evil habit of mind for so I take the meaning of it to be a thing no ways natural in man we bring it not into the World with us and therefore it is perhaps that St. Paul bids us Be children in malice We can discover or discern no such thing in Beasts there is in them anger and a kind of revenge too raised by the Imagination from sensible danger loss hurt or the like but nothing continuing in them like a passion from conceived damage or prejudice only without the assistance of present Sense nor when Sense seems to afford grounds for the product of love or kindness things of contrary quality as it happens sometimes in man Now in man it arising through a kind of mature deliberation and not being on the sudden or of short continuance like other Passions although St. Paul and St. Peter both do link it with passion I will not so call it and the rather because a Learned Orator has affirmed That passionate men are not malicious But I will impute it to be a strange effect of humane Imagination only or chiefly and begat thereby as it is restless and active and Proverbially inventive And withal I will readily grant that he in whomsoever it is or harbours is a man of weak reason because he thus permits this Prodigy or Monster in Nature to inhabit his Soul but yet I continue to think being begat by humane Imagination which can supply the place of reason as I have said it may work with some coherence and connexion and with the help of Satan and his Emissaries palliate truth This superfluity of naughtiness so termed I conceive by Saint Iames once bred or raised in the soul will never let the Imagination be idle or attend on any thing else and then 't would be strange if humane Imagination or invention thus imployed though in opposition to reason should not invent formally and with some coherence But besides this there are common evil inherent affections in the nature of man able to set the Imagination so on work as may deceive us and make us think 't is Reason that answers their call at our devotion when indeed 't is no other than a restless quick and lively working Imagination rowsed from them We do esteem him a man of quick and brave parts who seems to have a power over his Imagination can at any time recall it to work as it were at his pleasure and this we say is strength of Reason But I do not always look upon a man as the more rational therefore or that it is his Reason only or chiefly by which he seems enabled so to do Caesar we say was a man of quick Parts and how was he so why his ambition was naturally great and again greatly inflamed by a clear and roving Imagination and those two in conjunction together ready to serve each other upon every turn might make us admire him But I cannot well judg his Reason to be greater than others or actually to work in conjunction with those other faculties unless in such particular cases in which he duely observed Justice or out of true compassion shewed and performed Mercy He could not but be sometimes convinced in reason for we 'll not suppose the Spirit or Grace to work in him that the Wars he made the trouble and disturbance he raised in the World were injurious and unrighteous and therefore his invention in pursuance thereof wrought in opposition to his Reason I do not think he was deprived of Reason or his Reason clouded so far but that if he could have attained his aims and designs his ambitious ends and purposes without injury or wrong to any he would rather have done it that way but contriving to satisfy his ambition per fas nefas as we say I say his Imagination inflamed and hurried by his ambition only supplied the place of Reason in all its contrivances I my self have sometimes designed and contrived as many others have done by all lawful ways and means the advancement of my estate and the settlement thereof in my name and family I have invented and found out perhaps as probable a worldly method for the doing thereof as another My Imagination has brought and laid down before me all the letts and impediments that might seem to hinder and obstruct It has invented means to avoid them c. Yet since my Reason has at particular times informed me of the vanity thereof the certainty of Death the mutability of all human things c. I will not impute my contrivance to Reason and lay the fault on that which disallowed the work but to Imagination rather from some restless affection which it indeavoured to gratify so far as 't was able and only supplied the place of Reason to make me strongly think rather than firmly believe the matter feazible by man alone Surely there is something more in Reason or Reason is somewhat more than we are yet generally aware of 'T is as I have touched the thing by which we are in some measure enabled to weigh and distinguish good from evil and evil from good right from wrong and truth from falshood c. The chief and principal ingredient of that thing we call Conscience however frequently those who most pretend Conscience make least use of it and least exercise it an inherent native light in mans Soul not excluded from Heathens and not the Spirit we Christians so much talk of from Scripture promises A gift which whosoever observes makes use of and obeys procures to himself peace and quiet of mind For unless some disturbance in him do arise as by the representation of bodily danger hurt or loss c. through present sense which is ever of short continuance and no longer than sense is open to it Observance thereof and obedience to it is ever necessarily and consequently attended with joy and comfort 'T is not as I conceive the man of quick nimble exquisite or excellent parts as we term him but the good man we so call who we may most properly say is the great rational man or the man of Reason We shall find a sound Reason and quick invention sometimes working together in one Soul But the quick or methodical work of the second do's not always denote the actual assistance of the first quick invention denotes often sprightly lively vigorous and active passions and such passion not forward and testy humours is usually attended with a quick and well contriving invention and they work together upon each others motion call or notice to astonishment or admiration even to the blinding sometimes of a strong Reason but not always that which is good Nay often especially through that flexible member of ours the Tongue that which is evil And that Trumpet of a rational Soul only given us to make a true sound from the invention only is made to render a false one Reason that Divine gift properly so called and yet
of my belief opposed by the more moderate Atheist I think it has and might be made good not only by Scripture but Reason Yet seeing it is not the thing I am about to take in hand nor whereof I doubt let other men seek their satisfaction from more Learned hands I for my part think that if God take care of the Sparrow he will take care of me and if the hairs of my head are numbred God will not take less care about my Body than the Excrescencies thereof All that I shall say hereabout further is I cannot conjecture by what new methods the Devil has brought in Proselytes for open Atheism since his ancient method was to nooze men by Polytheism but I am verily perswaded that since his Trade failed him therein and the Temples of Idols began to be thrown down so as he could not reap so large a Crop that way it has been none of his slightest policies nor the least covert Trap or Ginn to take men in to infuse slily into the brains of a number of men who account themselves Sages That God has allotted the Government of Sublunary affairs to inferiour Powers and from hence have increased and multiplied the strange opinions and notions of Fate Destiny Necessity Fortune Chance and the like Now if he can perswade us to ascribe to these any sole or chief operation in our actions he obtains by consequence e're we are aware what by express terms he could not so easily do For if we attribute any ruling Power to ought else then one Eternal God we do in effect deny such an Existence because Unity is the inseparable and essential attribute of Deity and by acknowledging more than one we do in effect deny that there is any I will not dispute what Influences or benign or malevolent Aspects coelestial Bodies have over us But this I am assured of and am no whit afraid by God's assistance to maintain That there is a Superior Power ruling in them one who telleth the Stars and calleth them all by their names that doth order and determine them according to his good will and pleasure from whom we are to look for all our good or evil in this World And thither it is that the Apostle St. Iames directs us plainly when he tells us Every good giving and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning On which place says one would not any man have thought it a more proper attribute of God for the Apostle to have said there From God the author of all good things or the like then Father of Lights No says he there is something more in it He would have us look higher than those Lights from whose influence so many place their good or evil and think they have not their wisdom from Mercury c. And upon that very Text doth the Author very prettily observe that in the foregoing vers 16 which is Err not my dear Brethren that the phrase Err not is in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which very word says he come the Planets Indeed were any man assured that all our inclinations and actions all our good or ill success were under the sole uncontroulable disposition of a few wandring Planets or the government of a blind Goddess Fortune or Chance he need not be very earnest or solicitous for that were vain since they are inexorable for the life of himself Children or Friends but rather rejoyce at the exemption from such a dominion by death and conclude then with Iob that there only shall we be at rest But having granted this to my self That there is nothing happens here on Earth but what is ordered and disposed by the first Creator who by rooting up one and planting another does as the Psalmist says in that ravishing subject of his providence Renew the face of the Earth my thoughts in the next place tended unto this whether the loss of my Children were an angry correction of God against which David and Ieremy so pray If it were I thought even then I had little reason like a sullen Ass to lye down under the burthen but rather to get up and bear it with patience lest the same Master should lay a greater weight upon me and not only so but even draw forth his Sword and slay me too nay Reason prompted me rather to examine my self wherein I had more chiefly provoked him to wound and pierce me through with these Darts and to stay his hand if it were possible not barely by a sincere repentance for the same but a full purpose and resolution to depart from every evil way and certainly in all God's ways and methods this is the chief end and design to make us wise unto Salvation But since as the Prophet says His righteousness is like to an high Mountain visible to every Eye but his Iudgments are as a great deep past finding out or fathoming I thought it not good to make too curious an enquiry thereinto nor dive into his secrets nor despair of his mercy and loving kindness but to purpose and resolve of amendment and to trust though he will not leave us altogether unpunished yet that his correction may be in measure and since he has been pleased to promise that every thing shall work for the good of them that love him it may not be presumption in us to think that whatsoever happens is not only what he sees best for us but that we may turn the Perspective and look on his Judgments sent in mercy not in wrath And seeing he has given us the grace to behold it is his doing we may therefore conclude with Manoah's Wife If he were pleased to kill us he would not have shewed us these things Now first let us look on afflictions losses crosses and calamities in general so termed and see whether there be such evil in them as men generally opine Indeed so wonderful are the goods of affliction as one of the learnedst of our Nation has highly admired Seneca for that saying of his Bona rerum secundarum optabilia adversarum mirabilia That the good things that belong to prosperity are to be wished but the good things which belong to adversity are to be admired And indeed although the Apostle tells us that no affliction for the present is joyous but grievous yet if we look as wise men should upon the end we shall find cause to glory in tribulation knowing as it s said that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed Now if from tribulation as the first seed sown there is once grown up in us a well-grounded hope and our subjection to vanity becomes a subjection in hope we shall reckon the sufferings of this present life not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall
led into the paths of truth and righteousness and become acquainted with his will And this we look upon as effected by his Holy Spirit through his Word one God blessed for ever Such new accession of light and such a blessed gift as this were the Writers of Holy Scripture no doubt endowed withal whose words and actions were in demonstration of the spirit and with power the effects whereof we have heard and beheld and felt in a great part of this visible world Now for that we have a promise this admirable strange effect in man shall not wholly cease but that God will be with us to the end of the world and we talk much now a days of the light of the Holy Spirit It may not be amiss since we have a caveat Not to believe every spirit and withall authority given us to try the spirits whether they are of God for every man to try his own spirit at least and see whether that of it self already sent be not the spirit only which he often mistakes and vouches for the immediate dictates of the Almighty and calls it a new light the spirit of God within him and so becomes a little too bold with the Almighty I am afraid it has in some men and that many a man has so little understood himself and less his Maker that he has mistaken the suddain and strange flashes of some kind of lightning from his own inherent affections for another spirit which feeding with conceit he has brought to such a flame in himself that at last his reason has given place and approved it to be something more than what is under its regiment or correction even the light of that spirit of truth whereas did a man by his reason keep a narrow watch over his affections it might observe every the most ordinary affection able to raise its peculiar spirit that is such a flame in the soul as with the assistance of the imagination shall hurry it with the body in obedience to it and force reason into a belief for the present that its motion is from the light of truth of which in time it may stand convinced to have been mislead and misguided We do not improperly call the product of that predominant affection in man Pride the spirit of pride and the consequent thereof the spirit of contradiction and these may be the spirits which for the present enthral our reason and make us believe better of our selves than others do of us and think God worketh in us immediately and of his gracious dispensation that which is effected by our own spirit through his most just and wise providence To exclude God that is One eternal omnipotent wise working spirit out of any action especially that which is good might prove of evil and dangerous consequence Yet since his way is in the sea his paths in the great waters and his footsteps are not known as is expressed We may be too presumptuous in being too confident of the knowledge of his present manner of working in our selves I do own it is he that hath endowed us all with an intellectual mind or Soul and given some of us that strength of reason which is in some measure capable to search after him and behold some of his ways and doubtless many of the heathen were not excluded from such a sight and he has enlightened others by his holy spirit to declare unto us his good will and pleasure which we call his Word And to others of us has he by that Holy spirit with which those holy Writers were inspired given grace to lay hold on that word and all the promises therein Notwithstanding which and a saving faith at the last we may not for the present safely challenge that good spirit of God to be the sole or chief guide of all our thoughts and actions for if it were so then were it impossible for us to err as I conceive which daily we do and grieve that Holy spirit as is expressed by which we are sealed to the day of redemption There are as I of my weakness am best able to conceive for I never saw or searched Writers on such subject either towards the enlightning or confirming me therein four more especial ways by which God worketh over us and in us 1. By his common and ordinary Providence 2. By his merciful Providence 3. By his liberal and bountiful Providence 4. By his Spirit His ordinary providence I call that which extends over all the works of his creation as well irrational as rational which though irrational bodies are no ways sensible of or its working yet has he therein an eye over them in their bodily preservation and feedeth the young ravens that call upon him And within this care or eye of his are we comprized too and no way excluded By his merciful providence I mean his withholding us from committing those enormous crimes to which we are prone by nature through the lusts of the flesh even against the very light of reason which thing perhaps you will term his common restraining grace and this he extends to Heathens as well as others as may be observed in the story of Abimelech and his withholding him from touching of Sarah By his liberal and bountiful providence I mean this That God having endowed our souls with that more than ordinary gift of reason by which we seem originally capable in some degree or measure to discern good from evil He more especially overlooks that gift of his and more especially worketh therein towards the enlightning thereof So that of his bounty and goodness alone it is that our humane reason is at any time brought to a clearer sight than ordinary of justice mercy temperance patience or the like and beholds the beauty thereof above their contraries whereby we imbrace them with our affections and this I hope I may without offence allow the name of his Common renewing grace to In which sence or notion if any shall alledge his capacity of coming to the knowledg of the present work of the spirit of God in him I mean not to contradict him because I behold every mans reason his rational soul to be in some sence the spirit of God which being enlightned from him a-new for the inclining the affections to imbrace that which is morally good we may more properly say then 'T is the spirit of God that worketh in us But many Heathens as well as Christians have doubtless in great measure participated of this grace for so I call it now it being from the mere good will and pleasure of God without any motive or inducement from man and owned the same to be his good work in them and yet never otherwise enlightned missed of the truth and could not be said to have any light from his Holy spirit but to err even to perdition notwithstanding the aforementioned grace I and justly to perish too For such is the wise just disposition
indeavour to amend one our Prognosticators especially himself rather than another Let each single person begin to lead a righteous sober quiet humble life let him submit himself to all Power Laws and Ordinances already established for God's sake These I am sure are the dictates of right Reason and these are things as much in every mans power as any thing imaginable Be but this and Reasons dictates when it dictates are the same in all men though that be sometimes weaker sometimes stronger and sometimes blind in man once observed we become again as it were of one mind and if we become of one mind Sedition is necessarily wanting and if Sedition be wanting I am sure 't is impossible Troubles or War should happen amongst us So as 't is we alone are able to make a Star portend good or evil which of it self signifies nothing of concern to us When plain down right Reason is neglected the subtle Imagination inflamed and our Affections once wedded as we say to Opinion what monstrous consequent beliefs are begot in the Soul Is it possible think you from Reason to have a belief raised in any mans Soul of his own merit or worth in relation to any future state Is not every man conscious thereby of his own defects and unworthiness here of his treachery and falshood of his Irreligion and Profaneness of his want of Charity to his fellow Creatures and want of due veneration to his Creator Can any man behold himself and in some degree and measure know himself which is a thing utterly impossible of another and not condemn himself by his own Reason if he have any as acting sometimes against the plain light of that and look upon himself as St. Paul the greatest of sinners because 't is impossible he should behold and perfectly know any greater and throw himself at last at the footstool of some infinite Mercy I am sure no man can do less that makes present use of that faculty at other times neglected Whence is it then that some men elect and Saint themselves without any present respect to such infinite Mercy and behold others as Reprobates and Castaways discarding all Mercy out of themselves Is it not from opinion only and the bare work of the Imagination in them And is it not wrought and effected principally from others disagreement with them in point of Opinion relating to the ways and means and methods of obtaining future Bliss and Happiness Affection sure is not herein originally to blame neither can any peculiar affection unless Pride the spawn of the Devil be found that should inflame or exalt the Imagination above Reason in this manner Before men thus differ in Opinion they love and affect one another well enough but after Imagination has raised several beliefs in several men perhaps about a trifle and that which is not worthy to be a subject of belief they generally mortally hate and persecute each other Herein I say the Imagination is chiefly culpable and raises such a belief meerly for want of a little exercise of Reason For that duly consulted I dare say would raise another manner of belief in us that is that without just provocation and the immediate necessary defence and preservation of our own Bodies we ought in no case to wound and destroy anothers And then would this Diabolical imaginary belief vanish and we should be at Amity again which God of his infinite mercy by the strengthening or enlightening our Reason or otherwise of his immediate Free Grace so far as it may agree with his holy purposes towards the setting forth his own Glory in the end grant unto us all and that we become not more savage than Beasts whose Imagination working upon the inlet of Sense barely frames and contrives no further than self-preservation nor is vainly exalted in any of them into a belief of self-worth or Spiritual Prerogative or Soveraignty above their fellow Creatures so as to destroy one another as a Victim to Pride but only to present Rage or Lust or Appetite I am so far from accusing Passion as the Original Cause of our Errors and by consequence our Trouble and Disquiet which I rather impute to the bare work of the Imagination and that chiefly through the delusion of Satan that I do think there is not a greater or stronger Bulwark against the idle and wicked excursion of the Imagination whereby our Troubles do arise nor a more effectual means for the opening and strengthening our Reason by which they are soonest allayed than some peculiar Passion inherent and raised I will not say by the Imagination for the Imagination alone I am sure cannot do it in the Soul and that is Sorrow a thing we are ready and willing to shun and condemn in our Imagination before we become well acquainted with it by our Reason Of the usual blessed effects whereof I mean to say somewhat in this place in order to a Conclusion By Sorrow I do not mean every Grief Anxiety Trouble or Perturbation of Mind but that Dolor flebilis mentioned a mollifying and melting of the Heart through some seeming irreparable loss but so mollified or melted by a stronger power than the Imagination which thing though it continue not in its first state or height but resolves into a kind of joy at the last and indeed while it is is no other than a privation of some preceding joy or delight yet retains so much of its first nature and quality that upon remembrance thereof and if it were real it cannot be utterly forgotten it will remain as a guard to suppress the treacherous attempts of the Imagination or rather the Devil through the Imagination and consequently the Insurrection of all base and sordid affection or if you please against the excursion of other Passions and consequently against the deceit and falshood of the Imagination The Imagination is usually of a towring quality beholding all worldly goods under it and not seldom is as liberal of its Promises to the Affections as Satan to our Saviour And this puts them all in Arms and whatsoever Mastery Victory or Enjoyment is obtained there will be Mutiny and Trouble and Disorder amongst those common Souldiers of the Soul which this one single Passion raised is only able of it self to prevent or allay For it cools the Imagination only while all others inflame it and rejects those Companions of Envy Hatred Malice or the like which other Passions usually call in to their assistance by the help of the Imagination There is no doubt neither shall I gain-say but that every man notwithstanding the present Dominion of Sorrow or any other moderate lawful Passion retains in himself the Seeds or Roots of every irregular unlawful Passion which may in time spring up and bear a bitter Fruit to the Soul yet this Covering like Snow which has in it the qualities of Cold and Heat both will obstruct their springing forth for the present the usual consequent whereof is a good and
by way of case put how doleful such an act would prove to him imagine and think of it waking and yet loath and abhor the Act nay tremble at the very thought of it And therefore it appears to me a strange folly as well as cruelty in Dionysius if the story be true That put one of his best friends to Death for dreaming he had cut his Throat and alledged no juster cause than this that what he thought on in the Day that he dreamed on in the Night Had the party that told his dream withal affirmed that his Affections seemed delighted and pleased with the Act I should have thought there had been some ground for the execution but without such declaration no colour of Justice for it If we voluntarily drown as we say our Reason with Wine we cannot excuse the irregular motion of the Imagination nor the assent or compliance of the Affections therewith much less the assent of our will and the putting our thoughts and designs in execution Yet I cannot allow that there is thereby an exaltation of the crime as some Lawyers would because there is an exaltation of the Imagination There are two sins indeed but the latter is not made greater by the former but rather the contrary In no other cases of Reasons disability whether temporary or perpetual whether that we call Delirium Lunacy or Phrenzy and all that we comprize under the general notion of non compos mentis I do verily think that if it happened or came by the default of our own Soul we are answerable to Divine Justice for the deliquity of our very Imagination and the consequent Acts thereof nay I cannot see why we should altogether exempt men from human censure and corporal punishment if the evil of their Imagination appear at any time by overt act provided that punishment extend not to the present separation of the Soul and Body so as to leave the Soul remediless by Death which for ought we know might recover its pristine state here and so purify it self for another state hereafter Most certain it is men can in these cases of Lunacy c. happening one way or other imagine and design evil and not seldom accomplish and compass their evil designs And therefore our great Lawyer in commenting upon the Statute of the 25th Ed. 3. of Treason wherein the very Imagination is struck at shews very little of a Philosopher whatsoever he shews of a Lawyer in my judgment by telling us That a man Non compos mentis a man who is not Master of his Reason or Reason is of no power or Authority in him as I expound it is totally deprived of compassing and Imagination I think he might more truly affirm that he who imagines the death of our Sovereign with any the least appearing assent of his Affections is Non compos mentis than that a man Non compos mentis cannot imagine or have his Will and Affections assent to that Imagination which we find but too often in these kind of men And truly since all our safety depends much on that of our Soverigns and that Lunacy may be so acted as the wisest of men cannot discern the reality thereof I think that Comment might well have been spared and the question left undecided till there had been a necessity for it which God prevent and so of his goodness direct all our thoughts as that they do not outrun our Reason too far and kindle in us such a blind zeal as requires at length a greater power than Reason to controul and suppress I must confess I have ever looked upon this one faculty in us Imagination sufficient to shew us that the extract of the Soul is Divine that as it may be and often is rather than any other faculty immediately influenced from that good Spirit and by it we are enabled sometimes to think that which is good without any precedent motion of any other faculty so it is most subject to delusion from infernal Powers That duly beheld it almost necessarily drives us towards an invocation of one Eternal wise Mind the Creator Preserver Guider and Director of all its works Which is the chief and last thing I designed to set down in this Treatise IV. We cannot deny unto Beast these four faculties of a Soul very fimilar with ours Imagination Memory Affection and Will But we may and do rationally suppose for we cannot observe more in them or the contrary that they imagine through Sense they remember again from Sense they affect by Sense and Will in pursuance hereof only and not otherwise as we have touched already neither can they or are they enabled to weigh and consider so as to raise within themselves an evidence of things unseen which is the proper act of Reason a thing merely incorporeal and necessarily moving upon the cooperation and making a judgment with the assistance or help of other faculties of themselves somewhat more than corporeal likewise So as all our faculties are of Divine extraction and capable to be wrought upon otherwise than through Sense though indeed they are most commonly roused and set on work through bodily Organs as those of Beasts Most certain it is that we do as well as in that excellent faculty Reason whereby we are enabled to ponder and weigh and try and judge of the reality and truth of things herein excell them and go beyond them That we do now and then wish our selves out of this Body which we could never do from Sense and desire a clearer evidence or manifestation and appearance of the truth and reality of our own being and all beings whatsoever the original from whence c. than Sense is able to assist us in or indeed can rightly afford us Then next are not all our Affections readily imployed upon things meerly incorporeal and insensible whenever they offer themselves or are offered thereto Do we not love and admire Truth Justice Mercy c. Do we not hate the contraries thereof falshood wrong and cruelty Every one will confess this But now how are things brought in this shape to the Affections Why chiefly by an Imagination capable of divine impression an Imagination that may be wrought upon otherwise than through Sense and able to introduce apparitions to the other faculties of the Soul without the least help or assistance by Sense so as human Imagination is most certainly divine 'T is no battery upon the Soul through Sense barely no inculcating or telling us by word or Writing that Vertue is amiable which properly make it so to us But first an Inquest our Imagination that presents and next a Judge our Reason that allows and approves of it within us as such Indeed Imagination in Beast lodged immediately over the doors of Sense do's from thence work so strangely to our admiration so circumspectly as I may say direct their Affections and Will as that it has obtained the allowance of some to supply the place of Reason in