A26976:382
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.
§. 33. No doubt it's true, that you say, page 7, and 8. That matter is still the same, and liable to all the changes which you mention. But it's an unchanged God, who doth all this by Spirits, as second Causes, who are not of such a changeable, dissoluble, partible nature, as Bodies are: It is Spirits that do all that's done in the world. And I conjecture, as well as you, That universal Spirits are universal Causes. I suppose, That this Earth hath a vegetative form, which maketh it as a matrix to receive the Seeds, and the more active influx of the Sun. But Earth and Sun are but general Causes. Only God, and the seminal Virtue, cause the species, as such. The Sun causeth every Plant to grow; but it causeth not the difference between the Rose, and the Nettle▪ and the Oak. The wonderful unsearchable Virtue of the Seed causeth that. And if you would know that Virtue, you must know it by the effects. You cannot tell by the Seed only of a Rose, a Vine, an Oak, what is in it. But when you see the Plants in ripeness, you may see that the Seeds had a specifying Virtue, by the influx of the general Cause, to bring forth those Plants, Flowers, &c. Neither can you know what is in the Egg, but by the ripe Bird; nor ⟨p. 61⟩what the Soul of an Infant is, but by Manhood and its Acts.
§. 33. No doubt it's true, that you say, page 7, and 8. That matter is still the same, and liable to all the changes which you mention. But it's an unchanged God, who doth all this by Spirits, as second Causes, who are not of such a changeable, dissoluble, partible nature, as Bodies are: It is Spirits that do all that's done in the world. And I conjecture, as well as you, That universal Spirits are universal Causes. I suppose, That this Earth hath a vegitative form, which maketh it as a matrix to receive the Seeds, and the more active influx of the Sun. But Earth and Sun are but general Causes. Only God, and the seminal Virtue, cause the species, as such. The Sun causeth every Plant to grow; but it causeth not the difference between the Rose, and the Nettle▪ and the Oak. The wonderful unsearchable Virtue of the Seed causeth that. And if you would know that Virtue, you must know it by the effects. You cannot tell by the Seed only of a Rose, a Vine, an Oak, what is in it. But when you see the Plants in ripeness, you may see that the Seeds had a specifying Virtue, by the influx of the general Cause, to bring forth those Plants, Flowers, &c. Neither can you know what is in the Egg, but by the ripe Bird; nor