even their Powers to conceive or apprehend the true and next reasons or causes of such Performances To such purpose Phil. Melanchthon lib. de anima p. 20. He had just before recited Certas descriptiones Philisophicas quae si de pecudis anima tantum quaereretur utcunque monstrarent aliquid quod cogitari potest in materia fons esse actionum nondum tamen penitus haec perspicimus cur ita factum sit sapientia est artificis non nostra Pag. 112. he says Maxime admirandum est cerebrum quod est domicilium ac officina cogitationum And altho we do not thorowly know the Substance and Operation of the Brain nor the ubi or quomodo such things are wrought in it but must leave such Knowledge to the Wisdom of the Creator Yet thus much says he Men may know of it oriri ejus materiam à subtilissima parte seminis plena spirituum quae in formatione foetus in illam hominis arcem summam quasi exaestuat cum epar cor venulae inchoantur And this derivation of the Brain and its daily and known Performances make it look very like a matâ—ria Cogitativa and as such it shall be left here notwithstanding our Author the Preachers pretences to the contrary In this page he handles Matter as if three of the Elements viz. Water Air and Fire were no parts of Matter which I pass for an apparent mistake And he says Matter cannot acquire Motion of itself without thrusting of some other Body or intrinsical Motion of an immaterial Spirit This is denied before and instances given of the Wind and Fire which move themselves and other things about them during the whole continuance of their own being P. 18. He says no parts of Matter considered in themselves are hot or cold white or black bitter or sweet and that they have neither light or colour heat or sound these are not says he in Bodies absolutely considered but in our Eyes Ears and other Organs of Sense I answer Quod non ego credulus illi I grant Men cannot perceive such qualities in Matter but by means of their Senses but withal do believe that there are Light and Bodies illuminating tho Men should not see them so Sounds not heard so Heat without Mens feeling it discoverable enough by seeing it at a distance consumption of the fewel and the scorcht blackness of such parts of the fewel as are left after such a fire But yet he will prove what he said to be true by an instance For says he If glass that hath no colour at all be broke and braid into small parcels those small parcels will look to be of a white colour and yet truly they have no more colour in them than they had before and that truly is none at all I grant him there is in this instance a deceptio visus and that the thing appears otherwise than it is Shall it be concluded that because our Senses are deceived in some things therefore we cannot trust them in any thing there seems small foundation for such a conclusion And I will thereupon put him another instance viz. Put a strait Stick into the water presently it will appear crooked but take it out and it will look strait again and was always so notwithstanding its appearance He may as well pretend to infer that there are really no crooked sticks in Nature as that Matter hath no real Qualities because Men are deceived in thinking his bray'd-Glass to be white And yet he says P. 19. That he hath sufficiently proved his Assertion But I beg his pardon for thinking he is mistaken He says there That the Qualities in Bodies can no more be conceived to be real than Roses or Honey can be thought to smell and taste their own sweetness Had he said than Roses have a sweet smell or Honey a sweet taste the saying might have been both coherent and true whereas now it seems to be neither P. 20. He pretends to believe and persuade that the Body of Man is a Senseless piece of Matter which hath neither colour warmth softness c. He says he hath proved this but I do not know where and I beg his pardon for not believing him For I must adhere to Thomas Didymus against him trusting my own Senses in their healthy and sound Condition to judge of their proper Objects placed at a reasonable distance and the fitting Sphere of their Activity and assisted by the ordinary Powers of Human Perception or Judgment which easily discovers that the Sight is deceived when it takes his bray'd-Glass to be really white or my Stick in the water to be really crooked He says farther It is not Blood and Bones that can judge nor can the Head or Brain do it as being only Body and not imaginative P. 21. But says he Our opposers may reply and so they do That the Animal Spirits and Insensible Particles there residing viz. in the Head and Brain do actuate the common Sense Phancy Memory Judgment and other Powers of the Understanding To this he replies the thing cannot be so for that their Spirits must have each a determinate Figure as Cubes Spheres Cones c. But this is not granted him for I say rather that these Spirits in the Head are Particles of the purest Blood Inflamed glowing and lucid irradiating the Brain and all the Ventricles or Concavities of it with the appendances of Apprehension and Memory thereunto belonging He says We do not grind inanimate Corn into Living and Rational Meal and that Nails Hair Horns and Hoofs may bid as fair for Understanding as the finest Animl Spirit of them all To this I answer That the inflamed glowing Particles of Blood called Spirits are not in themselves Sentient or Intelligent but they are the Actus primus corporis Organici viz. The Active Principle of Life Motion Sense and Understanding in Man and Beast stimulating and acting every Part and Organ of the Body to the performance of those Duties for which by the Great Creator they were intended and made Those Spirits therefore Act the Eye to see the Ear to hear the Tongue to speak the Liver to make blood the Heart to purifie and refine it the Understanding or Brain to apprehend judge and remember It cannot make one Organ perform the Function of another Organ but acts every Organ according to its proper Use and natural Capacity And therefore it is not the Soul or the Body that act inable or govern the Man but the Man by the activity of his Soul and the aptitude of his bodily Organs doth all those things which we daily see are done amongst us not by Soul or Body singly but by the Virtues and Contexture of both together For his saying that Men cannot grind Corn into Living and Rational Meal If it have a meaning it seems to intend that Corn cannot be so used as to effect Life and Rationality in Men and if it be taken in that sense the
opinion seems to be a very clear mistake For every days Experience shews that Corn ground and made into Bread is one of the strongest supports of Life both for Man and Beast that concocted in the Stomach is converted into Blood in the Liver purified in the Heart sent thence by the Arteries into the Head and Brain where becoming a Spirit inflam'd and lucid it acts in all the Organs the Powers of Life Motion Senses and Understanding And if such Corn be Brewed into Drink we know it may be made so spirited as a little of it will very much revive quicken and cherish the Natural Faculties of Man and Beast and particulary the discerning and rational Powers of Mankind in increasing activity and mettle both in Body and Soul We say of Wine Moderate sumptum acuit ingenium 1 Esdras 3. Wine makes the mind of a Beggar equal to that of a King and turns every thought into jollity This grows from the subtilty and activity of that Liquor and the many and strong Spirits which are in it apt to take fire and be inflamed and to burn till the whole Spirit of it be consumed And the Soul Material is not only refresh'd and strengthened by Corn and Wine as well as the Body but the Soul generally of any sort material or immaterial cannot live or continue in the Body without Breath Blood and daily or sufficient Nourishment For the Blood Moses calls it the life of the creature and says the life is in the blood and as the life it makes atonement upon the Altar As to the Breath all Men know that if it be stopt but for a few moments the Soul if Material will be extinguished and if Immaterial will be dislodged and driven away from its Body not able to subsist there even for a short time without breath which how it should be so very needful for an Immaterial Soul I cannot conceive Well but farther the Man must have daily or sufficient Nourishment or else the Soul as well as the Body will find want of it and the Man will decay by degrees till for want of a supply death and dissolution must follow if a supply be not had in time competent We read 1 Sam. 30. that David at Ziklag found an Egyptian in the field famished for he had neither eaten nor drunk in three days and three nights but they gave him Fruit and Water upon which the Man's Spirit came again to him so Judg. 15. Sampson ready to die for thirst pray'd and God clave a hollow place in the Jaw-bone and there came water thereout and when Sampson had drunk his Spirit came again and he revived In both these cases if necessary Nourishment had not come in due time the Persons had died for upon nourishment they revived and Sampson's Spirit came again to him and he revived I demand what sort of Spirit was this which came again and revived Sampson it seems not one that was Immaterial because that needs not nor is capable of nourishment and therefore I conclude it was a Material Spirit which needed Nourishment and was capable of being refreshed and revived by it as adding new Fuel for supporting the flame of Life almost extinguished for want of needful Nourishment And yet upon this revival we find the Egyptians Understanding Memory and Senses were presently recovered of which before his eating he had little or no use at all Whence it appears that rational Powers are acted by this Spirit which depends upon Nourishment as failing and reviving with it And from all this it seems one may venture to conclude that Corn may be converted into a living and rational Activity as being a proper Nourishment for Man and Beast and for their Bodies and Souls one as well as the other as being so for the Man who is a Contexture of both His six next Pages viz. from 22 to 28 are intended to confute those who affirm that the great or little Worlds were not created by God but that they derive themselves from an accidental Concourse and Cohesion of Atoms That all were the Works of God I am ready to grant and to maintain as well as he but in his design to prove God's Providence and Creation by the Immateriality of human Souls I judge he hath taken a wrong Sow by the ear The Creation of the World by God I grant to be true that the human Soul is Immaterial I hold not to be true and I can but be sorry to find our Preacher fallen into the Inconvenience of endeavouring to prove that which is true by that which perhaps is not true P. 28. He says Men will object the Powers and Actions of some Brutes nearly approaching to human Reason and with some visible Glimpses of Understanding and say they if these things can be performed by the pure Mechanism of their Bodies then it is but raising our Conceptions and supposing Men to be Engines of a finer make and contexture and the business is done for then the Objectors will say there needs no Immaterial Soul nor any Soul at all for the acting of human Faculties but the Mechanism of human Bodies should be enough to act their Faculties and perform all that by Men is usually and naturally performed P. 29. He quotes the other Opinion viz. That Brutes have degrees of Reason and their full Senses and Affections and Motions and therefore have Souls and those Immaterial Our Preacher passes over both these Opinions as very indifferent things to him which of them be true or whether either or neither of them be so I have shewn before that both these Opinions are erroneous which he thought not fit to assert here where it seems he properly ought to have done it altho I doubt not but that he believes them to be so He says We need not be concerned about the Truth in this point viz. whether the Brutes are Machines or have Immortal Souls but I say if either of these Opinions be true the whole Fabrick of Nature and Science would thereby be drawn into very great Differences and Alterations and the point is not indifferent to others whatsoever it be to him Well but says he if Men be Machines they can have neither Reason nor Sense He should have gone on and said but we know that Men have Sense and Reason and therefore they are not bare Machines as some pretend to make men believe but instead of that fairer and truer Inference it pleases him to deliver a Paradoxical and fallacious Axiom of his own uncoherently enough introduced viz. Omnipotency it self cannot create cogitative Body because of an Incapacity in the Subject I have before spoken concerning Earth pulverized and rarified into the tenuity of a Cloud impregnated with steams and juices no less but more fine and active than the Vegetable Souls or Spirits of Plants mixed and irrigated and as it were steep'd and soak'd by and with innumerable Rivages and Sources proceeding from Fountains and Cisterns with which the outward
thing may be otherwise and is truly so P. 35. He thinks that for Men to deny the Soul because they cannot see or any ways perceive it is not reasonable and it seems to me full as unreasonable to prove that man hath an Immaterial Soul because God cannot create Cogitative Body P. 36. He says He neither can nor will command God to come from Heaven to consume his opposers It is well he owns the defect of his power and it may be that therefore he will not do it For that page 26. he says Banging and Buffeting into Reason is the most proper and effectual to be used against his opposers It is says he the vigorous Execution of good Laws and not Rational Discourses only that must be used to reclaim such profane Persous He means Laws so good as to Establish his Opinion and set sharp Penalties upon all others who dare profess to believe otherwise So did Saul he haled Men and Women and committed them to Prison because they believed and worshipt after a way which he thought Heresie So did the old Romans and so do the Romanists the Turks and the French King are all of our Preachers mind viz. The Opinion which prevails and hath most worldly Power shall do best to make severe Laws with sharp Penalties against their competitors and this is all that Men can do And this our Preacher desires should be done on the behalf of his Opinion and this course detects first his own Inclination and next that he hath no great confidence in the force of his own Argument seeing he says Persecution and Punishment are the only means likely to prevail for reducing his opposers from their pernicious Errors forgetting the old Observation Hodie mihi cras tibi the Opinion cried up to day may fall to morrow He who thinks he stands may fall and therefore our Lord's direction is wise and good as ye would men should do unto you even so do ye unto them And in Mistakes of the Judgmedt Men should remember that none can come to Christ but whom the Father draws which it seems should pass for an Argument inducing Moderation and Forbearance towards our mistaken and therefore dissenting Brethren in Opinions which do not induce or encourage to an ill Practice or Course of Life Thus have I traced our Preacher and followed him with Observation through all the Pages of his Sermon which concern the Immateriality of a human Soul His Promise made P. 13. to prove there is an Immaterial Soul in Man seems somewhat unhappily performed and very unsuccessfully for he offers no positive Proof at all and his negative Proof seems very insufficient for the support of so great a Stress and Burthen as he hath laid upon it And it shall be left to the Opinion of our Perusers whether he have well performed his bold Undertaking and Promise or not Ready however to accept of and to desire a future performance of that which yet seems to be insufficiently attempted He said I will prove there is an Immaterial Soul in Man I think this Sermon to be no performance of this Promise and I do not believe that our Preacher hath said all nor the best that he is able to speak to that purpose he may consider an honest Man ought to be as good as his word and what he performs not at one time he will endeavour to effect at another as far as his Power or Talent can be extended What he hath done to that purpose in this Sermon seems to me very infirm and little considerable as depending upon Mens opinions what God is able to do Our Lord himself tells us that with God all things are possible and it seems somewhat an odd Assertion that the Incapacity of Matter should hinder God from making what he will out of it whereas it seems rather that he who made Matter out of nothing can make any thing out of any Matter and many other things than Men can imagine and the most Miracles are acted either contrary to or above and beyond the natural Capacities of the Agents therein imployed If the thing which he promised to prove be really true it seems he stands engaged for the Proof of it in the best manner and with the best strength he is able assisted by his Reading Contemplation and Conference The Point is of weighty Consideration and he hath built upon it the Power and Providence of a Deity whence it seems he stands engaged to make good the Immateriality of a human Soul and its Subsistence in a separate state from the Body This if scientifically he can and does do or with any apparent probability he shall be Magnus Apollo and receive Commendations accordingly and if he fail or fall short in the Attempt no more will be said by his present Opponent than magnis excidit ausis as magnum there is glory in the Undertaking and that he may not excidere ausis his best Forces are to be employed in the performance of that service to the Church and to the World In this Sermon he hath forborn the Quotation of Scripture as disputing with Persons who refused to accept the Authority of it but if he shall think fit to stick to his word and to prove or endeavour to prove that the human Soul is an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit he will therein have to do with some who are ready to submit to the Rules and Authority of Scripture and to be tried by them as well as by the Rules and Experiments extracted from Nature and Reason he will then I hope make use of that Holy Book to fortifie his Tenet and descendere in arenam armed with his best Forces drawn out of all Garisons and Magazines fit for such a design so may his Proof appear in the best manner that he can perform it and why not in the best manner that the same can be performed my desire is to see it done in such manner ready to submit to Truth made visible in any intelligible manner whatsoever We have learnt that whatsoever doth make manifest is Light the present Sermon seems to have little of that Light which manifests but I expect that when he shall undertake to write ex professo upon this subject and to make full proof of his Assertion according to his promise that then his Arguments shall place Truth in so good a Light and set it out in such natural and lively Colours as thereby she may be easily discovered for what she is And upon such a Discovery no Man well meaning and intelligent who dare trust his Faculties but will be ready with open Arms to accept and embrace her whom all profess to seek tho too many with Ixion's Fate embrace a Cloud instead of Juno My Meaning is to confide in some Measure that he will endeavour to perform his quoted Promise in the best manner that he is able and thereupon my desire shall be that Truth may be his Aim and that she may fulfil what Esdras declares of her viz. That She may endure be strong and live and conquer for evermore FINIS