difference them But what if fire should differ from air materially but in degree of subtilty and purity or sensitive Souls from igneous and mental from sensitive but in higher degrees of purity of matter Is it not the form that maketh the specifick difference Air hath not the igneous Virtue of Motion Illumination and Calefaction nor ignis the sensitive Virtues nor meer sensitives the rational Virtues aforesaid Forma dat esse nomen This maketh not a meer gradual difference but a specifick There is in Compounds matter and materiae dispositio receptiva forma There is somewhat answerable in spiritual uncompounded Beings There is substantia and substantiae dispositio forma These are but intellectually distinct and not divisible and are but inadequate conceptions of one thing That substantia is conceptus fundamentalis is confest Some make penetrability and indivisibility substantiae conceptus dispositicus But the Virtus vitalis activa intellective volitiva in one is the conceptus formalis 2. But what mean you by the active Principles concentration in its own body It is a strange Expression 1. If you mean that it 's annihilated then it remaineth not 2. If you mean that it remaineth an active Principle you mean a substance or accident If a substance it seems you acknowledg it a self-subsisting being only not separate from its carcass And if they be two why are they not separable If separable why not separated When the dust of the Carcass is scattered is the Soul concentred in every atome or but in one And is it many or one concentred Soul If you mean That it 's but an accident that 's disprov'd before what accident is it If concentred in the body the body and every dust of it is vital and intellectual And if so every clod and stone is so which I will not so much wrong you as to imagine that you think § 12. But you would know what 's meant by a spirit whether all that is not evident to sense Ans It is a pure substance saith Dr. More penetrable and indivisible essentially vital perceptive and appetitive § 13. You add How shall I know the difference between the highest degree of materials and lowest of immaterials To me an immaterial and spiritual being seems a kind of Hocus a substantial nothing Ans If you take matter for the same with substance it is material But not if you take matter as it 's usually taken for corporeal or gross and impenetrable and divisible substance uncapable of essential vital self-moving perception and appetite If this seems nothing to you God seems nothing to you and true Nature which is Principium motus seems nothing to you And all that performeth all the action which you see in the world seems nothing to you It 's pity that you have converst so little with God and your self as to think both to be nothing § 14. What you say out of Gen. 1. is little else but mistake when you say all was made out of the deep waters by the spirit of God The Text nameth what was made of them It saith nothing of the Creation of Angels or Spirits out of them no nor of the Light or Earth or Firmament And whereas you say God made man of the dust of the ground but the body only is not man ergo Ans You use your self too unkindly to leave out half the words Gen. 2. 7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul when the Text tells us the two works by which God made man will you leave out one and then argue exclusively against it What if I said The Chandler made a Candle of Tallow and then by another kindled it or a man made an house of Bricks and cemented them with Mortar c. will you thence prove That he made a Candle burning without fire or the House without Mortar Words are useless to such Expositors § 15. Page 4. you say You know all matter is eternal But you know no such thing If it be Eternal it hath one Divine perfection and if so it must have the rest and so should be God But what 's your proof You again believe the Souls concentration in its body Ans Words insignificant It 's Idem or Aliud If Idem then dust is Essentially Vital and Intellectual Deny not spiritual forms if every clod or stone have them If. Aliud how prove you it to be there rather than elsewhere And if you considered well you would not believe essential substantial life and mind to lye dead and unactive so long as the dust is so § 16. You come to the hardest Objecti The Souls defective acting in infants ideots the sick c. and say It would rather not act if it were as represented Ans 1. It cannot be denied but the Operations of the Soul here are much of them upon the organized body and tho not organical as if they acted by an Organ yet organical as acting on an Organ which is the material Spirits primarily And so there go various Causes to some Effects called Acts. 2. And the Soul doth nothing independently but as dependent on God in Being and Operation and therefore doth what God knoweth and useth it too as his Instrument in the forming of the body and in what it knoweth not it self And as God as fons naturae necessitateth the natural agency of the Soul as he doth the Soul of Bruits But as the wise and free Governor of the world he hath to moral acts given mans Soul free-will and therefore conducting Reason which it needs not to necessitated acts as digestion motion of the blood formation of the body c. And as it is not made to do all its acts freely and rationally so neither at all times as in Apoplexies Infancy Sleep c. It is essential to the Soul to have the active power or virtue of Intellection and Free-will but not always to use it As it is essential to the substance of fire tho latent in a flint to have the power of motion lighe and heat And its considerable that as a traveller in his journey thinking and talking only of other things retaineth still a secret act of intending his end else he would not go on when he perceiveth and observeth it not at all He that playeth on the Lute or Harpsical ceaseth when his Instrument is out of tune because he acteth by free-will But the Soul of an Idiot or mad-man acteth only per modum naturae not by free-acts but necessitated by God by the order of nature Only moral acts are free and that some other are but brutish and some but vegitative is no more a wonder than that it should understand in the head and be sensible only in the most of the body and vegitative only in the hairs and nails It operateth in all the body by the Spirits as valid but about
life after this The Body hath more parts than Earth and Water The Spirits as we call them which are the igneous parts lodged in the purest aereal in the blood c. are that body in and by which the Soul doth operate on the rest How much of these material Spirits the Soul may retain with it after Death we know not and if it have such a body it hath partly the same and God can make what Addition he please which shall not contradict identity Paul saith of Corn God giveth it a body as pleaseth him in some respect the same c. in some not the same that was sown We do not hold That all the flesh that ever a man had shall be raised as that mans If one man that was fat grow lean in his sickness we do not say that all the flesh that sickness wasted shall rise It shall rise a spiritual body God knoweth that which you and I know not § 35. You add how easie it would have been to you to believe as the Church believeth and not to have immerged your self in these difficulties Ans 1. The Church is nothing but all individual Christians and it is their Belief which makes them capable of being of the Church As we must be men in order of Nature before we are a Kingdom of men so we are Believers before we are a Church of Believers A Kingdom or Policy maketh us not men but is made of men and Church-society or Policy maketh us not Believers but is made up of Believers Therefore Belief is first and is not caused by that which followeth it And why doth the Church believe Is it because they believe And whom do they believe Is it themselves I doubt you have fallen into acquaintance with those whose Interest hath made it their Trade to puzzle and confound men about things as hard to themselves as others that they may bring them to trust the Church and then tell them that it 's they that are that Church as a necessary means to the quieting their minds And they tell them You are never able by reason to comprehend the mysteries of Faith the more you search the more you are confounded But if you believe as the Church believeth you shall speed as the Church speedeth But it 's one thing to believe the same thing which the Church believeth and another to believe it with the same faith and upon the same Authority If a man believe all the Articles of the Creed only because men tell him that they are true it is but a human Faith as resting only on mans Authority but the true Members of the Church believe all the same things because God revealeth and attesteth them and this is a Divine Faith And so must you If you love light more than darkness and deceit distinguish 1. Believing men for Authority 2. Believing men for their Honesty 3. Believing men for the natural impossibility of their deceiving And the foundation of this difference is here Mans Soul hath two sorts of acts Necessary and Contingent or mutably free To love our selves to be unwilling to be miserable and willing to be happy to love God as good if known c. are acts of the Soul as necessary as for fire to burn combustible contiguous matter or for a Bruit to eat so that all the Testimonies which is produced by these necessary acts by knowing men hath a Physical certainty the contrary being impossible And this is infallible historical knowledg of matter of fact Thus we know there is such a City as Rome Paris Venice c. and that there was such a man as K. James Ed. 6. Hen. 8. William the Conqueror c. And that the Statutes now ascribed to Ed. 3. and other Kings and their Parliaments are genuine For Judges judge by them Lawyers plead them Kings own them all men hold their Estates and Lives by them Contrary mens Interest by Lawyers are daily pleaded by them against each other and if any one would deny forge or corrupt a Statute Interest would engage the rest against him to detect his fraud 1. The certain effect of natural necessary Causes hath natural necessary evidence of Truth But when all knowing men of contrary Dispositions and Interests acknowledg a thing true this is the effect of natural necessary Causes Ergo it hath natural necessary evidence of Truth 2. It is impossible there should be an Effect without a sufficient Cause But that a thing should be false which all knowing men of contrary Dispositions and Interests acknowledg to be true would be an Effect without a Cause for there is no Cause in nature to effect it It is impossible in nature that all men in England should agree to say There was a King James K. Edward Q. Mary or that these Statutes were made by them if it were false This is infallible Historical Testimony It were not so strong if it were only by one Party and not by Enemies also or men of contrary Minds and Interests And thus we know the History of the Gospel and this Tradition is naturally infallible II. But all the Testimony which dependeth on humane Acts not necessary but free have but an uncertain moral humane Credibility For so all men are Lyars i. e. fallible and not fully to be trusted And I. Those Testimonies which depend on mens Honesty are no farther credible than we know the Honesty of the men which in some is great in some is none in most is mixt and lubricous and doubtful Alas what abundance of false History is in the world Who can trust the Honesty of such men as multitudes of Popes Prelates and Priests have been Will they stick at a Lye that stick not at Blood or any wickedness Besides the ignorance which invalidates their Testimony II. And to pretend Authority to rule our Faith is the most unsatisfactory way of all For before you can believe that Jesus is the Christ and his Word true how many impossibilities have you to believe 1. You must believe that Christ hath a Church 2. And hath authorized them to determine what is to be believed before you believe that he is Christ 3. You must know who they be whom you must believe whether all or some or a major vote Whether out of all the world or a party 4. And how far their Authority extendeth Whether to judg whether there be a God or no God a Christ or no Christ a Heaven or none a Gospel or none or what 5. And how their determinations out of all the world may come with certainty to us and where to find them 6. And when Countreys and Councils contradict and condemn each other which is to be believed Many such impossibilities in the Roman way must be believed before a man can believe that Jesus is the Christ In a word you must not puzzle your head to know what a man is or whether he have an immortal soul but you must 1. believe the Church
to Sense are accounted such If so it is then only a term to distinguish between things evident to Sense and things not If other wise how shall I distinguish between the highest degree of material and the lowest degree of spiritual Beings or know how they are diversified or be certain the Being of the Soul is rightly appropriated For to me an immaterial and spiritual Being seems but a kind of Hocus and a Substance stript of all materiality a substantial nothing For all things at first had their Origine from the deep dark Waters witness Moses Philosophy in the 1 st of Genesis on which the Spirit of God is said to move I am far from believing those Waters such as that Element we daily make use of but that they were material appears by those multitudes of material Productions they brought forth And if those Waters were material such were all things they dâ—d produce among which was Man of whom the Text asserts nothing more plain for it saith God created man of the dust of the earth the most gross part and sedement of those Waters after all things else were created Now the Body only is not Man for Man is a living Creature it is that therefore by which the Body lives and acts that constitutes the Man Now the Apostle mentioneth Man to consist of Body Soul and Spirit My Argument then is this God created man of the dust of the earth But Man consists of a Body Soul and Spirit Therefore Body Soul and Spirit are made of the dust c. and are material The major and minor are undeniable and therefore the conclusion Yet do I not therefore conclude its annihilation for I know all matter is eternal but am rather perswaded of its concentration as afore in its own body But of its real Being purely spiritual and stript of all materiality really distinct from its body I doubt Because that by several accidents happening to the body the man is incapacited from acting rationally as before as in those we call Ideots there is not in some of them so much a sign of a reasonable Soul as to distinguish them from Bruits Whereas were the Soul such as represented it would rather cease to act than act at a rate below it self Did it know its Excellencies such as we make them it would as soon desert its being as degrade its self by such bruitish acts It is not any defect in its Organs could rob the Soul of its Reason its Essential Faculty Tho the Workman breaks his Tools his hands do not lose their skill but ceaseth to act rather than to do ought irregularly so likewise would the Soul then act contrary to its own nature Secondly Because all the species both of the Mineral Vegitable and Animal Kingdoms appear to me but as the more eminent Works of a most excellent Operator as Engines of the most accurate Engineer they all live and have a Principle of Life manifest in their growth and augmentation and so far as they are living weights as I can perceive from the same source But then comes in those Natures and Faculties whereby each is distinguished from other even like several pieces of Clock or Watch-work the one shews the hour of the day and no more the next shews the hour and minutes another shews both the former and likewise the Age of the Moon another hath not only the three former motions but an addition of the rise and fall of Tides yet all this and many more that in that way are performed are several distinct motions arising all from the same Cause the Spring or Weight the Principle of motion in them So among living Weights the first do only grow and augment their bulk and have no possibility in nature to augment their kind the next to wit Vegitables do not only grow and increase their bulk but likewise have a power of propagating their like the third Family I mean the Animal Kingdom do not only live and encrease their kind but likewise are made sensative And lastly we our selves that are not only possest of all the former but of something I know not what we think more excellent and call Reason and all this from the same source namely that we live which if we did not we could not perform any of these acts For life in us is the same as the Spring or Weight in the Watch or Clock which ceasing all other motion ceaseth as in a Watch or Clock the Spring or Weight being down As Life therefore is the Cause of all Motion and all natural Operation and Faculties yet those multifarious Operations and Faculties manifest in and proper to the particular species of the Three Kingdoms requires not divers Principles of Life no more than divers motions specified in a Watch or Clock requires divers Weights or Springs And as the diversity of motion in Watch or Clock ariseth not from diversity of Weights or Springs but rather from other means so those diversities of Natures and Faculties manifest throughout the Three Kingdoms arise not from divers Principles of Life but from one Principle of Life manifesting its power in Bodies diversly organized So that a Tree or Herb that only vegitates and propagates its kind hath no other Principle of Life than an Animal that hath Sense and more eminent Faculties The difference only as I conceive is this Principle of Life in the vegitable is bound up in a Body organized to no other end by which Life is hindred exerting any other power but in the Animal it 's kindled in a purer matter by which it 's capacitated to frame more excellent Orgains in order to the exerting more eminent Acts. For the Principle of Life can no more act rationally in matter capable of naught but vegitation for it acts in matter according to the nature thereof advancing it to its utmost excellency than a man can saw with a Coult-Staff or file with an Hatchet or make a Watch with a Betle and Wedges I am apt to believe those rare Endowments and eminent Faculties wherewith men seem to excel meer Sensatives are only the improvement of Speech wherein we have the advantage of them and the result of reiterated Acts until they become habits For by the first we are able to communicate our Conceptions and Experiments each to other and by the other we do gradually ascend to the knowledg of things For is all the knowledg either in the acts Liberal or Mechanical any more than this acts reiterated until they become habits which when they are we are said to know them And what is all our reasoning but an Argument in Discourse tossed from one to another till the Truth be found like a Ball between two Rackets till at last a lucky blow puts an end to the sport We come into the World hardly men and many whose natures want cultivation live having nothing to distinguish them from Brutes but the outward form speech and some little dexterity such as in
have assured you of a future life of Retribution Is not this a just progress § 3. But you would know a Definition of the Soul But do you know nothing but by Definitions Are all men that cannot define therefore void of all knowledg You know not at all what seeing is or what light is or what feeling smelling tasting hearing is what sound or odor is what sweet or bitter nor what thinking or knowing or willing or loving is if you know it not before defining tell you and better than bare defining can ever tell you Every vital faculty hath a self-perception in its acting which is an eminent sense Intuition also of outward sensible Objects or immediate perception of them as sensata imaginata is before all Argument and Definition or reasoning action By seeing we perceive that we see and by understanding we perceive that we understand I dare say That you know the Acts of your own Soul by acting tho when you come to reasoning or defining you say you know not what they are You can give no definition what substance is or Ens at least much less what God is And yet what is more certain than that there is Substance Entity and God § 4. But I 'le tell you what the Soul of man is It is a Vital Intellectual Volitive Spirit animating a humane organized Body When it is separated it is not formally a Soul but a Spirit still § 5. Qu. But what is such a mental Spirit It is a most pure Substance whose form is a Power or Virtue of Vital Action Intellection and Volition three in one § 6. I. Are you not certain of all these Acts viz. That you Act vitally understand and will If not you are not sure that you see that you doubt that you wrote to me or that you are any thing II. If you act these it is certain that you have the power of so acting For nothing doth that which it cannot do III. It is certain that it is a Substance which hath this power For nothing can do nothing IV. It is evident that it is not the visible Body as composed of Earth Water and Air which is this mental Substance Neither any one of them nor all together have Life Understandâ—â—g or Will They are passive Beings and act not at all of themselves but as acted by invisible Powers They have an aggregative inclination to Union and no other Were it not for the Igneous Nature which is active or for Spirits they would be cessant Therefore you are thus far past the dark That there is in man an Invisible Substance which hath yea which is a Power or Virtue of Vital Action Intellection and Volition V. And that this Active Power is a distinct thing from meer Passive Power or mobilitie per aliud Experience puts past doubt There is in every living thing a Power or Virtue of self-moving else Life were not Life VI. And that this is not a meer accident of the Soul but its essential form I have proved so fully in my Methodus Theologiae in a peculiar Disputation that I will not here repeat it It 's evident That even in the igneous Substance the Vis Motiva Illuminativa Calefactiva is more than an accident even its essential form But were it otherwise it would but follow That if the very accidental Acts or qualities of a Soul be so noble its essential must be greater VII But it is certain That neither Souls nor any thing have either Being Power or Action but in constant receptive dependence on the continued emanation of the prime Cause and so no Inviduation is a total separation from him or an Independence or a self-sufficiency Thus far natural light tells you what Souls are § 7. You add your self That those attainments which you were made capable of you were designed to Very right God maketh not such noble Faculties or Capacities in vain much less to engage all men to a life of duty which shall prove deceit and misery But you have Faculties capable of thinking of God as your Beginning Guide and End as your Maker Ruler and Benefactor and of studying your duty to him in hope of Reward and of thinking what will become of you after Death and of hoping for future Blessedness and fearing future Misery all which no Bruit was ever capable of Therefore God designed you to such ends which you are thus capable of § 8. You say p. 3. Many have defended the Souls Immortality but none have proved a Subject capable of a life of Retribution It 's a Contradiction to be immortal or rewarded and not to be a Subject capable For nothing hath no accidents Nothing hath that which it is not capable of haing § 9. You say None tell us what it is How many Score Volumes have told it us I have now briefly told you what it is You say To say it is that by which I reason is not satisfactory I look for a Definition But on Condition you look not to see or feel it as you do Trees or Stones you may be satisfied I have given you a Definition The Genus is Substantia purissima the Differentia is Virtus Vitalis Activa Intellectiva Volitiva trinum a Imago Creatoris What 's here wanting to a Definition I have told you That there is an antecedent more certain Perception than by Definition by which I know that I see hear taste am and by which the Soul in act is conscious of it self § 10. You ask 1. Is it a real Being Answ I told you Nothing can do nothing 2. Is it really different from the Body Answ A Substance which hath in it self an Essential Principle of Life Intellection and Volition and that which hath not are really different Try whether you can make a Body feel or understand without a Soul 2. Those that are seperable are really different 3. You ask Is it able to be without it Answ What should hinder it The Body made not the Soul A viler Substance giveth not being to a nobler 2. Nothing at all can be without continued Divine sustentation But we see Juxta naturam God annihilateth no Substance Changes are but by composition and separation and action but not by annihilation An Atome of Earth or Water is not annihilated and why should we suspect that a Spiritual Substance is Yea the contrary is fully evident tho God is able to annihilate all things § 11. You say If it be meerly material and differ from the Body but gradually Death may be but its concentration of this active Principle in its own Body Answ If you understand your own words it 's well 1. Do you know what material signifieth See Crakenthorp's Metaphysicks and he will tell you in part it 's an ambiguous word Sometime it signifieth the same as substantia and so Souls are material Sometime it signifieth only that sort of Substance which is called corporeal Dr. More tells you That Penetrability and Indivisibility
God nor did every bruit that had also that Faculty Therefore there is a Soul which is not God in every Animal nor yet an Universal Soul 3. Adam no doubt could not know external sensible Objects till they were brought within the reach of his sense no more can we 4. Adam knew the Creatures as soon as he saw them and gave them Names suitable This is more than we could so soon do 5. Adam had a Law given him and therefore knew that God was his Ruler He knew that God was to be obeyed he knew what was his Law else it had been no sin to break it He knew that he ought to love and believe and trust God and cleave to him else it bad been no sin to forsake him and to believe the Tempter and to love the forbidden Fruit better than God He knew that Death was the threatned Wages of Sin In a word He was made in the Image of God And Paul tells us it is that Image into which we are renewed by Christ And he describeth it to consist in wisdom righteousness and true holiness 6. And we have great reason to think that it was Adam that taught Abel to offer Sacrifice in Faith and delivered to his Posterity the Traditions which he had from God Tho Adam did not do all this at once he did not receive a new Soul or Faculty for every new act Can Apes and Monkeys do all this Doth God give them Laws to know and keep as moral free-agents But you say Adam knew not that he was naked Ans What! and yet knew God and his Law and how to name the Creatures and how to dress and keep the Garden He knew not that nakedness was shameful for he had newly made it shameful Perhaps you think of Adam's forbidden desire of knowledg and his miserable attainment of it But that did not make him a new Soul that had no such Faculty before Adam was the Son of God by Creation Luk. 3. and it was his duty and interest to live as a Son in absolute trust on his Fathers care and love and instead of this he was tempte◠〈◊〉 self-dependance and must needs know more than his duty his fathers love and reward He must know good and evil fâ—â— himself like a Child that must know what Food and Rayment and Work is fittest for him which he should know only by trusting his Fathers choice or as a Patient that must needs know every Ingredient in his Physick and the Nature and Reason of it before he will take it when he should implicitly trust his Physician Man should have waited on God for all his Notices and sought to know no more than he revealed But a distrustful and a selfish knowledg and busy enquiring into unrevealed things is become our sin and misery § 36. You say Suppose all this answered what will it avail as to a life of Retribution if all return to one element and be there immerged as Brooks and Rivers in the Sea and we lose our individuation Ans I answer'd this in the Appendix to the Reaâ—… of the Christian Religion I add â— Do you believe that each one hath now one individual Soul or not If not how can we lose that which we never had If we have but all one universal mover which moveth us as Engines as the Wind and Water 〈◊〉 Mills how come some motions to be 〈…〉 as a Swallow and others so slow or none 〈◊〉 all in as mobile a body â— Yea how cometh 〈◊〉 motion to be so much in our Power that we can sit still when we will and rise and go and run and speak when we will and cease or change it when we will A stone that falls or an arrow that is shot cannot do so Sure it is some inward formal Principle and not a material Mechanical mobility of the matter which can cause this difference Indeed if we have all but one Soul it 's easie to love our Neighbours as our selves because our Neighbours are our selves But it 's as easie to hate our selves as our Enemies and the good as the bad if all be one for forma dat nomen esse But it is strange that either God or the Soul of the World shall hate it self and put it self to pain and fight against it self as in Wars c. But if you think still That there is nothing but God and dead matter actuated by him I would beg your Answer to these few Questions 1. Do you really believe that there is a God that is an eternal infinite self-being who hath all that power knowledg and goodness of will in transcendent â—â—â—â—…ey which any Creature hath formally and is the efficient Governor of all else that is If not all the world condemneth you for it is not an uncaused Being and can have nothing but from its Cause who can give nothing greater than it self 2. Do you think this God can make a Creature that hath a subordinate Soul or Spirit to be the Principle of its own Vital Action Intellection and Volition or not Cannot God make a Spirit If not it is either because it is a Contradiction which none can pretend or because God is not Omnipotent that is is not God and so there is no God and so you deny what you granted But if God can make a Spirit 3. Why should you think he would not Some of your mind say That he doth all the good that he can or else he were not perfectly good Certainly his goodness is equal to his greatness and is commmunicative 4. Hath he not imprinted his Perfections in some measure in his Works Do they not shew his glory Judg of his Greatness by the Sun Stars and Heavens and of his Wisdom by the wonderful Order Contexture and Goverument of all things Even the Fabrick of a Fly or any Animal poseth us And do you think that his love and goodness hath no answerable effect 5. Do you think that passive matter doth as much manifest Gods Perfection and honour the Efficient as vital and Intellectual Spirits If it be a far nobler Work for God to make a free vital mental Spirit to act under him freely mentally and vitally than to make meer atomes why should you think that God will not do it 6. And do you not dishonour or blaspheme the prime Cause by such dishonouring of his Work as to say he never made any thing more noble than Atomes and Compositions of them 7. Is there not in the Creature a communicative disposition to cause their like Animals generate their like Fire kindleth fire Wise men would make others wise God is essential infinite Life Wisdom and Love and can he or would he make nothing liker to himself than dead Atomes Yea you feign him to make nothing but by Composition while you say That matter it self is eternal 8. But when the matter of Fact is evident and we see by the actions that there is a difference between
with husks while the truth is we are afraid to confront our Vassals except we first by craft and treachery beguile them from whom likewise we flee if once enraged and what a poor comfort is this Is this a Priviledg to boast of Is this all Reason advanceth to only a Purveyor to Beasts and to make my life more miserable by how much more sensible of misery Well might Solomon prefer the dead before the living and those that had not been before both intimating thereby that being best least capable of misery that is of Trees of Herbs of Stones and all inanimates which wanting sense are insensible of misery Better any thing than man therefore since that every brute and inanimate stock or stone are more happy in that measure they are less capable of misery What the advantage then what the benefit that occurs to us from them or what preheminence have we above them seeing as dieth the one so dieth the other and that they have all one breath Pardon this Degression the real sense and apprehension I have of things extort it from me For I as Job cannot refrain my mouth but speak in the bitterness of my Spirit and complain in the anguish of my Soul Why died I not from the womb why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly Why did the knees prevent me or why the breasts that I should suck I had then been among Solomon 's happy ones I should now have lain still and been quiet I should have slept and been at rest whereas now I am weary of life For tho I speak my grief is not asswaged and tho I forbear I am not eased but now he hath made me weary and made desolate all my company he hath filled me with wrinkles which is a witness against me and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face God hath delivered me to the ungodly and turned me cver into the hand of the wicked and my familiar friends have forgotten me I said I shall die in my nest and shall multiply my days as the sand when my root was spread out by the waters and the dew lay all night on my branch when my glory was fresh and my bow was renewed in my hand but I find while my flesh is upon me I shall bave pain and while my soul is in me it shall mourn Have pity upon me O my friend for the hand of God hath touched me The wicked live and become old yea they are mighty in power their seed is established in their sight with them and their off-spring before their eyes their houses are safe from fear neither is the rod of God upon them c. they are planted and take root they grow yea they bring forth fruit yet God is never in their mouth and far from their reins In vain then do I wash my hands in innocency seeing all things come alike to all There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked to the good to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not as is the good so is the sinner and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath I have now done tho I hardly know how lest I too far trouble you and only beg your perusal of these lines and two or three in answer of them by this Bearer who shall at your appointment wait on you for the same Let me farther beg these two things of you first That you would consider you have not to do with a Sophistick Wrangler or with one that would willingly err but with one that desires to know the Truth Let therefore your Answer be as much as you can void of Scholastick Terms or Notions that may lead me more into the dark And then as Job did beg That God would withdraw his hand far from him and that his dread might not make him afraid so I. And further That you would not awe me with his greatness nor suppress my Arguments with his Omnipotence Then call thou and I will answer or let me speak and answer thou me Thus begging the Divine Influence to direct you and enlighten me I subscribe myself SIR § 1. IT is your wisdom in Cases of so great moment to use all just endeavours for satisfaction and I think you did but your duty to study this as hard as you say you have done But 1. I wish you had studied it better for then you would not have been a stranger to many Books which afford a just solution of your Doubts as I must suppose you are by your taking no notice of what they have said 2. And I wish you had known that between the solving of all your Objections and taking all on Trust from men or believing as the Church believeth there are Two other ways to satisfaction which must be conjunct 1. Discerning the unanswerable evidences in Nature and Providence of the Souls future Life 2. And taking it on trust from Divine Revelation which is otherwise to be proved than by believing as the Church by Authority requireth you I have written on this Subject so much already that I had rather you had told me why you think it unsatisfactory than desire me to transcribe it while Print is as legible as Manuscript If you have not read it I humbly offer it to your consideration It is most in two Books The first which I intreat you to read is called The Reasons of the Christian Religion the other is called The Unreasonableness of Infidelity If you think this too much labour you are not so hard or faithful a Student of this weighty Case as it deserveth and you pretend to be If you will read them or the first at least and after come to me that we may fairly debate your remaining Doubts it will be a likelier way for us to be useful to each other than my going over all the mistakes of your Paper will be And I suppose you know that we have full assurance of a multitude of Verities against which many Objections may be raised which no mortal man can fully solve especially from Modes and Accidents Nay perhaps there is nothing in the World which is not liable to some such Objections And yet I will not neglect your writing § 2. When you were convinc'd That there is a first Cause it would have been an orderly progress to think what that Cause is and whether his Works do not prove his Infinite Perfection having all that eminently which he giveth formally to the whole World as far as it belongeth to perfection to have it For none can give more than he hath And then you should have thought what this God is to man as manifest in his Works and you should have considered what of man is past doubt and thence in what relation he stands to God and to his fellow-creatures And this would have led you to know mans certain duty and that would
the eyes and open sensoria by Spirits also as lucid for that use § 14. But never forget this That nothing at any time doth what it cannot do but many can do that which they do not Tho the Soul in the Womb or Sleep remember not or reason not if ever it do it that proveth it had the power of doing it And that power is not a novel accident tho the act may be so § 18. To your Explications p. 4. I say 1. None doubts but all the world is the work of one prime operating Cause Whom I hope you see in them is of perfect power wisdom and goodness the chief efficient dirigent and final cause of all 2. I doubt not but the created universe is all one thing or frame and no one atome or part totally separated from and independent on the rest 3. But yet the parts are multitudes and heterogeneous and have their Individuation and are at once many and one in several respects And the unity of the Universe or of inferior universal Causes as the Sun or an anima telluris c. are certainly consistent with the specifick and individual differences of the parts E. g. Many individual Apples grow on the same Tree yea Crabs and Apples by divers grafts nourished on the same stock One may rot or be sower and not another Millions of Trees as also of Herbs and Flowers good and poysonous all grow in the same earth Here is Unity and great Diversity And tho self-moving Animals be not fixed on the earth no doubr they have a contiguity or continuity as parts with the Universe But for all that a Toad is not a Man nor a man in torment undifferenced from another at ease nor a bad man all one with a good § 19. And if any should have a conceit That there is nothing but God and matter I have fully confuted it in the Appendix to Reas of Christian Religion Matter is no such omnipotent sapiential thing in it self as to need no cause or maker any more than Compounds And to think that the infinite God would make no nobler Creature than dead matter no liker himself to glorifie him is antecedently absurd but consequently notoriously false For tho nothing be acted without him it 's evident that he hath made active Natures with a principle of self-moving in themselves The Sun differs from a clod by more than being matter variously moved by God even by a self-moving power also Else there were no living creature but bodies in themselves dead animated by God But it would be too tedious to say all against this that 's to be said § 20 When you tell us of One life in all differenc'd only by diversity of Organs you mean God or a common created Soul If God I tell you where I have confuted it It 's pity to torment or punish God in a murderer or call him wicked in a wicked man or that one man should be hang'd and another prais'd because the Engines of their bodies are diverse But the best Anatomists say That nothing is to be seen in the brain of other Animals why they might not be as rational as Men. And if it be an Anima creata communis that you mean either you think it is an universal Soul to the universal world or only to this Earth or Vortex If to all the World you feign it to have Gods Prerogative If to part of the world if each Vortex Sun Star c. have a distinct individuate superior Soul why not men also inferiors And why may not millions of individual Spirits consist with more common or universal Spirits as well as the life of Worms in your belly with yours That which hath no Soul or Spirit of its own is not fit for such reception and communion with superior Spirits as that which hath Communion requireth some similitude We see God useth not all things alike because he makes them not like § 21. But if the difference between Beasts Trees Stones and Men be only the organical contexture of the body then 1. Either all these have put one Soul and so are but one save corporeally 2. Or else every Stone Tree and Beast hath an Intellectual Soul for it is evident that man hath by its Operations I. Had you made but Virtue and Vice to be only the effects of the bodies contexture sure you would only blame the maker of your body and not your sclf for any of your Crimes For yon did not make your own body if you were nothing Is the common light and sense of Nature no Evidence Doth not all the world difference Virtue and Vice moral good and evil Is it only the difference of an Instrument in Tune and out of Tune Either then all called sin is good or God or the universal Soul only is to be blamed Then to call you a Knave or a Lyar or Perjured c. is no more disgrace than to say that you are sick or blind Then all Laws are made only to bind God or the Amima mundi and all punishment is threatned to God or this common Soul And it is God or the common Soul only in a body which sorroweth feareth feeleth pain or pleasure II. And if you equal the Souls of Beasts Trees Stones and Men you must make them all to have an Intellectual Soul If man had not he could never understand And if they have so also frustra fit potentia quae nunquam producitur in actum It is certain that it is not the body Earth Air or Water that feeleth much less that understandeth or willeth If therefore all men have but one Soul why is it not you that are in pain or joy when any or all others are so Tour suffering and joys are as much theirs You hurt your self when you hurt a Malefactor Why are you not answerable for the Crimes of every Thief if all bâ—â— one § 22. You vainly liken several Natures and Faculties to several pieces of Clock-work For Natures and Faculties are self-acting Principles under the prime Agent but a Clock is only passive moved by another Whether the motus gravitationis in the poise be by an intrinsick Principle or by another unseen active Nature is all that 's controvertible there All that your similitude will infer is this That as the gravitation of one poise moves every wheel according to its receptive aptitude so God the universal Spirit moveth all that is moved according to their several aptitudes passives as passive actives as active vitals as self-movers intellectuals as intellectual-free-self-movers under him No Art can make a Clock feel see or understand But if the world have but one soul what mean you by its concentring in the Carcass Is the universal Soul there fallen asleep or imprisoned in a Grave or what is it § 23. Add page 5. You well say That Life is the cause of all motion Yea infinite Life Wisdom and Love is the cause of all but there be second Causes
under it Plurima ex uno And it maketh things various which it moveth variously and maketh them vital sensitive or mental which he will move to vital sensitive and mental acts Operari sequitur esse § 24. You are apt to believe That those eminent Faculties wherewith men seem meer Sensitives are only the improvement of Speech and reitorated Acts till they become Habits Ans 1. I had a Parrot that spoke so very plainly that no Man could discern but he could have spoke as well as a Man if he had but had the Intellect of a Man and quickly would learn new words but shewed no understanding of them 2. Many men born deaf and dumb are of a strong understanding enquire of a Brother of Sir Richard Dyett's a Son of Mr. Peter Whalley of Northampton a Son in Law of the Lord Wharton's c. 3. The Faculty and the Habit are Two things The Faculty is the Essential form of the Substance The Habit or Act is but an Accident The Faculty is nothing but the active Power And the Power goeth before the Act. Doth acting without Power to act cause the Power What need you the Power if you can act without it And What 's a Contradiction if this be not to say I do that which I cannot do or I can do that which I have no power to do You are not a man without the Faculty but you are without the Act or else you are no man in your sleep The act then is but the Faculties act and Habits are nothing but the Faculties promptitude to act And this indeed is caused sometime by very strong acts and sometime and usually by frequent acts and sometime suddenly by a special Divine Operation No doubt but Oratory and all Arts and Sciences are caused by frequent acts and their Objects But those acts are caused by humane Faculties under God the first Cause You can never cause a Carcass or a Parrot or any Bruit to think of God and the glory to come nor to do any proper humane act Credible History assureth us That Devils or separate Souls have acted Carcasses and discoursed in them and seemed to commit Fornication in them and left them dead behind them and they were known to be the same that were lately executed or dead and were re-buried Here the dead Organ was capable when a Spirit did but use it You too much confound Intellection and Ratiocination The prime acts of intellective Perception are before Ratiocination And there are a multitude of Complex Verities which all found men know without Syllogisms The disposition to know them is so strong that some call it Actual Knowledg § 25. Add page 6. It 's well known That the Natives in New England the most barbarous Abassines Gallanes c. in Ethicpia have as good natural Capacities as the Europeans So far are they from being but like Apes and Monkeys if they be not Ideots or mad they sometime shame learned men in their words and deeds I have known those that have been so coursly clad and so clownishly bred even as to Speech Looks and Carriages that Gentlemen and Scholars at the first congress have esteemed them much according to your description when in Discourse they have proved more ingenious than they And if improvement can bring them to Arts the Faculty was there before When will you shew us an Ape or a Monkey that was ever brought to the Acts or Habits before mentioned of Men Yea of those that were born deaf and dumb § 26. Your mistake of Adam's case and Solomon's words is so gross that I will not confute it lest the description of it offend you § 17. The case of failing memories is answered before in the case of Infancy and Apoplexies c. Out memory faileth in our sleep and yet when we awake we find that there remains the same knowledg of Arts and Sciences They did not end at night and were not all new made the next morning The Acts ceased because the receptivity of the passive Organ ceased but the Habit and Faculty continued And when memory in old men faileth about names and words and little matters their judgments about great things are usually stronger by better Habits than young mens § 28. You say You know nothing wherein Man excels Beasts but may be referred to the benefit of speech and hands capable of effecting its Conceptions Ans This is answered before Those Conceptions are the cause of words and actions and is there no cause of those Conceptions And if mans Conceptions differ from the beasts the causes differed And if the first Conceptions did not differ the Subsequent would not differ neither without a difference in the causal Faculties Why do not Beasts speak as well as Men Parrots shew That it is not in all for want of a speaking Organ If one be born dumb and not deaf he will know but little the less for his dumbness If he be born dead and dumb and not blind he will still be rational as Dr. Wallis can tell you who hath taught such to talk and converse intelligibly by their fingers and other signs without words I confess if all the outward Senses were stopt from the Birth I see not how the Soul could know outward sensible things as being no Objects to it And how it would work on it self alone we know not but understand and will we are sure it doth and therefore can do it And it 's one thing to prove Beasts to be men or rational and another thing to prove Men to be Beasts or irrational If you could prove the former viz. That Beasts have Souls that can think of God and the Life to come if they could but speak this would rather prove them immortal than prove man unreasonable or of a mortal Soul Your whole speech makes more to advance bruits than to deny the reason of man § 29. You say You know no better way to attain a right knowledg of our selves than by beholding our selves in Adam and enquiring what Nature had endued him with which will fall far short of what we now admire in our selves Answ 1. As a multitude of Objects and Experiences more tend to Wisdom than one alone so to know both what Adam was and what all men are and do doth evidence more to our information than to know Adam's first Case alone 2. Adam's first Powers are to be known by his acts and his acts were not to be done at once in a minute or a day And we have not the History of his Life much after his Fall But we may be sure that Adam's Nature in Innocency was no baser than ours corrupted And therefore Adam had the Powers of doing whatever other men since have done 3. But let us come to your Test 1. Adam was made a living Soul by the breath of God after the making of his body of the earth 2. Adam and Eve were blessed with a generative multiplying Faculty but they did not generate
things moved by God some having a created Life and mind and some none what needs then any further proof § 31. But if you hold That we have now distinct Spirits which are individual Substances why should you fear the loss of our individuation any more than our annihilation or specifick alteration If God made as many substantial individual Souls as men is there any thing in Nature or Scripture which threatneth the loss of Individuation I have shewed you and shall further shew you enough against it § 32. You say page 7. Every thing returneth to its element and loseth its individuatiou Earth to Earth Water to the Sea the Spirit to God that gave it What happiness then can we hope for more than deliverance from the present calamity or what misery are we capable of more than is common to all Ans 1. Bodies lose but their Composition and Spiritual forms Do you think that any Atome loseth its individuation If it be still divisible in partes infinitas it is infinite And if every Atome be infinite it is as much or more than all the world and so is no part of the world and so there would be as many Worlds or Infinites as Atomes It is but an aggregative motion which you mention Birds of a Feather will flock together and yet are Individuals still Do you think any dust or drop any Atome of Earth or Water loseth any thing of it self by its union with the rest Is any Substance lost Is the simple Nature changed Is it not Earth and Water still Is not the Haecceity as they call it continued Doth not God know every dust and every drop from the rest Can he not separate them when he will And if Nature in all things tend to aggregation or union it is then the Perfection of everything And why should we fear Perfection 2. But Earth and Water and Air are partible matter Earth is easily separable The parts of Water more hardly by the means of some terrene Separaror The parts of Air yet more hardly and the Sun-beams or substance of fire yet harder than that tho it's contraction and effects are very different And Spirits either yet harder or not at all Some make it essential to them to be indiscerptible and all must say That there is nothing in the Nature of them tending to division or separation And therefore tho God who can annihilate them can divide them into parts if it be no Contradiction yet it will never be because he useth every thing according to its nature till he cometh to miracles Therefore their dissoluâ—ion of parts is no more to be feared than their annihilation 3. But if you take Souls to be partible and unible then you must suppose every part to have still its own existence in the whole And do you think that this doth not more advance Souls than abase them Yea you seem to Deifie them while you make them all to return into God as drops into the Sea And if you feign God to be partible is it not more honour and joy to be a part of God who is joy it self than to be a created Soul If a thousand Candles were put out and their light turned into one Luminary as great as they all every part would have its share in the enlightning of the place about it Is it any loss to a single Soldier to become part of a victorious Army 4. But indeed this is too high a Glory for the Soul of man to desire or hope for It is enough to have a blessed union with Christ and the holy Society consistent with our Individuation Like will to like and yet be it self Rivers go to the Sea and not to the Earth Earth turns to Earth and not to the Sun or Fire And the holy and blessed go to the holy and blessed And I believe that their union will be nearer than we can now well conceive or than this selfish state of man desireth But as every drop in the Sea is the same Water it was so every Soul will be the same Soul 2. And as to the incapacity of misery which you talk of why should you think it more hereafter than here If you think all Souls now to be but one doth not an aking Tooth or a gouty Foot or a calculous Bladder suffer pain tho it be not the body that feeleth but the same sensitive Soul is pain'd in one part and pleas'd in another And if all Souls be now but God in divers Bodies or the Anima mundi try if you can comfort a man under the torment of the Stone or other Malady or on the Rack or in terror of Conscience by telling him That his Soul is a part of God Will this make a Captive bear his Captivity or a Malefactor his Death If not here why should you think that their misery hereafter will be ever the less or more tolerable for your conceit that they are parts of God They will be no more parts of him then than they were here But it 's like that they also will have an uniting inclination even to such as themselves or that God will separate them from all true unity and say Go you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels c. § 33. No doubt it 's true that you say page 7 and 8. That matter is still the same and liable to all the changes which you mention But it 's an unchanged God who doth all this by Spirits as second Causes who are not of such a changeable dissoluble partible nature as Bodies are It is Spirits that do all that 's done in the world And I conjecture as well as you That universal Spirits are universal Causes I suppose That this Earth hath a vegitative form which maketh it as a matrix to receive the Seeds and the more active influx of the Sun But Earth and Sun are but general Causes Only God and the seminal Virtue cause the species as such The Sun causeth every Plant to grow but it causeth not the difference between the Rose and the Nettle and the Oak The wonderful unsearchable Virtue of the Seed causeth that And if you would know that Virtue you must know it by the effects You cannot tell by the Seed only of a Rose a Vine an Oak what is in it But when you see the Plants in ripeness you may see that the Seeds had a specifying Virtue by the influx of the general Cause to bring forth those Plants Flowers c. Neither can you know what is in the Egg but by the ripe Bird nor what the Soul of an Infant is but by Manhood and its Acts. § 34. You here pag. 7. divert from the point of the Immortality or Nature of the Soul to that of the Resurrection of the Body of which I will now say but this Christ rose and hath promised us a Resurrection and nothing is difficult to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oft signifieth our living another
of Believers before you are a Believer in Christ 2. And you must believe that Christ was God and Man and came to save man before you believe that there is such a creature as man or what he is and whether he have a soul capable of salvation But I have oft elsewhere opened these Absurdities and Contradictions where you may see them confuted if you are willing § 36. Your question about the souls nature existence and Individuation may be resolved by a surer and easier way as followeth I. By your own certain experience 1. You perceive that you see feel understand will and execute 2. You may know as is oft said that therefore you have an active power to do these 3. You may thence know that it is a substance which hath that power Nothing can do nothing 4. You may perceive that it is not the terrene substance but an invisible substance actuating the body 5. You may know that there is no probability that so noble a substance should be annihilated 6. Or that a pure and simple substance should be dissolved by the separation of parts or if that were every part would be a spirit still 7. You have no cause to suspect that this substance should lose those powers or faculties which are its essential form and be turned into some other species or thing 8. And you have as little cause to suspect that an essential vital intellective power will not be active when active inclination is its Essence 9. You have no cause to suspect that it will want Objects to action in a World of such variety of Objects 10. And you have as little cause to suspect that it will be unactive for want of Organs when God hath made its Essence active and either can make new Organs or that which can act on matter can act without or on other matter He that can play on a Lute can do somewhat as good if that be broken 11. And experience might satisfie you that several men have several souls by the several and contrary Operations 12. And you have no reason to suspect that God will turn many from being many into one or that unity should be any of their loss All this Reason tells you beginning at your own experience as I have and elsewhere more fully opened § 37. II. And you have at hand sensible proof of the individuation of spirits by Witches Contracts and Apparitions of which the world has unquestionable proof tho there be very many Cheats Read Mr. Glanvill's new Book published by Dr. Moore Lavater de Spectris Zanchy de Angilii Manlii Collect. Bodin's Daemonolog Remigius of Witches besides all the Mallei Malificorum and doubt if you can If you do I can give you yet more with full proof § 38. III. But all that I have said to you is but the least part in comparison of the assurance which you may have by the full revelatson of Jesus Christ who hath brought life and immortality to light in the Gospel where the state the doom the rewards and punishment of souls is asserted And without dark and long Ambages or Roman Juggles we prove the truth of this Gospel briefly and infallibly thus I. The History of Christ's Life Miracles Doctrine Death Resurrection Ascension the Apostles Miracles c. is proved by such forementioned evidence as hath physical certainty Not such as dependeth only on mens honesty or moral argument much less on a pretended determining authority but such as dependeth on necessary acts of man even the consent of all sorts of contrary minds and interests as we know the Statutes of the Land or other certain History But we are so far from needing to ask which part of Christians it is that is this Church that is to be believed that it tendeth to the assertaining of us that all the Christian World Papists Protestants Greeks Moscovites Armenians Jacobites Nestorians c. herein agree even while they oppose each other To know whether there was a Julius or Augustus Caesar a Virgil Ovid Cicero and which are their Works yea which are the Acts of Councils no man goeth to an authorized determining Judg for the matter of Fact but to historiCal proof And this we have most full II. And if the History be true the Doctrine must needs be true seeing it is fully proved by the matters of Fact Christ being proved to be Christ all his words must â—eeds be true § 39. The Gospel of Christ hath these four parts of its infallible evidence I. The antecedent and inhererent Prophecies fulfilled II. The inherent impress of Divinity on the Gospel it self unimitable by man It hath Gods Image and Superscription and its Excellency propria luce is discernible III. All the Miracles and Resurrection and Ascention of Christ the Gift of his Spirit and extraordinary Miracles of the Apostles and first Churches IV. The sanctifying work of the Spirit by this Gospel on all Believers in all Ages of the World by which they have the Witness in themselves A full constant unimitable Testimony § 40. And now how highly soever you think of Bruits think not too basely of Men for whom Christ became a Saviour And yet think not so highly of Men Bruits and Stones as to think that they are God And think not that your true diligence hath confounded you but either your negligence or seducers or the unhappy stifling of obvious truth by the ill ordering of your thoughts And I beseech you remember that Gods Revelationt are suited to mans use and our true knowledg to his Revtlations He hath not told us all that man would know but what we must know Nothing is more known to us than that of God which is necessary for us Yet nothing so incomprehensible as God There is much of the Nature of Spirits and the world to come unsearchable to us which will pose all our Wits yet we have sufficient certainty of so much as tells us our duty and our hopes God hath given us Souls to use and to know only so far as is useful He that made your Watch taught not you how it 's made but how to use it Instead therefore of your concluding complaints of your condition thank God who hath made man capable to seek him serve him love him praise him and rejoyce in hope of promised Perfection Live not as a willful stranger to your Soul and God Use faithfully the Faculties which he hath given you sin not willfully against the truth revealed and leave things secret to God till you come into the clearer light and you shall have no cause to complain that God whose goodness is equal to his greatness hath dealt hardly with mankind Instead of trusting fallible man trust Christ who hath fully proved his trustiness and his Spirit will advance you to higher things than bruits are capable of God be merciful to us dark unthankful sinners Ri. Baxter Mar. 14. 1681. ERRATA IN the Second Part p. 12. l. 9. for primus r Prime p. 16. l. 21. for is r. are I have not leisure to gather the rest if there be any Here 〈◊〉 what 〈◊〉 want 〈◊〉 the Aâ—… Copy