condition as maketh us understand damned Soules miserable is a necessary effect of the temper it is in when it goeth out of the Body and must necessarily out of its owne nature remaine in unvariably for all eternity Though for the conceptions of the vulgar part of mankind who are not capable of such abstruse notions it be stiled and truly too the sentence and punishment of a severe Iudge I am extreamely pleased with him when he saith there are not impossibilities enough in Religion for an active faith And no whit lesse when in Philosophy hee will not bee satisfied with such naked termes as in Schools use to be obtruded upon easie mindes when the Masters fingers are not strong enogh to untie the knots proposed unto them I confesse when I enquire what light to use our Authors example is I should bee as well contented with his Silence as with his telling mee it is Actus perspicui unlesse hee explicate clearely to me what those words mean which I finde very few goe about to do Such meate they swallow whole and eject it as entire But were such things scientifically and methodically declared they would bee of extreame satisfaction and delight And that worke taketh up the greatest part of my formerly mentioned treatise For I endeavour to shew by a continued progresse and not by Leapes all the motions of nature unto them to fit intelligibly the termes used by her best Secretaries whereby all wilde fantasticke qualities and moods introduced for refuges of ignorance are banished from my commerce In the next place my Lord I shall suspect that our author hath not penetrated into the bottome of those conceptions that deepe Schollers have taught us of Eternity Methinketh hee taketh it for an infinite extension of time and a never ending revolution of continuall succession which is no more like Eternity then a grosse body is like to a pure Spirit Nay such an infinity of revolutions is demonstrable to bee a contradiction and impossible In the state of eternity there is no succession no change no variety Soules or Angells in that condition doe not so much as change a thought All things notions and actions that every were are or shal bee in any creature are actually present to such an intellect And this my Lord laver not as deriving it from Thâ—ologie and having recourse to beatifike vision to make good my tenet for so onely glorified creatures should enjoy such immense knowledge but out of the principles of Nature and Reason and from thence shal demonstrate it to belong to the lowest Soule of the ignorantest wretch whiles hee lived in this world since damned in Hell A bold undertaking you will say But I confidently engage my selfe to it Vpon this occasion occurreth also a great deale to bee said of the nature of Predestination which by the short touches our Author giveth of it I doubt hee quite mistakes and how it is an unalterable Series and chaine of causes producing infallible and in respect of them necessary effects But that is too large a Theame to unfold here too vast an Ocean to describe in the scant Map of a Letter And therefore I will refer that to a fitter opportunity fearing I have already too much trespassed upon your Lordships patience but that indeed I hope you have not had enough to read thus far I am sure my Lord that you who never forgot any thing which deserved a roome in your memory doe remember how wee are told that Abyssus abyssum invocat So here our Author from the abysse of Predestination falleth into that of the Trinity of Persons consistent with the indivisibility of the divine nature And out of that if I be not exceedingly deceived into a third of mistaking when he goeth about to illustrate this admirable mysteryby a wild discourse of a Trinity in our Soules The dint of wit is not forcible enough to dissect such tough matter wherein al the obscure glimmering wee gaine of that inaccessible light commeth to us cloathed in the darke weeds of negations and therefore little can wee hope to meete with any positive examples to parallel it withall I doubt hee also mistakenth and imposeth upon the severer Schooles when he intimateth that they gainesay this visible worlds being but a picture or shadow of the invisible intellectual which manner of Philosophising hee attributeth to Hermes Trismegistus but is every where to be met with in Plato and is raised since to a greater height in the Christian Schooles But I am sure hee learned in no good Schoole nor sucked from any good Philosophy to give an actuall subsistence and being to first matter without a forme Hee that will allow that a Reall existence in nature is as superficially tincted in Metaphysicks as an other would bee in Mathematicks that should allow the like to a point a line or a superficies in Figures These in their strict Notions are but negations of further extension or but exact terminations of that quantity which falleth under the consideration of the understanding in the present purpose no reall entities in themselves so likewise the notions of matter forme act power existence and the like that are with truth considered by the understanding and have there each of them a distinet entity are never the lesse no where by themselves in nature They are termes which wee must use in the negotiations of our thoughts if wee will discourse consequently and conclude knowingly But then againe wee must bee very wary of attributing to things in their owne natures such entities as wee create in our understandings when wee make pictures of them there for there every different consideration arising out of the different impression which the same thing maketh upon us hath a distinct being by it self Whereas in thing there is but one single vnity that sheweth as it were in a glasse at severall positions those various faces in our understanding In a word all these words are but artificiall termes not reall things And the not right understanding them is the dangerousest rocke that Schollers suffer ship wracke against I goe on with our Phisitians contemplations Vpon every occasion hee shewech strong parts and a vigorous brayne His wishes and aymes and what he pointeth at speake him owner of a noble a generous heart He hath reason to wish that Aristotle had been as accurate in examining the causes nature and affections of the great Vniverse hee busied himselfe about as his Patriarke Galen hath beene in the like considerations upon his little World mans body in that admirable worke of his de usu partium But no great humane thing was ever borne and perfected at once It may satisfie us if one in our age buildeth that magnifike structure upon the others foundations and especially if where hee findeth any of them unsound he eradicateth those and fixeth new unquestionable ones in their roome but so as they still in grosse keep a proportion and beare a Harmony with the
affections to it and desires of it which cannot be barren ones but will presse upon us to gaine some knowledge by way of advance here and the more we attaine unto the more we shall be in Lovè with what remaineth behind To this reason then adding the other how knowledge is the surest proppe and guide of our present life and how it perfecteth a man in that which constituteth him a man his Reason and how it enableth him to read boldly steadily constantly and knowingly in all his wayes And I am confident All men that shall heare the case thus debated will joyne with mee in making it a Suit to our Physitian that hee will keepe his Bookes open and continue that Progresse he hath so happily begun But I believe your Lordship will scarcely joyne with him in his with that wee might procreate and beget Children without the helpe of women or without any conjunction or commerce with that sweete and bewitching Sex Plato taxed his fellow Philosopher though other wise a learned and brave man for not sacrificing to the Graces those gentle female goddesses What thinketh your Lordship of our Physitians bitter censure of that action which Mahomet maketh the essence of his Paradise Indeed besides those his unkindnesses or rather frowardnesses at that tender-hearted Sex which must needes take it ill at his hands me thinketh he setreth marryage at too low a rate which is assuredly the highest and devinest linke of humane society And where he speaketh of Cupid and of Beauty it is in such a phrase as putteth mee in mind of the Learned Greeke Reader in Cambridge his courting of his Mistris out of Stephens his Thesaurus My next observation upon his discourse draweth me to a Logicall consideration of the nature of an exact Syllogisine which kind of reflection though it use to open the doore in the course of Learning and study yet it will necre shut it in my discourse which my following the thred that my Author spinneth assigneth to this place If he had well and throughly considered all that is required to that strict way of managing our Reason he would not have censured Aristotle for condemning the fourth figure out of no other motive but because it was not consonant to his owne principles that it would not fit with the foundations himself had laid though it doe with reason saith he and bee consonant to that which indeed it doth not at all times and in all Circumstances In a perfect Syllogisme the predicate must bee identified with the subject and each extreame with the middle terme and so consequently all three with one another But in Galens fourth figure the case may so fall out as these rules will not be current there As for the good and excellency that he considereth in the worst things and how farre from solitude any man is in a wildernesse These are in his discourse but aequivocall considerations of Good and of Lonclinesse nor are they any wayes pertinent to the morality of that part where he treateth of them I have much adoe to believe what he speaketh confidently that hee is more beholding to Morpheus for Learned and rationall as well as pleasing Dreames then to Mercury for smart and facetious conceptions whom Saturne it seemeth by his relation hath looked asquint upon in his geniture In his concluding Prayer wherein he summeth up all he wisheth me thinketh his arrow is not winged with that fire which I should have expected from him upon this occasion for it is not the peace of Conscience nor the bridling up of ones affections that expresseth the highest delightfulnes and happiest state of a perfect Christian It is love onely that can give us Heaven upon earth as well as in Heaven and bringeth us thither too so that the Thuscan Virgill had reason to say In alte dolcezze Non si puo gioir se non amando And this love must be imployed upon the noblest and highest object not terminated in our friends But of this transcendent and divine part of Charity that looketh directly and immediately upon God himselfe and that is the intrinsecall forme the utmost perfection the scope and finall period of true Religion this Gentlemans intended Theame as I conceive I have no occasion to speak any thing since my Author doth but transiently mention it and that too in such a phrase as ordinary Catechismes speake of it to vulgar capacities Thus my Lord having run through the booke God knowes how sleightly upon so great a suddaine which your Lordship commanded mee to give you an account of there remaineth yet a weightier taske upon me to performe which is to excuse my selfe of presumption for daring to consider any moles in that face which you had marked for a beauty But who shall well consider my manner of proceeding in these remarkes will free me from that censure I offer not at Iudging the prudence and wisedome of this discourse Those are fit enquiries for your Lordships Court of highest appeale in my inferiour one I meddle onely with little knotty peeces of particuler Sciences Matinae apis instar operosa parvus carmina fingo In which it were peradventure a fault for your Lordship to be too well versed your imployments are of a higher and nobler Straine and that concerne the welfare of millions of men Tu regere imperio populos Sackville memento Hae tibi erunt artes pacique imponere morem Such little Studies as these belong onely to those persons that are low in the ranke they hold in the Commonwealth low in their conceptions and low in a languishing and iusting leisure such a one as Virgill calleth Ignobile otium and such a one as I am now dulled withall If Alexander or Caesar should have commended a tract of Land as fit to fight a Battaile in for the Empire of the World or to build a City upon to be the Magazine and staple of all the adjacent countries No body could justly condemne that husbandman who according to his owne narrow art and rules should censure the plaines of Arbela or Pharsalia for being in some places sterile or the meadowes about Alexandria for being sometimes subject to bee overflowen or could taxe ought he should say in that kinde for a contadiction unto the others commendations of those places which are built upon higher and larger principles So my Lord I am confident I shall not be reproached of unmannerlinesse for putting in a demurrer unto a few little particularities in that Noble discourse which your Lordship gave a generall applause unto And by doing so I have given your Lordship the best account I can of my selfe as well as of your Commands You hereby see what my entertainements are and how I play away my time Dorset dum magnus ad alrum Fulminat Oxonium bello victorque volentes Per populos dat jura viamque affectat Olympo May your Counsels there bee happy and successefull ones to bring about that Peace which if wee bee not quickly blessed withall a generall ruine threatneth the whole Kingdome From Winchester house the 22. I thinke I may lay the 23. for I am sure it is morning and I thinke it is day of December 1642. Your Lordships most humble and obedient servant KENELME DIGBY The Postscript My Lord LOoking over these loose papers to point them I perceive I have forgotten what I promised in the eight shee to touch in a word concerning Grace doe not conceive it to be a quality in fused by God Almighty into a Soule Such kind of discoursing satisfiet mee no more in Divinity then in Philosophy I take it to be the whole complex of such reall motives as a soli◠account may be given of them that incline a man to vertue and piety an◠are set on foote by Gods particular Grace and favour to bring that worke to passe As for example To à man planged in Sensuality some great misfortune happeneth that mouldeth his heart to a tendernesse and inclineth him to much thoughtfulnesse In this temper hee meeseth with a Booke or a Preacher that representeth lively to him the danger of his owne condition and giveth him hopes of greater contentment in other objects after hee shall have taken leave of his former beloved Sinnes This begetteth further conversation with prudent and pious men and experienced Physitians in curing the Soules Maladies whereby hee is at last perfectly converted and setled in a coure of Solid Vertue and Piety Now ithese accidents of his misfortune the gentlenesse and softnesse of his nature his falling upon a good Booke his encountring with a patheticke Preacher the impremeditated Chance that brought him to heare his Sermon his meeting with other worthy men and the whole concatenation of all the intervening accidents to worke this good effect in him and that were ranged and disposed from all Eternity by Gods particular goodnesse and providence for his Salvation and without which hee had inevitably beene damned this chaine of causes ordered by God to produce this effect I understand to bee Grace FINIS This story I hav but upon relation yet of a very good hand
demonstrated the end of it upon naturall Reason And though the precise time for that generall destruction bee inscrutable yet he learnedly sheweth an ingenious rule whereby to measure in some fort the duration of it without being branded as our author threatneth with convincible and Statute madnesse or with impiety And whereas hee will have the worke of this last great day the summer up of all past dayes to imply annihilation and thereupon interesseth God onely in it I must beg leave to contradict him namely in this point and to affirme that the letting loose then of the activest Element to destroy this face of the World will but beget a change in it and that no annihilation can proceed from God Almighty for his essence being as I said before selfe-existence it is more impossible that Not-being should flow from him then that cold should flow immediately from fire or darkenesse from the actuall presence of light I must needs acknowledge that where he ballanceth life and death against one another and considereth that the latter is to bee a kind of nothing for a moment to become a pure Spirit within one instant and what followeth of this strong thought is extreame handsomely said and argueth very gallant and generous resolutions in him To exemplifie the immortality of the Soule hee needeth not have recourse to the Philosophers stone His owne store furnisheth him with a most pregnant one of reviving a plant the same numericall plant out of his owne ashes But under his favour I beleeve his experiment will faile if under the notion of the fame hee comprehendeth all the Accidents that first accompanied that plant for since in the ashes there remaineth onely the fixed Salt I am very confident that all the colour and much of the odor and Tast of it is flowne away with the Volatile salt What should I say of his making so particular a narration of personall things and private thoughts of his owne the knowledge whereof cannot much conduce to any mans betterment which I make account is the chiefe end of his writing this discourse As where he speaketh of the soundnesse of his body of the course of his dyet of the coolenesse of his blood at the Summer Solstice of his age of his neglect of an Epitaph how long he hath lived or may live what Popes Emperours Kings Grand-Seigniors he hath beene contemporary unto and the like would it not be thought that hee hath a speciall good opinion of himselfe and indeed hee hath reason when he maketh such great Princes the Land-markes in the Chronology of himselfe Surely if hee were to write by retaile the particulars of his owne Story and life it would bee a notable Romanze since he telleth us in one totall summe it is a continued miracle of thirty yeares Though he creepeth gently upon us at the first yet he groweth a Gyant an Attlas to use his owne expression at the last But I will not censure him as hee that made notes upon Balsacs letters and was angry with him for vexing his readers with stories of his Cholikes and voyding of gravell I leave this kind of his expressions without looking further into them In the next place my Lord I shall take occasion from our authors setting so maine a difference betweene morall honesty and vertue or being vertuous to use his owne phrase out of an inbred loyalty to vertue and on the other side being vertuous for a rewards sake To discourse a little concerning Vertue in this life and the effects of it afterwards Truely my Lord however he seemeth to prefer this latter I cannot but value the other much before it if we regard the noblenesse and heroikenesse of the nature and mind from whence they both proceed And if wee consider the Iourneyes end to which each of them carrieth us I am confident the first yeeldeth nothing to the second but indeed both meete in the period of Beatitude To cleare this point which is very well worth the wisest mans seriousest thoughts we must consider what it is that bringeth us to this excellent State to be happy in the other world of eternity and immutability It is agreed on all hands to bee Gods grace and favour to us But all doe not agree by what steps his grace produceth this effect Herein I shall not trouble your Lordshippe with a long discourse how that grace worketh in us which yet I will in a word touch anon that you may conceive what I understand grace to bee but will suppose it to have wrought its effect in us in this life and from thence examine what hinges they are that turn us over to Beatitude and Glory in the next Some consider God as a Iudge that rewardeth or punisheth men according as they cooperated with or repugned to the grace hee gave That according as their actions please or displease him he is well affected towards them or angry with them And accordingly maketh them to the purpose and very home feele the effects of his kindenesse or indignation Others that flye a higher pitch and are so happy Vt rerum poterint cognoscere causas doe conceive that Beatitude and misery in the other life are effects that necessarily and orderly flow out of the nature of those causes that be got them in this life without engaging God Almighty to give a sentence and act the part of a Iudge according to the state of our cause as it shall appeare upon the accusations and pleadings at his great Bar. Much of which manner of expression is metaphoricall and rather adapted to containe vulgar mindes in their duties that are awed with the thought of a severe Iudge sifting every minute action of theirs then such as we must conceive every circumstance to passe so in reality as the literall sound of the words seemes to inferre in ordinary construction and yet all that is true too in its genuine sense But my Lord these more penetrating men and that I conceive are vertuous upon higher and stronger motives for they truely and solidly know why they are so doe consider that what impressions are once made in the spirituall substance of a Soule and what affections it hath once contracted doe ever remaine in it till a contrary and diametrally contradicting judgement and affection doe obliterate it expell it thence This is the reason why Contrition sorrow and hatred for past Sins is encharged us If then the Soule doe goe out of the body with impressions and affections to the objects and pleasures of this life it continually lingreth after them and as Virgill learnedly as well as wittily saith Quae gratia currûm Armorumque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos But that being a State wherin those objects neither are nor can be enjoyed it must needs follow that such a Soule must bee in an exceeding anguish sorrow affliction for being deprived of them for want of those it so much