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was something divine in it, i. e. there were faculties in the soul that could not result from the nature of matter, but must have their original from a divine power; but yet those qualities, as divine as they were, he acknow. ledged might be placed in breath or fire, which, I think, your lordship will not deny to be material substances. So that all those divine qualities, which he so much and so justly extols in the soul, led him not, as appears, so much as to any the least thought of immateriality. This is demonstration, that he built them not upon an exclusion of materiality out of the soul; for he avowedly professes he does not know, but breath or fire might be this thinking thing in us: and in all his considerations about the substance of the soul itself, he stuck in air, or fire, or Aristotle's quinta essentia; for beyond those it is evident he went not.

But with all his proofs out of Plato, to whose authority he defers so much, with all the arguments his vast reading and great parts could furnish him with for the immortality of the soul, he was so little satisfied, so far from being certain, so far from any thought that he had, or could prove it, that he over and over again professes his ignorance and doubt of it. In the beginning he enumerates the several opinions of the philosophers, which he had well studied, about it: and then, full of uncertainty, says, Harum sententiarum quæ vera sit, Deus aliquis viderit; quæ veresimillima, magno quæstio, c. 11. And towards the latter end, having gone them all over again, and one after another examined them, he professes himself still at a loss, not knowing on which to pitch, nor what to determine. Mentis acies, says he, seipsam intuens, nonnunquam hebescit, ob eamque causam contemplandi diligentiam amittimus. Itaque dubitans, circum. spectans, hæsitans, multa adversa revertens, tanquam in rate in mari immenso, nostra vehitur oratio, c. 30. And to conclude this argument, when the person he introduces as discoursing with him, tells him he is resolved to keep firm to the belief of immortality; Tully answers, c. 32. Laudo id quidem, etsi nihil animis oportet confidere: movemur enim sæpe aliquo acute concluso; labamus, mutamusque sententiam clarioribus etiam in rebus; in his est enim aliqua obscuritas.

So unmoveable is that truth delivered by the spirit of truth, that though the light of nature gave some obscure glimmering, some uncertain hopes of a future state; yet human reason could attain to no clearness, no certainty about it, but that it was JESUS CHRIST alone, who had brought life and immortality to light through the gospel*. Though we are now told, that to own the inability of natural reason to bring immortality to light, or, which passes for the same, to own principles upon which the immateriality of the soul (and, as it is urged, consequently its immorta. lity) cannot be demonstratively proved, does lessen the belief of this article of revelation, which JESUS CHRIST alone has brought to light, and which consequently the scripture assures us is established and made certain only by revelation. This would not perhaps have seemed strange, from those who are justly complained of for slighting the revelation of the gos pel, and therefore would not be much regarded, if they should contradict so plain a text of scripture, in favour of their all-sufficient reason: but what use the promoters of scepticism and infidelity, in an age so much suspected by your lordship, may make of what comes from one of your great authority and learning, may deserve your consideration.

* 2 Tim, i, 10,

And

And thus, my lord, I hope, I have satisfied you concerning Cicero's opinion about the soul, in his first book of Tusculan questions; which, though I easily believe, as your lordship says, you are no stranger to, yet I humbly conceive you have not shown (and upon a careful perusal of that treatise again, I think I may boldly say you cannot show) one word in it, that expresses any thing like a notion in Tully of the soul's immateriality, or its being an immaterial substance.

From what you bring out of Virgil, your lordship concludes, *That he, no more than Cicero, does me any kindness in this matter, being both assertors of the soul's immortality. My lord, were not the question ofthe soul's immateriality, according to custom, changed here into that of immortality, which I am no less an assertor of than either of them, Cicero and Virgil do me all the kindness I desired of them in this matter; and that was to show, that they attributed the word spiritus to the soul of man, without any thought of its immateriality; and this the verses you yourself bring out of Virgil +,

Et cum frigida mors animâ seduxerit artus,

Omnibus umbra locis adero; dabis, improbe, pœnas; confirm, as well as those I quoted out of his 6th book: and for this monsieur de la Loubere shall be my witness in the words above set down out of him; where he shows, that there be those amongst the heathens of our days, as well as Virgil and others amongst the antient Greeks and Romans, who thought the souls or ghosts of men departed did not die with the body, without thinking them to be perfectly immaterial; the latter being much more incomprehensible to them than the former. And what Virgil's notion of the soul is, and that corpus, when put in contradistinction to the soul, signifies nothing but the gross tenement of flesh and bones, is evident from this verse of his Æneid 6. where he calls the souls which yet were visible,

-Tenues sine corpore vitas.

Your lordship's answer concerning what is said Eccles. xii. turns wholly upon Solomon's taking the soul to be immortal, which was not what I questioned: all that I quoted that place for, was to show that spi rit in English might properly be applied to the soul, without any notion of its immateriality, as n was by Solomon, which, whether he thought the souls of men to be immaterial, does little appear in that passage, where he speaks of the souls of men and beasts together, as he does. But farther, what I contended for is evident from that place, in that the word spirit is there applied by our translators, to the souls of beasts, which your lordship, I think, does not rank amongst the immaterial, and consequently immortal spirits, though they have sense and spontaneous motion.

But you say, If the soul be not of itself a free thinking substance, you do not see what foundation there is in nature for a day of judgment. Ans. Though the heathen world did not of old, nor do to this day, see a foundation in nature for a day of judgment; yet in revelation, if that will satisfy your lordship, every one may see a foundation for a day of judgment, because God has positively declared it; though God has not by that revelation taught us, what the substance of the soul is; nor has any where said, that the soul of itself is a free agent. Whatsoever any created substance is, it is not of itself, but is by the good pleasure of its

1st Answer. + Æneid. 4. 385.

1st Answer..

Ibid.

Creator:

Creator: whatever degrees of perfection it has, it has from the bountiful hand of its maker. For it is true in a natural, as well as a spiritual sense, what St. Paul says, Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.

But your lordship, as I guess by your following words, would argue, that a material substance cannot be a free agent; whereby I suppose you only mean, that you cannot see or conceive how a solid substance should begin, stop, or change its own motion. To which give me leave to answer, that when you can make it conceivable, how any created, finite, dependant substance can move itself, or alter or stop its own motion, which it must to be a free agent; I suppose you will find it no harder for God to bestow this power on a solid than an unsolid created substance. Tully, in the place above quoted, + could not conceive this power to be in any thing but what was from eternity; Cum pateat igitur æternum id esse quod seipsum moveat, quis est qui hanc naturam animis esse tributam neget? But though you cannot see how any created substance, solid or not solid, can be a free agent, (pardon me, my lord, if I put in both, till your lordship please to explain it of either, and show the manner how either of them can, of itself, move itself or any thing else) yet I do not think you will so far deny men to be free agents, from the difficulty there is to see how they are free agents, as to doubt whether there be foundation enough for a day of judgment.

It is not for me to judge how far your lordship's speculations reach : but finding in myself nothing to be truer than what the wise Solomon tells me, As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even so thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all things; I gratefully receive and rejoice in the light of revelation, which sets me at rest in many things, the manner whereof my poor reason can by no means make out to me: Omni. potency, I know, can do any thing that contains in it no contradiction; so that I readily believe whatever God has declared, though my reason find difficulties in it, which it cannot master. As in the present case, God having revealed that there shall be a day of judgment, I think that foundation enough, to conclude men are free enough to be made answerable for their actions, and to receive according to what they have done; though how man is a free agent, surpass my explication or comprehension.

In answer to the place I brought out of St. Luke ||, your lordship asks, ** Whether from these words of our Saviour, it follows, that a spirit is only an appearance? I answer, No; nor do I know who drew such an inference from them: but it follows, that in apparitions there is some. thing that appears, and that which appears is not wholly immaterial; and yet this was properly called Tupa, and was often looked upon, by those who called it μa in Greek, and now call it spirit in English, to be the ghost or soul of one departed; which I humbly conceive justifies my use of the word spirit, for a thinking voluntary agent, whether mate. rial or immaterial.

Your lordship says, ++ That I grant, that it cannot upon these principles be demonstrated, that the spiritual substance in us is immaterial; from whence you conclude, That then my grounds of certainty from ideas are plainly given up. This being a way of arguing that you often

2 Cor. iii. 5. + Tusculan. Quæst. L. 1. c. 23. + Eccl. xi. 5.

* C. xxiv. v. 39.

營營 Ist Answer.

++ Ibid.

make

impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover, whether omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter fitly disposed a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter so disposed a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive, that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance, with a faculty of thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first eternal thinking being should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought: though, as I think, I have proved, lib. iv. ch. 10. §. 14, &c. it is no less than a contradiction to suppose matter (which is evidently in its own nature void of sense and thought) should be that eternal first-thinking being. What certainty of knowledge can any one have that some perceptions, such as, v. g. pleasure and pain, should not be in some bodies themselves, after a certain manner modified and moved, as well as that they should be in an immaterial substance, upon the motion of the parts of body? Body, as far as we can conceive, being able only to strike and affect body; and motion, according to the utmost reach of our ideas, being able to produce nothing but motion: so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain, or the idea of a colour or sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond our ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of

make use of, I have often had occasion to consider it, and cannot after all see the force of this argument. I acknowledge that this or that proposition cannot upon my principles be demonstrated; ergo, I grant this proposition to be false, that certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas. For that is my ground of certainty, and till that be given up, my grounds of certainty are not given up.

our

our Maker. For since we must allow he has annexed effects to motion, which we can no way conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we to conclude, that he could not order them as well to be produced in a subject we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as in a subject we cannot conceive the motion of matter can any way operate upon? I say not this, that I would any way lessen the belief of the soul's immateriality: I an not here speaking of probability, but knowledge; and I think not only, that it becomes the modesty of philosophy not to pronounce magisterially, where we want that evidence that can produce knowledge; but also, that it is of use to us to discern how far our knowledge does reach; for the state we are at present in, not being that of vision, we must, in many things, content ourselves with faith and probability; and in the present question, about the immateriality of the soul, if our faculties cannot arrive at demonstrative certainty, we need not think it strange. All the great ends of morality and religion are well enough secured, without philosophical proofs of the soul's immateriality; since it is evident, that he who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sensible intelligent beings, and for several years continued us in such a state, can and will restore us to the like state of sensibility in another world, and make us capable there to receive the retribution he has designed to men, according to their doings in this life. And therefore it is not of such mighty necessity to determine one way or the other, as some, over-zealous for or against the immateriality of the soul, have been forward to make the world believe. Who, either on the one side, indulging too much their thoughts immersed altogether in matter, can allow no existence to what is not material or who, on the other side, finding not cogitation within the natural powers of matter, examined over and over again by the utmost intention of mind, have the confidence to conclude, that omnipotency itself cannot give perception and thought to a substance which has the modification of solidity. He that considers how hardly sensation is, in our thoughts, reconcileable to extended matter; or existence to any thing

that

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