that the seminal parts of plants are wonderfully improved by the ordinary Providence of God, in the manner of their vegetation." Answer. I do not perfectly understand what it is "for the seminal parts of plants to be wonderfully improved by the ordinary Providence of God, in the manner of their vegetation:" or else, perhaps, I should better see how this here tends to the proof of the resurrection of the same body, in your lordship's sense. It continues, * "They sow bare grain of wheat, or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. Here," says your lordship," is an identity of the material substance supposed." It may be so. But to me a diversity of the material substance, i. e. of the component particles, is here supposed, or in direct words said. For the words of St. Paul, taken all together, run thus, "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain;" and so on, as your lordship has set down in the remainder of them. From which words of St. Paul, the natural argument seems to me to stand thus: If the body that is put in the earth in sowing is not that body which shall be, then the body that is put in the grave is not that, i. e. the same body that shall be. But your lordship proves it to be the same body by these three Greek words of the text, το ίδιον σωμα, which your lordship interprets thus, "That proper body which belongs to it." Answer. Indeed by those Greek words TO IDIOV σωμα, whether our translators have rightly rendered them "his own body," or your lordship more rightly "that proper body which belongs to it," I formerly understood no more but this, that in the production of wheat, and other grain from seed, God continued every species distinct; so that from grains of wheat sown, root, stalk, blade, ear, grains of wheat were produced, and not those of barley; and so of the rest, which I took to be the meaning of " to every seed his own body." No, says your lordship, these words prove, That to every plant of wheat, and to every grain of wheat produced in it, is given the proper body that belongs to it, which is the same body with the grain that was sown. Answer. This, I confess, I do not understand; because I do not understand how one individual grain can be the same with twenty, fifty, or an hundred individual grains; for such sometimes is the increase. But your lordship proves it. For, says your lordship, § "Every seed having that body in little, which is afterwards so much enlarged; and in grain the seed is corrupted before its germination; but it hath its proper organical parts, which make it the same body with that which it grows up to. For although grain be not divided into lobes, as other seeds are, yet it hath been found, by the most accurate observations, that upon separating the membranes, these seminal parts are discerned in them; which afterwards grow up to that body which we call corn." In which words I crave leave to observe, that your lordship supposes, that a body * 2d Answer.. VOL. II. + V. 37. + 2d Answer. § Ibid. G may be enlarged by the addition of an hundred or a thousand times as much in bulk as its own matter, and yet continue the same body; which, I confess, I cannot understand. But in the next place, if that could be so; and that the plant, in its full growth at harvest, increased by a thousand or a million of times as much new matter added to it, as it had when it lay in little concealed in the grain that was sown, was the very same body; yet I do not think that your lordship will say, that every minute, insensible, and inconceivably small grain of the hundred grains, contained in that little organised seminal plant, is every one of them the very same with that grain which contains that whole seminal plant, and all those invisible grains in it. For then it will follow, that one grain is the same with an hundred, and an hundred distinct grains the same with one; which I shall be able to assent to, when I can conceive that all the wheat in the world is but one grain. For I beseech you, my lord, consider what it is St. Paul here speaks of: it is plain he speaks of that which is sown and dies, i. e. the grain that the husbandman takes out of his barn to sow in his field. And of this grain St. Paul says, "that it is not that body that shall be." These two, viz. "that which is sown, and that body that shall be," are all the bodies that St. Paul here speaks of, to represent the agreement or difference of men's bodies after the resurrection, with those they had before they died. Now, I crave leave to ask your lordship, which of these two is that little invisible seminal plant, which your lordship here speaks of? Does your lordship mean by it the grain that is sown? But that is not what St. Paul speaks of; he could not mean this embryonated little plant, for he could not denote it by these words, "that which thou sowest," for that he says must die: but this little embryonated plant, contained in the seed that is sown, dies not: or does your fordship mean by it, "the body that shall be?" But neither by these words, "the body that shall be," can St. Paul be supposed to denote this insensible little embryonated plant; for that is already in being, contained in the seed that is sown, and therefore could not be spoke of under the name of the body that shall be. And therefore, I confess, I cannot see of what use it is to your lordship to introduce here this third body, which St. Paul mentions not, and to make that the same or not the same with any other, when those which St. Paul speaks of are, as I humbly conceive, these two visible sensible bodies, the grain sown, and the corn grown up to ear; with neither of which this insensible embryonated plant can be the same body, unless an insensible body can be the same body with a sensible body, and a little body can be the same body with one ten thousand, or an hundred thousand times as big as itself. So that yet, I confess, I see not the resurrection of the same body proved, from these words of St. Paul, to be an article of faith. Your lordship goes on:* "St. Paul indeed saith, That we sow * 2d Answer. not that body that shall be; but he speaks not of the identity, but the perfection of it." Here my understanding fails me again: for I cannot understand St. Paul to say, That the same identical sensible grain of wheat, which was sown at seed-time, is the very same with every grain of wheat in the ear at harvest, that sprang from it: yet so I must understand it, to make it prove that the same sensible body, that is laid in the grave, shall be the very same with that which shall be raised at the resurrection. For I do not know of any seminal body in little, contained in the dead carcass of any man or woman, which, as your lordship says, in seeds, having its proper organical parts, shall afterwards be enlarged, and at the resurrection grow up into the same man. For I never thought of any seed or seminal parts, either of plant or animal, "so wonderfully improved by the Providence of God," whereby the same plant or animal should beget itself; nor ever heard, that it was by Divine Providence designed to produce the same individual, but for the producing of future and distinct individuals, for the continuation of the same species. Your lordship's next words are,* " And although there be such a difference from the grain itself, when it comes up to be perfect corn, with root, stalk, blade, and ear, that it may be said to outward appearance not to be the same body; yet with regard to the seminal and organical parts it is as much the same as a man grown up is the same with the embryo in the womb." Answer. It does not appear by any thing I can find in the text, that St. Paul here compared the body produced with the seminal and organical parts contained in the grain it sprang from, but with the whole sensible grain that was grown. Microscopes had not then discovered the little embryo plant in the seed: and supposing it should have been revealed to St. Paul (though in the scripture we find little revelation of natural philosophy) yet an argument taken from a thing perfectly unknown to the Corinthians, whom he writ to, could be of no manner of use to them; nor serve at all either to instruct or convince them. But granting that those St. Paul writ to knew it as well as Mr. Lewenhock, yet your lordship thereby proves not the raising of the same body: your lordship says, it is as much the same [I crave leave to add body] "as a man grown up is the same" (same what, I beseech your lordship)? "with the embryo in the womb." For that the body of the embryo in the womb and body of the man grown up, is the same body, I think no one will say; unless he can persuade himself, that a body that is not the hundredth part of another is the same with that other; which I think no one will do, till having renounced this dangerous way by ideas of thinking and reasoning, he has learnt to say that a part and the whole are the same. Your lordship goes on, † "And although many arguments may be used to prove that a man is not the same, because life, which de * pends upon the course of the blood, and the manner of respiration and nutrition, is so different in both states; yet that man would be thought ridiculous that should seriously affirm that it was not the same man." And your lordship says, "I grant that the variation of great parcels of matter in plants alters not the identity: and that the organisation of the parts in one coherent body, partaking of one common life, makes the identity of a plant." Answer. My lord, I think the question is not about the same man, but the same body. For though I do say (somewhat differently from what your lordship sets down as my words here), "That that which has such an organisation as is fit to receive and distribute nourishment, so as to continue and frame the wood, bark, and leaves, &c. of a plant, in which consists the vegetable life, continues to be the same plant, as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communicated to new particles of matter, vitally united to the living plant:" yet I do not remember that I any where say, That a plant, which was once no bigger than an oaten straw, and afterwards grows to be above a fathom about, is the same body, though it be still the same plant. The well-known tree in Epping Forest, called the King's Oak, which from not weighing an ounce at first, grew to have many tons of timber in it, was all along the same oak, the very same plant; but nobody, I think, will say that it was the same body when it weighed a ton as it was when it weighed but an ounce, unless he has a mind to signalize himself by saying, That that is the same body which has a thousand particles of different matter in it, for one particle that is the same; which is no better than to say, That a thousand different particles are but one and the same particle, and one and the same particle is a thousand different particles; a thousand times a greater absurdity than to say half is whole, or the whole is the same with the half; which will be improved ten thousand times yet farther, if a man shall say (as your lordship seems to me to argue here), That that great oak is the very same body with the acorn it sprang from, because there was in that acorn an oak in little, which was afterwards (as your lordship expresses it) so much enlarged, as to make that mighty tree. For this embryo, if 1 may so call it, or oak in little, being not the hundredth, or perhaps the thousandth part of the acorn, and the acorn being not the thousandth part of the grown oak, it will be very extraordinary to prove the acorn and the grown oak to be the same body, by a way wherein it cannot be pretended that above one particle of an hundred thousand, or a million, is the same in the one body that it was in the other. From which way of reasoning it will follow, that a nurse and her sucking child have the same body, and be past doubt that a mother and her infant have the same body. But this is a way of certainty found out to establish the articles of faith, and to overturn the new method of certainty that your * Essay, B. 2. c. 27. § 4. lordship says, "I have started, which is apt to leave men's minds more doubtful than before." And now I desire your lordship to consider of what use it is to you in the present case to quote out of my Essay these words, "That partaking of one common life makes the identity of a plant;" since the question is not about the identity of a plant, but about the identity of a body: it being a very different thing to be the same plant, and to be the same body. For that which makes the same plant does not make the same body; the one being the partaking in the same continued vegetable life, the other the consisting of the same numerical particles of matter. And therefore your lordship's inference from my words above quoted, in these which you subjoin*, seems to me a very strange one, viz, "So that in things capable of any sort of life, the identity is consistent with a continued succession of parts; and so the wheat grown up is the same body with the grain that was sown." For I believe, if my words, from which you infer, "And so the wheat grown up is the same body with the grain that was sown," were put into a syllogism, this would hardly be brought to be the conclusion. But your lordship goes on with consequence upon consequence, though I have not eyes acute enough every where to see the connexion, till you bring it to the resurrection of the same body. The connexion of your lordship's words + is as followeth: "And thus the alteration of the parts of the body at the resurrection is consistent with its identity, if its organisation and life be the same; and this is a real identity of the body, which depends not upon consciousness. From whence it follows, that to make the same body, no more is required but restoring life to the organized parts of it." If the question were about raising the same plant, I do not say but there might be some appearance for making such an inference from my words as this: "Whence it follows, that to make the same plant, no more is required but to restore life to the organised parts of it." But this deduction, wherein, from those words of mine that speak only of the identity of a plant, your lordship infers, there is no more required to make the same body than to make the same plant, being too subtle for me, I leave to my reader to find out. Your lordship goes on and says, that I grant likewise, “That the identity of the same man consists in a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter in succession, vitally united to the same organised body." Answer. I speak in these words of the identity of the same man, and your lordship thence roundly concludes "So that there is no difficulty of the sameness of the body." But your lordship knows that I do not take these two sounds, man and body, to stand for the same thing, nor the identity of the man to be the same with the identity of the body. * 2d Answer. + Ibid. + Ibid. |