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
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
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
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
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
operosa multo quidem faciliora Certè ita temere de mundo effutiunt ut mihi quidem nunquam hunc admirabilem coeli ornatum qui locus est proximus suspexisse videantur Where he brings in this passage as from Aristotle that if we should imagine men to have lived in some Dungeon or Cavern in the Earth and never to have seen the Sun or Light or World as we do and if there should be a doubt or dispute among them whether there be a God and if you should presently bring up these men into our places where they might look above them and about them to the Sun and Stars and Heaven and Earth they would quickly by such a sight be convinced that there is a God But as he truly addeth Assiduitate quotidiana consuetudine oculorum assuescunt animi neque admirantur neque requirunt rationes earum rerum quas semper vident perinde quasi novitas nos magis quam magnitude rerum debeat adexquirendas causas excitare But I suppose it will be granted me that the first mover doth more than meerly move the effects of Wisdom and Goodness being so legible on all the World but you 'l say that to do it wisely and to attain good ends by it c. is but the modus of action with the effect and therefore matter and motion rightly ordered may be nevertheless sufficient to all effects To which I answer that the Creatures motion requireth not only that the Creator move them but that he place and order them and move them rightly and that he remove and overcome impediments c. Therefore there is necessary in the first mover both Wisdom and Love as well as Power And neither his Power Wisdom or Love are Locomotion in himself And this much being proved that in every motion there is Divine Power Wisdom and Love which is more than matter and motion it self I proceed next to enquire 5. Do you think there is any thing existent in the World besides matter and motion or not As to meer site and figure and other such order or modes of matter I know you will not deny them to have now a being as well as motion But is there no different tendency to motion in the parts of matter Is there not in many Creatures a Power an Inclination or aptitude to motion besides motion it self Is there not a reason à priore to be given why one Creature is more agile and active than another and why they act in their various wayes Why is fire more active than earth and a Swallow than a Snail If you say that the different ratio motus is in some extrinsecal agent only which moveth them you will hardly shew any possibility of that when the same Sun by the same virtue or motion as you will say is it that moveth all And if it were so you must go up to the first Cause to ask for the different motions of those movers when our enquiry now is de natura moventium motorum Creatorum If you say that it is the Ratio recipiendi in the different magnitudes or positions of the parts of matter which is the cause of different motions I would know 1. Whether this difference of magnitude and figure and site being now antecedently necessary to different motions was not so heretofore as well as now If you say No you feign without proof a state of things and order of Causes contrary to that which all mens sense perceiveth to be now existent And who is the wiser Philosopher he that judgeth the course and nature of things to be and have been what he now findeth it till the contrary be proved or he that findeth it one thing and feigneth it sometime to have been another without any proof That which is now antecedently necessary to diversity of motion it 's like was so heretofore 2. And then how could one simple equal act of God setting the first matter into motion cause such an inequality in motions to this day if it be true that you hold that only that which is moved or in motion it self can move and that motion is all that is necessary to the diversity 3. Either the first matter was made solid in larger parcels or all conjunct or in Atomes If it was made first in Atomes then Motion caused not Division If it was made conjunct and solid then motion caused not conjunction and solidity And if the first division or conjunction site and figure of matter was all antecedent to motion and without it we have no reason to think that it is the sole Cause of all things now But surely quantity figure and site are not all that now is antecedent to motion Doth not a man feel in himself a certain Power to sudden and voluntary motion He that sate still can suddenly rise and go And if you say that he performeth that sudden motion by some antecedent motion I answer that I grant that but the question is whether by that alone or whether a Power distinct from motion it self be not as evidently the Cause For otherwise the antecedent motion would proceed but according to its own proportion It would not in a minute make so sudden and great an alteration I can restrain also that motion which some antecedent motion e.g. passion urgeth me to Surely this Power of doing or not doing is somewhat different from doing it self A power of not-moving is not motion And what is the Pondus which Gassendus doth adde to magnitude and figure as a third pre-requisite in Atomes I perceive he knoweth not what to make of it himself But in conclusion it must be no natural Gravity by which the parts are inclined to the whole in themselves but the meer effect of pulsion or traction or both At the first he was for both conjunct pulsion of the Air and traction of the Atomes from the Earth But of this he repented as seeing impulsionem aeris nullam esse and was for the traction of Atoms alone Than which his Friends conceit of the pulsive motion of the Sun in its Diastole or whatever other motion is the cause doth seem less absurd But that man that would have me believe that if a Rock were in the air or if Pauls Steeple should fall the descent would be only by the traction of the hamuli of invisible Atomes or by the pulsion of Air and Sun conjunct must come neerer first and tell me how the hamuli of atomes can fasten upon a marble rock and how they come to have so much strength as to move that rock which no man can move in its proper place if there be no such thing as strength or power besides actual motion and why it is that those drawing atomes do move so powerfully Earthwards when at the same time it is supposed that as many or more atomes are moving upwards by the Suns attraction and more are moved circularly with the Earth why do not these stop or
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
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