A26976:332
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.
§. 19. And if any should have a conce••, That there is nothing but God and matter. I have fully confuted it in the Appendix to ⟨p. 40⟩Reas. of Christian Religion. Matter is no such omnipotent sapiential thing in it self, as to need no cause or maker, any more than Compounds. And to think, that the infinite God would make no nobler Creature than dead matter, no liker himself, to glorify him, is antecedently absurd, but consequently notoriously false. For tho nothing be acted without him, it's evident that he hath made active Natures with a principle of self-moving in themselves. The Sun differs from a clod, by more than being matter variously moved by God, even by a self-moving power also. Else there were no living creature, but bodies in themselves dead, animated by God. But it would be too tedious to say all against this that's to be said.
§. 19. And if any should have a conce••, That there is nothing but God and matter. I have fully confuted it in the Appendix to ⟨p. 40⟩Reas. of Christian Religion. Matter is no such omnipotent sapiential thing in it self, as to need no cause or maker, any more than Compounds. And to think, that the infinite God would make no nobler Creature than dead matter, no liker himself, to glorifie him, is antecedently absurd, but consequently notoriously false. For tho nothing be acted without him, it's evident that he hath made active Natures with a principle of self-moving in themselves. The Sun differs from a clod, by more than being matter variously moved by God, even by a self-moving power also. Else there were no living creature, but bodies in themselves dead, animated by God. But it would be too tedious to say all against this that's to be said.
§. 20. When you tell us of [One life in all, differenced only by diversity of Organs], you mean God, or a common created Soul. If God, I tell you where I have confuted it. It's pity to torment or punish God in a murderer, or call him wicked in a wicked man: or that one man should be hanged, and another praised, because the Engines of their bodies are diverse. But the best Anatomists say, That nothing is to be seen in the brain of other Animals, why they might not be