give rain Jer. 14.22 Thus the wise God who doth nothing vainly or unnecessarily nor infringeth the more constant Laws of Nature when those parts thereof that are more anomalous and more easily applicable to his imperate acts and ends of Providence may serve more ordinarily chuseth those parts of Nature to execute his special Providences that may do it without any great fracture of the more stable and fixed parts of Nature or the infringment of the Laws thereof Again as the Empire of the Divine Will doth exercise its imperate acts in the Methods of special Providence upon things simply in themselves natural so it doth upon Agents or Natures intellectual and free Sometimes immediately by Himself sometimes by the Instrumentality of Angels or proposed Objects This Exercise of the imperate Acts of the Divine Providence may be upon the Understanding or Will Upon the Understanding principally these ways 1. By immediate afflatus or impression as anciently was usual in prophetick Inspirations 2. By conviction of some Truths and this may be either by a strong and over-bearing presenting of them to the Understanding with that light and evidence that it is under a kind of necessity of believing them which was often seen in the primitive times of Christianity wherein God was pleased many times irresistibly and by immediate overpowering the Understanding by the powerful impression of the Object or Truth propounded to conquer as it were the Understanding into an assent Or 2. By advancing and enlightning the understanding Faculty with a superadded light and perception whereby it was enabled to discern the truth of things delivered For as the Understanding receives some Truths proposed by reason of the congruity between the Faculty and the Object as the Eye sees some visible Objects by reason of the congruity between it and them so the reason why it perceives not all Objects of Truth is because of some defect of the Faculty whereby it holds not a full and perfect congruity with them either by reason of the remoteness or sublimity of the Object or some deficiency of light in the Faculty which is aided by the Collyrium of the Divine Assistance Rev. 2. Or else 3. By some extraordinary concomitant moral evidence such was that of the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles the Seals and Credentials of the Truths they delivered And as thus the imperate acts of the Divine special Providence are exercised upon the Understanding so they are exercised upon the Will and that either immediately or mediately Immediately 1. By an immediate determining of the Will For although the Will be naturally free yet it is naturally and essentially subject to the imperium divinae voluntatis when He is pleased to exercise that empire upon it This although he rarely doth yet he may do it and sometimes doth it irresistibly determining the Will to chuse this or that good and yet this without any such force or violence as is simply contrary to the nature of it because as there is no Power in the World but owes most naturally an obediential subjection to the Lord of Nature so even the Will it self is naturally and essentially subject to the determination of the Lord and Author of it 2. By immediate inclining and inflecting it to determin of it self This is that secret striving of the Spirit of God with the Will inflecting and perswading it to this or that good It differs from the former way because that it is irresistible this though potent yet in its own nature resistible by the Will of Man though it many times prevails by its efficacy V. Gen. 6.3 Eph. 4.30 Again 2. Sometimes it is done Mediately more humano and yet not without the mediate special Empire and Regiment of the Divine Will and thus it is done two ways viz. 1. By an irresistible or at least powerful conviction of the Understanding that the thing in proposal is fit and necessary to be done or omitted for although some think that the Will hath a power of choosing or refusing or suspending notwithstanding the final decision of the practical Understanding yet certain we are that ordinarily and when the Will acts as a Rational faculty it is or ought to be determined by the last decision of the practical Understanding and 2. By proposing Moral objects that do more humano guide the Will to determine it self accordingly and these are various sometimes Intervention Perswasion or Examples of others and sometimes even the junctures of Natural occurrences For as I shall have occasion to shew and is partly touched before even the Natural occurrences of things are under the guidance and conduct of the Divine Providence even when to us they seem to be either Accidental or to be the meer product of Natural Causes And surely if we should deny the intervention of Imperate Acts of Divine Providence in relation to actions Natural or Moral that appear in the World we should exclude his Regiment of the World in a great measure and chain up all things to a fatal necessity of Second Causes and allow at most to the glorious God a bare prospect or prescience of things that are or shall be done without any other Regency of things but meerly according to the instituted nature and operations of things And thus far of the Imperate Acts of the Divine Providence Only this farther I must subjoyn as a certain truth That neither the Empire of the Divine Providence or his mediate or immediate determinations perswasions or inflexions of the Understanding or Will of Rational Creatures doth either naturally morally or intentionally deceive the Understanding or pervert the Will or necessitate or incline either to any falshood or moral evil 3. The third Analogy that is between the regiment of the Soul over the Body and the Divine regiment of the Universe is in relation to the acts of general Providence or that ordinary Law wherein Almighty God governs ordinarily the Universe and the things in it without the particular mixture of those that I have called the Imperate Acts of special Providence which seems to consist of two parts 1. The institution of certain common Laws or Rules for all created Beings which without a special intervention of his Will to alter or change they should regularly observe as that the Heavenly Bodies should have such Motions and Influences that the Inferiour or Elementary World should have its several Mixtures and Transmutations by the application of the active principles and particles in it to Passives and by the virtue of the Heavenly Motions and Influences That there should be vicissitudes of generations and corruptions that Vegetables should have the operation of vital vegetation increase duration and productions according to their several kinds that Sensible Natures should enjoy a life of Sense and those several powers or faculties of Sensation Phantasie Memory Appetition Digestion Local Motion Generation and those several instincts whereby they should be managed and governed according to the conveniencies of a
those natural Laws that they are ad omnem eventum fitted to the ordinary administration of the World When the wisest Counsel of Men in the World have with the greatest care prudence and foresight made Laws yet frequent emergencies happen which they did not nor could foresee and therefore they are necessarily put upon repeals correctives and supplements of such their Laws But Almighty God by one most simple foresight foresaw all Events in Nature and could therefore fit Laws of Nature that might be proportionate to the things he made and not stand in need of any change in the ordinary administration of his Providence The special Providence of God is so denominated either in relation to the objects which are special or in relation to the acts themselves Special Providence in relation to the objects is that Providence which Almighty God exerciseth either to Man or Angels in relation to their everlasting ends such as are Divine Laws and Institutions the Redemption of Men by Christ Jesus the Message of the Gospel and the like Special Providence in relation to the acts themselves are those special actings of the Divine Power and Will whereby He acts either in things natural or moral not according to the Rules of general Providence but above or besides or against them And these I call the Imperate Acts of Divine Providence whereof in the next place 2. Analogal to the imperate acts of the Soul upon the Body are the imperate acts of Divine Providence whereby with greatest wisdom and irresistible power He doth mediately or immediately order some things out of the tract of ordinary Providence For although the Divine Wisdom hath with great stability settled the Laws of his general Providence so that ordinarily or lightly they are not altered yet it could never stand with the Divine Administration of the World that He should be eternally mancipated to those Laws he hath appointed for the ordinary administration of the World Neither is this if it be rightly considered an infringing of the Law of Nature since every created Being is most naturally subject to the Soveraign Will of his Creator therefore though He is sometimes pleased by extraordinary interposition and pro imperio voluntatis to alter the ordinary method of natural or voluntary Causes and Effects to interpose by his own immediate Power He violates no Law of Nature since it is the most natural thing in the World that every thing should obey the Will of him that gave it being whatever that Will be or however manifested Now the Instances that I shall give touching these actus imperati of Divine special Providence shall be 1. In things simply natural 2. In things voluntary or free Agents In things natural we have these Instances of the actus imperati of the Divine Providence namely first those that are real and also appearing Miracles as Moses his Rod turned into a Serpent our Saviours miraculous curing of all sorts of Diseases and raising the Dead and the like Again there are other things that though they are natural effects and not in themselves apparently miraculous yet are in truth the actus imperati of the Divine Providence Winds and Storms Hail and Thunder and many the like are things that are in themselves natural yet when they are in such a season and such a juncture they may be and are and possibly more often than we are aware actus imperati specialis providentiae The East Wind that brought the Locusts and the West Wind that carried them off from Egypt Exod. 10.13 19. The East Wind that divided the Red Sea Exod. 14.21 The Hail that slew the Canaanitish Kings Josh 10.12 The Rain and Drought 1 Kings 18. Amos 4.7 Thunder and Lightning 1 Sam. 13.18 Yea the very Blasting and Mildew and Caterpiller and Palmer-worm Amos 4.9 are sent by God The ravenousness of a Lion or Bear are natural to them yet the mission of them upon an extraordinary occasion may be an actus imperatus of Divine Providence 1 Kings 14.24 2 Kings 2.24 And although we often attribute as well mischiefs as deliverances to accidental natural Causes yet many times they are actus imperati of the Divine special Providence as much and as really and truly as the motion of my Pen is the actus imperatus of my Will at this time And if we enquire how these things are effected though it may be they be sometimes effected by the immediate Fiat of the Divine Will yet I have just reason to think they are most ordinarily done by the Ministration of Angels as the destruction of the Host of the Assyrians and divers other great Exertions of these imperate acts of Divine Providence Psal 103. His Angels that excel in strength that do his commandements hearkning to the voice of his word That as the more refined and efficacious Matter which we by way of analogy call Spirits are the executive Instruments of the actus imperati of our Will so these true and essential Spirits are ordinarily the immediate Instruments of the imperate acts of Divine Providence And therefore although many times Effects purely natural that have their Originals meerly by the ordinary course of Providence are ordered by special Providence unto great and wonderful Events yet it seems to me very plain that there be many natural productions that it may be in the immediate Cause or second or third may be purely natural yet at the farthest end of the Chain there is an Agent that is not simply natural as we use to call natural Causes but voluntary sometimes in the first production sometimes in the restriction sometimes in the direction of them for otherwise we must of necessity make all successes in the World purely natural and necessary and Almighty God would be mancipated to the Fatality of Causes and to that Natural Law which he gave at first and Prayers and Invocation upon Him in case of any calamity would be unuseful and ineffectual And therefore though Almighty God do not create a Wind for every emergent occasion but the Wind is a Vapour breaking out of the Earth yet the Ministration of an Angel may restrain open excite direct or guide that Vapour to the fulfilling of those imperate acts of Divine special Regiment And it is observable that although the regular part of Nature is seldom varied but ordinarily keeps its constant tract as the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies yet the Meteors as the Winds Rain Snow Thunder Exhalations and the like which are in themselves more unstable and less mancipated to stated and regular motions are oftentimes employed in the World to very various ends and in very various methods of the special Divine Providence And hence the Winds and Storms are stiled in a peculiar manner Winds and storms fulfilling his will Psal 148. And He bringeth his winds out of his treasury Psal 134. And again Hath the rain a Father and who begot the drops of dew Job 38.28 And again Can any of the vanities of the Gentiles
seems a Fiction utterly inconsonant to the whole Method of Nature in relation to Mankind For what Person or what Age or Country ever saw any such kind of Production as this any such folliculi humani foetus Or that ever credibly heard of any Man conceived nisi in utero muliebri abating some of those Fables that Fortunius Licetus delivers in his First Book cap. 28. or such as have been begotten by an abominable conjunction Again how is it possible that an Infant whose Nature cannot be kept alive one moment sine calore uterino should be preserved in Bladders adhering to the cold Earth Or that that Infant who by the very course of Nature cannot be supported without the care and oversight of others for divers Months nay some Years after his Birth should be able sub dio Jove frigido to preserve it self Again who ever saw or credibly heard of those venae lacteae arising in the Earth and yielding a sutable nutriment to a new born Foetus These Suppositions must withall suppose a total Inversion of the Course and Nature of Things quite from what they now are and in all Ages have been which though it is true those that admit a higher Principle than Nature do and may with sufficient warrant and consonancy to their Hypothesis admit yet is utterly unreasonable for such a Philosopher who not only with some of the ancient Peripateticks excludes any Divine Providence below the Moon but wholly exterminates it ultra flammantis moenia Coeli And this is all I say at present touching that Opinion which supposeth a meer casual Production of Mankind There will be something in the ensuing Chapter which though it be applied to the Imaginary Hypothesis of the Natural Production of Mankind yet will be of use in relation to this Hypothesis of the Casual Production of Mankind CAP. III. Touching the Second Opinion of those that assert the Natural Production of Mankind ex non genitis or the possibility thereof THe second Opinion is that by a certain kind of natural Connexion of Causes Mankind not only may be but in their first Origination were produced ex non genitis Which though for distinctions sake from the ordinary course of Generation we may call spontaneous or accidental yet the same if it were true were truly natural and deduced by a certain Chain of Natural Causes as the yearly production of Insects ex putri materia or as the Mice or Rats in Egypt are supposed by Diodorus Siculus to be produced after the decrease of Nilus in Egypt This seems to be the Opinion of some of the Ancients that yet subscribed not to the Hypothesis of Epicurus touching the casual production of things by the uncertain concourse of Atoms as of Anaximander and some others which I shall not need here again to repeat and the same Opinion hath been asserted by others but with these two Correctives 1. That the same is no casual and fortuitous Production by the meer casual conjunction of Atomical Bodies as Epicurus would have the first Semina at least of Men and Animals to be made up but by an ordinary natural and necessary connexion of Natural Causes and Effects 2. That yet many of them blame the Ancients as being too venturous in telling us the particular Method or Order of these Productions out of Folliculi or Cortices spinosi or Fishes because that is not a thing discoverable by Experience or Natural Light yet herein they agree That this Production may be and hath been a Natural Production ex non genitis though the particular Manner of it is not so easie to be certainly explained Hippocrates the great Physician seems to have inclined to this Perswasion for Sect. 3. de Carnibus he writes to this purpose Quod Calidum vocamus id mihi immortale esse videtur cunctáque intelligere videre audire sentiréque omnia tum praesentia tum futura cujus pars maxima cum omnia perturbata essent in supremum ambitum secessit quod mihi veteres videntur Aethera appellasse altera pars locum infimum sortita Terra quidem appellatur frigida sicca multásque motiones habens in qua multum sanè calidi inest tertia verò pars medium aeris locum nacta est calidum quid existens quarta pars terrae proximum locum obtinens humidissima crassissima His igitur in orbem agitatis cum turbata esset calidi pars magna alias in terra relicta est partim quidem magna partim verò minor alias etiam valde parva sed in multas partes divisa temporis successu resiccata terra ista in ea tanquam in membranis contenta circum se putredines excitans longo tempore incalescens quod quidem ex terrae putredine pinguedinem sortitum est minimum humidi habens id citissimè ossa produxit And then assigns the Methods of conformation of the Nerves Veins Arteries and the rest of the Body in conformity to this Supposition So this great Physician and Naturalist delivers his Opinion Wherein we may observe that he takes the Hot or Fiery Nature to be God knowing and understanding all things which seems to be the ancient Error of the Eastern Countries especially the Persians Yet this is observable 1. That he supposeth an Origination of Mankind after the Formation of the World 2. Though the Formative Process of Mankind seems in his Opinion to be in a sort Natural yet he supposeth it not purely so but a Production by those fiery Particles which were Particles of a Divine Intelligent Nature And though he be mistaken in the Method of the Origination of Mankind as shall be shewn yet he supposeth it Opus intelligentis Naturae agentis per scientiam Avicen in the second Book of his Metaphysicks cap. 15. delivers his Opinion Possibile esse hominem generari ex terra sed convenientiùs in matrice which Opinion Averroes his Country-man perstringeth with some indignation Commentar 8. Physicor cap. 5. Iste sermo ab homine qui dat se scientiae est valde fatuus his Reasons I confess are such as may not be admitted for being a rigid Assertor of the Eternity of the World in the state it now stands he formeth his Reasons against the Opinion of Avicen principally if not altogether upon that Hypothesis Cardanus in his ninth Book de Animalibus quae ex Putredine generantur discoursing about Locusts hath this passage Et non solum ea minuta sed majora animalia è putredine imo omnia credendum est originem ducere cum jam de Muribus constet Pisces in aquis recentibus sponte generentur but his severe Corrector Julius Scaliger in Exercit. 193. calls it Illa impia nefaria vox Si Bos aliquando ex putri ortus est cur post hominum memoriam ex ejusmodi procreatione nullus exstitit Caesalpinus in his fifth Book Quaestionum Peripateticarum cap. 1. undertakes an entire Defence of the
variously agitated and mingled which made up by this mixture the constituent Semina of Vegetative and Sensitive Natures That in this Constitution of the various kinds of the Spiritus ignei were the constituent Animae vegetabilium sensibilium and the various kind of Humores were the Oleum and Balsamum vitae and according to the variety of these Spiritus ignei which were as it were Seminium naturae were the various Species of these Semina and the various specifical production of Vegetable and Sensible Natures arose from them That the Composition of these Semina was not meerly fortuitous as Epicurus but he gives us a more gentle Explication thereof Praecipua verò planè divina est permistio ista quae in particulas diffringuntur minutissimas quantum satis est ad componendum semen misti alicujus aptissime coagmentantur ut non magis quam par est neque minus illud efficient quippe sunt naturae ad hoc determinatae That these are the Seeds of all living things and they were scattered up and down in the Earth and Waters and that therefore every living Being had its proper Semen for his Origination there lodged That yet till the Matter wherein these Seeds were lodged were conveniently prepared there would be no production of Animals by these Seeds That the Semina of Mankind and of the greater Animals required a greater and more effectual preparation of the Matter or a Menstruum for their production put of those Semina and therefore required the greater Conjunctions of the Heavens for their production though ordinary Conjunctions serve for the production of Insects and Vegetables namely the regress of the Sun That by these Semina of all living Beings though the World were eternal there might be successive Supplies and Reparations of Animals and Men and though the whole Species of Men and Animals were destroyed yet upon the returns of these great Conjunctions and Positions of the Heavens requisite for a due preparation of the Menstruum in the Earth for these Semina their Species would be restored out of these Semina That the Terrigenae might either be produced adulti and so able to shift for themselves or else be furnished with a convenient nourishment from the Earth or that they might be in their first production not like Infants new born but able to get their livelihood as some young Brutes are Thus we have the Supposition of this witty Man also who by the supposition of these antecedent Semina made up of the divers Spiritus ignei and Humores hath supplied what was wanting in Caesalpinus or at least better explicated it and by supposing this mixture of these Spiritus igneì and Humores in their several proportions by something more than a fortuitous means hath something rectified the exorbitancy of Epicurus though still he suppose those Spiritus ignei which were as it were the various Souls of those various Seeds and afterwards of the several Animals produced by them were natural and eternal That which seems to have given the original ground-work of all these Opinions hath been 1. Some Expressions that fell from Aristotle which are before mentioned that seem to give countenance to this Opinion 2. A proud vanity in Men of Wit to resolve all things into Nature and pure natural and necessary Causes unwilling to recognize the interposition of Almighty God and his Beneplacitum in the Origination of things and yet finding too many absurdities accompanying the Hypothesis of Eternal Generations of Mankind ex successivis genitis 3. But principally the Observation of the spontaneous production of Insects and little Animals ex putri materia whose structure nevertheless is as admirable as the structure of greater Animals and that they also being thus originally produced yet propagate their kind by successive Generations have distinction of Sexes and Faculties This it seems principally gave start to this Opinion touching the like Origination of Mankind and greater Animals by a natural spontaneous production And because this Instance of the natural production of Insects is that which as it probably gave the rise to this Opinion for the like production of Mankind or other Animals and seems to be the only experimental Instance that is given to assert the possibility or probability of the other I shall consider it largely under these several Examinations 1. Whether there be any sponte orta among Vegetables and Insects but especially the latter 2. Admit there be yet whether those sponte orta do arise meerly from any natural or accidental Cause 3. Admit they may arise from any natural or accidental Cause yet whether there be any consequence of a like possibility in the Origination of perfects Animals but especially of Mankind 4. Admit it may be possible in Speculation yet how far forth de facto the same hath happened without the interposition of the Divine Power which renders it a supernatural not a natural production CAP. IV. Concerning Vegetables and especially Insecta Animalia whether any of them are sponte orta or arise not rather ex praeexistente semine THere are several Ranks of Being in this inferior World which have various specifical Degrees or Ranks of Perfection one above another The first division of them is into things Inanimate and things that are Animate wherein the latter have another and a nobler Form or if that Word be disliked Nature than the former Of things Animate there are three distinct natures the latter exceeding still not only in degree but in kind perfection and excellence of nature the former namely things vegetable that have simply Life with those operations incident to Life The second sensible that have not only a Life of vegetation but a Life of sense and faculties and operations corresponding to it The third rational or intellectual that hath not only a Life of vegetation and sense but an intellectual Life and faculties and operations subservient and suitable to that Life Among Vegetables as to the purpose in hand there seem to be two kinds or degrees Some are the more perfect which do not ordinarily arise but from Seminal Particles immediately derived from the Vegetable either the Root or the Branch or the Semen formatum of these Vegetables as an Apple-tree or a Rose c. Others seem to be less perfect because they seem oftentimes to arise equivocally neither from Seed Root or Branch of the same Species as well as from it But even in all these there are none but arise from a vegetable Principle and not barely from what is inanimate and for the most part if not altogether from a vegetable Principle or Semen of the same kind 1. It seems that the upper superficies of the Earth at least is plainly a Vegetable Nature and that it is no more forcible Argument to say that the Grass of the Earth Nettles Docks Thistles and such like common excrescences are no more spontaneous productions in the Earth than the Feathers upon Birds or the Hair upon
of the Earth These are procured every Year whether there be any need of them or not and possibly sometimes in greater numbers than is convenient for this inferior World And although it be true that the Divine Power doth intend or remit or manage these Productions secundùm regimen consilium voluntatis yet it is most evident these Productions are ordinary animal and natural without choice or design in inanimate Nature If therefore these Productions be natural and periodical every Year why should there not be as well productions of Men or perfect Brutes if it were purely natural as well as Frogs and Flies since the former may be of more use especially in many desolate places than always the latter How many great and vast Islands and Continents are there especially in Armenia which have no considerable number of Inhabitants if any at all to people them In Ireland there are great store of Wolves and so there were anciently in England till they were destroyed by the Industry of the Inhabitants in Ireland their increase is by propagation without any new production in England they cannot increase by propagation because here are none How comes it to pass that Nature doth not produce new Wolves in England as well as Frogs Adders Hornets and Wasps If it be said that Nature neglects it because they are noxious as this is to make Nature an intelligent Agent so it answers not the difficulty For why doth she then not destroy the Species in Ireland upon the same account But this is but a vanity Nature as well intends the existence of a Wolf as of a Sheep where the means of its production is equal though Mankind prefer the latter as more useful to him If any thing therefore of this deliberative nature be to be found in the voluntary and intentional Regiments of things of this kind it is to be attributed to the great and supreme Rector of the World who doth work according to Counsel Wisdom and Will Upon the whole matter therefore I conclude That as well by the reason of the thing and upon true natural congruity as also de facto and upon experimental Observations Mankind no nor the perfect Animals are not produced nor producible by any meer natural Cause as at this day or in any Age or Time since their first Creation otherwise than by a natural production which is the Truth asserted by the Great Verulam in his 9 th Century in fine As for the Heathen Opinion which was That upon great Mutations of the World perfect Creatures were first ingendred of Concretion as well as Frogs Worms and Flies and such like we know it to be vain but if any such thing should be admitted discoursing according to Sense it cannot be except you admit a Chaos first and a commixture of Heaven and Earth for the Frame of the World once in order cannot effect it by any Excess or Casualty And as thus neither Casualty nor bare Nature cannot originate Mankind or any perfect Animal ex putri so much less can Art The Chymists tell us that by re-union of separate Principles of Vegetables they will in a Glass revive a Vegetable of the same species at least in figure and effigies this hath been pretended but I could never hear any Man speak it that saw it done But never was any so mad except Paracelsus that could ever pretend to make up a Sensible Being much less the Humane Nature Paracelsus vainly and falsly pretended to the raising of an Homunculus but yet not without the help of those Naturales geniturae utriusque sexus wherein notwithstanding he lyed as he did in many things else which he never could effect notwithstanding his vain boasting of his Skill Upon the whole Matter therefore I conclude That the Origination of Mankind or of the inferior perfect Animals neither was nor could be the Effect of Humane Art or Skill as Paracelsus nor of Chance or Casualty as Epicurus nor of Nature as Cardanus Caesalpinus and some other Recreants in Religion and Philosophy But it was the free powerful and wonderful Work of the God of Nature who made all things by his Power and Wisdom and having made them lodged in them and for them that pre-ordained Law of their Creation and Existence which we commonly call Nature That Nature indeed is the Law or Rule instituted and implanted by the wise and glorious God in things when made but in the first Effection of Mankind God Almighty not Nature was the Author As in my Watch the Law and Rule of its Motion is the Constitution and Position of its Parts by the Hand and Mind of the skilful Artist but the Author or Efficient of my Watch is the Artist himself and not that Motion that is as it were the Law or Rule of the Engin. SECT IV. CAP. I. Concerning the last Opinion attributing the Origination of Mankind to the immediate Power and Will of Almighty God IN the foregoing Section and Chapters I have performed these things 1. I have removed the Supposition of an Eternal Existence of the Humane Species as altogether incredible and indeed impossible 2. I have established consequently this Truth That the Species humana had a beginning and this I have done principally upon natural Evidence of the incompossibility of an Eternal Existence of successive Generations 3. I have considered those Evidences of Fact or Moral Evidences of the Inception of Mankind and removed such as seem more fallible and less concludent and subjoined such as seem to be of greater weight 4. Among these of the latter sort I have considered the general Tradition thereof both of the unlearned and learned part of Mankind wherein among others I have considered the Opinion of those Famous Sects of Philosophers the Platonists Epicureans Peripateticks and Stoicks 5. Though I have made use of their common Suffrage in order to the Proof of the Origination of Mankind yet I have not allowed all their several Notions or Hypothesis touching the Method or Manner of their admitted Origination of the Humane Nature And therefore 6. I having thus established the Thesis in general I have descended to the Examination of the particular Hypotheses taken up by various Philosophers touching the same Origination And those I have distributed into these three Ranks 1. Those that suppose an accidental or casual Production of Mankind which was principally the Opinion of the Epicureans This Opinion I have examined and rejected as vain 2. Those that suppose this Production to be Natural or by the bare Concurrence of Natural Causes as Avicen Cardan and some others which I have likewise examined and rejected as utterly inevident and false 3. There remains therefore the third Opinion that attributes the Origination of Mankind to the immediate Power and Beneplacitum of the Supreme Intellectual Being namely Almighty God and this was the Opinion of divers of the Platonists and Stoicks This Opinion is in the general true and agreeth not only with the Divine
at least highly prepared for the spontaneous production of Insects and Vegetables of some kinds and the benevolent Heat of the Sun hath a great influence thereupon to be the Instrument of Almighty God in these Productions but it is his Sovereign Institution that committed to the Sun the Earth and the Waters and their Particles to produce some insect Animals and therefore they produce them as Worms Flies Frogs but he hath not concredited or committed to them that primitive Productive Power of perfect Animals nay not of some noble Vegetables fine praeexistente semine univoco Thus we have considered the History of the Worlds production and the reasonableness thereof Now to the production of Terrestrial Animals for of the Creation of Man I shall speak in the next Chapter It is true that there are two sorts of natural Integrals whose History is here omitted and yet that omission not without great reason because it seems their production was in a manner accidental and spontaneous depending upon the various mixture of Materials formerly created namely Meteors and Minerals the former consummated in the Aery Region by the apposition and mixture of divers Excretions and Exhalations of the other parts of Nature for we neither find nor have any cause to look for Clouds Comets or Meteors in the compass of the first six Days The latter seem to be Concretions and Digestions in the Bowels of the Earth either altogether or for the most part begun and perfected after the Six Days Work by the energy of the external and Celestial and internal and connatural Fire and Heat Some Jews and Cabalists there have been that have supposed those six Days to be of different length and extent from these Natural we are acquainted with and that those six Days especially the three first and three last thereof differed exceedingly one from another and that as the three last were of a far greater length and extension than our ordinary day or night so the three former were exceedingly larger than the three latter of the six and the computation of the whole by Six Days was only by a kind of Analogical Expression to give Mankind a distinction of the Order of Production and they suppose 1. That the Divine Author by this distribution of Days did not intend any determinate portion of Time much less days or times conformable to the length of our days but certain Mysterious Numbers of Times and therefore Philo Judaeus in his first Book Allegoriarum Legis tells us Rusticanae simplicitatis est putare sex diebus aut aliquo certo tempore mundum conditum complevit sexto die opera intelligere non debes de diebus aliquot sed de senario perfecto numero and then takes a great deal of pains in illustrating the Mystery of that Number 2. Because they would willingly introduce a kind of natural production of things according to a natural method and gradual and successive procedure without the Supposition of an immediate concurrence or interposition of a Supernatural Influx or Causation and therefore because the separation of Light the first Days Work naturally required a great time as also the rarefaction and separation of the Expansum the separation of the Bodies of Earth and Water and likewise the maturation and production of Vegetables out of it might require a longer time than some of the subsequent days Works therefore the three first days were much longer than those that follow And again since each of these great Works attributed to the three latter days were great Works required great digestion and separation and maturation of the Matter for the Heavenly Bodies as also for the maturation of living Animals and their production that even those days might be conceived of a dimension or computation much larger than our Days and possibly than our Months or Years or Ages But these seem to be vain Conjectures introduced meerly to exclude an intermixture of a supernatural concurrence in the speedy production and formation of things and not warranted by the Holy History but contradicting it For we have no reason to imagin that the sixth day was of any other dimension than the seventh day wherein God Almighty rested nor the fifth any longer than the sixth neither was it at all necessary the days should be protracted to that length of time for two Reasons 1. Because if we should be so vain as to suppose a long process somewhat sutable to what we now see in Nature for the separation disposition and production of the Six Days Work yet certainly there was a time intervening between the first Creation of the Materia Chaotica and the very inception of its complement into that Order that the Six Days Work exhibit to us and although that time is not determinately set down yet we may justly think it a long time And again in that long interval there was a powerful Agent subacting disposing and influencing the Massa Chaotica expressed by the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the Waters whereby if it were necessary to have such a preparatory process towards the formation of the World antecedent to such formation it was not wanting here and every Particle might thereby be so ripened and prepared that they might successively give their apparences in those portions of time wherein they are ranged by the Sacred History 2. Although in the Creation of the World and the Integrals thereof Almighty God seemed something to conform to the reasonable Order of Causes sutable or congruous to Effects and did not put forth such an immediate Activity in the Production of things as he did in their first Creation this being done in an instant that successively gradually and yet per moram Yet he was not bound to observe all the Ceremonies and Formalities of Natural Effects neither did he but by his own immediate Power gave a greater expedition to the first production of things than that which he instituted for the standing fixed and ordinary Method of future production and maturation of things to be generated after their first Origination And as it was impossible without the apposition of a Supernatural Being and Causation that the Matter of things should be created out of nothing or being so created could without the Operation of a Supernatural Intelligent Being raise it self up to the admirable Fabrick wherein it was finally perfected so it is not reasonable to deny to such a Supreme Supernatural and Infinite Power an effectual maturation and compleating of things in those portions and orders of times that best pleased him and which his Wisdom judged most agreeable to his Works and Ends. We find every Command of the Divine Will in the Creation of things answered by an immediate obsequium in the created Matter If He say Let there be Light Let the Waters be gathered into one place Let the Earth bring forth c. the obsequious Matter presently answered the Command with a Fuit ita It was so Not as if there were any
and Punishments that which acts out of coaction as bare Instruments or out of necessity as bare Natural Causes or a determined Instinct as Brutes are not properly capable of a Law but only analogically and what they do is not properly an act of Obedience because they cannot ordinarily do otherwise Therefore as his Intellective Faculty gives him the power to know his duty so the liberty of his Will is that which gives him the power truly to obey 2. The second property of the Will is that it is moved and drawn to that which is good or at least what appears to be so The sensitive Appetite is a power subservient to a sensitive Nature and carried to a sensible Good but the Will is a rational Faculty a Faculty of an intellectual Nature and carried to an intellectual Good as its proper Object and therefore with most earnestness to the most noble and supreme Good which is Almighty God So that as by the liberty of his Will Man is capable to be an active Instrument to serve and obey his Maker so by this property of his Will he is by a just suitableness drawn to will and desire and in enjoyment to delight in God as the chiefest Good the most noble and suitable Object of its choice and motion And we may observe that the Divine Goodness and Wisdom to promote and advance this act of the Will in choosing and loving Almighty God as his chiefest Good hath exhibited himself unto Mankind in all the manifestation of Goodness and Beneficence imaginable hath made him Lord of this inferior World provides for him supplies him and endears him to himself with all those manifestations of Mercy Goodness and Bounty that his nature is capable of whereby he may be won to love God not only as the chiefest Good but also as his chiefest Benefactor And thus by the due consideration of both these Faculties of Understanding and Will we may reasonably conjecture that the End of Almighty God in creating Man was to make such a Creature as might actively know serve glorifie love and obey his Creator and in that his Service and Obedience and Love enjoy the Love and Favour of that God whom he thus loves and obeys because we find his Faculties admirably fitted for such an end and use and certainly the wisest Agent must needs be supposed to design such an End to any Work as is suitable and commensurate to the thing he makes And these seem to be those Ends for which the wise God created this noble Creature Man which do more specially relate unto God 5. I shall now consider the Ends of Man as they mutually relate one to another There are these particularities in the Humane Nature that singularly commend Man each to other namely 1. A great love and propensity to Communion and Society Aristotle somewhere in his Politicks tells us that among Animals Bees seem to be the most sociable but that Man is by nature more sociable than Bees 2. That there are implanted certain connatural tendencies or moral Principles that do most naturally suit with humane society such as the first Rudiments of natural Justice Charity and Benignity without which it is impossible that humane society can be upheld And this appears hereby that though it is apparent that evil Educations and Customs have much defaced and weakned the Principles of Morality among Men yet they could never extinguish it but even among the Briars and Thorns the Rudiments of natural Justice and Morality have arisen and all the Order and Government and common Regiment of Societies have been maintained and preserved by it Naturam expellas furca licet usque recurret 3. That the benefit of Speech and those other instituted Signs peculiar only to Mankind are of great and principal use in maintaining and upholding Society and Communication between Mankind by these each Man communicates his Thoughts and Conceptions to another each Man instructs directs and adviseth another and makes another partaker of his own Knowledge Wisdom Counsel and Advice by this Contracts and mutual Commerce are upheld the mutual Faith of each other given and taken and infinite other advantages by all which particularities and accommodations of Humane Nature subservient to mutual Society and Love it seems reasonable to conclude That the wise God intended as one of his Ends of the Creation of Man that Man should be beneficial to Man should be instrumental for the good of humane Society 4. There appears in Man besides the speculative power of his Intellect a certain admirable ingeny and dexterity in discovering and perfecting divers Arts as well Mechanical as Liberal for the benefit delight and convenience of the Humane Nature The great Arts of Government Political Civil and Oeconomical the Arts of Husbandry and Improvements of Nature for Food Clothing Medicine the Arts of Geometry Arithmetick and artificial Measuring and Partition of Time the Arts of Architecture Navigation the Art of contriving Letters Writing Printing the Arts of Musick and Observations of the Laws Orders and Rules of the Motions and Positions of the Celestial Bodies or Astronomy and infinite more which by the Ingeny and Industry of Man have been invented discovered or perfected in all succession of Ages for the use benefit and delight of Mankind And although we may observe an admirable sagacity and dexterity in many Animals in certain kind of artifices convenient for their use and the use of Mankind as in the nidification of Birds Bees Silk-worms and divers others yet Man hath still the prelation 1. In respect of the variety and multiplicity of his Artificial Inventions and Effections commonly the Artifices of Irrational Natures are single and determinate but the Arts invented and effected by Man are multifarious various and almost infinite 2. Besides his rational Faculty is more excellent and perfect than the Faculties of other Creatures in relation to Arts and more fruitful in it 3. That one Instrument his Hand which Aristotle well calls Organum organorum is admirably suited and fitted to all variety of Artificial effections more than any of the Organs of other Creatures as our own Experience without the induction of many particulars may easily demonstrate and evince By all which and many other peculiar and distinguishing adaptations and accommodations of the Humane Nature we may reasonably conclude That the wise God in lodging of these particularities in the Humane Nature had one End and Design to make Humane Nature beneficent and useful to Mankind and to humane society And therefore that Precept so often inculcated by Christ and his Apostles of Love Charity and Beneficence from Man to Man was no other than the re-enacting of that old Commandment and directing Man to one of those Ends for which he was made and which hath so many Indications of it self by the peculiar Constitution Make and Accommodations of our Faculties 6. But yet farther the Creation of Man seems to have a farther End even in relation to this