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
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
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
Fol. 156. N. 2. Cites those who do not agree to this N. 3. He disputes this Point Fol. 174. N. 23. Says The Will depends upon Knowledge both in its Executions and Omissions Fol. 195. N. 4. The Will intending to Execute cannot compare the Mediums by which it shall work make its own Choice of them but the Intellect must compare the Mediums by which Execution may be made And then it seems doubted whether still the Will may chuse which Medium it will use in the Execution Although that chosen seems to the Intellect less accommodate to the Execution intended Cites many Opinions that it cannot so chuse and many other Opinions N. 5. that it can Fol. 197. N. 14. Cites Tho. Aquinas saying The whole Reason and Power of Election lies in the Intellect or Judgment because that can only distinguish the Reason of things what is fit and likely and what not also which is more or less fit and apt and therefore the Will is determined to the Mediums of Execution as well as to the Acts of it And to this I agree intending that in both Cases it obeys the Judgment and is determined by it Fol. 200. N. 1. ad 6. Asserts a Liberty in Mankind to act freely he passes it under the Term of Free Will which we continue to express by Name of a Liberty of Judgment intending both Judgment and Will to be Powers or Acts of the Intellect but the Will of it self without Knowledge depends for its Direction upon the Resolution of the Intellect which is the Judgment All are acted by the same Spirit and therefore they cannot contest or disagree with one another And it seems the Links are thus knit and fastned the Soul in the Head incites or stirs assists and acts in the Organs there placed fitted and intended by God and Nature for the Exercise and Performance of Perceiving Reasoning Judging and Willing and all other Acts to a Humane Intellect belonging The Activity proceeds from the Soul but the Degrees of Perfection in Acting depends much upon the Matter of the Animal Spirits and fit Frame of the Organs found in that Region for if they be faulty the Soul cannot amend them nor act otherwise than according to their Capacities and to a greater or less Perfection accordingly We place the Judgment in the Supream Degree of Government and may term it the Result of the Rational Faculty upon which the Inclinations and Will are dependent and by which it seems they are naturally led and guided This Judgment is more or less perfect as the Animal Spirits are more or less pure and rectified and the Materials fine and plentiful and the Organs sound and sit and is capable of being advanced by outward or accidental Additions as by Education Learning Examples Experience and Practice and may be disadvantaged by the ill Temper of the Spirits or Paucity or Superfluity of them by a Discomposure or Distemper in Matter or by Unsoundness or Unfitness of any of the Natural and Necessary Organs to such Operations belonging also from outward Distempers and Diseases from ill Accidents as Education Examples Company Practice and like Unhappinesses If the Soul were an Immaterial Spark or Spirit it would seem more strange that it should be affected helped or hindred by outward Accidents as Infancy Diseases Old Age Learning Example Company and the like or that it should be opposed and over-ruled in Government by Affections and Passions which are believed to proceed from Flesh and Blood If the Intellect and all its Offices and Powers proceed from the Soul acting in the Regions and Organs appointed and proper for the Production of all its Performances and the Affections and Passions proceed from the same Soul acting in the Animal Parts or Inferior Regions and in the Organs appointed for the Production of such Faculties if both Sorts viz. Intellect and Affections be actually proceeding from the same Soul and equally radicated in it this Wonder must needs be the less That the continual Contest between them should be maintained in the Condition which we find it is sometimes one Sort prevailing and sometimes the other under the Natural Actings of a Soul which is equally productive of them both and doth not or cannot favour one of them more than the other and they seem planted in Man by Nature which is the Appointment of God as Opposite Powers swayed by the Judgment after a Paternal Regiment sometimes yielding to the Affections sometimes pacifying them and sometimes crucifying them and to such Degrees as to sacrifice the Body its Life and Members to the rigorous Resolution of the Judgment which Men have us'd to call a Wilfulness but it seems of a Will guided and rul'd by the Judgment and yet at its full and natural Freedom naturally determined by the Result of the Judgment Our Author says Freedom is a Power which having ready all Requisites for Acting may act or not act at its Pleasure Now upon weighing this Definition I do not find in Man such a Freedom by way of Regiment as will be thereto agreeable The Judgment is indeed at a full natural Freedom but it is not natural to the Judgment to act in Matters of Moment without a Consult of Reason in such Cases and then it cannot go from that which appears best for the Compositum all things then appearing considered It is true that in Trivial Matters which do not need or deserve a Consideration the Act may be so free as to be very incertain and to pass rather under the Name of Chance than Choice Fol. 205. N. 2. Some say the Liberum Arbitrium is a Moving Power distinct both from the Intellect and the Will Fol. 207. N. 12. He says It is a Power of Acting freely and able to determine it self This we say agrees fully to the Judgment and gives all Natural Liberty by that Medium to the Will Fol. 235. N. 8. The Brutes are capable of Habits and Actions that are not Natural to them and yet may be acquired and made easie to them by Exercise N. 9. The Cogitative Power may be cogently set at work by the Empire of Reason or Judgment and be determined by it The same which I have said for the Will Fol. 257. N. 1. Substances so Simple as that they do not consist of Matter and Form as Heaven Angels a Humane Soul and the Materia Prima because they cannot be produced by any Creature they have no Rules for their Specification or Things of a Specifical Nature with them Fol. 262. N. 2. Says The Soul must needs be Immortal for that else there could not be future Rewards and Punishments the great Inducements to a Holy and Civil Life and granting the Soul to be Immortal the Substance of it in a Separate State is Consequential This last I grant but not the first Fol. 259. N. 5. Cites the Lateran Council held by Leo X. where all are condemned who say the Soul is Mortal and it is commanded to all
Men seem encouraged or even pressed to undergo the Trial by what follows viz. He who doth the Truth cometh to the Light that his Deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God Hence he whoso fears to bring his Works to the Light as to put them rather in a secret Place and smother them seems convinced or under a strong Suspition that they are not wrought in God For he who doth Truth comes willingly to the Light for the Manifestation of his Deeds And we would have it taken and accepted as the true and only Design of making this Argument publick believing it a Discovery of Truth wrought in God without any crooked Biass or Design and not unfit or improper to be set upon a Candlestick that Men may have Opportunity to see and discover and to examine its Light viz. the Truth of it and may use it accordingly Having made such Search after Souls as we are able we go on to enquire concerning other Spiritual Operations in Man And do say that we have taken the Occasion of this Enquiry from the Book before-cited called Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts Perusing what he said there concerning the Soul I met with Doctrines about the Operations of God's Spirit acting in Man such as were very different from my own Apprehensions and thereupon entred into a Design of enquiring farther into the Truth of what there is asserted and to approve or endeavour to confute what we there met with concerning this Subject as it shall appear agreeable to Truth or otherwise deviating from or opposite unto the same Page 47. He says This Spirit works in all Believers and either in them only or eminently above all others Pag. 48. But this is not discoverable to those who have had a pious Education and have pursued that Course from their Youth They cannot discover the Spirit 's Renovation in themselves but are left to make such Discovery of Renovation in others who have been changed from Evil to Good Without Christ's Spirit we can do nothing and better have no Souls than be void of that Spirit Hereupon I observe That those who cannot discern this sort of Spirit working in themselves seem to be very incompetent Judges of its working in other People or of knowing that such Change was wrought by that Spirit They may guess and mistake but we deny that they can know it We agree that no Man can act any thing without God's Assistance for in him we live move and have our Being We cannot do a good Work nor any Work without him and our Dependence is upon him both for Life and Action And this Divine Energy Men may call the Spirit of God within us But we deny that this is peculiar to Believers more than to other People although it seem often confounded with the Holy Spirit of God and of Christ Pag. 49 He says Heaven is the Summ and End of all the Spirit 's Operations viz. Man's Salvation purchased by Christ and given by Covenant Take up the Cross forsake all and follow me and thou shalt have Reward in Heaven For this he quotes Luke 14. Ver. 26. 33. The Words are Those who do not forsake all cannot be Christ's Disciples And he quotes Luke 18.22 where the Words are Sell all and distribute and thou shalt have Treasure in Heaven How far these Words prove his Assertion we leave to Judgment It follows God sends his Spirit to good Purposes and to illuminate and make Holy And we grant where it comes it doth so But to know where or in whom this Holy Spirit resides will be the Difficulty between us Pag. 50. He quotes 16 Texts of Scripture to prove God hath promised this Spirit to Believers in a Special Manner I have perused them all and do not find one of them come home to his Assertion viz. That God will give to all Believers his Spirit in a Special Manner And yet that they are all under the Conduct of that Spirit and are moved and led thereby we do grant but do say that it works generally by Natural Ways and Means of Illuminating the Understandings of Men and their Faculties of Perception inclining their Judgments and thereby their Wills regulating their Affections quieting their Passions subduing all to the Obedience of Christ by Natural and therefore Imperceptible Working in them upon them and by them so as the Working may not be perceptible to themselves or others who converse them But the prime or sole Appearance of this ordinary Conduct of Gods Spirit must be sought for and found in the Fruits not in the Leaves the Bustling Noise or Rattling Professions or Contendings about or for Religion Galat. 5.22 Gives us a Catalogue of these Fruits The Fruit of the Spirit is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance Where these Fruits grow and flourish and the Works of the Flesh here mentioned wither and die Men have great Reason to conclude the Person so walking is under the Conduct of God's Holy Spirit because it is beyond Humane Power to produce these Effects without the Divine Assistance or Aids from Heaven and thus we join with our Author at the Journeys End although we travel in different Roads towards it We both say God's Spirit conducts and leads Believers in a particular Manner but we do not agree about the Manner I say The ordinary Working of God's Spirit is by Natural Means perfecting and regulating the Man's Powers and Actions till they arrive to a Conformity with their highest Intention and the Will and Appointment of God unperceivably in the Operation or Conduct both to other People or even to the Party upon whom this Grace is bestowed for that it is Naturally effected and so without any violent or perceptible Motion or Action and therefore cannot be known but by the Evidence of Fruits Our Author By God's Spirit gives to Believers in a Special Manner agreeing in general with those of his Practices doth intend such a perceivable and vigorous Working of God's Spirit in Men as excites their Zeal and Concernment for the Gospel-Interest and what they believe tendent and conducing to the Glory of God although in their Proceedings to such Purposes there appear neither Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness nor Meekness and although there do appear Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Seditions and such like This Tenet I pretend to oppose as an Erroneous and Dangerous Doctrine opposing our Lord's Direction By their Fruits ye shall know them The Pharisees and Jewish Nation of Christ's Time were as zealous for God and his Law as the most Devoted of our Time can shew themselves for the Gospel Their Hatred to him grew the most apparently from his not strictly observing the Sabbath Day and not Washing before Meat and other Religious Practices then used and his Pretending to introduce a New Mode of Religion different from that given by God at Mount Sinai But they proceeded in Opposition by Unjust and Faulty Methods
viz. Violent Oppression not agreeing with their Law False Accusations and Witnesses Barbarous Exclamations of Crucifie him Crucifie him though they had not proved nor the Judge found any Evil in him By these Fruits the Jewish Zealots might safely and certainly be Judged Of whom St. Paul bears witness That they had a Zeal to God seems true and unfeigned but not according to Knowledge They held the Truth in Unrighteousness and practised the doing of Evil that Good might come And by like Fruits any Persons may be known and that they have not the Spirit of God how eager Pretenders soever to the same they be We do also agree with our Author and those of his Mode That the Spirit of God hath in many or all Ages moved and acted People in a very perceivable Manner and most eminently during the Infant Times or Beginning of the Christian Doctrines and Church Acts 20. The Holy Ghost witnesseth in every City saying that Bonds and Afflictions abide me As if the Spirit of Prophecy were very frequent among them Galat. 3.5 He that ministreth to you the Spirit and worketh Miracles amongst you doth he it by the Law And by Laying on of the Apostles Hands in Nature of a Confirmation the Holy Ghost was frequently given And at the Conversion of Cornelius The Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word And at their first Pentecost The Holy Ghost appeared in a visible Sign and sate upon every one of the Disciples and they spake with Tongues as the Spirit gave them Vtterance not able to use another Tongue at that Time So Cornelius his Guests spake with Tongues and magnified God At Ephesus upon Laying on of Paul's Hands the Holy Ghost fell upon his Converts and they spake with Tongues and Prophesied These Texts are Evidences that these eminent and visible Actings of the Holy Ghost upon the Disciples of those Times were very frequent and usual attended with the miraculous Effects of Prophesying Speaking with Tongues and Healing Diseases Casting out of Devils c 1 Cor. 12.4 There are Diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit Healing Miracles Prophecy Tongue also Wisdom Knowledge and Faith The three later Men cannot with any Clearness and Certainty discern but the sour former give Testimony to Mens Senses that they are wrought by the Spirit and Power of God for that none of them are Effects of Natural Powers And when Men behold them done in their Presence they are ready to fall down and worship God and report That God is truly in such Actors and that these are the Effects of God's Spirit in them This sort of eminent and perceivable Endowment with God's Spirit was very frequent and general in the Apostolick Times but in Future Times it diminished decayed ceased and finished by Degrees And for many Hundreds of Years we have seen or believed no Evidences that have been given us whereby the same should be perceived We have heard indeed and read divers Relations and Pretences to that Purpose but never saw or believed any to be Real and Convincing Evidences that any Men since the Primitive Ages of the Christian Church have been endowed with God's Spirit in this Eminent and Perceivable or Extraordinary Manner The Evidences of which are the Miraculous Effects and Operations expected plainly to be manifested for Confirmation of that Opinion or Pretence Whence we require these two Sorts of Proofs from Men pretending to have God's Spirit in a Special or Peculiar Manner viz. If they pretend to the Ordinary Imperceptible Operations of that Spirit upon them we demand Evidence by the Fruits before specified If they reply You shall hear us Pray and Preach Ex tempore with great Vehemency and without Hacking or Extravagancy and this we propose to all that hear us as a Supernatural Power and an Evident Effect and Operation of God's Spirit We agree this to be somewhat Extraordinary when Really and Truly Performed but withal do say Such Power is attainable by the Industry and Practice of Man And of that we give Instance out of Socrates his History Lib. 7. Cap. 2. where Atticus was made Patriarch of Constantinople about An. Christi 410. He was a Man of mean Learning but of Godly Life and great Wisdom and became a painful Student and spent the greater Part of his Night in Reading and became so learned as no Sophistry could puzzle him First viz. As soon as he was made Priest he framed Sermons and with great Labour learned to repeat them without Book and by Diligence and Exercise became so expert that he came to Preach ex tempore and his Manner of Teaching was very plain See here an Ancient Father of the Church obtaining this Faculty of Preaching ex tempore by Diligence and Exercise without Pretence or Mention that it was a particular Operation of God's Spirit We see this Gift may be obtained therefore by Nature assisted with God's ordinary Concurrence requisite to the perfecting of all Man's Designs and therefore it may not pass with us for an undoubted sort of Proof that Persons so able and so doing are therefore endowed with the Spirit of God in a Special and Particular Manner And we say farther That this Faculty of Praying and Preaching is none of those mentioned in S. Paul's Catalogue for Fruits of the Spirit nay and that it is consistent with and often serviceable to the Works of the Flesh We refuse then to admit this Faculty for a Proof that the Actors are Specially endowed with God's Spirit and call for such Fruits as St. Paul hath specified to us as Evidences that God's Spirit resides Specially in Particular Persons working in them in his ordinary Imperceptible and Natural Way proceeding by the Enlightening their Perceptive Faculties inclining their Judgments and so their Wills regulating their Affections quieting their Passions and subduing all to the Rules of Christ's Gospel and Observance of all that is there declared and enjoined And as to the eminent or extraordinary or perceptible Endowment with God's Spirit like those in the Apostles Times and some next Ages to them we expect that all who pretend to be so end owed shall prove and manifest the same by their Miraculous Operations Let us see or hear them Prophesie speak with Tongues unlearnt heal the Sick cast out Devils cleanse Lepers raise the Dead or do some Things that may be like these and clearly above the Power of Nature to perform and less or other Evidence will not be admitted as Proof that any Person is endowed with Gods Holy Spirit in such an extraordinary and perceptible Manner as People used frequently to be in the Apostolical Times and the Ages next unto them And an Instance shall be cited of those Ages next after the Apostles viz. Euseb Hist Lib. 6. Cap. 8. Narcissus became Bishop of Jerusalem about Anno Christi 190. in the Vigils of Easter the Christians then used to be in Nocturnal Celebrations in the great Church Oil was not provided enough
to nourish the Lamps at which Defect the Multitude complained and grieved the Bishop also troubled commands the Officers to fetch Water out of the next Well and when it was brought he prayed over it then bad them pour it out into the Lamps and the Water changed into Oil and served the Lamps as Liquor of that Nature and a small Quantity was for the Miracles sake reserved by many of the Brethren a long while after This says our Author who wrote about Anno 340. is come to us by Tradition from one to another And being a Tradition so Ancient and of a Time reputed more Innocent than the Present is here repeated as an Evidence that the Power and Spirit of God did work did then work miraculously amongst them in the Church And except we see such Signs and Wonders we shall not be able to believe that any amongst us have the Spirit of God in such extraordinary Manner as the Apostolick Times and Men had it in a Manner perceptible to the Parties themselves or to any others who shall converse with them And this settles the Case betwixt the Author and me and shews where the Difference of Opinions sticks He intends the Church now hath that Power of the Spirit which is perceptible to the Party 's own self and to others such as was in the Apostolick Times and which I call Extraordinary This I deny and the Proof lying upon his Hand it seems he ought to make the same Proof of it in these Times that was wont to be made in those Times viz. Miraculous Operations such as are above the Power of Man's Nature of it self to perform Instead of which he endeavours to conclude upon us with Quotations of some Expressions taken out of St. Paul's Epistles sounding to his Purpose against which Records collected out of Scripture he says we may not aver To this I reply That those Epistles have in them some Things hard to be understood and which may be wrested to the Maintainance of Errors and it seems that divers such Places are wrested by applying to Future Times and our Times what was by that Apostle spoken of those Times in which he lived and so applied were pertinent and true and yet if applied to Future Times for which they were not intended they may very likely have another Appearance We have also before spoken of God's Ordinary Conduct given to Believers whose Natural Faculties his Spirit polishes leads orders and perfects moving and intercepting their Faculties and Actions and meliorating their Natures and Inclinations with so much Gentleness and Easiness as the Parties cannot themselves perceive any Violence of Motion no nor any Motion at all nor do they certainly know how far or how much the Spirit of God acts in their own Reformation or Amendment and how then should other People know the Spirit of God to act in them Why the Party and those who consider his Condition have all the same Means to know the Spirit is there and where it is it works they must derive their Knowledge from the Fruits These are are good and known Fruits of the Spirit and they cannot spring nor grow without Cultivation of God's Spirit and where those Effects are visible and known there the Cause and Presence of that Spirit may as certainly be concluded Now we say that by rightly applying the Expressions of St. Paul in his Epistles unto these two Grounds and Positions or to one of them as the Expression shall require all that Apostle's Expressions are solvable without any Need of Reason thence to infer that there must be in the Christian Church of all Times such a special perceptible Impulse of God's Spirit as there was in the Times when St. Paul wrote and which I have termed Extraordinary as given to and in that Time and not to be continually communicated to Future Ages And where God's continual Assistance and that of his Spirit is mentioned it may the most likely be intended the Ordinary Communications of God's Spirit which we doubt not are frequently and ordinarily to be perceived in our own Times and by the Means before prescribed So as the applying of these Texts out of St. Paul's Epistles to the one or the other of our proposed Positions will be able to answer and satisfie all those Texts and put a Reasonable and True Construction upon them without any need of Inferring from them a Necessity of having amongst Christians in all Future Ages such Endowments and Operations of God's Spirit as were in the Persons living in Apostolick Times or near unto them And that an Instance may be given of our propounded Manner for the expounding such of St. Paul's Texts we make Choice of a Place often urged upon Debates concerning the Necessity of being eminently endowed with God's Spirit in all Times and Places Christian viz. 1 Cor. 2.14 The Natural Man receiveth not the Things of the Spirit of God for they are Foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are Spiritually discerned This Text or Verse as it stands alone or by it self sounds as if Man's Nature and Reason were utterly useless in understanding the Tenets and Duties pertaining to the Christian Faith and Profession but that all such Things must be left to Guidance of the Spirit and Direction of those who are thereunto inspired or that are reputed so to be In answer to this we say that for expounding this Text and all others the Context is very necessary to be well considered And to that Purpose we go upward to the sixth Verse of this Chapter There the Apostle says We speak Wisdom but not of this World Ver. 7. We speak the Wisdom of God in a Mystery Ver. 8. Which if the Princes of the World had known they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory Ver. 9. But neither Man's Senses nor his Vnderstanding can find out the Things which God hath prepared for those that love him Ver. 10. But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit which searches the deep Things of God We ask What is intended by us and take us to signifie the Apostles and other inspired Disciples and Teachers of those Times and not extending to the later and suspected Pretenders of future or our Time since the Miraculous Manifestations of the Spirit ceased in the Church Ver. 11. 12. We received the Spirit which is of God viz. those Teachers received Ver. 13. And we speak this Mystery in Words not taught by Man's Wisdom but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing Spiritual Things with Spiritual Then comes our Text. Then Ver. 15. He that is Spiritual judgeth all things viz. He to whom God hath so communicated his Spirit as that thereby they were enabled to know the Thoughts and Intents of Mens Hearts as that impotent People had Faith to be healed And in the Conspiracy of Ananias and Saphira 1 Cor. 14.24 and Acts 20.23 before cited They knew not only Things present but Things to come and
any Motion of God's Spirit working in them but it perfected and enabled their Natural Faculties producing its Effects in an Easie Imperceptible and Natural Manner Judg. 14.6 A young Lion roared against Samson and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and he rent the Lion like a Kid. So Ver. 19. So Chap. 15.14 and Chap. 13.25 The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times In the Camp of Dan 1 Kings 3.9 Solomon says Give thy Servant an Vnderstanding Heart to judge thy People Ver. 12. God says I have given thee a Wise and an Vndestanding Heart above all before or after thee Seems by enlightening and perfecting of Natural Faculties if Samson's Strength were not so effected Isa 28.6 The Lord shall be for a Spirit of Judgment to him that sitteth in Judgment and for Strength to them that turn the Battle to the Gate Ver. 26. God doth instruct the Husbandman concerning his Corn and doth teach him how to order it Ch. 50.4 The Lord hath given me the Tongue of the Learned and wakeneth mine Ear to hear as the Learned viz. makes me Learned Deut. 34.9 Joshuah was full of the Spirit of Wisdom for Moses had laid his Hands upon him Act 6.10 Stephen 's Opposers were not able to resist the Wisdom of the Spirit by which he spake James 1.5 If any Man lack Wisdom let him ask it of God and it shall be given him liberally And whereas some going to a Sermon or reading a Book will take hold and be converted thereby and others not and this is said to be an Effect of God's Spirit in the Converted We do not deny it but do also say That if Twenty Scholars read and study Euclide a few are likely to attain the Effect easily and the greater Part never So in Practice of Musick some will attain a Perfection but the Major Part never And so in many other Faculties especially such wherein Phantasy and Apprehension are the most concerned Sometimes also the Works and Gifts of God's Spirit are so lively imitated by the Father of Lyes as the World hath thereby been generally and greatly deceived and induced to take the one for the other Moses Opposers acted his Miracles till they came to the Lice and the Devil acted so against Job as it looked like the Hand of God's Justice against him and made him pass for an Hypocrite in the World and with his best Friends The Lying Spirit seen by Michaiah gave such great and strong Impressions to Ahab's Prophets and so like a Divine Revelation as they had no ordinary Means of Distinguishing the one from the other Hence St. John 1 Ep. 4.1 wisely directs Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God for there are many false ones in the World And our Lord taught us to try every Tree by its own Fruit if it bear Grapes it is undoubtedly a Vine and otherwise not And to this Trial we commit the most confident Pretenders to the Spiritual Endowments not to be derived from any but the Giver of every good and and perfect Gift Our Author Page 52. says The Spirit is given by Christ to all sound Believers If he mean as a Guide whose Instinct they ought to follow I deny it But if as Assistant and a Helper in their Endeavours working in them to will and to do as by Reason and Scripture they are directed I grant it Pag. 54. Says Hast thou not found the Motions the Effectual Operations the Renewing Changes of this Spirit in thee long ago and is he not still the Agent and Witness in thee of Christ's Residing and Operating in thee Whence else are thy Groanings after God thy Desires to be nearer to his Glory and to know him better to love him more the Pleasure which thou hast had in his Truth Ways and Service c. We pass by his Christ's Residing in thee and thy Groanings after God and Desires to be nearer his Glory as a New and Cloudy Language And to his plain Expressions of desiring and endeavouring to Know and Love God and to delight in his Truth Ways and Service we say That they who do not pretend to a Special Spiritual Conduct but walk by the Lights of Scripture and Reason under the ordinary Conduct of God's Spirit do as much observeâ—â—nd as well perform all known Religious Duties and Services required by God in his Word as Pretenders to a Spiritual Guidance do without yielding to them in any true Practice of Piety or Charity whatsoever He pretends That the Spirit raises Devotion or gives a greater Heighth of Rapture in Mens Religious Performances And we agree That so it can do and may do so when God pleases and that with some extraordinary Testimony of Illumination But that this is a Common or Ordinary Effect of God's Spirit amongst Believers we do deny And do impute such Effects ordinarily happening not to the Spirit of God but to the Phantasies of Men who putting themselves into a Godly Chafe and thereby feeling a great Heat Mettle and Emotion within them it seems they imagine this is given them from above and that it is God's Spirit working within them and that it would be Sin in them not to follow the Dictates and Motions of it although upon due Trial they fall out to be very Irregular and the common Effect thereof is That Men dethrone their Reason and Judgment which God hath placed in them for Natural Guides and Rulers on Pretence of the Text 1 Cor. 2.14 before expounded saying The natural Man receives not the Things of the Spirit of God nor can know them but they must be spiritually discerned Concerning which enough hath been spoken Our Men led by Erroneous Construction of this Text principally and what other like they happen to meet with do often take upon them to dethrone their Reason from the Regiment where God hath placed it and to set up in its Room a Fervor of Spirit which it seems they think is of God and is so necessary for them as that they cannot be good Christians without it And thus truly and effectually they displace and put down their Reason and set up their Phantasy to govern instead of it And whereas Reason is one and uniform in Mankind generally and would induce Men to Think and Speak the same Things Phantasy in Men is as Various as our Faces no one perfectly like another Whence it comes that Christians of whom Paul says We being many are one Bread are so infinitely divided as that scarcely a whole Loaf can be found amongst us but we are broken into Pieces and even murled into Crumbs without any Fastness or Cohesion of one Sort of us to another and we pray God to direct our Church to other and more reasonable Practices for the Time to come Page 59. Our Author complains grievously of his own Infidelity concerning Rewards after Death in Maintenance of which he had both preached and written to other People
of Prescribing an Immaterial Spirit to be newly created by God upon every fruitful Coition of Man and Woman These and the like Sayings of Learned Men and the Grounds and Reasons of them are offered as a sufficient Cause and Occasion for me to wave and even to deny and refuse the entring into a Fruitless Enquiry after the Means how Men are enabled to used their Senses Phancies Understandings Memories Judgements of which yet I think I can give as good an account as you can do how Infants grow in the Womb and live there without Breathing in nature of a Grub Or the How or Why Teeth grow out of their Jaws David could say I am fearfully and wonderfully made but he could not tell how that Knowledge was too wonderful and excellent for him and he could not and much less are you like to attain unto it pari ratione let me require of you to shew Whence and How Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear grow in all Men and in the most to such a Power and Strength as to baffle and bear down the Powers of Reason and that Angelical Soul or Spirit which you say resides and governs in every man and is specially created for him by God to that purpose You may please to account to me for the How and by what means such things are acted or come to pass or lastly do for the Immaterial Soul what you require of me for my Material one declare and prove to me how and by what means the Immaterial Soul works or acts in each of the Senses in the Understanding Phancy Memory Judgment Local Motion Appetite Digestion Nutrition Generation and Outward and Inward Faculties and Power belonging to Mankind and by the time that you have so done I hope to be able and willing to account to you how such things may all be done as well and more probably by a Material Spirit the thing which you require of me I am not yet able to perform but by that time that you have acted and done what pari passu I have now required of you I doubt not but that I shall be enabled to give you a more satisfactory Answer to the appointments which you have been pleased to press upon me as most necessary in our present Disputation You found these things in my Treatise which yet I think fit to repeat here because it seems you do not remember what you read there concerning them As to the Material Soul if you did not grant that in Nature the Things is and that it acts in Plants Insects Fishes Fowls and Beasts I could describe to you much of its Nature and Efficiency and make good Proof of it ab effectis and from Sensible Discoveries quod sit in Natura Rerum And for the quid sit in Men and Beasts it hath been said and is now repeated that is the Spirits and Particles of Blood inflamed and glowing such as needs a continual Nourishment both from well disgested and rarified Humours and the fresh fanning of the ambient Air and according to the goodness or badness of these both Men and Beasts are very much affected For the unde oritur I say it grows from the Energy of the Seed fomented in loco idoneo To the quando ingreditur I say it comes not aliunde as you say the Immaterial doth Melanch in his quoted Book p. 12 says It is Propagata ex Natura corporea viz. Natura seminum and as in Plants and Brutes Anima oritur ex vi seminis sic de Anima vegetativa sensitativa in homini dici potest homo enim non generat imperfectius quam Plantae Boves manifestum est animae sentientis nullas esse actiones nisi Organicas quare consentaneum est oriri eam ex semine esse vel temperamentum vel potentiam in corpore gignit igitur homo hominem saltem secundum vitam sentientem si non secumdum animam rationalem has animas vegetativam sentientem esse ex traduce id est ex natura seminis fatendum est For the Vbi residet Anima Materialis in Homine I say it is dispersed over the whole Body Our last quoted Author p. 24. says This Spiritu Vitalis sentiens aut Anima Bovis est quiddam divisibile juxta partes corporis nam Spiritus Vitalis similis est flammae quae partes habet alibi sunt aliae For the Tota in toto qualibet parte he says Vnde sumptum sit ignoro nam in Aristotele nusquam extat commenâ—iâ—ium est etiamsi quis tantum de hominis anima intelligot sentiet eam esse spiritum separabilem quia spiritus finiti sunt in unico loco ex quo agunt ad certam distantiam alii magis alii minus procul ut suum quisque robur est P. 146. Spiritus est subtilis vapor ex sanguine coctis virtute cordis ac incensus ut sit velut flammula quae in diversis membris dissimiles habet actiones quanquam enim unus est fons spirituum tamen locis mutantur mutati dissimiles habent actiones Dr. Willis in the Preface to his Anima Brutorum p. 2 Nequaquam diffiteor animae corporeitatem à rationibus minime contemnendis ampliissimis ubique tum veterum tum recentiorum suffragiis evinci haec anima sensitiva est toti corpori coextensa habens partes non modo plures distinctas sed quadantenus dissimilares P. 3. Quis sponsorem se fecerit Deum non potuisse vires facultates materiae imprimere vitae sensitivae muniis accommodas sed si quis substantiam illam subtilissimam prorsus aetheream quae vitali oeconomiae inservit immaterialem statuat meminerit mihi indulgeri si forte ego materialem apellem Libri P. 8. Bruti uti inferior hominis anima materialis ac divisibilis est toti corpori coextensa quia plures ac diversos actus animales simul à diversis corporis membris ac partibus obiri cernimus eodem instanti oculus videt auris audit nares olfaciunt lingua gustat membra quaevis exteriora tactus sensum motum exercent ac interea viscera quaeque praecordia munia sua exequuntur quandoquidem igitur inter corpus animam non datur medium sed corporis membra partes animae sunt organa quid aliud arbitrari aut statuere passumus quam ejusdem animae extensae plures distinctas portiones singula isthaec corporis membra partes actuare As to the Quomodo operatur Anima haec nostra Materialis our Author p. 10. says Haec anima consistit iisdem particulis aut ejusdem materieâ— ex quibus corpus formatur iis vero selectis subtilissimis maxime activis quae tanquam flos crassiori massa emergentes mutuo coeunt atque ductus idoneos quos per totam corporis compagem ipsae procudunt nactae hypostasin unam continuam scilicet praetenuem
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
become ineffectual To this I reply That I do believe you or I or any Man whatsoever can judge of Humane Nature no otherwise than we now find it to be What it was before the Fall we do not and perhaps cannot know The Words of the Curse in Genesis neither express nor import such a Depravation of Man's Reason Soul or Power of Government but the Particulars of it apply altogether to the Body and to Temporal Concernments How far in what Parts and to what Degrees Humane Nature was corrupted by the Fall of our First Parents is an Ignotum to us And I should be glad to receive your Instruction thereupon towards which you offer me a Sentence of St. Paul The good that I would I do not c. You tell me that the Design of this Text was to represent the State or Condition of those People who had no other Help against their Lust but the Laws of Nature and of Moses and that it is altogether applicable to the depraved and unregenerate State of Mankind Sed non ego credulus For I think it rather spoken of that Condition in which St. Paul was at the Time of the Speaking of it This Epistle is dated from Corinth and we do not read Sr. Paul was there any oftner than once and that was divers Years after his Conversion and State of Regeneration He uses the Present Tense viz. I do and I do not and it is not I that do it Thus the Words make for my Opinion and the Sense is not disagreeable For where is the Man so fully regenerate as that this Saying of St. Paul may not be fully and truly applied to him Of my own State I have a good Hope and yet I confess the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do sometimes too often very often And I pray you communicate to me how you find it with your self in that Point or if you know any other Man of whom this Expression may not be truly predicated remembring that in many Things we sin all And the righteous Man falls seven times a day which good Men would not do if they could help it viz. if the Rational Soul were intelligent and regnant within them and over them I agree with you That there is need of the Special Grace of God enabling Men to do the Good which Reason and Rules direct them unto and so to avoid Evil and that thence good Effects and Products may be called the Fruits of the Spirit And you say That if Men do resist rational Motions and Perswasions then the Grace of God strikes in and co-operates with the Reasonable Faculty and if Men resist all these Inducements to Goodness they are left without Excuse I demand if the Soul of Man be an Intelligent Spirit governing in the Man as his proper Form what is it in Man that doth or in likelyhood can resist the Natural Power which such a Soul should have over it You will not say that Man hath any thing in him besides his Soul but Matter and Motion And I would have you tell me whence it should come that meer Matter and Motion should so far over-power such an intelligent Soul as not only to resist its Government but even to captivate over-rule and enslave it not only to a Content in evil and bad Practices of Sensuality but even bring it to an Immersion and a Delight in them Thus it seems your supposed Intelligent Spirit or Soul is not able to make a sufficient effectual Resistance to the Force and Violence of other Powers or Principles to the Humane Nature properly belonging But that other Power or Principle is able not only to resist the Rational Power of the Soul but even the ordinary Operations of the Spirit of God also For you say That Men resisting these are left without Excuse Now seeing that in Man's Nature there is some Inward Principle able to combat the Rational Soul so assisted I demand of you What sort of Power you think this to be and from whence it proceeds We know of no other Principle of Life Motion or Activity in the Body that is Natural but the Soul Hence I conclude that this Power so able to resist and conquer the Rational Power proceeds from the same Soul that the Rational Power doth The Rational Power is the Soul acting in the Head and the Sensitive or Affectionate Power is the Soul acting in the Praecordia and pressing on to the Desire of such Objects as are near hand presently beneficial and pleasant howsoever Things may fall out for the future But if the Humane Soul be Intelligent why doth it actuate the Sensual or Affectionate Faculty so strongly as to enable it to combat and resist nay for much the greater part to overcome and conquer the Rational Powers and to draw the Soul it self into the Practices of Sensuality which she her self doth disapprove and condemn I cannot perceive that this sort of Oeconomy in the Microcosm is comportant with the Act of Intelligence in an Humane Soul for that thus it would become divided against it self whence its Government should not be able to stand But if this Soul fall out to be Material and not Intelligent the declared Oeconomy stands well together For such a Soul can act every Part Member and Organ according as was intended by the great Artificer of them but not to any other Intent ad libitum of the Soul It acts therefore the Organs of Sensuality and Affections and it acts also the Rational Powers each according to the Proprieties and Powers of their Natures without any Favour or Inclination to the one or the other So as the Soul is the Actor but not the Governor in the Microcosm For sometimes one of these Powers prevail and sometime the other so as Aristotle compares their Contest to a Game at Ball as it were whether for a Penny and there is no Certainty at all of the Success from the Cradle to the Grave for Time and the Thing is from Nature and is acted in all Mankind So it is with Wind in the Organ it acts the Fabrick and every Pipe in it one as well and as much as the other but sutably to their several Constitutions without Inclination or Intelligence I say if the Sensitive Powers resisting and overcoming Reason and the Ordinary Effects of God's Spirit in Man be not acted by the Humane Soul by what then are they acted And if by it they be acted it seems very probable that Soul is Material and not Intelligent 5 Paragraph You say We find many Texts of Scripture importing that Man perishes by his voluntary Choice of Evil and neglecting the Means of Grace and resisting the Motions and Assistances of God's Spirit And I have a great Inclination to believe your Assertion notwithstanding St. Paul Rom. 9. tells us God hath Mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth And his Purpose according to
Second Observation concerns an Objection which hath been and may be made against my pretence of the Souls Extinguishment at the Death of the Party It is demanded If the Old Flame of Life be extinguished in Death and a-new kindled at the Resurrection how can that which riseth be the same with that which died And if not so the new must be rather taken for a Creation than a Resurrection To this I answer by another Question concerning the Body How can that Body whose Flesh and Bones are eaten by Wolves or Dogs as Jezabel's was or burnt to Ashes and those scattered in the Wind or upon the Water rise the same again at the Last Day To this Query St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. gives an Answer which it seems will serve both Cases alike ver 35. How are the dead raised and with what Body do they come He answers That which thou sowest is not quickned except it die and thou sowest not that which shall be For Example Wheat the Grain sown first corrupts then fructifies and God makes the New grow out of the Old and God gives it a Body viz. to every seed it s own Body and thence Wheat rises from Wheat and Barly from Barly plainly declaring that in the Resurrection the New Body shall be the same with the Old in Substance Flesh and Blood Skin and Bone Head and Heart Brain and Breath Limbs Members Muscles and all Organs proportionable to the Old as one Grain of Wheat or like as one Egge to another This I take for the Sameness of Body which the Apostle here describes to us and such a Sameness will the Soul easily obtain viz. a Flame of Life as much the same with the former As a Flame in one part of a Fire kindles and produces a Flame in another part of the Fire singly there are so many Flames and yet all are but the Flame of the same Fire and may well enough be called the same Flame full as well as the Ear of Wheat and all the Corns of it may be called Wheat and the same Wheat with that which was sown And this Solution it seems may serve for the Souls as well as St. Paul's Wheat for the Body and one of them shall be as much the same as the other But to my Apprehension the Sameness intended in the Resurrection is not so much or properly applicable to the Soul or the Body as to the Person The Body suitable to the former and like it as one Grain of Wheat like and proportionable to that from which it springs So a Flame of Life of suitable force brightness and activity to the former and fit for that Body where it is kindled these will in the Person produce the same Faculties that were in the former Person viz. The same Vital Powers Sensitive Powers same Inclinations Affections Desires Natural the same Rational Powers Perception Understanding Phancy Judgment Memory Will Conscience And these will make the rising Person altogether the very self and same Person with that which died more the same than an Old Man is the same with what he was when Young or a Child Compare a Child of four years to a Man of fourscore they are known really to be the same Person by Collateral Evidences but none by having known the Child can expect by his Senses to discover the Old Man to be the same Person nor can the Old Man himself evidently know or make Proof by any thing in himself that he is the same Person so great Differences grow in time between the one Age the other But the Person rising at the Last Day may likely be as much the same with him that died as the Man waking after a long Sleep is the same with him that lay down to take his Rest There will be Body Soul and Person without difference and the same Powers Vital Sensitive Rational Inclinations Affections Cogitations and Knowledge all which make effectually and really the same Person and more the same than the Old Man is with the Young and yet those are really the same Person also 3. My Third Observation shall be concerning such Texts as those who maintain the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Souls do Alledge both out of the Evangelists and the Apostolick Writings for the Proof and Support of that Opinion Viz. Mat. 10.28 Are not able to kill the Soul Chap. 16.26 Gain the whole World and lose his own Soul Luk. 16.19 The Parable of Dives Chap. 23.43 To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Ver. 46. Jesus cried Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit And Acts 7.59 Stephen's Saying Lord Jesus receive my Spirit 2 Cor. 5. Ver. 6. 8. Absent from the Body and present with the Lord. Phil. 1.23 To depart and be with Christ is better but to abide in the Flesh is more needful for you Heb. 12.9 Ye have been obedient to your fleshly Fathers and shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits Ver. 22. Ye are come to Mount Sion God Christ and the Spirits of Just Men made Perfect 1 Pet. 3.19 He went and preached to the Spirits in Prison Rev. 6.9 The Souls under the Altar Here are 11 Quotations Alledged to Prove the Separate Subsistence of Souls and their Immateriality And some add to these Mat. 17. Moses and Elias appearing at the Transfiguration which makes them up a Dozen I have made and do make one General Observation upon them all viz. That they are all spoken or delivered in a transient manner not principally intending to teach the Immateriality or Separate Subsistence of Souls not in Places where the Contexts before lead to a Discourse concerning the Nature or State of Souls or what becomes of them after Death or between that and the Resurrection so as there is not a Design in any of these Texts principally to teach that Doctrine Nor any clear Intention apparent to teach at all this Belief For Instance The Absent from the Body and present with the Lord or the To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Or the Receive my Spirit Or the Be Obedient to the Father of Spirits Or the We are come to God Christ and his Church Or the Preaching to the Spirits in Prison Or the Souls under the Altar Or the Appearing of Moses and Elias at Tabor I demand what do these Texts of themselves teach concerning a Separate State or Subsistence of Souls There is no previous Discourse in their Contexts leading to speak of the State of Souls or inducing to teach concerning them nor apparent Intent in any of these Texts so to do But Men possest with an Opinion of the Separate Subsistence do draw and beat out of these Texts that which doth not naturally flow from them nor that they ever intended to teach so as the Doctrine squeezed out of these Texts for the Nourishment and Support of their Opinion tastes strongly of the Husk and Skins of them and are rather violently forced
Calamos cera conjungere plures instituit Lastly I have chosen the Organ as that Instrument whereunto Mankind may most sutably be compared and from hence shall begin to make general Observations upon these Instruments and Creatures comparando As the Whistle and Horn have no great Variety in their Sounds so have the Insects but something analogous in them to them to Flame and Blood and therefore may rather be counted Animata than Animalie and we shall but little insist upon them but chuse to observe rather upon our Third Instrument the Penny Pipe which can make a Variety of Sounds by several Stops upon it First it appears that this as all our other Instruments this and they all are acted and made sounding by one same Actor or Principle viz. Breath or Wind inspiring them And I say the like of the small Animals compared to it viz. Mice Moles c. we say that they as all other Animals are framed and acted after a similar Manner and as the rest of the greater Animals are and as Man their Supream also is for each of these small Animals have Skin Bone Flesh Blood Sinews Nerves Muscles Joints Heart Brain and Breath as well as the Horse or the Elephant or even as Man himself and act their Five Senses and Vital Faculties as other Animals do and have a Flame of Life or Glowing in their Flood which makes it Circulate Active and Moving as is done in other more large and potent Animals in a Proportion and Nature sutable to their beings The thing is all of a hind in them all as the Wind and Breath in the Musical Instruments the Wind in them doth not make a like Sound or Musick in them all but according to the structure and capacity of every one of them Now give a Penny Pipe into the best Artists hand and who hath a very good Breath yet he shall be able to make but very mean Musick with it sutable to the mean capacity of the Instrument and this is the Case of the Mouse or the Mole amongst Animals though they in their Structure Parts and Spirits are of the same Nature with the greater Animals yet such Spirit and Flame can do no more in those small and weak Bodies than the Capacities and Organs of them will extend unto and those Degrees of Power proportionate to its own Strength Nature and Constitution And so it is in every Degree of Animals one above another the Flame or Material Spirit of Life works in each of them proportionably to act and perform such things and in such manner as the Structure of their Bodies and the Figure Power and Order of their Members make them able and inclinable to act and gives them a Power to execute And just as in the Wind Instruments one sort of Spirit acts them all and one sort of Materials viz Hard Materials Wood or Metâ—al make the Body or gross and palpable parts of them and yet there is that vast Variety in the Musick and Sounds of them as if they were not at all of kin one of them to the other but rather as if they were quite different things in their Nature which plainly they are not for the Matter and Spirit in them all are alike It is true they are different Instruments and make very different Sounds and Sort of Musick And it seems the Case is the same amongst Animals Matter and Spirit are of like Nature in them all Man himself though Sanctius his Animal Mentisque capacius altae his Genus is the same with theirs he is Animal let the differentia be what it will Rationale or Religiosum Man is of the same Kind with the other Animals and is compared by David to the Beasts that perish utterly and so should Man have done unless God had promised and appointed a Resurrection for him and a Judgment upon him But all our Maintainers of the Immateriality exclaim and declaim upon the transcendent advantages which Men have over and beyond the Beasts in the Power and Activity of their Rational Faculty which mistakingly and yet generally they call the Soul of Man and seem so to esteem and think of it but to me it seems there is not a greater difference in Nature or Power betwixt Men and Beasts then in Musick there is between the Organ and the inferiour Instruments from the Trompet to the Penny Pipe or Whistle There is as great a transcendency in the Organ over or and above each of the other Instruments in the Musical Use of them as there is in Men over and above Beasts in the several Kinds of them These Machines viz. the Organ and the Man the one amongst Wind Instruments and the other amongst Animals must evidently be accounted for Superlative and Supream with whom none of the Inferiour Animals or Instruments can hold a reasonable Comparison but Ocularly visible it is that the Organ hath no other Spirit or Cause of its Sound Musick and Harmony but the same that acts in all the Inferiour Instruments And semblably it seems that although Man be a Superlative and Supream Animal yet he may be and is acted by a like Flame or Spirit as we agree doth actuate and enliven the other Animals of an Inferiour Nature or Degree inabling for Acts of Life and Vegetation Nourishment Digestion and Generation stirring their Affections of Lust Wrath and Fear Moving and acting their Five Senses to perceive their several Objects And all these and their Local Motions are as vigorous and perfectly acted in Beasts as in Men and this sort of Soul acts also in Brutes an Understanding Phancy Judgment and Memory true in their Kind but to a very low Degree in comparison with Faculties of those Kinds found amongst Men for that the Humane Head and Organs there placed are far more advantageously framed and fitted for such purposes And thus it seems there is set forth and shewed an apparent and pregnant likeness or similitude between the Correspondence which the Organ hath with the Inferiour Wind Instruments and that which Man hath with the Inferiour Animals And that this Comparison or Similitude may be helpfully used towards the Discovery of the Nature and Operations of an Humane Soul and some farther Assimilations may be made of Man to an Organ viz. First That as in an Organ the Wind cannot command or alter the Sound of any of the Pipes so as to make the Treble Mean Tenor or Bases sound otherwise than that Artist who made them intended them for So it is in Man his Spirit or Soul cannot act any of his Senses or Faculties to other then those very purposes for which the Divine Artificer made and intended them it cannot make the Hand see nor the Foot hear the Shoulders understand nor the Buttocks digest but it can only act every Part Member and Organ to those purposes intended by him that made them Secondly As when any of the Pipes in an Organ are ill made cracked or otherwise harmed the Wind cannot
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
may yet draw a Plastick Power from the Seed enabling it to assimilate to its own Parts and Nature such Particles as are agreeble to its Constitution and lie within the Compass and Reach of its Activity till the whole Substance or Plastick Power of the Seed be spent Thence rises the Frutex from the Mustard-seed the least amongst Seeds in whose Surcrease the Birds of the Air may lodge And thence the Oaks of Bashan and the no less large or useful ones of our own naturally-happy Country We know farther concerning such Vegetables that they have Roots which draw and extract Radical Nourishment out of the Earth each for its proper Plant and that their Sap is sent up for Nourishment betwixt the Bark or Skin and the Bole or Stalk and that in the Wood or Stalk there are Pores which receive Nutritive Moisture both for its own Support and Growth and the better Nutriment also of the Plant and thus we know in gross many Natural Parts and Materials by whose Powers and Means things are acted and done amongst Plants But all these things that we named and that we know are Parcels of Matter which our Philosophizing Opposers will flatly deny can move themselves Whence they must and do say all this Motion and Activity can come no otherwise but from a Spirit and if they mean a Natural and Material Spirit extracted from the Earth and percolated in the Root and alimbeck'd in its Ascent towards the Branches where the Leaves and Fruit are expected and produced we grant them there is such a Spirit as this in Plants which Philosophers have dignified with the Title of a Soul calling it by Name of the Vegetable Soul But I would seek with a Lanthorn amongst them for a Man so wise that he could apply the Powers and Working of Plants to their proper Productions applicando activa passivis and make Men comprehend how it comes to pass from Intelligible Causes that Apple-trees or other Fruit-trees do bear different Sorts of Apples or Fruits the same Trees the same Fruits whence the thing comes not by Chance but of Nature We desire them to shew the Reason and next Causes of this Difference nay let them declare to us the true and next Causes of the Contexture of a Leaf how and by what Means and by what Causes or Agent the middle Stem of it is thrust out into a strait Line stiffned and made strong for Support of the Fabrick Whence come or how are formed the small Ramuli of such a Leaf fixed in the middle Stem of it Whence all the inferiour and little Fibres and Turnings in it plainly wonderful to behold when the upper Case and Covering is worn off And what is the next Cause or Material of the upper Covering of such Leaves and the Nitor or Gloss of many of them and whence comes their Shape and Figure so divers one from another Our Blessed Lord informs us That if a Man sowe Corn and sleep and wake or rise Night and Day by turns to watch it yet it will still grow up he knows not how first the Blade then the Ear and then the full Corn in the Ear. We know that in Nature there are Materials to do all this and that there is a Natural and Material Spirit operating which we conceive may and doth effect them But to find out the proper Materials and next Causes and their Differences from one another and why and how these things and many more are done amongst and in them shall pass for a Task too hard for the Forces of any who require to have Men declare by what Mediums the how and the why Men do and can use their Senses Memories Phansies and Intellects by the Material and Organical Parts of their Natural Constitutions and Bodies From Vegetables we may proceed by ascending to the Degree of Animals in the World distinct from Men who also are Animals but something more and above the Ordinary Of the Beasts Moses says God made the Beast of the Earth after his Kind This imports he furnished them at the same time with the Breath of Life For Solomon tells us that Men and Beasts have all one Breath And this agrees with our own Knowledge and Experience and puts the thing beyond all Question or Doubt although though Moses do not relate the Manner how it was done as he did in the Case and Creation of Man But the Beast created and inspired with this Common Breath proceeds in the Generating its Like as hath been before expressed concerning Man If the Seed fall like that of Onan the Son of Judah into an improper or inhospitable Place whatsoever Fervor of Spirit or Prolifick Power there may be in it all is lost and comes to no Effect for wart of a fit Recipient where it may find Natural Support by a due Fomentation and Nutriment But where the Recipient is proper for such Purposes the Seminal Matter and Power proceeds to act as before hath been said of Man the Prolifick Spirit fomented ferments the Matter and levens or seasons it till it arrive to a Coagulation and then to a Consistence which assisted by Fomentation of its Receptacle and working of its own Natural Heat and Spirit is first determined in Quantity or Bulk then made more solid and then follows the Formation of Parts and lastly of Members Flesh Bones and such sort of Blood or Chile of a Mixt Temperature to it and all indued with an Inclination and Power of Assimilating to it self such Particles as come within its Reach and are proper for its Increase or Nutriment till it come into the World and take in the Vital Breath and Air whose Fanning kindles the Flamnula Vitalis in the Blood Humours and Spirits of the Body carrying Life and Motion into every the most remote Part of it which upon the total Extinguishment of the Flame dies and can never he re-inkindled without fresh Fire from Heaven an Act of Divine Power and working of a Miracle A violent Blow upon the Head we know will work this Effect without inflicting a greatly visible Wound done by the Concussion and fierce Motion procured and following upon the Blow and whereby we perceive the hardest Stones in Nature may be broken And in all these Particulars the Nature of Man and Beast seem to be at perfect Accord and to have a very near degree of Similitude and Affinity one of them unto the other and so it seems in their Natural Duration or Continuance Strong Spirits or but that of Wine never cease flaming after they are once kindled till either the Matter be all spent or that by some Violence from without it be extinguished or that by some inward Obstruction Nutriment be hindred and cut off or that by some ill Mixture that Nutriment be vitiated and made improper and insufficient for Nourishment of the Flame once kindled as by putting Water or a like unsutable Mixture into the Spirit of Wine or to Oil or other Spirits proper for
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
in it self or of moving any other Matter whatsoever It seems when he made this gross Mistake he did not remember that there was an Element of Fire in the World For we suppose he could have no doubting but that Fire was Matter nor that wheresoever it is found it shews it self to be a Self-moving and an Active Principle in Nature so violent as to disdain Resistance from any thing Fortresses and Castles are ordinarily and easily overthrown by it Rocks and Mountains cannot enough resist the Force of it But it can shake the solid Globe of Earth making Resistance to the Violent Force of its Motion and Activity How extream easie must it then be for a Principle of such Mettle and Vigour to move and actuate and to enliven and quicken the adapted Parts Members and Organs of an Animal or Humane Body wherein those Parts and Organs are fitted by a wise Creator to those Motions and Purposes and for those Offices in their first Formation intended It seems an Opinion of so little Doubt or Question as scarce leaves Matter or Occasion for any farther Dispute about the Verity of the Thing We have spoken before of the Spirits enflamed to a Tenuity so rare as it attains to a Degree of Invisibility And our Dr. Pag. 149. tells us of the Intense Heat that is about the Heart of Man such as that his Blood there is in a manner scalding-hot So Pag. 203. says The Aetherial Matter is that Fire which Trismegist affirms is the Vehicle of the Mind and which the Soul of the World doth most certainly use in all her Acts and Procreations Pag. 212. The Spirits thus fine and active move like Light as that of the Sun to our Sight the Motion is propagated not by Degrees but at once Pag. 214. If one part of the Blood he more Fiery and Subtil than another it will be sure to reach the Head From these Assertions it appears our Dr. was not ignorant of the Principle of Fire and its Activity in the Body and Mind of Man nor did he forget it Why then did he not mention and answer the Objection thence arising against his Position That Matter can neither move it self nor any other Matter there seems no Account or Reason to be given Our Author Baxter takes notice Pag. 21. That Life Intuition and Love are Acts as Natural to the Soul as Motion Light and Heat are Quoad actum to the Fire This Testifies his Opinion That Fire is a a Self-moving Principle and that it is evident and eminent in the Composition of the Body and Mind of Man is too well proved and apparent to be doubted Upon all these Quotations and Arguments it seems we may say as we have done before in the Case of Plants that in Animals Men do find a proper and sufficient Original in their Seed and the Fomentation and Nutriment of it and of its Growth and Tendency to the Perfection of its Kind that there are naturally produced the Parts belonging to such Bodies viz. inward as Heart Liver Lungs Bowels Brains Spleen Kidneys Bladder c. And outward as Head Feet Hands Arms Shoulders Neck c. Also those which under one Name contain many Particulars as the Muscles Nerves Veins Fibres Arteries Films Membranes Tunicles c. Lastly such as go through the Composure and every Part of it viz. Flesh Bones Blood and Breath God by his Hand-maid Nature and that Wisdom described Prov. 8. framed this Compositum at first out of the Dust of the Earth Of which David gives a true Character when he says I am fearfully and wonderfully made and making he endowed it with a Generative Power to be practised and used for the Continuance of their Species till Time and Place shall fail for such Productions and hath made such Performances the most pleasing and delightful Actions of their Lives to the intent the Species of Animals might never fail in the World or be extinguished When their Bodies were perfectly framed and fully finished furnished with Blood and Humours fit to be enkindled by the Promethean or Heavenly Fire He breathed says Moses into Man the Breath of Life which though Moses doth not express it was given and granted to the Beasts of the Field also and to the Heirs and Posterities of them all and by the first Blast and Fanning of this Breath were the pregnant Steems of the newly-created and pullulant Blood and Humours of the Body enkindled and enflamed with a Fire of Heavenly Product Natural and Lambent like those sometimes found in Ancient Urns and Sepulchres ever burning or shining without Consuming or Perception of Consuming their Materials This Fire Flame or Glowing pervades the whole Body and every Part and minute Particle and Member of it whither the Blood and Humours can and do come enlivening and actuating the whole and every Part of the Body to perform those Purposes for which by Nature they were intended But the Power of this Vital Heat and Fire is most apparent in and about the Heart where the Blood is most heated rarified and refined to a Spirit of that Pureness and Subtilty that like a rorid Steem they become thin to an Ivisibility ascending continually from the Heart to the Head as the Sap doth in Plants and the Vegetative Spirit from the Root to the Branches arriving in the Head they replenish the Brain and the Ventricles thereof acting and stirring and enabling all Parts and Organs to and in the Performance of those Parts and Duties for which by Nature they were intended Our Dr. before-quoted P. 298. tells us That by these Spirits the Soul hears sees feels imagines remembers and reasons and can do nothing without them And Pag. 329. The Souls Intellectual Operations depend upon these Spirits and it is the Fitness and Purity of them that invites and enables her to love and look after Divine and Intellectual Objects But we do not perceive more need of such a Soul in the Animal than there was before in the Plant there we found Materials and proper Organs for the Nourishment of it and a Natural Vegetative Spirit or Soul to enliven it to stir and actuate the Sap causing it to ascend and to spread it self in all Places even to the uttermost Branches and Twigs of the largest Trees where it produceth Leaves and Fruit according to its own proper Nature and why not the Blood Humors and Animal Spirits circulating in the Body of an Animal The Blood and Humors actuated with the Flame of Life and the attenuated Spirits actuating and applying to fit Matter and Organs of the Body made proper for their several Purposes and moving and stimulating to act accordingly and acting with them and in them why may not these act in the Natural Course of a Sensitive Animal without an Immaterial Self-subsisting Soul Our Dr. says Because you can shew me no Way how things can be by such Means acted and done in the Senses or Vnderstanding but so as I can make
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
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
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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
Competitors sharing in the Command and Government and this sine fine The Contest hath no Determination but by Dissolution of the Compositum and this proves the Thing to be of Nature and so doth the Universality of it there being not a Humane Soul rightly constituted wherein this Contest is not fully evident Our Author hath well foreseen that his Definition of the Souls being a true Spiritual Incorporeal Substance would be easily granted But his Word Immaterial was that which would make the Boggle and therefore he promised diligently to prove the same but in this Argument we meet not with any Mention of that Quality and therefore conclude we are not at all pressed by it Pag. 710. He propounds Three Rules upon Material Forms 1. That they act not but when they are Forms of some Body 2. They are that Principle by which the Compositum is acted and do not work to Effect but by the Compositum 3. They are limited in their Extent not reaching farther than the Subject in which they are And to these we do also agree He argues the Humane Soul is not only the Cause that the Man doth understand but such Soul doth understand by her self For this he cites Arist De Anima Lib. 3. Cap. 4. I have searched that Chapter but do not find it there and however do not grant or believe the Thing to be true 2. He argues The Senses take Harm by an over-vehement Force of their Objects but the Intellect doth not so This he hath from Aristotle Hence he concludes the Soul to be Immaterial which we pass for an apparent non sequitur 3. He argues The less our minds are employed in External Things the more apt and ready they are to work This I deny and say the more exercised and practised the more apt and ready they are for those Things be they Worldly or Contemplative 4. He argues The Soul understands and knows it self its Powers and Actions and that it is a Substance differing from the Body All this I deny 5. Argues The Intellect can apprehend all Finite Things but if it were Material it could not discern one Matter from another nor know their Differences This I say the Beasts do easily perform 6. Argues The Intellect perceives Abstracted Things and Immaterial as God Angels Universals and Mathematical Notions therefore it is Immaterial We answer Universals and Notions are derived from Particulars and Materials and what Men know of God and Angels comes from Revelation and Sense of all which a Material Spirit acting in and with fit Organs is enough capable 7. Argues Quicquid recipitur fit ad Modum recipientis but the Intellect turns all into Universals and Immaterial Notions This I deny can do it I grant It is capable both of Particulars and Universals seems alike capable not one more Natural than the other whence the Modus recipiendi is first of the Particular by observing and Correction of which Rules are framed and Notions raised by ordinary Proceeding in a Rational Intellect not needing or to me proving an Immateriality of the Soul 8. Argues The Outward Senses convey the Species of their Objects to the common Sense that transmits them to the Phantasie thence there must be Organs to convey them to the Intellect but once come thither the Intellect orders them and judges of them without Help of any Organs at all This if he can maintain by good Proof Erit Apollo and shall have the Garland but till that be done we are where we began 9. Pag. 713. His Ninth Argument seems to be a Ramble Pag 716. His Tenth Argument is taken ex non Concessis 11. Argues God is the Souls Chief Good Therefore the must necessarily have Means to attain to him but that she cannot do whil'st she is in the Body obstructed by Sensual Powers therefore she must have a Subsistence out of the Body in which she may arrive to that Enjoyment I answer this beggs the Question or presumes the Case determined that there is such a She as our Author promised to prove and now brings her to stand upon a bare Supposal with as little Firmness as when he began his Argument The Subsistence in Separation is continued to be denied and till that evinced to be Erroneous this Argument is very Vanity 12. Argues That which doth really move and act it self must be Immaterial But Mens Souls do so and have a free Will and Choice to do or not to do I demand if these Things be not in Beasts He says the Elements do not move because they are Material I demand how he disposes of the Fire which the World takes to be always in Motion and that Naturally He says the Beasts can make no Resistance to their Appetites but must needs follow them yet every day affords us Proofs that Beasts can and do resist their Appetites A Setting-dog hath a great Desire to run and his Mouth will work and his Chaps water and yet he contains himself and sits still in sight of his Game for a long time together 13. Argues Pag. 717. Men have Power to chuse Loss of their Blood and Lives and that shews their Souls Superior and not dependent upon their Bodies And we agree the Soul to be all that and that the Intellect hath a swasive Power over other Faculties and sometimes prevails with them to suffer Pains and Present Death in expectation of believed future Rewards and this by a Power of Discretion in the Intellect without Dependence upon the body or Immateriality in the Soul Pag. 718. Says If the Soul were Material it would languish with the Body suffer in its Sickness feel its infirmities and weaken as the Body grows weak And all this we say it doth Sequitur Temperamentum Corporis and that is a Proof of its Materiality He says Mens Minds in Sickness and at Death are more lively sensible of their Sins than in Health that grows from Tear of approaching Danger of being taken away in a State of Sin for which Punishment is undoubtedly to be awarded at the Resurrection without Means or Hopes of any Alteration in the Space intermediate betwixt Death and that and not from a Quickness of Mind more than or above ordinary but from the nearness and greatness of the Concern He says When Men forsake Worldly Business they are made more apt for Contemplation And it is agreed that there are outward Helps as Abstinence and Retiredness which may advance the Intellective Faculty of the Soul and strengthen it against the Passionate and Sensual Faculties and so it may be assisted by Purging Bleeding or other Physick so by good Air good Company and even by good News which all are Tokens of the Souls Participation with the Body and induce to apprehend its Material Subsistence with and in the Body Our Author concludes he hath enough proved the Souls Immateriality but we still deny that he hath enough done it and how much he hath done towards it shall be left to common
Evidence for obtaining Sentence from the Judgment upon their Sides or some of them against which the Reason or Intellect offer their Evidence and Arguments for obtaining Sentence of the Judgment upon their Side and this Sort of Pleading may depend before Barr of the Judgment for a longer or shorter Time and as the Case is less or more pressing but before a Judgment be pass'd there can be no Execution in the Microcosm for both Will and Appetite which seem to differ but in Name and Objects being really both but the same Thing but they are both or that Faculty is estopped from moving in Execution until the Judgment have pass'd Sentence and given Direction thereupon To this Sentence the Voluntary Faculty is naturally and therefore easily and continually obedient setting all instruments at work for intended Performance of such Resolutions until the Judgment depart from such Decrees and change them as many times it comes to pass and presently the Voluntary Faculty shifts its Course accordingly like Ezekiel's Wheels as if the Spirit that is in the Judgment were also in the Voluntary Faculty and this by a Law of Nature which can by no Art or Endeavour be altered And hence we may discharge much of that Load which is commonly cast upon Mens Affections and Passions they are doubtless ill Perswaders and Soliciters but they can effect nothing without they do first prevail upon the Judgment to gratifie them in passing Sentence on their Behalf for that sets the Voluntary Part at work and that excites and directs the Bodily Members and Organs to at accordingly and casts the real Guilt arising from all Crimes upon the Man in his best and highest Faculty viz. that of his Judgment We have a Maxim in Law viz. Nou est Reus nisi Mens sit Rea and thence if a natural Fool or real Madman do rob beat ravish kill the Law will not condemn him for it because his Mind cannot be Criminal He is without Reason which only can give him a Mind and yet by the Way if an Immaterial Soul there be in Men it seems such Men have that but the Law looks upon Reason as the Mind of Man and will not condemn one who acts necessarily without it It seems if Affections could drive to Actions without Consent of the Judgment it might be alledged in Diminution of the Crime but the Case looks otherwise for the Judgment may be reluctant in its Consent but it must consent and so become come guilty or no Execution can follow And the Voluntary Part seems to be at no Liberty but necessarily attached to the Decrees of the Judgment For what that Judges best for the whole Man all things then appearing in Judgment considered the Judgment will decree and the Voluntary Part must apply it selt towards the Execution of that Decree as all Things are done in Nature and Creatures by an easie Inclination and Propensity free from any Violence or Compulsion all being acted by the same Spirit different Faculties and Inclinations but all under the Rules of one Judgment which seems to be supream in the Government and hath that one Rational Faculty for Advice or Counsel one Voluntary Faculty for Execution by moving the Nerves as the Fountains and Reins of Motion and though divers Senses have double Organs and there be divers Passions and many Affections not easie to be governed yet is there but one Common Sense one Organ or Place of Phantasy and but one Memory and though Passions and Affections at divers Times are very Violent yet are they not able by themselves to bring any thing into Execution without first obtaining a Sentence or Consent of the Judgment or Judicial Faculty which hath yet no Arbitrary or Tyrannical Power but acts under the Law and Rule imposed by Nature of decreeing only that which appears best for the whole Compositum the Man under such Circumstances as then come under present Survey of the Judgment It is true that the Judicial Faculty is very liable to Mistakes and to be misguided by the Power and Violence of Passions or Affections as well as by its own Ignorance and Infirmity For better setting out of which we may consider an Example or two S. Peter we find was a true Servant of his Master and professed with Sincerity a Resolution rather to die with Christ than to deny him and yet when soon after he was snapp'd by a sudden Demand If he were not one of his Lord's Disciples his Passion of Fear rose up against the Truth of his Affection and that Passion offer'd at the Barr of his Judgment That if a true Confession were made the Appearance was likely and strong that he should be made a Co-sufferer with his Master and then it would certainly go very hard with the whole Compositum The Judgment decrees for the Avoiding of this Suffering as best for the Man all things then in Prospect considered the Voluntary Power then sets upon Execution it moves the Nerves of the Tongue the properest Instrument directing first to deny and then to forswear the Truth in that Particular But presently again upon a Review of what he had done and the Fault committed the Judgment disapproved and changed its over-hasty Decree and its Executive Power the Will directs Motions of Grief and sends plenty of Water into his Eyes as a clear Testimony that his Change and Repentance was not feigned but real The Case of Judas was not unlike his Covetousness prevailed upon his Judgment to decree it best for the Man to earn the desired Wages of Iniquity the Voluntary Power acts in Execution accordingly it moves the Feet to go the Tongue to declare his Design and his Hands to receive the desired and promised Reward and to perform his Bargain and yet presently as soon as he saw Christ was condemned he found his Faultiness and grieved and repented and brought back the Money Judgment decreeing and Will executing and finding none that would receive it he by like Powers acted threw the Mony down with Indignation then ghastly Fear and Horror of Conscience tormenting and instigating the Feebleness Ignorance and Error of his Judicial Faculty induced it to decree That it was best for the Man in that Estate to shorten his own Life and the Attendant Mill moves his Hands to tie and fasten fit Materials then to put his Head into the prepared Noose and the Execution was performed accordingly And there seems to be nothing done in Man or by him voluntarily and as a free Agent but what first passes the Judgment with its Approbation And yet these Passages cannot appear to Mens Feeling or Sense except there be a considerable Time allowed for Rumination for then the Debate and Resolution are somewhat perceivable But in short or sudden Cases and Occasions all pass within us after a Spiritual Manner and unperceived The Spirits acting are Thin and Pure to an Ivisibility and Imperceptibility quick as the Flame or even as Lightning So as the Dispatch
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
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
yet another Instance in this Kind it may be remembred That upon this Dispute it hath been said A Material Soul in Man could not so act in his Senses Affections Phantasy and Memory as we find to be done and therefore this Soul must needs be Immaterial To this it was replied That all these Faculties were acted by a Material Soul in some Beasts and to as great Degrees of Perfection as they are in some Men. Press'd with this Replication four of our Authors who handle this Point divide themselves and two of them go one way and two another directly contrary each Party to the other For Dr. More and Mr. Baxter do agree the Force of the Replication and confess that the Beasts are acted in all these Faculties by their Souls but that those Souls are such as have Degrees of Rationality in them and do subsist after the Beasts Death and do not die together with the Beasts as Solomon and the World sine him have imagined The other two viz. Des Cartes and Sir K. Digby fly to another Extream and say That Beasts are so far from having such Souls or any Degrees of Rationality as that themselves do not know why or what they do nor that they do any thing nor that they are Voluntary Agents or have any Design in or Knowledge of what they do but they act like Machines or Motions framed by Art and are acted by Heat and Cold Rarity or Density a Turgency of their Blood and Humors and a Pricking and Promptitude in their Bodies and Members to Actions but that they have neither Affections Knowledge Phantasies Memories or the like nor Knowledge nor Will in any thing that they do Of these two Pretences it seems the Former may pass better than the Latter but both of them appear so incongruous and unsutable to Nature to Reason and to Expressions of Scripture as they justly fall under a Suspicion of Absurdity and how well they deserve to come under that Denomination shall be left to the Judgment of indifferent Persons But clear it is that these Proposals or Pretences were devised and are maintained in Subserviency to the Immateriality of Souls and the Support of that Opinion only and serve to no other Use Intent or Purpose whatsoever The Inconveniences arising from the Opinion of the Soul's Immateriality may be divers as from the Allowance of one mistaken Principle for a Truth many Fallacies do thence grow both quickly and strongly From the Opinion of this Separate Subsistence in Saul sprang his going to a Witch that so he might come to speak with and enquire of Samuel And the Devil appearing fortifies Saul in this Opinion by his circumventing Question viz. Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up intimating thereby himself to be the true Soul of Samuel subsisting in a Separated Estate And this Opinion is the only Foundation and Support of Souls in Purgatory of Prayers for Souls and Prayers to Saints which can have no Common Sense in them if Souls do not subsist in a State of Separation And yet it is wonderful to consider what a Force and Strength there is in a long-fostered Opinion and Custom so that even though Men were convinced of a Souls Materiality and Extinguishing with the Death of the Man yet it may not be certain that all would be drawn from those long-believed and practised Vanities And yet those obstinate Retainers of their Old Customs must naturally and surely be convinced of all and be judged of all others who do apparently perceive the Errour of that Practice From the Original of Self-subsisting Souls arises the Opinion of Souls Walking as it is called and Infesting Houses and Places in an extraordinary Manner which in the more dark Popish Times are reported to have been very usual and even common but of later Times have lost their Credit very much and are now rarely spoken of and little believed And whatever was true concerning them may be reasonably imputed to the grand Impostor and his subservient Spirits seeking to deceive subvert and devour These may have acted the Parts of Souls as the Witches Samuel did that of the Prophet or as the late ones did of the Robin Goodfellows or the Fairies in darker Times And so the Heathens holding a Separately Subsisting Soul had their Penates their Genii and Lemures and their Separated Souls appearing upon Occasions and sometimes helping in Distresses Also some Dreams to such Purposes are recorded in Histories of Primitive Christian Times but they were only Dreams and for such we pass all Appearances or Actings of Souls departed viz. either for Dreams or the Acts and Agencies of Spirits more often of the bad but many times of the good Spirits also of the one sort to deceive and oppress of the other sort to instruct and protect as was done to the Apostles imprisoned and to Peter in paricular Another Inconvenience may be added viz. A Practice of divers Protestant Preachers who perswade their Trading Auditors to drive a Christian Trade as the most gainful Mart and Bargain and to follow Christ for the Loaves and Profit that may be expected by his Faith and Service For Beloved say they what shall he profit who gains the whole World and loses his own Soul viz. himself Soul and Body True Well then say they follow our Directions and though Twenty per Cent. be fair Profit and to have Cent. per Cent. Men will venture themselves and what they have to the Indies You shall have by our Directions a far greater Profit and a more gainful Bargain your Precious Souls shall from your Bed of Death be transported by Angels into Abraham 's Bofom to a State of Happiness and Eternity and for this you have the Warrant of God's Word which cannot deceive any who confide and rely upon it This Mode of Direction may have a Two-fold Inconvenience First It may not be true that Mens Souls go to Heaven at the Time of the Man's Death nor at all without the Body Secondly It seems to make Mens Service to God mercenary principally induced by a Desire of Gain and Reward even built upon that Foundation quickned and supported by that Consideration an Inducement sordid and mechanical and of Force primely if not only with such People It seems an Alloy of base Metal put to the Gold of a pure Christian Profession That God is a Rewarder of all who serve him is a Scriptural Rational and Natural Truth but that Services levelled at the Reward and done only or chiefly for the Rewards sake are acceptable to him there may be good Reason to deny from the Authority of Job's Case largely reported to us The Devil accuses him of this Enormity Says he Doth Job serve God for nought Nay thou hast bribed him to it by thy Blessings Intending He would serve me if I would and were able so to reward him It cost Job a most severe Trial to wipe off this Aspersion and God was pleased he should undergo it
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
Page 129. Says Satan's principal Labour is to keep Men from Heaven I say nay to this But that his prime Labour is to draw or drive Men from the Love Service and Worship of God of which the Obtaining God's Favour and Acceptance is the End or Design and Heaven but the Consequent or a Reward sutable to the Bounty and Magnificence of the Giver but not to the Merit of the Receiver Page 276. Says It is notorious that all who are Christians out of their own Choice and are serious in their Profession are holy sober and just Here he mentions not his wonted Dependencies upon the Spirit And we believe and know that such as do not depend upon Motions of the Spirit but do follow Directions of the Scripture understood and expounded according to sound and true Reason are as holy sober and just Persons as any Pretenders to Spiritual Motions that can be found amongst their Tribes but that God's Spirit by Means of its usual and ordinary Conduct doth effect in them such holy Practices and produces in them Degrees of Melioration from Time to Time and thereby also People are sometimes changed from the Love of Worldly Vanities to the true Love and Service of God and this we ascribe to the easie ordinary and commonly imperceptible Operations of God's Spirit believing the perceptible and heaving Motions of that Holy Spirit to be very extraordinary miraculous not to be expected or depended upon and an apt Instrument for Impostors Whence the Prophet exhorts to look to the Law and to the Testimony and not to pretending Seducers on the Score of Spiritual Revelations And Men cannot rationally judge of the Thing and therefore if they follow it must be in the Dark where the Deceit is easily feasible and the Consequence dangerous We say then That Reason exercising its Power in and over the Person directed by the Rules of the Gospel and guided by the easie and ordinary Conduct of God's Spirit is a sufficient Means to convince Believers of their Duties and constrain them to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World to rejoice and delight in their so doing and to be greatly grieved for their Failures therein And these are known Fruits of the Spirit and prove that of a Truth it is and rules in such People although themselves or those that see them have otherwise no Perceptions or other Evidences of the Spirit 's Acting or Moving in them It seems such Men fulfil St. Paul's Rule 1. Cor. 14 15. I will pray with the Spirit and will pray with the Vnderstanding also and so ought Men also to rejoice and sing Thus should Men act in their Duties of Religion specially and in their Actions generally Ver. 14. So to use Direction of the Spirit as the Understanding may not be unfruitful Pag. 277. He falls in again with the Necessary Operation or God's Spirit for the Rectification of Humane Nature and drawing Mens Inclinations from the World to God And this I grant to be done ordinarily by directing Men to the Scriptures as their Rule and convincing them of the Authority Truth and Sufficiency of them Then by illuminating their Understandings and Perceptive Faculties helping also their other Capacities as their Apprehensions Memories Elocutions Exod. 4.11 God says to Moses Who hath made Man's Mouth or his other Senses have not I the Lord He makes the Blind the Dumb and the Deaf to see speak and hear and then they exercise these Faculties as other Men do who have them sound by Birth without continuing Supernatural Supplies to them for ever And so we say when God by manfest Revelations of his Spirit accompanied with Signs and mighty Deeds had fully discovered his Supernatural Truths to Men and had sufficiently convinced and instructed the Teachers of them and then those Teachers had instructed others in the Faith of such revealed Mysteries and holy Trade of Living the Supernatural Supplies were no more needful 2 Tim. 2.2 The Things which thou hast heard of me amongst many Witnesses hast heard me preach do thou commit to faithful Men who shall be able to teach others also So 2 Tim. 3.14 Continue thou in the Things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learnt them and that from a Child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto Salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus We may consider the Time of writing this Epistle the last Days of St. Paul when he was now ready to be offered and the Time of his Departure was at hand Thus he writes to his Son in the Gospel one of his Scholars and an eminent Teacher of that Time directing him to the Rules and Doctrines delivered us in the Scriptures and to the Comments Expositions and Discourses of such as teach from them intended in a rational Manner and by good sufficient Deductions and Consequences without mention of Perceptible or Peculiar Motions of the Spirit or that Timothy or other Christians are put under Obligations to attend thereunto or to ground their Hopes or Practices upon Operations of a perceptible and eminently moving Spirit in them Yes says our Author Pag. 277. But yet apparent it is that no other Power can prevail over the Corrupted Nature of Man and for converting Men unto holy Practices but only that of the Spirit of God and the irresistable Operations of the same I answer That in divers Schools of the Ancient Philosophers and by their Doctrines many were induced to take up the Practice and Habit of living soberly and virtuously in this present World I but replies he we see Children will grow up in Wickedness against all the Counsel Love and Correction of their Parents and no Means will prevail with them till God by the Operation of his own Spirit cure them And we grant this may come to pass by the Assistance of God's Grace in the Ordinary Course and without any Perceptible Peculiar Impulse or Emotion of God's Spirit viz. by his Illumination his easie Inclination and the Rectifying and Perfecting their Natural Powers and Qualifications by insensible and unperceived Degrees All things Divine and Humane are under God's Special Oeconomy and nothing can be done without a Divine Assistance Nullum magnum ingenium sine Afflatu Divini Numinis was known to Heathens without God we cannot think a good Thought nor think any Thought cannot do a good Action nor any Action at all For as our Author tells us we depend more upon God's Acting us then upon our own Natural Parts or Forms and in him we live move and have our Being But his Ordinary Actings in Men are by their Natural and Proper Faculties and Powers and not by Perceptible Impulses of his Spirit which we take for a Miraculous Operation and not Natural God hath given us the Law and the Prophets the New Testament and Primitive Church Practices for our Ordinary Spiritual Conduct assisted with his Grace and Spirit working
but a Trust in God supports all It seems he knew of no Revelation Primitive or Modern that could give Satisfaction in that Point Page 372. Says God doth his own Works in a Causal Order one Work prepares for another and he makes Varieties of Capacities which occasion Varieties of Gifts and of Receptions and he useth to give every one that unto which he hath brought him into a next Capacity for the Reception of And granted it is That all is Acted by Energy from God and his Spirit But say I as he also by giving Capacities and advancing them to Degrees of Perfection in an Ordinary and Natural Course producing Effects from their Natural and Proper Causes And that when he goes beyond this Course or out of this Way the Proceeding is Extraordinary Supernatural Miraculous such as we have no Warrant to expect or depend upon in the ordinary Course of our Conduct True it is God's Arm is not shortned and therefore in all Cases of great Exigency we know he can work by Natural Causes beyond Mens Expectations or by Miracles at his own Pleasure We read of such Procedure in the Primitive Times since which the Signs and Wonders are ceased and so the Perceptible Actings of God's Spirit ordinarily And it seems we are not any more reasonably or warrantably to expect them or to depend upon them but to wait upon God's ordinary Dispensations in his Ordinances Hearing Reading Praying Practising Living and Dying in him to him and if need be for him so as Living we may repose upon him and Dying we may rest in him 1 Joh 2.28 So as in all Conditions are abide in him that when he shall appear we may have Confidence and not be ashamed before him at his Coming And this is the Fruit of our Labour and Conflicts in this World that we may have the Hope and Courage at our Awaking to come before him with Confidence and without being ashamed in his Presence Pag. 374. Says We must not have slight Thoughts of the Office and Work of the Holy Ghost on Souls and our Necessity of it but must beg and wait for the Spirit 's Special Help That Spirit is not impotent or inexorable he hath appointed us Means for so high a State and he appoints no Means in vain Page 375. Says Let thy Dependance on the Holy Ghost as given from Christ be as serious and constant to thee as the dependance of the Eye is upon the Light Beg hard for the Holy Spirit and gladly entertain it All these Expressions of our Author seem to intend some eminent and perceptible Motions or Actings of God's Spirit if so he do there are divers Testimonies in this Book which shew he did not attain unto them We have shown the Thing to be a Miracle common in Primitive Times of the Church but ceasing by degrees until no Signs of it were left But the Fruits the extraordinary Appearances are failed long since and the like Effects do not now shew themselves Where the Spirit is it works and if it be present in an extraordinary and miraculous Manner it will produce sutable Effects as it did in those Primitive Times and where such do not appear such Pretences are not to be believed If our Author intend the Ordinary Gifts and Graces of God's Spirit working in us to will and to do what God hath appointed us in his Holy Word by Illumination Rectification Melioration and Direction of our Natural Faculties Powers and Capacities all his Exhortations may pass for good and Men may pray in Faith for such Assistances and Graces and may likely find a good Return upon them Our Author says no more upon this Point and we shall therefore follow it no farther but return with him to our first Design Page 380. He says The Sensible Souls of Brutes are Substances and therefore not animated at their Deaths God tells us not what he doth with them after Death and it is likely they are after Death in a State still of Service unto Man but how we know not It seems the same Scruple which troubled him at the Beginning of his Book hath stuck to him all along and unto the End of it viz. how to make a real and clear Difference between the Souls of Men and Beasts He doth constantly acknowledge a great Assimilation of the one of them to the other and shews a great Inclination to raise the Nature of the Souls of Brutes above that which ordinary Opinions have allowed them to the Intent that a Separately Subsisting Soul of Man might the more easily pass and be assented unto or with fewer Difficulties and Exceptions And to this I say that he labours in vain to perswade that Souls of Beasts are Self-subsistent It seems a Phancy either derived from Dr. More or out of his own Brain He doth not alledge a Revelation of the Spirit for it and if he had such Allegation could not support that Opinion We say That Souls of Brutes are Material Spirits living and acting in their Blood and Humours and preying upon them as their Natural Support and Nourishment inflamed by the continual Fanning of their Breath and when for want of Breath or other Nourishment the Flame of those Natural Spirits is totally extinguished or that by other Violence such total Extinguishment happens the Beast dies and these Natural or Vital Spirits cease to work and be and can no more revive than a Fire clean gone out or put out can rekindle it self without fresh Fire applied to that Purpose And for the Beasts we have no notice or Proof that ever such a Reviver or Rekindling shall be given them But concerning Men we have very clear undoubted and undeniable Revelations that there shall be a Resurrection or a Reviver of them Heb. 9.27 It is appointed unto Men once to die but after this the Judgment And Chap. 11.35 Torments were endured not accepting Deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection For there will be a better and a worse both of the Just and of the Unjust And then shall Christ sit upon the Throne of his Glory distributing Crowns to his brave Soldiers the Martyrs laid up for them against that Day and awarding other Rewards and Glories to his faithful Servants and passing a dreadful Sentence upon his Enemies and specially Deserters Takers and Breakers of Holy Vows and Covenants of Fidelity in his Service for that they crucifie the Son of God afresh and put him to an open Shame From such a Resurrection Good Lord deliver us and rather may the Mountains fall upon us and the Hills cover us that we may never see the Frowns of Goodness and Love rejecting all Future Addresses and putting us over to the Masters and Company which living we chose and preferred before his Greatness and Glory his Goodness and Love testified by his Sufferings for us But living People have yet Time to prevent such heavy Consequences of the Resurrection And God give us all Grace heartily to
do not make use of their ignorance for the extracting from thence an Unintelligible Extraneous Spirit for the Government of a Humane Body Memory or Understanding The case of the Watch shews the thing moved and made a noise and the Indians did not and could not discover the cause thereof and therefore they concluded it was moved by a Spirit which contains the very Ground of your Argument viz. We understand not how a Material Agent can perform such a sort of acting Therefore there must be an Intelligent Spirit in the case or else such things could not be done yet if you will but make this Grant That a Man doth generate a Man as truly and perfectly as one Horse generates another it will prove like Archimedes his Postulatum of a Ground whereupon to fix his Instrument for thence will apparently follow all that in my Treatise hath been asserted For what is begotten and born of Flesh is Flesh and I would not advise you to venture upon the task of proving any other way of proceeding or framing of Humane Souls 7. Paragraph You pretend to prove an Intelligent Spirit in Man from the Power and Effects of Conscience in him You say no Beasts have it and yet it is very potent and prevalent in Man And I agree that Man hath a Conscience and that it hath a great Power in him and over him But I do not grant the Beasts are without it in a degree sutable to their Capacities and Understandings You say That Conscience in Man is natural to him or slows from his pure Natural Faculties unassisted by Education or Rules But this I deny and assert that Conscience in Man is not derived barely from Nature in such manner as his Vital Powers viz. Digestion Nutrition and Generation are nor as his Passionate Powers viz. his Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear are nor as his Sensitive Powers or the use of this Senses are nor as his Rational Powers viz. his Understanding Phancy Memory Judgment are For all these Faculties are so natural to every Man that he can and doth act them and by them without either Rule Tutor or Example But Speech is not so natural nor is Conscience so natural but they must both be Learned and Directed by Rules Doctrine or Examples and then they may be varied and changed according as things shall fall out or it shall come into the Phancies of Men But without some sort of Education Rule Direction or Opinion there is no more Conscience in Man than in Beasts For take a Salvage Person bred up amongst Beasts he will not know that Killing in a Sin nor spare a Man in his Hunger or his Wrath any more than a Beast And for Adultery he is not capable of knowing it because he knows not what Marriage is And for Incest it is naturally so much unknown as that the first People practised it with Sisters lawfully and it seems Abraham thought it no Crime nor the Princes to whom he avowed it for that it pass'd without Punishment or Reproof from them And for Theft and Robbery it pass'd for a Glory amongst Barbarous People and so it doth amongst Conquerours at this day and it is counted a sufficient Crime for the Vaniquished to defend his Goods or Women from the Conquerour and he will yet be kill'd for so doing without any remorse or sense of Conscience in the Conquerour Nor is the Fact against Nature however Rules may perhaps determine otherwise I say then that Conscience is not an absolutely Natural Faculty in Man but rather is Faculty Complicated of Nature and other Adjuncts and Ingredients the Natural Powers that act in it are the Understanding the Memory and the Judgement and the Effects of it viz. Joy and Grief are also Natural but to compleat the Faculty of Conscience in Man there must be also some Rule for Direction of the Judgment whose proper Office is to compare the Fact and the Rule together and if they be found to agree the Effect is Joyous and Pleasing if they differ the Effect is Sorrow and Fear and the widelier they differ the stronger Effects are produced But say you these Effects are sometimes so potent and violent as they could not be if they did not proceed from an Intelligent Spirit Concerning which I will again quote to you Melanct. dicto lib. pag. 148. There he says Let our Students learn to admire the Wonderful Works of God in Man our Principal Powers and Faculties Vital Sensitive Affectionate Cogitative efficiuntur Spiritu Vitali Animali ideo aliqui dixerunt Animam esse hos Spiritus seu Flammulas Vitales Animales sua Luce superant Solis omnium Stellarum Lucem quod Mirabilius est his ipsis Spiritibus in Homibus piis miscetur ipse Divinus Spiritus and makes this Light in Man more Refulgent Active and Inclinable to apprehend Divine Truths and to practise accordingly And on the contrary When the Devil gets a Possession or but an Entrance amongst them he disturbs and tortures both Heart and Brain and drives them into Cruel Motions and manifest Furies And thus this Excellent Divine instructs us what are the proper Causes of the great and violent Stings of Conscience which you have chosen for a strong Proof of an Intelligent Immaterial Spirit in Man And that Conscience is not barely from Nature but is a Complex of Nature and Rules there are divers Texts of Scripture which may be cited to prove Rom. 2. St. Paul says Men do by Nature the things contained in the Law of Moses this intends a Cultivated Nature ordered and directed by other Rules although they were ignorant of Moses's Law and those other Rules became to them a Law written in their hearts which if they followed their Conscience was satisfied and if they acted contrary to those Rules their Consciences accused them for it St. Paul's Nature in this place therefore intends not Nature in puris naturalibus utterly unpolished and barbarous or salvage and naked of Rules Education and Examples but such a Nature as hath submitted it self to some Rules Education or Example though they be utterly ignorant of Moses's Laws Rom. 5.13 Though sin those acts which are sinful were in the world until or before the Law yet sin is not imputed where there is no Law or Rule to direct the Judgment and therefore without some sort of Rule rising from Institution Example or Opinion as there can no Sin be imputed so no Consciousness of Sin nor Sting of Conscience for it So Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin but by the Law some Rule Education or Example which taught me that this is Sin bare or salvage Nature would not have taught me what was a Sin and what was not John 9.41 Our Lord says to the Pharisees If you were blind purely ignorant ye should have no sin Chap. 15.22 If I had not spoken to them instructed them they had not had sin 1 John 3.4 Sin is the Transgression
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
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
usque ad mortem by fresh nourishment and ventilation without which this animating flame cannot subsist any more than common fire or flame can do P. 102. This Soul perceives not the external Objects or internal Operations but like the Sap in Plants or the Blood in Animals though such Blood be animated it hath neither knowledge nor sense for those parts which must be in continual flame and motion give thereby that to other parts which they themselves have not And thus say I Animal Fire whil'st it keeps glowing irradiates and acts the Bodily Parts and Organs to and for those effects and purposes for which they were intended and made by the great Artificer of the Universe In your first Paragraph you are pleased to say That my Answer to your Question How a Material Soul doth or can act the Senses Vnderstandings Memories and Consciences of Men is not so distinct as you expected but that I shift off with general Remarks and Quotations of Authors My general Remark is That in Plants and Beasts we cannot discern the Quomodo viz. How the Material Soul works in them and yet we are sure of the thing viz. That it doth work all in them and that so it is very probable to be in the State and Case of Mankind And I think this Answer is no shifting one but very plain and full to your Question And for my Quotations they are taken out of good and allowed Authors of late times viz. Boyle Roccius Willis Peter Martyr Philip Melanchton pertinent and somewhat full in the Point of any of which you take no particular notice nor give them any manner of Answer but pass them all by as nothing were and without accepting or answering any one of them whence my labour and intent of quoting good Authors to you is made altogether fruitless and ineffectual I am not knowing in my self that ever I did or do say any thing for a shift or a blind for my meaning and intent seeks Truth and what I say I think without going one step out of the way of right to the best of my knowledge and I am altogether as willing your side in this Dispute be proved true as my own present Opinion and that Truth may finally appear and be prevalent is the only desire intent and indeavour of Sir Your Obliged humble Servant Dat. 18 July 1693. To the abovesaid Answer our Friend returned a Third Opposition Oct. 18. 1693. and this was divided into Eight Paragraphs 1. Paragraph Is a Profession to end this Dispute with this his present Paper and to proceed no farther in it 2. Paragraph You say The main Question between us is the Quid sit Anima Immortalis aut Immaterialis And to this you answer It is an Immaterial Immortal Siprit◠and this you should prove intending what you say it is impossible it should be otherwise For that Matter and Motion cannot act Humane Faculties as they are acted amongst Men as if you intend that God cannot make Cogitative Matter or not make Matter Cogitative but I think God can make Matter Cogitative and if so then you do not deny That a Material Spirit in Conjunction with the Body may possibly act all Humane Powers and Faculties whatsoever You offer to me That Men think it good proof that there is a God by shewing an impossibility that it should be otherwise In Answer to which I say I hold this sort of Proof of that or any Truth to be very obscure and infirm for that it makes Men the competent Judges of what is possible to be or be done which I do not grant them to be For that Men have seen many things done which without such Ocular Testimony they could not have been perswaded to believe never possible to be done viz. that a Remora no bigger than a Snail should stop and hold fast a great Ship going before the Wind with all her Sails that a Fish hooked at the end of an Angling Line should stupefie the Hand and thence the Body of the Fisher and put him into a Deadly Swound that a vast Heap of Water fishes and all should in a Calm Day rise up into the Air and move there in a heap to a far distant Place and there fall down again in Spouts and Hurricanes I think therefore the Arguments ex impossibili concerning Souls are fit only for such as dare take upon them to judge and determine what God can do and what he cannot do Men have Reason to judge it impossible for a Living Person to live still and be safe in the midst of Nebuchadnezzar's Fiery Furnace and yet that and many like things are possible with God and far beyond Humane Knowledge for our Lord tells us That with God all things are possible In my Paper I cited to you Dr. Willis saying That Men who think that God can do nothing above or beyond what they can conceive do not deserve to be answered no more than they qui viventium Sensus Facultates quascunque non nisi à substantia Immateriali Immortalique obiri posse contendunt You say Mans Soul must be Immaterial because God cannot act Man without such a Spirit Prove that and take the Victory and if you do not prove that it seems you have said little in the Case Your Paper says only The thing is impossible for that Matter and Motion cannot do it The truth of which you neither do nor I believe can prove But whatsoever Matter and Motion can of it self do or not do I assure my self God can make Matter Cogitative and can by a Material Spirit and apt Organs effect in Man all that which we see daily performed amongst us and so it still seems to me most likely that he hath done 3. Paragraph The Description of Conscience in my Paper you think too long to examine and therefore to confute or answer it You say There is really a Dominion and Authority of Conscience and I have before granted it and described the Nature of it agreeing that all who have submitted themselves to Rules be they Jewish Christian Gentile Mahometan Romish Quakery or whatsoever other Rules Customs or Conceipts Men have submitted their Minds unto they are under a Coercion of Conscience from the Dictates and Power of such Rules Customs or Conceipts viz. All Cultivated Humane Natures receive more from Education Rules Example and Practices than their Souls of any sort can furnish them with towards the Establishment of a Conscience in them which hath no Power or very little in a State of Simple and Bare Nature without any manner of Cultivation whatsover So for Children as they come to understand and submit to Rules so Conscience grows and increases upon them Also Beasts at their full Liberty shew no signs of Conscience but put them under an Education and they will shew plain Signs of Regret and Fear for having acted against their Rules by their Crouching and Slinking Behaviours Hence appears that the Actings of Conscience are
founded upon Rules and whether those Rules are right or wrong really their being accepted for right makes them obligatory to the Party accepting them so as Offences against Erroneous Rules reputed true are equally burthensome to the Conscience as if they were the most true and rectified that can be delivered to Men and yet they are capable of a more easie Cure viz. by discovery of the Falsity and Errour of them Hence may be inferred that without some sort of Rules and Submission to them the Acts and Power of Conscience are not perceivable which shews they do not flow from the Soul Material or Immaterial but from Education Custom Opinion and Rules to which Actions must be compared for without such a Comparison Judgment cannot be made whether they are right or wrong That Conscience grows as aforesaid appears also from diversity in the acts of it for some Men make a great scruple of Conscience to do things which others think they are bound in duty to do and cannot omit them without check of their Conscience whereas Immaterial Souls pass for all alike And if Conscience were a Natural Efflux from them there could not be such difference and contrariety in the Acts of it I have observed how it grows in Children and Beasts from the effects of their Education made powerful in them by the terrour of a Humane Vengeance expected to follow upon their swerving from the Rules of their Discipline and which the apprehension of Legal Punishments hath often inflicted upon Offenders before Temporal Execution overtook them The Conscience of Sins against God is of a like nature and the Terrour of it grows from Fear that he being offended for the Breach of what Men are perswaded he hath commanded to be done or not done will inflict terrible punishments for the same of unimaginable torment and endless duration as Men are taught to believe and expects by such Rules and Doctrines as are daily represented to them and pressed upon their apprehensions and belief And thus have I summed and shortned my formerly longer Expressions concerning Conscience to which I shall be glad to receive a reasonable Answer either long or short 4. Paragraph You quote the words Whatsoever is not of faith is sin and you say Faith here signifies Conscience My sense of those Words is Whatsoever Men do believing it to be a Sin that is a Sin in them though the Action in it self be good but if it be contrary to those Rules to which a Man hath submitted himself this is a Sin against the Mans Conscience though if there were no accepted Rule against it there would be no transgression in it You express also to think that Beasts cannot be brought by any Education to resist and conquer their Appetites forgetting what formerly I said of a Setting Dog whose Mouth will water and his Chaps move and all his Members and Motions shew a great Desire to be in with his Game and yet he will sit for a long time constrained by the remembrance of punishment to be expected and executed upon his doing otherwise And many instances may be produced of other Bestial Actions in this kind You make it my wonder That Sensual Powers do for much the greater part over-rule the Rational and prevail against it You say I may likely find it often so in my self and I grant it and therefore is that none of my wonder And you demand From whence comer Mens uneasiness of Mind upon such occasions I answer It comes from finding their Actions do not agree with their Rules and therefore not with their Duties for the Failure in which they expect punishment less or more according as their Delicts may seem to deserve not from Powers of Nature in its Simplicity but its Cultivated Capacity under the Conduct of Rules Examples or Opinions to which Men have submitted their Minds and this makes men nocent as the contrary makes men innocent in the judgment of their own Underftanding which is their Conscience 5 Paragr Upon your maintaining That Mans Soul is an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit created each for the Government of each Person I demand Whence it comes that this Soul doth not or cannot so prevail with or over the Person whom it should Govern as to keep it in Rational and Vertuous Ways of Living and Practice but that the far greater number of people follow Vicious Practices contrary to Right Reason and the Desire and Design of such an Intelligent Spirit And the true Cause of my wonder is What that can be in Man which hath Power to oppose and overthrow the Government and Command of this Kind of Soul in him To this you answer You say with St. James This comes from mens lusts which war in their members To you I reply and ask From what Original in Man do such Lusts grow viz. Affections Passions Sensualities Either they grow from the same Originals with Reason and his other Faculties viz. from the Contexture of his Soul and Body or from some other Cause You say I should not wonder at the thing for that universal Experience teaches that so it is This I grant and therefore do not wonder at the being so of the thing but at the Cause and Manner how this comes to pass viz. from what Original in Man this Effect can grow Apparent it seems that Affections and Passions in Man grow from the Contexture of his Soul and Body as all his other Powers and Faculties do and are Natural to him for one that hath them not is not a compleat Man But if their Energy proceed from Mans Soul a Spirit governing this Soul in acting the Affections and Passions so vigorously seems to act blindly and unintelligently or else that it is divided against it self and therefore its Kingdom cannot stand but such Lusts as it self produceth and acteth prevail to overthrow its Government and bring the poor indiscreet Soul under the Pestilent Power of Sin and Satan If thus it be not I desire you will Answer what I Object in this Point which is that Mans Soul acts against reason and its own Interest in so highly actuating of these Lusts or which is far more likely that the Humane Soul is not Intelligent For what you say concerning St. Paul's Text Rom. 9. I hold with you that many places of Scripture do testifie a Power in Man to act for his own Advancement in Piety and towards future Happiness And I assent to that Opinion the rather for that the same is consonant to the reason of Mankind but to agree this Opinion with St. Paul's Text is beyond my Capacity and I should be glad to know your manner of doing it You mention ill effects from the Opinion of the Materiality Omnia tuta timens consonant to the Nature of Zeal and Affection That in your Exhortations you have a great respect to the Resurrection and last Judgment I think to be well done and upon very firm Grounds but for the Immateriality it seems no
maintain the Truth But say you I cannot be sure that the Materiality is a Truth I grant that I am not sure but I would be sure if I knew how to be so and therefore I applied to you for obtaining your chief Arguments against it And I am ready to do so to any other likely Person capable to assist me in searching the Truth concerning it And therefore in my Observations upon Dr. Bentley's Sermon Intituled Matter and Motion cannot think I have requested and even provoked him to perform his promise made in that Sermon viz. that he will make good Proof of the Souls Immateriality from some positive Grounds Rational or Scriptural For that his telling us that God cannot make Men and act them by a Material Spirit nor by any other means but by an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit seems to me precarious erroneus and arbitrary in him And I think I may as well say God can make Man and act him by a Material Spirit as well as he hath done with his inferior Creatures and for ought that hitherto appears to me I think it most likely that he hath so done This finishes my Reply to my Friends Third Opposition after which I received a Fourth Paper of the like Nature Dated 6. Nov. 93 divided into 8 Paragraphs 1. Paragraph Concerned only the intent or meaning of Paul in his term of Nature whether intended absolutely in puris Naturalibus or cultivated by Education Rule or Example 2. Paragraph Was concerning my Expression of making Men trust in a Lye 3. Paragraph I Reply to it You seem to think that God can make Matter Cogitative and will not deny that to be in his Power and we are agreed in that but you think God hath not done so I think he hath done so and this it seems need not be determined but remain a Dissention without making it a Difference the Proof on either side appearing a very great difficulty 4. Paragraph Desiring to shew that there is a Knowledge of what is Morally good or bad Grounded in Nature Unassisted by Rules Education or Institution You Cite an Instance in Cain who you think knew he had sinned in killing his Brother and that before his Nature was assisted by Rules or positive Institution Here I say are Two Assertions First that he knew the Fact to be wicked next he knew this by simple Nature unassisted by any Rule or Institution whatsoever To the First I Answer It doth not appear in the Text that he knew that his Fact to be a Crime You say it appears upon the Margent The Text says My Punishment is greater than I can bear The Margent says Mine Iniquity is greater than can be forgiven Evident it is that the Complaint succeeds immediately to the Sentence pronounced after that Fact which induces me to believe it applicable to the Punishment rather than to the Sin and that therefore the Reading put into the Text by our Translators is more likely to be the true and proper Reading than that upon the Margent But if that which you pretend should be admitted and the Marginal Reading should be accepted Yet it seems the State of Cain at that time was not a State of bare and simple Nature unassisted by Institution or Rules For Adam was Divinely Instructed and probably brought up his Children under Discipline or a directive Education They were Taught the use of Sacrificing and vers 7. God himself gave Cain Directions for his Instruction in Morality and Piety Hence to me it seems your instance of Cain doth not enough prove that Conscience without Rules or Instruction is a Natural Guide to direct Men in their Actions able to make a true Distinction betwixt evil and good Rom. 5.13 For until the Law Sin was in the World but Sin is not imputed when there is no Law And Chap. 7.7 I had not known Sin but by the Law Vers 13. Sin by the Commandment became exceeding sinful viz. until or before the Law bad Actions were Sins but not imputed because not known to be Sins but when Institution and Laws have detected or discovered to Mankind the Sin of such Actions viz. that they are Sins against God and his Laws This knowledge makes that which before was a Sin though not imputed to become by such Revelation exceeding sinful First a Sin in it self and next as made known to the acter by the Law or some other Institution that it is a Sin You give no farther or other Answer to what I had largely spoken concerning the Nature and Operation of Conscience in Man I desired to know your Apprehensions concerning the same and your silence therein seems to admit of my Conceptions thereupon as firm or probable 5. Paragraph You say I desire to know of you whence Humane Affections and their Powers grow You Answer They grow from the Corruption of Mans Nature by the Fall of Adam and the Curse attending it to evince which it seems you should shew what Man 's Nature was before the fall and wherein and how far the same became Corrupted upon that Occasion But that is a thing which I think you neither know nor have means to discover and that therefore we are driven to consider Humane Nature as we now find it so considered It is found and you grant that Affections and Passions have a very great Power in disposing of Humane Actions and the Applications and Practices of the same that they do very often and most commonly over-power and mislead the National Faculty and its Dependencies and drive or draw the Person Soul and Body into very impure and wicked Practices even reclamante Ratione and maugre all the Spiritual Powers which ordinarily they meet with in Mankind And these Affections Ambition Covetousness Lust and the Passions Wrath and Fear are as natural to Man as his Vital and Rational Faculties are All Men have them and one who hath them not is not perfect in his Nature The Beasts have them viz. Lust Wrath and Fear and they act with as much Violence and Power in the Beasts as in the Men And our First Parents had them before the Fall The Woman saw the Tree was good for Food and pleasant to the Taste hereby was her Lust tempted And a Fruit desirable to make one Wise here was her Ambition tempted and by these Affections Satan prevailed as amongst Men of our times he daily doth to draw our First Parents into the ruinous Accomplishments of Sin and Wickedness I say then The Affections and Passions appear to grow not as an effect of Adam's Fall but as a Fruit of Natural Production and from the same Principles and Originals that his Nutritive Generative and other Vital Powers do grow that his other Sensitive and his Rational Faculties do also grow They seem to have one same Original and that they are as Natural to Man as any of the other are and that they have received no more Detriment or Vitiated Quality from the Fall than the other
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
be obtained presently upon the Death of the Body I say The Words mention neither the one time nor the other nor it seems do intend the one any more than the other for they import a present Being come to those Advantages and not a future He confesses here That Humane Wisdom cannot Penetrate into the Future State of Souls and that Men know but little of them I say can know just nothing of his sort of Souls Pag. 192. He cites 1 Joh. 3.2 It doth not yet appear what we shall be I ask whence that will appear the Text says it will appear at Christ's Second Coming that when he shall appear we know we shall be like him which intimates Men must stay till that time for such Knowledge Pag. 196. He says When Death comes the Soul disputes its Possession of the Body with him from Member to Member like Soldiers in a Stormed Garrison and at last loses the Royal Fort Intimating that his Soul 's Being is like that of Death's Being viz. no Real Subsistence but an Imagination Pag. 197. Says The falling asleep in Death or sleeping in Jesus must not be stretched to a length in respect of the Soul but offers no Proof of this I say That it concerns the whole Person Soul as well as Body and likely will strech it self to the very time of the Resurrection Pag. 202. Says Angels carry our Souls to God And for Proof cites the Parable of Dives his only Ground for that Opinion which I say is too sandy to support it for that here was no real Fact related but only a Similitude fitted to the common Jewish Opinion of that time Pag. 203. Grants there is no necessity of such Conveyance of the Soul but it is used for State or Decorum All this seems but his Phancy and he gives no other Proof either of the one viz. that there was such a Fact or of the other viz. that it is for State and Decorum Pag. 204. Says The presence of Angels or Spirits affright the Spirits not only of Men but of Beasts and thence the Soul of Man by consent But of such a Consent he offers no Proof nor that there is a Soul different from the Material which I say is of the same Nature both in Man and Beast which by the Production of like fears both in Man and Beast at the appearance of Spirits seems to me somewhat confirmed Pag. 205. Delivers but his own Phancy thereupon Pag. 206. He asks What Form Shape or Figure can the Phancy of Man cast his own Soul into as an help to understand its Nature I answer into none at all mine hath no certain Form of it self and of his may be said ex nihilo nihil fit But if such a Soul there be one may Form an Idea of it as well as of any other Spirit And for Raptures I have said the Understanding Phancy and Memory may be effectually Wrought upon and affected Pag. 214. Says The Souls of the Just go immediately to Glory from the time of the Persons Death And offers Proof Luk. 23.43 of the Thief also Luk. 16.22 of Lazarus being carried and Phil. 2.23 a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ all cited and answered before Pag. 215. Speaks but his own Phancy and without Proof Pag. 225. Says Good Souls departed have a satisfying Apprehension though no perfect Comprehension of the Divine Essence and mentions the seeing God Face to Face Whereas St. John teaches We know that when he shall appear at his Second Coming we shall see him as he is Christ doth not say see God But the Author produces no Proof of any sort of seeing after Death Pag. 234. Says Those who went to Heaven before Christ's Ascension were fully at rest in God and yet upon Christ's Coming to Heaven their Happiness was advanced Cites to prove this Heb. 11.40 God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect To this I say it rather seems to prove a stay of Perfection till the whole Number be accomplished at the Resurrection as the Answer to the Souls in the Revelation also doth Pag. 243. Says It is too great a dificulty to trace the Soul beyond the limits of this World I say it is so to trace his sort of Soul in this World and I deny that his Text proves that Death perfects the Spirits of the Just which shall not be done till the Number be compleated at the Resurrection Pag. 244. Says We have more Acquaintance with Souls than with Angels He means with his sort of Souls and then I deny it for Angels and Spirits have appeared and been otherwise sensibly perceived to act but we know not that ever an Humane Soul by it self was known or perceived so to do Pag. 252. He says The Radical Moisture which is daily consuming by the Flame of Life must needs be spent ere long Here we agree Pag. 266. Says Separated Souls are capable af performing God's Commands as well as Angels are This I deny and he offers no Proof He says Some departed Souls have returned and appeared in this World Instances in Moses and Elias and the Bodies of Saints which appeared at Christ's Resurrection To this I say All these Appearances were of Bodies except Moses and of him it may be doubted what appeared Pag. 267. Says Apparitions as of Dead Persons are not indeed so but are acts of other sorts of Spirits To this I agree Pag. 273. Men oft meet a Mortal Enemy's Spirit in the disguise of a dead Friend Pag. 274. Says That after the Resurrection the Raised shall know one another and talk and converse but till that time Souls departed do converse only with God How proves he this not at all ergo it is a bare Invention Yes says he it must needs be so for if Souls could act thus before the Resurrection would be needless and to no purpose I say Souls going to Heaven and seeing and enjoying God and Heaven before that time makes the Resurrection of small value and little signification Pag. 284. Says 'T is confest that the Soul concerning it self singly is made perfect and enjoys Blessedness in the absence of the Body He tells us not who hath made this Confession He quotes Words of Alstedius here but they do not import such a Confession but whosoever did confess it I am sure that I deny it mente manu and he should prove it but doth not Pag. 285. Cites 2 Thes 4.15 It says Those which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him This says he must properly respect the Body for the Soul sleeps not I say as much as the Body doth Pag. 304. He says I should rather chuse to live meanly then to die easily and if both Parts were to perish no Man would die or desire it And the Opinion of the Immortality say I prevails not with those who live at ease to desire Death He says It would be a madness for
And so is the ordinary Practice of Mankind He says He who bought Souls knew the Value of them I say Souls were never bought alone but the Redemption was of Persons commonly express'd in Scripture by the Term of Souls and so is David's Expression to be understood when he says It cost me more to redeem their Souls viz. to redeem them or their Persons Pag. 364. Says God created the Soul as his rare Master-piece and the Three Persons laid their Heads together to Project it I have denied a Separate Creation of the Soul and I do so still and do look upon his present Oratory to be very inconsiderate Pag. 365. He confounds the Soul and the Rational Faculty together or makes them both one thing or mistakes the one for the other Pag. 367. All that he here says of the Soul is properly applicable to the Rational Faculty He says No Soul but Man's is Marriageable unto Christ. If he do not mean the Church or at least the Person I can not understand him for we never heard of a Soul 's being Married or doing any other thing by its self singly Pag. 369. What he says here was done for Souls is to be applyed to Persons Pag. 370. Says Words shall come into Judgment at the last Day I say Why not at the particular Judgment if such an one there be Pag. 371. He again here applies to the Soul what belongs to the Person And I say the Devil seeks to devour not the Soul only but the Person Pag. 374. Still applies all to Souls instead of Persons Pag. 375. He Quotes three Texts but they all apply to Persons and Solomon's winning Souls intends Persons Pag. 379. Says He hath proved that one Soul is of more Value than the whole World I say no otherwise than a Man's Life is viz. to himself it is so but not in it self or with any respect to other People Pag. 379. Says The Soul was not made for the Body but the Body for it I say they were made for one another and are daily made viz. Procreated together Pag. 387. Cites a Saying as concerning Souls but it proves only of Persons and goes on in the like applying to Souls what is intended of Persons Pag. 390. Says Souls cannot live upon Food or Earthly things I say They do live upon Food and Earthly things and cannot live without them Pag. 439. and so to 441. He pretends Holy Duties are not enough for Christians viz. Nature improved by Vertues and common Graces of the Spirit of God a Holy Unreproveable Life relying on Christ for Pardon of Sins and Support under Sorrow and Dangers Practising the Commandments Believing the Creeds Receiving the Sacraments Doing as they would be Done to Sorrowing for their Failures striving to rise again and Praying to God every day to Assist them by his Grace and Save them by his Goodness and Christ's Sufferings He insinuates that such ordinary Practices are not sufficient for Regeneration without Heavenly Tempers and Tendencies of Soul viz. a singular Claim and Profession to Grace and Sanctification above ordinary I profess my self content with the former State and will give his Proselites leave to affect the later without condemning them so being that they act not the Pharisee in justifying themselves and despising others Pag. 449. Directs Men to ask Am I born again Am I a New Creature I say Baptism is the Laver of Regeneration and Mark 16.16 He that believeth and it baptized shall be saved and thus practised the Jaylor at Philippi Cornelius the Captain and the Aethiopian Eunuch but he requires a regenerating of the Spirit I allow so appearing as to make the Fruits good but for his extraordinary Elevations and Motions of Spirit I leave them to himself as a Fervour of Phancy Pag. 464. Says Your Election is only secured by your Effectual Calling intending as seems that every one must have and find a particular time of God's calling him to a State of Regeneration and Sanctification This looks to me like an intended distinguishing Character betwixt them who follow Rational Deductions from Scripture and those who pretend to be led by the Spirit in an extraordinary manner and they must shew us Signs and Wonders and mighty Deeds or else we shall not be able to believe them that they are so led For if other Men work and live as well as they and shew as good Fruits of the Spirit as they How can they be distinguished but by Wonders and mighty Deeds Say they by our Special Calling Regeneration and Sanctification But How shall others know these to be good or better than ordinary but by their Fruits or mighty Deeds If those Deeds or Fruits extraordinary do not appear we have no means to know them nor reason to approve them In Pag. 461. He said Let none be so fond to expect Comfort in Death until his Soul have first complied with and obeyed the Call of God in the time thereof Pag. 463. Says Souls of Men are as it were embarqu'd in the Calls of God and if they be lost your Souls are lost I Collect he intends Let your Faith and Practice be what they will if you have not a Call to the singular Mode of our Profession and obey that Call your precious Souls after all this will be lost He said before That when the Enfranchised Soul was upon its departure and sat upon the quivering Lips of the dying Person neither able to stay in the Body nor abiding to forsake it the State of it was deplorable This shews That he imagined the Soul to be an Intelligent Little Thing Parcel or Spark He doth not say that she is snatch'd or forc'd away from the Body nor what should move her to forsake it or leave the being in it or near it against her Will and yet I doubt not but he could have told us that as well as the foregoing viz. Imaginando if he had pleased And this calls to mind a Relation made to us by Dr. Collins in his Treatise concerning Russia There says he when a Person draws on towards Death they set a Basin of fair Water in the Window and set the Casement also open that the parting Soul may have the Opportunity of bathing and refreshing it self in the Water and find an open Passage out at the Casement and not be inforced to the Contrast of passing thro' Crannies of the Window or other Places And thus I part with our Author and finish my intended Observations upon him I read in a Noble Author of our own Nation That in all Contests he who stands only upon his Defence stands upon no Defence Seems Wants one main part of Defence viz. The Disarming or Weakning his Opposer whereby his intended Defence should be made both more easie and effectual Thus far in defending a Tenet opposite to that of our Author I have used only the Buckler in shelter from the dints of his Arguments but that I may not forsake the benefit which may
when Executions are done by Hanging that if it be stopp'd but for some few Moments the Man dies without remedy as any Flame or Fire is soon extinguished for want of Air. For Food or Nourishment it seems that as a Flame Torch or other Fire cannot continue or endure without a competency of Fewel proper for its Nature so the Soul of Man cannot continue or subsist in the Body without fitting supplement of Food or Nourishment in a fitting compass of time and the truth of this is so clear and the Experiences of it so frequent and so certain as there need no more be said in the proof of it And yet for the more full Explication how things pass in the Man upon that occasion I will quote Judg. 15.18 There Sampson had slain the Philistims and fell into such want of Drink that he was ready to die for thirst but God provided Water and when he had drank his Spirit came again and he revived So 1 Sam. 30.11 David found an Egyptian in the Field who had neither eat nor drink in three days and three nights so that his spirit was quite spent and he was in a departing condition but they gave him some Food and when he had eaten his spirit came again to him and therewithal his Understanding Memory and Judgment so much as to demand of David an Oath for his security upon which he directed David as he was desired and gave him the opportunity of obtaining a notable Victory And these instances seem to prove First That the Soul cannot subsist in the Body without Food Secondly That the Failure of the Spirit in such Cases is by Degrees and not all at once or together but as a Flame or Fire draws towards an end Gradatim upon Consumption and Decay of the Fewel till they both fail together Thirdly It shews That with the Decay and Consumption of this Spirit or Flame of Life the Senses Intellect Memory Phancy Judgment do also decay and fail and do return to the Man again together with the recovery and reviver of this Spirit or Flame of Life by the applying of fresh Nourishment or Fewel to it And the whole Argument seems to evince that the continuance of such a Spirit in the Body depends upon Matter as the Support of it and therefore that most probably it is a Material Spirit extracted from Corporeal Humours and inflamed heating inlivening and acting the Body and all the Members and Organs of it for the effecting in them such Faculties and Powers and by them such Motions and Actions as he intended them for who hath framed and fitted them accordingly With this Argument shall be closed and finished our positive Proofs upon this Subject to which notwithstanding there shall be annexed Argumentum a simile for Illustration and Perswasion that the Fact asserted is neither a stranger to Nature nor improbable to be the very Truth according to Reason but that it is very agreeable unto them both To this intent I enter upon a Course which hath been followed and practised in all Ages upon Occasions and Disputes of the like Nature viz. When the Subject is such as no Experience can clear it nor the Senses be made Judges concerning it then Men have used to excogitate Similitudes or Emblems taken from things more known and of which our Senses may be more proper Judges and by applying them to the more abstruse and unknown to add Light to the more dark and for the discovery of the more hidden so as they may be better understood than otherwise they are likely to be We find that by Collecting the Suns Beams upon a Glass and turning from thence the Ray into a Dark Room the Room will thereby be so inlightened beyond what it was before or what the Natural Light did afford it that divers things in it may be thereby made visible which without that help could not have been discovered The Similitude which I have chosen for Illustration of the Nature of our present Subject the Soul shall be grounded upon Harmony and the divers sorts of Instruments employed in the Wind Musick such as derive their Sound from the Motion of Breath or Bellows and to make them serviceable for the present Design they shall be ranked into Twelve several sorts viz. 1. The Single Call or Whistle 2. The Horn. 3. The Penny Pipe 4. The Bag-pipe 5. The Flute 6. The Rebeck 7. The Hautboys 8. The Sackbut 9. The Cornet 10. Pan's Oaten Pipe 11. The Trompet 12. The Organ And in correspondence to these I rank the Animantia or Self-moving Creatures into as many and like Sorts or Divisions viz. In rank with the Whistle I place all the small Insects as Worms Flies Bees Wasps Ants Spiders Beetles c. Who all work according to the Rules of Science but not knowingly They have no Variety in their Working but go always to work after the same manner and even as the Whistle sounds 2dly To the Horn whose only Changes are shorter and longer lower and louder Sounds I compare the greater Insects viz. Frogs Askers Snakes Adders Serpents and the very great ones in Africa and India the Salamander Scorpion Lizard and Camelion c. And to the Penny Pipe I compare the lowest of the Animalia viz. Mice Rats Moles Bats c. To the Bagpipe I compare the small but nimble Creatures as Weasels Foumards Ferrets Squirrels c. To the Flute I compare Cats Currs Otters Badgers Conies Hares c. To the Rebeck all sorts of Deer the Rein the Red the Fallow and the Row the Ass the Musk Creatures c. To the Hautboys compare the Volatilia of all Sorts and Sizes To the Sackbut compare the heavier sorts of Voracious Brutes as Bears Wolves greater Dogs Crocodiles River-Horses c. To the Cornet compare the more active and noble sort of them as Lions Tigers Leopards Panthers Ounces Linxes c. To Pan's Pipe compare the Jumenta or Cattle such as Sheep and Goats Swine the Bubuli c. To the Trumpet compare the Principal or most Intelligent sort of Brute Animals the Elephant Horse Camel Tame-Dog Fox Ape Monkey Creatures the most observing and docible who can apprehend and obey a Voice a Motion of the Body or even a turning of the Eye and come nearest to the Pretences of some sort of Understanding I should not have put Pan's Pipe so high in my Catalogue but that I find it likely was very musical so as the Instrument might admit of divers Tones viz. Treble Mean Tenor and Base on which Account Pan took upon him to contest in Melody with Apollo's Harp and they chose Midas King of Lydia for their Judge and upon full Hearing of both parties Midas passed Judgment against Apollo pronouncing that Pan's Pipe excelled the Musick of Apollo's Harp And though Apollo in Revenge planted Asses Ears upon the Head of his impartial Judge yet the History proves Pan's Pipe to have been then counted a very melodious Instrument Pan primus
cure or help such a misadventure but can only make it sound according to its present capacity so it is with a Mans Spirit and his Bodily Members and Organs if there be a Lisping or Stammering Tongue or a Sanded or Squinting Eye a Lame Hand or a Foot out of joynt the Soul cannot cure or help in any such Cases but can only act the Members and Organs as it finds them capable and the like if harm come to the Members or Organs by Diseases Wounds or any like Accidents the Soul hath no more power to help in such Cases then Wind can help Deficiencies in the Organ Thirdly If there be any Pipes quite spoiled broken or wanting in the Organ the Wind can make no Musick or Sound at all in those places and in like manner for Man if the Eyes be out the Soul cannot make the Man see nor speak without a Tongue c. As for the Understanding and the Memory which seem to be the most spiritualized the Soul cannot act them without their proper Bodily Organs and by Blows Wounds or Diseases in the Head spoiling those Organs such Faculties may he lost the Soul still able and continuing still to act the Vital Nutritive and Generative Powers and to keep the Man well enough alive Fourthly As upon ceasing of Wind in the Organ the Instrument loses all its Activity and Harmonical Sounds and becomes only a Dead Fabrick so when the Flame of Life in Man is extinguished the Body and all its Organs and Members become Dead and Cold even as the very Organ and his Pipes which without Wind are useless to those purposes for which they were contrived and intended And thus the real Matter of our present Simile shall be determined And yet is it not so finished but that still there may be some farther use made upon the Circumstantials of it viz. Those Ornamental Accoutrements wherewith we see the Organs in Cathedrals and other very Eminent Places embellished and curiously engraved painted varnished and gilded to such Degrees that with the Lillies they may be compared to Solomon in all his glory but if these Splendid Circumstances be taken off them they must be found in their own proper likeness or Bodies viz. Wood or some coarse or ordinary Mettal without Lustre or Gloss or any other Delight in the beholding The Shining Ornaments of our Organ we compare not only to the Robes of Solomons Glory and those of other Princes Magistrates and Prelates which are intended to produce an awe and reverence in the Beholders and Common People and are often times productive of their designed Effect but I also compare them to divers other Ornaments and Glories of the Humane Nature acquired and accumulated by the Labour and Industry of many Generations in Succession one after the other viz. Many Manual and other Arts and Sciences derived from one Man to another and by various Experiments and Degrees brought to that Perfection which hitherto they have attained Now those who behold the State of Man's Nature and contemplate it in the Glories of all these fresh Colours Varnishing and Gilding as the most Men do cannot easily forbear to wonder at those who do or can apprehend that the Brutal Nature should be so near related as to be next of kin to the Humane I will therefore use this Nature as before I have used the Fabrick of the Organ viz. Remove it s Acquired Ornaments which have so dazzled most Mens Eyes as to make the Great Princes and Persons or some of them thought and think themselves above or beyond the Common Condition and Nature of other Men and to despise the Ordinary Sort of People to so high a Degree as not to count them made of the same Stuff or Kind with themselves And not Princes and Conquerours only but divers amongst the Learned and Knowing and Men of Skill in Arts and Sciences are too often apt to contemn their ignorant and illiterate Brethren as fit rather to be ranked inter Oves Boves caetera Pecora Campi than to be placed in equal Degree and Honour with themselves Let us then imaginando remove these Ornaments which become the Occasions of such great Mistakes and consider Man and his Nature in their own Natural Robes and Colours And this may be done without the taking from our Grandees any of their Ornaments or Preheminences for the true State of this Nature may best be surveyed in the Lowest and Plainest Ranks that can be found amongst Men which sort of People if we shall consider from the Cradle to the Grave we shall easily perceive to be wholly employed and taken up with the Care and Endeavour to acquire Nourishment Warmth and the Means of Propagation and these are the very Things which the more Sagacious Brutes do universally attend The Diet of such Lowest Sort of People and their Fare is Gross and Coarse so as the Rich mens Horses Dogs and Monkeys are often better provided their Houses far meaner than the Stables Beast Houses and even Swine-cotes of the Rich Nothing so well clad or covered as a well kept Horse If the Politie of the Places they live in hath taught them some good Rules and Precepts they make ordinarily a shift in a competent time to forget or change them and are to be governed and kept in order as Brutal Creatures are by the only Expectation or Fear of Rewards and Punishments and these things are applicable to Men whom we know by a Continual and Daily Conversation But if we direct our Prospect towards the more Desart Countries North or South we may find in India and Arabia but most especially in Africa and America Nations and People who have only their bare Skins for a Covering they rob and prey upon others for a maintenance they live upon Raw Flesh and the very Guts and Entrails of such Creatures as they can get Flesh of Men Dogs Horses Serpents all goes down with them Now what do Beasts differ from such Men or they from Beasts Even Wild Beasts of the Forest for our Tame Cattle will not do so nor hardly any Beasts amongst us but hungry Dogs They discover no Effect of Rules or Civility amongst them save to forbear hurting one another as the Beasts do Saevis inter se convenit Vrsis but their Lusts are at as full Liberty as those of other Cattel Thus in general but to set forth Humanity in its most Simple Natural and Plain Colours Sir Kenelm Digby's Treatise of the Soul shall be cited fol. 247. where he relates and testifies this fact An Army coming to attack Liege the people of the next Villages fled into the Forest of Ardennes amongst whom a Woman and her Son of about five years old the Souldiers beat up into the Woods for Booty and frighted the People so as the Woman lost her Son and never found him after the Army departed and the People returned and about ten years after an extraordinary hard Winter hapned and the Wild
by this Harmony explicate the Affections and Operations of the Soul 2. This Harmony is neither a Mixture of Ingredients or a Composition of Parts or Members in the Body as all other Proportions are in their Kinds and therefore not properly Harmony They gave the Amicableness of the Ingredients a Part in this Work of Operation by Harmony But whether it be the same Thing or one different from it they do not declare nor doth Empedocles their Author discover Now if the Soul be not this Reasonable Proportion and Temperature of the Mixture in Bodies why doth it appear to be taken away together with the Body and what is it that perishes at the Souls Departure if this sort of Harmony be not the Soul Yet concludes it is not the Soul The Soul may be moved by Accident and can move it self so viz. by moving the Body but a Local Motion the Soul of it self hath not This of Local Motion must be intended whilst in the Body or is fully contradicted by our Doctor Pag. 266. and so to 296. And we may observe that Aristotle seems to bear much with this Opinion of the Harmony though he doth not allow of it and though it fall short of the Truth yet it seems to have a good Share of the Truth in it Chap. 5. Because that to Rejoice Grieve or Discourse are Motions and Men use to say The Soul Rejoices is Grieved or doth Ruminate or Study it therefore is so moved One might as well say the Soul Hews Timber or Weaves nor is it proper to say the Soul Learns or Reasons in Discourse but that the Man doth so by the Power of his Soul Not that the motion is in the Soul but in some Cases it comes to her as in Using the Senses and in some comes from her as in Using the Memory and so for the Intellect which hath a nearer Relation to her than the Memory also is a tore Substantial Faculty and is less decaying or subject to be spoiled The Decays of Age do not reach or spoil it so soon as it doth the Senses Memory or other Faculties The Soul suffers not by Age but the Body wherein she is as in Cases of Drink or Sickness Intellect and Contemplation will fail also with the Bodily Materials failing but the Soul her self is Impassible And if an Old Man should obtain a Young Eye he would be able to see as well as if he were Young To Love Hate or Remember are not Works of the Soul but of him that hath it and they are Qualities and Powers common to the Soul and Body and perish with the Dissolution Perhaps the Intellect may be a more Divine Thing and Impassible Finally the Soul can neither be moved nor move her self but by Accident We may observe That where Aristotle says the Intellect is a kind of Substance I render it a Substantial Faculty more so than the Memory It seems intended by the following Words that Intellect doth also fail Men in their Age but not so early as Memory and so Experience confirms to us For his perhaps the Intellect here intended Soul but not so before perhaps it is a Divine Thing and Impassible We say that what perhaps may be perhaps may not be and compare it with Solomon who knows it is left by both as an uncertain Thing and we are left to seek for a firmer Fixation of what they in these Places have not determined Chap. 6. Aristotle rejects their Opinion who thought the Soul to be a Number which had Power to move it self and says 't is an Impassible Tenet His Arguments seem plain and therefore need not be repeated but we remark or observe that he says Plants and Animals seem to be indowed with the same Soul Spirit or Specifical Soul Also whether you call Democritus his round Atoms Vnities or Minutest Points they will create that which is Quantum and then there will be something that moves and something that is moved as there must be in all Magnitudes though never so small and every Vnity must have its Motor so it cannot be Anima for that is Motor and is not moved but by Accident They who call the Soul Number are like them who call it a sort of a subtil Body consisting of Parts of a like Nature But if the Soul be over or in all the Sentient Body universally and that which enlivens it here would be two Bodies one within another Observe we may concerning this Subtil Part which he calls a sort of a Body it may intend the Immaterial Spirit before explicated and then the having one such Body within another Dense Body is but an Exception to the Wording of the Thing and doth not reach to the Denial of the Matter intended Chap. 7. Mentions Three Definitions of the Soul First That is Id quod maxime vim habet movendi and therefore is a Self-Motor Second That it is a Body consisting of the most Subtil Parts and more Incorporeal than any other Body or Thing These Two are past The Third is That the Soul is a Compositum of the Elements and which therefore can perceive and know them and all that is made of them This Knowledge says Aristotle cannot rise from the Composition of Elements in the Soul unless the Proportions of the Composition in Things and their Way and Manner of Compounding be also in the Soul but not compounded Substances can be in the Soul nor Quantity Quality or other Accidents Empedocles thought the Elements with their Concord and Discord composed not only the Humane Soul but that they and their Concord made up the Divine Intellect excluding Discord Whence says Aristotle God knew less than Men but the Elements says he are Material and that which by compounding them makes the Soul must be of more Value than the Soul And what Thing can that be Impossible it is that there should be any thing more excellent than the Soul or superior to it especially to its Prime Faculty the Intellect For most agreeable to Reason it is that this highest Faculty of the Soul be accounted of the greatest Antiquity and the highest Dominion or Power according to Nature No says Empedocles for the Elements are the First of Beings and if the Soul were not from the Elements she could not attain to the Knowledge of them And here Aristotle lets this Dispute fall and says no more to any purpose in this Chapter We may observe that Aristotle repeats here again the Opinion of the Souls consisting of Material but most Subtil Parts more Incorporeal or Spiritual than any other Material Thing He gave no other Answer to this before but by his Clinch That this would be to conceipt two Bodies one within another To this may be said one is a Spiritual Body or a Celestial Spirit kindled by the Breath of Life But withdraw its Pabulum some few Days or stop the Fanning Air from it but for some few Minutes this Flaming Spirit is certainly extingushed this
that Soul as well as it is in the Beasts With it and by it they live move and act With its Extinguishment they die and turn to immediate Corruption and Gradatim to their Original Earth and Dust So was it with Adam and his Soul and Body and from his Time hath so continued without Exception save in Enoch and Elijah by Divine Power or Miracle manifested in reviving Lazarus and some other dead Bodies by re-kindling in them the extinguish'd Flame of Life 2. He doubts not but that Eve's Soul was like Adam's and if his were created so was hers And this we grant as well the one as the other 3. Adam did not speak of her Soul but owned her Body of his therefore he knew not her Soul or what or whence it was Whence 't is not likely her Soul was made out of his but was a Creation from nothing I grant her Soul was not made out of his but made like his The Body Blood and Humours being prepared and fit the Flame of Life was kindled in her by the Divine Power and after her first Breath she lived by Respiration as Adam did so long as that Flame of Life continued unextinguished and she was made and so long she continued a Living Soul or rather a Living Compositum both of Body and Soul 4. If the Soul were generated there would be a subject Matter out of which it grew And then Solomon could not properly say it returned to God that gave it but it should rather return into such Matter as it was raised from He says Austin applied this Saying of Solomon only to Adam's Soul or the Orignal of Souls for that he would not oppose the Generation of Souls But the Author says it must doubtless be understood of all Souls Concerning this I say it appears as clearly that Solomon was not resolved concerning Humane Souls whether they went upward or downward or what became of them upon a Solemn Consideration and Argument Yet he doth after and without Argument summarily say the Spirit returns to God who gave it In both Places our Translators use the Term of Spirit and not of Soul The Breath Spirit and Life which is in Man goes not perceivably to Sense any whither Likely it is the common Opinion of his Time was for a Separate Subsistence of Souls For we read Saul applied himself to the Witch for bringing up of Samuel intending his Separately Subsisting Soul And the Devil favours this Opinion in pretending to be Samuel's disquieted Soul In these few Words of Solomon it may be conceived that unresolved in himself he thus expressed himself in Compliance with the Common Opinion of his Time and Country Also what is intended by Spirit Whether Breath and Life or Soul seems not very clear David says When God takes away Mens Breath they die and are turned again to their Dust Psal 104. But if he let his Breath go forth Men are made and the Face of the Earth renewed This Informing Breath first breathed into Adam leaves the Body at Death returns says Solomon to God who gave it But elsewhere says he knows not what to think of it whether it go upward or be extinguished with the Life as those of the Beasts are 5. and 6. Pag. 766. He cites Isa 57. Zach. 12. Exod. 21. That God makes the Souls And what Austin answers thereunto That it is by God that they come from the Parents He cites Theodoret That the Foetus in the Womb is first an unformed Embrion then becomes formed into the Perfect Shape of a Body and after That it first obtains a Soul Pag. 767. And if so How can the Soul rise out of the Seed or from Generation If says he you will say that in the Seed there is Vis Animae Parentis out of which the Infant 's Soul arises in due Time This he refuses by any means to admit of but why he doth not say because it is against Reason or Nature But because then it would follow that the Soul must be Corruptible and Mortal And to this Conclusion which he maintains with divers Arguments we do easily agree Pag. 771. See the same 7. The Soul of Christ was not from Generation Ergo other Mens are not so I say It seems Christ was born from the Seed of David and was the Seed of the Woman and being by Operation of the Holy Spirit upon her might be made and born in all things like to us except Sin For what he took by Generation from the Holy Spirit could not partake of Sin And it seems Temerity to affirm any thing concerning Christ's Soul which is not revealed as this Point is not for that neither the Manner nor the Matter can be traced or found out by the Powers of Humane Reason or the Dependance of Natural Causes to all which Proceedings this Birth is an absolute Mystery P. 769. He says both these Opinions viz. that of a continual New Creation of Souls and that of Propagating them by Generation have had great and many Abettors and Defenders in the Church For the New Creation of Souls he enumerates Greg. Nyssen Theodoret. S. Jerom Leo I. a Bishop of Rome S. Ambrose Hilary Says Flesh generates the Flesh but the Soul is the Work of God I say this is no absolute Denial of the Souls being generated as Austin hath said by God's Power and Providence For the Souls being generated with the Body held Tertullian Pag. 770. S. Augustin Greg. I. a Bishop of Rome he omits here Apollinaris and most of the Fathers of the Western Church before remembered The Opinions differed upon two Difficulties some would have a New Creation for that Generation concluded Souls to be Mortal others would have Souls generated with the Bodies because whole Man is involved in and put under the Guilt of Original Sin which if his Soul were Newly created by God can have no sound and reasonable Derivation upon it Our Author means to shew how New created Souls may be taken within the Guilt of Original Sin Pag. 772. He begins with Philsophers who have highly extolled the Soul and said it came from God Pag. 773. 1. Says Souls and Angels are of the same Nature Kind and Substance alike subsisting of themselves and as one Angel doth not generate another so it is for Souls they generate not I say this Parallel of Souls and Angels is bold but never granted 2. Says The Soul can understand and will without the Body or its Organs and therefore subsist without it I grant both alike and one as much as the other 3. The Soul is an Immaterial Spirit and cannot be propagated no not from another Soul and if it rise from another Soul it cannot be Immortal All but its Immateriality is granted 4. The Opposers say the Body cannot infect a New created Soul with Original Sin much less says he can it generate such a Soul nor can such a Substantial Immaterial Spirit proceed from Flesh and Blood a Spirit which
needs not any Bodily Organs but can act alone and by its own single Power and if one Soul could produce another yet that cannot be done by Efficiency of Seed or Corporeal Generation 5 The Soul is Immortal and Self-subsistent neither dies nor decays with the Body and therefore is not generated by it or proceeds from it I say these two Arguments proceed ex non concessis the Inferences are reasonable but the Foundations fail and are not granted nor enough proved 6. P. 775. If the Soul be propagated from the Seed it is but as Trees and Beasts are and if the Seed be Corporeal the Spirit thence arising must be Material for that which is of the Flesh is Flesh whence the Soul must be Corruptible and Mortal I grant his Arguments which he says cannot be easily refuted except by such as will reject his Principles of the Soul's Immateriality and Self-subsistence as we have done from the Beginning and yet continue to do Pag. 775. Now he comes to his Case of how his New created Souls may be justly involved in the Guilt of Original Sin and he begins as commonly Men do in such Undertakings to prove Obscurum per Obscurius viz. the Thing proceeds from Gods Decree that so it should be I ask how doth he know that He doth not pretend particular Revelation for it No but he Pays God did Decree to join these New created and pure Souls with Bodies conceived in Sin although he knew that thence it would follow those Souls should thereby become infected with Sin But not one Word of Proof neither of the Decree nor how the New Soul is infected nor that it is so infected And we dare not take his Word for all this but he goes on First says he God decreed to permit Sin but he proves not that and yet it seems to stand in great Need of proving Then he decreed the Guilt and woful Effect of Adam's Sin should be derived upon all his Posterity Still he needs Proof of a Decree of God in this Point Then God says he decreed the Redemption of the Elect by Christ and reprobating all the Residue of People Hence says he it comes that many Things are by God done and permitted against our Rules of Justice and Goodness which are in his Power easily to hinder or alter And because he doth do or permit such Things we must conceive that Things so done or suffered to be done are certainly agreeable to Justice and Goodness he says in respect to God's Order and Decrees I say in respect to his Nature and Being But we both agree Men do not know how to reconcile Things so done or permitted with the Common Rules of Morality amongst Men. And it seems it had been no ill Course for our Author in this Case to have said Souls must be thus infected with Sin by God's Decree although it be above our present State to know either the Manner how or the Reason why Pag. 776 777. Says God made Man in his Image just and upright and so might his posterity have continued I say If God had not as our Author says otherwise decreed it Well but by Adam's sin all was lost both to him and his posterity for as Levy paid Tithes to Melchizedeck in Abraham so all Men sinned in Adam I say this Comparison seems apt enough deeming Levy's payment in Abraham but Notional or Putative and alledged Argumentative Says our Author Adam 's Sin was not more actual to him then it was original to all his posterity There followed a propensity to sin in Adam and thence a Corruption in the Nature of all his Posterity called Original Sin as a Penal consequence of that Offence Adam 's disobedience being imputed to all his Off-spring to bring the New created Soul under the guilt of this Original The Author denies to say that properly and really the Body doth work upon the Soul and so infect it but he doth say That in the instant when God joins the Soul newly by him created to the Body conceived in Sin the Compositum becomes Man and then and thenceforth Adam 's Sin is imputed to this Compositum existing in the Womb. He says Some take Original Sin only for a Corruptness in Mans Nature or a Propensity to Sin This he avoids as making it harder to shew how this can come into a New created Soul over which the Body cannot have power nor will God it seems indow or infect it with this evil inclination nor will there be any other likely means for this to arise in the Soul save only by Propagation Pag. 778. But yet he will find a means to do this and he says It arises from the just appointment of God that all Adam 's Off-spring shall have such a Corrupted Nature in them taken from Adam as their Fountain end Original and this should reach to the Soul as well as to the Body under the Name of Natural Corruption So it grows not from the Bodies infecting the Soul but by the Will and Appointment of God To this I say The Words or Intent that Adam's Off-spring should be corrupted can reach no farther than to what comes from him by Generation which Souls our Author says do not And the Soul Principal in Man who upon breath given him became a Living Soul And therefore an Appointment that Newly created Souls as he says all are should all be necessaly corrupted and inclined to sins continually for one Offence of the Old Adam with whom they never had any relation or affinity nor any derivation from him Our Author intitles it just but it seems to me very incongruous and hetorogenial to Rules of Equity and Reason He doth not prove such Appointment of God nor offer to maintain by Reason that the thing would be justifiable by the ordinary Rules of Equity or Reason We therefore take it all for his Fancy and that he is under a mistake in the main of this Argument and that what is true in and concerning the guilt of Original Sin is much more maintainable by those who raise Souls as well as Bodies from Adam by Generation then by those who do believe that God creates new Souls for the supply of every successful Humane Coition not to speak of those betwixt Man and Beast where the product is of a Humane Shape Pag. 779. Now he comes to defend the Justice of God's Proceeding in this Case and says Though God put the Infected Body and the Pure Soul together God doth not instill or put the Evil Qualification into the Soul nor cause it to be infected by the Body but the Corruptiin of the Pure Newly created and much to be pitied Soul grows upon it only by accident If Adam had not sinned God would yet have been always making New Souls as he is all the World over and he joyns Souls and Bodies per se but the Souls are infected per accidens All are Words and Fancy without shewing the difference betwixt per