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A26976:229

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.

Richard Baxter 1615–1691London: printed for B. Simons, 1682

[8], 3-72 p. · 38k words · Wing B1331 · Wing B1333 · ESTC R5878

Title page: Princeton Theological Seminary Library copy, digitized by the Internet Archive (opens the Internet Archive in a new tab)

OF THE NATURE OF SPIRITS: › Section 33-34: Ad SECT. XXXIII, XXXIV.

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.

[ Earlier:226–241 of 413

:226p. 96

And p. 357. [When I speak of Indivisibility that imagination create not new troubles to her self, I mean not such an Indivisibility as is fancied in a Mathematical point, but as we conceive in a Sphere of Light made from one lucid point or radiant Centre. For that Sphere or Orb of Light, though it be in some sense extended, yet it is truly indivisible, supposing the Centre such. For there is no means imaginable to discerpe or separate any one Ray of this Orb, and keep it apart by itself disjoined from the Centre.

And p. 357. [When I speak of Indivisibility that imagination create not new troubles to her self, I mean not such an Indivisibility as is fancied in a Mathematical point, but as we conceive in a Sphere of Light made from one lucid point or radiant Center. For that Sphere or Orb of Light, though it be in some sense extended, yet it is truly indivisible, supposing the Center such. For there is no means imaginable to discerpe or separate any one Ray of this Orb, and keep it apart by itself disjoined from the Center.

:227p. 96–97

Now a little to invert the Property of this luminous Orb, when we would apply it to a Soul or Spirit: As there can be no alteration in the radiant Centre, but therewith it is necessarily in every part of the Orb, so there is also that Unity and Indivisibility of the exterior parts, if I may so call them, of a Spirit or Soul, with their inmost Centre, that if any of them be affected, the Centre of Life ⟨p. 97⟩is thereby also necessarily affected, and these exterior parts of the Soul being affected by the parts of the Object with such Circumstances as they are in, the inward Centre receives all so circumstantiated, that it hath necessarily the entire and unconfused Images of things without, though they be contrived into so small a compass, and are in the very Centre of this spiritual substance. This Symbolical Representation I used before, and I cannot excogitate any thing that will better set off the nature of a Spirit, &c.]

Now a little to invert the Property of this luminous Orb, when we would apply it to a Soul or Spirit: As there can be no alteration in the radiant Center, but therewith it is necessarily in every part of the Orb, so there is also that Vnity and Indivisibility of the exterior parts, if I may so call them, of a Spirit or Soul, with their inmost Center, that if any of them be affected, the Center of Life

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Position

Cited: :229
On this page: :226–241
Section: :219–241
Whole work: 413 passages

Cite

Richard Baxter, Of the immortality of mans soul, and the nature of it and other spirits.… (London, 1682), sect. 33-34, p. 97. EEBO-TCP A26976.

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The book

Title as printed: 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.
Author: Richard Baxter 1615–1691
Place: London
Bookseller: B. Simons
Year: 1682
Size: [8], 3-72 p.
Words: 38,499
Catalogue: Wing B1331 · Wing B1333 · ESTC R5878
Text: EEBO-TCP A26976

Passages: 413
Sections: 29

The author

Richard Baxter 1615–1691

PuritansEngland

Pastor at Kidderminster and prolific nonconformist author.

Transcription key

:233p. 98

Let us hear your self, p. 359. [To prevent all such Cavils we shall omit the Spinosities of the Extension or Indivisibility of a Soul or Spirit, and conclude briefly thus: That the manifold Contradictions and Repugnancies we find in the nature of matter, to be able to either think or spontaneously to move itself, do well assure us that these operations belong not to it, but to some other substance: Wherefore we finding those operations in us, it is manifest that we have in us an immaterial Being really distinct from the Body, which we ordinarily call a Soul: The speculation of whose bare Essence, though it may well puzzle us, yet those properties that we find incompatible to a Body, do sufficiently inform us of the different Nature thereof: for it is plain she is a Substance endued with the power of Cogitation, that is, of perceiving and thinking of Objects, as also of penetrating and spontaneously moving of a Body; which properties are as immediate to her as impenetrability and separability of parts to the matter, and we are not to demand the cause of the one any more than of the other.]

Let us hear your self, p. 359. [To prevent all such Cavils we shall omit the Spinosities of the Extension or Indivisibility of a Soul or Spirit, and conclude briefly thus: That the manifold Contradictions and Repugnancies we find in the nature of matter, to be able to either think or spontaneously to move itself, do well assure us that these operations belong not to it, but to some other substance: Wherefore we finding those operations in us, it is manifest that we have in us an immaterial Being really distinct from the Body, which we ordinarily call a Soul: The speculation of whose bare Essence, though it may well puzzle us, yet those properties that we find incompetible to a Body, do sufficiently inform us of the different Nature thereof: for it is plain she is a Substance indued with the power of Cogitation, that is, of perceiving and thinking of Objects, as also of penetrating and spontaneously moving of a Body; which properties are as immediate to her as impenetrability and separability of parts to the matter, and we are not to demand the cause of the one any more than of the other.]