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
and therefore not avoidable disasters And yet what proposition in Euclid more pregnant with conviction then this that 't is the absurdest folly in the world to greive for losses and misfortunes in that nothing can be more evidently irrational then by labouring in matters gone and irrecoverable to double our miseries to no purpose And what Councel can be more unquestionably rational then the Advice of the Son of Syrach about Mourning for Deceased Freinds Take no greif to heart for there is no turning again thou shalt not do him good but hurt thy self Eccles. 38. 17. And yet all men are so foolishly inconsiderate as upon such contingencies to afflict themselves with a greif equally fruitless and troublesome What Vice assaults us with more peremptory and importunate Temptations then Intemperance yet any man that will be but at the pains of a Thought to represent to himself its unpleasant and direful consequences cannot but confess that its invitations are so far from being irresistible that no man can comply with them without the imputation of the most apparent Madness and Folly For who but Mad-men can be enamour'd of Gouts Dropsies Catarrhs Consumptions broken Sleeps restless Nights loathing Stomacks and every thing that is destructive of health or life And that these uneasie Symptomes are the natural Appendages of Intemperance both Philosophy and Experience assure us Whereas Temperance is a healthful and delicious Vertue moderate diet creates no indisposition either to the Body or the Mind the Temperate man rises from the Table light and chearful and truly relishes the pleasures that the Epicure designs But Luxury as it adds nothing to the pleasures of Temperance so it both afflicts us with a present dulness by loading the Brain with crudities and lays up materials for future diseases by loading the blood with raw and indigested humours Though I am not so Stoically vaine as to vye Power and Majesty with Kings and Emperours yet sure am I that all the sumptuous Entertainments of Pallaces afford not such exquisite dainties as are serv'd up by Temperance Constant satiety makes us loath the most refined delicates whilst hunger prepares such sawces as Apicius with all his witty Gluttony could never tast of and therefore Epicurus that great Exemplar of a Philosophick Temperance was wont to say that give him but Hunger Pulse and Water and he would vye delicates with Iove himself Now certainly if men would but represent to themselves the troublesome Appendages of intemperate eating and drinking no morsel could appear so delicious or wine so pleasant which they could not with much less trouble forbear then suffer all the uneasie symptoms of a tired and overloaded Appetite And although this is obvious from every days experience to every mans observation yet how few are they that can stint their Appetites at the necessities of Nature though they are certain that all they devour beyond the satisfaction thereof ends in surfet and oppression only because most men are so bruitishly sottish as to sacrifice all the contents of their lives to a moments tickling of their Palates and like Beasts grow wild and impatient to enjoy a trifling pleasure which they know will expire in loathing and restlesness The Mass and Community of Mankind is but an Aggregate of Individual men of whom the common and mechanical sort of people a word of a vast extent are incomparably the greater number who yet are utterly senseless and inconsiderate and suffer themselves to be disposed of purely by chance and accidental Principles and are so prodigiously regardless that they will not put themselves to the trouble of thinking whether the usages Custome has taught them are wise and rational And hence it is that they are always floating between contrary Vices and are not a less contradiction to themselves then to Vertue one while they are base and servile another proud and insolent now stubborn and refractory anon inconstant and changeable envious and malicious yet sordid and senseless to honour credulous and talkative yet morose and sullen ignorant and stupid yet censorious and scornful Idolaters of custome yet Seditious and desirous of novelties and hence as they chance to be swayed by custome or any accidental emergencies they rowl to any extream without setting bounds to their unruly progress and if they be suffered to run without restraint they will break down all the banks of Law Government and therefore t is the main wisdom and policy of Governors who are deputed by Divine Providence to understand and consider for them to check the violence of the Tide by swaying them backwards by contrary laws to keep them fluctuating between both Extreams so by alternate Fluxes Refluxes to preserve the Common-wealth from popular Inundations Thus they must be kept from sinking into too much ignorance or rising to too much knowledge in matters of for the former renders them salvage which is apparently destructive to Government the latter makes them proud conceited and zealous that breeds contempt of Governours and sets them upon headless plots and designs of Reformation that usually proceed to Rebellion and end in a deluge of civil Wars as the experience of all ages sufficiently attests and our own too sadly demonstrates But the Reason of all this and much more is because they are unreasonably wilful and inconsiderate for nothing but inadvertency distinguishes them from the wise and understanding part of mankind To conclude therefore if a sottish and regardless stupidity be the proper cause of every single obliquity of which every man will be satisfied that shall consider of every actions particular circumstances 't is evident by a very easie Inference that all the wickedness in the world must be its effect For the cause of every Individual and the whole species is the same and therefore if every particular sin be the effect of Inadvertency all sin must be its issue Of which the wisest and most experienced of men was long since eminently sensible whence it was that he has so earnestly recommended to mankind consideration and advertency for the wisdom he parabolically represents in his Book of Proverbs imports nothing but consideration discretion and weighing of things in opposition to that folly and stupidity which betrays men to those immoralities from which he there so assiduously dehorts the sons of men And that this is the only true and genuine sense of that Book any one that shall but read it over with a mind clear of those rash and unwarrantable glosses Commentators have fastned upon it will easily acknowledge both by the Tenour of the discourse and by the original signification of those terms by which he expresses the wisdom there Celebrated and cheifly by those peculiar Properties he attributes to it many whereof can very hardly be applied to any thing else And now if folly and inconsiderateness be the Origine of the general and unanimous Apostacy of mankind then judge whether their crime be not of all others not excepting even
Divine Power But 't is a certain and undoubted truth that every Superiour Authority has Power to Revoke all the free Issues of its own Power unless it have abridg'd it selfe from the Exercise thereof by some special compact or promise For compact and promise lay an obligation upon him that makes it and vests a Right in the Person to whom 't is made and therefore where Benefits are bestowed without these Instruments of conveighing Right there the Donor has the same Right to withdraw as he had to give them and therefore that God who has given us our Beings has full Power arbitrariously to destroy them But here it will be Objected that destroying the life of a guiltless person is justly accounted the most salvage and unmerciful piece of Injustice in the World that 't is almost the only Instance which carries in it an undeniable Iniquity antecedent to all Humane Lawes and Sanctions So that when Mr. Hobs asserts that in the State of Nature there could be no Injuries and Violences Acted amongst Men because they could not have a Right of Propriety in any thing before they had by mutual Compacts apportion'd each mans share if he had limited his assertion to possessions of Lands and all other Proprieties Forreigne to a mans own person it had been equally true and blamelesse for Nature doth not assign this Moiety to Tuius and that to Caius but leaves us to share the Earth among our selves and to Enclose what she had left in Common into particular proprieties as we shall agree among our selves But when he extends the forementioned assertion to the persons of Men his Errour is as palpable as 't is mischeivous because every man has a right and propriety in himselfe Antecedently to all Law and Compact There needs no Covenant to appoint that I shall have a propriety in my own person nay 't is as impossible it should be otherwise as that I should alienate my self from my selfe and all the grants of all the men in the world cannot Vest me in a greater propriety to my selfe then Nature has because they cannot make me to be more my selfe then I already am so that though I were in Mr. Hobs's Natural State of Warre if he or any other man should take away my life without just cause he would do me at least as evident an Injury as if he should now either by Fraud or Violence thrust me from mine Inheritance to which I have an unquestionable Right both by his own consent and the Laws of that Civil Society of which we are Members because he will Rob me of that in which I have as clear a Right and Propriety as 't is possible for me to have in any thing that depends upon Pact or Covenant Well then it being thus Evident that to take away the Life of an Innocent person is among men a most Enormous and Inhumane piece of Injustice and that antecedently to all positive Sanctions and Contracts why should it not be so in reference to God the Rules of Equity being the same to all Eternal Unalterable and abstract from all Persons States and Relations To which I answer that notwithstanding there are the same general Rules and Principles of Justice in reference to God as to Men that yet the particular Instances are not the same because Gods Relation to the Creatures being infinitely different from that which they bear to each other the particular Actions and Displays of his Justice though measured by the same Rule must needs be of a widely different Nature not because the Measure is changeable but because the relation of the Persons suffers variety and alteration For God being the Supream Sovereign and Cause of all has upon that Account power to deprive any or all of his Creatures of what Perfections and Endowments he pleases whereas the Creatures not having any natural Dominion over one another they cannot take away from their fellow creatures any thing which God has given them without manifest Robbery unless in such cases where the Supream Lord has been pleased to communicate any part of his Power and Dominion And so in humane Societies though there are the same Lawes of Justice in reference to all men yet there are not alwayes the same Instances for though it be granted that every man has by right of Nature a power of punishing any one that injures him yet having entered into Societies either by Gods Institution or their own consent or both the exercise of this power is devolved upon some peculiar persons whom we call Magistrates in whose hands every man has for the common good deposited his Authoritative Rights it s upon that account just and lawful for the Magistrate to punish and take away Delinquents but unjust for the private person to do the same for that were to Usurp that Authority which I have granted away to them unless in cases of necessity as when I am assaulted by another and have no other way to preserve my own Life then by destroying my Assailants there the Common-wealth is presumed to allow me to exercise my natural right my self but where no such necessity urges there the Governours of the Society in which I am and to whom I have passed away the Exercises of my Original Right are to Execute Justice for me so that private persons not having power to punish Criminals as Magistrates have that action would be judged Murder in those which is accounted Justice in these notwithstanding that they are both subject to the same common Rules and Maximes of Equity Duo cum idem faciunt saepe ut possis dicere Hoc licet impune facere huic illi non licet Non quod dissimilis res est sed is qui facit And thus there being so manifest a disproportion between God and Men in reference to their propriety in and dominion over the life of man God may have a right to act that which no Creature can do without the grossest and most exorbitant Injustice for seeing that propriety which every Man has in himself is held from the free gift of our Supream Lord and that not confined by any Promise or Covenant he may cancel and reverse it when he pleases only by taking back what he has given And if we could stand in the same relation to or dependance on any creature as we do to Him that creature would have as great a right to devest us of the propriety we have in our own Essences as God himself has but because the former can never be supposed that 's the reason the latter can never happen 2. This Power and Dominion which God has over an Innocent persons life and all its appendant priviledges may be exercised by occasion of another mans sin for what God has a power to do absolutely he may certainly do upon any occasion for this is only to make use of the Instances of his Dominion to serve other designs of his Providence Thus God threatens to Visit the
and Almighty Sovereign so that the Scripture represents God under no other notion then as the Supream Lord and Sovereign of the Universe and therefore we must be wary of attributing any thing to him that either lessens or quite destroys the freedom and uncontroulableness of his Dominion and may withal conclude that no property which complies not with it can be attributed to him and consequently that that 's a false notion of his goodness that interferes with his Dominion And therefore they that assert Gods goodness to be a necessary Agent that cannot but do that which is best and so make all the Divine actions the necessary results of his goodness directly supplant and destroy all the rights of his Power and Dominion For if all the effects of Gods power be the natural Emanations of his goodness and depend not upon the free determinations of his will it will follow that God can have no liberty or dominion in relation to them because necessity is altogether inconsistent with the liberty or freedom of Sovereign power Sovereignty bottoming upon a liberty and freedom of acting For how can he that has no Power and Dominion over his own Actions have power over any one else for in that there can be no power without a liberty to use and exercise it nor any exercise of power but by acting it necessarily follows that that Agent that has no liberty or freedom of acting is utterly uncapable of any Power or Dominion And therefore if all Gods actions were the necessary Emanations of his goodness it must necessarily destroy all the rights and liberties of his Sovereignty and Dominion The Platonists assert that Gods infinite goodness necessitates him to do always that which is best 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Timaeo sayes Plato and therefore that all the Divine works were produced by an irresistible necessity and that he had no more power not to do what he has done then the Sun has to withhold his influences or an overflowing fountain to keep back its streams And upon this foundation they erect any Hypotheses that sute with their own fancies but cheifly that of the Pre-existence of Souls Because say they 't is better they should Pre-exist and therefore Divine goodness which does always that which is best must of necessity have given them a better and happier state of life and self-enjoyment before they descended into these bodies But these mens minds are so excessively possessed with thoughts of Gods goodness as to neglect all his other Attributes advancing it to such an exorbitant Preheminence as to make it not onely Usurp upon and invade the Rights and Priviledges of other Attributes but also to banish all other Perfections from the Divine nature and engross the Deity wholly to it self For this notion of Gods goodness is most apparently inconsistent not only with his Power and Dominion but with all his other moral Perfections But in order to a further satisfaction herein I shall give you a breif account of the Divine goodness and shew it to be not a necessary but a free and self-moving Agent The Divine goodness then is of three sorts either as 't is taken for the perfection of his nature or for the sanctity and holiness of his mind or for the free bounty and beneficence of his will Though the two latter are properly but branches of the former Justice and Beneficence being absolutely necessary to the Infinite perfection of the Divine nature The first sort I shall omit to discourse of as being impertinent to our present purpose and onely account for the two last and first of the former Gods Sanctity or Holiness is that natural or essential Goodness whereby he cannot but act suitably to the excellence and dignity of his Rational nature For the dignity of the Divine nature consisting in Reason and Wisdom this is prefered the measure and rule of his Actions and therefore 't is nothing else but that natural Justice Equity and Rectitude which is the measure of all Gods transactions with his Creatures and consists in doing every thing that right Reason requires and not doing any thing that it forbids Now the Relation this Goodness has to the Divine Dominion is to bound and regulate it in the exercise of its Rights and Liberties because God has power to do any thing not inconsistent with it so that the true way to find out how far the Divine Prerogative extends is to discover what is repugnant to the Nature of goodness and equity for every thing beside is subject to the free disposal of the Divine Will Thus God cannot delight in the eternal miseries and calamities of Innocent Creatures he cannot secretly resolve and take care that his creatures shall act those Impieties which himself openly hates forbids and threatens he cannot lay upon us Impossible Commandements he cannot violate his Faith and not perform his Promises Oaths and Covenants because they are all of them essentially evil and contrary to the Natural and Eternal Laws of Equity and Right Reason But Goodness as its Equivalent with Benignity Bounty or Benificence is a free constant and habitual propension of will to do Good And being seated in the Divine Will as one of its main Properties it must not be supposed to destroy the freedome of its Nature but rather to participate of it For the Divine will is endued with the highest kind of Libertie as it imports a freedome not only from Forreign Violence but also from inward necessity For spontaneity or immunity from coaction without indifferency carrys in it as great necessity as those motions that proceed from violence or mechanism and a Beast that of its own accord goes to Pasture would have as much Freedom as God has if his actions were only spontaneous and proceeded not from a choosing and self-determining Principle And therefore when I assert the Divine will to be Free I mean that it is a Rational and Active Facultie that has Power and Dominion over its own actions and that can be determined only by its own intrinsick energie in so much that all the external incentives requisite to its acting being supposed it yet remains so indifferent and undetermined in it self as that it is able either to exert or suspend its action For unless the divine will enjoy this kind of freedom it had as good have none at all all other sorts of Libertie being fettered and determined by fatal Necessities And the Fatalist do but loose their Labour when they endeavour to invent ways of reconciling Liberty with Necessity unless they can also make Indifferency consistent with it because all necessity of what nature soever implies a detemin'd and unavoidable Fatalitie which apparently destroys all the foundations of Religion and Moralitie For necessity is not inconsistent with moral Goodness because 't is of this or that sort but simply because 't is necessity for the only cause why a necessary Agent is not capable of Moralitie is because 't is not able
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
by confounding the phautasms that lodge therein disturb all its conceptions and operations then does it concern the Soul to abate and cool this unruly heat which is effected by restraining the violence of the Torrent which is effected by its influence upon those Nerves that are the passage and high way from the Brain to the Heart And therefore the Providence of nature has made a peculiar passage for commerce between the Head and the Heart in Man where it has made none in Beasts viz. whereas the Praecordia of Beasts are furnished with nervous branches only from the Par vagum to supply the vital functions with spirits in man there are peculiar large branches derived from the Intercostal Nerve into the same region only for a way of commerce between the Brain and the Heart and passage of the Animal spirits from the one to the other as need shall require In so much that we may define Prudence and Virtue to be nothing else but a due commerce between the Brain the Heart which Plotinus only expresses more abstractedly when he describes it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which the fore-cited machless Author supplys us with a clear Example viz. that dissecting a Changeling or Natural Fool the chief defect he could discover in him was that this Plexus of the Intercostal Nerve which is proper to the body of Man and is the way of commerce for the Animal spirits between the Heart and the Brain was exceeding small and its branches very thin By reason whereof his Soul could have but very little command over his Passions and Appeties in the impotency and irregularity whereof consists the nature of Folly The result of all is this that mankind is compounded of contrary Principles endued with contrary desires and inclinations to the end that there might be an order of Beings in the world without which there would perhaps have been one Species wanting to compleat the Universe capable of all those Heroick Vertues which consist in the Empire of Reason over the brutish and sensual Faculties As also that by the right use and emprovement of our superiour Powers we might be raised to greater Capacities and qualified for higher and more divine Accomplishments So that man seems to differ from the Angels only in this that he must by conquest and industry win the happiness which is entail'd on their Natures for when we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our dispositions we shall be made so too in our enjoyments the Divine Goodness having graciously appointed that when the Soul is so far advanced in Vertue as to live above the reach of all its Passions and Desires that then it shall be translated into a more free and disintangled state where it shall be neither enticed nor vex'd with the importunity of these lower and bruitish Appetites but shall enjoy the Serenity and Pleasures of a pure and intellectual Being as the Reward of its former Pains and Industry As on the contrary when any man suffers his Passions and Brutish Appetites to beat Reason out of its Throne and to run headlong into an ungovernable Anarchy he degenerates from humanity grows incorrigible in sin and sinks so deep into the Animal life as to be made uncapable of acting Vertuously and suitably to the ends of his Being and thence is congruously doom'd to the Portion of degenerate and apostate Spirits as being fit for nothing else So that the whole designe of Providence in sending us into this world is only that we may in a way congruous to rational Agents prepare our selves for another and therefore the Souls of men shall at their departure hence be stated in a condition proportion'd to their good or bad Qualifications I am apt to be positive and dogmatical in this Hypothesis not so much because it gives a rational and satisfactory account of Gods sending pure and innocent Souls into Bodies full of brutish and irregular Inclinations as because it exactly agrees with the Condition of our Natures with the natural tendency of Vertue and Religion and with the whole Oeconomy of Providence in conducting mankind to their future happiness Not to mention its consonancy with Saint Pauls Hypothesis in his Account of the Civil and Intestine War between the law of the Mind and the law of the Members And now having laid my Hypothesis I come to shew 1. that mankind is endued with such faculties by the use whereof he may attain to the highest degrees of Vertue and Happiness 2 that we have the greatest endearments and advantages in the world to push us forward to a diligent and vigorous Prosecution thereof And if Vertue and Happiness be in our own power and if we are invited to pursue and endeavour after them by the greatest endearments and perswasions then certainly Providence has placed us in a sufficient capacity of being happy and if it happen that we should at last be abandoned to Misery we must owe it to our own choice and prodigious folly 1. First then Mankind is furnished with such faculties by the use whereof he may arrive at Vertue and Happiness To evidence this I require no other Postulatum then that which is the great foundation of all Religion and Morality viz. that the Mind of man is endued with Reason and Understanding able to discern the essential differences of Good and Evil and with Liberty and Election able to choose and pursue the one and eschew the other This I say is a Postulatum so just and evident as that it cannot be denyed without destroying not onely the Nature of Good and Evil but of Man himself For if in any thing we differ from Brutes 't is in the Reason and Liberty of our minds all our other faculties we have in common with them 't is these alone that are the peculiar Prerogatives of humane Nature and therefore without them we may be Sheep or Oxen but not Men. Separat haec nos A grege mutorum atque ideo venerabile soli Sortiti Ingenium divinorumque capaces Atque exercendis capiendisque Artibus apti Sensum à caelesti demissum traximus Arce However these are the efficient Causes and necessary Foundations of all Morality for no Action can be morally Good or Evil but what we can choose and concerning which we can deliberate because without them all our Actions would be either Casual or Fatal and the meer Issues of Chance or Necessity and by consequence as uncapable of being moral as those motions that result purely from Mechanical Powers as I have already I think demonstrated in what I have discoursed concerning the Freedom of the Divine Goodness And now if the mind of man be a deliberative and elective Principle able to discern between Good and Evil Happiness and Misery and to choose the one and refuse the other then 't is at its own choice and in its own power to be Vertuous and Happy for no body questions but that Goodness and Happiness are much
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