dearest friend before the will and interest of God § 13. Nor should the publick interest of States or Kingdoms be pleaded against his will and interest But yet we must take heed how we oppose or neglect this last especially because the will of God doth take most pleasure in the publick or common benefit of his creatures and therefore these two are very seldom separated nor ever at all as to their real good though as to carnal lower good it may so fall out All these are so plain that to stand to prove or illustrate them were but to be unnecessarily and unprofitably tedious § 14. It being a God of infinite Wisdom and Goodness as well as power who is our Owner his Title to us is a great consolation to the upright For as he hath taught men and bruits too to love their Own it intimateth that he will not despise his Own and therefore his interest in us is our comfort § 15. No man is capable of giving any thing properly to God but onely by obediential reddition of his own no nor to man but as God's Steward and according to our propriety secundum quid in respect to other Claimers CHAP. VIII II. Of GOD's Relation to Man as his Governour sect 1. GOD having made Man a rational free Agent and sociable among sensible Objects and out of sight of his invisible Creator and so infirm and defectible it followeth necessarily that he is a creature which must be governed by moral means and not only moved by natural necessitation as inanimates and bruits The thing that I am first to prove is That Man's Creator hath made him such a creature whose nature requireth a Government that he hath a necessity of Government and an aptitude to it By Government I mean the exercise of the moral means of Laws and Execution by a Ruler for the right ordering of the Subjects actions to the good of the Society and the honour of the Governour I distinguish Laws from all meer natural motions and necessitation for though analogically the Shepherd is said to rule his Sheep and the Rider his Horse yea and the Pilot his Ship and the Plow-man his Plow and the Archer his Arrow yet this is but equivocally called Government and is not that which we here mean which is the proposal of duty seconded with rewards or punishment for the neglects by those in authority for the right governing of those that are committed to their care and trust So that it is not all moral means neither which is called Government for the instruction or perswasion of an Equal is not such Laws and Judgment and Execution are the constitutive parts of Government But by Laws I mean the whole kind and not only written Laws nor those only which are made by Sovereign Rulers of Common-wealths which by excellency are called Laws but I mean The signification of the will of a Governour making the subjects duty and determining of Rewards to the obedient and punishments to the disobedient Or An authoritative constitution de debito officii praemii poenae for the ends of Government So that as Parents and Tutors and Masters do truly govern as well as Kings so they have truly Laws though not in such eminency as the Laws of Republicks The will of a Parent a Tutor or Master manifested concerning duty is truly a Law to a Child a Scholar or a Servant If any dislike the use of the word Law in so large a sense it sufficeth now for me to tell them in what sense I use it and so it will serve to the understanding of my mind I take it for such an Instrument of Government The parts of it are 1. The constituting of the debitum officii or what shall be due from the Subject 2. The constituting the debitum praemii vel poenae or what shall be due to the Subject which is in order to the promoting of obedience though as to the performances obedience may be in order to the reward Now that man is a creature made to be governed by such a proper moral Government I prove 1. The several parts of Government are necessary therefore Government is necessary From all the parts of Government to the whole is an unquestionable consequence It is necessary that man have Duty prescribed and imposed else man shall have nothing which he ought to do Take away Duty and we are good for nothing nor have any employment fit for reason And take away all Reward and Punishment and you take away Duty in effect experience teacheth us that it will not be done for a rational agent will have ends and motives for what he doth 2. From the imbecility of our younger state so weak is our infant understanding and so strong our sensitive inclination that if Parents should leave all their Children ungoverned abused Reason would make man worse than beasts 3. From the common infirmity and badness of all the world The wise are so few and the ignorant so many that if all the ignorant were left ungoverned to do what they list they would be like an Army of blind men in a fight or like a world of men bewildred in the dark What a confused loathsome spectacle would the world be and the rather because men are bad as well as foolish Would all the sensual vitious persons in the world be ordered like men without any Government by such as are wiser than themselves 4. From the power of sensitive objects The baits of sense are so numerous so near and so powerful that they would bear down reason in the most without the help of Laws nay Laws themselves even of God and Man do so little with the most as tell us what they would be without them 5. The variety of mens minds and interests and dispositions is such as that the world ungoverned would be utterly in confusion as many minds and ways as men No two men are in all things of the same apprehensions 6. From the nature of mans powers He is a noble creature and therefore hath answerable ends to be attain'd and therefore must have the conduct of answerable means He is a rational free Agent and therefore must have his End and Means proposed to his Reason and is not to be moved by Sense alone his chiefest End as well as his chief Governour being out of his sight 7. The experience of all mankind constraineth them to consent to this that Man is a creature made for Government Therefore even among Cannibals Parents govern their Children and Husbands govern their Wives and in all the rational world there are Rulers and Subjects Masters and Servants Tutors and Scholars which all are Governours or Governed Few men are to be found alive on earth who would have all men or any men save themselves ungoverned Otherwise Men would be worse to Men I say not than Serpents and Toads and Tygers are to one another but than any of them are to men
what he exerciseth by men though extraordinarily he sometime otherwise interpose And how easie and ordinary it is for subtil men to do much wickedness and never be discovered needs no proof The like we may say in some measure of those secret duties of heart and life which have neither reward nor notice in this life and if observed are usually turned into matter of reproach The Minor needeth no more proof when we have proved already that God is our Governour It is certain that the secret acts of heart and life are as much under his government as the open and therefore shall have equal retribution § 3. III. If there were no life of retribution after this the sins of the Great ones and Rulers of the world and all others that by strength could make their part good would be under no sufficient Justice But the sins even of the greatest and strongest are under sufficient justice Therefore there is a life of retribution after this The Major is clear by experience The sins of all the Sovereigns of the earth are rarely under sufficient justice in this life If there were no punishment hereafter what justice would be done upon a Tamerlane a Bajazet a Mahumed a Dionysius an Alexander a Caesar a Marius a Sylla a Sertorius and many hundred such for all the innocent bloud which they have shed for their pride and self-exalting What justice would be done on Kings and Emperours and States that have none above them for all their lusts and filthiness their intemperance and sensuality their oppression and cruelty I know that God doth sometimes punish them by Rebels or by other Princes or by sickness in this life but that is no ordinary course of justice and therefore not sufficient to its ends Ordinarily all things here come alike to all And what justice would be done upon any Rebels or Robbers that are but strong enough to bear it out Or upon any that raise unrighteous Wars and burn and murder and destroy Countries and Cities and are worse than plagues to all places where they come and worse than mad dogs and bears to others If they do but conquer instead of punishment for all this villany they go away here with wealth and glory The Minor is past question Therefore certainly there is another life where conquering rewarded prospering domineering sin shall have its proper punishment § 4. IV. If God rule not man by the hopes and fears of certain Good and Evil hereafter he ruleth him not according to his Nature But God doth rule man according to his Nature Ergo. The Minor needeth no proof The Major is proved by experience The nature of man is to be most moved with the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death Otherwise death it self would comparatively seem nothing to us No other creature hath such hopes and fears If you ask how I can tell that I answer as I can tell that a Tree doth not hear and a Stone doth not feel or see because there is no appearance of such a sense whose nature is to make it self manifest by its evidences where it is Bruits shew a fear of death and love of life but of nothing further of which there is evidence enough to quiet a mind that seeketh after truth though not to silence a prating caviller This will be further improved under that which followeth § 5. V. If the world cannot be governed according to its nature and God's Laws without the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death then the objects of such hopes and fears is certain truth But the Antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent That the nature of man requireth a Moral Government and not only a Physical motion is already proved Physical motion only determineth the agent to act and produceth the act it self quoad eventum Moral Government doth institute for the subject a debitum agendi habendi and judgeth him accordingly If there were no Government but Physical motion there were no debitum in the world neither officii praemii vel poenae vel jus possidendi vel injuria no right or wrong For Physical motion doth equally produce the act in perjury murder treason adultery as in good deeds and it never produceth an act which eventually never is Therefore there should be nothing a Duty but what cometh to pass if Physical motion were all the Government Government then there must be and what God requireth of all by nature I have shewed before Now that there is a moral impossibility of the performance of this in any sincerity so as to intimate any laudible Government of the world I shall further prove 1. If according to the present temper of man there be no motives which would ever prove sufficient to resist all the temptations of this life to keep us in true obedience and love to God unto the end without the hopes and fears of Good and Evil after death then cannot the world be governed according to God's Laws without such hopes and fears of futurity But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the consequent If God had prescribed man a course of duty in his Laws as to obey and love him upon terms of fleshly suffering and had not given man such motives as might rationally prevail for the performance his Laws had been all in vain He that hath made Holiness our indispensible duty hath certainly left us motives and rational helps to perform it But so many and great are the temptations of this life and so strong is our sense and so great are the sufferings of the obedient that in this our imperfection we could never go through them without the motives which are fetch'd from another life 1. It would weaken the hands of the best as to their duty it would embolden them to sin it would give victory to all strong temptations Let every Reader but consult with his own soul and though it be granted that virtue should be chosen for its own sake how dear soever it may cost yet let him without lying say what he thinketh he should be and do in case of temptations if he knew that he had no life to live but this I am not sure but I will freely confess what I think most that now are honest would be and do First They would observe how little difference God maketh between the obedient and disobedient in his providence and how ordinarily his present judgements are not much to be feared And hence they would think that he maketh no great matter of it what they either are or do and so their very love of Virtue would be much debilitated Nay the sufferings of the virtuous would tempt them to think that it is no very desirable way and though still they would have something within them which would tell them that honesty and temperance and piety are good yet the natural love of themselves is so deeply planted in them and so
natural Image on the Will of Man The Will cannot determine it self without the conduct of an Intellect and without an Object in esse cognito nor without Divine sustentation and universal influx But it can determine it self to the moral species which is but the mode of action to this rather than that in the comparative proposal without any pre-determining efficient for such none of the former are And God having made such a self-determining creature took delight to govern him according to his nature by the sapiential moral means of Laws of what he doth more to cause Good than Evil and other such incident questions I must now put them off to a fitter place § 2. God planted in man's mind a natural inclination to Truth and Goodness and to his own felicity and an averseness to falshood and to evil and to his own misery and hurt that these lying deeper than his liberty of choice might be a pondus to his motions and help him the more easily and stedfastly to obey and to adhere to and prosecute his proposed happiness and end § 3. Accordingly God formed his holy Law with a perfect fitness to these faculties and inclinations furnishing it wholly with truth and goodness and fitting all things in it to the benefit of man as is proved before § 4. This Law had a sufficient promulgation being legible on the face of the whole Creation within our view and specially on the nature of man himself from whence his duty did result § 5. And God was pleased to make as legible the most rational powerful motives to love and obedience that can be imagined by man that no tempter might possibly bid the ten thousandth part so much for our love and obedience as he had bid and assured us of himself § 6. From all this it is most evident that God made us not sinners though he made us men but that man being defectible abused his liberty and turned from God and brought corruption and misery upon himself § 7. He that will understand God's Justice aright must consider of these forty intrinsick evils that are in sin which nature it self declareth 1. In its formal nature it is the violation of a perfect righteous Law 2. It is a contempt or denial of God's governing authority over us 3. It is the usurping of the government of our selves which we denied to God 4. It is a denial or contempt of the wisdom of God as if he had erred in the making of his Laws and knew not so well what is just and meet and good for us as we our selves and were not wise enough to govern a lump of animated clay 5. It is an exalting of our folly into the Throne of the Divine Wisdom as if we had more wisdom than he that made us and knew better what is just and meet and what is fit or good for our selves and could correct God's Laws and make our selves a better Rule 6. It is a denial or contempt of the Goodness of God as if he had ensnared us by his Law and envied our happiness and forbad us that which would do us good and put us upon that which will do us hurt and so would seduce us into calamity and were an enemy to our welfare 7. It is a preferring our naughtiness before His Goodness as if we could do better in regulating our selves than God and could make a better choice for our selves than his Laws have made And as if our wills were fitter than God's to be the Rule of good and evil 8. It is a denial or contempt of his Holiness and Purity which is contrary to sin as health to sickness as if by our deeds we would perswade the world that God is as Satan a lover of sin and an enemy to Himself and Holiness 9. It is a denial or contempt of God's propriety as if we were not his own and he had not power to dispose of us as be list or it is a robbing him of the use and service of that which is absolutely his own 10. It is a claiming of propriety in our selves as if we were at our own disposal and might do with our selves and our faculties as we list 11. It is a belying or contempt of the great and gracious Promises of God and of the wonderfull mercy which he manifesteth in them by which he doth binde and allure us to Obedience As if he did not mean as he speaketh or would not make good his Word to the Obedient 12. It is a falsifying or contempt of his dreadfull Threatnings as if he did not intend any execution of them but made them only as a deceitfull terror to frighten men from sin for want of better means 13. It is a denyal or contempt of the dreadfull future Judgement of God as if he would never call men to any account nor judge them according to his Laws 14. It is a denying the Veracity of God as if he were a Lyar and Deceiver and did not intend the things which he speaketh As if his Precepts were but a false pretension and he were indeed indifferent what we did and were not to be believed in his predictions promises or threats 15. It is a contempt of all the Mercies even of this life which flesh it self doth overvalue As if protection provision deliverances comforts were not so much to be regarded as our Concupiscence nor were not of weight enough to bind us to obey so mercifull a God and as if Ingratitude were no Crime 16. It is a contempt of those Castigatory Afflictions by which God driveth men from sin by giving them a taste of the bitterness of its fruits 17. It is a contempt of all the examples of his Mercy and his Judgements upon others by which he hath shewed us how good he is and how just a punisher of sin 18. It is a contempt of all the inward motions and strivings of God which sinners oft feel perswading them to forbear their sin and to seek after God 19. It is a contempt of Conscience which beareth witness for God against their sins 20. It is a contempt of all the Instructions and advise of wise and good men who are required by God and Nature to warn men and perswade them from their sins 21. It is a contempt of the Example of all Obedient Virtuous Persons whose Lives instruct them and reprove them 22. It is a contempt of Virtue it self which is contrary to sin and whose proper worth commandeth Love 23. It is a contempt of Gods Omnipresence when we will sin in his very presence and of his Omniscience when we will sin when we know that he seeth it 24. It is a contempt of the Greatness and Almightiness of God when a silly Worm dare sin against him who upholdeth the World and can do Justice on him in a moment as if we could make good our part against him 25. It is a contempt of the attractive Goodness of God by
earthly things as is necessary to them that will attain it For few men will seek with their utmost labour or let go all other things to attain a happiness which they are not well perswaded of the reality of And though sound reason might well perswade them of it yet reason is now become so blind and unsound and partial and enslaved to the flesh that it is not fit for such an office according to our necessity without some heavenly Revelation § 9. And it is exceeding congruous to mans necessity who is faln under the power and fears of death as well as the doubts and estrangedness to the other world that he that will save and heal us do himself in our nature rise from the dead and ascend up into heaven to give us thereby a visible demonstration that indeed there is a Resurrection and a life to come for us to look for Though God was not obliged to do thus much for us yet Reason telleth us that if he will do it it is very suitable to our necessities For all the reasonings in the world do not satisfie in such things so much as ocular demonstration when we either see a man that is risen from the dead or have certain testimony of it it facilitateth the belief of our own resurrection and he that is gone into Heaven before us assureth us that a Heaven there is § 10. When God in mercy would forgive and save a sinful people it was very congruous to reason that there should be some fit means provided to demonstrate his holiness in his justice and to vindicate the honour of his Laws and Government and so to secure the ends of both For if God make a penal Law and execute it not but let man sin with impunity and do nothing which may deter him nor demonstrate his Justice as much as the sinners sufferings would do it would tell the world that he that gave them the Law and thereby told them that he would rule and judge them by it did but deceive them and meant not as he spake And it would bring both the Law and Governour into contempt and perswade men to sin without any fear and he that was question'd for the second crime would say I ventured because I suffered not for the first It was the devils first way of tempting men to sin to perswade mankind that God meant not as he spake in his threatning of their death but that they should not die though God had threatned it And if God himself should by his actions say the same it would tempt them more to sin than Sathan could as his credibility is greater Therefore he that is a Governour must be just as well as merciful and if God should have pardoned sinners without such a sacrifice or substitute means as might preserve the honour of his Law and Government and the future innocency of his Subjects as well as their punishment in the full sense of the Law would have done the consequents would have been such as I will leave to your own judgements § 11. And it was very congruous to reason that so odious a thing as sin should be publickly condemned and put to shame although the sinner be forgiven As it was done in the life and death of Christ For the purity of God is irreconcileable to sin though not to the sinner and therefore it was meet that the sin have all the publick shame though the sinner escape and that God be not like weak imperfect man who cannot do good without doing or encouraging evil § 12. It is congruous to our condition that seeing even the upright do renew their sins their consciences should have some remedy for the renewal of their peace and comfort that it sink them not into desperation which is most suitably provided for them in Jesus Christ For when we were pardoned once and again and oft and yet shall sin he that knoweth the desert of sin and purity of God will have need also to know of some stated certain course of remedy § 13. It was meet that the sinful world have not only a certain Teacher but also a perfect pattern before them of righteousness love self-denial meekness patience contempt of lower things c. which is given us by Jesus Christ alone And therefore the Gospel is written Historically with Doctrins intermixt that we might have both perfect Precepts and Pattern § 14. It was very congruous to a world universally lapsed that God should make with it a new Law and Covenant of Grace and that this Covenant should tender us the pardon of our sins and be a conditional act of oblivion And that sinners be not left to the meer Law of perfect Nature which was to preserve that innocency which they have already lost To say Thou shalt perfectly obey to a man that hath already disobeyed and is unfitted for perfect obedience is no sufficient direction for his pardon and recovery Perhaps you 'l say That God's gracious Nature is instead of a Law of Grace or Promise But though that be the spring of all our hopes yet that cannot justly quiet the sinner of it self alone because he is just as well as merciful and Justice hath its objects and pardon dependeth on the free-will of God which cannot be known to us without its proper signs The Devils may say that the Nature of God is good and gracious and so may any condemned malefactor say of a good and gracious Judge and King and yet that is but a slender reason to prove his impunity or pardon All will confess that absolute pardon of all men would be unbeseeming a wise and righteous Governour And if it must be conditional who but God can tell what must be the condition If you say That Nature telleth us That converting Repentance is the condition I answer 1 Nature telleth us That God cannot damn a holy loving Soul that hath his Image but yet it telleth us not That this is the only or whole condition 2. It is not such a Repentance as lieth but in a frightned wish that the sin had not been done but such a one as consisteth in the change of the mind and heart and life and containeth a hatred to the sin repented of and a love to God and Holiness and we have as much need of a Saviour to help us to this repentance as to help us to a pardon § 15. It is very congruous to our miserable state that the Condition of this Covenant of Grace should be on our part the acknowledgment of our Benefactor and the thankful acceptance of the benefit and a hearty consent for the future to follow his conduct and use his appointed means in order to our full recovery which is the condition of the Christian Covenant § 16. Seeing man's fall was from his God unto himself especially in point of love and his real recovery must be by bringing up his soul to the love of God again
the Creature may be inordinate and therefore called Pride but it is impossible that infinite Goodness it self can be over-valued or over-loved by Himself or by any creature § 21. The HOLINESS of the first Being consisteth 1. In his separation from all creatures by that Transcendency which maketh him their end 2. In the special Perfection of his WILL which willeth and hath complacency in that alone ad extra which is agreeable to his perfect Nature and infinite Wisdom 3. And so being the Fountain and Rule of Moral Goodness to the Rational Creature The Holiness of Man consisteth 1. In his separation from common uses unto God 2. In the Rectitude of his Will as habitually thus inclined and bent to Moral Good and hating evil 3. Whereby it is conform to the governing Will of God And hence we may learn what Holiness is in God though not formally the same with that in Man § 22. The Benignity and Love of the first Being is his Essence or Nature as inclined to complacency in all created Good and to benevolence or doing good to creatures freely and agreeably to his infinite Wisdom The Love of complacency to all created Good is necessary in God supposing the continued existence of that created Good which is the object But it is not necessary that such created Good do continually exist The Love of Benevolence is also natural to God in this sense that it is his natural perfection as respecting the Creature to be used agreeably to his perfect wisdom but the exercise of it is not necessary because the being or felicity of the Creature is not necessary but it is acted freely according as the infinite wisdom seeth it fit as to those Ends to which all Creatures are but the Means § 23. The first Being must needs be the onely ultimate end to himself so far as he may be said to intend an End God doth not intendere finem in defectiveness and imperfection as the Creature doth He wanteth nothing nor is he in via as to his felicity But eminently he may be said to intend an End as he maketh one thing a means to produce or attain another and doth nothing disorderly nor in vain but ordereth all things in infinite wisdom He is not wanting but enjoying his end at all times even in the midst of his use of means To his essential Goodness and Blessedness there is no means nothing is capable of the honour of contributing to it But his Will is the Beginning of all derived Beings and his Will is the ultimate End of all He is pleased to make and order all by his power and wisdom and he is pleased in all things as so made and ordered The complacency of his Will then is the ultimate end of all his works as the Glory of his own Power Wisdom and Goodness shineth in them And though Complacency or Pleasedness or Will be not formally the same in God as in us yet something eminently there is in him which under this Notion we must conceive of and express § 24. The Posse Scire Velle the operative Power Vnderstanding and Will of God according to their Perfection called his Omnipotency Omnisciency and Goodness by which he is Maximus Sapientissimus Optimus is a wonderful yet an intelligible and certain Trinity in Vnity viz. In the Vnity of Essence there is this Trinity of Principles or Faculties as they may be called from the manner of imperfect man but deserve a higher name in God § 25. The Essence of God is not the Genus and these three the Species nor is it the Totum and these three the Parts nor is it a Substance of which these three are Accidents but they are like the Essential faculties in Man which are one with the Soul in Essence but are not one and the same Faculties but truly distinct whether it be Really Formally or Relatively and Denominatively onely Gods Power or Omnipotency is not formally the same quoad conceptum objectivum with his Understanding and Wisdom nor this the same with his Will and Goodness they are as three essential Principles and yet but one Essence and so one God Nor is it part of God that is Omnipotent and part that is Omniscient and part that is Good or quae potest intelligit vult lut the whole Godhead is Omnipotent the whole Omniscient and the whole is Good or Power Wisdom and Goodness it self Yet each of these Notions by it self alone is not a total or full expression of the whole perfection of the Deity Therefore we must neither confound the essential Principles in God nor divide the Essence The Omnipotency is as one faculty the Understanding another and the Will another but the Godhead and Essence of them all is one the Glory equal the Majesty co-eternal Such as the Power is such is the Understanding and such is the Will The Power uncreated the Vnderstanding uncreated and the Will uncreated The Power incomprehensible the Vnderstanding incomprehensible and the Will incomprehensible The Power eternal the Vnderstanding eternal and the Will eternal And yet there are not three eternal Gods or Essences but one Eternal nor three Incomprehensibles nor three Uncreated but One. The Power is God the Vnderstanding is God and the Will is God and yet there are not three Gods but one God So then there is One Power not Three Powers One Understanding not Three Understandings One Will not Three Wills And in this Trinity none is in duration before or after other none is greater or less than other but the whole three Principles be co-eternal together and co-equal So that in all things as aforesaid this Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity is to be acknowledged as undeniable in the light of Nature and to be adored and worshipped by all And because of the Unity of the Essence these Three may be predicated in the Concrete of each other but not in the Abstract because of their formal diversity And so it may be said that the Power is an Understanding or wise Power and the Understanding is an Omnipotent Understanding and the Will a most Wise and Omnipotent Will and the Power a Good and Willing Power but not that the Power is the Understanding and the Understanding the Will or the Will is the Power or Understanding So as to their Order the Power as in it self consider'd as an Active Vital Power is first in our conception and doth as it were act by the Understanding and the Vnderstanding by the Will and in execution so go forth with the Will that the effect is immediately to be ascribed to it § 26. Though all the Divine Faculties or Principles are adumbrate or made manifest in the Creation or Frame of the world yet the Omnipotency is therein to us most eminently apparent It is infinite Wisdom and infinite Goodness which shineth to us in this wonderful Frame But we first and with greatest admiration take notice of the Omnipotency
is a sin against God what a thing will Man be and what a Hell will Earth be Deny the Law of Nature and you turn men loose to every villany and engage the World to destroy it self and set all as on fire about their ears For if God only move us Physically there is neither virtue nor vice good nor evil in a moral sense But what God moveth a man to that he will do and what he doth not move him to he will not do and so there being only motion and no motion action and no action there will be no Duty and no obligation and so no Moral good or evil § 5. II. If God should Rule us only by Physical motion and not by Laws he should not rule man as man according to his Nature But God doth rule man according to his Nature Therefore not only by Physical motion Otherwise Man should not differ from Inanimates and Bruits A stone is to be moved Physically and a Bruit by the necessitating objects of sense But Man hath Reason which they have not and he is a free Agent And therefore though God concurr to his Physical motion as such yet he must move him as Rational by such objects and such proposals and arguments and means as are suited to Reason By presenting things absent to his understanding to prevail against the sense of things present and by teaching him to preferre greater things before lesser and by shewing him the commodity and discommodity which should move him God would not have made him Rational if he would not have Governed him accordingly § 6. III. If the way of physical motion alone is not so excellent and suitable as the way of Moral Government by Laws also then God doth not only move man physically and leave it to Magistrates to Rule as Morally But the antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent God doth not omit the more excellent and choose a lower way of Government and leave the more excellent way to man And that the Minor is true appeareth thus The way which is most suitable to the object or subject of Government is the most excellent way But such is the Moral way by Laws The other Beasts are as capable subjects of as men and Trees as either Wisdom and Justice are eminently glorified in the Moral way And Omnipotency it self also appeareth in Gods making of so noble a Creature as is governable by Reason without Force § 7. IV. If God were not the Soveraign Ruler of the World there could be no Government of mens hearts But there is a government of hearts Therefore God is the Ruler of the World Man knoweth not the Hearts of those whom he governeth And therefore he can take no cognisance of heart-sins or duties unless as they appear in words or deeds And therefore he maketh no Law for the government of hearts But the Heart is the Man and a bad heart is the fountain of bad words or acts and is it self polluted before it endeavoureth the injury of others He that thinks all indifferent that is within him is himself so bad that it is the less wonder if being so indifferent yea so vitiated within he think nothing evil which he hath a minde to do He that thinketh that the heart is as good and innocent which hateth his God his King his Friend his Parents as that which loveth them and that it is no duty to have any good thought or affection but only for the outward actions sake nor any sin to be malicious covetous proud deceitfull lustfull impious and unjust in his cogitations contrivances and desires unless as they appear in the acts doth shew that he hath himself a heart which is too suitable to such a Doctrine But Nature hath taught all the World to judge of men by their Hearts as far as they can know them and not to take the Will which is the first seat of Moral Good or Evil to be capable of neither Good nor Evil. Therefore seeing Hearts must be under Government it must not be man but the heart-searching God that must be their Governour § 8. V. If God were not the Governour of the World all earthly Soveraigns would be themselves ungoverned But they are not ungoverned Therefore God is their Governour and so the Governour of the World The Kings and States that have Soveraign power through all the World are under no humane Government at all Though some of them are limited by Contracts with their people But none have so much need to have the benefit of Heart-government none have so strong Temptations as they And no mens actions are of so great importance to the welfare or misery of the World If the Monarchs of the Earth do take themselves to be left free by God to do what they list what work will be made among the people If they think it no duty to be just or mercifull or chaste or temperate what wonder if they be unjust and cruel and filthy and luxurious and use the People for their own ends and lusts and esteem them as men do their Dogs or Horses that are to be used for their own pleasure or commodity What is the present calamity of the World but that the Heathen and Infidel Rulers of the World are so ignorant and sensual and have cast off the fear of God and the sense of his Government in a great degree when yet most of them have some conviction that there is a God who Ruleth all and to whom they must be accountable What then would they be if they once believed that they are under no Government of God at all If they should oppress their Subjects and murder the innocent it would be no fault For where there is no Government and Law there is no transgression No one forbiddeth it to them and none commandeth them the contrary if God do not For the people are not the Rulers of their Rulers nor give them Laws And Neighbour Princes and States are but Neighbours Therefore if they should sacrifice peace and honesty liberties lives and Kingdoms to their lusts no man could say They do amiss or violate any sort of Law Obj. But the fear of Rebellions and the peoples vindicating their liberties would restrain them Answ Only so far as they feel themselves unable to do hurt As a man is restrained from killing Adders lest they sting him And the advantage of their place doth usually empower them to make desolations if they have a minde to it And great mindes will not easily bear a popular restraint And indeed the honester and better any people are the more undisposed are they to rebell And therefore Tyrants may with smallest danger and fear destroy them Obj. But their own interest lieth in the peoples welfare and therefore there is no danger of such miseries Ans Did Nero think so that wished Rome had but one neck that set the City on fire that he might sing over it Homers Poem of
consideration The Eternity of the future state I have not here gone about to prove because I reserve it for a fitter place and need the help of more than natural light for such a task But that it shall be of so much weight and duration as shall suffice to the full execution of Justice and to set all streight that seemed crooked in Gods present Government this Nature it self doth fully testifie Three sorts of men will read what I have written 1. Some few and but very few of those whose Consciences are so bloody in the guilt of their debauchery that they take it for their interest to hope that there is no life but this 2. Those whose Faith and Holiness hath made the World to come to be their interest happiness hope desire and only joy 3. Those that only understand in generall that it is the highest interest of humane Nature that there be a full felicity hereafter and see it a most desireable thing though they know not whether it be to be expected or not The first sort I may fear are under such a Curse of God as that he may leave their Wills to master their Belief as their Lusts have mastered their Wills and lest they be forsaken of God to think that true which their wicked hearts desire were true and that the Haters of God and a holy Life should be left to dream that there is no God nor future Happy Life The second sort have both Light Experience and Desire and therefore will easily believe The third sort are they whose Necessities are great and yet conjunct with hope of some success Though bare interest should command no mans understanding because a thing may be desireable which is neither certain nor possible yet I must needs say that Reason and self-love should make any man that is not resolved in wickedness exceeding glad to hear of any hopes much more of certainty of a life of Angelical Happiness and Joy to be possess'd when this is ended And therefore the enquiry should be exceeding willingly and studiously endeavoured I shall conclude this point with a few serious Questions to those that deny a future Life of Retribution Qu. 1. Whether he that taketh a man to be but an ingenuous kinde of Beast can take it ill to be esteemed as a Beast May I not expect that he should live like a Beast who thinketh that he shall die like a Beast Is such a man fit to be trusted any further in humane converse than his present fleshly interest obligeth him May I not justly suppose that he liveth in the practice of fornication adultery lying perjury hypocrisie murder treachery theft deceit or any other villany as oft as his interest tells him he should do it What is a sufficient or likely motive to restrain that man or make him just who believes not any life after this It seemeth to me a wrong to him in his own Profession to call him an Honest man 2. If you think your selves but ingenuous Beasts why should you not be content to be used as Beasts A Beast is not capable of true Propriety Right or Wrong He that can master him doth him no wrong if he work him or fleece him or take away his life Why may not they that can master you use you like Pack-horses or Slaves and beat you and take away your lives 3. Would you be only your selves of this mind or would you have all others of it If your selves only why envy you the Truth as you suppose to others If all others what security shall Kings have of their lives or Subjects of their lives of liberties What trust can you put in Wife or Child or Servant or any man that you converse with Will you not quickly feel the effect of their opinions Had you not rather that the enemy who would murder you the thief who would rob you the lyar that would deceive you did believe a Judgement and life of Retribution than not 4. If there be no Life after this what business have you for your Reason and all your noble faculties and time that is worthy of a man or that is not like Childrens games or Poppet-playes What have you to do in the World that hath any weight in the tryal any content or comfort in the review or will give solid comfort to a dying man Were it not better lie down and sleep out our days than waste them all in dreaming waking O what a silly Worm were Man what should he find to do with his understanding Take off the poise of his ultimate End and all his Rational Motions must stand still and only the bruitish motion must go on and Reason must drudge in the Captivity of its service But these Questions and more such I put more home in my Book called A Saint or a Bruit If conscience tell you that you can put no trust in your friend your wife your servant or your neighbour if they believe that there is no life but this surely the same conscience may tell you that then the thing is true and that the God of infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness hath better means enough than deceits and lies to rule the world by Hear what the conscience of the Epicure saith in Cicero Academ Quaest l. 4. p. mihi 44. Quis enim potest cum existimet à Deo se curari non dies noctes divinum numen horrere c. it s true of the guilty But what greater joy to the upright godly faithful Soul CHAP. XV. Of the intrinsick Evil of Sin and of the perpetual Punishment due to the Sinner by the undoubted Law of Nature § 1. IT seemed good to the most wise Creator to give Man with Reason a Liberty of Will by which he is a kind of first cause of its own determination in comparative moral acts though he hold the power in full dependance upon God and perform each act as an act in genere by the influx of his Maker and do all under his perfect government And these great Principles in his Nature his Power his Reason and his free self-determining Will are the Image of God in which as Man he was created which advanced by the perfections of Fortitude Wisdom and Moral Goodness are also in Holiness the Image of God's Perfections When a man deliberateth whether he shall do this sin or not as lie or murder he cannot act in general without God but that he chooseth this act rather than another may be without any more of God than his giving and maintaining his free-choosing power and his universal influx before mentioned and his setting him among such objects as he acteth upon Neither do those objects nor any Physical efficient motion of God or any creature besides himself determine his will effectually to choose the evil and refuse the good It is not true that nothing undetermined can determine it self to act this is but to deny God's
which he is Mans End and Happiness As if all the Goodness and Love of God were not enough to counterpoise the base and bruitish pleasures of sin and to drive the rational Soul to God It was his Efficient Goodness which I spake of before 26. And thus it declareth that we are so farr void of Love to God For Love is desirous to please 27. It is a setting up the sordid Creature for our End as if it were more attractive and amiable than God and fitter to content and delight the Soul 28. It is a contempt of all that glorious Happiness of the Life to come which God hath warranted the righteous to expect As if it were not all so good as the defiling transitory pleasures of sin and would not recompence us for all that we can do or suffer for God 29. It is the silencing and laying by our Reason by inconsiderateness or the perverting and abusing of it by Error in the greatest matters for which it was given us and so it is a voluntary drunkenness or madness in the things of God and our felicity 30. It is a setting up our senses and appetite above our Reason and making our selves in use as Beasts by setting up the lower beastial faculties to rule 31. It is the deformity monstrosity disorder sickness and abuse of a Noble Creature whom God made in our measure like himself and so a contemptuous defacing of his Image 32. It is a robbing God of that Glory of his Holiness which should shine forth in our hearts and lives and of that complacency which he would take in our Love Obedience Perfection and Felicity 33. It is the perverting and Moral destruction not only of our own faculties which were made for God but of all the World which is within our reach Turning all that against God and our happiness which was given us for them Yea it is worse than casting them all away while we use them contrary to their natures against their Owner and their end 34. It is thus a preach in the Moral order and harmony of the world and as much as in us lyeth the destroying of the world As the dislocation or rejection of some parts of a Clock or Watch is a disordering of the whole and as a wound to the hand or foot is a wrong to the body And it is a wound to every Society where it is committed and an injury to every individual who is tempted or afflicted by it 35. It is a contradicting of our own professions confessions understandings and promises to God 36. It is a preferring of an inch of hasty time before the durable life to come and things that we know are of short continuance before those of which we can see no end 37. It is the preferring of a corruptible flesh and its pleasure before the Soul which is more noble and durable 38. It is an unmercifulness and inhumane cruelty to our selves not only defiling soul and body but casting them on the displeasure and punishing-justice of their great and terrible Creator 39. It is the gratifying of the malicious Tempter the enemy of God and of our souls the doing his will and receiving his image instead of God's 40. And all this is done voluntarily without constraint by a rational free-agent in the open light and for a thing of nought Besides what Christians only can discern all this the light of Nature doth reveal to be in the malignity of sin § 8. Sin being certainly no better a thing than is here described it is most certain that it deserveth punishment § 9. And reason telleth us that God being the Governour of the world and perfect Government being his perfect work and glory in that relation it is not meet that in such a Divine and perfect Government so odious an evil be put up and such contempt of God and all that is good be past by without such execution of his Laws as is sufficient to demonstrate the justice of the Governour and to vindicate his Laws and authority from contempt nor that it be pardoned on any terms but such as shall sufficiently attain the ends of perfect Government The ends of Punishment are 1. to do Justice and fulfil the Law and truth of the Law-giver 2. To vindicate the honour of the Governour from contempt and treason 3. To prevent further evil from the same offendor 4. To be a terrour to others and to prevent the hurt that impunity would encourage them to 5. And if it be but meerly castigatory it may be for the good of the sinner himself but in purely vindictive punishment it is the Governour and Society that are the end 1. It is true that as the immediate sense of the Precept e.g. Thou shalt do no murder is not de eventu it shall not come to pass but de debito Thy duty is to forbear it So also the immediate sense of the Penal part is not de eventu e. g I thou murder thou shalt be put to death but de debito death shall be thy due thou shalt be Reus mortis So that if it do non evenire it is not presently a falshood But it s as true that when the Sovereign makes a Law he thereby declareth that this Law is a Rule of Righteousness that it is Norma officii judicii that the Subject must do according to it and expect to be done by according to it that it is the Instrument of Government Therefore these two things are declared by it 1. That ordinarily Judgment and execution shall pass according to it 2. That it shall never be extraordinarily dispensed with by Sovereignty but upon terms which as well declare the Justice of the Governour and discourage offendors from contempt and are as fit to preserve the common good and the honour of the Sovereign So that thus far a Law doth assert also the event which I put to prevent objections and to shew that truth and justice require the ordinary execution of just and necessary Laws 2. And should they be ordinarily dispensed with it would intimate that the Ruler did he knew not what in making them that he repented of them a unjust or over-saw himself in them or fore-saw not inconveniences or was not able to see them executed it would also make him seem a deceiver that affrighted Subjects with that which he never intended to do which Omnipotency Omniscience and perfect Goodness cannot do what ever impotent ignorant bad men may do 3. And the offendor must be disabled when penitency sheweth not the change of his heart that he do so no more and therefore death is ordinarily inflicted 4. And especially offences must be prevented and the honour of the Sovereign and safety of the people be preserved If Laws be not executed they and the Law-giver will be despised others will be let loose and invited to do evil and no man's right will have any security by the Law Therefore it
Benignitas a quibus omnia procedunt in quibus omnia subsistunt per quae omnia reguntur Pater est Potentia Filius Sapientia Sparitus sanctus Benignitas Potentia creat Sapientia gubernat â— Benignitas conservat Potentia per Benignitatem sapienter creat Sapientia per potentiam benignè gubernat Benignitas per sapientiam potenter conservat Sicut Imago in speculo cernitur sic in ratione animae Huic similitudini Dei approximat homo cui Potentia Dei dat Bonum posse sapientia tribuit scire Benignitas praeâ—tat velle Haec triplex Animae rationalis vis est scil Posse Scire Velle quae supradictis tribus fidei spei charitati cooperantur c. Read more in the Author and in Raimundus Lullius and among latter Writers in Campanella Raymundus de sabundis c. as I said before He that will give you a scheme of Divinity in the true method will but shew you how all God's Works and Laws flow from these Three Essentialities or Principles and the three great Relations founded in them His being our Owner Ruler and Chief Good And how all our duty is branch'd out accordingly in our correlations He will shew you the Trinity of Graces Faith Hope and Love and the three summary Rules the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue and in a word would shew you that the Trinity revealeth it self through the whole frame of true Theology or Morality But who is able to discern it in the smaller and innumerable branches Yea if ever it were to be hoped that our Physicks should be brought into the light of certainty and true method you would see Vnity in Trinity in all things in the world You would see that in the Sun and the other Celestial Luminaries which are the glorious Images of the Intellectual world in the Vnity of their Essence there is a Moving Illuminating and Heating Power and that no one of these is formally the other nor is any one of them a Part of the Sun or other Luminary much less a meer accident of quality but an Essential Active Principle or Power the whole Luminary being essentially a Principle of Motion Light and Heat which are not accidents in them but Acts flowing immediately from their Essential Powers as Intellection and Volition from the Soul I shall now say no more of this but profess that the discovery of the emanations or products of the Trinity and the Image and Vestigia of it in the course of Nature and Method of Morality doth much increase my reverence to the Christian Doctrine so far is the Trinity from being to me a stumbling-block Object But what are such Trinities in Vnity as these to the Trinity of Persons in the Deity such weak arguments will but increase incredulity Will you pretend to prove the Trinity by natural reason or would you perswade us that it is but three of God's Attributes or our inadequate conceptions of him Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa Ergo No creature can reveal to us the Trinity Answ 1. It is one thing to prove the Sacred Trinity of Persons by such reason or to undertake fully to open the mystery and it is another thing to prove that the Doctrine is neither incredible nor unlikely to be true and that it implieth no contradiction or discordancy but rather seemeth very congruous both to the frame of nature and of certain moral verities This only is my task against the Infidel 2. It is one thing to shew in the creatures a clear demonstration of this Trinity of Persons by shewing an effect that fully answereth it and another thing to shew such vestigia adumbration or image of it as hath those dissimilitudes which must be allowed in any created image of God This is it which I am to do 3. He that confoundeth the Attributes of God and distinguisheth not those which express these three Essential Primalities or Active Principles to which our faculties are analogous from the rest or that thinketh that we should cast by this distinction under the name of an inadequate conception so far as we can imagine these Principles to be the same and that there is not truly in the Deity a sufficient ground for this distinction is not the man that I am willing now to debate this cause with I have done that sufficiently before Whether the distinction be real formal or denominative the Thomists Scotists and Nominals have disputed more than enough But even the Nominals say that there is a sufficient ground for the denomination which some call Virtual and some Relative And they that dispute of the distinction of Persons do accordingly differ calling it either Relative Virtual Formal or Modal or ratione ratiocinata as they imagine best And they that differ about these do accordingly differ about the difference of the faculties of our souls For my part I see not the least reason to doubt but that the Trinity of Divine Primalities Principles and Perfections hath made its impress on man's soul in its three parts viz. the Natural the Moral and the Dominative parts in the first we have an Active Power an Intellect and Free-will In the second Fortitude or holy promptitude and strength Wisdom and Goodness or Love In the third we are to the inferiour creatures their Owners Rulers and Benefactors or End and what ever you will call our faculties and their moral perfections it is undoubted that in God his Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness are his Essence and yet as much distinct as is aforesaid And what mortal man is able to say whether the distinction of Persons be either greater or less than this And remember that as I speak of Motion Light and Heat both as in the faculties of the Sun as I may call them and in the Acts or Emanations and of the Power Intellect and Will of man both as in the Faculties and Acts so do I here of the Divine Primalities yet so as supposing that in God who is called a Pure Act there is not such a difference between Power and Act as there is in man or other creatures 4. No man I think is able to prove that the works of the Trinity ad extra are any more undivided than the works of the three Essential Active Principles they are so undivided as that yet the work of Creation is eminently or most notably ascribed to the Father as is also the sending of the Son into the world the forgiving of sin for his sake c. and the work of Redemption to the Son and the work of Sanctification to the holy Ghost We shall be as loth to say that the Father or holy Ghost was incarnate for us or died for us or mediates for us as that the Power or Love of God doth the works which belong to his Wisdom And the Essential Wisdom and Love of God are no more communicable to man than the Son and holy Spirit who are said to be given to us
these Who can say that God is unable to raise the dead who seeth so much greater things performed by him in the daily motion of the Sun or Earth and in the support and course of the whole frame of Nature He that can every Spring give a kinde of Resurrection to Plants and Flowers and Fruits of the Earth can easily raise our bodies from the dust And no man can prove that the Wisdom of God or yet his Will are against our Resurrection but that both are for it may be proved by his Promises Shall that which is beyond the power of Man be therefore objected as a difficulty to God 2. Yea it is congruous to the Wisdom and Governing Justice of God that the same Body which was partaker with the Soul in sin and duty should be partaker with it in suffering or felicity 3. The Lord Jesus Christ did purposely die and rise again in his humane body to put the Resurrection out of doubt by undenyable ocular demonstration and by the certainty of belief 4. There is some Natural Reason for the Resurrection in the Souls inclination to its Body As it is unwilling to lay it down it will be willing to reassume it when God shall say The time is come As we may conclude at night when they are going to bed that the people of City and Countrey will rise the next morning and put on their Cloaths and not go naked about the streets because there is in them a Natural inclination to rising and to cloaths and a natural aversness to lie still or to go uncloathed so may we conclude from the souls natural inclination to its body that it will reassume it as soon as God consenteth 5. And all our Objections which reason from supposed contradictions vanish because none of us all have so much skill in Physicks as to know what it is which individuateth this Numerical Body and so what it is which is to be restored But we all confess that it is not the present mass of flesh and humours which being in a continual flux is not the same this year which it was the last and may vanish long before we die Obj. X. If Christ be indeed the Saviour of the World why came he not into the World till it was 4000 years old And why was he before revealed to so few and to them so darkly Did God care for none on earth but a few Jews or did he not care for the Worlds recovery till the later age when it drew towards its end Answ It is hard for the Governour of the World by ordinary means to satisfie all self-conceited persons of the wisdom and equity of his dealings But 1. it belongeth not to us but to our free Benefactor to determine of the measure and season of his benefits May he not do with his own as he list And shall we deny or question a proved truth because the reason of the circumstances is unrevealed to us If our Physician come to cure us of a mortal disease would we reject him because he came not sooner and because he cured not all others that were sick as well as us 2. The Eternal Wisdom and Word of God the second Person in the Trinity was the Saviour of the World before he was incarnate He did not only by his Vndertaking make his future performances valid as to the merit and satisfaction necessary to our deliverance but he instructed Mankinde in order to their recovery and Ruled them upon terms of grace and so did the work of a Redeemer or Mediator even as Prophet Priest and King before his Incarnation He enacted the Covenant of Grace that whoever repenteth and believeth shall be saved and so gave men a conditional pardon of their sins 3. And though Repentance and the Love of God was necessary to all that would be saved even as a constitutive cause of their salvation yet that Faith in the Mediator which is but the means to the Love of God and to sanctification was not alwayes nor in all places in the same particular Articles necessary as it is now where the Gospel is preached Before Christs coming a more general belief might serve the turn for mens salvation without believing that This Jesus is the Christ that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buryed and descended to Hades and rose again the third day and ascended into Heaven c. And as more is necessary to be believed since Christs incarnation and resurrection than before so more was before necessary to the Jewes who had the Oracles of God and had more revealed to them than to other Nations who had less revealed And now more is necessary where the Gospel cometh than where it doth not 4. So that the Gentiles had a Saviour before Christs Incarnation and not only the Jewes They were reprieved from Legal Justice and not dealt with by God upon the proper terms of the Covenant of Works or meer Nature They had all of them much of that mercy which they had forfeited which came to them by the Grace of the Redeemer They had time and helps to turn to God and a course of means appointed them to use in order to their recovery and salvation According to the use of which they shall be judged They were not with the Devils left remediless and shut out of all hope under final desperation No one ever perished in any Age or Nation of the World who by believing in a mercifull pardoning holy God was recovered to love God above all And if they did not this they were all without a just excuse 5. The course of Grace as that of Nature doth wisely proceed from low degrees to higher and bringeth not things to perfection at the first The Sun was not made the first day of the Creation nor was Man made till all things were prepared for him The Churches Infancy was to go before its Maturity We have some light of the Sun before it rise much more before it come to the height As Christ now teacheth his Church more plainly when he is himself gone into Glory even by his Pastors whom he fitteth for that work and by his Spirit so did he though more obscurely yet sufficiently teach it before he came in the flesh by Prophets and Priests His work of Salvation consisteth in bringing men to live in Love and Obedience And his way of Teaching them his saving doctrine is by his Ministers without and by his Spirit within And thus he did before his coming in flesh and thus he doth since we that are born since his coming see not his Person any more than they who were born before But we have his Word Ministers and Spirit and so had they His reconciling sacrifice was effectual morally in esse cognito volito before the performance of it And the means of reconciling our mindes to God
Intellection because intelligo me intelligere and so that intellectio non est tantum actus intellectus sed etiam est in intellectu and that the Intellect doth understand its own act intuitivè as some speak or by reflexion as others though doubtless the first perception that I understand is not by reflexion but by that same act of understanding something else as sight doth not reflect upon it self to get a perception that I see I will enter no controversie about any of these notions of the manner of our understanding our own act of Intellection which doth not concern the present business But it is most certain that Actus intelligendi nunquam fuit in sensu when the object of Intellection did pass through the sense the Act of Intellection did not nor the intellection or perception of that Act of Intellection did not Nor the Intellection of the common nature of an Intelligence which from hence I gather nor the Intellection of particular Intelligences as Angels nor my Intellection of any mans Intellect or intellectual act whose nature I gather from mine own Nor the conception I have of a Deity as the most perfect intellect nor the perception which I have of my own Volition of my own felicity or of the means thereto as such nor of the pleasing of God nor of another mans good Nor my perception of the nature of the will hence gathered nor my conception of the Volitive power in other persons nor my conceptions of the Volitions of God of Angels c. nor my conception of Intellectual or moral habits nor of the Wills natural inclinations None of all these were ever in the Sense nor passed through the Sense some of them which Gassendus de Ideis overlooketh are without any Idea at all properly so called as the first perception of the act of my own understanding and will by understanding and willing other things as we perceive that we see non videndo Ipsum visum sed alia videndo And that Idea which we have of all the rest is fetcht from this perception of our own acts and not from any thing which ever was in the sense The Soul by knowing it self doth gather the knowledge of all higher intellectual beings which is its most considerable worthy knowledge I hope I have given you instances enow and plain enough and you see now what truth there is of nihil est intellectu quod non fuit prius in sensu D' Orbellis distinguisheth Knowledge largely taken into sensitivè intellectivè and both of them into Abstractivè Intuitivè Knowledge Intuitive is of an Object as it self present when a thing in its present existence is the moving object of knowledge Knowledge Abstractive is when the species of the thing doth move us to know the thing it self and that whether the thing it self be present or absent and have existence or not The example of Intuitive sensitive knowledge or perception which he giveth is the Eye seeing Colours The instance of Abstractive sensitive knowledge is as the Phantasie imagineth colours The instance of Intuitive Intellective Knowledge is the Saints seeing the glory of God in Heaven and he might have instanced in many other things The instance of Abstractive Intellective Knowledge is the understandings Knowledge of the Quiddity of Colours by means of the species To which may be added that Abstractive Knowledge is either per speciem propriam or per speciem alienam In this life the Soul knoweth its own acts either Intuitively or by an act if possible yet neerer to its essential power that hath no usual distinguishing name It knoweth its own powers inclinations and habits neither by a knowledge in proper and strict sense intuitive or abstractive For it is not by a proper species but it is its natural innate power of discerning this Principle that quicquid agit potest agere quod agit by arguing ab actu ad potentiam naturam But in the large sense as Cartesius useth the word this may be called an Idea The minde knoweth God and Angels and other mens Souls in this large sense also by an Idea but not per speciem propriam sed alienam that is not by a species of God and Angels but by an Idea borrowed from our own Intellections and Volitions But this is not an Idea that ever passed through the senses and Gassendus might have thought on it whether it be not an Idea in the Intellect if not without the phantasie at least over and above the Idea in the Imagination when he denieth that there is any such Intellective Idea's 2. But what if there had been nothing in the intellect but what passed through the sense it would no more thence follow that the intellect is no more noble spiritual or immortal than the sense than it will follow that the King is no better than his Porter because none cometh to him till he let them in or that the animal spirits are no more noble than the teeth or than the natural heat or the third concoction is no more excellent than the first because nothing cometh to the third concoction but what was masticated swallowed and passed the first and second concoction Of which before 3. And even by the help of things sensible Epicurus can reach the knowledge of insensible atoms and Cartesius of his subtil matter and globuli coelestes why then by things sensible may we not reach the knowledge of spiritual substances and powers Yet after all this I am much of their mind who think that it is not actual knowledge that is born with us nor is there any true Idea or picture of any thing innate in our understandings and I think that if per possibile vel impossibile you suppose a man born without any one sense that he would have had no actual knowledge at all though that is uncertain Because as if I had not seen any thing objective I should not have perceived that I could see so if I had never known any other object I could not have known what it is to know and other objects have no way that I know of to the intellect but through the sense Though what the active spirits would have done upon the phantasie I cannot possibly understand But all this only concludeth that the senses reception is the way to the intellection of things sensible and that it was a necessary occasion sine qua non to the perception of our own intellectual act because thus necessary to the act it self But not that any Idea of our own Intellection or any of all the things fore-instanced was received through the senses OBJECTION X. THat which things corporeal work upon is corporeal for it cannot be conceived how bodies own work upon that which hath no body But things corporeal work upon the soul Ergo it is it self corporeal Answ 1. I largely before shewed that our uncertainty of the just consistence of Metaphysical matter or incorporeal substance
second Cause 2. That the Somatists themselves say that in the Generation of Plants and Animals which they suppose to be totally Corporeal there is not the least degree of substance produced de novo and therefore there is none but what was totally of God and the Parents do but cause instrumentally the uniting of matter prae-existent Therefore if in the Generating of Man the Parents do but instrumentally cause the uniting of substance which is totally from God though not prae-existent it little differenceth the Case as to the consequents 3. Especially considering that what God doth he doth by an establisht Law of Nature As in his making of the World he made the Sun a Causa Vniversalis constantly to send forth the emanation of Light Heat and moving force upon passive matter and thereby to produce effects diversifyed by the preparations and reception of that matter as to soften Wax to harden Clay to make a Dunghill stink and a Rose smell sweet to produce a poysonous and a wholsom Plant a Nightingale and a Toad c. and this without any dishonour to the Sun So if God the Father of Spirits the Central efficient of Souls have made it the original Law of Nature that he will accordingly afford his communicative Influx and that in Humane Generations such and such Preparations of matter shall be as Receptive of his emanations for such and such Forms or spiritual substances and that he will be herein but an Vniversal Cause of Souls as Souls and not of Souls as clean or unclean and that this shall depend upon the preparation of the Recipient whether it be the Body or a sensitive foregoing Principle still keeping at his pleasure as a Voluntary Agent the suspension or dispose of the effect this would make no great alteration neither as to the point of original sin nor any other weighty consequent OBJECTION XIII OMne quod oritur interit That which is not eternal as to past duration is not eternal as to future duration But the Soul is not eternal as to past duration Ergo. Answ I confess this argument will prove that the Soul is not mortal ex necessitate suae naturae without dependance on a Voluntary preserver And therefore Cicero after most other Philosophers who useth the Major for a contrary Conclusion mistook in this that he thought the Soul was as natural an Emanation from God as the beams or light is from the Sun and therefore that it was naturally eternall both à parte ante à parte post which made Arnobius and other Ancients argue as much against the Platonists Immortality of the Soul as against the Epicureans Mortality so that as I said before one would think that they were heretical in this point that doth not make them well But it is only this natural Eternity which they confute And when the Philosophers say that Omne quod oritur interit they can mean or at least prove no more but this that it is not Everlasting ex necessitate naturae But yet 1. It may be in its nature fitted to be perpetual 2. And by the will of the Creator made perpetual Every Creature did oriri de novo and yet every one doth not interire OBJECTION XIV AMong all your Arguments for the Souls Immortality there are none but Morall ones Answ Morality is grown so contemptible a thing with some debauched persons that a very argument is invalidated by them or contemned if they can but call it Moral But what is Morality but the modality of Naturals And the same argument may be Natural and Moral Indeed we call that a Causa Moralis oft-times which doth not necessitate the effect And yet sometimes even moral Causes do infalibly and certainly produce the effect But causation and argumentation are different things and so is an effect and a Logical consequence Will you call the consequents of Gods own Wisdom Justice Veracity Goodness c. uncertain as coming from a Morali Cause The Soul is an Intellectual free agent and adapted to Moral operations And this is its excellency and perfection and no disparagement to it at all And if you will better read them over you will finde that my Arguments are both Physical and Moral For I argue from the Acts or operations of the Soul to its Powers and Nature And from its Acts and Nature to its ends with many such like which are as truly Physical media as if I argued from the nature of Fire and Earth that one if not hindered will ascend and the other descend And other men have given you other Arguments in their Physicks and Metaphysicks OBJECTION XV. YOu seem to confess that you cannot prove the endless duration of the Soul by any Argument from Nature alone But only that it shall live another Life which you call a Life of Retribution Answ I told you that a great probability of it I thus prove God hath made the Soul of a Nature not corruptible but apt to perpetual duration Ergo he thereby declareth his will that he intendeth it for perpetual duration because he maketh nothing in vain either for substance or quality It may be some other will think that this argument will inferre not only a probability but a certainty And if you go back to your objection of Materiality I now only adde that Aristotle and his followers who think that the Heavens are corporeal yet think that they are a quinta essentia and simple and incorruptible and therefore that they shall certainly be everlasting And he taketh the the souls of Bruits to be analogous to the matter of the Starrs and so to be of that everlasting quintessence And can you in reason say less of Rational Souls 2. It is sufficient that I prove by natural evidence a Life of Retribution after this which shall fully make the miserable ungodly ones repent tormentingly of their sin and fill the righteous with such Joyes as shall fully recompense all their labour and suffering in a holy life And that I moreover prove that duration of this life and all the rest by supernatural evidence OBJECTION XVI BOth Soul and Body are like a Candle in fluxu continuo and we have not the same substance this Week or Year as we had the last there being a continual consumption or transition and accretion Ergo being not the same we are uncapable of a Life of future Retribution Will you reward and punish the man that is or the man that was Answ It is a foolish thing to carry great and certain Truths into the dark and to argue against them à minus notis from meer uncertainties As to your simile I confess that the Oyl of your Candle is still wasting so is the wick but not that new is added to make it another thing unless it be a Lamp I confess that the lucid fume which we call the flame is still passing away But whether the fiery Principle in its essence not visible but only in its