it Hence we may perceive that our Author instead of proving by Reason or from Nature That the Humane Soul is an Immaterial Self-subsisting Spirit is turned about to vain Jangling and with a wilful Blindness such as will not see he balks the known and ancient Opinion of the Primitive Fathers of the Church before cited by himself viz. That the Humane Soul was a Material Spirit kindled by our Creator in the Body of Man when he breathed into Adam 's Nostrils the Breath of Life and thereby made him a Living Soul We read that when Prometheus had framed and made a perfect Humane Body he could not enliven it for want of Heavenly Fire which he therefore stole from Jupiter and was condemned to have his Heart eternally torn and devoured by the incessant Gripes and endless Voracity of a Vulture or Raven Whether this shadow to us Lucifer's Offence in such Atempt we dispute not but apparent it is that this is the adequate Emblem of a guilty and tormenting Conscience for a Crime of the highest Nature and Provocation that possibly can be committed Ezek. 37. we meet with an Adumbration of such an enlivening Breath God directs his Words Say to the Wind thus saith the Lord Come from the four Winds O Breath and breath upon these Slain that they may live And the Bodies arose and they lived accordingly 1 Cor. 15.44 There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual Body The first Man Adam was made a Living Soul and the last Adam a Quickening Spirit For the truer Understanding of what is meant by the Term Living Soul parallel Expressions of Scripture shall be cited to that Intent Gen. 7.22 All in whose Nostrils was the Breath of Life upon the dry Land died in the Flood For the Use of the Word Soul Levit. 17.11 Ye shall have a holy Convocation and ye shall afflict your Souls viz. your selves 1 Sam. 10. Hannah was in bitterness of Soul and prayed and wept she was sore afflicted Ch. 2.16 Take as much as thy Soul desireth viz. as much as you will Ch. 18.1 The Soul of Jonathan was knit with the Soul of David and he loved him as his own Soul viz. his Affection was knit to him and he loved him as himself Ch. 25.29 A Man is risen to pursue thee and to seek thy Soul viz. pursue thy Person and seek thy Life Ch. 30.12 When the Egyptian taken at Ziklag had eaten his Spirit came again to him viz. his Vital Spirit 2 Sam. 30.39 The Soul of David longed to go forth unto Absalom Next Verse David 's Heart was towards Absalom seems the Heart Affection Life Person used to be expressed by the Term Soul Job 12.10 In God's Hand is the Soul of every living thing and the Breath of all Mankind Ch. 16.4 If your Soul were in my Soul's stead viz. if you were in my Case Ch. 21.4 Why should not my Spirit be troubled viz. why should I not be grieved Ch. 30.15 Terrors pursue my Soul viz. me And my Soul is poured out upon me viz. I am exceedingly afflicted Ch. 33.30 To bring back his Soul from the Pit to the Light of the Living viz. save his Life Ch. 34.14 If God gather to himself Mans Spirit and his Breath he shall turn to his Dust. We have proceeded thus far of the Bible to collect Texts to our Intent and should we go through the Psalms and forward it would be hard to recite the Collections and it seems the Texts cited are enough to establish the Sense of our Expression Man became a Living Creature or Person And thus by the Breath of Life derived from Heaven was the Flammula Vitalis the Promethean Fire enkindled in the Blood Spirits and Parts of Man's Body and by Breath it hath ever since been refreshed and maintained and when God takes this from us we die and are turned to our Earth and all our Thoughts perish our Fancies Intellects and Memories our Learning and Abilities as well as our Love and our Hatred our Passions and Affections The Vital Flame kindled in the first Man passing intermixed with the Seminal Substance and Prolifick Virtue and received in Habitacles fitting and proper for its Fomentation and Nutriment is first fermented by the Prolifick Energy or Internal Principle of Inclination to be coagulated and knit one Part of it to the other and by Fomentation is strengthened whence arises a Power of assimilating to it self such Nourishment as comes within the narrow Sphere of its Activity which being by its own Tendency to Heat and the Natural Warmth and Fomentation of its Receptacle compacted to and settled in a terminated Consistency and somewhat a fixed Unity of Coherence the Formation of Parts doth consequently commence and as Men have by a daily Observation found it in Eggs under a Hen it likely doth proceed viz. Two harder Accrescencies are principally framed and compacted viz. the Primum Vivens and Vltimum Moriens the Triangle of our Hearts and the Circular or Globular and Chief Member of our Bodies the Head and these are presently knit together first by small Ligatures Strings and Films and from those two Parts as Principal Pillars and Fountains of Life Motion and Action there are extruded and produced first the Fibres and Nervous Parts and Ligatures of the Body then the Arteries Veins and Muscles and lastly the Flesh and Bones and such Blood as may be required in an Embrion State or a Chile analogous thereunto proper to nourish and apt to be converted into Blood and to catch and maintain the Vital Flame which shall be kindled upon the first Breath and Fanning of the Ambient Air at its coming into the World And like to this is the common Fate and Form of all other Animals and the Production of Living Bodies whatsoever if we shall examine them and begin with Vegetables and take for Standards the Acorn and the Mustard-seed they and whatsoever other Seed it be if it fall upon unnatural or barren and unhospitable Places viz. into Waters barren and dry Sands upon bare Rocks or salt Marishes or the like the Seed missing and failing of a Sutable Receptacle and agreeable to its Nature cannot be expected to fructifie according to its Natural Inclination and Power but must needs prove abortive unfruitful and improlifick But where Seeds fall into good and tolerable Grounds agreeable to their Seminal Virtues Inclinations and Powers and wherein they may meet with a Nutritive Reception there they are first somewhat melted or softned and then they ferment and finding a sutable Fomentation in their Recipient they germinate and sprout and as the Sprouts bear upwards so from the other end of the Acorn proceed Fibres or thin very small Strings moist and somewhat glutinous or clammy Threads impregnated not only with its proper Juice but indued with a catching and penetrating Quality enabling it to fix and fasten it self in its hospitable Recipient where finding still a friendly and benigne Fomentation and Acceptance it
Considerable in the Degrees of them for that he had Collected together all that I had met with in my former Authors for the Maintenance of his Tenet and had placed and used them Dexterously and as they appeared to serve the most Advantageously for his Deign So as it seemed I had not much more to expect from Dr. Bentley or any other Writer who should or might Undertake the maintenance of that Opinion I thought it deserved my serious Consideration yet found it not convictive of my Judgment in the Point nor able to give any considerable stagger to it And therefore for my own Satisfaction in the first place and Assistance of others in the next place I undertook to make a stricture upon all the Arguments delivered in this Book for Proof of the Point Controverted and this by Pages according to his Order used in the delivery of them And as he brings no new Arguments but only uses those which in my former Writings have been mentioned so are my returns thereunto but a Repetition of things before delivered applied to the Particulars as they are urged by him And because the Answers are Repetitions my intent is to abbreviate them as much as I can without rebating the edge or taking from the vigour of them Pag. 5. He comes to the Soul of Man and says God's Breath infused it and our Breath continues its Vnion with the Body Here though I conceive not that God hath Breath or doth breath yet I grant that God did by an Animating Breath give Life to the Body of Man first fitted and prepared to receive and act by the same He remarks the Ability of Speech is conferred on no other Soul but Mans This I should Word It was conferred on no other Body but Mans for that Mans Soul cannot speak without his Tongue and if there be a defect in that Organ the Soul can neither help it nor act to Speak without it Pag. 6. Says That by calling Mans a living Soul it is distinguished from all other Souls This I deny and say That Beasts Souls are living as well and as Naturally as Mens Pag. 7. Amongst his many Expressions not granted I grant this That Adam's Soul came by Inspiration from the Lord. He says It it a most astonishing Mystery to see the dust of the Ground and an Immortal Spirit clasping each other with such dear Embraces I confess this Mystery is so astonishing as quite discourages my belief of the thing He quotes Austin for the infundendo creatur but not any part or place of that Author where the Words quoted may be found and I doubt he is wrong in it and that this Expression is of latter date than Austin's time Pag. 8. The Breath of our Nostrils he says and nothing else links and holds these Two Natures viz. the Mortal and Immortal together for the Soul comes and goes with the Breath and cannot stay one minute after the Breath is gone I grant That as Fire for want of Air is suffocated so both the Humane and Bestial Soul for want of Breath but that is not the only want which can extinguish or dislodge such Souls the want of Blood will do it and so will the want of Food or Nourishment For Breath Blood and Food are all of necessity for the Life and Support of an Humane as well as of a Brutal Soul they cannot subsist if any of these be wanting to them And it passes with me for a strong evidence that the thing which cannot subsist without all these Material Supports is it self also Material viz. both the Brutal and the Humane Souls which therefore I take for Material Spirits Our Author here says No Elixir or Worldly Power can make the Soul stay one minute after the Breath is gone And I say so for the Blood and so when all the Nouriture is spent the Soul can stay no longer says he live no longer in the Body say I. Here he says The Humane Soul is of Divine Original Created and Inspired by God I refuse the Word Created for that it is not in Moses's Text here expounded neither in Letter nor Sense that I can perceive And for the Divine Original and Inspiration it seems the Brutal Soul and first Breath may lay a good claim to them both although Moses have not so fully declared the manner of God's acting with or upon them Pag. 9. Says The Nature of the Soul cannot be perfectly known Pag. 11. To prove the Humane Soul is in strict and proper sense created by God he cites Zech. 12.1 The Lord who stretcheth out the Heavens and layeth the Foundation of the Earth and formeth the Spirit of Man within him Comenius tells us That the Word here Translated formeth is in the Hebrew Jatzar used for the forming of Mans Body out of the Ground viz. a Formation from some Prae-exsistent Matter I say from these Words the Formation of a Material Soul Vital Animal Rational may very well be intended and that this seems most likely to be the sense and intent of it To prove the Soul created he Cites farther 1 Pet. 4.19 Let them that suffer commit the keeping of their Souls to God as unto a faithful Creator I demand of what God was the Creator not of Souls singly but of Bodies also and here commit the keeping of their Souls intends themselves or their Persons An usual Scripture Expression in the like Cases thus his Proofs for the single Creation of Souls out of nothing are answered which renders his Design vain viz. of proving that the Soul is a Substance because created out of nothing I grant the Material Soul to be a Substance but says he Not a substance created out of nothing Yours say he Flows from the Matter and depends upon it And say I so doth the Humane Soul do as appears before and he hath yet made no good Proof of a single Creation of it out of nothing Well but he hath another Argument to prove that the Soul is such a Substance viz. the Soul doth exist and subsist by it self alone when separated from the Body by Death And I grant if he proves this it will do his Work and he Cites in Proof Luk. 23.43 the Case of the Thief upon the Cross and Christ's promise to him And Matth. 10.28 Fear not them that kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul To each of these Texts I have answered before as fully as I can and hold it not fit to repeat those Answers here St. Matthew's Text I grant is a clear Proof that he was of our Authors Opinion viz. That the Soul might have a Subsistence separate from the Body but St. Paul in St. Lukes Gospel 12. â—4 hath otherwise worded Our Lord's Doctrine upon that occasion and it seems by 1 Cor. 15.18 and 2 Thes 4.15 and 1 Cor. 4.5 Chap 1. vers 7. and 8. that Paul did not hold or know the Separate Subsistence of Souls and so an intermediate State betwixt
do deny and he proves it not For other Brute Creatures I say it is very probable God gave them their first Breath though Moses have not expressed it He says The Opinion of the Souls Propagation from the Parents by Generation is very Antient and Tertullian and divers of the Western Fathers closed with it And so do I. He says Antiquity is no pasport for errors and so say I He cites an Objection against the daily Creation of Souls and in Proof of their Generation out of Dr. Brown's Religio Medici Pag. 32. He pretends to Answer this Objection but uses to that purpose only Scholastical Distinctions and Niceties and brings no material or solid Reason from Nature so as I think the Objection is not enough Answered but holds still good against the Creation and for the Generation of the whole both Body and Soul Pag. 33. Cites Gen. 22. God rested on the seventh day from all his Work which he had made Pag. 34. This says he Intends he ceased from making any new Species or Kinds of Creatures but he still creates Individual Souls of the same kind and nature with Adam 's Soul and he means all Humane Souls So as upon Fruitful Coition of Man and Woman or of Man and Beast where the product is of Humane shape God creates a new young Soul to enliven and inform every such Body whence every day hour and moment he is creating such Souls for all the Earth over I would know where he found his Distinction of God's ceasing from Creation of New Species but not of New Individuals he quotes no Author or Original for it and till he so do it will pass with Readers for his own Fiction and do him no service at all And his Proof of his New Creation is a kin to this Distinction he cites for Proof of it Our Lord's Words My Father worketh hitherto and I work How this proves Gods Continual New Creation of Souls I do not perceive and I suppose sew others will be drawn to believe such New Creations upon this Proof He says To me it is clear that the Soul is not generated for that which is generable is corruptible This I agree and thence infer The Humane Soul both generable material and extinguishable He Reasons against this but by Arguments before Answered Pag. 35. Farther to prove a New Creation of Souls he quotes again Heb. 12.9 Men must be in subjection to the Father of Spirits intending it to signifie the Father of their Spirits or Souls This I do not grant but say This Sense restraining to Humane Spirits only is against the express Words of the Text as well as the intent of it He quotes again Zech. 12.1 before examined he quotes Isa 42.5 God that giveth Breath unto the people upon the Earth and Spirit to them that walk therein I take Breath and Spirit here for the same thing Here he cites Chap. and Vers of four places more I have searched them and find no mention of Spirit or Soul in any of them Pag. 36. He says These Texts speak of Creating Heaven and Earth yea and their Souls also Of Heaven and Earth they all speak but of Souls not a word whence it is not safe to take even a good Mans word in Matter of Controversie Pag. 36. Cites Solomon's Text again Dust returns to the Earth and the Spirit to God who gave it The Soul and Body says he Are the two Constitutive Parts of Man and have two distinct Originals the Body is of the Earth the Soul a Spirit given by God who gave it Being by Creation I say God gave the Body a Being by Creation as well as the Soul and as the Elements of the Body are Earth and Moisture so that of his Soul are likely Air and Fire and at Death the Body goes to the Earth the Fire extinguisheth and Air vanisheth What Solomon's Expression intended and the manner of that Expression hath been before disputed Pag. 37. Says The Soul hath no Principle out of which by Order of Nature it did arise I say the Body had no such Principle neither God created it of the Earth and breathed into Adam 's Nostrils the Breath of Life and he became a living Soul whence the Man was created Body as well as Soul He agrees the Souls of Brutes are generated but says he There is a Specifick Difference betwixt the Brutal and Rational Soul This I deny and say The Soul is not Rational but is so in the Head only where there are Organs created proper for that Faculty and in no part of the Body can the Soul act rationally but in the Head Pag. 38. He demands Why are not Brutes capable of performing Rational and Religious Acts I Answer because God hath not given them Rational Powers and Organs in so high a degree as he hath done to Men nor can one Man perform like another in such occasions But whatsoever their Souls are the People can act but according to the Capacity of their Organs and the Temperament of their Bodies and Complexions and Humours Men have a different Posture of Body from other Creatures more Capacious Heads in Proportion and store of Brains and finer Matter and they have Heads and Tongues whereby they can better learn direct and act than any Brutes These Differences set Humane Bodies far above the Brutes and yet it seems they may be acted as the Brutes are by a Material Spirit for the Flesh and Blood are Materials of both sorts and that which nourishes is alike in both without Breath Blood and Food both sorts perish and their Souls depart or vanish and yet as Mens Bodily Organs exceed the Brutes for Use and Aptitude so may their Spirits for fineness of Matter and plenty of it and purity and brightness of that flame of Life in them Pag. 39. Says Seed of the Soul is not to be found in Man because the Soul is a Spiritual Essence I say this begs the Question but if this Spirit be Material he will not deny that the Seed of it may be found in Man Pag. 40. Upon this I say Remove the Opinion or later Invention of the new Creation of Souls for all Adulterous Incestuous Buggerly Humane Procreations and then all his Questions here argued are needless and useless He confesses he cannot tell how a Newly Created Spirit should come to be defiled with Original Sin I say he need not trouble himself about it for that the thing is not at all so Pag. 41. He asks How so many Souls become foolish forgetful injudicious It seems he means Men. He supposes it to come from the Bodily Temper and Organs and I grant that very often it doth so But yet I say that my sort of Soul viz. the Flame of Life or the Material Spirit is subject to Defects Infirmities and Obstructions as well as the Body Pag. 42. His Deduction of Original Sin upon Man draws it only from his being a Child of Adam whence it seems his
Jesus shall God bring with him and the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the Voice of the Archangel and with the Tromp of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first then the Elect living Persons shall be Translated and caught up to the Clouds and both sorts together shall meet the Lord in the Air and so shall they ever be with the Lord. Here we may perceive or collect That St. Paul directs to look after the Resurrection for Comfort at or immediately after the Death of the Party Had he known or believed a Separate Subsistence of Souls and a going to Heaven of the good immediately after Death of the Party Our Author gives it us in these Words Pag. 326. Little says he do Believers think what Visions of God and Ravishing Sights of Christ the Souls of their Friends have when they are closing their eyes with tears It seems strange St. Paul did not know any thing of this delightful Scene and pity it is doubtless that he was ignorant of such Ravishing Enjoyments and the quick attainment of them Acts 20.20 He kept nothing back that was profitable to his Auditors Ver. 27. But declared to them all the Council of God Had he known or believed the Separate Subsistence or the particular Judgment or the immediate going to Heaven by Angels or the Ravishing Sights and Joys so soon accruing he would not have kept back all or any of them from his Proselites the Thessalonians But we have Reason to think he would fully and freely have communicated the same to them and have raised Edifying and Comfortable Exhortations if he had found or known of sound ground to erect them upon Our Ministers and People fetch not their Comforts so far as the Resurrection but fetch them from Heaven immediately and hope with as much likelihood that all their Friends Souls go thither by the Conveyance of Angels But because St. Paul here gives us no Encouragement to believe them for my Part I cannot do it but fix my self for Comfort in such Cases upon the Rocky Ground which our Apostle here gives us the Certainty and Assurance of a General Resurrection and Judgment Our Apostle's former Text 1 Cor. 15.32 says thus What shall all the Afflictions that I have undergone profit me if the dead rise not But if the-Case be so Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die and there 's an end casting the whole Expectation of Recompences future to this Life upon the Resurrection without mention or regard of any Intermediate State Rom. 2.5 Thou treasurest up unto thy self Wrath against the Day of Wrath and Revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God Ver. 6. Who will render to every Man according to his Deeds Honour and Immortality to some but Indignation and Wrath Tribulation and Anguish to all who work evil c. to Ver. 16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ Plainly the Day of the Last Judgment so as Recompences shall then be distributed according to what Men have done here and only then for any thing that appears in this Text without mention or regard to an Intermediate State 1 Cor. 1.7 8. Ye come behind in no Gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus who also shall confirm you unto the end that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Plainly intending his Second Coming to Judgment as the only known Time for the Expectation of future Recompences 1 Cor. 4.5 Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden Works of Darkness and manifest the Counsels of Hearts and then shall every deserving Man have Praise of God Plainly denoting the Resurrection as the Time of Judgment and Recompences 2 Cor. 5.10 We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body whether good or bad Still without hinting any other Time or Place for future Recompences Philip. 3.20 Our Conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord of Glory who shall change our vile Body and make it like his Glorious Body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself Still no mention of any Expectation future to this Life till our Lord's Second Coming 2 Thes 1.7 It is right for God to recompence harm to them which trouble you and to you who are troubled Rest with us when the Lord shall appear from Heaven with his mighty Angels Chap. 3.5 The Lord airect your hearts into the Love of God and unto the patient waiting for Christ His Coming again 1 Tim. 6.14 Keep this Commandment until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ which in his times he shall shew as the only time for Recompences 2 Tim. 4.8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but unto them also that love his appearing viz. his Second Coming And this applies Chap. 1.12 I suffer without being ashamed for I know whom I have believed and that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day And so Ver. 18. The Lord grant to Onisephorus that he may find Mercy of the Lord in that day Chap. 4.1 I Charge thee before God and Christ who shall Judge the Quick and Dead at his Appearing and his Kingdom All harping upon the same string viz. the Resurrection and General Judgment without one word mentioning a Particular Judgment or an Intermediate State Tit. 2.13 Teach to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the Great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ No mention of the Hope of a Blessed Intermediate State Heb. 6.2 He will go on to the Doctrines of the main Duties to be performed in this world and to the Resurrection of the dead and that of eternal Judgment for the world to come as the only considerable things Chap. 9.27 It is appointed unto Men once to die and after that the Judgment The Last Day or Judgment Not Two one Particular and the other General No mention of more than One Chap. 11.35 Others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain What Not an immediate going to Heaven of their Souls but a better Resurrection Chap. 12.22 Ye are come to the Heavenly Jerusalem to God and Angels to the General Assembly and Church and just Spirits made perfect And see that ye refuse not him that speaketh in the Gospel whose Voice then shook the Earth yet once more I shake not the Earth only but also Heaven which signifies the removing of them at the Last Day aad then we shall receive a Kingdom which cannot he moved And then enjoy the Heavenly Jerusalem God Christ Angels the Assembly of the Church perfected unto which things
wrath Chap. 12.7 The dust shall return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it We say this may be expounded by Gen. 7.22 and 1 Sam. 30.12 and Job 12.10 all before Cited Then Chap. 34.14 If God set his heart upon man if he gather unto himself his Spirit and his Breath All flesh shall perish together and man shall turn again unto Dust Psal 31. Prays Let me not be put to confusion but deliver me be thou my Rock and Defence Into thy hand I commit my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me And Psal 104.29 When thou takest away their breath they die and are turned again to their dust When thou lettest thy breath go forth they shall be made and thou shalt renew the face of the earth Zech. 6.5 These are the four spirits of the heavens noted on the Margent or Winds These places make Breath and the Spirit mentioned by Solomon to be much if not altogether the same thing And it seems remarkable that when David prays for Deliverance from Dangers that were temporal as in Psal 31. he uses this Expression Into thine Hand I commit my Spirit this makes it seem to intend his whole Person himself both Soul and Body as hath been shewn to be usual and common in the Usage of the Word Soul Isa 29.24 They who erred in Spirit shall come to Vnderstanding Here Spirit seems to signifie a Faculty of the Man viz. his Mind or Intellect Upon the Whole it seems the Spirit 's Return to God in Solomon's Sence might be a willing Submission of the Mind or Understanding to that Dissolution by Death which he hath appointed to be the Natural End of all Mankind This makes Death appear a willing Return of a meek and quiet Spirit to God by an easie Surrender of its Fort and Hold the Body when others and they if they did not so meekly surrender would be Stormed and forced against their Wills to let go their Holds and be driven out of Forts which they have not Power to defend and maintain against the violent and prevalent Assaults and Storms of Death We meet in Isaiah Ch. 53.10 such an Addition concerning the Term of Soul as we judge not fit to omit viz. When thou shalt make his Soul an Offering for Sin This intended his whole Person And he shall see of the Travail of his Soul Chap. 57.16 I will not contend for ever for so should the Spirit fail before me and the Souls which I have made viz. the People which I have made So Is it such a Day for Man to afflict his Soul viz. himself And If thou draw out thy Soul to the Hungry if thou minister unto him Ezek. 37.14 I will put my Spirit in you Bodies rising from dry Bones and ye shall live And this was executed by the Four Winds blowing upon them Whence it seems Spirit Wind and Breath have a great Congruity one with another and are put one for another divers times And this helps to declare what Solomon meant by Spirit Dan. 2.3 The King's Spirit was troubled to know the Dream viz. his Vnderstanding Chap. 5.20 An excellent Spirit Knowledge and Vnderstanding was found in Daniel One of these Words expound another Micah 6.7 Shall I give my First-born the Fruits of my Body for the Sin of my Soul seems to import Shall I give or Sacrifice my Child for my own Sin Soul being here put for Person as we have shewn was very usual Zech. 6.5 These are the Four Spirits or Winds of the Heavens Chap. 12.1 The Lord that formeth the Spirit of Man within him viz. who hath given him Faculties of Sense Memory Vnderstanding c. Thus the Texts of the Old Testament which make most for the Proof of a Separate and Self-subsisting Soul of Man have been quoted and such Expositions made of them and Answers thereby made to them as appear to us sufficient to abate and take away the Violence or proving Force of them by shewing that they do not necessarily or strongly compel to the Belief of such a Separated Subsistance of Humane Souls But that they only be solved and answered by Senses or Constructions more Natural and likely and more consentaneous to the Natural Conceptions of a Humane Reason unbiassed or distorted by the Prejudices of formerly received and radicated Opinions We proceed to Texts of the New Testament which have been or may be quoted to the same Intent and Purpose Mat. 16.25 He that will save his Life shall lose it and he that for Christ's sake loses it shall find it For what is a Man profited if he gain the whole World and lose his own Soul or what shall a Man give in Exchange for his Soul For the Son of Man shall come in the Glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every Man according to his Works Here it seems the Word Soul intends the Life or Person of the Man and what shall a Man get by grasping or gaping after the whole World if he lose his own Life for without Life to enjoy it what Profit or Benefit can one make of the whole World if it could be gotten and no Man in his Wits will take the whole World in Exchange for his Life for he can have no Profit but plain Damage and Loss by that Exchange And yet says our Lord He that loses his Life for my sake shall find it viz. shall find Profit by that Exchange For he shall be recompenced at the Resurrection For the Son of Man shall come in his Father's Glory and then he shall reward every Man according to his Works The Man shall then receive an Eternal Recompence and be made a great Gainer by that Exchange Chap. 13.42 For then the Wicked shall be cast into a Furnace of Fire and the Righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father Next is quoted Matth. 17. the Relation of our Lord's Transfiguration repeated Mark 9. and Luke 9. There appeared to them viz. the three Disciples Moses and Elias talking with him They all saw the Appearances It must be true then that these Prophets have a Subsistence after their Departure out of this our World And for Elias his creates no great Difficulty in the Case upon Supposal that his Body went to Heaven and was changed as S. Paul says in a Moment into a Spiritual Body and there may well enough be still continuing And for Moses his Body it could never be found what became of it seems not very certain but not being to forth-come it was conjectured and concluded to be buried no Man ever knew where nor that there was or is a Certainty in that Fact It seems he went up the Hill alone and never returned nor was his Body found what therefore became of him we may think remains a Mystery and that he died may be taken for a Conjecture from common Probability He never returned nor was after to
Soul cannot be defiled but by its coming from Adam Pag. 43. Says His sort of Soul is a true Being and not only a Conceipt or Phancy It seems he suspects it looks somewhat like a Phancy and I am very apt to pass it for one notwithstanding his word to the contrary He says My Soul can and will subsist and remain what it is when separated from the Body but yet I do not believe him He says It is not my Body but my Soul which makes me a Man I say neither of them makes a Man but they must be both together for that purpose Pag. 44. Says Let an Apoplexy hinder the Operation of the Soul in my Brain and all my Organs become useless I agree this and say The Soul therefore doth not act or understand but by the Organs cannot do so without them What Man by his Rational Faculty can perform he says Is done by his Soul and I grant it but not without the Organs of the Head and especially the Brain and so for the Sensitive and Vital Faculties and their Organs Pag. 45. Grants here the Understanding to be the Guide of the Will which chuseth or refuseth as the other directs He says My Affections are the strong and sensible Motions of my Soul I grant it so in the Praecordia as the Rational is in the Head but in no other part save the Praecordia are there any Affections and there they are as properly the effect of the Organs as of the Soul they must both Operate to the Production of such Effects He says He finds his Soul could never rise out of Matter nor come into his Body by Natural Generation I will not take upon me to know what he may find of himself or say of himself but I find no such things of my self nor hath he yet enough directed other Men to find what he says he finds unless they will first accept of his phancy viz. That a Man hath within him a small Spark of a Spirit coming he knows not how nor from whence residing and governing he knows not how nor where and departing from him he knows not how nor whither And how to know that such a thing there is in a Man neither hath he shewn nor can Mans reason find out so as most likely all this is but a phancy He says Brutes are destitute of Vnderstanding Reason and Conscience c. I say they have these Faculties in a very low degree as we may know and love God in a very much lower degree than the Angels Pag. 46. Says He is made for nobler ends and uses than to eat drink sleep talk and die And I grant it and that ex hoc momento pendet eternitas at the Resurrection an account must be given and then Recompences shall be distributed 2 Tim. 4.8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but unto all them also that love his appearing All Men shall then receive acccording to their Works and Behaviour used here upon Earth and this is as true and provable as that Christ Jesus came to save Sinners or that he is the Son of God so as one who professes to believe the Gospel can have no doubt of the truth or certainty of it And yet our Author in all this proving Discourse makes no mention at all of it and the likely reason of that is the Contrariety which appears betwixt the Two Doctrines of the Soul 's going immediately to Heaven or Hell and that of the Resurrection We both agree that Sense and Perception are acted by the Soul He says By its own Efficacy I say by Assistance of Bodily Organs and not without them whence his Soul in Hell needs no Addition of Body or Organs to make it more sensible than of it self it is but mine must have a Body and Organs or it can neither do nor suffer any thing Thus a Resurrection for mine is necessary in respect to future Recompences not so for his Consider we his sort of Soul in Heaven What advantage can it expect from a Resurrection It hath already the Roal Mansions of Heaven the Society of the Holy Angels and the Beatifical Vision of God and what can any Creature or Being desire more Well but if things go on to a Resurrection the Case must be altered and for the worse as it seems for these Souls must go down again from those Glorious Mansions and enter of new into its old Body and return no more to Heaven but live upon Earth again 'T is true it shall be a new Earth wherein dwells Righteousness in a more happy and blessed state than now it is or than we at present enjoy but far short of God's Royal Mansions in Heaven the Heaven of Heavens of which he hath said Heaven is my Throne in comparison of which the Earth is but a Footstool 2 Pet. 3.13 14. We according to his promise look for new Heavens or Skies and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness and seeing that ye look for such things be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless do so that ye may be Partakers of these Rewards Revel 21.1 2. I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth and a new Jerusalem coming down from God out of Heaven Upon that new Earth Vers 11. He begins to describe this Glorious City by Metaphors of Gold precious Stones Pearls c. intending the happy State and resplendent Vertues which the new raised People shall enjoy after our expected Resurrection There there shall be no more Death Sorrow Pain or Crying God shall be with them as with our First Parents in Paradise and dry up all their Tears But when all this is done and considered What Comparison can we make betwixt this new Earth and that Heaven which is the Royal Throne of God and where he is superlatively present sic parvis componere magna solemus We must say the one state and place is extraordinary happy but the other transcends Mans conceipt and is super-excellent to all Imagination I say then A Soul once received into the highest Heavens if it can be capable of a Mansion there coming at the Resurrection to be put into its Body again and made an Inhabitant of a new Earth must be apparently a Loser by that Change and Naturally or Rationally such a Resurrection cannot be grateful to it or desired by it but must be compelled and go on invita minerva which is not the State or Case of the Resurrection for that is given to Man as the greatest Benefit and Blessing which his Servants receive of God and for the most grievous Punishment of Offenders it was purchased by Christ for his Servants 1 Cor. 15.13 14. If there be no Resurrection of the Dead then is Christ not risen and if Christ be not risen then is our Preaching vain and your Faith is also vain
may yet draw a Plastick Power from the Seed enabling it to assimilate to its own Parts and Nature such Particles as are agreeble to its Constitution and lie within the Compass and Reach of its Activity till the whole Substance or Plastick Power of the Seed be spent Thence rises the Frutex from the Mustard-seed the least amongst Seeds in whose Surcrease the Birds of the Air may lodge And thence the Oaks of Bashan and the no less large or useful ones of our own naturally-happy Country We know farther concerning such Vegetables that they have Roots which draw and extract Radical Nourishment out of the Earth each for its proper Plant and that their Sap is sent up for Nourishment betwixt the Bark or Skin and the Bole or Stalk and that in the Wood or Stalk there are Pores which receive Nutritive Moisture both for its own Support and Growth and the better Nutriment also of the Plant and thus we know in gross many Natural Parts and Materials by whose Powers and Means things are acted and done amongst Plants But all these things that we named and that we know are Parcels of Matter which our Philosophizing Opposers will flatly deny can move themselves Whence they must and do say all this Motion and Activity can come no otherwise but from a Spirit and if they mean a Natural and Material Spirit extracted from the Earth and percolated in the Root and alimbeck'd in its Ascent towards the Branches where the Leaves and Fruit are expected and produced we grant them there is such a Spirit as this in Plants which Philosophers have dignified with the Title of a Soul calling it by Name of the Vegetable Soul But I would seek with a Lanthorn amongst them for a Man so wise that he could apply the Powers and Working of Plants to their proper Productions applicando activa passivis and make Men comprehend how it comes to pass from Intelligible Causes that Apple-trees or other Fruit-trees do bear different Sorts of Apples or Fruits the same Trees the same Fruits whence the thing comes not by Chance but of Nature We desire them to shew the Reason and next Causes of this Difference nay let them declare to us the true and next Causes of the Contexture of a Leaf how and by what Means and by what Causes or Agent the middle Stem of it is thrust out into a strait Line stiffned and made strong for Support of the Fabrick Whence come or how are formed the small Ramuli of such a Leaf fixed in the middle Stem of it Whence all the inferiour and little Fibres and Turnings in it plainly wonderful to behold when the upper Case and Covering is worn off And what is the next Cause or Material of the upper Covering of such Leaves and the Nitor or Gloss of many of them and whence comes their Shape and Figure so divers one from another Our Blessed Lord informs us That if a Man sowe Corn and sleep and wake or rise Night and Day by turns to watch it yet it will still grow up he knows not how first the Blade then the Ear and then the full Corn in the Ear. We know that in Nature there are Materials to do all this and that there is a Natural and Material Spirit operating which we conceive may and doth effect them But to find out the proper Materials and next Causes and their Differences from one another and why and how these things and many more are done amongst and in them shall pass for a Task too hard for the Forces of any who require to have Men declare by what Mediums the how and the why Men do and can use their Senses Memories Phansies and Intellects by the Material and Organical Parts of their Natural Constitutions and Bodies From Vegetables we may proceed by ascending to the Degree of Animals in the World distinct from Men who also are Animals but something more and above the Ordinary Of the Beasts Moses says God made the Beast of the Earth after his Kind This imports he furnished them at the same time with the Breath of Life For Solomon tells us that Men and Beasts have all one Breath And this agrees with our own Knowledge and Experience and puts the thing beyond all Question or Doubt although though Moses do not relate the Manner how it was done as he did in the Case and Creation of Man But the Beast created and inspired with this Common Breath proceeds in the Generating its Like as hath been before expressed concerning Man If the Seed fall like that of Onan the Son of Judah into an improper or inhospitable Place whatsoever Fervor of Spirit or Prolifick Power there may be in it all is lost and comes to no Effect for wart of a fit Recipient where it may find Natural Support by a due Fomentation and Nutriment But where the Recipient is proper for such Purposes the Seminal Matter and Power proceeds to act as before hath been said of Man the Prolifick Spirit fomented ferments the Matter and levens or seasons it till it arrive to a Coagulation and then to a Consistence which assisted by Fomentation of its Receptacle and working of its own Natural Heat and Spirit is first determined in Quantity or Bulk then made more solid and then follows the Formation of Parts and lastly of Members Flesh Bones and such sort of Blood or Chile of a Mixt Temperature to it and all indued with an Inclination and Power of Assimilating to it self such Particles as come within its Reach and are proper for its Increase or Nutriment till it come into the World and take in the Vital Breath and Air whose Fanning kindles the Flamnula Vitalis in the Blood Humours and Spirits of the Body carrying Life and Motion into every the most remote Part of it which upon the total Extinguishment of the Flame dies and can never he re-inkindled without fresh Fire from Heaven an Act of Divine Power and working of a Miracle A violent Blow upon the Head we know will work this Effect without inflicting a greatly visible Wound done by the Concussion and fierce Motion procured and following upon the Blow and whereby we perceive the hardest Stones in Nature may be broken And in all these Particulars the Nature of Man and Beast seem to be at perfect Accord and to have a very near degree of Similitude and Affinity one of them unto the other and so it seems in their Natural Duration or Continuance Strong Spirits or but that of Wine never cease flaming after they are once kindled till either the Matter be all spent or that by some Violence from without it be extinguished or that by some inward Obstruction Nutriment be hindred and cut off or that by some ill Mixture that Nutriment be vitiated and made improper and insufficient for Nourishment of the Flame once kindled as by putting Water or a like unsutable Mixture into the Spirit of Wine or to Oil or other Spirits proper for
are capable of a Judgment arising from a Discourse in their own Minds we do not perceive and therefore will agree that Men in the Discoursive Part of their Intellect are very much beyond and above the Beasts and so do the Humane Bodies much excel the Beasts in the Instruments and Operations of their Tongues and Hands And yet as these Advantages of their Bodily Organs doth not set their Bodies in so much a superiour Orb to the Beasts as to exempt them from the common Diseases and Death belonging unto both their Kinds So it seems the Advantage which they have over Beasts in Strength of Intellect and Discourse in their Minds may not be taken for a firm and assured Argument that there is in the one a Soul spiritually different from the other but that perhaps this Difference in Intellect may be but gradual and proceed from the greater Subtilty and Tenuity of the Spirit acting The Copiousness and Fineness of Matter in the Head and Brain of Man and the Largeness and Aptitude of the Organs which create the Difference and give the Superior Quality and Advantage to the Intellect of Man as we know it to be in the Body by Aptitude in the Organs of the Hands and Tongue Amongst those who argue for the Being of an Immaterial Self-subsisting Soul in Man some avoid the Defending their Principle by Arguments drawn from Reason or Nature by confessing the thing cannot be so proved because it is not made of any Mundane Thing but inspired as my Lord Bacon is before cited to have expressed it And Sir Kenelm Digby in his Treatise of the Soul Fol. 394. tells us If you ask me by what Artifice a Man is able to perform the Rational and Discoursive Actions of the Phantasy Intellect Memory c. I will answer that they are done in an Admirable and Spiritual Manner But if you demand what the Manner is and how produced I must answer It is done I know not how by the Power of the Soul shew me a Soul and I will tell you how it works It seems we want some such Evidence for its being what our Arguers affirm it is He offers at some parcels of Proof from Effects but they are long not fit for this Place and how firm the Perusers must judge each for himself Our Author Pag. 161. confesses he knows not whether Souls do pre-exist and if so Whether they are Individuate in their Pre-existence or shall be so after separating from the Body and whether the Semen in Generation is animated and how the animated Semina of two make one and if animated then what becomes of the Anima Seminis Perditi or of an Abortive Whether the Body be animated as Vegetative or Sensitive before the Entrance of the Rational Soul What is an Act or Habit in the Soul or how not acting or habited it differs from it self acting or habited How its Acts are Many and yet but One or its Faculties at least and some other Riddles concerning the Souls of his Mode All these Three Assertors of the Immaterial Self-subsisting Soul confess They know neither the Quid Quale Quando Vbi or Quomodo of their Sort of Soul and wave the Proving it from Reason or Nature or make but some weak Offers upon that Account without pretending to a full Conviction of such as shall peruse their Writings upon this Point But Dr. More in his Book of the Souls Immortality 8o. Printed Lond. 1659. offers to make irrefragable Proof from Reason and Nature That there is in Man an Immaterial and Self-subsisting Soul and grounds all his Arguments for that Purpose upon a Natural Necessity of the Thing For that says he without such a Soul it would not be possible in Nature for Men to use their Senses Affections Phantasies Intellects Memories and Motions as they do if they had not such an Immaterial Substance and Spirit within them for the actuating directing and governing of them and giving to every Part and Organ that Life and Vigour that may suffice to perform the Duty and Function to each of them belonging And because his Design is our proper Subject in this Place his own Assertions and Words shall be quoted for the better Assurance of that he hath thereupon delivered First he determines That if in Man there be not such a Spirit then there can be nothing in him but Matter And Pag. 125. says Matter is utterly uncapable of such Operations And we find there is but one same thing in us which hears sees and tastes and perceives all the Vanity of Objects presented to us and that which is the Common Sense judging of outward Objects must likewise imagine remember reason and be the Fountain of Spontaneous Motion and of the like Faculties and Powers in Man Pag. 133. Matter is not affected by any Perception but of Corporeal Impression by the bearing of one Body against another But the Seoundae Notiones or Mathematical and Logical Conceptions cannot be seated in Matter but must be in some other Substance distinct from it Pag. 154. says I have plainly proved that neither the more Pure Intellectual Faculties nor those less pure of Memory and Imagination are competible to meer Bodies and have convincingly demonstrated That not so much as what we call External Sense is competible unto the same Pag. 227. To the Nature of Sensation and the other Operations the Animal Spirits are not sufficient of themselves nor the Soul of herself without the Assistance of the Spirits Pag. 205. Yet the Soul hath not any Power or exceeding little of moving Matter but only of determining Matter in Motion Pag. 298. But the immediate Instrument of the Soul are those Tenuous and Aerial Particles called the Spirits by which the Soul hears sees feels imagines remembers reasons and by moving which or directing their Motion she moves likewise the Body and helps to form it in the Womb but till the Body is finish'd the Soul flutters betwixt it and the Spirit of Nature or Soul of the World Pag. 329. The Souls most subtile and most intellectual Operations depend upon the Fitness of Temper in the Animal Spirits and it is the Fitness and Purity of them that invites her and enables her to love and look after Divine and Intellectual Objects And the Souls Nature is such as she cannot act but in Dependance upon Matter Pag. 330. It is a very wild Leap in Nature that the Soul of Man should skip from the impure Body newly turned to a dead Carkass and ascend thence immediately to the highest Heaven and to the Presence and Company of God and Angels From these Quotations Dr. More 's Opinions concerning the Soul may easily be collected and those which are desirous particularly to consider of his Arguments at large may consult his Book which is but of a small Bulk But here Notice only shall be taken of his Principal Foundation viz. That no Matter or Thing consisting of Matter can have a Principle of Motion or Activity
Flaming Brand their Sense tells them this is Fire then they see it waved and know from Custom of that time the Enemies attack the City or Place so calling for aid So from Phancies or Conceits of the Mind it discerns reasons and consults concerning Future Events by considering of what is at present before it and thence takes resolution to follow it avoid it delay or prevent it The Intellect hath a Power also of considering Things or Actions abstracted from Matter in a Mathematical Manner as that Art considers Punctum Linam Superficiem abstractedly and it is the Active Intellect which so understands but whether this Intellect understand any thing of Spiritual Beings when as it self is not separated from Bulk or Matter or cannot do so he leaves to a future Consideration but never touches that Point again but lets it rest as in this place he left it We may observe this Active Intellect is here left by Aristotle in a State of Connexion with the Body that which he before stiled Immortal and Eternal is here left not separated from the Body and whether it can subsist in such a State of Separation or not is undetermined Cap. 9. Knowledge depends upon the Senses and begins there and one who hath not his Senses can neither learn nor understand And Phancy to the Contemplation is like Sensible Objects only the Phantasmata are Immaterial The first or simple Conceptions of the Intellect seem not from Phancy and yet if so they be not they are however not without the Phantasie so as Phancy to the Intellect is as Sensible Objects to the Common Sense Cap. 10. The Soul of Animals hath been defined chiefly from two Qualifications viz. It s Discerning Judgment and its Power of Local Motion Its Judgment is guided and acted by Sense and Reason as hath been shewed For Motion it is doubted whether acted by the whole Soul or by a part or parts of it If we pretend to divide the Soul into parts we shall not only find in it the Rational the Wrathful and the Lustful Faculties into which some have divided it or into parts which have Reason and those which have not as others have said But there may be other Differences found infinitely and some which differ more than those above-named as the Nutritive general to all Living Things the Sensitive which Men cannot say are participant of Reason nor yet that they are without it thirdly the Phantasie which differs from the two former essentially Then is there the Appetite different from all the rest Local Motion is always to some intent and commonly to obtain or to avoid something liked or disliked But he doth not allow the Intellect to be the next Cause of such Motion nor the Senses nor the Appetite for Men may and do resist these Powers and do not move as these may command or perswade Cap. II. He sets down the Intellect and the Appetite to be both the Causes of Local Motion then adds the Phantasie as another Cause for that many in their Motions follow their Phancies more than thaâ— their Reasons and Beasts have only Phancy and Reason and the Inclination of the Appetite moves the Intellect but this can move little without the Appetite the Appetite of the Intellect is called the Will but the Sensual Appetite moves without Reason The Intellect moves well but the Appetite and Phantasie move well or ill as it happens but always the thing desired is the first Motor and that either is really good or seemingly so yet seems often good to the Appetite which doth not seem so to the Intellect The Thing that seems good moves without its own Motion but by being apprehended of the Intellect or Phantasie In Motion there are three Observables 1. That which moves 2. To what it moves 3. That which is moved The first or that which moves is twofold The one Immoveable and that is the Intended Good the other is both the Moving and Motion and that is the Appetite which moves in Inclination and being acted is the Motion or Act it self The third viz. What is moved is the Animal The Proper Organ of Local Motion is a Corporeal Thing and common both to Soul and Body Shortly to speak of it it is like the Hinge of a Door consisting of a Convex or round rising in one part and a Concave or Hollow in the other part of it well fitted the one unto or into the other one of these rests whil'st the other is moved whence one is called the Beginning and the other the End of the Motion and these two are different part and yet they make but one Hinge or Connexion of Bones in the Joynts and Parts of the Body All Motion in the Body is made by Dilatation which hath an Impulsive Force or by Contraction which compresses again where such Motions are perpetually in the Body circularly and sin fine in some part or other The Animal Motion thus grows from Appetite and there is no Appetite without Phantasie and this is Rational or Sensitive the Sensitive Phancy is in Beasts but the Deliberative is only in Men. To consider if one shall do this or that or not do is a Point of Reason yet of many things that are in choice one only can be done at once whence it seems Appetite is not allowed to have Opinion it not being Appetite till terminated and therefore hath not Power of Deliberation But the Appetite and the Will are often at Contest and sometimes one prevails sometimes the other not unlike a Game at Tennis Naturally the Nobler should be prevalent but there are three diversities 1. A Contest between the Appetite and the Will 2. The Victory of the Will 3. The prevailing Power of the Appetite Reason can prevail upon the Will and excite it by Argument viz. You desire Health therefore use a Physician he advises Let Blood Cut off an Arm. This Reason may obtain of the Will to consent unto and to desire the Fact for ease or preservation though the suffering be certain and present and the benefit future and uncertain We may observe Aristotle hath here finished the Examen of those four Faculties of the Soul viz. The Vegetative Sensitive Intellective and Loco-motive which he propounded Lib. II. cap. 3. Cap. 12. Nature makes nothing in vain and whatsoever lives hath a Soul indued with a Nutritive Faculty No Simple Body hath Sense and therefore is no Animal nor can any thing be so which is not fit and apt to receive the Species and Forms of Things without the Things themselves Also No Body which hath an Intellectual Soul can be without Sense viz. No Generated or Mortal Body he thought Heaven had a Soul and that and Celestials might have Intelligent Souls without Sense but Sense is indispensably necessary for all Animals especially those of Touching and Tasting these are necessary to the Being of the Creatures the other three Senses to their Well-being for the Animals can live without them
of these Proceedings may be made in a Moment of Time and without any Perceivance in the Person Thus by Occasion of our Author 's Dividing of Memory upon a novel and singular Phancy of his own there hath been set forth a Model of the Microcosm somewhat different from what Men have formerly conceived of it But we now return again to our Author Pag. 750. He calls the Will the Vis Motrix and the Spirits Nerves Muscles and Members the Vis Prosequens or rather should be the Vires Prosequentes He calls the Voluntary Faculty the Queen in the Body and we have given her such Part in our Constitution of Government as a Queen at Chess acts in the Regulation and Effects in that Game Pag. 753 Says The Humane Soul at every Conception is created ex Nihilo that the Vegetative Soul extinguishes in the Sensitive when it comes and the Sensitive in the Rational when it comes and thinks the two former may be generated Pag. 757. Questions how Men differ from Brutes Averroes answers In the Cogitative Faculty which acts by Organs The Author replies This is a Sensitive Power and doth not really differ from the Phantasy for that which is a more simple and dull Phantasy in the Brutes is a more acute Phantasy in Men and is called Cogitation in them Pag. 759. The Doubt concerning the Original of Souls is a difficult Question and always was so And Three Prime Points in it 1. The Efficient or Causa ex qua whether they are ex nihilo or ex Re praejacente 2. When they were made whether in the Beginning from the First Creation and so do pre-exist or in Future Times 3. Whether they are made before or after the Formation of the Body or at one same time with the Body Some thought Souls were communicated to Men from the Soul of the World of like Matter to Heaven and the Stars and therefore Incorruptible and Immortal created at first to a certain vast Number and remain in Repositories till called by the Formation of their destined Bodies And this was the Opinion of Pythagoras Plato and most of the Academick Philosophers And this infers a Transmigration of Souls into several Bodies Origin thought that Souls were so created but in time after the World created and that they were by God sent down or did of their own accord descend into Bodies fit for them in due time and some other Divines were of that Mind Some thought Souls were part of God himself others that they were by Angels made of Fire and Air Others that God made only the Soul of Adam and that all future Souls are derived by Propagation from him and that as Men have their Bodies from his Body so their Souls from his Soul radically but yet Immortal Some who so believed thought the Soul Corporeal and therefore generated Others thought it a Spirit and propagated from the Generators Soul as one Light kindles another This last Opinion Apollinaris and many other Bishops did hold and especially the Western Churches Others thought God created New Souls as there was Occasion for them so St. Jerom who says the Church of his time did so believe St. Austin would not condemn either of these two last Opinions he inclined rather to the Creation of New Souls but confess'd he knew not how to prove it from Scripture Those who hold the New Creation of Souls differ some think it created in the Body and some without the Body and some that Infundendo creatur Cites three sorts of Spirits P. 761. viz. God who always was and shall be then Souls of Brutes which neither were nor shall be always then Angels and Souls of Men which were not but shall be always Cites this out of Ficinus P. 762. The Author argues against Origins Opinion of Pre-existent Souls says The Soul is Mans proper Form who consists of a Soul and Body and it is natural to this Form to be united to its proper Matter or Body and against Nature to be separated from it and it is Praeter Naturam that a Humane Soul separated from the Body should so remain till the Refurrection and therefore it would be Praeter Naturam that Souls should pre-exist by a Creation of all at once Whence this is repugnant to the Wisdom of God and the Course of Nature It is natural and per se that the Soul should be with the Body and against Nature that it should be out of it seeing it is the Bodies proper Form so much as it cannot be said to be there in loco as Arist observes and it is there as in its proper Being The Soul of Adam sinned not without the Body nor have other Souls done so and therefore have not deserved to be punished without it P. 763. says That Opinion of the Souls being derived from Generation as well as the Body held by Tertullian and the Western Church is much followed and strongly defended for the more rational deriving the Guilt of Original Sin upon all Mankind for that unless Mens Souls be propagated from Adam as well as their Bodies by what means should Original Sin come to be attached to the Souls of all Men. For if Souls be of new created and out of nothing they must be either created sinful by God or how else should sin come upon them in their Mothers Bellies where they cannot commit Sin nor be contaminate by Lust of the Parents who do not generate the Soul Nor can its Contiguity with a Corrupt Body defile it Also that Conjunction is the Act of God Those Fathers therefore held it necessary to believe the Generation of the Soul as well as of the Body to the intent they might have a sufficient ground of Casting he Guilt of Original Sin upon all People And for this respect Austin and those of his time would not reject or condemn this Opinion held by Tertullian Apollinaris and the Western Churches Ausi non fuerint damnare and cites to the same purpose Eucherius and Gregory the First Bishop of Rome P. 765. our Author means to prove That Humane Souls are New Creations made by God out of Nothing 1. Because Adam's Soul was so created our Bodies are of the Earth like his and likely our Souls like his by Creation I say to this We do not find a Creation of Adam's Soul but that God breathed into him the breath of life gave him breath or respiration this kindled in his Blood and Humours then ready the Flame of Life till that is again quite extinguished the Man lives and nourishes that Flame by the like respirations but that Flame extinguished the respiration ceases and the Man dies beyond all Humane Power to help in such Cases The Soul parts together with the Breath and Flame of Life and never was found but together with them in any Body or other Place or Manner whatsoever It seems this Flame and its Active Powers is not only inseparable from the Soul but that most likely it self is
is very unwilling to do just as Men are to die And he proposes 10 Similitudes in this Supposition which seem not well grounded nor weighty Pag. 845. Quotes Texts of Scripture urged against his Tenet and answers them but Three in all Then he comes to the Opinion that Souls departed do sleep till the Resurrection void of all Operation till the Resurrection and then the Bodies rise from Death and the Souls from their Lethargy This Sleep says our Author is plain Death as that of the Body is called Sleep Pag. 846. He says Sure it is good Souls separated do go into Heaven and enjoy the Vision of God and the evil do go into Hell but they are not compleatly Happy or Vnhappy till the Resurrection But from whence he takes this Rule he shews not nor offers Proof of it It is an absurd Thing and against God's Wisdom That the Form of any Body should alwaye subsist separately from that Body I say if this be absurd it is very near of Kin to Absurdity That it should subsist at all without its Body It was objected to him That if Souls went to Heaven at the Death what need was there then of a Resurrection He answers The Form or Soul could not always subsist without the Body Why not say I as well as do so for Hundreds or Thousands of Years Says he It would be absurd and against God's Wisdom I do perceive this Consequence and he doth not offer to prove it therefore I think it no more absurd in the one Case than in the other Pag. 847. Says The Separation of the Soul and Body is by Violence and Nullum Violentum est Perpetuum I say nor Diuturnum Cites 1 Cor. 15.19 If there be not a Resurrection Christians are of all Men most miserable How can that be if good Souls go to Heaven at the Death and there behold the Face of God He answers This Saying concerns only the Bodies of Christians and not their Souls Their Bodies says he would be most miserable Not more miserable say I than the Bodies of other Men and therefore not of all others the most miserable He cites Psalm 146.4 When the Breath of Man goeth forth he shall turn again to his Earth and that very day all his Thoughts perish So Psal 78.39 Mans Spirit as a Wind passeth away and comes not again Pag. 848. He will not allow Spirit in these Places to signifie the Soul but in Places making for him it must do so as when Stephen says Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Cites Psal 115 17. and in other Places The Dead praise not thee O Lord nor all they that go down into the Silence But the Living do it So Isa 38. he answers Souls after Death do praise God proved Rev. Chap. 5. and Chap. 19. and opposes this Trance to the other Texts Pag. 849. Cites Job 17.16 Also in the Grave the Weary are at rest and fear no Oppressor Therefore bad Souls not punished Pag. 850. He closes his Treatise of the Soul with a long Definition of it according to his Mode and with all the particular Qualifications which he hath before designed for it We may now observe in short upon this Author that he was very much inclined and bent to maintain the Immateriality of the Soul as a thing without which there could not be a future Reward or Punishment a Mistake wherein all are involved or pretend to be involved who maintaintain his Opinion We see he hath been very laborious about it hath read all that he could find written of it and studied and delivered to us a Multitude of Arguments about it and hath shewed Learning Judgment and Industry to a high Degree joined with Integrity or a good Meaning and Belief that he did well and bestowed his Pains upon a Subject that deserved them and that it was a very Needful Truth which he supported But with what Success he hath done it must be referred to Judgment after Perusal of the Answers which have been offered to his Arguments upon the Differences arising between the Opinions of the Author and the Answerer upon many Occasions or Particulars and because we have very much studied and affected Brevity in both our Observations and Answers it need not be doubted but that those who are desirous of a more full Satisfaction upon this Point will think our Author worthy of their own Perusal concerning this Subject and many others Franciscus de Oviedo a Jesuit wrote a Body of Philosophy and in it Of the Soul Printed in a large Folio at Lions Anno 1640. and therein Fol. 6. N. 17. He joins with others in finding Fault with Aristotle's Definition of the Soul because he doth not tell us Quid sit Anima but Cujus sit Our Author offers to mend that of Aristotle by a Definition of his own viz. The Soul is the Constituent Act or Moving Power of a Compositum that is able to exert or exercise Vital Actions I say this seems a Difference without a Diversity or but one pretended and it may be collected that a Soul hath no proper Genus or such Specifical Difference of its own whereby it can be defined or known nor that it can be conceived otherwise than as it is a Constituent Part of a Compositum by the Conjunction of a Soul and a Body Whence we pretend to infer That the Soul in its Nature is not a Substance subsisting by it self or in Separation from its Body nor can be otherwise defined or understood than by its Reference and Relation to a Body Both our Definitions call it the Actus Primus of the Compositum or of an Organical Body so as we have no Conception of it at all save by the Relation which it hath to the Body or to the Man and without that it is to us unintelligible and thence it seems a Separate Subsistence cannot be Natural to it or at least to our Conception or Knowledge of it Fol. 8. N. 2. He says There is no Degree of Reason in Brutes and but some Degrees of Sense and in Brutes we find no Degree of Intellect or Sign of it but all they do is by Instinct To the contrary of this we have said before that Beasts do know by single Intellect and are taught to remember Duty and deny their Appetites and obey their Teachers and other Men in Things which they have learned and use both Obedience and a Rational Subtilty in them He says every Soul is the Act of a Mortal Body that an Angel is a Simple Compleat Substance but the Soul is an Incompleat Substance ordained to be totally Compounded with the Body with which it is united that by Means of the Material Organs it may produce Sense and Intelligence in such Bodies as have them This I take well enough to agree with a Material Soul Fol. 10. N. 15. He says it is objected The Humane Soul doth so communicate it self to Matter as that still it keeps its own Subsistence He
Man without Design to teach concerning it 2. We may observe that the Retribution expected to be made at the Resurection will be both more compleat and formal than what Men conceive to be in the Procedure concerning a Separately Subsisting Soul We read God would not execute upon Sodom without a full Examination of the Matter and so there shall be in the Resurrection All shall stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ and the Books shall be opened that of Conscience and that of Life That of Conscience hath enough Evidence to condemn the whole World but those whose Names are found written in the Book of Life and those only shall escape by special Priviledge or Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ And as the Proceeding will be more Formal so the Retribution will be more Compleat and made to both the Essential Parts of Man his Soul and his Body which as they have Jointly and Inseparately acted in this Life so shall they Rejoice or Mourn at the Resurrection after the Sentence of a Last Judgment passed upon them 3. We may observe That Death in the New Testament is frequently called and compared to a Sleep and that the most sound and profound and in such a Sleep viz. a sound Sleep whatsoever time passes over the Sleepers head he hath no perceivance of if it be two ten or twenty hours the length or shortness of the passing time doth not at all appear to the Sleeper but at his waking he rises as if he had been but newly fallen asleep Man's Death is such a profound Sleep and his Resurrection such a Waking If during that Sleep there go over the Dead man's head Months or Years to an Hundred or a Thousand this is no way perceivable by the Dead Person but when he rises it will be but as if he had newly fallen asleep We read that a Thousand Years with God are but as one Day nor are they in truth so much And in our present Case we may say that a Thousand Years going over such a Sleeper's head are but as one Day to him or are rather less viz not so much to the Sleeper as one Day to a Man that is Active in the World for that the Dead man is not at all affected with the time which passeth over him but when the Last Trumpet shall sound the Dead World shall awake as if they had then but newly fallen asleep ready to obey the Summons of Rise ye Dead and come to Judgment Whence although the time betwixt Death and Judgment appear upon a sudden Conception to be long or over-long yet upon a better Search it will be found of very small importance either in respect to God or Man And notice it seems may be taken that it would look like a great impropriety to term Death a Sleep if it were true that after Death the better part of the Man viz. his Soul continued Waking and alive and at a greater Liberty and Freedom of Action then ever it enjoyed during its Conjunction with the Body 4. We may observe That the same which dies rises and as the Soul is principal in Man so Man shall be more the same at his rising in respect of his Soul then of his Body for his Body shall be but of the same kind as Wheat comes of Wheat and Barley of Barley but when Providence hath so formed the Body and kindled in it the Flame of Life by breathing into him the Breath of Life to be derived only from Heaven his Humane Powers and Faculties viz. his Senses and Common Sense his Phantasie Intellect and Judgment his Affections and Passions his Knowledge and Memory shall be altogether the same that they were when he died and as much the same as they are at a Man's waking again after a sound and long Sleep taken and the person rising shall be more the same then an Old Man is the same person that he was when he was Young The same Person Soul and Body that died shall be revived and rise again as one who falls asleep wakens and returns to the former Powers Affections and Actions of his Life But if the Soul were in a Separate Being and State of Activity during all that time of the Separation how could it be said to obtain a Resurrection or be conceived to desire a Re-union with that Body which before was but as a Cage or Prison to it And it seems such a Soul should rather fear and resist such a Re-union with its former Body then rejoyce at it or be contented with it 5. We may observe That betwixt the Death and Resurrection of Man no alteration of his Condition can be expected or hoped for but as the Tree falls so it must lie and as Death leaves us so Judgment shall find us The Body is returned to the Dust from whence it was taken and if the Flame of Life and Activity first derived from God and sine propagated by Generation be by Death extinguished there remains nothing for an altering Power naturally to work upon Solomon tells us There is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave but all is rest and peace there And so says Job There the wicked cease from troubling and there the we ary are at rest So Chap. 3.11 Oh that I had died from the Womb I should then have been as though I had not been Solomon again As a Man comes out of his Mothers Womb so shall he return to go as he came and shall take nothing with him And so for the Resurrection Men shall rise as they lay down without natural or appearing Possibility of any Alteration We proceed now to the Proof of what we have before asserted viz. That the Resurrection is an Article or Point of the Christian Religion as clearly taught and asserted as well evidenced and attested and as fully and certainly to be believed as any other Point or Article of the Christian Religion whatsoever And for this our Evidence shall begin from the Old Testament There Exod. 3.6 God is stiled The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and from that Stile the Resurrection is proved by our Lord but we must agree that the Proof which it makes rises more from the Authority of him who quoted it as a Proof than in the Evidence of the Words themselves For God might reasonably be so stiled from the great Favour which he had shewed to those Persons and his Covenant and Promises made with them and to them But the Sadduces refused to admit of any other Scriptures save Moses his Writings And to prove the Resurrection out of those Writings our Lord made choice of this Text and from his Authority the same must be admitted amongst Christians to be a good Proof of our Future Resurrection from the Dead And as Ordinary Readers could hardly have drawn a good Proof out of that Text so another Proof of the Resurrection appears not till we come to the Book of Job and there
may be saved in the Day of the Lord viz. that at the Resurrection the Whole may be saved Spirit put for the Whole Man Chap. 7.34 The unmarried Woman is holy in Body and Spirit viz. Soul and Body together holy in the whole Compositum Ezek. 11.19 I will give them one Heart and put a new Spirit and a Heart of Flesh within you Chap. 13.3 Wo to the Prophets that follow their own Spirit and have seen nothing Ver. 17. They prophecy out of their own Heart And thus we see Spirit put for the Person the Heart the Affections the Passions for Mind Understanding Knowledge Reason Conscience viz. for Man and every of his Sublime and Spiritual Parts or Faculties but most properly and especially for his Breath As Job 12.10 In the Hand of God is the Soul of every living thing and the Breath of all Mankind Ch. 34.14 If God set his Heart upon Man if he gather unto himself his Spirit and his Breath all Flesh shall perish together and Man shall turn again to his Dust Psal 104.29 When thou takest away their Breath they die and are turned again to their Dust when thou lettest thy Breath go forth they shall be made and thou shalt renew the Face of the Earth Gen. 2.7 By God's breathing into Mans Nostrils the Breath of Life Man became a Living Soul Rom. 14.7 None of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself but we live to the Lord and die to the Lord whether therefore we live or die we are the Lords Hence it need not seem strange that a Dying Man should recommend his Person to the Lord by the Term of his Spirit for the Body as well as the Soul is under the Knowledge and Provision of Providence When good Men lie down to sleep they customarily recommend themselves to God and going to sleep in Death makes such a Recommendation both the more earnest and the more solemn and cannot reasonably be intended of the Spirit only but of the whole Compositum by that Term and God will raise them both up again at the Last Day both Soul and Body John 6.44 The Man that comes to me I will raise him up at the last Day the whole Man both Soul and Body Psal 31.6 Into thine Hands I commend my Spirit thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of Truth David spake this when he was in a way of Living and had both a Body and a Soul and apparently sought God's Protection for them both viz. for his Person under this Term of Spirit Jo. 11.25 He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live viz. the Compositum of Soul and Body Our Lord knew he should have a speedy Resurrection and foretold it to be within Three Days Time both of Soul and Body And it seems that by this Term of Spirit he recommended them both to the Protection of his Father and that S. Stephen did the like to our Lord Whence here appears no Necessity of Inferring a Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul from these Texts which plainly did not intend to teach the Doctrine and it seeems may be very well satisfied by another very different Construction of them Joh. 6.40 It is God's Will that he who believeth should have everlasting Life and I will raise him up at the last Day Soul and Body without mention of an intermediate Estate And we do not accept our two quoted Texts as a sufficient Proof of that Point Acts 2.27 Thou shalt not leave my Soul in Hell or Death is construed to comprehend the Body also and both were raised accordingly Rom. 2.9 Tribulation and Anguish upon every Soul of Man that doth Evil this comprehends the Body also So Chap. 13.1 Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers Whence we conclude that by recommending the Dying Spirits intended the Dying Bodies also and was intended of the Whole Man or the Person then departing out of this World 2 Cor. 5.1 If our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God a House not made with Hands eternal in the Heavens And desires to be clothed upon with that House Groans to be clothed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life yet would not be unclothed whilst we are at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord walking by Faith not by Sight we desire to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord for we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether good or bad We read Rev. 22.12 I come quickly and my Reward is with me to give every Man according as his work shall be Ver. 20. Surely I come quickly Amen even so come Lord Jesus Heb. 10.37 Yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry Ver. 35. 36. We must wait with Patience and Confidence till the Time promised do come James 5.8 Be ye also patient stablish your Hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh 1 Pet. 1.5 Who are kept by the Power of God through Faith unto Salvation ready to be revealed in the last Time as if the last Time was near Chap. 4.5 Men shall give an Account to him that is ready to judge the Quick and the Dead viz. in a short Time coming 2 Pet. 3.12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the Day of God to Judgment 1 Joh. 2.28 Abide in Christ that when he shall appear ye may have Confidence and not be ashamed at his coming as if he were expected to come in their Time So 1 Tim. 6.14 Keep this Commandment without spot until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ as if Timothy might live to that Time And elsewhere The coming of our Lord draweth nigh 1 Joh. 2.18 Little Children it is the last Time And The Time is short he that is holy let him be holy Rev. 22.11 And he which is filthy let him be filthy still as if Christ's coming to Judgment were even then at hand 2 Pet. 3.9 Men then said that Day was slack in its coming and Ver. 4. that the Promise of his coming was over-long delay'd From all these Evidences it appears that the Church at that Time did believe the coming of our Lord to Judgment to be nigh at hand and that when he should appear we should be like him and that then as Philip. 3.21 Our vile Bodies should be changed and fashioned like his Glorious Body 1 Cor. 15.51 We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed And to this Change it seems S. Paul's Words in our Proving Text are to be applied He would not be unclothed but clothed upon with the House which is from Heaven that so he might not be found naked but that Mortality might be swallowed up in Life Whilst we are at home in the Body viz. our Natural Body we are absent from the Lord
and therefore we are willing rather to be absent from this Body to have it changed into a Spiritual Body and therein to be present with the Lord And however in the one Body or in the other we labour present or absent to be accepted of God for we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ sooner or later that every Man Body and Soul may receive the Things done in his Body viz. when he was alive according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad And this seems to apply all that he had before spoken as designed a Relation to the Resurrection and the Last Judgment and not to make or afford any Proof of the Separate Subsistence of a Soul after Death of the Body Philip. 1.21 For me to live is Christ and to die is Gain what I shall chuse I wot not for I am in a strait between two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the Flesh is more needful for you This sounds as if upon Death of the Body something were still left in such a State and Being as should immediately thereupon go to be with Christ and this can be no other but the Man's Soul subsisting in a State of Separation We read Rev. 14.13 Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord for they rest from their Labours and their Works do follow them 2 Tim. 1.10 Christ abolished Death and brought Life and Immortality to Light through the Gospel Whence Death now to the Godly is but a Sleep or Resting in Christ Acts 7.60 Stephen cried Lord lay not this sin to their charge and when he said this he fell asleep 1 Cor. 15.6 Christ risen was seen of five hundred Brethren of whom then some were fallen asleep Ver. 18. If there be no Resurrection then they who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished Ver. 51. We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed 1 Thess 4.15 We who are alive at our Lord 's coming shall not prevent them who are asleep Ver. 14. But those who sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him 2 Thess 1.6 It is righteous with God to recompence Tribulation to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled Rest with us when Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels seems this Rest with us must be future to this World and most likely in Death Heb. 4.3 We who have believed do enter into Rest Ver. 9. There remains a Rest to the People of God Ver. 10. A ceasing from our own Works as God did from his and we must labour to enter into this Rest seems properly a Dying in the Lord. And Job testifies There the weary are at Rest Upon the Evidences thus quoted by us it seems our Proving Text may be construed in this manner I know that to die is Gain and for me to depart out of this world and to be at rest in Christ and in expectation of a joyful Resurrection is far better but for me to abide in the Flesh is more needful for you And this Consideration puts me into a Strait between two Things so as what I shall chuse I wot not and doubtless it is better and far more easie and desirable for a godly Man to sleep and be at rest in Christ than to be in the Troubles Temptations and Persecutions of this World as S. Paul was when he was in it Daniel 12.13 the Angel says to him Go thy way till the End be for thou shalt rest and stand in the Lot at the End of the Days And this hath been the Lot of the Godly in all Ages and the Wisdom of the World hath been able to teach that the Day of a Man's Death is better than that of his Birth and if generally how much better then must it needs be for a good Christian to depart and be at rest in Christ Lying down in a sure Faith and stedfast Hope of a joyful Resurrection when the Lord himself shall defend from Hevean with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and the Trump of God for then the Dead in Christ shall rise first and be caught up into the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Air and so shall they ever be with the Lord. What Earthly Thing can be compared with such a State so much Joy and so great an Assuranee No wonder then that our Apostle calls his Death a Gain being then in a Condition so to die and so he continued as he says 2 Tim. 4.7 I have kept the Faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that Day and not to me only but unto them also that love his Appearing But it seems he did not expect it before that Day the Day of Christ's Second Coming to reward every Man according to his Works And we conclude the Apostle in our Proving Text intended rather a going to rest in Christ than a going into Heaven to him in the State of a Separated Soul Heb. 12.22 Ye are come to an innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of just Men made Perfect to God the Judge and to Jesus the Mediator and to the heavenly Jerusalem Some have raised an Argument of the Souls Separate Subsistence from this Text. The Words Ye are come in the present Tense spoken unto living People cannot be literally intended unless the Words be intended of the Doctrine viz. You are come to a Gospel or Doctrine which teaches to believe and expect such Things in future Times or you are come to such Things in Faith which is the Evidence of Things not seen better things than appeared at Mount Sinay So 2 Pet. 3.12 Look for and haste unto the Coming of the Day of God wherein all shall be burnt up as in Noah 's Time it was drowned But we look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwells Righteousness And seeing ye look for such Things what manner of Persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness without spot and blameless This expounds how we come to the Heavenly Jerusalem viz. to that Doctrine Faith and Expectation to be fulfilled and enjoyed at the Coming of the Day of God without any mention at all of a Soul in the State of a Separate Subsistence or discoverable Intention concerning it 1 Pet. 3.19 Christ was quickned in the Spirit by which also he went and preached unto the Spirits in Prison when Noah prepared the Ark. To this we say the Text is very mystical and obscure and so every Part and Sentence of it And what is here meant by the Spirits in Prison or the Preaching to them we humbly confess Ignorance and that we do not know Therefore the Text and Consequences of it shall be left to Consideration of the more Learned better versed in the Writings of Fathers and Commentators but till the Meaning of it
Sort but only in the Body and by the Organs of it so as the Soul cannot act them in any other Part of the Body but only in those very Organs ordained by God and Nature for those Purposes viz. not see but in the Eyes remember but in the Memory not understand but in the Intellect Any such Parts or Organs harmed or lost the Soul can only work with what is left or cannot work at all to those Purposes Hence it seems these second Sort of Powers in Man do not more proceed from the Soul than those of the first Sort do The Soul in the Head and Intellectual Organs there produces and acts the Intellectual Powers and Faculties of the Man and the same Soul in the Vital Parts and Organs of the Body produces and acts Affections and Passions and Sensual Appetites which solicit the Judgment that the Whole may be employed so far as may be needful for the Procuring their Satisfaction And all these Repetitions tend to prove that the terming these first sort of Faculties the Flesh and the second sort of Faculties the Spirit cannot reasonably be made an Argument inducing to believe an easie natural or feasible Separation of the Flesh and Spirit and that one of them can have a Subsistence without the other And thus we conclude the Examination of such Texts of Scripture as are alledged for Proofs of the Subsistence of a Humane Soul in a State of Separation from the Body And we proceed to produce Arguments which work in Debilitation of such a Separate Subsistence of Souls First We say it seems a great Weakening of that Opinion That there is not in the whole Bible to be found one Text which doth expresly affirm that the Soul of Man hath a Separate Subsistence after Death of the Man nor that it is Immaterial or Immortal Secondly None of the Texts before quoted nor any other from which the Separate Subsistence is endeavoured to be proved did principally intend the Teaching or Proving of the Doctrine but all such Texts do principally aim at some other End or Design and what is drawn from those Texts in Proof of this Point is but Collateral to the Intent of such Texts and rises only upon a Collection drawn from Inferences The Parable of Dives and Lazarus Luke 16. looks most like a Design to that Purpose And yet Ver. 15. our Lord teaches That what is highly esteemed amongst Men is Abomination in the sight of God And then speaks of the Power of the Law And in Ver. 19. begins this Parable intending thereby to dilucidate his Assertion of Ver. 15. that Men may be and often are greatly deceived in their Opinions concerning Things and particularly in Judging of the Happiness of Mens Conditions for Illustration of which Doctrine he places Dives in as high a Degree of Happiness as Men ordinarily do desire He was richly arrayed and fared sumptuously every day and had Health withal And Lazarus he puts down as low in Comparison He was a Beggar a Lazar and full of Sores who was brought and laid at Dives his Gate and fed with the Crumbs that fell from his Table Here was Dives his Condition highly esteemed and desired amongst Men but he shewed by the Sequel of the Parable that it was abominated in the Sight of God for the Poor Man was comforted and Dives tormented So as the Illustration of this Doctrine seems to have been the main Intent of the Parable and what is spoken of Discourse betwixt Abraham and Dives and the seeing Lazarus in Abraham's Bosom afar off seems like the Pomp of Dives and the Misery of Lazarus not real but parabolical or Invention Like the falling of the Seed some amongst Thorns some on a Rock some upon one sort of Ground and some upon another A third Disability upon the Tenet of Separate Subsistence is that in all our Evidences concerning the Resurrection very copious and full there is no mention of an Intermediate State betwixt the Man's Death and his Resurrection nor concerning the Separate State of Humane Souls or their being in that Estate or Capacity of being in it We may to this purpose look back upon 1 Cor. 15. If there be not a Resurrection all Christian Religion is vain our Preaching and your Faith Christians are of all Men most miserable and you are yet in your Sins Here appears no Help from the Separate Estate or Subsistence of a Soul nor Mention of such a thing And Ver. 18. All that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished if there be no Resurrection What then becomes of Souls subsisting in a State of Separation It seems S. Paul knew nothing of such an Estate or made small Account of it or else very likely he would have made some mention of it Phil. 3.20 Our Conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile Body and make it like his glorious Body according as he is able to subdue all things to himself Here is no mention of Soul but as in Conjunction with the Body and Flesh is not a Body without a Soul therefore the Soul in Conjunction is here intended but no Room seems to be left here for a Separate Subsistence of Souls 1 Pet. 1.4 We are begotten by the Resurrection of Christ to an Inheritance in Heaven ready to be revealed in the last Time Ver. 9. Receiving the End of your Faith even the Salvation of your Souls Here Soul is mentioned intended in Conjunction with the Body Soul for Person As Gen. 46.26 All the Souls which came with Jacob into Egypt all the Souls were threescore and six and the two Sons of Joseph were two Souls as before hath been largely quoted And the Apostle refers here to the Resurrection to be revealed in the last Time Whence Body must be conjoined and no mention of an intermediate State or a Soul in that State Chap. 5.4 Those who do well when the chief Shepherd shall appear shall receive a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away 2 Tim. 4.8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord shall give me at that Day and not to me only but to them also that love his Appearing Here is no Notice taken of intermediate Time or Estate but when the chief Shepherd shall appear and at that Day Coloss 3.4 When Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in Glory 1 Joh. 3.2 It doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him It seems he knew not of a Separate Subsistence of Souls but expected to learn at the Appearance of Christ what himself should be Heb. 9.27 It is appointed unto Men once to die and after this the Judgment Nothing here betwixt Death and Judgment and expounds his Meaning to be of the general Judgment Ver. 28. Christ once offered for sin shall appear the second
to that Intent and gave him the Victory in it He will not have his Servants work like Hirelings the Eyes of whose Minds are levelled at and fixed upon their Wages nor will suffer that Accusation to be believed or stand fixed as a Calumny upon them They shall have Rewards becoming the Nobleness and Grandeur of their Master But for Men to be moved and directed to serve God for Rewards of any Sort or Value whatsoever seems Debasement to the Profession and Practice of Christianity And we leave it as an Inconveniency drawn from or very much improved by the Conceipt That Mens precious Souls have a Subsistence in a Separate State from their Bodies and that upon their Separation they pass to Heaven immediately Hence we pass And come to shew how the Opinion of a Soul's Materiality doth serve to the Solving of such Difficulties as are raised by the Belief of a Soul 's Separated Subsistence And First If the Soul be Material it takes away all Ground of Questioning its being One or Many since being generated and extinguished with the Body as the Constituent Form of the Man it can be no more Many than the Body or the Person is so 2. The Tenet of the Soul 's being generated or propagated answers or silences all the Difficulties raised a Parte ante concerning the Soul touching its Original or Derivation And there can be neither Need of nor Truth in the Pre-existence or continual New Creation of Souls 3. It removes the Query How Souls and Bodies come to be United 4. It gives a clear Account of the Souls being contaminated with Original Sin as well and as much as the Body is so Next for the Soul 's Residing in the Body and Acting in it The Soul being Material possesseth the Whole and resides sparsim in every Member and small Parcel of it The glowing and inflamed Blood carries the Vigour and Virtue of the Flame of Life to every least Parcel of the Body and thereby is every such Part enlivened and acted according to its Capacity and the Intent for which it was made whence it is neither All in Every Place nor All in Any Place but possesses the whole Body and supplies and acts every Member and Parcel as hath been before described And thence the Opinion of the Soul's Materiality removes all Difficulties concerning the Soul a Parte post viz. the Questions Whither it goes and What becomes of it and What it doth or can do or suffer after its Separation from the Body The Opinion of the Soul's Materiality doth also deliver from all the Absurdities before-named for then there can be no Need for or a Pretence of a New Creation of Souls which grow out of Nature and Generation nor will there be any need of using Young Innocent Souls with so great and unreasonable Rigor or making their Bodies the Cages or Prisons of them nor will there be any need of Ascribing to Beasts Pre-existent and Separately Subsisting Souls Nor for the depriving them of Senses Memory Affections and Knowledge which naturally and evidently they have and so knownly as it seems absurd to aver the contrary But then it may be said This will make the Souls of Men and Beasts to be of the same Nature and equal Expectations The first of these we grant but the second we deny Of the same Nature we grant as well as they are in their Bodies the same sort of Flesh Bones Blood Breath Spirits Urine Humours and Life and the same sort of Soul or Living Flame supporting and acting in every Part and Member of their Bodies but not of equal Expectations And yet the Difference arises not from Nature but from the declared Disposal and Appointment of God who hath appointed a Day in which he will Judge the World in Righteousness by that Man whom he hath ordained Whereof be hath given Assurance unto all Men in that he hath raised him from the Dead This Appointment of God that Men shall be raised from the Dead and judged and rewarded according to their Works and their Lives led here upon Earth is the Cause and Original of that Difference which shall be between the Future State of Men and Beasts This Resurrection is evidently declared to be designed for Men without mention of Beasts and therefore we may say and not for Beasts One Sort shall rise to give Account and receive Recompence for their Works and the other not And this is the Ground for different Expectations of Men and Beasts as well as it answers the Arguments for a Separate State of Souls drawn from the accepted Rules of Moral Congruity amongst Men. Hence are the Rewards of a true Christian Profession derived and hence may all Arguments for a Separate Subsistence of Souls be better answered upon the Principles of Christian Religon than they can be from Reason Nature or the Principles of any other Religion whatsoever We go on to consider How the Inconveniences derived from the Opinion of a Separated Subsistence of Souls may be removed or helped by the Acceptance of the Soul's Materiality And if so it be and therefore extinguished by Death of the Man Men will not attempt upon utter Impossibilities viz. to Raise or Consult the Spirits of Dead Men when they know that in Nature there is no such Spirit And for Purgatory and Prayers to the Dead and for the Dead remove but the Opinion of a Separate Subsistence of Souls and change it for the Materiality and Extinguishment of them and this Change will presently remove Purgatory as useless and to no Purpose because there will be nothing in the World for it to work upon All its Pretence is for the Purging of Separated Souls and if really there are no such in the World then can there be no Use no more than there is a real Being of Purgatory then for Prayers to the Dead who in Life were Holy Persons or Saints if their Souls were Material and in Death extinguished what can there be lest for Addressing of Prayers unto but only Mens own Phantasies and Imaginations and Ancient Practices and Customs which have a very strong Operation upon Mens Opinions and yet hardly so potent as to justify to Mens ordinary Reason the Addressing of Prayers to Persons who they are convinced have utterly no Subsistence at all And Prayers for the Dead would upon the same Account become as needless and unsuccessful as the former For if there be no Souls to pray out of Purgatory nor any thing in Rerum Natura for which Prayers can be applied it must appear utterly against Common Sense and Reason for Men to pray for Things that are not or for nothing And it seems if Men were once so perswaded they would never practise or use such unreasonable Ceremonies in any time to come As for the Conceipt of Souls appearing or Walking after Death of the Persons if Men could bring themselves to believe that there are no Separately Subsisting Souls in the World they
Men seem encouraged or even pressed to undergo the Trial by what follows viz. He who doth the Truth cometh to the Light that his Deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God Hence he whoso fears to bring his Works to the Light as to put them rather in a secret Place and smother them seems convinced or under a strong Suspition that they are not wrought in God For he who doth Truth comes willingly to the Light for the Manifestation of his Deeds And we would have it taken and accepted as the true and only Design of making this Argument publick believing it a Discovery of Truth wrought in God without any crooked Biass or Design and not unfit or improper to be set upon a Candlestick that Men may have Opportunity to see and discover and to examine its Light viz. the Truth of it and may use it accordingly Having made such Search after Souls as we are able we go on to enquire concerning other Spiritual Operations in Man And do say that we have taken the Occasion of this Enquiry from the Book before-cited called Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts Perusing what he said there concerning the Soul I met with Doctrines about the Operations of God's Spirit acting in Man such as were very different from my own Apprehensions and thereupon entred into a Design of enquiring farther into the Truth of what there is asserted and to approve or endeavour to confute what we there met with concerning this Subject as it shall appear agreeable to Truth or otherwise deviating from or opposite unto the same Page 47. He says This Spirit works in all Believers and either in them only or eminently above all others Pag. 48. But this is not discoverable to those who have had a pious Education and have pursued that Course from their Youth They cannot discover the Spirit 's Renovation in themselves but are left to make such Discovery of Renovation in others who have been changed from Evil to Good Without Christ's Spirit we can do nothing and better have no Souls than be void of that Spirit Hereupon I observe That those who cannot discern this sort of Spirit working in themselves seem to be very incompetent Judges of its working in other People or of knowing that such Change was wrought by that Spirit They may guess and mistake but we deny that they can know it We agree that no Man can act any thing without God's Assistance for in him we live move and have our Being We cannot do a good Work nor any Work without him and our Dependence is upon him both for Life and Action And this Divine Energy Men may call the Spirit of God within us But we deny that this is peculiar to Believers more than to other People although it seem often confounded with the Holy Spirit of God and of Christ Pag. 49 He says Heaven is the Summ and End of all the Spirit 's Operations viz. Man's Salvation purchased by Christ and given by Covenant Take up the Cross forsake all and follow me and thou shalt have Reward in Heaven For this he quotes Luke 14. Ver. 26. 33. The Words are Those who do not forsake all cannot be Christ's Disciples And he quotes Luke 18.22 where the Words are Sell all and distribute and thou shalt have Treasure in Heaven How far these Words prove his Assertion we leave to Judgment It follows God sends his Spirit to good Purposes and to illuminate and make Holy And we grant where it comes it doth so But to know where or in whom this Holy Spirit resides will be the Difficulty between us Pag. 50. He quotes 16 Texts of Scripture to prove God hath promised this Spirit to Believers in a Special Manner I have perused them all and do not find one of them come home to his Assertion viz. That God will give to all Believers his Spirit in a Special Manner And yet that they are all under the Conduct of that Spirit and are moved and led thereby we do grant but do say that it works generally by Natural Ways and Means of Illuminating the Understandings of Men and their Faculties of Perception inclining their Judgments and thereby their Wills regulating their Affections quieting their Passions subduing all to the Obedience of Christ by Natural and therefore Imperceptible Working in them upon them and by them so as the Working may not be perceptible to themselves or others who converse them But the prime or sole Appearance of this ordinary Conduct of Gods Spirit must be sought for and found in the Fruits not in the Leaves the Bustling Noise or Rattling Professions or Contendings about or for Religion Galat. 5.22 Gives us a Catalogue of these Fruits The Fruit of the Spirit is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance Where these Fruits grow and flourish and the Works of the Flesh here mentioned wither and die Men have great Reason to conclude the Person so walking is under the Conduct of God's Holy Spirit because it is beyond Humane Power to produce these Effects without the Divine Assistance or Aids from Heaven and thus we join with our Author at the Journeys End although we travel in different Roads towards it We both say God's Spirit conducts and leads Believers in a particular Manner but we do not agree about the Manner I say The ordinary Working of God's Spirit is by Natural Means perfecting and regulating the Man's Powers and Actions till they arrive to a Conformity with their highest Intention and the Will and Appointment of God unperceivably in the Operation or Conduct both to other People or even to the Party upon whom this Grace is bestowed for that it is Naturally effected and so without any violent or perceptible Motion or Action and therefore cannot be known but by the Evidence of Fruits Our Author By God's Spirit gives to Believers in a Special Manner agreeing in general with those of his Practices doth intend such a perceivable and vigorous Working of God's Spirit in Men as excites their Zeal and Concernment for the Gospel-Interest and what they believe tendent and conducing to the Glory of God although in their Proceedings to such Purposes there appear neither Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness nor Meekness and although there do appear Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Seditions and such like This Tenet I pretend to oppose as an Erroneous and Dangerous Doctrine opposing our Lord's Direction By their Fruits ye shall know them The Pharisees and Jewish Nation of Christ's Time were as zealous for God and his Law as the most Devoted of our Time can shew themselves for the Gospel Their Hatred to him grew the most apparently from his not strictly observing the Sabbath Day and not Washing before Meat and other Religious Practices then used and his Pretending to introduce a New Mode of Religion different from that given by God at Mount Sinai But they proceeded in Opposition by Unjust and Faulty Methods
in us to will and to do by those Ordinary Operations before described improving our Reason to a right Apprehension and Understanding of them and our Discretion to a right Choice and Practice St. Paul tells his Corinthians I speak as unto wise Men judge ye what I say He doth not refuse the Judgment arising from the Reason or Wise Men. Let Men now tell a Quaker what the Words of Scripture are and what Consequence from thence must reasonably and necessarily follow his Answer is ready He cares not what either of them says for he hath a Light within him the very Holy Spirit of God which tells him and witnesseth with his Spirit That all which he believes and professes is true and the only salutary Way for his Soul and so for all other Mens if God will please to communicate to them the like Perceptible Illuminations and Special Impulses of his Holy Spirit which the World doth not cannot receive nor can the Natural Man do it but such Things are to him direct Foolishness and he cannot know them because they are Spiritually discerned and cannot be so by Reason or any Humane Power or Means whatsoever Now whil'st this Man is thus certainly perswaded in his own Mind and that he who is Spiritual viz. endowed with such Light within him judgeth all things and yet himself is judged of no Man nor will submit himself to be so He seems to be past all Conviction or Cure by reasonable Remedies or Applications having thus passed beyond the Bounds of Humane Reason and Scripture he is become excentrick to all Humane Perswasion and Government and as incurable Phreneticks must be born withal so far as their Phantasies are only detrimental to themselves And it we may place all other Dependers upon Perceptible Extraordinary Motions of God's Spirit in a Form or Classis next below them differing in the Degrees of a like Infirmity all holding the same Original Ground and growing from the same Root and defending themselves in the same Fortresses and by like Weapons only the first Sort have passed to a farther Degree in the Distemper than the rest have hitherto done We must leave them upon this Account to the great Power of God who only can and in his Time may and perhaps will give them Convictions in a miraculous and powerful Manner and really such as they do now but pretend unto The Distemper it seems hath grown from the ill Digestion of some of St. Paul's Expressions wrested by Men both unlearned and unstable as other Scriptures may be to the Perverting if not the Destruction of themselves and their Proselites and to the great Disturbance of the Protestant Churches Pag. 278. Says God's Cures by his Spirit are wrought with great Pangs of Repentance I say That upon every notorious Sin committed these are rational and necessary Consequences as well at last as at first and no more to be enquired after in Youth than in Age nor in one Part of a Man's Life than in another But such Carriage ought to be both expected and performed whensoever there is a just and reasonable Cause for the so doing Pag. 280. Says God is all in all things It may pass for a Cloudy Expression And we agree That God and Christ are what Christians acknowledge and adore Also that we are generally under the ordinary Guidance of God's Spirit and are thereby led into all Truth directed therein by the Scriptures confirmed by Sacraments instructed and excited by sound Teaching and the Acts of God's Providence amongst us for us towards us the Convictions of Humane Reason and our sound Senses and the like usual and common Manuductions for establishing of our Faith and perfecting the Practice and due Performances of a holy Life That God can do this by eminent and perceptible Emotions of his Spirit in a Supernatural and Miraculous Manner is granted and certain And this was common in the Church during all the Time of St. Paul's Life But that God doth still continue those Supernatural Actings in his Church ordinarily and at this Day hath been and will be continually denied and that none can be saved who do not feelingly perceive in themselves such Impulsions or Emotions of God's Spirit working in them to such Purposes we not only deny but do condemn and explode as a great Instrument of Deceipt and a most pernicious Error Pag. 291. Says The Christian Church needs no Testimony of Miracles of new Upon this I demand What these Eminent and Perceptible Emotions of the Spirit are to be counted Natural they are not as their Defenders assert and we agree therefore they are Preternatural or Supernatural and they pass for Acts of the later Sort whensoever they do happen And our Opposers maintain they are very frequent and ought not only to be Common but Universal amongst Christians amongst whom every one should have a Taste and Feeling of them and consequently a daily Exhibition of New Miracles Pag. 308. Says Many of his Friends Holy Persons are gone to Heaven and that is spangled with these Spiritual Stars the Place is honoured with them and they with it We think our dead Friends are almost lost to us till the Heavenly Spirit tell us where they are and prepare us to desire our being there Observe from hence we may what our Author means by his Term of Heavenly Spirit viz. his own and his Followers eager and hot Phantasy or Conceipt For if he had obtained any Perceptible Spiritual Revelation concerning his dead Friends or any one of them we do very much assure our selves he would have made us acquainted with it For his Expression That Heaven is honoured with the Presence of the holy Persons his dead Friends it tastes of an arrogant Conceipt not warranted by Scripture or Reason but sutable to his Spiritual Vehemencies and Impulses Pag. 348. Says It is the Will of God that the Ministry and Testimony of Man shall be a Means of our Believing and he will use Man for the Instruction and Salvation of Man and not send Angels with every Message To this we agree and say the Perceptible Actings of God's Spirit may be as rare as the Ministry of Angels in our Times Page 353. Says Grace is not a Brutish Principle but works by Reason having also its natural inclining Force We account this Expression as one of our own extracted from him by inadverted Power of Truth Pag. 359. All true Believers are justified that consent to the Baptismal Covenant chusing God for their God Christ for their Saviour and the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier though this be done with so great Weakness as neither ends Mens Doubts nor quiets their Minds It seems the Perceptible Actings of the Spirit are wanting in such Cases and he seems either to have forgot or to distrust the Necessity of that Assistance Pag. 368. Says The Soul hath no distinct Idea of its Future State out of the Body and we see not whither it is that we must go
do I refuse but till Proofs rise from some of these Grounds my Answer to this Expression shall be the words of Moses Numb 16. and the close of the 7th verse Thirdly You say The Opinion opens a gap to Atheism and Disobedience and incourages Men to prefer their private Phancies before the Wisdom and Authority of the Church To this I say Our Primitive Reformers have in Answer to their Popish Superiours fully answered this Objection and to them I refer you for an Answer with this Addition That if your Proposition were irrefragable Errours grown general would prove irremediable Fourthly You say The Opinion tends to promote Vice and that the Souls Separate Subsistence is the strongest Foundation of Piety and Religion But I cannot grant any of these Consequences to be necessary or probable but do say That our Lord's Direction To fear God who can both kill and cast into hell stands firm and unshaken and the passing of an intermediate time betwixt Death and Judgment which time to the dead is nothing doth no way infeeble the Certainty of Future Rewards and Punishments but places the Expectation of them upon a right and a firm Foot or Foundation maintained by a Concurrent Testimony thorowout the Scripture and fortified by the Articles of our several Creeds A Truth of which since Christs time there never was any doubt nor can be by any who do acknowledge the Authority of the Scripture You say Men may except against the Resurrection also and I grant it for some do it daily against the Being or Government of a Deity But this doth not strengthen your Inference That because Men question and explode an Opinion which appears to be not well grounded therefore they will do the same by another Opinion that is well grounded and founded upon a Rock True it is That our Churches for about the last 1200 years have been so possest with the Conceit of a Separately Subsisting Soul that they have made little use of the Resurrection in their Exhortations And in truth if the Soul parting from the Body go presently to Heaven or Hell our Article of the Resurrection can be but of small use in the Church If Souls get amongst Blessed Angels in Heaven what need can there be to them of a Resurrection It seems rather a loss and harm to them to enter again into Bodies and come out of Heaven to inhabit on Earth again although it be a New Earth wherein dwells Righteousness There have been Testimonies all along in the Church against the Separate Subsistence of Souls except in the 600 years wherein the thick darkness of Popish Ignorance overspread the Christian World viz. from An. 600 till An. 1200. You say again Mr. Hobbs hath propagated this or such Opinions but I must clear him still from the having done me any harm nor in this Opinion hath any Man done it The Truth warrants me to use St. Paul's words I neither received it of man nor was I taught it so little acquainted with what other men have thought of it that I did not know or believe that any other man had been of this Opinion according to what I affirm in my Treatise In the late Auction of Books held in the Towu you purchass'd for me Dr. Willis his Book De Anima Brutorum in which I found all the particulars of my Opinion fully delivered in terminis far better framed and learnedly maintained then I know how to do it And it hath been my admiration that two so utterly unconversant should jump so evenly and fully into the same impressions Also Antonius Roccius a German Philosopher maintains the very same Opinions of the Souls being generated and naturally Mortal And yet both of them allow and maintain an Immortal Soul in Man yet but in words for all their Reasons and Deductions make against it Roccius was a Profest Papist and his Church have sharp Censures in such Cases and Willis appears wary but in me the Old Proverb is verified Who so bold as blind Bayard I neither knew nor meant any harm in the promulgating of this Opinion and perhaps I may not yet have enough considered the thing and my Prayer to God is That he will give us understanding in all things and particularly in the thing now disputed Other Interest in this Opinion I have none but as it yet seems to me the very Truth and if so it be not I pray God deliver me from it and I will very much thank any man who will take pains with me to that purpose as you have begun to do and I count it a Proof of Good Nature and Charity in you Paragraph 15. You favour me with your advice in pursuance of Dr. Ashington's Opinion and I doubt not of your good meaning in it But my thoughts concerning Treatises of Practical Divinity are That they are already so many and perhaps so ineffectual as that a Talent laid out upon them may be accounted next to one wrapt up in a Napkin and buried in the Earth So unprofitable a Traffick and the Markets already so clogged with that Commodity as hardly can any man expect to double his Principal no not to make One of One by such an Undertaking Operam Oleum perdere is the most likely effect of such an Undertaking Learned Men would not need it the more Ignorant would not read it and they who did so would not heed it and in fine all would come to the Sense of the Old Latin Expression before recited I do not much doubt but that the design of your Advice intends thus Sir It seems you have itching Fingers apt to fall into some Employment little good can be expected from them therefore pray use them in such things wherein if they can do no good they may do no harm And your design in it is not to be condemned But I thus answer to it That it is a Rule in Education of Children to employ them in such Studies or Arts towards which they have a most Propensity and Inclination as the most likely Course for them to succeed in And so I conceive it is with Writers their own Genius is a more proper Director than others mens Appointments And yet my Fingers have not been slack in handling Points of Practical Divinity for I have by me Five Treatises upon those Points finish'd before I had any thoughts concerning that which you have lately perused and they are of ten times the bulk of that I doubt I must intreat you and much more other Strangers to read them nay perhaps you or they would not be hired to it for a small matter although my Books follow not the beaten Load upon that Subject That Archbishop Laud quoted by you differs in his Opinion from me upon this Point I do not wonder nor that you do so but I should wonder to find men who will agree with me in it I did wonder when I found Willis doing so and citing Gassendus in the words which express
and gave him Bread and he did eat and they made him drink Water and when he had eaten his Spirit came again to him for he had not eaten no Bread nor drank any Water three days and three nights I demand what sort of Spirit was that which in these Two Persons came again to them and revived them It seems the same sort of Spirit which for want of Food and Moisture was almost extinguished the Spirit by which they lived and which by Nourishment became strengthened refreshed and revived as a Fire wanting supply and therefore ready to go out may be again revived and restored by Ministration of fresh Fewel to that purpose I pass this for a some-what clear evidence that these Spirits were Material and seems the same sort of Spirit which Solomon says returns to God who gave it A Spirit giving Life Sense Understanding and Memory to the Person revived by the coming again unto him or the being restored and re-inkindled in him In both Texts the Words are The Spirit came again into those Persons exprest according to common or vulgar Conception And so when a Man died those who thought he had a Separately Subsisting Soul and could not imagine what became of it were very apt to think that it returned to God who gave it At the first to Adam and from him by Propagation unto all Mankind And if you demand Why they thought Men had Souls Separately Subsisting I say it was because they could net otherwise imagine how there could be a Distribution of Recompences future to this Life for that then the Doctrine of the Resurrection was not mentioned amongst Men and much less was fully revealed or made known unto them You recite what I had said viz. That if you should forbear to press the Immortality and instead thereof insist upon the Resurrection and the last Judgment your Auditors would be no more Atheists or wicked Livers than they were before and you seem to grant this by your saying nothing against it And so do I grant what you say viz. That if you should tell them that you do not believe the Immortality it would appear scandalous to them and would make them distrust your other Doctrines how true soever the same might be And if you should not press the Immortality believing you therein stifle a Truth of which you are fully perswaded I grant this would be Sin in you because your so doing would not be of Faith but in Dissimulation or Compliance but if I were in your place and should omit to press Arguments from the Immortality and insist upon those of the Resurrection and the last Judgment I should act in Faith or a Belief of well doing and yet make my Auditors no worse Christians Nay if I should say to them whatsoever you have heard of the Souls Separate Subsistence and howsoever things may fall out thereupon yet certain it is from the whole Current of Scripture and the Articles of our Creed that there shall be a Resurrection of the Dead dreadful to those left at the Separation expected to be made by the Angels between the Elected and the Reprobates and joyful to those who shall be elevated and admitted to meet the Lord in the Air and so ever to be with the Lord. It seems Expressions like these would not make Men more Atheists in Opinion or more vicious in their Lives than they formerly used to be And this I did and do say with intent to shew that by the Opinion of the Materiality those grievous Consequences which you are pleased to expect are not likely really to ensue but that rather you are over suspicious on that behalf You say You cannot foresee what good the Publishing of my Opinion can do to the Word To this I say What good doth the Publishing of the Opinion of the Rotation of the Earth do to the World any more than as it is a discovery of Truth or a thing very like it But I have formerly told you that the Materiality doth Fundamentally overthrow Purgatory Prayers for the Dead Prayers to the Saints and gives a great blow to the Worship of their Images Whereby as Pliny says they make a god or a saint of one who is not so much as a Man Secondly It will put to Silence all disputations concerning the Originals Actings and Residences of intelligent Souls in Men and those concerning their Powers Places of being and manner of acting after their departures from the Body which perhaps never troubled you and very few of your Auditors Whence you may repute them as things of small concernment and yet to many others they have been and may be very troublesom Thirdly It would like many other Emanations of Truth Fortifie the Foundations of the Christian Faith and make it apparent that the Professors of it do not submit themselves to be guided by questionable or doubtful Opinions followed by many or few but that willingly we adhere to Truth according to its strength of evidence drawn from Scripture or Reason and no farther Also we Read of some Greeks so Transported with the Surmises of what privileges Souls Departed enjoyed that they killed themselves the sooner to obtain the Possession of them And very likely it is some present Proselytes promise themselves an immediate Transportation to Heaven as soon as their Souls are parted from their Bodies Which you say the Primitive Fathers of the Church did not believe And I find Peter Martyr in his common places Citing Irenaeus That Souls go not to Heaven before the Resurrection and that it is Heresy to think that Souls go to Heaven or are carried to God without attending the time of the Resurrection And this seems to amount somewhat near the Soul and Bodies going to God together then and that seems much agreeable to my Proposal For I think there is no considerable or desirable Difference or Preference between the Souls Temporary Extinguishment and its sleeping in a Limbus or Dormitory and other place of bare rest and quiet according to the Opinion of most of the Fathers You say again That though the Knowledge of my Opinion can do no good in the World that likely it may do much mischief I will not refer you for Answer to 2 Kings 18.20 but do say in Answer that if my Opinion throughly discussed prove not the Truth it shall not be my Opinion and if it prove really or most probably true I believe it ought also to be your Opinion Truth is more valuable than Rubies and a little of it hewn out of the Rock is of great Price not to be sold Prov. 23.23 but to be bought nor are any evil effects of it greatly to be feared The effects of error are very dangerous nam dato uno sequuntur mille but no Lye is of the Truth nor can grow out of it Deut. 32. God is a God of Truth and Psal 15. accepts those who speak in Truth and do the thing which is right viz. propound and
Humane Powers and Faculties have done I say they are all acted alike viz. by the Natural Contexture of Soul and Body And I thence infer that if the Humane Soul were Intelligent she would not act these Affections and Passions with the Force and Violence with which oft-times we find them to be acted but would rather chuse to act them moderately and no farther than might stand with Terms of Discretion and so as to restrain and keep them ever under Power of her own Government and Regality And because she doth not and I think cannot do this I conclude she seems to me not Intelligent but Material 6. Paragraph In the Matter of the Fathers Opinions concerning the going of Souls to Heaven upon Death of their Bodies I undertake not to speak upon my own perusal of the Fathers but as I find them Cited by other Writers I have from Peter Martyr quoted to you Irenaeus denying Souls passing to God or Heaven before the Resurrection and there Tertullian is quoted to the same purpose viz. that Heaven shall not be opened till the Resurrection Dr. Willet in his Synopsis Papismi Fol. 402. He says We confess most part of the Fathers especially the later sort of them to have been in this error Fol. 403. He says Bellarmine Cites 14 Fathers to this purpose Nay and Our Lord Joh. 14.2 3. says I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also Seeming to infer a Rest till Christ's Second Coming As Revel 14.13 Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord that they may rest from their Labours and their Works do follow them 1 Pet. 4.13 Rejoyce as being Partakers of Christ's Sufferings that when his Glory shall be revealed ye may be also glad with exceeding joy So 2 Pet. 3.11 Seeing all the Earth and the Heaven about it shall be Burnt up what Holy Persons ought ye to be looking for and hasting to the day of God 1 Cor. 4.5 Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come who both will bring to Light the hidden things of Darkness and then shall every deserving Man have Praise of God 1 Cor. 1. Vers 7 8. Waiting for the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Joh. 2.28 Abide in him that when he appears you may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his Coming Chap. 3.2 We know not yet what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him Joh. 6. Our Lord promises four times over to raise his Servants up at the last Day And he tells Martha her Brother shall rise again She Answers I know he shall rise again at the Resurrection of the last day All these places refer to and rest upon the Judgment of the last day or Christ's Second Coming without taking notice of any Intermediate State Nor do I meet with any Scripture asserting any Intermediate State Place or Judgment between Death and the Resurrection of the last day True it is That those who believed the Subsistence of Souls in a State of Separation from their Bodies were forced to invent some places and modes of that Subsistence Whence Heathen Divines or Poets framed their Elisiums and Fortunate Islands their Habitations of Dis and Tartarums And so have the Mahometans done and so a great part of Christians maintain their Limbus's patrum puerorum Purgatory sinum Abrahae from the Parable of Lazarus and places of other Tortures for wicked Souls but without being able to make out or prove such places or such things either from Reason Scripture or other solid and credible or faithful Ocular Testimony or Relations whatsoever And if you know of any such Proofs of those or the like places I shall be very glad to receive the Communication thereof from you You say The Fathers did not think that Souls go not to Heaven before the Resurrection You avoid saying They did think Souls went to Heaven before that time I have named to you Irenaeus and Tertullian who thought they went not to Heaven before the Resurrection And your own Second Paper Parag. 7. say The Fathers owned a middle State which was neither Heaven nor Hell and that good Souls were in a State of Rest and Happiness but not in Heaven or the full Fruition of it The Fathers owned an Intermediate State for good Souls between Death and Heaven Our Church or the greatest part of it say They go presently upon Death to Heaven I desire to know a Reason of this Difference in Opinion viz. why we differ from the Fathers in it To this you Answer These Opinions agree well enough This gives me little Satisfaction in the Point viz. your telling me they agree well enough because I see plainly there is a wide Difference between them and still I want a Reason of that Difference 7. Paragraph You had quoted to me Solomon's Saying The Spirit returns to God who gave it as the strongest Text you could find for the Soul 's Separate Subsistence To that Text as proving this Point I sent you Three Objections never propounded to you nor Answered by you before They appear to me very Material and such as you will with great difficulty be able to make a reasonable and substantial Answer unto and therefore I desired you to bestow an Answer upon them instead of which you tell me you have said enough upon that Text before approved by the Learned of your Town as a true and Unanswerable Explication of that Text. To this I reply Those Learned were Men agreeing in Judgment with your self in our disputed Point and apt to approve what was said by you in the Confirmation of it But now if you please to Communicate these Objections to those Persons and make such Answer to them as they shall approve it will oblige me much and add great strength to the force of your Argument from that Text which I think my Objections do overthrow so long as they stand in force and remain unanswered And I allow you to think as the Jebusites expressed 2 Sam. 5.6 They challenged David conceiving as in the last clause of that Verse 8. Paragraph You say You have lately had occasion to consider a Text of Scripture which you think directly contradicts and overthrows my Opinion viz. 2 Cor. 5. Vers 6. and 8. Knowing that whilst we are at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord and are willing therefore to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord And I grant That these Words absent from the Body and present with the Lord taken singly as recited in these Two Verses seem strongly to import that a Man hath something which being absent from the Body may be present with the Lord But it is a granted and well tried and approved Rule that for the Understanding and sound Exposition of
Scripture the Context is always well and throughly to be considered and all the parts so be understood and construed as may make the several Parts and Expressions of it stand and agree together and with the true and sober Rules of common Sense and Reason To make such an Exposition of these two Verses and the Words and import of them it seems to me the Expounders of them should begin from the next preceding Chapter viz. Chap. 4.8 there Paul begins to recount his Sufferings Vers 14. But after all He who raised the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus and shall present us with you And therefore we must look aâ— things not seen and Eternal in comparison of which the present Affliction is but short and light Chap. 5.1 c. For we know we have a Building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens desiring to be cloathed upon with our house if so be that being cloathed we shall not be found naked For we do groan not for that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life Therefore we knowing that whilst we are at hone in the Body we are absent from the Lord and are willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord therefore we labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him For we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to what be hath done whether it be good or bad To accord the Words absent from the Body and present with the Lord to the rest of the Context it seems we must take Body in this place for the Natural Body as it is distinguished from the Spiritual Body expected at the time of Christ's Second Coming Those who are raised to Happiness shall be raised Spiritual Bodies as 1 Cor. 15.44 and those who are alive at that time shall be changed viz. their Natural Bodies into Spiritual Bodies For Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God Whilst therefore we are at home in the Natural Body we are and must be absent from the Lord and do wish rather to be absent from this Body viz. have it changed into a Spiritual Body that this Mortal might put on Immortality and Death may not have Power over us but be swallowed up in that Victory Our Text is parallel hereunto we know we have an house eternal in the Heavens desiring to be cloathed upon with this house viz. the Spiritual Body that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life Therefore he desires not to be Uncloathed not to Die or put off this Tabernacle but to be Cloathed upon to pass to Life without passing the Gates of Death be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye for till a Resurrection or such a change we are like to be absent from the Lord Therefore he desires to be Cloathed upon with this house from Heaven that he may not continue in the Natural Body and thereby absent from the Lord He speaks as if he might live to that time says We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed And of absence from the Body by this change it seems St. Paul speaks in my Text which you have quoted and not of any thing to be done or expected after Death or betwixt that and the Resurrection The whole Tract recited seems to me intended for Comfort in times of Worldly Afflictions founded upon the Resurrection Chap. 4.14 and terminated in it Chap. 5.10 desiring whether absent in the Natural Body or present in the Spiritual to be accepted by Christ that we may come to that great Audit with Confidence as 1 Joh. 2.28 and not be ashamed before him at his coming but may rejoyce at it with joy unspeakable and full of Glory that the wicked rising or found alive at Christ's Coming shall be so changed or have Spiritual Bodies I do not find Written and it seems as likely that they may still remain in their former state of Nature sensible of what they suffer as in their first Life The difficulty thereupon will be how they should be able to dwell in Everlasting Burnings without being consumed But I pretend not to solve all Difficulties but shall leave this to farther Consideration and conclude my self Your obliged humble Servant 10. Nov. 93. In a Postscript to a Letter from my Opponent He says I can by no means consent to the making any thing of mine Publick but if they will serve you in Private you may keep them by you Dated Nov. 6.93 And to my Reply Dated 10. Nov. 93. His Answer was That he sent back my Papers without rejoyning to them foreseeing that the effect of his Rejoynder would be but another Answer from me and a fruitless trouble to us both He warned me to forbear Publishing my Opinion as new singular dangerous and false and likely to produce great inconveniences to my self from the ill treatment I might find from others who if they thought me considerable enough to be Answered were likely to give me Answer in Terms less civil than he had used towards me Dated Nov. 21. Anno 93. And thus finished the Intercourse betwixt me and my Learned Neighbour upon the Point before disputed Whilst I was employed upon this Argument with my said Neighbour there came to my hand a Sermon of Dr. Bentley's treating upon the same Subject and Intituled Matter and Motion cannot think Wherein he Undertakes or promises to prove That the Humane Soul is an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit and because I thought he fell short in his performance of that promise I made Observations in Nature of a Refutation upon that Sermon as far only as concerned that Point These Observations I sent to London as my Opposer says he had notice with intent to have them Printed but hitherto an Imprimatur hath not been obtained for them In them I press Dr. Bentley to a better performance of that his promise than I think he hath made in that Sermon and do desire him to take that promise to heart and perform it to the uttermost of his Power as a Work worthy of his Endeavours and requisite and very needful for the times we live in but when that my demand may arrive to him in the way which I intend I do not yet perceive but as I was musing a Friend Minister brought me a Book which he said had given him great Satisfaction in the Point thus far disputed and he thought it might probably do the same to me I found it Printed Lond. 1685. in 4o. Intituled A Treatise of the Soul of Man by John Flavel Minister late of Dartmouth upon perusal I found his Design the very same with that which I had prest Dr. Bentley to Undertake viz. to prove that the Humane Soul is an Immaterial Immortal Intelligent Spirit and that the Author was Learned Judicious and Industrious and
Recompencs are warrantable to be expected viz. at Christ's Second Coming and to look for them sooner is against his own Direction in this Text Well fortified and confirmed by Acts 3.19 Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ whom the Heaven must receive until the times of the restitution of all things The time when amongst other things Men shall be restored to their former Beings and become the same Persons that they were before and so shall account at the Last Judgment and in all probability not before Well but what becomes of people in the mean time I take it for most likely that the Body verges to Dust Gradatim and the Flame of Life which I take for the Soul extinguishes in Death as Dr. Willis says Illico nihil est it vanishes as the Flame of Spirit of Wine when the Spirit is consumed And thus I conceive Men die thus they rest and Believers sleep in Jesus till time of the Restitution of all things Job 14.12 Even as the Flood decayeth and drieth up so Man lieth down and riseth not at all till the Heavens be no more they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep Thus Job and I agree punctually in our State of Death and so we do in that of the Resurrection Job 19.25 I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the later day upon the Earth and though after my Skin Worms destroy this Body yet in my Flesh shall I see God And as 1 Joh. 3.2 We know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is At his Second Coming and not till then not by going to Heaven in Effigie But till then Believers in Death enjoy such a Rest as the Revel calls Blessed They sleep in Jesus and rest from their Labours So Heb. 4.1 There is a Promise left us of entring into his Rest Ver. 6. Some must enter therein Ver. 9. There remains a Rest to the People of God Ver. 10. He that is entred into his Rest hath ceased from his own Works as God did from his And such a Rest is a pious Death and in assured hope of a joyful Resurrection Dan. 12.13 The Angel says to him Go thy way till the end be for thou shalt rest and stand in the Lot at the end of the days And here I cease and rest my Second positive Argument against the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Souls and their going to Heaven or Hell before the Resurrection And upon this Argument I intend to make Three short Observations The First of which grows from our Author's Expressions Page 49. of his said Book There he says 'T is a great Mistake that the Soul is capable only of Social Glory or Suffering or a Blessedness in Partnership with the Body and that it can neither exert its own powers nor enjoy its own happiness in the absence of the Body The Opinion of a sleeping Interval of the Soul he says took its rise from this Error They conceived the Soul to be so dependant upon the Body at least in all its Operations that when Death rends it from the Body it must needs be left as in a swoon or sleep unable to exert its proper Powers or enjoy that felicity which we ascribe to it in its state of Separation Thus our Author To which I Reply They who so conceived were Fathers very Ancient and of great Authority in the Church and in my Opinion the Ground they stood upon was firm and good viz. they and we and all Men who consider may and do perceive by hourly Experiences that the Soul doth no more act or suffer without the Body than the Body without the Soul nor either of them without the other This constant Experience teaches To this also Reason very well agrees and Men have never yet met with good Reason plain Experience or clear Scripture to the contrary Nor doth our Author or any other shew any convincing or strong or likely Evidence that ever any Soul did or that it can act or suffer without Partnership with the Body and in Conjunction with it It may be asked How then can it subsist in a State of Separation from the Body if it can neither act nor suffer without it I Answer That I am not to Account for such a Subsistence because I deny the thing and say the Soul extinguishes in Death But those who held both Opinions viz. The Separate State and the Non-Activity did imaginarily cast the Soul into such a Swoon or Sleep as the Author mentions in a Limbus or Dormitory created by Invention to that purpose and those who so believe both Opinions are necessitated to invent such Places That the Soul neither acts nor suffers without the Body being true and the Separate Subsistence being granted Places for Dormitories were a reasonable and necessary Invention But if the Truth stand with me and the Soul extinguish in Death it neither acts nor suffers without the Body nor yet is there need to invent Dormitories or Purgatories for reception of such Souls as have no real Subsistence He hath truly related a Cause why the Ancients did believe Souls rested in Dormitories till the Resurrection not going to Heaven or Hell till that time and a Re-union with their Bodies viz. Because they believed Souls could not act or suffer without their Bodies according to the common Course of Nature and Experience This I agree to be true and a reasonable Ground for them to stand upon in this Point and that they erred only in believing a Separate Subsistence whence they were forced to invent Dormitories But I say though the Author have given us a true and good Cause why the Ancients thought Souls went not to Heaven or Hell before the Resurrection grounded upon the Nature and Constitution of Mankind there is another Cause and Reason for their so believing as true well grounded and evident as the former which will weigh with many Believers more than that can do viz. The Tenour and Consent of all the Texts before quoted by me in this Argument There is another Marvellous Agreement amongst them for all say the same things viz. That all Men must after Death appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ at his Second Coming at that Day at the Last Day when he shall appear Without mention of any other Time or any other Judgment or any going to Heaven or Hell in the mean time This sort of Declaration of the state of things after Death was a good and sufficient Ground for those Ancients to believe that Souls went not to Heaven or Hell before the Resurrection and I hold this Declaration to be a good true and sufficient Ground for People so to believe at this day And with this I finish my first Observation upon this Argument 2. My
53.10 Thou shalt make his Soul an Offering for Sin viz. his Person For none will deny his Body to have been made a visible Offering for Sin one as well and as much as the other his whole Person was so Psal 31.5 Into thy hand I commend my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me David was then alive and in Condition to write this Psalm and had a Body as well as a Spirit and under the Term of Spirit commended his Person or himself to God Luk. 23.56 Our Lord did the very same he knew his Body was to rise early upon the Third Day yet Cryed Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Recommending by that Term himself or his Person Soul and Body So David My Soul is among Lions deliver my Soul from the Sword the Lord is with them that uphold my Soul viz. Deliver me uphold me So Jonathan loved David as his own Soul viz. as he did himself his own Person And this Form of Expression seems agreeable enough to Reason and common Practice in other Cases Pars pro Toto As we use to say Sweet Soul and dear Heart Forma dat esse rei And so Men frequently use by the most noble Part to express or denote the whole And hence I conclude that the last Part of Moses's Text here is well Paraphrased And Man became a Living Person without intent to speak of a Soul by its self or otherwise then as in conjunction with the Body it helped to make up the Person And because this is a Material Point and beats hard upon our Opponents Foundation another Parallel Text shall be cited for Illustration and Confirmation of the same viz. Ezech. 37. The Prophecy over dry Bones which thereupon came together and the Sinews and Flesh came up upon them and the Skin covered them above but there was no Breath in them Then he was commanded to Prophecy over these Bones yet not to call for Souls or Spirits for their Animation but to say to the Wind Thus saith the Lord God Come from the four Winds O Breath and breathe upon these slain that they may live And thereupon the Breath came into them and they lived and stood up upon their feet an exceeding great Army Here it seems we have a Specimen of the First Mans Creation viz. His Body was first made ready for that Animating Breath which should first tine and kindle the Flame of Life in his Body then made ready for it And this Flame constantly fanned by Respiration and un-put out or extinguished by any violent or other means seems to be the Actus primus Corporis Organici Whilst that continues flaming and glowing the Person lives when that is extinguish'd the Person dies beyond Remedy and being once extinguish'd in all Parts of the Body it cannot be again re-kindled but by fresh Fire from Heaven or a Divine Power Our Author Pag. 252. He says The Radical Moisture which is daily consuming by the Flame of Life must needs be spent e're long And I say that if this Flame be not fed and nourished by Food and Viands competent and of suitable Nature this Flame must first diminish then decay and lastly be extinguished as daily Experience teaches in Times of Scarcity and Famine and the like distressing Accidents So as this Vision gives us some Traces whereby the manner of Adam's Creation and the Infusion of the Breath of Life into him may guessingly be collected And as it directs backwards to the Creation so it doth it forwards open some Prospect towards the manner of our expected Resurrection in which after the Body shall have been made ready and compleat for the Reception and Nourishment of it the Animating Breath shall again kindle in it the Flame of Life as by God shall be appointed for the Actuating such Raised Bodies and as it did before their former Dissolution And this Flame will be of the same Kind and Nature with the former and as much the same as the Bodies then Rising will be the same Bodies with the former before it was a body with such Organs acted by a Natural Flame of Life and the same shall it be after the Resurrection with this Change to the Blessed that their Natural Body shall be made a Spiritual Body By this Counter Exposition of Moses's Text before recited I pretend to have battered and shaken or even to have overthrown the First and one of the Main Foundations of our Author's Opinion upon which he principally insists and grounds himself in the first 46 Pages of his Book And I now proceed to propound an Argument in direct Opposition to his Opinion and all that he hath said in maintenance of the same Thus then I argue That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh but the Soul as well as the Body is generated and comes of Flesh Ergo The Soul is a Material and not an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit The Major of these Propositions is apparently agreeable to the Course of Nature and John 3 6. sufficiently supported by our Lords own Assertion The Minor I prove by Gen. 5.3 Adam begat a Son in his own likeness after his Image Hence I argue Adam after the breathing into him of the Breath of Life became a Living Person and continued to be so at the Procreation and Birth of his Son therefore the Procreation of a Son in his own likeness intends That the Son was generated a Living Person but so he could not be without a Soul or Spirit James 2.26 The Body without the Spirit is dead and Nature agrees viz. That one cannot be a Living Person unless he have the two Essential Parts which constitute the same viz. Body and Soul It seems clear That when Adam begat a Son he begat a Living Person and that so he could not be without a Soul Ergo Adam begetting a Son in his own likeness a Living Person begat his Soul as well as his Body And for a farther Proof of my Minor Proposition I argue again from Gen. 1.28 and 9.2 God says to our First Parents Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth and bring forth abundantly in the Earth Hereupon I say That if Man do not beget a Son in his own likeness after his Image viz. a Living Person as Adam is said to do it could not be in the Power or Nature of Man to replenish the Earth with other Men or Persons like himself or of his own Kind and Nature And to believe or maintain otherwise crosses not only the import of these Texts but the common experience of Mankind also and the Evidences appâ—aring every day for Children are born all the World over with their perfection of parts little indeed but magnum in parvo potentia and perfectly Living Persons in the likeness of their Parents and the very Abbreviations and Epitomes of them Some say but they are but vain words That the Parents procreate the Body only but the Soul a Praeexistent Spirit lies hovering in the Air
watching every New Procreation of a Body and thence if glides down intâ— the Impregnated Womb and insinuates it self into the Seed or the Embrion they cannot well tell whether Others say God creates New Souls pure innocent Spirits for each new Procreation be it by Adultery Incest Buggery so as the Shape be Humane So often as people commit these Crimes with success God is ready to make a New Soul for every Procreated Body and that then he puts or casts these new innocent pure Souls or Intelligent Spirits into Bodies so procreated in Sins of the deepest Dye And what can this poor intelligent Spirit do to prevent its going into a Body procreated in and by wickedness and where she is sure to be polluted with Original Sin before she knows where she is If this were a true Story the Case of such Souls were much to be lamented and what Augustus said of being Herod's Son might reasonably enough be applied to it The making and using of Souls after such a fashion are alike contrary to the Goodness and Honour of God and the Invention is such as wants the ordinary grace of Romance viz. to be made probable or something like the Truth It is not so much as offered or attempted to be proved by any Sentence or Thing recorded or appearing in either of God's Two Great Books of Nature or Scripture and therefore it shall here be forsaken and left to the Maintainers as a rotten Prop for the Immateriality for which only intent it was first invented and set on foot and is still continued for that very Design and neither doth nor can serve for any other use intent or purpose whatsoever Now rejecting both these Opinions viz. Of the Praeexistence and the New Creation of Souls upon every Procreation of Bodies I stick to and maintain the Third Opinion viz. That Souls are generated together with their Bodies by Vertue and Power of Gods benediction Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth Procreate Children like your selves from one end of the World to another according to the Course appointed for all other Animals Shall we say or think That a Man generates more imperfectly than an Horse or a Bull our Experience doth not so prove to us nor does our Reason perswade us to believe it and Scripture affords no Proof of it How comes it then to be so generally professed to be believed only from an ardent Mistaking Zeal to maintain a Separate Subsistence of Souls without which the Old World could not and the later and present do not or will not conceive and believe Recompences future to this life can be and will be fully and sufficiently distributed to Mankind according to their Behaviours in this Life they will continue to believe That if Mens Souls have not a Subsistence in Separation from their Bodies the expectation of sufficient future Recompences is destroyed and this grows from the Pulpit where the Doctrine of the Resurrection hath been utterly put to silence by the Opinion of Souls going presently to Heaven upon Death And if in truth the Case were so the Doctrine of the Resurrection might well enough be laid aside as it is and fall into disesteem as little useful for the advancement of future Recompences The desire I say of maintaining a Separate State of the Soul for such purposes drives some to invent and most Men to believe such very unlikely and unreasonable Proposals and Assertions as I have late before and do here relate and endeavour to detect and confute Our Author hath the Ingenuity to confess That the Opinion of the Generation of Souls as well as Bodies is very ancient and was generally maintained by the Western Churches But say I the Opinion of the Separate Subsistence of Souls hath even quite rooted it out and that of necessity for what comes of the Flesh cannot naturally be Immaterial and to maintain Immateriality we find Men proneto deny visible experienced Truths and accept of gross unreasonable Fictions Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum when it falls under a confident Mistake as Christ foretels his Disciples When they persecute you they will think that in so doing they do God good Service And what if the present Writer meet with a like Usage He may say with St. Paul Galat. 26. Am I therefore become your Enemy or will you count me your Enemy because I tell you the Truth Or that which I believe to be so It seems such Proceeding would be both Unkind and Unchristian Joh. 8 40. Our Lord says You sâ—ek to kill me a Man that tells you the Truth and even for telling them the Truth this did not Abraham The best sort of People will not do so but they are ever the fiercest and therefore Persecution and Reproach are natural and common Consequences of those Endeavours which intend to stemm the Tide of a commonly received Opinion and roâ—e against the stream of it Acts 21 Paul was foretold of a heavy Persecution but he would not be perswaded to go out of the Right Way for avoiding it and as his Friends ceased so I rest my self Ver. 14. saying The Will of the Lord be done Our Present Text now under Examination Proves The Ancient Western Churches and amongst them St. Austin were in the Right in thinking the Soul Generated as well as the Body and that God's Direction is still observed by Nature For Men now as Adam did get Children after their own likeness viz. Living and Animated Persons and which ever since have replenished and do still replenish the Earth as the Effects of their Parents Fruitfulness And thus from the Creation and Generation of Mankind I pretend to have proved That the Soul or Spirit of Man is generated and born of the Flesh of the Parents and with the Flesh of the Children Connatural to the Body and no Stranger to it I take another Argument for Proof of the Materiality from Natural Supports of the Soul whil'st it remains in Conjunction with the Body and thereupon I argue thus That which can neither act or subsist in the Body without the Supplies and Supports of Material Provisions is it Self Material but the Soul cannot act or subsist in the Body without the Supplies and Supports of Material Provisions Ergo The Soul is most likely to be of a Material Nature The Major I prove by the Rational and Received Rule of Simile simili gaudet For proof of the Minor I instance in Three Material Things or Provisions all so necessary for the Soul of Man as that if any One of them fail or be wanting the Soul cannot act or subsist in the Body but must needs part from it either by Extinguishment or Avolation And these Three so necessary Provisions are Blood Breath and Food or Nourishment For the Blood if it be totally exhausted or corrupted a Man can live no longer but the Soul will be forced to dislodge out of its present Tenement For Breath we know by every days Experience
by this Harmony explicate the Affections and Operations of the Soul 2. This Harmony is neither a Mixture of Ingredients or a Composition of Parts or Members in the Body as all other Proportions are in their Kinds and therefore not properly Harmony They gave the Amicableness of the Ingredients a Part in this Work of Operation by Harmony But whether it be the same Thing or one different from it they do not declare nor doth Empedocles their Author discover Now if the Soul be not this Reasonable Proportion and Temperature of the Mixture in Bodies why doth it appear to be taken away together with the Body and what is it that perishes at the Souls Departure if this sort of Harmony be not the Soul Yet concludes it is not the Soul The Soul may be moved by Accident and can move it self so viz. by moving the Body but a Local Motion the Soul of it self hath not This of Local Motion must be intended whilst in the Body or is fully contradicted by our Doctor Pag. 266. and so to 296. And we may observe that Aristotle seems to bear much with this Opinion of the Harmony though he doth not allow of it and though it fall short of the Truth yet it seems to have a good Share of the Truth in it Chap. 5. Because that to Rejoice Grieve or Discourse are Motions and Men use to say The Soul Rejoices is Grieved or doth Ruminate or Study it therefore is so moved One might as well say the Soul Hews Timber or Weaves nor is it proper to say the Soul Learns or Reasons in Discourse but that the Man doth so by the Power of his Soul Not that the motion is in the Soul but in some Cases it comes to her as in Using the Senses and in some comes from her as in Using the Memory and so for the Intellect which hath a nearer Relation to her than the Memory also is a tore Substantial Faculty and is less decaying or subject to be spoiled The Decays of Age do not reach or spoil it so soon as it doth the Senses Memory or other Faculties The Soul suffers not by Age but the Body wherein she is as in Cases of Drink or Sickness Intellect and Contemplation will fail also with the Bodily Materials failing but the Soul her self is Impassible And if an Old Man should obtain a Young Eye he would be able to see as well as if he were Young To Love Hate or Remember are not Works of the Soul but of him that hath it and they are Qualities and Powers common to the Soul and Body and perish with the Dissolution Perhaps the Intellect may be a more Divine Thing and Impassible Finally the Soul can neither be moved nor move her self but by Accident We may observe That where Aristotle says the Intellect is a kind of Substance I render it a Substantial Faculty more so than the Memory It seems intended by the following Words that Intellect doth also fail Men in their Age but not so early as Memory and so Experience confirms to us For his perhaps the Intellect here intended Soul but not so before perhaps it is a Divine Thing and Impassible We say that what perhaps may be perhaps may not be and compare it with Solomon who knows it is left by both as an uncertain Thing and we are left to seek for a firmer Fixation of what they in these Places have not determined Chap. 6. Aristotle rejects their Opinion who thought the Soul to be a Number which had Power to move it self and says 't is an Impassible Tenet His Arguments seem plain and therefore need not be repeated but we remark or observe that he says Plants and Animals seem to be indowed with the same Soul Spirit or Specifical Soul Also whether you call Democritus his round Atoms Vnities or Minutest Points they will create that which is Quantum and then there will be something that moves and something that is moved as there must be in all Magnitudes though never so small and every Vnity must have its Motor so it cannot be Anima for that is Motor and is not moved but by Accident They who call the Soul Number are like them who call it a sort of a subtil Body consisting of Parts of a like Nature But if the Soul be over or in all the Sentient Body universally and that which enlivens it here would be two Bodies one within another Observe we may concerning this Subtil Part which he calls a sort of a Body it may intend the Immaterial Spirit before explicated and then the having one such Body within another Dense Body is but an Exception to the Wording of the Thing and doth not reach to the Denial of the Matter intended Chap. 7. Mentions Three Definitions of the Soul First That is Id quod maxime vim habet movendi and therefore is a Self-Motor Second That it is a Body consisting of the most Subtil Parts and more Incorporeal than any other Body or Thing These Two are past The Third is That the Soul is a Compositum of the Elements and which therefore can perceive and know them and all that is made of them This Knowledge says Aristotle cannot rise from the Composition of Elements in the Soul unless the Proportions of the Composition in Things and their Way and Manner of Compounding be also in the Soul but not compounded Substances can be in the Soul nor Quantity Quality or other Accidents Empedocles thought the Elements with their Concord and Discord composed not only the Humane Soul but that they and their Concord made up the Divine Intellect excluding Discord Whence says Aristotle God knew less than Men but the Elements says he are Material and that which by compounding them makes the Soul must be of more Value than the Soul And what Thing can that be Impossible it is that there should be any thing more excellent than the Soul or superior to it especially to its Prime Faculty the Intellect For most agreeable to Reason it is that this highest Faculty of the Soul be accounted of the greatest Antiquity and the highest Dominion or Power according to Nature No says Empedocles for the Elements are the First of Beings and if the Soul were not from the Elements she could not attain to the Knowledge of them And here Aristotle lets this Dispute fall and says no more to any purpose in this Chapter We may observe that Aristotle repeats here again the Opinion of the Souls consisting of Material but most Subtil Parts more Incorporeal or Spiritual than any other Material Thing He gave no other Answer to this before but by his Clinch That this would be to conceipt two Bodies one within another To this may be said one is a Spiritual Body or a Celestial Spirit kindled by the Breath of Life But withdraw its Pabulum some few Days or stop the Fanning Air from it but for some few Minutes this Flaming Spirit is certainly extingushed this
Material Spirit can act no more for ever without a Miracle Fire from Heaven to re-inkindle it but for want of this Subtil Body within the Gross Body without dies and corrupts and turns to that Dust out of which it was first extracted This either was the Opinion of Heraclitus before specified or very like it Chap. 8. Orpheus and Thales thought that there was a Soul of the Universe resident every where and so in the Elements But Aristotle asks how that can be that Air or Fire should have a Soul without being an Animal Orpheus held that Soul which was in the Air to be more Excellent and Immortal than that which was in Animals But their Tenet seems absurd to say that Fire or Air are Animals or that having Souls they are not Animals They said Animals lived by the Air in which they breathed and in Breathing attracted the Air which being animated caused Life in Animals but the whole Air is of the same Species and Nature with every Part of it therefore the whole Air is animated In Souls says Aristotle there are dissimilar Parts or Degrees viz. Reason Sense and Vegetation but the Air consists of Similar Parts only whence Soul and Air cannot comport together nor can the Soul be in every Part of the Vniverse unless she do consist of Similar Parts Concludes The Soul cannot be known from its Consistence of the Elements nor can it be knowingly or truly said that she is moved We may observe as the Occasion of this Argument that some Old Philosophers held the World to be animated and that the Soul of the World gave to every Nature its ultimate Perfection that made heavy things descend and light to rise upwards and was the Cause that Animals had Life So says Virgil Jovis omnia plena And Infusa per Artus Mens agitat Molem magno se Corpore miscet But this Opinion Aristotle doth disallow and argues against it by this Chapter Chap. 9. By Powers of the Soul Men have Knowledge Sense and Opinion can Consult and Desire and use their Appetites and Local Motion at their own Liking and from Her comes their Growth Continuance and Diminution and from Her our Vnderstanding and the Vse of our Reason and so all other Powers and all that we do or suffer But Men have doubted Whether each of these and their like do flow from Virtue of the whole Soul or some from one Part of it and some from another Also What causes Life in Animals whether one or more Parts or what other Cause it hath also What Part of the Soul Understands and what Part Desires For says he some have thought that with one Part of the Soul Men did the one and with another Part the other So as the Soul was partible And if so says Aristotle What is it that keeps her Parts together Not the Body for that is kept together by the Soul for upon her leaving it ensues Corruption and Dissolution Plato thought that there were divers Souls in a Man Aristotle still proves all is but One Soul Against this some alledged That some Insects cut in Pieces each Piece will move for a Time This he denies to come from a Partition of the Soul and says The Principle of Life in Plants is a sort of Soul and it is common to them with Animals and nothing hath Sense which hath not that We may observe the Subject of this Book to be his History of the Soul declaring the Former Opinions amongst Philosophers concerning it annexing his own Confutations and not absolutely approving any one of them Lib. II. Chap. I. The Word Substance is a common Genus of such Things as have a real Subsistence or Being whose consistent Parts are Matter and Form whence results the Compositum consisting of them both united The Matter is a Power or Capacity of receiving Formation or being informed but the Form is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Active Vigour or Principle of Life and Activity in the Compositum and this in Humane Souls is distinguished by the Terms of Science and Contemplation Bodies compounded of such Matter and Form seem to be the Prime Substances in Nature Of these some have Life and some not Life consists in Nutrition Increase and Diminution growing from their own Natural Powers whence every Natural Living Body is a Substance compounded of Matter and Form and of these the Form is most properly Substantial as having Life in it self whereas the Matter hath only a Capacity Fitness and Inclination to receive that Life which the Form can communicate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Active Principle is the Active Principle of the Body This he changes a little saying The Soul is the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first Prime Act of a Living Organical Body Takes Plants to have Organical Bodies thinks it not proper to say That the Body and Soul are one For that Things may be said to be and to be One after a very multifarious Manner says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Souls proper Term or Principal Act or Actor of the Compositum and yet he hath not done with it An Essence consisting in a fitting or reasonable Proportion The Soul is such an Essence and this is the Thing wherein the Top of its Perfection lies and this the Forms of Dead Things as of an Ax or other Tools cannot have but it belongs only to Things which have in them a Natural Principle of Motion If we shall suppose the Eye to be an Animal the Sight would be the Soul Essence or Form and the Eye but the Matter and without the Form the Eye would be useless And as it is in the Parts it is in the whole the Anima Vivens or Sensitiva to the Compositum that hath Life or Sense and as the Eye consists of the firm Pulp and Sight so the Animal of Soul and Body therefore the Soul is not separable from the Body or such Parts of it as remain together and act after the Separation of other Parts from them The Eye may lose its Sight or be pulled out so the Hand its Feeling or be cut off For such Faculties are not general viz. of the whole Body Whether the Soul can be parted from the Body he seems not to determine but if she may be so he thinks she is but in the Body as a Pilot in a Ship We may observe he says as his last and best Definition of a Soul That it is an Essence or reasonable Proportion viz. animating the Body by such a Proportion of the Natural Heat and Radical Moisture Whence the more reasonable just and adequate this Proportion is the more excellent is the Constitution of the Compositum like to be And if he mean thus it is no wonder he says The Soul is no more separable from the Body than Sight is from the Eye In Separation neither can subsist but are thereby extinguished unless as he says we shall think the Soul to be in the Body but