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
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
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
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
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
Subtil Principle and easily moved And Heraclitus called it an Exhalation Incorporeal always moving Almaeon said The Soul was Immortal like other Immortal Beings who are always in Motion as the Sun Moon Stars and Heaven it self Other impertinent Philosophers as Hippo said The Soul was Water from the Prolifick Faculty And Critius said It was Blood because that is the Prime Instrument of Sense But all agree in the Prime Requisites of it viz. Motion Sense and Incorporiety Anaxagoras only says It is impassible and hath nothing common with any other thing But if so it be neither he nor any else tells us can tell us how or by what Means it should come to the Knowledge of any thing We may observe all these Philosophers except Three content themselves with a Subtil Moving Material Spirit Of the Three Heraclitus it seems aims at the Spirit formerly by us described Anaxagorus is not believed by Aristotle and is but a Negative Description The Third viz. Almaeon seems the sole positive Assertor That the Soul is Immortal and like other Immortal viz. Spiritual Beings The Man's Name is not otherwise Famous but his Opinion hath had the Fortune to spread it self in the World beyond all those whom Aristotle in this Chapter hath nominated to us and to be come near the Universal of the present Time Jews and Gentiles Mahometans and Christians professing themselves to be of the same Faith or Belief but the more Considerate of them declining a Dispute and reasonable Examination of the same the Soul being a Supernatural Spiritual and Inspirited Substance which Flesh and Blood cannot reveal no nor understand And all this I do willingly agree unto but do say We are now within the Lists of Humane Reason entred into against our Author Baxter and his Associate Dr. More who have undertaken and made Challenge to prove Man's Soul must needs be an Immaterial Self-subsisting Spirit and that upon Grounds of Nature and undeniable Reason We are thus far on of our Way in that Argument and God send us a good Deliverance Chap. 3. Arist confutes some of the fore-cited Opinions And First for Motion says It seems not essential to the Soul but that Motion is rather per Accidens and according to the Bodies Motion and it may move the Body without being moved it self as Light directs without its own Motion The Bodies Motion doth carry the Soul about with it but that is not a proper Motion of the Soul Nothing can move naturally that is not in some Place but the Soul is the Form of the Body and Forms are properly not in Place but in their proper Matter not like Accidents in Bodies which are not there as Forms to Bodies or Participants of their Motion Secondly That which can move Naturally may be compelled to move by Force but the Soul cannot be so compelled Ergo Thirdly If the Soul were properly moved it would not be accidentally so but it is principally moved by the Sensible Objects Ergo Fourthly That which moves leaves its former Place or Qualification And if Motion were Essential to the Soul it so moving must recede from its Essence Ergo Motion is not of its Essence Fifthly Democritus thought the Soul moving it self did thereby move the Body as the Vniverse moved from the Motion of the Celestial Orbs but they never rest therefore the Soul doth not so move the Animal but by its Intellect and Choice the Animal moves or rests Sixthly Plato compared the Soul to the Heavenly Orbs or Circles first differenced into two Sorts and then others and those divided into seven of the Planets But hence the Soul must needs be Bulky and so capable of Division and that it is not But is as the Intellect or Mind which though it reflect upon it self is not thereby made Circular any more than the Sense or Appetite which do not so reflect Though the Soul have not a Bulk yet it is One first in Number next by its Indivisibility for it hath no Parts but all that have Bulk have Parts Also the Motions viz. that of a Soul and that of a Circle are quite different That of a Soul is Intellection employed about Objects or Things that of a Circle is bare Rotation without End But the Soul moves rationally to a Design or End whence the Soul hath a Tendency as well to Rest and Settlement as to Motion Seventhly If Motion were of the Essence of the Soul it could never rest like the Celestial Orbs if not essential to it continual Motion would be tiresome to it and it were better be out of the Body And many say the Case is truly so with it and so for the most part it is believed Those who will rightly treat of the Soul must join therewithal the Consideration of the Body also because of the close Connexion that is between them so as one can neither act nor suffer without the other and they are so knit and apted for one another that a Mans Soul cannot fit a Beast nor that of a Beast suit with the Body of a Man and the Pythagorical Tenet was but a Fable We may observe that Aristotle treats here of the Soul as if it were some Self-subsistent Principle a Thing that was intire not as if it were a Material Spirit residing chiefly in Vital Parts and thence diffused over the whole Body it seems rather that he did not so apprehend of it but rather that it was partible from the Body For else it could not be considered whether it should be better out of the Body or in it He says That then many thought it better to be out of the Body than in it And we are told some Men of those Times kill'd themselves to enjoy that Immunity the sooner And yet it is not throughly clear whether when he speaks of the Souls being out and in that be not intended according to the common Opinion of his Time For that he knits Soul and Body so together as if they were but one same Let it be called Animal or Essential Being which both do and suffer the same without any rationally perceivable Difference although it be easie for posted Fancy to create Differences if the Soul be the Material Spirit before described the Reason of this Sameness in doing and suffering is evident and clear But if the Soul and Body be Separate Subsistences a Modification of this Sameness in doing and suffering is yet to be excogitated Chap. 4. Some hold Opinion That the Body being compounded of contrary Ingredients viz. the Four Elements that Reasonable Proportion and Equal Temperament which disposes and preserves all these in their fittest Quantities Qualities and Agencies in the Body and in their best Consistencies and Agreements one of them with the other that Agent they called by the Name of Harmony and counted it for the Soul This Aristotle says cannot be so For that this Harmony hath not a Power of Motion which all agree to be in the Soul Nor can Men
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
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
may be saved in the Day of the Lord viz. that at the Resurrection the Whole may be saved Spirit put for the Whole Man Chap. 7.34 The unmarried Woman is holy in Body and Spirit viz. Soul and Body together holy in the whole Compositum Ezek. 11.19 I will give them one Heart and put a new Spirit and a Heart of Flesh within you Chap. 13.3 Wo to the Prophets that follow their own Spirit and have seen nothing Ver. 17. They prophecy out of their own Heart And thus we see Spirit put for the Person the Heart the Affections the Passions for Mind Understanding Knowledge Reason Conscience viz. for Man and every of his Sublime and Spiritual Parts or Faculties but most properly and especially for his Breath As Job 12.10 In the Hand of God is the Soul of every living thing and the Breath of all Mankind Ch. 34.14 If God set his Heart upon Man if he gather unto himself his Spirit and his Breath all Flesh shall perish together and Man shall turn again to his Dust Psal 104.29 When thou takest away their Breath they die and are turned again to their Dust when thou lettest thy Breath go forth they shall be made and thou shalt renew the Face of the Earth Gen. 2.7 By God's breathing into Mans Nostrils the Breath of Life Man became a Living Soul Rom. 14.7 None of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself but we live to the Lord and die to the Lord whether therefore we live or die we are the Lords Hence it need not seem strange that a Dying Man should recommend his Person to the Lord by the Term of his Spirit for the Body as well as the Soul is under the Knowledge and Provision of Providence When good Men lie down to sleep they customarily recommend themselves to God and going to sleep in Death makes such a Recommendation both the more earnest and the more solemn and cannot reasonably be intended of the Spirit only but of the whole Compositum by that Term and God will raise them both up again at the Last Day both Soul and Body John 6.44 The Man that comes to me I will raise him up at the last Day the whole Man both Soul and Body Psal 31.6 Into thine Hands I commend my Spirit thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of Truth David spake this when he was in a way of Living and had both a Body and a Soul and apparently sought God's Protection for them both viz. for his Person under this Term of Spirit Jo. 11.25 He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live viz. the Compositum of Soul and Body Our Lord knew he should have a speedy Resurrection and foretold it to be within Three Days Time both of Soul and Body And it seems that by this Term of Spirit he recommended them both to the Protection of his Father and that S. Stephen did the like to our Lord Whence here appears no Necessity of Inferring a Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul from these Texts which plainly did not intend to teach the Doctrine and it seeems may be very well satisfied by another very different Construction of them Joh. 6.40 It is God's Will that he who believeth should have everlasting Life and I will raise him up at the last Day Soul and Body without mention of an intermediate Estate And we do not accept our two quoted Texts as a sufficient Proof of that Point Acts 2.27 Thou shalt not leave my Soul in Hell or Death is construed to comprehend the Body also and both were raised accordingly Rom. 2.9 Tribulation and Anguish upon every Soul of Man that doth Evil this comprehends the Body also So Chap. 13.1 Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers Whence we conclude that by recommending the Dying Spirits intended the Dying Bodies also and was intended of the Whole Man or the Person then departing out of this World 2 Cor. 5.1 If our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God a House not made with Hands eternal in the Heavens And desires to be clothed upon with that House Groans to be clothed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life yet would not be unclothed whilst we are at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord walking by Faith not by Sight we desire to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord for we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether good or bad We read Rev. 22.12 I come quickly and my Reward is with me to give every Man according as his work shall be Ver. 20. Surely I come quickly Amen even so come Lord Jesus Heb. 10.37 Yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry Ver. 35. 36. We must wait with Patience and Confidence till the Time promised do come James 5.8 Be ye also patient stablish your Hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh 1 Pet. 1.5 Who are kept by the Power of God through Faith unto Salvation ready to be revealed in the last Time as if the last Time was near Chap. 4.5 Men shall give an Account to him that is ready to judge the Quick and the Dead viz. in a short Time coming 2 Pet. 3.12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the Day of God to Judgment 1 Joh. 2.28 Abide in Christ that when he shall appear ye may have Confidence and not be ashamed at his coming as if he were expected to come in their Time So 1 Tim. 6.14 Keep this Commandment without spot until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ as if Timothy might live to that Time And elsewhere The coming of our Lord draweth nigh 1 Joh. 2.18 Little Children it is the last Time And The Time is short he that is holy let him be holy Rev. 22.11 And he which is filthy let him be filthy still as if Christ's coming to Judgment were even then at hand 2 Pet. 3.9 Men then said that Day was slack in its coming and Ver. 4. that the Promise of his coming was over-long delay'd From all these Evidences it appears that the Church at that Time did believe the coming of our Lord to Judgment to be nigh at hand and that when he should appear we should be like him and that then as Philip. 3.21 Our vile Bodies should be changed and fashioned like his Glorious Body 1 Cor. 15.51 We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed And to this Change it seems S. Paul's Words in our Proving Text are to be applied He would not be unclothed but clothed upon with the House which is from Heaven that so he might not be found naked but that Mortality might be swallowed up in Life Whilst we are at home in the Body viz. our Natural Body we are absent from the Lord
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
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
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
and kept glowing in Man and Beast none of which can continue living without it Some have lived a long time without Food in great Distempers or Maladies but Breath failing or being stop'd for some sew moments the Flame of Life is thereby Suffocated and Extinguished and that Extinguishment is Death and nothing can then restore this Flame once totally extinguished in all parts of the Body but such an Animating Breath to enkindle it not to be imparted by any Power lets than Divine which first breathed it into Adam's Nostrils This Breath or Spirit Eccles 3. Solomon argues upon and says Who knows the Spirit of a Man that goes upward and the Spirit of a Beast that goes downward to the Earth who knows that there is that difference between them And if the one go no more upward then the other goes downward to the Earth it seems there should be neither one nor other in the Case for plain and agreed it is that the Spirit of Beasts extinguisheth in Death and therefore goes no whither not downward to the Earth and so for the Man to me it seems his Spirit also extinguisheth and goes no whither therefore not upward so as Solomon's Expressions both in this Text and that of Chap. 12. seem delivered by him according to common Opinion Like Moses Gen. 1.16 concerning God's making two great Lights Solomon Chap. 12. is describing the Degrees and Ceremonies of Peoples Departure in Death and concludes The Body returns to the Earth whence it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it Moses had taught That God breathed into Adam the breath of Life and when the Man died it was the common Opinion and perhaps might seem true to him that such animating Breath or Spirit returned to God who gave it to Man at the first but there seems not Reason enough to conceive that Solomon intended by this short Sentence to teach a Separate Subsistence of the Soul of Man after Death of the Body And it seems to me spoken transciently and according to common Opinion rather than with an intent to teach or establish that Doctrine 2. A Second Argument to prove that this Text was not intended for a Teaching Direction may be taken from the generality of ' its Expression viz. The Spirit shall return to God who gave it It seems the Spirit of man is an Indefinite Expression and aequipollent to an Universal as if be had said All Humane Souls return to God who gave them for all have a like dependance upon him the bad as well as the good Numb 16.22 Moses calls God the God of the spirits of all flesh and Dan. 5.23 he tells Belshazzar The God in whose hand thy breath is haft thou not glorified I suppose you will not deny that all Spirits have a like dependance upon him and that he is the Giver of them all alike to the bad as well as to the good Whence by the words and sense of Solomon's Text they should all go alike to God the one as well as the other But this is disagreeable both to Heathen Christian Mahometan and other Religions The Heathen sent their better Souls into Elisium and their bad ones before Minos and other severe Judges of Hell to receive their Sentences and so Cato Diverso itinere malos à bonis they had several ways to go and places for Souls to go to commonly three viz. Heaven Hell and a Purgatorium So had many of the Heathen as the Platonists so have at present the Mahometans and the Papists The Reformed Churches acknowledge but two places for Souls after Death viz. Heaven and Hell And the General Opinion amongst them is That all Departed Souls go immediately either to one of these places or to the other but that the number of bad Souls going to places of Torment do very much exceed those who go to God and Heaven Our Lord shews plainly when he says The way is narrow and the gate strait that leads to life and few there be that find it but the other way and gate are broad and wide and many go in and into them viz. all who do not hit the narrow way and strait gate So as those who go to the Devil do very much exceed in number those who go to God according to their own Opinions Hence Solomon's Text The Spirit returns to God or all Humane Spirits return to God who gave them cannot hold true in your own Sense or Separately Subsisting Souls but seems to be a great mistake and very far out of the way A part of the Academick School held an Opinion punctually agreeing with this Text of Solomon viz. That all Souls and particularly the Humane were Sparks and Particles of God emaning from him for the animation of his Creatures upon whose Death those Souls returned again to God and became united to him as before and thus the Spirit returns precisely to God who gave it but thereby the Individuation of such Souls must needs be destroyed as Rivers after their falling into the Sea or Drops into a quantity of Water though they are still Water yet they are no more Drops nor Rivers So Humane Spirits thus returning to God who gave them should be still Spiritual in their being but are not Souls Separately subsisting That the greater number of Mankind by far go into Perdition I have no doubt and how then all Souls or Spirits given by God do return to him I am not yet able to understand but desire to receive your Instructions thereupon 3. A Third Argument in Opposition to your Proof by this Text may be drawn from other Texts of Scripture importing to the contrary of it Solomon himself Eccles 11.8 just before your Proving Text says Remember the days of darkness for they shall be many This thwarts the Separate Souls going presently to Heaven for then the Man would have no dark days at all Job 14.12 Man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more This say I cannot be intended of the Body only for that is not the Man but if there be a State in Separation the Soul must be the Man Nam forma dat esse rei Whence it seems That if the State of a Separate good Soul were such as is generally supposed the Man cannot properly be said to die at all Solomon's Father Psalm 49. Observes That even such amongst Men as attain to Honour have not so much Understanding as to exempt them from being compared unto or being like the Beasts that perish viz. in their Natural state But God hath given to Men a full assurance of a Resurrection which he hath not given to the Beasts Solomon Eccles 3. compares them in like manner Jud. 15.19 Sampson ready to die for thirst God clave an hollow place that was in the Jaw-bone out of which Water proceeded and when he had drunk his Spirit came again and he revived So 1 Sam. 30.11 12. The Servants of David found an Egyptian in the Field
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 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