The true and only way of concord of all the Christian churches the desirableness…

37. And as things sensible are the first known by man in flesh, and we see that among them Union destroyeth no part of their substance; but a sand or Atom is the same thing in Union with others as it would be if separate, or solitary, and a drop of water hath as true and much existing substance in the Ocean, as in its separate state, and so of a particle of Air; we have reason to conclude no worse of the igneous Element, nor yet of sensitive or Intellectual spirits: For 1. How far they are passive and partible (being many) we know not. Most of the old Fathers, especially the Greeks (as Faustus Regiensis cited them in the book which Mammertus answered) thought that God only was totally Immaterial or Incorporeal; And it must not be denied that every creature doth pati à Deo, is passive as from God the first cause; and many Philosophers think that all Passivity is a consequent or proof of answerable Materiality; And many think that we have no true notion of substantia, besides Relative (as it doth subsist of it self and substare accidentibus) but what is the same with Materia purissima. 2. But supposing all this to be otherwise, spirits being true substances, of a more perfect nature than gross bodies, as they are more inclined to Union inter se, so there is as little if not less danger that they should be losers by that Union, than that a drop of water should be so: For the perfection of the highest nature, must needs be more the perfection of all the Parts (Physical or intelligible) than the perfection of the lowest: And the noblest inclineth not to its own loss, by desiring Union which to the lowest is no loss.

37. And as things sensible are the first known by man in flesh, and we see that among them Union destroyeth no part of their substance; but a sand or Atom is the same thing in Union with others as it would be if separate, or solitary, and a drop of water hath as true and much existing substance in the Ocean, as in its separate state, and so of a particle of Air; we have reason to conclude no worse of the ingneous Element, nor yet of sensitive or Intellectual spirits: For 1. How far they are passive and partible (being many) we know not. Most of the old Fathers, especially the Greeks (as Faustus Regiensis cited them in the book which Mammertus answered) thought that God only was totally Immaterial or Incorporeal; And it must not be denyed that every creature doth pati à Deo, is passive as from God the first cause; and many Philosophers think that all Passivity is a consequent or proof of answerable Materiality; And many think that we have no true notion of substantia, besides Relative (as it doth subsist of it self and substare accidentibus) but what is the same with Materia purissima. 2. But supposing all this to be otherwise, spirits being true substances, of a more perfect nature than grosse bodies, as they are more inclined to Union inter se, so there is as little if not less danger that they should be losers by that Union, than that a drop of water should be so: For the perfection of the highest nature, must needs be more the perfection of all the Parts (Physical or intelligible) than the perfection of the lowest: And the noblest inclineth not to its own loss, by desiring Union which to the lowest is no loss.