from a general Reason as we are born alike are of the same mould have our Being from and equally bear the Image of the same Father should not our Love be universal And may we stile our selves of Paul or of Apollos and then in assuming the Title cast away our Charity and our Reason too Must we in bandying for our Teraphim so far arm our passions and blind our Charity as to reject and contemn others persons for the sake of their Opinions which they differ from us in Whatsoever our Opinions are Truth is God's peculiar we may seek for it and pray for it but I question much whether we ought to run over and trample down one another in the finding of it We are all very apt to err in the pursuit and as I have once said our Liturgy is well begun in the acknowledgment of our errors so I now think it ends as well in our request That it would please God to grant us in this World some knowledge of his Truth and in the World to come life everlasting His it is and so locked up that I doubt no man yet ever had the certain infallible Keys to open it to others Though Pilate believed not our Saviour to be God yet if he had not known that he was taken and believed on for such I do not think he would ever have put that ironical question to him What is Truth He well knew man was not able to define it nor attain to any certain knowledge of it much less appropriate it to himself St. Paul never told us he himself was the Light or the Truth he rather assures us otherwise and that he was not crucified us and we are not very apt to believe St. Peter was But a sober Heathen that should see our heats would be prone to judge we almost thought some other men were who they are I will not go about to determine and that though Truth may be the colour and pretended yet 't is Mammon or Dominion are the Gods they fight for when for the sake of Truth they lose all Charity and in contending for and exalting of Faith the solid fruits of both Good Works are despised I would not be thought in the least to undervalue or reject that gift or tenure in Frankalmoign or Free-Alms a Lawyers term not improper for this place Faith since without it from all the labour and search I am able to make I cannot find sufficiency in man to attain to any possession of a present or reversion of a future happiness I do own it to be the most excellent gift which comes down from Heaven but I fear we are subject sometimes to relie too much on it or if it be not improper so to say put too much confidence in it place it always uppermost in the Soul to the starving of that otherwise vigorous and active quality of the Soul Charity I stand convinced that if the most righteous man on Earth did take a full and intire view of all his best actions whether proceeding from himself or of Grace such as we call gratis data we will not here dispute together with his wilful errors and deformities and make his Reason judge of the weight and merit of each he would distrust and deny himself and all he were able to do and expect his Justification if he expected any of God's mere favour and grace and therefore I am content it should stand for a received truth that the best works of an Infidel are not only unacceptable with God but sinful Yet as I believe the Scriptures excluding many men from the Kingdom of Heaven or future happiness under the divers titles of sinners and all under the notion of Infidels so since there is a salvo for penitents I know not who those sinners are much less do I know the faithful from any outward badge or cognizance they wear and therefore am unfit to judge any but my self For I could never yet nor shall I believe unless I become able first to reject and abandon that Reason I have or that Reason leaves and forsakes me find just cause to condemn in my thoughts any one Nation or People any one Sect or Party or any one single person in the World besides for the bare want of a publick profession I exclude here wilful denial or owning of Faith just according to that model as any one Nation or Council or selected number of men have framed it so long as I behold in him or them those works which are the usual concomitants and attendants of what I think and is generally held to be the true Faith I do not think it safe to wish my Soul with the Philosophers but had all my actions after some knowledge of good and evil been always conformable and agreeable to their Writings and such as the actions of some of them seem to have been I think I should never despair of future happiness or rest were my Faith weaker than some men perhaps will imagine it from my thus writing What was the cause of their good works was it Faith If it were not I am sure it was the Grace of God and to them who owned it so or the work of a Divine power that Grace was not likely to be in vain If any of them was withheld at any time from sinning against God 't was the same God withheld them as withheld Abimelech an Heathen as they and Abimelech and some of them might for ought I know at the last obtain from a bountiful and gracious God mercy and forgiveness as well as a restraint The sound of a Saviour of the World from the beginning and long before his bodily presence on Earth had gone into all the Earth for St. Paul borrows those words Their sound went c. out of the Psalm intitled Coeli enarrant the Heavens declare c. These men might look for some strange deliverer and God might please to shew them more than we can judge of We read of a good and charitable man a Gentile who so loved the Nation of the Iews that he built them a Synagogue concerning whose Faith at that time there is nothing more to be collected from the story of him than that having heard of the fame of Iesus he did believe he was able to heal his Servant and yet the Author and finisher of our Faith gives this testimony of him That he had not found so great Faith no not in Israel though there are others mentioned before who forsook all and followed him and owned him for that Christ the Son of the living God too Truly a Centurion's Faith may best become us an humble not an arrogant Faith and it may in some sort be safest for us to think that if he vouchsafe to come under our roof we are unworthy he should and unfit any manner of ways to entertain him We are apt not only to extol our Faith but to impose and force it upon others
so that again doth give perfection to them and without which they are in St. Paul's phrase but as sounding Brass or a tinckling Cymbal that whatever noise they may make are of no benefit to us Thus the Apostle speaking of the abiding here of Faith Hope and Charity tells us the greatest of these is Charity of which reversing his method and order in placing of them I shall say thus much in short 't is Charity must guide and direct us 't is Hope must relieve and support us and 't is Faith by which we must enter into rest that must be the Key that must open to us and let us in after all our travails and if Faith do ever become a Crown and Hope an Helmet we must have before Charity for our Breast-plate badge or cognizance which we must always wear and never put off lest we be left open to divers and various assaults here and notwithstanding any Armour we think we have got on notwithstanding any allegation of prophecying in Christ's name or casting out Devils or doing other wonderful works if we be found to be without this Livery we shall be disowned and receive that sentence I never knew you depart from me ye c. from which Good Lord deliver us The Conclusion IN my entrance upon this subject I said how I had a desire to take some view of my Soul and see its operations and now this here is become its weak product perhaps more unfit for the World than that of my Body yet this I can say 't is not spurious and if my Brain has been the Father of it and gave it Being my Heart has been the Mother and lodged it and brought it forth without any other aim or design desire or affection whatsoever than the easing quieting or calming of her self unless that she desires or hopes it may through God's Grace have some mollifying or sanative quality towards some others I have not upon my own view of it so far transgressed as to fall in love with it I am conscious of its mis-shapes and deformities and doubtful nay very fearful of its defects and errors in many particulars and so have little reason to desire it should live long to my shame and disgrace But if man will not wink at those errors nor pass them over with charity I trust and hope that he who made me subject to errors and knows them best and their causes will pardon them which hope is to any man a sufficient Cordial against the fear or trouble of others censure I pretend to no supernatural Revelation in any of my thoughts and he who is free from error in them must necessarily have somewhat more than a pretence to it Let the World judge of me what they please I have been before-hand with them and I am sure no man can have meaner or more contemptible thoughts of me than I have sometimes had of my self and if there be any thing of true and unfeigned humility in man he can be as well content others should think meanly of him as he of himself but they are not always so proper Judges and I think that question What man knoweth the things of a man but the Spirit of man which is in him may not be altogether improperly applicable to the present purpose and for prevention of rash judging of other mens Spirits since we have been told by one who well knew We know not our own or of what Spirit we are I have lived to see often the vanity of my first thoughts from my second and may live to see the errors of these if I do I will acknowledge and amend them I have groaped in the dark to find out the easiest plain way towards content and quietness and rest even while I am a Traveller but I desire not to become an Ignis fatuus to lead other men out of their way and if this Hand point not right I beseech God any man who sees it may hear that gracious word behind him This is the way walk ye in it Search the Scriptures they are they which testifie of the God of power the God of peace and the God of consolation That Sacred Word has already received so clear an Humane rational vindication of its truth and excellency so plain a demonstration of its virtue and efficacy towards the health of Souls and such excellent methods have been lately prescribed towards the application and use thereof as there wants no additional assistance of so weak a Soul as mine I must confess and acknowledge I do believe it may and does often cause strange inflamations in many Souls and renders them not only painful and dangerous but malignant and infectious for want of a good digestion and all that I am able to advise any one further in the reading thereof is that he first observe the temper of that man according to God's own heart in the Old Testament who found that very Word Moses Law a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path became wiser than his Enemies by it took comfort and delight in it and gives so large an Encomium of it in that most excellent Psalm as is not to be parallel'd wherein it has been observed there is mention made of it almost every line or verse that he do not exercise himself in things which are too high for him but refrain his Soul and keep it low like as a child that is weaned from his mother If he can but obtain that which certainly a man might do from the reflexion of the very light of Reason in beholding his own weakness I presume to say after he has read and seriously considered our Saviour's Precepts in the New Testament he will be at peace and in charity with all men and so by consequence within himself More I cannot say but that I beseech Almighty God the Lord and giver of Life in whom we live and move and have our Being the provident Ruler and Governour of all things one Eternal infinite wise power that Ens or Essence of it self that first cause that which we are in no wise able to comprehend that he would enlighten and purifie our understandings direct all our thoughts regulate the vain wandrings of our imaginations strengthen our memories so far as they may be retentive of all good make our Wills obedient and tractable allure and draw away all our affections from the vanities and false appearances of the World actuate and enliven them towards the pursuit of all good and the detestation of all evil that we may possess our Souls in patience and with one mind and one Soul glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and out of the abundance of his mercy forgive us all the errors of our ways that he would not be extreme to mark what we have done amiss that as our sins and follies have abounded and do abound his Grace may superabound more especially to me
Heaven if I understand the word nor that reason can demonstrate what God is though it may tell us what God is not And therefore I think reason may be as well too blame for marching too far or soaring too high for its learning or knowledg as sitting quite still or groveling on the earth and permitting the imagination to introduce what forms of a Deity will or best may gratify any the most predominant present affection an habit which has been too much in fashion of late and now a little withdrawing makes way for the other excess I may have said too much my self in this little it has exceeded my original intent and purpose yet this further I must say and begg your pardon and others who shall chance to see it if I say amiss that my wishes are we may all in this great concern carefully avoid extreams and that as we do not set up such a God by faith as reason is able daily to confront so we set not up such a God by reason as there needs no faith to lay hold on For my weak opinion is nay my present resolution is As never wholly to desert my reason for the adoration of any God So never to adore any thing for God my reason is able fully to comprehend EPIST. II. Wherein he treats of the cause of Action or Motion under the notion of Spirit and endeavours to shew our often mistakes in applying our thoughts and actions to the operation of that Spirit of truth in us which though good in themselves may proceed from other cause and advises to solitude at particular seasons as the most ready and likely way to behold in some degree the light of truth BEcause Soul or Spirit hath been heretofore at special seasons the subject of my thoughts and because there are many amongst us who would seem to have great knowledge of a Deity and may be thought too familiar with God under a colour or pretence of being daily enlightened with his Holy Spirit affirming its constant working in them And others quite Aliens and strangers to God not barely by their life and conversation but by their outward profession too and who deny in words as much or more than in the deeds that there is any such thing as a Spirit which in St. Iohn our Saviour tells us God is and that what we term Spirit is a mere Chimaera fansied in our brains Both which kind of persons being equally to modest Society and civil conversation and I may say enemies to true Religion I have adventured with all submission to your more weighty thoughts and solid judgement to present you with my sometimes opinion in reference to what we most properly and peculiarly term Spirit and wherein I say ought in relation to that Spirit of truth I humbly implore its aid that nothing escape my Pen which may in any wise if seen lead others into error or in the least diminish the goodness power glory might Majesty c. dominion of the Almighty First I have thought and do think That we can not rationally attribute or impute the cause of any action or motion whatsoever to ought else than somewhat which we in no wise able to comprehend by our sense term or call a Spirit and that without some such thing the world were an insignificant Lump That from such thing all things live and move and have their being is not to be doubted whether we call it Nature or ought else This Spirit gone forth or sent into the visible world which now has visible effects as I take it to be some emission of that Eternal spirit at the Creation from the Word so I think it generally worketh unknown to its self the will of that Eternal Spirit neither can it cease of it self to work but if re-assumed or gathered again as is expressed in Iob all flesh would perish together c. And that all flesh and all other things Sun Moon c. do not perish is the work of Gods ordinary I trust I may so call it Providence the confirmation Seal of his Creation Such vivifying Spirit as this which men may call nature if they please is gone out into the world and shall continue working every where no doubt until the appointed end of the world yet not apprehensive of its being nor capable of understanding in the least to what end it works may probably cease to work after the manner it now worketh And this kind of Spirit receives no new influence nor seems capable of any new influence from above yet is ordered by what we call Providence But where there is any Spirit conscious of its own working and in some measure capable to conceive from whence it is or at least desirous to enquire after or know the original of its being that Spirit seems to me to be some special emission more than ordinary at the beginning or Creation of the visible world to be of duration and continuance A thing now as it were subsisting of it self and which vanishes not nor can vanish or will be re-assumed again But being as I may say the very Spirit or breath of the Almighty and able to look back towards its original and fountain is capable of some new influence and as I may say regeneration and such is the Spirit of man And therefore we in no wise deny but that the Spirit of man may receive some new light for its motion otherwise than barely and simply by sense the Organ of the body And that no other though intellectual Spirit inferiour thereto can so do or is capable so to do Now of created Spirits superiour to our selves or of greater capacity in point of intellect than our selves as I read or hear of none save Angels created all good as well as we so I cannot conceive that any created or circumscribed Spirit from any power of it self to intermix it self with our Spirit or so move in us as that it may be properly said we are possessed with any other Spirit than our own and therefore 't is most properly said When we are tempted we are drawn away of our own lusts Though I confess I think objects may be brought by the assistance of some such spirit and laid down before our senses or presented to our fancy whereby our lust may seem to begin to move though indeed our lusts be the original of our error But forasmuch as our own spirit is some image of and has its being from the Almighty that is one eternal all powerful spirit it being capable by its reason for no otherwise 't is so to distinguish between good and evil in some measure and to know the will of that almighty One It doubtless may be and is capable also not only to have its reason enlightned from thence but to receive some such new accession of light as that it may not only have a clearer sight of that bountiful Creator than reason is able to afford it but be
reconcilation for they are opposites it might prove an happy thing for this Island And truly I cannot imagine a readier way to reconcile them than to perswade every of the Leaders in each opinion if we could prevail therein now and then to withdraw himself from all company and seriously consider himself our spiritualists with the invocation of divine assistance though the other not have some rational discourse or intercourse with himself alone in relation to his past actions or opinions after what strange manner his soul has worked Not only why his will and affections have pursued and imbraced that which his intellect has rejected but why his intellect without apparent cause from without should sometimes reject that which at other times it receives and receive that which at other times it rejects Whether that be not guided by affection sometimes as well as affection by that Or whether they with the imagination have not wrought together of themselves for want of a better guide rather than of any spirit from above And what is that we seem to drive at all our lives and why With many such like enquiries This I call a busy solitude and recommend it if that may move ought as the readiest way for some little light of truth which we pretend to but too much to break in upon the soul. And O that some men would with their reason and the spirit in conjunction together if that might be throughly and impartially view and consider their imperfections the daily errors and lapses of their own soul whether through the precipitance of passion or otherwise howsoever Then surely notwithstanding they might trust to the merits of a Saviour through that blessed Spirit I dare say they would not boast of its daily effects in themselves nor go about to perswade others of its daily motion in them clean contrary to reason and so much difference and distinguish themselves from all others by the spirit only I know no hurt this rational solitude could do our Anti-Atheists and such as almost deify themselves I do not observe those great spiritualists much given to melancholy a thing which sets the imagination on work without any reason at all and from which I confess there may be much danger in solitude they are generally busy and medling enough and over and above their inspiration assume and challenge to themselves a great deal of rationality beyond other men They have their reason ready at hand and surely we must needs allow them strength of reason if the greatest policy or subtilty be always the product of the strongest reason which I cannot think but the looking beyond and beholding all policy as vain to be it and then that reason of theirs if they would first lay aside all prejudice and passion might in an humble solitude work that effect which in the end might bring them truer comfort than what they at present feel or pretend to from the spirit But they are not the men to whom I would chiefly recommend solitude lest from thence they feed their passions through their reason rather than subdue them thereby as it often happens It is the plain downright Atheist resolved in company to believe nothing without a plain demonstration and who perhaps alone with himself might from himself receive a kind of demonstration Men may pronounce a vae soli but so long as a mans reason is able upon occasion to put a stop to the career of his imagination and not only suffer it to ramble beyond sense but even contrary to sense in which case only it is we are subject to destroy our own bodies We do think notwithstanding God's wise and provident care of a companion for man in the creation and the advantage and comfort we receive from company above all other creatures It may be good for man to be sometimes alone It matters not much who was the first Author of that saying Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus whether Scipio the African or any other if so be upon consideration it be found to have no less of weight in it than any of those of the Sages Surely we must needs think upon weighing it proceeded from a more than ordinary divine soul and one who from solitude found somewhat of enjoyment more than ordinary Scipio if we believe history received as great and publick applause from publick action as any man whatsoever and might have pleased and enjoyed himself we may well think in company as much as any man And therefore if it were he we might the rather give credit to the saying and hope to find that company and complacency in solitude we never yet found This let me tell any man that he who considers his past actions by himself searches rationally into himself if he once come to behold his own imperfections and that sight he will not miss of if his intellect be not strangly bewitched by his affections he will from thence fly in desire to find out and behold somewhat that is perfect which if he should not at present do as I am almost assured he will do in fine that little acquaintance he gets with himself will otherwise find him imployment sufficient to verify that saying of Scipio And this is the thing I would always have specially recommended to an Atheist We have an English expression in relation to a delirium or dotage of being besides our selves we so translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or insanis Paul and truly he who travels all the world over in quest of an original cause of all things and looks not into himself is in my opinion as well really and truly as literally so 'T is a strange thing one would think men in their search after God should go furthest from him run to the least and I think most inconsiderable particle of his creation and fansie atoms to be the cause of mind without a mind No it must be a greater mind that is the cause of a lesser mind and a perfect mind of an imperfect mind we our selves seem nearest to a Deity and what should we go further to search for it A man 's own soul is in my opinion that glass which narrowly looked into shews not only it self unto its self but something beyond it and above it Did ever any man observe the motion of his soul and not at that time see his ignorance and impute folly to some of his actions And can he behold ignorance and folly and not believe there is some such thing as knowledge or perfect wisdom Can he observe his own weakness without acknowledging some absolute power Can he find such a thing as falshood in himself and not believe there is truth Can he observe himself sometimes harsh and cruel and not acknowledge that there is such a thing as mercy Did he never injure man and if that escape not his sight how will he be able to deny but that there is such a thing as justice and so for the like
Universal World to shew me how Nature in her Work often changes even as to visible mutation of colours and to set down any rationally undeniable or incontroulable cause for instance of black or blackness nay such as I am not able in Reason to convince him of the uncertainty and dubiousness thereof That she follows any certain especial course therein no man will maintain in things of the same species That not only in Sheep a thing most common white of both Sexes for many descents produce black we find but even Crows and Daws sometimes do the like or contrary and produce white as I have sometimes seen and I suppose at this day may be seen at Saint Iames's And though it might be rare it would not appear a miracle to me but the Work of Nature to behold a black Swan The like I could demonstrate in Fruit both Plums and Cherries from Stones of another colour'd Fruit set together in the same bed of Earth black from white or red and white from black Men may talk of some portion of Mercury Salt or Sulphur in every Body adust torrified sindged or the like but how this adustion works sometime in peculiar forms and figures only let any man tell me That alteration of colour is at any time an effect of the Imagination is a thing utterly exploded and never was other than the whimsy of some mens imagination or fancy surely never any man obtained fair or black Children from the greatest strength of his Imagination If it were able to work such an Effect we should be all very fair from hope or black from fear since Passions very much strengthen if not create or ingender an Imagination However if any such thing were thus wrought in living Creatures it cannot hold in Plants which have no Imagination I know men from their imagination have adventured to set down Causes of Colours and thought verily they hit on the right and yet have been corrected by another mans imagination rather than any solid Reason Aristotle tells us the cause why there are to be found more delicate and lively colours in the Feathers of Birds than in Hairs of Beasts is this For that Birds are more within the Raies or Beams of the Sun that Beasts are Another comes and corrects him and say's he gives a vain and frivolous Cause for it and tells us the true and real Cause of it is for that the excrementitious moisture of living Creatures which makes as well the Feathers in Birds as Hair in Beasts passeth in Birds through a finer and more delicate streiner for Feathers pass through Quills and Hair through Skin And surely his true and real Cause is as little exempt of vanity unless he had been pleased or could have shewed us a Cause too why there should be so adjacent such variety of delicate Colours about the neck of a Cock-Pheasant produced from such neighbourly and similar Streiners nay three of four delicate Colours in one and the same Feather through one and the same streiner Or why in a Peacocks train at such an exact and equal distance from the Body Nature should produce that curious and delectable Colour in a peculiar form and shape and the excrementitious moisture in its streining should fail of its Beauty not only in its first and next but in its furthest and most remote motion and produce but a dull Colour at either end of the Quill Of the two opinions or causes I will give that of Aristotle the precedency because I find not only in Feathers but all Flowers that I have seen and observed that side of the Feather Leaf or Flower which is most directly within the Suns raies to be ever most beautiful and that Eye of Argus in the Peacocks train to have but a shadow of its Beauty or form on the lower reversed side And yet doubtless there are most curious Colours to be found in the very bowels of the Earth And I for my own part am neither able to give nor do I expect further or other substantial cause to be given of the beauty and splendor in any part of a Creature than the will of the Almighty in his Creation either for our pleasure in beholding or admiration to draw us towards him in considering the variety ornament and excellency of his Works Neither do I think there is any undeniable cause to be rendred why Stones ground to powder should not nourish as well as bread if God's fiat had been upon them as Satan seemed to tempt him I do not from hence go about to perswade you or any man to transplant and remove back again all final causes particular effects and fix them only and barely upon the first original cause of all things I know there are exterior Causes to be given for the blackness of this very Ink I write with and such as may not only satisfy an ordinary Reason to accept thereof as indubitable but such as may frame an ingenious Spirit towards the finding out some like useful invention But this I say there is such an intricacy in the veriest ordinary Works of Nature to him who looks any thing deeply and not superficially therein as is sufficient to shew us both our own weakness and folly and a transcendent Wisdom far above our reach Upon which there should be always one Eye fixed and ready upon all occasions to recall the other and also all our other senses and faculties permitted sometimes lawfully to ramble after second Causes And surely unless we set up fancy as I have said rather than Reason for Umpire it would so be and we should be forced at last as to the main to terminate in some hidden Cause A Cause indeed not altogether hid from us but set aside as unregarded that is there necessarily is One only Eternal immutable unchangeable Essence abundant in Power and Wisdom through its abundance shewing it self in variety in the least of whose Works being infinite there is more than humanity can comprehend which by a Law of Nature binding all things but it self continually worketh all in all What defence or Apology shall I then make first for permitting my thoughts to ramble in quest of the Nature or extract of the Soul of Beasts as well as my own and next for setting down my opinion thereof and exposing the same to publick view thereby seeming to endeavour to impose the same belief on others which I hold and maintain my self Why truly for the first it might be occasioned or at least augmented from a late private rural life and a conversation as I may say with Beasts as well as men I cannot say with the Preacher I gave my heart to seek and search out by Wisdom concerning all things that are done under Heaven but the later part of the verse may not unfitly be applied to me or others This sore travel hath God given to the Sons of Man to be exercised therewith or to aflict them or as some Translations to humble
his name might be declared throughout all the Earth as St. Paul tells the Romans from that place Affection in man as in my thoughts of the Soul I have already touched seems often the most disorderly and irregular thing in the course of Nature And therefore could I once prevail with any man so far as seriously to consider the strange motion of it in himself or others I do think it might prove the readiest way to quiet it for a time and dispel those misty clouds which are raised in the Soul by the very restless struggling of the Affections and enlighten it to behold a constant working providence over all its faculties and especially to win and regain that very part of it for what is our understanding to our Creatour but to admire him but our Affections are given to embrace him and to have our Affections become inflamed thitherward Sometimes our Intellect cannot but observe how strangely and suddainly the Affections are cooled moved or restrained beyond its foresight or prospect We see or hear or read a thing an hundred times and it may be then think our Intellect clear and discerning too and yet not become affected with it And it may be these our waters at some other times are rapidly moved not from the Imagination I shall rather chuse to say from some Angel coming down at certain seasons that Assistant I mean or Framer of the Intellect that spirat quo vult Otherwise the same words could never strike so much deeper into one onely it may be of a great Auditory and he none of the quickest apprehension or naturally or usually most discerning Spirit and that to the subduing of an unruly Affection equally predominant in many others of the same Auditory I know there is no man but has loved and feared and joyed sometimes without any apparent or discernible cause to himself or any other and if he would or could but observe so much he might possibly discern somewhat more than chance in the disposition if not Creation of his Soul Some and not the meanest Wits have stood at a maze at the Affections motion especially And though they looked no higher than themselves yet terminated in some occult cause such as the blindness and sometimes edge and sometimes dulness of their Affections It may perhaps seem to many but a mean distich of the Poet Non amo te Sabadi nec possum dicere quare Hoc tantum possum dicere non amote but I must crave leave to judge otherwise of it and that he saw by that as far as ordinary human Reason is able to shew us and I take his meaning to be that such is the condition of man as that notwithstanding there be often presented to the Affections an invitation without exception and sufficient ground and reason offered to them to imbrace and accept yet they are stubborn and decline it and want something more than natural human light to bring them to compliance There are thousands doubtless have received all the endearments imaginable from particular persons and thought well of them but never heartily affected them And on the other side notwithstanding all the scorn and contempt injuries and affronts they could receive from others have yet heartily and truly loved them So as 't is no wonder the Heathen amongst all their Gods thought only Love blind and so represented him to us Indeed upon the beholding and consideration of any the least Plant or Insect there is a glance offered of some power wonderful and to be admired But that power is chiefly to be seen in ordering ruling and determining the Passions and Affections of men sometimes preventing them from breaking forth in an Insurrection and then suddenly quenching the fire that the World be not thereby in a greater flame This doth the Psalmist ascribe to him Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain I do think some rational accompt in Nature might be given of the motion of celestial Orbs and no less of the Spirits of Beasts Why there is so much and such apparency of gentleness and meekness and patience in the Lamb and in the Dove and why at all times the contrary and so quick and ready a will of revenge in the Bee and the Wasp that Passion and Affection in several Creatures should so much differ and yet the one not exceed the other in Intellect But why several men sprung from one and the same stock in Nature should now and then resemble each Creature in point of Affection and exceed them either way I know not unless by such a wise working Power as ordering the result of all human Affections to its glory in the end should permit the sometimes mad pursuit of them Whereof Reason as his present gift is sufficient to demonstrate their Error â—â—d so justly condemn them and Grace only to reclaim them That men should adventure their Lives and Fortunes yea their Souls too and hack and hew one anothers Bodies in pieces to please the appetite of an ambitious and covetous Prince nay perhaps some less apparent Meteor some one or two Subjects designing either to build on the ruins of others abroad or divert mens eyes for a while from looking into their own corrupt and base designs and practices at home or the like What is it but some base rubbish of Affection in the generality of mankind sympathetically as I may say kindled by the heat of some ambitious desire in particular Persons or highly inflamed in them at least by the Devil or some evil Spirit I am sure there is nothing of Reason or Prudence nay or Nature could lead the generality of mankind in companies into such design since you may quickly and easily convince almost every particular Person of them that it is safer and better to be quiet at home But when this fire is once throughly kindled in a Nation and every ones hand is against his Brother he knows not why How strangely and how suddainly do we see this fire when there 's apparent matter enough left put out and extinguished and those scattered who delight in Wars On the other side notwithstanding the fierceness of man which every way turns to Gods Praise as the Psalmist says how readily and easily do we often daily see a multitude governed by such Cobweb human Laws as they are able at any time to break through and want not the greatest part will to their power and yet they are led often all their days like sheep by the hands of weaker and worse shepherds than Moses and Aaron who feed them not but rather poll and sheer or fleece them without resistance For either of which rather than the stay of the raging of the Sea if any man can pierce so deep into that thing he calls Nature as to shew me any single undeniable cause therein nay I might say any colourable cause other than the Will of one single Eternal Wise Power for secret purposes