common Root or Stock though not in the same manner that we are Christ and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Alliance and Consanguinity together which as it speaks infinite condescension love and Grace in him seeing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 se exinanivit he emptied himself which respects the Essential condition of the Humane Nature assumed by the Son of God and not meerly the poverty which in that Nature he submitted to so it declares the Dignity that our Nature is exalted to being in the Person of the Redeemer taken into association with the Divine Nature And as from the Conjunction of the two Natures together in the Person of Christ there ariseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a communication of properties between them which is real as to the ascription of the affections of each Nature to the Person though it be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verbal as to the predication of the properties of one Nature concerning the other so through the advancement of our Nature into Union with the Son of God there are some rays of Honour reflected upon and some priviledges that may be affirmed of us that the Angels themselves are not susceptive of Yet this is not the Union we are enquiring after for 1 in this respect all Mankind can plead the same propinquity to Christ. The worst as well as the best of men may enter their claim to this Relation of Oneness with him For though the Apostle affirm that he took on him the Seed of Abraham yet the meaning is not that some are precluded affinity with him in the Humane Nature while others are Dignified with that Alliance but the sense of the place is only this that according to the Flesh he came of the Lineage of Abraham the promise having been made to him that in his seed should all the Nations of the Earth be blessed Gen. 12.3 2 Were this the whole import of the Union of Believers with Christ that he and they partake of one common Nature the Oneness betwixt one Man another were greater than the Oneness betwixt Christ and the Faithful which directly opposeth the account the Scripture gives of it the intendment of the many Metaphors by which it is represented Now that it should be so is plain Because the resemblance betwixt one Man and another obtains not only in the essentials of Humane Nature but in the defilements and sinful infirmities of it nor is there any thing in the person of this or that man whereof something parallel is not in the Person of every one else but to imagine such an Universal resemblance between Christ and us is both to overthrow the Divinity of his Person and to supplant the purity of his Humane Nature Though our Blessed Saviour hath assumed our Nature in its essential constituent parts together with all the Natural sinless infirmities that accompany it yet besides His being infinitely distant from all likeness to us upon the account of the Divinity of his Person there is a vast dissimilitude even with respect to the Humane Nature as it is in Him free from all tincture of impurity and concomitancy of culpable imperfections and as it is in us defiled with and debased by sin § 8. As our Union with Christ is of a sublimer importance than meerly to denote that the same Humane Nature was in Him which is in us so what that is which over and above our participating of one common specifical Nature it doth imply is a Theme worthy of our further search And the Popish Notion concerning it is that which presents first to our examen Though the Romanists do not wholly disclaim a spiritual Union betwixt Christ and sincere Believers yet they principally insist on a Mixture of his Bodily substance with ours They will have our Union with Him to consist in our partaking of the Animated and Living Body of Christ by manducation or Carnal and Corporeal feeding on him And this Union they will have obtain'd by means of the Eucharist wherein instead of feeding at all on Bread and Wine they contend that in a Carnal manner we eat the Body and drink the Blood of Christ. That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is an eminent Symbol of our Union and Communion with Christ yea that hereby our Union and Communion with Him are in a special though Spiritual manner promoted and maintained we readily grant And accordingly we with all chearfulness acknowledge a Real presence of Christ in the Sacrament The Truth of the Real Presence hath been always believed and is so still though as to the manner of it there have been for many Conturies and yet are fierce digladiations in the World The Lutherans will have Christ present one way namely that though there be not a destruction of the Elements and a substitution of the Body and Blood of Christ in their room yet they will have Christ Bodily present with the Elements though hid and concealed under them and this they express by Consubstantiation The Papists plead for a presence of another kind viz. that the Elements being wholly destroyed either by Annihilation or Transmutation into the Body and Blood of Christ he alone is Corporeally Locally and Physically present and this they style Transubstantiation There have been others who have also asserted Bodily Presence but after a manner different from both the former for holding the Elements to continue undestroyed or unchanged they fancied them to become united to the Body and Blood of Christ and to make one and the same Body and Blood by a kind of Hypostatical Union and this may be called Impanation And although there be at this day and always hath been a great number of Christians to whose Reason none of these ways can adjust themselves yet they all confess a presence that is Real though they will have it to be after a spiritual kind and manner All these four ways of presence are Real each in its kind and order Nor do I know any save the Socinians and some Arminians but that in some sense or other allow a Real presence Indeed Socinus and the Men of that Tribe will admit the Lord's Supper to be only a Commemoration of Christ's Death but will by no means have it either to seal or exhibit any thing to the Believing Receiver That it is Commemorative and Symbolical of the Body of Christ as Broken and of his Blood as shed they have our astipulation but that it is besides both an Instituted seal of the Conditional Covenant ascertaining all the mercies of it to such as faithfully Communicate and in whom the Gospel Conditions are found and also truly exhibiting of Christ and his Grace to the Believing soul we strenuously affirm This the Apostle declares by calling the Cup of Blessing the Communion of the Blood of Christ and the Bread the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 This the very Nature of the Ordinance doth likewise confirm for in every Sacrament there must be not
only a sign but something signified and consequently the Elements of Bread and Wine being the signs tendred us they must be really exhibitive of something else that hath an Analogy to them and this can be nothing but the Body and Blood of Christ which are as really exhibited to be spiritually fed upon as the sensible Elements are to be Carnally This the words of Institution also demonstrate for when Christ saith take eat this is my Body there must either be an Exhibition of his Body to us in some sense or other or we must impeach Christ of uttering a false proposition in offering that to be eaten which according to these Gentlemen in no sense is so Yea were the Lord's Supper nothing but a Commemoration of Christ's death and the benefits purchased thereby it were no more to the Worthy Receiver than to the Unworthy nor any more to the Receiver than to the bare Spectator both which are in themselves the grossest of absurdities and withal lye in a direct repugnancy to the Gospel It is not a Real presence as the Papists slander us but a Corporeal that we disclaim But should we grant Christ to be locally and bodily present in the Supper though it be Contradictious to Reason Sense Scripture the Nature of a Sacrament the very words of Institution and the belief of the Ancient Church yet it would no ways serve the End for which it is pretended namely its being the means of our Union with Christ. For not to urge that were he Bodily present in the Sacrament or were nothing really and substantially there but the very Body and Blood of Christ as the Papists affirm it were yet the most abominable thing that ever men were guilty of to eat Him For though some have pawn'd sold and let out their Gods to Farm as Tertullian upbraids the Heathen yet as Cicero say's of all the Religions that have been in the World there were never any of such a Religion as to eat their God There are some instances among the salvage Nations of such as have eat the Flesh and drunk the Blood of their Enemies and of such as have sold their friends to the Anthropophagi when they were either useless through Age or in their apprehension irrecoverably sick but no Nation hath been so barbarous as to feast themselves with the flesh of their God's or to quaff their Blood The Egyptians would not eat with the Jews Gen. 46.3 because as Onkelos tells us the one did eat what the others worshipped 'T is known who said if the Christians eat what they adore anima mea cum Philosophis God by distributing the Brute creatures into clean which might be eaten and unclean which might not be eaten did thereby saith Theodoret provide against the accounting or worshipping any of them as a God Fo who will be so unreasonable as to esteem that a God which is Unclean or so Mad as to adore that which he eats Whatever pittifull beings men have chosen for Gods and how useful soever in their own Nature to have been turned into Cates Viands yet they who worshipped them have been so far from making them their repast themselves that the seeing others who made not such account of them nor payed them any veneration do it hath been enough to excite their Rage An instance we have of this Exod. 8.26 where Moses being permitted by Pharaoh to sacrifice in the land oâ— Egypt return's this as a Reason why he could not Lo we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes and will they not stone us They who had most degraded themselves in the choice of their Gods had yet more respect for them than the Papists who make their God a victim have for theirs As if it were not disgrace enough to their God to pawn and fell him and that sometimes to very ill intents and purposes all this they have don with their consecrated Host they place the most glorious part of their Religion in the Sacrificing him and eating his flesh when they have done Now the only Text to sustain the weight of the Bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist and to justify this Cyclopian eating of Him is Math. 26.26 Take Eat this is my Body c. Than which I know not one place in the whole Bible that yields us more infallible Arguments to subvert their whole Hypothesis every word being pregnant with a demonstration against them But all I shall say is this that whereas they upbraid us for the admission of one Trope in the paraphrase of the words they are forced themselves to substitute a great many before they can serve their design of them Had it been the purpose of the Holy-Ghost to declare our sense and oppose theirs I know no plainer expressions that could have been chosen to accomplish either the one or the other The Words are all as plain as the Subject-Matter to which they ought to be adapted will admit nor can the Wit of Man invent any that are more proper to manifest the Conceptions of the Speaker suppose him to have intended the sense that that we contend for The Substantive verb est is in which many of our Divines acknowledg a Figure is as remote from needing such a concession and as capable of a proper acceptation as any one in the whole Enunciation 'T is a Transcendental Term and signifies as properly a Similitudinary Being as an essential and only the quality of the Subject of the Proposition can determine whether it import Being Substantial or Being Intentional Forasmuch therefore as it is here a note of Affirmation interveening between a Sign as a Relate and as a thing signified as a Correlate I affirm that the only proper Sense which it hath or can have is to intimate the one to be vicarious for and representative of the other To imagine that est as 't is the note of affirmation between Signâ—m and Signatum can have any other sense than to signify is a fancy that will never be entertained in the minds of such who understand what they say In a word 't is a Sacramental Enunciation where it occurs 't is the note by which the Relation of the sign to the thing signified is affirmed and therefore the whole Relation between a Sign and the Thing signified being meerly to represent it is impossible that it should have any other import save to denote that the one is signified by the other But to wave any further opposing the Bodily presence in the Sacrament though the Popish notion of our Union with Christ cannot consist without it I say that supposing all which the Romanists say in the Matter of the Elements being Transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ our feeding on Him in a Carnal manner were true yet this cannot be the bond of the Union which is so magnificently represented For â— were this the basis of our Union with Christ and the Nexus by which
we are copulated to Him then not only sincere Believers but the most obdurate sinners providing only they receive the Eucharist should be united to Him Admitting the Popish Hypothesis I neither see of what advantage Faith is to one Communicant nor of what damage Infidelity can be to another but that the whole of both their securities depends upon this that their Stomacks be not queasy and that they have a good digestion 'T is but to swallow the consecrated Host and Christ and they are one whether they partake of the Spirit of the new Birth or not Either Pauls assertion of some mens eating damnation to themselves is false or else the Popish Notion of our being united to Christ by the eating of his Flesh under the Species and Accidents of a white Wafer is so and which of these is most likely to deserve that Brand I leave to the umpirage of all Christians 2 Were this the Foundation and Bond of Union betwixt Christ and his Members there should then be none United to Him but such as have first been made partakers of the Eucharist which is so remote from all shadow of Truth that on the contrary none ought to approach the sacred Table but they who are first sincere Christians 'T is true their pretending to be so if their claim cannot be disproved obligeth Ministers to admit them but yet it is only their being so that authoriseth them to come 'T is sincere Love and Gospel-Faith that God prerequires of all his Guests though his Stewards are often necessitated to take up with professions of them Although the Sacraments be necessary necessitate praecepti and cannot be neglected by any without guilt yet they are not so necessary necessitate Medii but that God hath and can communicate his Grace independently upon them 3 Were there no other bond of our Union with Christ save that which the Church of Rome suggests our Cohesion to Christ were a very lubricous thing and not such an indissoluble Ligue as the Scripture reports it For the Foundation of Oneness ceasing the Relation superstructed thereupon must cease also Union can hold no longer than the unition upon which it results and from which it emergeth holds now this according to the Romanists continues no longer than till the Form Figure and other Accidents of the consecrated Wafer dissolve and vanish So that instead of an abiding conjunction with Christ a little time unties the knot and the incorporation of Christians with Him comes to nothing 4 Were our Carnal and Corporal eating the Body of Christ the Medium of betwixt Him and us I do not see but that Mice and Rats c. may come to be united to Him as well as Believers For that these through the Priests neglect or by some accident or other may snatch up swallow down the consecrated Wafer is a thing easily conceivable there are instances enough of it and by consequence all that is necessary to the Relation of Union intervening betwixt Christ and them the Habitude and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self must ensue also I shall only add upon this occasion that Minutius Felix's argument in disproof of the Heathen Gods doth with equal strength militate against the Corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist The Mice Swallows and Crows saith he know better than you Pagans what your Gods are For by gnawing and sitting upon them and being ready to nest in their Mouths if you did not drive them away they know that they have neither sense nor understanding 5 Though I be not forward to concern the Authority of Scripture to confute senseless and irrational Notions reckoning it a condescension to encounter them with Reason and holding it a disparagement put upon the sacred Oracles to call in their Suffrage where Sense alone can give the decision yet I cannot but here observe that our Lord Jesus Christ even there where he most seemingly speaks in Favour of a Carnal eating of his Flesh viz. John 6. hath in words hugely Emphatical said enough to prevent such a Gross stupid and unreasonable Imagination For besides that not a word of that whole discourse relates to feeding upon Christ in the Eucharist as is acknowledged by the most learned of the Roman Writers we have in the preface to it ver 35.40 and in the conclusion of it ver 63. a key afforded us to unlock the whole and to assure that it is not only to be taken in a spiritual sense but that a fleshly eating of the Son of man would conduce nothing to our Good 'T is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life § 9. Having declared that whatever the Nature and Quality of our Union with Christ and what ever the Medium by which it is accomplished be that it is the Person of Christ which we are United to and having also declared that it implies something more than a meer participating of the same specifick Humane Nature and having just now manifested that it consists not in a mixture of Christs bodily substance through our eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood in a Carnal and Corporeal Manner with ours The next thing to be disclaim'd from all room and Interest in the Idea of it is its being a Personal Union And this I am the rather obliged to do because Mr. Sherlock with little regard to Truth and as little consistency with himself tells the World That we place all our hopes of Salvation in a personal Union with Christ. A slander so enormous and so void of any colour by which it may be glossed that to what I should impute our Authors charging it upon us I cannot tell Ignorance it cannot be ascribed to seeing Dr. Jacomb whom Mr. Sherlock hath particularly singled out to oppose in this Theme not only barely disclaims but refutes it and seeing our Author himself acknowledgeth else-where that it is only an Union of Persons and not a Personal Union which we plead for p. 198. 293. And to attribute it to a wilful Falsification were to arraign him of a Crime which I would be loath to judge any Man pretending Justice and Honesty much less a Minister of the Gospel guilty of I would rather therefore think it the result of some deduction unduely and illogically drawn from Innocent principles or that he took it up in discourse from some of those who for their diversion throw out accusations against us at adventure than that he either judged it to be held by us in Terminis or that he should fasten it upon us in meer Malice only that he might the better expose us However this in Modesty may be required of him that the next time he writes he would either acquit the Nonconformists from the guilt of this charge or else enforce it by express quotations extracted out of their Books or by lawful Trains of Argumentation from some of their avowed Doctrines
q. 5. and they will satisfie them This is all that I shall offer at present in opposition to Mr. Sherlocks Hypothesis nor should I have said so much but that it is here where we have his most Heroick adventures and where he seems all along to speak as strutting and standing on his tiptoes 'T is here that he flings down the Gantlet to all the World and treads the Stage with no less state and majesty than as if he intended to erect lasting Trophies to himself for having baffled the received Opinion of the whole Christian Church And 't is here that most particularly I have accepted his Challenge and bid him battel on his ground and at his own weapons and as to the issue of the Encounter I leave it to the Reader to pronounce betwixt him and me This I do affirm that as I have not declined him in any thing where he seem'd to argue like a Man and a Schollar so I must beg his pardon if in some things I have forborn him and given back forasmuch as I was not willing to be under the temptation of exposing him too much And upon this very inducement I thought once to have overlookt his Argument taken from the Nature of the Sacraments which he brings in proof that all the Union between Christ and Christians is meerly political but upon second thoughts I am resolved to say something to it least by being left in the way it should put some to a stand though it should put none to a retreat We have already encountered the same forces in another field and being defeated there there is the less likelyhood of their standing it long out here As we have disabled this Medium from serving our Author against the Immediate Union of Christ with Believers so we will now venture to see what strength is in it against the common Opinion of the Christian Church about the Nature quality of the Union that is between Him and them Now I take it for granted says he that there can be no better way to understand the Nature of our Union with Christ than to consider the Nature of those Sacraments which were designed as the Instruments and signs of our Union with Him and if we will take that account the Scripture gives of them all the Union they signifie is a publick and visible profession of our Faith in Christ and subjection to Him as our Lord and Saviour and a sincere conformity of our hearts and lives to the Nature and Life of Christ. Thus Baptism is a publick profession of the Christian Religion that we believe the Gospel of Christ own his Authority and submit to his Government And the Lords Supper is a Federal Rite which answers to the Feasts or Sacrifices under the Law whereby we renew our Covenant with the Lord and vow obedience and subjection to him c. For answer Baptism and the Lords Supper being Ordinances instituted by Christ in a Habitude to the whole tenour of the New Covenant as it mutually obligeth both on Gods part and outs accordingly they may be considered either as they respect us or as they respect God who hath instituted and ordained them As they respect us they are both Symbols of our Profession and solemn engagements upon us to Duty As they respect God who hath appointed them they are representations of the mercies of the Covenant and Ratifying seals of it But to speak a little particularly to each of them First to Baptism Baptism as it is the outward way and means of our Initiation into the Lord Jesus Christ and of our matriculation into the Catholick Visible Church so it is the great representation of the inward washing of Regeneration and of our being renewed by the Holy Ghost The effusion of the Spirit being often likened to the pouring forth of water See Isa. 44.3 4 5. Ezek. 36.25 26 27. Joh. 3.5 Joh. 7.38 Heb. 10.22 So in Baptism it is most excellently signified and represented The Spirit saith Dr. Patrick is very well signified by water for as that cleanseth purifieth from filth so the Spirit of God is the sanctifier of Gods people purging and cleansing their hearts from all impurities Now the Spirit being no otherwise the spring and principle of all our Sanctification but as he is the Bond and Vinculum of our mystical Union with Christ out of whose fulness we receive all the Grace which we are made partakers of therefore Baptism being a representation of the effusion of the Spirit it is also an adumbration of the Union which we plead for 2ly As to the Lords Supper As the Lords Supper is a visible Symbol and Badg of our abiding in Christ into whom by Baptism we were Initiated and an obligation to all the Duties of growth and progress in Christianity so it is really exhibitive of Christ to us and a representation of our Spiritual Union with Him As the Bread and Wine could not in any congruity of speech be called the Body and Blood of Christ if they were not exhibitive of them so our eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood in a Sacramental sense can signifie no less than our being spiritually incorporated with him The Cup of Blessing saith the Apostle which we bless is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 And as by one Spirit we are Baptized into one Body so we are all made to drink into one spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 Our very Author tells us not aware that thereby he overthrows his whole Hypothesis that the Lords Supper is a spiritual feeding on Christ an eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood which signifies the most intimate Union with him that we are Flesh of his Flesh and Bone of his Bone Eph. 5.30 The Apostle in the place that Mr. Sherlock refers to doth in way of illustration of the Union between Christ and Christians allude to the Oneness which was between Adam and Eve Now that was greater than the Oneness between any other Husband or Wife in the World for she was not only of the same specifick Nature with Him and knit to him in a Matrimonial tye by God himself but she was extracted and formed out of his very Body and so is the fitter Symbol of the Intimate Union that is between Christ and Believers And thus I hope I have not only wrested this weapon out of Mr. Sherlocks hand but struck through his cause with it § 13. It being acknowledged on all sides that there is an Union between Christ and sincere Christians and it being now declared and made manifest what it is not I might here wind up without proceeding any further or undertaking to assign the true and just Notion of it Nor is Religion exposed by our affirming some of its Mysteries to be incomprehensible Our Reason fails us when we attempt to give an account of our selves and the obvious phaenomena of Nature and therefore we may well allow it unable to
Agent that can deprive him of his Being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He only hath Immortality 1 Tim. 6.16 All things owing their Existence to him there is both a Power and a Right resident in him of depriving them should he judg it fit of their Beings Whatsoever is derived from his Power and Bounty he may take away at his pleasure Yet I reckon it absurd to think that he doth annihilate our Souls it being contrary to the Method which he observes in other parts of the Universe No substance yet ever perished Under all the Mutations that Matter undergoes by which this and that Individual body comes to be destroy'd there is not so much as one single Atome lost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No substantial Entity is totally destroyed saith the Philosopher Non perit in tanto quicquid mihi credite mundo Ovid. By the Immortality of the soul then we mean no more but that it includes no principles in its self by which it can be brought to decay And this it derives from it being Immaterial No spiritual substance is capable of that dissolution which a Body is lyable to and suffers For seeing Material subjects come to be corrupted only by a separation of their conjoyned parts The Soul being Immaterial and so void of parts is in danger of no such dissolution Now in discoursing the Immortality of the Soul I think fit in the beginning to discharge my self from an exception or two which though hugely insisted on by those who will have the soul to be meerly corporeal and consequently corruptible yet are in themselves absurd and irrational The first is this that there is no such thing in the World as an Incorporeal Being and that Existence is not to be affirmed of any thing but what is perceivable by sense and that we cannot have assurance that any thing is but what we have ocularly beheld To which I reply 1 That they miserably beg the question which they ought to prove They have not been able to assign any contradiction that lyes against an Incorpoâ—eal Being more than against a Corporeal 2. Their Objection doth equally militate against the Being of God as against the Immaterial Nature of the Soul For if God be at all he is Incorporeal a Corporeal God being pregnant with Contradictions 3. We are not to require more proof of any thing than it is capable of According to the diversity of Objects we are furnished with distinct faculties in order to the perception of them and there are different lights in which they are seen Who questions the being of Sounds Odours c. because they are not discerned by the same Organical Faculty that Colours are To require that an Immaterial should fall under the perception of sight is to demand that an Immaterial should be a Material There are Innumerable things whereof we have the most convincing Certainty and yet they were never the Objects of Sense No man ever saw a Thought and yet we are fully assured that we have Thoughts How many things do the Gentlemen that make this exception believe which yet they never saw 4 Though Incorporeal Beings be not Immediately perceived by sense yet through diverse of their operations which affect our Sensitive Organs we have a mediate assurance of their Existence by our very Senses The second exception is taken from the inexplicableness of Union betwixt a Material and an Immaterial There is no Cement say they by which the one can be knit to the other Incorporeals are of a penetrating Nature and consequently cannot take hold of Matter so as to make a Whole consisting of two constituent parts so vastly different To this I answer 1. That there is nothing more Unreasonable than wholly to question the Existence of things because we do not Understand the Modes according to which they Exist To discharge a Cause out of the precincts of Being because we cannot give a reason of all its particular effects ought to be justly reckon'd amongst the greatest of absurdities Whatsoever is prov'd by Reason we are firmly to believe it though there may be many things in the Theory of it that are wholly inconceivable While we have all imaginable assurance of the conjunction of the soul with the body and that the soul cannot be corporeal our Faith ought no ways to be weakned though we know not the Physical way of their coalition and how they come to be United 2. There is as much difficulty in apprehending the connexion of one part of Matter with another as in Understanding the Incorporation of the Soul with the Body and yet no man questions but that there are bodies in which the particles of matter are united I hope to make it appear Châ—pt 3d. that there is not any Hypothesis of Philosophy yet extant by which the Union of the parts of Matter in contâ—nuous Bodies can be solved and yet we are very well assured they are connected together A 3d. Exception is raiâ—ed from the Sympathy that is betwixt the Soul and the Body from which they would conclude an Identity of Nature between them To which I briefly return to these things 1. There are many cases in which our Souls are affected without the least impression either from bodily Objects without us or any previous excitation of the Spirituous Blood within us For not to mention the impression which the Soul receives from the consideration of things purely Spiritual and Divine which do no ways immediately affect the Body all the Influence imaginable which they have upon it proceeding primarily from the mind it self and its dominion over the Animal Spirits I shall only name Troubles of Conscience which arise only from Moral Causes and the exercise of our Reasons about what we have done I may add that there are many cases wherein the Soul and Body seem to have no Communion with one another and that not only in Ecstasies when the Soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a manner for a season separated from the Body but even in other Hence men upon the borders of Grave when without strength vigor or pulse yet even then they have their thoughts more refined and their understandings more spritely than at other times And which is more strange are so little affrighted at death though they fully understand it that they lay down the Body with the same compoâ—edness and more delight than if they were only putting off their Cloaths Nor are they only persons tired with the miseries of the World that do so bâ—t such many times who have enjoyed all the delight that this earthly state can afford 2. We find our Souls frequently determining themselves in way of chusing and refusing contrary to the provocations of sense and the cravings of the bodily Appetite Though our Intellectual Faculties have a perception of sensual Delights yet they often chuse both that which is contrary to fleshly pleasures and which no Corporeal Faculty is able so much as once to apprehend
Were we constituted of meer Matter all our operations should be produced by a fatal Impulse and in every act we should be under the like Necessity as Matter is when forcibly determined to Motion While we find our selves endowed with a faculty determinative of it self We may rationally infer that the impulses of outward Objects upon the bodily Organs and the continuation of their Motion to the Brain and Heart do only solicite and not force out Assent and that the Soul it self is of an Immaterial Nature 3. All that sympathie which we observe between the Soul and Body ariseth meerly from the close connexion of the one with the other and is necessary both in order to the Souls governing the Body its being engaged to take care of it and provide against its necessities And as a Lutanist loseth not his skill because he cannot play melodiously upon an Instrument whose strâ—ngs are either broken or ill tun'd No more is the Soul prejudiced in her self by bodily Maladies though she be hindred discomposed in her operations through the distemper of those Organical Instruments which she is forced to use That we are too much affected with every passion and irregular motion of the blood and Animal Spirits doth not prove that our Souls are Corporeal or that our irregular actings upon those inordinate motions are the results of fatal Impulses but only shew that we do excite our Intellectual powers to the preventing those violent Motions and the keeping the Body Sedate and to the curbing and restraining them when excited and that we do by sloth neglect suffer our selves to be depressed by those Terrestrial encumbrances and hurried by those Motions which if we were not wanting to our selves we might easily tame and subdue Having free'd our selves from these exceptions we now proceed to the thing it self and in the mentioning the Arguments which offer themselves in Nature to prove the Immoâ—tality of the Soul I shall not insist on that Argument which is so vigorously urged by some Modern as well as Ancient Writers Namely that if the Soul were Corporeal we should not be the same to day that we were yester day We remain the same at sixty Years of Age that we were at twenty though in the mean time we have worn away many bodies and therefore say they there must be something Immaterial in us which is the foundation of this Identity This I shall wave for they who contend for the Corporeity of the Soul will reply that we are no otherwise the same this Year that we were the last than Brutes and Vegtables are Nor shall I press the Argument that is drawn from sensation because what ever is in it for the Immateriality of the sentient and percipient Principle in us concludes in behalf of Brutes that they have the like For the Hypothesis of Des-Cartes that Beasts are meer Machines I look upon it as altogether indefensible But though I decline and wave the using of this Medium for the reason I have now suggested yet I dare not censure it as trifling much less disclaym it as Sophistical These then being lay'd aside there are others to be produced and seeing that whatsoever is Incorporeal is upon the very score of its being so incorruptible and excepted from dissolution also I shall mainly inquire what reasons there are in the Light of Nature whereby we may be induced to believe that our Souls are Immaterial First if the Soul were only a Crasis of the Body it were capable of no other distempers but what arise from the compression or dilatation of matter or from the obstruction and inflamation of Humours while we therefore find it subject to Maladies which spring meerly from Moral causes and which are no more curable by the prescriptions of Physicians than the Stone or Gout are to be removed by a Philosophy Lecture we have sufficient Cause to believe that it is of an incorporeal Nature 2 dly The essences of things are best known by their operations and the best guess we can make of the Nature and Condition of beings is from the quality of their Actions While therefore by contemplating our selves we find that we do elicite actions which exceed the power of matter and the most subtile Motion of Corporeal particles we have all imaginable ground to think that we are possessed of a principle that is Immaterial as well as Intellectual He who considers that there is not one perfect Organ in the Human Body but the parallel of it is to be met with in the Noblest sort of Brute Animals and yet that there are diverse operations performed by men that no Beast whatsoever is capable of doing the like must need apprehend that the Soul is not a Corporeal Faculty nor a contexture of Material parts Here all the Acts of Intellection may be insisted on 1 Acts of simple Apprehension We are endowed with a Faculty that frame 's Notions and Ideas of things which exceed the Sphere of Sense which are no ways capable of sensible Representation nor were the Notions of them conveyed into us by the help of Terrestrial Images Such are the Notions of Immaterial Beings infinite Space the Habitudes of one thing to another Moral Congruities and Incongruities abstract and Universal Natures Proportions of Figures Symmetry of Magnitudes yea the notion of perception it self 2 Acts of judgments whereby we contemplate the several Natures and properties of things compare them in all their respects rank them in their distinct orders and dependencies frame distinctions and divisions of Beings connect and disjoyn Subjects and Predicates and accordingly say that this appertains to the other or it doth not and affirm or deny one thing of another as we observe them to agree or disagree 3 Acts of Ratiocination whereby we infer one thing from another by Syllogisms deduce Consequences of longer or shorter Trayns 4 Acts of Reflection in which the Soul becomes it own Object perceive's that it doth perceive passeth a sentence upon its own judgements which no matter though it be never so fine and howsoever modified and agitated can do 5 Acts of Correcting the Errours and mistakes of Imagination whereby having viewed all the representations of the Senses it compares them together makes a judgement of them forms apprehensions contrary to those which are suggested to us by sensitive Organs rejects the phantasms of Imagination as insufficient Indications of the Truth of External Objects Not that our Senses are deceived for they only declare their own Passions and communicate their Motions to the Brain according to the Impulses which they really receive from ambient Matter but these representations being made without judgment the Soul examines them perceives that it should be deceived should it always pronounce according to the Images conveyed to it by the Senses and accordingly apprehends corrects and determineth contrary to them 6. Acts of Volition whereby it Chuseth and Refuseth by a self-determinating-Power according as things are estimated remaining exempt
can resolve us how it comes to pass that one part more indiscerptibly cleaves to another than if they were fastned together by Adamantine Chains I see no reason why the Incomprehensibleness of the Manner of our Union with Christ should any ways obstruct or weaken our belief of it having all the assurance that Divine Revelation can give us concerning our being United to Him As we assent to an Evident Object of sense or to that which is plainly demonstrated by Reason though there occurr many things in the manner of their Existence which is Unconceiveable So the Quod sit and reality of our Vnion with Christ being attested by Him who cannot lye it becomes us to embrace it with all steadiness of Belief though we cannot conceive the Quomodo or Manner how it is For my part I have often thought that through God's leaving us pos'd and Non-plust about the most ordinary and certain Phaenomena of Nature he intended to train us up to a Mancipation of our Vnderstandings to Articles of Faith when we were once assured that he had declared them though the difficulties relating to them were Vnaccountable Nor is the manner of the Coherence of the parts of Matter the only difficulty in Nature relating to Union that perplexes and baffâ—'s our Reason but the Mode of the Mystical Incorporation of the Rational Soul with the Humane Body doth every way as much entangle and leave us desperate as the former That man is a kind of Amphibious Creature allied in his Constituent parts both to the Intellectual and Material Worlds and that the several Species of Beings in the Macrocosm are combined in him as in a Systeme Reason as well as Scripture instructs us That we have a Body we are fully assured by its Density Extension Impenetrability and all the adjuncts and affections of Matter and that we have an immaterial Spirit we are demonstratively convinced by its reacting on it self its consciousness of its own Being and Operations not to mention other Mediums whereof we have spoken elsewhere And that these two are United together to make up the composition of Man is as plain from the Influence that the Body hath upon the Soul in many of its perceptions and which the Soul hath upon the Body in the motions of the Spirits Blood withall that ensues and depends thereupon Nor could the affections and adjuncts of the Material Nature nor the Attributes and properties of the Immaterial be indifferently predicated of Man were not the Soul and Body united together in the Unity of Mans person But now how this can be is a knot too hard for Humane Reason to unty How a pure Spirit should be cemented to an earthy Clod or an Immaterial substance coalesce with Bulk is a Riddle that no Hypothesis of Philosophy can resolve us about How this intellective 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should come to be button'd to this corporeal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a mystery the unvailing whereof must be reserved to the Future state For our Indagations about it hitherto do leave us altogether unsatisfied 1 The Aristotelick substantial uniter and cement will not do For besides its repugnancy to Reason that there should be any substantial ingredient in the constitution of man save his Soul and Body the Unition of it self with the Soul supposing it to be Material or with the Body admitting it to be an Incorporeal will remain unintelligible And to affirm it to be of a middle Nature partaking of the Affection and adjuncts of both is that which our Reasonable Faculties will never allow us to subscribe to the Idea's which we have of Body and Spirit having no alliance the one with the other And to style it a substantial Mode is to wrap up repugnancies in its very notion For though all Modes be the modification of substances yet they are Predicamental Accidents And how essential soever thâ—s or that Modification may be to a Body of such a species yet 't is wholly Extrinsecal and Accidental to Matter it self In brief the voluminous Discourses of the Aristotelians both about Union in General and the Union of the Rational Soul to the organical Humane Body in particular resolve themselves either into Idle Tattle and Insignificant Words or obtrude upon us contradictions and Nonsense 2 To preclude all Union betwixt the Soul and Body on supposition that they are not distinct constituent parts of Man is plainly to despair of solving the difficulty For not to dispute whether the Soul and Body may in Philosophick rigor be called parts or whether man with reference to them may be styled a Compositum 't is enough that the one is not the other but that they are different principles and that neither of them considered separately is the Man Though the Soul and Body be perfect substances in themselves and though the Soul can operate in its disjunct state in its separation will be no less a Person than Soul and Body now together are yet there are many Operations belonging to the Soul in this conjunct state of which it is uncapable in the separate and there are many things predicable of the Soul and Body together which cannot be affirm'd of them asunder How close and intimate soever the Union betwixt the Soul and Body be and how great soever their mutual dependences in most of their Operations be upon one another yet not only the intellectual Spirit and the duely organised Matter remain even in their consociation classically different their Essences Affections Operations admitting a diversity as well as a distinction but there are some operations belong to each of them upon which the other hath no Influence For as the Mind is Author of many cogitations and conceptions to which the Body gave no occasion so the Body is the spring and fountain of several Functions over which the Soul hath no Dominion nor any direct Influence They remain as much distinct notwithstanding the Union which intercedes between them as they would have done should we suppose them to have had an existence previous to their confederations or as they shall be after the dissolution of the League between them From all which it may be scientifically concluded that they are distinct and different Principles in mans Constitution But whether thereupon he ought to be called a Compositum or they to be styled parts will be resolved into meer Logomachie chat about Words Though to speak my own mind I see no Cause why Man may not properly enough obtain the appellation of Compositum and the Soul and Body be allowed for Constituent parts Nor Thirdly doth the Cartesian Hypothesis though the most ingenious and best contrived of any hitherto thought upon fully satisfy an inquisitive Mind in the Matter before us Their Hypothesis is briefly this That God in his Infinite sapience chose to create three distinct and different kinds of Beings some purely Material which yet through difference of the Figure Size Number Texture and Modification of
to Gods love of complacency is fram'd to overthrow Election Efficacious Grace the perseverance of Believers and to render the New Covenant no better than the Old and our standing in Christ as lubricous as our standing in Adam was And therefore I hope Mr. Sherlock will pardon me if I do not readily subscribe to him in this forasmuch as I know it repugnant to the Articles of the Church of England not to mention what else it is The unchangeableness of his Love of Benevolence which took its Motives from himself and can no more be inconstant than the Divine Nature is doth strongly infer the preserving those qualifications in us which are the immediate foundations of his love of complacency supposing that he hath once wrought them For the bestowing of those upon us in order to this that he might delight in us being the aim and design of his Eternal Love of Good Will it naturally follows that the Immutability of his kindness ensures his watching over and maintaining them when once he hath wrought them in and communicated them to us In brief Christs heart is wonderfully knit in love to the renewed and sanctified soul Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse says he Cant. 4.9 The word there used occurrs no where else in the Scripture and signifies to have won engaged seized upon or rob'd one of his heart 'T is a term borrowed from a passionate Lover who is not Master of his own heart another having gotten the possession of it He that loved us at no less rate than dying for us when we were Enemies cannot but be affectionately linkt to us having once washen us in his Blood and renewed us to his likeness by his Grace On the other hand though the love of a gracious Soul to Christ can neither equal his in its degrees nor any way rival it in the freeness earlyness or instances of discovery yet it is so far reciprocal that upon conviction of Reason conduct of Judgment and the propension of the New Nature it cleaves to and embraceth him The sincere Christian not only reckons Christ an object chiefly worthy of his love but by exiliency egress and expansion of Soul after him he endeavours a Conjunction and Union with him From hence comes that liquefaction and languor of heart to enjoy him and to receive his impressions hence proceeds that consignment of our Wills to his from hence also there springs a concernment for his interest more than for our own All the reciprocal love and friendship of the World are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idols and Images of Love and Friendship being compared with what intercedes between Christ and Christians Now this Love-Union we not only own but plead for and do state our happiness in the perfection of it Nor is there any thing that recommends Heaven more to us than that our souls shall be there enflamed with and united by holy ardors to One so infinitely amiable in his own perfections and so unspeakably deserving our purest flames for his free and preventing as well as his exuberant and superlative love to us This Conjunction through a ligature and bond of love manifested in imitation and uniform obedience betwixt Christians the Lord Jesus Christ is often mentioned in the holy leaves But yet I cannot assent to those who state the whole of Believers Union to the person of the Mediator meerly in a reciprocalness of affections 1. Because one Christian should at this rate be as much One with another as he is with Christ which the Scripture will not allow us to submit our assent to as not being reconcileable to those grand lofty and emphatical expressions which the Holy Ghost peculiarly appropriates to declare the Unity which intervenes between Christ and Christians That there is an Union of Affections between one Christian and another I suppose will not be denyed nor is he indeed a Christian who hath not a witness of it in himself and who doth not in the several ways wherein it is displayable endeavour to give evidence of it to the world 'T is this Love Union amongst Christians which our Lord Jesus so solemnly prayed for Joh. 17.21 'T is this which he hath enjoyned his Disciples as his New Commandment and which he hath appointed to be the bond of perfection unto them Joh. 13.34 Col. 3.14 'T is this which is represented as an evidence both of our Love-Union with God 1 Joh. 4.12 and of our implantation into Christ by Regeneration 1 Joh. 3.14 'T is this that was the glory of the Primitive Saints Acts 4.32 and for which the very Heathen both admired them and payed them an Internal veneration In a word 't is this whereby all the Members of Christ being first copulated to Him as to a Vital living Head and being Harmonious in the belief of all the Essential Fundamental Doctrines of the Gospel come to be principally knit together among themselves And where this is not a politick confederacy and a wicked conspiration there may be but such an Union as ought to be amongst Christians there is not But how high noble and necessary soever this Union is which intervenes betwixt one Christian and another yet it is not equipollent to the Union which occurrs between Christ and Believers Nor do I hereby only mean that they differ gradually in some accident or other for so even the Moral Union betwixt Christ and Christians differs from the Moral Union of Christians among themselves the source and spring the Motives and Arguments the degrees dimensions acts and instances of Manifestation being not universally the same either in the love that Christ beareth to Believers or in the flames which they cherish and maintain towards him with those that obtain in the love of one Child of God to another but my meaning is that they differ specifically and in kind And in proof of this I desire no more but that Persons would without prepossession prejudice examine such Texts as Joh. 15.1 2 3 4 5. 1 Cor. 12.27 Rom. 8.1.9 10. Gal. 2.20 Joh. 6.5 6. not to mention more where the Union betwixt Christ and Believers is represented illustrated and if he can find any thing in the Love-Union of one Christian with another that beareth a proportion and Analogy with what is there declared concerning the Union of the Lord Jesus with Believers I am mistaken 2. Because the Holy Angels would be every way as much connected and ligu'd to Christ as Believers are were no more to be understood by this coherence but a conjunction by way of Affection or did this adequately express the Notion of it For besides the subjection that the Angels are in to Christ as their Lord and Governour 1 Pet. 3.22 and the attendance which in pursuance thereof they give at his Throne Isa. 6.1 2. together with that adoration and worship which they pay him Heb. 1.6 and their readiness to minister in whatsoever services he enjoyns them about his Church