A26976:326
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.
But the Soul of an Idiot or mad-man acteth only per modum naturae, not by free-acts, but necessitated by God by the order of nature. Only moral acts are free; and that some other are but brutish, and some but vegetative, is no-more a wonder, than that it should understand in the head, and be sensible only in the most of the body, and vegetative only in the hairs and nails. It operateth in all the body by the Spirits, as called; but about the eyes, and open sensoria, by Spirits also as lucid, for that use.
But the Soul of an Idiot or mad-man acteth only per modum naturae, not by free-acts, but necessitated by God by the order of nature. Only moral acts are free; and that some other are but brutish, and some but vegitative, is no-more a wonder, than that it should understand in the head, and be sensible only in the most of the body, and vegitative only in the hairs and nails. It operateth in all the body by the Spirits, as calid; but about the eyes, and open sensoria, by Spirits also as lucid, for that use.
§. 14. But never forget this, That nothing at any time doth what it cannot do: but many can do that which they do not. Tho the Soul in the Womb, or Sleep, remember not, or reason not; if ever it do it, that proveth it had the power of doing it. And that power is not a novel accident, tho the act may be so.
§. 14. But never forget this, That nothing at any time doth what it cannot do: but many can do that which they do not. Tho the Soul in the Womb, or Sleep, remember not, or reason not; if ever it do it, that proveth it had the power of doiug it. And that power is not a novel accident, tho the act may be so.
§. 18. To your Explications p. 4. I say, 1. None doubts, but all the world is the work of one prime operating Cause; Whom I hope you see in them, is of perfect power, wisdom and goodness, the chief efficient dirigent and final cause of all.