to determine it self to Good or Evil and consequently not capable of being directed and governed by Laws Rewards and Punishments For what other reason can there be imagined why any Agent is incapable of being thus governed then that it has no power and command over its own Actions the Office of Laws being to enjoyn them to whom they are prescribed that they determine themselves to act according to their Prescriptions But to require this of a principle void of any such power of self-determination is as absurd as to require it of Stones Trees because the absurdity of both consists in requiring obedience where there is no principle or capacity able to render it And therefore unless they can reconcile necessity indifferency so as that the same Principle shall be necessarily determin'd to one extream and yet remain so indifferent as to be able if iâ— please to determine it self to the other it will be altogether fruitless to make other sorts of liberty not inconsistent with necessity But this they can never do unless they can bring the extreams of a contradiction together and make it all one to be determined and undetermined in reference to the same Action Thus for Instance that Principle that is endued with no other Liberty then what consists in meer spontaneity and immunity from violence is without indifferency and a power of self-determination at as great a distance from moral Good or Evill as it would be if it were acted meerly by external force and violence because the reason why that which is moved only by force is not a principle capable of morality is because it has no power at all over its own motion and so is moved with a fatal and unalterable necessity but a spontaneus or unforced Action if it proceed not from an indifferent but necessary Agent is as fatal and as necessary as if it were forced and as little subject to the determination of the Principle from whence it flows as it would though it proceeded from a forreigne and violent one and by consequence is equally incapable of morality And so that principle which is not only at liberty from Co-action but is also endued with Reason and Understanding is without indifferency and a power of self-determination not less uncapable of moral Good and Evil then that which is quite devoid of Rational faculties because 't is acted by an equal necessity For if the Judgement and definitive sentence of the understanding be natural and necessary as it not only is but is also unanimously acknowledged to be and if the wills following this Judgement be as natural and as necessary as its self then 't is as extravagant to command the will not to embrace the object commended to it by the understanding as 't is to command the understanding to judge otherwise of it then it does which is the same absurdity as to command the eye to see an object after another manner then it s represented to it because they are both determined by an equal necessity From all which it follows by all the Laws of Inference that if Gods goodness should take away the Indifferency of his will it would certainly destroy not only his Freedome but all his moral Perfections and Accomplishments which is my first Argument 2. If the Divine goodness or Benificence were a necessary Agent it would not only destroy the nature of the subject in which it resides but also what is more absurd it s own for 't is absolutely necessary to the nature of Beneficence and Goodness that it proceed from a free and elective principle No courtesie can oblige but what is free and chosen and the obligation of benefits is only then acknowledg'd when they are received from one that had a power not to bestow them for otherwise they are owing not to his favour and good-will but to chance or necessity We make no returns of gratitude to the Sun for his kind visits and benigne Influences because his emanations flow from a bare necessity of Nature And Ioshuah thank'd him not for standing still at his request and interest I should think it a strange Solecisme in Courtship if any one should make me retributions for a favour that proceeded only from some necessity of nature not from choise of will Because the reason of the obligingness of benefits is that they argue Benevolence and good Intentions in the donor towards the person on whom he bestows them but when they are the Issues of a necessary and unelective cause they flow not from Good-will and argue no benevolence in their Principle but are the pure Results of Nature And therefore if all the Communications of Gods goodness be necessary they may argue the fulness of his nature but cannot the goodness of his will because that is founded upon choice and freedome I have in my former reason endeavoured to evince that a necessity of acting of what sort soever is not capable of moral Good or Evil because 't is inconsistent with a Dominion over ones own actions in which all morality is founded for an Agent that has no power and command over its own Actions and that acts because it must whatsoever excellent and commendable effects it may produce is as uncapable of morality as those senseless Machins that move by the Laws of matter and motion because it produces its effects after the same manner as mechanical causes do namely by a necessity of nature And if any artificial Automata were endued with deliberative elective and self-moving Principles so as to have power over their own motions they would in degrees of proportion be capable of doing well or ill but because they have no elective and self-moving power that 's the Reason why their motions are uncapable of being good or evil and consequently all causes whose effects result from the same necessity of Nature and that have no power to restrain their emanations are as uncapable of morality as these liveless Engines because they lye under the same incapacity Now then Beneficence being a moral Excellency it must loose its morality and consequently its nature when 't is natural and necessary and therefore if all the emanations of the Divine Bounty be such it will unavoidably follow that there is no such vertue or Beneficence and Goodness in God so that we may safely conclude that though the Communications of Gods Goodness to his Creatures be exceedingly agreeable to his Nature yet to make them necessary and naturall Results is by denying their being free to deny their being Good 3. God can never act contrary to his necessary and essential properties as because he is essentially wise just holy he can do nothing that is foolish unjust and wicked And therefore if Gods Beneficence and Bounty were so natural as that all its exertions were necessary he could never act otherwise but that he frequently does as is evident in all the Instances of his Anger and Severity which not only Reason but
Task viz. to evince the Groundlesness of this Hypothesis I oppose for if I can shew the Ratiocinations from whence they conclude its Truth and Reality to be apparently vaine and frivolous I shall thereby sufficiently evidence the vanity of the Hypothesis it self as being built upon vain and trifling Pretences But before I descend to their particular Examination it will not be impertinent to observe 1. That it would be no difficult task to erect other much different or quite contrary Hypotheses Methinks that purely Phisical account which Porphiry some where gives of the Souls descent into these Terrestrial Bodies is as neat and handsome as the Origenian or Moral one for as this derives our lapse Originally from our voluntary and chosen Immoralities that other derives them meerly from a Physical necessity which it illustrates by this similitude As a fruitful field though it may for a certain period of years yield good Grain yet at length it is exhausted and grows barren and then if sit be laid fallow though it brings forth nothing but weeds and tares yet it thereby recovers its ancient vigour and fruitfulness so our Souls having been for many ages impregnated with the seed of Divine Ideas by degrees spent themselves in bringing forth large returns of contemplation till at length their Intellectual powers decaying the higher part falls into a swoon and they can exert no acts but of Imagination whence spring forth the powers of the Vegetal life which cause in them strong and irresistible propensities to an union with these inferior and terrestrial Bodies in order to the awaking of the higher Powers for because every thing in the Etherial Regions is too calme and serene to awake them they are therefore conveyed into this place of noises and disturbance and invessel'd in a body full of rude and impetuous passions by which they may be chafed into life and sensation again Or what if I would out of a perverse humour of contradiction assigne a quite contrary Hypothesis of Pre-existence and as they will have this world a place of Punishment and maintain the Soul came into it by lapsing from a happier and more excellent condition so why may not I assert that 't is a place of Reward and that God sends us hither to reward our vertuous actions in a lower and less happy condition of life or that they that had miscarried in a weaker and less advantageous state might once more try their fortunes in better and more advantageous circumstances Which Hypothesis would be as much and perhaps more consistent with it self then the contrary For seeing they will needs have it the design of Providence in thrusting the Soul down into this Region of Misery to amend and reform as well as chastise it it seems much more consonant to effect this by raising it to a more perfect state then dooming it to a worse for 't is a very preposterous way to Reformation to put the soul into such fatal propensities of sinning as they say 't is in here this being the directest course utterly and irrecoverably to undo it And now had I a mind to set up for a Maker of Hypotheses which you see is but an easie trade I might so trim and adorn this with artificial and affected Phrases and so support it with a set of Theorems Pillars and Fundamental Principles as to make it appear a competently handsome and well built Structure And withal I think it would be able to stand the shock of those Objections and Counter-evidences that would shrewdly shake if not utterly demolish the Origenian Hypothesis But if any Origenist shall disapprove my Hypothesis I only challenge him to confute it for I am sure the like arguments will confute his own and therefore to shew him the Vanity of inventing groundless and imaginary Hypotheses I will be so cross-grain'd as not to abandon mine as long as he shall persist peremptory in his 2. The second thing I am to observe is that they which is the usual oversight of unwary disputants dispute not more against their Adversaries then themselves in that the Arguments they use to destroy all other Hypotheses and confirm their own do as evidently oppose it as them For their own account of our descent into this world is that 't is onely a merciful provision and contrivance of the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of God the end of all whose Councils is his Creatures Happinesse to put lost and delinquent Souls into a capacity of acting their parts anew that so so many of his excellent creatures might not be lost and undone irrecoverably but that they might be in a condition to recover the old happiness of their Celestial state Now is it not highly derogatory to the infinite and unbounded Wisdome of God that he should detrude those souls which he so seriously designs to make happy into a state so hazardous wherein he seeth it to be ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt and defile themselves and so make themselves more miserable here and to Eternity hereafter A strange method of Recovery this to put them into such a fatal necessitie of perishing 'T is but an odd contrivance for their Restauration to happiness to use such means to compass it which t is ten thousand to one but will make them infinitely more miserable This is such a contrivance of Mercy that puts us in a worse condition then it abandons the Devils to for if the conditions of our Recovery be so near being impossible our state is as bad as theirs and if the non-performance of these conditions be punisht with greater penalties 't is worse Better be abandon'd to an eternal dispair then have hopes to be rescued onely by such means as 't is ten thousand to one but will exceedingly encrease our Torment and Misery Again If we call to mind the sad accounts we have met withal in History of times and places almost all the world over over-run with all manner of barbarity and lust adopted even into their Laws and practised in their most solemn Religions how can we but think that the Soul then and there born and living is inevitably condemned to all Iniquity and Impiety But can we imagine that infinite Wisdom seriously purposes to restore us to our ancient Holiness and Purity when it places us in such a state in which we are inevitably condemned to all Iniquity and Impiety If God had contrived to betray us into all manner of vice and wickedness how could he more effectually have accomplish't it then by putting us into such a condition as should inevitably condemn us to all Iniquity and Impiety That Father would take a strange course to reform a debauch'd and wretchless Child that should go about to effect it by abandoning him to the Society of Rogues and Villains Pag. 28. For God therefore to send an immortal Soul whose happinesse is his greatest design and contrivance into an habitation in such parts of the Earth where
AN ACCOUNT OF THE NATURE and EXTENT OF THE DIVINE DOMINION GOODNESSE Especially as they refer to the ORIGENIAN HYPOTHESIS Concerning the Preexistence of Souls TOGETHER With a special Account of the vanity and groundlesness of the Hypothesis it self Being a second Letter Written to his much Honoured Friend and Kinsman Mr. Nath. Bisbie By SAM PARKER A. M. C. T. And Fellow of the Royal Society OXFORD Printed by W. Hall for R. Davis 1666. Imprimatur ROBERTUS SAY VICE-CANCELLARIUS OXON SIR I Have now satisfied and perhaps surpriz'd you too for I question not but these Papers will more prevent then answer your expectations For when you remitted me to my own leasure to satisfie your demands the true import of a Friends desires I am confident you believed I would as well use as acknowledge your Favour and I really thought my next to you should have been a Letter of thanks for your forbearance and not a final discharge of my Obligations But being shortly to bid adieu to my Retirements here and fearing I shall no where else enjoy so much Privacie and Leasure I could not satisfie my self till I had gratified your expectations and put my selfe past all hazard of disobeying your Commands For methinks Sir nothing concerns me so much as those designes that aspire to serve my dearest But my Business is not to complement and I foresee how exceedingly I shall be straightned in time and therefore I must without the Ceremony of any farther Preface immediately apply my self to the serious discharge of my Taske which I shall following the method your injunctions have prescribed me perform in three parts 1. By giving you an account of the true Nature and Extent of Gods Dominion 2. By laying down a right Notion of his Goodness 3. By proving the Groundlesness and Vanity of the Origenian Hypothesis concerning the Preexistence of Souls Of each in their order OF THE NATURE and EXTENT OF Gods Dominion BY Gods Dominion I mean that Sovereigne Right and Authority residing in Him in reference to his Creatures or that Power and Prerogative which he has to dispose of them according to his own good-will and pleasure and this is indifferently expressed by these three terms of Ius Potestas and Dominium The minute and precise differences whereof seems to lye herein that Ius nakedly signifies a right or freedom to act whereas the two latter imply together with this a power or strength of acting And then that Power which God hath in himself antecedently to the Existence of any Created Being is in rigidness and propriety of speech call'd Potestas but that which he has and exercises since the Creation Dominium But not to insist upon such Niceties they all promiscuously import Dominion and Sovereignty Of which many definitions have been attempted but none of them seem to me more accurate and comprehensive then Mr. Hobs's when he defines it to be Libertas propriis facultatibus secundum rectam rationem utendi Though what Exercises of Power are consistent with right Reason and what not I shall discourse anon But if you fancy short definitions 't is the lawful use of Power and so implies two things first it supposes a power or strength to Act and then it imports the legitimate extent and use of it Now as for the Extent of this Power 't is Infinite and Unconfined as well as all the rest of the Divine Perfections and therefore it warrants God to do any thing that will comply with the Reputation of his other Attributes Whence 't is that the Beings and Subsistencies of all things are entirely at his disposal It was at his choice whether he would ever or never create any thing and it is still in his Power either to continue the frame of things in the same state they are in or to erect a new one and that better or worse then the present and any thing else that is not inconsistent with the perfection of his Nature and Attributes But for a fuller Evidence hereof it is necessary to observe that there is a twofold acceptation of Right either more loose when it signifies a License Freedom to do any thing or more restrained when it signifies an Obligation to do any thing The difference between them is this that the former signifies Liberty and the latter Duty that is extended to any thing that is not unlawful this only extends to things due and requir'd by Justice and Equity For instance there is a Right to demand Debts and a Right to pay them the former may be done because no equity forbids it but the latter must be done because Justice requires it Upon this account to give you this Notion by the way every man is bound to make good his Promises though not his Threatnings and Punishments because promises make us Debtors but in reference to threatned Penalties we are Creditors for the Offendor owes the punishment to the person Offended But though every man be bound to pay his Debts yet he is not bound to demand them for he has a Right to Relax as well as Challenge his due The Rewards therefore consequent upon promises being Debts due from me I am bound by the first sort of Right to pay them but the Penalties consequent upon Threatnings being Debts owing to me I am permitted by the second sort of Right either to demand or remit them And thus there is a twofold Right in God the one whereof referres to his Sovereignty which is nothing but an absolute Liberty to act or not to act as Himself shall see cause the other to his Justice and Holiness whereby God is obliged to act suitably to the Essential Rules of Justice and Equity For the Divine Justice is exercised only about things Good and Just but his Dominion about all things that are not Evil or Unjust things therefore being the Objects of Gods Dominion not because they are Just but because they are not Unjust it is extended to every thing that is not contrary to Justice i. e. to every thing that is not Evil. But I shall wave all general considerations and onely consider the Extent of the Divine Prerogative in reference to Mankind not onely because 't is most pertinent to our present designe but also because what I shall discourse concerning the Extent and Latitude of Gods Power over Men may by Analogy of Reason be applied to all other Creatures endued with Sense and Perception Now in Treating of this matter proposed I shall onely consider 1. What God can do 2. What he can not do 1. First Then God has Power to take back from us all or part of what he has given us i. e. He can either utterly destroy our Beings or take from us so many Comforts of life and inflict upon us so many Calamities as shall leave us in a condition only preferable to that of Non-Existence for all that we have to render our conditions more valuable then not Being is the free Product of the
Scripture opposes to Benignity Rom. 11. 22. Behold therefore the Goodness and Severity of God on them which fell severity but towards thee Goodness And Rom. 9. 13. Iocob have I loved but Esau have I hated The reason whereof is v. 15. Because I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion The sole cause then why God shewed greater bounty to Iacob then to Esau was a free determination of his own will without the intervention of any extrinsique motive to incline it For v. 11. the Children were yet unborn and had done neither good nor evil that the purpose of God according to Election or choice might stand The Argument suggested by the Apostles Discourse beside his express resolving Gods Beneficence into his free-will is this that if the flowings forth of Gods Goodness were necessary then Esau must have been blest with as great expressions of favour as Iacob because there could be no cause that could make a difference Not Gods Goodness for its exertions being necessary it would stream forth equally into equal Capacities and therefore if they were equally capable the emanations of the divine Goodness must have been equal so that there was nothing could put a difference unless the Persons themselves but the difference was made before they could make it viz. before they were born or had done any good or evil but were in all respects equal The Spirit of God has recorded in Scripture almost as many instances of his severity as of his clemency because the exercise of these contrary vertues depends on his free will which being indifferent to either sometimes displays the one and sometimes the other whereas those attributes that are Physical and Necessary are determin'd one way antecedently to the determinations of his Will From all which premises we see 1. that Gods benignity goodness and beneficence consist in a gracious Propensity to let forth the Communications of his fulness to his Creatures which being lodged in the Divine will does not only suppose its freedom but is also subject to its determinations so that though it may incline yet it cannot either command or destroy its liberty because if it should it would not only interfere with Gods moral accomplishmets but would withal be inconsistent with it selfe And therefore it rather approaches to the nature of a habit seated in the Divine will then to the condition of an Essential faculty whence a habit and custome of goodness and clemency are frequently attributed to God in Scripture but only acts and single instances of severity for though contrary habits cannot lodge together in the same faculty yet single actions of the one may sometimes issue from that Power in which its contrary is entertained and therefore though the expressions of Gods bounty be his usual and constant work yet he sometimes le ts forth the eruptions of anger and severity though with some unwillingness and reluctancy for Lament 3. 33. He does not willingly or from his heart afflict the children of men and therefore the holy Ghost Esa. 21. 21. stiles it his strange work as if by reason of its seldom exercise he were unacquainted with it so that though Gods inclinations to acts of Beneficence and Goodness be vastly great and vigorous yet they are free and depending upon the determinations of his will and are upon this score consistent with Gods dealing sometime with us by more severe and rigorous measures which God is pleased at certain seasons to dispense according to the unsearchable Counsels of his own will 2. That the Communications of Gods goodness consist in the use and exercise of his Dominion for the good and benefit of his Creatures for they being all originally nothing all the advantages they enjoy to render their condition more desirable then Non-existence are the free gifts and effects of Divine goodness which being free and unconstrained has distributed its favours with an infinite variety having made innumerable kinds of Beings and endued them all with perceptive faculties and capacities proportion'd to their respective natures and provided suitable objects in order to their gratification so that although he has according to the free pleasure of his own will created some in a more imperfect state then others yet he has provided liberally for the happinesse of them all having furnished each order with objects agreeable to their respective faculties in the perception and enjoyment of which consists all pleasure and satisfaction Now if we will measure how large and ample the communications of Divine goodness are they are as vast as free Psal. 145. 9. The Lord is good to all and his tender Mercies are over all his Workes Psal. 38. 5 6. Thy goodness O Lord reacheth to the Heavens and thy faithfulness to the clouds Thy Righteousness is like the great Mountains thy Iudgments or works of Providence are a great deep thou preservest man and beast c. i.e. Gods goodness is of equal extent with his works as vast and wide as the Universe running through all parts of the Creation But to speak only of that goodness which concerns our selves how free and unstreitned have been the expressions of Gods bounty to mankind Not to mention the pleasures and enjoyments of life it self in which the Divine munificence has made provision not only for our necessity but for our delight and curiosity too nor the great variety of perceptive faculties he has endued us with nor the innumerable instancies of his Mercy Clemency Patience Long-suffering towards the sons of men his slowness and unwillingness to punish and his readiness to pardon our Impieties nor his demanding only such homage and service from us as cannot be more our duty then t is our happiness with infinite more inestimable vouchsafements and expressions of his tenderness and good inclinations towards mankind I will only instance in his rewarding that obedience that is our debt with such great and inestimable blessings viz. not only earthly and secular but spiritual and eternal pleasures He might have sent us into the world to act our parts a while and have endear'd our duty to us only by its own appendant delights and then have remanded us back into our pre-existent state of not being But that he should recompence the bare discharge of our duties with the rewards of Heaven and Eternity is such a stupendious height of goodnesse as not only puzzles conceit but outreaches wonder and admiration And yet that which enhances the value of the Reward is not more its greatnesse then its freenesse though some are so arrogant as to challenge a natural and necessary right in it Arrogant I say because if it were our due we must derive it not from Gods goodness but from our own desert for nothing beside Gods goodness can create us a right to future happiness but our own Merits which from a Creature to its Maker implies the greatest contradiction And if in any respect Heaven be
more eligible then Vice and Misery and therefore if men are able to discern and choose that which is best their Happiness and Misery depend upon their own wills and their Portion whether good or bad is the result of their own choice and certainly they that can be vertuous and happy if they will are in a fair capacity of being so From hence it follows that the mind and rational part of man is Superior and Predominant not only endued with Power but also invested with Authority to Govern the inferiour and brutish part which is of a slavish and servile nature and made to obey Reason is uppermost and has the bridle in its own hands and is strong enough to manage the wildest and most untractable Passions There 's no appetite within us uncontroulable no inclinations so strong and fatal which reason cannot master natural Propensities can only tempt but not command our Souls they may encline but cannot force them and our minds are never vanquished but when they betray themselves Briefly none of the charms of Concupiscence are so powerful and irresistible but that Wisdom and Discretion can easily dissolve and disenchant them The Truth and Reality whereof I thus Argue Either the rational Part of man is able to command the lower Appetites or 't is not if it is then is he sufficiently able to live well and happily because Vertue and Happiness are obtain'd by living up to Reason and being conducted by its Laws and measures and therefore if our superiour Powers are able to give check and controule to our brutish Lusts and Passions 't is in our own Power to attain to vertue happiness But if the Superior part be not strong enough to Govern the Inferiour it destroys the very Being and Existence of Good and Evil and renders mankind utterly uncapable of Goodnesse and Morality For 1. our Irrational faculties are unanimously acknowledged to be uncapable of Moral goodness because they are acted purely by a necessity of Nature and their Exertions like the Appetites of Brutes and the Motions of Artificial Engines result meerly from the Mechanical Powers of Matter And hence 't is that our Imperate Actions i.e. those that do not issue immediately from the Will it self but are exerted at its command by some of the inferiour faculties that owe it subjection are devoid of all moral Capacities as considered abstractedly in themselves or as proceeding from their immediate Cause and without respect to the wills Authority because when so considered they are not free and voluntary and therefore their being Morally good or evil is entirely derived from the Will because they act only in obedience to its Commands Nor 2. would our Rational faculties in this case be capable of Morality as being fatally determined by the stronger and irresistible motions of Lust and Passion But the Actions that proceed meerly from force and forreign Violence are of all others least capable of being moral because they do not only not issue from a free and self-determining Principle which is the greatest and most necessary foundation of all Morality but also because they are not at all determined from their own Principle but are forced thence barely by the Power of an exterior Agent Besides this the moral Goodness our Superior faculties are capable of would consist in their Commanding and Governing the Inferiour but if they are not able to master and rule them they cannot be supposed to be enjoyn'd to governe them because nothing can be obliged to impossibilities and therefore if our Superior Powers are commanded to govern the Inferiour they must have strength enough to do it Wherefore howsoever fatal and boisterous our Bruitist propensions are if there be any such thing as Religion and Moral goodness in the world they must be subject to the command and discipline of our Superior and Governing faculties From all which 't is evident by a plain and undeniable deduction that mankind notwithstanding the force of their brutish Inclinations is placed in a fair capacity of living well happily which utterly destroys all the forementioned Arguments alleadged from this Phaenomenon of Providence on the behalf of Preexistence As for the other part of their Argument taken from the customary Vices and Impieties of the World viz. seeing that Custome and Education have a great influence upon the manners of men to make them good or bad as also that the greatest part of the world has been always over-run with all manner of lust and barbarity for God to send an Immaculate Soul into an habitation into such parts of the Earth where reigns nothing but Vice and Wickedness by which she cannot fail without a Miracle to be over-born is to betray his own ofspring unto unavoidable Misery 'T is an objection sets too mean a value upon humane Nature and supposes mankind no better then Mushrooms as if all men were but so many Engines moved by the wheels of Custome and had not faculties within them able to discern of the good and evil of Customes as well as of other things I confess custome has acquired great Power and Authority over the life of Man because the lives of most men are disposed of by chance and casual Principles they pursue those things with which custome presents their Fancies without ever deliberating of their Goodness and Decency You know who has Pictured mankind comming into the World upon Hobby-horses and truly Sir the Emblem would perhaps have been as true if he had represented most of them going out so Seneca long since complain'd that the World was not govern'd so much by Reason as by Custome Men accounting that most Honest which is most in Practise and Error when it becomes Publick becomes Truth Custome is almost every where so confident as to out-face Reason and charge it of singularity as indeed the Wisest men are the greatest Rebels to her Usurped Empire whilst she rides upon the shoulders of the People who are almost universally not only her Slaves but her Idolaters For the rude and vulgar sort of people every where judge of things barely by their conformity to the Modes and Fashions of their own Country and esteem all forreign Customes and Usages inept and barbarous purely for their disagreement with their own Domestick manners and therefore I account the Boors of Attica and the common people of Greece in its most refined age not less barbarous then the wild and unpolish'd Scythian because they were equally Idiotical and lived by no other Rule then Prescription preferring the Customes of Greece as the Standard of Decency and judging of the goodness of things by their Correspondence with the Manners and Fashions of their own Country and condemning all strange and forreign usages of barbarity because they agreed not with the Municipial laws and customes of the Town they lived in But the plain and evident Reason of all this is because the Idiotical sort of Mankind are Fools and live below the dignity of their Natures For certainly