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
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
may yet draw a Plastick Power from the Seed enabling it to assimilate to its own Parts and Nature such Particles as are agreeble to its Constitution and lie within the Compass and Reach of its Activity till the whole Substance or Plastick Power of the Seed be spent Thence rises the Frutex from the Mustard-seed the least amongst Seeds in whose Surcrease the Birds of the Air may lodge And thence the Oaks of Bashan and the no less large or useful ones of our own naturally-happy Country We know farther concerning such Vegetables that they have Roots which draw and extract Radical Nourishment out of the Earth each for its proper Plant and that their Sap is sent up for Nourishment betwixt the Bark or Skin and the Bole or Stalk and that in the Wood or Stalk there are Pores which receive Nutritive Moisture both for its own Support and Growth and the better Nutriment also of the Plant and thus we know in gross many Natural Parts and Materials by whose Powers and Means things are acted and done amongst Plants But all these things that we named and that we know are Parcels of Matter which our Philosophizing Opposers will flatly deny can move themselves Whence they must and do say all this Motion and Activity can come no otherwise but from a Spirit and if they mean a Natural and Material Spirit extracted from the Earth and percolated in the Root and alimbeck'd in its Ascent towards the Branches where the Leaves and Fruit are expected and produced we grant them there is such a Spirit as this in Plants which Philosophers have dignified with the Title of a Soul calling it by Name of the Vegetable Soul But I would seek with a Lanthorn amongst them for a Man so wise that he could apply the Powers and Working of Plants to their proper Productions applicando activa passivis and make Men comprehend how it comes to pass from Intelligible Causes that Apple-trees or other Fruit-trees do bear different Sorts of Apples or Fruits the same Trees the same Fruits whence the thing comes not by Chance but of Nature We desire them to shew the Reason and next Causes of this Difference nay let them declare to us the true and next Causes of the Contexture of a Leaf how and by what Means and by what Causes or Agent the middle Stem of it is thrust out into a strait Line stiffned and made strong for Support of the Fabrick Whence come or how are formed the small Ramuli of such a Leaf fixed in the middle Stem of it Whence all the inferiour and little Fibres and Turnings in it plainly wonderful to behold when the upper Case and Covering is worn off And what is the next Cause or Material of the upper Covering of such Leaves and the Nitor or Gloss of many of them and whence comes their Shape and Figure so divers one from another Our Blessed Lord informs us That if a Man sowe Corn and sleep and wake or rise Night and Day by turns to watch it yet it will still grow up he knows not how first the Blade then the Ear and then the full Corn in the Ear. We know that in Nature there are Materials to do all this and that there is a Natural and Material Spirit operating which we conceive may and doth effect them But to find out the proper Materials and next Causes and their Differences from one another and why and how these things and many more are done amongst and in them shall pass for a Task too hard for the Forces of any who require to have Men declare by what Mediums the how and the why Men do and can use their Senses Memories Phansies and Intellects by the Material and Organical Parts of their Natural Constitutions and Bodies From Vegetables we may proceed by ascending to the Degree of Animals in the World distinct from Men who also are Animals but something more and above the Ordinary Of the Beasts Moses says God made the Beast of the Earth after his Kind This imports he furnished them at the same time with the Breath of Life For Solomon tells us that Men and Beasts have all one Breath And this agrees with our own Knowledge and Experience and puts the thing beyond all Question or Doubt although though Moses do not relate the Manner how it was done as he did in the Case and Creation of Man But the Beast created and inspired with this Common Breath proceeds in the Generating its Like as hath been before expressed concerning Man If the Seed fall like that of Onan the Son of Judah into an improper or inhospitable Place whatsoever Fervor of Spirit or Prolifick Power there may be in it all is lost and comes to no Effect for wart of a fit Recipient where it may find Natural Support by a due Fomentation and Nutriment But where the Recipient is proper for such Purposes the Seminal Matter and Power proceeds to act as before hath been said of Man the Prolifick Spirit fomented ferments the Matter and levens or seasons it till it arrive to a Coagulation and then to a Consistence which assisted by Fomentation of its Receptacle and working of its own Natural Heat and Spirit is first determined in Quantity or Bulk then made more solid and then follows the Formation of Parts and lastly of Members Flesh Bones and such sort of Blood or Chile of a Mixt Temperature to it and all indued with an Inclination and Power of Assimilating to it self such Particles as come within its Reach and are proper for its Increase or Nutriment till it come into the World and take in the Vital Breath and Air whose Fanning kindles the Flamnula Vitalis in the Blood Humours and Spirits of the Body carrying Life and Motion into every the most remote Part of it which upon the total Extinguishment of the Flame dies and can never he re-inkindled without fresh Fire from Heaven an Act of Divine Power and working of a Miracle A violent Blow upon the Head we know will work this Effect without inflicting a greatly visible Wound done by the Concussion and fierce Motion procured and following upon the Blow and whereby we perceive the hardest Stones in Nature may be broken And in all these Particulars the Nature of Man and Beast seem to be at perfect Accord and to have a very near degree of Similitude and Affinity one of them unto the other and so it seems in their Natural Duration or Continuance Strong Spirits or but that of Wine never cease flaming after they are once kindled till either the Matter be all spent or that by some Violence from without it be extinguished or that by some inward Obstruction Nutriment be hindred and cut off or that by some ill Mixture that Nutriment be vitiated and made improper and insufficient for Nourishment of the Flame once kindled as by putting Water or a like unsutable Mixture into the Spirit of Wine or to Oil or other Spirits proper for
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
be attained unto but the ordinary means of attaining it is by Searching into all or the most of the Accidents unto the same belonging and so searching we know not how to find any Affections or Accidents a Soul hath that are proper or peculiar to her self Commonly we find she neither does nor suffers any thing without Copartnership of the Body The Intellect seems her most peculiar and yet if that be a sort of Phantasie or cannot be performed without the Phancy certainly it cannot be acted without the Body neither Hence he collects and asserts That if in the Soul there be any Operation or Affection which is properly peculiar to its self viz. it s own Nature it may then be reasonably taken to have a Separate Subsistence disjoyned from the Body but if it have no Operations or Affections so peculiarly proper to its own Nature then is it not capable of Subsistence in a State separated from the Body Also that which is never found or perceived without a Body may well pass for inseparable from a Body Also in all our Affections the Body joyns and operates with the Soul for if they were totally or principally from the Soul they would act in a like manner upon all like or equal occasions But we find that Men will sometimes bear very great Provocations or Appearances of great Danger without any great emotions of Anger or Fear and at another time they are apt to fear upon far less occasions and to be wrathful and angry accordingly This shews the Humours of the Body have a great Share and Power in producing these Affections and that they are Rationes Materiales Effects of a Material Soul of which Men say Dispositio Animae sequitur Temperamentum Corporis nam Ratio est forma Rei Concluding upon the Question That the Affections of the Animal are inseparable from the Natural Matter and Composure of it This is a Summary of the First Chapter of Aristotle's Book He questions as Solomon had done before him Whether Souls do subsist in Separation from their Bodies or not And argues If they have proper Operations or Accidents of their own it is likely they do subsist so and if they have not such then they do not so subsist for Natura nihil facit frustra And if they neither have Action nor Passion properly belonging to them their Subsistence would be Frustra and therefore we have no reason to admit or allow of a Separate Subsistence of Souls unless we can prove they have some Operation Affection or Accidents so properly belonging to them as that they are certainly known to exercise or use them without any assistance of Body or Matter We have before quoted our Doctor Pag. 227. to this Point saying The Soul is not sufficient of her self to act without the Animal Spirits And P. 298. These are the immediate Instruments of the Soul by which she sees hears feels imagines remembers reasons and moves the Members and the Body and if they be spent she can act no more But neither Aristotle nor the Doctor here find any properly peculiar Operation or Accidents of the Soul Aristotle says indeed That Intelligere is the most so of any thing Videtur to be the most so of any other thing but he was not convinced that Intelligere was so proper to the Soul as could give title to a Separated Subsistence after the death of the Body nor doth he absolutely conclude to the contrary but hath left us in the open road towards it and with fair and forcible Reason so to do This way of quoting Aristotle's Book seems like that of the Israelites when they compassed the Land of Edom their Soul was discouraged with the Prospect and Contemplation of the length of it But as we find Weariness grow upon us long Strides or Skips may happen to be made before the finishing of so venturous an Undertaking Cap. 2. Aristotle proceeding in his History cites to us all the Opinions that he knew to be delivered concerning the Soul by Eminent Grecian Philosophers before his time First He states the special Differences betwixt the Animata and Inanimata or the Animals and Things that are not so to lie in Motion and Sense All Animals have those two things and none but Animals have them and that Motion is the Prior and Superiour Faculty therefore the First Observers began from thence believing That which could not move it self could not move another thing Whence Democritus collected That the Soul was a certain Degree of Heat or Fire which he took to be kindled and maintained in the Body by such Atoms flying about in the Air as are of a Globular Figure which he took to be of a Fiery Nature such they observed to be in the Air never resting but always in Motion though the Wind and Air were never so calm and quiet these entring into the Body with the Breath acted in it and acted it every breathing supplying fresh Atoms and by that means continuing Life and Motion in the Body but on stoppage or failure of Breath the Animal dies for want of fresh Atoms to heat move and actuate the same Men were put to it for the finding a way to kindle this Fire in the Animal Bodies for want of Moses's History and takeing the Promethean or Heavenly Fire but for a Fable with Democritus's Opinion Leucippus also agreed The Pythagorean School Some said the Soul was of these Atoms others it was of that which moved these Atoms and divers more held the Soul to be an Active Principle which first moved it self and then acted every thing about it for nothing can move another thing that is not first moved it self Anaxagorus was of the like Opinion and so were all they who had principal respect to the Motion of Animals but other Philosophers there were who principally respected the Sensitive and Scientifical Performances of the Soul and they conceived the Soul to be a Compositum or Temperament of the Elements and of this Opinion was Empedocles and Plato in his Timaeo this Compositum they drew out into Four Principles after a Mathematical Pattern the first as a single Unite or Point and this they said was the Intellect then they drew out a Line terminated by two Unites and that they called the Number Two and this they said was Science of Lines they produced a Planum and that they said was Opinion and thence they founded and made a Solid Body and this they said was the Sense or Sensitive Power and that all things were judged and terminated part by the Intellect part by Science part by Opinion and part by Sense and having reduced the Self-moving Soul to Numbers they gave it the Term of a Self-moving Number but those who compounded it of the Elements made Fire Principal in that Composition it consisting of the most Subtile and Incorporeal Parts prompt to and in Motion and a Prime Mover of other Things Diogenes thought the Soul to be Air as the most
but not so well Vehement excessive Objects of other Senses do only destroy the present Act or at most but the Organ But such Objects of the Touch may kill as vehement Heat Cold Hardship Smell or Taste can also kill but that comes from their Touches and such Power as an Aspect may have to that Purpose is by Power of what touches Prov. 2.4 Solomon directs Seek Knowledge and Truth as Silver and search for them as for hid Treasures And thus have we ransacked the Treasures of this Philosophical Treatise and Storehouse the best furnished towards the present Purpose of any Magazine which by Art or Nature we know to have been collected there hath no Part of it been left without our closest Scrutiny by which we seem to have found that the Philosopher had made a like Search to this very Purpose in the Times Ages and Writings of those who had lived before him and by such Search had found that Orpheus and Thales held Opinion That the whole World was Animatum and that there was in it an Universal Soul from whence the particular Souls were sent out to animate and inform all that were in Capacity to receive both the Vegetative Sensitive and Rational upon whose future Dissolution the Form Soul Virtue or Active Principle returned back to the Universal Soul or Spirit or Power and mixed therewithal as the Drops of Water returning are received and incorporated into their Ocean or Element And if this were true there must thence follow a Subsistence of Souls after Dissolution of the inspirited Bodies but not in their Individuations or Particulars Next came Pythagoras and he taught an Individuation of Souls That every Animal had its particular Form or Soul and the Souls of Men and Beasts were all of a Mode and transmigrated sometimes into Men and sometimes into Beasts according to their Deserts or as it happened or there was Need in the World This Opinion maintains and requires a Separate Subsistence of Souls after Death of the Body and that in every Particular or in their Proper Individuations and necessarily supposes a Pre-existence of Souls And there must be a great Stock Magazine or Provision of Souls whence all who have need may abundantly be supplied Likewise it supposes an Immortality in the Souls or else in length of time they might come to be clean spent and worn out Then came Democritus and he and Leucippus were of another Mind For they thought that upon the Aptitude and Fitness of the Body for the Receipt of a Soul the Vital Heat required and obtained a Respiration and therewithal the Globular or Fiery Atoms which fly about in the Air are drawn in at each Breathing and they give continual Supply to such Atoms as were in the Body before So long therefore as Animals breath and draw in such Atoms they may live but no longer for want of fresh Atoms or Fire for a continual Supply of their Souls This Opinion makes a Soul created by the Congregating of Globular Atoms not capable of a Separate Subsistence as a Soul but is again dissolved into its Atoms upon Death of the Body Then the Philosophers who more regarded Rational and Knowing Faculties in the Soul than its Vital and Moving ones such as Empedocles and Plato They thought the Soul to be a Compositum of the Elements amongst which Fire was most eminent and potent that all being wrought into an amicable Inclination and mixed in a sutable Proportion there rose from that Mixture a Spiritual Flame which they called a Harmony of them all during whose Continuance the Animal lives and hath Vigor in a like Proportion but in Death it ceases And if this be not the Soul which then leaves the Body what can Men think to be that Soul that then leaves it But if in truth this be the Soul which in Death leaves the Body then first it hath a Beginning but together with the Body and this is taken also away with Death of the Body for that there doth not come to Humane Perceivance or Knowledge of any other sort of Soul departing at Death but this only Flame by them called Harmony Other Opinions of Anaxagoras Heraclitus Almaeon Diogenes Hippo and Critias are also cited before And it seems the Opinion generally current was That the Soul was a distinct Principle from the Body and had a separate Subsistence after Death so strongly conceited as some killed themselves to enjoy Soul-felicities the sooner And this Ancient and General Conceit had so much Power even over Aristotle himself as to induce him to discourse of the Soul generally after the Mode of his Time viz. as of a Self-subsisting Principle and to affirm that a Part of it the Prime and Contemplative Part of it the Intellect actu is Self-subsisting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Immortal and Eternal And to prevent any Bodies demanding what this Soul is he says It is that only which it is and that only is Immortal and Eternal But he gives no manner of Confirmation from Reason or offers any Dilucidation or any farther Discourse upon the Thing But on the contrary whensoever he comes to argue from Reason upon this Point of Subsistence of the Soul in a State of Separation from the Body all his Arguments conclude against such Subsistence of a Soul in that Separate State for that it hath nothing to do wherein the Body joins not with it nor can do any thing not so much as move it self but by the Body nor act any thing in the Body but by the Animal Spirits cannot go out of the Body nor alter any thing in it cannot command the Passions Affections or Appetite but struggles with them after a Natural Manner and uses sometimes Natural Means both outward and inward to obtain Victory cannot punish a rebellious Opposer nor make a Hair White or Black or diminish or increase the Stature can finally do nothing but in a Natural Way and by Natural Means by the Organs bodily and the Animal Spirits and therefore in all his Arguments and Collections from Particulars or Experience the Soul seems to be a Natural Agent acting in and by the Body and employing chiefly the Heart as Vital and the Head as Sentient and Intellectual and all other Parts in Passions Affections Appetites and Motions And yet as this Life of the Soul is according to Nature the same Strength of Reason may seem to conclude for her a sutable Exit such as may best agree with a Natural or Material Spirit Des Caries in his Philosophical Principles Part 4. Sect. 197. mentions thus much shall we say or thus little of the Soul he says We do well enough comprehend how by the Bulk Figure and Motion of one Body divers Motions and Changes may be excited in another Body and such as have great Power to affect the same by acting upon the Senses But says he we cannot at all understand by what Mode these Bulk Figure and Motion do produce or effectually Work upon
him Art 11. We do not well understand nor so as to say he is right or wrong in it Art 12. and 13. We observe in the 13. that he says The Motions of the Brain do excite divers Senses in the Soul This I deny and he offers no Proof of any thing that he says but goes on and says That besides exciting Senses in the Soul these Spirits can without the Soul move the Muscles and Members of the Body He offers our Winking in Proof of this but I deny his Assertion and judge his Proof very insufficient Art 16. Says All our Motions which are common to us with Beasts may be done by us without the Soul by a common Temperament of the Body and the Members and Organs of it acted by the Animal Spirits derived from the Heart and directed in the Brain All this I grant and do take these to be the main Ingredients for the Frame of a Material Spirit Art 17. Says He hath now left nothing for the Soul save only Cogitare-Cogitations he divides into two Sorts one of Actions the other of Passions or Affections the Actions are what the Soul wills to do the Passions are a sort of Perceptions or Apprehensions found in us which the Soul doth not make but receive from Representations of outward Things All these Cogitations of our Author we do reject and say That whilst the Man continues to be so the Soul and Body neither do nor can act or suffer Separately but always in Conjunction one with the other Art 18. and 19. He divides his Cogitative Wills and Perceptions as he pleases Art 20. and 21. And so for his Sorts of Imaginations and so on to Art 25. There he says The Perceptions or Passions of Joy Fear Anger and the like are referred only to the Soul either not considering or not enough rembering that these Passions are as fully visible in Beasts as in Men and if they be referrable only to the Soul then such a Soul as Beasts have may serve well enough for the Subsistence and Acting of them Art 28. Says No other Perceptions do so much agitate and shake the Soul as these Passions do but Beasts are as much transported by them as Men. Art 30. That the Soul is united to every Part of the Body and to all Parts of it Conjunction is granted And how this is done in the Case of a Material Soul is plain and easie but not how done in an intire Spiritual Substance for that is not yet declared by our Author and we know not that it is Intelligible For he says truly Such a Soul cannot be conceived by Parts nor what Extension it hath or consequently where it is and where it is not Art 31. But yet he says There is a Special Part in the Body where the Soul doth exercise her Functions more perceivably than in all the rest of the Body Some have thought this Place to be the Heart and others to be the Brain but our Author upon accurate Examination evidently knows it not to be in either of these but that it is in one Part of the Brain only viz. the Middle or most Inward Part of it There says he is a very small Glandula or Kernel seated in the Middle of the Brain hanging in the very Channel or Course of the Animal Spirits so as the smallest Motions of this Kernel can do much in altering the Course of these Spirits and the Mutations of the Soul by the Courses of the Spirits do help much to change the Motions of this Kernel Parturiunt Montes We see here what our Authors vast Cogitations concerning the Soul hath brought forth viz. a Glandula admodum parva a very small Kernel to be the Chair of State or the Prime Seat of Judgment for his Imagined Soul This seems to fall far short of our Flammula Vitalis which with the Blood pervades the whole Body and actuates the Heart the Brain and every other and most minute Parts of it living with and in the Animal and not quite extinguished but with our latest and last Breath He offers us not one Word concerning the Immaterial Soul of which if he had any thing to say though but out of his own Cogitations this were the proper Place and this Time his Kue to produce them but his Silence gives consent to an Assertion That he knows nothing of it neither Quod sit Quid sit Quando nor Quomodo to the Vbi only He offers this Guess under the Terms of his believed evident Knowledge His Friend Dr. More doth profess to disbelieve him in it and places the Seat of the Soul in the Fourth Ventricle of the Brain by divers Arguments which I who believe neither of them will not spend Time to examine Art 34. Now let us imagine says he as his Mode of Cogitation that the Soul hath her Seat principally in this Kernel and thence sends forth her Rays to all the rest of the Body by Activity of the Animal Spirits hence whatsoever the Soul her self may be her Rays are not an Immaterial but Material Spirits and one would think her Rays should he like her self Well but says he This Kernel which is the Principal Seat of the Soul can move these Spirits and can be moved by the Soul which is of such a Nature that she can receive into her self various Impressions viz. she may have so many Perceptions as there can be various Motions made in this Kernel Art 35. The Animal having two Organs for Seeing and Hearing and two Hands Arms Legs and Feet the two Organs for Sense receive each the Object which goes double towards the Brain till they come to this Kernel and there they join in one and the Kernel working immediately in the Soul shews it the Figure as now it is become one Object All this seems to shew no more but the Products of his own Imagination led by the Affection which now he bears to this Kernel as the Embrion of his own Brain and Invention Art 36. If the Objects perceived shew Danger they excite the Passion of Fear in the Soul Upon this I demand where Fear is excited in the Beasts which have not such Souls and by what other Means then it is excited in Men Art 38. By Motion of this Kernel Fear is induced into the Soul and though the Legs may run away without Knowledge of the Soul yet this violent Motion of them makes another Motion in the Kernel by whose Help the Soul is made acquainted with its Body's running away Behold the Natural and Remarkable Effects of Dividing the Soul from the Body and ascribing some Actions to the one and some to the other separately and without Concurrence of the other Art 40. The Principal Effect of Passion in Man is to incite and dispose him for Self-preservation either by Fight or Flight He might have omitted the Words in Man for the Case is the very same with Beasts Art 44. The Soul by Help of his Kernel can move the
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but gives no Aswer to it Says Plato Origen and many Hebrews held Opinion the Adam's Soul and all other Souls did and do pre-exist and are thence called down as new Bodies require viz. from Superior Regions But this he says is both false and absurd And to prove this by Reason he says Pag. 619. cites Aristotle That the Soul is Actus Corporis Organici and therefore the Soul cannot be before the Body To this we easily assent and add That when the Body dies this Actus Corporis must cease for the same Reason He argues also That the Soul is a Spiritual Substance and it was not needful or proper to put that up at the Nostrils and that seems true but makes against his former Assertions Still there rises a new Difficulty viz. Whether this Soul if then created were created first within the Body or first without the Body and then was breathed or blown in The Text favours the later but the Author favours the former to the Intent that Men may not think Souls are still first created and then infused but think rather as he doth that Souls are created in their Bodies and to this end he approves Lombard's Invention of Creando infunditur Cites Essay 2.22 Cease ye from Man Cujus Anima in Naribus ejus est which we read whose Breath is in his Nostrils Pag. 620 The Soul of Man came to him from without although created within him He will have from without to signifie of another Nature or kind of Thing and not proceeding from the Body as the Beasts do But this he only says without offer of Proof for it Says The whole Soul comes together viz. Vegetative Sensitive and Rational whence it must come into the Body at the first Original of Life and there seems no doubt but there is a Vegetative Power and Principle in the Seed and likely for the Sensual and there appears no Reason against a like Course in the Rational these three being all Faculties of the same Soul from which none of them are separable Pag. 621. The Word signifying Spiraculum Vitarum is used as well concerning Beasts as Men. Pag. 624. Souls of Brutes are sometimes called Spirits in Scripture but never said to return to God Pag. 625. As God breathed into Adams Body the Breath of Life who thereupon rose from the Earth where he lay so shall his Breath effect Life in Bodies which shall rise at Sound of the Last Trumpet And as we read Ezek. 37. Pag. 667. Cites Gen. 1.28 God blessed the Man and Woman and said Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth as Ver. 22. he had said to other Creatures This seems to import Men do generate their Like as the Beasts do and the Creation of Souls for every fruitful Coition by Adultery Incest or Buggery is but a Fiction and not a likely or reasonable Contrivance Lib. 2. Cap. 1. Pag. 683. Mans Life consists in Heat and Moisture not simply but in Temperament with Cold and Dry and from the Four Elements The Four Complexions of Phlegm Sanguine Cholerick and Melancholy Health and Sickness Life and Death consist in a good and fit Temperature of these Humors and the Soul uses these as Instruments for Conservation of the Compositum the General Parts are Bones with their Nerves knitting them together and the Flesh with its Veins through which the Blood returns and Arteries through which the Vital or Animal Spirits have their Courses and God hath given to Men a more delicate Flesh and more Nice and tender Skin than to Beast Pag. 685. And the Temperament and Complexion of their Bodies are much finer Pag. 686. There are Three Principal Faculties of the Soul viz. Vegetation Sense and Motion 3. Intellect The Two later viz. Sense and Intellect are chiefly placed and acted in the Head and thence grow the Nerves passing to every Bone and Member Pag. 687. All Anatomists confess That in an Humane Body there are Innumerable Parts and Things which Men cannot find out and which are known only to God Pag. 689. The Common or Internal Sense cannot act without the Animal Spirits and the Soul uses these Spirits both for Understanding and for its other Actions which are to be performed in the Head and the Nerves which serve both for Sense and Motion through the whole Body have their Original from the Brain and are fixed in it or to it There the Soul reigns most effectually and who can express the various Instruments which God hath there provided for her Use Pag. 693. The Heart is the Original and Prime Instrument of Vegetation and Life which it communicates to the whole Body by its Intense Heat Motion and Rarefaction of the Blood and specially it communicates to the Head the Animal Spirits whereby Motion Sense and Cogitation are received and acted Thirdly The Heart is the Seat Fountain and Cause of all the Affections and there are two Principal Motions in it viz. that of the Systole and Diastole or of the Pulse effecting and Declaring Life the other Motion is of the Affections following the Conceptions or Intellect either with extraordinary Dilatation in the whole Body as in Accidents pleasing and joyous or with a like Compression or Contraction in Case of Accidents sorrowful or dspleasing Whence as Motion Sense and Intellect have their Original and Activity from and in the Brain and Head So Life and all the Affections are derived and acted from and in the Heart And betwixt the Heart and Head there is a wonderful Correspondence and Agreement to the Good and Benefit of the whole Compositum From the Heart Vital Spirits ascend to the Brain where they become Animal Spirits and by these Intelligence Cogitations and Notices of Things arise in the Mind from whence again such Cogitations and Notices strike upon the whole Heart exciting and stirring there the Affections and other Vegetative and Natural Motions which are either pleasing or displeasing tending to or towards Joy or Sorrow the one a great Help to and Supporter of Health and Life and the other great Hinderance to or a Destroyer of them both Pag. 694. The Liver is the Fountain of all the Veins and the Arteries through which the Vital Spirits do pass are always and in all Places conjoined with the Veins and upon them depend the Life and Motion of the Animal and the Soul uses the Blood and Spirits to such Purposes The Liver communicates Blood to the Heart and that again Vital Spirits to the Liver Pag. 195. And as Blood is never in the Veins without some Spirits so neither do the Spirits flow through the Arteries without some thin Rivage of Blood with them and as the Veins have need of the Arteries to stir the Blood in them so the Arteries of the Veins for Nourishment of the Spirits Pag. 696. Spirits of the Body are Vital or Animal and the Spirit is a Vapor drawn by Heat and Concoction of the Heart out of the purest Parts of the Blood
and then in kindled or inflamed first for Conserving of Life and next for being a Principle of Motion in the Animal extending to every Member and Part of it stirring them up and inabling them to the Performance of those Duties for which they were by God intended and ordained The Vital Spirit is Flammula quaedam bred in the Heart out of the purest Blood and thence by Vital Heat communicated and conveyed to the rest of the Members imparting Power and Activity to them by their Natural Heat and Motion and stirring them to act and perform those Duties for which by Nature and Creation they were ordain'd and made The Organs for conveying this Vital Spirit into all Parts and Members of the Body are the Arteries The Animal doth no otherwise differ from the Vital Spirit save that in being transferred to the Brain that hath Power to rarify and make it more Lucid and Subtil and then being from thence infused into the Nerves it incites and enables them to exercise their Faculties Powers and appointed Offices of Sensation and Motion And by both these sorts of Spirits the Principal Actions of Animals and even of Humane Bodies are effected Namely Life is preserved and thence proceed Nutrition Generation Sense Motion Cogitations and Affections Hence it hath come to Pass that some have thought these Spirits to be the very Soul it self or at least the immediate Instruments to it by which the Body both lives and moves Hoc postremum says our Author verum est To which we do not assent but rather hold with the former Lib. 2. Cap. 2. Pag. 697. Treats Ex Professo de Anima and cites out of Tully That Dicaearchus a Peripatetick Philosopher and Scholar to Aristotle held there was no more Soul in Man than in Beasts This says our Author though it should be the Opinion of all Philosophers we ought not to follow or believe them in it because the Scriptures says he are against it Pag. 69â— He takes it pro confesso as agreed on all hands that Souls of Beasts do die with their Bodies without a Principle of separately Subsisting after Death of the Body but there are many Disputes concerning Humane Souls 1. What a Humane Soul is 2 Concerning its Nature and Operations 3 Concerning its Original Whether by continual New Creations or that it grow Ex traduce from Generation or be pre-existent And if newly created then whether first created and then infused or be created within the Body Whether the Vegetative the Sensitive and the Rational be all one same Soul in Man or that they be so distinct as that the two first may die and the third only be that which can separately subsist but the Question of the Souls Nature est per Difficilis per Obscura Tertullian S. Austin and Greg. Nyssen have written of it largely and Pomponacius and Simon Portius two famous Italian Philosophers have since taught That Aristotle held the Soul to be Mortal and that its Immortality cannot be proved by any sufficient Reasons But Men must be left to the Evidence of Faith for that Point and many there are who think there is not enough Evidence to be a sufficient Ground for that Faith Pag. 699. He therefore proposes his first Enquiry viz. What is the Nature and Essence of the Soul Upon this Query he propounds the Definitions made of the Soul by three Ancient Philosophers and very learned Men viz. Plato Aristotle and Galen the great Latin Physician but none of them come up to this Point and therefore he rejects them all especially that of Galen who says The Soul is but a Temperature and sutable Proportion of the Parts and Humours whereby the Animal hath Life and the Vse of all its Faculties And this Opinion he took from his Master Hyppocrates and endeavours to confirm it with divers Reasons and of this Opinion was then Dynarchus the Philosopher and Simmias and divers others The Author brings three Arguments against this Opinion but they are rather Sophistical than Solid He rejects also those of Plato and Aristotle But in lieu of them all he gives us one of his own Pag. 705. viz. A Humane Soul is a truly Spiritual Substance Incorporeal and Immaterial Upon this last Word he lays a great Stress For says he the Souls of Beasts are Essential Forms but drawn out of Matter from which they cannot be separated And there are those who think the Soul which is the Form to our Body to be neither Accident nor Body and that yet it is Material so as to depend upon Matter from which it cannot be separated and therefore must extinguish with Death of the Body Upon this therefore the whole Stress of the Question lies concerning the Mortality or Immortality of the Soul Whence says he this our Definition ought to be well and fully proved Says Humane Souls have the same Essence with Angelical Spirits their only Difference being that the one is Form to a Humane Body and the other not His Proofs he begins from Texts of Scripture but we yet in the Bounds of Nature and Reason will pass them over Animo revertendi and consider here his Arguments from Reason only to which he comes Pag. 709. 1. He says The Soul governs the Body and resists the Passions Complexion excites and begets Passions Here is the Soul contending against Passions and Natural Inclinations supporting them Ergo here is a Substantial Soul In Answer I say The Soul hath no greater Share in the Resisting than in the Exciting of Passions But that the Soul is the living and moving Principle in every Part and Member of the Body understanding and perceiving and remembring in the Head affecting and passionate in the Heart feeling and moving in the whole Body and in every member of it The Souls Regard and Care is for the whole Compositum to chuse the beneficial and to avoid the hurtful Things Hence Intellect and Passion are not one of them of the Soul and the other not the Soul but both are Faculties of the same Soul The Heart desires one thing as vitally Good or abhors it as Harmful The Intellect from common Sense and Understanding often opposes such Desires or Fears from Considerations more percipient and duly weighed and the Contest rises most often from the Nearness or Distance of what they contend about viz. Present or Future one Faculty affixing chiefly upon the Enjoyment and the other contemplating the Consequence withal Now if the Soul did govern the Body as our Author faith it doth the Contest could not be maintained against it by the Passions which should naturally be ordered to yield an easie Submission to it whereas it is too evident that the Passions do often over-power and over-rule the Intellect And as Aristotle hath told us their Contest is more like a Game at Tennis than a Government sometimes one of them prevails and sometimes the other So they look not like a Governor and a Governed but rather like Equal
Judgment Pag. 719. He recites his Objections against his Tenet 1. Men observe Children born like their Parents not only in their Bodies but their Minds and this seems to grow ex traduce from the Seed and therefore the Soul grows from that Root as well as the Body To this he answers It is not always so but often otherwise and quite contrary and that it is so comes from the Temperament and Humours of the Body not from the Soul unless that be also of Material Parts Or if says he the Soul have Part in that Substance it comes from Bodily Tinctures with which the Soul is closely united perhaps he might have said inseparably 2. Object Tertullian says the Soul is Material and propagated from the Parents He answers If Tertullian did think so he was deceived as he was also in some other Things 3. Object If the Soul be Self-subsistent it must have two Natures one as Forma informans of the Body a chief Part of the Compositum Man another Nature viz. Angelical subsisting and acting as like Spirits do whereas the Soul taken to be Forma Humana cannot subsist in that Nature out of the Compositum her other yet unproved Nature will not be granted nor assented to He answers Grants Man is not a Body nor a Soul but a Compositum of both and that neither Part is the Man and yet when the Body is dead and the Soul subsisting this may in some respect be counted for the Man as being his Principal Part and all that now remains of him But if we deny that to remain of him his Answer is of no Force Pag. 721. The Soul hath three Faculties or Powers Vegetative Sensitive and Intellective sometimes called Parts of the Soul Essential or Substantial by others Potential Parts To these others have added the Powers Loco-motive and Appetative Thinks the Vegetative comprehends the Appetative and the Senseâ— of the Local Motion these two may be admitted as Powers but not as Essential Parts whence he makes five Powers in the Soul and but three Parts Pag. 724. The Vegetative hath three Prime Faculties viz. Nutrition Augmentation and Generation Page 725. Says Generation or the Power of it is Vere Divinum so as we are thereby Quodam Modo Creators of other Men. Pag. 728. The Sensitive Part of the Soul is substantial and therefore not annexed to Matter or to the Body and so for the Vegetative and they are Self-subsistent as well as the Intellective Part and Immaterial and Immortal We may perceive by this the Author is resolved not to stick at Straws but rather to swallow Camels Pag. 729. Prime Sensitive Faculties are the Powers of Perception and Motion The Senses he says are External or Internal the External are Five the Internal are Three viz. the Common Sense the Phantasy and the Memory whose Organs are placed in the Seat of the Soul known to us only by Reason or Collection Pag. 733. These apprehend and judge of Objects conveyed to them by the outward Organs but can perceive nothing that hath first been brought to them from the outward Senses In the Internal is also the Vis Motrix thence the Appetites and Passions are excited although such Emotions are principally felt about the Heart and therefore have been thought to grow from thence and to reside there We agree to our Author in this Assertion Pag. 736. As the Middle Part of the Brain is more or less firm or better or worse tempered in tanto Men have more or less Ingenuity and Apprehension and the like for other Animals So as this Power of Phantasy depends upon the Organs to which it is affixed as the other Sensitive and Vegetative Powers also are although they are Parts of a Humane Soul they must not be said to depend upon the Body or its Organs We say this last Caution is utterly Vain and to no Effect or Purpose The Phantasy hath Three Offices to receive Perceptions from the Common Sense and to conserve them 2. To collect the Dispers'd Idea's or Imaginations 3. To judge of them and discourse upon them And we see says he Dogs and other Animals greatly moved in their Sleeps by Dreams arising from such Causes Pag. 737. That which Reason doth in the Mind that doth the Phantasy in the Sensitive Faculty and it comes very neer to Intellect it self and supplies to it the Matters to be thought upon and considered of And as the Phantasy is by its Organ inclined to Vice or Virtue so is the Mind or Soul easily drawn to give her consent accordingly The Tincture or Seasoning of the Phantasy or Imagination is of great Force and Power for from thence rise all our Affections Love Joy Wrath Fear Grief Envy Jealousy and the like Pag. 737. Memory is the third Internal Sense This he divides into Sensitive and Intellective and says That living the Man these are so joined or knit together that they cannot well be discerned or distinguished one of them from the other except Men will distinguish them from their different Objects as that Memory Intellective deals in Vniversals but the Sensitive in Particulars or if it do hit upon Vniversals it is but by Accident and by this Means a Separated Soul must always retain its Intellective Memory To this I say this Distinction or Dividing of Memory seems a Device of our Author 's own Coining on purpose to serve the State of his Separated Souls Arist De Anima Lib. 3. Cap. 6. where he sets the Soul highest Says That when separate from the Body it cannot have Memory for if it so had there must be a Patibility in it And we know Memory is but an Impress of the Species received and returned thence to the Intellect importing a Patibility and an Organical Operation and the first Chapter of Aristotle's Book agrees fully therewithal and the Author cites no Authority agreeing with him in this Dicothomy or Division of the Memory and therefore we do by no means admit of the same but take the Memory for an entire Faculty which must all stand or fall together and that the Memory is not capable of Universals except by Accident we deny He says When the Phantasy delivers over to Memory Conceptions of Things as de Futuro the Memory retains them not as Future Things but as bare Conceptions de Futuro And this we agree or else it cannot not be a true Record Whence says he the Senses apprehend only Things Present the Memory records only Things Past but the Phantasy considers Things Present Past and to Come and makes Provision accordingly and according to the Temper of the Organ for Heat and Cold Driness and Moisture the Memory is strong and apt or weak and insufficient and so it is Pag. 738. with all the Senses both Internal and External their Excellency depends upon the good Temperature of the Body and its Organs He says Beasts have Memory but not Remissness a Power to recover and recall things obliterated in their Memories by
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
Evidence for obtaining Sentence from the Judgment upon their Sides or some of them against which the Reason or Intellect offer their Evidence and Arguments for obtaining Sentence of the Judgment upon their Side and this Sort of Pleading may depend before Barr of the Judgment for a longer or shorter Time and as the Case is less or more pressing but before a Judgment be pass'd there can be no Execution in the Microcosm for both Will and Appetite which seem to differ but in Name and Objects being really both but the same Thing but they are both or that Faculty is estopped from moving in Execution until the Judgment have pass'd Sentence and given Direction thereupon To this Sentence the Voluntary Faculty is naturally and therefore easily and continually obedient setting all instruments at work for intended Performance of such Resolutions until the Judgment depart from such Decrees and change them as many times it comes to pass and presently the Voluntary Faculty shifts its Course accordingly like Ezekiel's Wheels as if the Spirit that is in the Judgment were also in the Voluntary Faculty and this by a Law of Nature which can by no Art or Endeavour be altered And hence we may discharge much of that Load which is commonly cast upon Mens Affections and Passions they are doubtless ill Perswaders and Soliciters but they can effect nothing without they do first prevail upon the Judgment to gratifie them in passing Sentence on their Behalf for that sets the Voluntary Part at work and that excites and directs the Bodily Members and Organs to at accordingly and casts the real Guilt arising from all Crimes upon the Man in his best and highest Faculty viz. that of his Judgment We have a Maxim in Law viz. Nou est Reus nisi Mens sit Rea and thence if a natural Fool or real Madman do rob beat ravish kill the Law will not condemn him for it because his Mind cannot be Criminal He is without Reason which only can give him a Mind and yet by the Way if an Immaterial Soul there be in Men it seems such Men have that but the Law looks upon Reason as the Mind of Man and will not condemn one who acts necessarily without it It seems if Affections could drive to Actions without Consent of the Judgment it might be alledged in Diminution of the Crime but the Case looks otherwise for the Judgment may be reluctant in its Consent but it must consent and so become come guilty or no Execution can follow And the Voluntary Part seems to be at no Liberty but necessarily attached to the Decrees of the Judgment For what that Judges best for the whole Man all things then appearing in Judgment considered the Judgment will decree and the Voluntary Part must apply it selt towards the Execution of that Decree as all Things are done in Nature and Creatures by an easie Inclination and Propensity free from any Violence or Compulsion all being acted by the same Spirit different Faculties and Inclinations but all under the Rules of one Judgment which seems to be supream in the Government and hath that one Rational Faculty for Advice or Counsel one Voluntary Faculty for Execution by moving the Nerves as the Fountains and Reins of Motion and though divers Senses have double Organs and there be divers Passions and many Affections not easie to be governed yet is there but one Common Sense one Organ or Place of Phantasy and but one Memory and though Passions and Affections at divers Times are very Violent yet are they not able by themselves to bring any thing into Execution without first obtaining a Sentence or Consent of the Judgment or Judicial Faculty which hath yet no Arbitrary or Tyrannical Power but acts under the Law and Rule imposed by Nature of decreeing only that which appears best for the whole Compositum the Man under such Circumstances as then come under present Survey of the Judgment It is true that the Judicial Faculty is very liable to Mistakes and to be misguided by the Power and Violence of Passions or Affections as well as by its own Ignorance and Infirmity For better setting out of which we may consider an Example or two S. Peter we find was a true Servant of his Master and professed with Sincerity a Resolution rather to die with Christ than to deny him and yet when soon after he was snapp'd by a sudden Demand If he were not one of his Lord's Disciples his Passion of Fear rose up against the Truth of his Affection and that Passion offer'd at the Barr of his Judgment That if a true Confession were made the Appearance was likely and strong that he should be made a Co-sufferer with his Master and then it would certainly go very hard with the whole Compositum The Judgment decrees for the Avoiding of this Suffering as best for the Man all things then in Prospect considered the Voluntary Power then sets upon Execution it moves the Nerves of the Tongue the properest Instrument directing first to deny and then to forswear the Truth in that Particular But presently again upon a Review of what he had done and the Fault committed the Judgment disapproved and changed its over-hasty Decree and its Executive Power the Will directs Motions of Grief and sends plenty of Water into his Eyes as a clear Testimony that his Change and Repentance was not feigned but real The Case of Judas was not unlike his Covetousness prevailed upon his Judgment to decree it best for the Man to earn the desired Wages of Iniquity the Voluntary Power acts in Execution accordingly it moves the Feet to go the Tongue to declare his Design and his Hands to receive the desired and promised Reward and to perform his Bargain and yet presently as soon as he saw Christ was condemned he found his Faultiness and grieved and repented and brought back the Money Judgment decreeing and Will executing and finding none that would receive it he by like Powers acted threw the Mony down with Indignation then ghastly Fear and Horror of Conscience tormenting and instigating the Feebleness Ignorance and Error of his Judicial Faculty induced it to decree That it was best for the Man in that Estate to shorten his own Life and the Attendant Mill moves his Hands to tie and fasten fit Materials then to put his Head into the prepared Noose and the Execution was performed accordingly And there seems to be nothing done in Man or by him voluntarily and as a free Agent but what first passes the Judgment with its Approbation And yet these Passages cannot appear to Mens Feeling or Sense except there be a considerable Time allowed for Rumination for then the Debate and Resolution are somewhat perceivable But in short or sudden Cases and Occasions all pass within us after a Spiritual Manner and unperceived The Spirits acting are Thin and Pure to an Ivisibility and Imperceptibility quick as the Flame or even as Lightning So as the Dispatch
Hand Foot Heart and all Members sees in the Eyes hears in the Ears expresses in the Voice perceives in the Common Sense compares and compounds in the Phantasy records in the Memory reasons in the Intellect and judges in his Supream Seat or Power it desires in the Affections excites and acts in the Passions moving all to the intended Preservation Propagation Good and Advantage of each of those Faculties to which they most properly belong intending withal to the Good of the whole Compositum Hence the Affections and Passions do derive from the Soul as well as the Reason and Intellect and one of them is not naturally subjected unto the other but each of them hath its Faculties and Powers formally distinguished from one another but all identified in the Soul so as they act freely and without Dependance of one upon another Thus the Affections and Passions as Products of the same Soul with the Reason and Intellect are naturally at like Freedom and not the Former under Cohersion of the Latter The Seat of Judgment we place Supream in the Microcosm endowing that Power with Knowledge and Discretion to the Measure of that Compositum wherein it is This we say sways in the Government which is Monarchical and Legal and the Judgment cannot be corrupted or beaded to act otherwise than appears to be for the most Safety Good and Benefit of the Compositum all things then offered or appearing considered without Consent of this the Will or Voluntary Power cannot move or proceed to Execution and yet the Judgment often doth consent with great Measures of Reluctancy pressed thereunto by the Furies and Force of Passions viz. Wrath and Fear or by the extream troublesome and vexatious Importunities of Affections viz. Ambition Covetousness and Lust divided into that of Nutrition and Generation and these do so far oft-times importune and press the Judgment for its Consent to their Satisfaction as that upon the over-long Delay or utter rejecting of their Suit by the Judgment or their final Opposition from outward Obstacles they are able to drive the whole Compositum along with them into Frensie Despair Diseases and other ruinous Calamities as we have before quoted in the Case of Judas in which the Judgment consented to a Violent Death rather than bear the Stings and Torments of his Passions But this abates or takes away the Wonder upon the Judgment 's Consenting with Reluctancy to Execution of those Actions which it self doth not approve Thence we often do what we would not and do not what both Reason and Judgment desire to do And though S. Paul call this Sin in us I take leave to think it is Nature in us and that it was in Adam before Sin and was the Original of Sin in him and his Wife as well as in us For when the Woman saw that the Fruit was Good for Food and Pleasant to the Eyes here was her Lust tempted and prevailed upon And that it was to be desired to make one Wise here was her Ambition tempted and prevailed upon And these prevailed upon her Judgment which consenting the Voluntary Power moved the Hands to take and Chaps to grind and devour that which from S. Paul's Authority Christians have ever sine believed to be the Root of Original Sin and bad Inclinations in Men although by this they seem to grow from a higher Original viz. Nature in Man in which we do not place the Affections or Passions under the Regiment of Reason Naturally but take them for Powers Co-ordinate excited and acted by the Soul and set under Direction and Government of the Judgment upon which the Voluntary Power is Attendant And we say with this our former Author That the Souls Operations are assisted or hindred by the Fitness of Matter and Aptness of Organs in the Body If the Matter be of good Temper and the Organs apt and fit the Soul 's Operations are more Vigorous and Effectual If the Matter or Organs be indisposed the Soul 's Operations are more infirm and feeble and if the Instruments be corrupted or spoiled the Soul cannot operate at all by them as if the Eyes be out the Soul cannot see if the Memory be spoiled it cannot remember if the Intellect be crazed the Soul cannot reason if the Seat of Judgment be corrupted the Government fails and all goes out of Order Also the Judgment may be more Able and Firm in some than in others according as the Materials are tempered and the Organs apt and fit And Degrees of Perfection or Imperfection come upon it by good or ill Education Custom Company and other Accidents to which that and all other Faculties Powers Members and Organs of the Soul and Body are subject And they will be better and worse in the same Person at divers Times and upon several Accidents and Occasions all which seem to evince a Mutual Dependance of the Soul and Body one upon another The Body without the Soul is but a Dead Body void of Motion Sense and Life and the Soul without a Body hath no Place where it can lay its Head or set down its Foot the Body is its Natural Receptacle and there only it seems to be at Home enlivening the whole Body inciting each Member Organ and Faculty to the Performance of those Duties and Operations for which by God and Nature they were intended and appointed and acting in them and by them all that hath been before particularly mentioned All this we say is performed by that Flame of Life kindled from Heaven in the Bodies Blood and Humours of Adam and his Wife and by them propagated to all Future Generations this Flame passing in and with the Blood throughout and into every small Part and Member of the Body may it seems be easily conceived to act in all the Members and Organs of the Body and the Vital Sensitive and Intellectual Faculties thereunto joined and in and by its Organs performed working per My and per Tout all that is acted in the Body and in every Part and Parcel of the same because this Soul is spread and diffused over all But how things should in this Manner be performed by an Immaterial and Indivisible Spirit or Spark of a Soul that its whole should be and act in every Member and Organ of the Body and yet be but one for and in the whole Body this is so far from me conceivingly to believe as that I rather incline to think it an unintelligible Thing As we have said the Soul acts in every Organ of the Body and the Inward as well as the Outward So it seems it cannot act to its special Purposes but in those Places and Organs to those Purposes specially appointed by Nature It Sees in the Eyes and Hears in the Ears but it cannot See or Hear without them nor by any other Member or Instrument It cannot perceive but in the Common Sense nor frame idea's but in the Phantasy nor remember but in and by the Organ of Memory
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
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
hath no Participation thereof with her or that she doth or can act any thing or produce any Effect without the Spirits Members and Organs of the Body which it seems cannot be excluded from participating with the Soul in all its Affections Operations and Motions no more than the Soul can be unconcerned in the Health Accidents Rejoicings or Sufferings of the Body We come now to the other Question or Query which if it be determined in the Affirmative will strongly inferr the Souls Materiality viz. Concerning the Mode of the Generation of Mankind If the Parents do generate a Child like unto themselves consisting of the same Matter and Form or such a like Soul and Body as themselves are if the Child's Soul and Body be generated by the Parents as well the one as the other if the Thing have been proved or can and shall be proved effectually so to be done a very strong Inference and Argument may thence be drawn That the Soul is of the same Nature and Constitution with the Body Materially and Naturally Extinguishable by Dissolution of the Compositum Man whose Constituent Parts they were For it seems Generation and Corruption do mutuo se ponere tollere What grows from Generation hath a Natural Tendency to Growth Strength Decay and Dissolution If therefore one Man doth generate another like himself and so the Soul as well as the Body it seems likely that what comes from Generation is under a clear Capacity of Corruption if it be not under a Necessity of Terminating by that Means We are in a great Measure convinced that the Parents do procreate Children like themselves both their Souls and Bodies and that therefore both those Parts have in Nature and Reason a Capacity or a Tendency if not a sort of Necessity to terminate in Corruption So as we do not perceive that Arguments drawn from Reason or Nature and hitherto produced are strong enough to evince That the Humane Soul is Immaterial or Self-subsistent after the Dissolution of the Person and Corruption of that Body to which it was knit and which whilst Life lasted it did inform direct and actuate And herewith shall be concluded the Disquisition intended concerning the Soul of Man founded upon the Grounds of Nature and Reason and tried by the Arguments extracted from them We proceed from them to the Second Sort of Arguments offered for Proof of a Soul 's Separate Subsistence drawn by our Opposers from the Ground of Moral Congruity There must be say they a Reward and Punishment future to this Life of this the Corrupted Carkass is by no Possibility in Nature capable and therefore the Soul must needs have a Separate Subsistence that thereby Future Rewards and Punishments may have a proper Subject to work upon And this sort of Argument is propounded and handled by Baxter in his Quoted Book at P. 34. reaching thence to 40. and by Dr. More in his 18th Chap. of the quoted Book Pag. 314. to the End of that Chapter and by Sir K. Digby in the 10th Paragraph of his 9th Chapter And all our Authors have mainly insisted upon this Argument in Places before quoted And it is done by them upon very good and unanswerable Reason such as the Wit of Man grounding it self only upon Nature and Reason is not able to make sufficient Reply unto or to overcome This we look upon as the Potent and Prevalent Argument whereby the whole World and in all the Ages of it hitherto hath been drawn and even forced to consent to the Opinion of a Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul and to invent Elisiums Fortunate Islands and Paradises for the Good also Tartarums and Barathrums and Gehenna's for the Wicked Souls departed The Silly Americans have not wanted their more crude Conceipts viz. That in Places beyond their Mountains the Good Souls Sing and Dance amongst Groves and Fountains and the Wicked ones are relegated to Denns and Caves and other Dark and Disconsolate Places suting with their Demerits Thus from the Necessity of Future Recompences the Opinion of the Souls Separate Subsistence hath been spread and received over the Face of the whole Earth far and wide without stint in place or stay in time All Nations and all Religions have accepted of this Opinion and it hath hitherto prevailed amongst them and thus may their Argument be framed It is Morally Congruous amongst all Men That Good Men and Actions should be rewarded and recompenced and that Bad Men and Actions should be punished But Men find and see it falls out very often that Rewards and Punishments are not so distributed in this World Ergo Moral Congruity requires and that proves there must be a future State wherein Men and their Actions shall be Rewarded and Recompenced according to their Deserts This. Men cannot reasonably refuse to grant and then ex concessis it may be further argued Man is Constituted but of Two Essential Parts viz. his Body and his Soul His Body dying Corrupts and Turns to Dust and so becomes incapable of Reward or Punishment in a future State Ergo If the Man and his Actions be Rewarded or Punished in a future State he must receive the Effects of such Reward or Punishment in that part of him which is reputed capable and may by possibility have a separate Subsistence after the Mans Death viz. in his Soul and that this may be done The Soul must have a separate Subsistence after Death of the Body And the same holds true Negative There is nothing of Man to be Rewarded or Punished in a future State but his Body or his Soul But the Body in a State of Dissolution is not capable of Reward or Punishment and if the Soul extinguish in Death then is there nothing of the Man lest capable of receiving Reward or Punishment in a State future to this Life Ergo That the Rules of Moral Congruity may stand and be maintained in the World the Soul of Man must needs enjoy a separate Subsistence capable of Reward and Punishment after Death and the Dissolution and Corruption of his Body This Argument appears irrefragable not to be confuted or effectually answered by the uttermost strength of Mans Reason And therefore it is nothing strange that it hath prevailed with Jews and Gentiles Mahometans and Christians inducing them generally to belive a Separate State of Humane Souls after Death and it is still used by all our Authors for maintenance of the same Opinion at this time We still agree that the force of this Argument cannot by the bare Wit or Reason of Mankind be Answer'd and Refuted but yet we say that the same may be fully so Answered by Deductions out of the Divine Revelations and Oracles of God and that by Arguments thence to be taken both Negative and Positive and though we do mainly relie upon our Positive Argument on this behalf yet it seems not requisite to pass over in Silence the Negative Argument which may be drawn out of our Holy
be better known it seems it can have but little Force of Proof in this Argument Joh. 12 26. If any Man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be Chap. 14.3 If I go and prepare a Place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also This later Text expounds the former viz. Christ's Servants shall be where he is intending after he hath first prepared a Place for them and then comes again to receive them These particular Texts of Scripture are all that we meet with that are quoted by others or are observed by us and tending materially to Proof of the Separate State or Subsistence of Humane Souls after this Life ended And yet there remains one Perswasive which inclines common Readers as much or more than any other Argument to believe that there is a Separate State of Souls Subsisting after they are parted from the Bodies a Perswasive rising from Induction of many Scriptural Expressions concerning the Soul and the Body as different and even opposite Things and Principles Rom. 7. describes the Contest betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit as if they were naturally different Principles in Man whereas they are but different Faculties in Man viz. the Affections Passions and Appetites Vital combating the Faculties Intellectual the Knowledge and Reason of the same Party with various Success But these being exprest by the Terms of Flesh and Spirit of the Man seem to represent them as two Principles different and contrary one to the other Such Faculties we agree they are different and contrary but such Principles we say they are not but all proceed from the same Principles the Constituent Parts of Man viz. his Soul and his Body The Natural Powers of such a Compositum all these Faculties equally are and seem the one of them independent upon the other and seldom free from a Contest amongst them in which the Judgment or highest Prudence of the Party bears the Sway and hath the Determinative Power naturally residing in it So as what is here signified by the Terms of Flesh and Spirit are so far from a Possibility of a real Separation one Sort from the other as neither of them can subsist but in eodem subjecto with the other and the Compositum which hath not all of them is Imperfect Chap. 8.1 They who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit This taken for a Humane Spirit or Soul must intend the Reason or Intellect And the Chapter goes in Terms of Flesh and Spirit inducing Readers to accept them as different Principles and thence Separable Whereas we are ready to put the Stress of our Argument upon their being Joint-Principles of one Compositum Man which cannot consist without both And it seems as he Man cannot subsist without them so they not without one another And so in a Compositum they are generated grow stand and fall together one and all the Soul the Body and the Compositum and so they shall rise and be recompenced together And what God hath so joined together in Bands of Nature and absolute Coherence one of them to another the Power of Mens Wits and Perswasions will never be able finally to separate or to evince their Subsistence in a State of Separation one of them from the other Matth. 26.41 Our Lord says to his sleeping Disciples The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak intending the Body is often unable to act according to the Reason and Desire of the Mind Judgment and Intent of the Man and that Infirmity of Weakness and Weariness is peculiar to the Flesh thereby made unable to act with that Vigour and Continuance which the Soul acting in the Phantasy and Reason of the Man requires and shews such Connexion of the Matter and Form as in the Man one of them cannot act without the other Rom. 8.10 The Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is Life because of Righteousness 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves from all Filthiness both of Flesh and Spirit Galat. 3.3 Having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect in the Flesh Ch. 5.16 Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the Lust of the Flesh Ver. 19. Works of the Flesh Ver. 22. Fruits of the Spirit Coloss 2.11 Putting off the Body of the Sins of the Flesh 1 Cor. 7.34 The unmarried Woman cares that she may be holy both in Body and in Spirit Eph. 4.4 There is one Body and one Spirit 1 Thess 5.23 I pray your whole Spirit and Soul and Body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord. James 4.5 The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy 1 Pet. 2.11 Beloved I beseech you abstain from fleshly Lusts which war against the Soul Ch. 3.18 Christ was put to death in the Flesh but quickned by the Spirit Ch. 4.1 He that suffers in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin and must live the rest of his time in the Flesh not to the Lusts of Men but to the Will of God 2 Pet. 2.10 Wicked Men walk after the Flesh in Sins here named Rom. 13.14 Make no Provision for the Flesh to fulfil the Lusts thereof 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a Price therefore glorifie God in your Body and in your Spirit which are God's These Texts and their like have a Sound or Semblance of Supposing a Separating Difference betwixt the Soul and the Body whereas their true Signification seems to be a Distinction between the Powers or Faculties of the Compositum viz. those Vital or the Vegetative and Sensual from those Intellectual and Rational viz. Man's Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear and their Descendents from his Knowledge of Common Sense his Phantasy Opinion Reason and Prudence The first Sort of these Faculties and their Inclinations and Desires are signified and intended under the Name and Term of Flesh in S. John's Epistle called the World And the second Sort of these Humane Faculties are signified and intended under the Name and Term of the Spirit or the Soul But both Sorts are Fundamentally and even Inseparately united in the Nature of Man or that which is the Compositum both of Soul and Body Both Sorts are derived from the Conjunction of these two Principles or Constituent Parts of the Man it seems not singly but each from the Whole or the Compositum Not the first Sort from the Flesh and the second Sort from the Spirit or Soul really for the Flesh by it self cannot live or act And that a Soul by it self either ever did or that it can act was questioned by Aristotle and not found or believed by him It hath been affirmed by some of our Authors quoted but their Proofs offered are so weak as they appear very unlikely to perswade Considering People who can put off their former Prejudices Nor have they prevailed yet to induce a Belief that the Soul cannot act those Faculties of the Second
Men seem encouraged or even pressed to undergo the Trial by what follows viz. He who doth the Truth cometh to the Light that his Deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God Hence he whoso fears to bring his Works to the Light as to put them rather in a secret Place and smother them seems convinced or under a strong Suspition that they are not wrought in God For he who doth Truth comes willingly to the Light for the Manifestation of his Deeds And we would have it taken and accepted as the true and only Design of making this Argument publick believing it a Discovery of Truth wrought in God without any crooked Biass or Design and not unfit or improper to be set upon a Candlestick that Men may have Opportunity to see and discover and to examine its Light viz. the Truth of it and may use it accordingly Having made such Search after Souls as we are able we go on to enquire concerning other Spiritual Operations in Man And do say that we have taken the Occasion of this Enquiry from the Book before-cited called Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts Perusing what he said there concerning the Soul I met with Doctrines about the Operations of God's Spirit acting in Man such as were very different from my own Apprehensions and thereupon entred into a Design of enquiring farther into the Truth of what there is asserted and to approve or endeavour to confute what we there met with concerning this Subject as it shall appear agreeable to Truth or otherwise deviating from or opposite unto the same Page 47. He says This Spirit works in all Believers and either in them only or eminently above all others Pag. 48. But this is not discoverable to those who have had a pious Education and have pursued that Course from their Youth They cannot discover the Spirit 's Renovation in themselves but are left to make such Discovery of Renovation in others who have been changed from Evil to Good Without Christ's Spirit we can do nothing and better have no Souls than be void of that Spirit Hereupon I observe That those who cannot discern this sort of Spirit working in themselves seem to be very incompetent Judges of its working in other People or of knowing that such Change was wrought by that Spirit They may guess and mistake but we deny that they can know it We agree that no Man can act any thing without God's Assistance for in him we live move and have our Being We cannot do a good Work nor any Work without him and our Dependence is upon him both for Life and Action And this Divine Energy Men may call the Spirit of God within us But we deny that this is peculiar to Believers more than to other People although it seem often confounded with the Holy Spirit of God and of Christ Pag. 49 He says Heaven is the Summ and End of all the Spirit 's Operations viz. Man's Salvation purchased by Christ and given by Covenant Take up the Cross forsake all and follow me and thou shalt have Reward in Heaven For this he quotes Luke 14. Ver. 26. 33. The Words are Those who do not forsake all cannot be Christ's Disciples And he quotes Luke 18.22 where the Words are Sell all and distribute and thou shalt have Treasure in Heaven How far these Words prove his Assertion we leave to Judgment It follows God sends his Spirit to good Purposes and to illuminate and make Holy And we grant where it comes it doth so But to know where or in whom this Holy Spirit resides will be the Difficulty between us Pag. 50. He quotes 16 Texts of Scripture to prove God hath promised this Spirit to Believers in a Special Manner I have perused them all and do not find one of them come home to his Assertion viz. That God will give to all Believers his Spirit in a Special Manner And yet that they are all under the Conduct of that Spirit and are moved and led thereby we do grant but do say that it works generally by Natural Ways and Means of Illuminating the Understandings of Men and their Faculties of Perception inclining their Judgments and thereby their Wills regulating their Affections quieting their Passions subduing all to the Obedience of Christ by Natural and therefore Imperceptible Working in them upon them and by them so as the Working may not be perceptible to themselves or others who converse them But the prime or sole Appearance of this ordinary Conduct of Gods Spirit must be sought for and found in the Fruits not in the Leaves the Bustling Noise or Rattling Professions or Contendings about or for Religion Galat. 5.22 Gives us a Catalogue of these Fruits The Fruit of the Spirit is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance Where these Fruits grow and flourish and the Works of the Flesh here mentioned wither and die Men have great Reason to conclude the Person so walking is under the Conduct of God's Holy Spirit because it is beyond Humane Power to produce these Effects without the Divine Assistance or Aids from Heaven and thus we join with our Author at the Journeys End although we travel in different Roads towards it We both say God's Spirit conducts and leads Believers in a particular Manner but we do not agree about the Manner I say The ordinary Working of God's Spirit is by Natural Means perfecting and regulating the Man's Powers and Actions till they arrive to a Conformity with their highest Intention and the Will and Appointment of God unperceivably in the Operation or Conduct both to other People or even to the Party upon whom this Grace is bestowed for that it is Naturally effected and so without any violent or perceptible Motion or Action and therefore cannot be known but by the Evidence of Fruits Our Author By God's Spirit gives to Believers in a Special Manner agreeing in general with those of his Practices doth intend such a perceivable and vigorous Working of God's Spirit in Men as excites their Zeal and Concernment for the Gospel-Interest and what they believe tendent and conducing to the Glory of God although in their Proceedings to such Purposes there appear neither Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness nor Meekness and although there do appear Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Seditions and such like This Tenet I pretend to oppose as an Erroneous and Dangerous Doctrine opposing our Lord's Direction By their Fruits ye shall know them The Pharisees and Jewish Nation of Christ's Time were as zealous for God and his Law as the most Devoted of our Time can shew themselves for the Gospel Their Hatred to him grew the most apparently from his not strictly observing the Sabbath Day and not Washing before Meat and other Religious Practices then used and his Pretending to introduce a New Mode of Religion different from that given by God at Mount Sinai But they proceeded in Opposition by Unjust and Faulty Methods
viz. Violent Oppression not agreeing with their Law False Accusations and Witnesses Barbarous Exclamations of Crucifie him Crucifie him though they had not proved nor the Judge found any Evil in him By these Fruits the Jewish Zealots might safely and certainly be Judged Of whom St. Paul bears witness That they had a Zeal to God seems true and unfeigned but not according to Knowledge They held the Truth in Unrighteousness and practised the doing of Evil that Good might come And by like Fruits any Persons may be known and that they have not the Spirit of God how eager Pretenders soever to the same they be We do also agree with our Author and those of his Mode That the Spirit of God hath in many or all Ages moved and acted People in a very perceivable Manner and most eminently during the Infant Times or Beginning of the Christian Doctrines and Church Acts 20. The Holy Ghost witnesseth in every City saying that Bonds and Afflictions abide me As if the Spirit of Prophecy were very frequent among them Galat. 3.5 He that ministreth to you the Spirit and worketh Miracles amongst you doth he it by the Law And by Laying on of the Apostles Hands in Nature of a Confirmation the Holy Ghost was frequently given And at the Conversion of Cornelius The Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word And at their first Pentecost The Holy Ghost appeared in a visible Sign and sate upon every one of the Disciples and they spake with Tongues as the Spirit gave them Vtterance not able to use another Tongue at that Time So Cornelius his Guests spake with Tongues and magnified God At Ephesus upon Laying on of Paul's Hands the Holy Ghost fell upon his Converts and they spake with Tongues and Prophesied These Texts are Evidences that these eminent and visible Actings of the Holy Ghost upon the Disciples of those Times were very frequent and usual attended with the miraculous Effects of Prophesying Speaking with Tongues and Healing Diseases Casting out of Devils c 1 Cor. 12.4 There are Diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit Healing Miracles Prophecy Tongue also Wisdom Knowledge and Faith The three later Men cannot with any Clearness and Certainty discern but the sour former give Testimony to Mens Senses that they are wrought by the Spirit and Power of God for that none of them are Effects of Natural Powers And when Men behold them done in their Presence they are ready to fall down and worship God and report That God is truly in such Actors and that these are the Effects of God's Spirit in them This sort of eminent and perceivable Endowment with God's Spirit was very frequent and general in the Apostolick Times but in Future Times it diminished decayed ceased and finished by Degrees And for many Hundreds of Years we have seen or believed no Evidences that have been given us whereby the same should be perceived We have heard indeed and read divers Relations and Pretences to that Purpose but never saw or believed any to be Real and Convincing Evidences that any Men since the Primitive Ages of the Christian Church have been endowed with God's Spirit in this Eminent and Perceivable or Extraordinary Manner The Evidences of which are the Miraculous Effects and Operations expected plainly to be manifested for Confirmation of that Opinion or Pretence Whence we require these two Sorts of Proofs from Men pretending to have God's Spirit in a Special or Peculiar Manner viz. If they pretend to the Ordinary Imperceptible Operations of that Spirit upon them we demand Evidence by the Fruits before specified If they reply You shall hear us Pray and Preach Ex tempore with great Vehemency and without Hacking or Extravagancy and this we propose to all that hear us as a Supernatural Power and an Evident Effect and Operation of God's Spirit We agree this to be somewhat Extraordinary when Really and Truly Performed but withal do say Such Power is attainable by the Industry and Practice of Man And of that we give Instance out of Socrates his History Lib. 7. Cap. 2. where Atticus was made Patriarch of Constantinople about An. Christi 410. He was a Man of mean Learning but of Godly Life and great Wisdom and became a painful Student and spent the greater Part of his Night in Reading and became so learned as no Sophistry could puzzle him First viz. As soon as he was made Priest he framed Sermons and with great Labour learned to repeat them without Book and by Diligence and Exercise became so expert that he came to Preach ex tempore and his Manner of Teaching was very plain See here an Ancient Father of the Church obtaining this Faculty of Preaching ex tempore by Diligence and Exercise without Pretence or Mention that it was a particular Operation of God's Spirit We see this Gift may be obtained therefore by Nature assisted with God's ordinary Concurrence requisite to the perfecting of all Man's Designs and therefore it may not pass with us for an undoubted sort of Proof that Persons so able and so doing are therefore endowed with the Spirit of God in a Special and Particular Manner And we say farther That this Faculty of Praying and Preaching is none of those mentioned in S. Paul's Catalogue for Fruits of the Spirit nay and that it is consistent with and often serviceable to the Works of the Flesh We refuse then to admit this Faculty for a Proof that the Actors are Specially endowed with God's Spirit and call for such Fruits as St. Paul hath specified to us as Evidences that God's Spirit resides Specially in Particular Persons working in them in his ordinary Imperceptible and Natural Way proceeding by the Enlightening their Perceptive Faculties inclining their Judgments and so their Wills regulating their Affections quieting their Passions and subduing all to the Rules of Christ's Gospel and Observance of all that is there declared and enjoined And as to the eminent or extraordinary or perceptible Endowment with God's Spirit like those in the Apostles Times and some next Ages to them we expect that all who pretend to be so end owed shall prove and manifest the same by their Miraculous Operations Let us see or hear them Prophesie speak with Tongues unlearnt heal the Sick cast out Devils cleanse Lepers raise the Dead or do some Things that may be like these and clearly above the Power of Nature to perform and less or other Evidence will not be admitted as Proof that any Person is endowed with Gods Holy Spirit in such an extraordinary and perceptible Manner as People used frequently to be in the Apostolical Times and the Ages next unto them And an Instance shall be cited of those Ages next after the Apostles viz. Euseb Hist Lib. 6. Cap. 8. Narcissus became Bishop of Jerusalem about Anno Christi 190. in the Vigils of Easter the Christians then used to be in Nocturnal Celebrations in the great Church Oil was not provided enough
to nourish the Lamps at which Defect the Multitude complained and grieved the Bishop also troubled commands the Officers to fetch Water out of the next Well and when it was brought he prayed over it then bad them pour it out into the Lamps and the Water changed into Oil and served the Lamps as Liquor of that Nature and a small Quantity was for the Miracles sake reserved by many of the Brethren a long while after This says our Author who wrote about Anno 340. is come to us by Tradition from one to another And being a Tradition so Ancient and of a Time reputed more Innocent than the Present is here repeated as an Evidence that the Power and Spirit of God did work did then work miraculously amongst them in the Church And except we see such Signs and Wonders we shall not be able to believe that any amongst us have the Spirit of God in such extraordinary Manner as the Apostolick Times and Men had it in a Manner perceptible to the Parties themselves or to any others who shall converse with them And this settles the Case betwixt the Author and me and shews where the Difference of Opinions sticks He intends the Church now hath that Power of the Spirit which is perceptible to the Party 's own self and to others such as was in the Apostolick Times and which I call Extraordinary This I deny and the Proof lying upon his Hand it seems he ought to make the same Proof of it in these Times that was wont to be made in those Times viz. Miraculous Operations such as are above the Power of Man's Nature of it self to perform Instead of which he endeavours to conclude upon us with Quotations of some Expressions taken out of St. Paul's Epistles sounding to his Purpose against which Records collected out of Scripture he says we may not aver To this I reply That those Epistles have in them some Things hard to be understood and which may be wrested to the Maintainance of Errors and it seems that divers such Places are wrested by applying to Future Times and our Times what was by that Apostle spoken of those Times in which he lived and so applied were pertinent and true and yet if applied to Future Times for which they were not intended they may very likely have another Appearance We have also before spoken of God's Ordinary Conduct given to Believers whose Natural Faculties his Spirit polishes leads orders and perfects moving and intercepting their Faculties and Actions and meliorating their Natures and Inclinations with so much Gentleness and Easiness as the Parties cannot themselves perceive any Violence of Motion no nor any Motion at all nor do they certainly know how far or how much the Spirit of God acts in their own Reformation or Amendment and how then should other People know the Spirit of God to act in them Why the Party and those who consider his Condition have all the same Means to know the Spirit is there and where it is it works they must derive their Knowledge from the Fruits These are are good and known Fruits of the Spirit and they cannot spring nor grow without Cultivation of God's Spirit and where those Effects are visible and known there the Cause and Presence of that Spirit may as certainly be concluded Now we say that by rightly applying the Expressions of St. Paul in his Epistles unto these two Grounds and Positions or to one of them as the Expression shall require all that Apostle's Expressions are solvable without any Need of Reason thence to infer that there must be in the Christian Church of all Times such a special perceptible Impulse of God's Spirit as there was in the Times when St. Paul wrote and which I have termed Extraordinary as given to and in that Time and not to be continually communicated to Future Ages And where God's continual Assistance and that of his Spirit is mentioned it may the most likely be intended the Ordinary Communications of God's Spirit which we doubt not are frequently and ordinarily to be perceived in our own Times and by the Means before prescribed So as the applying of these Texts out of St. Paul's Epistles to the one or the other of our proposed Positions will be able to answer and satisfie all those Texts and put a Reasonable and True Construction upon them without any need of Inferring from them a Necessity of having amongst Christians in all Future Ages such Endowments and Operations of God's Spirit as were in the Persons living in Apostolick Times or near unto them And that an Instance may be given of our propounded Manner for the expounding such of St. Paul's Texts we make Choice of a Place often urged upon Debates concerning the Necessity of being eminently endowed with God's Spirit in all Times and Places Christian viz. 1 Cor. 2.14 The Natural Man receiveth not the Things of the Spirit of God for they are Foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are Spiritually discerned This Text or Verse as it stands alone or by it self sounds as if Man's Nature and Reason were utterly useless in understanding the Tenets and Duties pertaining to the Christian Faith and Profession but that all such Things must be left to Guidance of the Spirit and Direction of those who are thereunto inspired or that are reputed so to be In answer to this we say that for expounding this Text and all others the Context is very necessary to be well considered And to that Purpose we go upward to the sixth Verse of this Chapter There the Apostle says We speak Wisdom but not of this World Ver. 7. We speak the Wisdom of God in a Mystery Ver. 8. Which if the Princes of the World had known they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory Ver. 9. But neither Man's Senses nor his Vnderstanding can find out the Things which God hath prepared for those that love him Ver. 10. But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit which searches the deep Things of God We ask What is intended by us and take us to signifie the Apostles and other inspired Disciples and Teachers of those Times and not extending to the later and suspected Pretenders of future or our Time since the Miraculous Manifestations of the Spirit ceased in the Church Ver. 11. 12. We received the Spirit which is of God viz. those Teachers received Ver. 13. And we speak this Mystery in Words not taught by Man's Wisdom but which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing Spiritual Things with Spiritual Then comes our Text. Then Ver. 15. He that is Spiritual judgeth all things viz. He to whom God hath so communicated his Spirit as that thereby they were enabled to know the Thoughts and Intents of Mens Hearts as that impotent People had Faith to be healed And in the Conspiracy of Ananias and Saphira 1 Cor. 14.24 and Acts 20.23 before cited They knew not only Things present but Things to come and
any Motion of God's Spirit working in them but it perfected and enabled their Natural Faculties producing its Effects in an Easie Imperceptible and Natural Manner Judg. 14.6 A young Lion roared against Samson and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and he rent the Lion like a Kid. So Ver. 19. So Chap. 15.14 and Chap. 13.25 The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times In the Camp of Dan 1 Kings 3.9 Solomon says Give thy Servant an Vnderstanding Heart to judge thy People Ver. 12. God says I have given thee a Wise and an Vndestanding Heart above all before or after thee Seems by enlightening and perfecting of Natural Faculties if Samson's Strength were not so effected Isa 28.6 The Lord shall be for a Spirit of Judgment to him that sitteth in Judgment and for Strength to them that turn the Battle to the Gate Ver. 26. God doth instruct the Husbandman concerning his Corn and doth teach him how to order it Ch. 50.4 The Lord hath given me the Tongue of the Learned and wakeneth mine Ear to hear as the Learned viz. makes me Learned Deut. 34.9 Joshuah was full of the Spirit of Wisdom for Moses had laid his Hands upon him Act 6.10 Stephen 's Opposers were not able to resist the Wisdom of the Spirit by which he spake James 1.5 If any Man lack Wisdom let him ask it of God and it shall be given him liberally And whereas some going to a Sermon or reading a Book will take hold and be converted thereby and others not and this is said to be an Effect of God's Spirit in the Converted We do not deny it but do also say That if Twenty Scholars read and study Euclide a few are likely to attain the Effect easily and the greater Part never So in Practice of Musick some will attain a Perfection but the Major Part never And so in many other Faculties especially such wherein Phantasy and Apprehension are the most concerned Sometimes also the Works and Gifts of God's Spirit are so lively imitated by the Father of Lyes as the World hath thereby been generally and greatly deceived and induced to take the one for the other Moses Opposers acted his Miracles till they came to the Lice and the Devil acted so against Job as it looked like the Hand of God's Justice against him and made him pass for an Hypocrite in the World and with his best Friends The Lying Spirit seen by Michaiah gave such great and strong Impressions to Ahab's Prophets and so like a Divine Revelation as they had no ordinary Means of Distinguishing the one from the other Hence St. John 1 Ep. 4.1 wisely directs Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God for there are many false ones in the World And our Lord taught us to try every Tree by its own Fruit if it bear Grapes it is undoubtedly a Vine and otherwise not And to this Trial we commit the most confident Pretenders to the Spiritual Endowments not to be derived from any but the Giver of every good and and perfect Gift Our Author Page 52. says The Spirit is given by Christ to all sound Believers If he mean as a Guide whose Instinct they ought to follow I deny it But if as Assistant and a Helper in their Endeavours working in them to will and to do as by Reason and Scripture they are directed I grant it Pag. 54. Says Hast thou not found the Motions the Effectual Operations the Renewing Changes of this Spirit in thee long ago and is he not still the Agent and Witness in thee of Christ's Residing and Operating in thee Whence else are thy Groanings after God thy Desires to be nearer to his Glory and to know him better to love him more the Pleasure which thou hast had in his Truth Ways and Service c. We pass by his Christ's Residing in thee and thy Groanings after God and Desires to be nearer his Glory as a New and Cloudy Language And to his plain Expressions of desiring and endeavouring to Know and Love God and to delight in his Truth Ways and Service we say That they who do not pretend to a Special Spiritual Conduct but walk by the Lights of Scripture and Reason under the ordinary Conduct of God's Spirit do as much observeâ—â—nd as well perform all known Religious Duties and Services required by God in his Word as Pretenders to a Spiritual Guidance do without yielding to them in any true Practice of Piety or Charity whatsoever He pretends That the Spirit raises Devotion or gives a greater Heighth of Rapture in Mens Religious Performances And we agree That so it can do and may do so when God pleases and that with some extraordinary Testimony of Illumination But that this is a Common or Ordinary Effect of God's Spirit amongst Believers we do deny And do impute such Effects ordinarily happening not to the Spirit of God but to the Phantasies of Men who putting themselves into a Godly Chafe and thereby feeling a great Heat Mettle and Emotion within them it seems they imagine this is given them from above and that it is God's Spirit working within them and that it would be Sin in them not to follow the Dictates and Motions of it although upon due Trial they fall out to be very Irregular and the common Effect thereof is That Men dethrone their Reason and Judgment which God hath placed in them for Natural Guides and Rulers on Pretence of the Text 1 Cor. 2.14 before expounded saying The natural Man receives not the Things of the Spirit of God nor can know them but they must be spiritually discerned Concerning which enough hath been spoken Our Men led by Erroneous Construction of this Text principally and what other like they happen to meet with do often take upon them to dethrone their Reason from the Regiment where God hath placed it and to set up in its Room a Fervor of Spirit which it seems they think is of God and is so necessary for them as that they cannot be good Christians without it And thus truly and effectually they displace and put down their Reason and set up their Phantasy to govern instead of it And whereas Reason is one and uniform in Mankind generally and would induce Men to Think and Speak the same Things Phantasy in Men is as Various as our Faces no one perfectly like another Whence it comes that Christians of whom Paul says We being many are one Bread are so infinitely divided as that scarcely a whole Loaf can be found amongst us but we are broken into Pieces and even murled into Crumbs without any Fastness or Cohesion of one Sort of us to another and we pray God to direct our Church to other and more reasonable Practices for the Time to come Page 59. Our Author complains grievously of his own Infidelity concerning Rewards after Death in Maintenance of which he had both preached and written to other People
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
endeavour the same FINIS A SECOND PART OF A TREATISE INTITULED A SEARCH after SOULS THE Fore-going Treatise being finished and coming under the Perusal of several Persons amongst them a Minister an Eminent both Scholar and Teacher made some Reflections thereupon and transmitted them to the Author of this Treatise willing to receive his Reply thereunto And because the Dispute arising thereupon occasioned the opening divers Apprehensions concerning the Main Intent of the Treatise it seemed useful to publish the same therewithal The First Opposal came in one Sheet of Paper which received a Division into Fifteen Paragraphs 1. Paragraph Was a Civil Complement To which was returned a Thankfulness 2. Parag. Was a Discourse that some particular Fathers Opinions touching the Soul as Origen Tertullian and even St. Austin was not fit to counterpoise the General Stream of the Fathers of their Time And this was granted 3. and 4. Speak to the Novelty of the Opinion of a Humane Material Soul and it is granted new to the Generality 5. States the Question viz. that it is Whether the Soul of Man be Material or Immaterial 6. Parag. The Opponent says Men cannot conceive how a Material Agent can act as the Intellect and Memory of Man can do Nor that it can do so Therefore the Soul of Man cannot be Material but must be Immaterial To this it was replied That the Works of God exceed the Capacities of Men to conceive and that Men cannot find out Reasons for or of the Contextures so much as of a Leaf What it is that frames it into a Stem then puts forth the Ramuli then the Fibres of a divers Fashion as is proper to each Tree then unites them by a thin Covering of Green in some more glossy and glittering and in some less Men cannot perceive how or by what means this is done but are satisfied with knowing that there is a Material Spirit or Sap in the Plant and that thereby and by the Vegetative Power in Plants all such acts are wrought in them and that they are acted according to the appointment of God without Mens being able to find out the immediate or next Causes of the particulars And so for the Animalia they have Nutritive and Generative Powers the Loco-motive and Affective as Lust Wrath Fear they have Sensitive Powers and all these in as high and perfect a Degree as Men have them and the Intellectual Faculties but in a very low Degree Men know these Powers or Acts are wrought in or by the Beasts but not in a particular manner applicando to the next Causes of them but we know there is a Flame of Life in them which acts in them and acts them and is the Cause and Original of all their Motions and Actions without knowing how that produces in them Anger or Fear or a Lust to Generation or power to see remember c. The very next Causes or Manner of their Production cannot be known but Men may be satisfied in knowing the Aptitude of the Organs and that generally there is a Flame of Life or a Flamy Spirit in Animals by which God can and doth effect all such Motions and Actions as are fit and proper for each sort of Animals to perform And if all this can be done in Beasts by such a Spirit I desire to be shown some reason why the like may not be acted in Man by a like Spirit and in a much higher Degree assisted by Organs especially in the Head much fitlier framed for the effecting of such purposes and so judging we shall be freed from the Common and Vulgar Error of thinking all we see done extraordinary and of which we are not able to collect or find out the Cause that it is done by assistance or agency of Spirits as was the Case of Regiomontanus his Eagle and Flie and the Artist was therefore taken for a Conjurer And so when Watches first appeared in China those People thought they were moved by Spirits Our present Argument seems of that Nature we know not how such Effects are or can be produced from Matter and Motion and therefore they must be acted by an Immaterial and Self-subsisting Spirit not generated but coming into the Body ab extra no Body certainly knowing from whence nor how nor what it is nor that it is Doctor Willis in his Book De Anima Brutorum Latin Printed at Amsterdam page 4. names Periera and Des Cartes and Sir Ken. Dighy who to avoid the allowance of such Souls unto the Beasts will have the Beast esteemed but a sort of Machines which only can move but that they have no knowledge or feeling of any thing that they do or suffer acted by Matter and Motion which they say can have no Sense P. 5. These Men says the Dr. think that God cannot make Things or Creatures beyond the Powers of Mans Capacity to conceive and rightly to understand P. 6. But says he Nemesius and Gassendus do allow to Beasts Senses Outward and Inward Perception Appetite Spontaneous Motion a sort of Deliberation Judgment and a lower sort of Ratiocination for that is no more but knowingly to distinguish one Thing from another to compare them and chuse one of them before the other And the Brutes do Ex uno colligere aliud and therefore they have a sort of Reasoning although in a very low Degree and he cites the words of Gassendus Animam esse quandam flammulam ignisve tenuissimi speciem quae quamdiu viget seu manet accensa tam diu vivit animal cum amplius non viget seu extinguitur animal moritur P. 8. the Doctor says The Sensitive Souls of Men are of the same nature with this description and this sort of Soul is extended over the whole Body and is dividable and the Members and Parts of the Body are the proper Organs of this Soul aad this Soul is of a fiery nature and the act or substance of it is either a Flame aut habitum flammae proximum affinem and that so it is says he not only Gassendus hath determined but 13 great Learned Men here named have concurred in that Opinion P. 9. he asserts Animam in sanguine aut liquore vitali gliscentem aut ignem aut flammam quandam esse And this Soul which acts and keeps Life in the Body must have a continual Nourishment both from Air and Viands And he takes this Soul to consist of the same Matter with the Body but of the most select subtil and active Particles of such Matter he says Dr. Ent hath clearly demonstrated Sanguinem pariter ac ignem duo desiderare viz. alimentum ventilationem This Soul is fitted and proportioned to the Body and the Body contains it as the Scabbard doth the Sword and it is so fine as to be imperceptible to Humane Senses and so as that it can be known only ab effectis operationibus P. 11. So as when the Life fails there is no sign or footsteps left
of this Soul the Existence of it debends upon the act like a common flame of Fire or the flash of it as soon as it ceases illico non est and cannot be numerically the same again without miracle and this Materiae vitalis incendium hath so many Evidences that whoso shall well consider them will be very apt to believe Sanguinem revera efflagrare vitamque non tam flammae similem quam ipsammet eandem esse P. 30. He ranks this Sensitive Soul of Man in the same Classis with the Souls of the Quadrupedes quoniam in utrisque praecordiorum necnon cerebri ejusque appendicis nervosi eadem est conformatio P. 40. He doth not take care to answer those who assert that Sensitive Creatures have not power to use their Senses and Powers of Perception without the assistance and government of an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit For the Contexture of the Body and wonderful aptitude of its Organs may serve to confute this Opinion P. 42. in Mechanicis Fire Air and Light are the Principal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which Humane Industry can effect Things that are Wonderful Useful and Necessary and likely it is that the Wise Creator did form and frame the Souls of Living Creatures out of those Principles or Materials adding to them an Eminent Vertue or Efficacy and fitting for them the most proper and apt Organs exquisitely framed and put together as he proceeds to shew Concluding that they are Subjects of Wonder and Admiration rather than of a Rational Disquisition yet proceeds to a Rational Account of them in Pages 46 and 47. and concludes that the Sensitive Soul of Man both in the Head and Systemate Nervoso as to all its Powers and the Exercise of them is meerly Organical proindeque extensam quodammodo corpoream esse P. 52. But this Artifice cannot be a Work of Chance but of a Divine Architect P. 59. As to the Objection That Matter is not only Insensible but Iners and meerly Passive Incapable of Sense or Animal Activity He answers That between Corpus sensibile insensibile there is not much more difference than betwixt accensum inaccensum and of inaccensum we can soon make accensum and why not then Sensibile be made ex insensibili Materia quaelibet uti non comburitur ita non animator but if an Active Element be communicated and disposed amongst fit Matter there usually proceeds from that Mixture a Wonderful Activity the inkindled Parts Rapidissime commotae quasi animatae exiliunt lumen cum calore luce producunt P. 60. He cannot find in the Soul or the Body any distinct Material Part or Subject to which the Rational Power or Faculties may be justly attributed but when he considers the Corpus animatum together as a Divine Fabrick built and intended for proper and special Uses he will say confidently That God by the Intent and Law of his Creation hath so ordained that in the composition of Soul and Body there should be such a confluence of Faculties and result of them as should be needful for every Animal and the proper ends and uses of it and that in them Materiam superavit Opus P. 61. Consider an Organ made out of stupid and hard Matter of it self utterly unactive yet let it be inspired by a convenient breath and a acted by a directing hand it can vary sounds and agree them to a Miracle in all ordinary computation of such as are not acquainted with the nature and composure of them Philip Melanchton de Anima P. 5. The Vital Spirits of Man are bred in the Heart vere sunt Flammae and from thence rise Mens Affections cum omnibus Voluntatis motibus P. 7. It is agreed that the souls of Brutes are Material Spirits or a Temperament such an Anima as is in Sanguine and therefore amongst the Hebrews Anima significat Vitam for that Sanguis est Vehiculum Vitae Spiritus Vitales illam rem esse quae ciet Corpora quam nominamus Animam P. 8. As in a Torch Flamma rapit Alimentum so the Vital Spirit of Animals which is tenuissima Flamma genita ex Sanguine Virtute Cordis volitans per totam Corporis Machinam largiens Corpori vivificum calorem P. 12. The Philosophers and Divines do agree That the Vegetative and Sensitive Souls are Material or Temperamenta propagatus ex Natura Corporea from the Seed and as in the Beasts sic Anima Vegetativa Sensitiva in Homine dici potest Homo enim non generat imperfectius quam plantae aut Boves gignit ergo Homo hominem saltem secundum Vitam sentientem si non secundum Animam Rationalem and the two former must be confess'd to be ex traduce P. 14. If it be demanded concerning the how and the why of the Animal Actions he answers Cernimus Motus quod cur quomodo ita hoc factum sit Sapientiae est Artificis non nostrae P. 112. Cerebrum est Officina Cogitationum Judicii Ratiocinationis Memoriae Men cannot find out its manner of working nor what the very true Substance of it is P. 116. In hac caligine non perspicimus quomodo haec Miranda Opera Cognitio Ratiocinatio Memoria Recordatio Judicium fiant sed fieri ea Cerebri Ope certissimum est P. 203. Brutes have Apprehension and Memory potentiam ad Cogitationem factam P. 205. The Actings of Common Sense and Reason and Memory are known to us viz. That such Acts there are quomodo fiant non cernimus in hac caligine P. 286. The Degrees of Acting in the Mind of Man and the Manner of them describi non satis possunt non enim cernuntur oculis sed similitudine quadam existimantur P. 297. He descants upon Immortality and derives the Certainty of it from the Resurrection and says That the Old Patriarchs rose with our Saviour Sandii Tractatus de Origine Animae P. 1. The Opinion related by Eusebius Hist lib. 6. cap. 34. was That the Soul did rise and grow ex traduce and that it extinguisht with the Life of the Creature and that before the Last Judgment the Whole Man should rise again He cites Augustin de Anima cap. 48. saying That Cyril and the Luciferians maxima pars Occidentalium did think so Teste Hieronymo Tom. 2. Epist 82. Greg. Nyssen lib. de Anima This Opinion was condemned in a Council of that time wherein Origen bare a great sway This Opinion viz. of the Generation of Souls Per Populos Barbaros Arrii Religionem sectantes videtur explosa Creatione animae introducta This Author is an Origenist a Maintainer of Prae-existence and therefore opposes both the Generation and new Creation of Souls These Quotations have been made to shew the Agreement of other Men with what is said in the Search after Souls And that Willis and Melanchton are contented to confess their ignorance of the particular Workings of God in Man and
do not make use of their ignorance for the extracting from thence an Unintelligible Extraneous Spirit for the Government of a Humane Body Memory or Understanding The case of the Watch shews the thing moved and made a noise and the Indians did not and could not discover the cause thereof and therefore they concluded it was moved by a Spirit which contains the very Ground of your Argument viz. We understand not how a Material Agent can perform such a sort of acting Therefore there must be an Intelligent Spirit in the case or else such things could not be done yet if you will but make this Grant That a Man doth generate a Man as truly and perfectly as one Horse generates another it will prove like Archimedes his Postulatum of a Ground whereupon to fix his Instrument for thence will apparently follow all that in my Treatise hath been asserted For what is begotten and born of Flesh is Flesh and I would not advise you to venture upon the task of proving any other way of proceeding or framing of Humane Souls 7. Paragraph You pretend to prove an Intelligent Spirit in Man from the Power and Effects of Conscience in him You say no Beasts have it and yet it is very potent and prevalent in Man And I agree that Man hath a Conscience and that it hath a great Power in him and over him But I do not grant the Beasts are without it in a degree sutable to their Capacities and Understandings You say That Conscience in Man is natural to him or slows from his pure Natural Faculties unassisted by Education or Rules But this I deny and assert that Conscience in Man is not derived barely from Nature in such manner as his Vital Powers viz. Digestion Nutrition and Generation are nor as his Passionate Powers viz. his Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear are nor as his Sensitive Powers or the use of this Senses are nor as his Rational Powers viz. his Understanding Phancy Memory Judgment are For all these Faculties are so natural to every Man that he can and doth act them and by them without either Rule Tutor or Example But Speech is not so natural nor is Conscience so natural but they must both be Learned and Directed by Rules Doctrine or Examples and then they may be varied and changed according as things shall fall out or it shall come into the Phancies of Men But without some sort of Education Rule Direction or Opinion there is no more Conscience in Man than in Beasts For take a Salvage Person bred up amongst Beasts he will not know that Killing in a Sin nor spare a Man in his Hunger or his Wrath any more than a Beast And for Adultery he is not capable of knowing it because he knows not what Marriage is And for Incest it is naturally so much unknown as that the first People practised it with Sisters lawfully and it seems Abraham thought it no Crime nor the Princes to whom he avowed it for that it pass'd without Punishment or Reproof from them And for Theft and Robbery it pass'd for a Glory amongst Barbarous People and so it doth amongst Conquerours at this day and it is counted a sufficient Crime for the Vaniquished to defend his Goods or Women from the Conquerour and he will yet be kill'd for so doing without any remorse or sense of Conscience in the Conquerour Nor is the Fact against Nature however Rules may perhaps determine otherwise I say then that Conscience is not an absolutely Natural Faculty in Man but rather is Faculty Complicated of Nature and other Adjuncts and Ingredients the Natural Powers that act in it are the Understanding the Memory and the Judgement and the Effects of it viz. Joy and Grief are also Natural but to compleat the Faculty of Conscience in Man there must be also some Rule for Direction of the Judgment whose proper Office is to compare the Fact and the Rule together and if they be found to agree the Effect is Joyous and Pleasing if they differ the Effect is Sorrow and Fear and the widelier they differ the stronger Effects are produced But say you these Effects are sometimes so potent and violent as they could not be if they did not proceed from an Intelligent Spirit Concerning which I will again quote to you Melanct. dicto lib. pag. 148. There he says Let our Students learn to admire the Wonderful Works of God in Man our Principal Powers and Faculties Vital Sensitive Affectionate Cogitative efficiuntur Spiritu Vitali Animali ideo aliqui dixerunt Animam esse hos Spiritus seu Flammulas Vitales Animales sua Luce superant Solis omnium Stellarum Lucem quod Mirabilius est his ipsis Spiritibus in Homibus piis miscetur ipse Divinus Spiritus and makes this Light in Man more Refulgent Active and Inclinable to apprehend Divine Truths and to practise accordingly And on the contrary When the Devil gets a Possession or but an Entrance amongst them he disturbs and tortures both Heart and Brain and drives them into Cruel Motions and manifest Furies And thus this Excellent Divine instructs us what are the proper Causes of the great and violent Stings of Conscience which you have chosen for a strong Proof of an Intelligent Immaterial Spirit in Man And that Conscience is not barely from Nature but is a Complex of Nature and Rules there are divers Texts of Scripture which may be cited to prove Rom. 2. St. Paul says Men do by Nature the things contained in the Law of Moses this intends a Cultivated Nature ordered and directed by other Rules although they were ignorant of Moses's Law and those other Rules became to them a Law written in their hearts which if they followed their Conscience was satisfied and if they acted contrary to those Rules their Consciences accused them for it St. Paul's Nature in this place therefore intends not Nature in puris naturalibus utterly unpolished and barbarous or salvage and naked of Rules Education and Examples but such a Nature as hath submitted it self to some Rules Education or Example though they be utterly ignorant of Moses's Laws Rom. 5.13 Though sin those acts which are sinful were in the world until or before the Law yet sin is not imputed where there is no Law or Rule to direct the Judgment and therefore without some sort of Rule rising from Institution Example or Opinion as there can no Sin be imputed so no Consciousness of Sin nor Sting of Conscience for it So Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin but by the Law some Rule Education or Example which taught me that this is Sin bare or salvage Nature would not have taught me what was a Sin and what was not John 9.41 Our Lord says to the Pharisees If you were blind purely ignorant ye should have no sin Chap. 15.22 If I had not spoken to them instructed them they had not had sin 1 John 3.4 Sin is the Transgression
quasi spirituosam toti adaequatam coextensam constiâ—â—unt ex creationis lege Here he shews how these Active Particles first work in semine and form a Consistence and Body sutable to its own activities as a Case may be exactly fitted to a Jewel haec anima ex se statim dissolvi tenuesque in auras evanescere apta a corpore continenti in subsistentia sua actu conservatur ita anima tenuissima licet est corporea P. 11. Corpori intime unitur ejusque velut subtegmen existit attamen textura subtilissima sensibus nostris percipi nequit sed solum modo ab effectis operationibus suis dignoscitur And when the Creature dies Statim ejus particulae à concretione sive mutua adhaesione sua abruptae absque vestigio quovis relicto prorsus dissipantur P. 30. After treating of Brutal Souls he says Ac in eadem classe etiam hominis animam corpoream ponimus idque jure quoniam in utrisque praecordiorum nec non cerebri ejusque appendicis nervosi eadem est confirmatio P. 38. Anima corporea brutis perfectionibus homini communis cum toti corpori organico extenditur singula tum partes ejus tum humores vivificat actuat irradiat ita in duobus illorum eminentius subsistere atque sedes velut imperiales habere videtur Here our Doctor declares the manner how this Material Soul acts and works in the Head and Heart principally P. 39. The Modes and Manner of its Operation by such inflamed Particles of the Blood and specially in the Head whence they are dispersed over all the Body effecting therein Perception by the Senses and all other Faculties their Order Causes and Manner of Working very much deserving the perusal of those who really desire satisfaction in the Enquiry which you have propounded viz. Quomodo operatur Anima Materialis in Homine There you may find a better account to this purpose and a larger than I dare pretend to give you of my own My Answer to your Question How Mens Faculties and Powers can be acted by a Material Spirit given in my former Treatise is That although I were not able to give Evidence of the Manner how but should plead Ignoramus in Answer thereunto this could be no great Detriment to the Tenet of a Material Soul in Man For that Men do not know nor can find out how the Material Soul in Plants produceth Wood Bark Leaves Blossoms Fruits of great Diversities in Nature Shape Firmness Taste Colour Smell Natural Qualities both for Meat Medicine and divers other uses Nor do Men know how the Material Soul in Insects doth or can produce the admirable Order Oeconomy and Regiment which is plainly visible amongst the Bees the Orderly Proceedings and Industry amongst the Ants and the fine and regular Textures of Spiders the wonderful Faculties of Birds in chusing commodious Places for their Nests their Building Sitting Hatching Feeding Guarding and Training of their Young Their Musical Notes and Modulations their Exercises of Power the Stronger over the Weaker and which the Weaker apprehend at the very first sight Neither do men know nor can find out how or by what means the Beasts discern and know their proper Nouritures and Medicines the Means and Causes of their Disgestion Nutrition Generation Appetites Passions Spontaneous Motions Ejections of Excrements the putting out their Hair Horns Hooffs Claws c. Or the Means or Causes of using their Senses and perceiving by them Their Common Sense Phancy Memory and the low Degree of Understanding which they have I say the next Means and Causes of these Effects and their like men cannot discover or find out And yet there appears no doubt but that such Effects flow from the Material Souls or Spirits with which every one of them in their Kinds or Species are endowed Ergo Though I may not be able to declare how a Material Spirit doth or can act in Man his Superiour Faculties of his Reason and Mind yet that may not prove an Argument sufficient to overthrow the Materiality of a Humane Soul For such a Soul may and probably doth actuate all these Superiour Powers and Faculties in Man although we cannot perceive or understand the manner and next Causes of such Productions in any plain or declarable manner It seems enough that we find there are apt Matter Members and Organs to serve those Effects and there is an Active Principle or Spirit though Material yet sufficient for enlivening and acting those Organs or Instruments for the serving such turns to as great Perfection as is ordinarily found in Humane Nature although we do not and rationally are not able to discover the adaequate or perhaps the true Reasons or Means the How and the Why of such Performances Sir Kenelm Digby in his Maintenance of the Soul's Immortality Fol. 394. says Gross Earthly Bodies create Idea's in the Minds of Men and by that means doth Spiritualize such Bodies and that which can so do must needs be Immaterial Now if you ask me how this comes to pass and by what Artifice Bodies are thus spiritualized I confess I shall not be able to satisfie you but must answer That it is done I know not how by the power of the Soul Shew me a Soul and I will tell you how it works But as we are sure there is a Soul that is to say a Principle from which these Operations spring though we cannot see it so we may and do certainly know that this Mystery is says he as I say though we cannot know nor express the manner of it And I may say the like for the Material Soul that it is also Invisible too fine to be perceived but by its Effects and therefore its Operations or the Manner of them are not Perceptible by Mens Senses and thereunto the old Theorem may reasonably be applied Nihil venit in Intellectu quod non prius fuit in Sensu And it seems not reasonable to expect a clear Description or Declaration of such Things or Productions as are not perceptible to Sense or that doth not at some time come or in some measure come under the Test and Trial of those Informers To comply with your Demands I have thus repeated to you that I have before expressed in my First Treatise although it seem more than the Exigence of the Case requires For that although nothing had been said in the Defence Proof or Discovery of what concerns the Souls Materiality yet it seems not to me a good or clear Consequence That therefore it must be Immaterial But that the Proof of that will still be necessary and lie upon your hand to shew De Anima Immateriali quod sit in Rerum Natura quid sit unde oritur quando ingreditur quomodo ubi residet in Corpore quomodo actuat Corpus cum Membris omnia ejus Organa as well in the Vital Nutritive Generative Faculties as in the Loco-motive Affective and Passionate Powers and
those of Sensation And Lastly in the Rational and Superior Powers of Understanding Phancy Memory Judgment and Will You have required of me Proofs how such things are or can be acted in Man by a Material Spirit to shew the hardship of such an Imposition I now demand the like of you on behalf of an Immaterial Spirit not believing that you will undertake the Imployment or that you or any other man can make a good performance of it or discover so much on that behalf as I have but now done on behalf of the Material One It seems my Demand upon you may pass lege talionis it is thereby done to you as you thought fit to do viz. Bind an heavy Burthen and lay it upon others Shoulders which it may be you will avoid touching with one of your fingers believing the whole to be much too heavy for you and this shall finish the Answer to your Demand of the Quomodo operatur Anima Materialis in Homine 2 Paragraph Here you raise an Argument for the Immateriality from the Acts and Powers of Conscience in Man which you think cannot grow or be derived from Matter and Motion I grant it is no more derived from meer Matter and Motion than the other Faculties of Man are God who created both Matter and Motion and acts them in Plants Insects Fowls and Beasts to the Production of all that is done amongst them acts them also in Mankind to the Instruction and for the Guidance of their Natures and Actions the Conscient Powers in Man viz. his Understanding Memory and Judgment I have said are Natural and the Effects of Conscience viz. Content and Joy or Sorrow and Fear are also Natural but to the Constitution and Compleating of Conscience there must also be allowed some Rules Examples or Conceptions to which Men have submitted their Minds in such manner as to believe what is done according to those Directions is well done and what is contrary to them is a Fault or Offence And this Conscience I say is common to Beasts as well as Men though not so much or in so high a Degree but according to the proportion of Understanding amongst them A Child young hath no perceivance of Conscience but as it grows to the Cognizance of Rules it becomes subjected to the Strokes and Stings of Conscience How are Beasts taught Duty but by Rewards and Punishments the Remembrances of which act upon them so as to make them correct a Failure in Duty by a quick correcting of themselves in Action and Amendment thereupon And what is Conscience in Man more than a Perceiving or an Apprehension that he hath acted against his Rule which hath gotten the Ascendent over him and for which he hath an Expectation of Punishment or Suffering such so great so lasting and intolerable as those who have delivered the Rules to him have taught him to conceive and apprehend but that amongst Men that are Savage and utterly uncultivated by any sort of Education without Rules or Laws of any sort amongst such Persons there is no Transgression nor Conscience of Sin viz. no Conscience at all And we may compare the Faculty of Conscience to that of Speech amongst Men they are things to which Humane Nature hath a great Aptitude and Inclination but yet they are not so Natural as to grow out of bare Nature without any sort of Instruction or Teaching whatsoever Mothers and Nurses commonly give the first Rudiments of them both and they receive Alterations according as future Informers and Practices get Power over them High Expectations of Eternal Rewards or Punishments are able to transport Men and have transported some with ardent Desires others with Afflictions and terrible Fears so as they are throughly perswaded and convinced of such Future States as we are taught to believe if upon Examinatien of the Conscient Powers the Man find his Actions contrary to his Rules and that therefore he is in a State of unmeasurable ill expectations It seems natural and likely that this man shall be apt to fall under the tyranical dominion of his Fear and that he needs no Immaterial Power to induce such Conceptions in him or inflict such Rigors upon him his own Connatural Conscient Powers and the Cruelty and Tyranny of his Fear thence arising are enough and if any farther addition be needful I have before quoted Melanchton That a Diabolical assistance is often ready to act in such cases for making the Effects more atrocious and remarkable without needing the Opinion of a Soul 's being Immaterial for Solution of the Quaery of the Quomodo such things are possible to be done And though the Acts of Conscience be Natural yet the Rules which govern it are chiefly if not only the Apprehensions or Opinions of the Persons under Trial growing from Education Institution Example Observation Opinion or Conceipt however Superstitious or Fallacious the same may be To what you say That you had given Instances concerning Acts of Conscience and Terrour upon them in Persons who were above all Prejudice or Fear I answer That no Man can be above these Adjuncts or Qualifications but all Educated Persons have always been taught to believe and fear a Divine Being and Vengeance even when Jupiter and Apollo Woden and Frea past in the World for their Prime Deities And it seems observable that however highly a supposed Immaterial Spirit may impress Terrour upon the Conscience yet let any man come and demonstrate convincingly that there is a mistake in that the Fact is not against the Rule or that the Rule it self is an Errour and so the Wrath and Vengeance of God not due or reasonably to be expected to follow upon such Failures Such an Opinion and Belief must and will naturally appease and cure the greatest Horrours of a Troubled Conscience and do it as substantially as a Physician can cure any other Disease whatsoever viz. by removing and curing the Efficient Causes of it You demand of me How Rules for Direction for Conscience came to Men at the first when there were but few Persons in the World and Customs or Conceipts were not so various or common as of later times they are grown To this I answer That the only Persons in the World free from Prejudices and Rules imposed upon them by Education were our first Parents Adam and his Wife and to them we read God gave an Express Rule viz. Of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil thou shalt not eat of it for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Next we read of Mens sacrificing to God for which I do not perceive any ground in Reason or Nature viz. That Man should or could from Reason invent or conceive that the killing or shedding the Blood of Bulls Rams or Goats should be pleasing or acceptable to the Omnipotent God Whence I collect that this early Practice amongst Men sprung from the Positive Direction of God and soon after this Practice began Cain
become ineffectual To this I reply That I do believe you or I or any Man whatsoever can judge of Humane Nature no otherwise than we now find it to be What it was before the Fall we do not and perhaps cannot know The Words of the Curse in Genesis neither express nor import such a Depravation of Man's Reason Soul or Power of Government but the Particulars of it apply altogether to the Body and to Temporal Concernments How far in what Parts and to what Degrees Humane Nature was corrupted by the Fall of our First Parents is an Ignotum to us And I should be glad to receive your Instruction thereupon towards which you offer me a Sentence of St. Paul The good that I would I do not c. You tell me that the Design of this Text was to represent the State or Condition of those People who had no other Help against their Lust but the Laws of Nature and of Moses and that it is altogether applicable to the depraved and unregenerate State of Mankind Sed non ego credulus For I think it rather spoken of that Condition in which St. Paul was at the Time of the Speaking of it This Epistle is dated from Corinth and we do not read Sr. Paul was there any oftner than once and that was divers Years after his Conversion and State of Regeneration He uses the Present Tense viz. I do and I do not and it is not I that do it Thus the Words make for my Opinion and the Sense is not disagreeable For where is the Man so fully regenerate as that this Saying of St. Paul may not be fully and truly applied to him Of my own State I have a good Hope and yet I confess the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do sometimes too often very often And I pray you communicate to me how you find it with your self in that Point or if you know any other Man of whom this Expression may not be truly predicated remembring that in many Things we sin all And the righteous Man falls seven times a day which good Men would not do if they could help it viz. if the Rational Soul were intelligent and regnant within them and over them I agree with you That there is need of the Special Grace of God enabling Men to do the Good which Reason and Rules direct them unto and so to avoid Evil and that thence good Effects and Products may be called the Fruits of the Spirit And you say That if Men do resist rational Motions and Perswasions then the Grace of God strikes in and co-operates with the Reasonable Faculty and if Men resist all these Inducements to Goodness they are left without Excuse I demand if the Soul of Man be an Intelligent Spirit governing in the Man as his proper Form what is it in Man that doth or in likelyhood can resist the Natural Power which such a Soul should have over it You will not say that Man hath any thing in him besides his Soul but Matter and Motion And I would have you tell me whence it should come that meer Matter and Motion should so far over-power such an intelligent Soul as not only to resist its Government but even to captivate over-rule and enslave it not only to a Content in evil and bad Practices of Sensuality but even bring it to an Immersion and a Delight in them Thus it seems your supposed Intelligent Spirit or Soul is not able to make a sufficient effectual Resistance to the Force and Violence of other Powers or Principles to the Humane Nature properly belonging But that other Power or Principle is able not only to resist the Rational Power of the Soul but even the ordinary Operations of the Spirit of God also For you say That Men resisting these are left without Excuse Now seeing that in Man's Nature there is some Inward Principle able to combat the Rational Soul so assisted I demand of you What sort of Power you think this to be and from whence it proceeds We know of no other Principle of Life Motion or Activity in the Body that is Natural but the Soul Hence I conclude that this Power so able to resist and conquer the Rational Power proceeds from the same Soul that the Rational Power doth The Rational Power is the Soul acting in the Head and the Sensitive or Affectionate Power is the Soul acting in the Praecordia and pressing on to the Desire of such Objects as are near hand presently beneficial and pleasant howsoever Things may fall out for the future But if the Humane Soul be Intelligent why doth it actuate the Sensual or Affectionate Faculty so strongly as to enable it to combat and resist nay for much the greater part to overcome and conquer the Rational Powers and to draw the Soul it self into the Practices of Sensuality which she her self doth disapprove and condemn I cannot perceive that this sort of Oeconomy in the Microcosm is comportant with the Act of Intelligence in an Humane Soul for that thus it would become divided against it self whence its Government should not be able to stand But if this Soul fall out to be Material and not Intelligent the declared Oeconomy stands well together For such a Soul can act every Part Member and Organ according as was intended by the great Artificer of them but not to any other Intent ad libitum of the Soul It acts therefore the Organs of Sensuality and Affections and it acts also the Rational Powers each according to the Proprieties and Powers of their Natures without any Favour or Inclination to the one or the other So as the Soul is the Actor but not the Governor in the Microcosm For sometimes one of these Powers prevail and sometime the other so as Aristotle compares their Contest to a Game at Ball as it were whether for a Penny and there is no Certainty at all of the Success from the Cradle to the Grave for Time and the Thing is from Nature and is acted in all Mankind So it is with Wind in the Organ it acts the Fabrick and every Pipe in it one as well and as much as the other but sutably to their several Constitutions without Inclination or Intelligence I say if the Sensitive Powers resisting and overcoming Reason and the Ordinary Effects of God's Spirit in Man be not acted by the Humane Soul by what then are they acted And if by it they be acted it seems very probable that Soul is Material and not Intelligent 5 Paragraph You say We find many Texts of Scripture importing that Man perishes by his voluntary Choice of Evil and neglecting the Means of Grace and resisting the Motions and Assistances of God's Spirit And I have a great Inclination to believe your Assertion notwithstanding St. Paul Rom. 9. tells us God hath Mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth And his Purpose according to
Faith to Church Ordinances and do you shew me Ordinances of God convincingly such in this point and then I promise you to be obedient to them and there will need no more words in the Case now disputed But if you cannot or which will come to one do not do it you may have some Title to the Term of a False Accuser of your Brethren whose conceits or errours perhaps of weakness you cannot infect or sully by the sowre and tainted Originals from whence you are pleased ignorantly to derive them And for your Conclusion That the Opinion of the Materiality tends to subvert the Fundamentals al 's Religion it is neither proved nor granted but asserted to strengthen the Foundation of Future Rewards and Punishments by fixing them upon very many and very plain Texts of Scripture and the Articles of our several Creeds clearly proving the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment Whereas Proofs of the Immortality are neither plainly asserting nor with any manner of clearness proving the same nor is it made an Article in any of our Creeds nor is any thing of it in the 39. Articles of our Church But there I find Artic. 6. That whatsoever is not read in Scripture nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any Man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite to salvation We all perceive that during Life there is a Contexture of Soul and Body and such an Union as they jointly participate of all that befals the Person and act undividedly and inseparably from the Person and from one another That Death is a Separation of them is clear also and What then becomes of the Soul is our Question and that we trace from its Nature as near as we can investigate If it be a small intelligent Spiritual Substance created by God upon every Procreation of Man likely it is to have a Separate Subsistence after Death of the Person but then it cannot be properly said The Man or the Person dies but the Body dies And if the Humane Soul be a Flame of Life kindled by God in Adam when he made him a Living Person and from that time hath passed by generation from one Man to another then more likely it is that this sort of Soul is extinguished in Death or that the Extinguishment of this Flame totally or in every part of the Body is the Death of the Person Originally it seems Men were of kin to Beasts in their Manner and Way of Living and Acting Of the Thracians in Orpheus's time we read Silvestres homines sacer interpresque deorum Caedibus victu foedo deterruit Orpheus Dictus ob id lenire tygres rabidosque leones Our own Ancestors in Caesar's time and many years after were naked as their Beasts and had no other Covering but their Skins their Food Acorns and Wild Fruits and their Manners were much sutable and of late we have heard like things of Wild Irish People Americans Libyans and in divers other parts of Africa who go naked as the Beasts and feed upon Raw Flesh and Snakes and the very Guts and Garbage of the Creatures and are as wild says Lithgow as their four-footed companions in the Libyan desarts In a State of so great Simplicity it seems Mankind may be well enough compared by us as it was by David to the Beasts that perish Since my ending the very last Period came to my hands a little Book written by Naudaeus printed Lond. in 12o. 1637 in page 248 he cites Lactantius asserting that Democritus Epicurus and Dicaearchus would not have so confidently denied the Immortality of the Soul Mago aliquo praesente qui sciret certis carminibus cieri ab inferis animas adesse praebere se humanis oculis videndas loqui futura praedicere I do so little approve of the Fathers Opinion in this that if his Magus should shew me such Souls like the Witch of Endor I should take them for his Conjurati and to be no proof at all of the Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul P. 38. He mentions Archimedes his Mundane Globe the Moving Tripods of Vulcan made by Daedalus Architas his Pigeon Regiomontanus his Eagle and his Fly Men could not believe these Engines could move as they did without a Spirit which they thought could not be Material because that cannot act upon Hard Bodies as Wood Iron c. therefore they concluded those Motions were acted and guided by an Immaterial Spirit viz. a Daemon and that therefore these Artificers were Magi in the worst Sense very Conjurers But from this Crime our Author defends them and says The things were all feasible by Art Natural although Men do not now know nor did then understand the Rules or the Artifice of making such things or other things like or equal to them And this gives us a good semblance of Reason why Men have been apt to maintain their Souls to be Immaterial because they cannot perceive or learn the means and manner by which a Material Soul can act and govern Common Sense Apprehension Phancy Memory Judgment Conscience and the Affections and Passions incident to Humane Nature P. 299. In conclusion he says Men must take good heed not to be carried away with the current of common Opinions that when we are swayed by example and custom and go with the throng in the way we slip and fall one over another alienis perimus exemplis Besides this Book I have since this writing perused another viz. Mr. Robert Boyle his Experiments printed London 1662 2d Edition there p. 190 he says He inclines to think the Air necessary to ventilate and cherish the Vital Flame continually burning in the Heart And he found a new kind of resemblance betwixt Fire and Life the one lasting no longer than the other P. 190. The Flame of Spirit of Wine will burn long upon fine white linnen or paper without consuming either Eminent Naturalists do esteem the Heat which resides in the Heart to be a true Flame and this says he I do not oppose provided they add that it is such a temperate and almost insensible Fire as that before-mentioned and yet he thinks that to be hardly fine enough I have mentioned before a Tenuity to an Invisibility P. 197. He takes Animals for a kind of Curious Engines set on work and kept in Motion by Heat and Air. Dr. Willis in his oft quoted Book p. 4. tells us That Epicurus taught the Soul to be compounded ex atomis levissimis rotundissimis non multum diversis ab eis ex quibus est ignis compactum ex quodam calido flatuoso aerio P. 38. He says He hath given Reasons Quare haee flamma vitalis non uti flamma vulgaris visibilis destructiva fuerit P. 53. As soon as this flame is extinguished the compages of Soul and Body is dissolved and as long as this Soul is in the Body semper nascitur
usque ad mortem by fresh nourishment and ventilation without which this animating flame cannot subsist any more than common fire or flame can do P. 102. This Soul perceives not the external Objects or internal Operations but like the Sap in Plants or the Blood in Animals though such Blood be animated it hath neither knowledge nor sense for those parts which must be in continual flame and motion give thereby that to other parts which they themselves have not And thus say I Animal Fire whil'st it keeps glowing irradiates and acts the Bodily Parts and Organs to and for those effects and purposes for which they were intended and made by the great Artificer of the Universe In your first Paragraph you are pleased to say That my Answer to your Question How a Material Soul doth or can act the Senses Vnderstandings Memories and Consciences of Men is not so distinct as you expected but that I shift off with general Remarks and Quotations of Authors My general Remark is That in Plants and Beasts we cannot discern the Quomodo viz. How the Material Soul works in them and yet we are sure of the thing viz. That it doth work all in them and that so it is very probable to be in the State and Case of Mankind And I think this Answer is no shifting one but very plain and full to your Question And for my Quotations they are taken out of good and allowed Authors of late times viz. Boyle Roccius Willis Peter Martyr Philip Melanchton pertinent and somewhat full in the Point of any of which you take no particular notice nor give them any manner of Answer but pass them all by as nothing were and without accepting or answering any one of them whence my labour and intent of quoting good Authors to you is made altogether fruitless and ineffectual I am not knowing in my self that ever I did or do say any thing for a shift or a blind for my meaning and intent seeks Truth and what I say I think without going one step out of the way of right to the best of my knowledge and I am altogether as willing your side in this Dispute be proved true as my own present Opinion and that Truth may finally appear and be prevalent is the only desire intent and indeavour of Sir Your Obliged humble Servant Dat. 18 July 1693. To the abovesaid Answer our Friend returned a Third Opposition Oct. 18. 1693. and this was divided into Eight Paragraphs 1. Paragraph Is a Profession to end this Dispute with this his present Paper and to proceed no farther in it 2. Paragraph You say The main Question between us is the Quid sit Anima Immortalis aut Immaterialis And to this you answer It is an Immaterial Immortal Siprit◠and this you should prove intending what you say it is impossible it should be otherwise For that Matter and Motion cannot act Humane Faculties as they are acted amongst Men as if you intend that God cannot make Cogitative Matter or not make Matter Cogitative but I think God can make Matter Cogitative and if so then you do not deny That a Material Spirit in Conjunction with the Body may possibly act all Humane Powers and Faculties whatsoever You offer to me That Men think it good proof that there is a God by shewing an impossibility that it should be otherwise In Answer to which I say I hold this sort of Proof of that or any Truth to be very obscure and infirm for that it makes Men the competent Judges of what is possible to be or be done which I do not grant them to be For that Men have seen many things done which without such Ocular Testimony they could not have been perswaded to believe never possible to be done viz. that a Remora no bigger than a Snail should stop and hold fast a great Ship going before the Wind with all her Sails that a Fish hooked at the end of an Angling Line should stupefie the Hand and thence the Body of the Fisher and put him into a Deadly Swound that a vast Heap of Water fishes and all should in a Calm Day rise up into the Air and move there in a heap to a far distant Place and there fall down again in Spouts and Hurricanes I think therefore the Arguments ex impossibili concerning Souls are fit only for such as dare take upon them to judge and determine what God can do and what he cannot do Men have Reason to judge it impossible for a Living Person to live still and be safe in the midst of Nebuchadnezzar's Fiery Furnace and yet that and many like things are possible with God and far beyond Humane Knowledge for our Lord tells us That with God all things are possible In my Paper I cited to you Dr. Willis saying That Men who think that God can do nothing above or beyond what they can conceive do not deserve to be answered no more than they qui viventium Sensus Facultates quascunque non nisi à substantia Immateriali Immortalique obiri posse contendunt You say Mans Soul must be Immaterial because God cannot act Man without such a Spirit Prove that and take the Victory and if you do not prove that it seems you have said little in the Case Your Paper says only The thing is impossible for that Matter and Motion cannot do it The truth of which you neither do nor I believe can prove But whatsoever Matter and Motion can of it self do or not do I assure my self God can make Matter Cogitative and can by a Material Spirit and apt Organs effect in Man all that which we see daily performed amongst us and so it still seems to me most likely that he hath done 3. Paragraph The Description of Conscience in my Paper you think too long to examine and therefore to confute or answer it You say There is really a Dominion and Authority of Conscience and I have before granted it and described the Nature of it agreeing that all who have submitted themselves to Rules be they Jewish Christian Gentile Mahometan Romish Quakery or whatsoever other Rules Customs or Conceipts Men have submitted their Minds unto they are under a Coercion of Conscience from the Dictates and Power of such Rules Customs or Conceipts viz. All Cultivated Humane Natures receive more from Education Rules Example and Practices than their Souls of any sort can furnish them with towards the Establishment of a Conscience in them which hath no Power or very little in a State of Simple and Bare Nature without any manner of Cultivation whatsover So for Children as they come to understand and submit to Rules so Conscience grows and increases upon them Also Beasts at their full Liberty shew no signs of Conscience but put them under an Education and they will shew plain Signs of Regret and Fear for having acted against their Rules by their Crouching and Slinking Behaviours Hence appears that the Actings of Conscience are
maintain the Truth But say you I cannot be sure that the Materiality is a Truth I grant that I am not sure but I would be sure if I knew how to be so and therefore I applied to you for obtaining your chief Arguments against it And I am ready to do so to any other likely Person capable to assist me in searching the Truth concerning it And therefore in my Observations upon Dr. Bentley's Sermon Intituled Matter and Motion cannot think I have requested and even provoked him to perform his promise made in that Sermon viz. that he will make good Proof of the Souls Immateriality from some positive Grounds Rational or Scriptural For that his telling us that God cannot make Men and act them by a Material Spirit nor by any other means but by an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit seems to me precarious erroneus and arbitrary in him And I think I may as well say God can make Man and act him by a Material Spirit as well as he hath done with his inferior Creatures and for ought that hitherto appears to me I think it most likely that he hath so done This finishes my Reply to my Friends Third Opposition after which I received a Fourth Paper of the like Nature Dated 6. Nov. 93 divided into 8 Paragraphs 1. Paragraph Concerned only the intent or meaning of Paul in his term of Nature whether intended absolutely in puris Naturalibus or cultivated by Education Rule or Example 2. Paragraph Was concerning my Expression of making Men trust in a Lye 3. Paragraph I Reply to it You seem to think that God can make Matter Cogitative and will not deny that to be in his Power and we are agreed in that but you think God hath not done so I think he hath done so and this it seems need not be determined but remain a Dissention without making it a Difference the Proof on either side appearing a very great difficulty 4. Paragraph Desiring to shew that there is a Knowledge of what is Morally good or bad Grounded in Nature Unassisted by Rules Education or Institution You Cite an Instance in Cain who you think knew he had sinned in killing his Brother and that before his Nature was assisted by Rules or positive Institution Here I say are Two Assertions First that he knew the Fact to be wicked next he knew this by simple Nature unassisted by any Rule or Institution whatsoever To the First I Answer It doth not appear in the Text that he knew that his Fact to be a Crime You say it appears upon the Margent The Text says My Punishment is greater than I can bear The Margent says Mine Iniquity is greater than can be forgiven Evident it is that the Complaint succeeds immediately to the Sentence pronounced after that Fact which induces me to believe it applicable to the Punishment rather than to the Sin and that therefore the Reading put into the Text by our Translators is more likely to be the true and proper Reading than that upon the Margent But if that which you pretend should be admitted and the Marginal Reading should be accepted Yet it seems the State of Cain at that time was not a State of bare and simple Nature unassisted by Institution or Rules For Adam was Divinely Instructed and probably brought up his Children under Discipline or a directive Education They were Taught the use of Sacrificing and vers 7. God himself gave Cain Directions for his Instruction in Morality and Piety Hence to me it seems your instance of Cain doth not enough prove that Conscience without Rules or Instruction is a Natural Guide to direct Men in their Actions able to make a true Distinction betwixt evil and good Rom. 5.13 For until the Law Sin was in the World but Sin is not imputed when there is no Law And Chap. 7.7 I had not known Sin but by the Law Vers 13. Sin by the Commandment became exceeding sinful viz. until or before the Law bad Actions were Sins but not imputed because not known to be Sins but when Institution and Laws have detected or discovered to Mankind the Sin of such Actions viz. that they are Sins against God and his Laws This knowledge makes that which before was a Sin though not imputed to become by such Revelation exceeding sinful First a Sin in it self and next as made known to the acter by the Law or some other Institution that it is a Sin You give no farther or other Answer to what I had largely spoken concerning the Nature and Operation of Conscience in Man I desired to know your Apprehensions concerning the same and your silence therein seems to admit of my Conceptions thereupon as firm or probable 5. Paragraph You say I desire to know of you whence Humane Affections and their Powers grow You Answer They grow from the Corruption of Mans Nature by the Fall of Adam and the Curse attending it to evince which it seems you should shew what Man 's Nature was before the fall and wherein and how far the same became Corrupted upon that Occasion But that is a thing which I think you neither know nor have means to discover and that therefore we are driven to consider Humane Nature as we now find it so considered It is found and you grant that Affections and Passions have a very great Power in disposing of Humane Actions and the Applications and Practices of the same that they do very often and most commonly over-power and mislead the National Faculty and its Dependencies and drive or draw the Person Soul and Body into very impure and wicked Practices even reclamante Ratione and maugre all the Spiritual Powers which ordinarily they meet with in Mankind And these Affections Ambition Covetousness Lust and the Passions Wrath and Fear are as natural to Man as his Vital and Rational Faculties are All Men have them and one who hath them not is not perfect in his Nature The Beasts have them viz. Lust Wrath and Fear and they act with as much Violence and Power in the Beasts as in the Men And our First Parents had them before the Fall The Woman saw the Tree was good for Food and pleasant to the Taste hereby was her Lust tempted And a Fruit desirable to make one Wise here was her Ambition tempted and by these Affections Satan prevailed as amongst Men of our times he daily doth to draw our First Parents into the ruinous Accomplishments of Sin and Wickedness I say then The Affections and Passions appear to grow not as an effect of Adam's Fall but as a Fruit of Natural Production and from the same Principles and Originals that his Nutritive Generative and other Vital Powers do grow that his other Sensitive and his Rational Faculties do also grow They seem to have one same Original and that they are as Natural to Man as any of the other are and that they have received no more Detriment or Vitiated Quality from the Fall than the other
Death and the Resurrection and therefore Luke's Words in relating of that Fact do not import a Separate Subsistence of Souls And so it seems for Peter 1 Pet. 4.13 and 2 Pet. 3.11 and 12.13 c. So 1 Joh. 2.28 and 3.2 all importing they knew of no State between Death and the Resurrection and consequently of no Separate Subsistence of Souls Page 12. he quotes 2 Cor. 5.8 If absent from the Body and present with the Lord which I have in a few Leaves before largely expounded to a sense far different from the Authors intent He cites 2 Cor. 4.16 of the Outward and Inward Man which I say intends the two Faculties viz. Sensitive or Passionate and the Rational Pag. 13. Says The Soul is a substance I grant it so though Material for so is Heart Brain c. He says Affections and Passions Habits and Arts and Sciences are lodged and seated and rooted in the Soul and spring from it All this I deny and say they are all lodged seated and rooted in the Man and spring from and are perfected by the Contexture of his Soul and Body He says The Soul in Moses 's Text was a living active being of it self as opposed to Matter and Body This I deny and say That as the Body cannot move it self without the Soul so neither the Soul without the Body The Soul is in the Body as its proper Form or active Principle that it hath no proper place but the Body nor hath it any quickning Power without the Body It cannot quicken any thing else but the Body nor doth it act nor is it any thing but in the Body He says Moses in the Text calls it a living Soul This say I is an apparent mistake for the Text says not that the Breath became a living Soul but the Man did so the Man became a living Soul alias Person He says Take meer Matter and do what you will with it you can never make it see feel c. Mark his Consequence ergo God cannot effect it he might as well say you cannot make a Dog or a Mouse ergo c. Pag. 14. In Proof of the Soul 's being a Separable Spirit he Cites Luke 23.46 and Acts 7.29 I say That in these places by the term of Spirit the Persons recommended themselves to God as David in his full life used the very same Words Into thy hands I commend my Spirit intending his whole Person Also Christ made his Soul an Offering for Sin intending his whole Person Here he also cites Solomon's Text viz. The Spirit returns to God who gave it concerning which Expression I refer to what hath before been spoken of it Cites Heb. 12.9 You have been subject to the Fathers in the Flesh be now rather so to the Father of Spirits viz. say I of Angels and all other Creatures Cites again Zech. 12.1 yet cannot doth not deny Acts 17.25 That God giveth to all Life and Breath and all things ergo to Plants Insects and Brutes as well as to Men. He says Other Souls flow not from God by Creation but Man 's did I have denied such Creation and I think he hath not proved it I have granted Mans Soul in-kindled by God's Inspiration and so I think for the Brutes they had their first Breath from him and from that time Men and Brutes have been generated perfectly according to their first Patterns Pag. 9. He had told us That the Soul's Nature is so spiritual and sublime that it cannot be perfectly known by the most acute and penetrating Vnderstanding But being come to page 15. He tells us It is a substance as Incorporeal as other Spirits are that it is Invisible and hath no Extension of Parts it hath no Dimensions or Figure But I grant none of all these nor doth he offer to prove any of them He makes it a vast wonder that such a Spirit as his sort of Soul should be so tied and linked to a clod of Clay the Body that it can by no Art or Power free it self And I confess his sort of Soul is very Productive of strange and unlikely Consequences but to my sort of Soul all is in great Congruity I say there is no wonder at all but very Congruous that the Soul and Body should be so affected and affixed one to another for they are both of a piece are generated grow stand decay and fall together and they rejoyce and suffer share and share alike and that there is no more difference between Humane Souls and Bodies than Material Spirits differ from their Bodies and as they do and suffer together in this World so may it be expected for the World to come they will Rise be Judged and Recompenced together according to their joynt behaviours used in the time of their Earthly Life Pag. 17. He produces Des Cartes Principle and Dr. Bentley's viz. I know that I think and that Matter and Motion cannot think ergo There must be a Spirit to act thought in me This I grant but says he This must be a Spirit Immaterial Intelligent for God cannot act all Mans Faculties by a Material Spirit nor make Matter Cogitative I think he can do all this and thereupon I am at issue with Dr. Bentley and I believe that he hath so done And if God can act Mans Senses and Reason by a Material Spirit and hath so done all our Author's Allegations here are thereby answered and made ineffectual which otherwise do not seem very material He says No Man can think that combining Fire Air Water and Earth should make the Lump of it to know or consider And I grant this cannot be done by Man but by what consequence can it be said ergo God cannot do it I say such an ergo will have no Force or Coercion in it And I farther say Souls cannot think or understand without their Bodies He says We see manifestly that upon division of the Body viz. a Leg or an Arm cut off the Soul remains intire viz. the Vnderstanding Affections c. I grant That the Vital and Rational Faculties do in such case still remain intire but by Blows or Wounds in the Head the Understanding and Memory may be spoiled and yet the Vital and Generative Parts remain firm So as his instance proves no more but that the loss of a Member and the Spirit which enlivened it affects not other Members or the Spirit in them so much but that they can still exercise their proper Faculties as before and this is very well Comportant with a Material Spirit For his tota in to to qualibet parte I have quoted Melanchton who says The Expression is commonly Fathered upon Arist but it is not found in any of his Writings nor is the thing true For says he If we shall take the Humane Soul for an Immaterial Spirit we know such a Spirit can be but in unico loco at a time and not in tota in qualibet parte at the same time And
do deny and he proves it not For other Brute Creatures I say it is very probable God gave them their first Breath though Moses have not expressed it He says The Opinion of the Souls Propagation from the Parents by Generation is very Antient and Tertullian and divers of the Western Fathers closed with it And so do I. He says Antiquity is no pasport for errors and so say I He cites an Objection against the daily Creation of Souls and in Proof of their Generation out of Dr. Brown's Religio Medici Pag. 32. He pretends to Answer this Objection but uses to that purpose only Scholastical Distinctions and Niceties and brings no material or solid Reason from Nature so as I think the Objection is not enough Answered but holds still good against the Creation and for the Generation of the whole both Body and Soul Pag. 33. Cites Gen. 22. God rested on the seventh day from all his Work which he had made Pag. 34. This says he Intends he ceased from making any new Species or Kinds of Creatures but he still creates Individual Souls of the same kind and nature with Adam 's Soul and he means all Humane Souls So as upon Fruitful Coition of Man and Woman or of Man and Beast where the product is of Humane shape God creates a new young Soul to enliven and inform every such Body whence every day hour and moment he is creating such Souls for all the Earth over I would know where he found his Distinction of God's ceasing from Creation of New Species but not of New Individuals he quotes no Author or Original for it and till he so do it will pass with Readers for his own Fiction and do him no service at all And his Proof of his New Creation is a kin to this Distinction he cites for Proof of it Our Lord's Words My Father worketh hitherto and I work How this proves Gods Continual New Creation of Souls I do not perceive and I suppose sew others will be drawn to believe such New Creations upon this Proof He says To me it is clear that the Soul is not generated for that which is generable is corruptible This I agree and thence infer The Humane Soul both generable material and extinguishable He Reasons against this but by Arguments before Answered Pag. 35. Farther to prove a New Creation of Souls he quotes again Heb. 12.9 Men must be in subjection to the Father of Spirits intending it to signifie the Father of their Spirits or Souls This I do not grant but say This Sense restraining to Humane Spirits only is against the express Words of the Text as well as the intent of it He quotes again Zech. 12.1 before examined he quotes Isa 42.5 God that giveth Breath unto the people upon the Earth and Spirit to them that walk therein I take Breath and Spirit here for the same thing Here he cites Chap. and Vers of four places more I have searched them and find no mention of Spirit or Soul in any of them Pag. 36. He says These Texts speak of Creating Heaven and Earth yea and their Souls also Of Heaven and Earth they all speak but of Souls not a word whence it is not safe to take even a good Mans word in Matter of Controversie Pag. 36. Cites Solomon's Text again Dust returns to the Earth and the Spirit to God who gave it The Soul and Body says he Are the two Constitutive Parts of Man and have two distinct Originals the Body is of the Earth the Soul a Spirit given by God who gave it Being by Creation I say God gave the Body a Being by Creation as well as the Soul and as the Elements of the Body are Earth and Moisture so that of his Soul are likely Air and Fire and at Death the Body goes to the Earth the Fire extinguisheth and Air vanisheth What Solomon's Expression intended and the manner of that Expression hath been before disputed Pag. 37. Says The Soul hath no Principle out of which by Order of Nature it did arise I say the Body had no such Principle neither God created it of the Earth and breathed into Adam 's Nostrils the Breath of Life and he became a living Soul whence the Man was created Body as well as Soul He agrees the Souls of Brutes are generated but says he There is a Specifick Difference betwixt the Brutal and Rational Soul This I deny and say The Soul is not Rational but is so in the Head only where there are Organs created proper for that Faculty and in no part of the Body can the Soul act rationally but in the Head Pag. 38. He demands Why are not Brutes capable of performing Rational and Religious Acts I Answer because God hath not given them Rational Powers and Organs in so high a degree as he hath done to Men nor can one Man perform like another in such occasions But whatsoever their Souls are the People can act but according to the Capacity of their Organs and the Temperament of their Bodies and Complexions and Humours Men have a different Posture of Body from other Creatures more Capacious Heads in Proportion and store of Brains and finer Matter and they have Heads and Tongues whereby they can better learn direct and act than any Brutes These Differences set Humane Bodies far above the Brutes and yet it seems they may be acted as the Brutes are by a Material Spirit for the Flesh and Blood are Materials of both sorts and that which nourishes is alike in both without Breath Blood and Food both sorts perish and their Souls depart or vanish and yet as Mens Bodily Organs exceed the Brutes for Use and Aptitude so may their Spirits for fineness of Matter and plenty of it and purity and brightness of that flame of Life in them Pag. 39. Says Seed of the Soul is not to be found in Man because the Soul is a Spiritual Essence I say this begs the Question but if this Spirit be Material he will not deny that the Seed of it may be found in Man Pag. 40. Upon this I say Remove the Opinion or later Invention of the new Creation of Souls for all Adulterous Incestuous Buggerly Humane Procreations and then all his Questions here argued are needless and useless He confesses he cannot tell how a Newly Created Spirit should come to be defiled with Original Sin I say he need not trouble himself about it for that the thing is not at all so Pag. 41. He asks How so many Souls become foolish forgetful injudicious It seems he means Men. He supposes it to come from the Bodily Temper and Organs and I grant that very often it doth so But yet I say that my sort of Soul viz. the Flame of Life or the Material Spirit is subject to Defects Infirmities and Obstructions as well as the Body Pag. 42. His Deduction of Original Sin upon Man draws it only from his being a Child of Adam whence it seems his
and then condemned it His Son Constantius forbad it in places where he was or had full Power whence in that Empire this Practice fell to decay and in time became quite abolished The Christian Religion hath opposed and overcome it in all places of its Plantation and finally it is now come to be rooted out of all the known World And we know of no Nation in Europe Asia or Africa where shedding of Blood is used in Sacrifice to their gods Here is a great and evident Change of the most Antient and Universal Practice that ever was in the World concerning Religion and no Man will pretend to say that this Change was for the worse but for the better although it had God's Approbation by Moses and is not positively forbidden in any part of the New Testament The Apostles after Our Lords Death used it Acts 21.20 Thousands of Believing Jews were yet Zealous of the Law verse 26. Paul went to the Temple with the Four Men that had a Vow and attended till an Offering should be offered for every one of them And yet we see this Practice now utterly abolished and we give God thanks for the performance of it as I think there is great reason and by the change of this most Antient Universal Practice in Religion I pretend to have raised an eminent Impeachment to the force of our Authors Argument from the Antiquity and the Universality of the Immaterial Opinion We know the Papists Plead in like manner against the Reformation intended to be put upon their Errors though Antient and very generally received heretofore into the Christian Churches of the Dark Ages passing from Anno 600 even down to the Times of Luther and other Reformers then arising but we do not accept their Plea of Antiquity and Universality as sufficient for the Justification of their Errors I will but nominate Dr. Comber's Plea for a Divine Right of Titles by force of the same Argument because I have answered it in a particular Treatise not yet Published But upon the whole Matter I think it reasonable to conclude that an Argument drawn from the Antiquity and Universality of an Opinion is but an Argument to that Favour viz. that it ought to be well Weighed and throughly Considered before it be changed and not at all to be changed except there appear sufficient and convincing Proofs that the same ought to be done but not to be reputed of such Force or Power as to silence all Arguments which may be made against it or to stop all manner of Proceedings towards a Conviction thereupon To stop the Press from Publishing such Arguments I do not allow but the way fully to stop silence them is to make Rational and Substantial Answers to them which I profess my self now and ever willing to receive and embrace with all Sincerity according to the Merit which to my Understanding shall appear in them Thus far I have gone out of my ordinary Way of making Strictures upon our Authors Pages that I might make the more full Answer to this grand Argument of Antiquity and Universality offered on behalf of the Souls Immateriality Pag. 105. Says One Man is of more worth than all the Inferior Creatures This I do not grant Pag. 106. His Discourse here imports That there is no means of a Future State but by the Souls Immortality an Error which hath generally misled the World before him Pag. 107. I say to this The Resurrection will satisfie Mens Desires of Immortality if they be rightly Grounded Pag. 108. To it I say The return of Souls into Bodies once Dead seems the re-kindling of the Flame of Life by an Act of Divine Power He confesses That when Bodies have been restored to Life in this World as he here cites divers that there was no Sense or Apprehension in such Souls returned of the place or state they were in during their Separation but that there is a perfect forgetfulness of all that they saw and felt in a State of Separation He gives a Reason for this both Foreign to the purpose and weak but to me this seems a very likely Proof that in such their Separation they neither saw nor felt any thing at all but that rather they were in Death Extinguishable and in Life again re-kindled From hence to Page 117. is all answered by the Resurrection Pag. 117. He says He cannot But I suppose he will not imagine how there can be a Resurrection without a Soul once Separated entering into the same Body that died I say one shall be as much the same as the other shall be 1 Cor. 15.37 As Wheat growing out of Wheat sown so shall the Body be with a Flame of Life kindled in it sutable to its Powers and to that Flame which before was born with it He says If it be so the Sins of the Old Man cannot be put to the New Mans Account I say they may justly be so and the rising Person is so much the same with the dying Person as to be accountable for his Actions viz. effectually the same Body Members Flame of Life Senses Affections Phancy Understanding Memory and Judgment and shall so awake and rise as if he had fallen asleep but a few hours before And his Supposition is but the proper Effect of his own mistaken Doctrine concerning the Creation of Souls for if that were true and the Old Soul did not subsist Separately there must be another viz. a New One be Created but my sort of Soul requires no such thing Pag. 119. Says There are Acts performed by the Soul whilst it is in the Body in which it makes no use at all of the Body He instances in Self-Intuition and Self-Reflection I say These Acts cannot be done without the Brain Phancy and Memory and for Raptures they are but Impressions upon and Revelations unto the common Sense Understanding or Phancy recorded upon the Memory Also that Phancy may be Transported to things without the Body and the limits of Reason yet act by the assistance of proper Organs without which the Soul cannot act any thing Life it self cannot be acted but by the Vital Organs and yet without Life there can be no Apprehension Self-Intuition or Reflection but all Mens Thoughts perish Pag 189. Cites Heb. 12.29 We are come to Angels and to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of just Men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator He bids us note these Words They are not says he shall come after the Resurrection or General Judgment I say not after our Deaths but intends we are come to them in Faith and Expectation to a Doctrine which declares such things to us and which we may believe and expect as surely as if we were now in the Possession of them but not a word of coming to them presently after our Deaths as he not only endeavours to Insinuate but expresly affirms And Pag. 192. He says These Enjoyments will not be deferred till the Resurrection but
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