(1.) The soul of a brute is wholly confined to, and dependent on the matter or body with which it is united. It is dedendent on it, both in esse et in operari, in its being and working ; it is but a ma- terial form, which arises from, and perisheth with the body. " The " soul of a brute, (saith a great person *) is no other than a fluid " bodily substance, the more lively and refined part of the blood " (called spirit) quick in motion, and from the arteries by the 44 branches of the carotides carried to the brain ; and from thence * conveyed to the nerves and muscles, move the whole frame and " mass of the body ; and receiving only certain weak impressions " from the senses, and of short continuance, hindered and ob- " structed of its work and motion, vanishes into the soft air."
(2.) An angel is a spirit free from a body, and created without an appetite or inclination to be embodied. The Stoicks call the angels xaias -\uyj%(i<;, souly substances ; and the Peripatetics, for mas abstractas, abstract forms. They are spirits free from the fetters and clogs of the body.
" -f- An angel is a perfect soul, and an human soul is an imper- ;* feet angel." Yet angels have no such rooted disaffection to, and abhorrence of a body, but they have assumed, and can, in a ready obedience to their Lord's commands, and delight to serve him, assume bodies, for a time, to converse with men in them, i. e. aerial bodies in the figure and shape of human bodies. So we read. Gen. xviii. lL three men, i. e. angels in human shape and appear- ance, stood by Abraham, and talked with him; and at Christ's sepulchre, Luke xxiv. " There appeared two men in shining gar- " ments." But they abide in these bodies, as we do in an inn, for a night, or short season ; they dwell not in them as our souls in those houses of flesh, which we cannot put on and off at pleasure as they do ; but as we walk in our garments, which we can put off without pain.
(3.) The human soul is neither wholly tied to the body, as the brutal soul is ; nor created without inclination to a body, as angels are ; but loves and inclines to it, though it can both live and act without it, when it is parted from it at death. The proof of this assertion, and the reasons why God created it with such an inclina- tion, will, in their proper place, be more fully spoken to, in the following discourse. All that I shall add is, that in this, as well
* Lord Chief Justice Hale, in bis treatise de anima, p. SS.
f Angrlus est anhna perfecta, et anima est angrlut imperfectus. Bell, dc aseen. mentis.
512 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
as in some other respects, our souls are made a little lower than the angels ; but when they are unclothed of the body, and have re- ceived it again, in a new edition, a spiritual body, then they shall be Ksayyekot, equal unto angels, in the way and manner of life and action.
Thus I have, as briefly as I could, dispatched the first thing pro- pounded, viz. the nature of the soul, in the explication of these seven particulars : it is a substance, a vital, spiritual, and immortal substance, a substance endued with understanding, will, affections, and an inclination to the body. And now we are come to the
II. Branch, viz. Its original and infusion.
I. As to its original, I have described it to be immediately from God, in the way of creation : an honour done to no other living creature except* angels. The world hath been troubled with a great many extravagant and wild notions about the original of the soul of man ; a certain mark and argument of its apostasy from God. * " Solinus writes of one, who by a wound in the hinder " part of his head, fell into such a degree of ignorance and obli- " vion, that he forgot his own name, and could not tell whether " he had any name at all." But oh ! what a stunning blow did man receive by the fall, that he should forget the very Author of his being, and rather claim alliance, and derive the being of his soul from any thing than God ; though it bears the very marks and characters of its divine Author and Father upon it ! The prin- cipal errors about the origin of the soul (for that wild notion of Epicurus hath been laid so flat by the pens of many learned men, that it is a vanity to strike one blow more at it) may be reduced to these three heads.
(1.) Some affirm it to be by way of -f* traduction, or natural ge- neration from the parents to the child. This opinion is very an- cient ; Tertullian, and divers of the Western Fathers, closed with it, as judging it the best expedient to solve the difficulties of the soul's taint and defilement with original sin. But antiquity is no passport for errors. The grey hairs of opinion, as one well notes, are then honourable, when they are found in the way of truth. Doctor Brown J tells us, " He should rather incline to the crea- " tion, than the traduction of the soul, though either opinion,
* Solinus refert de quodam, quod accepto vubiere in occijritio, ad tantam devenit ignoran- tiam, ut nesciret se habuisse nomen. Augustodun. de Philosoph. Mundi, lib iv. c. 24.
f Datur a gens physicum quod cdiud esse non potest quam parens ; qui ei seviinis animam e materia sinu cliciat. i. e. There is a physical agent which can be no other than the parent, who produces the soul of the seed from the bosom of matter.
i Religio Medici, Seer. oZ.
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAX. 513
u (saith he) will consist well enough with religion, did not one ob- " jection haunt him, and this is a conclusion from the equivocal " and monstrous productions by unnatural copulation, as of a man " and beast : for, if the soul of man, saith he, be not transmitted " and transfused in the seed, why are not these productions mere- " ly beasts, but have also an impression and tincture of reason in " as high a measure as it can evidence itself in those improper or- " gans ?"
Which way the doctor's judgment had inclined in this contro- versy, had been of no great consideration to the determination of it ; though it is a pity we should lose his consent and companv, for the sake of such a beastly objection as this, which haunts his mind : for if there be any such creatures that seem to have a tincture of reason, it is but a tincture, and a seeming, not a real tincture nei- ther, which many other brutes have.