same thing as many others do that call them forms when they speak of vegetatives And what if by substances Telesius mean the same that Pemble doth by accidents Is not the world then troubled with ambiguitie of words He that will consider them well may suspect that they mean as I conjecture An active power or principle being the chief cause of operations alterations and discrimination is the thing that they all mean by all these names And the followers of Democritus especially Gassendus and Cartesius do not improbably argue that it is some substantial being which maketh that change or effect upon our senses which as there received is a quality So that unless Mr. Pemble can better tell us what lux calor are than by calling them Qualities he hath given the understanding no satisfaction at all Much less when he nakedly asserteth without any proof that sensation doth not superare naturam primarum qualitatum that are none of them sensible themselves And when he hath no other answer to this argument but that non minus miranda sunt in inanimatis which he giveth not one instance or word to prove When Aristotle c. Scaliger Sennertus and abundance more have said much to the contrary I conclude that for all that is here said and whether you call them our forms or not as you may or may not in several senses humane souls are those parts of man which are simple pure invisible active powerful substances and therefore being not annihilated must needs subsist in their separated state OBJECTION IV. THe Soul is material and consequently mortal because it dependeth upon matter in its operations and consequently in its essence Answ 1. I have proved already that if you did prove the soul material you had not thereby at all proved it mortal unless you mean only that it hath a posse mori vel annihilari which may be said of every creature for simple matter which hath no repugnant parts or principles hath not only a posse nen mori but an aptitude in its nature ad non moriendum Remember your friends that make the world or matter at least to be eternal They thought not that materiality was a proof of either annihilation or corruption Object If it be material it must be compounded of matter and form and therefore is corruptible Answ True if that matter and form were two several substances and were one repugnant to the other The soul and body are different substances but the metaphysical matter and form of the soul being but the genus differentia are not two substances much less repugnant and therefore have never the more a tendency to corruption 2. The soul useth matter and dependeth no otherwise on it than its instrument It doth not follow that a man is a horse because he dependeth on his horse in the manner of his riding and his pace nor that I am inanimate because in writing I depend on my pen which is inanimate If you put spirits of wine into water or whey as its vehicle to temper it for a medicine it doth not follow that the spirits are meer water because they operate not without the water but conjunct and as tempered by it If the fire in your Lamp do not shine or burn without the oil but in manner and duration dependeth on it it doth not follow that fire is annihilated when the candle is out or that it was but oil before no nor that it ceaseth to be fire afterwards as Gassendus must needs confess who holdeth that the Elements are not turned into one another § 1. l. 3. c. 2. Fire ceaseth not to be fire when it goeth out of our observation The noblest natures use and rule the inferiour God himself moveth and useth things material and yet is not therefore material himself Yea if motus be in patiente recipitur ad modum recipientis you may conjecture how far God's own operations upon the creatures may be called dependent as to the effect as being ad captum modum creaturae And the Sun doth move and quicken all passive matter here below ad modum recipientis with great variety through the variety of the matter and yet it followeth not that the Sun is it self such passive matter 3. The soul hath operations which are not upon matter at all though matter may possibly be an antecedent occasion or prerequisite Such is the apprehension of its own intellection and volitions and all that it thence gathereth of God and other intellectual natures and operations of which I must say more anon OBJECTION V. NO immaterial substance moveth that which is material as a principle of its operations but the soul moveth the body as the principle of its operations Ergo. Answ 1. I have already said that if you proved the soul material it would not prove it mortal 2. As the body hath various operations so it is moved by various principles or powers As to locomotion and perhaps vegetation the materia subtilii or finest atoms as you will call it or the fiery matter in the spirits as I would call it is an active being which hath a natural power to move it self and the rest But whether that motion do suffice to sensation is undecided But certainly there is another inward principle of motion which guideth much of the locomotive and over-ruleth some of the natural motion by a peculiar action of its own which is called Intellection and Volition as I have proved before When I go to the Church when I write or talk the spirits are the nearest sufficient principle of the motion as motion but as it is done in this manner to this end at this time with these reasons it is from the intellectual principle 3 And thus I deny the major Proposition And I prove the contrary 1. God is the first principle of all motion in the world and the first cause of material motion and yet is not material 2. What the lower and baser nature can do that the higher and nobler hath power to do suppositis supponendis therefore if a body can move a body a soul can do it much more But saith Gassendus Causis secundis primum agendi principium est Atomorum varia mobilitas ingenita non incorporea aliqua substantia Answ Angels are causae secundae souls are causae secundae animated bodies of men are causae secundae prove it now of any of these in your exclusion if you can But he saith Capere non licet quomodo si incorporeum sit ita applicari corpori valeat ut illi impulsum imprimat quando noque ipsum contingere carens ipsa tactu seu mole quae tangat non potest Physicae actiones corporeae cum sint nisi à principio physico corporeoque elici non possiut Quod anima autem humana incorporea cum sit in ipsum tamen corpus suum agat motumque ipsi imprimat dicimus animam humanam qua est
intellectus seu mens atque adeo incorporea non elicere actiones nisi intellectuales seu mentales incorporeas Et quum est sentiens vegetans praeditaque vi corporum motrice atque adeo corporea est elicere actiones corporeas c. And of Angels and Devils he saith That it is known by faith only that they are incorporeal and perhaps God gave them extraordinary bodies when he would have them move or act on bodies To this I answer 1. Who gave those atoms their ingenite mobility and how You say that captum omnem fugit ut quippiam aliud moveat si in seipso immotum maneat If so then it seemeth that either God was moved when he moved atoms or that he never moved them How then came they to be moved first But you confess that God put into them their mobility You say De Deo alia ratio est quoniam infinitae virtutis cum sit vâ—ique praesens non ullo sâ—i motu sed nutu solo agere movere quidlibet potest If you think not as you speak it is unworthy of a Philosopher if you do then it is strange that you should overthrow your own reasoning and excuse it no better than thus If the reason why incorporeal spirits cannot move bodies be that which you alledge because only a body can be applied to a body to make impression on it then God can less move a body than man's soul can because his purest essence is more distant from corporeal grossness than our souls are At least the reason would be the same And to say that God is every where and of infinite vertues maketh him nevertheless a Spirit and created spirits if that be enough may have power or vertue enough for such an effect Doubtless if God move bodies the spirituality of an agent hindereth not the motion 2. But why should it captum omnem superare that a nobler and more potent nature can do that which a more ignoble can do Because I cannot know how a spirit by contact can apply it self to matter shall I dream that therefore it is uncapable of moving bodies Clean contrary I see that matter of it self is an unactive thing and were it not that the noble active element of fire which as a lower soul to the passive matter and a thing almost middle between a spirit and a body did move things here below I could discern no motion in the world but that which spirits cause except only that of the parts to the whole the aggregative motion which tendeth to rest The difference of understandings is very strange it is much easier to me to apprehend that almost all motion should come from the purest powerful active vital natures than that they should be all unable to stir a straw or move the air or any body OBJECTION VI. THe soul is in our sleep either unactive as when we do not so much as dream or acteth irregularly and irrationally according to the fortuitous motion of the spirits Ergo it is no incorporeal immortal substance Answ 1. I suppose the soul is never totally unactive I never awaked since I had the use of memory but I found my self coming out of a dream And I suppose they that think they dream not think so because they forget their dreams 2. Many a time my reason hath acted for a time as regularly and much more forcibly than it doth when I am awake which sheweth what it can do though it be not ordinary 3. This reason is no better than that before answered where I told you that it argueth not that I am a horse or no wiser than my horse because I ride but according to his pace when he halteth or is tired Nor doth it prove that when I alight I cannot go on foot He is hard of understanding that believeth that all the glorious parts of the world above us have no nobler intellectual natures than man Suppose there be Angels and suppose one of them should be united to a body as our souls are we cannot imagine but that he would actuate it and operate in it according to its nature as I write amiss when my pen is bad The same I say of persons Lethargick Apoplectick Delirant c. OBJECTION VII REason is no proof of the soul's immateriality because sense is a clearer and more excellent way of apprehension than Reason is and the bruits have sense Answ 1. I have said enough to the case of Bruits before 2. The soul understandeth bodily things by the inlet of the bodily senses Things incorporeal as I shall shew more anon it otherwise understandeth When it understandeth by the help of sense it is not the sense that understandeth any thing If Bruits themselves had not an Imagination which is an Image of Reason their sense would be of little use to them We see when by business or other thoughts the minde is diverted and alienated how little sense it self doth for us when we can hear as if we never heard and see and not observe what we see yet it 's true that the more sense helpeth us in the apprehending of things sensible which are then objects the better and surely râ—w perceive them by the understanding As the second and third Concoction will not be well made if there be a failing in the first so the second and third perception â—n the Phantasie and Intellect will be ill made if the first deceive or fail them But this proveth not either that the first Concoction or Perception is more noble than the third or that Sensitives without Reason have any true understanding at all or that Sense Phantasie and Reason are not better than Sense alone But these things need not much disputing If Sense be nobler than Reason let the Horse ride the man and let the Woman give her milk to her Cow and let Bruits labour men and feed upon them and let Beasts be your Tutors and Kings and Judges commit to them the noblest works and give them the preeminence if you think they have the noblest faculties OBJECTION VIII SEnsation and Intellection are both but Reception The passiveness therefore of the Soul doth shew its materiality Answ A short answer may satisfie to this Objection 1. All created Powers are partly passive how active soever they be For being in esse operari dependant on and subordinate to the first Cause they must needs receive his influence as well as exercise their own powers As the second wheel in the Clock must receive the moving force of the first before it can move the third 2. It is an enormous error about the operations of the Soul to think that Intellection yea or Sensation either is meer Reception and that the sensitive and intellective power are but Passive The active Soul of Man yea of Bruits receiveth not its object as the mark or butt receiveth the arrow that is shot at it It receiveth it by a similitude of
fiery nature of the semen of the Sun and of the calor naturalis telluris are generally the same and by their agreeableness do meet in co-operation for generation 8. Herein all three as conjunct are the cause of Life as Life the Sun the seed and the calor telluris communicating conjunctly what in their natures they all contain that is an active nature having a power by motion light and heat to cause vegetation and its conjunct effects But the calor motus solis and the calor telluris are but universal causes of life as life but the virtus seminalis is both a cause of life in genere and a specifying cause of this or that sort of Plants in specie the reason why e. g. an Oak an Elm a Rose-tree and every plant is what it is in specie being to be fetch'd from the seed alone and the Creator's will 9. Though the seed be the chief or only specifying cause why this is Adeantum and that Betonica and that Calendula c. yet the Sun and Earth the universal causes do contribute much more to the life as life than the seed it self 10. This fiery or solar active nature is so pure and above the full knowledge of mortals that we have no certainty at all whether in all this generative influx it communicate to vegetatives from it self a pre-existent matter and so draw it back to it self again by circulation or whether it do only by the substantial contact of its active streams cherish and actuate and perfect the substance which it findeth in semine materiâ passivâ or whether per influxum virtutis it operate only by that which is commonly called Quality without any communication or contact of substance 11. In all this operation of the Solar or fiery nature in generation it is quid medium between the passive matter and the animal nature and is plainly an image of the animal nature and its operations so like it that it hath tempted many to ascribe all animal operations only to the Solar or fiery nature and hath caused wise men to doubt whether this nature be to be numbred with things corporeal or incorporeal and to place it between both as participating in several respects of both 12. If the sensitive nature be really above or specifically different from the fiery we may in what is said conjecture much at the order of the generation of things sensitive viz. by a three-fold cause co-operating one specifying and two universal and cherishing The specifying is the virtus seminalis maris foeminae conjunct and of neither alone the same God which bless'd the single seed of a plant with the gift of multiplication bless'd only the conjunct seeds of male and female animals with that gift The superiour universal cause is either some anima universalis ejusdem naturae or God immediately By an Anima universalis I mean not an anima totius mundi but of that superiour vortex or part which this earth belongs to Either this is the Sun or some invisible soul If it be the Sun it is not by its simple fiery nature before mentioned because sensation seemeth to be somewhat totâ specie different from motion light and heat and then it must prove that the Sun is compound and hath a superiour form and nature which either formaliter or eminenter is sensitive and that by this it is that it animateth inferiour sensitives But of this we mortals have no certainty It seemeth very improbable that a worm or flie should have a nature superiour to any that the Sun hath but probabilities are not certainties there are things highest and things lowest in their several kinds But remember that if it should be the Sun it is by that nature superiour to fire by which it doth it The maternal universal Cause of the sensitive life is the Mother Whether the spirits of a sensitive Creature have more in them than the spirits of a Plant and do more by nutrition than cause Vegetation whether they nourish sensitive Life as such is doubtfull But if they do so they be but an universal and not a specifying Cause that is the Cause of Life as Life but not of the vita bovis equi canis felis aquilae qua talis And therefore if the late-discovered trick of passing all the blood of one animal into another be prosecuted to the utmost tryal possibly it may do much to the advantage of Life and Sense as such but never to the alteration of the species to turn a Dog into a Swine or any other sort of Animal 13. Whether the sensitive nature be most refined-corporeal or totally incorporeal is past the reach of man to be assured of 14. The foresaid difficulty is greater here than in the Vegetative Generation viz. Whether in the multiplication of sensitive souls there be an addition of substance communicated from the Universal Causes or a greater quantity or degree of matter physical or metaphysical propagated and produced into existence by generation than there was before It seemeth hard to say that a pair of Animals in Noahs Ark had as much matter or substance in their souls as the millions since proceeding from them But whether such souls have quantitive degrees or by what terms of gradation the souls of millions are distinct from one besides the number or whether God in the blessing of multiplication hath enabled them to increase the quantity of matter which shall serve for so many more forms are things which we cannot fully understand 15. In the like manner we may rise up and conceive of the Generation of Mankind We are sure that he hath an intelligent nature much nobler than the sensitive And we know that homo generat hominem And we know that in his Generation there is an Vniversal Cause and a specifying Cause for though there be but one species of men yet there are more of Intelligences and that one may have an Vniversal Cause producing that and other effects and an Univocal special Cause We know that because he is Generated the specifying Cause is the fecundity or propagating power of the Parent generating a separable seed which seed in conjunction as aforesaid suppositis supponendis is semen hominis and is man seminally and virtually but not actually that is Hath both Passive and Active Power and virtue by reception of the influx of the universal Cause to become a man The universal inferior or feminine Cause is the Mothers Body and Soul or the whole Mother in whom the Infant is generated and cherished I call it Vniversal For it is only the semen that specifieth And therefore by a false or bruitish semen a woman may produce a Monster The Vniversal Paternal Cause is certainly GOD ut prima and it is probable also ut sola For he made Mans Soul at first by that immediate communication which is called Breathing it into him And the Intellectual nature though specified into Angels and Men is the
is such a thing as Justice due from man to man for the preservation of these Rights and Order and it 's injustice to violate them This is confessed by all the World that look for Justice from others And if it be not maintained the world will be as in a continual Warre or Robbery But better grounds and proofs of it will be mentioned anon § 8. Therefore there is a difference between good and evil as respecting the benefit or hurt of others beside that which respecteth men as to themselves Those that think they are bound to avoid hurting no man but themselves or for themselves nor to do good to any but themselves or for themselves have so far obliterated the Laws of Humanity and so openly renounce the benefits of Society and bid defiance to Mankinde that I suppose them so few that I need not dispute against them Nor have I ever met with any defender of so inhumane a Cause whatever may be in their hearts and practice § 9. Nature teacheth Parents to educate their children in sobriety obedience justice and charity and to restrain their contraries Did Parents make no difference between their Childrens temperance and gluttony drunkenness and unchastity between their obedience and disobedience and contempt of their own authority between actions of Justice and Charity and actions of falshood robbery cruelty and inhumanity what a degenerate thing would Mankinde prove even Cannibals exercise some government over their Children § 10. The means which Nature teacheth all the World to suppress iniquity and promote well-doing is by Punishments and Benefits that it may turn to the hurt of the evil-doer himself and to the benefit of the Well-doer Thus Parents do by Children yea Men by Beasts on the account of Prudence though not of Justice Without Punishments and Rewards or Benefits Laws are ridiculous or deceits and Government is nothing § 11. For the just and effectual performance of this nature teacheth the World to set up Governments that by setled Laws and righteous Judgement it may be rightly done Though better principles should acquaint men with the nature and necessity of Government yet these are so obvious to all the world that for their own preservation together with some natural sense of justice the most barbarous Nations that are nearest unto bruits are for some Civil Government besides Oeconomical Government which none but mad-men ever question'd § 12. By this Government the Liberty Estates and Lives of offenders are destroyed for the ends of the Government viz. for Justice and the common good That this is so de facto is so undeniable that even those Heathens the supposed relicts of the Pythagoreans who will not kill a harmless beast will yet kill those men who deserve to die And if Government had not the power over the Liberties Estates and Lives of offenders it could not preserve the Liberties Estates and Lives of the innocent § 13. The combination of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of the Individuals and the Eminency of these in the Governours is the cause of the order strength and safety of these humane societies All the parts are in the combination to contribute to the good of the whole and that according to the nature of the parts it is not a heap of stones nor a forest of trees nor a heard of cattle which we are speaking of but an association of men which must be promoted and blessed by the worth and duty of the individuals and this consisteth in the perfections and right exercise of their Power Intellects and Wills But as the place of the Governour requireth more of the exercise of these than is requisite in any individual else so doth it therefore require that these be in him in greater eminency and excellency than in others viz. that in himself he excel in wisdom and goodness and by his interest in the people that he excel in power or strength Take away power and Societies are indefensible exposed to the will of enemies and unable to execute their Laws upon their own offenders and so to attain the ends of their association and government Take away wisdom and they are a rout of Ideots or mad-men and government can be none at all Take away goodness and they are as a company of Devils or confederacy of Robbers or pernicious enemies who can neither trust one another nor promote the common good but are fit to destroy and be destroyed § 14. By all this it is manifest that MAN is not only a living Wight having Power Intellect and Will and Dominion over inferiour things as their Owner Ruler and End but also is a sociable Wight or fitted for society where Government is exercised by Power Wisdom and Goodness which are his perfections I have looked thus long at the things that are seen as nearest me and most discernable before I proceed to the Cause which is unseen CHAP. IV. Of Man and other things as produced by their first Cause § 1. I Was not always what I am It is not yet sixty years since I was no man I had a late beginning and though I now enquire not of what duration my soul is my present composition is not from eternity the same I see of others that are born men who were lately none and so of all things that are here generated § 2. I did not make my self at least as an independent uncaused being I could not as I am make my self what I am for so my self as the cause should be before my self as the effect which is a contradiction unless the word self be used equivocally When I was not I acted not If it be said by any that the Soul did fabricate a Body to it self and so one part of me made the other I answer 1. My soul did not make the matter of that Body for if it did it made it of something or of nothing if of something either it made that something or not if not then it made not the first matter of the Body If it made it of nothing it must be Omnipotent but it is conscious of impotency 2. My soul did not make it self for then it must be before it self which is impossible And if I made neither form nor matter I did not make my self If it be said that my Soul is an eternal uncaused being and so did fabricate this Body as a dwelling for it self I answer 1. As to the supposed fabrication it is conscious it self of no such thing And if my Soul made my body either it was as a causa subministra vel instrumentalis by the direction and power of a superiour cause or else of and by it self as the prime cause If the first then it is a caused and dependent being it self and so leadeth us to a higher cause If the second be affirmed and so my Soul an eternal uncaused independent being then 1. That which is without beginning cause and dependency must needs be
self-sufficient and be the highest excellency it must have an infiniteness and need no help from any other But my Soul is conscious of imperfection in knowledge its ignorance is its burden and dishonour it knoweth not so much as is here asserted of it self it knoweth no such perfections or operations it knoweth little comparatively of the Universe or of any particular thing in it If it were an eternal uncaused independent Being it need not all the helps of evidence and argument in this dispute Moreover it is conscious of imperfection in Goodness and defilement of Evil it is defective in governing this flesh which could never be able to make me a sinner or culpable if it were animated with an uncaused independent being Moreover I am conscious of impotency in every thing that I go about a thousand difficulties pose and stall me a thousand things I would do and cannot and as many I would have and cannot whereas an uncaused independent mind should necessarily have an uncaused independent power and wisdom and goodness and so should at least partake of infiniteness in all And if my Soul did thus fabricate my Body then what needed it pre-existent Matter to make it of And why did it not make it sooner seeing it hath such an inclination to it Can an independent Mind be ignorant what it was and what it did it self from all eternity before it entred into this flesh And why doth it not amend the infirmities of this Body or why did it not make it self a Body more excellent more comely more sound more clean and more durable Could it choose no better can it not heal and perfect this can it not prevent the dissolution of it Seeing I find it so much in love with it and so unwilling to be separated from it if it were an independent mind and caused it at the first it would not be unwillingly taken from it and leave it to rottenness and dust And if my Soul did thus independently make my Body did all other Souls do so by their Bodies or not If they did not then they had a superiour Cause if they did then it seems that every Worm and Fly and Toad hath a Soul that is an eternal uncaused independent being But why then have they no knowledge no reason no speech why did they not choose a more honourable dwelling why do they all stoop to the service of man if they are equally excellent And then it would follow that there are as many eternal independent beings as there are Souls or living Wights in all the world And so instead of one true perfect God there would be innumerable demi-gods which all had the perfection of independencies and none of them had a perfection of being and sufficiency which would put us upon the further enquiries whether they do all their business independently or by a general council and consent and how they all do to agree and not fall into perpetual wars how the soul of an ideot or a wicked man or of a Toad or Serpent came to be so self-denying as to be contented with that part when the Soul of Aristotle and Seneca and Paul were so much better provided for And if all this were so who made the things inanimate that have no souls of their own to make them For my part I made them not And my Soul is conscious that it is a dependent being that cannot illuminate it self nor know what it would know nor be what it would be nor do what it would do nor can support its body or it self an hour It looketh dependently to something higher for help and protection and supply and mercy and is past all doubt that it is no God If it be said that all Souls are but one even parts of the universal Soul of the World and that individuation is by Matter only and that so though my Soul be not the whole first cause and being it is a part of it I answer 1. I note by the way that this hypothesis acknowledgeth that which I am searching after viz. that there is a God and it asserteth higher things of man than I am proving viz. That he hath not only an immortal Soul but a Soul that is part of God himself 2. And according to this the Soul of every Heliogabalus Sardanapalus Ideot or Toad should be part of God 3. And then all souls should be alike if all be God the Soul of a murderer and of him that is murdered of a Nero and a Saint yea of Caesar and of his Dog And how then cometh there so much enmity between them and so great disparity why is one wise and another foolish or bruitish and one the Ruler of the other The Soul of a Bird or Horse seemeth to be lodged in as good a kind of matter as Mans or at least the Soul of a Nero in as good a matter as the Soul of Paul or at least the Soul of one that turneth to villany from virtue hath the same matter which it had before And certainly it is not matter that principally individuateth but forms Nor is the difference between good men and bad and between Men and Serpents or Beasts so much in Matter as in the Soul Moreover Nature teacheth all men to seek felicity and fear infelicity and calamity which they need not do nor could not do if they were all parts of God God cannot be miserable but Man can as to his Soul as well as his Body and the misery of his Body is little to that of the Soul even in this life God cannot be evil but the Soul may be vitiated and evil as experience teacheth God may not be punished or afflicted but a wicked man may be punished and afflicted even in his mind or Soul and a Magistrate will not think when he hangeth a thief that he either punished bare flesh or that he punished God Moreover God can wrong no man but one man may wrong another God need not fear doing any thing amiss but the Soul of man must fear it No part of God can be so unhappy as to choose to be a Toad or a wicked or miserable man God hath no Body but so have these Souls else when men eat a plant or bird or any flesh they eat part of the Body of God Moreover I find that it is Bodies only that are Quantitative or Extensive and so divisible into parts many parts of one Body may be animated by one Soul but not by many parts of that one Soul except the Soul be material it self But why may some object may I not hold that all the Orbs being one world or one Body of one informing Soul which is God and so that really those which you call individuals are but parts of this one animated world Answ This is confuted by what is said Whether the world be animated by one universal Soul we are not now enquiring But that God is not this informing Soul is
if God brought them forth for his own Perfection it would follow that he was before imperfect and consequently not God and that his Perfections are mutable and perishing Therefore at least some other cause of these must be found out And as for the similitudes in the objection I answer 1. That the fructifying of a Tree is an act of Generation and the ends of it are partly the use for food to superiour sensitive Creatures especially man and partly the propagation of its species because it is mortall Fructification is indeed its perfection but that is because it is not made for it self but for another Sic vos non vobis may be written upon all But God is neither mortall needing a propagation of the species nor is he subservient to any other and finally for its use And as for the Soul it made not the matter of its own body but found it made though in the formation of it it might be so efficient as domicilium sibi fabricare But God made all matter of nothing and gave the World whatsoever it is or hath And therefore was Perfect himself before For an imperfect being could never have been the cause of such a frame Therefore he needed no domicilium for himself nor as an imperfect Part a form to concurr to the constitution of a whole But he is the efficient dirigent and final cause of the World and all things but not the constituent or essential for then the Creature and Creator were all one and God debased and the Creature deified But he is to them a supra-essential cause even more than a form and soul while he is a total efficient of all 3. If all that is in the Objection had been proved it would not at all shake the main design of my present discourse which is to prove that God is our Grand Benefactor and Chief Good and that he is mans ultimate end For if the World were his Body and he both its Efficient and its Soul he would be the cause of all its Good and the Cause would be more excellent than the Effect And if our Souls that never made the matter of our Bodies are yet the noblest part of us and far more excellent than the Body much more would God that made or caused all the Matter and Order in the World be more excellent than that World which he effected And as the Soul is not for the Body as its ultimate end though it be the Life of the Body and its great Benefactor but the Body is finally more for the Soul though the Soul need not the Body so much as the Body needeth the Soul and as the Horse is finally for the Rider and not the Rider for the Horse though the Horse needeth his Master more than the Master doth the Horse for the Horses life is preserved by the Master when the Master is but accommodated in his Journey by his Horse Even so though the World need God and he needeth not the World and God giveth being and life to the World which can give nothing at all to him yet the World is finally for God and not God for the World The noblest and first Being is still the End And the generated part of the World which is not formally eternal but doth oriri interire is it that our dispute doth most concern which the Objection doth no whit invalidate § 5. The same Will of God which was the free efficient is the End of all his Works ad extra Gods Essence hath no Efficient or final Cause but is the efficient and final cause of all things else They proceeded from his Power his Wisdom and his good-will and they bear the Image of his Power Wisdom and Good-will and he loveth his own Image in them and loveth them as they bear his Image and loveth his Image for Himself So that the act of his Love to Himself is necessary though voluntary and so is the act of his Love to his Image and to all the Goodness of the Creature while it is such But he freely and not necessarily made and continueth the Creature in his Image and needeth not the Glass or Image being self-sufficient so that his Creature is the mediate Object his Image on the Creature is the ultimate created Object his own perfections to which that Image relateth is the objectum simpliciter ultimatum his complacency or love is the Actus ultimus and that very act is the object of his precedent act of Creation or volition of the Creatures But all this is spoken according to the narrow imperfect capacity of man who conceiveth of God as having a prius posterius in his acts which is but respectively and denominatively from the order of the objects In short Gods free-will is the Beginning of his works ad extra and the complacency of that will in his works as Good in relation to his own perfections is the END And therefore he is said to Rest when he saw that all his works were Good § 6. Whatsoever is the fullest expression and Glorifying demonstration of God in the Creature must needs be the chief created excellency Because he loveth Himself first and the Creature for Himself And seeing the Creature hath all from him which is good and amiable in it it must needs follow that those parts are most amiable and best which have most of the impression of the Creators excellencies on them Not that he hath greater Perfections to imprint on one Creature than another but the impression of those Perfections is much greater on one than on another § 7. The Happier therefore God will make any Creature the more will be communicate to it of the Image and demonstration of his own goodness and so will both love it the more for his own Image and cause it to love him the more which is the chief part of his Image § 8. The Goodness of God is conceived of by our narrow mindes in three notions as it were in three degrees of altitude The Highest is The infinite perfections of his Essence as such The second is The infinite perfection of his Will as such which is called His Holiness and the Fountain of Morality The third is that one part of his Wills perfection which is his Benignity to his Creatures which we call his Goodness in a lower notion as relative to our selves because he is inclined by it to Do us good This is his Goodness in condescention § 9. Though all this is but one in God yet because our mindes are fain to receive it as in several parts or notions we may therefore not only distinguish them but compare them as the Objects of our Love § 10. Man usually beginneth at the lowest and loveth God first for his Benignity and Love to us before he riseth to the higher acts And this is not an irregular motion of a lapsed Soul in its return to God so be it we make haste in our
in its proper evidence is very hard to them that have no more than the light of nature Obj. But what difficulty is there in these few precepts that all men may not easily learn them Thou shalt love God above all and repent of sin and set thy heart upon the Life to come and love thy neighbour as thy self c. Answ There is no difficulty in learning these words But 1. There is great difficulty in learning to understand the sense and certain truth of that which is contained in them To know what God is so far as is necessary to our obedience and love and to know what it is in him which is so amiable and to know that there is a Life to come and what it is and to know what is God's will and so what is duty and what is the sin which we must repent of these are more difficult Generals are soon named but it is a particular understanding which is necessary to practice 2. And it is hard to see that certainty and attractive Goodness in these things as may draw the mind to the practical embracements of them from the love of other things An obscure doubtful wavering apprehension is not strong enough to change the heart and life § 4. These difficulties in the meer natural way of Revelation will fill the learned world with controversies and those controversies will breed and feed contentions and eat out the heart of practical godliness and make all Religion seem an uncertain or unnecessary thing This is undoubtedly proved 1. In the reason of the thing 2. And in all the worlds experience so numerous were the controversies among Philosophers so various their Sects so common their contentions that the world despised them and all Religion for their sakes and look'd on most of them but as Mountebanks that set up for gain or to get Disciples or to shew their wit Practical piety died in their hands Obj. This is a consequent not to be avoided because no way hath so resolved difficulties as to put an end to controversies and sects Answ Certainly clearness is more desirable than obscurity and concord and unity than division Therefore it concerneth us to enquire how this mischief may be amended which is it that I am now about § 5. These difficulties also make it so long a work to learn God's will by the light of Nature only that the time of their youth and oft of their lives is slipt away before men can come to know why they lived It is true that it is their own fault that causeth all these inconveniencies but it s as true that their disease doth need a cure for which it concerneth them to seek out The life of man is held upon a constant uncertainty and no man is sure to live another year and therefore we have need of precepts so plain as may be easily and quickly learnt that we may be always ready if death shall call us to an account I confess that what I have transcribed from nature is very plain there to one that already understandeth it but whether the diseased blindness of the world do not need yet something plainer let experience determine § 6. That which would be sufficient for a sound understanding and will is not sufficient to a darkned diseased mind and heart such as experience telleth us is found throughout the world To true reason which is at liberty and not enthralled by sensuality and error the light of nature might have a sufficiency to lead men up to the love of God and a life of holiness But experience telleth us that the reason of the world is darkned and captivated by sensuality and that few men can well use their own faculties And such eyes need spectacles such criples need crutches yea such diseases call for a Physician Prove once that the world is not diseased and then we will confess that their natural food may serve the turn without any other diet or Physick § 7. When I have by natural Reason silenced all my doubts about the Life to come I yet find in my self an uncouth unsatisfactory kind of apprehension of my future state till I look to supernatural evidence which I perceive is from a double cause 1. Because a Soul in flesh would fain have such apprehension as participateth of sense 2. And we are so conscious of our ignorance that we are apt still to suspect our own understandings even when we have nothing to say against the conclusion What I have said in the first part of this Book doth so fully satisfie my Reason as that I have nothing to say against it which I cannot easily discern to be unsound and yet for all that when I think of another world by the help of this natural light alone I am rather amazed than satisfi'd and am ready to think All this seemeth true and I have nothing of weight to say against it but alas how poor and uncertain a thing is man's understanding how many are deceived in things that seem as undeniable to them How know I what one particular may be unseen by me which would change my judgment and better inform me in all the rest If I could but see the world which I believe or at least but speak with one who had been there or gave me sensible evidence of his veracity it would much confirm me Sense hath got so much mastery in the Soul that we have much ado to take any apprehension for sure and satisfactory which hath not some great correspondency with sense This is not well But it is a disease which sheweth the need of a Physician and of some other satisfying light § 8. While we are thus scopt in our way by tediousness difficulty and a subjective uncertainty about the end and duty of man the flesh is still active and sin encreaseth and gets advantage and present things are still in their deceiving power and so the Soul groweth worse and worse § 9. The Soul being thus vitiated and perverted by sin is so partial slothful negligent unwilling superficial deceitful and â—usâ—dâ—n in its studies that if the evidences of life everlasting besâ— and clear and satisfying to others it will over-look them or not perceive their certainty § 10. Though it be most evident by common experience that the nature of man is lamentably depraved and that sin doth over-spread the world yet how it entred and when or which of our progenitors was the first transgressor and cause no natural light doth fully or satisfactorily acquaint me § 11. And though Nature tell me that God cannot damn or hate a Soul that truly loveth him and is sanctified yet doth it not shew me a means that is likely considerably to prevail to sanctifie Souls and turn them from the love of present transitory things to the love of God and Life eternal Though there be in nature the discovery of sufficient Reasons and Motives to do it where Reason is not
these whose Souls are material and mortal Answ 1. It is easie for men that set themselves to say all they can either with Mr. Chambre to extol the bruits as rational or with Gassendus to talk of the whispers and consultations of the Ants or with Telesius and Campanella to say that every thing hath sense or on the other hand with Cartesius to deny all to a bruit which belongeth not to an engine But our converse with them doth teach all men to judge of their natures as between both these extremes unless by study and learning they learn to know less than they did before and do but study to corrupt their understandings and obliterate things that are commonly known I doubt not but the Minerals have something like life and the Vegetatives have something like to sense and the Sensitives have something like to reason but it doth not follow that therefore it is the same But this is so copiously written of by very many that I supersede my further labour about it 2. If it were so that the apprehensions of a bruit might be called Reason or Intellection yet the difference betwixt it and humane Intellection is so great as may easily prove to those that have their reasons in free use that they are several species of creatures made for several uses and ends And none of the twenty Arguments which I used are at all debilitated by this If a bird have reason to build her nest and to feed her young yet she hath none to build Cities and Castles nor to use Navigation nor any of the Arts much less to set up Government by Laws and to write Systems of Philosophy and other Sciences and least of all to enquire after God the cause of all things or to hope for blessedness in another life or to escape a future misery or to be ruled in this life by the interest of another Beasts think not of God nor of loving him seeking him pleasing him or enjoying him or of being judged by him I know the perverse wrangler will ask me How I know this And I can answer him no better than thus As I know that a Stone doth not see or feel or that my Paper doth not talk because they manifest no such thing And these are all operations which they that exercise are apt to manifest and things that in their nature are unapt to be long hid Campanella who hath written de sensu rerum to prove Bruits Rational and Plants sensible hath yet in his Atheismus Triumphatus written more for the excellency of humane nature and the Souls immortality than any Infidel can soundly answer 3. And how prove you that the Souls of Bruits exist not after death Of their Individuation we shall say more anon But there is no part of their substance annihilated as you will confess Nor any part of it abased below the same nature which it had in the composition Only the constituting parts are separated retaining their several natures still All men that confess that Bruits are sensible do confess that there is some one predominant part in their composition which is the principal cause of sense whether it be the finest Atomes or the materia subtilis or globuli coelestes or Elementary Fire or Aristotles quintessence analogous to the coelestial Starry substance or yet an incorporeal soul whatever it is it is not annihilated nor the nature of the simple essence destroyed 4. And here let me venture to tell you once for all that I never found cause to believe that any mortal man is so well acquainted with the true difference between a Corporeal and an Incorporeal substance as to tell us certainly wherein it doth consist and to lay the stress of this Controversie upon that difference I know what is said of Moles extensio partes extra partes of divisibility and impenetrability and so on the contrary side But how much of this is spoken in the dark Are you certain that no true matter is penetrable If you say that which is so we call not Matter and so make the Controversie de nomine only intelligible I must pass it by And are you sure that no matter is indivisible And that no spiritual incorporeal substance is quantitative extended or divisible It now goeth for current that Light is a Body And Patricius that so judgeth doth take it to be indivisible in longitudine radiorum and to be penetrable and that it can penetrate other bodies And it 's hard to be sure that Diaphanous bodies are not penetratrated by Light I know Gassendus and others think that it passeth but through the pores of the Glass or Chrystal But I have heard of no Engyscope that hath perceived pores in Glass In Cloth they are certainly discernable and large and numerous when yet the Light doth not penetrate it as it doth the Glass Gassendus saith the reason is because the pores of the Glass and other diaphanous bodies are all one way so that the Light is not intercepted by their irregularity And he giveth us a proof of his opinion because that if you set white Papers on each side the Glass there will be umbels on one side and light reflected on the other I have oft tried and see indeed abundance of such umbels But I as plainly see that they all answer the Squilts or sanded faults that are in the Glass the bigger sort of which are all as visible as the shades And surely all the rest of the Glass is not pores or nothing And if the pores lie all one way how cometh it to pass that a Glass of water or a Ball of Chrystal is equally perspicuous every way Look which way you will it is all alike Therefore it must be every way equally porous But I would know whether we have any atomes smaller than the body of Light which thus penetrateth the Glass and Chrystal I think they all make it the most subtile matter And yet Gassendus thinketh that they are Bodies and such as have their hamuli too which flow from the Load-stone to the Iron And if so then those Bodies must be more penetrating than Light For they will pass through a brick wall and operate by their attraction on the other side where no light can pass And whether the Air be penetrable by Light is scarce well cleared or understood They that think there is no Vacuum I think with Gâ—ssendus can never prove that there can be any motion unless the Air or some bodies are penetrable Let them talk of a Circulation with Cartesius as long as they will some body must cedere before the next can move And no one can give way till the motion or cession begin at the utmost part of the coporeal world My understanding is past doubt that there must be an inane or a penetration And yet on the other side I am satisfied that Entity is the first excellency and that something is better than nothing And
pars inteligibilis of a being as without the form But that is not the common acception of it nor is it then fit for the place assigned it in ordine praedicamentali From all this I am not about to injure any mans understanding by building my Conclusions upon any questionable grounds I do but right your understandings so far as to remove all uncertain foundations though they be such as seem to be most for the advantage of my Cause and are by most made the great reasons of the Souls Immortality And it is not my purpose to deny that as Angels are compounded ex genere differentiâ so the generical nature of Angels greatly differeth from the nature of Corporeal things As God can make multitudes of corporeal Creatures formally or specifically different of the matter of one simple Element only as Air or Fire without material mixture so he can either make an Element of Souls either existent of it self of which he will make Individuals yea species formally divers or else existent only in the species and individuals as he please But then we must say that as fire and air and water do differ formally as several Elements so the spiritual Element or general Nature hath a formal difference from the Corporeal called the Material But hence it will follow 1. That Angels and humane Souls have a double form as some use to call it that is Generical as Spirits which is presupposed as the aptitude of their Metaphysical matter by which they differ from bodies and specifical by which they are constituted what they are and differ among themselves unless you deny all such formal difference among them and difference them only by individuation and accidents as several drops or bottles of water taken out of the same Sea 2. And it will seem plain that our differencing characters or properties between Spirits and Bodies must be sought for in their different forms which must be found in the noble operations which flow from the forms and not from uncertain Accidents Therefore my design in all this is but to intimate to you how lubricous and uncertain and beyond the reach of mans understanding the ordinary characters from such Accidents are and that its better fetch the difference from the Operations Saith Georg. Ritschel Contempl. Metap c. 6. pag. 40 43. Difficile est rebus materialibus immersis substantiam immaterialem concipere Et licet pro certo non constet an Menti Angelicae omnis simpliciter Materialitas repugnet certum tamen est elementarem nostram ab illis abesse atque Divinam Essentiam ab omni esse materia secretam aeterna ejus immutabilis habitudo convincit nisi per materialitatem fortè substantiam intelligas § 15. Dubium quidem nullum est immaterialem Mundum essentiarum varietate Intelligibilium aequè admirabilem augustum esse atque Mundum corporeum videmus sed in quo illa consistat diversitas bonis indicio certo non percipitur Nimirum si praeter te lumbricum atque scarabaeum animal aliud nullum vidisses audires autem esse alia innumera genera diversitate naturae forma penitus discrepantia tum vagas quidem confusasque de diversitate volvere cogitationes posses non posses autem illas tot bestiarum piscium reptilium avium species suo vultu coloribus signare Ita quid spiritus sit immaterialis ex te capere qui Mentem immaterialem habes qualemcunque notitiam potes non potes autem in te perspicere in quo precise illa varietas consistat To come neerer to the application of what is said to the present Objection 1. The Souls of Men and Bruits we see do not differ in genere entis nor in genere substantiae nor in genere principii vitalis nor in genere sentientis 2. The matter of both whether it differ as Metaphysical and Physical or how is much beyond our knowledge 3. The great diversity of Operations doth shew the great diversity of their Powers and forms and inclinations 4. This sheweth the diversity of their uses and ends for which they were created 5. It is certain that no substantial Principle in either of them is annihilated at death The Souls of Bruits have the same nature after death as they had before and the Souls of men have the same nature as before They are not transformed into other things 6. Therefore about both of them there is nothing left of doubt or controversie but only 1. About the perpetuated Individuation 2. The future Operations and so the habits viz. 1. Whether the Souls of men or bruits or both do lose their individuation and fall into some Vniversal Element of their kinde 2. Whether they operate after death as now There is nothing else about their Immortality that common Reason can make a question of And for the Souls of Bruits whether they remain Individuate or return to a common Element of their kinde is a thing unknown to us because unrevealed and unrevealed because it is of no use and concernment to us Our own case concerneth us more and therefore is more made known to us by God As will further appear in that which followeth OBJECTION III. HVmane souls are but forms and forms are but the qualities or modes of substances and therefore accidents and therefore perish when separated from the bodies Answ The world of learned men do find themselves too much work and trouble others with controversies about names and words and especially by confounding words and things and not discerning when a controversie is only de nomine and when it is de re And they have done so about forms as much as any thing The word form is usually liable to this ambiguity In compounded beings it is sometime taken for the active predominant part or principle and sometimes for the state which resulteth from the contemperation of all the parts Which is the fittest to be called the form is but a question de nomine Gassendus himself confesseth this ambiguity of the word and having pleaded that all forms except man's intellectual soul are but modes or qualities of bodies and accidents He addeth § 1. l. 6. c. 1. Si formae nomine spiritum quendam quasi florem materiae intellexeris cujusmodifere concipimus animam in equo tum forma dici potest substantia immo corpus tenuissimum quod crassius pervadat perficiat regat At si formae nomine intelligatur dispositio ac modus quo tam substantia illa spirituosior quam crassior reliqua se habet ad quam facultates actionesque naturales consequuntur tum posse Qualitatem conseri ac dici Whether the souls of bruits be only the spirits or the flos materiae or not it is granted by him and by almost all men that in mixt bodies there is one part more subtil than the rest which is the most active powerful predominant part and which doth corpus
neerest to GOD that we have any knowledge of And therefore Reason will not teach us to look to any intermediate universal or superiour Cause because there is no created superiour Nature to the Intellectual And it 's absurd to goe to the Inferior to be the Cause of the superior If any will needs think that under God there is some Vniversal Intellect not of the whole Universe for that 's plainly improbable but of our Systeme or Vortex they must take it to be some Angelical Intelligence as Aristotle or the Sun No man can prove either of these to have any such office And for the Sun it is certain that it is not possible unless it self be an Intelligence And though to humane Reason it seem very likely that so glorious a corporeal Nature as the Sun should not be destitute of as noble a form as a lump of Clay a humane body doth possess that so there may be a proportion in Gods works between the nobility of matter and form yet all this to man is utterly uncertain nor doth any man know whether the Luminaries are animated with either sentient or intelligent Souls or not He that most confidently asserteth either and scorneth the Contradicter doth but tell you that he is ignorant of his ignorance But if it should prove true as many of the Fathers thought and Mammertus ubi supra asserteth that Angels have fiery Bodies which they animate and so that the Sun is animated with an Intelligence it would not follow that as fiery or as sensitive but only as intellective it were a subordinate universal Cause of compleat humane Generations and that Sol Homo generant hominem save only quoad Corpus which is but secundum quid But that God is the Vniversal Cause is unquestionable whether there be any subordinate or not 16. And here it is no wonder if the doubts arise which were in the cases of the forementioned Generations Whether God as the universal cause produce new-metaphysical matter for new forms Whether millions of Souls since generated have not more such metaphysical matter than the soul of Adam and Eve alone How Souls may be said to have more or less such matter or substance Whether he educe all Souls è virtute foecunditate primarum by giving them a power without any division or diminution of themselves to bring forth others by multiplication and so cause his Creature to participate of his own foecundity or power of causing Entities c. But such difficulties as these which arise not from uncertainties in Theology but are the meer consequents of the imperfection of humane Intellects and the remoteness depth and unrevealedness of these mysterious works of God should turn no man from the holding of other plain revealed truths As that man generateth man that God is the chief specifying Cause by his first making of man and giving him the power and blessing of propagation which he still maintaineth and with which he doth concurre That Man is the second specifying Cause in the exercise of that power of Generation which God gave him That God is the chief universal Cause and to the production of an Intellectual nature as such doth unspeakably more than man That the mother as cherishing the semen utriusque Parentis is the maternal universal Cause c. We know not fully how it is that one Light causeth a thousand without division or diminution of it self and what it is that is caused de novo It is easie to say that it is but the motion of one part of the atomes or materia subtilis moving another which was all pre-existent But few men that can see through a smoke or dust of atomes will believe that the Sun and other fiery bodies which shew themselves so wonderfully to us by Motion Light and Heat have no peculiar Nature Power or Virtues to cause all this but meer magnitude and figure And that those Corpuscles which have so many hundred degrees of magnitude and figures should not fall into as many hundred such Bodies as we call Elements rather than into two or four Suppose which we may ad verum exquirendum that there were no more Fire in the Universe than one Candle It having the same nature as now it hath that Candle would turn Cities and all combustible matter into Fire But of the Generation of man quoad animam I referre the Reader to Sennertus his Hypomnemata to omit all others And now I would know what there is in Generation that should be against the Immortality of the Soul will you say it is because the Soul hath a Beginning I have answered before that so have all Creatures Is it because it proveth the Soul material 1. If it did I have shewed that you your selves hold a perpetuity of matter 2. But it doth not so If you say that Incorporeal Spirits generate not I answer That is but a naked unproved assertion If you say that Angels do not I answer that 1. that is not because they are unable or unapt if God thought it fittest for them nor 2. can any man prove de facto whether they do or not Christ saith They marry not but he saith not whether they at all propagate their species or not I know the negative is taken for certain and I say not that it is not true but that it is not certain not at all known and therefore an unfit supposition to argue from against the Immortality of the Soul And I must confess that for my part as I have oft read Formae se multiplicant and that the Fire can more multiply or encrease it self than Earth and as I know that the more noble any Nature is the more like it is to God and therefore more potent more active more fecund and productive so I should farr rather think that the Angelical Nature can propagate it self than the Humane if God had not told me the later and said nothing pro or contra of the former And therefore make no doubt but if it do not which no man knoweth it is not because things material are more able but for other reasons unknown to us Whether because God will have this lower World to be the Nidus vel Matrix Coelorum and the Seminary of Heaven and all multiplication to be here or what it is we know not But if it be on the other side concluded that the whole substance of a Soul doth proceed directly and immediately from God it doth make no great alteration in this case or any of the coincident cases about humane propagation if you consider 1. That it is impossible that there should be any substance which is not totally from God either immediately or mediately And that what is said to be mediately from Him hath in it as much of his Causation as if there were no medium For God is not a partial Cause but a total in suo genere and he is as neer to the effect as if there were no
to a soul when it is separated from the corporeal spirits Or if the soul out of the body were as liable as it is by diseases of the body while it is in it to the loss of memory yet all those arguments which prove the Life of Retribution hereafter do fully prove that God will provide it a way of exercise and prevent all those hinderances of memory which may make his Judgment and Retribution void Again therefore I say To argue ab ignotis against clear evidence in matters that our own everlasting joy or sorrow is concerned in so deeply is a folly that no tongue can express with its due aggravations OBJECTION XX. THe belief of the immortality of souls doth fill men with fears and draw them to superstition and trouble the peace of Kingdoms by unavoidable sects in the prosecution of those things which are of such transcendent weight when otherwise men might live in quietness to themselves and others and in promoting of the publick good Answ This is the maddest objection of all the rest but in our days there are men found that are no wiser than to make it I have answered it fully in divers popular Treatises as that called A Saint or a Bruit c. 1. The greatest and best things are liable to the worst abuses Thus you may argue against Reason that it doth but fill mens brains with knavish craft and enable them to do mischief and to trouble the world and to live themselves in cares and fears c. Upon many such reasons Cotta in Cic. de Nat. Deor. doth chide God for making man a rational creature and saith he had been happier without it And were it not for this wit and reason we should have none of these evils which you have here now mentioned Why then is not reason as well as Religion on that account to be rejected On the same reason Philosophy and Learning may be accused as it is with the Turks and Moscovites What abundance of sects and voluminous contentions and tired consuming studies have they caused witness all the volumes of Philosophers and School-men On the same account you may cry down Kings and Civil Government and Riches and all that is valued in the world for what wars and bloudshed hath there been in the world for Crowns and Kingdoms what hatred and contention for honour and wealth If you could make all men swine they would not stir for gold or pearls or if they were dogs they would not fight for Kingdoms and if they be blind and impious worldlings they will not be zealous about Religion unless to dis-spirit it and to reduce it to the service of their fleshly interest which is the hypocrites zeal No man will contend for that which he valueth not But 2. Consider that though dogs will not fight for Crowns they will fight for bones and some times need men of reason to stave them off And though swine fight not for gold they will fight for draff and burst their bellies if they be not governed And though unbelievers and Atheists trouble not the world to promote Religion they set Families Towns and Countries and Kingdoms together by the ears for their worldly pelf and fleshly interest Enquire whether the wars of the world be not most for carnal interest even where Religion hath been pretended and hearken in Westminster-hall and at the Assizes whether most of the contendings there are such as are caused by Religion or by the love of the world and of the flesh And where Religion seemeth to be a part of the cause it is the Atheists and ungodly that are commonly the chief contenders who think it not enough to hope for no life to come themselves but they cannot endure other men that do it because they seem wiser and better and happier than they and by their holiness gall their consciences and condemn them 3. The extremity of this objections impudency appeareth in this above all that it is most notorious that there is no effectual cure for all the villanies of the world but true Religion and shall the cure be made the cause of that disease 1. Read and judge in Nature and Scripture whether the whole matter of Religion be not perfectly contrary to the vices of the world Will it trouble Kingdoms or disquiet souls to love God above all and to honour and obey him and be thankful for his mercies and to trust his promises and to rejoice in hope of endless glory and to love our neighbours as our selves and to do no injustice or wrong to any to forbear wrath and malice lust adultery theft and lying and all the rest expressed in this treatise 2. Is it not for want of Religion that all the vices and contentions of the world are Would not men be better subjects and better servants and better neighbours if they had more Religion Would not they lie and deceive and steal and wrong others less Do you think he that believeth a life to come or he that believeth it not is liker to cut your purse or rob you by the high way or bear false witness against you or be perjured or take that which is not his own or any such unrighteous thing Is he liker to live as a good subject or servant who looketh for a reward in heaven for it or he that looketh to die as a beast doth Is he liker to do well and avoid evil who is moved by the effectual hopes and fears of another life or he that hath no such hopes and fears but thinketh that if he can escape the Gallows there is no further danger Had you rather your servant that is trusted with your estate did believe that there is a life to come or that there is none Nay why doth not your objection militate as strongly against the thief's believing that there will be an Assize For if the belief of an Assize did not trouble him he might quietly take that which he hath a mind to and do what he list but this fills his heart with fears and troubles 3. Compare those parts of the world Brasil and Soldania c. which believe not a life to come if any such there be with those that do and see which belief hath the better effects 4. What is there of any effectual power to restrain that man from any villany which he hath power to carry out or policy to cover who doth not believe a life to come 5. And if you believe it not what will you do with Reason or any of your faculties or your time How will you live in the world to any better purpose than if you had slept out all your life What talk you of the publick good when the denying of our final true felicity denyeth all that is truely Good both publick and private But so sottish and malignant an objection deserveth pity more than confutation Whatever Religious persons did ever offend these men with any reall Crimes I can assure
before disproved In point of efficiency we grant that he is as the Soul of Souls effecting more than Souls do for their Bodies but not in point of Constitution He is much more than the Soul of the world but is not formally its Soul But 2. Those men that will think so must acknowledge that as they take the Horse and the Rider to be both parts of God and the Child and the Father and the Subject and the Prince and the Malefactor and the Judge and the flagitious wretch and the best of men so it is no other membership than what consisteth with the difference of moral good and evil of wise and foolish of Governours and Subjects of Rewards and Punishments of Happiness and Misery which are the things that I am seeking after But so few lay this claim to Deity that I need no further mind them § 3. My Parents were not the first cause of my being what I am As each Individual cannot be the first Cause of it self so neither can their Parents for they do not so much as know my frame and nature nor the order and temperature of my parts nor how or when they were set together nor their use or the reason of their location And certainly he that made me knew what he did and why he did it in each particular My Parents could not choose my sex nor shape nor strength nor qualifications § 4. The world which I see and live in did not make it self As Men and Beasts and Trees and Stones did not make themselves so neither did they joyn as concauses or assistants in the making of the whole nor did any one of them make the rest nor did any of the more simple substances called Elements make themselves neither the passive Elements or the active the Earth the Water the Air or the Fire For we know past doubt that nothing hath no power or action and before they were they were not and therefore could not make themselves Nor can they be the first cause of mixt bodies because there is that exceeding wisdom most apparent in the generation production nature and operations of these Bodies which these Elements have not § 5. The visible world is not an uncaused independent Being For all the generated parts we see do oriri interire they have a beginning progress decay and end And the inanimate parts having less of natural excellency than the living cannot infinitely exceed them in the excellency of Deity as uncaused and independent And we see that they are all dependent in their operations They shew in the order of their beings and action that incomprehensible wisdom which is not in themselves the Earth the Sea the Air and Winds are all ordered exactly by a Wisdom and a Will which they themselves are void of Besides they are many and various but their order and agreement sheweth that it is some One universal Wisdom and Will which ruleth them all and if they are dependent in operation they are certainly dependent in being And had they that excellency to be uncaused and independent they would have had therewith all other perfections which we see they want and they would not have been many but one in that perfection § 6. The first universal Matter is not an uncaused independent being If such there be its inactivity and passiveness sheweth it to want the excellency of independency and the ordination of it into its several beings and the disposals of it there is done by a principle of infinite power activity and wisdom on which having this dependence in its ordination and use it must be dependent also in its being § 7. If it were doubtful whether the world were eternal and whether it were the Body of God as the informing Soul yet it would be past doubt that it is not uncaused or independent but caused by God That the world is not eternal we want not natural evidence for saith Lullius then there would be two Eternals the Cause and its Effects and then all things would be caused by natural necessity and not by free will and consequently always alike and then there hath been Evil eternally and both the caused Good and the Evil would in all other aggravations be answerable to Eternity and the Evil would be as soon as great as durable as the good The same world which is finite in good and evil and other respects would be infinite in Eternity and the evil would have an infiniteness in point of Eternity and this necessitated by the eternity of the world And seeing no individuals are eternal the supposed eternity of the world must be but of some common matter or only intentional and not real The corporeal part having quantity is finite as to extension and therefore cannot be infinite in duration In Eternity then there is no time no prius posterius but in the world there is Much more is said by many but this is not my present task I shall say more of it afterward But if it were doubtful whether the world were not eternally the Body of God yet would it be undoubted still that he caused it And that there were the difference of a cause and an effect in order of nature though not in duration As if a Tree or a mans body were supposed eternal yet the root and spirits of the Tree and the principal parts and spirits in mans body would be the causal parts on which the rest depend § 8. It remaineth therefore most certain that something is a first Cause to all things else and that he is the Creator of all things For if the world be not uncaused and independent it hath a Cause and if it have a Cause it hath a Creator For when there was nothing but himself he must make all things of Himself or of Nothing not of Himself for He is not Material and they are not parts of God who is indivisible He that thinks otherwise should not kill a Flea or a Toad nor blame any man that beateth or robbeth or wrongeth him nor eat any creature because he doth kill and blame and eat a part of God who is unblameable and can injure none and is to be more reverenced § 9. If there were any doubt whether the Sun or Fire or passive matter had a first Cause there can be no doubt at all concerning MAN which is the thing which I am enquiring into at the present For every one seeth that Man hath his beginning and confesseth that it is but as yesterday since he was not and therefore hath a Cause which must be uncaused or have a Cause it self if the latter then that Cause again is uncaused or hath a Cause it self And so we must needs come at last to some uncaused cause § 10. If any second Cause had made Man or the World yet if it did it but as a caused Cause it self would lead us up to an uncaused Cause which is the first Cause of
To consider the innumerable number of the Orbs the multitude of the Fixed Stars which may be called so many Suns and to think of their distances magnitude powers orders influences communications effects c. and how many millions of these for ought we know there may be besides those which are within our sight even though helped by the most perfect Telescopes it striketh the Soul with unspeakable admiration at the Power that created and maintaineth all this When we think of the unconceivable rapid orderly perfect constant motions of all these Orbs or at least of the Planets and circumjacent bodies in every Vortex All these thoughts do make the Deity or first Being to be just to the mind as the Sun is to the eye the most Intelligible of Beings but so Incomprehensible that we cannot endure to gaze too much or near upon his glory § 27. Whether the whole world be animated or inanimate Whether the whole have one constitutive Soul or not Whether each Orb have its particular Soul or not are things unrevealed and beyond the Certain knowledge of the natural mind But it is certain that the first Being is not the proper constitutive Form or Soul of the world but yet that he is much more to it than such a Form or Soul even the total perfect first Cause of all that it is and hath and doth He is not the constitutive Form or Soul of the Universe as it seems Cicero with the Academicks and Stoicks thought because then the Creator and the Creature should be the same or else the Creature should be nothing but dead passive matter and then Man himself who knoweth that he hath a Soul would either be God which his experience and the conscience of his frailty forbiddeth him to imagin or else he should be a Creature more noble than the Universe of which he is so small a part which his reason forbiddeth him also to believe But yet that God is much more to the world than a constitutive Soul is undeniable because he is the creating Cause which is more than a constitutive Cause and his continued causation in its preservation is as a continued creation As in Man the Soul is a dependent cause which can give nothing to the Body but what it hath received nor act but as it is acted or impowered by the first efficient And therefore though we call not God the Soul of Man because we would not so dishonour him nor confound the Creator and the creature yet we all know that he is to us much more than the Soul of Souls for in him we live and move and have our being So also it is as to God's causation of the Being Motion and Order of all the world God is incomparably more to it than its Form as being the total first Cause of Form and Matter To be the Creator is more than to be the Soul § 28. The glory of all being action and order in the creatures is no less due to God when he worketh by means than when he worketh by none at all For when no Means is a Means nor hath being aptitude force or efficacy but from himself he onely communicateth praise to his creatures when he thus useth them but giveth not away the least degree of his own interest and honour for the creature is nothing hath nothing and can do nothing but by him It useth no strength or skill or bounty but what it first received from him therefore to use such means can be no dishonour to him unless it be a dishonour to be a communicative Good As it is no dishonour to a Watch-maker to make that Engine which sheweth his skill instead of performing all the motions without that little frame of means But yet no similitude will reach the case because all creatures themselves are but the continued productions of the Creator's will and the virtue which they put forth is nothing but what God putteth into them And he is as neer to the effect when he worketh by means as when without § 29. Those that call these three faculties or Principles in the Divine Essence by the name of three Hypostases or Persons do seem to me to speak less unaptly than the Schools who call Deum seipsum intelligentem the Father and Deum ut a se intellectum the Son and Deum a se amatum the Holy Ghost For that in God which is to be conceived of us by Analogy to our essential faculties is with less impropriety called an Hypostasis or Person than that which is to be conceived by us in Analogy to our actus secundi or receptions § 30. And those that say the first faculty Omnipotency as eminently appearing in the frame of Nature may therefore be said to be specially therein personated or denominated the Creating Person speak nothing which derogateth from the honour of the Deity § 31. Though we cannot trace the vestigia the adumbration or appearances of this Trinity in Vnity through the whole Body of Nature and Morality because of the great debility and narrowness of our Minds Yet is it so apparent on the first and most notable parts of both as may make it exceeding probable that it runneth in perfect method through them all if our understandings were but able to follow and comprehend that wonderfull method in the numerous minute and less discernable particulars I shall now give no other instance than in two of the most noble Creatures The Soul of Man which is made after Gods Image from whence we fetch our first knowledge of him hath in the unity of a living Spirit the three foresaid faculties of vital and executive Power Vnderstanding and Will which are neither three species nor three parts nor three accidents of the Soul But three faculties certainly so far distinct as that the Acts from whence they are denominated really differ and therefore the faculties differ at least in their Virtual Relation to those acts and so in a well-grounded denomination To understand is not to will for I understand that which I have no will to even against my will for the Intellect may be forced Therefore the same Soul hath in it the virtue or power both of understanding and willing and so of executing which are denominated from the different acts which they relate to There is some Reason in the powers virtues or faculties of the real difference in the acts So in the Sun and all the superior Luminaries there is in the unity of their Essence a Trinity of Faculties or Powers 1. Motiva 2 Illuminativa 3. Calefactiva causing motion light and heat The doctrine of Motion is much improved by our late Philosophers when the doctrine of Light and Heat are so also and vindicated from the rank of common accidents and qualities the nature of the Luminaries and of Fire will be also better cleared The Sun is not to these Powers or Acts either a Genus a Totum or a Subjectum
kept it out of the world and saved the Individuals from it will confess that man's interest is not the Measure of God's goodness especially considering what consequents also follow sin both here and hereafter 3. And as to this lower part of the Vniverse how many Nations of the Earth are drown'd in woful ignorance and ungodliness how few are the wise and good and peaceable When God could have sent them Learning and Teachers and Means of Reformation and have blessed all this Means to their deliverance So that the far greater part of this lower world hath not so much good as God could give them and the infirmities of the best do cause their dolorous complaints It is certain that God is infinitely good and that all his works also are good in their degree but withall it is certain that God in himself is the Simple Primitive Good and that created goodness principally consisteth in a conformity to his Will which is the standard and measure of it § 16. God as considered in the Infinite Perfections of his Nature and his Will is most Amiable and the object of our highest love § 17. But he is not known by us in those Perfections as seen in themselves immediately but as demonstrated and glorified expressively in his works in which he shineth to us in his goodness § 18. His works therefore are made for the apt revealing of himself as amiable to the intelligent part of his Creation They are the Book in which he hath appointed us to read and the Glass in which he hath appointed us with admiration to behold the Infinite power Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator and in which we may see that he is not only our Chief Benefactor but the Vltimate Object of our Love and so the End of all our Motions § 19. This third Relation of God to us as our Chief Good efficiently and finally is the highest and most perfective to us but is not separated from the former two but they are all marvelously conjunct and concur in the production of most of the subsequent effects of Gods providence As the Elements are conjuct but not confounded in mixed bodies and in themselves are easily to be distinguished where they are not divided and their effects sometimes also distinct but usually mix'd as are the causes so is it in the case of these three Great Relations though God's Propriety extend further than his Government because Inanimates and Bruites are capable of one and not of the other yet as to the Rational Creatures they are in reality of the same extent God is as to Right the Owner and the Ruler of all the world and also their real Benefactor and quoad debitum their ultimate end But as to consent on their parts none but the godly give up themselves to him in any one of these Relations In order of Nature God is first our Owner and then our Ruler and our chief Good or End His work in the first Relation is Arbitrary Disposal of us his work in the second is to Govern us and in the third Attraction and Felicitating But he so Disposeth of us as never to cross his rules of Government and so governeth us as never to cross his absolute Propriety and attracteth and felicitateth us in concent with his Premiant act of Government and all sweetly and wonderfully conspire the perfection of his works § 20. All these Relations are oft summed up in one name which principally importeth the last which is the persective Relation but truly includeth both the former and that is That GOD is Our FATHER As the Rational Soul doth ever include the Sensitive and Vegetative Faculties so doth God's Fatherly Relation to us include his Dominion and Government A Father is thus a kind of Image of God in this Relation For 1. he hath a certain Propriety in his children 2. He is by nature their rightful Governour 3. He is their Benefactor for they are beholden to him for their being and well-being Nature causeth him to love them and bindeth them again to love him And the Title OVR FATHER which art in Heaven includeth all these Divine Relations to us but specially expresseth the Love and Graciousness of God to us Obj. But I must go against the sense of most of the world if I take God to be infinitely or perfectly good for operari sequitur esse He that is perfectly good will perfectly do good But do we not see and feel what you said before The world is but as a wilderness and the life of man a misery We come into the world in weakness and in a case in which we cannot help our selves but are a pity and trouble to others we are their trouble that breed us and bring us up we are vexed with unsatisfied desires with troubling passions with tormenting pains and languishing weakness and enemies malice with poverty and care with losses and crosses and shame and grief with hard labour and studies with the injuries and spectacles of a Bedlam world and with fears of death and death at last Our enemies are our trouble our friends are our trouble our Rulers are our trouble and our inferiours children and servants are our trouble our possessions are our trouble and so are our wants And is all this the effect of perfect Goodness And the poor Bruits seem more miserable than we they labour and hunger and die at last to serve our will we beat them use them and abuse them at our pleasure And all the Inanimates have no sense of any good and which is worst of all the world is like a Dungeon of ignorance like an Hospital of mad-men for folly and distractedness like a band of Robbers for injury and violence like Tygers for cruelty like snarling Dogs for contention and in a word like Hell for wickedness What else sets the world together by the ears in wars and bloudshed in all generations what maketh peace-makers the most neglected men what maketh vertue and piety the mark of persecution and of common scorn how small a part of the world hath knowledge or piety And you tell us of a Hell for most at last Is all this the fruit of perfect Goodness These thoughts have seriously troubled some Answ He that will ever come to knowledge must begin at the first Fundamental Truths and in his enquiry proceed to lesser Superstructures and reduce uncertainties and difficulties to those points which are sure and plain and not cast away the plainest certain truths because they over-take some difficulties beyond them The true method of enquiry is that we first try whether there be a God that is perfectly Good or not If this be once proved beyond all controversie then all that followeth is certainly reconcilable to it for Truth and Truth is not contradictory Now that God is perfectly Good hath been fully proved before He that giveth to all the world both Heaven and Earth and all the Orbs all that Good whether Natural
leave him under the deserved privation of well-being depriving him of all other Mercies This is undeniable that it is in God's choice whether he will take away his Being it self or only all the Mercies which are necessary to his well-being for he that had nothing before but by free gift may be deprived of any thing which was none of his own if he forfeit it by abuse Nay we live upon such a continued emanation from God as the beams from the Sun that it is but God's stopping of his streams of bounty and we perish without any other taking away of mercies from us § 17. Nature teacheth men to choose a great deal of tollerable pain and misery rather than not be at all even so much as will not utterly weigh down the love of life and of vital operations I say not as some that the greatest torment or misery is more eligible or less odious than annihilation But it is certain that a great deal is We see abundance how ever the Roman and Greek Philosophers scorned it as baseness who are blind or lame or in grievous pains of the Gout and Stone and many that are in miserable poverty begging their bread or toiling from morning to night like horses and yet seldom taste a pleasant bit but joyn distracting cares with labours and yet they are all unwilling to die Custom hath made their misery tollerable and they had rather continue so for ever than be annihilated If then God may annihilate even the innocent supposing he had not promised the contrary then may he lay all that pain and care and labour on them which they would themselves prefer before annihilation For it s no wrong to one that hath his reason and liberty to give him his own choice § 18. It is just with God to lay more misery on a sinner than on one that never deserved ill and to lay more on him for his sin than he would choose himself before annihilation Whether God may without injustice inflict more misery on the innocent than he would himself prefer before annihilation some make a question and deny it For my part I see no great difficulty in the question But it is nothing to that which I am proving it is not God's usage of the innocent but of the guilty which we are speaking of and that he may make them more miserable who deserve it than his bounty made them before any guilt or than a just man would choose to be rather than be annihilated I see no reason at all to doubt Penalty is involuntary and no man ever said that it was unjust to lay more upon a malefactor than he himself was willing of and would choose before a condition which without his fault he might have been put into So then we have already proved 1. That God may punish a man everlastingly 2. And with a greater penalty than annihilation § 19. God may leave a sinner his being and in particular deprive him of his favour and all the joys and blessedness which he refused by his sinning § 20. And he may justly withal deny him those corporal mercies meat drink honour pleasure health ease c. which he over-valued and abused and preferred before God and greater blessings All this I think no man doth deny that acknowledgeth a God § 21. He that is continued in his natural being and is deprived of God's favour and of his future happiness for ever and understandeth what it is that he hath lost and is also deprived of all those natural benefits which he desired must needs be under continual pain of sense as well as of loss for all this want must needs be felt § 22. He that in all this misery of loss and sense doth remember how it was that he came to it and how base a thing he preferred before his God and his felicity and for how vile a price he sold his hopes of the life to come and how odiously he abused God by sin as it is before described cannot choose but have a continual torment of conscience and heart-gnawing repentance in himself § 23. He that is under utter despair of ever coming out of this condition will thereby have his torment yet more encreased All these are natural undeniable consequents § 24. A Body united to so miserable a self-tormenting forsaken Soul cannot have any peace and quietness seeing it is the Soul by which the body liveth and hath its chiefest peace or pains § 25. Thus sin doth both as a Natural and as a Moral Meritorious cause bring on dissatisfaction grief vexation desertion by God and privation of felicity and peace § 26. For as long as a sinner is impenitent and unsanctified that is loveth not God as God nor is recovered from his carnal mind and sin it is both morally and naturally impossible that he should be blessed or enjoy God For as it is only God that efficiently can make happy because nothing worketh but by him and so sin meritoriously undoeth the sinner by making him unfit for favour and making him an object of displicence and justice so it is only God that finally can make happy all things being but Means to him and unfit of themselves to give Rest to the inquisitive seeking mind And God is enjoyed only by Love and the sense of His Love and Goodness therefore the soul that loveth not God and is not suited to the delightful fruition of him can no more enjoy him than a blind man can enjoy the light or an ox can feast with a man § 27. He that is under this punishment and despair will be yet further removed from the love of God and so from all capacity of happiness for he cannot love a God who he knoweth will for ever by penal justice make him miserable He that would not love a God who aboundeth in mercy to him in the day of mercy will never love him when he seeth that he is his enemy and hath shut him for ever out of Mercy and out of Hope § 28. God is not bound to sanctifie the mind and will of such a self-destroying sinner who hath turned away himself from God and Happiness And without a renewed Mind it is morally and unnaturally impossible that he should be happy He that would not use the Mercy that would have saved him in the day of mercy cannot require another life of mercy and trial when this is lost and cast away nor can require the further helps of grace § 29. If sin as sin have all the malignity and demerit before proved much more the aggravated sins of many and most of all a life of wickedness which is spent in enmity against God and Godliness and in a course of sensuality and rebellion with the obstinate impenitent rejecting of all the counsel calls and mercies which would reclaim the sinner and this to the last breath It hath before been manifested that all wilful sin hath this malignity in
Wisdom of the Soul produced by his Light and Wisdom by which we know the difference between Good and Evil and our Reason is restored to its dominion over fleshly sense It is the Goodness of the Soul by which it is made suitable to the Eternal Good and fit to know him love him praise him serve him and enjoy him And therefore nothing lower than his Goodness can be its principal Cause 2. It subserveth the Interest of God in the World And recovereth the apostate Soul to himself It disposeth it to honour him love him and obey him It delivereth up the whole man to him as his own It casteth down all that rebelleth against him It casteth out all which was preferred before him It rejecteth all which standeth up against him and would seduce and tempt us from him And therefore it is certainly his work 3. Whose else should it be Would Satan or any evil cause produce so excellent an effect would the worst of beings do the best of works It is the best that is done in this lower world Would any enemy of God so much honour him and promote his interest and restore him his own would any enemy of mankind thus advance us and bring us up to a life of the highest honour and delights that we are capable of on earth and give us the hopes of life eternal And if any good Angel or other Cause should do it all reason will confess that they do it but as the Messengers or Instruments of God and as second causes and not as the first Cause for otherwise we should make them gods For my own part my Soul perceiveth that it is God himself that hath imprinted this his Image on me and hath hereby as it were written upon me his Name and Mark even HOLINESS TO THE LORD and I bear about me continually a Witness of Himself his Son and holy Spirit a Witness within me which is the Seal of God and the pledge of his love and the earnest of my heavenly inheritance And if our Sanctification be thus of GOD it is certainly his attestation to the truth of Christ and to his Gospel for 1. No man that knoweth the perfections of God will ever believe that he would bless a deceiver and a lie to be the means of the most holy and excellent work that ever was done in the world If Christ were a Deceiver his crime would be so execrable as would engage the Justice of God against him as he is the righteous Governour of the world And therefore he would not so highly honour him to be his chiefest instrument for the worlds Renovation He is not impotent to need such instruments he is not ignorant that he should so mistake in the choice of instruments he is not bad that he should love and use such Instruments and comply with their deceits These things are all so clear and sure that I cannot doubt of them 2. No man that knoweth the mercifulness of God and the Justice of his Government can believe that he would give up Mankind so remedilesly to seduction yea and be the principal causer of it himself For if besides Prophecie and a holy Doctrine and a multitude of famous Miracles a Deceiver might also be the great Renewer and Sanctifier of the world to bring man back to the obedience of God and to repair his Image on Mankind what possibility were there of our discovery of that deceit Or rather should we not say he were a blessed Deceiver that had deceived us from our sin and misery and brought back our straying souls to God 3. Nay when Christ fore-told men that he would send his Spirit to do all this work and would renew men for eternal life and thus be with us to the end of the world and when I see all this done I must needs believe that he that can send down a Sanctifying Spirit a Spirit of Life a Spirit of Power Light and Love to make his Doctrine in the mouths of his Ministers effectual to mens Regeneration and Sanctification is no less himself than God or certainly no less than his certain Administrator 4. What need I more to prove the Cause than the adequate effect When I find that Christ doth actually save me shall I question whether he be my Saviour When I find that he saveth thousands about me and offereth the same to others shall I doubt whether he be the Saviour of the world Sure he that healeth us all and that so wonderfully and so cheaply may well be called our Physician If he had promised only to save us I might have doubted whether he would perform it and consequently whether he be indeed the Saviour But when he performeth it on my self and performeth it on thousands round about me to doubt yet whether he be the Saviour when he actually saveth us is to be ignorant in despite of Reason and Experience I conclude therefore that the Spirit of Sanctification is the infallible Witness of the Verity of the Gospel and the Veracity of Jesus Christ 5. And I entreat all that read this further to observe the great use and advantage of this testimony above others in that it is continued from Generation to Generation and not as the gift and testimony of Miracles which continued plentifully but one Age and with diminution somewhat after this is Christ's witness to the end of the world in every Country and to every Soul yea and continually dwelling in them For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 He that is not able to examine the History which reporteth the Miracles to him may be able to find upon his Soul the Image of God imprinted by the Gospel and to know that the Gospel hath that Image in it self which it imprinteth upon others and that it cometh from God which leadeth men so directly unto God and that it is certainly his own means which he blesseth to so great and excellent ends 6. Note also that part of the work of the Spirit of God in succeeding the Doctrine of Jesus Christ doth consist in the effectual production of Faith it self for though the work be wrought by the Reasons of the Gospel and the Evidences of Truth yet is it also wrought by the Spirit of God concurring with that evidence and as the internal Efficient exciting the sluggish faculties to do their office and illustrating the understanding and fitting the will to entertain the truth for the difficulties are so great and the temptations to unbelief so subtil and violent and our own indisposedness through corruption the greatest impediment of all that the bare Word alone would not produce a belief of that lively vigorous nature as is necessary to its noble effects and ends without the internal co-operation of the Spirit So that Christ doth not only teach us the Christian Faith and Religion but doth give it us and work it in us by his Spirit And he that can do
title to their Crowns and all men their Estates by the records or testimony of others 9. It is impudent arrogancy for every Infidel to tie God to be at his beck to work Miracles as oft as he requireth it To say I will not believe without a Miracle and if thou work never so many in the sight of others I will not believe unless I may see them my self § 12. There need not be new Revelations and Miracles to confirm the former and oblige men to believe them For then there must be more Revelations and Miracles to confirm the former and oblige men to believe those and so on to the end of the World And then God could not govern the World by a setled Law by Revelations once made which is absurd § 13. Therefore the only natural way to know all such matters of fact is sensible apprehension to those that are present and credible report tradition or history to those that are absent as is aforesaid which is the necessary medium to convey it from their sense to our understandings And in this must we acquiesce as the natural means which God will use § 14. We are not bound to believe all history or report Therefore we must be able to discern between the credible and the incredible neither receiving all nor rejecting all but making choice as there is cause § 15. History is more or less credible as it hath more or less evidence of truth 1. Some that is credible hath only evidence of probability and such is that of meer Humane Faith 2. Some hath evidence of certainty from Natural causes concurring where the conclusion is both of knowledge and of Humane Faith 3. And some hath evidence of certainty from supernatural attestation which is both of Humane Faith and of Divine § 16. That history or report which hath no more evidence than the meer wisdom and honesty of the author or reporter supposing him an imperfect man is but probable and the Conclusion though credible is not infallible and can have no certainty but that which some call Morall and that in several degrees as the wisdom and honesty of the reporter is either more or less § 17. II. Where there is an evident impossibility that all the witnesses or reporters should lie or be deceived there the Conclusion is credible by humane Faith and also sure by a natural certainty § 18. Where these things concurre it is impossible that that report or history should be false 1. When it is certain that the reporters were not themselves deceived 2. When it is certain that indeed the report is theirs 3. When they took their salvation to lie upon the truth of the thing reported and of their own report 4. When they expected Worldly ruin by their testimony and could look for no commodity by it which would make them any reparation 5. When they give full proof of their honesty and conscience 6. When their testimony is concordant and they speak the same things though they had no opportunity to conspire to deceive men yea when their numbers distance and quality make this impossible 7. When they bear their testimony in the time and place where it might well be contradicted and the falsity detected if it were not true and among the most malicious enemies and yet those enemies either confess the matter of fact or give no regardable reason against it 8. When the reporters are men of various tempers countreys and civil interests 9. When the reporters fall out or greatly differ among themselves even to separations and condemnations of one another and yet none ever detecteth or confesseth any falshood in the said reports 10. When the reporters being numerous and such as profess that Lying is a damnable sin and such as laid down their liberties or lives in asserting their testimonies did yet never any of them in life or death repent and confess any falshood or deceit 11. When their report convinceth thousands in that place and time who would have more abhorred them if it had been untrue Nay where some of these concurre the conclusion may be of certainty some of these instances resolve the point into natural necessity 1. It is of natural necessity that men love themselves and their own felicity and be unwilling of their undoing and misery The Will though free is quaedam natura and hath its natural necessary inclination to that good which is apprehended as its own felicity or else to have omnimodam rationem boni and its natural necessary inclination against that evil or aversation from it which is apprehended as its own undoing or misery or to have omnimodam rationem mali Its liberty is only servato ordine finis And some acts that are free are nevertheless of infallible certain futurition and of some kinde of necessity like the Love and Obedience of the Saints in Heaven 2. Nothing can be without a cause sufficient to produce it But some things here instanced can have no cause sufficient to produce them if the thing testified were false As the consent of enemies their not gainsaying the concurrence of so many and so distant and of such bitter Opposites against their own common worldly interest and to the confessed ruine of their souls and the belief of many thousands that could have disproved it if false and more which I shall open by and by There is a natural certainty that Alexander was the King of Macedonia and Caesar Emperour of Rome and that there is such a place as Rome and Paris and Venice and Constantinople And that we have had Civil Warrs between the King and Parliament in England and between the Houses of York and Lancaster and that many thousands were murdered by the French Massacre and many more by the Irish and that the Statutes of this Land were made by the Kings and Parliaments whose names they bear c. Because that 1. There is no cause in Nature which could produce the concurrence of so many testimonies of men so distant and contrary if it were not true 2. And on the contrary side there are natural causes which would infallibly produce a credible contradiction to these reports if they were false § 19. III. When they that testifie such matters of fact do affirm that they do it by Gods own command and prove this by multitudes of evident uncontrolled Miracles their report is both humane and divine and to be believed as most certain by a divine belief This is before proved in the proof of the validity of the testimony of Miracles and such Miracles as these § 20. The Testimonies of the Apostles and other Disciples of Christ concerning his Resurrection and Miracles were credible by all these three several sorts of credibility 1. They were credible and most credible by a humane belief as they were the testimony of honest and extraordinarily honest men 2. They were credible as reported with concauses of natural certainty 3. They were credible as attested by God
far and followed them too long O that it had been less though I must thankfully acknowledge that Mercy did early shew me their deceit and turn my enquiring thoughts to thee to thee I resign my self for I am thine own to thee I subject all the powers of my soul and body for thou art my Rightful Sovereign Governour from thee I thankfully accept of all the benefits and comforts of my life in thee I expect my true felicity and content to know thee and love thee and delight in thee must be my blessedness or I must have none The little tastes of this sweetness which my thirsty soul hath had do tell me that there is no other real joy I feel that thou hast made my mind to know thee and I feel thou hast made my heart to love thee my tongue to praise thee and all that I am and have to serve thee And even in the panting languishing desires and motions of my soul I find that thou and only thou art its resting place and though Love do now but search and pray and cry and weep and is reaching upward but cannot reach the glorious light the blessed knowledge the perfect love for which it longeth yet by its eye its aim its motions its moans its groans I know its meaning where it would be and I know its end My displaced soul will never be well till it come near to thee till it know thee better till it love thee more It loves it self and justifyeth that self love when it can love thee it loaths it self and is weary of it self as a lifeless burden when it feels no pantings after thee Wert thou to be found in the most solitary desart it would seek thee or in the uttermost parts of the earth it would make after thee thy presence makes a croud a Church thy converse maketh a closet or solitary wood or field to be kin to the Angelical Chore. The creature were dead if thou wert not its life and ugly if thou wert not its beauty and insignificant if thou wert not its sense The soul is deformed which is without thine Image and lifeless which liveth not in love to thee if love be not its pulse and prayer and praise its constant breath the Mind is unlearned which readeth not thy Name on all the world and seeth not HOLINESS TO THE LORD engraven upon the face of every creature He doteth that doubteth of thy Being or Perfections and he dreameth who doth not live to thee O let me have no other portion no reason no love no life but what is devoted to thee employed on thee and for thee here and shall be perfected in thee the only perfect final object for evermore Upon the holy Altar erected by thy Son and by his hands and his Mediation I humbly devote and offer thee THIS HEART O that I could say with greater feeling This flaming loving longing Heart But the sacred fire which must kindle on my sacrifice must come from thee it will not else ascend unto thee let it consume this dross so the nobler part may know its home All that I can say to commend it to thine acceptance is that I hope it 's wash'd in precious bloud and that there is something in it that is thine own it still looketh towards thee and groaneth to thee and followeth after thee and will be content with gold and mirth and honour and such inferiour fooleries no more it lieth at thy doors and will be entertain'd or perish Though alass it loves thee not as it would I boldly say it longs to love thee it loves to love thee it seeks it craves no greater blessedness than perfect endless mutual love it is vowed to thee even to thee alone and will never take up with shadows more but is resolved to lie down in sorrow and despair if thou wilt not be its REST and JOY It hateth it self for loving thee no more accounting no want deformity shame or pain so great and grievous a calamity For thee the Glorious Blessed GOD it is that I come to Jesus Christ If he did not reconcile my guilty soul to thee and did not teach it the heavenly art and work of Love by the sweet communications of thy love he could be no Saviour for me Thou art my only ultimate end it is only a guide and way to thee that my anxious soul hath so much studied and none can teach me rightly to know thee and to love thee and to live to thee but thy self it must be a Teacher sent from thee that must conduct me to thee I have long looked round about me in the world to see if there were a more lucid Region from whence thy will and glory might be better seen than that in which my lot is fallen But no Traveller that I can speak with no Book which I have turn'd over no Creature which I can see doth tell me more than Jesus Christ I can find no way so suitable to my soul no medicine so fitted to my misery no bellows so fit to kindle love as faith in Christ the Glass and Messenger of thy love I see no doctrine so divine and heavenly as bearing the image and superscription of God nor any so fully confirmed and delivered by the attestation of thy own Omnipotency nor any which so purely pleads thy cause and calls the soul from self and vanity and condemns its sin and purifieth it and leadeth it directly unto thee and though my former ignorance disabled me to look back to the Ages past and to see the methods of thy providence and when I look into thy Word disabled me from seeing the beauteous methods of thy Truth thou hast given me a glimpse of clearer light which hath discovered the reasons and methods of grace which I then discerned not and in the midst of my most hideous temptations and perplexed thoughts thou kepst alive the root of faith and kepst alive the love to thee and unto Holiness which it had kindled Thou hast mercifully given me the witness in my self not an unreasonable perswasion in my mind but that renewed nature those holy and heavenly desires and delights which sure can come from none but thee And O how much more have I perceived in many of thy servants than in my self thou hast cast my lot among the souls whom Christ hath healed I have daily conversed with those whom he hath raised from the dead I have seen the power of thy Gospel upon sinners All the love that ever I perceived kindled towards thee and all the true obedience that ever I saw performed to thee hath been effected by the word of Jesus Christ how oft hath his Spirit helped me to pray and how often hast thou heard those prayers what pledges hast thou given to my staggering faith in the words which prayer hath procured both for my self and many others And if Confidence in Christ be yet deceit must I not say that thou hast deceived
me who I know canst neither be deceived or by any falshood or seduction deceive On thee therefore O my dear Redeemer do I cast and trust this sinful soul with Thee and with thy holy Spirit I renew my Covenant I know no other I have no other I can have no other Saviour but thy self To thee I deliver up this soul which thou hast redeemed not to be advanced to the wealth and honours and pleasures of this world but to be delivered from them and to be healed of sin and brought to God and to be saved from this present evil world which is the portion of the ungodly and unbelievers to be washed in thy Bloud and illuminated quickned and confirmed by thy SPIRIT and conducted in the ways of holiness and love and at last to be presented justified and spotless to the Father of spirits and possessed of the glory which thou hast promised O thou that hast prepared so dear a medicine for the clensing of polluted guilty souls leave not this unworthy soul in its guilt or in its pollution O thou that knowest the Father and his Will and art nearest to him and most beloved of him cause me in my degree to know the Father acquaint me with so much of his will as concerneth my duty or my just encouragement leave not my soul to groap in darkness seeing thou art the Sun and Lord of Light O heal my estranged thoughts of God! is he my light and life and all my hope and must I dwell with him for ever and yet shall I know him no better than thus shall I learn no more that have such a Teacher and shall I get no nearer him while I have a Saviour and a Head so near O give my faith a clearer prospect into that better world and let me not be so much unacquainted with the place in which I must abide for ever And as thou hast prepared a Heaven for holy souls prepare this too-unprepared soul for Heaven which hath not long to stay on earth And when at death I resign it into thy hands receive it as thine own and finish the work which thou hast begun in placing it among the blessed Spirits who are filled with the sight and love of God I trust thee living let me trust thee dying and never be ashamed of my trust And unto Thee the Eternal Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son the Communicative LOVE who condescendest to make Perfect the Elect of God do I deliver up this dark imperfect soul to be further renewed confirmed and perfected according to the holy Covenant Refuse not to bless it with thine indwelling and operations quicken it with thy life irradiate it by thy light sanctifie it by thy love actuate it purely powerfully and constantly by thy holy motions And though the way of this thy sacred influx be beyond the reach of humane apprehension yet let me know the reality and saving power of it by the happy effects Thou art more to fouls than souls to bodies than light to eyes O leave not my soul as a carrion destitute of thy life nor its eyes as useless destitute of thy light nor leave it as a senseless block without thy motion The remembrance of what I was without thee doth make me fear lest thou shouldest with-hold thy grace Alass I feel I daily feel that I am dead to all good and all that 's good is dead to me if thou be not the life of all Teachings and reproofs mercies and corrections yea the Gospel it self and all the liveliest Books and Sermons are dead to me because I am dead to them yea God is as no God to me and Heaven as no Heaven and Christ as no Christ and the clearest evidences of Scripture verity are as no proofs at all if thou represent them not with light and power to my soul Even as all the glory of the world is as nothing to me without the light by which it 's seen O thou that hast begun and given me those heavenly intimations and desires which flesh and bloud could never give me suffer not my folly to quench these sparks nor this bruitish flesh to prevail against thee nor the powers of hell to stifle and kill such a heavenly seed O pardon that folly and wilfulness which hath too often too obdurately and too unthankfully striven against thy grace and depart not from an unkind and sinful soul I remember with grief and shame how I wilfully bore down thy motions punish it not with desertion and give me not over to my self Art thou not in Covenant with me as my Sanctifier and Confirmer and Comforter I never undertook to do these things for my self but I consent that thou shouldest work them on me As thou art the Agent and Advocate of Jesus my Lord O plead his cause effectually in my soul against the suggestions of Satan and my unbelief and finish his healing saving work and let not the flesh or world prevail Be in me the resident witness of my Lord the Author of my Prayers the Spirit of Adoption the Seal of God and the earnest of mine inheritance Let not my nights be so long and my days so short nor sin eclipse those beams which have often illuminated my soul Without thee Books are senseless scrawls studies are dreams learning is a glow-worm and wit is but wantonness impertinency and folly Transcribe those sacred precepts on my heart which by thy dictates and inspirations are recorded in thy holy word I refuse not thy help for tears and groans but O shed abroad that love upon my heart which may keep it in a continual life of love And teach me the work which I must do in Heaven refresh my soul with the delights of holiness and the joys which arise from the believing hopes of the everlasting Joys Exercise my heart and tongue in the holy praises of my Lord. Strengthen me in sufferings and conquer the terrors of death and hell Make me the more heavenly by how much the faster I am hastening to heaven and let my last thoughts words and works on earth be likest to those which shall be my first in the state of glorious immortality where the Kingdom is delivered up to the Father and GOD will for ever be All and In all of whom and through whom and to whom are all things To whom be glory for ever Amen CHAP. XIII Consectaries 1. What Party of Christians should we joyn with or be of seeing they are divided into so many Sects I Shall briefly dispatch the Answer of this Question in these following Propositions § 1. GODLYNESS and CHRISTIANITY is our only Religion and if any party have any other we must renounce it § 2. The Church of Christ being his Body is but One and hath many Parts but should have no Parties but Vnity and Concord without Division § 3. Therefore no Christian must be of a Party or Sect as such that is as
to the cause in all the entities and motions in the world is undeniable Whatsoever any Being hath and hath not originally from it self or independently in it self it must needs have from another and that other cannot act beyond its power nor give that which it hath not either formally or eminently Therefore he that findeth in the world about him so much entity and motion so much Intellection Volition and Operation and so much Wisdom Goodness and Power must needs know that all these have some cause which formally or eminently or in a way of transcendency hath more it self than it giveth to others I measured my endeavours about this subject according as the occasions of my own soul had led me among all the temptations which have at any time assaulted me I have found those so contemptible and inconsiderable as to their strength which would have made me doubt of the being of a God that I am apt to think that it is so with others And therefore in the review of this discourse I find no reason to stand to answer any mans objections against the Being or essential Attributes or Properties of God And for the second point that we all owe to this God our absolute Resignation Obedience and Love and so that Holiness is naturally our duty it doth so naturally result from the Nature of God and Man compared that I can scarce think of any thing worthy of a confutation which can be said against it but that which denieth the Nature of God or Man and therefore is either confuted under the first head or is to be confuted under the third As for the fourth particular contained in the second Tome the truth of the Gospel I find not any reason to defend it more particularly nor to answer any more objections than I have done for in proving the truth I have proved all the contradictory assertions to be false and I have answered already the greatest objections and after this to answer every ignorant exception of unsatisfied persons against the several passages of the Scripture would be tedious and not necessary to the end of my design And indeed I perceive not that any considerable number are troubled with doubtings of the truth of the Christian faith in a prevalent degree who are well convinced of those antecedent verities of the Deity and of the natural obligation and necessity of Holiness and of the Immortality of the soul or of a future life of reward and punishment and that live in any reasonable conformity to these natural principles which they profess For when natural evidence hath sufficiently convinced a man that he is obliged to be holy in absolute obedience and love to his Creator through the hopes and fears of another life he is very much prepared to close with the design and doctrine of the Gospel which is so far from contradicting this that it doth but confirm it and shew us the way by which it may most certainly be brought to pass And therefore my observation and experiences constrain me to think that there is no point which I have insisted on which so much calleth for my vindication as the third about the Life to come I know there is a sort of over-wise and over-doing Divines who will tell their followers in private where there is none to contradict them that the method of this Treatise is perverse as appealing too much to natural light and over-valuing humane reason and that I should have done no more but shortly tell men that All that which God speaketh in his word is true and that propria luce it is evident that the Scripture is the Word of God and that to all God's Elect he will give his Spirit to cause them to discern it and that this much alone had been better than all these disputes and reasons but these over-wise men who need themselves no reason for their Religion and judge accordingly of others and think that those men who rest not in the authority of Jesus Christ should rest in theirs are many of them so well acquainted with me as not to expect that I should trouble them in their way or reason against them who speak against reason even in the greatest matters which our reason is given us for As much as I am addicted to scribling I can quietly dismiss this sort of men and love their zeal without the labour of opening their ignorance My task therefore in this conclusion shall be only to defend the doctrine delivered in this fore-going Treatise of the Life to come or the Soul's Immortality against some who call themselves Philosophers For of men so called it is but a small part who at all gainsay this weighty truth The followers of Plato the Divine Philosopher with the Pythagoreans the Stoicks the Cynicks and divers other Sects are so much for it that indeed the most of them go too far and make the soul to be eternal both à parte arte and à parte post and Cicero doth conclude from its self-moving power that it is certainly eternal and divine Insomuch that not only Arnobius but many other ancient Christians write so much against Plato for holding the soul to be naturally immortal and assert themselves that it is of a middle nature between that which is naturally immortal and that which is meerly mortal that he that doth not well understand them may be scandalized at their expressions and think that he readeth the Philosopher defending the souls immortality and the Christian opposing it And though Aristotle's opinion be questioned by many yet Cicero who lived in time and places wherein he had better advantage than we to know his meaning doth frequently affirm that he was in the main of Plato's mind and that the Academicks Peripateticks and Stoicks differed more in words than sense chiding the Stoicks for their schism or separation in setting up a School or Sect as new which had almost nothing new but words Not only Fernelius de abditis rerum causis but many others have vindicated Aristotle however his obscurity hath given men occasion to keep up that controversie And if the book de Mundo be undoubtedly his I see no reason to make any more question of his meaning much less if that book be his which is entitled Mystica Aegypt Chald. Philos which Aben Ama Arabs translated out of Greek into Arabick which Franc. Roseus brought from Damascus and Moses Rovas Medicus Haebr translated into Italian and Pet. Nicol. Castelinus into Latine and Patricius thinketh Aristotle took from Plato's mouth It is only then the Epicureans and some novel Somatists that I have now to answer who think they have much to say against the separated subsistence and immortality of mans soul which I may reduce to these objections following I. Matter and Motion without any more may do all that which you ascribe to incorporeal substances or souls therefore you assert them without ground II. To confirm this
to assure us that he will never create any thing hereafter Cannot a workman look on his house and see that it is well done and say I have finished it without obliging him never to build another nor to make any reparations of that as there is cause May not God create a new Heaven and Earth may he not create a new Star or a new Plant or Animal if he please without the breaking of any word that he hath spoken For my part I never saw a word which I could discern to have any such signification or importance The argument from Genes 1. is no better than theirs who from Christ's consummatum est do gather that his death and burial which followed that word were no part of his satisfactory meritorious humiliation On the contrary there have been both Philosophers and Divines who have thought that God doth in omni instanti properly create all things which he is said to conserve of whom the one part do mean only that the being of the creatures is as dependant on his continual causation as the life of the branches is on the tree but that the same substance is continued and not another daily made But there are others who think that all creatures who are in fluxu continuo not per locomotum but ab entitate ad nihilum and that they are all but a continual emanation from God which as it passeth from him tendeth to nothing and new emanations do still make such a supply as that the things may be called the same as a River whose waters pass in the same Channel As they think the beams or light of the Sun doth in omni instanti oriri festinare ad nihilum the stream being still supplied with new emanations Were it not for the overthrow throw of individuation personality rewards and punishments that hence seemeth to follow this opinion would seem more plausible than theirs who groundlesly prohibit God from causing any more new beings But though no doubt there is unto all beings a continual emanation or influx from God which is a continued causation it may be either conservative of the being first caused or else restorative of a being continually in decay as he please for both ways are possible to him as implying no contradiction though both cannot be about one and the same being in the same respect and at the same time And our sense and reason tell us that the conservative influx is his usual way 2. But it is commonly and not without reason supposed that generation produceth things de novo in another sense not absolutely as creation doth but secundum quid by exalting the seminal virtue into act and into perfection New individuals are not made of new matter now created but the corporeal part is only pre-existent matter ordered compounded and contempered and the incorporeal part is both quoad materiam suam metaphysicam formam vel naturam specificam the exaltation and expurgency of that into full and perfect existence which did before exist in semine virtuoso When God had newly created the first man and woman he created in them a propagating virtue and fecundity this was as it were semen seminis by this they do first generare semen separabile which suppositis supponendis hath a fecundity fit to produce a new suppositum vel personam and may be called a person seminally or virtually but not actually formally and properly and so this person hath power to produce another and that another in the same way And note that the same creating word which said Let there be light and Let us make man did say also to man as well as to other creatures Increase and multiply not create new souls or bodies but by generation Increase and multiply which is the bringing of many persons out of two and so on as out of a seminal pre-existence or virtual into actual formal existence He knoweth not the mysteriousness of this wonderful work of God nor the ignorance of mankind who knoweth not that all generation of man bruits or plants hath much that is to us unsearchable And they that think it a dishonour to a Philosopher not to undertake or pretend to render the just causes of this and all other the Phaenomena in nature do but say I will hide the dishonour of my ignorance by denying it that is by telling men that I am ignorant of my ignorance and by aggravating it by this increase and the addition of pride presumption and falsity This much is certain 1. That whatsoever distinct parts do constitute individuals which are themselves of several natures so many several natures in the world we may confidently assert though we understand not whether they all exist separatedly or are found only in conjunction with others 2. We certainly find in the world 1. An intelligent nature 2. A sensitive nature 3. A fiery active vegetative nature 4. A passive matter which receiveth the influx of active natures which is distributed into air and water and earth 3. The most active nature is most communicative of it self in the way of its proper operations 4. We certainly perceive that the Sun and fiery nature are active upon the air water and earth which are the passive Elements And by this activity in a threefold influx Motion Light and Heat do cause the sensible alterations which are made below and so that it is as a kind of life or general form or soul to the passive matter 5. We also find that Motion Light and Heat as such are all different totâ specie from sensation and therefore as such are not the adequate causes of it And also that there is a sensitive nature in every animal besides the vegetative 6. Whether the vegetative nature be any other than the fiery or solar is to man uncertain But it is most probable that it is the same nature though it always work not to actual vegetation for want of prepared matter But that the Sun and fiery nature is eminenter vegetativè and therefore that vegetation is not above the nature of fire or the Sun and so may be an effect of it 7. In the production of vegetatives by generation it is evident that as the fiery active nature is the nearest cause efficient and the passive is the matter and recipient So that this igneous nature generateth as in three distinguished subjects three several ways 1. As in Parentibus semine into which God ab origine in the creation hath put not only a spark of the active virtucus fiery nature in general but also a certain special nature differencing one creature from another 2. The Sun and superiour globes of the fiery nature which cast a paternal though but universal influx upon the foresaid semen 3. The calor naturalis telluris which may be called as Dr. Gilbert and others do its soul or form which is to the seed as the anima matris is to the infant And all these three the
second Cause 2. That the Somatists themselves say that in the Generation of Plants and Animals which they suppose to be totally Corporeal there is not the least degree of substance produced de novo and therefore there is none but what was totally of God and the Parents do but cause instrumentally the uniting of matter prae-existent Therefore if in the Generating of Man the Parents do but instrumentally cause the uniting of substance which is totally from God though not prae-existent it little differenceth the Case as to the consequents 3. Especially considering that what God doth he doth by an establisht Law of Nature As in his making of the World he made the Sun a Causa Vniversalis constantly to send forth the emanation of Light Heat and moving force upon passive matter and thereby to produce effects diversifyed by the preparations and reception of that matter as to soften Wax to harden Clay to make a Dunghill stink and a Rose smell sweet to produce a poysonous and a wholsom Plant a Nightingale and a Toad c. and this without any dishonour to the Sun So if God the Father of Spirits the Central efficient of Souls have made it the original Law of Nature that he will accordingly afford his communicative Influx and that in Humane Generations such and such Preparations of matter shall be as Receptive of his emanations for such and such Forms or spiritual substances and that he will be herein but an Vniversal Cause of Souls as Souls and not of Souls as clean or unclean and that this shall depend upon the preparation of the Recipient whether it be the Body or a sensitive foregoing Principle still keeping at his pleasure as a Voluntary Agent the suspension or dispose of the effect this would make no great alteration neither as to the point of original sin nor any other weighty consequent OBJECTION XIII OMne quod oritur interit That which is not eternal as to past duration is not eternal as to future duration But the Soul is not eternal as to past duration Ergo. Answ I confess this argument will prove that the Soul is not mortal ex necessitate suae naturae without dependance on a Voluntary preserver And therefore Cicero after most other Philosophers who useth the Major for a contrary Conclusion mistook in this that he thought the Soul was as natural an Emanation from God as the beams or light is from the Sun and therefore that it was naturally eternall both à parte ante à parte post which made Arnobius and other Ancients argue as much against the Platonists Immortality of the Soul as against the Epicureans Mortality so that as I said before one would think that they were heretical in this point that doth not make them well But it is only this natural Eternity which they confute And when the Philosophers say that Omne quod oritur interit they can mean or at least prove no more but this that it is not Everlasting ex necessitate naturae But yet 1. It may be in its nature fitted to be perpetual 2. And by the will of the Creator made perpetual Every Creature did oriri de novo and yet every one doth not interire OBJECTION XIV AMong all your Arguments for the Souls Immortality there are none but Morall ones Answ Morality is grown so contemptible a thing with some debauched persons that a very argument is invalidated by them or contemned if they can but call it Moral But what is Morality but the modality of Naturals And the same argument may be Natural and Moral Indeed we call that a Causa Moralis oft-times which doth not necessitate the effect And yet sometimes even moral Causes do infalibly and certainly produce the effect But causation and argumentation are different things and so is an effect and a Logical consequence Will you call the consequents of Gods own Wisdom Justice Veracity Goodness c. uncertain as coming from a Morali Cause The Soul is an Intellectual free agent and adapted to Moral operations And this is its excellency and perfection and no disparagement to it at all And if you will better read them over you will finde that my Arguments are both Physical and Moral For I argue from the Acts or operations of the Soul to its Powers and Nature And from its Acts and Nature to its ends with many such like which are as truly Physical media as if I argued from the nature of Fire and Earth that one if not hindered will ascend and the other descend And other men have given you other Arguments in their Physicks and Metaphysicks OBJECTION XV. YOu seem to confess that you cannot prove the endless duration of the Soul by any Argument from Nature alone But only that it shall live another Life which you call a Life of Retribution Answ I told you that a great probability of it I thus prove God hath made the Soul of a Nature not corruptible but apt to perpetual duration Ergo he thereby declareth his will that he intendeth it for perpetual duration because he maketh nothing in vain either for substance or quality It may be some other will think that this argument will inferre not only a probability but a certainty And if you go back to your objection of Materiality I now only adde that Aristotle and his followers who think that the Heavens are corporeal yet think that they are a quinta essentia and simple and incorruptible and therefore that they shall certainly be everlasting And he taketh the the souls of Bruits to be analogous to the matter of the Starrs and so to be of that everlasting quintessence And can you in reason say less of Rational Souls 2. It is sufficient that I prove by natural evidence a Life of Retribution after this which shall fully make the miserable ungodly ones repent tormentingly of their sin and fill the righteous with such Joyes as shall fully recompense all their labour and suffering in a holy life And that I moreover prove that duration of this life and all the rest by supernatural evidence OBJECTION XVI BOth Soul and Body are like a Candle in fluxu continuo and we have not the same substance this Week or Year as we had the last there being a continual consumption or transition and accretion Ergo being not the same we are uncapable of a Life of future Retribution Will you reward and punish the man that is or the man that was Answ It is a foolish thing to carry great and certain Truths into the dark and to argue against them à minus notis from meer uncertainties As to your simile I confess that the Oyl of your Candle is still wasting so is the wick but not that new is added to make it another thing unless it be a Lamp I confess that the lucid fume which we call the flame is still passing away But whether the fiery Principle in its essence not visible but only in its