Revelation in their Inquiries into Natural things do yet both think and as to the two first of them very plausibly prove the three grand Principles of Epicurus That the little Bodies he calls Atoms are indivisible That they all have their motion from themselves and That there is a vacuum in rerum naturâ to be as repugnant to meer Reason as the Epicureans think the Notion of an Incorporeal Substance or the Creation of the World or the Immortality of the Soul And as for the new Somatici such as Mr. Hobbs and some few others by what I have yet seen of his I am not much tempted to forsake any thing that I look'd upon as a Truth before ev'n in Natural Philosophy it self upon the score of what he though never so confidently delivers by which hitherto I see not that he hath made any great discovery either of new Truths or old Errors An Honourable Member of the Royal Society hath elsewhere purposely shewn how ill he has prov'd his own Opinions about the Air and some other Physical Subjects and how ill he has understood and oppos'd those of his Adversary But to give you in this place a Specimen how little their repugnancy to his Principles or Natural Philosophy ought to affright us from those Theological Doctrines they contradict I shall here but not in the Body of this Discourse for fear of too much interrupting it examine the fundamental Maxim of his whole Physicks That nothing is removed but by a Body contiguous and moved it having been already shewn by the Gentleman newly mention'd that as to the next to it which is that there is no vacuum whether it be true or no he has not prov'd it If no Body can possibly be moved but by a Body contiguous and moved as Mr. Hobbs teaches I demand How there comes to be Local motion in the World For either all the portions of matter that compos'd the Universe have motion belonging to their Nature which the Epicureans affirm'd for their Atoms or some parts of Matter have this motive power and some have not or else none of them have it but all of them are naturally devoid of Motion If it be granted that Motion does naturally belong to all parts of Matter the dispute is at an end the concession quite overthrowing the Hypothesis If it be said that naturally some portions of Matter have Motion and others not then the Assertion will not be Universally true For though it may hold in the parts that are naturally moveless or quiescent yet it will not do so in the others there being nothing that may shew a necessity why a Body to which Motion is natural should not be capable of moving without being put into motion by another contiguous and moved And if there be no Body to which Motion is natural but every Body needs an outward movent it may well be demanded How there comes to be any thing Locally mov'd in the World which yet constant and obvious experience demonstrates and Mr. Hobbs himself cannot deny For if no part of Matter have any Motion but what it must owe to another that is contiguous to it and being it self in Motion impels it and if there be nothing but Matter in the World how can there come to be any Motion amongst Bodies since they neither have it upon the score of their own nature nor can receive it from external Agents If Mr. Hobbs should reply that the Motion is impress'd upon any of the parts of the Matter by God he will say that which I most readily grant to be true but will not serve his turn if he would speak congruously to his own Hypothesis For I demand Whether this Supreme Being that the Assertion has recourse to be a Corporeal or an Incorporeal Substance If it be the latter and yet be the efficient Cause of Motion in Bodies then it will not be Universally true that whatsoever Body is moved is so by a Body contiguous and moved For in our supposition the Bodies that God moves either immediately or by the intervention of any other Immaterial Being are not moved by a Body contiguous but by an Incorporeal Spirit But because Mr. Hobbs in some Writings of his is believed to think the very Notion of an Immaterial Substance to be absurd and to involve a Contradiction and because it may be subsum'd that if God be not an Immaterial Substance he must by Consequence be a Material and Corporeal one there being no Medium Negationis or third Substance that is none of those two I answer That if this be said and so that Mr. Hobbs's Deity be a Corporeal one the same difficulty will recurr that I urg'd before For this Body will not by Mr. Hobbs's calling or thinking it divine cease to be a true Body and consequently a portion of Divine Matter will not be able to move a portion of our Mundane Matter without it be it self contiguous and moved which it cannot be but by another portion of Divine Matter so qualified to impress a Motion nor this again but by another portion And besides that it will breed a strange confusion in rendring the Physical Causes of things unless an expedient be found to teach us how to distinguish accurately the Mundane Bodies from the Divine which will perhaps prove no easie task I see not yet how this Corporeal Deity will make good the Hypothesis I examine For I demand How this Divine Matter comes to have this Local Motion that is ascrib'd to it If it be answer'd That it hath it from its own Nature without any other Cause since the Epicureans affirm the same of their Atoms or meerly Mundane Matter I demand How the Truth of Mr. Hobbs's Opinion will appear to me to whom it seems as likely by the Phaenomena of Nature that occur that Mundane Matter should have a congenit Motion as that any thing that is Corporeal can be God and capable of moving it which to be it must for ought we know have its Subsistence divided into as many minute parts as there are Corpuscles and Particles in the World that move separately from their neighbouring ones And to draw towards a Conclusion I say that these minute Divine Bodies that thus moved those portions of Mundane Matter concerning which Mr. Hobbs denies that they can be moved but by Bodies contiguous and moved these Divine Substances I say are according to the late supposition true Bodies and yet are moved themselves not by Bodies contiguous and moved but by a Motion which must be Innate deriv'd or flowing from their very essence or nature since no such Body is pretended to have a Being as cannot be refer'd as a portion either to the Mundane or the Divine Matter In short since Local Motion is to be found in one if not in both of these two Matters it must be natural to at least some parts of one of them in Mr. Hobbs's Hypothesis for though he should grant an Immaterial Being
for a Christian to deny his Reason And then we shall proceed to examine Whether though he need not disclaim his Reason it be nevertheless his Duty so to do SECT I. To proceed then to the Considerations that make up the former Part of this Epistle I shall in the first place distinguish betwixt that which the Christian Religion it self teaches and that which is taught by this or that Church or Sect of Christians and much more by this or that particular Divine or Schoolman I Need not persuade you who cannot but know it so well already that there are many things taught about the Attributes and Decrees of God the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation and divers other Theological Subjects about which not only private Christians but Churches of Christians do not at all agree There are too many Men whose Ambition or Boldness or Self-conceit or Interest leads them to obtrude upon others as parts of Religion Things that are not only Strangers but oftentimes Enemies to it And there are others who out of an indiscreet Devotion are so sollicitous to increase the Number and the Wonderfulness of Mysteries that to hear them propose and Discourse of things one would judge that they think it is the office of Faith not to elevate but to trample upon Reason and that things are then fittest to be believ'd when they are not clearly to be proved or understood And indeed when on the one side I consider the charitable design of the Gospel and the candid simplicity that shines in what it proposes or commands and on the other side what strange and wild Speculations and Inferences have been father'd upon it not only in the Metaphysical Writings of some Schoolmen but in the Articles of Faith of some Churches I cannot but think that if all these Doctrines are parts of the Christian Religion the Apostles if they were now alive would be at best but Catechumini and I doubt not but many of the nice Points that are now much valued and urg'd by some would be as well disapproved by St. Paul as by Aristotle and should be as little entertain'd by an Orthodox Divine as a Rigid Philosopher I do not therefore allow all that for Gospel which is taught for such in a Preachers Pulpit or ev'n a Professors Chair And therefore if Scholastick Writers of what Church soever take the liberty of imposing upon the Christian Religion their Metaphysical Speculations or any other meerly humane Doctrines as matters of Faith I who not without some Examination think Metaphysicks themselves not to have been for the most part over-well understood and apply'd shall make bold to leave all such private Doctrines to be defended by their own Broachers or Abettors and shall deny that it will follow That in case of this multitude of Placets which some bold Men have been pleased to adopt into the Catalogue of Christian Verities any or all should be found inconsistent with right Reason the Christian Religion must be so too For by that name I understand onely that System of Reveal'd Truths that are clearly deliver'd in the Scriptures or by legitimate and manifest consequences deduc'd thence And by this one Declaration so many unnecessary and perhaps hurtful Retainers to Christianity will be at once thrown off that I doubt not but if you consider the Matter aright you will easily discern that by this first Distinction I have much lessen'd the work that is to be done by those that are to follow it SECT II. In the next place among the things that seem not rational in Religion I make a great difference between those in which unenlightned Reason is manifestly a competent Judge and those which Natural Reason it self may discern to be out of its Sphere You will allow me That Natural Theology is sufficient to evince the Existence of the Deity and we know that many of the old Philosophers that were unassisted by Revelation were by the force of Reason led to discover and confess a God that is a Being supremely perfect under which Notion divers of them expresly represent him Now if there be such a Being 't is but reasonable to conceive that there may be many things relating to his Nature his Will and his management of things that are without the Sphere of meer or unassisted Reason For if his Attributes and Perfections be not fully comprehensible to our Reason we can have but inadequate Conceptions of them and since God is a Being toto Caelo as they speak differing from all other Beings there may be some things in his Nature and in the manner of his Existence which is without all Example or perfect Analogy in inferior Beings For we see that ev'n in Man himself the Coexistence and intimate Union of the Soul and Body that is an Immaterial and a Corporeal substance is without all President or Parallel in Nature And though the truth of this Union may be prov'd yet the manner of it was never yet nor perhaps ever will be in this Life clearly understood to which purpose I shall elsewhere say more Moreover if we suppose God to be Omnipotent that is to be able to do whatever involves no Contradiction that it should be done we must allow him to be able to do many things that no other Agent can afford us any Examples of and some of them perhaps such as we who are but finite and are wont to judge of things by Analogy cannot conceive how they can be perform'd Of the last sort of things may be the recollecting a sufficient quantity of the scatter'd matter of a Dead humane Body and the contriving of it so that whether alone or with some addition of other Particles upon a reconjunction with the Soul it may again constitute a living Man and so effect that Wonder we call the Resurrection Of the latter sort is the Creation of Matter out of nothing and much more the like Production of those Rational and Intelligent Beings Humane Souls For as for Angels good or bad I doubt whether meer Philosophy can evince their Existence though I think it may the possibility thereof And since we allow the Deity a Wisdom equal to this boundless Power 't is but reasonable to conceive that these unlimited Attributes conspiring may produce Contrivances and frame Designs which we Men must be unable at least of our selves sufficiently to understand and to reach to the bottom of And by this way of arguing it may be made to appear That there may be many things relating to the Deity above the reach of unenlightned humane Reason Not that I affirm all these things to be in their own Nature incomprehensible to us though some of them may be so when they are once propos'd but that Reason by its own light could not discover them particularly and therefore it must owe its knowledge of them to Divine Revelation And if God vouchsafes to disclose those things to us since not only he must needs know about his own
Nature Attributes c. what we cannot possibly know unless he tells us and since we know that whatever he tells us is infallibly true we have abundant Reason to believe rather what he declares to us concerning Himself and Divine things than what we should conclude or guess about them by Analogy to things of a nature infinitely distant from his or by Maxims fram'd according to the nature of inferior Beings If therefore he clearly reveal to us That there is in the Godhead Three distinct Persons and yet that God is One we that think our selves bound to believe God's Testimony in all other Cases ought sure not to disbelieve it concerning himself but to acknowledge that in an unparallel'd and incomprehensible Being there may be a manner of Existence not to be parallel'd in any other Being though it should never be understood by us Men who cannot clearly comprehend how in our selves two such distant Natures as that of a gross Body and an immaterial Spirit should be united so as to make up one Man In such cases therefore as we are now speaking of there must indeed be something that looks like captivating ones Reason but 't is a submission that Reason it self obliges us to make and he that in such points as these believes rather what the Divine Writings teach him than what he would think if they had never inform'd him does not renounce or inslave his Reason but suffers it to be Pupil to an Omniscient and Infallible Instructer who can teach him such things as neither his own meer Reason nor any others could ever have discovered to him I thought to have here dismiss'd this Proposition but I must not omit to give it a confirmation afforded me by chance or rather Providence For since I writ the last Paragraph resuming a Philosophical Enquiry I met in prosecuting it with a couple of Testimonies of the truth of what I was lately telling you which are given not by Divines or Schoolmen but by a couple of famous Mathematicians that have both led the way to many of the Modern Philosophers to shake off the reverence wont to be born to the Authority of great Names and have advanc'd Reason in a few years more than such as Vaninus and Pomponatius would do in many Ages and have always boldly and sometimes successfully attempted to explain intelligibly those things which others scrupled not either openly or tacitly to confess inexplicable The first of these Testimonies I met with in a little French Treatise put out by some Mathematician who though he conceals his Name appears by his way of writing to be a great Virtuoso and takes upon him to give his Readers in French the new thoughts of Galilaeo by making that the Title of his Book This Writer then speaking of a Paradox which I but recite of Galilaeo's that makes a point equal to a Circle adds Et per consequent l'on peut dire Pag. 22 23. i. e. and consequently one may say that all Circles are equal between themselves since each of them is equal to a point For though the imagination be overpower'd by this Idea or Notion yet Reason will suffer it self to be persuaded of it I know continues he divers other excellent Persons besides Galilaeo who conclude the same thing by other ways but all are constrain'd to acknowledge that indivisible and infinite are things that do so swallow up the mind of Man that he scarce knows what to pitch on when he contemplates them For it will follow from Galilaeo's Speculation c. which passage I have cited to shew you that Galilaeo is not the only Philosopher and Mathematician who has confess'd his Reason quite passed about the Attributes of what is Infinite The other Testimony I mention'd to you is that of the excellent Des-Cartes in the second Part of his Principles of Philosophy Numb 34. where speaking of the Circle to be made by Matter moving through places still lesser and lesser he has this ingenious acknowledgment Fatendum tamen est sayes he in motu isto aliquid reperiri quod mens quidem nostra pereipit esse verum sed tamen quo pacto fiat non comprehendit nempe Divisionem quarundam particularum Materiae in infinitum sive indefinitam atque in tot partes ut nulla cogitatione determinare possimus tam exiguam quin intelligamus ipsam in alias adhuc minores reipsa esse divisam And in the Close of the next Paragraph he gives this for a Reason why though we cannot comprehend this indefinite division yet we ought not to doubt of the truth of it That we discern it to be of that kind of things that cannot be compriz'd by our minds as being but finite If then such bold and piercing Wits and such excellent Mathematicians are forc'd to confess that not only their own Reason but that of Mankind may be passed and non-plus'd about Quantity which is an Object of contemplation Natural nay Mathematical and which is the Subject of the rigid Demonstrations of pure Mathematicks why should we think it unfit to be believ'd and to be acknowledg'd that in the Attributes of God who is essentially an Infinite Being and an Ens singularissimum and in divers other Divine things of which we can have no knowledge without Revelation there should be some things that our Finite understandings cannot especially in this life clearly comprehend SECT III. To this Consideration I shall for Affinities sake subjoin another which I leave to your Liberty to look upon as a distinct one or as an Enlargement and Application of the former I consider then that there is a great difference between a Doctrines being repugnant to the general and well-weigh'd Rules or Dictates of Reason in the forming of which Rules it may be suppos'd to have been duly consider'd and its disagreeing with Axioms at the Establishment whereof the Doctrine in Question was probably never thought on There are several Rules that pass current ev'n among the most Learned Men and which are indeed of very great use when restrain'd to those things whence they took their Rise and others of the like nature which yet ought not to overthrow those Divine Doctrines that seem not consonant to them For the Framers of these Rules having generally built them upon the Observations they had made of Natural and Moral things since as we lately argued Reason it self cannot but acknowledge there are some things out of its Sphere we must not think it impossible that there may be Rules which will hold in all inferior Beings for which they were made and yet not reach to that infinite and most singular Being call'd God and to some Divine matters which were not taken into Consideration when those Rules were fram'd And indeed if we consider God as the Author of the Universe and the free Establisher of the Laws of Motion whose general Concourse is necessary to the Conservation and Efficacy of every particular Physical Agent we cannot but
acknowledge that by with-holding his Concourse or changing these Laws of Motion which depend perfectly upon his Will he may invalidate most if not all the Axioms and Theorems of Natural Philosophy These supposing the Course of Nature and especially the Establish'd Laws of Motion among the parts of the Universal Matter as those upon which all the Phaenomena of Nature depend 'T is a Rule in Natural Philosophy that Causae necessariae semper agunt quantum possunt But it will not follow from thence that the Fire must necessarily burn Daniel's three Companions or their Cloaths that were cast by the Babylonian King's Command into the midst of a Burning fiery Furnace when the Author of Nature was pleas'd to withdraw his Concourse to the Operation of the flames or supernaturally to defend against them the Bodies that were exposed to them That Men once truly dead cannot be brought to life again hath been in all Ages the Doctrine of meer Philosophers but though this be true according to the Course of Nature yet it will not follow but that the contrary may be true if God interpose either to recall the departed Soul and reconjoin it to the Body if the Organization of this be not too much vitiated or by so altering the Fabrick of the matter whereof the Carkass consists as to restore it to a fitness for the Exercise of the Functions of Life Agreably to this let me observe to you that though it be unreasonable to believe a Miraculous Effect when attributed onely to a meer Physical Agent yet the same thing may reasonably be believ'd when ascrib'd to God or to Agents assisted with his absolute or supernatural Power That a Man born blind should in a trice recover his sight upon the Application of Clay and Spittle would justly appear incredible if the Cure were ascrib'd to one that acted as a meer Man but it will not follow that it ought to be incredible that the Son of God should work it And the like may be said of all the Miracles perform'd by Christ and those Apostles and other Disciples of his that acted by virtue of a Divine Power and Commission For in all these and the like Cases it suffices not to make ones Belief irrational that the things believ'd are impossible to be true according to the course of Nature but it must be shewn either that they are impossible even to the Power of God to which they are ascrib'd or that the Records we have of them are not sufficient to beget Belief in the nature of a Testimony which latter Objection against these Relations is Forreign to our present Discourse And as the Rules about the power of Agents will not all of them hold in God so I might shew the like if I had time concerning some of his other Attributes Insomuch that ev'n in point of Justice wherein we think we may freeliest make Estimates of what may or may not be done there may be some cases wherein God's supreme Dominion as Maker and Governor of the World places him above some of those Rules I say some for I say not above all those Rules of Justice which oblige all inferior Beings without excepting the greatest and most absolute Monarchs themselves I will not give Examples of his Power of Pardoning or Remitting Penalties which is but a relaxing of his own Right but will rather give an instance in his Power of afflicting and exterminating Men without any Provocation given him by them I will not here enter upon the Controversie de Jure Dei in Creaturas upon what it is founded and how far it reaches For without making my self a party in that Quarrel I think I may safely say that God by his right of Dominion might without any violation of the Laws of Justice have destroy'd and ev'n annihilated Adam and Eve before they had eaten of the forbidden Fruit or had been commanded to abstain from it For Man being as much and as intirely God's Workmanship as any of the other Creatures unless God had oblig'd himself by some promise or pact to limit the Exercise of his absolute dominion over him God was no more bound to preserve Adam and Eve long alive than he was to preserve a Lamb or a Pigeon and therefore as we allow that he might justly recall the Lives he had given those innocent Creatures when he pleas'd as actually he often order'd them to be kill'd and burn'd in Sacrifice to him so he might for the declaration of his Power to the Angels or for other Reasons have suddenly taken away the Lives of Adam and Eve though they had never offended him And upon the same grounds he might without Injustice have annihilated I say not damn'd their Souls he being no more bound to continue Existence to a Nobler than a less noble Creature As he is no more bound to keep an Eagle than an Oyster always alive I know there is a difference betwixt Gods resuming a Being he lent Adam and his doing the same to inferior Creatures But that disparity if it concern any of his Attributes will concern some other than his Justice which allow'd him to resume at pleasure the Being he had only lent them or lay any Affliction on them that were lesser than that Good could countervail But mentioning this instance only occasionally I shall not prosecute it any further but rather mind you of the Result of this and the foregoing Consideration which is That Divinely reveal'd Truths may seem to be repugnant to the dictates of Reason when they do but seem to be so Nor does Christianity oblige us to question such Rules as to the cases they were fram'd for but the application of them to the Nature of God who has already been truly said to be Ens singularissimum and to his absolute Power and Will so that we do not reject the Rules we speak of but rather limit them and when we have restrain'd them to their due bounds we may safely admit them From Mens not taking notice of or not pondering this necessary limitation of many Axioms deliver'd in general terms seems to have proceeded a great Error which has made so many Learned Men presume to say That this or that thing is true in Philosophy but false in Divinity or on the contrary As for instance that a Virgin continuing such may have a Child is look'd upon as an Article which Theology asserts to be true and Philosophy pronounces impossible But the Objection is grounded upon a mistake which might have been prevented by wording the Propositions more warily and fully For though we grant that Physically speaking 't is false that a Virgin can bring forth a Child yet that signifies no more than that according to the course of Nature such a thing cannot come to pass but speaking absolutely and indefinitely without confining the Effect to meer Physical Agents it may safely be deny'd that Philosophy pronounces it impossible that a Virgin should be a Mother For why should the
Mankind be subject to be sway'd by innate and unheeded Prejudices and Proclivities to Errors about matters that are neither Divine nor Moral nor Political but Physical where the attainment of Truth is exceeding pleasant to humane Nature and is not attended with consequences distasteful to it Why may not we justly suspect not only this or that Philosopher or particular Sect but the generality of Men of having some secret propensities to err about Divine things and indispositions to admit Truths which not only detect the weaknesses of our Nature and our personal disabilities and thereby offend or mortifie our Pride and our Ambition but shine into the Mind with so clear as well as pure and chaste a light as is proper both to discover to our selves and others our Vices and Faults and oftentimes to cross our Designs and Interests And to this purpose we may take notice that divers of those very Idols which my Lord Bacon observes to besiege or pervert Mens Judgments in reference to things Natural may probably have the same kind of influence and that much stronger on the minds of Men in reference to Supernatural things Thus he takes notice that if some things have once pleas'd the Understanding 't is apt to draw all others to comport with and give Suffrage to them though perhaps the Inducements to the contrary belief be either more numerous or more weighty He observes also that Man is apt to look upon his senses and other perceptions as the measures of things and also that the understanding of Man is not sincerely dispos'd to receive the light of Truth but receives an infusion as it were of adventitious Colours that disguise the light from the Will and Affections which makes him sooner believe those things that he is desirous should be true and reject many others upon Accounts that do no way infer their being false Now if we apply these things to Divine Truths to which 't were well they were less justly applicable and consider that in our Youth we generally converse but with things Corporeal and are sway'd by Affections that have them for their Objects we shall not much wonder that Men should be very prone either to frame such Notions of Divine things as they were wont to have about others of a far different and meaner nature or else to reject them for not being Analogous to those things which they have been us'd to employ for the measures of truth and falsity And if we consider the inbred pride of man which is such that if we will believe the Sacred story ev'n Adam in Paradise affected to be like God knowing good and evil we shall not so much marvel that almost every man in particular makes the Notions he has entertain'd already and his Senses his Inclinations and his Interests the Standards by which he estimates and judges of all other things whether natural or reveal'd And as Heraclitus justly complain'd that every man sought the knowledge of natural things in the Microcosm that is himself and not in the Macrocosm the World so we may justly complain that men seek all the knowledge they care to find or will admit either in these little worlds themselves or from that great World the Universe but not from the Omniscient Author of them both And lastly if ev'n in purely Physical things where one would not think it likely that rational Beings should seek Truth with any other designs than of finding and enjoying it our Understandings are so universally byass'd and impos'd upon by our Wills and Affections how can we admire especially if we admit the fall of our first Parents that our Passions and Interests and oftentimes our Vices should pervert our Intellects about those reveal'd Truths divers of which we discern to be above our comprehensions and more of which we find to be directly contrary to our Inclinations SECT V. And now 't will be seasonable for me to tell you That I think there may be a great difference betwixt a things being contrary to right Reason or so much as to any true Philosophy and its being contrary to the receiv'd Opinions of Philosophers or to the Principles or Conclusions of this or that Sect of them For here I may justly apply to my present purpose what Clemens Alexandrinus judiciously said on another Occasion that Philosophy was neither Peripatetical nor Stoical nor Epicurean but whatsoever among all those several parties was fit to be approv'd And indeed if we survey the Hypotheses and Opinions of the several Sects of Philosophers especially in those points wherein they hold things repugnant to Theological Truths we shall find many of them so slightly grounded and so disagreeing among themselves that a severe and inquisitive Examiner would see little cause to admit them upon the bare Account of his being a Philosopher though he did not see any to reject them upon the Account of his being a Christian And in particular as to the Peripateticks who by invading all the Schools of Europe and some in Asia and Africk have made their Sect almost Catholick and have produc'd divers of the famous Questioners of Christianity in the last Age and the first part of this the World begins to be apace undeceiv'd as to many of their Doctrines which were as confidently taught and believ'd for many Ages as those that are repugnant to our Religion and there is now scarce any of the modern Philosophers that allow themselves the free use of their Reason who believes any longer that there is an Element of Fire lodg'd under the suppos'd Sphere of the Moon that Heaven consists of solid Orbs that all Celestial Bodies are ingenerable and incorruptible that the Heart rather than the Brain is the Origine of Nerves that the torrid Zone is uninhabitable and I know not how many other Doctrines of the Aristotelians which our Corpuscularian Philosophers think so little worth being believ'd that they would censure him that should now think them worthy to be sollicitously confuted upon which score I presume you will allow me to leave those and divers others as weak Peripatetick conceits to fall by their own groundlesness But you will tell me that the Epicureans and the Somatici that will allow nothing but Body in the World nor no Author of it but Chance are more formidable Enemies to Religion than the Aristotelians And indeed I am apt to think they are so but they may well be so without deserving to have any of their Sects look'd upon as Philosophy it self there being none of them that I know of that maintain any Opinion inconsistent with Christianity that I think may not be made appear to be also repugnant to Reason or at least not demonstrable by it You will not expect I should descend to particulars especially having expresly discours'd against the Epicurean Hypothesis of the Origine of the World in another Paper and therefore I shall observe to you in general that the Cartesian Philosophers who lay aside all Supernatural
Army of living Men was a Valley full of dry Bones which being by the Divine Power approach'd to one another and made to join together in a convenient manner were afterwards by the supernatural Apposition of either newly created or extrinsecally supplied Matter Ezek. 37. furnish'd with Sinews by which I suppose it meant not only Nerves but Vessels Tendons Ver. 7 8. Ligaments c. and Flesh cover'd with skins and last of all a vivifying spirit was convey'd into them that made them stand upon their feet alive Ver. 9 10. an exceeding great Army Whence I gather that 't is not unconsonant to the expressions of Scripture to say that a Portion of the Matter of a dead Body being united with a far greater Portion of Matter furnish'd from without by God himself and completed into a Humane Body may be reputed the same Man that was dead before Which may appear both by the tenor of the Vision and particularly from the expression set down in the 10th verse where God calling for the enlivening Spirit names the completed but not yet revived Bodies These slain as if he now counted them the same that had formerly been kill'd These preliminary Considerations being thus laid down we may now proceed to examine more closely those difficulties which are said to demonstrate the Impossibility of the Resurrection the substance of which difficulties may be compriz'd in this Objection When a man is once really dead divers of the parts of his Body will according to the course of Nature resolve themselves into multitudes of steams that wander to and fro in the Air and the remaining parts that are either liquid or soft undergo so great a corruption and change that 't is not possible so many scatter'd parts should be again brought together and reunited after the same manner wherein they existed in a humane Body whil'st it was yet alive And much more impossible 't is to effect this Reunion if the Body have been as it often happens devoured by wild Beasts or Fishes since in this case though the scatter'd Particles of the Cadaver might be recover'd as Particles of Matter yet having already past into the substance of other Animals they are quite transmuted as being informed by the new form of the Beast or Fish that devoured them and of which they now make a Substantial part And yet far more impossible will this Redintegration be if we put the case that the dead Body be devoured by Cannibals for then the same Flesh belonging successively to two differing persons 't is impossible that both should have it restored to them at once or that any footsteps should remain of the Relation it had to the first Professor In answer to this indeed weighty Objection I have several things to offer And first I consider that a Humane Body is not as a Statue of Brass or Marble that may continue as to sense whole ages in a permanent state but is in a perpetual flux or changing condition since it grows in all its Parts and all its Dimensions from a Corpusculum no bigger than an Insect to the full stature of Man which in many persons that are tall and fat may amount to a vast bulk which could not happen but by a constant apposition and assimilation of new Parts to the primitive ones of the little Embryo and since Men as other Animals grow but to a certain pitch and till a certain age unless perhaps it be the Crocodile which some affirm to grow always till death and therefore must discharge a great part of what they eat and drink by insensible transpiration which Sanctorius's Statical Experiments as well as mine assure me to be scarce credibly great as to Men and some other Animals both hot and cold it will follow that in no very great compass of time a great part of the substance of a Humane Body must be changed And yet 't is considerable that the of a stable and lasting Texture as I found not only by some Chymical Tryals but by the Sculls and Bones of men whom History records to have been kill'd an exeeding long time ago of which Note we may hereafter make use Secondly I consider that there is no determinate Bulk or Size that is necessary to make a humane Body pass for the same and that a very small portion of Matter will some times serve the turn as an Embryo for instance in the Womb a new born Babe a Man at his full stature and a decrepit Man of perhaps an hundred years old notwithstanding the vast difference of their sizes are still reputed to be the same person as is evident by the custom of Crowning Kings and Emperors in the Mothers belly and by putting Murderers c to death in their old age for Crimes committed in their youth and if a very tall and unweildy fat Man should as it sometimes happens be reduced by a Consumption to a Sceleton as they speak yet none would deny that this wasted Man were the same with him that had once so enormously big a Body I consider also that a Body may either consist of or abound with such Corpuscles as may be variously associated with those of other Bodies and exceedingly disguised with those Mixtures and yet retain their own Nature of this we have divers instances in Metalline Bodies Thus Gold for example when dissolved in Aqua Regis passes for a Liquor and when dexterously coagulated it appears a Salt or Vitriol By another operation I have taken pleasure to make it part of the Fuel of a Flame Being dexterously conjoined to another Mineral it may be reduced to Glass Being well precipitated with Mercury it makes a glorious transparent Powder Being precipitated with Spirit of Urine or Oyl of Tartar per deliquium it makes a fulminating Calx that goes off very easily yet is far stronger than Gun-powder Being precipitated with a certain other Alkali the Fire turns it to a fixt and purple Calx And yet in spight of all these and divers other disguises the Gold retains its Nature as may be evinced by Chymical operations especially by Reductions Mercury also is a greater Proteus than Gold sometimes putting on the form of a Vapor sometimes appearing in that of an almost insipid water sometimes assuming in that condition the form of a red Pouder sometimes that of a white one and of a yellow one or of a Chrystalline Salt of a Malleable Metal of what not And yet all these are various dresses of the same Quicksilver which a skilful Artist may easily make it put off and re-appear in its native shape And though it be true that instances of the permanence of Corpuscles that pass under successive disguises may be much easier found among Metals and Minerals than Vegetables and Animals yet there are some to be met with among these For not to mention Hippocrates his affirmation about purging a Child with the Milk of an Animal that had taken Elaterium if I misremember not the
Drugg not to mention this I say I remember that when I once passed a Spring in Savoy I observed that all the Butter that was made in some places tasted so rank of a certain weed that at that time of the year abounds there in the Fields that it made strangers much nauseate the Butter which otherwise was very good If it be consider'd how many if I may so call them Elaborate Alterations the rank Corpuscles of this weed must have undergone in the various digestions of the Cows Stomach Heart Breasts c. and that afterward two Separations at least were superadded the one of the Cream from the rest of the Milk and the other of the unctuous parts of the Cream from the Serum or Butter-milk it will scarce be deny'd but that vegetable Corpuscles may by association pass through divers disguises without losing their Nature especially considering that the essential Attributes of such Corpuscles may remain undestroyed though no sensible quality survive to make proof of it as in our newly mentioned Example the offensive Taste did And besides what we commonly observe on the Sea-coast of the Fishy taste of those Sea-birds that feed onely upon Sea-fish I have purposely enquired of an observing Man that lived upon a part of the Irish Coast where the Custom is to fatten their Hogs with a Shell-fish which that place very much abounds with about the taste of their Pork To which he answered me that the Flesh had so strong and rank a taste of the Fish that strangers could not endure to eat it There is a certain fruit in America very well known to our English Planters which many of them call the Prickle-Peare whose very red juyce being eaten with the pulp of the fruit whereof it is a part doth so well make its way through the divers strainers and digestions of the Body that it makes the Urine red enough to persuade those that are unacquainted with this property that they piss Blood as I have been several times assured by unsuspected Eye-witnesses But more odd is that which is related by a Learned Man that spent several years upon the Dutch and English Plantations in the Charibe Islands who speaking of a Fruit which I remember I have seen but had not the liberty to make tryal of it called Janipa or Junipa growing in several of those Islands he tells us among other things that au temps c. which is at the season when this Fruit falls from the Tree the Hogs that feed on it have both their Flesh and Fat of a violet colour as Experience witnesseth which colour is the same that the juyce dyes and the like happens to the Flesh of Parrots and other Birds that feed upon it I shall by and by give you an instance of a Vegetable substance which though torn in pieces by very corrosive Liquors and so disguised as to leave no suspition of what it was does thereby not only not lose its Nature but is in an immediate capacity of re-appearing cloathed even with the sensible qualities of it as colour taste and smell Having thus shewn that the Particles of a Body may retain their Nature under various disguises I now proceed to add that they may be stript of those disguises or to speak without a Metaphor be extricated from those Compositions wherein they are disguised and that sometimes by such ways as those that are strangers to the nicer operations of Nature would never have thought upon nor will not perhaps judge probable when propos'd 'T is not unknown to expert Chymists that in despight of all the various shapes which that Proteus Mercury may be made to appear in as of a Christalline Sublimate a red Precipitate a yellow Turbith a Vapor a clear Water a Cinnaber a skilful method of Reduction will quickly free it from all that made it impose upon our senses and reappear in the form of plain running Mercury And though Vitrification be looked upon by Chymists as the ultimate action of the Fire and powerfullest way of making inseparable conjunctions of Bodies yet even out of glass of Lead for instance made of Sand and the ashes of a Metal though the Transmutation seems so great that the dark and flexible Metal is turned into a very transparent and brittle mass yet even from this have we recover'd opacous and malleable Lead And though there be several ways besides Precipitations of divorcing substances that seem very strictly if not unseparably united which though I may perhaps have practised it is not now convenient I should discourse of yet by Precipitation alone if a Man have the skill to choose proper Precipitants several Separations may not only be made but be easily and throughly made that every one would not think of For 't is not necessary that in all Precipitations as is observed in most of the vulgar ones the precipitant Body should indeed make a Separation of the dissolved Body from the mass or bulk of that Liquor or other Adjunct whereto 't was before united but should not be able to perform this without associating its own Corpuscles with those of the Body it should rescue and so make in some sense a new and further Composition For that some Bodies may precipitate others without uniting themselves with them is easily proved by the Experiment of Refiners separating Silver from Copper for the Mixture being dissolved in Aqua Fortis if the Solution be afterward diluted by adding fifteen or twenty times as much common water and you put into this Liquor a Copper-plate you shall quickly see the Silver begin to adhere to the Plate not in the form of a Calx as when Gold is precipitated to make Aurum fulminans or Tin-glass to make a fine white Powder for a Fucus but in the form of a shining Metalline substance that needs no farther reduction to be employed as good Silver And by a proper Precipitant I remember I have also in a trice perhaps in a minute of an hour reduced a pretty quantity of well disguised Mercury into running Quicksilver And if one can well appropriate the Precipitants to the Bodies they are to recover very slight and unpromising Agents may perform great matters in a short time as you may guess by the Experiment I lately promised you Which is this that if you take a piece of Camphire and let it lie awhile upon Oyl of Vitriol shaking them now and then it will be so corroded by the Oyl as totally to disappear therein without retaining so much as its smell or any manifest quality whereby one may suspect there is Camphire in that Mixture and yet that a Vegetable substance thus swallowed up and changed by one of the most fretting and destroying substances that is yet known in the world should not only retain the essential qualities of its Nature but be restorable to its obvious and sensible ones in a minute and that by so unpromising a medium as common water you will readily grant if you
pour the dissolved Camphire into a large proportion of that Liquor to whose upper parts it will immediately emerge white brittle strong-scented and inflameable Camphire as before One main Consideration I must add to the foregoing ones namely that Body and Body being but a parcel and a parcel of universal Matter Mechanically different either parcel may successively put on forms in a way of Circulation if I may so speak till it return to the form whence the reckoning was begun having only its Mechanical affections alter'd That all Bodies agree in one common Matter the Schools themselves teach making what they call the Materia Prima to be the common Basis of them all and their specifick differences to spring from their particular forms And since the true Notion of Body consists either alone in its Extension or in that and Impenetrability together it will follow that the differences which make the varieties of Bodies we see must not proceed from the Nature of Matter of which as such we have but one uniform Conception but from certain Attributes such as Motion Size Position c. that we are wont to call Mechanical Affections To this 't will be congruous that a determinate portion of Matter being given if we suppose that an intelligent and otherwise duly qualified Agent do watch this portion of Matter in its whole progress through the various forms it is made to put on till it come to the end of its course or series of changes if I say we suppose this and withal that this intelligent Agent lay hold of this portion of Matter cloath'd in its ultimate form and extricating it from any other parcels of Matter wherewith it may be mingled make it exchange its last Mechanical Affections for those which it had when the Agent first began to watch it in such case I say this portion of Matter how many changes and disguises soever it may have undergone in the mean time will return to be what it was and if it were before part of another Body to be reproduced it will become capable of having the same Relation to it that formerly it had To explain my meaning by a gross Example suppose a Man cut a large Globe or Sphere of soft Wax in two equal Parts or Hemispheres and of the one make Cones Cylinders Rings Screws c. and kneading the other with Dough make an appearance of Pie-crust Cakes Vermicell◠〈…〉 the Italians call Paste squeezed through a perforated Plate into the form of little Worms Wafers Biskets c. 't is plain that a Man may by dissolution and other ways separate the Wax from the Dough or Paste and reduce it in a Mould to the self-same Hemisphere of Wax it was before and so he may destroy all that made the other part of the Wax pass for several Bodies as Cones or Cylinders or Rings c. and may reduce it in a Mould to one distinct Semi-globe fit to be reconjoined to the other and so to recompose such a Sphere of Wax as they constituted before the Bisection was made And to give you an Example to the same purpose in a case that seems much more difficult if you look upon Precipitate carefully made per se you would think that Art has made a Body extreamly different from the common Mercury this being consistent like a Powder very red in colour and purgative and for the most part vomitive in operation though you give but four or five grains of it and yet if you but press this Pouder with a due heat by putting the component Particles into a new and fit motion you may reunite them together so as to re-obtain or re-produce the same running Mercury you had before the Precipitate per se was made of it Here I must beg your leave to recommend more fully to your thoughts that which soon after the beginning of this Discourse I did but purposely touch upon and invite you to consider with me that the Christian Doctrine doth not ascribe the Resurrection to Nature or any created Agent but to the peculiar and immediate operation of God who has declar'd that before the very last judgment he will raise the dead Wherefore when I lately mentioned some Chymical ways of recovering Bodies from their various disguises I was far from any desire it should be imagined that such ways were the only or the best that can possibly be employed to such an end For as the generality of Men without excepting Philosophers themselves would not have believed or thought that by easie Chymical ways Bodies that are reputed to have pass'd into a quite other nature should be reduc'd or restor'd to their former condition so till Chymistry and other parts of true Natural Philosophy be more throughly understood and farther promoted 't is probable that we can scarce now imagine what Expedients to reproduce Bodies a further discovery of the Mysteries of Art and Nature may lead us Mortals to And much less can our dim and narrow knowledge determine what means even Physical ones the most wise Author of Nature and absolute Governor of the World is able to employ to bring the Resurrection to pass since 't is a part of the imperfection of inferior Natures to have but an imperfect apprehension of the powers of one that is incomparably superior to them And even among us a Child though indowed with a reasonable Soul cannot conceive how a Geometrician can measure inaccessible heights and distances and much less how a Cosmographer can determine the whole compass of the Earth and Sea or an Astronomer investigate how far 't is from hence to the Moon and tell many years before what day and hour and to what degree she will be eclipsed And indeed in the Indies not only Children but rational illiterate Men could not perceive how 't was possible for the Europeans to converse with one another by the help of a piece of Paper at an hundred Miles distance and in a Moment produce Thunder and Lightning and kill Men a great way off as they saw Gunners and Musqueteers do and much less foretell an Eclipse of the Moon as Columbus did to his great advantage which things made the Indians even the chiefest of them look upon the Spaniards as persons of a more than humane Nature Now among those that have a true Notion of a Deity which is a Being both omnipotent and omniscient That he can do all and more than all that is possible to be performed by any way of disposing of Matter and Motion is a Truth that will be readily acknowledged since he was able at first to produce the world and contrive some part of the universal Matter of it into the Bodies of the first Man and Woman And that his power extends to the Re-union of a Soul and Body that have been separated by Death we may learn from the Experiments God has been pleased to give of it both in the Old Testament and the New especially in the raising
again to life Lazarus and Christ of the latter of which particularly we have Proofs cogent enough to satisfie any unprejudiced Person that desires but competent Arguments to convince him And that the miraculous Power of God will be as well as his Veracity is engaged in raising up the Dead and may suffice if 〈◊〉 be so we may not difficultly gatheâ— from that excellent Admonition of ouâ— Saviour to the Sadduces where he tellâ— them as I elsewhere noted that thâ— two Causes of their Errors are their noâ— knowing the Scriptures wherein God hath declared he will raise the Dead nor the Power of God by which he is able to effect it But the engagement of Gods Omnipotence is also in that place clearly intimated by St. Paul Act. 26.8 where he asks King Agrippa and his other Auditors why they should think it a thing not to be believed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that GOD should raise the Dead And the same Truth is yet more fully exprest by the same Apostle where speaking of Christ returning in the Glory and Power of his Father to judge all Mankind after he has said that this divine Judge shall transform or transfigure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our vile Bodies speaking of his own and those of other Saints to subjoin the Account on which this shall be done he adds that 't will be according to the powerful working 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3.21 And now 't will be seasonable to apply what has been deliver'd in the whole past Discourse to our present purpose Since then a Humane Body is not so confin'd to a determinate Bulk but that the same Soul being united to a portion of duly organized Matter is said to constitute the same Man notwithstanding the vast differences of bigness that there may be at several times between the portions of Matter whereto the Humane Soul is united Since a considerable part of the Humane Body consists of Bones which are Bodies of a very determinate Nature and not apt to be destroyed by the operation either of Earth or Fire Since of the less stable and especially the fluid parts of a Humane Body there is a far greater expence made by insensible Transpiration than even Philosophers would imagine Since the small Particles of a resolved Body may retain their own Nature under various alterations and disguises of which 't is possible they may be afterwards stript Since without making a Humane Body cease to be the same it may be repaired and augmented by the adaptation of congruously disposed Matter to that which pre-existed in it Since I say these things are so why should it be impossible that a most intelligent Agent whose Omnipotency extends to all that is not truly contradictory to the nature of things or to his own should be able so to order and watch the Particles of a Humane Body as that partly of those that remain in the Bones and partly of those that copiously flie away by insensible Transpiration and partly of those that are otherwise disposed of upon their resolution a competent number may be preserved or retrieved so that stripping them of their disguises or extricating them from other parts of Matter to which they may happen to be conjoined he may reunite them betwixt themselves and if need be with particles of Matter fit to be contexted with them and thereby restore or reproduce a Body which being united with the former Soul may in a sense consonant to the expressions of Scripture recompose the same Man whose Soul and Body were formerly disjoined by Death What has been hitherto discours'd supposes the Doctrine of the Resurrection to be taken in a more strict and literal sense because I would shew that even according to that the difficulties of answering what is mentioned against the possibility of it are not insuperable though I am not ignorant that it would much facilitate the defence and explication of so abstruse a thing if their opinion be admitted that allow themselves a greater latitude in expounding the Article of the Resurrection as if the substance of it were That in regard the Humane Soul is the form of Man so that whatever duly organized portion of Matter 't is united to it therewith constitutes the same Man the import of the Resurrection is fulfilled in this that after Death there shall be another state wherein the Soul shall no longer persevere in its separate condition or as it were Widowhood but shall be again united not to an etherial or the like fluid Matter but to such a substance as may with tolerable propriety of speech notwithstanding its differences from our houses of Clay as the Scripture speaks be call'd a Humane Body Job 4.19 They that assent to what has been hitherto discours'd of the Possibility of the Resurrection of the same Bodies will I presume be much more easiâ—y induc'd to admit the Possibility of the Qualifications the Christian Religion ascribes to the glorified Bodies of the raised Saints For supposing the Truth of the History of the Scriptures we may observe that the Power of God has already extended itself to the performance of such things as import as much as we need infer sometimes by suspending the natural actings of Bodies upon one another and sometimes by endowing humane and other Bodies with preternatural Qualities And indeed Lightness or rather Agility indifferent to Gravity and Levity Incorruption Transparency and Opacity Figure Colour c. being but Mechanical affections of Matter it cannot be incredible that the most free and powerful Author of those Laws of Nature according to which all the Phaenomena of Qualities are regulated may as he thinks fit introduce establish or change them in any assign'd portion of Matter and consequently in that whereof a Humane Body consists Thus though Iron be a Body above eight times heavier bulk for bulk than Water yet in the case of Elisha's helve its native Gravity was render'd ineffectual and it emerg'd from the bottom to the top of the water And the gravitation of St. Peters Body was suspended whilst his Master commanded him and by that command enabled him to come to him walking on the Sea Thus the Operation of the activest Body in Nature Flame was suspended in Nebuchadnezar's fiery Furnace whilst Daniels three Companions walked unharm'd in those Flames that in a trice consum'd the kindlers of them Thus did the Israelites Manna which was of so perishable a Nature that it would corrupt in little above a day when gather'd in any day of the Week but that which preceded the Sabbath keep good twice as long and when laid up before the Ark for a Memorial would last whole Ages uncorrupted And to add a Proof that comes more directly home to our purpose the Body of our Saviour after his Resurrection though it retained the very impressions that the Nails of the Cross had made in his hands and feet and the wound that the Spear had made in his side and was still call'd in the Scripture his Body as indeed it was and more so than according to our past discourse it is necessary that every Body should be that is rejoin'd to the Soul in the Resurrection And yet this glorified Body had the same Qualifications that are promised to the Saints in their state of Glory St. Paul informing us that our vile Bodies shall be transform'd into the likeness of his glorious Body which the History of the Gospel assures us was endow'd with far nobler Qualities than before its Death And whereas the Apostle adds as we formerly noted that this great change of Schematism in the Saints Bodies will be effected by the irresistible Power of Christ we shall not much scruple at the admission of such an effect from such an Agent if we consider how much the bare slight Mechanical alteration of the Texture of a Body may change its sensible Qualities for the better For without any visible additament I have several times chang'd dark and opacous Lead into finely colour'd transparent and specifically lighter glass And there is another instance which though because of its obviousness 't is less heeded is yet more considerable For who will distrust what advantageous changes such an Agent as God can work by changing the Texture of a portion of Matter if he but observe what happens meerly upon the account of such a Mechanical change in the lighting of a Candle that is newly blown out by the applying another to the ascending smoke For in the twinkling of an Eye an opacous dark languid an stinking smoke loses all its stink and is changed into a most active penetrant and shining Body FINIS
Author of Nature be confin'd to the ways of working of dependent and finite Agents And to apply the Answer to the Divines that hold the Opinion I oppose I shall demand why God may not out of the substance of a Woman form a Man without the help of a Man as well as at the beginning of the substance of a Man he form'd a Woman without the concurrence of a Woman And so that Iron being a Body far heavier in specie as they speak will if upheld by no other Body sink in water is a Truth in Natural Philosophy but since Physicks themselves lead Men to the acknowledgment of a God 't is not repugnant to Reason that if God please to interpose his Power he may as in Elisha's case make Iron swim either by withholding his concourse to the Agents whatever they be that cause Gravity in Bodies or perhaps by other ways unknown to us since a vigorous Loadstone may as I have more than once try'd keep a piece of Iron which it touches not swimming in the Air though this thin Body must contribute far less than water would to the sustaining it aloft That strict Philosopher Des Cartes who has with great Wit and no less Applause attempted to carry the Mechanical Powers of matters higher than any of the Modern Philosophers this Naturalist I say that ascribes so great a power to Matter and Motion was so far from thinking that what was impossible to them must be so to God too that though he were urg'd by a learned Adversary with an Argument as likely as any to give him a strong Temptation to limit the Omnipotence of God yet ev'n on this occasion he scruples not to make this ingenious and wary Acknowledgment and that in a private Letter For my part says he I think we ought never to say of any thing that 't is impossible to God For all that is true and good being dependent on his Almightiness I dare not so much as say that God cannot make a Mountain without a Valley or cannot make it true Volum second Lettre vi that one and two shall not make three but I say only that he has given me a Soul of such a nature that I cannot conceive a Mountain without a Valley nor that the Aggregate of one and of two shall not make three c. and I say only that such things imply a Contradiction in my Conception And consonantly to this in his Principles of Philosophy he gives on a certain occasion this useful Caution Quod ut satis tutò sine errandi periculo aggrediamur Parte prima Artic. 24. eâ nobis cautelâ est utendum ut semper quà m maxime recordemur Deum Autorem rerum esse infinitum Nos omnina finitos SECT IV. In the next place I think we ought to distinguish between Reason consider'd in it self and Reason consider'd in the Exercise of it by this or that Philosopher or by this or that Man or by this or that Company or Society of Men whether all of one Sect or of more If you will allow me to borrow a School-phrase I shall express this more shortly by saying I distinguish between Reason in Abstracto and in Concreto To clear this matter we may consider That whatever you make the Faculty of Reason to be in it self yet the Ratiocinations it produces are made by Men either singly reasoning or concurring in the same Ratiocinations and Opinions and consequently if these Men do not make the best use of their Reasoning Faculty it will not be necessary that what thwarts their Ratiocinations must likewise thwart the Principles or the Dictates of right Reason For Man having a Will and Affections as well as an Intellect though our Dijudications and Tenents ought indeed in matters speculative to be made and pitch'd upon by our unbiass'd Understandings yet really our Intellectual Weaknesses or our Prejudices or Prepossession by Custom Education c. our Interest Passions Vices and I know not how many other things have so great and swaying an Influence on them that there are very few Conclusions that we make or Opinions that we espouse that are so much the pure Results of our Reason that no personal Disability Prejudice or Fault has any Interest in them This I have elsewhere more amply discours'd of on another occasion About the Diversity of Religions wherefore I shall now add but this That the distinction I have been proposing does if I mistake not reach a great deal further than you may be aware of For not only whole Sects whether in Religion or Philosophy are in many cases subject to Prepossessions Envy Ambition Interest and other misleading things as well as single Persons but which is more considerable to our present purpose the very Body of Mankind may be embued with Prejudices and Errors and that from their Childhood and some also ev'n from their Birth by which means they continue undiscern'd and consequently unreform'd This you will think an Accusation as bold as high but to let you see that the Philosophers you most respect have made the same Observation though not apply'd to the same case I must put you in mind that Monsieur Des Cartes begins his Principles of Philosophy with taking notice That because we are born Children we make divers unright Judgments of things which afterwards are wont to continue with us all our Lives and prove radicated Prejudices that mislead our Judgments on so many occasions that he elsewhere tells us he found no other way to secure himself from their Influence but once in his Life solemnly to doubt of the Truth of all that he had till then believ'd in order to the re-examining of his former Dijudications But I remember our illustrious Verulam warrants a yet further Prejudice against many things that are wont to be look'd on as the suggestions of Reason For having told us That the Mind of Man is besieg'd with four differing kinds of Idols or Phantasms when he comes to enumerate them he teaches that there are not only such as Men get by Conversation and Discourse one with another and such as proceed from the divers Hypotheses or Theories and Opinions of Philosophers and from the perverse ways of Demonstration and likewise such as are personal to this or that Man proceeding from his Education Temperament Studies c. but such as he calls Idola tribus because they are founded in humane Nature it self and in the very Tribe or Nation of Mankind and of these he particularly discourses of seven or eight As that the Intellect of Man has an innate Propensity to suppose in things a greater order and equality than it finds and that being unable to rest or acquiesce it does alwayes tend further and further to which he adds divers other innate prejudices of Mankind which he sollicitously as well as judiciously endeavors to remove Now if not only single Philosophers and particular Sects but the whole body of