which as all know who are conversant in those Writings was something Mystical and Enthysiastick This I mention to prevent the Objection of some who might be apt to charge me with obscurity of Style I grant many things might have been deliver'd more openly and clearly but then I must have deserted the peculiar Genius of my Author which ought always to be Sacred and Inviolable THE Golden VERSES OF THE PYTHAGOREANS FIrst the Immortal Gods as rank'd by Law Honour and use an Oath with holy awe Then honour Heroes which Mankind excell And Daemons of the Earth by living well Your Parents next and those of nearest blood Then other Friends regard as they are good Yield to mild words and offices of love Do not for little faults your Friend remove This is no more than what in you does lye For Power dwells hard by necessity Doe these things so but these restrain you must Your Appetite your Sleep Anger and Lust. From filthy actions at all times forbear Whether with others or alone you are And of all things your self learn to revere In Deed and Word to Justice have an eye Do not the least thing unadvisedly But know that all must to the Shades below That Riches sometimes ebb and sometimes flow Bear patiently what Ill by Heaven is sent And add not to your Griefs by discontent Yet rid them if you can but know withall Few of those Thunder-storms on good men fall Oft good and ill do in discourse unite Be not too apt t' admire nor yet to slight But if through errour any speak amiss Endure 't with mildness but be sure of this That none by word or action you entice To doe or speak to your own prejudice Think before action Folly to prevent Rash words and acts are their own punishment That doe which done after you 'll ne'r repent That which you know not do not undertake But learn what 's fit if Life you 'll pleasant make Health is a thing you ought not to despise In Diet use a mean and exercise And that 's a mean whence does no damage rise Be neat but not luxurious in your fare How you incur Mens Censure have a care Let not thy ' state in ill tim'd treats be spent Like one that knows not what 's magnificent Nor by a thrift untimely rake too clean 'T is best in every thing to use a mean Be not mischievous to your self advise Before you act and never let your eyes The sweet refreshings of soft slumber taste Till you have thrice severe reflexions past On th' actions of the day from first to last Wherein have I transgress'd what done have I What duty unperform'd have I past by And if your actions ill on search you find Let Grief if good let Joy possess your mind This doe this think to this your heart incline This way will lead you to the life Divine Believ 't I swear by him who did us shew The mystery of Four whence all things flow Then to your work having pray'd Heaven to send On what you undertake an happy end This Course if you observe you shall know then The constitution both of Gods and Men. The due extent of all things you shall see And Nature in her Uniformitie That so your Ignorance may not suggest Vain hopes of what you cannot be possest You 'll see how poor unfortunate Mankind To hurt themselves are studiously inclin'd To all approaching good both deaf and blind The way to cure their Ills is known to few Such a besotting fate does men pursue They 're on Cylinders still roll'd up and down And with full tides of Evil overflown A cursed inbred Strife does lurk within The cause of all this Misery and Sin Which must not be provok'd to open field The way to Conquer here 's to fly and yield And now from Ill great Father set us free Or teach us all to know our Selves and Thee Courage my Soul Great Iove is their Allie Their duty who by Nature's light descry These Rules if to that Number you retain You 'll keep and purge your Soul from every stain Abstain from Meats which you forbidden find In our Traditions wherein are defin'd The Purgings and Solution of the Mind Consider this then in the highest Sphere Enthrone your Reason the best Charioteer So when unbody'd you shall freely rove In the unbounded Regions above You an Immortal God shall then Commence Advanc'd beyond Mortality and Sense The INTRODUCTION PHilosophy is both the Purification and Perfection of humane Life The Purification as it frees it from the material and brute tendencies of the mortal Body The Perfection as it restores it to its own primitive excellency and the participation of the divine Image Both these are best effected by Vertue and Truth The former calms all disorders of the Passions the latter if it meet with a well disposed mind introduces the divine form 'T is necessary therefore in order to that Science which must both Purifie and Perfect us that we have some short sententious Rules or artificial Aphorisms by whose direction we may in an orderly and easie progress arrive to the end of an happy life Now amongst all those rules which have a general aspect upon all Philosophy I think the Pythagorick Verses deservedly call'd Golden may justly claim the precedency For they contain the principal Maxims of all Philosophy whether Speculative or Practical Whereby a man may possess himself of Truth and Vertue enjoy himself in Purity live happy in the likeness of God and as Plato's Timaeus says a Critical Professor of the Pythagorical Institutions being made sound and intire may attain to the form of the primitive habit As for his Method he begins with the precepts of Practical Vertue For we must first subdue the brute within us and shake off all sluggishness from our minds and then addict our selves to the knowledge of more divine things For as a blear Eye cannot behold a very bright object till it be purged so a Soul not yet clarifi'd and refined by Vertue is not qualifi'd to gaze on the beauty of Truth There 's too much disproportion between pure and impure than that one should reach the other And whereas Practical Philosophy is the parent of Vertue and Speculative of Truth thence we find in his Verses where he had ended his Instructions about Civil Vertue he calls the former Humane but the latter he honours with the title of Divine in these words This doe this think to this your heart incline This way will lead you to the life Divine The first step therefore to the Divine Nature is to rise up to the dignity of the Humane Now that which makes a man good is Civil Vertue but that which deifies him are those Sciences which advance him to the Divine And since the order of Ascent requires that small things be pass'd over before greater therefore in the Pythagorick precepts Moral institutions have the first place that so from what is of greatest
he who seeks not into the true causes should transfer the fault upon the Superior nature and either say there is no Providence or that our affairs are not well administred by it But such opinions as these do not only aggravate the crimes of our life past but excite the mind to all wickedness and deprive it of liberty of will in that they make it ignorant of the causes of the present evils But that you may know how we ought to think of these things hear the Verses MOREOVER WHATSOEVER EVILS MEN UNDERGO BY DIVINE FORTUNE BEAR YOUR PART MILDLY NEITHER FRET AT IT BUT YOU SHOULD CURE IT WHAT YOU CAN YET CONSIDER THIS THAT FATE DOES NOT DISTRIBUTE MUCH OF THIS TO GOOD MEN. Bear patiently what ill by Heaven is sent And add not to your Griefs by discontent Yet rid them if you can But know withall Few of these Thunder-storms on good men fall Before we begin our Explication we must premise that by EVILS here is meant whatsoever makes the way of life laborious and troublesom as Sickness Poverty loss of Friends Reproach and the like For these are grievances not easie to be born in life but not really EVIL or pernicious to the Soul unless from them we take occasion to sin which we may doe also in good things if we don't use them rightly as Health Riches and Power For we may doe ill with these and obtain Vertue with the contrary But real EVILS are voluntary offences such as are inconsistent with Vertue and these are Injustice Intemperance and whatever else is contrary to that which is excellent For none of all these can be said to be done well as thus such a man does Injustice well or Riots well as we may say of external Evils that a man labours under Sickness or Poverty well as often as he bears such things according to right reason But the word well is not used in the diseases of the Soul because they are deviations from and detriments to right reason whose dictates the soul of Man disregards though engraven and implanted naturally on it when blinded with passion That right reason is implanted in Men this is a sure sign that an unjust man gives a right judgment in those things wherein his interest is not concern'd and so an intemperate man reads lectures of Temperance to others In a word every wicked man uses right counsels in those things wherein he is not byass'd aside by his passions So that a wicked man may turn vertuous by a retracting his former wickedness Neither to this end is it necessary that wrong reason should be in us that this might be the principle of Vice as the other is of Vertue For right reason alone like the Law of the land is a sufficient standard whereby to define what is done according to it and what against it and to approve of the one and restrain the other Neither is there any need of any principle of Evil whether internal or external But there is great need of a principle of Good and of that only and that again is either separate from the rational nature which is God or lodg'd and enthron'd within us which is right reason And after this manner are EVILS distinguish'd Among which he does not say that those which are voluntary are distributed to men by the DIVINE FORTUNE but only those which are necessary and are not now in our power but which follow our heretofore voluntary and avoidable offences which are grievous as we said but capable of receiving ornament from Vertue For Poverty is adorn'd by a moderate diet and meanness of extract is raised by prudence So the loss of Children commends the good man's patience and meekness who is able to say My Son is dead is he not then render'd back again and I knew I begat a Mortal And in like manner all other things varnish'd over with the beauty of Vertue become more gracefull Now we come to enquire what are those DIVINE FORTUNES whereby men undergo outward calamities If by the divine sentence Riches were allotted to one and Poverty to another antecedently and absolutely this should be call'd the divine Will and not the DIVINE FORTUNE If again nothing presiding be signifi'd by this Phrase but it happen by chance that one man is happy and another unhappy then it should be call'd only FORTUNE without the Epithet DIVINE But if God the supreme Arbiter distribute to every one according to his deserts and is not the cause of our being such or such but for this end only is arm'd with Justice that he might make equal retributions according to its laws then the manifestations of his judgments are deservedly call'd DIVINE FORTUNES thereby intimating to us that God has no absolute antecedent purpose to punish one and honour another but only as he behaves himself so or so and that the cause of this is not to be sought for out of our selves So that the connexion of our Election and his judgment makes a DIVINE FORTUNE All therefore that is meant by DIVINE FORTUNE is nothing else but the judgment of God against Sin And so the artificial contrivance of this Phrase salves God's providence and the Soul's liberty and immortality So that the matters of our life come not to pass altogether by fate nor yet at random and fortuitously nor is our whole life to be resolv'd one way But whenever we offend in things within our power 't is to be referr'd to our own choice but whatsoever follows our sins according to the laws of Justice that is our FATE and whatever good proceeds primarily from God is to be referr'd to Providence But we should ascribe nothing of the things that are to a fortuitous and temerarious cause no nor any thing that is done unless from the event and connexion of those things which Providence Fate and humane Will work antecedently something follow the first efficient causes which may be call'd fortuitous For example 'T is the will of the Judge to punish a Murtherer and not this particular man as such and yet he punishes this man whom he would not because he has assumed to himself the place and condition of a Murtherer Now the antecedent and absolute will of the Judge is to punish a Murtherer but 't is through accident that he wills the punishment of this man because he voluntarily assumed the person of a Murtherer Again 't was the will of a wicked man to commit Murther but not to suffer punishment on that account This antecedent purpose of committing Murther was dependent upon the liberty of his will but then torments and punishment follow by accident Now of these the Law is the cause which suggests to the Judge a will of punishing evil men in general and this Murtherer in particular The same I consider in the divine Nature when the will of Man determines to doe evil and when the will of the Judge who is the defender of the Law is wholly bent to
animadvert upon the violations of it from this concourse arises a DIVINE FORTUNE through which he that does such things is accounted worthy of such punishments The first refers the cause of judgment to the liberty of the will which prefer'd evil the last to the reason of legal discipline which follows the quality of the offence Now the Law reconciles both these which takes care that all may be well as far as it can and nothing amiss For that pre-existing in the divine goodness will not suffer the evil to go unpunish'd lest a continued and Chronical wickedness induce an oblivion of all good whose necessary remembrance is kept alive by the justice of those who have the charge of the Laws The Law therefore joyns together as 't was said those whose part is to judge and those who are to be punish'd that it may work out a peculiar good from both For if it be more advantageous to suffer punishment than not and if Justice inflicts some hurt to correct and retrench the luxuriancy of evil it is plain that the Law that it may both help and be help'd does set the Judge over the Offender to preserve it self and deliver the Offender to the Judge to animadvert upon him according to his desert that by his sufferings he may be brought to the remembrance and consideration of the Law For that very law which men deny in doing ill they desire when they suffer ill For example he that does an injury wishes there were no God that he might not suffer the punishment which hangs over his head but when the same man is injur'd himself he wishes there were one to redress his injury 'T is fit therefore that they who doe injury should feel the evil of it themselves so that what they did not see in the commission being besotted and blinded with Covetousness they may learn by the discipline of Suffering provided they suffer well But if they stubbornly persist still in their wickedness perhaps they themselves reap less advantage yet without doubt their example will be a lesson of Instruction to the wise who consider the cause of their sufferings Now the most proper principles of judgment we take to be these the goodness of God the Law proceeding from it and the inherent law of right-reason which is transgress'd and though a domestick God impiously affronted But the event of this judgment are those grievances which render our life unpleasant through bodily pains These we are commanded by the Verse to BEAR MEEKLY by looking into their causes to prevent them what we can and to turn to our advantage what seems hurtfull And above all by the most exalted vertue to render our selves worthy to partake of the divine good But if any one be not yet ripe for that yet let him at least attain to civil good by the help of middle vertue For this is that whereby he exhorted us to BEAR AFFLICTIONS MILDLY and generously and to CURE our selves of them What other remedy can there be besides what has been said by which the grief of Sufferings may appear consonant to Reason and a method of Cure be found out The sum of all is this God the Law-giver and Judge countenances what is good and takes away what is evil so that he is wholly free from the imputation of Sin But those who are voluntarily wicked and forget right reason which is implanted in them he punishes as evil according to the purport of the Law which forbids all evil and as men by reason of the connexion of their wills and the laws which we call FORTUNE For the Law does not punish Man simply as Man but as Evil. Now the primary cause of his being Evil was his own will But since his being Evil the cause of which was in himself and not in God he suffers punishment which is in the divine will and not in his own The only scope of the Law is that which is worthy of God and profitable to Men to extirpate and purge away wickedness by the various discipline of Justice and to pluck back the Soul just rushing into debauchery to the remembrance of right reason Since therefore this is the settled constitution of the Law the same retribution cannot be made to all For that wou'd neither be equitable in it self nor profitable to us The difference of the matter under judgment should give a difference in sentence For how can he be thought worthy of the same with another who is not like him The DIVINE FORTUNE is therefore to be BORN MEEKLY neither ought he to take it hainously who suffers punishment and is purg'd as much as God thinks fit from those things which seem to clog the pleasure of life Such reasoning as this would cure us of our former offences and convert us to our right reason for the future For how can it be but that he who knows misery to be the fruit of Vice avoid the path which leads thither Besides if it be at all convenient to be angry under afflictions he will think it more reasonable to be angry with himself that with God who puts a stop to his wickedness by the instruments of Justice whereby he may be brought to the knowledge and remembrance of the divine Laws so that 't will be his own fault if he fall into calamity For afflictions are not distributed to men by chance if there be a God over us and bounds of Justice proportioning every man's lot to his merit Wherefore 't is a true saying that CALAMITIES FALL NOT MUCH UPON GOOD MEN. For first will bear them patiently as the good pleasure of Heaven and then through the help of their vertues which alleviate the most poignant calamities Besides there is good hopes that the residue of our life shall not be troubled with such accidents since divine good is laid up for those who rise up to the highest degree of Vertue and humane good for those of the middle order Besides our afflictions will be healed if by patience we learn the method of Cure For how can they supplicate God in a manner becoming his Majesty who deny his Providence and Justice to be exercised about humane affairs and that our immortal Soul has a share in those outward things as by her own voluntary motions she renders her self worthy For whence he will find occasion to bear this present fortune patiently that does not refer it to these things is not be imagin'd much less how he should cure it For he cannot rest contented in afflictions as things indifferent or better than the contrary for in themselves consider'd they are to be avoided as full of grief and trouble Our nature does not affect such things as desirable for themselves unless some good be expected to accrue to us from the suffering of evil There is a necessity therefore of Impatience and Uneasiness and that our misery be augmented from the ignorance of our selves and yet that we suffer punishment nevertheless but our
it to the inferiour not considering that the essential form of humane nature is unchangeable For the same man by the alternate possession of Vertue and Vice is said to become a God or a beast Not that he is either by nature but by habitual similitude And indeed he that knows not the dignity of the things that are but either exceeds it or comes short of it makes his ignorance an occasion either of a vain opinion or false hope But he that judges of all according to the measures of the Creation that knows the things that are in the same manner as they were made and that lastly measures God from the knowledge of himself he best observes the precept of following God knows the best measure and is above all Fraud and Imposture AND YOU SHALL KNOW MEN EMBRACING EVILS OF THEIR OWN ACCORD MISERABLE AND WHO NEITHER SEE NOR HEAR NEIGHBOURING GOOD AND THAT THERE ARE FEW WHO KNOW HOW TO DISINTANGLE THEMSELVES FROM EVIL SUCH A FATE HURTS THE MINDS OF MORTALS WHO ARE ROLLED HERE AND THERE UPON CYLINDERS BEARING INFINITE MISERIES FOR A PERNICIOUS CONTENTION IS THEIR INBRED COMPANION WHICH TREACHEROUSLY HURTS THEM WHICH WE SHOULD BY NO MEANS PROVOKE BUT YIELDING AVOID You 'll see how poor unfortunate Mankind To hurt themselves are studiously inclin'd To all approching good both deaf and blind The way to cure their ills is known to few Such a besotting fate does men persue They 're on Cylinders still rol'd up and down And with full tides of Evil overflown A cursed inbred Strife does lurk within The cause of all this Misery and Sin Which must not be provok'd to open field The way to conquer here 's to fly and yield The order of the Incorporeal and Corporeal Natures being well understood it remains that we exactly know the nature of Man both what it is and what passions it is liable to How it stands in the middle confines between those beings which never fall into Vice and those which are not capable of Vertue Hence 't is that he acts both parts in his manners sometimes embracing the felicity of the Intellectual life and sometimes the affections of Sense So that 't was well said by Heraclitus that we live their death and dye their life For Man descends and falls from the happy Region as Empedocles the Pythagorean says Man yields unto the rage of Appetite Heaven's Exile straying from the Orb of light But he returns and resumes his first habit if as he says He fly the confines of this dismal Cell Where Murthers Anger and all mischiefs dwell In which whosoever fall They wander in dark regions of Death But the desire of him that flies these regions of Death will speedily conduct him to the regions of Truth which if he once leaves by the force of the moulting of the Wings he comes down into an earthy body Losing the life of bliss Agreeable to this is that which Plato says of the descent When the impotent Soul can no longer enjoy the vision of God and having suffer'd a deflux of her wings falls down to the earth then she ought by the Law to inhabit a mortal body And concerning the Ascent he says this when a Man has overcome by his reason that tumultuous brute Commotion which accrues to him from Earth Water Air and Fire he shall return to the form of the first and best habit and being made sound and whole shall recover his proportionate Orb. Sound because free from the diseases of Passion which is done by Civil Vertue And whole by the recovery of Knowledge as of his proper parts which is to be done by Speculative Truth He shews moreover that by Aversion from the things below we should retrieve those excellencies which we lost by Apostasie Since he defines Philosophy to be the flight of Evil. For he declares that men only are obnoxious to Passions that evil cannot be utterly lost nor exist in the gods but is necessarily conversant about this place and humane nature For it is consequent to the nature of things generable and corruptible to be sometimes preternaturally affected which is the beginning of evil But by what means we should avoid these he subjoins when he says we must fly from hence thither that this flight is as much a resemblance of God as Man is capable of but the Similitude it self is to become Just Holy and Prudent For he that would fly from Evil must first be averse from humane nature since they who are immers'd in that cannot but be fill'd with the concomitant evils As therefore our departure from God and the moulting of our plumes whereby we soar'd aloft caused our descent into the region of Mortality and Wretchedness So 't is the rejection of our bodily Passions and the growth and springing of Vertue as of new wings which will carry us to the pure habitations of holiness and divine felicity For the nature of Man being in the middle between those beings which always contemplate the face of God and those whose nature is never capable of such contemplation it ascends to them and descends to these by the possession and rejection of the mind and alternately puts on the divine and brutish Similitude by reason of its natural propension to both He therefore that knows these things of the humane nature knows also how men are said TO EMBRACE EVILS OF THEIR OWN ACCORD and how they become unhappy and MISERABLE by their own election For when they could have remain'd longer in that station they are drawn down to be born by the rashness of desire and when they could with more speed have loos'd from hence they intangle themselves in the security of their passions And this is that he means when he says that they neither SEE NOR HEAR NEIGHBOURING GOOD so that by good he understands Vertue and Truth And by their not seeing neighbouring good is meant that they are not moved of themselves to the search of excellent things and by their not hearing is meant their unattentiveness to the Instructions of others For there is a twofold way of recovering knowledge either by discipline as by hearing or by invention as by sight They therefore are said to embrace evils of their own accord who neither willing to learn of others nor to find out of themselves remain destitute of the sense of all good and consequently altogether unprofitable For he that neither considers himself nor gives attention to the Instructions of others is an unprofitable man But they who employ their endeavours in the learning and finding out things excellent these are they who know how to DISINTANGLE themselves from evil and who by the flight of all worldly labours are translated into the free Aether But of these there are but few For the major part of Mankind are evil and in subjection to their passions nay and of unsound minds by reason of their propension to earthly things And this evil they have brought upon themselves because they would
of seeing may be made up a manifestation This being so let us suppose that all would be freed from evil if their Maker did SHEW to all the knowledge of his own nature and WHAT DEMON THEY themselves USE But we find that all are not at once deliver'd from evil it follows therefore that he does not make this discovery to all but to those only who of their own accord endeavour to free themselves from evil and voluntarily fix their eye upon what is SHEWN by the intention of Contemplation God therefore is not the cause why he is not SHEWN unto all but they themselves who neither see nor hear Neighbouring good whence they are said to embrace evil of their own accord The will therefore of him that chuses is in the fault but God is no way the Author of evil who does what is required on his part that all men may see what is good but he does not actually SHEW it to all because at the time when he holds it forth the eye of Contemplation in most men is shut or fix'd downward upon worser objects This exposition of the Verses before us is both agreeable to the truth and the context For if it be the part of God to drag men to the truth whether they will or no why do we blame them as suffering voluntary evils Why again do we advise them not to provoke the Pernicious contention but yielding to avoid Why also do we exhort them to bear events patiently and to endeavour to heal them For the way to Vertue by moral discipline is quite block't up to them if liberty of Will be once taken away For my part I would neither doe think nor love any of those things that are excellent if I thought 't was God's part to keep us from Sin and replenish us with Vertue without any concurrence of our own which if true then all our sins also must be father'd upon God But if God as it has been said be no way the Author of sin we may thank our selves if we depart from good since when 't was near to us nay by the common notices of the Soul lodg'd within us yet we neither see nor hear it But the cause of this blindness and deafness is this pernicious Contention and voluntary Evil which we must not provoke any farther but by yielding fly from it so shall we know how to free our selves from evil and find out the way of returning to God And thus every illumination of God by the concurrence of our vision becomes a DISCOVERY Now the fruits of this discovery are calmness of mind freedom from earthly labours a tast of divine good and a participation of the fatherly conversation Having premised these things of Vertue and Truth and having closed up the precepts of Vertue in the nightly account and carried on the hopes of Truth as far as the quiet and safety of the Soul he proceeds now to those things which belong to the splendor of winged Purity in joyning a third kind of Philosophy to what has been already said ABSTAIN MOREOVER WITH JUDGMENT FROM THOSE MEATS WHICH WE HAVE SPOKEN OF IN THE LUSTRATIONS AND SOLUTION OF THE SOUL AND CONSIDER ALL THINGS SETTING REASON THE BEST CHARIOTEER IN THE UPPERMOST PLACE Abstain from Meats which you forbidden find In our Traditions wherein are defin'd The Purgings and Solution of the mind Consider this then in the highest sphere Enthrone your reason the best Charioteer The rational Nature was produced by the great Creator with a body adhering to it and so though incorporeal it self yet its whole species is consummated in the body Just as it is in the Stars that which is Superior in them is an Incorporeal substance that which is Inferior a Corporeal And so the Sun is all a Compound of somewhat Incorporeal and somewhat Corporeal which were never once separate and then coupled together for so they would be separate again but produced both at once in such order that one should rule and preside and the other obey And so 't is in all the Intelligent-beings Heroes and Men. For every Hero is an Intelligent Soul joyn'd to a lucid Body and a Man in like manner is a rational Soul with an immortal body congenial to it And this was the doctrine of the Pythagoreans which Plato afterwards publish'd to the World when he compared every divine and humane Soul to the congenial force of a winged Chariot and Charioteer We have need therefore in order to the perfection of the Soul of Truth and Vertue but to the purgation of our lucid body 't is required that we be scour'd from material pollutions and use sacred purgations and receive strength from God whereby we may fly hence upwards And this is taught in the Verses before us when they prescribe us the way of removing the luxuriant pollutions of matter in these words ABSTAIN WITH JUDGMENT FROM THE MEATS WHICH WE HAVE SPOKEN OF And when they recommend to us the sacred purgation and the concurring aid of God in these words IN THE LUSTRATIONS AND SOLUTION OF THE SOUL and when they give us a description of humane Nature in its integrity and perfection in these words SETTING REASON THE BEST CHARIOTEER IN THE UPPERMOST PLACE For here is an entire draught of humane Nature with an orderly distinction of the parts Whereof one is to Judge which resembles the CHARIOTEER the other to obey which holds proportion with the Chariot He therefore that believes the Symbols of Pythagoras may now from these Verses that he ought by the exercise of Vertue and by the recovery of Truth and Purity to take care of those things which concern our lucid body which by the Oracles is call'd the subtil Vehicle of the Soul Now this PURGATION reaches as far as our Meat and Drink and the whole management and usage of our mortal body in which our lucid one is lodg'd which inspires life into the inanimate body and preserves its harmony For life is a body void of matter which generates that life which is inherent in matter by which our mortal body is perfected which is compounded of irrational life and matter being the image of that man who is constituted of a rational substance and an immaterial body Since therefore we are Men and since this is the constitution of humane Nature there is a necessity that all of us should be purged and perfected But we must observe the peculiar manner of each nature For different natures require different purgations For example the purgation of the rational Soul as to its rational faculty is Scientifical Truth But as to its Opinionative part the vertue of Deliberation For since we are of such a make by nature that we should contemplate the things above and rule the things below for the first work we shall want Truth for the second Civil Vertue that so we may be wholly taken up in the contemplation of things Eternal and in the action of things becoming But in