were of this opinion Wherefore I think we owe so much at least to the Memory of those grave Sages as to examine this Doctrine of theirs and if neither of the later Hypotheses can ease our anxious minds or free themselves from absurdities and this Grey Dogma fairly clear all doubts and be obnoxious to no such contradictions I see no reason but we may give it a favourable admittance till something else appear more concinnous and rational Therefore let us take some account of what the two first opinions alledge one against another and how they are proved by their promoters and defendants Now if they be found unable to withstand the shock of one anothers opposition we may reasonably cast our eyes upon the third to see what force it brings to vouch its interest and how it will behave it self in the encounter CHAP. II. Daily creation of Souls is inconsistent with the Divine Attributes THe first of these opinions that offers it self to Tryal is that God daily creates humane souls which immediately are united unto the bodies that Generation hath prepared for them Of this side are our later Divines and the generality of the Schoolmen But not to be born down by Authorities Let us consider what reason stands against it Therefore 1 If our Souls came immediately out of the hands of God when we came first into these bodies Whence then are those enormously brutish inclinations that strong natural proclivity to vice and impiety that are exstant in the children of men All the works of God bear his image and are perfect in their kind Purity is his nature and what comes from him proportionably to its capacity partakes of his perfections Every thing in the natural world bears the superscription of his wisdom and goodness and the same fountain cannot send forth sweet waters and bitter Therefore 't is a part of our allegiance to our Maker to believe * that he made us pure and innocent and if we were but just then framed by him when we were united with these terrestrial bodies whence should we contract such degenerate propensions Some tell us that this impurity was immediately derived from the bodies we are united to But how is it possible that purely passive insensible Matter should transfuse habits or inclinations into a Nature that is quite of another Make and Quality How can such a cause produce an effect so disproportionate * Matter can do nothing but by motion and what relation hath that to a moral contagion How can a Body that is neither capable of sense nor sin infect a soul as soon as 't is united to it with such vitious debauched dispositions But others think to evade by saying That we have not these depravities in our natures but contract them by Custome education and evil usages How then comes it about that those that have had the same care and industry used upon them and have been nurtured under the same discipline and severe oversight do so vastly and even to wonder differ in their inclinations * How is it that those that are under continual temptations to vice are yet kept within the bounds of vertue and sobriety And yet that others that have strong motives and allurements to the contrary should violently break out into all kinds of extravagance and impiety Sure there is somewhat more in the matter than those general causes which may be common to both and which many times have quite contrary effects 2. This Hypothesis that God continually Creates humane souls in these bodies consists not with the honour of the Divine Attributes For 1. How stands it with the goodness and benignity of that God who is Love to put pure and immaculate spirits who were capable of living to him and with him into such bodies as will presently defile them deface his image pervert all their powers and faculties incline them to hate what he most loves and love what his Soul hateth and that without any knowledge or concurrence of theirs will quite marre them as soon as he hath made them and of dear Children render them rebels or enemies and in a moment from being like Angels transform them into the perfect resemblance of the first Apostates Devils Is this an effect of those tender mercies that are over all his works And 2. Hath that Wisdom that hath made all things to operate according to their natures and provided them with whatever is necessary to that end made myriads of noble Spirits capable of as noble operations and presently plunged them into such a condition wherein they cannot act at all according to their first and proper dispositions but shall be necessitated to the quite contrary and have other noxious and depraved inclinations fatally imposed upon their pure natures Doth that wisdom that hath made all things in number weight and measure and disposed them in such exact harmony and proportions use to act so ineptly And that in the best and noblest pieces of his Creation Doth it use to make and presently destroy To frame one thing and give it such or such a nature and then undo what he had done and make it another And if there be no such irregular methods used in the framing of inferiour Creatures what reason have we to suspect that the Divine Wisdom did so vary from its self in its noblest composures And 3 Is it not a great affront to the Divine Jâ—stice to suppose as we are commonly taught that asâ—oon as we are born yea and in the Womb we are obnoxious to eternal wrath and torments if our Souls are then immediately created out of nothing For To be just is to give every one his due and how can endless unsupportable punishments be due to innocent Spirits who but the last moment came righteous pure and immaculate out of their Creators hands and have not done or thought any thing since contrary to his will or Laws nor were in any the least capacity of sinning I but the first of our order our General head and Representative sinned and we in him thus we contract guilt as soon as we have a Being and are lyable to the punishment of his disobedience This is thought to solve all and to clear God from any shadow of unrighteousness But whatever truth there is in the thing it self I think it cannot stand upon the Hypothesis of the Souls immediate Creation nor yet justifie God in his proceedings For 1. If I was then newly Created when first in this body what was Adam to me who sinned above 5000 years before I came out of nothing If he represented me it must be as I was in his Loins that is in him as an effect in a cause But so I was not according to this Doctrine for my soul owns no Father but God its immediate progenitour And what am I concern'd then in his sins which had never my will or consent more than in the sins of Mahomâ—t or Julius Caesar Nay than in the sins of Beelzebub or
Lucifer And for my body 't is most likely that never an Atom of his ever came at me or if any did he was no cause on 't Besides that of it self is neither capable of sense sin guilt nor punishment or 2. Admitting that we become thus obnoxious assoon as in the body upon the account of his default How doth it comport with the divine Justice in one moment to make such excellent Creatures and in the next to render them so miserable by thrusting them into a condition so fatally obnoxious especially since they were capable of living and acting in bodies more perfect and more accommodate to their new undefiled natures Certainly could they have been put to their choice whether they would have come into being upon such termes they would rather have been nothing for ever And God doth not use to make his Creatures so as that without their own fault they shall have cause to unwish themselves Hitherto in this second general Argument I have dealt against those that believe and assâ—rt the original depravity of our natures which those that deny may think themselves not pinâ—â—'t by or concern'd in Since they think they do no such dishonour to the divine Attributes while they assert that we were not made in so deplorable and depraved a condition but have so made our selves by our voluntary aberrations But neither is this a fit Plaister for the sore supposing our souls to be immediately created and so sent into these bodies For still it seems to be a diminutive and disparaging apprehenâ—ion of the infinite and immense Goodness of God that he should detrude such excellent creatures as our souls into a state so hazardous * wherein he seeth it to be ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt and defile themselves and so make themselves miserable here and to eternity hereafter And certainly be we as indifferent naturally to good and evil as can be supposed yet great are the disadvantages to virtue that all men unavoidably meet with in this state of imperfection For considering that our infant and growing age is an age of sense in which our appetites and passions are very strong and our reasons weak and scarce any thing but a chain of imaginations 't is I say great odds but that we should be carried to inordinacy and exceed the bounds the divine laws have set us So that our lower powers of sense and passions using to have the head will grow strong and impetuous and thus 't is an hundred to one but we shall be rooted in vice before we come to the maturity of our reasons or are capable of the exercise of virtue And woful experience teacheth us that most men run so far before they consider whither they are a-going that the care and diligence of all their lives after will scarce reclaim them Besides the far greatest part of the world are led into wickedness and all kinds of debauchery by corrupt and vitious education And 't is not difficult to observe what an enormous strength bad education hath to deprave and pervert well dispos'd inclinations Which things consider'd this way also methinks reflects a Disparagement on the Divine Attributes Since by creating souls daily and putting them into such bodies and such parts of the world as his infinite Wisdom sees will debauch them and pervert them from the ways of righteousness and happiness into those of vice and misery he deals with them less mercifully than a parent among us would with his Off-spring And to suppose God to have less goodness than his degenerate creatures is to have very narrow apprehensions of his perfections and to rob him of the honour due to his Attributes 3 It hath been urged with good probability by great and wise Sages that 't is an unbecoming apprehension of the Majesty on high * to suppose him assistant to unlawful and unclean coitions by creating a soul to animate the impure foetus And to think It is in the power of brutish lust to determine Omvipotence to create a Soul whensoever a couple of unclean Adulterers shall think fit to join in their bestial pleasures is methinks to have a very mean apprehension of the divine Majesty and Purity This is to make him the worst of Servants by supposing him to serve his creature's vices to wait upon the vilest actions and to engage the same infinite Power that made the world for the perfecting what was begun by dissolute Wantons This Argument was used of old by pious and learned Origen and hath been imployed in the same service since by his modern defendents But I foresee an evasion or two that possibly with some may stand for an answer the removal of which will clear the business It may be pretended that God's attending to create souls for the supply of such generations is but an act of his justice for the detection and consequently punishment of such lawless offenders which therefore will be no more matter of disparagement than the waiting of an Officer of justice to discover and apprehend a Malefactour But this Subterfuge cannot elude the force of the Argument for it hath no place at all in most Adulteries yea great injustice and injury is done many times by such illegitimate births the Child of a Stranger being by this means admitted to carry away the inheritance from the lawful off-spring Besides God useth not ordinarily to put forth his Almighty power to discover secret miscarriages except sometimes for very remarkable and momentous ends but leaves hidden iniquities to be the objects of his own castigations And if discovery of the fault be the main end of such creations * methinks that might be done at a cheaper rate that should not have brought so much inconvenience with it or have exposed his own innocent and harmless off-spring to undeserv'd Reproach and Infamy But further it may be suggested that it is no more indecent for God to create souls to furnish those unlawful Generations than it is that a man should be nourisht by meat that he hath unlawfully come by or that the Cattle which he hath stoln should ingender with his own But the difference of these instances from the case in hand is easily discernable in that the nourishment and productions spoken of proceed in a set orderly way of natural causes which work fatally and necessarily without respect to moral circumstances and there is no reason it should be in the power of a sinful creature to engage his Maker to pervert or stop the course of nature when he pleaseth But in the case of creating souls God is supposed to act by explicite and immediate Will the suspending of which in such a case as this is far different in point of credit and decorum from his altering the setled Laws he hath set in the Creation and turning the world upside down I might further add 4ly That * it seems very incongruous and unhandsome to suppose that God should create two souls for the supply
at first view that such variety of distinct and orderly representations should be made at once upon a single atom or the whole image is imprest upon every point and then there would be as many objects as there are points in this matter and so every thing would be infinitely multiplied in our delâ—sive senses Or finally every part of the soul must receive a proportionable part of the image and then how could those parts communicate their perceptions to each other and what should perceive the whole This Argument is excellently managed by the great Dr. H. More in whose writings this fond Hypothesis is fully triumpht over and defeated Since therefore the very lowest degree of perception single and simple sense is incompatible to meer body or matter we may safely conclude that the higher and nobler operations of imagining remembring reasoning and willing must have a cause and source that is not Corporeal Thus therefore those that build the souls traduction upon this ground of its being only body and modified matter are disappointed in the foundation of their conclusion But 2 Another sort of assertors of traduction teach the Soul to be spiritual and incorporeal and affirm that by a vertue deriv'd from the first benediction it can propagate its like one soul emitting another as the body doth the matter of Generation The manner of which spiritual production useth to be illustrated by one Candle's lighting another and a mans begetting a thought in anothers mind without diminishing of his own This is the most favourable representation of this opinion that I can think on And yet if we nearly consider it it will appear most absuâ—d and unphilosophical For if one soul produce another 't is either out of nothing or something praeexistent If the former 't is an absolute creation which all philosophy concludes impossible for a Creature And if it be pretended that the Parent doth it not by his proper natural virtue but by a strength imparted by God in the first blessing Increase and multiply so that God is the prime agent he only the instrument I rejoin that then either God hath thereby obliged himself to put forth a new and extraordinary power in every such occasion distinct from his influence in the ordinary â—ourse of nature Or else 2 he only concurrs by his providence as he doth to our other natural actions we having this Ability bestowed upon our very natures He that asserts the first runs upon all the rocks that he would avoid in the former Hypothesis of continual Creation and God will be made the cause of the sin and misery of his spotless and blameless Creatures which absurdities he cannot shun by saying that God by interposing in such productions doth but follow the rules of acting which he first made while man was innocent For certainly infinite goodness would never have tyed up it self to such Laws of working as he foresaw would presently bring unavoidable inconvenience misery and ruine upon the best part of his workmanship And for the second way it supposeth God to have no more to do in this action than in our eating and drinking Consequently here is a creation purely natural And methinks if we have so vast a power to bring the ends of contradictories together something out of nothing which some deny to Omnipotence it self 't is much we cannot conserve in being our Creature so produced nor our own intimate selves since conservation is not more than Creation And 't is much that in other things we should give such few specimens of so vast an ability or have a power so divine and excellent and no faculty to discern it by Again 2 if the Soul be immediately produced out of nothing be the agent who it will God or the Parent it will be pure and sinless For supposing our parents to be our Creators they make us but as natural agents * and so can only transmit their natural qualities but not their moral pravities Wherefore there can no better account be given from this way how the Soul is so debauched and infected assoon as it comes into the body than in the former and therefore it fails in the main end it is designed for Thus we see then that the traduction of the Soul supposing it to be produced out of nothing cannot be defended Nor doth the second general way yield any more relief to this Hypothesis For if it be made of any thing praeexistent it is either of matter or spirit The former we have undermined and overthrown already in what was said against those that hold it to be body And if it be made out of any Spiritual substance it must be the soul of the parent except we will revive the old enthusiastick conceit of its being a particle of the divine essence which supposition is * against the nature of an immaterial being a chief property of which is to be indiscerpible Nor do the similitudes I mentioned in the proposal of the Hypothesis at all fit the business for one candle lights another * by separable emissions that pass from the flame of that which is kindled to the wick of the other And flame is a body whose parts are in continual flux as a river But the substance of the soul is stable permanent and indivisible which quite makes it another case And for a mans informing anothers mind with a thought which he had not conceived it is not a production of any substance but only an occasioning him to exert an operation of his mind which he did not before And therefore makes nothing to the illustrating how a Soul can produce a Soul a substance distinct and without it self Thus we see how desperate the case of the souls original is in the Hypothesis of Traduction also But yet to let it have fair play we 'l give it leave to plead it's cause and briefly present what is most material in its behalf There are but two reasons that I can think of worth the naming 1 A man begets a man and a man he is not without a Soul therefore 't is pretended that the soul is begotten But this argument is easily detected of palpable sophistry and is as if one should argue a man is mortal therefore his Soul is mortal or is fat and lusty therefore his Soul is so The absurdity of which kinds of reasoning lyes in drawing that into a strict and rigorous affirmation which is only meant according to vulgar speech and is true only in some remarkable respect or circumstance Thus we say A man begets a man because he doth the visible and only sensible part of him The vulgar to whom common speech is accommodate not taking so much notice of what is past the ken of their senses And therefore Body in ordinary speaking is oft put for Person as here man for the body Sometimes the noblest part is used for the whole as when 't is said 70 Souls went down with Jacob into Egypt therefore such arguments as
the asserters of traduction make use of which are drawn from vulgar schemes of speech argue nothing but the desperateness of the cause that needs such pitiful sophistries to recommend it Such are these proofs which yet are some of the best I meet with The seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head Sixty six souls descended out of Jacobs loins Adam begat a son in his own likeness and such like According to this rate of arguing the scripture may be made speak any thing that our humour some phancies please to dictate And thus to rack the sacred writings to force them whether they will or no to bring evidence to our opinions is an affront to their Authority that 's next to the denying on 't I might add 2 that begetting also hath a latitude and in common speech signifies not a strict and philosophical production So that a man â—egets a man though he only generates the body into which fitly prepared descends a soul And he that doth that upon which another thing necessarily follows is said to be the cause of both 2 The adherents to traduction use to urge that except the whole man soul and body be propagated there is no account can be given of our original desilement And scripture gives evident testimony to that early pollution for we are said to be conceived in sin and transgressors from the Womb. We have already seen that indeed the way of daily creating souls cannot come off but with vilely aspersing the divine attributes And it hath been hinted that neither can Traduction solve the business for if the Parent beget the soul out of nothing it will be as pure and clean as if God himself were it's immediate Creator for though a clean thing cannot come out of an unclean when any thing of the substance of the producent is imparted to the effect yet where 't is made out of nothing the reason is very different Yea the soul in all the powers that arâ— concern'd in this production is now as clean and pure as ever 't was for it is suppos'd to do it by a capacity given at its first creation while pure and innocent in which respect it is not capable of moral contagion this being an ability meerly natural and plastick and not at all under the imperium or command of the will the only seat of moral good and evil Or if our souls are but particles and decerptions of our parents then I must have been guilty of all the sins that ever were committed by my Progenitors ever since Adam and by this time my soul would have been so deprav'd and debauch'd that it would be now brutish yea diabolical Thus then we see that even upon this reason 't is necessary to pitch upon some other Hypothesis to give an account of the pravity of our natures which both these fail in the solution of And since the former commits such violence upon the honour of the divine attributes since the latter is so contrary to the nature of things and since neither can give any satisfaction in the great affairs of providence and our natures or have any incouragement from the Sacred Volume 'T is I think very excusable for us to cast our eyes abroad to see if there be no other way that may probably unriddle those mysteries and relieve the minds of anxious and contemplative inquirers In which search if we light on any thing that doth sweetly accord with the Attributes of God the nature of things and unlocks the intricacies of Providence I think we have found what the two former opinions aim at but cannot make good their pretences to And may salute the truth with a joyful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore from the modern disputants let us look towards the ancient Sages those Eastern Sophi that have fill'd the world with the fame of their wisdom And since our inquiries are benighted in the West let us look towards the East from whence 't is likely the desired light may display it self and chase away the darkness that covers the face of those theories Therefore it was the opinion of the Indian Brachmans the Persian Magi the Aegyptian Gymnosophists the Jewish Rabbins some of the Graecian Philosophers and Christian Fathers that the souls of men were created all at first and at several times and occasions upon forfeiture of their better life and condition dropt down into these terrestrial bodies This the learned among the Jews made a part of their Cabbala and pretend to have received it from their great Law-giver Moses which Hypothesis if it appear but probable to an impartial inquiry will even on that account be preferrible to both the former which we have seen to be desperate CHAP. IV. 1 Praeexistence cannot be disproved Scripture saith nothing against it It 's silence is no prejudice to this Doctrine but rather an Argument for it as the case standeth Praeexistence was the common opinion of our Saviour's times How probably it came to be lost in the Christian Church THerefore let us see what title it can shew for our assent or whether it can prove it self worthy of the Patronage of those great Authors that have owned it 1 Then Whether this Doctrine be true or no I 'm confident it cannot be proved false for if all Souls were not made together it must be either because God could not do it or because he would not For the first I suppose very few have such narrow Conceptions of the divine power as to affirm that omnipotence could not produce all those beings at first which apart he is suppos'd to create daily which implies no contradiction or as much as difficulty to be conceived and which de facto he hath done in the case of Angels Or if inconsistence with any Attribute should be pretended that shall be prov'd quite otherwise hereafter And the amicable consistence of this Hypothesis with them yea the necessity of it from this very consideration of the divine Attributes shall be argued in the process Therefore whoever concludes that God made not all souls of old when he produced the world out of nothing must confess the reason of this assertion to be because he would not And then I would ask him how he came to know what he affirms so boldly Who acquainted him with the Divine Counsels Is there a word said in his revealed Will to the contrary or hath he by his holy pen-men told us that either of the other ways was more sutable to his beneplaciture Indeed 't is very likely that a strong and ready phancy possest with a perswasion of the falshood of this Hypothesis might find some half phrases in Scripture which he might suborn to sing to the tune of his imagination For in such a Miscellaneous piece as the Bible is it will not be difficult for a man that 's strongly resolv'd against an opinion to find somewhat or other that may seem to him to speak the language of his phancy And therefore
Divine Goodness And I have been the longer on it because I thought 't was in vain to propose it without taking to task the principal of those objections that must needs arise in the minds of those that are not used to this way of arguing And while there was no provision made to stop up those Evasions that I saw this Argument obnoxious to the using of it I was afraid would have been a prejudice rather than a furtherance of the cause I ingaged it in And therefore I hope the ingenious will pardon this so necessary piece of tediousness CHAP. X. A third Argument for Praeexistence from the great variety of mens speculative inclinations and also the diversity of our Genius's copiously urged If these Arguments make Praeexistence but probable 't is enough to gain it the Victory BUt now I proceed to another Argument Therefore Thirdly If we do but reâ—â—ect upon what was said above against the Souls daily Creation from that enormous pravity which is so deeply rooted in some mens natures we may thence have a considerable evidence of Praeexistence For as this strong natural propensity to vice and impiety cannot possibly consist with the Hypothesis of the souls coming just out of Gods hands pure and immaculate so doth it most aptly suit with the doctrine of its praeexistence which gives a most clear and apposite account of the phaenomenon For let us but conceive the Souls of men to have grown degenerate in a former condition of life * to have contracted strong and inveterate habits to vice and lewdness and that in various manners and degrees we may then easily apprehend when some mens natures had so incredibly a depraved tincture and such impetuous ungovernable irreclaimable inclinations to what is vitious while others have nothing near such wretched propensions but by good education and good discipline are mouldable to vertue This shews a clear way to unriddle this amazing mystery without blemishing any of the divine Attributes or doing the least violence to our faculties Nor is it more difficult to conceive how a soul should awaken out of the state of inactivity we speak of with those radical inclinations that by long practice it had contracted * than how a Swallow should return to her old trade of living after her winter sleep and silence for those customs it hath been addicted to in the other state are now so deeply fastened and rooted in the soul that they are become even another nature Now then if Praeexistence be not the truth 't is very strange that it should so exactly answer the Phaenomena of our natures when as no other Hypothesis doth any whit tolerably suit them And if we may conclude that false which is so correspondent to all appearances when we know nothing else that can yield any probable account of them and which is not in the least repugnant to any inducement of belief we then strangely forget our selves when we determine any thing We can never for instance conclude the Moon to be the cause of the flux and reflux of the Sea from the answering of her approaches and recesses to its ebbs and swellings Nor at this rate can the cause of any thing else be determined in nature But yet besides 2 we might another way inforce this Argument from the strange difference and diversity that there is in mens wits and intellectual craseis as well as in the dispositions of their wills and appetites Even the natural tempers of mens minds are as vastly different as the qualities of their bodies And 't is easie to observe in things purely speculative and intellectual even where neither education or custom have interposed to sophisticate the natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that some men are strangely propense to some opinions which they greedily drink in as soon as they are duly represented yea and find themselves burthened and opprest while their education hath kept them in a contrary belief * when as others are as fatally set against these opinions and can never be brought favourably to resent them Every Soul brings a kind of sense with it into the world whereby it tastes and relisheth what is suitable to its peculiar temper And notions will never lie easily in a mind that they are not fitted to some can never apprehend that for other than an Absurdity which others are so clear in that they almost take it for a First Principle And yet the former hath all the same evidence as the latter This I have remarkably taken notice of in the opinion of the extension of a spirit Some that I know and those inquisitive free and ingenuous by all the proof and evidence that is cannot be reconciled to it Nor can they conceive any thing extended but as a Body Whereas other deep and impartial searchers into nature cannot apprehend it any thing at all if not extended but think it must then be a mathematical point or a meer non-entity I could instance in other speculations which I have observ'd some to be passionate Embracers of upon the first proposal when as no arguments could prevail on others to think them tolerable But there needs no proof of a manifest observation Therefore before I go further I would demand whence comes this meer notional or speculative variety * Were his difference about sensibles yea or about things depending on the imagination the influence of the body might then be suspected for a cause But since it is in the most abstracted Theories that have nothing to do with the grosser phantasmes since this diversity is found in minds that have the greatest care to free themselves from the deceptions of sense and intanglements of the body what can we conclude but that the soul it self is the immediate subject of all this variety and that it came praejudiced and praepossessed into this body with some implicit notions that it had learnt in another And if this congruity to some opinions and averseness to others be congenial to us and not advenient from any thing in this state 't is methinks clear that we were in a former * For the Soul in its first and pure nature hath no idiosyncrasies that is hath no proper natural inclinations which are not competent to others of the same kind and condition Be sure they are not fatally determin'd by their natures to false and erroneous apprehensions And therefore since we find this determination to one or other falshood in many if not most in this state and since 't is very unlikely 't is derived only from the body custom or education what can we conceive on 't but that our Souls were tainted with these peculiar and wrong corruptions before we were extant upon this stage of Earth Besides 't is easie to observe the strange and wonderful variety of our genius's one mans nature inclining him to one kind of study and imployment anothers to what is very different Some almost from their very cradles will be addicted to the making of figures
and in little mechanical contrivances others love to be riming almost as soon as they can speak plainly and are taken up in small essays of Poetry Some will be scrawling Pictures and others take as great delight in some pretty offers at Musick and vocal harmony Infinite almost are the ways in which this pure natural diversity doth discover it self * Now to say that all this variety proceeds primarily from the meer temper of our bodies is me thinks a very poor and unsatisfying Account * For those that are the most like in the Temper Air Complexion of their bodies are yet of a vastly differing Genius Yea they that have been made of the same clay cast in the same mould and have layn at once in the same natural bed the womb yea whose bodies have been as like as their state and fortunes and their education and usages the same yet even they do not unfrequently differ as much from each other in their genius and dispositions of the mind as those that in all these particulars are of very different condition Besides there are all kind of makes forms dispositions tempers and complexions of body that are addicted by their natures to the same exercises and imployments so that to ascribe this to any peculiarity in the body is me seems a very improbable solution of the Phaenomenon And to say all these inclinations are from custom or education is the way not to be believed since all experience testifies the contrary What then can we conjecture is the cause of all this diversity but that we had taken a great delight and pleasure in some things like and analogous unto these in a former condition which now again begins to put forth it self when we are awakened out of our silent recess into a state of action And though the imployments pleasures and exercises of our former life were without question very different from these in the present estate yet 't is no doubt but that some of them were more confamiliar and analogous to some of our transactions than others so that as any exercise or imployment here is more suitable to the particular dispositions that were praedominant in the other state with the more peculiar kindness is it regarded by us and the more greedily do our inclinations now fasten on it Thus if a Musician should be interdicted the use of all musical instruments and yet might have his choice of any other Art or Profession 't is likely he would betake himself to Limning or Poetry these exercises requiring the same disposition of wil and genius as his beloved Musick did And we in like manner being by the â—ate of our wretched descent hindred from the direct exercising our selves about the objects of our former delights and pleasures do yet as soon as we are able take to those things which do most correspond to that genius that formerly inspired us And now 't is time to take leave of the Arguments from Reason that give evidence for Praeexistence If any one think that they are not so demonstrative but that they may be answered or at least evaded I pray him to consider how many demonstrations he ever met with that a good wit resolv'd in a contrary cause could not shuâ—â—le from the edge of Or let it be granted that the Arguments I have alledged are no infallible or necessary proofs yet if they render my cause but probable yea but possible I have won what I contended for For it having been made manifest by as good evidence as I think can be brought for any thing that the way of new creations is most inconsistent with the honor of the blessed Attributes of God And that the other of Traduction is most impossible and contradictioâ—s in the nature of things * There being now no other way left but Prae-existence if that be probable or but barely possible 't is enough to give it the victory And whether all that hath been said prove so much or no I leave to the indifferent to determine I think he that will say it doth not can bring few proofs for any thing which according to his way of judging will deserve to be called Demonstrations CHAP. XI Great caution to be used in alledging Scripture for our speculative opinions The countenance that Praeexistence hath from the sacred writings both of the old and new Testament Reasons of the seeming uncouthness of these allegations Praeexistence stood in no need of Scripture-proof IT will be next expected that I should now prove the Doctrine I have undertaken for by Scripture evidence and make good what I said above That the divine oracles are not so silent in this matter as is imagined But truly I have so tender a sense of the sacred Authority of that Holy volume that I dare not be so bold with it as to force it to speak what I think it intends not A presumption that is too common among our confident opinionists and that hath occasioned great troubles to the Church and diâ—â—epute to the inspired writings For for men to ascribe the odd notions of their over-heated imaginations to the Spirit of God and eternal truth is me thinks a very bold and impudent belying it Wherefore I dare not but be very cautious what I speak in this matter nor would I willingly urge Scripture as a proof of any thing but what I am sure by the whole tenor of it is therein contained And would I take the liberty to fetch in every thing for a Scripture-evidence that with a little industry a man might make serviceable to his design I doubt not but I should be able to â—ill my Margent with Quotations which should be as much to purpose as have been cited in general CATECHISMS and CONFESSIONS of FAITH and that in points that must forsooth be dignified with the sacred title of FVNDAMENTAL But Reverend ASSEMBLIES may make more bold with Scripture than private persons And therefore I confess I 'm so timorous that I durst not follow their example Though in a matter that I would never have imposed upon the belief of any man though I were certain on 't and had absolute power to enjoyn it I think the only way to preserve the reverence due to the oracles of Truth is never to urge their Authority but in things very momentous and such as the whole current of them gives an evident suffrage to But to make them speak every trivial conceit that our sick brains can imagine or dream of as I intimated is to vilifie and deflowre them Therefore though I think that several Texts of Scripture look very fairly upon Praeexistence and would encourage a man that considers what strong Reasons it hath to back it to think that very probably they mean some thing in favour of this Hypothesis yet I 'le not urge them as an irrefutable proof being not willing to lay more stress upon any thing than it will bear Yea I am most willing to confess the weakness of my Cause in
must make this great difference as they grow up in the Body but that their Souls were different before they came into it And how should they have such a vast difference in the proclivity to Vice but that they lived before in the state of Pre-existence and that some were much deeper in rebellion against God and the Divine Reason than others were and so brought their different conditions with them into these Terrestrial Bodies Pag. 75. Then how a Swallow should return to her òld trade of living after her Winter sleep c. Indeed the Swallow has the advantages of Memory which the incorporate Soul has not in her incorporation into a Terrestrial Body after her state of Silence But the vital inclinations which are mainly if not onely fitted in the Plastick being not onely revived but signally vitious of themselves revived with advantage by reason of the corruption of this coarse earthly Body into which the Soul is incorporate they cannot fail of discovering themselves in a most signal manner without any help of memory but from the mere pregnancie of a corrupt Body and formerly more than ordinarily debauched Plastick in the state of Pre-existence Pag. 76. Whenas others are as fatally set against the Opinions c. And this is done as the ingenious Author takes notice even where neither Education nor Custom have interposed to sophisticate their Judgments or Sentiments Nay it is most certain that they sometime have Sentiments and entertain Opinions quite contrary to their Education So that that is but a slight account to restore this Phaenomenon into Education and Custom whenas Opinions are entertained and stiffly maintained in despight of them This I must confess implies that the aerial Inhabitants philosophize but conjecturally onely as well as the Inhabitants of the Earth And it is no wonder that such Spirits as are lapsed in their Morals should be at a loss also in their Intellectuals and though they have a desire to know the truth in Speculations it suiting so well with their pride that yet they should be subject to various errours and hallucinations as well as we and that there should be different yea opposite Schools of Philosophie among them And if there be any credit to be given to Cardans story of his Father Facius Cardanus things are thus de facto in the aereal Regions And two of the Spirits which Facius Cardanus saw in that Vision left upon Record by him and of which he often told his Son Hieronymus while he was living were two Professors of Philosophie in different Academies and were of different Opinions one of them apertly professing himself to be an Aven-Roist The story is too long to insert here See Dr. H. Moore his Immortality of the Soul book 3. chap. 17. So that lapsed Souls philosophizing in their Aerial State and being divided into Sects and consequently maintaining their different or opposite Opinions with heat and affection which reaches the Plastick this may leave a great propension in them to the same Opinions here and make them almost as prone to such and such Errours as to such and such Vices This I suppose the ingenious Author propounds as an Argument credible and plausible though he does not esteem it of like force with those he produced before Nor does his Opposer urge any thing to any purpose against it The main thing is That these Propensities to some one Opinion are not universal and blended with the constitution of every person but are thin sown and grow up sparingly Where there are five says he naturally bent to any one Opinion there are many millions that are free to all If some says he descend into this life big with aptnesses and proclivities to peculiar Theories why then should not all supposing they pre-existed together do the like As if all in the other Aereal State were Professors of Philosophie or zealous Followers of them that were The solution of this difficulty is so easie that I need not insist on it Pag. 78. Were this difference about sensibles the influence of the body might then be suspected for a cause c. This is very rationally alleadged by our Author and yet his Antagonist has the face from the observation of the diversity of mens Palates and Appetites of their being differently affected by such and such strains of Musick some being pleased with one kind of Melodie and others with another some plâ—ased with Aromatick Odours others offended with them to reason thus If the Bodie can thus cause us to love and dislike Sensibles why not as well to approve and dislike Opinions and Theories But the reason is obvious why not because the liking or disliking of these Sensibles depends upon the grateful or ungrateful motion of the Nerves of the Bodie which may be otherwise constituted or qualified in some complexions than in other some But for Philosophical Opinions and Theories ' what have they to do with the motion of the Nerves It is the Soul herself that judges of those abstractedly from the Senses or any use of the Nerves or corporeal Organ If the difference of our Judgment in Philosophical Theories be resolvible into the mere constitution of our Bodie our Understanding itself will hazard to be resolved into the same Principle also And Bodie will prove the onely difference betwixt Men and Brutes We have more intellectual Souls because we have better Bodies which I hope our Authors Antagonist will not allow Pag. 78. For the Soul in her first and pure nature has no Idiosyncrasies c. Whether there may not be certain different Characters proper to such and such Classes of Souls but all of them natural and without blemish and this for the better order of things in the Universe I will not rashly decide in the Negative But as the Author himself seems to insinuate if there be any such they are not such as fatally determine Souls to false and erroneous apprehensions For that would be a corruption and a blemish in the very natural Character Wherefore if the Soul in Philosophical Speculations is fatally determined to falshood in this life it is credible it is the effect of its being inured thereto in the other Pag. 79. Now to say that all this variety proceeds primarily from the mere temper of our Bodies c. This Argument is the less valid for Pre-existence I mean that which is drawn from the wonderful variety of our Genius's or natural inclinations to the employments of life because we cannot be assured but that the Divine Providence may have essentially as it were impressed such Classical Characters on humane Souls as I noted before And besides if that be true which Menander says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That every man as soon as he is born has a Genius appointed him to be his Instructer and Guide of his Life That some are carried with such an impetus to some things rather than others may be from the instigations of his assisting
another yet they demonstrate still their Spirituality by Self-Penetration haply a thousand and a thousand times repeated And though by a Law of life not by a dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are kept from penetrating one another yet they both in the mean time necessarily penetrate Matter as undergoing the diverse measures of essential Spissitude in the same So that by the increase of that essential Spissitude they may approach near to a kind of Hylopathick disposition of Impenetrability and thence by the Matter of the Universe out of which they never are be curb'd from contracting themselves any further than to such a degree and I noted at first that spiritual Subtilty as well as Amplitude is given in measure to created Spirits So that Penetrabilitie is still a steadie Character of a Spiritual Essence or Substance to thâ— utmost sense thereof And to argue against Impenetrability its being the propertie of Matter from this kind of Impenetrability of contracted Spirits is like that quibbling Sophistrie against Indiscerpibility being the propertie of a Spirit because a Physical Monad is also indiscerpible The ninth Objection is against the Indiscerpibility of Spirits and would infer that because the Doctor makes them intellectually divisible therefore by Divine Power if it imply no contradiction a Spirit is Discerpible into Physical parts But this is so fully satisfied already by the Doctor in his Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit and its Defence to say nothing of what I have said already above to prove it does imply a contradiction that I will let it go and proceed To the tenth and last Allegation which pretends That these two terms Penetrable and Indiscerpible are needless and hazardous in the Notion of a Spirit But how useful or needful Penetrability is is manifest from what we have said to the eighth Objection And the needfulness of Indiscerpibility is also sufficiently shewn by the Doctor in his Defence of the true Notion of a Spirit Sect. 30. But now for the Hazardousness of these terms as if they were so hard that it would discourage men from the admitting of the Existence of Spirits It appears from what has been said to the eighth Objection That Penetrability is not onely intelligible and admittable but necessarily to be admitted in the Notion of a Spirit as sure as God is a Spirit and that there are Spirits of men and Angels and that the Souls of men are not made of Shreds but actuate their whole grown bodie though at first they were contracted into the compass of a very small Foetus And that there is no Repugnancie that an Essence may be ample and yet indiscerpible Mr. Baxter himself must allow who pag. 51. plainly declares That it is the vilest contradiction to say that God is capable of division So that I wonder that he will call Penetrable and Indiscerpible hard and doubtful words and such as might stumble mens belief of the Existence of Spirits when they are terms so plain and necessary Nor can that Vnitie that belongs to a Spirit be conceived or understood without them especially without Indiscerpibilitie And indeed if we do not allow Penetrability the Soul of a man will be far from being one but a thing discontinued and scatter'd in the pores of his corporeal consistencie We will conclude with Mr. Baxters Conceit of the Indivisibleness of a Spirit and see how that will corroborate mens faith of their Existence and put all out of hazard Various Elements saith he pag. 50. vary in Divisibility Earth is most divisible Water more hardly the parts more inclining to the closest contact Air yet more hardly and in Fire no doubt the Discerpibility is yet harder And if God have made a Creature so strongly inclined to the unitie of all the parts that no Creature can separate them but God onely as if a Soul were such it is plain that such a Being need not fear a dissolution by Separation of parts Ans This is well said for an heedless and credulous multitude but this is not to Philosophize but to tell us that God works a perpetual Miracle in holding the small tenuious parts of the Soul together more pure and â—ine than those of Fire or Aether but here is no natural cause â—â—om the thing it self offered unless it be that in every Substance or rather Matter the parts according to the tenuitie and puritie of the Substance incline to a closer Contact and inseparable Union one with another which is a conceit repugnant to experience and easily confuted by that ordinarie accident of a Spinner hanging by its weak thread from the brim of ones Hat which â—eeble line yet is of force enough to divide the Air and for that very reason because it consists of thinner parts than Water or Earth As also we can more easily run in the Air than wade in the Water for the very same reason These things are so plain that they are not to be dwelt upon But Mr. Baxter is thus pleased to shew his Wit in maintaining a weak â—ause which I am perswaded he has not so little judgment as that he can have any great confidence in And therefore in sundry places he intimates that he does allow or at least not deny but that Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie is contained in the Notion of a Spirit but not as part of the Conceptus formalis but as Dispositio or Modus substantiae but yet withal such a Dispositio as is essential to the substance that with the Conceptus formalis added makes up the true Notion of a Spirit See pag. 30 32 61 85. And truly if Mr. Baxter be in good earnest and sincere in this agreement without all equivocation that Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie is Essential to the true Notion of a Spirit onely they are to be admitted as Dispositio Substantiae not as Pars Formae I confess as he declares pag. 94. That the diâ—â—erence betwixt him and the Doctor lyeth in a much smaller matter than was thought and the Doctor I believe will easily allow him to please his own fancy in that But then he must understand the terms of Penetrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie in the Doctors sense viz of a Spirits penetrating not inter partes but per partes materiâ—â— and possessing the same space with them And of an Indiscerpibleness not arising from thinner and thinner parts of matter as he imagines Air to be more hardly discerpible than Earth or Water forasmuch as by reason of its thinness its parts lye closer together as was above noted but from the immediate essential Oneness of substance in a Spirit according to the true Idea of an Indiscerpible Being in the Divine Intellect which whether in Idea or in Actual Existence it would cease to be or rather never was such if it were discerpible and therefore implies a contradiction it should be so But if a Spirit be not Penetrable in the Doctors sense it is really Impenetrable and if not Indiscerpible in his sense
and Result of the Form A Spirit is one simple Specifick Essence or substance and that true Specifickness in its Essence is the real and intimate Form or Conceptus formalis thereof but that which we know not as I noted above out of Julius Scaliger though we know the essential and inseparable Attributes thereof which may be many though in one simple specifick Substance as there are many Attributes in God immediately and inseparably resulting from his most simple specifick Nature Tenthly Yea you compound saith he Peâ—etrabilitie and Indiscerpibilitie with a quite different notion life and the faculty of motion which is truly the Form and is one thing and not compounded of notions so different as Consistence and Vertue or Power Ans I say again as I said before that neither Penetrability nor Indiscerpibility nor Life nor Motion are the specifick Form it self of a Spirit which is a simple Substance but the Fruits and Results of this specifick Form and all these have a proper Cognation with one another as agreeing in Immateriality or Spirituality and how the common sagacitie of mankind has presaged that the most noble functions of life are performed by that which is most subtile and most one as Penetrability and Indiscerpibility makes the consistence of a Spirit to be the Doctor has noted in his Discourse of the true notion of a Spirit Mr. Baxter in reading Theological Systems may observe That Attributes as much differing among themselves as these are given to the most simple Essence of God Eleventhly You say says he pag. 82. Life intrinsecally issues from this Immaterial Substance But the Form is concreated with it and issues not from it Ans I grant that the Form is concreated with the Spirit For a Spirit is nothing else but such a specifick simple Substance or Essence the Specifickness of whose nature onely is its real intimate Form And if we could reach by our Conception that very Form it self it would be but the Conceptus inadaequatus of one simple Substance and be the true Conceptus formalis thereof and the Conceptus fundamentalis to speak in Mr. Baxters or Dr. Glissons language would be Substance in general which is contracted into this Species by this real intimate Form which both considered together being but one simple Essence they must needs be created together according to that Idea of a Spirit which God has conceived in his eternal mind And life will as naturally and necessarily issue from such a Species or Specifick Essence or from Substance contracted into such a Species by the abovesaid Form as Mobility does issue from the form of a Globe From whence it is plainly understood how Life does intrinsecally issue from immaterial Substance nor is the Form it self but the Fruit thereof And as it were but trifling to say that the power of easie rolling every way on a Plain were the very Form of a Globe the word Power or Vertue being but a dark loose general dilute term and which belongs to every thing and is restrained onely by its Operation and Object but it is the Form or Figure of the Globe that is the immediate cause that that Vertue or Power in general is so restrained to this easie rolling so it is in Mr. Baxters pretended Form of a Spirit which he makes Virtus vitalis a power of living Power there is such a dark dilute term loose and general But that it is determined to life it is by that intimate specifick Form which we know not but onely this we know That it is to the Power of living as the Figure of a Globe is to the Power of easie rolling and that in neither one can be without the other There must be a Specifick Essence which is the root of those Powers Properties or Operations from whence we conclude distinct Species of things For 't is too coarse and slovenly to conceit that these are clarted on them but the Specifick Powers arise immediately and inseparably from the Specifick Nature of the thing else why might they not be other powers as well as these Twelfthly and lastly pag. 32. But do you verily believe saith he that Penetrability or Subtility is a sufficient Efficient or Formal cause of Vitalitie Perception and Appetite and so of Intellection and Volition I hope you do not Ans I hope so of the Doctor too and before this I hoped that Mr. Baxter had more insight into the nature of a Formal cause and into the Laws of Logick than once to imagine that any one in his Wits could take Penetrability to be the Formal cause of Intellection and Volition For then every Spirit being Penetrable every Spirit even of a plant at least of the vilest Animalonium would have Intellection and Volition Nor for the same reason can any body think that Penetrability is a sufficient Efficient cause of Intellection and Volition Nor is it so much as the Efficient cause of Vitality Perception Appetite much less the Formal So infinitely is Mr. Baxter out in these things But the case stands thus The Substance of that species of things which we call a Spirit and is so by that intimate specifick Form which I named before this substance is the cause of Vitality in such a sense as the round Form of a Globe or any matter of that Form is quatenus of that Form the cause of its own rolling Mobilitie I say therefore that Vitality is as immediate and necessarie a Fruit or Effect of the real and intimate Form of a Spirit as that easie mobilitie is of the Form of a Sphere or Globe And such a kind of Vitality Vegetative Sensitive Intellective of such a Species of Spirit These kinds of Vitalities are the Fruits or Effects necessarie and immediate of the abovesaid so specificated Substances that is to say they are immediately Self-living and all of them Penetrable and Indiscerpible of themselves quatenus Spirits all these essential attributes arising from the simple essence or specificated substance of every Spirit of what Classis soever created according to its own Idea eternally shining in the Divine Intellect As for example In the Idea of a Plastick Spirit onely Penetrability Indiscerpibility and Plastick Vitality whereby it is able to organize Matter thus and thus are not three Essences clarted upon some fourth Essence or glewed together one to another to make up such an Idea But the Divine Intellect conceives in itself one simple specifick Essence immediately and intrinsecally of it self indued with these essential Properties or Attributes So that when any thing does exist according to this Idea those three properties are as immediately Consequential to it and as effectually as Mobility to the Form of a Globe It is the specifick Substance that is the necessary Source of them and that acts by them as its own connate or natural instruments fitted for the ends that the eternal Wisdom and Goodness of God has conceived or contrived them for For it is manifest that those essential