And it seems this Crying by the Souls was in the same manner as the Blood of Abel's Cying from the Ground against his Murtherer and as all Notable Actions good or bad do depend for Recompence upon the Effects of God's Divine Providence Justice and Power and so we leave it Luke 23.43 Christ says to one of the Crucified Thieves Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thorn be with we in Paradise This could not be performed in their Bodies for that our Lord's lay in the Grave till the Third Day therefore it must be fulfilled in their Souls separated from their Bodies To this Objection the Answer may have Two Parts First We quote Matth. 27.24 The Thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his Teeth And Mark 15.32 They that were crucified with him reviled him Both these Evangelists agree that they both the Thieves that were crucified with him reviled him S. Luke is commonly taken for the Pen-man of S. Paul by whom this Gospel is believed to have been dictated But neither of these are taken to have been Eye-Witnesses or that they were by and present at this Fact S. Mark is taken to write from the Mouth of S. Peter although it might possibly be from the Apostle S. Barnabas either of which Apostles were likely to be Eye-Witnesses of the Fact then done And S. Matthew was himself both Apostle and Evangelist and likely an Eye-Witness of the Fact and there is an Old Rule That one Eye-Witness is better than two Ear-Witnesses of any Fact We conclude then that here are Two Witnesses against One and that One but an Ear-Witness of that Fact And therefore there is a Ground to question the very Truth of S. Luke's Relation seeing he wrote but by Relation and what he says stands not of it self and can with great Difficulty be made to stand in Agreement with what the other two Evangelists have delivered Secondly We say to the Words To day thou shalt be with me they may be expounded from other like Expressions Heb. 3.7 cites Psalm 95.7 To day if ye will hear his Voice Ver. 13. Exhort one another daily whilst it is called to day Here it seems the Word Day is not limited to an Artificial or a Natural Day but signifies a present but yet a competent Time Luke 19.42 Christ wept over Jerusalem saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day viz. hadst known that Time of my present Call unto thee here exprest by the Word Day So The Son of Man must be Three Days and Three Nights in the Heart of the Earth And yet we know Christ lay in the Grave but Two Nights viz. Friday and Saturday Nights and for Days only one whole one viz. Saturday for he was buried on Friday at Even and rose very early upon Sunday Morning Whence it seems the Words To day shalt thou be with me need not be limited to a precise Day Artificial or Natural but may be reasonably intended to signifie within some short Time after that Promise And that we may the better account for the same there shall be cited Jo. 20.17 Our Lord lately risen says to Mary Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father And the same Day at Evening Ver. 19. came Jesus and stood in the midst among his Discipler And Luke 24.39 he says Handle me and by Feeling perceive and see that I have Flesh and Bones which a Spirit hath not Hence may be collected that betwixt his appearing to Mary that Morning and to his Disciples in the Evening he had ascended to his Father and returned Matth. 27.52 When Christ died The Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of the Graves after our Lord's Resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Amongst these we have reason to suppose was the Body of this Thief as well as his Soul the Flame of Life re-kindled in him as well as in those other Saints and of our Lord himself and that he the Thief and the other Saints then rising did make this Ascent with our Lord upon Sunday next after the Friday Night of his Suffering And this I conceive was enough to satisfie our Lord's Expression of To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise in so short a Time as it may be counted present or to day And this Resurrection might occasion some to think as 2 Tim. 2.18 that the Resurrection was past already and was not in Future to be expected Luk. 23.46 Jesus cried with a loud Voice and said Father into thy Hands I commend my Spirit and having said thus he gave up the Ghost And to this we join Acts 7.59 They stoned Stephen calling and saying Lord Jesus receive my Spirit This Objection from recommending the Spirit of a Dying Person to God and Christ Men say imports a Spiritual Being or a Soul in Man which is capable of a Subsistence and hath such a Subsistence in a State separated from the Body The Objection is of the same Nature with that from Solomon The Spirit returns to God that gave it and requires some Repetition of what was thereunto answered And for findding out the Sence and Intent of the Word Spirit Places of Scripture shall be quoted 1 Sam. 30.12 When the starved Egyptian had eaten some Figs and Raisins his Spirit came again to him seems his Spirit of Life his Vital Spirits Ezra 1.5 They stood up whose Spirit God had raised to go and build the Temple seems to intend their Inclination and Affection Job 20.3 The Spirit of my Vnderstanding causeth me to answer seems the Eagerness of his Desire Chap. 21.4 Why should not my Spirit be troubled viz. why should not I be troubled Psalm 51.17 The Sacrifice of God it a broken Spirit there is paraphrased by a contrite Heart 143.4 My Spirit is vexed within me and my Heart within me is desolate Prov. 18.14 The Spirit of a Man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded Spirit who can bear viz. a good or bad Conscience Chap. 25.28 He that hath no Rule over his own Spirit it like a City broken down and without Walls Here Spirit must signifie Affections Eccles 8.8 No Man hath Power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit seems Men's Passions Prov. 20.27 The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord searching the inward Parts of the Belly viz. Man's Reason and Knowledge is the Candle Psalm 31.6 Thou art my strength into thy hand I commend my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me God had saved him in his Troubles and therefore he again commends himself to God under the Term of his Spirit Dan. 5.12 An excellent Spirit Knowledge and Vnderdeastanding was found in Daniel The latter Words expound Spirit Acts 17.16 Paul's Spirit was stirred in him at Athens he was moved and provoked Chap. 18.25 Apollos was fervent in Spirit or was Zealous 1 Cor. 5.5 Deliver the Man to Satan that the Spirit
time without sin unto salvation viz. to execute the last Judgment Jam. 1.12 Blessed is he that is tried for he shall receive a Crown of Life Chap. 9.8 Be patient stablish your Hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh viz. repose your selves upon that without telling them that in the mean Time their Souls shall be happy in a State of Separation We may say that in none of these Places nor in any other Texts of Scripture do we find mention of an Intermediate State betwixt that of Death and that of the Resurrection nor a State of Separation or Self-subsistency of a Soul departed from the Body We leave therefore that Apprehension or Opinion much enfeebled through the Defect and Failure of such Testimonies as might reasonably have been expected to have been found on that behalf and in a Case which may concern the Church to be rightly informed about We believe that if such an Intermediate Estate there were or such a Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul the Scriptures in all these and other Places would not be altogether silent concerning the same as we have found them to be And hence we conclude the Opinions thus far impugned are infirm feeble and not throughly maintainable by Arguments drawn from Nature and Reason nor from Prudence and Moral Congruity nor from Scripture and particular Texts of the same but that all Proofs of it hitherto drawn ex Causis and from the Foundations thereof do fail and appear very insufficient for the Support of it And hence we go on to propound some Arguments which may be drawn ab Effectu or from the Consequences which arise upon this Doctrine of the Soul 's Separate Subsistence after Death of the Man And we say That it is a Natural and Common Consequence of Error to raise Dfficulties lead to Absurdities and create Inconveniences amongst Men And for Truth and the Discoveries thereof to dissolve Difficulties and promote the Conveniences of Man and Nature Now that the Doctrine of a Humane Soul's Immateriality and Separate Subsistence doth raise divers Difficulties which otherwise are needless we propound as Evidence the Questions made by S. Austin viz. Whether the Soul were One and not Many or Many and not One Or That it be at once both One and Many And he thought the Last most probable though seemingly ridiculous 2. There are Difficulties concerning the Soul a Parte ante viz. Whence it comes or how it is derived Whether it pre-exist or be newly created by God upon every successful Copulation or be generated 3. If by New Creation then When and How such New Souls are joined and incorporated with the generated Bodies 4. How these fresh and newly made Souls come to be contaminated and infected with Original Sin derived by Procreation from Adam Next there is Question after Conjunction with the Body Where such an Immaterial Soul resides in the Body and then How it acts there Whether all in all or all in every Part or Part in one Place and Part in another And then concerning such a Soul a Parte post viz. What becomes of it when the Man dies Doth it slide into Dr. More 's Receptacles in the Air or into some appointed Limbus or Dormitory or to some Places of Pleasure or Punishment Paradise Elisium or Tartarum or whether directly either to Heaven or Hell or that there be a most frequented Purgatorium appointed for the Reception of them These are some of the Difficulties raised from the Doctrine of an Immaterial and Self-subsisting Soul We come next to some Absurdities whereunto Men are led by this Doctrine First It induces to assert and maintain That God doth create a New Soul upon every Fruitful Coition of Man and Woman be the same Lawful or not and the same for all Humane Copulations with Beasts where the Product is of a Humane Form This Conceipt invented meerly to shore up the Immateriality of the Soul and to provide it a different Original from Generation is neither agreeable to Reason nor supported by any manner of Proof from Scripture is disagreeable to the Common Sense of Mankind incongruous to the Excellent Majesty of God and to his Detestation of wicked Actions in Venery contrary to that Text which says God rested from his Works of the Creation He gave over that sort of Work and his own Son was generated If God should be continually still employed in creating New Souls every Day all the World over what Ceasing were this from his Works of Creation This would not be true that after the six Days he ceased from such Works We say therefore that this Indignous Employment of daily Creating Souls in such manner and to make Wicked Coitions Effectual is most unworthy of so Glorious and Pure an Agent and therefore is a meer Fiction invented to support this Opinion only and of no other Use in the World grounded neither upon Scripture nor Reason but opposed by both So as it may be pronounced not only false and feigned but grosly incongruous and absurd in respect of the Agent the Operation and the Effect Another Absurdity Men are apt to be led into by this Doctrine is this They do pretend That after God hath thus newly created a Soul which they say comes from his Hand fresh pure and undefiled she poor Soul is put or cast into the newly generated Body for which she was made The Body infected and defiled with Original Sin derived from Adam she is there presently infected with this contagious Disease and soon becomes immersed in it a Thing which this Young Soul can neither resist nor help and there the much to be pitied Soul say they is kept as in a Cage or Prison or like a Man fallen into a deep Pit out of which he can by no means get and then this Soul can know no more than what it learns from the Senses and other Bodily Assistances as one in a Pit sees no more of Light than that which comes in at the top of it And thus this young pure and innocent Soul should be used by a merciful Creator with an over-great and very deplorable and unreasonable and most unlikely Measure of Cruelty and Rigor that God should so use an innocent Soul by himself newly created there is neither Sense nor Reason for Men to believe nor is there a Word or Text in Scripture from whence it can be derived And the whole Progress seems so incongruous and absurd as being rightly and impartially surveyed may reasonably create Wonder in those who shall peruse the Maintainers of Immateriality upon this Point or Subject that they could believe what they have written or could write such gross Things and put them into Men's Hands to read if themselves had not believed them It seems the Writers rather did believe them led thereto by the Prejudices and Common Reception of this Opinion of the Immateriality of Souls which they believed might best be defended by such Inventions as these And to add
than freely and fairly flowing from the Words and Intent of these Scriptures Well but still there are Four Texts not instanced in and which seem to make appear an Intent to teach this Doctrine concerning them I say that Mat. 10. Phil. 1. shew not a principal Intent so to teach That of Mat. teaches principally to fear God more than men the Philip. intends principally to shew That Paul would have Christ magnified by his Life or by his Death and that it was indifferent to him by whether of these means that end should be attained By Death would be easier and a more Gain to him but by Life he thought might be more profitable and beneficial to them and the Church This seems the principal Intent and Scope of this Text and not to teach a Separate Subsistence or Immateriality of Soul Mat. 16. About Gaining the World and losing the Soul seems to shew an Intent of teaching concerning Souls and the Hinge of its Meaning turns upon the Signification of the Word Soul in this Place Our Lord previously Exhorts his Disciples to take up the Cross and follow him Expect Tribulation in his Doctrine For whosoever will save his Life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his Life for my sake shall find it For What is a Man profited if he shall gain the whole World and lose his own Soul Or What shall a Man give in Exchange for his Soul My Sense of this Text is That the Words Soul and Life are consignificant as if it had been said He that saves his Life shall lose it and he that loses it shall find it For What is a Man profited if he shall gain the whole World and lose his own Life Or What can a Man give in Exchange for his Life If one lose his Life the gain of the whole World can do him no good nor make him a Recompence for it And the Devil could say All that a Man hath would he give for his Life Nor would any Man of Sense take the World in Exchange for his Life for that the World is of no Use or Value to the Dead So as there is nothing in this Text of the Soul but the Word or Term which I have before plentifully proved to signifie and intend very often the Person the Affection the Intellect and the Life And I take it here to intend the Life of the Person and not the Soul which is the Forma Informans of the Man To the Parable of Dives Luk. 16. I have fully spoken and observed That it is but a Parable not Explained or Expounded by our Lord that we know of I take it spoken in Illustration of our Lord's Doctrine delivered but three Verses before viz. That which is highly esteemed amongst men is abomination in the sight of God as being very proper for that purpose and that the Discourse held in it between Dives and Lazarus is suited to the common Opinion of the People to whom he spake and doth not intend a true Relation of the State of Souls after Death I conceive the Text 10. Mat. and this Parable to be like the Two Pillars of Dagon's House the main Props of the Immaterial Opinion upon which the whole Weight of it leaneth propped also by the other Texts before rehearsed but weakly And I leave the Consideration to such as shall happen to peruse what hath here been Collected and put together intending singly the Search and Manifestation of the Truth in this Point Our Author Flavel lays the Foundation for Proof of the Separate Subsistence of Souls upon Moses his Text quoted Pag. 1. of his Book viz. Gen. 2.7 God formed Man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his Nostrils the Breath of Life and Man became a Living Soul And the Words of this Text he takes upon him to Interpret and by his so doing verefies the Old Saying Mala Interpretatio corrumpit Textum for thus he Interprets This Text says he proves and intends that God did then Create a Spirit or Soul out of nothing for Man viz. an Immaterial Intelligent Substance or Spirit and that was either first Created and then Infused or Infundendo was Created in the very Act of Infusion I will raise no Dispute with him about the Mode or Manner of his intended Creation be it Created and Infused or Infundendo Created But I say that either way taken it is not warranted by the Letter or Words of the Text for therein is no Mention of Spirit or Creation out of nothing or any sort of Creation whatsoever So his Interpretation is not warranted by the Words or Letter of the Text and that it is more opposed by the Sense and Meaning of the Text than it is by the Letter of it For if the Text or Moses had intended or meant that the Breath of Life breathed into Adam should be taken for such a Spirit it would have been more plainly expressed in the Text or at least the propriety of speaking would have required to have had it express'd after another manner viz. God breathed into Adam the Breath of Life and it or that viz. that Breath became a Living Soul But the Text is otherwise Worded it neither says nor intends that the Breath became a Living Soul but that the Man did so And I say farther that by the Man's becoming a Living Soul is not intended that he became a Soul meerly or singly called by Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Expounded by Actus primus Corporis Organici Not such a bare Soul without a Body a thing never yet known in Rerum Natura but a Living Soul in Composito viz. a Living Person Man became a Living Person Heb. 10.39 We are of them that believe to the Salvation of the Soul viz. of the Person For all Agree the Body shall have a Salvation as well as he Soul I perceive that the Term of Soul very oft in Scripture intended to signifie the Person is a great occasion of misleading the Apprehension of the Readers inducing them to apply to the single and bare Soul those Sayings which are intended of or for the Person So is the Case now Cited Heb. 10. and so in our Text now Examined and because the Correcting and Emendation of this Mistake seems to be of very great Importance I have before given many Instances of the Usage in Scripture Expressions in a multitude of Places and yet not in half of those that I might have done And because this Truth cannot be made too apparent and with great difficulty plain enough I will touch a few Instances of it again in this Place Gen 46.26 All the Souls that came out of Jacob's Loins into Aegypt were 66 and Joseph's Sons were two Souls so all the Souls of Jacob's House were 70 counting Jacob and Joseph Here Souls can intend nothing but Persons Acts 27.37 In Paul's Voyage towards Rome and Shipwrack at Malta there were in all in the Ship 276 Souls viz. Persons Isa
nourishing the once kindled Flame so long as the Materials shall be able to last or endure and that in Men and Beasts is their old and decrepit Age and the utter Expence of that Humidum Radicale whereby their Flammula Vitalis might be nourished and maintained or that it be corrupted and vitiated by other noxious Humours and thereby rendred improper for the Purposes to which it was designed In Men and Beasts it seems there is a Material Spirit kindled and enflamed and thereby attenuated to so great a degree of Subtilty as to become Invisible and so asserts My Lord Bacon in the Place before quoted And so our Author Pag 72. says Some think that the Soul is Material yet of a purer Substance than things visible and thus thought Tertullian and almost all the Old Greek Doctors of the Church that write of it and so most of the Latines or very many Some thought the Soul an Igneous Body such as we call Aether or Solar Fire or rather of a higher purer Kind and that Sensation and Intellection are those Formal Faculties which specifically difference it from inferiour meer Fire or Aether And there are few of the Old Doctors or Fathers who thought it not some of these ways Material And to all this we do willingly subscribe and agree believing as the Primitive Fathers of the Church both Greek and Latine have by our Author 's own Testimony thought and taught before us And we conceive that the Beasts have a like Material Spirit inflamed lambently but whether altogether so fine and subtile as that in Humane Bodies we find not Ground enough to assert or determine But Solomon tells us what befalls Men befalls Beasts As one dies so dies the other Yea they have all one Breath and a Man hath no Preheminence above a Beast their Bodies go all to one Place they are of the Dust and turn to it again and who knows the Difference of their Spirits that of a Beast goes downward to the Earth viz. dies with the Body and turns to Dust and who knows that the Spirit of a Man doth not do so but goes upward Hence it seems there was an Opinion at that time amongst the Jews that the Souls of Men did not die with their Bodies like the Beasts And we find Solomon in the Close of this Book saying upon a Mans Death The Dust shall return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it Now whether he was better resolved in the Point at this time or that he used this Expression to comply with the Opinion of his Countrey we will not pretend to determine But it seems plain that amongst Men and Beasts there is a great Congruity in their Parts Frame and Composition as that all have different Members acting sutable to their Kinds as Head Feet Back Belly and Inward Parts as Heart Liver Lungs Spleen Brain and all the Organs of Sense and Nerves Veins Arteries Ventricles Muscles Joynts and the same Nature of Flesh Bones Blood and Breath which shall be left here and changed for the Consideration of their Internal Powers of Sense Motion Phancy Memory Intellect and of their Affections Passions and Powers of Perception Utterance and the like Faculties Concerning such Faculties we begin from the Senses and do find the Beasts have all the same with those of Men and that they can make as accurate and beneficial Use of them as any Men can do and in the Perceivance by them divers Beasts do excel Men some in the Use of one Sense and some of another and every Beast and Bird have Voices Tones and Notes all serving to warn and direct their Young ones to call for their Food or complain for the Want of it to give warning of Weather or Danger to call for Company of their own Kind to threaten and terrifie their Inferiours in Strength the Birds also to vie with one another in Melody delighting therewith the Ears of other Creatures that can perceive the Suavity and Variety of them The Affections and Passions in Beasts are the same with those in Men. We have named five Principals of them viz. Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear the three last of which are altogether as eminent and active in Beasts as in Men. Ambition is not so and yet Beasts and Birds of all Kinds will fight without giving quite over until there be an acknowledged Mastery amongst them the Stronger will compel the Weaker to give Way and to follow and observe him Nor is Covetousness in Beasts any thing comparable to that in Man some of them do hoard up Provision for their Support in Winter and others for whom it is proper will steal it from them or fight for it if there shall be an Occasion So as in Beasts these Affections are but very feeble in comparison to what they are in Man Whereas Lust Wrath and Fear are equally potent and prevalent in the one Kind as in the Other And for Proof that Beasts have Phantasies their Dreams are Evidence in which sometimes they are vehemently agitated and affected and that they have Perfect Memories is proved by a Horses learning to know a Way but once gone and sooner than ordinary Passengers do by a Cows returning to the Place where her Calf was parted from her although she be driven away many Miles from it by the Docility of Horses Camels Dogs Apes Elephants most knownly but truly of many other Creatures And there seems to be no sufficient Doubt of finding all other Powers that are in Man resident in some Beasts except that of his Intellect which he can imploy in framing many Notions or Propositions and drawing Consequences and Conclusions such we do not know that any Beasts can do nor have they Means of making them known to us Sometimes we light upon Effects which carry a great Semblance of Proceeding from such Causes as in Dogs their Kindness to the Bodies of their dead Masters and discovery of their Murtherers That of Sabinus supported his Master's dead Body in the Tiber till he sunk with it Alexander's Elephant who would never take Food after the Royal Harness was taken from him and put upon another but starved and died upon it Androgeo and his Lion are reported and made famous in divers Roman Histories and other-like Effects are related that might serve to this Purpose but too long and circumstantial to be here related But from the Docility of Creatures Beasts we may with some certainty collect that they have an Intellect of simple or single Notions what and when and how their Directors will have them to act And Hares and Foxes do it seems invent Means to deceive and baffle their Pursuers But of Complex Notions Discourse or Reasoning in their Minds we do not perceive that any Beasts are capable although they are notable Observers of their Masters Eyes and can perceive their Pleasure or Displeasure in them and act according as by them directed Yet that they
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
such Exceptions against your Deductions as you are not able to give clear Answers unto nor can you make plain to Reason the particular Mode of the Operation of the Senses less concerning the Imagination Memory Intellect and Affections We will not stick to grant all this and yet reply by repeating what we have said Let the Dr. or any for him shew the particular Reasons and Causes and Manner of Working how and why Apple-trees bring forth Apples of such different Kinds yet constant each to his own Kind And why and how a Pear-tree is terminated to her Sort and Sorts in like manner Why and how a Thorn must needs bear Haws and a Vine Grapes c. Why and how some Plants and Flowers are sweet others stinking or without Smell Let them answer to the Queries before made concerning a Leaf and so as Men cannot make material and just Exceptions to their Deductions and then they may more reasonably pretend to bring in a Self-subsisting Soul to the actuating of the Senses in Animals and the Guiding and Conduct of their other Faculties And till then it is to be hoped they will allow Men to think that the Animal Spirits of a Sensitive Animal may have Activity Mettle and Power enough in them to move and employ the Brain the Senses the Body and all their Organs or Instruments whatsoever without the Government or Assistance of a Self-subsisting Soul or any Extraneous Spirit whatsoever Notice must needs be taken of an Objection which our Dr. himself makes or frames against his own Opinion Pag. 238. says he There will be an envious Objection cast in our Way Observe his Epethite is very sharp but the Strength of the Objection was the Occasion viz. Men will say that all our Demonstrations are meer Sophisms because some of them and the not of the least Validity do prove that Souls of Brutes are Substances Incorporeal and Self-subsisting after Death of the Body and consequently That they have a Pre-existence before their coming into the Body and that the Souls of Men have also the same Pre-existence Pag. 240. The Dr. owns these Opinions and says they are all true Pag. 241. And that the Deriving Souls ex traduce viz. from Seed of the Parents is a plain Contradiction and so impossible for a Body to beget an Immaterial Spiritual Substance The third Conceipt That God creates Souls to supply every Adulterous Incestuous Buggering successful Coition or for Monstrous Deformed Productions is too Indignous to be imposed upon his Majesty And there are but these Three Ways for Production of Souls and therefore they must pre-exist à Mundo Condito when many Miriads of Souls were created to serve in all Future Ages Pa. 447. Of this Opinion says the Jews Cabbala was Moses And he names here Seventeen more Ancient Philosophers who were of this Opinion and adds Origen and later Writers Pag. 245. says That all Philosophers of Note in all Ages who have held the Soul of Man Immortal and Incorporeal have likewise held the Pre-existence of it and this must hold for Beasts as well as for Men. Pag. 266. As the Souls of Men pre-existing slide down out of the Air into fitly prepared Matter so do the Souls of Brutes also Pag. 271. The Souls of Men and Brutes inhabit Air in a Terrestrial Vehicle Pag. 302. Hence Men will say the Souls of Brutes will live and enjoy themselves after Death To which our Dr. dares boldly answer That it is a thousand times more reasonable that they should be believed to do so than that the Souls of Men do not Pag. 304. There is no Reason to think Brutes cease to be alive after they are separated from their Bodies Our Author Baxter following it seems our Dr. holds the like Opinion and perhaps doubting to prejudice the Opinion of a Humane Soul's Self-subsistance Pag. 20. He says Chambre and some others make Brutes a lower Rank of Rationals and Man a higher Rank Pag. 38. Though it be but an Analogical Reason that Brutes have yet the Difference betwixt Man and them it more in the Objects Tendency and Work of Reason than in our Reason it self as such Pag. 201. Men conclude basely of the Souls of Brutes as if they were not an enduring Substance without any Proof or Probability Pag. 303. Some think too basely of Sense because they find it in lower Creatures they might accordingly deny Substantiality to Spirits because Brutes are Substances Pag. 380. The Sensible Souls of Brutes are Substance and therefore are not annihilated after Death It seems this Tenet of the Maintainers of a Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul is calculated for the Solution of an Objection which they foresaw would arise from that Power which Beasts evidently have and exercise in the Use of their Senses Affections Fancies Memories and Intellect of Simple Notions whereby their Actions may be and are directed How sufficient the Effect of this Tenet will prove for the solving or opposing an Argument drawn from this Ground will best appear when the Argument it self shall have been produced in which we shall proceed as we have done before in the Case of Trees Plants and other Vegetative Creatures We say then That the Beasts are indowed with the like Faculties and Powers that are found in Men they have a Local Motion as Strong Vigorous and Swift as Men and so for every Limb Joynt Muscle Nerve and Sinew of their Bodies acting as Spontaneously therein as can be done by Men They use and govern the same Five Senses that are in Man and enjoy and act them to as great Perfection and Effect as Men ordinarily do and some of them exceed Men in the Natural Effect Use and Vigor of some of those Senses They have the same Affections and Passions reigning in their Minds Inclinations and Bodies as those that appear in Men and their Lust Wrath and Fear are as Strong Vigorous and Vehement as they are in Men. They have very apt and tenacious Memories and have signs of Active and Moving Phantasies the full truth operation and extent whereof we are not able to discover for want of Dialect in the Beasts to discover them to us an Intellect also the Beasts are evinced to have by their perceiving Mens temper of displeasure or kindness in their Eyes Looks or Gestures by their slinking out of sight crouching and dejected Looks or Behaviour when they have done a Mischief a sign they use reflection upon themselves and so much of judgment as to be under Fear and Expectation of Punishment for the same even as we find the Servile People amongst Men will do a Vivacity also of their Intellect shews it self in their Docility inabling them to practice such Postures and Actions as some more stupid People could hardly or never attain to perform to their degrees of Perfection in the knowing understanding observing and obeying of a Sign a Nod a Gesture a Look the Moving of an Eye or by an angry or pleased Composure
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
as a Pilot is in a Ship who having brought it to Shore leaves it Chap. 2. The Soul is amongst those things which are called Principles having the special Faculties of Nutrition Sense Reason and Local Motion but there is doubt whether all these proceed from the whole Soul or that they are separated Parts of it and if separated then whether in Place or only in Imagination the Vegetative Soul will act in Slips and Branches and enable them to grow but the Soul of Man seems to be of another Sort and that this only is capable of a Separation from the Body as that which is Eternal may be separated from that which is subject to Corruption but all other Parts of the Soul except that which is purely Contemplative are inseparable from the Body The Soul is that Principle by which we have Life Sense and Vnderstanding as from our proper Form and Ratio and this is not the Body but belongs to it she is not the Body nor can she be without it In a Body therefore she is and such an one as is sutable to her Operations and is her proper Matter whence she is the Active Principle bearing a reasonable or natural Proportion to the Matter which is to be informed by her or to her Body We may observe how warily or uncertainly Aristotle handles the Separate Subsistence of Souls saying first That the Soul of Man is the only Sort that seems capable of it and that it doth seem capable of a Separate Subsistence as an Eternal Being But this is spoken without Addition of Reason or farther Dilucidation or Confirmation of the Thing as if in Compliance with Vulgar Opinion and then presently subjoins The Soul is not the Body but belongs to it nor can she be without it In a Body therefore she is and likely cannot be without it Farther it may be observed that in this Chapter we begin to enlarge our Strides and omit all such things which do not properly belong to Souls or is Declarative of their Natures or Properties and this Course will be followed in our future Progression in this Author Chap. 3. Where there is Sense there is Appetite viz. Lust Wrath and Will also Pleasure and Pain or that which is Pleasing and Troublesom Lust desires that which is Pleasant and Animals are nourished by Dry and Moist Things and by Hot and Cold Things Hunger and Thirst belong to Lust Hunger desires the Dry and Warm Things and Thirst the Cold and Moist Man hath a Discursive Understanding or if there be any thing in Nature above that Man hath it Creatures in the lowest Degree Rational have all things pertaining to Animation Sense Appetite Motion c. and yet they all perish in Death Of the Contemplative Intellect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems there may other Things be spoken or conceived We may observe here the same cautelous Expressions of Aristotle concerning Subsistence of a Rational Soul in a State of Separation from the Body that hath been usual with him Chap. 4. It is one of the properest and most natural Qualities of all Living Creatures perfect in their Kinds to generate such another as themselves are and the first able Effect of a Soul arrived to Perfection and the most universal is to generate its Like and support its Species Whence the Souls first Denomination may be Generativa except from her first Acts she should be called Nutritiva The Soul is the first Principle and Cause of Life in the Body and first of Motion both as to the what and why She is the very Essence of the Body or the Causa cur sit and the Life of Living Bodies is the very Being of them and this is of the Soul and all Natural Bodies are Instruments of the Soul Empedocles thought Plants had their Nourishment from the Earth below which was carried up by a Power of Heat and Fire Says Aristotle Earth and Fire are Contraries What keeps them then in an amicable Temper This is the Soul and therefore this is the Prime Cause of Nutrition Yet the Fire or Natural Heat is a Concomitant Cause not yet so Principal as the Soul which bounds the Force of the Fire knowing otherwise no Bounds Nothing can take Food or Nourishment that is not an Animated Body so as such Bodies do therefore these Actions come from the Soul therefore the Soul is such a Principle as hath sutable Faculties to preserve the place of her Abode If that have no Aliment it cannot subsist and therein are Three Particulars viz. 1. What must be nourished 2. With what 3. What effects the Nouriture and that is the Soul The other Two are the Body and the Aliment and all Aliment must be digested and all Digestion is effected by Heat therefore all Living Things have Heat We may apply what Aristotle says here of Generation as the most Natural Action viz. to generate another Creature of his own Likeness and Kind This imports a Generation of the whole Matter and Form Body and Soul according to Natural Inclination and Power of all other Living Creatures Chap. 5. Treats of the Senses and the Objects of them The first Motions towards Sense grow from the Seminal Power then that which is procreated obtains Sense natural to Sensitive Creatures as Science and Contemplation is to Man But Objects of the Senses are external Things and those of Science as Things Universal are inward and within Compass of the Soul it self and it can understand when it will not use the Senses without their proper exterior Objects not hear without a Noise Chap. 6. Each Sense judges of its proper Object without being deceived in it the Distance and Medium being fit and the Organ found But Motion Rest Number Figure and Bulk are not peculiar to any one Sense to the peculiar Object the Essence of the Sensible Power applies it self Chap. 7. Light is as it were the Colour of the Perlucid Body when enlightned by Fire or the Heavenly Luminaries but Light is not Fire nor clearly a Body nor the Effluction of a Body for then it self would be a Body But it is the Presence of Fire or other Lucid Thing in the Perlucidum We may say the Presence of that Habit which expels Darkness is Light and of that Habit Darkness is the Privation The Perlucid Body hath no proper Colour whence it cannot be seen as Air or can hardly be seen as Water The Motive to discern Colours is the Perlucidum enlightened but the Act of discerning is from the Light Fire may be seen both in the Dark and Light for that it enlightens the Darkness Chap. 8. All Sounds occasion Ecchoes though not perceptibly even as all Light hath its Reflexion which causes the Light where the Sun doth not shine or in the Shade The Air seems to be an inane or void Space fit for Sounds The Terms of Acute and Obtuse or Slack is derived from Sounds A Voice is the Natural Sound of an Animal and no Inanimate Thing
hath it All Animals have it not as Fishes and such other Creatures as do not draw Breath the Instrument for which is the Throat and as the Tongue serves for Speaking and Tasting so the Throat for Breathing and Use of the Voice The Breath or Air hath by Power of the Soul acting in those Parts a Faculty to strike that which is there called the Artery and this Collision is or acts the Voice Every Noise there is not a Voice not a Cough but it must be with an Animal Intent and may be mixed also with Phancy whence a Voice is a Sound of some Signification Whilst Men draw their Breath they cannot speak for that which holds the Breath is the Instrument of Speech Thinks Fishes do neither breath nor that they have Throats Chap. 9. A Man hath but a weak Sense of Smelling in comparison of some other Creatures and smells nothing without Offence or Pleasure But Man hath the Sense of Feeling above all other Creatures and such Men as have the Finest and Quickest Touch are counted and found to be the most Ingenious Persons Birds have quick Sense of Smelling and it seems Fishes also do smell It is peculiar to Men not to smell without Respiration viz. when he draws Breath not when he breathes out or stays his Breath Smell arises from dry Things as the Taste from Moisture Chap. 10. No Taste is made without Touching When the Tongue is over-dry or over-moist there cannot be any Taste The Prime Species of Taste are those of Sweet and Bitter then the Fat Taste then the Salt then Sharp and Austere then the Acid. Chap. 11. It is doubted concerning Touching what is the proper Instrument for it Whether the Flesh or in other Creatures that which is in Place of Flesh as in Fishes But the Prime Sense of Touching must be an Internal Principle Each Sense hath its Objects by Contraries as for the Sight White and Black for the Hearing is the Acute or Slow Sound the Taste hath Sweet and Bitter but the Touch hath many Contrarieties as Hot and Cold Dry and Moist Hard and Soft and the like It seems Flesh is the Medium for Touching but such a Medium as also can judge and not as Air is for Sight or Sound Chap. 12. All Senses are capable of the Sensible Species in an Immaterial Manner and the Sensible Object acts upon the Sense and one must be Proportionate to the other And if the Object of Sense be too small it is not perceived and too great it spoils the Sense a vast Noise makes deaf and the Suns Splendor blinds but a Proportionate Measure and Medium is requisite in the Performances of Sense Air that hath Smell hath in it a Passive Manner and is thereby Sensible Lib. III. Cap. I. There are but two Simple Bodies Mediums of Sense viz. Air and Water The Pupil of the Eye is Waterish but Hearing is of the Air the Smell is of both Fire is common to all for nothing is Sensitive without Heat but Earth to none except that of Touching The Senses and their Objects concur in Act but their Essences are different Cap. 2. A Point in the Centre is but one in Nature but in Reason it begins all the Lines that are drawn to the Circumference So the Common Sense in the Animal is but One to which as to the Centre of Judgment Lines are drawn from the outward Instruments of Sense for a final and true Determination Cap. 3. Cites Empedocles and Homer They and other Ancients thought that Intelligere was as Corporeal a Quality as Sentire Sense is a true Judge of its proper Objects and belongs to all Animals but in Reasoning Men are often deceived and none but Reasonable Creatures can use Reason Phantasy is different both from Reason and Sense yet cannot be without Sense no more can Opinion yet Phantasy and Opinion are different things Phantasy doth not Please or Affright Men to any great Degree but Opinion hath a great Power over us in that Kind There is a Likeness betwixt Science Prudence and Opinion and yet they are all different Things Men may order and alter their Phantasies at their Pleasure but cannot deal so with their Opinions and less with their Science Cap. 4. As Intelligere is different from Sentire the Phantasy and Opinion are Borderers to both but our Faculties of Discerning are Sense Opinion Intellect and Science from all of which the Phantasy is different for the Senses Intellect and Science rightly constituted and informed are always true and so the same but Phantasies are various and often false nor can it be Opinion though that may be false but that hath a Belief always joined or a Confidence of the Verity of the Thing and this no Beasts have but many of them have Phancies Opinion is a Belief and that perswades rationally and Beasts have not Reason but bare Phancy Phantasy is neither Sense nor Opinion nor a Conjunction of them but is a Motion or Movement arising from the Senses and may be acted by them and none can have it but those who have Sense and from the Phancy proceeds a large Sphere of doing and suffering in the World it depends not upon any one Sense or Act but often arises from several Senses at once And concerning Motions and Bulks and other things wherein the Senses may be much deceived and specially at great Distances and Animals act much according to Phancy as proceeding from Sense and being like it Beasts because they want Reason and Men because their Reasons are under Perturbations as Diseases Drunkenness or other like Inconveniences Cap. 5. From that Part of the Soul by which Men understand and know they are said to act prudently and whether this Part which he calls the Suffering Intellect be capable of a State of Separation really or notionally he means here to consider Says This Intellect is impatible but apt to receive the Species presented to it and as the Senses are to Sensitive Objects so the Intellect is to Intellectual Objects and are both Powers or in Potestate till the Objects are received and then are Acts because it is to receive and understand all things the Intellect it self must be without Tincture or Mixture That Intellect by which the Soul doth argue and judge cannot reasonably be said to be mixed with the Body for that then it must needs partake with it and be hot or cold accordingly or might be used by the Soul as its Instrument the Body might be so used but the Body is no Instrument at all of the Soul They say well who call the Soul the Receptacle of the Species not actually but potentially so The Sense suffers more in the Perception of its Objects than the Intellect doth in the like Case For if the Object of Sense be over-extream or vehement it spoils the Sense or its present Action but so it is not with the Intellect And this Difference grows from the Mixture which Sense hath with the
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but gives no Aswer to it Says Plato Origen and many Hebrews held Opinion the Adam's Soul and all other Souls did and do pre-exist and are thence called down as new Bodies require viz. from Superior Regions But this he says is both false and absurd And to prove this by Reason he says Pag. 619. cites Aristotle That the Soul is Actus Corporis Organici and therefore the Soul cannot be before the Body To this we easily assent and add That when the Body dies this Actus Corporis must cease for the same Reason He argues also That the Soul is a Spiritual Substance and it was not needful or proper to put that up at the Nostrils and that seems true but makes against his former Assertions Still there rises a new Difficulty viz. Whether this Soul if then created were created first within the Body or first without the Body and then was breathed or blown in The Text favours the later but the Author favours the former to the Intent that Men may not think Souls are still first created and then infused but think rather as he doth that Souls are created in their Bodies and to this end he approves Lombard's Invention of Creando infunditur Cites Essay 2.22 Cease ye from Man Cujus Anima in Naribus ejus est which we read whose Breath is in his Nostrils Pag. 620 The Soul of Man came to him from without although created within him He will have from without to signifie of another Nature or kind of Thing and not proceeding from the Body as the Beasts do But this he only says without offer of Proof for it Says The whole Soul comes together viz. Vegetative Sensitive and Rational whence it must come into the Body at the first Original of Life and there seems no doubt but there is a Vegetative Power and Principle in the Seed and likely for the Sensual and there appears no Reason against a like Course in the Rational these three being all Faculties of the same Soul from which none of them are separable Pag. 621. The Word signifying Spiraculum Vitarum is used as well concerning Beasts as Men. Pag. 624. Souls of Brutes are sometimes called Spirits in Scripture but never said to return to God Pag. 625. As God breathed into Adams Body the Breath of Life who thereupon rose from the Earth where he lay so shall his Breath effect Life in Bodies which shall rise at Sound of the Last Trumpet And as we read Ezek. 37. Pag. 667. Cites Gen. 1.28 God blessed the Man and Woman and said Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth as Ver. 22. he had said to other Creatures This seems to import Men do generate their Like as the Beasts do and the Creation of Souls for every fruitful Coition by Adultery Incest or Buggery is but a Fiction and not a likely or reasonable Contrivance Lib. 2. Cap. 1. Pag. 683. Mans Life consists in Heat and Moisture not simply but in Temperament with Cold and Dry and from the Four Elements The Four Complexions of Phlegm Sanguine Cholerick and Melancholy Health and Sickness Life and Death consist in a good and fit Temperature of these Humors and the Soul uses these as Instruments for Conservation of the Compositum the General Parts are Bones with their Nerves knitting them together and the Flesh with its Veins through which the Blood returns and Arteries through which the Vital or Animal Spirits have their Courses and God hath given to Men a more delicate Flesh and more Nice and tender Skin than to Beast Pag. 685. And the Temperament and Complexion of their Bodies are much finer Pag. 686. There are Three Principal Faculties of the Soul viz. Vegetation Sense and Motion 3. Intellect The Two later viz. Sense and Intellect are chiefly placed and acted in the Head and thence grow the Nerves passing to every Bone and Member Pag. 687. All Anatomists confess That in an Humane Body there are Innumerable Parts and Things which Men cannot find out and which are known only to God Pag. 689. The Common or Internal Sense cannot act without the Animal Spirits and the Soul uses these Spirits both for Understanding and for its other Actions which are to be performed in the Head and the Nerves which serve both for Sense and Motion through the whole Body have their Original from the Brain and are fixed in it or to it There the Soul reigns most effectually and who can express the various Instruments which God hath there provided for her Use Pag. 693. The Heart is the Original and Prime Instrument of Vegetation and Life which it communicates to the whole Body by its Intense Heat Motion and Rarefaction of the Blood and specially it communicates to the Head the Animal Spirits whereby Motion Sense and Cogitation are received and acted Thirdly The Heart is the Seat Fountain and Cause of all the Affections and there are two Principal Motions in it viz. that of the Systole and Diastole or of the Pulse effecting and Declaring Life the other Motion is of the Affections following the Conceptions or Intellect either with extraordinary Dilatation in the whole Body as in Accidents pleasing and joyous or with a like Compression or Contraction in Case of Accidents sorrowful or dspleasing Whence as Motion Sense and Intellect have their Original and Activity from and in the Brain and Head So Life and all the Affections are derived and acted from and in the Heart And betwixt the Heart and Head there is a wonderful Correspondence and Agreement to the Good and Benefit of the whole Compositum From the Heart Vital Spirits ascend to the Brain where they become Animal Spirits and by these Intelligence Cogitations and Notices of Things arise in the Mind from whence again such Cogitations and Notices strike upon the whole Heart exciting and stirring there the Affections and other Vegetative and Natural Motions which are either pleasing or displeasing tending to or towards Joy or Sorrow the one a great Help to and Supporter of Health and Life and the other great Hinderance to or a Destroyer of them both Pag. 694. The Liver is the Fountain of all the Veins and the Arteries through which the Vital Spirits do pass are always and in all Places conjoined with the Veins and upon them depend the Life and Motion of the Animal and the Soul uses the Blood and Spirits to such Purposes The Liver communicates Blood to the Heart and that again Vital Spirits to the Liver Pag. 195. And as Blood is never in the Veins without some Spirits so neither do the Spirits flow through the Arteries without some thin Rivage of Blood with them and as the Veins have need of the Arteries to stir the Blood in them so the Arteries of the Veins for Nourishment of the Spirits Pag. 696. Spirits of the Body are Vital or Animal and the Spirit is a Vapor drawn by Heat and Concoction of the Heart out of the purest Parts of the Blood
Competitors sharing in the Command and Government and this sine fine The Contest hath no Determination but by Dissolution of the Compositum and this proves the Thing to be of Nature and so doth the Universality of it there being not a Humane Soul rightly constituted wherein this Contest is not fully evident Our Author hath well foreseen that his Definition of the Souls being a true Spiritual Incorporeal Substance would be easily granted But his Word Immaterial was that which would make the Boggle and therefore he promised diligently to prove the same but in this Argument we meet not with any Mention of that Quality and therefore conclude we are not at all pressed by it Pag. 710. He propounds Three Rules upon Material Forms 1. That they act not but when they are Forms of some Body 2. They are that Principle by which the Compositum is acted and do not work to Effect but by the Compositum 3. They are limited in their Extent not reaching farther than the Subject in which they are And to these we do also agree He argues the Humane Soul is not only the Cause that the Man doth understand but such Soul doth understand by her self For this he cites Arist De Anima Lib. 3. Cap. 4. I have searched that Chapter but do not find it there and however do not grant or believe the Thing to be true 2. He argues The Senses take Harm by an over-vehement Force of their Objects but the Intellect doth not so This he hath from Aristotle Hence he concludes the Soul to be Immaterial which we pass for an apparent non sequitur 3. He argues The less our minds are employed in External Things the more apt and ready they are to work This I deny and say the more exercised and practised the more apt and ready they are for those Things be they Worldly or Contemplative 4. He argues The Soul understands and knows it self its Powers and Actions and that it is a Substance differing from the Body All this I deny 5. Argues The Intellect can apprehend all Finite Things but if it were Material it could not discern one Matter from another nor know their Differences This I say the Beasts do easily perform 6. Argues The Intellect perceives Abstracted Things and Immaterial as God Angels Universals and Mathematical Notions therefore it is Immaterial We answer Universals and Notions are derived from Particulars and Materials and what Men know of God and Angels comes from Revelation and Sense of all which a Material Spirit acting in and with fit Organs is enough capable 7. Argues Quicquid recipitur fit ad Modum recipientis but the Intellect turns all into Universals and Immaterial Notions This I deny can do it I grant It is capable both of Particulars and Universals seems alike capable not one more Natural than the other whence the Modus recipiendi is first of the Particular by observing and Correction of which Rules are framed and Notions raised by ordinary Proceeding in a Rational Intellect not needing or to me proving an Immateriality of the Soul 8. Argues The Outward Senses convey the Species of their Objects to the common Sense that transmits them to the Phantasie thence there must be Organs to convey them to the Intellect but once come thither the Intellect orders them and judges of them without Help of any Organs at all This if he can maintain by good Proof Erit Apollo and shall have the Garland but till that be done we are where we began 9. Pag. 713. His Ninth Argument seems to be a Ramble Pag 716. His Tenth Argument is taken ex non Concessis 11. Argues God is the Souls Chief Good Therefore the must necessarily have Means to attain to him but that she cannot do whil'st she is in the Body obstructed by Sensual Powers therefore she must have a Subsistence out of the Body in which she may arrive to that Enjoyment I answer this beggs the Question or presumes the Case determined that there is such a She as our Author promised to prove and now brings her to stand upon a bare Supposal with as little Firmness as when he began his Argument The Subsistence in Separation is continued to be denied and till that evinced to be Erroneous this Argument is very Vanity 12. Argues That which doth really move and act it self must be Immaterial But Mens Souls do so and have a free Will and Choice to do or not to do I demand if these Things be not in Beasts He says the Elements do not move because they are Material I demand how he disposes of the Fire which the World takes to be always in Motion and that Naturally He says the Beasts can make no Resistance to their Appetites but must needs follow them yet every day affords us Proofs that Beasts can and do resist their Appetites A Setting-dog hath a great Desire to run and his Mouth will work and his Chaps water and yet he contains himself and sits still in sight of his Game for a long time together 13. Argues Pag. 717. Men have Power to chuse Loss of their Blood and Lives and that shews their Souls Superior and not dependent upon their Bodies And we agree the Soul to be all that and that the Intellect hath a swasive Power over other Faculties and sometimes prevails with them to suffer Pains and Present Death in expectation of believed future Rewards and this by a Power of Discretion in the Intellect without Dependence upon the body or Immateriality in the Soul Pag. 718. Says If the Soul were Material it would languish with the Body suffer in its Sickness feel its infirmities and weaken as the Body grows weak And all this we say it doth Sequitur Temperamentum Corporis and that is a Proof of its Materiality He says Mens Minds in Sickness and at Death are more lively sensible of their Sins than in Health that grows from Tear of approaching Danger of being taken away in a State of Sin for which Punishment is undoubtedly to be awarded at the Resurrection without Means or Hopes of any Alteration in the Space intermediate betwixt Death and that and not from a Quickness of Mind more than or above ordinary but from the nearness and greatness of the Concern He says When Men forsake Worldly Business they are made more apt for Contemplation And it is agreed that there are outward Helps as Abstinence and Retiredness which may advance the Intellective Faculty of the Soul and strengthen it against the Passionate and Sensual Faculties and so it may be assisted by Purging Bleeding or other Physick so by good Air good Company and even by good News which all are Tokens of the Souls Participation with the Body and induce to apprehend its Material Subsistence with and in the Body Our Author concludes he hath enough proved the Souls Immateriality but we still deny that he hath enough done it and how much he hath done towards it shall be left to common
the Middle of the Body and calls the Soul a Part of Humane Nature not perfect without its Body and therefore desiring a Re-union all contrary to his former Assertions Pag. 788. Says The Body doth nothing without the Soul Nec ferè Anima sine Corpore Pag. 793. Says The Soul is not Tota in qualibet Parte nor in any Part nor affixed to any Organ no nor Tota in toto and yet the Essence of the Soul is Tota in toto in qualibet Parte as Light is in the Air both Light and Heat appear in different Degrees in divers Places and yet their Influence reaches to the whole Horizon Pag. 794. That which is Indivisible Totum est Ubi est and this holds in the Soul And so God is in the World and every Part of it and as Soul and Body united are yet distinct Soul and Body So Pag. 798. the End of Reason and a Humane Soul is to know and love God but the Intellect is like clean White Paper without any Character upon it and cannot perceive but by the Senses nor work without Bodily Organs and those must have Life or else they could not have Sense and Life must have Nourishment whence there is in the Soul a Nutritive Faculty for Support Augmentation and Procreation then a Sensitive Faculty being a Power of Perceiving External Objects for Benefit and Safety of the Animal next a Power to retain and preserve the Species or Idea's of what was perceived and then a Power of offering them to the Intellect for obtaining a Judgment upon them Pag. 799. The Humane Soul though it work in the Body yet it doth not work by Organs of the Body and therefore its Actions are not common with the Body applying this particularly to the Intellect And That he says is endowed with certain Gifts or Impressions by God at the Creation of the Soul that by Help of them Men may better comprehend all other Things And that there are such common Innate Notions Experience doth manifest Calls these the Sparks and Seeds of Knowledge in Man But this he confesses is rejected by Aristotle which yet he would make some kind of Argument for Souls being created and therefore preferrs the Platonick and Stoical opinion before that of Aristotle and therefore will not admit of the Rule of nothingh being in the Intellect which came not thither throug the Senses to be absolutely true but only that for the most part it is so though he have repeated and granted this Rule without Exception several times before Pag. 800. Says That for all these Impressions made by God upon Souls yet the Intellect is still as a White Paper without Writing or Character upon it and therefore must seek to obtain its Knowledge from without it self and this it seeks from the Senses and from God by his Word and Spirit How the Intellect should be as fair White Paper and yet have Characters imprinted upon it I do not conceive nor divers other Things late before delivered by our Author Our Author seems to have pursued this Argument concerning the Soul through all the known Particulars that may be belonging to it and yet hath not throughly satisfied himself thereupon and therefore he begins again with it Pag. 802. and runs descant upon it all over again unto Pag. 851. repeating and confirming his former Arguments First he quotes Texts of Scripture to Pag. 809. and there quotes the Opinion and Consent of the World to his Opinion Pag. 810. He begins with Sayings of Philosophers Pythagoras and Plato who held Pre-existence of Souls and consequently their Separate Subsistence then Alcmaeon and Anaxagoras who held their Spirituality then the Stoicks Pag. 812. He comes to Aristotle and says that he had no Will to declare his Opinion concerning the Soul but did on purpose speak obscurely about it But yet says he Aristotle did not say it was Material or Mortal And for Proof of this he quotes 14 Places out of Aristotle's Writings which was not needful on our Behalf for that this Assertion was before agreed by us This reaches to Pag. 820. and there cites Turks Tartars Persians he might have said Mahometans agreeing to his Tenet and so other Barbarous Nations Pag. 821. He comes to Reasons first upon Moral Congruity that there must be future Reward and Punishment which he thinks cannot be without a Separately-subsisting Soul and goes on to 12 Arguments reaching to Pag. 827. Pag. 828. Says If the Soul come from Generation it must be Elementary and Material Pag. 829. Brings Arguments from the Souls own Actions and Motions Pag. 830. Adds a 13th Argument to his former 12 and thence to Pag. 834. he makes up his Arguments to 20. And he cites Euseb Hist Lib. 6. Cap. 36. where we do find that in Origin's Time there arose in Arabia Authors of a Pernicious Doctrine who taught that Souls died here with their Bodies and that at the Resurrection they rose again together and a great Synod was summoned upon that Account and Origin sent for unto it and he so discoursed and disputed that he purged their seduced Minds from this foul Error cited by our Author Pag. 804. It seems the Opinion was condemned in that Synod by Origin's Assistance but that also the Thing is not such a Novelty as without his Testimony it might seem to be Pag. 835. Our Author comes to cite and confute Arguments made against his Tenet 1. We see nothing part at Death of a Body but a vanishing Breath nor can perceive and hardly conceive what a Soul is or should be without a Body Hence he says Men must doubt of God and Spirits Pag. 837. Arg. 4. The Soul cannot operate without the Body and therefore doth not so subsist He says The Soul Both Vnderstand and Will without the Body Pag. 838. and the Intellective Memory remains in a Separated Soul and so Love Joy and their like in an Intellectual Manner Pag. 839. Arg. 5. In great Weakness of the Body the Souls Operations are alto feeble The Sum of his Answer to this is a Denial of the Thing and whether true or not is left to Judgment and Experience Pag. 840. The Soul parts unwillingly from the Body this argues she doth not apprehend the going to a more perfect State but rather to Corruption or Extinguishment and Christ would have avoided this Cup and yet he knew that was his Way to a Resurection and future Happiness To this he makes a long Answer not to be summed in few Words Pag. 841. Arg. 7. The Soul is troubled with divers Afflictions but Spirits or Immaterial Substances are not subject to Mortal Perturbations therefore the Soul is not such a Spirit He answers The Bodies Contrariety to the Soul is the Soul 's great Affliction and if Angels were so knit to Bodies they would be as much troubled and in Man this Perturbation is one Effect of Sin Pag. 843. He compares Dying to the Child's Leaving the Womb which he fancies the Child
Sense viz. Brutes and Men live Really and Intentionally God and Angels Intentionally this says our Author is a feigned Invention Fol. 50. N. 3. Says The Soul doth concur both effectually and immediately in the Exercising of its own Operations The Soul deserves well or ill according to the good or ill Will and the Effects of it whence it is the Soul that it free and not the Will Merit and Demerit grows from a Liberty to do or suffer or not and therefore this Liberty belongs immediately and principally not to the Will but to the Soul so the Soul in truly free and hath Power to determine its own Efficiency and Operations agreeing with what we have before spoken concerning it N. 5. The Will is Coeca Potentia and cannot work but as it is determined by Knowledge and the Knowing Principle is that which is free formally Fol. 52. N. 7. Says The Soul hath no Parts but the whole concurrs to every Vital Action in Hand Head Feet c. This I say is the inconvenient Result of Framing the Soul to be an Immaterial Substance and impartible Hence follows our Author's Assertion That the whole Soul must be undividably acting in all Parts at once and wholly in every Part which to unprejudiced Persons looks very like unintelligible N. 11. The Soul is the formally intelligent Principle Fol. 53. N. 14. He says The Senses in Man are subjected in Matter as the proper Subject where it is inherent That the Soul is not a proper Subject for its Inhesion for Material Accidents cannot be produced out of a Spiritual Subject Matter united to a Sensitive Soul is not therefore Sensitive nor for being united to a Rational Soul is it Rational but the whole Compositum is by Force and Power of its Form Sensible or Rational N. 17. And the Material Sensations are united to the Soul which is the Principium Sentiens and yet may not be a Recipient of the Sensations N. 17. For the Soul informs Matter in which it is not inherent but united to it N. 19. Though a Form be united to a Subject without being inherent in it yet no Form can be inherent in a Subject to which it is not united and therefore Sensation received in Matter and united to the Form must be likewise united to the Matter Fol. 54. N. 21. Sensations of Brutes are both subjected and united in their Souls but Sensations of Men are only united to their Souls because that is here taken for an Immaterial Spirit whence Material Agencies cannot arise Productive Fol. 54. N. 1. It is says he a great Question amongst the Learned Whether the Faculties such as Nutrition Generation Sense Intellect be really distinct from the Soul or not Some say that they are not and some that they are Others that the Vegetative viz. Nutritive and Generative are really the same with that sort of Soul but that the Sentient and Intelligent Faculties are really distinguished from those Souls N. 3. The Will if divided from the Soul or Intellect cannot have Knowledge and therefore not Freedom of Acting nor is any thing essentially Subsisting of it self N. 4. but dependently upon the Intellect or Judgment and that is most knowng and free and by that Voluntary Faculty is determined Fol. 56. N. 11. Begins to cite Arguments for proving that the Faculties or Powers are distinct from the Soul and answers them Fol. 58. N. 1. He raises another Question viz. granting such Faculties really Identified or to be really undistinguished from the Soul Whether then they be not formally distinguished from it N. 2. He says they first are formally distinguished from one another and then that every one of them is so distinguished from the Soul at least inadequate Fol. 59. N. 9. Questions if there can be an Intellective Faculty without the Voluntary attending it Fol. 65. N. 1. Anatomists do find that from the outward Organs of the Sense there go Nerves which lead to the Brain by which the Vital Spirits represent the Images received unto the common Sense or inward Faculty that can discern Dogs cannot bark without Sensation thin in their Sleep cannot be outward therefore they do so by Force of their Sense Internal N. 2. Says There is in Man a Sensual Appetite besides his Will And if so says he there must be also a Knowing Principle or Power to guide it And this he says is the Common or Inward Sense But to this I do not agree but say The Contest doth not seem to be betwixt the Will and the Appetite but betwixt Reason and the Affections and Passions each endeadeavouring to incline the Judicial Faculty to pass Sentence on their behalf And the Passions as Wrath and Fear do even strive by their Violence to over-power and compel the Judgment to pass its Sentence on their Side that the Compositum may obtain a present Quiet which without giving some Degrees of Satisfaction to those rebellious and potent Contestors it is not likely to do But upon a Consent obtained the Voluntary Power call it Will or Appetite is readily subservient to such Agreement of the Judgment and hath no Power in Nature to resist such a Decree its Dependence being upon the Judgment as upon its Natural Guide and Director without whose Consent she neither will or naturally can act so as there is no need to make the Intellect Guide to the Will and the Common Sense Guide to the Appetite but the one Guidance of Judgment will serve them both or there is in truth no real Difference between them Fol. 65. N. 3. There are divers Acts of the Sense or Senses Internal 1. It is Perceptive of the Objects delivered by the Senses and thence is called the Common Sense 2. It conserves the Species so delivered Revolvendo and is called the Imagination 3. It can know them and distinguish them one from another and thence is called the Affirmative Power 4. It can compound and join these Species together with what Coherence or Incoherence it pleases or as may happen and this is called the Phantasy 5. It records and remembers such Objects and conserves Things apprehended for Future Times and Uses and this is called the Memory Doubt may be whether a Power or Faculty shall be constituted for Performance of every one of these Offices or that one Common Power shall be said to perform them all Our Author defends There is but one Common Internal Sense acting in all these Performances if in truth they be distinct or several they all may proceed from one Power and it is not reasonable to multiply Powers more than is needful especially for Men of his Judgment which was That there were no Powers in the Compositum which were really distinct from the Soul And in all this I am at Agreement with him viz. That there are no Powers or Faculties so really distinct from the Soul as that they can act to Effect without the Excitation and Assistance of the Soul Hence the Soul moves the
Masters in Philosophy That they answer and solve all Arguments which may be alledged against this Tenet of the Immortality N. 7. He says Let the Learned search into the Reasons and Grounds of this Immortality which all confess to be taken principally from God's Special Providence for Rewarding the Good and Punishing the Wicked in a Future State N. 8. Goes on upon the same Ground N. 9. Mentions only that some do reason for it from Man's Capacity to apprehend Eternal Things and to desire and expect them but doth not insist upon such Arguments or so much as say that they are firm N. 1. He discourses concerning Powers and Acts of Souls Separated with little Assurance and says They have an Innate Inclination and Appetite again to inform and to be united to their proper Matter Upon this our Author we may observe a Love and Inclination to Truth somewhat constrained by the Duties of his Obedience and Profession and the Place of his Abode and Conversation but in Things not forbidden him he seems congruous enough to the Natural Truth and Reason of Things I met with a Pamphlet printed 1645. in English intituled The Prerogative of Man or The Souls Immortality the Author not named but learned full of Quotations concernining our present Point Page 9. He says The Old and Great Philosophers have agreed a Separate Subsistence of Souls And this I do not deny He cites Cicero Permanere Animos arbitramur But what they then are and whither they go we are yet to learn Pag. 13. Cites Marcus Aurelius Emperour As Bodies dying are turned to Earth and Dust by Degrees so Souls carried into the Air are liquified and conjoined to the great Soul of the World which says the Author is nothing but God Cites Tacitus In Vita Agric. If to Good Spirits there may be any Place remaining if Great Souls extinguish not with their Bodies may'st thou rest in Peace Cites Macrobius who after reciting sundry Opinions touching the Nature of the Soul concludes That the Opinion that it was Incorporeal and Immortal had prevailed over all the other Opinions And this we do easily grant Page 10. He grants Aristotle did not declare himself in this Point but thinks he forbore so to do because he knew not how to dispose of such Souls after Death Page 14. He says It imports little that Dicoearchus Aristoxenus Pherecrates Tertullian Sextus Empericus and some other Learned Men have thought the Soul to be Mortal for that some Philosophers have held very odd Opinions He says The Term of Soul is taken for an Exhalation of the Purer Blood sometimes for a Ruling Spiritual Intellect and sometimes for the Immaterial Immortal Part of Man Page 15. He says Increase or Diminution of Knowledge grow from the Difference Advantage or Alteration in the Organs and thence a Man understands better than a Child a Learned than an Illiterate and a Diligent better than a Negligent Person And this we agree to with this Addition That the Soul or Flame of Life hath its Vicissitudes as well as the Body and its Organs Page 16. He says Some Acts of the Soul are Independent of the Body and wholly Inorganical as divers Learned Authors have shewed This shews like an open Blot in his Tables for this Thing is the most precise Point in Issue Prove this and carry the Cause And that in this Point he should shuffle us off without offer of one Quotation or one Reason in Proof of his Assertion inferrs he could find nothing to say in it that was satisfactory to his own Reason or likely to satisfie other Inquisitive People P. 17. Says An Immortal Soul cannot be generated And therefore it is not dependent upon Matter or the Being of a Compositum And this would be true if the Thing were so viz. that Mans Souls were Immaterial but that still wants Proof and so the Argument proceeds ex non concessis He cites an Argument against his Opinion viz. The Anatomies of Men and Beasts shew their Bodies to be alike and their Senses Affections Memories Phantasies are found to be alike and they have each an Intellect and Common Sense some more and some less Perfect whence then can such Difference arise between them in Nature that the Souls of Beasts must be Mortal and those of Men Immortal And this carries the Sense of our former and main Objection and being put by our Author upon himself it seems he should make a Substantial Answer to it but all the Answer he gives is this viz. We do collect from the Operations of the Souls of Men and of Beasts That there is not only a Gradual but an Essential Difference between them and that their being like doth not prove them the same The last we grant and for what he will collect it may be what he pleases but need be no Rule to others But here is no Reason shewn why or wherefore he makes such a Collection nor how that must needs or can be so done P. 18. He offers as some Proof the Difference between the Faculties of Mens Sensual Affections and their Reasons Yet he doth not say a Man hath two Souls and that Affections proceed from one of them and Reason from the other but pretends an Essential Difference between the Faculties of the same Soul which seems absurd in Nature and he might with as good Reason say that Love and Hatred in Man should inferr a Specifical Difference in his Soul Pag. 25. He affirms Generation cannot produce a Humane Soul but argues ex non concessis supposing it Immaterial and then what he says is true But it begs the Point in Question and which will not be granted him P. 26. Says Reason cannot be generated no more can Sense But the Organs of both may be so and the Powers and Spirits that actuate them I but says he Reason and Judgment can and do at times act Inorganically This hath been said before but neither then nor now was nor is proved or offered to be so and therefore is not believed Pag. 26. Says Generation is not performed by Acts of Wit or Vnderstanding but those of Vegetation and Sense and a Soul doth not generate a Soul still supposing a Non supponendum that a Soul is Immaterial and separately subsisting but taking it for a Material Spirit the producing it by generation is easie and natural Pag. 27. It follows says he that because a Man doth not generate with his Mind but his Body therefore his Body is Corruptible and his Mind or Soul is Immortal It seems this needs no Answer Pag. 28. says The Learned Sennertus a famous Physician was moved by certain Reasons which he could not overcome to think the Soul is generated and that the Seed it self is animated with a Humane Soul as in the Case of the Beasts but this Physician and Justus Lipsius called before the Divines and told the Consent of Divines was to the contrary they declared their Resolutions to obey the Order of
the Divines as was the most safe for them to do He names on this Page 21 Authors who maintain the Separate State and Immortality of Souls and I confess I never met yet with any Writer who did not profess and maintain that Opinion and therefore do easily grant that this Opinion is undoubtedly Catholick in the plain and full Sense of that Word qualified as the Broad Way and the Wide Gate which is the general Passage appointed for the World not intending it to be of that dangerous consequence or effect but to shew that the general acceptation of an Opinion is not an undoubted Security against its possibility of being an Error and that is delivered 1 Esdras 4.38 is still effectual viz. That Truth endureth and is always strong it liveth and conquereth for evermore P. 3. He confesses That at the Resurrection a compleat recompence may be made both to Soul and Body though they both should be extinguished for a time P. 34. Cites Aureolus The Souls Immortality is to be held as a common conception of the Mind evident in it self though to give a reason for it is no easie thing is it possible to give one that is convincing or sufficient P. 35. says Generation procreates the Man or the Compositum but not all his parts viz. not his Soul I say then neither the Compositum nor the Man whose Chief Constituent Part the Soul is Well says he but if all the parts must be generated whether are these parts simple or compound Entities If simple they cannot be generated but must be created If compound then if they must be generated the parts also of which those parts are made must in like sort be generated and so in infinitum or till we come to some parts which are simple and so ingenerable Whence say he it follows that no parts at all Corporeal nor Spiritual neither in Man nor Beasts do receive their Being by Generation To this I say the absurdity of this Consequence shews his Argument to be a Fallacy And we do not demand more than what he cannot deny and therefore grants That the Whole Man is generated and so for the Beasts and they are a Compound of Parts both Essential and Integral and if either of the Essential Parts be wanting viz. Soul or Body the Man or Beast is not generated nor can be and the Charge given Gen. 1.28 Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth should be utterly void and of no effect at all P. 36. He insists A Man producing another like himself by only composing and uniting his two Essential parts viz. Soul and Body makes that a Man which before was none and doth truly generate though he no more produce the Soul then he doth the Matter of which the Body is made This I grant no more the one then the other and he doth not deny the one to be generated as much as the other Thus we are at Agreement viz. Something is generated a Man is generated that cannot be without a Soul and the Soul as much generated as the Matter of the Body but that it is Radically in the Seed as both in Plants and Beasts the Vegetative and Sensitive Soul as well as Body He nor any other do shew when nor how nor even why or whence the Superior or more Intense Degree of Rationality in a Soul or a Compositum should so alter the Nature or Power of Generation and the very Intent and Design of it as to make it Ineffectual for the Production of a Man and the Continuance of that Species of Creatures in the World contrary to the Design of Generation which Aristotle hath observed to be Ordained for Immortalising the several Species of Creatures in the World and which God took care to continue by a Miraculous Provision for them in the Ark The Species were intended to be continued by a Natural Means viz. that of Generation and Men have by that Means been continued from the Creation till this day naturally and without needless and even Frivolous Multiplication of Miracles by the Creation of new Souls every hour and perhaps every moment viz. upon every Fruitful Coition though never so unlawful wicked or bestial Pag. 37. He says That which is not wholly Mortal doth not wholly Generate and therefore neither Man nor Beast doth generate wholly yet a Beast more wholly then a Man My Answer to this is That I do not wholly understand him and for as much as I do understand I am wholly of another opinion But he insists you say whole Man is generated by Man therefore all his Parts both Soul and Body And he grants Whole Man is generated by Man and that both Soul and Body are made Parts of Man by Generation and so Man generates his like But that Soul and Body have their Entities or Beings given them by Procreation he denies not only as false but as absurd Pag. 38. Well but how doth he prove this Even by an Example He says A Whole Horse is generated both Matter and Form and yet his Matter did not receive any Being by Generation I Answer There was in the Seed a Vigorous Principle of Vegetation Impregnated with a Nutrative Power Effective of Augmentation till the Creature arrive to its full Perfection of Parts and after of Degrees the same which we evidently perceive in Plants and Trees whose vast Boles and Branches Rise and Grow from a very small Principle in their Seeds and thus the Matter of the Horse did receive a Commencement or Principle of Being from Generation though not a present Perfection of Being which future Nutriment will bring it unto The Form of the Horse He grants is as truly and as much generated as his Matter and both go on and Increase together to their full Perfection of Age and of Degrees Now says he Why should the Form be more necessarily Generated then the Matter I say so too and therefore that it is not more necessary but both alike and that he says true viz. that the Form is not more generated then the Matter the Soul then the Body but that the Principles of them both are in the Seed Which David tells us day by day are Formed out of that which at the first was none of them It seems they take Life together and so Increase and Grow they rejoyce and suffer together are grieved with Pains and Sickness and are so released and extinguished by Death for any thing that our Writer hath said to the contrary Pag. 39. He says That Men do Receive their Souls by force of Generation although they be not generated and so might the Soul of Christ be the Seed of the Woman although not Procreated from her These are his Affirmative Sayings but hath more wit then to offer at Proof of either of them and others more then to believe him upon his bare word He says That before Infusion of the Soul there is Life in the Embrion by sole Vertue of the Seed and
not produce it and the same may be said for the Form viz. the Soul the Parents give it but they do not produce it This Answer seems clearly Concessive that the Parents generate the Soul as much and as effectually as they do the Body and more than that is not required by Sennertus or any other But our Friend insists Learn says he the Effects of Generation from those of our Dissolution our Death doth dissolve the Vnion of our Parts but it doth not destroy those Parts but only the Man whence as by Generation we become Men by Dying we cease to be so This also grants that all which perishes in Death was generated by the Parents The Body had a Time to get Life and grow and so it hath to putrifie and consume and the Soul began with Life in the Embrion and in the Body and it seems to extinguish in Death of the Body naturally or we desire to be yet scientifically instructed from Reason or Nature what it is and where it is or at least that it is and hath a Separate State and Subsistence of its own P. 43. He recites another Argument of Sennertus viz. If the Seed be not animated from the first Instant and then the Progenitor happen to die before the Time of Animation it might be truly said that a Dead Man did Genenerate He answers This Case is like one who puts Sparks of Fire amongst Fewel then leaves it and the Fire doth not take hold and burn till a good while after yet this Man is said to have made the Fire And we do agree the Similitude to be apt enough in this Case and that it seems to import The Seed is as much the Efficient of the whole Child as the Sparks put into the Fewel are of the Fire more than which hath not been demanded Our Friend says he hath chosen to contest this Point against Sennertus because that Doctor was a Man of great Worth and Substance And says he magnified his Wisdom greatly in Submitting his Opinion to the Divines worthy to be imitated herein by all other Men But that before hath been delivered doth sufficiently evince that there is a great Latitude and Difference of Opinions in the World Concerning this Writer of An. 1645. we may observe he had the Advantage of the Wren in the Fable who sate upon the Back of the Eagle and was carried by her into the Clouds and coming to the full Extent of the Eagles Height she put her self to the small Stretch of her own Wings and mounted above the Eagle by so much He had perceived the great Incongruities of continually newly created Souls and intended at mollifying them by assigning them a Regular Ordination as a Duty upon the Exigence of Nature This Course appears healing and helpful Posito that the Soul be Immaterial but it is no Manner of Proof that the Soul is so And if it be not so but only a Material Spirit then is there no need of this Invention and then it is as hath been said not only an Invention but a needless one And yet it testifies the Writer amongst his other Endeavours to have been a Person of Wit Learning and Consideration All the Authors presently in our Possession or Reach concerning the Soul have before been Cited and Considered viz. Four Foreign and Four of our own Later and Domestick Writers And concerning the Materiality or Immateriality of Humane Souls we may observe from that they have spoken that there are Two particular Queries or Questions the Determination of which will advance much towards the knowledge of the Souls Nature and Qualifications If One of them be proved or granted thence the Immateriality of the Soul may be strongly inferred and if the other be proved or granted thence may he as strongly inferred the Souls Materiality The First of these is held in the Affirmative by divers of our Authors viz. More Digby Zanchius and the Pamphlet of 1645 who do all expresly and often affirm That the Soul in Life-time of the Man doth at some times and in some cases act of and by her self without Aid or Ministry of the Body or its Organs or any Members or Powers of it If this Assertion have been proved or can or shall be proved We grant from the Conclusion a very strong Inference may be drawn for the Souls Immateriality agreeing the Truth of Aristotle's Assertion in his Treatise of the Soul Chap. 1. That if the Soul have any Operation or Affection peculiar to her self and wherein she can effectually Act without Use or Aid of the Body or the Members Organs or Spirits of it then it is very likely that she may also be capable of a Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body But says he If the thing be not so and Men fail in Proof of such a peculiar in the Soul certainly she cannot subsist in a State of Separation from the Body Our Authors for Proof of such a Peculiar in the Soul do alledge That the Soul can conceive Spiritual Beings and Universals Second or Abstracted Notions Logical Mathematical and Metaphysical Beings and Things which Matter is not very capable of nor that it can be Assistant to the Formation or Contemplation of such Conceptions In answer to which may be opposed the same Authors Assertions That whilst the Soul is in the Body she cannot act without the Animal or Vital Spirits of the Body and before hath been observed That the Soul cannot see but by the Eyes nor remember but in the Memory And these Organs and Faculties may be lost by Accident and yet the Soul remain perfect still but without Sight or Memory for want of the Bodily Organs and if the Intellect be crazed the Soul cannot understand but according to such Capacities as remain in the Organ and it seems the like may be said for all other Faculties of the Soul and Organs of the Body which infers the Soul cannot operate without the Spirits and Organs of the Body As to the Conceiving Spiritual Beings and Things it hath been said such Knowledge hath been derived from Revelations made to the Senses of some Men and their Testimony of them to other Men and for the Conceptions of Universals and Abstracted Notions it seems the Soul in the Intellect working Comparate and Abstractive by using the Joynt Powers of Intellect Phantasie and Memory and by composing and comparing what is found in them may well enough be able by abstracting them from Conceptions of Matter and Sense and sorting them first then ranking and comparing them the Soul by Joint Use of these Organs may naturally be able to raise Generals out of Particulars and from Generals ascend to Universals and so likewise raise abstracted Notions from the often Repetition and comparing Things first made known to them by the Senses We do not then agree that any of our Authors have proved that the Soul hath any Operation or Affection so peculiar to her self as that the Body
of the Law not known to bare Nature And finally Rom. 4.15 Where no Law is there is not transgression so no Conscience accusing or approving And all this proves That Conscience in Man is not an Act purely Natural but a Complex Act of and Educated Nature under the Direction of some sort of Rules You say That Man hath a kind of Natural Expectation of receiving Rewards or Punishments as soon as he departs this Life I grant only Such a kind of Natural as Education and Custom can make Men expect to receive what they are taught and therefore do believe will be given them if taught to believe receiving as soon as they are dead their Expectation will be sutable if taught to defer their Expectations till the Resurrection and Christ's Second Coming to Judgement it will be as easie and natural to expect the Rewards and Punishments at that time as to do it at the time of our Deaths Either of them is enough effective in us to create an Endeavour of Obtaining the Future Rewards and Avoiding such Punishments by the greatest Endeavours that in this Life can be used Knowing that there is no Work nor Device in the Grave whither we go But as the Tree falls so it is like to lie and as Death leaves Men so Judgment shall find them And we are therefore as much concerned to provide for a good departure out of this World in respect to the time of our Resurrection as if we expected an immediate Reward or Punishment from the time of our Death For that once dead in my Sense we are not are no more concerned in time nor the passing of it but shall rise again as if we had lain down but the hour before You say You cannot believe that the Primitive Martyrs would have died so cheerfully had they not thought that they exchanged this life for a better immediately But I believe they might do it in expectation of a Crown to be given them at that day the Great Day of General Doom or Judgement and so says Peter Martyr in his Common Places This is the consolation of the godly afflicted in this world they have an eye to the Resurrection and thereupon quiet themselves And again Martyrs in death were comforted by belief of the Resurrection And Heb. 11.35 Martyrs were tortured not accepting Deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection So 1 Thess 4.15 Paul comforts them is sorrow for their dead Friends not by giving them assurance of their being gone to Heaven but by assurance of the Resurrection the manner of which he there describes to them You say You have known some die with great chearfulness and in full expectation of an immediate transportation to Heaven by the ministry of Angels And I doubt not but your Assertion may be true for Men learn to believe and practise as they are taught And I doubt not but the Jews Turks Hereticks and the Old Women before-mentioned may be found dying some of all sorts with great Constancy and a good Assurance and Expectation of Future Felicity each of them in their own Way but my Opinion is that God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the World by the Man whom he hath ordained and that it is appointed for Men once to die and after that the Judgment at which all must appear and give account for their own Works The happiness which I desire before that day is that it may be said to me as to Daniel Go thy way Leave this life and wait till the end be for thou shalt rest and stand in the Lot at the end of the days the assured hope of a joyful Resurrection Paragraph 8. You grant that there do not occur in the Scriptures the Terms or Words of a Separately subsisting or Immaterial Soul I had said also not that of Immortal Soul and you might as well have granted that too for that neither you nor I can find it there You say I take the word Soul in Scripture very often to signifie Life or Person and you grant that in Hebrew it doth so But say I we find the like in Greek also for in St. Paul's Shipwrack there were in the Ship two hundred seventy six Souls alias Persons You say That in my Opinion I follow my friend Mr. Hobbs I say I follow nothing but Common Sense and Reason in it and that if Mr. Hobbs have said the same things I see no reason to think that strange but proceeding in both from one Common Principle which makes our Construction obvious to the Reason of Mankind If I had ever had the knowledge of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion or Writings I know no cause to reject or refuse the owning of it but for Truth 's sake I tell you that I never saw the Man but once and that without changing one word nor did I ever peruse any of his Writings to my remembrance nor have I received any light proceeding from him and you are the first Discoverer to me and the only that his Sense and mine agree in it Paragraph 9. You examine Solomon's Expression The dust shall return to the earth as it was and the spirit to God who gave it Concerning this Expression my Treatise shews That Spirit and Breath are often used in the same signification and may pass for Synonyma's Gen. 2.7 God made Man of the dust and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and Man became a living soul viz. a living person Ante. Roccius in his Book De Anima page 20. says The Souls of Animals or Brutes had a like beginning to those of Men quamvis per Emphasin ob majorem Animae Humanae dignitatem de ipsa id exactius exprimitur Very probable it seems that God gave to Brutes the Breath of Life as well as to Men Although as he says Moses hath not exprest it that by Spirit here may be intended the Breath and Life or the Breath of Life seems to me not unlikely And whatsoever the Sense may be or whether spoken by Solomon according to common conception or that he spake it as you take it for the last result of his Judgment I mean thereupon to follow Sir Walter Raleigh's Direction viz. In all dark and hard Questions the most easie and best end of them is to say I will not dispute that So I will not farther dispute the intent of Solomon in this place but willingly leave you and all men at liberty to think thereof as their Reason or Phancy shall direct and I hope for a like permission from other Men. Paragraph 10. You quote St. Matthew Fear not them who can only kill the Body but not the Soul Also St. Luke's Text in the same point which names not the Soul at all And you say We may perceive that the substance and intent of Christ's Doctrine was the same in both places viz. That the Body being mortal may be killed but the Soul not so Whether this your Assertion be true or
not let the World be judge For our Lord 's main scope and intent in this Text appears clearly to be The Warning of his Disciples not to fear Men for that they could only punish with Death and no farther Not to fear them so much as God who can punish beyond Death by casting into Hell The Contents in both Evangelists express That our Lord exhorted his Disciples to preach to others what they had heard of him he bids them not be afraid so to do for that Men can only kill the Body and do you no more harm but God can punish after Death and cast you into Hell and this we ought to fear more than any thing that Man can do to us That St. Matth. hath worded our Lord's Expressions otherwise is true but that our Lord's intent here was to teach a Separate Subsistence of Souls after Death appears not in St. Luke's words nor in the Contexts of either of the Evangelists And the wording of it in St. Matthew's Text seems to me but the result of that Apostle's Judgment perhaps according to the Common Opinion of that Time And however here being two Relations of the same Thing and of equal Authority it seems Men may accept which of them they think most likely or most true without much apprehending the abuses which Atheists or Prophane Persons may make of it Parag. 11. You say I make Matthew and Luke to disagree again Yet the Case is no more but this Matthew says Two Thieves were crucified with our Saviour and those Thieves also which were crucified with him reviled him And Mark says the same thing viz. They Crucified Two Thieves with him and they who were Crucified with him reviled him Luke only relates the matter of the Thiefs Conversion which he had by hear-say Thus the difference which there is amongst them is not made by me who only relate the Case as it is leaving it to others to adjust such difference as there appears amongst them I do not deny the truth of St. Luke's Relation only say it may be questionable upon these differences But for Answer to the Objection from the Thiefs being that day in Paradise I say That the Crucifixion and Death was on Friday Evening and the Resurrection upon Sunday Morning and this Thief might and likely did rise at the time of our Lord's Resurrection Matth. 27.52 The Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and went and appeared unto many And there is a great Concurrence of Opinion That the Old Patriarchs had part in that Resurrection This being granted I hope shewing the Sense of the Word this day is to very good purpose for this Promise to the Thief might be literally fulfilled if he rose at our Lord's Resurrection I wonder how you mist of this effect of my Answer fully exprest in my Treatise and yet it seems you did miss of it for else you would not have proceeded as you do in this Paragraph Paragraph 12. You say You wonder how I can conceive that the Parable of Dives was delivered to dilucidate our Lord's Doctrine in the 15th verse of that Chapter viz. That what was highly esteemed in the sight of Men may be an abomination in the sight of God I will tell you how I come to conceive so This Doctrine our Lord delivers ver 15. and ver the 19th begins the Parable distanced only by three intermediate verses and the Parable is very proper and significant for that purpose For what in Man's sight is more glorious and happy than the State of Dives and what more miserable than that of Lazarus and yet in God's sight and knowledge their State was directly the contrary But say you Christ delivered this Doctrine to the Pharisees I grant it and so for ought that I can perceive he did that Parable nor do I find any cause for you to doubt of it You are willing to suppose which I think is to grant that it is a Parable and you wonder that I should say Parables are a sandy Foundation for the building of Doctrines upon For say you Our Lord spake to the multitude in Parables and without a Parable spake he not unto them To this I answer His Disciples wondred at it and enquired why he did so and he told them the reason viz. That seeing they might not perceive and hearing they might not understand and be converted for God's appointments were to be fulfilled by means of their ignorance Acts 3.17 Peter tells the Jews concerning our Lord's sufferings I wot that through Ignorance you did it as did also your rulers but God so brought about what he had foretold by the mouth of all his Prophets So Paul Had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of glory But when our Lord and his Disciples were by themselves together he expounded all things unto them and did manifest himself unto them and not to the world but all was delivered in Parables to them who were without John 15.15 Ye are my friends for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you and I heartily wish our Lord had expounded this Parable unto them Parag. 13. You demand What could move Paul to desire death rather than life I answer He was at Rome when he wrote to the Philippians such an one as Paul the aged and a Prisoner of Jesus Christ in continual expectation of Martyrdom Chap. 2.17 If I be offered up as a sacrifice I will joy and rejoyce with you and I would have you do so with me Your self may if you please contemplando put your soul into his souls stead as Job says or imagine your self to be in his Case I judge you would have no cause to desire a long or a longer continuance in that condition If it were not as he says for the opportunity and power to profit other men he says For him to die and be with Christ would be far better 1 Thess 4.14 As Jesus died and rose again even so them also who sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him but howsoever in such a Case you might judge I think for my self that if I were in that Case or a far more easie state of Life yet infirm and aged as I am and had withal so great assurance of a blessed joyful Resurrection as that Apostle had viz. That a Crown of Righteousness was laid up for him and to be given him at that day I think that I should make little doubt in the choice but fully desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ in the sense of resting or Sleeping in Christ to be of that number who being asleep in Jesus God will bring with him for that blessed are the dead who die in the Lord for they rest from their labours And so Job says There the weary are at rest freed from oppressions pains and sufferings You mention a mans becoming a prey to worms as a terrour of Death but I esteem
that terriculamentum only and of no force at all upon the Understanding of a Man It seems Solomon had another sort of apprehension concerning Death Eccles 7.1 he says The day of a mans death is better than that of his birth speaking generally and Chap. 4. when he considers worldly oppressions and miseries he says I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive He liked the dead state better Yea better is he than both of them who hath not yet been and so hath not seen nor felt or been partaker of the evils that are done or suffered under the Sun Chap. 6.3 he prefers the state of an untimely birth before the long life of a man in a miserable or suffering condition Our Lord says of the man who should betray him It had been better for that man not to have been born It seems a vain Scholastick Invention That a state of being or living though in very great Misery is better or more eligible than a State of Death or not being A true and full sense of Suffering will fully convince Men concerning the error of that Apprehension We find Job frequently desiring Death as a period to his Afflictions and wishing to have died from the Womb and so earnest for Death as that he would dig for it more than other Men would do for hid Treasures Death is the Universal Port and remedy for the Afflicted And upon this Argument it seems reasonable to think that one in St. Paul's condition might very wisely desire to depart this life and to be with Christ is much the better state for him though taken in the sense of a resting or sleeping in Jesus till the times of refreshing and Resurrection shall come It seems an Appendix to this Paragraph That you have given me your pains upon this Treatise but you will not go on in that course any farther I do acknowledge my self very much obliged to you for what you have done and that it is more than any Peruser hath done before you And I take it as a real effect of your Zeal and Kindness St. James tells us That he who converts a Sinner from the error of his way shall save a Soul from Death and hide a multitude of Sins And I am ready to believe that you had that Prospect in the eye of your mind when you bestowed the pains for the Conviction of me and others who might happen to have the Perusal of what you have Written why you should refuse to go forwards and to the Accomplishment of so worthy a Design I do not enough apprehend You have indeed many other good Works and needful Imployments upon your hands but perhaps you ought so to do them as not to leave this undone if really and in your own Conscience you are convinced and fully perswaded that you are able to do the thing substantially or by rational and somewhat evident Deductions from Nature Reason or Scripture I declare my self willing to hearken to all and any of these Evidences and to your Proposal of them as soon as to any mans You have entred the Lists and how you can now forsake them without trying the uttermost of the Combate I leave to you to consider In the last place of this Paragraph you reflect upon what I said concerning Preaching in Trading Towns you say you are such a Preacher and I grant it and that you are reached and within the bounds of the Expression but yet you are not within the intent of it for those words are amongst my Observations upon Mr. Baxter's Book and the intent went primely if not only to those who preached according to the Direction and Rules of that Book You have discovered to me the indiscretion of that general Expression for which I crave pardon and do acknowledge there may be errour in the general sense of the words there used and that they may and do exceed the intent of the Writer But your Conclusion That you will more insist upon the Separate Subsistance of Souls and their Immortality in your Sermons than formerly you used to do I do not fully approve the word more is capable of divers applications viz. more frequently or more positively or more provingly If your more be applied to the third sense I grant you have reason in it but if to either of the other two senses I think you have not sufficient reason for that intent or practice Rules of Self-denial teach men to correct the inveterate inclination of Nature Qua nitimur invetitum I will not multiply words upon this Subject knowing I speak sapienti Paragraph 14. You observe the inconvenient Consequences of my Opinion i. e. It offers indignity to Man's Nature in debasing it to that of the Beasts To the Term of equalling it with the Beasts I do not agree for thorowout my Treatise there are ascribed to Man many higher Degrees of Reason Memory Judgment and Will than Beasts are allowed to be capable of A like Nature is supposed in all but an apparently great difference in the Degrees as we may plainly see is betwixt Elephants and Mice Camels and Moles a like or greater difference is agreed to be betwixt Men and Brutes both in their Bodies and Minds The Elephant and Mouse have great differences and clear likenesses yet greater differences are allowed betwixt Men and Brutes but there are still great likenesses amongst them and this I hold to be no disparagement to Mans Nature And in Judgement Men are not permitted to decline to the right hand or to the left but ought to follow Truth to the best of their Knowledge and give honour to whom honour is due not give it where it is not due nor more than is due Secondly You say The Opinion contradicts the common apprehension of Mankind hitherto accepted You say It contradicts the Vniversal Tradition of the Christian Church But this I do not agree having cited some Fathers and Divines to the contrary You say The Opinion is bold singular and heretical That there is a degree of boldness and singularity in it I do not deny but I say it is not so great a degree of either as I took it to be when I writ my Treatise witness the many Quotations reported in this Writing It fared with me as it did with Elijah who thought he was the only true Servant which God had in Israel but it was revealed to him that there were Seven thousand such left in Israel although he knew nothing of them To the word heretical I read in King James the First his Apology Fol. 302. of his Works That he thought himself acquitted from that Charge by his professing to believe the Scripture and the three most Ancient Creeds his submission to the Four First Great or General Councils and to what the Fathers of the First Five hundred years did agree upon as necessary to salvation Here are your Rules for Examination of Heresie and none of these Trials
my Opinion when I found Roccius saying the same things and words and Melanchton apparently to the same Sense and Peter Martyr approaching thereunto and nearer than I do expect other men shall come in any short time Your Quotation out of Dr. Cave was drawn by him out of Euseb Hist lib. 6. cap. 36 and is quoted in my Treatise This Particular finishes your Opposition to my Treatise and shall put an End also to my Defence Yet because I have as you may see some room left upon this Sheet of Paper I am thereby invited to remember what you said in your Second Paragraph viz. That it is not unlikely that my Treatise might be the result of some years Study To set your Imagination right upon that Point I give you this Account of it That in Summer 1690 I practised my Monastick Discipline reading within Doors and labouring the Ground abroad Mutans quadrata rotundis What I read within I ruminated without I considered the close Connection of Soul and Body and even the Contexture of them that Humane Constitutions and Faculties are often alter'd by Diet Air Sickness Accidents that the best Reasons Memories or Judgments may be altered or spoiled by divers like Means and recovered sometimes by Medicines applied to the disaffected Parts or Organs of the Body How this might competere with the Acts and Powers of a Substantial Angelical Spirit as the Soul or Form of Man I found my self unable to comprehend but that rather it seemed there was a Dependency of the Soul upon the Body as well as of the Body upon the Soul Hence I concluded there was a Close and Natural Contexture between them and that likely they were both of one same Nature Connatural to Man viz. his Natural and Constituent Parts Then I considered the Brutes and that they had the same Senses and Affections with Men and some sort of Understanding Phancy and Memory and all liable to like Accidents Also both Sorts lived by Blood Breath and Fewel or Food and if any of these failed the Man must die as well as the Beast so as the Man's Soul could help in such or any other Vital or Natural Necessities no more than the Soul of a Beast can do in like Cases And thus I went on considering all the Summer and coming tube inclined I fell upon a very Natural Course of Proceeding in such Cases followed by St. Paul Acts 17.17 He disputed his Tenets in all Places and with all Persons of his Conversation proper for that purpose and so did I and read Books such as I had or could buy or borrow Lastly One lent me a Book called Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts and the Weak Defence which he and Sir Kenelm Digby and Doctor More made on behalf of that Immortal Opinion fortified my Conceptions to the contrary In Christmass I discours'd with many about it and soon after Candlemass I began to write and finish'd my Treatise about a Week after Midsummer in An. 1691 since which time divers have perused it and I refuse it to none who are like to use it cleanly and are capable of it I know you observe that I begin with Baxter's Book and end with it quoting and examining of it all along nor did I find it difficult to refute all that he says in maintenance of the Immortality except the Texts of Scripture which he quotes And those Texts in him and in you seem to me the only Defences of the Immortality Batteries you perceive are and may be raised against the intention and effects of those Texts which are quoted to that purpose and of what force they will prove Men are not like speedily to determine But my Judgment is not convinced or perswaded that by forbearing the Argument drawn from the Immortality and pressing in its stead that from the Resurrection and the Last Judgement there can any detriment arise to the Progress and Maintenance of the Christian and specially of the Protestant Religion If I had a desire to argue upon this Point and towards the Clearing of it as St. Paul did both in Synagogues Markets and Schools I do it much more desirously with you as professing my self Your much obliged and very humble Servant 8 March 1692. After this Answer to the Opponents Objections he was p1eased to reply thereunto in June following and his Replication was divided into Seven Paragraphs His 1. Parag Insists That I had not made that Proof which he demanded of the Quomodo How a Material Spirit was able to act or did act the Humane Faculties and Powers known to be in Mankind and carried to an excellent Perfection in some Men As this was a repeated Demand so I say that I answer to it as before viz. That there are many other Things and Actings in the World the Reasons and Causes of which Men neither do nor can enough comprehend or perceive Our Lord tells us That if one should watch the Corn Night and Day yet he could not perceive so as to know the Immediate and Proper Causes of its Growth but it will bring forth first the Stalk next the Blade then the Ear and lastly the Full Corn in it Men not perceiving the How or the Why of it and the Case is like for all other Plants How it was or whence it proceeds that they bring forth Fruits and Leaves of wondrous Variety and Diversity in Colour Figure Taste Smell Bulk and Operations We see that each of them have Root Bole Skin or Bark and we perceive and know that each of them hath an active and lively Juice or Spirit ascending from the Root into the Boles Branches and Tops of them and this Composition of Matter and Form in Plants we do reasonably believe to be sufficient and effectual for the production of all that doth ordinarily grow out of them But that Solomon or any other man ever did or can declare to us the manner of their proceedings or the next Reasons of them and of that great Variety in their Natures and Productions I do not know nor believe nor do I think it a Work of Humane Power to do Next Plants we may consider the Insects Solomon points us to the Spiders the Locusts the Ants and the Bees what are the Causes of their Motions and Actions Solomon tells us they do what is proper and best for their Beings but as Wonders to him and us who know neither the How nor the Why of them And so for the Fishes and the Birds we cannot know by what secret Engines and Motors divers particulars are done amongst them Concerning the Quadrupedes we see and know they have the same Flesh Blood Bones and Breath that Men have and in their Kinds sutable Bodily Members as Head Heart Liver Lungs Arteries Veins Fibres Muscles c. that Men have also a Generation and Production all alike I may demand what makes them live and grow in the Wombs of their Dams What forms their Members and how are they made in those
shed the Blood of Abel his Brother Whether he knew this Fact to be a Sin or not doth not appear in the Text. You observe in his Answer to God after his Condemnation for it he says My punishment is greater than I can bear Say you The Margent of some Bibles render the words Mine iniquity is greater then I can bear and in this you say truly It seems the same Hebrew Expression may bear either Sense but seeing it follows next after the Sentence our Translators in my mind have done right to put Punishment into the Text and set the diversity of Reading only in the Margent But whether Cain knew his Killing at that time to be a Sin or not it afterwards was made known to be a Crying Crime amongst Men. God blessed Noah and his Sons and said to them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth the flesh with the life thereof which is the blood thereof shall ye not eat and surely the blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it and at the hand of man at the hand of every mans brother will I require the life of man Accordingly the First Command of Moses his Second Table is in express Terms Thou shalt not Kill a man thy brother presumptuously innocent or not deserving such punishment soon after which Promulgation viz. Exod. 32.25 Moses commands a promiscuous killing of his brethren by which there fell about Three thousand men and this summarily without hearing or judgment So Numb 25.5 Moses said to the Judges of Israel Slay ye every one his men that were joyned unto Baal-peor Also Phineas warmed by Zeal and without any other Warrant but that Heat slew two Persons by one through thrust of a Javelin without regard to their future state or giving them time to call upon God for mercy and yet this Fact was both approved and rewarded by God David shed blood abundantly upon the earth and yet not reproved for his so doing So Soldiers at this day in pursuit of a flying Army kill with commendations as many as they can without imputing Crimes to them or particular provocation from them And this continues an avowed Practice and a daily Trade amongst Christians hired to it for money Amongst our Ancestors and other German Nations the Killing of any Man might be legally compensated by Money at a stated Rate or Price sutable to the Degrees or Qualities of Men amongst them even though the Person killed were a King of the Nation or a holy Bishop amongst them There was a certain Price set upon every Quality of Persons called Weargelt and the Payment of that Price in Money or Goods to that Value was a lawful Satisfaction for such Killing and a Discharge from any farther Punishment appertaining to the same We read that at Rome it was accounted brave for People to kill themselves And in Greece it was counted glorious to kill Tyrants and so in all places to kill Enemies These Facts and Fashions incline me to believe that Killing is not a Sin so much discoverable by Nature as by Politie or Positive Law God directed Noah and his Sons concerning it and from them it past to their Posterities all Nations of the World as a great Offence but rather against Law than Nature unless we shall take Nature in the Sense of General Custom which is a Second Nature and able to correct or supplant and overcome the Inclinations of Mankind which we know to be Natural Whence it seems the Knowledge that Killing is an high Crime is rather acquired than Natural And we see daily that Legislators set a Rate of Killing upon what Facts they think fit and Men who are after executed for such Facts are counted to be lawfully killed and it seems from a like Original that Killing is counted Criminal and not from Nature alone uncultivated and savage as the same may reasonably be conceived and sometimes actually found I say then this Second Nature meliorated by Rules directed by the Wisdom of God and the Practice and Experience of Men hath a Power and Effect of Conscience universally thereunto annexed not proper to an Humane Nature in its naked State or the absolute simplicity of it But if in that low condition there be at all a Conscience any more than what some Beasts can attain unto I suppose it can extend no farther than to the practice of our Lords two general Rules of doing to others what Men think Just and Good if done to themselves and Loving and Honouring that God which Nature hath a great Propensity to fear and invoke in times of Mens Distress or Terrour I am not confident that Men in their lowest estate can without a long practice and some sort of communication with others be able to attain a Power and Practice of Conscience extending to these two Universal Principles but I confide the Power of Nature in its Simplicity cannot reach beyond a Sense of these Principles if it can attain unto them For other Sins as Adultery those who know not what Marriage is cannot know what Adultery is And for Theft and Robbery it hath past for a Glory in Ancient Barbarism and at this day we find it in the continual Practice of the Turks and French and used without any manner of Sense of Conscience for the same without any alteration but of the Name from Robbery to Conquest as the Pirate very well observed to Alexander in his time And the like may be said for all Moses's Laws Paul says I should not have known Covetousness to be a Sin if the Law had not said Thou shalt not covet and so for Incest if the Law had not forbidden it At the first it was necessary and lawful Abraham was late in the practice of it and Amram Son of Kohath Son of Levi married Jocabed his Fathers Sister and it became usual for the Ptolemy's and Persian Kings to marry their Sisters and so it is at this day for the Moguls and Kings of Siam China and other parts of India to use their Sisters and even their Daughters without any Reclamation of their Natural Consciences in those Cases Hence it seems your Argument for the Immateriality derived from a Natural Conscience directing the Actions of Men can have but a small strength of Coercion in it and because you say you will hold me to this Argument from Conscience as the most Noble Natural Proof of the Immateriality I have been as long as I though need required in my Answer of it 3. Parag. You say Your sort of Soul hath a power able to controul the actions of Men naturally I grant Men have a Rational Faculty that doth often resist and sometimes prevail against their Sensual Appetites but not without some kind of Cultivation by Rules Custom or Example Nay say you but bare Nature hath in it self that Power and Practice and in Proof you alledge Sr. Paul's Words The Gentiles do by Nature the Things contained
founded upon Rules and whether those Rules are right or wrong really their being accepted for right makes them obligatory to the Party accepting them so as Offences against Erroneous Rules reputed true are equally burthensome to the Conscience as if they were the most true and rectified that can be delivered to Men and yet they are capable of a more easie Cure viz. by discovery of the Falsity and Errour of them Hence may be inferred that without some sort of Rules and Submission to them the Acts and Power of Conscience are not perceivable which shews they do not flow from the Soul Material or Immaterial but from Education Custom Opinion and Rules to which Actions must be compared for without such a Comparison Judgment cannot be made whether they are right or wrong That Conscience grows as aforesaid appears also from diversity in the acts of it for some Men make a great scruple of Conscience to do things which others think they are bound in duty to do and cannot omit them without check of their Conscience whereas Immaterial Souls pass for all alike And if Conscience were a Natural Efflux from them there could not be such difference and contrariety in the Acts of it I have observed how it grows in Children and Beasts from the effects of their Education made powerful in them by the terrour of a Humane Vengeance expected to follow upon their swerving from the Rules of their Discipline and which the apprehension of Legal Punishments hath often inflicted upon Offenders before Temporal Execution overtook them The Conscience of Sins against God is of a like nature and the Terrour of it grows from Fear that he being offended for the Breach of what Men are perswaded he hath commanded to be done or not done will inflict terrible punishments for the same of unimaginable torment and endless duration as Men are taught to believe and expects by such Rules and Doctrines as are daily represented to them and pressed upon their apprehensions and belief And thus have I summed and shortned my formerly longer Expressions concerning Conscience to which I shall be glad to receive a reasonable Answer either long or short 4. Paragraph You quote the words Whatsoever is not of faith is sin and you say Faith here signifies Conscience My sense of those Words is Whatsoever Men do believing it to be a Sin that is a Sin in them though the Action in it self be good but if it be contrary to those Rules to which a Man hath submitted himself this is a Sin against the Mans Conscience though if there were no accepted Rule against it there would be no transgression in it You express also to think that Beasts cannot be brought by any Education to resist and conquer their Appetites forgetting what formerly I said of a Setting Dog whose Mouth will water and his Chaps move and all his Members and Motions shew a great Desire to be in with his Game and yet he will sit for a long time constrained by the remembrance of punishment to be expected and executed upon his doing otherwise And many instances may be produced of other Bestial Actions in this kind You make it my wonder That Sensual Powers do for much the greater part over-rule the Rational and prevail against it You say I may likely find it often so in my self and I grant it and therefore is that none of my wonder And you demand From whence comer Mens uneasiness of Mind upon such occasions I answer It comes from finding their Actions do not agree with their Rules and therefore not with their Duties for the Failure in which they expect punishment less or more according as their Delicts may seem to deserve not from Powers of Nature in its Simplicity but its Cultivated Capacity under the Conduct of Rules Examples or Opinions to which Men have submitted their Minds and this makes men nocent as the contrary makes men innocent in the judgment of their own Underftanding which is their Conscience 5 Paragr Upon your maintaining That Mans Soul is an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit created each for the Government of each Person I demand Whence it comes that this Soul doth not or cannot so prevail with or over the Person whom it should Govern as to keep it in Rational and Vertuous Ways of Living and Practice but that the far greater number of people follow Vicious Practices contrary to Right Reason and the Desire and Design of such an Intelligent Spirit And the true Cause of my wonder is What that can be in Man which hath Power to oppose and overthrow the Government and Command of this Kind of Soul in him To this you answer You say with St. James This comes from mens lusts which war in their members To you I reply and ask From what Original in Man do such Lusts grow viz. Affections Passions Sensualities Either they grow from the same Originals with Reason and his other Faculties viz. from the Contexture of his Soul and Body or from some other Cause You say I should not wonder at the thing for that universal Experience teaches that so it is This I grant and therefore do not wonder at the being so of the thing but at the Cause and Manner how this comes to pass viz. from what Original in Man this Effect can grow Apparent it seems that Affections and Passions in Man grow from the Contexture of his Soul and Body as all his other Powers and Faculties do and are Natural to him for one that hath them not is not a compleat Man But if their Energy proceed from Mans Soul a Spirit governing this Soul in acting the Affections and Passions so vigorously seems to act blindly and unintelligently or else that it is divided against it self and therefore its Kingdom cannot stand but such Lusts as it self produceth and acteth prevail to overthrow its Government and bring the poor indiscreet Soul under the Pestilent Power of Sin and Satan If thus it be not I desire you will Answer what I Object in this Point which is that Mans Soul acts against reason and its own Interest in so highly actuating of these Lusts or which is far more likely that the Humane Soul is not Intelligent For what you say concerning St. Paul's Text Rom. 9. I hold with you that many places of Scripture do testifie a Power in Man to act for his own Advancement in Piety and towards future Happiness And I assent to that Opinion the rather for that the same is consonant to the reason of Mankind but to agree this Opinion with St. Paul's Text is beyond my Capacity and I should be glad to know your manner of doing it You mention ill effects from the Opinion of the Materiality Omnia tuta timens consonant to the Nature of Zeal and Affection That in your Exhortations you have a great respect to the Resurrection and last Judgment I think to be well done and upon very firm Grounds but for the Immateriality it seems no
high Building should be erected upon it as judging that Ground not to be Rocky 6. Paragraph You except against my Expression of making Men trust in a lye You say it is uncivil to tell a Man that he lyes or that he Teaches others to trust in lyes To this I say it seems you perused my Paper in haste and with a greater desire to Answer than to consider it for I find none of these sayings or things there either in letter or sense As to the Consequences of the Materiality we differ in Judgment and they appear worse to your fears that to me Experience was never yet made of them and I see not cause to apprehend them as you do Upon your Discourse of Purgatory you say Men must not renounce the truth because some draw ill Consequences from it and I grant it but find no cause or need for asserting it 7. Paragraph You say The Fathers generally thought that Souls departed do not go strait-way to Heaven the same which you said in your last Paper and thereupon I demanded why Men do noâ— think otherwise viz that Souls at this day go immediately to Heaven or Hell and I desired to know your Opinion upon this difference and which of them you think to be the truer but to neither of these Queries do you here return me any Answer But you think it strange that if the Opinion of the Separate Subsistence be an error it should be so early and so generally accepted in the Christian Church To this I Answer That those most early Professors found this the prevailing Opinion in the World at that time yet so as there were many disbelievers of it That St. Matthew Apostle and Evangelist did believe it seems something clear by his Relation Chap. 10.28 but that neither St. Paul St. Peter nor St. John believed it I hold the more probable of St. Paul from I Cor. 15. and 1 Thes 4.13 of Peter from 2 Peter 3.10 of John from 1 Joh. 3.2 and Chap 2.28 Our Lord also lays the Expectation of future Recompences upon the time of the last day John 6. in four places or expressions in that Chapter Another evident Cause of accepting the Opinion of a Separate Subsistence likely was the Expression in St. Matthew's Gospel before Quoted This Gospel was the most early Written and in the proper Language of the Jews the Hebrew Tongue and they were the first Preachers and Planters of the Christian Religion The other three Gospels are of a later date whence this Text of St. Matthew might likely have Planted this Opinion and confirmed the old Belief of the World But after St. Luke had from St. Paul's Mouth Published his Gospel there was reason to examine St. Matthew's Relation of that Fact or History by comparing his Chap. 12.4 with Matthew's 10.28 They agree exactly in the main Point of Doctrine viz. That we ought to fear God more than Men but when they give the reason why Men should do so they Word that reason in a different manner St. Matthew Worded it according to his Opinion in Expressions importing a Separate Subsistence of the Soul but St. Paul's Words or Expressions are not of that import What the very Words were wherein Our Lord delivered this Doctrine we have no means to discover without a future Revelation and therefore I conceive we may accept which of these we shall judge most agreeable to the reason and nature of things Those who judge immateriality most agreeable to Nature and the most reasonable are likely to adhere to the Words of St. Matthew And those who judge the Materiality most agreeable to the Nature and State of Man are likely to adhere to the Words of St. Luke as the very Expressions delivered by Our Lord and Saviour I believe that God hath given to Men for their Instruction ordinarily the two great Codes of Nature and Scripture and that where these two do with cleerness agree the difference of Opinions among Learned Men cannot be very great But the common cause of their differing is the differences appearing between Nature and Scripture Not that I believe either of them are or can be false or deceitful nor really contrary the one unto the other and therefore where there appears a difference between them the same ought to be accommodated by favourable and fair Constructions according to the Nature of the Subject then under Consideration viz. If the Subject be Supernatural or beyond the Capacities of Humane Senses and Reason to judge lightly of as are the Persons in the Holy Trinity The Incarnation or Uniting the Manhood with the Godhead The Proceeding of the Holy Ghost and the actings of it The Production of a Child by a Virgin The Power of Sacraments a Spiritual Regeneration by the Water of Baptism That Bread and Wine become the real Body and Blood of Christ after a Spiritual manner In all these and the like Cases if Mens Reason takes boggle and cannot understand them nor freely or readily consent unto them it seems Duty for Men to be over-ruled therein by Words or Expressions which the Scripture uses concerning them and to endeavour by all means to think of such things as the sence of Scripture Expressions do direct us On the other hand If the Subject doubted be a Natural thing falling clearly under the Notice and Power of the Humane Senses or Reason and Understanding to judge of If in such Cases some Scripture Expressions seem to thwart the true Nature of the thing or the Sense and reason of Mankind Working thereupon As for instance Moses says God made Two great Lights viz. the Sun and Moon This seems to intend that these Two were the biggest Luminaries yet when Astronomers teach the Moon to be the least or one of the least amongst those Luminaries Men do rather chuse to believe them and Collect that Moses did not intend to Teach in that Matter but spake at large according to common Apprehension And so upon the Question whether our day and night be made by a Circuit of the Sun about the Earth in every 24 hours or by the Circunvolution of the Earth it self in that space of time The Expressions of Scripture viz. Jos 10.12 and Psal 19. and 2 Kin. 19. which do all favour the going of the Sun about the Earth and yet Humane Art and Reason have lately so far prevailed as to perswade amongst Learned Men that the Circumvolution of the Earth is the true cause of day and night amongst us And for Scripture in the Point they say as before it spake ad captum Humanum of that time grown since to be ad capturd vulgi without intention to Teach the truth of Science concerning such things The long disputed Words viz. hoc est Corpus meum are a like Proof or Church and many other Churches refuse to accept them in their plain and usual import and fay they must be Figuratively taken because in their plain sense they thwart and oppose the common
Sense Reason and Experience of Mankind So when Our Lord Commands take no care for to morrow These Words pass under a reasonable Construction so the Words Swear not at all so for turning the other Cheek and lending to all Borrowers These Directions never were observed in the full Latitude of the Gospel Expressions but according to fair and reasonable Constructions made of them and whereby they were made agreeable to the Sense Reason and Experience of Mankind and if particular Expressions of Scripture may be Accommodated to the Sense Reason and Experience of Men for the avoiding the Clashes of one against the other A fortiori when Two Texts relate the same Doctrine of Our Lord in different Expressions it seems Men may accept which of these Relations they please as the very Words wherein that Doctrine was delivered And every Man is likely to chuse and adhere to such Expressions as he thinks best to agree with Nature and Reason in this or any other Case that shall happen to be disputed 8. Paragraph Your Argument upon a delegated Power left by Christ to his Church urged on the behalf of the Universal or Catholick by the Romanists against our Divines Fortified with the Decrees of Councils Stiled oecumenical hath been often and fully Answered and as in my First Paper I referred you to Numb 16. so now I must refer you to Acts 4 19. You say The Immortality is plainly implied in the Creeds or some of them but you do not mention the Words implying nor how the Inference is to be drawn which would have been the most Material Argument that you could have used for the convincing of my Judgment unless you conceive that what is plain to you would not be so to me For a thing plain to one already perswaded doth oft seem otherwise to Men of another Judgment but if it be plain to you it seems you should at least have pointed me to the place where I might have expected to find it Your reason why nothing about the Soul is inserted into the 39th Art is very likely to be true yet grants my Assertion of not being there And what you have shewed out of Scripture concerning the Immortallity I have Answered unto and am contented to refer the reason and truth of what hath been said on both sides to the Censure of Perusers Out of the 39 Articles I quoted to you the sixth viz. That what is not asserted in Scripture is not needful to be believed and I prosess'd my Obedience to any clear Direction of Scripture in our Point To this you reply the Soul 's Separate Subsistence is asserted in Scripture and to prove that you quote Eccles 12.7 Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it This Text I agree doth sound in favour of Souls Separate Subsistence after they are parted from their Bodies and because you quote it singly it seems the strongest Text which you could find for Proof of the Separate Subsistence of Humane Souls You had quoted it before and I gave it some Answer but considering you do now use it as a Pillar of your asserted Opinion I shall undertake a more narrow or strict and yet a more large Examination of it First I inquire what is here intended by the term of Spirit Comenius Translated into English Printed London 1651 in 12o. Pag. 218. cites Zach. 12.1 where God says he forms the Spirit of Man in the midst of him The word Jatzar in the Hebrew says he is here used for forming which shews the Formation was out of Prae-existent Matter and was not a Creation ex nihilo it being the same Word that was used at the forming of Mans Body Pag. 22. He says The Spirit of God stirring upon the Waters produced the Spirit or Soul of the World which puts Life into all living things The Hebrew term Offiz says he signifies both Spirit and Breath So the know in the Greek doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 23.46 It seems if in this verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been Translated Father into thy hands I commend my Breath It would have been as true and warrantable a Translation as ours which renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word Spirit and so for Acts 7.59 St. Stephen's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 receive my Breath whence I suppose that if in Solomon's Text the Hebrew word Offiz be used it may as well intend Breath as Spirit and thence the force of this Text will remain enervated and broken And this appears the more likely from Moses's Text Gen. 2.7 God formed Man and breathed into his Nostrils the breath of Life An Animating Breath upon which he doth not say that Breath became a living Soul as many would have it intended but that Man became a living Soul intending Person viz. the Compositum of Soul and Body became a living Person and that Spirit and Breath intend much the same Thing and pass in a like sense appears from divers other parallel places of Scripture Gen. 7.22 All in whose Nostrils was the Breath of Life died in the Flood Job 12.10 In Gods hand is the Soul of every living thing and the Breath of all Mankind Chap. 34.14 If God gather to himself Mans Spirit and his Breath he shall turn to his dust Psal 104. All things wait upon God when he taketh away their Breath they die when thou lettest thy Breath go forth they shall be made and the face of the Earth renewed Here Breath seems to intend Spirit and that they are much of the same Signification Psal 146.3 When the Breath of Man goeth forth he shall turn again to his Earth and then all his thoughts Perish Here David says the same thing with Solomon only in Solonmo's Text that which is called or Translated Spirit is in David called or Translated Breath Acts 12.25 God gives to all Life and Breath and all Things Life and Breath as closely United or as an Animating Breath Zach. 5. These are the Four Spirits of the Heavens Noted upon the Margent or Winds Ezek. 37. He describes the Resurrection of dry Bones there was a shaking and the Bones came together and the Senews and Flesh came up upon them and the Skin covered them above and yet they lived not Then the Prophet commanded not to call for Souls to enliven those Bodies but to say Come from the Four Winds O Breath and breath upon these slain that they may live and the Breath came into them and they lived and stood up upon their Feet From these Texts it seems probable to me That the Word in Solomon's Text rendered by Spirit doth intend such an Animating Breath as God Breathed into Adam's Nostrils and of which it was said all in whole Nostrils was the Breath of Life died in the Flood This Animating Breath God breathe first into Adam and from him it hath been Propagated ever since By this is the Flame of Life kindled
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
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
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
Beasts haunted towards Houses for relief amongst them was observed one who ran sometimes on two feet and otherwhiles on four the Spectators took him for a Satyr they set the Haunt to take him and took him he was found a perfect Man of wonderful quick Senses especially in Smelling he learned again to speak and was known for the poor Womans Son and then related his manner of living amongst the Beasts accepted as one of their kind and so herded with them living as they did and the People named him John of Liege And this Fact discovers a near degree of Affinity between Man and Beast and so doth the Nourishment of Humane Bodies by the Milk of Beasts and the Support of Humane Bodies by the Transfusion of the Blood of Beasts into their Veins and Bodies which shews even a Consanguinity amongst us Our Predecessors in this Island in Julius Caesar's time and a good while after lived as naked as their Cattel and fed amongst other things upon Wildings Acrons Bollis Sloes Heps Haws c. as both Beasts and poor People divers times feed at this day And to prove That Beasts and Men in puris naturalibus do not greatly differ in the last place shall be cited the Case of Nebuchadnezzar who had for many years as high a place in the Throne of Glory as any other Man whatsoever and we may presume had indulged himself as Men in such Cases and Places use to do till by the Operation it seems of his Phancy his Heart or Inclinations became like those of the Beasts he hearded with the Oxen fed with them and lived amongst them his Skin was his only Covering and was wet with the Showers of Heaven his Hair grew to cover him like the Birds Feathers and his Nails like their Claws and this be was well enough able to endure and it stood with his choice and liking during such distemper of his Phancy the space of Seven years as an Apprenticeship under Discipline And it may serve for an Example and Proof that as Men and Beasts are under the same Genus or Kind of Creatures similar in their Bodies as to the Materials and Parts of them so they shall not be so exceedingly different in the Nature of their Souls as the received Opinion hath made them but more likely it seems That a Soul of such Nature as acts in the Brutes First Their Vital Faculties Digestion Nutrition Generation Secondly Their Passions of Lust Wrath and Fear Thirdly Their Sensitive Faculties Seeing Hearing c. Fourthly Such low Degrees as they have of Perception Understanding Phancy Judgment Will and Memory such a Soul as acts these last Faculties in a low Degree and all the former in as high a Degree as is done in Man such a like Soul should be enough able to act in Man all that his Body and Organs can perform and for which such Organs were first intended and made But against this Conclusion divers have objected and said That Man hath one singular Ornamental Quality peculiar to his Nature and so well fixed to it as the same cannot be separated from it nor be communicated to any Brutal Nature whatsoever and that is a Natural Power of Discerning Honestum from Turpe and distinguishing between them so as to approve the one and condemn the other To this I reply It seems Reason doth not drive Men to consent to this Assertion or to approve the Import of it But they re-joyn The Truth of it is proved Rom. 2.14 Those who have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law having the Law written in their hearts For an help to expound this Text I quote another 1 Cor. 11.14 Doth not even Nature it self teach you that if a Man have long hair it is a shame to him Here by Nature is intended an universal Custom of those Countreys which St. Paul had seen for in them all Men used to wear their hair short and that became amongst them a second Nature as our Proverb terms it Hence I collect for probable that in the quoted Text to the Romans Paul by the word Nature intended a Civilized and Cultivated Nature meliorated by some kind of Education or Institution as all the Nations that he knew were for his words having not the Law points at that of Moses and he seems to account that all who were not under that Law were under Nature and the Guidance of it but such a Nature as had the Cultivation of other Laws or Rules and which generally were much agreeaable to the Letter or Sense of Moses his Moral Laws and made like Impressions upon the hearts of the Gentiles as that of Moses did upon the Jews but that here by Nature he did not intend Humane Nature in puris naturalibus naked and bare of all manner of Institution or Education whatsoever not such a Nature as that of John of Liege the Lybian Jamnites and Sabunks where Men are so few as their converse amongst the more numerous Beasts makes them like one another not like the Caribbee Islanders or the most Northernly Americans or some miserable poor wild Irish have been reported It seems he doth not intend Nature thus naked but under the Cultivation of some Civil Education Now for Man's Natural Faculty of discerning Honestum from Turpe I say First That it is not in his Nature after the manner of his Natural Faculties his Vital Passionate Sensitive or Rational Powers for all these of which the Beasts are also partakers rise out of bare Nature or the Natural Contexture of Soul and Body and exert themselves upon emergent Occasions without any Teaching or Instruction whatsoever this Power of discerning Honestum from Turpe doth not so Adam did not by Nature discern that Nakedness was an undecent Thing or Turpe Who told thee that thou wast naked Discovered to thee that Nakedness was an Indecency in thee Or that thou hast need of any Covering but thy Skin Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin or what actions were sins but by the Law Ver. 8. Without the Law sin was dead seems unperceived Chap. 5.13 Sin is not imputed when there is no Law These prove that there is need of Rules to discern Honestum from Turpe even in the most gross actions for Rom. 4.15 Where no Law is there is no transgression Let us try this by a Case of Shedding Mans Blood viz. Two Men in Pure State of Nature or Savages happen to meet at large and to have view of an Object which they both desire they cannot dispute for want of Language but both seize the Object and fall to the Brutal Way of Contending viz. Violence and Force and in the Contest one kills the other It seems the Killer instead of remorse should glory in this Atchievement and be more encouraged and ready to follow the same Course another time And what otherwise do our practised Duellists but glory in their Shame with apparent disadvantage acting against the Laws both of God
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