A DISCOURSE OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. By PETER STERRY Sometimes Fellow of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge HEB. 13. 2. Be not forgetful to entertain STRANGERS for thereby some have entertained ANGELS unawares LONDON Printed for John Starkey at the Miter near Temple-Bar in Fleetstreet 1675. The Printer to the Reader THe Author having written so large a Preface to his following Discourse and therein given the Reader such a delightful tast of his excellent Spirit The Publishers decline saying any thing either of it or him Only I am desired by them to inform thee that this Discourse is posthumous and not Originally design'd for the Press but the private satisfaction of some worthy persons who beg'd the Author's sense concerning this Argument and to whom he was pleas'd at several times by set discourses to communicate his thoughts so plentifully that they and some other Friends importun'd him to peruse what he had dictated to them upon this Subject to make some additions to it and to fit it for Publick View Whilst the Author was perfecting this undertaking it pleased God to take him out of this life but in pursuance of his own desire before his death thou hast here with all possible integrity deliver'd to thee so much of his intended Discourse as came to the Publishers hands either in his own Copies or those of his Friends which were examin'd and own'd by himself there being nothing alter'd or added by them but the Title Page By these means it is now grown into a Book and thou art acquainted with all this not to bespeak thy greater gentleness and candour in reading it but to do the Author right and give thy self the true accompt why thou art wholly disappointed of what he design'd upon that Argument taken from the proper form and essence of Liberty and not so fully satisfied in the application of the argument drawn from the Knowledge of God and those other two taken from the nature of the Soul and the Mediation of Christ the Scripture cited and promised to be opened from the 1. Gen. being omitted in the explication of the former and in the other nothing said concerning the progress and propagation of the Mediatory Work of Jesus Christ through his whole Body I have only this further to add concerning the many Errata's that have escaped the Press which thou wilt find set down and corrected to thy hand at the end of the Book That the impatience of some Friends to have this Discourse out and the fears of others lest it should be stifled in the birth with some other difficulties of the Copy have by precipitating the Press and perplexing the Printer occasion'd so great a number of mistakes That yet there is not so many as at first view the Reader may apprehend because for the sake of the more ordinary capacity more words are made use of for the reforming of most of them than would else have been necessary And lastly that thou wilt find they are generally Errors only in the points which are easily and without defacing the Book to be mended although otherwise of great moment to the sense and are therefore with great care corrected in the last page for the service of the Vulgar Reader who may be in some places not a little help'd in his perusing of this Treatise by thereby observing where to place most usefully the points THE PREFACE TO THE READER Christian and Candid Reader I Intreat some few things of thee for thine own sake and for mine 1. Study the Love of God the Nature of God as he is Love the Work of God as it is a Work of Love Moses in his dying Song beginneth with God and the perfection of his Work He is the Rock his Work is perfect St. Paul descended from the Paradise in the Third Heavens bringeth this with him down into the World as the Sacred Mystery and rich ground of all Truth from which all the Beauties and Sweetnesses of Paradise of all the Heavens spring That Love is the band of Perfection It is Love then which runneth through the whole Work of God which frameth informeth uniteth it all into one Master-piece of Divine Love If God be Love the Attributes of God are the Attributes of this Love the Purity Simplicity the Soveraignty the Wisdom the Almightiness the Unchangeableness the Infiniteness the eternity of Divine Love If God be Love his Work is the Work of Love of a Love unmixt unconfined supream infinite in Wisdom and Power not limited in its workings by any pre-existent matter but bringing forth freely â—…nd entirely from it self its whole work both matter and form according to its own inclination and complacency in it self Leo Hebraeus enflamed with the Beauty and languishing in the Love of the heavenly Sophia the heavenly Wisdom which is the first and freshest life of all Beauties in one Face immortal and ever-flourishing is instructed by this Divine Mistress in those excellent Dialogues between her and himself to Court and Woo her into his Embraces by enquiring into the Nature of Love Pursuing this enquiry by the bright Conduct of her shining Beauties he is led through the whole nature of things above and below with all the Varieties and Changes as manifold streams of Divine Love in diverse breadths and depths with innumer able sportful windings and turnings flowing forth from its own full Sea of eternal Sweetness and through all its Chanels hasting thither again Campanella teacheth us That all second Causes are Causa prima modificata so many Modifications of the first Cause so many forms and shapes in which the first Cause appears and acts All the Works of God are the Divine Love in so many Modes and Dresses There is diversity of Manifestations there are diversities of Operations which compose the whole frame and business of this Creation which are as diverse persons acting diverse parts upon this stage But there is one Spirit one Lord one God one Love which worketh all in all It is the Divine Love with its unsearchable Riches which is the fulness that filleth all persons and all parts upon the stage of Time or Eternity If any man know not the way to the Sea let him follow a River in the course of its stream saith the Comoedian Dear Reader if thou wouldst be lead to that Sea which is as the gathering together and confluence of all the waters of Life of all Truths Goodness Joys Beauties and Blessedness follow the stream of the Divine Love as it holdeth on its course from its head in eternity through every work of God through every Creature So shalt thou be not only happy in thine end but in thy way while this stream of Love shall not only be thy guide by thy side but shall carry thee along in its soft and delicious bosom bearing thee up in the bright Arms of its own Divine Power sporting with thee all along washing thee white as snow in its own pure floods and bathing thy whole
it self in these Images presented to the Soul by their essential truths in their understanding is that power which we call the Will The sutableness and agreeableness of these forms of things to the Will The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so more principally the Divine Unity in them the root and life of this agreeableness is the good which is the Object of this inclination the Will of the intellectual Spirit Love is defined the union of the Lover and the Beloved The will as it is an essential inclination to its Object the good shining forth in its proper Image and beautiful forms of truth in the understanding is love it self the essential love of the Soul The Soul in this essential power which we call the Will is the Lover This is that which Plotinus seemeth to mean when discoursing of the Soul he saith That every Soul comes forth with a Cupid or love proper to it and inseparable from it It is commonly known that the Soul is represented by Venus the Queen of Beauty and the Mother of Love the Daughter of Jupiter of Jehovah As the intellectual Soul is the â—…enus so is this essential inclination of the Soul to good which is its will the Cupid or Love born of it and born with it inseparable from it As is the intellectual Spirit so is its Will or Love the highest and loveliest Image of the first Spirit and the first Love so hath it in it next to the Divine Love the highest the most potent the most universal force of inclination and love to the highest and most universal good The Beloved or the Object of this Love and this Lover the intellectual Soul and the Intellectual Will is the highest and most universal good as it presenteth it self in its highest lustre in its richest amplest most unlimited variety of beauties in the Understanding This good being an agreeableness to the Will and so meeting with a mutual and answerable agreeableness in the Will to it self presenteth it self thus by the Understanding in these forms of truth which is the Divinest beauty as a lover and a beloved both to the Will that they may be equally and mutually happy by equal by mutual embraces and fruition This is the liberty of the Will consisting in two parts mutually answering each other The first is the vigour and amplitude of the principle the inclination or love carrying the Soul to rendring it capable of good in its absolute and universal form The second is the vigor and amplitude of its Object which is the highest good the Divinity of good it self presenting it self in its absolute universal or intire truth beauty and essential form presenting it self in all varieties of distinct truths beauties and forms as they are represented in their highest completest Image next to the Original it self in the Understanding Here is the Will like a Bee in a Garden or flourishing Field or rather in an heavenly Paradise flying at liberty over all forms of truth and beauty as the Flowers and Plants in this Paradise resting at pleasure upon every one of them sucking 〈◊〉 sweetness the virtue the good the unexpressibleness of the Divinity and the Divine Unity from them as the Honey which is its Divine Feast Nourishment Life and Treasure This is the liberty of the Soul of the Understanding of the Will in its proper Nature and primitive State This is the liberty which it still enjoys inseparable from its essence under the fall it self so far as by the promised Seed putting forth it self in the moment of the Fall the essence of the intellectual Spirit is renewed and maintained universally by common Grace in the midst of the ruines of the Fall I have this one thing only to add under this fourth Head the Liberty of intellectual Spirits that as God is the Original Spirit as Angels and intellectual Souls are Image-Spirits so is the liberty of the Divine Essence the Original liberty and the liberty of all other intellectual Spirits Humane or Angelical is the Birth and so the Image of that liberty Having thus passed through the several degrees of liberty in the several Orders of Being we come now more particularly and distinctly to state the question concerning the Liberty of the Will which is the subject of our present Discourse There is a two-fold liberty of the Will 1. One by all acknowledged inseparable from the Will in all States and acts 2. The other hath been through all Ages Religions and Philosophyes the ground of many learned eloquent deep Discourses and Disputes between persons eminent in all kind 1. The first uncontroverted liberty of the Will is that which is built upon the grounds already laid It consisteth in two glorious preheminencies 1. The liberty of acting from an internal essential universal Principle of inclination or love which is confined or restrained in its nature and power by no particular differences which is by nothing determined in its actings except only as it determines it self by the Laws of its own universal nature in which it bears the immediate and most express figure of the Divine Nature and so of the Divine freedome or liberty 2. This Principle hath for the sphere and compass of its activity the absolute and universal good in the entire freedome of his unconfined form or Essence in all the varieties of its descents and ascents its divisions and compositions The Will of the Intellectual Spirit is free here in the chase and pursuit of all good unconfined to any particular form of good determined by it self alone and its own internal essential motions to the choice and embraces of every good 2. The second liberty of the Will which hath so different aspects to the differing understanding of excellent persons for the most part in all places and times is generally known by these terms of Libertas contradictionis libertas contrarietatis Liberty of contradiction and of contraricty Suppose an intellectual Spirit in the moment immediately preceding its Action positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum now ready for action in the constitution and concurrence of all circumstances essential accidental from above from below from the first universal cause from all second and particular causes from within from without in respect to any Essence Power and Operation in respect to any thing in any potentiality or act The Will of this intellectual Spirit without any change in any circumstance in any degree may act or not act which is the liberty of contradiction may act either in this way or in the way directly contrary to it which is the liberty of contrariety This is also expressed by a liberty or power in the Will to determine it self in the moment of acting by its act without any predetermination in the Will it self in the power of acting in its proper Essence and the laws of its own Nature in the connexion of causes or in the first and universal Cause The method of my treating upon this Question
chiefly turneth about in respect to its Beauty and Deformity its Misery and Felicity its Eternity have no Connexion with or Dependance upon the other parts of the work the Image or Original Model in the Divine mind Can there be an Order here in the whole Can all the parts in the whole have an harmonious proportion to each other Can the Work outward agree with the inward Model the whole agreeing with the whole and each part answering each part Can this work be perfect Can it be wrought in Judgment Is the whole way of this work the way of Judgment Is there in each step of it the foot-step of a Divine Understanding the impression of a Divine Wisdom which is an entire uninterrupted Order Do all the parts in this Work according to the Model or Image in the mind of the Work-man lie together in one whole piece in one beautiful body knit together by fit joynts and bands ministring to each other by these joynts and bands mutual strength beauties and perfections from the same Head whose Unity runneth through shineth in the whole and all its several parts thus uniting them as one body to each other and to its self Doth not this supposition of such an independent Liberty in the Will to Contrarieties and Contradictions naturally lead us to an imagination of two Gods one Good the other Evil striving together in the composure of the same work bringing in consusion upon it by crossing and interrupting each other according to the sense of the Manichees Or doth it not favour that Opinion of some Platonists of a matter the subject of the Divine Work co-eternal with the Divine Spirit the Work-man which being in some parts of it altogether intractable resisting the skill and power of the Archytect or working Spirit receiveth not the Divine form which that would introduce could not be made beautiful and so brought Confusion War all Evil into the Work Or if that seem more probable would it not incline us to the belief of fortuitous motions of numberless Particles confusedly concurring which have neither beginning rule nor end of themselves their shapes or motions What skilful Poet makes his Poem so that the great Chain and final Catastrophe in the conduct and government of which the chief beauty of the whole Work is plac'd from which arise the greatest Consequences together with the perfection and praise of the whole piece should be derived from a meer Contingency which hath no coherence with any antecedent part which receiveth no force from any thing of any reason proportion or order in the whole which hath no place nor form in the design of the Poet Would any wise Work-man who had an absolute power over his work who brought forth from himself entirely both the matter and form of it according to his will frame a work in which the great end of the principal parts and of the whole should be undetermined by being dependant upon the great and chief motion of the work which can have no complete Idea in the mind of the Worker from which it may receive its form which is uncapable of having any certain conformity to the will of the Workman to derive from thence an agreeable sweetness and goodness through the veins of the whole and of all the parts that the spirit which hath wrought it may have rest and complacency in the work it self in the harmony of the work within it self and in the harmony of it with the Model in its own Understanding Would he frame a work which in this its principal motion should be altogether out of its own power should have no natural no moral necessity or certainty from any antecedent causality and reason which should be altogether fortuitous which should be thus rendred altogether uncapable of being one entire piece where all the parts first contained in the Potentiality and Unity of the whole flowing forth from it by virtue of that Unity are united among themselves by their mutual Relations and Proportions making up a beautiful harmony in the whole This in all learning and observation hath been esteemed the first and chief part of wisdom to fix determinately with full strength of inclination thought and contrivance the end of every work This the second part next to it particularly stiled Prudence to dispose and direct all the means efficaciously and infallibly to those ends Object 1. Perhaps some one will say That the parts of the Divine Work have their coherence connexion and proportion while this grand motion of which wespeak the determination of the Will flows from the power of the Will which flows from God the Fountain of causality in the centinued stream of second causes Answ. This indeed is often spoken of Let us see if it be well understood if there be no fallacy or ambiguity latent or manifest in this Assertion If the power of the Will be the cause of its determination if God in the order of second causes be the Author of this Power then also is the determination of the Will from Him after the same manner by the force of that Rule Quicquid est causa causae est causa causati The cause of any cause is also the cause of the effect produced by that cause Now is the Will no more free with an undetermined freedome or liberty being thus predetermined in its superior causes from which it receives both the power of determining and the determination of its power Now is the power of its Will in its state of acting not undetermined or indifferent to contradictory and contrary terms or bounds of its motion If it be replyed that the power of the Will in determining it self is from God in the natural course of things but the act of that power in the determination of it self from the power of the Will alone with an absolute and universal independancy upon all things antecedent to it either natural or moral Although this be very difficult to be understood yet I shall not at present make any other opposition to it than this that it leaves my present Argument untoucht in its full strength and vigour Object 2. There is something of greater moment which perhaps may seem to shake the structure and strength of this Reason The great and Ultimate ends of God in his Work are the glories of his Goodness and his Justice In this the Divine Wisdom shines out with a lustre dazling the eyes of our Reason of every created Understanding in finding out this the most proper and effectual way to these ends viz. The setting up of intellectual Spirits free in the determination of themselves to good or evil and compensating this good and this evil with suitable torments suitable triumphs Answ. Three Answers offer themselves to this Objection 1. Answ. This also yieldeth that on which the whole weight of the Argument against Free-will lieth the righteousness and wickedness of intellectual Spirits that is the highest Beauty the foulest Deformity upon the
not terminate in some one first mover but did proceed to an infiniteness of successions all things will be at a stand motion will universally cease For an infinite succession of causes could never be past through nor arrive at any effect This determinates the truth of a God and the Nature of a true God that He is the first Mover the first Cause The force and dignity of this first Cause declareth it self to us in these following Maxims which stand fixed in the eternal Reason of things as in their proper root and shine clearly in the evidence of their own Light and have their Truth sealed by an universal Testimony 1. The first Cause is the universal Cause All things all causes and effects all causalities and efficacies all order and connexion of things are virtually and eminently comprehended in the first Cause from which according to their proper places and eternal patterns they flow 2. The first Cause is most of all most truly and most fully most properly and most powerfully the cause of every effect 3. The first Cause is more intimate to every effect than any second Cause It is most intimate to every effect with an intimateness of presence and power it is immediately omnipotent with an immediateness of Person and of Virtue of Operation and of Efficacy 4. Every second Cause hath its causality acteth and produceth its effect in the virtue of the first Cause Therefore Philosophers and Divines have taught us that all Causes and Effects in their orders and connexions are onely explications or modifications of the first Cause 5. That which is the Cause of the Cause is also the Cause of its Effects The Operation of each thing followeth its Essence All Operations which are second Acts are folded up in the first Act which is the Essence and flow forth from it as that unfolds it self in them within the compass of its own proper Orb and Sphere All these Maxims reign with an universal Soveraignty of Truth and Power through all orders of things over all minds They seem to be unmoveably established upon the Basis or Foundation of that Principle That which is the first in any kind of things is the universal Root Rule Truth and Life to all things of the same kind That alone is such by it self All other things of the same kind are such in the force and virtue of that by its presence and power in them Let us now bring this down to the particular Subject of our Discourse If God be the first Cause if the Will be a second Cause if the Acts of the Will and the determination of the Will in these Acts be the effects of the Will then is God the universal cause of all these then is he more truly and effectually the cause of each act and determination of the Will than the Will it self then is he in the immediateness of his Person Power and Operation more intimate to each act and determination of the Will than the Will it self then doth the Will with all its acts and determinations in their several Orders Connexions and Circumstances lie virtually and eminently in the Divine Will as in their first Cause from which in their proper seasons and places they flow distinctly forth as that first Will which is one pure eternal Act unfoldeth it self into them A great Philosopher and Divine representeth all Births and Productions those of Flowers and Trees in Gardens of Beasts in the Fields of Fishes in the Sea of Birds in the Air of Celestial Light of Men and Angels as so many Songs of Praise celebrating the first Birth and Production the eternal Generation of the Son from the Father in the Trinity For saith he all other Productions or Births spring up and stand in the virtue of this All causes and effects in like manner are so many Divine Songs sounding forth through the whole Heavens and Earth the Praises the Power the Efficacy of the first Cause For in the womb of that as they all immediately fall in the bosome of that they lie together in its virtue and presence they spring and flourish its sacred Image and Impression they all bear divinely engraven upon them I have now finished my Arguments drawn from the first Head the Nature of God Gentle Reader Perhaps I may seem to thee to have drawn out to a great length and to have made frequent large Digressions upon this Head of the Deity I have indeed willingly taken every fair occasioâ—… as I have past along through this Land of Life and Bliss amidst the Gardens of true Adonis the eternal Son to stay thy self and me some moments upon the contemplation of the charming Prospect as also to gather and present thee with some of the Paradisical Flowers and Fruits which grow so plentifully here I have endeavoured in my way according to the narrow measure of my weak capacity far below the Glories of this Object if not to open yet to point out to thee the Excellencies of the Godhead as they lie in their first and fairest ground of eternal life Two Reasons have moved me to this 1. God is the first and fairest Ground the clearest and sweetest Light of Truth The Philosopher hath taught us That demonstration is only by first and immediate Principles The first and immediate Principle is that which hath the Light of Truth immediately seated and shining in it self which receiveth not its evidence from any Superior Medium or Argument which immediately displayeth its beams from its own face on the eye of the Understanding without the interposal of any inferior Medium or Argument This is the only Principle of Demonstration and this is God alone He is the Father of Lights the Intellectual Sun God unvailing Himself in our Spirits setting Himself as the golden Seal of purest Light upon our Spirits Thus by his immediate embraces he impregnateth them with the Divine forms of truth In this sense St. Paul saith That our Faith is in the demonstration of God Accordingly he describeth the truly Evangelical or Spiritual Knowledge to be the shining of God in our hearts unto the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He that in a clear Evening fixeth his eye on the Firmament above him beholdeth by degrees innumerable Stars with springing lights sparkling forth upon him If God lift up a little of his Vail and by the least glimpses of his naked Face enlighten and attract the eye of our Soul to a fixed view of Himself with what Divine Raptures do we see the eternal Truths of things in their sweetest Lights springing and sparkling upon us besetting us round in that Firmament of the Divine Essence as a Crown of incorruptible Glory The heavenly Bridegroom in the Canticles singeth thus I am come into my Garden my Sister my Spouse I have drunk my Milk with my Wine I have eaten my Honey with my Honey-comb If this lovely Bridegroom lead our Souls his Bride into
which is the universal and supream good there cleaving to and becoming one with that blessed and triumphant Will it hath no more any sense of opposition or force all things now round about it make a pleasant Musick to it in the Harmony of the Divine Will and shine upon it with a most ravishing and heavenly lustre as they lie together in the Divinely-beautiful Form of the first and universal good This is that true Liberty of the Will of Man in which he transcends all other Creatures here below by which he triumphs over all Chances and Changes over all Confinements and Comâ—…lsions over all the extremities of Force and Fury while it keeps these wings unlimed uncloged unclipt by the filth or guilt of fleshly lusts while it preserves it self from the Chains of Vice 3. I come now to the third Circumstance of the Liberty of the Will Man is to be considered in three states 1. Of pure Nature 2. Of the Fall 3. Of the restitution by Christ. 1. Man in the state of pure Nature is an Image of God an earthly Image Gen. 1. God said let us make man in our own likeness after our own Image let us make him Some interpret this of God in the three Persons others of God Cum indumentis suis as the Jews speak of God in his holy Angels Both together make a proper and full sense God in the holy Trinity God in all the various Virtues of the Divine Nature spread first through the innumerable company of Angels and by them through the whole Creation sets himself as a seal upon man in whom as the Consummation and Crown of his whole Work by this impression he unites all into one Nature and Essence which is a compleat Image of himself and a comprehension of the whole Creation Thus now the Essence the Faculties the Operations of Man are a shadowy similitude and figure of the Divine Essence the Divine Virtues and the Operations of the Divine Nature Thus the Will of Man is a shadowy figure of the Divine Will and its freedom a shadowy resemblance of the Divine Liberty like the colours of a Rainbow in the Cloud which are so many reflections of the light of the Sun That which we say in natural Philosophy Exiisdem nutrimur ex quibus gignimur We are bred and nourished composed and continued by the same things is most true in its application to the first or universal cause with its effects As the Sun is the formal efficient cause of its beams which are its shadowy Image in the air and as the living face is the formal efficient cause of the face in the Glass so is God to man his Image and shadow The continued out-shinings and Operations of the Sun make maintain and act anew its beams every moment The continued stream of Species or beams from the living Face every moment form anew the Face in the Glass with all its meen and motions So doth the Divine Essence the Diviue Understanding and Will every moment by the continual influences of each moment compose and conduct their Image the Essence the Understanding the Will of Man as the Face in the Glass in their whole make manner and motions This is not a diminution but the perfection of Liberty in the Will of Man For God in his holy Angels as superior and universal Causes works upon the Will of Man or rather in it after the manner of an internal Principle So that well known Maxim of the first Philosophy assures us That the first and universal Cause is of all Causes most intimate with every effect As in logical Definitions the summum genus or the highest nature enters into the Definition and so into the Essence of the lowest Species or kind of things inasmuch as it enters into and constitutes the next genus or nature together with all the intermediate natures For examples sake Substance and so Being it self in its highest and most absolute form is comprehended in and constitutes the nature of man descending into it by the intermediate steps of Corporiety and Animality that is becoming first a Corporeal Substance then a living Corporeal Substance lastly a rational and so a man In like manner so is the first and universal Cause the most internal and essential Principle of every effect of all humane Operations of all the acts of the Will For it is the Essence of every Essence the Being of every Being the Act of every Act the first the formal Cause the most immediate the most intimate Cause of every Effect Let me add to this for a Conclusion as the Crown upon the liberty of man in pure nature that his conformity to God as an Image to his Original is his Perfection in this doth his Will become a most beautiful figure of the ever-glorious life the Divine Will that its Liberty is the free-springing flourishing and fruitfulness of it in all good through the whole Latitude and Amplitude of the most spacious and blissful sphere of good and so that a most pleasing and agreeable necessity of being good is inseparable from this sweet and ample freedom while it continues in the state of a Divine Image and Figure 2. In the Fall of Man we read according to the Language of the Scripture of his being deceived being brought into servitude being a Captive in bondage to Vanity and Corruption and of being dead While they boast of Liberty saith St. Peter they themselves are servants to sin For to that of which a man is overcome he is a servant It is the Observation of Plato That the names importing any thing of good natively signifie a freedom of motion as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to run swiftly On the otherside the names of evil express a restraint from motion as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 malice from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to lie down upon the ground In like manner the Hebrew word for Darkness signifieth restraint and confinement by force All Liberty being an enlargement of Being is comprehended in the nature of good alone Neither is there any thing so inconsistent with Liberty as evil which is a privation of Being Plato therefore rightly expresseth the Soul in her faln state by the loss of both her wings which are an Intellectual Light and an Intellectual Love or the Light of Reason in the Mind spreading it self with a clear brightness as one of the golden wings and the force or freedom of the rational Appetite to good in the Will extending it self in a pure flame as the other of the golden wings To this I might add the testimony which the Scripture gives of another seed that of the Serpents springing up in the Soul unto its fall in its fall and through its fall of the Soul being now the Child of the Devil being implanted into the Powers of Darkness of being acted by the Prince of the Power of the Air the Spirit which is now become its Root its