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
proportionate to their being nature and capacity 2. And as thus the contemplation of the Efficient and his Beneficence to other created Beings induceth us to conclude an end of fruition designed to Man so the contemplation of the Work it self concludes the same Man hath in the peculiarity of his nature these two great Powers and receptive Faculties whereby he is rendred amply capable of a great enjoyment namely his Understanding whose proper Object is Truth and the noblest Truth that is and its proper action is directed to that Object namely Intellection and Will whose proper Object is Good and the greater and more sovereign the Good is the more suitable it is to this power and the proper act of this power is to reach after and desire and embrace and delight in its Object and the filling of these two receptive powers with the chiefest intellectual Truth and with the chiefest and intellectual Good is that which perfects advanceth and enableth these Faculties or Powers And this doth lead us to a just discovery of what that end of fruition is for which Man was designed by his beneficent Creator namely such as is suitable answerable and proportionate to those Powers or Faculties in Man whereby he excells all inferior Animals his Understanding and his Will and herein consists his happiness his end of fruition or enjoyment 1. As to his Understanding the great and general fruition of Good therein is Knowledge Now I shall distinguish these Objects of Knowledge or Scibilia into two kinds 1. The Scibilia subordinata which being united to the intellective Power by that act or habit which we call Knowledge do advance and perfect this Power or Faculty in a subordinate way measure or degree such is the knowledge of Natural Causes and Effects of Arts Liberal or Manual of Rules of justum and decorum of Moral Truths and the like this gives a subordinate perfection and fruition to this Power varied and diversified according to the worth of the Objects and the perfection or clearness of their perception 2. The Scibile supremum which is the ever-glorious God his Perfection Attributes Wisdom Power Goodness his Will and Commands so far forth as that infinitely perfect Being is cognoscible by our finite Understanding This is the supreme Truth the highest fruition of the intellective Power and the greatest perfection of an intellective Nature as such 2. Again as to the power of the Will it hath likewise Objects of Good answerable to the former distribution 1. The subordinate Good of Moral Virtues Honesty Sobriety Justice Temperance and all the train of Moral Virtues these being united to the Will in their acts and constant habits the Will enjoys a great Moral Good tranquillity of Mind complacency and delight 2. The Sovereign Good which is the glorious God reached after by the Will as the chiefest Good and enjoyed in the manifestations of his Love Favour Presence Influence and Beneficence this fills the vastest motions of the Will fills it with Peace Contentation and Glory and keeps it nevertheless in a perpetual motion by returns of Gratitude humble Love Obedience and all imaginable extension of it self for the Service Honour and Glory of that God that hath thus bountifully given to the Soul a power in some measure receptive of his Infinite Self and fitted that power with a proportionate Good even the Goodness and Bounty of the ever-glorious God And now because Man hath a double state namely a state in this Life in conjunction of the Soul with the Body naturally dissolvible and a state of Immortality after this Life either in the Soul alone or in the Soul in conjunction with an immortal Body as shall be shewn in its due time therefore proportionable to this double state is that fruition which Almighty God designed for his End 1. In this Life the proportionable fruition of Man is that which is compatible to the state he hath here namely the knowledge of God and his Works in a measure suitable to the intellectual Capacity in this Life the sense of the Divine Love Favour Goodness and Protection the sense of his own Duty to God to Man to himself with a cheerful endeavour to observe it And from these arise dominion over his Passions and inferior Faculties and the due placing ordering and moderation of them a resignation of his Will to the Divine Will and a dependance upon his Goodness Power and All-sufficiency and from all these arise peace of Conscience contentation and tranquillity of Mind in which even the wisest of Heathens placed the greatest Happiness acquirable in this Life 2. After this Life an immutable state of everlasting Rest and Happiness in the Beatifical Vision of God and fruition of so much of his Goodness and Beneficence as a glorified Soul is capable of for it is reasonable that the end of fruition of an Immortal Nature should be an everlasting Good commensurate in its intention and duration to such an Immortal Nature And now if any Man shall enquire if this be the End of Almighty God in the Creation of Man How comes it to pass that all Men attain not this End or how comes it to pass that Almighty God comes to be frustrated of the End which he thus designed as well in relation to his own Glory as the Good of Mankind I Answer first in general That this Enquiry belongs to another way of Examination namely herein we must have the assistance of Divine Revelation both to answer this Enquiry and to guide us in it which in this place is not designed to be prosecuted 2. Yet more particularly thus much I shall say 1. That the wise God hath as it were twisted his own Honour and Glory with Man's Felicity and Happiness if Man decline to honour glorifie love and obey his Maker and casts off the primary and chief End of his Being it is just and necessary that he be deprived of the End of his own Fruition and Happiness which is the Reward of his Duty 2. The Liberty of the Will was the great Prerogative of the Humane Nature and Almighty God having furnished that Nature with all conducibles to enable him to obey and to continue him in that Obedience Man by the abuse of his own liberty deprived himself of his own felicity When we speak therefore of the End of Man we speak of it as God made him not as Man made or rather unmade himself But of this End of the means of his Restitution by Christ and the admirable System and Connexion of the Divine Providence in relation to Man in his Redemption belongs to another Discourse We are in this preceding Discourse but in the outward Court of the Temple where the Gentiles came or might come by natural Light or Ratiocination Therefore to conclude all Almighty God out of his abundant Wisdom Goodness and Beneficence as he hath made Mankind so he hath fitted him for a double End namely to glorifie his Maker and everlastingly to enjoy him and in order hereunto hath given him a double station and in each of these a differing kind of fruition of his Maker viz. a station in this lower World and a station in the glorious Heavens His station in this lower World is during the time of his mortal Life here below and in this station the glorious God hath furnished Mankind with all conveniencics and accommodations suitable to it as the comfortable Accommodations of his sensible Life the Comforts of humane Society the Use and Dominion of his Creatures the admirable Faculties of his Mind the Books and Instructions of his Word and Will the goodly Works of Creation and Providence the Tenders and Ayders of his Grace and Guidance the Effluxes and Manifestations of his Favours and Love the Anticipations and Hopes of Eternal Happiness these and many more such as these the Bountiful God affords to Mankind even in this state of Mortality which may and do render it in a great measure very comfortable But withall he lets us know and we must know That these are but as so many Bounties to render our passage through this Life the more easie and convenient to our selves and the more serviceable to our great Lord and Master This is not to be the place of our rest or final happiness but a place of exercise and probation a place of preparation for our future and more durable state we are here as it were but put to School to learn our Duty and our Lessons we are but as young Plants planted in a Nursery till we come to a convenient size and fitness to be removed and then we are to be transplanted into another and a richer Soil In this World we are as it were Seeds ripening upon the Trees or Stalks till they are fully digested and ripe and then as the Seeds drop into the Ground and become the Seminary of a new Plantation so by Death we drop into Eternity and become the Children the Embryones of the Resurrection and then we come into that second and blessed station the Country of our Rest and Happiness our Home and the End of our Being where we shall ever behold the Glory of the Glorious God and glorifie him for ever where we shall have the perpetual sensible vigorous satisfactory Manifestation and Influences of his Love to all Eternity and enjoy that Blessedness which Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither hath entred into the Heart of Man to conceive And this is the great End of the Glorious God in making this great goodly Creature called Man whose Body is but the Husk the Shell of that vital immortal Beam of Light Life and Immortality that Seminal Principle of Eternal Life the Soul irradiated and influenced by the Sacred Spirit of Life and Love and if God lend me Life and Strength shall in my next be handled FINIS 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
condition of his Obedience to the Command of God and upon the breach of that Condition were either utterly lost as the indissolubility of the Union of the Compositum by one Man's Disobedience Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin Others were abated as the Excellency of his Knowledge Righteousness the fruition of Happiness the Perfection of his Sovereignty over the Creatures the Gloriousness and Beauty and much of the Vigour of his Body the exquisite Order and Subordination of his Faculties but his Essentials the Immortality of his Soul the Faculties of Intellection and Will and the Natural Beauty and Usefulness of his Body remains notwithstanding that terrible Concussion whereof somewhat more hereafter 4. We have the Method of this Production of Man it was not by or from any meer Natural Cause but by the immediate Command of the Divine Will Wisdom and Power it was not from any Semen naturally accidentally or intentionally formed and so by a gradual maturation and growth ex uteris terrestribus or as the foetus humanus is perfected at this day For it was not possible that any such Seminal Principle should be formed casually or by any meer Natural Cause as hath been already shewn And although the Divine Power could have perfected all as well Man as the other Animals by first forming such a Semen and giving it either a gradual or speedy production as Insects are at this day produced yet 1. It was utterly superfluous to have used such a processus formativus ex semine because it required no less than an Almighty Power to have moulded and fashioned or actuated such a Semen as to have produced Man by an immediate Supernatural Formation and Production and therefore since the same Power was requisite in both it is not at all necessary nor reasonable to suppose so long a process as first to form a Semen and by a Seminal Process to have perfected the Humane Nature and the Holy History expresly imports the contrary 2. If we suppose a Semen prepared by the Divine Power that Production that must arise thereupon must either be immediate and sudden if not absolutely instantaneous or it must be gradual and pass through all these spaces of Time gradual Formation and accession of Growth and Increase as we see in embryone foetu nuper nato We cannot suppose the former but we must suppose it to be otherwise than natural and call in the Divine Power to effect it as much as in an instantaneous formation sine praecedente semine And we cannot suppose the latter because it is expresly contrary to the description of the Humane Production for it was done within the compass of the Sixth Day and the formation and perfecting of the Humane Nature was immediately finished after the Omnipotent Command and Determination of the Will of God it was no sooner said faciamus hominem c. but it was done It is true in that ordinary Law which Almighty God hath instituted in Nature already established by him there are regular and successive and gradual procedures and it is convenient it should be so and it is true also in this short period of the Six Days Work within which the Universe was finished Almighty God observed a certain convenient Order making that to precede which was fittest and most useful to precede in order to the production of things but as to the speed and dispatch of Productions the Almighty God used the Majesty that became the Excellency of his Greatness and obsequious Matter presently yielded to the Power of his Command Fiat factum est Psal 33.9 He said and it was done he commanded and it stood fast Therefore although now in settled Nature and according to the standing Laws of the Divine Wisdom Man is first conceived ex semine then lodgeth 10 Months in utero muliebri wherein during that time he is gradually formed and perfected and then after his Birth gradually increaseth passeth through the impotency of Infancy the weaknesses of Childhood and the follies of Youth before he comes to a ripe and full age yet it was not so here in the same moment the Body is formed in its full and perfect nature and the Animal Soul and Faculties together with it and the Rational Soul infused in the same moment without any priority of Time but only of Order and Nature So that Man was at the very same moment a perfect Organical Body with all his Nerves Veins Viscera Bones and Parts conformed a Vital and Sensitive Nature joyned with it and a Rational Soul infused without first living the Life of a Plant then of an Animal then of a Man the whole Scene was performed in one moment and so it became both the Greatness of the Divine Majesty and Power and so it was necessary to be in the first production of Man although in the succeeding procedure of natural Generations it must be and was otherwise because the supreme Wisdom and Will judged it so And although to any Man that will duly consider almost any thing there must of necessity be another Rule or Law for the first production of things than there is or may be in the ordinary regiment and governing of Generations when Nature is once established yet the want of this Consideration hath bred all those vain Errors of those Philosophers that asserted the Eternity of the World and of those others who being not satisfied with that Hypothesis but driven by a kind of necessity of Reason to acknowledge an Origination of Mankind yet could not deliver themselves from fancying that Humane Productions must needs be as like those they now know as they could well frame them And therefore according to these Men the Earth must be conceited to be Mater and the Sun vice Patris and the Earth must have her Uteri and Succus nutritius and the Increase of Mankind must be by some such gradual process as we see in natural productions or sponte nata and they cannot easily bring their Minds to believe the instantaneous production of Man by the immediate Power of God because it hath a gradual process in ordinary natural Generations and yet the same Men can give themselves leave to imagin Hominem oriri posse sicut blitum though never Experience of former Ages since the existence of Men upon the Earth give us any Example of it bating only the Fictions of some Poets Maimonides lib. 2. cap. 27. hath observed this Mistake and singularly confutes it by evincing That if Men go by this Rule of Judgment the nature of things in their Original as they find them in their Constitution being constituted they will disbelieve the most certain Truths Neque argumentari licet ullo modo à natura rei alicujus post illius generationem firmam subsistentiam in perfectione sua ad naturam ejus eo tempore quo movebatur ad generationem quod si verò his erras plurima tibi orientur dubia absurda ut pro
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
sensitive nature That the Rational Nature should have those Faculties of a Sensitive Nature and superadded to it the Faculties of Intellect Reason and Will whereby it might govern it self as a reasonable free Agent and determine it self to this or that action And these are the instituted Laws of the Divine common Providence 2. A continued influx of the Divine Goodness whereby things are upheld and continued in their state of being according to this Law of their Creation And by virtue of both these acts of common divine Providence all things are enabled to act and operate according to the Laws of their being without the necessity of any new individual concurrent act of special Providence producing directing or determining their several operations And hence it is that the Will of man by the instituted Law of his Creation and the common Influence of the Divine goodness and power is enabled to act as a reasonable Creature to determine it self and to govern its proper actions according to the Law of his Creation without any particular specificating concurrent new imperate act of the Divine special Providence to every particular determination of his Will Even as the continued influx of the reasonable Soul enables those Faculties which we call Natural or Involuntary without new deliberation purpose or counsel to every new act thereof And by this means the World is in an ordinary course of Providence governed according to those standing fixed Laws given to the Universe and the several parts thereof by the Divine Will wherein it is supported by the common influx and presence of the Divine power and goodness And this is that which being duly considered extricateth that Question which hath so much troubled the World concerning the sinful acts of men and how far forth the glorious God is at all concerned in them Certainly the imperate acts of his Blessed Will have nothing to do to enforce or necessitate the Will of man to any sin it is far from the purity of his Glorious Nature But the general Law of his Providence is only thus far concerned in it That he hath made Man an intelligent and free Agent put him into the power of his own Will but yet sub graviore imperio to restrain its actings if he please by his special Providence and Man in this state of his liberty when he doth sin sins from the Empire of his own Will and not from a determination of the Divine Regiment But though the contemplation of the regiment of the Soul over the Body hath given some analogical explication of the Divine Providence in the Government of the World yet as this Analogy is but imperfect the Divine Regiment of the World is infinitely more wise more powerful more perfect than the regiment of the Soul over the Body so in many things this Analogy by no means holds For instance The Soul doth what it doth in the Body though by a kind of efficiency yet it is but a subordinate efficient and vicarious and instrumental in the hands of the Almighty who as it hath endued the Soul with this energy so the Soul is but his substitute in this regiment of the Body but Almighty God is the supreme Rector of the World and of all those subordinate provinces and parts thereof Secondly in the imperate acts of the Souls regency of the Body and the Compositum She cannot in the Body work immediately without the instrumentality of the intermediate animal and vital Spirits But in the imperate acts of the special Divine Providence though we may justly think he doth most ordinarily use the ministry of those noble natures called Angels yet he may and oftentimes doth by the immediate Fiat of his own Will exercise these imperate acts of special Providence for his Power is infinite and all Beings are in an immediate obedience and subjection to it 3. The Soul cannot by its own Will exercise any immediate imperate act upon those natural and involuntary operations which yet are exercised by an influx from it indeed it may starve and destroy the Body by its Empire and thereby consequently impede and determine those natural and involuntary operations yet it cannot by its Intention or Empire prohibit or suspend their exercise the natural means being allowed and present it cannot effectually prohibit the Heart not to move or the Blood not to circulate or the Ventricle not to digest But it is otherwise with the Regent and regiment of the World even those things wherein he hath set a fixed Law which by virtue of the common influence of the Divine Power and Goodness they observe and follow are subject to the Empire of his special Providence and the imperate acts thereof And this is evident in that Administration of special Providence which is miraculous he commanded the Fire not to burn stopped the mouths and appetites of Lions and prohibited the natural operation and agency of Natural Causes 2. In all the special Providences that are exercised in the World though they do not visibly appear to us to be miraculous yet they most certainly are governed by the imperium of special Divine Providence whereby it sometimes excites second Causes to production of Effects which being thus excited they naturally produce sometimes impeding them sometimes diverting them sometimes directing them sometimes by contemperation or uniting other more active or contrary Causes allaying or enforcing them and although it may be the interposition of the Divine imperium or special Providence be not immediately the immediate antecedent Cause but it may be the third the fourth the tenth the twentieth Cause distant from the Effect Nay though possibly the conjunction of the immediate imperium Providentiae be with the First Mover in Nature the Heavenly Aethereal or Fiery Influx yet the regiment of the Divine Providence is as full and infallible in relation to the imperate regiment of the Effect as if it were immediately joyned to the designed Effect So that the Moral of that Poetical fiction that the uppermost Link of all the series of subordinate Causes is fastned to Jupiter's Chair signifies a useful truth Almighty God doth as powerfully govern and direct when he pleaseth and how he pleaseth all subordinate Causes and Effects as the Soul governs the motion of the Muscle or Limb by those strings of the Nerve which are rooted in the Brain 4. Again the regiment of the Soul over the Body is the regiment of the more active part over the more passive though both making one Compositum but the regiment of Almighty God over the World is not as a part of it or as a Form or Soul informing it but as a Rector or Governour distinct separate and essentially differing from it his regiment of the World in this respect not so much resembling the regiment of the Soul over the Body which together with it make one compounded Nature as the regiment of the Master or Rector over the Ship or the regiment of a King over his Subjects And
It is sufficient that the acting of the Soul as it relates to perception and decision and as it relates to choice and pursuit or aversation are distinguishable to us and those notions serve to explicate what we mean in the things we discourse of as the supposed Circles in the Heavens serve to explicate the appearances thereof The Understanding or the Intellective Faculty the shadow whereof only is the Phantasie in Brutes but it is but a shadow of this of Intellect is a Faculty that not only gradually but essentially differs from and exceeds the perceptive Faculty in Brutes Three things there are that give us the best notion we can have of the humane Intellect and the discrimination thereof from the animal perception and imagination 1. The Objects thereof 2. The Acts thereof And 3. The Habits thereof 1. The Object of the humane Intellect is omne intelligibile which is of a far larger extent than the Object of sensible perception or imagination which as it exceeds not the province of sensible Objects so it is in order to the convenience of a sensible Life For instance When a Brute sees a Man it sees his colour figure motion bulk and by the advantage of Memory or Instinct it comes to him or flyes from him as it hath received or thinks it like to receive good or evil by him but it perceives not substance These Objects among many other that might be instanced fall under the perception of the Intellective which seem not to be within the verge of Imagination or sensible perception 1. The Notion of a Spirit or substance void of corporeity 2. Universals or conception of things as conjoined in one common nature or notion abstracted from the Individuals thereof 3. Abstracted conceptions as entity corporeity c. 4. Though Brutes may be able to apprehend multitude as things more than singular yet they cannot have a distinct notion of Number 5. Though they may have a confused imagination of something as past or future yet it is without distinction of Time or the notion of it 6. The truth of consequence in or from the antecedent 7. The actings of the Mind or Imagination it self by way of reflection or introspection of themselves are discernible by Man distinctly but at least not distinctly by Brutes 8. The truth and evidence of Geometrical Demonstration 9. The reason or just estimate of connexion of things to their Causes 10. The moral goodness and congruity or evilness unfitness and unseasonableness of moral or natural actions which falls not within the verge of a brutal faculty 11. The Notions of a Deity and the result thereupon namely Religion is not to be found in Brutes but seems connatural to the humane Nature as shall be shewn 2. The Intellectual Acts and they are many 1. Intellectual Perception which greatly differs from imaginative or sensitive perception as far above it For in those things where the root of intellective perception is in the sense and phantasie the perception intellective oftentimes departs from and corrects the report of the phantasie as in the apparent bigness of the Sun the apparent crookedness of the Staff in a double medium of Air and Water though this kind of Intellective Perception be not without the help of Ratiocination 2. Intellective Ratiocination which infinitely exceeds that imaginative Ratiocination which some have attributed to Brutes 1. It is distinct and with a distinct knowledge of the terms which in Brutes is confused 2. It is founded for the most part in Universals which is not compatible to imaginative Ratiocination 3. The thread and train of Consequences in intellective Ratiocination is often long and chained together by divers Links which cannot be done in imaginative discourse or ratiocination by some attributed to Brutes which if the transitus from the premisses to the conclusion be not very speedy and short that imperfect Ratiocination is lost in Brutes And here I shall again a little resume the former Consideration touching the imaginary Reasoning of Brutes which I have before called the Image of Reason and not truly Reason for it is not a distinct reasoning but performed in a physical moment And though we suppose Subject and Predicate and Copula and Propositions and Syllogistical Connexions in their Reasoning there is no such matter but the entire business is at the same moment present with them without deducing one thing from another though we form them into notions of distinct acts and this acting of the sentient Phantasie is performed 1. By a presence of sense as the Horse is under the sense of hunger and that without any formal Syllogism presseth him to eat the fire burns the Cats foot and therefore it pulleth it away because the immediate sense of pain enforceth it 2. By the presence of Memory the Dog hath been beaten for taking the meat out of the dish and the next time he sees it there though he be hungry yet he dares not venture for his imaginative Memory makes the past strokes as present to him as if he felt them 3. By the presence of Instinct which puts him upon those motions that are most evidently as reasonable as any thing can be and yet without the intervention of Ratiocination For instance Every Creature almost hath certain Instruments for its defence and the offence of its enemies exactly fitted for their use and they have that singular dexterity in using them that the most disciplined Fencer cannot equal The Cock for instance hath his Spurs and he strikes his Feet inward with singular strength and order and it is not possible he should use his Spurs with greater reason for his advantage yet he doth not this by any syllogistical method or by Ratiocination but is meerly tutored to it by Instinct which is present with him and at hand without any discursive Reasoning And this appears because while it is yet a Chick and hath no Spurs nor cannot hurt by it nor yet hath seen the like motion before to imitate or learn it yet he readily practiseth it And to these three present impulses of Sense Memory and Instinct most if not all the sagacities of Brutes may be reduced without the help of true Ratiocination or discursive Reason though witty men by Analytical resolution have Chymically extracted an artificial Logick out of all their actions 3. Intellective Memory which I call an act of the intellective faculty because it is wrought by it though I do not inquire how or where because it is not solvible The specifical preferences that it hath above the sensible Memory are these 1. That it remembers and retains such things as were never at all in the Sense as the conceptions enuntiations and actions of the Intellect and Will the conviction of truth or falshood of propositions or reasonings the conceptions of universals whereas the sensitive Memory retains nothing but sensible Objects or their Images wrought by the Phantasie 2. In that it is more complicated and complex than the sensitive
that things had no other method of their production than what we now see they have and therefore they must if they hold to their Principles agree that they had their production always as now they have The necessary consequence whereof is that if such a kind of production of mixt Bodies cannot in the nature of the thing be eternal they cannot have an eternal production But it is true that this doth not answer the Supposition of those that though they suppose an Eternity in mixt Bodies do attribute even that Eternity to an eternal Creation and therefore to another kind of production than what we now suppose to be natural and consequently as they suppose at first in an eternal moment Almighty God created simple Bodies as the Heavenly or Elementary Bodies so in the same instant He might and did create other Bodies which though in their constitution they were or might be composed of such particles as had they been asunder and divided might have been of the simple nature of those simpler Bodies yet they were in the same eternal moment or instant created and put together without any priority of existence in those simple Bodies whereof they might otherwise consist nor were such mixt eternal Bodies successively desumed or compounded out of the pre-existing simple Bodies but con-created and put together in the same eternal and indivisible moment or instant so that a Mineral for the purpose might be created in the same moment wherein the elementary Earth was created And although after the completing of the whole Frame of Nature in that eternal indivisible intelligible moment the production of mixt Bodies either by spontaneous or contingent coalition of various particles of Matter or by an univocal generation the course that is now held in Nature might be observed and that Priority of particles of simple Matter Influx of the Heavens and Preparation of Matter might be antecedent and precedaneous not only in order but in time to their ordinary productions yet at first it might be and was otherwise in the primitive constitution of such mixt Bodies as had their original by Creation I do confess this Supposition may evade the illation made upon the Natural production of mixt Bodies but then we must remember that this quite departs from the method of things as they now stand in the course of Nature neither can any man conclude that it was or could be so from the observation of the Order or Cause of Nature or any rational deduction from the same but must have recourse either to bare Notion or Conjecture or else to Divine Revelation the former seems somewhat too light soundly to ground any Hypothesis and the latter namely Divine Revelation though it doth discover unto us that things had their production in a different way in their first Constitution or Origination namely by the almighty Power of God creating them yet withall it informs us that that origination was not from Eternity but in the beginning of Time which wholly overthrows the Hypothesis of an Eternal Creation of the World If therefore they will appeal to Revelation for their Creation they must be concluded by it not to say it was eternal 2. My second Reason is this Because all things that are in their nature successive must have a first beginning of their being and cannot be eternal But there are in the World many things of great note and moment and without which the Order and Usefulness of the Universe would be deficient which have a successive nature and therefore such things cannot be eternal or without beginning And this reason concludes forcibly as well against that independent Eternity supposed by some of the Ancients as that Eternity dependent upon Almighty God whether as a necessary Cause or as a free voluntary intellectual Cause determined by the necessary Goodness and Beneficence of his nature or as a perfectly free Agent determining his Will by his own beneplacitum thus eternally to produce the World The Assumption or minor Proposition That there are many things in the World of great moment and importance to it that are in their own nature successive is apparent such are all the Individuals of Species of corruptible things that yet notwithstanding have a continued succession in their individuals as Vegetables Animals and Men that successively propagate their kind 2. All kinds of Motions to which all natural Bodies are in some kind or other subject as the motions of Generation and Corruption Augmentation Diminution and Alteration that are uncessantly incident to all sublunary Bodies and they must change their nature and cease to be what they are before they can cease to be actually subject to alterations such is also Local motion communicable not only to the inferior and sublunary Bodies but also to celestial Bodies and this motion even of the Heavenly Bodies themselves seems to be partly continued and unintermitted as that motion of the First Moveable partly interpolated and interrupted as some affirm of that Motus trepidationis sometimes of access and recess as the Annual motion of the Sun wherein some have thought there is a small though impeceptible rest in the very point of returning which we call Solstices The major Proposition namely that such successive things cannot be eternal includes two Affirmations viz. 1. That the motions or successions themselves cannot be eternal or without beginning 2. That the things that have necessarily and inseparably these motions or alterations annexed to their nature cannot be eternal so long as we suppose them necessarily accompanied with these alterations The former of these is considerable in this place the other is considerable under the next Reason Now touching the impossibility of the eternal succession of the Species whether of Men Animals or Vegetables by natural propagation or prosemination the same and the Reasons thereof shall be fully delivered when we come to the particular consideration of the Origination of Mankind and the necessity of fixing in some common Parents of the individuals of Mankind and thither I shall refer my self As touching the eternity of any kind of Motion especially even of that of the Heavenly Bodies I shall say somewhat briefly in this place which will be easily reducible to any other of the motions in the World as namely the motions of Generation Corruption or Alteration all which are in some respect but the effects of Local motion of one kind or another And there seem to be two special Reasons even from the intrinsecal nature of the things that encounter the possibility of an eternal successive duration in them The first concludes against all imaginable eternity of Motion of the Heavenly Bodies whether independent or dependent upon Almighty God the latter indeed principally concludes against the possibility of the created or dependent eternity thereof And they are these 1. If the circular motion of the Sun or Heavens were eternal then there must be two circulations of the Heavens immediately succeeding on the other Eternal the consequence
more are the thoughts of the unsearchable God higher than our thoughts The more sober and weighty part of the Schoolmen do conclude this Question in the negative and assert That Almighty God by one eternal act knew all things from all Eternity and by the like eternal act willed from all Eternity what he any way willed and though the termination of that Will respected Objects that neither were nor could be eternal yet his Knowledge and Will was eternally the same as ever and he begins not to know any thing which he did not eternally know nor to will any thing which he did not eternally will though the execution of that Will respects things to be done in time and futurity And certainly as this is the most probable Opinion so it takes away the pretence of the Objection the immanent Acts and Operations of the glorious God being eternal and without change It is true some late Schoolmen and after them Clara in his 4 th Problem seems to assert that Divina voluntas potest velle aliquid novum sine mutatione sui But suppose that this Supposition were admissible yet this would not any way be inconsistent with the Eternity of the Divine Nature and Essence 1. This is no Physical change in Almighty God but a voluntary and free operation of his Will which possibly was so at first willed by him to be changed according as he saw cause in his infinite Wisdom 2. That this which is here called a change of his Will is not in truth a change of his Will but a change in the Object which only seems to make a diversification of the Will but indeed is the same Will diversified only in the habitude to the Object The Will of God is like a straight unalterable Rule or Line but the various comportments of the Creature either thwarting this Rule or holding conformity to it occasions several habitudes of this Rule unto it We need no better explication hereof than that of the Prophet Ezechiel Chap. 33. from the twelfth to the twentieth Verse 4. A change of Actions and Operations in relation to some external Object or terminated therein and such a change as this is consistent with an Eternal Being though the change happen in any given portion of Time Thus the Almighty and Eternal God created the World by his Power and Will in the beginning of Time and orders governs and disposeth of the things by his Providence in all the Periods of Time and yet without any Physical or real change in himself And thus he began to be a Creator when before he was not a Creator and began to be a Governour of the World after it was made and exerciseth divers external acts of his Providence daily which before he did not For those various acts of his are terminated in such Objects as neither were nor could be eternal namely the World and the Government thereof And although he thereby gain a change of relation or relative denomination yet it is no real or Physical change in himself For all relations arise from the supposition of existence of both the terms of relation as between the Creator and the thing created and the Governour and thing governed and therefore although one of the terms of that relation namely the Eternal God had an eternal existence in his own absolute nature yet the World that was the other term of relation had no eternal existence but was created in the beginning of Time and the relation of a Creator or Governour must necessarily therefore arise in Time and not from Eternity because one of the terms of the relation namely the World had not any existence before Time began But in the eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy Spirit the termini relationis were all eternal and consequently the relation of Paternity and Filiation between the First and Second Person and the relation between the Sacred Persons of the Trinity and the denomination thereof must needs be eternal because the terms of relation between whom that relation ariseth were eternal But it is not so between the Eternal God and a temporary World for the relation could not arise till the World had an existence and a change or acquest of a new relation is not at all any real change in God but is an accident resulting from the existence of both the termini and can be no ancienter than the coexistence even of the latest and newest of those terms which if began in time must necessarily produce a new relation yet without any real change in the pre-existing and eternal God And thus I have done with those Physical and Metaphysical Evidences of the Inception of the World and of Mankind and against the Eternity of both And although I shall descend in the ensuing Section to Moral Evidences of probability strongly perswading the same Truth yet I lay the principal weight and stress of this Argument upon what is said in the preceding Chapters of this First Section which though perchance they may have something of obscurity as being bottomed upon and fetched from the true nature of the things themselves and therefore not so obvious and plain to all Capacities yet they have a concludency in them not inferior or at least little inferior to Demonstrations SECT II. CAP. I. The Proofs of Fact that seem with the greatest Moral evidence to evince the Inception of Mankind And first touching the Antiquity or Novity of History I Have now done with those Evidences that in my Understanding seem quasi ab intrinseco to evince the Inception of Mankind from that intrinsecal incompossibility and inconsistency that the Supposition of the eternal existence thereof bears with his Nature I now descend to the examination of those Evidences of Fact which do or may seem to contribute to the proof of what is designed namely Novitatem generis humani And although that Evidences of Fact of things remote from our Sense cannot be said infallible and demonstrative because the nature of such matters of fact simply as they are matters of fact is not capable as such of Demonstration yet they may be Evidences of high credibility and such as no reasonable Man can with any just reason deny his assent unto them That which hath been hath as certainly and infallibly yea and as necessarily been as that which is Omne quod est dum est necessariò est omne quod fuit cum jam preteriit necessariò fuit quando fuit in praeteritis non est contingentia Only that which is and is obvious to Sense hath this advantage of evidence which that which hath been wants namely the immediate evidence of Sense wherein though it is not universally impossible but that Sense may be deceived yet because it is the best evidence that we have of matters of fact we give credit to it as a sensible evidence and we have reason so to do But of things transacted before our time and out of the
fix bounds and banks and limits to our moveable unstable and unfixed Minds hath given us these Sacred Oracles both to enlighten and inform us and to fix and contain us within the bounds and limits of Truth and Sobriety 13. I have before touched something concerning a common Tradition that might obtain in the generality of Mankind concerning the Origination of the World and Man and here we may find a reasonable discovery of something touching the root of this Tradition namely the Holy Scriptures especially that of Genesis for we find very much among the ancient Heathen especially touching the Creation of the World the Observation of the Seventh Day the Flood Noah and his three Sons though by other Names and divers other things wherein though they mingle some of their own wild Notes yet they bear a great analogy to the Relations in the Scriptures and seem borrowed from them or from the Hebrews to whom that great Treasure of the Scriptures was committed And if a Man consider how many Opportunities there were for the communication of the Jewish Learning to the rest of Mankind even in the ancient times especially to the Egyptians with whom they long dwelt and with whom Solomon was joyned in affinity so the Babylonians and Chaldeans during their Captivity there to the Grecians by the intercourse they had with them after the breaking of the Persian Monarchy it will render it an easie Supposition that much of the Jewish Learning was derived to many of the learned Heathen though they oftentimes mingled with it some Conceptions of their own Plato and divers other Grecians borrowed much of their traditional knowledge from the Egyptians and they from the Hebrews Vide Selden de Jure Gentium c. lib. 1. cap. 2. 14. Since Man in his first Original is the Work of the most wise intelligent Being it is evident that Almighty God in this effection of Man did intend an end and scope of this Work an intelligent Agent acts ex intentione volitione and therefore proposeth in his Work an end or purpose in it and the designation of an end in working is the great perfection of an intelligent Agent Agents that are simply Natural or that are directed but by implanted Instincts act by a kind of necessity of Nature their activity and vigour putting it self forth not by choice or election but driven by the activity of their nature And although it is visible that all even the most necessary operations of unintelligent Causes in the World are directed unto certain excellent ends yet the election of and direction to these ends is not in those necessary and natural Causes themselves but is in that intelligent Efficient that intended and designed that end and endowed the natural Agent with those active Faculties or Powers which might be proper and serviceable to such ends and mancipated or bound to them certain Instincts and natural Motions subservient to those ends As in things that are artificial my Watch gives me an account of the Hour of the Day that is the end thereof but it is an end not designed or intended by the Watch but of the Artist that made it And although in sensible Creatures there seems to be an Image of Intelligence and they move more perfectly to their several ends of their several operations as in choice and eating of their food to preserve their individual nature in generation to preserve their specifical nature yet the truth is those designations of the ends of these operations and the furnishing them with instincts in order thereunto is due still to that Intelligent Being namely the glorious God which hath by his Wisdom determined these sensible Creatures to these ends and by these means in the first institution of their natures 15. And upon the same reason it follows That since Almighty God is the Maker and Efficient of Man it is not only reasonable and just but natural and in a manner necessary that the designation of Man to his end should belong to him that was his Efficient And therefore although the supreme intelligent Being that Efficient of Mankind hath made Man an intelligent Being endued him with Will whereby he is in a manner Dominus suarum actionum and a kind of Image of his Maker yet he is not the Lord and disposer of his own end for though Man be made an intelligent and free Agent and therefore in those actions that move from himself he hath the priviledge of an intelligent Agent and propounds his end to himself in those actions yet he was not the Efficient of himself and therefore cannot proportion to himself the end of his Being but that belongs only to that intelligent Efficient that gave him his Being and therefore that Efficient can only be the Propounder of that end which is commensurate to his Being 16. Since Almighty God is not only an Intelligent Agent but the highest most wise powerful and perfect Cause and since it seems to be most suitable to such a wise Being to proportionate the ends of his Works in some measure suitable to the worth and value of the Work And since Man is the work and effection of God and noblest work of his that we see in this inferior World we have just reason to conclude That Almighty God made Man for some end and for some such end as may bear a proportion to the nature condition and quality of the Work it self There seem to be but two ways to know the end that an intelligent Agent propounds in any action or work 1. The first is plain explicit and clear viz. When that Agent reveals and discovers what is the end he intends in the work he doth and thus it hath pleased the glorious God to acquaint us in the Holy Scriptures that his intent in making Man was his own Glory and to make Man a Vessel of everlasting Happiness But because in this place we are only making natural deductions from the effection of Man by God I shall refer the consideration of the former to its proper place 2. Therefore the second is by collection of natural and reasonable Consequences from the nature of the Efficient and the worth value or condition of the Effect and this medium though it be not so clear particular and explicit as the former yet it doth give us some account touching the nature and kind of the end that is probably propounded by the Efficient but touching the same in the next Chapter CAP. VIII A farther Enquiry touching the End of the Formation of Man so far as the same may be collected by Natural Light and Ratiocination VVE may easily observe in general in the Works of Nature and in every particular thereof three kinds of admirable Accommodations The first is the Accommodation of every thing to the common beauty and integrity of the Universe As in a curious piece of Landskip there are orderly interspersed Clouds and Trees and Flowers and Rivers and Houses and Arches and Ships and
of Mankind was by the same wise and provident Power and that as the Humane Nature is accommodated to it self so this World is accommodated to the exigence and convenience of the Humane Nature When I have considered the admirable Congruity of all the Parts of Christian Religion and how it corresponds and is adapted to the convenience and condition of the Humane Nature and how those antecedent Prophesies Promises and Directions of Religion in the Old Testament bear an admirable congruity to the Model of Religion in the New Testament notwithstanding the vast distances between the manifestations of them and how all the Scheme of Divine Dispensations from the beginning of the World bear an admirable accommodation each to other and to the Evangelical Doctrin it gives us a strong Moral Evidence that the same one God was the Author of this Religion that although there seem a diversity and variety in the Administrations yet when I look upon them together compare the congruity of what goes before to what follows it seems one most beautiful Piece fitted and accommodated in every part to the other and hereby I satisfie my self that it is the true Religion that it is all of one piece and one common Author of it namely the God of Truth And so when I consider the Humane Nature and the admirable accommodation that one part thereof hath to the other and also look upon the Mundus aspectabilis especially this lower World wherewith we are by reason of its vicinity best acquainted and observe how admirably the same is accommodated to the Animal Life of Man And although the Parts thereof are distinct various distant yet there are drawn from it Lines of Accommodations and Communication to the Use of the Humane Nature so exactly and appositly that I cannot choose but acknowledge one common Author both of the greater and lesser World and such an Author as made and disposed all things by the highest Wisdom and the wisest Choice If there had been divers Authors of the greater and lesser World there could never have been an accommodation of things so disparate one to another unless both had acted in subordination to one common third Being or by one common Counsel Again it was not possible that Casualty or Chance could have accommodated things of various kinds one to another If Chance could make a Beam of a House and could have made Tenents at either end yet it is not possible to conceive that Chance could cast it to be just of a fit length to answer the congruity of its contignation to another piece of Timber or fit the Mortises of other pieces of Timber to those Tenents or fit the particles and scantlets to answer just one another this must of necessity require a Workman that works by Understanding Choice and Appropriation because it requires accommodation of several things of several kinds to one End by several Means Thus therefore when I see the admirable accommodation of Humane Nature to its own existence and conveniences the admirable accommodation therein of things of different natures one to another as Organs to Faculties Sinews to Bones Nerves to Muscles Spirits to Nerves when I see the excellent accommodation of this lower World especially to the Humane Nature although they are in themselves several and heterogeneal I cannot without violence to my own Observation Experience and Reason I say I cannot but attribute the first Formation of Humane Nature yea and of all the Universe to one most Wise Intelligent Powerful Being who did all things according to the counsel of his Will after the most wise and excellent Idea of his unsearchable Understanding CAP. V. Concerning the Nature of that Intelligent Agent that first formed the Humane Nature and some Objections against the Inferences above made and their Answer HAving in the foregoing Chapter reduced the Origination of Mankind to an Intelligent Efficient effecting it per modum efficientis voluntarii per intentionem I shall in this place inquire what kind of Intelligent Efficient this was for among Intelligent Beings there is one Primum the Glorious God whose Understanding Power and Goodness is infinite there are also acknowledged by the Heathen Intelligentiae à primo those which Aristotle calls by the Name of Separate Intelligences Plato calls Dii ex Diis and we commonly call Angels very glorious and powerful Creatures which Plato takes into the Business of the Creation of Man as to the Corporeal Frame And it seems to be that the Effection of the Humane Nature in any part thereof is not attributable to the Angels neither as instrumental much less as principal Causes 1. As to the Soul of Man it seems beyond dispute for that was a created Substance and Creation of any new Substance being an infinite Motion is not within the power of any Finite Nature the Pretence therefore rests only as to the Corporeal or at least Animal Nature 2. Therefore I say that the Formation of the Bodily much less the Animal Nature of Man in order to the reception of the Soul was neither coordinately nor instrumentally the Work of Angels And the Reasons that seem sufficient to make out this Truth are these 1. It seems utterly above an Angelical Power to organize the Body of the Humane Nature for though it is true that in the established way of Generation the Parents who are inferior in nature to Angels do organize the Body at least mediante semine yet that is done in the virtue and strength of the Ordination and Institution of Almighty God So that as well Man as the Semen genitale are the Instruments deputed by Almighty God in virtue of his Supreme Power to propagate the Humane Nature And therefore since the first Formation of the Humane Nature was a new Formation not according to the Laws established after in Nature the first Production of Mankind was immediately by the Almighty Power and not by the Power of any subordinate Intelligence 2. Again it could not possibly be but that the Humane Nature must be completed in an instant For how is it conceptible that first there should be Corpus formatum with all the Organs Vessels Blood and Spirits disposed and ordered in their several Cells and Motions unless Man had been then at the same time animated as well as organized For the outward shape or stature of a Man is no more a fit Receptacle of an Animal much less of a Rational Life than a Statue of Wax or Stone The same Hand therefore that animated formed and fashioned also the same Humane Body in the same moment by virtue of the Volition Determination or Faciamus of the Divine Will 3. As we have no manner of evidence of the Angelical concurrence or instrumentality in the Formation of Man or of any of the lower Animals so there is no necessity at all of such a Supposition And we are not to multiply Causes without necessity for as the bare determination of the most powerful and efficacious
Will of God was sufficient to bring Being out of Nothing so the like determination of the same Will was sufficient to form Man out of the Dust of the ground without taking in a subordination or instrumentality of Angels Again if we should suppose the cooperation of Angels in the Formation of the Body of Man it must be in the strength virtue and efficiency of the first Cause which as it gave the Angels their Being so it must give them the efficacy power and virtue to be instrumental in this Formation which as we have no warrant so we have no probable reason to admit since the first Cause was all sufficient for this Effect without their assistance 4. The admirable Structure of the Body of Man the accommodation of it to Faculties the furnishing of it with Faculties accommodate to it even as its Animal Nature though we take not in the reasonable intellectual Soul imports in it a Wisdom Power and Efficacy above the Power of any created Nature to effect If it should be in the power of an Angel by applying actives to passives to produce an Insect nay a perfect Animal yet the Constitution and Frame of so much of that in Man that concerns his Animal Nature were too high a Copy for an Angelick Nature to write unless thereunto deputed and commissionated by the Infinite God which Commission we no where find and I am very sure a bare Naturalist will not suppose 5. Again there is that necessity of a suitableness and accommodation of the Parts of the Body to the Faculties of the Soul and è converso that any the least disproportion or disaccommodation of one to the other would spoil the whole Work and make them utterly unserviceable and unapplicable one to the other It was therefore of absolute necessity that the same skill and dexterity that was requisite to the first Formation of the Soul must be used and employed in the Formation of the Body and if an Angel were unequal to the making up and ordering of the Soul he could never be sufficient to make a fit organical Body exactly suitable to it Upon the whole matter I therefore conclude That not only the Soul but the very Animal Nature in Man and not only that but the Formation and Destination of his Bodily Frame was not only the Work of an Intelligent Being but of the Infinite and Omnipotent Intelligent Being who in the same moment formed his Body and organized it with immediate Organs and Instruments of Life and Sense and created his Intellectual Nature and united it to him whereby Man became a living Soul And this as the necessary Evidence of Reason doth first drive us to acknowledge a Being or first Formation of the Humane Nature ex non genitis and secondly to acknowledge that this first Formation of the Nature of Man was not by Chance Casualty or a meer Syntax of Natural Causes but by an Intelligent Efficient so we are upon the very same and a greater Evidence of Reason driven to acknowledge that Intelligent Efficient to be the Great and Wise and Glorious God no other Cause imaginable being par tali negotio And indeed if once we can bring Men but to this one Concession That the original Efficient of the Humane Nature was an Intelligent Being any Man pretending to Reason will with much less difficulty admit that Efficient to be the Almighty God than any other invisible intelligent Efficient which we usually call Angels or Intelligences And the Reasons are these 1. Because though we that are acquainted with the Divine Truths do as really believe that there are Angels as well as Men yet the Natural Evidences of the Existence of Almighty God are far more evident and convincing even upon a Rational and Natural account than that there are Angels for the former being a Truth of the highest moment and importance to be believed by all hath a proportionable weight and clearness of evidence even to Natural Light more and greater than any other Truth And hence among the Jews the Sect of the Sadduces believed the Existence of God yet denied or doubted the Existence of Angels or separated Intelligences 2. Because the very Supposition of an Angelical Nature doth necessarily suppose the Existence of a Supreme Being from whom they derive their Existences 3. Because the great occasion of Infidelity in relation to Existence of Almighty God is that sensual Men are not willing to believe any thing whereby they have not a sufficient Evidence as they think to their Sense The Notion of a Spiritual and Immaterial Being is a thing that they cannot digest because they cannot see or by any Sense perceive it nor easily form to themselves a Notion of it He therefore that can so far master the stubborness of Sense as to believe such a Spriritual Intelligent Being as an Angel hath conquered that difficulty that most incumbers his belief of a God and we that can but suppose or admit the former cannot long doubt of the latter He therefore that can once bring his thoughts to carry the first Origination of Mankind to the efficiency of an Angel must needs in a little time see a greater evidence not only to believe a Supreme Deity but to attribute the Origination of Mankind and of the goodly Frame of the Universe to the Supreme Being as necessarily best fitted with Power Wisdom and Goodness to accomplish so great a Work and that without the help or intervention of Angels or created Intelligences who must needs derive their Being Power and Activity from him There remains two or three Objections against the force of the Consequence of the Existence of Almighty God and his Efficiencies in the production of Mankind in their first Individuals which I shall propound and answer 1. Object What need there be laid so great a stress upon the Primitive Formation of Man as that it could not be done but by the Power and Wisdom of an Almighty Intelligent Being since every day's experience lets us see that by the mixture and coition of Man and Woman Et ex semine ab utroque deciso in utèro muliebri per spatium decem mensium ad plurimum producitur hujusmodi natura humana quem tot elogiis magnificamus that which we every day see to be an effect of finite Creatures in the daily production of Individuals of Humane Nature Why must we needs call in no less than the Wisdom and Power of God himself to be the immediate Efficient of the first Formation of the Individuals of that nature which we see every day produced by the common efficacy of Nature and efficiency of the Parents Vel ad minus seminis utriusque sexus in utero foemineo conclusi In Answer hereunto I shall not at this time or in this place enter into the dispute how far the Divine Efficiency concurrs immediately in the ordinary Generation of Mankind nor how far the entire Humane Nature as well his Rational Soul as his