Intent thereof and even to have exterminated the same out of the Apprehensions and Memories of such Men. And hereupon I do again agree that it is very sutable to the Justice of God and his equitable Dealings with Men that there should be a distribution of Rewards and Punishments after this Life and I do with great Assurance believe that the same will fall out accordingly not bestowing those Rewards and Punishments upon Souls Subsisting in a State of Seperation from the Body but that rather as our Lord himself tells us John 6. Those who fear God and work Righteousness shall by Christ be raised up at the last Day in their full Compositum of Soul and Body and in their own Persons shall receive Rewards according to their Works done and their Faith professed in this World and that the like measure shalt be dealt to the Wicked at the Resurrection of the last Day whose Punishments shall be equally distributed to their Persons as is before said to be done in the case of the former Raised and Righteous Persons P. 156. The Doctor says He cannot but wonder that Plato having asserted God to be a Mind Divine and Incorporeal should contradict himself in affirming that Man's Soul was a Particle taken from the Substance of God himself he will not engulph himself in the Bottomless Sea of Difficulties concerning the Original and Extraduction of Man's Soul but he conceives the Soul cannot be produced from Matter because it is Immaterial but however it is plain that it hath its Beginning and Origine with the Body and yet being Incorporeal it is not capable of perishing with it P. 159. He confesses a great decay of Intellect in Mens very old Age but says that Decay grows from the weakness of the Fancy and Imagination and the Organs thereof and not from the Decays of the Intellect or Soul it self Answering I say it seems rather to grow from the Heaviness and Unaptness of the Blood of old People to be so vigorously Inflamed and Acted as it used to be in their younger Years and greater strength of their Bodies and Concoction P. 173. The Doctor says It is not necessary that when at Death the Soul is breathed into the Air that the Air should be thereby Animated because then it should act without the Mediation of any Organs at all but he asserts that neither in the Air nor any other Body whatever can the Soul either meet with or create those Dispositions that are requisite to Vital Information P. 174. He says The Soul makes use of the Vital Spirits as Servants for the effecting of Life Sense and Motion I say Nature makes use of them for the effecting Life Sense Motion Understanding Memory and all other Powers of Cogitation whatsoever P. 180. The Doctor says As to the Particular or Manner of the Souls Knowledge after Death I remit you to Sir K. Digby's sublime Speculations concerning the condition of a Seperate Soul in which tho' you may not meet with such Satisfaction as you expect yet you will meet with more than I can now give you without repeating his Notions To this I answer that I have perused those Notions without meeting with any Satisfaction at all in them P. 183. The Doctor says That the Cement which joyns the Body and Soul together is the Blood especially the Spiritual and most refin'd part thereof and he quotes a Saying of Critius Sentire Maxime Proprinus esse Anima atque hoc in esse propter sanguinis Naturam P. 184. He says The Blood is the first pact of the Body that is generated and moved and the Soul is excited and kindled first from the Blood and the Blood is that in which the Operations Vegitative and Sensitive do first manifest themselves The Doctor says That he thinks it likely that the Soul having its first and perhaps principal Residence in the Blood and that Blood by Circulation flowing like a River of living Water round the Body penetrating into and irrigating the Substance of all the Parts and at the same time communicating to them both Heat and Life so as the Soul having its principal Residence in the Blood in respect thereof may very well be conceived to be Tota in toto tota in qualibet parte so as there is an Intimate presence of the Soul in the Blood and by that means a Conjunction of them together 169. The Dr. says That in the Progression towards Death the Vital Heat or Flame being either almost suffocated by Putrefaction of the Blood the only Fewel by which it is maintained in Diseases or exhausted by old Age goes out like a Lamp by degrees ceasing first to enliven or irradiate the parts that are most remote from the Focus or Heart and then failing in its conserving Influence more and more till at length suffering an Extinction in the very Heart as it were in the Socket it leaves that also Cold and Lifeless so that Death is as an Extinction only of the Vital Flame not of the Soul I say That it is an Extinction of that Vital Flame which I conceive to be the Soul or Spirit or the first Principal of Life and Motion in the Person I think that by the Doctor 's Words in this last Quotation he seems fully to agree with what I have often repeated that the total Extinction of the Vital Flame in the Blood is the Death of the Person and the very thing which turns that which was the living Body into a dead Carcass whence he says That Death is an Extinction of the Vital Flame and yet denies this to be an extinguishment of the Soul whence it seems to me that he was resolved to maintain the Subsistence of the Soul after the death of the Person altho' the Nature and Reason which he pretends to follow convinced him not so to do or that he found any natural need of his so doing but because he thought it might be prov'd by Scripture and was maintain'd by the Divines That the Soul of Man had a Seperate Subsistence after death of the Person and therefore was Immortal and that he stood so perswaded from Scripture Grounds he testifies Pag. 185. where he says That the Soul is an Immortal Substance and that its Immortality is not only credible by Faith or upon Authority Divine but also demonstrable by Reason or the Light of Nature From these Words I collect That his Belief of the Souls Immortality was grounded first upon Faith and Divine Authority as he thought and being thus fully perswaded of the Truth of that Opinion he set himself on work to maintain it by such Deductions as he was able to make from the Principles of Nature and Reason his Performances wherein have before been examined and shewn not be of so great weight as he perhaps conceived them to be The Treatise now examined was publish'd so long ago that I doubt before this time his Flame of Life hath been extinguish'd or that he may not be
Soul a Power of Thinking which being thus worded I deny my Assent thereunto But had he said That a Man feels or finds a Power of Thinking in himself I should have easily agreed with him in it He says The variety of Thoughts or Acts of Willing are the Soul's Motion I say They are Motions or Actings in the Mind of Man effected by acting the inflam'd Spirits of the Blood working in the Kepheline Organs in the which the Great Artificer GOD framed and placed them and to that Purpose gave them sufficient Power to perform such Actions when He created the Fabrick of the Humane Body and breathed into its Nostrils the Breath of Life whereby the Spirits of the Blood and Humours became inflamed for acting in a Body to such Purposes and by such an Excellent and Artificial Composition always to be continued by Respiration God's excellent Wisdom and Power did in the beginning produce these Workings amongst such Kepheline Organs and gave them in this Compositum Power to produce Perception Fantasie Judgment Will Memory Affections Local Motions and all other Powers or Faculties of the Humane Mind or Person whatsoever I know that upon reading of this Discourse Mr. W. and his Party will all cry out How can these things be That unintelligent senseless Materials working amongst or together with one another should be able to produce Life Sense Affections Perception Intellect Memory in the Person demanding of me on Account or Declaration how such things can with any Probability be effected by the working together of such Materials And I Answer That the Quomodo of such an Operation is a Speculation too sublime and curious for the Wit of Man to compass or obtain The Artifice of the Humane Machine cannot be throughly penetrated or discovered by the sublimest Wits amongst Men witness the doubtings both of Solomon and Aristotle discover'd in their Discourses upon the Points now in Question That God hath Wisdom and Skill sufficient to produce Intelligence by means of Material Operations seems true and something clear to my Understanding and but few of our Opposers do deny somewhat a like Artifice and Operation in the Brutal Nature They seem ready to Agree That God by his Wisdom and Skill used in the Fabrication of the Brutes hath in the beginning produced and doth still produce Life Motion Sensations Affections inward Perceptions Phantafie Choice and Memory by the Medium before described viz. The moving and acting of such Spirits of the Blood in the Kephaline and other Organical Parts of their Bodies without such an entire intelligent Spirit as Mr. W. will needs suppose to be in Man Daily Experience convinceth us That the Life Motions Sensations and Affections of the Brutes are as true strong vigorous and active as they are in Men altho' their inward Perceptions Phantasie Choice and Memory fall short of the like Faculties in Men by divers degrees or gradations which I think may very probably come to pass by the difference in their Kephaline Organs which are framed more aptly for such Purposes in Men than in Beasts Whence we may suppose the difference between them in this Point rises not so much from the diversity of the Spirits which move and act them as from the difference and degrees of Perfection amongst their Organs which are so to be acted For Illustration of which Position we may farther consider the Fabricks of their Bodies and thereupon we must find that Humane Bodies have Advantage above the Brutal in two Particular Members viz. their Hands and Tongue of which Members and their Activity if Humane Bodies were deprived they would be much more like the Beast that perish than now they are and yet Men do not use to Argue from these Bodily Advantages that their Flesh Blood Bones or Breath have a different Nature or Constitution from those of Beasts But People are generally content to say with Solomon That the Corporeal Constitutions of Man and Beast are of a Similar Nature and Constitution one of them with the other Whence it seems to me probable That although the Spirits Act with greater Perfection the Heads and Brains of Men than they do among Beasts yet that hinders not but that they may all be acted by Spirits of a Similar Nature one of them to another And thus Arguing I pretend to have shewn that the Minds of Men are more likely to be Acted by the Inflamed Spirits of the Blood and Brain than by an Intelligent Spirit created by God for that Purpose and yet it is still apparently true that Men are not able to give an Account of the Mode or Manner of the Production of such Powers in the Mind of Man by the Motions or Actings of those Spirits in his Brain that I conclude to be the Arcanum Opificis and that none other can tell or find out how the same is perform'd And hereupon I incline to rebut upon my Opposers with their own Argument and to demand of them How or by what means or after what manner their Intelligent Soul can or doth Move and Act the Body and the several Organs and Members thereof having found them all hitherto confessing that themselves do not know and therefore cannot declare to others the certain or likely Mode or Manner of that Performance and for their Souls being Tota in toto tota in qualibet parte I pass it for an Aenigma or Riddle conceiving there is no apparent Sense in that Expression nor any clear Truth to be drawn out of it P. 34. Mr. W. says That his the Soul can look upon one thing and think upon another of a quite different nature and that she can be in the noise of an Army and yet in a profound and blessed Peace She can cool the Blood in its greatest fervour of Lust P. 35. So that it is evident she hath an absolute Empire over the Body and all its Parts and is not constrain'd in her Motions by them but they are all at her Command and move by her Direction Hereunto I Reply That so much as is true of what he says the Soul can do may be most properly predicated of the Man and not of the Soul which alone can do no such things as he speaks of Next for the absolute Monarchical Power which he ascribes to the Soul over the Person I think he is in an Errour about it Rom. 7.15 That which I do I allow not for what I would that do I not but what I hate that do I. Ver. 17. And that it is not I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me Ver. 18. To will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not for the good I would I do not but the evil which I would not that I do and it is no more I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me I delight in he Law of God after the inward Man but I see another Law in my Members warring against the Law of my Mind
saying any more to it P. 171. Sixthly He objects against his own Opinion that the Scriptures make frequent mention of Rewards and Punishments to be given at the day of Judgment but make no mention of such Recompences to be given soon after Death or between that and the Resurrection This I own to be a very strong Objection against Mr. W's Opinion and do intend to make it one of mine which I mean to deliver at the end of his Catalogue of Objections and there further to consider his Answer to it P. 172. Seventhly Mr. W. objects against himself If the Souls of Men pass their Tryal as soon as their Bodies are dead what needs any other Day of Judgment will Christ try Men after Sentence This I think to be a strong Objection and therefore I mean to repeat it again and there to consider his Answer P. 175. Eighthly He objects against himself When Christ which is our Life shall appear then shall wâ— appear with him in Glory I purpose to add this Text to others which I mean to quote against his Opinion afterwards and there to consider his Answer P. 177. A Ninth Objection which he raises against himself is from 2 Tim. 4.8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Glory This I think to be a strong Objection fit to be again repeated and there his Answer shall be considered P. 179. His Tenth Objection is taken from King Hezekiah's Prayer in Isaiah This I think to be strong and therefore to be repeated and his Answer to be there considered P. 181. His Eleventh Objection from Eccles 9.5 The Dead know not any thing seems strong and therefore again to be repeated and his Answer there considered P. 182. Twelfthly Mr. W. objects against himself the words of David Psalm 7.1 2. Save me least my Enemy tear my Soul like a Lyon Here I think is the same intent as if David had said least he tear me in pieces like a Lyon putting here the word Soul to signifie Person Therefore I think this Objection to be very weak and as such I leave it P. 183. Mr. W. takes his Thirteenth Objection from 1 Cor. 15.18 If the Dead rise not then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished This Text and Chapter makes a very strong Objection against Mr. W's Opinion and therefore it shall be hereafter repeated and his Answer there considered P. 187. Mr. W's Fourteenth Objection is raised from 1 Tim. 6.16 God only hath Immortality dwelling in Light I think this to be a very weak Objection against Mr. W's Opinion and therefore I pass it over without any further Consideration In this Examination of Mr. W's Fourteen Objections we have found one half or seven of them to be of small force for the overthrowing Mr. W's Opinion and I observe that in his propounding divers of the other seven which are strong against him he doth it in such manner as their strength seems to be much impaired by his manner of delivering them and therefore I design to frame another series of Objections against his Opinion and to place amongst them The Seventh Objection of Mr. W's which I approve and to consider therein the Answers which he hath given to them not yet meaning to follow Mr. W's order of propounding them but I intend to offer all my Objections taken from Scripture according to the several times wherein they were delivered First I object against Mr. W's Opinion from Gen. 9.4 Flesh with the Life thereof which is the Blood thereof shall you not eat and surely your Blood of your Lives will I require at the Hand of every Beast will I require it and at the hand of Man at the Hand of every Man's Brother will I require the Life of Man who so sheddeth Man's Blood by Man shall his Blood be shed for in the Image of God made he Man It seems to appear from the words of this Text that the Terms Blood and Life have a convercibility one with another so as no Blood no Life and the shedding of Man's Blood is the killing of him and it is therefore made a Crime of the highest Nature because the shedding of Man's Blood destroys the Image of God wherein Man was made Whence I conceive Man to be God's Image in his whole Person whose Blood may be shed and not only in a particular part of him which Mr. W. maintains must be his Soul The words of the Text say That the Blood of the Creature is the Life thereof and Experiences convinces that all things that have Life have a sort of Spirit for the maintaining thereof as Grass Herbs Plants Trees Insects Fishes Fowls Brutes and Men. In Plants or Trees if we pare off the Skin or Bark and thereby stop the ascent of the Sap which is the Spirit of Life in Plants the Plant will die from that place upwards because this Sap or Spirit of Life will be obstructed in its ascent to the higher parts of the Plant and among Brutes or Men if the passage of the Blood be obstructed those parts to which the Blood cannot come with Freedom decay wither and become of little or no use to the Creature The Text says Flesh with the Life thereof which is the Blood thereof and Experience shews that the Life exhales with the Blood so as no Blood no Life Whence I collect the Spirit of Life in Brutes and men consists and resides in the Blood and the inflamed and glowing Spirits thereof and thence it seems that as the Spirit of Life in Plants is the Sap thereof so the Spirit of Life in Animals is the Blood kindled and glowing and the inflamed particles thereof and so our Text says Flesh with the Life thereof which is the Blood thereof And from the Premisses I argue that the Spirit of Life in Man is in his Blood and the inflam'd particles of it and Experience evidences that by like Blood and Spirits the Brutes are acted both in their Local and Peristaltick Motions their Senses of Bearing Seeing c. Their Affections of Lust Wrath and Fear and those degrees which they have of Phantasie Choice and Memory And I pretend hence to infer that if in the Blood there be a Spirit of Life which can act the Brutes in their Motions Sensations and Passions to as high a Degree as Men are acted in those performances and can act them to lower Degrees of Fancy Choice and Memory it seems a like Spirit may probably act humane Persons in all these Faculties and to much higher Degrees in those of Judgment Phantasie and Memory because in such Persons these Spirits meet with Organs of greater perfection and better fitted for the performance thereof And hereunto I apply the injecting of Brutal Blood into a Humane Body which Experience proves will act that Body in such manner as it was acted before by its own Blood because the Organs in which it works are better suited to such purposes than those of the
convince us that divers Brutes attain to as great Perfection in the use of such Senses as the Generations of Men do and some Brutes exceed the Humane Powers in the Practice and Use of some of these Senses And if we then consider the Humane Affections of Lust Wrath and Fear we may find that the Brutal Nature is as full of these Affections as the Humane and that the Beasts have them in as great vigor violence and perfection as Men have them And lastly if we rise to consider the Power of Intellect we may find that Brutes injoy the true and real use of Phantasie Choice and Memory so far as is Needful for the well being of their Natures tho' in a weak measure and very low degree if we compare such Faculties of theirs with such as may be found in that kind amongst the highest ranks of Men or such of them as have attain'd to great degrees of Improvement in their Faculties of that kind It may be that if we shall compare the most Stupid amongst Men with the most Sensitive amongst Brutes as with the Elephant Ape Horse Dog and Fox it may be found that some of these Creatures are more docible and may be made more knowing than some of the most stupid amongst Men so that by their Teachers Eye or Continuance or their Voices they have been made to act and perform divers things which caus'd Admiration in the Beholders and such as it would be hard to teach the stupidest Persons amongst Men to perform in such manner as Beasts have been known to do them There appears between the Brutal and Humane Nature and Composition very great differences and that the Men have many advantages above the Beasts in those Parts and Members which appear outwardly to the Eye First in the Members of their Hands and Tongue and the genuine and natural uses of them both and next in the natural and upright posture of the Humane Body and the placing of the Head thereupon all which give great advantages to the Humane above the Brutal Bodies and gives them such capacities of acting as are deny'd to all Brutes whatsoever and it seems we may reasonably suppose that there may be the like great advantages in the inward Organs of Humane above those of the Brutal Heads and whereby the Humane are made more capable of performing the great Duties of their Intellect then the Brutal Creatures have Capacities to do and yet we find these Differences do not hinder the persons of Men from being ranked amongst the Animal Kind the prime Ingredients into whose Composition are the same Flesh Blood Bones Breath Nerves Arteries Veins Joynts Sinews and Members which go to the Composition of them both And Experience may convince us that the Lives of them all are in their Blood or that Blood is the life of them and by the particles of such Blood inflamed called the Spirits of their Blood they are all inlivened and acted alike altho' by the Structure of their Bodies and the Perfection of their Organs to some purposes the Humane Nature have very great advantages above the Brutal and these are the main Differences which I have yet been able to find between the two Natures before-mentioned and I am hence so far convinced as to conceive that there is no such great and apparent Differences between that sort of the Spirit of Life which acts the Brutes and that sort of Spirit which acts the Men as heretofore hath generally been believed but the Spirits which act Life in them both are of a more similar Nature than Men have formerly imagined them to be and from this Argument I am ready to conclude that the Humane Spirit of Life hath a great agreement with that of the Brutal and therefore I think it more probable to be a Material Unintelligent Spirit than that it should be an Intelligent created extraneous Spirit made by God for each Man at the time of his Procreation and injected into the Embrion at some incertain or unknown time which yet remains unperceived or undeclared to us and which if it shall be made better known may deserve to be further examined amongst us Upon these three last Arguments drawn from the Animal Nature and Humane Experience my first doubtings concerning the Seperate Subsistence of souls were founded after I had held out in the old Opinion until my Age of Sixty Three-Years and my doubting caus'd me to search the Scriptures concerning that Point and there I found no Concurrence of Scripture Texts which were brought as Evidences thereof and not so much as one Text that was clear in the affâ—mâ—nce of it except that of St. Matthew's saying Are not able to kill the Soul Next that neither that Saying nor any other Text produced for proof of that Point had a principal 〈…〉 teach or prove the Souls Seperate Subsistence 〈…〉 the Texts produced for the proof of that Opinion 〈…〉 livered in a collateral manner and are brought â— by without Mens being able to make it appear 〈…〉 of the Texts produced to that purpose did 〈…〉 tend to declare or prove the now questioned 〈…〉 the Souls Seperate Subsistence I found also that all their Texts from whence the consequential proofs which they make are drawn might receive reasonable and I think sufficient Answers which I have endeavour'd to apply to them in this Treatise and have satisfy'd my own Understanding in them all and how far they will appear reasonable to the Readers thereof I am willing to leave to such Experimental Tryals as may be made upon the Judgments of such Persons as may happen to peruse the Treatise and to the Candor and Indifferent Censure of such Readers I am willing to submit my self and all that I have spoken in this Treatise and concerning this Subject AFter Mr. Wadsworth 's finishing the Treatise before considered he super-adds thereunto and subjoyns to it a Declamatory Discourse which he intitles Faith's Triumph over the Fears of Death which is not much less in bulk than his Treatise before answered Vpon the Perusal thereof I find his Triumphal Arch principally founded the one end of it upon the Souls Seperate Subsistence and the other end upon the Souls going to Heaven immediately after Death both which I conceive to be Precarious Assumptions I am sure not granted by his Opposers and I believe not sufficiently proved by his Arguments I find that in this Discourse he repeats a third time the four Texts of Scripture which he thinks do most strongly prove his Opinion viz. Solomon's return of the Spirit to God who gave it St. Matthew's Are not able to kill the Soul St. Luke 's Parable of Dives and his Relation of the Thiefs Conversion on the Cross I acknowledge my self averse from making often Repetitions of the same things and therefore do refuse to follow his Example or Practice in this Point but rather make choice to refer my Reader to such Answers as are before given to these Arguments in those