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
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
Dark Receptacles How can meer Matter and Motion hit upon forming every Species amongst them like those of their own Kind How comes it that upon their first Production they seek their Dams Paps for Nourishment What teaches them the proper uses of their several Armatures not meer Matter and Motion What teacheth them Art Natural or Acquired Also their Senses both Inward and Outward their Phancies and Memories How come they by these and the use of them not by meer Matter and Motion but even as Men do though in a much Lower Degree Gen. 1.25 God made the Beast of the Earth after his Kind ver 26. He said Let us make Man in our Image Here appears a plain Intention of God to make both Man and Beast and that they were made by him accordingly and that he indued each sort of them with a Generative Faculty or Power whereby they were inabled and even naturally and generally provoked to generate their like according to their several Species Chap. 5.3 Adam begat a Son in his own likeness after his Image whence Men are generated in the same Image and Likeness that they were created The Maintainers of the Immateriality pretend to expound the Texts of Genesis last quoted and they do it thus where it is said That God made Man after his own Image this Image of God say they was the Soul of Man but not his Body for that cannot be the Image of a Spirit and God is a Spirit Then upon Adam's begetting a Son in his own Likeness after his Image They say This begetting after his Image must be intended of the Body only and not of the Soul for that the Parents cannot generate Souls of their Sort viz. Intelligent and Angelical but that must be newly created by God upon every new Procreation of Bodies by the Parents I answer That both these Expositions are meerly precarious and arbitrary not agreeable to Reason or grounded upon Scripture Not upon Scripture for they are contrary to the Letter and Words of the Texts The first says God made Man after his own Image Here Man say I must intend the Compositum of the Soul and Body for we never heard or read of a Man without a Body And as this Contexture of Soul and Body is the Image of God so Death by Dissolving of that Contexture destroys that Image of God which was the Man whil'st that Contexture continued So for the other Text Adam begat a Son in his own Likeness after his Image This say I intends a begetting of the Soul as well as the Body for we never heard of a Son of Man without a Soul and think that in Nature there cannot be that thing viz. a Son of Man without a Soul But they reply Flesh and Blood cannot generate Soul of our Sort not an Angelical Spirit for that which it born of flesh is fleshly and not such a Spirit This I grant to be true and infer thence That a Humane Soul generated is not an Intelligent Spirit but a Material though very much Refined Spirit and of a Flamy Aiery Nature as Heraclitus and my Lord Bacon have described it and as Hippocrates Galen Sennertus Willis and Ent have spoken of it I say then That God created Man endowing Matter with Motion and the Contexture of such a Spirit or Soul as did enable him to perform all those Actions and was able to actuate all those Powers which God intended for him and bestowed upon him That God can so do at his pleasure I believe there are few that doubt Willis page 5. bot says Dum ita Creatoris opera quisque ad ingenii sui modulum exponit sentire utique videtur quod Deus nihil amplius fabricare valeat quam quod homo possit concipere aut effingere To this he adds page 40. That the Vital and Animal Spirits are prime parts of the Sensitive Soul in Men and Beasts And says Vt nihil referam illis qui hosce Spiritus prorsus negant quorum existentia fere palpabilis ab effect is probari potest neque de illis redarguendis solicitus sim qui viventium sensus facultates quascunque perceptivas non nisi à substantia immateriali immortalique obiri posse contendunt And to the like Sense Melanchton De Anima p. 5. Spiritus vitales in homine nascuntur in corde vere sunt flammae P. 7. Moses teaches Animam carnis in sanguine esse significat autem anima Hebraeis vitam And when Moses says The Life or Soul is in the Blood vult sanguinem vehiculum esse vitae spiritus vitales illam ipsam rem esse quae ciet corpora quam nominamus animam P. 21. The Powers of a Sensitive Soul Monstrant aliquid quod cogitari potest in materia fons esse actionum non tamen haec prorsus perspicimus sed naturam fons intuemur experimur cernimus motus quod cur it a factum est sapientia est artificis non nostra P. 112. Nulla pars in universa natura ita introspici potest ut penitus tot a agnoscatur Admirandum est cerebrum quod est domicilium sapientiae ac officina cognitionum judicii ratiocinationis memoriae actiones cerebri quantum differunt à physicis qualitatibus quae est substantia cerebri ubi quomodo fiunt hae mirandae actiones in hac squalida massa haec fateamur non penitus sciri agnoscamus Deum esse Naturae nostrae conditorem actiones cerebri proprias maxime testari hunc mundum non extitisse casu Deum conditorem esse mentem sapientem beneficam justam veracem quia impossibile est discrimen honestorum turpium casu aut à natura bruta ortum esse Upon which I thus descant That as God hath given to Brutes quasdam notitias proper to their Natures of which Men cannot perceive the Origins or Causes as in the Arts of Bees Ants Spiders Birds Building Procreation Government and Feeding Brutes Knowledge of their Natural Enemies and the strength and use of their own Armatures and the Proprieties of their Food and Medicines These and their like come from particular Notices planted by God in the Natures of Creatures and it seems Congruous enough to such Proceedings That God may have given to Mankind the easie apprehension honestorum turpium and the Notion of Expectation of a Ruling and Protecting Divinity as proper Notices and Instincts very sutable to the Nature of Man and his Commodious Living in this World The same Author P. 205. says Many things we know are acted in us and by us Ita condita est hominum natura divinitus ut fieri cogitationes in nobis formari ordinari imagines sciamus quomodo fiant non cernimus sed ita Deus voluit And this to me seems a sufficient Account of Mens using their Faculties of Understanding and Reason ita Deus voluit and that it is to be preferred before the Expedient or Proposal
53.10 Thou shalt make his Soul an Offering for Sin viz. his Person For none will deny his Body to have been made a visible Offering for Sin one as well and as much as the other his whole Person was so Psal 31.5 Into thy hand I commend my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me David was then alive and in Condition to write this Psalm and had a Body as well as a Spirit and under the Term of Spirit commended his Person or himself to God Luk. 23.56 Our Lord did the very same he knew his Body was to rise early upon the Third Day yet Cryed Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Recommending by that Term himself or his Person Soul and Body So David My Soul is among Lions deliver my Soul from the Sword the Lord is with them that uphold my Soul viz. Deliver me uphold me So Jonathan loved David as his own Soul viz. as he did himself his own Person And this Form of Expression seems agreeable enough to Reason and common Practice in other Cases Pars pro Toto As we use to say Sweet Soul and dear Heart Forma dat esse rei And so Men frequently use by the most noble Part to express or denote the whole And hence I conclude that the last Part of Moses's Text here is well Paraphrased And Man became a Living Person without intent to speak of a Soul by its self or otherwise then as in conjunction with the Body it helped to make up the Person And because this is a Material Point and beats hard upon our Opponents Foundation another Parallel Text shall be cited for Illustration and Confirmation of the same viz. Ezech. 37. The Prophecy over dry Bones which thereupon came together and the Sinews and Flesh came up upon them and the Skin covered them above but there was no Breath in them Then he was commanded to Prophecy over these Bones yet not to call for Souls or Spirits for their Animation but to say to the Wind Thus saith the Lord God Come from the four Winds O Breath and breathe upon these slain that they may live And thereupon the Breath came into them and they lived and stood up upon their feet an exceeding great Army Here it seems we have a Specimen of the First Mans Creation viz. His Body was first made ready for that Animating Breath which should first tine and kindle the Flame of Life in his Body then made ready for it And this Flame constantly fanned by Respiration and un-put out or extinguished by any violent or other means seems to be the Actus primus Corporis Organici Whilst that continues flaming and glowing the Person lives when that is extinguish'd the Person dies beyond Remedy and being once extinguish'd in all Parts of the Body it cannot be again re-kindled but by fresh Fire from Heaven or a Divine Power Our Author Pag. 252. He says The Radical Moisture which is daily consuming by the Flame of Life must needs be spent e're long And I say that if this Flame be not fed and nourished by Food and Viands competent and of suitable Nature this Flame must first diminish then decay and lastly be extinguished as daily Experience teaches in Times of Scarcity and Famine and the like distressing Accidents So as this Vision gives us some Traces whereby the manner of Adam's Creation and the Infusion of the Breath of Life into him may guessingly be collected And as it directs backwards to the Creation so it doth it forwards open some Prospect towards the manner of our expected Resurrection in which after the Body shall have been made ready and compleat for the Reception and Nourishment of it the Animating Breath shall again kindle in it the Flame of Life as by God shall be appointed for the Actuating such Raised Bodies and as it did before their former Dissolution And this Flame will be of the same Kind and Nature with the former and as much the same as the Bodies then Rising will be the same Bodies with the former before it was a body with such Organs acted by a Natural Flame of Life and the same shall it be after the Resurrection with this Change to the Blessed that their Natural Body shall be made a Spiritual Body By this Counter Exposition of Moses's Text before recited I pretend to have battered and shaken or even to have overthrown the First and one of the Main Foundations of our Author's Opinion upon which he principally insists and grounds himself in the first 46 Pages of his Book And I now proceed to propound an Argument in direct Opposition to his Opinion and all that he hath said in maintenance of the same Thus then I argue That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh but the Soul as well as the Body is generated and comes of Flesh Ergo The Soul is a Material and not an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit The Major of these Propositions is apparently agreeable to the Course of Nature and John 3 6. sufficiently supported by our Lords own Assertion The Minor I prove by Gen. 5.3 Adam begat a Son in his own likeness after his Image Hence I argue Adam after the breathing into him of the Breath of Life became a Living Person and continued to be so at the Procreation and Birth of his Son therefore the Procreation of a Son in his own likeness intends That the Son was generated a Living Person but so he could not be without a Soul or Spirit James 2.26 The Body without the Spirit is dead and Nature agrees viz. That one cannot be a Living Person unless he have the two Essential Parts which constitute the same viz. Body and Soul It seems clear That when Adam begat a Son he begat a Living Person and that so he could not be without a Soul Ergo Adam begetting a Son in his own likeness a Living Person begat his Soul as well as his Body And for a farther Proof of my Minor Proposition I argue again from Gen. 1.28 and 9.2 God says to our First Parents Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth and bring forth abundantly in the Earth Hereupon I say That if Man do not beget a Son in his own likeness after his Image viz. a Living Person as Adam is said to do it could not be in the Power or Nature of Man to replenish the Earth with other Men or Persons like himself or of his own Kind and Nature And to believe or maintain otherwise crosses not only the import of these Texts but the common experience of Mankind also and the Evidences appâ—aring every day for Children are born all the World over with their perfection of parts little indeed but magnum in parvo potentia and perfectly Living Persons in the likeness of their Parents and the very Abbreviations and Epitomes of them Some say but they are but vain words That the Parents procreate the Body only but the Soul a Praeexistent Spirit lies hovering in the Air
that Soul as well as it is in the Beasts With it and by it they live move and act With its Extinguishment they die and turn to immediate Corruption and Gradatim to their Original Earth and Dust So was it with Adam and his Soul and Body and from his Time hath so continued without Exception save in Enoch and Elijah by Divine Power or Miracle manifested in reviving Lazarus and some other dead Bodies by re-kindling in them the extinguish'd Flame of Life 2. He doubts not but that Eve's Soul was like Adam's and if his were created so was hers And this we grant as well the one as the other 3. Adam did not speak of her Soul but owned her Body of his therefore he knew not her Soul or what or whence it was Whence 't is not likely her Soul was made out of his but was a Creation from nothing I grant her Soul was not made out of his but made like his The Body Blood and Humours being prepared and fit the Flame of Life was kindled in her by the Divine Power and after her first Breath she lived by Respiration as Adam did so long as that Flame of Life continued unextinguished and she was made and so long she continued a Living Soul or rather a Living Compositum both of Body and Soul 4. If the Soul were generated there would be a subject Matter out of which it grew And then Solomon could not properly say it returned to God that gave it but it should rather return into such Matter as it was raised from He says Austin applied this Saying of Solomon only to Adam's Soul or the Orignal of Souls for that he would not oppose the Generation of Souls But the Author says it must doubtless be understood of all Souls Concerning this I say it appears as clearly that Solomon was not resolved concerning Humane Souls whether they went upward or downward or what became of them upon a Solemn Consideration and Argument Yet he doth after and without Argument summarily say the Spirit returns to God who gave it In both Places our Translators use the Term of Spirit and not of Soul The Breath Spirit and Life which is in Man goes not perceivably to Sense any whither Likely it is the common Opinion of his Time was for a Separate Subsistence of Souls For we read Saul applied himself to the Witch for bringing up of Samuel intending his Separately Subsisting Soul And the Devil favours this Opinion in pretending to be Samuel's disquieted Soul In these few Words of Solomon it may be conceived that unresolved in himself he thus expressed himself in Compliance with the Common Opinion of his Time and Country Also what is intended by Spirit Whether Breath and Life or Soul seems not very clear David says When God takes away Mens Breath they die and are turned again to their Dust Psal 104. But if he let his Breath go forth Men are made and the Face of the Earth renewed This Informing Breath first breathed into Adam leaves the Body at Death returns says Solomon to God who gave it But elsewhere says he knows not what to think of it whether it go upward or be extinguished with the Life as those of the Beasts are 5. and 6. Pag. 766. He cites Isa 57. Zach. 12. Exod. 21. That God makes the Souls And what Austin answers thereunto That it is by God that they come from the Parents He cites Theodoret That the Foetus in the Womb is first an unformed Embrion then becomes formed into the Perfect Shape of a Body and after That it first obtains a Soul Pag. 767. And if so How can the Soul rise out of the Seed or from Generation If says he you will say that in the Seed there is Vis Animae Parentis out of which the Infant 's Soul arises in due Time This he refuses by any means to admit of but why he doth not say because it is against Reason or Nature But because then it would follow that the Soul must be Corruptible and Mortal And to this Conclusion which he maintains with divers Arguments we do easily agree Pag. 771. See the same 7. The Soul of Christ was not from Generation Ergo other Mens are not so I say It seems Christ was born from the Seed of David and was the Seed of the Woman and being by Operation of the Holy Spirit upon her might be made and born in all things like to us except Sin For what he took by Generation from the Holy Spirit could not partake of Sin And it seems Temerity to affirm any thing concerning Christ's Soul which is not revealed as this Point is not for that neither the Manner nor the Matter can be traced or found out by the Powers of Humane Reason or the Dependance of Natural Causes to all which Proceedings this Birth is an absolute Mystery P. 769. He says both these Opinions viz. that of a continual New Creation of Souls and that of Propagating them by Generation have had great and many Abettors and Defenders in the Church For the New Creation of Souls he enumerates Greg. Nyssen Theodoret. S. Jerom Leo I. a Bishop of Rome S. Ambrose Hilary Says Flesh generates the Flesh but the Soul is the Work of God I say this is no absolute Denial of the Souls being generated as Austin hath said by God's Power and Providence For the Souls being generated with the Body held Tertullian Pag. 770. S. Augustin Greg. I. a Bishop of Rome he omits here Apollinaris and most of the Fathers of the Western Church before remembered The Opinions differed upon two Difficulties some would have a New Creation for that Generation concluded Souls to be Mortal others would have Souls generated with the Bodies because whole Man is involved in and put under the Guilt of Original Sin which if his Soul were Newly created by God can have no sound and reasonable Derivation upon it Our Author means to shew how New created Souls may be taken within the Guilt of Original Sin Pag. 772. He begins with Philsophers who have highly extolled the Soul and said it came from God Pag. 773. 1. Says Souls and Angels are of the same Nature Kind and Substance alike subsisting of themselves and as one Angel doth not generate another so it is for Souls they generate not I say this Parallel of Souls and Angels is bold but never granted 2. Says The Soul can understand and will without the Body or its Organs and therefore subsist without it I grant both alike and one as much as the other 3. The Soul is an Immaterial Spirit and cannot be propagated no not from another Soul and if it rise from another Soul it cannot be Immortal All but its Immateriality is granted 4. The Opposers say the Body cannot infect a New created Soul with Original Sin much less says he can it generate such a Soul nor can such a Substantial Immaterial Spirit proceed from Flesh and Blood a Spirit which
And it seems this Crying by the Souls was in the same manner as the Blood of Abel's Cying from the Ground against his Murtherer and as all Notable Actions good or bad do depend for Recompence upon the Effects of God's Divine Providence Justice and Power and so we leave it Luke 23.43 Christ says to one of the Crucified Thieves Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thorn be with we in Paradise This could not be performed in their Bodies for that our Lord's lay in the Grave till the Third Day therefore it must be fulfilled in their Souls separated from their Bodies To this Objection the Answer may have Two Parts First We quote Matth. 27.24 The Thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his Teeth And Mark 15.32 They that were crucified with him reviled him Both these Evangelists agree that they both the Thieves that were crucified with him reviled him S. Luke is commonly taken for the Pen-man of S. Paul by whom this Gospel is believed to have been dictated But neither of these are taken to have been Eye-Witnesses or that they were by and present at this Fact S. Mark is taken to write from the Mouth of S. Peter although it might possibly be from the Apostle S. Barnabas either of which Apostles were likely to be Eye-Witnesses of the Fact then done And S. Matthew was himself both Apostle and Evangelist and likely an Eye-Witness of the Fact and there is an Old Rule That one Eye-Witness is better than two Ear-Witnesses of any Fact We conclude then that here are Two Witnesses against One and that One but an Ear-Witness of that Fact And therefore there is a Ground to question the very Truth of S. Luke's Relation seeing he wrote but by Relation and what he says stands not of it self and can with great Difficulty be made to stand in Agreement with what the other two Evangelists have delivered Secondly We say to the Words To day thou shalt be with me they may be expounded from other like Expressions Heb. 3.7 cites Psalm 95.7 To day if ye will hear his Voice Ver. 13. Exhort one another daily whilst it is called to day Here it seems the Word Day is not limited to an Artificial or a Natural Day but signifies a present but yet a competent Time Luke 19.42 Christ wept over Jerusalem saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day viz. hadst known that Time of my present Call unto thee here exprest by the Word Day So The Son of Man must be Three Days and Three Nights in the Heart of the Earth And yet we know Christ lay in the Grave but Two Nights viz. Friday and Saturday Nights and for Days only one whole one viz. Saturday for he was buried on Friday at Even and rose very early upon Sunday Morning Whence it seems the Words To day shalt thou be with me need not be limited to a precise Day Artificial or Natural but may be reasonably intended to signifie within some short Time after that Promise And that we may the better account for the same there shall be cited Jo. 20.17 Our Lord lately risen says to Mary Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father And the same Day at Evening Ver. 19. came Jesus and stood in the midst among his Discipler And Luke 24.39 he says Handle me and by Feeling perceive and see that I have Flesh and Bones which a Spirit hath not Hence may be collected that betwixt his appearing to Mary that Morning and to his Disciples in the Evening he had ascended to his Father and returned Matth. 27.52 When Christ died The Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of the Graves after our Lord's Resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Amongst these we have reason to suppose was the Body of this Thief as well as his Soul the Flame of Life re-kindled in him as well as in those other Saints and of our Lord himself and that he the Thief and the other Saints then rising did make this Ascent with our Lord upon Sunday next after the Friday Night of his Suffering And this I conceive was enough to satisfie our Lord's Expression of To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise in so short a Time as it may be counted present or to day And this Resurrection might occasion some to think as 2 Tim. 2.18 that the Resurrection was past already and was not in Future to be expected Luk. 23.46 Jesus cried with a loud Voice and said Father into thy Hands I commend my Spirit and having said thus he gave up the Ghost And to this we join Acts 7.59 They stoned Stephen calling and saying Lord Jesus receive my Spirit This Objection from recommending the Spirit of a Dying Person to God and Christ Men say imports a Spiritual Being or a Soul in Man which is capable of a Subsistence and hath such a Subsistence in a State separated from the Body The Objection is of the same Nature with that from Solomon The Spirit returns to God that gave it and requires some Repetition of what was thereunto answered And for findding out the Sence and Intent of the Word Spirit Places of Scripture shall be quoted 1 Sam. 30.12 When the starved Egyptian had eaten some Figs and Raisins his Spirit came again to him seems his Spirit of Life his Vital Spirits Ezra 1.5 They stood up whose Spirit God had raised to go and build the Temple seems to intend their Inclination and Affection Job 20.3 The Spirit of my Vnderstanding causeth me to answer seems the Eagerness of his Desire Chap. 21.4 Why should not my Spirit be troubled viz. why should not I be troubled Psalm 51.17 The Sacrifice of God it a broken Spirit there is paraphrased by a contrite Heart 143.4 My Spirit is vexed within me and my Heart within me is desolate Prov. 18.14 The Spirit of a Man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded Spirit who can bear viz. a good or bad Conscience Chap. 25.28 He that hath no Rule over his own Spirit it like a City broken down and without Walls Here Spirit must signifie Affections Eccles 8.8 No Man hath Power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit seems Men's Passions Prov. 20.27 The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord searching the inward Parts of the Belly viz. Man's Reason and Knowledge is the Candle Psalm 31.6 Thou art my strength into thy hand I commend my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me God had saved him in his Troubles and therefore he again commends himself to God under the Term of his Spirit Dan. 5.12 An excellent Spirit Knowledge and Vnderdeastanding was found in Daniel The latter Words expound Spirit Acts 17.16 Paul's Spirit was stirred in him at Athens he was moved and provoked Chap. 18.25 Apollos was fervent in Spirit or was Zealous 1 Cor. 5.5 Deliver the Man to Satan that the Spirit
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
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
in us to will and to do by those Ordinary Operations before described improving our Reason to a right Apprehension and Understanding of them and our Discretion to a right Choice and Practice St. Paul tells his Corinthians I speak as unto wise Men judge ye what I say He doth not refuse the Judgment arising from the Reason or Wise Men. Let Men now tell a Quaker what the Words of Scripture are and what Consequence from thence must reasonably and necessarily follow his Answer is ready He cares not what either of them says for he hath a Light within him the very Holy Spirit of God which tells him and witnesseth with his Spirit That all which he believes and professes is true and the only salutary Way for his Soul and so for all other Mens if God will please to communicate to them the like Perceptible Illuminations and Special Impulses of his Holy Spirit which the World doth not cannot receive nor can the Natural Man do it but such Things are to him direct Foolishness and he cannot know them because they are Spiritually discerned and cannot be so by Reason or any Humane Power or Means whatsoever Now whil'st this Man is thus certainly perswaded in his own Mind and that he who is Spiritual viz. endowed with such Light within him judgeth all things and yet himself is judged of no Man nor will submit himself to be so He seems to be past all Conviction or Cure by reasonable Remedies or Applications having thus passed beyond the Bounds of Humane Reason and Scripture he is become excentrick to all Humane Perswasion and Government and as incurable Phreneticks must be born withal so far as their Phantasies are only detrimental to themselves And it we may place all other Dependers upon Perceptible Extraordinary Motions of God's Spirit in a Form or Classis next below them differing in the Degrees of a like Infirmity all holding the same Original Ground and growing from the same Root and defending themselves in the same Fortresses and by like Weapons only the first Sort have passed to a farther Degree in the Distemper than the rest have hitherto done We must leave them upon this Account to the great Power of God who only can and in his Time may and perhaps will give them Convictions in a miraculous and powerful Manner and really such as they do now but pretend unto The Distemper it seems hath grown from the ill Digestion of some of St. Paul's Expressions wrested by Men both unlearned and unstable as other Scriptures may be to the Perverting if not the Destruction of themselves and their Proselites and to the great Disturbance of the Protestant Churches Pag. 278. Says God's Cures by his Spirit are wrought with great Pangs of Repentance I say That upon every notorious Sin committed these are rational and necessary Consequences as well at last as at first and no more to be enquired after in Youth than in Age nor in one Part of a Man's Life than in another But such Carriage ought to be both expected and performed whensoever there is a just and reasonable Cause for the so doing Pag. 280. Says God is all in all things It may pass for a Cloudy Expression And we agree That God and Christ are what Christians acknowledge and adore Also that we are generally under the ordinary Guidance of God's Spirit and are thereby led into all Truth directed therein by the Scriptures confirmed by Sacraments instructed and excited by sound Teaching and the Acts of God's Providence amongst us for us towards us the Convictions of Humane Reason and our sound Senses and the like usual and common Manuductions for establishing of our Faith and perfecting the Practice and due Performances of a holy Life That God can do this by eminent and perceptible Emotions of his Spirit in a Supernatural and Miraculous Manner is granted and certain And this was common in the Church during all the Time of St. Paul's Life But that God doth still continue those Supernatural Actings in his Church ordinarily and at this Day hath been and will be continually denied and that none can be saved who do not feelingly perceive in themselves such Impulsions or Emotions of God's Spirit working in them to such Purposes we not only deny but do condemn and explode as a great Instrument of Deceipt and a most pernicious Error Pag. 291. Says The Christian Church needs no Testimony of Miracles of new Upon this I demand What these Eminent and Perceptible Emotions of the Spirit are to be counted Natural they are not as their Defenders assert and we agree therefore they are Preternatural or Supernatural and they pass for Acts of the later Sort whensoever they do happen And our Opposers maintain they are very frequent and ought not only to be Common but Universal amongst Christians amongst whom every one should have a Taste and Feeling of them and consequently a daily Exhibition of New Miracles Pag. 308. Says Many of his Friends Holy Persons are gone to Heaven and that is spangled with these Spiritual Stars the Place is honoured with them and they with it We think our dead Friends are almost lost to us till the Heavenly Spirit tell us where they are and prepare us to desire our being there Observe from hence we may what our Author means by his Term of Heavenly Spirit viz. his own and his Followers eager and hot Phantasy or Conceipt For if he had obtained any Perceptible Spiritual Revelation concerning his dead Friends or any one of them we do very much assure our selves he would have made us acquainted with it For his Expression That Heaven is honoured with the Presence of the holy Persons his dead Friends it tastes of an arrogant Conceipt not warranted by Scripture or Reason but sutable to his Spiritual Vehemencies and Impulses Pag. 348. Says It is the Will of God that the Ministry and Testimony of Man shall be a Means of our Believing and he will use Man for the Instruction and Salvation of Man and not send Angels with every Message To this we agree and say the Perceptible Actings of God's Spirit may be as rare as the Ministry of Angels in our Times Page 353. Says Grace is not a Brutish Principle but works by Reason having also its natural inclining Force We account this Expression as one of our own extracted from him by inadverted Power of Truth Pag. 359. All true Believers are justified that consent to the Baptismal Covenant chusing God for their God Christ for their Saviour and the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier though this be done with so great Weakness as neither ends Mens Doubts nor quiets their Minds It seems the Perceptible Actings of the Spirit are wanting in such Cases and he seems either to have forgot or to distrust the Necessity of that Assistance Pag. 368. Says The Soul hath no distinct Idea of its Future State out of the Body and we see not whither it is that we must go
of Prescribing an Immaterial Spirit to be newly created by God upon every fruitful Coition of Man and Woman These and the like Sayings of Learned Men and the Grounds and Reasons of them are offered as a sufficient Cause and Occasion for me to wave and even to deny and refuse the entring into a Fruitless Enquiry after the Means how Men are enabled to used their Senses Phancies Understandings Memories Judgements of which yet I think I can give as good an account as you can do how Infants grow in the Womb and live there without Breathing in nature of a Grub Or the How or Why Teeth grow out of their Jaws David could say I am fearfully and wonderfully made but he could not tell how that Knowledge was too wonderful and excellent for him and he could not and much less are you like to attain unto it pari ratione let me require of you to shew Whence and How Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear grow in all Men and in the most to such a Power and Strength as to baffle and bear down the Powers of Reason and that Angelical Soul or Spirit which you say resides and governs in every man and is specially created for him by God to that purpose You may please to account to me for the How and by what means such things are acted or come to pass or lastly do for the Immaterial Soul what you require of me for my Material one declare and prove to me how and by what means the Immaterial Soul works or acts in each of the Senses in the Understanding Phancy Memory Judgment Local Motion Appetite Digestion Nutrition Generation and Outward and Inward Faculties and Power belonging to Mankind and by the time that you have so done I hope to be able and willing to account to you how such things may all be done as well and more probably by a Material Spirit the thing which you require of me I am not yet able to perform but by that time that you have acted and done what pari passu I have now required of you I doubt not but that I shall be enabled to give you a more satisfactory Answer to the appointments which you have been pleased to press upon me as most necessary in our present Disputation You found these things in my Treatise which yet I think fit to repeat here because it seems you do not remember what you read there concerning them As to the Material Soul if you did not grant that in Nature the Things is and that it acts in Plants Insects Fishes Fowls and Beasts I could describe to you much of its Nature and Efficiency and make good Proof of it ab effectis and from Sensible Discoveries quod sit in Natura Rerum And for the quid sit in Men and Beasts it hath been said and is now repeated that is the Spirits and Particles of Blood inflamed and glowing such as needs a continual Nourishment both from well disgested and rarified Humours and the fresh fanning of the ambient Air and according to the goodness or badness of these both Men and Beasts are very much affected For the unde oritur I say it grows from the Energy of the Seed fomented in loco idoneo To the quando ingreditur I say it comes not aliunde as you say the Immaterial doth Melanch in his quoted Book p. 12 says It is Propagata ex Natura corporea viz. Natura seminum and as in Plants and Brutes Anima oritur ex vi seminis sic de Anima vegetativa sensitativa in homini dici potest homo enim non generat imperfectius quam Plantae Boves manifestum est animae sentientis nullas esse actiones nisi Organicas quare consentaneum est oriri eam ex semine esse vel temperamentum vel potentiam in corpore gignit igitur homo hominem saltem secundum vitam sentientem si non secumdum animam rationalem has animas vegetativam sentientem esse ex traduce id est ex natura seminis fatendum est For the Vbi residet Anima Materialis in Homine I say it is dispersed over the whole Body Our last quoted Author p. 24. says This Spiritu Vitalis sentiens aut Anima Bovis est quiddam divisibile juxta partes corporis nam Spiritus Vitalis similis est flammae quae partes habet alibi sunt aliae For the Tota in toto qualibet parte he says Vnde sumptum sit ignoro nam in Aristotele nusquam extat commenâ—iâ—ium est etiamsi quis tantum de hominis anima intelligot sentiet eam esse spiritum separabilem quia spiritus finiti sunt in unico loco ex quo agunt ad certam distantiam alii magis alii minus procul ut suum quisque robur est P. 146. Spiritus est subtilis vapor ex sanguine coctis virtute cordis ac incensus ut sit velut flammula quae in diversis membris dissimiles habet actiones quanquam enim unus est fons spirituum tamen locis mutantur mutati dissimiles habent actiones Dr. Willis in the Preface to his Anima Brutorum p. 2 Nequaquam diffiteor animae corporeitatem à rationibus minime contemnendis ampliissimis ubique tum veterum tum recentiorum suffragiis evinci haec anima sensitiva est toti corpori coextensa habens partes non modo plures distinctas sed quadantenus dissimilares P. 3. Quis sponsorem se fecerit Deum non potuisse vires facultates materiae imprimere vitae sensitivae muniis accommodas sed si quis substantiam illam subtilissimam prorsus aetheream quae vitali oeconomiae inservit immaterialem statuat meminerit mihi indulgeri si forte ego materialem apellem Libri P. 8. Bruti uti inferior hominis anima materialis ac divisibilis est toti corpori coextensa quia plures ac diversos actus animales simul à diversis corporis membris ac partibus obiri cernimus eodem instanti oculus videt auris audit nares olfaciunt lingua gustat membra quaevis exteriora tactus sensum motum exercent ac interea viscera quaeque praecordia munia sua exequuntur quandoquidem igitur inter corpus animam non datur medium sed corporis membra partes animae sunt organa quid aliud arbitrari aut statuere passumus quam ejusdem animae extensae plures distinctas portiones singula isthaec corporis membra partes actuare As to the Quomodo operatur Anima haec nostra Materialis our Author p. 10. says Haec anima consistit iisdem particulis aut ejusdem materieâ— ex quibus corpus formatur iis vero selectis subtilissimis maxime activis quae tanquam flos crassiori massa emergentes mutuo coeunt atque ductus idoneos quos per totam corporis compagem ipsae procudunt nactae hypostasin unam continuam scilicet praetenuem
founded upon Rules and whether those Rules are right or wrong really their being accepted for right makes them obligatory to the Party accepting them so as Offences against Erroneous Rules reputed true are equally burthensome to the Conscience as if they were the most true and rectified that can be delivered to Men and yet they are capable of a more easie Cure viz. by discovery of the Falsity and Errour of them Hence may be inferred that without some sort of Rules and Submission to them the Acts and Power of Conscience are not perceivable which shews they do not flow from the Soul Material or Immaterial but from Education Custom Opinion and Rules to which Actions must be compared for without such a Comparison Judgment cannot be made whether they are right or wrong That Conscience grows as aforesaid appears also from diversity in the acts of it for some Men make a great scruple of Conscience to do things which others think they are bound in duty to do and cannot omit them without check of their Conscience whereas Immaterial Souls pass for all alike And if Conscience were a Natural Efflux from them there could not be such difference and contrariety in the Acts of it I have observed how it grows in Children and Beasts from the effects of their Education made powerful in them by the terrour of a Humane Vengeance expected to follow upon their swerving from the Rules of their Discipline and which the apprehension of Legal Punishments hath often inflicted upon Offenders before Temporal Execution overtook them The Conscience of Sins against God is of a like nature and the Terrour of it grows from Fear that he being offended for the Breach of what Men are perswaded he hath commanded to be done or not done will inflict terrible punishments for the same of unimaginable torment and endless duration as Men are taught to believe and expects by such Rules and Doctrines as are daily represented to them and pressed upon their apprehensions and belief And thus have I summed and shortned my formerly longer Expressions concerning Conscience to which I shall be glad to receive a reasonable Answer either long or short 4. Paragraph You quote the words Whatsoever is not of faith is sin and you say Faith here signifies Conscience My sense of those Words is Whatsoever Men do believing it to be a Sin that is a Sin in them though the Action in it self be good but if it be contrary to those Rules to which a Man hath submitted himself this is a Sin against the Mans Conscience though if there were no accepted Rule against it there would be no transgression in it You express also to think that Beasts cannot be brought by any Education to resist and conquer their Appetites forgetting what formerly I said of a Setting Dog whose Mouth will water and his Chaps move and all his Members and Motions shew a great Desire to be in with his Game and yet he will sit for a long time constrained by the remembrance of punishment to be expected and executed upon his doing otherwise And many instances may be produced of other Bestial Actions in this kind You make it my wonder That Sensual Powers do for much the greater part over-rule the Rational and prevail against it You say I may likely find it often so in my self and I grant it and therefore is that none of my wonder And you demand From whence comer Mens uneasiness of Mind upon such occasions I answer It comes from finding their Actions do not agree with their Rules and therefore not with their Duties for the Failure in which they expect punishment less or more according as their Delicts may seem to deserve not from Powers of Nature in its Simplicity but its Cultivated Capacity under the Conduct of Rules Examples or Opinions to which Men have submitted their Minds and this makes men nocent as the contrary makes men innocent in the judgment of their own Underftanding which is their Conscience 5 Paragr Upon your maintaining That Mans Soul is an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit created each for the Government of each Person I demand Whence it comes that this Soul doth not or cannot so prevail with or over the Person whom it should Govern as to keep it in Rational and Vertuous Ways of Living and Practice but that the far greater number of people follow Vicious Practices contrary to Right Reason and the Desire and Design of such an Intelligent Spirit And the true Cause of my wonder is What that can be in Man which hath Power to oppose and overthrow the Government and Command of this Kind of Soul in him To this you answer You say with St. James This comes from mens lusts which war in their members To you I reply and ask From what Original in Man do such Lusts grow viz. Affections Passions Sensualities Either they grow from the same Originals with Reason and his other Faculties viz. from the Contexture of his Soul and Body or from some other Cause You say I should not wonder at the thing for that universal Experience teaches that so it is This I grant and therefore do not wonder at the being so of the thing but at the Cause and Manner how this comes to pass viz. from what Original in Man this Effect can grow Apparent it seems that Affections and Passions in Man grow from the Contexture of his Soul and Body as all his other Powers and Faculties do and are Natural to him for one that hath them not is not a compleat Man But if their Energy proceed from Mans Soul a Spirit governing this Soul in acting the Affections and Passions so vigorously seems to act blindly and unintelligently or else that it is divided against it self and therefore its Kingdom cannot stand but such Lusts as it self produceth and acteth prevail to overthrow its Government and bring the poor indiscreet Soul under the Pestilent Power of Sin and Satan If thus it be not I desire you will Answer what I Object in this Point which is that Mans Soul acts against reason and its own Interest in so highly actuating of these Lusts or which is far more likely that the Humane Soul is not Intelligent For what you say concerning St. Paul's Text Rom. 9. I hold with you that many places of Scripture do testifie a Power in Man to act for his own Advancement in Piety and towards future Happiness And I assent to that Opinion the rather for that the same is consonant to the reason of Mankind but to agree this Opinion with St. Paul's Text is beyond my Capacity and I should be glad to know your manner of doing it You mention ill effects from the Opinion of the Materiality Omnia tuta timens consonant to the Nature of Zeal and Affection That in your Exhortations you have a great respect to the Resurrection and last Judgment I think to be well done and upon very firm Grounds but for the Immateriality it seems no
And so is the ordinary Practice of Mankind He says He who bought Souls knew the Value of them I say Souls were never bought alone but the Redemption was of Persons commonly express'd in Scripture by the Term of Souls and so is David's Expression to be understood when he says It cost me more to redeem their Souls viz. to redeem them or their Persons Pag. 364. Says God created the Soul as his rare Master-piece and the Three Persons laid their Heads together to Project it I have denied a Separate Creation of the Soul and I do so still and do look upon his present Oratory to be very inconsiderate Pag. 365. He confounds the Soul and the Rational Faculty together or makes them both one thing or mistakes the one for the other Pag. 367. All that he here says of the Soul is properly applicable to the Rational Faculty He says No Soul but Man's is Marriageable unto Christ. If he do not mean the Church or at least the Person I can not understand him for we never heard of a Soul 's being Married or doing any other thing by its self singly Pag. 369. What he says here was done for Souls is to be applyed to Persons Pag. 370. Says Words shall come into Judgment at the last Day I say Why not at the particular Judgment if such an one there be Pag. 371. He again here applies to the Soul what belongs to the Person And I say the Devil seeks to devour not the Soul only but the Person Pag. 374. Still applies all to Souls instead of Persons Pag. 375. He Quotes three Texts but they all apply to Persons and Solomon's winning Souls intends Persons Pag. 379. Says He hath proved that one Soul is of more Value than the whole World I say no otherwise than a Man's Life is viz. to himself it is so but not in it self or with any respect to other People Pag. 379. Says The Soul was not made for the Body but the Body for it I say they were made for one another and are daily made viz. Procreated together Pag. 387. Cites a Saying as concerning Souls but it proves only of Persons and goes on in the like applying to Souls what is intended of Persons Pag. 390. Says Souls cannot live upon Food or Earthly things I say They do live upon Food and Earthly things and cannot live without them Pag. 439. and so to 441. He pretends Holy Duties are not enough for Christians viz. Nature improved by Vertues and common Graces of the Spirit of God a Holy Unreproveable Life relying on Christ for Pardon of Sins and Support under Sorrow and Dangers Practising the Commandments Believing the Creeds Receiving the Sacraments Doing as they would be Done to Sorrowing for their Failures striving to rise again and Praying to God every day to Assist them by his Grace and Save them by his Goodness and Christ's Sufferings He insinuates that such ordinary Practices are not sufficient for Regeneration without Heavenly Tempers and Tendencies of Soul viz. a singular Claim and Profession to Grace and Sanctification above ordinary I profess my self content with the former State and will give his Proselites leave to affect the later without condemning them so being that they act not the Pharisee in justifying themselves and despising others Pag. 449. Directs Men to ask Am I born again Am I a New Creature I say Baptism is the Laver of Regeneration and Mark 16.16 He that believeth and it baptized shall be saved and thus practised the Jaylor at Philippi Cornelius the Captain and the Aethiopian Eunuch but he requires a regenerating of the Spirit I allow so appearing as to make the Fruits good but for his extraordinary Elevations and Motions of Spirit I leave them to himself as a Fervour of Phancy Pag. 464. Says Your Election is only secured by your Effectual Calling intending as seems that every one must have and find a particular time of God's calling him to a State of Regeneration and Sanctification This looks to me like an intended distinguishing Character betwixt them who follow Rational Deductions from Scripture and those who pretend to be led by the Spirit in an extraordinary manner and they must shew us Signs and Wonders and mighty Deeds or else we shall not be able to believe them that they are so led For if other Men work and live as well as they and shew as good Fruits of the Spirit as they How can they be distinguished but by Wonders and mighty Deeds Say they by our Special Calling Regeneration and Sanctification But How shall others know these to be good or better than ordinary but by their Fruits or mighty Deeds If those Deeds or Fruits extraordinary do not appear we have no means to know them nor reason to approve them In Pag. 461. He said Let none be so fond to expect Comfort in Death until his Soul have first complied with and obeyed the Call of God in the time thereof Pag. 463. Says Souls of Men are as it were embarqu'd in the Calls of God and if they be lost your Souls are lost I Collect he intends Let your Faith and Practice be what they will if you have not a Call to the singular Mode of our Profession and obey that Call your precious Souls after all this will be lost He said before That when the Enfranchised Soul was upon its departure and sat upon the quivering Lips of the dying Person neither able to stay in the Body nor abiding to forsake it the State of it was deplorable This shews That he imagined the Soul to be an Intelligent Little Thing Parcel or Spark He doth not say that she is snatch'd or forc'd away from the Body nor what should move her to forsake it or leave the being in it or near it against her Will and yet I doubt not but he could have told us that as well as the foregoing viz. Imaginando if he had pleased And this calls to mind a Relation made to us by Dr. Collins in his Treatise concerning Russia There says he when a Person draws on towards Death they set a Basin of fair Water in the Window and set the Casement also open that the parting Soul may have the Opportunity of bathing and refreshing it self in the Water and find an open Passage out at the Casement and not be inforced to the Contrast of passing thro' Crannies of the Window or other Places And thus I part with our Author and finish my intended Observations upon him I read in a Noble Author of our own Nation That in all Contests he who stands only upon his Defence stands upon no Defence Seems Wants one main part of Defence viz. The Disarming or Weakning his Opposer whereby his intended Defence should be made both more easie and effectual Thus far in defending a Tenet opposite to that of our Author I have used only the Buckler in shelter from the dints of his Arguments but that I may not forsake the benefit which may
Jesus shall God bring with him and the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the Voice of the Archangel and with the Tromp of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first then the Elect living Persons shall be Translated and caught up to the Clouds and both sorts together shall meet the Lord in the Air and so shall they ever be with the Lord. Here we may perceive or collect That St. Paul directs to look after the Resurrection for Comfort at or immediately after the Death of the Party Had he known or believed a Separate Subsistence of Souls and a going to Heaven of the good immediately after Death of the Party Our Author gives it us in these Words Pag. 326. Little says he do Believers think what Visions of God and Ravishing Sights of Christ the Souls of their Friends have when they are closing their eyes with tears It seems strange St. Paul did not know any thing of this delightful Scene and pity it is doubtless that he was ignorant of such Ravishing Enjoyments and the quick attainment of them Acts 20.20 He kept nothing back that was profitable to his Auditors Ver. 27. But declared to them all the Council of God Had he known or believed the Separate Subsistence or the particular Judgment or the immediate going to Heaven by Angels or the Ravishing Sights and Joys so soon accruing he would not have kept back all or any of them from his Proselites the Thessalonians But we have Reason to think he would fully and freely have communicated the same to them and have raised Edifying and Comfortable Exhortations if he had found or known of sound ground to erect them upon Our Ministers and People fetch not their Comforts so far as the Resurrection but fetch them from Heaven immediately and hope with as much likelihood that all their Friends Souls go thither by the Conveyance of Angels But because St. Paul here gives us no Encouragement to believe them for my Part I cannot do it but fix my self for Comfort in such Cases upon the Rocky Ground which our Apostle here gives us the Certainty and Assurance of a General Resurrection and Judgment Our Apostle's former Text 1 Cor. 15.32 says thus What shall all the Afflictions that I have undergone profit me if the dead rise not But if the-Case be so Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die and there 's an end casting the whole Expectation of Recompences future to this Life upon the Resurrection without mention or regard of any Intermediate State Rom. 2.5 Thou treasurest up unto thy self Wrath against the Day of Wrath and Revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God Ver. 6. Who will render to every Man according to his Deeds Honour and Immortality to some but Indignation and Wrath Tribulation and Anguish to all who work evil c. to Ver. 16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ Plainly the Day of the Last Judgment so as Recompences shall then be distributed according to what Men have done here and only then for any thing that appears in this Text without mention or regard to an Intermediate State 1 Cor. 1.7 8. Ye come behind in no Gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus who also shall confirm you unto the end that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Plainly intending his Second Coming to Judgment as the only known Time for the Expectation of future Recompences 1 Cor. 4.5 Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden Works of Darkness and manifest the Counsels of Hearts and then shall every deserving Man have Praise of God Plainly denoting the Resurrection as the Time of Judgment and Recompences 2 Cor. 5.10 We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body whether good or bad Still without hinting any other Time or Place for future Recompences Philip. 3.20 Our Conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord of Glory who shall change our vile Body and make it like his Glorious Body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself Still no mention of any Expectation future to this Life till our Lord's Second Coming 2 Thes 1.7 It is right for God to recompence harm to them which trouble you and to you who are troubled Rest with us when the Lord shall appear from Heaven with his mighty Angels Chap. 3.5 The Lord airect your hearts into the Love of God and unto the patient waiting for Christ His Coming again 1 Tim. 6.14 Keep this Commandment until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ which in his times he shall shew as the only time for Recompences 2 Tim. 4.8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but unto them also that love his appearing viz. his Second Coming And this applies Chap. 1.12 I suffer without being ashamed for I know whom I have believed and that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day And so Ver. 18. The Lord grant to Onisephorus that he may find Mercy of the Lord in that day Chap. 4.1 I Charge thee before God and Christ who shall Judge the Quick and Dead at his Appearing and his Kingdom All harping upon the same string viz. the Resurrection and General Judgment without one word mentioning a Particular Judgment or an Intermediate State Tit. 2.13 Teach to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the Great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ No mention of the Hope of a Blessed Intermediate State Heb. 6.2 He will go on to the Doctrines of the main Duties to be performed in this world and to the Resurrection of the dead and that of eternal Judgment for the world to come as the only considerable things Chap. 9.27 It is appointed unto Men once to die and after that the Judgment The Last Day or Judgment Not Two one Particular and the other General No mention of more than One Chap. 11.35 Others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain What Not an immediate going to Heaven of their Souls but a better Resurrection Chap. 12.22 Ye are come to the Heavenly Jerusalem to God and Angels to the General Assembly and Church and just Spirits made perfect And see that ye refuse not him that speaketh in the Gospel whose Voice then shook the Earth yet once more I shake not the Earth only but also Heaven which signifies the removing of them at the Last Day aad then we shall receive a Kingdom which cannot he moved And then enjoy the Heavenly Jerusalem God Christ Angels the Assembly of the Church perfected unto which things