and fountain of Truth That in these I say consists the Truth in the Object and that the Truth in the Subject is a conception conformable to these or to the Truth of them whether in the uncreated or created Understanding So that the niceness of the point is this Whether the Transcendental Truth of things exhibited in their Objective Existence to the Theoretical Intellect of God consists in their Conformity to that Intellect or the Truth of that Intellect in its Conformity with the immutable natures and Relations or Respects of things exhibited in their Objective Existence which the Divine Intellect finds to be unalterably such not contrives them at its own pleasure This though it be no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or strife about mere words yet it seems to be such a contest that there is no harm done whethersoever side carries the Cause the two seeming sides being but one and the same Intellect of God necessarily and immutably representing to it self the natures Respects and Aptitudes of all things such as they appear in their Objective Existence and such as they will prove whenever produced into act As for example The Divine Understanding quatenns exhibitive of Idea's which a Platonist would call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does of its infinite pregnancy and fecundity necessarily exhibit certain and unalterable Idea's of such and such determinate things as suppose of a Cylinder a Globe and a Pyramid which have a setled and unalterable nature as also immutable properties references and aptitudes immediately consequential thereto and not arbitrariously added unto them which are thus necessarily extant in the Divine Intellect as exhibitive of such Idea's So likewise a Fish a Fowl and a four-footed beast an Ox Bear Horse or the like they have a setled nature exhibited in their Idea's and the properties and aptitudes immediately â—lowing therefrom As also have all the Elements Earth Water and Air determinate natures with properties and aptitudes immediately issuing from them Nor is a Whale fitted to fly in the Air nor an Eagle to live under the Water nor an Ox or Bear to do either nor any of them to live in the Fire But the Idea's of those things which we call by those names being unchangeable for there are diâ—ferences indeed of Idea's but no changing of one Idea into another state but their natures are distinctly setled and to add or take away any thing from an Idea is not to make an alteration in the same Idea but to constitute a new one As Aristotle somewhere in his Metaphysicks speaks of Numbers where he says that the adding or taking away of an Unite quite varies the species And therefore as every number suppose Binary Quinary Ternary Denary is such a setled number and no other and has such properties in it self and references immediately accrewing to it and aptitudes which no other number besides it self has so it is with Idea's the Idea's I say therefore of those things which we call by those names above-recited being unchangeable the aptitudes and references immediately issuing from their nature represented in the Idea must be also unalterable and necessary Thus it is with Mathematical and Physical Idea's and there is the same reason concerning such Idea's as may be called Moral Forasmuch as they respect the rectitude of Will in whatever Mind created or uncreated And thus lastly it is with Metaphysical Idea's as for example As the Physical Idea of Body Matter or Substance Material contains in it immediately of its own nature or intimate specifick Essence real Divisibility or Discerpibility Impenetrability and mere Passivity or Actuability as the proper fruit of the Essential Difference and intimate Form thereof unalterably and immutably as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect so in any Body or Material Substance that does exist So the Idea of a Spirit or of a Substance Immaterial the opposite Idea to the other contains in it immediately of its own nature Indiscerpibility Penetrability and Self-Activity as the inseparable fruit of the essential difference or intimate form thereof unalterably and immutably as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect so in any Immaterial Substance properly so called that doth exist So that as it is a contradiction in the Idea that it should be the Idea of Substance Immaterial and yet not include in it Indiscerpibility c. so it is in the being really existent that it should be Substance Immaterial and yet not be Indiscerpible c. For were it so it would not answer to the Truth of its Idea nor be what it pretendeth to be and is indeed an existent Being Indiscerpible which existent Being would not be Indiscerpible if any could discerp it And so likewise it is with the Idea of Ens summè absolutè perfectum which is a setled determinate and immutable Idea in the Divine Intellect whereby were not God himself that Ens summè absolutè perfectum he would discern there were something better than Himself and consequently that he were not God But he discerns Himself to be this Ens summè absolutè perfectum and we cannot but discern that to such a Being belongs Spirituality which implies Indiscerpibility and who but a mad man can imagine the Divine Essence discerpible into parts Infinity of Essence or Essential Omnipresence Self-Causality or necessary Existence immediately of it self or from it self resulting from the absolute and peculiar perfection of its own nature whereby we understand that nothing can exist ab aeterno of it self but He. And lastly Omniscience and Omnipotence whereby it can do any thing that implies no contradiction to be done Whence it necessarily follows that all things were Created by Him and that he were not God or Ens summè perfectum if it were not so And that amongst other things he created Spirits as sure as there are any Spirits in the world indiscerpible as himself is though of finite Essences and Metaphysical Amplitudes and that it is no derogation to his Omnipotence that he cannot discerp a Spirit once created it being a contradiction that he should Nor therefore any argument that he cannot create a Spirit because he would then puzzle his own Omnipotence to discerp it For it would then follow that he cannot create any thing no not Metaphysical Monads nor Matter unless it be Physically divisible in infinitum and God Himself could never divide it into parts Physically indivisible whereby yet his Omnipotence would be puzzled And if he can divide matter into Physical Monads no further divisible there his Omnipotence is puzzled again And by such sophistical Reasoning God shall be able to create nothing neither Matter nor Spirit nor consequently be God or Ens summè absolutè perfectum the Creator and Essentiator of all things This is so Mathematically clear and true that I wonder that Mr. Rich. Baxter should not rather exult in his Placid Collation at the discovery of so plain and useful a truth than put himself p. 79. into an Histrionical
scatter'd into the Air where they will at length when the fierce agitation of the fire is over gather in considerable proportious of tenuious vapours which at length descending in a crystalline liquor and mingling with the finest parts of the newly modified Earth will doubtless compose as genital a matter as any can be prepared in the bodies of Animals And the calm and wholesome Air which now is duly purged from its noxious reeks and vapours and abounds with their saline spirituous humidity will questionless be very propitious to those tender inchoations of life and by the help of the Sun 's favourable and gentle beams supply them with all necessary materials Nor need we puzzle our selves to phancy how those Terrae Filii those young sons of the Earth will be fortified against the injuries of weather or be able to provide for themselves in their first and tender infancy since doubtless if the supposition be admitted * those immediate births of unassisted nature will not be so tender and helpless as we into whose very constitutions delicacy and effeminateness is now twisted For those masculine productions which were always exposed to the open Air and not cloyster'd up as we will feel no more incommodity from it than the young fry of fishes do from the coldness of the water they are spawn'd in And even now much of our tenderness and delicacy is not natural but contracted For poor Children will indure that hardship that would quickly dispatch those that have had a more careful and officious nurture And without question we should do many things for self-preservation and provision which now we yield no signs of had not custom prevented the endeavours of nature and made it expect assistance For the Indian Infants will swim currently when assoon as they are born they are thrown into the water And nature put to her shifts will do many things more than we can suspect her able for the performance of which consider'd 't is not hard to apprehend but that those Infant Aborigines are of a very different temper and condition from the weak products of now decayed nature having questionless more pure and serviceable bodies senses and other faculties more active and vigorous and nature better exercised so that they may by a like sense to that which carries all creatures to their proper food pursue and take hold of that nutriment which the free and willing Earth now offer'd to their mouths till being advantaged by Age and growth they can move about to make their choice * But all this is but the frolick exercise of my pen chusing a Paradox And 't is time to give over the pursuit To make an end then we see that after the Conflagration the earth will be inhabited again and all things proceed much-what in like manner as before But whether the Catastrophe of this shall be like the former or no I think is not to be determined For as one world hath perish't by water and this present shall by fire 't is possible the next period may be by the Extinction of the Sun But I am come to the end of the line and shall not go beyond this present Stage of Providence or wander into an Abysse of uncertainties where there is neither Sun nor Star to guide my notions Now of all that hath been represented of this Hypothesis there is nothing that seems more extravagant and Romantick than those notions that come under the two last Generals And yet so it falls out that the main matters contained under them one would think to have a strange consonancy with some expressions in the Sacred Oracles For clear it is from the divine Volume that the wicked and the Devils themselves are reserved to a further and more severe Judgment than yet afflicteth them It is as plainly declared to be a vengeance of fire that abides them as a compleatment of their torments And that the Earth shall be burnt is as explicitely affirmed as any thing can be spoken Now if we put all these together they look like a probability that the conflagration of the Earth shall consummate the Hell of the wicked And * those other expressions of Death Destruction Perdition of the ungodly and the like seem to show a favourable regard to the State of silence and inactivity Nor is there less appearing countenance given to the Hypothesis of Restitution * in those passages which predict New Heavens and a New Earth and seem to intimate only a change of the present And yet I would have no body be so credulous as to be taken with little appearances nor do I mention these with an intent that they should with full consent be delivered to intend the asserting any such Doctrines But that there is shew enough both in Reason and Scripture for these Opinions to give an occasion for an Hypothesis and therefore that they are not meer arbitrary and idle imaginations Now whatever becomes of this particular draught of the Souls several conditions of life and action * the main Opinion of Prae-existence is not at all concerned This Scheme is only to shew that natural and imperfect Reason can frame an Intelligible Idea of it And therefore questionless the Divine Wisdom could form and order it either so or with infinitely more accuracy and exactness How it was with us therefore of Old I know not But yet that we may have been and acted before we descended hither I think is very probable And I see no reason but why Praeexistence may be admitted without altering any thing considerable of the ordinary Systeme of Theology But I shut up with that modest conclusion of the Great Des Cartes That although these matters seem hardly otherwise intelligible than as I have here explained them Yet nevertheless remembring I am not infallible I assert nothing * but submit all I have written to the Authority of the Church of England and to the matured judgments of graver and wiser men Earnestly desiring that nothing else may be entertained with credit by any persons but what is able to win it by the force of evident and victorious reason Des Cartes Princ. Philos lib. 4. ss CVII FINIS A DISCOURSE OF TRUTH BY THE Reverend Doctor RUST Late LORD BISHOP of DROMORE in IRELAND LONDON Printed for J. Collins and S. Louns over against Exeter Exchange in the Strand 1682. A LETTER Concerning the Subject and the Author SIR I Have now perused and returned the Manuscript you sent me it had contracted many and great Errours in the Transcription which I have corrected I was enabled to do it by a written Copy of the same Discourse which I have had divers years in my Hands The Subject is of great and weighty importance and the Acknowledgment of the Truths here asserted and made good will lay a Foundation for right conceptions in the Doctrines that concern the Decrees of God For the first Errour which is the ground of the rest is That things are good and
only an aereal body And there being no other more congruous ready and at hand for it to enter it must needs step back into its former state of insensibility and there wait its turn till befitting matter call it forth again into life and action This is a conjecture that Philosophy dictates which I vouch not for a truth * but only follow the clue of this Hypothesis Nor can there any danger be hence conceived that those whose congruities orderly expire should fall back again into a state of â—ilence and inertness * since by long and hard exercises in this body the plastick life is well tamed and debilitated so that now its activity is proportioned to a more tenuious and passive vehicle which it cannot fail to meet with in its next condition For 't is only the terrestrial body is so long a preparing But to The next step of Descent or After-state TO give an Account of the After-state of the more degenerate and yet descending souls some fancy a very odd Hypothesis imagining that they pass hence into some other more course and inferior Planet in which they are provided with bodies suitable to their so depraved natures But I shall be thought extravagant for the mention of such a supposition Wherefore I come to what is less obnoxious When our souls go out of these bodies therefore they are not presently discharged of all the matter that belonged to this condition but carry away their inward and aereal state to be partakers with them of their after fortunes only leaving the useless earth behind them For they have a congruity to their aery bodies though that which they had to a terrestrial is worn out and defaced Nor need we to wonder how it can now have an aereal aptitude when as that congruity expired before we descended hither If we consider the reason of the expiration of its former vital aptitude which was not so much through any defect of power to actuate such a body but through the excess of invigoration of the Plastick which was then grown so strong * that an aereal body was not enough for it to display its force upon But now the case is altered these lower powers are worn and wearied out by the toylsome exercise of dragging about and managing such a load of flesh wherefore being so castigated they are duly attemper'd to the more easie body of air again as was intimated before to which they being already united they cannot miss of a proper habitation But considering the stupor dulness and inactivity of our declining age it may seem unlikely to some that after death we should immediately be resuscitated into so lively and vigorous a condition as is the aereal especially since all the faculties of sense and action are observed gradually to fail and abate as we draw nearer to our exit from this Stage which seems to threaten that we shall next descend into a state of more stupor and inertness But this is a groundless jealousie for the weakness and lethargick inactivity of old age ariseth from a defect of those Spirits that are the instruments of all our operations which by long exercise are at last spent and scattered So that the remains can scarce any longer stand under their unweildy burthen much less can they perform all functions of life so vigorously as they were wont to do when they were in their due temper strength and plenty However notwithstanding this inability to manage a sluggish stubborn and exhausted terrestrial body there is no doubt but the Soul can with great â—ase when it is discharged of its former load actuate its thin aery vehicle and that with a brisk vigour and activity As a man that is overladen may be ready to faint and sink till he be relieved of his burthen and then he can run away with a cheerful vivacity So that this decrepit condition of our decayed natures cannot justly prejudice our belief that we shall be erected again into a state of life and action in aereal bodies after this congruity is expired But if all alike live in bodies of air in the next condition * where is then the difference between the just and the wicked in state place and body For the just we have said already that some of them are reinstated in their pristine happiness and felicity and others are in a middle state within the confines of the Air perfecting the inchoations of a better life which commenc'd in this As for the state and place of those that have lived in a continual course of sensuality and forgetfulness of God I come now to declare what we may fancy of it by the help of natural light and the conduct of Philosophy And in order to this discovery I must premise somewhat concerning the Earth this Globe we live upon which is that we are not to conceive it to be a full bulky mass to the center but rather that 't is somewhat like a suckt Egg in great part an hollow sphere so that what we tread upon is but as it were an Arch or Bridge to divide between the upper and the lower regions Not that this inward hollowness is a meer void capacity for there are no such chasms in nature but doubtless replenisht it is with some fluid bodies or other and it may be a kind of air fire and water Now this Hypothesis will help us easily to imagin how the earth may move notwithstanding the pretended indisposition of its Bulk and on that account I believe it will be somewhat the more acceptable with the free and ingenious Those that understand the Cartesian Philosophy will readily admit the Hypothesis at least as much of it as I shall have need of But for others I have little hopes of perswading them to any thing and therefore I 'le spare my labour of going about to prove what they are either uncapable of or at first dash judge ridiculous And it may be most will grant as much as is requisite for my purpose which is That there are huge vast cavities within the body of the Earth and it were as needless as presumptuous for me to go about to determinemore Only I shall mention a probability that this gross crust which we call earth is not of so vast a profundity as is supposed and so come more press to my business 'T is an ordinary observation among them that are imployed in Mines and subterraneous vaults of any depth that heavy bodies lose much of their gravity in those hollow caverns So that what the strength of several men cannot stir above ground is easily moved by the single force of one under it Now to improve this experiment 't is very likely that gravity proceeds from a kind of magnetism and attractive vertue in the earth which is by so much the more strong and vigorous by how much more of the attrahent contributes to the action and proportionably weaker where less of the magnetick Element exerts its operation so that supposing
the solid earth to reach but to a certain and that not very great distance from the surface and 't is obvious this way to give an account of the Phaenomenon * For according to this Hypothesis the gravity of those bodies is less because the quantity of the earth that draws them is so whereas were it of the same nature and solidity to the center this diminution of its bulk and consequently vertue would not be at all considerable nor in the least sensible Now though there are other causes pretended for this effect yet there is none so likely and easie a solution as this though I know it also is obnoxious to exceptions which I cannot now stand to meddle with all that I would have is that 't is a probability * and the mention of the fountains of the great deep in the sacred History as also the flaming Vulcano's and smoaking mountains that all relations speak of are others * Now I intend not that after a certain distance all is fluid matter to the center For the Cartesian Hypothesis distributes the subterranean space into distinct regions of divers matter which are divided from each other by as solid walls as is the open air from the inferiour Atmosphere Therefore I suppose only that under this thick outside there is next a vast and large region of fluid matter * which for the most part very likely is a gross and fetid kind of air as also considerable proportions of fire and water under all which there may be other solid floors that may incompass and cover more vaults and vast hollows the contents of which 't were vanity to go about to determine only 't is very likely that as the admirable Philosophy of Des Cartes supposeth * the lowest and central Regions may be filled with flame and aether which suppositions though they may seem to some to be but the groundless excursions of busie imaginations yet those that know the French Philosophy and see there the Reasons of them will be more candid in their censures and not so severe to those not ill-framed conjectures Now then being thus provided I return again to prosecute my main intendment Wherefore 't is very probable that the wicked and degenerate part of mankind * are after death committed to those squalid subterraneous habitations in which dark prisons they do severe penance for their past impieties and have their senses which upon earth they did so fondly indulge and took such care to gratifie now persecuted with darkness stench and horror Thus doth the divine justice triumph in punishing those vile Apostates suitably to their delinquencies Now if those vicious souls are not carried down to the infernal caverns by the meer congruity of their natures as is not so easie to imagine we may then reasonably conceive * that they are driven into those dungeons by the invisible Ministers of Justice that manage the affairs of the world by Axiom 3. For those pure Spirits doubtless have a deep sense of what is just and for the good of the universe and therefore will not let those inexcusable wretches to escape their deserved castigations or permit them to reside among the good lest they should infect and poyson the better world by their examples Wherefore I say they are disposed of into those black under-Abysses where they are suited with company like themselves and match't unto bodies as impure as are their depraved inclinations Not that they are all in the same place and under the like torments but are variously distributed according to the merits of their natures and actions some only into the upper prisons * others to the Dungeon And some to the most intolerable Hell the Abyss of fire Thus doth a just Nemesis visit all the quarters of the Vniverse Now those miserable prisoners cannot escape from the places of their confinement for 't is very likely that those watchful spirits that were instrumental in committing them * have a strict and careful eye upon them to keep them within the confines of their goal that they rove not out into the regions of light and liberty yea 't is probable that the bodies they have contracted in those squalid mansions may by a kind of fatal magnetisme be chained down to this their proper element Or they having now a congruity only to such fetid vehicles may be no more able to abide the clear and lightsome Air than the Bat or Owl are able to bear the Suns noon-day beams or the fish to live in these thinner Regions This may be the reason of the unfrequency of their appearance and that they most commonly get them away at the approach of light Besides all this some there are who suppose that there is a kind of polity among themselves which may * under severe penalties prohibit all unlicensed excursions into the upper world though I confess this seems nor so probable and we stand in no need of the supposition For though the laws of their natures should not detain them within their proper residences yet the care and oversight of those watchful Spirits who first committed them will do it effectually And very oft when they do appear they signifie that they are under restraint and come not abroad but by permission as by several credible Stories I could make good But for brevity I omit them Now though I intend not this Hypothesis either for a discovery of infallible truth or declarement of mine own opinions yet I cannot forbear to note the strange coincidence that there is between Scripture expressions in this matter some main stroaks of the Orthodox Doctrine and this Philosophical conjecture of the state and place of the wicked 'T is represented in the Divine Oracles as a deep pit a prison a place of darkness fire and brimstone and the going thither is named a descent All which most appositely agree with the representation we have made And the usual Periphrasis of Hell torments fire and brimstone is wonderfully applicable to the place we have been describing since it abounds with fuliginous flames and sulphureous stench and vapours And as we have conjectur'd the lowest cavity is nothing else but a vault of â—â—re For the other expressions mentioned every one can make the application So that when a man considers this he will almost be tempted to think that the inspired writers had some such thing in their fancies And we are not to run to tropes and figures for the interpretation of plain and literal descriptions except some weighty reason force us to such a Refuge Moreover Hell is believed among the Orthodox to have degrees of torments to be a place of uncomfortable horror and to stand at the greatest distance from the seat and habitation of the blessed All which and more that I could reckon up cannot more clearly be made out and explained than they are in this Hypothesis Thus then we see the irreclaimably wicked lodg'd in a place and condition very wretched and calamitous If any of
requires no such thing but it rather clashes with the first and chiefest Pillar thereof viz. That all the Divine designs and actions are laid and carried on by Infinite Goodness And I have already intimated how much better it is to be this way that I am pleading for than that of this otherwise-ingenious Writer Pag. 125. Since by long and hard exercise in this body the Plastick Life is well tamed and debilitated c. But this is not at all necessary no not in those souls whose Plastick may be deemed the most rampant Dis-union from this Terrestrial body immediately tames it I mean the Terrestrial Congruity of Life and itâ— operation is stopt as surely as a string of a Lutâ— never so smartly vibrated is streightways silenced by a gentle touch of the finger and another single string may be immediately made to sound alone while the other is mute and silent For I say these are the free Laws of the Eternal Wisdom but fatally and vitally not intellectually implanted in the Spirit of Nature and in all Humane Souls or Spirits The whole Universe is as it were the Automatal Harp of that great and true Apollo and as for the general striking of the strings and stopping their vibrations they are done with as exquisite art as if a free intellectual Agent plaid upon them But the Plastick powers in the world are not such but onely Vital and Fatal as I said before Pag. 126. That an Aereal body was not enough for it to display its force upon c. It is far more safe and rational to say that the soul deserts her Aereal Estate by reason that the Period of the Vital Congruity is expired which according to those fatal Laws I spoke of before is determined by the Divine Wisdom But whether a soul may do any thing to abbreviate this Period and excite such symptoms in the Plastick as may shorten her continuance in that state let it be left to the more inquisitive to define Pag. 128. Where is then the difference betwixt the just and the wicked in state place and body Their difference in place I have sufficiently shewn in my Answer to the third Argument against the triple Congruity of Life in the Plastick of Humane Souls how fitly they may be disposed of in the Air. But to the rude Buffoonry of that crude Opposer of the Opinion of Pre-existence I made no Answer It being methinks sufficiently answered in the Scholia upon Sect. 12. Cap. 3. Lib. 3. of Dr. H. Mores Immortalitas Animae if the Reader think it worth his while to consult the place Now for State and Body the difference is obvious The Vehicle is of more pure Air and the Conscience more pure of the one than of the other Pag. 130. For according to this Hypothesis the gravity of those bodies is less because the quantity of the earth that draws them is so c. This is an ingenious invention both to salve that Phaenomenon why Bodies in Mines and other deep subterraneous places should seem not so heavy nor hard to lift there as they are in the superiour Air above the earth and also to prove that the crust of the earth is not of so considerable a thickness as men usually conceive it is I say it is ingenious but not so firm and sure The Quick-silver in a Torricellian Tube will sink deeper in an higher or clearer Air though there be the same Magnetism of the earth under it that was before But this is not altogether so fit an illustration there being another cause than I drive at conjoyned thereto But that which I drive at is sufficient of it self to salve this Phaenomenon A Bucket of water while it is in the water comes up with ease to him that draws it at the Well but so soon as it comes into the Air though there be the same earth under it that there was before it feels now exceeding more weighty Of which I conceive the genuine reason is because the Spirit of Nature which ranges all things in their due order acts proportionately strongly to reduce them thereto as they are more heterogeniously and disproportionately placed as to their consistencies And therefore by how much more crass and solid a body is above that in which it is placed by so much the stronger effort the Spirit of Nature uses to reduce it to its right place but the less it exceeds the crassness of the Element it is in the effort is the less or weaker Hence therefore it is that a stone or such like body in those subterraneous depths seems less heavy because the air there is so gross and thick and is not so much disproportionate to the grossness of the stone as our air above the earth here is nor do I make any doubt but if the earth were all cut away to the very bottom of any of these Mines so that the Air might be of the same consistency with ours the stone would then be as heavy as it is usually to us in this superioor surface of the earth So that this is no certain Argument for the proving that the crust of the earth is of such thinness as this Author would have it though I do not question but that it is thin enough Pag. 131. And the mention of the Fountains of the great Deep in the Sacred History c. This is a more considerable Argument for the thinness of the crust of the earth and I must confess I think it not improbable but that there is an Aqueous hollow Sphaericum which is the Basis of this habitable earth according to that of Psalm 24. 2. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the flouds Pag. 131. Now I intend not that after a certain distance all is fluid matter to the Centre That is to say After a certain distance of earthly Matter that the rest should be fluid Matter namely Water and Air to the Centre c. But here his intention is directed by that veneration he has for Des Cartes Otherwise I believe if he had freely examined the thing to the bottom he would have found it more reasonable to conclude all fluid betwixt the Concave of the Terrestrial Crust and the Centre of the Earth as we usually phrase it though nothing be properly Earth but that Crust Pag. 131. Which for the most part very likely is a gross and foetid kind of air c. On this side of the Concave of the Terrestrial Crust there may be several Hollows of foetid air and stagnant water which may be so many particular lodgings for lapsed and unruly Spirits But there is moreover a considerable Aqueous Sphaericum upon which the earth is founded and is most properly the Abyss but in a more comprehensive notion all from the Convex thereof to the Centre may be termed the Abyss or the Deepest place that touches our imagination Pag. 131. The lowest and central Regions may be filled with flame and
of its consistencie will inhibit this Captive from ever returning to this Superiour Air again because his Vehicle is though foul enough yet much thinner than the Water and there will be the the same ranging of things on the Concave side of the Aqueous Orb as there is on the Convex So that if we could suppose the Ring about Saturn inhabited with any living creatures they would be born toward the Concave of the Ring as well as toward the Convex and walk as steadily as we and our Antipodes do with our feet on this and that side of the earth one against another This may serve for a brief intimation of the reason of the thing and the intelligent will easily make out the rest themselves and understand what an ineluctable fate and calamity it is to be carried into that duskish place of dread and horrour when once the Angel that has the Keys of the Abyss or bottomless pit has shut a rebellious Spirit up there chained him in that hideous Dungeon Pag. 133. Others to the Dungeon and some to the most intolerable Hell the Abyss of fire The Dungeon here if it werâ— understood with an Emphasis would most properly denote the Dungeon of the Rephaim of which those parts nearest the Centre may be called the Abyss of Fire more properly than any Vulcano's in the Crust of the earth Those souls therefore that have been of a more fierce and fiery nature and the Causers of Violence and Bloodshed and of furious Wars and cruel Persecutions of innocent and harmless men when they are committed to this Dungeon of the Rephaim by those inevitable Laws of the subâ—eraqueous Sandalphon or Demogorgon if you will they will be ranged nearest the Central Fire of this Hellish Vault For the Vehicles of â—ouls symbolizing with the temper of the mind those who are most haughty ambitious fierâ—e and fiery and therefore out of Pride and contempt of others in respect of themselves and their own Interest make nothing of shedding innocent bloud or cruelly handling those that are not for their turn but are faithful adherers to their Maker the Vehicles of these being more thin and fiery than theirs who have transgressed in the Concapâ—â—câ—ble they must needs surmount such in order of place and be most remote from the Concave of the Aqueous Orb under which the Rephaim groan and so be placed at least the nearest to that Abyss of Fire which our Author terms the most intolerable Hell Pag. 133. Have a strict and careful eye upon them to keep them within the confines of their Goal c. That this as it is a more tedious Province so a needless one I have intimated above by reason that the fear of being carried into the Abyss will effectually detain them in their confinements From whence if they be not released in time the very place they are in may so change their Vehicles that it may in a manner grow natural to them and make them as uncapable of the Superiour Air as Bats and Owls are as the ingenious Author notes to bear the Suns Noon-day-Beams or the Fish to live in these thinner Regions Pag. 134. Vnder severe penalties prohibit all unlicensed excursions into the upper World though I confess this seems not so probable c. The Author seems to reserve all the Air above the earth to good souls onely and that if any â—ad ones appear it must â—e by either stealth or license But why bad souls may not be in this lower Region of the Air as well as Devils I understand not Nor do I conceive but that the Kingdom of Darkness may make such Laws amongst themselves as may tend to the ease and safety of those of the Kingdom of Light Not out of any good-will to them but that themselves may not further smart for it if they give license to such and such exorbitancies For they are capable of pain and punishment and though they are permitted in the world yet they are absolutely under the power of the Almighty and of the Grand Minister of his Kingdom the glorious Soul of the Messiah Pag. 137. The internal Central Fire should have got such strength and irresistible vigour c. But how or from whence is very hard to conceiâ—e I should rather suspect as I noted above that the Fire will more and more decay till it turn at last to a kind of Terrella like that observed within the Ring of Saturn and the Dungeon become utter Darkness where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as well as in the furnace of Fire Pag. 141. And so following the Laws of its proper motion shall fly away out of this Vortex c. This looks like an â—eedless mistake of this ingenious Writer who though he speak the language of Cartesius seems here not to have recalled to mind his Principles For the Earth according to his Principles is never like to become a Sun again Nor if it had so become would it then become a Comet Forasmuch as Comets according to his Philosophie are incrâ—stated Suns and Planets or Earths in a manner and so to be deemed so soon as they settle in any Vortex and take their course about the Centre thereof Nor if the Earth become a Sun again is it like to leave our Vortex according to the Cartesian Principles but rather be swallowed down into the Sun of our Vortex and increase his magnitude the ranging of the Planets according to Des Cartes Mechanical Laws being from the difference of their solidities and the least solid next to the Sun Whither then can this Sol redivivus or the Earth turned wholly into the Materia subtilissima again be carried but into the Sun it self This seems most likely especially if we consider this Sol Redivious or the Earth turned all into the Materia subtilissima in itself But if we take into our consideration its particular Vortex which carries about the Moon the business may bear a further debate which will require more time than to be entred upon here But it seems plain at first sight that though this Sol Redivivus should by vertue of its particular Vortex be kept from being swallowed down into the Sun and Centre of the great Vortex yet it will never be able to get out of this great Vortex according to the frame of Des Cartes Philosophy So that there will be two Suns in one Vortex a Planetary one and a fixt one Which unexpected monstrositie in Nature will make any cautious Cartesian more wary how he admits of the Earths ever being turned into a Sun again but rather to be content to let its Central Fire to incrustrate it self into a Terrella there seeming to be an example of this in that little Globe in the midst of the Ring of Saturn but of an Earth turned into a Sun no example at all that I know of Pag. 142. So that the Central Fire remains unconcerned c. And so â—t well may it being
in the fore-cited place has perfectly routed that fond and foul Hypothesis of Dr. Glisson and I dare say is sorry that so good and old a Knight errant in Theologie and Philosophie as Mr. Richard Baxter seems to be should become benighted as in a wood at the Close of his daies in this most horrid dark Harbour and dismal Receptacle or Randevouz of wretched Atheists But I dare say for him it is his ignorance not choice that has lodged him there The fourth Disingenuity of Mr. Baxter towards the Doctor is in complaining of him as if he had wronged him by the Title of his Answer to his Letter in calling it an Answer to a Psychopyrist pag. 2. 82. As if he had asserted that materiality of Spirits which belongs to bodies pag. 94. In complaining also of his inconsistency with himself pag. 10. as if he one while said that Mr. Baxter made Spirits to be Fire or material and another while said he made them not Fire or material But to the first part of this Accusation it may be answered That if it is Mr. Baxter that is called the Learned Psychopyrist how is the thing known to the world but by himself It looks as if he were ambitious of the Title and proud of the â—ivil treating he has had at the hands of the Doctor though he has but ill repai'd his civility in his Reply And besides this there is no more harshness in calling him Psychopyrist than if he had called him Psycho-Hylist there being nothing absurd in Psychopyrism but so far forth as it includes Psycho-Hylism and makes the Soul material Which Psycho-Hylism that Mr. Baxter does admit it is made evident in the Doctors Answer Sect. 16. And Mr. Baxter in his Placid Collation as he mis-calls it for assuredly his mind was turbid when he wrote it pag. 2. allows that Spirits may be called Fire Analogicè and Eminenter and the Doctor in his Preface intimates that the sense is to be no further stretched than the Psychopyrist himself will allow But now that Mr. Baxter does assert that Materiality in created Spirits that belongs to bodies in the common sense of all Philosophers appears Sect. 16. where his words are these But custom having made MATERIA but especially CORPVS to signifie onely such grosser Substance as the three passive Elements are he means Earth Water Air I yield says he so to say that Spirits are not Corporeal or Material Which plainly implies that Spirits are in no other sense Immaterial than Fire and Aether are viz. than in this that they are thinner matter And therefore to the last point it may be answered in the Doctors behalf that he assuredly does nowhere say That Mr. Baxter does not say that Spirits are Material as Material is taken in the common sense of all Philosophers for what is impenetrable and discerpible Which is Materia Physica and in opposition to which a Spirit is said to be Immaterial And which briefly and distinctly states the Question Which if Mr. Baxter would have taken notice of he might have saved himself the labour of a great deal of needless verbosity in his Placid Collation where he does over-frequently under the pretence of more distinctness in the multitude of words obscure knowledge Fifthly Upon Sect. 10. pag. 21. where Mr. Baxters Question is How a man may tell how that God that can make many out of one cannot make many into one c. To which the Doctor there answers If the meaning be of substantial Spirits it has been already noted that God acting in Nature does not make many substances out of one the substance remaining still entire for then Generation would be Creation And no sober man believes that God assists any creature so in a natural course as to enable it to create And then I suppose that he that believes not this is not bound to puzzle himself why God may not as well make many substances into one as many out of one whenas he holds he does not the latter c. These are the Doctors own words in that Section In reply to which Mr. Baxter But to my Question saies he why God cannot make two of one or one of two you put me off with this lean Answer that we be not bound to puzzle our selves about it I think saies he that Answer might serve to much of your Philosophical disputes Here Mr. Baxter plainly deals very disingenuously with the Doctor in perverting his words which affirm onely That he that denies that God can make two substances of one in the sense above-declared need not puzzle himself how he may make one of those two again Which is no lean but full and apposite Answer to the Question there propounded And yet in this his Placid Collation as if he were wroth he gives ill language and insinuates That much of the Doctors Philosophical Disputes are such as are not worth a mans puzling himself about them whenas it is well known to all that know him or his Writings that he concerns himself in no Theories but such as are weighty and useful as this of the Indiscerpibility of Spirits is touching which he further slanders the Doctor as if it were his mere Assertion without any Proof As if Mr. Baxter had never read or forgot the Doctors Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit or what he has writ in the further Defence thereof See Sect. 26 28 30 31. Thus to say any thing in an angry mood verily does not become the Title of a Placid Collation Sixthly The Doctor in Sect. 11. of his Defence of his Notion of a Spirit writes thus I desire you to consider the nature of Light throughly and you shall find it nothing but a certain motion of a Medium whose parts or particles are so or so qualified some such way as Cartesianism drives at To this Mr. Baxter replies against the Doctor pag. 59. Really saies he when I read how far you have escaped the delusions of Cartesianism I am sorry you yet stick in so gross a part of it as this is when he that knoweth no more than motion in the nature of Fire which is the Active Principle by which Mental and Sensitive Nature operateth on Man and Brutes and Vegetables and all the Passive Elements and all the visible actions in this lower world are performed what can that mans Philosophie be worth I therefore return your Counsel study more throughly the nature of Ethereal Fire Satis pro imperio very Magisterially spoken and in such an igneous Rapture that it is not continuedly sense Does Mental and Sensitive Nature act on Brutes and Vegetables and all the Passive Elements But to let go that Is all the Doctors Philosophie worth nothing if he hold with Des Cartes touching the Phaenomenon of Light as to the Material part thereof It is the ignorance of Mr. Baxter that he rejects all in Des Cartes and Judiciousness in the Doctor that he retains some things and supplies where his
Philosophie is deficient He names here onely the Mechanical Cause of Light viz. Motion and duly modified Particles But in his Enchiridium he intimates an higher principle than either Fire or Aether or any thing that is Material be it as fine and pure as you please to fancie it See his Enchirid Metaphys Cap. 19. where he shews plainly that Light would not be Light were there not a Spiritus Mundanus or Spirit of Nature which pervades the whole Universe Mr. Baxters ignorance whereof has cast him into so deep a dotage upon Fire and Light and fine discerpible Corporeities which he would by his Magisterial Prerogative dubb Spirits when to nothing that Title is due but what is Penetrable and Indiscerpible by reason of the immediate Oneness of its Essence even as God the Father and Creator of all Spirits is one Indiscerpible Substance or Being And therefore I would advise Mr. Baxter to studie more throughly the true nature of a Spirit and to let go these Ignes Fatui that would seduce him into thick mists and bogs For that universal Spirit of Nature is most certainly the Mover of the matter of the world and the Modifier thereof and thence exhibits to us not onely the Phaenomena of Light and Fire but of Earth and Water and frames all Vegetables into shape and growth and Fire of it self is but a dead Instrument in its hand as all is in the hand of God who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Synesius if I well remember somewhere calls him in his Hymns Seventhly That is also less ingenuously done of Mr. Baxter when the Doctor so friendly and faithfully puts him in a way of undeceiving himself Sect. 17. touching the Doctrine of Atoms that he puts it off so slightly And so Sect. 18. where he earnestly exhorts him to studie the nature of Water as Mr. Baxter does others to studie the nature of Fire he as if he had been bitten and thence taken with that disease the Physicians call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which signifies the fear of Water has slunk away and quite neglected the Doctors friendly monition and is so small a Proficient in Hydrostaticks that pag. 68. he understands not what greater wonder there is in the rising of the Dr.'s Rundle than in the rising of a piece of Timber from the bottom of the Sea Which is a sign he never read the 13th Chapter of the Dr.'s Enchiridion Metaphysicum much less the Scholia thereon For if he had he would discern the difference and the vast usefulness of the one above that of the other to prove a Principium Hylarchicum distinct from the matter of the Universe against all evasions and tergiversations whatsoever But these things cannot be insisted on here Eighthly Mr. Baxter pag. 76. charges the Doctor with such a strange Paradox as to half of it that I cannot imagine from whence he should fetch it You seem says he to make all substance Atoms Spiritual Atoms and Material Atoms The latter part of the charge the Doctor I doubt not but will acknowledge to be true But may easily prove out of Mr. Baxter pag. 65. that he must hold so too For his words there are these Thaâ— God is able to divide all matter into Atoms or indivisible parts I doubt not And can they be Physically divided into parts of which they don't consist But Mr. Baxter by the same reason making Spirits divisible by God though not by any Creature makes them consist of Spiritual Atoms for they cannot but consist of such parts as they are divisible into And if they be divisible by God into larger shreds onely but not into Atoms then every created Spirit especially particular ones are so many subtil living Puppets made up of spiritual rags and clouts But if God can divide them neither into spiritual Atoms nor larger spiritual parcels he can't divide them at all And so according to what the Doctor contends for they will be as they ought to be absolutely indiscerpible I omit here to take notice of another absurdity of Mr. Baxters That though the substance of a Spirit he will have to be divisible yet he will have the form indivisible pag. 50 99. and yet both parts to be Spirit still which implies a contradiction For then one of the parts will be without the form of a Spirit and consequently be no Spirit and yet be a Spirit according to Mr. Baxter who makes Spirits divisible into parts of the same denomination as when water is divided into two parts each part is still water pag. 53. Ninthly That which occurrs pag. 48. is a gross Disingenuity against the Doctor where Mr. Baxter says And when you make all Spirits to be Souls and to animate some matter you seem to make God to be but Anima Mundi How unfair and harsh is this for you Mr. Baxter who has been so tenderly and civilly handled by the Doctor in his Answer to your Letter he constantly hiding or mollifying any thing that occurred therein that might overmuch expose you to represent him as a favourer of so gross a Paradox as this That there is no God but an Anima Mundi which is the Position of the Vaninian Atheists which himself has expresly confuted in his Mystery of Godliness and declared against lately in his Advertisements on Jos Glanvils Letter to himself in the second Edition of Saducismus Triumphatus This looks like the breaking out of unchristian rancour in a Reply which bears the Specious Title of a Placid Collation Which is yet exceedingly more aggravable for that this odious Collection is not made from any words of the Doctor but from a fiction of Mr. Baxter For the Doctor has nowhere Written nor ever thought that all Spirits but only all Created Spirits might probably be Souls that is to say actuate some matter or other And those words are in his Preface to his Answer to the Letter of the Psychopyrist as I noted before I might reckon up several other Disingenuities of Mr. Baxters towards the Doctor in this his Placid Collation but I have enumerated enough already to weary the Reader and I must remember I am but in a Digression I shall onely name one Disingenuity more which was antecedent to them all and gave occasion both to Mr. Baxters Letter and to the Doctors Answer thereto and to this Reply of Mr. Baxter And that was That Mr. Baxter in his Methodus Theologiae as he has done also in a little Pamphlet touching Judge Hales without giving any reasons which is the worst way of traducing any man or his sâ—ntiments slighted and slurred those two essential Attributes of a Spirit Penetrability and Indiscerpibility which for their certain Truth and usefulness the Doctor thought fit to communicate to the World But forasmuch as Mr. Baxter has in this his Reply produced his Reasons against them I doubt not but the Doctor will accept it for an amends And I as I must disallow of
another yet they demonstrate still their Spirituality by Self-Penetration haply a thousand and a thousand times repeated And though by a Law of life not by a dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are kept from penetrating one another yet they both in the mean time necessarily penetrate Matter as undergoing the diverse measures of essential Spissitude in the same So that by the increase of that essential Spissitude they may approach near to a kind of Hylopathick disposition of Impenetrability and thence by the Matter of the Universe out of which they never are be curb'd from contracting themselves any further than to such a degree and I noted at first that spiritual Subtilty as well as Amplitude is given in measure to created Spirits So that Penetrabilitie is still a steadie Character of a Spiritual Essence or Substance to thâ— utmost sense thereof And to argue against Impenetrability its being the propertie of Matter from this kind of Impenetrability of contracted Spirits is like that quibbling Sophistrie against Indiscerpibility being the propertie of a Spirit because a Physical Monad is also indiscerpible The ninth Objection is against the Indiscerpibility of Spirits and would infer that because the Doctor makes them intellectually divisible therefore by Divine Power if it imply no contradiction a Spirit is Discerpible into Physical parts But this is so fully satisfied already by the Doctor in his Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit and its Defence to say nothing of what I have said already above to prove it does imply a contradiction that I will let it go and proceed To the tenth and last Allegation which pretends That these two terms Penetrable and Indiscerpible are needless and hazardous in the Notion of a Spirit But how useful or needful Penetrability is is manifest from what we have said to the eighth Objection And the needfulness of Indiscerpibility is also sufficiently shewn by the Doctor in his Defence of the true Notion of a Spirit Sect. 30. But now for the Hazardousness of these terms as if they were so hard that it would discourage men from the admitting of the Existence of Spirits It appears from what has been said to the eighth Objection That Penetrability is not onely intelligible and admittable but necessarily to be admitted in the Notion of a Spirit as sure as God is a Spirit and that there are Spirits of men and Angels and that the Souls of men are not made of Shreds but actuate their whole grown bodie though at first they were contracted into the compass of a very small Foetus And that there is no Repugnancie that an Essence may be ample and yet indiscerpible Mr. Baxter himself must allow who pag. 51. plainly declares That it is the vilest contradiction to say that God is capable of division So that I wonder that he will call Penetrable and Indiscerpible hard and doubtful words and such as might stumble mens belief of the Existence of Spirits when they are terms so plain and necessary Nor can that Vnitie that belongs to a Spirit be conceived or understood without them especially without Indiscerpibilitie And indeed if we do not allow Penetrability the Soul of a man will be far from being one but a thing discontinued and scatter'd in the pores of his corporeal consistencie We will conclude with Mr. Baxters Conceit of the Indivisibleness of a Spirit and see how that will corroborate mens faith of their Existence and put all out of hazard Various Elements saith he pag. 50. vary in Divisibility Earth is most divisible Water more hardly the parts more inclining to the closest contact Air yet more hardly and in Fire no doubt the Discerpibility is yet harder And if God have made a Creature so strongly inclined to the unitie of all the parts that no Creature can separate them but God onely as if a Soul were such it is plain that such a Being need not fear a dissolution by Separation of parts Ans This is well said for an heedless and credulous multitude but this is not to Philosophize but to tell us that God works a perpetual Miracle in holding the small tenuious parts of the Soul together more pure and â—ine than those of Fire or Aether but here is no natural cause â—â—om the thing it self offered unless it be that in every Substance or rather Matter the parts according to the tenuitie and puritie of the Substance incline to a closer Contact and inseparable Union one with another which is a conceit repugnant to experience and easily confuted by that ordinarie accident of a Spinner hanging by its weak thread from the brim of ones Hat which â—eeble line yet is of force enough to divide the Air and for that very reason because it consists of thinner parts than Water or Earth As also we can more easily run in the Air than wade in the Water for the very same reason These things are so plain that they are not to be dwelt upon But Mr. Baxter is thus pleased to shew his Wit in maintaining a weak â—ause which I am perswaded he has not so little judgment as that he can have any great confidence in And therefore in sundry places he intimates that he does allow or at least not deny but that Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie is contained in the Notion of a Spirit but not as part of the Conceptus formalis but as Dispositio or Modus substantiae but yet withal such a Dispositio as is essential to the substance that with the Conceptus formalis added makes up the true Notion of a Spirit See pag. 30 32 61 85. And truly if Mr. Baxter be in good earnest and sincere in this agreement without all equivocation that Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie is Essential to the true Notion of a Spirit onely they are to be admitted as Dispositio Substantiae not as Pars Formae I confess as he declares pag. 94. That the diâ—â—erence betwixt him and the Doctor lyeth in a much smaller matter than was thought and the Doctor I believe will easily allow him to please his own fancy in that But then he must understand the terms of Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie in the Doctors sense viz of a Spirits penetrating not inter partes but per partes materiâ—â— and possessing the same space with them And of an Indiscerpibleness not arising from thinner and thinner parts of matter as he imagines Air to be more hardly discerpible than Earth or Water forasmuch as by reason of its thinness its parts lye closer together as was above noted but from the immediate essential Oneness of substance in a Spirit according to the true Idea of an Indiscerpible Being in the Divine Intellect which whether in Idea or in Actual Existence it would cease to be or rather never was such if it were discerpible and therefore implies a contradiction it should be so But if a Spirit be not Penetrable in the Doctors sense it is really Impenetrable and if not Indiscerpible in his sense
Attributes of a Spirit contrarie to Matter are not in vain For whenas a Plastick Spirit is to actuate and organize Matter and inwardly dispose it into certain forms Penetrability is needful that it may possess the Matter and order it throughout As also that Oneness of Essence and Indiscerpibility that it may hold it together For what should make any mass of Matter one but that which has a special Oneness of Essence in it self quite different from that of Matter And forasmuch as all Souls are indued with the Plastick whether of Brutes or Men not to add the Spirits of Angels still there holds the same reason in all ranks that Spirits should be as well Penetrable and Indiscerpible as Vital And if there be any Platonick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that have no Plastick yet Penetrability must belong to them and is of use to them if they be found to be within the verges of the Corporeal Universe and why not they as well as God himself and Indiscerpibility maintains their Supposital Unitie as it does in all Spirits that have to do with Matter and are capable of a vital coalescencie therewith But I have accumulated here more Theorie than is needful And I must remember that I am in a Digression To return therefore to the particular point we have been about all this while I hope by this time I have made it good that the Dr.'s Definition of a Spirit is so clear so true so express and usefully instructive and that is the scope of the Doctors Writings that neither he himself nor any body else let them consider as much as they can will ever be able to mend it And that these affected Cavils of Mr. Baxter argue no defects or slaws in the Doctors Definition but the ignorance and impotencie of Mr. Baxters Spirit and the undue elation of his mind when notwithstanding this unexceptionableness of the Definition he pag. 82. out of his Magisterial Chair of Judicature pronounces with a gracious nod You mean well but all our Conceptions here must have their ALLOWANCES and we must confess their weakness This is the Sentence which grave Mr. Baxter alto supercilio gives of the Doctors accurate Definition of a Spirit to humble him and exalt himself in the sight of the populacie But is it not a great weakness or worse to talk of favourable allowances and not to allow that to be unexceptionable against which no just exception is found But to give Mr. Baxter his due though the extream or extimate parts of this Paragraph pag. 82. which you may fancie as the skin thereof may seem to have something of bitterness and toughness in it yet the Belly of the Paragraph is full of plums and sweet things For he saies And we are all greatly beholden to the Doctor for his so industrious calling foolish Sensualists to the study and notion of invisible Beings without which what a carcass or nothing were the world But is it not pity then while the Doctor does discharge this Province with that faithfulness and industrie that Mr. Baxter should disturb him in his work and hazzard the fruits and efficacie thereof by eclipsing the clearness of his Notions of Spiritual Beings for Bodies may be also invisible by the interposition or opposition of his own great Name against them who as himself tells the world in his Church-History has wrote fourscore Books even as old Dr. Glisson his Patron or rather Pattern in Philosophy arrived to at least fourscore Years of age And Mr. Baxter it seems is for the common Proverb The older the wiser though Elihu in Job be of another mind who saies there I said Days should speak and multitude of Years should teach Wisdom But there is a Spirit in man and the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth him Vnderstanding But whither am I going I would conclude here according to promise having rescued the Doctors Definition of a Spirit from Mr. Baxters numerous little Criticisms like so many shrill busie Gnats trumpeting about it and attempting to insix their feeble Proboscides into it and I hope I have silenced them all But there is something in the very next Paragraph which is so wrongfully charged upon the Doctor that I cannot forbear standing up in his justification The Charge is this That he has fathered upon Mr. Baxter an Opinion he never owned and nick-named him Psychopyrist from his own fiction As if says he we said that Souls are Fire and also took Fire as the Doctor does for Candles and hot Irons c. onely But I answer in behalf of the Doctor as I have a little toucht on this matter before That he does indeed entitle a certain Letter which he answers to a Learned Psychopyrist as the Author thereof But Mr. Baxters name is with all imaginable care concealed So that he by his needless owning the Letter has notched that nick-name as he calls it of Psychopyrist upon himself whether out of greediness after that alluring Epithet it is baited with I know not but that he hangs thus by the gills like a Fish upon the Hook he may thank his own self for it nor ought to blame the Doctor Much less accuse him for saying that Mr. Baxter took Fire in no other sense than that in Candles and hot Iron and the like For in his Preface he expresly declares on the Psychopyrists behalf that he does not make this crass and visible Fire the Essence of a Spirit but that his meaning is more subtile and refined With what conscience then can Mr. Baxter say that the Doctor affirms that he took Fire in no other sense than that in Candles and hot Iron and the like and that he held all Souls to be such Fire whenas the Doctor is so modest and cautious that he does not affirm that Mr. Baxter thinks any to be such though even in this Placid Collation he professes his inclination towards the Opinion that Ignis and Vegetative Spirit is all one pag. 20 21. I have oft professed saith he that I am ignorant whether Ignis and Vegetative Spirit be all one to which I most incline or whether Ignis be an active nature made to be the instrument by which the three spiritual natures Vegetative Sensitive and Mental work on the three passive natures Earth Water Air. And again pag. 66. If it be the Spirit of the world that is the nearest cause of illumination by way of natural activity then that which you call the Spirit of the World I call Fire and so we differ but de nomine But I have saith he as before professed my ignorance whether Fire and the Vegetative nature be all one which I incline to think or whether Fire be a middle active nature between the spiritual and the mere Passive by which Spirits work on bodie And pag. 71. I doubt not but Fire is a Substance permeant and existent in all mixt bodies on Earth In your bloud it is the prime part of that called the