be not corporeal that which produces them most be doubtless incorporeal seing simile generatur à simili and dull flesh and blood could never produce such spiritual emanations As the soul is God's Image so in this it resembles Him very much that we can know nothing of it's nature without it's own assistance like a dark lanthron or a spy it discovers every thing to us except it self And because it refuses us the light of it's candle whilst we are in the quest of it's mysteries therefore it is that our re-searches of it's nature are gropeings in the dark and so ofttimes vain if not ridiculous Avicenna Averroes and the remanent of that Arabian tribe admiring it's prodigious effects did attribute our spiritual motions to assisting Angels as if such admirable notions could not be fathered upon less sublime causes which Cardan likewayes thinks do offer their assistance and light to sensitive creatures but that the churlishness of their mater will not suffer them to entertain such pure irradiations This disparages so much humanity making man only a statue that it were against the soul's interest to admit of any such idea's For as it tends more to the Artists praise to cause his products move from hid and internall springs then from extrinsick causes as we see in Watches and such like So it is more for the honour of that great Artist and more suteable to the being and nature of His creatures that all it's operations flow from it self then from assisting but exteriour co-adjutors which makes me averse from Aristotle's opinion of the motion of the spheres by intelligences And it were absurd to think that men should be blamed or praised for those effects which their assessour Angels could only be charged with The Platonicks alleaged that all souls existed before their incarceration in bodies iin which state of pre-existence they were doted with all these spiritual endowments which shall attend them in the state of separation and that at their first allyance with bodies their native knowledge was clouded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the putting off knowledge for a time till by a reminiscentia their intellectuals revived as by a resurrection And Origen added that these souls were according to their escapes committed in the state of their primitive separation yoaked with better or worse bodies a shift taken in all probability by him to evite the apprehension of God's being injust for nfusing innocent souls in bodies which would infect them and by drawing them in inevitable snares at last condemn them or at least their infusion was the imprisoning these who were not guilty a difficulty which straits much such as maintain that the soul is not ex traduce What the hazard of this opinion may be my twilight is not able to discover It may be that the Stoicks mistake in making the souls of men to be but parcels decerpt from that universal anima mundi by which they doubtless meant God Himself was occasioned by a mistake of that Text that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life concluding that as the breath is a part of the body which breathed it So the soul behoved to be a part of that divine essence from which by a second consequence they concluded that the soul being a part of that divine beeing could not suffer nor undergo any torments as is asserted by Seneca epist. 29. Cicero tusc. 5. and defended by their successors these primitive hereticks the Gnosticks Manichees and Priscillianists But this bastard is not worth the fostering being an opinion that God hath parts and man real divinity and is doubtless a false and flattering testimony given by the soul to it self For seing the soul is by divine Oracles told us to be made after God's Image it can be no more called a part of God then the picture should be repute a part of the Painter Aristotle like the devil who because he knows not what to answer answers ever in engines tells us that anima is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a terme fitted to exercise the empty brains of curious Pedants and apter to beget then explicat difficulties Neither believe I that his three souls which he lodges in man to wit the rational sensitive and vegetative do differ more amongst themselves then the will understanding and fancy differ from the two last So that his arithmetick might have bestowed five souls upon man as well as three But seing he and many of his disciples believe these to be three and yet these three to be but one I admire why they should be so nice as not to believe that pious mystery of the holy Trinity whereof in my opinion his trinity of the soul is as apposit an emblem as was the conceit of a simple Clown who being askt how he could apprehend the three glorious persons to be but one did fold his garment in three plates and thereafter drew out all the three in one As the herauldrie of our reason cannot blazen the souls impressa So can it not help us to line out it's descent and such would appear to be the excellency of that noble creature that heaven and earth seem to contend the which shall be the place of it's nativity Divines who are obliged to contend for heaven because they are it 's more immediat Pensioners will have it to be created and infused whereas Philosophers ambitious to have so noble a compatriot and willing to gratifie nature which aliments their sublime meditations contend that it is ex traduce and is in generation the bodies other twinne And albeit it would appear from Scripture that God accomplish'd the Creation the first seven dayes and that nature did then pass child-bearing Yet that in my judgment must be meant of the Creation of whole species and not of individuals and to press the souls not traduction I shall lend only one argument not because it is the best but because it is my own We see that there where the soul is confess'd to be ex traduce as in bruits and vegetative creatures that nature as it were with a pencil copies the young from off the old The young Lyons are still as rapacious and roaring as were their Syers from whose loyns they descended and the Rose being pous'd up by the salt nitre which makes it vegetative spreads the same leaves and appears with the same blushes or paleness that beautified it's eye-pleasing predecessors The reason of which continual assimulation preceeds from the seeds having in it's bosome all these qualities and shapes which appear thereafter in it's larger products whereof they were but a mappe or index Whereas man resembles never at least not oft these who are called his parents the vitious and tall father having oft low but vertuous children which shows that the soul of man is not derived by generation and that the soul bestowed upon the son's body is most different and assymbolick to that which lodged in the father And this may be further confirmed
by that excellent passage Prov. 20. 27 where it is said that the understanding of man is the candle of the Lord. Our soul is God's Image and none can draw that Image but Himself we are the stamp of His divine nature and so can only be formed by Himself who is the glorious Seal From this divine principle that man's soul is made after God's Image I am almost induced to believe that prophesie is no miraculous gift bestowed upon the soul at extraordinary occasions only but is a natural though the highest perfection of our humane nature For if it be natural for the stamp to have impress'd upon it all the traits that dwell upon the face of the Seal then it must be natural to the soul which is God's impressa to have a faculty of foreseeing since that is one of God's excellencies Albeit I confess that that Stamp is here infinitly be-dimm'd and worn off as also we know by experience that men upon death bed when the soul begins being detached by sickness from the bodies slavery to act like it self do foresee and foretell many remote and improbable events and for the same reason do I think predictions by dreams not to be extraordinary revelations but rather the products natural of a rational soul. And if sagacious men can be so sharp-sighted in this state of glimmering as to foresee many events which fall out why may we not say that man if he were rehabilitat in the former state of pure nature might without any extraordinary assistance foresee and prophesie For there is not such a distance betwixt that foresight and prophesie as is betwixt the two states of innocency and corruption according to the received notion which men have settled to themselves of that primitive state of innocency From the same principle may it likewayes be deduced that natural reason cannot but be an excellent mean for knowing as far as is possiible the glorious nature of God Almighty He hath doubtless lighted this candle that we might by it see Himself and how can we better know the Seal then by looking upon it's impression And if Religion and it's mysteries cannot be comprehended by reason I confess it is a pretty jest to hear such frequent reasonings amongst Church-men in matters of Religion And albeit faith and reason be look'd upon as Iacob and Esau whereof the younger only hath the blessings and are by Divines placed at the two opposit points of the Diameter yet upon an unbyassed inquiry it will appear that faith is but sublimated reason calcin'd by that divine chymical fire of Baptisme and that the soul of man hath lurking in it all these vertues and faculties which we call Theological such as faith hope and repentance for else David would not have prayed Enlighten Lord my eyes that I may see the wonders of thy Law but rather Lord bestow new eyes upon me Neither could the opening of Lidea's heart have been sufficient for her conversion if these pre-existing qualities had not been treasur'd up there formerly So that it would appear that these holy flames lurk under the ashes of corruption untill God by the breath of His Spirit and that wind which bloweth where it listeth sweep them off And that God having once made man perfect in the first Creation doth not in His regeneration super-add any new faculty for else the soul had not at first been perfect but only removes all obstructing impediments I am alwayes ashamed when I hear reason call'd the step-mother of faith and proclaimed rebel against God Almighty and such declared traitors as dare harbour it or appear in it's defence These are such fools as they who break their Prospects because they bring not home to their sight the remotest objects and are as injust as Iacob had been if he had divorc'd from Leah because she was tender-eyed whereas we should not put out the eyes of our understanding but should beg from God the eye-salve of His Spirit for their illumination Nor should we dash the Prospect of our reason against the rockie walls of dispair but should rather wash it's glasses with the tears of unfeigned repentance Ever since faith and reason have been by Divines set by the ears the brutish multitude conclude these who are most reasonable to be least religious and the greatest spirits to be least spiritual a conceit most inconsistent with that divine parable wherein these who received the many talents improved them to the best advantage whilst he who had but one laid it up in a napkin And it is most improbable that God would choose low shrubs and not tall Cedars for the building of His glorious Temple And it is remarkable that God in the old Law refused to accept the first born of an asse in sacrifice but not of any other creature And some who were content to be call'd Atheists providing they were thought Wits did take advantage in this of the Rables ignorance and authorized by their devilish invention what was at first but a mistake and this unridles to us that mystery why the greatest Wits are most frequently the greatest Atheists When I consider how the Angels who have no bodies sinn'd before man and that brutes who are all body sin not at all but follow the pure dictates of nature I am induced to believe that the body is rather injustly bamed for being then that really it is the occasion of sin and probably the witty soul hath in this cunningly laid over upon it's fellow that where with it self is only to be charged What influence can flesh or blood have upon that which is immaterial no more sure then the case hath upon the Watch or the heavens upon it's burgessing Angels And see we not that when the soul hath bid the body adieu it remains a carcasse fit nor able for nothing I believe that the body being a clog to it mâ—y slow it's pursute after spiritual obiects and that it may occasion indirectly some sins of omission For we see palpably that eating and drinking dulls our devotions but I can never understand how such dumb Orators as flesh and blood can perswade the soul to commit the least sin And thus albeit our Saviour sayes that flesh and blood did not teach Peter to give him his true Epithets neither indeed could it Yet our Saviour imputes not any actual sin to these pithless causes And seing our first sin hath occasioned all our after sinning certainly that which occasioned our first sin was the main source of sinning and this was doubtless the soul for our first sin being an immoderat desire of knowledge was the effect and product of our spirit because it was a spiritual sin whereas if it had been gluttony lust or such like which seems corporeal the body had been more to have been blamed for it And in this contest I am of opinion that the soul wins the cause because it is the best Orator What was the occasion of the first ill
is much debated and most deservedly amongst Moralists for that which was good could not produce that which was evil seing that which works mischief cannot be called good Nor can we ascribe the efficiency of the first evil to evil for then the question recurres what was the cause of that evil And by this the supposition is likewise destroyed whereby the evil enquired after is supposed to be the first evil but if we enquire what could produce in the Angels that first sin whereby they forfeited their glory we will find this disquisition most mysterious And it is commonly believ'd but by what revelation I know not that their pride caus'd their fall and that they carcht their bruise in climbing in desiring to be equal to their Creator they are become inferior to all their fellow creatures Yet this seems to me most strange that these excellent spirits whose very substance was light and who surpassed far man in capacity and understanding should have so err'd as to imagine that equality faâ—sable a fancy which the fondest of men could not have entertained And it were improbable to say that their error could have sprouted at first from their understandnging and to think it to have been so gross as that fallen man doth now admire it but why may we not rather think that their first error was rather a crookedness in their will then a blindness in their judgment and that they fretted to see man whom they knew to be inferiour to themselves by many stages made Lord of all that pleasant Creation which they gazed on with a stareing maze And that this opinion is more probable appears because this Sin was the far more bating seing it appeared with all the charmes wherewith either pride vanity or avarice could busk it and explicats better to us the occasion of all that enmity with which that Serpent hath alwayes since pursued silly man But whither God will save just as many believers as there fell of the Angels none can determine neither can it be rationally deduced from that Scripture Statuit terminos gentium juxta nuâ—erum Angelorum Dei But if it please God so to order it it will doubtless aggrage their punishment by rackling their disdain And seing the Angels have never obtained a remission for this crime it is probable that the correspondent of their sin is in us the sin against the holy Ghost For if their lapse had been pardonable some one or other of them had in all probability escap'd but if this was not that unpardonable sin I scarce see where it shall be found For to say that it is a hateing of God as God is to make it unpracticable rather then unpardonable For all creatures appete naturally what is good and God as God is good So that it is impossible that He can be hated under that reduplication It may be likewise conjectured that voluntar and deliberate sacriledge is the sin against the holy Ghost because Ananias and Saphira in with-holding from the Church a part of the price for which they sold their lands are by Peter said to have lied not to man but to the holy Ghost and his wife is there said to have tempted the Spirit but seing both of them resolved to continue in the Church a resolution inconsistent with the sin against the holy Ghost And seing many sins are more heinous I cannot interpret this lying to the holy Ghost to be any thing else but a sin against light in which most penitents have been involved albeit I confess this was a gross escape seing it rob'd God of His omnisciency and supposed that He was not privy to such humane actings as have not the Sun for a witness I do then conclude that the sin against the holy Ghost may rather be a resolute undervaluing of God and a scorning to receive a pardon from Him and this is that which makes the Angels fall irrecoverable and like the flaming sword defends them from their re-entry into that Paradise from which they exile And albeit to say that the Angels rebellion flows from God's denying them repentance may suit abundantly well with His unstainable justice yet it is hard to reconcile it with his mercy And this makes my private judgment place the unpardonableness of this sin not in God's Decree but in their obduration and rebellious impenitency And the reason why these who commit this sin are never pardoned is because a pardon is never sought That place of Scripture wherein Esau is said to have sought the blessing with tears and not to have found it astonishes me Yet I believe that if his tears had streamed from a sense of his guilt more then of his punishment doubtless he had not weept in vain and in that he tear'd he was no more to be pitied far less pardoned then a Malefactor who upon the scaffold grants some few tears to the importunity of his tortutes but scornes to acknowledge the guilt of his crime for pain by contracting our bodies strains out that liquid mater which thereafter globs it self in tears there could â—ome no holy water from the pagan font of Esaw's eyes and if his remorse could have pierc'd his own heart it had easily pierc'd heaven Whilst others admire I bless God that He hath closed up the knowledge of that unpardonable sin under his own privy Seal for seing Sathan tempts me to sin with the hopes of an after-pardon this bait is pull'd off his hook by the fear I stand under that the sin to which I am tempted is that sin which can expect no pardon And albeit it be customary amongst men to beacon and set a mark upon such shelves and rocks as destroy passengers yet that is only done where commerce is allowed and sailing necessar But seing all sin is forbidden God was not obliged to guard us with the knowledge of that sin no further then by prohibiting us not to sin but to stand in awe That first sin whereby our first Parents forfeited their primitive excellencies was so pitifull a frailty that I think we should rather lament then enquire after it To think that an aple had in it the seeds of all knowledge or that it could assimulate him to his Creator and could in an instant sublimate his nature was a frailty to be admired in one of his piety and knowledge Yet I admire not that the breach of so mean a Precept was punish'd with such appearing rigor because the easier the command was the contempt was proportionally the greater and the first crimes are by Legislators punished not only for guilt but for example But I rather admire what could perswade the facile world to believe that Adam was created not only innocent but even stored with all humane knowledge For besides that we have no warrand from Scripture for this alleadgiance this his easie escape speaketh far otherwayes And albeit the Scripture tells us that man was created perfect yet that inferres not that man