ridiculous just like the common people who judging all customes and fashions by their own account those of other nations absurd and barbarous 'T is well for those smiling Confuters that they were not bred in Mahumetism for then without doubt they would have made sport of Christianity But since they are so disposed let them laugh at the opinion I have undertaken for till they understand it I know who in the judgement of wise men will prove Ridiculous It was from this very principle that the most considerable truthes that ever the world was acquainted with were to the Iews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness and 't was such a spirit as reigns in these children of self-confidence that call'd S. Paul a babler And methinks till these narrow scul'd people could boast themselves infallible and all their opinions an unerring Canon common modesty and civility should teach them better manners then at first dash to judge that a ridiculous absurdity which the greatest and wisest sages that inlightned the antient world accounted so sound and and probable a Conclusion Especially it being a matter not determin'd against but rather countenanc't in Scripture as will appear hereafter But opiniative ignorance is very weak immoral And till those slight and vulgar decerners have learn't that first principle of true wisdome To judge nothing till they throughly understand it have weighed it in the ballance of impartial Reason 't is to no purpose to spend ones breath upon them Courteous Reader in the Authours absence you are desired to correct the Printers Errours Lux Orientalis CHAP. I. The opinions proposed concerning the original of Souls IT hath always been found a matter of discouraging difficulty among those that have busied themselves in such Injuiries To determine the Soul 's original â—nsomuch that after all the contests and disputes that have been about it many of the wisest Inquisitors have concluded it undeterminable or if they have sate down in either of the 2 opinions viz. of it's immediate Creation or Traduction which of later ages have been the only competitors they have been driven to it rather from the absurdities of the opposite opinion which they have left then drawn by any rational alliciency in that which they have taken to And indeed if we do but impartially consider the grand inconveniences which each party urgeth against the others Conclusion it would even tempt one to think that both are right in their opposition and neither in their assertion And since each side so strongly oppugns the other and so weakly defends it self 't is a shrewd suspicion that they are both mistaken Wherefore if there be a third that can lay any probable claim to the truth it deserves to be heard to plead its cause and if it be not chargeable with the contradictions or absurdities either of the one or other to be admitted Now though these later ages have concluded the matter to lye between immediate Creation and seminal Traduction yet I find that the more antient â—imes have pitcht upon Praeexistence as more likely than either For the platoâ—nists Pythagoreans the Chaldâ—an Wise men the Jewish Rabbins and some of the most learned and antient Fathers were of this opinion Wherefore I think we owe so much at least to the Mentory of those grave Sages 〈◊〉 to examine this Doctrine of theirs and if neither of the later Hypotheses can ease our anxious minds or free themselves from absurdities and this Grey Dogma fairly clear all doubts and be obnoxious to no such contradictions I see no reason but we may give it a favourable admittance Till something else appear more concinnous and rational Therefore let us take some account of what the 2 first opinions alledge one against another and how they are proved by their promoters and defendants now if they be found unable to withstand the shock of one anothers opposition we may reasonably cast our eies upon the third to see what force it brings to vouch its interest and how it will behave it self in the encounter CHAP. II. Daily creation of Souls is inconsistent with the Divine Attributes THe first of these opinions that offers it self to Tryal is that God daily creates humane souls which immediately are united unto the bodies that Generation hath prepared for them Of this side are our later Divines and the generality of the Schoolmâ—n But not to be born down by Authoritys Let us consider what reason stands against it Therefore 1 If our Souls came immediately out of the hands of God when we came first into these bodies Whence then are those enormously brutish inclinations that strong natural proclivity to vice and impiety that are exstant in the children of men All the works of God bear his image and are perfect in their kind Purity is his nature and what comes from him proportionably to its capacity partakes of his perfections Every thing in the natural world bears the superscription of his wisdome and goodness and the same fountain cannot send forth sweet waters and bitter Therefore 't is a part of our alleagiance to our Maker to believe that he made us pure and innocent and if we were but just then framed by him when we were united with these terrestrial bodiâ—s whence should we contract such degenerate propensions Some tell us that this impuâ—ity was immediately deriv'd from the bodies we are unired to But how is it possible that purely passive insensible Matter should transfuse habits or inclinations into a Nature that is quite of an other Make and Quality How can such a cause produce an effect so disproportionate Matter can do nothing but by motion and what relation hath that to a moral contagion How can a Body that is neither capable of sense nor sin infect a soul as soon as 't is unied to it with such vitious debauched dispositions But others think to evade by saying That we have not these depravities in our natures but contract them by custome education and evill usages How then comes it about that those that have had the same care and industry used upon them and have been nurtured nuder the same d scipline and severe oversight do so vastly and even to wonder differ in their inclinations How is it that those that are under continual temptations to vice are yet kept within the bounds of vertue and sobriety And yet that others that have strong motives and allurements to the contrary should violently break out into all kinds of extravagance and impiety Sure there is some what more in the matter than those general causes which may be common to both and which many times have quite contrary effects 2 This Hypothesis that God continually creates humane souls in these bodies consists not with the honour of the Divine Attributes For 1 How stands it with the goodness and benignity of that God who is Love to put pure and immaculate spirits who were capable of living to him and with him into such
bodies as will presently desile them deface his image pervert all their powers and faculties incline them to hate what he most loves and love what his soul hateth and that without any knowledge or concurrence of theirs will quite marre them as soon as he hath made them and of dear Children render them rebells or enemies and in a moment from being like Angels transform them into the perfect resemblance of the first Apostates Devils Is this an effect of those tender mercies that are over all his works And 2 Hath that Wisdome that hath made all things to operate according to their natures and provided them with what ever is necessary to that end made myriads of noble Spirits capable of as noble operations and presently plunged them into such a condition wherein they cannot act at all according to their first and proper dispositions but shall be necessitated to the quite contrary and have other noxious and depraved inclinations fatally impos'd upon their pure natures Doth that wisdome that hath made all things in number weight and measure and disposed them in such exact harmony and proportions use to act so ineptly And that in the best and noblest pieces of his Creation Doth it use to make and presently destroy To frame one thing and give it such or such a nature and then undo what he had done and make it an other And if there be no such irregular methods used in the framing of inferiour Creatures what reason have we to suspect that the Divine Wisdome did so vary from its self in its noblest composures And 3 Is it not a great affront to the Divine Justice to suppose as we are commonly taught that assoon as we are born yea and in the Womb we are obnoxious to eternal wrath and torments if our Souls are then immediately created out of nothing For To be just is to give every one his due and how can endless unsupportable punishments be due to innocent Spirits who but the last moment came righteous pure and immaculate out of their Creators hands and have not done or thought any thing since contrary to his will or Laws nor were in any the least capacity of sinning I but the first of our order our General head and Representative sinned and we in him thus we contract guilt as soon as we have a beeing and are lyable to the punishment of his disobedience This is thought to solve all and to clear God from any shadow of unrighteâ—sness But what ever truth there is in the thing it self I think it cannot stand upon the Hypothesis of the souls immediate Creation nor yet justifie God in his proceedings For 1 If I was then newly created when first in this body what was Adam to mee who sinned above 5000 years before I came out of nothing If he represented me it must be as I was in his Loins that is in him as an effect in a cause But so I was not according to this Doctrine for my soul ownes no Father but God its immediate progenitour And what am I concern'd then in his sins which had never my will or consent more then in the sins of 〈◊〉 or Julius Caesar Nay than in the sins of Belzebub or Lucifer And for my body 't is most likely that never an Atom of his ever came at mee or if any did he was no cause on 't Besides that of it self is neither capable of sense sin guilt nor punishment or 2 Admitting that we become thus obnoxious assoon as in the body upon the account of his default How doth it comport with the divine Justice in one moment to make such excellent creatures and in the next to render them so miserable by thrusting them into a condition so fatally obnoxious especially since they were capable of living and acting in bodies more perfect and more accommodate to their new undesiled natures Certainly could they have been put to their choice whether they would have come into being upon such termes they would rather have been nothing for ever And God doth not use to make his creatures so as that without their own fault they shall have cause to unwish themselves Hitherto in this second general Arg. I have dealt against those that believe and assert the original depravity of our natures which those that deny may think themselves not pinch't by or concernâ—d in Since they think they do no such dishonour to the divine Attributes while they assert that we were not made in so deplorable and depraved a condition but have so made our selves by our voluntary aberrations But neither is this a fit Plaister for the sore supposing our souls to be immediately created and so sent into these bodies For still it seems to be a diminutive and disparaging apprehenâ—on of the infinite and immense Goodness of God that he should detrude such excellent creatures as our souls into a state so hazardous wherein he seeth it to be ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt and defile themselves and so make themselves miserable here and to eternity hereafter And certainly be we as indifferent naturally to good and evill as can be supposed yet great are the disadvantages to virtue that all men unavoidably meet with in this state of imperfection For considering that our infant and growing age is an age of sense in which our appetites and passions are very strong and our reasons weak and scarce any thing but a chain of imaginations 't is I say great odds but that we should be caryed to inordinacy and exceed the bounds the divine laws have set us So that our lower powers of sense and passions using to have the head will grow strong and impetuous and thus 't is an hundred to one but we shall be rooted in vice before we come to the maturity of our reasons or are capable of the exercise of virtue And wofull experience teacheth us that most men run so far before they consider whither they are agoing that the care and diligence of all their lives after will scarce reclaim them Besides the far greatest part of the world are led into wickednesse and all kinds of debauchery by corrupt and vitious education And 't is not difficult to observe what an inormous strength bad education hath to deprave and pervert well dispos'd inclinations Which things consider'd this way also methinks reflects a Disparagement on the Divine Attributes Since by creating souls daily and putting them into such bodies and such parts of the world as his infinite Wisdome sees will debauch them and pervert them from the ways of righteousnesse and happinesse into those of vice and misery he deals with them lesse mercifully then a parent among us would with his Off-spring And to suppose God to have lesse goodnesse then his degenerate creatures is to have very narrow apprehensions of his perfections and to 〈◊〉 him of the honour due to his Attributes 3 It hath been urged with good probability by great and wise Sages that
workmanship made without any creature-interposal and more especially regarded by him But to inferre hence that they 〈◊〉 then produced when these bodies 〈◊〉 generated is illogicall and inconsequenâ— So that all that these Scriptures will serâ— for is only to disprove the Doctrine 〈◊〉 Fraduction but makes not a tittle for the ordinary Hypothesis of Daily Creation against Praeexistence CHAP. III. 2 Traduction of souls is impossible the reasons for it weak and frivolous the proposal of Praeexistence THus then we have examind the first way of stating the Soul's original that of continual Creation and finding no sure resting place for our inquiry here we remove to the second The way of Traduction or seminal Propagation And the adherers to this Hypothesis are of 2 sorts viz. either such as make the soul to be nothing but a purer sort of matter or of those that confess it wholly spiritual and immaterial He dispatch the former briefly strike at the root of their misconceit of the souls production and shew it cannot be Matter be it as pure as can be conceived Therefore I If the soul be matter then whatever perceptions or apprehensions it hath or is capable of they were let in at the senses And thus the great Patron of the Hypothesis states it in his Leviathan and other writings But now clear it is that our Souls have some conceptions which they never received from external sense For there are some congenite implicite Principles in us without which there could be no sensation since the images of objects are very smal and inconsiderable in our brains comparatively to the vastness of the things which they represent and very unlike them in multitudes of other circumstances so that 't were impossible we should have the sensible representation of any thing were it not that our souls use a kind of Geometry or mathematick Inference in judging of external objects by those little hints it finds in material impressions Which Art and the principles thereof were never received from sense but are presupposed to all sensible perceptions And were the soul quite vold of all such implicit notions it would remain as senselesse as a stone for ever Besides we find our minds fraught with principles logical moral metaphysical which could never owe their original to sense otherwise then as it gives us occasions of using them For sense teacheth no general propositions but only affords singulars for Induction which being an Inference must proceed from an higher principle that ownes no such dependence on the senses as being found in the mind and not deriv'd from any thing without Also we find in our selves mathematical notions and build certain demonstrations on them which abstract from sense and matter And therefore never had them from any material power but from somthing more sublime and excellent But this Argument is of too large a consideration to be treated of here and therefore I content my self with those brief Touches and passe on 2 If the soul be matter 't is impossible it should have the sense of any thing for either the whole image of the object must be received in one point of this sensitive matter a thing absurd at first view that such variety of distinct and orderly representations should be made at once upon a single atom or the whole image is imprest upon every point and then there would be as many objects as there are points in this matter and so every thing would be infinitely multiplyed in our delusive senses Or finally every part of the soul must receive a proportionable part of the image and then how could those parts communicate their perceptions to each other and what should perceive the whole This Argument is excellently managed by the great Dr. H. More in whose writings this fond Hypothesis is fully triumpht over and defeated Since therefore the very lowest degree of perception single and simple sense is incompatible to 〈◊〉 body or matter we may safely conclude that the higher and nobler operations of imagining remembring reasoning and willing must have a cause and source that is not Corporeal Thus therefore those that build the souls traduction upon this ground of its being only body and modified matter are disappointed in the foundation of But 2 Another sort of assertors of traduction teach the Soul to be spiritual and incorporeal and affirm that by a vertue deriv'd from the first benediction it can propagate its like one soul emitting another as the body doth the matter of Generation The manner of which spiritual production useth to be illustrated by one candles lighting another and a mans begetting a thought in anothers mind without diminishing of his own This is the most favourable representation of this opinion that I can think on And yet if we nearly consider it it will appear most absurd unphilosophical For if one soul produce another 't is either out of nothing or something praeexistent If the former 't is an absolute creation which all philosophy concludes impossible for a Creature And if it be pretended that the Parent doth it not by his proper natural virtue but by a strength imparted by God in the first blessing Increase and multiply so that God is the prime agent he only the instrument I rejoin that then either God hath thereby obliged himself to put forth a new and extraordinary power in every such occasion distinct from his influence in the ordinary course of nature Or else 2 he only concurres by his providence as he doth to our other natural actions we having this Ability bestowed upon our very natures He that asserts the first runs upon all the rocks that he would avoid in the former Hypothesis of continual Creation and God will be made the cause of the sin and misery of his spotless and blameless creatures which absurdities he cannot shun by saying that God by interposing in such productions doth but follow the rules of acting which he first made while man was innocent For certainly infinite goodnesse would never have tyed up it self to such Laws of working as he foresaw would presently bring unavoidable inconvenience misery and ruine upon the best part of his workmanship And for the second way it supposeth God to have no more to do in this action then in our eating and drinking Consequently here is a creation purely natural And â—methinks if we have so vast a power to â—ring the ends of contradictorys together â—omthing out of nothing which some deny to Omnipotence it self t is much we cannot conscrve in being our creature 〈◊〉 produced nor our own intimate selves since conservation is not more then creation And t is much that in other thing we should give such few specimens of so vast an ability or have a power so divine and excellent and no faculty to discerne it by Again 2 if the Soul be immediately produced out of nothing be the agent who it will God or the Parent it will be pure and sinlesse For supposing our parents
't is an unbecomming apprehension of the Majesty on high to suppose him assistant to unlawful and unclean coitions by creating a soul to animate the impure foetus And to think It is in the power of brutish lust to determine Omnipotence to create a Soul whensoever a couple of unclean adulterers shall think fit to join in their bestial pleasures is methinks to have a very mean apprehension of the divine Majesty and Purity This is to make him the worst of Servants by supposing him to serve his creature's vices to wait upon the vilest actions and to engage the same Infinite Power that made the world for the perfecting what was begun by dissolute wantons This Argument was used of old by pious and learned Origen and hath been imployed in the same service since by his Modern defendents But I foresee an evasion or two that possibly with some may stand for an answer the removal of which will clear the businesse It may be pretended that God's attending to create souls for the supply of such generations is but an act of his justice for the detection and consequently punishment of such lawless offenders which therefore will be no more matter of disparagement then the waiting of an Officer of justice to discover and apprehend a Malefactour But this Subterfuge cannot elude the force of the Argument for it hath no place at all in most adulteries yea great injustice and injury is done many times by such illegitimate births the child of a stranger being by this means admitted to carry away the inheritance from the lawful off-spring Besides God useth not ordinarily to put forth his Almighty power to discover secret miscarriages except sometimes for very remarkable and momentous ends but leaves hidden iniquiâ—es to be the objects of his own castigations And if discovery of the fault be the main end of such creations methinks that might be done at a cheaper rate that should not have brought so much inconvenience with it or have exposed his own innocent and harmlesse off-spring to undeserv'd Reproach and Infamy But further it may be suggested that it is no more indecent for God to create souls to furnish those unlawful Generations then it is that a man should be nourisht by meat that he hath unlawfully come by or that the Cattle which he hath stoln should ingender with his own But the difference of these instances from the case in hand is easily discernable in that the nourishment and productions spoken of proceed in a set orderly way of natural causes which work fatally and necessarily without respect to morall circumstances And there is no reason it should be in the power of a sinful creature to ingage his Maker to pervert or stop the course of nature when he pleaseth But in the case of creating souls God is supposed to act by explicit and immediate Will the suspending of which in such a case as this is far different in point of credit and decorum from his altering the setled Laws he hath set in the Creation and turning the world upside-down I might further add 4ly That it seems very incongruous and unhandsome to suppose that God should create a souls for the supply of one monstrous body And of such prodigious productions there is mention in History That 's a remarkable instance in Sennertus of a Monster born at Emmaus with two hearts and two heads the diversity of whose appeâ—ites perceptions and affections testified that it had two souls within that bi-partite habitation Now to conceive the most wise Maker and Contriver of all things immediately to create two souls for a single body rather then suffer that super-plus of matter which constitutes the monstrous excrescence to prove effoete inanimate is methinks a derogatory apprehension of his wisdome and supposeth him to act more ineptly in the great and immediate instances of his power than in the ordinary course of nature about less noble and accurate productions Or if it be pretended that Souls were sent into them while the bodies were yet distinct but that after wards they grew into one This I say will not heal the breach that this Hypothesis makes upon the divine Wisdome it â—acitely reflecting a shameful oversight upon Omniscience that he should not be aware of the future coalescence of these bodies into one when he made souls for them or at least 't is to suppose him knowingly to act ineptly Besides that the rational soul is not created till the body as to the main stroaks of it at least is framed is the general opinion of the Assertours of daily creation So that then there is no roome for this evasion And now one would think that an opinion so very obnoxious and so lyable to such grand inconveniences should not be admitted but upon most pressing reasons and ineludable demonstrations And yet there is not an argument that I ever heard of from reason to inforce it but only such as are brought from the impossibility of the way of Traduction which indeed is chargeable with as great absurdities as that we have been discoursing of 'T is true several Scriptures are prest for the service of the cause but I doubt much against their intent and inclination General testimonies there are to prove that God is the Father and Creatour of Souls which is equally true whether we suppose it made just as it is united to these bodies or did praeexist and was before them But that it is just then created out of nothing when first it comes into these earthly bodies I know not a word in the inspired Writings that speaks it For that saying of our Saviour My Father worketh hitherto and I work is by the most judicious understood of the works of preservation and providence Those of creation being concluded within the first Hebdomade accordingly as is exprest in the History that God on the seventh day rested from all his works Nor can there an instance be given of any thing created since or is there any pretended but that which hath been the subject of our inquiry which is no inconsiderable presumption that that was not so neither since the divine way of working is not pariâ— colour or humoursome but uniform and consonant to the laws of exactest wisdome So that for us to suppose that God after the compleating of his Creation and the laws given to 〈◊〉 things for their action and continuancâ— to be every moment working in a quitâ— other way in one instance of beings thaâ— he doth in all besides is methinks a somâ— what odd apprehension especially wheâ— no Reason urgeth to it and Scripture silent For such places as this the 〈◊〉 of the Spirits of all flesh the Father 〈◊〉 Spirits The spirit returns to God 〈◊〉 gave it The souls which I have madâ— We are his off-spring Who formeth 〈◊〉 spirit of man within him and the like signifie no more but that our souls 〈◊〉 a nearer relation to God then our bodies as being his immediate
to be our Creators they make 〈◊〉 but as natural agents and so can only transmit their natural qualities but not their moral pravities Wherefore there can no better account be given from this way how the soul is so debauched and infected assoon as it comes into the body 〈◊〉 in the former and therefore it fails in the main end it is design'd for Thus we see then that the traduction of the soul supposing it to be produced out of nothing cannot be defended Nor doth the second general way yield any more relief to this Hypothesis For if it be made of any thing praeexistent it is either of matter or spirit The former we have undermin'd and overthrown already in what was said against those that hold it to be body And if it be made out of any spiritual substance it must be the soul of the parent except we will revive the old enthusiastick conceit of its being a particle of the divine essence which supposition is against the nature of an immaterial being a chief property of which is to be indiscerpible Nor do the similitudes I mention'd in the proposal of the Hypothesis at all fit the businesse for one candle lights another by separable emissions that passe from the flame of that which is kindled to the â—ieke of the other And flame is a body whose parts are in continual flux as a â—iver But the substance of the soul is stable permanent and indivisible which quite makes it another case And for a mans informing anothers mind with a thought which he had not conceived it is not a production of any substance but only an occasioning him to exertan operation of his mind which he did not before And therefore makes nothing to the illustrating how a soul can produce a soul a substance distinct and without it self Thus we see how desperate the case of the soul's original is in the Hypothesis of Traduction also But yet to let it have fair play wee 'l give it leave to plead it's cause and briefly present what is most material in its behalf There are but two reasons that I can think of worth a naming 1 A man begets a man and a man he is not without a soul therefore 't is pretended that the soul is begotten But this argument is easily detected of palpable sophistry and is as if one should argue a man is mortall therefore his soul is mortall or is fat and lusty therefore his soul is so The absurdity of which kinds of reasoning lyes in drawing that into a strict and rigorous affirmation which is only meant according to vulgar speech and is true only in some remarkable respect or circumstance Thus we say A man begetts a man because he doth the visible and only sensible part of him The vulgar to whom common speech is accommodate not taking so much notice of what is past the ken of their sences And therefore Body in ordinary speaking is oft put for Person as here man for the body Sometimes the noblest part is us'd for the whole as when 't is said 70 souls went down with Jacob into Egypt therefore such arguments as the assertours of traduction make use of which are drawn from vulgar schemes of speech argue nothing but the desperatenesse of the cause that needs such pitiful sophistries to recommend it Such are these proofs which yet are some of the best I meet with The seed of the woman shall break the serpents head 66 souls descended out of Jacobs loins Adam begat a son in his own likenesse and such like According to this rate of arguing the scripture may be made speak any thing that our humoursome phancies please to dictate And thus to rack the sacred writings to force them whether they will or no to bring evidence to our opinions is an affront to their Authority that 's next to the denying on 't I might adde 2 that begetting also hath a latitude and in common speech signifies not a strict and philosophical production So that a man begets a man though he only generates the body into which fitly prepared descends a soul. And he that doth that upon which another thing necessarily follows is said to be the cause of both 2 The adherents to traduction use to urge that except the whole man soul and body be propagated there is no account can be given of our original defilement And scripture gives evident testimony to that early pollution for we are said to be conceived in sin and transgressors from the Womb. We have already seen that indeed the way of daily creating souls cannot come off but with vilely aspersing the divine attributes And it hath been hinted that neither can Traduction solve the business for if the Parent beget the soul out of nothing it will be as pure and clean as if God himself were it's immediate creatour for though a clean thing cannot come out of an unclean when any thing of the substance of the producent is imparted to the effect yet where 't is made out of nothing the reason is very different Yea the soul in all the powers that are concern'd in this production is now as clean and pure as ever 't was for it is suppos'd to do it by a capacity given at its first creation while pure and innocent in which respect it is not capable of moral contagion this being an ability meerly natural and plastick and not at all under the imperium or command of the will the only seat of morall good and evill Or if our souls are but particles and decerptions of our parents then I must have been guilty of all the sins that ever were committed by my Progenitors ever since Adam and by this time my soul would have been so deprav'd and debauch'd that it would be now brutish yea diabolical Thus then we see that even upon this reason 't is necessary to pitch upon some other Hypothesis to give an account of the pravity of our natures which both these fayl in the solution of And since the former committs such violence upon the honour of the divine Attributes since the latter is so contrary to the nature of things and since neither can give any satisfaction in the great affairs of providence and our natures or have any incouragement from the Sacred Volume 'T is I think very excusable for us to cast our eies abroad to see if there be no other way that may probably unriddle those mysteries and relieve the minds of anxious and contemplative inquirers In which search if we light on any thing that doth sweetly accord with the Attributes of God the nature of things and unlocks the intricacies of Providence I think we have found what the two former opinions aim at but cannot make good their pretences to And may salute the truth with a joyfull 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore from the modern disputants let us look towards the antient Sages those eastern Sophi that have fill'd the world with the same
infinite communication of goodnesse is better then a Finite To this because I doubt I have distrest the Readers patience already I answer briefly 1 Every one that believes the infiniteness of Gods goodness is as much obliged to answer this objection as I am For it will be said infinite goodness doth good infinitely and consequently the effects to which it doth communicate are infinite For if they are not so it might have communicated to more and thereby have done more good then now 't is supposed to do and by consequence now is not infinite And to affirm that goodnesse is infinite where what it doth and intends to do is but finite will be said to be a contradiction since goodness is a relative term and in God always respects somewhat ad extra For he cannot be said to be good to himself he being a nature that can receive no additional perfection Wherefore this Objection makes no more against mine Argument then it doth against the infinity of the divine goodness and therefore I am no more concern'd in it then others Yea 2ly the Scripture affirms that which is the very strength of mine Argument viz. That God made all things best Very Good saith our Translation but the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a particle of the Superlative And therefore every one that owns it's sacred Authority is interested against this objection For it urgeth it had been far more splendid glorious and magnificent for God to have made the universe commensurate to his own immensity and to have produced effects of his power and greatness where ever he himself is viz. in infinite space and duration then to have confined his omnipotence to work only in one little spot of an infinite 〈◊〉 capacity and to begin to act but 'tother day Thus then the late creation and finiteness of the world seem to conflict with the undoubted oracle of truth as well as with mine Argument ment and therefore the objection drawn thence is of no validity 3 Those that have most strenuously defended the orthodox doctrine against the old opinion of the eternity and infinity of the world have asserted it to be impossible in the nature of the thing And sure the Divine benignity obligeth him not to do contradictions or such things as in the very notion of them are impossible But in the case of Praeexistence no such thing can be reasonably pretended as above hath been declared and therefore there is no escaping by this Evasion neither Nor can there any thing else be urged to this purpose but what whoever believes the infinity of the divine bounty will be concern'd to answer And therefore 't will make no more against me then against a truth on all hands confessed Let me only adde this That 't is more becomming us to inlarge our apprehensions of things so as that they may suit the Divine Beneficence then to draw it down to a complyance with our narrow schemes and narrow modells Thus then I have done with the Argument for Praeexistence drawn from the Divine goodnesse And I have been the longer on it because I thought 't was in vain to propose it without taking to task the principal of those objections that must needs arise in the minds of those that are not used to this way of arguing And while there was no provision made to stop up those Evasions that I saw this Argument obnoxious to the using of it I was afraid would have been a prejudice rather then a furtherance of the cause I ingaged it in And therefore I hope the ingenious will pardon this so necessary piece of tediousnesse CHAP. X. A third Argument for Praeexistence from the great variety of mens speculative inclinations and also the diversity of our Genius's copiously urged If these Arguments make Praeexistence but probable 't is enough to gain it the victory BUt now I proceed to another Argument Therefore Thirdly If we do but reflect upon what was said above against the souls daily Creation from that enormous pravity which is so deeply rooted in some mens natures we may thence have a considerable evidence of Praeexistence For as this strong natural propensity to vice and impiety cannot possibly consist with the Hypothesis of the souls comming just out of Gods hands pure and immaculate so doth it most aptly suit with the doctrine of its praeexistence which gives a most clear and apposite account of the phaenomenon For let us but conceive the souls of men to have grown degenerate in a former condition of life to have contracted strong and inveterate habits to vice and Iewdnesse and that in various manners and degrees we may then easily apprehend when some mens natures had so incredibly a depraved tincture and such impetuous ungovernable irreclaimiable inclinations to what is vitious while others have nothing near such wretched propensions but by good education and good discipline are mouldable to vertue This shews a clear way to unriddle this amazing mystery without â—lemishing any of the divine Attributes or doing the least violence to our faculties Nor is it more difficult to conceive how a soul should awaken out of the state of inactivity we speak of with those radical inclinations that by long practice it had contracted then how a Swallow should return to her old trade of living after her winter sleep and silence for those customs it hath been addicted to in the other state are now so deeply fastned and rooted in the soul that they are become even another nature Now then if Praeexistence be not the truth 't is very strange that it should so exactly answer the Phaenomena of our natures when as no other Hypothesis doth any whit tolerably suit them And if we may conclude that false which is so correspondent to all appearances when we know nothing else that can yield any probable account of them and which is not in the least repugnant to any inducement of belief we then strangely forget our selves when we determine any thing We can never for instance conclude the Moon to be the cause of the flux and reflux of the Sea from the answering of her approaches and recesses to its ebbs and swellings Nor at this rate can the cause of any thing else be determin'd in nature But yet besides 2 we might another way inforce this Argument from the strange difference and diversity that there is in mens wits and intellectual craseis as well as in the dispositions of their wills and appetites Even the natural tempers of mens minds are as vastly different as the qualities of their bodys And 't is easy to observe in things purely speculative and intellectual even where neither education or custom have interposed to sophisticate the natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that some men are strangely propense to some opinions which they greedily drink in as soon as they are duly represented yea and find themselves burthened and opprest while their education hath kept them
in a contrary belief when as others are as fatally set against these opinions and can never be brought favourably to resent them Every soul brings a kind of sense with it into the world whereby it tastes and relisheth what is suitable to its peculiar temper And notions will never lye easily in a mind that they are not fitted to some can never apprehend that for other then an Absurdity which others are so clear in that they almost take it for a First principle And yet the former hath all the same evidence as the latter This I have remarkably taken notice of in the opinion of the extension of a spirit Some that I know and those inquisiâ—ve free and ingenuous by all the proof and evidence that is cannot be reconciled to it Nor can they conceive any thing extended but as a Body Whereas other deep and impartial searchers into nature cannot apprehend it anything at all if not extended but think it must then be a mathematical point or a meer non-entity I could instance in other speculations which I have observ'd some to be passionate Embracers of upon the first proposal when as no arguments could prevail on others to think them tolerable But there needs no proof of a manifest observation Therefore before I goe further I would demand whence comes this meer notional or speculative variety were this difference about sensibles yea or about things depending on the imagination the influence of the body might then be suspected for a cause But since it is in the most abstracted Theories that have nothing to do with the grosser phantasmes since this diversity is found in minds that have the greatest care to free themselves from the deceptions of sense and intanglements of the body what can we conclude but that the soul it self is the immediate subject of all this variety and that it came praejudiced and prepossest into this body with some implicit notions that it had learnt in another And if this congruity to some opinions and averseneâ—e to others be congenial to us and not advenient from any thing in this state 't is me thinks clear that we were in a former For the soul in its first and pure nature hath no idiosynerasies that is hath no proper natural inclinations which are not competent to others of the same kind and condition Be sure they are not fatally determin'd by their natures to false and erroneous apprehensions And therefore since we find this determination to one or other falshood in many if not most in this state and since 't is very unlikely it is derived only from the body custom or education what can we conceive on 't but that our souls were tainted with these peculiar and wrong corruptions before we were extant upon this stage of Earth Besides 't is easie to observe the strange and wonderful variety of our geniusses one mans nature inclining him to one kind of study and imployment anothers to what is very different Some almost from their very cradles will be addicted to the making of figures And in little mechanical contrivances others love to be riming almost as soon as they can speak plainly and are taken up in smal essays of Poetry Some will be scrawling pictures and others take as great delight in some pretty offers at Musick and vocal harmony Infinite almost are the ways in which this pure natural diversity doth discover it selfe Now to say that all this variety proceeds primarily from the meer temper of our bodys is me thinks a very poor and unsatisfying Account For those that are the most like in the temperayr complexion of their bodys are yet of a vastly differing Genius Yea they that havebeen made of the same clay cast in the same mould and have layn at once in the same natural bed the womb yea whose bodies have been as like as their state and fortunes and their education usages the same yet even they do not unfrequently differ as much from each other in their genius and dispositions of the mind as those that in all these particulars are of very different condition Besides there are all kind of makes forms dispositions tempers and complexions of body that are addicted by their natures to the same exercises and imployments so that to ascribe this to any peculiarity in the Body is me seems a very improbable solution of the Phaenomenon And to say all these inclinations are from custom or education is the way not to be believed since all experience testifies the contrary What then can we conjecture is the cause of all this diversity but that we had taken a great delight and pleasure in some things like and analogous unto'these in a former condition which now again begins to put forth it selfe when we are awakened out of our silent recess into a state of action And though the imployments pleasures and exercises of our former life were without question very different from these in the present estate yet 't is no doubt but that some of them were more confamiliar and analogous to some of our transactions than others so that as any exercise or imployment here is more suitable to the particular dispositions that were praedominant in the other state with the more peculiar kindnesse is it regarded by us and the more greedily do our inclinations now fasten on it Thus if a Musitian should be interdicted the use of all musical instruments and yet might have his choice of any other Art or profession 't is likely he would betake himselfe to Limning or Poetry these exercises requiring the same disposition of wit and genius as his beloved Musick did And we in like manner being by the fate of our wretched descent hindred from the direct exercising our selves about the objects of our former delights and pleasures do yet assoon as we are able take to those things which do most correspond to that genius that formerly inspired us And now 't is time to take leave of the Arguments from Reason that give evidence for Praeexistence If any one think that they are not so Demonstrative but that they may be answered or at least evaded I pray him to consider how many demonstrations he ever met with that a good wit resolv'd in a contrary cause could not shuffle from the edge of Or let it be granted that the Arguments I have alledged are no infallible or necessary proofs yet if they render my cause but probable yea but possible I have won what I contended for For it having been made manifest by as good evidence as I think can be brought for any thing that the way of new creations is most inconsistent with the honor of the blessed Attributes of God And that the other of Traduction is most impossible and contradictious in the nature of things There being now no other way left but Praeexstence if that be probable or but barely possible 't is enough to give it the victory And whether all that hath been said prove
platoniâ—s though in their writings 't is but Gold in Oar less pure and perfect But a late great Artist hath excellently refined it And I have not much work to do but to bring together what he up and down hath scattered and by a method-order and some connexions and notions of mine own to work it into an intire and uniforme mass Now because the Frame of the particular Hypothesis is originally Philosophicall I shall therefore not deprave it by mingling with it the opinions of modern Theologers or distort any thing to make it accommodate to their dogmata but solely and sincerely follow the light of Reason and Philosophy For I intend not to endeavour the late alteration of the ordinary systeme of Divinity nor designe any thing in this place but a representation of some harmlesse philosophical conjectures In which I shall continually guide my selfe by the Attributes of God the Phaenomena of the world and the best discoveryes of the nature of the Soul CHAP. XIII 7 Pillars on which the particular Hypothesis stands NOw the Fabrick we are going to build will stand like as the House of wisdom upon seven Pillars which I shall first crect and establish that the Hypothesis may be firm and sure like a House that hath Foundations Therefore the first Fundamental Principle I shall lay is 1 All the Divine designes and Actions are laid and carried on by pure and Infinite Goodness And methinks this should be owned by all for a manifest and indisputable Truth But some odd opinions in the world are an interest against it and therefore I must be fain to prove it Briefly then Every rational being Acts towards scme end or other That end where the Agent Acts regularly and wisely is either some self-Good or accomplishment or 't is the good and perfection of some thing else at least in the intention Now God being an absolute and immense fulnesse that is incapable of any the least shaddow of new perfection cannot act for any good that may accrue to his immutable selfe and consequently what ever he acts is for the good of some other being so that all the divine actions are the communications of his perfections and the Issues of his Goodnesse which being without the base alloy of self-interest or partial fondnesse and not comprised within any bounds or limits as his other perfections are not but far beyond our narrow conception we may well call it pure and Insinite benignity This is the original and Root of all things so that this blessed ever blessed Attribute being the Spring and Fountain of all the Actions of the Deity his designes can be no other but the contrivances of Love for the compassing the good and perfection of the universe Therefore to suppose God to act or designe any thing that is not for the good or his creatures is either to phancy him to act for no end at all or for an end that is contrary to his benigne Nature Finally therefore the very notion of Infinite fulness is to be communicating and overflowing And the most congruous apprehension that we can entertain of the Infinite and eternal Deity is to conceive him as an immense and all glorious Sun that is continually communicating and sending abroad its beams and brightnesse which conception of our Maker if 't were deeply imprinted on us would I am confident set our apprehensions right in many Theoryes and chase away those black and dismal notions which too many have given harbour to But I come to erect the second Pillar 2 Then There is an exact Geometrical justice that runs through the universe and is interwoven in the contexture of things THis is a result of that wise and Almighty Goodness that praesides over all things For this Justice is but the distributing to every thing according to the requirements of its nature And that benign wisdom that contrived and framed the natures of all beings doubtlesse so provided that they should be suitably furnisht with all things proper for their respective conditions And that this Nemesis should be twisted into the very natural coustitutions of things themselves is methinks very reasonable since questionlesse Almighty wisdom could so perfectly have formed his works at first as that all things that he saw were regular just and for the good of the universe should have been brought about by those stated Laws which we call nature without an ordinary engagement of absolute power to effect them And it seems to me to be very becomming the wise Authour of all things so to have made them in the beginning as that by their own internal spring and wheels they should orderly bring about what ever he intended them for without his often immediaie interposal For this looks like a more magnificient apprehension of the Divine power and Praeexistence since it supposeth him from everlasting ages to have foreseen all future occurrences so wonderfully to have seen and constituted the great machina of the world that the infinite variety of motions therein should effect nothing but what in his eternal wisdom he had concluded fit and decorous But as for that which was so it should as certainly be compast by the Laws he appointed long ago as if his omnipotence were at work every moment On the contrary to engage gods absolute and extraordinary power in all events and occurrences of things is me seems to think meanly of his wisdome As if he had made the world so as that it should need omnipotence every now then to mend it or to bring about those his destinations which by a shorter way he could have effected by his instrument Nature Can any one say that our supposition derogates from the Divine concourse or Providence For on these depend continually both the being and operations of all things since without them they would cease to act and return to their old nothing And doubtlesse God hath not given the ordering of things out of his own hands but holds the power to alter innovate or change the course of nature as he pleaseth And to act by extraordinary by absolute omnipotence when he thinks fit to do so The summe of what I intend is that Gods works are perfect and as his goodness is discover'd in them so is his Justice wrought into their very essential constitutions so that we need not suppose him to be immediately engaged in every event and all distributions of things in the world or upon all occasions to exercise his power in extraordinary actions but that he leaves such managements to the Oeconomy of second causes And now next to this for they are of kin I raise The third Pillar 3 Things are carried to their proper place and state by the congruity of their natures where this fails we may suppose some arbitrary managements THe Congruity of things is their suitablenesse to such or such a state or condition And 't is a great Law in the Divine and first constitutions that things should incline and
Regions of light and liberty yea 't is probable that the bodies they have contracted in those squallid mansions may by a kind of fatal magnetisme be chained down to this their proper element Or they having now a congruity only to such fatid vehicles may be no more able to abide the clear and lightsome ayr then the Bat or Owl are able to bear the Suns noon-day beams or the fish to live in these thinner Regions This may be the reason of the unfrequency of their appearance and that they most commonly get them away at the approach of light Besides all this some there are who suppose that there is a kind of polity among themselves which may under severe penalties prohibit all unlicensed excursions into the upper world though I confess this seems not so probable and we stand in no need of the supposition For though the laws of their natures should not detain them within their proper residences yet the care and oversight of those watchful spirits who first committed them will do it effectually And very oft when they do appear they signifie that they are under restraint and come â—ot abroad but by permission as by several credible stories I could make good But for brevity I omit them Now though I intend not this Hypothesis either for a discovery of infallible truth or declarement of mine own opinions yet I cannot forbear to note the strange coincidence that there is between Scripture-expressions in this matter some main stroaks of the Orthodox Doctrine and this Philosophical conjecture of the state and place of the wicked 'T is represented in the Divine Oracles as a deep pit a prison a place of darkness fire and briâ—stone and the going thither is named a descent All which most appositely agree with the representation we have made And the usual Periphrasis of Hell torments fire and brimstone is wonderfully applicable to the place we have been describing since it abounds with fuliginous flames and sulphurious stench and vapours And as we have conjectur'd the lowest cavity is nothing else but a valut of fire For the other expressions mention'd every one can make the application So that when a man considers this he will almost be tempted to think that the inspired writers had some such thing in their fancies And we are not to run to tropes and figures for the interpretation of plain and literal descriptions except some weighty reason force us to such a Refuge Moreover Hell is believ'd among the Orthodox to have degrees of torments to be a place of uncomfortable horror and to stand at the greatest distance from the seat and babitation of the blessed All which and more that I could reckon up cannot more clearly made out and explained then they are in this Hypothesis Thus then we see the irreclameably wicked lodg'd in a place and condition very â—retched and calamilous If any of them should be taught by their miseryes to renounce and forsake their impietyes or should have any dispositions to virtue and divine love reinkindled in them meer Philosophy would conclude that in time they might then be deliver'd from their lad durance But we know what Theology hath determined And indeed those bruitish apostates are so fixt and rooted in their sensual and rebellious propensions that those who are not yet as far distant from their maker as they can be are still verging downwards And possibly being quite void of the divine grace and any considerable exercises of reason and conscience they may never stop till they have run through all the internal stages and are arriv'd to the extremest degree of misery that as yet any are obnoxious to Wherefore the earth and all the infernal Regions being thus monstrously depraved 't is time for the Divine Justice to shew some remarkable and more then ordinary severity upon those remorseless Rebels and his goodness is as ready to deliver the virtuous from this stage of wretchedness and impiety When therefore those have compleated the number of their iniquities and these are fit for the mercy of so great a deliverance then shall the great decree for judgement be executed which though it cannot be expected that meer Philosophy should give an unerring and punctual account of yet we shall follow this light as far as it will lead us not intrenching upon the sacred rights of divinity nor yet baulking what the Ancient Eastern Cabbala assisted by later discoveries into nature will dictate But sincerely following the Hypothesis we shall leave all its errours and misguidances to be corrected by the more sacred Canons So that where we shall discern the wisdom of the World to have misdirected the most knowing and sedulous inquirers we may duly acknowledge the great benefit of that light which we have received to guide us in matters of such vast and concerning speculation The Constagration of the Earth THerefore at length when the time preappointed by the divine wisdom for this execution is come The internal central fire shall have got such strength and irresistible vigour that it shall easily melt dissolve that fence that hath all this while inclosed it And all those other smaller fires which are lodg'd in several parts of the lower Regions joyning themselves with this mighty flame shall prey upon what ever is combustible and so rage first within the bowels of the earth beginning the tragick execution upon those damned spirits that are there confiâ—ed these having been reserved in the chains of darkness to the judgment of this great day and now shall their hell and misery be compleated and they receive the full reward of their impieties which doubtless will be the most intollerable and severe torment that can be imagned these sierce and merciless flames sticking close to yea piercing through and through their bodies which can remove no where to avoid this fierie over-spreading vengenance And now the subterranean vaults being thus all on fire it cannot be long ere this prevailing combustion take hold of the upper regions wherefore at last with irresistible violence it breaks forth upon these also So that the great pyre is now kindled smoak fire darkness horror and confusion cover the face of all things Wherefore the miserable inhabitants of the earth and inferiour air will be seized on by the devouring Element and suffer in that fire that was reserved for the perdition of ungodly men But shal the righteous perish with the wicked And shall not the Judge of all the earth do right wil not the sincere vertuous both in the Earth and Air be secured from this sad fate and how can their deliverance be effected Doubtless Providence that in all things else hath been righteous and equall will not fail in this last scene but provision will be made for their recovery from this vengeance that hath taken hold of the wicked But all natural causes failing here since their bodies are not pure enough to wast them up the quiet regions of the un-infested ather
and the higher congruity of life being yet but imperfectly inchoated they would be detained prisoners here below by the chains of their unhappy natures were there not some extraordinary interposure for their rescue and inlargement wherefore when we contemplate the infinite fertility of the divine goodness we cannot think that he will let those seeds of piety and vertue which himself hath sown and given some increase to to come to nought or the honest possessors of them fatally to miscarry But that he will imploy his power for the compleating what he hath begun and the deliverance of those who have relyed upon his mercies But for the particular way and method how this this great iransaction will be accomplisht Philosophy cannot determine it Happy therefore are we who have the discoveryes of a more certain Light which doth not only secure us of the thing but acquaints us with the way and means that the Divine wisdome hath resolv'd on for the delivery of the righteous So that hereby we are assured that our ever blessed Redeemer shall appear in the clouds before this fiery fate shall have quite taken hold of the Earth and its condemned inhabitants The Glory of his appearance with his Caelestial Legions shall raise such strong love joy and triumph in his now passionately enamourd expectants as shall again enkindle that high and potent principle the spirit which being throughly awakened and excited will melt the grossest consistence into liquid Aether so that our bodyes being thus turned into the purest flame we shall ascend in those fiery Chariots with our Glorious Redeemer and his illustirous and blessed Attendants to the Caelestial habitations This is the Resurrection of the just and the Recovery of our antient blessedness Thus have some represented this great transaction But I dare warrant nothing in this matter beyond the declarations of the sacred scripturs therefore to proceed in our philosophicall conjectures However the good shall be delivered be sure the wicked shall be made a prey to the Scorching element which now rageth every where and suffer the Judgement threatened But yet the most degenerate part of mankind if we consult meere Reason and the Antient Eastern Cabbals who are detained prisoners in the now inflamed Almospheare shall not for ever be abandon'd to misery and ruin For they are still pretended to be under the eye and tender care of that Almighty goodness that made and preserveth all things that punisheth not out of malice or revenge and therefore will not pursue them to their utter undoing for ever But hath set bounds to their destruction and in infinite Wisdome hath so ordered the matter that none of his creatures shall be lost eternally or indure such an endlesse misery then which not Being it self were more eligible Wherefore those curious contemplators phancy that the unsupportable pain and anguish which hath long stuck to those miserable creatures will at length so consume and destroy rhat insensible pleasure and congruity that unites soul and body that the thus-miserably cruciated spirit must needs quit it's unfit habitation and there being no other body within its reach that is capable of a vitall union according to the tenor of this Hypothesis it must become senselesse and unactive by Axiom 4. And so be buried in a state of silence and inertness At length when these greedy flames shall have devoured what ever was combustible and converted into a smoak and vapour all grosser concretions that great orb of fire that the Cartesian Philosophy supposeth to constitute the centre of this Globe shall perfectly have recovered its pristine nature and so following the Laws of its proper motion shall fly away out of this vortex and become a wandring comet till it settle in some other But if the next Conflagration reach not so low as the inmost regions of the earth so that the central fire remains unconcern'd and unimploy'd in this combustion this Globe will then retain its wonted place among the Planets And that so it may happen is not improbable since there is plenty enough both of fiery principles and materials in those Regions that are nearer to the surface to set the Earth into a Lightsom flame and to do all that execution that we have spoken of Some conceive therefore that the conflagration will not be so deep and universal as this opinion supposeth it But that it may take beginning from a lesse distance and spendit self upwards And to this purpose they represent the sequel of their Hypothesis The Generall Restitution Those thick and clammy vapours which erstwhile ascended in such vast measures and had fil'd the vault of heaven with smoak and darknesse must at length obey the Laws of their nature and gravity and so descend again in abundant showres and mingle with the subsiding ashes which will constitute a mudd vegetative and fertile For those warm and benign beams that now again begin to visit the desolate Earth will excite those seminal principles into action which the Divine Wisdome and goodnesse hath mingled with all things Wherefore they operating according to their natures and the dispositions which they find in the restored matter will shoot forth in all sorts of flowers herbs and trees Making the whole Earth a Garden of delight and pleasure And erecting all the Phaenomena proper to this Element By this time the Ayre will be grown vitall again and far more pure and pleasant then before the fiery purgation Wherefore they conceive that the disbodyed soules shall return from their unactive and silent recesse and be joined again to bodyes of purified and duly prepared Ayre For their radaical aptitude to matter still remained though theyfell asleep for want of bodies of fit temper to unite with This is the summ of the Hypothesis as it is represented by the profoundly Learned Dr. H. More with a copious and pompous eloquence Now supposing such a recess of any souls into a state of in activity such a Restitution of them to life and action is very reasonable since it is much better for them to Live and operate again then to be uselesse in the universe and as it were nothing for ever And we have seen above that the Divine goodnesse doth always what is best and his wisdom is not so shallow as to make his creatures so as that he should be fain to banish them into a state that is next to non-entity there to remain through all duration Thus then will those lately tormented souls having smarted for their past iniquities be recovered both from their state of â—rtechednesse and insensibility and by the unspeakable benignity of their Maker placed once more in such conditions wherein by their own endeavours and the divine assistance they may amend what was formerly amiss in them and pursue any good Resolutions that they took while under thelash of the fiery tortures which thos that do when their good inclinations are perfected and the Divine Life again enkindled they shall in due time