fall down into a Dead Thing and so it could retain its own Life against any one but the Author of it and lose none of that for this power it had received from God and what it found fitted by God to its Activity and convenienc'd to its Life it could act quicken and manage But it was not a Quickning Spirit that is It had not power to make or give a new Life to continue a Body in Life or to raise a Dead Body or make it more Excellent or Lively than it found it prepared by God It had not a Power like the First-begotten from the Dead who can make corruptible put on Incorruption and mortal put on Immortality and be even swallowed up of Life who can change our vile Bodies that they may be made like his glorious Body by a Power that subdues all things to it self So then though the Soul could work to the utmost extent of Matter and Body and fill all Bodily Capacities yet it could not exceed them nor act according to it self because it was confin'd in Body but must work and act onely as the Soul of such a Body nor could it quicken and advance Body as it would it self nor better it above its Rank and Order set by the Creator and therefore the Soul could display it self and its own Spirituality onely so far as Body made by God the Body of this Soul could receive and convey into Action And though this was enough not onely to prefer Man to the top of this Lower Creation and to make him under the Creator Lord of All but to assure enough a greater than Body even a Spirit was there yet it could not discover how great and potent this Spirit was Thus the Soul was submitted by the wise Ordination of God to retire keep home and dwell in a Body being at the very first set in an Orb lower than it self and to manage fewer and lesser Talents according to the State of the Lower Creation and so by its Obedience Fidelity and Improvement to be advanc'd to richer and more Talents and to a Rule over greatest Cities that is to be exalted to the Heights and full Glory of a perfectest Immortality Thus was the State of Innocency wherein Body was much more fitted to the Excellency of the Soul though not to all its Excellency fitted to it onely according to the Lower State of Man in this World not according to that Supreme State of Immortality but differing as much from that as Possibility not to die doth from an Impossibility to die or as a Body Natural just fit to entertain a Soul in a temporary condition and to yield it self to its displays in a degree convenient to that differs from a Body Spiritual fram'd to bear and discharge all the highest Spiritualities of a Soul in its unchangeable Estate Yet this was much above the present Condition of Body under Sin even as Innocency and the Order Beauty and Goodness wherein Man was first enstated by God excell the Guilt unnatural Deformity and Confusion he labours under now Since Sin and Disobedience the Souls manner of Habitation in Body is fallen much lower and it is carefully to be consider'd how it fell lower for it cannot be conceived that any thing should be abated from the Life Vigour and Force of the Soul it self The Soul loses onely in the Holy and Happy State of it without any diminution in its Esence or Essential Life for it cannot lose in the degrees of those It must lose in the whole or not at all being one whole intire indivisible Self as hath been before asserted And thus it is onely a competent Subject for the Happiness or Misery of Eternity of which Fallen Angels are a plain Instance who notwithstanding their Fall continue Principalities and Powers and Dominions and though Wickednesses yet Spiritual Wickednesses and in High Places The Soul then losing nothing thus the Life Vigour and Vertue of its Nature must lie close accumulated and folded up where there is not room for an Explanation and free Expatiation as Light that could reach much further when stopp'd by any Dark Body is reverberated into it self We must therefore conceive that as a Punishment upon the Sin of Man there is a great withdrawing of Divine Blessing from the Lower Creation upon which ensues an interruption of the benign Order of Things one towards another so that they are continually at feud and in contest one with another hindering disturbing and mutually abating the Force and working to the destruction one of another to all which Inconveniences the Humane Body becomes subject and both in regard of its Temper and Composition more subject than many other parts of Matter for its Strength is not the Strength of Stones nor its Flesh of Brass nor clear and pure like the Heavens that abide of old Further It being the Body of that Soul that is the great Offender it is most liable to the Curse The Soul then whose Body was at first too narrow for all its Efficacies is now limited to one unequal to any one of them and very disturbing of their Execution For sometimes by the oppression of other Parts of Matter upon this Body all the livelier and brisker Particles of it are squeez'd out and exhaled whereby it becomes dull and instagnated sometimes it is overheated into furious and inordinate motion and so weakned and disordered in its great end of serving the Soul The Soul on the other side losing nothing of it self yet being sunk down from the Intellectual Spiritual Life and from the Happiness therein to be found which is its true Sphere becomes also negligent of acting and invigorating the Body and guiding the Service of it to such worthy Ends and with a wilful supineness falls down into the Animal Life and presently finding what State and Temper that Body with which it is joyn'd is of carries it self with all its Powers almost wholly thither If it be a duller Matter or Body it stays its own Effluxes the Stream of its Motion and tastes its Life and Enjoyment in that sloathfulness and sluggishness of Flesh as it were forgetting it hath any greater Virtue Force or other Office than what serves to the maintenance of so low a Life that the Soul wilfully enervates and deadens its own Activity by slumbring it in the drowsiness of a lazie Body so that this Sloath becomes the greatest of all Sloath because of the Pleasure this mighty Spirit hath in that Sloath having found it to be the Temper of that Matter wherein it hath sheath'd it self there being in this very Sloath as Philosophers teach of Rest of Bodies as forcible and great a Cause as there is of Motion Thus the great Force of a Soul is defeated this way the Body being like damp'd Powder that will not take the Fire and so the Fire lies still and does nothing to such Solomon cries out Yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands
dissent it can derive no happiness upon the Soul but on the contrary anguish and affliction This being then preconsidered let us now more pressingly search the nature of Mans Soul as it is in Scripture stiled The Heart and the Heart out of which are the Issues of Life first drawing the powers of Reason themselves and their motions and then shewing them as they are derived for so they are always into one of those two Channels Good or Evil. In the Heart then are all the powers of Motion 1. Here is the immediate directive Understanding or Judgment which determines to Action and this is a different thing from the Light of the Candle of the Lord which is always the same for this may be debased and corrupted it may mix it self with lower Considerations and in the generality of Men it does so even to the eclipsing and darkening the higher Light not in it self but in its oriency and brightness upon the Soul as the Sun is the same although its Light may be shadowed from us But this practical Understanding however it may be corrupted yet hath the more immediate conduct of all the actions and contains in it self the Gust Taste and Motion of the whole Soul and immediately foreruns Action for it determines things with their Circumstances it ballances diviner Reasons and Temptations on the contrary part together the Love and Fear of God on one side Inticements from Flesh and Blood and the World on the other Now there is a great difference between these two It is best to be holy and virtuous in it self and in general and It is best for me in particular and in this particular Action to be holy Between these two An Act of Judgment as it resides in the Understanding and an Act of Judgment as it inclines the whole Soul Motion and Action unto it This very practical Understanding is in Scripture called The Heart Let Prov. 23. 15. thy Heart be wise It is this Wisdom of the Heart that denotes a man Good not that most clear Light that shines from above and down upon the Heart not within it but so without it that it doth not reside in it and change it into it self 2. Here are the Will and Affections which are the resolution vehemency and keenness of the Judgment and carry the notion of the nearest and next Powers of Action 3. Here is the Memory presenting anew the Images of Things past and offering what hath been observed of them heretofore either as to their chuseableness or undeservingness Here is the Imagination displaying things new and old and so displaying them that in things of lesser importance their appearance is greater than themselves in Things of truest and greatest Importance by the help of Imagination well imprinted they come nearer to their own greatness and appear much greater than they would do else which is the great benefit of sanctified Imagination in regard of which David prays That God would keep it always in the imaginations 1 Chron. 29. 18. of the people to fear the Lord and keep his Laws 4. Here is the resort of all outward Objects with their several Characters of Commendation or Dispraise as Embassies in the Court of a Prince so are the several Proposes made and addressed here from those several Regions the Region above which makes Offertures of greatest Happiness and the Region below which sends also the glozed Tenders of Good 5. Here are the Habits rising up by the degrees of propensions inclination temper and readiness to Action till by repeated Action they are so settled that they become the Treasure of the Heart out of which it freely expends Mat. 12. 35. every moment and at a minutes warning as occasion calls it out And from all these arise restless motions moves and removes of the Soul it self and of the Things within it self about which it treats endless Thoughts Imaginations Remembrances Willings Hatings Desirings Aversations and Abhorrencies and these in infinite mazes cutting one another some weaving one with another and mutually strengthening themselves others contracting cool and suspend the Soul to either part sometimes the Prints that have prevailed are defaced and new ones take and these again thrust out and the former returning in continual vicissitudes sometimes the Understanding encourages the Affections and other Powers and they it as several Artificers in a Building at other times there is a Confusion of Languages among them and they bring forth only a Babel But at all times is found here that great contest between the higher Soul and the Reasons and Dictates of that and the contrary struggles of the lower through its correspondencies and intelligences with the Body and its Sensualities the encounters between the Law of the Mind and the Members which cause great distractions and rollings of the Soul this way and that way according to the liveliness of the one or the violence of the other Lastly From the Heart arise both sudden and every way formed and contrived Actions accomplished perfected and fledg'd for all the forming and beating out of actions to this or that shape are upon the Anvil of the Heart and those that break out on the instant had yet their first motion from thence even as all the Arteries and Veins are from the natural Heart and it hath its Pulses every where so this Heart we speak of hath in this Life Moral and Intellectual Now that which makes the Consideration of all we have spoken in this particular great is that according to these Issues of life is the state of a Man in Holiness or Sin and so he is in an order for Happiness or Misery hereby For by these and all these and no other thing whatever is a Man what he is with these a Man is holy with these he is wicked nothing else gives him his Temper his Character and when these are twisted together and holily moved by the Grace of God and incited by heavenly motions the Soul is then drawn with the Cords of Hos 11. 4. a Man but when they are united in Evil it is drawing Iniquity with a Isa 5. 19. Cart-rope and sin with the Cords of Vanity that is of a Vain Heart For these being neither the higher Reason alone necessarily resulting from the motion and excellency of an Understanding nor being only the meer sensuality or inclination of Body but truly the substance bulk and substantial powers and motions of a man what a man is in these he truly is Further the true genuine and sincere motions of these are they that try him for which ever Sin or Holiness have the Ballance and cast the Scale that a Man is For on one side the cunning Heart sends out some actions out of choice and inclination only in complyance with the higher Soul for which it cannot but have a reverence and again sometimes however it be in its own native state corrupt yet it is forced to receive or rather suffers the
Reason except such wherein the wisdom of the God of Nature is immediately seen stoop as much below those of men as the faint light of the Moon falls below the lustre of the Sun or as the untuned unmodelled sound of a musical Instrument made by a vulgar Hand or wild Notes come short of the Musick and Harmony of some excellent Artist or as the gamesom leaps and rebounds of wild Creatures differ from the measured and becoming moves of a most orderly Dance And yet the Bodies of men and the Organs of sense in them differ so little from those of Beasts in relation to the main of these great effects that when we consider man in the majestickness of true Reason and Understanding and see so little upon his body more than in theirs we cannot but acknowledge something divine within him that as we may say with reverence to the highest Majesty sits as a God there The Body is a Palace or Temple indeed compared with the bodies of Beasts but this shews it only to be the Residency of so great an Inhabitant and in some peculiarities it may be so framed as to be prepared thereby to be the Instrument of so great an Artist but both signifie as little to the immediate source of Reason as a stately House or more curious Instrument do to the Offices or Discharges of the Master of the House or Art the magnificence and prudence of the one the exactness and curiosity of the other To this we must still recourse There is a spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding and teacheth him more than the beasts of the field and maketh him wiser than the fowls of heaven And yet it is hard to perswade any serious considerer that the utmost attempts and endeavours of matter can arise to the performance of the duties of very Sense in these brute Creatures how much less can it to those of Reason in man In man then we see effects that witness enough some great Cause and Original we see not yet still seeing the Effects are plainly greater than we can attribute to any thing that may be seen in man this Cause because not to be seen is not lesser than other things in man that are to be seen but greater and therefore greater for not being to be seen because it is not subject to the inabilities of those parts of man we can see and yet cannot ascribe the Effects to because they are so much above them And yet too we might well expect these great Effects from the visible parts of an Humane Body if any where seeing man is the most excellent of the visible Creatures we know but as we reasoned before in speaking of the first Cause All things that are seen are too impure and unweildy to conduct things to so great ends as those of Reason and Intelligence and so not enough to act in the likeness of the first Cause which likeness we must all along observe as the true Key of the knowledge of mans Soul Argum. 3 To make the entertainment of invisible Beings and their greatness easier to us let us survey the whole state of Beings visible and we shall find It is not any of their outward lineaments shape colour habit figure or apparent motion that makes them what they are but their retir'd Essences A Drug hath not its nature from its shape colour or common circumstances wherein it may agree or be exceeded by other things of less virtue or by those of its own kind that have lost their virtue though they may still have the outward semblances but there is something within that is not to be pored upon by Sense but is pierced to by Reason and Understanding The appearance of Gold counterfeited deceives the Eye but is detected by the Reason that tryes things themselves If any thing be painted so to the life that it cheats the sight and seems to be the very thing that it dissembles yet it is never the more the thing It is therefore an unseen nature from which every thing hath its virtue Hence it appears there is a great retirement of that which is the Kernel of these Beings from outward garbs lineaments appearances and it fairly leads us to the belief of Beings invisible whose whole nature and beings are hidden from Sense but only in their operations wherein they exceed so much as to recompense with that evidence of themselves the retreat of their Beings from fight For if those poorer things whose pretence is small and their effects low and their essence but a duly prepared matter and so must for the most part lye open to Sense have yet a secret of their essence in reserve and made solemn by a vail of secrecy drawn over them how reasonable is it to think the highest operations should have their seat in Beings wholly immaterial and invisible of which the supreme God is known to Sense only by effects and the Souls of men the lowest of them by acting in and by visible and material Bodies indeed yet in their operations and truest nature wholly independent upon them Argum. 4 The appearances like to men in Bodies Invisible Beings have sometimes put on and the great effects they have wrought in such or any other appearances to Sense as demonstrations of themselves to it perswade the reality of their Beings and the greatness of them For by such addresses and such kind of effects as are the most assuring credentials to men as they are now in Bodies they have given to sense and sight great satisfaction and notices of themselves and at the same time awakened Reason to observe they were some unusual and stranger Beings and not familiar and ordinary ones and that they took up a short lodging only in these appearances to put Sense out of doubt concerning themselves For in the mean time to make it plain to Reason that they exceeded the force of all visible things and were not tyed to act by their proportion or so much as by the rule the Soul of man in the body acts by they have always contrived into some part or circumstance of their appearances or the effects they wrought tokens of their spirituality and grandeur they did something wonderful so that while they have descended to sense they have also amazed it and one way or other unriddled their disguise From whence arise these plain characters of Invisible Beings 1. The reality of their Beings notwithstanding their invisibility seeing they can as they please demonstrate themselves by the way of Sense and assume visibility not to make themselves more real but more known to men that otherwise being in body judge at disadvantage of those out of it 2. Their independency upon visibility seeing they could do all out of that visible appearance they do in it and do indeed much more out of it than they do in it 3. Their preference of invisibility to visibility seeing they appear only a short time Body
viz. That our Saviour intends no more than that mans killing the body is infinitely less than Gods destroying that Body and its whole life in Hell though after many Ages Yet it is observable in the first place our Saviour to imprint the fear of Divine Revenges places them not only upon the Body but upon the Soul as a distinct and greater part of man than body 2. And beyond this our Saviour plainly aims at the great odds there is betwixt a hand that can execute no further than dying once and in the body only and that almighty hand that sends down the Soul to Hell immediately and the Body at the Day of Judgment For he implies a man easily slips from mans severity by death for he may yet live and be happy in his Soul presently and in his Body at the Resurrection but death can give no escape from the stroke of God either to the Soul which incontinently falls under it nor to the Body awakened hereafter to endure it Now I know it is possible for Serpentine wits to glide off from these and many the like proofs of Scripture that might be produced for their way of elusion is very wonderful like that of Solomons Serpent upon a Rock that winding every way yet leaves no track of solid Reason behind it but yet I affirm that such concurrent Testimonies of Scripture are so conclusive that no sober consideration can escape from them unto which revealed Truth is also to be annexed Reason it self teaching us as I have already urged the effects of a Soul are too great to be ascribed to any power of Body and therefore seeing every Effect must have an equal Cause it is a high justification of the assertion of a Spirit to which those effects may be duly and worthily ascribed And therefore I shall further adventure to avouch from Scripture that the Soul is so much the Man that it hath the compleat substantial essence of a man so far in it self that in comparison of it the body is but prepared for a sensible mode or representation in which the Soul is to act and shew and illustrate it self visibly and sensibly and that man might thereby become of the order of the sensible and visible world beholding and judging by the ministery of sensitive organs of the beauty excellent array and variety of bodies in this Creation and himself appear the principal of them but retaining still a higher and nearer relation to the Invisible world to God to the state and life of Angels so that without any prejudice to his main being he may be removed out of the body thither and yet still be himself as to all the chief intents and purposes of his Creation and continue so till in the restitution of all things and the manifestation either of the goodness or severity of God after the manner of the sensible and visible Creation that is in such a plain way as seeing and knowing things by sense men be again set out by God in a bodily scheme or fashion at the Resurrection so that the Body it shall then have shall more compliably wait upon all the state and motions of the Souls happiness or misery The Soul then only visibly shews it self now in a body and is submitted to be in it but when it goes out of the body it wants nothing through the whole time of its separation that it had here but only the apparence of its motions in a body nor hath any thing added to it when it is cloathed with a body at the Resurrection but an opportunity for its glory or misery to be seen sensibly Even as God was excellent and perfect in himself from eternity when there was no Creation or any beside himself nor received he any thing or found any addition to himself by the Creation for all things that he made received their All from him but only he hath illustrated and manifested himself in the Creation and the Creatures do no more than shew the power wisdom and goodness of God in creating preserving and governing them After the same manner so far as we may with reverence compare any of the Creatures with the infinitely excelling Creator the Soul receives nothing from the Body or any of the parts of it but only such organs and instruments which it is to inspire govern and rule and thereby to shew its efficacy vigour and great endowments of understanding and virtue for all motions from the highest to the lowest derive from the Soul But as to the present case That the Soul falls in love with its self as dwelling in body and with its lower motions in it and forgets its own proper and higher motions of immediate converses with holiness and true wisdom and that rule of body committed to it according to these Laws this is only its sin weakness degeneracy and fall as of a created and mutable Being placed in a body All motions and appetites that we call in ordinary speaking motions of body and fleshly appetites are not any thing that body can first proffer to the Soul but those that the Soul communicates first by that universal life and motion it gives to body and then derives from its own communications the pleasure that it self finds from it self in body Yet is not the Souls good or ill management of Body all its holiness or sin there are many acts so retired that body shares not in their praise or guilt The Soul in such acts of goodness is like God and good Angels as if it had no body and as unconcerned in this world as God in his own immanent perfections and actions On the other side wicked men are in some wicked actions alone as it were from the body like Devils and damned Spirits those spiritual wickednesses the Apostle speaks of exercised in spiritual Impurities But to return The Souls acting and taking care of the body is but an inferiour and under-part of its administration and is for that higher end that there might be an image and likeness of God imprinted upon a body and sensibly seen in it by virtue of the Souls acting holily in and upon it This is the highest and most excellent part of its Government the pleasure it takes in the lower should be but an imitation of the Lord taking pleasure in his lower works who is never the less spiritual heavenly and divine for running through and governing the whole world of matter and rejoicing in his doings therein but is always in the perfect purity of his own Attributes and guides all things according to them But contrary-wise if the Soul makes its lower and less noble functions its principal and supreme and instead of moving the body rationally and religiously by it self continuing spiritual and intellectual it chiefly attends to and interests it self in its lower sensitive motions and so becomes carnal and sensual this is its great fall into sin and misery yet still it retains its prerogative of nature it is
surprised the whole Animal Power also and extinguished that Life and how often the Soul gives a Constitution to the Body we know not but this is certain however the case be otherwise The Comfort or Discomfort of a Man is seated in his Soul and whencesoever the Causes of them arise or through whatsoever Conduits they pass they please or afflict according to the settled Judgment the Mind makes of them But for the further clearing and confirming these things let us make this account of them 1. From the Nature of Mans Soul it is certainly to be concluded The Soul is the Man which way soever the Soul goes that way certainly the Man goes and when the Soul is in a high concern any way it values the Body no more than the Body does a Garment For though it is true in the generality of men and in general Cases the Soul doth willingly subordinate it self to the Body or rather it self to it self as in the Body and makes the service the safety the pleasure of it self in the Body to be its whole pleasure safety and satisfaction yet there are particular persons by whom particular cases in which the Body is slighted as of smallest consideration We see good men use the service of it in Study and Contemplation to such a height that it is macerated weakened discouraged and speedily worn out they subdue it by daily mortification they 1 Cor. 9. 27. offer it up in Martyrdom deliver and resign it to the Flames submit it to the Torturer Bad Men enslave it to vicious affections lavish it out upon their Lusts and in their Rage sometimes destroy it by violence upon themselves From all which it is plain how much the Body is at the service of the Soul when the Soul is excited to the exercise of its own power 2. The great Mystery of the Soul is That whereas in its own Nature it is thus great and commanding was made in the Image and Similitude of God hath a resemblance of his Liberty and even of his infinite Motion in the displays of Understanding Will and Affections yet notwithstanding it may be as it were silenced and slumbered and the Motion of it so suppressed that it seems to have nothing so considerable as such a Being imports In this state it is like a strong Man asleep but that will awake it sleeps its sleep now but when God awakens it it shakes its self and throws off all its Manacles or like a strong man that shoâ—â—s by reason of Wine then its strength and vigour appears It lyes still as Samson when his Locks were cut off it re-enforces it self hereafter as Samson when his Locks were grown again like Water running softly and in a very weak and indiscernible Current afterwards like an Inundation of Water like a Spark under Ashes but afterwards like the whole Element of Fire in fiercest motion so that there is no judgment to be made of its influences into the Comfort or Discomfort of a Man when it is in its duller and more stupified condition but in its highest Flights now and in its Everlasting State 3. God hath the great power of moving the Soul he that formed the Spirit of a Man within him he that made it what it is that gave it his own likeness he will shew when he pleases that he made it such as it is indeed and it must needs be plainly in his power to do it who is the Supreme and All-working Spirit so that all the state and condition of it from the first moments of its Being throughout Eternal Ages is a Government and Ordination of God upon it Nothing then is to be concluded but by and upon his declarations of himself and of the manner of his Government he hath prescribed to himself which is in part made known to us in the Nature Frame and Constitution of the Soul it self and the daily Experiments of it but most especially in his Word which describes both the deplumed and low estate of Souls and the certain exaltation the lifting them up whether to Salvation or Destruction 4. The things the force and strength of the Soul move upon as descriptive and constitutive of its own state and condition give temper to its Satisfactions and Disquiets When it moves upon such things as have truly the Springs of Joy and Comfort in them as its own it hath an exceeding Joy that carries it above all things Again when it moves upon those things that have indeed the reasons of Sorrow and Affliction and that it must acknowledge it hath an unhappy Right to there is an excess of Sorrow and Vexation If there are but apprehended reasons of either or lower degrees of them aggravated by that apprehension the force of the Soul may yet make them great till it be undeceived for when there is nothing worthy either way to work upon yet it s very deceived and deluded Imagination are in the room of a great Object to it and either very pleasing or afflictive Thus it is till Reality takes place of Appearance and Eternity finds so much employment for all the Powers upon things so grand that they have nothing of leisure either for Appearances or lesser Things or to spend their strength in vain Thus far I have argued the Motions of the Soul unto Happiness or Misery immediately from the Nature of the Soul it self in the next place let the account of these things be drawn from the Ordination and Government of God in relation to himself and the eternal condition of the Soul 1. There is an Absolute Will and Determination of God that it shall appear that Himself and Holiness and the enjoyment of Himself for ever are the true Happiness of the Soul and the only Happiness of it on the other side That Sin his Wrath and Disfavour are the greatest Evils as God says I will famish all the Gods of the Earth so he will all that the Earth calls Good besides himself which is a worshipping of the Creature besides or in preference to the Creator blessed For Ever Else Men who are in Covenant with seeming Goods and in Union with them would think themselves well enough without God and without any enjoyment of him God therefore hath appointed a time wherein all the Idols of the World shall be smitten as Dagon before the Ark and all little Evils that are so reputed here shall shrink into none compared with his Wrath and Displeasure Then shall Men reflect upon all the Fatigues they have undergone for worldly Pleasure Profit and Honour as so much lost and misplaced labour and their so earnest recoil from present Evils though with their eternal hazard shall be reputed as basest Cowardise then Religion and Holy Walking which had so mean an allowance of Deference from them shall be esteemed of greatest worth and value 2. God hath determined to draw out Souls to their own Greatness and Extent that his Workmanship in them may not be always hid
of it are presently heard and resented through the whole and the Soul so much it self under several names that what is in one Faculty of it is immediately in all if the impression be indeed to the life saving only that since the degeneracy of Mankind there remains as I have already shewn a single Light in the higher Understanding that may be refused in its dictates by the rest of the Soul Suppose then the Understanding beyond the possibility of Resistance convinced by such a manner of Demonstration that it cannot but receive of those things that are the true and perfect Reasons of Joy or Sorrow and in their perfection also the Soul must needs be in the same manner affected it is now when we plainly and undeniably find our selves within the embraces of any great good or the gripes of Evil but with this difference that so much as the perceptiveness of the Understanding surmounts at any time or the Good and Evil themselves surpass so much must the Joy or Grief surmount and surpass also Although therefore it be true that the multitude of Men and Women are but half perswaded of those Things wherein Heaven Hell consist yet this is only because God is not yet pleased to excite the Understanding after that powerful manner of Conviction he can use but still every man is at the Mercy of Divine Power and Pleasure when he will do it He may do it now but in Eternity he will do it and with such a clear representation as rises up into immediate Bliss or Woe 2. The next Faculty to be considered is the Great Will that is the Spring of all Affections and their Motions How endless are the Motions of this Will With what a great Covetousness doth it covet Good and how long What an immense aversation and abhorrence of Evil hath it Let then this Will be denyed Good or pressed upon with Evil or let it be gratified with Good and secured from Evil what either joy or pain will follow Yet further Let us weigh the Active part of both these Faculties and then the Enjoyment or Suffering will rise much higher 1. First then apprehend but Thought mightily set on work which is the Understanding in its natural Motion and if this be but earnestly moved though it be without tormenting matter yet how painful is it When there is not an Oyl a pleasantness and sweetness dropping down upon Thought it is like stretching the Joints and Sinews of the Body by immoderate motion which if moderate would have been refreshing or like a great blow that carries the whole force along with it and falls into the Air only upon which all the weight of the Body is ready to follow with a violence most ungrateful to Nature When a man hath a multitude of Thoughts he had need have the comforts of God to delight his Soul A Man had need have good bounds for his Thoughts else he loses himself in the Wild of them he had need of good matter to feed them with else they inflame like Millstones feeding on themselves make but this good a Man may think For Ever and it will easily appear he may be happy or miserable For Ever For let these thoughts be such as interest a Man in the Reasons of Torment Pain and Horrour and how grievous may be his state What experience may every one have of the trouble and turmoil of the anguish of Thoughts a Man may lye easier upon a Rack than upon some disquieting vexatious Thoughts On the other side how sweet and pleasant are Thoughts full of the Ravishment of Divine Consolations How delightful is the entertainment they give without tediousness or satiety 2. Imagination is something beyond Thought for Thought runs upon things nearer to what they are in themselves but Imagination makes them something beyond themselves or aggravates according to their true circumstances with greatest life Indeed Imagination cannot exceed in Divine or Everlasting Things yet it is of use to bring in and represent to and fill the Thoughts it reflects things with a multiplicity of Images like the Parelii of the Sun and stays those Images with great Effect and so it is of great use in Comfort or Discomfort 3. The Memory which doth revive and call things together and present them anew to the Thoughts and Imaginations summoning and congregating and staying Things their due time for consideration This is a great Instrument too of Happiness or Misery I will remember the Years of the Right Hand of the most High was the Relief of and Recovery of Davids Spirit Remembring my affliction and Lam. 3. 19 20. my misery the wormwood and the Gall my Soul hath them still in remembrance and is bowed in me Remembring this Vale of Tears exalts the lightsome state of the Holy Hill of God and Remembring the Good things of this Life an inflammation of misery 4. The Conscience is a high and most curious Engine fitted by God to these ends What Joy like the Testimony of Conscience good and serene The very office of which is to applaud the Soul and give it greatest Joy in its acceptance with God and likeness to him and on the other side to make acclamations to the Justice of God and condemn the guilty and impure Soul within it self to its greatest horrour and amazement Come we now to the Active part of the Will that is the Affections which are but the Will boiling up with great love to its Happiness or abhorrence of its Misery and according as the Affections are stirred with desire of Good and flight from Evil so are they either unexpressibly gratified in an union with that Good and the utmost distance of the Evil or enraged with the despair of the Good that is at an infinite remove from its enjoyment and detestation of the Evil so abhorred yet pressing and forcing on it self to be endured from which different Motion of the Affections spring plainly and sensibly those different conditions of Happiness or Misery Lastly When the Understanding hath been both the Theatre and Spectator of all these Motions it comes to examine over again whether there because for them and when upon strictest enquiry it finds the cause deserves the whole that hath passed and being by the Divine Power held close to this Observation it then passes it self into that grand Act of the Soul we call Judgment upon which all the powers of the Soul either everlastingly triumph and shout in loud praises to infinite Mercy or the Veins of Conscience open and bleed afresh and as by a most undoubted authority the Heart renews and continues its everlasting Plaints The fundamental capacities of the Soul for Happiness and Misery being now settled I come now to discourse the correspondent fundamental accounts of that Happiness or Misery as they are united with the Soul and its actuations of it self And these first in relation to its eternal condition 1. The first and most essential account of Happiness