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A49843 Observations upon a sermon intituled, A confutation of atheism from the faculties of the soul, alias̀€, Matter and motion cannot think preached April 4, 1692 : by way of refutation. Layton, Henry, 1622-1705. 1692 (1692) Wing L756; ESTC R39115 14,582 19

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even their Powers to conceive or apprehend the true and next reasons or causes of such Performances To such purpose Phil. Melanchthon lib. de anima p. 20. He had just before recited Certas descriptiones Philisophicas quae si de pecudis anima tantum quaereretur utcunque monstrarent aliquid quod cogitari potest in materia fons esse actionum nondum tamen penitus haec perspicimus cur ita factum sit sapientia est artificis non nostra Pag. 112. he says Maxime admirandum est cerebrum quod est domicilium ac officina cogitationum And altho we do not thorowly know the Substance and Operation of the Brain nor the ubi or quomodo such things are wrought in it but must leave such Knowledge to the Wisdom of the Creator Yet thus much says he Men may know of it oriri ejus materiam à subtilissima parte seminis plena spirituum quae in formatione foetus in illam hominis arcem summam quasi exaestuat cum epar cor venulae inchoantur And this derivation of the Brain and its daily and known Performances make it look very like a mat●ria Cogitativa and as such it shall be left here notwithstanding our Author the Preachers pretences to the contrary In this page he handles Matter as if three of the Elements viz. Water Air and Fire were no parts of Matter which I pass for an apparent mistake And he says Matter cannot acquire Motion of itself without thrusting of some other Body or intrinsical Motion of an immaterial Spirit This is denied before and instances given of the Wind and Fire which move themselves and other things about them during the whole continuance of their own being P. 18. He says no parts of Matter considered in themselves are hot or cold white or black bitter or sweet and that they have neither light or colour heat or sound these are not says he in Bodies absolutely considered but in our Eyes Ears and other Organs of Sense I answer Quod non ego credulus illi I grant Men cannot perceive such qualities in Matter but by means of their Senses but withal do believe that there are Light and Bodies illuminating tho Men should not see them so Sounds not heard so Heat without Mens feeling it discoverable enough by seeing it at a distance consumption of the fewel and the scorcht blackness of such parts of the fewel as are left after such a fire But yet he will prove what he said to be true by an instance For says he If glass that hath no colour at all be broke and braid into small parcels those small parcels will look to be of a white colour and yet truly they have no more colour in them than they had before and that truly is none at all I grant him there is in this instance a deceptio visus and that the thing appears otherwise than it is Shall it be concluded that because our Senses are deceived in some things therefore we cannot trust them in any thing there seems small foundation for such a conclusion And I will thereupon put him another instance viz. Put a strait Stick into the water presently it will appear crooked but take it out and it will look strait again and was always so notwithstanding its appearance He may as well pretend to infer that there are really no crooked sticks in Nature as that Matter hath no real Qualities because Men are deceived in thinking his bray'd-Glass to be white And yet he says P. 19. That he hath sufficiently proved his Assertion But I beg his pardon for thinking he is mistaken He says there That the Qualities in Bodies can no more be conceived to be real than Roses or Honey can be thought to smell and taste their own sweetness Had he said than Roses have a sweet smell or Honey a sweet taste the saying might have been both coherent and true whereas now it seems to be neither P. 20. He pretends to believe and persuade that the Body of Man is a Senseless piece of Matter which hath neither colour warmth softness c. He says he hath proved this but I do not know where and I beg his pardon for not believing him For I must adhere to Thomas Didymus against him trusting my own Senses in their healthy and sound Condition to judge of their proper Objects placed at a reasonable distance and the fitting Sphere of their Activity and assisted by the ordinary Powers of Human Perception or Judgment which easily discovers that the Sight is deceived when it takes his bray'd-Glass to be really white or my Stick in the water to be really crooked He says farther It is not Blood and Bones that can judge nor can the Head or Brain do it as being only Body and not imaginative P. 21. But says he Our opposers may reply and so they do That the Animal Spirits and Insensible Particles there residing viz. in the Head and Brain do actuate the common Sense Phancy Memory Judgment and other Powers of the Understanding To this he replies the thing cannot be so for that their Spirits must have each a determinate Figure as Cubes Spheres Cones c. But this is not granted him for I say rather that these Spirits in the Head are Particles of the purest Blood Inflamed glowing and lucid irradiating the Brain and all the Ventricles or Concavities of it with the appendances of Apprehension and Memory thereunto belonging He says We do not grind inanimate Corn into Living and Rational Meal and that Nails Hair Horns and Hoofs may bid as fair for Understanding as the finest Animl Spirit of them all To this I answer That the inflamed glowing Particles of Blood called Spirits are not in themselves Sentient or Intelligent but they are the Actus primus corporis Organici viz. The Active Principle of Life Motion Sense and Understanding in Man and Beast stimulating and acting every Part and Organ of the Body to the performance of those Duties for which by the Great Creator they were intended and made Those Spirits therefore Act the Eye to see the Ear to hear the Tongue to speak the Liver to make blood the Heart to purifie and refine it the Understanding or Brain to apprehend judge and remember It cannot make one Organ perform the Function of another Organ but acts every Organ according to its proper Use and natural Capacity And therefore it is not the Soul or the Body that act inable or govern the Man but the Man by the activity of his Soul and the aptitude of his bodily Organs doth all those things which we daily see are done amongst us not by Soul or Body singly but by the Virtues and Contexture of both together For his saying that Men cannot grind Corn into Living and Rational Meal If it have a meaning it seems to intend that Corn cannot be so used as to effect Life and Rationality in Men and if it be taken in that sense the
OBSERVATIONS upon a Sermon Intituled A Confutation of Atheism from the Faculties of the Soul aliàs Matter and Motion cannot think Preached April 4. 1692. By way of REFUTATION THE whole Sermon is comprehended in 39 pages the first 12 of which or to page 12 are employed as an Introduction or Apparatus to his Text and Design and page 12 the Preacher says he intends to prove that the Life Motion Essence and Nature of Man is derived from God and may direct Men to the knowledge of him but all this need not be proved to Men of my opinion who do willingly agree the Truth of his Assertion P. 13. he says he will prove That there is an Immaterial Substance in Man which we call Soul and Spirit essentially distinct from our Bodies And this if he shall substantially perform it shall pass for heroic and above all ordinary power but presently he seeks to avoid and shift off his performance of Proving by saying that the thing is evident in it self But this I do utterly deny and think the contrary more evident viz. That the humane Soul is a material Spirit generated growing and falling with the Body and rising again with it at the sound of the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God And upon this Difference between our Positions the state of our present Controversie will depend I have denied this his Assertion That the thing is self-evident Why but says he There is something in Man's Composition that thinks deliberates consents and actuates all humane Sensations and Powers these Activities cannot come from nothing therefore they come from an immaterial Soul or Spirit in Man To this I answer his Consequence is not good viz. These Powers come from something ergo from an Immaterial Spirit for they may come from a Material Spirit In proof whereof I argue à simili The Plants live grow flourish and fructifie by a Material Spirit The Insects act admirably by a like Spirit The Brutes act sensibly and knowingly by a like Spirit ergo Man may perform all his natural Functions by the like means of a Material Spirit inspiring and acting the proper Organs which God hath made apt for such purposes We see in a Musical Organ every Pipe hath its proper Sound and Function and the same Breath acts them all and therein appears a great Effect and Power of Matter and Motion rightly fabricated and acted by the hand of Artists and what then may not God do with them and by them when he pleaseth I take a second Exception to his saying there is something in Man's Composition that thinks argues c. He says there is no Man so sceptical as to deny this or to doubt of it but his Mistake is great in it for I do believe that there is not any particular thing in Man's composition that thinks argues c. but that it is the Man himself viz. the whole Composition of Soul and Body by a divine and admirable Contexture united which thinks argues and doth all other natural things which God hath given him a Power and Propensity to do It is not the Preacher's something in Man that doth all those things which he mentions but it is the Man that doth them not that something which he will surmise to be the Soul for that cannot act without the bodily Organs not think without the Brain nor remember without the Organ of Memory any more than see without an Eye or speak without a Tongue or generate without a proper Organ for that purpose And this needs be no news to our Preacher for his Master Aristotle in his treatise of the Soul lib. 2. cap. 5. counts it a great impropriety of speaking to say that the Soul is sorrowful fearful sensitive or rational angry or the like and that one may say as properly that the Soul weaves or builds and that it is not proper to say the Soul learns or reasons but the Man doth so viz. the whole Compositum of Soul and Body doth them further he saith there To love hate think or use reason are not properly Affections or Actions of the Soul but of him who hath the Soul In his 1. cap. dicti Lib. he questions whether the Soul have any Affections or Actions not communicated to the Compositum or Person but kept as peculiar to itself Finally he says It seems to him that the Soul hath neither Desire Anger Fear c. nor can do or suffer by them without the Body nor that it can so much as perceive or be sensible without it the very Intellect he thinks either is the Phansie or cannot be acted without it and then cannot the Soul use it without help of the bodily Organs Dicaearchus maintains his Master's doctrine in this point and Pliny in his Natural History lib. 7. cap. 55. says the like Shew if you can says he what is the Substance and Body of the Soul as it were what kind of Matter is it apart from the Body where lieth the Cogitation which she hath how doth she see or hear what toucheth she nay what one thing doth she how is she employed or if there be none of all this in her what good can be to her without them surely these are but Imaginations of Men who fain would live always And there is the like Foolery in preserving of Mens Dead Bodies yea such is the Folly and Vanity of Men that they think the human Soul extends naturally to future Ages and that Ghosts separated from their Bodies have Sense and thereupon render Men them honour and worship making a God of him who is not so much as a Man as if the manner of Mens Breathing differ'd from that of other Creatures These were all persons eminently learn'd and yet they denied that Man's Powers were acted by any particular or specifical something that was in him and affirmed as I do that all are Actions of the Compositum or the Man a Contexture of Soul and Body and by no means can our Preacher's something perform such Offices without the divine and admirable Contexture of Soul and Body for that the one of these without the other can do no such things nor can probably do or suffer anything at all P. 14. Our Preacher says Such Powers and Actions must have an Efficient Cause and I grant it and assign the Contexture of Soul and Body in Man as the Efficient and proper Cause of all such Actions Then he says that Cogitation Volition and Sensation are neither inherent in Matter as such nor acquirable to Matter by any Motion or Modification of it To this I answer that Sensation and Perception are inherent in Man and Beast and to each of them belonging as they are divine Compositions or rather Contextures of Soul and Body Gen. 2.7 says God formed Man of the dust of the ground so c. 3. v. 19. God says to Man out of the ground wast thou taken for dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return We know