Chap. II p. 14. Mr. M. saies That a Soul made of corruptible perishing Matter is not fit to be called an Image of the Immortal God But the Observer saies That Man made as he is of corruptible perishing Matter was yet made after the Image of God and is so accounted to continue at this Day and for that Purpose He has join'd the Soul and Body together in a strict Union which cannot be Dissolved but by Death P. 15 Mr. M. saies That the Reasonable Soul was Created after the Image of God Which the Observer denies and saies That the Reasonable Soul is but one Constituent Part of the Man and his Body is the other that the Soul therefore is not the Man any more than a Part can be equal to the Whole and that it was the Man that was made after the Image of God and not any other Part or Parcel of that Compositum And Mr. M. goes on here and calls that which Moses calls the Breath of Life the Spirit of Life Which difference perhaps the Hebrew may bear as the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does in that Language He saies of this Spirit or Breath That it was Created by God at Adam 's Creation Which is more than Moses's Text does Warrant him to say For the Text of Gen. speaks of no other Creation there than that of the Man without saying that God then Created either the Spirit or the Breath nor is there any other Creation there spoken of save that of the Man The rest he passes as the Invention of Mr. M. who like some other Scholars may desire an Enterprize to be better than his Book In this Chap. he has Collected many Texts of Scripture which seem to maintain his Assertion amongst which there is nothing new to this Observer save the great use he pretends to make of St. Paul's Rapture which he sets down p. 17. from whence he pretends to Prove That St. Paul conceiv'd his Soul was really divisible from his Body and capable of a Subsistence without it As if he agreed with Dr. Moor's Opinion who Teaches That the Humane Soul may and sometime does forsake its Body and wander about in the Airy Region and other Parts of the World and make its return to the Body again at convenient times or upon some sudden Occasions But the Observer denies That St. Paul was of any such Opinion and takes the sense of St Paul's Words in the body or out of the body to be no other but that he was wrapt up into the third Heaven and there saw and heard as perfectly and distinctly as if he had done it with his Bodily Organs and remember'd it as well So that he could not certainly know whether these Bodily Organs were imploy'd in that Rapture or not or whether that Vision was only a Rapture or Extasy of his Mind We find a parallel Place to this in the History of the Kings where Micaiah the Prophet saies to Ahab I saw the Lord sitting upon his Throne and all the host of Heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left And there further relates what he heard and saw in that Vision And it is thereupon probable That he was not certainly knowing whether it was made in his whole Person of Soul and Body or whether it was only a Rapture and Extasy of his Mind and Intellect He thinks this Case very like that of St. Paul's and that the Words of his Rapture must prove exceeding weakly the separate Subsistence of Souls after Death Amongst all the Texts of Scripture he has Quoted there is no more than one which clearly maintains his Assertion viz. that of St. Matth. 10.28 Cited by him p. 17. Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul These Words the Observer grants do with clearness Prove That Souls may have a separate Subsistence after the Death of the Person And therefore he will take upon him here memoriter Collecting the Summ and Substance of that which he has said more at large in his fore-mentioned Treatise upon this Subject Where in opposition to the force of this Text he Quotes Luk. 12.4 where the Words of our Lord are Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but fear him who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell The Observer believes That these two Texts of Matth. and Luke do intend to relate one same Fact and Doctrine of our Saviour And this Text of St. Luke does not prove That Souls have a separate Subsistence after the Death of the Body nor make any mention of the Soul at all And that upon these two Texts the Question must needs arise Which of them have truly related the Expressions which our Lord us'd at the delivering of this Doctrine Upon which Question may be considered the Persons and Qualities of these two Writers St. Matthew was indeed an Apostle but his former Profession and Practice was that of a Publican an Office very hateful to those of the Jewish Nation and so much that no Person of Quality would undertake it nor willingly Converse with those that Practis'd it And hence the Observer Collects He was not likely to be furnished with any great stock of Humane Learning but might easily be carried away by the common Opinion of that Time believing the Humane Soul was Immortal and capable of Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body and that therefore he might and probably did deliver this Part of our Saviour's Doctrine in Words and Terms suiting his Conceptions of the Things And that on the contrary St. Luke was a Knowing and Learned Physician and wrote from the Mouth of St. Paul who was the most Knowing and Learned amongst all the Apostles and who it seems was not possessed with the Opinion of the Soul's Immortality or the separate Subsistence of it after the Death of the Person and therefore has delivered this Doctrine in Terms very different from those of St. Matthew and for the further strengthening of this Apprehension the Observer Quotes Matth. 21.1 where the Words are Jesus sent two Disciples saying go into the next village and there ye shall find an asse tied and a colt with her loose them and bring them unto me And they went accordingly and found the asse and the colt and brought them to Jesus and put on them their cloths and sat him thereon This Relation plainly Intends That they brought two Beasts to Jesus and set him upon them both at one time which is an unusual and very unlikely sort of Riding incongruously and somewhat untruly related For that the other three Evangelists are clearly against him in it for each of them relate this Fact of our Lord and mention but one Ass in the Case which truly was a Colt the Foal of an Ass And this Error of our Evangelist seems not a bare but a willing mistake for the
Amuse his Readers and lead them into a false Apprehension concerning the Meaning and Expressions of that Pamphlet But whether of these two Imputations he best deserves shall here be left to the Sense and Judgment of his Readers Mr. M. P. 36. Demands an Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's Arguments which the Observer having presently Perused finds Mr. M's Arguments much Transcribed out of that Book and Place and conceives That his present Discourse is a good Answer to them both For that neither that Dr. nor Mr. M. in this Chapter does really touch or come very near the true State of this Question which is not What the Soul or Mind of Man can do in a State of Composition with the Body The Observer does easily agree That those things which here the Doctor and Mr. M. mentions in this Chapter may be done and are done by the the Soul or Mind of Man in a State of Conjunction with the Bodily Organs But he saies That their manner of Proving the Point which they Maintain ought to have been founded upon Arguments asserting and declaring What the Soulever has done or can do in a State of Separation from the Body or as it may be considered in such a Separate State abstracted from the Body The Observer has granted That is Statu concreto the Person can Act and Perform all those Things which they have ascribed to the Soul of Man Aristotle is Quoted in the former Pamphlet where he concludes it improper to say That the Soul is Wise Learned Sorrowful or the like because properly speaking it is the Man and not the single Soul that is so And Mr. M. in his Treatise repeats that observation without offering to Answer or Confute it The Observer takes it for a very true Rule very agreeable to the State and Nature of Mankind and conceives That the Question now in Dispute is not What Man 's Understanding can do or what his Soul can do in Statu concreto with the Body But whether There be a Soul in Man which has a Capacity of Living and Acting in a State of Separation from the Body and that those who would Prove such a Subsistence of the Soul by Instances of what it can do ought to produce Instances which Prove the Power of its Living and Doing in such a State of Separation or if they think themselves able to make a clear Notional Abstraction of the Soul from the Body which they can render Intelligible to other Men Their proving Instances ought to be derived from such a State of Separation or such an abstracted Consideration as they can Reasonably offer to the Minds of others and not from Instances of what Man's Understanding can do or his Soul can do in Statu concreto with the Body for that these will be utterly unconcluding in the State and Management of this Question This Chapter of Mr. M's abounds with Instances of the latter sort and has not one amongst them that reaches to the Nature of the former and therefore he thinks There is no need of Disputing any of them but is ready to agree them and accept them all for true But then he conceives them all to be parum ad rem and not at all Proving that Part of the Question which he pretends to maintain and therefore howsoever true they may be they are utterly unconcluding in this Argument For which Reason the Observer who denies not the Truth of them does yet pass them for Tasteless and Insipid and thinks they may very well be compared to the Herb John in the Pottage which does neither good nor harm P. 37 Mr. M. saies Nil dat quod non habet And to this the Observer opposes his clear Instance given in the Musical Organ and which is equally true in all Wind-Instruments from the Bag-Pipe to the Cornet and the Trumpet Mr. M saies further That the self-determining Power of the Will its Acts and Objects do argue that the Soul is Immortal The Observer Replies That the Will has not such a self-determining Power But saies That in all its Inclinations and Operations deliberately Performed it depends upon and follows the Directions and Conclusions of the Judgment which it Obeys Executes and follows with as great Promptitude and Natural Inclination as Water runs from higher Places to lower Grounds Not over-ruled by Power of the Judgment but by a Free and Natural Propensity inclining in to Execute those Directions And if the Judgment do never so suddenly or unexpectedly change its Resolutions the Will Tacks about as suddenly and follows with Execution the late stâ—or last Resolution of the Judgment and is comparable to the Sails of a floating Vessel which may be subject to some constant Winds of Inclinations and sometimes to the stormy Winds of Passion the fresh Breezes of Reason and other Circular or Accidental Motions of the Watry Element And in all such Cases the Sails are ordered by the subservient Mariners who stand and Work according to the Pilot's Directions and have no Power at all to dispose of themselves but as they shall be Appointed by the Power of such a Directer expect in such Storms of Sea and Winds as take away all Government and Order in the Vessel The Will is by divers called caeca potentia and follows Naturally the Direction of the Judgment as before has been said and therefore has no Determinate Power over or of it self And this may serve for an Answer to Mr. M's Assertion concerning such Proof as may be made from the Determinate Power of the Will over it self Mr. M. saies further That if at any time the Will chuses a thing it is Sub Ratione boni Whereupon the Observer demands What Faculty of the Mind it is that can truly discern what is the Good and Evil of an Action Choice or Resolution or by what means or after what manner the Will can discover such Qualifications of Things or Actions Seeing there are no Natural Appearances that any other Faculty in Man's Mind can make a clear and true Distinction or Difference in such Actions or Cases but the Man 's Estimative Power or Judgment P. 38. Mr. M. Quotes St. Augustine in whose Text the Observer conceives That the Word Anima is put pro Homine and must intend which way soever Man turns himself he can meet with nothing but Grief till he rests in God Qui haeret in Littora haeret in Cortice Mr. M. further demands Why the Soul cannot be satisfied till it rests in God To which the Observer Replies by demanding Why the Mind and Understanding of Man which cannot Act without the Bodily Organs cannot chuse but Act and Desire accordingly He thinks the Reason to be because Man's Reason and Judgment do conceive and believe That God is the most Excellent Object of Man's Knowledge and Love and that to Adore and Obey him is likely to be the most beneficial to their Nature by obtaining such future Rewards as Men believe are promised and
Procreation of a Body Mr. M. and his Aids reject the very true way of producing Mankind viz. That of Generation being convinced that whatsoever is Generated grows decays and is corruptible Orig. Sacr. P. 432. our Learned Bishop says Nothing in the World produced by Generation can be incorruptible To avoid therefore this Rock of producing the Soul by Generation tho' it be never so true Pherecydes the Invenrer of the Immaterial Opinion with his Scholars and Successors Pythagoras and Plato and those who came after them pretended another sort of Original of the Soul The more Ancient held That Mens Souls did Pre-exist long before they came into the several Bodies and had been Existent in a former World before the present World and for Offences given to God in their former Stations they were Doomed to inhabit Bodies of Clay in this World sometimes of Men and sometimes of Beasts as a Purgatorial Punishment upon them that they liv'd in such Bodies as in Cages and Prisons desiring continually to be delivered from them and to escape thence into the open Air. But the latter and Christian Platonists amongst whom some of the Fathers say They Believ'd That God at the Creation of the World made a vast number of Humane Souls enough by coming going and removing to Actuate and Inhabit all such Humane Bodies as should after be Generated in the World and that all Mens Souls are still of that Pre-existent Nature But Mr. M. and his present Aids upon divers inconveniencies found in this Opinion have utterly rejected this sort of Original of Humane Souls and give themselves up to maintain this sort of Original of them viz. The Opinion of God's new Creation of a Soul for every new Procreation of a Humane Body be the same never so foul and Beastly in Adultery Incest or the Conjunction of Men with Beasts If the Product fall out to be of Humane shape God say they is ready at every such Procreation to make and does Create a new clean and spotless Said to Actuate and Inhabit such a newly Procreated Body The Observer hereupon conceives That all Creations are the Miraculous Works of God! They do not tell us whether their sort of Creation be out of Matter or Ex nihilo but which soever of those ways it be it is however a Miraculous Work of God And by this course such Miracles must be multiplied continually over the Face of the whose Earth and through the Minutes of Time which pass through the Ages of it Another Miracle necessary for the maintenance of the Immaterial Doctrine and flowing from such new Creation of Souls is this That these new Created Pure Innocent Souls are put thrust or cast into the Seminal Matter not exceeding perhaps the bigness of a Nutt derived and coming from the Loins of Adam and tinctured like an unsavory Cask with a foul Ingredient of Original Sin This unhappy Intelligent Spirit presently infected with that abominable Poyson and going on to increase in Conjunction with such a Body is by no Natural force able to shake off this Deplorable Corruption but it goes on increasing together with the Body and the Soul till they both together Taste deeply the ill Effects of it in this Life and when separated this at first Pure and Innocent Soul in the Natural Course of it falls or is carried to be a Companion of Devils and a fellow-sufferer in the Torments of Hell And this is a second Miracle necessary for the maintenance of the Soul's Immortality They are both of them extremely improbable and very little agreeable with the Goodness and Glory of God To these a Third Immaterial Doctrine shall be added necessary for the maintenance of that opinion viz. That Souls of Dying Persons go immediately before God and receive a a Judgment and Doom from him within a short time after their Deaths The Observer has said in his larger Treatise and repeats it here in this Place That if the Immaterialists can by Reason or Scripture make a clear Proof of any one of these Three Tenets which are all necessary for the maintenance of their Doctrine viz. Of this new Creation of Souls This sort of infecting them with Original Sin Or that there is an intermediate Judgment betwixt Mens Deaths and the Resurrection If they can make a good clear Proof of any one of these Points from Reason and Scripture or from either of them the Observer will be ready to submit to their Judgment in the main Point of the Immortality P. 72 Mr. M. saies The knowledge of the Spirits above us must arise from the knowledge of our own Souls The Observer denies this Assertion and saies That the knowledge of Superiour Spirits has two other Originals viz. Sensation and Revelation and we do plainly know and perceive more concerning Immaterial Spirits by the effects of their Operations and such Revelations as the Scripture makes of them than either is Revealed to us or can be perceived by us of such an Immaterial Spirit as Mr. M. pretends to be in us Mr. M. saies further That the knowledge of our own Souls must necessarily go before the knowledge of God The Observer saies That both by Reason and Revelation we may and do attain to a more large knowledge of God and a greater certainty of his Being and Actions than Men yet ever have had or are ever likely to have of the Immaterial Intelligent Soul of Man P. 73. Mr. M. Quotes a saying of Epicurus That God is not angry or pleased with any Men. Which he says is a Notion more befitting Sardanapalus than a Deity This Comment of Mr. M. upon his Quotation speaks him in the Observer's Judgment a Man of a narrow Capacity and therefore he will endeavour to inlarge his Thoughts upon this Subject It passes for an accepted Rule That if the Words of a Speaker or Writer may fairly and easily be taken in a good Sense it is a sign of ill Nature at least to take them in a bad one To understand the Words of Epicurus both in a true and a good Sense Men must reflect with great Observation upon such an Idea as the Scriptures have Revealed and Reason Teaches to Believe concerning the Being of God Job 23.3 O that I knew where I might find God he works round about me but I cannot perceive him with what words shall one speak of him Surely if one speak of him he that doth so shall even be swallowed up and confounded We cannot order our Words concerning him nor have we an Order of Words that can reach him He has no particular Faculties Powers or Parts but being One and entire is All in One. Concerning him Job 40.5 once have I spoken but I will not Answer yea twice but I will proceed no further This Transcendent Immensity having no Parts contained in no Place affected with no Time touched with no Passion filling and in himself containing all Places and Things Guiding without Care Working without Labour Commanding without
sorts of Souls Quod quid unde quando ubi quomodo quo in none of which Points they ever yet came to an agreed Resolution nor can they make any tolerable Demonstration concerning any one of those Quaeries that may give a Reasonable Satisfaction to a diligent Enquirer after them He says That if his Soul had not been hindred by vicious Courses it wou'd have mounted aloft into a purer Region Which Doctrine is pure Platonick and Heathenish not proveable in any Part of Scripture or Dictate of Reason The Parable of Dives says Lazarus was carried by Angels into a Place of Rest intending likely his Person but clearly he was carried and did not mount aloft of himself into any more pure Region He speaks of a Relation we have to a World of Spirits whither we are going The Observer denies we have any Relation to those Spirits after our Deaths or that any of us go to them or have a Subsistence amongst them Whence the Adversary shou'd better have proved what he here delivers or have been less magisterial and positive in the Delivery of it P. 159 He advises Men to think they do but dream of Afflictions Sufferings and Pains when they lie under them and are sensible of them This way of amusing himself the Observer thinks is fallen upon the Advers whilst he sits musing and inventing with himself concerning the Being Nature and Actions of his immortal Soul For if he conceive Men may imagine real Pains and Sufferings but to be Dreams well may his Imaginations concerning Immortal Souls be reputed Dreams by those who nearly and impartially shall examine them P. 160 He speaks still of Adversity and Prosperity as if they were but Parts of a Dream Which Opinion really is yet a most manifest Error and which he shall never be able to perswade intelligent Persons to consent to He speaks of our Arrival at the invisible World of Realities which it seems he believes but as if we was in a Dream which the Observer conceives he has been in during the greatest Part of that Time wherein he wrote this Treatise First he has dream'd That there is such a Soul in Man as is an Intelligent Spirit and shall subsist in a State of Separation after the Death of the Body And that after its Departure out of the Body it shall go to an invisible World of Realities to abide among them Where or how he neither does nor can tell but he still dreams forward That his Soul and those of whom he has a good Opinion shall be in some sort of Happiness but what sort of Happiness himself yet is no way resolv'd whether in Heaven Abraham's Bosome or in the Air or in Alcinous's Garden the Fortunate Islands or the Elysium Fields or that with the Americans they shall live dancing and singing beyond certain high Mountains or in Mahomet's Paradise shall sit by Rivers of Milk Honey Oil and Wine and fulfil their lustful Appetites as often as they please Take all these sorts of States of Souls after Death they are all but Dreams of a suitable sort and Nature fit Subjects for Men of Fancy to be employ'd about And to such Pleasing Imaginations the Adversary shall be left whilst the Observer sets up his Rest upon what the Scripture teaches plainly and proves concerning the Resurrection of the Dead and last final Judgment and a blessed or cursed State after them finding by divers clear Natural Experiments That the Life of Man is maintained by Blood and Breath and acted by the inflamed Particles of Blood call'd the Spirits which must daily be renew'd and refresh'd with Nourishment and Rest that when these are spent the Person languishes and decays and when they are restor'd and refresh'd the Person is vivid and active If Nourishment fail or the Breath be stopp'd the Person dies beyond all Remedy and the total Extinguishment of that Flame of Life which is nourish'd in the Blood is the Death of the Person and cannot be rekindled in it by less than a Divine Power who first kindled and tinded it in the Body of our Grand-father Adam And the same Death which dissolves the Contexture between the Soul and the Body destroys the Persons of Men as well as the Contextures of Beasts without any other Difference between them save that of the Resurrection This is foretold promis'd and threaten'd to Mankind and the World of Humane Persons without that there are any such Prophecies Promises and Threatnings deliver'd concerning the Beasts and therefore David rightly calls them the Beasts that perish utterly And as by natural Experience we find that maintains the Life of Man so if we search into the Beginning of his Nature and Composition ab ovo as Men use to speak we may find one Man do's not less perfectly beget another than a Horse or any other Animal begets Creatures of a like Species with themselves There passes a Vital Principle in their several Seeds which being coagulated in loco idoneo proceed to a Fermentation and being there fomented in their proper Receptacles they arise and grow by degrees to a Vegetation This Vital Spirit still operating in the Mass now vegetated it proceeds to the Formation of the several Parts and Organs of the Body extending and spreading it self throughout the whole Mass and therein working till all the Parts and Organs of the Body are fully form'd and perfected And thence this Vital Spirit proceeds to the Production of Sense in the newly form'd Embryon which perfected it brings with it into the World the two fore-named Faculties of Vegetation and Sense which remain with the new-born Infant as its only proper Powers for some time after its Arrival in the World till that by degrees the Bodily Organs become so dilated and strengthened and the Spirits of the Blood so vivid and active that they produce in the Infant some low degrees of Thinking and Knowledge such as we find in the Brutes what Diet pleases them and to distinguish such for their Friends as give them Food Ease and Pleasure and to avoid such Things and Persons as are terrible and strange to them And thus they live and grow till their Bodily Organs encrease and grow in Capacity and Strength till the Stomack Liver and other sanguificial Parts are able more strongly to concoct the Nourishment and to prepare and rectifie the Blood to a higher Degree of Purity and Vigour And thence the Spirits ascending to the Brain and finding there the Organs or Instruments still more enlarged and apter to perform the Duties of the Rational Faculty they act therein to such Purposes as God has there appointed and ordained to be performed And thus the Vital Spirits and Bodily Organs proceed and grow together until they both obtain their Perfection of Degrees such Blood and Spirits acting throughout the whole Body and in every Parcel and Member of it those Powers and Activities which the great Artificer intended them for And by the Continuity and active Motions
patiently what they know they have deserved and there is no thanks or commendations to be expected for their so doing But if there happen to be much Truth in this Opinion he may add to his Patience Hope and some measure of Joyfulness For the Apostle there adds If ye do well and suffer for it patiently this is acceptable with God and Chap. 3.14 If ye suffer for the truth's sake happy are ye James 1.2 My brethren count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations viz. of this kind And so the Hebrews took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods which was perhaps a greater degree of Persecution Matth. 5.11 Blessed are ye when Men shall revile you and persecute you for the truth's sake But this measure of Joyfulness which belongs to a Reviling for Truth 's sake shall by the Observer be put off and deferred till the Point here in Question shall be more fully Examined and Discussed And therefore his Intention is to sit down with the Practice of our Lord's Rule In your patience possess ye your Souls without making any other return to these Elders or Ministers than by repeating to them the Motto of the Garter viz. HONI SO IT QVI MAL Y PENSE with Advice to remember our Lord 's own Prediction viz. With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again Altho' the Observer never intends to make them any Return of that nature Hence we proceed to the Treatise it self which Mr. M. has divided into Ten Chapters Upon each of which the Observer intends to make some short Observations That it may appear he has Perused and gone through them all Upon Chap. 1. p. 2. He observes That Mr. M. well understands the Powers Men may obtain by getting such an Ascendant over their Proselytes and attaining such an Esteem amongst them as that he may be able to Command their Understandings because perhaps he may say true That they themselves never knew how to use them Secondly p. 8. Mr. M. says many things concerning the Soul which the Observer agrees with him in Mutatis mutandis viz. by changing his Name of Soul into the Terms of the Rational Faculty or Mind of Man which has given vim Intelligendi Volendi cum Angelis and yet be Acted by such Materials as God has Appointed and Formed in Man for those Purposes P. 9 Mr. M. says The Soul of Man was Redeemed by the Sufferings of Christ By which he seems plainly to intend Such a Soul as is Intelligent in it self had once a Being separate from the Body is during Life conjoin'd to the Body and after Death shall Live Act and Suffer in a State of Separation from the Body And then the Observer utterly denies the truth of his Proposition and says The true End of Christ's Coming into the World was to Save Sinners the Persons of them both Souls and Bodies It is an usual Practice of the Scripture both in the Old and New Testament to intend and design the Humane Person by the Term and Name of Soul and the same is also sometimes done by the Name of Body though nothing so often And this is done by the common Synecdoche of Pars pro toto For the Proof of which two Instances of each kind are here intended to be produced First Gen. 3.7 God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living Soul The Observer Asserts That Soul in this Place must intend the Person of Adam and be so understood as if it had been said Man became a Living Person It has been commonly supposed to intend That the Breath which God breathed into Adam's Nostrils became a Living Soul But this surmise is plainly Confuted by the Grammatical Construction of it For the Words which would have suited to that intent should have run thus God breathed into his Nostrils the Breath of Life and that or it viz That Breath became a Living Soul But Moses was so cautious in this Point that he chose to use something of a Tautology in this Place rather than that his Readers should be so mistaken in his meaning He says God made man and breathed into his nostrils the breath of Life and man became a living soul or Person He would not suffer them to think That Breath became a Living Soul but prevents that Conceit by saying That it was the Man that became the Living Soul or Person Whence this Observer concludes That by the Soul in this Place the Person of Adam was somewhat clearly intended by this Great Prophet and Law-giver of the Jews His next Quotation for this use shall be Isaiah 53.10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he hath put him to grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin He shall see his seed and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand The Observer says That by Soul in this Place must needs be intended the Person of Christ whose Body as well as Soul was made an Offering for Sin that was bound Whipt Buffetted Spit upon Crowned with Thorns Loaded with his Cross Nailed to it and Expir'd upon it to obtain Redemption for Sinners and the whole Race of Mankind Whence he concludes That by Soul in this Place Is intended the whole Person of Christ as well Body as Soul He proceeds in two like Instances for the Body The 1st He takes from Heb. 10.5 Sacrifice and offerings thou would'st not but a Body hast thou prepared me ver 7. Lo I come to do thy will O God ver 10. By the which Will we are Sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all The Observer saies By the Word and Term of Body in this Place is intended the whole Person of Christ whose Soul was sorrowful even unto Death and his Mind and Intellects so afflicted as to wring Drops of Blond out of his Body and reduce him to that bitter Exclamation upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me All which do sufficiently Prove That by the Word Body in this Text the whole Person of Christ is comprehended and intended His next Text is Luke 12.4 where the Words are Be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do He saies That the Word Body in this Text must needs intend the Person or whole Compositum of Body and Soul for that a Body without a Soul is Dead and therefore cannot be Killed By which Instances and Arguments he thinks it well Prov'd That though the Redemption be called of the Soul in divers Texts of the Scripture yet all those Places do intend the Redemption of the Person and that there never was any such Redemption intended or performed as Mr. M. has in this Page Asserted viz. Of the bare naked Soul separated from the Body asbefore has been Collected and Specified Hence we proceed to his Second Chapter
much in the Resurrection above the reach of Natural Reason The Observer saies the same concerning the Immortality of the Soul and further That it is not only above but also opposite to the Sensations of Man Mr. M. asks What must the poor Heathens do to whom the Resurrection has not been revealed Upon which the Observer asks What must such poor Heathens do to whom the Mystery of Christ's coming in the Flesh has not been Revealed P. 57 Mr. M. saies That the Immortality of the Soul was commonly and naturally known to Men. To this the Observer has spoken before and now adds a Request to Mr. M. That he would produce some Evidence of such Knowledge besides Solomon's short Saying before the time and Doctrine of Pherecydes or else he ought not to be believed That his Opinion has any thing of Natural in it Further Mr. M. here saies That the Observer world not be thought to deny That there are Immaterial Intelligent Spirits The Observer Answers That if he did deny them either in Word or in Thought he would not seek a Pretence to be thought not to deny them If he very much fear'd the Censures of Men's Opinions he would not as he now does maintain the Humane Soul's Materiality Mr. M. supposes as himself saies very unreasonably That the Observer does deny the being of a Superiority and Order in the Invisible World But therein Mr. M. is very much mistaken For that the Observer does Profess to Allow and Believe That there are great Differences and Degrees in the World of Intelligent Spirits the lowest of which are often conversant upon Earth and sometimes with the Inhabiters of it P. 58. Mr. M. saies There is something in Plants like Sense in Brutes like Reason and in Men like Spirits The Observer saies something like the Inferiour Intellectual Spirits viz. Apprehension Reason and Intellect which is as great a Participation with the lower Degree of separate Spirits as the Brutes have of the Rational or the Plants have of the Sensitive Nature The Observer further agrees with Mr. M's Metaphysical Author P. 59. Mr. M. Quotes the Observer's Saying concerning Dr. Moor and Mr. Baxter who say That the Souls of Brutes have separate Subsistence after the Death of their Bodies and there he saies That Dr. Willis did not think this Opinion merited the trouble of his Confutation And both there and here the Observer is of the same Judgment That this Opinion neither deserves or needs any other or further Refutation than the repugnancy which it will find in the common Sensations of every ordinary Reader except such only as can swallow and digest the Pythagorical Opinion of the Transmigrations of Souls Pythagoras was the Disciple of Pherecydes and from him receiv'd the Doctrine of the Soul's Immortality and rais'd out of it the Doctrine of the Metempsychosis Teaching from thence That the Soul 's of Men departed sometimes entred into Infants and sometimes into the Whelps and Cubs of Beasts and reciprocally That the Souls of Beasts Transmigrated into and Animated the Bodies of Humane Infants or of Beasts as it might happen to fall out To Pythagoras Plato succeeded and held also a Transmigration of Souls but more restrained then that of Pythagoras imagining That Souls of Men had in a former World been separate and Intelligent Spirits and that for their Offences then committed they were Doomed to Inhabit and Actuate Bodies of Clay in our present World in Nature of a Penalty and as means of Purgation of and for the Offences by them committed in the former World and that as soon as they were dislodged from one Person they must wait for opportunity to enter into another Person or Embryon of Mankind This Doctrine of Plato bounded the Transmigration of Souls within the Compass of Mankind excluding the Bestial Race from such a Communication with Men Concerning which Doctrine Mr. Lock Dict. Lib. fol. 189 saies Taking as we ordinarily now do the Humane Soul for an Immaterial Substance independent upon Matter there would be no Absurdity to suppose That the same Soul may at different times be united to different Bodies and in each make up a Man This Doctrine therefore of Transmigration of Souls from one Man to another seems to him a Rational Deduction from the Nature and Subsistence of such a Soul and accordingly the Opinion of such a Transmigration spread it self far and wide over the Face of the Earth so as the Christian Platonists accepted of it and Origen and some others of the Fathers were of that Opinion The Gallick and British Druides maintain'd it and the most gross part of it viz. The Transmigration Reciprocal from Man to Beasts is still believed among the Gentile Indians Tartarians Chineses and Japanners in our own Times grounding it upon the Opinion of the Soul 's compleat Subsistence in a State of Separation from the Body The Observer saies That if he had to deal with such Men as these he would deal with them as with Dr. Moor and Mr. Baxter by endeavouring to perswade them and offering to them such Proofs as he could produce as he does to this present Opponent That the Soul of Man is not an Intelligent Substance nor capable of subsisting in a State of Separation from the Body and if thereof he should be able to Convince them that Conviction would be a sufficient and perfect Cure for all these Errors of theirs and all other like Opinions concerning the same He further saies The wiser and holier any Man is the more firmly he believes and rejoices in the Consideration of the Soul's Immortality Other Proof of this Assertion he gives none so that we have but his bare Word for it in the truth of which the Observer has no great Confidence and he believes That Mr. M. is therein much mistaken Mr. M. saies Men will not be perswaded that That Divine Goodness which has so often embraced them mill ever desert them But that God is Stronger than Death and more Powerful than the Grave and that they cannot believe That their Souls shall ever fall down into a Dead unactive State because they have been Irradiated by the Divine Light and Grace The Observer Answers Here are Two Assertions First they will not believe That God who has embraced them with his Goodness will ever desert them but that God will preserve and deliver them from the Grave This Assertion the Observer willingly grants The Second Saying is That Mens Souls can never fall down into a Dead unactive State This the Observer denies and saies That if by Souls he does not mean Persons his saying That they are irradiated by God's Grace in any sort or way abstracted or removed from the Body his Assertion here is Erroneous and Deceitful For that he never has Proved nor can Prove That God ever bestowed any thing upon a single Soul in a State of Separation from the Body But all his Graces and Favours Corrections and Punishments are applied to the Person
in the Liver But he saies not what other Part or Place the later Anatomists have assigned for this Office of Sanguification and till they agree amongst themselves about that Point it seems the Observer may be justly excused for following the Ancient Anatomists in this Expression Mr. M. goes on to a Secondly which in the first Part of it needs on Answer till he comes to his Repeating the Observer's Quotation of Miracles in his Observations upon Mr. B' s Sermon Where the Case stood thus Mr. B. has Asserted in that Sermon That Omnipotence it self could not produce Thought or Intelligence out of meer Matter by any Skill or Power he could used The Observer there absolutely denies this Assertion and maintains the contrary both by Reasons and Examples inferring from God's making Matter out of nothing That he can make whatsoever he pleases out of any Matter And shews by Examples That God has done such Wonderful Things upon other Occacasions as give no less difficulty to the Minds of Men to conceive than the Act of producing Intelligence out of Matter may do Whence it seems he did not produce those Miraculous Examples out of Levity but for a very just Cause P. 65. Mr. M. Asks Is not God able to uphold the Soul in a State of Separation from the Body The Observer Answers He is able so to do and when he declares he has so done or will so do the Observer is ready to believe it 2dly Mr. M. Asks Are God's ordinary Works in Nature to be confounded with his Miracles The Observer Answers No. 3dly Mr. M. Asks Is it a good way of Arguing from the Power of God to his Will And is Answered No. And further Mr. M. here grants as by his enumeration of Particulars That God can make Matter Cogitative if he pleases to do it without acknowledging That therein he departs from Mr. B's Assertion which the Observer had before opposed Here Mr. M. goes on Repeating his Expressions formerly used and Answered He saies That it is the part of a Philosopher to admire the Works which God has done The Observer saies so too but not such Works as Mr. M. saies he has done unless he make better Proof of his doing of them Mr. M. Will not allow the Observer to lay down Hypotheses contrary to the Sense and Reason of Mankind and then to tell us God can make those Suppositions good The Observer Answers That he neither has done so nor ever intends to do it but that this Suggestion Savours of that Spirit which has hitherto much Acted in his Treatise Chap. V Mr. M. begins at P. 67. and from thence to P. 68. may pass for a Peroration little to the purpose of Proving any thing concerning the Question now in Dispute He declaims against the debasing the Humane Prerogative to the Degree of Brutes The Observer Answers That Prerogatives ought to be justly discerned and all those granted which of right ought to be so And whatsoever is not so tho' never so loudly claimed is not to be granted but denied He ought to remember his own Rule de vero nil nisi verum and therefore if it be true That the Humane Soul is Material it is but a just and righteous Act to deny and reject such Prerogatives as have been unduly Arrogated for it and without good reason have been ascribed to it P. 68 69. Mr. M. Discourses concerning the Atomical Doctrines and raising Bodies from their Motions and Cohesions accidentally without the Direction and Assistance of God's Wisdom and Power With which Imagination the Observer has nothing to do P. 70 Mr. M. saies Atomists tell us That the Soul is a Material Spirit extracted to a wonderful fineness reaching to an invisibility The Observer agrees That Dr. Willis delivers that Opinion and saies That the Particles of Blood inflamed in the Lungs and made lucid in the Brain are such Spirits and that he saies may be demonstrated to the Sensations of Men viz. by the strength of Natural Faculties or the powers of Sense and Reason united And thus much the Materialists pretend they know and can demonstrate concerning their sort of Soul But Mr. M. and those that join with him in maintaining the Intelligent Soul neither know nor can demonstrate any thing concerning it nor any particular matter about it neither the Quod nor the Quid unde quando ubi quomodo nor quo But because they cannot imagine some of them how God can others of them how God does so Act the Humane Organs by these Spirits as to produce in them and by them together Life Sense and Intellect they think he must needs have recourse to the means and assistance of an Immaterial Spirit According to the course of Mens common Conceptions who when they see wonderful Things performed by great Artists the true Reasons of which they do not understand either because those Artists will not declare them or being declared such People will not believe them or cannot comprehend them therefore presently impute them to the Effects of an Immaterial Spirit The rest of Mr. M's Words here need no Answer being voces praeterea nihil P. 71. Mr. M. saies That the maintaining the Soul to be Material is a reproach to Philosophy and all sorts of Humane Learning and will be a likely means to bring them into contempt and hatred The Observer Answers That the Terms of Philosophy and Humane Learning are both of them equivocal and each of them may be taken in several Senses Humane Learning may be employed about good Things or bad Things and there are Arts Teaching to deceive and falsify as well as to Teach real Faculties and Truths And the Term of Philosophy may be used in divers and different Senses Mr. M. in this Chap. has given us some Instances of it where he saies That the Epicureans fram'd and defended a Scheme of the World's Production by the Fortuitous Concourse of Atoms Which he calls Nonsensical gibberish and an empty Sound of unintelligible Words Which the Observer thinks do intend the same thing with Canting as it is now commonly understood among us Mr. M. further saies That we must not let go the Opinion of the Soul's Immortality that we may fall down and Worship that Philosophy which those Men have set up The Observer does not know who are meant by the Term of those Men whether the Epicureans or Materialists each by themselves or both of them together If he mean the first alone no opposition shall be made to him in it if the second alone then all that has been before spoken may be used for his Conviction in it and if he mean a mixture of both together the old Rule shall be applied to him dolus versatur in universalibus and he makes this mixture only to mislead his Readers P. 72 He mentions a like Philosophy which Teaches That we have every Week a new Soul and that at length Soul and Body Die together The Observer saies That
desire a sober knowing and Canvas of his Opinion The Primitive Greek Churches Disturbed and Divided by the Heresies of Sabellius Arius and divers others call'd upon Eleutherius then Bishop of Rome to stand up for the Catholick Doctrine and the Peace of the Christian Church So the Observer is desirous to incite and stir up the present Bishop of Worcester whose Light is now great in the Church that as he has lately Written excellently well concerning the Trinity so he will take upon him to Treat fully and purposely concerning this Question if his Age and Infirmity will permit Conferring thereupon with his most able Brethren and communicating to some of them his Labours as they are Written in single Sheets during the course of his Progress which may have a double Advantage First That any thing therein found amiss may be more easily amended or Transcribed Secondly A prevention of its passing forward with a communicative Tincture in any of those Sheets that may follow it Our Lawyers are very cautious in their Proceedings upon Questions of great Moment If the great Counsellors differ amongst themselves in a Point in Law the Matter is brought to Tryal by Process in one of the Courts at Westminster where it is Argued before the Judges of it and if they also differ upon the Point it is carried by Process into the Chequer-Chamber to be there Tryed before all the Judges of England who sit and hear it Argued before them by the ablest Lawyers on either side three four or five times at several considerable Distances Spaces or Terms that there may be time enough given for the full Inspection or Consideration of it And after they have heard what can be spoken on either side then the Judges themselves Argue the Point as largely as they please each declaring his own Opinion thereupon And then if there be a considerable number of Dissenters against the major Opinion they Adjourn the Case yet further propter difficultatem to further Days and Times having sufficient intervals such as map still give more leisure for a fuller Consideration And in fine if the dissenting Party still hold to be very considerable they Adjourn the Case before the Upper-House of Parliament and there it is again Argued by Counsel on both sides as often as the Lords think fit to Appoint Then the Judges Argue again and deliver their Opinions with the Reasons thereof then such of the Lords as please speak to it and it is at last finally Determined by the Majority of Voices in the Lords House after which it passes for Law in all the Courts of Westminster and throughout the whole Kingdom of England and stands for a Rule in the Case Disputed and in all other like Cases The Observer further saies That if the Fore-named Learned Bishop will take the pains to Examine the particulars alledged by him in this and his former larger Treatises and give such Answers to them as upon Conference he shall think fit to do And let the Staff fall which way it will he will hereafter be silent without publickly Disputing or Writing against the said Bishop's declared Opinion so delivered and confirmed as afore-said He knows that the said Bishop has Defended the Opinion of the Immortality in his Writings But he takes the Bishop for a Person of great Integrity and that he is a Old and likely as near Death as himself He knows of himself That the whole Kingdom of England offered him to give a false Verdict in this or the like Case would be utterly despises by him And he conceives full as well of the Bishop and therefore dare remit the Point now in Dispute to his Determination as afore-said P. 63. Mr. M. saies The Material Opinion cannot stand but upon the supposition of a continual Course of Miracles to make it good which is very Absurd and Vnphilosophical The Observer Replies granting the Rule That to Prove by Miracles is unphilosophical and that he holds it convenient in this Place to Examine which of the Two Opinions now in Dispute stand the most in need of Miracles to Prove the Truth of it and which of the opposite Parties make most use of that sort of Argument The Material Opinion he says has only one wonderful Work in it viz. The great Effect of God's Wisdom and Power in producing Life Growth Motion Affection Sensation Perception Imagination Judgment Memory all sorts of Thinking by his Skilful contexture of Matter and Spirit together which our Opponents are pleased to express by the Terms of Matter and Motion Mr. B. denies That the Skill and Power of Divinity can in that manner produce these Effects But Mr. M. obiter or transiently grants That the Skill and Power of Omnipotence can Effect such Things if he pleases by Natural means applicando activa passivis as we see he gives the vast Body of the Sea a Motion with divers variations which Men cannot yet comprehend So has he given the Planets Stars and other Heavenly Bodies a perpetual Motion generally regular but with such variations as Men cannot comprehend or understand Plants and Trees Flourish and Decay alternately they shoot out Leaves Blossom and Fruit in a wonderful variety the next Causes of which Men cannot find out Fowls and Brutes Live Grow Move use their Senses and Affections and such low degrees of Phantasie Memory Estimation or Choice as they have by the Virtue and Activity of the Spirits and Blood before-mentioned without Mens being able to apprehend the Quomodo of it And so we may say concerning the activity of the Wind amongst the Organ-pipes a thing which we every Day see with our Eyes hear with our Ears and handle with our Hands and yet are not able throughly to discuss and resolve the Quomodo of all those Actions and Varieties which are Performed by it The fore-going Instances have been produced to Prove a Simile that such like Things have been made and done by God and are still continued and subject to our view in the World as Wonderful Effects of the great Skill and Power of God and which Men are not able to comprehend or understand We proceed to the Immaterial Intelligent Spirit and require of Mr. M. and other Immortalists some sort of Proofs maintaining their Opinion tho' they should be but a Simile We desire them to produce at least some one Instance in Nature where God acts Matter by an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit And the Observer considers they cannot produce any one Instance of such a Conjunction out of the whole Book of Nature except this one which they have invented concerning the Constitution of Man and therefore it is no wonder that they are put to the coining of Miracles for the maintaining of the same Two of which shall here be examined The Wits of Men have never been able to conceive any more ways for the production of the Soul of Man but these Three viz. by Generation by Pre-existence or new Creation of such Souls upon every
Beasts that perish utterly And his Son Solomon Eccl. 3.21 seems to know That the Spirit of a Beast goes downward to the Earth and he suspects there that the Spirit of a Man may do so too allowing little or no difference betwixt Man and Beast in this Point nor does the Observer know any other difference between them in this Case save that to Mankind there are certain and faithful Promises and Predictions made of a future Resurrection at the time of our Lord 's coming to Judgment without mentioning the Beasts or fore-telling any such matters concerning them Page 95. Mr. M. says He thinks 't is easie to demonstrate That the Souls of Brutes are much more noble than the material Spirits of their Blood The Observer is ready to say beshrew his Heart for being so unkind as to forbear or neglect doing the World and the Observer that great Favour which he says might so easily be done and which the Observer would have accepted as a greater Civility than any which Mr. M. has hitherto shewed him But Mr. M. it seems is resolved to deny him that Courtesie which he thinks he could so easily have performed Then Mr. M. proceeds to say That he is not obliged to incumber his Defence of the Soul's Immortality with such needless Controversies The Observer replys That if the Question be needless why does he quote or argue it But if very material and needful as the Observer thinks it to be why does Mr. M. forsake it in this Place without driving it through to some such sort of Determination as he was able to make of it Mr. M. says further We are sure that the Humane Soul is much more excellent than the Brutal because Man can perform more Excellent Things than the Brutes can do The Observer says the fame concerning Mens Bodies That they have a more excellent Structure and apter Organs of Intellect than any sort of Brutes which together with their extraordinary Instruments of Hands and Tongues make them able to perform Things that far exceed the Capacities of Beasts But if such Hands and Tongues were withdrawn from the Humane Body some Beasts might equal or exceed the Race of Men in making Provision for their natural Subsistence and Defence and some other occasions belonging to each of their Natures Thus Men are advantaged in the Mode and Structure of their Bodies above the Beasts and yet these Abilities do not prove That their Flesh Blood Bones or Breath do materially differ from those of the Brutes Whence we argue That though Mens intellectual Faculties do far exceed those of Brutes yet that advantage does not convincingly prove That the Spirits which Act them are of a different kind and nature from those Spirits which act the Brutes but rather That the different Organs in their Head where such Things are acted are the true Causes of those Excellencies wherein Mankind exceed the Brutes P. 96 Mr. M. says That the Natures of Men are made for higher ends than Beasts and this the Observer grants to be true Further Mr. M. says You carry the Controversie into the Dark The Observer says It is his Part to bring it again into the Light which he pretends all this while to have been doing but has not yet performed it to his own Satisfaction Mr. M. tells the Observer That he abuses his Reason and will lose the Truth and his Labour together which Words the Observer says may with a more sharp Point be retorted upon Mr. M. himself P. 97. Mr. M. asks Must we deny what is plain because we are not agreed about more remote Difficulties The Observer Answers No but desires Mr. M. to make the Soul's Immortality plain and then there will be no Controversie between them about it He quotes a Saying out of Tertallian forbidding Men to enquire into the Secrets of God The Observer prays Mr. M. to apply this to his many Demands and Questions concerning the Quoniodo or how Sense and Reason are Acted in Man and Beast by the intervention and Operation of the Material Spirits in the Heads of either Kind The Observer has said That Quoniodo is a Secret yet reserved in the Store-House of God's Knowledge and hitherto unrevealed to the Sons of Men. Further Mr. M. says There is yet no satisfactory account given of the Sensitive Perception and Appetite by reducing them to the Laws of Matter and Motion The Observer requires therefore Mr. M. to give some Satisfactory account of the Production of Sense and Appetite by the means or intervention of his supposed Intelligent Spirit which if he do this Controversie will easily be determined P. 98. Mr. M. says That the Animal Spirits and the Brain are principally concerned in the Acts of the Intellect and therefore the whole Compositum is not concerned The Observer denyes this Consequence and says That the whole Compositum is concerned in Acts of the Intellect as well as in those of the Senses Prick or Cut the end of the Finger or Toe the whole Compositum instantly feels the smart by contiguity of the Spirits and quickness of their Communication So for the Eye the Ear the Taste and the Smell the whole Compositum is instantly affected by their pleasing or disagreeable Objects So as a quick Smart a horrid Sight a piercing Sound a strong Smell or a very ill Taste breed an instant alteration in the whole Compositum and by any of these the Operation of the Intellect may be disturbed or quite put out of order Whence it appears That though the Spirits and the Brain are the Principal Agents for acting the Reason and Intellect yet the whole Compositum is concerned in every most ordinary Action of the Person which cannot be performed or ever was performed without such a contexture of Soul and Body as has been before specified Mr. M. farther says You must answer all that I have written against the Capacity of these material Corruptible Spirits for the production of such Acts. The Observer replies That he cannot find where Mr. M. has said any more against the Capacities of such a Contexture but that he assures himself and believes That such a Contexture cannot have those Capacities Whereas the Observer conceives They have sufficient Capacity to produce and perform all Humane Actions and Powers according to the Ordination of God and the Constitution which he has appointed in the Creation and Fabrick of a Man Mr. M. says further That his sort of Soul does exert some Actions without assistance of any corporeal Organs and that it works upon these Organs antecedent to any Operation by them His Assertion that it works without them and works upon them seems not at all coherent in it self for that if it work upon them and without them it cannot work by them at the same time But the Observer does constantly deny That there is any such Soul as he pretends viz. an immaterial intelligent Spirit in the Body of any Person naturally So as he must suppose or
of them which if this vile Railer cannot or do not produce the Observer hopes he will pass among his Readers for a false Slanderer and Condemner of the Innocent P. 123. He talks of turning our Eyes in upon our Souls The Observer demands of him whether he ever did so and that he will tell the World what evidence of his Soul follow'd upon his so doing It seems just none at all or else he 's very faulty in not declaring the same to the World He says That as the Soul is separated from the Body by Death so in Contemplations we must abstract it from Corporeal Commerce The Observer says This must needs pass for Gibberish and Nonsense with one who denies the Subsistence of Souls in a State of separation from the Bodies Here he Quotes Pythagoras pretending Men shou'd desire Death That their Souls might be delivered from the Prisons of their Bodies and some in those times kill'd themselves that their Souls might the sooner obtain their Liberty And thus this apprehension became a Doctrine of Devils and it seems the present Opposer now thinks it cannot well be maintained without the Practice of Devils viz. lying and slandering P. 124. He says Their Bodies are an hinderance to them in searching after Truth The Observer says Souls can make no Searches after Truth at all nor do any other Thing without their Bodies nor can he or any other Man prove That they ever did so or can do so He says After Death and not before the Soul will subsist without the Body Here he denies what some of his Partakers affirm That the Soul sometimes wanders from the Body and after some time returns to it again But all with a great probability of Falshood both in the one case and in the other It seems he matters not how meanly he begs the Question when he utter'd his last Position as it were ex Cathedra pronouncing that as an undoubted Truth which he well knows his Opponent fully denies and how weakly himself has offered at the poof of it P. 126. He says further That if men follow the practice of a good Life they will soon be convinced that their Souls are Immortal and not such earthly material Things as you are ready to imagine The Observer Replies That the Evidences of a good Life are well known to himself and as evident to the World as any thing Mr. M. can produce for himself and yet he does not find himself the more perswaded of the Truth of the Soul's Immortality nor believes it ever the whit the more for the false Suppositions and Pretensions which are made for it by Mr. M. in this Treatise But rather is confirmed in the contrary Opinion by those deceitful and false Courses which the Opponent is driven to use for the support and maintenance of his Opinion P. 127. The Opposer speaks Of Divine Raptures and Anticipations of the Soul's Immortality while they are in this World All which the Observer thinks to be as well founded as Castles in the Air which are only Products of Phantasie and vanish with the meer change of the Apprehension The Adversary says further That if your Phantasie be right placed you will be apt to acknowledge the Natural Image of the Deity which is antecedent to the Knowledge of God The Observer Answers That the Image of God in Man is not in any single Part or Portion of him but that the whole Man is the only Image of God for that in the Image of God made he Man without any more respect to his Soul than his Body which are both together the wonderful Work of God and so great a Wonder to Immortalists as they can by no means believe That God has Wisdom and Power enough to produce Sense and Understanding in the Humane Person by the Energy and Activity of Material Spirits but that of necessity he must be driven to use the subservience of an immaterial Intelligent Spirit for those purposes And this shall be left upon them as a very gross Mistake and Error of their Minds Our Adversary says further That there are a World of Spirits Malignant and such at seek the ruin of mankind and carry on a Warfare against God and his Interest and Religion in the World That such Spirits there are the Observer does not deny and that prompted by the malignity of their own Natures they carry on a War against true Religion and the Happiness of Man he grants but that they do War against the Interest of God or can do it he confidently denys and says That they have no power to act or effect any thing without the Permission License or Direction of that Omnipotent Being known to us by the Name and Term of God The Adversary says Those Spirits know well enough that the Souls of men are Immortal Cujus Contrarium the Observer says est verum and saith farther The Evil Spirits take no pains at all to destroy the Soul but the Man of whose contexture the Soul is but Part and such a Part as extinguishes at the Death of the Person P. 128. The Adversary says you may read from divers Authors there named that there are good Spirits which watch over Men for their guidance and preservation The Observer says This needs no Proof from his named Authors for that the Scriptures do testifie abundantly for the Truth of it P. 129. The Adversary discourses concerning Apparitions of dead Persons and delivers divers Historical Relations upon that Subject The Observer does not deny That divers such like Apparitions may have been jussu aut permissu superiorum and that such Apparitions have taken upon them the Image or likeness of the dead Persons But he places all that sort of Apparitions to the account of inferior separate Spirits ready to execute what shall be appointed them in that kind What is in this Place quoted out of Baronius the Observer imputes either to meer Invention or otherwise conceives it to have been a lying Relation of one of those Malignant Spirits What he relates there from Glanvil concerning a Major and a Captain may better pass for a Truth because the tenor of it agrees with what the Observer has before said concerning such Things who always Establish'd That such Apparitions are not acted by the Souls of Men already dead but by inferiour separate Spirits subsisting by themselves and which never were united to the Persons of Men. P. 130. The Adversary says Men may find nobler things in the World than Matter and Motion to entertain themselves with This Assertion the Observer thinks to savour strongly of Ignorance and Falsehood especially because he mentions no Particulars of such Things of which he ought to have given some Instances and for want thereof the Observer concludes him true to his Principles of Boldness and Ignorance He quotes here the Names of Authors as Plato Plotinus Epictetus Cicero Senecae Antoninus which it is likely may have drawn him to the Belief of the Soul's
Immortality or confirmed him therein But their Opinions weigh not much with the Observer who in his Pamphlet upon Mr. B's Sermon propounds to decide this Controversie by the sole assistance of Scripture and Reason The Adversary pretends to flourish with Names and Quotations of many Author rather to create an Opinion of his own Reading than because they were needful or useful in this Disputation a Practice purposely avoided by the Observer as being apt more to perplex and lengthen the Argument than to shorten or come close up to it and the Particulars of it The Adversary says If you believe that God regards the Affairs and Actions of Mankind then look unto him for light in this matter and he that so seeks after the Truth is in a very likely way to find it The Observer Replys Physician Cure thy self If thou had'st heartily pursued the course here directed it is very probable That God might have preserved thee from uttering and publishing such false and slanderous Calumnies as are inserted in thy Treatise levelled and discharged against an Innocent Person whom thou knowest not not ever hast heard any Man speak so of him much less that thou art able to prove any one of those Slanders which thou hast heap'd upon him and for which he leaves thee to the lashes of God and thine own Conscience and to the judicious and Rational Censure of thy Readers Chap. X P. 131. To the beginning of this Chapter the Observer thinks fit to annex an old English Proverb Let the Geese beware when the Fox Preaches For that although many of these Things which he says may be true according to the practice of an Old Father Obscuris vera involvens yet they are all spoken with intent to perswade and induce the Belief of an Erroneous Doctrine P. 132 The Advers says If I believ'd such Things as the Soul's Immortality I should use the greatest care and diligence to be Holy The Observer applys this to the certain and firm Doctrine of the Resurrection which all Christians do profess to believe He says This Doctrine requires as great Endeavours and striving by way of Preparation for it as that of the Soul's Immortality can do and is much better founded and assured than that is and therefore he advises all Christians to take it more into their Considerations than they formerly have done The new Doctrine of the Immortality has in a great measure shouldred out that of the Resurrection And indeed if the former were certain and true there wou'd be little need of the latter among Christians Persons after the Resurrection are likely to live upon the New Earth and under the New Heaven which will doubtless be a very happy State but if it be compared to the Heaven of Heavens and Throne of God whether they say Good Souls repair at the Death of the Person the Joys of the Earth can come in no Competition with the Joys of Heaven which those separate Souls must then forsake and come to live upon Earth again in their Bodies though Glorified plainly such a Change as those Souls must make at the Resurrection of the Persons is more likely for the worse than for the better Whereas the Doctrine of the Resurrection intends a compleating of the Happiness of Man and bringing it to its highest degree and Perfection as has always been expected and desired by the Church as the highest Happiness the Nature of Man is capable of For Proof of this he quotes Joh. 6. our Lord there four times over says Those that believe and serve him shall be raised up at the last day And at his Departure he tells his Disciples I will come again and receive you to my self that where I am ye may be also Without saying any thing of an intermediate State It runs through all the Gospels that at the Resurrection the Angels shall come and sever the Good from the Bad preserving the one sort and destroying the other Our Lord in Judgment says Come ye Blessed inherit the Kingdom prepared for you and Go ye Cursed into Everlasting fire Not return ye Blessed to Heaven from whence ye came nor return ye Cursed to the Flames of your former Fire But they are both to go to new Places where they had not been before 1 Cor. 15.1 1 Thess 4. Paul in both these Chapters Treats professedly concerning the future State of Man after Death and builds the whole strength of future Recompences upon the Doctrine of the Resurrection only without mention of or pointing to any Thing concerning the Soul's Immortality So Hebr. 11.35 Christians then suffer'd chearfully in expectation of a better Resurrection He also prays that Onesephorus might find mercy in the Last Day And tells Timothy That a Crown of Glory was laid up for him against that Day And so for all other true Christian Believers And the Observer saith That of all the Texts of Scripture quoted for the Immortality not one of them is delivered in a Place where the future State of Man after Death is particularly discoursed of or intended to be taught except what the Parable of Dives may have of that Nature Hence the Observer concludes That the Doctrine of the Resurrection is the main and Rocky Foundation upon which the Expectation of future Recompences can safely be builded and therefore he leaves the Immortality to those who think they find better Ground for it than he hath yet been able to perceive or attain to P. 133 The Advers says If you believe your Souls to be Immortal take care to secure your eternal interest by a good course of life The Observer says If you hope for a happy Resurrection you must take the same Course and to his other Saying and Quotations here the Observer applys them all to the Resurrection which is most certain whatsoever the other may be P. 134 He asks What will make amends for the loss of their Immortal Souls The Observer asks What will make amends for their unhappy Resurrection and Condemnati-at the Last Judgment The Advers says further You must labour to understand what it is must make your Souls happy if ever they be so The Observer says They are never like to be happy or miserable without the Body and therefore labour to obtain a safe and happy Resurrection of them both P. 135 He says That mens souls will tell them something if they take them apart and freely converse with them The Observer wishes he had told us some matter of Fact concerning himself or some other Man who had taken his Soul apart and so conversed with it without which all he says here is but Amusement intending to make Men suppose Their Souls may be taken apart from their Bodies which wou'd truly be the Destruction of them both for that the Person only consists in the Contexture of them both Further the Advers says That the Immortality is suitable for the Nature of the Soul The Observer denies That the Soul has any Nature except