and Conceptions to which the Body gave no occasion so the Body is the Spring and Fountain of several Functions over which the Soul hath no Dominion nor any direct influence they remain as much distinct nothwithstanding the Union which intercedes between them as they would have done shou'd we suppose them to have had an Existence previous to their Confederations or as they shall be after the dissolution of the Lâ—â—gue between them From all which it may be Scientifically concluded That they are distinct and different Principles in Man's Constitutâ—on but whether thereupon he ought to be called a Compositum or they to be stiled Parts will be resolv'd into a meer Longomachy or Chat about Words tho' to speak my own Mind I see no Cause why Man may not properly enough obtain the Appellation of Compositum and the Soul and Body be allow'd for Constituent Parts Nor thirdly doth the Cartesian Hypothesis tho' the most ingenious and best contrived of any hitherto thought upon fully satisfie an inquisitive Mind in the Matter before us their Hypothesis is briefly this That God in his infinite Wisdom chose to create three distinct and different kinds of Beings 1. Some purely Material which through difference of the Figure Size Number Texture and Modification of their Parts come to multiply into many different Species 2. Some purely Immaterial among whom whether there be any Specifical Difference is Pro and Con disputed 3. Man a Compositum of both having an Immaterial Intellectual Soul joyned to an Organical Body Now say they God having in his Soveraign Pleasure thought good to form Man such a Creature he hath not only by an uncontroulable Law confined the Soul to an intimate Presence with and constant Residence in the Body while it remains a fit Receptacle or till he give it a discharge but withal hath made them dependent upon one another in many of their Operations and in this mutual dependence of one upon the other with respect to many of their Operations they state the Union betwixt the Soul and Body to consist for through the Impressions that are made upon the Organs of Sence there result in the Soul certain Perceptions and on the other hand through the Cogitations that arise in the Soul there ensue certain Emotions in the Animal Spirits and thus say they by the Action of each upon the other and their Passion from one another they are formally united But all this instead of loosing the Knot serves only to tye it faster For 1. this Mutual Dependancy as to Operation of one upon the other cannot be apprehended but in Posteriority of Nature to Union and consequently the formal Reason of Union cannot consist in it 2. There are Cases wherein neither the Impressions of outward Objects upon the Sensory Nerves beget or excite any Perceptions in the Soul which whether it proceed from obstinacy of Mind or intense Contemplation alike answers my drift and also Cases wherein Cogitations of the Mind make not any sensible Impressions upon the Body as in Extasies and yet the Union of the Soul and Body remains undissolved which argues that it imports more than either an intimous Presence or a Dependance between them in point of Operation 3. 'T is altogether unintelligible how either a Body can act upon a Spirit or a Spirit upon a Body I grant it may be demonstrated that they do so but the manner of doing it or indeed how it can be done is not intelligible That a Tremour begot in the Nerves by the jogging of Particles of Matter upon the Sensory Organs shou'd excite Cogitations in the Soul or that the Soul by a meer Thought should both beget a Motion in the Animal Spirits and determine through what Meatus's they are to steer their Course is a Phaenomenon in the Theory of which we are perfectly non-plust How that which penetrates a Body without giving a jogg to or receiving a shove from it shou'd either impress a Motion upon or receive an impression from it is unconceivable so that to state the Union of the Soul and Body in a reciprocal Action upon and Passion by and from one another is to fix it in that which supposeth the Sagacity of our Faculties to conceive how it can be Now if common Unions of whose Reality and Existence we are so well assur'd be nevertheless with respect to their Nature not only so unknown but unconceivable we may lawfully presume if their lye nothing else against the immediate Union of Believers with Christ save that it cannot be comprehended that this is no Argument why we should immediately renounce the Belief of it If we can but once justifie that there is such an Union betwixt the blessed Jesus and sincere Christians the incomprehensibleness of the manner of it ought not to discourage our Faith if we can take up with the Evidence of Sense and Reason as to the reality of other Unions whose Modes are as little understood I see no cause why the Veracity of God provided we can produce the Authority of Divine Testimony shou'd not satisfie us as to the Reality of the Union tho' the manner how it is were a question we cou'd not answer and indeed if Men will not be huff't and talk'd out of the perswasion of those things of whose Existence their Senses and Reason ascertain them tho' they cannot answer all the Difficulties they are accosted with in their Enquiries about them much less ought Christians to be hector'd out of the Belief of the Doctrines of Faith because of the Entanglements which attend the Conception of them 't is the Nature of Faith to embrace things upon the alone Testimony of God tho' it understand nothing of the Mode and Manner how they are the highest Assurance of the Reality of any thing is God's affirming it and what he asserts we are with all reverence to assent unto its Truth tho' we can frame no adaequate Idea of it nor fathom it in our own Conceptions Our Saviour himself hath adjourned the perfect knowledge of this Mystery till the glorified state in these words At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Thus far you have had the Thoughts of the before-mention'd Author which I shall leave you to consider seriously at your leisure the Subject is indeed noble how despicably soever it may be treated by the Libertine whose Belief is stagger'd because he himself is not possest of what he has slighted and contemned and for that he finds himself at liberty to live as he listeth I must own indeed that it is scarce possible for one Man to infuse such Idea's into another as may be able to perswade that other that he himself is a Partaker of such a Spiritual Refreshment and Divine Consolation as nothing less than the Divine Gaace can communicate to his Soul and on this account I have the less admir'd that both Paelagius Socinus and their Adherents have gain'd so
voluntary Motions which are produced in us only by the free Thoughts of our own Minds and are not nor can be the Effects of the impulse or determination of the Motion of blind Matter in or upon our Bodies for then it could not be in our power or choice to alter it For example My right hand writes whilst my left hand is still what causes Rest in one and Motion in the other nothing but my Will a Thought of my Mind my Thought only changing the right hand rests and the left hand moves this is matter of fact which cannot be deny'd Explain this and make it intelligible and then the next step will be to understand Creation For the giving a new determination to the Motion of the Animal Spirits which some make use of to explain voluntary Motion clears not the difficulty one jotâ— to alter the determination of Motion being in this Case no easier nor less than to give Motion it self since the new determination given to the Animal Spirits must be either immediately by Thought or by some other Body put in their way by Thought which was not in their way before and so must own its Motion to Thought either of which leaves voluntary Motion as unintelligible as it was before In the mean time it is an over-valuing our selves to reduce all to the narrow measure of our Capacities and to conclude all things impossible to be done whose manner of doing exceeds our Comprehension this is to make our Comprehension infinite or God finite when what He can do is limited to what we conceive of it If you do not understand the operations of your own finite Mind that thinking Thing within you do not deem it strange that you cannot comprehend the operations of that Eternal infinite Mind who made and governs all things and whom the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain I hope my Friend you will more readily excuse the foregoing Prolixity on the account that first Principles especially those of so great moment as these before us ought to be as clearly and satisfactorily prov'd as it is possible which if upon your most serious Reflection you find establisht beyond opposition I expect that from this moment you date the downfal of your Atheism and that you presently commence Deist in order to turn Christian. I know of no better way of arguing with the meer natural Man or with such who value themselves so highly upon the strength of their own Judgment or Humane Reason than to endeavour their Conviction by the most rational Deductions from as rational Propositions whether or no these are such which I have transferr'd hither from the Writings of these two famous Men I must leave you to consider I confess there is little hopes of reclaiming such fool-hardy Libertines who argue for their Infidelity by the same powers in their Souls which to the more considerate are convincing proofs That the Soul which is invested with such mighty Power must undoubtedly be a Substance independant of Corporiety and consequently incapable of suffering an extinction with the Lamp of Life but of the Nature of the Rational Soul of Man and its different Existence from the Soul of Brutes I shall discourse elsewhere having here confin'd my self more particularly to enquire after the Author of our own Being and all others which surround us There have been many Methods used in handling of this Subject and indeed were our Opponents so full of Reason as they pretend one might wonder that any of them should prove insufficient I shall not here stay to examine the Certainty of that Cartesian Notion That 't is impossible we could have had any Idea of that infinite Eternal all-wise Being we call God if such a Being did not really exist or were not in rerum Natura But of this we may be satisfy'd that unless we do believe there is such an immense Being has created us with a design not to deceive us we must be pure Scepticks for it is impossible without this Belief we should be fully assur'd of any Truth whatsoever and therefore I think 't is not without Cause that the Philosopher lays this down as a necessary Introduction to Science Nihil intelligitur nisi Deus prius intelligatur Having proved the Necessity of some Eternal cogitative Being by a train of Arguments which are founded upon right Reason neither supported by Tradition or Authority either Sacred or Profane I shall next inquire how it comes to pass that this first and if I may so say greatest Truth the Foundation of all true Happiness is so wonderfully obscur'd effac'd and even obliterated out of the Hearts of a great part of Mankind Whosoever will take the trouble to inform himself after what manner most People account for the Productions they see daily brought to pass may easily understand that where one Man speaks either reasonably or becomingly of the great Author of the Universe and acknowledges any such Being as superintends the agency of second Causes there are abundantly more who look no farther than the empty Sounds of Fate Fortune Chance Destiny and in their Enquiries into the Structure of Humane Bodies or the Discords of the Animal Oeconomy you rarely find any thing more particularly taken notice of than the Archaeus by some by others the Plastick Power and indeed by all most commonly a certain Nature which tho' continually in their Expressions they know not what to make of Excuse me Sir if I think it worth my while to examine which of these can supply the place of an Almighty or of any real efficient Cause or with what reason we can ascribe unto either of these nominal Agents the Operations imputed to them Fate or Destiny saith SENECA is an immutable and invincible Law imposed upon Things and Actions You will say perhaps that this thing shall happen or not happen if it must come to pass altho ' you vow and make your request yet shall it take effect If it shall not come to pass vow and pray as much as you list yet it shall not fall out Now the Consequence saith he of this Argument is false because you have forgot the Exception that I have put between them both that is to say This shall happen provided a Man makes Vows and Prayers it must necessarily happen that to vow or not to vow are comprehended in and are parts of the same Destiny Again It is destinated or it is such a Man's fate to be an eloquent Man but under this Condition it is likewise destinated that he be instructed in good Letters It is destinated for another Man to he rich but here 't is included in the same Destiny that be make use of the means for their procurement So likewise may it be said it was such a Man's destiny to be hang'd but here that he render himself guilty of some capital Offence for which he is convicted by the Law is part of the same Destiny In the sence wherein these words are
Confession from you that you are fearfully and wonderfully made you must at least allow your self to be the Workmanship of some Intelligent Being and altho' the commonness of the Object takes off your Admiration and you now find the Propagation of Mankind in a Method setled by the Divine Providence yet if you transgress not the Bounds of Reason you must affirm their first Production to be by the immediate Power of the Almighty Author of all Things and that every succeeding Generation of them are the Off-spring of one primitive Couple Having survey'd some of the Extremities of this mighty Machine and diligently passed over its outward Covering or Teguments my next advice to you is that you retire within and carefully examine not only the Parts wherein those Offices are perform'd but the Processes themselves such as that of Mastication Deglutition Chylification Sanguification the Inkindling of the Blood for the Lamp of Life its great Analogy in some respects with Culinary Fire viz. it s constant nenecessity of Ventilation through the vesiculae of the Lungs and a perpetual supply of a fit Pabulum or Fuel out of the received Aliment for the continuance of its Flame when you have done here and discover'd all the Secretions or Separations of the several Juices which are put off from the Sanguineous Mass in its wonderful Circulation and deposited in their several Receptacles till called for to their proper Employments you may lastly with that profound Humility and Veneration which becomes the Enquiry ascend into the Sanctum Sanctorum that Divine Emporium of the Soul the Brain where not only our Sensations but all our Cogitations our Perception Reflexion Intuition and all those noble Faculties of Memory Phantasy or Imagination c. are surprisingly transacted Here if you diligently and Philosopically take to pieces the several parts of the Soul I mean the Sensitive you may readily comprehend with an excellent and most judicious Man that its Systasis or Constitution is made out of these two parts viz. the Vital or Flamy which respects the Blood and the Lucid or Ethereal which respects the Brain or whose Hypostasis are the Animal Spirits by whose alone Energy and Intervention we account for the Phaenomena of the Animal Regiment in all things where the Superiour or Rational Soul is unconcern'd When you have thus finish'd your Physiological Contemplation an Application of this Consequence will I think be not only pertinent but natural and genuine That since first in relation to the Vital or Flamy Part there are so many prae-requisites in order to Digestion or Transmuting the gross and solid Matter of our Food into that soft and pappy Substance we call Chyle if any one of which be wanting some certain detriment will ensue whether this be in the Ventricle it self a deficiency of its native Heat a weakness in the Tone of any or all its Fibres a want or perversion of the secreted Juices which compose its Menstruum or Dissolvent Or if all things are orderly performed here and safely delivered hence yet since there are also many requisites to a fit passage of the said Chylous Juice into the Blood such as the admistion of the Bile and the Pancreatic Juice either of which being peccant in quantity or quality many Mischiefs will ensue but if in these secondary Passages all things have gone on well yet if the Passages to the common Store-house or Receptaculum happen to be obstructed and thereby rendred impervious to the liquor they should receive or if others of those curiously slender Tubes the Lacteal Vessels by the forcible protrusion of the contained Matter should break or suffer a Solution of their Continuity the Chyle must be extravasated and a fatal Inundation thereof in some little time comes on But if hitherto Matters have succeeded as they ought and this noble Liquor is at length safely arriv'd through its many Meanders and inconspicuous Ways and as safely deliver'd up to the Heart yet if here it be not rightly sanguify'd or turn'd into Blood or if when it is so made and continued in its Circuit the containing Blood Vessels either from a Deficiency of the Vis Motoria or Disorder of the Spirits in the Orbicular nervous Fibrils implanted in the Tunics of the said Vessels labour with an Obstruction or suffer such a Distension by the impelling Blood as produces a Diruption there presently follows Extravasation and Stagnation of the Vital Liquor Farther If the Blood it self as from many Causes it may contract too great an Acidity or Viscosity or by Adustion grow perfectly Corrosive if its Crasis be considerably vitiated or disorder'd the Nutritious Juices must partake of the Infection and consequently the Assimulation or Apposition of their Particles for the growth and encrease of all the Parts of the Body cannot at all or not regularly be performed neither will the subtil parts of such a Blood tho' never so well elaborated in the Brain afford either a sufficient Plenty or an exactly homogeneous Spirit for the influencing the Nerves those Causes sine qua of every particular Function and Operation In a word that I may not tiâ—e you with a more particular Description of the parts of the Encephalon or Cabinet containing that inestimable Jewel the Soul when you consider that from any of these slightly mention'd Errors committed in any part the whole Fabrick suffers and the same becomes a tottering Carcass when you consider how very easily an heterogeneous Copula is admitted into the Nervous System there exciting those dismal irregular and horrid Explosions which after they have for sometime excruciated the frail Body leave it lifeless when you consider also how very easily those slender and to our fight impervious Conduits of the Nerves may by many ways be obstructed which happening at their Source as in the Apoplexy Lethergy Coma Carus we are presently deprived of our Sensations the Soul suffers an Eclipse and the ghastly Tyrant takes possession when you consider that the very Air so absolutely necessary for our Respiration does sometimes prove a Vehicle to those malign Miasâ—â—ata which impetuously rush on and notwithstanding our pretended strength in the twinkling of an Eye extinguish the Lamp of Life when you consider these Particulars with a due attention you will find abundant reason instead of denying any thing to be Supernatural to confess that the Life of Man whether it be conceived as limited to a shorter or longer Date is nothing less than one continued Miracle Before I finish my Discourse of Supernatural Productions or those Effects which do surmount what we call the Powers of Nature and frequently hare witness to God's especial Providence I will take the liberty to make a short Digression and give you my Opinion how it comes to pass that these unusual and extraordinary Events have gained so little Credit not only with the Profane and Sensual but even amongst very many Sober and Learned Men. That I may do this to your greater Satisfaction I must
A Phisico-Theological DISCOURSE UPON THE Divine Being or first Cause of all Things Providence of God General and Particular Separate Existence of the Humane Soul Certainty of Reveal'd Religion Fallacy of Modern Inspiration And Danger of Enthusiasm To which is added An APPENDIX Concerning the Corruption of Humane Nature the Force of Habits and the Necessity of Supernatural Aid to the Acquest of Eternal Happiness WITH EPISTOLARY CONFERENCES between the Deceased Dr. Anthony Horneck and the Author relating to these Subjects In several LETTERS from a Gentleman to his Doubting Friend London Printed by F. C. for TIMOTHY CHILDE at the White Hart at the West End of St. Paul's Church-yard 1698. To the Reader of the following LETTERS THat which principally engag'd the Author in a Discourse of this Nature is taken notice of in the first of the ensuing Letters and to excuse its Publication is beyond his Intention unless by intimating that neither Secular Advantage nor the vain hopes to become Popular by such an Enterprise had any share in it If the World will not give him credit for the first they must allow the last since his desire to be conceal'd will plead the same in his behalf but indeed he stands so much indebted to other Men for the confirmation of his own Opinions that he freely owns himself in justice to be entituled to no more than the least valuable part thereof There may seem 't is true the less occasion for printing any thing of this kind since there have been already so many excellent and learned Treatises deliver'd to the World but whoever considers the Genius of the times the Profanity and Libertinism of the present Age together with the prevaling Contagion of our Modern Deisus that lately revived shelter for Atheistic Principles will be more easily perswaded that all that can be said for the proof of these important Truths is not to be judged needless and that there has not been so much said or the Subjects so fully handled as to exclude the use of any thing hereafter to be added The methods of Mens writing must be acknowledg'd to be exceeding different and 't is no more than necessary they shou'd be so there being so great a difference in the tempers and dispositions of their Readers who reject at one time the same Truth they embrace at another when more suitably adopted to the mode of their Understandings But beyond all others the Pulpit Discourse how prudently or sincerely soever manag'd labours with disadvantage in that by many People 't is lookt on but as a useless Cant and the very name Priestcraft has made so great a noise in the World that 't is sufficient a Discourse be hist at by the unthinking Multitude or the conceited Debauchee if the same hapned to be deliver'd in the manner of a formal Sermon There has been of late abundance of pains taken to stagger Men in their Faith to shake the very foundation of all true Piety and to render Religion no more than a meer Scare-crow set up by a sort of Men viz. the Clergy that they may frighten us into a slavish Vassalage or condescensâ—on to their own sinister Designs Some late Pamphlets of the Socinians have had a visible tendency this way but much more the Writings of those insolent and barefac'd Oppugners of Christianity whose Designs at least many of them we have reason to believe no other than â—stenâ—tation of their Authors Parts and in judging thus we are as charitable as they themselves can expect we shou'd for tho' the Emissaries of the Powers of Darkness must have made use of such like Tools for the undermining true Religion and expelling all undissembled Piety out of the World yet 't is possible the Intentions of these high Pretenders to Reason were not altogether so villainous whatever Consequences may attend their Writings Whoever informs himself in their Characters will think the Cause of Religion to be the lâ—ss concern'd neither will their Arguments however weighty at the first view be ever able to perswade the Man who is bottom'd upon sound Principles they may tickle the Sense of the Libertine buoy him up in his practice of Impiety or Irreligion and sooth his tormented Conscience with this deceitful Remedy when he comes to dye that seeing there is no farther time alottted for his continuance here and that he can sin no longer if he express his sorrow for what is past he is out of danger from any thing to come for God is merciful he makes no Man to damn him and tho' the Offence be committed against an infinite Being yet the Creature who commits it being but finite Repentance is all that can be required by way of Attonement for infinite Justice cannot be extended on a finite Creature infinitely with out a contradiction to infinite Mercy besides if this wont do God Almighty being Omnipotent cannot be resisted and irresistible Power is always safe since he need punish no Man for his own Security and 't is beneath him to let us suffer by way of Revenge I shall not think my self oblig'd to take any particular Survey of the Writings of these Men nor to examine the Stories of their Authors Lives some of which are so well known to the World that they cannot injure any considerate Man with their hetorodox Opinions I need not instance in Mr. H s one of their Epistolary Correspondents a Man however admir'd and celebrated for his Writings yet died in a despondency and had his Religion to choose even at the hour of his death As for the right honourable my Lord I think they had much better have left him out of their Oracles since however fondly he had formerâ—y embraced both Them and their Opinions it made a great part of his Contrition before he finisht his Life that he had ever countenanc'd such extravagant Thoughts or shew'd himself a Favourite to such wretched Associates Whoever considers the manner of Mr B t 's Life and the circumstances attending his Death may pitty him as an unhappy Gentleman but will find it a hard matter to perswade himself that he was more than a meer Sceptick or in good earnest in any thing but his fatal Passion His Father Sir Henry's Discourse de Anima where he begins Spiritus in nobis non manet in Identitate sed recens ingeritur per renovationem continuam sicut Flamma sed velociore transitu quia Res est spiritualior Nos quotidie facti sumus ex iis quae transeunt in Nos Morimur renascimur quotidie neque lidem hodie heri sumus Et Personam quam transeuntem non sentimus tandem pertransisse agnoscimus c. This I say which was thought a noble Present for the most ingenious Strephon so far as it has a relation to the Material or Sensitive Soul in Man and Brutes or in general to the Animal Life is for the most part true and what Philosophers have in general agreed to but as intended to
or the Epicurean Casual Concourse of Atoms cou'd bring meer Matter into so orderly and well contriv'd a Fabrick as this World and therefore I think that the wise Author of Things did not only put Matter into Motion but when he resolved to make the World did so regulate and guide the Motions of the small parts of the Universal Matter as to reduce the greater Systems of them into the order in which they were to 〈◊〉 and did more particularly contrive some of the Portions of that Matter into Sâ—minal Rudiments or Principles lodg'd in convenient Râ—ceptacles and as it were Wombs and others into the Bodies of Plants and Animals one main part of whose Contrivance did as I apprehend consist in this That some of their Organs were so framed that supposing the Fabric of the geater Bodies of the Universe and the Laws he had establisht some juicy and spirituous parts of these living Creatures must be fit to be turned into prolific Seeds whereby they may have a power by generating their like to propagate their Species So that according to my apprehension it was at the beginning necessary that an intelligent and wise Agent should contrive the Universal Matter into the World and especially some Portions of it into Seminal Organs and Principles and settle the Laws according to which the Motions and Actions of its Parts upon one another should be regulated without which Interposition of the Worlds Architect however moving Matter with some probability for I see not in the Notion any Certainty be conceiv'd to be able after numberless occursions of its insensible Parts to cast it self into such grand Conventions and Convolutions as the Cartesians call Vortices and as I remember Epicurus speaks of under the Name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet I think it utterly improbable that brute and unguided Matter altho' moving shou'd ever convene into such admirable Structures as the Bodies of perfect Animals But the World being once fram'd and the Course of Nature establisht the Naturalist excepting those Cases where God and Incorporeal Agents interpose has recourse to the first Cause but for its general and ordinary Support and Influence whereby it preserves Matter and Motion from annihilation or desition and in explicating particular Phaenomena considers only the Size Shape Motion or want of it Texture and the resulting Qualities and Attributes of the small Particles of Matter and thus in this great Automaton the World as in a Watch or Clock the Materials it consists of being left to themselves cou'd never at the first convene into so curious an Engine yet when the skilful Artist has once made and set it a going the Phaenomena it exhibits are to be accounted for by the Number Bigness Proportion Shape Motion or endeavour Rest Coaptation and other Mechanical Affections of the Spring Wheels Pillars and other Parts it is made up of and those Effects of such an Engine that cannot this way be explicated must for ought I yet know he confest not to be sufficiently understood You may hereby inform your self of the Sentiments of this great Philosopher with respect to the unavoidable necessity that we meet with of referring our selves to some powerful intelligent Being for the disposing the Mundane Bodies into that wonderful and mighty Fabric we call the World So that to sum up all whatever Opinion you may as yet harbour with relation to the Nature of your own Mind and how great soever the Difficulties and seeming Absurdities may be which tend to impeach the Divine Providence and rob the Deity of his Government of the World thus far I hope we are got at least that whether or no we are willing we must acknowledge his Divine Fiat in the Business of Creation and there is no Man will e're be lookt on as a Rabbi if I may so speak in Atheism till he becomes not only acquainted with real Essences the Mechanical Affections and all the Powers of Matter but can intelligibly resolve us how second Causes act in their several Productions and which is the main point of all can prove to us that there was no need of Intelligence Power or Wisdom to preside in their Primitive Constitution 'T is now high time to look about you and if you look as becomes a Creature endow'd with Reason there is nothing can presâ—nt it self which is not able to discover its Almighty Author or in Helmont's Phrase the Wisdom of the Protoplast The Existence of a God says another of great Learning were there no such thing as Supernatural Revelation is plainly evidenced as well by what is without us as what 's within Hence it is that altho' God has wrought many Miracles to convince Infidels and Misbelievers yet He never wrought any to Convince an Atheist nor do the Pen-men of Sacred Writ attempt to prove it but take it for granted as being evidently manifest both by sensible and rational Demonstration As for innate Idea's of God continues He I see no occasion to believe any such thing at all for I know of none that are formally innate what we commonly call so are the Result of the Exercise of our Reason The Notion of God is no otherways inbred than that the Soul is furnisht with such a natural Sagacity that upon the Exercise of her Rational Powers she is infallibly led to the Acknowledgment of a Deity and thus by looking inwardly upon our selves we perceive that the Faculty resident in us is not furnish'd with all Perfections and therefore not Self-existent nor indebted to it self for those it hath otherwise it wou'd have cloathed it self with the utmost Perfections it can imagine and by consequence finding its own Exility and Imperfection it naturally and with case arrives at a Perswasion of deriving its Original from some first Supreme and free Agent who hath made it what it is and this can be nothing but God 2. We perceive that we have such a Faculty as apprehendeth judgeth reasoneth but what it is whence it is and how it performeth these things we know not and therefore there must be some Supreme Being who hath given us this Faculty and understands both the Nature of it and how it knoweth which we our selves do not 3. Our Natures are such that as soon as we come to have the use of our Intellectual Faculties we are forced to acknowledge some things good and others evil There is an unalterable Congruity betwixt some Acts and our reasonable Souls and an unchangeable incongruity betwixt them and others Now this plainly sways to the Belief of a God for all distinctions of Good and Evil relate to a Law under the Sanction of which we are and all Law supposeth a Superior who hath right to command us and there can be no Universal indâ—pendent Supreme but God 4. We find our selves possest of a Faculty necessarily reflecting on its own Acts and passing a Judgment upon it self in all it does which is a farther Conviction of the Existence of a God
voci auscultem dimittendo Israelem Non novi Jehovam c. did yet when the Divine Vengeance by heavy Judgments had convinced him send presently away for those whom he had barbarously exiled from his Presence humbles himself before them and howles out this Palinodia Peccavi hac vice Jehova justissimus Ego vero Populus meus sumus improbissimi Thus Herod Agrippa who by the blast of pâ—pular Euge ' s had the Wings of his Pride fanned up to so sublime a pitch that he lost sight of his own Humanity and vainly conceived the adulatory Hyperbole of his Auditors to be but their just Acknowledgment of his Divinity being wounded by the invisible Sword by a fatal Experiment confuted both his own and his Flatterers Blasphemy and with the Groans of a tortur'd Wretch he cries out En ille Ego vestra appellatione Deus vitam relinquere jâ—beor fatali necessitate mendacium vestrum coargâ—eâ—te quem immortalem salutastis ad Mortem rapior seâ— ferenda est voluntas Celestis Numinis Joseph 19 Antiq. p. 565. Thus Antiochus Epiphanes who had not only deny'd but enrag'd by a malicious Phrensy publickly despited and reviled the Almighty Patron of the Jews blasphemed his most Sacred Name demolisht his Temples profan'd his Consecrated Utensils violated his Religious Institutions and persecuted his Worshippers with all the most bloody Cruelties that the Wit of an exalted Malice cou'd invent or inflict being put upon the Rack of a sore and mortal Disease and despairing of any Help but from his injur'd Enemy God he â—ighs out his Confession The sleep is gone from mine Eyes and my Heart faileth for very care and I thought with my self into what Tribulation am I come and how great a Flood of Misery is it wherein I now am But now I remember the Evils I did at Jerusalem I perceive therefore that for this Cause these Troubles are come upon me c. It is meet to be subject unto God and that a Man who is mortal shou'd not proudly think himself equal to God 1 Maccab. chap. 6. v. 9 10 11. Thus the Emperor Maximinus as cruel to the Christians as Antiochus had been to the Jews boasting the acuteness of his Wit by the Invention of new ways of Tortures for those patient Martyrs and advancing the Roman Eagle in Defiance of those who fought under the bloody Standard of the Cross was so infatuated with the Confidence of his own Greatness and Personal Strength that he conceited Death durst not adventure to encounter him yet notwithstanding when he felt himself invaded with a verminous Ulcer evaporating so contagious and pestilential a Stench as killed some of his Physicians being then sensible that the same was a Supplitium divinitus illatum his Heart began to melt Et tandem saith Eusebius sentire caepit Quae contra Pios Dei Cultores impie gesserat haec se propter insaniam contra Christum praesumptam merito ultionis vice perpeti confessus est in the midst of these Acknowledgments of his own Guilt and the Divine Justice he breathed out his execrable Soul from a gangrenous and loathsome Body Thus also that notorious Apostate Julian who had not only renounced the Faith of Christ but proclaimed open and implacable Hostility against him and to quench the Thirst of his Diabolical Malice drank whole Tuns of the Blood of his Members being defeated and mortally wounded in a Battel fought against the Perâ—ians he instantly learn'd of his awaken'd Conscience that the Cause of his present overthrow was his former Impiety and rightly ascribing the Victory to the revenging Finger of that God whose Divinity he had abjur'd rather than to the Arm of Flesh he threw up his Blood into the Air and together with his black Soul gasped out this desperate Ejaculation Vicisti Galilaee Vicisti The Examples of this Nature are very numerous and each of them is a kind of Proof that Religion is a Plant so deeply radicated in the Soul of Man that tho' the damp of a barbarous Education or Conversation may a while retard or the rankness of those Weeds of Sensuality the Honours and Delights of this World conceal its Germination yet will it at some time or other early or late and always in the Winter of Calamity shoot up and bud forth into an absolute Demonstration of the Dependance of our Happiness and Misery on the Will of the Supream Being The Sum of this is by the excellent Tertullian comprised in these words Anima licet Corporis Carcere pressa licet Institutionibus pravis Circumscripta licet lebidinibus concupiscentiis Evigorata licet falsis Diis exanciâ—â—ata cum tamen resipiscit ut ex Crapula ut ex Somno ut ex aliqua valetudine sanitatem suam patitur Deum nominat And by Lactantius in these who speaking of Mens forgetfulness of the Divine Providence in the time of their Prosperity Tum maxime saith He Dem ex Hominum memoria elabitur cum beneficiis ejus fruentes honorâ—m dare Divinae Indulgentiae deberent yet continues he the least gust of Affliction soon sets them to rights and renders these Characters fair and legible to the first reflâ—xive Glance of the Sâ—â—l Si qua enim necessitas gravis presserit tum demum recordantur si belli terror infremuerit si Alimenta frugibus longa siccitas denegaverit si saeva tempestas si grando ingruerit ad Deum protinus confugiunt à Deo petitur Auxilium Deus ad subveniat oratur Si quis in Mari vento saeviente jactatur hunc invâ—cat si quis aliqua vi afflictatur hunc protinus implâ—rat Indeed it seems to me very evident as well as reasonable that the special Providence of God is a Notion so unquestionable that without its Establishment in the Heart of Man the Foundation and Support of all Religion wou'd be unhing'd For instance cou'd we once perswade our selves that the Divine Being was inexorable our Prayers and Supplications for the Supply of what we want and for the Removal of our Evils must be all invalid Cou'd we assure our selves that either God cou'd not or wou'd not be our Refuge when we call upon him but that he hath left us wholly having set before us Good and Evil to the determination of our own Wills without the least regard or notice of our Election or without concerning Himself in any manner to help us to direct or assist us when we are wander'd and have ran astray In a word if we can once perswade our selves there is no God that heareth Prayer that hath neither the Power of Life nor Death neither acquitteth nor condemneth to what purpose are all our Petitions our Prayers Penetential Tears or fervent Supplications or on what account do we frequent any Places either of Publick or Private Worship Omnipotence Justice and Goodness are ascrib'd in vain if God neither made the World nor regard it being made Nor will it be easie
to perswade Men to worship Him if we are neither beholding to Him for our Being nor under His Laws and if He no more respect our Adorations than if we did reproach and blaspheme Him If it were thus we shou'd undoubtedly have cause to think our selves by much the most miserable part of the Creation But on the other hand That there is a natural Belief in us both of God and of his Providence the greatest of our Adversaries the most irreligious and profane the learned and profound Atheist as well as the illiterate nay all Mankind have been as it were forc'd to grant and acknowledge I am sure it is a prodigiously rare Case to find any so unconcern'd an Infidel let his Life have been never so remarkable for Immorality or one continued Act of Impiety and Irreligion notwithstanding the force of contracted evil habits may have throughly immerst him in all kinds of Sensuality yet when some grievous Calamity hath befall'n him or the disorder of his Body put him upon a Retirement he begins to think first that there may be such a Thing as Divine Providence as well as that there may not and when a farther Reflection convinces him that it is more probable there is than that there is not if Death approach him in the midst of his Meditations there is scarce an Atheistical Desparado can forbear giving his Testimony to this great Truth but either silently or loudly breaths out his Soul with an O God be merciful Now if these Men the mighty Sticklers against the Divine Providence all their Lives had that assurance in their last Minutes that God Almighty is neither wise enough to know their Circumstances nor powerful enough to punish them I wou'd gladly know from whence proceeds these lamentable Expirations You will say perhaps from those bugbare Fears of invisible Powers with which Tales they are so perpetually plagued from Pulpit Harangues and promiscuous Converse with Men devoted to a Religious Superstition that it is hardly possible for any Man so throughly to shake off these Childish Fears and Apprehensions but that at some time or other they will intrude upon him and in spight of all his Opposition imbitter his Delights and Natural Satisfactions The World you say is so pester'd with the Levitical Tribe that there is scarce a Corner of the Earth to be found where a Man might live secure from this disturbing Noise of a Being who sees all our Actions and will retribute to every Man after he is dead and buried you know not how nor where according to his Deserts either of Reward or Punishment Thus the Prejudice and Prepossession of Education in some of Conversation in others are the great Bias that sways the whole Bulk of Mankind and keeps them under those servile Fears which necessarily arise from a Supposition of a God and of other Separate Beings That I may make a short tho' I hope sufficient Reply to this Objection I must confess that the Allegation of an early imbib'd or preconceiv'd Prejudice may be prevalent enough to startle those who either through a careless Negligence or Incapacity have never dived into the bottom of this weighty Affair but that it shou'd have force enough to master and over-power the great and potent Masters of Humane Reason and subjugate their seemingly impregnable and strenuous Fortresses or strong Holds of Atheistical Argumentation is in my Opinion plainly giving up their Cause and a silent Acknowledgment that the Proleptic Evidence or Light of their own Consciences notwithstanding their vain Endeavours to suppress and extinguish it will however it may be sometimes smother'd and kept under break out at length to their sorrowful assurance That those Noble Faculties of their Souls are more than a meer Sound or Echo from the clashing of sensless Atoms and must indubitably proceed from a Spiritual Substance of a Heavenly and Divine Extraction and that those admirable Fabrics of their Bodies ought no longer to be ascrib'd to the fatal Motions of blind unthinking Matter but to the Wisdom and Contrivance of a Power Omnipotent The Recollections of this Nature and Recantations of former Principles together with the strange Horror and Consternation those we are speaking of lye under at particular times is decypher'd by Juvenal in these Lines Hi sunt qui trepidant ad omnia fulgura Pallent Cum tonat Exanimes primo quoque murmure Coeli There is no occasion to search Antiquity for these Examples Modern Story will abundantly furnish us we have lately had a R r that may serve for all A Man who as perhaps his Profanity wants a Parallel so likewise his incredible Acuteness of Judgment and Apprehension together with his great Learning had qualify'd him for diving as far into the Mystery of Atheism as any of those that went before or may happen to follow after him I suppose you are no Stranger to the last Conferences which he held with the present B of S nor of those Rational and Penetential Expressions that usher'd in his last Minutes upon which account I shall ease my self of the Trouble of their Transcription But since that happy tho' unexpected Alteration in the opinion of his Lordship is by his once beloved Libertines imputed to a Decay of his Rational Faculties and a want of his former Strength and Vivacity of Judgment induced by a long and painful Sickness together with his frequent Commerce with the infectious Priests tho' this I say be all too weak to blacken and obscure the Testimony of that late yet unfeigned noble Convert or to render his Religious Deportment but an inconsiderable Reflection upon the strength and goodness of their Cause yet if I thought it might contribute to your farther Satisfaction I could give you a signal Instance of some Affinity with the former relating to a short Intercourse between my self and a deceased Friend the former will indeed have this Advantage that it wants not your knowledge of the Person at least his Character together with the Circumstances of Time and Place as also the very forcible Attestation of several worthy Gentlemen whereas this with which I am about to acquaint you must for its credibility depend wholly upon your good Opinion of its Relator since not only the Name and Place of Residence but whatever else may tend to his Discovery are to be buried in oblivion Be the Event as it will with relation to your Conjectures It is no long time ago that I paid a sorrowful Farewel to a dying Friend a Man whom I never adventur'd to think more than a Deist and that but nominal I knew him to be both a Gentleman and a Scholar that his Studies had been mostly Mathematical and indeed he had made as good proficiency in Physicks or Natural Philosophy as perhaps almost any Person of his years Having the good fortune to find him without Company the freedom I had formerly taken with him excus'd a farther Ceremony and I immediately desir'd to know
prone to follow blindly and when once our great Opinion of their Learning and Piety has placed them in the Chair of Infallibility the first false step they make at once subverts our Faith and taking all before for granted which they deliver'd to us we now dispute the Verity of those Doctrines we had inbib'd from them Bad Presidents are always very prevalent Contagions amongst our Equals but when we find our Pastors or our Parents our Masters our Governours or our Princes infected with any manner of Vice we quickly become their Apes and readily excuse our selves because we do but imitate those whom we imagine to know better than our selves Thus many Men have had their Faith stagger'd by a View of the Profaneness and Impiety of Learned and Great Men by the dissolute Lives of the Gentry and Nobility in the Countries where they live as if these by their vitious Practices cou'd alter the Nature even of Good and Evil or if it was possible that Men immerst in Matter tho' never so profoundly skill'd in Science cou'd regulate their Lives by the Laws of God whilst they contemn the Divine Aid and regard not his Assistance Instead of this 't is become the Fashion of the Town to ridicule Vertue and render Vice as amiable as they can and if they find it possible to prevail upon some simple Clergy-man who is naturally as loose as themselves to be Drunk to Whore to Game to Curse and Swear profanely there are many Men so extravagantly proud of such a Conquest over an hypocritical Sinner as to think they give hereby a fatal stroke to all true Piety as if the very Essence of God the Condition of the Soul and every other Sacred Truth were by such trivial and childish Instances to be obliterated or wiped out I have premis'd this by way of Anticipation or to Caution you how requisite it is before you set up for a Libertine to go upon sure grounds for undoubtedly 't is unbecoming any Pretender to Reason to run a hazard especially one of this Consequence or to declare himself either openly or privately for the Cause of Atheism till he hath positively assur'd himself beyond contradiction that there is no Superintendent Power takes notice of his Actions or if there shou'd that he is above the reach of his Justice and that his last Breath will carry all into perpetual Oblivion for if he goes not farther than probability that Matters may be so yet if there remain the least doubt that they may not he forfeits at once both his Reason and Security and 't will be a pitiful Satisfaction that the greater part of the World have involv'd themselves with him in the same Misery It is the less admirable that Men shou'd so very easily give up the Cause of Religion who never examin'd their first Principles whose Faith is no otherwise founded than on the Custom of their Country the Credit of their Ancestors or the Example of those under whose Guardianship and Tutelage they have been brought up And truly in one sense what the Poet remarks is a certain Truth By Education most have been misled So they believe because they so were bred The Priest continues what the Nurse began And thus the Child imposes on the Man He who never considers the Why or Wherefore nor so much as once ever rightly weigh'd the Motives of his Belief becomes a perfect Weather-Cock every Blast of a new Doctrine carries him to and fro till at length being unsetled he despiseâ— all This is what I have thought necessary by way of Introduction to my Discourse of the Immortality which I intend the subject of this present Letter for having in the two former endeavour'd to establish those two great Truths of the Divine Being and his Providence Order requires that I take notice how far we are concern'd if we concede or admit the foregoing Propositions For if we lye under no Obligation to or have no future Dependance upon God or his Providence it is a Matter purely indifferent whether we believe them or not what Advantage can I have by my belief in God if I am secure that he has left me to my own disposal and inspects not any of my Actions or why should I deny my self the Satisfaction of my Desires how exorbitant soever they may be since I know the worst and that if Death will at length come and put an end to my Delights it will likewise finish all my Trouble and Disquiet However I may resign up my own Reason or betray the Weakness of my Judgment I must confess to you that when I have very often seriously reflected upon this Subject and once admitted a Supream Intelligent and Powerful Cause of all Things I presently found my self under a kind of irresistible Necessity to believe our Souls must be Immortal and the Supposition of a down right Necessity that it should be so without any respect to Arguments either Sacred or Profane that it is so does at this time overcome me for however short of Demonstration they may prove we must take up with the most notorious Absurdity imaginable if we perswade our selves that there can be an All-wise Just and Omnipotent God and yet notwithstanding that Thefts Rapines Murthers and all other the most egregious Vices shou'd go unpunish'd both here and hereafter However this be the Result of my own Thinking and a Consequence which it 's possible you may not allow I speak it not by any means to prepossess your Judgment neither do I desire you shou'd look upon the same either as Matter of Fact or so much as Rational Evidence It will add little to the Illustration of my present Task that you are inform'd at large with the Opinion of the Ancients concerning the Humane Soul let it suffice you to understand that as some of them affirm'd the sâ—me to be a Substance existing of it self and Immortal so there were others who deny'd that it had any Substance but was only an accidental Form The Platonists and Pythagoreans opin'd that the Souls of all living Creatures were a part of the Soul of the Worldâ— that they were immerged in Bodies as in a Sepulchre and that when the Bodies died they were by a various 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inhabitants or Guests to other Bodies sometimes to those of Men at other times to those of Beasts The Manichâ—es supposed that all Souls in general were taken out of the Substance it self of God that they actuated Teâ—restrial Bodies and going from hence again return'd into God himself The Originists That all Souls were created from the beginning of the World at first to subsist of themselves then as occasion serv'd that Bodies being form'd they enter'd into them actuated them during Life and at length return'd into their primitive and singular Substances Oâ—hers have affirm'd That the Soul of Man does arise up of her own accord from power only of Matter rightly dispos'd making her to be no more
some things tainted with the Cartesian Principles he thus rightly argues That if all our Cognition doth proceed originally from our Senses as is affirm'd by Aristotle in his Maxim of Nihil in intellectu c. and that Intellection is made by Analogy by Composition Division Ampliation Extenuation and the like ways of managing the Species or Images of things immitted into the common Sensory by the External Senses then certainly we can have no knowledge of any thing whereof we have no Image and consequently without Imagination there is no Intellection so that in fine to imagine and understand a Thing will be all one whereas to answer this we may affirm that no Corporeal Image or Species is ever receiv'd into the Mind and that pure Intellection as well of a Corporeal as Incorporeal thing is made without any material Image or Species at all As for Imagination to that indeed is requir'd the presence of some Corporeal Image to which the Mind might apply it self because there can be no Imagination but of Corporeal things and yet nevertheless that Corporeal Image doth not enter into the Mind The truth is the Intellect also makes use of Images conceiv'd by the Phancy and therefore called Phantasms yet only as certain means or degrees that progressing through them it may at length attain the knowledge of some things which it afterwards perceives as sequester'd and in a manner sublimed from those Phantasms but this is that which doth sufficiently argue its being Immaterial because it carrieth it self beyond all Images material and comes to the Science of some things of which it hath no Phantasms All the particular Knowledges that Man hath or can have concerning finite and compleat Entities except only the Notion of Being are only certain comparisons or respects between particular things but of respect there can be no Image or Representation at all in the Phancy and therefore our Knowledge is without Images All the particular Notions we have except of Being do belong to some one of the ten Praedicaments all which are so manifestly respective that no Man doubteth them to be so In particular Substance hath a respect to Being Quantity doth consist in a respect unto Parts Quality hath a respect unto that Subject which is denominated from it Action and Passion result from the Union of Quality and Substance Relation denoteth the respect betwixt the Relatum and Correlatum Ubi and Quando arise from Substance consider'd with the Circumstances of Place and Time Situation is from the respect of parts to the whole Habit is a respect to the Substance wherein it is as being the Propriety by which it is well or ill conveniently or inconveniently affected in regard of its own Nature If you question the verity of the foregoing Assertion exercise your Mind in seriously reviewing all these things that have been derived from the Senses and see if you can find among them any such thing as we call a respect it hath neither Figure nor Colour nor Sound nor Odor nor Taste and so cannot possibly be represented to the Sense or Imagination hence I think there is no need to doubt that the Notions of things in the Intellect or pure Understanding are extreamly different from whatsoever is immitted into the Mind by the mediation of the Senses and so that the Intellect hath a knowledge of some things independent of Corporeal Images or Idea's For in simple Imagination the Mind doth always apply it self to the thing speculated or the Image rather of that thing but in pure Intellection in quitteth the Image and converteth it self upon it self the former Act being still accompany'd with some labour and contention of Mind the latter free easie and instantaneous Now in the Phancy of Beasts there is always a Conjunction of the Image of that particular good or harm they have formerly received from such or such things with the Images of the things themselves which is all that can be said to render the subtilest of them Conscious and is indeed the Cause of all those so much admir'd Effects called Sympathys and Antipathys amongst Animals of different kinds Another sort of Actions evincing the Soul's Immateriality are those whereby we do not only form to our selves Universals or Universal Notions but also understand the reason of Universality it self for it being evidently impossible that any Corporeal thing should be exempted from all material Conditions and Differences of Singularity as Magnitude Figure Colour Time Place c. and undeniably certain that the Understanding hath a power to divest them of all and every one of those Conditions and Circumstances and to speculate them in that abstracted state devoy'd of all Particularities it follows necessarily that the Soul which hath this power so to abstract them must it self be exempt from all Matter and of a Condition more eminent than to be confin'd to material Conditions To these few Reasons of the Immateriality of the Humane Soul defumed from the Excellency of her Operations I might here add a multitude of others of the same Extraction and equivalent Force as in particular that of the Existence of Corporeal Natures in the Soul by the power of Apprehension that of her drawing from Multitude to Unity her apprehension of Negations and Privations her containing of Contraries without Opposition her Capacity to move without being moved her self the Incompossibility of opposite Propositions in the Understanding and sundry others the least whereof is of Evidence and Vigour sufficient to carry the Cause against all those Enemies to her Immortality who wou'd degrade her from the Divine Dignity of her Nature to an equality with the Souls of Brutes that are but certain Dispositions of Matter and obnoxious to Dissolution upon change of the same by contrary Agents But farther There is no Corporeal Faculty but what is confin'd to the Perception of only some one certain Genus of things as in particular the Sight to Visibles the Hearing to Sounds c. and tho' the Imagination seems to be extended to very many kinds yet all those are contain'd under the Classis of Sensibles and thence it comes that all Animals endow'd only with Phantasie are addicted only to Sensibles no one affecting the knowledge of any thing which falleth not under the Sense but the Intellect alone is that which hath for its Object Omne verum and as the Schoolmen speak Ens ut Ens every Being in the Universe and therefore hath no mixture of Matter but is wholly free from it and Incorporeal a Truth so clearly revealed by the Light of Nature that Anaxogoras and Aristotle both subscribed Esse intellectum necessario 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immistum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quoniam intelligit Universa That Incorporeals are within the Orb of the Intellects Activity and do not escape the apprehension of this unbounded and universal Capacity needs no other proof besides that of our own sublime Speculations concerning the Nature of God of Intelligencies of Angels
of the Humane Soul and whatever else belongs to the Science of Metaphysics which teacheth us to abstract from all Matter and Quantity Nay I presume it will not be accounted Paradoxical in me to affirm that Immaterial Objects are most genuine and natural to the Understanding especially since Cartes hath irrefutably demonstrated that the knowledge we have of the Existence of the Supream Being and of our own Souls is more certain clear and distinct than the knowledge of any Corporeal Nature whatever according to that Canon of Aquinas Nulla res qualiscunque est c. The Moral Considerations usually brought in defence of the Soul 's Incorruptibility are principally three 1. The Universal Consent of Mankind 2. Man's inseparable Appetite of Immortality 3. The Justice of God in rewarding good Men and punishing evil Men after Death Now as Cicero judiciously observes Omni in re consentio omnium Gentium Lex naturae putanda est and thus the Notion of the Soul's Immortality is so implanted in the Nature and Mind of Man that whoso denies it doth impugn his own Natural Principles As for that common Objection the Alteration observable in Infancy and old Age we may answer with the great Master of Nature at least one so esteem'd by some Innasci autem Intellectus videtur substantia quaedam esse nec corrumpi nam si corrumperetur quidem id maxime fieret ab habitatione illa quae in Senectute contingit nunc autem res perinde fit ac in ipsismet sensuum instrumentis si enim Senex Occulum Juvenilem reciperet non secus ac ipse Juvenis videret unde Senectus non ex eo est quod quidquam passa Anima sit fed quod simile aliquid ac in Ebrietate morbisque eveniat ipsaque intelligendi contemplandi functio propter aliquid aliud interius corruptum marcescit cum ipsum interim cujus est passionis expers maneat Which words consider'd we have good reason to affirm that all that Change which the Epicurean would have to be in the Rational Soul or Mind during the growth of the Body in Youth and decay of it in old Age doth not proceed from any Mutation in the Soul it self but some other Interiour thing distinct from it as the Imagination or Organ of the common Sense the Brain which being well or ill affected the Soul it self suffereth not at all but only the Functions of it flourish or decay accordingly for as the Philosopher remarks if it were possible to give an old Man a young Eye and a young Imagination his Soul would soon declare by exquisite vision and quick reasoning that it was not she that had grown old but her Organs and that she is capable of no more Change from the impairment of the Body than is usually observed to arise pro tempore from a fit of Drunkenness or some Disease of the Brain so that it is evident from hence that whatever Change Men have thought to be in the Soul by reason of that great decay generally attending old Age to not really in the Soul but only in the Imagination and the Organs thereof which are not so well dispos'd as in the Vigour of Life In like manner are we to understand that the Soul when the Members grow cold and mortify'd doth then indeed instantly cease to be in them yet is not cut off by piece-meal or diminisht and gradually dissipated but the whole of it remains in so much of the Body as yet continues warm and perfused by the Vital Heat until ceasing longer to animate the principle Seat of its Residence whether the Brain or Heart it at length bids adieu to the whole and withdraweth it self entire and perfect so that Death is an Extinction of the Vital Flame and not of the Soul which as Solomon calls it is the brightness of the Everlasting Light the unspotted Mirror of the Power of God and the Image of his Goodness and being but one she can do all things and remaining in her self she maketh all things new The like may be said with relation to those failings observable in swooning fits which fall not upon the Soul but on the Vital Organs at those times render'd unfit for the uses and actions to which they were framed and accommodated and if the Causes of such failings shou'd happen to be so violent as to bring on a sudden Death then the Soul must indeed depart yet not by reason of any dissolution in its Substance or imbecility in it self but for want of those dispositions in the Organs of Life by which she was enabled to enliven the Body Now if saith this Author in such a Thesis or Proposition which is not capable of being evinced by Geometrical Demonstration there can yet be expected such substantial and satisfactory Reasons Physical or Moral as may suffice to the full establishment of its Truth in the Mind of a reasonable Man If this be granted I thence argue that the Soul is an Immortal Substance and that its Immortality is not only credible by Faith or upon Authority Divine but also demonstrable by Reason or the Light of Nature To be convinc'd of our Immortality and satisfactorily perswaded whether or no there is any thing in us which shall not perish with the Life we are shortly to lay down is of so great and so important Consequence that I can readily expect your forgiveness if I trespass upon your Patience and inlarge a little farther upon this weighty Argument That there is somewhat in us essentially differing from distinct and superior to other Animals or that the Rational Soul of Man bears no Analogy with the Souls of other Creatures is farther elegantly toucht upon in these words of Dr. Willis The Eminency of the Rational Soul above the Brutal or Corporeal shines clearly by comparing either both as to the Objects and to the chief Acts or Modes of Knowing As to the former whenâ—â— every Corporeal Faculty is limited to sensible Things the Object of the Humane Mind is every Ens whether above or sublâ—mary material or immaterial true or fictitious real or intentional The Acts or Degrees of Knowledge common to either Soul are vulgarly accounted these three to wit Simple Apprehension Enunciation and Discourse How much the power of the Rational excels the other which is Corporeal we shall consider 1. The knowing Faculty of the Corporeal Soul is Phantasie or Imagination which being planted in the middle part of the Brain receives the sensible Species first only impressed on the Organs of Sense and from thence by a most quick irradiation of the Spirits deliver'd inwards and so apprehends all the several Corporeal Things according to their Exterior Appearances which notwithstanding as they are perceived only by the Sense which is often deceived they are admitted under an appearing and not always under a true Image or Species for so we imagine the Sun no bigger than a Bushel the Horizon of the Heaven and the Sea to meet
Intellect having learnt the Precepts of Geometry and Astronomy takes the Spaces of inaccessible Places and their Heights the Floor or Breadth of any Superficies and the Contents of Solids yea the Dimensions of the whole Earthly Globe measures exactly the Spaces of Hours and Days the Times of the Year the Tropicks by the Progress only of a Shadow yea it measures the Orbs Magnitudes and Distances of the Sun and Stars for a long time to come calculates and exactly foretels their Risings and Settings Motions and Declinations and Aspects one to another We shou'd want time shou'd we set about to enumerate the several portentous Things either of the Practise or Speculation in the Mathematicks Then if passing over to Mechanicks we consider the several Works and Inventions of Men wonderfully made there will be no place for doubting but that the Humane Soul which can so curiously understand invent find out and effect I had almost said create Things so stupendious must needs be far different from the Brutal and as before is said Immortal especially for that living Brutes obtain only a few and more simple Notions and Intentions of Acting yea and those always of the same kind not determined but to one thing altogether ignorant of the Causes of Things they know not Rights or Laws of Political Society they are ignorant of every the most intelligent Mechanic Art neither can they unless taught by Imitation till how to number Three Since therefore in few words we have plainly detected in Man besides the Corporeal Soul such as is common with Brutes the prints of another meerly Spiritual we have abundant reason to conclude the same Immortal Thus Sir have I endeavour'd to prove the Reasonable Soul a Substance independent of Corporiety and that it is not only possible but certain that unless it shall please the Power who at first infus'd it to annihilate its Being it must outshine the Extinction of the Vital Flame and can receive no Injury in its Substance by the Destruction of that Body in which it had its Residence The Arguments I have brought are such whose Solidity every Man may judge of who is capable of a very little Reflection or serious Application of Mind Tho' they are not all my own yet are they such as naturally arise from a Philosophical or Physical Enquiry such as have been approved by the far greater number of Learned Men and such whose Evidence it is impossible to withstand without some secret reluctancy in our own Minds and without ever being able to demonstrate that they are not true The Sum of all that has been said upon this Matter will rest here That since there is nothing more certain than this that there is a Power in Man superiour to that of all meer Animals and superiour also to that Power which Man himself hath as related to those Creatures in their Capacity to be Sensible and to Imagine It is necessary to consider seriously what that Power can be and in what Subject the same is plac'd If you say you apprehend it to be no more than a meer Temperament a Harmony or you know not what kind of Disposition resulting from the Matter of his Composition I wou'd then beg you to remove my Doubts and to satisfie me how it comes to pass that Brutes are not thus endow'd with the same For if this high Prerogative of Reason had its dependence as Sense and Imagination have upon a Conformation or Mechanic Structure of the Animal Organs most certainly other Creatures must be alike dignify'd whose Brains bear so exact Affinity and in the Parts of which there is so great Analogy Resemblance or Similitude For here your Anatomical Disquisition will inform you that if you consider its outward Coverings and Vessels they have at least some of them the like Membranes viz. the Dura and Pia Mater the like Veins Arteries and Nerves If you consider its Division there are the like Hemispheres or Lobes the like Gyrations or Convolutions in its Surface the same double Substance viz. Cortical or Marrowy the same common Basis the Medulla Oblongata If you consider its inward Substance the like Ventricles Glandules Pinealis or Pituitaria Nates and Testes the Fornix the Infundibulum the Corpora Striata c. the like make also of the Cerebellum where Sense and Motion as also the Passions and Instincts meerly Natural tho' in some measure they depend upon the Brain are more properly performed here and in the Medulla Oblongata The Brain then of Brutes thus exactly corresponding with the Humane and the Sensations being alike Mechanically perform'd in both since the former show us not the least footsteps of any Capacity to Will or Reason which are so eminently conspicuous in the latter the Power which exerts the same must be more than Temperament or any Priviledge of Conformation which is so near alike in both and which in its greatest Latitude can reach no higher than Sense Imagination Memory and Appetite for it seems saith the Learned Doctor that the Imagination is a certain Undulation or Wavering of the Animal Spirits begun more inwardly in the middle of the Brain and expanded or stretched out from thence on every side towards its Circumference On the contrary the Act of the Memory consists in the Regurgitation or Flowing back of the Spirits from the Exterior compass of the Brain towards its middle The Appetite is stirred up for that the Animal Spirits being some how moved about the middle of the Brain tend from thence outwardly towards the Nervous System Now till you can make it out how or in what Mechanic Structure or Disposition of the Brain and Animal Organs the Rational Faculty lyes conceal'd and prove to us by Dissection that there is any such part in the Humane Brain whereof the more perfect Brutes are destitute and wherein 't is likely the Acts of Reason shou'd be perform'd Till this I say be done it becomes you as a Man as well as a Religionist to believe with more than three parts of the Learned as well as the unlearned World That the Principle of Reason is placed in a Spiritual Indivisible Substance or in something which neither depends on nor can be the Result of any Material Disposition Let me beg you Dear Sir to consider throughly the foregoing Paragraph If it contains a Truth I am sure 't is one of the highest Importance and I must solemnly protest to you that it seems to me almost a perfect Demonstration It is no ways improbable but I may be deceived which if you surmise or believe let me request you or some of your more Learned Friends the A t s to furnish me with some certain knowledge That Mankind have been for some Thousand years impos'd on deluded and abus'd and that the Phaenomena of Will and Reason are at length intelligibly solv'd without the Supposition either of Spirituality or Immortality I must confess 't is some Mens Interest that the Rational as well as
Sensitive Soul should be Material and that both shou'd have their entire dependance on the Organization of the Brain But it is no Man's desire nor yet his belief that it is so can make it so if it be otherwise You your self must acknowledge it a very pitiful and weak Argument that because you have reason to fear your Soul should be Immortal or for that you wou'd by no means have it so therefore it is not so And truly however vain and triffling it appear this with a Grimace a profane Witticism or an impious Scoff serve the far greater number of our Modern Infidels instead of solid Proof and Demonstration but I expect a better Treatment from my Friend There remains one thing to be taken notice of before I conclude relating to the Power that a Man hath over his own Thoughts or the freedom he has to act without an Impulse upon his Will and this I think seems the more necessary to be discust because if as some contend Man has not an Internal Principle of Freedom but is confin'd restrain'd or forcibly determin'd to act by an Impulse out of his own Power I see not what great Advantage can redound to him from his being a Reasonable Creature how he is to be accounted deserving Commendation or Dispraise Rewards or Punishments or indeed in what he differs from the Brutes themselves I have neither room enough nor yet at present any desire to take notice of the perplexing Disputes and Arguments which some Men have rais'd upon our Liberty or the want thereof most of which as I have reason to think have been founded on Men's Ignorance in the Method of the Divine Understanding for believing the Supream Being has praedetermin'd all Things from Eternity not being able to reconcile Voluntary and Contingent Actions to his Praescience they will not therefore by any means allow Man to be a free Agent Dr. Charlton in his Reply to the Fatist speaks pertinently to our present purpose 1. Saith he We are to abominate that execrable Opinion of Democritus not only because it is uncapable of due Consistence with the Sacred and Indubitable Principles of Religious Faith which ascertain that the Creation Molition Conservation and constant Administration of all Things are impossible rightly to be ascribed to any Cause but the Supream Being alone but also because it is è Diametro repugnant to the Evidence of that Infallible Criterion the Light of Nature which demonstrates the Soul of Man to be an arbitrary uncoacted Agent for that Man hath in himself a Power of Inhibiting or Suspending his Assent unto and Approbation of any Object the verity of whose Species is not sufficiently clear but dubious is a perfect Demonstration of the Indifferency or Liberty of his Intellect and so also of its Charge the Will or Faculty Elective See Cartes his Princip Philos. Part 1. Sect. 6. Nor is it a legal Process in the Pleas of Reason to argue thus That God hath left us to act our own Parts in the World therefore he takes no farther care of us all the Occurrences of our Lives being either the necessary Subsequents or collateral Adjuncts of our own either Natural or Moral Actions For tho it be most true that he hath endow'd us with an absolute freedom of our Wills an Evidence of his exceeding Grace and Benignity and that indeed which supports the necessity of our Rationality for if our Wills were subject to Compulsion undoubtedly we shou'd have little or no use at all of our Reason since then our Objects wou'd be then both judged of and elected to our hands and so permitted us the enjoyment of our own entire Liberty yet hath he out of a compassionate Praenotion of the Deceptibility of our Judgment prescrib'd us Rules whereby our Understandings may be directed in the Selection of Good and Devitation of Evil or to speak more expresly He hath set on our right hand real and true Good on our left only specious and apparent the Election of either is dependent on our Will our Will is guided by our Judgment and our Judgment is the Determination or Resolve of our intellect for without dispare tho' common Physiology hath founded this Liberty on the Indifferency of the Will yet is it radicated in the Indifferency of the Intellect or Cognoscent Faculty primarily and secondarily only in the Will insomuch as that ever follows the Maâ—â—duction of the Intellect but yet that he might in a manner direct as to our Choice He hath annexed Happiness as a Reward to invite us to the one and Misery as a Punishment to deter us from the other I have acquainted my self with the Opinions of very many Learned Men upon this Subject and indeed I know of none of them who has written more satisfactorily than the Ingenious Mr. Lock a short Summary of whose Discourse on this particular Point is in the following words Liberty consists in a power to act or not to act according as the Mind directs A power to direct the operative Faculties to Motion or Rest in particular Instances is that which we call the Will That which in the train of our voluntary Actions determines the Will to any Change of Operation is some present uneasiness which at least is always accompany'd with that of Desire Desire is always â—â—â—oeâ— by Evil to fly it because a total freedom from Pain always makes a necessary part of our Happiness But every Good nay every greater Good does not constantly move Desire because it may not make or may not be taken to make a necessary part of our Happiness for all that we desire is only to be happy but tho' this general Desire of Happiness operates constantly and invariably yet the satisfaction of any particular Desire can be suspended from determining the Wilt to any subservient Action till we have maturely examin'd whether the particular apparent Good we then desire make a part of our â—â—al Happiness or be consistent or inconsistent with it the result of our Judgment upon that Examination is what ultimately determines the Man who cou'd not be free if his Will were determin'd by any thing but his own Desire guided by his own Judgment But farther In our enquiries about Liberty I think the Question is not so proper whether the Will be free but whether the Man be free Thus I think that so far as any one can by the Direction or Choice of his Mind preferring the Existence of any Action to the Non-existence of that Action and vice versa make it to Exist or not to Exist so far he is free For if I can by a thought of my Mind preferring one to the other produce either Words or Silence I am at liberty to speak or hold my peace and as far as this power reaches of acting or not acting by the determination of his own Thought preferring either so far a Man is free for how can we think any one freer than to have a power
will hear our Sighs and short Ejaculations yet where we have time and opportunity to present our Petitions to lay open our Wants to acknowledge our Miscarriages to beg pardon for our Offences and Abilities to overcome the Temptations we may meet with here I say it is expedient that we set a Watch upon our Lips that we utter nothing unbecoming the Supplicants of the Divine Majesty and that we pray sensibly as well as heartily if we are so happy as to do this without premeditation we are all of us left to our Liberty in our private Duties we may pray either with or without a prescribed Form which how ridiculous soever it may seem to the Dissenter 't is abundantly more so in my Opinion that those very Men who most of all oppose a formal Prayer shou'd themselves make use of one for give me leave to tell you that little acquaintance I have had amongst the Separatists has inform'd me that for the much greater number those who are conversant in the private Duties of Family Devotion do still keep on in the same Road and tho' it was first an accidental Form of Words they light on without fore-thought yet that makes the same no less a Form which when afterwards by the intervention of wandring Thoughts they at any time deflect from those very Deviations render them uneasie as any of their Hearers may perceive and the rest is foreign incoherent and abrupt till they fall into their wonted method of proceeding This is so very true that I can speak it upon my own knowledge there are some sensible Men in whose Families I have been for many Months in some others Years and all that time the Subject Matter as well as Manner of Expression in their Prayers have been still the same and wherever there has hapned any little variation by the want of Memory or the intrusion of other Thoughts unless they had a singular readiness this way their Discourse would make their Hearers blush for them if they did not blush themselves Extempore Discourses or such as are unpremeditated are vastly differing in different Men and even amongst the Enthusiastic Spiritati we find it exactly the same thing viz. those Men who have the greatest volubility of Tongue have collected the greatest number of Idea's and received the largest helps from that Learning they at other times decry speak the best Sense and most to the purpose whilst on the other side such who labour under a want of these are scarce able to deliver their own Conceptions or to let us know what they would be at their Discourse proves burthensome and very often insupportable to their own Hearers on which account I have often times admir'd that there should be so many sensible Men among them who have not yet discover'd the Delusion but are content to saffer such an Imposition upon their Reason Whoever rightly considers the force of Imagination when it becomes heated by the Frantic Zeal of a mistaken Piety together with the deep Traces which by the several Objects are drawn out in the Brains of these Men affording so many ready Inlets to the passage of their Animal Spirits will the less wonder at their Extravagancies or be startled at their odd Deportment It is well enough known that there are many of these Men whose Judgments have been so strangely prevail'd on by the Delusion of some Spiritual Whimsie that by the continual indulging a particular Thought the same has at length cut out so deep a Trace or made so strong an Impression upon their Imagination that not discovering the Fallacy they have fallen into a Perswasion of Supernatural Revelations Visions Inspirations and Divine Illuminations One of the admirable Instances and perhaps the most wonderful President of Enthusiasm or Religious Phrenzy that has been heard of was not long since presented to the World in the Person of Mr. M n of Water-stratford in Buckinghamshire This Gentleman growing Hypochondriacal labour'd under so strong a Delusion of his Imagination as to phansie himself by a Special Revelation from Jesus Christ to be made acquainted with his sudden coming to Judge the World upon which when our Saviour as he thought had several times appear'd to him and discourst him face to face he selected a great number of ignorant People to be his Followers who disposed presently of what they had and brought their whole Treasure into the Common Stock Thus were they to separate themselves from the World and to spend the very short remainder of their Lives in Spiritual Hymns and Prayers in Watchings and Fastings sometimes Singing and Dancing Playing on Musical Instruments together with the most unaccountable Behaviour in odd Gestures and Positions of their Bodies Thus they continued several days till this unhappy Gentleman their Ring-leader whether by the constant Fatigue of his Body or other ways was seized as I have been inform'd with a violent Defluxion upon the parts of his Throat together with an Inflamation on the Muscles of his Windpipe During his Indisposition there were some Gentlemen in his Neighbouâ—hood with no small difficulty admitted to see him in whose presence he behav'd himself as he had always done with much Sobriety Gravity and Devotion his Discourse was Rational and betray'd no such Deception of Phansie as he was possest with He told them with a full assurance and with all the confidence he was able to express himself That as sure as Christ had ever been upon Earth so certainly he had seen him when perfectly awake several times not many days before and that he had discourst him concerning the approaching Destruction of the Wicked which they wou'd find fulfilled and our Saviour in his Glory before the Consummation of many Weeks to come He had as we have reason to believe no apprehension that his Distemper wou'd be Mortal but seem'd perswaded that he shou'd live to see all this accomplisht But being thus unexpectedly snatcht away from his Frantic Congregation they were shortly after to their shame and consternation made sensible that all was the Result of a distemper'd Brain in their Founder and that the Infection was communicated to the unthinking Multitude by the Power of Imagination I have thought this Case the more remarkable because having been acquainted with a Neghbour of Mr. M s I have received full satisfaction that he was a Man very unblameable in his Life and Conversation of tolerable Parts strictly just in his Actions and every way free from the imputation of an Impostor or designing Counterfeit That we may not wholly pass by the Causes of these strange Phaenomena without essaying by some means or other an Explication I shall take the liberty to assert that however ignorant we may be of the modification of our Souls or the manner of our Perception we are arriv'd to some certain knowledge of what is transacted in our Brains in order to the same for whatever Objects are represented to our Phansies the same do make a more or less
our Souls may operate and be capable of Pleasure and Pain when separated from Body For if the Soul were no more than a Crasis of the Body it wou'd be capable of no other Distemper than what arises from the Compression or Dilatation of Matter or from the Obstruction and Turgescency of Humors Since therefore we find it subject to Maladies which spring meerly from Moral Causes and which are no more curable by the Prescripts of Physicians than the Stone or Gout are to be remov'd by a Lecture in Philosophy we have sufficient Cause to believe it of an Incorporeal Nature Farther The Essences of Things are best known by their Operations and the best guess we can make of the Nature and Condition of Beings is from the Quality of their Actions while therefore by contemplating our selves we find that we do elicite Actions which do exceed the Power of Matter and the most subtil Motion of Corporeal Particles we have all imaginable ground to think that we are possessed of a Principle Immaterial as well as Intellectual He who considers that there is not one perfect Organ in the Humane Body but the Parallel of it is to be met with in the noblest sort of brute Animals and yet that there are divers Operations performed by Men that no Beast whatever is capable of doing the like must need apprehend that the Rational Soul is not a Corporeal Faculty nor a Contexture of Material Parts To prove this we have already instanc'd in the Acts of Intellection viz. 1. The Acts of simple Apprehension 2. Acts of Judgment 3. Acts of Ratiocination 4. Acts of Reflection 5. Acts of Correcting the Errours and Mistakes of the Imagination And lastly Acts of Volition or those whereby we choose and refuse by a Self-determinating Power according as things are estimated remaining exempt from all Coaction and Necessitation by the Influence of any Principle foreign to it All these are impossible to Matter because that acts always according to the swing of Irresistible Motion nor can it be courted or solicited to Rest when under the forcible Impulse of a stronger Movent So that whatever insensibility you may fancy of a Soul divested of Corporeal Organs you will experience that as the Body is unconcern'd in any thing but Sensation there will remain a Power of Exerting those Superiour Acts and Faculties which have no relation thereunto and consequently a Capacity to suffer Pain or Pleasure the Rewards and Punishments of a well or ill spent Life for it is not Sense but Reflection that wounds the Conscience Sense it 's true may divert the Pain but can never make it and when Death puts an end to sensible Diversions the never-dying Worm may lash without controul In fine if bad Men were sure to undergo no other Pains or Horrors and if the good were sure to receive no more Joys or Pleasures till the Resurrection than proceed out of the Heaven or Hell they carry with them and from the certain and constant Expectations of another that might be sufficient if well consider'd to deter Men from Vice and to encourage them to Righteousness but the Scriptures intimate more and plainly inform us that the Souls of bad Men are immediately upon Death translated to a place of Torment and the Souls of the Good to a place of Joy and Happiness whether those Places are what we generally understand by Heaven and Hell or whether or no the Completion of our Happiness or Misery shall precede the ultimate Judgment will not certainly be determined till we make the Experiment Thus Sir having given you my own together with the more weighty Opinions of other Men as to the Business of Religion I hope the Light set up in your Understanding will put you upon Embracing what upon a serious attention to the same you find unquestionable I am far from insinuating the Necessity of an implicite Faith or perswading you to shut your Eyes and leave the rest to your Guide God Almighty has made you a reasonable Creature and if you make a right use of that Divine Prerogative you need not fear a secure Passage into the Harbour of solid Happiness What pains soever some may take absolutely to exclude Reason from having any thing to do in Divinity or however lightly they may esteem it this will be found certain that we have no surer Pilot when we first set out to keep us from the Rocks of Atheism on the one side and from Superstition Polytheism and Idolatry on the other or indeed any other Director to secure us from making Shipwrack of our Faith than the pure Acts of our unprejudiced Understandings which I call right Reason A Superficial Knowledge may raise some unhappy Doubts and a light smattering especially in some kinds of Philosophy may draw us into the danger of Infidelity with respect to our Immortality but all this we may be freed from by the Exercise of a true Judgment and a solid Enquiry in Physicks or after the Nature and true Causes of Things will with no other difficulty more than serious attention and application help us to dispel those Errors of our Intellects It is not enough what some Men think that a Man is able to account for some of the Appearances in Nature by the Aristotelian Doctrine of Qualities and Forms or the Cartesian of Geometrick Principles and then in a foolish Exultation to cry out Inveni or boast that there is nothing so abstruse but will admit of a Mechanic Explanation To give an Instance 'T is not sufficient that out of a Lecture upon the Opticks we explicate the manner of Vision by saying that the Figure and Colour of a visible Object make the Base of an imaginary Cone which is composed of a multitude of visual Rays and instantly convey'd through a lucid Medium to the Superficies of the Beholders Eye where a Section of the Apex of that Cone is refracted by the several Waters and Tunics and the Figure of the said Object being inverted by the Crystalline Humour is in the same posture lodged in the Retina from whence it is convey'd into the common Sensory Again It suffices not that in hearing we judge that different Percussions do beget infinite Spheric Figures of Aerial Motions which every where spread themselves till they meet with some harder Body that makes resistance which suppose to be the Ear in the Cavity of which the foresaid Figures of Aerial Motions suffer several reverberations and then make a percussion upon the Tympanum or Drum a nervous and pellucid Membrance of exquisite Sense and from thence are convey'd into the Brain However consentaneous these Conjectures may be to the Truth they are all I say too short of Satisfactory or Compleat Accounts there are yet insuperable Difficulties behind and we must expect perpetual Disputes about the Matter and Modification both of the visible and audible Species But admitting these also were fairly decided that Light Colours and Images are the same
Humane Understanding I desire to know in what you dissent herefrom as likewise your Explication of the word Conscience it seems to me but little short of an Absurdity that there should be any other Sence presiding in the Soul over all her Actions than what is communicated from the Supream Being Moreover I wou'd gladly be inform'd whether any Man has the power as of himself heartily to believe that which at sometimes he confesseth with his Mouth The Rehearsal of a Creed is no difficult matter but a solid Conviction that what we do rehearse is apparently clear to us as Mathematical Demonstration is very rarely to be met with It is surely impossible for any Man who limits his Faith within the narrow bounds of his Reason to submit an entire assent to those Propositions which tho' perhaps necessary to be credited he himself cannot account for I have often thought this the Infirmity of the Supplicant in Holy Writ when he cry'd out Lord I believe Lord help my unbelief for it is otherways very difficult to conceive how a vicious Life can consist with a full Conviction of the Divine Existence and our own Separate Beings 6thly What you think of Enquiries into Nature whether they prove not to some the Causes of Modern Deism and to others of pure Scepticism I have been often apt to imagine that there are no Natural Phaenomena which may not admit a Solution from those two grand Principles of Matter and Motion or by Axioms deduc'd from the Corpuscular Philosophy and I doubt not but 't is our resting in an ability to discuss the same by this kind of Disquisition has been the occasion that the prime or supream Cause of all has been veiled from our Eyes Curiosity is so natural to the Soul of Man and the seeming Satisfaction that does at sometimes attend a Philosophick Enquiry is so great as to render the same to some sort of People a dangerous Temptation it is not that I think the Enquiry of it self such but the resting in the simple knowledge that such or such Productions must be the Result of such and such Causes without reflecting upon the first and chiefest which puts these upon concurring must certainly be so and truly 't is very seldom that the generality of Men make any farther Appeal unless it be to Fate Fortune Chance Destiny or some such like unaccountable Chimaera which they substitute in the room of an all-powerful infinite and intelligent Being Lastly I desire you wou'd send me your Thoughts of the especial Providence of God and your Opinion of Mr. B late Draught of the Q rs Principles In some few Days after the receipt of my Letter the good Doctor was pleased to return his Answer in these words SIR I Do charitably believe c. but waving the Introduction he proceeds A pious Life and holy Conversation are without peradventure the principal things aimed at in the Gospel of Jesus Christ but since we are there told that there are such things as dangerous and damnable Heresies the Fundamental Doctrines which all Christian Churches have believed it is our duty sincerely and conscienciously to receive and whoever does so will find them very excellent Motives to the practise of Religion I deny not the possibility of a Man's being devâ—ut and holy by himself i.e. without attending upon the Publick Offices of Religious Worship yet since such Assemblies are not only commanded but of great use and even necessity in the Christian Church it behoves us to joyn with some one or other of them and among these I see not how any Man can reasonably or justly quit a National Church on any other account than that of its obliging him to a breach of the Divine Commands or injoyning him to any thing which is manifestly sinful Grace and Divine-Light and the Spirit of God c. are the same in effect It is the Holy Spirit which both gives us Grace and inlightens our Minds by a Divine Manifestation to our Souls Every true Christian is in some â—egree a partaker hereof for without it we can neither believe nor obey nor as we ought rely upon the Promises of our God It is this which we receive upon our earnest and fervent Prayer and it is thâ—â— which doth excite both our Attention and pious Resolution which as the same produces in us lesser or greater Effects or different degrees of Love Obedience Self-denial c. so these are called the Degrees of the Divine Grace as our endeavours are either weaker or stronger uneven or steddy inconstant or more constant and as our Self-denial rises to a higher or a lower pitch Now to secure us from the danger of a mad Enthusiasm from the disorder of Imagination the deception of Phancy or the delusion of Evil Spirits in the business of private Inspiration and pretended Revelations we are most certainly to bear in mind that the Holy Spirit and the revealed Will of God do exactly at all times correspond so that whatever Light we pretend to which contradicts or is not justifiable by the written Word the same is most certainly either Design or Delusion and always false and counterfeit For my own part I am not against the Notions either of Father Malebranch or Mr. Norris provided their Hypotheses do not dishonour God by supposing Him in any manner the Author of our Sins however there were very good Christians in the World before either of them spun Philosophy to so fine a Thred To believe in God and that he inspects the most secret of our Actions to be truly sensible of the Love of the blessed Jesus and to expect a Life hereafter to believe what the Gospel delivers to us so as to be acted by those Principles to become truly penitent meek and humble patient and charitable and ready unto every good word and work in a word to be sincere and constant and faithful unto death this is to be a Religious Man and a true Christian an Heir to Heaven and a much happier Man than all the Masters of Philosophy can make you In order to this Attainment we are to quit anticipated Prejudices instill'd either by Education or our own false Reasonings and we may much shorten the trouble by seriously resolving to our selves this single Query viz. Whether the Matters related in our Saviour's Gospel are certainly true if they be there is nothing in this World must hinder us from a serious and consciencious Practise and from living up to those holy Rules and Precepts as far as we are able For the Promises and Threatnings if true are things of that consequence that all is to be laid aside for to gain the promis'd Blessings and to avoid the threatned Misery I doubt not but a Person of c. must have had a liberal Education and altho' a superficial or slight knowledge in Physicks may dispose to Scepticism yet you have doubtless by your Profession a very great advantage for however it may be abus'd
I hope it will be excus'd by those who consider the Person unto whom I write You have given me I must acknowledge a liberty to open the Pandects of Nature and to furnish my self from thence with any thing that seems useful but will have nothing to be thought valid which is transferr'd from the more Sacred Records of Revelation A God ergo a Providence has been by almost all but especially Christian Philosophers thought a necessary Conclusion but since we are to concede nothing by way of an implicite Faith or as founded upon the bare Testimony of other Men I shall not spend my time in considering the Analogy or reflecting whether or no these terms are Synonimous but will endeavour impartially to take notice not only of some few particulars which may countenance but of some others which seem to thwart and to be repugnant to this Notion as it seems generally establisht In order to my proceeding I expect you should take notice that with some others who have written upon this Subject I distinguish Providence as bipartite or under a double signification viz. General and Particular the former which by Philosophers is term'd the general Concourse or Co-operating Influence I conceive to be so reasonable and intelligible a Notion that I presume when once you have consented to the acknowledgment of a first Cause of all Things you will find your self as it were necessitated to own that the same Power who created the Universal Matter out of Nothing and disposed its several Parts into so many curious and elaborate Engines must unavoidably be concern'd at least in the preservation of the same from Annihilation or extend a Power of Conservation to its continuance and support for however possible it may be to conceive that God Almighty in directing the Particles of Matter into their several Shapes Forms or Configurations did establish certain Catholick Laws of Motion yet surely if hereupon we suppose the Deity to retire within himself no farther to be concern'd with his Divine Workmanship nor so much as ever after to think of or regard it it is utterly unconceivable that Matter and Motion and the several Textures arising from their Combination can be kept on foot or secured from their Primitive Non-existence In this Doctrine of God's ordinary Concurrence I must confess I can find nothing but what is easie and as it were self-evident but when we survey some very unaccountable Phâ—nomena and those various Anomali's which run retrograde to our Sense and Opinions of the Divine Attributes when we reflect upon what some call the Prosperity of wicked Men and the Adversity of the good when we see Justice and Innocence trampled under foot and all that 's good and vertuous degraded and contemned whilst Vice in the mean while reigns as it were triumphant when we see that neither the Profession nor Practise of the Sacred Rites of Religion can secure us from Rapine Cruelty and Oppression lastly when we consider as the Atheist says That Time and Chance hapneth to all these I say notwithstanding they may be fairly solv'd by those Primitive Laws of Motion bestow'd on Matter and still maintain'd by the Divine Being yet when we view them as under his immediate Concern and Government or resulting from his especial Providence they then appear with a somewhat differing Aspect and leave our Reason in a thick Darkness and Obscurity To this purpose you may object that however great and wise that Power may be who made the World you can discover not much of either in its Government You can own indeed that all Effects must have sufficient Causes but then of which you make so mighty an advantage you daily find these Causes take place in the production of all Effects promiscuously and that they are seldom or never prevented by a Divine Suspension even when they seem to impeach the Power and Wisdom of an especial Providence That I may give an Instance suitable to your own Thoughts You see that Mankind from whatsoever Cause they had their Origine are now continued by the mutual Embrace or Carnal Knowledge of the Two Sexes and therefore you don't admire that when they come together in the state of Wedlock or under the Nuptial Institution with the Generative Organs rightly dispos'd that they should propagate their Species but when on the other hand you consider many incestuous Embraces and that a Conception is the Result of a Venereal Act in Fornication or Adultery provided the faeminine Ova are prolific or capable of Impregnation by the Seminal Aura of the Male Here you see abundant Reason to cry out of Providence and expect the Supreme Power should either immediately pursue the Transgressors with Divine Vengeance or suspend his Laws of Motion in the Act in order to prevent a spurious Illegitimate Issue Again by the same Catholic Law of Motion or rather by a Specific Gravity or Principle of Gravitation which is the Property of every Particle of Matter you come to understand that if a ponderous Body be suspended by too slender a Line or a weighty Structure raised upon an infirm Basis insufficient for its Support or Fulcrum Here I say by a very little knowledge in Mechanicks you easily foresee that if the suspended Body preponderate the force intended to hold it up the Line must necessarily break and the weight as necessarily fall so likewise the Building in time grown ruinous or decay'd by other Accidents the Foundation failing most certainly tumbles but if a sober or reputed pious Man passing by should chance to make a Perpendicular to the suspended Body at the time of the Lines breaking and by the fall of the said weight receive some extraordinary hurt or if by the sinking of an infirm Building a supposedly righteous Family should be crusht to Death here the Atheist thinks he has a strong and powerful Reason to inveigh against or triumph over the Providence of God and will hardly be perswaded but that if the Divine Being did inspect or concern himself with the Affairs of Mankind he would upon all such Emergencies miraculously interpose and either by a Revelation or some other Supernatural Illumination discover to us the impending danger or for our Security stop the Laws of Motion which he at first establisht or deprive those Bodies of their Specific Gravitation which would otherwise injure us Farther According to this general and prime establisht Law 't is easie to conceive that the minute Particles of Matter each of them having their own proper size shape or texture as it happens that they are posited in reference to the Horizon as erected inclining or level when they come to convene into one Body from their primary Affections Disposition and Contrivance as to Posture and Order there must necessarily result that which by one comprehensive Name we call the Figure Shape or Texture of that Body and what we call a Monster after this manner produced is so far from being an Error or Trespass upon
the Laws of Motion that there is nothing less than a Miracle could prevent it and indeed supposing the Particles of Matter from whatever Cause posited in the manner we are now speaking it would be much more monstrous if they should convene into any other Shape which we account more regular handsom or compleat But then when we survey this unusual Figure as the Workmanship of the Deity especially where we suppose the same was design'd a Mansion for the Rational Soul we expect that the Supreme Architect should have interpos'd and either alterd the Laws of Motion or have given a new Modification to the Particles of Matter whereby they might be disposed to have better answer'd his Design and to be rendred more pliable to what Philosophers pronounce the Plastic Power Our Reflections of this Nature upon the particular Providence or God's Government of the World do put us very often upon the most impious Conclusions and almost perswade us to question if we are not very cautious and sensible that it is impossible for us to fathom his Designs whether there be any Divine Intelligence at all or other Superintendent Being who sits at the Helm and takes notice of us Mortals all this being in our Opinions more easily resolvable into Time and Chance Matter and Motion These if I mistak not are the unhappy Doubts of the Inconsiderate and altho' they appear not so bare fac'd in the modester sort of Infidels yet are they so far as we are able to apprehend the genuine Thoughts of every irreligious or profane Person We are too apt to set up our own perverted shallow and corrupt Reason for the Universal Standard to which Test must be brought not only each others Actions but those of God himself and which is somewhat strange notwithstanding scarce any one of our Lives is regulated by this Exemplar yet if we cannot immediately reconcile the unsearchable and inscrutable Designs of the Supreme Power to our own finite Understandings if we discover not the most secret Mysteries or Arcana Deitatis and are unable to account for each several Dispensation we blaspemously cry out with Epicurus Aut Deâ—â— vult toltere Mala non potest aut potest non vult aut utque vult neque potest aut vult potest Si vult non potest imbecillis est idioque non Deus Si potest non vult invidâ—â— est quod aeque alienum à Deo Si neque vult neque potest invidâ—â— imbecillis est idebque utque Deus Si vult potest quod solum Deo convenit unde ergo Mala aut cur illa non tollit Believe me Sir I have been often apt to think that we need not seek much farther for the Causes of Irreligion than our mistaken Notions concerning Providence nor indeed can I perswade my self of a greater stumbling Block or more considerable Difficulty to be encountred in the Christian Warfare It is this which hath sometimes stagger'd the Faith of some of the wisest Men and made others pure Sceptics in Matters of Religion It was this which put the Divine Psalmist if I may use his words upon crying out But as for me my Feet were almost goâ—e my stepâ— had well â—igh slipt For I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked for they are not in trouble as other Men neither are they â—lâ—gâ—ed like other Men. Their Eyes stand out with fatness they â—â—â—e more then heart could wish They are corrupt and speak wickedly They set their Mouth against the Heavens and they say how doth God knâ—w Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the World Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in Innocence for all the day long have I been plagued and chastened every Morning When I thought to know this it was too painful for me until I went into the Sanctuary of God then understood I their end We have surely the less Reason to admire that the regardless and foolish Libertine shou'd be startled at the seemingly unequal distribution of the Divine Favours when we find the devout Psalmist himself almost confounded and openly confessing that these things were too painful for his knowledge till he went into the Sanctuary and there inform'd himself To the same purpose says one of the ancient Fathers Videbat Epicurus Bonis adversa semper accidere Paupertatem Labores Curae Amissiones Malos contrà Beatos esse augeri Potentia Honoribus affici Videbat Innocentiam minus tutam Scelera impune committi Videbat sine delectu Morum sine ordine discrimine annorum saevire Mortem sed alios ad Senectutem pervenire alios Infantes rapi alios jam robustos interire alios in primo adolescentiae flore immaturis funeribus extingui In Belliâ— potius meliores vinci perire maxime autem commovebat Homines imprimis religiosos malis affici iis autem qui aut Deos omnino negligerent aut minus pie colerent vel minora incommodâ— evenire vel nulla It was the like Consideration which extorted that Confession of Ovid Cum rapiant Mala Fata Bonos ignoscite fasso Sollicitâ—r nullâ—s esse putare Deos. It was the seeming Felicity of the Impious and Unjust with the smart Afflictions of the Pious and Devout that amazed the sober Claudian as he is called by Dr. Ch and more than inclined him to Apostatize from Religion and declare himself on the side of Epicurus in these words Sepe mihi dubiam traxit Sententia Mentem Curarent Superi Terras au nullus inesset Rector incerto fluerent Mortalia Casu Sed cum Res Hominum taâ—ta Caligine volvi Adspicerem laetósque diu florere Nocentes Vexariquâ— Pios rursuâ— labefacta Cadebat Religio causaeque viam non sponte sequebar Alterius vacuo quae currere semina motu Adfirmat magnúmque novas per Inane figuras Fortuna non Arte regi quae Numina Sensu Ambiguo vel nulla putat vel nescia nostri Men look into the World and perceive a showre of Good and Evil over their Heads which falls down as they imagine without Choice or Direction They acknowledge indeed an establisht Law of Motion but by what Power they heed not nor will they be perswaded of the Author's Justice since the same Event at sometimes happens to all and if the Wicked have not the Precedence they are at least equally happy in this Life with the Good and Pious These Men saith that great Master of Antiquity the Learned B of W have found out an expurgatory Index for those Impressions of a Deity which are in the hearts of Men and use their utmost Art to obscure since they cannot extinguish those lively Characters of his Power which are every where to be seen in the large Volume of the Creation Religion is no more to them but an unaccountable Fear and the very Notion of a Spiritual Substance even