extract and being For the very innate desire of some distinguishing knowledge of good from evil could not have its motion from sense nor ever was introduced by sense There is a kind of knowledge springs it self from sense as the Ox knows his owner c. but knowledge by causes such as it is is peculiar to Humane nature and has no relation to sense Know indeed so as to comprehend we cannot knowledge in the abstract being the peculiar of the Divine nature If we had been capable to have known good and evil absolutely the Devil had used no Hyperbole in telling us Ye shall be as Gods But the very desire of knowledge even such a knowledge as the Soul is in some measure capable of that is by causes shews a Divine spark in us tending towards the cause of all causes which exercised about God's revealed will here might be more clear but mounting in desire is apt to lose its light and vanish Nay not only our desire but our fear or doubt of somewhat we know not nor can perfectly attain to by our search nor is reasonable fully to demonstrate must necessarily have its origine from somewhat more than sense If we at least fear a future being and continuance for ever and future punishment that very fear is either native and natural in our Souls or else arises in us from the Tradition of some others if from Tradition then sense being the Port and Inlet I allow to be Parent too but yet while we allow it to spring from Tradition in our selves we do by consequence allow it to be native in some one particular person and he who allows it native in any one must allow the Soul to be a substance of it self and not a resultance from the Body for thoughts of infinity could never first spring from a bare temporary finite existence I said I would lay aside the inferiour faculties of the Soul from my thoughts Desire and fear are affections I agree common to Brutes I know they desire and fear but I dare say never any one of them yet desired knowledge or feared any thing to happen after this life and therefore these as they are in us being in respect of the object no such affections as are led by sense or work by sense barely and so not having their essence from the Body are not to be accounted amongst the other inferiour faculties common with Brutes But to proceed and go a little higher Whence arise those accusing or excusing thoughts mentioned by St. Paul in the Soul of man though wholly ignorant of Scripture and having no accession of new Light so much as by Tradition Certainly it must be some glimmering of that coelestial native spark of Justice implanted in every Humane Soul I dare leave it without further pressure to any quiet sedate reasonable Soul to determine whether if there had never been any Divine or Humane Law written or divulged by Tradition against Murther but that that same fact by the Laws of his native Country were allowed and approved if done against meer Strangers whether I say in case of that man's private imbruing his hands in his Brother's bloud with no other colourable pretence or provocation than some slight worldly gain he should not upon the consideration that we men made not our selves but that every one was a fellow-member with other of the visible Universe and of equal native extract expect to find some inward regret disgust trouble or vexation of mind If he determine that he thinks he should the question will be about that consideration how it could arise For we find that or the like consideration has risen without the help of any outward Engine or sense nay when all the Spels imaginable have been used and applied to allay it Now no disgust or trouble or sorrow was yet perceived in any other Creature beside Man upon the destruction of his fellow creature or Man the Sovereign of creatures And whence is this but because their Soul is not extensive beyond its original nor has any motion but from sense that is it is not capable of any consideration For consideration weighing or pondering of a thing whether it be good or evil is a proper act of a reasonable Soul distinct from a Body and is somewhat more than desire of knowledge by causes 'T is the very exercise of Reason 't is the Soul's waving of its senses for a time and summoning its noble powers to tryal which have some little native ability This trying considering or weighing good from evil by Reason the ballance of the Soul is I say the Soul 's peculiar act from which act there may be very properly the Author to the Hebrews uses the like words a weariness of the mind and so it 's distinguished and is different from such acts of the Soul which Solomon saith are a weariness of the flesh For that kind of study which he respects viz. composing reading or hearing are no peculiar acts of the Soul as withdrawn from the flesh but are a bare introduction of somewhat to the Soul through the Organs of the flesh and so are a weariness to it Whereas the Soul after reception and some light of a thing by sense in considering the good or evil of it quite lays aside the senses for a time and so the mind is peculiarly affected SECT VIII The Immortality of man's Soul considered from things peculiar to Man as weeping laughter speech with some conclusion against Atheism THe Soul of man does not only shew it self and its original by the aforesaid manner of withdrawing it self or as it were by separation from the Body to be above the capacity of a Soul extracted or springing from the flesh but even by peculiar actions and motions through bodily Organs which a bare earthly or fleshly Soul does not There are three things generally held and esteemed proper and peculiar to Humane Nature and no ways incident to any other living creature whatsoever and those are Tears or weeping Laughter and Speech in each of which or from each of which may seem to appear somewhat more in Man than a product Soul part of the Body or extracted or raised from the Body though never so curiously or admirably framed I do not alledge each of them apart as any infallible demonstration of a Spirit distinct and separable from the Body yet coupled and joyned together they become of some seeming weight and strength to me to confirm my opinion It does not seem much wonderful at any time to behold a distillation from the Eyes that thing is to be found in Beast as well as Man not only from a disease or some distemper in the Bloud but upon every offensive touch of the Eye yet when neither of these are present or can be alledged for a cause to have the Body as it were melted on the sudden and send forth its streams through that unusual channel makes it seem to me no
less than the quick and violent agitation of some Divine flame thawing all the vital parts and drawing the moisture through the chief and clearest Organ of the body the Eye and not to be caused by any thing which is part of it self I do agree that every living Soul whether arising from the Body or by a greater Divine gift infused into or sent to actuate a Body has equally in either some influence upon the visible Body and according as the affections with the imagination are moved worketh visible effects therein and that Man and Beast such as have their parts similar may and do equally tremble for fear and the like But yet as to this kind of motion or extasie mentioned that is weeping for I know not how to term that or laughter either a passion but both strange attendants or consequents of some kind of passions I cannot adjudge it to arise from the acceptance of a bare representation of an offensive object through sense but by some inward distinct conception of a Soul as of it self though at the same time agitated or rouzed by passion For if it were from the first barely then the same effect could never proceed from any pleasing object the contrary whereof we find and men to weep as well upon the predominancy of joy in the Soul as sorrow nay weeping is a concomitant often of a weak anger which not able otherwise to satiate or satisfie it self has this help to vanish and resolve into tears as may be observed in Women and Children Now tears being the attendant the effect as may seem to some of clean contrary passions such as joy and sorrow are they cannot really be the proper and bare effect of any passion nor the sole work of any such Spirit as is no other than the refined and most curious part of the Bloud For that were able to cause only different effects upon different occasions or representations and still the same effect upon the same occasion so far forth as we are able to look into the ordinary works of Nature Indeed salt brackish and chrystal tears flowing in that abundance as at some time is to be seen would puzzle the most learned Physician as well as a Poet to alledge a right fountain as well as a cause and wonder in searching after the original Spring-head of them in the Body If I should alledge or affirm Laughter to be some denotation or demonstration of a pure intellectual Spirit separable from a Body and no ways arising from any other single or primary cause then such I hope I should not incur the censure or become the subject of laughter to all men though I might to some By Laughter I do not mean a bare dilatation or contraction of the mouth or lips and other parts of the face such a kind of grinning as is incident to Apes and no less to Dogs and such as in the latter we term fawning a kind of habit or faculty some men take up for peculiar purposes as seeming pleased with others actions and sensible of some such involuntary motion voluntarily counterfeit one nor yet any agitation of the lungs with expulsion of breath and other odd motions of the Body in others whereby perhaps they would seem to please themselves But I mean an absolute involuntary motion upon some sudden slight pleasing touch of the Spirits by some bare conception in the intellect different in notion from what is represented by the senses It is a thing that differs much from true joy and is often extorted from men in their greatest griefs and sometimes tortures of Body as is storied of that Villain who murthered the Prince of Orange that in the midst of his pains and while he was tormented with burning Pincers for a confession laughed at the fall of a number of Spectators from a Scaffold It is one of the first unnecessary as I may say motions in Infants it is incident to wise men as well as foolish and old as well as young though not in the same measure or degree and is and happens sometimes as well sleeping as waking Now I do take it to arise properly and peculiarly from the intellect's judging on the sudden though that Judgment is not always aright of somewhat of folly lapse or oversight in a rational creature or some ill or shrewd turn happening thereupon which from prudence might have been prevented and have been done or acted otherwise and I do not judge it to arise unless we will allow something of voluntariness in it after the manner I spake before upon any sight or action proceeding from an irrational or brute creature Therefore I do think that I my self should not with Crassus the Grandfather of Marcus that wealthy Roman as is so storied of him and that he never laughed but that once have laughed at the beholding an Ass eating of Thistles I think the Beast does it with a great deal of Art to save the pricking of his mouth but had I seen a man smelling on a Thistle to gratifie that sense and thereby in pricking his Nose much more offended another I do think I should have laughed Now though laughter be a thing more incident to the Fool than the Wise whose clearer Judgment is best able to correct its rise yet it proceeds from apprehension of the intellect ready to judge at all turns and quickest often in that notion when weakest and may denote at once some kind of inherent wisdom together with folly or frenzy in man that we being created to act most regularly and prudently from a disturbed intellect become often the most giddily erring and foolishest of creatures so as if Solomon said of mirth what doth it he might well say of laughter It is mad As for Speech which is a power or ability the Soul has so to move the Tongue and other Organs of the Body that from thence shall result such a modulation of the Air that each rational Soul from an articulate voice might apprehend others meaning and intent This formation of words made to be the Idea of the mind appears not nor could ever break out from the earthly extracted Soul of other creatures not that there is any absolute defect in their Organs for then no other Spirit could frame an articulate voice by them and we must deny the Devil 's speaking in the Serpent and some other Spirit for a time in Balaam's Beast for they have curious and admirable Notes and some of them have framed as plain a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with many other words as man can utter which has been a resultance from the ear when they were taught but no Index of the mind This gift and power of Speech I say is the chief outward livery badge or cognizance of the Soul by which Mankind is distinguished from and hath the advantage of all other creatures Brutes do indeed fellow together and apprehend and if I may so say understand one another by signs
into its natural extract or that such a substance can covet something future and as it were contrary to its own annihilation and yet become certainly annihilate This Desire I suppose all men will agree to be no ways incident to Beasts and therefore I beseech men for God's sake that if at any time there arise a desire in them or they wish or would that others should speak well of them rather than evil after their death then at that time they would seriously consider whether those motions are not from some Spirit to continue a Spirit after it leaves its earthly habitation rather than from an earthly Spirit a Vapour which cannot act or imagine or desire or fear things beyond its continuance For if the desire or fear of Posthume Glory or Posthume shame or punishment be congenial and connatural to all noble minds it is a pregnant and I think undeniable hint of their possible at least sempiternal existence after death Now a probability of our Souls being and existence and a possibility of its Eternal being after death being as much as native reason can suggest or inform any man for I do not think that any man from reason ever thought himself to be a God and of Eternal existence à parte ante as men say but had a beginning and by consequence if he had a beginning his duration support and conservation must necessarily depend on the same Eternal power that gave it beginning and that from the withdrawing that conserving power all things created have an end this probability and possibility from reason methinks should create some prudence and watchfulness in man and cause him whensoever he feels some inbred light glowing in him and yet after it has stirred burns so dimly in him that he knows not well which way to move to implore the aid of the Author of our own and all other beings and feeling something native to seek after somewhat of Tradition too to help it And that if there may be collected from reason some such thing in man as a capacity of Eternal life to make a quaere like him in the Gospel what shall I do to know it and inherit it that is enjoy it or live it with joy for fear at least otherwise we may so live as that we would desire to die and be extinct and find cause when nothing will help us to call on inanimate creatures even the Hills to cover us from his presence with whom there might have been fulness of joy All men living agree the Creator of the Universe to be good and gracious and loving to his creatures therefore let us search into that which the whole Christian World have always acknowledged to have been his Word and if we find not from thence assurance of Eternal life and by his Grace comfort from it conclude it is not to be found but not conclude before we have sought PART II. SECT I. Of the several faculties or operations of the Soul and therein first of Involuntary and Voluntary motion I Am now about to take the best view I can or my Soul is capable to do of its several faculties or operations distinct and apart one from the other and which together working in the Body we call the Soul of man What I have elsewhere said is an intricate maze full of little windings and turnings not to be traced out or fully discovered to it self I may here further say it is a brightness issued or darted from that glorious light so shining as somewhat to be seen and admired not at present wholly comprehended I never thought nor hoped to set down all that it is but only somewhat that it is we are not able to dissect the very case of it so as to find out the hundredth entry or passage for this Soul into the Body whereby that Lump is moved Some little kind of knowledge or notice we have got of its larger Rooms but for its smaller Inlets they have puzzled the most curious and quickest sight in the search and if my information be not false the most learned have acknowledged and confessed that upon the narrowest scrutiny they could possibly make in a dissection they could never yet find out by which ways or means Milk was made or conveyed from other parts of the Body to the Paps or Dugs The Soul must needs be of a more subtle nature than the Bloud from which some would have it to arise in Man as well as Beast and if that were granted we could scarce discover all the motions of the one without a perfect knowledge of the other which it seems is yet wanting and I am not desirous to lose my self in finding All that I desire to find is the cause and occasion of the Souls billows rage and tempestuousness and what helps there may be towards the allaying them to see whether our madness and folly does not with the raging of the Sea necessarily require one and the same stiller and quieter But from my search into the Soul I am not altogether ignorant that first from it there is a motion which we term for distinction sake Involuntary motion continuing without interruption during the whole time of the Souls residence with the Body as is the course or circulation of the Bloud the pulse breathing concoction nutrition excretion c. And also another kind of motion not always but admitting intermission and this arising from an introduction by some sense viz. the pressure of an external object upon each peculiar Organ of the Body proper and by the mediation of Nerves or Fibres conveyed inward to the chief domicils of the Soul from whence in its primary motion we are said to see hear feel tast or smell and so receives some counterpressure or resistance by stirring some Limb and making some noise which because seeming to depend upon some precedent fancy in our mind and capable of intermission we call Voluntary motion These and the like motions of the Soul are not the things I hunt after nor trouble my self to decipher since they may be quicker or slower without any apparent disease or combustion in the Soul of man But in short the Affections the Understanding and the Will together with the result from some of them the thing we call Conscience are those actions of the Soul I would at present in order enumerate be acquainted with and make legible to my self SECT II. Of the Affections of the Soul AFfections we commonly call them some Affects some Passions they are many and various in the Soul of man and there is little need of enumerating them they are too obvious upon several occasions in the Souls march here and they are a Troop without a wise conduct readier for mutiny than for service And though what we term sometimes Affections seem not properly so but are rather propensions or habits budding forth from Affections and taken for Affections we will at present muster some of them together under the notion
of Affections and call them by name Desire Joy Fear Grief Sorrow Love Anger Hatred Malice Enmity Strife Debate Frowardness Peevishness Curiosity Indignation Revenge Cruelty Lust Luxury Jealousie Pride Boasting Vainglory Ambition Envy Emulation Detraction Contempt Impudence Admiration Covetousness Miserableness Parsimony Care Doubt Desperation Lamentation Amazement Pensiveness Sadness Distrust Anxiety Shame and many others Now herein we often give several names to one and the same Affection according to its degree in working or the subject matter upon which or from which it worketh We have Pusillanimity Timorousness Dastardliness Cowardliness Fear Amazement Dread and Terrour as well as the Latines have metus formido timor pavor tremor terror horror exanimatio and we have Love Fondness and Lust as well as they have amor dilectio libido and we have Anger Wrath Fury as well as they have ira excandescentia furor and we have Sorrow Grief Pensiveness Mourning as well as they have dolor moeror aerumna luctus the first of which last to wit dolor when they come to define they call it aegritudo crucians the second aegritudo flebilis the third aegritudo laboriosa and the fourth aegritudo ex ejus qui carus fuerit interitu acerbo and all is but Sorrow Now besides that some of the aforementioned words denominating our passions may be taken in a good sence as Love Fear Sorrow Joy Indignation Care c. so may we reckon up and adorn the Affections on the contrary part with as many commendable and well-sounding words which are as proper and peculiar for them as the other as Charity Peace Gentleness Calmness Meekness Purity Benevolence Alacrity Chearfulness Constancy Courage Valour Pity Compassion Tenderness Humility Caution Frugality Liberality Mercy Modesty Sobriety Content Comfort c. And I think our so accounted Divine and Moral Virtues are no more than well tuned Affections or germins springing from them by native Reason and the superaddition of Grace And where either the one or the other is wanting the result from them is very harsh and grating and of an evil sound I will for instance pick one out of the former sort of a sound most abominated and detested the term we fix upon the Devil as a thing inherent most proper and peculiar in him and that is Envy The word it self is of no original evil signification the Latine expresses it best from whence we derive ours invidia is from in videre to pry or look into the estate being or condition of another creature Now if from this looking into we conclude him happy and are pleased with it that is Joy and I think a good Joy of the mind if from our insight we conclude him unhappy and miserable and we are any whit displeased or troubled at it that is Pity or Compassion and I think that good too and a true fruit of Love and Charity which Tree of Love flourishes the better by that dropping or excrescence from it But if we either sorrow at the apprehension of another's happiness which effect hath with us appropriated the word Envy to it self or rejoyce at the apprehension of his unhappiness which we may call malum mentis gaudium then is our affection wrong-tuned and evil yet all terminates in joy or sorrow and sorrow is indeed but a privation of joy and those other many words are Coins made by us to express our selves in For Hatred Malice or the like I cannot apprehend there is any such thing as either in Nature that is subsisting by it self separate and diverse from other passions that which we call Malice or Hatred is but an evil desire or wish tending to the weakning or depressing or removing that object which we imagine obstructs the joy or comfort we would have or should arise from the excessive evil Love of our selves or others And for Anger which always has for his object to work upon something or other offensive 't is defined but ulciscendi libido a desire of revenge and according to the height of that act unless where it lights on inanimate things and so accounted Folly it may be termed Hard-heartedness Oppression Cruelty or the like SECT III. Of the rise of the Affections COncerning the rise of our passions or affections my thoughts and conjectures at present are these That there naturally is in every thing and every creature but especially out of its place some secret hidden appetite desire endeavour propension proclivity inclination tendence or motion called which you will to some place of rest quiet or good but often receives lets or impediments in that its tendence And the Soul of man being an emanation from a Divine Essence and God as I may say being the Center to which naturally it tends until it come to that beatifick vision it cannot be at rest Now a rational Soul naturally working by Love and Joy in its fruition for want of that fruition necessarily and by consequence Desires and Sorrows so as I do think Love and Joy Desire and Sorrow to be of the Essence of a Soul wholly disjoyned from a Body and rational acts of it not properly passions but when the Soul works in that manner through a Body then are they called passions Now the Soul conjoyned to a Body may have yet notwithstanding some love purely intellectual and rational by some reflexion and drawing in some amiableness as through the imagination though it cannot fully by the imagination reach the proper object of love to it self and this may be upon some consideration a proper and peculiar act of an Humane Soul as I have said of some infinite power goodness and wisdom in the creation and preservation of the Universe of which it is a minute particle And certainly the Soul of man may be discerned now and then to act in the Body as if it were out of the Body summoning its powers and drawing its forces together from some tending affection as if it were about to take its flight ravish it self from the Body lay aside its senses for a time and have no manner of commerce with them but did see with other eyes and seem to it self for a while as disjoyned from a Body Which kind of motion has undoubtedly been selt as I may say and observed by some in a pleasant healthful state and more especially after waking from quiet rest These gracious kind of prospects of the Soul are cause sufficient to make any man cry out with St. Paul cupio dissolvi c. but these kind of extasies are short and rare and the Soul is straightways forced to a return and act again as usually in and through a Body Now were it granted that no affection can move but from the imagination and that sense is the general Port and entrance into the imagination which thing at present I cannot grant but believe the imagination may receive some stroke from that thing which I call a pure intellectual rational love of which I shall have fitter
any of the four things mentioned by Agur and I may confidently speak in the words of Solomon to any such diver As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit nor how the bones do grow in the womb so thou knowest not the work of God who maketh all 'T is not a thing I dare undertake to discover nor a thing I have absolutely desired to know But only to quiet and satisfie my self I have endeavoured to make some little search or enquiry which of the faculties of the Soul may seem a visum est only primary or most potent in operation not which in truth are for that shall never man certainly define And therefore let no man till he be able to find out himself the circulation of the Soul and the origine of that circulation and be assured to convince others in reason of that his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blame me of sloth or ignorance but allow me something of intellect if it be but in finding out my own defect therein And yet because I am willing in some degree to satisfie my self and others too but not wade herein further than some light from Scripture which I believe to be the true proper light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world may seem to direct and mark out I shall set down somewhat of my thoughts concerning the priority precedency or prevalency in the faculties of the Soul one before or above another Whereabout though I may seem to dissent from the received opinion and learning of the World and therein be exploded by some yet I trust and hope I shall in no wise wrench or screw that Sacred Word for my purpose nor much swerve from the true and genuine meaning of that which I alledge to be the principal if not the only ground of my opinion I am not able to find out any great ground of contest to arise between any faculties of the Soul for priority or precedency that is any dispute or question thereabout unless between the Imagination and the Affections barely Now that which we call the Imagination or cogitation in the Soul of man we find to be an unconstant fluttering as well as a restless faculty which at no time can be found settled or made to fix long nay much or often upon any one single object unless some affection do first seem to draw it and set it on work and in a manner fasten it as its attendant for a time though then also it have some momentary flyings out and extravagancies And though it be a thing undeniable that the imagination may often move or rouze some affection which was quiet before yet it is a thing as undeniable that the imagination or cogitation never created or made any affection more than any affection ever created that for we must agree they are contemporary in the Soul and so neither hath the precedency But yet where one seems to work more often in obedience and to some ends and designs or safe lodging or pleasing of another we may allow that other some kind of excellency and so priority And this I am ready to afford to some affection lodged in the center of the Body or innermost place of recess for the Soul there secretly fixed by its Creator with some reason to direct and guide as well as imagination to whet it Indeed the imagination and the affections when they are orderly or regularly working if not at all times and seasons do whet and as it were give edge to each other but surely as the Love of God far exceeds the thoughts of him so the Soul being an emanation at first from that Spirit of Love Love of him may be said to be a cause of thoughts of him and that if the Soul were not naturally capable to love and tend some whither we could not so much as think Sense must be agreed while we live in the Body to be the chief though not the only inlet or Port to the Soul and that every object by and through sense has some touch in its entrance upon the imagination or else we shall make a strange Chimaera of the Soul But not barely resting upon sense we may allow some prior inherent quality upon which by sense the imagination may seem attendant and in subjection to And though at some times the imagination do appear as the usher of the affections yet the least affection once kindled and something there must be allowed to be kindled whether of it self bursting out into flame or however inflamed or kindled will often hale the thoughts to the object without any farther help of sense But many things are presented to the imagination by sense upon which no affection seems to stir or move that we are able to discern and thereupon we may allow the imagination's work or motion to be chiefly from something occult whatever use it sometimes makes of sense to which it is or may be in subjection and not prior but rather posterior SECT II. That it seems to be in the Affections rather then any other from Scripture THere is a common saying how true I know not that life is first and last in that part of man's Body which we call the Heart and it is generally agreed and believed and I find no reason to dissent much from that opinion that there is the principal seat of the affections and that That is the Cell wherein they chiefly move and work Now nothing is so much called upon in Scripture as the Affections nor any part of man's Body so often named as the Heart the chief and principal seat thereof as if that part were taken for the whole and the content for the contained and whole man Soul and Body were included in that one word Heart and no act or thought of man were significant without affection or did arise or work but from an affection I shall not in this place going about to shew some peculiar prerogative the affections seem to have over the other faculties of the Soul scrape up together and cite the multitude of Texts wherein God by his Prophets and Apostles seems to strike only at the root of the affections the Heart and call upon that particularly to be given him or inclined or bent towards him they are obvious enough and I believe a thousand such are readily to be found But I shall only mention some peculiar places occurring at present to my thoughts which seem to allow not only a native or dative power in the affections over the whole intellective faculty whether Imagination Memory or Reason but also some primary influence which they have upon them all or as if the other faculties had their rise or spring from them Thus generally whensoever the intellect is mentioned in Scripture it is coupled with the seat of the affections and taken for them as if from thence it rose and had its influence For if the very imagination had any motion of it self or by sense
pardon and receive again into favour And 't is our only rational way in the like case to acknowledge our errors and get our affections somewhat hot and then melting in us that any dross contracted in our Souls any cankering rust cleaving to them may drop off that they may be somewhat bright and shine again The Heathens who had no other light but this to lead them had their purgations of which Socrates I think was the beginner which though after a vain manner may seem no ways to hurt them And certainly this manner of purgation that is melting into sorrow may do us good and prevent many sharp pains the Soul might otherwise feel even here in the Body I am not about to enquire and determine whether after thus doing we shall be at rest here or how far more or less from hence the Soul may become obnoxious to afflictions or crosses but certainly in all reason she will bear them better when she has done all she can towards a return and can find in her self no ground to think but that her boils proceed rather from some outward than any inward cause and that her disease is rather Epidemical than singular Having our Souls somewhat restored and cleansed somewhat at ease and calm we may I trust without offence and without rejection of more Sovereign Antidotes make use of our Reason towards the preventing of a Tempest in her for the future by finding out and judging if we can first the most probable and chief cause of her billows and why she is often thus tossed and almost shipwrack'd in the World and next espy out some ways or means for the future prevention of these storms But first by the way let us acknowledge that Reason in man such as it is and whereby we exceed all other visible creatures as it is the special gift of God and the thing we have least cause to term our own or too much think of the nativeness or inherency of it in us so it wants a more than ordinary daily support and supply for 't is that faculty or ability in the Soul which I have said man is most subject wholly to lose and be deprived and bereft of and without beholding through it that light which gave it being we may as I may say run mad with our Reason And such Rationalists there are in the World for why some men who have had a greater outward visibility and appearance of Reason than others have yet acted in the conclusion as if they had less if this presumption in them be not the cause or that they looked on their strength of Reason too much as an Habit and too little as a Grace I can find none If the Donor of the Talent be but owned it may surely as well be Traded with as laid up in a Napkin and not unlikely even from it may be found out too some other inherent gift in the Soul which if rightly disposed and ordered I will not say disposed or ordered by Reason may somewhat abate all excrescencies in the Soul and become the chief and only Foundation-stone for any Spiritual building spoken of before even that Tower of defence Faith Reason I say may point at or find out the proper corner-stone for building though she cannot move it of her self or erect any thing on it SECT II. Of Love SUrely he who created us neither gave us Invention to find out nor Reason to judge in vain I must acknowledge I am not able so much as to think a good thought nor well able to judge when my thoughts are as they should or might or ought to be yet that roving faculty of mine call it men what they best like labouring to introduce into my Soul divers and sundry causes of the disquietness tumults and disorders happening in her as well as others my weak Reason after rejection of some has seemed to rest satisfied and pitch'd upon this as the chief if not the only proper cause thereof That that essential part of the Soul Love from whence at some times we feel greatest delight suffers often too narrow an inclosure is pent up and imprisoned by some means or other and has neither that free scope and range or full and clear prospect abroad into the World which Reason is able to allow it and afford it whereby it loses that common acceptable title of Charity in a word Love is not rational but sensual Love may seem with the allowance of our Reason I think to be placed in every of our Souls like the Sun in the Firmament which though it may have peculiar Flowers that require more than its ordinary influence at least its visible rays and we are allowed some such things as we may more particularly call here Flowers of our Sun yet its circuit should be to the ends of the Earth and nothing hid from the heat thereof And then whatever becomes of those Flowers though they are cropt dead or withered it finds innumerable objects to exercise its rays upon and still shines bright and pleasant but if it become once eclipsed by the interposition of any peculiar objects there happens such an Aegyptian darkness in the Soul as most properly may be said to be felt Whenever we look into the Soul and find such a thing as Love there Reason though it be not able to quicken nor blow it up to any bright extensive flame for that is ever from Divine influence yet can demonstrate to us to what end and purpose that spark of Love is inherent in us that is to love the Author of our Being Now as we cannot see God but by his works so neither can we be properly said to love him but through his works Amongst which as there is nothing more deserves our love than such as bear his Image in common with our selves so there is no more certain way to judge of the sincerity of our love to him than by our love to them Thus the Apostle If we love one another God dwelleth in us and again He that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen This is so much the dictate of Reason that I should have thus thought upon consideration had I never seen Scripture and it is to a certain Law antecedent to all that is written that the Scripture it self doth refer it Thus the Apostle speaks I write no new Commandment unto you but an old Commandment which ye had from the beginning and calls it the message from the beginning of the breach of which he gives an instance in Cain's unnatural murder of his Brother before there was any written Law so that the Apostle might in this sense say As touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you for ye your selves are taught of God by the light of Nature and the Law written in the heart to love one another Now if the obligation to this Charity ariseth
Heaven if I understand the word nor that reason can demonstrate what God is though it may tell us what God is not And therefore I think reason may be as well too blame for marching too far or soaring too high for its learning or knowledg as sitting quite still or groveling on the earth and permitting the imagination to introduce what forms of a Deity will or best may gratify any the most predominant present affection an habit which has been too much in fashion of late and now a little withdrawing makes way for the other excess I may have said too much my self in this little it has exceeded my original intent and purpose yet this further I must say and begg your pardon and others who shall chance to see it if I say amiss that my wishes are we may all in this great concern carefully avoid extreams and that as we do not set up such a God by faith as reason is able daily to confront so we set not up such a God by reason as there needs no faith to lay hold on For my weak opinion is nay my present resolution is As never wholly to desert my reason for the adoration of any God So never to adore any thing for God my reason is able fully to comprehend EPIST. II. Wherein he treats of the cause of Action or Motion under the notion of Spirit and endeavours to shew our often mistakes in applying our thoughts and actions to the operation of that Spirit of truth in us which though good in themselves may proceed from other cause and advises to solitude at particular seasons as the most ready and likely way to behold in some degree the light of truth BEcause Soul or Spirit hath been heretofore at special seasons the subject of my thoughts and because there are many amongst us who would seem to have great knowledge of a Deity and may be thought too familiar with God under a colour or pretence of being daily enlightened with his Holy Spirit affirming its constant working in them And others quite Aliens and strangers to God not barely by their life and conversation but by their outward profession too and who deny in words as much or more than in the deeds that there is any such thing as a Spirit which in St. Iohn our Saviour tells us God is and that what we term Spirit is a mere Chimaera fansied in our brains Both which kind of persons being equally to modest Society and civil conversation and I may say enemies to true Religion I have adventured with all submission to your more weighty thoughts and solid judgement to present you with my sometimes opinion in reference to what we most properly and peculiarly term Spirit and wherein I say ought in relation to that Spirit of truth I humbly implore its aid that nothing escape my Pen which may in any wise if seen lead others into error or in the least diminish the goodness power glory might Majesty c. dominion of the Almighty First I have thought and do think That we can not rationally attribute or impute the cause of any action or motion whatsoever to ought else than somewhat which we in no wise able to comprehend by our sense term or call a Spirit and that without some such thing the world were an insignificant Lump That from such thing all things live and move and have their being is not to be doubted whether we call it Nature or ought else This Spirit gone forth or sent into the visible world which now has visible effects as I take it to be some emission of that Eternal spirit at the Creation from the Word so I think it generally worketh unknown to its self the will of that Eternal Spirit neither can it cease of it self to work but if re-assumed or gathered again as is expressed in Iob all flesh would perish together c. And that all flesh and all other things Sun Moon c. do not perish is the work of Gods ordinary I trust I may so call it Providence the confirmation Seal of his Creation Such vivifying Spirit as this which men may call nature if they please is gone out into the world and shall continue working every where no doubt until the appointed end of the world yet not apprehensive of its being nor capable of understanding in the least to what end it works may probably cease to work after the manner it now worketh And this kind of Spirit receives no new influence nor seems capable of any new influence from above yet is ordered by what we call Providence But where there is any Spirit conscious of its own working and in some measure capable to conceive from whence it is or at least desirous to enquire after or know the original of its being that Spirit seems to me to be some special emission more than ordinary at the beginning or Creation of the visible world to be of duration and continuance A thing now as it were subsisting of it self and which vanishes not nor can vanish or will be re-assumed again But being as I may say the very Spirit or breath of the Almighty and able to look back towards its original and fountain is capable of some new influence and as I may say regeneration and such is the Spirit of man And therefore we in no wise deny but that the Spirit of man may receive some new light for its motion otherwise than barely and simply by sense the Organ of the body And that no other though intellectual Spirit inferiour thereto can so do or is capable so to do Now of created Spirits superiour to our selves or of greater capacity in point of intellect than our selves as I read or hear of none save Angels created all good as well as we so I cannot conceive that any created or circumscribed Spirit from any power of it self to intermix it self with our Spirit or so move in us as that it may be properly said we are possessed with any other Spirit than our own and therefore 't is most properly said When we are tempted we are drawn away of our own lusts Though I confess I think objects may be brought by the assistance of some such spirit and laid down before our senses or presented to our fancy whereby our lust may seem to begin to move though indeed our lusts be the original of our error But forasmuch as our own spirit is some image of and has its being from the Almighty that is one eternal all powerful spirit it being capable by its reason for no otherwise 't is so to distinguish between good and evil in some measure and to know the will of that almighty One It doubtless may be and is capable also not only to have its reason enlightned from thence but to receive some such new accession of light as that it may not only have a clearer sight of that bountiful Creator than reason is able to afford it but be
Memory and weak of Judgment whatever our Will or Affections are or seem to be and the sight of that might well put a stop to my Writing But you and every man who finds and owns himself under that Notion will I hope pass by and pardon my infirmities if there appear any discrepancy between these and my former thoughts already set down in relation to this Subject And the rather because you well know all my former Papers were out of my custody whilst I was imployed and busied in these I have already exceeded the bounds of an Epistle and will trouble you no further save in relation to some former demonstration of my weak judgement relating to this faculty of the Soul the Imagination under these four several following heads distinct and a part and those I am bold to set down as follows I. That the Imagination of all the faculties of an human Soul is most subject to infection change and alteration from the humours of the Body II. That the guidance regulation or Government thereof is least in our power of any faculty of the Soul III. That it being a faculty the Government whereof is so much out of or beyond our Power We are not answerable for its Transgression unless where some other faculty more in the power of our will through the light of Reason does apparently concur or comply with it Or that through the negligence of our Reason it was the cause of the Imaginations incorrigible rambling errors IV. That it shews its Divinity and extraction as well as any other faculty of the Soul in the manner of its Work That set on work in relation to its own motion it necessarily terminates with the allowance of Reason in the thoughts of one Eternal Wise Being or Mind Governour and disposer of all things That from such thoughts we are necessarily stirred and incited in all the faculties of our Soul to fly thither for relief and to receive direction and guidance from thence chiefly That yet herein necessary care is to be had and taken that we retain and in some measure make use of our Reason lest we become ensnared through the delusion of Satan I. Notwithstanding my Opinion of the Souls extraction its Divinity and Immortality its power here in a Body from Heavenly influence to mount sometimes above sense its strength to resist all foreign delusion through sense by Reason Its capacity to work without a Body or the help of that more present inlet bodily sense Yet it is in my judgement while it remains in a Body so far subject to some Mists and Vapours arising there from that the Imagination the Eye of the Soul is thereby often deceived And so far deceived thereby that Reason though it remain in its native strength cannot correct its wandring but is forced to yield its allowance and consent and to be led as it were captive by the Imagination This faculty the Imagination the Eye of the Soul through sense as well as otherwise necessarily and perpetually working and in motion Upon any distemperature of the Body whereby sense is in any degree or measure clouded or disturbed is apt of it self to frame and raise strange Idea's and make strange representations to the other faculties to the amazement and confusion of Reason To the allurement inticement or attraction of other faculties from that which before they naturally were bent and inclined to and thereby at length to the captivation of Reason it self This happens not from every humour or in every disease of the Body but in such disease and from such humor only as by fumes sent into the brain clouds or darkens that port or inlet to the Soul Sense Or so disturbs or obstructs those passages that they cannot afford that assistance to Reason as usual against the deceit of the Imagination Sense I say a passage way or means by the perfect openness and clearness whereof Reason oft makes a better and truer judgment of things than it can when those passages are a little obstructed and yet to the Imagination seem open and clear In sleep when that port Sense is as it were wholly shut up through fumes Reason without blame leaves the Imagination as sole Master in the Soul to frame and introduce Idea's of it self which in reality are not Yet upon the opening of Sense again they vanish or are presently rejected and cast out of the Soul as idle But when that port of Sense is open and the Imagination presents to the other faculties of the Soul as if what it presented were rightly and truly formed through Sense with the allowance of Reason and thereby a vain belief a thing somewhat more than a Dream is raised perhaps to the terrour and affrightment of the Affections Reason not able absolutely to contradict the Imagination because it seemed to have the concurrence of Sense is sliely drawn into a kind of consent and this not seldom occasioned through gross humors in the Body In which case there is in my opinion a kind of defect lett or disease in Sense though not apparent as well as fault in the Imagination The Imagination is capable of distemper two manner of ways corporally or spiritually as we say But those two kind of distempers of the Imagination the one from the Body to the Imaginations deception of its fellow faculties in the Soul the other from those fellow faculties as violent Affections to the deception or rather confusion of the Imagination it self being often confounded together and the one not sedom mistaken for the other and the fault of the Body imputed to the Soul and the fault of the Soul imputed to the Body I have thought good to set down here some kind of mark by which they might be distinguished though I offer it not with any great confidence as the light of an infallible truth appearing to me and it is this That if at any time we find and observe a Body healthful as in most Lunaticks and withal the Affections very vigorous and active and every design and bent of them ready to be put in execution by the will and the instruments thereof bodily members There we may rationally adjudge the distemper of that Soul to be occasioned no otherwise than by its own default or neglect and the Original cause of the disease to have been the too familiar intercourse and trust between the Affections and the Imagination from the neglect of Reason and a thing which Reason might have prevented But if we find and observe the Body infirm heavy and lumpish and not active or ready with the Affections to put in execution those things which are framed in the Imagination but that there is a kind of Terror or Horror observable over the Spirits and a doubting and distrust in the Soul there we may impute every false gloss and fictitious formation and contrivance of the Imagination to have its rise or result from some gross humors in the Body such as we call Melancholy such
choosing for us 2 The folly of our own Choice with respect especially to the Goods of fortune and particularly to Children we cannot foresee how they will prove or what may happen to them to make them and us by them miserable 3 Our sins are the cause of all Evil and exceed our sufferings and which are often to be discovered by them as is exemplified in the loss of Children 4 Our remaining enjoyments surmount our sufferings page 8 SECT III. Of the Nature and Origine of Sorrow that it ariseth chiefly from Love which is the root of all passions The cure of sorrow by the love of God page 20 SECT IV. The remedies ordinarily prescribed against Sorrow considered and shewed to be of little force towards the cure of it as that death is a common thing that we cannot recal our Friends that they are happy that our case is not singular That it s not to be cured by Reason and Philosophy alone and by nothing less than an influence from above What graces are exercised in Affliction page 29 Ejaculations used in the state of the disease page 36 BOOK II. A Treatise of the Soul containing several discourses of the Nature Powers and Operations of it The Preface shewing the occasions and Reasons of writing such a tract page 45 PART I. SECT I. How far the Soul of man is similar with that of Brutes The Soul considered in the three prime faculties of the Intellect viz. the Imagination Mmory and Reason That Beasts work more regularly in order to their end than men That man only beholds things at a distance p. 52. SECT II. Wherein the Soul of man exceeds that of Brutes It s immortality considered and proved from Scripture and particularly from the writings of Moses page 56 SECT III. It s Immortality maintained and illustrated from its obstructions in its operations as deliriums and dotage page 57 SECT IV. It s Immortality proved from the manner of its acting in the inferiour faculties similar with Brutes page 60 SECT V. It s Immortality further illustrated from its different operations in different persons whereas Beasts of the same species do all agree in their desires and delights page 61 SECT VI. The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from the difference between Parents and Children and its difference from it self page 63 SECT VII The immortality of it shew'd from its unweariedness in acting from its reflex acts which cannot proceed meerly from Sense page 65 SECT VIII It s immortality shew'd from things peculiar to man as Weeping Laughter Speech and the nature of these considered with respect to their different causes and which cannot be extracted out of matter Reflections on Atheism and the immortality of the Soul shewed from the desires that are to be found even in the defenders of it page 67 PART II. SECT I. Of the several faculties and operations of the Soul and therein of voluntary and involuntary motion page 75 SECT II. Of the Affections of the Soul the severals of them The nature of Envy c. considered page 76 SECT III. Of the rise of the Affections Love the primary mover of them What part in the Soul is the seat of the Passions Of the Heart the Stomach and Spleen page 78 SECT IV. Of the Imagination which receives several names according to its working as Invention Conception Reflexion Apprehension Cogitation Fancy A Syncope or swoun peculiar to man in which Imagination ceaseth to work In all the ramblings of Imagination there is a dependence It s a faculty Reason hath the least power over And the benefit of not having an absolute power over it page 83 SECT V. Of Memory He that hath a smart invention seldom wants a good Memory The impress in it on the Imagination is according to the strength of Affections and Reason page 87 SECT VI. Of Reason that saving graces are ingrafted on it page 88 SECT VII Of the Will The Will free as respecting self but depending on God No other will in Brutes but what receives immediate impression from Sense such a will as ariseth from but cannot put a stop to thought page 89 SECT VIII Of Conscience what it is of a tender Conscience page 90 SECT IX Os the faculties of the Soul working upon each other Sense works upon the Imagination and the Imagination upon the Affections and both upon Reason and Reason again on the Affections c. Reason influenced by the Divine providence page 93 PART III. SECT I. Of the prevailing faculty of the Soul and wherein the primacy seems to be Of the concurrence of the Imagination and the Affections and the power of the Affections page 98 SECT II. The potency seems to be in the Affections if we consult Scripture p. 101 SECT III. It may seem to be in some Affection from humane conjecture p. 103. SECT IV. Of the potency of the Affections They are not to be subdued by Reason alone but Reason is oft subdued by them page 104 SECT V. Some Affection is the substantial part of the Soul page 109 SECT VI. How the Affections move from the Imagination or otherwise as from Revelation Reason or Sense page 110 SECT VII What light the Imagination receives from Reason Of the weakness of Reason Of the dependence which the Soul hath upon the Body in its operations page 112 SECT VIII Of the excellency and advantage of Reason notwithstanding its inability and dependence page 115 PART IV. SECT I. Means to reclaim the Soul The Affections not opposed forthwith cool Reason shews us our Errors but neeeds Faith to enforce it p. 118 SECT II. Of Love Love toward man a principle of Nature and what Faith doth not set us at liberty from It should be Universal page 122 SECT III. How Love may be regent Though Love be the principal grace it ows much of its vigour to the concurrence of the rest as is exemplified in Humility Iustice and especially Faith page 129 The Conclusion Against Censuring That we search not into things too high for us but make the word of God our guide page 132 BOOK III. Containing several Epistles to the REVEREND the DEAN of CANTERBURY EPIST. I. Wherein the Author after some Apology for the not making publick his Treatises de Dolore de Animâ makes some reflexions on Atheism and blames the unnecessary and extravagant dsputes and writings against such as seem tainted with it That the way to convince such is by the practice of Religion That opposition doth often continue that which if neglected would fall of it self as men of sharp wits delight to find Antagonists page 1 EPIST. II. Wherein he treats of the cause of action or motion under the notion of Spirit That a Spirit conscious of its own work is durable That the flashes thoughts and actions of our own Spirits are often mistaken for and applied to the operation of the Spirit of God Four ways of Gods operation with respect to man 1. By his common Providence
and his Son Solomon the wisest of men have assured us in sundry positions that understanding takes her possession of the Soul with it and that through his Commandments it is that we are wiser then our Teachers And surely if there were not some defect in every man of these Graces by the intetposition of Sin and Satan he would sooner or later hear that gracious and effectual Eccho resound in his Soul from the Spirit of all true love and comfort Let not your hearts be troubled This is the only rational way I think of cure Redire ad cor and to get that clean swept and garnished that the Spirit of true love may enter in and keep possession against all unruly passions and I dare say whoever tries it will subscribe his probatum to it SECT IV. The Remedies which are ordinarily prescribed against Sorrow considered with respect to their force and efficacy and how little Philosophy of it self can do towards the conquest of it BUt as I said let us not altogether reject every prescribed alleviating Medicine Indeed there are many from our common undertaking comforters and we are ready to catch at them like Reeds in a sinking condition Although they are firm Truths and such as have been used by the greatest Philosophers and Divines towards the cure yet barely and simply considered all or either of them have not the efficacy to bring a man to any safe or quiet Harbour They may keep a man from drowning but withall they may and do often leave him plunging in the deep without the co-operation of some more Sovereign Medicines and are some of them fitter ingredients for a complicated disease where murmuring and repining are joyned with it than bare sorrow which I bless God I never was infected with for I own his Judgments just and am more apt to have St. Gregory's noise in my ears Tu vero bona tua in vita tua c. than the contrary But I mention them as I thought on them and leave them to others to make their best use of them which are these following 1. That death is a common thing and a debt we all owe to Nature and must shortly pay and therefore it should not so much trouble us to behold it in another 2. That we cannot recall our Friends and Relations by our mourning and therefore our sorrow is vain 3. That they whom we love are at rest and happy which is rather cause of joy 4. That 't is not our case alone we are not single but others daily suffer the like As to the first the thing is very obvious to the meanest capacity and perhaps if we did in our serious thoughts oftner behold death he might prove like Aesop's Lion to his Fox not altogether so terrible but yet he will be a Lion still and as Aristotle calls him omnium terribilium terribilissimum and further if we did look upon him at hand ready to seize us then together with us all worldly things would change their hue and put on as it were another face 'T is sure that Death passeth upon all men but as St. Paul says because all men have sinned and from thence it is that death hath such a sting And 't is sin that has made sorrow and trouble attendants on death as well as death on it both for our selves and others And therefore the contemplation of the primary cause of our sorrow should rather take up our thoughts as I have already said than the secundary For the thought of death certainly was never wholly absent from any man in his sorrows nor ever cured any but the true sense of his own deserts have As to the second every man knows it as well as the other neither was there ever any man yet that had his reason left him who thought to revive his Friend or Relation thereby or to awake him with his shrieks and cries It is every mans deepest corrosive that there is no redemption from the Grave And though in truth it be a vain thing to persist in that which profiteth us nothing yet that vanity will not be driven away by anothers barely telling us so or our own thinking or knowing it so The faculties of the Soul will not cease to work though there is knowledge that the operation is oft-times in vain 't is in vain we know to fear death but that knowledge will not cure a man of his fear Certainly the wounds of the Spirit are sharper and more malignant than those of the Body and 't is the same reason must argue us into patience of both But let her set us upon the Rack 't is in vain to cry out it will profit us nothing we shall scarce hearken to her and keep silence This advice best comes when we begin to be weary of our mourning and not before and then only will this reason be hearkned unto In the mean time let us consider if we can All things are vanity which are the causes of our vexation of Spirit As to the third I look on it as a good Christian contemplation and may in the declination of the disease prove a pleasant Cordial but in the state thereof of little prevalence to a cure because it is a thing we never doubted of but upon the first departure of the Soul of him or her who lived well c. think it received into Eternal bliss And therefore if these thoughts had in them any present sanative virtue they would rather keep us from sorrowing at all since they possess us as soon as our sorrow and are contemporary with our distemper The wise Son of Syrach allows us a moderate sorrow bids us weep for the dead but not over-much because he is at rest And St. Paul's advice or caution is that we sorrow not as others which have no hope that is with a desperate faithless sorrow as if they were eternally lost and that Christ should not raise them up at the last day But surely no man will charitably deny but that a strong Faith and a deep worldly sorrow may sometimes possibly subsist together and that there may be spe dolentes as well as spe gaudentes For I cannot so discard my own charity as not to think some very good men have gone sorrowing to their Graves and yet have rejoyced too in the hopes that God will bring with him those that sleep and they shall meet together But for our present pensive thoughts and mourning 't is sure they arise not only for want of this belief or from any supposed detriment happened or like to happen to our Relation or Friend whom we once enjoyed and now are deprived of but to our selves from our present loss For 't is most certain with every man that whenever any object has stollen into and possessed his heart and taken root there if the same be eradicated and snatched away though he suppose it planted in a more pleasant Soil there will immediately
spring up in the room thereof grief and sorrow and the greater and deeper root the one had taken the more stubborn and fixed will be the other And therefore I think the Poets advice by way of caution and prevention if we could but warily observe it more of weight than these thoughts have at present by way of cure viz. That we take great and diligent care that these worldly objects of joy and delight do not creep in and too strongly possess our hearts lest if they should be cast out against our wills there enter in and spring up that bitter root of sorrow which will make our last thoughts more heavy than our first were lightsom Sorrow is a wound that is made by the separation of the thing beloved from the lover and though it be but temporary and that we believe with some that we shall again at the last be united together with the knowledge of each other where we shall sing Hallelujahs together and all tears shall be wiped from our eyes yet in the mean while our hearts may be troubled and sorrowful even unto death And since we have lost our present comfort the wound will not be healed but by sending another and better comforter We may still mourn for want of the enjoyment our affections never be absolutely reclaimed by believing the former subject of their Love is happy nor like mourning Widows forget the old but by finding a new subject of delight and complacency Therefore let us as well as hope in future presently recall them and endeavour as I said to fix them on some more stable object than they placed themselves on before Tell them there is nothing truly amiable but God and him we may enjoy here in measure And for the last of them the thoughts thereof as I have said are more proper to prevent murmurs than asswage sorrows For though fellowship in adversity be proverbially turned into and administred for comfort yet really to a good mind it has no such operation If another man loses his only Child as well as I I have thereby wherewith to stop my mouth from complaining of injustice but in no case to rejoyce my heart because I ought rather to rejoyce at anothers good than his evil And sure the true method of the cure of the mind does in many things resemble the cure of the body How far will it asswage my pain to see another more grievously tormented with the Gout very little I think unless as 't will enforce me to acknowledge God's mercy and goodness to me that I suffer in a less degree Nay if the beholding of another mans miseries should be of effect to mitigate mine by the same consequence the beholding anothers felicity which is as obvious to every man must increase mine which naturally few men have found true Many other prescriptions there are against sorrow but since I look on the continual presentment to our thoughts of the thing we take delight in and the rouling and chewing thereof in our mind to be the chief Pillar or Basis which supports and upholds our sorrows or the chief Spring which keeps them fresh and verdant I could not but think it worthy consideration how far it may be good for any man to endeavour to recall his thoughts from his present subject of grief by fixing them on and pleasing them with any other terrestrial object wherein my shallow Judgment has inclined me to think this That no such diverted thoughts whatever being properly efficient of a cure but Anodynes and Stupefiers for a time for then only can a man be said to be cured of his grief when he can think on the cause with comfort or at least without reluctancy of Spirit it is not good for any man in this case to hunt after a divertisement but rather suffer that to call on him and find him out I would advise any man in this case to embrace an old lawful vocation or imployment but not seek out a new one for that end and purpose nor by any means endeavour to charm his grief with the most innocent much less sinful recreation For whatever it may be for cares in general 't is a foolish thing to think forthwith to drown sorrow in the River Lethe for though it be an heavy passion yet none of the mind will get above it We shall often find it rise to verifie the Wise mans saying that even in laughter the heart is sorrowful and it will cause us to conclude with him that Songs sung to an heavy heart are like Vinegar poured upon Nitre do rather sharpen and exasperate than cure the disease This way of laying sorrow to rest is but to give it strength to combate with us with greater force when it awaketh as doubtless it may But besides the incertainty and danger this way we do not thereby at all answer God's designment in sending it Did he ever yet punish any man for no other end than that he should forget his strokes and rejoyce and not rather that he should think on it so far as to amend his faults or errors Can any man think there is an hand-writing on his walls to the end that after his beholding it he should forthwith avert his Eyes therefrom and leave his House and betake himself to the Fields or the Tavern If it be God that wounds us as we generally believe permissively at least as in Iob's case by his fiery Serpents it must be he that must heal us which will not be by flying from the sight of the Serpent but beholding it If it be he that casts us down it must be he that shall build us up And whatever Iob's Friends might otherwise fail in they gave him excellent sound counsel in this That if he returned to the Almighty he should be built up but forgetfulness of his calls is not the means to return and the Prophet David has told us that disregard is the ready way for us to lie buried in our ruines and has shewed it as the very cause Because they regard not the works of the Lord nor the operation of his hands he shall destroy them and not build them up If we think wilful forgetfulness be the way of cure it is but just God should forget us and leave us unbuilt or at least tortering and ready to fall again upon the least blast For I dare say by that way and without him there is danger that our hearts from melting may become frozen but never reduced to any calm or serene temper For besides and above what the World affords sometimes to wit a transmutation of passions that is her objects may cause the mind to lay aside its sorrow for a time and be wholly possess'd with another passion which may be almost as troublesom or is at best a light flashing joy we are capable of obtaining a conversion of passions of having our sorrow as 't is expressed in St. Iohn
the like nature with that breath it proceeded from and so be immaterial and immortal And we shall find this difference further confirmed by the same Authority For whereas Moses gives no other Life or Spirit different from the bloud to other creatures but saith the bloud is their life or Soul and their Soul in the bloud when he speaks of that of man he calls it the bloud of their lives signifying by this variety of phrase the difference of the thing and that in man the bloud has rather its motion from the Soul than the Soul its origine from the bloud And in the ensuing verse where he forbiddeth the shedding mans bloud by a retaliative Law he adds again the words used in the Creation For in the image of God made he man So that the Souls of Brutes only appear as the Tongues mentioned in the Acts as it were of fire but that of Man as a spark of that Eternal Light real and durable and as Solomon says after the dust returns to Earth as it was the Spirit shall return to God that gave it SECT III. The Immortality of the Soul of man maintained and illustrated from its obstruction in its operation NOw though this Earthly rarified Spirit of Brutes may to sense often outshine the other and several other creatures may outstrip some such particular men as we call Naturals in knowledge that diminishes nothing from nor renders the Soul of man to be of a less noble extract than in truth it is but that the one still remains Divine and the other Natural For although real Fire may by hid and by reason of some obstruction impediment or interposition dart forth little or no light to the senses and an ignis fatuus may shew it self and appear more lucid and bright to them yet Fire is no less Fire when covered and the nature and quality of them still remains different The outward appearance does never infallibly demonstrate the inward excellency of things and there may be a change of our common Proverb and Gold found that glisters not It seems to me rather some Argument of the immortality of mans Soul that it sometimes remains so darkly as it were inclosed in some one particular trunk or carcass without any the least symptom of its being there more than outward heat and motion as well as that in some others it shews forth its wonderful capacity and faculties beyond that of all other creatures For if it did arise naturally or had its production from the flesh or the more fluid substance of that flesh the Bloud as that of Beasts there never could happen or be such a disparity such a distance and disproportion in its effects as now and then there appears The faculties of the Souls of Beasts wherein they are similar to those of Man do not much exceed or outshine one another of the same species For although one Horse may be more docible than another more lively quick or better spirited as we term it than another yet there never was that or any other kind of Brute so brutish as I may say but had some knowledge of his Feeder and like the Ox and the Ass none of the wisest Animals could know its Owner and its Master's Crib none that would not shew some endeavour to nourish and preserve it self be sensible of what was noxious and destructive to it self careful to avoid Fire and Water or the like know its Young if Female and love and nourish them and be somewhat useful in its kind to man and other creatures as if the Souls of Beasts only dwelt in their native and proper Country and were at liberty and ours were here Prisoners in Chains and Fetters and sometimes in a Dungeon waiting for their deliverance I knew a man born in a Village near me living to the age of twenty years very heathful of a good stature of perfect outward lineaments and features endowed with the senses of Hearing and Seeing of a sage countenance if at any time without motion and yet never as I or others could discern knowing any one person about him more than another never making any signs for meat or drink though greedily swallowing them when put to his mouth never could he be made sensible of the passage of his own ordure or of Fire or Water and yet might be kept at any time from the danger of those Elements by the interposition of Stools or a Line or Cord and within that circumscribed Sphere would move all day ridiculously Certainly if this inclosed Soul had its being from the Bloud and not the Bloud its motion from it whatever Physicians may alledge and however they may guess at some obstructions or defect in some part of the Brain and they can but guess at the one more then I do at the other for they can shew me nothing in a dissection it must in some degree equal that of Brutes in outward appearance But seeing there is such a disproportion in degree of knowledge as well by comparing the most stupid Man with the most stupid Animal as the wisest Man with the wisest Animal and Man is found to exceed both ways that very excess on our parts does more demonstrate the immediate work of God in our creation and somewhat different from Natures ordinary course which though his working too usually produces the same effects in all individuals of the same species and might prove a Medicine to allay our fears on the one hand and our spiritual pride on the other and shew what the Soul of man is capable of and yet how obscure it may be here on Earth till it shall please that Inspirer to receive it into Glory I do not look on knowledge in the Soul of man as a bare remembrance or that the mind of man is at present and while in the Body merely thereby let and hindred from the knowledge of all things yet some such notion may not seem to arise and be fixed now and then in our conceptions altogether without the allowance of Reason since as often as we attain to any intellectual knowledge of things that is from causes whereof we were or seemed before ignorant and that either from the bare labour and search of our intellective faculty or from others information through sense with its attention it will seem to us rather a recovery from some disease than any new being or existence in the Soul rather a dissipation of some Cloud than any new Light and that we knew as much before if we had but minded it as we are wont to say And besides the usual native weakness or blindness in the Soul of man which is a thing almost perpetually labouring and working in some men as it were for a cure if it recovers in some sort and measure yet it 's afterward very incident to a relapse and subject to an adventitious weakness or blindness doth contract infirmities and often lives long in the Body blinded with a
residence or future habitation of these Souls when the body leaves them or they leave the body We shall scarce allow them any heavenly vision and though they are the work of God's hand as well as we and work to his glory and set forth his glory here on Earth we shall hardly admit them to do it locally in Heaven To what place shall we convey them or for what work or use shall we assign them in our thoughts If we leave them as thin aiery bodies wandring up and down in the Air or we know not where or whither neither animating or moving other bodies nor doing good or harm to man or ought else I think we derogate from the wisdom of that first cause wich can no more be thought to continue a thing altogether useless and unnecessary than to create a thing useless from the beginning which reason will not allow us to think If upon the separation of these Souls from the body we can imagine they forthwith enter into animate and reside in other bodies we must forthwith make enquiry whether such bodies only as are of the same Nature Quality and Species with those they inhabited before or else promiscuously of any kind or degree whatever Either of which will prove absurd to imagine with reason But before we come to view that absurdity in its particulars All living and moving Creatures would be a little considered together in their several Faculties or Intellects from which notion Intellect we raise our doubts of their Mortality or perishing Though the wisdom of the Almighty be apparent and imbraced by the reason he has given us in his willing the production of a more fine and subtle spirit for moving bodies than those fixed to the Earth touched before we cannot reasonably conjecture any vast disproportion of Intellect though some we find between living moving Creatures themselves whose voluntary operation seems to be and tend only towards acquiring Food and Sustenance to each particular individual and perpetuating it self by generation For our more immediate acquaintance or conversation with some of them more proper and fit for our use make the difference in their Intellect seem greater to us than in reality it is And we are apt to place the excellency generally in those creatures which necessarily depending on us next under God the Preserver and Feeder of all for preservation and sustenance do by that their dependance and familiarity with us shew their Intellect more apparently to us than other Brute Creatures But why we should hereupon imagine that there is not as much of Intellect in some Fishes of the Sea as either in Fowls of the Air or four-footed Beasts which we better know I find no reason since by their Intellect they both acquire their food and preserve themselves from danger equally with the others Nay I see no ground to deprive Insects from as large a share of Intellect in some cases as either By Insects I mean not only those reptilia and volatilia without parts and blood to us discernible but all creaturs whatsoever bred of heat and putrefaction as it may be Mice some kinds of Serpents Frogs and the like whereof some years seem to produce more and far greater numbers than can be thought to proceed from generation though I believe most Creatures bred of putrefaction at first do after generate These together do undoubtedly far exceed in number all quadrupedes and flying Fowls upon the face of the Earth Now some of these have already obtained from us the repute of very wise and provident Animals and we are apt to extol their Intellect sometimes beyond that of other Creatures of far greater bulk and dimension Truly it may be adequate in many cases Intellect we know no more how absolutely to deny them than other Creatures Certainly we cannot deny any sense to most of them for instance the Bee undoubtedly they see and hear too as may be observed and collected from their being stayed or allured with whistling or the ringing of a Bason And since we observe how they will find and know their way to a Field of Thyme or the like some Miles distant from their Hives and return directly to them again we cannot deny them voluntary motion and by consequence Imagination and further I am somewhat assured upon Experiment they will in few days certainly know and distinguish a person conversant about them and not at any time molesting him though he somewhat molest and disturb them and forthwith strike at any Stranger upon his or her approach And truly were Wasps and Hornets equally beneficial to man with them I doubt not but some who have wrote the Common-wealth of the one would soon have espied a Kingdom in the other more than Agur could discern in the Locusts and found as much of sense and Intellect in the one as in the other Since they are no less political creatures and work in select numbers and with no less order and it may be government than the other the like may be said of many other kinds of Insects The numerous excess of Insects beyond that of other creatures granted and likewise that there is in many of them which I know not well how it can be denyed as great a measure of knowledge as in some other creatures which thing Knowledg or Intellect in any or all is our ground to think why such their Spirit resolves not into Earth or Air but rather continues in some airy thin body or transmigrates into some other body for the animation thereof It will follow that the spirits of these insects cannot transmigrate into specifick quadrupede bodies or Fowls because it may be made almost apparent that there often are in one or two days space more of them in number destroyed and mortified than there are probably four-footed Beasts and Fowls upon the face of the whole earth But we must of necessity find out in our imagination some place for the spirits of these insects to rest in for a time or where they work or wander up and down for a certain space Or else conclude they do forthwith animate or transmigrate into bodies of the same or the like species with themselves to wit insects only Which to hold and maintain would be equally absurd to our reason unless we can rest convinced withall of some World in the Moon or at least a most accurate Antipodes to our selves and a Continent of land so placed where the Sun shall have a most lively vivifying influence too at that very time or instant we shall first feel our sharp Autumm frosts For besides the innumerable millions of divers kinds of our ordinary Flies whose spirits from thence cease to work any more in the same bodies between which and those Insects we attribute so much of prudence to it would be difficult to define any certain bounds in point of prudence or Intellect How many thousand millions of that sage provident creature the Ant do's one winter destroy
Universal World to shew me how Nature in her Work often changes even as to visible mutation of colours and to set down any rationally undeniable or incontroulable cause for instance of black or blackness nay such as I am not able in Reason to convince him of the uncertainty and dubiousness thereof That she follows any certain especial course therein no man will maintain in things of the same species That not only in Sheep a thing most common white of both Sexes for many descents produce black we find but even Crows and Daws sometimes do the like or contrary and produce white as I have sometimes seen and I suppose at this day may be seen at Saint Iames's And though it might be rare it would not appear a miracle to me but the Work of Nature to behold a black Swan The like I could demonstrate in Fruit both Plums and Cherries from Stones of another colour'd Fruit set together in the same bed of Earth black from white or red and white from black Men may talk of some portion of Mercury Salt or Sulphur in every Body adust torrified sindged or the like but how this adustion works sometime in peculiar forms and figures only let any man tell me That alteration of colour is at any time an effect of the Imagination is a thing utterly exploded and never was other than the whimsy of some mens imagination or fancy surely never any man obtained fair or black Children from the greatest strength of his Imagination If it were able to work such an Effect we should be all very fair from hope or black from fear since Passions very much strengthen if not create or ingender an Imagination However if any such thing were thus wrought in living Creatures it cannot hold in Plants which have no Imagination I know men from their imagination have adventured to set down Causes of Colours and thought verily they hit on the right and yet have been corrected by another mans imagination rather than any solid Reason Aristotle tells us the cause why there are to be found more delicate and lively colours in the Feathers of Birds than in Hairs of Beasts is this For that Birds are more within the Raies or Beams of the Sun that Beasts are Another comes and corrects him and say's he gives a vain and frivolous Cause for it and tells us the true and real Cause of it is for that the excrementitious moisture of living Creatures which makes as well the Feathers in Birds as Hair in Beasts passeth in Birds through a finer and more delicate streiner for Feathers pass through Quills and Hair through Skin And surely his true and real Cause is as little exempt of vanity unless he had been pleased or could have shewed us a Cause too why there should be so adjacent such variety of delicate Colours about the neck of a Cock-Pheasant produced from such neighbourly and similar Streiners nay three of four delicate Colours in one and the same Feather through one and the same streiner Or why in a Peacocks train at such an exact and equal distance from the Body Nature should produce that curious and delectable Colour in a peculiar form and shape and the excrementitious moisture in its streining should fail of its Beauty not only in its first and next but in its furthest and most remote motion and produce but a dull Colour at either end of the Quill Of the two opinions or causes I will give that of Aristotle the precedency because I find not only in Feathers but all Flowers that I have seen and observed that side of the Feather Leaf or Flower which is most directly within the Suns raies to be ever most beautiful and that Eye of Argus in the Peacocks train to have but a shadow of its Beauty or form on the lower reversed side And yet doubtless there are most curious Colours to be found in the very bowels of the Earth And I for my own part am neither able to give nor do I expect further or other substantial cause to be given of the beauty and splendor in any part of a Creature than the will of the Almighty in his Creation either for our pleasure in beholding or admiration to draw us towards him in considering the variety ornament and excellency of his Works Neither do I think there is any undeniable cause to be rendred why Stones ground to powder should not nourish as well as bread if God's fiat had been upon them as Satan seemed to tempt him I do not from hence go about to perswade you or any man to transplant and remove back again all final causes particular effects and fix them only and barely upon the first original cause of all things I know there are exterior Causes to be given for the blackness of this very Ink I write with and such as may not only satisfy an ordinary Reason to accept thereof as indubitable but such as may frame an ingenious Spirit towards the finding out some like useful invention But this I say there is such an intricacy in the veriest ordinary Works of Nature to him who looks any thing deeply and not superficially therein as is sufficient to shew us both our own weakness and folly and a transcendent Wisdom far above our reach Upon which there should be always one Eye fixed and ready upon all occasions to recall the other and also all our other senses and faculties permitted sometimes lawfully to ramble after second Causes And surely unless we set up fancy as I have said rather than Reason for Umpire it would so be and we should be forced at last as to the main to terminate in some hidden Cause A Cause indeed not altogether hid from us but set aside as unregarded that is there necessarily is One only Eternal immutable unchangeable Essence abundant in Power and Wisdom through its abundance shewing it self in variety in the least of whose Works being infinite there is more than humanity can comprehend which by a Law of Nature binding all things but it self continually worketh all in all What defence or Apology shall I then make first for permitting my thoughts to ramble in quest of the Nature or extract of the Soul of Beasts as well as my own and next for setting down my opinion thereof and exposing the same to publick view thereby seeming to endeavour to impose the same belief on others which I hold and maintain my self Why truly for the first it might be occasioned or at least augmented from a late private rural life and a conversation as I may say with Beasts as well as men I cannot say with the Preacher I gave my heart to seek and search out by Wisdom concerning all things that are done under Heaven but the later part of the verse may not unfitly be applied to me or others This sore travel hath God given to the Sons of Man to be exercised therewith or to aflict them or as some Translations to humble
only neither can there be ease or disease pleasure or displeasure in the Soul longer than Sense affords being to such Affection and this I think to be the case of Beasts because we never see them disquieted long or above measure nor refusing any grateful Object if some disease of the body resist it not we observe not their Imagination heightened by their lust nor their lust inflamed or raised from their Imagination but at such time only as Objects offer themselves through Sense and the one abstracted the other seem to vanish And surely were our degenerate lust and affections of the same extract it were impossible for us to be hurried away to that excess of any vile or base passion as to imploy our thoughts nights and days about a meaner or more sordid Object than Sense it self usually affords every moment But Affection in us is of another extract able to desire and imbrace what Sense cannot afford our Imagination of another capacity and reach penetrable and malleable as I may say otherwise than by sensible Objects Our Will and all other our animal Faculties subject to supernatural influences and that is the reason there is such daily combat between them and sometimes such lasting agony For the Imagination rowsed and called upon as it were from divers and sundry quarters and not able through Sense to work so as to satisfie one single affection It sometimes opposes Sense and raises a thousand Chimaera's to the astonishment and amazement of it self to the conclusion and distraction of the Affections and to the disquiet of the whole Soul so as whatsoever original cause we impute elsewhere the present apparent cause of our disease we may rightly impute to the Imagination and the rectifying thereof must needs be the readiest way towards a cure which I shall endeavour to speak of in the end of my following Discourse Do we not find our Imagination allured or inticed to work from the restless strugling of some affection Do we not again find it recalled by Reason arrested by our Will wrested at length by some foreign power from subjection to either and forced to work as we observe by consequence in obedience to some eternal decree leading all the others as captives And all this while Sense one and the same in all men might seem to offer it other subject matter for its present work Do we not or may we not observe in our selves at special seasons some mounting in desire to imbrace or lay hold on somewhat above the reach of Sense And would we not our Imagination could invent or find out some such thing Is it not thereupon set on work And though it cannot fully comprehend mere insensible things by any investigation yet is able to imagin or conceive there is something more glorious more pure more perfect c. that it can conceive whereby the Affections are a little quieted for the present and rest in a kind of hope and to this Reason freely consenting there is begat a kind of faith I would fain know how it were possible our own thoughts should be set on work in relation to what others thought of us or in what state we were in the eye of any righteous all-knowing Judg or argue and weigh or will in relation thereto or be concerned or troubled thereabout with fear or dread or ioy if sense were the only inlet to the Soul I am sure it cannot hurt us at present but from our desire to know and our imagination's presentation thereupon so as what our Imagination frames must be chiefly the cause of our disquiet or disease of mind if any happen Indeed as it is sometimes the window by which Heavenly light is admitted so it often proves the Postern-door by which some evil spirit sliely enters and the Key thereof is certainly some corrupt affection It is most subject to be turned about by every wind from within and from without most subject to be deluded and delude and since our Happiness here seems to depend very much upon its work we will endeavour to treat of it here a little more particularly than we have done either of it self or in conjunction with some other faculty of the Soul Indeed the several faculties of the Soul seem not many in number yet the Soul like some instrument of very few strings is capable to render such innumerable various sounds as are able to confound us in going about to distinguish them This we own upon trial to be the admirable work of our Provident Creator and Governour and judg it impossible to set any certain rules or bounds in its manner of work or so much as to fathom or know our own Yet this I think the sweet harmony or jarring discordance in this wonderful Instrument in relation to our selves and whether it renders a sound sweet and pleasant or harsh and grating consists very much as I conceive from the high or low or even straining that one string thereof in it the Imagination The Imagination is a most strange faculty and able to confound us and put us to a stand or a maze while we reflect on it 'T is that various and sometimes false light which puts the colours of good upon evil and evil upon good 'T is that strange resounding echo to the affections that renders their cry double and louder 'T is that which called upon by one affection to its help and assistance often raises and leads with it a thousand furies to disquiet us And if we may affirm as I think we truly may that the heat of the affections sometimes causes its work so also It is that bellows which increases their natural heat double and treble and driving them from their proper Object inflames them beyond all degree and measure to their utter destruction and confusion in the end I deny not but that Imagination in man continually and necessarily working is capable to work from divers causes it is diverted or called upon and imployed by various Objects minutely through Sense as we observe How else could we remember which is but an impress left in the Imagination for any time what we daily hear and see And when those windows of the Body seem shut up 't is often imployed upon such Objects as it formerly received thereby But I cannot but think that its work generally tends to the satisfying or feeding some affection not affection of its own creating from Sense as in Beast but some affection of equal extraction with it self originally pure and undefiled but now corrupt and depraved by its work through the slie insinuation or delusion of some evil Spirit and that from Sense alone the one nor the other nor both together could create in our soul those diseases we find and I may say often see and feel above the Beasts which perish This affection in us how pure soever or howsoever debauched is the thing ever chiefly aimed at in all addresses to the Soul as I have touched already and therefore