fall down into a Dead Thing and so it could retain its own Life against any one but the Author of it and lose none of that for this power it had received from God and what it found fitted by God to its Activity and convenienc'd to its Life it could act quicken and manage But it was not a Quickning Spirit that is It had not power to make or give a new Life to continue a Body in Life or to raise a Dead Body or make it more Excellent or Lively than it found it prepared by God It had not a Power like the First-begotten from the Dead who can make corruptible put on Incorruption and mortal put on Immortality and be even swallowed up of Life who can change our vile Bodies that they may be made like his glorious Body by a Power that subdues all things to it self So then though the Soul could work to the utmost extent of Matter and Body and fill all Bodily Capacities yet it could not exceed them nor act according to it self because it was confin'd in Body but must work and act onely as the Soul of such a Body nor could it quicken and advance Body as it would it self nor better it above its Rank and Order set by the Creator and therefore the Soul could display it self and its own Spirituality onely so far as Body made by God the Body of this Soul could receive and convey into Action And though this was enough not onely to prefer Man to the top of this Lower Creation and to make him under the Creator Lord of All but to assure enough a greater than Body even a Spirit was there yet it could not discover how great and potent this Spirit was Thus the Soul was submitted by the wise Ordination of God to retire keep home and dwell in a Body being at the very first set in an Orb lower than it self and to manage fewer and lesser Talents according to the State of the Lower Creation and so by its Obedience Fidelity and Improvement to be advanc'd to richer and more Talents and to a Rule over greatest Cities that is to be exalted to the Heights and full Glory of a perfectest Immortality Thus was the State of Innocency wherein Body was much more fitted to the Excellency of the Soul though not to all its Excellency fitted to it onely according to the Lower State of Man in this World not according to that Supreme State of Immortality but differing as much from that as Possibility not to die doth from an Impossibility to die or as a Body Natural just fit to entertain a Soul in a temporary condition and to yield it self to its displays in a degree convenient to that differs from a Body Spiritual fram'd to bear and discharge all the highest Spiritualities of a Soul in its unchangeable Estate Yet this was much above the present Condition of Body under Sin even as Innocency and the Order Beauty and Goodness wherein Man was first enstated by God excell the Guilt unnatural Deformity and Confusion he labours under now Since Sin and Disobedience the Souls manner of Habitation in Body is fallen much lower and it is carefully to be consider'd how it fell lower for it cannot be conceived that any thing should be abated from the Life Vigour and Force of the Soul it self The Soul loses onely in the Holy and Happy State of it without any diminution in its Esence or Essential Life for it cannot lose in the degrees of those It must lose in the whole or not at all being one whole intire indivisible Self as hath been before asserted And thus it is onely a competent Subject for the Happiness or Misery of Eternity of which Fallen Angels are a plain Instance who notwithstanding their Fall continue Principalities and Powers and Dominions and though Wickednesses yet Spiritual Wickednesses and in High Places The Soul then losing nothing thus the Life Vigour and Vertue of its Nature must lie close accumulated and folded up where there is not room for an Explanation and free Expatiation as Light that could reach much further when stopp'd by any Dark Body is reverberated into it self We must therefore conceive that as a Punishment upon the Sin of Man there is a great withdrawing of Divine Blessing from the Lower Creation upon which ensues an interruption of the benign Order of Things one towards another so that they are continually at feud and in contest one with another hindering disturbing and mutually abating the Force and working to the destruction one of another to all which Inconveniences the Humane Body becomes subject and both in regard of its Temper and Composition more subject than many other parts of Matter for its Strength is not the Strength of Stones nor its Flesh of Brass nor clear and pure like the Heavens that abide of old Further It being the Body of that Soul that is the great Offender it is most liable to the Curse The Soul then whose Body was at first too narrow for all its Efficacies is now limited to one unequal to any one of them and very disturbing of their Execution For sometimes by the oppression of other Parts of Matter upon this Body all the livelier and brisker Particles of it are squeez'd out and exhaled whereby it becomes dull and instagnated sometimes it is overheated into furious and inordinate motion and so weakned and disordered in its great end of serving the Soul The Soul on the other side losing nothing of it self yet being sunk down from the Intellectual Spiritual Life and from the Happiness therein to be found which is its true Sphere becomes also negligent of acting and invigorating the Body and guiding the Service of it to such worthy Ends and with a wilful supineness falls down into the Animal Life and presently finding what State and Temper that Body with which it is joyn'd is of carries it self with all its Powers almost wholly thither If it be a duller Matter or Body it stays its own Effluxes the Stream of its Motion and tastes its Life and Enjoyment in that sloathfulness and sluggishness of Flesh as it were forgetting it hath any greater Virtue Force or other Office than what serves to the maintenance of so low a Life that the Soul wilfully enervates and deadens its own Activity by slumbring it in the drowsiness of a lazie Body so that this Sloath becomes the greatest of all Sloath because of the Pleasure this mighty Spirit hath in that Sloath having found it to be the Temper of that Matter wherein it hath sheath'd it self there being in this very Sloath as Philosophers teach of Rest of Bodies as forcible and great a Cause as there is of Motion Thus the great Force of a Soul is defeated this way the Body being like damp'd Powder that will not take the Fire and so the Fire lies still and does nothing to such Solomon cries out Yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands
amazed at the little value of it among men who profess to believe such or like representations of it and will oblige himself to a far higher Estimation of it and care for it there being no other reason to be rendred why so great and worthy a Part or to speak more properly a Mans True self should be neglected but what is to be imputed to extreme madness such as a mans Throwing himself into Seas or Flames or Starving himself contrary to all Laws of Self-preservation would be except that this Soul flies so much from it self as it judges by sense and is so hidden in the body by acting so much not only by it but for it that it appears wholly Body And men being unwilling to put themselves upon severe Reason to be assured of it and very incredulous of Divine Revelation that else gives a more easie and sudden Certainty concerning it they will not believe it is any thing but Body and so with Soul deny Soul preferring Body only because the Soul is most sensible and visible as it acts and inspires that and loves and is pleased with it self most as so active and therefore wilfully consents to its own Eclipse by Body To remove therefore this prejudice I begin with the first part of the Description That the Soul is Invisible and so to discourse it that it may appear that Invisible put into the Souls Character is so far from a derogation to the Soul that it is a great Advancement to its Nature For the most Excellent order and state of Beings is of Beings Invisible Beings not seen with the Eye nor felt with the Hand nor approached to by Sense Beings whose operations give assurance to Reason and Faith they are and of what degree of Efficacy they are an Efficacy far surpassing all visible Agents even to Infinite of which even Sense may and must be witness in multitude of Effects though the Causes themselves and the manner of their working be indiscernible by Sight or Sense And now I am speaking of Things Invisible in contra-distinction to things of Sight and Sense I would use this occasion to make the way fairer to all that may be after said by taking an account of the way by which Sense comes to its cognizance of Things and where it stops and can go no further and how Reason and Faith proceed still and go infinitely beyond By Sense I understand that Power of Soul that moves towards and takes in the perception of Things by the due motion of Bodily Organs fitted thereto the objects of which are Bodily and Material also and though it be the Soul that acts by these Organs and so is the true original and last resort of Sense which appears in that though Body or any part of it be notoriously impressed by Matter yet if the Soul be busie and much taken up elsewhere no Sense follows at least till the Soul is more at leisure and can give attendance to Body or that part of it so imprinted Notwithstanding this yet because the Action spoken of is immediately performed by matter upon matter and Bodily Nature meets in both the knock of the one against the other is so forcible and with such remark to the Soul that dwells within and cannot but take notice as gives us greatest confidence and assurance in the result and nothing seems more Certain and Undenyable than things so attested to us who are so far sunk down into Bodily Nature the Soul as I have already intimated being most satisfied in its own Acts by and upon Body Now Sight is comprehensive of all Sense because Sense turns it self as much as it can to every object by Sight being the most Excellent of Senses and the other Senses quicken and engage Sight as much as may be so that Invisible Beings and Beings unaccountable to Sense are much of the same avail in signification as to what concerns this Case In summ then Things of a Bodily Grossness are those only that fall within the line of Senses Communication and are termed Visible But Reason is a Power and operation beyond Sense it self being the stream of a Pure and Immaterial Fountain it winds it self in where matter that Sense acts by cannot enter and through the outward Rind or Matter it passes into what lies within where Matter hath neither made nor received any Impression yet there it divines by its own proper Sentiments making use and advantage and receiving Service from Sense so far as it is able to go it leaves it where it can go no farther and when it hath searched beyond it it can again compare the fruits of that search with sensible and experimental Evidences and so work by Sense and with it and also above it and beyond it yea and even without it Faith yet far exeeds Reason alone by receiving Oracles from the Highest Reason and Understanding God himself whose infinity of Knowledge leaving our Span of Knowledge at unmeasurable distances behind it gives truest and fullest accounts of all Things and by believing what he reveals we receive the Benefit of his All Comprehending Knowledge This general Premisal being given I come to argue the thing it self That Invisible Beings are not the less because they are Invisible but they are upon true Inquiry found to be the Greatest of Beings and therefore the Greater because they are Invisible Argum. 1 There are many and Great Effects that the Senses every day converse with and because they so easily perceive them and are so well acquainted with them we call them Senses or powers of Perception and yet by the utmost Search and Inquiry Reason can put them upon it cannot find out by them Causes potent enough for these Effects When we survey the whole World and all the Creatures in it and their so Lively and Vigorous and yet so excellently govern'd Motions we are Judges of the Things themselves by Sense and they cannot be denied but Sense can offer no Cause high enough for these effects we must needs therefore conclude by the Suffrage of Reason There is some Cause unseen that is the spring of All. For the Determinations of Reason are that till we come to the first Cause every Thing must have a Cause and that the Cause must be superior to the Effect in that thing wherein it is the Cause of it when therefore there is an Effect to which no seen Cause is able and sufficient there must be some unseen Cause that does produce it If a man should hear from a Tree or Beast the voice of Words and Humane Discourse how readily would he Conceive some higher original of that Speech and those Words than that Beast or Tree If then we observe such a World and Government of it as must needs proceed from a Counsel and Reason a Prudence and Understanding arm'd with a power and unbounded puissance and we see none high enough thereunto we cannot but conclude There must be still some Cause as high as
these Effects however it be Invisible to us For when we take account of all the Beings here we easily grant the most Considerable for such Effects is Man his Reason and Providence were most likely to summon things so together and to keep them in their order but we presently find he neither hath a Might nor a Knowledge sufficient Not a Might for the Heavens above him are far out of his Reach or any application he can make to them The Earth under him is too big for any of his Engines to dispose The Waters about him are altogether out of his Grasp and all that he can possibly do in the summ of these is plainly just nothing at all His utmost attempt is to obtain what advantages he can to himself from them according to the nature wherein they are already fix'd and settled And as for his knowledge of them it is but as a span to the Universe he searches and pries and receives but a very little and his greatest Knowledge is to know his own Ignorance so impossible it is he should be either the Author or Conservator of them But oh how prodigious is it to think Things should by some lucky Hit cast themselves as by a Throw into this Order and Harmony For Chance provides not for every circumstance of any thing or if it should hit so well throughout in one Thing in how many would it miss But we see things great and small and without number ordered with so exact a Care and Contrivance and among them very many little Things upon which yet great consequences and conveniencies depend that none but a most excellent Mind could forecast or provide for some very great and designing Architect and it ought to be no prejudice against him that we do not see him When any one stands on a Tower and sees upon the Sea a Ship gallantly Equipped with its Sails Masts and all the various Tackling of it and when by settled observation he finds it moves with Design and Instruction and if he should further know it attends certain and stable Rules though the Pilot and Sailors are not seen nor the Artificer that built it nor the Owner that designs with it yet could he think that there neither are nor were such but that all this is the contrivance of Accident because he sees nothing but the Ship While then Naturalists observe such an Earth floating in the Air and a World swimming in the boundlesness of Imaginary Space and keeping yet those just Rules by which all things move should it be any reason to conclude because he sees none able to guide this Frame There is none Is it not rather to be concluded There is an Invisible supreme Cause If a man were first cast upon a Desert and after should come to a City adorned with Temples Palaces Magnificent Structures all of great Beauty Proportion and Order and should yet find no Inhabitants but what are beneath the wisdom of such a magnificence would he so much as suspect this was a fortuitous convention of the Materials into such an Union and not presently resolve There are or have been personages equal to the work they see although they see not them When a man is in an empty Room sees no man but hears the voice of excellent Reason and Discourse he will conclude A Man however placed out of sight or a Greater than a Man is there And why then should we so much as surmize Effects far greater than these should have been wander'd into by an incertain up and down Rolle or Frisk of Things And if we allow there is so great though an unseen Cause of all those Things we may allow also it is greater than any of those things that are seen not only because it is their Cause but because it hath reached those Effects that none of them can extend themselves unto and have great reason to be assured the Cause is the greater for being seen only in its Effects and not in it self seeing those things that are seen have some such disadvantages upon them whatever they are that they cannot work as this unseen Cause hath done and therefore further we have reason to believe that their very being seen is one of those disadvantages and that which runs through all the rest seeing we cannot find in a whole world of visible Beings any one that can work like this invisible Cause and therefore that it appertains to it to be invisible that it may be a Cause so universal of both which it is no hard thing to conceive the account For that things may fall under sense they must be gross and so are cumbersom shut out of things by their own unfitness for penetration capable of opposition subject to dissolution They must also be of a slow confined restrained nature But things purer and not condescending to sense may be free from these and whatever is the soveraign Cause of all must be so for he must be of an excellency of power perfectly free and dis-incumbred of an infinitely quick motion too high for opposition more intimate to things than themselves for he is over all in all through all and therefore must be also so transcendently pure as not to fall under dull and slow-sighted sense And if there be one unseen Being there may be more and they that are not be the less because they are not to be seen but the greater resembling in some degree the excellency of that super-invisible Being whom no man hath seen nor can see and such a one we affirm the Soul of man to be Argum. 2 When we come to man himself we perceive evidently and undeniably by our senses and those conclusions we make from them as certain as themselves how high and great the effects of Humane Reason and Understanding are what huge and orderly contrivances of all sorts have been accomplished by men what Laws Governments Collections of knowledge have been and are continually extant among them what aspiring of religious and devout thoughts as so many searches and attempts beyond this world and that all these are without parallel among all the rest of the Creatures under heaven Now what is there in man that is seen to the function of which we would intrust these offices and administrations Who can believe the Eye or Tongue or Hand could of themselves contribute to any of these things in the first plot or device of them or if we look into all the inward parts of humane body that Anatomy pryes into which of them can be fit for so great an employment or how can the whole frame amounting from no higher particulars conspire one part with another into so high atchievements How notoriously are all the pretences made for any of them baffled by true Philosophy so that there must be some other Architect of them though out of sight What an excellency is there in man above beasts Their highest motions and such as we admire for their approach to Humane
Reason except such wherein the wisdom of the God of Nature is immediately seen stoop as much below those of men as the faint light of the Moon falls below the lustre of the Sun or as the untuned unmodelled sound of a musical Instrument made by a vulgar Hand or wild Notes come short of the Musick and Harmony of some excellent Artist or as the gamesom leaps and rebounds of wild Creatures differ from the measured and becoming moves of a most orderly Dance And yet the Bodies of men and the Organs of sense in them differ so little from those of Beasts in relation to the main of these great effects that when we consider man in the majestickness of true Reason and Understanding and see so little upon his body more than in theirs we cannot but acknowledge something divine within him that as we may say with reverence to the highest Majesty sits as a God there The Body is a Palace or Temple indeed compared with the bodies of Beasts but this shews it only to be the Residency of so great an Inhabitant and in some peculiarities it may be so framed as to be prepared thereby to be the Instrument of so great an Artist but both signifie as little to the immediate source of Reason as a stately House or more curious Instrument do to the Offices or Discharges of the Master of the House or Art the magnificence and prudence of the one the exactness and curiosity of the other To this we must still recourse There is a spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding and teacheth him more than the beasts of the field and maketh him wiser than the fowls of heaven And yet it is hard to perswade any serious considerer that the utmost attempts and endeavours of matter can arise to the performance of the duties of very Sense in these brute Creatures how much less can it to those of Reason in man In man then we see effects that witness enough some great Cause and Original we see not yet still seeing the Effects are plainly greater than we can attribute to any thing that may be seen in man this Cause because not to be seen is not lesser than other things in man that are to be seen but greater and therefore greater for not being to be seen because it is not subject to the inabilities of those parts of man we can see and yet cannot ascribe the Effects to because they are so much above them And yet too we might well expect these great Effects from the visible parts of an Humane Body if any where seeing man is the most excellent of the visible Creatures we know but as we reasoned before in speaking of the first Cause All things that are seen are too impure and unweildy to conduct things to so great ends as those of Reason and Intelligence and so not enough to act in the likeness of the first Cause which likeness we must all along observe as the true Key of the knowledge of mans Soul Argum. 3 To make the entertainment of invisible Beings and their greatness easier to us let us survey the whole state of Beings visible and we shall find It is not any of their outward lineaments shape colour habit figure or apparent motion that makes them what they are but their retir'd Essences A Drug hath not its nature from its shape colour or common circumstances wherein it may agree or be exceeded by other things of less virtue or by those of its own kind that have lost their virtue though they may still have the outward semblances but there is something within that is not to be pored upon by Sense but is pierced to by Reason and Understanding The appearance of Gold counterfeited deceives the Eye but is detected by the Reason that tryes things themselves If any thing be painted so to the life that it cheats the sight and seems to be the very thing that it dissembles yet it is never the more the thing It is therefore an unseen nature from which every thing hath its virtue Hence it appears there is a great retirement of that which is the Kernel of these Beings from outward garbs lineaments appearances and it fairly leads us to the belief of Beings invisible whose whole nature and beings are hidden from Sense but only in their operations wherein they exceed so much as to recompense with that evidence of themselves the retreat of their Beings from fight For if those poorer things whose pretence is small and their effects low and their essence but a duly prepared matter and so must for the most part lye open to Sense have yet a secret of their essence in reserve and made solemn by a vail of secrecy drawn over them how reasonable is it to think the highest operations should have their seat in Beings wholly immaterial and invisible of which the supreme God is known to Sense only by effects and the Souls of men the lowest of them by acting in and by visible and material Bodies indeed yet in their operations and truest nature wholly independent upon them Argum. 4 The appearances like to men in Bodies Invisible Beings have sometimes put on and the great effects they have wrought in such or any other appearances to Sense as demonstrations of themselves to it perswade the reality of their Beings and the greatness of them For by such addresses and such kind of effects as are the most assuring credentials to men as they are now in Bodies they have given to sense and sight great satisfaction and notices of themselves and at the same time awakened Reason to observe they were some unusual and stranger Beings and not familiar and ordinary ones and that they took up a short lodging only in these appearances to put Sense out of doubt concerning themselves For in the mean time to make it plain to Reason that they exceeded the force of all visible things and were not tyed to act by their proportion or so much as by the rule the Soul of man in the body acts by they have always contrived into some part or circumstance of their appearances or the effects they wrought tokens of their spirituality and grandeur they did something wonderful so that while they have descended to sense they have also amazed it and one way or other unriddled their disguise From whence arise these plain characters of Invisible Beings 1. The reality of their Beings notwithstanding their invisibility seeing they can as they please demonstrate themselves by the way of Sense and assume visibility not to make themselves more real but more known to men that otherwise being in body judge at disadvantage of those out of it 2. Their independency upon visibility seeing they could do all out of that visible appearance they do in it and do indeed much more out of it than they do in it 3. Their preference of invisibility to visibility seeing they appear only a short time Body
viz. That our Saviour intends no more than that mans killing the body is infinitely less than Gods destroying that Body and its whole life in Hell though after many Ages Yet it is observable in the first place our Saviour to imprint the fear of Divine Revenges places them not only upon the Body but upon the Soul as a distinct and greater part of man than body 2. And beyond this our Saviour plainly aims at the great odds there is betwixt a hand that can execute no further than dying once and in the body only and that almighty hand that sends down the Soul to Hell immediately and the Body at the Day of Judgment For he implies a man easily slips from mans severity by death for he may yet live and be happy in his Soul presently and in his Body at the Resurrection but death can give no escape from the stroke of God either to the Soul which incontinently falls under it nor to the Body awakened hereafter to endure it Now I know it is possible for Serpentine wits to glide off from these and many the like proofs of Scripture that might be produced for their way of elusion is very wonderful like that of Solomons Serpent upon a Rock that winding every way yet leaves no track of solid Reason behind it but yet I affirm that such concurrent Testimonies of Scripture are so conclusive that no sober consideration can escape from them unto which revealed Truth is also to be annexed Reason it self teaching us as I have already urged the effects of a Soul are too great to be ascribed to any power of Body and therefore seeing every Effect must have an equal Cause it is a high justification of the assertion of a Spirit to which those effects may be duly and worthily ascribed And therefore I shall further adventure to avouch from Scripture that the Soul is so much the Man that it hath the compleat substantial essence of a man so far in it self that in comparison of it the body is but prepared for a sensible mode or representation in which the Soul is to act and shew and illustrate it self visibly and sensibly and that man might thereby become of the order of the sensible and visible world beholding and judging by the ministery of sensitive organs of the beauty excellent array and variety of bodies in this Creation and himself appear the principal of them but retaining still a higher and nearer relation to the Invisible world to God to the state and life of Angels so that without any prejudice to his main being he may be removed out of the body thither and yet still be himself as to all the chief intents and purposes of his Creation and continue so till in the restitution of all things and the manifestation either of the goodness or severity of God after the manner of the sensible and visible Creation that is in such a plain way as seeing and knowing things by sense men be again set out by God in a bodily scheme or fashion at the Resurrection so that the Body it shall then have shall more compliably wait upon all the state and motions of the Souls happiness or misery The Soul then only visibly shews it self now in a body and is submitted to be in it but when it goes out of the body it wants nothing through the whole time of its separation that it had here but only the apparence of its motions in a body nor hath any thing added to it when it is cloathed with a body at the Resurrection but an opportunity for its glory or misery to be seen sensibly Even as God was excellent and perfect in himself from eternity when there was no Creation or any beside himself nor received he any thing or found any addition to himself by the Creation for all things that he made received their All from him but only he hath illustrated and manifested himself in the Creation and the Creatures do no more than shew the power wisdom and goodness of God in creating preserving and governing them After the same manner so far as we may with reverence compare any of the Creatures with the infinitely excelling Creator the Soul receives nothing from the Body or any of the parts of it but only such organs and instruments which it is to inspire govern and rule and thereby to shew its efficacy vigour and great endowments of understanding and virtue for all motions from the highest to the lowest derive from the Soul But as to the present case That the Soul falls in love with its self as dwelling in body and with its lower motions in it and forgets its own proper and higher motions of immediate converses with holiness and true wisdom and that rule of body committed to it according to these Laws this is only its sin weakness degeneracy and fall as of a created and mutable Being placed in a body All motions and appetites that we call in ordinary speaking motions of body and fleshly appetites are not any thing that body can first proffer to the Soul but those that the Soul communicates first by that universal life and motion it gives to body and then derives from its own communications the pleasure that it self finds from it self in body Yet is not the Souls good or ill management of Body all its holiness or sin there are many acts so retired that body shares not in their praise or guilt The Soul in such acts of goodness is like God and good Angels as if it had no body and as unconcerned in this world as God in his own immanent perfections and actions On the other side wicked men are in some wicked actions alone as it were from the body like Devils and damned Spirits those spiritual wickednesses the Apostle speaks of exercised in spiritual Impurities But to return The Souls acting and taking care of the body is but an inferiour and under-part of its administration and is for that higher end that there might be an image and likeness of God imprinted upon a body and sensibly seen in it by virtue of the Souls acting holily in and upon it This is the highest and most excellent part of its Government the pleasure it takes in the lower should be but an imitation of the Lord taking pleasure in his lower works who is never the less spiritual heavenly and divine for running through and governing the whole world of matter and rejoicing in his doings therein but is always in the perfect purity of his own Attributes and guides all things according to them But contrary-wise if the Soul makes its lower and less noble functions its principal and supreme and instead of moving the body rationally and religiously by it self continuing spiritual and intellectual it chiefly attends to and interests it self in its lower sensitive motions and so becomes carnal and sensual this is its great fall into sin and misery yet still it retains its prerogative of nature it is
dissent it can derive no happiness upon the Soul but on the contrary anguish and affliction This being then preconsidered let us now more pressingly search the nature of Mans Soul as it is in Scripture stiled The Heart and the Heart out of which are the Issues of Life first drawing the powers of Reason themselves and their motions and then shewing them as they are derived for so they are always into one of those two Channels Good or Evil. In the Heart then are all the powers of Motion 1. Here is the immediate directive Understanding or Judgment which determines to Action and this is a different thing from the Light of the Candle of the Lord which is always the same for this may be debased and corrupted it may mix it self with lower Considerations and in the generality of Men it does so even to the eclipsing and darkening the higher Light not in it self but in its oriency and brightness upon the Soul as the Sun is the same although its Light may be shadowed from us But this practical Understanding however it may be corrupted yet hath the more immediate conduct of all the actions and contains in it self the Gust Taste and Motion of the whole Soul and immediately foreruns Action for it determines things with their Circumstances it ballances diviner Reasons and Temptations on the contrary part together the Love and Fear of God on one side Inticements from Flesh and Blood and the World on the other Now there is a great difference between these two It is best to be holy and virtuous in it self and in general and It is best for me in particular and in this particular Action to be holy Between these two An Act of Judgment as it resides in the Understanding and an Act of Judgment as it inclines the whole Soul Motion and Action unto it This very practical Understanding is in Scripture called The Heart Let Prov. 23. 15. thy Heart be wise It is this Wisdom of the Heart that denotes a man Good not that most clear Light that shines from above and down upon the Heart not within it but so without it that it doth not reside in it and change it into it self 2. Here are the Will and Affections which are the resolution vehemency and keenness of the Judgment and carry the notion of the nearest and next Powers of Action 3. Here is the Memory presenting anew the Images of Things past and offering what hath been observed of them heretofore either as to their chuseableness or undeservingness Here is the Imagination displaying things new and old and so displaying them that in things of lesser importance their appearance is greater than themselves in Things of truest and greatest Importance by the help of Imagination well imprinted they come nearer to their own greatness and appear much greater than they would do else which is the great benefit of sanctified Imagination in regard of which David prays That God would keep it always in the imaginations 1 Chron. 29. 18. of the people to fear the Lord and keep his Laws 4. Here is the resort of all outward Objects with their several Characters of Commendation or Dispraise as Embassies in the Court of a Prince so are the several Proposes made and addressed here from those several Regions the Region above which makes Offertures of greatest Happiness and the Region below which sends also the glozed Tenders of Good 5. Here are the Habits rising up by the degrees of propensions inclination temper and readiness to Action till by repeated Action they are so settled that they become the Treasure of the Heart out of which it freely expends Mat. 12. 35. every moment and at a minutes warning as occasion calls it out And from all these arise restless motions moves and removes of the Soul it self and of the Things within it self about which it treats endless Thoughts Imaginations Remembrances Willings Hatings Desirings Aversations and Abhorrencies and these in infinite mazes cutting one another some weaving one with another and mutually strengthening themselves others contracting cool and suspend the Soul to either part sometimes the Prints that have prevailed are defaced and new ones take and these again thrust out and the former returning in continual vicissitudes sometimes the Understanding encourages the Affections and other Powers and they it as several Artificers in a Building at other times there is a Confusion of Languages among them and they bring forth only a Babel But at all times is found here that great contest between the higher Soul and the Reasons and Dictates of that and the contrary struggles of the lower through its correspondencies and intelligences with the Body and its Sensualities the encounters between the Law of the Mind and the Members which cause great distractions and rollings of the Soul this way and that way according to the liveliness of the one or the violence of the other Lastly From the Heart arise both sudden and every way formed and contrived Actions accomplished perfected and fledg'd for all the forming and beating out of actions to this or that shape are upon the Anvil of the Heart and those that break out on the instant had yet their first motion from thence even as all the Arteries and Veins are from the natural Heart and it hath its Pulses every where so this Heart we speak of hath in this Life Moral and Intellectual Now that which makes the Consideration of all we have spoken in this particular great is that according to these Issues of life is the state of a Man in Holiness or Sin and so he is in an order for Happiness or Misery hereby For by these and all these and no other thing whatever is a Man what he is with these a Man is holy with these he is wicked nothing else gives him his Temper his Character and when these are twisted together and holily moved by the Grace of God and incited by heavenly motions the Soul is then drawn with the Cords of Hos 11. 4. a Man but when they are united in Evil it is drawing Iniquity with a Isa 5. 19. Cart-rope and sin with the Cords of Vanity that is of a Vain Heart For these being neither the higher Reason alone necessarily resulting from the motion and excellency of an Understanding nor being only the meer sensuality or inclination of Body but truly the substance bulk and substantial powers and motions of a man what a man is in these he truly is Further the true genuine and sincere motions of these are they that try him for which ever Sin or Holiness have the Ballance and cast the Scale that a Man is For on one side the cunning Heart sends out some actions out of choice and inclination only in complyance with the higher Soul for which it cannot but have a reverence and again sometimes however it be in its own native state corrupt yet it is forced to receive or rather suffers the
surprised the whole Animal Power also and extinguished that Life and how often the Soul gives a Constitution to the Body we know not but this is certain however the case be otherwise The Comfort or Discomfort of a Man is seated in his Soul and whencesoever the Causes of them arise or through whatsoever Conduits they pass they please or afflict according to the settled Judgment the Mind makes of them But for the further clearing and confirming these things let us make this account of them 1. From the Nature of Mans Soul it is certainly to be concluded The Soul is the Man which way soever the Soul goes that way certainly the Man goes and when the Soul is in a high concern any way it values the Body no more than the Body does a Garment For though it is true in the generality of men and in general Cases the Soul doth willingly subordinate it self to the Body or rather it self to it self as in the Body and makes the service the safety the pleasure of it self in the Body to be its whole pleasure safety and satisfaction yet there are particular persons by whom particular cases in which the Body is slighted as of smallest consideration We see good men use the service of it in Study and Contemplation to such a height that it is macerated weakened discouraged and speedily worn out they subdue it by daily mortification they 1 Cor. 9. 27. offer it up in Martyrdom deliver and resign it to the Flames submit it to the Torturer Bad Men enslave it to vicious affections lavish it out upon their Lusts and in their Rage sometimes destroy it by violence upon themselves From all which it is plain how much the Body is at the service of the Soul when the Soul is excited to the exercise of its own power 2. The great Mystery of the Soul is That whereas in its own Nature it is thus great and commanding was made in the Image and Similitude of God hath a resemblance of his Liberty and even of his infinite Motion in the displays of Understanding Will and Affections yet notwithstanding it may be as it were silenced and slumbered and the Motion of it so suppressed that it seems to have nothing so considerable as such a Being imports In this state it is like a strong Man asleep but that will awake it sleeps its sleep now but when God awakens it it shakes its self and throws off all its Manacles or like a strong man that shoâ—â—s by reason of Wine then its strength and vigour appears It lyes still as Samson when his Locks were cut off it re-enforces it self hereafter as Samson when his Locks were grown again like Water running softly and in a very weak and indiscernible Current afterwards like an Inundation of Water like a Spark under Ashes but afterwards like the whole Element of Fire in fiercest motion so that there is no judgment to be made of its influences into the Comfort or Discomfort of a Man when it is in its duller and more stupified condition but in its highest Flights now and in its Everlasting State 3. God hath the great power of moving the Soul he that formed the Spirit of a Man within him he that made it what it is that gave it his own likeness he will shew when he pleases that he made it such as it is indeed and it must needs be plainly in his power to do it who is the Supreme and All-working Spirit so that all the state and condition of it from the first moments of its Being throughout Eternal Ages is a Government and Ordination of God upon it Nothing then is to be concluded but by and upon his declarations of himself and of the manner of his Government he hath prescribed to himself which is in part made known to us in the Nature Frame and Constitution of the Soul it self and the daily Experiments of it but most especially in his Word which describes both the deplumed and low estate of Souls and the certain exaltation the lifting them up whether to Salvation or Destruction 4. The things the force and strength of the Soul move upon as descriptive and constitutive of its own state and condition give temper to its Satisfactions and Disquiets When it moves upon such things as have truly the Springs of Joy and Comfort in them as its own it hath an exceeding Joy that carries it above all things Again when it moves upon those things that have indeed the reasons of Sorrow and Affliction and that it must acknowledge it hath an unhappy Right to there is an excess of Sorrow and Vexation If there are but apprehended reasons of either or lower degrees of them aggravated by that apprehension the force of the Soul may yet make them great till it be undeceived for when there is nothing worthy either way to work upon yet it s very deceived and deluded Imagination are in the room of a great Object to it and either very pleasing or afflictive Thus it is till Reality takes place of Appearance and Eternity finds so much employment for all the Powers upon things so grand that they have nothing of leisure either for Appearances or lesser Things or to spend their strength in vain Thus far I have argued the Motions of the Soul unto Happiness or Misery immediately from the Nature of the Soul it self in the next place let the account of these things be drawn from the Ordination and Government of God in relation to himself and the eternal condition of the Soul 1. There is an Absolute Will and Determination of God that it shall appear that Himself and Holiness and the enjoyment of Himself for ever are the true Happiness of the Soul and the only Happiness of it on the other side That Sin his Wrath and Disfavour are the greatest Evils as God says I will famish all the Gods of the Earth so he will all that the Earth calls Good besides himself which is a worshipping of the Creature besides or in preference to the Creator blessed For Ever Else Men who are in Covenant with seeming Goods and in Union with them would think themselves well enough without God and without any enjoyment of him God therefore hath appointed a time wherein all the Idols of the World shall be smitten as Dagon before the Ark and all little Evils that are so reputed here shall shrink into none compared with his Wrath and Displeasure Then shall Men reflect upon all the Fatigues they have undergone for worldly Pleasure Profit and Honour as so much lost and misplaced labour and their so earnest recoil from present Evils though with their eternal hazard shall be reputed as basest Cowardise then Religion and Holy Walking which had so mean an allowance of Deference from them shall be esteemed of greatest worth and value 2. God hath determined to draw out Souls to their own Greatness and Extent that his Workmanship in them may not be always hid
represented to our sense and however the display of these things may pass into the Body and be all seen there yet we know the most excessive pleasures of Body interrupt the proper motions of Soul in which true Happiness or Misery lye for neither is a man drenched in an irrational pleasure nor tormented and he knows not why but there is an orderly motion a sense of sin and guilt of the supreme Justice of God in his righteous Executions of Judgment in Happiness an adoring of Infinite Grace and Mercy a Rational Taste of Holy and Divine Pleasures I shall now as a Conclusion draw up all this Discourse into these practical Conclusions flowing from the whole 1. Hereby I understand I have an immortal and everlasting Soul to take care of we look upon our selves as Flesh and Blood but we do not consider these Immortal Spirits and their great Powers Understanding Imagination Will Conscience Affections and the motion of these to be Everlasting We do not examine whether our Souls have a true Health Peace and Safety and a good Provision made for them Whether our Consciences are quiet and upon good grounds Whether our Affections are purified and holy For a man to consider his Soul thus is indeed to consider a mans self What shall it Luc. 9. 2â— profit a man if he gain the whole World and lose himself The Soul is a true Self and how dreadful will the mistake appear to men who have counted the Body and the Interests of that the only Self and this other true the greatest Self starts out A Self that now lyes under as many Covers as a Body under a multitude of Garments and so is concealed But then it breaking out and not being provided for that great principle of self preservation finding now its greatest Object will force a man to cry out with a most dreadful Ejulation and Complaint Oh this false Self that I have laboured for how hath it deceived me My very Self I never thought of and so have lost it What shall I give now in exchange for this my true Self 2. I hereby understand I am made for Holiness as the true Peace and Greatness of my Spirit for a converse with God for an attendance upon him for an observation of his Favour and Countenance towards me and that herein is the Life of my Spirit and on the other side I am very apt to be tempted to sin and drawn away from God to live at a distance from him to lose him and herein at last will be found the Torment and Hell of Souls and therefore I have greatest reason to be awakened about these things and earnestly to pray to God that he would put me into a high and vigorous action concerning them and to be extremely unsatisfied when I find my self insensible concerning them and therefore to labour earnestly to be in a good state and condition in relation to them 3. I hereby understand I am made and designed and shall certainly be unexpressibly Happy or Miserable to extremity and who can say this to himself without highest concern upon his own Soul If any one should tell us we were ordained to be one of these extraordinarily happy and prosperous or deplorably unhappy and were about to read our Fate or Doom to us and that we had considerable Reasons to believe such a one who would not with a most trembling suspense of mind wait what it should be When any one is to receive the Issue of his Cause from a Judge or Jury how high and impatient is his expectation But how much more should our Thoughts wait for this Issue of Things and God hath placed it in the motions of these our own Thoughts for when they move enlightened with his Countenance cleansed and annointed with his Grace ennobled with his Spirit delighted with his Consolations this is Heaven begun this is Happiness growing up When they are base for want of his Spirit impure with Lust and dishonourable Affections full of rancour and bitterness and all spotted and stained with guilt this is Hell in the Foundations of it laid And however my Soul lye still now yet when I see how many things draw out mens Souls even in this Life Education better Converse Solitude some great danger or loss in the world higher Condition Sickness some notable Discourse as in Foelix how much more must I needs think the change into Eternity will do it and therefore no silence of my Soul now can encourage me upon serious consideration to be careless of it 4. I hereby understand my unspeakable dependence upon the Grace of God and his Free Favour and hence learn to humble my self before him to nothing seeing my Happiness consists in those free Beams of his Favour in the light of his Countenance in his setting my Soul into a gracious Motion by his Spirit and raising the Motions of my Spirit to a high communion with him in Bliss for seeing I can so little yield my self the accounts of Happiness and receive them all from him and can so little move my self upon them when they are offered by him I am inconceivably bound and beholden to him both to open the Fountain of Life that is himself to me and to move me by his Spirit that I may move On the other side If he leaves me to my self what Evils shall I run into and treasure up torment and sharpen stings against my self by it and how can he inflame my Soul with his Indignation and to what degrees he pleases both now and for ever For if he hide the face of his Mercy who can behold him What Reason have I therefore to reverence him with Godly Fear and to acknowledge him with greatest dependency I humbly therefore say as the Apostle not only by the Grace of God I am what I am but by the Grace of God alone I hope what I hope to be 5. I hereby understand what a great necessity I have of Jesus Christ my Lord the Son of the Wisdom Glory Power and Holiness of God the Son of his Love for he is the Attonement His Blood offered by the Eternal Spirit is the most excellent Thing in Heaven or Earth and that only which can purge the Conscience the most excellent and divine Instrument of Pacification with God and within the Conscience it self Through him the Holy Spirit is given by him is there an entrance into that Holy of Holies that Heaven within the Veil for as the value of Souls for which our Lord gave himself exalts his Redemption the greatness of the Misery from which they are rescued the greatness of the Happiness to which they are exalted all glorifie the Saviour of Souls so do these Souls of a Nature so supreme require so great a Ransom and Mediator no lower no lesser a Price can countervail them and it argues them to be a Nature so supreme that so great a Mediator undertook so infinitely for them 6. Hereby I understand