such Grammar as that there is no School-boy but would be ashamed of it nor is there for all his pretences any place in Scripture to countenance such an extravagant Exposition by way of Parallelism as it may appear to any one that will compare the places which he alleadges with this which I leave the Reader to do at his leisure Let us consider the Context Joh. 17. 4. I have glorified thee upon earth during this my Pilgrimage and absence from thee being sent hither by thee I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do and for the doing of which I was sent and am thus long absent And now O Father glorifie me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud teipsum in thine own presence with the glorie which I had before the world was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud te or in thy presence What can be more expressive of a Glorie which Christ had apud Patrem or at his Fathers home or in his presence before the world was and from which for such a time he had been absent Now for others that would salve the business by communication of Idioms I will set down the words of an ingenious Writer that goes that way Those Predicates says he that in a strict and vigorous acception agreed onely to his Divine Nature might by a communication of Idioms as they phrase it be attributed to his Humane or at least to the whole Person compounded of them both than which nothing is more ordinarie in things of a mixt and heterogeneous nature as the whole man is stiled immortal from the deathlessness of his Soul thus he And there is the same reason if he had said that man was stiled mortal which certainly is far the more ordinarie from the real death of his Bodie though his Soul be immortal This is wittily excogitated But now let us apply it to the Text expounding it according to his communication of Idioms affording to the Humane Nature what is onely proper to the Divine thus Father glorifie me my Humane Nature with the glorie that I my Divine Nature had before the world was Which indeed was to be the Eternal Infinite and Omnipotent brightness of the Glory of the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the Glory which his Divine Nature had before the World was But how can this Humane Nature be glorified with that Glory his Divine Nature had before the world was unless it should become the Divine Nature that it might be said to have pre-existed But that it cannot be For there is no confusion of the Humane and Divine Nature in the Hypostasis of Christ Or else because it is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature but if that be the Glory that he then had already and had it not according to the Opposers of Pre-existence before the world was So we see there is no sence to be made of this Text by communication of Idioms and therefore no sence to be made of it without the Pre-existence of the Humane Nature of Christ And if you paraphrase me thus My Hypostasis consisting of my Humane and Divine Nature it will be as untoward sence For if the Divine Nature be included in me then Christ prays for what he has aleady as I noted above For the Glory of the eternal Logos from everlasting to everlasting is the same as sure as he is the same with himself Pag. 86. By his expressions of coming from the Father descending from Heaven and returning thither again c. I suppose these Scriptures are alluded to John 3. 13. 6. 38. 16. 28. I came down from Heaven not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again I leave the world and go to the Father Whereupon his Disciples said unto him Lo now speakest thou plainly and speakest no Parable But it were a very great Parable or Aenigm that one should say truly of himself that he came from Heaven when he never was there And as impossible a thing is it to conceive how God can properly be said to come down from Heaven who is alwaies present every where Wherefore that in Christ which was not God namely his Soul or Humane Nature was in Heaven before he appeared on Earth and consequently his Soul did pre-exist Nor is there any refuge here in the communication of Idioms For that cannot be attributed to the whole Hypostasis which is competent to neither part that constitutes it For it was neither true of the Humane Nature of Christ if you take away Pre-existence nor of the Divine that they descended from Heaven c. And yet John 3. 13 14. where Christ prophesying of his Crucifixion and Ascension saith No man hath ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who was in Heaven So Erasmus saith it may be rendred a Participle of the present tense having a capacity to signifie the time past if the sence require it as it seems to do here Qui erat in Coelo viz. antequam descenderat So Erasmus upon the place Wherefore these places of Scripture touching Christ being such inexpugnable Arguments of the Pre-existence of the Soul of the Messiah the Writer of No Pre-existence methinks is no where so civil or discreet as in this point Where he saies he will not squabble about this but readily yield that the Soul of Christ was long extant before it was incarnate But then he presently flings dirt upon the Pre-existentiaries as guilty of a shameful presumption and inconsequence to conclude the Pre-existence of all other Humane Souls from the Pre-existence of his Because he was a peculiar favourite of God was to undergo bitter sufferings for Mankind and therefore should enjoy an happy Pre-existence for an Anti-praemium And since he was to purchase a Church with his own most precious Bloud it was fit he should pre-exist from the beginning of the world that he might preside over his Church as Guide and Governour thereof which is a thing that cannot be said of any other soul beside This is a device which I believe the Pre-existentiaries good men never dreamt of but they took it for granted that the creation of all Humane Souls was alike and that the Soul of Christ was like ours in all things sin onely excepted as the Emperour Justinian in his Discourse to Menas Patriarch of Constantinople argues from this very Topick to prove the Non-pre-existence of our Souls from the Non-pre-existence of Christs he being like us in all things sin onely excepted And therefore as to Existence and Essence there was no difference Thus one would have verily thought to have been most safe and most natural to conclude as being so punctual according to the declaration of Scripture and order of things For it seems almost as harsh and repugnant to give Angelical Existence to a Species not Angelical as Angelical
yet other peculiarities also being required and the former sensible Pathos to be recovered which is impossible in this State it is likewise impossible for us to remember the other in this The second Argument of the Author for the proving the unlikeliness of our remembring the other State is the long intermission and discontinuance from thinking of those things For 't is plain that such discontinuance or desuetude bereaves us of the memory of such things as we were acquainted with in this World Insomuch as if an ancient man should read the Verses or Themes he made when he was a School-boy without his name subscribed to them though he pumpt and sweat for them when he made them could not tell they were his own How then should the Soul remember what she did or observ'd many hundreds nay thousands of years ago But yet our Authors Antagonist has the face to make nothing of this Argument neither Because forsooth it is not so much the desuetude of thinking of one thing but the thinking of others that makes us forget that one thing What a shuffle is this For if the Soul thought on that one thing as well as on other things it would remember it as well as them Therefore it is not the thinking of other things but the not thinking of that that makes it forgotten Vsus promptus facit as in general so in particular And therefore disuse in any particular slackens at first and after abolishes the readiness of the Mind to think thereof Whence sleepiness and sluggishness is the Mother of Forgetfulness because it disuses the Soul from thinking of things And as for those seven Chronical Sleepers that slept in a Cave from Decius his time to the reign of Theodosius junior I dare say it would have besotted them without a Miracle and they would have rose out of their sleep no more wise than a Wisp I am sure not altogether so wise as this awkward Arguer for memory of Souls in their Pre-existent state after so hugely long a discontinuance from it But for their immediately coming out of an Aethereal Vehicle into a Terrestrial and yet forgetting their former state what Example can be imagined of such a thing unless that of the Messias who yet seems to remember his former glorious condition and to pray that he may return to it again Though for my part I think it was rather Divine Inspiration than Memory that enabled him to know that matter supposing his Soul did pre-exist Our Authors third and last Argument to prove that lapsed Souls in their Terrestrial condition forget their former state is from observation how deteriorating changes in this earthly Body spoils or quite destroys the Memory the Soul still abiding therein such as Casualties Diseases and old Age which changes the tenour of the Spirits and makes them less useful for memory as also 't is likely the Brain it self Wherefore there being a more deteriorating change to the Soul in coming into an earthly Body instead of an aereal or aethereal the more certainly will her memory of things which she experienced in that state be washed out or obliterated in this Here our Authors Antagonist answers That though changes in body may often weaken and sometimes utterly spoil the memory of things past yet it is not necessary that the Souls changing of her body should therefore do so because it is not so injurious to her faculties Which if it were not onely our Memory but Reason also should have been casheered and lost by our migration out of those Vehicles we formerly actuated into these we now enliven but that still remaining sound and entire it is a signe that our Memory would do so too if we had pre-existed in other bodies before and had any thing to remember And besides if the bare translocation of our Souls out of one body into another would destroy the memory of things the Soul has experienced it would follow that when People by death are summoned hence into the other state that they shall be quite bereaved of their Memory and so carry neither applause nor remorse of Conscience into the other World which is monstrously absurd and impious This is the main of his Answer and mostwhat in his own words But of what small force it is we shall now discover and how little pertinent to the business For first we are to take notice that the deteriorating change in the Body or deteriorating state by change of Bodies is understood of a debilitative diminutive or privative not depravative deterioration the latter of which may be more injurious to the faculties of the Soul though in the same Body such a deteriorating change causing Phrensies and outragious Madness But as for diminutive or privative deterioration by change the Soul by changing her Aereal Vehicle for a Terrestrial is comparing her latter state with her former much injured in her faculties or operations of them all of them are more slow and stupid and their aptitude to exert the same Phantasms of things that occurred to them in the other State quite taken away by reason of the heavy and dull though orderly constitution of the Terrestrial Tenement which weight and stupor utterly indisposes the Soul to recall into her mind the scene of her former state this load perpetually swaying down her thoughts to the Objects of this Nor does it at all follow because Reason is not lost therefore Memory if there were any such thing as Pre-existence would still abide For the universal principles of Reason and Morality are essential to the Soul and cannot be obliterated no not by any death but the knowledge of any particular external Objects is not at all essential to the Soul nor consequently the memory of them and therefore the Soul in the state of silence being stript of them cannot recover them in her incorporation into a Terrestrial Body But her Reason with the general principles thereof being essential to her she can as well as this State will permit exercise them upon the Objects of this Scene of the Earth and visible World so far as it is discovered by her outward senses she looking out at those windows of this her earthly Prison to contemplate them And she has the faculty and exercise of Memory still in such a sense as she has of sensitive Perception whose Objects she does remember being yet to all former impresses in the other state a mere Abrasa Tabula And lastly it is a mere mistake of the Opposer or worse that he makes the Pre-existentiaries to impute the loss of memory in Souls of their former state merely to their coming into other Bodies when it is not bare change of Bodies but their descent into worser Bodies more dull and obstupifying to which they impute this loss of memory in lapsed Souls This is a real death to them according to that ancient Aenigm of that abstruse Sage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We live their death namely of separate Souls but are
dead to their life But the changing of our Earthly Body for an Aereal or Aethereal this is not Death but Reviviscency in which all the energies of the Soul are not depressed but exalted and our Memory with the rest quickened as it was in Esdras after he had drunk down that Cup offered to him by the Angel full of Liquor like Fire which filled his Heart with Understanding and strengthned his Memory as the Text says Thus we see how all Objections against the three Reasons of lapsed Souls losing the memory of the things of the other state vanish into smoak Wherefore they every one of them single being so sound all three put together methinks should not fail of convincing the most refractory of this Truth That though the Soul did pre-exist and act in another state yet she may utterly forget all the Scenes thereof in this Pag. 46. Now if the reasons why we lose the remembrance of our former life be greater c. And that they are so does appear in our Answer to the Objections made against the said Reasons if the Reader will consider them Pag. 50. And thereby have removed all prejudices c. But there is yet one Reason against Pre-existence which the ingenious Author never thought of urged by the Anti-Pre-existentiaries namely That it implies the rest of the Planets peopled with Mankind it being unreasonable to think that all Souls descended in their lapse to this onely Earth of Ours And if there be lapsed Souls there how shall they be recovered shall Christ undergo another and another death for them But I believe the ingenious Author would have looked upon this but as a mean and trifling Argument there being no force in any part thereof For why may not this Earth be the onely Hospital Nosocomium or Coemeterium speaking Platonically of sinfully lapsed Souls And then suppose others lapsed in other Planets what need Christ die again for them when one drop of his Bloud is sufficient to save myriads of Worlds Whence it may seem a pity there is not more Worlds than this Earth to be redeemed by it Nor is it necessary they should historically know it And if it be the Eclipse of the Sun at his Passion by some inspired Prophets might give them notice of it and describe to them as orderly an account of the Redemption as Moses does of the Creation though he stood not by while the World was framed but it was revealed to him by God And lastly it is but a rash and precarious Position to say that the infinite Wisdom of God has no more ways than one to save lapsed Souls It is sufficient that we are assured that this is the onely way for the saving of the Sons of Adam and these are the fixt bounds of revealed Truth in the Holy Scripture which appertains to us Inhabitants on Earth But as for the Oeconomy of his infinite Wisdom in the other Planets if we did but reflect upon our absolute ignorance thereof we would have the discretion not to touch upon that Topick unless we intended to make our selves ridiculous while we endeavour to make others so Chap. 6. pag. 51. Now as the infinite goodness of the Deity obligeth him always to do good so by the same to do that which is best c. To elude the force of this chief Argument of the Pre-existentiaries an ingenious Opposer has devised a way which seems worth our considering which is this viz. By making the Idea of God to consist mainly in Dominion and Soveraignty the Scriptures representing him under no other notion than as the Supream Lord and Soveraign of the Universe Wherefore nothing is to be attributed to him that enterferes with the uncontroulableness of his Dominion And therefore says he they that assert Goodness to be a necessary Agent that cannot but do that which is best directly supplant and destroy all the Rights of his Power and Dominion Nay he adds afterwards That this notion of Gods goodness is most apparently inconsistent not onely with his Power and Dominion but with all his other moral Perfections And for a further explication of his mind in this matter he adds afterwards That the Divine Will is indued with the highest kind of liberty as it imports a freedom not onely from foreign Violence but also from inward Necessity For spontaneity or immunity from coaction without indifferency carries in it as great necessity as those motions that proceed from Violence or Mechanism From whence he concludes That the Divine Will cannot otherwise be determined than by its own intrinsick energie And lastly Forasmuch as no Courtisie can oblige but what is received from one that had a power not to bestow them if God necessarily acted according to his Goodness and not out of mere choice and liberty of Will there were no thanks nor praise due to him which therefore would take away the duties of Religion This is the main of his Hypothesis whereby he would defeat the force of this Argument for the Pre-existence of Souls taken from the Goodness of God Which this Hypothesis certainly would do if it were true and therefore we will briefly examine it First therefore I answer That though the Scriptures do frequently represent God as the Lord and Soveraign of the Universe yet it does not conceal his other Attributes of Goodness and Mercy and the like But that the former should be so much inculcated is in reference to the begetting in the People Awe and Obedience to him But it is an invalid consequence to draw from hence that the Idea of God does mainly consist in Dominion and Soveraignty which abstracted from his other Attributes of Wisdom and Goodness would be a very black and dark representation of him and such as this ingenious Writer could not himself contemplate without aversation and horror How then can the Idea of God chiefly consist in this It is the most terrifying indeed but not the most noble and accomplishing part in the Idea of the Deity This Soveraignty then is such as is either bounded or not bounded by any other Attributes of God If bounded by none then he may do as well unwisely as wisely unjustly as justly If bounded by Wisdom and Justice why is it bounded by them but that it is better so to be than otherwise And Goodness being as essential to God as Wisdom and Justice why may not his Soveraignty be bounded by that as well as by the other and so he be bound from himself of himself to do as well what is best as what is better This consists with his absolute Soveraignty as well as the other And indeed what can be absolute Soveraignty in an intelligent Being if this be not viz. fully and entirely to follow the will and inclinations of its own nature without any check or controul of any one touching those over whom he rules Whence in the second place it appears that the asserting that Gods goodness is a necessary Agent in
〈◊〉 animarum And as our Saviour Christ passed it for an innocent Opinion so did the Primitive Church the Book of Wisdom being an allowable book with them and read in publick though it plainly declare for Pre-existence Chap. 8. 20. Chap. 12. p. 93. Therefore let the Reader if he please call it a Romantick Scheme or imaginary Hypothesis c. This is very discreetly and judiciously done of the Author to propose such things as are not necessary members or branches of Pre-existence and are but at the best conjectural as no part of that otherwise-useful Theory For by tacking too fast these unnecessary tufts or tassels to the main Truth it will but give occasion to wanton or wrathful whelps to worry her and tug her into the dirt by them And we may easily observe how greedily they catch at such occasions though it be not much that they can make out of them as we may observe in the next Chapter Chap. 13. pag. 96. Pill 1. To conceive him as an immense and all-glorious Sun that is continually communicating c. And this as certainly as the Sun does his light and as restrainedly For the Suns light is not equally imparted to all subjects but according to the measure of their capacity And as Nature limits here in natural things so does the Wisdom and Justice of God in free Creatures He imparts to them as they capacitate themselves by improving or abusing their Freedom Pag. 100. Pill 3. Be resolved into a Principle that is not meerly corporeal He suspects that the descent of heavy bodies when all is said and done must be resolved into such a Principle But I think he that without prejudice peruses the Eleventh and Thirteenth Chapters with their Scholia of Dr. Mores Enchiridion Metaphysicum will find it beyond suspition that the Descent of heavy bodies is to be resolved into some corporeal Principle and that the Spirit of Nature though you should call it with the Cabalists by that astartling name of Sandalphon is no such prodigious Hobgoblin as rudeness and presumptuous ignorance has made that Buckeram Writer in contempt and derision to call it Pag. 101. As naturally as the fire mounts and a stone descends And as these do not so though naturally meerly from their own intrinsick nature but in vertue of the Spirit of the Vniverse so the same reason there is in the disposal of Spirits The Spirit of Nature will range their Plasticks as certainly and orderly in the Regions of the World as it does the matter it self in all places Whence that of Plotinus may fitly be understood That a Soul enveigled in vitiousness both here and after death according to her nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is thrust into the state and place she is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if she were drawn thither by certain invisible or Magical strings of Natures own pulling Thus is he pleased to express this power or vertue of the Spirit of Nature in the Universe But I think that transposition she makes of them is rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a transvection of them rather than pulsion or traction But these are overnâ—ce Curiosities Pag. 101. As likely some things relating to the state of Spirits c. That is to say Spirits by the ministry of other Spirits may be carried into such regions as the Spirit of Nature would not have transmitted them to from the place where they were before whether for good or evil Of the latter kind whereof I shall have occasion to speak more particularly in my Notes on the next Chapter Pag. 102. Pill 4. The souls of men are capable of living in other bodies besides terrestrial c. For the Pre-existentiaries allow her successively to have lived first in an Ethereal body then in an Aereal and lastly after the state of Silence to live in a Terrestrial And here I think though it be something early it will not be amiss to take notice what the Anti-pre-existentiaries alledged against this Hypothesis for we shall have the less trouble afterwards First therefore they say That it does not become the Goodness of God to make Mans Soul with a triple Vital Congruity that will fit as well an Aereal and Terrestrial condition as an Aethereal For from hence it appears that their Will was not so much in fault that they sinned as the constitution of their Essence And they have the face to quote the account of Origen pag. 49. for to strengthen this their first Argument The words are these They being originally made with a capacity to joyn with this terrestrial matter it seems necessary according to the course of nature that they should sink into it so appear terrestrial men And therefore say they there being no descending into these earthly bodies without a lapse or previous sin their very constitution necessitated them to sin The second Argument is That this Hypothesis is inconsistent with the bodies Resurrection For the Aereal bodie immediately succeeding the Terrestrial and the Aethereal the Aereal the business is done there needs no resuscitation of the Terrestrial body to be glorified Nor is it the same numerical body or flesh still as it ought to be if the resurrection-Resurrection-body be Aethereal The third is touching the Aereal Body That if the soul after death be tyed to an Aereal body and few or none attain to the Aethereal immediately after death the souls of very good men will be forced to have their abode amongst the very Devils For their Prince is the Prince of the Air as the Apostle calls him and where can his subjects be but where he is So that they will be enforced to endure the companie of these foul Fiends besides all the incommodious changes in the Air of Clouds of Vapours of Rain Hail Thunder tearing Tempests and Storms and what is an Image of Hell it self the darkness of Night will overwhelm them every four and twenty hours The fourth Argument is touching the Aethereal state of Pre-existence For if souls when they were in so Heavenly and happy an estate could lapse from it what assurance can we have when we are returned thither that we shall abide in it it being but the same Happiness we were in before and we having the same Plastick with its triple Vital Congruity as we had before Why therefore may we not lapse as before The fifth and last Argument is taken from the state of Silence Wherein the Soul is supposed devoid of perception And therefore their number being many and their attraction to the place of conception in the Womb being merely Magical and reaching many at a time there would be many attracted at once so that scarce a Foetus could be formed which would not be a multiform Monster or a cluster of Humane Foetus's not one single Foetus And these are thought such weighty Arguments that Pre-existence must sink and perish under their pressure But I believe
when we have weighed them in the balance of unprejudiced Reason we shall find them light enough And truly for the first It is not only weak and slight but wretchedly disingenuous The strength of it is nothing but a maimed and fraudulent Quotation which makes ashew as if the Author of the Account of Origen bluntly affirmed without any thing more to do that souls being originally made with a capacity to joyn with this terrestrial matter it seems necessary according to the course of nature that they should sink into it and so appear terrestrial men Whenas if we take the whole Paragraph as it lies before they cast themselves into this fatal necessity they are declared to have a freedom of will whereby they might have so managed their happy Estate they were created in that they need never have faln His words are these What then remains but that through the faulty and negligent use of themselves whilst they were in some better condition of life they rendred themselves less pure in the whole extent of their powers both Intellectual and Animal and so by degrees became disposed for the susception of such a degree of corporeal life as was less pure indeed than the former but exactly answerable to their present disposition of Spirit So that after certain Periods of time they might become far less fit to actuate any sort of body than the terrestrial and being originally made with a capacity to joyn with this too and in it to exercise the Powers and functions of life it seems necessary c. These are the very words of the Author of the Account of Origen wherein he plainly affirms that it was the fault of the Souls themselves that they did not order themselves then right when they might have done so that cast them into this terrestrial condition But what an Opposer of Pre-existence is this that will thus shamelesly falsifie and corrupt a Quotation of an ingenious Author rather than he will seem to want an Argument against his Opinion Wherefore briefly to answer to this Argument It does as much become the Goodness of God to create souls with a triple Vital Congruity as to have created Adam in Paradise with free Will and a capacity of sinning To the Second the Pre-existentiaries will answer That it is no more absurd to conceive nor so much that the soul after death hath an Airy body or it may be some an Ethereal one than to imagine them so highly happy after death without any body at all For if they can act so fully and beatifically without any body what need there be any Resurrection of the body at all And if it be most natural to the soul to act in some body in what a long unnatural estate has Adams soul been that so many thousand years has been without a body But for the soul to have a body of which she may be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certainly is most natural or else she will be in an unnatural state after the Resurrection to all Eternitie Whence it is manifest that it is most natural for the soul if she act at all to have a body to act in And therefore unless we will be so dull as to fall into the drouzie dream of the Pyschopannychites we are to allow the soul to have some kind of body or other till the very Resurrection But those now that are not Psychopannychites but allow good Souls the joys and glories of Paradise before the Resurrection of the Body let them be demanded to what end the soul should have a Resurrection-body and what they would answer for themselves the Pre-existentiaries will answer for their position that holds the Soul has an Aethereal body already or an Aereal one which may be changed into an Aethereal body If they will alledge any Concinnity in the business or the firm promise of more highly compleating our Happiness at the union of our terrestrial bodies with our souls at the Resurrection This I say may be done as well supposing them to have bodies in the mean time as if they had none For those bodies they have made use of in the interval betwixt their Death and Resurrection may be so thin and dilute that they may be no more considerable than an Interula is to a Royal Robe lined with rich Furrs and embroidered with Gold For suppose every mans bodie at the Resurrection framed again out of its own dust bones sinews and flesh by the miraculous Power of God were it not as easie for these subtile Spirits as it is in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to enter these bodies and by the Divine Power assisting so to inactuate them that that little of their Vehicle they brought in with them shall no more destroy the individuation of the Body than a draught of wine drunk in does the individuation of our body now though it were immediately upon the drinking actuated by the Soul And the soul at the same instant actuating the whole Aggregate it is exquisitely the same numerical bodie even to the utmost curiosity of the Schoolmen But the Divine Assistance working in this it is not to be thought that the soul will loose by resuming this Resurrection-body but that all will be turned into a more full and saturate Brightness and Glory and that the whole will become an heavenly spiritual and truly glorified Body immortal and incorruptible Nor does the being thus turned into an heavenly or spiritual Body hinder it from being still the same Numerical body forasmuch as one and the same Numerical matter let it be under what modifications it will is still the same numerical matter or body and it is gross ignorance in Philosophie that makes any conceive otherwise But a rude and ill-natured Opposer of Pre-existence is not content that it be the same numerical body but that this same numerical body be still flesh peevishly and invidiously thereby to expose the Author of the Account of Origen who pag. 120. writes thus That the bodie we now have is therefore corruptible and mortal because it is flesh and therefore if it put on incorruption and immortality it must put off it self first and cease to be flesh But questionless that ingenious Writer understood this of natural â—lesh and bloud of which the Apostle declares That flesh and bloud cannot inherit the Kingdom of God But as he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body So if he had made application of the several kinds of Flesh he mentions of Men of Beasts of Fishes and Birds he would have presently subjoyned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is a natural flesh and there is a spiritual flesh And 't is this spiritual Flesh to which belongs incorruption and immortality and which is capable of the Kingdom of Heaven But for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the natural flesh it must put off it self and cease to be natural flesh before it can put on immortality and
in his written Will to the contrary And now if it be found also that he hath not made it known to our Reasons that 't was not his will to do so we may conclude this first particular That no one can say that the Doctrine of Praeexistence is a falshhood Therefore let us call to Account the most momentous reasons that can be laid against it and we shall find that they all have not weight enough in the least to move so rational and solid an opinion 1. Then 't is likely to be urged that had we lived and acted in a former state * we should doubtless have retain'd some remembrance of that condition But we having no memory of any thing backwards before our appearance upon this present stage it will be thought to be a considerable praesumption that Praeexistence is but a phancy But I would desire such kind of reasoners to tell me how much they remember of their state and condition in the womb or of the Actions of their first infancy And I could wish they would consider that not one passage in an hundred is remembred of their grown and riper age Nor doth there scarce a night pass but we dream of many things which our waking Memories can give us no Account of yea old age and some kinds of diseases blot out all the images of things past and even in this state cause a total oblivion * Now if the Reasons why we should lose the remembrance of our former life be greater than are the causes of forgetfulness in the instances we have produced I think it will be clear that this Argument hath but little force against the opinion we are inquiring into Therefore if we do but reflect upon that long state of silence and inactivity that we emerged from when we came into these bodies and the vast change we under-went by our sinking into this new and unwonted habitation it will appear to the considerate that there is greater reason why we should have forgotten our former Life than any thing in this And if a disease or old age can rase out the memory of past actions even while we are in one and the same condition of Life certainly so long and deep a swoon as is absolute insensibility and inertness may much more reasonably be thought to blot out the memory of an other Life whose passages probably were nothing like the transactions of this And this also might be given as an other Reason of our forgetting our former state since usually things are brought to our remembrance by some like occurrences But 2. Some will argue If this be a state of punishment for former miscarriages how comes it about then that 't is a better condition than that we last came from viz. the state of silence and insensibility I answer That if we look upon our present terrestrial condition as an effect of our defection from the higher Life and in reference to our former happiness lost by our own default 't is then a misery and a punishment But if we compare our now-being with the state of inactivity we were delivered from it may then be called an After-Game of the divine Goodness and a Mercy As a Malefactor that is at first put into a dark and disconsolate dungeon and afterwards is remov'd to a more comfortable and lightsome prison may acknowledge his remove to be a favour and deliverance compared with the place he was last consined to though with respect to his fault and former liberty even this condition is both a mulct and a misery It is just thus in the present caâ—e and any one may make the application But it will be said 3 If our Souls liv'd in a former state did they act in bodies or without them The former they 'l say is absurd and the latter incongruous and unlikely since then all the powers the Soul hath to exert in a body would have been idle and to no purpose But 1 the most that can be argued from such like objections is that we know not the manner of the thing and are no Arguments against the assertion it self And were it granted that the paticular state of the Soul before it came hither is inconceivable yet this makes no more against it than it doth against it's after-condition which these very objectors hold to be so as to the particular modus But 2 Why is it so absurd that the Soul should have actuated another kind of body before it came into this Even here 't is immediately united to a purer vehicle moves and acts the grosser body by it And why then might it not in its former and purer state of Life have been joyn'd only to such a refined body which should have been suitable to its own perfection and purity I 'me sure many if not the most of the Antient Fathers thought Angels themselves to be embodied and therefore they reputed not this such a gross absurdity But an occasion hereafter will draw our pen this way again and therefore I pass it to a third return to this objection 3. Therefore though it were granted that the Soul lived afore-times without a body what greater incongruity is there in such a supposition than that it should live and act after death without any union with matter or any body whatsoever as the objectors themselves conceive it doth But all such objections as these will fly away as mists before the Sun when we shall come particularly to state the Hypothesis And therefore I may be excused from further troubling my self and the Reader about them here Especially since as hath been intimated they prove nothing at all but that the objectors cannot conceive what manner of state that of Praeexistence was which is no prejudice to the opinion it self that our Souls were extant before these earthly bodies Thus then I hope I have clearly enough made good that all Souls might have been Created from the beginning for ought any thing that is made known either in the Scriptures or our reasons to the contrary * And thereby have removed those prejudices that Would have stood in the way of our conclusion Wherefore we may now without controul from our proof of That it may be so pass on to enquire whether indeed it is so and see whether it may as well be asserted as defended And truly considering that both the other ways are impossible and this third not at all unreasonable it may be thought needless to bring more forces into the field to gain it the victory after its enemies are quite scattered and defeated Yet however for the pomp and triumph of truth though it need not their service we shall add some positive Arguments whereby it may appear that not only all other ways are dangerous and unpassable and this irreproveable but also that there is direct evidence enough to prove it solid and rational And I make my first consideration of this kind a second Argument CHAP. VI. A second Argument for
Praeexistence drawn from the consideration of the Divine Goodness which always doth what is best 2 THen whoever conceives rightly of God apprehends him to be infinite and immense Goodness who is alwayes shedding abroad of his own exuberant â—ulness There is no straitness in the Deity no bounds to the ocean of Love Now the divine Goodness referrs not to himself as ours extends not unto him He acts nothing for any self-accomplishment being essentially and absolutely compleat and perfect But the object and term of his goodness is his creatures good and happiness in their respective capacities He is that infinite fountain that is continually overflowing and can no more cease to shed his influences upon his indigent dependents than the sun to shine at noon * Now as the infinite Goodness of the deity obligeth him always to do good so by the same reason to do that which is best since to omit any degrees of good would argue a defect in goodness supposing wisdom to order and power to execute He therefore that supposeth God not always to do what is best and best for his Creatures for he cannot act for his own Good apprehends him to be less good than can be conceived and consequently not infinitely so For what is infinite is beyond measure and apprehension Therefore to direct this to our purpose God being infinitely good and that to his Creatures and therefore doing always what is best for them methinks it roundly follows that our souls lived and ' njoy'd themselves of old before they came into these bodies For since they were capable of living and that in a much better and happier state long before they descended into this region of death and misery and since that condition of life and self-enjoyment would have been better than absolute not-being may we not safely conclude from a due consideration of the divine goodness that it was so What was it that gave us our being but the immense goodness of our Maker And why were we drawn out of our nothings but because it was better for us to be than not to be Why were our souls put into these bodies and not into some more squalid and ugly but because we are capable of such and 't is better for us to live in these than in those that are less sutable to our natures And had it not been better for us to have injoy'd our selves and the bounty and favours of our Maker of old as did the other order of intellectual creatures than to have layn in the comfortless night of nothing till t'other day Had we not been better on 't to have lived and acted in the joyful regions of light and blessedness with those Spirits that at first had being than just now to jump into this sad plight and state of sin and wretchedness Insinite Power could as well have made us all at once as the Angels and with as good congruity to our natures we might have liv'd and been happy without these bodies as we shall be in the state of separation since therefore it was best for us and as easie for our Creator so to have effected it where was the defect if it was not so Is not this to â—lurr his goodness and to strait-lace the divine beneficence And doth not the contrary Hypothesis to what I am pleading for represent the God of Love as less good and bountiful than a charitable Mortal who would neglect no opportunity within his reach of doing what good he could to those that want his help and assistance I confess the world generally have such Narrow and unbecoming apprehensions of God and draw his picture in their imaginations so like themselves that few I doubt will feel the force of this Argument and mine own observation makes me enter the same suspicion of its success that some others have who have used it 'T is only a very deep sense of the divine goodness can give it any perswasive energy And this noble sentiment there are very few that are possest of However to lend it what strength I can I shall endeavour to remove some prejudices that hinder it's force and efficacy And when those spots and scum are wiped away that mistake and inadvertency have fastned on it 't will be illustrious by its own brightness CHAP. VII This first Evasion that God acts freely and his meer will is reason enough for his doing or forbearing any thing overthrown by four Considerations Some incident Evasions viz. that Gods Wisdom or his glory may be contrary to this display of the divine goodness in our being made of old clearly taken off 1. THerefore will some say God worketh freely nor can he be obliged to act but when he pleaseth And this will and pleasure of his is the reason of our beings and of the determinate time of our beginning Therefore if God would not that we should have been made sooner and in a better state of life his will is reason enough and we need look no further To this evasion I thus Reply 1. 'T is true indeed God is the most Free Agent because none can compel him to act none can hinder him from acting Nor can his Creatures oblige him to any thing But then 2. The divine liberty and freedom consists not in his acting by meer arbitrarious will as disjunct from his other Attributes For he is said to act according to the Counsel of his own will So that his wisdom and goodness are as it were the Rules whereby his will is directed Therefore though he cannot be obliged to act by any thing without himself yet he may be the Laws of his own essential rectitude and perfection Wherefore I conceive he is said not to be able to do those things which he might well enough by absolute power that consist not with his ever blessed Attributes Nor by the same reason can he omit that which the eternal Law of his most persect nature obligeth him to The summ is * God never acts by meer will or groundless humour that is a weakness in his impersect Creatures but according to the immutable Rules of his ever blessed essence And therefore 3 'T is a derogation from his infinite Majesty to assert any thing contrary to his Goodness upon pretence of his will and pleasure For whatever is most sutable to this most blessed Attribute and contradicts no other that be sure he willeth Wherefore 4 If it be better and more agreeable to the divine goodness that we should have been in an happier state before we came into these bodies Gods will cannot then be pretended to the contrary especially it having been proved already that he hath no way revealed any such will of his but rather it is demonstratively clear that his will was it should be so Since as God never acts in the absence of his wisdom and goodness so neither doth he abstain from acting when those great Attributes require it Now if it be excepted again 2 That 't is trâ—e
only an aereal body And there being no other more congruous ready and at hand for it to enter it must needs step back into its former state of insensibility and there wait its turn till befitting matter call it forth again into life and action This is a conjecture that Philosophy dictates which I vouch not for a truth * but only follow the clue of this Hypothesis Nor can there any danger be hence conceived that those whose congruities orderly expire should fall back again into a state of â—ilence and inertness * since by long and hard exercises in this body the plastick life is well tamed and debilitated so that now its activity is proportioned to a more tenuious and passive vehicle which it cannot fail to meet with in its next condition For 't is only the terrestrial body is so long a preparing But to The next step of Descent or After-state TO give an Account of the After-state of the more degenerate and yet descending souls some fancy a very odd Hypothesis imagining that they pass hence into some other more course and inferior Planet in which they are provided with bodies suitable to their so depraved natures But I shall be thought extravagant for the mention of such a supposition Wherefore I come to what is less obnoxious When our souls go out of these bodies therefore they are not presently discharged of all the matter that belonged to this condition but carry away their inward and aereal state to be partakers with them of their after fortunes only leaving the useless earth behind them For they have a congruity to their aery bodies though that which they had to a terrestrial is worn out and defaced Nor need we to wonder how it can now have an aereal aptitude when as that congruity expired before we descended hither If we consider the reason of the expiration of its former vital aptitude which was not so much through any defect of power to actuate such a body but through the excess of invigoration of the Plastick which was then grown so strong * that an aereal body was not enough for it to display its force upon But now the case is altered these lower powers are worn and wearied out by the toylsome exercise of dragging about and managing such a load of flesh wherefore being so castigated they are duly attemper'd to the more easie body of air again as was intimated before to which they being already united they cannot miss of a proper habitation But considering the stupor dulness and inactivity of our declining age it may seem unlikely to some that after death we should immediately be resuscitated into so lively and vigorous a condition as is the aereal especially since all the faculties of sense and action are observed gradually to fail and abate as we draw nearer to our exit from this Stage which seems to threaten that we shall next descend into a state of more stupor and inertness But this is a groundless jealousie for the weakness and lethargick inactivity of old age ariseth from a defect of those Spirits that are the instruments of all our operations which by long exercise are at last spent and scattered So that the remains can scarce any longer stand under their unweildy burthen much less can they perform all functions of life so vigorously as they were wont to do when they were in their due temper strength and plenty However notwithstanding this inability to manage a sluggish stubborn and exhausted terrestrial body there is no doubt but the Soul can with great â—ase when it is discharged of its former load actuate its thin aery vehicle and that with a brisk vigour and activity As a man that is overladen may be ready to faint and sink till he be relieved of his burthen and then he can run away with a cheerful vivacity So that this decrepit condition of our decayed natures cannot justly prejudice our belief that we shall be erected again into a state of life and action in aereal bodies after this congruity is expired But if all alike live in bodies of air in the next condition * where is then the difference between the just and the wicked in state place and body For the just we have said already that some of them are reinstated in their pristine happiness and felicity and others are in a middle state within the confines of the Air perfecting the inchoations of a better life which commenc'd in this As for the state and place of those that have lived in a continual course of sensuality and forgetfulness of God I come now to declare what we may fancy of it by the help of natural light and the conduct of Philosophy And in order to this discovery I must premise somewhat concerning the Earth this Globe we live upon which is that we are not to conceive it to be a full bulky mass to the center but rather that 't is somewhat like a suckt Egg in great part an hollow sphere so that what we tread upon is but as it were an Arch or Bridge to divide between the upper and the lower regions Not that this inward hollowness is a meer void capacity for there are no such chasms in nature but doubtless replenisht it is with some fluid bodies or other and it may be a kind of air fire and water Now this Hypothesis will help us easily to imagin how the earth may move notwithstanding the pretended indisposition of its Bulk and on that account I believe it will be somewhat the more acceptable with the free and ingenious Those that understand the Cartesian Philosophy will readily admit the Hypothesis at least as much of it as I shall have need of But for others I have little hopes of perswading them to any thing and therefore I 'le spare my labour of going about to prove what they are either uncapable of or at first dash judge ridiculous And it may be most will grant as much as is requisite for my purpose which is That there are huge vast cavities within the body of the Earth and it were as needless as presumptuous for me to go about to determinemore Only I shall mention a probability that this gross crust which we call earth is not of so vast a profundity as is supposed and so come more press to my business 'T is an ordinary observation among them that are imployed in Mines and subterraneous vaults of any depth that heavy bodies lose much of their gravity in those hollow caverns So that what the strength of several men cannot stir above ground is easily moved by the single force of one under it Now to improve this experiment 't is very likely that gravity proceeds from a kind of magnetism and attractive vertue in the earth which is by so much the more strong and vigorous by how much more of the attrahent contributes to the action and proportionably weaker where less of the magnetick Element exerts its operation so that supposing
Essence For according to them it belongs to Angels onely to exist a mundo condito not to Humane souls Let us therefore see what great and urgent occasions there are that the Almighty should break this order The first is That he may remonstrate the Soul of the Messiah to be his most special Favourite Why That is sufficiently done and more opportunely if other souls pre-existed to be his corrivals But his faithful adhesion above the rest to the Law of his Maker as it might make him so great a Favourite so that transcendent priviledge of being hypostatically united with the Godhead or Eternal Logos would I trow be a sufficient Testimony of Gods special Favour to him above all his fellow Pre-existent Souls And then which is the second thing for his Anti-praemial Happiness though it is but an Hysteron Proteron and preposterous conceit to fancie wages before the work had he less of this by the coexistence of other souls with him or was it not rather the more highly encreased by their coexistencie And how oddly does it look that one solitary Individual of a Species should exist for God knows how many ages alone But suppose the soul of the Messiah and all other souls created together and several of them fallen and the Soul of the Messiah to undertake their recovery by his sufferings and this declared amongst them surely this must hugely inhance his Happiness and Glory through all the whole order of Humane souls being thus constituted or designed Head and Prince over them all And thus though he was rejected by the Jews and despised he could not but be caressed and adored by his fellowsouls above before his descent to this state of humiliation And who knows but this might be part at least of that Glory which he says he had before the world was And which this ungrateful world denied him while he was in it who crucified the Lord of life And as for the third and last That the Soul of the Messiah was to pre-exist that he might preside over the Church all along from the beginning of it What necessity is there of that Could not the Eternal Logos and the Ministry of Angels sufficiently discharge that Province But you conceive a congruity therein and so may another conceive a congruity that he should not enter upon his Office till there were a considerable lapse of Humane Souls which should be his care to recover which implies their Pre-existence before this stage of the Earth And if the Soul of the Messiah united with the Logos presided so early over the Church that it was meet that other unlapsed souls they being of his own tribe should be his Satellitium and be part of those ministring Spirits that watch for the Churches good and zealously endeavour the recovery of their sister-souls under the conduct of the great Soul of the Messiah out of their captivity of sin and death So that every way Pre-existence of other souls will handsomly fall in with the Pre-existence of the soul of the Messiah that there may be no breach of order wherias there is no occasion for it nor violence done to the Holy Writ which expressly declares Christ to have been like to us in all things as well in Existence as Essence sin onely excepted as the Emperour earnestly urges to the Patriarch Menas Wherefore we finding no necessity of his particular pre-existing nor convenience but what will be doubled if other Souls pre-exist with him it is plain if he pre-exist it is as he is an Humane soul not as such a particular soul and therefore what proves his soul to pre-exist proves others to pre-exist also Pag. 87. Since these places have been more diffusely urged in a late discourse to this purpose I suppose he means in the Letter of Resolution concerning Origen Where the Author opens the sense of Philip. 2. 6. learnedly and judiciously especially when he acknowledges Christs being in the form of God to be understood of his Physical Union with the Divine Logos Which is the Ancient Orthodox Exposition of the Primitive Fathers they taking this for one notable Testimony of Scripture for the Divinity of Christ Whenas they that understand it Politically of Christs Power and Authority onely take an excellent weapon out of the hands of the Church wherewith she used to oppose the Impugners of Christs Divinity But how can Christ being God verus Deus as Vatablus expounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 empty himself or any way deteriorate himself as to his Divinity by being incarnate and taking upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of the terrestrial Adam For every earthly man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle seems to intimate Rom. 8. 21. as this ingenious Writer has noted and the Apostle likewise seems so to expound it in the Text by adding presently by way of Exegesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and was made in the likeness of men like that Gen. 5. 3. Adam begot a son in his own likeness a terrestrial man as himself was Wherefore the Incarnation of Christ being no exinanition to his Divinity there was an Humanity of Christ viz. his Soul in a glorious state of Pre-existence to which this voluntary exinanition belonged Pag. 87. Was it for this mans sin or his fathers that he was born blind For the avoiding the force of this Argument for proving that Pre-existence was the Opinion of the Jews and that Christ when it was so plainly implied in the Question by his silence or not reproving it seemed to admit it or at least to esteem it no hurtful Opinion They alledge these two things First That these Enquirers having some notions of the Divine Prescience might suppose that God foreknowing what kind of person this blind man would prove had antedated his punishment The other is That the Enquirers may be conceived to understand the blind mans original sin So that when they enquired whether the man was born blind for his own or his Parents sin they might onely ask whether that particular Judgment was the effect of his Parents or of his own original pravity This is Camerons But see what sorced conceits Learned men will entertain rather than not to say something on a Text. What a distorted and preposterous account is that found that God should punish men before they sin because he foresees they will sin And he onely produces this example and a slight one too That Jeroboams hand was dried up as he stretched it forth to give a sign to apprehend the Prophet And the other is as fond an account That God should send such severe Judgments on men for their original Pravity which they cannot help And original Pravity being so common to all it could be no reason why this particular man should be born blind more than others Wherefore Grotius far more ingenuously writes thus upon the place Quoerunt ergo an ipse peccaverit quia multi Judoeorum credebant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
aether c. That there was the Reliques of a Sun after the Incrustation of the Earth and Aqueous Orb is according to this Hypothesis reasonable enough And a kind of Air and Aether betwixt this diminished Sun and the Concave of this Aqueous Orb but no crass and opake concamerations of hard Matter interposed betwixt Which is an Hypothesis the most kind to the ingenious Author of Telluris Theoria Sacra that he could wish For he holding that there was for almost two thousand years an opake earthy Crust over this Aqueous Orb unbroke till the Deluge which he ascribes to the breaking thereof it was necessary there should be no opake Orb betwixt the Central Fire and this Aqueous Orb for else the Fishes for so long a time had lived in utter darkness having eyes to no purpose nor ability to guide their way or hunt their prey Onely it is supposed which is easie to do that they then swam with their backs toward the Centre whenas as now they swim with their bellies thitherward they then plying near the Concave as now near the Convex of this watry Abyss Which being admitted the difference of their posture will necessarilly follow according to the Laws of Nature as were easie to make out but that I intend brevity in these Annotations Onely I cannot forbear by the way to advertise how probable it is that this Central Fire which shone clear enough to give light to the Fishes swimming near the Concave of this Watry Orb might in process of time grow dimmer and dimmer and exceeding much abate of its light by that time the Crust of the Earth broke and let in the light of the Sun of this great Vortex into this Watry Region within which viz. in the Air or Aether there there has been still a decay of light the Air or Aether growing more thick as well as that little Central Fire or Sun being more and more inveloped with fuliginous stuff about it So that the whole Concavity may seem most like a vast duskish Vault and this dwindling over-clouded Sun a Sepulchral Lamp such as if I remember right was found in the Monuments of Olybius and Tulliola An hideous dismal forlorn Place and fit Receptacle for the Methim and Rephaim And the Latin Translation Job 26. 5. excellently well accords with this sad Phaenomenon Ecce Gigantes gemunt sub Aquis qui habitant cum eis Here is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Symmachus translates the word And it follows in the verse Nudus est Infernus coram eo Hell is naked before God And Symmachus in other places of the Proverbs puts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together which therefore is the most proper and the nethermost Hell And it will be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the highest sense whenever this lurid Light as it seems probable to me it sometime will be is quite extinct and this Central Fire turned into a Terrella as it may seem to have already happened in Saturn But we must remember as the Author sometimes reminds us that we are embellishing but a Romantick Hypothesis and be sure we admit no more than Reason Scripture and the Apostolick Faith will allow Pag. 132. Are after death committed to those squalid subterraneous Habitations c. He seems to suppose that all the wicked and degerate souls are committed hither that they may be less troublesom to better souls in this air above the earth But considering the Devil is call'd the Prince of the Air that he has his Clients and Subjects in the same place with him we may well allow the lower Regions of the Air to him and to some wicked or unregenerate souls promiscuously with him though there be subterraneous Receptacles for the worst and most rebellious of them and not send them all packing thither Pag. 132. That they are driven into those Dungeons by the invisible Ministers of Justice c. He speaks of such Dungeons as are in the broken Caverns of the Farth which may be so many vexatious Receptacles for rebellious Spirits which these invisible Ministers of Justice may drive them into and see them commited and being confined there upon far severer penalties if they submit not to that present punishment which they are sentenced to they will out of fear of greater Calamity be in as safe custody as if they were under lock and key But the most dismal penalty is to be carried into the Abyss the place of the Rephaim I above described This is a most astonishing commination to them and they extreamly dread that sentence Which makes the Devils Luke 8. 31. so earnestly beseech Christ that he would not command them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pack away into the Abyss This punishment therefore of the Abyss where the Rephaim or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 groan is door and lock that makes them whether they will or no submit to all other punishments and confinements on this side of it Michael Psellus takes special notice how the Daemons are frighted with the menaces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the menaces of the sending them away packing into the Abyss and subterraneous places But these may signifie no more than Cavities that are in the ruptues of the earth and they may steal out again if they will adventure unless they were perpetually watched which is not so probable Wherefore they are imprisoned through fear of that great horrid Abyss above described and which as I said is an iron lock and door of brass upon them But then you will say What is the door and lock to this terrible place I answer The inviolable Adamantine Laws of the great Sandalphon or Spirit of the Vniverse When once a rebellious Spirit is carried down by a Minister of Justice into this Abyss he can no more return of himself than a man put into a Well fortie â—athoms deep is able of himself to ascend out of it The unlapsed Spirits it is their priviledge that their Vehicles are wholly obedient to the will of the Spirit that inactuates them and therefore they have free ingress and egress every where and being so little passive as they are and so quick and swift in their motions can perform any Ministries with little or no incommodation to themselves But the Vehicles of lapsed Spirits are more passive and they are the very chains whereby they are tyed to certain Regions by the iron Laws of the Spirit of the Universe or Hylarchick Principle that unfailingly ranges the Matter everie where according to certain orders Wherefore this Serjeant of Justice having once deposited his Prisoner within the Concave of the Aqueous Orb he will be as certainly kept there and never of himself get out again as the man in the bottom of the Well above-mentioned For the Laws of the same Spirit of Nature that keeps the man at the bottom of the Well that everie thing may be placed according to the measure
Souls use a kind of Geometry c. This alludes to that pretty conceit of Des Cartes in his Dioptricks the solidity of which I must confess I never understood For I understand not but that if my Soul should use any such Geometry I should be conscious thereof which I do not find my self And therefore I think those things are better understood out of that Chapter of the Book even now mentioned Pag. 17. And were the Soul quite void of all such implicit Notions it would remain as senseless c. There is no sensitive Perception indeed without Reflection but the Reflection is an immediate attention of the Soul to that which affects her without any circumstance of Notions intervening for enabling her for sensitive Operations But these are witty and ingenious Conjectures which the Author by reading Des Cartes or otherhow might be encouraged to entertain To all sensitive Objects the Soul is an Abrasa Tabula but for Moral and Intellectual Principles their Idea's or Notions are essential to the Soul Pag. 18. For Sense teacheth no general Propositions c. Nor need it do any thing else but exhibit some particular Object which our Understanding being an Ectypon of the Divine Intellect necessarily when it has throughly sifted it concludes it to answer such a determinate Idea eternally and unalterably one and the same as it stands in the Divine Intellect which cannot change and therefore that Idea must have the same properties and respects for ever But of this enough here It will be better understood by reading the Discourse of Truth and the Annotations thereon Pag. 18. But from something more sublime and excellent From the Divine or Archetypal Intellect of which our Understanding is the Ectypon as was said before Pag. 21. And so can onely transmit their natural qualities They are so far from transmitting their Moral Pravities that they transmit from themselves no qualities at all For to create a Soul is to concreate the qualities or properties of it not out of the Creator but out of nothing So that the substance and all the properties of it are out of nothing Pag. 22. Against the nature of an immaterial Being a chief property of which is to be indiscerpible The evasion to the force of this Argument by some Anti-Pre-existentiaries is that it is to philosophize at too high a rate of confidence to presume to know what the nature of a Soul or Spirit is But for brevities sake I will refer such Answerers as these to Dr. H. Moore 's brief Discourse of the true Notion of a Spirit printed lately with Saducismus Triumphatus and I think he may be thence as sure that Indiscerpibility is an essential property of a Spirit as that there are any Spirits in the Universe and this methinks should suffice any ingenuous and modest Opposer But to think there is no knowledge but what comes in at our Senses is a poor beggarly and precarious Principle and more becoming the dotage of Hobbianism than men of clearer Parts and more serene Judgments Pag. 22. By separable Emissions that pass from the flame c. And so set the Wick and Tallow on motion But these separable Emissions that pass from the flame of the lighted Candle pass quite away and so are no part of the flame enkindled So weak an Illustration is this of what these Traducters would have Chap. 4. pag. 32. Which the Divine Piety and Compassion hath set up again that so so many of his excellent Creatures might not be lost and undone irrecoverably but might act anew c. To this a more elegant Pen and refined Wit objects thus Now is it not highly derogatory to the infinite and unbounded Wisdom of God that he should detrude those Souls which he so seriously designes to make happy into a state so hazardous wherein he seeth it to be ten thousand to one but that they will corrupt and defile themselves and so make them more miserable here and to eternity hereafter A strange method of recovering this to put them into such a fatal necessity of perishing 't is but an odd contrivance for their restauration to Happiness to use such means to compass it which 't is ten thousand to one but will make them infinitely more miserable This he objects in reference to what the Author of Lux Orientalis writes chap. 2. where he says It is a thousand to one but Souls detruded into these bodies will corrupt and defile themselves and so make themselves miserable here and to eternity hereafter And much he quotes to the same purpose out of the Account of Origen Where the Souls great disadvantages to Vertue and Holiness what from the strong inclinations of the Body and what from National Customs Education in this Terrestrial State are lively set out with a most moving and tragical Eloquence to shew how unlikely it is that God should put innocent and immaculate Souls of his own creation immediately into such Bodies and so hard and even almost fatal condition of miscarrying Upon which this subtile Anti-Pre-existentiary Thus you see saith he what strong Objections and Arguments the Pre-existentiaries urge with most noise and clamour are against themselves If therefore these Phaenomena be inexplicable without the Origenian Hypothesis they are so too with it and if so then the result of all is that they are not so much Arguments of Pre-existence as Aspersions of Providence This is smartly and surprizingly spoken But let us consider more punctually the state of the matter Here then we are first to observe how cunningly this shrewd Antagonist conceals a main stroke of the Supposition viz. That the Divine Pity and Compassion to lapsed Souls that had otherwise fallen into an eternal state of Silence and Death had set up Adam for their relief and endued him with such a Paradisiacal body of so excellent a constitution to be transmitted to all his Posterity and invested him in vertue of this with so full power non peccandi that if he and his Posterity were not in an happy flourishing condition as to their eternal interest of Holiness and Vertue it would be long of himself And what could God do more correspondently to his Wisdom and Goodness dealing with free Agents such as humane Souls are than this And the thing being thus stated no Objections can be brought against the Hypothesis but such as will invade the inviolable Truths of Faith and Orthodox Divinity Secondly We are to observe how this cunning Objector has got these two Pre-existentiaries upon the hip for their youthful flowers of Rhetorick when one says it is hundreds to one the other ten thousand to one that Souls will miscarry put into these disadvantages of the Terrestrial state by which no candid Reader will understand any more than that it is exceeding difficult for them to escape the pollutions of this lower World once incorporated into Terrestrial Bodies But it being granted possible for them to emerge this is a great grace
and favour of the Divine Goodness to such peccant wretches that they are brought out of the state of eternal Silence and Death to try their Fortunes once more though incumbred with so great difficulties which the Divine Nemesis suffers to return upon them That therefore they are at all in a condition of recovery is from the Goodness and Mercy of God that their condition is so hard from his Justice they having been so foully peccant And his wisdom being only to contrive what is most agreeable to his Mercy and Justice it is not at all derogatory to the infinite and unbounded Wisdom of God thus to deal with lapsed Souls For though he does seriously intend to make them happy yet it must be in a way correspondent to his Justice as well as Mercy Thirdly and Lastly Besides that the Spirit of the Lord pervades the whole Earth ready to assist the sincere there is moreover a mighty weight of mercy added in the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the world so that the retriving of the Souls of men out of their Death and Silence into this Terrestrial state in which there is these helps to the sincere it is manifestly worthy the Divine Wisdom and Goodness For those it takes no effect with they beginning the world again on this stage they shall be judged onely according to what they have done here there being an eternal obliteration as well as oblivion of the acts of their Pre-existent state but those that this merciful Dispensation of God has taken any effect upon here their sincere desires may grow into higher accomplishments in the future state Which may something mitigate the horrour of that seeming universal squalid estate of the Sons of men upon earth Which in that it is so ill is rightly imputed by both Jews and Christians and the divinest Philosophers to a Lapse and to the Mercy and Grace of God that it is no worse From whence it may appear that that argument for Pre-existence that God does not put newly created innocent Souls into such disadvantageous circumstances of a terrestrial Incorporation though partly out of Mercy partly out of Justice he has thought fit lapsed Souls should be so disposed of that this I say is no aspersion of Divine Providence Pag. 36. And now I cannot think of any place in the sacred Volume more that could make a tolerable plea against this Hypothesis c. It is much that the ingenious Author thought not of Rom. 9. 11. For the Children being not yet born neither having done either good or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of works but of him that calleth This is urged by Anti-pre-existentiaries as a notable place against Pre-existence For say they how could Esau and Jacob. be said neither to have done good nor evil if they pre-existed before they came into this world For if they pre-existed they acted and if they acted they being rational Souls they must have done either good or evil This makes an handsome shew at first sight but if we consult Gen. 25. we shall plainly see that this is spoke of Jacob and Esau yet strugling in the Womb as it is said in this Text For the Children being not yet born but strugling in the Womb as you may see in the other Which plainly therefore respects their actions in this life upon which certainly the mind of St. Paul was fix'd As if he should have expresly said For the Children being not yet born but strugling in the Womb neither having done either good or evil in this life as being still in the Womb it was said of them to Rebeckah The elder shall serve the younger Which sufficiently illustrates the matter in hand with St. Paul that as Jacob was preferred before Esau in the Womb before either of them was born to act here on the Earth and that therefore done without any respect to their actions so the purpose of God touching his people should be of free Election not of Works That of Zachary also Chap. 12. 1. I have heard alledged by some as a place on which no small stress may be laid The Lord is there said to be the Former of the Spirit of Man within him Wherefore they argue If the Spirit of Man be formed within him it did never pre-exist without him But we answer That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And then the sence is easie and natural that the Spirit that is in man God is the Former or Creator of it But this Text defines nothing of the time of forming it There are several other Texts alledged but it is so easie to answer them and would take up so much time and room that I think fit to omit them remembring my scope to be short Annotations not a tedious Commentary Pag. 41. Mr. Ben Israel in his Problems De Creatione assures us that Pre-existence was the common belief c. That this was the common opinion of the wiser men amongst the Jews R. Menasse Ben Israel himself told me at London with great freedom and assurance and that there was a constant tradition thereof which he said in some sence was also true concerning the Trinity but that more obscure But this of Pre-existence is manifest up and down in the Writings of that very ancient and learned Jew Philo Judaeus as also something toward a Trinity if I remember aright Chap. 5. Pag. 46. We should doubtless have retained some remembrance of that condition And the rather as one ingeniously argues because our state in this life is a state of punishment Upon which he concludes That if the calamities of this life were inflicted upon us only as a punishment of sins committed in another Providence would have provided some effectual means to preserve them in our memories And therefore because we find no remainders of any such Records in our minds 't is says he sufficient evidence to all sober and impartial inquirers that our living and sinning in a former state is as false as inevident But to this it may be answered That the state we are put in is not a state only of punishment but of a merciful trial and it is sufficient that we find our selves in a lapsed and sinful condition our own Consciences telling us when we do amiss and calling upon us to amend So that it is needless particularly to remember our faults in the other world but the time is better spent in faithfully endeavouring to amend our selves in this and to keep our selves from all faults of what nature soever Which is a needless thing our memory should discover to us to have been of old committed by us when our Consciences urge to us that they are never to be committed and the Laws of holy Law-givers and divine Instructers or wise Sages over all the world assist also our Conscience in her office So that the end of Gods Justice by these inward and