wrath Chap. 12.7 The dust shall return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it We say this may be expounded by Gen. 7.22 and 1 Sam. 30.12 and Job 12.10 all before Cited Then Chap. 34.14 If God set his heart upon man if he gather unto himself his Spirit and his Breath All flesh shall perish together and man shall turn again unto Dust Psal 31. Prays Let me not be put to confusion but deliver me be thou my Rock and Defence Into thy hand I commit my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me And Psal 104.29 When thou takest away their breath they die and are turned again to their dust When thou lettest thy breath go forth they shall be made and thou shalt renew the face of the earth Zech. 6.5 These are the four spirits of the heavens noted on the Margent or Winds These places make Breath and the Spirit mentioned by Solomon to be much if not altogether the same thing And it seems remarkable that when David prays for Deliverance from Dangers that were temporal as in Psal 31. he uses this Expression Into thine Hand I commit my Spirit this makes it seem to intend his whole Person himself both Soul and Body as hath been shewn to be usual and common in the Usage of the Word Soul Isa 29.24 They who erred in Spirit shall come to Vnderstanding Here Spirit seems to signifie a Faculty of the Man viz. his Mind or Intellect Upon the Whole it seems the Spirit 's Return to God in Solomon's Sence might be a willing Submission of the Mind or Understanding to that Dissolution by Death which he hath appointed to be the Natural End of all Mankind This makes Death appear a willing Return of a meek and quiet Spirit to God by an easie Surrender of its Fort and Hold the Body when others and they if they did not so meekly surrender would be Stormed and forced against their Wills to let go their Holds and be driven out of Forts which they have not Power to defend and maintain against the violent and prevalent Assaults and Storms of Death We meet in Isaiah Ch. 53.10 such an Addition concerning the Term of Soul as we judge not fit to omit viz. When thou shalt make his Soul an Offering for Sin This intended his whole Person And he shall see of the Travail of his Soul Chap. 57.16 I will not contend for ever for so should the Spirit fail before me and the Souls which I have made viz. the People which I have made So Is it such a Day for Man to afflict his Soul viz. himself And If thou draw out thy Soul to the Hungry if thou minister unto him Ezek. 37.14 I will put my Spirit in you Bodies rising from dry Bones and ye shall live And this was executed by the Four Winds blowing upon them Whence it seems Spirit Wind and Breath have a great Congruity one with another and are put one for another divers times And this helps to declare what Solomon meant by Spirit Dan. 2.3 The King's Spirit was troubled to know the Dream viz. his Vnderstanding Chap. 5.20 An excellent Spirit Knowledge and Vnderstanding was found in Daniel One of these Words expound another Micah 6.7 Shall I give my First-born the Fruits of my Body for the Sin of my Soul seems to import Shall I give or Sacrifice my Child for my own Sin Soul being here put for Person as we have shewn was very usual Zech. 6.5 These are the Four Spirits or Winds of the Heavens Chap. 12.1 The Lord that formeth the Spirit of Man within him viz. who hath given him Faculties of Sense Memory Vnderstanding c. Thus the Texts of the Old Testament which make most for the Proof of a Separate and Self-subsisting Soul of Man have been quoted and such Expositions made of them and Answers thereby made to them as appear to us sufficient to abate and take away the Violence or proving Force of them by shewing that they do not necessarily or strongly compel to the Belief of such a Separated Subsistance of Humane Souls But that they only be solved and answered by Senses or Constructions more Natural and likely and more consentaneous to the Natural Conceptions of a Humane Reason unbiassed or distorted by the Prejudices of formerly received and radicated Opinions We proceed to Texts of the New Testament which have been or may be quoted to the same Intent and Purpose Mat. 16.25 He that will save his Life shall lose it and he that for Christ's sake loses it shall find it For what is a Man profited if he gain the whole World and lose his own Soul or what shall a Man give in Exchange for his Soul For the Son of Man shall come in the Glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every Man according to his Works Here it seems the Word Soul intends the Life or Person of the Man and what shall a Man get by grasping or gaping after the whole World if he lose his own Life for without Life to enjoy it what Profit or Benefit can one make of the whole World if it could be gotten and no Man in his Wits will take the whole World in Exchange for his Life for he can have no Profit but plain Damage and Loss by that Exchange And yet says our Lord He that loses his Life for my sake shall find it viz. shall find Profit by that Exchange For he shall be recompenced at the Resurrection For the Son of Man shall come in his Father's Glory and then he shall reward every Man according to his Works The Man shall then receive an Eternal Recompence and be made a great Gainer by that Exchange Chap. 13.42 For then the Wicked shall be cast into a Furnace of Fire and the Righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father Next is quoted Matth. 17. the Relation of our Lord's Transfiguration repeated Mark 9. and Luke 9. There appeared to them viz. the three Disciples Moses and Elias talking with him They all saw the Appearances It must be true then that these Prophets have a Subsistence after their Departure out of this our World And for Elias his creates no great Difficulty in the Case upon Supposal that his Body went to Heaven and was changed as S. Paul says in a Moment into a Spiritual Body and there may well enough be still continuing And for Moses his Body it could never be found what became of it seems not very certain but not being to forth-come it was conjectured and concluded to be buried no Man ever knew where nor that there was or is a Certainty in that Fact It seems he went up the Hill alone and never returned nor was his Body found what therefore became of him we may think remains a Mystery and that he died may be taken for a Conjecture from common Probability He never returned nor was after to
Holy Ghost were examinable and being examined would firmly abide that Test all of it tended to Humility Piety Charity and Works esteemed good amongst Men and though the Mystery of it soared above Humane Reason and Comprehension yet they were not inconsistent with or contrary to the same For the Signs following they were very great and undoubted and very many not here to be recounted The Auditors convinced by all these Considerations might and did believe the Mysteries and accept and practise the Doctrines of Christian Religion upon good and convincing Grounds Natural and Rational and without any good or plain Reason to account them Foolishness The Men who then primely taught these Doctrines to Natural Men of their Times wrote them after for the Use of future Times and Ages and they being dead now speak to us by those Writings and still teach and convince the Natural and Rational Persons of our Times as they did those of their own to believe this great Mystery of the Redemption and other Mysteries of of our Religion and they did then and do still prevail over their Proselites to these Purposes even as they are Reasonable and Natural Men and without requiring or perceiving any eminent Motions or evident Operations of the Spirit in such Cases more than such as we have before specified and termed ordinary amongst Christians not to be evidently perceived by Motions and Operations but are as certainly to be known by the Fruits Effects and Products of it in the Course and Tenor of the Professors Lives And by this Application as to a dictum secundum quid we pretend to have avoided the extravagant Inferences deducible from this Text of St. Paul if it should pass for a dictum simpliciter we have fixed it to the most early Times of the Gospel as intended for them only and not reasonably to be generally or any farther extended and thus shall be ended our Exposition of this Text. And we proceed to other Texts fit and needful to be solved by applying them to the ordinary Effects of God's Spirit amongst Christians of our own and all former Ages Rom. 8.9 If any Man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his This we apply to the ordinary Operation of God's Spirit in Believers appearing in the Fruits of a holy Life Ver. 14. As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Ver. 26. The Spirit helps our Infirmities viz. this ordinary tacite Operation of the Spirit but that Spirit which makes Intercession for us with Groanings seems not within us but external to us 1 Cor. 3.16 Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you viz. in the ordinary Manner Chap. 12.13 We are all baptized and have been all made to drink into one Spirit This Spirit intends a Spirit external to us and our own Baptism and Communion Galat. 4.6 God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your Hearts crying Abba Father viz. God's Spirit in ordinary Manner Chap. 5.25 If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit This is clear in it self to intend ordinary Operation Eph. 5.18 Be not drunk with Wine but be filled with the Spirit viz. live according to the ordinary Directions of God's Spirit soberly as well as righteously and godly in this present World These Texts and their like we expound by applying them to the ordinary Operation of God's Spirit in Believers not easily or likely to be discovered by the Parties themselves or by any other except only by the Fruits of a holy Life and godly Conversation Where these really are and appear plainly there is the Spirit of God the true Root and Original of them And where these do not appear and really are not there certainly the Spirit of God is not be the Leaves of Profession never so large fair or flourishing and though they make never so much Noise and Clatter when they are moved with such Winds of Doctrine and Trial as happen to blow upon them There is no doubt but that the ordinary Operations of God's Spirit are dispensed in divers Degrees of more or less Strength and Perfection Nor but that God can and will when he pleaseth in any present or future Times as well as the Primitive give and distribute to whom he pleases such eminent and perceptible Endowments of his Holy Spirit as he did to the Apostles and Disciples of their Times But we do not or will or cannot yet believe that so he hath done doth or will do without accompanying the same with such Signs following as shall plainly distinguish the Persons and give them an Esteem superior to that of other Men. 2 Cor. 12.12 Truly the Signs of an Apostle were wrought amongst yon in Signs and Wonders and mighty Deeds And whosoever shall lay Claim to the eminent powerful and perceptible Endowments of God's Spirit without those or the like Signs which did in Primitive Times accompany the same will it seems deserve and find very little Credit or Acceptance amongst Considerate Persons at this Day And we have thus done with our Considerations of the ordinary Operation of God's Spirit upon Believers As an Appendix to which we may observe that God is pleased to communicate the Assistances of his Spirit operating in Men upon Worldly Occasions and Accounts as well if not as much as in Occurence concerning Matters of Religion and in the Ordinary and Natural Manner before declared illuminating Mens Understandings and their Faculties of Perception inclining their Judgments and their Wills regulating their Affections and Passions elevating and perfecting their Natures Exod. 31.3 I have called by Name Bezaluel and have filled him with the Spirit of God in Wisdom and Vnderstanding Knowledge and all manner of Workmanship Ver. 6. So for Aholiab and other Men of Art I have put Wisdom in them that they may make all that I have commanded thee These Men had learnt their Arts and Trades in Egypt but the Spirit of God gave them further Degrees of Illumination and farther Perception concerning them than they had before attained directing to a more perfect and ready Practice than had been usual to them before like as in Matters of Religion the ordinary Operations of God's Spirit appear Things which People have read or heard before without a right Understanding or a true Feeling are by such Operation of the Spirit cleared up to them and fixed in their Hearts so as to intend the Observance of them introducing into them an Aversion from Evil and an earnest Desire to do Good and a Joy of Heart in the Performance also they may perceive Practices of Piety grow more easie to them both in Points of Learning and Performance These are evident Signs of God's Spirit present and working although no perceptible Motion be felt nor any other Evidence of the Presence of God's Spirit And no Testimony is given that these Artists did perceive or find
any Motion of God's Spirit working in them but it perfected and enabled their Natural Faculties producing its Effects in an Easie Imperceptible and Natural Manner Judg. 14.6 A young Lion roared against Samson and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and he rent the Lion like a Kid. So Ver. 19. So Chap. 15.14 and Chap. 13.25 The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times In the Camp of Dan 1 Kings 3.9 Solomon says Give thy Servant an Vnderstanding Heart to judge thy People Ver. 12. God says I have given thee a Wise and an Vndestanding Heart above all before or after thee Seems by enlightening and perfecting of Natural Faculties if Samson's Strength were not so effected Isa 28.6 The Lord shall be for a Spirit of Judgment to him that sitteth in Judgment and for Strength to them that turn the Battle to the Gate Ver. 26. God doth instruct the Husbandman concerning his Corn and doth teach him how to order it Ch. 50.4 The Lord hath given me the Tongue of the Learned and wakeneth mine Ear to hear as the Learned viz. makes me Learned Deut. 34.9 Joshuah was full of the Spirit of Wisdom for Moses had laid his Hands upon him Act 6.10 Stephen 's Opposers were not able to resist the Wisdom of the Spirit by which he spake James 1.5 If any Man lack Wisdom let him ask it of God and it shall be given him liberally And whereas some going to a Sermon or reading a Book will take hold and be converted thereby and others not and this is said to be an Effect of God's Spirit in the Converted We do not deny it but do also say That if Twenty Scholars read and study Euclide a few are likely to attain the Effect easily and the greater Part never So in Practice of Musick some will attain a Perfection but the Major Part never And so in many other Faculties especially such wherein Phantasy and Apprehension are the most concerned Sometimes also the Works and Gifts of God's Spirit are so lively imitated by the Father of Lyes as the World hath thereby been generally and greatly deceived and induced to take the one for the other Moses Opposers acted his Miracles till they came to the Lice and the Devil acted so against Job as it looked like the Hand of God's Justice against him and made him pass for an Hypocrite in the World and with his best Friends The Lying Spirit seen by Michaiah gave such great and strong Impressions to Ahab's Prophets and so like a Divine Revelation as they had no ordinary Means of Distinguishing the one from the other Hence St. John 1 Ep. 4.1 wisely directs Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God for there are many false ones in the World And our Lord taught us to try every Tree by its own Fruit if it bear Grapes it is undoubtedly a Vine and otherwise not And to this Trial we commit the most confident Pretenders to the Spiritual Endowments not to be derived from any but the Giver of every good and and perfect Gift Our Author Page 52. says The Spirit is given by Christ to all sound Believers If he mean as a Guide whose Instinct they ought to follow I deny it But if as Assistant and a Helper in their Endeavours working in them to will and to do as by Reason and Scripture they are directed I grant it Pag. 54. Says Hast thou not found the Motions the Effectual Operations the Renewing Changes of this Spirit in thee long ago and is he not still the Agent and Witness in thee of Christ's Residing and Operating in thee Whence else are thy Groanings after God thy Desires to be nearer to his Glory and to know him better to love him more the Pleasure which thou hast had in his Truth Ways and Service c. We pass by his Christ's Residing in thee and thy Groanings after God and Desires to be nearer his Glory as a New and Cloudy Language And to his plain Expressions of desiring and endeavouring to Know and Love God and to delight in his Truth Ways and Service we say That they who do not pretend to a Special Spiritual Conduct but walk by the Lights of Scripture and Reason under the ordinary Conduct of God's Spirit do as much observeâ—â—nd as well perform all known Religious Duties and Services required by God in his Word as Pretenders to a Spiritual Guidance do without yielding to them in any true Practice of Piety or Charity whatsoever He pretends That the Spirit raises Devotion or gives a greater Heighth of Rapture in Mens Religious Performances And we agree That so it can do and may do so when God pleases and that with some extraordinary Testimony of Illumination But that this is a Common or Ordinary Effect of God's Spirit amongst Believers we do deny And do impute such Effects ordinarily happening not to the Spirit of God but to the Phantasies of Men who putting themselves into a Godly Chafe and thereby feeling a great Heat Mettle and Emotion within them it seems they imagine this is given them from above and that it is God's Spirit working within them and that it would be Sin in them not to follow the Dictates and Motions of it although upon due Trial they fall out to be very Irregular and the common Effect thereof is That Men dethrone their Reason and Judgment which God hath placed in them for Natural Guides and Rulers on Pretence of the Text 1 Cor. 2.14 before expounded saying The natural Man receives not the Things of the Spirit of God nor can know them but they must be spiritually discerned Concerning which enough hath been spoken Our Men led by Erroneous Construction of this Text principally and what other like they happen to meet with do often take upon them to dethrone their Reason from the Regiment where God hath placed it and to set up in its Room a Fervor of Spirit which it seems they think is of God and is so necessary for them as that they cannot be good Christians without it And thus truly and effectually they displace and put down their Reason and set up their Phantasy to govern instead of it And whereas Reason is one and uniform in Mankind generally and would induce Men to Think and Speak the same Things Phantasy in Men is as Various as our Faces no one perfectly like another Whence it comes that Christians of whom Paul says We being many are one Bread are so infinitely divided as that scarcely a whole Loaf can be found amongst us but we are broken into Pieces and even murled into Crumbs without any Fastness or Cohesion of one Sort of us to another and we pray God to direct our Church to other and more reasonable Practices for the Time to come Page 59. Our Author complains grievously of his own Infidelity concerning Rewards after Death in Maintenance of which he had both preached and written to other People
by something in us and that is some Substance and this we call the Soul it is not nothing and it is within us Thus he tells us a Humane Soul is an Immortal Spirit That being denied he neither proves it nor offers to do it but instead thereof he offers Proof that it is a substance for says he it moves and acts within us and it is not nothing This we grant but take it for no proof at all of the separated subsistance of a Soul for the Heart Brain Blood and Spirits and Breath are continually moving and acting within us and each of them are substances but have no subsistance in their Motions separate from the Body but all Die with it and so may that which is called by the names of Soul or the Form of a Humane Body or the Vital Principle of it Pag. 14. He Confesses That God is the continued First Cause of all Beings and that the Branches and Fruit depend not as effects so much upon their Causes the Roots Stocks and Branches as the Creature doth upon God whence it seems clear That God can make an Automaton moving and living by ways which Men may not be able to find out or understand and perhaps the Life and Actings of Animals may be such a Secret and because Men cannot find out how the Blood Spirits Nerves Arteries Veins Muscles and other Vital Parts are acted or moved nor the adequate or precise manner how they are all Excited and Actuated by that Flame and Glowing of that which is called the Flammula Vitalis not quite extinguished in Animals but with the Life how by the Unctuous Spirits rising from the Blood Urine and Humours of the Body this Flame is perpetually nourished and maintained and fanned and kept alive by continual and lively respiration nor how the Spirits raised and kindled in and about the Heart mount continually to the Head where in the Brain and the Ventricles of it and Motion or Conveyance of the Arteries thereunto belonging the Common Sense is furnished and excited to Act upon all Objects presented and to Lodge them in the Phantasie and the Memory whence they may be recalled and presented again to the common Sensorium or Judicial Power that it may consider them better or work with them or upon them as far as its own Capacity or Intellect can advance it self in the Powers and Practices of Arts and Sciences Such things we find are transacted and done in the Brain and Body of Man and we cannot pervestigate with any exactness how by the Vital Parts and Spirits of the Body such effects are particularly and properly Produced and this is more hard to be done because Men can never Compass the sight of a Dissected Body in the full Life Vigour and Motion of the Blood Spirits Humors Parts and Members of it but must be content with the view of them all Dead Cold Clammed whence they may have good pretences to conclude it very unlikely that the Powers of Sense Phantasie Intellect and Memory should be Actuated by such Materials or the Conjunction or Operation of them not enough considering that the Flamula Vitalis which is the Acter and Life of them all is extinguished before the beholders can be admitted to the sight and consideration of the Vital or Principal Parts of a Dissected Body And yet it seems from this want of Conception how the Parts and Spirits of the Body do or after what manner they can Act after and in performance of the Faculties of Sense Motion Intellect Phantasie Memory c. Men take their Principal or even only Reason to Introduce or Invent a Forreign Government and Governor for every Animal or at least Humane Body viz. a Spiritual Substance as our Author calls it Pure Invisible Immortal others add Indiscerptable and it will not be Difficult for Men to add and ascribe to it whatsoever their fancies happen to Invent in Cases where we can never expect to have any likely Trial of the Truth but this savours of expounding Obscurum per Obscurius or the stopping one Hole and making many Wherefore as to our not conceiving how the Animal Parts can Work and Act all those Parts which we know are performed amongst us wee seem to have ground enough to refer them to the Power and Will of our Creator That he can by such means effect all Mens performances no Man makes doubt and to many and learned Persons it seems likely that he hath done so and for those who meerly upon the fore-named reason will take the boldness to impose a Super-Humane or Spiritual Empire upon the Bodies of all Men we request them to take as the Acter or Imposer ought to do upon themselves the Onus Probandi and that they first prove to us concerning the Power intended by them to be Introduced amongst and over us which they call an Immortal Spiritual Substance 1. Quod sit 2. Quid sit 3. Quale sit 4. Quando Ingreditur 5. Vbi residet 6 Quomodo gubernat agit viz. That there is in Nature such a Humane Soul able to subsist in Seperation from the Body 2. What it is in its own Nature and whether it do pre-exist a Mundo condito or be derived ex Traduce from the Seed of the Parents or that Infundendo Creatur be Created by Gods Power upon every Fruitful Copulation 3. With what Qualities such Souls are indowed whether they are all well inclined or some ill or meeterly Whether all are of like Power or some more others less potent Whether they may cause or can help or hinder any Bodily Pains or Diseases Whether they can leave their usual place of Residence and go into other Parts of the Body or go quite out of it a wandring in the World and yet return to it again Whether they feel share of the Bodies Maladies and will not willingly consent to have Limbs cut off or to take strong Purges or Vomits for fear of being disturbed in their places of Residence Whether they are more pleased or have a greater desire to be in the Body or out of it Whether the Body be as a Prison to Souls and they be confined to it or that they chuse to be there and leave it unwillingly And if they be there confined by what Power or means are they so and what other Qualities of Souls they think fit to communicate to us 4 When it is that the Soul enters into the Body Whether before or after the Births and if before then how long after the Conception Whether it enter in its full Dimensions or grows larger as the Child grows or suffer detriment by sickness of the Body or its Consumption or Age Also when it leaves the Body finally Whether its leaving do kill or that it stay till the Flamula Vitalis be quite extinct and the Body dead Or If this Flame be suddenly extinct by the violent motion of a blow upon the Head Whether doth the Soul strive to re-kindle this Flame or
goes suddenly away in a fright 5. Whether the Soul have a peculiar Place of Residence in the Body and where that is And if that part be ill affected and unfit for her can she change it and go to reside in another Or whether is there more places or another place in the Body that can be fit or can make room for her to reside and act in or that she is Tota in qualibet parte 6. How doth she Act can she do any thing by her self or her own peculiar Power without the Ministry of the Animal Spirits and other Parts of the Body Can she amend any thing that is amiss in the Body or know any thing without such Ministry of the Senses By what force doth she move the Bodily Spirits or can she inflict Pain or Punishment for their Disobedience Can she Govern the Passions by an absolute Sway or how far can she do it and by what Means And so for the Affections and whether is not she rather subjected often to their Power and how far and by what means that comes to pass How or by what means and ways doth she Imagine Judge Understand or Remember Or can any better or more Inteliligible Account be given that she doth and how she doth such things Then how the Spirits Brain and other Organical Parts of the Body do them actuated thereto by the Impulse of Nature and that Flammula Vitalis which pervades every part of the Body and most powerfully Operates in the Heart and Head stimulating and stirring them in and to the performance of Duties and Powers intrusted to them and Imposed or Imprinted upon them by Nature and the Contriver who made them for such purposes and hath appointed their Imployment and the Order and Power by which it seems they may be and are continually easily and naturally performed When the Introducers and Maintainers of a Spiritual Self-subsisting Soul in Man have opened their Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge so largely as to satisfie the Curious Inquirers concerning these and the like particular Queries they may then with better confidence deny the possibillity of the Animal Spirits Blood and Organical Parts of the Body their performing such Actions and producing such Effects as are daily done by us and are continually visible amongst us and thence derive their pretentended necessity of introducing within upon and over us such a Foreign Commander and Government as that of a Perfect Substantial Immortal and Self subsisting Spirit but withal we must desire them to declare why they do allow the boisterous Affections and Passions in Man viz. his Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear to be ungovernable by this Imperial Spiritual Power set over Man and his Actions but that such riotous Actors will oppose and over-rule this Spiritual Power and hurry this precious Soul and Potent Governor whether she will or not into very bad and wicked Actions such as her self doth not only resist and condemn but even detest and abhor These Affections and Passions our Spirit-imposers do commonly grant have their Rise and Growth from the Animal Spirits Propensities and Parts of the Body but they have not yet set forth any more rational Account of the Manner how or the Power by which such Effects are performed or produced than they say can be done for those of the Senses Phantasie Intellect or Memory They ascribe indeed the Faculties of the Head and Brain to the Spiritual Power and Government and the Affections and Passions they place in the Heart and suffer their Product and Power to remain with Flesh and Blood but they shew us no Reason of the Difference nor how it comes to pass and by what Mediums Flesh Blood Spirits and Animal Parts do or can produce one sort of these Faculties in Man and not the other It is true that after the Notion of a Living Spirit enlivening and ruling in Man is admitted and taken for true we do then easily conceive and believe the Faculties of the Brain are more suitable to that Nature and the Affections and Passions which sure not therewithal but are apt to resist and over-rule that Government Men do forwardly ascribe to the Production Actuating and Government of Flesh and Blood but perhaps more rightly to the same Flame and animal Spirits which act also in the Head but more refined there and meeting with fit Matter and Organs adapted intended by the Artificer and by him appointed for more Noble Purposes And our Experience tells us That Blood which produces Barking in a Dog will by Transfusion cause Baaing in a Sheep and likely Bleating in a Calf Grunting in a Hog and so will the Sheeps Blood by Transfusion produce Speaking and Singing in a Man according to the Matter and Organs which the Spirits arising from that Blood find in the Places adapted for such Productions This farther Piece of Work being cut out for our Spirit-imposers it shall here be left upon them to perform before they be permitted as a reasonable Course to go on in their Pretences That because Men are not able so fully to understand the Course of Natural Proceedings in the Head and Brain as to give a rational and satisfactory Account thereof that therefore Things cannot be done there as they are without such a Spiritual Power as Men have invented to substitute rather than confess in this Case the Truth of their Ignorance and that God's Works are in this Case particularly past finding out But if they shall give us as rational and satisfactory an Account of the Things concerning the Soul they speak of as they require other Men to give of the Acts performed in the Head by the Brain and the Membranes Arteries and other Parts to the same belonging and continually supplied by Animal and Subtil Spirits from the Heart and quickened and acted by the Flammula Vitalis Nay except they do give a better Account of their Soul and its Power and Manner of Acting than Men can do of the Manner of Acting in the Head and Brain by the Animal Spirits and other Natural Parts and Powers of the Body it seems they are not to be believed or admitted to impose upon-Men their Doctrine of a Spiritual and Self-subsisting Soul as a Distinct Being from that of the Body and it seems they may as well devise Souls for the Beasts upon the same Grounds viz. For that they cannot give a rational or satisfactory Account how and by what particular Means and Powers many of their Actions are framed guided and performed As how they come every one of them to know wherein their Prime Forces of opposing others and defending themselves do consist The Dog in his Teeth the Beasts Sheep Goats Deer in their Horns the Boar in his Tusks Cocks in their Bills and Spurs Porcupines in their Quills and the like and how every Species are taught and guided to use their several Weapons the most dexterously and most to their Advantage by what Power Order or Means the Subtilties of
in it self or of moving any other Matter whatsoever It seems when he made this gross Mistake he did not remember that there was an Element of Fire in the World For we suppose he could have no doubting but that Fire was Matter nor that wheresoever it is found it shews it self to be a Self-moving and an Active Principle in Nature so violent as to disdain Resistance from any thing Fortresses and Castles are ordinarily and easily overthrown by it Rocks and Mountains cannot enough resist the Force of it But it can shake the solid Globe of Earth making Resistance to the Violent Force of its Motion and Activity How extream easie must it then be for a Principle of such Mettle and Vigour to move and actuate and to enliven and quicken the adapted Parts Members and Organs of an Animal or Humane Body wherein those Parts and Organs are fitted by a wise Creator to those Motions and Purposes and for those Offices in their first Formation intended It seems an Opinion of so little Doubt or Question as scarce leaves Matter or Occasion for any farther Dispute about the Verity of the Thing We have spoken before of the Spirits enflamed to a Tenuity so rare as it attains to a Degree of Invisibility And our Dr. Pag. 149. tells us of the Intense Heat that is about the Heart of Man such as that his Blood there is in a manner scalding-hot So Pag. 203. says The Aetherial Matter is that Fire which Trismegist affirms is the Vehicle of the Mind and which the Soul of the World doth most certainly use in all her Acts and Procreations Pag. 212. The Spirits thus fine and active move like Light as that of the Sun to our Sight the Motion is propagated not by Degrees but at once Pag. 214. If one part of the Blood he more Fiery and Subtil than another it will be sure to reach the Head From these Assertions it appears our Dr. was not ignorant of the Principle of Fire and its Activity in the Body and Mind of Man nor did he forget it Why then did he not mention and answer the Objection thence arising against his Position That Matter can neither move it self nor any other Matter there seems no Account or Reason to be given Our Author Baxter takes notice Pag. 21. That Life Intuition and Love are Acts as Natural to the Soul as Motion Light and Heat are Quoad actum to the Fire This Testifies his Opinion That Fire is a a Self-moving Principle and that it is evident and eminent in the Composition of the Body and Mind of Man is too well proved and apparent to be doubted Upon all these Quotations and Arguments it seems we may say as we have done before in the Case of Plants that in Animals Men do find a proper and sufficient Original in their Seed and the Fomentation and Nutriment of it and of its Growth and Tendency to the Perfection of its Kind that there are naturally produced the Parts belonging to such Bodies viz. inward as Heart Liver Lungs Bowels Brains Spleen Kidneys Bladder c. And outward as Head Feet Hands Arms Shoulders Neck c. Also those which under one Name contain many Particulars as the Muscles Nerves Veins Fibres Arteries Films Membranes Tunicles c. Lastly such as go through the Composure and every Part of it viz. Flesh Bones Blood and Breath God by his Hand-maid Nature and that Wisdom described Prov. 8. framed this Compositum at first out of the Dust of the Earth Of which David gives a true Character when he says I am fearfully and wonderfully made and making he endowed it with a Generative Power to be practised and used for the Continuance of their Species till Time and Place shall fail for such Productions and hath made such Performances the most pleasing and delightful Actions of their Lives to the intent the Species of Animals might never fail in the World or be extinguished When their Bodies were perfectly framed and fully finished furnished with Blood and Humours fit to be enkindled by the Promethean or Heavenly Fire He breathed says Moses into Man the Breath of Life which though Moses doth not express it was given and granted to the Beasts of the Field also and to the Heirs and Posterities of them all and by the first Blast and Fanning of this Breath were the pregnant Steems of the newly-created and pullulant Blood and Humours of the Body enkindled and enflamed with a Fire of Heavenly Product Natural and Lambent like those sometimes found in Ancient Urns and Sepulchres ever burning or shining without Consuming or Perception of Consuming their Materials This Fire Flame or Glowing pervades the whole Body and every Part and minute Particle and Member of it whither the Blood and Humours can and do come enlivening and actuating the whole and every Part of the Body to perform those Purposes for which by Nature they were intended But the Power of this Vital Heat and Fire is most apparent in and about the Heart where the Blood is most heated rarified and refined to a Spirit of that Pureness and Subtilty that like a rorid Steem they become thin to an Ivisibility ascending continually from the Heart to the Head as the Sap doth in Plants and the Vegetative Spirit from the Root to the Branches arriving in the Head they replenish the Brain and the Ventricles thereof acting and stirring and enabling all Parts and Organs to and in the Performance of those Parts and Duties for which by Nature they were intended Our Dr. before-quoted P. 298. tells us That by these Spirits the Soul hears sees feels imagines remembers and reasons and can do nothing without them And Pag. 329. The Souls Intellectual Operations depend upon these Spirits and it is the Fitness and Purity of them that invites and enables her to love and look after Divine and Intellectual Objects But we do not perceive more need of such a Soul in the Animal than there was before in the Plant there we found Materials and proper Organs for the Nourishment of it and a Natural Vegetative Spirit or Soul to enliven it to stir and actuate the Sap causing it to ascend and to spread it self in all Places even to the uttermost Branches and Twigs of the largest Trees where it produceth Leaves and Fruit according to its own proper Nature and why not the Blood Humors and Animal Spirits circulating in the Body of an Animal The Blood and Humors actuated with the Flame of Life and the attenuated Spirits actuating and applying to fit Matter and Organs of the Body made proper for their several Purposes and moving and stimulating to act accordingly and acting with them and in them why may not these act in the Natural Course of a Sensitive Animal without an Immaterial Self-subsisting Soul Our Dr. says Because you can shew me no Way how things can be by such Means acted and done in the Senses or Vnderstanding but so as I can make
of a Mans Countenance Things which dull or unbred People do not well perceive or understand Our Author Baxter Pag. 38. is so moved with the Considerations as he there says That in their own low Concerns a Fox or a Dog nay even an Ass or a Goose have such Actions as we know not well how to ascribe to any thing below some kind of Reasoning or Perception of the same importance Whence he infers That the Difference betwixt Men and Beasts is rather in the Objects and Work of our Reason than in our Reason it self as such and that therefore the old difference of Man from Beast in the Word Rationale should be changed into Religiosum That Mans Genus shall be Animal still but his Characteristical Difference should be changed from Rationale to Religiosum We say further That in the Beasts there is a Sensitive Soul of a Flamy Airy Nature a Material Spirit extracted from the Blood and Humours of the Body actuated by Natural Heat and that Flammula Vitalis which pervades their whole Bodies and every part member and parcel of them passing with their blood into all places whither that can come This Spirit it is that directs and actuates the Motions works by the Senses forms the Voices imagines remembers and understands in the Head inlivens and moves the Heart and by which all other Faculties of the Beasts are stirr'd actuated put upon and supported in their Natural Imployments and Duties performed according to the Natural Operations of Spirits with great Mettle Quickness and Imperceptibility and this seems to be the State and Composition of the Beasts Whence we argue That all that is thus found in Beasts and by them performed springs from the motions and actings of a Material Spirit and the force and power of a Natural Flame What hinders then but that a Material Spirit in Man may as well perform the same productions in Body and Mind of those of his Kind and Species both his Motions Senses Affections Imagination Memory and Intellect and all his other Faculties with some more advantage in the degrees of them by how much the Spirits are more pure and subtil in the Humane Bodies the matter more fine and copious the receptacles of them large and the Organs every where properly fitted and terminating the product and performance to the Effect for which by the Creator they were intended and appointed and we conclude in Affirmative that it is likely to be so in very deed But in answer thereunto our Opposers bring in their lately delivered Assertion calculated as we have said and set on foot for such a time as this Viz. That Beasts do not perform their Functions of the Senses Affections Phantasie Memory and Intellect their Local Motion or any of them by the acting or energy of a Material Spirit But they soberly say Beasts are indowed with and actuated by an Immaterial Self-subsisting Spirit which pre-existed before it came into the Body of the Beast and shall subsist by it self after the death and corruption of its Body They do but say this without making or offering any Proof at all of it And one of their Associates in Opinion pinch'd with this Argument of what the Beasts can and do perform in this Kind takes quite another way and manner of evading from under the force and pressure of it Sir K. Digby to shew us there are more ways to the Wood than one takes a Course directly contrary to that of our fore-cited Authors for he fol. 205. and thence to 210. would perswade us and demonstrate as he says That Beasts are not to be esteemed so much as Voluntary Agents or that they have so much as the knowledge of what they do or why they do it but that they act stupidly by a natural sense of Heat and Cold and the density and rarity of their Blood and Members that they are meer Automata without so perceiving by their senses as to distinguish one thing from another He tells us That in his youth he saw two Machines the one at Toledo for raising Water to a great heighth the other at Segovia both set on work by the Current of a River This was used for the Coining of Money and of these Machines he gives us there the Description and then he compares all sorts of Plants both great and small to his Water-Engine at Toledo and all Sensible Living Creatures to his Machine at Segovia They move and work as that Machine doth and they do things that are very proper and useful for their Natures and contrive and act things sometimes very artificial and curious as he says we see in Spiders Webs and Birds Nests But the Animals know not what it is they do but are prompted so to act by a temperament in their Bodies which makes them uneasie and restless until they do act and employ themselves according to a propensity which they have in Nature but they have as little choice or perceiving either why or what they do as his Machine at Segovia of which he relates many Useful and Artificial Practices continually performed without sense or knowledge of any thing that it did and this seems the single Truth of his fore-cited Assertions But he proceeds upon a like Design to many more folio's It seems evident that these two Opinions of our Opposers are directly contrary one of them to the other and yet are intended both for one same purpose viz. to invalidate such an Argument as might be raised from the Nature Power and Practice of a Sensitive Soul that might perswade to the belief of what hath been before asserted by us of the Rational Faculties and Duties being possible and likely to be acted and performed by a Material Spirit if either of the fore-cited Opinions were true it were enough to rebate the edge of such an Argument and to invalidate the force of it but with those who do not believe the truth of either of them they will be of no force at all to the purpose We confide there is no need to labour in the Confutation of either of them for that they will hardly be acccepted or agreed to by Men of Reading and Reason and that therefore our repeated Argument will be of force and continue unimpeachable by either of these Allegations Whence we are at liberty to proceed in our farther Inquiries concerning the Soul We find that Aristotle who lived about Two thousand years ago wrote a Treatise intituled Of the Soul divided into Three Books and those into Chapters the First Book into Nine and the other Two each into Twelve and he treats therein as we have done of all the Three Known Souls viz. The Vegetative the Sensitive and the Rational and calls his Work A History of the Soul and in the very entrance thereunto the First Chapter of it he tells us It is extream difficult to detect the Essence of any thing or the Quid sit Yet that is the most sound Principle of Knowledge if it can
Samuel in Shiloe by the Word of the Lord without such Revelations of God as are miraculous or are derived from that Original it seems so extream hard to find out God as that no Man by Force of Natural Wit or Intellect can have the Power to do it and if the Soul of Man be an Immaterial Spirit it will fall under a like Difficulty Pag. 30. He supposes Cogitando as it seems that God had made a Compleat Body of a Man without inspiring him with a Rational Soul but placing about his Heart an inkindled Heat or inlucid Fire This like the Fuming of moist Hay or the heated Steems of working New Wines would says he effect in the Bodies of Men all that can now by Men be performed except only their Power of Cogitation and that without the Co-operation of any Soul at all And the like he supposes may be done also in the Bodies of Beasts but he found not in his Cogitations that this was enough to produce Reason in Man but he dream'd that the same was fully supplied to Man when God had created for him a Rational Soul and had joined it to his Body after a certain Manner such as the Author had invented for him Pag. 34. The Animal Spirits are like the most subtil Winds or more like the purest Flames which continually and plentifully ascend from the Heart to the Brain and by these are the Bodily Members moved Pag. 36. Says The Automata made by Man must all fall short in two Points 1. Nothing can be made to answer properly to unforeknown Questions 2. Nothing can be made to act Motions beyond what were specially intended Not to answer accidental or all occasional Motions He says That Beasts cannot speak comes not from Defect of Organs in them witness Magpies and Parrots But we do not admit these Witnesses for Proofs But says he Men who are Deaf and Dumb will find and learn Signs to express their Minds a plain Sign that Men have Reason and Beasts have not And we allow the Sign and grant the Thing And he grants some Beasts excel others of their own Kind in Sagacity Apprehension and Docibility and so some Kinds excel other Kinds in such Qualities This say I seems a clear Proof that Beasts are not Machines but have Perceptive Souls and are Voluntary Agents knowing both what they do and having an Intent and Design in the doing of it Pag. 37. Says The Humane Soul cannot be Ex traduce or grow out of Matter but must needs be created Then says That the Soul is a thing of great Concernment and the Error which is great next to the Denial of a God is the Belief that the Souls of Men and Beasts are of the same Nature and consequently that nothing is to be hoped for or feared after this Life no more than for Flies or Pismires It seems the Mans Cogitations upon this Subject were extreamly erroneous and as much deceived as his Senses ever were or ordinarily can be in any competent Sphere of their Activity as a Christian and Learned It seems not to be imagined but that he had perused S. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians and had in the 15th Chapter thereof found written what that Apostle there delivers concerning the Resurrection of the Dead and without the Mention or least Hint of a Soul Separately Subsisting he puts the whole Weight of Christian Religion upon the Belief of a Resurrection of the Dead The Apostle says Such Resurrection is as certain as it is that Christ is risen And if that be not true and certain nothing in Christian Religion is so But our Preaching is vain and your Faith is also vain Nay and we are evinced 〈◊〉 be false Witnesses and you are yet in your Sins and can have no Benefit at all by Christ and all who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished If Mens only Hope in Christ were in this Life they were most miserable but the thing is not so for Christ is risen as the first Fruits and at the last Trumpet the Dead shall be raised And he tells us how and with what Bodies and concludes Abound in the Work of the Lord as knowing your Labour shall not be in vain for most certainly this Resurrection shall come So Matth. 24. Ver. 30. and to 33. Mark 13.24 Luk. 21.28 And when that comes then do you Christians and of the Good look up and lift up your Heads to the Clouds and above them So 1 Thess 4.14 Those who are asleep in Jesus will God bring with him and the Dead in Christ shall rise first and then shall be ever with the Lord. Mat. 25.31 shews us the Method and Proceeds of the Last Judgments and the Rewards and Punishments then to be expected without Word or Mention of a Separate Self-subsisting Soul or any thing concerning the same We need not take the Pains to try our Author's Cogitations by these Texts of Scripture because the Clearness and Wideness of the Difference needs no Dilucidation but are apparent at the first View We proceed to his Treatise De Passionibus in the very Entrance to which we take for observable That what God hath put together viz. the Soul and the Body whilst they are in Composito our Author Des Cartes endeavours to separate and pull in sunder taking all Sorts of Cogitation from the Body and because there is a Body of very great Motion and Heat viz. Fire therefore he will take all Heat and Motion from the Soul and bestow it upon the Body both which Assertions or Propositions we do utterly reject and do say That the Soul doth not nor cannot understand nor consider without the Animal Spirits and Organs of the Body nor hath the Body Heat or Motion without the Soul and the Energy and Efficiency thereof nor can have them without that Assistance and Conjunction Artic. 5. Says Men have thought that Heat and Motion depended upon the Soul and yet he shews no Reason to think otherwise and therefore Men may think so still and it seems will do it Art 6. He says Death never comes by any Defect in the Soul I say That is more than he knows though it should be an Immaterial Spirit but if a Material one then it certainly may cause Death by its Deficiency Art 8. Says There is a continual Heat about our Hearts as long as we live and this Fire is the Corporeal Principle of Motion in the Body And we say the same of the Animal Spirits and Corporeal Flame which is the Material Spirit Art 9. is granted Art 10. Says That the Animal Spirits are most subtil Bodily Particles extream rare and thin moving most swifty and like the Flames of Fire and never are at rest these rise in great plenty from the Heart to the Brain where they are in continual Action and they pervade the whole Body and all its Members and move every Part of it as Occasion may require And for this we are at Agreement with
him Art 11. We do not well understand nor so as to say he is right or wrong in it Art 12. and 13. We observe in the 13. that he says The Motions of the Brain do excite divers Senses in the Soul This I deny and he offers no Proof of any thing that he says but goes on and says That besides exciting Senses in the Soul these Spirits can without the Soul move the Muscles and Members of the Body He offers our Winking in Proof of this but I deny his Assertion and judge his Proof very insufficient Art 16. Says All our Motions which are common to us with Beasts may be done by us without the Soul by a common Temperament of the Body and the Members and Organs of it acted by the Animal Spirits derived from the Heart and directed in the Brain All this I grant and do take these to be the main Ingredients for the Frame of a Material Spirit Art 17. Says He hath now left nothing for the Soul save only Cogitare-Cogitations he divides into two Sorts one of Actions the other of Passions or Affections the Actions are what the Soul wills to do the Passions are a sort of Perceptions or Apprehensions found in us which the Soul doth not make but receive from Representations of outward Things All these Cogitations of our Author we do reject and say That whilst the Man continues to be so the Soul and Body neither do nor can act or suffer Separately but always in Conjunction one with the other Art 18. and 19. He divides his Cogitative Wills and Perceptions as he pleases Art 20. and 21. And so for his Sorts of Imaginations and so on to Art 25. There he says The Perceptions or Passions of Joy Fear Anger and the like are referred only to the Soul either not considering or not enough rembering that these Passions are as fully visible in Beasts as in Men and if they be referrable only to the Soul then such a Soul as Beasts have may serve well enough for the Subsistence and Acting of them Art 28. Says No other Perceptions do so much agitate and shake the Soul as these Passions do but Beasts are as much transported by them as Men. Art 30. That the Soul is united to every Part of the Body and to all Parts of it Conjunction is granted And how this is done in the Case of a Material Soul is plain and easie but not how done in an intire Spiritual Substance for that is not yet declared by our Author and we know not that it is Intelligible For he says truly Such a Soul cannot be conceived by Parts nor what Extension it hath or consequently where it is and where it is not Art 31. But yet he says There is a Special Part in the Body where the Soul doth exercise her Functions more perceivably than in all the rest of the Body Some have thought this Place to be the Heart and others to be the Brain but our Author upon accurate Examination evidently knows it not to be in either of these but that it is in one Part of the Brain only viz. the Middle or most Inward Part of it There says he is a very small Glandula or Kernel seated in the Middle of the Brain hanging in the very Channel or Course of the Animal Spirits so as the smallest Motions of this Kernel can do much in altering the Course of these Spirits and the Mutations of the Soul by the Courses of the Spirits do help much to change the Motions of this Kernel Parturiunt Montes We see here what our Authors vast Cogitations concerning the Soul hath brought forth viz. a Glandula admodum parva a very small Kernel to be the Chair of State or the Prime Seat of Judgment for his Imagined Soul This seems to fall far short of our Flammula Vitalis which with the Blood pervades the whole Body and actuates the Heart the Brain and every other and most minute Parts of it living with and in the Animal and not quite extinguished but with our latest and last Breath He offers us not one Word concerning the Immaterial Soul of which if he had any thing to say though but out of his own Cogitations this were the proper Place and this Time his Kue to produce them but his Silence gives consent to an Assertion That he knows nothing of it neither Quod sit Quid sit Quando nor Quomodo to the Vbi only He offers this Guess under the Terms of his believed evident Knowledge His Friend Dr. More doth profess to disbelieve him in it and places the Seat of the Soul in the Fourth Ventricle of the Brain by divers Arguments which I who believe neither of them will not spend Time to examine Art 34. Now let us imagine says he as his Mode of Cogitation that the Soul hath her Seat principally in this Kernel and thence sends forth her Rays to all the rest of the Body by Activity of the Animal Spirits hence whatsoever the Soul her self may be her Rays are not an Immaterial but Material Spirits and one would think her Rays should he like her self Well but says he This Kernel which is the Principal Seat of the Soul can move these Spirits and can be moved by the Soul which is of such a Nature that she can receive into her self various Impressions viz. she may have so many Perceptions as there can be various Motions made in this Kernel Art 35. The Animal having two Organs for Seeing and Hearing and two Hands Arms Legs and Feet the two Organs for Sense receive each the Object which goes double towards the Brain till they come to this Kernel and there they join in one and the Kernel working immediately in the Soul shews it the Figure as now it is become one Object All this seems to shew no more but the Products of his own Imagination led by the Affection which now he bears to this Kernel as the Embrion of his own Brain and Invention Art 36. If the Objects perceived shew Danger they excite the Passion of Fear in the Soul Upon this I demand where Fear is excited in the Beasts which have not such Souls and by what other Means then it is excited in Men Art 38. By Motion of this Kernel Fear is induced into the Soul and though the Legs may run away without Knowledge of the Soul yet this violent Motion of them makes another Motion in the Kernel by whose Help the Soul is made acquainted with its Body's running away Behold the Natural and Remarkable Effects of Dividing the Soul from the Body and ascribing some Actions to the one and some to the other separately and without Concurrence of the other Art 40. The Principal Effect of Passion in Man is to incite and dispose him for Self-preservation either by Fight or Flight He might have omitted the Words in Man for the Case is the very same with Beasts Art 44. The Soul by Help of his Kernel can move the
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but gives no Aswer to it Says Plato Origen and many Hebrews held Opinion the Adam's Soul and all other Souls did and do pre-exist and are thence called down as new Bodies require viz. from Superior Regions But this he says is both false and absurd And to prove this by Reason he says Pag. 619. cites Aristotle That the Soul is Actus Corporis Organici and therefore the Soul cannot be before the Body To this we easily assent and add That when the Body dies this Actus Corporis must cease for the same Reason He argues also That the Soul is a Spiritual Substance and it was not needful or proper to put that up at the Nostrils and that seems true but makes against his former Assertions Still there rises a new Difficulty viz. Whether this Soul if then created were created first within the Body or first without the Body and then was breathed or blown in The Text favours the later but the Author favours the former to the Intent that Men may not think Souls are still first created and then infused but think rather as he doth that Souls are created in their Bodies and to this end he approves Lombard's Invention of Creando infunditur Cites Essay 2.22 Cease ye from Man Cujus Anima in Naribus ejus est which we read whose Breath is in his Nostrils Pag. 620 The Soul of Man came to him from without although created within him He will have from without to signifie of another Nature or kind of Thing and not proceeding from the Body as the Beasts do But this he only says without offer of Proof for it Says The whole Soul comes together viz. Vegetative Sensitive and Rational whence it must come into the Body at the first Original of Life and there seems no doubt but there is a Vegetative Power and Principle in the Seed and likely for the Sensual and there appears no Reason against a like Course in the Rational these three being all Faculties of the same Soul from which none of them are separable Pag. 621. The Word signifying Spiraculum Vitarum is used as well concerning Beasts as Men. Pag. 624. Souls of Brutes are sometimes called Spirits in Scripture but never said to return to God Pag. 625. As God breathed into Adams Body the Breath of Life who thereupon rose from the Earth where he lay so shall his Breath effect Life in Bodies which shall rise at Sound of the Last Trumpet And as we read Ezek. 37. Pag. 667. Cites Gen. 1.28 God blessed the Man and Woman and said Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth as Ver. 22. he had said to other Creatures This seems to import Men do generate their Like as the Beasts do and the Creation of Souls for every fruitful Coition by Adultery Incest or Buggery is but a Fiction and not a likely or reasonable Contrivance Lib. 2. Cap. 1. Pag. 683. Mans Life consists in Heat and Moisture not simply but in Temperament with Cold and Dry and from the Four Elements The Four Complexions of Phlegm Sanguine Cholerick and Melancholy Health and Sickness Life and Death consist in a good and fit Temperature of these Humors and the Soul uses these as Instruments for Conservation of the Compositum the General Parts are Bones with their Nerves knitting them together and the Flesh with its Veins through which the Blood returns and Arteries through which the Vital or Animal Spirits have their Courses and God hath given to Men a more delicate Flesh and more Nice and tender Skin than to Beast Pag. 685. And the Temperament and Complexion of their Bodies are much finer Pag. 686. There are Three Principal Faculties of the Soul viz. Vegetation Sense and Motion 3. Intellect The Two later viz. Sense and Intellect are chiefly placed and acted in the Head and thence grow the Nerves passing to every Bone and Member Pag. 687. All Anatomists confess That in an Humane Body there are Innumerable Parts and Things which Men cannot find out and which are known only to God Pag. 689. The Common or Internal Sense cannot act without the Animal Spirits and the Soul uses these Spirits both for Understanding and for its other Actions which are to be performed in the Head and the Nerves which serve both for Sense and Motion through the whole Body have their Original from the Brain and are fixed in it or to it There the Soul reigns most effectually and who can express the various Instruments which God hath there provided for her Use Pag. 693. The Heart is the Original and Prime Instrument of Vegetation and Life which it communicates to the whole Body by its Intense Heat Motion and Rarefaction of the Blood and specially it communicates to the Head the Animal Spirits whereby Motion Sense and Cogitation are received and acted Thirdly The Heart is the Seat Fountain and Cause of all the Affections and there are two Principal Motions in it viz. that of the Systole and Diastole or of the Pulse effecting and Declaring Life the other Motion is of the Affections following the Conceptions or Intellect either with extraordinary Dilatation in the whole Body as in Accidents pleasing and joyous or with a like Compression or Contraction in Case of Accidents sorrowful or dspleasing Whence as Motion Sense and Intellect have their Original and Activity from and in the Brain and Head So Life and all the Affections are derived and acted from and in the Heart And betwixt the Heart and Head there is a wonderful Correspondence and Agreement to the Good and Benefit of the whole Compositum From the Heart Vital Spirits ascend to the Brain where they become Animal Spirits and by these Intelligence Cogitations and Notices of Things arise in the Mind from whence again such Cogitations and Notices strike upon the whole Heart exciting and stirring there the Affections and other Vegetative and Natural Motions which are either pleasing or displeasing tending to or towards Joy or Sorrow the one a great Help to and Supporter of Health and Life and the other great Hinderance to or a Destroyer of them both Pag. 694. The Liver is the Fountain of all the Veins and the Arteries through which the Vital Spirits do pass are always and in all Places conjoined with the Veins and upon them depend the Life and Motion of the Animal and the Soul uses the Blood and Spirits to such Purposes The Liver communicates Blood to the Heart and that again Vital Spirits to the Liver Pag. 195. And as Blood is never in the Veins without some Spirits so neither do the Spirits flow through the Arteries without some thin Rivage of Blood with them and as the Veins have need of the Arteries to stir the Blood in them so the Arteries of the Veins for Nourishment of the Spirits Pag. 696. Spirits of the Body are Vital or Animal and the Spirit is a Vapor drawn by Heat and Concoction of the Heart out of the purest Parts of the Blood
help of other Circumstances of Time Place or Persons c. This we leave as doubtful Pag. 740. There are in Animals Three Sorts of Motion 1. Vital 2. Commanding or Stimulating 3. Prosecuting or Endeavouring That Commanding Force is in the Sensitive Appetite from whence all our Affections do arise and they reign and command in Animals Beasts and Men as Animal and act to Motion the whole Body or the several Members of it The Prime Vital Motion is that of the Pulse placed in the Heart the Seat of Life and Vital Motion acted by the Soul Pag. 741. The Actors in this Motion are the Inward Heat and Spirits viz. the Vital Spirits When this Motion ceases all Animals die and the Vital Spirits vanish But says he it doth not therefore follow that the Soul dies If he had proved or shall prove that there is a Soul in Man which did ever live doth live or can live in Separation from the Body we will admit of this Caution of his and not infer Death of such a Soul by the Ceasing of this Vital Motion in the Body Palpitations of the Heart agitated by the Affections and the Faculty of Respiration are also Vital Motions Appetive commanding Motion Pag. 724. is Vegetative Sensitive and Intellective It consists in prosecuting things liked and avoiding things disliked with Passion or at Leisure cites Matth. 15. They all proceed from the Heart and have their Rise from the Affections although many Causes may work in and upon them viz. Complexion of the Body Education Conversation Examples Doctrines c. their general Aspect is upon Pleasure or Pain to follow or avoid the Vigor of their Motion grows from Lust Wrath and Fear or present outward Sense greatly affected the Affections are not ill in themselves but useful helpful necessary for nothing is from God or Nature which is not Good the Evil which they produce is but by Accident Pag. 744. The Prosecutive Power lies in Local Motion This hath its Root in the Brain whence the Nerves and their Power and Motion are derived animated and enlivened by Spirits from the Heart This says he Galen teaches who is in that Point to be preferred before any other Testimony But it seems both he and Hyppocrates his Master were mistaken concerning Man's Compages of Body and Soul if our Author fall out to be right The Powers moving the Nerves and in them are the Vital and Animal Spirits and thence Motion is derived to the Muscles Bones Joints and every Member These Spirits which are partly Corporeal and partly quasi Incorporeal or Spiritual excited by the Soul omitting how or by what Means these Spirits move and guide the Nerves which are like Reins to the whole Body and they quicken and guide the Muscles and the small Cords or Strings which reach to them By these are the Bones Joints and Members of the Body moved And thus the moving Power of the Soul prosecutes the Mandates of the Appetite and Affections this seems a weak or foolish Sort of Soul that will or must use its Motive Powers to satisfie those Affections which drive to Action against the Will and Dictates of the Soul it self Whence we conclude it more likely that all these Motions are Natural and Animal that Intellect or Reason is one Natural Faculty in Man and that it is Chief and hath a Priority of Order and Power in him that Sense and the Affections are another Natural Faculty in Man and that Vital Inclinations and Powers of Vegetation are another Natural Faculty in him not divided by so many Souls but that one Soul serves all these Faculties viz. that Flaming Spirit or Principle of Life Motion and Action first breathed into Man by his Creator and once quite extinguished can never be again rekindled but from Heaven by miracle A Vital Spark or Origine of this Fire likely may be kindled in Heat of Coition lodged in the Matter by Ordinance of Nature and her Director This hath its appointed Natural Times and Means first of Vegetation and Motions then of Sense and Affections and lastly of Intellect and Reason The Matter Shape and Organs of the Body do by Degrees enlarge themselves and grow and they increase the Blood and Humors which nourish continually the Vital Active Flame whence the Increaseof Body and Soul goes on together till they arrive to their Fullness of Stature Proportions and Activities and in Ordinary Course of Nature they grow stand and decay together This Active is the Motive Principle enlivening and quickening all Man's Faculties to act according to their Natural Powers Propensities and Appointments If any Organ or Part of Matter be out of Order this Active Power not being Rational but in the proper Place for that Faculty cannot remedy that Want but can only put on to Action all that is in the Body fit for it inclining and helping them to and in the Actions that are proper or peculiar to them in the Heart the Primum Vivens and most Vital Part of the Body This Flame and Heat is most Predominant and Intense there the Blood is purified and ratified and refined there the Vital Spirits are generated and thence they are dispersed to several Parts of the Body but chiefly to the Head In the Heart therefore we place the Chief Seat of Life and Vegetation for whose Defence each other Part will be ready to expose it self knowing and feeling that the Loss of that Fort destroys the Microcosm The Place of next Value to this but of much greater Activity is the Head for there reside the Senses both Internal and External and there resides also the Rational Faculty viz. the Intellect and the Judgment so as these two Faculties of Sense and Reason are very close and near Borderers upon one another and although our Author go with the Stream of deriving Mens Affections all from the Senses therein seems to be an apparent Mistake for as we do allow to the Intellect a Will as well as to the Senses an Appetite so there must be allowed to Reason a Power of making and gaining the Affections of equal or greater Potency and Might then that which is attributed to the Senses Whence in Contests betwixt Reason and Sense or Will and Appetite that Part which prevails upon the Affections must be Victor over the other for the Affections stirred and gained excite move and sway the Heart which is drawn and bent by them to resolve and execute accordingly and there appears no such Difference between the Prevalency of either of these Faculties as that Men can determine which doth oftnest prevail or which of them is naturally endowed with the most strong and prevalent Power each have a Power in some Persons more than in others and in all Persons more at one Time or upon one Occasion then upon another In no Persons naturally doth the Stream run one Way but as S. Paul says 'T is not of willing or running but God gives the Victory perhaps often But
that Soul as well as it is in the Beasts With it and by it they live move and act With its Extinguishment they die and turn to immediate Corruption and Gradatim to their Original Earth and Dust So was it with Adam and his Soul and Body and from his Time hath so continued without Exception save in Enoch and Elijah by Divine Power or Miracle manifested in reviving Lazarus and some other dead Bodies by re-kindling in them the extinguish'd Flame of Life 2. He doubts not but that Eve's Soul was like Adam's and if his were created so was hers And this we grant as well the one as the other 3. Adam did not speak of her Soul but owned her Body of his therefore he knew not her Soul or what or whence it was Whence 't is not likely her Soul was made out of his but was a Creation from nothing I grant her Soul was not made out of his but made like his The Body Blood and Humours being prepared and fit the Flame of Life was kindled in her by the Divine Power and after her first Breath she lived by Respiration as Adam did so long as that Flame of Life continued unextinguished and she was made and so long she continued a Living Soul or rather a Living Compositum both of Body and Soul 4. If the Soul were generated there would be a subject Matter out of which it grew And then Solomon could not properly say it returned to God that gave it but it should rather return into such Matter as it was raised from He says Austin applied this Saying of Solomon only to Adam's Soul or the Orignal of Souls for that he would not oppose the Generation of Souls But the Author says it must doubtless be understood of all Souls Concerning this I say it appears as clearly that Solomon was not resolved concerning Humane Souls whether they went upward or downward or what became of them upon a Solemn Consideration and Argument Yet he doth after and without Argument summarily say the Spirit returns to God who gave it In both Places our Translators use the Term of Spirit and not of Soul The Breath Spirit and Life which is in Man goes not perceivably to Sense any whither Likely it is the common Opinion of his Time was for a Separate Subsistence of Souls For we read Saul applied himself to the Witch for bringing up of Samuel intending his Separately Subsisting Soul And the Devil favours this Opinion in pretending to be Samuel's disquieted Soul In these few Words of Solomon it may be conceived that unresolved in himself he thus expressed himself in Compliance with the Common Opinion of his Time and Country Also what is intended by Spirit Whether Breath and Life or Soul seems not very clear David says When God takes away Mens Breath they die and are turned again to their Dust Psal 104. But if he let his Breath go forth Men are made and the Face of the Earth renewed This Informing Breath first breathed into Adam leaves the Body at Death returns says Solomon to God who gave it But elsewhere says he knows not what to think of it whether it go upward or be extinguished with the Life as those of the Beasts are 5. and 6. Pag. 766. He cites Isa 57. Zach. 12. Exod. 21. That God makes the Souls And what Austin answers thereunto That it is by God that they come from the Parents He cites Theodoret That the Foetus in the Womb is first an unformed Embrion then becomes formed into the Perfect Shape of a Body and after That it first obtains a Soul Pag. 767. And if so How can the Soul rise out of the Seed or from Generation If says he you will say that in the Seed there is Vis Animae Parentis out of which the Infant 's Soul arises in due Time This he refuses by any means to admit of but why he doth not say because it is against Reason or Nature But because then it would follow that the Soul must be Corruptible and Mortal And to this Conclusion which he maintains with divers Arguments we do easily agree Pag. 771. See the same 7. The Soul of Christ was not from Generation Ergo other Mens are not so I say It seems Christ was born from the Seed of David and was the Seed of the Woman and being by Operation of the Holy Spirit upon her might be made and born in all things like to us except Sin For what he took by Generation from the Holy Spirit could not partake of Sin And it seems Temerity to affirm any thing concerning Christ's Soul which is not revealed as this Point is not for that neither the Manner nor the Matter can be traced or found out by the Powers of Humane Reason or the Dependance of Natural Causes to all which Proceedings this Birth is an absolute Mystery P. 769. He says both these Opinions viz. that of a continual New Creation of Souls and that of Propagating them by Generation have had great and many Abettors and Defenders in the Church For the New Creation of Souls he enumerates Greg. Nyssen Theodoret. S. Jerom Leo I. a Bishop of Rome S. Ambrose Hilary Says Flesh generates the Flesh but the Soul is the Work of God I say this is no absolute Denial of the Souls being generated as Austin hath said by God's Power and Providence For the Souls being generated with the Body held Tertullian Pag. 770. S. Augustin Greg. I. a Bishop of Rome he omits here Apollinaris and most of the Fathers of the Western Church before remembered The Opinions differed upon two Difficulties some would have a New Creation for that Generation concluded Souls to be Mortal others would have Souls generated with the Bodies because whole Man is involved in and put under the Guilt of Original Sin which if his Soul were Newly created by God can have no sound and reasonable Derivation upon it Our Author means to shew how New created Souls may be taken within the Guilt of Original Sin Pag. 772. He begins with Philsophers who have highly extolled the Soul and said it came from God Pag. 773. 1. Says Souls and Angels are of the same Nature Kind and Substance alike subsisting of themselves and as one Angel doth not generate another so it is for Souls they generate not I say this Parallel of Souls and Angels is bold but never granted 2. Says The Soul can understand and will without the Body or its Organs and therefore subsist without it I grant both alike and one as much as the other 3. The Soul is an Immaterial Spirit and cannot be propagated no not from another Soul and if it rise from another Soul it cannot be Immortal All but its Immateriality is granted 4. The Opposers say the Body cannot infect a New created Soul with Original Sin much less says he can it generate such a Soul nor can such a Substantial Immaterial Spirit proceed from Flesh and Blood a Spirit which
the Middle of the Body and calls the Soul a Part of Humane Nature not perfect without its Body and therefore desiring a Re-union all contrary to his former Assertions Pag. 788. Says The Body doth nothing without the Soul Nec ferè Anima sine Corpore Pag. 793. Says The Soul is not Tota in qualibet Parte nor in any Part nor affixed to any Organ no nor Tota in toto and yet the Essence of the Soul is Tota in toto in qualibet Parte as Light is in the Air both Light and Heat appear in different Degrees in divers Places and yet their Influence reaches to the whole Horizon Pag. 794. That which is Indivisible Totum est Ubi est and this holds in the Soul And so God is in the World and every Part of it and as Soul and Body united are yet distinct Soul and Body So Pag. 798. the End of Reason and a Humane Soul is to know and love God but the Intellect is like clean White Paper without any Character upon it and cannot perceive but by the Senses nor work without Bodily Organs and those must have Life or else they could not have Sense and Life must have Nourishment whence there is in the Soul a Nutritive Faculty for Support Augmentation and Procreation then a Sensitive Faculty being a Power of Perceiving External Objects for Benefit and Safety of the Animal next a Power to retain and preserve the Species or Idea's of what was perceived and then a Power of offering them to the Intellect for obtaining a Judgment upon them Pag. 799. The Humane Soul though it work in the Body yet it doth not work by Organs of the Body and therefore its Actions are not common with the Body applying this particularly to the Intellect And That he says is endowed with certain Gifts or Impressions by God at the Creation of the Soul that by Help of them Men may better comprehend all other Things And that there are such common Innate Notions Experience doth manifest Calls these the Sparks and Seeds of Knowledge in Man But this he confesses is rejected by Aristotle which yet he would make some kind of Argument for Souls being created and therefore preferrs the Platonick and Stoical opinion before that of Aristotle and therefore will not admit of the Rule of nothingh being in the Intellect which came not thither throug the Senses to be absolutely true but only that for the most part it is so though he have repeated and granted this Rule without Exception several times before Pag. 800. Says That for all these Impressions made by God upon Souls yet the Intellect is still as a White Paper without Writing or Character upon it and therefore must seek to obtain its Knowledge from without it self and this it seeks from the Senses and from God by his Word and Spirit How the Intellect should be as fair White Paper and yet have Characters imprinted upon it I do not conceive nor divers other Things late before delivered by our Author Our Author seems to have pursued this Argument concerning the Soul through all the known Particulars that may be belonging to it and yet hath not throughly satisfied himself thereupon and therefore he begins again with it Pag. 802. and runs descant upon it all over again unto Pag. 851. repeating and confirming his former Arguments First he quotes Texts of Scripture to Pag. 809. and there quotes the Opinion and Consent of the World to his Opinion Pag. 810. He begins with Sayings of Philosophers Pythagoras and Plato who held Pre-existence of Souls and consequently their Separate Subsistence then Alcmaeon and Anaxagoras who held their Spirituality then the Stoicks Pag. 812. He comes to Aristotle and says that he had no Will to declare his Opinion concerning the Soul but did on purpose speak obscurely about it But yet says he Aristotle did not say it was Material or Mortal And for Proof of this he quotes 14 Places out of Aristotle's Writings which was not needful on our Behalf for that this Assertion was before agreed by us This reaches to Pag. 820. and there cites Turks Tartars Persians he might have said Mahometans agreeing to his Tenet and so other Barbarous Nations Pag. 821. He comes to Reasons first upon Moral Congruity that there must be future Reward and Punishment which he thinks cannot be without a Separately-subsisting Soul and goes on to 12 Arguments reaching to Pag. 827. Pag. 828. Says If the Soul come from Generation it must be Elementary and Material Pag. 829. Brings Arguments from the Souls own Actions and Motions Pag. 830. Adds a 13th Argument to his former 12 and thence to Pag. 834. he makes up his Arguments to 20. And he cites Euseb Hist Lib. 6. Cap. 36. where we do find that in Origin's Time there arose in Arabia Authors of a Pernicious Doctrine who taught that Souls died here with their Bodies and that at the Resurrection they rose again together and a great Synod was summoned upon that Account and Origin sent for unto it and he so discoursed and disputed that he purged their seduced Minds from this foul Error cited by our Author Pag. 804. It seems the Opinion was condemned in that Synod by Origin's Assistance but that also the Thing is not such a Novelty as without his Testimony it might seem to be Pag. 835. Our Author comes to cite and confute Arguments made against his Tenet 1. We see nothing part at Death of a Body but a vanishing Breath nor can perceive and hardly conceive what a Soul is or should be without a Body Hence he says Men must doubt of God and Spirits Pag. 837. Arg. 4. The Soul cannot operate without the Body and therefore doth not so subsist He says The Soul Both Vnderstand and Will without the Body Pag. 838. and the Intellective Memory remains in a Separated Soul and so Love Joy and their like in an Intellectual Manner Pag. 839. Arg. 5. In great Weakness of the Body the Souls Operations are alto feeble The Sum of his Answer to this is a Denial of the Thing and whether true or not is left to Judgment and Experience Pag. 840. The Soul parts unwillingly from the Body this argues she doth not apprehend the going to a more perfect State but rather to Corruption or Extinguishment and Christ would have avoided this Cup and yet he knew that was his Way to a Resurection and future Happiness To this he makes a long Answer not to be summed in few Words Pag. 841. Arg. 7. The Soul is troubled with divers Afflictions but Spirits or Immaterial Substances are not subject to Mortal Perturbations therefore the Soul is not such a Spirit He answers The Bodies Contrariety to the Soul is the Soul 's great Affliction and if Angels were so knit to Bodies they would be as much troubled and in Man this Perturbation is one Effect of Sin Pag. 843. He compares Dying to the Child's Leaving the Womb which he fancies the Child
And it seems this Crying by the Souls was in the same manner as the Blood of Abel's Cying from the Ground against his Murtherer and as all Notable Actions good or bad do depend for Recompence upon the Effects of God's Divine Providence Justice and Power and so we leave it Luke 23.43 Christ says to one of the Crucified Thieves Verily I say unto thee to day shalt thorn be with we in Paradise This could not be performed in their Bodies for that our Lord's lay in the Grave till the Third Day therefore it must be fulfilled in their Souls separated from their Bodies To this Objection the Answer may have Two Parts First We quote Matth. 27.24 The Thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his Teeth And Mark 15.32 They that were crucified with him reviled him Both these Evangelists agree that they both the Thieves that were crucified with him reviled him S. Luke is commonly taken for the Pen-man of S. Paul by whom this Gospel is believed to have been dictated But neither of these are taken to have been Eye-Witnesses or that they were by and present at this Fact S. Mark is taken to write from the Mouth of S. Peter although it might possibly be from the Apostle S. Barnabas either of which Apostles were likely to be Eye-Witnesses of the Fact then done And S. Matthew was himself both Apostle and Evangelist and likely an Eye-Witness of the Fact and there is an Old Rule That one Eye-Witness is better than two Ear-Witnesses of any Fact We conclude then that here are Two Witnesses against One and that One but an Ear-Witness of that Fact And therefore there is a Ground to question the very Truth of S. Luke's Relation seeing he wrote but by Relation and what he says stands not of it self and can with great Difficulty be made to stand in Agreement with what the other two Evangelists have delivered Secondly We say to the Words To day thou shalt be with me they may be expounded from other like Expressions Heb. 3.7 cites Psalm 95.7 To day if ye will hear his Voice Ver. 13. Exhort one another daily whilst it is called to day Here it seems the Word Day is not limited to an Artificial or a Natural Day but signifies a present but yet a competent Time Luke 19.42 Christ wept over Jerusalem saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day viz. hadst known that Time of my present Call unto thee here exprest by the Word Day So The Son of Man must be Three Days and Three Nights in the Heart of the Earth And yet we know Christ lay in the Grave but Two Nights viz. Friday and Saturday Nights and for Days only one whole one viz. Saturday for he was buried on Friday at Even and rose very early upon Sunday Morning Whence it seems the Words To day shalt thou be with me need not be limited to a precise Day Artificial or Natural but may be reasonably intended to signifie within some short Time after that Promise And that we may the better account for the same there shall be cited Jo. 20.17 Our Lord lately risen says to Mary Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father And the same Day at Evening Ver. 19. came Jesus and stood in the midst among his Discipler And Luke 24.39 he says Handle me and by Feeling perceive and see that I have Flesh and Bones which a Spirit hath not Hence may be collected that betwixt his appearing to Mary that Morning and to his Disciples in the Evening he had ascended to his Father and returned Matth. 27.52 When Christ died The Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of the Graves after our Lord's Resurrection and went into the holy City and appeared unto many Amongst these we have reason to suppose was the Body of this Thief as well as his Soul the Flame of Life re-kindled in him as well as in those other Saints and of our Lord himself and that he the Thief and the other Saints then rising did make this Ascent with our Lord upon Sunday next after the Friday Night of his Suffering And this I conceive was enough to satisfie our Lord's Expression of To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise in so short a Time as it may be counted present or to day And this Resurrection might occasion some to think as 2 Tim. 2.18 that the Resurrection was past already and was not in Future to be expected Luk. 23.46 Jesus cried with a loud Voice and said Father into thy Hands I commend my Spirit and having said thus he gave up the Ghost And to this we join Acts 7.59 They stoned Stephen calling and saying Lord Jesus receive my Spirit This Objection from recommending the Spirit of a Dying Person to God and Christ Men say imports a Spiritual Being or a Soul in Man which is capable of a Subsistence and hath such a Subsistence in a State separated from the Body The Objection is of the same Nature with that from Solomon The Spirit returns to God that gave it and requires some Repetition of what was thereunto answered And for findding out the Sence and Intent of the Word Spirit Places of Scripture shall be quoted 1 Sam. 30.12 When the starved Egyptian had eaten some Figs and Raisins his Spirit came again to him seems his Spirit of Life his Vital Spirits Ezra 1.5 They stood up whose Spirit God had raised to go and build the Temple seems to intend their Inclination and Affection Job 20.3 The Spirit of my Vnderstanding causeth me to answer seems the Eagerness of his Desire Chap. 21.4 Why should not my Spirit be troubled viz. why should not I be troubled Psalm 51.17 The Sacrifice of God it a broken Spirit there is paraphrased by a contrite Heart 143.4 My Spirit is vexed within me and my Heart within me is desolate Prov. 18.14 The Spirit of a Man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded Spirit who can bear viz. a good or bad Conscience Chap. 25.28 He that hath no Rule over his own Spirit it like a City broken down and without Walls Here Spirit must signifie Affections Eccles 8.8 No Man hath Power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit seems Men's Passions Prov. 20.27 The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord searching the inward Parts of the Belly viz. Man's Reason and Knowledge is the Candle Psalm 31.6 Thou art my strength into thy hand I commend my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me God had saved him in his Troubles and therefore he again commends himself to God under the Term of his Spirit Dan. 5.12 An excellent Spirit Knowledge and Vnderdeastanding was found in Daniel The latter Words expound Spirit Acts 17.16 Paul's Spirit was stirred in him at Athens he was moved and provoked Chap. 18.25 Apollos was fervent in Spirit or was Zealous 1 Cor. 5.5 Deliver the Man to Satan that the Spirit
may be saved in the Day of the Lord viz. that at the Resurrection the Whole may be saved Spirit put for the Whole Man Chap. 7.34 The unmarried Woman is holy in Body and Spirit viz. Soul and Body together holy in the whole Compositum Ezek. 11.19 I will give them one Heart and put a new Spirit and a Heart of Flesh within you Chap. 13.3 Wo to the Prophets that follow their own Spirit and have seen nothing Ver. 17. They prophecy out of their own Heart And thus we see Spirit put for the Person the Heart the Affections the Passions for Mind Understanding Knowledge Reason Conscience viz. for Man and every of his Sublime and Spiritual Parts or Faculties but most properly and especially for his Breath As Job 12.10 In the Hand of God is the Soul of every living thing and the Breath of all Mankind Ch. 34.14 If God set his Heart upon Man if he gather unto himself his Spirit and his Breath all Flesh shall perish together and Man shall turn again to his Dust Psal 104.29 When thou takest away their Breath they die and are turned again to their Dust when thou lettest thy Breath go forth they shall be made and thou shalt renew the Face of the Earth Gen. 2.7 By God's breathing into Mans Nostrils the Breath of Life Man became a Living Soul Rom. 14.7 None of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself but we live to the Lord and die to the Lord whether therefore we live or die we are the Lords Hence it need not seem strange that a Dying Man should recommend his Person to the Lord by the Term of his Spirit for the Body as well as the Soul is under the Knowledge and Provision of Providence When good Men lie down to sleep they customarily recommend themselves to God and going to sleep in Death makes such a Recommendation both the more earnest and the more solemn and cannot reasonably be intended of the Spirit only but of the whole Compositum by that Term and God will raise them both up again at the Last Day both Soul and Body John 6.44 The Man that comes to me I will raise him up at the last Day the whole Man both Soul and Body Psal 31.6 Into thine Hands I commend my Spirit thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of Truth David spake this when he was in a way of Living and had both a Body and a Soul and apparently sought God's Protection for them both viz. for his Person under this Term of Spirit Jo. 11.25 He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live viz. the Compositum of Soul and Body Our Lord knew he should have a speedy Resurrection and foretold it to be within Three Days Time both of Soul and Body And it seems that by this Term of Spirit he recommended them both to the Protection of his Father and that S. Stephen did the like to our Lord Whence here appears no Necessity of Inferring a Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul from these Texts which plainly did not intend to teach the Doctrine and it seeems may be very well satisfied by another very different Construction of them Joh. 6.40 It is God's Will that he who believeth should have everlasting Life and I will raise him up at the last Day Soul and Body without mention of an intermediate Estate And we do not accept our two quoted Texts as a sufficient Proof of that Point Acts 2.27 Thou shalt not leave my Soul in Hell or Death is construed to comprehend the Body also and both were raised accordingly Rom. 2.9 Tribulation and Anguish upon every Soul of Man that doth Evil this comprehends the Body also So Chap. 13.1 Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers Whence we conclude that by recommending the Dying Spirits intended the Dying Bodies also and was intended of the Whole Man or the Person then departing out of this World 2 Cor. 5.1 If our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a Building of God a House not made with Hands eternal in the Heavens And desires to be clothed upon with that House Groans to be clothed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life yet would not be unclothed whilst we are at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord walking by Faith not by Sight we desire to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord for we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether good or bad We read Rev. 22.12 I come quickly and my Reward is with me to give every Man according as his work shall be Ver. 20. Surely I come quickly Amen even so come Lord Jesus Heb. 10.37 Yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry Ver. 35. 36. We must wait with Patience and Confidence till the Time promised do come James 5.8 Be ye also patient stablish your Hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh 1 Pet. 1.5 Who are kept by the Power of God through Faith unto Salvation ready to be revealed in the last Time as if the last Time was near Chap. 4.5 Men shall give an Account to him that is ready to judge the Quick and the Dead viz. in a short Time coming 2 Pet. 3.12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the Day of God to Judgment 1 Joh. 2.28 Abide in Christ that when he shall appear ye may have Confidence and not be ashamed at his coming as if he were expected to come in their Time So 1 Tim. 6.14 Keep this Commandment without spot until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ as if Timothy might live to that Time And elsewhere The coming of our Lord draweth nigh 1 Joh. 2.18 Little Children it is the last Time And The Time is short he that is holy let him be holy Rev. 22.11 And he which is filthy let him be filthy still as if Christ's coming to Judgment were even then at hand 2 Pet. 3.9 Men then said that Day was slack in its coming and Ver. 4. that the Promise of his coming was over-long delay'd From all these Evidences it appears that the Church at that Time did believe the coming of our Lord to Judgment to be nigh at hand and that when he should appear we should be like him and that then as Philip. 3.21 Our vile Bodies should be changed and fashioned like his Glorious Body 1 Cor. 15.51 We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed And to this Change it seems S. Paul's Words in our Proving Text are to be applied He would not be unclothed but clothed upon with the House which is from Heaven that so he might not be found naked but that Mortality might be swallowed up in Life Whilst we are at home in the Body viz. our Natural Body we are absent from the Lord
be better known it seems it can have but little Force of Proof in this Argument Joh. 12 26. If any Man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be Chap. 14.3 If I go and prepare a Place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also This later Text expounds the former viz. Christ's Servants shall be where he is intending after he hath first prepared a Place for them and then comes again to receive them These particular Texts of Scripture are all that we meet with that are quoted by others or are observed by us and tending materially to Proof of the Separate State or Subsistence of Humane Souls after this Life ended And yet there remains one Perswasive which inclines common Readers as much or more than any other Argument to believe that there is a Separate State of Souls Subsisting after they are parted from the Bodies a Perswasive rising from Induction of many Scriptural Expressions concerning the Soul and the Body as different and even opposite Things and Principles Rom. 7. describes the Contest betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit as if they were naturally different Principles in Man whereas they are but different Faculties in Man viz. the Affections Passions and Appetites Vital combating the Faculties Intellectual the Knowledge and Reason of the same Party with various Success But these being exprest by the Terms of Flesh and Spirit of the Man seem to represent them as two Principles different and contrary one to the other Such Faculties we agree they are different and contrary but such Principles we say they are not but all proceed from the same Principles the Constituent Parts of Man viz. his Soul and his Body The Natural Powers of such a Compositum all these Faculties equally are and seem the one of them independent upon the other and seldom free from a Contest amongst them in which the Judgment or highest Prudence of the Party bears the Sway and hath the Determinative Power naturally residing in it So as what is here signified by the Terms of Flesh and Spirit are so far from a Possibility of a real Separation one Sort from the other as neither of them can subsist but in eodem subjecto with the other and the Compositum which hath not all of them is Imperfect Chap. 8.1 They who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit This taken for a Humane Spirit or Soul must intend the Reason or Intellect And the Chapter goes in Terms of Flesh and Spirit inducing Readers to accept them as different Principles and thence Separable Whereas we are ready to put the Stress of our Argument upon their being Joint-Principles of one Compositum Man which cannot consist without both And it seems as he Man cannot subsist without them so they not without one another And so in a Compositum they are generated grow stand and fall together one and all the Soul the Body and the Compositum and so they shall rise and be recompenced together And what God hath so joined together in Bands of Nature and absolute Coherence one of them to another the Power of Mens Wits and Perswasions will never be able finally to separate or to evince their Subsistence in a State of Separation one of them from the other Matth. 26.41 Our Lord says to his sleeping Disciples The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak intending the Body is often unable to act according to the Reason and Desire of the Mind Judgment and Intent of the Man and that Infirmity of Weakness and Weariness is peculiar to the Flesh thereby made unable to act with that Vigour and Continuance which the Soul acting in the Phantasy and Reason of the Man requires and shews such Connexion of the Matter and Form as in the Man one of them cannot act without the other Rom. 8.10 The Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is Life because of Righteousness 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves from all Filthiness both of Flesh and Spirit Galat. 3.3 Having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect in the Flesh Ch. 5.16 Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the Lust of the Flesh Ver. 19. Works of the Flesh Ver. 22. Fruits of the Spirit Coloss 2.11 Putting off the Body of the Sins of the Flesh 1 Cor. 7.34 The unmarried Woman cares that she may be holy both in Body and in Spirit Eph. 4.4 There is one Body and one Spirit 1 Thess 5.23 I pray your whole Spirit and Soul and Body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord. James 4.5 The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy 1 Pet. 2.11 Beloved I beseech you abstain from fleshly Lusts which war against the Soul Ch. 3.18 Christ was put to death in the Flesh but quickned by the Spirit Ch. 4.1 He that suffers in the Flesh hath ceased from Sin and must live the rest of his time in the Flesh not to the Lusts of Men but to the Will of God 2 Pet. 2.10 Wicked Men walk after the Flesh in Sins here named Rom. 13.14 Make no Provision for the Flesh to fulfil the Lusts thereof 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a Price therefore glorifie God in your Body and in your Spirit which are God's These Texts and their like have a Sound or Semblance of Supposing a Separating Difference betwixt the Soul and the Body whereas their true Signification seems to be a Distinction between the Powers or Faculties of the Compositum viz. those Vital or the Vegetative and Sensual from those Intellectual and Rational viz. Man's Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear and their Descendents from his Knowledge of Common Sense his Phantasy Opinion Reason and Prudence The first Sort of these Faculties and their Inclinations and Desires are signified and intended under the Name and Term of Flesh in S. John's Epistle called the World And the second Sort of these Humane Faculties are signified and intended under the Name and Term of the Spirit or the Soul But both Sorts are Fundamentally and even Inseparately united in the Nature of Man or that which is the Compositum both of Soul and Body Both Sorts are derived from the Conjunction of these two Principles or Constituent Parts of the Man it seems not singly but each from the Whole or the Compositum Not the first Sort from the Flesh and the second Sort from the Spirit or Soul really for the Flesh by it self cannot live or act And that a Soul by it self either ever did or that it can act was questioned by Aristotle and not found or believed by him It hath been affirmed by some of our Authors quoted but their Proofs offered are so weak as they appear very unlikely to perswade Considering People who can put off their former Prejudices Nor have they prevailed yet to induce a Belief that the Soul cannot act those Faculties of the Second
therefore might judge all things But we cannot allow the present Pretenders amongst us to apply this to themselves or to any of theirs Ver. 16. Says We have known the Mind of Christ viz. by Revelation of the Spirit not only by the Letter Nay from the Spirit in them by whom the Letter of what we call Gods Word was dedicated and framed Eph. 3.3 Ye have heard of the Grace of God given me and that by Revelation God made known unto me the Mystery viz. that Mystery intended in our present Chapter Col. 1.26 Even the Mystery which hath been hid from all Ages and Generations But was then made manifest to the Saints of that Time Eph. 1.17 I pray that God will give you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation the Eyes of your Vnderstanding being enlightened that ye may know the Hope of his Calling and the Riches of his Glory Galat. 1.16 It pleased God to call me by his Grace and to reveal his Son in me that I might preach him Ver. 12. I neither received the Doctrine of the Gospel from Man nor was I taught it but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ Nor did he then consult with other Apostles or his own Flesh and Blood about it but went into Arabia far from other Teachers Acts 8.26 The Angel of the Lord spake to Philip saying arise and go towards the South with other Directions Ver. 29. The Spirit said to Philip go near and join thy self to this Chariot Ver. 39. When they were come up out of the Water the Spirit of God caught away Philip and the Eunuch saw him no more Act. 10.19 While Peter thought on the Vision the Spirit said to him behold three Men seek thee arise and go with them for I have sent them So Chap. 11.12 The Spirit bad me go with them nothing doubting Act. 13 2. As at Antioch they ministred to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the Work whereunto I have appointed them Acts 16.6 Paul was forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia Ver. 7. And they essayed to go into Bithynia but the Spirit suffered them not These Texts have been quoted to evince and declare the Manner and Efficacy of God's Communicating his Spirit in those Times Of which sort our present Pretenders to Endowments of the Spirit have not a Face to challenge any thing We return now to Examination of our quoted Text and Chapter and say That the Wisdom of which St. Paul here speaks is the Wisdom of God in a Mystery ordained before the World unto our Glory called Eph. 1. The Mystery which had been hid from Ages and Generations but was made manifest to the Saints of that Time Mentioned Matth. 16.17 Peter says to his Master thou art Christ the Son of the living God And Jesus answered Flesh and Blood hath not revealed this unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven The Redemption of the World by Christ and that Jesus preached to the People was Christ was the Mystery of St. Paul intended in this Text. The Princes of this World had no Knowledge of this Mystery for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory This was not a Thing that could enter into the Senses or the Heart of Man to conceive But God had then revealed it by his Spirit to the Holy Apostles and Disciples of that Time who had received the Spirit of God that they might know this Mystery as a Thing freely given to them of God of which they spake in Words taught by the Spirit But the Natural Man or the Reason of Man could not find out or were not capable of receiving this Mystery by any Helps of Nature or Reason for this Mystery would be Foolishness to a Natural Man and could not be known by Natural Means or Grounds of Reason but must be Spiritually discerned by Revelation of God's Spirit For the Things of God knoweth no Man but the Spirit of God As our Lord to Peter Flesh and Blood hath not revealed this to thee but my Father hath done it A Thing which no other Means had Power to do Not Man's Nature or his Reason Nothing could discover this to Man but the Revelation of Gods Spirit Every Parcel of this Mystery is above the Natural Man's Capacity and Comprehension What Eye had ever seen or Ear heard or what Heart had ever conceived That a Woman should bear a Child without the Assistance of a Man The Virgin demands How can this Thing be seeing I know not a Man The Natural Man could not receive this small or least Part of the Mystery of Man's Redemption but it would appear Foolishness to him Not to speak of the Trinity and Second Person in it united to the Nature of Man and chusing to appear in the Form of a Servant to undergo Contempt Want Pain and Death and rise again by his own Power and that his so doing should be Expiatory for the Sins of Men and be so accepted in the Sight of God the Natural Man receives not cannot naturally receive the Things of this Mystery for they are Foolishness to him nor can his Reason know or conceive them because they are and must be Spiritually discerned viz. must come to be first known by the Revelation of God's Spirit only Our Apostle's Text thus applied is not only firm and true but also plain and clear intelligible and rational which Men take upon them to confound by taking a dictum secundum quid for a dictum simpliciter and applying what the Apostle speaks concerning this great Mystery and concerning the first and eminent Revelations of it to all Occasions Persons and Times without observing the Measures of Difference which ought to be made between them concerning which we say That although at the first Times of making this great Mystery known to the World there was no Way of Producing that Effect save the only Revelation of God by his Spirit and the same was performed accordingly Yet in a short Process of Time it came to pass that this Mystery was Taught Accepted and Believed by Natural Men upon Reasonable Grounds and without being counted Foolishness amongst them viz. when God by his Spirit had revealed this Mystery to Peter Paul and the rest of the rest of the Disciples of our Lord and other Christians Then they preached the same to other Men and declared this Mystery to them Mark 16.23 They went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with Signs following Their Auditors Natural Men had Reason to consider the Teachers the Doctrine and the Signs following The Teachers were Men Sober and Pious not seeking Worldly Interests ready to suffer for Justifying the Truth of their Doctrines and without Exceptions in the Course of their Lives The Doctrine was Sublime said to be revealed by God the Facts delivered of our Lord's Birth Life Death Resurrection Ascension and Descent of the
in us to will and to do by those Ordinary Operations before described improving our Reason to a right Apprehension and Understanding of them and our Discretion to a right Choice and Practice St. Paul tells his Corinthians I speak as unto wise Men judge ye what I say He doth not refuse the Judgment arising from the Reason or Wise Men. Let Men now tell a Quaker what the Words of Scripture are and what Consequence from thence must reasonably and necessarily follow his Answer is ready He cares not what either of them says for he hath a Light within him the very Holy Spirit of God which tells him and witnesseth with his Spirit That all which he believes and professes is true and the only salutary Way for his Soul and so for all other Mens if God will please to communicate to them the like Perceptible Illuminations and Special Impulses of his Holy Spirit which the World doth not cannot receive nor can the Natural Man do it but such Things are to him direct Foolishness and he cannot know them because they are Spiritually discerned and cannot be so by Reason or any Humane Power or Means whatsoever Now whil'st this Man is thus certainly perswaded in his own Mind and that he who is Spiritual viz. endowed with such Light within him judgeth all things and yet himself is judged of no Man nor will submit himself to be so He seems to be past all Conviction or Cure by reasonable Remedies or Applications having thus passed beyond the Bounds of Humane Reason and Scripture he is become excentrick to all Humane Perswasion and Government and as incurable Phreneticks must be born withal so far as their Phantasies are only detrimental to themselves And it we may place all other Dependers upon Perceptible Extraordinary Motions of God's Spirit in a Form or Classis next below them differing in the Degrees of a like Infirmity all holding the same Original Ground and growing from the same Root and defending themselves in the same Fortresses and by like Weapons only the first Sort have passed to a farther Degree in the Distemper than the rest have hitherto done We must leave them upon this Account to the great Power of God who only can and in his Time may and perhaps will give them Convictions in a miraculous and powerful Manner and really such as they do now but pretend unto The Distemper it seems hath grown from the ill Digestion of some of St. Paul's Expressions wrested by Men both unlearned and unstable as other Scriptures may be to the Perverting if not the Destruction of themselves and their Proselites and to the great Disturbance of the Protestant Churches Pag. 278. Says God's Cures by his Spirit are wrought with great Pangs of Repentance I say That upon every notorious Sin committed these are rational and necessary Consequences as well at last as at first and no more to be enquired after in Youth than in Age nor in one Part of a Man's Life than in another But such Carriage ought to be both expected and performed whensoever there is a just and reasonable Cause for the so doing Pag. 280. Says God is all in all things It may pass for a Cloudy Expression And we agree That God and Christ are what Christians acknowledge and adore Also that we are generally under the ordinary Guidance of God's Spirit and are thereby led into all Truth directed therein by the Scriptures confirmed by Sacraments instructed and excited by sound Teaching and the Acts of God's Providence amongst us for us towards us the Convictions of Humane Reason and our sound Senses and the like usual and common Manuductions for establishing of our Faith and perfecting the Practice and due Performances of a holy Life That God can do this by eminent and perceptible Emotions of his Spirit in a Supernatural and Miraculous Manner is granted and certain And this was common in the Church during all the Time of St. Paul's Life But that God doth still continue those Supernatural Actings in his Church ordinarily and at this Day hath been and will be continually denied and that none can be saved who do not feelingly perceive in themselves such Impulsions or Emotions of God's Spirit working in them to such Purposes we not only deny but do condemn and explode as a great Instrument of Deceipt and a most pernicious Error Pag. 291. Says The Christian Church needs no Testimony of Miracles of new Upon this I demand What these Eminent and Perceptible Emotions of the Spirit are to be counted Natural they are not as their Defenders assert and we agree therefore they are Preternatural or Supernatural and they pass for Acts of the later Sort whensoever they do happen And our Opposers maintain they are very frequent and ought not only to be Common but Universal amongst Christians amongst whom every one should have a Taste and Feeling of them and consequently a daily Exhibition of New Miracles Pag. 308. Says Many of his Friends Holy Persons are gone to Heaven and that is spangled with these Spiritual Stars the Place is honoured with them and they with it We think our dead Friends are almost lost to us till the Heavenly Spirit tell us where they are and prepare us to desire our being there Observe from hence we may what our Author means by his Term of Heavenly Spirit viz. his own and his Followers eager and hot Phantasy or Conceipt For if he had obtained any Perceptible Spiritual Revelation concerning his dead Friends or any one of them we do very much assure our selves he would have made us acquainted with it For his Expression That Heaven is honoured with the Presence of the holy Persons his dead Friends it tastes of an arrogant Conceipt not warranted by Scripture or Reason but sutable to his Spiritual Vehemencies and Impulses Pag. 348. Says It is the Will of God that the Ministry and Testimony of Man shall be a Means of our Believing and he will use Man for the Instruction and Salvation of Man and not send Angels with every Message To this we agree and say the Perceptible Actings of God's Spirit may be as rare as the Ministry of Angels in our Times Page 353. Says Grace is not a Brutish Principle but works by Reason having also its natural inclining Force We account this Expression as one of our own extracted from him by inadverted Power of Truth Pag. 359. All true Believers are justified that consent to the Baptismal Covenant chusing God for their God Christ for their Saviour and the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier though this be done with so great Weakness as neither ends Mens Doubts nor quiets their Minds It seems the Perceptible Actings of the Spirit are wanting in such Cases and he seems either to have forgot or to distrust the Necessity of that Assistance Pag. 368. Says The Soul hath no distinct Idea of its Future State out of the Body and we see not whither it is that we must go
of this Soul the Existence of it debends upon the act like a common flame of Fire or the flash of it as soon as it ceases illico non est and cannot be numerically the same again without miracle and this Materiae vitalis incendium hath so many Evidences that whoso shall well consider them will be very apt to believe Sanguinem revera efflagrare vitamque non tam flammae similem quam ipsammet eandem esse P. 30. He ranks this Sensitive Soul of Man in the same Classis with the Souls of the Quadrupedes quoniam in utrisque praecordiorum necnon cerebri ejusque appendicis nervosi eadem est conformatio P. 40. He doth not take care to answer those who assert that Sensitive Creatures have not power to use their Senses and Powers of Perception without the assistance and government of an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit For the Contexture of the Body and wonderful aptitude of its Organs may serve to confute this Opinion P. 42. in Mechanicis Fire Air and Light are the Principal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which Humane Industry can effect Things that are Wonderful Useful and Necessary and likely it is that the Wise Creator did form and frame the Souls of Living Creatures out of those Principles or Materials adding to them an Eminent Vertue or Efficacy and fitting for them the most proper and apt Organs exquisitely framed and put together as he proceeds to shew Concluding that they are Subjects of Wonder and Admiration rather than of a Rational Disquisition yet proceeds to a Rational Account of them in Pages 46 and 47. and concludes that the Sensitive Soul of Man both in the Head and Systemate Nervoso as to all its Powers and the Exercise of them is meerly Organical proindeque extensam quodammodo corpoream esse P. 52. But this Artifice cannot be a Work of Chance but of a Divine Architect P. 59. As to the Objection That Matter is not only Insensible but Iners and meerly Passive Incapable of Sense or Animal Activity He answers That between Corpus sensibile insensibile there is not much more difference than betwixt accensum inaccensum and of inaccensum we can soon make accensum and why not then Sensibile be made ex insensibili Materia quaelibet uti non comburitur ita non animator but if an Active Element be communicated and disposed amongst fit Matter there usually proceeds from that Mixture a Wonderful Activity the inkindled Parts Rapidissime commotae quasi animatae exiliunt lumen cum calore luce producunt P. 60. He cannot find in the Soul or the Body any distinct Material Part or Subject to which the Rational Power or Faculties may be justly attributed but when he considers the Corpus animatum together as a Divine Fabrick built and intended for proper and special Uses he will say confidently That God by the Intent and Law of his Creation hath so ordained that in the composition of Soul and Body there should be such a confluence of Faculties and result of them as should be needful for every Animal and the proper ends and uses of it and that in them Materiam superavit Opus P. 61. Consider an Organ made out of stupid and hard Matter of it self utterly unactive yet let it be inspired by a convenient breath and a acted by a directing hand it can vary sounds and agree them to a Miracle in all ordinary computation of such as are not acquainted with the nature and composure of them Philip Melanchton de Anima P. 5. The Vital Spirits of Man are bred in the Heart vere sunt Flammae and from thence rise Mens Affections cum omnibus Voluntatis motibus P. 7. It is agreed that the souls of Brutes are Material Spirits or a Temperament such an Anima as is in Sanguine and therefore amongst the Hebrews Anima significat Vitam for that Sanguis est Vehiculum Vitae Spiritus Vitales illam rem esse quae ciet Corpora quam nominamus Animam P. 8. As in a Torch Flamma rapit Alimentum so the Vital Spirit of Animals which is tenuissima Flamma genita ex Sanguine Virtute Cordis volitans per totam Corporis Machinam largiens Corpori vivificum calorem P. 12. The Philosophers and Divines do agree That the Vegetative and Sensitive Souls are Material or Temperamenta propagatus ex Natura Corporea from the Seed and as in the Beasts sic Anima Vegetativa Sensitiva in Homine dici potest Homo enim non generat imperfectius quam plantae aut Boves gignit ergo Homo hominem saltem secundum Vitam sentientem si non secundum Animam Rationalem and the two former must be confess'd to be ex traduce P. 14. If it be demanded concerning the how and the why of the Animal Actions he answers Cernimus Motus quod cur quomodo ita hoc factum sit Sapientiae est Artificis non nostrae P. 112. Cerebrum est Officina Cogitationum Judicii Ratiocinationis Memoriae Men cannot find out its manner of working nor what the very true Substance of it is P. 116. In hac caligine non perspicimus quomodo haec Miranda Opera Cognitio Ratiocinatio Memoria Recordatio Judicium fiant sed fieri ea Cerebri Ope certissimum est P. 203. Brutes have Apprehension and Memory potentiam ad Cogitationem factam P. 205. The Actings of Common Sense and Reason and Memory are known to us viz. That such Acts there are quomodo fiant non cernimus in hac caligine P. 286. The Degrees of Acting in the Mind of Man and the Manner of them describi non satis possunt non enim cernuntur oculis sed similitudine quadam existimantur P. 297. He descants upon Immortality and derives the Certainty of it from the Resurrection and says That the Old Patriarchs rose with our Saviour Sandii Tractatus de Origine Animae P. 1. The Opinion related by Eusebius Hist lib. 6. cap. 34. was That the Soul did rise and grow ex traduce and that it extinguisht with the Life of the Creature and that before the Last Judgment the Whole Man should rise again He cites Augustin de Anima cap. 48. saying That Cyril and the Luciferians maxima pars Occidentalium did think so Teste Hieronymo Tom. 2. Epist 82. Greg. Nyssen lib. de Anima This Opinion was condemned in a Council of that time wherein Origen bare a great sway This Opinion viz. of the Generation of Souls Per Populos Barbaros Arrii Religionem sectantes videtur explosa Creatione animae introducta This Author is an Origenist a Maintainer of Prae-existence and therefore opposes both the Generation and new Creation of Souls These Quotations have been made to shew the Agreement of other Men with what is said in the Search after Souls And that Willis and Melanchton are contented to confess their ignorance of the particular Workings of God in Man and
do not make use of their ignorance for the extracting from thence an Unintelligible Extraneous Spirit for the Government of a Humane Body Memory or Understanding The case of the Watch shews the thing moved and made a noise and the Indians did not and could not discover the cause thereof and therefore they concluded it was moved by a Spirit which contains the very Ground of your Argument viz. We understand not how a Material Agent can perform such a sort of acting Therefore there must be an Intelligent Spirit in the case or else such things could not be done yet if you will but make this Grant That a Man doth generate a Man as truly and perfectly as one Horse generates another it will prove like Archimedes his Postulatum of a Ground whereupon to fix his Instrument for thence will apparently follow all that in my Treatise hath been asserted For what is begotten and born of Flesh is Flesh and I would not advise you to venture upon the task of proving any other way of proceeding or framing of Humane Souls 7. Paragraph You pretend to prove an Intelligent Spirit in Man from the Power and Effects of Conscience in him You say no Beasts have it and yet it is very potent and prevalent in Man And I agree that Man hath a Conscience and that it hath a great Power in him and over him But I do not grant the Beasts are without it in a degree sutable to their Capacities and Understandings You say That Conscience in Man is natural to him or slows from his pure Natural Faculties unassisted by Education or Rules But this I deny and assert that Conscience in Man is not derived barely from Nature in such manner as his Vital Powers viz. Digestion Nutrition and Generation are nor as his Passionate Powers viz. his Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear are nor as his Sensitive Powers or the use of this Senses are nor as his Rational Powers viz. his Understanding Phancy Memory Judgment are For all these Faculties are so natural to every Man that he can and doth act them and by them without either Rule Tutor or Example But Speech is not so natural nor is Conscience so natural but they must both be Learned and Directed by Rules Doctrine or Examples and then they may be varied and changed according as things shall fall out or it shall come into the Phancies of Men But without some sort of Education Rule Direction or Opinion there is no more Conscience in Man than in Beasts For take a Salvage Person bred up amongst Beasts he will not know that Killing in a Sin nor spare a Man in his Hunger or his Wrath any more than a Beast And for Adultery he is not capable of knowing it because he knows not what Marriage is And for Incest it is naturally so much unknown as that the first People practised it with Sisters lawfully and it seems Abraham thought it no Crime nor the Princes to whom he avowed it for that it pass'd without Punishment or Reproof from them And for Theft and Robbery it pass'd for a Glory amongst Barbarous People and so it doth amongst Conquerours at this day and it is counted a sufficient Crime for the Vaniquished to defend his Goods or Women from the Conquerour and he will yet be kill'd for so doing without any remorse or sense of Conscience in the Conquerour Nor is the Fact against Nature however Rules may perhaps determine otherwise I say then that Conscience is not an absolutely Natural Faculty in Man but rather is Faculty Complicated of Nature and other Adjuncts and Ingredients the Natural Powers that act in it are the Understanding the Memory and the Judgement and the Effects of it viz. Joy and Grief are also Natural but to compleat the Faculty of Conscience in Man there must be also some Rule for Direction of the Judgment whose proper Office is to compare the Fact and the Rule together and if they be found to agree the Effect is Joyous and Pleasing if they differ the Effect is Sorrow and Fear and the widelier they differ the stronger Effects are produced But say you these Effects are sometimes so potent and violent as they could not be if they did not proceed from an Intelligent Spirit Concerning which I will again quote to you Melanct. dicto lib. pag. 148. There he says Let our Students learn to admire the Wonderful Works of God in Man our Principal Powers and Faculties Vital Sensitive Affectionate Cogitative efficiuntur Spiritu Vitali Animali ideo aliqui dixerunt Animam esse hos Spiritus seu Flammulas Vitales Animales sua Luce superant Solis omnium Stellarum Lucem quod Mirabilius est his ipsis Spiritibus in Homibus piis miscetur ipse Divinus Spiritus and makes this Light in Man more Refulgent Active and Inclinable to apprehend Divine Truths and to practise accordingly And on the contrary When the Devil gets a Possession or but an Entrance amongst them he disturbs and tortures both Heart and Brain and drives them into Cruel Motions and manifest Furies And thus this Excellent Divine instructs us what are the proper Causes of the great and violent Stings of Conscience which you have chosen for a strong Proof of an Intelligent Immaterial Spirit in Man And that Conscience is not barely from Nature but is a Complex of Nature and Rules there are divers Texts of Scripture which may be cited to prove Rom. 2. St. Paul says Men do by Nature the things contained in the Law of Moses this intends a Cultivated Nature ordered and directed by other Rules although they were ignorant of Moses's Law and those other Rules became to them a Law written in their hearts which if they followed their Conscience was satisfied and if they acted contrary to those Rules their Consciences accused them for it St. Paul's Nature in this place therefore intends not Nature in puris naturalibus utterly unpolished and barbarous or salvage and naked of Rules Education and Examples but such a Nature as hath submitted it self to some Rules Education or Example though they be utterly ignorant of Moses's Laws Rom. 5.13 Though sin those acts which are sinful were in the world until or before the Law yet sin is not imputed where there is no Law or Rule to direct the Judgment and therefore without some sort of Rule rising from Institution Example or Opinion as there can no Sin be imputed so no Consciousness of Sin nor Sting of Conscience for it So Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin but by the Law some Rule Education or Example which taught me that this is Sin bare or salvage Nature would not have taught me what was a Sin and what was not John 9.41 Our Lord says to the Pharisees If you were blind purely ignorant ye should have no sin Chap. 15.22 If I had not spoken to them instructed them they had not had sin 1 John 3.4 Sin is the Transgression
Faith to Church Ordinances and do you shew me Ordinances of God convincingly such in this point and then I promise you to be obedient to them and there will need no more words in the Case now disputed But if you cannot or which will come to one do not do it you may have some Title to the Term of a False Accuser of your Brethren whose conceits or errours perhaps of weakness you cannot infect or sully by the sowre and tainted Originals from whence you are pleased ignorantly to derive them And for your Conclusion That the Opinion of the Materiality tends to subvert the Fundamentals al 's Religion it is neither proved nor granted but asserted to strengthen the Foundation of Future Rewards and Punishments by fixing them upon very many and very plain Texts of Scripture and the Articles of our several Creeds clearly proving the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment Whereas Proofs of the Immortality are neither plainly asserting nor with any manner of clearness proving the same nor is it made an Article in any of our Creeds nor is any thing of it in the 39. Articles of our Church But there I find Artic. 6. That whatsoever is not read in Scripture nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any Man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite to salvation We all perceive that during Life there is a Contexture of Soul and Body and such an Union as they jointly participate of all that befals the Person and act undividedly and inseparably from the Person and from one another That Death is a Separation of them is clear also and What then becomes of the Soul is our Question and that we trace from its Nature as near as we can investigate If it be a small intelligent Spiritual Substance created by God upon every Procreation of Man likely it is to have a Separate Subsistence after Death of the Person but then it cannot be properly said The Man or the Person dies but the Body dies And if the Humane Soul be a Flame of Life kindled by God in Adam when he made him a Living Person and from that time hath passed by generation from one Man to another then more likely it is that this sort of Soul is extinguished in Death or that the Extinguishment of this Flame totally or in every part of the Body is the Death of the Person Originally it seems Men were of kin to Beasts in their Manner and Way of Living and Acting Of the Thracians in Orpheus's time we read Silvestres homines sacer interpresque deorum Caedibus victu foedo deterruit Orpheus Dictus ob id lenire tygres rabidosque leones Our own Ancestors in Caesar's time and many years after were naked as their Beasts and had no other Covering but their Skins their Food Acorns and Wild Fruits and their Manners were much sutable and of late we have heard like things of Wild Irish People Americans Libyans and in divers other parts of Africa who go naked as the Beasts and feed upon Raw Flesh and Snakes and the very Guts and Garbage of the Creatures and are as wild says Lithgow as their four-footed companions in the Libyan desarts In a State of so great Simplicity it seems Mankind may be well enough compared by us as it was by David to the Beasts that perish Since my ending the very last Period came to my hands a little Book written by Naudaeus printed Lond. in 12o. 1637 in page 248 he cites Lactantius asserting that Democritus Epicurus and Dicaearchus would not have so confidently denied the Immortality of the Soul Mago aliquo praesente qui sciret certis carminibus cieri ab inferis animas adesse praebere se humanis oculis videndas loqui futura praedicere I do so little approve of the Fathers Opinion in this that if his Magus should shew me such Souls like the Witch of Endor I should take them for his Conjurati and to be no proof at all of the Separate Subsistence of a Humane Soul P. 38. He mentions Archimedes his Mundane Globe the Moving Tripods of Vulcan made by Daedalus Architas his Pigeon Regiomontanus his Eagle and his Fly Men could not believe these Engines could move as they did without a Spirit which they thought could not be Material because that cannot act upon Hard Bodies as Wood Iron c. therefore they concluded those Motions were acted and guided by an Immaterial Spirit viz. a Daemon and that therefore these Artificers were Magi in the worst Sense very Conjurers But from this Crime our Author defends them and says The things were all feasible by Art Natural although Men do not now know nor did then understand the Rules or the Artifice of making such things or other things like or equal to them And this gives us a good semblance of Reason why Men have been apt to maintain their Souls to be Immaterial because they cannot perceive or learn the means and manner by which a Material Soul can act and govern Common Sense Apprehension Phancy Memory Judgment Conscience and the Affections and Passions incident to Humane Nature P. 299. In conclusion he says Men must take good heed not to be carried away with the current of common Opinions that when we are swayed by example and custom and go with the throng in the way we slip and fall one over another alienis perimus exemplis Besides this Book I have since this writing perused another viz. Mr. Robert Boyle his Experiments printed London 1662 2d Edition there p. 190 he says He inclines to think the Air necessary to ventilate and cherish the Vital Flame continually burning in the Heart And he found a new kind of resemblance betwixt Fire and Life the one lasting no longer than the other P. 190. The Flame of Spirit of Wine will burn long upon fine white linnen or paper without consuming either Eminent Naturalists do esteem the Heat which resides in the Heart to be a true Flame and this says he I do not oppose provided they add that it is such a temperate and almost insensible Fire as that before-mentioned and yet he thinks that to be hardly fine enough I have mentioned before a Tenuity to an Invisibility P. 197. He takes Animals for a kind of Curious Engines set on work and kept in Motion by Heat and Air. Dr. Willis in his oft quoted Book p. 4. tells us That Epicurus taught the Soul to be compounded ex atomis levissimis rotundissimis non multum diversis ab eis ex quibus est ignis compactum ex quodam calido flatuoso aerio P. 38. He says He hath given Reasons Quare haee flamma vitalis non uti flamma vulgaris visibilis destructiva fuerit P. 53. As soon as this flame is extinguished the compages of Soul and Body is dissolved and as long as this Soul is in the Body semper nascitur
Death and the Resurrection and therefore Luke's Words in relating of that Fact do not import a Separate Subsistence of Souls And so it seems for Peter 1 Pet. 4.13 and 2 Pet. 3.11 and 12.13 c. So 1 Joh. 2.28 and 3.2 all importing they knew of no State between Death and the Resurrection and consequently of no Separate Subsistence of Souls Page 12. he quotes 2 Cor. 5.8 If absent from the Body and present with the Lord which I have in a few Leaves before largely expounded to a sense far different from the Authors intent He cites 2 Cor. 4.16 of the Outward and Inward Man which I say intends the two Faculties viz. Sensitive or Passionate and the Rational Pag. 13. Says The Soul is a substance I grant it so though Material for so is Heart Brain c. He says Affections and Passions Habits and Arts and Sciences are lodged and seated and rooted in the Soul and spring from it All this I deny and say they are all lodged seated and rooted in the Man and spring from and are perfected by the Contexture of his Soul and Body He says The Soul in Moses 's Text was a living active being of it self as opposed to Matter and Body This I deny and say That as the Body cannot move it self without the Soul so neither the Soul without the Body The Soul is in the Body as its proper Form or active Principle that it hath no proper place but the Body nor hath it any quickning Power without the Body It cannot quicken any thing else but the Body nor doth it act nor is it any thing but in the Body He says Moses in the Text calls it a living Soul This say I is an apparent mistake for the Text says not that the Breath became a living Soul but the Man did so the Man became a living Soul alias Person He says Take meer Matter and do what you will with it you can never make it see feel c. Mark his Consequence ergo God cannot effect it he might as well say you cannot make a Dog or a Mouse ergo c. Pag. 14. In Proof of the Soul 's being a Separable Spirit he Cites Luke 23.46 and Acts 7.29 I say That in these places by the term of Spirit the Persons recommended themselves to God as David in his full life used the very same Words Into thy hands I commend my Spirit intending his whole Person Also Christ made his Soul an Offering for Sin intending his whole Person Here he also cites Solomon's Text viz. The Spirit returns to God who gave it concerning which Expression I refer to what hath before been spoken of it Cites Heb. 12.9 You have been subject to the Fathers in the Flesh be now rather so to the Father of Spirits viz. say I of Angels and all other Creatures Cites again Zech. 12.1 yet cannot doth not deny Acts 17.25 That God giveth to all Life and Breath and all things ergo to Plants Insects and Brutes as well as to Men. He says Other Souls flow not from God by Creation but Man 's did I have denied such Creation and I think he hath not proved it I have granted Mans Soul in-kindled by God's Inspiration and so I think for the Brutes they had their first Breath from him and from that time Men and Brutes have been generated perfectly according to their first Patterns Pag. 9. He had told us That the Soul's Nature is so spiritual and sublime that it cannot be perfectly known by the most acute and penetrating Vnderstanding But being come to page 15. He tells us It is a substance as Incorporeal as other Spirits are that it is Invisible and hath no Extension of Parts it hath no Dimensions or Figure But I grant none of all these nor doth he offer to prove any of them He makes it a vast wonder that such a Spirit as his sort of Soul should be so tied and linked to a clod of Clay the Body that it can by no Art or Power free it self And I confess his sort of Soul is very Productive of strange and unlikely Consequences but to my sort of Soul all is in great Congruity I say there is no wonder at all but very Congruous that the Soul and Body should be so affected and affixed one to another for they are both of a piece are generated grow stand decay and fall together and they rejoyce and suffer share and share alike and that there is no more difference between Humane Souls and Bodies than Material Spirits differ from their Bodies and as they do and suffer together in this World so may it be expected for the World to come they will Rise be Judged and Recompenced together according to their joynt behaviours used in the time of their Earthly Life Pag. 17. He produces Des Cartes Principle and Dr. Bentley's viz. I know that I think and that Matter and Motion cannot think ergo There must be a Spirit to act thought in me This I grant but says he This must be a Spirit Immaterial Intelligent for God cannot act all Mans Faculties by a Material Spirit nor make Matter Cogitative I think he can do all this and thereupon I am at issue with Dr. Bentley and I believe that he hath so done And if God can act Mans Senses and Reason by a Material Spirit and hath so done all our Author's Allegations here are thereby answered and made ineffectual which otherwise do not seem very material He says No Man can think that combining Fire Air Water and Earth should make the Lump of it to know or consider And I grant this cannot be done by Man but by what consequence can it be said ergo God cannot do it I say such an ergo will have no Force or Coercion in it And I farther say Souls cannot think or understand without their Bodies He says We see manifestly that upon division of the Body viz. a Leg or an Arm cut off the Soul remains intire viz. the Vnderstanding Affections c. I grant That the Vital and Rational Faculties do in such case still remain intire but by Blows or Wounds in the Head the Understanding and Memory may be spoiled and yet the Vital and Generative Parts remain firm So as his instance proves no more but that the loss of a Member and the Spirit which enlivened it affects not other Members or the Spirit in them so much but that they can still exercise their proper Faculties as before and this is very well Comportant with a Material Spirit For his tota in to to qualibet parte I have quoted Melanchton who says The Expression is commonly Fathered upon Arist but it is not found in any of his Writings nor is the thing true For says he If we shall take the Humane Soul for an Immaterial Spirit we know such a Spirit can be but in unico loco at a time and not in tota in qualibet parte at the same time And
do deny and he proves it not For other Brute Creatures I say it is very probable God gave them their first Breath though Moses have not expressed it He says The Opinion of the Souls Propagation from the Parents by Generation is very Antient and Tertullian and divers of the Western Fathers closed with it And so do I. He says Antiquity is no pasport for errors and so say I He cites an Objection against the daily Creation of Souls and in Proof of their Generation out of Dr. Brown's Religio Medici Pag. 32. He pretends to Answer this Objection but uses to that purpose only Scholastical Distinctions and Niceties and brings no material or solid Reason from Nature so as I think the Objection is not enough Answered but holds still good against the Creation and for the Generation of the whole both Body and Soul Pag. 33. Cites Gen. 22. God rested on the seventh day from all his Work which he had made Pag. 34. This says he Intends he ceased from making any new Species or Kinds of Creatures but he still creates Individual Souls of the same kind and nature with Adam 's Soul and he means all Humane Souls So as upon Fruitful Coition of Man and Woman or of Man and Beast where the product is of Humane shape God creates a new young Soul to enliven and inform every such Body whence every day hour and moment he is creating such Souls for all the Earth over I would know where he found his Distinction of God's ceasing from Creation of New Species but not of New Individuals he quotes no Author or Original for it and till he so do it will pass with Readers for his own Fiction and do him no service at all And his Proof of his New Creation is a kin to this Distinction he cites for Proof of it Our Lord's Words My Father worketh hitherto and I work How this proves Gods Continual New Creation of Souls I do not perceive and I suppose sew others will be drawn to believe such New Creations upon this Proof He says To me it is clear that the Soul is not generated for that which is generable is corruptible This I agree and thence infer The Humane Soul both generable material and extinguishable He Reasons against this but by Arguments before Answered Pag. 35. Farther to prove a New Creation of Souls he quotes again Heb. 12.9 Men must be in subjection to the Father of Spirits intending it to signifie the Father of their Spirits or Souls This I do not grant but say This Sense restraining to Humane Spirits only is against the express Words of the Text as well as the intent of it He quotes again Zech. 12.1 before examined he quotes Isa 42.5 God that giveth Breath unto the people upon the Earth and Spirit to them that walk therein I take Breath and Spirit here for the same thing Here he cites Chap. and Vers of four places more I have searched them and find no mention of Spirit or Soul in any of them Pag. 36. He says These Texts speak of Creating Heaven and Earth yea and their Souls also Of Heaven and Earth they all speak but of Souls not a word whence it is not safe to take even a good Mans word in Matter of Controversie Pag. 36. Cites Solomon's Text again Dust returns to the Earth and the Spirit to God who gave it The Soul and Body says he Are the two Constitutive Parts of Man and have two distinct Originals the Body is of the Earth the Soul a Spirit given by God who gave it Being by Creation I say God gave the Body a Being by Creation as well as the Soul and as the Elements of the Body are Earth and Moisture so that of his Soul are likely Air and Fire and at Death the Body goes to the Earth the Fire extinguisheth and Air vanisheth What Solomon's Expression intended and the manner of that Expression hath been before disputed Pag. 37. Says The Soul hath no Principle out of which by Order of Nature it did arise I say the Body had no such Principle neither God created it of the Earth and breathed into Adam 's Nostrils the Breath of Life and he became a living Soul whence the Man was created Body as well as Soul He agrees the Souls of Brutes are generated but says he There is a Specifick Difference betwixt the Brutal and Rational Soul This I deny and say The Soul is not Rational but is so in the Head only where there are Organs created proper for that Faculty and in no part of the Body can the Soul act rationally but in the Head Pag. 38. He demands Why are not Brutes capable of performing Rational and Religious Acts I Answer because God hath not given them Rational Powers and Organs in so high a degree as he hath done to Men nor can one Man perform like another in such occasions But whatsoever their Souls are the People can act but according to the Capacity of their Organs and the Temperament of their Bodies and Complexions and Humours Men have a different Posture of Body from other Creatures more Capacious Heads in Proportion and store of Brains and finer Matter and they have Heads and Tongues whereby they can better learn direct and act than any Brutes These Differences set Humane Bodies far above the Brutes and yet it seems they may be acted as the Brutes are by a Material Spirit for the Flesh and Blood are Materials of both sorts and that which nourishes is alike in both without Breath Blood and Food both sorts perish and their Souls depart or vanish and yet as Mens Bodily Organs exceed the Brutes for Use and Aptitude so may their Spirits for fineness of Matter and plenty of it and purity and brightness of that flame of Life in them Pag. 39. Says Seed of the Soul is not to be found in Man because the Soul is a Spiritual Essence I say this begs the Question but if this Spirit be Material he will not deny that the Seed of it may be found in Man Pag. 40. Upon this I say Remove the Opinion or later Invention of the new Creation of Souls for all Adulterous Incestuous Buggerly Humane Procreations and then all his Questions here argued are needless and useless He confesses he cannot tell how a Newly Created Spirit should come to be defiled with Original Sin I say he need not trouble himself about it for that the thing is not at all so Pag. 41. He asks How so many Souls become foolish forgetful injudicious It seems he means Men. He supposes it to come from the Bodily Temper and Organs and I grant that very often it doth so But yet I say that my sort of Soul viz. the Flame of Life or the Material Spirit is subject to Defects Infirmities and Obstructions as well as the Body Pag. 42. His Deduction of Original Sin upon Man draws it only from his being a Child of Adam whence it seems his
Notwithstanding the Souls Separate Subsistence Vers 15. We have testified of God that he raised up Christ whom he raised not up if so be that the Dead rise not Vers 18. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished But if at Death they went to Heaven they should not be perished though there were no Resurrection Thus by the Doctrine of the Immediate Avolation to Heaven that of the Resurrection the Main Comfort and Support of Christian Believers is not only undermined but is made a kind of Insipid and Useless Doctrine not worthy to be remembred by our Author or other Zealous Proselites and Defenders of the Immateriality Let them alone as Persons hood-winked by an Old mistaken Opinion to lead those who follow them into lesser Falls or more dangerous Precipices but our endeavor is to detect the Fallacies of that Opinion which I pray God prosper no otherwise than as it is Grounded upon Truth and Verity To this Pag. 46. Our Author goes on in a proving manner and I have traced him accordingly Page by Page but in his Progress he now begins to make Inferences and raise Doctrines of which I do not pretend to take Notice but intend to pass over them without omitting any thing which I think to be Material and Proving Pag. 48. He says Happy had it been for bad Men if their Souls had been like the Beasts extinguishable in Death for then all their Miseries had ended there I say Mark what little or no account he makes here of the Resurrection so solemnly plainly and fully Published and Promised in the Gospel he doth not so much as name or remember such a thing which would fully avoid his Positive Determination Pag. 49. Says 'T is a great mistake that the Soul is only capable of Social Glory in Partnership with the Body and cannot exert its own Power nor enjoy Happiness in the absence of the Body The Opinion of the Sleeping Interval says he took its rise from this Error Say I from this Truth only the Holders of this Opinion did not Penetrate to the bottom of the Truth viz. the Temporal Extinguishment of the Soul They thought it had a Separate Subsistence but in a Limbus or Dormitory where it neither did nor suffered any thing wanting a Capacity to do so without the Body I say The Temporary Extinguishment is to be preferred before this Dormitory and is far more agreeable to Nature and Reason He says The Soul doth not necessarily depend upon the Body in its Operations but that it can live and act out of a Body as well as in it I say What is Petitio Principii if this be not And so is all the rest which follows here He quotes Luke 23.43 and Phil. 1.23 both before fully answered Pag. 50. He says All Souls by Nature are as excellent one as another I say there are great differences amongst them and we see it plainly in the different Performances and Perfections of Men to be referred partly to Body and Organs and partly to the Vigor Purity and Brightness of the Material Soul in them He cites Ezek. 48.4 All Souls are mine This I say intends Persons the Soul that sins shall surely die viz. the Person Vers 5. If a Man be just c. shews Soul here intends Person Pag. 51. and is but a phancy but I say Redemption was not of Souls only but of Persons Pag. 52. cites 3 Joh. 2. I wish that thou mayest prosper and be in health even as thy Soul prospereth I say this intends thy Person and Temporal Affairs as thy Practices of Piety Then he says There are great differences betwixt Soul and Soul in respect of Natural Gifts and Abilities of Mind and the Soul is more vigorous when the Body and its Organs are more sound and apt And says the same that I said before against what himself said before Pag. 54. Says Those who perish will find themselves as capable of Blessedness as those that obtain it I say perhaps their Bodily Temper and Capacities could not be equally assistant to their Souls Pag. 59. Says The Food of every Creature is agreeable to its Nature and that the Soul doth not live upon Material Things as the Body doth I say The Soul cannot live in the Body without Food and if not in the Body then no where For I think there is no place where it can live but in the Body and each in its own Body and not out of that Body to which it is Con-natural He cites Luke 12.19 Soul take thine ease Eat Drink and be Merry and says The Soul cannot do so I say Soul here as in very many places intends Person or the Man and yet the Soul of Man is refreshed and renewed by Meat and Drink and cannot subsist without them Pag. 61. Cites Rom. 1.9 Paul says God whom I serve with my Spirit adding Paul durst appeal to God who searched his Heart as if he took Heart and Spirit for the same thing here and to that I agree Pag. 63. To what he says here I answer Humane Apprehensions of a World to come may fully be answered by the Resurrection and the Last Judgment And yet I do not grant that such Apprehensions do grow from Mans Nature purely or nakedly considered but Nature cultivated by Education or Doctrine He cites Rom. 2.14 The Gentiles do by Nature the things contained in the Law I say this intends Cultivated Nature or an Universal Education We find all People have Speech and yet Men cannot speak without being Taught and those who Teach them to speak give them Impressions of Morality and Religion viz. Nurses and Mothers Pag. 65. I say to this He who ingages against Man doth so against his Soul and Body for they are inseparable by any thing but Death Pag. 68. This Discourse by the Word Soul intends Heart or Affections and the Mind of Man Pag. 70. He says The Soul and Body are knit together by the feeble hand of the Breath in their Nostrils but his Quotation speaks more truly And I say That Union is a Work of God and his Hand-maid Nature that it Springs ab ovo and both grow out of the same Root or Principle viz. the Seed in Generation and are separable only by Death He says The Life of the Body results from its Vnion with the Soul as James 2.26 and I grant it Pag. 74. Cites Psal 104.29 When thou takest away their Breath they die and return to their dust This say I makes Soul and Breath Equivalent He cites Psal 66.8 God holdeth our Soul in Life This I say intends keeps us alive viz. our Persons Pag. 89. Cites Revel 6.9 and calls the Text a firm Foundation for the Souls Immortality Whereas this Cry of Souls under the Altar is apparently Parabolical and no more real than the Voice of Abel's Blood Crying from the Ground to God no more than the great Red Dragons drawing the third part of the Stars with his Tail
And so is the ordinary Practice of Mankind He says He who bought Souls knew the Value of them I say Souls were never bought alone but the Redemption was of Persons commonly express'd in Scripture by the Term of Souls and so is David's Expression to be understood when he says It cost me more to redeem their Souls viz. to redeem them or their Persons Pag. 364. Says God created the Soul as his rare Master-piece and the Three Persons laid their Heads together to Project it I have denied a Separate Creation of the Soul and I do so still and do look upon his present Oratory to be very inconsiderate Pag. 365. He confounds the Soul and the Rational Faculty together or makes them both one thing or mistakes the one for the other Pag. 367. All that he here says of the Soul is properly applicable to the Rational Faculty He says No Soul but Man's is Marriageable unto Christ. If he do not mean the Church or at least the Person I can not understand him for we never heard of a Soul 's being Married or doing any other thing by its self singly Pag. 369. What he says here was done for Souls is to be applyed to Persons Pag. 370. Says Words shall come into Judgment at the last Day I say Why not at the particular Judgment if such an one there be Pag. 371. He again here applies to the Soul what belongs to the Person And I say the Devil seeks to devour not the Soul only but the Person Pag. 374. Still applies all to Souls instead of Persons Pag. 375. He Quotes three Texts but they all apply to Persons and Solomon's winning Souls intends Persons Pag. 379. Says He hath proved that one Soul is of more Value than the whole World I say no otherwise than a Man's Life is viz. to himself it is so but not in it self or with any respect to other People Pag. 379. Says The Soul was not made for the Body but the Body for it I say they were made for one another and are daily made viz. Procreated together Pag. 387. Cites a Saying as concerning Souls but it proves only of Persons and goes on in the like applying to Souls what is intended of Persons Pag. 390. Says Souls cannot live upon Food or Earthly things I say They do live upon Food and Earthly things and cannot live without them Pag. 439. and so to 441. He pretends Holy Duties are not enough for Christians viz. Nature improved by Vertues and common Graces of the Spirit of God a Holy Unreproveable Life relying on Christ for Pardon of Sins and Support under Sorrow and Dangers Practising the Commandments Believing the Creeds Receiving the Sacraments Doing as they would be Done to Sorrowing for their Failures striving to rise again and Praying to God every day to Assist them by his Grace and Save them by his Goodness and Christ's Sufferings He insinuates that such ordinary Practices are not sufficient for Regeneration without Heavenly Tempers and Tendencies of Soul viz. a singular Claim and Profession to Grace and Sanctification above ordinary I profess my self content with the former State and will give his Proselites leave to affect the later without condemning them so being that they act not the Pharisee in justifying themselves and despising others Pag. 449. Directs Men to ask Am I born again Am I a New Creature I say Baptism is the Laver of Regeneration and Mark 16.16 He that believeth and it baptized shall be saved and thus practised the Jaylor at Philippi Cornelius the Captain and the Aethiopian Eunuch but he requires a regenerating of the Spirit I allow so appearing as to make the Fruits good but for his extraordinary Elevations and Motions of Spirit I leave them to himself as a Fervour of Phancy Pag. 464. Says Your Election is only secured by your Effectual Calling intending as seems that every one must have and find a particular time of God's calling him to a State of Regeneration and Sanctification This looks to me like an intended distinguishing Character betwixt them who follow Rational Deductions from Scripture and those who pretend to be led by the Spirit in an extraordinary manner and they must shew us Signs and Wonders and mighty Deeds or else we shall not be able to believe them that they are so led For if other Men work and live as well as they and shew as good Fruits of the Spirit as they How can they be distinguished but by Wonders and mighty Deeds Say they by our Special Calling Regeneration and Sanctification But How shall others know these to be good or better than ordinary but by their Fruits or mighty Deeds If those Deeds or Fruits extraordinary do not appear we have no means to know them nor reason to approve them In Pag. 461. He said Let none be so fond to expect Comfort in Death until his Soul have first complied with and obeyed the Call of God in the time thereof Pag. 463. Says Souls of Men are as it were embarqu'd in the Calls of God and if they be lost your Souls are lost I Collect he intends Let your Faith and Practice be what they will if you have not a Call to the singular Mode of our Profession and obey that Call your precious Souls after all this will be lost He said before That when the Enfranchised Soul was upon its departure and sat upon the quivering Lips of the dying Person neither able to stay in the Body nor abiding to forsake it the State of it was deplorable This shews That he imagined the Soul to be an Intelligent Little Thing Parcel or Spark He doth not say that she is snatch'd or forc'd away from the Body nor what should move her to forsake it or leave the being in it or near it against her Will and yet I doubt not but he could have told us that as well as the foregoing viz. Imaginando if he had pleased And this calls to mind a Relation made to us by Dr. Collins in his Treatise concerning Russia There says he when a Person draws on towards Death they set a Basin of fair Water in the Window and set the Casement also open that the parting Soul may have the Opportunity of bathing and refreshing it self in the Water and find an open Passage out at the Casement and not be inforced to the Contrast of passing thro' Crannies of the Window or other Places And thus I part with our Author and finish my intended Observations upon him I read in a Noble Author of our own Nation That in all Contests he who stands only upon his Defence stands upon no Defence Seems Wants one main part of Defence viz. The Disarming or Weakning his Opposer whereby his intended Defence should be made both more easie and effectual Thus far in defending a Tenet opposite to that of our Author I have used only the Buckler in shelter from the dints of his Arguments but that I may not forsake the benefit which may
watching every New Procreation of a Body and thence if glides down intâ— the Impregnated Womb and insinuates it self into the Seed or the Embrion they cannot well tell whether Others say God creates New Souls pure innocent Spirits for each new Procreation be it by Adultery Incest Buggery so as the Shape be Humane So often as people commit these Crimes with success God is ready to make a New Soul for every Procreated Body and that then he puts or casts these new innocent pure Souls or Intelligent Spirits into Bodies so procreated in Sins of the deepest Dye And what can this poor intelligent Spirit do to prevent its going into a Body procreated in and by wickedness and where she is sure to be polluted with Original Sin before she knows where she is If this were a true Story the Case of such Souls were much to be lamented and what Augustus said of being Herod's Son might reasonably enough be applied to it The making and using of Souls after such a fashion are alike contrary to the Goodness and Honour of God and the Invention is such as wants the ordinary grace of Romance viz. to be made probable or something like the Truth It is not so much as offered or attempted to be proved by any Sentence or Thing recorded or appearing in either of God's Two Great Books of Nature or Scripture and therefore it shall here be forsaken and left to the Maintainers as a rotten Prop for the Immateriality for which only intent it was first invented and set on foot and is still continued for that very Design and neither doth nor can serve for any other use intent or purpose whatsoever Now rejecting both these Opinions viz. Of the Praeexistence and the New Creation of Souls upon every Procreation of Bodies I stick to and maintain the Third Opinion viz. That Souls are generated together with their Bodies by Vertue and Power of Gods benediction Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth Procreate Children like your selves from one end of the World to another according to the Course appointed for all other Animals Shall we say or think That a Man generates more imperfectly than an Horse or a Bull our Experience doth not so prove to us nor does our Reason perswade us to believe it and Scripture affords no Proof of it How comes it then to be so generally professed to be believed only from an ardent Mistaking Zeal to maintain a Separate Subsistence of Souls without which the Old World could not and the later and present do not or will not conceive and believe Recompences future to this life can be and will be fully and sufficiently distributed to Mankind according to their Behaviours in this Life they will continue to believe That if Mens Souls have not a Subsistence in Separation from their Bodies the expectation of sufficient future Recompences is destroyed and this grows from the Pulpit where the Doctrine of the Resurrection hath been utterly put to silence by the Opinion of Souls going presently to Heaven upon Death And if in truth the Case were so the Doctrine of the Resurrection might well enough be laid aside as it is and fall into disesteem as little useful for the advancement of future Recompences The desire I say of maintaining a Separate State of the Soul for such purposes drives some to invent and most Men to believe such very unlikely and unreasonable Proposals and Assertions as I have late before and do here relate and endeavour to detect and confute Our Author hath the Ingenuity to confess That the Opinion of the Generation of Souls as well as Bodies is very ancient and was generally maintained by the Western Churches But say I the Opinion of the Separate Subsistence of Souls hath even quite rooted it out and that of necessity for what comes of the Flesh cannot naturally be Immaterial and to maintain Immateriality we find Men proneto deny visible experienced Truths and accept of gross unreasonable Fictions Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum when it falls under a confident Mistake as Christ foretels his Disciples When they persecute you they will think that in so doing they do God good Service And what if the present Writer meet with a like Usage He may say with St. Paul Galat. 26. Am I therefore become your Enemy or will you count me your Enemy because I tell you the Truth Or that which I believe to be so It seems such Proceeding would be both Unkind and Unchristian Joh. 8 40. Our Lord says You sâ—ek to kill me a Man that tells you the Truth and even for telling them the Truth this did not Abraham The best sort of People will not do so but they are ever the fiercest and therefore Persecution and Reproach are natural and common Consequences of those Endeavours which intend to stemm the Tide of a commonly received Opinion and roâ—e against the stream of it Acts 21 Paul was foretold of a heavy Persecution but he would not be perswaded to go out of the Right Way for avoiding it and as his Friends ceased so I rest my self Ver. 14. saying The Will of the Lord be done Our Present Text now under Examination Proves The Ancient Western Churches and amongst them St. Austin were in the Right in thinking the Soul Generated as well as the Body and that God's Direction is still observed by Nature For Men now as Adam did get Children after their own likeness viz. Living and Animated Persons and which ever since have replenished and do still replenish the Earth as the Effects of their Parents Fruitfulness And thus from the Creation and Generation of Mankind I pretend to have proved That the Soul or Spirit of Man is generated and born of the Flesh of the Parents and with the Flesh of the Children Connatural to the Body and no Stranger to it I take another Argument for Proof of the Materiality from Natural Supports of the Soul whil'st it remains in Conjunction with the Body and thereupon I argue thus That which can neither act or subsist in the Body without the Supplies and Supports of Material Provisions is it Self Material but the Soul cannot act or subsist in the Body without the Supplies and Supports of Material Provisions Ergo The Soul is most likely to be of a Material Nature The Major I prove by the Rational and Received Rule of Simile simili gaudet For proof of the Minor I instance in Three Material Things or Provisions all so necessary for the Soul of Man as that if any One of them fail or be wanting the Soul cannot act or subsist in the Body but must needs part from it either by Extinguishment or Avolation And these Three so necessary Provisions are Blood Breath and Food or Nourishment For the Blood if it be totally exhausted or corrupted a Man can live no longer but the Soul will be forced to dislodge out of its present Tenement For Breath we know by every days Experience