Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A49841
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An argument concerning the human souls seperate [sic] subsistance
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Layton, Henry, 1622-1705.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing L755A; ESTC R34962
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12,820
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17
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coming of the Lord which he says draws nigh without mentioning of any Reward after Death untill the Coming of the Lord. And thus I have quoted a cloud of knowing Witnesses to prove that the hope of Recompences future to this Life is founded upon the firm Rock of the Resurrection and Christs coming to Judgment without mention of a separate state of Souls or other in ermediate Recompences between Death and Judgment and to strengthen the Hope and Belief of those few honest Hearts which our Writer has us'd his best endeavour to over throw and pervert We read Gen. 6.17 God says to Noah I do bring a flood of Waters upon the Earth to destroy all Flesh wherein is the Breath of Life c 7.22 All in whose Nostrils was the Breath of Life of all that was in the dry Land dyed I conceive these Texts do very well explain what is meant or intended by the Words God breath'd into Adams Nostrils the breath of Life whereby he presently became a living Person It seems such a Breath as tinded and kindled in his Blood and Humours and the stems thereof that flame or Spirit of Life which immediately acted his organical Body and gave Life and Motion thereunto and continued to perform that Office in him during the whole time of his Life and in no other manner then it is known to do among the Beasts that perish The breath of all their Nostrils was stopt by suffocation in that deluge and thereby was fully verified what is said by Solomon Eccles 3.19 concerning Men and Beasts as the one dyeth so dyeth the other yea they have all one Breath So that herein a Man hath no preeminence above a Beast all are of the Dust and all turn to Dust again and who knoweth the Spirit of a Man that goeth upward or the Spirit of a Beast that goeth downward to the Earth By which it seems he did not know there was such a difference between the Spirits of Men and Beasts yet that there was among the Men of his time an Opinion or Conjecture that there was or might be such a difference between the Spirits of Men and Beasts concerning which he demands who knows the truth of it Which seems pregnant with this Negative that no Man doth with any clearness know whether there be such a difference between their Spirits or not after which he says chap. 12.7 That when Men dye The Dust shall return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it In his third chap. the matter is argued more at length and with greater deliberation whereas the latter seems but a sudden Expression and without a serious debating upon the matter but thereunto I have made a larger Answer in another Treatise Psal 104.29 David says to God Thou hidest thy Face they are troubled thou takest away their Breath they dye and return to their Dust viz. The Children of Men do so Isa 2.22 Cease ye from Man whose Breath is in his Nestrils for wherein is he to be accounted of Dan. 5.23 Daniel says to Belshazzar thou hast highly honoured thy puppit Gods but the God in whose Hand is thy Breath thou hast not glorified Acts 17.25 Paul tells the Athenians that God needs not their Service or any thing else that the World has in it seeing he giveth to all Life and Breath and all things Upon which I conceive that the expressions of Life and Breath if they be not consignificant are of a similar Nature one to another and may intend the Breath which gives Life A Spirit of the same Nature with that which God breathed into Adams Nostrils at the time of his Creation By the Texts before quoted I stand at the present convinced that the Breath of Life which God breathed into Adams Nostrils was not an immaterial intelligent substance but was of a similar Nature to that before quoted Gen. 7.22 where it is said all in whose Nostrils was the Breath of Life dyed and such as was prophetically call'd for by Ezekiel to come from the four Winds a Breath to breath upon those slain Persons now ready for Life that they might live The Breath of Life which by God was breathed into Adams Nostrils I yet conceive as I have before delivered to have been common Air breathed into him in such a moderate Proportion as might kindle and inflame his Blood and Humours and the stems of them ready and ripe for that operation and activity which the Spirits of Blood so kindled might impart to them and that it was not an extraneous substantial intelligent Spirit created by God at that time and for that purpose And I am ready and desirous to put the whole state of the Controversie upon the true and clear desiding of this Question being ready to grant that if God did create a new substantial intelligent Spirit for that purpose and infused the same into Adams Body for the informing thereof at his Creation that then it is likely he may so continue to do and create new Souls for all persons procreated in humane shapes all the World over and in all ages of it from Adams Creation to our present time But if that Breath of Life which God breathed into Adams Nostrils was only formed of the common ambient Air breathed into him with a fitting moderation for tinding and kindling the flame of Life in his Blood and Humours and the stems thereof then ripe and ready for that Operation then it is likely that God did neither form and make a substantial intelligent Spirit for the acting of Adams Body nor that he hath created such Spirits for Men in the Ages following but that rather such substantial intelligent Spirits have drawn their Original from the apprehensions and Imaginations of Men and because I think the same to be a mistake I do willingly contribute my best endeavours for the rectification thereof and to bring all disputes concerning the same to such a determination as shall be most agreeable to the tenor of Scripture and the clearest rules and dictates of reason that Men are able to attain unto for the more sudden attaining of which end I have propounded to put the whole Controversie upon the determination of this single point whether God did create for Adam a spiritual intelligent Soul or not If my opponents be able to prove with intelligible clearness that he did so then I am ready to give up unto them the Opinion which I maintain in this Controversie and if they be not able to prove the Creation before mention'd they may if they please forbear further to oppose the maintainers of my Opinion concluding thereupon that if they neither can perform one part of the demand nor will submit to the other we shall still be obliged to proceed on both sides to the further examination of the whole Controversie and those many points and arguments which thereupon have risen and are likely to be referred to a further Examination and Determination P. 59 He says he is well able to prove the essence of the Soul to be thinking by fundamental arguments but refuses to do it now because he says it is beside his present purpose But I differ in Opinion and think if he be able to do it that proof will ever be to very good purpose and therefore I request him to bestow his pains upon it believing yet that he will never be able to make a good performance of it viz. that there is either such a Soul in Man as he pretends nor that thinking is the essence of it allowing what he hath before spoken to be true that of that which is not there can be neither effect nor essence P. 60. He would have Men to bring their Minds to such an abstractedness as to lay aside all thoughts of bodily things and all thoughts that come by occasion of Body and then to reflect upon what you find remaining until your Mind hath a reflex and clear knowledge of it self I conceive that this Advice tends to perswade Men to give over all thinking upon the things which they know and to think altogether upon they know not what and so to become distracted as he professes he hath sometime been The remaining Pages of this Pamphlet speak only concerning himself and his own personal actings and sufferings with which I have no design or inclination to meddle and therefore my Observations upon this Pamphlet shall here be concluded and finished FINIS
AN ARGUMENT Concerning the Human Souls seperate Subsistance The PREFACE IN the Month of December 1698. A Neighbour reputed a Quaeker came to me and brought in his Hand a small Pamphlet whose Title was Spira Respirans and delivering the same unto me he told me that there were divers Arguments in it for proving the Souls separate Subsistance which he perceived I stood in doubt of I liked his charitable Inclination for drawing Men out of Error or the uneasiness of a doubting Condition and upon perusal of his Treatise did find that it medled not with this Subject until the very latter end of the Pamphlet or the 48 page of it from whence my Examination begins And thereby I found that he produces three Arguments for the Souls separate Subsistance The two first whereof I thought to be fancyful or enthusiastick and therefore I have made very short Answers to them But his Third Argument I found to be more sober and substantial and drawn from two principal Topicks The first of them from the Resurrection and the second from Gods creating of Souls for Men and to each of them I have made a distinct Answer and more at large then to both his former and therein have satisfyed my own Vnderstanding and yet I remain under a desire to hear the judgment of other Men upon this Subject and force of the Arguments herein specifyed I believe that the Precept delivered in Moses Law of not seeing Sin or Error in our Brethren without reproving them for it is in full practice at this Day And as I have taken my share in doing so I expect a share in suffering according to the Tenor thereof If I might chuse the manner of being reproved it should be done with Love and in the Spirit of Meekness but if that cannot be obtained I will rather adventure the being lash'd or spatter'd with the Dirt of Reproaches as I have once before been then to continue in Error or such a state of doubting as I have long been under concerning the nature of the Subject here put under Examination And therefore I expose the present Pamphlet to the publick View with submission to the tryal of other Mens judgments thereupon And shall say no more to my considerate Reader then that I wish him heartily to Farewel Spira Respirans Lond. printed 1695. in 8vo Pag. 48. THE Writer of that Pamphlet says there are some few honest Hearts who perswade themselves and would have others perswaded that the Soul is mortal and dies with the Body And in kindness to these honest Persons he intends here to prove that the Soul doth indeed live when separated from the Body and that therefore it is immortal In proving of which Assertion he supposes as granted that there is in Man a Bodily being and a Spiritual being so distinct one from another as that they are beings of a different Nature and devidable one of them from another with a continuance of subsistance to them both And his so doing I say is but begging and not proving the point now in question between us For the honest Hearts to whom he writes do deny that there is such a spiritual Being or Substance in Man as is utterly immaterial or that hath any such being of it self as that it can subsist in a state of separation from the Body His part in the dispute of this Question should have been first to prove that there is such a spiritual being in Man as he hath before supposed And because he hath not done so nor made any Overtures or Offers towards it and his Opponents will not accept of his Suppositions that there is such a Spirit in Man as he hath surmised all his Arguments founded upon that surmise fall and fail of themselves for want of a real and true Foundation for the support of them and need no farther Answer till he shall have better proved that there is such a Spiâ—it in Man as he before but supposed P. 50. He says the Nature being or whatness of a Soul or Mind is thinking and nothing else but thinking and thinking is all it doth or hath I answer that his Words the being or whatness of the Soul do I conceive intend its Essence or even the very substance of it which suits better to his Words the whatness of it as if in Truth it had no other substance but thinking If he shall prove that there is really such a spiritual substance in Man as he hath supposed it will then be time to argue with him concerning this whatness of thinking which he pretends to be the very essence and substance of it But till such proof shall be made his substantial spiritual Soul and the whatness of it shall be left as the chimerical apprehensions of our present Writer He discourses here further concerning what use the Soul makes of the Body which I pass as impertinent until he prove there is in the Body such a sort of Soul as he surmises P. 52. He says many of our Thoughts depend upon the Union of the Soul and Body and come by occasion of bodily things but yet that all our thoughts do not do so But I think the contrary viz. that all our thoughts and power of thinking arise from and depend upon the Union of the Soul and Body David tells us that let the intentions of a wicked Man be never so bad yet when he dies all his thoughts perish And Job says that in the Grave the weary are at rest and Men are there freed from all sort of oppression and I demand of our opponents one Historical Instance or Narrative of a separate Souls thinking or doing any thing else from the time of the Worlds Creation to this Day believing they cannot produce such an instance excepting Parables like those of Lazarus and the Rapture or Revelation of St. John P. 53. He says that it is Gods Will the Soul should continue to be immortal and this he promises clearly to prove by his following Arguments which come now to be examined He draws his first Argument from his own Experience and says that in a Trance when he was not sensible whether he was alive or dead he thought unde stood consider'd and will'd and more vigorously then ordinary and because he did then do so he argues why may not dead Men continue to do so I answer because there is a great deal of difference betwixt a Man in a Trance and one perfectly dead and as much as between a living and dead Person and I conceive one may as well argue a living Man thinks understands considers and wills and why may not a dead Man do so P. 55. Secondly he says it is my Duty to love God and to love him still and therefore my capacity of loving God shall never cease to which I reply Vltra esse non datur posse He says further Bodies do not think cannot love it is only Souls that can to which I answer that neither Bodies nor