A26976:206
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
OF THE NATURE OF SPIRITS: › Section 29-31: Ad SECT. XXIX, XXX, XXXI.
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 confess if you could prove that ⟨p. 87⟩Indivisibility is proper to any species, then it would be a contradiction for it to be that species, and yet to be divisible, and so it would be no act of Omnipotency to do it. But as in Materials, so as far as I can conceive in Spirituals, to make two into one is no change of the Nature of the things, nor to make one into two. This belongs to Individuation, and not to specification.
Who can doubt but God being all in all things, he is as intimate to us as our Souls to our bodies, and more: And tho the Schools commonly say, that God hath no Accidents, pardon my dissent who doubt not he hath the accidents of Relations, and dare not say that all the world is not Dei Accidens, while in him we live, and move, and have our being: for I will not, and I do not think that it is Pars Dei, as if he were but Anima mundi, and yet I will not say that the world hath no entity or substance; nor yet that the entity of God and the world, is more than the entity (or substance) of God alone; for to be Minor or Pars is below God. But Accidents though no parts are substantiae accidentia. And though I think the Fryar (Benedictus de Benedictis) in Regula Perfectionis speaketh fanatically when he taketh ⟨p. 88⟩it to be perfection to suppose we see and know no being but God; yet we must know nothing quite separate from God, and that hath not some dependent union with him. And yet while all things are in God, and so inseparable from him that nothing but annihilation can totally separate them, yet they are multitudes in themselves, and wicked Men and Devils are separated from the influx of his Grace and Glory. And the human nature of Christ hath some nearer union with God than other Creatures have. And so I doubt not but every Creature is so united to the universe, that nothing but annihilation can totally separate it from the rest; and yet this is consistent with individuation. I remember when I told him whom you so oft mention of Augustines words de Anima, in which he seemeth to favour the saying that [All Souls are one, and yet many] rather than that [All Souls are one and not many] or [many and not one] he seemed much taken with it: all which I mention to infer that there is a separability (from God and the universe) which is no way possible but by annihilation; and in compounds some separation of parts will change the species; and if it were provable which Aquinas holds, that no