honor of its Invention as was betwixt the two Haâ—lots about the right to the Living Child others requiring if not to the justification of the Decree it self yet at least to justify the Execution thereof the concurse of Good Works so necessarily that no man can ever attain to Glory but by the scale of Merits at least those of our Saviour and others mincing or extenuating the Elective Liberty of man into a meer and simple Libency which we have more then once specified and as often described and accordingly attempting to salve the Repugnancy thus that the Elect are therefore Free because they do their Good works Libently or Willingly and likewise that the Reprobate are also Free because they doe their Evil works Libently Hereupon to him who shall charge upon them with this Vnactive Argumentation they instantly oppose that there is very great reason why every man endowed with this Libency should most strenuously endevour the constant practise of Good rather then Evil because though He be uncertain of the Decree concerning his Election or Reprobation yet is He certain of this that no man shall ever be assumed into Glory unless he shall have done Good nor any be excluded the Celestial Eden unless He shall have done Evil. To which they add that it is the main Duty of every man to the utmost of his power to ascertain himself rather of Election by his perseverance in good then of Reprobation by a debaucht and desperate resignation of the sceptre of his Will to all the temptations of Evil that so he may praevent or mitigate that Fear and Anxiety which must otherwise uncessantly excruciate his mind during his whole life by acquiring a setled confidence that from God who is infinitely Good and Just he hath no cause to expect evil while the scope of all his endevours is to deserve well at least to obtain Mercy at his hand To conclude lest man should in the interim either Glory in himself as if He ought according to justice to be Elected for his good works sake or Complain of the rigour of the Decree of his Reprobation murmuring that it was not his fault why his name was not inscribed in the Book of life they check his Glorying with this cooling card of the Apostle O Homo quis te discernit and hush his Complaint with Tu qui es qui respondeas Deo Nunquid dicet vas Figulo quare me fecisti sic Nunquid sacere illi licet aliud vas in honorem aliud verò in contumeliam Roman chap. 9. ver 21. And if this satisfy not they here set bounds to Curiosity and lime the wings of those Eagle Wits who would soare higher then the lower region of the mysterie with that grave advice of the Canonized Doctor Quare hunc trahat Deus illum verò non trahat noli judicare si non vis errare or that modest rule of Cornelius Tacitus Sanctius reverentius visum de actis Deorum credere quà m scire But as for the Second Opinion to our first inquisition that Article 4. The Second Opinion to a great part extricated from the same Labyrinth seemes capable of extrication from the forementioned Labyrinth without much difficulty thus I am says Adrastus or the Fatist either Elect to glory or Reprobate to misery by an eternal Decree of God This we grant to be most true but with this additional qualification that Himself is Now the Cause why He was from eternity Elect or Reprobate For He is now in that very state in which God foresaw that he would be when educed into existence endowed with reason and assisted with sufficient Grace for the clear discernment of Good from Evil and it now depends upon the Liberty of his Will that God hath praevised him operating good or evil so that the Decree of his Election or Reprobation is subsequent or posterior to the Divine Praevision of his future good or evil Demerits To speak yet louder God therfore Elected him to Glory because He Foresaw that he would use both the Liberty of his Understanding and Will and that Supernaturall Light or Divine Grace which the Compassion of God vouchsafed for his Assistance as he ought to enable him to lead an honest and pious life and therefore Reprobated him to misery because He Foresaw that he would Abuse the Lights of Nature and Grace in constantly and impenitently doing actions point-blank repugnant to their frequent and importune Advisoes This being inferred the Fatist cannot but perceive that it lyes on his part now to doe well and with all the nerves of his Mind to Cooperate to Divine Grace that so God from eternity foreseeing that his Conformity to the dictates of his Grace may have Elected him For if he shall counterinflect his Will to the Inclinations of Divine Grace and pursue Evil those Evil works shall be very they which God from eternity having respect unto hath Damned him for the Guilt of them and impoenitence for them Nor can He elude this truth by pleading that God doth Article 5. The Fatists Subterfuge of the Infallibility of Divine Praenotion praecluded from eternity Foreknow whether He shall be Elect or Reprobate and that therefore of Necessity he shall be what he Will be since the Divine Science is uncapable of Elusion or Mutability Because though God indeed had an infallible Praecognition from Eternity whether he would be Praedestinate or Reprobate yet is that Praecognition grounded upon his own eternal Decree and that eternal Decree grounded upon his eternal Praevision of the Fatists Good or Evil life So that the actual Determination of the Will of man to the constant prosecution of Good is the Basis or first Degree in this mysterious Climax of Praedestination the Praevision thereof by God the second the respective Decree of God the third and his indeceptible Praescience the fourth and last Not that these Antecessions and Consecutions are Temporany i. e. not that the Praescience of God is posterior to his Decree and his Decree posterior to his Praevision for those 3. make but one simple and intire Act in the Divine Intellect and Will and Eternity is but one permanent Now incapable of Division because of Cessation really but Anthropopathically i. e. that narrow and remote Man when he speculates the nature of his own Free-Will and that of Divine Justice as integrally Consistent is necessitated for comprehension sake to suppose some Momenta Rationis or Priority and Posteriority in Eternity as we have singularly enunciated in the 2. Articl 4. Sect. 6. chap. praecedent Article 6. A second subterfuge of the Fatist viz. that the Subsequence of the Decree to Praenotion doth implicate the possibility of its Elusion and Mutability praevented Again the Fatist can justly promise to himself no greater protection by this farther objection that if the Divine Decree be subquent to Divine Praevision therefore is it in his power to stagger the Certitude of the Decree and dissolve its rigour
assertors of Providence is manifest from that saying of Cotta reproving Balbus an eminent Stoick apud Cicer. de natur Deor. 3. At enim minora dii neque agellos singulorum nec viticulas prosequuntur nec si uredo aut grando quidpiam nocuit id Iovi animadvertendum fuit nec in regnis quidem reges omnia minima curant sic enim dicitis c. And lastly that the Academicks and Scepticks were of the 5. The Academicks and Scepticks same perswasion however being carried against the stream of all Affirmative learning by the contrary tide of their own Negative humor and obliged to fall foul upon all truths in defence of their own affected Nescience they have been observed to have had some light skirmishes with the Champians of Providence Nor need we acquiesce in the bare affirmation hereof while to any man that shall with equanimity and attention compare their tender arguments against the opinion of general Providence with those more sinewy and vehement reasons of their profest neutrality in many other notions there will offer it self a fair ground for more then conjecture that they purposely contrived them soft gentle and dissoluble that so they might seem neither to quit their habit of contradiction nor yet to dare the subversion of that catholick position to which all men those few of the black guard of Hell whom we lately nominated excepted had subscribed and which the dictates of their own domestick oracle Reason had confirmed as sacred and uncontrollable To which we may annex the testimony of Gassendus who in Animadvers in lib. 10. Diogen Laert. de Physiologia Epicuri pag. 731. speaking conjunctively of both those sects saies thus ut argument atisunt adversus Providentiam sic opinioni de providentia suam probabilitatem fecerunt neque saltem ea fronte fuerunt ut esse providentiam absolutè inficiarentur Now to take the just dimensions of this Argument let us allow it like Janus to have two faces and then survey the aspect Article 4. A review of the induction and the Argument found to be Apodictical on one side and on the other only perswasive of each a part On one hand it looks Absolute and Apodictical on the other only Perswasive Apodictical since the universality of any beleif such especially as hath ever been attested even by those who have made the profoundest search into its fundamentals and streyned every nerve in the whole body of reason to demolish it is no obscure proof that it must be one of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Implantate Notions which the same hand that made our nature hath engraven on the table of our minds and lest it not in the power of our depraved Wills totally to obliterate That there are some Implantate Notions no man who hath but learned the Alphabet of his own Nature will dispute Nor is it less certain that all Philosophers have decreed Anticipation which Aristotle in 1. Poster 1. calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 praeexistentem cognitionem and Cicero hath interpreted 1 de Nat. Deor. notionem menti insitam anteceptam quandam in animo informationem to be the Touch-stone of verity nay Empiricus himself forgot his custome of Scepticisme when he came to this point and grew positive advers Gramm advers Ethic. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that no man could so much as enquire or doubt of any thing without Praenotion And that the Notion of the worlds regiment by universal Providence is one of those propositions Quae sunt in nobis adeo antiquae ut iis ex quo esse sentire coepimus evaserimus informati which like letters carved on the bark of a young plant are impressed upon our very Intellect and grow up together with us is already proved collaterally and upon induction in our Demonstration of the Existence of God for therein it is cleared that the excellent Idea which we have of the Supreme Beeing contains all Perfections whatever and among the rest that noble Attribute Creator which to him that shall attentively consider the nature of Duration must sound one and the same thing with Conservator or Governour Only perswasive since humane Auctority considered perse is but an inartificial Argument and binds not but when consorted with others more rational into one syndrome or multiplex demonstration not is the concentration of all mens minds in one and the same assertion an infallible Criterion of its verity For the judgement of man in generall lyes open to the encroachments of Error and the common infirmity of humane nature is not only discoverable in the gross and visible delusions of vulgar heads whose business is to beleive not examine but hath frequently broken out upon the soundest brains and confest it self Epidemical in the absurd mistakes of the greatest Criticks of Truth especially in the promotion and transmission of opinions haereditary and traditional SECT III. LEt us not therefore entrust the supportation of so weighty a Truth to that fragile reed of Auctority but give our selves Article 1. Gods General Providence demonstrated by the Idea of his Nature reflected on our thoughts liberty to imagine that no man ever beleived or asserted an universal Providence and having thus devested our minds of all Praesumption or Anticipation expose them as tables newly derased to receive the pure impressions or sincere documents of the Light of Nature converting our contemplations First upon the Nature of God and thence upon the most exact order and confederacy of all secondary causes in the world First I say let us set our reason a work upon the nature of the First Cause or Eternal Being and order our cogitations thus The same demonstration whereby the mind of man is convicted of the Existence of God doth also at the same time violently but naturally conclude his nature to be so accomplisht in all Perfections as to be above all Access or Addition For manifest it is that by the terme God every man doth understand something to which no perfection is wanting and should it be granted possible that the mind of man could conceive any perfection more then what is comprehended in the idea which it holds of the nature of God yet still would that thing to which it could ascribe that perfection be God Since t is impossible to cogitate any perfection which is not the essential propriety of some Nature and to think any Nature more perfect then the Divine plainly absurd because we conceive that to be most perfect or else we do not conceive it to be God God and Absolute Perfection being one and the same thing and ordinarily conceived as one notion Now to be so insinitely Wise Potent and Good as to order all things in the world to the best to regulate and predetermine the operations of all second Causes to keep Nature her self sober and in tune and so prevent those discords which otherwise would in a moment succeed to the reduction of all to a greater confusion
man was created principally to declare the Glory of the Creator Ad quid enim tantus decor universi nisi esset homo qui consideraret ipsâ—que perspecto hymnum Authori caneret T is an Axiome of constant Verity that Nature makes nothing in vain and this rule doubtless she learned from that Wisdome which determineth all its actions to certain adequate and proper Ends now we must grant either that God adorned the Universe with such exquisite pulchritude and admirable imbellishment of Art to no purpose at all and so was more vain and improvident then his instrument Nature or else that he conferred that elegancy and amiable decorament upon it to this end that the curious Cogitations of man might be entertained exercised and delighted in the speculation and admiration thereof and through that maze of pleasant wonder be conducted to the true Elyzium the contemplation of the Fountain of Pulchritude and entelechia of Excellencies God For there is no medium between these two Contraries nor any hope of evading the rigour of this Dilemma upon pretence of neutrality since God had no other end wherefore he beautified the World but his own Glory in chief and the excitement of the Admiration and Magnificat of man as subservient thereunto nor doth the World contain any other Nature but Man that is qualified with Faculties requisite to the satisfaction of that end Quis enim aliquam aliam unquam invenit naturam quae aedificium hoc tantum conspiciens in Architecti sapientissimi admirationem perinde rapiatur We well know that Relatives secundum esse positively necessitate the existence each of other and therefore to allow what cannot be disallowed but by incurring a more dangerous absurdity that God made and exhibited the Beauty of the World tanquam admirandum spectaculum as a spectacle that cannot but excite Admiration in the speculator and yet to deny that he provided a fit and respective spectator such whose Sense should transmit the idea of that Pulchritude to the judicature of a higher Faculty and that again be thereby impregnated with Admiration which is nothing but our Reasons being at a stand at the novelty or excellence of an object occurring to our sense for what is either frequent or manifest to our cognition we never admire and that 's the cause why this Affection of the mind as it is the first of Passions so it is the only one that wants a Contrary as the unimitable Des Cartes hath discovered to us in lib. de passion part 1. articl 54. is not only an impious derogation to the wisdome of God but also a manifest Contradiction to our own reason which from the existence of the Relatum a spectacle immediately concludes the necessary existence of the Correlatnm a spectator And that this Spectator can be no other Animal but man is too bright a truth to need any other illustration but what is reflected from it self To which Argument of the Creators adopting man to be his Darling and intimate Favorite the Logick of every man may superadd many others of equivalent importance drawn from the consideration of those Praeeminences and Praerogatives wherewith his Munificence hath bin pleased to ennoble his nature and exalt him to a neerer Cognation or Affinity to his own glorious Essence then any other Creature in the Universe as the excellent contexture and majestique Figure of his Body the semi-divine Faculties of his Soul his Monarchy domination or royalty over all other sublunary natures Omnia enim sibi submittit dum omnia quae in mundo sunt vel ad usus vitae necessarios refert vel ad varia genera voluptatum and lastly that inestimable propriety the Immortality of his Soul Now to direct all this to the mark since God hath thus proclaimed Man to be next to his own Glory which is the last of Ends as his Will is the first of Causes the grand and principal scope of his mighty work of Creation and that he made all things in order to his accommodation and well-being in this life and allurement nay manuduction or conduct to immarcescible beatitude after Death and since his Act of Providence or the constant Conservation of all things in the primitive perfection distinction and order of their Natures is nothing but his act of Creation prolonged or spun out through all the independent Atoms or successive particles of time as hath bin more then once intimated beyond all dispute the Product must be the same with our Thesis viz. That Man is the object of Gods special Providence and by consequence that all occurrences of his life are punctually predetermined ordered and brought to pass by the same As every man brings into the World with him a certain Prolepticall or Anticipated Cognition of a Deity or First Cause Article 2. That the soul of man contains a proleptical notion of Gods special Providence of all things deeply and indelebly stamp'd upon his mind as hath bin formerly demonstrated so also holds he as an Adjunct or rather a part thereof a coessentiall Prenotion that this First Cause or Supreme Nature is the Fountain from whence those two different streams of Happiness and Misery or Good and Evil the former by Condonation the other by Permission are constantly derived and upon consequence that all Occurrences of his life are the just and prudent Designations of its special Providence That every man in whom the Light of Nature is not damp't by Fatuity either native and temperamental or casually supervenient hath this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or impress of an especial Providence decreeing and disposing all events that have do or shall befall him is manifest from hence that no man though educated in the wildest ignorance or highest barbarisme imaginable but was naturally and by the advisoes of his intestine Dictator inclined either to conceive or imbrace some kind of Religion as an homage or fealty due from him to that Supreme Power in whose hands he apprehended the rains of Good and Evil to be held and whose favour and benigne aspect he thought procurable and anger attoneable by the seasonable addresses of Invocation and Sacrifice And in truth to him whose meditations shall sink deep enough it will soon appear that this Anticipation is the very root of Article 3. That this proleptical notion is the basis of Religion Religion for though man stood fully perswaded of the Existence of God yet would not that alone be argument sufficient to convince him into the necessity of a devout Adoration of him unless his mind were also possessed with a firme beleif of this proper Attribute of his Nature which so neerly concerns his felicity or infelicity viz. his special Providence which regulates all the affaires and appoints all the Contingencies of every individual mans life For t is the sense of our own Defects Imperfections and Dependency that first leads us to the knowledg of his All sufficiency Perfections and Self-subsistence the apprehension of our
Fate considered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a substance p. 303. 3. And what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an Energy or Act together with the etymological reasons of those sundry Appellations the Stoicks have imposed upon it p. 304. SECT II. ARTIC 1. THe second Classis of Philosophers who understood Fate to be a Constitution meerly Natural subdivided into 2 distinct Sects viz. 1 those who assert the Immutability and Inevitability of Fate 2 those who dâ—fend the possibility of its Alteration and Evasion p. 305. 2. The Leaders of the First Sect Heraclitus Empedocles Leucippus Paâ—menides and chiefly Democritus p. 306. 3. Democritus justly chaâ—ged with the patronage of Inevitable Fate and his doctrine concâ—rning it concisely râ—hearsed ibid. SECT III. ARTIC 1. THe Principal of the Second Sect Aristotle and Epicurus p. 312. 2. The Grounds of the Authors in puting the opinion both of Fates Identity with Nature and the possibility of its Mutation and Declination by either Fortuitous or Arbitrary Antagonists to Aristotle ibid. 3. Epicurus unanimoâ—s to Aristotle in the point of Physical and Eluctable Necessity p. 314. 4. The scope of Epicurus his Figment of the Declination of Atoms in the human Soul and his Accommodation thereof to the tuition of mans Liberty epitomized ibid. 5. An Exception in the name of Democritus against Epicurus Inference p. 316. 6. The justification thereof by a Respons conforme to the Physiology of Epicurus p. 317. 7. The most weighty Rejoynder of the connexion of those Causes which Avert the Mind from so well as of those which Attract it to an object to the eternal Series of Fate found too light to overbalance Epicurus his defence of mans Liberty p. 319. SECT IV. ARTIC 1. MAthematical Fate briefly described p. 321. 2. The gross Vanity thereof concealed from many Philosophers only by the cloud of Transcriptive Adhaesion to Antique Traditions ibid. 3. The Absurdity of Sydereal Necessity evicted 1 by an Argument desumed from the Hypothetical Necessity of the Matter on which Celestial Impressions are to operate 323 4. 2 By the common Experiment of the unaequal Fortunes of Twins p. 324. 5. 3 By the double Impiety inseparable from the belief thereof p. 325. CHAP. X. The Liberty of Mans Will Fortune and Fate conciliated to Providence Divine page 328. SECT I. ARTIC 1. THE intent of the chapter p. 328. 2. Democritus Fate inconsistent both to the Fundamentals of Religion and the Liberty of mans Will and therefore detested ibid. 3. Aristotle and Epicurus their Fate admitted in that it is Identical to Nature but abominated in that it clasheth with the Certitude of Divine Praescience p. 329. 4. The Platonick and Stoick Fate embraced so far as it is conceded to be a Constitution of the Divine Wisdome but abandoned in that it detracts from Divine Omnipotence ibid. 5. In what qualified sense Christianisme may tolerate the use of the term Fate ibid. SECT II. ARTIC 1. FAte and Fortune conciliated in the point of Providence Divine p. 330. 2. Plutarchs ingenious Assimilation of Fate to the Civil Law and his design therein p. 331. SCET. III. ARTIC 1. FAte concentrical to mans Elective Liberty in the point of Praedestination p. 332. 2. The Concord betwixt Theology and Philosophy in their admission of 2. orders of Causes natural viz. Necessary and Free the ground of the Affinity both betwixt the Difficulties and Solutions on either part as to the Abolition of the seeming Repugnancy between Fate and mans Free-will p. 333. 3. The First capital Difficulty desumed from Divine Praescience as stated by Divines p. 334. 4. The same as stated by Philosophers ibid. 5. The full solution of the same by vertue of the Divines Discrimination of Necessity into Absolute and Hypothetical p. 335. 6. The Solution of the same by the Philosophers proving that the definite Praenotion of future Contingents is no Cause of their definite Contingency but è contrà the definity of their Futurition the cause of their definite Praenotion p. 338. 7. The Disparity betwixt Divine and Human Praenotion p. 339. 8. The same exemplified ibid. SECT IV. ARTIC 1. THe Second Capital Difficulty erected upon a sophism called Ignava Ratio as it respecteth both Theology and Philosophy p. 340. 2. Two eminent Opinions of Divines touchant the Solution of this Difficulty recognized and their judicious Modelly in duely acknowledging the mysterie of Praedestination to be Arcanum Divini imperii commended p. 34â— 3. The First opinion found totally uncapable of Expedition from the Sophisme Ignava Ratio 343. 4. The Second Opinion to a great part extricated from the same Labyrinth p. 345. 5. The Fatists Subtersuge of the Infallibility of Divine Praenotion praecluded p. 346. 6. A second subtersuge of the Fatist viz. that the Subsequence of the Decree to Praenotion doth implicate the possibility of its Elusion and Mutability praevented ibid. 7. A third Conclusion viz. that the posteriority of the Decree of Election to Gods praevision of mans future good actions doth make man the Author of his own Discretion detected and redargued p. 347. 8. Two Extracts from the praemises 1 that the Cooperation of mans Will to sufficient Grace may be conceived a Cause of his Election 2 that to render a reason why God did not constitute All men such as that All should cooperate to sufficient Grace and so be Elect is an impossibility to mans understanding other then this that such was his eternal will p. 347. 9. The former Sophisme ignava Ratio in part dissolved by Plutarchs Distinction that though All effects are comprehended in yet all are not caused by Fate p. 348. 10. The insufficiency of that Distinction to the total solution of the Difficulty duely acknowledged p. 349. 11. The most promising Responses of some Philosophers concisely praesented viz. of 1. Of Plato ibid. 2. Seneca p. 350. 3. Chrysippus p. 351. 4. Aquinas p. 352. 12. These acute Responses aequitably audited and their import sound to be no more then this that man hath a Freedome of Assent but not of Dissent to the Will of God p. 352. 13. The Dehortation from immoderate Curiosity in Divine Mysteries and concise Adhortation to conform unto and calmly acquiesce in the Revealed Will of God 353. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD DEMONSTRATED CHAP. I. SECT I. ARistotle though an Ethnick poysoned Section 1. Article 1. Aristotle the most knowing and curious Ethnick did yet by his silence in the cardinal point of Theology proclaim the impossibility of mans full understanding the simple and perfect Essence of God with the Macedonian and Grecian Idolatry nay so given over to that sottish impiety Polytheisme that he could be content to make a Goddesse of his Wench and offer solemn sacrifices to her as a Deity whom his own obscene luxury had degraded from the native dignity of Humanity to devote his orisons to her for good whom his own temptations had frequently subdued to evill as Gassendus Exercitat 3. out of Diogenes Laert. hath accused him had
though he escape all these yet doth the Palsic hand of Time soon shake down his ounce of sand and then turn him over to be devoured by oblivion 8. Tum porro puer ut saevis projectus ab undis Navita nudus humi jacet infans indigus omni Vitai auxilio cum primum in luminis oras Nixibus ex aâ—vo matris natura profudit Vagituque locum lugubri complet ut aequum ' st Quoi tantum in vita restet transire malorum c. That Nature seems more a step-mother to man then any other Animal having cast him into the world naked â—eeble unarmed unprovided for in all but want and by his early tears portending that deluge of calamities which in case he be so miserable to survive his birth must drown all the comforts of his life and wash him into earth again after a short slight of time in brief she exposeth him as a bastard to be taken up and nursed by the charity of that giddy headed gossip Fortune who hath no sooner smiled him into strength enough to suffer but she contracts her browes disinherits and abandons the desolate wretch to all the hardship and afflictions that the witty malice of Fate to whom our tortures are pleasures and the hoarse groans of the rack sound perfect melody can either invent or inflict And thus have we heard in Summary the plea of those three eminent Levellers who endevoured to supplant man of his birth-right to take away the prerogative of his nature and reduce him to no greater a share in the favour of his Maker then the meanest of his fellow Animals It comes now to our turn to examine whether their Arguments are strong enough to carry the Cause The Refutation That God in his atcheivem of the Universe had a principal regard to Man above all other the works of his hands and Article 2. The total redâ—rgution thereof by a com nonstâ—aÌ„ce that tâ—e benefit and felicity of man was Gods secondary end and the impossibility of satisfaction to the first end by any creâ—ture but man concluded from his considered him tanquam sinem interjectum as the Mediate or Secondary End his own Glory being the Immediate or Primary or more plainly the end of that end is clearly deduceable even from this that man only among that infinite variety of natures listed in the inventory of the Creation is constituted in a capacity to satisfie that first end his intellectuals or cogitative essence being by a genial verticity or spontaneous propension qualified to admire in admiration to speculate in speculation to acknowledge in acknowledgement to laud the Goodness Wisdome and Power of the Worlds Creator while the ignoble Faculties of all other Animals are terminated in the inferior offices of sense nor ever attain above the inconsiderate operations of their brutal appetites And this one reason if duely perpended will be found of weight enough to counterpoize all those empty frothy sophisms 1. Rationality alleaged to the contrary nor can any aequitable consideration if I rightly understand its value allow it to be much less then Apodictical I say if duely perpended for we are not rashly to understand this peculiar Adaequation or Praeeminence of man to consist in the bare Vprightness of his Figure which accommodates him Coelum intueri erectos ad sidera tollere vultus For according to the vulgar acceptation of Erectness and as it is considered to be a position opposite to Proneness or the horizontal situation of the Spina dorsi or rack bones in Animals progredient with their bellies toward the earth man hath no reason to boast a singularity therein Since many other Animals as the Penguin a kind of water fowle frequent upon the straights of Magellan the devout insect of Province or Prega Dio the praying Grashopper so called because for the most part found in an upright posture answerable to that of man when his hands are elevated at his devotions the Bitour which my self hath sometimes observed standing upright as an arrow falne perpendicular and his eyes so advanced as to shoot their visual beams point blank at the zenith or vertical point of heaven all Plane Fishes that have the apophyses or processes of their spine carried laterally or made like the teeth of a Comb as the Thornback Plaice Flounder Soles c. and their eyes placed in the upper side of their head and so pointing directly upward and diverse others attaining an erectness beyond his and by reason of the sublimimity of their faces taking a far larger prospect of the firmament For man cannot look so high as the Aâ—quinoctial circle unless he either recline the spondils of his neck and loyns or place himself in a supine position And therefore Lactantius though he conceived his argument impregnable when he said Lib. 7. cap. 5. Quod planius argumentum proferri potest mundum hominis hominem suâ caussa Deum fecisse quam quod ex omnibus Animantibus solus it a formatus est ut oculi ejus ad coelum directi facies ad Deum spectans vultus cum suo parente communis sit to him that shall literally interpret the same cannot appear to have stopt the mouth of contradiction unless perhaps we shall afford him so much favour as to restrain the erectnes of man to that precise definition of our Master Galen De usu part lib. 1. which allowes those Animals only to have an erect figure whose spines and thigh bones are situate in right lines For in this strict signification no Animal for ought Zoographers or those that write the Natural Histories of living Creatures have discovered or our selves observed can exactly fulfill that figure but man all others having their thighs pitched at angles either right or obtuse or acute to their spines And for this respect was it that having premised that Man only was constituted in a capacity to satisfie that prime end of the Creation the glory of God I thought necessary to subjoyn his intellectual or Cogitative soul being naturally disposed to admire c. thereby importing that the basis of my Argument was fixt upon the very root of his Essence or better Nature as Plato calls it whose propriety is sursum aspicere to look up to his original and speculate the excellencies of his Maker And thus understood I prefer Plato's etymologie of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and am perswaded that the primitive Grecian so denominated man quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Contemplantem quae videt nor can I conceive that Anaxagoras spake other then tropologically when being askt cur natus esset he smartly and pathetically returned ut videret coelum terras by that figurative expression intending that man was made not to gape about or gaze upon the external beauties of heaven and earth with the dull eye of his body but to have his thoughts sublime and with the acies of his mind to speculate the Wisdome c. of him that made them
not consent to his own Adnihilation though he might evade his torments by the bargain with advantage preferring the miserable condition of something to the horrid opacity of nothing Third that God made such abundant provision conductive to the utility of men that both from the Amplitude and Variety of 3. his work they might collect matter sufficient to incite them to the constant contemplation of his Wisdome and gratefull acknowledgement of his Munificence as also that having observed what of the Creatures were less commodious they might be directed in their election of the more commodious and beneficial as well for their Conservation as Delight Fourth that the labours of Agriculture are superfluous and voluntarily undergon by man more for the maintainance of his 4. delicacy and inordinate luxury then the provision of Necessaries to his livelyhood Since the same liberal earth which is Mother Nurse and Purveyer to all other Animals cannot be thought inhospitable to man only nor so cruelly penurious as to exclude her best guest from participating the inexhaustible bouÌ„ty of her table And though we grant some moderate labour necessary in order to the comfortable sustentation of our prodigal bodies always upon the expence yet have we good cause to esteem that more a blessing then a curse since the sweat of industry is sweet Not only because the active genius of man is constellated for business and therefore never more opprest then with the burthen of idleness but also because the sprightly hopes of a wealthy harvest sweeten and compensate the labour of semination Nor is the contentment which growes from ingenious Husbandry much below any other solace of the mind in this life if we may credit the experience of many Princes who having surfetted on the distractions of royalty have voluntarily quitted the magnified pleasures of the Court magnified only by such ambitious Novices who never discovered the gall that lyes at the bottom of those guilded sweets and with inestimable advantage exchanged the tumult of their palaces for the privacy of Granges have found it a greater delight to â—ultivate the obedient and gratefull earth then rule that giddy beast the multitude a happier entertainment of the mind and more wholsome exercise of the body to hold the easie plough then sway an unweildy Scepter and revell in the infatuating pomp of greatness Fifth that those preposterous seasons Blights Mildews Combustions c. putrefactive accidents that make the preguant earth 5. suffer abortion and so nip the forward hopes of the laborious swain doe neither intervene so frequently nor invade so generally as to introduce an universal famine or so cut off all provision as not to leave a sufficient stock of Aliment for the sustentation of mankind Sixth that the divine Intellect was the universal exemplar 6. to it self framing the types or ideas both of the world and of man within it self and accordingly configurating them This may be evinced by an argument à minori since even our selves have a power to design and modell some artificial engine whose pattern or idea we never borrowed from any thing existent without the circle of our selves but coyned in the solitary recesses of our mind Seventh concerning mans being obnoxious to the injury of many Contingencies as the voracity of wild beasts the venome of 7. Serpents the conflagration of Lightning the contagion of the Pestilence the corruption of swarms of other diseases both epidemick and sporadick c. that all these are the regular effects of Gods Generall Providence and have their causes times and finalities preordained and inscribed in the diary of Fate to whose prescience nothing is contingent But of this more satisfactorily in our subsequent consideration of universal Providence whither in strictness of method it refers it self Eight that this complaint against the unkindness of Nature 8. for producing man tender naked unarmed c. is grosly unjust For the imbecillity of our Infancy is necessary to the perfection and maturity of those noble organs contrived for the administration of the mandates of that Empress the Cogitant Soul and is amply compensated either by the vigor and acuteness of the senses or by diuturnity of life It being observed by Naturalists that those Animals which live long have a long gestation in the womb a long infancy and attain but slowly to their maturity and standard of growth the four general motions of life Inception Augmentation State and Declination carrying set and proportional intervals each to other as that truly noble Philosopher Scaliger hath hinted in his correction of that fabulous tradition of the extreme loâ—gaevity of Deer in these words De ejus vitae longitudine fabulantur neque enim aut gestatio aut incrementum hinnulorum ejusmodi sunt ut praestent argumentum longaevi Animalis As for his being born naked t is no disfavour nor neglect in her for that cumbersom wardrobe of raggs which man hath gotten upon his back is become necessary only by the delicacy of his education and custome not so intended by nature in the primitive simplicity and eucrasie of his constitution when there needed nothing but the skin either to warme or adorn the body Lastly those Armes which Nature hath denied him either he wants not at all or his own ingenious hands can provide at pleasure CHAP. IV. The General Providence of God DEMONSTRATED Sâ—CT I. THe Synopsis of my method exhibited in the hem of the first Section of the first Chapter was designed Article 1. The Authors reasons for his present adherence to the common discrimination of Providence from Creation as a clue to conduct the thoughts of my Reader along the series of those Attributes of the supreme Ens which as being of most general concernment and such as may be clearly demonstrated by the Light of Nature even to those who either never heard of or except against the testimony of Holy Writ I have promised to illustrate by the conviction of Arguments deduced from that catholique Criterion Reason to whose Judicature all Nations and Ages have readily submitted their assent and therefore I am not necessitated here to insert any farther explanation of the connexion and dependence of this Theme upon the precedent but only in avoydance of misconception to advertise that when I say the Creation of the World ex nihilo and the constant Conservation of the same in its primitive order and harmonious Coefficiency of causes subordinate are the general operations of the Wisdome and Power of the First cause I doe not intend that those are Acts really distinct each from other for in the demonstration of the Existence of God t is plainly though succinctly evinced that the Conservation of the Vniverse is nothing but the Act of Creation prolonged or continued but only conform my theory to the customary notions and terms of the Schools and yeeld to the necessity of a division in the gross capacity of mans understanding in order to the more
4. pag. 278. 279. at large expunging that fabulous aspersion and proving them strict solemne and ceremonious Votaries to all the Gods of Greece the latter lib. de sacrificiis p. 57. deriding them for their superstition nay such immoderate and frantique zeal towards the honour of their principal Deity Diana as made them embrace the slames and offer themselves as holocausts unto her Moreover as this inoppugnable propensity to Religion is a Article 7. That it is not in the power of man totally to â—â—dicate this plant of Religion or notion of special Providence Divine â—ut of his minde evinced from hence that the most contumacious Atheists have at some time or other acknowledged it as Cyence of Gods own ingraffing on the mind of man so also is it not in the power of any man though assisted by all the stratagems and legions of Hell totally to eradicate it thence This is a truth confirmed by the Experience of all Ages For notwithstanding the insolent pretences and blasphemous Rhodomontadoes of many miscreants who have gloried in the most execrable cognomen of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and studied to advance their names to the highest pinacle of Fame by being accounted men of such absolute and fearless Spirits as that they scorned to own any Being superior to their own to which they should be accountable for their actions yet have they bin compelled so violent are the secret touches of that hand which converts all things into demostrations of his own Glory either by the scourge of some sharp calamity or the rack of some excruciating disease in their lives to recant or at the neer approach of that King of terrors Death to confess this their horrid impiety Thus the proud and Adamant-hearted Pharaoh who deriding Article 8. Pharaoh the Divine Embassy of Moses in an imperious strain of Scâ—rn and expostulatory bravado demanded of him Quis est Jehovah cujus voci auscultem dimittendo Israelem non novi Jehovam c. did yet when the Violentum of Divine Vengeance by heavy judgements had convinced him when the true and real Miracles of Moses had won the garland from those weak Delusions and prestigious impostures of his Magicians and he beheld their black Art fooled in their vain attempts to imitate Moses in the visible transformation of Dust into Lice when the tangible darknesâ— that benegroed the horizon of Aegypt and so made it more then midnight to the eye of his body had illuminated that of his Soul and when the frozen Granadoes of the clouds had broke open the iron door of his Conscience then sends he post for those whom he had barbarously exiled from his presence humbles himself before them and howles out this Palinodia Peccavi hac vice Jehovah justissimus ego vero populus meus sumus improbissimi Thus Herod Agrippa who in the morne to enhance the estimate of majesty and stroke that vertiginous and admiring Article 9. Herod Agrippa beast the multitude had arrayed him in his brightest ornaments of State thickly imbrodered with plates of Oriental Gold and studded with Diamonds and all other resplendent Gemms so that the incident Sun beams seemed to have acquired a greater lustre by reflexion from him and who by the blast of popular Euges had the wings of his Pride fanned up to so sublime a pitch that he lost sight of his own Humanity and vainly conceived the adulatory Hyperbole of his Auditors to be but their just acknowledgement of his Divinity being wounded by the invisible sword of a revenging Angel before Sun set by a fatal experiment confuted both his own and his flatterers blasphemy and with the hoarse groans of a tortured wretch cryed out En ille Ego vestra appellatione Deus vitam relinquere jubeor fatali necessitate mendacium vestrum coarguente quem immortalem salutastis ad mortem rapior Sed ferenda est voluntas coelestis Numinis Joseph 19. Antiquit. p. 565. Thus that real Lycaon Antiochus Epiphanes who had not only denied but being enraged by a malitious Phrensy beyond Article 10. Antiochus Epiphanes that of Lucifer newly degraded publickly despited and reviled the Almighty Patron of the Jews blasphemed his most sacred name demolished his temples profaned his consecrated Utensils violated his religious institutions and persecuted his worshipers with all the most bloody cruelties that the wit of an exalted malice could invent or inflict being put upon the rack of a sore and mortal disease which some have conjectured and not without good warrant from probability to have bin a Cancer in his bowells introduced mediately by Divine Justice immediately â—y a fix't melancholy generated by the uncessant stings and convulsions of his guilty Conscience as by its procatarctick Cause and despairing of any case or cure but from his injured enemy God he sighes out his Confession The sleep is gon from my eyes and my heart faileth for very Care And I thought with my self into what tribulation am I come and how great a sloud of misery is it wherein I now am But now I remember the evills that I did at Jerusalem and that I took all the vessels of Gold and Silver that were therein and sent to destroy the inhabitants without a Cause I perceive therefore that for this cause these troubles are come upon me c. It is meet to be subject unto God and that a man who is mortal should not think himself equal unto God through pride Maccab. 1. chap. 6. vers 9 10 11. Thus the Giant Emperour Maximinus as insatiate a Article 11. Maximinus Blood-hound to the Christians as Antiochus had bin to the Jews novorum suppliciorum inventione sese insolenter efferens boasting the acuteness of his wit by the invention of new ways of tortures for those patient martyrs as Eusebius lib. 1. de vita Constant cap. 51. hath described him and advancing the Roman Eagle in desiance of those who fought under the sanguine standard of the Cross nay so infatuated with the confidence of his own Greatness and personal strength that he entertained a conceit that Death durst not adventure to encounter him for feare of having his javelin broke about his own crazy skull and all his skeleton of bones rattled to dust as Capitolinus tell us notwithstanding when he felt himself invaded with a Verminous Vlcer or Fistula in mediis corporis arcanis which did letificum foetorem exhalare ut medicorum aliqui incredibilem foetorem ferre non valentes occiderentur evaporate so contagious and pestilential a stench that some of his Physicians not able to endure that mephitis or steam of intense corruption fell down dead and understood the same to be supplicium Divinitus illatum ajudgement sent from God to retaliate upon him those tortures which he had caused in the bowells and secret parts of many innocents then did his flinty heart melt within him and tandem sentire coepit quae contra pios Dei cultores impiè gesserat
self i. e. in the simplicity of its nature is either more good or absolutely good adhaere to a second judgement which of its self is either less good or absolutely evil but yet notwithstanding that in the object which affects and inclines the Intellect is always ipsa veri species the Apparence of Truth which it observes and is attentive to And because that species of Truth may be either real or counterfeit therefore may that which is in its own nature really true be presented under the disguise of an absolute falshood or less Truth and that which is in its own nature really false be presented likewise under the disguise of an absolute truth or less falshood and so the Intellect becoming subject to deception in the point of judicature may be allected to the prosecution of an absolute falshood or less truth while the object remains obvelated under the delusive vizard of an absolute truth or a less falshood è contra This seriously considered supports three excellent Consequences 1 that as often as the Intellect having adhaered to a true judgement Article 16. Three considerable Inferences from the praemises quits and pursues a false one so often of necessity doth something intervene which detracts the genuine or natural Apparence from the good object and imposes a counterfeit Apparence upon the evil one and by that means causes a mutation of the Intellects assent or judgement and therefore 2 that the commutation of the species or Apparence of the object is the sole immediate cause of the Commutation of the Intellects judgement and assent and therefore 3 that since the Will is obliged by that necessity formerly declared to conforme to the conduct and directions of its Guide the Intellect it is in vain therefore to hope or attempt that the Will should change its Appetition unless care be first taken that the Intellect change its judgement or that the Will should be constant to its Appetition unless we provide that the Intellect be constant to its judgement And therefore that Mind which having discovered the incomparable beauties of virtue is become enamoured on her and stands resolved to court no other Mistress but her ought to be exceeding circumspect and cautious in this particular that it submit to the allurement of no object untill it hath profoundly examined whether that species of Good therein presented be really true or only superficial and counterfeit that so it may render its self superiour to the delusion of painted Vice The admirable Des Cartes in 3. part passion artic 22. praesenting a general praeservative against all the excesses and Article 17. Cartesius his general Praeservative against the excesses of Passions exorbitancies of our passions gives us this excellent advice that having learned first to distinguish betwixt those motions or Affections which are terminated in the Soul and those which are terminated only in the Body we should when we feel our blood and spirits agitated by any affection which concernes only the body reflect upon this as a general Maxime that all things which offer themselves to the imagination do tend to no other purpose but to the deception of the Soul and to perswade the rational and judicative Faculty that those reasons inservient to the Commendation of the object of that passion are far more solid sirme and worthy our assent then really they are and on the contrary that those reasons inservient to the Improbation or disallowance of the object are far more trivial infirme and less worthy our assent then really they are That when the passion perswades to those things whose execution may admit suspension or delay we abstain from passing our verdict too hastily upon them and divert our cogitations to the serious examen of the inconveniences impendent on their pursuit and execution or at least to some other object till time and sleep shall have calmed the impetuous commotions of the blood and spirits which the seeming good of the object hath excited And that when the Passion incites to those actions whose fleet occasion gives the soul little or no time to consult and deliberate we always endevour to convert our Understanding to the perpension and our Will to the prosecution of those reasons which are conttary to those inferred and urged by that passion notwithstanding they shall at the first view appearless valid and ponderous for thereby we shall mainly refract and abate the violence of the passion Now this may be our Exemplar in ordering our advice how Article 18. General Rules praescribed by the Author how to praevent the Delusion of the Vnderstanding and dependent seduction of the will by Evil disguifed under the similitude of Good to prevent the Delusion of our Understanding and the seduction of our Will by Evil disguised under the similitude of Good First we ought to learn the discrimination of the goods of the Mind from those pertinent only to the Body and then when we meet with any object apparently good abstractly to examine whether that good concerns either the body alone or the mind alone or both body and mind equally or more the body then the mind or more the mind then the body If only the body we are to convert our cogitations upon the reasons which disswade more intently then upon the reasons which perswade the election of and adhaerence to it that so we may if there be any detect the Evil couched under that vernish of good and also conquer the Minds impatience which too often beares a large share in our deceptions If only the Mind in that case we are to bring it to the touchstone of the Divine Will i. e. examine whether those reasons whereby it perswades our Intellect to an Approbation and consequently our Will to an affectation and prosecution of it are correspondent to that inseparable or proper sign or mark of true Good Conformity to the Will of God or not for the very Soul or quintessence of virtue doth radically consist â—n this that man without all haesitancy murmur diffidence and reluctancy conforme his Will to the indeceptible Divine Will as being ascertained that he can will nothing more excellent in its self nor convenient to him then what God hath willed before If both body and mind equally then to abstract those reasons which insinuate the interest of Sense and insist only upon those which praefer it to the mind for if they shall be found worthy of assent we need the Authority of no other to justify our election of that object If more the body then the mind then we ought to aestimate the convenience of it by that lesser relation it holds to the mind and not by that greater it holds to the body And finally if more the mind then the body since the interest of the mind is infinitely to be praeferred to that of the body where the reasons are equall on each part t is manifest we may safely acquiesce in that judgement and embrace the object
the real good of virtue attracteth the mind more weakly and the seeming Good of vice more strongly and on the contrary the real evil of vice averteth or disgusteth the mind more weakly and the seeming evil of good more strongly So he that offends may we confess with Ovid say Video meliora probóque deteriora sequor that he knows those things which he rejecteth to be the better and those things which he electeth to be the worse but yet this must be referred unto some other time when he recognizes his habitual Science and calls to mind that once he had other judgements of those things for he cannot justly say so of that time wherein he offended since then he judged those things he pursued to be the better and those he deserted to be the worse Now as for that internal regret contristation and poenitence which invades the mind of every Delinquent immediately after and most frequently in the same moment of the perpetration of his offence this proceeds from his animadversion that he suffers some loss of good But since this his apprehension of the loss of good and that reluctancy of mind attendant thereupon is but dull and weak in comparison of that complacency he is affected withall by the seeming good or pleasure of evil which subdues his judgement to an approbation of it hence it is manifest that he considers and perpends the impendent omission of Good and the incursion of evil not seriously and profoundly as he ought but only perfunctorily and slightly For were the punishment sorrow ignominy and other evils which he only lightly and confusedly apprehends and fears profoundly examined and lookt into by him not as absent not as future not as uncertain and avoidable but as impendent present certain and inevitable without all doubt the smallest glimpse of reason would be sufficient to let him see those forcible determents nor could he be so mad as from the rock of knowledge to precipitate himself into the most horrid gulph of vice And therefore albeit an offender may say that he saw and approved the Good but embraced the Evil yet is that Inconsideration or Non-advertency by reason whereof he doth not sufficiently discover all the qualities and circumstances of the evil object and what and how great mischiefs must necessarily ensue upon his actual prosecution thereof a kind of Ignorance And in this sense only can we allow Ignorance to be the mother of Sin for had man sufficiently understood the evil thereof he had never bin vicious To conclude therefore this Ignorance must prove but an Article 5. What kind of Ignorance that is which may in some degree excuse a Delinquent invalid and ridiculous plea at the judicious Tribunal of Justice nor ought a Delinquent to slatter himself with the vain hopes of impunity by such an excuse that he sinned for want of knowledge that he prosecuted the apparent Good he saw in the object that it was above his power to prevent the delusion of his understanding by Evil praesented under the species of Good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we cannot countermand Apparences that no man is vicious with his own consent nor happy against his will according to that Proverb Nemo malus ultrò est neque beatus non volens and that he wanted an ability of Jâ—udgement to do otherwise this we say cannot extenuate his guilt and consequently not avert the punishment due thereunto For that Ignorance which excuseth is of another nature such as we may more properly call Inscientia mera meer Nescience Ignorantia pura ac invincibilis pure and invincible Ignorance such as that of Cephalus when mistaking her to have bin a wild beast couchant in a brake he discharged his dart at his beloved wife Procris and unfortunately slew her and that of the constant Deianira when she poysoned Hercules with a shirt dipt in Nessus the Centaures gore which she intended for a Philtre to revoke his affections from Iole and that also of the fatal handed Gentleman who shooting at a Deer in New-Forest killed William Rufus but that Ignorance of which we here discourse is in proper truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Incuria vel Negligentia mera meer Negligence Inadvertency or Heedlesness and is therefore for distinctions sake denominated Ignorantia crassa affectata supina gross affected supine ignorance To understand the nature of this Non-excusing Ignorance the more distinctly let us observe that every Delinquent must in justice charge the Ignorance he praetends upon one of these two Causes either that himself was to himself the cause of his ignorance or that he neglected the means and advantages of acquiring knowledge i. e. that he did not imploy his Cognoscent Faculty on the examination and consideration of the real good or evil of his action with that care seriousness and sedulity which was requisite To the First of these Causes belongs the ignorance of a Drunkard for in being the Cause of his Ebriety he is also the Cause of his Ignorance and 't was in his power to have praevented this by the praecaution of that and therefore his Ignorance is so far short of extenuating that it naturally aggravates his culpability and he if Aristotle may be judge deserves a double punishment one for making himself drunk another for the crime committed in his Drunkenness Hither also we are to refer his Ignorance who resisteth not the force of a Passion or perturbation of his mind in the first motion or beginning thereof while 't is yet but weak and to be supprest by a small opposition of reason but permits it to acquire more violence and gain upon him by degrees till its impulse grow impetuous and more inoppugnable as also his who suffers a vicious Inclination which he might without any considerable difficulty have at first refracted and totally extinguished to grow into a setled Habit which pleading praescription and possession is hardly ejected but plays the obsolute Tyrant ore the mind and holds the Scepter of both Understanding and Will by the ineluctable title of Conquest Thus if a man who having a rare Bird in his hand willingly lets it sly should complain that he cannot recover it again t is not to be expected that any rational person should pity him for his loss but rather deride his folly in that he manumitted it when t was in his power to have kept it and if a man contract some dangerous disease by intemperance who can afford him half so much compassion since t was in his power not to have bin intemperate as if he had bin invaded by some impartial Epidemick Contagion against which none the greatest temperance is an infallible praeservative To this purpose were these words of Aristotle intended Nemo enim caecitatem quam natura morbus ictus fecerit exprobret sed caeci potius misereatur at si illam aut ebriositas aut intemperantia alia fecerit non id opprobrio ducat in 3. Ethic. cap. 7. To the other belongs his
ignorance who being hurried on to Article 6. â—â—ur weighty Reasons convincing that man hath an Absolute Power in himself to controll the temptations of Evil. the prosecution of Evil by the impetuous rapt or swindge of Passion can yet say Video meliora probóque for in this case also was it in his power to have more seriously and sedulously examined sifted and praeconsidered the evils impendent on that action and so to have avoided it We say absolutely in his power for four weighty respects 1 Because we frequently observe that if in the same moment when we are prepared to commit a sin and already entered upon the execution there chance to come in some grave and virtuous Person whom we revere or some Magistrate whose revenging sword we sear intervene we instantly become conscious of our wicked intentions and desist from the perpetration of it 2 Because there are many Virtuous Persons who having learned and practised that noblest militia of conquering themselves can command themselves even in the highest orgasmus and fervour of their passions holding it most base and unworthy the dignity of a generous mind to be surprized with the subtlest Ambushes of Vice and led captive by the Pygmie armies of sensual Temptations 3 Because t is not in vain that God compassionating the frailties and deceptibility of humane nature hath vouchsafed to accommodate our understanding with those faithful and powerful auxiliaries Laws Praecepts Exhortations and pious Praecedents to which we may in the hottest charges of vicious temptations with safety and assured Conquest recurre and upon which if with sufficient attention we reflect the eye of our mind we shall become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ejus domini quod res esse apparet Lords Comptrollers of Apparences i. e. detect the frauds and impostures of Evil though drest in all the glorious ornaments of Good 4 Because no man endevoring to excuse his offence can truly say Video meliora probóque but he doth manifestly grant the action he doth to be Deliberate and Praecogitate which is as much as this t was absolutely in my power to have omitted the doing of it and to have done the contrary good For none can say so of an indeliberate action as when he feels a commotion of his blood and spirits at the first touch of Anger which is the reason of Seneca his affirmation 2 de Ira 3 quod primus motus non sit voluntarius that the first motion which an object excites in the mind is involuntary and the ground of that Maxime Primi motus non sunt in nostra potestate What these First Motions which objects their species being Article 7. What those First Motions are which objects inevitably excite in the Mind and that the Consequences of those motions are praeventible by the mediation of the nerves and spirits transmitted to the mind excite therein are in the general though Epictetus hath furnished us with a convenient brief description of them in these words Primus motus est quem creant visa animi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellant Philosophi quibus mens hominis prima statim specie accidentis ad animum rei pellitur non voluntatis sunt neque arbitrariae sed vi quadam suâ sese inferunt hominibus nosâ—itandae yet the most apposite and most familiar way of explaining their nature and extent which our meditations could find out is to exemplify them in some one particular beginning Passion and chiefly in that of Anger where these Impulses or motions are most sensible because most forcible Which that we may the more worthily performe let us with Des Cartes concede two distinct species of Anger 1 one caused in a moment which invading with some violence cannot be concealed but discovers it self for the most part by colouring the face with a Vermilion or Aurora tincture on a suddain but performes little and is easily and soon calmed 2 Another which invading with less violence is not to be discovered unless rarely by inducing paleness upon the Countenance by any signes in the beginning but being of a less diffusive condition doth more corrode and gall the heart and consequently produce more dangerous effects To the first of these they are most obnoxious who have the most of Love Nobleness or sweetness of disposition habited in them For it ariseth not from any profound hatred but from a suddain Aversation repentinely surprising the Mind and because loving good and Heroick minds are always propense to imagine that all things ought to proceed in that manner or course which they judge to be the best therefore so soon as they discover any thing to be carried on in a contrary course to Good they instantly make a stand in their thoughts become offended at it and grow angry yea many times when the matter concerns not them in special for since they love much they take to heart as the vulgar phrase it resent and appropriate the Cause of them they love as neerly as if it were their own insomuch as what would have bin no more then matter of Indignation to others proves matter of Anger to them And because that Inclination whereby they become possest with a constant propensity to love doth effect that they have always much of heat because much of blood in and about their Heart therefore that repentine Aversion which suddainly surpriseth them cannot but propell some small quantity of Choler the Tinder whereon the sparks of this Passion fix and foment to the Heart nor that little of Choler but be accended and excite in an instant a great commotion and effervescence of the blood thither propelled But this Commotion lasteth but a small space of time because the impulse or force of the unexpected Aversation is of no continuance and so soon as they deprehend the matter for which they were angry to be of no moment and such as ought not to have commoved them to that height they becalme themselves conjure down their spirits and become affected with a reluctancy against and a poenitence for that Passion and so destroy it in the Embryo or shell With the other weak abject and ingenerous minds are most transported For though it seldome discover it self in the beginning unless by some paleness in the face yet is its force by degrees increased by reason of that agitation which the fervent desire of Revenge exciteth in the blood which being permixed with that Choler propelled to the heart from the inferior part of the Liver and Spleen kindles therein a sharp pungent and corroding Heat And as those minds are most generous and noble which are most inclined to Gratitude so are those the most proud abject and base which suffer themselves the most to be transported with this kind of ignoble Anger For by so much the greater do Injuries appear to be by how much the greater value Pride makes a man put upon himself and by how much the greater aestimation is set upon those Goods which are
which otherwise would not have come to pass doth or some other Cause interposeth which besides its proper destination and the unpraemeditated concurse of certain other things effecteth that some even◠which otherwise would doth not come to pass or that some event which otherwise would not doth come to pass hence is it manifest that this Posterior kind of Contingency is in the general that w ch men call Chance and if it be especially in Man besides or beyond whose intention any Effect eveneth then is it what they call Fortune unless that somtimes they confound both these and then 't is indifferent whether the event be referred either to Fortune or Chance However we perceive reflecting upon the former Example since the Double Effect viz. the digging of the earth and the invention of the treasure had but one single Cause viz. the man that digged that for this reason the Digger may justly enough be sayd to be Causa per se in respect of the one and per accidens in respect of the other To which we may add this that since in Effects meerly Natural one and the same thing may be both Fortune and Nature or a Natural Cause therefore Gassendus had very good reason to justifie Epicurus in this particular that he made Fortune and Nature no more then synonoma's signifying one and the same thing in Reality Now though common Enquirie may goe away satisfied with Article 3. Their Anatomy of her Nature desicient a more perfect one praesented this pausible Adumbration of Fortune yet cannot a profound and more ocular Scrutiny be terminated therein for the Example introduced to explain it comes largely short of a requisite Adaequation insomuch as no rational man can appositely enough accept either him that digged or his Action of digging for all that 's comprehended under that obscure notion of Fortune Wherefore omitting the consideration of Res Fortuita or the Event which is most frequently apprehended for Fortune it self or the cause of that insperate event let us understand Fortune to be such a concurse of various Causes made without all mutual consultation or praecogitate conspiracy betwixt them as that from thence doth follow an Event or fortuitous Effect which neither all the Causes concurrent nor some of them nor especialy he to whom the Event happens ever in the least measure intended or could expect Now according to the tenor of this Defifinition in regard to the fortuitous Invention of a treasure is required not only the Person who digg's and finds it but also he who first digg'd and hid it it is no obscure nor controvertible truth that Fortune or the Cause by Accident of the invention of the treasure is the Concurse both of the Occultation and Effossion thereof in that particular place We sayd without mutual Consultation and besides the intention of any or all the Causes concurrent thereby intimating that though one or more of the Causes may have haply intended that event yet nevertheless t is properly and absolutely Fortune in relation to that Cause which intended it not Thus if any man who foreknowes or at least conjectures that such a Person will come and digg in such a place doth there hide treasure to the end that the other may find it in this case in respect to him that hid it the Invention of the treasure is not a Fortuitous Effect but in respect to him who unexpectedly finds it it is Thus was it not altogether Fortuitous in respect of Nitocris what hapned at the Violation of his Tomb in regard he praesumed that in process of time there would be some King or other who invited by this promising Inscription If any of my Successors the Kings of Babylon shall want mony let him break open this Sepulchre and thence take what may supply his wants but on no condition unless his wants be real let him attempt it for it shall redound to his no swale detriment would open it but yet in respect to Darius that instead of mony he therein found this deriding Engravement Had'st not thou bin insatiable with riches and covetous of sordid lucre thou wouldst not have thus prophaned the Ashes of thy Praedecessors and ransack't the sacred Dormitory of the Dead this was meerly Fortuitous And thus also though Democritus hath pleaded hard to free Fortune from having any hand in the incomparable Death of good old Aeschylus why because his bald pate being mistaken by a volant Eagle for a white stone in the field was the cause why the Eagle drop't a Tortois perpendicular thereupon yet had we bin of the Jury we should have found her guilty of the Murder 1 in respect of the Poet since that sad event was besides his intention he at the same time having withdrawn himself from the Town for fear of being destroyed according to the tenor of the Astrologers praediction by the fall of an house nor could he possibly foresee that prodigious mischance impendent 2 in respect of the Eagle who drop't not the Tortois with purpose to brain the Poet but to break its shell that so he might come at his prey the flesh thereof However we are willing because in truth we ought to acknowledge that if we regard the height or punctilio of her Propriety Fortune is chiefly when among all those several Causes which concurr no one either principally or collaterally intends or aimes at that Event which unexpectedly succeeds upon that their concurse of which we have a most illustrious and competent Example in the Dilatation of the death of Socrates a day beyond the time praefixt by his Judges for the Execution of their Sentence upon him as Plutarch de Fato hath praecisely observed We have it from the pen of that oraculous Secretary of Nature Article 4. Fortune nothing but a meer Negation of all Praenotion in a Concurse of natural Causes respective to a fortuitous Event D r Harvey that he never dissected any Animal but he always discoverd somthing or other more then he expected nay then ever he thought on before so useful infinite in variety is the Magna Charta of Nature and perhaps some of our Readers may here have occasion to say as much of this our Dissection of Fortune for while we have exercised our thoughts in the exploration of her Nature we have unexpectedly found that if considered per se reverà she hath no nature at all i. e. that in Reality she is nothing For when we have abstracted all those Causes in the Concurse which act per se or by natural virtue there remains no more but a meer Privation or Negation of all Praenotion in the concurrent Causes of that particular Concurse and also of the intention and expectation of the subsequent Event nor can that unpraemeditate Concurse of Causes be rightly accounted the Cause of the Fortuitous Event by any neerer relation then that which Philosophers have termed Conditio sine qua non Since as the Admotion of any
sayth positively Non potest Artifex mutare materiam it was not in his power to Abstract it because not to alter the Matter But not to leave our Explanation of Democritus Fatum Materiale imperfect we may from what hath praeceded perceive at what mark these words of his were directed Necessitatem quâ omnia fiunt esse Fatum Iustitiam Providentiam opisicem mundi apud Plutarch 1. placit 45. that the Necessity whereby all things are effected is both Fate Justice Providence and Maker of the World viz. this that the Series of things in which the reason or essence of Fate doth consist could not have bin otherwise constituted that upon this Series it depends why one thing is accounted Just and another Unjust why the world is governed thus and all things proceed according to the praesent method and no other and why the adspectable form of the Universe was made in all points responsible to what it now holds c. For He referred the Causation of all things to those newly explicated congenial motions of Atoms and so conceived that even the Soul or Mind of man which He also fancied to be a certain Contexture of sphaerical or orbicular Atoms is variously agitated not only by those internal motions of its own insensible particles which vary according to its individval Complexion i. e. the Atoms composing the Soul of a Melancholy man are of one sort at least of one contexture those of a Cholerick of another those of a Phlegmatick of a third c. but also by those Extradvenient motions caused by Objects by whose Species or Images incurrent which Atoms also constitute the Mind cannot but be Attracted if they be consentaneous and allective or gratefull nor not be Averted if they be dissentaneous and repulsive or ingratefull That if the Mind be not alwaies allected by Attractive Species the reason is because at the same instant there occur unto it the more potent sollicitations of their Contrary Averting Species and if it be not alwaies Averted by Repellent the reason is equal viz. because at the same instant it is more strongly sollicited by their Contrary Attractive Species That therefore the Mind cannot but be carried on toward Good or that which is gratefull and allective so long as it discovers no Evil admixt thereto nor not be averted from Evil or what is ingratefull and aversant so long as it perceives no Good to be commixt therewith That therefore the Mind cannot when two Goods are objected but pursue the greater Good as that which attracteth more potently nor when two Evils are objected but avoyd the greater as that whereby it is averted more potently That when two objects the one Good the other Evil at the same time praesent their Species it cannot but neglect the Good so long as the Evil averts more potently then the Good attracts nor not be carried towards the Good while the Evil averts more weakly and the Good attracts more strongly Finally that since by reason of the Ignorance or Dimness of the Mind it doth frequently not perceive the Evil consequent upon its prosecution of some Good therefore is it subject to Deception in some cases and is often carried on to that from which it ought to have bin averted nor perceive the Good that is consequent upon its prosecution of some Evil and is therefore as often averted from that object to which it ought to have bin converted But notwithstanding insomuch as all objects by this and no other way occur unto and affect the Mind still it cannot but Necessarily be carried whither it is carried nor but be averted from that from which it is averted and consequently that there remains to it only a Desire of Truth i. e. that no Counterfeit Species may occur but that all objects may appear such as in reality they are nor Good be concealed under the disgusting vizard of Evil nor Evil gilded o're with the splendid semblance of Good For this is the summe of what Empiricus 2. advers Physic makes Democritus to have desiderated when He sayd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exoptat rerum imagines consentaneas posse nancisci Now by this complex Argumentation Democritus may be understood to have inferred that though some Actions seem situate within the praecincts of our own jurisdiction or that it is absolutely in our power to Elect or Reject this or that object insomuch as every mans experience doth demonstrate to him that he doth and can consult and deliberate about the Good and Evil of Objects and actually electing the one refuseth the other and that not by Compulsion but Freely yet notwithstanding is nothing really in our power because not only the occasion of our Consultation but also the Consultation it self is imposed upon us by inevitable Necessity First that the Occasion of Consultation or the Exhibition of many objects which almost equally affecting the Mind and by reason of the aequipondium of their Verisimility or moments of Good holding it suspended in aequilibrio of necessity ingage it to a Deliberation cannot but be imposed upon us we conceive it not obscure to him who shall deduce the conducing Series of things ftom a due Epoche or height and analytically undoe the chain of Causes and Secondly that also the act of Consultation is a Necessary Effect is manifest from hence that when two objects occur to the mind so equally Attractive that their Apparencies of Vtility or Praesentations of Good are aequilibrated and reciprocally counterpoise each other the mind must of necessity be agitated by a kind of Fluctuation and detained in the suspence of Indifferency or Indetermination or Consultation untill it acquiesce in its Election of that Object whose praesentation of Vtility seems to praeponderate the others Which aequitably audited amounts to no more then this that Election is nothing but the prosecution of an Object which either really is or at lest seems more Good and that a spontaneous one without all coaction or renitency in respect that man doth both spontaneously affect and willingly prosecute Good And that you may not admire this bold assertion viz. that both the Occasion and Consultation and free or rather libent Election of Objects are all links in the Chain of Fate and so comprehended under this Natural Necessity propugned by Democritus the Stoicks intercept your wonder by obtruding another as strange viz. that it depends on the same Concatenation of things that you now read this our discourse of Fate as Manilius lib. 2. Hoc quoque fatale est sic ipsum expendere Fatum And this because whatever Action of any man you shall suppose it can be no difficulty according to this Hypothesis to find out the proxime Cause exciting him thereunto and to refer that Cause to the permotion of another remote one and that third to the permotion of a fourth that fourth to the induction of a fifth c. unravelling the series of Causes so that it must at length be inferred