Annotations UPON THE Two foregoing TREATISES LUX ORIENTALIS OR An Enquiry into the OPINION OF THE EASTERN SAGES Concerning the Prae-existence of Souls AND THE Discourse of TRUTH Written for the more fully clearing and further confirming the main DOCTRINES in each TREATISE By one not unexercized in these kinds of SPECULATION LONDON Printed for J. Collins and S. Lounds over against Exeter-Change in the Strand 1682. Annotations UPON LUX ORIENTALIS THese two Books Lux Orientalis and the Discourse of Truth are luckily put together by the Publisher there being that suitableness between them and mutual support of one another And the Arguments they treat of being of the greatest importance that the Mind of man can entertain herself with the consideration thereof has excited so sluggish a Genius as mine to bestow some few Annotations thereon not very anxious or operose but such as the places easily suggest and may serve either to â—…ctifie what may seem any how oblique or illustrate what may seem less clear or make a supply or adde strength where there may seem any further need In which I would not be so understood as that I had such an anxiety and fondness for the Opinions they maintain as if all were gone if they should fail but that the Dogmata being more fully clearly and precisely propounded men may more safely and considerately give their Judgments thereon but with that modesty as to admit nothing that is contrary to the Judgment of the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church Chap. 2. p. 4. That he made us pure and innocent c. This is plainly signified in the general Mosaick History of the Creation that all that God made he saw it was good and it is particularly declared of Adam and Eve that they were created or made in a state of Innocency Pag. 4. Matter can do nothing but by motion and what relation hath that to a moral Contagion We must either grant that the figures of the particles of Matter and their motion have a power to affect the Soul united with the Body and I remember Josephus somewhere speaking of Wine says it does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regenerate as it were the Soul into another life and sense of things or else we must acknowledge that the parts of Matter are alterable into qualifications that cannot be resolved into mere mechanical motion and figure whether they be thus altered by the vital power of the Spirit of Nature or however it comes to pass But that Matter has a considerable influence upon a Soul united thereto the Author himself does copiously acknowledge in his fourth Chapter of this Book where he tells us that according to the disposition of the Body our Wits are either more quick free and sparkling or more obtuse weak and sluggish and our Mind more chearful and contented or else more morose melancholick or dogged c. Wherefore that he may appear the more consistent with himself it is likely he understands by this Moral Contagion the very venome and malignity of vitious Inclinations how that can be derived from Matter especially its power consisting in mere motion and figuration of parts The Psalmist's description is very apposite to this purpose Psal. 58. The ungodly are froward even from their mothers womb as soon as they are born they go astray and speak lyes They are as venomous as the poyson of a serpent even like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear That there should be such a difference in the Nativity of some from that of others and haply begot also of the same Parents is no slight intimation that their difference is not from their Boâ—… but their Souls in which there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eruptions of vitious Inclinations wâ—… 〈◊〉 had contracted in their former statâ—… 〈◊〉 pressed nor extinct in this by reason oâ—… 〈◊〉 lapse and his losing the Paradisiacal 〈◊〉 which he was created and which should 〈◊〉 had not been for his Fall been transmitted to his Posterity but that being lost the several measures of the pristine Vitiosity of humane Souls discover themselves in this life according to the just Laws of the Divine Nemesis essentially interwoven into the nature of things Pag. 5. How is it that those that are under continual temptations to Vice are yet kept within the bounds of Vertue c. That those that are continually under temptations to Vice from their Childhood should keep within the bounds of Vertue and those that have perpetual outward advantages from their Childhood to be vertuous should prove vitious notwithstanding is not rationally resolved into their free will for in this they are both of them equal and if they had been equal also in their external advantages or disadvantages the different event might well be imputed to the freedom of their Will But now that one notwithstanding all the disadvantages to Vertue should prove vertuous and the other notwithstanding all the advantages to Vertue should prove vitious the reason of this certainly to the considerate will seem to lie deeper than the meer liberty of Will in man But it can be attributed to nothing with a more due and tender regard to the Divine Attributes than to the pre-existent state of humane Souls according to the Scope of the Author Pag. 9. For still it seems to be a diminutive and disparaging apprehension of the infinite and immense goodness of God that he should detrude such excellent Creatures c. To enervate this reason there is framed by an ingenious hand this Hypothesis to vie with that of Pre-existence That Mankind is an Order of Beings placed in a middle state between Angels and Brutes made up of contrary Principles viz. Matter and Spirit indued with contrary faculties viz. Animal and Rational and encompassed with contrary Objects proportioned to their respective faculties that so they may be in a capacity to exercise the Vertues proper and peculiar to their compounded and heterogeneal nature And therefore though humane Souls be capable of subsisting by themselves yet God has placed them in Bodies full of brutish and unreasonable Propensions that they may be capable of exercising many choice and excellent Vertues which otherwise could never have been at all such as Temperance Sobriety Chastity Patience Meekness Equanimity and all other Vertues that consist in the Empire of Reason over Passion and Appetite And therefore he conceives that the creating of humane Souls though pure and immaculate and uniting them with such brutish Bodies is but the constituting and continuing such a Species of Being which is an Order betwixt Brutes and Angels into which latter Order if men use their faculties of the Spiritual Principle in them well they may ascend Forasmuch as God has given them in their Spiritual Principle containing Free Will and Reason to discern what is best a power and faculty of overcoming all their inordinate Appetites This is his Hypothesis mostwhat in his own words and all to his own sence as near as I could with brevity express
base occasions and so converts the Lusts of sensual Varlets to nobler ends than they designed them As if an heroick Off-spring were the genuine effect of Adultery or Fornication and the most likely way to People the World with worthy Personages How this raw Philosopher will make this comply with his Profession of Divinity I know not whenas it teaches us that Marriage is honourable but Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge and that he punishes the Iniquities of the Parents on their Children But this bold Sophist makes God adjudge the noblest Off-spring to the defiled Bed and not to punish but reward the Adultery or Whoredom of debauched persons by giving them the best and bravest Children Which the more true it could be found in experience it would be the stronger Argument for Pre-existence it being incredible that God if he created Souls on purpose should crown Adultery and Whoredom with the choicest Off-spring And then thirdly and lastly says he hereby he often detects the lewdness of Sinners which otherwise would be smothered c. As if the All-wise God could find no better nor juster means than this to discover this Villany If he be thus immediately and in an extraordinary way assistant in these Coitions were it not as easie for him and infinitely more decorous to charge the Womb with some Mola or Ephemerous Monster than to plunge an immaculate humane Soul into it This would as effectually discover the Villany committed and besides prevent the charge Parishes are put to in maintaining Bastards And now that we have thus seen what a mere nothing it is that this Strutter has pronounced with such sonorous Rhetorick yet he is not ashamed to conclude with this Appeal to I know not what blind Judges Now says he are not all these Actions and Concerns very graceful and agreeable to God Which words in these circumstances no man could utter were he not of a crass insensible and injudicious Constitution or else made no Conscience of speaking against his Judgment But if he speak according to his Conscience it is manifest he puts Sophisms upon himself in arguing so weakly As he does a little before in the same place where that he may make the coming of a Soul into a base begotten Body in such a series of time and order of things as the Pre-existentiaries suppose and Gods putting it immediately upon his creating it into such a Body to be equally passable he uses this slight Illustration Imagine saith he God should create one Soul and so soon as he had done instantly pop it into a base begotten Body and then create another the matter of an hours space before its precipitation into such a Receptacle which of these Actions would be the most diminutive of the Creators honour would not the difference be insensible and the scandal if any the same in both Yet thus lies the case just betwixt the Pre-existentiaries and us Let the Reader consider how senseless this Author is in saying the case betwixt the Pre-existentiaries and him is just thus when they are just nothing akin for his two Souls are both unlapsed but one of the Pre-existentiaries lapsed and so subjected to the Laws of Nature In his case God acts freely raising himself as it were out of his Seat to create an immaculate Soul and put into a foul Body but in the other case God onely is a looker on there is onely his Permission not his Action And the vast difference of time he salves it with such a Quibble as this as if it were nothing because thousands of Ages ago in respect of God and his Eternity is not an hour before He might as well say the difference betwixt the most glorious Angel and a Flea is nothing because in comparison of God both are so indeed Wherefore this Anti-Pre-existentiary is such a Trifler that I am half ashamed that I have brought him upon the Stage But yet I will commend his Craft though not his Faithfulness that he had the wit to omit the proposing of Buggery as well as of Adultery and the endeavouring to shew how graceful and agreeable to God how congruous and proportionate it were to his immense Grandeur and Majesty to create a Soul on purpose immaculate and undefiled to actuate the obscene Emissions of a Brute having to do with a Woman or of a Man having to do with a Brute For both Women and Brutes have been thus impregnated and brought forth humane Births as you may see abundantly testified in Fortunius Licetus it would be too long to produce Instances This Opinion of Gods creating Souls and putting them into Bodies upon incestuous and adulterous Coitions how exceeding absurd and unbecoming the Sanctity of the Divine Majesty it seemed to the Churches of Aethiopia you may see in the History of Jobus Ludolphus How intolerable therefore and execrable would this Doctrine have appeared unto them if they had thought of the prodigious fruits of successful Buggery The words of Ludolfus are these Perabsurdum esse si quis Deum astrictum dicat pro adulterinis incestuosis partubus animas quotidie novas creare â—…st Aethiop lib. 3. cap. 5. What would they then say of creating a new Soul for the Womb of a Beast bugger'd by a Man or of a Woman bugger'd by a Beast Pag. 12. Methinks that may be done at a cheaper rate c. How it may be done with more agreeableness to the Goodness Wisdom and Justice of God has been even now hinted by me nor need I repeat it Pag. 13. It seems very incongruous and unhandsome to suppose that God should create two Souls for the supply of one monstrous Body And there is the same reason for several other Monstrosities which you may take notice of in Fortunius Licetus lib. 2. cap. 58. One with seven humane heads and arms and Ox-feet others with Mens bodies but with a head the one of a Goose the other of an Elephant c. In which it is a strong presumption humane Souls lodged but in several others certain How does this consist with Gods fresh creating humane Souls pure and innocent and putting them into Bodies This is by the aforesaid Anti-Pre-existentiary at first answered onely by a wide gape or yawn of Admiration And indeed it would make any one stare and wonder how this can consist with Gods immediately and freely intermeddling with the Generation of Men as he did at first in the Creation For out of his holy hands all things come clean and neat Many little efforts he makes afterwards to salve this difficulty of Monsters but yet in his own judgment the surest is the last That God did purposely tye fresh created Souls to these monstrous shapes that they whose Souls sped better might humbly thank him Which is as wisely argued as if one should first with himself take it for granted that God determines some men to monstrous Debaucheries and Impieties and then fancy this the use of it that the Spectators
serve the younger Which sufficiently illustrates the matter in hand with St. Paul that as Jacob was preferred before Esau in the Womb before either of them was born to act here on the Earth and that therefore done without any respect to their actions so the purpose of God touching his people should be of free Election not of Works That of Zachary also Chap. 12. 1. I have heard alledged by some as a place on which no small stress may be laid The Lord is there said to be the Former of the Spirit of Man within him Wherefore they argue If the Spirit of Man be formed within him it did never pre-exist without him But we answer That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And then the sence is easie and natural that the Spirit that is in man God is the Former or Creator of it But this Text defines nothing of the time of forming it There are several other Texts alledged but it is so easie to answer them and would take up so much time and room that I think fit to omit them remembring my scope to be short Annotations not a tedious Commentary Pag. 41. Mr. Ben Israel in his Problems De Creatione assures us that Pre-existence was the common belief c. That this was the common opinion of the wiser men amongst the Jews R. Menasse Ben Israel himself told me at London with great freedom and assurance and that there was a constant tradition thereof which he said in some sence was also true concerning the Trinity but that more obscure But this of Pre-existence is manifest up and down in the Writings of that very ancient and learned Jew Philo Judaeus as also something toward a Trinity if I remember aright Chap. 5. Pag. 46. We should doubtless have retained some remembrance of that condition And the rather as one ingeniously argues because our state in this life is a state of punishment Upon which he concludes That if the calamities of this life were inflicted upon us only as a punishment of sins committed in another Providence would have provided some effectual means to preserve them in our memories And therefore because we find no remainders of any such Records in our minds 't is says he sufficient evidence to all sober and impartial inquirers that our living and sinning in a former state is as false as inevident But to this it may be answered That the state we are put in is not a state only of punishment but of a merciful trial and it is sufficient that we find our selves in a lapsed and sinful condition our own Consciences telling us when we do amiss and calling upon us to amend So that it is needless particularly to remember our faults in the other world but the time is better spent in faithfully endeavouring to amend our selves in this and to keep our selves from all faults of what nature soever Which is a needless thing our memory should discover to us to have been of old committed by us when our Consciences urge to us that they are never to be committed and the Laws of holy Law-givers and divine Instructers or wise Sages over all the world assist also our Conscience in her office So that the end of Gods Justice by these inward and outward Monitors and by the cross and afflicting Rancounters in this present state is to be attained to viz. the amendment of Delinquents if they be not refractory And we were placed on this stage as it were to begin the world again so as if we had not existed before Whence it seems meet that there should be an utter obliteration of all that is past so as not to be able by memory to connect the former life and this together The memory whereof if we were capable of it would be inconsistent with the orderly proceedings of this and overdoze us and make us half moped to the present Scene of things Whenas the Divine Purpose seems to be that we should also experience the natural pleasures and satisfactions of this life but in an orderly and obedient way keeping to the prescribed rules of Virtue and Holiness And thus our faithfulness being exercised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in those things which are more estranged from our nobler and diviner nature God may at last restore us to what is more properly our own But in the mean time that saying which the Poet puts in the mouth of Jupiter touching the inferiour Deities may not misbeseem the mercy and wisdom of the true God concerning lapsed Souls incorporate into terrestrial Bodies Has quoniam coeli nondum dignamur honore Quas dedimus certè terras habitare sinamus Let them not be distracted betwixt a sensible remembrance of the Joys and Glories of our exteriour Heaven above and the present fruition of things below but let them live an holy and heavenly life upon Earth exercising their Graces and Vertues in the use and enjoyment of these lower earthly Objects till I call them up again to Heaven where after this long swoond they are fallen into they will more seasonably remember their former Paradisiacal state upon its recovery and reagnize their ancient home Wherefore if the remembring or forgetting of the former state depend absolutely upon the free contrivance of the Divine Wisdom Goodness and Justice as this ingenious Opposer seems to suppose I should even upon that very point of fitness conceive that an utter oblivion of the former state is interwoven into the fate and nature of lapsed Souls by a Divine Nemesis though we do not conceive explicitely the manner how And yet the natural reasons the Author of Lux Orientalis produces in the sequel of his Discourse seem highly probable For first As we had forgot some lively Dream we dreamt but last night unless we had met with something in the day of a peculiar vertue to remind us of it so we meeting with nothing in this lower stage of things that lively resembles those things in our former state and has a peculiar fitness to rub up our Memory we continue in an utter oblivion of them As suppose a man was lively entertain'd in his sleep with the pleasure of dreaming of a fair Crystal River whose Banks were adorned with Trees and Flags in the flower and those large Flies with blue and golden-colour'd Bodies and broad thin Wings curiously wrought and transparent hovering over them with Birds also singing on the Trees Sun and Clouds above and sweet breezes of Air and Swans in the River with their wings sometimes lifted up like sails against the wind Thus he passed the night thinks of no such thing in the morning but rising goes about his occasions But towards evening a Servant of a Friend of his presents him with a couple of Swans from his Master The sight of which Swans striking his Perceptive as sensibly as those in his Dream and being one of the most extraordinary and eximious Objects of his Night-vision
were as certain of getting an Alms from him as a Traveller is to quench his thirst at a publick Spring near the Highway would those that received Alms from him think themselves not obliged to Thanks It may be you will say they will thank him that they may not forfeit his Favour another time Which Answer discovers the spring of this Misconceit which seems founded in self-love as if all Duty were to be resolved into that and as if there were nothing owing to another but what implied our own profit But though the Divine Goodness acts necessarily yet it does not blindly but according to the Laws of Decorum and Justice which those that are unthankful to the Deity may find the smart of But I cannot believe the ingenious Writer much in earnest in these points he so expresly declaring what methinks is not well consistent with them For his very words are these God can never act contrary to his necessary and essential properties as because he is essentially wise just and holy he can do nothing that is foolish unjust and wicked Here therefore I demand Are we not to thank him and praise him for his actions of Wisdom Justice and Holiness though they be necessary And if Justice Wisdom and Holiness be the essential properties of God according to which he does necessarily act and abstain from acting why is not his Goodness when it is expresly said by the Wisdom of God incarnate None is good save one that is God Which must needs be understood of his essential Goodness Which therefore being an essential property as well as the rest he must necessarily act according to it And when he acts in the Scheme of Anger and Severity it is in the behalf of Goodness and when he imparts his Goodness in lesser measures as well as in greater it is for the good of the Whole or of the Universe If all were Eye where were the Hearing c. as the Apostle argues So that his Wisdom moderates the prompt outflowings of his Goodness that it may not outflow so but that in the general it is for the best And therefore it will follow that if the Pre-existence of Souls comply with the Wisdom Justice and Holiness of God that none of these restrain his prompt and parturient Goodness that it must have caused humane Souls to pre-exist or exist so soon as the Spirits of Angels did And he must have a strange quick-sightedness that can discern any clashing of that act of Goodness with any of the abovesaid Attributes Chap. 7. pag. 56. God never acts by mere Will or groundless Humour c. We men have unaccountable inclinations in our irregular and depraved Composition have blind lusts or desires to do this or that and it is our present ease and pleasure to fulfil them and therefore we fancy it a priviledge to be able to execute these blind inclinations of which we can give no rational account but that we are pleased by fulfilling them But it is against the Purity Sanctity and Perfection of the Divine Nature to conceive any such thing in Him and therefore a weakness in our Judgments to fancy so of him like that of the Anthropomorphites that imagined God to be of Humane shape Pag. 59. That God made all things for himself It is ignorance and ill nature that has made some men abuse this Text to the proving that God acts out of either an humourous or selfish principle as if he did things merely to please himself as self not as he is that soveraign unself-inreressed Goodness and perfect Rectitude which ought to be the measure of all things But the Text implies no such matter For if you make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Compound of a Preposition and Pronoun that so it may signifie for himself which is no more than propter se it then will import that he made all things to satisfie his own Will and Pleasure whose Will and Pleasure results from the richness of his eternal Goodness and Benignity of Nature which is infinite and ineffable provided always that it be moderated by Wisdom Justice and Decorum For from hence his Goodness is so stinted or modified that though he has made all things for his own Will and Pleasure who is infinite Goodness and Benignity yet there is a day of Evil for the Wicked as it follows in the Text because they have not walked answerably to the Goodness that God has offered them and therefore their punishment is in behalf of abused Goodness And Bayns expresly interprets this Text thus Universa propter seipsum fecit Dominus that is says he Propter bonitatem suam juxta illud Augustini DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA Quia bonus est Deus sumus in quantum sumus boni sumus But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be a Compound of a Participle and a Pronoun and then it may signifie for them that answer him that is walk anserably to his Goodness which he affords them or for them that obey him either way it is very good sence And then in opposition to these it is declared that the Wicked that is the Disobedient or Despisers of his Goodness he has not made them wicked but they having made themselves so appointed them for the day of Evil. For some such Verb is to be supplied as is agreeable to the matter as in that passage in the Psalms The Sun shall not burn thee by day neither the Moon by night Where burn cannot be repeated but some other more suitable Verb is to be supplied Chap. 8. pag. 63. Since all other things are inferiour to the good of Being This I suppose is to be understood in such a sence as that saying in Job Skin for skin and all that a man has will he give for his life Otherwise the condition of Being may be such as it were better not to be at all whatever any dry-fancied Metaphysicians may dispute to the contrary Pag. 67. Indeed they may be morally immutable and illapsable but this is Grace not Nature c. Not unless the Divine Wisdom has essentially interwoven it into the natural constitution of our Souls that as after such a time of the exercise of their Plaistick on these Terrestrial Bodies they according to the course of Nature emerge into a plain use of their Reason when for a time they little differed from Brutes so after certain periods of time well improved to the perfecting their Nature in the sense and adherence to Divine things there may be awakened in them such a Divine Plastick faculty as I may so speak as may eternally fix them to their Celestial or Angelical Vehicles that they shall never relapse again Which Faculty may be also awakened by the free Grace of the Omnipotent more maturely Which if it be Grace and Nature conspire together to make a Soul everlastingly happy Which actual Immutability does no more change the species of a Soul than the actual exercise of Reason does after the
big with aptnesses and proclivities to peculiar Theories why then should not all supposing they pre-existed together do the like As if all in the other Aereal State were Professors of Philosophie or zealous Followers of them that were The solution of this difficulty is so easie that I need not insist on it Pag. 78. Were this difference about sensibles the influence of the body might then be suspected for a cause c. This is very rationally alleadged by our Author and yet his Antagonist has the face from the observation of the diversity of mens Palates and Appetites of their being differently affected by such and such strains of Musick some being pleased with one kind of Melodie and others with another some pleased with Aromatick Odours others offended with them to reason thus If the Bodie can thus cause us to love and dislike Sensibles why not as well to approve and dislike Opinions and Theories But the reason is obvious why not because the liking or disliking of these Sensibles depends upon the grateful or ungrateful motion of the Nerves of the Bodie which may be otherwise constituted or qualified in some complexions than in other some But for Philosophical Opinions and Theories what have they to do with the motion of the Nerves It is the Soul herself that judges of those abstractedly from the Senses or any use of the Nerves or corporeal Organ If the difference of our Judgment in Philosophical Theories be resolvible into the mere constitution of our Bodie our Understanding itself will hazard to be resolved into the same Principle also And Bodie will prove the onely difference betwixt Men and Brutes We have more intellectual Souls because we have better Bodies which I hope our Authors Antagonist will not allow Pag. 78. For the Soul in her first and pure nature has no Idiosyncrasies c. Whether there may not be certain different Characters proper to such and such Classes of Souls but all of them natural and without blemish and this for the better order of things in the Universe I will not rashly decide in the Negative But as the Author himself seems to insinuate if there be any such they are not such as fatally determine Souls to false and erroneous apprehensions For that would be a corruption and a blemish in the very natural Character Wherefore if the Soul in Philosophical Speculations is fatally determined to falshood in this life it is credible it is the effect of its being inured thereto in the other Pag. 79. Now to say that all this variety proceeds primarily from the mere temper of our Bodies c. This Argument is the less valid for Pre-existence I mean that which is drawn from the wonderful variety of our Genius's or natural inclinations to the employments of life because we cannot be assured but that the Divine Providence may have essentially as it were impressed such Classical Characters on humane Souls as I noted before And besides if that be true which Menander says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That every man as soon as he is born has a Genius appointed him to be his Instructer and Guide of his Life That some are carried with such an impetus to some things rather than others may be from the instigations of his assisting Genius And for that Objection of the Author's Antagonist against his Opinion touching those inclinations to Trades which may equally concern this Hypothesis of Menander that it would then be more universal every one having such a Genius this truth may be smothered by the putting young people promiscuously to any Trade without observing their Genius But the Chineses suppose this truth they commonly shewing a Child all the Employs of the Citie that he may make his own choice before they put him to any But if the Opinion of Menander be true that every man has his guardian Genius under whose conduct he lives the Merchant the Musician the Plowman and the rest it is manifest that these Genii cannot but receive considerable impressions of such things as they guide their Clients in And pre-existent Souls in their aereal estate being of the same nature with these Daemons or Genii they are capable of the same Employment and so tincture themselves deep enough with the affairs of those parties they preside over And therefore when they themselves after the state of Silence arâ—… incorporated into earthly Bodies they may have a proneness from their former tincture to such methods of life as they lived over whom they did preside Which quite spoils the best Argument our Author's Antagonist has against this Topick which is That there are several things here below which the Geniusses of men pursue and follow with the hottest chase which have no similitude with the things in the other state as Planting Building Husbandrie the working of Manufactures c. This best Argument of his by Menander's Hypothesis which is hard to confute is quite defeated And to deny nothing to this Opposer of Pre-existence which is his due himself seems unsatisfied in resolving these odd Phaenomena into the temper of Bodie And therefore at last hath recourse to a secret Causality that is to he knows not what But at last he pitches upon some such Principle as that whereby the Birds build their Nest the Spider weaves her Webs the Bees make their Combs c. Some such thing he says though he cannot think it that prodigious Hobgoblin the Spirit of Nature may produce these strange effects may byass also the fancies of men in making choice of their Employments and Occupations If it be not the Spirit of Nature then it must be that Classical Character I spoke of above But if not this nor the preponderancies of the Pre-existent state nor Menander's Hypothesis the Spirit of Nature will bid the fairest for it of any besides for determining the inclinations of all living Creatures in these Regions of Generation as having in itself vitally though not intellectually all the Laws of the Divine Providence implanted into its essence by God the Creator of it And speaking in the Ethnick Dialect the same description may belong to it that Varro gives to their God Genius Genius est Deus qui praepositus est ac vim habet omnium rerum gignendarum and that is the Genius of every Creature that is congenit to it in vertue of its generation And that there is such a Spirit of Nature not a God as Varro vainly makes it but an unintelligent Creature to which belongs the Nascency or Generation of things and has the management of the whole matter of the Universe is copiously proved to be the Opinion of the Noblest and Ancientest Philosophers by the learned Dr. R. Cudworth in his System of the Intellectual World and is demonstrated to be a true Theorem in Philosophie by Dr. H. Moore in his Euchiridion Metaphysicum by many and those irrefutable Arguments and yet I dare say both can easily pardon the mistake
and bluntness of this rude Writer nor are at all surprized at it as a Noveltie that any ignorant rural Hobthurst should call the Spirit of Nature a thing so much beyond his capacitie to judge of a prodigious Hobgoblin But to conclude be it so that there may be other causes besides the pristine inurements of the Pre-existent Soul that may something forcibly determine her to one course of life here yet when she is most forcibly determined if there be such a thing as Pre-existence this may be rationally supposed to concur in the efficiencie But that it is not so strong an Argument as others to prove Pre-existence I have hinted alreadie Pag. 79. For those that are most like in the Temper Air Complexion of their Bodies c. If this prove true and I know nothing to the contrarie this vast difference of Genius's were it not for the Hypothesis of their Classical Character imprinted on Souls at their very creation would be a considerably tight Argument But certainly it is more honest than for the avoiding Pre-existence to resolve the Phaenomenon into a secret Causality that is to say into one knows not what Pag. 82. There being now no other way left but Pre-existence c. This is a just excuse for his bringing in any Argument by way of overplus that is not so apodictically concluding If it be but such as will look like a plausible solution of a Phaenomenon as this of such a vast difference of Genius's Pre-existence once admitted or otherwise undeniably demonstrated the proposing thereof should be accepted with favour Chap. 11. pag. 85. And we know our Saviour and his Apostles have given credit to that Translation c. And it was the authentick Text with the Fathers of the Primitive Church And besides this if we read according to the Hebrew Text there being no object of Job's knowledge expressed this is the most easie and natural sence Knowest thou that thou wast then and that the number of thy days are many This therefore was reckoned amongst the rest of his ignorances that though he was created so early he now knew nothing of it And this easie sence of the Hebrew Text as well as that Version of the Septuagint made the Jews draw it in to the countenancing of the Tradition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Pre-existence of Souls as Grotius has noted of them Pag. 85. As reads a very credible Version R. Menasse Ben Israel reads it so I gave thee Wisdom which Version if it were sure and authentick this place would be fit for the defence of the Opinion it is produced for But no Interpreters besides that I can find following him nor any going before him whom he might follow I ingenuously confess the place seems not of force enough to me to infer the conclusion He read I suppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Piel whence he translated it Indidi â—…ibi Sapientiam but the rest read it in Cal. Pag. 86. And methinks that passage of our Saviours Prayer Father glorifie me with the glorie I had before the World began c. This Text without exceeding great violence cannot be evaded As for that of Grotius interpreting that I had that which was intended for me to have though it make good sence yet it is such Grammar as that there is no School-boy but would be ashamed of it nor is there for all his pretences any place in Scripture to countenance such an extravagant Exposition by way of Parallelism as it may appear to any one that will compare the places which he alleadges with this which I leave the Reader to do at his leisure Let us consider the Context Joh. 17. 4. I have glorified thee upon earth during this my Pilgrimage and absence from thee being â—…ent hither by thee I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do and for the doing of which I was sent and am thus long absent And now O Father glorifie me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud teipsum in thine own presence with the glorie which I had before the world was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud te or in thy presence What can be more expressive of a Glorie which Christ had apud Patrem or at his Fathers home or in his presence before the world was and from which for such a time he had been absent Now for others that would salve the business by communication of Idioms I will set down the words of an ingenious Writer that goes that way Those Predicates says he that in a strict and â—…igorous acception agreed onely to his Divine Nature might by a communication of Idioms as they phrase it be attributed to his Humane or at least to the whole Person compounded of them both than which nothing is more ordinarie in things of a mixt and heterogeneous nature as the whole man is stiled immortal from the deathlessness of his Soul thus he And there is the same reason if he had said that man was stiled mortal which certainly is far the more ordinarie from the real death of his Bodie though his Soul be immortal This is wittily excogitated But now let us apply it to the Text expounding it according to his communication of Idioms affording to the Humane Nature what is onely proper to the Divine thus Father glorifie me my Humane Nature with the glorie that I my Divine Nature had before the world was Which indeed was to be the Eternal Infinite and Omnipotent brightness of the Glory of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the Glory which his Divine Nature had before the World was But how can his Humane Nature be glorified with that Glory his Divine Nature had before the world was unless it should become the Divine Nature that it might be said to have pre-existed But that it cannot be For there is no confusion of the Humane and Divine Nature in the Hypostasis of Christ Or else because it is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature but if that be the Glory that he then had already and had it not according to the Opposers of Pre-existence before the world was So we see there is no sence to be made of this Text by communication of Idioms and therefore no sence to be made of it without the Pre-existence of the Humane Nature of Christ. And if you paraphrase me thus My Hypostasis consisting of my Humane and Divine Nature it will be as untoward sence For if the Divine Nature be included in me then Christ prays for what he has already as I noted above For the Glory of the eternal Logos from everlasting to everlasting is the same as sure as he is the same with himself Pag. 86. By his expressions of coming from the Father descending from Heaven and returning thither again c. I suppose these Scriptures are alluded to John 3. 13. 6. 38. 16. 28. I came down from Heaven not to do my own will but the will of him that
variety may well seem an addition to the felicity of their state And the shadowyness of the Night may help them in the more composing Introversions of their contemplative mind and cast the soul into ineffably pleasing slumbers and Divine extasies so that the transactions of the Night may prove more solacing and beatifick sometimes than those of the day Such things we may guess at afar off but in the mean time be sure that these good and serious Souls know how to turn all that God sends to them to the improvement of their Happiness To the fourth Argument we answer That there are not a few reasons from the nature of the thing that may beget in us a strong presumption that souls recovered into their Celestial Happiness will never again relapse though they did once For first it may be a mistake that the Happiness is altogether the same that it was before For our first Paradisiacal Bodies from which we lapsed might be of a more crude and dilute Aether not so full and saturate with Heavenly glory and perfection as our resurrection-Resurrection-body is Secondly The soul was then unexperienced and lightly coming by that Happiness she was in did the more heedlessly forgo it before she was well aware and her mind roved after new adventures though she knew not what Thirdly It is to be considered whether Regeneration be not a stronger tenour for enduring Happiness than the being created happie For this being wrought so by degrees upon the Plastick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with ineffable groans and piercing desires after that Divine Life that the Spirit of God co-operating exciteth in us when Regeneration is perfected and wrought to the full by these strong Agonies this may rationally be deemed a deeper tincture in the soul than that she had by mere Creation whereby the soul did indeed become Holy innocent and happie but not coming to it with any such strong previous conflicts and eager workings and thirstings after that state it might not be so firmly rooted by far as in Regeneration begun and accomplished by the operation of Gods Spirit gradually but more deeply renewing the Divine Image in us Fourthly It being a renovation of our Nature into a pristine state of ours the strength and depth of impression seems increased upon that account also Fifthly The remembrance of all the hardships we underwent in our lapsed condition whether of Mortification or cross Rancounters this must likewise help us to persevere when once returned to our former Happiness Sixthly The comparing of the evanid pleasures of our lapsed or terrestrial life with the fulness of those Joys that we find still in our heavenly will keep us from ever having any hankering after them any more Seventhly The certain knowledge of everlasting punishment which if not true they could not know must be also another sure bar to any such negligencies as would hazard their setled felicity Which may be one reason why the irreclaimable are eternally punished namely that it may the better secure eternal Happiness to others Eighthly Though we have our triple Vital Congruity still yet the Plastick life is so throughly satisfied with the Resurrection-body which is so considerably more full and saturate with all the heavenly richness and Glorie than the former that the Plastick of the soul is as entirely taken up with this one Bodie as if she enjoyed the pleasures of all three bodies at once Aethereal Aereal and Terrestrial And lastly Which will strike all sure He that is able to save to the utmost and has promised us eternal life is as true as able and therefore cannot fail to perform it And who can deny but that we in this State I have described are as capable of being fixed there and confirmed therein as the Angels were after Lucifer and others had faln And now to the fifth and last Argument against the state of Silence I say it is raised out of mere ignorance of the most rational as well as most Platonical way of the souls immediate descent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the first Mover or stirrer in this matter I mean in the formation of the Foetus is the Spirit of Nature the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Universe to whom Plotinus somewhere attributes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first Predelineations and prodrome Irradiations into the matter before the particular soul it is preparing for come into it Now the Spirit of Nature being such a spirit as contains Spermatically or Vitally all the Laws contrived by the Divine Intellect for the management of the Matter of the World and of all Essences else unperceptive or quatenus unperceptive for the good of the Universe we have all the reason in the world to suppose this Vital or Spermatical Law is amongst the rest viz. That it transmit but one soul to one prepared conception Which will therefore be as certainly done unless some rare and odd casualty intervene as if the Divine Intellect it self did do it Wherefore one and the same Spirit of Nature which prepares the matter by some general Predelineation does at the due time transmit some one soul in the state of Silence by some particularizing Laws that fetch in such a soul rather than such but most sure but one unless as I said some special casualty happen into the prepared Matter acting at two places at once according to its Synenergetical vertue or power Hence therefore it is plain that there will be no such clusters of Foetus's and monstrous deformities from this Hypothesis of the souls being in a state of Silence But for one to shuffle off so fair a satisfaction to this difficulty by a precarious supposing there is no such Being as the Spirit of Nature when it is demonstrable by so many irrefragable Arguments that there is is a Symptome of one that philosophizes at random not as Reason guides For that is no reason against the existence of the Spirit of Nature because some define it A Substance incorporeal but without sense and animadversion c. as if a spirit without sense and animadversion were a contradiction For that there is a Spirit of Nature is demonstrable though whether it have no sense at all is more dubitable But through it have no sense or perception it is no contradiction to its being a Spirit as may appear from Dr. H. Mores Brief Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit To which I direct the Reader for satisfaction I having already been more prolix in answering these Arguments than I intended But I hope I have made my presage true that they would be found to have no force in them to overthrow the Hypothesis of a threefold Vital Congruity in the Plastick of the soul. So that this fourth Pillar for any execution they can do will stand unshaken Pag. 103. For in all sensation there is corporeal motion c. And besides there seems an essential relation of the Soul to Body according to Aristotles definition thereof he
defining it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which actuates the boby Which therefore must be idle when it has nothing to actuate as a Piper must be silent as to piping if he have no Pipe to play on Chap. 14. pag. 113. The ignobler and lower properties or the life of the body were languid and remiss vâ—… as to their proper exercises or acting for themselves or as to their being regarded much by the Soul that is taken up with greater matters or as to their being much relished but in subserviency to the enjoyment of those more Divine and sublime Objects as the Author intimates towards the end of his last Pillar Pag. 114. And the Plastick had nothing to do but to move this passive and easie body c. It may be added and keep it in its due form and shape And it is well added accordingly as the concerns of the higher faculties required For the Plastick by reason of its Vital Union with the vehicle is indeed the main instrument of the motion thereof But it is the Imperium of the Perceptive that both excites and guides its motion Which is no wonder it can do they being both but one soul. Pag. 114. To pronounce the place to be the Sun c. Which is as rationally guessed by them as if one should fancy all the Fellows and Students Chambers in a Colledge to be contained within the area of the Hearth in the Hall and the rest of the Colledge uninhabited For the Sun is but a common Focus of a Vortex and is less by far to the Vortex than the Hearth to the Ichnographie of the whole Colledge that I may not say little more than a Tennis-ball to the bigness of the earth Pag. 115. Yet were we not immutaâ—…ly so c. But this mutability we were placed in was not without a prospect of a more full confirmation and greater accumulation of Happiness at the long run as I intimated above Pag. 116. We were made on set purpose defatigable that so all degrees of life c. We being such Creatures as we are and finite and taking in the enjoyment of those infinitely perfect and glorious Objects onely pro modulo nostro according to the scantness of our capacity diversion to other Objects may be an ease and relief From whence the promise of a glorified body in the Christian Religion as it is most grateful so appears most rational But in the mean time it would appear most irrational to believe we shall have eyes and ears and other organs of external sense and have no suitable Objects to entertain them Pag. 117. Yea methinks 't is but a reasonable reward to the body c. This is spoken something popularly and to the sense of the vulgar that imagine the body to feel pleasure and pain whenas it is the soul onely that is perceptive and capable of feeling either But 't is fit the body should be kept in due plight for the lawful and allowable corporeal enjoyments the soul may reap therefrom for seasonable diversion Pag. 117 That that is executed which he hath so determined c. Some fancy this may be extended to the enjoying of the fruits of the Invigouration of all the three Vital Congruities of the Plastick and that for a soul orderly and in due time and course to pass through all these dispensations provided she keep her self sincere towards her Maker is not properly any lapse or sin but an harmless experiencing all the capacities of enjoying themselves that God has bestowed upon them Which will open a door to a further Answer touching the rest of the Planets being inhabited namely That they may be inhabited by such kind of souls as these who therefore want not the Knowledge and assistance of a Redeemer And so the earth may be the onely Nosocomium of sinfully lapsed souls This may be an answer to such far-fetched Objections till they can prove the contrarie Pag. 118. Adam cannot withstand the inordinate appetite c. Namely after his own remissness and heedlessness in ordering himself he had brought himself to such a wretched weakness Pag. 121. The Plastick faculties begin now fully to awaken c. There are three Vital Congruities belonging to the Plastick of the Soul and they are to awake orderly that is to operate one after another downward and upward that is to say In the lapse the Aereal follows the Aethereal the Terrestrial the Aereal But in their Recovery or Emergency out of the lapse The Aereal follows the Terrestrial and the Aethereal the Aereal But however a more gross turgency to Plastick operation may haply arise at the latter end of the Aereal Period which may be as it were the disease of the soul in that state and which may help to turn her out of it into the state of Silence and is it self for the present silenced therewith For where there is no union with bodie there is no operation of the Soul Pag. 121. For it hath an aptness and propensity to act in a Terrestrial body c. This aptness and fitness it has in the state of Silence according to that essential order of things interwoven into its own nature and into the nature of the Spirit of the World or great Archeus of the Universe according to the eternal counsel of the Divine Wisdom By which Law and appoyntment the soul will as certainly have a fitness and propensity at its leaving the Terrestrial body to actuate an Aereal oâ—…e Pag. 122. Either by mere natural Congruity the disposition of the soul of the world or some more spontaneous agent c. Natural Congruity and the disposal of the Plastick soul of the world which others call the Spirit of Nature may be joyned well together in this Feat the Spirit of Nature attracting such a soul as is most congruous to the predelineated Matter which it has prepared for her But as for the spontaneous Agent I suppose he may understand his ministry in some supernatural Birth Unless he thinks that some Angels or Genii may be imployed in putting souls into bodies as Gardiners are in setting Pease and Beans in the beds of Gardens But certainly they must be no good Genii then that have any hand in assisting or setting souls in such wombs as have had to do with Adulterie Incest and Buggery Pag. 123. But some apish shews and imitations of Reason Vertue and Religion c. The Reason of the unregenerate in Divine things is little better than thus and Vertue and Religion which is not from that Principle which revives in us in real Regeneration are though much better than scandalous vice and profaness mere pictures and shadows of what they pretend to Pag. 123. To its old celestial abode c. For we are Pilgrims and strangers here on the earth as the holy Patriarchs of old declared And they that speak such things saith the Apostle plainly shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they seek their native country for so 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies And truly if they had been mindful of that earthly country out of which they came they might saith he have had opportunity of returning But now they desire a better to wit an heavenly Hebr. 11. Pag. 124. But that they step forth again into Airy Vehicles This is their natural course as I noted above But the examples of Enoch and Elias and much more of our ever Blessed Saviour are extraordinary and supernatural Pag. 125. Those therefore that pass out of these bodies before their Terrestrial Congruity be spoyled weakened or orderly unwound according to the tenour of this Hypothesis c. By the favour of this ingenious Writer this Hypothesis does not need any such obnoxious Appendage as this viz. That souls that are outed these Terrestrial bodies before their Terrestrial Congruity be spoiled weakned or orderly unwound return into the state of Inactivity But this is far more consonant both to Reason and Experience or Storie that though the Terrestrial Congruity be still vigorous as not having run out it may be the half part no not the tenth part of its Period the soul immediately upon the quitting of this body is invested with a bodie of Air and is in the state of Activity not of Silence in no sense For some being murdered have in all likelyhood in their own persons complained of their murderers as it is in that story of Anne Walker and there are many others of the same nature And besides it is far more reasonable there being such numerous multitudes of silent souls that their least continuance in these Terrestrial bodies should at their departure be as it were a Magical Kue or Tessera forthwith to the Aereal Congruity of life to begin to act its part upon the ceasing of the other that more souls may be rid out of the state of Silence Which makes it more probable that every soul that is once besmeared with the unctuous moisture of the Womb should as it were by a Magick Oyntment be carried into the Air though it be of a still-born Infant than that any should return into the state of Silence or Inactivity upon the pretence of the remaining vigour of the Terrestrial Congruity of life For these Laws are not by any consequential necessity but by the free counsel of the Eternal Wisdom of God consulting for the best And therefore this being so apparently for the best this Law is interwoven into the Spirit of the World and every particular soul that upon the ceasing of her Terrestrial Union her Aereal Congruity of life should immediately operate and the Spirit of Nature assisting she should be drest in Aereal robes and be found among the Inhabitants of those Regions If souls should be remanded back into the state of Silence that depart before the Terrestrial Period of Vital Congruity be orderly unwound so very few reach the end of that Period that they must in a manner all be turned into the state of Inactivity Which would be to weave Penelope's Web to do and undo because the day is long enough as the Proverb is whenas it rather seems too short by reason of the numerosity of Silent souls that expect their turn of Recovery into Life Pag. 125. But onely follow the clew of this Hypothesis The Hypothesis requires no such thing but it rather clashes with the first and chietest Pillar thereof viz. That all the Divine designs and actions are laid and carried on by Infinite Goodness And I have already intimated how much better it is to be this way that I am pleading for than that of this otherwise-ingenious Writer Pag. 125. Since by long and hard exercise in this body the Plastick Life is well taâ—…ned and debilitated c. But this is not at all necessary no not in those souls whose Plastick may be deemed the most rampant Dis-union from this Terrestrial body immediately tames it I mean the Terrestrial Congruity of Life and its operation is stopt as surely as a string of a Lute never so smartly vibrated is streightways silenced by a gentle touch of the finger and another single string may be immediately made to sound alone while the other is mute and silent For I say these are the free Laws of the Eternal Wisdom but fatally and vitally not intellectually implanted in the Spirit of Nature and in all Humane Souls or Spirits The whole Universe is as it were the Automatal Harp of that great and true Apollo and as for the general striking of the strings and stopping their vibrations they are done with as exquisite art as if a free intellectual Agent plaid upon them But the Plastick powers in the world are not such but onely Vital and Fatal as I said before Pag. 126. That an Aereal body was not enough for it to display its force upon c. It is far more safe and rational to say that the soul deserts her Aereal Estate by reason that the Period of the Vital Congruity is expired which according to those fatal Laws I spoke of before is determined by the Divine Wisdom But whether a soul may do any thing to abbreviate this Period and excite such symptoms in the Plastick as may shorten her continuance in that state let it be left to the more inquisitive to define Pag. 128. Where is then the difference betwixt the just and the wicked in state place and body Their difference in place I have sufficiently shewn in my Answer to the third Argument against the triple Congruity of Life in the Plastick of Humane Souls how fitly they may be disposed of in the Air. But to the rude Buffoonry of that crude Opposer of the Opinion of Pre-existence I made no Answer It being methinks sufficiently answered in the Scholia upon Sect. 12. Cap. 3. Lib. 3. of Dr. H. Mores Immortalitas Animae if the Reader think it worth his while to consult the place Now for State and Body the difference is obvious The Vehicle is of more pure Air and the Conscience more pure of the one than of the other Pag. 130. For according to this Hypothesis the gravity of those bodies is less because the quantity of the earth that draws them is so c. This is an ingenious invention both to salve that Phaenomenon why Bodies in Mines and other deep subterraneous places should seem not so heavy nor hard to lift there as they are in the superiour Air above the earth and also to prove that the crust of the earth is not of so considerable a thickness as men usually conceive it is I say it is ingenious but not so firm and sure The Quick-silver in a Torricellian Tube will sink deeper in an higher or clearer Air though there be the same Magnetism of the earth under it that was before But this is not altogether so fit an illustration there being another cause than I drive at conjoyned thereto But that which I drive at is sufficient of it self to salve this Phaenomenon
Psychopyrists Letter Where having plainly proved that God can create an Indiscerpible Being though of a large Metaphysical amplitude and that there is nothing objected against it nor indeed can be but that then he would seem to puzzle his own Omnipotency which could not discerp such a Being the Doctor shews the vanity of that Objection in these very words The same says he may be said of the Metaphysical Monads namely that God cannot discerp them and at that rate he shall be allow'd to create nothing no not so much as Matter which consists of Physical Monads nor himself indeed to be For that cannot be God from whom all other things are not produced and created What reason can be more clear or more convincing That God can create a Spirit in the proper sense thereof which includes Indiscerpibility there being no reason against it but what is false it plainly implying that he can create nothing and consequently that he cannot be God Wherefore that Objection being thus clearly removed God as sure as himself is can create a Spirit penetrable and indiscerpible as himself is and is expresly acknowledged to be so by Mr. Baxter himself pag. 51. And he having created Spirits or Immaterial Substances of an opposite Species to Material which are impenetrable and discerpible of their immediate nature how can these Immaterial substances be any other than Penetrable and Indiscerpible Which is a very useful Dogma for assuring the souls personal subsistence after Death And therefore it is a piece of grand Disingenuity in Mr. Baxter to endeavour thus to slur and obscure so plain and edifying a Truth by mére Antick Distortions of words and sense by alterations and mutilations and by a kind of sophistick Buffoonry This is one specimen of his Disingenuity towards the Doctor who in his Answer has been so civil to him And now I have got into this Digression I shall not stick to exemplifie it in several others As secondly pag. 4. in those words And when I presume most I do but most lose my self and misuse my understanding Nothing is good for that which it was not made for Our Understandings as our Eyes are made onely for things revealed In many of your Books I take this for an excess So Mr. Baxter Let me now interpose a word or two in the behalf of the Doctor Is not this a plain piece of Disingenuity against the Doctor who has spent so great a part of his time in Philosophie which the mere Letter of the Scripture very rarely reveals any thing of to reproach him for his having used his understanding so much about things not revealed in Scripture Where should he use his Understanding and Reason if not in things unrevealed in Scripture that is in Philosophical things Things revealed in Scripture are Objects rather of Faith than of Science and Understanding And what a Paradox is this that our Understandings as our Eyes are made onely for things revealed When our Eyes are shut all the whole visible world by the closing of the palpebroe is vailed from us but it is revealed to us again by the opening of our eyes and so it is with the eye of the Understanding If it be shut through Pride Prejudice or Sensuality the mysteries of Philosophy are thereby vailed from it but if by true vertue and unfeigned sanctity of mind that eye be opened the Mysteries of Philosophy are the more clearly discovered to it especially if points be studied with singular industry which Mr. Baxter himself acknowledges of the Doctor pag. 21. onely he would there pin upon his back an Humble Ignoramus in some things which the Doctor I dare say will easily admit in many things yea in most and yet I believe this he will stand upon that in those things which he professes to know he will challenge all the world to disprove if they can And for probable Opinions especially if they be useless which many Books are too much stuffed withal he casts them out as the lumber of the mind and would willingly give them no room in his thoughts Firmness and soundness of Life is much better than the multiplicitie of uncertain Conceits And lastly whereas Mr. Baxter speaking of himself says And when I presume most I do but most lofe my self He has so bewildered and loâ—… himâ—…elf in the multifarious and most-what needless points in Philosophy or Scholastick Divinity that if we can collect the measures of the Cause from the amplitude of the Effect he must certainly have been very presumptuous He had better have set up his Staff in his Saints everlasting Rest and such other edifying and useful Books as those than to have set up for either a Philosopher or Polemick Divine But it is the infelicity of too many that they are ignorant Quid valeant humeri quid ferre recusent as the Poet speaks or as the Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so taking upon them a part in a Play which they are unfit for they both neglect that which they are fit for and miscarry by reason of their unfitness in their acting that Part they have rashly undertaken as Epictetus somewhere judiciously observes But if that passage And when I presume most I do but most lose my self was intended by him as an oblique Socratical reproof to the Doctor let him instance if he can where the Doctor has presumed above his strength He has medled but with a few things and therefore he need not envie his success therein especially they being of manifest use to the serious world so many as God has fitted for the reception of them Certainly there was some grand occasion for so grave a preliminary monition as he has given the Doctor You have it in the following Page p. 5. This premised says he I say undoubtedly it is utterly unrevealed either as to any certainty or probability That all Spirits are Souls and actuate Matter See what Heat and Hast or some worse Principle has engaged Mr. Baxter to do to father a down-right falshood upon the Doctor that he may thence take occasion to bestow a grave admonition on him and so place himself on the higher ground I am certain it is neither the Doctors opinion That all Spirits are Souls and actuate Matter nor has he writ so any where He onely says in his Preface to the Reader That all created Spirits are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Souls in all probability and actuate some matter And his expression herein is both modest and true For though it is not certain or necessary yet it is very probable For if there were of the highest Orders of the Angels that fell it is very probable that they had corporeal Vehicles without which it is hard to conceive they could run into disorder And our Saviour Christs Soul which actuates a glorified spiritual Bodie being set above all the Orders of Angels it is likely that there is none of them is so refined above his Humane Nature as to
are capable of living in other bodies besides terrestrial c. For the Pre-existentiaries allow her successively to have lived first in an Ethereal body then in an Aereal and lastly after the state of Silence to live in a Terrestrial And here I think though it be something early it will not be amiss to take notice what the Anti-pre-existentiaries alledge against this Hypothesis for we shall have the less trouble afterwards First therefore they say That it does not become the Goodness of God to make Mans Soul with a triple Vital Congruity that will fit as well an Aereal and Terrestrial condition as an Aethereal For from hence it appears that their Will was not so much in fault that they sinned as the constitution of their Essence And they have the face to quote the account of Origen pag. 49. for to strengthen this their first Argument The words are these They being originally made with a capacity to joyn with this terrestrial matter it seems necessary according to the course of nature that they should sink into it so appear terrestrialmen And therefore say they there being no descending into these earthly bodies without a lapse or previous sin their very constitution necessitated them to sin The second Argument is That this Hypothesis is inconsistent with the bodies Resurrection For the Aereal bodie immediately succeeding the Terrestrial and the Aethereal the Aereal the business is done there needs no resuscitation of the Terrestrial body to be glorified Nor is it the same numerical body or flesh still as it ought to be if the Resurrection-body be Aethereal The third is touching the Aereal Body That if the soul after death be tyed to an Aereal body and few or none attain to the Aethereal immediately after death the souls of very good men will be forced to have their abode amongst the very Devils For their Prince is the Prince of the Air as the Apostle calls him and where can his subjects be but where he is So that they will be enforced to endure the companie of these foul Fiends besides all the incommodious changes in the Air of Clouds of Vapours of Rain Hail Thunder tearing Tempests and Storms and what is an Image of Hell it self the darkness of Night will overwhelm them every four and twenty hours The fourth Argument is touching the Aethereal state of Pre-existence For if souls when they were in so Heavenly and happy an estate could lapse from it what assurance can we have when we are returned thither that we shall abide in it it being but the same Happiness we were in before and we having the same Plastick with its triple Vital Congruity as we had before Why therefore may we not lapse as before The fifth and last Argument is taken from the state of Silence Wherein the Soul is supposed devoid of perception And therefore their number being many and their attraction to the place of conception in the Womb being merely Magical and reaching many at a time there would be many attracted at once so that scarce a Foetus could be formed which would not be a multiform Monster or a cluster of Humane Foetus's not one single Foetus And these are thought such weighty Arguments that Pre-existence must sink and perish under their pressure But I believe when we have weighed them in the balance of unprejudiced Reason we shall find them light enough And truly for the first It is not only weak and slight but wretchedly disingenuous The strength of it is nothing but a maimed and fraudulent Quotation which makes ashew as if the Author of the Account of Origen bluntly affirmed without any thing more to do that souls being originally made with a capacity to joyn with this terrestrial matter it seems necessary according to the course of nature that they should sink into it and so appear terrestrial men Whenas if we take the whole Paragraph as it lies before thâ—…y cast themselves into this fatal necessity they are declared to have a freedom of will whereby they might have so managed their happy Estate they were created in that they need never have faln His words are these What then remains but that through the faulty and negligent use of themselves whilst they were in some better condition of life they rendred themselves less pure in the whole extent of their powers both Intellectual and Animal and so by degrees became disposed for the susception of such a degree of corporeal life as was less pure indeed than the former but exactly answerable to their present disposition of Spirit So that after certain Periods of time they might become far less fit to actuate any sort of body than the terrestrial and being originally made with a capacity to joyn with this too and in it to exercise the Powers and functions of life it seems necessary c. These are the very words of the Author of the Account of Origen wherein he plainly affirms that it was the fault of the Souls themselves that they did not order themselves then right when they might have done so that cast them into this terrestrial condition But what an Opposer of Pre-existence is this that will thus shamelesly falsifie and corrupt a Quotation of an ingenious Author rather than he will seem to want an Argument against his Opinion Wherefore briefly to answer to this Argument It does as much become the Goodness of God to create souls with a triple Vital Congruity as to have created Adam in Paradise with free Will and a capacity of sinning To the Second the Pre-existentiaries will answer That it is no more absurd to conceive nor so much that the soul after death hath an Airy body or it may be some an Ethereal one than to imagine them so highly happy after death without any body at all For if they can act so fully and beatifically without any body what need there be any Resurrection of the body at all And if it be most natural to the soul to act in some body in what a long unnatural estate has Adams soul been that so many thousand years has been without a body But for the soul to have a body of which she may be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certainly is most natural or else she will be in an unnatural state after the Resurrection to all Eternitie Whence it is manifest that it is most natural for the soul if she act at all to have a body to act in And therefore unless we will be so dull as to fall into the drouzie dream of the Pyschopannychites we are to allow the soul to have some kind of body or other till the very Resurrection But those now that are not Psychopannychites but allow good Souls the joys and glories of Paradise before the Resurrection of the Body let them be demanded to what end the soul should have a Resurrection-body and what they would answer for themselves the Pre-existentiaries will answer for their position that holds
A Bucket of water while it is in the water comes up with ease to him that draws it at the Well but so soon as it comes into the Air though there be the same earth under it that there was before it feels now exceeding more weighty Of which I conceive the genuine reason is because the Spirit of Nature which ranges all things in their due order acts proportionately strongly to reduce them thereto as they are more heterogeniously and disproportionately placed as to their consistencies And therefore by how much more crass and solid a body is above that in which it is placed by so much the stronger effort the Spirit of Nature uses to reduce it to its right place but the less it exceeds the crassness of the Element it is in the effort is the less or weaker Hence therefore it is that a stone or such like body in those subterraneous depths seems less heavy because the air there is so gross and thick and is not so much disproportionate to the grossness of the stone as our air above the earth here is nor do I make any doubt but if the earth were all cut away to the very bottom of any of these Mines so that the Air might be of the same consistency with ours the stone would then be as heavy as it is usually to us in this superioor surface of the earth So that this is no certain Argument for the proving that the crust of the earth is of such thinness as this Author would have it though I do not question but that it is thin enough Pag. 131. And the mention of the Fountains of the great Deep in the Sacred History c. This is a more considerable Argument for the thinness of the crust of the earth and I must confess I think it not improbable but that there is an Aqueous hollow Sphaericum which is the Basis of this habitable earth according to that of Psalm 24. 2. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the flouds Pag. 131. Now I intend not that after a certain distance all is fluid matter to the Centre That is to say After a certain distance of earthly Matter that the rest should be fluid Matter namely Water and Air to the Centre c. But here his intention is directed by that veneration he has for Des Cartes Otherwise I believe if he had freely examined the thing to the bottom he would have found it more reasonable to conclude all fluid betwixt the Concave of the Terrestrial Crust and the Centre of the Earth as we usually phrase it though nothing be properly Earth but that Crust Pag. 131. Which for the most part very likely is a gross and foetid kind of air c. On this side of the Concave of the Terrestrial Crust there may be several Hollows of foetid air and stagnant water which may be so many particular lodgings for lapsed and unruly Spirits But there is moreover a considerable Aqueous Sphaericum upon which the earth is founded and is most properly the Abyss but in a more comprehensive notion all from the Convex thereof to the Centre may be termed the Abyss or the Deepest place that touches our imagination Pag. 131. The lowest and central Regions may be filled with flame and aether c. That there was the Reliques of a Sun after the Incrustation of the Earth and Aqueous Orb is according to this Hypothesis reasonable enough And a kind of Air and Aether betwixt this diminished Sun and the Concave of this Aqueous Orb but no crass and opake concamerations of hard Matter interposed betwixt Which is an Hypothesis the most kind to the ingenious Author of Telluris Theoria Sacra that he could wish For he holding that there was for almost two thousand years an opake earthy Crust over this Aqueous Orb unbroke till the Deluge which he ascribes to the breaking thereof it was necessary there should be no opake Orb betwixt the Central Fire and this Aqueous Orb for else the Fishes for so long a time had lived in utter darkness having eyes to no purpose nor ability to guide their way or hunt their prey Onely it is supposed which is easie to do that they then swam with their backs toward the Centre whenas as now they swim with their bellies thitherward they then plying near the Concave as now near the Convex of this watry Abyss Which being admitted the difference of their posture will necessarilly follow according to the Laws of Nature as were easie to make out but that I intend brevity in these Annotations Onely I cannot forbear by the way to advertise how probable it is that this Central Fire which shone clear enough to give light to the Fishes swimming near the Concave of this Watry Orb might in process of time grow dimmer and dimmer and exceeding much abate of its light by that time the Crust of the Earth broke and let in the light of the Sun of this great Vortex into this Watry Region within which viz. in the Air or Aether there there has been still a decay of light the Air or Aether growing more thick as well as that little Central Fire or Sun being more and more inveloped with fuliginous stuff about it So that the whole Concavity may seem most like a vast duskish Vault and this dwindling over-clouded Sun a Sepulchral Lamp such as if I remember right was found in the Monuments of Olybius and Tulliola An hideous dismal forlorn Place and sit Receptacle for the Methim and Rephaim And the Latin Translation Job 26. 5. excellently well accords with this sad Phaenomenon Ecce Gigantes gemunt sub Aquis qui habitant cum eis Here is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Symmachus translates the word And it follows in the verse Nudus est Infernus coram eo Hell is naked before God And Symmachus in other places of the Proverbs puts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together which therefore is the most proper and the nethermost Hell And it will be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the highest sense whenever this lurid Light as it seems probable to me it sometime will be is quite extinct and this Central Fire turned into a Terrella as it may seem to have already happened in Saturn But we must remember as the Author sometimes reminds us that we are embellishing but a Romantick Hypothesis and be sure we admit no more than Reason Scripture and the Apostolick Faith will allow Pag. 132. Are after death committed to those squalid subterraneous Habitations c. He seems to suppose that all the wicked and degerate souls are committed hither that they may be less troublesom to better souls in this air above the earth But considering the Devil is call'd the Prince of the Air that he has his Clients and Subjects in the same place with him we may well allow the lower Regions of the
and our Reason certainly informing us as was noted even now that whatever is has a kind of Amplitude more or less or else it would be nothing hence we are confirmed that not Extension or Trina Dimensio but Impenetrabilitie and Discerpibilitie is the determinate and adequate nature of what we call Body and if there be any opposite species to Body our Reason tells us it must have opposite Modes or Attributes which are Penetrability and Indiscerpibility This is a plain truth not to be groped after with our fingers in the dark but clearly to be discerned by the eye of our understanding in the light of Reason And thus we see and many examples more we might accumulate That by the help of our Senses and Inference of our Understanding we are able to conclude not onely concerning like things but their contraries or opposites I must confess I look upon this allegation of Mr. Baxter as very weak and faint And as for his fifth I do a little marvel that so grave and grandaevous a person as he should please himself in such little flirts of Wit and Sophistry as this of the Indiscerpibility of an Atom or Physical Monad As if Indiscerpibility could be none of the essential or specifical Modes or Attributes of a Spirit because a Physical Monad or Atom is Indiscerpible also which is no Spirit But those very Indiscerpibilities are Specifically different For that of a Spirit is an Indiscerpibility that arises from the positive perfection and Oneness of the Essence be it never so ample that of an Atom or Physical Monad from imperfection and privativeness from the mere littleness or smalness thereof so small that it is impossible to be smaller and thence onely is Indiscerpible The sixth also is a pretty juvenile Ferk of Wit for a grave ancient Divine to use That Penetrability can be no proper Character of a Spirit because Matter can penetrate Spirit as well as Spirit Matter they both possessing the same space Suppose the bodie A. of the same amplitude with the bodie B. and thrust the bodie A. against the bodie B. the bodie A. will not nor can penetrate into the same space that the bodie B. actually occupies But suppose the bodie A. a Spirit of that amplitude and according to its nature piercing into the same space which the bodie B. occupies how plain is it that that active piercing into the same space that the bodie B. occupies is to be attributed to the Spirit A. not to the bodie B For the bodie A. could not get in These are prettie forc'd distortions of Wit but no solid methods of due Reason And besides it is to be noted that the main Character of a Spirit is as to Penetrability that Spirit can penetrate Spirit but not Matter Matter And now the Seventh is as slight as the Fifth Diverse Accidents saith he penetrate their Subjects as Heat Cold c. Therefore Penetrabilitie is no proper Character of a Spirit But what a vast difference is there here The one pierce the matter or rather are in the matter merely as continued Modes thereof the other enters into the matter as a distinct Substance therefrom Penetration therefore is here understood in this Character of a Spirit of Penetratio Substantialis when a substance penetrates substance as a Spirit does Spirit and matter which Matter cannot do This is a certain Character of a Spirit And his instancing in Light as Indiscerpible is as little to the purpose For the substance of Light viz. the Materia subâ—…ilissima and Globuli are discerpible And the motion of them is but a Modus but the point in hand is Indiscerpibilitie of Substance To the Eighth I Answer That Mr. Baxter here is hugely unreasonable in his demands as if Penetrabilitie of Spirits were not sufficiently explained unless it can be made out that all the Spirits in the world Universal and particular may be contracted into one Punctum But this is a Theme that he loves to enlarge upon and to declaim on very Tragically as pag. 52. If Spirits have parts which may be extended and contracted you will hardly so easily prove as say that God cannot divide them And when in your Writings shall I find satisfaction into how much space one Spirit may be extended and into how little it may be contracted and whether the whole Spirit of the World may be contracted into a Nut-shell or a Box and the Spirit of a Flea may be extended to the Convex of all the world And again pag. 78. You never tell into how little parts onely it may be contracted And if you put any limits I will suppose that one Spirit hath contracted itself into the least compass possible and then I ask Cannot another and another Spirit be in the same compass by their Penetration If not Spirits may have a contracted Spissitude which is not Penetrable and Spirits cannot penetrate contracted Spirits but onely dilated ones If yea then quoero whether all created Spirits may not be so contracted And I should hope that the Definition of a Spirit excludeth not God and yet that you do not think that his Essence may be contracted and dilated O that we knew how little we know This grave moral Epiphonema with a sorrowful shaking of the Head is not in good truth much misbecoming the sly insinuating cunning of Mr. Richard Baxter who here makes a shew speaking in the first person We of lamenting and bewailing the ignorance of his own ignorance but friendly hooks in by expressing himself in the plural number the Doctor also into the same condemnation Solamen miseris as if He neither did understand his own ignorance in the things he Writes of but will be strangely surprised at the hard Riddles Mr. Baxter has propounded as if no Oedipus were able to solve them And I believe the Doctor if he be called to an account will freely confess of himself That in the things he positively pronounces of so far as he pronounces that he is indeed altogether ignorant of any ignorance of his own therein But that this is by reason that he according to the cautiousness of his Genius does not adventure further than he clearly sees ground and the notion appears useful for the Publick As it is indeed useful to understand that Spirits can both Penetrate matter and Penetrate one another else God could not be Essentially present in all the parts of the Corporeal Universe nor the Spirits of Men and Angels be in God Both which notwithstanding are most certainly true to say nothing of the Spirit of Nature which particular Spirits also Penetrate and are Penetrated by it But now for the Contraction and Dilatation of Spirits that is not a propertie of Spirits in general as the other are but of particular created Spirits as the Doctor has declared in his Treatise of the Immortalitie of the Soul So that that hard Question is easily answered concerning Gods contracting and dilating himself That he does
But whither am I going I would conclude here according to promise having rescued the Doctors Definition of a Spirit from Mr. Baxters numerous little Criticisms like so many shrill busie Gnats trumpeting about it and attempting to infix their feeble Proboscides into it and I hope I have silenced them all But there is something in the very next Paragraph which is so wrongfully charged upon the Doctor that I cannot sorbear standing up in his justification The Charge is this That he has fathered upon Mr. Baxter an Opinion he never owned and nick-named him Psychopyrist from his own â—…ction As if says he we said that Souls are â—…re and also took Fire as the Doctor does for Candles and hot Irons c. onely But I answer in behalf of the Doctor as I have a little toucht on this matter before That he does indeed entitle a certain Letter which he answers to a Learned Psychopyrist as the Author thereof But Mr. Baxters name is with all imaginable care concealed So that he by his needless owning the Letter has notched that nick-name as he calls it of Psychopyrist upon himself whether out of greediness after that alluring Epithet it is baited with I know not but that he hangs thus by the gills like a Fish upon the Hook he may thank his own self for it nor ought to blame the Doctor Much less accuse him for saying that Mr. Baxter took Fire in no other sense than that in Candles and hot Iron and the like For in his Preface he expresly declares on the Psychopyrists behalf that he does not make this crass and visible Fire the Essence of a Spirit but that his meaning is more subtile and refined With what conscience then can Mr. Baxter say that the Doctor affirms that he took Fire in no other sense than that in Candles and hot Iron and the like and that he held all Souls to be such Fire whenas the Doctor is so modest and cautious that he does not affirm that Mr. Baxter thinks any to be such though even in this Placid Collation he professes his inclination towards the Opinion that Ignis and Vegetative Spirit is all one pag. 20 21. I have oft professed saith he that I am ignorant whether Ignis and Vegetative Spirit be all one to which I most incline or whether Ignis be an active nature made to be the instrument by which the three spiritual natures Vegetative Sensitive and Mental work on the three passive natures Earth Water Air. And again pag. 66. If it be the Spirit of the world that is the nearest cause of illumination by way of natural activity then that which you call the Spirit of the World I call Fire and so we differ but de nomine But I have saith he as before professed my ignorance whether Fire and the Vegetative nature be all one which I incline to think or whether Fire be a middle active nature between the spiritual and the mere Passive by which Spirits work on bodie And pag. 71. I doubt not but Fire is a Substance permeant and existent in all mixt bodies on Earth In your bloud it is the prime part of that called the Spirits which are nothing but the igneous principle in a pure Aereal Vehicle and is the organ of the Sensitive faculties of the Soul And if the Soul carry any Vehicle with it it 's like to be some of this I doubt you take the same thing to be the Spirit of the world though you seem to vilifie it And pag. 74. I suppose you will say the Spirit of the world does this But call it by what name you will it is a pure active Substance whose form is the Virtus motiva illuminativa calefactiva I think the same which when it operateth on due seminal Matter is Vegetative And lastly pag. 86. I still profess my self in this also uncertain whether Natura Vegetativa and Ignea be all one or whether Ignis be Natura Organica by which the three Superiour he means the Vegetative Sensitive and Intellective Natures operate on the Passive But I incline most to think they are all one when I see what a glorious Fire the Sun is and what operation it hath on Earth and how unlikely it is that so glorious a Substance should not have as noble a formal nature as a Plant. This is more than enough to prove that Mr. Baxter in the most proper sense is inclined to ' Psychopyrism as to the Spirit of the world or Vegetative soul of the Universe that that Soul or Spirit is Fire And that all created Spirits are Fire analogicè and eminenter I have noted above that he does freely confess But certainly if it had not been for his ignorance in the Atomick Philosophie which he so greatly despiseth he would never have taken the Fire it self a Congeries of agitated particles of such figures and dimensions for the Spirit of the world But without further doubt have concluded it onely the instrument of that Spirit in its operations as also of all other created Spirits accordingly as the Doctor has declared a long time since in his Immortalitas Animae Lib. 2. Cap. 8. Sect. 6. And finding that there is one such universal Vegetative Spirit properly so called or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the world he could not miss of concluding the whole Universe one great Plant or if some obscure degree of sense be given to it one large Zoophyton or Plant-animal whence the Sun will be endued or actuated as much by a Vegetative Nature as any particular Plant whatsoever whereby Mr. Baxter might have took away his own disficultie he was entangled in But the truth is Mr. Baxters defectiveness in the right understanding of the Atomick Philosophy and his Aversness therefrom as also from the true System of the world which necessarily includes the motion of the Earth we will cast in also his abhorrence from the Pre-existence of Souls which three Theories are hugely necâ—…ssary to him that would Philosophize with any success in the deepest points of natural Religion and Divine Providence makes him utter many things that will by no means bear the Test of severer Reason But in the mean time this Desectiveness in sound Philosophie neither hinders him nor any one else from being able Instruments in the Gospel-Ministrie if they have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a due measure If they have a firm Faith in the revealed Truths of the Gospel and skill in History Tongues and Criticism to explain the Text to the people and there be added a sincere Zeal to instruct their Charge and that they may appear in good earnest to believe what they teach they lead a life devoid oâ—… scandal and osfence as regulated by those Goâ—…pel-Rules they propose to others this though they have little of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly so called that reaches to the deepest account of things but instead thereof Prudence and Ingenuity will
have appointed other Laws and indeed framed another Geometry than we have and made the power of the Hypotenusa of a Right-angled Triangle unequal to the powers of the Basis and Cathetus This piece of Drollery of Des Cartes some of his followers have very gravely improved to what I said above of the Whole and Part. As if some superstitious Fop upon the hearing one being demanded whether he did believe the real and corporeal presence of Christ in the Sacrament to answer roundly that he believed him there booted and spurred as he rode in triumph to Jerusalem should become of the same Faith that the other seemed to profess and glory in the improvement thereof by adding that the Ass was also in the Sacrament which he spurred and rid upon But in the mean time while there is this Phrensie amongst them that are no small pretenders to Philosophy this does not a little set off the value and usefulness of this present Discourse of Truth to undeceivâ—… them if they be not wilfully blind Pag. 167. Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones namely Because a Quadrangle is that which is comprehended of four right lines It is at least a more operose and ambagious Inference if any at all The more immediate and expedite is this That the two internal alternate Angles made by a right line cutting two parallels are equal to one another Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones P. Ram. Geom. Lib. 6. Prop. 9. Is the reasoning had been thus A Quadrangle is that which is comprehended of â—…our right lines Therefore the three Angles of a Triangle are not equal to two right ones as the Conclusion is grosly salse so the proof had been egregiously aliâ—…n and impertinent And the intention of the Author seems to be carried to Instances that are most extravagant and surprizing which makes me doubt whether equal was read in the true MS. or not equal but the sense is well enough either way Sect. 4. pag. 168. The Divine Understanding cannot be the fountain of the Truth of things c. This seems at first sight to be a very harsh Paradox and against the current Doctrine of Metaphysicians who define Transcendental or Metaphysical Truth to be nothing else but the relation of the Conformity of things to the Theoretical not Practical Intellect of God His Practical Intellect being that by which he knows things as produced or to be produced by him but his Theoretical that by which he knows things as they are but yet in an Objective manner as existent objectively not really And hence they make Transcendental Truth to depend upon the Intellectual Truth of God which alone is most properly Truth and indeed the fountain and origine of all Truth This in brief is the sense of the Metaphysical Schools With which this passage of our Author seems to clash in denying the Divine Intellect to be the fountain of the Truth of things and in driving rather at this That the things themselves in their Objective Existence such as they appear there unalterably and unchangeably to the Divine Intellect and not at pleasure contrived by it for as he says it is against the nature of all understanding to make its Object are the measure and fountain of Truth That in these I say consists the Truth in the Object and that the Truth in the Subject is a conception conformable to these or to the Truth of them whether in the uncreated or created Understanding So that the niceness of the point is this Whether the Transcendental Truth of things exhibited in their Objective Existence to the Theoretical Intellect of God consists in their Conformity to that Intellect or the Truth of that Intellect in its Conformity with the immutable natures and Relations or Respects of things exhibited in their Objective Existence which the Divine Intellect finds to be unalterably such not contrives them at its own pleasure This though it be no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or strife about mere words yet it seems to be such a contest that there is no harm done whethersoever side carries the Cause the two seeming sides being but one and the same Intellect of God necessarily and immutably representing to it self the natures Respects and Aptitudes of all things such as they appear in their Objective Existence and such as they will prove whenever produced into act As for example The Divine Understanding quatenns exhibitive of Idea's which a Platonist would call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does of its infinite pregnancy and fecundity necessarily exhibit certain and unalterable Idea's of such and such determinate things as suppose of a Cylinder a Globe and a Pyramid which have a setled and unalterable nature as also immutable properties references and aptitudes immediately consequential thereto and not arbitrariously added unto them which are thus necessarily extant in the Divine Intellect as exhibitive of such Idea's So likewise a Fish a Fowl and a four-footed beast an Ox Bear Horse or the like they have a setled nature exhibited in their Idea's and the properties and aptitudes immediately flowing therefrom As also have all the Elements Earth Water and Air determinate natures with properties and aptitudes immediately issuing from them Nor is a Whale fitted to fly in the Air nor an Eagle to live under the Water nor an Ox or Bear to do either nor any of them to live in the Fire But the Idea's of those things which we call by those names being unchangeable for there are differences indeed of Idea's but no changing of one Idea into another state but their natures are distinctly setled and to add or take away any thing from an Idea is not to make an alteration in the same Idea but to constitute a new one As Aristotle somewhere in his Metaphysicks speaks of Numbers where he says that the adding or taking away of an Unite quite varies the species And therefore as every number suppose Binary Quinary Ternary Denary is such a setled number and no other and has such properties in it self and references immediately accrewing to it and aptitudes which no other number besides it self has so it is with Idea's the Idea's I say therefore of those things which we call by those names above-recited being unchangeable the aptitudes and references immediately issuing from their nature represented in the Idea must be also unalterable and necessary Thus it is with Mathematical and Physical Idea's and there is the same reason concerning such Idea's as may be called Moral Forasmuch as they respect the rectitude of Will in whatever Mind created or uncreated And thus lastly it is with Metaphysical Idea's as for example As the Physical Idea of Body Matter or Substance Material contains in it immediately of its own nature or intimate specifick Essence real Divisibility or Discerpibility Impenetrability and mere Passivity or Actuability as the proper fruit of the Essential Difference and intimate Form thereof
unalterably and immutably as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect so in any Body or Material Substance that does exist So the Idea of a Spirit or of a Substance Immaterial the opposite Idea to the other contains in it immediately of its own nature Indiscerpibility Penetrability and Self-Activity as the inseparable fruit of the essential difference or intimate form thereof unalterably and immutably as in its Idea in the Divine Intellect so in any Immaterial Substance properly so called that doth exist So that as it is a contradiction in the Idea that it should be the Idea of Substance Immaterial and yet not include in it Indiscerpibility c. so it is in the being really existent that it should be Substance Immaterial and yet not be Indiscerpible c. For were it so it would not answer to the Truth of its Idea nor be what it pretendeth to be and is indeed an existent Being Indiscerpible which existent Being would not be Indiscerpible if any could discerp it And so likewise it is with the Idea of Ens summè absolutè perfectum which is a setled determinate and immutable Idea in the Divine Intellect whereby were not God himself that Ens summè absolutè perfectum he would discern there were something better than Himself and consequently that he were not God But he discerns Himself to be this Ens summè absolutè perfectum and we cannot but discern that to such a Being belongs Spirituality which implies Indiscerpibility and who but a mad man can imagine the Divine Essence discerpible into parts Infinity of Essence or Essential Omnipresence Self-Causality or necessary Existence immediately of it self or from it self resulting from the absolute and peculiar perfection of its own nature whereby we understand that nothing can exist ab aeterno of it self but He. And lastly Omniscience and Omnipotence whereby it can do any thing that implies no contradiction to be done Whence it necessarily follows that all things were Created by Him and that he were not God or Ens summè perfectum if it were not so And that amongst other things he created Spirits as sure as there are any Spirits in the world indiscerpible as himself is though of finite Essences and Metaphysical Amplitudes and that it is no derogation to his Omnipotence that he cannot discerp a Spirit once created it being a contradiction that he should Nor therefore any argument that he cannot create a Spirit because he would then puzzle his own Omnipotence to discerp it For it would then follow that he cannot create any thing no not Metaphysical Monads nor Matter unless it be Physically divisible in infinitum and God Himself could never divide it into parts Physically indivisible whereby yet his Omnipotence would be puzzled And if he can divide matter into Physical Monads no further divisible there his Omnipotence is puzzled again And by such sophistical Reasoning God shall be able to create nothing neither Matter nor Spirit nor consequently be God or Ens summè absolutè perfectum the Creator and Essentiator of all things This is so Mathematically clear and true that I wonder that Mr. Rich. Baxter should not rather exult in his Placid Collation at the discovery of so plain and useful a truth than put himself p. 79. into an Histrionical as the Latin or as the Greek would express it Hypocritical fit of trembling to amuze the populacy as if the Doctor in his serious and solid reasoning had verged towards something hugely exorbitant or prophane The ignorant fear where no fear is but God is in the generation of the knowing and upright It 's plain this Reasoning brings not the existence of God into any doubt For it is no repugnance to either his nature or existence not to be able to do what is a contradiction to be done but it puts the Indiscerpibility of Spirits which is a Notion mainly useful out of all doubt And yet Mr. Baxter his phancie stalking upon wooden stilts and getting more than a spit and a stride before his Reason very magisterially pronounces It 's a thing so high as required some shew of proof to intimate that God cannot be God if he be Almighty and cannot conquer his own Omnipotency Ans. This is an expression so high and in the Clouds that no sense thereof is to be seen unless this be it That God cannot be God unless he be not Almighty as he would discover himself not to be if he could not discerp a Spirit of a Metaphysical amplitude when he has created it But it plainly appears from what has been said above that this discerping of a Spirit which is immediately and essentially of its own nature indiscerpible as well as a Physical Monad is implying a contradiction it is no derogation to the Almightiness of God that he cannot do it all Philosophers and Theologers being agreed on that Maxim That what implies a contradiction to be done is no Object of Gods Almightiness Nor is he less Almighty for not being able to do it So that the prick-ear'd Acuteness of that trim and smug saying that seemed before to shoot up into the Sky flags now like the slaccid lugs of the over-laden Animal old Silenus rid on when he had a Plot upon the Nymphâ—… by Moon-shine Pardon the tediousness of the Periphrasis For though the Poet was pleased to put old Silenus on the Ass yet I thought it not so civil to put the Ass upon old Mr. Baxter But he proceeds pag. 80. Your words says he like an intended Reason are For that cannot be God from whom all other things are not produced and created to which he answers 1. Relatively says he as a God to us it 's true though quoad existentiam Essentiae he was God before the Creation But I say if he had not had the power of creating he had been so defective a Being that he had not been God But he says 2. But did you take this for any shew of a proof The sense implyed is this All things are not produced and created by God if a spiritual ample substance be divisible by his Omnipotencie that made it Yea Then he is not God Negatur consequentia Ans. Very scholastically disputed Would one think that Reverend Mr. Baxter whom Dr. More for his Function and Grandevity sake handles so respectfully and forbears all such Juvenilities as he had used toward Eugenius Philalethes should play the Doctor such horse-play having been used so civilly by him before What Buffoon or Antick Mime could have distorted their bodies more ill-favour'dly and ridiculously than he has the Doctors solid and well-composed Argument And then as if he had done it in pure innocency and simplicity he adds a Quaker-like Yea thereunto And after all like a bold Scholastick Champion or Polemick Divine couragiously cries out Negatur consequentia What a fardle of freaks is there here and illiberal Artifices to hide the Doctors sound Reasoning in the 28th Section of his Answer to the
have no bodies at all Not to add that at the Resurrection we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though we have bodies then which is a shrewd intimation that the Angels have so too and that there are no created Spirits but have so Thirdly Mr. Baxter pag. 6. wrongfully blames the Doctor for being so defective in his studies as not to have read over Dr. Glisson De Vita Naturae and says he has talk'd with diverse high pretenders to Philosophie and askt their judgment of that Book and found that none of them understood it but neglected it as too hard for them and yet contemned it His words to Dr. More are these I marvel that when you have dealt with so many sorts of Dissenters you meddle not with so subtile a piece as that of old Dr. Glissons De Vita Naturae He thinks the subtilty of the Book has deterred the Doctor from reading it as something above his Capacity as also of other high Pretenders to Philosophie This is a Book it seems calculated onely for the elevation of Mr. Baxters subtile and sublime wit And indeed by the benefit of reading this Book he is most dreadfully armed with the affrightful terms of Quoddities and Quiddities of Conceptus formalis and fundamentalis of Conceptus adaequatus and inadaequatus and the like In vertue of which thwacking expressions he has fancied himself able to play at Scholastick or Philosophick Quarter-staff with the most doughty and best appointed Wits that dare enter the Lists with him and as over-neglectful of his flock like some conceited Shepherds that think themselves no small fools at the use of the Staff or Cudgil-play take Vagaries to Fairs or Wakes to give a specimen of their skill so he ever and anon makes his Polemick sallies in Philosophie or Divinity to entertain the Spectators though very oft he is so rapt upon the knuckles that he is forced to let fall his wooden Instrument and blow his fingers Which is but a just Nemesis upon him and he would do well to interpret it as a seasonable reproof from the great Pastor of Souls to whom we are all accountable But to return to his speech to the Doctor I will adventure to answer in his behalf That I marvel that whenas Mr. Baxter has had the curâ—…osity to read so many Writers and some of them sure but of small concern that he has not read that sound and solid piece of Dr. More viz. his Epistola altera ad V. C. with the Scholia thereon where Spinozius is confuted Which if he had read he might have seen Volum Philosoph Tom. 1. pag. 604 605 c. that the Doctor has not onely read that subtile Piece of Doctor Glissons but understands so throughly his Hypothesis that he has solidly and substantially confuted it Which he did in a faithful regard to Religion For that Hypothesis if it were true were as safe if not a saâ—…er Refuge for Atheists than the mere Mechanick Philosophie is And therefore you may see there how Cuperus brought up amongst the Atheists from his very childhood does confess how the Atheists now-a-daies explode the Mechanick Philosophie as not being for their turn and betake themselves wholly to such an Hypothesis as Dr. Glissons Vita Naturae But God be thanked Dr. H. More in the fore-cited place has perfectly routed that fond and foul Hypothesis of Dr. Glisson and I dare say is sorry that so good and old a Knight errant in Theologie and Philosophie as Mr Richard Baxter seems to be should become benighted as in a wood at the Close of his daies in this most horrid dark Harbour and dismal Receptacle or Randevouz of wretched Atheists But I dare say for him it is his ignorance not choice that has lodged him there The fourth Disingenuity of Mr. Baxter towards the Doctor is in complaining of him as if he had wronged him by the Title of his Answer to his Letter in calling it an Answer to a Psychopyrist pag. 2. 82. As if he had asserted that materiality of Spirits which belongs to bodies pag. 94. In complaining also of his inconsistency with himself pag. 10. as if he one while said that Mr. Baxter made Spirits to be Fire or material and another while said he made them not Fire or material But to the first part of this Accusation it may be answered That if it is Mr. Baxter that is called the Learned Psychopyrist how is the thing known to the world but by himself It looks as if he were ambitious of the Title and proud of the civil treating he has had at the hands of the Doctor though he has but ill repai'd his civility in his Reply And besides this there is no more harshness in calling him Psychopyrist than if he had called him Psycho-Hylist there being nothing absurd in Psychopyrism but so far forth as it includes Psycho-Hylism and makes the Soul material Which Psycho-Hylism that Mr. Baxter does admit it is made evident in the Doctors Answer Sect. 16. And Mr. Baxter in his Placid Collation as he mis-calls it for assuredly his mind was turbid when he wrote it pag. 2. allows that Spirits may be called Fire Analogicè and Eminenter and the Doctor in his Preface intimates that the sense is to be no further stretched than the Psychopyrist himself will allow But now that Mr. Baxter does assert that Materiality in created Spirits that belongs to bodies in the common sense of all Philosophers appears Sect. 16. where his words are these But custom having made MATERIA but especially CORPUS to signifie onely such grosser Substance as the three passive Elements are he means Earth Water Air I yield says he so to say that Spirits are not Corporeal or Material Which plainly implies that Spirits are in no other sense Immaterial than Fire and Aether are viz. than in this that they are thinner matter And therefore to the last point it may be answered in the Doctors behalf that he assuredly does nowhere say That Mr. Baxter does not say that Spirits are Material as Material is taken in the common sense of all Philosophers for what is impenetrable and discerpible Which is Materia Physica and in opposition to which a Spirit is said to be Immaterial And which briefly and distinctly states the Question Which if Mr. Baxter would have taken notice of he might have saved himself the labour of a great deal of needless verbosity in his Placid Collation where he does over-frequently under the pretence of more distinctness in the multitude of words obscure knowledge Fifthly Upon Sect. 10. pag. 21. where Mr. Baxters Question is How a man may tell how that God that can make many out of one cannot make many into one c. To which the Doctor there answers If the meaning be of substantial Spirits it has been already noted that God acting in Nature does not make many substances out of one the substance remaining still entire for then Generation would be Creation And