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
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
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
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
of a Mans Countenance Things which dull or unbred People do not well perceive or understand Our Author Baxter Pag. 38. is so moved with the Considerations as he there says That in their own low Concerns a Fox or a Dog nay even an Ass or a Goose have such Actions as we know not well how to ascribe to any thing below some kind of Reasoning or Perception of the same importance Whence he infers That the Difference betwixt Men and Beasts is rather in the Objects and Work of our Reason than in our Reason it self as such and that therefore the old difference of Man from Beast in the Word Rationale should be changed into Religiosum That Mans Genus shall be Animal still but his Characteristical Difference should be changed from Rationale to Religiosum We say further That in the Beasts there is a Sensitive Soul of a Flamy Airy Nature a Material Spirit extracted from the Blood and Humours of the Body actuated by Natural Heat and that Flammula Vitalis which pervades their whole Bodies and every part member and parcel of them passing with their blood into all places whither that can come This Spirit it is that directs and actuates the Motions works by the Senses forms the Voices imagines remembers and understands in the Head inlivens and moves the Heart and by which all other Faculties of the Beasts are stirr'd actuated put upon and supported in their Natural Imployments and Duties performed according to the Natural Operations of Spirits with great Mettle Quickness and Imperceptibility and this seems to be the State and Composition of the Beasts Whence we argue That all that is thus found in Beasts and by them performed springs from the motions and actings of a Material Spirit and the force and power of a Natural Flame What hinders then but that a Material Spirit in Man may as well perform the same productions in Body and Mind of those of his Kind and Species both his Motions Senses Affections Imagination Memory and Intellect and all his other Faculties with some more advantage in the degrees of them by how much the Spirits are more pure and subtil in the Humane Bodies the matter more fine and copious the receptacles of them large and the Organs every where properly fitted and terminating the product and performance to the Effect for which by the Creator they were intended and appointed and we conclude in Affirmative that it is likely to be so in very deed But in answer thereunto our Opposers bring in their lately delivered Assertion calculated as we have said and set on foot for such a time as this Viz. That Beasts do not perform their Functions of the Senses Affections Phantasie Memory and Intellect their Local Motion or any of them by the acting or energy of a Material Spirit But they soberly say Beasts are indowed with and actuated by an Immaterial Self-subsisting Spirit which pre-existed before it came into the Body of the Beast and shall subsist by it self after the death and corruption of its Body They do but say this without making or offering any Proof at all of it And one of their Associates in Opinion pinch'd with this Argument of what the Beasts can and do perform in this Kind takes quite another way and manner of evading from under the force and pressure of it Sir K. Digby to shew us there are more ways to the Wood than one takes a Course directly contrary to that of our fore-cited Authors for he fol. 205. and thence to 210. would perswade us and demonstrate as he says That Beasts are not to be esteemed so much as Voluntary Agents or that they have so much as the knowledge of what they do or why they do it but that they act stupidly by a natural sense of Heat and Cold and the density and rarity of their Blood and Members that they are meer Automata without so perceiving by their senses as to distinguish one thing from another He tells us That in his youth he saw two Machines the one at Toledo for raising Water to a great heighth the other at Segovia both set on work by the Current of a River This was used for the Coining of Money and of these Machines he gives us there the Description and then he compares all sorts of Plants both great and small to his Water-Engine at Toledo and all Sensible Living Creatures to his Machine at Segovia They move and work as that Machine doth and they do things that are very proper and useful for their Natures and contrive and act things sometimes very artificial and curious as he says we see in Spiders Webs and Birds Nests But the Animals know not what it is they do but are prompted so to act by a temperament in their Bodies which makes them uneasie and restless until they do act and employ themselves according to a propensity which they have in Nature but they have as little choice or perceiving either why or what they do as his Machine at Segovia of which he relates many Useful and Artificial Practices continually performed without sense or knowledge of any thing that it did and this seems the single Truth of his fore-cited Assertions But he proceeds upon a like Design to many more folio's It seems evident that these two Opinions of our Opposers are directly contrary one of them to the other and yet are intended both for one same purpose viz. to invalidate such an Argument as might be raised from the Nature Power and Practice of a Sensitive Soul that might perswade to the belief of what hath been before asserted by us of the Rational Faculties and Duties being possible and likely to be acted and performed by a Material Spirit if either of the fore-cited Opinions were true it were enough to rebate the edge of such an Argument and to invalidate the force of it but with those who do not believe the truth of either of them they will be of no force at all to the purpose We confide there is no need to labour in the Confutation of either of them for that they will hardly be acccepted or agreed to by Men of Reading and Reason and that therefore our repeated Argument will be of force and continue unimpeachable by either of these Allegations Whence we are at liberty to proceed in our farther Inquiries concerning the Soul We find that Aristotle who lived about Two thousand years ago wrote a Treatise intituled Of the Soul divided into Three Books and those into Chapters the First Book into Nine and the other Two each into Twelve and he treats therein as we have done of all the Three Known Souls viz. The Vegetative the Sensitive and the Rational and calls his Work A History of the Soul and in the very entrance thereunto the First Chapter of it he tells us It is extream difficult to detect the Essence of any thing or the Quid sit Yet that is the most sound Principle of Knowledge if it can
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
not produce it and the same may be said for the Form viz. the Soul the Parents give it but they do not produce it This Answer seems clearly Concessive that the Parents generate the Soul as much and as effectually as they do the Body and more than that is not required by Sennertus or any other But our Friend insists Learn says he the Effects of Generation from those of our Dissolution our Death doth dissolve the Vnion of our Parts but it doth not destroy those Parts but only the Man whence as by Generation we become Men by Dying we cease to be so This also grants that all which perishes in Death was generated by the Parents The Body had a Time to get Life and grow and so it hath to putrifie and consume and the Soul began with Life in the Embrion and in the Body and it seems to extinguish in Death of the Body naturally or we desire to be yet scientifically instructed from Reason or Nature what it is and where it is or at least that it is and hath a Separate State and Subsistence of its own P. 43. He recites another Argument of Sennertus viz. If the Seed be not animated from the first Instant and then the Progenitor happen to die before the Time of Animation it might be truly said that a Dead Man did Genenerate He answers This Case is like one who puts Sparks of Fire amongst Fewel then leaves it and the Fire doth not take hold and burn till a good while after yet this Man is said to have made the Fire And we do agree the Similitude to be apt enough in this Case and that it seems to import The Seed is as much the Efficient of the whole Child as the Sparks put into the Fewel are of the Fire more than which hath not been demanded Our Friend says he hath chosen to contest this Point against Sennertus because that Doctor was a Man of great Worth and Substance And says he magnified his Wisdom greatly in Submitting his Opinion to the Divines worthy to be imitated herein by all other Men But that before hath been delivered doth sufficiently evince that there is a great Latitude and Difference of Opinions in the World Concerning this Writer of An. 1645. we may observe he had the Advantage of the Wren in the Fable who sate upon the Back of the Eagle and was carried by her into the Clouds and coming to the full Extent of the Eagles Height she put her self to the small Stretch of her own Wings and mounted above the Eagle by so much He had perceived the great Incongruities of continually newly created Souls and intended at mollifying them by assigning them a Regular Ordination as a Duty upon the Exigence of Nature This Course appears healing and helpful Posito that the Soul be Immaterial but it is no Manner of Proof that the Soul is so And if it be not so but only a Material Spirit then is there no need of this Invention and then it is as hath been said not only an Invention but a needless one And yet it testifies the Writer amongst his other Endeavours to have been a Person of Wit Learning and Consideration All the Authors presently in our Possession or Reach concerning the Soul have before been Cited and Considered viz. Four Foreign and Four of our own Later and Domestick Writers And concerning the Materiality or Immateriality of Humane Souls we may observe from that they have spoken that there are Two particular Queries or Questions the Determination of which will advance much towards the knowledge of the Souls Nature and Qualifications If One of them be proved or granted thence the Immateriality of the Soul may be strongly inferred and if the other be proved or granted thence may he as strongly inferred the Souls Materiality The First of these is held in the Affirmative by divers of our Authors viz. More Digby Zanchius and the Pamphlet of 1645 who do all expresly and often affirm That the Soul in Life-time of the Man doth at some times and in some cases act of and by her self without Aid or Ministry of the Body or its Organs or any Members or Powers of it If this Assertion have been proved or can or shall be proved We grant from the Conclusion a very strong Inference may be drawn for the Souls Immateriality agreeing the Truth of Aristotle's Assertion in his Treatise of the Soul Chap. 1. That if the Soul have any Operation or Affection peculiar to her self and wherein she can effectually Act without Use or Aid of the Body or the Members Organs or Spirits of it then it is very likely that she may also be capable of a Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body But says he If the thing be not so and Men fail in Proof of such a peculiar in the Soul certainly she cannot subsist in a State of Separation from the Body Our Authors for Proof of such a Peculiar in the Soul do alledge That the Soul can conceive Spiritual Beings and Universals Second or Abstracted Notions Logical Mathematical and Metaphysical Beings and Things which Matter is not very capable of nor that it can be Assistant to the Formation or Contemplation of such Conceptions In answer to which may be opposed the same Authors Assertions That whilst the Soul is in the Body she cannot act without the Animal or Vital Spirits of the Body and before hath been observed That the Soul cannot see but by the Eyes nor remember but in the Memory And these Organs and Faculties may be lost by Accident and yet the Soul remain perfect still but without Sight or Memory for want of the Bodily Organs and if the Intellect be crazed the Soul cannot understand but according to such Capacities as remain in the Organ and it seems the like may be said for all other Faculties of the Soul and Organs of the Body which infers the Soul cannot operate without the Spirits and Organs of the Body As to the Conceiving Spiritual Beings and Things it hath been said such Knowledge hath been derived from Revelations made to the Senses of some Men and their Testimony of them to other Men and for the Conceptions of Universals and Abstracted Notions it seems the Soul in the Intellect working Comparate and Abstractive by using the Joynt Powers of Intellect Phantasie and Memory and by composing and comparing what is found in them may well enough be able by abstracting them from Conceptions of Matter and Sense and sorting them first then ranking and comparing them the Soul by Joint Use of these Organs may naturally be able to raise Generals out of Particulars and from Generals ascend to Universals and so likewise raise abstracted Notions from the often Repetition and comparing Things first made known to them by the Senses We do not then agree that any of our Authors have proved that the Soul hath any Operation or Affection so peculiar to her self as that the Body
and therefore we are willing rather to be absent from this Body to have it changed into a Spiritual Body and therein to be present with the Lord And however in the one Body or in the other we labour present or absent to be accepted of God for we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ sooner or later that every Man Body and Soul may receive the Things done in his Body viz. when he was alive according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad And this seems to apply all that he had before spoken as designed a Relation to the Resurrection and the Last Judgment and not to make or afford any Proof of the Separate Subsistence of a Soul after Death of the Body Philip. 1.21 For me to live is Christ and to die is Gain what I shall chuse I wot not for I am in a strait between two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the Flesh is more needful for you This sounds as if upon Death of the Body something were still left in such a State and Being as should immediately thereupon go to be with Christ and this can be no other but the Man's Soul subsisting in a State of Separation We read Rev. 14.13 Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord for they rest from their Labours and their Works do follow them 2 Tim. 1.10 Christ abolished Death and brought Life and Immortality to Light through the Gospel Whence Death now to the Godly is but a Sleep or Resting in Christ Acts 7.60 Stephen cried Lord lay not this sin to their charge and when he said this he fell asleep 1 Cor. 15.6 Christ risen was seen of five hundred Brethren of whom then some were fallen asleep Ver. 18. If there be no Resurrection then they who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished Ver. 51. We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed 1 Thess 4.15 We who are alive at our Lord 's coming shall not prevent them who are asleep Ver. 14. But those who sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him 2 Thess 1.6 It is righteous with God to recompence Tribulation to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled Rest with us when Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels seems this Rest with us must be future to this World and most likely in Death Heb. 4.3 We who have believed do enter into Rest Ver. 9. There remains a Rest to the People of God Ver. 10. A ceasing from our own Works as God did from his and we must labour to enter into this Rest seems properly a Dying in the Lord. And Job testifies There the weary are at Rest Upon the Evidences thus quoted by us it seems our Proving Text may be construed in this manner I know that to die is Gain and for me to depart out of this world and to be at rest in Christ and in expectation of a joyful Resurrection is far better but for me to abide in the Flesh is more needful for you And this Consideration puts me into a Strait between two Things so as what I shall chuse I wot not and doubtless it is better and far more easie and desirable for a godly Man to sleep and be at rest in Christ than to be in the Troubles Temptations and Persecutions of this World as S. Paul was when he was in it Daniel 12.13 the Angel says to him Go thy way till the End be for thou shalt rest and stand in the Lot at the End of the Days And this hath been the Lot of the Godly in all Ages and the Wisdom of the World hath been able to teach that the Day of a Man's Death is better than that of his Birth and if generally how much better then must it needs be for a good Christian to depart and be at rest in Christ Lying down in a sure Faith and stedfast Hope of a joyful Resurrection when the Lord himself shall defend from Hevean with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and the Trump of God for then the Dead in Christ shall rise first and be caught up into the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Air and so shall they ever be with the Lord. What Earthly Thing can be compared with such a State so much Joy and so great an Assuranee No wonder then that our Apostle calls his Death a Gain being then in a Condition so to die and so he continued as he says 2 Tim. 4.7 I have kept the Faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that Day and not to me only but unto them also that love his Appearing But it seems he did not expect it before that Day the Day of Christ's Second Coming to reward every Man according to his Works And we conclude the Apostle in our Proving Text intended rather a going to rest in Christ than a going into Heaven to him in the State of a Separated Soul Heb. 12.22 Ye are come to an innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of just Men made Perfect to God the Judge and to Jesus the Mediator and to the heavenly Jerusalem Some have raised an Argument of the Souls Separate Subsistence from this Text. The Words Ye are come in the present Tense spoken unto living People cannot be literally intended unless the Words be intended of the Doctrine viz. You are come to a Gospel or Doctrine which teaches to believe and expect such Things in future Times or you are come to such Things in Faith which is the Evidence of Things not seen better things than appeared at Mount Sinay So 2 Pet. 3.12 Look for and haste unto the Coming of the Day of God wherein all shall be burnt up as in Noah 's Time it was drowned But we look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwells Righteousness And seeing ye look for such Things what manner of Persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness without spot and blameless This expounds how we come to the Heavenly Jerusalem viz. to that Doctrine Faith and Expectation to be fulfilled and enjoyed at the Coming of the Day of God without any mention at all of a Soul in the State of a Separate Subsistence or discoverable Intention concerning it 1 Pet. 3.19 Christ was quickned in the Spirit by which also he went and preached unto the Spirits in Prison when Noah prepared the Ark. To this we say the Text is very mystical and obscure and so every Part and Sentence of it And what is here meant by the Spirits in Prison or the Preaching to them we humbly confess Ignorance and that we do not know Therefore the Text and Consequences of it shall be left to Consideration of the more Learned better versed in the Writings of Fathers and Commentators but till the Meaning of it
Holy Ghost were examinable and being examined would firmly abide that Test all of it tended to Humility Piety Charity and Works esteemed good amongst Men and though the Mystery of it soared above Humane Reason and Comprehension yet they were not inconsistent with or contrary to the same For the Signs following they were very great and undoubted and very many not here to be recounted The Auditors convinced by all these Considerations might and did believe the Mysteries and accept and practise the Doctrines of Christian Religion upon good and convincing Grounds Natural and Rational and without any good or plain Reason to account them Foolishness The Men who then primely taught these Doctrines to Natural Men of their Times wrote them after for the Use of future Times and Ages and they being dead now speak to us by those Writings and still teach and convince the Natural and Rational Persons of our Times as they did those of their own to believe this great Mystery of the Redemption and other Mysteries of of our Religion and they did then and do still prevail over their Proselites to these Purposes even as they are Reasonable and Natural Men and without requiring or perceiving any eminent Motions or evident Operations of the Spirit in such Cases more than such as we have before specified and termed ordinary amongst Christians not to be evidently perceived by Motions and Operations but are as certainly to be known by the Fruits Effects and Products of it in the Course and Tenor of the Professors Lives And by this Application as to a dictum secundum quid we pretend to have avoided the extravagant Inferences deducible from this Text of St. Paul if it should pass for a dictum simpliciter we have fixed it to the most early Times of the Gospel as intended for them only and not reasonably to be generally or any farther extended and thus shall be ended our Exposition of this Text. And we proceed to other Texts fit and needful to be solved by applying them to the ordinary Effects of God's Spirit amongst Christians of our own and all former Ages Rom. 8.9 If any Man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his This we apply to the ordinary Operation of God's Spirit in Believers appearing in the Fruits of a holy Life Ver. 14. As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Ver. 26. The Spirit helps our Infirmities viz. this ordinary tacite Operation of the Spirit but that Spirit which makes Intercession for us with Groanings seems not within us but external to us 1 Cor. 3.16 Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you viz. in the ordinary Manner Chap. 12.13 We are all baptized and have been all made to drink into one Spirit This Spirit intends a Spirit external to us and our own Baptism and Communion Galat. 4.6 God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your Hearts crying Abba Father viz. God's Spirit in ordinary Manner Chap. 5.25 If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit This is clear in it self to intend ordinary Operation Eph. 5.18 Be not drunk with Wine but be filled with the Spirit viz. live according to the ordinary Directions of God's Spirit soberly as well as righteously and godly in this present World These Texts and their like we expound by applying them to the ordinary Operation of God's Spirit in Believers not easily or likely to be discovered by the Parties themselves or by any other except only by the Fruits of a holy Life and godly Conversation Where these really are and appear plainly there is the Spirit of God the true Root and Original of them And where these do not appear and really are not there certainly the Spirit of God is not be the Leaves of Profession never so large fair or flourishing and though they make never so much Noise and Clatter when they are moved with such Winds of Doctrine and Trial as happen to blow upon them There is no doubt but that the ordinary Operations of God's Spirit are dispensed in divers Degrees of more or less Strength and Perfection Nor but that God can and will when he pleaseth in any present or future Times as well as the Primitive give and distribute to whom he pleases such eminent and perceptible Endowments of his Holy Spirit as he did to the Apostles and Disciples of their Times But we do not or will or cannot yet believe that so he hath done doth or will do without accompanying the same with such Signs following as shall plainly distinguish the Persons and give them an Esteem superior to that of other Men. 2 Cor. 12.12 Truly the Signs of an Apostle were wrought amongst yon in Signs and Wonders and mighty Deeds And whosoever shall lay Claim to the eminent powerful and perceptible Endowments of God's Spirit without those or the like Signs which did in Primitive Times accompany the same will it seems deserve and find very little Credit or Acceptance amongst Considerate Persons at this Day And we have thus done with our Considerations of the ordinary Operation of God's Spirit upon Believers As an Appendix to which we may observe that God is pleased to communicate the Assistances of his Spirit operating in Men upon Worldly Occasions and Accounts as well if not as much as in Occurence concerning Matters of Religion and in the Ordinary and Natural Manner before declared illuminating Mens Understandings and their Faculties of Perception inclining their Judgments and their Wills regulating their Affections and Passions elevating and perfecting their Natures Exod. 31.3 I have called by Name Bezaluel and have filled him with the Spirit of God in Wisdom and Vnderstanding Knowledge and all manner of Workmanship Ver. 6. So for Aholiab and other Men of Art I have put Wisdom in them that they may make all that I have commanded thee These Men had learnt their Arts and Trades in Egypt but the Spirit of God gave them further Degrees of Illumination and farther Perception concerning them than they had before attained directing to a more perfect and ready Practice than had been usual to them before like as in Matters of Religion the ordinary Operations of God's Spirit appear Things which People have read or heard before without a right Understanding or a true Feeling are by such Operation of the Spirit cleared up to them and fixed in their Hearts so as to intend the Observance of them introducing into them an Aversion from Evil and an earnest Desire to do Good and a Joy of Heart in the Performance also they may perceive Practices of Piety grow more easie to them both in Points of Learning and Performance These are evident Signs of God's Spirit present and working although no perceptible Motion be felt nor any other Evidence of the Presence of God's Spirit And no Testimony is given that these Artists did perceive or find
and kept glowing in Man and Beast none of which can continue living without it Some have lived a long time without Food in great Distempers or Maladies but Breath failing or being stop'd for some sew moments the Flame of Life is thereby Suffocated and Extinguished and that Extinguishment is Death and nothing can then restore this Flame once totally extinguished in all parts of the Body but such an Animating Breath to enkindle it not to be imparted by any Power lets than Divine which first breathed it into Adam's Nostrils This Breath or Spirit Eccles 3. Solomon argues upon and says Who knows the Spirit of a Man that goes upward and the Spirit of a Beast that goes downward to the Earth who knows that there is that difference between them And if the one go no more upward then the other goes downward to the Earth it seems there should be neither one nor other in the Case for plain and agreed it is that the Spirit of Beasts extinguisheth in Death and therefore goes no whither not downward to the Earth and so for the Man to me it seems his Spirit also extinguisheth and goes no whither therefore not upward so as Solomon's Expressions both in this Text and that of Chap. 12. seem delivered by him according to common Opinion Like Moses Gen. 1.16 concerning God's making two great Lights Solomon Chap. 12. is describing the Degrees and Ceremonies of Peoples Departure in Death and concludes The Body returns to the Earth whence it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it Moses had taught That God breathed into Adam the breath of Life and when the Man died it was the common Opinion and perhaps might seem true to him that such animating Breath or Spirit returned to God who gave it to Man at the first but there seems not Reason enough to conceive that Solomon intended by this short Sentence to teach a Separate Subsistence of the Soul of Man after Death of the Body And it seems to me spoken transciently and according to common Opinion rather than with an intent to teach or establish that Doctrine 2. A Second Argument to prove that this Text was not intended for a Teaching Direction may be taken from the generality of ' its Expression viz. The Spirit shall return to God who gave it It seems the Spirit of man is an Indefinite Expression and aequipollent to an Universal as if be had said All Humane Souls return to God who gave them for all have a like dependance upon him the bad as well as the good Numb 16.22 Moses calls God the God of the spirits of all flesh and Dan. 5.23 he tells Belshazzar The God in whose hand thy breath is haft thou not glorified I suppose you will not deny that all Spirits have a like dependance upon him and that he is the Giver of them all alike to the bad as well as to the good Whence by the words and sense of Solomon's Text they should all go alike to God the one as well as the other But this is disagreeable both to Heathen Christian Mahometan and other Religions The Heathen sent their better Souls into Elisium and their bad ones before Minos and other severe Judges of Hell to receive their Sentences and so Cato Diverso itinere malos à bonis they had several ways to go and places for Souls to go to commonly three viz. Heaven Hell and a Purgatorium So had many of the Heathen as the Platonists so have at present the Mahometans and the Papists The Reformed Churches acknowledge but two places for Souls after Death viz. Heaven and Hell And the General Opinion amongst them is That all Departed Souls go immediately either to one of these places or to the other but that the number of bad Souls going to places of Torment do very much exceed those who go to God and Heaven Our Lord shews plainly when he says The way is narrow and the gate strait that leads to life and few there be that find it but the other way and gate are broad and wide and many go in and into them viz. all who do not hit the narrow way and strait gate So as those who go to the Devil do very much exceed in number those who go to God according to their own Opinions Hence Solomon's Text The Spirit returns to God or all Humane Spirits return to God who gave them cannot hold true in your own Sense or Separately Subsisting Souls but seems to be a great mistake and very far out of the way A part of the Academick School held an Opinion punctually agreeing with this Text of Solomon viz. That all Souls and particularly the Humane were Sparks and Particles of God emaning from him for the animation of his Creatures upon whose Death those Souls returned again to God and became united to him as before and thus the Spirit returns precisely to God who gave it but thereby the Individuation of such Souls must needs be destroyed as Rivers after their falling into the Sea or Drops into a quantity of Water though they are still Water yet they are no more Drops nor Rivers So Humane Spirits thus returning to God who gave them should be still Spiritual in their being but are not Souls Separately subsisting That the greater number of Mankind by far go into Perdition I have no doubt and how then all Souls or Spirits given by God do return to him I am not yet able to understand but desire to receive your Instructions thereupon 3. A Third Argument in Opposition to your Proof by this Text may be drawn from other Texts of Scripture importing to the contrary of it Solomon himself Eccles 11.8 just before your Proving Text says Remember the days of darkness for they shall be many This thwarts the Separate Souls going presently to Heaven for then the Man would have no dark days at all Job 14.12 Man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more This say I cannot be intended of the Body only for that is not the Man but if there be a State in Separation the Soul must be the Man Nam forma dat esse rei Whence it seems That if the State of a Separate good Soul were such as is generally supposed the Man cannot properly be said to die at all Solomon's Father Psalm 49. Observes That even such amongst Men as attain to Honour have not so much Understanding as to exempt them from being compared unto or being like the Beasts that perish viz. in their Natural state But God hath given to Men a full assurance of a Resurrection which he hath not given to the Beasts Solomon Eccles 3. compares them in like manner Jud. 15.19 Sampson ready to die for thirst God clave an hollow place that was in the Jaw-bone out of which Water proceeded and when he had drunk his Spirit came again and he revived So 1 Sam. 30.11 12. The Servants of David found an Egyptian in the Field
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
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
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