sensual Tentation he ought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. to stir up his rational power to defend its proper Dignity and to secure the exercise of its Faculties according to their proper nature and so to keep the Reason of his mind from being enslav'd Who knows not that the Irascible Faculty which is in us will tempt us when occasion is offered to answer Reviling with Reproach and Wrong with Revenge but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is able as Simplicius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to suffer the Dog which is in us to bark much less to bite and to return Good for Evil both in Words and Actions Entreating for Rudeness and for Cursing Prayers And for the Concupiscible part it can deny what it craves it can reduce the sensual Appetite to that order which Nature requires and bring it into a less compass than the just measure of Nature if it please and to show its full Authority over all sensual Inclinations and Impressions it can appoint what is contrary to their Tendence and having resolved against it can put what it hath decreed in Execution and so though the Inferior part rebel it shows its power being enabled by God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to restrain it and maintain its own Superiority I'ts true bodily Objects presented by the Senses will enter into the imagination and by sudden Phantasms make some impression upon the soul but the mind can cast them out again can withdraw it self from the consideration of them can presently think upon other things and as it pleaseth deliberate whether that which the flesh desires be fit to be granted or no and if it be not can reject it and not only refuse to do that which would gratifie the sensual part but the quite contrary St. Iames says that Lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Tentations to sin are presented if the Will embrace them Lust conceives and if it goes on to action it brings forth death but if a man reject the Allurement and deny the consent of his Will and refuse to act according to the incitations of fleshly Appetites the Cockatrice is killed in the shell and so cannot live to bite and hurt Thus we are secure in the Observation of God's Order which if we neglect the mischief of our disregard will soon appear in the ill Consequences which attend it For God hath so framed the Nature of our Souls and so ordered our most important Concerns that we can never break his Order but we shall suffer for it What we neglect at present will meet us in bad effects afterward When a man hath slighted the Government of himself and laid the Rains upon the neck of the Beast he shall soon find himself serv'd by his unruly Passions as Hippolytus was by his Horses thrown and torn Philosophers called inordinate Appetite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Beast with many Heads It is bad enough to contest with one Beast but it is much more hazardous when a man must scuffle with many To this dangerous Combat a sinner condemns himself When he hath parted with his Reason he hath subjected his mind to the command of every insulting Appetite and must comply with every foolish Phansie Being made the slave of sin he must as the Apostle says serve divers Lusts and so must needs be in a brave condition being under the Arbitrary Command not of one Tyrannical Patron but many having indeed as many Lords as Lusts and how basely they use their vitious slaves commanding by turns the poor wretches feel to their grief by the perpetual disturbance which they receive from them being sometimes more then half drowned with Wine sometimes set on fire with Wrath at other times swelled till they are ready to break with Pride and often thrown into all dirty pleasures I am not ignorant that some hardned sinners say That they feel not the pains of sin which are so talked of neither are they much concerned though they break that precise order which is forementioned They are well pleased with the life of Sense and are willing to go as their Appetites lead them they esteem that order good enough which some call Hurry though they be censured yet they think themselves well paid for what they do with sleshly Divertisements and whatever Divines or Philosophers say to the contrary they see no cause to repent of their course To these men I shall only say two things 1. That it is no sign of health in a man to want feeling 2. That there are Monsters in the World but no Argument can be made from them against Nature 1. It is no sign of health in a man to want feeling Is a man to be acounted well because he is in an Apoplexie and so not sensible of what you say or do to him Doth any man reckon it a perfection in his body to want feeling or any other sense The soul hath its Apoplexie too A man may so debauch his Nature with vitious practises that at last he shall be past feeling and commit all filthiness with greediness as the Apostle saith He sins and pleaseth himself that he feels no remorse Is glad that he is listed in the number of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He become a whining Penitent No he is one of the Fortes Esprites He makes a mock of sin Tell him of Repentance tell them that are weary of their lives he is well enough Let the sick send for the Physician out of his Bed He may sleep long enough for him he needs him not It s ridiculous talk to speak to him of a spiritual Guide he can govern himself This seems to be well but the Friends of a sick person are much troubled when they perceive that he is not sensible of pain or danger and they take it for a sign of approaching death neither do they entertain any hope of life till they have brought him to a sense of his sickness weakness The Scripture tells us of a seared Conscience of such whose minds are darkned and of a reprobate mind an undiscerning soul and of a hardned heart as callous as a Labourer's hand and of a heart waxen gross that is a soul which hath no more sense of God than the fat heart of an Ox which in other places is called the spirit of slumber nothing can awake such a person to mind his most important concerns A wicked life benums a sinner and we are no more to regard his judgment of things than what a blind man says of colours A reprobate mind is that sad punishment which God doth often inflict upon wilful sinners Since we know this we need not wonder that they do not repent though their Condition be most dangerous for they understand it not 2. There are Monsters in the World but no Argument can be taken from them against Nature Will any body say
in the World how can there come to be any Motion amongst Bodies since they neither have it upon the score of their own nature nor can receive it from external Agents If Mr. Hobbs should reply that the Motion is impress'd upon any of the parts of the Matter by God he will say that which I most readily grant to be true but will not serve his turn if he would speak congruously to his own Hypothesis For I demand Whether this Supreme Being that the Assertion has recourse to be a Corporeal or an Incorporeal Substance If it be the latter and yet be the efficient Cause of Motion in Bodies then it will not be Universally true that whatsoever Body is moved is so by a Body contiguous and moved For in our supposition the Bodies that God moves either immediately or by the intervention of any other Immaterial Being are not moved by a Body contiguous but by an Incorporeal Spirit But because Mr. Hobbs in some Writings of his is believed to think the very Notion of an Immaterial Substance to be absurd and to involve a Contradiction and because it may be subsum'd that if God be not an Immaterial Substance he must by Consequence be a Material and Corporeal one there being no Medium Negationis or third Substance that is none of those two I answer That if this be said and so that Mr. Hobbs's Deity be a Corporeal one the same difficulty will recurr that I urg'd before For this Body will not by Mr. Hobbs's calling or thinking it divine cease to be a true Body and consequently a portion of Divine Matter will not be able to move a portion of our Mundane Matter without it be it self contiguous and moved which it cannot be but by another portion of Divine Matter so qualified to impress a Motion nor this again but by another portion And besides that it will breed a strange confusion in rendring the Physical Causes of things unless an expedient be found to teach us how to distinguish accurately the Mundane Bodies from the Divine which will perhaps prove no easie task I see not yet how this Corporeal Deity will make good the Hypothesis I examine For I demand How this Divine Matter comes to have this Local Motion that is ascrib'd to it If it be answer'd That it hath it from its own Nature without any other Cause since the Epicureans affirm the same of their Atoms or meerly Mundane Matter I demand How the Truth of Mr. Hobbs's Opinion will appear to me to whom it seems as likely by the Phaenomena of Nature that occur that Mundane Matter should have a congenit Motion as that any thing that is Corporeal can be God and capable of moving it which to be it must for ought we know have its Subsistence divided into as many minute parts as there are Corpuscles and Particles in the World that move separately from their neighbouring ones And to draw towards a Conclusion I say that these minute Divine Bodies that thus moved those portions of Mundane Matter concerning which Mr. Hobbs denies that they can be moved but by Bodies contiguous and moved these Divine Substances I say are according to the late supposition true Bodies and yet are moved themselves not by Bodies contiguous and moved but by a Motion which must be Innate deriv'd or flowing from their very essence or nature since no such Body is pretended to have a Being as cannot be refer'd as a portion either to the Mundane or the Divine Matter In short since Local Motion is to be found in one if not in both of these two Matters it must be natural to at least some parts of one of them in Mr. Hobbs's Hypothesis for though he should grant an Immaterial Being yet it could not produce a Motion in any Body since according to him no Body can be moved but by another Body contiguous and mov'd As then to this grand Position of Mr. Hobbs though if it were cautiously propos'd as it is by Des Cartes it may perhaps be safely admitted because Cartesius acknowledges the first Impulse that set Matter a moving and the Conservation of Motion once begun to come from God yet as 't is crudely propos'd by the favourers of Mr. Hobbs I am so far from seeing any such cogent Proof for it as were to be wish'd for a Principle on which he builds so much and which yet is not at all evident by its own light that I see no competent Reason to admit it I expect your Friend should here oppose to what I have been saying that formerly recited Sentence that is so commonly employ'd in the Schools as well of Divines as of Philosophers That such or such an Opinion is true in Divinity but false in Philosophy or on the contrary Philosophically true but Theologically false Upon what Warrant those that are wont to employ such Expressions ground their Practice I leave to them to make out but as to the Objection it self as it supposes these ways of speaking to be well grounded give me leave to consider That Philosophy may signifie two things which I take to be very differing For first 't is most commonly employ'd to signifie a System or Body of the Opinions and other Doctrines of the particular Sect of those Philosophers that make use of the Word As when an Aristotelian talks of Philosophy he usually means the Peripatetick as an Epicurean do's the Atomical or a Platonist the Platonick But we may also in a more general and no less just Acception of the term understand by Philosophy a Comprehension of all those Truths or Doctrines which the natural Reason of man freed from Prejudices and Partiality and assisted by Learning Attention Exercise Experiments c. can manifestly make out or by necessary consequence deduce from clear and certain Principles This being briefly premis'd I must in the next place put you in mind of what I formerly observ'd to you that many Opinions are maintain'd by this or that Sect of Christians or perhaps by the Divinity-Schools of more than one or two Sects which either do not at all belong to the Christian Religion or at least ought not to be look'd upon as parts of it but upon supposition that the Philosophical Principles and Ratiocinations upon which and not upon express or meer Revelation they are presum'd to be founded are agreable to right Reason And having premis'd these two things I now answer more directly to the Objection that if Philosophy be taken in the first sense above-mention'd its teaching things repugnant to Theology especially taking this word in the more large and vulgar sense of it will not cogently conclude any thing against the Christian Religion But if Philosophy be taken in the latter sense for true Philosophy and Divinity only for a System of those Articles that are clearly reveal'd as Truths in the Scriptures I shall not allow any thing to be false in Philosophy so understood that is true in Divinity so explain'd
capacities I am not a Christian because it is the Religion of my Countrey and my Friends nor because I am a stranger to the Principles either of the Atomical or the Mechanical Philosophy I admit no mans Opinions in the whole lump and have not scrupled on occasion to own dissents from the generality of learned men whether Philosophers or Divines And when I choose to travel in the beaten Road 't is not because I find 't is the Road but because I judge 't is the Way Possibly I should have much fewer Adversaries if all those that yet are so had as attentively and impartially consider'd the Points in Controversie as I have endeavour'd to do They would then 't is like have seen that the Question I handle is not whether Rational Beings ought to avoid Vnreasonable Assents but whether when the Historical and other Moral Proofs clearly sway the Scales in favour of Christianity we ought to flie from the Difficulties that attend the granting of a Deity and Providence to Hypotheses whether Epicurean or others that are themselves incumber'd with confounding Difficulties On which account I conceive that the Question between them and me is not whether They or I ought to submit to Reason for we both agree in thinking our selves bound to that but whether They or I submit to Reason the fulliest inform'd and least byass'd by Sensuality Vanity or Secular Interest I reverence and cherish Reason as much I hope as any of them but I would have Reason practise Ingenuity as well as Curiosity and both industriously pry into things within her sphere and frankly acknowledge what no Philosopher that considers will deny that there are some things beyond it And in these it is that I think it as well her Duty to admit Revelation as her Happiness to have it propos'd to her And even as to Revelations themselves I allow Reason to judge of them before she judges by them The following Papers will I hope manifest that the main difference betwixt my Adversaries and me is that they judge upon particular Difficulties and Objections and I upon the whole matter And to conclude as I make use of my Watch to estimate Time when ever the Sun is absent or clouded but when he shines clearly forth I scruple not to correct and adjust my Watch by his Beams cast on a Dial so wherever no better Light is to be had I estimate Truth by my own Reason but where Divine Revelation can be consulted I willingly submit my fallible Reason to the sure Informations afforded by Celestial Light I should here put an end to this long Preface but that to the things which have been said concerning what I have written of my own I see 't is requisite that I add a few words about what I quote from other Writers especially because in this very Preface I mention my having intended to entertain my Friend with my own Thoughts Of the Citations therefore that my Reader will meet with in the following Papers I have this Account to give him 1. That I had written the Considerations and Distinctions to which they are annexed before I met with these cited Passages which I afterwards inserted in the Margent and other vacant places of my Epistle 2. That these Passages are not borrow'd from Books that treat of the Truth of the Christian Religion or of Christian Theology at all but are tak'n from Authors that write of Philosophical Subjects and are by me apply'd to Mine which are usually very distant from Theirs 3. If you then ask me why I make use of their Authority and did not content my self with my own Ratiocinations I have this to Answer that my design being to convince another who had no reason to look upon my Authority and whom I had cause to suspect to have entertain'd some prejudices against any Reasons that should come from one that confessedly aim'd at the defending of the Christian Religion I thought it very proper and expedient to let him see that divers of the same things for substance that I deliver'd in favour of that Religion had been taught as Philosophical Truths by Men that were not profess'd Divines and were Philosophers and such strict Naturalists too as to be extraordinarily careful not to take any thing into their Philosophy upon the account of Revelation And on this occasion let me observe to you that there are some Arguments which being clearly built upon Sense or evident Experiments need borrow no Assistance from the Refutation of any of the Proposers or Approvers and may I think be fitly enough compar'd to Arrows shot out of a Cross-Bow or Bullets shot out of a Gun which have the same strength and pierce equally whether they be discharg'd by a Child or a strong Man But then there are other Ratiocinations which either do or are suppos'd to depend in some measure upon the judgment and skill of those that make the Observations whereon they are grounded and their Ability to discern Truth from Counterfeits and Solid things from those that are but Superficial ones And these may be compar'd to Arrows shot out of a Long-Bow which make much the greater impression by being shot by a strong and skilful Archer And therefore when we question what Doctrines ought or ought not to be thought Reasonable it do's not a little facilitate a Propositions appearing not Contrary but Consonant to Reason that 't is look'd upon as such by those that are acknowledged the Masters of that Faculty ERRATA PAg. 38. line 6. read of for or ib. l. 9. dele all that is contained in that whole parenthesis ib. l. 19. The discourse beginning in that line with the words if no body and ending p. 43. l. 7. with the words contiguous and moved is to be included between two signs of a Parathesis P. 43. l. 18. del Parenthesis before the words as were and put it l. 20. before the word and. SOME CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT The Reconcileableness OF REASON RELIGION The First Part. AS to what you write in your Friends name near the bottom of the first page of your Letter perhaps I shall not mistake if I guess that when He seems but to propose a Question he means an Objection and covertly intimates that I among many others am reduc'd to that pass that to embrace our Religion we must renounce our Reason and consequently that to be a Christian one must cease to be a Man and much more leave off being a Philosopher What liberal Concessions soever some others have been pleas'd to make on such an Occasion as this they do not concern me who being ask'd but my own Opinion do not think my self responsible for that of others And therefore that I may frame my Answer so as to meet both with the obvious sense of the Question and the intimated meaning of Him that proposes it I shall roundly make a Negative Reply and say That I do not think that a Christian to be truly so is oblig'd to forego
but not from the Omniscient Author of them both And lastly if ev'n in purely Physical things where one would not think it likely that rational Beings should seek Truth with any other designs than of finding and enjoying it our Understandings are so universally byass'd and impos'd upon by our Wills and Affections how can we admire especially if we admit the fall of our first Parents that our Passions and Interests and oftentimes our Vices should pervert our Intellects about those reveal'd Truths divers of which we discern to be above our comprehensions and more of which we find to be directly contrary to our Inclinations SECT V. And now 't will be seasonable for me to tell you That I think there may be a great difference betwixt a things being contrary to right Reason or so much as to any true Philosophy and its being contrary to the receiv'd Opinions of Philosophers or to the Principles or Conclusions of this or that Sect of them For here I may justly apply to my present purpose what Clemens Alexandrinus judiciously said on another Occasion that Philosophy was neither Peripatetical nor Stoical nor Epicurean but whatsoever among all those several parties was fit to be approv'd And indeed if we survey the Hypotheses and Opinions of the several Sects of Philosophers especially in those points wherein they hold things repugnant to Theological Truths we shall find many of them so slightly grounded and so disagreeing among themselves that a severe and inquisitive Examiner would see little cause to admit them upon the bare Account of his being a Philosopher though he did not see any to reject them upon the Account of his being a Christian. And in particular as to the Peripateticks who by invading all the Schools of Europe and some in Asia and Africk have made their Sect almost Catholick and have produc'd divers of the famous Questioners of Christianity in the last Age and the first part of this the World begins to be apace undeceiv'd as to many of their Doctrines which were as confidently taught and believ'd for many Ages as those that are repugnant to our Religion and there is now scarce any of the modern Philosophers that allow themselves the free use of their Reason who believes any longer that there is an Element of Fire lodg'd under the suppos'd Sphere of the Moon that Heaven consists of solid Orbs that all Celestial Bodies are ingenerable and incorruptible that the Heart rather than the Brain is the Origine of Nerves that the torrid Zone is uninhabitable and I know not how many other Doctrines of the Aristotelians which our Corpuscularian Philosophers think so little worth being believ'd that they would censure him that should now think them worthy to be sollicitously confuted upon which score I presume you will allow me to leave those and divers others as weak Peripatetick conceits to fall by their own groundlesness But you will tell me that the Epicureans and the Somatici that will allow nothing but Body in the World nor no Author of it but Chance are more formidable Enemies to Religion than the Aristotelians And indeed I am apt to think they are so but they may well be so without deserving to have any of their Sects look'd upon as Philosophy it self there being none of them that I know of that maintain any Opinion inconsistent with Christianity that I think may not be made appear to be also repugnant to Reason or at least not demonstrable by it You will not expect I should descend to particulars especially having expresly discours'd against the Epicurean Hypothesis of the Origine of the World in another Paper and therefore I shall observe to you in general that the Cartesian Philosophers who lay aside all Supernatural Revelation in their Inquiries into Natural things do yet both think and as to the two first of them very plausibly prove the three grand Principles of Epicurus That the little Bodies he calls Atoms are indivisible That they all have their motion from themselves and That there is a vacuum in rerum naturá to be as repugnant to meer Reason as the Epicureans think the Notion of an Incorporeal Substance or the Creation of the World or the Immortality of the Soul And as for the new Somatici such as Mr. Hobbs and some few others by what I have yet seen of his I am not much tempted to forsake any thing that I look'd upon as a Truth before ev'n in Natural Philosophy it self upon the score of what he though never so confidently delivers by which hitherto I see not that he hath made any great discovery either of new Truths or old Errors An Honourable Member of the Royal Society hath elsewhere purposely shewn how ill he has prov'd his own Opinions about the Air and some other Physical Subjects and how ill he has understood and oppos'd those of his Adversary But to give you in this place a Specimen how little their repugnancy to his Principles or Natural Philosophy ought to affright us from those Theological Doctrines they contradict I shall here but not in the Body of this Discourse for fear of too much interrupting it examine the fundamental Maxim of his whole Physicks That nothing is removed but by a Body contiguous and moved it having been already shewn by the Gentleman newly mention'd that as to the next to it which is that there is no vacuum whether it be true or no he has not prov'd it If no Body can possibly be moved but by a Body contiguous and moved as Mr. Hobbs teaches I demand How there comes to be Local motion in the World For either all the portions of matter that compos'd the Universe have motion belonging to their Nature which the Epicureans affirm'd for their Atoms or some parts of Matter have this motive power and some have not or else none of them have it but all of them are naturally devoid of Motion If it be granted that Motion does naturally belong to all parts of Matter the dispute is at an end the concession quite overthrowing the Hypothesis If it be said that naturally some portions of Matter have Motion and others not then the Assertion will not be Universally true For though it may hold in the parts that are naturally moveless or quiescent yet it will not do so in the others there being nothing that may shew a necessity why a Body to which Motion is natural should not be capable of moving without being put into motion by another contiguous and moved And if there be no Body to which Motion is natural but every Body needs an outward movent it may well be demanded How there comes to be any thing Locally mov'd in the World which yet constant and obvious experience demonstrates and Mr. Hobbs himself cannot deny For if no part of Matter have any Motion but what it must owe to another that is contiguous to it and being it self in Motion impels it and if there be nothing but Matter