remembring Faculty whether they have a kind of Discursive Faculty which some call Reason whether they do prescind or abstract touching their Voyces how far they are significant and whether they intentionally signifie by them how far their Animal motions are spontaneous or meerly mechanical and which are of one kind which of another or whether as Des Cartes would have it all are purely Mechanical Many vain things have been asserted by men that would be counted eminent Wits but without debating in this place the truth of any of these things it is no marvel if we are to seek what are the manner of these operations of abstract Spirits or Brutes we cannot know them unless we were in them so as to be acquainted with their inward motions or at least unless they had some such way of communicating their Perceptions and Phantasms unto us as we have to our selves or one to another But whatever can be known of them we may easily by inspecting and observing our selves know much concerning our own Souls and the operations of them We may know that we have a principle within which we do as it were feel distinct from our Bodies whereby we think and we know we think whereby we do discursively and by way of ratiocination deduce one thing from another whereby we abstract divide and define whereby we have notions of things which were never derived to us by Sense as the Substance or the Substratum of those Accidents of things which are derived to us by our Sense whereby we do correct the errors of our Sense and judge otherwise touching things represented than the Sense represents them The Sense represents the Sun no bigger than a Bushel there is somewhat within us tells and that truly that it is bigger than the Earth because we find Distance diminisheth the appearance of Bodies Our Sense tells us that the representation in the Looking-Glass hath all the motions the bulk figure colour of that corporeal Moles it represents and represents the same under all the renditions of a Body as it doth the thing it self reflected but there is that within tells us and that truly that it is but a meer shadow and no real Substratum under that appearance of any such corporeal Moles We do most certainly know that there is that within us that doth exercise a rational Empire over our passions and sensual appetite that believes hopes and acts in order to ends that respect another Life than that of Sense We do find as it were the principal seats of these operations we feel our selves to understand in our Head and that we will and resolve and love and hate and pity in our Heart almost as plainly as we find our selves see with our Eyes or hear with our Ears I feel the propensions and inclinations of my Mind as really as I feel my Body to be cold or warm I find in my self that this inward principle doth exert many of its actions intentionally and purposely I resolve and cast about to remember things that I would remember I cast about for all circumstances that may revive my Memory or Reminiscence When I command any Muscle of my most remote Limb to move it doth it in an instant in the moment I will it and hereby I understand the motions of my Mind are no way Mechanical though the motion of the Muscle be such I move ride run or speak because I will do it without any other physical impulse upon me and when I see many analogal motions in Animals which though I cannot call them voluntary yet I see them spontaneous I have reason to conclude that these in their principle are not simply mechanical although a Mouse-trap or Architas his Dove moved mechanically from an artificial principle And because I find that the remotest Muscle in my Body moves at the command of my Will and since I see the energy of my Soul in every particle of my Body though not using intellectual actions in every part yet using some that are imperate as Local Motion some that are natural and involuntary as the Pulse of my Heart the Circulation of my Blood my Digestion Sanguification Distribution Augmentation And because at the same time I understand consider determine speak walk digest and exercise as well intelectual imperate and involuntary actions and all from the same vital Principle though operating differently in several Faculties and Operations I therefore experimentally feel that my Soul though it hath the residence of the exercise of his nobler Faculties in my Head and Heart yet it pervades my whole Body and exerciseth Vital Offices proportionate to the Exigences or Use of every part the Flesh the Bones the Blood the Spirits Nerves Veins Arteries Seminal Parts and this I feel to be through my whole Body and if I find any part of my Body be so mortified as it becomes like a rotten Branch of a Tree whether it be Nerve or Joint whereby that principle cannot communicate it self to it it putrifies and corrupts and is not participant of the motion or influence derived from my Soul because it is now no longer in it to quicken it And as I find my whole Body the Province or Territory of my Soul in which it universally acts according to the different organization and use of every part so I find that my Soul as to its substantial existence is confined within the precints of it and doth not physically act without it and by all this I learn that my Soul if it be a Spirit may be circumscribed within the compass of a determinate space that though it be a Spirit yet its operations while it is in the Body may be if not altogether yet in a great measure organical I understand remember and reason better in my health than in my sickness and better in my riper years than when I was a Child and had my organical Parts less digested and inconcocted And though it be a Spirit yet I find it is no inconvenience to have some analogy at least of co-extension with my Body And although it may be a simple Spirit and univocally and essentially the same as well in my Toe as my Head yet according to the variety of the disposition and organization of the several parts of my organical Body it exerciseth variety of operations the same Soul that understands in the Brain and sees in the Eye and hears in the Ear neither understands nor sees nor hears in the Fingers but moves and feels These and many such Perceptions I have touching that principle of Life Sense and Intellection within me and of these I have as great a certainty as possibly I can have of any thing in the world First Although I cannot immediately have any immediate sight of my Soul or of its immediate operations or internal actings yet I sensibly see and feel the effects thereof with as great an evidence and demonstration that it is such as if I saw the Principle it self and its immediate
remitted the Tongue speaks the Hand strikes or moves the Foot walks the Mouth opens or shuts and all those spontaneous motions subject to the Empire of the Will are performed And though I chuse my Instance in the subject in hand yet the like imperate motions are in Brutes and Animals though not by the Empire of Will which they have not yet by a Faculty that moves in many things spontaneously in some analogy and adumbration of the Empire of the Will in Man but incomparably below it both in perfection and freedom 3. Again there be very many Operations that although they flow from this active Principle yet they are not acts that are imperate by the Will but they are in a manner natural and unvoluntary and therefore I call them sometimes Involuntary sometimes Natural and they are very many and various such are many of the acts of Sense especially the external Though I do by the Empire of my Will direct the Motion or Acies of my Organ to this or that Object yet my Eye my Ear my Touch my Smell my Tast exercise their office of perception upon the Object duly applied to them without any act of my Will commanding them so to do when they are joyned to their Object So my Heart moves my Blood circulates my Meat digests my Body is augmented without any intention of mind to assist their actings So if there be an ill humour in my Body or a wound in my Hand or Leg the Vital energy of my Soul thrusts out the Balsamical humour of my Blood to heal the latter and useth all that Oeconomy that is proper for the expulsion or subduing of the former sometimes by pustulae or eruptions in the flesh sometimes by sweat sometimes by urine sometimes by seige and all this it doth in the most congruous way imaginable so that the best Physicians have not better direction ordinarily in their applications than to follow Nature in those motions And all this is done most exquisitely and yet without any deliberation or rational decision of the Understanding or Empire of the Will in relation to those Natural motions I shall only therefore observe concerning these Involuntary motions 1. That though they are without any dictamen Rationis yet they are done in a way of as great congruity to its end as if they were directed by the wisest counsel of the wisest Soul and it is reason good it should for it is a standing and most wise Law of exercise planted by the most wise God in this Vital Principle for the regiment of the Body And therefore though it be not directed by deliberation of the Humane Intellect or choice of Humane Will it is setled contrived implanted and directed there by a higher Wisdom even the Wisdom of the most wise God And this indeed is the reason of that Excellency that is seen in Instincts even of Brutes and the Formative process in generation that they so aptly and excellently attain their Ends namely because these Instincts and Powers are the immediate Impressions Signatures and Energies placed in them by the Great and Glorious God whose very foolishness as the Apostle tells us namely the seemingly vilest and lowest Impressions of his Wisdom is wiser than men 2. The second thing to be observed herein is That those Natural and Involuntary actings are not done as the former by deliberation and formal command yet they are done by the virtue energy and influx of the Soul and the instrumentality of the Spirits as well as those Imperate acts before spoken of wherein we see the immediate empire of the Soul That Soul that moves my hand my tongue my foot by way of express command and empire digests sanguifies carnifies excerts and doth all those Involuntary operations by it influence and presence remove but the Soul there is no more digestion sanguification or any other acts of that kind than there is speech in the tongue And although in some Insects there appears a palpitation of the Heart for some little space after it is severed from the Body and in Chicken and other Fowl after the separation of the Head from the Body there is a motion of the parts divided yet it lasts not long and they are but the irregular and convulsive motions or struglings of those Spirits which could not so hastily dismiss themselves from the vessels wherein they were inclosed I would now observe some generals in relation to this Adumbration of Providence and analogical Oeconomy of the Soul in the Body which are these 1. That this analogical Providence of the Soul in relation to its Province the Compositum or Microcosm is universal to every part of it there is not the most inconsiderable particle of Flesh Bone or Artery not the smallest Capillary Vein but it is present with and auxiliary to it according to its use and exigence and the congruity of its constitution it accommodates it self to the Eye for seeing to the Ear for hearing and though it accommodate not it self to the Finger in those exertings of those Senses of Seeing or Hearing yet it equally accommodates it self to those remote and small Organs as perfectly in relation to Feeling and to those motions that are suitable to them 2. That even those Exertions of the active Energy of the Soul that seem most remote from the deliberation of the Understanding and immediate active Empire of the Will are guided and directed with all imaginable congruity to their several Ends and Uses 3. That this very same individual Soul may and oftentimes doth exert all those operations at the same time without any difficulty or confusion At the same time I think I deliberate I purpose I command in inferiour Faculties I walk I see I hear I digest I sanguifie I carnifie my Lungs move swifter or slower by the empire and command of my Will my Heart moves naturally by the motion of Palpitation my Blood by the motion of Circulation Excretion Perspiration my Guts by the motion of Vermiculation my Stomach and Intestines digest the good ejects and expulses the bad my Disease is resisted and expelled my Wound cured and a thousand more concurrent coincident Motions and all these performed at the same time by the Power Energy and Oeconomy of one individual Soul and yet all this done easily and sweetly and perfectly without either lassitude confusion or perturbation And all this done by a little spark of Life which in its first appearance might be inclosed in the hollow of a Cherry-stone yet this little active Principle as the Body increaseth and dilateth evolveth diffuseth and expandeth if not his Substantial Existence yet his Energy and Virtue to the utmost confines of his little Province and every particle and atom thereof yea and it is of that absolute necessity that it should do so that without it the Compositum would be dissolved and the Body dissipated into corruption and its first principles as we see it falls out suddenly after the separation of the
latitude such as are moral and supernatural Good 3. The Acts of this Faculty are generally divided into Volition Nolition and Suspension That division that herein better suits with my purpose are these Election and Empire 1. Election or choice and this in reference both to means and end for though the Schools tell us that Electio is only mediorum non finis this is to be intended of the general end or good at large and in its universal conception for when several particular ends are in proposal there is belonging to the Will a power of Election of these as well as of the means to attain them 2. The Imperium voluntatis over the Body and the Faculties We may observe in the humane as well as the animal Body two kinds of motions or exertions of Faculties some are stiled natural or involuntary such is the motion of the Heart the Circulation of the Blood the perception of the Senses when the Organs are open and the Object applied these natural though vital Faculties and Motions are not under the command of the Will immediately for whether I will or will not while I live my Heart beats my Blood circulates my Ventricle digests what is in it my Eye sees when open But there be other Motions in the humane and also in the animal Nature that are subject to the command of the Will in Man and to the appetite in Brutes as local motion which in Animals is under the regiment of the Appetite in Man under the regiment of the Will Now this Imperium voluntatis may be considered in relation 1. To it self It can suspend its own acting either of electing or rejecting 2. To the Understanding Though it cannot suspend its perception omnibus ad percipiendum requisitis adhibitis yet it may suspend its decision or determination or at least its obsequium to such decision 3. The Passions which are as it were the Satellites voluntatis and follow the command of the Will where the Will acts according to its power and authority 4. To the animal Spirits and the Vessels in which they are received when designed to Motion namely the Nerves and Muscles those are all subject to the Empire of the Will as to Local Motion of the whole Body or any part thereof when the Spirits Nerves and Muscles are in their due and natural state 5. To the sensual Appetite And indeed herein is evident both the Empire and Sovereignty of the Will and also the visible discrimination between the Humane Nature and the Animal or Brutal Nature and its preference before it In the animal Nature it is evident that the sensual Appetite is that which hath and exerciseth the sovereignty and dominion over the spontaneous actions of the animal Nature that commands the Foot to go the Mouth to eat and all other the spontaneous motions in order to a sensible good But in Man the sensual Appetite is Regimen sub graviere regimine the government of the Appetite is under the government of the Will and controlled by it at least where the reasonable Faculty is not embased and captived by ill custom or disorder And this appears two ways 1. Sometimes the very motion of the Appetite it self is restrained by the Empire of the Will so that a man doth not appetere that sensible good which otherwise he might or would because he will not and this is the most natural and noble regiment of the Will over the sensual Appetite 2. Though it may fall out that the sensual Appetite may appetere bonum sensibile yet the Will may and doth controll the empire of the Appetite in the execution of that appetition As for instance A man sees delicious fruit and he desires it in so much that were there not a controll over the empire of his Appetite it would command the Hand to reach it and the Mouth to eat it But the contrary command of the Will supersedes the command of the Appetite the Appetite desires it but the Hand is forbidden by the Will to reach it Now if any man shall say this contradiction appears not only in the reasonable Nature but even in the sensible The sensible Appetite is checked in its execution oftentimes by sensual Fear as in Dogs and Horses and other Brutes yea sometimes by the remembrance of a former suffering for the like attempt to gratifie his sensual Appetite and yet they are destitute of any superior faculty of Will to interpose a prohibition upon the Appetite I answer this is true for in such cases the impendent Fear is either present or in memory and so expected and it being of a sensible evil hath the same influence upon the sensual Appetite as the present good and therefore if the evil feared or impendent be a greater sensible evil than the good it over-rules the Appetite to aversation as the Fish that loves the bait yet feareth the hook which it discerns as a greater sensible evil the very Appetite is thereby determined to aversation But the controll of the Will upon the Appetite in the reasonable Nature is many times and indeed most often done not upon the account of a sensible evil felt or feared which of it self were sufficient to determin the Appetite but sometimes upon the account of such hopes or fears as fall not under a sensitive notice as of the command or prohibition by God yea many times upon a bare Moral account of the indecorum unreasonableness unseasonableness or utter unfitness of the thing it self without any other motive of fear either of a present or future sensible inconvenience thereby which Moral consideration can no way move the sensible Appetite were it not for the Will which being a rational Faculty is moved by it And this is all that I shall say touching the two great Faculties of the Soul the Understanding and Will I shall not add any thing here touching Passions or Affections of the Mind 1. Because they are but a kind of appendices to the Will the Satellites voluntatis those of the concupiscible kind being as it were the flowers of the motion of Volition those of the irascible kind the flowers of the motion of Aversation 2. Because the Passions for the most part are found in the sensible Nature namely those of love hatred delight grief expectation and fear and therefore I shall not here treat of them 3. I come now to consider of those rational Instincts as I call them the connate Principles engraven in the humane Soul which though they are Truths acquirable and deducible by rational consequence and argumentation yet they seem to be inscribed in the very crasis and texture of the Soul antecedent to any acquisition by industry or the exercise of the discursive Faculty in Man and therefore they may be well called anticipations prenotions or sentiments characterized and engraven in the Soul born with it and growing up with it till they receive a check by ill customs or educations or an improvement and advancement
se cannot be infinite but that successive Individuals or Causes and Effects per accidens might be infinite and eternal is in truth a Supposition not fitted to the truth of things or grounded upon any rational difference between the things but a Supposition fitted merely to serve that other precarious Supposition which Aristotle and his followers had taken up touching the Eternity of the World And these shall be all the Reasons that I shall trouble my self withall against the Eternity of Mankind or the successive Generations and Individuals thereof having willingly declined those many other Ingenious Reasons given by others as of the Impertransibility of Eternity and the impossibility therein to attain to the present term or limit of antecedent Generations or Ages the necessity of every posterius to have a prius that there be an equal number of priora and posteriora which either are so many various Explications of the Reasons going before or at least are not so evidently concludent or are subject to Exceptions in some particulars The Objections both against the Reasons before given and against the Supposition it self I shall take up after the next Chapter wherein I shall examin the other Supposition before mentioned namely The eternal existence of some first Man and Woman and the successive Generations from them wherein because it is touched before I shall be brief CAP. V. Concerning the Supposition of the first Eternal Existence of the common Parents of Mankind and the production of the succeeding Individuals from them I Come to that other Supposition namely of the Existence of some one Man and Woman the common Parents of Mankind eternally and the successive multiplication of the Race of Mankind from them by the ordinary course of generation And although this Supposition carries with it the clear evidence of its absurdity and therefore may seem to be scarce worth the pains of a Confutation yet because it lyes in my way and the Observations upon it may be useful for other purposes I shall say somewhat concerning it This first eternal Pair we cannot conceive to have an existence by a bare course of Nature without an eternal Creation of them by Almighty God and an unintermitted Influence from him to support them in a state of Incorruptibility through the vast abyss of Eternity For he that will suppose things purely under that course of existence that is proper to them by the course of Nature must needs suppose the Individuals of the humane Nature to have been always such and of such a Frame as now they are that is mortal and corruptible Beings and though their Ages might anciently be of a longer continuance than now they are yet upon a bare natural account they could not be conceived immortal incorruptible immutable no more than they are now Therefore since the great admirers of Nature do therefore frame their Hypotheses of an eternal Succession of Men because they think themselves bound to think that all things have ever been as now they are and because they will not substitute other Hypotheses of the Origination or Existence of things in any other manner than they now see them Certainly as to these and ad hominem it is an Evidence beyond contradiction that there never was any such pair of Man and Woman that eternally existed but that all Men and other perfect Animals if they were eternal in their Species were eternally produced ex prius genitis as now they are and that there was no one first individual of Man or Beast that had an eternal Existence because such a Supposition equally crosseth that course of the nature of things which now they see which therefore they make the standard and their measure of things that are past They therefore that must support an existence of the first individual Parents of humane Nature and that those Individuals had an eternal existence must necessarily suppose that they had that existence by an eternal Creation of Almighty God and an eternal Influx and Support from him in that incorruptible estate through all the vast extent of an eternal duration And by this means they do think and that truly that they assert a dependence of the Species of things upon Almighty God which cannot possibly be supposed to be dependent upon him unless they had in their individual nature their existence from him since it is impossible there can be any Supposition of the existence of any Species as for instance the Species of Man unless it be supposed to exist in Individuals nor consequently a dependence of the Species of Mankind upon God as its Cause unless there were a dependence of the first Individuals thereof upon him in fieri as their Cause And they likewise hope but vainly hereby to avoid the inconveniences of successive eternal Generations without any first Caput or Radix of those Generations though they fall hereby into the same difficulties and others that are equally intricate and inexplicable And although in this Supposition we must admit the first pair that were the Roots of Mankind did herein differ from the state of Mankind now that whereas now Men live ordinarily seventy or eighty years and are subject to Death yet those first radices humani generis were by the Influence of the Divine Power immortal and not confined to the age incident now to Mankind but were able to endure the immense duration of an eternal being yet we must also suppose that in other respects they were of the same Make with these individuals of Mankind that are now For otherwise instead of a supposition of an eternal being of the first individual Man and Woman that had their being by eternal Creation we shall fall into a supposition of something that was not in truth Man And therefore as according to the Doctrine of Moses and the Truth Adam the first created Man though consisting of a composition intrinsecally dissolvable had he continued in Innocence should or might have held by the continued Influx of the Divine Will and Power a state of immortality and indissolubleness of his Composition yet as to the Essentials of his nature and the Integrals thereof he should have been and continued like other Men. And therefore those first imaginary eternal Individuals the Root of Mankind should have consisted of Flesh and Blood and Mind and Soul and Body as other Men do they must have the support of their Lives by receiving of nourishment by digesting thereof according to the various process of Digestion as we do they must draw in their Breath or Air and emit it again as we do they must have had the like successive motion of the Heart and the like circulation of their Blood as we have the like local motion of their Bodies the like variation and succession of Thoughts as we have and though the supposed Eternity of them should have excluded from them corruption or dissolution in that vast Period of Eternity yet even that duration of his must be in this respect
proportionate to their being nature and capacity 2. And as thus the contemplation of the Efficient and his Beneficence to other created Beings induceth us to conclude an end of fruition designed to Man so the contemplation of the Work it self concludes the same Man hath in the peculiarity of his nature these two great Powers and receptive Faculties whereby he is rendred amply capable of a great enjoyment namely his Understanding whose proper Object is Truth and the noblest Truth that is and its proper action is directed to that Object namely Intellection and Will whose proper Object is Good and the greater and more sovereign the Good is the more suitable it is to this power and the proper act of this power is to reach after and desire and embrace and delight in its Object and the filling of these two receptive powers with the chiefest intellectual Truth and with the chiefest and intellectual Good is that which perfects advanceth and enableth these Faculties or Powers And this doth lead us to a just discovery of what that end of fruition is for which Man was designed by his beneficent Creator namely such as is suitable answerable and proportionate to those Powers or Faculties in Man whereby he excells all inferior Animals his Understanding and his Will and herein consists his happiness his end of fruition or enjoyment 1. As to his Understanding the great and general fruition of Good therein is Knowledge Now I shall distinguish these Objects of Knowledge or Scibilia into two kinds 1. The Scibilia subordinata which being united to the intellective Power by that act or habit which we call Knowledge do advance and perfect this Power or Faculty in a subordinate way measure or degree such is the knowledge of Natural Causes and Effects of Arts Liberal or Manual of Rules of justum and decorum of Moral Truths and the like this gives a subordinate perfection and fruition to this Power varied and diversified according to the worth of the Objects and the perfection or clearness of their perception 2. The Scibile supremum which is the ever-glorious God his Perfection Attributes Wisdom Power Goodness his Will and Commands so far forth as that infinitely perfect Being is cognoscible by our finite Understanding This is the supreme Truth the highest fruition of the intellective Power and the greatest perfection of an intellective Nature as such 2. Again as to the power of the Will it hath likewise Objects of Good answerable to the former distribution 1. The subordinate Good of Moral Virtues Honesty Sobriety Justice Temperance and all the train of Moral Virtues these being united to the Will in their acts and constant habits the Will enjoys a great Moral Good tranquillity of Mind complacency and delight 2. The Sovereign Good which is the glorious God reached after by the Will as the chiefest Good and enjoyed in the manifestations of his Love Favour Presence Influence and Beneficence this fills the vastest motions of the Will fills it with Peace Contentation and Glory and keeps it nevertheless in a perpetual motion by returns of Gratitude humble Love Obedience and all imaginable extension of it self for the Service Honour and Glory of that God that hath thus bountifully given to the Soul a power in some measure receptive of his Infinite Self and fitted that power with a proportionate Good even the Goodness and Bounty of the ever-glorious God And now because Man hath a double state namely a state in this Life in conjunction of the Soul with the Body naturally dissolvible and a state of Immortality after this Life either in the Soul alone or in the Soul in conjunction with an immortal Body as shall be shewn in its due time therefore proportionable to this double state is that fruition which Almighty God designed for his End 1. In this Life the proportionable fruition of Man is that which is compatible to the state he hath here namely the knowledge of God and his Works in a measure suitable to the intellectual Capacity in this Life the sense of the Divine Love Favour Goodness and Protection the sense of his own Duty to God to Man to himself with a cheerful endeavour to observe it And from these arise dominion over his Passions and inferior Faculties and the due placing ordering and moderation of them a resignation of his Will to the Divine Will and a dependance upon his Goodness Power and All-sufficiency and from all these arise peace of Conscience contentation and tranquillity of Mind in which even the wisest of Heathens placed the greatest Happiness acquirable in this Life 2. After this Life an immutable state of everlasting Rest and Happiness in the Beatifical Vision of God and fruition of so much of his Goodness and Beneficence as a glorified Soul is capable of for it is reasonable that the end of fruition of an Immortal Nature should be an everlasting Good commensurate in its intention and duration to such an Immortal Nature And now if any Man shall enquire if this be the End of Almighty God in the Creation of Man How comes it to pass that all Men attain not this End or how comes it to pass that Almighty God comes to be frustrated of the End which he thus designed as well in relation to his own Glory as the Good of Mankind I Answer first in general That this Enquiry belongs to another way of Examination namely herein we must have the assistance of Divine Revelation both to answer this Enquiry and to guide us in it which in this place is not designed to be prosecuted 2. Yet more particularly thus much I shall say 1. That the wise God hath as it were twisted his own Honour and Glory with Man's Felicity and Happiness if Man decline to honour glorifie love and obey his Maker and casts off the primary and chief End of his Being it is just and necessary that he be deprived of the End of his own Fruition and Happiness which is the Reward of his Duty 2. The Liberty of the Will was the great Prerogative of the Humane Nature and Almighty God having furnished that Nature with all conducibles to enable him to obey and to continue him in that Obedience Man by the abuse of his own liberty deprived himself of his own felicity When we speak therefore of the End of Man we speak of it as God made him not as Man made or rather unmade himself But of this End of the means of his Restitution by Christ and the admirable System and Connexion of the Divine Providence in relation to Man in his Redemption belongs to another Discourse We are in this preceding Discourse but in the outward Court of the Temple where the Gentiles came or might come by natural Light or Ratiocination Therefore to conclude all Almighty God out of his abundant Wisdom Goodness and Beneficence as he hath made Mankind so he hath fitted him for a double End namely to glorifie his Maker and everlastingly to enjoy him and in order hereunto hath given him a double station and in each of these a differing kind of fruition of his Maker viz. a station in this lower World and a station in the glorious Heavens His station in this lower World is during the time of his mortal Life here below and in this station the glorious God hath furnished Mankind with all conveniencics and accommodations suitable to it as the comfortable Accommodations of his sensible Life the Comforts of humane Society the Use and Dominion of his Creatures the admirable Faculties of his Mind the Books and Instructions of his Word and Will the goodly Works of Creation and Providence the Tenders and Ayders of his Grace and Guidance the Effluxes and Manifestations of his Favours and Love the Anticipations and Hopes of Eternal Happiness these and many more such as these the Bountiful God affords to Mankind even in this state of Mortality which may and do render it in a great measure very comfortable But withall he lets us know and we must know That these are but as so many Bounties to render our passage through this Life the more easie and convenient to our selves and the more serviceable to our great Lord and Master This is not to be the place of our rest or final happiness but a place of exercise and probation a place of preparation for our future and more durable state we are here as it were but put to School to learn our Duty and our Lessons we are but as young Plants planted in a Nursery till we come to a convenient size and fitness to be removed and then we are to be transplanted into another and a richer Soil In this World we are as it were Seeds ripening upon the Trees or Stalks till they are fully digested and ripe and then as the Seeds drop into the Ground and become the Seminary of a new Plantation so by Death we drop into Eternity and become the Children the Embryones of the Resurrection and then we come into that second and blessed station the Country of our Rest and Happiness our Home and the End of our Being where we shall ever behold the Glory of the Glorious God and glorifie him for ever where we shall have the perpetual sensible vigorous satisfactory Manifestation and Influences of his Love to all Eternity and enjoy that Blessedness which Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither hath entred into the Heart of Man to conceive And this is the great End of the Glorious God in making this great goodly Creature called Man whose Body is but the Husk the Shell of that vital immortal Beam of Light Life and Immortality that Seminal Principle of Eternal Life the Soul irradiated and influenced by the Sacred Spirit of Life and Love and if God lend me Life and Strength shall in my next be handled FINIS A