to place mankind here in an immature and more imperfect state that so we might in a way congruous to free and rational Agents by degrees be fitted for and at length arrive at a better and more raised condition of life As in nature all things commence their Beings in a rude and immature state and make orderly progressions to farther degrees of maturity 'till they arrive at the utmost perfections their Beings are capable of so is mankind Created and born into the World as it were in the Spring in a Budding and Blossoming season that so we may by proceeding forward in the differing Periods of our lives grow up to higher and more excellent Capacities till at length we ripen into a state of maturity and perfection Our natures are at first somewhat rough-cast to the end that they might be refined and polished by Vertue and Religion so that 't is the main and perhaps only designe of Religion to perfect and advance our Natures and make us capable of a higher and more noble condition of life Now I need not declaim and expatiate upon the neatness and consistency of this Hypothesis when we know by experience that 't is the way and method pitch'd upon by Providence to conduct mankind to its Perfection it being an Oeconomy hugely agreeable to all the designes and purposes of Religion the Natural tendency whereof is to raise us to higher Capacities and nearer approaches to the Divine Nature This gives a more general Reason of the present low and imperfect condition of mankind but that I may give a more certain and perspicuous account thereof and more close to the main Origenian objection viz. why God should put pure and immaculate Souls into these disorderly Bruitish Bodies I shall make my Hypothesis more distinct and particular Mankind then is an order of Beings placed in a middle state between Angels and Brutes made up of contrary principles viz. Matter and Spirit endued with contrary Faculties viz. Animal and Rational and encompass'd with contrary Objects proportion'd to their respective faculties that so they may be in a capacity to exercise the Vertues proper and peculiar to their compounded and heterogenial Natures For the perfection of humane Souls does not consist in an effeminate Beauty and Physical proportions but in a manly courage and moral accomplishments as at the Olympick Games there was no regard had to Beauty and Neatness they only were capable of honour and reputation who had courage and patience enough to combate And the life of man in this world is nothing else but an Olympick exercise God having placed us here not to admire the native Beauty and Perfection of our Beings but to exercise our selves in the conflicts and difficulties of Vertue therefore the worth and praise of the Soul consists in a Braveness and Gallantry of Spirit when it scorns to be usurp'd upon by those faculties that ought to obey her and checks and controules all their unruly and tumultuous exorbitances by her own sovereign and imperial Laws and resolutely defends its own Authority and Prerogative against all the furious and rebellious attempts of Passion and Concupiscence And therefore though humane Souls be capable of subsisting by themselves yet God has placed them in Bodies full of bruitish and unreasonable Propensions that they might be capable of exercising many choice and excellent Vertues which otherwise could never have been at all such as Temperance Sobriety Chastity Patience Meekness Equanimity and all other Vertues that consist in the Empire of Reason over Passion Appetite Religion is common to Men and Angels appertaining to them purely as Spirits but Vertue is proper to man alone and belongs to him as a Being made up of contrary principles whence spring contrary desires and inclinations in the good or bad Government whereof consists the Nature of Vertue and Vice upon this score 't is that Vertue is never attributed to God because being of a simple purely spiritual nature he has no unruly passions and sensual Appetites to Govern And therefore the Platonists though they place all Intellectual Vertues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the abstracted Soul yet they will have all moral ones reside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Composition denying the naked Soul to be capable of moral Good or Evil these belonging only to the whole which results from Soul and Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saies Plotinus And this by the way is their meaning when they unanimously resolve that grand perplexing enquiry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the terrestrial Hyle because our material Principle by reason of its intrinsique dulness and stupidity naturally hinders and obstructs the intellectual efforts of the mind and inclines it to the love of material and sensual objects which if it suffer it self to be so far immerst into matter as to persue only or chiefly the satisfaction of its gross and sottish Propersities thence naturally spring all those Irregularities that pass under the name of Moral Vices And this account of the Origine of Evil is not so devoid of Reason as some Learned men would perswade us For 1 it does not as is objected make matter to be essentially evil but rather the occasion thereof from its extra essential union with the soul. Nor 2 does it make the existence of evil natural and necessary for it dos not assert that it results from the nature of matter as they would make us believe but only an accidental effect thereof after its union with the soul in that from the sluggishnesse of its nature it inclines the soul to the love of gross and material objects and if the soul be so carelesse as to yeild to its inclinations it becomes the voluntary cause of its own evil But you will think my Pen very unruly if it be so apt to flie out into Digressions when 't is in so great speed and therefore I return Now because the nature of Vertue consists in the minds governing the Bruitish and Animal appetites and motions of the body Providence has furnish'd it with instruments convenient for that purpose for having its principal and commanding residence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the Nerves that convey all motions and impressions backward and forward have their Original 't is able by its immediate influence upon them to command and bridle all the Animal motions of the Body Thus because all excess of Passion consists in an irregular motion of the blood the Nerves which the soul uses as its reins are twisted about the veins and arteries that so by contracting them it may be able to refrain and check the Impetuosity of the Bloods motion and consequently curb the eager and unruly passion as when for example such an object is presented to us that naturally provokes to anger which mainly consists in a violent ebullition and fervor of the blood about the Region of the Heart which violently hurrying from thence into the Brain disorders the motions of the Spirits there and so
to determine it self to Good or Evil and consequently not capable of being directed and governed by Laws Rewards and Punishments For what other reason can there be imagined why any Agent is incapable of being thus governed then that it has no power and command over its own Actions the Office of Laws being to enjoyn them to whom they are prescribed that they determine themselves to act according to their Prescriptions But to require this of a principle void of any such power of self-determination is as absurd as to require it of Stones Trees because the absurdity of both consists in requiring obedience where there is no principle or capacity able to render it And therefore unless they can reconcile necessity indifferency so as that the same Principle shall be necessarily determin'd to one extream and yet remain so indifferent as to be able if iâ— please to determine it self to the other it will be altogether fruitless to make other sorts of liberty not inconsistent with necessity But this they can never do unless they can bring the extreams of a contradiction together and make it all one to be determined and undetermined in reference to the same Action Thus for Instance that Principle that is endued with no other Liberty then what consists in meer spontaneity and immunity from violence is without indifferency and a power of self-determination at as great a distance from moral Good or Evill as it would be if it were acted meerly by external force and violence because the reason why that which is moved only by force is not a principle capable of morality is because it has no power at all over its own motion and so is moved with a fatal and unalterable necessity but a spontaneus or unforced Action if it proceed not from an indifferent but necessary Agent is as fatal and as necessary as if it were forced and as little subject to the determination of the Principle from whence it flows as it would though it proceeded from a forreigne and violent one and by consequence is equally incapable of morality And so that principle which is not only at liberty from Co-action but is also endued with Reason and Understanding is without indifferency and a power of self-determination not less uncapable of moral Good and Evil then that which is quite devoid of Rational faculties because 't is acted by an equal necessity For if the Judgement and definitive sentence of the understanding be natural and necessary as it not only is but is also unanimously acknowledged to be and if the wills following this Judgement be as natural and as necessary as its self then 't is as extravagant to command the will not to embrace the object commended to it by the understanding as 't is to command the understanding to judge otherwise of it then it does which is the same absurdity as to command the eye to see an object after another manner then it s represented to it because they are both determined by an equal necessity From all which it follows by all the Laws of Inference that if Gods goodness should take away the Indifferency of his will it would certainly destroy not only his Freedome but all his moral Perfections and Accomplishments which is my first Argument 2. If the Divine goodness or Benificence were a necessary Agent it would not only destroy the nature of the subject in which it resides but also what is more absurd it s own for 't is absolutely necessary to the nature of Beneficence and Goodness that it proceed from a free and elective principle No courtesie can oblige but what is free and chosen and the obligation of benefits is only then acknowledg'd when they are received from one that had a power not to bestow them for otherwise they are owing not to his favour and good-will but to chance or necessity We make no returns of gratitude to the Sun for his kind visits and benigne Influences because his emanations flow from a bare necessity of Nature And Ioshuah thank'd him not for standing still at his request and interest I should think it a strange Solecisme in Courtship if any one should make me retributions for a favour that proceeded only from some necessity of nature not from choise of will Because the reason of the obligingness of benefits is that they argue Benevolence and good Intentions in the donor towards the person on whom he bestows them but when they are the Issues of a necessary and unelective cause they flow not from Good-will and argue no benevolence in their Principle but are the pure Results of Nature And therefore if all the Communications of Gods goodness be necessary they may argue the fulness of his nature but cannot the goodness of his will because that is founded upon choice and freedome I have in my former reason endeavoured to evince that a necessity of acting of what sort soever is not capable of moral Good or Evil because 't is inconsistent with a Dominion over ones own actions in which all morality is founded for an Agent that has no power and command over its own Actions and that acts because it must whatsoever excellent and commendable effects it may produce is as uncapable of morality as those senseless Machins that move by the Laws of matter and motion because it produces its effects after the same manner as mechanical causes do namely by a necessity of nature And if any artificial Automata were endued with deliberative elective and self-moving Principles so as to have power over their own motions they would in degrees of proportion be capable of doing well or ill but because they have no elective and self-moving power that 's the Reason why their motions are uncapable of being good or evil and consequently all causes whose effects result from the same necessity of Nature and that have no power to restrain their emanations are as uncapable of morality as these liveless Engines because they lye under the same incapacity Now then Beneficence being a moral Excellency it must loose its morality and consequently its nature when 't is natural and necessary and therefore if all the emanations of the Divine Bounty be such it will unavoidably follow that there is no such vertue or Beneficence and Goodness in God so that we may safely conclude that though the Communications of Gods Goodness to his Creatures be exceedingly agreeable to his Nature yet to make them necessary and naturall Results is by denying their being free to deny their being Good 3. God can never act contrary to his necessary and essential properties as because he is essentially wise just holy he can do nothing that is foolish unjust and wicked And therefore if Gods Beneficence and Bounty were so natural as that all its exertions were necessary he could never act otherwise but that he frequently does as is evident in all the Instances of his Anger and Severity which not only Reason but
useless and impertiment I know not any one Theological speculation that cannot boast of more Favour and Countenance from Scripture then this pretends to And if you will but parallel the periods of Scripture made use of in a small Pamphlet you have to prove Mulieres non esse Homines I am confident you will discern so vast a disproportion in their evidence as to acknowledge that if the latter may be accounted probable inducements the former will amount to Demonstrations And therefore perhaps I may render my self not less ridiculous by encountring them with a serious Reply then that grave Dutch Doctor who has with mighty transports of zeal opposed himself to that waggish Pamphlet and has conjured up all his Dutch or Systematick Orthodoxy to confound that blasphemous Heresy as himself stiles it But having begun I must to avoid all suspicion of shufling plunge through And though their Scipture-evidences do not merit a refutation yet through some mens Ignorance and others Partiality they need it Had I been left to my own choice I should not have at all concern'd the Authority of the Divine Oracles in this dispute For so sensible am I of that violence and injury they suffer from our presumptuous forcing them to be parties in our own trivial and imaginary speculations that I am exceedingly averse from making any use of their suffrage unless it be in matters of grand importance and with all very evident and consonant to its main intendment 'T is the fashion amongst Opinionists to Argue in a reversed order first they contrive Opinions and then Arguments they adopt Hypotheses and then suborn Testimonies out of the sacred Volume to vouch them like Chrysippus who as Laertius records was wont to say that he only wanted opinions to vent but would never want Arguments to defend his opinions And thus the Assertors of Preexistence seem first to be enamoured with the Prettiness of their Hypothesis and then to seek our for Scripture expressions to countenance it For all the testimonies they alledge would never have afforded the least intimation of it had it not first prepossest their Fancies Of which some of them are so sensible as to confess that though they do not perswade their Hypothesis yet they are applicable to it But I wish they could name any opinion howsoever vain and unwarrantable that cannot boast as much what 's more easie then for Fancie to make pretty applications of Scripture to purposes vastly distant from its own especially if we consider how large and miscellaneous a composure the Holy Volume is They who are acquainted with the Customes and Tenets of the Modern Jews know what pretty Analogies they fetch from Scripture to abet their fond and ridiculous usages indeed their prettiness is so odd and surprising that were it in any other matter they would be as delightful as impertiment But t is time to advance to a closer and more particular engagement the few hours that remain obliging me to a quick and I fear overhasty dispatch but before I clear off the Texts they object I will represent a passage or two on my own behalf And first methinks that 's a shrew'd one Rom. 9. 11. For the Children being not yet born neither having done either good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works but of him that calleth They that were not in a Capacity of doing either good or evil before they were born neither existed nor sin'd before But neither Iacob nor Esau were in a capacity of acting well or ill before they were born into this life and therefore nor they nor by consequence any others preexisted For 1. 't is too pittiful a shift to say that all other men Iacob and Esau only excepted were in Being before their Appearance upon this stage of life And 2. 't is most expresly against the whole designe of the Apostles Argument the Purpose of whose Discourse is to shew that Gods vouchsafing greater Instances of his Favour to Iacob then to Esau proceeded not from any extrinsique motive of greater merit in him but purely from the free determination and beneplaciture of his own will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now this he proves because the Choice was pitch'd upon before they were born and so before they had done either good or evil But if the souls of men had been in a capacity of acting morally before their descent into this life then has the Apostle argued at a strange rate of inconsequence when he concludes that Gods different dealing with Iacob and Esau depended not on their own Actions because the difference was resolved on before they were born and consequently before they had done good or evil If therefore the Apostles conclusion be consonant to the Laws of Inference it must be unquestionably certain that the Souls of men never acted before they were born into these Bodies There are a brace of Texts more that I conceived would without any torturing give in evidence against Preexistence but I find that its Patrons have already suborn'd them to speak in their Cause and therefore I that am a modest man must be content to give up my Right in their Testimony and to Encounter them as objections The first is our Saviours reply to his Disciples enquiry about the man born blind Ioh. 9. 3. Neither has this man sin'd nor his Parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in him In which words he expresly affirms that that mishap was not inflicted upon the man as a Penalty for any miscarriages he had been guilty of in any former state but that it was design'd by the Divine Providence upon a special score namely that he might be a fit object to evidence our Saviours miraculous Power And yet from this very passage they argue with no small confidence against us in that the question supposes the man might have sin'd before his Terrestrial Birth and that the Hypothesis of Preexistence was an Opinion much in Vogue among the Jews and therefore when our Saviour had so fair an occasion of rectifying the common belief and yet said nothing against it his silence is almost as argumentative in favour of it as a positive Approbation I answer 1. 't is far from being evident that the Disciples question supposes him capable of sinning before his birth for might they not if they had any notions of the Divine Prescience suppose that God foreknowing what kind of person this blind man would prove had antedated his punishment Or why might they not intend his Original sin which the Jews supposed to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in every individual man so that when they enquired whether the man was born blind for his own or his Parents sin they might only ask whether that particular Judgment was the effect of any miscarriage in his Parents or of his own original Pravity 2. It was not the Pre-existence but the Metemphychosis