Page:Saducismus Triumphatus.djvu/141

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The true Notion of a Spirit.
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divided in and from it self, but divided or distinguished from all other, and that True denotes the answerableness of the thing to its own proper Idea, and implies right Matter and Form duely conjoyned, and that lastly Good respects the fitness for the end in a large fence, so that it will take in that saying of Theologers, That God is his own End, are things vulgarly known to Logicians and Metaphysicians. That these Six are the immediate affections of Being as Being, is made apparent in the above-cited Enchiridion Metaphysicum; nor is it requisite to repeat the same things here. Now every Being is either Substance or the Mode of Substance, which some call Accident: But that a Spirit is not an Accident or Mode of Substance, all in a manner profess and it is demonstrable from manifold Arguments, that there are Spirits which are no such Accidents or Modes; Which is made good in the said Enchiridion and other Treatises of Doctor H. M.

Wherefore the second Essential degree of a Spirit is, that it is Substance. From whence it is understood to subsist by it self, nor to want any other thing as a Subject (in which it may inhere, or of which it may be the Mode or Accident) for its subsisting or existing.

The third and last Essential degree is, that it is Immaterial, according to which it immediately belongs to it, that it be a Being not only One, but one by it self, or of its own intimate nature; and not by another; that is, That, though as it is a Being it is in some sort extended, yet it is utterly Indivisible and Indiscerpible into real Physical parts. And moreover, That it can penetrate the Matter, and (which the Matter cannot do) penetrate things of its own kind; that is pass through Spiritual Substances. In which two Essential Attributes (as it ought to be in every perfect and legitimate Distribution of any Genius) it is fully and accurately contrary to its opposite Species, namely, to Body. As also in those immediate Properties whereby it is understood to have Life intrinsically in it self, and the faculty of moving; which in some sense is true in all Spirits whatsoever, forasmuch as Life is either Vegetative, Sensitive, or Intellectual One whereof at least every Spiritual Substance hath: as also the faculty of moving; insomuch that every Spirit either moves it self by it self, or the Matter, or both, or at least the Matter either mediately or immediately; or lastly, both ways. For so all things moved are moved by God, he being the Fountain of all Life and Motion.

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