A26976:182
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.
And I should hope that your Definition of Spirit excludeth not God; and yet that you do not think that his Essence may be contracted and dilated. O that we knew how little we know!
And as to your rejection of Metaphors I say, the very name Spiritus which you use is a Metaphor: rhe first sense being our Breath à spirando, or the Air or Wind: Martinius nameth no fewer than Fifteen senses of it, and Wisdom itself said, 1 Cor. 15. There is a natural Body, and there is a spiritual Body.
§ 2. You add, [If you will say, that if he should create such a Spirit with metaphysical Amplitude, which though so large himself cannot divide, and sever into parts, he would thereby puzzle his own Omnipotency, ⟨p. 79⟩at this rate he shall be allowed to create nothing, no not so much as matter, nor himself indeed to be.
Ans. I had rather tremble at this than boldly answer it. Whatever is a contradiction cannot be; and it is not for want of power that God cannot do it: It is no work of power: Had you proved it a Contradiction for God, to make two Spirits of one, or one of two, you had done that part in an easier way, which I should not gainsay. But this Speech of yours is as if you said, [He denieth God to be the Creator, or to be God, who saith that God is able to divide an Ample spiritual Substance; that is, who saith, that this is no contradiction, and that God is Almighty: when our Creed saith, that God is the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth. Cannot he alter or annihilate his own works: Before he made the World, he could have made the ample Substance of the Spirit of the World into many Spirits: And is he less able so to change it? If Spirits be unified as the Bodies which they animate, cannot God make many Bodies into one? Cannot he make many Stars into one? And then would that one have many unifying Spirits, or but one? It's a thing so high as required some show of proof, to intimate