his name might be declared throughout all the Earth as St. Paul tells the Romans from that place Affection in man as in my thoughts of the Soul I have already touched seems often the most disorderly and irregular thing in the course of Nature And therefore could I once prevail with any man so far as seriously to consider the strange motion of it in himself or others I do think it might prove the readiest way to quiet it for a time and dispel those misty clouds which are raised in the Soul by the very restless struggling of the Affections and enlighten it to behold a constant working providence over all its faculties and especially to win and regain that very part of it for what is our understanding to our Creatour but to admire him but our Affections are given to embrace him and to have our Affections become inflamed thitherward Sometimes our Intellect cannot but observe how strangely and suddainly the Affections are cooled moved or restrained beyond its foresight or prospect We see or hear or read a thing an hundred times and it may be then think our Intellect clear and discerning too and yet not become affected with it And it may be these our waters at some other times are rapidly moved not from the Imagination I shall rather chuse to say from some Angel coming down at certain seasons that Assistant I mean or Framer of the Intellect that spirat quo vult Otherwise the same words could never strike so much deeper into one onely it may be of a great Auditory and he none of the quickest apprehension or naturally or usually most discerning Spirit and that to the subduing of an unruly Affection equally predominant in many others of the same Auditory I know there is no man but has loved and feared and joyed sometimes without any apparent or discernible cause to himself or any other and if he would or could but observe so much he might possibly discern somewhat more than chance in the disposition if not Creation of his Soul Some and not the meanest Wits have stood at a maze at the Affections motion especially And though they looked no higher than themselves yet terminated in some occult cause such as the blindness and sometimes edge and sometimes dulness of their Affections It may perhaps seem to many but a mean distich of the Poet Non amo te Sabadi nec possum dicere quare Hoc tantum possum dicere non amote but I must crave leave to judge otherwise of it and that he saw by that as far as ordinary human Reason is able to shew us and I take his meaning to be that such is the condition of man as that notwithstanding there be often presented to the Affections an invitation without exception and sufficient ground and reason offered to them to imbrace and accept yet they are stubborn and decline it and want something more than natural human light to bring them to compliance There are thousands doubtless have received all the endearments imaginable from particular persons and thought well of them but never heartily affected them And on the other side notwithstanding all the scorn and contempt injuries and affronts they could receive from others have yet heartily and truly loved them So as 't is no wonder the Heathen amongst all their Gods thought only Love blind and so represented him to us Indeed upon the beholding and consideration of any the least Plant or Insect there is a glance offered of some power wonderful and to be admired But that power is chiefly to be seen in ordering ruling and determining the Passions and Affections of men sometimes preventing them from breaking forth in an Insurrection and then suddenly quenching the fire that the World be not thereby in a greater flame This doth the Psalmist ascribe to him Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain I do think some rational accompt in Nature might be given of the motion of celestial Orbs and no less of the Spirits of Beasts Why there is so much and such apparency of gentleness and meekness and patience in the Lamb and in the Dove and why at all times the contrary and so quick and ready a will of revenge in the Bee and the Wasp that Passion and Affection in several Creatures should so much differ and yet the one not exceed the other in Intellect But why several men sprung from one and the same stock in Nature should now and then resemble each Creature in point of Affection and exceed them either way I know not unless by such a wise working Power as ordering the result of all human Affections to its glory in the end should permit the sometimes mad pursuit of them Whereof Reason as his present gift is sufficient to demonstrate their Error â—â—d so justly condemn them and Grace only to reclaim them That men should adventure their Lives and Fortunes yea their Souls too and hack and hew one anothers Bodies in pieces to please the appetite of an ambitious and covetous Prince nay perhaps some less apparent Meteor some one or two Subjects designing either to build on the ruins of others abroad or divert mens eyes for a while from looking into their own corrupt and base designs and practices at home or the like What is it but some base rubbish of Affection in the generality of mankind sympathetically as I may say kindled by the heat of some ambitious desire in particular Persons or highly inflamed in them at least by the Devil or some evil Spirit I am sure there is nothing of Reason or Prudence nay or Nature could lead the generality of mankind in companies into such design since you may quickly and easily convince almost every particular Person of them that it is safer and better to be quiet at home But when this fire is once throughly kindled in a Nation and every ones hand is against his Brother he knows not why How strangely and how suddainly do we see this fire when there 's apparent matter enough left put out and extinguished and those scattered who delight in Wars On the other side notwithstanding the fierceness of man which every way turns to Gods Praise as the Psalmist says how readily and easily do we often daily see a multitude governed by such Cobweb human Laws as they are able at any time to break through and want not the greatest part will to their power and yet they are led often all their days like sheep by the hands of weaker and worse shepherds than Moses and Aaron who feed them not but rather poll and sheer or fleece them without resistance For either of which rather than the stay of the raging of the Sea if any man can pierce so deep into that thing he calls Nature as to shew me any single undeniable cause therein nay I might say any colourable cause other than the Will of one single Eternal Wise Power for secret purposes
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to the same effect from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simul videre As if there were now and then some stop or consultation held amongst the faculties of the Soul This consultation demurr or dispute in the Soul is from the glowing of some spark of a primitive purity which though raked up and covered ever since our Fall with all manner of infirmities and blurs that our imagination is able to invent or bring in so as it gives not that clear light it should to lead us and conduct us aright yet it often produces a light to warn us or inform us when it is that we go right and when wrong and blessed be God 't is not quite extinguished in any man I have sometimes in my thoughts resembled the faculties in mans Soul to a Law or Judicature and Reason to the Chancellor which though not alike in all men but in some stronger and in some weaker and in some one man sometimes stronger sometimes weaker yet still remains of some Authority at some times to put some stop to those inferiour Courts of the Affections c. whereto the Will is as it were the Sheriff or Executioner And therefore I do take Conscience to be and cannot in short define it better than A reverberation of that light of Reason God has given us into the innermost recesses of the Soul whereby or from whence there becomes a perswasion for some demurr stay or hesitation for a while of the other faculties though they often forthwith again disobey and proceed And I cannot but think the Poet has well enough defined it and no ways worded it amiss in this verse Stat contra ratio secretam gannit in aurem as if Reason perswasively and convincingly did secretly whisper in its injunctions I know this our Chancellor here as I call him is subject to error and I doubt too generally in which case he is not able to determine either way very weak yet obedience and disobedience to his whispers are the two things wherewith we usually entertain our selves by way of reflexion and the one is pleasant and as the Wise man calls it a continual feast the other is bitter and a continual remorse For though the error of this Vicegerent of God do not at all alter the nature of good and evil but that they remain as they are in themselves and if we do evil from his error we are punishable yet that gives our offence no worse a title than erroneous and is properly the Understandings fault whereas the other is stigmatized presumptuous and is the Wills or the Affections indeed the whole Souls fault Now by the way if I have guessed or defined it aright that Conscience is a result from Reasons whispers or the inward reverberation of that best natural light we have to guide us why since we all daily offend and do wrong do some of our high-pretending Rationalists seldomest feel its strokes and why are the same most felt or most pretended unto by men of weak Intellects or Reason Why truly in one case I think man may become a deaf Adder charm the charmer never so wisely and on the other side I think that a weak Reason may be so dazled by the flame and zeal of the affections that it knows not how to discriminate between them and it self and that the flashing and light of the affections is often mistaken for the light of Reason or at least Reason seems to enjoyn and command as a Captive whenever the affections would have him or else they only colourably set him up as their Authority against a Foreign Authority For against Authority it is that Conscience is ever most pretended What is the meaning of the word Tender Conscience properly and strictly taken I do not well understand yet if there be such a thing I am not about to rake or harrass it in another man having enough to do to look after my own Weak indeed it may be Reason is very weak in the best of us and wants assistance but sure methinks men should not pretend tenderness in it too and such a tenderness as no man must come near it so much as to inform it or guide it but let it go which way the affections please I hope men only mean hereby tender affection or tender heart which I pray God grant to every one and that it never become hardned stubborn or obdurate in any man and then we shall not fear but Reason will suffer information without offence Well be we as tender as imaginable in all parts be Conscience a post-cordial or a post-wound as truly 't is the latter whenever we act against the tryed light of our Reason we shall do well to endeavour by all means to avoid this wound not only in humility exercising this our best faculty but hearkning to others reasons and praying God to assist us For there is no man but may live to see the error of his own present Judgment which if it err for want of diligence and care or receiving information may that way prove a wound in the end too However let us all be assured pretence of Conscience will never want its darts in the latter end There is no man knows his own heart 't is deceitful above all things much less can any of us look so far into other mens Souls as to see whether the light within them a thing much talked of now-a-days be the light of their Reason or the flashing of their Affections and therefore we ought to be as tender in censuring any man as he would be to be censured I beseech God to enlighten me in all my ways from the first Reason and beg of others not to be too tender in trying themselves search narrowly whence that light they have proceeds remembring that speech of our Saviour by way of question If the light that is in thee be darkness which I much doubt it is if it spring from the affections barely how great is that darkness SECT IX Of the faculties of the Soul working upon each other HAving slightly run over the several apparent and most discernible faculties of the Soul distinct and apart I will endeavour to behold them working together fighting and combating raising or inflaming helping or assisting drawing or inticing quelling or allaying ruling or governing one another in some plain and familiar instance which may be this A man who has lived until his Reason has been able to inform him he lives and shew him some ground how and whence he lives for that it is not from himself that he lives A man I say endowed once with this faculty visible which never much appears till some perfect stature of Body and having all other faculties of his Soul quick and ready to work but by reason of the Souls conjunction with a Body necessitated and constrained to work by and through the Organs of that Body through them I say by one means or other the
if they once agree as it were to trust each other they will soon undermine her power or at least render it useless And therefore Reason should as it were sow jealousie between them satisfie the Imagination that some corrupt affection set it idlely on work and shew the Affections that the Imagination labours for them in vain it should represent to each what drudges they often make of each other to their several disease and disquiet Thus it should raise a kind of suspition of each other and satisfie the whole Soul as it were in conference sometime that neither of them is to be trusted or relyed upon without her authority and mature and deliberate allowance that they are both deceitful and treacherous and strive as it were to delude and supplant each other by false presents or false imployment And surely whoever has his reason any whit clear free and at liberty will quickly see the dangerous consequence of the reliance of these faculties on each other For if ever their familiar intercourse and running long together without stop or stay as I may say and due examination of the subject-matter do bring peace to the whole Soul in the end I never yet had any reason in me or understood their motion But before I go about to talk of the Imagination and Affections in conjunction together and a remedy to prevent their united operation to our disquiet and perhaps final destruction I shall endeavour to lay open and plain an error or two as I conceive we constantly retain in point of opinion First That though our Imagination work and contrive methodically and orderly with a kind of connexion and coherence of things as if it had the present assistance of Reason as we conceive yet in many such cases it has not but such its work notwithstanding the method aforesaid connexion or coherence is without the allowance or approbation of Reason nay in direct opposition sometimes to true and perfect Reason and is by the impulse of some kind of affection with the assistance perhaps of an evil spirit Next That though it sometimes so work without the impulse of any evil affection or the suggestion of Satan yet it is ever accompanied and attended and stirred and moved with some kind of affection how inconsiderable or slight soever and if it do not directly aim at the advancement of Virtue Truth Justice or the like it has not the concurrence or approbation of Reason whatsoever it may seem to have 'T is a strange thing methinks that men should falsly arraign that Divine and Heavenly gift in us and impute our greatest faults to it make that which was given us to direct us in sobriety righteousness and godliness to be the cause of our exceeding Beasts in all voluptuousness debauchery wrong deceit falshood and profaneness that men should accuse that of actual guilt of which it is not guilty or capable to be guilty nor is blamable or culpable in any case but of sloth negligence or inadvertency That we could neither lye nor dissemble nor cheat handsomely and cleverly without being rational nay men of strong reason when 't is the very office of Reason to render all falshood fraud and deceit how cunningly soever hatched in the Imagination by the brooding of some affection detestable and abominable to the whole Soul Nay that some men should tell us that to every Politick contrivance in us Reason is so aiding and assisting that without it and depth of judgment we could not contrive a false story perhaps affirm a false story of anothers contrivance with any coherence or connexion and therefore if we can observe in a man any thing of collateral folly simplicity or weakness we must believe his allegation as grounded upon truth Surely such assertion with what flourish soever of words was not from the suggestion or allowance of Reason but the bare figment of the Imagination towards the gratifying some ambitious if not covetous desire and their own reason may one day tell them so Indeed I have heard of a late good Penitent who therein could have no design that he should on his death-bed accuse and condemn himself with this kind of Exclamation O that his reason which God had given him in some degree and measure above others should be exercised and imployed in deriding and vilifying the Author of his Being and him who gave it I must take leave to say it was his invention only a thing wherein few men seemed to exceed or excell him with the impulse of some sprightly passion that did it not his Reason but that the checks he confesses sometimes to have felt against that course was through Gods grace his Reason only That roving quick and lively fancy of his had it been obedient to Reason that is that had there been made some search and enquiry into that kind of involuntary check that kind of confusion in it self on the sudden notwithstanding the outward applause it received through Sense might have wheeled about as we say seen the sordid ugly visage of lust and the consequent of its rage beheld the luster and admirable beauty of a chaste and virtuous life the benefit and advantage from thence as well here as hereafter raised zeal and pure love again in the Soul and became the garnisher thereof with rare and all manner of delightful invention But running its own course as we say it approves its past motion supplies the place of reason and continuing that intimacy and familiarity it had got with corrupt affection was made at length the very Slave and drudg of lust 'T is our misery by a fatal kind of consequence that that faculty in us is so capable to supply the place of reason for that it is though given subservient to reason and is of equal Divine extraction with it and is as our affections able to work against nay contrary to Sense and capable of influence from above and subject to the delusion of infernal power but of that more in the end 'T is Passion and Imagination in conjunction together by which we err and commit the most foul and enormous crimes how cunning or advisedly soever we commit them and not Reason and Imagination in conjunction Or rather it is from Imagination attended with some kind of passion in rebellion to Reason I do not observe our Law grounded upon Reason as we say to accuse Reason in any case or to make any averment of rationality in us at the time of the fact although it excuses a man if he be wholly and totally deprived of Reason we have instigatione diabolicâ seductus we have imaginatus est thereupon we lay the fact in some cases to be done ex malitia praecogitata malice forethought and which I think is ill translated malice prepenced for there is no due weighing of the matter as if malice that sometimes subtle thing were hatched in and brought forth by the Imagination Now for this thing Malice improbitas or vitiositas an