Mr. M. here seems to imitate an Old Father who us'd in his Oracles to mix Truth and Falshood together so that one of them might make passage for the other He has met indeed with a mean Scholar to whom he apply's the Term of Philosopher whom the Truth which he discovers in that Tenet enables to maintain the Affirmative of his latter Tenet viz. That the Extinguishment of the Soul is the Death of the Person But for the former part of it viz. That Man has every Week a a new Soul he lays and leaves it at M. M's own Door as an Imp and Product of his own Brain The Observer has sufficiently shown That his sort of Soul is always as much the same as a River or the Sea or Blood or Sap of a Tree are the same Tho' they are always in Motion and Alteration yet they continue always the same things the Supplies of them being of the self-same Nature of that which is spent or altered And Mr. M's Metaphysical Arguments to the contrary are but like the Scholars making Three Eggs out of Two and may well pass for parts of vain Philosophy which ought rather to be Condemned than Approved amongst Men and notwithstanding all the Daily Changes of this Soul mentioned by Mr. M. it is and ever will be as much the same as the Persons raised at the General Resurrection shall be so The Observer does not design to follow the Tract of searching into divers Modes of Vain Philosophy or Science falsly so called because Error est multiplex but rather to give Mr. M. and the Reader an Account what he thinks to be true Philosophy It begins with the Capacities of tender Age Teaching to Speak and Write truly their own Mother-Tongue and so to proceed in others especially the Learned Languages and this is commonly termed the Art of Grammar After which it Teaches to Speak and Write Elegantly Floridly Teachingly and Passionately and this is called the Art of Rhetorick From Words it proceeds to Teach the Arts of Things and Thinking to Form Notions or abstracted Ideas and to Divide Compare Compound Collect Propose and Infer also to direct distinct Places and Repositories for Things of different Natures and to rank them in fitting Orders for the support and assistance of the Memory and this Art is called Logick as directing the Mind in the Ordering and Disposition of Things Thence Men proceed to the Arts Mathematical of Arithmetick Geometry Astronomy and Harmony which help to fix Mens wandring Appetites and Notions to the Apprehension of known and certain Objects and the Comprehension of them Next we go on to the general Contemplation of Nature and all Things that have known and certain Beings in the World and this is called Physica and proceeds to examine the Nature both of Heaven and Earth the Heavenly Bodies and the four Elements and all their Inhabitants and things pertinent to them the divers sorts of Earth Minerals Metals and Stones So rising to the Surface of it and there examining the Grasses Herbs Flowers and Plants proceeding to the Insects Fishes Fowls Brutes and Men examining their formerly call'd Specifick Forms and Qualities lately changed for the Terms of Capacities and Powers without a great difference of their significations For the better effecting such Examinations Men Daily make the best use they can of their Sensations viz. of their Five Senses assisted as they must be by their Rational Faculties able and ready to Correct divers Mistakes which the Sensual Faculties are Naturally liable unto Thus Mens Senses furnish the Mind with suitable Objects for its Examination and searching Men make Tryal of them all and whatsoever belongs to them the Parts of which they are Composed the Causes and Effects of them their several manners of Working and whatsoever by their Senses can be found out concerning them They ponder and ruminate upon them and divide compare compound and collect from them frame Propositions concerning them and thence Infer as to themselves seems most Reasonable Then they communicate their Opinions to other Men whom they think capable of Judging in such Cases and Dispute and Argue the same with such Persons as their present Occasions may require sometimes extending such Conferences to Foreign Regions and far distant Places They examine the Traditions of their Fore-fathers and what our Ancestors have said and thought concerning them They Read and Study the Books which have been Written upon such Subjects from the earliest Times which they can attain unto and thus they Cultivate and Enrich their Understandings by storing up in their Written Collections and Memories the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge derived to them from the beginnings of Time and the most remote Parts of the Earth grounded upon the Testimonies of many Sensations and Experiments which do not easily or frequently deceive the Expectations of such as ground themselves upon them The Observer Designs to apply this to the Question now in Dispute and saies He had pass'd the 62d Year of his Age under the apprehension and belief of the Soul's Immortality and that then solitarily and unmoved by any Discourse or Writing the Consideration of this Question fell upon him He was Convinced or Perswaded by his Sensations That the Constitution of Man's Body was made up of Matter and Spirit as those of all other Sublunary Creatures were The Grass Flowers and Plants have Matter and Spirit which appears plainly to the searching Inquirers The Infects have Matter of a light and weak Composure and an Humour analogous to Blood and Spirit The Fishes are watry yet have some Blood and some of the greatest sorts of them have it in great quantities The Fowls are light and Airy their Matter being Flesh and Bones and their Spirits of Blood which some of their greatest sorts as Geese and Turkies have in considerable quantities The Matter and Spirits of Brutes are very well known amongst us and it is visible and palpable to us That the Life of them is in their Blood and that they never do nor can Live without it and that Breath is as necessary to them and upon the same reason that it is to Men. And Solomon Disputing upon this Question Ecclesiastes the 3d. speaks concerning the Similar Natures of Men and Beasts they are generated alike have need of a like Blood and Breath and their Bodies return to the like dust and who knows what difference there is concerning their Spirits He leaves that undetermined which is now the Subject of the present Question But that the Life of both is in the Blood Moses declares and Experience verifies For if one draw out of a Beast its whole Blood and at another Orifice let into its Body the Blood of another Beast sufficient for its repletion the latter Beast must Die by the loss of its Blood but the first Beast may Live by the newly received Blood and be affected with no perceivable harm by such a change And the same also befals Men If we let
Beasts that perish utterly And his Son Solomon Eccl. 3.21 seems to know That the Spirit of a Beast goes downward to the Earth and he suspects there that the Spirit of a Man may do so too allowing little or no difference betwixt Man and Beast in this Point nor does the Observer know any other difference between them in this Case save that to Mankind there are certain and faithful Promises and Predictions made of a future Resurrection at the time of our Lord 's coming to Judgment without mentioning the Beasts or fore-telling any such matters concerning them Page 95. Mr. M. says He thinks 't is easie to demonstrate That the Souls of Brutes are much more noble than the material Spirits of their Blood The Observer is ready to say beshrew his Heart for being so unkind as to forbear or neglect doing the World and the Observer that great Favour which he says might so easily be done and which the Observer would have accepted as a greater Civility than any which Mr. M. has hitherto shewed him But Mr. M. it seems is resolved to deny him that Courtesie which he thinks he could so easily have performed Then Mr. M. proceeds to say That he is not obliged to incumber his Defence of the Soul's Immortality with such needless Controversies The Observer replys That if the Question be needless why does he quote or argue it But if very material and needful as the Observer thinks it to be why does Mr. M. forsake it in this Place without driving it through to some such sort of Determination as he was able to make of it Mr. M. says further We are sure that the Humane Soul is much more excellent than the Brutal because Man can perform more Excellent Things than the Brutes can do The Observer says the fame concerning Mens Bodies That they have a more excellent Structure and apter Organs of Intellect than any sort of Brutes which together with their extraordinary Instruments of Hands and Tongues make them able to perform Things that far exceed the Capacities of Beasts But if such Hands and Tongues were withdrawn from the Humane Body some Beasts might equal or exceed the Race of Men in making Provision for their natural Subsistence and Defence and some other occasions belonging to each of their Natures Thus Men are advantaged in the Mode and Structure of their Bodies above the Beasts and yet these Abilities do not prove That their Flesh Blood Bones or Breath do materially differ from those of the Brutes Whence we argue That though Mens intellectual Faculties do far exceed those of Brutes yet that advantage does not convincingly prove That the Spirits which Act them are of a different kind and nature from those Spirits which act the Brutes but rather That the different Organs in their Head where such Things are acted are the true Causes of those Excellencies wherein Mankind exceed the Brutes P. 96 Mr. M. says That the Natures of Men are made for higher ends than Beasts and this the Observer grants to be true Further Mr. M. says You carry the Controversie into the Dark The Observer says It is his Part to bring it again into the Light which he pretends all this while to have been doing but has not yet performed it to his own Satisfaction Mr. M. tells the Observer That he abuses his Reason and will lose the Truth and his Labour together which Words the Observer says may with a more sharp Point be retorted upon Mr. M. himself P. 97. Mr. M. asks Must we deny what is plain because we are not agreed about more remote Difficulties The Observer Answers No but desires Mr. M. to make the Soul's Immortality plain and then there will be no Controversie between them about it He quotes a Saying out of Tertallian forbidding Men to enquire into the Secrets of God The Observer prays Mr. M. to apply this to his many Demands and Questions concerning the Quoniodo or how Sense and Reason are Acted in Man and Beast by the intervention and Operation of the Material Spirits in the Heads of either Kind The Observer has said That Quoniodo is a Secret yet reserved in the Store-House of God's Knowledge and hitherto unrevealed to the Sons of Men. Further Mr. M. says There is yet no satisfactory account given of the Sensitive Perception and Appetite by reducing them to the Laws of Matter and Motion The Observer requires therefore Mr. M. to give some Satisfactory account of the Production of Sense and Appetite by the means or intervention of his supposed Intelligent Spirit which if he do this Controversie will easily be determined P. 98. Mr. M. says That the Animal Spirits and the Brain are principally concerned in the Acts of the Intellect and therefore the whole Compositum is not concerned The Observer denyes this Consequence and says That the whole Compositum is concerned in Acts of the Intellect as well as in those of the Senses Prick or Cut the end of the Finger or Toe the whole Compositum instantly feels the smart by contiguity of the Spirits and quickness of their Communication So for the Eye the Ear the Taste and the Smell the whole Compositum is instantly affected by their pleasing or disagreeable Objects So as a quick Smart a horrid Sight a piercing Sound a strong Smell or a very ill Taste breed an instant alteration in the whole Compositum and by any of these the Operation of the Intellect may be disturbed or quite put out of order Whence it appears That though the Spirits and the Brain are the Principal Agents for acting the Reason and Intellect yet the whole Compositum is concerned in every most ordinary Action of the Person which cannot be performed or ever was performed without such a contexture of Soul and Body as has been before specified Mr. M. farther says You must answer all that I have written against the Capacity of these material Corruptible Spirits for the production of such Acts. The Observer replies That he cannot find where Mr. M. has said any more against the Capacities of such a Contexture but that he assures himself and believes That such a Contexture cannot have those Capacities Whereas the Observer conceives They have sufficient Capacity to produce and perform all Humane Actions and Powers according to the Ordination of God and the Constitution which he has appointed in the Creation and Fabrick of a Man Mr. M. says further That his sort of Soul does exert some Actions without assistance of any corporeal Organs and that it works upon these Organs antecedent to any Operation by them His Assertion that it works without them and works upon them seems not at all coherent in it self for that if it work upon them and without them it cannot work by them at the same time But the Observer does constantly deny That there is any such Soul as he pretends viz. an immaterial intelligent Spirit in the Body of any Person naturally So as he must suppose or
of those Spirits spread over the whole Body it comes to pass that the least Wound in the end of a Finger or Toe is immediately felt over the whole Body and so by Sight Hearing Smelling or Tasting the whole Person is immediately perceptive and affected therewithal like the String of an Instrument how long soever the same may be if touched to a vibration in any Part of it the whole String answers to that Vibration and sounds accordingly And this seems to be the Reason of the wonderful Velocity of Sensation and Perception in the Persons of Men and therewithal the Brutes may well be conceived to have a great Affinity upon a like Account This Spirit is not incaged or incarcerated in the Body but maintains as amicable a Conjunction with it and with as much Liking and Kindness to each other as any known Things in the World can do And the Athanasian Creed tells us That as the Body and Soul are one Man so God and Man are one Christ whence the Union of the former seems as amicable and kind as that of the latter tho' using a joint Contexture one of them with another this sort of Spirit acting in and by the Bodily Organs and Members they together effect in the Person all those Motions Faculties and Powers which the great Artificer intended and designed to be produced in the Humane Person be they those of Vegetation Sensation or Rationality all which Powers and Faculties they continue to maintain so long as their said Contecture has a Conrinuance Whence the whole Person both Spirit and Members are all alike affected one of them with another and never contrarily or differently one of them affected against another It is true that divers great Variances do often happen between the two different Faculties or Powers of Sense and Reason which Differences are as durable and lasting as the Life it self And these two Faculties St. Paul often calls by the Name of Flesh and Spirit which must pass in his Writings for tropical and figurative Expressions Upon which and divers other Accounts St. Peter says there are some Things in St. Paul ' s Writings which are hard to be understood Our Experience teaches us That there are no real Differences between the Bodily Organs and Members and this sort of Spirit of which we are now speaking but that they live and act together during the Time of their Contexture in the greatest Amity and Sympathy that can be imagin'd They are pleas'd and displeas'd rejoice and mourn together as two constituent Parts of the same Person they grow together to a State of Perfection are sick and well together decay and decrease in like manner And where Men live to the uttermost Age their Perceptions Understandings and Memories fail oftentimes before their Tasting and Feeling which continues with them the whole Extent of their Lives Then the Person consisting of such Flesh and Spirit dies together the Flesh and Members turning to Dust and the Spirit which is the Flame of Life extinguishing at the Time of that Separation And at the Time of the Resurrection the Body shall again be raised with such a Temperature of the Blood as shall then again be tinded and kindled into such a Flame of Life as the Person had enjoy'd in his former State as St. Paul declares 1 Cor. 15. whereby there shall arise and accrue to the same Person the same Sensation Perception Understanding Memory and Conscience that he had before in the Time of his former Life So as Mr. Lock seems to be in the right when Fol. 183. of his said Book he teaches That it is the same Consciousness which at the Resurrection makes the same Person such a sameness as St. Paul declares by his Similitude of Grains of Corn as much the same as Grains are of the same Nature which spring one out of another Thus united again by the Resurrection the Flesh and Spirit in a like Contexture as they were before shall come to Judgment at the last Day before the Tribunal of the Lord Christ and shall there receive Judgment Sentence and Doom according to their Works and shall thence depart to Places of Joy and Happiness or to those of Sorrow and Misery as by that Sentence and Judgment shall be appointed for them Thus from Experience it seems proveable That there is such a Soul or Spirit in Man as has been before specify'd That the same consists in the Spirits of the Blood inflam'd and made lucid and glowing That the Original of this Spirit proceeds from a Vital Principle in the Seed The visible quando of its Operation appears with the first Commencement of Vegetation in the Embryon The Vbi of its Residence is every Part and Member of the Body through which the same is contiguously spread or rather is one continuate Spirit mixed with the Flesh throughout the whole Body As to the Quo and what becomes of this Spirit at the Death of the Person it has been declared to go out by Extinguishment The only Point which the Observer professes Ignorance in is that of the Quomodo operatur He professes not to know how these Spirits of the Blood work in the Stomack a right and healthful Concoction and due Separation how in the sanguifical Parts the Chyle is converted into Blood how the Breath fans maintains and communicates such Vigour and Flame to Particles of the Blood which ascend to the Head how those Particles of Blood working in the Head and Brain produce there Sensation Perception Imagination Understanding or Memory how passing thence by the Nerves into the rest of the Body they cause Motion Activity Strength and Vigour all obedient to the Will of the Person and subjected to the Dictates of his Judgment Those are some of the chief Ways of God with Man and are most evident Proofs of his Divine Skill and Power concerning which and other-like Divine Operations Solomon says Eccles 8.17 Man cannot find out the Work that is done under the Sun because tho' a Man labour to find it out or the Wise among Men endeavour to come to the Knowledge of it yet shall they not be able to find it In this Ignorance therefore the Observer is contended to be a Partaker with the rest of the World without herding himself amongst those who because they cannot find out the Quomodo of this Performance are easily perswaded to believe That God has not Skill or Power enough to perform this and is therefore driven and must be driven to act those Things in Man by an immaterial intelligent Spirit which they fancy therefore is newly created by God upon every fruitful Coition of Man and Woman or Man and Beast where the Form of the Product happens to be Humane and that this new Soul which comes from his Hand innocent and pure shou'd presently be thrust by him into an impure Body at the best contaminated by Original Sin which presently communicates that Tincture to that pure innocent but unfortunate miserable Soul so newly created by him These Absurdities following upon and flowing from this Error prove the Opinion from whence they arise to be erroneous And from this and from all that has been spoken before on this Subject the Observer concludes That the Opinion of Man's being acted by an immaterial intelligent Spirit capable of subsisting in a State of Separation from the Body is an Error and that it is much more probable That the Person of Man is a Contexture of Matter and Spirit both rising from the seminal Agitation and both mortal and that the sound Foundation for the Expectation of Recompences future to this Life ought to be grounded upon the rocky Foundation of the Resurrection And herewithal shall be finish'd the present Observations upon this Treatise FINIS
much in the Resurrection above the reach of Natural Reason The Observer saies the same concerning the Immortality of the Soul and further That it is not only above but also opposite to the Sensations of Man Mr. M. asks What must the poor Heathens do to whom the Resurrection has not been revealed Upon which the Observer asks What must such poor Heathens do to whom the Mystery of Christ's coming in the Flesh has not been Revealed P. 57 Mr. M. saies That the Immortality of the Soul was commonly and naturally known to Men. To this the Observer has spoken before and now adds a Request to Mr. M. That he would produce some Evidence of such Knowledge besides Solomon's short Saying before the time and Doctrine of Pherecydes or else he ought not to be believed That his Opinion has any thing of Natural in it Further Mr. M. here saies That the Observer world not be thought to deny That there are Immaterial Intelligent Spirits The Observer Answers That if he did deny them either in Word or in Thought he would not seek a Pretence to be thought not to deny them If he very much fear'd the Censures of Men's Opinions he would not as he now does maintain the Humane Soul's Materiality Mr. M. supposes as himself saies very unreasonably That the Observer does deny the being of a Superiority and Order in the Invisible World But therein Mr. M. is very much mistaken For that the Observer does Profess to Allow and Believe That there are great Differences and Degrees in the World of Intelligent Spirits the lowest of which are often conversant upon Earth and sometimes with the Inhabiters of it P. 58. Mr. M. saies There is something in Plants like Sense in Brutes like Reason and in Men like Spirits The Observer saies something like the Inferiour Intellectual Spirits viz. Apprehension Reason and Intellect which is as great a Participation with the lower Degree of separate Spirits as the Brutes have of the Rational or the Plants have of the Sensitive Nature The Observer further agrees with Mr. M's Metaphysical Author P. 59. Mr. M. Quotes the Observer's Saying concerning Dr. Moor and Mr. Baxter who say That the Souls of Brutes have separate Subsistence after the Death of their Bodies and there he saies That Dr. Willis did not think this Opinion merited the trouble of his Confutation And both there and here the Observer is of the same Judgment That this Opinion neither deserves or needs any other or further Refutation than the repugnancy which it will find in the common Sensations of every ordinary Reader except such only as can swallow and digest the Pythagorical Opinion of the Transmigrations of Souls Pythagoras was the Disciple of Pherecydes and from him receiv'd the Doctrine of the Soul's Immortality and rais'd out of it the Doctrine of the Metempsychosis Teaching from thence That the Soul 's of Men departed sometimes entred into Infants and sometimes into the Whelps and Cubs of Beasts and reciprocally That the Souls of Beasts Transmigrated into and Animated the Bodies of Humane Infants or of Beasts as it might happen to fall out To Pythagoras Plato succeeded and held also a Transmigration of Souls but more restrained then that of Pythagoras imagining That Souls of Men had in a former World been separate and Intelligent Spirits and that for their Offences then committed they were Doomed to Inhabit and Actuate Bodies of Clay in our present World in Nature of a Penalty and as means of Purgation of and for the Offences by them committed in the former World and that as soon as they were dislodged from one Person they must wait for opportunity to enter into another Person or Embryon of Mankind This Doctrine of Plato bounded the Transmigration of Souls within the Compass of Mankind excluding the Bestial Race from such a Communication with Men Concerning which Doctrine Mr. Lock Dict. Lib. fol. 189 saies Taking as we ordinarily now do the Humane Soul for an Immaterial Substance independent upon Matter there would be no Absurdity to suppose That the same Soul may at different times be united to different Bodies and in each make up a Man This Doctrine therefore of Transmigration of Souls from one Man to another seems to him a Rational Deduction from the Nature and Subsistence of such a Soul and accordingly the Opinion of such a Transmigration spread it self far and wide over the Face of the Earth so as the Christian Platonists accepted of it and Origen and some others of the Fathers were of that Opinion The Gallick and British Druides maintain'd it and the most gross part of it viz. The Transmigration Reciprocal from Man to Beasts is still believed among the Gentile Indians Tartarians Chineses and Japanners in our own Times grounding it upon the Opinion of the Soul 's compleat Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body The Observer saies That if he had to deal with such Men as these he would deal with them as with Dr. Moor and Mr. Baxter by endeavouring to perswade them and offering to them such Proofs as he could produce as he does to this present Opponent That the Soul of Man is not an Intelligent Substance nor capable of subsisting in a State of Separation from the Body and if thereof he should be able to Convince them that Conviction would be a sufficient and perfect Cure for all these Errors of theirs and all other like Opinions concerning the same He further saies The wiser and holier any Man is the more firmly he believes and rejoices in the Consideration of the Soul's Immortality Other Proof of this Assertion he gives none so that we have but his bare Word for it in the truth of which the Observer has no great Confidence and he believes That Mr. M. is therein much mistaken Mr. M. saies Men will not be perswaded that That Divine Goodness which has so often embraced them mill ever desert them But that God is Stronger than Death and more Powerful than the Grave and that they cannot believe That their Souls shall ever fall down into a Dead unactive State because they have been Irradiated by the Divine Light and Grace The Observer Answers Here are Two Assertions First they will not believe That God who has embraced them with his Goodness will ever desert them but that God will preserve and deliver them from the Grave This Assertion the Observer willingly grants The Second Saying is That Mens Souls can never fall down into a Dead unactive State This the Observer denies and saies That if by Souls he does not mean Persons his saying That they are irradiated by God's Grace in any sort or way abstracted or removed from the Body his Assertion here is Erroneous and Deceitful For that he never has Proved nor can Prove That God ever bestowed any thing upon a single Soul in a State of Separation from the Body But all his Graces and Favours Corrections and Punishments are applied to the Person
in the Liver But he saies not what other Part or Place the later Anatomists have assigned for this Office of Sanguification and till they agree amongst themselves about that Point it seems the Observer may be justly excused for following the Ancient Anatomists in this Expression Mr. M. goes on to a Secondly which in the first Part of it needs on Answer till he comes to his Repeating the Observer's Quotation of Miracles in his Observations upon Mr. B' s Sermon Where the Case stood thus Mr. B. has Asserted in that Sermon That Omnipotence it self could not produce Thought or Intelligence out of meer Matter by any Skill or Power he could used The Observer there absolutely denies this Assertion and maintains the contrary both by Reasons and Examples inferring from God's making Matter out of nothing That he can make whatsoever he pleases out of any Matter And shews by Examples That God has done such Wonderful Things upon other Occacasions as give no less difficulty to the Minds of Men to conceive than the Act of producing Intelligence out of Matter may do Whence it seems he did not produce those Miraculous Examples out of Levity but for a very just Cause P. 65. Mr. M. Asks Is not God able to uphold the Soul in a State of Separation from the Body The Observer Answers He is able so to do and when he declares he has so done or will so do the Observer is ready to believe it 2dly Mr. M. Asks Are God's ordinary Works in Nature to be confounded with his Miracles The Observer Answers No. 3dly Mr. M. Asks Is it a good way of Arguing from the Power of God to his Will And is Answered No. And further Mr. M. here grants as by his enumeration of Particulars That God can make Matter Cogitative if he pleases to do it without acknowledging That therein he departs from Mr. B's Assertion which the Observer had before opposed Here Mr. M. goes on Repeating his Expressions formerly used and Answered He saies That it is the part of a Philosopher to admire the Works which God has done The Observer saies so too but not such Works as Mr. M. saies he has done unless he make better Proof of his doing of them Mr. M. Will not allow the Observer to lay down Hypotheses contrary to the Sense and Reason of Mankind and then to tell us God can make those Suppositions good The Observer Answers That he neither has done so nor ever intends to do it but that this Suggestion Savours of that Spirit which has hitherto much Acted in his Treatise Chap. V Mr. M. begins at P. 67. and from thence to P. 68. may pass for a Peroration little to the purpose of Proving any thing concerning the Question now in Dispute He declaims against the debasing the Humane Prerogative to the Degree of Brutes The Observer Answers That Prerogatives ought to be justly discerned and all those granted which of right ought to be so And whatsoever is not so tho' never so loudly claimed is not to be granted but denied He ought to remember his own Rule de vero nil nisi verum and therefore if it be true That the Humane Soul is Material it is but a just and righteous Act to deny and reject such Prerogatives as have been unduly Arrogated for it and without good reason have been ascribed to it P. 68 69. Mr. M. Discourses concerning the Atomical Doctrines and raising Bodies from their Motions and Cohesions accidentally without the Direction and Assistance of God's Wisdom and Power With which Imagination the Observer has nothing to do P. 70 Mr. M. saies Atomists tell us That the Soul is a Material Spirit extracted to a wonderful fineness reaching to an invisibility The Observer agrees That Dr. Willis delivers that Opinion and saies That the Particles of Blood inflamed in the Lungs and made lucid in the Brain are such Spirits and that he saies may be demonstrated to the Sensations of Men viz. by the strength of Natural Faculties or the powers of Sense and Reason united And thus much the Materialists pretend they know and can demonstrate concerning their sort of Soul But Mr. M. and those that join with him in maintaining the Intelligent Soul neither know nor can demonstrate any thing concerning it nor any particular matter about it neither the Quod nor the Quid unde quando ubi quomodo nor quo But because they cannot imagine some of them how God can others of them how God does so Act the Humane Organs by these Spirits as to produce in them and by them together Life Sense and Intellect they think he must needs have recourse to the means and assistance of an Immaterial Spirit According to the course of Mens common Conceptions who when they see wonderful Things performed by great Artists the true Reasons of which they do not understand either because those Artists will not declare them or being declared such People will not believe them or cannot comprehend them therefore presently impute them to the Effects of an Immaterial Spirit The rest of Mr. M's Words here need no Answer being voces praeterea nihil P. 71. Mr. M. saies That the maintaining the Soul to be Material is a reproach to Philosophy and all sorts of Humane Learning and will be a likely means to bring them into contempt and hatred The Observer Answers That the Terms of Philosophy and Humane Learning are both of them equivocal and each of them may be taken in several Senses Humane Learning may be employed about good Things or bad Things and there are Arts Teaching to deceive and falsify as well as to Teach real Faculties and Truths And the Term of Philosophy may be used in divers and different Senses Mr. M. in this Chap. has given us some Instances of it where he saies That the Epicureans fram'd and defended a Scheme of the World's Production by the Fortuitous Concourse of Atoms Which he calls Nonsensical gibberish and an empty Sound of unintelligible Words Which the Observer thinks do intend the same thing with Canting as it is now commonly understood among us Mr. M. further saies That we must not let go the Opinion of the Soul's Immortality that we may fall down and Worship that Philosophy which those Men have set up The Observer does not know who are meant by the Term of those Men whether the Epicureans or Materialists each by themselves or both of them together If he mean the first alone no opposition shall be made to him in it if the second alone then all that has been before spoken may be used for his Conviction in it and if he mean a mixture of both together the old Rule shall be applied to him dolus versatur in universalibus and he makes this mixture only to mislead his Readers P. 72 He mentions a like Philosophy which Teaches That we have every Week a new Soul and that at length Soul and Body Die together The Observer saies That
beg the Question that there is such a Thing before he can perswade any Man that it does or works any thing at all P. 99. Mr. M. quotes a Latin Author who took the Immortality of the Soul for granted but with those that deny the Immortality his Assertion has no Consequence or Credibility at all Mr. M. says further The musical Organ is not conscious of the Harmony produced by it as the Soul is of its own Acts he should have said as the Man is of his own Acts for if he intend this of his immaterial intelligent Spirit he knows it to be constantly denied by the Observer who affirms There is no such Spirit naturally in Man and concerning the material Spirits has asserted That they have no Knowledge or Understanding of what themselves do So as it is not the Spirits alone or the Organs alone that can by themselves do any Thing any more than the Organ-pipes can make Harmony without the Wind or the Wind of the Bellows without the Pipes sound and well ordered in their proper Places where the Artificer has ranked them Further Mr. M. affirms That in the Pamphlet which he intended to Answer the Observer had said That Matter has a Self-moving Power and gave instance in some light Earth pulverised and made so apt for Motion as that it might become near a kin to the Atoms which Men way perceive moving up and down in the Air continually Mr. M. Does not deny the Propensity which such fine Atoms have to be moved by any gentle touch of Air or Breath so as falling into a drop of May-dew they will rise up in the mixture of that moisture to the very tip of a Grass-Pile and be ready to drop from it again as the weight and activity of the moisture shall carry it Thus the red Earth of which Adam was Created Pulverised by the Art of the great Machinist was made apt to be moved and acted by the inflamed Particles of the Blood tinded and maintained by a continual fanning of the Breath So as this attenuated Dust acted by the Wind and Fire was then capable by the Ordinance of God to act all that he has appointed to be done in or by the Persons of Men all which three Ingredients still act in Humane Persons all that really can be done by them Page 100 Mr. M. mentions the moveable matters of Wind and Fire but says nothing concerning them that requires or deserves a Reply Further Mr. M. says He does not deny that the inflamed Particles of Blood called Spirits are the immediate Instruments of the Soul 's Operations in its State of Vnion with the Body The Observer has oft-ten and constantly denied That there is such an Intelligent Soul in Man as Mr. M. supposes and yet he will still go on to suppose that which is still denied without bringing any full and convincing Proof of the Truth of it A Thing and Proceeding which the Observer can by no means help But his Arguments drawn from such Premises have very little Force P. 101. Mr. M. says The Observer has objected That the Soul cannot operate in a separate State but he quotes no Page of the Pamphlet where he finds this Objection or in truth is this Objection to be found in any Part of the foresaid Pamphlet but is the Progeny of Mr. M's own Brain intending to set it up like a Man of Straw that he may have the battering of it down again at his Pleasure Mr. M. Concludes That except we better understood what the Soul is and how it acts whilst united to the Body we ought not to deny its Capacity of acting in a separate Subsistence The Observer thinks he should have said Except we had more certain Knowledge that there is an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit in the Person it is meer lost labour to trouble our Heads with the Notions of what such a Soul does do or can do in statu concreto vel separato Chap. VIII p. 103. Mr. M. say's 'T is an endless work to write against those who will take no notice of what has been said before in the Controverted Point The Observer replys That if M. M. knew any Thing that has been said before concerning this Point that he thinks to be very Material or Convincing he ought by the Duty of his Undertaking to make the Observer and the World whom he pretends to instruct acquainted with such material Points of Knowledge that they might either conform themselves thereunto or be driven to make such Answers to them as they shall be able But we find in this Place an apparent failing in Mr. M. in the precise Point of this Duty P. 104. Mr. M. would have us strictly to consider How little Alliance there is betwixt a Thought and any Bodily Thing He might as well have bidden us consider How a Horse that eats and drinks and evacuates every Day for a Year together should at the Year's end be still the same Horse The Observer bears no inclination to trouble his Head about Mr. M's Metaphysical Notions or Proportions and therefore refuses to consider the Thing propounded or any of the like Notions Mr. M. says That the Notions which we have of the Mind i. e. something within us that thinks Reasons and Wills are mighty different from any Notions we can fasten upon a Body i. e. from Mr. M's Notions concerning such Things But the Observer thinks There is no such Thing in the Person as thinks reasons wills c. but says as before with Aristotle That it is the Man who thinks reasons wills c. and that the whole Compositum is concerned in such Actions Mr. M. says further That divers who assert the Soul's Immortality do likewise assert its Materiality and that divers of the Fathers were of that Opinion Pag. 105. Mr. M. says It can never be proved That so pure an Essence as the Soul is has any natural tendency to Dissolution He ought withall to have remembred That they who deny the Being of such a Soul as he supposes will never trouble themselves about Arguments whether it be Corporeal and Mortal or the contrary Mr. M. quotes Cicero who Men have reason to believe was of he same Opinion with himself and serves him instead of the Proverb asking a Man's Fellow c. P. 106. he tells us out of Vives That Men are ignorant of the Essences of Things which is granted and Mr. M. says thereupon That the nature of Matter is not so well understood as that the determination of the present Controversie shou'd be supposed to depend upon it This the Observer is also willing to grant tho' he does not well understand what the Effects of it may be in this Controversie He asks further Shall we talk confidently about Materiality or Immateriality and dispute our selves into Atheism The Observer replys We may talk with a reasonable confidence concerning Materiality and Immateriality without disputing our selves into Atheism or Sadducism for the Sadducees
and puts no difference between them in respect of humane Endeavours believing that which will gain the one will gain the other and what will lose the one will lose the other But he thinks the Resurrection to be far better proved more undoubted and certain than the Immortality is that therefore the first is founded upon a Rock and the other but upon Sand or bare Ground at the best And therefore he builds his Faith and relyance upon the Resurrection and believes concerning the Immortality That it is an Errour or a Possibility so uncertain as no Man reasonably shou'd relye upon it P. 114. Mr. M. says The best way to know that he Soul is Immortal is to keep its Noblest Faculties in due Exercise The Observer replys That he has endeavoured as much as in him lay so to do but found an Effect thereof quite contrary to Mr. M's Assertion viz. That the more he read labour'd and ponder'd thereupon the more he has been hitherto confirm'd in the Opinion of the Soul's Mortality and even the weak Arguments Mr. M. has produced in this Treatise of his for the Proof of the contrary have added some strength to that Opinion which he had before received as the Effect of his former Endeavours in this kind P. 115. Mr. M. says We should seek Truth for its own sake and to be thereby better enabled for the service of God And then he says We may better expect Afflatum divini numinis The Observer says He has done the one and hopes he has received some measure of the other so as Mr. M's rash and indiscreet Censures make no Impression at all on him nor he hopes will do upon any Intelligent Readers of his present Treatise thus answered Further Mr. M. directs to lay down the most plain and certain Truths first and so ascend gradually to those that are more difficult trying those Things that are uncertain by those that are clear and certain The Observer may here justly reproach Mr. M. for his not observing the Rules which he has here laid down for that in his pretences of proving the Soul's Immortality he has not produced so much as one Experiment or Rule that is clear and certain which the Observer thinks he did not omit through negligence but because he cou'd find no Experiment or certain Rule from whence he cou'd raise Arguments for the proof of his Immortality Mr. M. says further There are many puzzling Questions concerning his sort of Soul viz. concerning its unde its Vnion with the Body its moving of it and direction of the Spirits its different mode of Operation in a separate State and its reunion at the Resurrection The Observer replys That all these Questions become frivolous to those that accept the Opinion of the Soul's Extinguishment at the Death of the Person which fully silences them all and proves them needless and somewhat ridiculous and that is the best and surest Solution that can be given of them altogether Mr. M. says further We must not deny the Formation of a Child because we know not how 't is made The Observer agrees this because Sensation and Experience prove there is a Child Let Mr. M. prove by Sensation Experience or other Ways That there is such a Soul in Man as he pretends to and then he shall have leave to dispute de modo formationis as he pleases But to dispute de modo of a Thing which is not granted or proved to have a Being must pass for a Dispute de lana caprina or as of a Thing not extant in the World He says further The Soul it Fettered in the Body But this the Observer utterly denies and avers That the Contexture of the Soul and Body is naturally and ordinarily the most amicable and pleasing Conjunction in the World and their Separation is ordinarily one of the most terrible Actions that befalls Mankind and that it was a most gross Errour in Plato and those that follow him to think otherwise P. 117. Mr. M. says Atheism and Sadducism spring both from the same Root and must be attacked together The Observer answers That his tacking Atheism and Sadducism together prove That they who believe the Resurrection are neither the one nor the other whatsoever Mr. M. may fancy Mr. M's Demands concerning the Making and Governing the World are very frivolous and needless in this Question or to be demanded of the Observer who has often ascribed the Creation of Man and all other Creatures to God and has acknowledged his Providence upon all Occasions so as those Questions and those which follow them are left by the Observer as a Fruit of Mr. M's florid Speaking but in our present Dispute somewhat insipid and of no concernment at all P. 119. Mr. M. says That Epicurus and his Followers said That the World was not Created by God nor Governed by his Providence The Observer demands Quorsum haec quorsum sic What makes all this to the Immortality of the Soul or the Observer's Opinion concerning it It shall therefore be past as nothing to the purpose nor deserving any Answer nor needing any as it is produced upon this Occasion P. 121. Mr. M. demands Dare you take God's Name in vain or vilifie his Works to his dishonour You may flatter and befool your self for a while what will you do in the end thereof How dismal will the Thoughts of Eternity be to you in the last Hour How severely will Conscience pay you home for all the Tricks and Abuses you put upon it The Observer replys That if a Man should judge Mr. M. by those Expressions it seems they might judge him the very Spaun of Satan whose proper Office it is to bring false Accusations against the Servants of God and slander them with such Things as they were never guilty of or intended to be so His Demand Dare you take God's name in vain Or vilifie his Works to his dishonour Seems pregnant with an Affirmative That the Observer dare do such Things And if it be so taken it is a slanderous Surmise and as false as any Thing that his Father cou'd suggest to him The Devil himself was more fine in his Suggestions against Job which procur'd that Holy Man a severe Conflict and a terrible Tryal Upon which the Observer will make no other return than that which the Angel made to Satan in the case of Joshua The Lord rebuke thee O Satan the Lord that hath pleasure in the prosperity of his Servants rebuke thy lying lips and thy deceitful tongue What reward shall be done unto thee thou false tongue Even mighty and sharp arrows with hot burning Coals who puttest forth the horns of a Lamb but speakest with the voice of a Dragon P. 122. He goes on with divers such Calumnious Questions pointing at the Observer who utterly denies all the Charges laid against him in those Pages and says They are false and feigned and defies his false Accuser demanding the Proof of any one
of them which if this vile Railer cannot or do not produce the Observer hopes he will pass among his Readers for a false Slanderer and Condemner of the Innocent P. 123. He talks of turning our Eyes in upon our Souls The Observer demands of him whether he ever did so and that he will tell the World what evidence of his Soul follow'd upon his so doing It seems just none at all or else he 's very faulty in not declaring the same to the World He says That as the Soul is separated from the Body by Death so in Contemplations we must abstract it from Corporeal Commerce The Observer says This must needs pass for Gibberish and Nonsense with one who denies the Subsistence of Souls in a State of separation from the Bodies Here he Quotes Pythagoras pretending Men shou'd desire Death That their Souls might be delivered from the Prisons of their Bodies and some in those times kill'd themselves that their Souls might the sooner obtain their Liberty And thus this apprehension became a Doctrine of Devils and it seems the present Opposer now thinks it cannot well be maintained without the Practice of Devils viz. lying and slandering P. 124. He says Their Bodies are an hinderance to them in searching after Truth The Observer says Souls can make no Searches after Truth at all nor do any other Thing without their Bodies nor can he or any other Man prove That they ever did so or can do so He says After Death and not before the Soul will subsist without the Body Here he denies what some of his Partakers affirm That the Soul sometimes wanders from the Body and after some time returns to it again But all with a great probability of Falshood both in the one case and in the other It seems he matters not how meanly he begs the Question when he utter'd his last Position as it were ex Cathedra pronouncing that as an undoubted Truth which he well knows his Opponent fully denies and how weakly himself has offered at the poof of it P. 126. He says further That if men follow the practice of a good Life they will soon be convinced that their Souls are Immortal and not such earthly material Things as you are ready to imagine The Observer Replies That the Evidences of a good Life are well known to himself and as evident to the World as any thing Mr. M. can produce for himself and yet he does not find himself the more perswaded of the Truth of the Soul's Immortality nor believes it ever the whit the more for the false Suppositions and Pretensions which are made for it by Mr. M. in this Treatise But rather is confirmed in the contrary Opinion by those deceitful and false Courses which the Opponent is driven to use for the support and maintenance of his Opinion P. 127. The Opposer speaks Of Divine Raptures and Anticipations of the Soul's Immortality while they are in this World All which the Observer thinks to be as well founded as Castles in the Air which are only Products of Phantasie and vanish with the meer change of the Apprehension The Adversary says further That if your Phantasie be right placed you will be apt to acknowledge the Natural Image of the Deity which is antecedent to the Knowledge of God The Observer Answers That the Image of God in Man is not in any single Part or Portion of him but that the whole Man is the only Image of God for that in the Image of God made he Man without any more respect to his Soul than his Body which are both together the wonderful Work of God and so great a Wonder to Immortalists as they can by no means believe That God has Wisdom and Power enough to produce Sense and Understanding in the Humane Person by the Energy and Activity of Material Spirits but that of necessity he must be driven to use the subservience of an immaterial Intelligent Spirit for those purposes And this shall be left upon them as a very gross Mistake and Error of their Minds Our Adversary says further That there are a World of Spirits Malignant and such at seek the ruin of mankind and carry on a Warfare against God and his Interest and Religion in the World That such Spirits there are the Observer does not deny and that prompted by the malignity of their own Natures they carry on a War against true Religion and the Happiness of Man he grants but that they do War against the Interest of God or can do it he confidently denys and says That they have no power to act or effect any thing without the Permission License or Direction of that Omnipotent Being known to us by the Name and Term of God The Adversary says Those Spirits know well enough that the Souls of men are Immortal Cujus Contrarium the Observer says est verum and saith farther The Evil Spirits take no pains at all to destroy the Soul but the Man of whose contexture the Soul is but Part and such a Part as extinguishes at the Death of the Person P. 128. The Adversary says you may read from divers Authors there named that there are good Spirits which watch over Men for their guidance and preservation The Observer says This needs no Proof from his named Authors for that the Scriptures do testifie abundantly for the Truth of it P. 129. The Adversary discourses concerning Apparitions of dead Persons and delivers divers Historical Relations upon that Subject The Observer does not deny That divers such like Apparitions may have been jussu aut permissu superiorum and that such Apparitions have taken upon them the Image or likeness of the dead Persons But he places all that sort of Apparitions to the account of inferior separate Spirits ready to execute what shall be appointed them in that kind What is in this Place quoted out of Baronius the Observer imputes either to meer Invention or otherwise conceives it to have been a lying Relation of one of those Malignant Spirits What he relates there from Glanvil concerning a Major and a Captain may better pass for a Truth because the tenor of it agrees with what the Observer has before said concerning such Things who always Establish'd That such Apparitions are not acted by the Souls of Men already dead but by inferiour separate Spirits subsisting by themselves and which never were united to the Persons of Men. P. 130. The Adversary says Men may find nobler things in the World than Matter and Motion to entertain themselves with This Assertion the Observer thinks to savour strongly of Ignorance and Falsehood especially because he mentions no Particulars of such Things of which he ought to have given some Instances and for want thereof the Observer concludes him true to his Principles of Boldness and Ignorance He quotes here the Names of Authors as Plato Plotinus Epictetus Cicero Senecae Antoninus which it is likely may have drawn him to the Belief of the Soul's
taking his Part of the Question for granted Truth seems to be a Folly and Vanity suitable to the rest of his Deportment throughout this Treatise P. 152 The Advers says In many Things we shall be in the Dark without the Assistance of supernatural Revelation The Observer says There is a Sufficiency of supernatural Revelation in the Scriptures of God for the bringing Men a happy Resurrection and a blessed State after it But for our better Illumination the Advers cites a Sentence out of Porphyry who was as great an Opposer of Christianity as any he could have named being a bare Platonist and no more To this he adds the Names of Plato and Socrates pretending to collect thence a more lofty Strain for his Imaginations to work upon than those which are deliver'd in Holy Writ and spares not to quote the Devil's Oracles in Confirmation of his own fantastical Idea's nor the Sibylline Verses dictated usually by a Spirit of the like nature The Advers says That the great Heathen Law-makers pretended to take Help of Spirits and Daemons for the Inventing and Establishing their Laws From which Example perhaps he may intend to derive a Confirmation of his Opinion That there are other supernatural Revelations to be expected at this Day for Mens Guidance and Direction in their Religion than those that are deliver'd us in Holy Scripture Which is an Opinion rejected by the Observer and not received by the Reformed Christian Churches After this Train of Heathen Oracles and Spirits the Adversary returns again to the Holy Scriptures as if he pretended to add some Credit or Authority to them by the Testimony of his Commendations which they neither need nor can his Credit any way extend to the advancing of their Reputation Men knowing it is rather a Disgrace than an Advantage to be prais'd or commended by a slanderous Tongue But those Records are so Sacred that they can suffer no Disadvantage by any Man's Commendations or Discommendations but stand fixed and firm as Pillars and Foundations of the Christian Faith not enduring to be compar'd with the Fictions of idle Oracles Philosophick Daemons or Poetical Inventions nor with the Miracles or Enthusiasms of the Romish Mahometical or Phanatical Imaginary Revelations There can be no reasonable Comparison of such Vanities with the Text of Holy Scripture and therefore whatsoever the Advers pretends to say to that Purpose seems a great Piece of Vanity in him and an idle Imployment of his Time P. 155 The Advers says If you believe that the Soul is Immortal be not over-fond of the Body The Observer replies If you believe the Resurrection and the Last Judgment be not so fond of the Body or any thing else as thereby to be drawn out of the way of endeavouring to make your Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 3.10 The Day of the Lord shall come as a Thief in the Night in which the Heavens shall pass away with a great Noise and the Elements shall melt with fervent Heat the Earth also and the Works that are therein shall be burnt up Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of Persons ought ye to be in all Holy Conversation and Godliness looking for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwells Righteousness Wherefore seeing ye look for such things be diligent that ye may be found of him in Peace without Spot and Blameless St. Paul 1 Thess 4.13 directs That they should not sorrow for their dead Friends as if they were without Hope concerning them For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him and they shall be rais'd at the Sound of the Trumpet and the Voice of the Archangel He does not tell his Proselytes That their Friends Souls are gone to Heaven as any Comfort or Ease of their Sorrows but he builds their Comforts upon the strong Rock of the Resurrection And thus have we both Peter and Paul to sound and credible Witnesses in this Case directing to a good Life and a strong Comfort in Death from a firm Hope of a future Resurrection in due Time without one Word concerning the Soul's Immortality or drawing any Comfort or Help from thence at all P. 156 The Advers says Make not your Prison too strong as if he assented to the false Platonick Imagination That the Body was made by God for a Prison to the Soul Which every Man 's daily Experience contradicts and proves certainly to us as has been before said That the Conjunction of the Soul and Body is the most amicable of any thing in the World and their Separation most grievous and terrible and That the Body's being a Prison to the Soul is an Opinion both false and foolish tho' it seems very well fitted for the Adversary's Part. He goes on and says Think how quickly this Flesh must be laid aside He should have added And this Spirit extinguished and then there will be no miserable or happy Soul to take notice of P. 157 the Advers demands What Relief will it be to your Souls to remember that in this Life you had your good Things The Observer does not believe that before the Resurrection there will be any such Soul or Remembrance It is true that in the Parable of Dives Abraham says to him Son Remember that in thy Life-time thou hadst thy good Things But the Parable no where makes mention of a Soul but in all Places it applies to the Person Lazarus died and was carried by Angels into Abraham's Bosome And Dives died and being in Hell he lift up his Eyes and saw Lazarus afar off in Abraham's Bosome It seems fit to be consider'd how Dives cou'd see a Soul at so great a Distance and speak audibly to Abraham afar off without a Tongue Men do usually imagine This Discourse and Proposal shou'd be applied to the Souls of these two Persons But the Observer thinks there 's no Necessity to take it in that Sense but either to let it pass as a bare Similitude or Parable invented or that it may as well or better be intended concerning the Persons mentioned in the Text before quoted and the rather because Abraham calls Dives Son Remember This Term of Son cannot be applicable to a separate Soul because that Term is properly applied to the Person and also because if our Adversary say true such a Soul cou'd not be descended from Abraham but was newly created by God upon the Begetting of the Body of Dives Whence it seems still That the Relation concerning these Person is but a bare Similitude or Parable and proves nothing Or must be applied to the State of these two Person consider'd in the Contextures of their Bodies and Souls together The Adversary seems to doubt whether Souls go to appointed Places or hover about those Places where their Bodies are interr'd The Observer says It is no Wonder that Men of his Opinion have many Doubts concerning their
sorts of Souls Quod quid unde quando ubi quomodo quo in none of which Points they ever yet came to an agreed Resolution nor can they make any tolerable Demonstration concerning any one of those Quaeries that may give a Reasonable Satisfaction to a diligent Enquirer after them He says That if his Soul had not been hindred by vicious Courses it wou'd have mounted aloft into a purer Region Which Doctrine is pure Platonick and Heathenish not proveable in any Part of Scripture or Dictate of Reason The Parable of Dives says Lazarus was carried by Angels into a Place of Rest intending likely his Person but clearly he was carried and did not mount aloft of himself into any more pure Region He speaks of a Relation we have to a World of Spirits whither we are going The Observer denies we have any Relation to those Spirits after our Deaths or that any of us go to them or have a Subsistence amongst them Whence the Adversary shou'd better have proved what he here delivers or have been less magisterial and positive in the Delivery of it P. 159 He advises Men to think they do but dream of Afflictions Sufferings and Pains when they lie under them and are sensible of them This way of amusing himself the Observer thinks is fallen upon the Advers whilst he sits musing and inventing with himself concerning the Being Nature and Actions of his immortal Soul For if he conceive Men may imagine real Pains and Sufferings but to be Dreams well may his Imaginations concerning Immortal Souls be reputed Dreams by those who nearly and impartially shall examine them P. 160 He speaks still of Adversity and Prosperity as if they were but Parts of a Dream Which Opinion really is yet a most manifest Error and which he shall never be able to perswade intelligent Persons to consent to He speaks of our Arrival at the invisible World of Realities which it seems he believes but as if we was in a Dream which the Observer conceives he has been in during the greatest Part of that Time wherein he wrote this Treatise First he has dream'd That there is such a Soul in Man as is an Intelligent Spirit and shall subsist in a State of Separation after the Death of the Body And that after its Departure out of the Body it shall go to an invisible World of Realities to abide among them Where or how he neither does nor can tell but he still dreams forward That his Soul and those of whom he has a good Opinion shall be in some sort of Happiness but what sort of Happiness himself yet is no way resolv'd whether in Heaven Abraham's Bosome or in the Air or in Alcinous's Garden the Fortunate Islands or the Elysium Fields or that with the Americans they shall live dancing and singing beyond certain high Mountains or in Mahomet's Paradise shall sit by Rivers of Milk Honey Oil and Wine and fulfil their lustful Appetites as often as they please Take all these sorts of States of Souls after Death they are all but Dreams of a suitable sort and Nature fit Subjects for Men of Fancy to be employ'd about And to such Pleasing Imaginations the Adversary shall be left whilst the Observer sets up his Rest upon what the Scripture teaches plainly and proves concerning the Resurrection of the Dead and last final Judgment and a blessed or cursed State after them finding by divers clear Natural Experiments That the Life of Man is maintained by Blood and Breath and acted by the inflamed Particles of Blood call'd the Spirits which must daily be renew'd and refresh'd with Nourishment and Rest that when these are spent the Person languishes and decays and when they are restor'd and refresh'd the Person is vivid and active If Nourishment fail or the Breath be stopp'd the Person dies beyond all Remedy and the total Extinguishment of that Flame of Life which is nourish'd in the Blood is the Death of the Person and cannot be rekindled in it by less than a Divine Power who first kindled and tinded it in the Body of our Grand-father Adam And the same Death which dissolves the Contexture between the Soul and the Body destroys the Persons of Men as well as the Contextures of Beasts without any other Difference between them save that of the Resurrection This is foretold promis'd and threaten'd to Mankind and the World of Humane Persons without that there are any such Prophecies Promises and Threatnings deliver'd concerning the Beasts and therefore David rightly calls them the Beasts that perish utterly And as by natural Experience we find that maintains the Life of Man so if we search into the Beginning of his Nature and Composition ab ovo as Men use to speak we may find one Man do's not less perfectly beget another than a Horse or any other Animal begets Creatures of a like Species with themselves There passes a Vital Principle in their several Seeds which being coagulated in loco idoneo proceed to a Fermentation and being there fomented in their proper Receptacles they arise and grow by degrees to a Vegetation This Vital Spirit still operating in the Mass now vegetated it proceeds to the Formation of the several Parts and Organs of the Body extending and spreading it self throughout the whole Mass and therein working till all the Parts and Organs of the Body are fully form'd and perfected And thence this Vital Spirit proceeds to the Production of Sense in the newly form'd Embryon which perfected it brings with it into the World the two fore-named Faculties of Vegetation and Sense which remain with the new-born Infant as its only proper Powers for some time after its Arrival in the World till that by degrees the Bodily Organs become so dilated and strengthened and the Spirits of the Blood so vivid and active that they produce in the Infant some low degrees of Thinking and Knowledge such as we find in the Brutes what Diet pleases them and to distinguish such for their Friends as give them Food Ease and Pleasure and to avoid such Things and Persons as are terrible and strange to them And thus they live and grow till their Bodily Organs encrease and grow in Capacity and Strength till the Stomack Liver and other sanguificial Parts are able more strongly to concoct the Nourishment and to prepare and rectifie the Blood to a higher Degree of Purity and Vigour And thence the Spirits ascending to the Brain and finding there the Organs or Instruments still more enlarged and apter to perform the Duties of the Rational Faculty they act therein to such Purposes as God has there appointed and ordained to be performed And thus the Vital Spirits and Bodily Organs proceed and grow together until they both obtain their Perfection of Degrees such Blood and Spirits acting throughout the whole Body and in every Parcel and Member of it those Powers and Activities which the great Artificer intended them for And by the Continuity and active Motions
kindled by the fanning of a competent Breath or Wind which God caus'd to be Breathed into him or according to the usual Expression God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life This Breath tinded the fresh Steems of the Bloud and Humour and kindled in Adam the Flame of Life And that was continued and maintained in his Body by the continual fanning of that Breath of Life And whensoever that Breath is stopped such Flame must needs be extinguished and that Extinguishment is the very Death of the Person Now tho' this gentle Flame when the Body is well conditioned is not uritory but lambent yet thereby and by continual Motion of the pure Bloud which Daily supplies inflamed Spirits for Actuating and Enlivening the several Parts of the Humane Body upon that account it suffers a considerable and Daily waste and consumption for supply of which a little Wheat-meal or something of that Nature is often required and Daily necessary Our Daily Experience teaches us that an active and lively Spirit may be Extracted from a Decoction of the Grains of Wheat or Malt or Flesh or any like sorts of Nourishment which by Comminution is fitted for a more easie Concoction after which the fitting result is converted into Chyle and that after is changed into Bloud and is then sent up to the Heart for a Purification and thence departing is fanned and made glowing by the Breath and those inflamed Particles pass up through the Arteries into the Head and Brain where meeting with Organs prepared by God for that purpose they cause and maintain such Life Power and Activity as are suitable to those Purposes for which God at the first Created and Intended them And by such their Motion Activity and Energy amongst those Capital Organs are produced the Affectionate Sensitive Perceptive Imaginative Estemative Memorative and Voluntary Powers and Faculties of the Humane Head or Brain And such Stock of Spirits as are found redundant in that Receptacle descend from thence by the Nerves and are by them Communicated to every Part and Member of the Body to which they Communicate Life Sense and Motion but no understanding because there are no other Organs in the Body capacitated for that Performance but only in the Head These Spirits and the Bloud of which they are formed give Life Strength and Motion to every Part and Member of the Body and therefore are called Vital Spirits and yet these Spirits and the Bloud out of which they are formed have neither Sense nor Life For if a Vein be opened and the fresh Bloud be suffer'd to spurt into the Fire neither the Blood nor the Party will be sensible of Pain by the so doing Whence it appears That these Bloud and Spirits cause that Sense and Life in the Body which they themselves have not when separated from it And the like we say for the Inflamed Spirits which ascend up to the Head and actuate the Organs there found We say that the Kephaline Organs deprived of such Spirits are not intelligent but a dead and stupid Matter And that the Inflamed Spirits though of great Metle and Activity are neither Intellective nor Sensitive but that by acting the Kephaline Organs they cause and produce Life Sense Reason and Activity in the Person and thereby are performed such Actions and they produce such effects as God intended should commonly be produced in the Persons of Men. And this may be much illustrated and proved by an Argument a Simily taken from the Structure of a Musical Organ the Fabrick of which consists of a great number of Pipes well ordered and put together every of which Pipes is made to render a Singular and Particular Sound of Treble Mean Tenor or Bass All which together well Constituted and rightly Ordered by the Skill of the Artificer imployed by an Active Hand send forth such Pleasing and Harmonious Sounds as are both delightful and admirable to the Considerate Hearers and yet all this Fabrick is but a dead and stupid Matter and can do nothing of it self without being supplied with a suitable Spirit from another Agent the Bellows But upon receiving from thence a suitable Breath or Spirit for putting all its Powers and Capacities into Action it makes the most excellent Harmony of any Instrument in the World which is a Proceeding well known unto Men by daily Experience and whereby it clearly appears That the Fabrick of the Organ by it self or the Inspiring Breath or Wind of the Bellows can make no Musical Sound at all but are each of them singly utterly incompetent for that purpose The Wind proceeding from the Bellows has no such Sound in it self but by entring into the Pipes and acting them receives such a Modulation and Conformation of Sounds as the Artificer who made the Organ intended should be produced And by this Simily it plainly appears That neither the Wind by it self nor the Fabrick of the Organ by it self can perform any part of that Harmony which by the Design of the Artificer was intended to be effected So as the Wind coming from the Bellows which has no Sound at all does by its Passage into the Fabrick and Pipes thereof and the acting of them produce Sounds so melodious as affect the considerate Hearers with Delight and Wonder And now the Observer does apply this Simile to Teach and Demonstrate the great Art and Skill shewn by the great Artificer of the World in contriving the Body and especially the Head of Man in such wonderful manner as it might be continually Enlivened and Acted by such a Material Spirit as he intended for it to be continually supplied from the Bloud which was also to be supplied by Daily Nourishment provided by God and given to Man for that purpose and was always to be fanned and thereby continued in a lasting Flame so long as the Life of the Person should endure This Similitude Proves That a Material Spirit Acting in fit Organs may produce such Operations as the Spirit alone or the Organs alone have not the like Capacity to Perform quae non prosunt singula juncta juvant The inflamed Spirits of Bloud have neither Affections Senses nor Intellect nor have the Kephaline Organs these Powers of or by themselves but the Spirit Acting those Organs as the Wind does in the Organ-Pipes there is produced in both the Fabricks in Statu Composito by those Powers and Faculties so Acted that which is in no measure is found in the Constituent Parts of such a Compositum considered in a State of Separation from one another And upon this whole Discourse the Observer thinks it very clear That Mr. M. either did not understand the Intent of that Pamphlet he pretends to Answer and the Forms of Expressions there used or else he intended to Impose upon his unwary Readers and Ridicule them by his witty Expression here used If the former he seems thereby Convicted of great Ignorance and Mis-apprehension if the latter it seems he Disingenuously intended to
Powers and Actions of the Brutes are thus derived But concerning the Quomodo from what sort of Contexture and manner of Mixture with what sorts of Spirits and sorts of Organs and what Quantity and Purity are thereunto required Also the how after what manner Applicando activa passivis the Bestial Powers and Actions proceed from them the Observer esteems to be the Arcanum Opificis and this Mr. M. himself confesses to be so How then can he without some measure of Effrontery demand an Account of the Observer concerning the Quomodo or manner of proceeding in Efficiency of Perception Intellect and Memory by Motion and Operation of the Spirits in the Heads of Men. Quae Supra nos nihil ad nos It is not in the Power or Intellect of Man to proceed so far in the Scrutinies of Nature but rather it seems Men must let that alone for ever and leave that Mystery undiscovered and untouched to rest in the deep Fountain of God's Knowledge and Wisdom It seems also to be worthy of further Observation That all Men who have received and believed the Opinion that there are separate Intelligent Spirits in the World which Act and Perform divers things that exceed the ordinary Capacity of Humane Power it is ordinary for such Men to Apprehend upon sight of any strange thing done the Quomodo of which they cannot Investigate or find out the Reasons of it That those Things or Actions are the Performances of such Intelligent Spirits So Plato Apprehending the Souls of Men to exceed the ordinary Capacity of Man's Understanding fram'd this Imagination concerning them That they did Pre-exist before their coming into the Bodies of Men even before the Existence of our present World That in a former World they had displeased God by their Misbehaviours and that upon Creation of our present World they were doomed and put into Bodies of Clay as into Cages or Prisons and to pass in way of Drudgery from one Body to another for their Punishment and Purgation until some of them might attain such Degrees of Purity as to ratise themselves above the Lower Regions and attain to the Places of their former Stations And that other Ordinary Souls not so Purified must still continue in the Works of their Drudgery and so pass from Prison to Prison till the time Appointed for the Duration of this World be fully Passed Finished and Ended Aristotle conceiv'd That each of the Planets was fixed in a several Orb which had a continual Orbicular Motion And when he could not invent for them a Rational or likely Cause of such Motion he satisfied himself with pretending That those Orbs were moved each by its particular Angel whom he was pleased to call by the Names of Intelligences We Read of some strange Fabricks made by the Hands of Artificers as Tripodes in the Temple of Vulcan made by Daedalus which would remove of themselves from one Place to another without any visible assistance And Architas's Pigeon made at Tarentum which would Fly high into the Air and there make divers Doubles and Turns and then return to the Place from which she parted The first of these pass'd for a Miracle done by the Power of the God Vulcan and the second for the Act of a Daemon inclosed in the Fabrick of the Pigeon In our Times Namely of King Hen. VIII liv'd Regiomontanus a great Artist of this kind who at a Royal Reception of the Emperor into Nuremburg caus'd an Eagle of Wood covered with Feathers to meet the Emperor upon the Road and return with him to the City hovering over that Royal Head or near it until he came to the Gate of it which all the Spectators took for a Miracle But when they understood it was an Artificial Fabrick they said no Man could effect such a thing by Natural Means but the Motion must needs be made by an inclosed Daemon or Intelligent Spirit From which Aspersion of Necromancy the Artist could never reclaim the People especially because that some Years after he made a Fly whose Matter and Substance was all of Iron which at a solemn Feast made by that Emperor crept from the Sleeve of the Artist who sat at the lower end of the Table and rising thence she Flew up along one side of the Table before the Guests Faces then cross'd it at the end before the Emperor and flew in like manner down the other side of the Table to the lower end where the Artist put forth his Hand and receiv'd her and she crept again under his Sleeve to her former Station This made a great noise and cry in the World against the poor Artificer whom the Emperor did with difficulty defend against the Violences and Exclamations of the People though he shew'd and demonstrated his Works and Devices made in the Bodies of these Machines For the People who could not understand that such things could possibly be done by Humane Art said Those things were but pretended to make a shew of Artificial Working whereas the Truth could not be otherwise than that such Motion or Action must needs be Performed by the Force and Power of a separate Intelligence And the Case now Disputed seems very like this Our Opponents will not believe That the Skill and Power of God can Act the Fabrick of Man's Body by the Force and Energy of a Material Unintelligent Spirit but that in the Acting of Humane Powers he must needs employ a separate subsisting and Intelligent Spirit And this is the Case which is now Disputed amongst us The Observer Maintains That God can Animate and Act the Humane Fabrick and cause to be Performed all the Actions and Powers of Man by the Force and Energy of a Material Unintelligent Spirit And this was the Issue in the very Point Disputed betwixt this Observer and Mr. B. whose Sermon p. 27. positively delivers in these Words Omnipotence it self cannot Create a Cogitative Body not that there wants Power in God so to do but that the reason of his not being able so to do arises from the incapacity of the Matter and because the Ideas of Matter and Thought are incompatible The Observer in his Pamphlet of Observations upon this Sermon Flatly deny's the Truth of this Assertion and argues against it both by Reasons and Instances in that Pamphlet To which Mr. M. in this Treatise professes to Answer and yet he is pleased to slip over this Point without taking any Notice or making any mention of it The reason of which his pretended Negligence is clearly this He durst not undertake to maintain Mr. B's Assertion and was very unwilling to own that it was an Error or that the Observer had the better of him in any thing The Laws of True and Fair-dealing requir'd of him to take Notice of this Question which was mainly Disputed by the Observer against Mr. B. in that short Pamphlet and either to have Maintained Mr. B's Assertion or confest That it was an Error And his avoiding so to do
testifies against his Ingenuity and the faithfulness of his Dealing in this Treatise It is true That if upon Tryal the Verdict shall pars upon the Observer's side against Mr. B's Assertion and That God can Act the Person of Man in all his Natural Faculties and Powers by the Activity and Energy of a Material Unintelligent Spirit There will still remain another Question behind Whether God has done so or has otherwise provided for it But till the first Question be Determined there is neither need nor Reason to Dispute upon the second for if God cannot Act the Persons of Men and all their Faculties by such a Material Spirit then it is certain He has not done so And then there is no need at all for Disputing the second Question P. 40. Mr. M. Discourses upon that which he calls a Natural Conscience which the Observer thinks he is mistaken in For that Conscience seems not Emanant from Nature in such manner as his Natural Affections and Inclinations are not as his desire of Food or Venery both comprehended under the Name of Lust nor as his Covetousness Ambition Wrath or Fear nor as divers other Things are which proceed from a Savage as well as a Cultivated Nature But to create a Conscience in Man there must some Law first be given him and accepted by him and by which he believes his Actions acd Behaviour ought to be Governed For that where there is no Law there is no transgression So that if Man has never Accepted or Submitted to any Law whereby he thinks his Actions ought to be Ruled he can never be capable of any Stings of Conscience For that those Stings arise from the Perswasion Convincing him That he has Offended against a Law which he ought in Duty to have Obeyed For all Conscience whether he call it Natural or Acquired must grow out of several Originals Accordingly First There must be a Law next There must be an Action upon which two the Memory must act and represent to the Judgment both the Law and the Action The Judgment must compare and consider them one with another and whether the Action be a Breach of the Law or not If it be not there follows an Acquittance by the Judgment but if a Breach be found then it is considered How far that Breach extends Whether it be wide and large or narrow and small And the Stings and Lashes of the Conscience are greater or lesser according to these Proportions So that he thinks Conscience to be no more than the Conviction of a Man's Judgment That he has Acted against his Rule And whether that Rule be grounded upon Verity and Sound Truth or upon Falsity and Error yet after a a Man has received it for a Rule and submitted his Mind to the Observance of it the Stings and Lashes of the well-grounded Conscience and of the erroneous Conscience are alike But such Mistakes and Confusions are not incident to Properties and Faculties Naturally Emanant from the Constitution of Nature it self He agrees The Lashes of Conscience or Self-condemnation may be very great but thinks they are rather derived from Institution than Nature He has spoken somewhat largely to this Point in his fore-mentioned Treatise and therefore will Descant no more upon it in this Place because it will there be found and because it is a Subject that neither can be nor ought to be handled in few Words P. 41. Mr. M. Demands Is it possible that any Man should believe That the Notions of a Moral Good and Evil the Remorse of a bad Conscience and the Joys of a good one should proceed from nothing else but the shufflings and cuttings of the spirituous Parts of the Blood up and down the Ventricles of the Brain To this the Observer Answers The possibility of Acting such Things as he specifies by the inflamed Particles called Spirits in the Brain Depends upon the Question before Answered Whether God can Act the Humane Person and all his Faculties by those Material Spirits For if so He can do then these Actions and Faculties are not derived barely by the Motions and Actings of such Spirits but from the Wisdom Skill and Power of the Great Artificer He that looks upon a Pair of Bellows and sees and feels the Wind which proceeds from them and knows no more of the Composition of an Organ than what he can conceive by the Bellows and their Breath could by no Arguments be perswaded That the Wind which proceeds from them should cause such Excellent Harmony in that Instrument as our Daily Experience Proves may be Performed The Skill and Power of God has fitted and prepared suitable Organs in the Head for such Performances and such as being acted moved and filled by these Spirits can with and by then Produce Sense Conception Intellect Memory and all other Powers and Faculties whatsoever which are by God intended to be Performed in the Brain and the Ventricles thereof Concerning this Scbject we find in Mr. Lock 's Essay concerning Humane Vnderstanding Fol. 310. his Opinion touching this Matter where he saies We have the Ideas of Matter and Thinking and possibly shall never be able to know Whether any bare Material Being Things or no it being impossible for us by Contemplation without Revelation to discover Whether Omnipotence has not given Power to some Systems of Matter fitly disposed to Perceive and Think or else That he has joined and fixed to Matters so disposed a Thinking Immaterial Substance He thinks it possible for God to put Matter so together as that it may be capable of Perception and Thought Men cannot by Reason find out the Grounds of Sensation in Bodies or Matter but must Attribute that Power only to the good Pleasure of God We must allow That God has annexed Effects to Motion which we can no way conceive it able to produce Whence the Observer inferrs That Perception Reason and Memory may be produced in the Organs of an Humane Head by the Activity and Motion of such Animal Spirits although we can no way conceive the manner how such Actings and Motions are or can be able to produce them P. 43. Mr. M. saies The frequent Conflicts between Reason and the Sensitive Appetite fully prove That there is a Power Superior to that of Matter and Motion and that there is in Man a regent predominant Principle which sometimes chooses the things most distasteful to Sense and uses the Body as its Instrument to serve its own Will and Pleasure And this Power saies he must needs be the Rational Intellectual Spirit in Man To this the Observer Answers By denying that there is such a Regent Predominant Power in Man as he supposes For that daily Experience shews us that the Affections and Passions do far more often prevail over the Rational Inclinations and Desires of Men and hurry the rational Powers along with them to act all Uncleanness with Greediness then that such Rational Powers are able to restrain and govern those
Scripture which bend very strongly against it Mr. M. further saies That all Men and Epicurus himself desire an Immortality Whereas the Instance which he there gives Proves no more but that they desire to be remembred after their Death with good Thoughts and a Kindness amongst Men As if he could not distinguish between such a Remembrance and Immortality P. 48 Mr. M. Demands Whence and how the Opinion of the Immortality came to the Minds of Men And if you cannot tell him this he will conclude That it sprang from the Inclination of Humane Nature To this the Observer Answers That the apparent Original of this Opinion grew from the Conception or Apprehension of his Named Philosopher Pherecydes in a late Age of the World in comparison of the Times which were passed before him That this Opinion offered by him to the World seem'd to gratify and comply with one of the chief Humane Affections viz Ambition and was quickly improv'd to be an useful Instrument of Government amongst Men It was therefore desirously Received and Cultivated First by Mothers and Nurses to their Infants next by Fathers and Tutors and at last by Priests and Princes and a strong support of Vertue and Government amongst the People of those Times to whom the Promise of the Resurrection were not Revealed and who therefore had no Conception or Knowledg of it But was no more a Product of Nature than the Opinion of the Sun's Course about the Earth or diators which was the first Ground of Idolatry and Supports it in the World to this very Day Chap. IV. p. 49. Mr. M. saies Ex vero nil nisi verum And this the Observer agrees to be true Mr. M. saies further That if the Material Opinion be true no Man is the same this Year or Week that he was the last This the Observer denies and saies That the changes of Matter whether Bodily or Spirituous do not effect a change of the Person though it be a Contexture of them both For that there is always in the Person a like Contexture of Matter and Spirit producing in the Person the like and the same Powers by a continual succession of Matter and Spirit of one same Nature the succeeding Particles of Blood and Parts of Matter being always of a Similar Nature in their Renovation with those which Daily and Hourly may be consumed P. 51. He Quotes a Saying of Heraclitus That no Man can enter twice into the same River because saies he the Man will not be the same at his Second coming that he was at the first Say we It is because the River was not the same at his second coming that it was at the first because those Waters which were there at his first coming are pass'd far downwards and other Waters succeeded in their Place We say also That a Tree after it has stood grown and decayed for Three or Four hundred Years is still the same Tree altho' Yearly and Weekly great Changes befal it We can say nor think no otherwise of it but that it is still the same Tree because all its Changes and Alterations are Acted by a Similar Spirit and Matter all of the same Nature one of them with another Whence if it belong'd to Mr. M. to Day he will call it and think it his own Forty Years hence if he has not otherwise disposed of it And therefore whatsoever Mr. M. may tell the Observer concerning his Estate it will find no more Credit with him than his Assertion of the Soul's Immortality does Daily Experience assures That if a Child or Man be Spirited Lost or has Travelled into Remote Parts or willingly absents himself from his Relations yet if after many Years Absence he return and that by certain Marks upon his Body or other clear Evidence it do appear That the Party returning was one the same no Enquiry shall be made concerning his Immortal Intelligent Spirit But the Jury will be bound upon their Oaths to find such a Sameness of the Person as will give him a clear Right to any of his Ancestors Lands tho' Deceased long before that time P. 51 Mr. M. comes again to his former Argument a Quomodo and Asks moreover If the new Spirits know what the old were or did And to this the Observer returns his former Answer That neither the old Spirits nor the new know any thing at all of what they do in the Head And for the Quomodo of the Memory and its concerns let Mr. M. first give us some Account how his Intelligent Soul works in it and by what sort of those Operations that comes to pass which he desires to know viz. Why Old Men remember Things long past better than those Things lately come to their Knowledge P. 53 Mr. M. saies If there be no Superior Principle in Man to Correct the Irregularities of the Material Spirits and their Motions Man is not a capable Subject of being Govern'd by Laws in a Moral Way The Observer Answers That the motion of such Material Spirits well constituted in the Brain are no more Irregular than that of the Wind is in the Organ For they both Execute the Appointments of God and Nature in their several Instruments or Places and go always to Work after the same manner Performing their Offices according to the Institutions of Nature which never Alters or Errs in such Cases Further Mr. M. saies The Will must either be free or else be necessitated by the irresistible Impulse of some Superior Cause The Observer Answers as before That as free as the Will is it is in all deliberate Actions Directed by the Judgment and moves the Loco-motive Powers accordingly and that it can not more deny Obedience to such Results of the Judgment than Water can cease to run from the higher to the lower Places This the Water does freely not necessitated by any External Force or Power but led by its Natural Propensity and so the Will follows in its full Natural freedom the Dictates and Directions of the Judgment without being necessitated by any outward Force or other than its own proper Inclination Whence the Will has a full Natural Freedom and yet follows the Dictates and Directions of the Judgment concerning Truth and Falshood Right and Wrong Beneficial and Dangerous and all other such like Points of Choice whatsoever And Mr. M's shufflings and cuttings upon those Points seem more uncertain and Erroneous than those of the Spirits in the Head and Brain which he pretends so much to Ridicule As to what he charges Mr. Hobbes with the Observer is utterly unknowing whether it be true or no nor dare he give full Credit to Mr. M's Quotation thereupon nor is willing to take the trouble of searching after the truth of it P. 54 Mr. M. saies That if the Material Spirits be inordinate in their Motions you are in a ready way to make God the Author of Sin No more saies the Observer than by making him the Author of Man or
desire a sober knowing and Canvas of his Opinion The Primitive Greek Churches Disturbed and Divided by the Heresies of Sabellius Arius and divers others call'd upon Eleutherius then Bishop of Rome to stand up for the Catholick Doctrine and the Peace of the Christian Church So the Observer is desirous to incite and stir up the present Bishop of Worcester whose Light is now great in the Church that as he has lately Written excellently well concerning the Trinity so he will take upon him to Treat fully and purposely concerning this Question if his Age and Infirmity will permit Conferring thereupon with his most able Brethren and communicating to some of them his Labours as they are Written in single Sheets during the course of his Progress which may have a double Advantage First That any thing therein found amiss may be more easily amended or Transcribed Secondly A prevention of its passing forward with a communicative Tincture in any of those Sheets that may follow it Our Lawyers are very cautious in their Proceedings upon Questions of great Moment If the great Counsellors differ amongst themselves in a Point in Law the Matter is brought to Tryal by Process in one of the Courts at Westminster where it is Argued before the Judges of it and if they also differ upon the Point it is carried by Process into the Chequer-Chamber to be there Tryed before all the Judges of England who sit and hear it Argued before them by the ablest Lawyers on either side three four or five times at several considerable Distances Spaces or Terms that there may be time enough given for the full Inspection or Consideration of it And after they have heard what can be spoken on either side then the Judges themselves Argue the Point as largely as they please each declaring his own Opinion thereupon And then if there be a considerable number of Dissenters against the major Opinion they Adjourn the Case yet further propter difficultatem to further Days and Times having sufficient intervals such as map still give more leisure for a fuller Consideration And in fine if the dissenting Party still hold to be very considerable they Adjourn the Case before the Upper-House of Parliament and there it is again Argued by Counsel on both sides as often as the Lords think fit to Appoint Then the Judges Argue again and deliver their Opinions with the Reasons thereof then such of the Lords as please speak to it and it is at last finally Determined by the Majority of Voices in the Lords House after which it passes for Law in all the Courts of Westminster and throughout the whole Kingdom of England and stands for a Rule in the Case Disputed and in all other like Cases The Observer further saies That if the Fore-named Learned Bishop will take the pains to Examine the particulars alledged by him in this and his former larger Treatises and give such Answers to them as upon Conference he shall think fit to do And let the Staff fall which way it will he will hereafter be silent without publickly Disputing or Writing against the said Bishop's declared Opinion so delivered and confirmed as afore-said He knows that the said Bishop has Defended the Opinion of the Immortality in his Writings But he takes the Bishop for a Person of great Integrity and that he is a Old and likely as near Death as himself He knows of himself That the whole Kingdom of England offered him to give a false Verdict in this or the like Case would be utterly despises by him And he conceives full as well of the Bishop and therefore dare remit the Point now in Dispute to his Determination as afore-said P. 63. Mr. M. saies The Material Opinion cannot stand but upon the supposition of a continual Course of Miracles to make it good which is very Absurd and Vnphilosophical The Observer Replies granting the Rule That to Prove by Miracles is unphilosophical and that he holds it convenient in this Place to Examine which of the Two Opinions now in Dispute stand the most in need of Miracles to Prove the Truth of it and which of the opposite Parties make most use of that sort of Argument The Material Opinion he says has only one wonderful Work in it viz. The great Effect of God's Wisdom and Power in producing Life Growth Motion Affection Sensation Perception Imagination Judgment Memory all sorts of Thinking by his Skilful contexture of Matter and Spirit together which our Opponents are pleased to express by the Terms of Matter and Motion Mr. B. denies That the Skill and Power of Divinity can in that manner produce these Effects But Mr. M. obiter or transiently grants That the Skill and Power of Omnipotence can Effect such Things if he pleases by Natural means applicando activa passivis as we see he gives the vast Body of the Sea a Motion with divers variations which Men cannot yet comprehend So has he given the Planets Stars and other Heavenly Bodies a perpetual Motion generally regular but with such variations as Men cannot comprehend or understand Plants and Trees Flourish and Decay alternately they shoot out Leaves Blossom and Fruit in a wonderful variety the next Causes of which Men cannot find out Fowls and Brutes Live Grow Move use their Senses and Affections and such low degrees of Phantasie Memory Estimation or Choice as they have by the Virtue and Activity of the Spirits and Blood before-mentioned without Mens being able to apprehend the Quomodo of it And so we may say concerning the activity of the Wind amongst the Organ-pipes a thing which we every Day see with our Eyes hear with our Ears and handle with our Hands and yet are not able throughly to discuss and resolve the Quomodo of all those Actions and Varieties which are Performed by it The fore-going Instances have been produced to Prove a Simile that such like Things have been made and done by God and are still continued and subject to our view in the World as Wonderful Effects of the great Skill and Power of God and which Men are not able to comprehend or understand We proceed to the Immaterial Intelligent Spirit and require of Mr. M. and other Immortalists some sort of Proofs maintaining their Opinion tho' they should be but a Simile We desire them to produce at least some one Instance in Nature where God acts Matter by an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit And the Observer considers they cannot produce any one Instance of such a Conjunction out of the whole Book of Nature except this one which they have invented concerning the Constitution of Man and therefore it is no wonder that they are put to the coining of Miracles for the maintaining of the same Two of which shall here be examined The Wits of Men have never been able to conceive any more ways for the production of the Soul of Man but these Three viz. by Generation by Pre-existence or new Creation of such Souls upon every
Observer any Man who firmly believes the Resurrection of the Person and the last Judgment may do it And perhaps will not be unlikely to fall into a disbelief of this Heathen Immortality P. 91. Mr. M. Confesses That Socrates Cicero and Seneca his Three great Maintainers of the Soul's Immortality and he might have said the same of his Master Plato himself That each of them at divers times did doubt the Truth of this their Doctrine concerning the Immortality and were never able to arrive at a certainty or constant Resolution in this Point And how then can their Disciples hope to do it He Names Dicaearchus as derided by Cicero but he is very highly commended by Pliny and like a true Disciple of his Master Aristotle was a strong Defender of that Master's Opinions and a constant Declaimer against the Soul's Immortality as was also Hippocrates the most Learned Physician P. 92. Anaxarchus calling the Body the Prison of the Soul shews that therein he Erred with the Platonists For Epicharmus's Saying it came from the School of Plato and the Doctrine That the Souls of dying Men were turned into Hero's which Mr. M. will not deny to be a false and fallacious Opinion Mr. M. in this Chapter has gone no higher in the derivation of his Opinion than to the time of Pherecydes who liv'd after the return of the Jews from their Babylonish Captivity which time was less than 600 Years before our Lord's Incarnation and 1000 Years after the Birth of Moses the Prophet and Law-giver of the Jews from whose Writings the Observer pretends to Derive and Prove his Opinion of the Soul's Materiality Taking the said Soul and Life of the Creature to lie and reside in the Blood of it as being the Spirits of such Blood inflamed and glowing which rise first from the Heart to the Head where being made lucid they act the Brain and the Cephaline Organs and thence are conveyed by the Nerves Fibres and Tendons to all the Muscles Joints Members and Parts of the Body All which are invigorated and Acted by such glowing Blood and the Spirits of it so knownly and apparently as that where the passage of this Blood is obstructed so that it cannot arrive at any Part or Member of the Body that Part withers and becomes useless to the Person till such Obstructions be removed And then it may and often does recover sometimes to the wonder of those who effect such Cures We have said before That the Blood of a Beast cast by Transfusion into the Body of a Man will Act the Person and all his Faculties of Motion Sense Speech and Understanding in the same manner that his own Blood perform'd it before and without any great or even perceivable difference Also if the Blood be totally corrupted or exhausted the Person must certainly Die beyond all hope of help or recovery by Humane Art or Knowledge whatsoever And with this Doctrine the Text of Moses seems fully to agree Levit. 17.11 The Life of the Flesh is in the Blood And I have given it to you upon the Altar to make an Attonement for your Souls for it is the Blood that maketh an Attonement for the Soul or Person Ver. 13. He that hunts and kills a Beast or Fowl shall pour out the Blood thereof and cover it with Dust for it is the Life of all Flesh the Blood of it is for the life thereof Therefore ye shall eat the Blood of no manner of Flesh for the life of all Flesh is the Blood thereof This Doctrine is Registred in a History more Ancient than Moses's time by 500 Years Gen. 9.4 But flesh with the life thereof which is the blood thereof shall ye not eat and surely your blood of your Lives will I require at the hand both of man and beast Whosoever sheds this blood of the life of man by man shall his blood be shed for in the Image of God made he man And thus we find it Proved by the highest Antiquity and greatest Wisdom that has been in the World That Blood is the Life of Man and Beast so as the Life is conveyed with and by the Blood to every Part and Member of the Body Where it comes it enlivens and the Part where it cannot come withers and dies If the Spirits of it fail the Person grows feeble and not able to perform any great matter either Active or Contemplative till by rest or nourishment or both they shall be again restored or recruited And this is testified by Daily Sensation and Experience We know these Spirits can Act in this manner Daily and every Day if thus they be recruited and if such Recruits fail the Person waxes feeble and can do nothing but grow more feeble still to Death in a short time for want of Nourishment What these Spirits do we are sure they can do without knowing they have or need assistance from an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit Quod fieri potest per pauciora non debet fieri per plura Natura nihil facit frustra Conclude then we may That the Blood is the Life of Man and the inflamed Particles of it are those admirable fine Spirits which Act the Person and all his Powers And when this Flame of Life extinguishes Man Dies without remedy or possible recovery by Humane Power Chap. VII P. 93. Mr. M. saies He 's obliged in his sort of Civility to vouchsafe the taking notice of the Observer's Argument Which he does in a manner suitable to his former Expressions and perhaps to his Education and Nature He goes on according to his usual Civility and tells the Observer That he wrangles in the Dark about he knows not what Without pleasing to Teach him what he does not know He saies further That the Observer does not Prove in his Pamphlet the Soul 's perishing with the Body but say it only The Observer Answers That the Saying in that Place was enough to excite Mr. B. to a better Proof of his Assertion of the Soul's Immortality And for his Ancient and Modern Arguments which he saies are unanswered the Saying shews That Mr. M. did not understand the Subject or Design of that Pamphlet which he pretends to Answer there appearing in it no intent to Dispute with Mr. B. but only to excite in him a desire and endeavour better to Prove what he had before Asserted Mr. M's following Words express no more but his own Nature and Civility P. 94. Mr. M. says That the Observer does not prove the Mortality of the Souls of Beasts The Observer replies This was no part of his Undertaking either there or here nor do's he think it needful to be done any where because he yet never met with any Man who maintain'd the Opinion that Brutal Souls have any subsistence after the death of their Bodies if Mr. M. pretend to think that they so do he shall here be pointed to Psal 49.12 20. where David compares Men as good as Mr. M. to the
only in Contexture with the Body and the Delights here the Advers speaks of are only agreeable to his own Fancy and such as adhere to his Opinion who may with him fancy themselves conversing with Spirits or the like fruits of their own Imaginations which Men easily give themselves up unto who are apt to follow the Dictates of their own Fancy P. 136 He exhorts his Followers to exercise themselves in the Contemplation of a Deity 'till correspondent Impression be wrought upon their own Spirits transforming them into the same Image The Observer thinks he gives his Followers a piece of dangerous Counsel to imitate the high Extasies of St. Paul in his Extraordinary Raptures and Revelations For that they catching at the Words without understanding the true sense and meaning of them or the design of their Delivery are apt to run into great Errors of Fancy and pretending to make themselves like God become in such Applications more extravagant and vain than the more sagacious sort of Beasts that perish not understanding what they say or whereof they affirm And as one of that sort the Advers shall here be left The Blind to lead the Blind till both fall into the Ditch P. 138 He says The Immortal Spirit may be starved for want of Food The Observer says The Souls of Men may be so for want of their Meal Malt or their other Nourishment which it is every Man's Duty to provide for them to their Power in due Seasons and Distances of Time which may require the same The Advers says further What if God e're this had sent you into a Place where the Immortality of the Soul is better known The Observer says He ought to have named his Place and proved that there is such a Place in rerum Natura before he pretend his Immortal Soul is better known in any Place than it is here But it seems his Place and his Soul are both of a Piece subsisting more in Imagination than in Reality We may consider the use of such a Place If truly such a Place there be wherefore should it have been provided Dr. Sherlock in his Book of the Last Judgment has well proved That the Devils are not yet in Hell The Advers himself says That the Malevolent Spirits wander in the World and sometimes converse with the People in it Which is Evidence That they are not presently in Hell St. Peter and St. Jude tell us That the Devils expect their Punishment after a Condemnation at the Last Judgment which they believe and tremble at The Revelations express That there was War in Heaven Michael and his Angels fought there with the Dragon and the Dragon fought and his Angels but they were vanquished and cast out of Heaven Which was done but a very short time before the Consummation or Last Judgment Whence it seems reasonably inferrible That the Devils are yet not only out of the Verges of Hell but that they are at some Liberty in the World and make sometimes their Progress unto Heaven Whence there seems no need of a present Hell for the Punishment of Devils and for the Separate Souls of Wicked Men There is as little present need of it for that in Truth there seems to be no such Thing in the World as a Humane Soul subsisting in a State of Separation after the Death of the Body Whence if there should be at present such a Place as Hell it must remain utterly unfurnished empty and void which would not be a natural way of Proceeding Quia natura nihil facit frustra So as the Discourses of Separate Souls going to Hell seem rather a Bugbear than a Verity But to this Men reply If there be no fear of Punishment before the Resurrection bad Men mill grow more bold in their Wickedness This the Observer does not grant but believes That they who will not care for the dread of a cursed Resurrection will not be perswaded by the pretence of an immediate Immortality a Truth which daily Experience confirms to us The Distance of Time between Death and the Resurrection how great so ever the same may appear to Living and Sensible Persons is not accounted of by the Dead nor is any Thing dead more Sensible of its passing than the Urn or Stone is wherein the Dead Man's Ashes or Dust are inclosed Whence they rise as but newly fallen asleep without any Sense or Perception of what has passed over them So that Sensibly and Effectually to them no Time has passed over them at all But their Death and Resurrection follow one another immediately without their perceiving that any intermediate Time has passed at all between them But after the Resurrection and Last Judgment past at the Creation of the New Heaven and Earth we read There shall be a Hell also contrived Isa 66.22 23. After God had made the New Heavens and the New Earth those raised to a Happy State shall go forth and look upon the Carcasses of the Men that have transgressed against me For their Worm shall not die neither shall their Fire be quenched So Revel 20.24 Death and Hell delivered up the Dead which were in them and every Man was judged according to his Works and Death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire and every one that was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire Viz. Such as were Condemned at the Last Judgment At which time God creates a New Heaven and a New Earth without a Sea but with a Hell for the Punishment of Condemned Creatures Chap. 21.14 Blessed are they who stand acquitted at that Judgment for that they may enter in through the Gates into the City and have right to the Tree of Life For without are Dogs and Sorcerers and Whore-mongers and Murderers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a Lye And such as follow the old Satanical Rule Audacter calumniare aliquid haerebit Among which number the present Adversary shall have a prime Place given him by the best and truest Judgment which the Observer can make in this Case Pag. 140 the Adversary quotes a Poet some of whose Verses are fit for this Place Think lastly on the World 's great Doom When guilty Souls must to an Audit come A far more heavy Reckoning than e'er You met with here P. 142 The Adversary says Men of the best Reasons will esteem our strongest Reasonings as the Leviathan does Iron or Brass but as rotten Straw and rotten Wood. The Observer grants he is very much in the Right in this Expression but when he adds If he should happen to convine them of which there is little likelihood he thinks their Lusts would prevail against his Arguments and their Convictions In this the Observer says he is True Blew and continues very uncharitably and malevolently Censorious P. 143 The Power of Christianity is scarcely consistent with a dividing censorious uncharitable Frame and Disposition Hence the Observer inferrs That the
Immortality or confirmed him therein But their Opinions weigh not much with the Observer who in his Pamphlet upon Mr. B's Sermon propounds to decide this Controversie by the sole assistance of Scripture and Reason The Adversary pretends to flourish with Names and Quotations of many Author rather to create an Opinion of his own Reading than because they were needful or useful in this Disputation a Practice purposely avoided by the Observer as being apt more to perplex and lengthen the Argument than to shorten or come close up to it and the Particulars of it The Adversary says If you believe that God regards the Affairs and Actions of Mankind then look unto him for light in this matter and he that so seeks after the Truth is in a very likely way to find it The Observer Replys Physician Cure thy self If thou had'st heartily pursued the course here directed it is very probable That God might have preserved thee from uttering and publishing such false and slanderous Calumnies as are inserted in thy Treatise levelled and discharged against an Innocent Person whom thou knowest not not ever hast heard any Man speak so of him much less that thou art able to prove any one of those Slanders which thou hast heap'd upon him and for which he leaves thee to the lashes of God and thine own Conscience and to the judicious and Rational Censure of thy Readers Chap. X P. 131. To the beginning of this Chapter the Observer thinks fit to annex an old English Proverb Let the Geese beware when the Fox Preaches For that although many of these Things which he says may be true according to the practice of an Old Father Obscuris vera involvens yet they are all spoken with intent to perswade and induce the Belief of an Erroneous Doctrine P. 132 The Advers says If I believ'd such Things as the Soul's Immortality I should use the greatest care and diligence to be Holy The Observer applys this to the certain and firm Doctrine of the Resurrection which all Christians do profess to believe He says This Doctrine requires as great Endeavours and striving by way of Preparation for it as that of the Soul's Immortality can do and is much better founded and assured than that is and therefore he advises all Christians to take it more into their Considerations than they formerly have done The new Doctrine of the Immortality has in a great measure shouldred out that of the Resurrection And indeed if the former were certain and true there wou'd be little need of the latter among Christians Persons after the Resurrection are likely to live upon the New Earth and under the New Heaven which will doubtless be a very happy State but if it be compared to the Heaven of Heavens and Throne of God whether they say Good Souls repair at the Death of the Person the Joys of the Earth can come in no Competition with the Joys of Heaven which those separate Souls must then forsake and come to live upon Earth again in their Bodies though Glorified plainly such a Change as those Souls must make at the Resurrection of the Persons is more likely for the worse than for the better Whereas the Doctrine of the Resurrection intends a compleating of the Happiness of Man and bringing it to its highest degree and Perfection as has always been expected and desired by the Church as the highest Happiness the Nature of Man is capable of For Proof of this he quotes Joh. 6. our Lord there four times over says Those that believe and serve him shall be raised up at the last day And at his Departure he tells his Disciples I will come again and receive you to my self that where I am ye may be also Without saying any thing of an intermediate State It runs through all the Gospels that at the Resurrection the Angels shall come and sever the Good from the Bad preserving the one sort and destroying the other Our Lord in Judgment says Come ye Blessed inherit the Kingdom prepared for you and Go ye Cursed into Everlasting fire Not return ye Blessed to Heaven from whence ye came nor return ye Cursed to the Flames of your former Fire But they are both to go to new Places where they had not been before 1 Cor. 15.1 1 Thess 4. Paul in both these Chapters Treats professedly concerning the future State of Man after Death and builds the whole strength of future Recompences upon the Doctrine of the Resurrection only without mention of or pointing to any Thing concerning the Soul's Immortality So Hebr. 11.35 Christians then suffer'd chearfully in expectation of a better Resurrection He also prays that Onesephorus might find mercy in the Last Day And tells Timothy That a Crown of Glory was laid up for him against that Day And so for all other true Christian Believers And the Observer saith That of all the Texts of Scripture quoted for the Immortality not one of them is delivered in a Place where the future State of Man after Death is particularly discoursed of or intended to be taught except what the Parable of Dives may have of that Nature Hence the Observer concludes That the Doctrine of the Resurrection is the main and Rocky Foundation upon which the Expectation of future Recompences can safely be builded and therefore he leaves the Immortality to those who think they find better Ground for it than he hath yet been able to perceive or attain to P. 133 The Advers says If you believe your Souls to be Immortal take care to secure your eternal interest by a good course of life The Observer says If you hope for a happy Resurrection you must take the same Course and to his other Saying and Quotations here the Observer applys them all to the Resurrection which is most certain whatsoever the other may be P. 134 He asks What will make amends for the loss of their Immortal Souls The Observer asks What will make amends for their unhappy Resurrection and Condemnati-at the Last Judgment The Advers says further You must labour to understand what it is must make your Souls happy if ever they be so The Observer says They are never like to be happy or miserable without the Body and therefore labour to obtain a safe and happy Resurrection of them both P. 135 He says That mens souls will tell them something if they take them apart and freely converse with them The Observer wishes he had told us some matter of Fact concerning himself or some other Man who had taken his Soul apart and so conversed with it without which all he says here is but Amusement intending to make Men suppose Their Souls may be taken apart from their Bodies which wou'd truly be the Destruction of them both for that the Person only consists in the Contexture of them both Further the Advers says That the Immortality is suitable for the Nature of the Soul The Observer denies That the Soul has any Nature except