A26976:128
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.
§ 2. And here I must insert, that after long thoughts, I doubt not but all things Created are truly one, and truly many: No one particle of the Universe is independent on the rest: Parts they are; as every part of a Clock or Watch: Every Leaf, and Grape, and Apple on the Tree hath a certain individuate or numerical Being, and yet every one is a part of the Tree: And every Herb and Tree is a part of the Garden or Orchard, and that a part of England, &c. and all a part of the Earth in which they grow; and no doubt the ⟨p. 55⟩Earth is as dependant on other parts of the Universe; and all on God. We dream of no total separation of any Creature from the rest, much less Spirits.
But all the Illuminated Air, is more one flamma tenuis (though compound of Air and Fire, and called by us Light) than the Sands are one Earth: And I doubt not but that Fire, which is the Motive, Illuminative, and Calefactive Substance, in all the Air, and elsewhere, is yet much less divisible than the Air, and Souls than it: So that should God make many into one, they would be many Individuals no more, but one again Divisible by God himself.
§ 3. And you mis-suppose me to suppose that the whole Substance of all Humane Souls, are but the same which once in Adam was but one, and from him divided. Writing is a tedious work, because it so hardly causeth men to understand us. I suppose that a continued Creative Emanation from the Father of Spirits, giveth out all that Spiritual Substantiality which becometh new Souls; but that God hath ordained that the Generating Souls shall first receive this Divine Emanation, and be organical ☞ in communicating it to the Semen▪ and so to new organical Bodies; not that the Parents Souls only dispose ⟨p. 56⟩