A26976:117
Of the immortality of mans soul, and the nature of it and other spirits.…
Of the immortality of mans soul, and the nature of it and other spirits. Two discourses, one in a letter to an unknown doubter, the other in a reply to Dr. Henry Moore's Animadversions on a private letter to him, which he published in his second edition of Mr. Joseph Glanvil's Sadducismus triumphatus, or, History of apparitions by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for B. Simons, 1682
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Ad SECT. IX.
§ 1. TO your Indiscerpibility I further say, I distinguish, 1. Between Actual and Intellectual dividing; 2. Between what God can do, and what a Creature ⟨p. 50⟩can do, and 3. Between the Father of Spirits and created Spirits: And so I say, 1. That if you had spoken of the mere Virtus Vitalis of a Spirit, I think it is a contradiction to say that it is Discerpible or impenetrable; But seeing you ascribe Amplitude, Quantity, and Dimensions, and Logical Materiality to the Substantiality of Spirits, I see not but that you make them Intellectually divisible; that is, that one may think of one part as here and another there. 2. And if so, though man cannot separate or divide them, if it be no contradiction God can. Various Elements vary in divisibility: Earth is most divisible: Water more hardly, the parts more inclining to the closest contact: Air yet more hardly: And if as you think the Substance of Fire be material, no doubt the Discerpibility is yet harder. And if God have made a Creature so strongly inclined to the Unity of all the parts, that no other Creature can separate them but God only, as if a Soul were such; it's plain that such a Being need not fear a Dissolution by separation of parts: For its own Nature hath no tendency to it, but to the contrary, and no fellow Creature hath power to do it, and God will not do it. God maketh all things apt for their use, and useth things as he ⟨p. 51⟩hath made them, He made not Marble and Sand alike, nor useth them alike. And if he should make a Spirit (e. g. an Anima hujus Vorticis, Solis, Stellae, &c.) Such as he only can divide, but hath no natural tendency to division, but so much Indiscerpibility as no Creature can overcome, this (besides Scripture) intimateth Gods purpose about it.
§ 1. TO your Indiscerpibility I further say, I distinguish, 1. Between Actual and Intellectual dividing; 2. Between what God can do, and what a Creature ⟨p. 50⟩