Page 13 The Evidence of the Existence of a Deity from the Excellent Ordination of these Powers to their several Ends and Uses Page 30 The Evidences of the Wisdom Power and Goodness of GOD resulting from the Consideration of the Parts of the Universe and particularly of the Magnetical Parts The First Instance Page 37 The Wonderful Wisdom and Power of God appearing in the admirable and various Motions of the Magnet Page 52 Touching the Reason and Method of the ensuing Discourse Page 64 Concerning Divine Magnetism Page 68 Concerning the several Instances and Means of the Conversion of the Soul to God Page 74 Concerning the Natural Means of the Soul's Conversion to Almighty God Page 77 Concerning the Reasonable or Intellectual Means of Converting the Soul to God Page 83 Touching the Rational Instances and Motives of the Conversion of the Soul to God upon the Account of the Works of Nature and Providence Page 88 Touching the Second Means of Conversion of the Soul to God namely Divine Revelation Page 101 Touching the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion and the sutableness thereof to the Reduction of the Soul to its due State Position and Happiness Page 120 Concerning the Supernatural Means of retaining the Soul in its due Respect and Position to Almighty God and of the Reduction thereof unto it Page 131 The Conclusion Page 141 Upon Psal 86.8 Neither are there any Works like thy Works 151 Magnetismus Magnus OR Metaphysical and Divine CONTEMPLATIONS Upon the Consideration of the MAGNET CHAP. I. The Reason and Order of this Tract WHEN I look into the Writings of the Ancient and some Modern Philosophers that have written touching the Works of Nature I find in them very many and excellent Enquiries into Causes and Effects and excellent Natural Discoveries touching them And I need go no further for the Evidence thereof than the Books of Aristotle de Naturali Auditu de Meteoris de Anima de Generatione Corruptione de Generatione Animalium de Partibus Animalium and the rest of his Physical Discourses But in most of their Discourses that which is short in them is indeed the best and truest and noblest part of true Philosophy namely the carrying up of the admirable Works of Nature and their Regiment to the Supreme Cause of all Things and the Glorifying of that God that hath instituted and still continues that Law and Order which we call the Law of Nature but is in truth no other than the wise Institution of the Supreme Legislator fitted to every Being in their Creation in the greatest Beauty and Convenience and to several excellent Ends. The Universe and all the Parts thereof as they had their Origination from God so they are all of them full of admirable Order and Usefulness and do all proclaim as well as they can the Power Wisdom and Goodness of their Author It is a goodly and glorious Temple which in every particular and in the whole Compagination of it shews forth the Excellence of the Architect But because all these Works though made with admirable Order and Wisdom yet every Integral thereof hath not Understanding to consider their Own or the World's Beauty and Order nor actively to carry up the Praise and Glory of their Being and Beauty to their Author the Glorious God hath placed in this goodly Temple certain Intelligent Beings Angels and Men for these great Uses First To behold the goodly Frame of the World and intellectively to consider it Secondly To carry up these Works of God to their proper Cause and Author Thirdly To Admire and Magnifie the Power the Wisdom and Goodness of God in all his Works Man therefore is indued not only with a Sentient Nature to behold the Works of Nature but also with an Intelligent Inquisitive Reasonable Soul to observe and consider them and the admirable Wisdom and Order that appears in them and to carry them up to their Wise and Bountiful Author and is placed in the Temple of this Lower World as the Priest of that part of the Creation for himself and in the behalf of the rest of the Creatures to Magnifie and Glorifie the Great Creator and to carry up to him their common Tribute of Praise and Glory And indeed this is the best Part and truest Use of all Philosophy And although a due Attention unto the Works of Nature will readily prompt any considerate Man to this part of Philosophy yet herein the Excellency of the Holy Scriptures and the true Philosophy that we may learn therein exceeds all other Philosophical Discourses of the Ancient Philosophers It carries up all the Works which we usually call Works of Nature and their admirable Order Laws and Regiment to the Great Creator and Governor of them and teacheth Mankind their Duty thereupon and to present the Glory and Praise of the whole Creation and all the Creatures therein to the Sovereign Lord of all Things Psal 104.24 O Lord how wonderful are thy works in wisdom hast thou made them all the earth is full of thy riches Psal 107. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men Psal 111.2 The works of the Lord are great sought out of all them that have pleasure therein Psal 92.5 O Lord how great are all thy works and thy thoughts are very deep It is a True and Wise Saying of that Excellent Person Sir Francis Bacon That though a little Philosophy may make a Man an Atheist yet a deep Search into it will bring a Man to the Acknowledgment and Veneration of God He therefore that rests in the bare Search and Prospect of the Phaenomena of Nature without running of them up to the Author and Law-giver of Nature is not gone half way in true Philosophy nor hath attained that End that ought principally to be minded in his Natural Enquiries Some of those that have gone before me in Magnetical Philosophy as Grandamicus Kircherus and Mr. Ward have left me an Example of improving this little Portion of Natural Philosophy into Divine Speculations I shall therefore take the liberty to close my Magnetical Observation with something of the like nature though I shall not go altogether in the same Path that they have gone as will appear in the several succeeding Chapters and their Contents There is not the least Rivulet but if I follow it downward in its course it will bring me either mediately or immediately to the Ocean as the Term of its Motion And yet if I follow it upward first to its apparent Fountain and then thorough those Anfractus Terrestres that feed that Fountain it will bring me by necessary consequence to the Ocean as its Original Eccles 1.7 All the rivers run into the sea yet the sea is not full into the place from whence the rivers came thither they return again As all Secondary Beings are directed to the Honour and Glory of Almighty God and of his Goodness Wisdom and Power as
or who gave that Magnetical Virtue to that Cause And we must be forced to walk from one Natural Cause to another till at last we must come to a Supreme Infinite Efficient that hath no Limits or Bound of his Power Wisdom or Being even the Great and Infinite and Glorious God I confess this way of Argumentation is applicable to any other Effect or Motion in Nature and concludes the necessary Existence of a Being absolutely Perfect as it doth in this Instance of the Magnet and is no more peculiar to this Effect in Nature than to any other But yet it may be usefully and with great Evidence of Reason and Plainness deduc'd from the Consideration of the Magnetism of the Earth though it exclude not the like Improvement of any other appearance in Nature to the same Conclusion CHAP. III. The Evidence of the Existence of the Glorious GOD from the Supposition of a Self-moving Principle in Nature THAT there are such Beings in Nature that exert their Motions and Effects from an Internal Principle we have sufficient Evidence which way soever we look in the World and I shall further instance from the Subject in hand Now a Being that hath the Principle of his Actions and Motion in himself I suppose to be of Two Kinds I. That Being which is absolutely Independent the Original of all other Beings and Powers Infinite in Essence and Power the Great and Glorious GOD in the virtue of whose Presence Influence and Activity all other Active Powers have their Being and Operations whose Existence is not demonstrable à Priori or from his Causes for he is the Soveraign Primitive Cause of All Things but is demonstrable by his Effects Works and Operations And this is that which I am endeavouring to evince even by this little portion of Nature which I have in hand II. Again There are other Beings that although they have the principal Motions and Operations within themselves yet 1 st Have it not from themselves but either mediately or immediately from that Great Sovereign Fountain of Being and Power above-mention'd 2 dly Nor have it independently For as in their Original they have it from God so they still have it dependently upon Him If the Soveraign Influence should not uncessantly be communicated to their Beings and Operations both would cease And consequently although when they are once setled they have the Root of their Motions and Operations within themselves so that no other Created Cause doth Physically contribute to them yet the Sovereign Cause and his Influence hath still a most Intimate Co-efficiency with them in all their Motions and Operations and such an Efficiency that is far greater and more intimate to them than those Self-moving Principles themselves For though these Principles as in relation to the Effects these Self-moving Principles produce habent se per modum primariorum efficientium yet in relation to Almighty God habent se per modum Instrumenti vel Causae subordinatae Now these Self-moving Intrinsick Principles are not unfitly called Essential Virtues or Essential Forms and in respect of their Production are of Two kinds First Such as were lodged primarily in some Nature or Body without any Traduction from any other Created Being such were the Virtutes Essentiales or Forms of the First Animals such is also the Magnetical Form or Essential Virtue of the Earth which could no otherwise be derived to it but from the Efficiency Ordination and Institution of the Sovereign Creator and Architect of the World And this hath been the Business of the former Chapter Secondly Such Forms or Essential Virtues as have their immediate Origination by some other Productive Cause either by way of Ordinary Generation as is done in the Production of Animals and Vegetables ex Semine or by way of Irradiation as Fire produceth Fire or as the Magnet is produced in the Bowels of the Earth Now although these Productions of Essential Virtues Forms or Self-moving Principles recognize another Natural Immediate Efficient in their first Production yet being once produced and perfected they act and move and operate immediately from themselves and independently upon the Immediate Cause of their Production The Egg of a Hen would be hatch'd into a Chicken and the Form or Essential Virtue of this Chicken would exert its own Operations proper to its Species though the Hen were dead And I make as little doubt that a Magnet once fully perfected in the Earth would have its Magnetical Attraction though we could suppose the Earth it self annihilated or its Magnetism extinct For though there could be no Union of a Vis or Forma Magnetica to a Magnet but by the Irradiation of the Earth yet when it is once perfected into a compleat Magnetical Nature and the Magnetical Virtue once radicated in it it would then act many of its Motions independently as in relation to the Earth from which it had its first Production though possibly some of its Motions which are relative to the Earth would be lost Now the due consideration of these Essentiales Virtutes or Forms that have in themselves a Principle of their Operations are in their kind as effectual a demonstration of the Existence of Almighty God as the series and connexion and dependence and subordination of Efficients or Efficient Causes And therefore in this place I shall not make use of that way of Argumentation namely the necessary reduction of all Powers or Essential Virtues either mediately or immediately to their First Efficient which was the method of the former Chapter but shall consider them barely as active self-moving Vertues or Forms or Powers and shall thereupon examine what Evidence that naked Consideration affords us of an Existence of a Sovereign and most perfect Being 1. In the pursuit of the Effects and Appearances of Nature when we come to a self-moving Principle we are come to the uttermost term and limits of our bare Physical enquiry into the Cause of any such Motions and Effects When I see the Index of a Clock point to the Hour of the Day I can trace that motion to the next Wheel that moves it and so to the next and then to the Rundle that is moved by the Spring and then to the weight of Lead that from an inward self-moving principle moves downward and there I am at a stand I can carry my Series of Physical Causes no farther for if I enquire why this Weight moves downward I get no higher but only to the Ordination of the Sovereign of the World that had impressed that intrinsick self-moving Power into this as all other heavy Bodies And therefore Aristotle after he had established that Principle that quicquid movet movetur ab alio when he comes to the Motion of heavy Bodies wherein he could find no other impulsive Physical Cause of their Motion without them but in their very own intrinsick Nature hath only this solution for it quod movetur à generante But this Solution of his solves not
the business without recourse to the Sovereign Cause of all things for although the Generans was that which convey'd the Principle it self into the heavy Body to move it self yet when that Principle is once settled namely a heavy Body once constituted it moves now independantly upon its generative immediate Natural Cause which it may be is corrupted and dissolved yet that active and self-moving Principle exerts its Motion from its own intrinsick Nature If it be said that the Spring of the Watch doth the like and yet it is performed but mechanically for the Spring of Steel made strait at first and then rolled up into a spiral consistence endeavouring its own restitution gives as effectual and regular Motion to the Wheels and so to the Index as the weight of Lead doth I Answer It is true it doth so but yet it doth not avoid nor answer the Instance 1. Even that disposition of the Spring requires an Intelligent Agent to bring it about and order it and certainly no less is requir'd even to the impression of this Motive Power to a heavy Body 2. Again in that disposition of the Spring we can and must necessarily arrive to a Natural Cause of that Motive Principle of the Spring namely the conversion of that Body into a Consistence contrary to its Nature whereby it endeavours its restitution to its natural state and so Evolves it self and by that Evolution moves the String and that the Fusee and that the Wheel But the Motion of heavy Bodies to the Center hath not any assignable mechanical Cause of its Motion but it s own intrinsick Propension 3. And this Propension is not to be annexed unto it by any humane power no nor by any other assignable Cause but from the impression and signature of the Supreme Lawgiver whose Law and Constitution which we call Nature or the Law of Nature has implanted in heavy Bodies that habitude between them and the Center of the Earth to move thither But this descensus Gravium is but one single Motion if we look upon the Magnetical Body of the Earth which is the Primum Magneticum or that which is the natural issue of the Earth namely the Magnet we shall see a greater variety of Motions as that of direction attraction and other Magnetical Motions and all these proceeding from a self-moving principle in these Magnetical Bodies and higher than that we cannot go in the Assignation of Natural Causes Let any Man living of the greatest Perspicacity use all the diligence imaginable he shall never be able to assign any mechanical or other Natural Cause of these Motions but must fix only in an internal self-moving Principle lodged in the Magnet or Earth it self and all the reason he shall give is only this Ita fert vis naturalis ipsius Magnetis And although it is true the common Hypothesis allows an actual Motion to the Earth yet the composing of it self in its Polar Position arising immediately from its Magnetical Nature and the production of Magnetical Virtues in Magnets and other things is not unfitly call'd a self-moving or at least a self-disposing or ordering Principle But yet this is much more evident in the Perception Appetite and Motions of the Sentient Nature and yet still much more in the Intellectual or Rational Nature Whither or to what else than to an internal self-moving Principle can we attribute the sentient Perception of Animals their Instincts their Memory their Appetites And when we come to that admirable Creature Man to what other immediate Cause can we attribute those more admirable Instances of Intellection Ratiocination Freedom of Will than to an internal self-moving Principle that excites and exerts these admirable Operations And if any one shall say that these Faculties and their Operations are moved extrinsically by their Objects It is true they are so but these are not Physical Movers but only Moral or Objective Movers the Physical Motions are still performed by that internal Vis or Virtus movens When a Child sees an Apple it is the Apple that he sees and either by the beautifulness thereof or the former experience that he hath had of the like Object he remembers it is good and pleasant to the Taste he thereupon desires it and then reacheth and moveth after it and tastes it It is indeed the Apple that excites all these Motions of Sight Perception Memory Appetite Local Motion but still the Apple only moves objectively and morally not physically but still the Perception Memory Appetite Local Motion is performed by the inward Principle that moves it physically and actively in and from it self But yet further there are certain Motions that are exerted by Inanimate things and much more by things Animate that have not so much as an Objective Motion from without but are wholly and entirely exerted from this inward Principle without any previous Excitation or any external Document Custom or Instruction such as are the Motions of heavy Bodies to the Center of the Earth the Magnetical directions and motions of the Magnet and especially the great Magnet of the Earth the specifical Vertues of Vegetables the admirable Instincts of Animals which they obtain and according to them move and dispose themselves without any previous Instruction or objective Excitation but barely and primitively from that implanted Inclination Form intrinsick Principle the very Signature and Character implanted in their very Natures and we can carry their Operations no higher in a Series of Physical Causes than that Internal self-moving Principle And if we attempt to carry them further we must at last rest and fix in that Sovereign most Perfect Being the Glorious God that imprinted this active Signature upon their Natures as I shall further in the next place evidence Therefore 2. Upon the Consideration that there are these active self-moving Principles in many if not all Beings that we are acquainted with in the World let us but now consider where we can fasten the Origination of them and what or who it was that imprinted these admirable active Characters at first upon things in Nature It is impossible they should have them from themselves and their own activity For 1 st That were to suppose them to be before they were Again 2 dly Since it is apparent they are determined in their Being and Operations it is necessary they should have a Cause of such their Determination as I have shewed in the former Chapter 3 dly Again since it is apparent there is an admirable variety of these self-moving Principles specifically differing one from another and yet all observing and containing themselves within their several specifical Bounds and Limits of their Kinds and Natures it must needs follow that they have their several Species and are contained within them by a superiour Disponent and not from themselves otherwise what should hinder but that that which disposed its specifical Power in the rank of a Vegetable should not as well dispose of it self into the rank of