BUT if, after all this, they fhould allow the Terms in which the Gospel Myfteries are expreffed, to fignify not only fomething Real in fpiritual Things, but alfo fomewhat Correfpondent and Proportionable to the Things of this World fubftituted for them; and yet will ftill call this Metaphor: They are then grofly guilty of confounding two Things totaly dif ferent, by perverfely giving them the fame Name to ferve a vile Turn; and alfo make a Conceffion which at once renders them shamefully inconfiftent with themselves, and overturns all their Schemes of Divinity.

H

BOOK II

CHA P. I.

Of the pure Intellect.

AVING in the firft Book confider'd the Ideas of Senfation as the only Materials which the active and bufie Mind of Man hath to work upon; and as the fole Groundwork or Foundation for the whole Superftructure of human Knowledge; I come in this second to treat of the PURE INTELLECT. By which I would have it observed here, once for all, that by this I do not mean that immortal immaterial Part of us, denoted in Scripture by the Word Пεμa or Spirit; nor do I mean any the most refined and exquifite parts of the Body, or animal Spirits, which are more immediately fubfervient to the intellectual Operations of that Spirit; but by the Pure Intellect I always understand Both these operating together in effential Union and Conjunction; fo that all Thinking or Reafoning is a mix'd and compound Act of both Matter and Spirit. Thinking is by a general Miftake attributed to the Pure Spirit, exclufively of those material Organs without which it cannot exert one Thought; and in a neceffary Conjunction with which, it performs all its Operations.

L 2

THIS

THIS will be yet clearer, if we distinguish thefe following Words of a near Signification; and which have therefore been used promifcuously.

THE Spirit is the purely immaterial Part of our Compofition, which is capable of Separation from the Body, and can then exist and operate independently of Matter: This is of ten by mistake call'd the Soul, in a vulgar and more indiftinct way of speaking; but is distinguish'd in the Scripture by the Word ПIVEμa Spiritus.

THE Soul, or rather inferior Soul, as it is used to be called in Diftinction from that which is pure Spirit; is fomething in us refulting from an effential Union of the pure Spirit with our material Frame; and it is in Scripture denoted by the Word ux Anima, or Soul.

THE Mind, in a common and more indiftinct Acceptation, is Synonimous with Soul; but is in truth a more general and complex Term, and includes the pure Spirit, together with the Intellect, the Will, and Memory, and all the Paffions and Affections of the inferior Soul; and is properly Nes Animus, or Mind.

THE

THE Pure intellect taken in Diftinction from those three, is properly the pure Spirit or immaterial Part of us, as acting in effential Union and Conjunction particularly with those animal Spirits and remote imperceptible Fibres of the Brain, which are more immediately subfervient to Thinking or Knowledge, and all the Operations of the Understanding. This is call'd Nonos Intellectus, or the Pure Intellect.

IT hath been, the occafion of numberless Errors and Mistakes in Religion, and too many of them fatal; that Men have been uted to think and speak of the pure Spirit, or fuperior Soul, as if its Operations were Now in all refpects the fame, and as intirely independent of Matter, as they will be when it is in a ftate of Separation. Men commonly fpeak of it as of fomething Within us, and not of us; as if it thought and reasoned In the Body, and not together With any part of it; as if the Body were a mere Box, or Cafe, or Place of Refidence for it. Not confidering that there is as much Truth in faying, that the Body is in the Spirit, as in faying that the Spirit is only In the Body; tho' this founds odly to a vulgar Ear; or indeed to any one who is not capable of understanding, that these two different Principles could not conftitute one and the fame Individual Man, unless both were intimately united in Operation and Effence.

I. 3

IT

IT must be allow'd we can form no other Notion of Knowledge in an Angel or separate Spirit except by that of Thinking; but this is no more than an Analogical Conception, which the Mind fubftitutes inftead of the real true manner and kind of Knowledge in Angels which we are utterly ignorant of; and which is as imperfectly reprefented by Thinking, as their Motion is by the moving of our Feet. All their Knowledge, as far as we can apprehend it, must be Intuitive and Inftantaneous; whereas ours at the best is fucceffive, and gradualy perform'd by the concurrent Motion of fome bodily Parts within us; which is the Caufe of that Labour and Weariness we experience in the Act of Thinking. If the pure Spirit within us cou'd think and reafon Independently of all material and bodily Organs, we fhould never be tired with thinking; but on the contrary we feel it to be a Labour of the Brain, and we find our felves as much wearied with intense Thought, as with hard bodily Labour. If it were not thus, the Body would be Poffefs'd only of a Spirit, and not a Partaker with it; and Thought would not be an Operation of the Man, but of fomething Within him.

I CANNOT forbear again remarking here the shameful Inconfiftency of those Men, who maintain that we have as clear and diftinct an

Idea of Spirit as we have of Body; for this rea

fon,