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
in us to will and to do by those Ordinary Operations before described improving our Reason to a right Apprehension and Understanding of them and our Discretion to a right Choice and Practice St. Paul tells his Corinthians I speak as unto wise Men judge ye what I say He doth not refuse the Judgment arising from the Reason or Wise Men. Let Men now tell a Quaker what the Words of Scripture are and what Consequence from thence must reasonably and necessarily follow his Answer is ready He cares not what either of them says for he hath a Light within him the very Holy Spirit of God which tells him and witnesseth with his Spirit That all which he believes and professes is true and the only salutary Way for his Soul and so for all other Mens if God will please to communicate to them the like Perceptible Illuminations and Special Impulses of his Holy Spirit which the World doth not cannot receive nor can the Natural Man do it but such Things are to him direct Foolishness and he cannot know them because they are Spiritually discerned and cannot be so by Reason or any Humane Power or Means whatsoever Now whil'st this Man is thus certainly perswaded in his own Mind and that he who is Spiritual viz. endowed with such Light within him judgeth all things and yet himself is judged of no Man nor will submit himself to be so He seems to be past all Conviction or Cure by reasonable Remedies or Applications having thus passed beyond the Bounds of Humane Reason and Scripture he is become excentrick to all Humane Perswasion and Government and as incurable Phreneticks must be born withal so far as their Phantasies are only detrimental to themselves And it we may place all other Dependers upon Perceptible Extraordinary Motions of God's Spirit in a Form or Classis next below them differing in the Degrees of a like Infirmity all holding the same Original Ground and growing from the same Root and defending themselves in the same Fortresses and by like Weapons only the first Sort have passed to a farther Degree in the Distemper than the rest have hitherto done We must leave them upon this Account to the great Power of God who only can and in his Time may and perhaps will give them Convictions in a miraculous and powerful Manner and really such as they do now but pretend unto The Distemper it seems hath grown from the ill Digestion of some of St. Paul's Expressions wrested by Men both unlearned and unstable as other Scriptures may be to the Perverting if not the Destruction of themselves and their Proselites and to the great Disturbance of the Protestant Churches Pag. 278. Says God's Cures by his Spirit are wrought with great Pangs of Repentance I say That upon every notorious Sin committed these are rational and necessary Consequences as well at last as at first and no more to be enquired after in Youth than in Age nor in one Part of a Man's Life than in another But such Carriage ought to be both expected and performed whensoever there is a just and reasonable Cause for the so doing Pag. 280. Says God is all in all things It may pass for a Cloudy Expression And we agree That God and Christ are what Christians acknowledge and adore Also that we are generally under the ordinary Guidance of God's Spirit and are thereby led into all Truth directed therein by the Scriptures confirmed by Sacraments instructed and excited by sound Teaching and the Acts of God's Providence amongst us for us towards us the Convictions of Humane Reason and our sound Senses and the like usual and common Manuductions for establishing of our Faith and perfecting the Practice and due Performances of a holy Life That God can do this by eminent and perceptible Emotions of his Spirit in a Supernatural and Miraculous Manner is granted and certain And this was common in the Church during all the Time of St. Paul's Life But that God doth still continue those Supernatural Actings in his Church ordinarily and at this Day hath been and will be continually denied and that none can be saved who do not feelingly perceive in themselves such Impulsions or Emotions of God's Spirit working in them to such Purposes we not only deny but do condemn and explode as a great Instrument of Deceipt and a most pernicious Error Pag. 291. Says The Christian Church needs no Testimony of Miracles of new Upon this I demand What these Eminent and Perceptible Emotions of the Spirit are to be counted Natural they are not as their Defenders assert and we agree therefore they are Preternatural or Supernatural and they pass for Acts of the later Sort whensoever they do happen And our Opposers maintain they are very frequent and ought not only to be Common but Universal amongst Christians amongst whom every one should have a Taste and Feeling of them and consequently a daily Exhibition of New Miracles Pag. 308. Says Many of his Friends Holy Persons are gone to Heaven and that is spangled with these Spiritual Stars the Place is honoured with them and they with it We think our dead Friends are almost lost to us till the Heavenly Spirit tell us where they are and prepare us to desire our being there Observe from hence we may what our Author means by his Term of Heavenly Spirit viz. his own and his Followers eager and hot Phantasy or Conceipt For if he had obtained any Perceptible Spiritual Revelation concerning his dead Friends or any one of them we do very much assure our selves he would have made us acquainted with it For his Expression That Heaven is honoured with the Presence of the holy Persons his dead Friends it tastes of an arrogant Conceipt not warranted by Scripture or Reason but sutable to his Spiritual Vehemencies and Impulses Pag. 348. Says It is the Will of God that the Ministry and Testimony of Man shall be a Means of our Believing and he will use Man for the Instruction and Salvation of Man and not send Angels with every Message To this we agree and say the Perceptible Actings of God's Spirit may be as rare as the Ministry of Angels in our Times Page 353. Says Grace is not a Brutish Principle but works by Reason having also its natural inclining Force We account this Expression as one of our own extracted from him by inadverted Power of Truth Pag. 359. All true Believers are justified that consent to the Baptismal Covenant chusing God for their God Christ for their Saviour and the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier though this be done with so great Weakness as neither ends Mens Doubts nor quiets their Minds It seems the Perceptible Actings of the Spirit are wanting in such Cases and he seems either to have forgot or to distrust the Necessity of that Assistance Pag. 368. Says The Soul hath no distinct Idea of its Future State out of the Body and we see not whither it is that we must go
by something in us and that is some Substance and this we call the Soul it is not nothing and it is within us Thus he tells us a Humane Soul is an Immortal Spirit That being denied he neither proves it nor offers to do it but instead thereof he offers Proof that it is a substance for says he it moves and acts within us and it is not nothing This we grant but take it for no proof at all of the separated subsistance of a Soul for the Heart Brain Blood and Spirits and Breath are continually moving and acting within us and each of them are substances but have no subsistance in their Motions separate from the Body but all Die with it and so may that which is called by the names of Soul or the Form of a Humane Body or the Vital Principle of it Pag. 14. He Confesses That God is the continued First Cause of all Beings and that the Branches and Fruit depend not as effects so much upon their Causes the Roots Stocks and Branches as the Creature doth upon God whence it seems clear That God can make an Automaton moving and living by ways which Men may not be able to find out or understand and perhaps the Life and Actings of Animals may be such a Secret and because Men cannot find out how the Blood Spirits Nerves Arteries Veins Muscles and other Vital Parts are acted or moved nor the adequate or precise manner how they are all Excited and Actuated by that Flame and Glowing of that which is called the Flammula Vitalis not quite extinguished in Animals but with the Life how by the Unctuous Spirits rising from the Blood Urine and Humours of the Body this Flame is perpetually nourished and maintained and fanned and kept alive by continual and lively respiration nor how the Spirits raised and kindled in and about the Heart mount continually to the Head where in the Brain and the Ventricles of it and Motion or Conveyance of the Arteries thereunto belonging the Common Sense is furnished and excited to Act upon all Objects presented and to Lodge them in the Phantasie and the Memory whence they may be recalled and presented again to the common Sensorium or Judicial Power that it may consider them better or work with them or upon them as far as its own Capacity or Intellect can advance it self in the Powers and Practices of Arts and Sciences Such things we find are transacted and done in the Brain and Body of Man and we cannot pervestigate with any exactness how by the Vital Parts and Spirits of the Body such effects are particularly and properly Produced and this is more hard to be done because Men can never Compass the sight of a Dissected Body in the full Life Vigour and Motion of the Blood Spirits Humors Parts and Members of it but must be content with the view of them all Dead Cold Clammed whence they may have good pretences to conclude it very unlikely that the Powers of Sense Phantasie Intellect and Memory should be Actuated by such Materials or the Conjunction or Operation of them not enough considering that the Flamula Vitalis which is the Acter and Life of them all is extinguished before the beholders can be admitted to the sight and consideration of the Vital or Principal Parts of a Dissected Body And yet it seems from this want of Conception how the Parts and Spirits of the Body do or after what manner they can Act after and in performance of the Faculties of Sense Motion Intellect Phantasie Memory c. Men take their Principal or even only Reason to Introduce or Invent a Forreign Government and Governor for every Animal or at least Humane Body viz. a Spiritual Substance as our Author calls it Pure Invisible Immortal others add Indiscerptable and it will not be Difficult for Men to add and ascribe to it whatsoever their fancies happen to Invent in Cases where we can never expect to have any likely Trial of the Truth but this savours of expounding Obscurum per Obscurius or the stopping one Hole and making many Wherefore as to our not conceiving how the Animal Parts can Work and Act all those Parts which we know are performed amongst us wee seem to have ground enough to refer them to the Power and Will of our Creator That he can by such means effect all Mens performances no Man makes doubt and to many and learned Persons it seems likely that he hath done so and for those who meerly upon the fore-named reason will take the boldness to impose a Super-Humane or Spiritual Empire upon the Bodies of all Men we request them to take as the Acter or Imposer ought to do upon themselves the Onus Probandi and that they first prove to us concerning the Power intended by them to be Introduced amongst and over us which they call an Immortal Spiritual Substance 1. Quod sit 2. Quid sit 3. Quale sit 4. Quando Ingreditur 5. Vbi residet 6 Quomodo gubernat agit viz. That there is in Nature such a Humane Soul able to subsist in Seperation from the Body 2. What it is in its own Nature and whether it do pre-exist a Mundo condito or be derived ex Traduce from the Seed of the Parents or that Infundendo Creatur be Created by Gods Power upon every Fruitful Copulation 3. With what Qualities such Souls are indowed whether they are all well inclined or some ill or meeterly Whether all are of like Power or some more others less potent Whether they may cause or can help or hinder any Bodily Pains or Diseases Whether they can leave their usual place of Residence and go into other Parts of the Body or go quite out of it a wandring in the World and yet return to it again Whether they feel share of the Bodies Maladies and will not willingly consent to have Limbs cut off or to take strong Purges or Vomits for fear of being disturbed in their places of Residence Whether they are more pleased or have a greater desire to be in the Body or out of it Whether the Body be as a Prison to Souls and they be confined to it or that they chuse to be there and leave it unwillingly And if they be there confined by what Power or means are they so and what other Qualities of Souls they think fit to communicate to us 4 When it is that the Soul enters into the Body Whether before or after the Births and if before then how long after the Conception Whether it enter in its full Dimensions or grows larger as the Child grows or suffer detriment by sickness of the Body or its Consumption or Age Also when it leaves the Body finally Whether its leaving do kill or that it stay till the Flamula Vitalis be quite extinct and the Body dead Or If this Flame be suddenly extinct by the violent motion of a blow upon the Head Whether doth the Soul strive to re-kindle this Flame or
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
help of other Circumstances of Time Place or Persons c. This we leave as doubtful Pag. 740. There are in Animals Three Sorts of Motion 1. Vital 2. Commanding or Stimulating 3. Prosecuting or Endeavouring That Commanding Force is in the Sensitive Appetite from whence all our Affections do arise and they reign and command in Animals Beasts and Men as Animal and act to Motion the whole Body or the several Members of it The Prime Vital Motion is that of the Pulse placed in the Heart the Seat of Life and Vital Motion acted by the Soul Pag. 741. The Actors in this Motion are the Inward Heat and Spirits viz. the Vital Spirits When this Motion ceases all Animals die and the Vital Spirits vanish But says he it doth not therefore follow that the Soul dies If he had proved or shall prove that there is a Soul in Man which did ever live doth live or can live in Separation from the Body we will admit of this Caution of his and not infer Death of such a Soul by the Ceasing of this Vital Motion in the Body Palpitations of the Heart agitated by the Affections and the Faculty of Respiration are also Vital Motions Appetive commanding Motion Pag. 724. is Vegetative Sensitive and Intellective It consists in prosecuting things liked and avoiding things disliked with Passion or at Leisure cites Matth. 15. They all proceed from the Heart and have their Rise from the Affections although many Causes may work in and upon them viz. Complexion of the Body Education Conversation Examples Doctrines c. their general Aspect is upon Pleasure or Pain to follow or avoid the Vigor of their Motion grows from Lust Wrath and Fear or present outward Sense greatly affected the Affections are not ill in themselves but useful helpful necessary for nothing is from God or Nature which is not Good the Evil which they produce is but by Accident Pag. 744. The Prosecutive Power lies in Local Motion This hath its Root in the Brain whence the Nerves and their Power and Motion are derived animated and enlivened by Spirits from the Heart This says he Galen teaches who is in that Point to be preferred before any other Testimony But it seems both he and Hyppocrates his Master were mistaken concerning Man's Compages of Body and Soul if our Author fall out to be right The Powers moving the Nerves and in them are the Vital and Animal Spirits and thence Motion is derived to the Muscles Bones Joints and every Member These Spirits which are partly Corporeal and partly quasi Incorporeal or Spiritual excited by the Soul omitting how or by what Means these Spirits move and guide the Nerves which are like Reins to the whole Body and they quicken and guide the Muscles and the small Cords or Strings which reach to them By these are the Bones Joints and Members of the Body moved And thus the moving Power of the Soul prosecutes the Mandates of the Appetite and Affections this seems a weak or foolish Sort of Soul that will or must use its Motive Powers to satisfie those Affections which drive to Action against the Will and Dictates of the Soul it self Whence we conclude it more likely that all these Motions are Natural and Animal that Intellect or Reason is one Natural Faculty in Man and that it is Chief and hath a Priority of Order and Power in him that Sense and the Affections are another Natural Faculty in Man and that Vital Inclinations and Powers of Vegetation are another Natural Faculty in him not divided by so many Souls but that one Soul serves all these Faculties viz. that Flaming Spirit or Principle of Life Motion and Action first breathed into Man by his Creator and once quite extinguished can never be again rekindled but from Heaven by miracle A Vital Spark or Origine of this Fire likely may be kindled in Heat of Coition lodged in the Matter by Ordinance of Nature and her Director This hath its appointed Natural Times and Means first of Vegetation and Motions then of Sense and Affections and lastly of Intellect and Reason The Matter Shape and Organs of the Body do by Degrees enlarge themselves and grow and they increase the Blood and Humors which nourish continually the Vital Active Flame whence the Increaseof Body and Soul goes on together till they arrive to their Fullness of Stature Proportions and Activities and in Ordinary Course of Nature they grow stand and decay together This Active is the Motive Principle enlivening and quickening all Man's Faculties to act according to their Natural Powers Propensities and Appointments If any Organ or Part of Matter be out of Order this Active Power not being Rational but in the proper Place for that Faculty cannot remedy that Want but can only put on to Action all that is in the Body fit for it inclining and helping them to and in the Actions that are proper or peculiar to them in the Heart the Primum Vivens and most Vital Part of the Body This Flame and Heat is most Predominant and Intense there the Blood is purified and ratified and refined there the Vital Spirits are generated and thence they are dispersed to several Parts of the Body but chiefly to the Head In the Heart therefore we place the Chief Seat of Life and Vegetation for whose Defence each other Part will be ready to expose it self knowing and feeling that the Loss of that Fort destroys the Microcosm The Place of next Value to this but of much greater Activity is the Head for there reside the Senses both Internal and External and there resides also the Rational Faculty viz. the Intellect and the Judgment so as these two Faculties of Sense and Reason are very close and near Borderers upon one another and although our Author go with the Stream of deriving Mens Affections all from the Senses therein seems to be an apparent Mistake for as we do allow to the Intellect a Will as well as to the Senses an Appetite so there must be allowed to Reason a Power of making and gaining the Affections of equal or greater Potency and Might then that which is attributed to the Senses Whence in Contests betwixt Reason and Sense or Will and Appetite that Part which prevails upon the Affections must be Victor over the other for the Affections stirred and gained excite move and sway the Heart which is drawn and bent by them to resolve and execute accordingly and there appears no such Difference between the Prevalency of either of these Faculties as that Men can determine which doth oftnest prevail or which of them is naturally endowed with the most strong and prevalent Power each have a Power in some Persons more than in others and in all Persons more at one Time or upon one Occasion then upon another In no Persons naturally doth the Stream run one Way but as S. Paul says 'T is not of willing or running but God gives the Victory perhaps often But
Fol. 156. N. 2. Cites those who do not agree to this N. 3. He disputes this Point Fol. 174. N. 23. Says The Will depends upon Knowledge both in its Executions and Omissions Fol. 195. N. 4. The Will intending to Execute cannot compare the Mediums by which it shall work make its own Choice of them but the Intellect must compare the Mediums by which Execution may be made And then it seems doubted whether still the Will may chuse which Medium it will use in the Execution Although that chosen seems to the Intellect less accommodate to the Execution intended Cites many Opinions that it cannot so chuse and many other Opinions N. 5. that it can Fol. 197. N. 14. Cites Tho. Aquinas saying The whole Reason and Power of Election lies in the Intellect or Judgment because that can only distinguish the Reason of things what is fit and likely and what not also which is more or less fit and apt and therefore the Will is determined to the Mediums of Execution as well as to the Acts of it And to this I agree intending that in both Cases it obeys the Judgment and is determined by it Fol. 200. N. 1. ad 6. Asserts a Liberty in Mankind to act freely he passes it under the Term of Free Will which we continue to express by Name of a Liberty of Judgment intending both Judgment and Will to be Powers or Acts of the Intellect but the Will of it self without Knowledge depends for its Direction upon the Resolution of the Intellect which is the Judgment All are acted by the same Spirit and therefore they cannot contest or disagree with one another And it seems the Links are thus knit and fastned the Soul in the Head incites or stirs assists and acts in the Organs there placed fitted and intended by God and Nature for the Exercise and Performance of Perceiving Reasoning Judging and Willing and all other Acts to a Humane Intellect belonging The Activity proceeds from the Soul but the Degrees of Perfection in Acting depends much upon the Matter of the Animal Spirits and fit Frame of the Organs found in that Region for if they be faulty the Soul cannot amend them nor act otherwise than according to their Capacities and to a greater or less Perfection accordingly We place the Judgment in the Supream Degree of Government and may term it the Result of the Rational Faculty upon which the Inclinations and Will are dependent and by which it seems they are naturally led and guided This Judgment is more or less perfect as the Animal Spirits are more or less pure and rectified and the Materials fine and plentiful and the Organs sound and sit and is capable of being advanced by outward or accidental Additions as by Education Learning Examples Experience and Practice and may be disadvantaged by the ill Temper of the Spirits or Paucity or Superfluity of them by a Discomposure or Distemper in Matter or by Unsoundness or Unfitness of any of the Natural and Necessary Organs to such Operations belonging also from outward Distempers and Diseases from ill Accidents as Education Examples Company Practice and like Unhappinesses If the Soul were an Immaterial Spark or Spirit it would seem more strange that it should be affected helped or hindred by outward Accidents as Infancy Diseases Old Age Learning Example Company and the like or that it should be opposed and over-ruled in Government by Affections and Passions which are believed to proceed from Flesh and Blood If the Intellect and all its Offices and Powers proceed from the Soul acting in the Regions and Organs appointed and proper for the Production of all its Performances and the Affections and Passions proceed from the same Soul acting in the Animal Parts or Inferior Regions and in the Organs appointed for the Production of such Faculties if both Sorts viz. Intellect and Affections be actually proceeding from the same Soul and equally radicated in it this Wonder must needs be the less That the continual Contest between them should be maintained in the Condition which we find it is sometimes one Sort prevailing and sometimes the other under the Natural Actings of a Soul which is equally productive of them both and doth not or cannot favour one of them more than the other and they seem planted in Man by Nature which is the Appointment of God as Opposite Powers swayed by the Judgment after a Paternal Regiment sometimes yielding to the Affections sometimes pacifying them and sometimes crucifying them and to such Degrees as to sacrifice the Body its Life and Members to the rigorous Resolution of the Judgment which Men have us'd to call a Wilfulness but it seems of a Will guided and rul'd by the Judgment and yet at its full and natural Freedom naturally determined by the Result of the Judgment Our Author says Freedom is a Power which having ready all Requisites for Acting may act or not act at its Pleasure Now upon weighing this Definition I do not find in Man such a Freedom by way of Regiment as will be thereto agreeable The Judgment is indeed at a full natural Freedom but it is not natural to the Judgment to act in Matters of Moment without a Consult of Reason in such Cases and then it cannot go from that which appears best for the Compositum all things then appearing considered It is true that in Trivial Matters which do not need or deserve a Consideration the Act may be so free as to be very incertain and to pass rather under the Name of Chance than Choice Fol. 205. N. 2. Some say the Liberum Arbitrium is a Moving Power distinct both from the Intellect and the Will Fol. 207. N. 12. He says It is a Power of Acting freely and able to determine it self This we say agrees fully to the Judgment and gives all Natural Liberty by that Medium to the Will Fol. 235. N. 8. The Brutes are capable of Habits and Actions that are not Natural to them and yet may be acquired and made easie to them by Exercise N. 9. The Cogitative Power may be cogently set at work by the Empire of Reason or Judgment and be determined by it The same which I have said for the Will Fol. 257. N. 1. Substances so Simple as that they do not consist of Matter and Form as Heaven Angels a Humane Soul and the Materia Prima because they cannot be produced by any Creature they have no Rules for their Specification or Things of a Specifical Nature with them Fol. 262. N. 2. Says The Soul must needs be Immortal for that else there could not be future Rewards and Punishments the great Inducements to a Holy and Civil Life and granting the Soul to be Immortal the Substance of it in a Separate State is Consequential This last I grant but not the first Fol. 259. N. 5. Cites the Lateran Council held by Leo X. where all are condemned who say the Soul is Mortal and it is commanded to all
Masters in Philosophy That they answer and solve all Arguments which may be alledged against this Tenet of the Immortality N. 7. He says Let the Learned search into the Reasons and Grounds of this Immortality which all confess to be taken principally from God's Special Providence for Rewarding the Good and Punishing the Wicked in a Future State N. 8. Goes on upon the same Ground N. 9. Mentions only that some do reason for it from Man's Capacity to apprehend Eternal Things and to desire and expect them but doth not insist upon such Arguments or so much as say that they are firm N. 1. He discourses concerning Powers and Acts of Souls Separated with little Assurance and says They have an Innate Inclination and Appetite again to inform and to be united to their proper Matter Upon this our Author we may observe a Love and Inclination to Truth somewhat constrained by the Duties of his Obedience and Profession and the Place of his Abode and Conversation but in Things not forbidden him he seems congruous enough to the Natural Truth and Reason of Things I met with a Pamphlet printed 1645. in English intituled The Prerogative of Man or The Souls Immortality the Author not named but learned full of Quotations concernining our present Point Page 9. He says The Old and Great Philosophers have agreed a Separate Subsistence of Souls And this I do not deny He cites Cicero Permanere Animos arbitramur But what they then are and whither they go we are yet to learn Pag. 13. Cites Marcus Aurelius Emperour As Bodies dying are turned to Earth and Dust by Degrees so Souls carried into the Air are liquified and conjoined to the great Soul of the World which says the Author is nothing but God Cites Tacitus In Vita Agric. If to Good Spirits there may be any Place remaining if Great Souls extinguish not with their Bodies may'st thou rest in Peace Cites Macrobius who after reciting sundry Opinions touching the Nature of the Soul concludes That the Opinion that it was Incorporeal and Immortal had prevailed over all the other Opinions And this we do easily grant Page 10. He grants Aristotle did not declare himself in this Point but thinks he forbore so to do because he knew not how to dispose of such Souls after Death Page 14. He says It imports little that Dicoearchus Aristoxenus Pherecrates Tertullian Sextus Empericus and some other Learned Men have thought the Soul to be Mortal for that some Philosophers have held very odd Opinions He says The Term of Soul is taken for an Exhalation of the Purer Blood sometimes for a Ruling Spiritual Intellect and sometimes for the Immaterial Immortal Part of Man Page 15. He says Increase or Diminution of Knowledge grow from the Difference Advantage or Alteration in the Organs and thence a Man understands better than a Child a Learned than an Illiterate and a Diligent better than a Negligent Person And this we agree to with this Addition That the Soul or Flame of Life hath its Vicissitudes as well as the Body and its Organs Page 16. He says Some Acts of the Soul are Independent of the Body and wholly Inorganical as divers Learned Authors have shewed This shews like an open Blot in his Tables for this Thing is the most precise Point in Issue Prove this and carry the Cause And that in this Point he should shuffle us off without offer of one Quotation or one Reason in Proof of his Assertion inferrs he could find nothing to say in it that was satisfactory to his own Reason or likely to satisfie other Inquisitive People P. 17. Says An Immortal Soul cannot be generated And therefore it is not dependent upon Matter or the Being of a Compositum And this would be true if the Thing were so viz. that Mans Souls were Immaterial but that still wants Proof and so the Argument proceeds ex non concessis He cites an Argument against his Opinion viz. The Anatomies of Men and Beasts shew their Bodies to be alike and their Senses Affections Memories Phantasies are found to be alike and they have each an Intellect and Common Sense some more and some less Perfect whence then can such Difference arise between them in Nature that the Souls of Beasts must be Mortal and those of Men Immortal And this carries the Sense of our former and main Objection and being put by our Author upon himself it seems he should make a Substantial Answer to it but all the Answer he gives is this viz. We do collect from the Operations of the Souls of Men and of Beasts That there is not only a Gradual but an Essential Difference between them and that their being like doth not prove them the same The last we grant and for what he will collect it may be what he pleases but need be no Rule to others But here is no Reason shewn why or wherefore he makes such a Collection nor how that must needs or can be so done P. 18. He offers as some Proof the Difference between the Faculties of Mens Sensual Affections and their Reasons Yet he doth not say a Man hath two Souls and that Affections proceed from one of them and Reason from the other but pretends an Essential Difference between the Faculties of the same Soul which seems absurd in Nature and he might with as good Reason say that Love and Hatred in Man should inferr a Specifical Difference in his Soul Pag. 25. He affirms Generation cannot produce a Humane Soul but argues ex non concessis supposing it Immaterial and then what he says is true But it begs the Point in Question and which will not be granted him P. 26. Says Reason cannot be generated no more can Sense But the Organs of both may be so and the Powers and Spirits that actuate them I but says he Reason and Judgment can and do at times act Inorganically This hath been said before but neither then nor now was nor is proved or offered to be so and therefore is not believed Pag. 26. Says Generation is not performed by Acts of Wit or Vnderstanding but those of Vegetation and Sense and a Soul doth not generate a Soul still supposing a Non supponendum that a Soul is Immaterial and separately subsisting but taking it for a Material Spirit the producing it by generation is easie and natural Pag. 27. It follows says he that because a Man doth not generate with his Mind but his Body therefore his Body is Corruptible and his Mind or Soul is Immortal It seems this needs no Answer Pag. 28. says The Learned Sennertus a famous Physician was moved by certain Reasons which he could not overcome to think the Soul is generated and that the Seed it self is animated with a Humane Soul as in the Case of the Beasts but this Physician and Justus Lipsius called before the Divines and told the Consent of Divines was to the contrary they declared their Resolutions to obey the Order of
not produce it and the same may be said for the Form viz. the Soul the Parents give it but they do not produce it This Answer seems clearly Concessive that the Parents generate the Soul as much and as effectually as they do the Body and more than that is not required by Sennertus or any other But our Friend insists Learn says he the Effects of Generation from those of our Dissolution our Death doth dissolve the Vnion of our Parts but it doth not destroy those Parts but only the Man whence as by Generation we become Men by Dying we cease to be so This also grants that all which perishes in Death was generated by the Parents The Body had a Time to get Life and grow and so it hath to putrifie and consume and the Soul began with Life in the Embrion and in the Body and it seems to extinguish in Death of the Body naturally or we desire to be yet scientifically instructed from Reason or Nature what it is and where it is or at least that it is and hath a Separate State and Subsistence of its own P. 43. He recites another Argument of Sennertus viz. If the Seed be not animated from the first Instant and then the Progenitor happen to die before the Time of Animation it might be truly said that a Dead Man did Genenerate He answers This Case is like one who puts Sparks of Fire amongst Fewel then leaves it and the Fire doth not take hold and burn till a good while after yet this Man is said to have made the Fire And we do agree the Similitude to be apt enough in this Case and that it seems to import The Seed is as much the Efficient of the whole Child as the Sparks put into the Fewel are of the Fire more than which hath not been demanded Our Friend says he hath chosen to contest this Point against Sennertus because that Doctor was a Man of great Worth and Substance And says he magnified his Wisdom greatly in Submitting his Opinion to the Divines worthy to be imitated herein by all other Men But that before hath been delivered doth sufficiently evince that there is a great Latitude and Difference of Opinions in the World Concerning this Writer of An. 1645. we may observe he had the Advantage of the Wren in the Fable who sate upon the Back of the Eagle and was carried by her into the Clouds and coming to the full Extent of the Eagles Height she put her self to the small Stretch of her own Wings and mounted above the Eagle by so much He had perceived the great Incongruities of continually newly created Souls and intended at mollifying them by assigning them a Regular Ordination as a Duty upon the Exigence of Nature This Course appears healing and helpful Posito that the Soul be Immaterial but it is no Manner of Proof that the Soul is so And if it be not so but only a Material Spirit then is there no need of this Invention and then it is as hath been said not only an Invention but a needless one And yet it testifies the Writer amongst his other Endeavours to have been a Person of Wit Learning and Consideration All the Authors presently in our Possession or Reach concerning the Soul have before been Cited and Considered viz. Four Foreign and Four of our own Later and Domestick Writers And concerning the Materiality or Immateriality of Humane Souls we may observe from that they have spoken that there are Two particular Queries or Questions the Determination of which will advance much towards the knowledge of the Souls Nature and Qualifications If One of them be proved or granted thence the Immateriality of the Soul may be strongly inferred and if the other be proved or granted thence may he as strongly inferred the Souls Materiality The First of these is held in the Affirmative by divers of our Authors viz. More Digby Zanchius and the Pamphlet of 1645 who do all expresly and often affirm That the Soul in Life-time of the Man doth at some times and in some cases act of and by her self without Aid or Ministry of the Body or its Organs or any Members or Powers of it If this Assertion have been proved or can or shall be proved We grant from the Conclusion a very strong Inference may be drawn for the Souls Immateriality agreeing the Truth of Aristotle's Assertion in his Treatise of the Soul Chap. 1. That if the Soul have any Operation or Affection peculiar to her self and wherein she can effectually Act without Use or Aid of the Body or the Members Organs or Spirits of it then it is very likely that she may also be capable of a Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body But says he If the thing be not so and Men fail in Proof of such a peculiar in the Soul certainly she cannot subsist in a State of Separation from the Body Our Authors for Proof of such a Peculiar in the Soul do alledge That the Soul can conceive Spiritual Beings and Universals Second or Abstracted Notions Logical Mathematical and Metaphysical Beings and Things which Matter is not very capable of nor that it can be Assistant to the Formation or Contemplation of such Conceptions In answer to which may be opposed the same Authors Assertions That whilst the Soul is in the Body she cannot act without the Animal or Vital Spirits of the Body and before hath been observed That the Soul cannot see but by the Eyes nor remember but in the Memory And these Organs and Faculties may be lost by Accident and yet the Soul remain perfect still but without Sight or Memory for want of the Bodily Organs and if the Intellect be crazed the Soul cannot understand but according to such Capacities as remain in the Organ and it seems the like may be said for all other Faculties of the Soul and Organs of the Body which infers the Soul cannot operate without the Spirits and Organs of the Body As to the Conceiving Spiritual Beings and Things it hath been said such Knowledge hath been derived from Revelations made to the Senses of some Men and their Testimony of them to other Men and for the Conceptions of Universals and Abstracted Notions it seems the Soul in the Intellect working Comparate and Abstractive by using the Joynt Powers of Intellect Phantasie and Memory and by composing and comparing what is found in them may well enough be able by abstracting them from Conceptions of Matter and Sense and sorting them first then ranking and comparing them the Soul by Joint Use of these Organs may naturally be able to raise Generals out of Particulars and from Generals ascend to Universals and so likewise raise abstracted Notions from the often Repetition and comparing Things first made known to them by the Senses We do not then agree that any of our Authors have proved that the Soul hath any Operation or Affection so peculiar to her self as that the Body
And it seems this Crying by the Souls was in the same manner as the Blood of Abel's Cying from the Ground against his Murtherer and as all Notable Actions good or bad do depend for Recompence upon the Effects of God's Divine Providence Justice and Power and so we leave it Luke 23.43 Christ says to one of the Crucified Thieves Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thorn be with we in Paradise This could not be performed in their Bodies for that our Lord's lay in the Grave till the Third Day therefore it must be fulfilled in their Souls separated from their Bodies To this Objection the Answer may have Two Parts First We quote Matth. 27.24 The Thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his Teeth And Mark 15.32 They that were crucified with him reviled him Both these Evangelists agree that they both the Thieves that were crucified with him reviled him S. Luke is commonly taken for the Pen-man of S. Paul by whom this Gospel is believed to have been dictated But neither of these are taken to have been Eye-Witnesses or that they were by and present at this Fact S. Mark is taken to write from the Mouth of S. Peter although it might possibly be from the Apostle S. Barnabas either of which Apostles were likely to be Eye-Witnesses of the Fact then done And S. Matthew was himself both Apostle and Evangelist and likely an Eye-Witness of the Fact and there is an Old Rule That one Eye-Witness is better than two Ear-Witnesses of any Fact We conclude then that here are Two Witnesses against One and that One but an Ear-Witness of that Fact And therefore there is a Ground to question the very Truth of S. Luke's Relation seeing he wrote but by Relation and what he says stands not of it self and can with great Difficulty be made to stand in Agreement with what the other two Evangelists have delivered Secondly We say to the Words To day thou shalt be with me they may be expounded from other like Expressions Heb. 3.7 cites Psalm 95.7 To day if ye will hear his Voice Ver. 13. Exhort one another daily whilst it is called to day Here it seems the Word Day is not limited to an Artificial or a Natural Day but signifies a present but yet a competent Time Luke 19.42 Christ wept over Jerusalem saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day viz. hadst known that Time of my present Call unto thee here exprest by the Word Day So The Son of Man must be Three Days and Three Nights in the Heart of the Earth And yet we know Christ lay in the Grave but Two Nights viz. Friday and Saturday Nights and for Days only one whole one viz. Saturday for he was buried on Friday at Even and rose very early upon Sunday Morning Whence it seems the Words To day shalt thou be with me need not be limited to a precise Day Artificial or Natural but may be reasonably intended to signifie within some short Time after that Promise And that we may the better account for the same there shall be cited Jo. 20.17 Our Lord lately risen says to Mary Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father And the same Day at Evening Ver. 19. came Jesus and stood in the midst among his Discipler And Luke 24.39 he says Handle me and by Feeling perceive and see that I have Flesh and Bones which a Spirit hath not Hence may be collected that betwixt his appearing to Mary that Morning and to his Disciples in the Evening he had ascended to his Father and returned Matth. 27.52 When Christ died The Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of the Graves after our Lord's Resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Amongst these we have reason to suppose was the Body of this Thief as well as his Soul the Flame of Life re-kindled in him as well as in those other Saints and of our Lord himself and that he the Thief and the other Saints then rising did make this Ascent with our Lord upon Sunday next after the Friday Night of his Suffering And this I conceive was enough to satisfie our Lord's Expression of To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise in so short a Time as it may be counted present or to day And this Resurrection might occasion some to think as 2 Tim. 2.18 that the Resurrection was past already and was not in Future to be expected Luk. 23.46 Jesus cried with a loud Voice and said Father into thy Hands I commend my Spirit and having said thus he gave up the Ghost And to this we join Acts 7.59 They stoned Stephen calling and saying Lord Jesus receive my Spirit This Objection from recommending the Spirit of a Dying Person to God and Christ Men say imports a Spiritual Being or a Soul in Man which is capable of a Subsistence and hath such a Subsistence in a State separated from the Body The Objection is of the same Nature with that from Solomon The Spirit returns to God that gave it and requires some Repetition of what was thereunto answered And for findding out the Sence and Intent of the Word Spirit Places of Scripture shall be quoted 1 Sam. 30.12 When the starved Egyptian had eaten some Figs and Raisins his Spirit came again to him seems his Spirit of Life his Vital Spirits Ezra 1.5 They stood up whose Spirit God had raised to go and build the Temple seems to intend their Inclination and Affection Job 20.3 The Spirit of my Vnderstanding causeth me to answer seems the Eagerness of his Desire Chap. 21.4 Why should not my Spirit be troubled viz. why should not I be troubled Psalm 51.17 The Sacrifice of God it a broken Spirit there is paraphrased by a contrite Heart 143.4 My Spirit is vexed within me and my Heart within me is desolate Prov. 18.14 The Spirit of a Man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded Spirit who can bear viz. a good or bad Conscience Chap. 25.28 He that hath no Rule over his own Spirit it like a City broken down and without Walls Here Spirit must signifie Affections Eccles 8.8 No Man hath Power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit seems Men's Passions Prov. 20.27 The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord searching the inward Parts of the Belly viz. Man's Reason and Knowledge is the Candle Psalm 31.6 Thou art my strength into thy hand I commend my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me God had saved him in his Troubles and therefore he again commends himself to God under the Term of his Spirit Dan. 5.12 An excellent Spirit Knowledge and Vnderdeastanding was found in Daniel The latter Words expound Spirit Acts 17.16 Paul's Spirit was stirred in him at Athens he was moved and provoked Chap. 18.25 Apollos was fervent in Spirit or was Zealous 1 Cor. 5.5 Deliver the Man to Satan that the Spirit
Sort but only in the Body and by the Organs of it so as the Soul cannot act them in any other Part of the Body but only in those very Organs ordained by God and Nature for those Purposes viz. not see but in the Eyes remember but in the Memory not understand but in the Intellect Any such Parts or Organs harmed or lost the Soul can only work with what is left or cannot work at all to those Purposes Hence it seems these second Sort of Powers in Man do not more proceed from the Soul than those of the first Sort do The Soul in the Head and Intellectual Organs there produces and acts the Intellectual Powers and Faculties of the Man and the same Soul in the Vital Parts and Organs of the Body produces and acts Affections and Passions and Sensual Appetites which solicit the Judgment that the Whole may be employed so far as may be needful for the Procuring their Satisfaction And all these Repetitions tend to prove that the terming these first sort of Faculties the Flesh and the second sort of Faculties the Spirit cannot reasonably be made an Argument inducing to believe an easie natural or feasible Separation of the Flesh and Spirit and that one of them can have a Subsistence without the other And thus we conclude the Examination of such Texts of Scripture as are alledged for Proofs of the Subsistence of a Humane Soul in a State of Separation from the Body And we proceed to produce Arguments which work in Debilitation of such a Separate Subsistence of Souls First We say it seems a great Weakening of that Opinion That there is not in the whole Bible to be found one Text which doth expresly affirm that the Soul of Man hath a Separate Subsistence after Death of the Man nor that it is Immaterial or Immortal Secondly None of the Texts before quoted nor any other from which the Separate Subsistence is endeavoured to be proved did principally intend the Teaching or Proving of the Doctrine but all such Texts do principally aim at some other End or Design and what is drawn from those Texts in Proof of this Point is but Collateral to the Intent of such Texts and rises only upon a Collection drawn from Inferences The Parable of Dives and Lazarus Luke 16. looks most like a Design to that Purpose And yet Ver. 15. our Lord teaches That what is highly esteemed amongst Men is Abomination in the sight of God And then speaks of the Power of the Law And in Ver. 19. begins this Parable intending thereby to dilucidate his Assertion of Ver. 15. that Men may be and often are greatly deceived in their Opinions concerning Things and particularly in Judging of the Happiness of Mens Conditions for Illustration of which Doctrine he places Dives in as high a Degree of Happiness as Men ordinarily do desire He was richly arrayed and fared sumptuously every day and had Health withal And Lazarus he puts down as low in Comparison He was a Beggar a Lazar and full of Sores who was brought and laid at Dives his Gate and fed with the Crumbs that fell from his Table Here was Dives his Condition highly esteemed and desired amongst Men but he shewed by the Sequel of the Parable that it was abominated in the Sight of God for the Poor Man was comforted and Dives tormented So as the Illustration of this Doctrine seems to have been the main Intent of the Parable and what is spoken of Discourse betwixt Abraham and Dives and the seeing Lazarus in Abraham's Bosom afar off seems like the Pomp of Dives and the Misery of Lazarus not real but parabolical or Invention Like the falling of the Seed some amongst Thorns some on a Rock some upon one sort of Ground and some upon another A third Disability upon the Tenet of Separate Subsistence is that in all our Evidences concerning the Resurrection very copious and full there is no mention of an Intermediate State betwixt the Man's Death and his Resurrection nor concerning the Separate State of Humane Souls or their being in that Estate or Capacity of being in it We may to this purpose look back upon 1 Cor. 15. If there be not a Resurrection all Christian Religion is vain our Preaching and your Faith Christians are of all Men most miserable and you are yet in your Sins Here appears no Help from the Separate Estate or Subsistence of a Soul nor Mention of such a thing And Ver. 18. All that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished if there be no Resurrection What then becomes of Souls subsisting in a State of Separation It seems S. Paul knew nothing of such an Estate or made small Account of it or else very likely he would have made some mention of it Phil. 3.20 Our Conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile Body and make it like his glorious Body according as he is able to subdue all things to himself Here is no mention of Soul but as in Conjunction with the Body and Flesh is not a Body without a Soul therefore the Soul in Conjunction is here intended but no Room seems to be left here for a Separate Subsistence of Souls 1 Pet. 1.4 We are begotten by the Resurrection of Christ to an Inheritance in Heaven ready to be revealed in the last Time Ver. 9. Receiving the End of your Faith even the Salvation of your Souls Here Soul is mentioned intended in Conjunction with the Body Soul for Person As Gen. 46.26 All the Souls which came with Jacob into Egypt all the Souls were threescore and six and the two Sons of Joseph were two Souls as before hath been largely quoted And the Apostle refers here to the Resurrection to be revealed in the last Time Whence Body must be conjoined and no mention of an intermediate State or a Soul in that State Chap. 5.4 Those who do well when the chief Shepherd shall appear shall receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away 2 Tim. 4.8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord shall give me at that Day and not to me only but to them also that love his Appearing Here is no Notice taken of intermediate Time or Estate but when the chief Shepherd shall appear and at that Day Coloss 3.4 When Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in Glory 1 Joh. 3.2 It doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him It seems he knew not of a Separate Subsistence of Souls but expected to learn at the Appearance of Christ what himself should be Heb. 9.27 It is appointed unto Men once to die and after this the Judgment Nothing here betwixt Death and Judgment and expounds his Meaning to be of the general Judgment Ver. 28. Christ once offered for sin shall appear the second
yet another Instance in this Kind it may be remembred That upon this Dispute it hath been said A Material Soul in Man could not so act in his Senses Affections Phantasy and Memory as we find to be done and therefore this Soul must needs be Immaterial To this it was replied That all these Faculties were acted by a Material Soul in some Beasts and to as great Degrees of Perfection as they are in some Men. Press'd with this Replication four of our Authors who handle this Point divide themselves and two of them go one way and two another directly contrary each Party to the other For Dr. More and Mr. Baxter do agree the Force of the Replication and confess that the Beasts are acted in all these Faculties by their Souls but that those Souls are such as have Degrees of Rationality in them and do subsist after the Beasts Death and do not die together with the Beasts as Solomon and the World sine him have imagined The other two viz. Des Cartes and Sir K. Digby fly to another Extream and say That Beasts are so far from having such Souls or any Degrees of Rationality as that themselves do not know why or what they do nor that they do any thing nor that they are Voluntary Agents or have any Design in or Knowledge of what they do but they act like Machines or Motions framed by Art and are acted by Heat and Cold Rarity or Density a Turgency of their Blood and Humors and a Pricking and Promptitude in their Bodies and Members to Actions but that they have neither Affections Knowledge Phantasies Memories or the like nor Knowledge nor Will in any thing that they do Of these two Pretences it seems the Former may pass better than the Latter but both of them appear so incongruous and unsutable to Nature to Reason and to Expressions of Scripture as they justly fall under a Suspicion of Absurdity and how well they deserve to come under that Denomination shall be left to the Judgment of indifferent Persons But clear it is that these Proposals or Pretences were devised and are maintained in Subserviency to the Immateriality of Souls and the Support of that Opinion only and serve to no other Use Intent or Purpose whatsoever The Inconveniences arising from the Opinion of the Soul's Immateriality may be divers as from the Allowance of one mistaken Principle for a Truth many Fallacies do thence grow both quickly and strongly From the Opinion of this Separate Subsistence in Saul sprang his going to a Witch that so he might come to speak with and enquire of Samuel And the Devil appearing fortifies Saul in this Opinion by his circumventing Question viz. Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up intimating thereby himself to be the true Soul of Samuel subsisting in a Separated Estate And this Opinion is the only Foundation and Support of Souls in Purgatory of Prayers for Souls and Prayers to Saints which can have no Common Sense in them if Souls do not subsist in a State of Separation And yet it is wonderful to consider what a Force and Strength there is in a long-fostered Opinion and Custom so that even though Men were convinced of a Souls Materiality and Extinguishing with the Death of the Man yet it may not be certain that all would be drawn from those long-believed and practised Vanities And yet those obstinate Retainers of their Old Customs must naturally and surely be convinced of all and be judged of all others who do apparently perceive the Errour of that Practice From the Original of Self-subsisting Souls arises the Opinion of Souls Walking as it is called and Infesting Houses and Places in an extraordinary Manner which in the more dark Popish Times are reported to have been very usual and even common but of later Times have lost their Credit very much and are now rarely spoken of and little believed And whatever was true concerning them may be reasonably imputed to the grand Impostor and his subservient Spirits seeking to deceive subvert and devour These may have acted the Parts of Souls as the Witches Samuel did that of the Prophet or as the late ones did of the Robin Goodfellows or the Fairies in darker Times And so the Heathens holding a Separately Subsisting Soul had their Penates their Genii and Lemures and their Separated Souls appearing upon Occasions and sometimes helping in Distresses Also some Dreams to such Purposes are recorded in Histories of Primitive Christian Times but they were only Dreams and for such we pass all Appearances or Actings of Souls departed viz. either for Dreams or the Acts and Agencies of Spirits more often of the bad but many times of the good Spirits also of the one sort to deceive and oppress of the other sort to instruct and protect as was done to the Apostles imprisoned and to Peter in paricular Another Inconvenience may be added viz. A Practice of divers Protestant Preachers who perswade their Trading Auditors to drive a Christian Trade as the most gainful Mart and Bargain and to follow Christ for the Loaves and Profit that may be expected by his Faith and Service For Beloved say they what shall he profit who gains the whole World and loses his own Soul viz. himself Soul and Body True Well then say they follow our Directions and though Twenty per Cent. be fair Profit and to have Cent. per Cent. Men will venture themselves and what they have to the Indies You shall have by our Directions a far greater Profit and a more gainful Bargain your Precious Souls shall from your Bed of Death be transported by Angels into Abraham 's Bofom to a State of Happiness and Eternity and for this you have the Warrant of God's Word which cannot deceive any who confide and rely upon it This Mode of Direction may have a Two-fold Inconvenience First It may not be true that Mens Souls go to Heaven at the Time of the Man's Death nor at all without the Body Secondly It seems to make Mens Service to God mercenary principally induced by a Desire of Gain and Reward even built upon that Foundation quickned and supported by that Consideration an Inducement sordid and mechanical and of Force primely if not only with such People It seems an Alloy of base Metal put to the Gold of a pure Christian Profession That God is a Rewarder of all who serve him is a Scriptural Rational and Natural Truth but that Services levelled at the Reward and done only or chiefly for the Rewards sake are acceptable to him there may be good Reason to deny from the Authority of Job's Case largely reported to us The Devil accuses him of this Enormity Says he Doth Job serve God for nought Nay thou hast bribed him to it by thy Blessings Intending He would serve me if I would and were able so to reward him It cost Job a most severe Trial to wipe off this Aspersion and God was pleased he should undergo it
to nourish the Lamps at which Defect the Multitude complained and grieved the Bishop also troubled commands the Officers to fetch Water out of the next Well and when it was brought he prayed over it then bad them pour it out into the Lamps and the Water changed into Oil and served the Lamps as Liquor of that Nature and a small Quantity was for the Miracles sake reserved by many of the Brethren a long while after This says our Author who wrote about Anno 340. is come to us by Tradition from one to another And being a Tradition so Ancient and of a Time reputed more Innocent than the Present is here repeated as an Evidence that the Power and Spirit of God did work did then work miraculously amongst them in the Church And except we see such Signs and Wonders we shall not be able to believe that any amongst us have the Spirit of God in such extraordinary Manner as the Apostolick Times and Men had it in a Manner perceptible to the Parties themselves or to any others who shall converse with them And this settles the Case betwixt the Author and me and shews where the Difference of Opinions sticks He intends the Church now hath that Power of the Spirit which is perceptible to the Party 's own self and to others such as was in the Apostolick Times and which I call Extraordinary This I deny and the Proof lying upon his Hand it seems he ought to make the same Proof of it in these Times that was wont to be made in those Times viz. Miraculous Operations such as are above the Power of Man's Nature of it self to perform Instead of which he endeavours to conclude upon us with Quotations of some Expressions taken out of St. Paul's Epistles sounding to his Purpose against which Records collected out of Scripture he says we may not aver To this I reply That those Epistles have in them some Things hard to be understood and which may be wrested to the Maintainance of Errors and it seems that divers such Places are wrested by applying to Future Times and our Times what was by that Apostle spoken of those Times in which he lived and so applied were pertinent and true and yet if applied to Future Times for which they were not intended they may very likely have another Appearance We have also before spoken of God's Ordinary Conduct given to Believers whose Natural Faculties his Spirit polishes leads orders and perfects moving and intercepting their Faculties and Actions and meliorating their Natures and Inclinations with so much Gentleness and Easiness as the Parties cannot themselves perceive any Violence of Motion no nor any Motion at all nor do they certainly know how far or how much the Spirit of God acts in their own Reformation or Amendment and how then should other People know the Spirit of God to act in them Why the Party and those who consider his Condition have all the same Means to know the Spirit is there and where it is it works they must derive their Knowledge from the Fruits These are are good and known Fruits of the Spirit and they cannot spring nor grow without Cultivation of God's Spirit and where those Effects are visible and known there the Cause and Presence of that Spirit may as certainly be concluded Now we say that by rightly applying the Expressions of St. Paul in his Epistles unto these two Grounds and Positions or to one of them as the Expression shall require all that Apostle's Expressions are solvable without any Need of Reason thence to infer that there must be in the Christian Church of all Times such a special perceptible Impulse of God's Spirit as there was in the Times when St. Paul wrote and which I have termed Extraordinary as given to and in that Time and not to be continually communicated to Future Ages And where God's continual Assistance and that of his Spirit is mentioned it may the most likely be intended the Ordinary Communications of God's Spirit which we doubt not are frequently and ordinarily to be perceived in our own Times and by the Means before prescribed So as the applying of these Texts out of St. Paul's Epistles to the one or the other of our proposed Positions will be able to answer and satisfie all those Texts and put a Reasonable and True Construction upon them without any need of Inferring from them a Necessity of having amongst Christians in all Future Ages such Endowments and Operations of God's Spirit as were in the Persons living in Apostolick Times or near unto them And that an Instance may be given of our propounded Manner for the expounding such of St. Paul's Texts we make Choice of a Place often urged upon Debates concerning the Necessity of being eminently endowed with God's Spirit in all Times and Places Christian viz. 1 Cor. 2.14 The Natural Man receiveth not the Things of the Spirit of God for they are Foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are Spiritually discerned This Text or Verse as it stands alone or by it self sounds as if Man's Nature and Reason were utterly useless in understanding the Tenets and Duties pertaining to the Christian Faith and Profession but that all such Things must be left to Guidance of the Spirit and Direction of those who are thereunto inspired or that are reputed so to be In answer to this we say that for expounding this Text and all others the Context is very necessary to be well considered And to that Purpose we go upward to the sixth Verse of this Chapter There the Apostle says We speak Wisdom but not of this World Ver. 7. We speak the Wisdom of God in a Mystery Ver. 8. Which if the Princes of the World had known they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory Ver. 9. But neither Man's Senses nor his Vnderstanding can find out the Things which God hath prepared for those that love him Ver. 10. But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit which searches the deep Things of God We ask What is intended by us and take us to signifie the Apostles and other inspired Disciples and Teachers of those Times and not extending to the later and suspected Pretenders of future or our Time since the Miraculous Manifestations of the Spirit ceased in the Church Ver. 11. 12. We received the Spirit which is of God viz. those Teachers received Ver. 13. And we speak this Mystery in Words not taught by Man's Wisdom but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing Spiritual Things with Spiritual Then comes our Text. Then Ver. 15. He that is Spiritual judgeth all things viz. He to whom God hath so communicated his Spirit as that thereby they were enabled to know the Thoughts and Intents of Mens Hearts as that impotent People had Faith to be healed And in the Conspiracy of Ananias and Saphira 1 Cor. 14.24 and Acts 20.23 before cited They knew not only Things present but Things to come and
therefore might judge all things But we cannot allow the present Pretenders amongst us to apply this to themselves or to any of theirs Ver. 16. Says We have known the Mind of Christ viz. by Revelation of the Spirit not only by the Letter Nay from the Spirit in them by whom the Letter of what we call Gods Word was dedicated and framed Eph. 3.3 Ye have heard of the Grace of God given me and that by Revelation God made known unto me the Mystery viz. that Mystery intended in our present Chapter Col. 1.26 Even the Mystery which hath been hid from all Ages and Generations But was then made manifest to the Saints of that Time Eph. 1.17 I pray that God will give you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation the Eyes of your Vnderstanding being enlightened that ye may know the Hope of his Calling and the Riches of his Glory Galat. 1.16 It pleased God to call me by his Grace and to reveal his Son in me that I might preach him Ver. 12. I neither received the Doctrine of the Gospel from Man nor was I taught it but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ Nor did he then consult with other Apostles or his own Flesh and Blood about it but went into Arabia far from other Teachers Acts 8.26 The Angel of the Lord spake to Philip saying arise and go towards the South with other Directions Ver. 29. The Spirit said to Philip go near and join thy self to this Chariot Ver. 39. When they were come up out of the Water the Spirit of God caught away Philip and the Eunuch saw him no more Act. 10.19 While Peter thought on the Vision the Spirit said to him behold three Men seek thee arise and go with them for I have sent them So Chap. 11.12 The Spirit bad me go with them nothing doubting Act. 13 2. As at Antioch they ministred to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the Work whereunto I have appointed them Acts 16.6 Paul was forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia Ver. 7. And they essayed to go into Bithynia but the Spirit suffered them not These Texts have been quoted to evince and declare the Manner and Efficacy of God's Communicating his Spirit in those Times Of which sort our present Pretenders to Endowments of the Spirit have not a Face to challenge any thing We return now to Examination of our quoted Text and Chapter and say That the Wisdom of which St. Paul here speaks is the Wisdom of God in a Mystery ordained before the World unto our Glory called Eph. 1. The Mystery which had been hid from Ages and Generations but was made manifest to the Saints of that Time Mentioned Matth. 16.17 Peter says to his Master thou art Christ the Son of the living God And Jesus answered Flesh and Blood hath not revealed this unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven The Redemption of the World by Christ and that Jesus preached to the People was Christ was the Mystery of St. Paul intended in this Text. The Princes of this World had no Knowledge of this Mystery for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory This was not a Thing that could enter into the Senses or the Heart of Man to conceive But God had then revealed it by his Spirit to the Holy Apostles and Disciples of that Time who had received the Spirit of God that they might know this Mystery as a Thing freely given to them of God of which they spake in Words taught by the Spirit But the Natural Man or the Reason of Man could not find out or were not capable of receiving this Mystery by any Helps of Nature or Reason for this Mystery would be Foolishness to a Natural Man and could not be known by Natural Means or Grounds of Reason but must be Spiritually discerned by Revelation of God's Spirit For the Things of God knoweth no Man but the Spirit of God As our Lord to Peter Flesh and Blood hath not revealed this to thee but my Father hath done it A Thing which no other Means had Power to do Not Man's Nature or his Reason Nothing could discover this to Man but the Revelation of Gods Spirit Every Parcel of this Mystery is above the Natural Man's Capacity and Comprehension What Eye had ever seen or Ear heard or what Heart had ever conceived That a Woman should bear a Child without the Assistance of a Man The Virgin demands How can this Thing be seeing I know not a Man The Natural Man could not receive this small or least Part of the Mystery of Man's Redemption but it would appear Foolishness to him Not to speak of the Trinity and Second Person in it united to the Nature of Man and chusing to appear in the Form of a Servant to undergo Contempt Want Pain and Death and rise again by his own Power and that his so doing should be Expiatory for the Sins of Men and be so accepted in the Sight of God the Natural Man receives not cannot naturally receive the Things of this Mystery for they are Foolishness to him nor can his Reason know or conceive them because they are and must be Spiritually discerned viz. must come to be first known by the Revelation of God's Spirit only Our Apostle's Text thus applied is not only firm and true but also plain and clear intelligible and rational which Men take upon them to confound by taking a dictum secundum quid for a dictum simpliciter and applying what the Apostle speaks concerning this great Mystery and concerning the first and eminent Revelations of it to all Occasions Persons and Times without observing the Measures of Difference which ought to be made between them concerning which we say That although at the first Times of making this great Mystery known to the World there was no Way of Producing that Effect save the only Revelation of God by his Spirit and the same was performed accordingly Yet in a short Process of Time it came to pass that this Mystery was Taught Accepted and Believed by Natural Men upon Reasonable Grounds and without being counted Foolishness amongst them viz. when God by his Spirit had revealed this Mystery to Peter Paul and the rest of the rest of the Disciples of our Lord and other Christians Then they preached the same to other Men and declared this Mystery to them Mark 16.23 They went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with Signs following Their Auditors Natural Men had Reason to consider the Teachers the Doctrine and the Signs following The Teachers were Men Sober and Pious not seeking Worldly Interests ready to suffer for Justifying the Truth of their Doctrines and without Exceptions in the Course of their Lives The Doctrine was Sublime said to be revealed by God the Facts delivered of our Lord's Birth Life Death Resurrection Ascension and Descent of the
any Motion of God's Spirit working in them but it perfected and enabled their Natural Faculties producing its Effects in an Easie Imperceptible and Natural Manner Judg. 14.6 A young Lion roared against Samson and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and he rent the Lion like a Kid. So Ver. 19. So Chap. 15.14 and Chap. 13.25 The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times In the Camp of Dan 1 Kings 3.9 Solomon says Give thy Servant an Vnderstanding Heart to judge thy People Ver. 12. God says I have given thee a Wise and an Vndestanding Heart above all before or after thee Seems by enlightening and perfecting of Natural Faculties if Samson's Strength were not so effected Isa 28.6 The Lord shall be for a Spirit of Judgment to him that sitteth in Judgment and for Strength to them that turn the Battle to the Gate Ver. 26. God doth instruct the Husbandman concerning his Corn and doth teach him how to order it Ch. 50.4 The Lord hath given me the Tongue of the Learned and wakeneth mine Ear to hear as the Learned viz. makes me Learned Deut. 34.9 Joshuah was full of the Spirit of Wisdom for Moses had laid his Hands upon him Act 6.10 Stephen 's Opposers were not able to resist the Wisdom of the Spirit by which he spake James 1.5 If any Man lack Wisdom let him ask it of God and it shall be given him liberally And whereas some going to a Sermon or reading a Book will take hold and be converted thereby and others not and this is said to be an Effect of God's Spirit in the Converted We do not deny it but do also say That if Twenty Scholars read and study Euclide a few are likely to attain the Effect easily and the greater Part never So in Practice of Musick some will attain a Perfection but the Major Part never And so in many other Faculties especially such wherein Phantasy and Apprehension are the most concerned Sometimes also the Works and Gifts of God's Spirit are so lively imitated by the Father of Lyes as the World hath thereby been generally and greatly deceived and induced to take the one for the other Moses Opposers acted his Miracles till they came to the Lice and the Devil acted so against Job as it looked like the Hand of God's Justice against him and made him pass for an Hypocrite in the World and with his best Friends The Lying Spirit seen by Michaiah gave such great and strong Impressions to Ahab's Prophets and so like a Divine Revelation as they had no ordinary Means of Distinguishing the one from the other Hence St. John 1 Ep. 4.1 wisely directs Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God for there are many false ones in the World And our Lord taught us to try every Tree by its own Fruit if it bear Grapes it is undoubtedly a Vine and otherwise not And to this Trial we commit the most confident Pretenders to the Spiritual Endowments not to be derived from any but the Giver of every good and and perfect Gift Our Author Page 52. says The Spirit is given by Christ to all sound Believers If he mean as a Guide whose Instinct they ought to follow I deny it But if as Assistant and a Helper in their Endeavours working in them to will and to do as by Reason and Scripture they are directed I grant it Pag. 54. Says Hast thou not found the Motions the Effectual Operations the Renewing Changes of this Spirit in thee long ago and is he not still the Agent and Witness in thee of Christ's Residing and Operating in thee Whence else are thy Groanings after God thy Desires to be nearer to his Glory and to know him better to love him more the Pleasure which thou hast had in his Truth Ways and Service c. We pass by his Christ's Residing in thee and thy Groanings after God and Desires to be nearer his Glory as a New and Cloudy Language And to his plain Expressions of desiring and endeavouring to Know and Love God and to delight in his Truth Ways and Service we say That they who do not pretend to a Special Spiritual Conduct but walk by the Lights of Scripture and Reason under the ordinary Conduct of God's Spirit do as much observeâ—â—nd as well perform all known Religious Duties and Services required by God in his Word as Pretenders to a Spiritual Guidance do without yielding to them in any true Practice of Piety or Charity whatsoever He pretends That the Spirit raises Devotion or gives a greater Heighth of Rapture in Mens Religious Performances And we agree That so it can do and may do so when God pleases and that with some extraordinary Testimony of Illumination But that this is a Common or Ordinary Effect of God's Spirit amongst Believers we do deny And do impute such Effects ordinarily happening not to the Spirit of God but to the Phantasies of Men who putting themselves into a Godly Chafe and thereby feeling a great Heat Mettle and Emotion within them it seems they imagine this is given them from above and that it is God's Spirit working within them and that it would be Sin in them not to follow the Dictates and Motions of it although upon due Trial they fall out to be very Irregular and the common Effect thereof is That Men dethrone their Reason and Judgment which God hath placed in them for Natural Guides and Rulers on Pretence of the Text 1 Cor. 2.14 before expounded saying The natural Man receives not the Things of the Spirit of God nor can know them but they must be spiritually discerned Concerning which enough hath been spoken Our Men led by Erroneous Construction of this Text principally and what other like they happen to meet with do often take upon them to dethrone their Reason from the Regiment where God hath placed it and to set up in its Room a Fervor of Spirit which it seems they think is of God and is so necessary for them as that they cannot be good Christians without it And thus truly and effectually they displace and put down their Reason and set up their Phantasy to govern instead of it And whereas Reason is one and uniform in Mankind generally and would induce Men to Think and Speak the same Things Phantasy in Men is as Various as our Faces no one perfectly like another Whence it comes that Christians of whom Paul says We being many are one Bread are so infinitely divided as that scarcely a whole Loaf can be found amongst us but we are broken into Pieces and even murled into Crumbs without any Fastness or Cohesion of one Sort of us to another and we pray God to direct our Church to other and more reasonable Practices for the Time to come Page 59. Our Author complains grievously of his own Infidelity concerning Rewards after Death in Maintenance of which he had both preached and written to other People
Page 129. Says Satan's principal Labour is to keep Men from Heaven I say nay to this But that his prime Labour is to draw or drive Men from the Love Service and Worship of God of which the Obtaining God's Favour and Acceptance is the End or Design and Heaven but the Consequent or a Reward sutable to the Bounty and Magnificence of the Giver but not to the Merit of the Receiver Page 276. Says It is notorious that all who are Christians out of their own Choice and are serious in their Profession are holy sober and just Here he mentions not his wonted Dependencies upon the Spirit And we believe and know that such as do not depend upon Motions of the Spirit but do follow Directions of the Scripture understood and expounded according to sound and true Reason are as holy sober and just Persons as any Pretenders to Spiritual Motions that can be found amongst their Tribes but that God's Spirit by Means of its usual and ordinary Conduct doth effect in them such holy Practices and produces in them Degrees of Melioration from Time to Time and thereby also People are sometimes changed from the Love of Worldly Vanities to the true Love and Service of God and this we ascribe to the easie ordinary and commonly imperceptible Operations of God's Spirit believing the perceptible and heaving Motions of that Holy Spirit to be very extraordinary miraculous not to be expected or depended upon and an apt Instrument for Impostors Whence the Prophet exhorts to look to the Law and to the Testimony and not to pretending Seducers on the Score of Spiritual Revelations And Men cannot rationally judge of the Thing and therefore if they follow it must be in the Dark where the Deceit is easily feasible and the Consequence dangerous We say then That Reason exercising its Power in and over the Person directed by the Rules of the Gospel and guided by the easie and ordinary Conduct of God's Spirit is a sufficient Means to convince Believers of their Duties and constrain them to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World to rejoice and delight in their so doing and to be greatly grieved for their Failures therein And these are known Fruits of the Spirit and prove that of a Truth it is and rules in such People although themselves or those that see them have otherwise no Perceptions or other Evidences of the Spirit 's Acting or Moving in them It seems such Men fulfil St. Paul's Rule 1. Cor. 14 15. I will pray with the Spirit and will pray with the Vnderstanding also and so ought Men also to rejoice and sing Thus should Men act in their Duties of Religion specially and in their Actions generally Ver. 14. So to use Direction of the Spirit as the Understanding may not be unfruitful Pag. 277. He falls in again with the Necessary Operation or God's Spirit for the Rectification of Humane Nature and drawing Mens Inclinations from the World to God And this I grant to be done ordinarily by directing Men to the Scriptures as their Rule and convincing them of the Authority Truth and Sufficiency of them Then by illuminating their Understandings and Perceptive Faculties helping also their other Capacities as their Apprehensions Memories Elocutions Exod. 4.11 God says to Moses Who hath made Man's Mouth or his other Senses have not I the Lord He makes the Blind the Dumb and the Deaf to see speak and hear and then they exercise these Faculties as other Men do who have them sound by Birth without continuing Supernatural Supplies to them for ever And so we say when God by manfest Revelations of his Spirit accompanied with Signs and mighty Deeds had fully discovered his Supernatural Truths to Men and had sufficiently convinced and instructed the Teachers of them and then those Teachers had instructed others in the Faith of such revealed Mysteries and holy Trade of Living the Supernatural Supplies were no more needful 2 Tim. 2.2 The Things which thou hast heard of me amongst many Witnesses hast heard me preach do thou commit to faithful Men who shall be able to teach others also So 2 Tim. 3.14 Continue thou in the Things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learnt them and that from a Child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto Salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus We may consider the Time of writing this Epistle the last Days of St. Paul when he was now ready to be offered and the Time of his Departure was at hand Thus he writes to his Son in the Gospel one of his Scholars and an eminent Teacher of that Time directing him to the Rules and Doctrines delivered us in the Scriptures and to the Comments Expositions and Discourses of such as teach from them intended in a rational Manner and by good sufficient Deductions and Consequences without mention of Perceptible or Peculiar Motions of the Spirit or that Timothy or other Christians are put under Obligations to attend thereunto or to ground their Hopes or Practices upon Operations of a perceptible and eminently moving Spirit in them Yes says our Author Pag. 277. But yet apparent it is that no other Power can prevail over the Corrupted Nature of Man and for converting Men unto holy Practices but only that of the Spirit of God and the irresistable Operations of the same I answer That in divers Schools of the Ancient Philosophers and by their Doctrines many were induced to take up the Practice and Habit of living soberly and virtuously in this present World I but replies he we see Children will grow up in Wickedness against all the Counsel Love and Correction of their Parents and no Means will prevail with them till God by the Operation of his own Spirit cure them And we grant this may come to pass by the Assistance of God's Grace in the Ordinary Course and without any Perceptible Peculiar Impulse or Emotion of God's Spirit viz. by his Illumination his easie Inclination and the Rectifying and Perfecting their Natural Powers and Qualifications by insensible and unperceived Degrees All things Divine and Humane are under God's Special Oeconomy and nothing can be done without a Divine Assistance Nullum magnum ingenium sine Afflatu Divini Numinis was known to Heathens without God we cannot think a good Thought nor think any Thought cannot do a good Action nor any Action at all For as our Author tells us we depend more upon God's Acting us then upon our own Natural Parts or Forms and in him we live move and have our Being But his Ordinary Actings in Men are by their Natural and Proper Faculties and Powers and not by Perceptible Impulses of his Spirit which we take for a Miraculous Operation and not Natural God hath given us the Law and the Prophets the New Testament and Primitive Church Practices for our Ordinary Spiritual Conduct assisted with his Grace and Spirit working
but a Trust in God supports all It seems he knew of no Revelation Primitive or Modern that could give Satisfaction in that Point Page 372. Says God doth his own Works in a Causal Order one Work prepares for another and he makes Varieties of Capacities which occasion Varieties of Gifts and of Receptions and he useth to give every one that unto which he hath brought him into a next Capacity for the Reception of And granted it is That all is Acted by Energy from God and his Spirit But say I as he also by giving Capacities and advancing them to Degrees of Perfection in an Ordinary and Natural Course producing Effects from their Natural and Proper Causes And that when he goes beyond this Course or out of this Way the Proceeding is Extraordinary Supernatural Miraculous such as we have no Warrant to expect or depend upon in the ordinary Course of our Conduct True it is God's Arm is not shortned and therefore in all Cases of great Exigency we know he can work by Natural Causes beyond Mens Expectations or by Miracles at his own Pleasure We read of such Procedure in the Primitive Times since which the Signs and Wonders are ceased and so the Perceptible Actings of God's Spirit ordinarily And it seems we are not any more reasonably or warrantably to expect them or to depend upon them but to wait upon God's ordinary Dispensations in his Ordinances Hearing Reading Praying Practising Living and Dying in him to him and if need be for him so as Living we may repose upon him and Dying we may rest in him 1 Joh 2.28 So as in all Conditions are abide in him that when he shall appear we may have Confidence and not be ashamed before him at his Coming And this is the Fruit of our Labour and Conflicts in this World that we may have the Hope and Courage at our Awaking to come before him with Confidence and without being ashamed in his Presence Pag. 374. Says We must not have slight Thoughts of the Office and Work of the Holy Ghost on Souls and our Necessity of it but must beg and wait for the Spirit 's Special Help That Spirit is not impotent or inexorable he hath appointed us Means for so high a State and he appoints no Means in vain Page 375. Says Let thy Dependance on the Holy Ghost as given from Christ be as serious and constant to thee as the dependance of the Eye is upon the Light Beg hard for the Holy Spirit and gladly entertain it All these Expressions of our Author seem to intend some eminent and perceptible Motions or Actings of God's Spirit if so he do there are divers Testimonies in this Book which shew he did not attain unto them We have shown the Thing to be a Miracle common in Primitive Times of the Church but ceasing by degrees until no Signs of it were left But the Fruits the extraordinary Appearances are failed long since and the like Effects do not now shew themselves Where the Spirit is it works and if it be present in an extraordinary and miraculous Manner it will produce sutable Effects as it did in those Primitive Times and where such do not appear such Pretences are not to be believed If our Author intend the Ordinary Gifts and Graces of God's Spirit working in us to will and to do what God hath appointed us in his Holy Word by Illumination Rectification Melioration and Direction of our Natural Faculties Powers and Capacities all his Exhortations may pass for good and Men may pray in Faith for such Assistances and Graces and may likely find a good Return upon them Our Author says no more upon this Point and we shall therefore follow it no farther but return with him to our first Design Page 380. He says The Sensible Souls of Brutes are Substances and therefore not animated at their Deaths God tells us not what he doth with them after Death and it is likely they are after Death in a State still of Service unto Man but how we know not It seems the same Scruple which troubled him at the Beginning of his Book hath stuck to him all along and unto the End of it viz. how to make a real and clear Difference between the Souls of Men and Beasts He doth constantly acknowledge a great Assimilation of the one of them to the other and shews a great Inclination to raise the Nature of the Souls of Brutes above that which ordinary Opinions have allowed them to the Intent that a Separately Subsisting Soul of Man might the more easily pass and be assented unto or with fewer Difficulties and Exceptions And to this I say that he labours in vain to perswade that Souls of Beasts are Self-subsistent It seems a Phancy either derived from Dr. More or out of his own Brain He doth not alledge a Revelation of the Spirit for it and if he had such Allegation could not support that Opinion We say That Souls of Brutes are Material Spirits living and acting in their Blood and Humours and preying upon them as their Natural Support and Nourishment inflamed by the continual Fanning of their Breath and when for want of Breath or other Nourishment the Flame of those Natural Spirits is totally extinguished or that by other Violence such total Extinguishment happens the Beast dies and these Natural or Vital Spirits cease to work and be and can no more revive than a Fire clean gone out or put out can rekindle it self without fresh Fire applied to that Purpose And for the Beasts we have no notice or Proof that ever such a Reviver or Rekindling shall be given them But concerning Men we have very clear undoubted and undeniable Revelations that there shall be a Resurrection or a Reviver of them Heb. 9.27 It is appointed unto Men once to die but after this the Judgment And Chap. 11.35 Torments were endured not accepting Deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection For there will be a better and a worse both of the Just and of the Unjust And then shall Christ sit upon the Throne of his Glory distributing Crowns to his brave Soldiers the Martyrs laid up for them against that Day and awarding other Rewards and Glories to his faithful Servants and passing a dreadful Sentence upon his Enemies and specially Deserters Takers and Breakers of Holy Vows and Covenants of Fidelity in his Service for that they crucifie the Son of God afresh and put him to an open Shame From such a Resurrection Good Lord deliver us and rather may the Mountains fall upon us and the Hills cover us that we may never see the Frowns of Goodness and Love rejecting all Future Addresses and putting us over to the Masters and Company which living we chose and preferred before his Greatness and Glory his Goodness and Love testified by his Sufferings for us But living People have yet Time to prevent such heavy Consequences of the Resurrection And God give us all Grace heartily to
my Opinion when I found Roccius saying the same things and words and Melanchton apparently to the same Sense and Peter Martyr approaching thereunto and nearer than I do expect other men shall come in any short time Your Quotation out of Dr. Cave was drawn by him out of Euseb Hist lib. 6. cap. 36 and is quoted in my Treatise This Particular finishes your Opposition to my Treatise and shall put an End also to my Defence Yet because I have as you may see some room left upon this Sheet of Paper I am thereby invited to remember what you said in your Second Paragraph viz. That it is not unlikely that my Treatise might be the result of some years Study To set your Imagination right upon that Point I give you this Account of it That in Summer 1690 I practised my Monastick Discipline reading within Doors and labouring the Ground abroad Mutans quadrata rotundis What I read within I ruminated without I considered the close Connection of Soul and Body and even the Contexture of them that Humane Constitutions and Faculties are often alter'd by Diet Air Sickness Accidents that the best Reasons Memories or Judgments may be altered or spoiled by divers like Means and recovered sometimes by Medicines applied to the disaffected Parts or Organs of the Body How this might competere with the Acts and Powers of a Substantial Angelical Spirit as the Soul or Form of Man I found my self unable to comprehend but that rather it seemed there was a Dependency of the Soul upon the Body as well as of the Body upon the Soul Hence I concluded there was a Close and Natural Contexture between them and that likely they were both of one same Nature Connatural to Man viz. his Natural and Constituent Parts Then I considered the Brutes and that they had the same Senses and Affections with Men and some sort of Understanding Phancy and Memory and all liable to like Accidents Also both Sorts lived by Blood Breath and Fewel or Food and if any of these failed the Man must die as well as the Beast so as the Man's Soul could help in such or any other Vital or Natural Necessities no more than the Soul of a Beast can do in like Cases And thus I went on considering all the Summer and coming tube inclined I fell upon a very Natural Course of Proceeding in such Cases followed by St. Paul Acts 17.17 He disputed his Tenets in all Places and with all Persons of his Conversation proper for that purpose and so did I and read Books such as I had or could buy or borrow Lastly One lent me a Book called Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts and the Weak Defence which he and Sir Kenelm Digby and Doctor More made on behalf of that Immortal Opinion fortified my Conceptions to the contrary In Christmass I discours'd with many about it and soon after Candlemass I began to write and finish'd my Treatise about a Week after Midsummer in An. 1691 since which time divers have perused it and I refuse it to none who are like to use it cleanly and are capable of it I know you observe that I begin with Baxter's Book and end with it quoting and examining of it all along nor did I find it difficult to refute all that he says in maintenance of the Immortality except the Texts of Scripture which he quotes And those Texts in him and in you seem to me the only Defences of the Immortality Batteries you perceive are and may be raised against the intention and effects of those Texts which are quoted to that purpose and of what force they will prove Men are not like speedily to determine But my Judgment is not convinced or perswaded that by forbearing the Argument drawn from the Immortality and pressing in its stead that from the Resurrection and the Last Judgement there can any detriment arise to the Progress and Maintenance of the Christian and specially of the Protestant Religion If I had a desire to argue upon this Point and towards the Clearing of it as St. Paul did both in Synagogues Markets and Schools I do it much more desirously with you as professing my self Your much obliged and very humble Servant 8 March 1692. After this Answer to the Opponents Objections he was p1eased to reply thereunto in June following and his Replication was divided into Seven Paragraphs His 1. Parag Insists That I had not made that Proof which he demanded of the Quomodo How a Material Spirit was able to act or did act the Humane Faculties and Powers known to be in Mankind and carried to an excellent Perfection in some Men As this was a repeated Demand so I say that I answer to it as before viz. That there are many other Things and Actings in the World the Reasons and Causes of which Men neither do nor can enough comprehend or perceive Our Lord tells us That if one should watch the Corn Night and Day yet he could not perceive so as to know the Immediate and Proper Causes of its Growth but it will bring forth first the Stalk next the Blade then the Ear and lastly the Full Corn in it Men not perceiving the How or the Why of it and the Case is like for all other Plants How it was or whence it proceeds that they bring forth Fruits and Leaves of wondrous Variety and Diversity in Colour Figure Taste Smell Bulk and Operations We see that each of them have Root Bole Skin or Bark and we perceive and know that each of them hath an active and lively Juice or Spirit ascending from the Root into the Boles Branches and Tops of them and this Composition of Matter and Form in Plants we do reasonably believe to be sufficient and effectual for the production of all that doth ordinarily grow out of them But that Solomon or any other man ever did or can declare to us the manner of their proceedings or the next Reasons of them and of that great Variety in their Natures and Productions I do not know nor believe nor do I think it a Work of Humane Power to do Next Plants we may consider the Insects Solomon points us to the Spiders the Locusts the Ants and the Bees what are the Causes of their Motions and Actions Solomon tells us they do what is proper and best for their Beings but as Wonders to him and us who know neither the How nor the Why of them And so for the Fishes and the Birds we cannot know by what secret Engines and Motors divers particulars are done amongst them Concerning the Quadrupedes we see and know they have the same Flesh Blood Bones and Breath that Men have and in their Kinds sutable Bodily Members as Head Heart Liver Lungs Arteries Veins Fibres Muscles c. that Men have also a Generation and Production all alike I may demand what makes them live and grow in the Wombs of their Dams What forms their Members and how are they made in those
Sense Reason and Experience of Mankind So when Our Lord Commands take no care for to morrow These Words pass under a reasonable Construction so the Words Swear not at all so for turning the other Cheek and lending to all Borrowers These Directions never were observed in the full Latitude of the Gospel Expressions but according to fair and reasonable Constructions made of them and whereby they were made agreeable to the Sense Reason and Experience of Mankind and if particular Expressions of Scripture may be Accommodated to the Sense Reason and Experience of Men for the avoiding the Clashes of one against the other A fortiori when Two Texts relate the same Doctrine of Our Lord in different Expressions it seems Men may accept which of these Relations they please as the very Words wherein that Doctrine was delivered And every Man is likely to chuse and adhere to such Expressions as he thinks best to agree with Nature and Reason in this or any other Case that shall happen to be disputed 8. Paragraph Your Argument upon a delegated Power left by Christ to his Church urged on the behalf of the Universal or Catholick by the Romanists against our Divines Fortified with the Decrees of Councils Stiled oecumenical hath been often and fully Answered and as in my First Paper I referred you to Numb 16. so now I must refer you to Acts 4 19. You say The Immortality is plainly implied in the Creeds or some of them but you do not mention the Words implying nor how the Inference is to be drawn which would have been the most Material Argument that you could have used for the convincing of my Judgment unless you conceive that what is plain to you would not be so to me For a thing plain to one already perswaded doth oft seem otherwise to Men of another Judgment but if it be plain to you it seems you should at least have pointed me to the place where I might have expected to find it Your reason why nothing about the Soul is inserted into the 39th Art is very likely to be true yet grants my Assertion of not being there And what you have shewed out of Scripture concerning the Immortallity I have Answered unto and am contented to refer the reason and truth of what hath been said on both sides to the Censure of Perusers Out of the 39 Articles I quoted to you the sixth viz. That what is not asserted in Scripture is not needful to be believed and I prosess'd my Obedience to any clear Direction of Scripture in our Point To this you reply the Soul 's Separate Subsistence is asserted in Scripture and to prove that you quote Eccles 12.7 Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it This Text I agree doth sound in favour of Souls Separate Subsistence after they are parted from their Bodies and because you quote it singly it seems the strongest Text which you could find for Proof of the Separate Subsistence of Humane Souls You had quoted it before and I gave it some Answer but considering you do now use it as a Pillar of your asserted Opinion I shall undertake a more narrow or strict and yet a more large Examination of it First I inquire what is here intended by the term of Spirit Comenius Translated into English Printed London 1651 in 12o. Pag. 218. cites Zach. 12.1 where God says he forms the Spirit of Man in the midst of him The word Jatzar in the Hebrew says he is here used for forming which shews the Formation was out of Prae-existent Matter and was not a Creation ex nihilo it being the same Word that was used at the forming of Mans Body Pag. 22. He says The Spirit of God stirring upon the Waters produced the Spirit or Soul of the World which puts Life into all living things The Hebrew term Offiz says he signifies both Spirit and Breath So the know in the Greek doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 23.46 It seems if in this verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been Translated Father into thy hands I commend my Breath It would have been as true and warrantable a Translation as ours which renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word Spirit and so for Acts 7.59 St. Stephen's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 receive my Breath whence I suppose that if in Solomon's Text the Hebrew word Offiz be used it may as well intend Breath as Spirit and thence the force of this Text will remain enervated and broken And this appears the more likely from Moses's Text Gen. 2.7 God formed Man and breathed into his Nostrils the breath of Life An Animating Breath upon which he doth not say that Breath became a living Soul as many would have it intended but that Man became a living Soul intending Person viz. the Compositum of Soul and Body became a living Person and that Spirit and Breath intend much the same Thing and pass in a like sense appears from divers other parallel places of Scripture Gen. 7.22 All in whose Nostrils was the Breath of Life died in the Flood Job 12.10 In Gods hand is the Soul of every living thing and the Breath of all Mankind Chap. 34.14 If God gather to himself Mans Spirit and his Breath he shall turn to his dust Psal 104. All things wait upon God when he taketh away their Breath they die when thou lettest thy Breath go forth they shall be made and the face of the Earth renewed Here Breath seems to intend Spirit and that they are much of the same Signification Psal 146.3 When the Breath of Man goeth forth he shall turn again to his Earth and then all his thoughts Perish Here David says the same thing with Solomon only in Solonmo's Text that which is called or Translated Spirit is in David called or Translated Breath Acts 12.25 God gives to all Life and Breath and all Things Life and Breath as closely United or as an Animating Breath Zach. 5. These are the Four Spirits of the Heavens Noted upon the Margent or Winds Ezek. 37. He describes the Resurrection of dry Bones there was a shaking and the Bones came together and the Senews and Flesh came up upon them and the Skin covered them above and yet they lived not Then the Prophet commanded not to call for Souls to enliven those Bodies but to say Come from the Four Winds O Breath and breath upon these slain that they may live and the Breath came into them and they lived and stood up upon their Feet From these Texts it seems probable to me That the Word in Solomon's Text rendered by Spirit doth intend such an Animating Breath as God Breathed into Adam's Nostrils and of which it was said all in whole Nostrils was the Breath of Life died in the Flood This Animating Breath God breathe first into Adam and from him it hath been Propagated ever since By this is the Flame of Life kindled
be obtained presently upon the Death of the Body I say The Words mention neither the one time nor the other nor it seems do intend the one any more than the other for they import a present Being come to those Advantages and not a future He confesses here That Humane Wisdom cannot Penetrate into the Future State of Souls and that Men know but little of them I say can know just nothing of his sort of Souls Pag. 192. He cites 1 Joh. 3.2 It doth not yet appear what we shall be I ask whence that will appear the Text says it will appear at Christ's Second Coming that when he shall appear we know we shall be like him which intimates Men must stay till that time for such Knowledge Pag. 196. He says When Death comes the Soul disputes its Possession of the Body with him from Member to Member like Soldiers in a Stormed Garrison and at last loses the Royal Fort Intimating that his Soul 's Being is like that of Death's Being viz. no Real Subsistence but an Imagination Pag. 197. Says The falling asleep in Death or sleeping in Jesus must not be stretched to a length in respect of the Soul but offers no Proof of this I say That it concerns the whole Person Soul as well as Body and likely will strech it self to the very time of the Resurrection Pag. 202. Says Angels carry our Souls to God And for Proof cites the Parable of Dives his only Ground for that Opinion which I say is too sandy to support it for that here was no real Fact related but only a Similitude fitted to the common Jewish Opinion of that time Pag. 203. Grants there is no necessity of such Conveyance of the Soul but it is used for State or Decorum All this seems but his Phancy and he gives no other Proof either of the one viz. that there was such a Fact or of the other viz. that it is for State and Decorum Pag. 204. Says The presence of Angels or Spirits affright the Spirits not only of Men but of Beasts and thence the Soul of Man by consent But of such a Consent he offers no Proof nor that there is a Soul different from the Material which I say is of the same Nature both in Man and Beast which by the Production of like fears both in Man and Beast at the appearance of Spirits seems to me somewhat confirmed Pag. 205. Delivers but his own Phancy thereupon Pag. 206. He asks What Form Shape or Figure can the Phancy of Man cast his own Soul into as an help to understand its Nature I answer into none at all mine hath no certain Form of it self and of his may be said ex nihilo nihil fit But if such a Soul there be one may Form an Idea of it as well as of any other Spirit And for Raptures I have said the Understanding Phancy and Memory may be effectually Wrought upon and affected Pag. 214. Says The Souls of the Just go immediately to Glory from the time of the Persons Death And offers Proof Luk. 23.43 of the Thief also Luk. 16.22 of Lazarus being carried and Phil. 2.23 a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ all cited and answered before Pag. 215. Speaks but his own Phancy and without Proof Pag. 225. Says Good Souls departed have a satisfying Apprehension though no perfect Comprehension of the Divine Essence and mentions the seeing God Face to Face Whereas St. John teaches We know that when he shall appear at his Second Coming we shall see him as he is Christ doth not say see God But the Author produces no Proof of any sort of seeing after Death Pag. 234. Says Those who went to Heaven before Christ's Ascension were fully at rest in God and yet upon Christ's Coming to Heaven their Happiness was advanced Cites to prove this Heb. 11.40 God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect To this I say it rather seems to prove a stay of Perfection till the whole Number be accomplished at the Resurrection as the Answer to the Souls in the Revelation also doth Pag. 243. Says It is too great a dificulty to trace the Soul beyond the limits of this World I say it is so to trace his sort of Soul in this World and I deny that his Text proves that Death perfects the Spirits of the Just which shall not be done till the Number be compleated at the Resurrection Pag. 244. Says We have more Acquaintance with Souls than with Angels He means with his sort of Souls and then I deny it for Angels and Spirits have appeared and been otherwise sensibly perceived to act but we know not that ever an Humane Soul by it self was known or perceived so to do Pag. 252. He says The Radical Moisture which is daily consuming by the Flame of Life must needs be spent ere long Here we agree Pag. 266. Says Separated Souls are capable af performing God's Commands as well as Angels are This I deny and he offers no Proof He says Some departed Souls have returned and appeared in this World Instances in Moses and Elias and the Bodies of Saints which appeared at Christ's Resurrection To this I say All these Appearances were of Bodies except Moses and of him it may be doubted what appeared Pag. 267. Says Apparitions as of Dead Persons are not indeed so but are acts of other sorts of Spirits To this I agree Pag. 273. Men oft meet a Mortal Enemy's Spirit in the disguise of a dead Friend Pag. 274. Says That after the Resurrection the Raised shall know one another and talk and converse but till that time Souls departed do converse only with God How proves he this not at all ergo it is a bare Invention Yes says he it must needs be so for if Souls could act thus before the Resurrection would be needless and to no purpose I say Souls going to Heaven and seeing and enjoying God and Heaven before that time makes the Resurrection of small value and little signification Pag. 284. Says 'T is confest that the Soul concerning it self singly is made perfect and enjoys Blessedness in the absence of the Body He tells us not who hath made this Confession He quotes Words of Alstedius here but they do not import such a Confession but whosoever did confess it I am sure that I deny it mente manu and he should prove it but doth not Pag. 285. Cites 2 Thes 4.15 It says Those which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him This says he must properly respect the Body for the Soul sleeps not I say as much as the Body doth Pag. 304. He says I should rather chuse to live meanly then to die easily and if both Parts were to perish no Man would die or desire it And the Opinion of the Immortality say I prevails not with those who live at ease to desire Death He says It would be a madness for
Second Observation concerns an Objection which hath been and may be made against my pretence of the Souls Extinguishment at the Death of the Party It is demanded If the Old Flame of Life be extinguished in Death and a-new kindled at the Resurrection how can that which riseth be the same with that which died And if not so the new must be rather taken for a Creation than a Resurrection To this I answer by another Question concerning the Body How can that Body whose Flesh and Bones are eaten by Wolves or Dogs as Jezabel's was or burnt to Ashes and those scattered in the Wind or upon the Water rise the same again at the Last Day To this Query St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. gives an Answer which it seems will serve both Cases alike ver 35. How are the dead raised and with what Body do they come He answers That which thou sowest is not quickned except it die and thou sowest not that which shall be For Example Wheat the Grain sown first corrupts then fructifies and God makes the New grow out of the Old and God gives it a Body viz. to every seed it s own Body and thence Wheat rises from Wheat and Barly from Barly plainly declaring that in the Resurrection the New Body shall be the same with the Old in Substance Flesh and Blood Skin and Bone Head and Heart Brain and Breath Limbs Members Muscles and all Organs proportionable to the Old as one Grain of Wheat or like as one Egge to another This I take for the Sameness of Body which the Apostle here describes to us and such a Sameness will the Soul easily obtain viz. a Flame of Life as much the same with the former As a Flame in one part of a Fire kindles and produces a Flame in another part of the Fire singly there are so many Flames and yet all are but the Flame of the same Fire and may well enough be called the same Flame full as well as the Ear of Wheat and all the Corns of it may be called Wheat and the same Wheat with that which was sown And this Solution it seems may serve for the Souls as well as St. Paul's Wheat for the Body and one of them shall be as much the same as the other But to my Apprehension the Sameness intended in the Resurrection is not so much or properly applicable to the Soul or the Body as to the Person The Body suitable to the former and like it as one Grain of Wheat like and proportionable to that from which it springs So a Flame of Life of suitable force brightness and activity to the former and fit for that Body where it is kindled these will in the Person produce the same Faculties that were in the former Person viz. The same Vital Powers Sensitive Powers same Inclinations Affections Desires Natural the same Rational Powers Perception Understanding Phancy Judgment Memory Will Conscience And these will make the rising Person altogether the very self and same Person with that which died more the same than an Old Man is the same with what he was when Young or a Child Compare a Child of four years to a Man of fourscore they are known really to be the same Person by Collateral Evidences but none by having known the Child can expect by his Senses to discover the Old Man to be the same Person nor can the Old Man himself evidently know or make Proof by any thing in himself that he is the same Person so great Differences grow in time between the one Age the other But the Person rising at the Last Day may likely be as much the same with him that died as the Man waking after a long Sleep is the same with him that lay down to take his Rest There will be Body Soul and Person without difference and the same Powers Vital Sensitive Rational Inclinations Affections Cogitations and Knowledge all which make effectually and really the same Person and more the same than the Old Man is with the Young and yet those are really the same Person also 3. My Third Observation shall be concerning such Texts as those who maintain the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Souls do Alledge both out of the Evangelists and the Apostolick Writings for the Proof and Support of that Opinion Viz. Mat. 10.28 Are not able to kill the Soul Chap. 16.26 Gain the whole World and lose his own Soul Luk. 16.19 The Parable of Dives Chap. 23.43 To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Ver. 46. Jesus cried Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit And Acts 7.59 Stephen's Saying Lord Jesus receive my Spirit 2 Cor. 5. Ver. 6. 8. Absent from the Body and present with the Lord. Phil. 1.23 To depart and be with Christ is better but to abide in the Flesh is more needful for you Heb. 12.9 Ye have been obedient to your fleshly Fathers and shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits Ver. 22. Ye are come to Mount Sion God Christ and the Spirits of Just Men made Perfect 1 Pet. 3.19 He went and preached to the Spirits in Prison Rev. 6.9 The Souls under the Altar Here are 11 Quotations Alledged to Prove the Separate Subsistence of Souls and their Immateriality And some add to these Mat. 17. Moses and Elias appearing at the Transfiguration which makes them up a Dozen I have made and do make one General Observation upon them all viz. That they are all spoken or delivered in a transient manner not principally intending to teach the Immateriality or Separate Subsistence of Souls not in Places where the Contexts before lead to a Discourse concerning the Nature or State of Souls or what becomes of them after Death or between that and the Resurrection so as there is not a Design in any of these Texts principally to teach that Doctrine Nor any clear Intention apparent to teach at all this Belief For Instance The Absent from the Body and present with the Lord or the To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Or the Receive my Spirit Or the Be Obedient to the Father of Spirits Or the We are come to God Christ and his Church Or the Preaching to the Spirits in Prison Or the Souls under the Altar Or the Appearing of Moses and Elias at Tabor I demand what do these Texts of themselves teach concerning a Separate State or Subsistence of Souls There is no previous Discourse in their Contexts leading to speak of the State of Souls or inducing to teach concerning them nor apparent Intent in any of these Texts so to do But Men possest with an Opinion of the Separate Subsistence do draw and beat out of these Texts that which doth not naturally flow from them nor that they ever intended to teach so as the Doctrine squeezed out of these Texts for the Nourishment and Support of their Opinion tastes strongly of the Husk and Skins of them and are rather violently forced
Calamos cera conjungere plures instituit Lastly I have chosen the Organ as that Instrument whereunto Mankind may most sutably be compared and from hence shall begin to make general Observations upon these Instruments and Creatures comparando As the Whistle and Horn have no great Variety in their Sounds so have the Insects but something analogous in them to them to Flame and Blood and therefore may rather be counted Animata than Animalie and we shall but little insist upon them but chuse to observe rather upon our Third Instrument the Penny Pipe which can make a Variety of Sounds by several Stops upon it First it appears that this as all our other Instruments this and they all are acted and made sounding by one same Actor or Principle viz. Breath or Wind inspiring them And I say the like of the small Animals compared to it viz. Mice Moles c. we say that they as all other Animals are framed and acted after a similar Manner and as the rest of the greater Animals are and as Man their Supream also is for each of these small Animals have Skin Bone Flesh Blood Sinews Nerves Muscles Joints Heart Brain and Breath as well as the Horse or the Elephant or even as Man himself and act their Five Senses and Vital Faculties as other Animals do and have a Flame of Life or Glowing in their Flood which makes it Circulate Active and Moving as is done in other more large and potent Animals in a Proportion and Nature sutable to their beings The thing is all of a hind in them all as the Wind and Breath in the Musical Instruments the Wind in them doth not make a like Sound or Musick in them all but according to the structure and capacity of every one of them Now give a Penny Pipe into the best Artists hand and who hath a very good Breath yet he shall be able to make but very mean Musick with it sutable to the mean capacity of the Instrument and this is the Case of the Mouse or the Mole amongst Animals though they in their Structure Parts and Spirits are of the same Nature with the greater Animals yet such Spirit and Flame can do no more in those small and weak Bodies than the Capacities and Organs of them will extend unto and those Degrees of Power proportionate to its own Strength Nature and Constitution And so it is in every Degree of Animals one above another the Flame or Material Spirit of Life works in each of them proportionably to act and perform such things and in such manner as the Structure of their Bodies and the Figure Power and Order of their Members make them able and inclinable to act and gives them a Power to execute And just as in the Wind Instruments one sort of Spirit acts them all and one sort of Materials viz Hard Materials Wood or Metâ—al make the Body or gross and palpable parts of them and yet there is that vast Variety in the Musick and Sounds of them as if they were not at all of kin one of them to the other but rather as if they were quite different things in their Nature which plainly they are not for the Matter and Spirit in them all are alike It is true they are different Instruments and make very different Sounds and Sort of Musick And it seems the Case is the same amongst Animals Matter and Spirit are of like Nature in them all Man himself though Sanctius his Animal Mentisque capacius altae his Genus is the same with theirs he is Animal let the differentia be what it will Rationale or Religiosum Man is of the same Kind with the other Animals and is compared by David to the Beasts that perish utterly and so should Man have done unless God had promised and appointed a Resurrection for him and a Judgment upon him But all our Maintainers of the Immateriality exclaim and declaim upon the transcendent advantages which Men have over and beyond the Beasts in the Power and Activity of their Rational Faculty which mistakingly and yet generally they call the Soul of Man and seem so to esteem and think of it but to me it seems there is not a greater difference in Nature or Power betwixt Men and Beasts then in Musick there is between the Organ and the inferiour Instruments from the Trompet to the Penny Pipe or Whistle There is as great a transcendency in the Organ over or and above each of the other Instruments in the Musical Use of them as there is in Men over and above Beasts in the several Kinds of them These Machines viz. the Organ and the Man the one amongst Wind Instruments and the other amongst Animals must evidently be accounted for Superlative and Supream with whom none of the Inferiour Animals or Instruments can hold a reasonable Comparison but Ocularly visible it is that the Organ hath no other Spirit or Cause of its Sound Musick and Harmony but the same that acts in all the Inferiour Instruments And semblably it seems that although Man be a Superlative and Supream Animal yet he may be and is acted by a like Flame or Spirit as we agree doth actuate and enliven the other Animals of an Inferiour Nature or Degree inabling for Acts of Life and Vegetation Nourishment Digestion and Generation stirring their Affections of Lust Wrath and Fear Moving and acting their Five Senses to perceive their several Objects And all these and their Local Motions are as vigorous and perfectly acted in Beasts as in Men and this sort of Soul acts also in Brutes an Understanding Phancy Judgment and Memory true in their Kind but to a very low Degree in comparison with Faculties of those Kinds found amongst Men for that the Humane Head and Organs there placed are far more advantageously framed and fitted for such purposes And thus it seems there is set forth and shewed an apparent and pregnant likeness or similitude between the Correspondence which the Organ hath with the Inferiour Wind Instruments and that which Man hath with the Inferiour Animals And that this Comparison or Similitude may be helpfully used towards the Discovery of the Nature and Operations of an Humane Soul and some farther Assimilations may be made of Man to an Organ viz. First That as in an Organ the Wind cannot command or alter the Sound of any of the Pipes so as to make the Treble Mean Tenor or Bases sound otherwise than that Artist who made them intended them for So it is in Man his Spirit or Soul cannot act any of his Senses or Faculties to other then those very purposes for which the Divine Artificer made and intended them it cannot make the Hand see nor the Foot hear the Shoulders understand nor the Buttocks digest but it can only act every Part Member and Organ to those purposes intended by him that made them Secondly As when any of the Pipes in an Organ are ill made cracked or otherwise harmed the Wind cannot
and Man Whereas the Fact of our Savage who hath not nor knows any Law may pass well enough without discerning by any Light of Nature that his Fact was Turpe And so may the Case be for Adultery or Incest amongst Persons who neither live under Laws nor have any knowledge of them they cannot naturally discern the Turpe in such Actions and for Theft and Robbery it would be the delight and glory of such Savages and was the common practice of the Savage World and is the common Arabian Profession at this day And we may add to them the petit Pirates and even the great Conquerours and Spoilers of Nations who because they live without Laws or above them do not or will not discover any Natural Turpe in those Ravages which they make upon the to them innocent and harmless people All these Cases or Instances seem to evince that the Discovery of Honestum and Turpe grows not from Nature barely or in its extreamest Simplicity nor without some assistance from Education or Institution Next our opposing Immateriallists do alledge That upon the committing of any known and great Turpe there arises amongst Men a great and tormenting Sense of such Evil flowing from Nature in Man and which is never found in Beasts of any Kind But I do not assent to either of these Assertions First For Conscience in Man I have said the Conscient Powers viz. Understanding Memory and Judgment are Natural and so are the Effects viz. Pleasure and Joy Sorrow and Fear But to compleat a Conscience in Man there must be more than Nature viz. Some sort of Rules or Directions growing from Education or Institution and such may derive themselves from Three Originals First By Revelation from God or Spirits Secondly From Precepts or Examples of other Men. Thirdly From the Person himself concerned in the Inquiry his own Observations Opinions Phantasies Now take any of these Sorts of Rules which any Man hath accepted for his Guides and submitted himself unto if he find his Actions agree with his Rules that Agreement produces Comfort and Joy and the contrary produces Sorrow and Fear the wideâ—â—er they differ the greater the Fear and proportionable to the degrees and duration of Rewards an1Punishments taught and believed to be expected and the reputed certainty of them And it seems the Rule accepted and submitted to be it right or wrong true or false obliges the Conscience of the Believer and strikes him with remorse upon any his irregular Actions as strong the false as the true and this shews the Faculty not to be wholly from Nature for that she is more constant in her Directions and Notices then to be ordinarily liable to such great aberrations We say then a Savage can have no Conscience for want of Rules whence that Power cannot be derived from bare Nature in Man The other Assertion viz. That Conscience is not to be found in Beasts of any kind I do not assent unto yet granting that naturally none of them have it But I conceive that by an Education amongst Men and a Conversation with them some Beasts may attain and have obtained to such Conscient Faculties as are agreeable to the low degrees of their Understanding and I give instance in a Mastiff Dog if he go at liberty without Education and meet with a Sheep hungry he falls on and kills and eats till he have enough and departs without any sign or sense of remorse for his so doing But take one of that kind and give him an Education amongst Men and being taught his Duty in that Case if after this Dog happen to worry a Sheep he becomes so sensible ashamed and afraid togteher that his guilt and fear appear in his whole carriage and the Temper and posture of his Body so as his looks and carriage give evident proof that he is a Sheep-biter So for a Setting-Dog if his over-eager desire carry him into his Game and that he spring it his Conscient Power smites him upon that Fact so that he dare not will not approach his Master or Teacher but will a void and flie from them by all means and for a competent time till their anger may be allwaged and some of them have been thereby so scared as to run quite from their Masters and forsake them for ever We know also that some Horses which have been corrected for tripping upon the High-way it by accident they make a trip they suddenly dart themselves forwards remembring the former Corrections and sometimes do by that means escape the punishment which otherwhiles would have fallen upon them And in like manner the most Docible Creatures Dogs Horses Apes Elephants are made tractable and tâ—ught by Rewards and Punishments and the Desire Fear and Expectations of them the same which are the Grounds and Effects of Conscience in Man And thus Arguendâ— and with hard rubbing it seems there is taken off from the Nature of Man this last Piece of Varnish or Ornament which by divers hath been so hard laid on and fastened as it seemed like a Fixation inseparable and quarto modo peculiar to it in consequence of which I say That we have now laid the Nature of Man as naked and bared of its Ornaments as before we did that of our Organ And as then that Instrument so bared had for its Materials no other then what the Inferiour Instruments were made of viz. Wood or Common-Metal so is it like to fall out with the Body of Man there will appear in it nothing but Skin Bone Flesh Blood Joynts Muscles Nerves Arteries Sinews Veins Heart Head Brain and Breath c. all of the same kind with those of the Inferiour Animals And for the Active Principle in them both as Wind and Breath of the same Nature but stronger or weaker moves and acts as well the Organ as all the other Inferiour Instruments So it seems a Spirit inflamed and of a like Nature is the Active Principle in the whole Animal Kind and Nature viz. both of Man and Beast The Flame may be purer and grosser brighter and dimmer but in all of a Similar Kind and Nature one of them with he other as the Wind and Breath was to the forenamed Instruments And this Conclusion shall close and finish my present Simile and that put end to my intended Argument against the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Soul For the publishing of which I offer this Reason That having an Inclination and Desire to find out or learn the Truth in the Point before disputed and having in my Answer to Doctor Bentley's Sermon summoned him to perform his promise of proving the Separate Subsistence of an Humane Soul I thought it requisite to lay before him or any other who being qualified for it shall undertake the Imployment all or the most important of those Grounds and Reasons which moved me in a Mature and Decaying Age to perswade my self that the Opinion of the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Humane Souls after Death of their Bodies is an Errour to the intent that having before them the true State of the Malady and the Causes of it they may be the better inabred to direct their Applications for the Cure and take the whole State of the Case together and shall say no more save by way of Caution viz. That hitherto the Fabrick of the Argument is held together as by Nails driven through Boards yet remaining with streight points so as they may be pinched out again with more ease and little damage to the Materials it proper Endeavours shall be used to that purpose viz. By a full strong reasonable and well grounded Answer to the Objections which have been in this Tract or Treatise produced but if pregnant Persons shall enter upon the Undertaking without Direction or Advice and make infirm cholerick or any way insufficient Answers thereunto that will prove like a clenching or rivetting the points of the Nails on the farther side and make them so hard to be drawn out again as there may be great difficulty and some inconvenience in the performance of it My Desire and Prayer to God is That he will by his good Providence and Spirit direct such as out of a Pious Inclination and for Love to Truth shall in Peaceable and Christian Manner undertake the Rectification of those Errours which shall be with clearness detected in this Treatise And that he will finally discover to us what is the very Truth in the Point here disputed And to an Answerer I shall conclude with St. Paul 2 Tim. 2.7 Consider what I say and the Lord give thee understanding in this and in all things especially enable thee for the Discovery declaring and proving of the Truth in this Point FINIS