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
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
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
Memory retaining the series of propositions argumentations and a long tract of historical narratives 3. In that it is more distinct and unconfused than the sensitive Memory 4. In that it is firmer and more fixed and permanent than the sensitive Memory 5. In that it can resuscitate and stir up it self to remember and call together other Images or media to retrive what it once remembred which is Reminiscence an act of intention which therefore Aristotle in his Book De Memoria Reminiscentia makes an act peculiar to Man whereas the Memory of Brutes is either conserved by the Images impressed by the Imagination and there continued or revived and reinforced by the occurrence of external Objects bearing an identity or resemblance to the Images at first impressed by the Phantasie 4. Deliberation a staid and attentive consideration of things to be known and their media and of their several weights conclusiveness or evidence and of things to be done and their media their congruity suitableness possibility and convenience and of the several circumstances aptly conducible thereunto which is an act far above the animal actings which are sudden and transient and admit not of that attention mora and propendency of actions 5. Judgment either concerning things to be known of the weight and concludency of them and ends in decision or of things done or to be done of their congruity fitness rightness appositness and this if it refers to things to be done ends in determination or purpose if in relation to things already done then in sentence of approbation or disapprobation And hither that which we call Conscience is to be referred namely if by a due comparison of things done with the rule there be a consonancy follows the sentence of Approbation if discordant from it the sentence of Condemnation And this act of the Judgment in relation to things to be done and the determination thereupon is that which is usually stiled the last decision of the practical Understanding immediately antecedent to the decree of the Will which it must follow by a kind of moral necessity when it acts as a reasonable Faculty and in the due state and order of its nature though by its liberty and empire it sometimes suspends its concurrence And thus far concerning the Acts of the Understanding 3. Concerning intellectual Habits or the genuine effects of these acts in the understanding Faculty and they are divers and diversly expressed by those that have treated thereof 1. Opinion when the assent of the Understanding is so far gained by evidence of probability that it rather inclines to one perswasion than to another yet not altogether without a mixture of incertainty or doubting 2. Science or Knowledge effected by such evidence cui non potest subesse falsum as in case of demonstrative evidence 3. Fides or Faith or Belief which rests upon the relation of another that we have no reasonable cause to suspect and upon this account we believe Divine Revelation when we are sufficiently convinced that it is Divine Revelation we also believe our Senses because we have the greatest Moral evidence that we can reasonably have of the truth of their reports when they are not controlled by apparent Reason impossibility or improbability We believe good and credible persons and this principally referrs to matter of fact which we cannot or do not controll by our Senses or other weighty evidence as that there was such a man as Julius Caesar that there is such a place as Rome though we never saw the one or the other because delivered over to us by credible persons and such who could probably have no end to deceive us 4. Wisdom which is a complicated habit referring to all things to be known and done the due comparison of things and actions and the preference of them according to their various natures and degrees 5. Prudence which is principally in reference to actions to be done the due means order season method of doing or not doing 6. Moral Virtues as Justice Temperance Sobriety Fortitude Patience c. for these begin in the Intellect though their exercise belong principally to the faculty of the Will 7. Arts Liberal or Mechanical for though the exercise of those in which the formal nature of an Art consists be external yet the Ideal notion and habit of them begins in the Understanding and a man is first a Geometrician in his Brain before he be such in his Hand And all these habits of the intellectual Faculty are far advanced above what is found in Sensible Natures take the last for instance It is true we find a rare dexterity in the Spider and Silkworm in framing of their threads but this proceeds not from any Intellectual principle in them but from an Instinct connatural to them and whereunto they are determined by the Law of their nature again we find in the Fox the Hawk and other Animals admirable sagacities wiles and subtilties in getting their prey and in defending themselves But when we consider the sagacity of the Humane Understanding although the particular Instincts of some Animals are scarce imitable by it yet it exceeds them in other things almost of the same nature and so by way of equivalence or rather prelation in those very Instincts witness the Arts of Painting Tapestry Fortification Architecture the Engins whereby noxious and subtil Animals are subdued and infinite more arising from the fruitfulness of the Understanding and the dexterity of the Hand And thus much touching the Intellective Faculty the seat of intellective Perception and Counsel I come to consider of that other Faculty the Will the seat of Empire and Authority The Will therefore is that other great Faculty of the Reasonable Soul and it is not a bare appetitive power as that of the sensual appetite but is a rational appetite and is considerable 1. In its Nature 2. In its Object 3. In its Acts. 1. The Nature of this Faculty is that it is free domina suarum actionum free from compulsion and so spontaneous and free from determination by the particular Object wherein it differs from the sensitive appetite which though spontaneous because moving from an inward principle yet is if not altogether yet for the most part determined in its choice by the external Object But how far forth the Will is determined by the last act of the practick Understanding or how far such a determination is or is not consistent with the essential or natural liberty of the Will is not seasonable here to dispute This liberty of Will together with that other Faculty of Understanding is that which renders the humane Nature properly capable of a Law and of the consequence of Law Rewards and Punishments which doth not properly belong to the animal Nature because destitute of these two Faculties 2. The Object of the Will is not confined to a sensible Good but is much larger namely such a Good as is compatible to an Intellectual Nature in its full
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
Dialogue with Averroes the Number of 4 multiplied into it self produceth the Square Number of 16 and that again multiplied by 4 produceth the Cubick Number of 64. If we should suppose a multitude actually infinite there must be infinite Roots and Square and Cubick Numbers yet of necessity the Root is but the fourth part of the Square and the sixteenth part of the Cubick Number The Instance of Algarel in his first Disputation with Averroes which Averroes endeavours to answer but tyres himself in vain to do it may explain this Consequence The Sun passeth through the Zodiack in one year Saturn passeth through it in thirty years so that the Revolution of Saturn to the Revolution of the Sun is as one to thirty and consequently as one Revolution of Saturn contains thirty Revolutions of the Sun so two Revolutions thereof must contain sixty Revolutions of the Sun and so if we should suppose their Revolutions infinite yet the proportion of the Revolutions must necessarily hold the same namely in all the whole Collection the Number of the Suns Revolutions must be thirty times as many as the Number of Saturns Revolutions and consequently the Revolutions of Saturn can be no more than one thirtieth part of the Revolutions of the Sun and yet both being supposed infinite the part namely the thirtieth part must be as great as that whereof it is the thirtieth part which is impossible And this impossibility holds in all other things that have succession or extension as in quantity motion successive duration of things in their nature successive But it is more plain and conspicuous in discrete quantity or different Individuals which are already measured by Number without any breaking the continuity that is in things that have continuity as continued quantity and motion And therefore they that go about to demonstrate the impossibility of Eternal Motion à parte ante or infinite extension in a Body Line or Superficies do first break it into parts to measure them and reduce them to discrete quantity because the demonstration is more clear and sensible thereby and therefore they break the Measures of Motion into Hours Days Years or such like Measures or into Periodical Revolutions and so they break continued Quantity into Palms Feet Perches or the like because though the repugnancy of Infinitude be equally incompetible to continued or successive Motion Duration or continued Quantity and depends upon the incompossibility of the very nature of things successive or extensive with Infinitude yet that incompossibility is more conspicuous in discrete Quantity or Multitude that ariseth from parts or Individuals already actually distinguished But the reason of both is the same especially if broken and divided into real or imaginary parts But in the Matter in question namely Multitude of successive Men or successive Generations of Men there is already a separate divided discrete multitude without any antecedent work of my Understanding or otherwise to reduce it into parts or discrete multitude and so the Instances of the Absurdities that arise by an infinite multitude of Individuals and distinct Generations is made more plain and open to view And he that is desirous to prosecute these Asystata of Infinitude and Multitude let him resort to the Prelections of Faber collected by Monsuerius in his Metaphysica demonstrativa de infinito And to say the truth there are none of the Ancients that have any weight in them that do not agree that it is impossible that any Quantity either discrete or continued should be actually infinite but only potentially either by addition of supposed parts to either or by division of Quantity continued into parts infinitely divisible But the greater difficulty rests in the Assumption which is next to be considered The second Proposition is this That if Eternal Generations of Men were admitted there would be this absurd Consequence that a multitude given might be actually infinite which remains to be proved The Objection that stands in the way seems to be this That there is no repugnancy that Multitude might be possibly infinite for as we may without any inconvenience suppose that the Generations of Mankind might be sempiternal or eternal à parte post so there is no inconvenience to suppose them eternal à parte ante for they never co-exist but are successive and so do not constitute any multitude co-existing actually infinite which is indeed impossible but there is no implication or repugnancy that there might be an infinite succession of Generations for they are not together but one Generation passeth and another succeedeth And hence it is they say that in moventibus vel causis per se subordinatis there cannot be processus in infinitum but we must necessarily fix in a First Mover between whom and the last Motion or Effect there cannot be a series of Infinite Causes for two Reasons First Because if there were Infinite Movers or Causes moving per se to the same effect or motion the motion would be infinite and so would the time wherein that motion would be absolved for infinitus motus non fit in finito tempore Secondly And again there would be an actual Infinitude of co-existing Causes which is impossible and therefore for the purpose to the production of this generation of an Insect by putrefaction there is not an infinite series of Causes per se co-operating to its production but the series of Causes is finite for the active qualities of the Elements move the Matter and the Heat and Influence of the Heavens agitate and move it may be the Elementary Body and the Intelligences move the Heavenly Bodies and Almighty God the Primum Movens moves the Intelligences and these are finite in number But in causis aut moventibus accidentaliter subordinatis there may be an Infinitude or Eternity thus the Father may beget the Son and the Grandfather begat the Father and so backward to Eternity and so in the successive productions of all Animals ex semine For though the Individuals successively existing from all Eternity must needs be infinite yet they do not coexist but as one Generation comes another decays and so make no infinite multitude and consequently that all the absurdities that are heaped upon the Supposition of infinite multitude or numbers conclude nothing to the matter in question because there is no infinite multitude because no infinite Individuals or Generations of Mankind coexisting And though this cannot at all according to their supposition any way admit the possibility of an infinitely extended Body Line Superficies or Place because that would be an actual infinitude in extent yet as to successive continued things as successive Motion as that of the Heavens and successive Duration as that of Motion which we call Time there is nothing of inconvenience according to their Supposition if they be infinite eternal and without beginning because though they consist of infinite Parts yet they are not altogether or coexisting without which there is no real Multitude So that the
Guanaco's and Paco's there be a thousand different kinds of Birds and Beasts of Forest in America which have never been known neither in shape nor name in other parts of the World whereof no mention is made nor names given in Greek or Latin or other Eastern Language of the World And in his 34 th Chapter of that Book he tells us That though the Spaniards in their first Plantation found certain Beasts Birds and other things in America common to those of Europe Asia and Africa yet some Beasts and other things they brought thither which were unknown there and for which they had no Names but what the Spaniards brought along with them So that one of the best Indications which they had to know those Beasts which were originally brought with the Spaniards out of Europe in their first Plantation was in that the Indians had no other Names for such but Spanish Names And again since America as is generally supposed is divided on every side from Asia Africa and Europe by considerable Seas and no known passage by Land so that all the possibility there could be for traduction of the Brutes into America from the known World could only be by Shipping Though this might be and certainly was a method used for the traduction of useful Cattel from hence thither yet it is not credible that Bears Lions Tigers Wolves and Foxes should have so much care used for their transportation And upon the same account they seem to inferr That the Beasts and Birds preserved by Noah in the Ark could only be such as were appropriated to Asia but not those that were of the American kinds for how should they come from thence to the Ark Or if it be supposable that they could be brought thither why did none of the kinds which are found commonly in America leave some of their Kind or Race here On the other side it hath been the more received Opinion That the Capita specierum perfectarum of perfect Terrestrial Animals and Birds were created near unto the place of Adam's Creation and that from these and these only the Race of perfect Animals Birds and Brutes were propagated and traduced over the face of the whole Earth and that the American Brood was traduced from these and from those Couples of these that were preserved by Noah in the Ark And that upon these Instances whereof some are of Divine authority others are Physical 1. All the Beasts and Fowls were brought to Adam to give them their Names Gen. 2.19 20. which could not have been if the several kinds of them in their first Creation had not been within some reasonable and approachable distance 2. All the Beasts and Birds had their kinds preserved in the Ark and the rest were drowned by the Universal Deluge Gen. 7.23 3. Although the Continent of America was in the first Spanish Plantations thereof stored with wild Beasts as Lions Tigers Bears c. yet those Islands that were remote from the Land though large and fruitful had not any of these Beasts then in them as Cuba Hispaniola Jamaica Margarita this is verified by Acosta upon a strict examination Lib. 1. Cap. 21. alibi and the same hath been found true in other new discovered Islands by other Navigations Whereby it appears that the Brutes were not Aborigines for then they should have been found in those Islands as well as in the Continent as well as Insects and Vegetables and that therefore in the Continent it self the first storing thereof was not from it self but by some means of accession from other Parts for otherwise they might have been found as well there as in the Continent The two great Obstacles are 1. The difference of the Brutes and Birds of that Continent from those of Asia Europe and Africa 2. The difficulty of finding a commodious passage from Asia Africa or Europe for such Beasts and Birds from hence thither admit they were all of the same kind And touching both these I shall say something 1. Touching the diversity of Brutes and Birds of this and the Western World the difficulty from thence is but small for there are divers Accidents even in the Eastern World Europe Asia and Africa that afford us Instances of that kind though excepting some Islands it be one common Continent I shall instance only in some Accidents of this kind 1. This Variation may happen by Mixtures of several Species in Generation which gives an anomalous Production as we see ordinarily by the mixture of Pheasants and Hens Chickens are produced partaking of both in colour and figure which yet renders them different from both And it is observed by many that the Cause of that great variety of Brutes in Africa is by reason of the meeting together of Brutes of several Species at Waters which in those dry Countries are scarce and the promiscuous couplings of Males and Females of several Species whereby there arise a sort of Brutes that were not in the first Creation This was long since observed by Aristotle so that it grew a Proverb also Semper aliquid novi Africa affert De generat Animal lib. 2. cap. 5. and so continues to this day 2. The Percolation as I may call it of Vegetables by Prosemination will alter their Nature Colour and Shape as Tulips or Carnations rising from Seed will differ in Colour from what those were that yielded those Seeds 3. Culture will improve Wild Flowers in bigness and beauty and want of Culture will sometimes make Vegetables degenerate See for these Transmutations Sir Francis Bacon in the 6 th Century of his Natural History I have often observed that River-Fish as Trouts and Flounders and others will alter their figure some for the better and some for the worse being put into Ponds Again in Animals the Learned Doctor Harvey in the end of his last Book de Generatione Animalium delivers an Opinion which at the first view seems wonderful strange viz. That the Conformation of the Proles both in Men and Brutes to their several specifical Shapes and Configurations is by a certain specifical operative Idea in the Phantasie or Imagination of Animals fixed and radicated in them and conformable to their several Species and that monstrous or anomalous Productions are by some disturbance or discomposure of that specifical Idea by some other inordinate Idea And conformable hereunto seems the Opinion of Marcus Marci in his learned Book de Ideis formatricibus Whatever the truth of this Opinion be it is not here properly examinable yet it seems beyond question that as to some external Signatures as Colour Shape Figure c. the Phantasie or Imagination of the Females as well Animals as of Mankind especially in momento conceptus and for some time after hath a great Influence Some there are that think that Jacob's change of the colour of Sheep and Goats by peeled Rods Gen. 30.37 was partly at least upon a Physical account and he that reads Fienus de Viribus Imaginationis and Sir
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
instituted and statuminated Nature is his Law and his Institution and the connexion of natural Effects to their natural Causes is his Institution his Law his Order And therefore we do neither deny a Law of Nature or a connexion between natural Causes and Effects but that which we justly blame in these Men that pretend themselves to be the great Priests of Nature and admirers and adorers of it is 1. That they do not sufficiently consider and observe that this which they and we call Nature and the Law of Nature and the Power of Nature is no other but the wise instituted Law of the most wise powerful and intelligent Being as really and truly as an Edict of Trajan or Justinian was a Law of Trajan or Justinian Sic parvis magna and 2. That they do not warily distinguish between that first Law in rebus constituendis and this second Law of Nature in rebus constitutis but inconsiderately misapply that Law and Rule and Method which is ordinary and regular constituted and fitted and accommodate to Nature already setled as if the same were and ought to be necessarily the Rule and Law in the first formation and setling of things which is an Errour that proceeds from the over-much fixing of our Minds to that which in the present course of things is obvious to Sense and not adverting that the first Constitution and Order of things is not in Reason or Nature manageable by such a Law which is most excellently adequated and proportioned to things fully setled Therefore besides that Law which the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness hath fixed in Nature fully statuminated we must also suppose a Law and Order of the Divine Wisdom not rigorously bound either to second Causes or present stated Methods in the first production of things And this the due Consideration of the different nature of the state of things in fieri and in facto esse will easily perswade that the most wise God that hath established a fixed regular ordinary Law in things already setled which he rarely departs from yet used another kind of order namely the regiment of his own Will and Wisdom and if I may with humility speak it a dictatorian power more accommodate to the first production of things And thus much for the comparison between the Mosaical and Philosophical Theories touching things and the great advantage and preference of the former as most suitable to the true nature state and reason of things And now I draw towards a conclusion of this long Discourse and shall therefore in the last place give an account of those Consectaries Consequences and Corollaries which are evidently deducible from this Consideration of the Origination of Mankind by the immediate Efficiency of this Supreme Intelligent Being Almighty God and indeed principally for the sake of these Consequences and Corollaries hath all been written that precedes in this Book and it is the Scope End and Use of the whole Book which I shall absolve in the next Chapter CAP. VII A Collection of certain evident and profitable Consequences from this Consideration That the first Individuals of Humane Nature had their Original from a Great Powerful Wise Intelligent Being I Now come to that upon which I had my Eye from the first Line that was written touching this Subject namely the Consequences and Illations that arise from this great Truth contained in these Conclusions 1. That Mankind had an Original of his Being ex non genitis 2. That this Origination of Mankind was neither casual nor meerly natural 3. That the Efficient of Man's Origination was and is an Intelligent Efficient of an incomparable Wisdom and Power First therefore we have here a most evident sensible and clear conviction of a Deity and a confirmation of Natural Religion which consists principally in the acknowledging of Almighty God to be a most perfect Eternal Being of infinite Wisdom Goodness and Power and a due habitude of Mind Life and Practice arising from that Principle It hath been commonly observed that the particular or instituted Religions since the Creation have had their Proofs by Miracles which were as it were the Credentials to subdue the Minds of Men to assent to it Thus the instituted Religion of the Jews given by the hand of Moses was confirmed by the great Miracles done by God by the hand of Moses in Egypt and in the Wilderness and the Christian Religion had its Confirmation by the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles who did wonderful things beyond the reach and power of created Agents or Activities which were therefore Miracles such as were governing of the Winds and Seas healing of the Sick by a touch or word raising the Dead c. But it is farther said That Almighty God never used Miracles to evidence the truth of his own Existence Power Wisdom Goodness or for the establishing of Natural Religion or the confuting of Atheism But I take it that there are really as many Miracles for the evincing of the truth of Natural Religion viz. the Existing of Almighty God as there are Works in Nature For although it be a great truth that the Laws of Nature as the Positions of the Heavenly and Elementary Bodies their Motion Light Influence Regularity Position propagation of Vegetables Animals Men and the whole Oeconomy of the Universe is by the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness setled in a regular course so that now we call things Natural and Works and Laws and Order of Nature and being so setled and fixed cease to be Miracles yet in their first Institution and Constitution they were all or many Miracles Works exceeding the activity of any created or natural power and accordingly ought to be valued and really are so and it is nothing else but their commonness and our inadvertence and gross negligence that hinders the actual estimate of them as great and wonderful Miracles As I have often said if at this moment all the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies should cease or there should be a general stop of the Propagation of Animals Vegetables or Men if Mens Reason should generally fail them and for the most part they should become like Brutes if the Light of the Sun were darkned or the great Luminous or Planetary Bodies should bulge and fall foul one upon the other or that disorder or confusion should generally fall upon the Works of Nature and break that excellent Order that now obtains among them we should be full of admiration of such a Change and account them Miraculous And the reason is because the sense of the Change is at present incumbent upon us and we cannot choose but take notice of them as strong unusual miraculous Prodigies When all this while Natures course holds regularly the Wonder and Miracle is ten times greater in the state of things as they now stand than it would be in such a discomposure of Nature The Motion and Light and Position and Order of the Heavenly and Elementary Bodies is a greater
will they suppose it a Norma Rule or Law of a most excellent frame and order and indeed in so conceiving they conceive truly that Nature is such a Law or Rule but still this doth not explicate the Phaenomena of Nature without supposing somewhat more A Law or Rule is not in it self effective or active neither can it subsist or exist without an Agent that either gave it or works by or according to it The Laws of a State are the Rules of its Government but this Law must be given by some Power and some Power there must be that must act according to it otherwise a Law is a stupid dead unactive and unconceivable thing And therefore a Law or Rule singly explicates not any the Phaenomena of Nature without a Being that gives this Law to things or acts or makes things act according to it and then we are in a great measure where Moses brings us only with this difference the Law by which this great World was made was no other but the Determination and Beneplacitum of the Divine Will determined or qualified if we may use that improper word with the highest and most sovereign Wisdom and Power And the Law by which things thus made were for the future to be governed was that instituted Rule and Order which this Sovereign Lord contrived and placed in created Beings and thus indeed Opus naturae est opus intelligentiae Nature therefore may have these various acceptations viz. 1. As it signifies that Principium activum that gave every thing its Being and thus it imports no other than Almighty God that Supreme Intelligent Being though improperly called Nature viz. Natura narans 2. As it imports the Things or Effects principated or effected by this intelligent active Principle or the Effects or Creatures of God or Natura naturata and this hath a double import viz. i. For the first and immediate Productions of that Principle namely not only created Matter which was the Productum primo primum but also the things first produced in their several kinds or natures or Producta secundo prima as the first Vegetable Animal and Humane Individuals or 2. For those Mixtions and Productions which afterwards had their productions in the World by successive mixtions and generations which include all Productions which though in relation to their dependence and first production of their kind are still the Creatures of God yet in relation to their immediate Causes are productions of second Causes 3. As it imports the Law and Rule and Method and Order of the production and government and process of created Beings and this of two kinds 1. The Law and Rule of the first Creation or Production of Beings as the production of the first Individuals of Animals Vegetables and Men and herein though Almighty God proceeds with admirable Wisdom and Order yet he used no other Law or Rule than the immediate Determination of his own most wise and perfect Will suitable to the Business he had in hand wherein there was necessary and fit another kind of Regiment and Order than was afterwards instituted 2. The Laws or Rules instituted and appointed by the same most wise God to things already constituted this is the common and ordinary and regular Law of instituted Nature and these two Laws or Rules were different and necessary that they should be so In the first Constitutions of Beings God Almighty proceeded by a Law suitable to that Work namely according to the wise Counsel of his own Will that was best and fittest for that Work he proceeded more suddenly and by the immediate interposition of his own Power the Vegetables constituted in a moment or very speedily and within the compass of a Day came to their full and perfect maturation and growth so also did the Fowls and Fishes and Brutes and Man without any considerable mora between their first formation and complement or individual perfection But the Law instituted for things already formed and setled was of another kind Vegetables Animals and Men are in the Laws of their future existence to pass through those gradations and steps and methods which we see now in use for the formation production increase and perfection thereof Again in the first production of things though sometimes the wise God used in some measure the order of second or instrumental or effective Causes yet he bound not himself to that Rule though as we have formerly observed the instrumentality of Heat might be used in separating the Expansum and the arefaction of the Earth and the production of Vegetables and though the instrumentality of the perfected Celestial Bodies might be some way instrumental towards the maturation of Nature towards the production of Animals and though he used the Matter which he had created to be the substratum of the Corporeal Natures even of Man himself yet the great Energy and Power whereby he compleated all things was above and beyond the activity of second Causes yea when he used the instrumentality of second Causes his own Powerful and Omnipotent Hand was engaged in the advancing of the efficacy of the second Causes which he used beyond their natural strength and efficacy there was much that was supernatural and miraculous as well in the first separation distribution and formation of things as in the first Creation of the Corporeal Matter out of nothing But in the succeeding process and procedure of created Nature he fixed and established certain powers and activities in things and a certain order and connexion between them and their effects and governed and regulated the motions and productions of things according to those implanted powers and connexions and this we call the instituted Law of Nature namely the activities and powers placed in created Beings and the mutual connexions and concatenations of things to such activities and powers which Law was at first instituted by the God of Nature to be the common and standing ordinary Rule for things setled and fixed in their created station And therefore we are far from denying a Law of Nature or Calling in the immediate efficiency of the great God or a miraculous interposition in all the ordinary procedures of things already fully setled and statuminated by the first Divine Efficiency That which we only say in relation to Nature already setled is but this that 1. The primitive and fundamental powers and activities of things were placed in them by the immediate Will and Efficiency of God it is this that gives the power to Heat and Fire to dissolve dissipate rarifie and consume to Cold to condense to heavy Bodies to descend to all the Celestial Bodies their Motions Influences and Positions that gave the Generative Faculty to Men to Brutes to Fishes the Productive Faculty to the Earth and Waters the Receptivity to Semen and Intellection c. 2. That he by a continuing Influx doth support and preserve all things in their being order and activity 3. That this which we call the Law of