it hath been before observed that he that goes about to make the whole Universe and all the several parts thereof the business of his Enquiry as he shall find that there are many things therein that he cannot come at or make any discovery of so among those parts of the Universe that are objected to a greater discovery of our Senses the multiplicity is so great that a man of the most equal and firm constitution must despair of Life enough to make a satisfactory particular and deep enquiry into them But the Object in hand is but one it is Man and the Nature of Man I confess it is true that he that shall make it his business to take in as it were by way of a common place all those things that may be taken up under this consideration and follow all those Lines that concenter in this or almost any other the most single piece of Contemplation will make this Subject large enough and upon that account may be drawn in almost all things imaginable We find in the consideration of the Humane Nature a Substance a Body a Spirit We find the several Objects of his Senses Light Colour Sound and infinite more He that upon this account will take in the distinct and large considerations of these and the like Appendices to Humane Nature in their full amplitude will have a large Plain that will more than exhaust his Life before he come to the Subject it self which he designes Again there is an infinite multitude of collateral considerations that yet are relative to man hither comes all the considerations of Theology Physick Natural Philosophy Politicks the considerations of Speech Government Laws of History Topography of Arts of those Sciences that relate to the Senses of Opticks Musick and infinite more for all these have a relation to Man and are like so many Lines drawn from several Objects that some way relate to him and concenter in him and he that shall make it his business to follow all those Lines to their utmost shall make the contemplation of Man almost as large as the contemplation of the whole Universe When I say therefore the contemplation of Man is the contemplation of a single Object I mean when it is kept into those single bounds of Man in his own specifical Nature and under the physical contemplation of his Nature Parts and Faculties as they are appropriate unto him And then it is a Subject that we may possibly make some progress in its contemplation and conception within the period of the time that by the ordinary time of Life and the permission of necessary avocations a man may employ in such a contemplation And yet secondly though in this restrained notion the Subject seems to be restrained and single we shall find it no very narrow Subject but there will be business enough in it to employ our Faculty and to take up that time which either more necessary or more imporunate thoughts or employments will allow us and variety enough to entertain our thoughts with delight contentation and usefulness 3. The Third Commendation of this Object to our contemplation is this that therein we have more opportunity of certainty and true knowledge of the Object enquired into than we can have in any other Object at least of equal use worth and value Many excellent things there are in Nature which were very well worth our Knowledge but yet as hath been said either by reason of their remoteness from us unaccessibleness to them subtilty and imperceptibleness to us either are not at all suspected to be or are not so much as within any of our Faculties to apprehend or discover what they are or in case we have any conception that there may be something of that kind yet our Notions touching them are but products of Imagination and Phantasie or at best very faint weak ungrounded and uncertain conjectures and such as we can never prove to the satisfaction of others or our selves Our Sense is the best evidence that we have in Nature touching the existence of corporeal things without us and where that is not possibly to be exercised we are naturally at a great uncertainty whether things are or what they are Now the Understanding perceives or understands things by the assistance of Sense in a double manner 1. It either perceives them immediately as being immediately objected to and perceptible to the Sense as I perceive the Sun and the Stars by my sight I find that there is a Body hard or gentle or hot or cold by my Touch and accordingly my Understanding judgeth of them Or secondly though the Sense perceive not the Object immediately yet it doth represent certain sensible effects or operations and though by those effects or operations the Understanding doth not immediately conclude anything else to be but what the Sense thus feels or sees yet the Understanding sometimes by ratiocination and sometimes by the Memory doth infer and conclude something else to be besides what the Sense immediately represents either as the cause or the concomitant of it and doth as forcibly and truly conclude the thing to be and also sometimes what the nature of that cause or concomitant is as if it were seen by the Eye or felt by the Hand I do not see nor by any Sense perceive the quiet undisturbed Air yet because I do see that a Bladder that was before flaccid doth swell by the reception of that which I see not I do as truly and certainly conclude that there is such a subtil Body which we call Air as if I could see it as plain as I see the Water I do not see the Animal or Vital Spirits neither can they by reason of their subtilty and volatileness be discovered immediately to the Sense yet when I see that forcible motion of the Nerves and Muscles I do as certainly conclude there are such Instruments which the Soul useth for the performance of those motions as if I saw them I come into a Room where there is no visible or tangible Fire yet I find by my Sense the Smoke ascending I do as forcibly conclude that Fire is or hath been near as if I saw it because my sensible experience and memory tells me they are concomitant Upon the same account it is that when my Sense and sensible experience shews me that these and these effects there are and that they are successively generated and corrupted though my eye sees not that God that first made those things yet my Sense having shewed me these sensible Objects and the state and vicisstude of them my Understanding doth truly conclude that all this vicissitude of things must terminate in a first cause of things with as great evidence and conviction as if my Sense could immediately see or perceive him So that in the ordinary way of Nature and without the help of divine Revelation all our certainty of things natural begins at our Senses namely the immediate sense of the things themselves
those natural Laws that they are ad omnem eventum fitted to the ordinary administration of the World When the wisest Counsel of Men in the World have with the greatest care prudence and foresight made Laws yet frequent emergencies happen which they did not nor could foresee and therefore they are necessarily put upon repeals correctives and supplements of such their Laws But Almighty God by one most simple foresight foresaw all Events in Nature and could therefore fit Laws of Nature that might be proportionate to the things he made and not stand in need of any change in the ordinary administration of his Providence The special Providence of God is so denominated either in relation to the objects which are special or in relation to the acts themselves Special Providence in relation to the objects is that Providence which Almighty God exerciseth either to Man or Angels in relation to their everlasting ends such as are Divine Laws and Institutions the Redemption of Men by Christ Jesus the Message of the Gospel and the like Special Providence in relation to the acts themselves are those special actings of the Divine Power and Will whereby He acts either in things natural or moral not according to the Rules of general Providence but above or besides or against them And these I call the Imperate Acts of Divine Providence whereof in the next place 2. Analogal to the imperate acts of the Soul upon the Body are the imperate acts of Divine Providence whereby with greatest wisdom and irresistible power He doth mediately or immediately order some things out of the tract of ordinary Providence For although the Divine Wisdom hath with great stability settled the Laws of his general Providence so that ordinarily or lightly they are not altered yet it could never stand with the Divine Administration of the World that He should be eternally mancipated to those Laws he hath appointed for the ordinary administration of the World Neither is this if it be rightly considered an infringing of the Law of Nature since every created Being is most naturally subject to the Soveraign Will of his Creator therefore though He is sometimes pleased by extraordinary interposition and pro imperio voluntatis to alter the ordinary method of natural or voluntary Causes and Effects to interpose by his own immediate Power He violates no Law of Nature since it is the most natural thing in the World that every thing should obey the Will of him that gave it being whatever that Will be or however manifested Now the Instances that I shall give touching these actus imperati of Divine special Providence shall be 1. In things simply natural 2. In things voluntary or free Agents In things natural we have these Instances of the actus imperati of the Divine Providence namely first those that are real and also appearing Miracles as Moses his Rod turned into a Serpent our Saviours miraculous curing of all sorts of Diseases and raising the Dead and the like Again there are other things that though they are natural effects and not in themselves apparently miraculous yet are in truth the actus imperati of the Divine Providence Winds and Storms Hail and Thunder and many the like are things that are in themselves natural yet when they are in such a season and such a juncture they may be and are and possibly more often than we are aware actus imperati specialis providentiae The East Wind that brought the Locusts and the West Wind that carried them off from Egypt Exod. 10.13 19. The East Wind that divided the Red Sea Exod. 14.21 The Hail that slew the Canaanitish Kings Josh 10.12 The Rain and Drought 1 Kings 18. Amos 4.7 Thunder and Lightning 1 Sam. 13.18 Yea the very Blasting and Mildew and Caterpiller and Palmer-worm Amos 4.9 are sent by God The ravenousness of a Lion or Bear are natural to them yet the mission of them upon an extraordinary occasion may be an actus imperatus of Divine Providence 1 Kings 14.24 2 Kings 2.24 And although we often attribute as well mischiefs as deliverances to accidental natural Causes yet many times they are actus imperati of the Divine special Providence as much and as really and truly as the motion of my Pen is the actus imperatus of my Will at this time And if we enquire how these things are effected though it may be they be sometimes effected by the immediate Fiat of the Divine Will yet I have just reason to think they are most ordinarily done by the Ministration of Angels as the destruction of the Host of the Assyrians and divers other great Exertions of these imperate acts of Divine Providence Psal 103. His Angels that excel in strength that do his commandements hearkning to the voice of his word That as the more refined and efficacious Matter which we by way of analogy call Spirits are the executive Instruments of the actus imperati of our Will so these true and essential Spirits are ordinarily the immediate Instruments of the imperate acts of Divine Providence And therefore although many times Effects purely natural that have their Originals meerly by the ordinary course of Providence are ordered by special Providence unto great and wonderful Events yet it seems to me very plain that there be many natural productions that it may be in the immediate Cause or second or third may be purely natural yet at the farthest end of the Chain there is an Agent that is not simply natural as we use to call natural Causes but voluntary sometimes in the first production sometimes in the restriction sometimes in the direction of them for otherwise we must of necessity make all successes in the World purely natural and necessary and Almighty God would be mancipated to the Fatality of Causes and to that Natural Law which he gave at first and Prayers and Invocation upon Him in case of any calamity would be unuseful and ineffectual And therefore though Almighty God do not create a Wind for every emergent occasion but the Wind is a Vapour breaking out of the Earth yet the Ministration of an Angel may restrain open excite direct or guide that Vapour to the fulfilling of those imperate acts of Divine special Regiment And it is observable that although the regular part of Nature is seldom varied but ordinarily keeps its constant tract as the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies yet the Meteors as the Winds Rain Snow Thunder Exhalations and the like which are in themselves more unstable and less mancipated to stated and regular motions are oftentimes employed in the World to very various ends and in very various methods of the special Divine Providence And hence the Winds and Storms are stiled in a peculiar manner Winds and storms fulfilling his will Psal 148. And He bringeth his winds out of his treasury Psal 134. And again Hath the rain a Father and who begot the drops of dew Job 38.28 And again Can any of the vanities of the Gentiles
of the World but also of Mankind they are of two sorts viz. 1. Such as have affirmed that the successive Generations of Men have been eternal not only without any beginning but without any first Parents of Mankind and that they have been always geniti ex genitis 2. Those that have supposed that there were some first Parents of Mankind which by a natural and univocal generation multiplied their Species but yet that those first Parents of Mankind were eternal Individuals having an eternal existence in their individual nature and in relation to them the rest of Mankind were geniti ex non genitis As to the former of these Opinions they seem to be divided into these ensuing Parties or Opinions 1. Such as think the successive Generations of Men were eternally so and independent upon any Efficient and necessarily by the eternal established course of Nature independent upon Almighty God or any first Efficient of the Species 2. Such as think the successive Generations of Men were eternally so but dependently upon Almighty God yet as a necessary Effect produced by Almighty God as a necessary or natural Cause as the Light is a coexistent Effect of the Sun 3. Such as think the successive Generations of Men were eternally so but dependently upon God as an efficient voluntary Cause of them by eternal Creation yet suppose that Will intrinsecally determined to such an eternal Creation of Mankind by the indispensable benignity and goodness of his nature 4. Such as though they take Almighty God to be under neither of the former necessities but an Agent purely voluntary and determining his own Will by it self only and that deny the eternal successions of humane Generations as to the fact but yet affirm it possible that Almighty God might if he pleased have created the World and Mankind eternally Having thus stated the Opinions of the Assertors of the Eternity or Beginning of Humane Generations I shall pursue this Method 1. In this Chapter I shall consider the possibility or impossibility of eternal Generations of Mankind with relation to the four preceding Suppositions that assert it 2. In the next Chapter I shall consider the possibility or impossibility of any one Man or Woman eternally existing from whom Mankind had their production by univocal generation 3. I shall afterwards consider of those evidences of fact and probability that de facto may seem to prove that Mankind had their beginning in time and the Objections against it 4. I shall then descend to the Consideration of the various Suppositions of those that have supposed a temporary Origination of Mankind At the present therefore I shall propound those Reasons that to me seem concludent that although it might for Arguments sake be supposed that some parts of universal Nature namely such as are permanent and fixed and not in fluxu might be eternal yet it is simply impossible that the Generations of Mankind can be eternal in any of the four foregoing ways And before I come to give my Reasons I shall premise two things 1. In relation to the four foregoing Opinions there seems to be this implyed in them 1. The two former do most clearly take up the entire collection of Mankind and the Generations of them to be a meer natural Effect or Work with this odds that the former acknowledgeth no Efficient at all the latter acknowledgeth God the Efficient or first Cause of the eternal World and the Generations of Mankind as a natural Cause And consequently they must needs hold that as Man is now generated so he was eternally so and as he is now so he always hath been and the measure that we take of him now will fit to all those innumerable Men that have been within the vast compass of Eternity As Man is now a compound Body of the four Elements so he always was as he is now nine Months in utero matris such was the method and the mora of every Man's production for the Effect is a natural uniform Effect whether independent upon God as the Efficient thereof or dependent upon Him as a Natural Effect And therefore whatsoever is impossible to be attributed to Peter or John or any other individual Man is incompetible to every Man in all this infinite Collection within the unlimited extent of Eternity But the two latter though both suppose an eternity of Generations and though in Eternity there cannot be supposed well a first yet do what they can if they suppose a production of Man by eternal Creation they cannot deliver themselves from these consequences 1. That there must be some Man or Men that had his or their beginning in some other way then other persons had it namely by Creation for although Creation be an instantaneous act of the Divine Will and Power it must of necessity be terminated in some individual determinate Person and it cannot be quid vagum the consequence whereof must necessarily be That if there were an eternal Creation of any Man or Men they that were thus created had their production if we may suppose such a production by a different way from the production of those that had their being by generation and herein this Supposition of the Origination of Humane Nature differs from the two former Suppositions 2. And consequently that if the Creation of Man and of the rest of the World must be in the same point as I may call it of Eternity the rest of the World or any part thereof could not be precedent to the Creation of Man for then they have lost what they contend for namely an eternal Creation of Man If it were but one imaginable moment after then the World might indeed have had an eternal existence but it would be impossible for Man to have had that eternal existence by Creation unless in the same first imaginary conceptible moment of Eternity an expression improper enough I confess Man and the rest of the World were concreated The consequence whereof as I before said is that those Men must not as the former suppose all Individuals of Mankind had the same natural manner of production for among the whole Collection some one or more had a supernatural manner of production namely by Creation 2. This being premised concerning the different states of the two former and two latter Opinions somewhat I shall say in general touching the Reasons I use against all these Suppositions 1. In general That that kind of reasoning which reduceth the opposite Conclusion to something that is apparently impossible or absurd is as much a Demonstration in disaffirmance of any thing that is affirmed as can possibly be in any case if the Conclusion of the affirming party doth necessarily inferr an impossibility or absurdity in the nature of the thing affirmed it is a Demonstration Argumentum cum contradictione conclusionis and such will those be which I shall bring 2. Because the former Suppositions touching the Eternity of Mankind though they conclude in the same
and fitted for this production which could not be but after some great and long continuing Flood or Inundation that might prepare and dispose the Matter for the Activity of that great Revolution and if these should not meet together or in some convenient nearness the production of Mankind and perfect Animals would be frustrated 3. That in as much as provident Nature hath had for many Ages and yet hath a sufficient Seminium and stock for the preservation of the Species of Men and perfect Animals raised by propagation and the mutual conjunction of Sexes Nature is not necessitated to have recourse to this extraordinary way of peopling and furnishing the World and therefore it cannot be expected but after some vast devastation that may endanger at least the extinguishing of the species of things To these things I say first in general That if Men shall upon such a Method of Arguing go about to establish a Supposition that neither they nor any else have ever known or experimented and make a Conclusion of a thing as natural upon such Suppositions as never any Man knew or heard to produce such effects Men may assume any thing to be natural which yet hath not footsteps in Nature bearing any analogy to it But to the particulars As to the first it is unreasonable to make such a Supposition for since it is not possible for any Man to know whether there be any such Influence of the Heavens to effect such productions unless by Experience and Observations of some Men or some other way the notice thereof were given to Mankind it being a Matter of Fact that can no other way be known but by Experience or Revelation and since the bare beholding of those Heavenly Bodies being of that distance can never without Observation of Events give us any natural estimate of their Effects what they are or may be and since it must needs be granted that such imagined Conjunctions as may be effectual for such productions are at vast unknown distances and such as no Age before hath or indeed can leave us any Memorial of it must needs be a vain and precarious assumption to attribute any natural Efficacy to any Conjunction whatsoever for such a production The Ancient and Divine Historian Moses gives us indeed an account of the Origination of Man and all other Animals but not upon any natural causation or activity of the Heavens or Heavenly Bodies but as he gives us the History of the Things so he gives us the true Resolution of the Cause not a natural but a supernatural Cause namely the Intention and Volition of the Great and Wise God and to exclude any imagination of a natural or necessary Cause of these productions doth not only tell us in express terms that the production of them was by the Energy of the Divine Fiat but also that the production even of Vegetables themselves that seem to have the greatest dependance upon Celestial Influences was antecedent to the Constitution of those Heavenly Bodies 1. As the Supposition of such a Natural Causality in the Heavens is meerly precarious so it seems even to our Sense apparently false for we see every year without any other than an ordinary Conjunction by the Access of the Sun Insects and Plants sponte nascentia do arise and we know that ordinarily in the compass or revolution of 800 or 1000 years very great and considerable mutations happen in the Position and Conjunction of the Heavenly Bodies and we know that within the compass of Authentick History these Revolutions have happened above thrice and since the latest Epocha of the Worlds Inception above five times yet none of these great Revolutions have for any thing we ever knew or heard produced any one Horse or Lion or Wolf much less any one Man as a Terrigena And therefore Experience the best means to settle such an Hypothesis doth not only not warrant it but is evidently contrary to it and denies it 2. As to the second the Mosaical History gives us an account of an Universal Deluge about 4000 years since which lay long upon the whole Earth and the Grecian History gives us an account of two very great Floods namely the Ogygian and the Deucalian Floods and every Year gives us an account of the Inundation of Nilus in Egypt a most fruitful Continent and near the Sun whereby the Soil is made admirably fruitful and there is scarce any Age but some great portions of Land are laid dry by the recess of some parts of the Ocean which had lain covered for many thousands of years before with the sea And as the universal Deluge was as great a preparation of the whole Earth so these particular Inundations and Recesses of the Sea left particular Spots of Land as well prepared for such productions as can well be imagined and yet in no Age have we any Instance of any such production abating the Story of the Egyptian Mice which concrete after the recess of Nilus which yet of most hands are agreed to be Insects and sponte nascentia ex putredine Indeed Beregardus tells us ubi supra out of Camerarius that about Cayro after the reflux of Nilus there are often seen divers Limbs or Parts of Mens Bodies whether this be true or no or if true whether they are not only relicks of some Bodies swept away by the Inundations of Nilus out of their Graves or Sepultures and torn asunder by the furious Cataracts of Nilus is not clearly evident But be they what they will or whether the Lusus naturae yet they make nothing to this matter unless Camerarius or some other had seen those divulsa membra come together and configured into an humane Shape and animated with a humane Life which neither he nor any other have yet affirmed or pretended 3. As to the Third I say 1. If by Nature they intend the great and glorious God that most wise intelligent powerful Being they do indeed in effect affirm what I have designed to prove but do not make good their Supposition of such a Natural Cause as they declare in their Hypothesis wherein they mean only that natural connexion and series of Causes whereby Natural Effects are naturally produced And if they intend by Nature that unintelligent series or order of Natural Causes or the blind and determinate Cause of Natural Productions How comes that Nature to know when and where this necessity of Spontaneous Productions doth happen or in what proportion measure limits or place it is necessary to be done Such a provisional care requires a knowing and perfectly intelligent Being that operates ex cognitione intentione voluntate which is not to be affirmed of Agents purely natural who do therefore act according to a Law of necessity and determination non ex consilio cognitione 2. It is plain that Insects and Vegetables spontaneously produced are produced every Year and their production is as natural as the access of the Sun and the constitution
instituted and statuminated Nature is his Law and his Institution and the connexion of natural Effects to their natural Causes is his Institution his Law his Order And therefore we do neither deny a Law of Nature or a connexion between natural Causes and Effects but that which we justly blame in these Men that pretend themselves to be the great Priests of Nature and admirers and adorers of it is 1. That they do not sufficiently consider and observe that this which they and we call Nature and the Law of Nature and the Power of Nature is no other but the wise instituted Law of the most wise powerful and intelligent Being as really and truly as an Edict of Trajan or Justinian was a Law of Trajan or Justinian Sic parvis magna and 2. That they do not warily distinguish between that first Law in rebus constituendis and this second Law of Nature in rebus constitutis but inconsiderately misapply that Law and Rule and Method which is ordinary and regular constituted and fitted and accommodate to Nature already setled as if the same were and ought to be necessarily the Rule and Law in the first formation and setling of things which is an Errour that proceeds from the over-much fixing of our Minds to that which in the present course of things is obvious to Sense and not adverting that the first Constitution and Order of things is not in Reason or Nature manageable by such a Law which is most excellently adequated and proportioned to things fully setled Therefore besides that Law which the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness hath fixed in Nature fully statuminated we must also suppose a Law and Order of the Divine Wisdom not rigorously bound either to second Causes or present stated Methods in the first production of things And this the due Consideration of the different nature of the state of things in fieri and in facto esse will easily perswade that the most wise God that hath established a fixed regular ordinary Law in things already setled which he rarely departs from yet used another kind of order namely the regiment of his own Will and Wisdom and if I may with humility speak it a dictatorian power more accommodate to the first production of things And thus much for the comparison between the Mosaical and Philosophical Theories touching things and the great advantage and preference of the former as most suitable to the true nature state and reason of things And now I draw towards a conclusion of this long Discourse and shall therefore in the last place give an account of those Consectaries Consequences and Corollaries which are evidently deducible from this Consideration of the Origination of Mankind by the immediate Efficiency of this Supreme Intelligent Being Almighty God and indeed principally for the sake of these Consequences and Corollaries hath all been written that precedes in this Book and it is the Scope End and Use of the whole Book which I shall absolve in the next Chapter CAP. VII A Collection of certain evident and profitable Consequences from this Consideration That the first Individuals of Humane Nature had their Original from a Great Powerful Wise Intelligent Being I Now come to that upon which I had my Eye from the first Line that was written touching this Subject namely the Consequences and Illations that arise from this great Truth contained in these Conclusions 1. That Mankind had an Original of his Being ex non genitis 2. That this Origination of Mankind was neither casual nor meerly natural 3. That the Efficient of Man's Origination was and is an Intelligent Efficient of an incomparable Wisdom and Power First therefore we have here a most evident sensible and clear conviction of a Deity and a confirmation of Natural Religion which consists principally in the acknowledging of Almighty God to be a most perfect Eternal Being of infinite Wisdom Goodness and Power and a due habitude of Mind Life and Practice arising from that Principle It hath been commonly observed that the particular or instituted Religions since the Creation have had their Proofs by Miracles which were as it were the Credentials to subdue the Minds of Men to assent to it Thus the instituted Religion of the Jews given by the hand of Moses was confirmed by the great Miracles done by God by the hand of Moses in Egypt and in the Wilderness and the Christian Religion had its Confirmation by the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles who did wonderful things beyond the reach and power of created Agents or Activities which were therefore Miracles such as were governing of the Winds and Seas healing of the Sick by a touch or word raising the Dead c. But it is farther said That Almighty God never used Miracles to evidence the truth of his own Existence Power Wisdom Goodness or for the establishing of Natural Religion or the confuting of Atheism But I take it that there are really as many Miracles for the evincing of the truth of Natural Religion viz. the Existing of Almighty God as there are Works in Nature For although it be a great truth that the Laws of Nature as the Positions of the Heavenly and Elementary Bodies their Motion Light Influence Regularity Position propagation of Vegetables Animals Men and the whole Oeconomy of the Universe is by the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness setled in a regular course so that now we call things Natural and Works and Laws and Order of Nature and being so setled and fixed cease to be Miracles yet in their first Institution and Constitution they were all or many Miracles Works exceeding the activity of any created or natural power and accordingly ought to be valued and really are so and it is nothing else but their commonness and our inadvertence and gross negligence that hinders the actual estimate of them as great and wonderful Miracles As I have often said if at this moment all the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies should cease or there should be a general stop of the Propagation of Animals Vegetables or Men if Mens Reason should generally fail them and for the most part they should become like Brutes if the Light of the Sun were darkned or the great Luminous or Planetary Bodies should bulge and fall foul one upon the other or that disorder or confusion should generally fall upon the Works of Nature and break that excellent Order that now obtains among them we should be full of admiration of such a Change and account them Miraculous And the reason is because the sense of the Change is at present incumbent upon us and we cannot choose but take notice of them as strong unusual miraculous Prodigies When all this while Natures course holds regularly the Wonder and Miracle is ten times greater in the state of things as they now stand than it would be in such a discomposure of Nature The Motion and Light and Position and Order of the Heavenly and Elementary Bodies is a greater
as they proceed from or are found in the Integrals of the Universe are devoid not only of Reason but of Sense And he that after all this shall see the World upheld without any considerable decay or defect in the same state and order as it hath been for many Thousands of years will upon a due and impartial search find that it were far more impossible that this could be without the Wisdom Power and Influx of a most Infinite Omnipresent Omniscient and Omnipotent Fixed Being than for the Humane Body to be kept without dissolution and putrefaction being destitute of the influx and regiment of its Vital Principle the Soul And therefore some of the Ancients that were willing to solve the Phaenomena of the World have though erroneously thought that the World was Animate and that all these Operations in the World proceeded from that Anima Mundi as the Operations in the Bodies of Men proceeded from that Anima Humana that lodged in it and at length finding so great effects that are and may be done by this supposed Anima Mundi according to their Hypothesis have at last proceeded in plain terms to determine that this Anima Mundi was in truth no other than the Glorious God whereas they might with much more ease and truth have attributed all the great Oeconomy of the Universe to the most Glorious God without dishonouring him into the existence of a Forma informans or a constituent part of that World which he made Others to amend that absurdity and yet out of a piece of mannerliness and respect as they think to God though they deny this Universal Soul or Form informing of the whole Universe yet without any sufficient ground have devised several Systems of the Universe and assigned several Souls to each System or Vortex at least which should be the immediate Regent in every such System as the Soul is in the Body This as it supposeth something without evident ground so it doth without any necessity For the Divine Wisdom and Power is sufficient for the management and government of the whole Universe and if such Animae Systematum should be granted yet still there must be some one common Regent of all these Systems and their respective Souls or otherwise disorder would follow between the Systems themselves But thus far even those suppositions bear witness to the necessity of a Providential Regiment of the parts of the Universe that bare Matter Motion and Chance cannot perform this business but that there is a perfect necessity of a Regent Principle besides it which may govern and dispose it as the Soul of Man doth his Body And even that supposed regiment of these particular Souls of every System as they must needs have it if they had it at all from the institution and efficiency of the Wise God so they are all continually influenced from him and the whole College of them governed guided and ordered by him as their sovereign Regent 3. The Third thing that I design is this That although it is impossible for any Created Being or the Operations thereof to hold a perfect Analogy or adequate Representation of the Divine Wisdom Power and Providence in the governing of the World because the Wisdom and the Ways of Almighty God are unsearchable and past finding out they are of such a perfection that no Created Being or Operation thereof can be a just Parallel or adequate Resemblance of them yet there seems to be such an instance in the regiment which the Humane Soul exerciseth in relation to the Body that with certain correctives and exceptions may give some kind of Explication or Adumbration thereof whereby though we can never get a complete Idea of the Divine Regiment yet we may attain such a notion thereof as may render it evidently credible and in some kind explicable 1. The first act of the Divine Nature relating to the World and his administration thereof is an immanent act The most wise counsel and purpose of Almighty God terminated in those two great transeunt or emanant acts or works the works of Creation and Providence The Divine Counsel relating to the work of Creation is that whereby he purposed to make the World and all the several Integrals thereof according to that most excellent Idea or Exemplar which he had designed or chosen according to his infinite Wisdom in those several ranks and methods and in that order and state wherein they were after created and made The Divine Counsel relating to his Providence or Regiment of the World seems to consist in these two things 1. A purpose of communication of an uncessant influence of his power and goodness for the support and upholding of things created according to the several essential states and conditions wherein they were made some being created more durable some less some in one rank of being or existence some in another 2. A purpose of instituting certain laws methods rules and effluxes whereby he intended to order and rule all the things he had made with the greatest wisdom and congruity and according to the natures and orders wherein he had created them And this is that which I call the law rule and regiment of Divine Providence and seems to be of two kinds namely general Providence and special Providence The general Providence I call that whereby every created Being is governed and ordered according to that essential connatural implanted method rule and law wherein it was created And thus the state and several motions and influences of the Heavenly Bodies is that general providential law wherein they were created and according to which they are governed and the susceptibility of those influences and the effects thereof and of that motion is the general providential law whereby other physical Beings are governed in relation thereunto the activity of the active Elements and the passiveness of the passive the methods and vicissitudes of generation and corruption the efficacy of natural causes and the proper effects consequential to them the natural properties or affections of Bodies according to their several constitutions as motion alteration ascent of light descent of heavy Bodies These and the like are the general providential Laws relating to them Again that things indued with sense should have a sensible perception and certain instincts connatural to them that rational and free Agents should move rationally and freely These and infinite more are the standing and ordinary Rules and Laws of general Providence and the wise God who sees all things from the beginning to the end and therefore can neither be disappointed nor overseen in any of his Counsels hath with that great and admirable Wisdom so ordered these Laws of his general Providence that he thereby governs most excellently the World and they are never totally changed and but rarely altered in particular and that only to most wise ends and upon most eminent occasions And the reason is because the Infinite Wisdom of God hath so instituted and modelled
sensitive nature That the Rational Nature should have those Faculties of a Sensitive Nature and superadded to it the Faculties of Intellect Reason and Will whereby it might govern it self as a reasonable free Agent and determine it self to this or that action And these are the instituted Laws of the Divine common Providence 2. A continued influx of the Divine Goodness whereby things are upheld and continued in their state of being according to this Law of their Creation And by virtue of both these acts of common divine Providence all things are enabled to act and operate according to the Laws of their being without the necessity of any new individual concurrent act of special Providence producing directing or determining their several operations And hence it is that the Will of man by the instituted Law of his Creation and the common Influence of the Divine goodness and power is enabled to act as a reasonable Creature to determine it self and to govern its proper actions according to the Law of his Creation without any particular specificating concurrent new imperate act of the Divine special Providence to every particular determination of his Will Even as the continued influx of the reasonable Soul enables those Faculties which we call Natural or Involuntary without new deliberation purpose or counsel to every new act thereof And by this means the World is in an ordinary course of Providence governed according to those standing fixed Laws given to the Universe and the several parts thereof by the Divine Will wherein it is supported by the common influx and presence of the Divine power and goodness And this is that which being duly considered extricateth that Question which hath so much troubled the World concerning the sinful acts of men and how far forth the glorious God is at all concerned in them Certainly the imperate acts of his Blessed Will have nothing to do to enforce or necessitate the Will of man to any sin it is far from the purity of his Glorious Nature But the general Law of his Providence is only thus far concerned in it That he hath made Man an intelligent and free Agent put him into the power of his own Will but yet sub graviore imperio to restrain its actings if he please by his special Providence and Man in this state of his liberty when he doth sin sins from the Empire of his own Will and not from a determination of the Divine Regiment But though the contemplation of the regiment of the Soul over the Body hath given some analogical explication of the Divine Providence in the Government of the World yet as this Analogy is but imperfect the Divine Regiment of the World is infinitely more wise more powerful more perfect than the regiment of the Soul over the Body so in many things this Analogy by no means holds For instance The Soul doth what it doth in the Body though by a kind of efficiency yet it is but a subordinate efficient and vicarious and instrumental in the hands of the Almighty who as it hath endued the Soul with this energy so the Soul is but his substitute in this regiment of the Body but Almighty God is the supreme Rector of the World and of all those subordinate provinces and parts thereof Secondly in the imperate acts of the Souls regency of the Body and the Compositum She cannot in the Body work immediately without the instrumentality of the intermediate animal and vital Spirits But in the imperate acts of the special Divine Providence though we may justly think he doth most ordinarily use the ministry of those noble natures called Angels yet he may and oftentimes doth by the immediate Fiat of his own Will exercise these imperate acts of special Providence for his Power is infinite and all Beings are in an immediate obedience and subjection to it 3. The Soul cannot by its own Will exercise any immediate imperate act upon those natural and involuntary operations which yet are exercised by an influx from it indeed it may starve and destroy the Body by its Empire and thereby consequently impede and determine those natural and involuntary operations yet it cannot by its Intention or Empire prohibit or suspend their exercise the natural means being allowed and present it cannot effectually prohibit the Heart not to move or the Blood not to circulate or the Ventricle not to digest But it is otherwise with the Regent and regiment of the World even those things wherein he hath set a fixed Law which by virtue of the common influence of the Divine Power and Goodness they observe and follow are subject to the Empire of his special Providence and the imperate acts thereof And this is evident in that Administration of special Providence which is miraculous he commanded the Fire not to burn stopped the mouths and appetites of Lions and prohibited the natural operation and agency of Natural Causes 2. In all the special Providences that are exercised in the World though they do not visibly appear to us to be miraculous yet they most certainly are governed by the imperium of special Divine Providence whereby it sometimes excites second Causes to production of Effects which being thus excited they naturally produce sometimes impeding them sometimes diverting them sometimes directing them sometimes by contemperation or uniting other more active or contrary Causes allaying or enforcing them and although it may be the interposition of the Divine imperium or special Providence be not immediately the immediate antecedent Cause but it may be the third the fourth the tenth the twentieth Cause distant from the Effect Nay though possibly the conjunction of the immediate imperium Providentiae be with the First Mover in Nature the Heavenly Aethereal or Fiery Influx yet the regiment of the Divine Providence is as full and infallible in relation to the imperate regiment of the Effect as if it were immediately joyned to the designed Effect So that the Moral of that Poetical fiction that the uppermost Link of all the series of subordinate Causes is fastned to Jupiter's Chair signifies a useful truth Almighty God doth as powerfully govern and direct when he pleaseth and how he pleaseth all subordinate Causes and Effects as the Soul governs the motion of the Muscle or Limb by those strings of the Nerve which are rooted in the Brain 4. Again the regiment of the Soul over the Body is the regiment of the more active part over the more passive though both making one Compositum but the regiment of Almighty God over the World is not as a part of it or as a Form or Soul informing it but as a Rector or Governour distinct separate and essentially differing from it his regiment of the World in this respect not so much resembling the regiment of the Soul over the Body which together with it make one compounded Nature as the regiment of the Master or Rector over the Ship or the regiment of a King over his Subjects And
Mankind whether although there should be a possibility of an eternity of some permanent created Beings whether yet there be a possibility in Nature or any probability of evidence that Mankind can be eternal à parte ante or without beginning This I oppose by Arguments of two kinds 1. From the very repugnancy in Nature of successive Beings to be without an inception or eternal and upon these kind of evidences I do indeed lay the principal weight and stress of my Conclusion because though these kind of Arguments may seem more obscure yet upon a due consideration of them they are highly consequential and concludent to my purpose 2. The second sort of evidences are Moral evidences wherein I take into consideration most of those Moral evidences that have been collected by others or thought of by my self against the Eternity of Mankind Whereupon I do conclude 1. That singly and apart many of them are subject to exception yet collectively they make up a good moral evidence touching a temporary inception of the humane Nature 2. I do consider the particular deficiencies of those moral evidences taken singly and apart 3. I substitute other moral evidences that even singly and apart have each of them a great moral and topical evidence of this truth and are not capable of any considerable Objection against them though taken sigillatim and apart But when all is done I lay the great stress of my Conclusion upon the first sort of Evidences natural or metaphysical which seem to me no less than demonstrative and therefore if no other moral evidences were added thereunto or if those moral evidences should be capable of exception as some of them are yet the truth of the Conclusion against the eternity of Mankind is sufficiently supported by those that I offer in the first place which I call Physical and Metaphysical 2. Again I then come to consider that Opinion which supposeth an Inception of the Humane Nature I consider the various Hypotheses that the Ancients entertained touching the manner of that Origination and shew the absurdity of them in their several orders I then consider the Mosaical Hypothesis and the great reasonableness thereof upon a bare Natural or Moral accompt without taking in the Infallibility of Divine Revelation In order to that I consider the whole Mosaical Systeme or History of the Creation of the World the admirable congruity it hath both with it self and with a due and unprejudiced and considerate Reason And lastly I deduce certain Corollaries or Consequences from the whole Discourse both Theoretical and Moral and this is in effect the whole Method of what these Papers contain Wherein I proceed meerly upon an account of Natural Reason and Light because in this Discourse I deal with such as are either only or most commonly guided and governed by such Sentiments and therefore I do not call in to my assistance the Authority of Divine Revelation though that of it self doth and ought to carry the full and unquestionable Assent of all good Men that are acquainted therewith CAP. III. A brief Consideration of the Hypotheses that concern the Eternity of the World ALthough I intend not a large Discourse touching their Suppositions that hold the Eternity of the World yet it will be convenient a little to consider it for the better application of what follows in the ensuing Discourse touching the Eternity of the Successions of Mankind and the possibility or impossibility thereof The Supposition of the Eternity of the World is considerable under a double relation 1. With relation to the Notion of Eternity 2. With relation to the Subject it self which they would have eternal namely the World either wholly or in some parts thereof In relation to Eternity it self two things are to be premised 1. What it is 2. What its Kinds are 1. As to the former in all this Discourse I call that Eternal which is without beginning or eternal à parte ante 2. Things thus supposed Eternal may be of two kinds either such as have an Eternity simply independent upon any thing without it or from which it should derive that Eternal Being as we and all good Men say that Almighty God is Eternal Or else such an Eternity as yet supposeth its dependence upon Almighty God as its Cause And they that attribute the first kind of Eternity to the World must do it upon one of these two grounds viz. That there is no other first Being no first Cause no God upon whom the World should depend or from whom it should derive this its Eternal Existence And this is the grossest and most irrational Supposition as well as the foulest Atheism that can be imagined Or else That although there be in truth such a Being as God yet the World had not this its Eternal Existence by any derivation or influx from Him but hath it absolutely and independently This is the Epicurean Atheism which though it oppose the Eternity of the World in that consistency that now it hath yet it asserts the Eternity of those small and infinite particles of Matter and the coalition of them into that state wherein they now are in process and succession of time and motion yet without any dependence of the one or the other upon Almighty God whom he totally secludes from the concerns of the World Others there are again that attribute an Eternity to the World but yet withall acknowledge Almighty God and also Him to be the Efficient thereof And therefore though they attribute an Eternity to it yet it is but a dependent Eternity and so though it be Eternal yet it is but an Eternal Effect of an Eternal Cause These are much more tolerable than either of the former for they assert a God and likewise the dependence of the World in its Eternal Existence and Duration upon Almighty God as the Cause and Root of that Being of the World But among those that thus assert this dependent Eternity of the World upon Almighty God as its Cause or Efficient there seems to be two Parties namely 1. Such as suppose Almighty God the Necessary Cause of the World as his Necessary Effect 2. Such as suppose Him meerly the Voluntary Cause of the World and of its Eternity Of the former sort that suppose Almighty God the Necessary Cause of the World and of its Eternal Existence there seem to be these two Parties or different Opinions 1. Such as suppose the World a meer natural and necessary Emanation from God as its necessary Cause without any manner of intrinsecal freedom in Himself to do or be otherwise and consequently it being a necessary and connatural Effect of the first Cause it must be necessarily as ancient as Himself and if Almighty God be as He is most necessarily so upon the same necessity He is the Cause of the World and the World a necessary and consequently Eternal Production necessarily flowing from the same as if the Sun be Eternal his Light which necessarily
interspersed in it and that fruitful Water which remained conjoined with it 4. That this Production was not by any formed antecedent Seed dispersed in it but immediately the Vegetable Individuals were antecedent to any Semina that might be productive of it and according to the true Method of Existence of Things in their first Origination the Herb and Tree were the Cause the Original of the Seed the Seed was not the Original of the Herb or Tree though in the secondary production by generation the Semen precedes the thing generated according to the Order settled after the first production of things which doth reasonably solve the Dispute of Plutarch Whether the Hen were before the Egg or the Egg before the Hen And as the Supposition that the first Principle in the Origination either of Vegetables or Sensitives to be ex praeexistente semine seems incongruous and unreasonable I mean as to perfect Vegetables or Animals so it is idle and needless For certainly the same Infinite Power that could form a Semen univocum to be the immediate Principle of an Animal or Vegetable in the primordial Origination of them could with equal facility form perfect Individuals of the several Species and endue them with a prolifick power of propagation of their kinds by seminal Principles decised from them and no lesser Power and Wisdom was required to mold up a specifical operative Semen than to frame the Individual or Species to be produced by it 5. The Supreme Power of the Great Efficient of Vegetables as well as Animals was seen in this in that it determined their Species which Matter alone nor any Universal Cause purely natural could never have done in respect of their universal common indeterminate Nature which could never fix nor settle in any determinate specifick production Therefore in that the Individuals of Vegetables Fish Fruits and Birds as well as Men were made after their kinds it ascertains us that this Origination of things was by a Wise Free Intelligent Being full of Power and Wisdom acting secundum intentionem electionem voluntatem 6. By virtue of this Divine Intention Ordination and Command these three things were settled touching Vegetable Natures which is also true concerning Animals as to the two latter of them at least 1. The Earth was endued with prolifick vital Energy whereby it was enabled with the vigorous assistance of the Fiery Nature included in it and accompanying it to put out many spontaneous productions of some ordinary Vegetables and probably of some Insects and to exhibit a succus nutritionis to support all kind of Vegetables and many Animals in their vital existence 2. The Individuals of Vegetables of all sorts as also of Animals Fishes Fowls Insects and Man were in a moment of time produced in their full and perfect complement laden with their Fruit and Seed without ruining the natural gradual process of Maturation which was to ensue in the course of future Generations and this could not be done either by force of any natural fecundity that was then in the Earth or the bare strength of the formed natural accommodation of Light or Heat for though it be true that the natural fecundity and heat of some Climates and also artificial fecundations of Matter may conduce much to the acceleration of Maturity yet it is hot imaginable that these could be ripened into the full growth and burden of Fruit in the period of a Day but by virtue of a supernatural Efficient and Power namely the Energy of the Divine Command Germinet terra c. 3. The third admirable Demonstration of the Immediateness of the Divine Power Wisdom and Ordination is this That Vegetables as also Animals and Mankind were endued with a Power Faculty and a certain Law fixed and radicated in them to transmit their specifical Nature to succeeding Individuals by propagation and seminal traduction whereby their Species might be preserved and this was done by force of the Divine Institution and Benediction the Vegetables were produced with their various Semina in them ready formed for their several specifical productions in their full and perfect stature quasi per saltum and endued with a prolifick power of multiplication of their kind by virtue of that Soveraign Institution and Commission Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth Gen. 1.22 28. 2. I come now to the Fourth Days Work Verse 14 15 16 And God made two great Lights the greater Light to rule the Day and the lesser to rule the Night and he made the Stars also It is true what I before observed that first Matter of all things corporeal was made and this only was properly Creation or making out of nothing and all corporeal things that were made within the compass of the Six Days was Creation only per analogiam for it was only separation and distribution of that Matter which before existed in the Materia Chaotica or else an elevation or rectification of some parts of that Matter or a composition out of it or of some parts of it it was effectio or creatio secunda not creatio prima and though the Word Create be applied to some things that were thus effected as Vers 21. yet it is not purely creatio prima or ex nihilo but creatio secunda ex praeexistente materia Now What was the Matter of these Heavenly Bodies the Sun the Moon the Stars for in this Fourth Day all the Matter of the Chaos was before distributed into these four Simpler Natures Light or Fire Air or Aether Water and Earth The first Matter of these Heavenly Luminaries therefore was the common Chaotica materia but the Materia proxima out of which they seem to be constituted were principally those two great Natures which were separated from the Chaos the first day viz. The Fiery Nature imbodied in a suitable Vehicle and the second day the Aether or Aery part these two great Integrals of the first Universe were far greater than all the rest of the Chaotick Matter and therefore might very well subminister the principal and predominant Matter for those great and vast Luminaries the fixed Stars the most whereof are far greater than the Globe of Earth and Water But to the Constitution of the Planetary Bodies which seem to be more gross than the Stars there was a greater proportion of more gross and feculent Matter added to the Fiery and Aerial Particles in their coagulation though in some of them more in some less according to the various degrees of subtilty and grosness of their constitution And these goodly Bodies being formed and molded it should seem that that great and mighty flaming Light which was made or produced the first day and for the two ensuing days had rolled about the rest of the Chaotick Mass was by the Glorious God distributed into those several Heavenly Vessels of the Sun and Stars who succeeded unto and as it were inherited that primitive Light now divided among them according to their several measures
will they suppose it a Norma Rule or Law of a most excellent frame and order and indeed in so conceiving they conceive truly that Nature is such a Law or Rule but still this doth not explicate the Phaenomena of Nature without supposing somewhat more A Law or Rule is not in it self effective or active neither can it subsist or exist without an Agent that either gave it or works by or according to it The Laws of a State are the Rules of its Government but this Law must be given by some Power and some Power there must be that must act according to it otherwise a Law is a stupid dead unactive and unconceivable thing And therefore a Law or Rule singly explicates not any the Phaenomena of Nature without a Being that gives this Law to things or acts or makes things act according to it and then we are in a great measure where Moses brings us only with this difference the Law by which this great World was made was no other but the Determination and Beneplacitum of the Divine Will determined or qualified if we may use that improper word with the highest and most sovereign Wisdom and Power And the Law by which things thus made were for the future to be governed was that instituted Rule and Order which this Sovereign Lord contrived and placed in created Beings and thus indeed Opus naturae est opus intelligentiae Nature therefore may have these various acceptations viz. 1. As it signifies that Principium activum that gave every thing its Being and thus it imports no other than Almighty God that Supreme Intelligent Being though improperly called Nature viz. Natura narans 2. As it imports the Things or Effects principated or effected by this intelligent active Principle or the Effects or Creatures of God or Natura naturata and this hath a double import viz. i. For the first and immediate Productions of that Principle namely not only created Matter which was the Productum primo primum but also the things first produced in their several kinds or natures or Producta secundo prima as the first Vegetable Animal and Humane Individuals or 2. For those Mixtions and Productions which afterwards had their productions in the World by successive mixtions and generations which include all Productions which though in relation to their dependence and first production of their kind are still the Creatures of God yet in relation to their immediate Causes are productions of second Causes 3. As it imports the Law and Rule and Method and Order of the production and government and process of created Beings and this of two kinds 1. The Law and Rule of the first Creation or Production of Beings as the production of the first Individuals of Animals Vegetables and Men and herein though Almighty God proceeds with admirable Wisdom and Order yet he used no other Law or Rule than the immediate Determination of his own most wise and perfect Will suitable to the Business he had in hand wherein there was necessary and fit another kind of Regiment and Order than was afterwards instituted 2. The Laws or Rules instituted and appointed by the same most wise God to things already constituted this is the common and ordinary and regular Law of instituted Nature and these two Laws or Rules were different and necessary that they should be so In the first Constitutions of Beings God Almighty proceeded by a Law suitable to that Work namely according to the wise Counsel of his own Will that was best and fittest for that Work he proceeded more suddenly and by the immediate interposition of his own Power the Vegetables constituted in a moment or very speedily and within the compass of a Day came to their full and perfect maturation and growth so also did the Fowls and Fishes and Brutes and Man without any considerable mora between their first formation and complement or individual perfection But the Law instituted for things already formed and setled was of another kind Vegetables Animals and Men are in the Laws of their future existence to pass through those gradations and steps and methods which we see now in use for the formation production increase and perfection thereof Again in the first production of things though sometimes the wise God used in some measure the order of second or instrumental or effective Causes yet he bound not himself to that Rule though as we have formerly observed the instrumentality of Heat might be used in separating the Expansum and the arefaction of the Earth and the production of Vegetables and though the instrumentality of the perfected Celestial Bodies might be some way instrumental towards the maturation of Nature towards the production of Animals and though he used the Matter which he had created to be the substratum of the Corporeal Natures even of Man himself yet the great Energy and Power whereby he compleated all things was above and beyond the activity of second Causes yea when he used the instrumentality of second Causes his own Powerful and Omnipotent Hand was engaged in the advancing of the efficacy of the second Causes which he used beyond their natural strength and efficacy there was much that was supernatural and miraculous as well in the first separation distribution and formation of things as in the first Creation of the Corporeal Matter out of nothing But in the succeeding process and procedure of created Nature he fixed and established certain powers and activities in things and a certain order and connexion between them and their effects and governed and regulated the motions and productions of things according to those implanted powers and connexions and this we call the instituted Law of Nature namely the activities and powers placed in created Beings and the mutual connexions and concatenations of things to such activities and powers which Law was at first instituted by the God of Nature to be the common and standing ordinary Rule for things setled and fixed in their created station And therefore we are far from denying a Law of Nature or Calling in the immediate efficiency of the great God or a miraculous interposition in all the ordinary procedures of things already fully setled and statuminated by the first Divine Efficiency That which we only say in relation to Nature already setled is but this that 1. The primitive and fundamental powers and activities of things were placed in them by the immediate Will and Efficiency of God it is this that gives the power to Heat and Fire to dissolve dissipate rarifie and consume to Cold to condense to heavy Bodies to descend to all the Celestial Bodies their Motions Influences and Positions that gave the Generative Faculty to Men to Brutes to Fishes the Productive Faculty to the Earth and Waters the Receptivity to Semen and Intellection c. 2. That he by a continuing Influx doth support and preserve all things in their being order and activity 3. That this which we call the Law of
parts in Natural Philosophy and the rules motions and variety of Qualities and Operations of divers Natural Objects the connexion of Causes and Effects the observation of the Order of things in Nature are of singular use to carry the Mind up to the acknowledging and admiration of the Great Efficient and Governour of the World of His Wisdom Power Goodness Bounty and consequently to raise up the Heart to veneration of Him dutifulness and gratitude unto Him dependance upon Him and a deep impression of Natural Religion towards Him and of all those consequents that arise in the Mind and Life from this habit of Religion So true is the Saying of an excellent Naturalist of our own A little knowledge in Philosophy may perchance make a proud empty Man an Atheist but it is impossible that Atheism can lodge in a Mind well studied and acquainted with Natural Philosophy And as thus the knowledge of Nature is useful to Mankind to bring him to and confirm him in the knowledge of the Glorious God so it is preparatively useful and indeed necessary to many useful things in this Life as to make a Man a good Physician ubi desinit Philosophus ibi incipit Medicus where the Philosopher ends the Physician begins which next to the knowledge of Almighty God is of great necessity and use to Mankind And touching Geometry Astronomy and Arithmetick though in the knowledge of them there be many things that are nice and curious and not so much in order to use as to speculation and exercise of Wit yet they are such Objects the knowledge whereof is in many things very beneficent to Mankind as we see in the construction of all Mechanical Engins in the measuring of Bodies Superficies and Distances in the Rules and Exercise of Architecture Fortifications and ordering of Battalia's Computations and Reckonings in Contracts and Merchants Affairs in Navigation in the Measure and Computation of Time and the right knowledge of several Seasons these Mathematical Subjects and Sciences have great use in relation to humane affairs and concerns And as thus those more curious Sciences have their use in the Affairs of Mankind and are commended unto us not only upon the account of the nobleness but also of the usefulness thereof so the knowledge of History of Humane Laws of Moral Philosophy and of Political and Oeconomical regiments of the various Modes Temperaments and Qualifications of Governments with their Appendages are upon the account of their usefulness to Humane Society and the Peace Tranquillity and Order of the World and of the particular Societies Relations and Persons therein commended to our knowledge and contemplation as things without which the World of Mankind would soon be in disorder and confusion And although these Studies are not so pleasing and grateful to the Understanding as those other more curious Contemplations either Physical or Mathematical yet they recompence it with the excellency and necessity of their use in relation to the noblest visible Creature Man and in relation to his noblest and most useful posture and station in this World namely a state of regulated Society and Government Now according to the kind or degree of the usefulness of the Objects to be known so the knowledge thereof is more or less commended unto us upon the account of the various degrees of usefulness Some Objects and their knowledge are of greatest value because their use is of more universal concern and important necessity and such is the true knowledge of Almighty God His Greatness Power Wisdom Goodness and Will especially as He hath revealed Himself in His Word and those noble habits that upon that account are ingenerated in the Soul as Religion Gratitude Obedience and Tranquillity of Mind Regularity of the Soul and Life And upon the same account there is a great value in knowledge of Morals and of those Duties that we owe to our selves and others and a conformity of Minds and Lives to the Dictates of Religion and Morality And the excellence of their use and consequently the commendation of that knowledge upon that account is evident in these particulars 1. The right and true knowledge of those things do not only perfect our Souls and Natures by the excellency of the knowledge it self but they perfect our Souls and Natures with Goodness They do not only perfect the Intellectual Faculty but they also perfect the Volitive Faculty they make the Man not only more knowing but more wise and they also make him the better more just sober temperate religious A Man may know very much in Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy and yet be a bad Man but a Man truly acquainted with the knowledge of God and with the due sense of his Duty to Him in matter of Religion and his Duty to others in points of Morality which is a part also of the Divine Will is not only a knowing Man but becomes also a good Man if indeed his knowledge be sound and true Again 2. All other knowledge meerly or principally serves the concerns of this Life and is fitted to the meridian thereof They are such as for ought we know will be of little use to a separate Soul at least we do not know whether the Soul in its state of separation will be much concerned in the knowledge of Physical or Mathematical Learning or the Rules or Methods of Political Regiment But this we are or may be sure that the Soul will carry with it into the other World that knowledge of God which it acquires here and receive an unspeakable improvement thereof by a nearer union to Him and it will carry with it those improvements and advances of Piety Goodness Righteousness Holiness those Habits and Graces that it began here and as the Soul is improved and made the better in this Life by this knowledge and those effects and meliorations that it here acquired by them so it will carry along with it those advantages to the next World for there is a connaturality and congruity between that knowledge and those habits and that future estate of the Soul So that this kind of knowledge is not only serviceable and useful for the present Life in via but is proportioned to that state that is in patria And as touching the knowledge of things that are meerly accommodate to the present Life they receive their disparity of value in this respect according to the disparity or different degrees of usefulness Some are useful for nobler ends some for lower and more inferior ends some are in a greater degree useful for the same ends than others and according to the varieties of ends uses and their degrees the knowledge of them as in reference to this part of the commendation of an Object namely usefulness is more or less eligible But this is too large a Subject particularly to prosecute in this place III. The third commendation of a Subject of Contemplation and that renders it eligible is Certainty Where the Subject is uncertain and
the evidences touching it doubtful although perchance the speculation that it affords be very high and sublime yet such a Subject is not in this respect so eligible as what is more certain for it leaves an impartial and serious Mind full of doubt and dissatisfaction and where it meets with a Man of a busie phantasie self-conceited and partial to himself and his own thoughts and that would be thought to know beyond the common standard of other Mens Reason it puts him upon the confident framing of Hypotheses built meerly upon Imagination and from these weak foundations he deduceth Systems of Consequences and Conclusions which being built upon meer fanciful and inevident Suppositions fall to nothing but dust and smoke as soon as their evidence is impartially examined Some Subjects are so remote from us that we are strangers to them and our knowledge concerning them is meerly conjectural and those very conjectures for the most part wanting competent media to make them tolerably probable Concerning the Extent of the Universe the Plurality of Worlds the State of Heavenly Bodies whether they are inhabited and with what kind of Inhabitants whether they are animate Bodies whether they are moved by Intelligences or by their own Forms or by the motion of the Body of the Aether or those imaginary Vortices wherein they are placed These and many such Speculations touching things at this distance may gratifie the Imagination but never satisfie the Mind Again some things though they are or may be near unto us yet are of that subtilty that they escape our Senses and thereby we cannot make our approaches to their discovery As concerning the Nature of Spirits their ubi motus the manner of their Intellection and mutual communication of Notions by what means or in what manner actual Intellection is effected in the Soul how the Species Order and Circumstances of things are preserved in the Memorative Faculty or Organ or where else these and many other hidden parts of Nature even of a far lower form are unaccessible to us The Contemplation of the Universe and of the Natural Causes and Effects therein is indeed an excellent Contemplation For first it exerciseth the Intellectual Faculties keeps them in motion and employment and thereby perfecteth them Secondly It is full of delight and contentation to the Mind Thirdly Although the Understanding attains not a perfect discovery of what it searcheth after yet many times undesigned and unthought of discoveries of many excellent things recompenceth the loss of the principal intention as those that have bent their endeavour to attain the Philosophers Stone though they never attain their end yet in their process towards it do many times light upon excellent discoveries which they never thought of or designed which in a great measure recompenseth their disappointment in the Particular sought after Fourthly It gives a great discovery of the admirable Wisdom and Power of God in framing and ordering of the World and so becomes a manuduction to the knowledge acknowledgement and adoration of Him But yet when we consider how short and weak our best discoveries are in the most accessible obvious particulars and narrowest Integrals of the Universe When we consider how many things in Nature escape our Senses and the discoveries thereof and yet how much we stand in need of the discoveries of Sense and sensible and experimental observation to bottom any sound conjecture concerning the Nature Causes and Effects of the things in Nature and how uncertain fanciful and imaginary our Suppositions are without it whereby it comes to pass that we many times frame suppositions and conclusions concerning things supposed to be in Nature before we have any certain evidence whether in truth the very things about which we frame our suppositions or conclusions have at all any real existence or if they have yet for want of a clear and sensible and experimented observation of them our positions and conclusions touching their Causes Effects Order and Methods of their procedure are but fictions and imaginations accommodated to our Inventions rather than to the things themselves and such as we rather project we would have them be if we had the making of them than what in truth they are And lastly if we consider the vast extent and multiplicity of the whole Compass of the Universe and the things therein contained the many parts thereof that either in respect of their tenuity or distance escape the reach of our Senses the infinite complications and combinations of several concurrences causes and contributions to the constitution and operation of almost every Integral in Nature the shortness of our Lives and the many necessary diversions that we have and must necessarily have from those Contemplations I say when we consider these things it seems a thing utterly to be despaired of to attain a full certain evident knowledge of the whole Universe or of any considerable portion thereof And hence it is that if we consider the various Hypotheses of the ancient and modern Philosophers touching the general Systeme of the World and those more Universal and Cardinal Solutions of the common and great Appearances in Nature we shall find them or the greatest part of them to be little else than excogitated and invented Models not so much arising from the true Image of the things themselves or resulting from the real Existence of them as certain instituted and artificial Contrivances of mens Wits and Fancies And these Suppositions being thus invented they distort stretch and reduce the Orders of things in a conformation to those pre-conceived Suppositions and then by the Inventers of them and those that are their followers and would seem to be men of quicker sight than others and not to come too short of the perceptions of their Leaders they are in a little time magnified into the true Solutions of the Arcana Naturae and then all or most of their Argumentations Positions Superstructions and Conclusions are founded upon and conformed unto and deduced from these excogitated Hypotheses as if they were the true and only and real frame and constitution of things when they have as little reality and less evidence than the imaginary solid Spheres in the Heavens or their Musick the Horses of the Sun or any other Poetical Fictions And if at any time some one Phaenomenon of Nature appears that crosseth any of these Suppositions or Hypotheses or suits not with them or is not salved by them presently great pains is taken to supply that Defect with some subsidiary Supposition that may stop that Leak and piece up the Hypothesis which must be presently granted to be true not because there is any evidence of it from the things themselves but because it suits with that artificial and precarious Hypothesis which was before taken up and made much of This we may easily observe to be true if we should examine all the various Suppositions of leading men in their several Sects The Chymical Philosophers make their Tria prima
For the true prospect of the Humane Fabrick in its essential and integral parts in the fabrick of his Body and the faculties and operation of his Soul must needs convince any man of ordinary reason that can observe but clear and evident consequences that the Efficient that first made this first root of Mankind was not only an intelligent Being but a Being of most admirable Power Wisdom and Goodness for such this effect doth necessarily declare its Efficient to be 3. As the contemplation of the Origination of the Species of Mankind gives us an assurance of the Existence of the first Cause and of his Attribute of Wisdom Power and Goodness so the contemplation of the secondary origination of Mankind or the production of the Individuals by generation gives us an evidence of the like power wisdom and goodness of God and a little Emblem of the Divine Power in the Creation of the World Any man that attentively considers the progress of the generative production of mankind will find that this goodly and noble Creature called Man hath its gradual formation and complement from a small almost imperceptible vital principle which by the Divine institution is endued with such a regular orderly and unerring power that from most inconsiderable and unlikely materials builds up gradually the goodly frame of the Body cloaths it self with it and exerciseth an admirable Oeconomy over it And this it doth not by such a kind of choice deliberation and forecast as the Watch-maker makes his Watch for as yet this vital rational principle doth not exercise an actual ratiocination or discursive deliberation neither hath those organs of Heart and Brain and Spirits and Vessels by the help of which we exercise our Acts of Reason till it hath made and framed them And yet this admirable Frame is immediately wrought by this little particle which we call the Soul and moulded formed and perfected with an incomparable and unerring dexterity skill elegance and curiosity more and greater than the most exquisite Artist can shew in the most polished piece of Artificial work Now if this little spark of Life that in this work of generation and formation is Vicarius Dei the Instrument of his power and wisdom if this little imperceptible Archeus is endowed by the Divine power wisdom and institution with this admirable regular and effective power out of so small inconsiderable and unlikely materials to mould up and fashion the goodly Fabrick of Humane Nature and to perfect it for a complete habitation for it self wherein to exercise its most excellent oeconomy and operations if this Pusillus divinae lucis radius ex tantilla tam improbabili materiae particula mirandam naturae humanae fabricam tam affabrè eleganter inerrabundè formaverit If we find in so small a particle of a created Being this admirable energy why should we make a question whether that God that at first gave this admirable energy to the Soul to frame so goodly a piece out of matter so near to nothing should not have power to create a World of matter out of nothing 2. Again since I do see as plainly as I see my Paper that I now write upon that this fabrication of the Humane Body is the immediate work of a Vital principle that prepareth disposeth digesteth distributeth and formeth the first rudiments of the Humane nature when it is no bigger than a little Bean that afterwards gradually augmenteth and perfecteth it to the goodly complement of a Man And the same thing I see in the first rudiments of all generations as well vegetable as animal It doth give to me notwithstanding all the bold confidence and conjectures of Epicurus and those that follow him as far as for shame they durst I say it doth give me not only an undeniable evidence but an exemplar in analogy and explication that the coalition of the goodly frame of the Universe was not the product of chance or fortuitous concourse of particles of matter nor the single effect of matter and motion but of the most wise and powerful ordination of the most wise and glorious God who thus ordered the World and instituted that Rule Order or Law which we call Nature to be the Law of its future being and operation if I see that the Coagmentation of a Man nay of a Chicken or a grain of Wheat is not by casualty but the wise and powerful God hath committed the Coagmentation Disposition and Formation thereof to their Seminal Principles tanquam Vicariis substitutis Divini Numinis Instrumentis as it were to Vicegerents and subservient Instruments of the Deity I have no reason to think that the goodly Frame of the Universe was the production of Chance or Accident or bare Matter or its casual motion or modification thereof but that the same was the Contrivance and Work of the Great Wise and Glorious God as a Work in a great measure answerable to the Excellency of such an Efficient 3. Again I find a sort of Men that pretend to much severity of Wit and would be thought too wise to be imposed upon by Credulity where they think they have not evidence enough of Sense or Reason to convince them that would be thought to be Men above the common rate these have gone about as far as they durst to exclude God out of the World and pity those Men as troubled with Credulity and of weak Parts that believe the Regiment of Divine Providence a business that they think or pretend to think may be made use of to impose upon the weaker part of Mankind think it a Fiction and such as is utterly inexplicable to the satisfaction of a reasonable and impartial judgment Now the due contemplation of the Humane Nature and that Oeconomy that the Active Principle in it ordinarily called the Soul doth exercise therein to my Understanding gives me both a reasonable evidence of the Divine Providence governing the World and a fair explication of it to me I mean not in this place to examine the truth or falsity of the Plurality of Subordinate Forms or whether there be two or three distinct Substantial Forms or Souls in Man whereby he is Vivens Sentiens Intelligens for they are proper for a farther Examination in their proper place But at present I do suppose that that one Soul whereby Man is constituted in Esse Hominis is the single Principle of all his operations of Life Sense and Intellection because as to this purpose which I am now upon it comes all to one whether there be a Unity or Plurality of Subordinate Forms or of Souls in the Humane Nature I say therefore in the Humane Fabrick we may observe two kinds of Forms if I may so call them the one the Forma Corporis as such whereby it hath those Properties or Operations which are common to Bodies of the like make or composition whereby it is weighty and descends as other Bodies it is figured it hath dimensions and
Soul from the Body As the Body could not be reduced into that orderly frame in which it is constituted without the Plastick and Formative power of the Soul so it could never be upheld in that state of Order and Convenience without the continued Influence of the Soul The latter is as absolutely necessary for its continuance and conservation as the former for its constitution I easily foresee two Objections against the Method proposed 1. That the Hypothesis it self is not sufficiently evidenced How do we know that this Oeconomy is the effect of a Power or Nature or Being distinct from the Body and why may it not be the result of this Disposition Harmony or Contemperation of qualities or parts of that Matter that constitutes the Body 2. And if it be what need we magnifie the Humane Nature as the great Instructer in this business since we may with a little observation find very much the like in Brutes as well as Men For there we find a sensible Perception and Phantasie answering the Intellect in Man an Estimative or Judicial faculty an Appetition or Aversation and Locomotive faculty answering the Will and the very Oeconomy of the animal Soul or Spirits managing as well their spontaneous actions as these natural or involuntary exertions of Digestion Egestion Circulation and the rest of those Motions called Involuntary or Natural To the First of these I say That this is not the place for a large reduction of these Operations to the regiment of the Soul as a distinct active Faculty distinct from the Corporeal Moles and its contemperation that shall God willing in its due place be at large discussed which I am not here willing to anticipate In the mean time let the Objector but honestly and impartially examine and observe Himself and he will need no other evidence of this truth but his own experience to satisfie him that all those effects proceed from an active regnant Principle within him distinct from the Moles corporea or the contemperation thereof The distemper of the humours of the Body cause sometimes such sickness as disorders the Phantasie and Reason but sometimes though it distempers the Body the Intellective faculty and operations are nevertheless free and sound as Experience shews If this Objector was ever under a Sickness or Distemper of the latter kind let him give an account what it is that gives him under such a Disease the use of his Reason To the Second I need not say more than what I have before observed namely 1. That although the Inferiour Natures have a kind of Image of the Humane Nature yet it is less perfect and therefore no equal Instance in order to the explication of what I herein design 2. As it is less perfect so it is more distant and less evident to us than our selves are or may be to our selves the Regiment and Oeconomy of our own Souls in our Bodies and of them are more evident to us and perceptible by us than that Regiment and Oeconomy that the Souls of Brutes exercise in them and therefore fitter to be made our Instance of that which I go about thereby to illustrate namely the possibility necessity and explication of the Divine Providence in the governing and influencing of the Universe and all the parts thereof which I shall in the next place prosecute in the Analogy that this small Regnant Principle bears within its little Province to the Divine Regiment of the Universe Sic parvis componere magna I come therefore to the illustration of the Divine Providence and Regiment of the World by the foregoing Emblem thereof 1. By this smaller Instance of this Regiment of this lesser World by the immediate presidency of the Soul it seems evident that it is no way impossible but that the greater World may be governed by the Divine Wisdom Power and Providence It is true there are these two disparities between these namely the greater World and the lesser The greater World is of a more vast extent and again the Integrals and Parts thereof are of greater multiplicity and variety but neither of these are any impediment because the Regent thereof is of an infinite immensity more than commensurate to the extent of the World and such as is most intimately present with all the Beings of the World and of an infinite Understanding Wisdom and Power that is able to apply it self to every created Being and therefore without any difficulty equally able to govern the whole and every part thereof This we see in Natural agents that little spark of Life the Soul that exerciseth its regiment upon an Infant of a span long when the Body is grown to its due stature and together with the extension of the Body this little Vital particle evolves and diffuseth it self to the extent of the enlarged Body governs it with the same facility as it did before that extension And the sensible Soul of a vast Whale exerciseth its regiment to every part of that huge structure with the same efficacy and facility as the Soul of a Fly or a Mite doth in that small and almost imperceptible dimension to which it is consigned For the Soul is expanded and evolved and present to every part and the uttermost extremity of the greater as well as the lesser Animal And therefore if my Soul can have its effectual energy and regiment upon my Body with ease and facility with how much more ease and facility can a Being of immense Existence and Omnipresence of infinite Wisdom and Power govern and order a great but yet a finite Universe and all the numerous yet not infinite parts thereof 2. As there is a possibility of such a regiment of the Divine Wisdom Power and Influence in the Government of the World so there is a necessity of it It is not enough for the Soul of the Humane Nature to form and mould its Corporeal Vehicle if it gave over its work when that were done it would soon dissolve dissipate and corrupt There is the same necessity for the Divine Influence and regiment to order and govern conserve and keep together the Universe in that consistence it hath received as it was at first to give it before it could receive it The intermission of that Regiment and Divine Providence and Influx but a moment after the constitution of this World would have dissolved its order and consistence if not annihilated its Being And indeed he that observes the great variety of things in the World the many junctures and contributions of things that serve to keep up its consistence the want of any of which as the disorder of a little Nerve Vein or Artery in the Body would bring it into a great disorder the continual strife between contrary qualities the strange activity of the active Fiery Nature that involves it or at least is disseminated up and down in it the vast and irregular concretions of Meteors and those strange and various Phaenomena that are in the World which
give rain Jer. 14.22 Thus the wise God who doth nothing vainly or unnecessarily nor infringeth the more constant Laws of Nature when those parts thereof that are more anomalous and more easily applicable to his imperate acts and ends of Providence may serve more ordinarily chuseth those parts of Nature to execute his special Providences that may do it without any great fracture of the more stable and fixed parts of Nature or the infringment of the Laws thereof Again as the Empire of the Divine Will doth exercise its imperate acts in the Methods of special Providence upon things simply in themselves natural so it doth upon Agents or Natures intellectual and free Sometimes immediately by Himself sometimes by the Instrumentality of Angels or proposed Objects This Exercise of the imperate Acts of the Divine Providence may be upon the Understanding or Will Upon the Understanding principally these ways 1. By immediate afflatus or impression as anciently was usual in prophetick Inspirations 2. By conviction of some Truths and this may be either by a strong and over-bearing presenting of them to the Understanding with that light and evidence that it is under a kind of necessity of believing them which was often seen in the primitive times of Christianity wherein God was pleased many times irresistibly and by immediate overpowering the Understanding by the powerful impression of the Object or Truth propounded to conquer as it were the Understanding into an assent Or 2. By advancing and enlightning the understanding Faculty with a superadded light and perception whereby it was enabled to discern the truth of things delivered For as the Understanding receives some Truths proposed by reason of the congruity between the Faculty and the Object as the Eye sees some visible Objects by reason of the congruity between it and them so the reason why it perceives not all Objects of Truth is because of some defect of the Faculty whereby it holds not a full and perfect congruity with them either by reason of the remoteness or sublimity of the Object or some deficiency of light in the Faculty which is aided by the Collyrium of the Divine Assistance Rev. 2. Or else 3. By some extraordinary concomitant moral evidence such was that of the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles the Seals and Credentials of the Truths they delivered And as thus the imperate acts of the Divine special Providence are exercised upon the Understanding so they are exercised upon the Will and that either immediately or mediately Immediately 1. By an immediate determining of the Will For although the Will be naturally free yet it is naturally and essentially subject to the imperium divinae voluntatis when He is pleased to exercise that empire upon it This although he rarely doth yet he may do it and sometimes doth it irresistibly determining the Will to chuse this or that good and yet this without any such force or violence as is simply contrary to the nature of it because as there is no Power in the World but owes most naturally an obediential subjection to the Lord of Nature so even the Will it self is naturally and essentially subject to the determination of the Lord and Author of it 2. By immediate inclining and inflecting it to determin of it self This is that secret striving of the Spirit of God with the Will inflecting and perswading it to this or that good It differs from the former way because that it is irresistible this though potent yet in its own nature resistible by the Will of Man though it many times prevails by its efficacy V. Gen. 6.3 Eph. 4.30 Again 2. Sometimes it is done Mediately more humano and yet not without the mediate special Empire and Regiment of the Divine Will and thus it is done two ways viz. 1. By an irresistible or at least powerful conviction of the Understanding that the thing in proposal is fit and necessary to be done or omitted for although some think that the Will hath a power of choosing or refusing or suspending notwithstanding the final decision of the practical Understanding yet certain we are that ordinarily and when the Will acts as a Rational faculty it is or ought to be determined by the last decision of the practical Understanding and 2. By proposing Moral objects that do more humano guide the Will to determine it self accordingly and these are various sometimes Intervention Perswasion or Examples of others and sometimes even the junctures of Natural occurrences For as I shall have occasion to shew and is partly touched before even the Natural occurrences of things are under the guidance and conduct of the Divine Providence even when to us they seem to be either Accidental or to be the meer product of Natural Causes And surely if we should deny the intervention of Imperate Acts of Divine Providence in relation to actions Natural or Moral that appear in the World we should exclude his Regiment of the World in a great measure and chain up all things to a fatal necessity of Second Causes and allow at most to the glorious God a bare prospect or prescience of things that are or shall be done without any other Regency of things but meerly according to the instituted nature and operations of things And thus far of the Imperate Acts of the Divine Providence Only this farther I must subjoyn as a certain truth That neither the Empire of the Divine Providence or his mediate or immediate determinations perswasions or inflexions of the Understanding or Will of Rational Creatures doth either naturally morally or intentionally deceive the Understanding or pervert the Will or necessitate or incline either to any falshood or moral evil 3. The third Analogy that is between the regiment of the Soul over the Body and the Divine regiment of the Universe is in relation to the acts of general Providence or that ordinary Law wherein Almighty God governs ordinarily the Universe and the things in it without the particular mixture of those that I have called the Imperate Acts of special Providence which seems to consist of two parts 1. The institution of certain common Laws or Rules for all created Beings which without a special intervention of his Will to alter or change they should regularly observe as that the Heavenly Bodies should have such Motions and Influences that the Inferiour or Elementary World should have its several Mixtures and Transmutations by the application of the active principles and particles in it to Passives and by the virtue of the Heavenly Motions and Influences That there should be vicissitudes of generations and corruptions that Vegetables should have the operation of vital vegetation increase duration and productions according to their several kinds that Sensible Natures should enjoy a life of Sense and those several powers or faculties of Sensation Phantasie Memory Appetition Digestion Local Motion Generation and those several instincts whereby they should be managed and governed according to the conveniencies of a
inquiry and such whose first composure and origination requires a higher and nobler Constituent than either Chance or the ordinary method of meer Natural causes and concurrences and that it is such a piece as in its first constitution and ordination requires an Efficient of infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness This is the end and scope of my present Inquiry Now to give a brief Inventory of the Excellence of the Humane Nature I shall observe as near as I can this order First I will briefly consider those Excellencies that he hath in common with the vegetable and sensible nature Secondly I shall consider those specifical or appropriate Excellencies that he hath above the former both vegetable and animal nature Under the Second general I shall consider Man singly with relation to himself and then with relation to other things without him In relation to himself I shall briefly consider these particulars 1. The excellency of his Soul or intellectual nature in its nature faculties acts and habits 2. The peculiar excellency of his Body 3. The peculiar excellency of the Compositum consisting of both his former essential parts In relation to things without him I shall consider him with relation 1. To God 2. To Mankind 3. To the other integrals of the World and therein 1. Of their serviceableness and accommodation to him 2. Of his dominion and soveraignty over them and the means and instruments thereof This is the brief Scheme that I intend of those specifical and appropriate preheminences that the Nature of Man hath above other visible Creatures First therefore touching those Excellencies that the humane Nature hath above the vegetable and animal Nature I shall subjoin these ensuing Positions 1. There is no excellent vegetable or animal Faculty in the vegetable or animal Nature as such but it is found in the humane Nature such as are attraction nutrition digestion conformation of parts digested proportionable augmentation generation sensible perception common sense estimative faculty sensible appetite locomotive faculty and animal motion I meddle not herein with all those smaller sort of Faculties which are peculiarly appropriate to Vegetables or Animals as swiftness sagacity strength and special artifices which belong not to them in the common nature of Vegetables or Animals but by certain specifical Instincts or Faculties because though it may be some of them are not found in the same kind and degree in the humane Nature yet they are such as are abundantly recompensed by that art and ingeny which appropriately belongs to the humane Nature 2. There are no Organs in the sensible Nature which yet are more perfect than those of the vegetable Nature subservient to the Faculties of Life and Sense which are wanting in the constitution of the humane Body at least in substance and equivalence 3. Those very Faculties and Organs subservient unto them in the vegetable or sensible Nature which are found in them are lodged in the humane Nature in far more excellency and perfection than they are in the vegetable or animal Nature So that if the Faculties or Organs subservient to the vegetable or animal Life in Man do differ in their state or composure from those of Brutes it differs for the better as obtaining a more exquisite perfection usefulness beauty and contexture than those of Brutes as may appear in the Hand of Man compared with the Foot of Beasts or Birds the Foot the Leg the Thigh of Man with those of Beasts and the like It is true the constitution of some Faculties and Organs of Sensibles is more accommodate to their fabrick and use than the like Organs of Man would be to the use of Brutes but simply comparing one with another the Organs of the humane Body are more curious and excellent than the Organs of the bare animal Nature And from hence it comes to pass that the full knowledge of the humane Faculties and Organs subservient to the animal Life in Man comprehends in effect all the like Faculties and Organs in the animal Nature though differing in some particular textures and positions with a proportionable advance by the access of excellence of the humane Nature 2. As to the specifical or appropriate Excellencies of the humane Nature above the most perfect Animals they come next to be considered It is true that Animals in proportion to the length of their Life attain their complement of their specifical perfection sooner in proportion than the humane Nature The animal Soul sooner expands and evolves it self to its full orb and extent than the humane Soul Therefore the Horse that lives naturally about thirty years comes to his full growth and perfect exercise of its animal Faculties in four years but Man that lives not ordinarily above seventy yeas comes not to the ripeness of his Intellectual Life 'till two and twenty or three and twenty years at least nor even to his full growth 'till nineteen or twenty So that what we say concerning Man in relation to the actings of his Mind must be applied to that state and age wherein his Soul hath fully as it were evolved it self and its Organs fully mature and disposed for the actings of his Soul He is long ripening but then his maturity and the complement thereof recompenseth the flowness of his maturation Now the Excellencies appropriate to the humane Nature are as before observed of two kinds 1. such as immediately concern the humane Nature it self or 2. such as are extrinsecal but yet relating to it Those things that are immediately residing in or part of the humane Nature come first to be considered And they are three 1. His Soul or intellectual and volitive Principle 2. His Body or corporeal part 3. The Compositum or Coalitum of both those Principles which complete the humane Nature The Soul comes first to be considered and therein these four things 1. It s Constitution or Nature 2. It s Original 3. Its Faculties 4. It s congenite Habits or rational Instincts 1. Touching the Constitution of the Intellectual Soul of Man I shall not in this place enter into a large discourse concerning it but reserve that consideration to its proper place only in general it is 1. An active principle 2. It is a substantial principle 3. It is not corporeal or material 4. It is not corruptible or mortal 2. Touching its Original whether it be by traduction or creation or participation I shall not here dispute but reserve it to its proper place for a fuller disquisition But whether the one way or the other it had its original there is no inconsistency but that it hath those essential qualifications above-mentioned 3. Touching its Faculties they are two the Understanding and the Will And here I shall not concern my self in the Inquiry whether the Faculties are the same with the Soul it self or the same one with the other and only distinct in notion whether the Will be any more than the complete or ultimate act of the Understanding determined
flows from the Existence of the Sun is likewise necessarily Eternal This seems to be the Opinion of Aristotle and some others that follow him 2. Again some there have been who will not have Almighty God to be a meer natural and necessary Cause of the World but such a Cause as is a free Agent agens per intellectum voluntatem and that the World was an Effect of Him not as a natural or necessary but as a voluntary and free Agent And yet the World was necessarily Eternal though freely willed to be Eternal For they do suppose that in as much as God Almighty is necessarily Good and Wise and it is part of his Perfection to will what is best and always to will it therefore the Divine Will was always determined even eternally to will the Existence of the World as a thing eternally consonant to the Perfection of his Nature to will and always to will what is best And there was never in all the vast and boundless Period of Eternity any one moment wherein he willed not to communicate his own Benignity and Bounty to something without Him and therefore though he freely willed the World to be as a free Agent yet that freedom of his Will was from all Eternity determin'd by the Perfect Goodness and Beneficence of his Nature ever to will what He once willed and consequently to will the World to be Eternally Herein confounding the Divine Goodness with the Divine Beneficence and Benignity the former being indeed necessary but the latter under the Conduct and Guidance of his Free Will indetermined by any thing but it self Others there are that attribute the Being of the World to the meer beneplacitum voluntatis divinae neither determined as a meer Natural cause nor determined by any intrinsecal obligation of his own Goodness but only that he willed it because he willed it though most wisely and bountifully Many of these do not indeed conclude the World to have been eternal but in conformity to the truth of the Sacred Scriptures conclude it to be created in the beginning of time but yet do again conclude that there is nothing in the nature of the thing either on the part of Almighty God or on the part of the World it self or on the part of the manner of its Creation which is instantanous and per modum emanationis but that such parts of the World at least as have a permanent existence and are not in a flux of succession might have been not only in some period antecedent to that point of time wherein de facto it was created but also that it might have been thus eternally created if the Divine beneplacitum had so pleased And therefore many of those do not conclude that it was so but that it might have been so eternally created yet freely and voluntarily without any of the two foregoing necessities Thus â—quinas Suarez and some others And thus having considered these various suppositions touching the divers qualities or qualifications of this eternal Existence of the World I shall now consider the subject Matter which men would thus have to be eternal or at least possible to be such namely the World And herein even many of the assertors of the Eternity of the World or the possibility thereof have and not without cause faln into divers conclusions By the World therefore we must understand either the Matter of the World simply in it self without being determined to this determinate Fabrick wherein it is and thus it should seem that all those ancient Philosophers that have asserted the Eternity of the World as Aristotle and before him Otellus Lucanus or that have asserted novitatem mundi in hac constitutione have agreed thus Epicurus that asserts the coalition of Atoms into this Fabrick that we see was of later edition than Eternity yet asserts that these Atoms were eternal and those Ancients mentioned by Aristotle in the 8 th of his Physicks that held that the World was made and unmade and made again by eternal vicissitudes of Amor Inimicitia yet held the constituent Matter thereof eternal And this seems to be the most comprehensive acceptation of the World 2. Again by the World we may understand the World as it is now framed the visible World in that form and constitution as it now is And thus it seems Aristotle and those others that hold it proceeds necessarily from God as a necessary cause or as a cause determined by his intrinsick Goodness have held the World to be eternal but yet we must not rest here The World is like a goodly Palace a fair large Building but as in such a Palace there is first the case or fabrick or moles of the Structure it self and besides that there are certain additaments that contribute to its ornament and use as various Furniture rare Fountains and Aqueducts curious Motions of divers things appendicated to it as Clocks Engins c. so in the goodly Universe there are the great Structure it self and its great integrals the Heavenly and Elementary Bodies framed in such a position and situation the great Sceleton as I may call it of the World But besides this there are very various and curious furnitures and accommodations of the Universe as for instance in our inferior World various Animals Vegetables Meteors Minerals Mixtures and Men and in the Heavenly Bodies various Motions and Aspects Now it will be necessary for him that asserts the Eternity of the World as now it stands or the possibility of such an eternity to consider whether he applies his assertion to the whole World as consisting not only of the greater integrals whereof it consists as the Heavenly and possibly the Elementary Bodies but also of that furniture thereof consisting of Men Animals Vegetables Meteors Minerals and those accommodations that are to it as the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies or whether he intends only some parts of it which seem more capable of an eternal existence as being more fixed and in themselves permanent and so more able to sustain an eternal and consequently an immutable existence And upon examination we shall 〈◊〉 find either of these choices full of incurable difficulties if not utter impossibilities in relation to an eternal existence of the World or any parts thereof And this I shall in the order of this Discourse evince against all those former suppositions of Eternity namely 1. Against those that assert an independent eternal existence of the World 2. Against those that assert an eternal but dependent existence thereof upon Almighty God as a meer natural and necessary Cause thereof 3. Against those that assert an eternal existence of the World dependent upon God as a free intellectual and voluntary Agent but yet determined in his external emanations by the necessity of the Goodness and Beneficence of his nature 4. Against those that assert at least a possibility of an eternal existence of the World but dependent upon the freedom of the Divine Will undetermined
by the necessity of his Beneficence First therefore concerning the supposition of the Eternity of the World in general I shall not in this place dispute whether there be an utter impossibility of any material Being to be either independently or dependently eternal enough may be said against it from the incapacity of any material Being to sustain such a kind of duration à parte ante and yet without any derogation to the Divine Omnipotence or Goodness which though infinite yet cannot communicate such a duration to that which in its own intrinsick nature is not capable of it Nor secondly shall I dispute whether there be any such material or corporeal Being or Beings within the compass of the Universe that hath or may have such a kind of permanence or fixedness in being that may be capable of an eternal existence à parte ante either dependently or independently upon Almighty God admitting by way of argument but not granting it possible that in the nature of the thing some material or corporeal Being may be of such a fixed permanent consistence as may sustain such an eternal existence and I here omit this dispute not because I make the least doubt of the beginning thereof by Creation but because these are matters that require a longer and stricter process of enquiry and debate than I intend in this place and therefore I shall descend to things that are more plain and evident and yet such as will abundantly serve my design in the inquiry in hand And therefore for the present I shall gratia argumenti admit or suppose 1. That there are or may be some corporeal things in the compass of the Universe that may possibly be of such a fixedness stability and permanent nature that may sustain an eternal existence at least dependently upon the supreme Cause 2. And that possibly Matter it self undetermined to any particular form or under any particular constitution the Heavenly Bodies the Elementary Bodies and such as seem to have a simple nature and possibly their figure position and situation may be such as might have this eternal existence as the Sun the Stars the Aether the four Elements we will for avoiding dispute touching it for the present admit them to have been or that possibly they might have been of that nature quality distance each from other eternally as now they are like the great integrals and contignations figure and concamerations of a goodly Palace These things I say though in themselves most certainly untrue I shall for avoidance of difficult disputes admit at present Yet I farther say that though all these things were admitted yet there are some great and considerable parts and integrals and appendications unto the Mundus aspectabilis that we see that are purely impossible to be eternal and do de facto appear so to be and consequently it is apparent that the World in its full latitude and comprehension cannot be eternal And herein I shall not fix upon little or inconsiderable things but upon such as highly contribute to the excellency beauty and usefulness thereof neither shall I fix upon individuals which are apparently transient and necessarily have their beginning duration and end in certain known determinate portions of time as is evident in the individuals of all kinds or species of mixed sublunary Natures But I shall apply my self to the species themselves which most that assert the eternity of the World assert to be eternal or to such individuals as are the single Conservators of their own species And in this debate I shall take my measure from things in Nature as I find them and it is reasonable I should do so especially considering that this Discourse concerns principally the Judgments or Opinions of those men that are the great assertors of Nature and the eternity of those Laws Rules Orders or Methods of Nature which they now find and observe in it And it were a great vanity and rashness especially for such men to reject those reasons which are drawn from the nature of things as now they appear or for them to go about to answer those reasons by suppositions of a variety in things from what they now appear If therefore the state and method of things to be instanced in as they now appear do involve a repugnancy to an eternal existence the Arguments drawn from that Supposition must be conclusive at least to those great Priests and Venerators of Nature and its appearances Those things therefore that I would instance in as in their own nature uncapable of eternal existence à parte ante are these 1. All things that are of all hands agreed to be concreted of other things and necessarily in their own nature require a pre-existence of those more simple Bodies out of which they are concreted and a pre-existence of some preparatory antecedent motion for their coalition mixtion and concretion as Animals Vegetables Minerals Meteors and regularly all mixt Bodies 2. All things that are in their own nature successive as all Motion Alteration Generations Corruptions and all things that in their own constitution have as it were intrinsecally annexed to them or at least necessarily belonging to them in respect of their situation and position and juxta-position to other things a necessary subjection to alteration or corruption 3. All things that do not nor their nature considered cannot persist in one immutable state but have variety in the nature and manner of their existence necessarily by the laws of their nature annexed to them These things constituted and being in that state we find them cannot without a total alteration of their nature and being from what in truth they are nor in the state of nature wherein they are placed can they be eternal or without beginning And these are very considerable and momentous parts or appendices of the World and if it had been eternally without these it had been a very lame and defective World and such as the wisest man under Heaven could hardly understand for what use it would be or why it should have continued in such a defective condition from the endless period of Eternity Or at least if it had its use and beauty certainly it had not had the same use that now it hath nor the same beauty that now it hath And the consequence thereof is of great moment and importance viz. If these great accessions to the World whereof I am speaking could not be eternal and yet without them the World would have been greatly deficient from what it is the greatest Arguments for the Eternity of the rest of the World will necessarily fall off for the same reason that concludes for the necessity of an eternal existence of the World would as effectually conclude for the eternal existence of that which highly conduceth to the beauty use and ends of the Universe which yet we shall find cannot be eternally existing as it concludes for the eternity of such integrals of the World which possibly might be eternal
that things had no other method of their production than what we now see they have and therefore they must if they hold to their Principles agree that they had their production always as now they have The necessary consequence whereof is that if such a kind of production of mixt Bodies cannot in the nature of the thing be eternal they cannot have an eternal production But it is true that this doth not answer the Supposition of those that though they suppose an Eternity in mixt Bodies do attribute even that Eternity to an eternal Creation and therefore to another kind of production than what we now suppose to be natural and consequently as they suppose at first in an eternal moment Almighty God created simple Bodies as the Heavenly or Elementary Bodies so in the same instant He might and did create other Bodies which though in their constitution they were or might be composed of such particles as had they been asunder and divided might have been of the simple nature of those simpler Bodies yet they were in the same eternal moment or instant created and put together without any priority of existence in those simple Bodies whereof they might otherwise consist nor were such mixt eternal Bodies successively desumed or compounded out of the pre-existing simple Bodies but con-created and put together in the same eternal and indivisible moment or instant so that a Mineral for the purpose might be created in the same moment wherein the elementary Earth was created And although after the completing of the whole Frame of Nature in that eternal indivisible intelligible moment the production of mixt Bodies either by spontaneous or contingent coalition of various particles of Matter or by an univocal generation the course that is now held in Nature might be observed and that Priority of particles of simple Matter Influx of the Heavens and Preparation of Matter might be antecedent and precedaneous not only in order but in time to their ordinary productions yet at first it might be and was otherwise in the primitive constitution of such mixt Bodies as had their original by Creation I do confess this Supposition may evade the illation made upon the Natural production of mixt Bodies but then we must remember that this quite departs from the method of things as they now stand in the course of Nature neither can any man conclude that it was or could be so from the observation of the Order or Cause of Nature or any rational deduction from the same but must have recourse either to bare Notion or Conjecture or else to Divine Revelation the former seems somewhat too light soundly to ground any Hypothesis and the latter namely Divine Revelation though it doth discover unto us that things had their production in a different way in their first Constitution or Origination namely by the almighty Power of God creating them yet withall it informs us that that origination was not from Eternity but in the beginning of Time which wholly overthrows the Hypothesis of an Eternal Creation of the World If therefore they will appeal to Revelation for their Creation they must be concluded by it not to say it was eternal 2. My second Reason is this Because all things that are in their nature successive must have a first beginning of their being and cannot be eternal But there are in the World many things of great note and moment and without which the Order and Usefulness of the Universe would be deficient which have a successive nature and therefore such things cannot be eternal or without beginning And this reason concludes forcibly as well against that independent Eternity supposed by some of the Ancients as that Eternity dependent upon Almighty God whether as a necessary Cause or as a free voluntary intellectual Cause determined by the necessary Goodness and Beneficence of his nature or as a perfectly free Agent determining his Will by his own beneplacitum thus eternally to produce the World The Assumption or minor Proposition That there are many things in the World of great moment and importance to it that are in their own nature successive is apparent such are all the Individuals of Species of corruptible things that yet notwithstanding have a continued succession in their individuals as Vegetables Animals and Men that successively propagate their kind 2. All kinds of Motions to which all natural Bodies are in some kind or other subject as the motions of Generation and Corruption Augmentation Diminution and Alteration that are uncessantly incident to all sublunary Bodies and they must change their nature and cease to be what they are before they can cease to be actually subject to alterations such is also Local motion communicable not only to the inferior and sublunary Bodies but also to celestial Bodies and this motion even of the Heavenly Bodies themselves seems to be partly continued and unintermitted as that motion of the First Moveable partly interpolated and interrupted as some affirm of that Motus trepidationis sometimes of access and recess as the Annual motion of the Sun wherein some have thought there is a small though impeceptible rest in the very point of returning which we call Solstices The major Proposition namely that such successive things cannot be eternal includes two Affirmations viz. 1. That the motions or successions themselves cannot be eternal or without beginning 2. That the things that have necessarily and inseparably these motions or alterations annexed to their nature cannot be eternal so long as we suppose them necessarily accompanied with these alterations The former of these is considerable in this place the other is considerable under the next Reason Now touching the impossibility of the eternal succession of the Species whether of Men Animals or Vegetables by natural propagation or prosemination the same and the Reasons thereof shall be fully delivered when we come to the particular consideration of the Origination of Mankind and the necessity of fixing in some common Parents of the individuals of Mankind and thither I shall refer my self As touching the eternity of any kind of Motion especially even of that of the Heavenly Bodies I shall say somewhat briefly in this place which will be easily reducible to any other of the motions in the World as namely the motions of Generation Corruption or Alteration all which are in some respect but the effects of Local motion of one kind or another And there seem to be two special Reasons even from the intrinsecal nature of the things that encounter the possibility of an eternal successive duration in them The first concludes against all imaginable eternity of Motion of the Heavenly Bodies whether independent or dependent upon Almighty God the latter indeed principally concludes against the possibility of the created or dependent eternity thereof And they are these 1. If the circular motion of the Sun or Heavens were eternal then there must be two circulations of the Heavens immediately succeeding on the other Eternal the consequence
since we see that all bodily alterations are effected in certain portions of measured duration or time we cannot upon any reasonable account allow to those alterations an infinite antecedent duration but if any Body or Thing in that imaginary period of Eternity allotted to it had any such alterations as we see now are incident to them they could not possibly be of an eternal duration no more than they are now for that were wholly to alter the state of the World and of those things that are in it 5. And consequently whatsoever thing it is that hath or can have an eternal being à parte ante must persist in that eternal being without any change alteration or corruption or if it have any alteration or corruption the first alteration change or corruption that it can have must be in time and after an eternal unchanged unaltered estate precedaneous to such alteration for if we should suppose it to be eternal then of necessity that alteration or corruption which it hath must be subsequent to that eternal state which it had before it was altered or corrupted and consequently must have had a persistence in that unaltered uncorrupted estate infinite Ages before such alteration or corruption If it were eternally altered or eternally corrupted then it was eternally and eternally was not it was eternally without alteration and eternally altered The thing must be before it can be altered or corrupted and consequently its alteration and corruption must be subsequent and after that existence which it had unaltered or uncorrupted and consequently the alteration and corruption must needs be younger than that estate which it had unaltered or uncorrupted and consequently cannot be eternal Again we cannot by any means suppose that any commencement of alteration in the first moment or degree of it could be coeternal to it for as is before evident then that alteration would of necessity be perfected within the like portion of time as the like alteration is perfected Now suppose it were a corruptive alteration it may be that is perfected in the space of three or six months from its first inception the consequence whereof would be that the like alteration of that eternal alterable or corruptible Body if it began with the thing it self would be perfected in the like space viz. six months And should that perfected alteration fall within the compass of Eternity or out of it If it should then the thing was eternally unaltered and uncorrupted and was yet eternally altered or corrupted was eternally and yet that Eternity was but a space of six months for so long only it had its being uncorrupted If the alteration or corruption was not eternally perfected but perfected in time then an addition of six months the more of that alteration added unto a finite duration or time succeeding after such alteration should make it infinite and eternal 6. And yet the supposition of an eternal state of any corruptible or alterable Being in a state of incorruption or unalteration were utterly to change the very nature of things and to give them an eternal state we must be forced to gratifie them with a nature not only preter-natural to what they had but quite of a distinct nature For the purpose That man that is even upon the intrinsick constitution of his nature dissolvible must by being in an eternal duration continue immortal unalterable and not for a year or a million or two of years but for an eternal duration antecedent to his dissolution Nay it is inconceptible how any such man that hath stood the shock of an eternal duration without corruption or alteration should after be corrupted or altered from any internal principle of corruption or alteration it could not be for then he could never have ridden out an eternal period but it must be if at all by the power of a more powerful Being than himself that must violently de novo introduce his change and dissolution The Supposition therefore of an eternal existence of any thing corruptible is to alter their very nature and make that to be incorruptible which is corruptible And to suppose that imaginary eternal state of things corruptible to be utterly of another nature kind and condition than what we now see them to be which is an unreasonable Supposition unworthy of an admirer of Nature which should be constant in his Supposition and yet is the necessary consequence of the granting of an Eternity of corruptible Beings But particular Instances of the several kinds of alterations and corruptions of things either ab intrinseco or ab extrinseco will make the thing more plain 1. Touching things alterable or corruptible from an intrinsecal Cause as Vegetables Animals Men. If any Vegetables were eternal as an Oak or an Elm then some Oak was eternal if it were then if it were of the same nature as Oaks are now it was first a slender Plant and then gradually grew to his just dimensions perhaps in two hundred years and in about two hundred years more decayed and was corrupted to dust so that his duration exceeded not four hundred years and in that period of time he grew perchance from an inch in diameter to six foot in diameter and from a foot high to a hundred foot high These alterations and augmentations were gradual and successive he was not in the same moment one inch and six foot in the diameter nor in the same moment was a Plant and dissolved and turned to dust and yet if this Oak were eternal in all this portion of his duration he must be eternally one inch in diameter and yet eternally six foot in diameter eternally one foot high and yet eternally a hundred foot high he must have eternally been a Plant eternally a Tree and yet eternally corrupted his duration must have lasted but four hundred years and yet he must be eternal though his first being were but four hundred years before utter dissolution And yet it is most certain that this Tree could not have been eternal for being but of four hundred years standing somewhat must have anteceded that period and so somewhat more ancient than what had been eternal But let us suppose this eternal Oak had not been bound to the laws of duration of other Oaks but to have lasted eternally and probably would have lasted to this day had not external force either violently or accidentally corrupted or destroyed him yet did this Oak ever grow bigger or taller than what he once was or did he put off his leaves in the Winter and gather others in the Spring Did he put forth new branches which before he had not If he did none of these things surely he was not a vegetable Being he was not like those Oaks that are now growing but quite of another nature and we have nothing to do with him he is a perfect stranger to this World If it did grow from lesser to greater and did put forth new branches certainly the increment could not be
Dialogue with Averroes the Number of 4 multiplied into it self produceth the Square Number of 16 and that again multiplied by 4 produceth the Cubick Number of 64. If we should suppose a multitude actually infinite there must be infinite Roots and Square and Cubick Numbers yet of necessity the Root is but the fourth part of the Square and the sixteenth part of the Cubick Number The Instance of Algarel in his first Disputation with Averroes which Averroes endeavours to answer but tyres himself in vain to do it may explain this Consequence The Sun passeth through the Zodiack in one year Saturn passeth through it in thirty years so that the Revolution of Saturn to the Revolution of the Sun is as one to thirty and consequently as one Revolution of Saturn contains thirty Revolutions of the Sun so two Revolutions thereof must contain sixty Revolutions of the Sun and so if we should suppose their Revolutions infinite yet the proportion of the Revolutions must necessarily hold the same namely in all the whole Collection the Number of the Suns Revolutions must be thirty times as many as the Number of Saturns Revolutions and consequently the Revolutions of Saturn can be no more than one thirtieth part of the Revolutions of the Sun and yet both being supposed infinite the part namely the thirtieth part must be as great as that whereof it is the thirtieth part which is impossible And this impossibility holds in all other things that have succession or extension as in quantity motion successive duration of things in their nature successive But it is more plain and conspicuous in discrete quantity or different Individuals which are already measured by Number without any breaking the continuity that is in things that have continuity as continued quantity and motion And therefore they that go about to demonstrate the impossibility of Eternal Motion à parte ante or infinite extension in a Body Line or Superficies do first break it into parts to measure them and reduce them to discrete quantity because the demonstration is more clear and sensible thereby and therefore they break the Measures of Motion into Hours Days Years or such like Measures or into Periodical Revolutions and so they break continued Quantity into Palms Feet Perches or the like because though the repugnancy of Infinitude be equally incompetible to continued or successive Motion Duration or continued Quantity and depends upon the incompossibility of the very nature of things successive or extensive with Infinitude yet that incompossibility is more conspicuous in discrete Quantity or Multitude that ariseth from parts or Individuals already actually distinguished But the reason of both is the same especially if broken and divided into real or imaginary parts But in the Matter in question namely Multitude of successive Men or successive Generations of Men there is already a separate divided discrete multitude without any antecedent work of my Understanding or otherwise to reduce it into parts or discrete multitude and so the Instances of the Absurdities that arise by an infinite multitude of Individuals and distinct Generations is made more plain and open to view And he that is desirous to prosecute these Asystata of Infinitude and Multitude let him resort to the Prelections of Faber collected by Monsuerius in his Metaphysica demonstrativa de infinito And to say the truth there are none of the Ancients that have any weight in them that do not agree that it is impossible that any Quantity either discrete or continued should be actually infinite but only potentially either by addition of supposed parts to either or by division of Quantity continued into parts infinitely divisible But the greater difficulty rests in the Assumption which is next to be considered The second Proposition is this That if Eternal Generations of Men were admitted there would be this absurd Consequence that a multitude given might be actually infinite which remains to be proved The Objection that stands in the way seems to be this That there is no repugnancy that Multitude might be possibly infinite for as we may without any inconvenience suppose that the Generations of Mankind might be sempiternal or eternal à parte post so there is no inconvenience to suppose them eternal à parte ante for they never co-exist but are successive and so do not constitute any multitude co-existing actually infinite which is indeed impossible but there is no implication or repugnancy that there might be an infinite succession of Generations for they are not together but one Generation passeth and another succeedeth And hence it is they say that in moventibus vel causis per se subordinatis there cannot be processus in infinitum but we must necessarily fix in a First Mover between whom and the last Motion or Effect there cannot be a series of Infinite Causes for two Reasons First Because if there were Infinite Movers or Causes moving per se to the same effect or motion the motion would be infinite and so would the time wherein that motion would be absolved for infinitus motus non fit in finito tempore Secondly And again there would be an actual Infinitude of co-existing Causes which is impossible and therefore for the purpose to the production of this generation of an Insect by putrefaction there is not an infinite series of Causes per se co-operating to its production but the series of Causes is finite for the active qualities of the Elements move the Matter and the Heat and Influence of the Heavens agitate and move it may be the Elementary Body and the Intelligences move the Heavenly Bodies and Almighty God the Primum Movens moves the Intelligences and these are finite in number But in causis aut moventibus accidentaliter subordinatis there may be an Infinitude or Eternity thus the Father may beget the Son and the Grandfather begat the Father and so backward to Eternity and so in the successive productions of all Animals ex semine For though the Individuals successively existing from all Eternity must needs be infinite yet they do not coexist but as one Generation comes another decays and so make no infinite multitude and consequently that all the absurdities that are heaped upon the Supposition of infinite multitude or numbers conclude nothing to the matter in question because there is no infinite multitude because no infinite Individuals or Generations of Mankind coexisting And though this cannot at all according to their supposition any way admit the possibility of an infinitely extended Body Line Superficies or Place because that would be an actual infinitude in extent yet as to successive continued things as successive Motion as that of the Heavens and successive Duration as that of Motion which we call Time there is nothing of inconvenience according to their Supposition if they be infinite eternal and without beginning because though they consist of infinite Parts yet they are not altogether or coexisting without which there is no real Multitude So that the
discovered ex praenotis per viam rationalis discursus Thus probably Men by the Signatures Tasts and Colours of Herbs bearing analogy to other things they knew concluded fairly touching their Nature and Use which by Tryal and Experience they improved into more fixed and stable Theorems and Conclusions And upon this account also many Practical Arts especially relating to Numbers Weight Measure and Mechanism had their production for the Rudiments of Proportion being lodged in the Mind they seem to have grown intentionally and ex industria into those various practices of Arithmetick Geometry and Mechanicks resulting from those principles per media processus rationalis and thus those practices of the Rules of Proportion Mechanical Motions Staticks Architecture Navigation Measuring of Distances and Quantities and infinite more did arise 4. Some things in their first discovery seem purely accidental and although possibly the operation of Reason and Tryal and Experiment might or may carry on the Invention into farther Improvements and Advances yet in the very first primo primum of the Discovery it may be accidental The old whether true or fabulous Discovery of Fire may serve to explain my conception wherein it is supposed that one sitting upon a Hill and tumbling down Flint stones upon the collision thereof he observed sparks of Fire which nevertheless he after improved by adding combustible materials to it and doubtless upon such and the like occurrences many Chymical and other accidental Discoveries have been made besides and beyond and without the intention of the Operator And I well knew a Person that had not capacity enough to deduce any thing of curiosity per processum rationalem yet by accidental dealing with Water and some Canes did arrive to a most admirable excellence in some Mechanical Works of that nature though he never had the Wit to give a reason of his performance of them 5. Some things have been found out by a kind of necessity and exigence of Humane Nature such as Clothes Societies Places of Defence and Habitation and possibly much of the plainer sort of Tillage and Husbandry Venter magister artis ingeniÃque largitor and commonly these were the earliest Inventions because Nature stood early in need of them And hence it came to pass that they who had Coelum clementius that afforded them necessaries without the assistance of considerable Industry continued longest rude and uncultivated And therefore if the Husbandry of Ceres or Triptolemus came late into the World it was because those Eastern Countries then inhabited abounded with plenty of Fruits which supplied the defect of Husbandry till the World grew more dispersed and fuller of Inhabitants and transmigrated into parts of less natural fertility 6. Some things have been discovered not only by the Ingeny and Industry of Mankind but even the inferior Animals have subministred unto Man the invention or discovery of many things both Natural and Artificial and Medicinal unto which they are guided and in which they are directed by secret and untaught instincts which would be infinite to prosecute The Fable or History of Glaucus observing Fishes to leap into the Sea upon tasting an Herb by the shore the Weasel using Plantane as an Antidote the wounded Stag using Dittany to draw out the Arrow if true and divers others give us some Analogical Instances And these are ordinarily the Methods of Discoveries The Things or Objects discovered are principally of two kinds viz. 1. Such things as are already lodged in Nature as Natural Causes and Effects and those various Phaenomena in Nature whereof some lye more open to our Senses and daily observation others are more occult and hidden and though accessible in some measure to our Senses yet not without great search and scrutiny or some happy accident others again are such as we cannot attain to any clear sensible discovery of them either by reason of their remoteness distance and unaccessibleness as the Heavenly Bodies and things closed up in the bowels of the Earth or by reason of their subtil and curious texture escaping the clear and immediate access of Sense as Spiritual Natures the Soul and its various Faculties and Operations and the Reasons or Methods of them wherein for the most part our acquests touching them are but Opinion and Conjecture wherein Men vary according to the variety of their Apprehensions and Phantasies and wherein because they want that manuduction of Sense which is our best and surest Guide in the first Instance in matters Natural Men range into incertain inevident and unstable Notions 2. Such things as are Artificial wherein some Discoveries are simply new others are but accessions and additaments to things that were before mentioned Some things are of convenience utility or necessity to Humane Nature or the condition of Mankind some things are of curiosity some things are found out casually or accidentally some things intentionally and out of those Principles or Notions that seem to be lodged originally in the Mind Now upon these Considerations premised it seems that the late Discovery of many things in Nature and many Inventions in Art are not a sufficient Evidence of the Origination or late Origination of Mankind at least taken singly and apart 1. In things Natural the variety is so great and the various combinations therein so many that it seems possible that there should not have been a full discovery of the whole state of things Natural unto the Minds of Men although there were supposed an eternal duration of Mankind We may give our selves a Specimen hereof if we look but back upon that one Piece of Nature with which we have reason to be best acquainted namely our selves which by reason of our vicinity to our selves our daily conversation with our selves and others of the same Species our daily necessities and opportunities of inquiring into our selves and the narrowness of our own nature in comparison of the vast and various bulk of other things seems to render us a Subject capable of being very fully discovered And besides all this the more inquisitive and judicious part of Mankind have industriously set themselves for many Ages to make the best discovery they could of the nature of Man Hippocrates the Father of Physicians who lived in the 82 d Olympiad and above 2000 years since busied himself much and profoundly in this Enquiry and a succession of industrious observing and learned Physicians and Naturalists have pursued the Chase with all care and vigilancy and by the help of Anatomical Dissections have searched into those various Maeanders of the Veins Arteries Nerves and Integrals of the Humane Body Yet for all this in this sensible and narrow part of Humane Nature the husk and shell thereof how much remains after all this whereof we are utterly ignorant So that notwithstanding all the Discoveries that have been made by the Ancients and those more curious and plentiful Discoveries by the latter Ages there still remains so much undiscovered that leaves still room for Admiration
and like itself which could not be such if Mankind had any other Method of Origination than now it hath And in Natural Appearances Causes and Effects they thought it not becoming the Genius or Spirit of a Philosopher to call in any other Assistant or Producent than what was and is the ordinary Rule Course and Law of Nature as they now find it And by this means they thought that they proceeded consonantly both to Nature and to themselves 2. Because that among those ancient Philosophers that either supposed the Origination of Mankind to be either casual as Epicurus Democritus c. or to be natural from the Earth and conjunction of the Influences of Heavenly Bodies in some Periodical Aspects or partly natural and partly fortuitous or at least spontaneous as Insects arise I say in and among these various Suppositions of an Origination of Mankind yea and perfect Animals ex non genitis they found so much incertainty improbability and repugnancy that they threw them all aside together also with the Beginning or Origination of Mankind and took up that more compendious and more sutable as they thought to the Laws which they observed in Nature and concluded That the Generations of Mankind and of perfect Animals were without beginning but always obtained in the same manner as now they are Of this Opinion was Ocellus Lucaenus and likewise Aristotle though in some places he seems to be doubtful and although Plato in his Timaeus seems to assert an Origination of Mankind yet in some other places his Expressions are doubtful and therefore Censorinus in his golden Book de Die Natali reckons as well Plato as Aristotle Ocellus Lucanus Architas Tarentinus Xenocrates Dicearchus Pythagoras Theophrastus to be Assertors of the Eternity of Mankind And this Opinion I have examined in the Chapters of the Second Section of this Book and offered Reasons Physical Metaphysical and Moral against it The last Moral Reason which I offered was The received Opinion of Mankind asserting the Origination of Man and that as well of the common sort of People as of the Tribe of the Learned Philosophers The former I dispatched in the last Chapter but the Suffrage of the Gens literata I reserved to this Section because thereby at once I may with the same labour shew the Opinions of Learned Men among the Heathen asserting the Origination of Mankind and what their several Sentiments were concerning the manner of it And therefore I shall be constrained herein to mention the Opinions of some of those Learned Philosophers above-mention and to add some others of the contrary Perswasion which out-ballance the former 2. The second general Opinion was of those Learned Philosophers that held an Origination of Mankind ex non genitis and the Reason moving them to this Perswasion was not only the great Tradition that obtained generally in favour of it and the great reasonableness of the Supposition it self but also the many absurd Consequences and indeed irreconcilable Contradictions that they found in the Hypothesis of an Eternal Succession of Humane Generations without beginning Insomuch that the Assertors themselves of Eternal Generations were doubtful of the truth of their own Perswasions as will hereafter appear And those of this latter sort were even Epicurus himself Anaximander Empedocles Parmenides and Zeno Citicus the great Founder of the Sect of the Stoicks with those that followed or favoured it But above all the great Law-giver Moses who was divinely inspired and yet if he had not that advantage of Divine Infallibility but stood barely upon the great credibility both of his Person his Learning and the Hypothesis it self which he delivered he hath as great a weight even upon a natural moral and rational account as any or all the rest put together But because I intend a particular Explication of the Hypothesis Mosaica I shall not mingle this among the other Opinions but reserve it for the next Section The Heathen Philosophers that held the Origination of Mankind ex non genitis have these things in general wherein they agree one with another and with the Truth it self and some things wherein they differ among themselves and in some things from the Truth 1. They herein agree both among themselves and with the Truth and with that excellent and divine Relation of Moses Gen. 1. That Mankind is not Eternal but had a Beginning ex non genitis 2. They herein also agree among themselves and with the Truth That it is most absolutely necessary if Mankind had a Beginning or Origination it must needs be in a differing kind and manner from that common course whereby Mankind is now propagated This is asserted by those that hold the Origination of Mankind by the Efficiency of Almighty God consonant to the Mosaical Hypothesis either immediately or partly by the Instrumentality of Angels as Zeno Citicus Plato and others it is also asserted by them that hold the Origination of Mankind to be at first fortuitous as Epicurus and Democritus And therefore as to these Perswasions and Suppositions it is not only necessary that they should suppose a differing manner of the first Origination of Mankind from what now obtains but it is consonant also to their Principles and the grounds of their Supposition that it must be so This is also asserted by those that suppose the Origination of Mankind to be purely natural and according to the constituted Rule of Nature But yet this Supposition though most necessarily true where an Origination ex non genitis is once supposed yet it seems less sutable to the Principles of those Men that assert such a natural Production of Mankind as is by them asserted because they mancipating all Productions and Effects to the Laws of Nature and governing their thoughts and taking their measures barely by it have no reason to think or believe any other Method of Production of Mankind to have at any time been any otherwise than as they see it now to be which as is before shewn was the reason why Aristotle inclined to the Opinion of the Eternity of Humane Generations because Nature is presumed to be consonant to it self and always to have been what once it was 3. But in the Explication of the Cause and Manner of this Origination of Mankind therein they differed very much among themselves This difference consisted principally in two great Considerations 1. In the true stating of the efficient Cause of this Origination of Mankind 2. In the Manner Method and Order of such Origination As to the difference touching the Cause of such Origination and the nature of that Cause thereof 1. Some assigned a bare fortuitous Cause of the first Origination of Mankind as Epicurus and his Explicator Lucretius for although in some places they are driven to assert some determinate Semina of Mankind and perfect Animals to avoid that indefinite and unlimited excursion of Atoms yet they that suppose these Semina do suppose a fortuitous Coalition of Atoms to the
Summer will remain fruitful and produce the Insect this Spring and possibly some time after so that they are in the next degree above Vegetables and have a nature very analogal to them But these things are not so in greater Animals of an univocal generation this also appears in the great disparity of these degrees at least of perfection in the perfect Animal above that of Insects of a spontaneous production For though as before is said these little Animals have Faculties conformable to the Sensitive Life so that we may plainly discover at least in many of them the Faculties as well as the Organs of Sense Phantasie Memory Common Sense Appetite Passion Local Motion yet the more perfect and univocal Animals have greater strength and perfection in these Faculties their Phantasie and Memory more exact their Appetite more perfect and free if I may so call it they are capable of Discipline which these smaller Animals are not There is greater variety complication and curiosity in the state frame and order of their Faculties and a greater distinction and variety of operation in them than in the smaller Pieces of Nature There are more Wheels more variety and curiosity in their motions more variety of ingredients into the Constitution of the Automata of the more noble Animals than in the Insects that are sponte orta so that for the Constitution of their Souls the Principle of their Faculties and Motions there is required a more curious elaborate and elevated Composition and Fabrick than in these minute Animals And hence it is that though it be not only possible but frequent that these Insects and minute Animals may thus spontaneously arise yet it hath never been known so according to the setled Laws and Order of Nature It is impossible these greater and nobler Animals can arise spontaneously nor otherwise naturally than by the mixture of both Sexes and a Semen formatum and prolificum received and united in utero foemineo and impregnated as it were with that Specifical Idea and Formative Power derived from the Parents and those other accessions which may elaborate rectifie and advance the Soul and its Faculties and the Body and its Organs to their due proportion and perfection And therefore there is no parity Reason in the production of Insects and perfect Animals nor any Consequence to be drawn from the spontaneous production of one to the like production of the other in any natural course without the intervention of a Supernatural free Cause effecting the same besides and out of the road and course of Nature And what may be said upon this account against the Consequence of the spontaneous production of other Animals from the spontaneous production of Insects may with much more advantage be said against the Consequence of the production of Mankind by any natural spontaneous production because the perfection of his nature and the specifical excellence thereof doth exceed the greatest excellence of other Animals far more than the noblest Animals exceed the Insects And therefore as the spontaneous production of these Insects no way concludes the like production naturally possible in greater Animals so if it were naturally possible and de facto true that the greater Animals themselves were sponte producibilia producta it were not at all conclusive nor deducible from thence that Mankind were producible naturally upon the like account The nobleness of the structure of the Humane Body the great curiosity and usefulness of most of his Organs especially of his Tongue and Hand the curious and useful configuration and disposition of his Nerves and Brain the admirable variety and quickness of his Phantasy the great retentiveness of his Memory but especially the admirable power of his Intellect Reason and Will give him a far greater specifical perfection above the most perfect Brutal Nature than that hath above the meanest Insects And therefore certainly according to the ordinary Observations in Nature and the Rules and Methods observable therein requires the noblest and most advanced Method to produce it that Nature can afford But against these Reasons it may be and is urged That all these Observations and Inferences are bottomed upon the state and course of Nature wherein we see things are in the state of things already setled but in the first production of things it might be otherwise and must be otherwise if we admit an Origination of Mankind ex non genitis And though in the ordinary course of Nature as now things are constituted the production of Mankind is ex semine formato ab utroque parente deciso that his nourishment is per venam umbilicalem that it cannot be otherwise now but in utero foemineo that the state of Infancy now requires those adventitious helps that are above remembred Yet in the first state of Humane Production all these Suppositions must be laid aside as unaccommodate to that state another Seminal Principle another method of Nutrition another state and habit of the Foetus must be and may be supposed in the first production of Mankind than now is to be found in the World wherein the order of things is setled in a regular Method If it should be supposed that a Mouse or a Rat were produced ex putri we cannot suppose any such Semen or Vena umbilicalis or that it lived upon the Dams Milk all which are notwithstanding supposable and necessary when that equivocal Animal afterward propagates its kind I answer That as it is true that Mankind and other Animals had an Original and an Original in quite another way than now it is and ex non genitis so it is unquestionably true that those Processes Principles and Methods which now serve in the production of Humane Nature or other perfect Animals are no way conceptible or applicable unto the first production of Man or Animals And therefore I must not only grant that these Modes of Production Nutrition c. are utterly ineffectual and unapplicable to the first Origination of Humane Nature But I must suppose quite contrary that in truth it is impossible they should be the Modes or Order of that first Origination But it must be remembred whom it is that I am here contending against namely not against those that do and that truly referr the Origination of Man to the Divine Power and Will and a Supernatural production but against them that are the great Venerators of established Nature that think it below their Gravity and Wisdom to recognize any other Efficient but what they find in Natural Causes and Effects nor any other Rule of things but what they see that take their Measures of their Conceptions and Sentiments from what is obvious to Sense and the common Observation of things as they now appear and for the most part frame all their Conclusions accordingly And therefore that which I herein contend for by these Arguments is this That a Man that duly considers the natures of things and makes the course of Nature and the Observation
the learned Philosophers knew not a production ex nihilo by Creation by the Almighty God which breaks and tears in pieces all those petite Axioms and superstructions thereupon which they had been long time in weaving and by which they formed much of their Philosophical Speculation As the necessity of eternal Matter because nothing is made of nothing the necessity of eternal Motion because every Motion must have some Motion anteceding the nature of possibilities which and many more being desumed from Generation as it stood in the setled course of Nature and fitted and appropriated to it are no way applicable to the first Origination and Production of Being by Creation 5. He gives us the true Efficient of Being and the manner of his Operation namely Almighty God a most wise intelligent and free Efficient and one that in the first production of things did not work per modum naturae or necessarily or as a natural or necessary Cause as the Sun produceth Light but per modum intentionis volitionis electionis for he was before he created his Creation of the World was in the beginning namely of Time and created Nature but he was before that beginning namely without all beginning But to pursue a little more distinctly the order of the Creation of things positively and not barely negatively the Mosaical History touching the Creation seems to be as followeth 1. That in the beginning the first Apex of Time which began with the Being of Matter Almighty God created in one indivisible moment the first and common Matter of all this Mundus aspectabilis the Heaven and Earth Vers 1. 2. That in that first Creation and for some continuance of time or duration after this common Matter of all things lay indistinct and confused together without any order or distinction expressed by those words Gen. 1.2 And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep And in this common Mass and Chaos were contained the constituent Matter of the Celestial and Elementary World Which salves the Dispute touching the disparity of the Matter of the Heavenly and Elementary World which appears here to be the same in kind 3. That this common Matter had these deficiencies in it in and for some time after its production 1. It was without Form and Order 2. It was without Light 3. It was without Activity Life or Motion and 4. All that Superficies which it had bore the greatest analogy to Water though in that vast Abyss there was a confused mixture of other Matter 4. That the Spirit of God moved upon the face of this great Abyss incubavit super abyssi faciem What this Spirit of God was whether the essential Spirit the Third Person in the Holy Trinity or whether it were a created Spirit the Spirit of Nature or as some will have it the Anima mundi created by God to digest inspire and communicate an active nature to this confused Moles as some earnestly contend or whether this Spirit of God were any other than the emanation of his Power I shall not determin But whatever it was this Motion of the Spirit upon the face of this Abyss had these great Intentions and Effects upon this confused Moles 1. It derived into it motive Powers or Energies whereby the parts of it were agitated or moved or at least rendred more obsequious to the agitation and motion of that active nature which was afterward created namely Light or Fire 2. It did gradually digest and separate its parts whereby they became more capable of disposition and order according to their several designed and destined places positions and uses 3. It did transfuse into this stupid dead and unactive Moles certain activity and vital influence whereby it did in general affect that which Aristotle calls the common Life of Bodies namely Motion and the several parts thereof were impregnated with several kinds of vital influence varied and diversified according to their several parts and uses As the gentle heat of the Hen seems to communicate a vital influence to the Egg only with this difference that the heat of the Hen seems to excite a pre-existing vital principle in the Egg rather than to give it But the incubation of this Spirit of God did not so much excite as give a new vital power to the several parts of the Chaos as the vital Soul in Nature communicates vitality and activity to the Seminal Particles And this gives us an account how Activity and active Forms Powers or Qualities were derived into Matter namely not from Matter it self or such which is meerly unactive and passive but from another Principle namely the vigorous influx of this Spirit that moved upon the face of the Water Whereby it is apparent that the Vis Vigor Activity or Energy that is in Natural Bodies and in the Universe as it came from no other Principle than Matter so it is an Entity of a distinct nature from Matter or material Substance simply as such and indeed an Entity of a nobler extraction and nature than bare Matter or material Substance So that in this Description hitherto containing the first Stamina or Rudiments of the Universe we have 1. The Efficient thereof Almighty God 2. The manner of his efficiency herein namely Creation ex non praeexistentibus 3. The Matter of the Universe thus by Creation produced the confused Moles containing in it self the Matter of all things 4. The disposition or rather indisposition of this Matter dark stupid and unactive 5. The plastick formative digesting Principle that pervaded it the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the Waters Totósque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem The first Rudiments of the World being thus laid and thus prepared and influenced by the powerful Energy and Incubation of this Spirit of God this divinely inspired Historian gives us in the next place the next succeeding order of Almighty God producing and effectually raising out of this Matter the greater Integrals of the Universe namely the Etherial and Elementary Nature Vers 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. As in the order of Reason it was but fit and convenient that the production and influencing of the Matter should precede the division and distribution and orderly disposing thereof so it was equally reasonable and convenient that the greater and more extensive parts thereof should be first laid out and disposed into their several stations and orders before the smaller and lesser portions of Nature should be either produced or setled and that the simple parts of this great Chaos should be first extracted before the mixed and compounded Existences should be setled For as the Chaos and common Lump of Matter was as it were the first Matter of all things so the more simple and uncompounded parts thereof the Etherial and Elementary Natures were as it were the Materia secunda or proxima of the ensuing Productions and in conformity to this first Divine Ordination of things
others arising ad plurimum ex ovo 2. In the great variety of their bodily composure the texture of the Bodies of Brutes being far more curious and fuller of variety than others 3. Ad plurimum the animal Faculties of the brutal Soul are far more perfect than those of others their Phantasies and Memories refined they have greater and more lively Images of Reason and more capable of Discipline than either Fowls or Fishes Now touching the production of Animals whether Terrestrial Aquatil or Volatil we may observe that they are in the ordinary course of Nature of two kinds Some which arise among us no otherwise nor in any other manner than ex semine which we usually call perfect Animals and arising by univocal generation others there are that be imperfect arising spontaneously in the Earth Air and Water as Worms Flies and some sort of small Fishes and watry Insects This being premised I shall now set down some Suppositions which seem to me truly to explicate the production of these Animals which are these that follow 1. Although the predominat Matter in the constitution of Fowls and Fishes were Water and in the constitution of Terrestrial Animals were Earth yet that Water nor that Earth were not simply such but were mixed and impregnated with the other Elementary Principles 2. That all the Species of perfect Animals of all kinds were constituted in their several Sexes in the fifth and sixth day of the Creation but yet we must not think that all those kinds which we now see were at first created but only those primitive and radical Species How many sorts of Animals do we now see that yet possibly are not of the same Species but have accidental diversifications as we may observe in the several Shapes and Bodies of Dogs Sheep Pyes Parots which possibly at first were not so diversified some variation of the same Species happen by mixt Coition some by diversity of Climates and other accidents 3. That the first Individuals in their distinction of Sexes were not produced according to those Methods of Nature which they now hold nor ex aliquo praeexistente semine but by the immediate efficiency of Almighty God out of the Matter prepared or designed for their Constitution 4. That they were made in the first instant of their Constitution in the full perfection and complement and stature of their individual and specifical nature and did not gradually increase according to the procedure of animal augmentation at this day and the reason is because those gradual augmentations arise from the Seminal Principle which gradually expands it self to the full growth but here they arose not from any such Seminal Principle but the Hen was before the Egg. 5. There was no mean portion of Time between their Formation and Animation but both were together they were living Beings and living Souls and living Creatures as soon as they were formed 6. That consequently the Formation of the Body of these Animals was not as now it is by the Formative Power of the Soul which must needs be gradual and successive as we see it is and must be at this day in all natural Generations but the Formation and Information of them was by virtue of the immediate Fiat Determination or Ordination of the Divine Will 7. That in their Origination the Species of these Animals were determined neither from the Matter nor from the universal Cause the Celestial Heat but by the Divine Intention and Ordination 8. That by the same Divine Ordination and Intention the Faculties specifically belonging to every Individual were annexed and alligated to it especially the power conficiendi semen prolificum speciei propagandae ex mutua utriusque fexus conjunctione 9. That although by the Divine Power and Ordination all these perfect Animals did arise from the Earth yet that Prolifick Power of propagating of them was never delegated or committed to the Earth or any 〈◊〉 other Casual or Natural Cause but only to the Seminal Nature derived from their Individuals and disposed according to that Law of propagation of their kind alligated as before to their specifical and individual nature And therefore it its perfectly impossible that any of these perfect Animals can be casually or naturally or accidentally produced by any Preparation of Matter or by any Influence of the Heavens without the miraculous interposition of Almighty Power because the Earth or those Influences have not this power concredited to them but their production is irresistibly alligated to the Semen innatum and conjunction of Sexes the Earth can as naturally produce a Sun or a Star as it can a Man or a perfect Animal 10. Whether those imperfect or equivocal Animals were created or no it is not altogether clear possibly some might be then produced whose kinds were likewise producible spontaneously after but it seems beyond contradiction that all were not 11. As by virtue of that general Commission or intrinsick Prolifick Power given to the Earth to produce spontaneous Herbs as Grass c. it doth naturally produce such Herbs so by virtue of that common Commission given by Almighty God to the Earth and Water and to that Spirit of Nature diffused in it it doth naturally produce those equivocal insect Animals which arise out of them The same Law of the Creator that hath eternally excluded or rather not committed to the Earth or Water the power of producing perfect Animals hath given and committed to them by concurrence of that Vital Heat of the Sun and the common Spirit of Nature residing in them a Productive Power of some equivocal insect Animals in Matter fitly prepared Touching therefore the Origination of Insects I shall declare my thoughts as followeth 1. That by virtue of the Divine Fiat the Earth at first did produce some Individuals of several kinds which is imported under the words Every creeping thing after its kind 2. That as I have before shewn the greatest part of the Insects that are commonly produced and seem to be spontaneous productions are yet the univocal and seminal productions of Insects of the same kind 3. That yet it is a certain Truth that some Insects are and have an Origination since the first Creation without any formal univocal seminal production some out of Putrefaction some out of Vegetables some by very strength and fracedo of the Earth and Waters quickned by the vigorous Heat of the Sun which infuseth into some Particles of Matter well prepared and digested a kind of Vital and Seminal Principle Some have thought the very Sun and Earth are endued with a Vital yea and with a kind of Sensitive Nature and thereby enabled as it were to spin some prepared Matter into vital and sentient Semina for those insect Animals But we shall not need to trouble our selves with that incertain Speculation we are sure that the greatest part of the Superficies of the Earth being daily and hourly impregnated with the corrupted and dissolved Particles of Vegetables and Animals is
which we also admit as to all his Constituents at least but his Soul and therefore the great Debate hath been touching the Efficient or that Being or Nature or whatever we shall call it that first compounded formed and constituted the first Parents of Mankind in that essential and individual state consonant to that specification of Humane Nature which we daily now see Every thing that hath a beginning of Being must either have it from it self or from some other active efficient and constituent Power or Nature antecedent to it in time or at least in Nature or both To suppose that the Humane Nature at first constituted it self were to suppose it to have a propriety of existence to it self which were a palpable absurdity and contradiction for then it should be before it was Therefore it is necessary that the first Origination of Humane Nature should be from some other beginning or cause antecedent to it besides the Matter out of which it was constituted And whatsoever the Being or Cause originating Humane Nature was it must be in nature of an Efficient namely something that did actively put together the constituent parts thereof and formed it into that consistence and existence whereby he became Man We cannot by any means suppose any such Efficient or Being or thing that did subire rationem efficientis but one of these four 1. An uncertain casual conflux of Particles of Matter that casually compounded a Semen humanae naturae and so though the immediate Semen thus constituted may obtain the Name or Notion of the immediate Efficient yet the true Efficient of that Semen if we may be allowed to call it by that name was Chance or Fortune 2. An implanted blind determinate something which we call Nature which by a fatal and necessary connexion of surd and irrational Causes and Effects produced the first Parents of Mankind as the like Nature by the like necessity produceth yearly Worms and Flies and other Insects that have not their existence by univocal Seed Both these two Suppositions have been before examined and rejected as impares huic negotio 3. The illapse of some pre-existent or animating formative Principle which we may well call the Soul or Anima that as in the Generation of Mankind by ordinary procreation we see the formative power is some refined active Spirit or Soul in semine delitescens that fashions the Matter and actuates it with vital sensible Faculties and Operations so the illapse of some such active substance or powerful Being illapsing into Matter and united to it might form it into that constitution which it enjoyed 4. and Lastly Or some superior powerful wise and intellectual Being that did form fashion actuate and constitute the first Parents of Mankind The two former being as before laid aside I shall use a few words touching the third Supposition of which little hath been before said and so pals to the fourth and last and true Supposition of the First Efficient of Humane Nature 3. Therefore touching the third Supposition concerning the production of Mankind by virtue of such Illapse of Forms we may suppose it to be intended one of these two ways 1. Either that with Origen we should imagin a Mundus animarum that had real and individual Subsistences Or 2. that there were some common Element of animate Existence not divided into individual Existences but one common rational and vital Nature whose Particles illapsing into Matter might produce such first Existences of Mankind and so though in their union to Matter they do subire rationem formae yet they do likewise subire rationem efficientis as to the formation of Mankind as the vital Principle in the Egg becomes not only the form of the Chick but also in the first formation thereof is the disposer of its Organs and exercise of its Faculties and so doth subire rationem efficients immediati in the formation of the Foetus As to both these in general I say 1. That they are precarious Suppositions without any just reason to evidence either that there were such pre-existing individual Souls or a common reasonable Spirit Again 2. The Supposition that these should be the immediate Efficients of the Humane Nature is likewise precarious and inevident 3. Even they that suppose either such an individual or common pre-existing Nature must be forced to suppose them eternal independent Beings and this will have as many difficulties in it as the Eternity of Mankind or else if they be supposed created Beings yet still there will be a necessary recourse unto an infinite uncreated eternal Being that must create them And 4. consequently the Framers of these Suppositions do with much more difficulty and laboriousness form intermediate Principles of the Origination of Mankind which with less difficulty and greater congruity may be resolved into the immediate Efficiency of Almighty God according to the Divine History 5. And besides all this if Men will needs suppose a Formation of Man by the illapsing of Souls into prepared Matter because they see this is the Method of Formation in the ordinary course of Generation now they must also suppose the progress of the Formation and Maturation of the Humane Nature This way must be gradual and successive which will be attended with all those difficulties which are before observed in the Supposition of casual or natural production of Man in his first Origination But in particular to those several Suppositions and First touching the first of these The Opinion of the pre-existence of Souls of Men and their descent into Bodies though it hath been countenanced by Plato and some that follow him hath chiefly as it seems been entertained by some of the Jews and some few Christians both recognizing the true God the Immortality of the Soul and future Resurrection For the ancient Jewish Opinion vide wisdom 8.19 20. For I was a witty Child and had a good spirit rather being good I came into a Body undefiled Among Christians Origen much asserted this Opinion But whatever may be said touching the truth or falshood of the Opinion it self it can no way support the primitive Origination of Mankind by the illapsing of such Souls into elementary Matter First It exceeds the power and activity of such imagined pre-existent Souls to form and animate Matter into the consistence of a Man without the intervention either of the immediate power of God or at least without that instituted Method fixed by God in the Generation of Mankind ex semine And that it doth so exceed the activity of Souls thus to do appears in this that although there is according to that Supposition of a Mundus animarum a sufficient stock of existing Souls and if there were not yet those that once informed humane Bodies survived after the dissolutio compositi and yet we never heard since the first formation of Man that any such new formation hath been made nor any illapse of any such Soul into any other Foetus but what hath
of Mankind was by the same wise and provident Power and that as the Humane Nature is accommodated to it self so this World is accommodated to the exigence and convenience of the Humane Nature When I have considered the admirable Congruity of all the Parts of Christian Religion and how it corresponds and is adapted to the convenience and condition of the Humane Nature and how those antecedent Prophesies Promises and Directions of Religion in the Old Testament bear an admirable congruity to the Model of Religion in the New Testament notwithstanding the vast distances between the manifestations of them and how all the Scheme of Divine Dispensations from the beginning of the World bear an admirable accommodation each to other and to the Evangelical Doctrin it gives us a strong Moral Evidence that the same one God was the Author of this Religion that although there seem a diversity and variety in the Administrations yet when I look upon them together compare the congruity of what goes before to what follows it seems one most beautiful Piece fitted and accommodated in every part to the other and hereby I satisfie my self that it is the true Religion that it is all of one piece and one common Author of it namely the God of Truth And so when I consider the Humane Nature and the admirable accommodation that one part thereof hath to the other and also look upon the Mundus aspectabilis especially this lower World wherewith we are by reason of its vicinity best acquainted and observe how admirably the same is accommodated to the Animal Life of Man And although the Parts thereof are distinct various distant yet there are drawn from it Lines of Accommodations and Communication to the Use of the Humane Nature so exactly and appositly that I cannot choose but acknowledge one common Author both of the greater and lesser World and such an Author as made and disposed all things by the highest Wisdom and the wisest Choice If there had been divers Authors of the greater and lesser World there could never have been an accommodation of things so disparate one to another unless both had acted in subordination to one common third Being or by one common Counsel Again it was not possible that Casualty or Chance could have accommodated things of various kinds one to another If Chance could make a Beam of a House and could have made Tenents at either end yet it is not possible to conceive that Chance could cast it to be just of a fit length to answer the congruity of its contignation to another piece of Timber or fit the Mortises of other pieces of Timber to those Tenents or fit the particles and scantlets to answer just one another this must of necessity require a Workman that works by Understanding Choice and Appropriation because it requires accommodation of several things of several kinds to one End by several Means Thus therefore when I see the admirable accommodation of Humane Nature to its own existence and conveniences the admirable accommodation therein of things of different natures one to another as Organs to Faculties Sinews to Bones Nerves to Muscles Spirits to Nerves when I see the excellent accommodation of this lower World especially to the Humane Nature although they are in themselves several and heterogeneal I cannot without violence to my own Observation Experience and Reason I say I cannot but attribute the first Formation of Humane Nature yea and of all the Universe to one most Wise Intelligent Powerful Being who did all things according to the counsel of his Will after the most wise and excellent Idea of his unsearchable Understanding CAP. V. Concerning the Nature of that Intelligent Agent that first formed the Humane Nature and some Objections against the Inferences above made and their Answer HAving in the foregoing Chapter reduced the Origination of Mankind to an Intelligent Efficient effecting it per modum efficientis voluntarii per intentionem I shall in this place inquire what kind of Intelligent Efficient this was for among Intelligent Beings there is one Primum the Glorious God whose Understanding Power and Goodness is infinite there are also acknowledged by the Heathen Intelligentiae à primo those which Aristotle calls by the Name of Separate Intelligences Plato calls Dii ex Diis and we commonly call Angels very glorious and powerful Creatures which Plato takes into the Business of the Creation of Man as to the Corporeal Frame And it seems to be that the Effection of the Humane Nature in any part thereof is not attributable to the Angels neither as instrumental much less as principal Causes 1. As to the Soul of Man it seems beyond dispute for that was a created Substance and Creation of any new Substance being an infinite Motion is not within the power of any Finite Nature the Pretence therefore rests only as to the Corporeal or at least Animal Nature 2. Therefore I say that the Formation of the Bodily much less the Animal Nature of Man in order to the reception of the Soul was neither coordinately nor instrumentally the Work of Angels And the Reasons that seem sufficient to make out this Truth are these 1. It seems utterly above an Angelical Power to organize the Body of the Humane Nature for though it is true that in the established way of Generation the Parents who are inferior in nature to Angels do organize the Body at least mediante semine yet that is done in the virtue and strength of the Ordination and Institution of Almighty God So that as well Man as the Semen genitale are the Instruments deputed by Almighty God in virtue of his Supreme Power to propagate the Humane Nature And therefore since the first Formation of the Humane Nature was a new Formation not according to the Laws established after in Nature the first Production of Mankind was immediately by the Almighty Power and not by the Power of any subordinate Intelligence 2. Again it could not possibly be but that the Humane Nature must be completed in an instant For how is it conceptible that first there should be Corpus formatum with all the Organs Vessels Blood and Spirits disposed and ordered in their several Cells and Motions unless Man had been then at the same time animated as well as organized For the outward shape or stature of a Man is no more a fit Receptacle of an Animal much less of a Rational Life than a Statue of Wax or Stone The same Hand therefore that animated formed and fashioned also the same Humane Body in the same moment by virtue of the Volition Determination or Faciamus of the Divine Will 3. As we have no manner of evidence of the Angelical concurrence or instrumentality in the Formation of Man or of any of the lower Animals so there is no necessity at all of such a Supposition And we are not to multiply Causes without necessity for as the bare determination of the most powerful and efficacious
Will of God was sufficient to bring Being out of Nothing so the like determination of the same Will was sufficient to form Man out of the Dust of the ground without taking in a subordination or instrumentality of Angels Again if we should suppose the cooperation of Angels in the Formation of the Body of Man it must be in the strength virtue and efficiency of the first Cause which as it gave the Angels their Being so it must give them the efficacy power and virtue to be instrumental in this Formation which as we have no warrant so we have no probable reason to admit since the first Cause was all sufficient for this Effect without their assistance 4. The admirable Structure of the Body of Man the accommodation of it to Faculties the furnishing of it with Faculties accommodate to it even as its Animal Nature though we take not in the reasonable intellectual Soul imports in it a Wisdom Power and Efficacy above the Power of any created Nature to effect If it should be in the power of an Angel by applying actives to passives to produce an Insect nay a perfect Animal yet the Constitution and Frame of so much of that in Man that concerns his Animal Nature were too high a Copy for an Angelick Nature to write unless thereunto deputed and commissionated by the Infinite God which Commission we no where find and I am very sure a bare Naturalist will not suppose 5. Again there is that necessity of a suitableness and accommodation of the Parts of the Body to the Faculties of the Soul and è converso that any the least disproportion or disaccommodation of one to the other would spoil the whole Work and make them utterly unserviceable and unapplicable one to the other It was therefore of absolute necessity that the same skill and dexterity that was requisite to the first Formation of the Soul must be used and employed in the Formation of the Body and if an Angel were unequal to the making up and ordering of the Soul he could never be sufficient to make a fit organical Body exactly suitable to it Upon the whole matter I therefore conclude That not only the Soul but the very Animal Nature in Man and not only that but the Formation and Destination of his Bodily Frame was not only the Work of an Intelligent Being but of the Infinite and Omnipotent Intelligent Being who in the same moment formed his Body and organized it with immediate Organs and Instruments of Life and Sense and created his Intellectual Nature and united it to him whereby Man became a living Soul And this as the necessary Evidence of Reason doth first drive us to acknowledge a Being or first Formation of the Humane Nature ex non genitis and secondly to acknowledge that this first Formation of the Nature of Man was not by Chance Casualty or a meer Syntax of Natural Causes but by an Intelligent Efficient so we are upon the very same and a greater Evidence of Reason driven to acknowledge that Intelligent Efficient to be the Great and Wise and Glorious God no other Cause imaginable being par tali negotio And indeed if once we can bring Men but to this one Concession That the original Efficient of the Humane Nature was an Intelligent Being any Man pretending to Reason will with much less difficulty admit that Efficient to be the Almighty God than any other invisible intelligent Efficient which we usually call Angels or Intelligences And the Reasons are these 1. Because though we that are acquainted with the Divine Truths do as really believe that there are Angels as well as Men yet the Natural Evidences of the Existence of Almighty God are far more evident and convincing even upon a Rational and Natural account than that there are Angels for the former being a Truth of the highest moment and importance to be believed by all hath a proportionable weight and clearness of evidence even to Natural Light more and greater than any other Truth And hence among the Jews the Sect of the Sadduces believed the Existence of God yet denied or doubted the Existence of Angels or separated Intelligences 2. Because the very Supposition of an Angelical Nature doth necessarily suppose the Existence of a Supreme Being from whom they derive their Existences 3. Because the great occasion of Infidelity in relation to Existence of Almighty God is that sensual Men are not willing to believe any thing whereby they have not a sufficient Evidence as they think to their Sense The Notion of a Spiritual and Immaterial Being is a thing that they cannot digest because they cannot see or by any Sense perceive it nor easily form to themselves a Notion of it He therefore that can so far master the stubborness of Sense as to believe such a Spriritual Intelligent Being as an Angel hath conquered that difficulty that most incumbers his belief of a God and we that can but suppose or admit the former cannot long doubt of the latter He therefore that can once bring his thoughts to carry the first Origination of Mankind to the efficiency of an Angel must needs in a little time see a greater evidence not only to believe a Supreme Deity but to attribute the Origination of Mankind and of the goodly Frame of the Universe to the Supreme Being as necessarily best fitted with Power Wisdom and Goodness to accomplish so great a Work and that without the help or intervention of Angels or created Intelligences who must needs derive their Being Power and Activity from him There remains two or three Objections against the force of the Consequence of the Existence of Almighty God and his Efficiencies in the production of Mankind in their first Individuals which I shall propound and answer 1. Object What need there be laid so great a stress upon the Primitive Formation of Man as that it could not be done but by the Power and Wisdom of an Almighty Intelligent Being since every day's experience lets us see that by the mixture and coition of Man and Woman Et ex semine ab utroque deciso in utèro muliebri per spatium decem mensium ad plurimum producitur hujusmodi natura humana quem tot elogiis magnificamus that which we every day see to be an effect of finite Creatures in the daily production of Individuals of Humane Nature Why must we needs call in no less than the Wisdom and Power of God himself to be the immediate Efficient of the first Formation of the Individuals of that nature which we see every day produced by the common efficacy of Nature and efficiency of the Parents Vel ad minus seminis utriusque sexus in utero foemineo conclusi In Answer hereunto I shall not at this time or in this place enter into the dispute how far the Divine Efficiency concurrs immediately in the ordinary Generation of Mankind nor how far the entire Humane Nature as well his Rational Soul as his
inconsistencies and so avoid those intollerable absurdities that their Suppositions do necessarily occasion And again sometime are fain utterly to lay aside some of their former Positions as utterly undisciplinable and ungovernable by any subsidiary Explication by reason of their gross absurdities and apparent impossibilities This appears by some of the former Debates touching the Epicurean and Aristotelian Suppositions and many more may be given in this matter But the first Chapter of Genesis as it is perfectly consonant to it self so it labours under no difficulties or absurdities but all parts thereof are easily and apparently reconcilable one with another and with the common reason of the things delivered upon the account of that common Supposition upon which the whole is bottomed namely the Efficiency of the most Wise and Powerful Intelligent Being Since therefore it is evident that Truth is ever consistent with it self and that which contains any irreconcilable absurdity or contradiction with it self or any other Truth can never be true we have all the reason imaginable to give the preference to the Mosaical Hypothesis as consonant to it self and to all other Truths that are and on the other side to reject the Epicurean and Aristotelian Theories in this matter each of which contains irreconcilable difficulties in themselves and contradictions to evident and demostrable Truths 3. The third observable is this That the Holy History gives us such an Efficient and such an Efficiency of things that gives us a plain and clear and evident Solution of all those admirable Phaenomena that we see both in the Universe in the Motions Orders Positions Influences and Conveniences of the whole Universe and of the several great Integrals thereof and likewise of that admirable Beauty Order Symmetry Usefulness of Parts and Organs of Faculties and Powers that are to be found in Animals and especially in Man of these admirable congruities of Powers Motions and Instincts not only in the Animal and Vegetable Province but also in the very inanimate Bodies by giving us the Almighty most Wise most Bountiful God to be the first Author of the World and of Mankind and to be the Contriver and Institutor of that Law in things created which we usually call the Law of their Nature which is nothing else but the Will the Rule the Institution of the most Wise Powerful and Intelligent Being And let Men toyl themselves till their Brains be fired and study and invent from Age to Age to give us any other Explication of most of the observable Phaenomena in Nature they will toyl in vain and substitute unto us nothing but empty watrish and unsatisfactory Solutions or meer Whimsies Chimaera's and Falsities instead of Truth and Reality And this is the admirable preference of the Divine History of the Origination of Things that it gives us a solid plain evident congruous Solution of all the admirable Phaenomena in universal and particular Beings wherein our Minds may rest and quiet themselves which those Philosophers neither do nor can do that use any other Method of the Origination of Things What reason can there be assigned of the position of the Elementary and Heavenly Bodies in that most convenient position and situation the usefulness order and regularity of their Motions Heat and Influence Why the Motions of every thing are directed with the most suitableness to the convenience of the Universe and to its own Why a Stone or a Bar of Iron moves downward what is within it or without it that excites or directs it What reason can there be assigned of that admirable accommodation of Meteors the Wind and Rain nay the very Thunder and Lightning to the use and benefit of the Elementary World What reason can be assigned of the admirable Fabrick of the Body of Man that singular beauty destination and symmetry and convenience of Parts and Organs that admirable constitution and ordination of his Faculties especially that of his Intellect What reason can be assigned of the wonderful order and procedure of the generation of Men yea and of common Animals All done with that order and uniformity with that convenience and regularity that it exceeds the imitation and even the the comprehension of the wisest Man in the World Touching these and infinite more of these admirable Appearances in Nature the first of Genesis gives us a plain reasonable evident Explication by letting us know that these were the Works of the most Intelligent Being the Works of the most Wise and Glorious God And the reason why they are so admirably wisely and excellently framed and ordered is because they were made and ordered by the great Skill Wisdom Power and Design of the Glorious God But now if we come to demand of these wise Philosophers a Solution of the admirableness of these Phaenomena we shall have such Solutions as must make us first unreason and unman our selves before we can subscribe to them or at least we shall have such a Solution as no way countervails the value of the Work or else shall give a Solution of Idem per idem or else by somewhat else that is utterly unintelligible Ask Democritus and Epicurus and by their favour some of their late the Atomists will tell us that all or the greatest part of this is by chance casual position and mode and motion and figure and texture of Atoms and he that believes this whiles he hears it or says it is in a full capacity of believing any thing though never so unreasonable Let any Man but ask his own Reason fairly whether he can believe this that he thus saith I appeal to that Man whether he doth or can really believe himself when he says it Ask another sort of Philosophers for their Solution of it they will tell you that Nature is the Cause and a sufficient Solution of all these things But what is that Nature where is it is it the nature or disposition of the things themselves Then it explicates it no otherwise but thus That things have this excellency and order because it is their nature to be so or they are so because they are so But if by Nature they mean some separate Existence what then is it Is it a Body or Spirit is it a reasonable an intelligent Being or is it a surd and stupid Existence or else is it a Law or a Rule self-subsisting If it be a reasonable intelligent Existence we differ but only de nomine that which I call God they will call Nature at least unless they suppose it an inferior intelligent Being and then the difficulty is only made somewhat more that a subordinate intelligent Being was able to produce such Effects which appear to all Men to be Works of the greatest Power and Wisdom imaginable On the other side if they suppose it to be a meer surd unintelligent Being how comes it to pass that they carry in them the greatest evidence imaginable of the most perfect and consequently of the most intelligent efficient Agent Again
to these Faculties suitable Objects answering those Vital Faculties to Sensitive Nature his Beneficence hath communicated those Faculties of Sense as well as Life and then communicates to them a farther efflux of his Beneficence by communicating to them the Objects grateful and useful both for Life and Sense thus his Beneficence is communicated to them per modum boni sensibilis but to Man his Beneficence is communicated not only per modum boni vitalis sensibilis which yet he enjoys as other Creatures but per modum boni intellectualis voliti First by giving him those nobler Faculties of Intellection and Will and then by communicating to those Faculties Objects suitable to those Powers or Faculties namely Intellectual Truths to his Understanding and Moral Rational and Divine Good to his Will and among all those vera bona that are communicated to these Faculties by the Divine Beneficence God himself his Goodness Truth Will Perfection are the chiefest verum and the chiefest bonum So that no Creature below Man is capable formally to know to love to enjoy God as the chiefest Truth and chiefest Good And this also seems to be another End of the Creation of Man that being made a Creature endued with Understanding and Will he might be receptive of the Effluxus of the Divine Beneficence in a nobler way than the other visible Creatures of this lower World 3. As under the first Consideration Man is more eminently an objective manifestation of the Divine Glory than other visible Creatures and as under the second Consideration Man is more receptive of the Divine Beneficence than other visible Creatures So upon farther examination we shall find that Man was made in a capacity to be a more active Instrument to serve and glorifie his Maker than other visible Creatures which was another End of his Creation specifically different from the End of other visible created Natures which will appear by the farther consideration of those two great distinguishing Faculties his Understanding and Will I shall not go about to make a large Description of those Faculties or the Operation but only observe so much touching them as may reasonably evidence the preference that Man hath therein above the inferior Animals and the Inferences that arise thereupon touching the End of Almighty God in the making Man And first for the Intellective Faculty As in Animals the Faculties of Sense internal and external especially the Visive Faculty placeth Animals in a rank of Being far above the insensible Creatures and accommodates them exquisitly to a Life of Sense so the Intellective Faculty placed in Man puts him into a rank of Beings far above the most perfect Animals and accommodates the Humane Nature to an Intellectual Life And the preheminence of this Faculty above the Faculty of Sense will appear if we consider the Operations thereof I shall instance but in two namely intellective Perception and intellective Ratiocination or Discourse 1. For the intellective Perception the Understanding perceives many things which are not perceptible by Sense or sensitive Phantasie or Imagination for Instance it hath the perception of Substance or Being abstracted from all sensible qualities it hath the perception of the truth or falsity of a Proposition it perceives the Conclusion and the Evidence thereof in the Premises and many more intellectual Objects which never did nor can fall under the perception of Sense or Imagination And although we cannot clearly understand all the Operations of the Brutal Phantasie because we are distinct from them and they have not the instrument of Speech intelligible by us to express their perceptions yet we may know that this is true by our selves for we may perceive that we do perceive these Objects not to be perceptible by our Faculties of Sense but by some other Faculties distinct from that of Sense or sensitive Imagination Again in those Objects that are objective to Sense the intellective perception discovers somewhat that is apparently unperceived by the Sense or sensitive Imagination for Instance the Heavenly Bodies the Sun Moon and Stars are equally objected to the view as well of Animals as Men but yet by the help of intellective perception Man perceives that in those Objects which neither the Brutes no nor Man himself by the bare perception of Sense or sensitive Phantasie doth not cannot perceive The perception of Sense gives us the Sun no bigger than a Bushel and the Stars than a Candle cannot discover an inequality of their distance from us judgeth the body of the Moon to have as many changes in figure and quality as it hath various Phases or Appearances the Sun really to set the Limb of the Heavenly Horizon to be contiguous to the Earth but the intellective perception finds the quantity of the Sun and Stars bigger than the Earth and by the Parallaxes and Eclipses finds the Stars more distant from us than the Sun and that than the Moon perceives distinctly their several Motions Orders Positions and makes distinctions and computations of Time and Duration by them and over-rules and confutes the perception of Sense and Imagination by another kind of perception above the perception of Sense 2. Touching Ratiocination or Discursive Operation the precedure thereof is above the reach of the sensitive Phantasie though this seems to carry some weak and imperfect Image thereof For Instance sometimes not only the media discursûs and the processus discursivus are out of the reach of Sense but the very subjectum discursûs is imperceptible to Sense such are that processus discursivus of the Understanding touching complexed Notions or Universals touching the abstracted Notions of Being Substance Entity and transcendents in Metaphysicks such are also the discursives of moral good and evil just unjust which are no more perceptible to Sense than Colour is to the Ear and yet touching these Subjects the Intellect forms Discourses deduceth Illations and Conclusions Again in matters Mathematical and Physicall though in the concrete and in their subjects they are objective to Sense yet the media and processus discursivus whereby the Understanding makes Conclusions and Inferences and Illations touching them are of a range and kind quite above the range of Sense or sensitive Imagination thus upon certain data or postulata in Geometry the Intellect forms Conclusions which though Mechanically and Experimentally true yet are elicited by a Processus discursivus quite above the activity of sensitive Phantasie And though matters Physical Bodies and Tangible qualities and their several powers manner of production and divers other things relating to them are sensible Objects yet the Intellect useth a Processus discursivus whereby it investigates Truths and draws Conclusions that are quite above the scantlet of Sense or Phantasie ascending up from the Effect to the next Cause and thence to the next and thence gradually to the First Cause of all things So that though oftentimes the foot or root of the Discursus intellectivus be bottomed in some sensible Object perchance