as they proceed from or are found in the Integrals of the Universe are devoid not only of Reason but of Sense And he that after all this shall see the World upheld without any considerable decay or defect in the same state and order as it hath been for many Thousands of years will upon a due and impartial search find that it were far more impossible that this could be without the Wisdom Power and Influx of a most Infinite Omnipresent Omniscient and Omnipotent Fixed Being than for the Humane Body to be kept without dissolution and putrefaction being destitute of the influx and regiment of its Vital Principle the Soul And therefore some of the Ancients that were willing to solve the Phaenomena of the World have though erroneously thought that the World was Animate and that all these Operations in the World proceeded from that Anima Mundi as the Operations in the Bodies of Men proceeded from that Anima Humana that lodged in it and at length finding so great effects that are and may be done by this supposed Anima Mundi according to their Hypothesis have at last proceeded in plain terms to determine that this Anima Mundi was in truth no other than the Glorious God whereas they might with much more ease and truth have attributed all the great Oeconomy of the Universe to the most Glorious God without dishonouring him into the existence of a Forma informans or a constituent part of that World which he made Others to amend that absurdity and yet out of a piece of mannerliness and respect as they think to God though they deny this Universal Soul or Form informing of the whole Universe yet without any sufficient ground have devised several Systems of the Universe and assigned several Souls to each System or Vortex at least which should be the immediate Regent in every such System as the Soul is in the Body This as it supposeth something without evident ground so it doth without any necessity For the Divine Wisdom and Power is sufficient for the management and government of the whole Universe and if such Animae Systematum should be granted yet still there must be some one common Regent of all these Systems and their respective Souls or otherwise disorder would follow between the Systems themselves But thus far even those suppositions bear witness to the necessity of a Providential Regiment of the parts of the Universe that bare Matter Motion and Chance cannot perform this business but that there is a perfect necessity of a Regent Principle besides it which may govern and dispose it as the Soul of Man doth his Body And even that supposed regiment of these particular Souls of every System as they must needs have it if they had it at all from the institution and efficiency of the Wise God so they are all continually influenced from him and the whole College of them governed guided and ordered by him as their sovereign Regent 3. The Third thing that I design is this That although it is impossible for any Created Being or the Operations thereof to hold a perfect Analogy or adequate Representation of the Divine Wisdom Power and Providence in the governing of the World because the Wisdom and the Ways of Almighty God are unsearchable and past finding out they are of such a perfection that no Created Being or Operation thereof can be a just Parallel or adequate Resemblance of them yet there seems to be such an instance in the regiment which the Humane Soul exerciseth in relation to the Body that with certain correctives and exceptions may give some kind of Explication or Adumbration thereof whereby though we can never get a complete Idea of the Divine Regiment yet we may attain such a notion thereof as may render it evidently credible and in some kind explicable 1. The first act of the Divine Nature relating to the World and his administration thereof is an immanent act The most wise counsel and purpose of Almighty God terminated in those two great transeunt or emanant acts or works the works of Creation and Providence The Divine Counsel relating to the work of Creation is that whereby he purposed to make the World and all the several Integrals thereof according to that most excellent Idea or Exemplar which he had designed or chosen according to his infinite Wisdom in those several ranks and methods and in that order and state wherein they were after created and made The Divine Counsel relating to his Providence or Regiment of the World seems to consist in these two things 1. A purpose of communication of an uncessant influence of his power and goodness for the support and upholding of things created according to the several essential states and conditions wherein they were made some being created more durable some less some in one rank of being or existence some in another 2. A purpose of instituting certain laws methods rules and effluxes whereby he intended to order and rule all the things he had made with the greatest wisdom and congruity and according to the natures and orders wherein he had created them And this is that which I call the law rule and regiment of Divine Providence and seems to be of two kinds namely general Providence and special Providence The general Providence I call that whereby every created Being is governed and ordered according to that essential connatural implanted method rule and law wherein it was created And thus the state and several motions and influences of the Heavenly Bodies is that general providential law wherein they were created and according to which they are governed and the susceptibility of those influences and the effects thereof and of that motion is the general providential law whereby other physical Beings are governed in relation thereunto the activity of the active Elements and the passiveness of the passive the methods and vicissitudes of generation and corruption the efficacy of natural causes and the proper effects consequential to them the natural properties or affections of Bodies according to their several constitutions as motion alteration ascent of light descent of heavy Bodies These and the like are the general providential Laws relating to them Again that things indued with sense should have a sensible perception and certain instincts connatural to them that rational and free Agents should move rationally and freely These and infinite more are the standing and ordinary Rules and Laws of general Providence and the wise God who sees all things from the beginning to the end and therefore can neither be disappointed nor overseen in any of his Counsels hath with that great and admirable Wisdom so ordered these Laws of his general Providence that he thereby governs most excellently the World and they are never totally changed and but rarely altered in particular and that only to most wise ends and upon most eminent occasions And the reason is because the Infinite Wisdom of God hath so instituted and modelled
that things had no other method of their production than what we now see they have and therefore they must if they hold to their Principles agree that they had their production always as now they have The necessary consequence whereof is that if such a kind of production of mixt Bodies cannot in the nature of the thing be eternal they cannot have an eternal production But it is true that this doth not answer the Supposition of those that though they suppose an Eternity in mixt Bodies do attribute even that Eternity to an eternal Creation and therefore to another kind of production than what we now suppose to be natural and consequently as they suppose at first in an eternal moment Almighty God created simple Bodies as the Heavenly or Elementary Bodies so in the same instant He might and did create other Bodies which though in their constitution they were or might be composed of such particles as had they been asunder and divided might have been of the simple nature of those simpler Bodies yet they were in the same eternal moment or instant created and put together without any priority of existence in those simple Bodies whereof they might otherwise consist nor were such mixt eternal Bodies successively desumed or compounded out of the pre-existing simple Bodies but con-created and put together in the same eternal and indivisible moment or instant so that a Mineral for the purpose might be created in the same moment wherein the elementary Earth was created And although after the completing of the whole Frame of Nature in that eternal indivisible intelligible moment the production of mixt Bodies either by spontaneous or contingent coalition of various particles of Matter or by an univocal generation the course that is now held in Nature might be observed and that Priority of particles of simple Matter Influx of the Heavens and Preparation of Matter might be antecedent and precedaneous not only in order but in time to their ordinary productions yet at first it might be and was otherwise in the primitive constitution of such mixt Bodies as had their original by Creation I do confess this Supposition may evade the illation made upon the Natural production of mixt Bodies but then we must remember that this quite departs from the method of things as they now stand in the course of Nature neither can any man conclude that it was or could be so from the observation of the Order or Cause of Nature or any rational deduction from the same but must have recourse either to bare Notion or Conjecture or else to Divine Revelation the former seems somewhat too light soundly to ground any Hypothesis and the latter namely Divine Revelation though it doth discover unto us that things had their production in a different way in their first Constitution or Origination namely by the almighty Power of God creating them yet withall it informs us that that origination was not from Eternity but in the beginning of Time which wholly overthrows the Hypothesis of an Eternal Creation of the World If therefore they will appeal to Revelation for their Creation they must be concluded by it not to say it was eternal 2. My second Reason is this Because all things that are in their nature successive must have a first beginning of their being and cannot be eternal But there are in the World many things of great note and moment and without which the Order and Usefulness of the Universe would be deficient which have a successive nature and therefore such things cannot be eternal or without beginning And this reason concludes forcibly as well against that independent Eternity supposed by some of the Ancients as that Eternity dependent upon Almighty God whether as a necessary Cause or as a free voluntary intellectual Cause determined by the necessary Goodness and Beneficence of his nature or as a perfectly free Agent determining his Will by his own beneplacitum thus eternally to produce the World The Assumption or minor Proposition That there are many things in the World of great moment and importance to it that are in their own nature successive is apparent such are all the Individuals of Species of corruptible things that yet notwithstanding have a continued succession in their individuals as Vegetables Animals and Men that successively propagate their kind 2. All kinds of Motions to which all natural Bodies are in some kind or other subject as the motions of Generation and Corruption Augmentation Diminution and Alteration that are uncessantly incident to all sublunary Bodies and they must change their nature and cease to be what they are before they can cease to be actually subject to alterations such is also Local motion communicable not only to the inferior and sublunary Bodies but also to celestial Bodies and this motion even of the Heavenly Bodies themselves seems to be partly continued and unintermitted as that motion of the First Moveable partly interpolated and interrupted as some affirm of that Motus trepidationis sometimes of access and recess as the Annual motion of the Sun wherein some have thought there is a small though impeceptible rest in the very point of returning which we call Solstices The major Proposition namely that such successive things cannot be eternal includes two Affirmations viz. 1. That the motions or successions themselves cannot be eternal or without beginning 2. That the things that have necessarily and inseparably these motions or alterations annexed to their nature cannot be eternal so long as we suppose them necessarily accompanied with these alterations The former of these is considerable in this place the other is considerable under the next Reason Now touching the impossibility of the eternal succession of the Species whether of Men Animals or Vegetables by natural propagation or prosemination the same and the Reasons thereof shall be fully delivered when we come to the particular consideration of the Origination of Mankind and the necessity of fixing in some common Parents of the individuals of Mankind and thither I shall refer my self As touching the eternity of any kind of Motion especially even of that of the Heavenly Bodies I shall say somewhat briefly in this place which will be easily reducible to any other of the motions in the World as namely the motions of Generation Corruption or Alteration all which are in some respect but the effects of Local motion of one kind or another And there seem to be two special Reasons even from the intrinsecal nature of the things that encounter the possibility of an eternal successive duration in them The first concludes against all imaginable eternity of Motion of the Heavenly Bodies whether independent or dependent upon Almighty God the latter indeed principally concludes against the possibility of the created or dependent eternity thereof And they are these 1. If the circular motion of the Sun or Heavens were eternal then there must be two circulations of the Heavens immediately succeeding on the other Eternal the consequence
seems a Fiction utterly inconsonant to the whole Method of Nature in relation to Mankind For what Person or what Age or Country ever saw any such kind of Production as this any such folliculi humani foetus Or that ever credibly heard of any Man conceived nisi in utero muliebri abating some of those Fables that Fortunius Licetus delivers in his First Book cap. 28. or such as have been begotten by an abominable conjunction Again how is it possible that an Infant whose Nature cannot be kept alive one moment sine calore uterino should be preserved in Bladders adhering to the cold Earth Or that that Infant who by the very course of Nature cannot be supported without the care and oversight of others for divers Months nay some Years after his Birth should be able sub dio Jove frigido to preserve it self Again who ever saw or credibly heard of those venae lacteae arising in the Earth and yielding a sutable nutriment to a new born Foetus These Suppositions must withall suppose a total Inversion of the Course and Nature of Things quite from what they now are and in all Ages have been which though it is true those that admit a higher Principle than Nature do and may with sufficient warrant and consonancy to their Hypothesis admit yet is utterly unreasonable for such a Philosopher who not only with some of the ancient Peripateticks excludes any Divine Providence below the Moon but wholly exterminates it ultra flammantis moenia Coeli And this is all I say at present touching that Opinion which supposeth a meer casual Production of Mankind There will be something in the ensuing Chapter which though it be applied to the Imaginary Hypothesis of the Natural Production of Mankind yet will be of use in relation to this Hypothesis of the Casual Production of Mankind CAP. III. Touching the Second Opinion of those that assert the Natural Production of Mankind ex non genitis or the possibility thereof THe second Opinion is that by a certain kind of natural Connexion of Causes Mankind not only may be but in their first Origination were produced ex non genitis Which though for distinctions sake from the ordinary course of Generation we may call spontaneous or accidental yet the same if it were true were truly natural and deduced by a certain Chain of Natural Causes as the yearly production of Insects ex putri materia or as the Mice or Rats in Egypt are supposed by Diodorus Siculus to be produced after the decrease of Nilus in Egypt This seems to be the Opinion of some of the Ancients that yet subscribed not to the Hypothesis of Epicurus touching the casual production of things by the uncertain concourse of Atoms as of Anaximander and some others which I shall not need here again to repeat and the same Opinion hath been asserted by others but with these two Correctives 1. That the same is no casual and fortuitous Production by the meer casual conjunction of Atomical Bodies as Epicurus would have the first Semina at least of Men and Animals to be made up but by an ordinary natural and necessary connexion of Natural Causes and Effects 2. That yet many of them blame the Ancients as being too venturous in telling us the particular Method or Order of these Productions out of Folliculi or Cortices spinosi or Fishes because that is not a thing discoverable by Experience or Natural Light yet herein they agree That this Production may be and hath been a Natural Production ex non genitis though the particular Manner of it is not so easie to be certainly explained Hippocrates the great Physician seems to have inclined to this Perswasion for Sect. 3. de Carnibus he writes to this purpose Quod Calidum vocamus id mihi immortale esse videtur cunctáque intelligere videre audire sentiréque omnia tum praesentia tum futura cujus pars maxima cum omnia perturbata essent in supremum ambitum secessit quod mihi veteres videntur Aethera appellasse altera pars locum infimum sortita Terra quidem appellatur frigida sicca multásque motiones habens in qua multum sanè calidi inest tertia verò pars medium aeris locum nacta est calidum quid existens quarta pars terrae proximum locum obtinens humidissima crassissima His igitur in orbem agitatis cum turbata esset calidi pars magna alias in terra relicta est partim quidem magna partim verò minor alias etiam valde parva sed in multas partes divisa temporis successu resiccata terra ista in ea tanquam in membranis contenta circum se putredines excitans longo tempore incalescens quod quidem ex terrae putredine pinguedinem sortitum est minimum humidi habens id citissimè ossa produxit And then assigns the Methods of conformation of the Nerves Veins Arteries and the rest of the Body in conformity to this Supposition So this great Physician and Naturalist delivers his Opinion Wherein we may observe that he takes the Hot or Fiery Nature to be God knowing and understanding all things which seems to be the ancient Error of the Eastern Countries especially the Persians Yet this is observable 1. That he supposeth an Origination of Mankind after the Formation of the World 2. Though the Formative Process of Mankind seems in his Opinion to be in a sort Natural yet he supposeth it not purely so but a Production by those fiery Particles which were Particles of a Divine Intelligent Nature And though he be mistaken in the Method of the Origination of Mankind as shall be shewn yet he supposeth it Opus intelligentis Naturae agentis per scientiam Avicen in the second Book of his Metaphysicks cap. 15. delivers his Opinion Possibile esse hominem generari ex terra sed convenientiùs in matrice which Opinion Averroes his Country-man perstringeth with some indignation Commentar 8. Physicor cap. 5. Iste sermo ab homine qui dat se scientiae est valde fatuus his Reasons I confess are such as may not be admitted for being a rigid Assertor of the Eternity of the World in the state it now stands he formeth his Reasons against the Opinion of Avicen principally if not altogether upon that Hypothesis Cardanus in his ninth Book de Animalibus quae ex Putredine generantur discoursing about Locusts hath this passage Et non solum ea minuta sed majora animalia è putredine imo omnia credendum est originem ducere cum jam de Muribus constet Pisces in aquis recentibus sponte generentur but his severe Corrector Julius Scaliger in Exercit. 193. calls it Illa impia nefaria vox Si Bos aliquando ex putri ortus est cur post hominum memoriam ex ejusmodi procreatione nullus exstitit Caesalpinus in his fifth Book Quaestionum Peripateticarum cap. 1. undertakes an entire Defence of the
and fitted for this production which could not be but after some great and long continuing Flood or Inundation that might prepare and dispose the Matter for the Activity of that great Revolution and if these should not meet together or in some convenient nearness the production of Mankind and perfect Animals would be frustrated 3. That in as much as provident Nature hath had for many Ages and yet hath a sufficient Seminium and stock for the preservation of the Species of Men and perfect Animals raised by propagation and the mutual conjunction of Sexes Nature is not necessitated to have recourse to this extraordinary way of peopling and furnishing the World and therefore it cannot be expected but after some vast devastation that may endanger at least the extinguishing of the species of things To these things I say first in general That if Men shall upon such a Method of Arguing go about to establish a Supposition that neither they nor any else have ever known or experimented and make a Conclusion of a thing as natural upon such Suppositions as never any Man knew or heard to produce such effects Men may assume any thing to be natural which yet hath not footsteps in Nature bearing any analogy to it But to the particulars As to the first it is unreasonable to make such a Supposition for since it is not possible for any Man to know whether there be any such Influence of the Heavens to effect such productions unless by Experience and Observations of some Men or some other way the notice thereof were given to Mankind it being a Matter of Fact that can no other way be known but by Experience or Revelation and since the bare beholding of those Heavenly Bodies being of that distance can never without Observation of Events give us any natural estimate of their Effects what they are or may be and since it must needs be granted that such imagined Conjunctions as may be effectual for such productions are at vast unknown distances and such as no Age before hath or indeed can leave us any Memorial of it must needs be a vain and precarious assumption to attribute any natural Efficacy to any Conjunction whatsoever for such a production The Ancient and Divine Historian Moses gives us indeed an account of the Origination of Man and all other Animals but not upon any natural causation or activity of the Heavens or Heavenly Bodies but as he gives us the History of the Things so he gives us the true Resolution of the Cause not a natural but a supernatural Cause namely the Intention and Volition of the Great and Wise God and to exclude any imagination of a natural or necessary Cause of these productions doth not only tell us in express terms that the production of them was by the Energy of the Divine Fiat but also that the production even of Vegetables themselves that seem to have the greatest dependance upon Celestial Influences was antecedent to the Constitution of those Heavenly Bodies 1. As the Supposition of such a Natural Causality in the Heavens is meerly precarious so it seems even to our Sense apparently false for we see every year without any other than an ordinary Conjunction by the Access of the Sun Insects and Plants sponte nascentia do arise and we know that ordinarily in the compass or revolution of 800 or 1000 years very great and considerable mutations happen in the Position and Conjunction of the Heavenly Bodies and we know that within the compass of Authentick History these Revolutions have happened above thrice and since the latest Epocha of the Worlds Inception above five times yet none of these great Revolutions have for any thing we ever knew or heard produced any one Horse or Lion or Wolf much less any one Man as a Terrigena And therefore Experience the best means to settle such an Hypothesis doth not only not warrant it but is evidently contrary to it and denies it 2. As to the second the Mosaical History gives us an account of an Universal Deluge about 4000 years since which lay long upon the whole Earth and the Grecian History gives us an account of two very great Floods namely the Ogygian and the Deucalian Floods and every Year gives us an account of the Inundation of Nilus in Egypt a most fruitful Continent and near the Sun whereby the Soil is made admirably fruitful and there is scarce any Age but some great portions of Land are laid dry by the recess of some parts of the Ocean which had lain covered for many thousands of years before with the sea And as the universal Deluge was as great a preparation of the whole Earth so these particular Inundations and Recesses of the Sea left particular Spots of Land as well prepared for such productions as can well be imagined and yet in no Age have we any Instance of any such production abating the Story of the Egyptian Mice which concrete after the recess of Nilus which yet of most hands are agreed to be Insects and sponte nascentia ex putredine Indeed Beregardus tells us ubi supra out of Camerarius that about Cayro after the reflux of Nilus there are often seen divers Limbs or Parts of Mens Bodies whether this be true or no or if true whether they are not only relicks of some Bodies swept away by the Inundations of Nilus out of their Graves or Sepultures and torn asunder by the furious Cataracts of Nilus is not clearly evident But be they what they will or whether the Lusus naturae yet they make nothing to this matter unless Camerarius or some other had seen those divulsa membra come together and configured into an humane Shape and animated with a humane Life which neither he nor any other have yet affirmed or pretended 3. As to the Third I say 1. If by Nature they intend the great and glorious God that most wise intelligent powerful Being they do indeed in effect affirm what I have designed to prove but do not make good their Supposition of such a Natural Cause as they declare in their Hypothesis wherein they mean only that natural connexion and series of Causes whereby Natural Effects are naturally produced And if they intend by Nature that unintelligent series or order of Natural Causes or the blind and determinate Cause of Natural Productions How comes that Nature to know when and where this necessity of Spontaneous Productions doth happen or in what proportion measure limits or place it is necessary to be done Such a provisional care requires a knowing and perfectly intelligent Being that operates ex cognitione intentione voluntate which is not to be affirmed of Agents purely natural who do therefore act according to a Law of necessity and determination non ex consilio cognitione 2. It is plain that Insects and Vegetables spontaneously produced are produced every Year and their production is as natural as the access of the Sun and the constitution
condition of his Obedience to the Command of God and upon the breach of that Condition were either utterly lost as the indissolubility of the Union of the Compositum by one Man's Disobedience Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin Others were abated as the Excellency of his Knowledge Righteousness the fruition of Happiness the Perfection of his Sovereignty over the Creatures the Gloriousness and Beauty and much of the Vigour of his Body the exquisite Order and Subordination of his Faculties but his Essentials the Immortality of his Soul the Faculties of Intellection and Will and the Natural Beauty and Usefulness of his Body remains notwithstanding that terrible Concussion whereof somewhat more hereafter 4. We have the Method of this Production of Man it was not by or from any meer Natural Cause but by the immediate Command of the Divine Will Wisdom and Power it was not from any Semen naturally accidentally or intentionally formed and so by a gradual maturation and growth ex uteris terrestribus or as the foetus humanus is perfected at this day For it was not possible that any such Seminal Principle should be formed casually or by any meer Natural Cause as hath been already shewn And although the Divine Power could have perfected all as well Man as the other Animals by first forming such a Semen and giving it either a gradual or speedy production as Insects are at this day produced yet 1. It was utterly superfluous to have used such a processus formativus ex semine because it required no less than an Almighty Power to have moulded and fashioned or actuated such a Semen as to have produced Man by an immediate Supernatural Formation and Production and therefore since the same Power was requisite in both it is not at all necessary nor reasonable to suppose so long a process as first to form a Semen and by a Seminal Process to have perfected the Humane Nature and the Holy History expresly imports the contrary 2. If we suppose a Semen prepared by the Divine Power that Production that must arise thereupon must either be immediate and sudden if not absolutely instantaneous or it must be gradual and pass through all these spaces of Time gradual Formation and accession of Growth and Increase as we see in embryone foetu nuper nato We cannot suppose the former but we must suppose it to be otherwise than natural and call in the Divine Power to effect it as much as in an instantaneous formation sine praecedente semine And we cannot suppose the latter because it is expresly contrary to the description of the Humane Production for it was done within the compass of the Sixth Day and the formation and perfecting of the Humane Nature was immediately finished after the Omnipotent Command and Determination of the Will of God it was no sooner said faciamus hominem c. but it was done It is true in that ordinary Law which Almighty God hath instituted in Nature already established by him there are regular and successive and gradual procedures and it is convenient it should be so and it is true also in this short period of the Six Days Work within which the Universe was finished Almighty God observed a certain convenient Order making that to precede which was fittest and most useful to precede in order to the production of things but as to the speed and dispatch of Productions the Almighty God used the Majesty that became the Excellency of his Greatness and obsequious Matter presently yielded to the Power of his Command Fiat factum est Psal 33.9 He said and it was done he commanded and it stood fast Therefore although now in settled Nature and according to the standing Laws of the Divine Wisdom Man is first conceived ex semine then lodgeth 10 Months in utero muliebri wherein during that time he is gradually formed and perfected and then after his Birth gradually increaseth passeth through the impotency of Infancy the weaknesses of Childhood and the follies of Youth before he comes to a ripe and full age yet it was not so here in the same moment the Body is formed in its full and perfect nature and the Animal Soul and Faculties together with it and the Rational Soul infused in the same moment without any priority of Time but only of Order and Nature So that Man was at the very same moment a perfect Organical Body with all his Nerves Veins Viscera Bones and Parts conformed a Vital and Sensitive Nature joyned with it and a Rational Soul infused without first living the Life of a Plant then of an Animal then of a Man the whole Scene was performed in one moment and so it became both the Greatness of the Divine Majesty and Power and so it was necessary to be in the first production of Man although in the succeeding procedure of natural Generations it must be and was otherwise because the supreme Wisdom and Will judged it so And although to any Man that will duly consider almost any thing there must of necessity be another Rule or Law for the first production of things than there is or may be in the ordinary regiment and governing of Generations when Nature is once established yet the want of this Consideration hath bred all those vain Errors of those Philosophers that asserted the Eternity of the World and of those others who being not satisfied with that Hypothesis but driven by a kind of necessity of Reason to acknowledge an Origination of Mankind yet could not deliver themselves from fancying that Humane Productions must needs be as like those they now know as they could well frame them And therefore according to these Men the Earth must be conceited to be Mater and the Sun vice Patris and the Earth must have her Uteri and Succus nutritius and the Increase of Mankind must be by some such gradual process as we see in natural productions or sponte nata and they cannot easily bring their Minds to believe the instantaneous production of Man by the immediate Power of God because it hath a gradual process in ordinary natural Generations and yet the same Men can give themselves leave to imagin Hominem oriri posse sicut blitum though never Experience of former Ages since the existence of Men upon the Earth give us any Example of it bating only the Fictions of some Poets Maimonides lib. 2. cap. 27. hath observed this Mistake and singularly confutes it by evincing That if Men go by this Rule of Judgment the nature of things in their Original as they find them in their Constitution being constituted they will disbelieve the most certain Truths Neque argumentari licet ullo modo à natura rei alicujus post illius generationem firmam subsistentiam in perfectione sua ad naturam ejus eo tempore quo movebatur ad generationem quod si verò his erras plurima tibi orientur dubia absurda ut pro
Soul from the Body As the Body could not be reduced into that orderly frame in which it is constituted without the Plastick and Formative power of the Soul so it could never be upheld in that state of Order and Convenience without the continued Influence of the Soul The latter is as absolutely necessary for its continuance and conservation as the former for its constitution I easily foresee two Objections against the Method proposed 1. That the Hypothesis it self is not sufficiently evidenced How do we know that this Oeconomy is the effect of a Power or Nature or Being distinct from the Body and why may it not be the result of this Disposition Harmony or Contemperation of qualities or parts of that Matter that constitutes the Body 2. And if it be what need we magnifie the Humane Nature as the great Instructer in this business since we may with a little observation find very much the like in Brutes as well as Men For there we find a sensible Perception and Phantasie answering the Intellect in Man an Estimative or Judicial faculty an Appetition or Aversation and Locomotive faculty answering the Will and the very Oeconomy of the animal Soul or Spirits managing as well their spontaneous actions as these natural or involuntary exertions of Digestion Egestion Circulation and the rest of those Motions called Involuntary or Natural To the First of these I say That this is not the place for a large reduction of these Operations to the regiment of the Soul as a distinct active Faculty distinct from the Corporeal Moles and its contemperation that shall God willing in its due place be at large discussed which I am not here willing to anticipate In the mean time let the Objector but honestly and impartially examine and observe Himself and he will need no other evidence of this truth but his own experience to satisfie him that all those effects proceed from an active regnant Principle within him distinct from the Moles corporea or the contemperation thereof The distemper of the humours of the Body cause sometimes such sickness as disorders the Phantasie and Reason but sometimes though it distempers the Body the Intellective faculty and operations are nevertheless free and sound as Experience shews If this Objector was ever under a Sickness or Distemper of the latter kind let him give an account what it is that gives him under such a Disease the use of his Reason To the Second I need not say more than what I have before observed namely 1. That although the Inferiour Natures have a kind of Image of the Humane Nature yet it is less perfect and therefore no equal Instance in order to the explication of what I herein design 2. As it is less perfect so it is more distant and less evident to us than our selves are or may be to our selves the Regiment and Oeconomy of our own Souls in our Bodies and of them are more evident to us and perceptible by us than that Regiment and Oeconomy that the Souls of Brutes exercise in them and therefore fitter to be made our Instance of that which I go about thereby to illustrate namely the possibility necessity and explication of the Divine Providence in the governing and influencing of the Universe and all the parts thereof which I shall in the next place prosecute in the Analogy that this small Regnant Principle bears within its little Province to the Divine Regiment of the Universe Sic parvis componere magna I come therefore to the illustration of the Divine Providence and Regiment of the World by the foregoing Emblem thereof 1. By this smaller Instance of this Regiment of this lesser World by the immediate presidency of the Soul it seems evident that it is no way impossible but that the greater World may be governed by the Divine Wisdom Power and Providence It is true there are these two disparities between these namely the greater World and the lesser The greater World is of a more vast extent and again the Integrals and Parts thereof are of greater multiplicity and variety but neither of these are any impediment because the Regent thereof is of an infinite immensity more than commensurate to the extent of the World and such as is most intimately present with all the Beings of the World and of an infinite Understanding Wisdom and Power that is able to apply it self to every created Being and therefore without any difficulty equally able to govern the whole and every part thereof This we see in Natural agents that little spark of Life the Soul that exerciseth its regiment upon an Infant of a span long when the Body is grown to its due stature and together with the extension of the Body this little Vital particle evolves and diffuseth it self to the extent of the enlarged Body governs it with the same facility as it did before that extension And the sensible Soul of a vast Whale exerciseth its regiment to every part of that huge structure with the same efficacy and facility as the Soul of a Fly or a Mite doth in that small and almost imperceptible dimension to which it is consigned For the Soul is expanded and evolved and present to every part and the uttermost extremity of the greater as well as the lesser Animal And therefore if my Soul can have its effectual energy and regiment upon my Body with ease and facility with how much more ease and facility can a Being of immense Existence and Omnipresence of infinite Wisdom and Power govern and order a great but yet a finite Universe and all the numerous yet not infinite parts thereof 2. As there is a possibility of such a regiment of the Divine Wisdom Power and Influence in the Government of the World so there is a necessity of it It is not enough for the Soul of the Humane Nature to form and mould its Corporeal Vehicle if it gave over its work when that were done it would soon dissolve dissipate and corrupt There is the same necessity for the Divine Influence and regiment to order and govern conserve and keep together the Universe in that consistence it hath received as it was at first to give it before it could receive it The intermission of that Regiment and Divine Providence and Influx but a moment after the constitution of this World would have dissolved its order and consistence if not annihilated its Being And indeed he that observes the great variety of things in the World the many junctures and contributions of things that serve to keep up its consistence the want of any of which as the disorder of a little Nerve Vein or Artery in the Body would bring it into a great disorder the continual strife between contrary qualities the strange activity of the active Fiery Nature that involves it or at least is disseminated up and down in it the vast and irregular concretions of Meteors and those strange and various Phaenomena that are in the World which
be of a finite extension and consequently the period of that motion could never be infinite For Aristotle tells us truly that an infinite time can never be drawn out in a finite motion nor an infinite motion be absolved in a finite time This Reason the acute and judicious Suarez 2. Metaph. disp 29. sect 1. borrows from Antonius Ruvio and though according to the opinion of Aquinas he be a stiff assertor of the possibility of the Eternal Creation of the World ibid. disp 20. yet he frankly confesseth and maintaineth that Motion is of such a nature as is not capable of an eternal duration à parte ante and thereupon concludes Propter hanc ergo causam existimó Aeternitatem repugnare Motui Motum includere repugnantiam cum quadam immutabilitate quam includit Aeternitas Ideoque de facto motum non solum non esse aeternum verum neque esse posse Igitur ex motu aeterno colligi non potest Motor eternus vel immaterialis And now let any Man consider what is gained by the Supposition of an Eternity of the Bulk or Carkass of the World when yet it cannot hold with it in consort an Eternity of Motion 1. That we must separate from Bodies that which is most connatural to them especially the Heavenly Bodies and this for an eternal period 'till put in motion within the limits of time 2. We shall hereby separate from the Body of the Universe for an eternal period that which renders it most useful and most beautiful To suppose an Eternal World and yet eternally destitute of Motion were to suppose the whole Universe destitute of Life and all Vegetables Animals Meteors the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea the whole Furniture at least of this inferiour World to be none but dead liveless stupid Beings for such it certainly would be if the Heavenly Bodies should be destitute of their Motion And therefore it seems wholly disagreeing to Reason that the World should be eternal when it is evident that Motion which as Aristotle truly tells us is Vita quaedam omnium mobilium cannot be eternal and so there should be an eternal useless Carkass of a World from all Eternity without that life of it its Motion And on the other side it seems more consonant to Reason that the Fabrick of the World did not long antecede its Motion and that since Motion is not cannot be eternal so neither is the Fabrick of the World but they both began at least very neer together and the World was not made from Eternity to lye fallow and uninhabited during that infinite abyss of its pre-existence to its first putting forth into any Motion for such it must be if destitute of Motion And consequently the evincing of an impossibility of an eternal successive Motion doth not only evince that the whole World with all its considerable Appendices was not eternal but doth with great evidence enforce that the great Integrals of the World it self were not eternal which had been imperfect without Motion And this doth salve two Objections at once viz. 1. That drawn from Gods Omnipotence that could have made the World eternal if He pleased The Answer is That whatever could have been done in reference to the Rest of the World yet as in reference to successive Motion the same could not have been made eternal and yet without derogation to the Divine Power or Omnipotence but because the nature of the thing could not sustain or bear such a duration And likewise this answers the Argument for the Eternity of the World drawn from the Divine Benignity and Goodness whereby He is supposed to be under a kind of intrinsick necessity of doing all the good He could and consequently to make the World eternally I answer 1. That as before the World in its complement and perfection with the advantage of Motion though there was no determinate time point or period but God might have made it sooner if He had pleased yet with all due reverence to His Majesty it could not have been in its complement and perfection eternal because its successive Motion could not be eternal nor consequently all that glory beauty and usefulness which accrues to the Universe by that successive Motion 2. That although the Divine Will be determined by the Divine Perfection necessarily to will his own immense Goodness yet he is not determined by his own Benignity necessarily to will any thing without himself his own essential Goodness he wills and that necessarily and ad ultimum posse but his Benignity is measured out ad beneplacitum voluntatis and not by an absolute necessity ad ultimum posse And therefore although it were admitted that he could have eternally made the World or made more Worlds or better Worlds yet he was not bound to it because the emanations of his Benignity are not necessary but governed in their extent and measure juxta voluntatis beneplacitum 3. And upon the same account also though he could have made the World sooner than he made it yet he was not bound to it but to make it when and how he pleased though all his Works carry the impression of transcendent Wisdom and Goodness And therefore as these Reasons seem strongly to conclude 1. Against the very possibility of an eternal duration of those things that gave the principal ornament beauty and usefulness to the Universe namely Variety and Succession of Individuals and Species and Motion so they do at least de facto evidence that if the rest of the Universe were able to sustain an eternal duration yet they did not because these would be very defective without those that cannot hold that state of Eternity with them 2. Against the truth of that Reason and Assertion That Divine Goodness did intrinsecally necessitate his Will to create things in their best state from Eternity since it seems evident that the condition and state of many things in the Universe that give it much of its usefulness perfection and beauty namely Motion and Succession of Generations and Corruptions of Animals Vegetables and Men are impossible to be as ancient as that intrinsick Goodness of the Divine Nature which is as eternal as his own most perfect being 3. I come now to the third Reason against the Eternity of considerable parts of the World which is this Sublunary Bodies whether simple or mixt are by the necessity of their nature subject to alteration and corruption But whatsoever is subject thus to alteration or corruption is incapable of sustaining an eternal duration à parte ante and consequently sublunary Bodies are not capable of such an Eternity The first of these Propositions namely That all sublunary Bodies are subject necessarily to alteration and corruption This naturally happens to sublunary Bodies upon both or one of these accounts 1. From an intrinsecal Cause which is principally seen in mixt Bodies in which the band and ligament between Matter and Form nor of the parts of Matter themselves is not so
and like itself which could not be such if Mankind had any other Method of Origination than now it hath And in Natural Appearances Causes and Effects they thought it not becoming the Genius or Spirit of a Philosopher to call in any other Assistant or Producent than what was and is the ordinary Rule Course and Law of Nature as they now find it And by this means they thought that they proceeded consonantly both to Nature and to themselves 2. Because that among those ancient Philosophers that either supposed the Origination of Mankind to be either casual as Epicurus Democritus c. or to be natural from the Earth and conjunction of the Influences of Heavenly Bodies in some Periodical Aspects or partly natural and partly fortuitous or at least spontaneous as Insects arise I say in and among these various Suppositions of an Origination of Mankind yea and perfect Animals ex non genitis they found so much incertainty improbability and repugnancy that they threw them all aside together also with the Beginning or Origination of Mankind and took up that more compendious and more sutable as they thought to the Laws which they observed in Nature and concluded That the Generations of Mankind and of perfect Animals were without beginning but always obtained in the same manner as now they are Of this Opinion was Ocellus Lucaenus and likewise Aristotle though in some places he seems to be doubtful and although Plato in his Timaeus seems to assert an Origination of Mankind yet in some other places his Expressions are doubtful and therefore Censorinus in his golden Book de Die Natali reckons as well Plato as Aristotle Ocellus Lucanus Architas Tarentinus Xenocrates Dicearchus Pythagoras Theophrastus to be Assertors of the Eternity of Mankind And this Opinion I have examined in the Chapters of the Second Section of this Book and offered Reasons Physical Metaphysical and Moral against it The last Moral Reason which I offered was The received Opinion of Mankind asserting the Origination of Man and that as well of the common sort of People as of the Tribe of the Learned Philosophers The former I dispatched in the last Chapter but the Suffrage of the Gens literata I reserved to this Section because thereby at once I may with the same labour shew the Opinions of Learned Men among the Heathen asserting the Origination of Mankind and what their several Sentiments were concerning the manner of it And therefore I shall be constrained herein to mention the Opinions of some of those Learned Philosophers above-mention and to add some others of the contrary Perswasion which out-ballance the former 2. The second general Opinion was of those Learned Philosophers that held an Origination of Mankind ex non genitis and the Reason moving them to this Perswasion was not only the great Tradition that obtained generally in favour of it and the great reasonableness of the Supposition it self but also the many absurd Consequences and indeed irreconcilable Contradictions that they found in the Hypothesis of an Eternal Succession of Humane Generations without beginning Insomuch that the Assertors themselves of Eternal Generations were doubtful of the truth of their own Perswasions as will hereafter appear And those of this latter sort were even Epicurus himself Anaximander Empedocles Parmenides and Zeno Citicus the great Founder of the Sect of the Stoicks with those that followed or favoured it But above all the great Law-giver Moses who was divinely inspired and yet if he had not that advantage of Divine Infallibility but stood barely upon the great credibility both of his Person his Learning and the Hypothesis it self which he delivered he hath as great a weight even upon a natural moral and rational account as any or all the rest put together But because I intend a particular Explication of the Hypothesis Mosaica I shall not mingle this among the other Opinions but reserve it for the next Section The Heathen Philosophers that held the Origination of Mankind ex non genitis have these things in general wherein they agree one with another and with the Truth it self and some things wherein they differ among themselves and in some things from the Truth 1. They herein agree both among themselves and with the Truth and with that excellent and divine Relation of Moses Gen. 1. That Mankind is not Eternal but had a Beginning ex non genitis 2. They herein also agree among themselves and with the Truth That it is most absolutely necessary if Mankind had a Beginning or Origination it must needs be in a differing kind and manner from that common course whereby Mankind is now propagated This is asserted by those that hold the Origination of Mankind by the Efficiency of Almighty God consonant to the Mosaical Hypothesis either immediately or partly by the Instrumentality of Angels as Zeno Citicus Plato and others it is also asserted by them that hold the Origination of Mankind to be at first fortuitous as Epicurus and Democritus And therefore as to these Perswasions and Suppositions it is not only necessary that they should suppose a differing manner of the first Origination of Mankind from what now obtains but it is consonant also to their Principles and the grounds of their Supposition that it must be so This is also asserted by those that suppose the Origination of Mankind to be purely natural and according to the constituted Rule of Nature But yet this Supposition though most necessarily true where an Origination ex non genitis is once supposed yet it seems less sutable to the Principles of those Men that assert such a natural Production of Mankind as is by them asserted because they mancipating all Productions and Effects to the Laws of Nature and governing their thoughts and taking their measures barely by it have no reason to think or believe any other Method of Production of Mankind to have at any time been any otherwise than as they see it now to be which as is before shewn was the reason why Aristotle inclined to the Opinion of the Eternity of Humane Generations because Nature is presumed to be consonant to it self and always to have been what once it was 3. But in the Explication of the Cause and Manner of this Origination of Mankind therein they differed very much among themselves This difference consisted principally in two great Considerations 1. In the true stating of the efficient Cause of this Origination of Mankind 2. In the Manner Method and Order of such Origination As to the difference touching the Cause of such Origination and the nature of that Cause thereof 1. Some assigned a bare fortuitous Cause of the first Origination of Mankind as Epicurus and his Explicator Lucretius for although in some places they are driven to assert some determinate Semina of Mankind and perfect Animals to avoid that indefinite and unlimited excursion of Atoms yet they that suppose these Semina do suppose a fortuitous Coalition of Atoms to the
Will of God was sufficient to bring Being out of Nothing so the like determination of the same Will was sufficient to form Man out of the Dust of the ground without taking in a subordination or instrumentality of Angels Again if we should suppose the cooperation of Angels in the Formation of the Body of Man it must be in the strength virtue and efficiency of the first Cause which as it gave the Angels their Being so it must give them the efficacy power and virtue to be instrumental in this Formation which as we have no warrant so we have no probable reason to admit since the first Cause was all sufficient for this Effect without their assistance 4. The admirable Structure of the Body of Man the accommodation of it to Faculties the furnishing of it with Faculties accommodate to it even as its Animal Nature though we take not in the reasonable intellectual Soul imports in it a Wisdom Power and Efficacy above the Power of any created Nature to effect If it should be in the power of an Angel by applying actives to passives to produce an Insect nay a perfect Animal yet the Constitution and Frame of so much of that in Man that concerns his Animal Nature were too high a Copy for an Angelick Nature to write unless thereunto deputed and commissionated by the Infinite God which Commission we no where find and I am very sure a bare Naturalist will not suppose 5. Again there is that necessity of a suitableness and accommodation of the Parts of the Body to the Faculties of the Soul and è converso that any the least disproportion or disaccommodation of one to the other would spoil the whole Work and make them utterly unserviceable and unapplicable one to the other It was therefore of absolute necessity that the same skill and dexterity that was requisite to the first Formation of the Soul must be used and employed in the Formation of the Body and if an Angel were unequal to the making up and ordering of the Soul he could never be sufficient to make a fit organical Body exactly suitable to it Upon the whole matter I therefore conclude That not only the Soul but the very Animal Nature in Man and not only that but the Formation and Destination of his Bodily Frame was not only the Work of an Intelligent Being but of the Infinite and Omnipotent Intelligent Being who in the same moment formed his Body and organized it with immediate Organs and Instruments of Life and Sense and created his Intellectual Nature and united it to him whereby Man became a living Soul And this as the necessary Evidence of Reason doth first drive us to acknowledge a Being or first Formation of the Humane Nature ex non genitis and secondly to acknowledge that this first Formation of the Nature of Man was not by Chance Casualty or a meer Syntax of Natural Causes but by an Intelligent Efficient so we are upon the very same and a greater Evidence of Reason driven to acknowledge that Intelligent Efficient to be the Great and Wise and Glorious God no other Cause imaginable being par tali negotio And indeed if once we can bring Men but to this one Concession That the original Efficient of the Humane Nature was an Intelligent Being any Man pretending to Reason will with much less difficulty admit that Efficient to be the Almighty God than any other invisible intelligent Efficient which we usually call Angels or Intelligences And the Reasons are these 1. Because though we that are acquainted with the Divine Truths do as really believe that there are Angels as well as Men yet the Natural Evidences of the Existence of Almighty God are far more evident and convincing even upon a Rational and Natural account than that there are Angels for the former being a Truth of the highest moment and importance to be believed by all hath a proportionable weight and clearness of evidence even to Natural Light more and greater than any other Truth And hence among the Jews the Sect of the Sadduces believed the Existence of God yet denied or doubted the Existence of Angels or separated Intelligences 2. Because the very Supposition of an Angelical Nature doth necessarily suppose the Existence of a Supreme Being from whom they derive their Existences 3. Because the great occasion of Infidelity in relation to Existence of Almighty God is that sensual Men are not willing to believe any thing whereby they have not a sufficient Evidence as they think to their Sense The Notion of a Spiritual and Immaterial Being is a thing that they cannot digest because they cannot see or by any Sense perceive it nor easily form to themselves a Notion of it He therefore that can so far master the stubborness of Sense as to believe such a Spriritual Intelligent Being as an Angel hath conquered that difficulty that most incumbers his belief of a God and we that can but suppose or admit the former cannot long doubt of the latter He therefore that can once bring his thoughts to carry the first Origination of Mankind to the efficiency of an Angel must needs in a little time see a greater evidence not only to believe a Supreme Deity but to attribute the Origination of Mankind and of the goodly Frame of the Universe to the Supreme Being as necessarily best fitted with Power Wisdom and Goodness to accomplish so great a Work and that without the help or intervention of Angels or created Intelligences who must needs derive their Being Power and Activity from him There remains two or three Objections against the force of the Consequence of the Existence of Almighty God and his Efficiencies in the production of Mankind in their first Individuals which I shall propound and answer 1. Object What need there be laid so great a stress upon the Primitive Formation of Man as that it could not be done but by the Power and Wisdom of an Almighty Intelligent Being since every day's experience lets us see that by the mixture and coition of Man and Woman Et ex semine ab utroque deciso in utèro muliebri per spatium decem mensium ad plurimum producitur hujusmodi natura humana quem tot elogiis magnificamus that which we every day see to be an effect of finite Creatures in the daily production of Individuals of Humane Nature Why must we needs call in no less than the Wisdom and Power of God himself to be the immediate Efficient of the first Formation of the Individuals of that nature which we see every day produced by the common efficacy of Nature and efficiency of the Parents Vel ad minus seminis utriusque sexus in utero foemineo conclusi In Answer hereunto I shall not at this time or in this place enter into the dispute how far the Divine Efficiency concurrs immediately in the ordinary Generation of Mankind nor how far the entire Humane Nature as well his Rational Soul as his