancy certainly it cannot be acted without the Body neither Hence he collects and asserts That if in the Soul there be any Operation or Affection which is properly peculiar to its self viz. it s own Nature it may then be reasonably taken to have a Separate Subsistence disjoyned from the Body but if it have no Operations or Affections so peculiarly proper to its own Nature then is it not capable of Subsistence in a State separated from the Body Also that which is never found or perceived without a Body may well pass for inseparable from a Body Also in all our Affections the Body joyns and operates with the Soul for if they were totally or principally from the Soul they would act in a like manner upon all like or equal occasions But we find that Men will sometimes bear very great Provocations or Appearances of great Danger without any great emotions of Anger or Fear and at another time they are apt to fear upon far less occasions and to be wrathful and angry accordingly This shews the Humours of the Body have a great Share and Power in producing these Affections and that they are Rationes Materiales Effects of a Material Soul of which Men say Dispositio Animae sequitur Temperamentum Corporis nam Ratio est forma Rei Concluding upon the Question That the Affections of the Animal are inseparable from the Natural Matter and Composure of it This is a Summary of the First Chapter of Aristotle's Book He questions as Solomon had done before him Whether Souls do subsist in Separation from their Bodies or not And argues If they have proper Operations or Accidents of their own it is likely they do subsist so and if they have not such then they do not so subsist for Natura nihil facit frustra And if they neither have Action nor Passion properly belonging to them their Subsistence would be Frustra and therefore we have no reason to admit or allow of a Separate Subsistence of Souls unless we can prove they have some Operation Affection or Accidents so properly belonging to them as that they are certainly known to exercise or use them without any assistance of Body or Matter We have before quoted our Doctor Pag. 227. to this Point saying The Soul is not sufficient of her self to act without the Animal Spirits And P. 298. These are the immediate Instruments of the Soul by which she sees hears feels imagines remembers reasons and moves the Members and the Body and if they be spent she can act no more But neither Aristotle nor the Doctor here find any properly peculiar Operation or Accidents of the Soul Aristotle says indeed That Intelligere is the most so of any thing Videtur to be the most so of any other thing but he was not convinced that Intelligere was so proper to the Soul as could give title to a Separated Subsistence after the death of the Body nor doth he absolutely conclude to the contrary but hath left us in the open road towards it and with fair and forcible Reason so to do This way of quoting Aristotle's Book seems like that of the Israelites when they compassed the Land of Edom their Soul was discouraged with the Prospect and Contemplation of the length of it But as we find Weariness grow upon us long Strides or Skips may happen to be made before the finishing of so venturous an Undertaking Cap. 2. Aristotle proceeding in his History cites to us all the Opinions that he knew to be delivered concerning the Soul by Eminent Grecian Philosophers before his time First He states the special Differences betwixt the Animata and Inanimata or the Animals and Things that are not so to lie in Motion and Sense All Animals have those two things and none but Animals have them and that Motion is the Prior and Superiour Faculty therefore the First Observers began from thence believing That which could not move it self could not move another thing Whence Democritus collected That the Soul was a certain Degree of Heat or Fire which he took to be kindled and maintained in the Body by such Atoms flying about in the Air as are of a Globular Figure which he took to be of a Fiery Nature such they observed to be in the Air never resting but always in Motion though the Wind and Air were never so calm and quiet these entring into the Body with the Breath acted in it and acted it every breathing supplying fresh Atoms and by that means continuing Life and Motion in the Body but on stoppage or failure of Breath the Animal dies for want of fresh Atoms to heat move and actuate the same Men were put to it for the finding a way to kindle this Fire in the Animal Bodies for want of Moses's History and takeing the Promethean or Heavenly Fire but for a Fable with Democritus's Opinion Leucippus also agreed The Pythagorean School Some said the Soul was of these Atoms others it was of that which moved these Atoms and divers more held the Soul to be an Active Principle which first moved it self and then acted every thing about it for nothing can move another thing that is not first moved it self Anaxagorus was of the like Opinion and so were all they who had principal respect to the Motion of Animals but other Philosophers there were who principally respected the Sensitive and Scientifical Performances of the Soul and they conceived the Soul to be a Compositum or Temperament of the Elements and of this Opinion was Empedocles and Plato in his Timaeo this Compositum they drew out into Four Principles after a Mathematical Pattern the first as a single Unite or Point and this they said was the Intellect then they drew out a Line terminated by two Unites and that they called the Number Two and this they said was Science of Lines they produced a Planum and that they said was Opinion and thence they founded and made a Solid Body and this they said was the Sense or Sensitive Power and that all things were judged and terminated part by the Intellect part by Science part by Opinion and part by Sense and having reduced the Self-moving Soul to Numbers they gave it the Term of a Self-moving Number but those who compounded it of the Elements made Fire Principal in that Composition it consisting of the most Subtile and Incorporeal Parts prompt to and in Motion and a Prime Mover of other Things Diogenes thought the Soul to be Air as the most
hath it All Animals have it not as Fishes and such other Creatures as do not draw Breath the Instrument for which is the Throat and as the Tongue serves for Speaking and Tasting so the Throat for Breathing and Use of the Voice The Breath or Air hath by Power of the Soul acting in those Parts a Faculty to strike that which is there called the Artery and this Collision is or acts the Voice Every Noise there is not a Voice not a Cough but it must be with an Animal Intent and may be mixed also with Phancy whence a Voice is a Sound of some Signification Whilst Men draw their Breath they cannot speak for that which holds the Breath is the Instrument of Speech Thinks Fishes do neither breath nor that they have Throats Chap. 9. A Man hath but a weak Sense of Smelling in comparison of some other Creatures and smells nothing without Offence or Pleasure But Man hath the Sense of Feeling above all other Creatures and such Men as have the Finest and Quickest Touch are counted and found to be the most Ingenious Persons Birds have quick Sense of Smelling and it seems Fishes also do smell It is peculiar to Men not to smell without Respiration viz. when he draws Breath not when he breathes out or stays his Breath Smell arises from dry Things as the Taste from Moisture Chap. 10. No Taste is made without Touching When the Tongue is over-dry or over-moist there cannot be any Taste The Prime Species of Taste are those of Sweet and Bitter then the Fat Taste then the Salt then Sharp and Austere then the Acid. Chap. 11. It is doubted concerning Touching what is the proper Instrument for it Whether the Flesh or in other Creatures that which is in Place of Flesh as in Fishes But the Prime Sense of Touching must be an Internal Principle Each Sense hath its Objects by Contraries as for the Sight White and Black for the Hearing is the Acute or Slow Sound the Taste hath Sweet and Bitter but the Touch hath many Contrarieties as Hot and Cold Dry and Moist Hard and Soft and the like It seems Flesh is the Medium for Touching but such a Medium as also can judge and not as Air is for Sight or Sound Chap. 12. All Senses are capable of the Sensible Species in an Immaterial Manner and the Sensible Object acts upon the Sense and one must be Proportionate to the other And if the Object of Sense be too small it is not perceived and too great it spoils the Sense a vast Noise makes deaf and the Suns Splendor blinds but a Proportionate Measure and Medium is requisite in the Performances of Sense Air that hath Smell hath in it a Passive Manner and is thereby Sensible Lib. III. Cap. I. There are but two Simple Bodies Mediums of Sense viz. Air and Water The Pupil of the Eye is Waterish but Hearing is of the Air the Smell is of both Fire is common to all for nothing is Sensitive without Heat but Earth to none except that of Touching The Senses and their Objects concur in Act but their Essences are different Cap. 2. A Point in the Centre is but one in Nature but in Reason it begins all the Lines that are drawn to the Circumference So the Common Sense in the Animal is but One to which as to the Centre of Judgment Lines are drawn from the outward Instruments of Sense for a final and true Determination Cap. 3. Cites Empedocles and Homer They and other Ancients thought that Intelligere was as Corporeal a Quality as Sentire Sense is a true Judge of its proper Objects and belongs to all Animals but in Reasoning Men are often deceived and none but Reasonable Creatures can use Reason Phantasy is different both from Reason and Sense yet cannot be without Sense no more can Opinion yet Phantasy and Opinion are different things Phantasy doth not Please or Affright Men to any great Degree but Opinion hath a great Power over us in that Kind There is a Likeness betwixt Science Prudence and Opinion and yet they are all different Things Men may order and alter their Phantasies at their Pleasure but cannot deal so with their Opinions and less with their Science Cap. 4. As Intelligere is different from Sentire the Phantasy and Opinion are Borderers to both but our Faculties of Discerning are Sense Opinion Intellect and Science from all of which the Phantasy is different for the Senses Intellect and Science rightly constituted and informed are always true and so the same but Phantasies are various and often false nor can it be Opinion though that may be false but that hath a Belief always joined or a Confidence of the Verity of the Thing and this no Beasts have but many of them have Phancies Opinion is a Belief and that perswades rationally and Beasts have not Reason but bare Phancy Phantasy is neither Sense nor Opinion nor a Conjunction of them but is a Motion or Movement arising from the Senses and may be acted by them and none can have it but those who have Sense and from the Phancy proceeds a large Sphere of doing and suffering in the World it depends not upon any one Sense or Act but often arises from several Senses at once And concerning Motions and Bulks and other things wherein the Senses may be much deceived and specially at great Distances and Animals act much according to Phancy as proceeding from Sense and being like it Beasts because they want Reason and Men because their Reasons are under Perturbations as Diseases Drunkenness or other like Inconveniences Cap. 5. From that Part of the Soul by which Men understand and know they are said to act prudently and whether this Part which he calls the Suffering Intellect be capable of a State of Separation really or notionally he means here to consider Says This Intellect is impatible but apt to receive the Species presented to it and as the Senses are to Sensitive Objects so the Intellect is to Intellectual Objects and are both Powers or in Potestate till the Objects are received and then are Acts because it is to receive and understand all things the Intellect it self must be without Tincture or Mixture That Intellect by which the Soul doth argue and judge cannot reasonably be said to be mixed with the Body for that then it must needs partake with it and be hot or cold accordingly or might be used by the Soul as its Instrument the Body might be so used but the Body is no Instrument at all of the Soul They say well who call the Soul the Receptacle of the Species not actually but potentially so The Sense suffers more in the Perception of its Objects than the Intellect doth in the like Case For if the Object of Sense be over-extream or vehement it spoils the Sense or its present Action but so it is not with the Intellect And this Difference grows from the Mixture which Sense hath with the
Flaming Brand their Sense tells them this is Fire then they see it waved and know from Custom of that time the Enemies attack the City or Place so calling for aid So from Phancies or Conceits of the Mind it discerns reasons and consults concerning Future Events by considering of what is at present before it and thence takes resolution to follow it avoid it delay or prevent it The Intellect hath a Power also of considering Things or Actions abstracted from Matter in a Mathematical Manner as that Art considers Punctum Linam Superficiem abstractedly and it is the Active Intellect which so understands but whether this Intellect understand any thing of Spiritual Beings when as it self is not separated from Bulk or Matter or cannot do so he leaves to a future Consideration but never touches that Point again but lets it rest as in this place he left it We may observe this Active Intellect is here left by Aristotle in a State of Connexion with the Body that which he before stiled Immortal and Eternal is here left not separated from the Body and whether it can subsist in such a State of Separation or not is undetermined Cap. 9. Knowledge depends upon the Senses and begins there and one who hath not his Senses can neither learn nor understand And Phancy to the Contemplation is like Sensible Objects only the Phantasmata are Immaterial The first or simple Conceptions of the Intellect seem not from Phancy and yet if so they be not they are however not without the Phantasie so as Phancy to the Intellect is as Sensible Objects to the Common Sense Cap. 10. The Soul of Animals hath been defined chiefly from two Qualifications viz. It s Discerning Judgment and its Power of Local Motion Its Judgment is guided and acted by Sense and Reason as hath been shewed For Motion it is doubted whether acted by the whole Soul or by a part or parts of it If we pretend to divide the Soul into parts we shall not only find in it the Rational the Wrathful and the Lustful Faculties into which some have divided it or into parts which have Reason and those which have not as others have said But there may be other Differences found infinitely and some which differ more than those above-named as the Nutritive general to all Living Things the Sensitive which Men cannot say are participant of Reason nor yet that they are without it thirdly the Phantasie which differs from the two former essentially Then is there the Appetite different from all the rest Local Motion is always to some intent and commonly to obtain or to avoid something liked or disliked But he doth not allow the Intellect to be the next Cause of such Motion nor the Senses nor the Appetite for Men may and do resist these Powers and do not move as these may command or perswade Cap. II. He sets down the Intellect and the Appetite to be both the Causes of Local Motion then adds the Phantasie as another Cause for that many in their Motions follow their Phancies more than thaâ— their Reasons and Beasts have only Phancy and Reason and the Inclination of the Appetite moves the Intellect but this can move little without the Appetite the Appetite of the Intellect is called the Will but the Sensual Appetite moves without Reason The Intellect moves well but the Appetite and Phantasie move well or ill as it happens but always the thing desired is the first Motor and that either is really good or seemingly so yet seems often good to the Appetite which doth not seem so to the Intellect The Thing that seems good moves without its own Motion but by being apprehended of the Intellect or Phantasie In Motion there are three Observables 1. That which moves 2. To what it moves 3. That which is moved The first or that which moves is twofold The one Immoveable and that is the Intended Good the other is both the Moving and Motion and that is the Appetite which moves in Inclination and being acted is the Motion or Act it self The third viz. What is moved is the Animal The Proper Organ of Local Motion is a Corporeal Thing and common both to Soul and Body Shortly to speak of it it is like the Hinge of a Door consisting of a Convex or round rising in one part and a Concave or Hollow in the other part of it well fitted the one unto or into the other one of these rests whil'st the other is moved whence one is called the Beginning and the other the End of the Motion and these two are different part and yet they make but one Hinge or Connexion of Bones in the Joynts and Parts of the Body All Motion in the Body is made by Dilatation which hath an Impulsive Force or by Contraction which compresses again where such Motions are perpetually in the Body circularly and sin fine in some part or other The Animal Motion thus grows from Appetite and there is no Appetite without Phantasie and this is Rational or Sensitive the Sensitive Phancy is in Beasts but the Deliberative is only in Men. To consider if one shall do this or that or not do is a Point of Reason yet of many things that are in choice one only can be done at once whence it seems Appetite is not allowed to have Opinion it not being Appetite till terminated and therefore hath not Power of Deliberation But the Appetite and the Will are often at Contest and sometimes one prevails sometimes the other not unlike a Game at Tennis Naturally the Nobler should be prevalent but there are three diversities 1. A Contest between the Appetite and the Will 2. The Victory of the Will 3. The prevailing Power of the Appetite Reason can prevail upon the Will and excite it by Argument viz. You desire Health therefore use a Physician he advises Let Blood Cut off an Arm. This Reason may obtain of the Will to consent unto and to desire the Fact for ease or preservation though the suffering be certain and present and the benefit future and uncertain We may observe Aristotle hath here finished the Examen of those four Faculties of the Soul viz. The Vegetative Sensitive Intellective and Loco-motive which he propounded Lib. II. cap. 3. Cap. 12. Nature makes nothing in vain and whatsoever lives hath a Soul indued with a Nutritive Faculty No Simple Body hath Sense and therefore is no Animal nor can any thing be so which is not fit and apt to receive the Species and Forms of Things without the Things themselves Also No Body which hath an Intellectual Soul can be without Sense viz. No Generated or Mortal Body he thought Heaven had a Soul and that and Celestials might have Intelligent Souls without Sense but Sense is indispensably necessary for all Animals especially those of Touching and Tasting these are necessary to the Being of the Creatures the other three Senses to their Well-being for the Animals can live without them
Tongue and Lips So as this Kernel must be like a Hand to the Soul without which it can do nothing of moment Art 45. The Soul cannot excite or remove Passion by its own Power or Will but is put to contest with it by Arguments and other Natural Helps And we know that oftentimes Passions prevail over the Powers of Reason as if they grew but out of the same Root both viz. the Activity Life and Motion of a Material Spirit Art 47. In the Contest between Sense and Reason in Man Here says he the Kernel may be driven by the Soul on the one side and then by the Animal Spirits violently set on the other side or some Spirits may present to the Kernel what they can offer for the Passions others may do the like on behalf of the Soul and what it advises and desires and whither the Kernel inclines that side prevails over the other And if the Case be so our Author puts Mankind under the Government of an Unknown Immaterial but confessedly a very Silly Soul that must apply it self upon all Occasions to a pitiful small Lump of Matter a Kernel without whose Kindness and Inclination it must always become subject to the Slavery of Sensuality and Passion Art 48. One would think here that he would say all Souls are not alike but some are weaker and some stronger he hints it plainly yet without positive Assertion And if Souls be Immaterial Spirits then An recipiunt magis minus who knows Art 50. Every Motion of the Kernel seems naturally to be knit to every one of our Thoughts from the beginning of our Lives and Words which not naturally but only by Institution are significant can excite Motions in the Kernel Says It is observable in Beasts that though they want Reason and perhaps all Cogitation yet they have all the Motions of their Animal Spirits and their Kernels whose Motions excite Passions in them as well as ours in us tending to the same End of preventing Harms to them But these he will not call Affections in the Beasts but Motions of the Nerves and Muscles which produce the same Effects in Beasts that those which he calls Affections in Men use to do in them Whence it seems clear he grants the same Nature in Mens Passions and those of Beasts before needlessly and bootlessly denied by him His Title to this Article pretends to shew how Mens Souls may get the Mastery of their Passions but all that he directs upon that Point is That well-taught Spaniels are learn'd to curb their Passions and to sit though they have a mind to run You see says he the Thing is feasible even by Beasts and therefore Men may do it more easily and effectually But I doubt of that 1. Whether Humane Power can do it 2. Whether Beasts may not as easily and fully be brought to it as Men Art 51. It is plain says he that the next Cause of Passions in the Soul is no other but the Motion by which the Spirits do stir this Kernel which is in the Middle of the Brain He sets down his own Cogitation or Fiction as if the Thing were to pass for a Granted Truth That this Immaterial Spirit must rule or be ruled by this Diminutive Kernel Art 122. He says When that Fire which is in the Heart becomes extinguished we die beyond Remedy Art 137. Love and Hatred Joy and Sorrow Lust Fear c. are all Naturally referred to the Body and belong not to the Soul but as it is joined to the Body Art 138. The Beasts direct their Lives no otherwise than by such Corporal Motions as Men usually do follow and would draw the Soul along with them and have her Consent to such Actions Art 139. He says We ought also to consider these Passions as they belong to the Soul But he hath before denied they do naturally belong to the Soul And here he doth not shew that they do depend upon it And these are all the Particulars we find in this late Philosopher concerning the Soul And we observe upon them That all the Particulars which he applies and refers to the Soul of Man are applicable to and agreeable with the Rational Faculty of his Material Soul And all those Things Actions or Passions which he applies and refers only to the Body of Man are applicable to and agreeable with the Sensual Faculty of the Material Soul and Spirit of Man in both which Faculties and in the Vegetative the Body is equally concerned and so is the whole Soul and all its Faculties in all things that pertain or happen to the Body and there is no Separation made or to be made betwixt the Soul and Body of Man during his Natural Life And all which our Author says of the same is feigned out of his own Heart or is a Fiction of his own Cogitation utterly to be rejected as before hath been said And we do not find that he hath said any thing Material for Proof of an Immaterial Soul of Man or that deserves or requires a more particular Reply or any farther Consideration Hieronimus Zanchius was a Reformed Divine of Strasbourgh in the later End of our K. H. 8. and writes upon the Creation and Gods Works then made his Books are in Quarto Printed Newstadt in Anno 1602. His Design led him to treat of Animals and Souls And Lib. 7. cap. 2. Sect. 12. he says the Life of Animals is in their Blood as Moses says also and that all Men agree it subsists by Heat and Moisture Sect. 15. pag. 595. Says God's Creation ceased not with the First Week but he still daily creates Humane Souls and forms the Bodies of Animals Pag. 598. Every Animal hath an Organical Body and a Soul with Vegetative Motive and Sentient Faculties Pag. 599. The Quadrupedes are the next Sort to Mankind both for the Parts of their Bodies and the Strength and Genius of their Minds or Souls endowed with Senses both outward and inward as Men are and use the like Actions both as to Life Sense and Motion Pars 3. Lib. 1. Pag. 603. He says The Breath which God breathed into Adam was a created but incorporeal Thing but the Food then granted to Men and Beasts was alike And he cites Gen. 7.15 The Beasts went into the Ark and all Flesh wherein was the Breath of Life Yet gives no Answer to it nor shews how this Breath and that breathed into Man did differ Yet he would have us learn hence Pag. 617. That our Souls are not from our Parents per traducem but only from God who breathed into Adam's Nostrils id est says he God made him respire by his Nostrils and that is not opposed Pag. 618. Again This Breath was created not out of God but out of some other Invisible Thing and he then created and gave it viz. gave the Soul in that Visible Sign Shews Plato made a Difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nostram and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Judgment Pag. 719. He recites his Objections against his Tenet 1. Men observe Children born like their Parents not only in their Bodies but their Minds and this seems to grow ex traduce from the Seed and therefore the Soul grows from that Root as well as the Body To this he answers It is not always so but often otherwise and quite contrary and that it is so comes from the Temperament and Humours of the Body not from the Soul unless that be also of Material Parts Or if says he the Soul have Part in that Substance it comes from Bodily Tinctures with which the Soul is closely united perhaps he might have said inseparably 2. Object Tertullian says the Soul is Material and propagated from the Parents He answers If Tertullian did think so he was deceived as he was also in some other Things 3. Object If the Soul be Self-subsistent it must have two Natures one as Forma informans of the Body a chief Part of the Compositum Man another Nature viz. Angelical subsisting and acting as like Spirits do whereas the Soul taken to be Forma Humana cannot subsist in that Nature out of the Compositum her other yet unproved Nature will not be granted nor assented to He answers Grants Man is not a Body nor a Soul but a Compositum of both and that neither Part is the Man and yet when the Body is dead and the Soul subsisting this may in some respect be counted for the Man as being his Principal Part and all that now remains of him But if we deny that to remain of him his Answer is of no Force Pag. 721. The Soul hath three Faculties or Powers Vegetative Sensitive and Intellective sometimes called Parts of the Soul Essential or Substantial by others Potential Parts To these others have added the Powers Loco-motive and Appetative Thinks the Vegetative comprehends the Appetative and the Senseâ— of the Local Motion these two may be admitted as Powers but not as Essential Parts whence he makes five Powers in the Soul and but three Parts Pag. 724. The Vegetative hath three Prime Faculties viz. Nutrition Augmentation and Generation Page 725. Says Generation or the Power of it is Vere Divinum so as we are thereby Quodam Modo Creators of other Men. Pag. 728. The Sensitive Part of the Soul is substantial and therefore not annexed to Matter or to the Body and so for the Vegetative and they are Self-subsistent as well as the Intellective Part and Immaterial and Immortal We may perceive by this the Author is resolved not to stick at Straws but rather to swallow Camels Pag. 729. Prime Sensitive Faculties are the Powers of Perception and Motion The Senses he says are External or Internal the External are Five the Internal are Three viz. the Common Sense the Phantasy and the Memory whose Organs are placed in the Seat of the Soul known to us only by Reason or Collection Pag. 733. These apprehend and judge of Objects conveyed to them by the outward Organs but can perceive nothing that hath first been brought to them from the outward Senses In the Internal is also the Vis Motrix thence the Appetites and Passions are excited although such Emotions are principally felt about the Heart and therefore have been thought to grow from thence and to reside there We agree to our Author in this Assertion Pag. 736. As the Middle Part of the Brain is more or less firm or better or worse tempered in tanto Men have more or less Ingenuity and Apprehension and the like for other Animals So as this Power of Phantasy depends upon the Organs to which it is affixed as the other Sensitive and Vegetative Powers also are although they are Parts of a Humane Soul they must not be said to depend upon the Body or its Organs We say this last Caution is utterly Vain and to no Effect or Purpose The Phantasy hath Three Offices to receive Perceptions from the Common Sense and to conserve them 2. To collect the Dispers'd Idea's or Imaginations 3. To judge of them and discourse upon them And we see says he Dogs and other Animals greatly moved in their Sleeps by Dreams arising from such Causes Pag. 737. That which Reason doth in the Mind that doth the Phantasy in the Sensitive Faculty and it comes very neer to Intellect it self and supplies to it the Matters to be thought upon and considered of And as the Phantasy is by its Organ inclined to Vice or Virtue so is the Mind or Soul easily drawn to give her consent accordingly The Tincture or Seasoning of the Phantasy or Imagination is of great Force and Power for from thence rise all our Affections Love Joy Wrath Fear Grief Envy Jealousy and the like Pag. 737. Memory is the third Internal Sense This he divides into Sensitive and Intellective and says That living the Man these are so joined or knit together that they cannot well be discerned or distinguished one of them from the other except Men will distinguish them from their different Objects as that Memory Intellective deals in Vniversals but the Sensitive in Particulars or if it do hit upon Vniversals it is but by Accident and by this Means a Separated Soul must always retain its Intellective Memory To this I say this Distinction or Dividing of Memory seems a Device of our Author 's own Coining on purpose to serve the State of his Separated Souls Arist De Anima Lib. 3. Cap. 6. where he sets the Soul highest Says That when separate from the Body it cannot have Memory for if it so had there must be a Patibility in it And we know Memory is but an Impress of the Species received and returned thence to the Intellect importing a Patibility and an Organical Operation and the first Chapter of Aristotle's Book agrees fully therewithal and the Author cites no Authority agreeing with him in this Dicothomy or Division of the Memory and therefore we do by no means admit of the same but take the Memory for an entire Faculty which must all stand or fall together and that the Memory is not capable of Universals except by Accident we deny He says When the Phantasy delivers over to Memory Conceptions of Things as de Futuro the Memory retains them not as Future Things but as bare Conceptions de Futuro And this we agree or else it cannot not be a true Record Whence says he the Senses apprehend only Things Present the Memory records only Things Past but the Phantasy considers Things Present Past and to Come and makes Provision accordingly and according to the Temper of the Organ for Heat and Cold Driness and Moisture the Memory is strong and apt or weak and insufficient and so it is Pag. 738. with all the Senses both Internal and External their Excellency depends upon the good Temperature of the Body and its Organs He says Beasts have Memory but not Remissness a Power to recover and recall things obliterated in their Memories by
the Middle of the Body and calls the Soul a Part of Humane Nature not perfect without its Body and therefore desiring a Re-union all contrary to his former Assertions Pag. 788. Says The Body doth nothing without the Soul Nec ferè Anima sine Corpore Pag. 793. Says The Soul is not Tota in qualibet Parte nor in any Part nor affixed to any Organ no nor Tota in toto and yet the Essence of the Soul is Tota in toto in qualibet Parte as Light is in the Air both Light and Heat appear in different Degrees in divers Places and yet their Influence reaches to the whole Horizon Pag. 794. That which is Indivisible Totum est Ubi est and this holds in the Soul And so God is in the World and every Part of it and as Soul and Body united are yet distinct Soul and Body So Pag. 798. the End of Reason and a Humane Soul is to know and love God but the Intellect is like clean White Paper without any Character upon it and cannot perceive but by the Senses nor work without Bodily Organs and those must have Life or else they could not have Sense and Life must have Nourishment whence there is in the Soul a Nutritive Faculty for Support Augmentation and Procreation then a Sensitive Faculty being a Power of Perceiving External Objects for Benefit and Safety of the Animal next a Power to retain and preserve the Species or Idea's of what was perceived and then a Power of offering them to the Intellect for obtaining a Judgment upon them Pag. 799. The Humane Soul though it work in the Body yet it doth not work by Organs of the Body and therefore its Actions are not common with the Body applying this particularly to the Intellect And That he says is endowed with certain Gifts or Impressions by God at the Creation of the Soul that by Help of them Men may better comprehend all other Things And that there are such common Innate Notions Experience doth manifest Calls these the Sparks and Seeds of Knowledge in Man But this he confesses is rejected by Aristotle which yet he would make some kind of Argument for Souls being created and therefore preferrs the Platonick and Stoical opinion before that of Aristotle and therefore will not admit of the Rule of nothingh being in the Intellect which came not thither throug the Senses to be absolutely true but only that for the most part it is so though he have repeated and granted this Rule without Exception several times before Pag. 800. Says That for all these Impressions made by God upon Souls yet the Intellect is still as a White Paper without Writing or Character upon it and therefore must seek to obtain its Knowledge from without it self and this it seeks from the Senses and from God by his Word and Spirit How the Intellect should be as fair White Paper and yet have Characters imprinted upon it I do not conceive nor divers other Things late before delivered by our Author Our Author seems to have pursued this Argument concerning the Soul through all the known Particulars that may be belonging to it and yet hath not throughly satisfied himself thereupon and therefore he begins again with it Pag. 802. and runs descant upon it all over again unto Pag. 851. repeating and confirming his former Arguments First he quotes Texts of Scripture to Pag. 809. and there quotes the Opinion and Consent of the World to his Opinion Pag. 810. He begins with Sayings of Philosophers Pythagoras and Plato who held Pre-existence of Souls and consequently their Separate Subsistence then Alcmaeon and Anaxagoras who held their Spirituality then the Stoicks Pag. 812. He comes to Aristotle and says that he had no Will to declare his Opinion concerning the Soul but did on purpose speak obscurely about it But yet says he Aristotle did not say it was Material or Mortal And for Proof of this he quotes 14 Places out of Aristotle's Writings which was not needful on our Behalf for that this Assertion was before agreed by us This reaches to Pag. 820. and there cites Turks Tartars Persians he might have said Mahometans agreeing to his Tenet and so other Barbarous Nations Pag. 821. He comes to Reasons first upon Moral Congruity that there must be future Reward and Punishment which he thinks cannot be without a Separately-subsisting Soul and goes on to 12 Arguments reaching to Pag. 827. Pag. 828. Says If the Soul come from Generation it must be Elementary and Material Pag. 829. Brings Arguments from the Souls own Actions and Motions Pag. 830. Adds a 13th Argument to his former 12 and thence to Pag. 834. he makes up his Arguments to 20. And he cites Euseb Hist Lib. 6. Cap. 36. where we do find that in Origin's Time there arose in Arabia Authors of a Pernicious Doctrine who taught that Souls died here with their Bodies and that at the Resurrection they rose again together and a great Synod was summoned upon that Account and Origin sent for unto it and he so discoursed and disputed that he purged their seduced Minds from this foul Error cited by our Author Pag. 804. It seems the Opinion was condemned in that Synod by Origin's Assistance but that also the Thing is not such a Novelty as without his Testimony it might seem to be Pag. 835. Our Author comes to cite and confute Arguments made against his Tenet 1. We see nothing part at Death of a Body but a vanishing Breath nor can perceive and hardly conceive what a Soul is or should be without a Body Hence he says Men must doubt of God and Spirits Pag. 837. Arg. 4. The Soul cannot operate without the Body and therefore doth not so subsist He says The Soul Both Vnderstand and Will without the Body Pag. 838. and the Intellective Memory remains in a Separated Soul and so Love Joy and their like in an Intellectual Manner Pag. 839. Arg. 5. In great Weakness of the Body the Souls Operations are alto feeble The Sum of his Answer to this is a Denial of the Thing and whether true or not is left to Judgment and Experience Pag. 840. The Soul parts unwillingly from the Body this argues she doth not apprehend the going to a more perfect State but rather to Corruption or Extinguishment and Christ would have avoided this Cup and yet he knew that was his Way to a Resurection and future Happiness To this he makes a long Answer not to be summed in few Words Pag. 841. Arg. 7. The Soul is troubled with divers Afflictions but Spirits or Immaterial Substances are not subject to Mortal Perturbations therefore the Soul is not such a Spirit He answers The Bodies Contrariety to the Soul is the Soul 's great Affliction and if Angels were so knit to Bodies they would be as much troubled and in Man this Perturbation is one Effect of Sin Pag. 843. He compares Dying to the Child's Leaving the Womb which he fancies the Child
is very unwilling to do just as Men are to die And he proposes 10 Similitudes in this Supposition which seem not well grounded nor weighty Pag. 845. Quotes Texts of Scripture urged against his Tenet and answers them but Three in all Then he comes to the Opinion that Souls departed do sleep till the Resurrection void of all Operation till the Resurrection and then the Bodies rise from Death and the Souls from their Lethargy This Sleep says our Author is plain Death as that of the Body is called Sleep Pag. 846. He says Sure it is good Souls separated do go into Heaven and enjoy the Vision of God and the evil do go into Hell but they are not compleatly Happy or Vnhappy till the Resurrection But from whence he takes this Rule he shews not nor offers Proof of it It is an absurd Thing and against God's Wisdom That the Form of any Body should alwaye subsist separately from that Body I say if this be absurd it is very near of Kin to Absurdity That it should subsist at all without its Body It was objected to him That if Souls went to Heaven at the Death what need was there then of a Resurrection He answers The Form or Soul could not always subsist without the Body Why not say I as well as do so for Hundreds or Thousands of Years Says he It would be absurd and against God's Wisdom I do perceive this Consequence and he doth not offer to prove it therefore I think it no more absurd in the one Case than in the other Pag. 847. Says The Separation of the Soul and Body is by Violence and Nullum Violentum est Perpetuum I say nor Diuturnum Cites 1 Cor. 15.19 If there be not a Resurrection Christians are of all Men most miserable How can that be if good Souls go to Heaven at the Death and there behold the Face of God He answers This Saying concerns only the Bodies of Christians and not their Souls Their Bodies says he would be most miserable Not more miserable say I than the Bodies of other Men and therefore not of all others the most miserable He cites Psalm 146.4 When the Breath of Man goeth forth he shall turn again to his Earth and that very day all his Thoughts perish So Psal 78.39 Mans Spirit as a Wind passeth away and comes not again Pag. 848. He will not allow Spirit in these Places to signifie the Soul but in Places making for him it must do so as when Stephen says Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Cites Psal 115 17. and in other Places The Dead praise not thee O Lord nor all they that go down into the Silence But the Living do it So Isa 38. he answers Souls after Death do praise God proved Rev. Chap. 5. and Chap. 19. and opposes this Trance to the other Texts Pag. 849. Cites Job 17.16 Also in the Grave the Weary are at rest and fear no Oppressor Therefore bad Souls not punished Pag. 850. He closes his Treatise of the Soul with a long Definition of it according to his Mode and with all the particular Qualifications which he hath before designed for it We may now observe in short upon this Author that he was very much inclined and bent to maintain the Immateriality of the Soul as a thing without which there could not be a future Reward or Punishment a Mistake wherein all are involved or pretend to be involved who maintaintain his Opinion We see he hath been very laborious about it hath read all that he could find written of it and studied and delivered to us a Multitude of Arguments about it and hath shewed Learning Judgment and Industry to a high Degree joined with Integrity or a good Meaning and Belief that he did well and bestowed his Pains upon a Subject that deserved them and that it was a very Needful Truth which he supported But with what Success he hath done it must be referred to Judgment after Perusal of the Answers which have been offered to his Arguments upon the Differences arising between the Opinions of the Author and the Answerer upon many Occasions or Particulars and because we have very much studied and affected Brevity in both our Observations and Answers it need not be doubted but that those who are desirous of a more full Satisfaction upon this Point will think our Author worthy of their own Perusal concerning this Subject and many others Franciscus de Oviedo a Jesuit wrote a Body of Philosophy and in it Of the Soul Printed in a large Folio at Lions Anno 1640. and therein Fol. 6. N. 17. He joins with others in finding Fault with Aristotle's Definition of the Soul because he doth not tell us Quid sit Anima but Cujus sit Our Author offers to mend that of Aristotle by a Definition of his own viz. The Soul is the Constituent Act or Moving Power of a Compositum that is able to exert or exercise Vital Actions I say this seems a Difference without a Diversity or but one pretended and it may be collected that a Soul hath no proper Genus or such Specifical Difference of its own whereby it can be defined or known nor that it can be conceived otherwise than as it is a Constituent Part of a Compositum by the Conjunction of a Soul and a Body Whence we pretend to infer That the Soul in its Nature is not a Substance subsisting by it self or in Separation from its Body nor can be otherwise defined or understood than by its Reference and Relation to a Body Both our Definitions call it the Actus Primus of the Compositum or of an Organical Body so as we have no Conception of it at all save by the Relation which it hath to the Body or to the Man and without that it is to us unintelligible and thence it seems a Separate Subsistence cannot be Natural to it or at least to our Conception or Knowledge of it Fol. 8. N. 2. He says There is no Degree of Reason in Brutes and but some Degrees of Sense and in Brutes we find no Degree of Intellect or Sign of it but all they do is by Instinct To the contrary of this we have said before that Beasts do know by single Intellect and are taught to remember Duty and deny their Appetites and obey their Teachers and other Men in Things which they have learned and use both Obedience and a Rational Subtilty in them He says every Soul is the Act of a Mortal Body that an Angel is a Simple Compleat Substance but the Soul is an Incompleat Substance ordained to be totally Compounded with the Body with which it is united that by Means of the Material Organs it may produce Sense and Intelligence in such Bodies as have them This I take well enough to agree with a Material Soul Fol. 10. N. 15. He says it is objected The Humane Soul doth so communicate it self to Matter as that still it keeps its own Subsistence He
Sense viz. Brutes and Men live Really and Intentionally God and Angels Intentionally this says our Author is a feigned Invention Fol. 50. N. 3. Says The Soul doth concur both effectually and immediately in the Exercising of its own Operations The Soul deserves well or ill according to the good or ill Will and the Effects of it whence it is the Soul that it free and not the Will Merit and Demerit grows from a Liberty to do or suffer or not and therefore this Liberty belongs immediately and principally not to the Will but to the Soul so the Soul in truly free and hath Power to determine its own Efficiency and Operations agreeing with what we have before spoken concerning it N. 5. The Will is Coeca Potentia and cannot work but as it is determined by Knowledge and the Knowing Principle is that which is free formally Fol. 52. N. 7. Says The Soul hath no Parts but the whole concurrs to every Vital Action in Hand Head Feet c. This I say is the inconvenient Result of Framing the Soul to be an Immaterial Substance and impartible Hence follows our Author's Assertion That the whole Soul must be undividably acting in all Parts at once and wholly in every Part which to unprejudiced Persons looks very like unintelligible N. 11. The Soul is the formally intelligent Principle Fol. 53. N. 14. He says The Senses in Man are subjected in Matter as the proper Subject where it is inherent That the Soul is not a proper Subject for its Inhesion for Material Accidents cannot be produced out of a Spiritual Subject Matter united to a Sensitive Soul is not therefore Sensitive nor for being united to a Rational Soul is it Rational but the whole Compositum is by Force and Power of its Form Sensible or Rational N. 17. And the Material Sensations are united to the Soul which is the Principium Sentiens and yet may not be a Recipient of the Sensations N. 17. For the Soul informs Matter in which it is not inherent but united to it N. 19. Though a Form be united to a Subject without being inherent in it yet no Form can be inherent in a Subject to which it is not united and therefore Sensation received in Matter and united to the Form must be likewise united to the Matter Fol. 54. N. 21. Sensations of Brutes are both subjected and united in their Souls but Sensations of Men are only united to their Souls because that is here taken for an Immaterial Spirit whence Material Agencies cannot arise Productive Fol. 54. N. 1. It is says he a great Question amongst the Learned Whether the Faculties such as Nutrition Generation Sense Intellect be really distinct from the Soul or not Some say that they are not and some that they are Others that the Vegetative viz. Nutritive and Generative are really the same with that sort of Soul but that the Sentient and Intelligent Faculties are really distinguished from those Souls N. 3. The Will if divided from the Soul or Intellect cannot have Knowledge and therefore not Freedom of Acting nor is any thing essentially Subsisting of it self N. 4. but dependently upon the Intellect or Judgment and that is most knowng and free and by that Voluntary Faculty is determined Fol. 56. N. 11. Begins to cite Arguments for proving that the Faculties or Powers are distinct from the Soul and answers them Fol. 58. N. 1. He raises another Question viz. granting such Faculties really Identified or to be really undistinguished from the Soul Whether then they be not formally distinguished from it N. 2. He says they first are formally distinguished from one another and then that every one of them is so distinguished from the Soul at least inadequate Fol. 59. N. 9. Questions if there can be an Intellective Faculty without the Voluntary attending it Fol. 65. N. 1. Anatomists do find that from the outward Organs of the Sense there go Nerves which lead to the Brain by which the Vital Spirits represent the Images received unto the common Sense or inward Faculty that can discern Dogs cannot bark without Sensation thin in their Sleep cannot be outward therefore they do so by Force of their Sense Internal N. 2. Says There is in Man a Sensual Appetite besides his Will And if so says he there must be also a Knowing Principle or Power to guide it And this he says is the Common or Inward Sense But to this I do not agree but say The Contest doth not seem to be betwixt the Will and the Appetite but betwixt Reason and the Affections and Passions each endeadeavouring to incline the Judicial Faculty to pass Sentence on their behalf And the Passions as Wrath and Fear do even strive by their Violence to over-power and compel the Judgment to pass its Sentence on their Side that the Compositum may obtain a present Quiet which without giving some Degrees of Satisfaction to those rebellious and potent Contestors it is not likely to do But upon a Consent obtained the Voluntary Power call it Will or Appetite is readily subservient to such Agreement of the Judgment and hath no Power in Nature to resist such a Decree its Dependence being upon the Judgment as upon its Natural Guide and Director without whose Consent she neither will or naturally can act so as there is no need to make the Intellect Guide to the Will and the Common Sense Guide to the Appetite but the one Guidance of Judgment will serve them both or there is in truth no real Difference between them Fol. 65. N. 3. There are divers Acts of the Sense or Senses Internal 1. It is Perceptive of the Objects delivered by the Senses and thence is called the Common Sense 2. It conserves the Species so delivered Revolvendo and is called the Imagination 3. It can know them and distinguish them one from another and thence is called the Affirmative Power 4. It can compound and join these Species together with what Coherence or Incoherence it pleases or as may happen and this is called the Phantasy 5. It records and remembers such Objects and conserves Things apprehended for Future Times and Uses and this is called the Memory Doubt may be whether a Power or Faculty shall be constituted for Performance of every one of these Offices or that one Common Power shall be said to perform them all Our Author defends There is but one Common Internal Sense acting in all these Performances if in truth they be distinct or several they all may proceed from one Power and it is not reasonable to multiply Powers more than is needful especially for Men of his Judgment which was That there were no Powers in the Compositum which were really distinct from the Soul And in all this I am at Agreement with him viz. That there are no Powers or Faculties so really distinct from the Soul as that they can act to Effect without the Excitation and Assistance of the Soul Hence the Soul moves the
nor understand but in the Intellect nor determine but in the Judgment viz. cannot act but in and by its proper Organs of the Body and as they are by Nature and Primary Creation appointed to be thereunto qualified attendant and sufficient each for their proper Performances so as although the Soul do enliven and quicken the whole Body and act in and by every Part and Member of it yet without the Body it seems it cannot subsist nor in the Body can act but by the Bodily Organs and according to their Aptitude and Powers and the Strength or Weakness which it finds in the Bodily Organs And this seems to evince with some Clearness the strict and necessary Union of the Body and Soul and that they cannot act or even subsist but in and by the Dependance which they have one upon the other Fol. 66. Nu. 8. Our Author says The Seat of Common Sense is in the Brain as Galen hath shewed Fol. 67. Nu. 3. He says There is but one Internal Knowing Power in Man and therefore but one Appetite in him N. 4. And this he says resides in the Head against the Opinions both of Aristotle and Galen who place it in the Heart Fol. 72. N. 2. Says The Distinction of the Intellect into Active and Passive seems not real but only formal the same Faculty appearing Active in order to some things and Passive in order to other things Fol. 73. N. 3. It s Agency lies 1. In taking a View the Idea's in the Phantasy 2. In putting them into an Intelligible Frame 3. In collecting a Result from them Fol. 75. N. 2. Those who do not distinguish betwixt the Soul and the Intellect do say as they must needs that the Intellect resides in the whole Body but says he the Intellective Faculty is not in the whole Body for the Soul hath not Sense in the Bones nor doth it understand in the Foot and it is by Organs that the Soul acts the Intellect and in it And this says he proves the Dependance which the Soul hath upon Matter for the Exercising of its Operations and therefore the Soul unites to it self the Intellect in that Part of the Body in which it finds the proper Dispositions which are sutable and expedient for the Exercise of that Power or Faculty and therefore that Faculty is in the Brain and not in the whole Body Some Folio's raises and answers Objections concerning the Intellect Fol. 82. N. 1. Divers Philosophers he says and most Divines do say That there is an Intellective Memory Others say Memory doth properly belong to the Common Sense only and to the Intellect but improperly Others say It doth properly belong to the Intellect for that the Act of Memory doth more properly belong to the Powers of the Intellect than to those of the Common Sense N. 2. But for himself who doth not realy distinguish betwixt the Faculties and the Soul it self he doth likewise not distinguish between the Intellect and the Memory any otherwise than is distinguished amongst the Senses Phancy Will and like other Faculties not really but formally Fol. 85. N. 16. The Soul whil'st united to the Body uses the Intellect in Perception of Objects dependently upon the Phantasy and the External Senses and perceiver more clearly Things which have come from the Senses to the Phantasy than those which are framed by the Phantasy it self Fol. 86. N. 1. Many hold That the Intellect doth first apprehend Vniversals and then Singulars and as many hold That Singulars are first understood and then Vniversals Fol. 92. N. 9. The Intellect and Will in Creatures existing are radically but the same things and differ only in Name and Opinion And yet some Things are understood in order to be desired or avoided and require Execution to be followed by the Will accordingly other Things may be also understood which neither excite nor incline the Will one Way or another so pass in the Intellect without Need or Use of a Voluntary Faculty Fol. 103. N. 1. Acts of the Intellect are Apprehension Judgment and Discourse by Apprehension the Object is only perceived and known Judgment is a Sentence pass'd upon the Object grounded upon such Knowledge Fol. 142. N. 1. It is says he a certain Rule That the Act of the Will depends upon the Knowledge or Judgment But it is doubted whether this Dependence be only for its Illumination or both for that and its Efficacy or Operations And he says it is only directed by the Judgment to which it hath a Moral Application not determined by it N. 2. The Will depends upon Knowledge as its Guide for that it self is but a Blind Power but the Concurrence of the Knowing Powers seems not of Necessity for its Operations N. 5. And yet the Will is specificated from the Sorts of Knowledge whereby it is guided N. 1. Nihil Volitum quin Praecognitum the Will follows not an Unknown Object but is directed by Knowledge and grows from the same Intrinsick Principle with Knowledge Whence the Will cannot naturally be otherwise but dependent upon Knowledge or Judgment And this he says is an undoubted Rule Fol. 144. N. 4. It is morally impossible for a sober Person and not surprised willingly to fall into Ways or Means of Execution fir doing or obtaining any Thing without a Judgment preceding upon that Thing both concerning the Beneficialness Fitness and Feasibleness of the Thing which is intended to be effected Fol. 145. N. 5. There is no other Act of the Intellect required for setting the Will on work besides the Apprehension or Judgment N. 7. whose Empire he is not willing to extend so far as to take away all Freedom from the Will And I do not see how that Conclusion is or can be avoided viz. That the Freedom often applied to the Will is Originally and Really in the Judgment upon whose Guidance and Government the Will is Dependent Fol. 146. N. 7. This is apparently to take away all Freedom from the Will and to put the Reins say I into the right Hands and Power N. 8. There is no Act of Empire in the Intellect other than the Judgment Yet he will not grant to the Thomists That the Empire of the Judgment is of such Nature as to take away all Liberty from the Will but says it is rather a Guide to the Will than a Predeterminer of it And we do not pretend to a Violence of Power or Empire in the Judgment but to a Natural or Easy Power where the Sway and Guidance is such as it determines according to Nature without imposing upon the Will any Restraint or Constraint obeyed freely by the Will to which it leaves all the Liberty and Freedom which is Natural to it Fol. 155. N. 1. He says Acts of Natural Power or Command though they are Efficacious in their Nature yet they do not infringe the Liberty of the Powers acted by them or that act under them This he quotes as a more late Opinion
Masters in Philosophy That they answer and solve all Arguments which may be alledged against this Tenet of the Immortality N. 7. He says Let the Learned search into the Reasons and Grounds of this Immortality which all confess to be taken principally from God's Special Providence for Rewarding the Good and Punishing the Wicked in a Future State N. 8. Goes on upon the same Ground N. 9. Mentions only that some do reason for it from Man's Capacity to apprehend Eternal Things and to desire and expect them but doth not insist upon such Arguments or so much as say that they are firm N. 1. He discourses concerning Powers and Acts of Souls Separated with little Assurance and says They have an Innate Inclination and Appetite again to inform and to be united to their proper Matter Upon this our Author we may observe a Love and Inclination to Truth somewhat constrained by the Duties of his Obedience and Profession and the Place of his Abode and Conversation but in Things not forbidden him he seems congruous enough to the Natural Truth and Reason of Things I met with a Pamphlet printed 1645. in English intituled The Prerogative of Man or The Souls Immortality the Author not named but learned full of Quotations concernining our present Point Page 9. He says The Old and Great Philosophers have agreed a Separate Subsistence of Souls And this I do not deny He cites Cicero Permanere Animos arbitramur But what they then are and whither they go we are yet to learn Pag. 13. Cites Marcus Aurelius Emperour As Bodies dying are turned to Earth and Dust by Degrees so Souls carried into the Air are liquified and conjoined to the great Soul of the World which says the Author is nothing but God Cites Tacitus In Vita Agric. If to Good Spirits there may be any Place remaining if Great Souls extinguish not with their Bodies may'st thou rest in Peace Cites Macrobius who after reciting sundry Opinions touching the Nature of the Soul concludes That the Opinion that it was Incorporeal and Immortal had prevailed over all the other Opinions And this we do easily grant Page 10. He grants Aristotle did not declare himself in this Point but thinks he forbore so to do because he knew not how to dispose of such Souls after Death Page 14. He says It imports little that Dicoearchus Aristoxenus Pherecrates Tertullian Sextus Empericus and some other Learned Men have thought the Soul to be Mortal for that some Philosophers have held very odd Opinions He says The Term of Soul is taken for an Exhalation of the Purer Blood sometimes for a Ruling Spiritual Intellect and sometimes for the Immaterial Immortal Part of Man Page 15. He says Increase or Diminution of Knowledge grow from the Difference Advantage or Alteration in the Organs and thence a Man understands better than a Child a Learned than an Illiterate and a Diligent better than a Negligent Person And this we agree to with this Addition That the Soul or Flame of Life hath its Vicissitudes as well as the Body and its Organs Page 16. He says Some Acts of the Soul are Independent of the Body and wholly Inorganical as divers Learned Authors have shewed This shews like an open Blot in his Tables for this Thing is the most precise Point in Issue Prove this and carry the Cause And that in this Point he should shuffle us off without offer of one Quotation or one Reason in Proof of his Assertion inferrs he could find nothing to say in it that was satisfactory to his own Reason or likely to satisfie other Inquisitive People P. 17. Says An Immortal Soul cannot be generated And therefore it is not dependent upon Matter or the Being of a Compositum And this would be true if the Thing were so viz. that Mans Souls were Immaterial but that still wants Proof and so the Argument proceeds ex non concessis He cites an Argument against his Opinion viz. The Anatomies of Men and Beasts shew their Bodies to be alike and their Senses Affections Memories Phantasies are found to be alike and they have each an Intellect and Common Sense some more and some less Perfect whence then can such Difference arise between them in Nature that the Souls of Beasts must be Mortal and those of Men Immortal And this carries the Sense of our former and main Objection and being put by our Author upon himself it seems he should make a Substantial Answer to it but all the Answer he gives is this viz. We do collect from the Operations of the Souls of Men and of Beasts That there is not only a Gradual but an Essential Difference between them and that their being like doth not prove them the same The last we grant and for what he will collect it may be what he pleases but need be no Rule to others But here is no Reason shewn why or wherefore he makes such a Collection nor how that must needs or can be so done P. 18. He offers as some Proof the Difference between the Faculties of Mens Sensual Affections and their Reasons Yet he doth not say a Man hath two Souls and that Affections proceed from one of them and Reason from the other but pretends an Essential Difference between the Faculties of the same Soul which seems absurd in Nature and he might with as good Reason say that Love and Hatred in Man should inferr a Specifical Difference in his Soul Pag. 25. He affirms Generation cannot produce a Humane Soul but argues ex non concessis supposing it Immaterial and then what he says is true But it begs the Point in Question and which will not be granted him P. 26. Says Reason cannot be generated no more can Sense But the Organs of both may be so and the Powers and Spirits that actuate them I but says he Reason and Judgment can and do at times act Inorganically This hath been said before but neither then nor now was nor is proved or offered to be so and therefore is not believed Pag. 26. Says Generation is not performed by Acts of Wit or Vnderstanding but those of Vegetation and Sense and a Soul doth not generate a Soul still supposing a Non supponendum that a Soul is Immaterial and separately subsisting but taking it for a Material Spirit the producing it by generation is easie and natural Pag. 27. It follows says he that because a Man doth not generate with his Mind but his Body therefore his Body is Corruptible and his Mind or Soul is Immortal It seems this needs no Answer Pag. 28. says The Learned Sennertus a famous Physician was moved by certain Reasons which he could not overcome to think the Soul is generated and that the Seed it self is animated with a Humane Soul as in the Case of the Beasts but this Physician and Justus Lipsius called before the Divines and told the Consent of Divines was to the contrary they declared their Resolutions to obey the Order of
not produce it and the same may be said for the Form viz. the Soul the Parents give it but they do not produce it This Answer seems clearly Concessive that the Parents generate the Soul as much and as effectually as they do the Body and more than that is not required by Sennertus or any other But our Friend insists Learn says he the Effects of Generation from those of our Dissolution our Death doth dissolve the Vnion of our Parts but it doth not destroy those Parts but only the Man whence as by Generation we become Men by Dying we cease to be so This also grants that all which perishes in Death was generated by the Parents The Body had a Time to get Life and grow and so it hath to putrifie and consume and the Soul began with Life in the Embrion and in the Body and it seems to extinguish in Death of the Body naturally or we desire to be yet scientifically instructed from Reason or Nature what it is and where it is or at least that it is and hath a Separate State and Subsistence of its own P. 43. He recites another Argument of Sennertus viz. If the Seed be not animated from the first Instant and then the Progenitor happen to die before the Time of Animation it might be truly said that a Dead Man did Genenerate He answers This Case is like one who puts Sparks of Fire amongst Fewel then leaves it and the Fire doth not take hold and burn till a good while after yet this Man is said to have made the Fire And we do agree the Similitude to be apt enough in this Case and that it seems to import The Seed is as much the Efficient of the whole Child as the Sparks put into the Fewel are of the Fire more than which hath not been demanded Our Friend says he hath chosen to contest this Point against Sennertus because that Doctor was a Man of great Worth and Substance And says he magnified his Wisdom greatly in Submitting his Opinion to the Divines worthy to be imitated herein by all other Men But that before hath been delivered doth sufficiently evince that there is a great Latitude and Difference of Opinions in the World Concerning this Writer of An. 1645. we may observe he had the Advantage of the Wren in the Fable who sate upon the Back of the Eagle and was carried by her into the Clouds and coming to the full Extent of the Eagles Height she put her self to the small Stretch of her own Wings and mounted above the Eagle by so much He had perceived the great Incongruities of continually newly created Souls and intended at mollifying them by assigning them a Regular Ordination as a Duty upon the Exigence of Nature This Course appears healing and helpful Posito that the Soul be Immaterial but it is no Manner of Proof that the Soul is so And if it be not so but only a Material Spirit then is there no need of this Invention and then it is as hath been said not only an Invention but a needless one And yet it testifies the Writer amongst his other Endeavours to have been a Person of Wit Learning and Consideration All the Authors presently in our Possession or Reach concerning the Soul have before been Cited and Considered viz. Four Foreign and Four of our own Later and Domestick Writers And concerning the Materiality or Immateriality of Humane Souls we may observe from that they have spoken that there are Two particular Queries or Questions the Determination of which will advance much towards the knowledge of the Souls Nature and Qualifications If One of them be proved or granted thence the Immateriality of the Soul may be strongly inferred and if the other be proved or granted thence may he as strongly inferred the Souls Materiality The First of these is held in the Affirmative by divers of our Authors viz. More Digby Zanchius and the Pamphlet of 1645 who do all expresly and often affirm That the Soul in Life-time of the Man doth at some times and in some cases act of and by her self without Aid or Ministry of the Body or its Organs or any Members or Powers of it If this Assertion have been proved or can or shall be proved We grant from the Conclusion a very strong Inference may be drawn for the Souls Immateriality agreeing the Truth of Aristotle's Assertion in his Treatise of the Soul Chap. 1. That if the Soul have any Operation or Affection peculiar to her self and wherein she can effectually Act without Use or Aid of the Body or the Members Organs or Spirits of it then it is very likely that she may also be capable of a Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body But says he If the thing be not so and Men fail in Proof of such a peculiar in the Soul certainly she cannot subsist in a State of Separation from the Body Our Authors for Proof of such a Peculiar in the Soul do alledge That the Soul can conceive Spiritual Beings and Universals Second or Abstracted Notions Logical Mathematical and Metaphysical Beings and Things which Matter is not very capable of nor that it can be Assistant to the Formation or Contemplation of such Conceptions In answer to which may be opposed the same Authors Assertions That whilst the Soul is in the Body she cannot act without the Animal or Vital Spirits of the Body and before hath been observed That the Soul cannot see but by the Eyes nor remember but in the Memory And these Organs and Faculties may be lost by Accident and yet the Soul remain perfect still but without Sight or Memory for want of the Bodily Organs and if the Intellect be crazed the Soul cannot understand but according to such Capacities as remain in the Organ and it seems the like may be said for all other Faculties of the Soul and Organs of the Body which infers the Soul cannot operate without the Spirits and Organs of the Body As to the Conceiving Spiritual Beings and Things it hath been said such Knowledge hath been derived from Revelations made to the Senses of some Men and their Testimony of them to other Men and for the Conceptions of Universals and Abstracted Notions it seems the Soul in the Intellect working Comparate and Abstractive by using the Joynt Powers of Intellect Phantasie and Memory and by composing and comparing what is found in them may well enough be able by abstracting them from Conceptions of Matter and Sense and sorting them first then ranking and comparing them the Soul by Joint Use of these Organs may naturally be able to raise Generals out of Particulars and from Generals ascend to Universals and so likewise raise abstracted Notions from the often Repetition and comparing Things first made known to them by the Senses We do not then agree that any of our Authors have proved that the Soul hath any Operation or Affection so peculiar to her self as that the Body
Man without Design to teach concerning it 2. We may observe that the Retribution expected to be made at the Resurection will be both more compleat and formal than what Men conceive to be in the Procedure concerning a Separately Subsisting Soul We read God would not execute upon Sodom without a full Examination of the Matter and so there shall be in the Resurrection All shall stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ and the Books shall be opened that of Conscience and that of Life That of Conscience hath enough Evidence to condemn the whole World but those whose Names are found written in the Book of Life and those only shall escape by special Priviledge or Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ And as the Proceeding will be more Formal so the Retribution will be more Compleat and made to both the Essential Parts of Man his Soul and his Body which as they have Jointly and Inseparately acted in this Life so shall they Rejoice or Mourn at the Resurrection after the Sentence of a Last Judgment passed upon them 3. We may observe That Death in the New Testament is frequently called and compared to a Sleep and that the most sound and profound and in such a Sleep viz. a sound Sleep whatsoever time passes over the Sleepers head he hath no perceivance of if it be two ten or twenty hours the length or shortness of the passing time doth not at all appear to the Sleeper but at his waking he rises as if he had been but newly fallen asleep Man's Death is such a profound Sleep and his Resurrection such a Waking If during that Sleep there go over the Dead man's head Months or Years to an Hundred or a Thousand this is no way perceivable by the Dead Person but when he rises it will be but as if he had newly fallen asleep We read that a Thousand Years with God are but as one Day nor are they in truth so much And in our present Case we may say that a Thousand Years going over such a Sleeper's head are but as one Day to him or are rather less viz not so much to the Sleeper as one Day to a Man that is Active in the World for that the Dead man is not at all affected with the time which passeth over him but when the Last Trumpet shall sound the Dead World shall awake as if they had then but newly fallen asleep ready to obey the Summons of Rise ye Dead and come to Judgment Whence although the time betwixt Death and Judgment appear upon a sudden Conception to be long or over-long yet upon a better Search it will be found of very small importance either in respect to God or Man And notice it seems may be taken that it would look like a great impropriety to term Death a Sleep if it were true that after Death the better part of the Man viz. his Soul continued Waking and alive and at a greater Liberty and Freedom of Action then ever it enjoyed during its Conjunction with the Body 4. We may observe That the same which dies rises and as the Soul is principal in Man so Man shall be more the same at his rising in respect of his Soul then of his Body for his Body shall be but of the same kind as Wheat comes of Wheat and Barley of Barley but when Providence hath so formed the Body and kindled in it the Flame of Life by breathing into him the Breath of Life to be derived only from Heaven his Humane Powers and Faculties viz. his Senses and Common Sense his Phantasie Intellect and Judgment his Affections and Passions his Knowledge and Memory shall be altogether the same that they were when he died and as much the same as they are at a Man's waking again after a sound and long Sleep taken and the person rising shall be more the same then an Old Man is the same person that he was when he was Young The same Person Soul and Body that died shall be revived and rise again as one who falls asleep wakens and returns to the former Powers Affections and Actions of his Life But if the Soul were in a Separate Being and State of Activity during all that time of the Separation how could it be said to obtain a Resurrection or be conceived to desire a Re-union with that Body which before was but as a Cage or Prison to it And it seems such a Soul should rather fear and resist such a Re-union with its former Body then rejoyce at it or be contented with it 5. We may observe That betwixt the Death and Resurrection of Man no alteration of his Condition can be expected or hoped for but as the Tree falls so it must lie and as Death leaves us so Judgment shall find us The Body is returned to the Dust from whence it was taken and if the Flame of Life and Activity first derived from God and sine propagated by Generation be by Death extinguished there remains nothing for an altering Power naturally to work upon Solomon tells us There is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave but all is rest and peace there And so says Job There the wicked cease from troubling and there the we ary are at rest So Chap. 3.11 Oh that I had died from the Womb I should then have been as though I had not been Solomon again As a Man comes out of his Mothers Womb so shall he return to go as he came and shall take nothing with him And so for the Resurrection Men shall rise as they lay down without natural or appearing Possibility of any Alteration We proceed now to the Proof of what we have before asserted viz. That the Resurrection is an Article or Point of the Christian Religion as clearly taught and asserted as well evidenced and attested and as fully and certainly to be believed as any other Point or Article of the Christian Religion whatsoever And for this our Evidence shall begin from the Old Testament There Exod. 3.6 God is stiled The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and from that Stile the Resurrection is proved by our Lord but we must agree that the Proof which it makes rises more from the Authority of him who quoted it as a Proof than in the Evidence of the Words themselves For God might reasonably be so stiled from the great Favour which he had shewed to those Persons and his Covenant and Promises made with them and to them But the Sadduces refused to admit of any other Scriptures save Moses his Writings And to prove the Resurrection out of those Writings our Lord made choice of this Text and from his Authority the same must be admitted amongst Christians to be a good Proof of our Future Resurrection from the Dead And as Ordinary Readers could hardly have drawn a good Proof out of that Text so another Proof of the Resurrection appears not till we come to the Book of Job and there
upon an undertaking to row against the Stream and general Opinion as well of past Ages as the present time 1 Sam. 30.6 When David was in very evil case he incouraged himself in the Lord his God he it is who hath required that Men should be Valiant for the Truth upon the Earth And Esdras 4.35 Great is the Truth and stronger then all things those who know that their aim and design is no other but the bringing the Truth in this Point to Light to the end that Gods Truth viz. the very Truth thereby may be exhibited and discovered may it seems go on in it without being terrified or bearing an astonishing regard to the censures of Men. We shall proceed therefore to Execution of what hath been declared to be intended Also where two or more Texts are cited unto which one same Answer may well be applied such Texts are designed to be quoted together or at once that the same Answers may not be often repeated And whereas heretofore those Texts intended to prove Recompences in a State future to this Life have been often applied to prove the Self-subsistence of a Separated Soul Here will be care taken to detect and avoid that Point of Misapplication We begin then from the Beginning of the Creation and the History of it viz. Gen. 1.26 God said let us make Man in our image after our likeness Ver. 27. So God Created Man in his own Image Chap. 2.7 God breathed into Mans Nostrils the Breath of Life and Man became a living Soul We have before proved it the ordinary Use of Scripture to express the Person by Name or Term of the Soul and here Man became a living Soul intends a living Person both Soul and Body Zanchius puts a very great Stress and weight upon Gods breathing into Mans Nostrils the Breath of Life for the Proof of a Separately Subsisting Soul in Man To this we say there is not that clear Sense in the Text which seems to import no more but that God gave to Man his Breath and Life and so he did to the Beasts of the Earth and kindled in their Bodies their first flames of Life Propagated from those Originals to all future Generations each Generating its like both amongst Men and Beasts And as concerning the Image of God in Man what and where it is we leave to be disputed as it hath been from those Ancient times till this time without being able to attain a clear Determination That Text Gen. 7.22 All Terrestial Creatures in whose Nostrils was the Breath of the Spirit of Life died in the Flood seems to Paraphrase the Breath of Life breathed into Mans Nostrils and to expound it in the sense before given of it 1 Kings 17.21 The Prophet Elijah Prays My God I pray thee let this Childs Soul come into him again Thus it may be Paraphrased Lord kindle again in this Child the Flame of Life which is now extinguishable restore him to Life again but the mode of speaking here used by the Prophet was agreeable to the common Opinion of his time which was long after that of Saul A like thing we Read 1 Sam. 30.12 concerning the Egyptian found at Ziklag When he had eaten his Spirit came again to him viz. the Flame of Life almost extinguished for want of Fewel was again revived and inabled for action by fresh Food and Nourishment and as the Childs Soul came into him again and he revived so this Aegyptian's Spirit came again to him when he had eaten and he revived And 2 Kings 13.21 a Dead Man let down into Elisha's Grave at the touch of Elisha's Bones the Dead Man revived whether his Soul returned or his Flame of Life was rekindled there is no Ground here to dispute or need to do it Job 12.10 In God's hand is the Soul of every living thing and the breath of all Mankind Here man is ranked with every living thing as to his Soul and Soul and Breath are taken for the same things and of a like Subsistence Chap. 34.14 If God gather to himself Mans Spirit and his Breath he shall turn to his Dust here Spirit and Breath pass for the same thing Chap. 33.30 Bring back his Soul from the pit to the light of the living viz. save his Life or revive him Psal 49.8 It cost more to redeem their Souls viz. their Lives or Persons their Riches could not do it Ver. 15. but God hath delivered my Soul from the place of Hell for he shall receive me viz. he shall deliver me yet from Death and the Grave and hide me as in the secret place of his Dwelling receive me under his Protection Psal 56.13 Thou hast delivered my Soul from Death viz. hast saved my Life so my Soul trusteth in thee and my Soul is among Lions and my Soul thirsteth for thee and my Soul followeth hard after thee he holdeth my Soul in Life and my Soul which thou hast redeemed and 72.14 He shall redeem their Soul from deceipt and violence 73.19 Deliver not the Soul of thy Turtle Dove to the Enemy 86.2 Preserve my Soul for I am holy ver 13. Thou hast delivered my Soul from the lowest Hell and my Soul is full of troubles and Lord why casteth thou out my Soul 89.48 What Man is he that liveth and shall not see Death shall he deliver his Soul from the hand of the Grave and bless the Lord O my Soul And he satisfieth the empty Soul and filleth the hungry Soul with goodness and their Soul abhorred all manner of Meat and those who speak evil against my Soul All these and abundance more places of the Psalms do under the Word or Term Soul intend and signifie the Person the Life the Affection of the Party Praise the Lord O my Soul These and many other Texts sound to common Readers as Proofs of a Separately Subsisting Soul of Man but that Opinion may be past for a clear mistake and an apparent mis-conception Prov. 11.25 The liberal Soul shall be made fat viz. the liberal Person Chap. 13.4 The Soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing but the Soul of the diligent shall be made fat viz. the diligent Person 14.25 A true Witness delivereth Souls People Men. Chap. 16.24 Pleasant words are sweet to the Soul 19.2 That the Soul he without knowledge it is not good viz. the Person Chasten thy Son and let not thy Soul spare for his crying Do not thou spare The full Soul loaths the Honey-comb Thus far we have added to our former proofs that Soul is very often put for Person and we now expect that shall pass for a granted Truth and it may still be confirm'd by more Testimonies than all that have yet been Cited Eccles 8.8 There is no man that hath Power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit neither hath he power in the day of Death Here Spirit seems to intend Breath or Life Chap. 10.4 If the Spirit of the ruler rise up against thee viz. his
And it seems this Crying by the Souls was in the same manner as the Blood of Abel's Cying from the Ground against his Murtherer and as all Notable Actions good or bad do depend for Recompence upon the Effects of God's Divine Providence Justice and Power and so we leave it Luke 23.43 Christ says to one of the Crucified Thieves Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thorn be with we in Paradise This could not be performed in their Bodies for that our Lord's lay in the Grave till the Third Day therefore it must be fulfilled in their Souls separated from their Bodies To this Objection the Answer may have Two Parts First We quote Matth. 27.24 The Thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his Teeth And Mark 15.32 They that were crucified with him reviled him Both these Evangelists agree that they both the Thieves that were crucified with him reviled him S. Luke is commonly taken for the Pen-man of S. Paul by whom this Gospel is believed to have been dictated But neither of these are taken to have been Eye-Witnesses or that they were by and present at this Fact S. Mark is taken to write from the Mouth of S. Peter although it might possibly be from the Apostle S. Barnabas either of which Apostles were likely to be Eye-Witnesses of the Fact then done And S. Matthew was himself both Apostle and Evangelist and likely an Eye-Witness of the Fact and there is an Old Rule That one Eye-Witness is better than two Ear-Witnesses of any Fact We conclude then that here are Two Witnesses against One and that One but an Ear-Witness of that Fact And therefore there is a Ground to question the very Truth of S. Luke's Relation seeing he wrote but by Relation and what he says stands not of it self and can with great Difficulty be made to stand in Agreement with what the other two Evangelists have delivered Secondly We say to the Words To day thou shalt be with me they may be expounded from other like Expressions Heb. 3.7 cites Psalm 95.7 To day if ye will hear his Voice Ver. 13. Exhort one another daily whilst it is called to day Here it seems the Word Day is not limited to an Artificial or a Natural Day but signifies a present but yet a competent Time Luke 19.42 Christ wept over Jerusalem saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day viz. hadst known that Time of my present Call unto thee here exprest by the Word Day So The Son of Man must be Three Days and Three Nights in the Heart of the Earth And yet we know Christ lay in the Grave but Two Nights viz. Friday and Saturday Nights and for Days only one whole one viz. Saturday for he was buried on Friday at Even and rose very early upon Sunday Morning Whence it seems the Words To day shalt thou be with me need not be limited to a precise Day Artificial or Natural but may be reasonably intended to signifie within some short Time after that Promise And that we may the better account for the same there shall be cited Jo. 20.17 Our Lord lately risen says to Mary Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father And the same Day at Evening Ver. 19. came Jesus and stood in the midst among his Discipler And Luke 24.39 he says Handle me and by Feeling perceive and see that I have Flesh and Bones which a Spirit hath not Hence may be collected that betwixt his appearing to Mary that Morning and to his Disciples in the Evening he had ascended to his Father and returned Matth. 27.52 When Christ died The Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of the Graves after our Lord's Resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Amongst these we have reason to suppose was the Body of this Thief as well as his Soul the Flame of Life re-kindled in him as well as in those other Saints and of our Lord himself and that he the Thief and the other Saints then rising did make this Ascent with our Lord upon Sunday next after the Friday Night of his Suffering And this I conceive was enough to satisfie our Lord's Expression of To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise in so short a Time as it may be counted present or to day And this Resurrection might occasion some to think as 2 Tim. 2.18 that the Resurrection was past already and was not in Future to be expected Luk. 23.46 Jesus cried with a loud Voice and said Father into thy Hands I commend my Spirit and having said thus he gave up the Ghost And to this we join Acts 7.59 They stoned Stephen calling and saying Lord Jesus receive my Spirit This Objection from recommending the Spirit of a Dying Person to God and Christ Men say imports a Spiritual Being or a Soul in Man which is capable of a Subsistence and hath such a Subsistence in a State separated from the Body The Objection is of the same Nature with that from Solomon The Spirit returns to God that gave it and requires some Repetition of what was thereunto answered And for findding out the Sence and Intent of the Word Spirit Places of Scripture shall be quoted 1 Sam. 30.12 When the starved Egyptian had eaten some Figs and Raisins his Spirit came again to him seems his Spirit of Life his Vital Spirits Ezra 1.5 They stood up whose Spirit God had raised to go and build the Temple seems to intend their Inclination and Affection Job 20.3 The Spirit of my Vnderstanding causeth me to answer seems the Eagerness of his Desire Chap. 21.4 Why should not my Spirit be troubled viz. why should not I be troubled Psalm 51.17 The Sacrifice of God it a broken Spirit there is paraphrased by a contrite Heart 143.4 My Spirit is vexed within me and my Heart within me is desolate Prov. 18.14 The Spirit of a Man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded Spirit who can bear viz. a good or bad Conscience Chap. 25.28 He that hath no Rule over his own Spirit it like a City broken down and without Walls Here Spirit must signifie Affections Eccles 8.8 No Man hath Power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit seems Men's Passions Prov. 20.27 The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord searching the inward Parts of the Belly viz. Man's Reason and Knowledge is the Candle Psalm 31.6 Thou art my strength into thy hand I commend my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me God had saved him in his Troubles and therefore he again commends himself to God under the Term of his Spirit Dan. 5.12 An excellent Spirit Knowledge and Vnderdeastanding was found in Daniel The latter Words expound Spirit Acts 17.16 Paul's Spirit was stirred in him at Athens he was moved and provoked Chap. 18.25 Apollos was fervent in Spirit or was Zealous 1 Cor. 5.5 Deliver the Man to Satan that the Spirit
be better known it seems it can have but little Force of Proof in this Argument Joh. 12 26. If any Man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be Chap. 14.3 If I go and prepare a Place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also This later Text expounds the former viz. Christ's Servants shall be where he is intending after he hath first prepared a Place for them and then comes again to receive them These particular Texts of Scripture are all that we meet with that are quoted by others or are observed by us and tending materially to Proof of the Separate State or Subsistence of Humane Souls after this Life ended And yet there remains one Perswasive which inclines common Readers as much or more than any other Argument to believe that there is a Separate State of Souls Subsisting after they are parted from the Bodies a Perswasive rising from Induction of many Scriptural Expressions concerning the Soul and the Body as different and even opposite Things and Principles Rom. 7. describes the Contest betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit as if they were naturally different Principles in Man whereas they are but different Faculties in Man viz. the Affections Passions and Appetites Vital combating the Faculties Intellectual the Knowledge and Reason of the same Party with various Success But these being exprest by the Terms of Flesh and Spirit of the Man seem to represent them as two Principles different and contrary one to the other Such Faculties we agree they are different and contrary but such Principles we say they are not but all proceed from the same Principles the Constituent Parts of Man viz. his Soul and his Body The Natural Powers of such a Compositum all these Faculties equally are and seem the one of them independent upon the other and seldom free from a Contest amongst them in which the Judgment or highest Prudence of the Party bears the Sway and hath the Determinative Power naturally residing in it So as what is here signified by the Terms of Flesh and Spirit are so far from a Possibility of a real Separation one Sort from the other as neither of them can subsist but in eodem subjecto with the other and the Compositum which hath not all of them is Imperfect Chap. 8.1 They who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit This taken for a Humane Spirit or Soul must intend the Reason or Intellect And the Chapter goes in Terms of Flesh and Spirit inducing Readers to accept them as different Principles and thence Separable Whereas we are ready to put the Stress of our Argument upon their being Joint-Principles of one Compositum Man which cannot consist without both And it seems as he Man cannot subsist without them so they not without one another And so in a Compositum they are generated grow stand and fall together one and all the Soul the Body and the Compositum and so they shall rise and be recompenced together And what God hath so joined together in Bands of Nature and absolute Coherence one of them to another the Power of Mens Wits and Perswasions will never be able finally to separate or to evince their Subsistence in a State of Separation one of them from the other Matth. 26.41 Our Lord says to his sleeping Disciples The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak intending the Body is often unable to act according to the Reason and Desire of the Mind Judgment and Intent of the Man and that Infirmity of Weakness and Weariness is peculiar to the Flesh thereby made unable to act with that Vigour and Continuance which the Soul acting in the Phantasy and Reason of the Man requires and shews such Connexion of the Matter and Form as in the Man one of them cannot act without the other Rom. 8.10 The Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is Life because of Righteousness 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves from all Filthiness both of Flesh and Spirit Galat. 3.3 Having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect in the Flesh Ch. 5.16 Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the Lust of the Flesh Ver. 19. Works of the Flesh Ver. 22. Fruits of the Spirit Coloss 2.11 Putting off the Body of the Sins of the Flesh 1 Cor. 7.34 The unmarried Woman cares that she may be holy both in Body and in Spirit Eph. 4.4 There is one Body and one Spirit 1 Thess 5.23 I pray your whole Spirit and Soul and Body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord. James 4.5 The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy 1 Pet. 2.11 Beloved I beseech you abstain from fleshly Lusts which war against the Soul Ch. 3.18 Christ was put to death in the Flesh but quickned by the Spirit Ch. 4.1 He that suffers in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin and must live the rest of his time in the Flesh not to the Lusts of Men but to the Will of God 2 Pet. 2.10 Wicked Men walk after the Flesh in Sins here named Rom. 13.14 Make no Provision for the Flesh to fulfil the Lusts thereof 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a Price therefore glorifie God in your Body and in your Spirit which are God's These Texts and their like have a Sound or Semblance of Supposing a Separating Difference betwixt the Soul and the Body whereas their true Signification seems to be a Distinction between the Powers or Faculties of the Compositum viz. those Vital or the Vegetative and Sensual from those Intellectual and Rational viz. Man's Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear and their Descendents from his Knowledge of Common Sense his Phantasy Opinion Reason and Prudence The first Sort of these Faculties and their Inclinations and Desires are signified and intended under the Name and Term of Flesh in S. John's Epistle called the World And the second Sort of these Humane Faculties are signified and intended under the Name and Term of the Spirit or the Soul But both Sorts are Fundamentally and even Inseparately united in the Nature of Man or that which is the Compositum both of Soul and Body Both Sorts are derived from the Conjunction of these two Principles or Constituent Parts of the Man it seems not singly but each from the Whole or the Compositum Not the first Sort from the Flesh and the second Sort from the Spirit or Soul really for the Flesh by it self cannot live or act And that a Soul by it self either ever did or that it can act was questioned by Aristotle and not found or believed by him It hath been affirmed by some of our Authors quoted but their Proofs offered are so weak as they appear very unlikely to perswade Considering People who can put off their former Prejudices Nor have they prevailed yet to induce a Belief that the Soul cannot act those Faculties of the Second
to that Intent and gave him the Victory in it He will not have his Servants work like Hirelings the Eyes of whose Minds are levelled at and fixed upon their Wages nor will suffer that Accusation to be believed or stand fixed as a Calumny upon them They shall have Rewards becoming the Nobleness and Grandeur of their Master But for Men to be moved and directed to serve God for Rewards of any Sort or Value whatsoever seems Debasement to the Profession and Practice of Christianity And we leave it as an Inconveniency drawn from or very much improved by the Conceipt That Mens precious Souls have a Subsistence in a Separate State from their Bodies and that upon their Separation they pass to Heaven immediately Hence we pass And come to shew how the Opinion of a Soul's Materiality doth serve to the Solving of such Difficulties as are raised by the Belief of a Soul 's Separated Subsistence And First If the Soul be Material it takes away all Ground of Questioning its being One or Many since being generated and extinguished with the Body as the Constituent Form of the Man it can be no more Many than the Body or the Person is so 2. The Tenet of the Soul 's being generated or propagated answers or silences all the Difficulties raised a Parte ante concerning the Soul touching its Original or Derivation And there can be neither Need of nor Truth in the Pre-existence or continual New Creation of Souls 3. It removes the Query How Souls and Bodies come to be United 4. It gives a clear Account of the Souls being contaminated with Original Sin as well and as much as the Body is so Next for the Soul 's Residing in the Body and Acting in it The Soul being Material possesseth the Whole and resides sparsim in every Member and small Parcel of it The glowing and inflamed Blood carries the Vigour and Virtue of the Flame of Life to every least Parcel of the Body and thereby is every such Part enlivened and acted according to its Capacity and the Intent for which it was made whence it is neither All in Every Place nor All in Any Place but possesses the whole Body and supplies and acts every Member and Parcel as hath been before described And thence the Opinion of the Soul's Materiality removes all Difficulties concerning the Soul a Parte post viz. the Questions Whither it goes and What becomes of it and What it doth or can do or suffer after its Separation from the Body The Opinion of the Soul's Materiality doth also deliver from all the Absurdities before-named for then there can be no Need for or a Pretence of a New Creation of Souls which grow out of Nature and Generation nor will there be any need of using Young Innocent Souls with so great and unreasonable Rigor or making their Bodies the Cages or Prisons of them nor will there be any need of Ascribing to Beasts Pre-existent and Separately Subsisting Souls Nor for the depriving them of Senses Memory Affections and Knowledge which naturally and evidently they have and so knownly as it seems absurd to aver the contrary But then it may be said This will make the Souls of Men and Beasts to be of the same Nature and equal Expectations The first of these we grant but the second we deny Of the same Nature we grant as well as they are in their Bodies the same sort of Flesh Bones Blood Breath Spirits Urine Humours and Life and the same sort of Soul or Living Flame supporting and acting in every Part and Member of their Bodies but not of equal Expectations And yet the Difference arises not from Nature but from the declared Disposal and Appointment of God who hath appointed a Day in which he will Judge the World in Righteousness by that Man whom he hath ordained Whereof be hath given Assurance unto all Men in that he hath raised him from the Dead This Appointment of God that Men shall be raised from the Dead and judged and rewarded according to their Works and their Lives led here upon Earth is the Cause and Original of that Difference which shall be between the Future State of Men and Beasts This Resurrection is evidently declared to be designed for Men without mention of Beasts and therefore we may say and not for Beasts One Sort shall rise to give Account and receive Recompence for their Works and the other not And this is the Ground for different Expectations of Men and Beasts as well as it answers the Arguments for a Separate State of Souls drawn from the accepted Rules of Moral Congruity amongst Men. Hence are the Rewards of a true Christian Profession derived and hence may all Arguments for a Separate Subsistence of Souls be better answered upon the Principles of Christian Religon than they can be from Reason Nature or the Principles of any other Religion whatsoever We go on to consider How the Inconveniences derived from the Opinion of a Separated Subsistence of Souls may be removed or helped by the Acceptance of the Soul's Materiality And if so it be and therefore extinguished by Death of the Man Men will not attempt upon utter Impossibilities viz. to Raise or Consult the Spirits of Dead Men when they know that in Nature there is no such Spirit And for Purgatory and Prayers to the Dead and for the Dead remove but the Opinion of a Separate Subsistence of Souls and change it for the Materiality and Extinguishment of them and this Change will presently remove Purgatory as useless and to no Purpose because there will be nothing in the World for it to work upon All its Pretence is for the Purging of Separated Souls and if really there are no such in the World then can there be no Use no more than there is a real Being of Purgatory then for Prayers to the Dead who in Life were Holy Persons or Saints if their Souls were Material and in Death extinguished what can there be lest for Addressing of Prayers unto but only Mens own Phantasies and Imaginations and Ancient Practices and Customs which have a very strong Operation upon Mens Opinions and yet hardly so potent as to justify to Mens ordinary Reason the Addressing of Prayers to Persons who they are convinced have utterly no Subsistence at all And Prayers for the Dead would upon the same Account become as needless and unsuccessful as the former For if there be no Souls to pray out of Purgatory nor any thing in Rerum Natura for which Prayers can be applied it must appear utterly against Common Sense and Reason for Men to pray for Things that are not or for nothing And it seems if Men were once so perswaded they would never practise or use such unreasonable Ceremonies in any time to come As for the Conceipt of Souls appearing or Walking after Death of the Persons if Men could bring themselves to believe that there are no Separately Subsisting Souls in the World they
endeavour the same FINIS A SECOND PART OF A TREATISE INTITULED A SEARCH after SOULS THE Fore-going Treatise being finished and coming under the Perusal of several Persons amongst them a Minister an Eminent both Scholar and Teacher made some Reflections thereupon and transmitted them to the Author of this Treatise willing to receive his Reply thereunto And because the Dispute arising thereupon occasioned the opening divers Apprehensions concerning the Main Intent of the Treatise it seemed useful to publish the same therewithal The First Opposal came in one Sheet of Paper which received a Division into Fifteen Paragraphs 1. Paragraph Was a Civil Complement To which was returned a Thankfulness 2. Parag. Was a Discourse that some particular Fathers Opinions touching the Soul as Origen Tertullian and even St. Austin was not fit to counterpoise the General Stream of the Fathers of their Time And this was granted 3. and 4. Speak to the Novelty of the Opinion of a Humane Material Soul and it is granted new to the Generality 5. States the Question viz. that it is Whether the Soul of Man be Material or Immaterial 6. Parag. The Opponent says Men cannot conceive how a Material Agent can act as the Intellect and Memory of Man can do Nor that it can do so Therefore the Soul of Man cannot be Material but must be Immaterial To this it was replied That the Works of God exceed the Capacities of Men to conceive and that Men cannot find out Reasons for or of the Contextures so much as of a Leaf What it is that frames it into a Stem then puts forth the Ramuli then the Fibres of a divers Fashion as is proper to each Tree then unites them by a thin Covering of Green in some more glossy and glittering and in some less Men cannot perceive how or by what means this is done but are satisfied with knowing that there is a Material Spirit or Sap in the Plant and that thereby and by the Vegetative Power in Plants all such acts are wrought in them and that they are acted according to the appointment of God without Mens being able to find out the immediate or next Causes of the particulars And so for the Animalia they have Nutritive and Generative Powers the Loco-motive and Affective as Lust Wrath Fear they have Sensitive Powers and all these in as high and perfect a Degree as Men have them and the Intellectual Faculties but in a very low Degree Men know these Powers or Acts are wrought in or by the Beasts but not in a particular manner applicando to the next Causes of them but we know there is a Flame of Life in them which acts in them and acts them and is the Cause and Original of all their Motions and Actions without knowing how that produces in them Anger or Fear or a Lust to Generation or power to see remember c. The very next Causes or Manner of their Production cannot be known but Men may be satisfied in knowing the Aptitude of the Organs and that generally there is a Flame of Life or a Flamy Spirit in Animals by which God can and doth effect all such Motions and Actions as are fit and proper for each sort of Animals to perform And if all this can be done in Beasts by such a Spirit I desire to be shown some reason why the like may not be acted in Man by a like Spirit and in a much higher Degree assisted by Organs especially in the Head much fitlier framed for the effecting of such purposes and so judging we shall be freed from the Common and Vulgar Error of thinking all we see done extraordinary and of which we are not able to collect or find out the Cause that it is done by assistance or agency of Spirits as was the Case of Regiomontanus his Eagle and Flie and the Artist was therefore taken for a Conjurer And so when Watches first appeared in China those People thought they were moved by Spirits Our present Argument seems of that Nature we know not how such Effects are or can be produced from Matter and Motion and therefore they must be acted by an Immaterial and Self-subsisting Spirit not generated but coming into the Body ab extra no Body certainly knowing from whence nor how nor what it is nor that it is Doctor Willis in his Book De Anima Brutorum Latin Printed at Amsterdam page 4. names Periera and Des Cartes and Sir Ken. Dighy who to avoid the allowance of such Souls unto the Beasts will have the Beast esteemed but a sort of Machines which only can move but that they have no knowledge or feeling of any thing that they do or suffer acted by Matter and Motion which they say can have no Sense P. 5. These Men says the Dr. think that God cannot make Things or Creatures beyond the Powers of Mans Capacity to conceive and rightly to understand P. 6. But says he Nemesius and Gassendus do allow to Beasts Senses Outward and Inward Perception Appetite Spontaneous Motion a sort of Deliberation Judgment and a lower sort of Ratiocination for that is no more but knowingly to distinguish one Thing from another to compare them and chuse one of them before the other And the Brutes do Ex uno colligere aliud and therefore they have a sort of Reasoning although in a very low Degree and he cites the words of Gassendus Animam esse quandam flammulam ignisve tenuissimi speciem quae quamdiu viget seu manet accensa tam diu vivit animal cum amplius non viget seu extinguitur animal moritur P. 8. the Doctor says The Sensitive Souls of Men are of the same nature with this description and this sort of Soul is extended over the whole Body and is dividable and the Members and Parts of the Body are the proper Organs of this Soul aad this Soul is of a fiery nature and the act or substance of it is either a Flame aut habitum flammae proximum affinem and that so it is says he not only Gassendus hath determined but 13 great Learned Men here named have concurred in that Opinion P. 9. he asserts Animam in sanguine aut liquore vitali gliscentem aut ignem aut flammam quandam esse And this Soul which acts and keeps Life in the Body must have a continual Nourishment both from Air and Viands And he takes this Soul to consist of the same Matter with the Body but of the most select subtil and active Particles of such Matter he says Dr. Ent hath clearly demonstrated Sanguinem pariter ac ignem duo desiderare viz. alimentum ventilationem This Soul is fitted and proportioned to the Body and the Body contains it as the Scabbard doth the Sword and it is so fine as to be imperceptible to Humane Senses and so as that it can be known only ab effectis operationibus P. 11. So as when the Life fails there is no sign or footsteps left
not let the World be judge For our Lord 's main scope and intent in this Text appears clearly to be The Warning of his Disciples not to fear Men for that they could only punish with Death and no farther Not to fear them so much as God who can punish beyond Death by casting into Hell The Contents in both Evangelists express That our Lord exhorted his Disciples to preach to others what they had heard of him he bids them not be afraid so to do for that Men can only kill the Body and do you no more harm but God can punish after Death and cast you into Hell and this we ought to fear more than any thing that Man can do to us That St. Matth. hath worded our Lord's Expressions otherwise is true but that our Lord's intent here was to teach a Separate Subsistence of Souls after Death appears not in St. Luke's words nor in the Contexts of either of the Evangelists And the wording of it in St. Matthew's Text seems to me but the result of that Apostle's Judgment perhaps according to the Common Opinion of that Time And however here being two Relations of the same Thing and of equal Authority it seems Men may accept which of them they think most likely or most true without much apprehending the abuses which Atheists or Prophane Persons may make of it Parag. 11. You say I make Matthew and Luke to disagree again Yet the Case is no more but this Matthew says Two Thieves were crucified with our Saviour and those Thieves also which were crucified with him reviled him And Mark says the same thing viz. They Crucified Two Thieves with him and they who were Crucified with him reviled him Luke only relates the matter of the Thiefs Conversion which he had by hear-say Thus the difference which there is amongst them is not made by me who only relate the Case as it is leaving it to others to adjust such difference as there appears amongst them I do not deny the truth of St. Luke's Relation only say it may be questionable upon these differences But for Answer to the Objection from the Thiefs being that day in Paradise I say That the Crucifixion and Death was on Friday Evening and the Resurrection upon Sunday Morning and this Thief might and likely did rise at the time of our Lord's Resurrection Matth. 27.52 The Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and went and appeared unto many And there is a great Concurrence of Opinion That the Old Patriarchs had part in that Resurrection This being granted I hope shewing the Sense of the Word this day is to very good purpose for this Promise to the Thief might be literally fulfilled if he rose at our Lord's Resurrection I wonder how you mist of this effect of my Answer fully exprest in my Treatise and yet it seems you did miss of it for else you would not have proceeded as you do in this Paragraph Paragraph 12. You say You wonder how I can conceive that the Parable of Dives was delivered to dilucidate our Lord's Doctrine in the 15th verse of that Chapter viz. That what was highly esteemed in the sight of Men may be an abomination in the sight of God I will tell you how I come to conceive so This Doctrine our Lord delivers ver 15. and ver the 19th begins the Parable distanced only by three intermediate verses and the Parable is very proper and significant for that purpose For what in Man's sight is more glorious and happy than the State of Dives and what more miserable than that of Lazarus and yet in God's sight and knowledge their State was directly the contrary But say you Christ delivered this Doctrine to the Pharisees I grant it and so for ought that I can perceive he did that Parable nor do I find any cause for you to doubt of it You are willing to suppose which I think is to grant that it is a Parable and you wonder that I should say Parables are a sandy Foundation for the building of Doctrines upon For say you Our Lord spake to the multitude in Parables and without a Parable spake he not unto them To this I answer His Disciples wondred at it and enquired why he did so and he told them the reason viz. That seeing they might not perceive and hearing they might not understand and be converted for God's appointments were to be fulfilled by means of their ignorance Acts 3.17 Peter tells the Jews concerning our Lord's sufferings I wot that through Ignorance you did it as did also your rulers but God so brought about what he had foretold by the mouth of all his Prophets So Paul Had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of glory But when our Lord and his Disciples were by themselves together he expounded all things unto them and did manifest himself unto them and not to the world but all was delivered in Parables to them who were without John 15.15 Ye are my friends for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you and I heartily wish our Lord had expounded this Parable unto them Parag. 13. You demand What could move Paul to desire death rather than life I answer He was at Rome when he wrote to the Philippians such an one as Paul the aged and a Prisoner of Jesus Christ in continual expectation of Martyrdom Chap. 2.17 If I be offered up as a sacrifice I will joy and rejoyce with you and I would have you do so with me Your self may if you please contemplando put your soul into his souls stead as Job says or imagine your self to be in his Case I judge you would have no cause to desire a long or a longer continuance in that condition If it were not as he says for the opportunity and power to profit other men he says For him to die and be with Christ would be far better 1 Thess 4.14 As Jesus died and rose again even so them also who sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him but howsoever in such a Case you might judge I think for my self that if I were in that Case or a far more easie state of Life yet infirm and aged as I am and had withal so great assurance of a blessed joyful Resurrection as that Apostle had viz. That a Crown of Righteousness was laid up for him and to be given him at that day I think that I should make little doubt in the choice but fully desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ in the sense of resting or Sleeping in Christ to be of that number who being asleep in Jesus God will bring with him for that blessed are the dead who die in the Lord for they rest from their labours And so Job says There the weary are at rest freed from oppressions pains and sufferings You mention a mans becoming a prey to worms as a terrour of Death but I esteem
my Opinion when I found Roccius saying the same things and words and Melanchton apparently to the same Sense and Peter Martyr approaching thereunto and nearer than I do expect other men shall come in any short time Your Quotation out of Dr. Cave was drawn by him out of Euseb Hist lib. 6. cap. 36 and is quoted in my Treatise This Particular finishes your Opposition to my Treatise and shall put an End also to my Defence Yet because I have as you may see some room left upon this Sheet of Paper I am thereby invited to remember what you said in your Second Paragraph viz. That it is not unlikely that my Treatise might be the result of some years Study To set your Imagination right upon that Point I give you this Account of it That in Summer 1690 I practised my Monastick Discipline reading within Doors and labouring the Ground abroad Mutans quadrata rotundis What I read within I ruminated without I considered the close Connection of Soul and Body and even the Contexture of them that Humane Constitutions and Faculties are often alter'd by Diet Air Sickness Accidents that the best Reasons Memories or Judgments may be altered or spoiled by divers like Means and recovered sometimes by Medicines applied to the disaffected Parts or Organs of the Body How this might competere with the Acts and Powers of a Substantial Angelical Spirit as the Soul or Form of Man I found my self unable to comprehend but that rather it seemed there was a Dependency of the Soul upon the Body as well as of the Body upon the Soul Hence I concluded there was a Close and Natural Contexture between them and that likely they were both of one same Nature Connatural to Man viz. his Natural and Constituent Parts Then I considered the Brutes and that they had the same Senses and Affections with Men and some sort of Understanding Phancy and Memory and all liable to like Accidents Also both Sorts lived by Blood Breath and Fewel or Food and if any of these failed the Man must die as well as the Beast so as the Man's Soul could help in such or any other Vital or Natural Necessities no more than the Soul of a Beast can do in like Cases And thus I went on considering all the Summer and coming tube inclined I fell upon a very Natural Course of Proceeding in such Cases followed by St. Paul Acts 17.17 He disputed his Tenets in all Places and with all Persons of his Conversation proper for that purpose and so did I and read Books such as I had or could buy or borrow Lastly One lent me a Book called Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts and the Weak Defence which he and Sir Kenelm Digby and Doctor More made on behalf of that Immortal Opinion fortified my Conceptions to the contrary In Christmass I discours'd with many about it and soon after Candlemass I began to write and finish'd my Treatise about a Week after Midsummer in An. 1691 since which time divers have perused it and I refuse it to none who are like to use it cleanly and are capable of it I know you observe that I begin with Baxter's Book and end with it quoting and examining of it all along nor did I find it difficult to refute all that he says in maintenance of the Immortality except the Texts of Scripture which he quotes And those Texts in him and in you seem to me the only Defences of the Immortality Batteries you perceive are and may be raised against the intention and effects of those Texts which are quoted to that purpose and of what force they will prove Men are not like speedily to determine But my Judgment is not convinced or perswaded that by forbearing the Argument drawn from the Immortality and pressing in its stead that from the Resurrection and the Last Judgement there can any detriment arise to the Progress and Maintenance of the Christian and specially of the Protestant Religion If I had a desire to argue upon this Point and towards the Clearing of it as St. Paul did both in Synagogues Markets and Schools I do it much more desirously with you as professing my self Your much obliged and very humble Servant 8 March 1692. After this Answer to the Opponents Objections he was p1eased to reply thereunto in June following and his Replication was divided into Seven Paragraphs His 1. Parag Insists That I had not made that Proof which he demanded of the Quomodo How a Material Spirit was able to act or did act the Humane Faculties and Powers known to be in Mankind and carried to an excellent Perfection in some Men As this was a repeated Demand so I say that I answer to it as before viz. That there are many other Things and Actings in the World the Reasons and Causes of which Men neither do nor can enough comprehend or perceive Our Lord tells us That if one should watch the Corn Night and Day yet he could not perceive so as to know the Immediate and Proper Causes of its Growth but it will bring forth first the Stalk next the Blade then the Ear and lastly the Full Corn in it Men not perceiving the How or the Why of it and the Case is like for all other Plants How it was or whence it proceeds that they bring forth Fruits and Leaves of wondrous Variety and Diversity in Colour Figure Taste Smell Bulk and Operations We see that each of them have Root Bole Skin or Bark and we perceive and know that each of them hath an active and lively Juice or Spirit ascending from the Root into the Boles Branches and Tops of them and this Composition of Matter and Form in Plants we do reasonably believe to be sufficient and effectual for the production of all that doth ordinarily grow out of them But that Solomon or any other man ever did or can declare to us the manner of their proceedings or the next Reasons of them and of that great Variety in their Natures and Productions I do not know nor believe nor do I think it a Work of Humane Power to do Next Plants we may consider the Insects Solomon points us to the Spiders the Locusts the Ants and the Bees what are the Causes of their Motions and Actions Solomon tells us they do what is proper and best for their Beings but as Wonders to him and us who know neither the How nor the Why of them And so for the Fishes and the Birds we cannot know by what secret Engines and Motors divers particulars are done amongst them Concerning the Quadrupedes we see and know they have the same Flesh Blood Bones and Breath that Men have and in their Kinds sutable Bodily Members as Head Heart Liver Lungs Arteries Veins Fibres Muscles c. that Men have also a Generation and Production all alike I may demand what makes them live and grow in the Wombs of their Dams What forms their Members and how are they made in those
quasi spirituosam toti adaequatam coextensam constiâ—â—unt ex creationis lege Here he shews how these Active Particles first work in semine and form a Consistence and Body sutable to its own activities as a Case may be exactly fitted to a Jewel haec anima ex se statim dissolvi tenuesque in auras evanescere apta a corpore continenti in subsistentia sua actu conservatur ita anima tenuissima licet est corporea P. 11. Corpori intime unitur ejusque velut subtegmen existit attamen textura subtilissima sensibus nostris percipi nequit sed solum modo ab effectis operationibus suis dignoscitur And when the Creature dies Statim ejus particulae à concretione sive mutua adhaesione sua abruptae absque vestigio quovis relicto prorsus dissipantur P. 30. After treating of Brutal Souls he says Ac in eadem classe etiam hominis animam corpoream ponimus idque jure quoniam in utrisque praecordiorum nec non cerebri ejusque appendicis nervosi eadem est confirmatio P. 38. Anima corporea brutis perfectionibus homini communis cum toti corpori organico extenditur singula tum partes ejus tum humores vivificat actuat irradiat ita in duobus illorum eminentius subsistere atque sedes velut imperiales habere videtur Here our Doctor declares the manner how this Material Soul acts and works in the Head and Heart principally P. 39. The Modes and Manner of its Operation by such inflamed Particles of the Blood and specially in the Head whence they are dispersed over all the Body effecting therein Perception by the Senses and all other Faculties their Order Causes and Manner of Working very much deserving the perusal of those who really desire satisfaction in the Enquiry which you have propounded viz. Quomodo operatur Anima Materialis in Homine There you may find a better account to this purpose and a larger than I dare pretend to give you of my own My Answer to your Question How Mens Faculties and Powers can be acted by a Material Spirit given in my former Treatise is That although I were not able to give Evidence of the Manner how but should plead Ignoramus in Answer thereunto this could be no great Detriment to the Tenet of a Material Soul in Man For that Men do not know nor can find out how the Material Soul in Plants produceth Wood Bark Leaves Blossoms Fruits of great Diversities in Nature Shape Firmness Taste Colour Smell Natural Qualities both for Meat Medicine and divers other uses Nor do Men know how the Material Soul in Insects doth or can produce the admirable Order Oeconomy and Regiment which is plainly visible amongst the Bees the Orderly Proceedings and Industry amongst the Ants and the fine and regular Textures of Spiders the wonderful Faculties of Birds in chusing commodious Places for their Nests their Building Sitting Hatching Feeding Guarding and Training of their Young Their Musical Notes and Modulations their Exercises of Power the Stronger over the Weaker and which the Weaker apprehend at the very first sight Neither do men know nor can find out how or by what means the Beasts discern and know their proper Nouritures and Medicines the Means and Causes of their Disgestion Nutrition Generation Appetites Passions Spontaneous Motions Ejections of Excrements the putting out their Hair Horns Hooffs Claws c. Or the Means or Causes of using their Senses and perceiving by them Their Common Sense Phancy Memory and the low Degree of Understanding which they have I say the next Means and Causes of these Effects and their like men cannot discover or find out And yet there appears no doubt but that such Effects flow from the Material Souls or Spirits with which every one of them in their Kinds or Species are endowed Ergo Though I may not be able to declare how a Material Spirit doth or can act in Man his Superiour Faculties of his Reason and Mind yet that may not prove an Argument sufficient to overthrow the Materiality of a Humane Soul For such a Soul may and probably doth actuate all these Superiour Powers and Faculties in Man although we cannot perceive or understand the manner and next Causes of such Productions in any plain or declarable manner It seems enough that we find there are apt Matter Members and Organs to serve those Effects and there is an Active Principle or Spirit though Material yet sufficient for enlivening and acting those Organs or Instruments for the serving such turns to as great Perfection as is ordinarily found in Humane Nature although we do not and rationally are not able to discover the adaequate or perhaps the true Reasons or Means the How and the Why of such Performances Sir Kenelm Digby in his Maintenance of the Soul's Immortality Fol. 394. says Gross Earthly Bodies create Idea's in the Minds of Men and by that means doth Spiritualize such Bodies and that which can so do must needs be Immaterial Now if you ask me how this comes to pass and by what Artifice Bodies are thus spiritualized I confess I shall not be able to satisfie you but must answer That it is done I know not how by the power of the Soul Shew me a Soul and I will tell you how it works But as we are sure there is a Soul that is to say a Principle from which these Operations spring though we cannot see it so we may and do certainly know that this Mystery is says he as I say though we cannot know nor express the manner of it And I may say the like for the Material Soul that it is also Invisible too fine to be perceived but by its Effects and therefore its Operations or the Manner of them are not Perceptible by Mens Senses and thereunto the old Theorem may reasonably be applied Nihil venit in Intellectu quod non prius fuit in Sensu And it seems not reasonable to expect a clear Description or Declaration of such Things or Productions as are not perceptible to Sense or that doth not at some time come or in some measure come under the Test and Trial of those Informers To comply with your Demands I have thus repeated to you that I have before expressed in my First Treatise although it seem more than the Exigence of the Case requires For that although nothing had been said in the Defence Proof or Discovery of what concerns the Souls Materiality yet it seems not to me a good or clear Consequence That therefore it must be Immaterial But that the Proof of that will still be necessary and lie upon your hand to shew De Anima Immateriali quod sit in Rerum Natura quid sit unde oritur quando ingreditur quomodo ubi residet in Corpore quomodo actuat Corpus cum Membris omnia ejus Organa as well in the Vital Nutritive Generative Faculties as in the Loco-motive Affective and Passionate Powers and
to such purposes 1. Making the Soul Tota in qualibet parte 2. Setting on foot a New Creation of Souls by God every day and for Adulterous Incestuous and Buggered Procreations where the Shape is Humane by a Creando infunditur 3. It immerses pure young innocent Souls newly created in the filth of Original Sin without any Cause given or Offence committed by them 4. St. Austin had thereby his Imagination confounded not knowing if such Soul was One and not Two or Two and not One or were at once both one and Two and made him think the last though a Paradox to be the most likely 5. Upon this Errour is grounded the Prae-existence of such Souls and the Consequences thereof viz. their hovering in the Air their attending New Procreations of Bodies that thence they may glide down into them and forsaking Dying Bodies return again into those Aiery Habitations 6. The Transmigration of such Souls from one Humane Body to another and some made the Transmigration Common between Men and Beasts as the Pythagorean Schools maintained at this day by the Eastern Indians and the Chineses 7. Hence have grown the Inventions of Mahomet's Paradises his Purgatories and his Gehenna's as formerly the Heathens had their Eliziums and Barathrums supposed Receptacles in the Bowels of the Globe of our Earth Such a Case we find argued in Salust betwixt Caesar and Cato Caesar calls Mortem aerumnarum requiem jam cuncta mortalium mala dissolvere ultra neque curae neque gaudio locum esse Cato answers that by this Speech it appears what Caesar thought of Death Credo falsa existimans ea quae de inferis memorantur diverso itinere malos à bonis loca tetra inculta foeda atque formidolosa habere 8. Hence hath arisen the Popish Purgatorium where his Holiness is allowed to have an absolute Command and by which he makes Profit accordingly 9. Hence hath grown the Errour of Praying for the Dead in the Romish Churches 10. Those Churches have upon this Errour followed the Heathen Practices of Adoring Dead Persons the one as Gods and the other as Saints Pliny in his Natural History lib. 7. cap. 55. says That the Body or Soul of Man hath no more Sense after Death than they had before their Nativity and yet the folly and vanity of Men says he is so great as that they imagine the Humane Soul extends even to future Ages and that they have Sense whereupon Men render them honour and worship making a God of him who is not so much as a Man as if the manner of Mens breathing differed from that of other Creatures And thus hath the Popish World practised to make them Images and to believe their Personal Appearances as Saul believed the Soul of Samuel appearing in the Witches Specter and to it Saul stooped with his face to the ground and bowed himself so worshipping the Devil instead of the Prophet as the Papists do instead of their Saints who likely have no manner of being nor shall have until the Resurrection at the Last Day You say That a Separate Subsistence of Souls doth not infer Purgatory And I grant it but it is the causa sine qua non of that Opinion for if no Separate Subsistence then no Purgatory nor no Prayers for or to Persons departed this life and returned to the dust from whence they were taken Farther to evince a Sparate State of the Soul you offer to raise Evidence out of a Collect in the Office of our Burial Praying That we and those departed may have a perfect consummation of Bliss in Eternal Glory I say this Consummation of Bliss is to be intended after the Resurrection without necessarily supposing any Intermediate State unless it be to such as are before-hand perswaded that there is such a State In the close of your 6th Paragraph you say That your Zeal against the Opinion of the Materiality is grounded upon your own apprehensions that this conceipt would introduce an inundation of Atheism and Prophaneness Looseness and Sensuality To me these Consequences do not appear at all likely Not of Atheism for that it asserts God the Creation Generation and Resurrection all acted by Divine Power Nor of any the other three for that it approves and maintains the extreamest Recompences dispensable in a Future State after the Resurrection And my Apprehension is That although in your Future Ministration you should never insist more upon the Souls Immortality but inforce your Exhortations pertaining to Future Recompences from the Certainty and Concernment of the Resurrection the Last Judgment and Execution of the same your Auditors would not thereby become any whit more Atheists than they were before or more Sensual Loose or Prophane upon that Occasion but probably would continue to act and live as formerly they have done without that any alteration would thereupon be visible or consequent And for the Intermediate State you say The Fathers owned a Middle State which was neither Heaven nor Hell and because they either could not tell what that State was or not agree about it we seem left at liberty by them to think as we may concerning it We have not found any Text of Scripture positively asserting the Separate Subsistence nor such a Doctrine concerning it as that the principal aim and intent of it was to teach this Assertion for a Truth The Fathers Opinions about it are disagreeable to one another and unknowing of what was the clear Truth in this Poin. You say They thought Souls were neither in Heaven nor Hell I have quoted to you Mr. Baxter's Book p. 398. where he tells us That many of his friends holy persons were gone to Heaven and that is spangled with their spiritual stars the place is honoured with them and they with it This his Opinion of going to Heaven or Hell upon Death I take to be the most commonly embraced amongst us and I shall be glad to receive your particular Opinion thereupon but these Uncertainties concerning the Separate State the Manner and Places thereto belonging make me more to question the Verity of it and to conclude upon it rather in the Negative You quote to me a Saying of Cicero That if the Opinion of the Immortality be an Errour libenter erro this you translate the Opinion pleaseth me well it is an innocent Disception as if the liking of an Opinion and the innocency of it were the same thing whereas it is evident Men like and chuse sometimes false and harmful Opinions before those which are tried innocent and beneficial as I doubt not but you think I do in this Point not sub nomine erroris but by a deceived heart carried and drawn away by pride conceitedness contumacy and disobedience to the Ordinance of God as you word it and yet you do not cite one Ordinance of God to which the Opinion of the Materiality is contrary but I desire you will do it in your next Return You say You do not require an implicit
Sense Reason and Experience of Mankind So when Our Lord Commands take no care for to morrow These Words pass under a reasonable Construction so the Words Swear not at all so for turning the other Cheek and lending to all Borrowers These Directions never were observed in the full Latitude of the Gospel Expressions but according to fair and reasonable Constructions made of them and whereby they were made agreeable to the Sense Reason and Experience of Mankind and if particular Expressions of Scripture may be Accommodated to the Sense Reason and Experience of Men for the avoiding the Clashes of one against the other A fortiori when Two Texts relate the same Doctrine of Our Lord in different Expressions it seems Men may accept which of these Relations they please as the very Words wherein that Doctrine was delivered And every Man is likely to chuse and adhere to such Expressions as he thinks best to agree with Nature and Reason in this or any other Case that shall happen to be disputed 8. Paragraph Your Argument upon a delegated Power left by Christ to his Church urged on the behalf of the Universal or Catholick by the Romanists against our Divines Fortified with the Decrees of Councils Stiled oecumenical hath been often and fully Answered and as in my First Paper I referred you to Numb 16. so now I must refer you to Acts 4 19. You say The Immortality is plainly implied in the Creeds or some of them but you do not mention the Words implying nor how the Inference is to be drawn which would have been the most Material Argument that you could have used for the convincing of my Judgment unless you conceive that what is plain to you would not be so to me For a thing plain to one already perswaded doth oft seem otherwise to Men of another Judgment but if it be plain to you it seems you should at least have pointed me to the place where I might have expected to find it Your reason why nothing about the Soul is inserted into the 39th Art is very likely to be true yet grants my Assertion of not being there And what you have shewed out of Scripture concerning the Immortallity I have Answered unto and am contented to refer the reason and truth of what hath been said on both sides to the Censure of Perusers Out of the 39 Articles I quoted to you the sixth viz. That what is not asserted in Scripture is not needful to be believed and I prosess'd my Obedience to any clear Direction of Scripture in our Point To this you reply the Soul 's Separate Subsistence is asserted in Scripture and to prove that you quote Eccles 12.7 Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it This Text I agree doth sound in favour of Souls Separate Subsistence after they are parted from their Bodies and because you quote it singly it seems the strongest Text which you could find for Proof of the Separate Subsistence of Humane Souls You had quoted it before and I gave it some Answer but considering you do now use it as a Pillar of your asserted Opinion I shall undertake a more narrow or strict and yet a more large Examination of it First I inquire what is here intended by the term of Spirit Comenius Translated into English Printed London 1651 in 12o. Pag. 218. cites Zach. 12.1 where God says he forms the Spirit of Man in the midst of him The word Jatzar in the Hebrew says he is here used for forming which shews the Formation was out of Prae-existent Matter and was not a Creation ex nihilo it being the same Word that was used at the forming of Mans Body Pag. 22. He says The Spirit of God stirring upon the Waters produced the Spirit or Soul of the World which puts Life into all living things The Hebrew term Offiz says he signifies both Spirit and Breath So the know in the Greek doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 23.46 It seems if in this verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been Translated Father into thy hands I commend my Breath It would have been as true and warrantable a Translation as ours which renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word Spirit and so for Acts 7.59 St. Stephen's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 receive my Breath whence I suppose that if in Solomon's Text the Hebrew word Offiz be used it may as well intend Breath as Spirit and thence the force of this Text will remain enervated and broken And this appears the more likely from Moses's Text Gen. 2.7 God formed Man and breathed into his Nostrils the breath of Life An Animating Breath upon which he doth not say that Breath became a living Soul as many would have it intended but that Man became a living Soul intending Person viz. the Compositum of Soul and Body became a living Person and that Spirit and Breath intend much the same Thing and pass in a like sense appears from divers other parallel places of Scripture Gen. 7.22 All in whose Nostrils was the Breath of Life died in the Flood Job 12.10 In Gods hand is the Soul of every living thing and the Breath of all Mankind Chap. 34.14 If God gather to himself Mans Spirit and his Breath he shall turn to his dust Psal 104. All things wait upon God when he taketh away their Breath they die when thou lettest thy Breath go forth they shall be made and the face of the Earth renewed Here Breath seems to intend Spirit and that they are much of the same Signification Psal 146.3 When the Breath of Man goeth forth he shall turn again to his Earth and then all his thoughts Perish Here David says the same thing with Solomon only in Solonmo's Text that which is called or Translated Spirit is in David called or Translated Breath Acts 12.25 God gives to all Life and Breath and all Things Life and Breath as closely United or as an Animating Breath Zach. 5. These are the Four Spirits of the Heavens Noted upon the Margent or Winds Ezek. 37. He describes the Resurrection of dry Bones there was a shaking and the Bones came together and the Senews and Flesh came up upon them and the Skin covered them above and yet they lived not Then the Prophet commanded not to call for Souls to enliven those Bodies but to say Come from the Four Winds O Breath and breath upon these slain that they may live and the Breath came into them and they lived and stood up upon their Feet From these Texts it seems probable to me That the Word in Solomon's Text rendered by Spirit doth intend such an Animating Breath as God Breathed into Adam's Nostrils and of which it was said all in whole Nostrils was the Breath of Life died in the Flood This Animating Breath God breathe first into Adam and from him it hath been Propagated ever since By this is the Flame of Life kindled
Considerable in the Degrees of them for that he had Collected together all that I had met with in my former Authors for the Maintenance of his Tenet and had placed and used them Dexterously and as they appeared to serve the most Advantageously for his Deign So as it seemed I had not much more to expect from Dr. Bentley or any other Writer who should or might Undertake the maintenance of that Opinion I thought it deserved my serious Consideration yet found it not convictive of my Judgment in the Point nor able to give any considerable stagger to it And therefore for my own Satisfaction in the first place and Assistance of others in the next place I undertook to make a stricture upon all the Arguments delivered in this Book for Proof of the Point Controverted and this by Pages according to his Order used in the delivery of them And as he brings no new Arguments but only uses those which in my former Writings have been mentioned so are my returns thereunto but a Repetition of things before delivered applied to the Particulars as they are urged by him And because the Answers are Repetitions my intent is to abbreviate them as much as I can without rebating the edge or taking from the vigour of them Pag. 5. He comes to the Soul of Man and says God's Breath infused it and our Breath continues its Vnion with the Body Here though I conceive not that God hath Breath or doth breath yet I grant that God did by an Animating Breath give Life to the Body of Man first fitted and prepared to receive and act by the same He remarks the Ability of Speech is conferred on no other Soul but Mans This I should Word It was conferred on no other Body but Mans for that Mans Soul cannot speak without his Tongue and if there be a defect in that Organ the Soul can neither help it nor act to Speak without it Pag. 6. Says That by calling Mans a living Soul it is distinguished from all other Souls This I deny and say That Beasts Souls are living as well and as Naturally as Mens Pag. 7. Amongst his many Expressions not granted I grant this That Adam's Soul came by Inspiration from the Lord. He says It it a most astonishing Mystery to see the dust of the Ground and an Immortal Spirit clasping each other with such dear Embraces I confess this Mystery is so astonishing as quite discourages my belief of the thing He quotes Austin for the infundendo creatur but not any part or place of that Author where the Words quoted may be found and I doubt he is wrong in it and that this Expression is of latter date than Austin's time Pag. 8. The Breath of our Nostrils he says and nothing else links and holds these Two Natures viz. the Mortal and Immortal together for the Soul comes and goes with the Breath and cannot stay one minute after the Breath is gone I grant That as Fire for want of Air is suffocated so both the Humane and Bestial Soul for want of Breath but that is not the only want which can extinguish or dislodge such Souls the want of Blood will do it and so will the want of Food or Nourishment For Breath Blood and Food are all of necessity for the Life and Support of an Humane as well as of a Brutal Soul they cannot subsist if any of these be wanting to them And it passes with me for a strong evidence that the thing which cannot subsist without all these Material Supports is it self also Material viz. both the Brutal and the Humane Souls which therefore I take for Material Spirits Our Author here says No Elixir or Worldly Power can make the Soul stay one minute after the Breath is gone And I say so for the Blood and so when all the Nouriture is spent the Soul can stay no longer says he live no longer in the Body say I. Here he says The Humane Soul is of Divine Original Created and Inspired by God I refuse the Word Created for that it is not in Moses's Text here expounded neither in Letter nor Sense that I can perceive And for the Divine Original and Inspiration it seems the Brutal Soul and first Breath may lay a good claim to them both although Moses have not so fully declared the manner of God's acting with or upon them Pag. 9. Says The Nature of the Soul cannot be perfectly known Pag. 11. To prove the Humane Soul is in strict and proper sense created by God he cites Zech. 12.1 The Lord who stretcheth out the Heavens and layeth the Foundation of the Earth and formeth the Spirit of Man within him Comenius tells us That the Word here Translated formeth is in the Hebrew Jatzar used for the forming of Mans Body out of the Ground viz. a Formation from some Prae-exsistent Matter I say from these Words the Formation of a Material Soul Vital Animal Rational may very well be intended and that this seems most likely to be the sense and intent of it To prove the Soul created he Cites farther 1 Pet. 4.19 Let them that suffer commit the keeping of their Souls to God as unto a faithful Creator I demand of what God was the Creator not of Souls singly but of Bodies also and here commit the keeping of their Souls intends themselves or their Persons An usual Scripture Expression in the like Cases thus his Proofs for the single Creation of Souls out of nothing are answered which renders his Design vain viz. of proving that the Soul is a Substance because created out of nothing I grant the Material Soul to be a Substance but says he Not a substance created out of nothing Yours say he Flows from the Matter and depends upon it And say I so doth the Humane Soul do as appears before and he hath yet made no good Proof of a single Creation of it out of nothing Well but he hath another Argument to prove that the Soul is such a Substance viz. the Soul doth exist and subsist by it self alone when separated from the Body by Death And I grant if he proves this it will do his Work and he Cites in Proof Luk. 23.43 the Case of the Thief upon the Cross and Christ's promise to him And Matth. 10.28 Fear not them that kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul To each of these Texts I have answered before as fully as I can and hold it not fit to repeat those Answers here St. Matthew's Text I grant is a clear Proof that he was of our Authors Opinion viz. That the Soul might have a Subsistence separate from the Body but St. Paul in St. Lukes Gospel 12. â—4 hath otherwise worded Our Lord's Doctrine upon that occasion and it seems by 1 Cor. 15.18 and 2 Thes 4.15 and 1 Cor. 4.5 Chap 1. vers 7. and 8. that Paul did not hold or know the Separate Subsistence of Souls and so an intermediate State betwixt
Death and the Resurrection and therefore Luke's Words in relating of that Fact do not import a Separate Subsistence of Souls And so it seems for Peter 1 Pet. 4.13 and 2 Pet. 3.11 and 12.13 c. So 1 Joh. 2.28 and 3.2 all importing they knew of no State between Death and the Resurrection and consequently of no Separate Subsistence of Souls Page 12. he quotes 2 Cor. 5.8 If absent from the Body and present with the Lord which I have in a few Leaves before largely expounded to a sense far different from the Authors intent He cites 2 Cor. 4.16 of the Outward and Inward Man which I say intends the two Faculties viz. Sensitive or Passionate and the Rational Pag. 13. Says The Soul is a substance I grant it so though Material for so is Heart Brain c. He says Affections and Passions Habits and Arts and Sciences are lodged and seated and rooted in the Soul and spring from it All this I deny and say they are all lodged seated and rooted in the Man and spring from and are perfected by the Contexture of his Soul and Body He says The Soul in Moses 's Text was a living active being of it self as opposed to Matter and Body This I deny and say That as the Body cannot move it self without the Soul so neither the Soul without the Body The Soul is in the Body as its proper Form or active Principle that it hath no proper place but the Body nor hath it any quickning Power without the Body It cannot quicken any thing else but the Body nor doth it act nor is it any thing but in the Body He says Moses in the Text calls it a living Soul This say I is an apparent mistake for the Text says not that the Breath became a living Soul but the Man did so the Man became a living Soul alias Person He says Take meer Matter and do what you will with it you can never make it see feel c. Mark his Consequence ergo God cannot effect it he might as well say you cannot make a Dog or a Mouse ergo c. Pag. 14. In Proof of the Soul 's being a Separable Spirit he Cites Luke 23.46 and Acts 7.29 I say That in these places by the term of Spirit the Persons recommended themselves to God as David in his full life used the very same Words Into thy hands I commend my Spirit intending his whole Person Also Christ made his Soul an Offering for Sin intending his whole Person Here he also cites Solomon's Text viz. The Spirit returns to God who gave it concerning which Expression I refer to what hath before been spoken of it Cites Heb. 12.9 You have been subject to the Fathers in the Flesh be now rather so to the Father of Spirits viz. say I of Angels and all other Creatures Cites again Zech. 12.1 yet cannot doth not deny Acts 17.25 That God giveth to all Life and Breath and all things ergo to Plants Insects and Brutes as well as to Men. He says Other Souls flow not from God by Creation but Man 's did I have denied such Creation and I think he hath not proved it I have granted Mans Soul in-kindled by God's Inspiration and so I think for the Brutes they had their first Breath from him and from that time Men and Brutes have been generated perfectly according to their first Patterns Pag. 9. He had told us That the Soul's Nature is so spiritual and sublime that it cannot be perfectly known by the most acute and penetrating Vnderstanding But being come to page 15. He tells us It is a substance as Incorporeal as other Spirits are that it is Invisible and hath no Extension of Parts it hath no Dimensions or Figure But I grant none of all these nor doth he offer to prove any of them He makes it a vast wonder that such a Spirit as his sort of Soul should be so tied and linked to a clod of Clay the Body that it can by no Art or Power free it self And I confess his sort of Soul is very Productive of strange and unlikely Consequences but to my sort of Soul all is in great Congruity I say there is no wonder at all but very Congruous that the Soul and Body should be so affected and affixed one to another for they are both of a piece are generated grow stand decay and fall together and they rejoyce and suffer share and share alike and that there is no more difference between Humane Souls and Bodies than Material Spirits differ from their Bodies and as they do and suffer together in this World so may it be expected for the World to come they will Rise be Judged and Recompenced together according to their joynt behaviours used in the time of their Earthly Life Pag. 17. He produces Des Cartes Principle and Dr. Bentley's viz. I know that I think and that Matter and Motion cannot think ergo There must be a Spirit to act thought in me This I grant but says he This must be a Spirit Immaterial Intelligent for God cannot act all Mans Faculties by a Material Spirit nor make Matter Cogitative I think he can do all this and thereupon I am at issue with Dr. Bentley and I believe that he hath so done And if God can act Mans Senses and Reason by a Material Spirit and hath so done all our Author's Allegations here are thereby answered and made ineffectual which otherwise do not seem very material He says No Man can think that combining Fire Air Water and Earth should make the Lump of it to know or consider And I grant this cannot be done by Man but by what consequence can it be said ergo God cannot do it I say such an ergo will have no Force or Coercion in it And I farther say Souls cannot think or understand without their Bodies He says We see manifestly that upon division of the Body viz. a Leg or an Arm cut off the Soul remains intire viz. the Vnderstanding Affections c. I grant That the Vital and Rational Faculties do in such case still remain intire but by Blows or Wounds in the Head the Understanding and Memory may be spoiled and yet the Vital and Generative Parts remain firm So as his instance proves no more but that the loss of a Member and the Spirit which enlivened it affects not other Members or the Spirit in them so much but that they can still exercise their proper Faculties as before and this is very well Comportant with a Material Spirit For his tota in to to qualibet parte I have quoted Melanchton who says The Expression is commonly Fathered upon Arist but it is not found in any of his Writings nor is the thing true For says he If we shall take the Humane Soul for an Immaterial Spirit we know such a Spirit can be but in unico loco at a time and not in tota in qualibet parte at the same time And
therefore this Expression shall be past here but for a Quibble fit to serve the turn of this indiscerptible or undividable Soul as our Author here calls it And the same may be said for the Creando infunditur Infundendo creatur it may pass for a Riddle and both of them for Mystical Expressions concerning a Mysterious Imaginary Soul and both intended rather to amuse than to instruct the Auditors Here again he recites Solomon's Text The Spirit returns to God who gave it I have shewed before that by far the greatest part of Humane Souls go to the Devil and this he doth not deny Pag. 17. But says That before going to the Devil it goes first to God to give an account of it self to him and receive its Judgment from him This Assertion say I is meerly arbitrary and precarious but very necessary for the maintenance of that sense which he would put upon Solomon's Text He adds The Soul must appear before the God of the Spirits of all Flesh as Arbiter and final Judge intended before it go to the Devil or Hell It seems strange to me that our Author should be so positive and certain in this Assertion as he is without offering any sort of Proof concerning the truth of it If this were true it would put a period to all farther dispute upon the Difference now in Discourse amongst us That this may be done there must be a Separate Subsistence of Souls first granted or supposed and this methinks should have minded him of the great need there was of making the best and strongest Proof that was possible for the maintenance of it but of that sort there is not a word here neither from Scripture Reason nor Experience but a bare supposal of our Author drawn for ought appears out of his own Imagination and let him prove such a going of the Soul to God as he hath here asserted or that there is any Intermediate Judgment given upon Souls between Death and the day of General Doom or Judgment or let any other Man make Proof of either of these Points convincing or somewhat clear and I am ready to submit and confess my present Opinion to be an Error Whence it seems our Author did not enough consider the Importation of what he pretends here to impose upon the meer Credit and Power of his ipse dixit Pag. 18. Says The Ingress of the Soul is obscure and so the Egress And I grant it so much as the one and other are hardly credible He says That the Radical Moisture or Balsam is the Oyl that maintains the Natural Heat or the Bridle which restrains the Flame of Life from departing and such departure is the Cause of Natural Death And this I grant having before said the same thing and very near the Words viz. That the Radical Moisture maintains the Flame of Life this Moisture must be maintained by Food and the Flame in the Blood fanned by Breath and the Extinguishment of this Flame is Death What he says more of the Soul here is suppositis non supponendis Pag. 17. He had said The Soul is a Created Rational Spirit conscious to it self of Moral Good and Evil I say it is not the Soul alone but the Man together that is so conscious to himself and that not from bare and uncultivated Nature but assisted by Rules derived from God Education Precepts or Opinions Pag. 19. He calls Vnderstanding a Faculty of the Reasonable Soul I call it a Faculty of the Man who is a Contexture of Soul and Body The Soul cannot understand without the Brain and if that be crazed or spoiled the Soul cannot understand And hence all here said is answerable by applying what he says of the Soul to the Rational Faculty in Man Pag. 20. He allows that Humane Discretion or Judgment is the Guide of the Soul and of the Will and that the Will follows the Dictates of the Judgment as I have before said and attributes all to the Soul which belongs to the Rational Faculty in Man and cannot be acted without the Brain and but according to the condition and temper of that Organ Pag. 21. Says The Power of Cogitation is in the Soul I say in the Brain acted by the Soul He sets out the great Power of Conscience which he says Is the Judgment of a Man upon himself And I agree it and that it belongs to the Understanding Part or Faculty He says It is potent and terrible And I grant it and say that terror is Grounded in fear of Suffering and the Erroneus Conscience as potent and terrible as the best Grounded when the Memory Judgment and Passions fail as in Death they all do perishing with their proper Organs Conscience fails with them when all Mans thoughts and his very Faculty of thinking perishes none of them ever to return till the time of our Resurrection and then they shall all return and be revived as formerly He Pag. 20. called the Discretion the Guide of the Soul and Will but here Pag. 23. He makes it but a Counceller to the Will I hold with the former and say The Will follows the Guidance of the Judgment in all Deliberate Acts yet acts freely viz. with such a freedom as is natural to it a Promptitude and Inclination to that compliance is led and yet runs freely as he says who words it is drawn and runs freely I say guided or directed and runs freely Pag. 25. He says The Will can Command the Body absolutely I say no otherwise than as the Judgment guides the Will viz. by a Natural and Easie Compliance Pag. 27. He magnifies the Power of the Will which I say cannot act deliberately but by Direction of the Judgment and that must naturally act by chusing bonum apparens magis bonum and cannot naturally chuse or direct the Will to act that which is malum apparens to the state or benefit of the Party acting Pag. 28. That which he calls here a Struggle of the Soul is a Struggle of the Rational Faculty against the Sensual desires Pag. 29. His Pondus or Inclination of his sort of Soul to the Body is but Invention and hath neither Ground nor Proof Pag. 30. Says Angels have Assumed Bodies I say not of Flesh and Blood which shews not any Affection in them to be im-bodied as he seems to pretend He says He hath proved the Soul Immortal and hath as such an Inclination to the Body I say such Inclination of an Immaterial Spirit to a Body himself Pag. 7. calls an Astonishing Mystery and I think it very incongruous to Reason and common Sense yet he says he hath proved the Soul to be Immortal and that as such it hath an Inclination to the Body I say proved both alike viz. neither the one nor the other except his saying may pass for proving Pag. 31. He calls God's breathing into Man the Breath of Life the Infusion of a Newly Created Soul into him This I have denied and
and then condemned it His Son Constantius forbad it in places where he was or had full Power whence in that Empire this Practice fell to decay and in time became quite abolished The Christian Religion hath opposed and overcome it in all places of its Plantation and finally it is now come to be rooted out of all the known World And we know of no Nation in Europe Asia or Africa where shedding of Blood is used in Sacrifice to their gods Here is a great and evident Change of the most Antient and Universal Practice that ever was in the World concerning Religion and no Man will pretend to say that this Change was for the worse but for the better although it had God's Approbation by Moses and is not positively forbidden in any part of the New Testament The Apostles after Our Lords Death used it Acts 21.20 Thousands of Believing Jews were yet Zealous of the Law verse 26. Paul went to the Temple with the Four Men that had a Vow and attended till an Offering should be offered for every one of them And yet we see this Practice now utterly abolished and we give God thanks for the performance of it as I think there is great reason and by the change of this most Antient Universal Practice in Religion I pretend to have raised an eminent Impeachment to the force of our Authors Argument from the Antiquity and the Universality of the Immaterial Opinion We know the Papists Plead in like manner against the Reformation intended to be put upon their Errors though Antient and very generally received heretofore into the Christian Churches of the Dark Ages passing from Anno 600 even down to the Times of Luther and other Reformers then arising but we do not accept their Plea of Antiquity and Universality as sufficient for the Justification of their Errors I will but nominate Dr. Comber's Plea for a Divine Right of Titles by force of the same Argument because I have answered it in a particular Treatise not yet Published But upon the whole Matter I think it reasonable to conclude that an Argument drawn from the Antiquity and Universality of an Opinion is but an Argument to that Favour viz. that it ought to be well Weighed and throughly Considered before it be changed and not at all to be changed except there appear sufficient and convincing Proofs that the same ought to be done but not to be reputed of such Force or Power as to silence all Arguments which may be made against it or to stop all manner of Proceedings towards a Conviction thereupon To stop the Press from Publishing such Arguments I do not allow but the way fully to stop silence them is to make Rational and Substantial Answers to them which I profess my self now and ever willing to receive and embrace with all Sincerity according to the Merit which to my Understanding shall appear in them Thus far I have gone out of my ordinary Way of making Strictures upon our Authors Pages that I might make the more full Answer to this grand Argument of Antiquity and Universality offered on behalf of the Souls Immateriality Pag. 105. Says One Man is of more worth than all the Inferior Creatures This I do not grant Pag. 106. His Discourse here imports That there is no means of a Future State but by the Souls Immortality an Error which hath generally misled the World before him Pag. 107. I say to this The Resurrection will satisfie Mens Desires of Immortality if they be rightly Grounded Pag. 108. To it I say The return of Souls into Bodies once Dead seems the re-kindling of the Flame of Life by an Act of Divine Power He confesses That when Bodies have been restored to Life in this World as he here cites divers that there was no Sense or Apprehension in such Souls returned of the place or state they were in during their Separation but that there is a perfect forgetfulness of all that they saw and felt in a State of Separation He gives a Reason for this both Foreign to the purpose and weak but to me this seems a very likely Proof that in such their Separation they neither saw nor felt any thing at all but that rather they were in Death Extinguishable and in Life again re-kindled From hence to Page 117. is all answered by the Resurrection Pag. 117. He says He cannot But I suppose he will not imagine how there can be a Resurrection without a Soul once Separated entering into the same Body that died I say one shall be as much the same as the other shall be 1 Cor. 15.37 As Wheat growing out of Wheat sown so shall the Body be with a Flame of Life kindled in it sutable to its Powers and to that Flame which before was born with it He says If it be so the Sins of the Old Man cannot be put to the New Mans Account I say they may justly be so and the rising Person is so much the same with the dying Person as to be accountable for his Actions viz. effectually the same Body Members Flame of Life Senses Affections Phancy Understanding Memory and Judgment and shall so awake and rise as if he had fallen asleep but a few hours before And his Supposition is but the proper Effect of his own mistaken Doctrine concerning the Creation of Souls for if that were true and the Old Soul did not subsist Separately there must be another viz. a New One be Created but my sort of Soul requires no such thing Pag. 119. Says There are Acts performed by the Soul whilst it is in the Body in which it makes no use at all of the Body He instances in Self-Intuition and Self-Reflection I say These Acts cannot be done without the Brain Phancy and Memory and for Raptures they are but Impressions upon and Revelations unto the common Sense Understanding or Phancy recorded upon the Memory Also that Phancy may be Transported to things without the Body and the limits of Reason yet act by the assistance of proper Organs without which the Soul cannot act any thing Life it self cannot be acted but by the Vital Organs and yet without Life there can be no Apprehension Self-Intuition or Reflection but all Mens Thoughts perish Pag 189. Cites Heb. 12.29 We are come to Angels and to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of just Men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator He bids us note these Words They are not says he shall come after the Resurrection or General Judgment I say not after our Deaths but intends we are come to them in Faith and Expectation to a Doctrine which declares such things to us and which we may believe and expect as surely as if we were now in the Possession of them but not a word of coming to them presently after our Deaths as he not only endeavours to Insinuate but expresly affirms And Pag. 192. He says These Enjoyments will not be deferred till the Resurrection but
Material Spirit can act no more for ever without a Miracle Fire from Heaven to re-inkindle it but for want of this Subtil Body within the Gross Body without dies and corrupts and turns to that Dust out of which it was first extracted This either was the Opinion of Heraclitus before specified or very like it Chap. 8. Orpheus and Thales thought that there was a Soul of the Universe resident every where and so in the Elements But Aristotle asks how that can be that Air or Fire should have a Soul without being an Animal Orpheus held that Soul which was in the Air to be more Excellent and Immortal than that which was in Animals But their Tenet seems absurd to say that Fire or Air are Animals or that having Souls they are not Animals They said Animals lived by the Air in which they breathed and in Breathing attracted the Air which being animated caused Life in Animals but the whole Air is of the same Species and Nature with every Part of it therefore the whole Air is animated In Souls says Aristotle there are dissimilar Parts or Degrees viz. Reason Sense and Vegetation but the Air consists of Similar Parts only whence Soul and Air cannot comport together nor can the Soul be in every Part of the Vniverse unless she do consist of Similar Parts Concludes The Soul cannot be known from its Consistence of the Elements nor can it be knowingly or truly said that she is moved We may observe as the Occasion of this Argument that some Old Philosophers held the World to be animated and that the Soul of the World gave to every Nature its ultimate Perfection that made heavy things descend and light to rise upwards and was the Cause that Animals had Life So says Virgil Jovis omnia plena And Infusa per Artus Mens agitat Molem magno se Corpore miscet But this Opinion Aristotle doth disallow and argues against it by this Chapter Chap. 9. By Powers of the Soul Men have Knowledge Sense and Opinion can Consult and Desire and use their Appetites and Local Motion at their own Liking and from Her comes their Growth Continuance and Diminution and from Her our Vnderstanding and the Vse of our Reason and so all other Powers and all that we do or suffer But Men have doubted Whether each of these and their like do flow from Virtue of the whole Soul or some from one Part of it and some from another Also What causes Life in Animals whether one or more Parts or what other Cause it hath also What Part of the Soul Understands and what Part Desires For says he some have thought that with one Part of the Soul Men did the one and with another Part the other So as the Soul was partible And if so says Aristotle What is it that keeps her Parts together Not the Body for that is kept together by the Soul for upon her leaving it ensues Corruption and Dissolution Plato thought that there were divers Souls in a Man Aristotle still proves all is but One Soul Against this some alledged That some Insects cut in Pieces each Piece will move for a Time This he denies to come from a Partition of the Soul and says The Principle of Life in Plants is a sort of Soul and it is common to them with Animals and nothing hath Sense which hath not that We may observe the Subject of this Book to be his History of the Soul declaring the Former Opinions amongst Philosophers concerning it annexing his own Confutations and not absolutely approving any one of them Lib. II. Chap. I. The Word Substance is a common Genus of such Things as have a real Subsistence or Being whose consistent Parts are Matter and Form whence results the Compositum consisting of them both united The Matter is a Power or Capacity of receiving Formation or being informed but the Form is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Active Vigour or Principle of Life and Activity in the Compositum and this in Humane Souls is distinguished by the Terms of Science and Contemplation Bodies compounded of such Matter and Form seem to be the Prime Substances in Nature Of these some have Life and some not Life consists in Nutrition Increase and Diminution growing from their own Natural Powers whence every Natural Living Body is a Substance compounded of Matter and Form and of these the Form is most properly Substantial as having Life in it self whereas the Matter hath only a Capacity Fitness and Inclination to receive that Life which the Form can communicate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Active Principle is the Active Principle of the Body This he changes a little saying The Soul is the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first Prime Act of a Living Organical Body Takes Plants to have Organical Bodies thinks it not proper to say That the Body and Soul are one For that Things may be said to be and to be One after a very multifarious Manner says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Souls proper Term or Principal Act or Actor of the Compositum and yet he hath not done with it An Essence consisting in a fitting or reasonable Proportion The Soul is such an Essence and this is the Thing wherein the Top of its Perfection lies and this the Forms of Dead Things as of an Ax or other Tools cannot have but it belongs only to Things which have in them a Natural Principle of Motion If we shall suppose the Eye to be an Animal the Sight would be the Soul Essence or Form and the Eye but the Matter and without the Form the Eye would be useless And as it is in the Parts it is in the whole the Anima Vivens or Sensitiva to the Compositum that hath Life or Sense and as the Eye consists of the firm Pulp and Sight so the Animal of Soul and Body therefore the Soul is not separable from the Body or such Parts of it as remain together and act after the Separation of other Parts from them The Eye may lose its Sight or be pulled out so the Hand its Feeling or be cut off For such Faculties are not general viz. of the whole Body Whether the Soul can be parted from the Body he seems not to determine but if she may be so he thinks she is but in the Body as a Pilot in a Ship We may observe he says as his last and best Definition of a Soul That it is an Essence or reasonable Proportion viz. animating the Body by such a Proportion of the Natural Heat and Radical Moisture Whence the more reasonable just and adequate this Proportion is the more excellent is the Constitution of the Compositum like to be And if he mean thus it is no wonder he says The Soul is no more separable from the Body than Sight is from the Eye In Separation neither can subsist but are thereby extinguished unless as he says we shall think the Soul to be in the Body but