extract and being For the very innate desire of some distinguishing knowledge of good from evil could not have its motion from sense nor ever was introduced by sense There is a kind of knowledge springs it self from sense as the Ox knows his owner c. but knowledge by causes such as it is is peculiar to Humane nature and has no relation to sense Know indeed so as to comprehend we cannot knowledge in the abstract being the peculiar of the Divine nature If we had been capable to have known good and evil absolutely the Devil had used no Hyperbole in telling us Ye shall be as Gods But the very desire of knowledge even such a knowledge as the Soul is in some measure capable of that is by causes shews a Divine spark in us tending towards the cause of all causes which exercised about God's revealed will here might be more clear but mounting in desire is apt to lose its light and vanish Nay not only our desire but our fear or doubt of somewhat we know not nor can perfectly attain to by our search nor is reasonable fully to demonstrate must necessarily have its origine from somewhat more than sense If we at least fear a future being and continuance for ever and future punishment that very fear is either native and natural in our Souls or else arises in us from the Tradition of some others if from Tradition then sense being the Port and Inlet I allow to be Parent too but yet while we allow it to spring from Tradition in our selves we do by consequence allow it to be native in some one particular person and he who allows it native in any one must allow the Soul to be a substance of it self and not a resultance from the Body for thoughts of infinity could never first spring from a bare temporary finite existence I said I would lay aside the inferiour faculties of the Soul from my thoughts Desire and fear are affections I agree common to Brutes I know they desire and fear but I dare say never any one of them yet desired knowledge or feared any thing to happen after this life and therefore these as they are in us being in respect of the object no such affections as are led by sense or work by sense barely and so not having their essence from the Body are not to be accounted amongst the other inferiour faculties common with Brutes But to proceed and go a little higher Whence arise those accusing or excusing thoughts mentioned by St. Paul in the Soul of man though wholly ignorant of Scripture and having no accession of new Light so much as by Tradition Certainly it must be some glimmering of that coelestial native spark of Justice implanted in every Humane Soul I dare leave it without further pressure to any quiet sedate reasonable Soul to determine whether if there had never been any Divine or Humane Law written or divulged by Tradition against Murther but that that same fact by the Laws of his native Country were allowed and approved if done against meer Strangers whether I say in case of that man's private imbruing his hands in his Brother's bloud with no other colourable pretence or provocation than some slight worldly gain he should not upon the consideration that we men made not our selves but that every one was a fellow-member with other of the visible Universe and of equal native extract expect to find some inward regret disgust trouble or vexation of mind If he determine that he thinks he should the question will be about that consideration how it could arise For we find that or the like consideration has risen without the help of any outward Engine or sense nay when all the Spels imaginable have been used and applied to allay it Now no disgust or trouble or sorrow was yet perceived in any other Creature beside Man upon the destruction of his fellow creature or Man the Sovereign of creatures And whence is this but because their Soul is not extensive beyond its original nor has any motion but from sense that is it is not capable of any consideration For consideration weighing or pondering of a thing whether it be good or evil is a proper act of a reasonable Soul distinct from a Body and is somewhat more than desire of knowledge by causes 'T is the very exercise of Reason 't is the Soul's waving of its senses for a time and summoning its noble powers to tryal which have some little native ability This trying considering or weighing good from evil by Reason the ballance of the Soul is I say the Soul 's peculiar act from which act there may be very properly the Author to the Hebrews uses the like words a weariness of the mind and so it 's distinguished and is different from such acts of the Soul which Solomon saith are a weariness of the flesh For that kind of study which he respects viz. composing reading or hearing are no peculiar acts of the Soul as withdrawn from the flesh but are a bare introduction of somewhat to the Soul through the Organs of the flesh and so are a weariness to it Whereas the Soul after reception and some light of a thing by sense in considering the good or evil of it quite lays aside the senses for a time and so the mind is peculiarly affected SECT VIII The Immortality of man's Soul considered from things peculiar to Man as weeping laughter speech with some conclusion against Atheism THe Soul of man does not only shew it self and its original by the aforesaid manner of withdrawing it self or as it were by separation from the Body to be above the capacity of a Soul extracted or springing from the flesh but even by peculiar actions and motions through bodily Organs which a bare earthly or fleshly Soul does not There are three things generally held and esteemed proper and peculiar to Humane Nature and no ways incident to any other living creature whatsoever and those are Tears or weeping Laughter and Speech in each of which or from each of which may seem to appear somewhat more in Man than a product Soul part of the Body or extracted or raised from the Body though never so curiously or admirably framed I do not alledge each of them apart as any infallible demonstration of a Spirit distinct and separable from the Body yet coupled and joyned together they become of some seeming weight and strength to me to confirm my opinion It does not seem much wonderful at any time to behold a distillation from the Eyes that thing is to be found in Beast as well as Man not only from a disease or some distemper in the Bloud but upon every offensive touch of the Eye yet when neither of these are present or can be alledged for a cause to have the Body as it were melted on the sudden and send forth its streams through that unusual channel makes it seem to me no
a present fancy shall render with the assistance of some formerly debauched or deceived Affection Now howsoever I adjudge affirm or maintain Affection to be the original cause of motion or work in the Soul I do not adjudge it originally to blame or to be the chief and principal cause of every uneasy or evil motion in the Soul but that the Imagination is first and chiefly to be blamed and that Affection would never imbrace any thing as good or reject any thing as evil which are not so in their Nature if the Imagination did not first present them as such Human Affection originally good naturally tends in desire to that which is good But because the Imagination the perspective by which it looks abroad is not able of its own strength to afford it a full and true prospect of any such thing it many times presents unto it in haste things as good and beautiful which in truth are not which once accepted by the Affections as good from that false glass they adhere thereto and are not easily removed but disturb us whensoever we are informed the contrary by others beating upon our Reason through sense or indeed that our Reason of it self shall too late inform us otherwise 'T is from the checks of Reason at peculiar seasons that that saying of video meliora c. has arose not from the Imagination which is most apt to delude us that we follow and are most prone to follow and if we are once given up shall surely follow as Scripture it self seems to intimate placing the foolishness of our hearts subsequent and attending on the vanity of our Imagination And therefore we should strive as far as we are able to rectify that one faculty in the beginning Does not experience daily shew us this one faculty in the Soul has deluded every thing that may be called an Affection in us by representing things on the right hand in a far more pleasant and delightful and on the left in a far more horrid and uncouth dress than in truth they are or prove to be when we become really acquainted with them and by our Affections seem to taste them Every man who has promised himself Place or Power with the delight thereof to gratify Ambition or Revenge Honour to gratify Pride Riches to gratify a Covetous desire Fleshly pleasure to satisfy a more than Beastly lust and enjoyed either I am sure will own it to himself and that a Mahometan Paradise best agrees with fancy alone and by it self as it were for whatsoever may be called an Affection no sooner tasts it but it loaths it and wants the Imagination to put fresh colours on it again to raise a fresh or as it were a new desire The things which the Imagination at first presents as ingrateful to the Affections we are rarely so long and so well acquainted with because we shun them and turn from them in thoughts as often as we can as with the help of experience to make a true judgment of our Imaginations false gloss thereon and we are never willing to stand out the trial This I am verily perswaded that that most dreadful Gulph of Death is chiefly so framed from the Imagination and is not such without its deception And that those who have shot it if they could return to us again and declare what might be most for our ease and quiet in relation thereto would bid us not to read the Treatises thereof which some have made and framed by their Imagination but advise us to exercise our thoughts towards the performance of moral duties rather than busy them about that which serves but to aggravate and enhaunce terror And I do further believe how e're we accuse our Affections therefore that it never was suddain joy or suddain fear or grief as is storied that has killed men those Passions are not so much to be blamed how suddainly soever they are awaked they only imbrace or avoid as they seem directed but that it is a strange suddain exaltation of the Imagination a thing seated in the brain which from its violent heat and motion there is able to dissolve and dissipate our vital Spirits and stop this breath of life in our mortal Bodies I do not impute our common distractions and disturbance of mind grounded as may seem to most in fears and jealousies so much to the fault of mens Affections as their Imaginations though Affection be to blame too Affection in man is generally good and inclinable to peace and quiet and if it work the contrary 't is from some false light of things darted from the Imagination however raised or kindled therein There are many thousands no doubt who from the bottom of their hearts wish and desire the quiet and peace of their Country and Nation and yet at this instant very much help to foment its differences and are ready to bring upon it the contraries thereof Trouble and War and this from a false and vain Imagination only or chiefly that we might be happier than we are because we seem not at present so happy as we would be Which deceit of the Imagination men usually observe when 't is too late and wish themselves again but as happy as they have been But it is a strange thing that they who have once observed it and found themselves deceived thereby should a second time suffer their Affections to labour under the same fallacy and not observe from Reason back'd as it were from Experience that we may be deceived thereby and therefore carry such a suspicion of the Imagination in our Soul as not to let our Affections too deeply ingage with theirs who may possibly indeavour their own advancement rather than our reformation and amendment and aim at the delusion of our Imagination by mormo's and spectrum's raised and shot into it through sense absurdly enough rather than the enlightning our Reason by offering us any thing of weight or truth Nay when the Imagination without the least ground or concurrence of Reason has once framed a belief in some men and thereby captivated their Affections how ready are these faculties together to spread the infection through Sense in others by the most ridiculous ways and means that may be Every Apparition every Blazing-Star must portend if not infallibly denote to others as well as themselves Sedition Troubles Wars Subversion of Monarchy or what else men readily would And truly so every such thing does if we exercise not our Reason and it happens once to become a general belief amongst us from the fallacy of our Imagination by the Devils Emissaries that there is such a portent but if men would be prevailed with to make use of their Reason I affirm and they would see these Apparitions portend no such thing But that it is in our power at all times to change the seeming evil consequent of these Signs or Face of the Heavens and I will plainly tell you how Let every one of us
fruition will often admit the entrance or intrusion of somewhat else not to fill it but to rake and tear it for a time and therefore it must be some gracious stop of the Souls craving rather than properly its satisfaction or content some blindfolding or hooding from the ordinary presentments of the World Some little diversion and way of exercise of all or at least its best faculties as it were out of our selves and that by the gracious warmth of that Sun of Happiness in duely beholding his Image first the earnest of Happiness since we cannot behold him as he is which is Happiness it self And how this may most commonly happen or readily come to pass I have indeavoured according to my ability to declare under that often happy prospect of true Charity Now give me leave here to speak a little of some things wherein we are often deceived To mention ought of Happiness like to arise from any bodily pleasures common to Beasts as eating drinking or the like wherein Man becomes as certainly deceived as any thing were below a manly Soul But I shall speak only of the Souls peculiar seeming satisfaction in hope according to that saying Soul take thine ease thou hast goods laid up Surely many men who have spent their years in turmoil as well as their days in Vanity about it may be said to have gathered much and tasted little some have had so many pleasant seats as that they could not take their pleasure in any and perhaps have entred Friendship with so many that they could never enjoy the Happiness of true Friendship with one On the other side any sedentary contemplative course of life will as soon deceive a man's expectation that seeming withdrawing a man's self out of the World while he is in it and a poetick fancy of some Earthly Elysium to be found here will never create that satura quies so much talked of it may prove a vale of rest unto the Body but not unto the Soul nor a Happiness to either The Imagination cannot be at rest one moment and whatsoever it brings in to the Affections if it appear not useful and necessary it will prove but unsavory to them and be so rendred now and then by it self and raises them trouble about trivial matters as quick and soon as about weighty The proper chief and peculiar pleasure or delight of the Soul from any cause that ever I could find or guess is the reverberation of some good works or a light or joy arising or springing from thence which in a retiredness from the World will miss of many objects to act upon from which this Happiness might redound I know there was a great Emperor and a wise who after he had tasted what Fruits busy greatness but perhaps not good works could afford voluntarily surrendred up his Scepter and could not be prevailed with upon the greatest invitation and most urgent Reason to accept it again but feelingly said 't is likely He took more true delight in the growth of the Lettice in his Gardens than the increase of his Dominions And doubtless there are many more would give up their Verdict for that state of life as most of all tending towards Happiness which God appointed Adam in the state of his Innocency But I who have had some taste of the pleasure of it and perhaps better understand it than some who admire it will not recommend it as a station wholly exempt from disquiet Even since our first Trespass we are subject to be afraid if we hear but a voice in the Garden and the very withering of any gourd we have there is enough to raise our anger especially if before like Ionah we rejoyced or were exceeding glad at the growing of it though we made it not to grow I do not think but there are and have been many of late days as well as in Davids time both publick and private men who while they lived counted themselves happy men nay some who have lived all their days in the Sun-shine of the World and set at last too in brightness and though their pomp has not followed them yet have escaped that Prophet's prediction of never seeing light and are now at rest and happy but these are but rare Largesses of Gods bounty and goodness Such a condition there might be and they might be contented in it but yet they could not be so happy as to cross Solon's observation of Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera c. since they could never be secured from danger of misery or the thoughts of it And therefore in our search after some proper way and means to reduce the Soul to a quiet state which effected is some degree of Happiness we must reject what are called the goods of the Body and Fortune and have recourse to what will enlighten or improve that which is eternal in us and is truly our selves Amongst which what we call Learning may deservedly be ranked But yet I think the multiplicity even of that which is rather the treasure than the goods of the mind doth more distract than instruct us more burden than ease and satisfy the mind Of this I take St. Paul to speak when he saith knowledge pusseth up and that Solomon meant no other when he tells us He that increaseth knowledge increases sorrow as appears by his foregoing confession that he had given his heart to seek and search out by Wisdom concerning all things that are done under Heaven which he found a sore travel Surely it is acquired and adventitious knowledge not the power to know and discern so far as may concern our future safety that molests us for of that Solomon saith It is pleasant to the Soul The bringing in of Foreign Plants and setting them in a man 's own Soil provided he have a judgment to distinguish good from evil may be good and in some measure pleasant but to have his own Soil improved to such a degree as to raise or produce as wholesom and as savory and such as may nourish and heal as well as delight him or others which every man may do in some measure by digging at home is better and will prove more cordial to him He who takes in too much of this Foreign kind of Lading will find it though light yet cumbersom and troublesome and neither please his Pilot nor his Passengers his Intellect or his Affections I cannot but think that many originally excellent brave Souls like clear Springs might of themselves and from themselves have afforded pure and curious Waters which by receiving in so many inlets and imagining thereby with a rapid stream to carry all before them have become not only useless but troubled and muddy and withal not seldom lost as well their original name as their Virtue Repute and Estimation Truth is a blessed thing and happy is he I will affirm that finds her but there are few of our high-flown learned men I
which hurry us headlong we know not whither are grounded in opinion and fancy 'T is not barely application of Truth from without but serious consideration of Truth within must cure us And every one perhaps will do it best in following Cicero's way when he could receive no comfort from his friends upon the death of his Daughter Tullia and compose a cordial de consolatione himself This was the way of my cure and this I conceive is best for every man But he who cannot do this of himself may yet think well of that medicine the operation whereof has been experimented by the Author and rather take his probatum est than anothers opinion and to such do I propose my case and the considerations respecting it And because the perfect knowledge of the cause may be sometimes thought as material and necessary as the disease it self and men being apt to take up that exclamation in relation thereunto Was ever sorrow like my sorrow c. and think another mans cause but trivial I am content whoever sees this should know and judge of mine It was thus My Ancestors having continued many descents possessed of a small but competent Estate under the notion of antient Gentlemen left me the eldest and I fear the last of the family to struggle with and retrive their several former incumbrances which my care and assiduity with God's blessing performed I married the daughter of a Gentleman of an antient honourable Family and by her had several Sons and Daughters to reap the fruit of my care as I thought whereupon I was ready to say I had all that my heart could desire And though I might place my Affections on some other things more than was either becoming in bare sobriety or requisite in prudence yet these stole away the strength thereof and I took greatest complacency therein After I began to sing this earthly Requiem to my Soul it pleased God to put some stop thereto by taking away one or two of my children and at length to leave me a pledge of his mercy I trust and not a subject for his future trial of me one only Daughter remaining The death of each of my children were arrows which stuck fast in me and pierced me sore but the last coming on the suddain upon the most healthful and least expected and in the neck as I may say of another made so deep a wound in my Soul that it caused me to despise all other his worldly blessings and to begin to question with him like Abraham Lord God what wilt thou give me seeing I go childless Such an overflowing frothy sorrow it begat in me that the very allaying thereof in some measure I have Reason to impute to the merciful loving kindness of a bountiful good and gracious God assisting and strengthening me 'T is true there yet remain such reliques of the Disease that whenever either the countenance or pretty Sayings of any of my Children offer themselves to my thoughts it causes a chillness over all my Spirits which I look on as remediless in any one who carries about him the least bowels of natural Affection and such I trust may well consist with Grace But I have brought it to that that the smart is no greater than the Wound requires in any one whose bowels are not petrified and whose heart is not wholly senseless and mortified Next and immediately under God's grace this cure has been thus far effected by my own thoughts and consideration if they may be said to have been mine And after the cure I was willing to make them publick that I might not hide his righteousness within my heart or keep back his mercy and truth but declare the same to those who come after Indeed I cannot but here acknowledge that these thoughts or Meditations brake forth very abruptly and it may be in many particulars blame-worthy from the heat within But to hear one man speak feelingly may sometimes work deeper impressions upon an Auditor than another eloquently and a poor Prisoner who has found out a way to free himself from his Fetters may gain more attention from his discovery than a great Professor in the Art My thoughts have been too much busied God knows about the World and besides that my Calling and Profession never required Books adorned with Rhetorick as some of those who may chance to see this know to make their exit in any artificial dress and if in a plain garb they shall work any good Effect upon any other labouring under or in danger to labour under the same or the like disease Let that person then assuredly know that God had a design for his good as well as mine in my particular Affliction And indeed such is the universal care he has of Mankind that every one might if he would reap some benefit in anothers loss He who is not at present assaulted may yet prepare himself for a defence and he who beholds the bruises of another may walk more carefully and take heed lest he fall He who has lost no Children or has none to lose may yet see and consider the vanity of disquieting himself in heaping up riches and knowing not who shall gather them These my rude thoughts which have eased me may possibly incite another to more sober considerations of God's Wisdom and Providence and Man's folly And then I hope that man will not blame me for thinking only according to those abilities God has given me since every one of us will confess that the wisest of us are but the best conjecturers and 't is God only that knows and though I have thought rudely and amiss yet it being not willingly I hope my want of Learning or Wisdom may receive Pardon from God and at least a charitable Censure from man I was somewhat the rather induced to commit these my rambling Thoughts to Paper from some hopes that such as chance to see them would not look on them as the Cry or Trumpet of one that indeavours to drive men into the Sanctuary from a gainful Art and yet stays himself without the Vail but the genuine search and effect of trouble and sorrow which never finds Rest till it enters there Here are indeed some little Essays of our own sufficiency but tending and pointing to a better Physician of our Soul and Body to one that is able to shew us the true method of cure and without whom we shall never be able to find the shadow of any certain rule but groap about till wearied and fainting and find our Errors only on the other side of our Graves THE CONTENTS BOOK I. SECT I. Considerations against immoderate care for a man 's own Posterity and Sorrow for the loss of Children taken in general from the Providence of God from the usefulness and necessity of Afflictions and those brought down to the case Page 1 SECT II. Particular considerations to moderate our passions such as 1 the advantage of God's
of my belief opposed by the more moderate Atheist I think it has and might be made good not only by Scripture but Reason Yet seeing it is not the thing I am about to take in hand nor whereof I doubt let other men seek their satisfaction from more Learned hands I for my part think that if God take care of the Sparrow he will take care of me and if the hairs of my head are numbred God will not take less care about my Body than the Excrescencies thereof All that I shall say hereabout further is I cannot conjecture by what new methods the Devil has brought in Proselytes for open Atheism since his ancient method was to nooze men by Polytheism but I am verily perswaded that since his Trade failed him therein and the Temples of Idols began to be thrown down so as he could not reap so large a Crop that way it has been none of his slightest policies nor the least covert Trap or Ginn to take men in to infuse slily into the brains of a number of men who account themselves Sages That God has allotted the Government of Sublunary affairs to inferiour Powers and from hence have increased and multiplied the strange opinions and notions of Fate Destiny Necessity Fortune Chance and the like Now if he can perswade us to ascribe to these any sole or chief operation in our actions he obtains by consequence e're we are aware what by express terms he could not so easily do For if we attribute any ruling Power to ought else then one Eternal God we do in effect deny such an Existence because Unity is the inseparable and essential attribute of Deity and by acknowledging more than one we do in effect deny that there is any I will not dispute what Influences or benign or malevolent Aspects coelestial Bodies have over us But this I am assured of and am no whit afraid by God's assistance to maintain That there is a Superior Power ruling in them one who telleth the Stars and calleth them all by their names that doth order and determine them according to his good will and pleasure from whom we are to look for all our good or evil in this World And thither it is that the Apostle St. Iames directs us plainly when he tells us Every good giving and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning On which place says one would not any man have thought it a more proper attribute of God for the Apostle to have said there From God the author of all good things or the like then Father of Lights No says he there is something more in it He would have us look higher than those Lights from whose influence so many place their good or evil and think they have not their wisdom from Mercury c. And upon that very Text doth the Author very prettily observe that in the foregoing vers 16 which is Err not my dear Brethren that the phrase Err not is in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which very word says he come the Planets Indeed were any man assured that all our inclinations and actions all our good or ill success were under the sole uncontroulable disposition of a few wandring Planets or the government of a blind Goddess Fortune or Chance he need not be very earnest or solicitous for that were vain since they are inexorable for the life of himself Children or Friends but rather rejoyce at the exemption from such a dominion by death and conclude then with Iob that there only shall we be at rest But having granted this to my self That there is nothing happens here on Earth but what is ordered and disposed by the first Creator who by rooting up one and planting another does as the Psalmist says in that ravishing subject of his providence Renew the face of the Earth my thoughts in the next place tended unto this whether the loss of my Children were an angry correction of God against which David and Ieremy so pray If it were I thought even then I had little reason like a sullen Ass to lye down under the burthen but rather to get up and bear it with patience lest the same Master should lay a greater weight upon me and not only so but even draw forth his Sword and slay me too nay Reason prompted me rather to examine my self wherein I had more chiefly provoked him to wound and pierce me through with these Darts and to stay his hand if it were possible not barely by a sincere repentance for the same but a full purpose and resolution to depart from every evil way and certainly in all God's ways and methods this is the chief end and design to make us wise unto Salvation But since as the Prophet says His righteousness is like to an high Mountain visible to every Eye but his Iudgments are as a great deep past finding out or fathoming I thought it not good to make too curious an enquiry thereinto nor dive into his secrets nor despair of his mercy and loving kindness but to purpose and resolve of amendment and to trust though he will not leave us altogether unpunished yet that his correction may be in measure and since he has been pleased to promise that every thing shall work for the good of them that love him it may not be presumption in us to think that whatsoever happens is not only what he sees best for us but that we may turn the Perspective and look on his Judgments sent in mercy not in wrath And seeing he has given us the grace to behold it is his doing we may therefore conclude with Manoah's Wife If he were pleased to kill us he would not have shewed us these things Now first let us look on afflictions losses crosses and calamities in general so termed and see whether there be such evil in them as men generally opine Indeed so wonderful are the goods of affliction as one of the learnedst of our Nation has highly admired Seneca for that saying of his Bona rerum secundarum optabilia adversarum mirabilia That the good things that belong to prosperity are to be wished but the good things which belong to adversity are to be admired And indeed although the Apostle tells us that no affliction for the present is joyous but grievous yet if we look as wise men should upon the end we shall find cause to glory in tribulation knowing as it s said that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed Now if from tribulation as the first seed sown there is once grown up in us a well-grounded hope and our subjection to vanity becomes a subjection in hope we shall reckon the sufferings of this present life not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall
number than the hairs of my head He could say that God is provoked every day and in that Psalm of Asaph which is a Roll of Reports how God's peculiar people from the time of Moses unto David carried themselves toward him we find it many a time did they provoke him and those words are thrice repeated there And in that 106 th Psalm of the like subject the cause of the Plagues breaking in amongst them is shewed to be their own provocations Thus they provoked him to anger with their own inventions and the plague brake in amongst them And doubtless our provocations in these days are not lighter in the Ballance Now let a man seriously consider how some of the very Heathen loved Virtue for it self and admired it in its native dress and how little she allures us when she is daily presented to us adorned with the promises of a Temporal and of an Everlasting happiness When notwithstanding the terrors and threats of the Lord on the one hand and the alluring passionate invitations on the other we do provoke and as it were challenge God to strike by the most trivial acts which profit us nothing And he will find little reason to wonder at his stripes unless that they are so mild and so few Of which although every man can keep a perfect Inventory and is ready to declare them with enhansement and aggravation yet if he be questioned of the causes his sins he would be forced to answer with David's exclamation who knoweth how oft he offendeth And can any man expect even in this World to separate God's two great attributes of Justice and Mercy Indeed the latter is here in this World usually above all his works and 't is his mercies that we are not consumed but if we would separate them 't is best for us to feel his Justice in our life and his Mercy at our death Let us I say consider our own deservings and we shall find but little reason for complaint but may well cry out I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him Are not all his Temporal blessings on condition and shall we be disturbed at the loss when we voluntarily commit the forfeiture If we sell our Inheritance for a Mess of Pottage here or a less thing we should rather grieve and be troubled at our own follies than our want Let us turn our thoughts upon the first cause which is indeed the right way of cure and instead of being grieved at our loss be grieved at our sins the causes of our loss and there I suppose it will be no offence to wish with the Prophet our heads fountains of tears This will prove the properest method for our cure to try to effect it by diversion or revulsion and by pouring out our tears for our sins or provocations stop the perpetual dropping and distillation of our losses Besides our general let us search out our particular provocations I am perswaded there are but few men but with a very little search might find our their sins in their very peculiar sufferings I do not mean only where their sufferings are the very native consequent effect of their sins as pain is sometimes from Intemperance and poverty from Riot but in the case of God's more immediate hand as the death of Relations and Friends whether we even in reference to them have performed our duties as we ought whether we have been true Fathers and true Friends in respect of their Eternal welfare or at least whether we have not rather loved them for our own sake than his and rejoyced more in the gift than in the giver I have often thought on that saying storied of Cardinal Woolsey when he was arrested for his Tryal That if he had taken so much care and diligence to please his God as he had done his King and Master he would not then have left him in his old age And I am sure did but any of us place his affections aright and take delight and complacency in the Author and giver as much as in the gift we should never find such perturbation in the loss of the latter but comfort our selves in this that we yet enjoy him who is able to give us all things Nay we that have lost our Children or perhaps some of us that never had any have yet had thoughts or desires our Families should endure for ever and would have our Lands called after our own Names and it is but just therefore we should have no posterity to praise our foolish sayings Perhaps we have like St. Peter said It is good to be here and wot not neither what we said and have had thoughts of building Tabernacles and therefore are our Houses become desolate When we have directions on whom to cast our cares when we have had instructions or information of another Kingdom and another Inheritance with cautions not to set our affections on this when we love our Wife or Children better then Christ shall we think our selves worthy of him No It is rather fit if we forsake not them they should forsake us that we might follow him and since we cannot or will not wean our selves God should wean us and embitter our delights we so much lowe after 4. And now if the sight of our viciousness does not yet the very goodness of God might put a stop to the current of our passions from the consideration in the last place that notwithstanding our sins our remaining enjoyments yet surmount our sufferings To convince us in this there needs nothing but a recollection or rubbing up of our memories which indeed are like to Tables of Brass covered over with dust whereon all the benefits we receive from God we write with our Fingers and all his chastisements we engrave with aqua fortis that it may eat deep enough and in the doing the one quite wipe away the other Otherwise the multitude of those slighter characters might keep us from complaint nay they would so fill up the Table as that there would be no room left for the other That multitudo misericordiarum as the Psalmist calls it would so fill us as that we should turn our Psalm of Deus ultionum or Domine ne in furore into Benedic anima mea and cry out Praise the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits Indeed in this notion we may extoll his attribute of Mercy above all the rest without hurting our selves and if we knew in what particular to begin I am sure we knew not where to make an end of God's bounties towards us but that has been so well particularized by divers Pens that every man may find enough to satifie himself I for my part in general have cause to bless God with Iacob and say though I cannot say I am become two bands that I am unworthy of the least of all the mercies and the truth which
borrowing for a Patronage any Great man's name or daring to affix my own as a ground-work for him to build on and I should rejoyce to rest assured any one would undertake or undergo that labour I have but this I think reasonable request to any man about to quarrel with these Papers That he take some consideration and bethink himself whether he may not wrong or prejudice his own Soul Because I will affirm nothing in them as a matter of truth with so much confidence and assurance as this one thing here that is if he desire tranquility and peace of mind the greatest worldly blessing imaginable and the thing I seek after he shall never so readily attain it by any narrow search into the errors and extravagancies of my Soul for disputation sake as by passiug them with pity and commiseration for God's sake who best knows whereof we are both made remembreth our frame and how subject we are to mistakes And I hope that no man will before-hand from the Spirit of pride and contradiction raise up a Tower or Fortress for his own intellect from thence to summon all others to vail and come in but let mine or other such like pass as a poor Merchant that chiefly intends to see Countries bring back somewhat it may be for its own support and possibly too for the support of some others of a like or little inferiour capacity though its Wares have no such flourish or signature on them as may make them vendible or prized by the Merchants of this Age. PART I. SECT I. How far the Soul of man is similar with that of Brutes I Think it may appear somewhat plain and obvious to the meanest capacity that the Soul of man is endowed with three distinct prime or principal faculties whereby it appears to work and those are 1 st the Affections 2 ly the Will and 3 ly the Intellect or Understanding which last is more commonly reduced to and made to terminate in these three faculties 1. Imagination 2. Memory 3. Reason For to say more or make any further enumeration at present were to fall upon my second limited subject which I intend to handle more particularly in its proper place and might perhaps confound my self and others with strange notions in the beginning which I intend not All these distinct faculties or operations we cannot well deny to be inherent and discernible in the wiser if I may so say sort of Brutes The two first viz. Affections and Will I suppose every man will grant to be apparent in the less seeming intelligent Animals and therefore I 'le not trouble my self to demonstrate after what manner they love and fear or the like nor dispute about their voluntary motions nor whence that voluntary motion may proceed whether from sense or passion or sometimes intellect For though I believe there is not a Sparrow that lighteth upon the House-top without a Divine providence yet I think it had a will to light on the House-top as well as I to write and could not be said to have an involuntary motion like an Arrow shot thither out of a Bow for in all involuntary motion there is requisite a second discernible working cause as well as a first cause But my enquiry concerning them shall be only in those three faculties referred to the intellect viz. Imagination Memory and Reason none of which I know well how to deny to be in several kinds of creatures in some sort beside man And first for Imagination which is the representation of some image or apparence in the Soul not at present introduced by sight c. and therefore may as well be sleeping as waking Though otherwise there appear no ground to us of their imagination which is internal yet such an effect there is often seen in them as cannot proceed from any other cause but some internal image of an outward object And this is discernible in sleeping Hounds and Spaniels whose bodies from thence are moved and agitated with such kind of motion and accompanied noise as if they were in pursuit and quest of their imagined prey or game For Memory he who denies its being in the Soul of Beast either believes not or has forgot the story of Darius his Horse or has not seen or observed the common course of Dogs and other creatures in hiding and covering their acquired food and upon occasion going as readily or dexterously as I may say to the place as any man could or has not been himself a common Master or Rider of Horses some of which in a maze of ways and turnings shall with the liberty of his Rein bring his Master to his accustomed home and indeed it 's strange to see divers creatures brought from their usual and accustomed place of residence after some time of stay by reason of some let and hindrance to return again many miles to their old abode which they could never so readily do nor could be effected as I suppose without the aid and help of what we call Memory Our chief enquiry will be whether we shall in any case allow them Reason which we have already so appropriated to our selves that we have differenced our Nature and Being from theirs in that only notion Toward the resolution of which we must enquire and define what Reason is now if Reason be only a conception by speech whereby we are able to explicate our minds and thoughts as some would have it we may well deny it to all creatures but our selves but if it be a discerning faculty of the Soul by which we judge with any election or choice what is or may be good or hurtful to it or to the body what is good and what is evil what to embrace or avoid we cannot deny it in some measure to be in meer Animals Whatever distinction is made between Instinct and Intellect when the word Reason is taken away from them and the word Fancy allowed to supply the place I do not think it amiss to admire God in them and though the best of their faculties quite differ in the extract from ours yet they are the work of the same God in a different manner and wonderful it is to see such faculties as we must needs allow them by some title or other to proceed from a corporeal substance only attenuated and rarified as I shall say anon and so similar to ours They were created with us for our use and service and all for God's glory and if we made a right use of our own rational faculty we should neither sometimes vilifie them as we do nor at other times extoll and enlarge their faculties beyond their due limits and bounds seeming rather desirous of having our own understanding admired among our selves by amplification of theirs than making any true state of our different cases thereby shewing our invention rather than our knowledge This we cannot but truly acknowledge that they having had no such lapse or fall as we work more wisely
Air and the Fishes of the Sea too and so far as we can discern we find them agree in their desires and delights with one another of the same species They have each their particular Food and rest contented satisfied and pleased therewith during their whole course of nature 'T is not with them as with us what one loves another loathes 'T would be a difficult matter to find an hungry Ox that would refuse Hay either when he is young or old A man may well ask Iob's question Doth the wild Ass bray when he hath grass or loweth the Ox over his fodder 't is man doth only that or the like when he hath what his fleshly heart can desire The Beasts are more constant and content and their Soul seems settled and the inhabitant of its proper Region they neither fear nor joy in excess their choices and elections are still alike and every Cock like Aesop's Cock will yet to this day prefer the Barley-corn before a Jewel though amongst men some prefer the one and some the other I speak thus much for this cause only that viewing the Soul of man in its very inferiour faculties and finding it so various and disagreeing so little at a stay or at rest so fighting and combating so snatching and catching at it knows not what things neither useful nor profitable for the body or the mind it somewhat convinces me 't is a thing very capacious and that there is a place of fulness of joy or fulness of sorrow for it hereafter SECT VI. The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from the difference thereof between Parents and Children BEsides this some enquiry might be made into the different qualities of the Souls of men beyond those of Beasts in their ordinary workings though they inhabit or actuate Bodies which have their being from one and the same production For if the Soul of man were the ordinary work of Nature only a fine rarified vigorous quality in the Bloud Man receiving his body from his Parents by the ordinary course of Nature as other creatures do his Soul would always somewhat resemble that of his Parents too and Brethren twins especially would resemble one another in the faculties of their Souls as well as 't is often seen they do many ways in the Body But there is generally found as between Iacob and Esau such dissimilitude in the Spirits of Brethren and those of Father and Son Mother and Daughter as greater is not to be found between meer strangers in bloud which thing daily experience will not only demonstrate upon search but may be readily found in the Histories of Princes in all Ages Now the Soul of Beast being the bare product of flesh only and necessarily taking its rise and essence from the substance of its Parents if I may so call them for the word may be proper enough pario being only to bring forth or produce never varies much or altogether at any time from that of the Parent We shall never find an absolute Jadish Spirit in a Horse begot from free and well-bred ones nor a meer Curr from right good Hounds no not in one of his senses the Nose or smell But if in any case they excell or degenerate from their Stock 't is by degrees and not per saltum which thing per saltum may be found and observed in the Race of men And besides this variation of the Souls of men from Birth there sometimes happens on the sudden a strange kind of total Metamorphosis of the Soul of man so as one would scarce adjudge it the same but according to Scripture phrase that one becomes a new man and this without any alteration at all of the Bodies constitution Now if the Soul of man were not a substance of it self capable to be wrought on ab extra by somewhat without any introduction by the senses then no such alteration without the Bodies alteration could be made but through the senses and if such alteration were made from sense through the Organs of the Body then upon the shortest obstruction or letting in of prior forms again the Soul would consequently return to its pristine state according to that simile of the dog to his vomit c. which change or alteration in the Soul of man we see sometimes settled and remaining notwithstanding all interposition during a long following life Thus we find that men have utterly contemned and hated without any offence raised from the thing it self even with a perfect hatred that which was formerly their delight which kind of hatred never yet happened or was discernible in Beast Now if any man shall ask me At what time the Soul of man being a substance of it self distinct from the Body enters and possesses the Body I can make him a reply with as difficult a question At what instant doth this other arising product Soul from the Bloud begin its circulation and move If we know neither why should it seem more wonderful and strange to us for the God of Nature upon man's conception in the womb to create and have ordained a Spirit to actuate that conception which Spirit should continue for ever notwithstanding that conception should decay and perish for a time as well as that there should arise a Spirit from the Bloud to actuate move and govern the Body for a certain period of time which time we could never define certainly from any course of Nature And further that the wise Creator and Governour of all things should ordain that if the first created Spirit to inhabit a Body both together being Man should wander in disobedience from its Creator all others sent and entring into Bodies product from the Loyns of the first Body should be infected with the same wandring disease and have no cure but by Grace from the first Creator But I would not wander too much my self nor desire to pry into any of God's secrets further than he has thought fit to reveal by his Holy Word and so shall lay aside my thoughts of the manner of Man's creation every way wonderful as the Psalmist expresses it as also the consideration of the inferiour faculties for the present and try and see if there be not some sparks in the Soul of man which give such a light as can by no means naturally arise from any thing barely and simply terrestrial SECT VII The Immortality of the Soul of man illustrated from its unweariedness in searching c. and its reflex acts and operations WHy has the Soul of man in all Ages when it has been at any time withdrawn from that quick intromission of worldly objects by the senses and has not been hindred or obstructed by some mists fogs or lets of the flesh wherein at present 't is confined to work hunted after wearied and tired it self to find out and comprehend what it is not able to comprehend The first sin of man shewed at once the Soul's error and its
occasion to speak when I shall enquire which of the faculties of the Soul may seem primary in operation yet I think even native reason in some men is able so to throw a Vail over the senses and frame the imagination that there may be conceived in the imagination some more glorious and amiable thing than it can well conceive and from that conception it shall have readily attending it a sensitive love as we call it that is a motion of the heart from some Nerves or Tendons at least a fixation of the heart not to move too extravagantly but be readily obedient to the dictates of reason and I see no ground why we should with reason hope to quite discard them from its obedience or have our passions and affections clean rooted up lest by avoiding that which one kind of Philosopher resembled to the Itch that is be always desiring and joying loving and fearing c. we do light upon a kind of felicity which another Philosopher resembled to the felicity of a Stock or Stone I would not indeed willingly grieve but I had rather sorrow than never joy and the one can never be inherent without the other either rationatively or sensitively Reason I say has some ability and power yet left since our fall not only to correct and reduce the imagination but to direct and point it to seek after somewhat so that if all men should deny a pure rational love they may grant there may be a good sensitive love 'T is true the imagination from sense shews us no living creature better than our selves and we are apt to see through it as in a false glass some amiableness in our selves and so we become lovers of our selves more than lovers of God yet that little strength of reason does sometimes hinder and stop the imagination from presenting that false glass stays the affections from looking too much into it wins the imagination to take part with it self for a while in conceiving our vileness and then by consequence forces it to represent to the affections some amiableness in that being from whence all other things have their being and without which we cease to be any thing so as about some amiable good do the affections always move if they move From one of these two Mirrors I say do I think is the rise of the affections quatenus working in a Body the one of these Mirrors is clear yet false and only of the imaginations framing from sense the other is dark and cloudy unless amended by special grace but true and of reasons correcting The root of each Tree of affections whether bad or good springing from hence is Love Neither can I upon my review find cause to alter my opinion in my Treatise of comfort against loss of Children but do think that some innate faculty of love is the primary mover in the affections and thus I think it may sprout up and bring forth Trees of divers colour'd branches If we look in that false glass mentioned and by reflexion have a good opinion of our selves which is from a love of our selves there shoots out a branch called Pride or in short that is Pride If we become mounted in thoughts to exceed others that is Ambition if we see some cause as we think that others should have a good opinion of us that is Vain-glory if from this sight we are troubled that any other should seem to exceed us and withall there be an endeavour in us to exceed them that is Emulation but if it be only to supplant or hinder them that is Envy If we espy any opposition in another and behold that person as mean and not able to hurt us that is Contempt which is a kind of contumacy or immobility of the heart but if otherwise we discern an ability to hurt it is Frowardness Impatience Fretting Anger Hatred Malice or Revenge according to the nature of the Soil And here certainly Love must be agreed to be the root and to give being on either side There is no man ever opposes or does wrong for the wrongs sake it is to purchase to himself profit pleasure or repute and that is from the love of himself and therefore says Bacon wittily If a man do me wrong why should I be angry with him for loving himself better than me But to go on If we look after or espy ways or means to adorn beautifie and sustain our beloved selves be it by Money Lands or Goods that is Covetousness if we espy a failure in others of love mutual and reciprocal to our beloved selves where 't is expected that is Jealousie if we apprehend future danger or loss it is Fear if present Heaviness Sadness Sorrow if we espy any probable way or means of our acquiring or adding to our acquisitions Hope c. And after this manner might I reckon the springing or growth of all evil affections whatsoever On the other side if that true but dim glass be at any time presented or set before us and we receive any distant sight of an excellency and goodness in the Creator and continual preserver of the Universe our Love a little moves another way and raises a Tree of other manner of affections If we behold in that his Power his Justice or his Love there arises Fear if his Mercy then Hope Joy Comfort If we apprehend him a Protector against all injury Courage Trust and Fortitude if a Revenger of wrong Patience If we espy his providence and care there arises Contentedness if we discern our own inability Humility if our own evil dealings to others Meekness if our failings and errors Trouble Grief and Sorrow if affliction fallen on our Brethren Pity and Compassion and the like And were my opinion asked of the ground and cause of the most Heroick worthy or pious particular action ever done in the World I for my part should determine it in short to be the parties love to God or himself for if it be not the one that has made a man die willingly for his Country as the phrase goes I am sure 't is the other if not Charity some desire of a perpetual lasting Fame of his memory which is a love to and of himself Now whatever men pretend there neither is nor was nor will be any created Soul within a Body wholly exempt from any one passion or affection whatsoever And though some affections seem very contrary so as not to subsist together at least in any height or excess and therefore it was not without some wonder observed of Nero if I remember aright that he who singly beheld his Cruelty would believe he had no Lust and he who beheld his Lust apart would believe he had nothing of Cruelty in him yet they can and do subsist together And though some men may take their denomination from some one faculty or affection chiefly and most commonly predominant as for instance it may be said Moses was a meek man Nebuchadnezzar a proud man
is at this time much inclined to it as bold in words as the other were in deeds and feeding too greedily on causes for want of a good digestion resolve into Atoms But t is to be hoped there is less danger of Satan when he appears in his own colours than when in the form of an Angel of light and that he will not continue in that shape for any long time or season Now we have greater cause to judge or censure the greatest number of men thus liberal of their tongues and challenging them for their own or who is Lord over them as men full of new wine than those Mockers in the Acts did the inspired Galileans men of a quite contrary temper discourse or opinion The spirits of these kind of men in our daies are quick and aiery from their accustomed liquors and thereby forgetting all cares and sorrow they make a shift to forget their Maker too or at least remember him and his word no further than as they serve for subjects of their wit If Bacchus were banished the nation as he is at this day in Turky and drollery out of countenance and fashion these mens Oracles would soon be silent without any endeavour of a conviction of their falshood Which till one or both happen is not to be expected and I cannot not think there is any such absolute great necessity of studying and maintaining arguments against thâ—se men as there is of taking up Davids form of prayer for them Up Lord let not man have the upper hand Put them in fear O Lord that they may know themselves to be but men ignorant weak silly worms as well as we who can not own the least knowledge of him or any thing else but from him This thing fear has sometimes wrought a conviction when nothing else could seem to effect it That incomprehensible nothing as they call it which they say Fear has made our God is of that power and goodness now and then by this kind of means to be found of them who seek him not but even contemn him and dare him with their tongues Besides these men who do not always think as they speak nor speak as they sometimes think and some others no earnest nor eager Disputants in the case little exceeding beasts in knowledge yet much in making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof who would be content to dye the death of beasts and may seem therefore a little to favour that opinion Besides these there are a sort of engineers against God who out of the rusty artillery of some old Philosophers by a little new scowring filing or the like do frame and fit up weapons at all points and expose them to publick view and sale and stir up active spirits wanting other imployment to take them up and challenge all Combatants But whether self interest or self conceit has caused more men to take upon them this kind of trade art or mystery or which has bred up most pupils or best proficients is a point very disputable and controvertible However be it the one or the other or one rather than another at any time I am somewhat confident there would not be so great vent of this kind of stuff nor so many Chapmen for it if some men who cannot well indure the sight of this commodity did not take upon them and use so great labour and pains to cry it down but would rather in some manner slight and contemn it What ever singular opinion any man may raise within himself about the system of the Universe or Original frame of the now visible World different from the general received opinion of mankind I cannot think he do's at any time vent it and that varnish'd with the best colour'd reason or flourish'd Rhetorick he can procure out of any good will he bears to mankind in general to disburthen them of causeless and needless fears or that he thinks it will prove any advantage to the world to have a mind all-knowing just merciful c. cashier'd out of mens thoughts or exchanged for a fortuitous operation of Atoms There is no man in his right wits would desire a cure of the fear of these attributes mixed or united in one eternal mind nor need they who talk against it fear it if they would return and humbly seek to approach it Now if any men make all this ado as we say and stir to have their quick or deep inspect into nature their strength of judgment or profoundness of learning had in admiration as it may be reasonably collected some do Those men are then usually as well pleased to find Antagonists as pupils and converts and think they have not shewed their parts and endowments sufficiently and thoroughly enough to the world unless they have some ground to demonstrate them a litle further by a reply And therefore all occasions of offering the gauntlet to these men would be carefully avoided If any man suspecting he has heretofore served God for naught has set on broach new opinions or old ones new trimm'd up dressed and varnish'd framed and modelled too for the allowance or approbation or rather justification of the doings of some great ones in power whose constant actions all along have seemed to defy a righteous and just God though perhaps the parties sometimes feared one judging it a ready way to advance his own fortune by telling men in authority they are masters of their own and that right of dominion is nothing but what men give or take for their present security after this manner striving to demonstrate there is no God to those who would be well content and pleased there were none If there be any such I say and doubtless some such one or other there may have been a thing best known to a mans own conscience even such a man would sooner relent and acknowledge his errors if men would seem silently to pity him only and not send him bravado's and challenges to defend them We do not know after what strange manner indigence or want may upon Gods a little forsaking for a time set the soul on work How from thence all manner of affections do rise up in arms together as it were at one time and so beget such disquietness or disease in the soul that reason shall swallow down any thing which the imagination shall bring in for wholesom food without struggling against it which the whole soul would willingly reject and cast up after as nauseous if it could do it privately But it is seldom seen that this ever happens if the affections become outwardly irritated or provoked to defend that of which they might seem to be the original cause I thank God I never actually knew what strange kind of Diana's that master of arts the belly or that grand weapon necessity were able to forge in my brains but I do think or rather fear that if I had once framed some strange monster there and brought it
Why give me leave to tell him Knowledge Wisdom Power Truth Mercy Justice Love Goodness and the like for I hope we may safely affirm as well as some Philosophers that there is morality in the nature of God and that his happiness consists as well in goodness as in power and knowledge united in one eternal mind is that God which we adore not through amazement and out of a confounded astonishment bestowing these attributes on him but rationally believing they are essentially compleat and perfect in such mind of which ours is some image or shadow but now dark and imperfect Moses brings in God himself speaking after this strange manner My spirit shall not always strive with man and this came to pass at such time as men began to multiply on the face of the earth and this happy solitude God and a mans self seemed to be rejected for visible company The citing any books of Moses to an Atheist will 't is likely prove to little purpose perhaps he may say Moses was an Impostor if not worse and to talk of God's spirit under any notion whether grace of illumination or sanctification c. will be to as little purpose until a man has some knowledge of his own spirit I will only say this more That if any man please to follow my advice and withdraw himself a little from the world and all company in an humble manner in relation to enquiry on that subject Himself How himself so intellectual from whence and whom himself or the like he may perchance find a striving or strugling within himself in relation to that other subject matter God Whether it be his own spirit or somewhat else that so strives or struggles in him I will leave to his own determination This I am sure of that upon such withdrawing and search he will be afraid there is some such thing as a God and I believe for that present instant would venture a considerable summ for the return of an infallible assurance there were no such thing and he is a most insensible man that would venture a farthing to be secured from that which his reason plainly tells him is impossible says that most excellent Author whom I had rather cite than seem to rob though such notion came into my head as of it self before reading him and why then should he not confess his fears and jealousies Those fears and jealousies are an heavy nauseous burthen to the soul retained and kept in but cast up and discharged in that manner will cause very much present ease and may fit and prepare the soul to let into it a more pleasing and cordial belief in relation to a Deity than such an one as that of Felix which only makes it tremble I doubt not but you have sometimes as well as I thought on the madness of the people and more especially these two seeming kind of opposite mad-men I have mentioned both equally bold with God the one avouching him as the sole and immediate spring of all his good and such he is ready to term any or most of his own whatever they seem to others thoughts and motions and that in an high and admirable sense and notion not in his providence but by his very spirit The other denying that he is at all or that there is any such thing as either What either of these believe I know not or whether any of them really and cordially believes what he says I know not But whatsoever either of them believes 't were to be wished for peace sake amongst us they sometimes would be more sparing of their speech especially the latter And I think he might in prudence soonest be silent because I cannot judge of any great design he should have to gain proselytes whatever the other may But the best way to quiet them both is I have thought and do think not to provoke them over much but leave them a little to themselves that so by degrees they may through Gods providence over us seem to be at quiet of themselves And I beseech almighty God that none of us ever provoke other in the way of dispute out of some secret lurking passion the love of somewhat else rather than the love of truth the sight whereof if we are once so happy as to behold and can but retain any glimmering light thereof the same will reduce us to unity of mind and not set us at discord and variance Shall I in the conclusion of this Epistle plainly tell you the result of some of my solitary thoughts in relation to the fluttering motion of our spirit here That though it be governed and enlightned in some case by that good spirit of God the very eternal spirit of truth yet it is unsafe and dangerous for us to conclude when and how far we are thereby actuated further than the bare embracing that eternal word by faith as the alone Saviour of the world That the providence of God may be safely averred and affirmed in all things and that it is or may be visible to all men and he who beholds it not in some degree is not rational That were there not some foreign or operative power ruleing in and over our spirit besides what is natural or what we call nature that is any absolute power it has of it self it could not notwithstanding any present lust of the flesh or eyes be drawn any wise to promote any act the inevitable consequents whereof viz the disquiet of it self and disease of the body it naturally loaths and abhors upon consideration And that consequent certainly every soul more or less foresees in all intestine division and civil War That he who considers our late past troubles and the madness of the people then may safely conclude our punishment therein was from God's just vengeance for our sins in his providence And that if he thinks there was any thing of his spirit therein as was then much pretended or contributing or assisting thereto he is besides himself That if the like madness now beginning to possess us again perhaps through the general neglect of our ordinary duty to God or the like break not out into open rage and hostility I will without hesitation affirm 't is the merciful providence of God alone and what we can scarce rationally expect beholding our selves to sin so much against the light of reason And thus much may any man see That the soul of the wisest man at best receives but a dim and short sight of the truth of things and causes that if such sight at any time happen through the goodness and bounty of the Deity it is apt to vanish again on the suddain by reason of the interposition of some clouds arrising from the flesh so as the soul cannot long behold it nor know where to fix but in faith of some future clearer vision That Man cannot find out the work that is done under the Sun because though a man labour to seek it
Universal World to shew me how Nature in her Work often changes even as to visible mutation of colours and to set down any rationally undeniable or incontroulable cause for instance of black or blackness nay such as I am not able in Reason to convince him of the uncertainty and dubiousness thereof That she follows any certain especial course therein no man will maintain in things of the same species That not only in Sheep a thing most common white of both Sexes for many descents produce black we find but even Crows and Daws sometimes do the like or contrary and produce white as I have sometimes seen and I suppose at this day may be seen at Saint Iames's And though it might be rare it would not appear a miracle to me but the Work of Nature to behold a black Swan The like I could demonstrate in Fruit both Plums and Cherries from Stones of another colour'd Fruit set together in the same bed of Earth black from white or red and white from black Men may talk of some portion of Mercury Salt or Sulphur in every Body adust torrified sindged or the like but how this adustion works sometime in peculiar forms and figures only let any man tell me That alteration of colour is at any time an effect of the Imagination is a thing utterly exploded and never was other than the whimsy of some mens imagination or fancy surely never any man obtained fair or black Children from the greatest strength of his Imagination If it were able to work such an Effect we should be all very fair from hope or black from fear since Passions very much strengthen if not create or ingender an Imagination However if any such thing were thus wrought in living Creatures it cannot hold in Plants which have no Imagination I know men from their imagination have adventured to set down Causes of Colours and thought verily they hit on the right and yet have been corrected by another mans imagination rather than any solid Reason Aristotle tells us the cause why there are to be found more delicate and lively colours in the Feathers of Birds than in Hairs of Beasts is this For that Birds are more within the Raies or Beams of the Sun that Beasts are Another comes and corrects him and say's he gives a vain and frivolous Cause for it and tells us the true and real Cause of it is for that the excrementitious moisture of living Creatures which makes as well the Feathers in Birds as Hair in Beasts passeth in Birds through a finer and more delicate streiner for Feathers pass through Quills and Hair through Skin And surely his true and real Cause is as little exempt of vanity unless he had been pleased or could have shewed us a Cause too why there should be so adjacent such variety of delicate Colours about the neck of a Cock-Pheasant produced from such neighbourly and similar Streiners nay three of four delicate Colours in one and the same Feather through one and the same streiner Or why in a Peacocks train at such an exact and equal distance from the Body Nature should produce that curious and delectable Colour in a peculiar form and shape and the excrementitious moisture in its streining should fail of its Beauty not only in its first and next but in its furthest and most remote motion and produce but a dull Colour at either end of the Quill Of the two opinions or causes I will give that of Aristotle the precedency because I find not only in Feathers but all Flowers that I have seen and observed that side of the Feather Leaf or Flower which is most directly within the Suns raies to be ever most beautiful and that Eye of Argus in the Peacocks train to have but a shadow of its Beauty or form on the lower reversed side And yet doubtless there are most curious Colours to be found in the very bowels of the Earth And I for my own part am neither able to give nor do I expect further or other substantial cause to be given of the beauty and splendor in any part of a Creature than the will of the Almighty in his Creation either for our pleasure in beholding or admiration to draw us towards him in considering the variety ornament and excellency of his Works Neither do I think there is any undeniable cause to be rendred why Stones ground to powder should not nourish as well as bread if God's fiat had been upon them as Satan seemed to tempt him I do not from hence go about to perswade you or any man to transplant and remove back again all final causes particular effects and fix them only and barely upon the first original cause of all things I know there are exterior Causes to be given for the blackness of this very Ink I write with and such as may not only satisfy an ordinary Reason to accept thereof as indubitable but such as may frame an ingenious Spirit towards the finding out some like useful invention But this I say there is such an intricacy in the veriest ordinary Works of Nature to him who looks any thing deeply and not superficially therein as is sufficient to shew us both our own weakness and folly and a transcendent Wisdom far above our reach Upon which there should be always one Eye fixed and ready upon all occasions to recall the other and also all our other senses and faculties permitted sometimes lawfully to ramble after second Causes And surely unless we set up fancy as I have said rather than Reason for Umpire it would so be and we should be forced at last as to the main to terminate in some hidden Cause A Cause indeed not altogether hid from us but set aside as unregarded that is there necessarily is One only Eternal immutable unchangeable Essence abundant in Power and Wisdom through its abundance shewing it self in variety in the least of whose Works being infinite there is more than humanity can comprehend which by a Law of Nature binding all things but it self continually worketh all in all What defence or Apology shall I then make first for permitting my thoughts to ramble in quest of the Nature or extract of the Soul of Beasts as well as my own and next for setting down my opinion thereof and exposing the same to publick view thereby seeming to endeavour to impose the same belief on others which I hold and maintain my self Why truly for the first it might be occasioned or at least augmented from a late private rural life and a conversation as I may say with Beasts as well as men I cannot say with the Preacher I gave my heart to seek and search out by Wisdom concerning all things that are done under Heaven but the later part of the verse may not unfitly be applied to me or others This sore travel hath God given to the Sons of Man to be exercised therewith or to aflict them or as some Translations to humble
distinct from the Spirit never was the occasion of falshood never wrought injustice and damage to any man Nor of it self unless from our neglect of its monitions became of evil consequence to any Argument or ratiocination as some men call it has but I do not take every seeming manifestation every Logical dispute or Rhetorical flourish to be at any time so much the proper effect of Reason as of invention or Imagination Perhaps that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying both Speech and Reason has not only made young Sophisters mistake themselves for the rational men but deceived the World into a plausible opinion of them and begat a Faith of many things contrary to Sense and Experience the best and trustiest Hand-maids Reason has in the Soul We have coined a multitude of English words from thence ending in logy to signify our rationality as Astrology to be a knowledg of the effect of the Stars Theology a dispute or dissertation of God or things Divine Analogy a comparing of things together Apology rendring of a cause or reason and the like When God knows how little of true Reason is made use of in relation thereto but words only And they might for ought I can perceive owe their derivation thither or from thence as well as the word Tautology And therefore though that Phrase of Speech be sometimes used in Scripture and which we translate reasoning I do not judge it to be spoken of or mean that pure natural human insight into the reality and truth of things upon consideration ever void of evil or just offence but a disputation private of words arising or offering themselves in the Soul from the Affections and Imagination or from the Imagination chiefly Saint Luke in the Parable of the Vineyard and those Husbandmen who would have killed the Heir that the Inheritance might be theirs uses the words ratiocinabantur inter se which Saint Matthew and Saint Mark both express by the word dixerunt And in the demur of the Scribes and Elders to our Saviours question about the Baptism of Iohn although all the Evangelists use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reasoned I have seen it in some Translations rendred thought I must confess Speech as I have touched before to be a certain demonstration of inherent Reason and therefore of an immortal Soul or Spirit but not therefore that all speech or argument proceeds chiefly from Reason that admirable faculty which of it self deceives not injures not or works at any time against right Can you or I or any sober unbiassed rational man upon due consideration believe or affirm unless where fancy supplies the place of Reason that any indeavour with the best and most polite arguments made thereupon for the disinherison of a lawful Heir by any of us who can challenge no right to the present disposition of the Inheritance proceeds from Reason Can Reason do or contrive any evil or injustice that good may come thereon perhaps in fancy only Do's it not teach us rather to suffer patiently whether by stripes imprisonment or death Do's it at any time teach us or instruct us to do or say what we would not have done or said in relation to our selves and this upon due examination and weighing in the ballance of Justice were our case theirs against whom we do or of whom we say He who has truly impartially acted or spoken thus has followed the dictates of right Reason not he who has used elaborate arguments to condemn or disable another in the case he would think it unjust to be disabled himself be the convenience or inconvenience to the generality of mankind never so great or pressing but has rather followed his own Imagination and the dictates of his own lust or affection which indeed is apt to delude and deceive not only other mens but even our own Reason in the end I may pray to confound mens counsel as David in the case of Achitophel I may pray to confound their devices as well as to abate their Pride and asswage their Malice as in our Liturgy I may pray to be delivered from absurd or unreasonable men But I shall never pray I think to confound any mans Reason that will never hurt me I am sure or deceive me But for want of it or exercise of it in my self I may be deceived The Poet says Reason neither deceives nor is deceived at any time in the first part of his assertion I fully agree with him It is that special emanation from Truth which of it self or by it self puts no fallacy on things nor works any evil as I said But unless by Reason he means that very light of truth or truth it self which is the thing we admire and adore by the name of God it is deceiveable Human Reason how strong soever is deceiveable and that through its tame compliance only to the work of the Imagination guided or directed as we may say by some base or corrupt or otherwise pitiful mean Affection and supplying its place Nay men do not only falsly impute all our wicked contrivances of deep reach and subtilty framed unto reason But even all our futile idle contrivances well and formally or curiously done to Reason too Every finely framed Romance every Eutopia or Atlantis every witty Poem the mere work of the Imagination we ascribe to that we are all become so rational Nay if we see but an exact Picture or Building we do as much when we might better do it in the model of every little Birds Nest. But as Reason in the former case disallows every thing that is apparently false or evil so in this it rejects of it self every work in the Soul and every contrivance of the Imagination not directly tending to the glory of our Maker the discovery of truth the reformation of mens manners or the like And doubtless at the instant work of the Imagination in relation to these contrivances though not directly hurtful of themselves many men have had some secret whisper within them first of the vanity thereof then upon a review perhaps have had some kind of Regret and in the end have censured and condemned themselves as guilty of a crime for such work that their Imagination or invention might have been better imployed as they say it fared with Sir Ph. Sidney Which could never be if reason had actually afforded its help towards the contrivance But in these very cases I think as in the former there is the immediate help and assistance of some Affection and that the Imagination is constantly attended therewith and elevated or inflamed thereby or else it would be otherwise imployed through sense and these pretty kind of Buildings would fall to the ground or vanish in oblivion before they were perfectly and compleatly finished And what kind of Affection is this why a desire of being admired for our fancy a light airy Affection and spawn of Pride nourished and fostered in the Imagination
in us from thence than from the inforced motion of any outward humane application We may desire and request men to exercise their Reason we may lay down before them the benefit and advantage they may reap thereby but we cannot properly be said to perswade them to it For 't is not a belief upon a bare consideration that what we at present say to them is true that is an exercise of Reason though belief in a strict sence be the work of Reason but upon consideration whether what we alledg may not be false A narrow scrutiny and voluntary search after truth is an exercise of Reason And this is the work in the Soul as it were of it self rather than from our perswasion or indeed the work of Grace which I commend We have in one place a kind of assertion of this power and ability in man to me seeming from one who elswhere ascribes all his good thoughts and actions as much and as oft to the effect of Gods Grace in him as any man whatsoever and that is St. Paul in the defence of himself before Foelix when Tertullus had accused him as a Pestilent fellow a mover of sedition and a ring-leader of a Sect That he had exercised himself to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men What can his meaning be herein by the words himself and exercise but by the one his Reason by the other a will and power annexed to that Reason given as a rein over the other faculties of the Soul that is for so I take his meaning to be that notwithstanding his opinion notwithstanding his Affections adhering cleaving to or going along with such opinion notwithstanding a subsequent will or desire that the World should imbrace that opinion or belief viz. of a Resurrection which he himself had entertained with the allowance and consent of Reason He endeavoured all along by his Reason so to keep those other faculties under subjection as that they became not offensive to God or man and from thence as I infer he implicitely avers That in entertainment of that opinion he neither imagined evil desired evil willed evil or prayed for evil to any man for dissenting from him in opinion that his Imagination was not hurried herein to gratifie any evil ambitious or vain affection that he neither meant or intended or could foresee the disturbance of the present Peace or Government of that Nation in the allowance or declaration of his belief that he neither desired or aimed at riches places preferment or popular applause or admiration thereby So as when he came to review and re-examine his past thoughts and actions in the judicatory of his Reason he doubted not but he should find quietness of mind and no disturbance amongst the faculties of his Soul nor God nor man justly offended thereby I wish we all in matter of belief endeavoured as much that is exercised our Reason therein I affirm we may and can and that is the readier way by this work from within to obtain and procure his words are there ad habendam a Conscience void of offence than by the Imagination raise a Chimaera in the Soul a Conscience vulnerable in complaint from without a thing only offended when the Imagination and Affections are crossed in their course together and not else I do not presume here to propose or offer this exercise of Reason which I affirm to be in the power of most of us to do as any absolute way or means by which our Imagination and Affections may be reduced to work and lay hold on that which is good only that I refer to the only fountain of all intellectual as well as other beings through our humble Address and application thereto in Prayer from some sense of our own weakness and reserve it for a Conclusion but as a preparative thereto Neither has my Imagination hitherto so far out run my Reason or so supplied the place thereof as to make me believe St. Paul or any other was ever wholly void of offence or trouble of mind thereby But my Reason I trust to say so informs me that did we make that use of it we could or should we might espy the fallacy of our Imagination in many particular if not most cases of our life And to endeavour to awake it in our selves or others if these Papers happen to be seen is my chief aim and I hope and trust it will prove no cause of offence Experience something more than memory for 't is a judgement passed upon memory methinks might help us a little 'T is to Reason as memory to the Imagination A Fort to resort to sometimes from which it makes its sally or exit usually with some greater strength and vigour than before And methinks if Reason were not Master in us before this thing Experience which is certainly Mistress in most of us might help to make it so To see we have been deceived by our Imagination and that from thence a kind of false or feigned belief has been raised in us is sure the readiest way to prevent deceit for the future and raise in us a more true and substantial belief from Reason How oft have we observed our Affection nay our whole Soul disturbed and disquieted through the delusion of this one faculty in us the Imagination Has not that often put divers and various colours upon Objects as it were through Sense at several times and upon several occasions while Sense continues one and the same to day and to Morrow Have we not as it were Yesterday beheld things as Delightful Beautiful and Pleasant through that false glass only which to day we do not Has not that alone and not Sense raised the Proverb of the Crow He who has at several times received favours and disgraces from Court He who has at several times received admission and denial to Church preferment with either of which I was never acquainted or concerned is better able to set forth to the life his various prospects through this glass than I and better describe how ugly or beautiful the feet of those men from whom he has received both denial and admittance obstruction and furtherance have seemed at several times and I wish some men would consider it Is it not the strength of this one faculty alone so predominant often in us that introduces various forms of one and the same thing Beasts do love and fear as well as we from sense of a particular Object but I can scarce conjecture the Imagination in them can so far alter the form of the Object as to make it seem various to several Beasts of the same species at one and the same time This we find and may observe it does in us Men a Bush at a distance will seem to one his appointed Friend to another his Lover to a Third a wild Beast to a Fourth a Thief to a Fifth an evil Spirit and to a Sixth a good Angel according as
faculty in mans Soul and the other faculties to be raised and created thereby and to work in obedience thereto as I hold it does in Beast But so long as I find I have willed I have affected I have imagined without the help beyond the reach and sometimes as it were in a direct opposition to Sense I shall continue to believe my Soul is somewhat more than an extracted quintessence of the Body and subject to the influence of some incorporeal power Nay were not the Imagination at least subject to the influence and stroke of some supernatural invisible insensible power II. There would necessarily be a certain concatenation of my thoughts and a dependance upon each other until they were interrupted and broke in sunder by some immediate stroke through Sense which happens not at all times as may be observed I do here agree that there is generally as I have touched a concatenation of all mens thoughts even at such time as they seem to ramble upon some prior inlets through Sense without any introduction or help through present Sense But yet narrowly inspected we shall find and observe the Imagination now and then to catch and lay hold on or rather to be caught with things strangely different from and independent of what it last entertained and that a thought may succeed a thought such as has neither the least dependance with the former nor yet can be found to proceed from the stroke of any Object through Sense present or prior For instance After a long sleep wherein the Imagination has roved some few hours and in those few hours has touched upon a thousand several things and each several prior thing might be found the cause of introduction of the subsequent if the impression were so deep or our memory so good in sleep as to afford us any ground for asearch and observation and judgment thereon we no sooner awake whether through a vain fear or joy attendant upon a vain Imagination or otherwise from a sufficient temporary refreshment of the Body c. but there is sometimes darted as it were into our Imagination we may say before our Reason is awake something as clean different from independent of and contrary to all our past thoughts as may be or is possible perhaps very divine thoughts such as were not in us at any time before possess us for a while and pass away again without due regard or examination perhaps good moral thoughts of Justice c. clean different from what we had at any time before arise in us and this in such dark and quiet silence of the night as no Sense could help it to catch hold on unless that of feeling by which these thoughts certainly could never arise Nay we will put this waking case of the Imagination if I were looking and lusting and withal contriving to satisfy my what some men may admit innocent Lust that is all my faculties were busied and imployed in the fulfilling thereof and no battery through Sense is made upon me nay no recollection from any former stroke through Sense occurs to me If I shall on the suddain be startled through Imagination and begin to think that which I never thought before my Will and Affectons still standing bent and inclined as they were before that the thing I am now about is evil be it Reason Conscience or Grace or whatsoever men are pleased to call it that is the cause of such thought most certainly my Imagination is not the Subject of a bare stroke through Sense only but somewhat more For to think clean contrary on the suddain to what a man thought without the help of Sense nay perhaps against the present delectancy of Sense shews more of a mere spiritual effect in the Soul than bare independency of thought can do And he who finds not and acknowledges this sometimes strange stroke upon his Spirit upon his Imagination at least if it go no further is wholly deprived of the custody of that seal or stamp of the Imagination which we call Memory or else is very stubborn The Soul is doubtless a good subject to think on If the very thoughts of it in general raise not such a sight and such a belief in man as shall make him endeavour to pursue that which is good and right in the sight of all men It will raise such a doubt attended with some kind of fear of its perpetuity as shall somewhat obstruct his pursuit of that which is evil and naught in the sight of all men But above all the very thought of his thoughts in particular how strangely they arise how inconsistently they work how insensibly they are imployed shall amaze him for the present and at length drive him to the invocation of some Spiritual Eternal Omnipotent being Lord evermore keep this door of our Soul this common passage that nothing enter thereby to the pollution or disfiguring this most admirable frame in Nature lodged in human Body for the present but made to endure after the dissolution thereof to thy Glory whether by misery or happiness and though parted from that Body for a time never to vanish Keep it shut against all deadly and destructive assaults from Satan and his Emissaries Never let it be wrought upon to contradict Sense directly and Reason too though it sometime surmount both through thy gracious influence When a man begins to think how far his thoughts are out of his power how little his own or of himself and who is there that now and then thinks not after this manner and that Sense is not the only inlet to the Soul but we are often led by the Spirit into temptation as well as guided to that which is good It is sufficient to make a man besides himself I confess and on the one hand if he pursue that which is palpably evil in the sight of most men to excuse his sloth with a kind of inability in himself to resist and on the other hand if he find out or light on that which is good but in his own conceit and Imagination to mount a little too much above himself and conclude he is graciously inspired This notion of an insensible Spirit working in man and this insensible thinking say some proceeds from a scurvy black humor in the Blood only called Melancholy Well let it be so thought by some for the present for it cannot be made out so long as we retain our Reason to correct our thought in some measure think not too highly nor too dejectly of our selves are not dismaid nor altogether confounded in thought And then in that thing called Reason Let any man first waving his objection of Melancholy as much a chimaera of his making in some cases as any God of mine shew me and convince me by any satisfactory argument why my thoughts if but thoughts alone have been thus intent and busied on this subject the Soul of man whence it is how and after what manner it works beyond many
them a free passage and give them a quick return by way of acknowledgment to that bountiful Ocean of goodness as the necessary means of a fresh supply I know nothing but that Agrippa his Oration might be good nay so good as a Stander by might in a good Sense take it to be rather the voice of God than man but if his Auditors acclamation in applying it solely to him were gross flattery I am sure his reception in that strict and narrow Sense must needs be a damnable presumption Satan is a subtle Politician and doubtless many who in the beginning of their race have set forth with an eye only or chiefly fixed on the Glory of God and the general good of man have by baits thrown in and casually happening in the way diverted their eyes a little from the course they first steered and cast them inward on themselves and at last converted publick aims to private or at least so intermixed or allayed them as that they could not be taken for currant And when once our actions begin to carry upon them our own image and superscription it will be no difficult matter for the Devil to perswade us to own the Metal as well as the Coin and make us think and own our selves as well Miners as Forgers of our dependants fortunes and our own But he who steers chiefly towards God's Glory and holds out in a streight and steddy course whatever outward glorious acquisitions as we sometimes call them and Scripture allows he obtains collaterally As he will find no cause to condemn himself so neither do I and as no man I am sure can find just Reason to envy his Worldly Power Pomp and Authority knowing at the best and honestly obtained how transitory and fading all Worldly habiliments are So none of us can justly condemn or accuse such a man of vain glory but we may allow him some such Euge as David took up upon another account Good luck have he with his honour let him ride on And we who seem to want what such a man enjoys may by our contentedness in a mean estate with chearfulness and alacrity glorify God together with him since the World is able to afford Power Authority great Place and the like only to a few and small number of men This Gloria in excelsis by the way ought to be the Canticum of our Souls in all our travail and to have its rise from our strongest and best Affection It should be the Motto we carry along with us but in a white Banner as the Ensign of peace and not that of In nomine domini in a bloody and warlike one It is indeed a most angelical Anthem yet it must be taken whole as they sang it or not at all I have wondred at the once leaving out Gloria patri c. appointed to be as the bearing of those Heavenly Songs or Hymns of David and have sometimes thought it would never have been ordered to be omitted unless by those who desired neither peace on Earth nor good will towards men This is a thing if any to be preferred above our own salvation and I must take leave here to be of opinion It was this alone which made St. Paul wish himself Anathema for in my weak judgment I cannot take the meaning of those words usher'd in with such a serious protestation as I speak the truth in Christ I lye not my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost otherwise I cannot think his Charity did so abound or overflow as that he wished his brethrens salvation before his own as some For to wish evil to ones self is impossible and to wish anothers good before ones own is so too and also irregular we being at utmost commanded to love our Neighbour but as our selves the whole heart is only due to the Maker and Framer of all hearts for whose Glory all things were made But this I think is his meaning that were it possible God's Glory could once come in competition with ones own or other mens salvation the first were to be preferred by us And this he brings in as a Preface to his explanation of God's promise made to Abraham's Seed that all are not children of the promise which are Abraham's Seed but some others and is an answer to an objection which might be made by the Romans to whom he preached that promise as seeming contrary to the letter thereof Were God as cruel to some one peculiar part of his image as kind to others under the Notion of Predestination as some have represented him in their fancies and so rendred all his Precepts and his Promises of none effect which God forbid And were I assured notwithstanding all my diligence all my indeavours and earnest requests to perform his will that I might obtain his promise that I were one of that irrecoverably secluded number I do yet at this present think I could notwithstanding any such assurance make my exit in these very words Glory be to God on high or sanctisicetur or magnificetur nomen tuum And certainly who ever makes a true search into himself and consults his Reason whereby he will find God's prerogative far greater over us than the Potter over his Clay will find cause to do as much Well! he who keeps within such a path as points and tends directly to God's Glory and the general good of mankind God's visible Image without turning quite out of it into some other By-path or corner what ever ornaments or covering he gets which are often scattered in the way he may lawfully take up and wear and which we esteem and account of as good worldly Blessings But yet notwithstanding we so do when we consider how cumbersom they are and how troublesome they often prove to the owner and injoyer especially all outward ones which concern the Body barely and which when superfluous are reserved but for one Sense to feed upon that is the Eye we may with Reason reject them And though some men have made a shift sometimes to keep on those Plumes and Feathers of Honours Riches c. and wore them perhaps both safely and easily during their lives Yet since we are able dayly to behold how certainly they are shed or moulten by every mans Posterity if not stripped from them by force and violence and that usually in a very short space of time although they were thought by the Ancestor very fast pinnion'd to his progeny We can by no means exempt any of them from that title Solomon has given them Nay we have thought and said that even Fame her self which has the most lasting Feathers and strongest Wings may yet lose them and perish in oblivion And therefore there is no Reason for man to be very eager in the quest of any thing this World is able to afford him neither can we think but our most fortunate Worldly contrivers and happy men as we esteem them infected in some degree with
we see hear or feel the Effects As concerning any such like future motion the cause of the Wind whence it comes or whither it goes which the Text tells us we know not that is Reason's inquiry and it must be Reason's eye that beholds ought thereabout And what is from thence brought into the Soul is of some continuance a thing no ways incident to Beasts and that which we call belief which whatever it be continues the same till Reason be consulted again and inform otherwise If I believe the Wind to be fluent air If I believe it to be caused by some fermentation like that in our Bodies upon meeting of divers humors upon the concourse of several Atoms If I believe it is sent out of the caverns of the Earth c my belief in each case continues all the while the same till Reason frame another in my Soul Nay Sense shall not alter a belief without some consult of Reason and therefore a belief once raised or framed do's upon every touch of Sense make a kind of resort to Reason for its allowance or disallowance for its continuance as it is or its change For instance if I once believe that you love me or have a kindness for me If after I hear otherwise from others or see a strangeness in your countenance or feel some hard usage from you before the alteration of this first setled opinion or belief there will necessarily be some consult of Reason whether this or that may not be and yet your Affection continue firm Now if Reason do not weigh things by it self but listens only to the introduction of Sense so far forth as to change my belief without due examination this is the thing which I call Credulity and for which Reason is negligent and to blame Though I allow a Will in Brutes Imagination or Cogitation Memory and such a kind of Reason as by and through Sense co-operating with those faculties guides them in a regular motion and may be said to create a knowledge in them yet without Sense it is idle and nothing And can neither put a stop to the Affections in opposition to Sense nor create any such thing as a belief which is a matter effected above and beyond Sense though not clean contrary to Sense as some would have us to believe and through human Reason and is the consequent in such a Soul only as shall be able to work when the windows of Sense shall be shut up or Sense shall be no more Many Beasts are quick of Sense and so of knowledge I grant and may be said to be sensibly rational but not rationally sensible or so much as to consider their Sense or raise any belief about it And this is the utmost I am able to judge of their capacity for I must confess and acknowledge that could I discern more or could any man discover to me some certain indubitable sign of any such rational motion in them at any time as to give a check to their Affections which is the thing I call Conscience or create a light in them out of the reach of Sense and raise an evidence of things not seen which is the thing I adjudge to be Faith or Belief and which the weakest human Soul is in some measure capable of and I doubt not but Divine Grace does sometimes shine upon such beyond our inspection It would overthrow my opinion of their annihilation or else much shake and batter my belief of our own Immortality The Fowls of the Heaven are of so quick Sense as that thereby perceiving the alteration of the Air by a kind of adjunct Reason accompanying that Sense they know their appointed time as 't is said of the Stork and move accordingly yet being uncapable to foresee or judge of any cause thereof they cannot be said to believe ought thereabout before or after Undoubtedly the Ox may know his Feeder from another man as sure as the Feeder knows the Ox from another Beast but the Ox cannot believe any thing of the Feeder that he may or will hurt him upon a displeasure as the Feeder may of the Ox for that must proceed from Reason's inquiry or information above or beyond Sense Many Creatures when they feel pain or are sick and sensible thereof have such a kind of Reason ready attendant as often effectually works their cure without inquiry into natural causes and so may be said to know the cure but yet without an inspect into natural causes 't is impossible to believe it and therefore 't is that rational sight only that creates a belief and is in no wise the sight of Sense Now when from Reason there is raised in the Soul of man especially with concurrence of some Sense collateral as I may say to the thing believed a firm and indubitable belief of any thing we make use of the word knowledge and say we know and yet in truth there is no more than a belief in the case For instance I know I shall dye Now if I had never seen man dy or heard of death I should by my Reason observing my decay and waxing old as a garment verily believe some such thing but withal seeing and hearing continually of the death of others I rest assured I shall dy and so say I know But my own death being absolutely out of the reach of Sense I cannot properly be said to know so much neither does what I say therein amount to any more than a belief And so it is in many like cases where we say We know as where Iob says as we translate it I know that my redeemer liveth there is no more to be understood than a firm strong Faith the like of St. Iohn Baptist giving knowledge of salvation And so I think is St. Paul to be understood in that Chapter where he mentions knowledge so often Now a Beast neither knows or believes any thing of his own death for that as the causes and symptoms of death are out of the reach of his Reason which only accompanies Sense and is nought without it So his very death is out of the reach of Sense it self and he cannot know it For this reason perhaps some may think them the more happy Creature but if we consider it and make good use of our Reason we shall find that over and above that superlative prerogative of beholding in a manner and so believing future happiness we have here a great benefit and advantage by it above other Creatures and are enabled from hence to quit the Affections which otherwise would be disturbed by the often false alarms of Sense to which they are subject and so keep our Soul from being wounded by any thing from without Knowledge I say is a thing of the meaner extract the product of Sense and in no wise of Reason neither is Reason the parent thereof in any case unless in some case of Conscience a thing so much talked of and which I
his name might be declared throughout all the Earth as St. Paul tells the Romans from that place Affection in man as in my thoughts of the Soul I have already touched seems often the most disorderly and irregular thing in the course of Nature And therefore could I once prevail with any man so far as seriously to consider the strange motion of it in himself or others I do think it might prove the readiest way to quiet it for a time and dispel those misty clouds which are raised in the Soul by the very restless struggling of the Affections and enlighten it to behold a constant working providence over all its faculties and especially to win and regain that very part of it for what is our understanding to our Creatour but to admire him but our Affections are given to embrace him and to have our Affections become inflamed thitherward Sometimes our Intellect cannot but observe how strangely and suddainly the Affections are cooled moved or restrained beyond its foresight or prospect We see or hear or read a thing an hundred times and it may be then think our Intellect clear and discerning too and yet not become affected with it And it may be these our waters at some other times are rapidly moved not from the Imagination I shall rather chuse to say from some Angel coming down at certain seasons that Assistant I mean or Framer of the Intellect that spirat quo vult Otherwise the same words could never strike so much deeper into one onely it may be of a great Auditory and he none of the quickest apprehension or naturally or usually most discerning Spirit and that to the subduing of an unruly Affection equally predominant in many others of the same Auditory I know there is no man but has loved and feared and joyed sometimes without any apparent or discernible cause to himself or any other and if he would or could but observe so much he might possibly discern somewhat more than chance in the disposition if not Creation of his Soul Some and not the meanest Wits have stood at a maze at the Affections motion especially And though they looked no higher than themselves yet terminated in some occult cause such as the blindness and sometimes edge and sometimes dulness of their Affections It may perhaps seem to many but a mean distich of the Poet Non amo te Sabadi nec possum dicere quare Hoc tantum possum dicere non amote but I must crave leave to judge otherwise of it and that he saw by that as far as ordinary human Reason is able to shew us and I take his meaning to be that such is the condition of man as that notwithstanding there be often presented to the Affections an invitation without exception and sufficient ground and reason offered to them to imbrace and accept yet they are stubborn and decline it and want something more than natural human light to bring them to compliance There are thousands doubtless have received all the endearments imaginable from particular persons and thought well of them but never heartily affected them And on the other side notwithstanding all the scorn and contempt injuries and affronts they could receive from others have yet heartily and truly loved them So as 't is no wonder the Heathen amongst all their Gods thought only Love blind and so represented him to us Indeed upon the beholding and consideration of any the least Plant or Insect there is a glance offered of some power wonderful and to be admired But that power is chiefly to be seen in ordering ruling and determining the Passions and Affections of men sometimes preventing them from breaking forth in an Insurrection and then suddenly quenching the fire that the World be not thereby in a greater flame This doth the Psalmist ascribe to him Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain I do think some rational accompt in Nature might be given of the motion of celestial Orbs and no less of the Spirits of Beasts Why there is so much and such apparency of gentleness and meekness and patience in the Lamb and in the Dove and why at all times the contrary and so quick and ready a will of revenge in the Bee and the Wasp that Passion and Affection in several Creatures should so much differ and yet the one not exceed the other in Intellect But why several men sprung from one and the same stock in Nature should now and then resemble each Creature in point of Affection and exceed them either way I know not unless by such a wise working Power as ordering the result of all human Affections to its glory in the end should permit the sometimes mad pursuit of them Whereof Reason as his present gift is sufficient to demonstrate their Error â—â—d so justly condemn them and Grace only to reclaim them That men should adventure their Lives and Fortunes yea their Souls too and hack and hew one anothers Bodies in pieces to please the appetite of an ambitious and covetous Prince nay perhaps some less apparent Meteor some one or two Subjects designing either to build on the ruins of others abroad or divert mens eyes for a while from looking into their own corrupt and base designs and practices at home or the like What is it but some base rubbish of Affection in the generality of mankind sympathetically as I may say kindled by the heat of some ambitious desire in particular Persons or highly inflamed in them at least by the Devil or some evil Spirit I am sure there is nothing of Reason or Prudence nay or Nature could lead the generality of mankind in companies into such design since you may quickly and easily convince almost every particular Person of them that it is safer and better to be quiet at home But when this fire is once throughly kindled in a Nation and every ones hand is against his Brother he knows not why How strangely and how suddainly do we see this fire when there 's apparent matter enough left put out and extinguished and those scattered who delight in Wars On the other side notwithstanding the fierceness of man which every way turns to Gods Praise as the Psalmist says how readily and easily do we often daily see a multitude governed by such Cobweb human Laws as they are able at any time to break through and want not the greatest part will to their power and yet they are led often all their days like sheep by the hands of weaker and worse shepherds than Moses and Aaron who feed them not but rather poll and sheer or fleece them without resistance For either of which rather than the stay of the raging of the Sea if any man can pierce so deep into that thing he calls Nature as to shew me any single undeniable cause therein nay I might say any colourable cause other than the Will of one single Eternal Wise Power for secret purposes
only known unto it self I will adhere to him and relinquish that opinion I at present hold of Providence EPIST. X. Of Credulity and Incredulity the rise of both and that Credulity of the two is of more pernitious consequence And of the Evil of imposing on others or creating or raising a belief on false or uncertain Principles SInce I have elsewhere as well disowned my abilities as disclaimed any call or Authority to treat of that incomparable divine gift Faith in a strict and saving Sense And withall made some kind of confession of my own I hope if in declaring here my opinion of the dangers attending Credulity and evil consequence of imposing on mens belief I do by way of introduction and making some inquiry into the ordinary acceptation as well as proper signification of the word Faith a little touch upon it in that gracious Sense it may be without scandal and offence The word Faith is often taken for that which should be ever the ground of it Truth As when we commonly say there is no Faith in man we mean thereby there is no truth in man or just ground for a belief and so that saying Nulla fides pietasve viris c. is to be understood So the word faithful is often meant or intended for true as that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render in one place This is a faithful saying and in another place render the same words This is a true saying and such indeed as may obtain an assent and raise a Faith in us Thus we also conjoyn the words in the oath of fealty or de fidelitate and render it in the administration to be true and faithful And most certainly whenever Faith or faithfulness is spoken of God it must necessarily be intended of his truth as where 't is said Shall their unbelief make the Faith of God without effect God forbid yea let God be true c. So God is faithful by whom c. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it There are they say who have reckoned up above twenty several significations of the word Faith in Scripture but I 'le not meddle therewith or yet trouble you if I can avoid it by confounding it with the bare cogitative faculty but distinguish the one from the other as near as I can Faith or Belief in the strict genuine Sense and proper meaning thereof I take to be a conviction or perswasion of the Intellective Faculty to accept a thing for true which it cannot digest into any kind of knowledge or receive under the colourable notion of knowledge Or more generally thus An assent or perswasion of the whole mind Because the Will and the Affections if any powerful effect be wrought upon the Understanding concur for a time therein This the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies which is derived from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 persuadeo and therefore the Apostle rehearsing the saying of St. Iohn Baptist as we translate it He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life by way of opposition one to another makes use of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together And the like may be found in other places Now as to Faith in the most gracious Sense as well as conscience of which I have already treated I do in all humility think it to have its rise and first work I will not say from but with Reason Nay I think that both Faith and Conscience are Effects in and through Reason in the one case as Reason is passive in the other case as it is active Conscience being a result from Reason's whispers in an advised active deliberation and Faith being a result through God's grace from Reason's silence in an advised yielding upon a kind of passive deliberation For truly as Conscience in my opinion is no other than an effect in the Soul wrought from the bare seeming stroak of Reason so I do believe that in the birth of Faith such I mean as we talk of in a justifying notion there is some stroak upon Reason too but withal I acknowledge there is somewhat more viz. an insensible though Hearing may be the instrumental means of its coming stroak from the Divine Power and Goodness A lightning from above purifying the heart melting the Affections and new molding them according to the working of his mighty power And this is that precious Heavenly Balm by which we lenify and heal those wounds made by the stroak of Reason in some case of Conscience and such wounds there will be now and then occasioned by the Will 's disobedience to Reason's dictates and serving the Affections Now of this strange work in the Soul Faith no man can certainly point to any peculiar instant in which it is wrought as he may to the stroaks of Reason in point of Conscience neither can we discern any thing of the reality or truth thereof further than by a general propension to good and a general aversion from evil And which we cannot by any other way shew to others if we would shew it than by our works Indeed the very same may be said of Conscience We cannot so much as shew that to others either whether there be such a thing in us or no or whether it be good or whether it be evil if there be such a thing moving in us unless by the Affections embracing that which is good and rejecting that which is evil For from thence it may be collected other men having the like Reason with us whether the Affections are obedient to Reason or run by Sense They are both blows or influences likewise upon the Affections and there is a kind of concurrence or meeting together of all the faculties of the Soul as I humbly conceive in both cases We are told with what other part than the Brain man believeth unto Salvation and therefore I do here in the case of a good and perfect Faith think the word Confidence to be most proper For though it be a word which some by misuse have rendred of no good sound yet St. Paul makes use of it in this very case Therefore are we always confident c. for we walk by Faith not by Sight we are confident I say and willing c. repeating it again For when a compleat victory is obtained as well over the Affections and by consequence the Will as over Reason there is a confidence in the Soul a reliance on foreign aid a trust But yet certainly since there is no disputing argumentative faculty in the Soul but Reason neither can there be properly a perswasion of ought else the thing is chiefly effected in and through Reason though not by Reason and if Reason at any time be quite left out in either case I much doubt whether there will be a good Confidence or a good