A26976:363
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.
§. 36. You say, Suppose all this answered: what will it avail, as to a life of Retribution, if all return to one element, and be there immerged as Brooks and Rivers in the Sea, and we lose our individuation.
Ans. I answered this in the Appendix to the Reas. of the Christian Religion. I add 1. Do you believe, that each one hath now one individual Soul, or not? If not, how can we lose that which we never had? If we have but all one universal mover, which moveth us as Engines, as the Wind and Water move Mills, how come some motions to be so swift (as a Swallow), and others so slow, or none at all; in as mobile a body)? Yea, how cometh motion to be so much in our Power, that we can sit still when we will, and rise, and go, and run, and speak when ⟨p. 53⟩we will, and cease, or change it when we will? A stone that falls, or an arrow that is shot, cannot do so. Sure it is some inward formal Principle; and not a material Mechanical mobility of the matter, which can cause this difference.
Ans. I answer'd this in the Appendix to the Reas. of the Christian Religion. I add 1. Do you believe, that each one hath now one individual Soul, or not? If not, how can we lose that which we never had? If we have but all one universal mover, which moveth us as Engines, as the Wind and Water move Mills, how come some motions to be so swift (as a Swallow), and others so slow, or none at all; in as mobile a body)? Yea, how cometh motion to be so much in our Power, that we can sit still when we will, and rise, and go, and run, and speak when ⟨p. 53⟩we will, and cease, or change it when we will? A stone that falls, or an arrow that is shot, cannot do so. Sure it is some inward formal Principle; and not a material Mechanical mobility of the matter, which can cause this difference.