This is contradicted by you, and so you affirm these Particulars following.
1st, You take at those my Words which said, that if a Spirit have no Body or Shape, then it is no more then a meer Shadow: This you deny, by saying, that a Shadow is only privative, but a Spirit, say you, is positive.
2dly, You further say, that there is such immaterial Substances, which have a separate Existence from such gross Bodies which we have about us; witness say you the Soul of Man, which is immaterial, and lives after the Body is dead, which is, say you, confirmed by Paul, 2 Tim. i. 10. which saith, that the Gospel brings Life and Immortality to Light.
3dly, This Doctrine, say you, was known by the Light of Nature to the Heathen Philosophers, and hath since been confirmed by Scripture of the New Testament to us, and so conclude it no ways repugnant to right Reason.
4thly, You charge me with quoting the Scripture falsly, when I said, that Christ reply'd to the young Man, saying, That no Man was good but one, which was God; therefore say you, it is false that the Scripture saith, that God is a Man.
To each of these take this particular Answer, 1. If your Spirit have neither Shape nor Substance, it is but a Shadow, and no more then what the Egyptians Sorcerers produced before Pharaoh, what Moses brought up were real Substances, but their's no other but Shadows, but therefore a Spirit without Substance is not positive; for that which is privative can have no Being without a positive, because that which is positive hath a Being or Substance: Now he that will not admit God to have a distinct Being of himself, his God that he worships is nothing but a Shadow.
2dly, Where you speak of Spirits being immaterial Substances; if they be immaterial, how are they Substances, and what Existence can they have, and how can a Soul be immortal in a mortal Body; it is said, the Soul that Sins, it shall die; yet say you, it is immortal and cannot die, and would prove it in 2 Tim. i. 10. when as that Place shews plainly, that it was Christ's Death and Resurrection which brought Life and Immortality Light; so that if there be not a Resurrection, then can there be no immortal Life.
Therefore it is, that the Scriptures doth affirm, that there can be no Salvation without a Resurrection, so that if the Dead should not rise, then were all Faith vain, and God the God of the Dead (seeing Death is not abolish'd) and not of the Living; so that there is no Spirit that can subsist or have any Existence without a Body, either Spiritual or Natural.
Again, doth not the Gospel bring Life and Immortality to Light, and is this Life and Immortality brought to Light without a Body, but it will have a Spiritual Body suitable to that mortal Spirit made immortal. And doth not the Scripture affirm, that it shall have a Body like unto God's own Glorious Body, and yet you say, God hath no Body, and a Soul hath no Body.
Do you not read also, that Christ had a Body, and that it was after the express Image of his Father's Person: Would you trace substantial Truth into an Allegory, and say Righteousness, Knowledge, and Holiness is the Image of God, and yet must have no Body to act for it self in. When God said, be ye holy, as I am holy, must we turn our Souls out of our Bodies, to make them like your bodiless God.